Christmas Pattern

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 301, 20 December 1937, Page 19

Christmas Pattern

By Margaret Weymouth Jackson

Short Story 4,

EV ERYTHING has a pattern, thought Mayme Lang as she stopped and

looked at the ftnowflake on the of her blue coat. Such a pretty pfrftern it was. If one could only put it into embroidery ju&t that way, how fine it would be. Embroider it in white on pale blue silk muslin. Another snowflake fell beside the first and Mayme thought she would get these patterns out of a sehoolbook and make a design of them.

es, everything had a pattern, every leaf and every tree, every flower and its stem. Houses had patterns, and roads. Yes, and people too. Even she, she thought astonished, and wondered what her pattern might be. Well, it was plain enough to see. She was a dressmaker, and a good one. One had to be a good dressmaker these days even in a little town, what with mail-order catalogues and bargain sales. That was lier pattern.

But no, there was more than that to lier own design. There were the children and Abe. Abe had a pattern all hi* own, very clear and bright to Mayme, and yet he was part of hers too. And the children, Bob and -Mary. But they were more like colours to their mother. Bob was a clear gold, a yellow gold, smooth and even all the way through. But Mary was rose—rose and white. May me became completely absorbed in naming the colours of all' the people she knew. Abe was a clear steel blue and her own father was brown and her mother was lavender. She went on and 011 in her mind, and felt that every choice was true. She wondered fleetingly what her colour might be, and didn t know at all. One never knew about one s self. Mayme believed in her Bible with an implicitness which kjjew no confusion of doubts. She belie\ed that when the Lord Jesus said, "Take no thought for your life—'' he meant it literally, and that it was good practical advice. So deeply had the words and their idea sunk into her that she did not even know they had become an integral part of her.

The Square was attractive with Christmas decoration. Everv merchant had a spruce tree before his door, and within the jeweller's windows there were small lighted trees made of some transparent stuff, almost prettier than anv real tree. They were like dreams about trees. Mayme smiled. Wonderful thoughts came to her when she got out like this in the afternoon. The snow that was falling was light and feathery, just a few big flakes floating gentl'v down to make things more like Christmas. but not really to interfere with getting about.

Mayme went into Holt's Bazaar and Louise Holt smiled at her from behind the counter. Louise was a thin and somewhat acid woman, known to be jealous and distrustful. But. with Mayme, Louise was always friendly. Mayme was such a pretty round littie woman, with a good round face and clear brown eyes. And Mayme was always neat. Louise had a passion for tidiness. There was more than that to Mayme Lang, though. Louise thought. There was something about her as though she were singing a little song to herself.

"These buttons won't do for Mrs. Demarest's dress. Louise." Mayme said eompanionably, taking the buttons from her purse and putting them down on the counter. "I thought glass buttons would be so pretty on that pale blue lace, the dress I'm making for her for the Christmas dance. But she doesn't want glass buttons, thinks they won't be seen. So I suggested lavender coloured buttons. They might be pretty with that- blue."

"She'd better let you use your judgment about it," Louise argued. "She hasn't any taste at all. .She's just a clotheshorse."

Mayme smiled a little, but she said nothing. She had no quarrel with Mrs. Demarest. It took clntheshorses to keep dressmakers busy. Louise and Mayme looked at all the buttons in the box seriously. Other people came and went in the store. At last they made a selection. Mayme looked around and thought the store attractive. She admired it, and Louise flushed with pleasure. "I worked hard to get the store fixed up for the Christmas trade," she said defiantly, and listened avidly to Mayme as though she were starved for praisp.

"I don't know what A 1 would do without you." Mavme said honestly, and the colour stained Louise's thin cheeks.

"Louise, T know you're busy, but can't I look at Mary's doll again?" Mayme had paid two dollars down on the doll. The rest of the money would come out of what Mm. Demarest owed her. May me never incurred a debt. She never took anything out of a store until she had paid for it.

"Of course you can look at it," said Louise indignantly. She brought the doll out and the two women stood considering it. It was a big doll, the size and ehape of a real "baby, with a dimpled pink body and a realistic head and face. Mayme's heart swelled with pride. She was making all the clothes for this doll, sewing on them late at night when the children were in bed. She had made a complete layetfe just as though the doll really were a baby. And she was piecing a little quilt for the old doll bed, which Abe had taken off to repair and paint anew.

"She'll love it," Mayme breathed, and Louise nodded.

*A 1 and I've got something for her, something to go with the doll," she said, and Mayme said, "Oh, you shouldn't, Louise," and Louise answered crossly, "Well, we haven't any kids of our own, and it doesn't seem like Christmas not to be buying for some young ones." So Mayme said no more. But she hoped a little that it would be a doll cart. Mary wanted one.

Mayme returned home and went quickly into her small house in the gathering dusk. She touched the switch which.turned on her pretty lamps and looked at them with all the pride of a collector. The children had come in from play. She could hear their voices in the kitchen, but Mayme lingered a moment, looking about at the room.

How she had worked for this room! Every cent of Abe's intermittent pay had gone to buying the little house, while Mayme'a sewing had fed and clothed the family and bought the coal. When the tiny house was paid for she could not rest. They had enlarged the upper storey. They had painted the house, she and Abe, up on ladders, last spring when the Easter rush of dressmaking was over. They built on a front porch, and Mayme had gradually wrought this room for her family: the bright rug, the long comfortable couch, the chair she had upholstered in brown and white, the matched lamps with her grandmother's old brass candlesticks as bases, and the htnd-made shades of

white and yellow silk. No one in town had a pleasanter room. Fire glowed in the stove in the corner where the children would hang their stockings. Mayme would put her tree in this other corner. The family loved a Christmas tree, and always had a pretty one. Mayme put away her warm blue coat and little hat and went into the kitchen, smiling and reaching for her apron. The two children were at the kitchen table, with the evening paper spread out at the funny page. They greeted her loudly and Mayme cried astonished.

"Why, how do you do, Mrs. Snitserseltzer, and how are you to-day, Mr. Puffenbaumer ?" She glanced at the clock. Abe would be her in fifteen or twenty minutes. Talking nonsense to the children, she began to peel the potatoes, stirred the fire in the. range and put the potatoes on to boil.

Every nerve waited for the sound of Abe's truck. Mayme was always sensible of a sharp relief when she heard the truck as though something deep within her said, "Again—safe home again " a thought hardly recognised. Abe had had a hard time getting steady work. No one but Mayme knew how hard he had tried. And now his pay was small. But Mayme didn't care how small it was. if she could count on it.

Bob moved the paper from the table, and Mary picked up the wet rubbers and put them in their box. Mittens were drying on the poker thrust out from the range. Bob stood looking a long time

at the feed store calendar hanging by the range. It showed a field of young corn, cultivated, and Bob said, "Mother "Yes, son." "Mother, do you ever feel as though if you squinched your eyes a, little,- a picture came out all around you and everything else went away, and the picture filled the world, so that you could even see back into it?" ' Mayme's cheeks flushed. She looked at young Bob as though he had uttered an oracle. A rush of happiness came to her heart. Of schooling she had little, but she had native sense. She stooped and kissed the boy's cheek. "No, Bob. I guess I never felt that way. But that's your own way of feeling. That's what makes you Bob. Never forget it. Maybe," she said, "maybe everything will surround you like that—love and a home and a job, everything a man wants —if you know how to draw it to yourself." And she was as glad as though she had herself received a great gift, to know that the child had discovered his own way of feeling tilings, It didn't matter so much, she reckoned, how you felt things, if you once found your own way of doing it. The truck was coming intot he driveway. Mayme listened respectfully as Abe backed it into the garage. She was fortunate, she sometimes thought, that she respected Abe. A womaji ought to respect her husband. Abe came in at once, big in his fleecelined canvas coat. He was grinning, like someone with a secret. "Supper'll be up in a minute," Mayme said, and Abe hung his coat on a hook beside the kitchen door-and stooped and gave Mayme a kiss. "How's tricks?" he asked. Mayme said tricks were fine. Abe had asked her that question every evening since they had been married, and she loved it. She would think something was wrong with Abe if he didn't say to her, "How's tricks ?" (To he continued.)