Read Online As Birds Bring Forth the Sun by Alistair MacLeod - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alistair MacLeod
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bundled in hay and voluminous coats, and with heated stones at our feet, we start upon our journey. Our parents and Kenneth remain at home but all the rest of us go. Before we leave we feed the cattle and sheep and even the pig all that they can possibly eat so that they will be contented on Christmas Eve. Our parents wave to us from the doorway. We go four miles across the mountain road. It is a primitive logging trail and there will be no cars or other vehicles upon it. At first the horse is wild with excitement and lack of exercise and my brother has to stand at the front of the sleigh and lean backwards on the reins. Later he settles down to a trot and still later to a walk as the mountain rises before him. We sing all the Christmas songs we know and watch for the rabbits and foxes scudding across the open patches of snow and listen to the drumming of partridge wings. We are never cold.
When we descend to the country church we tie the horse in a grove of trees where he will be sheltered and not frightened by the many cars. We put a blanket over him and give him oats.At the church door the neighbours shake hands with my brother. “Hello, Neil,” they say. “How is your father?”
“Oh,” he says, just “Oh.”
The church is very beautiful at night with its festooned branches and glowing candles and the booming, joyous sounds that come from the choir loft. We go through the service as if we are mesmerized.
On the way home, although the stones have cooled, we remain happy and warm. We listen to the creak of the leather harness and the hiss of runners on the snow and begin to think of the potentiality of presents. When we are about a mile from home the horse senses his destination and breaks into a trot and then into a confident lope. My brother lets him go and we move across the winter landscape like figures freed from a Christmas card. The snow from the horse’s hooves falls about our heads like the whiteness of the stars.
After we have stabled the horse we talk with our parents and eat the meal our mother has prepared. And then I am sleepy and it is time for the younger children to be in bed. But tonight my father says to me, “We would like you to stay up with us a while,” and so I stay quietly with the older members of my family.
When all is silent upstairs Neil brings in the cartons that contain his “clothes” and begins to open them. He unties the intricate knots quickly, their whorls falling away before his agile fingers. The boxes are filled with gifts neatly wrapped and bearing tags. The ones for my younger brothers say “from Santa Claus” but mine are not among them anymore, as I know with certainty they will never be again. Yet I am not so much surprised as touched by a pang of loss at being here on the adult side of the world. It is as if I have suddenly moved into another room and heard a door click lastingly behind me. I am jabbed by my own small wound.
But then I look at those before me. I look at my parents drawn together before the Christmas tree. My mother has herhand upon my father’s shoulder and he is holding his ever-present handkerchief. I look at my sisters who have crossed this threshold ahead of me and now each day journey farther from the lives they knew as girls. I look at my magic older brother who has come to us this Christmas from half a continent away, bringing everything he has and is. All of them are captured in the tableau of their care.
“Every man moves on,” says my father quietly, and I think he speaks of Santa Claus, “but there is no need to grieve. He leaves good things behind.”
Second Spring
I T WAS THE summer after the seventh grade that saw me truly smitten with the calf club wish. It was not, of course, a really dazzlingly new idea because, living on a farm, I had always been surrounded by numerous animals. Not a day went by without touching them and the insistence of their presence affected the living of my life and the lives of the other members
When we descend to the country church we tie the horse in a grove of trees where he will be sheltered and not frightened by the many cars. We put a blanket over him and give him oats.At the church door the neighbours shake hands with my brother. “Hello, Neil,” they say. “How is your father?”
“Oh,” he says, just “Oh.”
The church is very beautiful at night with its festooned branches and glowing candles and the booming, joyous sounds that come from the choir loft. We go through the service as if we are mesmerized.
On the way home, although the stones have cooled, we remain happy and warm. We listen to the creak of the leather harness and the hiss of runners on the snow and begin to think of the potentiality of presents. When we are about a mile from home the horse senses his destination and breaks into a trot and then into a confident lope. My brother lets him go and we move across the winter landscape like figures freed from a Christmas card. The snow from the horse’s hooves falls about our heads like the whiteness of the stars.
After we have stabled the horse we talk with our parents and eat the meal our mother has prepared. And then I am sleepy and it is time for the younger children to be in bed. But tonight my father says to me, “We would like you to stay up with us a while,” and so I stay quietly with the older members of my family.
When all is silent upstairs Neil brings in the cartons that contain his “clothes” and begins to open them. He unties the intricate knots quickly, their whorls falling away before his agile fingers. The boxes are filled with gifts neatly wrapped and bearing tags. The ones for my younger brothers say “from Santa Claus” but mine are not among them anymore, as I know with certainty they will never be again. Yet I am not so much surprised as touched by a pang of loss at being here on the adult side of the world. It is as if I have suddenly moved into another room and heard a door click lastingly behind me. I am jabbed by my own small wound.
But then I look at those before me. I look at my parents drawn together before the Christmas tree. My mother has herhand upon my father’s shoulder and he is holding his ever-present handkerchief. I look at my sisters who have crossed this threshold ahead of me and now each day journey farther from the lives they knew as girls. I look at my magic older brother who has come to us this Christmas from half a continent away, bringing everything he has and is. All of them are captured in the tableau of their care.
“Every man moves on,” says my father quietly, and I think he speaks of Santa Claus, “but there is no need to grieve. He leaves good things behind.”
Second Spring
I T WAS THE summer after the seventh grade that saw me truly smitten with the calf club wish. It was not, of course, a really dazzlingly new idea because, living on a farm, I had always been surrounded by numerous animals. Not a day went by without touching them and the insistence of their presence affected the living of my life and the lives of the other members
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