CHRISTMAS 1936

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

Christmas 1936

Cimarron County Oklahoma

By R. Peterson

The Great Depression started with the stock market crash of 1929 and every year after things got steadily worse for struggling farmers in the mid-west and especially for those bedeviled souls working the drought devastated panhandle of Oklahoma … the area of the country people were already calling the Dust Bowl.       

“Stay close by me,” Harold told Ardel and Rodney as they pushed against the gritty wind toward home. He carried a shovel and both boys carried bulging burlap bags and water buckets. “Dust will kill you same as snow!” They were both good boys. Neither one complained even though the weight they carried would tire out a man.

There was no way to farm ground covered with more than a foot of sift dust. It hadn’t rained in more than six months. Most wells had gone dry. Gardens had been kept alive by packing buckets of water from Grasshopper Creek four miles away. But now the Banks owned the only access to the creek and they had put up a wire fence.

The Jenkins’ nearest neighbor Ed Stanton had already been pushed off his farm and had stopped by on his way to California. The smoking and rattling 1926 flat-bed Ford he, his family and all their belongings had been piled on, had bald tires and a plugged radiator that gulped a gallon of precious water every five miles. “Good luck,” Harold had told him.

“Pray for us,” Ed had told him, and the sincerity in the man’s face had made Harold want to cry.

They were just now returning from the Stanton Farm. Ed had told them his well still had water in it and there were still a few un-dug potatoes, carrots and onions in the north end of his former garden. “Sweep away the dust and get ‘em before the tractor does,” Ed had told him. Foreclosed-on farms were being leveled and the land worked by corporate machinery.

Keeping his two pre-teen boys by his side was his greatest concern at the moment but it was far from his only one. The Oklahoma Savings & Loan Corporation was in receivership and the new stockholders were foreclosing on delinquent farm mortgages at the rate of twenty a week. It was late December. The Jenkins had already lost both mules and the milk-cow to interest payments. Harold expected the law to arrive any day with an eviction notice. The family was desperate and starving. He hoped they wouldn’t be pushed off their land until after Christmas. His heart fell when he saw the Cimarron County Sheriff’s car parked in front of the sod-roof house. Sheriff Jackson Clements was from Chicago and had been selected by the banks and the farming corporations to make sure the foreclosures went easy.

            “You can stay the night,” the sheriff told him. “But I want you out first thing in the morning!”

Mary Ellen came out on the porch crying. “Where can we go? The bank already took our truck and the neighbors has most all left.”

The sheriff spit into the dirt and pointed his shotgun at Harold’s worn out boots. Both boys were barefoot. He cruelly imitated Mary’s  third grade talk. “Most all of you got shoes … I suggest you use them and get the hell off the bank’s land.”

           

------- Christmas Eve 2019 -------

Morning light filtered through sheer curtains and illuminated two people sleeping in the queen sized bed. The smell of fresh washed linen woke both people at the same time.

Harold’s mouth gaped open as he stared about the room. A large, framed abstract painting splashed with bright colors covered most of one white-painted wall.  “Where are we,” he gasped.

“Heaven, I think,” said Mary. She pulled the heavy bed-spread back and then pinched the flesh on her leg to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Her voice cracked. “Are the boys dead too … or was they spared?”

            “Don’t know,” Harold said as he climbed out of bed. He stared at the flannel pajamas he was wearing. “What the hell kind of pants is these?’

            “Don’t you be cursing Harold Joseph! Not here in the Lord’s house,” Mary told him.

Harold walked toward the window and pulled back the curtains. About ten foot below a fresh layer of snow covered an acre sized area of landscaped lawn leading down to a paved road.

            Harold’s mouth gaped open as he pointed toward the street. “I’ve seen lots of automobiles but none like them!” Mary stood by his side and they watched as a UPS truck and a 2019 Ford Escape passed each other on the tree lined street.

            “I don’t care about automobiles,” Mary said. “I want my boys. If they’re here we’ve got to find them!”

Harold and Mary left the upstairs bedroom and were cautiously making their way down richly carpeted stairs when they heard their children’s laughter. They ran the rest of the way.

A large lighted Christmas tree glowed at one end of a very spacious room. Colorfully wrapped gifts were stacked everywhere around the base.

On the opposite end of the room, Ardel stood next to a glowing frame with a picture inside that was moving. Rodney lay on the floor his eyes wide. “We thought it was a radio,” Ardel said. “I found the button that turned it on and Rodney just about jumped out of his skin.”

            “What is it?” Mary gasped.

            “Just about scared me to death,” Rodney said. He stood up and was staring at the flat screen TV. A man and a woman seated behind a large desk were speaking and looking directly at them.

            “It’s one of them motion picture screens,” Harold said. “Like we saw in Denver.”

            “I’ve looked everywhere for the projector and can’t find it,” Ardel said.

            “That ain’t all,” Rodney said as he led the family into an adjoining room. There’s water pipes inside and a whole closet full of cold food!”

------- Christmas Eve 1936 -------

The Jenkins family had walked all day. Night was coming on. Each member carried a large bundle of pots, pans, bags of potatoes and dishes wrapped in blankets. Their yellow dog Rover followed behind wagging his tail. Mary was still bawling over the framed portrait of her mother and father along with a bible she’d left in an abandoned chicken coop at the last farm they’d passed. “I’m sorry Mary,” Harold told her. “We’ll be lucky to make it somewhere as it is. Maybe the big tractors won’t come for a while and we can come back for what you left.”

“I’d go back for the picture … but not for the Bible,” Ardel said with defiance. “What kind of God does this kind of thing to people?” As if in answer it began to snow. Large white flakes drifted down from the darkening sky.

An hour later, Rover left the road and began to bark at something in the darkness. Rodney chased after him. “Over here!” Rodney called. When the three other family members arrived he pointed toward a small wooden shack not visible from the road.

“A light just come on in the window,” Mary gasped.

The family pushed through the drifted snow toward the tiny flickering light.

------- Christmas morning 2019 --------

The Jenkins family was all clustered around the Christmas tree. Torn wrapping paper littered the floor. “Do you really think it’s okay if we open these gifts?” Mary asked. She was wearing a robe that she’d found in an upstairs closet.

The smell of roast chicken and baking bread drifted in from the kitchen.

            “They all got our names on em,” Harold said as he handed her a present. “And according to the mail stacked in the other room this here is our house and we’re rich. I found papers from several banks that says we got more money than you can shake a stick at. I’m even on the board of directors for the Oklahoma Savings & Loan Corporation”

            “I don’t understand how any of this can be … but I’m glad and I thank the Lord!” Mary started to cry … but this time her tears were tears of joy.

She wandered into the kitchen and opened the door to the refrigerator over and over again. “A light comes on,” she told her husband. “Like some kind of magic!”

From the next room Ardel and Rodney had discovered a video game. “I can make the pictures on the screen move!” Ardel screamed as he moved the joystick in his hand. Rover ran in circles around the two boys. “I can make them move!”

------- December 26^th. 1936 -------

Sheriff Jackson Clements prodded the frozen body of Harold Jenkins with his foot. Outside a tractor and workers for the farming corporation waited to level the land. The dead man was huddled with the corpses of his wife and two children around what looked like a burned-down candle in the abandoned shack. “How cold did it get the last two nights? Jackson asked.

“A little below zero,” a deputy said.

“I can’t understand why these damn illiterate Okies didn’t at least try to keep themselves warm,” he said pointing to the blankets piled in the corner. A frozen dog lay on the floor next to the other bodies.

The sheriff kicked a bag of potatoes half covered with drifted snow with his foot. “They had food and water … why didn’t they try to eat something?”

“And the smiles on their faces,’ the deputy said shaking his head. “It almost looks as if their last moments on Earth were the best times they ever had.”

THE END ???