A Treasury of Christmas Stories Read Free Page A

get your tree?”
    â€œMy car didn’t start again.”
    â€œMy grandkids are coming for Christmas Eve.”
    The pots and pans were filled, but so were the spaces between neighbors. Older times were recalled and strategies on hauling water offered.
    â€œWhen I was growing up on the farm we had a pump. Had to prime it every time. Mother always kept a can of water next to it just for that.”
    â€œWe had a well in Italy. The whole village used it.”
    We stopped and listened to the stories. We filled and hauled and laughed at our communal inconvenience. Our own village was born right there in our neighborhood.
    Anything with a handle was employed. My family preferred our aluminum camping equipment, pots with wire handles that nestled together in the cellar when they weren’t in use. But neighbors’ containers ran the gambit of tin and copper pails to saucepans. Someone arrived with a wagon full of number five cans.
    Techniques on catching water varied. Some hung the handle on the spigot and let the container fill until it looked too heavy to lift. Sometimes it was. Others held the handle of their pots until they began to tilt.
    All day and night we came, the water spilling on our boots and onto the pavement. It was so cold that the water froze, leaving icy blobs around the tankard. At night under the streetlight, they gleamed like diamond cow pies.
    On Christmas Eve day, the morning broke clear and cold, but by noon the sky had begun to grow flat. The wind stung our cheeks like a sharp wet kiss. We scurried for last-minute presents and lingered over the evening meal, wondering if it would snow. Would we get to church? Or would we have to stay home? Service at eleven o’clock in the evening was always an adventure.
    Dark fell at four o’clock. We turned on the lights on our tree and in the windows. Outside, it began to snow. Invisible at first to the eye, the flakes grew from pinpoint to apple blossom size, sashaying down to the frozen ground. Bit by bit, crystal by crystal, the snow covered the street, the cars, the knobby roots of the oak tree in front of our house, with a tenuous mesh of white velvet fuzz.
    Then, belying its gentle start, the snowfall suddenly exploded, throwing out snowflakes like the contents of a huge featherbed. In a silent rush, it covered everything and piled up, mutating the street into a close, distant world. By 5:30, it rose four inches deep with more to come.
    â€œJanie, girl, will you go out and get water for dinner?”
    I pulled back from the window and smiled at my mother, who stood at the swinging door leading from the long living room to the kitchen. She wore a Christmas apron with ruffles and her hands were covered in flour. Behind her wafted the smell of cinnamon.
    â€œSure.”
    I went into the kitchen and down to the side door landing where coats and boots collected. My mother handed me some pails. I opened the door and stepped out onto virgin snow.
    In my life there are scenes that have stayed with me always. They are hallowed memories, forever magical in my mind.
    Going to get water from the community well that Christmas Eve is one of them.
    The world beyond was still and silent, and a strange pale blue light reflected off hillocks of snow that looked for all their worth like confectioners’ sugar.
    My neighborhood had undergone a remarkable change. It no longer seemed an average residential street in a big city, but rather, a country lane in a long-ago time. The streets and yards had become one vast empty field, its hedges hidden somewhere under the snow. Candles flickered in windows. The trees overhead formed a tunnel whose roof was made of mist and falling snow. Far off, a street lamp beckoned like a muted star.
    I tightened my mittened grip around the handles of the pails, and like a character from A Christmas Carol , went out to get water from the well.
    When I reached the top of the street I stopped. Under a street lamp, the