Up they jump and grab their books, streaming out the door into the crowded hallway of Valverde Elementary School.

“Buddy,” says Miss Freeley, “one moment.” She taps his shoulder as he tries to race by.

He stops, looking up at his teacher’s face, her brown eyes pools of murky water through her thick glasses.

“I have asked you several times this term,” her voice terse through thin lips. “And still you insist on coming to class with your shirt barely buttoned. You know this is against school dress code. It’s disrespectful to your fellow students. And to your teachers.”

Buddy’s head droops, eyes fixed on the speckles in the worn linoleum tiles. “Yes, ma’am,” he says. “I’ll do better next term.”

“That’s good to hear, Buddy,” she says. “I don’t want to send you to the principal’s office if I don’t have to.”

“Thank you, Miss Freeley.” He pokes his arms through his wool coat, hoping she won’t notice how far up his arms the sleeves go, and then hugs his books tight to chest. He doesn’t want her to see that his coat won’t button properly either.

He pauses in the doorway. “I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, Miss Freeley.”

Buddy’s rubber galoshes crunch in the snow as he walks home. The afternoon sun casts long shadows as it arcs toward the foothills west of Denver. His steps are quick, matching the thoughts in his head.

Two weeks! Two whole weeks of freedom. No school, no homework… and the thing he’s most looking forward to: no snide comments and jokes as he passes by his classmates in the hall.

He thinks back to the same episode he’s endured so many times this school year.

“Woohoo, Buddy. Look at you.” The voice of Ryan Gartland taunts him as he walks through the hall between classes. Ryan is tall, with that self-confidence that some children have from very early on. If a fifth grader could walk with a swagger, it would be Ryan Gartland.

“Trying to get a girlfriend by showing off that sexy chest?” 

Buddy ignores the comment and the taunting whistles. It happens every day, so he is used to it. Still, it stings.

He isn’t doing this on purpose. The attention he’s getting is the last thing he wants. It’s just that the buttons won’t stay buttoned no matter how many times he rebuttons them. His shirts just don’t seem to fit anymore. Not since he added two inches to his height since the beginning of the school year. He’s still not as tall as Ryan, but maybe, he hopes, he will be by summer vacation.

Buddy winces again as he recalls another whistle and comment. Then he smiles. Two whole weeks stretch ahead of him without the torment of Ryan Gartland and his band of equally swaggering 10-year-old.

Not only that, but he has two weeks with his family. Most of the days will be the same as every other day. In the afternoons, like he does every day after school, he’ll help his Mother deliver the bread she baked that day. Now, though, he’ll have a little more daylight to make his deliveries because he’ll be able to start deliveries earlier.

Every morning, in the dark of the new day, he’ll still get up at 4:00 to help his Father milk the cows at Denver Gardens Dairy and help with the deliveries.

And Christmas! He’s looking forward to that more than anything.

Buddy arrives at the back door of their white brick house and climbs the two stairs that lead to the kitchen. Flanking the door and visible beneath the kitchen windows is a row of lilac bushes. Their bare branches reach toward the sky in a silent, quiet prayer for the return of summer.

In June, purple and lavender blossoms cover the green branches. Sweet fragrance fills the sun-dappled yard and seeps into every corner of the house. Tucked in the shade under the lilac branches is his goldfish pond, a big metal box sunken in the ground.

As he reaches for the kitchen doorknob, he sees the snow piled inside the goldfish box and remembers that day, four summers ago.

His Father blindfolded him gently, the cotton bandana smelling of hay and summer sun. Then he felt the warmth of his father’s calloused hand wrapping around his as he was led out the kitchen door, down two steps, and into the backyard.

“All right, Buddy,” his Father said. He couldn’t see him, being blindfolded and all, but Buddy could hear the smile in his Father’s voice. “You can take off the blindfold now.”

Buddy tugged the bandana off his head and looked. His eyes widened. There, tucked underneath the lilacs, was the most magical thing he’d ever seen. Orange and gold and black flashes swirled slowly in a cool, dark world. Dapples of sun through the lilac branches sparkled on the surface of the little pond.

He didn’t notice it was a repurposed ammo box, waterproofed, then sunken into a small hole dug in the ground. All Buddy saw was magic.

He looked up at his Father, then back down at the goldfish, and his little face became one big smile. He hugged his Father’s leg as hard as he could. He was the luckiest little 6-year-old boy in all of Denver. Maybe in all the world.

He looks over at the soft mound of snow covering the box and thinks back to that summer day and the summers that followed. His pet goldfish would poke their noses to the surface when his shadow came near. They knew he’d bring a few breadcrumbs. Every day, they waited for their friend.

Right now, they wait for summer in a big glass bowl in his bedroom.

“Hello, Buddy,” says his Mother, as he walks into the kitchen. Thick, moist heat of the coal-fired stove welcomes him. He doesn’t even have time to put his books down on the kitchen table before she shares today’s delivery instructions.

“Take off your galoshes and have a snack.” She motions with an elbow and the tilt of her head to the sideboard, where a plate and a glass of milk are taking up precious space alongside the racks of cooling bread. The plate is stacked with two thick slices of buttered bread and a hunk of cheese.

Tucked on the top shelf of the sideboard is a milk bottle, half filled with pennies and nickels. Every day, she adds a few more coins from her bread deliveries, but the level doesn’t seem to rise fast enough for the hours and days and months she spends baking.

“Then out you go, Buddy,” she says, smiling at her little boy. “Today, we got 50 more orders that need to be delivered before Christmas Eve.”

The steam circles her head when she opens the oven door, peering in at her bread loaves, now golden with a rounded top, shiny with her secret egg wash. The thin blue gingham of her apron is dusted with flour, strings wrapped tightly around her sturdy frame. Strong, experienced hands wrapped in a thick dishtowel pull the baked loaves out of the oven with practiced efficiency and then, without a moment’s pause, she pops in the next round of waiting bread tins and shuts the door with a swing of her broad hip.  

Buddy takes a big bite of the thick bread and breaks off a piece of cheese. He washes it down with a glass of milk and mentally notes the number of loaves waiting.

For nearly as long as he can remember, every day after school his job has been to wrap and deliver the loaves of bread that his Mother has baked that day. First in wax paper, then in a cross of twine. He checks off names on the daily order list his Mother makes each morning, and then groups the loaves by neighborhoods where he’ll be delivering.

As he starts to tie each loaf of today’s delivery, his thoughts drift to evenings when he sits quietly in the corner of the sitting room. His parents often have friends over for simple dinners and potlucks. After dinner, the adults wander into the sitting room, some holding a small glass of Akvavit. Buddy can smell the anise scent rise from the rim of the crystal glasses. The room is cool in the summers, and in the winters, the fireplace spreads welcome warmth.

The conversations always seem to drift back in time, sharing memories and tales about the good times… those gilded days before the Depression hit. Buddy sits and listens to their stories, set in a place and time when they all had jobs. Money. And life was easier.

But to Buddy, they are just stories. He can only conjure vague pictures of this foreign world and what it must have been like. He was just a year old when that October day in 1929 changed the future for his family and every family he knew. For all of them, life now was about making do with what you had, stretching everything you could to last another day, another week, another month, another year.

And finding ways to make a few dollars when long lines of able men waited for the few jobs available that day.

His Mother was known throughout Denver for her baking. With recipes from her own Mother and her Grandmother in Odense tucked in her Bible, Helen Johannsen had arrived at Ellis Island with neighbors and friends also emigrating from their beloved Denmark. She eventually made her way across the Great Plains and to the strong Danish community in Denver.

Once there, new friends in the Ladies Guild of the Danish Brotherhood introduced her to Alfred Viggo Andersen, a handsome young dairyman from Copenhagen. He’d started his own dairy in the Cherry Creek area and named it Denver Gardens Dairy. The logo used the red of the Danish flag. His bright blue eyes and kindness captured her heart.

On their first date, he brought her a glass jug of cream-topped milk, capped with a circle of waxed paper and tied with a bow of twine. 

After a year of dating, they married, sharing dreams and hope for their new lives in the USA and their future together.

Before the Depression, Helen baked bread for her family during the week, and proudly made treats at birthdays and Christmas. She’d bring cookies to neighbors, and she could always be counted on to bring dessert to Lutheran suppers in the church basement. She even made the wedding cakes for a few lucky couples.

When the Depression began, Helen started asking around if any of her neighbors needed bread. She could bake for them, 5 cents a loaf, and Buddy would deliver on his bike after school. Her baking business started small, just a few loaves a week, but in a couple years, word had spread about Helen’s bread. Now she had customers in neighborhoods a couple miles away. Since Buddy was her delivery service, her range extended only as far as he could go on his bicycle, or on foot if there was too much snow to ride.

Buddy carefully stacks the wrapped loaves in large boxes that fit in the front and side baskets of his bicycle. Pulling on his wool coat, hat, and mittens, he wiggles his feet back into his cold galoshes and carries the boxes out the kitchen door.

At each house on his route, he leaves the ordered loaves on the porch and rings the doorbell. Sometimes, someone answers the door, thanks him, and puts a few pennies or a nickel into his little hand. Most times, though, he leaves the bread, checks inside the milk box for an envelope with his Mother’s name on it, tucks it into his messenger pouch, then cycles to his next stop.

December 23, 1938

“Buddy.” The soft sound of his Father’s voice and the gentle squeeze of his shoulder rouses him from deep sleep.

Buddy doesn’t need a clock to know it’s 4:00 am. Time to head out with his Father to milk the herd.

It’s dark. Pitch black. And so cold.

He pulls on his wool long underwear, gently though, so the holes worn around the knees don’t get any bigger. Then two pairs of wool socks, a flannel shirt, and the heavy cable knit sweater his Mother made last year. When she gave it to him last Christmas, it was much too big. This morning, as he pokes his head through the opening, he notices the sleeves end a little higher on his arms.

His Father’s waiting in the kitchen. He’s carved a piece of cheese onto a heel of bread and hands it to Buddy.

Outside, the stars hang in the indigo sky like diamonds scattered on blue velvet.

Buddy steps out into the winter night, breath a swirl of mist. He stops and looks up.

“Good morning, Orion,” he whispers

The Ford Model TT delivery truck waits in the garage. Buddy takes a deep inhale. The garage was a carriage house once, and it still smells of horse sweat and leather. His Father pulls open the driver’s side door of the truck with a loud creak, the frozen hinges complaining at the cold. Buddy climbs up first and slides across the bench seat.

The engine sputters, then starts, and they back out of the garage and drive the potholed lane to the dairy a couple miles away.

His Father opens the small human door to the barn and flicks on the lights. Their breath rises in crystalline columns, but soon the barn will be warm with the pumpkin-pie smell of hay and cows and milk.

Buddy knows his job and gets to work; he’s been doing it every morning of his life since he was old enough to help. With each year, he proudly shoulders more responsibilities as he grows into them.

First, he throws flakes of hay into the long trough that runs the length of the barn. The dairy herd waits outside the heavy barn door, moos and low snuffles of breath tell him they want in. He pulls with all his might against the iron handle. At first, the door doesn’t budge. Then, slowly, the door slides open an inch at a time on the overhead rollers. As the space widens to fit a cow, the herd strides in, one by one. Calmly, with a dignity reserved for dairy cows, each takes her place at her own designated milking stall.

Soon the rhythmic chewing of hay joins the metronome of warm milk squirting into the metal bucket beneath each cow’s udder. Moving down the line, Buddy and his Father leapfrog from cow to cow, pouring their smaller bucket of milk into the larger containers in the wheelbarrow waiting in the aisle behind the contentedly swishing tails.

His Father has shown him pictures of milking machines in the dairymen’s magazine they get in the mail every month. “One day,” he said, “we’ll have enough money to buy one of these, Buddy. Think about how many cows we can milk then!”

After his Father carefully fills each glass bottle with fresh milk, Buddy’s next job is to cap the bottles and set them gently into the wire crates. He likes how the embossed words “Denver Gardens Dairy” on each bottle glint in the soft barn light.

His Father carries each crate to the back the truck and they both climb back into the cab.

As his Father navigates their delivery route, Buddy stands on the running board of the passenger side and hangs on to the truck with one hand. At each stop, he jumps down, pulls out the number of bottles ordered by that customer, trots up to the porch, lifts the lid of the milk box with the toe of his right galoshed foot, places the bottles inside, lifts out the empty bottles and any envelopes that are clothes-pinned to the lid, taps the lid shut with his left foot, then trots back to the truck.

Over the past year, with the friendly encouragement of his Father, he’s been improving his delivery time. He nearly bursts with pride when his Father mentions this to his Mother one night at dinner.

“You should see how fast Buddy can deliver milk now,” his Father winks at Buddy as he butters a thick slice of bread. “He’s been working on his time, just like a runner on the Olympic track team.”

Buddy’s Mother concentrates on cutting her chicken into a neat square.

“I clocked him yesterday. At the Miller’s house, he was off the truck and back on in 24 seconds!”

“That’s wonderful, Buddy,” she says quietly, and smiles at her son.

Helen puts her knife and fork down. Then she looks at her husband, meeting his eyes with the look he knows means they need to talk out of earshot of Buddy.

After Buddy’s tucked into bed, Helen sits with Alfred at the kitchen table. Her hands curl around a cup of tea.

“Alfred, you know I’m proud of Buddy. He’s such a help to both of us and never has anything but a smile on his face,” she says.

“And I’m proud of you,” she continues. “Of how hard you work, how you keep food on the table….” Her voice trails off. She takes another sip.

“But I can’t stand it – how you let so many customers go weeks and weeks without paying for their milk. And still you and Buddy get up when it’s freezing cold and pitch black and deliver it. It’s not right!” Helen focuses on the pattern of her tea cup, not wanting to see Alfred’s expression.

“And the bartering, Alfred,” she says with a long exhale. “I know your customers think that giving you furniture and dishes and old tools and spare parts for the truck or shoveling the sidewalk instead of paying the money they owe you is trying to make things right.”

She takes a breath.

“But we can’t eat a box of tools and we can’t pay our bills with a clean sidewalk. At least when they give you a ham or a dozen eggs, we can put those to good use.”

The two sit in silence, the only sound the tick of the clock in the sitting room.

Finally, Helen looks up and takes one of Alfred’s hands in hers. “I know you’re trying to help others where you can. I’ve always loved that about you – how generous and kind you are.” She looks into his eyes and a tiny smile lifts the corners of her lips. 

“I know times are hard for your customers.” She squeezes his hand. “But Alfred, they’re hard for us, too. We’ve got a son to raise. Have you noticed how much he’s grown these past few months? He can barely fit in most of clothes now, and I worry we don’t seem to get any closer to having enough money to buy just a shirt and pair of pants.”

Alfred covers her hands with his and squeezes hard.

His blue eyes meet hers and glisten.

The clock ticks in the sitting room.

December 24, 1938. 4:00 am

Helen pretends to be deep asleep when Alfred wakes up at 4:00 and softly pads down the hall to Buddy’s room. She waits until she hears the click of the kitchen door and the sputter of the truck engine. They’re off for the morning milk delivery.

She throws off the covers and wraps her thick robe around her. It doesn’t do much to ward off the frigid air, but soon she’ll be warm in the kitchen.

She lights the stove with one long wooden match. Soon the coal is glowing and the chill of the morning starts to retreat. Then she stuffs her feet in her boots and trundles out to the back porch.

Once a place for family to gather on summer evenings, the porch hasn’t been used in years. In fact, Helen can barely remember the back porch ever being used for anything except to hold an ever-growing assortment of things that might be useful again one day, or might not. Old dairy farm equipment, cast-off furniture, and boxes of tools and parts for the delivery truck that Buddy likes to poke through in case he finds something particularly interesting.

At the very back of the porch, tucked behind stacks of bent wire milk crates, dented gas cans, and the random tire iron are two huge oak bureaus large enough to hold a full wardrobe of clothing. Helen wonders who they came from, knowing they’re likely the result of a barter between Alfred and a customer in exchange for milk. She exhales a long, slow breath as she thinks of the money they should have gotten instead of unwanted furniture.

At least, she thinks, they serve some purpose. They have become the perfect hiding place for her little secret.

As she slowly pulls open the door of one bureau, the smell of sweet spice and yeast fills the air. There, stacked neatly, are rows and rows of her prized Julekage. Each loaf of Christmas sweet bread is carefully wrapped in a square of muslin and tied with a twine bow. She counts the loaves and heads back to the kitchen. She needs six more and will have just enough time this morning to get them baked and cooled and wrapped before Alfred and Buddy return from the morning milk run.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The eastern sky is orangey pink as Buddy and his Father finish their route and head back to the house. Finally warm, from both the exertion and the Colorado sun shining through the truck windshield, Buddy takes off his hat and mittens and coat.

His Father reaches over and ruffles Buddy’s hair.

“You remember about tomorrow, Buddy? And that it’s our secret – you can’t tell your Mother, right?”

“Uh huh,” Buddy smiles and nods. He looks at his Father’s ruddy face. Blue eyes meet blue eyes. Buddy is growing up to be a miniature version of his Father, and that makes him proud.

Buddy and Alfred walk in from the garage to a steamy warm kitchen filled with the heady smell of freshly baked bread. Helen’s perfect, golden loaves line the cooling racks on the sideboard.

“Godmorgen,” says Helen, as the men hang their hats and coats on the hooks just inside the door.

”Godmorgen, Mother,” says Buddy, smiling, and taking in her hug with one arm. He can barely hold his excitement at what’s going to happen tomorrow, and he squeezes his right hand in a tight fist behind his back to remind him it’s a secret.

Alfred kisses her on the cheek gives her a little hug.

“Buddy broke his delivery record this morning,” he smiles, winking at Buddy. “Forty houses in three hours.”

Helen barely breaks her rhythm of kneading the dough for the next round of loaves and motions to the icebox. “Alfred, we need more ice. Can you stop by the icehouse on your way back tomorrow from the milk run?”

“Of course,” he says, secretly glad for the request. This means they can be gone a little longer than usual tomorrow and not be noticed as coming home late.

The big kitchen table is filling with today’s bread orders, so Alfred and Buddy sit at the small side table tucked in the corner of the kitchen. Waiting for them are slabs of buttered bread, cheese, salami, and a plate of scrambled eggs. A cup of coffee for Alfred, a glass of milk for Buddy.

“Buddy, when you’re finished, you can get started wrapping loaves,” his Mother says. “Since you don’t have school, you can deliver one run this morning and another this afternoon. Then you can be home before dark. Tonight’s Christmas Eve, and the Jorgensens and Aunt Alice will be stopping over for smørrebrød at 6:00.”

Buddy nods before swallowing a forkful of eggs. “Sounds good, Mother!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The evening is a festival of Christmas lights and candles. The smell of pine from the Christmas tree. Laughter as the adults share stories in the sitting room, faces glowing by the firelight, balancing plates of open-faces sandwiches, and raising toasts with small glasses of Akvavit. For dessert, Helen brings out small crystal bowls of Risalamande, the much-anticipated Danish rice pudding made with her cherished family recipe.

Too soon, it’s time to say goodnight to their guests. But Buddy knows that Christmas Eve is when Julemanden comes, assisted by his band of little Nisse helpers. They won’t come until Buddy is fast asleep, so he kisses his parents goodnight and heads upstairs to bed.

Laying in the dark, waiting for his body heat to warm his bed, he wonders what Julemanden might bring. Maybe an orange and a new pair of long woolens, since his are nearly worn through.

He drifts to sleep thinking about tomorrow. He can’t wait for Christmas Day and helping with his Father’s secret.

December 25, 1938

“Buddy.” His Father’s soft voice and gentle rub of his shoulder wakes him up. “Merry Christmas.”

Together they pad silently down the stairs and let themselves out the kitchen door. When it clicks shut, Helen springs out of bed. She dresses quickly in long woolens and thick socks under her hand-embroidered Christmas tunic. She hurries down the stairs to the kitchen, puts on her heavy wool coat, twirls a red and white wool scarf around her neck, slips her feet into her boots and hands into wool mittens, and heads out to the back porch.

Behind the leaning stack of wire milk crates is her straw market basket with leather handles. It’s huge, but not quite big enough to hold all the fragrant Julekage sweet loaves she needs to deliver this Christmas morning.

She’s split her delivery into two rounds. First, she’ll head right on the sidewalk from the front of their white brick house. Then she’ll come back, load up her market basket again, and start the deliveries heading left.

She gently stacks the loaves in the basket until their muslin tops and neat bows of twine poke above the rim. Then she pulls the scarf up over her ears and starts out. The snow sparkles under the streetlights and her boots crunch in the hush hours before dawn.

The first stop is just a couple houses away. She walks up the three stairs to the front door and leaves a loaf of Julekage on top of the milk box. This one isn’t the red box from Denver Gardens Dairy. Instead, the words “Cherry Creek Farms” are stenciled in green. It’s Alfred’s main competitor.

She knows this family just had a baby a few weeks earlier, and she leaves her twine-wrapped bread as a gift of congratulations.

Her next stop is the tiny home of an elderly couple. She’s heard from neighbors that they ration their food and have barely enough. They go hungry many nights. Here, Helen leaves a loaf of Julekage and a thick wedge of cheese wrapped in wax paper.

Helen traverses the neighborhood, knowing from memory the houses where she’ll stop. Over the year, she’s kept a list of people. People she thinks could maybe use a little Christmas cheer, people who might find a little hope in a small fragrant loaf of Julekage, people who have even less than they do.

She’s gathered the names from her customers and sewing circle and Lutheran Ladies group who would mention in passing a family going through a harder time than the everyday Depression challenges that everybody dealt with. Her list grew month by month, until she had dozens of houses to visit this Christmas Day. Some are people she knows; many are not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alfred pulls up to the first house on their normal route. Buddy’s ready. He jumps off the running board, delivers the milk, collects the envelope, and races back to the truck.

“Twenty-two seconds!” his Father exclaims as Buddy climbs back on the running board. Buddy knows he must be on his A-game today with so many more deliveries to make.

The next house is new to Buddy. For these houses not on their usual route, his Father has instructed him to leave one of the special bottles of milk tied with a bow of twine. He’s to leave the bottle on the porch next to the front door, or on top of a milk box if they have one. At this house, he notices the milk box has the green lettering of Cherry Creek Farms.

Alfred stops at house after house. Buddy sprints, milk bottles in hand, to porches and back to the truck. Many times, he’s barely back on the running board and holding on with one mittened hand before his Father guns the engine to get to the next house as quick as he can.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Market bag now empty, Helen walks as quickly as she can back to the house to refill it before heading out to begin her south-bound route.

The first house is a family that’s fostering orphans, even though they have three kids of their own. She’s heard the Father works three jobs, none of them paying much, and the Mother takes in ironing to help put food on the table for their seven little ones. She leaves two loaves of Julekage and a chunk of cheese.

At the next house on her list, she climbs the stairs to the front porch. Then stops. On top of the milk box is a bottle of fresh milk. This isn’t unusual – all dairies deliver milk early in the morning. But this bottle is embossed with a name she knows very well. It says Denver Gardens Dairy, and it’s tied with bow of twine. The twine matches that tied around her Julekage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Buddy pulls another twine-wrapped bottle from the crate and runs to the porch of the next house, leaping up the stairs in a single bound. Then stops. On top of the milk box is a loaf of bread wrapped in muslin and tied with a bow of twine. When he puts the milk bottle down next to the bread, he notices the twine looks the same.

As his Father pulls away, Buddy hangs on with one hand and raps on the passenger side window with the other.

“Father!” he shouts. “There was a loaf of bread on the milk box and it had the same twine we use on our special milk bottles!”

Alfred looks into his son’s blue eyes, ocean meeting sky. He shrugs his shoulders and mouths the word “Really?” and drives on to the next house.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pink and orange and purple streak the eastern sky.

At the last house on her list, Helen sets the Julekage on the porch next to a milk bottle tied with a bow of twine. She starts back to their house, walking as fast as she can.

She’s planned her delivery schedule so that she will arrive home a few minutes before Alfred and Buddy return from the milk run. Her request that they stop for a block of ice on the way home buys her a little extra time, just in case.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alfred pulls up to the last house on their special route. In the wire crate on the truck, there are just two more bottles left, both tied with twine. Buddy pulls out one and races to the front door. Just as he’s about to put a foot on the first step, he sees it’s broken. So is the second one, splinters of old wood a zig-zag of disrepair. In mid-air, he adjusts and clears the two steps and lands on the porch with more of a thud than he wants this early in the morning.

He leans on the porch railing to steady himself but it sways under his hand. As if touching a hot burner, he pulls his hand away. 

Above the mail slot, he sees a faded metal name plate. Lots of houses have them; their white brick house does, too. Usually, he doesn’t even notice the names embossed on the rectangular tin, but this one makes him stop.

It’s so rusty it is hard to make out the letters. He squints. There it is.

GARTLAND

He shakes his head and blinks. It can’t be. Ryan Gartland’s swagger and confidence must come from a big house in the better neighborhood. From a strong family whose love fills the rooms. From enough money to not feel the pinch of the Depression like his family and so many others do.

He bends down to leave the twine-wrapped milk bottle next to the twine-wrapped loaf of bread sitting next to the front door. As he stands up, he sees the curtain in the front window lift just enough to show the face behind it. Their eyes meet. There’s no swagger in these familiar eyes on Christmas morning.

Buddy slowly backs away and jumps off the porch. He walks back to the truck. There’s no hurry now.

Alfred drives away, noticing the colors starting to play in the clouds. The community ice house sits at the edge of a large pond. As he pulls in, he sees the shimmer of shards from harvested ice sparkle along the shore. Inside the low wooden building, covered deep in sawdust, are translucent blocks of ice cut from the pond earlier in the winter. He and Buddy carry one to the truck and start for home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Helen stokes the stove and adds another scoop of coal. The kitchen is warming up. From the ice box, she gets out eggs, ham, and cheese to make a Christmas omelet, and chops a bit of onion to sauté first. As she hears the truck pull into the garage, she peels an orange, the oil spritzing from her fingers into the air. She breathes deeply. And smiles.

As Alfred and Buddy climb the stairs, she opens the kitchen door wide. In they step, faces glowing, holding the heavy block of ice between them. Alfred and Helen take it from there and together drop it into the ice box with a decisive thud.

“Glædelig Jul!” she says, pulling them both into a hug. “Christmas breakfast will be ready soon.”

Alfred starts to take off his coat, then remembers the last bottle of milk tied with twine still in the crate on the truck. He goes out to get it, sets it down outside the kitchen door, and comes in to wash up before breakfast.

Soon they’re sitting around the kitchen table, warmed by the stove and the joy of a quiet Christmas morning together.

When they finish their eggs, Helen clears the plates.

“For Christmas, I’ve made us a special breakfast sweet,” says Helen, as she gets up and goes to the back porch.

Before she returns, Alfred opens the kitchen door and comes back in, holding the milk bottle behind his back.

The cold air whooshes in as Helen closes the door behind her. In her hands, outstretched like an offering, she holds out a small loaf. It’s wrapped in muslin and tied with a twine bow.

From behind his back, Alfred brings the milk bottle, tied a twine bow, and holds it out in his hands.

Buddy looks at the loaf, then at his Mother, and back again. He looks at his Father, then at the milk bottle, and back again.

His parent’s eyes are fixed on each other. Puzzled. Their faces serious. Then, he sees a tiny wrinkle form at the corners of their eyes, then it spreads and widens and grows until both their faces become a smile.

“You…?!”

“You…?!”

At the very same moment, they both laugh.

They put down their gifts on the kitchen table, hands now free to wrap each other in their arms. Buddy squeezes into the middle of their circle. There they all stand, gently swaying in the warmth of the kitchen on Christmas day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That night, lying on the floor of the sitting room next to the fire, Buddy spreads out a piece of notebook paper on the smooth wood floor.

With his chunky pencil in his right hand, he writes at the top of the page.