The Perfect Gift

Chapter 13

When Mary and her father walked back inside the mercantile, John was nowhere to be seen. No surprise, thought Mary.

"Hey Mary, look at what your grandmother taught me!" exclaimed Samuel, quite prideful of his work.

He held up his knitting project and beside him Annabelle smiled. Before Mary could say how nice it looked, Mary's father broke the brief silence.

"Wow, that's very good Samuel. Now we must talk about the plan for tomorrow."

Mary's father sat down at the table and started to talk to Samuel. Mary decided she didn't want to be there for the conversation after all, so she started to walk up the stairs to her bedroom. As she was going up she saw Samuel slowly nodding at everything her father was saying. Maybe he's happy about this. Maybe he hasn't valued our friendship as much as I have, she thought. When she reached her room, she was surprised to see John sitting in the rocking chair.

"Hey," she said to John.

"How'd the talk go? Did you get scolded?" he asked.

Not taken aback that he wanted to hear about her discussion, she said, "Not exactly. It was okay. Pa seemed to be calmer than earlier. What did you think of the stew?"

"Eh- it's alright."

"Yeah." This is starting to get weird, Mary thought. "You mind if I use the chair now?"

"No, go ahead." He got up and started walking out of the room. "I guess Pa will want me soon enough."

"Thanks."

When he left the room, Mary let out a sigh of relief. It was always pretty tense with her and John. Also, she wanted to be alone. So much had been going on, she just wanted to relax. However, it wasn't that simple. One problem was still unsolved. How can I make Christmas special this year? And only with sixty-seven cents! The rocking chair always gave his inspiration, or so it seemed, but all that she could come up with was the candy shop. She would just have to get her family a piece of candy each. That's all she could afford. Even though she wasn't pleased about what had to be done, she was happy to have a plan in place. Tomorrow, she decided, after Samuel has left, I will go into town to the candy store and buy my gifts. The candy won't go bad for a while, so it's okay that I get it a little early, she decided.

Disturbing her train of thought, she heard someone walking up the stairs. The door to the room was still open, so she could see Samuel approaching the door frame. He knocked on the wall beside the door, and asked if he could enter.

"Yes, come in." Mary replied. Samuel walked in and sat on the edge of John's bed.

"Thanks, I thought it best to leave before the discussion got real down there. Plus, I thought I'd come and check out your room."

"Yeah," Mary said. Although she wanted to hear more of what happened with John, she decided that Samuel was more important at the time. I'll ask later, she told herself.

"How did the talk with my Pa go? Did he tell you the plan for tomorrow?" she asked.

"Yes. I'll leave in the early morning - that's about all. Nothing to it. Your Pa said he'd think about a plan for Rex."

"You mean, he can't go with you? To the orphanage?"

"No. I'm pretty sure they don't accept animals. Children are enough trouble for them." He laughed, but then became serious as he looked down and was quiet for a few minutes. Mary understood that he may be upset, so she allowed the silence to continue. Finally, she broke the silence with a question.

"How are you feeling about, you know, staying at the orphanage?"

"Okay, I guess. Hopefully it will be better than being on the run all the time."