What's for Christmas Dinner? (Cont.)
Screen 3 of 4What would I do now? I asked myself. We had no telephone at our home. Neither did we own an automobile. And I was at least a mile and a half from Cherry ton Village where we lived. So it was obvious if I was to get that goose home where I could sow it to my mother and brother, I would have to carry it in my arms.
With the bird now tied, I closed the garage door so that no one else could see it, quickly delivered the rest of my papers, and returned to the garage, finding everything just as I had left it. The goose was now quiet and calm. It did not fight or resist me when I picked it up carefully and started home. The load was heavy and it seemed to get heavier and heavier as I trudged through the deepening snow up State Street toward the college campus and our home in Cherryton Village .
It was now late afternoon and beginning to get dark, well beyond the time I was expected to return. I saw very few people walking, due probably to the increasing cold and falling snow. I was thankful I didn't see more, because even those I saw looked at me in the strangest way. Why would any little boy be carrying a big bird like that in such weather? they must have thought.
An old friend of our family soon came by and took me part of the way home in his old Model T Ford. That helped.
"Yes sir, Chester, that shore is a goose," he declared, "a fine fat one. Not many folks have goose for Christmas dinner," he added. "You're very lucky. A Merry Christmas to you, your fine mother and your brother!"
He was in a hurry and let me out still some distance from our house. I thanked him, but I did think he could have taken me all the way, in view of the bad weather and the heavy load I was carrying. I remember deciding at the time if I ever did own a car I would not only pick up friends who were walking but would also take them all the wav home. And that resolve has stayed with me ever since.
Have the goose for dinner? Eat this goose for our Christmas dinner? Until my friend mentioned it I had never thought of such a possibility. But why not? Maybe God planned it that way all along. Who could tell?
I remember running up onto our front porch and slipping on the snow s lick floor. The goose tried to take advantage of my fall, but it could not get away. The canvass strap was still tied around its legs.
Mother must have heard all the commotion, because she was at the front door by the time I got there. It was almost and before she could see what I was carrying, she said almost angrily, "Chester, why are you so late? I told you. ..." Then a dead silence. "What on earth have you got?"
"A goose--I think. A Christmas goose which just flew down out of the sky:" I was so excited, it was so cold, and I was so tired, I hardly knew what I was saying .
"Well, for heaven's sake, a goose," she replied. My mother was usually ready for almost anything from her two teenage boys, but from the expression on her face as she stood at the front door, I could tell my brief story about the goose had just about gotten the best of her.
"Well, bring it around to the back porch," she said. You and that bird--whatever it is--are too dirty and wet to come through the front part of the house." I found out later that day mother had seen something which I knew nothing about. The goose in its own excitement had made a mess down the front of my sweater and pants! No wonder she didn't want us to come in the front door.
"You can tell Will Gooch and me all of this wild story back there." She was now faintly smiling with raised eyebrows.
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