What's for Christmas Dinner? (C0nt.)
Screen 4 of 4Will Gooch met me at the back door. His first words were, "Check, where did you steal that bird--goose, or whatever it is?"
"I didn't steal it," I insisted. "It just dropped down out of the sky."
"Go tell that to the Marines," he almost choked with laughter. "Nobody else will believe you."
After I had put the goose down on the floor and told my whole story, my mother swallowed deeply as though she didn't believe it. But she did not say so. Instead, she suggested calmly, "Well, let's kill it and get it ready for our Christmas dinner." Then she added, "I prayed for a turkey, but apparently God thought a goose would be better for us. Praise the Lord!" Then turning to my brother, she said, "Will Gooch, since Chester caught the goose, you should kill it, and we'll all help pick and clean it."
We did have the goose for dinner the next day but not before we made a table to eat it on. Our little kitchen table was too small for the big bird; even the kitchen itself was not large enough for that kind of feast. So I suggested we eat in the living room in front of the open log fire.
"That's a good idea, Chester, but what will we use for a table? " r1other asked. "We don't have one large enough for this big goose and all the other food."
I have an idea," Will Gooch said quickly. "I'll be back in a minute."
Gooch always had good ideas--original ideas, but I did not know how he was going to solve this problem. Surely, he could not make a table before the next day. Before we knew what was happening, he called me to the back porch to help him carry in an old door which had been thrown away earlier when some people tore down a house close to ours.
We brought it in, and under my brother's supervision put boxes and books under its four corners--just enough to make it the right height for eating. Then Mother covered it with a big red table cloth that had not been used since we all moved away from the family home in Franklin, Kentucky. "We used it there every Christmas on our big dining room table," she said proudly but with a tear in her eye.
This story is almost ended but not quite.
My mother had an idea of her own. She first invited two college students--both girls--who were not able to go to their homes for Christmas. Then early on Christmas morning she walked to the Salvation Army overnight shelter and brought back a transient-- a middle-aged man who had just arrived on Christmas Eve and whose prospects for Christmas were not very bright. The six of us sat down to this big dinner--goose and all, early in the afternoon on Christmas Day, enjoying each other's company as well as the fine food. The whole setting somehow reminded me of Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchett, and even old Scrooge at their joyous Christmas. And even though I didn't say it out loud, I was thinking to myself: "God bless us everyone." Chester C. Travelstead
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