A Home for the Heart by Michael Phillips

Author:Michael Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction;FIC042030;FIC042000;FIC026000
ISBN: 9781493413508
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2017-12-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

Christmas Eve

Christopher was invited to celebrate Christmas Eve with us and all of Christmas Day too. I had been wishing he didn’t have to stay in town Christmas Eve night, and Uncle Nick must have read my mind, because he invited Christopher to come spend the night with them. Pa and Almeda would have made room for him too, under any other circumstances, but it wouldn’t have been proper for him to stay under the same roof with me, even if we hadn’t had a houseful.

The biggest surprise of all was that my sister Emily and her husband Mike appeared two days before Christmas with my little niece Sarah. Nobody knew they were coming for a visit, and the excitement still hadn’t worn off two weeks later when they had to leave.

Christmas Eve was so wonderful. Our whole family was together again . . . and I had Christopher besides!

We ate early and then piled into several wagons—all of us and Christopher and Uncle Nick’s family—and headed into town for the community Christmas Eve get-together.

While I’d been gone, the town had built a small building near the church. It served as a town hall and a meeting room and an extra school building all in one.

“You know, Corrie,” said Uncle Nick as we got down and began walking toward the hall, “this is going to be the biggest Christmas party Miracle Springs has ever seen.”

“Why?”

“Because everybody wants to see your new feller.”

“Nah,” chimed in Pa behind us, “it’s Corrie herself they want to see. Some of the folks still ain’t seen her since she’s been back.”

“Shoot, Corrie,” added Zack. “Nobody really wanted to have a Christmas party. They just wanted an excuse to hear about your escapades back East. Heck, they’re probably even going to want you to give a speech or something.”

“You got a speech ready?” teased Uncle Nick.

“No,” I laughed. “Everybody’s seen me already at church or one place or another. It’s Emily they’ll be coming to see. But look how nice the hall looks with the windows all lit up!”

“Should be,” said Tad. “We all helped build it.”

“Yep,” added Pa, “bought and paid for by the citizens of Miracle Springs.”

“I object t’ that remark, hee, hee, hee!” sounded a voice behind us.

“Hey, Alkali!” said Uncle Nick, turning around. “They even invited an old goat like you?”

“Yep, they did, hee, hee, hee. But what you doin’ callin’ ol’ Murphy a citizen, Drum?” he said to Pa. “He weren’t one heck of a citizen and you knows it. Why the only reason—”

“We know, Alkali,” put in Uncle Nick. “But the extra financing had to come from somewhere, even if it had to be him.” He winked over his shoulder at Pa.

We could already hear music coming from the open door, and we walked on inside.

All three of us turned out to be right. I visited with several people I hadn’t seen since I’d been back. And since there hadn’t been a church service since Mike and Emily had arrived, a lot of people were surprised to see them, and they were the center of attention.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.