* A special holiday treat. This piece appeared in our local paper on Christmas Day, 1983. It's one of my father's best columns.

And the lambs kicked and jumped and looked so funny as Mary worked through that pile of smelly wool, picking out the briars and still keeping her eyes all the time on her two little girls - married just three years now she was, and already a hip baby and a lap baby to tend.

She must have smiled as she worked, maybe thinking about life and how Joe had pressed his hard body close to her in their rope-sprung bed the night before; how his rough hands had been a comfort; how he had put a bunch of fresh wildflowers on the table that morning where she would find them, first thing.

Spring came on full and hot that year as she worked up that sheep wool.   In between helping Joe in the steep fields, she would wash the fleece, again and again, until that pile of wool was as clean as creekwater and lye soap could make it.

Then she would sit carding wool in the quiet of the summer evenings, family fed, chores done. Maybe she hummed little tunes to herself and wondered if she should tell Joe about the winter baby a'coming, what with the crops a'failing and him being so moody about the money they owed.

By the time the wool was ready to spin, there was nothing left to say about the winter baby.   Joe would put his hand on her proud belly, there where it pushed at the top of her apron.   He would smile and say maybe it would be a boy this time.   His mountain woman probably just sighed, and put her sunbrown hand on top of his.

Mary's feet and legs must have hurt right much that fall.   You can't sit down to spin wool like you can with flax, least of all when you are big with child.   So she stood and hurt and spun while the leaves turned red and gold and brown.

They didn't make much corn that fall and Joe had to sell the yearling.   He went to town to pay hard money on the loan interest and he came home drunk and quarrelsome.   There were hard words, some his, some hers, and he left, mad and crazy-talking and he didn't come home for three days.

Afterwards, Mary would catch him looking off down the valley and rubbing at the beard-stubble on his face.   Winter was a'coming; her baby was a'coming and her Joe could not make his mind stay at home.

They took Thanksgiving dinner at her mother's house.   When they headed back up the holler, the big loom near about filled the wagon.

Mary got out and walked, there where the road was the roughest.   She must have thought about how she looked, being so big, rar'd back and a'balancing.   But it being nearly her time, and birthin' being hard for her, she didn't want to take chances.

Joe set up the loom next to the fireplace. Mary measured off the wool and reeled it.   Then she started in to tying up the heddles, winding shuttles and setting the pedals.

Back and forth the shuttle flew.   Pedals rocked, beater down and back, set the ratchet. Lamplight and firelight, hour by hour, day by day until, halfway through December, she had two strips of wool cloth each 30 inches wide and longer than Joe was tall.   She hemmed and seamed them together and made her blanket.   Then she folded it away in the dovetailed chest.

Christmas came and went.   She laughed and frolicked with the girls. There was an orange and three pieces of peppermint candy for each of them and the two caps that their Grandma had knit.   When she opened the Bible to read the Christmas story, the wildflowers she had pressed that spring slipped from the pages and fell, pale and fluttery, to the floor.

And the wind blew New Year's Day past their cabin door while winter kept them house-bound.

Mary's time came on Old Christmas, before day.   She sat up shock-straight in bed with a hard cramping pain shooting through her belly. She told Joe to go for Granny Meadows, real fast now, because the baby was coming on quick.

Granny Meadows came.   She did all she knew and delivered the baby, but Mary set in to bleeding and it wouldn't stop even when the granny woman whispered the words out of the Bible that are supposed to stop the blood.

Mary smiled a little when they told her it was a boychild.    She said to name it Jim, after Joe's daddy.   Joe sat beside her and held her hand while they covered her and tried to keep her warm with soapstones and hot irons. They tried, but it was no use, for the last words she ever said were, "Joe, Joe.   I'm so cold."

And Mary, the wife of Joe, the mother of three, died, lacking only four days of being 19 years old.

They chipped out a hole in the frozen ground and buried her up on the hill with all her kin. They wrapped the baby in Mary's new blanket and took him and the two girls to live with their Grandma and Grandpa.

Joe wouldn't stay.   He had to go back to the cabin he had built for Mary and carve out the letters for her stone, one by one:

Mary, Wife To Joe
Mother To Sally, Mae, Jim
Born Jan. 11, 1856
Died Jan. 7, 1875
Gone to Liv With God
She loved Flowrs

Spring came and Joe planted the stone.   Then he went to the woods and picked wildflowers to leave in a bunch with Mary, on the hill, because she loved flowers.

The children stayed with Mary's folks while Joe went off to work in a logging camp.   Last anybody heard, he was working out in Oregon.   He quit writing after a while.   Nobody ever knew why.

The girls and the baby Jim grew up, married, had babies of their own, and died.   And the years slipped by, pale and fluttery, like pressed wildflowers slipping from the pages of a book.

One day, 11 years ago, Jim's grandchildren gathered up some things to take to town to sell on Trade Day.   One thing they found was a thin old blanket of cream-colored wool.

I saw the blanket on their table.   I asked if it was for sale.   They said yes, that it was, for twelve dollars.   I said it was handmade and asked if they knew.   They said yes, they knew because Great-Grandmother Mary had wove it before she died.

I asked if they were bound to sell it. They said things like that didn't mean a lot these days and they could always use the money.   Anyway, it was scratchy and not nearly as warm as the ones from Sears.

So I bought it, then I sat a while with them and they told me the story about Joe, Mary, Jim and the girls.

I love that old blanket.   I love to touch it and feel the twists from the spinning and the rough and wandering loom edges.   Where the seam runs up the middle, I once thought I saw a tiny rust-red spot where Mary must have pricked her finger with the needle as she sewed her short days to her long nights in December 1874.

And I think about how Mary is no kin to me or you, but how that she is kin to all of us.   Young Mary, sunlight sifting through her hair, wildflowers at her feet, loved and loving; is a weathered stone on a hillside; family memories in her great-grandchildren's minds; and a blanket that she wove just before she died, lacking only four days of being 19 years old.

* A special holiday treat. This piece appeared in our local paper on Christmas Day, 1983. It's one of my father's best columns.

And the lambs kicked and jumped and looked so funny as Mary worked through that pile of smelly wool, picking out the briars and still keeping her eyes all the time on her two little girls - married just three years now she was, and already a hip baby and a lap baby to tend.

She must have smiled as she worked, maybe thinking about life and how Joe had pressed his hard body close to her in their rope-sprung bed the night before; how his rough hands had been a comfort; how he had put a bunch of fresh wildflowers on the table that morning where she would find them, first thing.

Spring came on full and hot that year as she worked up that sheep wool.   In between helping Joe in the steep fields, she would wash the fleece, again and again, until that pile of wool was as clean as creekwater and lye soap could make it.

Then she would sit carding wool in the quiet of the summer evenings, family fed, chores done. Maybe she hummed little tunes to herself and wondered if she should tell Joe about the winter baby a'coming, what with the crops a'failing and him being so moody about the money they owed.

By the time the wool was ready to spin, there was nothing left to say about the winter baby.   Joe would put his hand on her proud belly, there where it pushed at the top of her apron.   He would smile and say maybe it would be a boy this time.   His mountain woman probably just sighed, and put her sunbrown hand on top of his.

Mary's feet and legs must have hurt right much that fall.   You can't sit down to spin wool like you can with flax, least of all when you are big with child.   So she stood and hurt and spun while the leaves turned red and gold and brown.

They didn't make much corn that fall and Joe had to sell the yearling.   He went to town to pay hard money on the loan interest and he came home drunk and quarrelsome.   There were hard words, some his, some hers, and he left, mad and crazy-talking and he didn't come home for three days.

Afterwards, Mary would catch him looking off down the valley and rubbing at the beard-stubble on his face.   Winter was a'coming; her baby was a'coming and her Joe could not make his mind stay at home.

They took Thanksgiving dinner at her mother's house.   When they headed back up the holler, the big loom near about filled the wagon.

Mary got out and walked, there where the road was the roughest.   She must have thought about how she looked, being so big, rar'd back and a'balancing.   But it being nearly her time, and birthin' being hard for her, she didn't want to take chances.

Joe set up the loom next to the fireplace. Mary measured off the wool and reeled it.   Then she started in to tying up the heddles, winding shuttles and setting the pedals.

Back and forth the shuttle flew.   Pedals rocked, beater down and back, set the ratchet. Lamplight and firelight, hour by hour, day by day until, halfway through December, she had two strips of wool cloth each 30 inches wide and longer than Joe was tall.   She hemmed and seamed them together and made her blanket.   Then she folded it away in the dovetailed chest.

Christmas came and went.   She laughed and frolicked with the girls. There was an orange and three pieces of peppermint candy for each of them and the two caps that their Grandma had knit.   When she opened the Bible to read the Christmas story, the wildflowers she had pressed that spring slipped from the pages and fell, pale and fluttery, to the floor.

And the wind blew New Year's Day past their cabin door while winter kept them house-bound.

Mary's time came on Old Christmas, before day.   She sat up shock-straight in bed with a hard cramping pain shooting through her belly. She told Joe to go for Granny Meadows, real fast now, because the baby was coming on quick.

Granny Meadows came.   She did all she knew and delivered the baby, but Mary set in to bleeding and it wouldn't stop even when the granny woman whispered the words out of the Bible that are supposed to stop the blood.

Mary smiled a little when they told her it was a boychild.    She said to name it Jim, after Joe's daddy.   Joe sat beside her and held her hand while they covered her and tried to keep her warm with soapstones and hot irons. They tried, but it was no use, for the last words she ever said were, "Joe, Joe.   I'm so cold."

And Mary, the wife of Joe, the mother of three, died, lacking only four days of being 19 years old.

They chipped out a hole in the frozen ground and buried her up on the hill with all her kin. They wrapped the baby in Mary's new blanket and took him and the two girls to live with their Grandma and Grandpa.

Joe wouldn't stay.   He had to go back to the cabin he had built for Mary and carve out the letters for her stone, one by one:

Mary, Wife To Joe
Mother To Sally, Mae, Jim
Born Jan. 11, 1856
Died Jan. 7, 1875
Gone to Liv With God
She loved Flowrs

Spring came and Joe planted the stone.   Then he went to the woods and picked wildflowers to leave in a bunch with Mary, on the hill, because she loved flowers.

The children stayed with Mary's folks while Joe went off to work in a logging camp.   Last anybody heard, he was working out in Oregon.   He quit writing after a while.   Nobody ever knew why.

The girls and the baby Jim grew up, married, had babies of their own, and died.   And the years slipped by, pale and fluttery, like pressed wildflowers slipping from the pages of a book.

One day, 11 years ago, Jim's grandchildren gathered up some things to take to town to sell on Trade Day.   One thing they found was a thin old blanket of cream-colored wool.

I saw the blanket on their table.   I asked if it was for sale.   They said yes, that it was, for twelve dollars.   I said it was handmade and asked if they knew.   They said yes, they knew because Great-Grandmother Mary had wove it before she died.

I asked if they were bound to sell it. They said things like that didn't mean a lot these days and they could always use the money.   Anyway, it was scratchy and not nearly as warm as the ones from Sears.

So I bought it, then I sat a while with them and they told me the story about Joe, Mary, Jim and the girls.

I love that old blanket.   I love to touch it and feel the twists from the spinning and the rough and wandering loom edges.   Where the seam runs up the middle, I once thought I saw a tiny rust-red spot where Mary must have pricked her finger with the needle as she sewed her short days to her long nights in December 1874.

And I think about how Mary is no kin to me or you, but how that she is kin to all of us.   Young Mary, sunlight sifting through her hair, wildflowers at her feet, loved and loving; is a weathered stone on a hillside; family memories in her great-grandchildren's minds; and a blanket that she wove just before she died, lacking only four days of being 19 years old.