This is a Christmas story told by my grandmother, Marie Carr Groseclose, on December 26, 2004, while riding to her home in Bland, Virginia from Richmond where she had spent the Christmas holiday. Earlier in the month, Marie had been asked by a church in Bastian to tell a story about love during their service. This is the story she told.
Marie grew up in the country in Bland County. There were no immediate neighbors, and her family was poor and made do on very little, as most people did. Marie's closest neighbor was Mr. Gibbons, who lived in a small house nearby and was very poor. He was an elderly man and unable to do everything for himself. As part of her chores during her childhood, Marie went to Mr. Gibbons' house to help him out, mostly taking in wood and fixing up the fire. Sometimes Marie didn't feel like going to Mr. Gibbons', but her mother would always remind her that he needed the help and that it was part of her daily chores.
One
day, near Christmas, when she arrived at Mr. Gibbon's house she found that
he had
company. A man and a
boy were at the house talking to him about hunting dogs. The
boy was wearing a
sweater that caught her eye immediately. It was in her favorite color
and had a
beautiful stitched elk on the front. It was the most beautiful sweater she
had ever seen. While the boy's father and Mr. Gibbons were talking she asked
the boy where he got the sweater. He said it came from the store in town.
She asked him how much it cost and if there were any left. He said it cost
$10.95 and yes, there were sweaters left,
but she had better
hurry because they may sell out.
Marie decided then and there that she wanted the sweater for her Christmas present that year. When she went home she looked in the jar where her mother kept the family's money to see if her mother and father had enough money to pay for the sweater. She saw that there was plenty of money to pay for it, so she asked her mother later if she could buy her own Christmas present that year. Her mother asked her what she wanted to buy, and she told her about the sweater she had seen the boy wearing at Mr. Gibbon's house and she said that it was for sale at the store in town for $10.95. Her mother said it would be all right for Marie to buy the sweater for her Christmas present, but that she would have to wait until Saturday to go to town, and that she must bring the sweater home to her right away so that she could wrap it and put it under the tree.
Marie could hardly wait
for Saturday. When the day arrived, she went to Mr. Gibbons'
house early in the morning to do the chores. She mentioned to him that
she was going to
town that day, but she didn't say anything about the sweater she had seen
the boy wearing earlier in the week. Mr. Gibbons asked her if she would mind
doing him a favor and take his shoes to town for repair. He said that the
soles on his shoes were worn and that he needed half soles put on. She
said of course she wouldn't mind taking the shoes to town for him. He gave
her the name of the man who repaired shoes in town and told her the location
of his shop where he worked. He said that he would wait right there by the
stove where it was warm until she came back.
As he
took his shoes off, Marie noticed that Mr. Gibbons' socks were in very poor
condition. They were threadbare and
had holes in many
places where they had been darned. She told Mr. Gibbons that she would
be back as soon as she could, but before she left him he gave her $2.30 and
said that it was
all that he had but he thought it would be enough to cover the cost of the
half soles on
his shoes.
When she arrived in town she found the shoe repair shop and she went
inside. She told
the shoe repairman that
Mr. Gibbons had asked her to take his shoes to town for half
soles. She asked
him if he could repair the shoes that day while she was at the store and
whether the
$2.30 Mr. Gibbons had given her was enough money to pay for it. The man said
that he knew Mr. Gibbons, and that, yes, he could put half soles on that
day. He said
that the $2.30 would be enough to cover the cost.
Marie then left the shoe repairman and went to the store where the boy
had said the sweater was sold. She was so relieved to find the
beautiful sweater she had wanted so badly. She bought the sweater
right away and the salesman wrapped it up and gave it to
her. She paid the
salesman $10.95 and left the store and went back to the shoe repairman to
check on the shoes and to wait for them to be repaired. When she arrived,
the shoe
repairman said that shoes were too worn to be repaired – that the tops of
the shoes had
worn so much that there was no place to sew the half soles. He mentioned
that he had a good pair of used shoes in the same size, which he showed to
her. She asked him how much they were, and he said $13.95. She
said
that Mr.
Gibbons only had $2.30. Marie
looked at Mr. Gibbon's old shoes told the shoe repairman to wait a few
minutes while she went to see about some money. She returned to the
store where she had bought the
sweater and told the salesman that she had decided that she did not want the
sweater. She asked him if it
would be all right if she returned the sweater for the $10.95 she had paid.
The salesman was very nice and said, yes, she could return the sweater and
he gave her back the $10.95, which was the money her mother had given her to
buy the sweater for herself.
Marie returned to the shoe repairman and asked him if the $10.95 plus
the $2.30 that Mr.
Gibbons had given her
would be enough for the shoes. The shoe repairman said yes it would be
enough. As we was putting the shoes in a bag for her to carry home he said
that he would
throw in two pair of nice, warm wool socks for Mr. Gibbons, which he also
placed in the
bag.
Marie's mother had
always told her that if she had good news and bad news to tell
someone to always tell the bad news first because the good news would make
the bad news not
seem so bad. When she arrived at Mr. Gibbons he was sitting by the stove
where she had
left him. She told him she had some bad news, and he asked her what it
was. She repeated what the shoe repairman had said, that the tops of
the shoes were worn so that he had nothing to sew the half soles to, and
that he was unable to repair the shoes
at all. Mr. Gibbons
said, "That's all right. Those shoes have plenty of life in them.
They'll do without the new half soles. I'll get along
just fine."
Marie
then said that she had some good news for him, and he asked her what it was.
She said she had a Christmas present for him and she gave him the bag
containing the shoes
and the socks. He
opened the bag and looked inside, and when he saw the shoes and the nice,
warm wool socks tears started to stream down his face. He sat there for a
few moments before he got up and said that he had a Christmas present for
her, too. Marie said, "You do?" He told her to go over to the pillow on his
bed and look under it. She
went to the pillow and
lifted it up and there, folded neatly, was the beautiful sweater with the
stitched elk that she had wanted for Christmas.
Marie
asked him how he knew that she wanted the sweater and he said, "You don't
think I didn't see you eyeballing that sweater the other day. After you had
gone I asked the
boy how he would trade
the sweater for a puppy, and the boy said he would trade me
straight up. So I
traded him a puppy. That's how I got it."
She and
Mr. Gibbons hugged each other for a long time as tears fell from their
faces.
This was
Marie's story about love.
Submitted by
George P. Groseclose