SNOW KISSED CHRISTMAS: Sweet Historical Romance Novella--Short Read by Bobby Hutchinson

SNOW KISSED CHRISTMAS
     
     
    Christmas Eve, 1903
     
    At the frosted kitchen window, Anna scratched a tiny hole and watched the snowflakes circling down. Her arms curled protectively around her belly, where the baby rolled and tumbled, getting a tiny foot stuck now and then in her ribs.
    The doctor in Michel, the small British Columbia coal-mining village three miles away, had told Anna the baby would come early in March. Surely by then the coalmines would be working steady, and there’d be money to buy flannelette to make fresh diapers and gowns for the little one. So far Anna had only the worn garments left over from Sophie and Thomas’s babyhood, small stained shirts, threadbare diapers. The only new things were the white woolen sweater, booties and tiny cap her mother had knitted.
    Anna’s heart clenched and tears came to her eyes when she thought of her mother. Maria Fenske had died of pneumonia, just over a month ago on November fifth, at three ten in the morning, in the tiny bedroom William had added on for her, just off the kitchen. Maria knew she was dying; she’d said goodbye to Sophie and Thomas the night before.
    “Mormor’s going to heaven,” she’d told them in Swedish, in her usual forthright way.
    Seven year old Sophie had started to cry. “But I don’t want you to go away,” she’d sobbed.
    Thomas, at five, was more curious than upset. “Where is heaven, Mormor? Can we come?”
    “Not now, someday. But you are to have my Bible, Thomas. And Sophie, you will have the blue shawl my own mother knitted. You will keep these things and think of your Mormor.”
    Now there would be no more hats, gloves, socks from Maria’s clicking needles. The dear old woman had made a supply of knitted garments in the months before she died, socks and hats for the children, heavy mitts for William, the tiny items for the baby. Anna had hidden them away with the small horde of other Christmas gifts in the bottom of the trunk in the bedroom.
    She wished there could be more gifts for Sophie and Thomas, but there was no money for anything but essentials. She’d made a doll for Sophie out of a wool sock, embroidered big blue eyes, a pert nose, red lips, added yellow yarn hair long enough to braid, made tiny clothes out of fabric scraps. William had carved and carefully painted a small black railroad engine and three boxcars for Thomas, who still believed in Santa Claus.
    They’d all gone out together and cut a beautiful little pine tree, which now stood in a corner of the living room furthest from the heater. Anna had popped corn for Thomas and Sophie to string, and they’d hung pinecones and made paper garlands.
    It was sad that Sophie didn’t any longer believe in Santa Claus. Some nasty girl at school had told her she was a baby, believing, and Sophie had cried in Anna’s arms. “But don’t tell Thomas, Mommy. He still needs to think there’s a real Santa.” Thomas had asked his sister to write a letter to Santa. “Tell him I’d really, really like some ski’s, sister,” Thomas had begged. It had broken Anna’s heart to have to tell her little boy that Santa had too many children on his list, and that ski’s were out of the question.
    Her daughter’s concern for her brother had wound around Anna’s heart in a painful knot. Sophie hadn’t asked for anything for Christmas, and Anna knew it was because the little girl understood there was no money. But she was too young to lose her belief in magic. They were such good children, Anna and Thomas. Anna yearned to give them whatever their heart’s desired, but being poor meant growing up too fast and doing without.
    It would be better if either she or William had relatives here, but he’d left an aunt and two uncles behind in Scotland when he came to Canada. His mother and father had died of the pox when William was just fifteen, so there were no grandparents anywhere for Sophie and Thomas now that Anna’s mother was gone. Her own father had climbed on a