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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781524647162 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 11/04/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 124 |
| File size: | 342 KB |
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A Prayer for Christmas
By Edward Reed
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2016 Edward ReedAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5246-4717-9
CHAPTER 1
Moses Pennyweighter
Moses Pennyweighter was evil. No better word could be used to describe him, not at Christmas and not by those truly knowing the shriveled little man.
Most though who lived in Millageville, working themselves ragged in his factory to buy another month's stay in his houses, groceries at his supermarket, and everything else in their lives from his department store, did not know him, did not know him at all.
"Good Mr. Pennyweighter," the people of Millageville would say at the very mention of the sweet old man's name. And there would be a warming of hearts as every child in town dreamed of the toys at his department store and of how next Christmas their fathers might be able to put together enough money to buy a toy for them.
"Mark everything up fifty-one percent," Mr. Pennyweighter ordered when the first leaves of autumn began gathering on the ground each year, and Clarence Turnberry did just that. He ran the department store.
By the first day of October, the pale, sun dried tags dangling from handlebars of bicycles and baby dolls' hands were gone. Slick and shiny white ornamental labels and tags replaced them. Tags with Santa Claus or Christmas trees adorned everything. On these Clarence would write the newly calculated prices extra-large so they could not be mistaken by anyone. Then, when Halloween arrived, Clarence Turnberry would take out his markers again. Items selling well were marked up another fifty percent. Clarence always changed prices with down turned eyes avoiding the sad faces of customers as the things they so wanted became even further beyond their reach. Without a choice and having a large family, Clarence did his job.
"That'll give them something to be thankful for," Mr. Pennyweighter growled every year, cigar clenched in his teeth, looking over the store's ledgers and financial statements. This was always from behind the closed doors before Clarence Turnberry turned the giant brass key in the lock which kept everyone outside looking in. Eyes were always peering through the store's glass display window.
Pennyweighter's, the town's only department store, opened early for business and every day except Sunday. This made it possible for third shift workers to spend their wages on their way home after escaping from a night of work in the sweltering noise of the factory. Pennyweighter's Supermarket next door opened at seven o'clock sharp too and for the same reason.
"So nice to see you Mrs. Smith or Mr. Brown," Mr. Pennyweighter would say greeting Mrs. Smith or Mr. Brown or whomever happened first into the shadowy light of the old building. This daily ritual always took place before the old man left the department store each morning. Making his daily rounds first to the supermarket, then to the factory, by noon he would finally make it back to the department store. There he would eat a lunch of smoked herring, port wine cheese, and soda crackers. He kept boxes of soda crackers in his desk drawer.
"Good morning Mr. Pennyweighter," Mrs. Smith or Mr. Brown or whomever first happened into the store would reply shy and humble, even when the old man got their names confused, which he did quite often. In their second rate shoes shuffling across the floor and smelling of work, they never seemed bothered by being called whatever name came to the mind of good Mr. Pennyweighter.
Busy as he was, the addled old merchant always found time to pause for those patrons carrying little ones. Childless himself, he appeared to love little children.
"Our future customers, Turnberry," he would hiss a whisper into the outstretched ears of the man who listened in fear at the sinister glee Mr. Pennyweighter's voice carried.
Slaves are more to the tune of it, Clarence thought, but not too loudly.
Not long after he began working for the old man, Clarence asked Dolly, his wife, not to bring their children to the department store. Visits to the store only made his little ones want for things, things that he, like most who browsed its shelves, could never afford.
"He's such a nice old man," Dolly, eyes confused, said at his request. Clarence kept quiet seeing no need to tell his wife any different. Nor did he tell her how he dreaded the dawning of each day and the long walk to work before sunup and the long walk home after sunset. With a house full of hungry children to feed, like fledglings with upturned mouths waiting in their nest for his return, the mild mannered man kept all this to himself. His bottom lip rolled in, he said a prayer of thanks for his job, though the hours were long and his salary meager. Passing the factory each day he said a prayer of thanks too. It was a prayer of thanks for having escaped that dreadful place. His mother and father, like their parents before them, worked their lives away inside of the looming monster. It was a monster which belched smoke, filled with acrid smells, into the air every morning at exactly seven o'clock, even when running on short time, which it always did around the holiday season.
"If we cut their hours and make them hungry they won't be expecting a Christmas bonus," Mr. Pennyweighter explained to Elias Stonethrower, the factory's overseer. "Tell them things are slow and we don't have the orders and send them home early."
The old miser wanted only his workers hungry, not starving. So every October when the autumn skies grayed, filling themselves with the hint of winter, rumors of short time became a reality. Faces of those who toiled inside its giant shadow grew as long as the nights.
"It's a good thing Mr. Pennyweighter is so generous and lets us buy on credit," customers would say. Mr. Pennyweighter's goodwill helped many through the lean months of winter and made it possible for the tables of those who lived in Millageville to be set with a Cornish hen and some cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. In this, the families of the little town took as much delight as possible, only ever having enough holiday food to arouse festive appetites and never enough to lay them to rest.
Pennyweighter's Supermarket, famous for its Cornish hens, didn't stock turkeys and hadn't in years. It had been so long in fact a good many people of Millageville, especially those coming up, had begun calling the little hens, turkeys.
The hens purchased on discount made them easy for the old skinflint to sell on credit and still pocket a tidy profit. Pennyweighter, figuring all this out early on, turned the scrawny little birds into a tradition in Millageville.
Then there was the cranberry sauce. Cans and cans of it always overtook several narrow shelves of the drafty old supermarket by late October. Like everything else, Pennyweighter got it cheap too. And it never failed to be the only item selling quickly enough to not grow a coating of dust like everything else in the supermarket.
As the inventory grew older, it lost price stickers. For some reason, labels had a way of falling off things and onto the floor. Once on the floor, the dried bits of paper waited to be swept away by the young boy who pushed the broom up and down and between the long shadowy aisles.
Ernest Lieflinger, the grocer, promised someday to put all new price labels on every dusty can of this or sun faded box of that. He even told Mr. Pennyweighter this more than once. But he never got around to putting new price labels on anything. And no one minded, particularly not the sharp eyed old man who hurried by on his way to the factory each day to do two things, check the store's books and slip a can of smoked herring into the jacket pocket of his suit, which he insisted on wearing hot or cold.
Having no price labels on the always expired cans and boxes presented a convenient mystery which, when solved by the grocer while scratching around in what remained of his once full head of hair, always yielded Mr. Pennyweighter an even greater profit.
CHAPTER 2The Factory
The factory cast a long and ominous shadow over Millageville. Its tall smoke stacks and looming walls of brick upon brick stole sunlight which would have otherwise fallen on those who lived out their lives in its shade.
Though never able to get very far from the factory, Clarence Turnberry did manage to pull himself outside its towering walls, with a certificate he earned from a mail order college.
For years, while he worked shift after shift behind noisy machines, the far away school mailed him new boxes of lessons month after month. These lessons he studied with fierce determination. Often while his family slept, he worked on them late into the night.
With great care he completed each assignment. Then putting together his nickels and dimes for postage after he checked and double checked the mail-in test, he would pack them in the envelope provided and see them to the post office.
"Let's celebrate!" Dolly exclaimed, beaming when her husband carefully slipped his beautiful, ornate parchment from its big yellow envelope. He wished he could afford a frame. But, with Thomas his oldest son needing glasses and Sally his youngest daughter shoes, there was no frame or celebration, but only a kiss on his balding forehead. Then he returned his prized certificate to its official envelope.
His Declaration of Achievement made him proud, though he told no one but his wife. He also told no one but Dolly about the application he submitted for the job managing Pennyweighter's Department store. He told her about the interview too.
"You do realize for the kind of wages I pay, you will have other duties as assigned," the old man explained his voice lingering on, "duties as assigned." Clarence nodded.
He hoped his hobble into the dusky office, smelling of smoked herring and cigar smoke, was not too noticeable. A lame leg is hard thing to hide and especially from Moses Pennyweighter who possessed a sharpened eye for any weakness presenting itself in persons sitting across from him at his giant desk.
"Do you truly understand?" the old man probed leaning forward, eyes slightly bulging from under bushy eyebrows in need of trimming.
"Yes, sir," Turnberry answered, suddenly filled with questions he didn't know how to ask.
"Gillis took care of my repossessions and evictions," Mr. Pennyweighter explained. He described those chores as being among some of the "not so savory" duties Clarence could expect to be assigned.
Henry Gillis ran the department store for years. Clarence remembered the old manager's slow, low baritone voice and how he always said good morning or afternoon to everyone. Clarence often wondered after working at the department store for a while if he looked as sad as his predecessor, almost sure that he did.
"Problem?" the bushy browed old man asked, sensing something in Clarence which wrinkled his forehead.
"No sir," Clarence replied, both men knowing that to be a lie. With Mr. Pennyweighter's stare worming its way into his soul, Clarence sat frozen like he was about to be bitten by a spider, a deadly poisonous spider.
"Very well. Report here at five a.m. Monday morning for your training," Mr. Pennyweighter said drawing the tips of his money hooks together in what looked like the beginning of a church and steeple but Clarence knew his employer was not the praying or church going type. He had never stepped foot in the church, even for Mr. Gillis' funeral, and that after Henry Gillis worked for the old man more than fifty years.
Not believing his own ears, Clarence sat in stunned disbelief that he got the job.
"Your workday is seven a.m. to seven p.m. with an hour after to square the ledger, just like Gillis. Also, I can't afford to compensate you for your training," Mr. Pennyweighter remarked.
Shuffling some papers on his desk, his voice turned into a mumble as he began talking to himself. Not having discussed his hours and wages Clarence grew suddenly sick realizing how little time he would now have to spend with his wife and children whom he adored. Long grueling days tethered to the business had been no problem for Henry Gillis. Mr. Gillis had no family, no wife to kiss his balding head, or little ones to hug him and take his boots off after a long day.
"Problem?" the old man asked again his tone filled with frustration as he studied Clarence's face.
"No sir," Clarence said.
Then Mr. Pennyweighter spelled out Clarence's compensation and benefits for his seventy-eight hour work week.
"Excellent. Your wages will be the same as your factory pay. Your rent will be reduced by half. You will get a five percent discount on groceries you buy outright, but no discount on credit purchases, mind you. And, the day before Christmas each year, one and only one of your children will get to take home any toy of their choosing from our store," his voice selfishly snagging on "our store."
Then the old man paused, his lips drawing tight and his smile thin.
"Your people worked for me a long time, Turnberry," Mr. Pennyweighter said. His leather chair was now pushed back from his desk, face hidden by a shadow.
"Yes," Clarence answered, his voice shaking a little. His heart was giving way to the sudden tinge of sadness it always held when remembering his parents.
"They passed sometime back?" the old man remarked further stoking the hurt he saw stirring in his new manager. Then Mr. Pennyweighter took his big golden pocket watch from his vest pocket and looked at it a third time.
Clarence, suddenly wanting to run, pulled his lanky frame up to his full height and thanked Mr. Pennyweighter. Bidding him goodbye, he made his way out of the store and into the afternoon sunlight.
Late for his last shift at the factory following his interview with Mr. Pennyweighter, Clarence hurried with all the speed his twisted foot would allow. There would be no stopping by home for a celebratory hug and a kiss on his forehead. After work, his wife would be waiting up for him to get home. She always was.
For Clarence, his last night in the clinkety clanking old factory seemed surreal. Noisy hums of the machines and stifling hot air filled rooms as windowless as the souls who worked within their walls. Rooms full of eyes dulled by monotonous drudgery waiting to be delivered out to them in daily portions for forty more years. Eyes, he promised himself, he would never see again, not inside the factory.
"It's killing work," Clarence's father sighed to his son with the same somber resignation his own father sighed to him. Clarence and Dolly married after graduating from high school and not long afterwards, with children on the way, Clarence took a factory job. His parents wanted better for their son, but not knowing how to help him, were left with no choice but to watch as he became tangled in the same web which trapped them.
That night at the factory went by fast and Clarence stayed to himself. Returning early from supper, he gave a hand to the trembling Mr. Higglesworth who never took meals for fear of getting behind and being fired. Afterwards feelings of guilt set in for leaving his friends behind in the hot noisy soul killer. Clarence worked his final shift quietly, never mentioning his new job or it being his last night.
Before passing through the gates of the giant building, Clarence paused for a final look at the grumbling machines, windowless walls, and the dusty noise. He remembered his mother and father and the three of them walking to and from the factory during his early years working there. He could still see their washed out faces, tired and used up from lifetimes spent in the sweltering heat and awful noisy racket that stole their lives a little at the time. Glad to have jobs, they never complained.
"It's honest work," Clarence's father told him, just as his own father told him, but those words offered little compensation for the sadness both he and Clarence's mother felt when their son cast aside his childhood dreams and gave himself to the factory.
CHAPTER 3Alfred
Happy to put the factory job behind him, he didn't do so without a fair amount of sorrow. The sorrow was mostly over his youngest child. Alfred, with his large ears, reminded Clarence most of himself, and not only because his foot, like Clarence's, bent crooked at the ankle.
Their last born, a surprise, stirred the memories of Clarence and his wife privately laughing about how freezing cold the nights had been the winter before their final and tiny red haired baby arrived. Of all their children, Alfred carried on with the best nature though for him life presented the greatest struggle. Always being respectful, sweet, and well behaved, little Alfred possessed an extra goodness.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Prayer for Christmas by Edward Reed. Copyright © 2016 Edward Reed. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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