Fiction: Northern Star (1970)

Dad said he wanted to talk to me after we were done with our paper route. 

Now I had one more thing to worry about that afternoon, on top of how bitterly cold it was while I helped Frankie deliver papers, and always with the question of whether or not I’d run into Mrs. Hadley with her drifting eye,

A biting cold front had moved in and the snow was too deep for our bikes, so we’d been walking the route the past week. Six main streets and four side streets, eighty-six customers in all. Half way through, my toes and fingers started going numb and the last thing I needed was to be held up. “Don’t roof any papers!” my brain yelled as I went along, house to house. “And don’t get caught by Mrs. Hadley!”

Even in summertime, you never wanted Mrs. Hadley to catch you. If she did, then she’d rant and rave. She’d go on for almost half an hour about the government and the war and taxes. She lived alone in a trailer off one of the side streets and Frankie and I would trade, every other day, delivering her newspaper.

It happened to be my day.

The object was to get there, get rid of the paper and get away. I’d go maybe twenty feet from the porch, fling the paper and pray it didn’t hit the siding. When it did, Mrs. Hadley was at the door in seconds and there I was, caught. She talked my ear off, and while she was doing that, the one eye drifted while the other, the good eye, went straight at me, boring into me like a dentist’s drill. 

Most afternoons she didn’t catch me and I’d be home in time for “Hogan’s Heroes.” Being almost Christmas, I wanted to race right home, out of the cold, the tree lights and music and sometimes there’d be the smells of fresh baked cookies. 

Frankie had a big advantage over me, being the pitcher for the Little League team. He had a good arm and when it was his turn to deliver Mrs. Hadley’s paper, he’d sling it from thirty, forty feet and most of the time he landed it on the little porch. He never got caught. 

~~~

So there I was, angling toward the trailer, down the long drive, past a pair of oak trees, then another fifty feet or so to the trailer. 

I hadn’t seen Mrs. Hadley in a week or so. She disappeared sometimes, especially in November and December. Her husband, Walter, had passed away a year ago and maybe it was that, or maybe it was just the way November and December were, grey and all. I know it made Frankie depressed sometimes when he didn’t get enough sun and Mom would have to bring out the therapy light.

I thought of my brother as I wound up and threw, but it wasn’t even close. It clunked against the vinyl siding and landed in the snow.

I hurried to retrieve the paper, drop it on the porch and run.

Too late. The door opened.

“What the hell was that!” Mrs. Hadley was wearing a green bath robe and a yellow scarf around her neck and a pair of old pink slippers.

“Your paper,” I said.  “Sorry. It missed the porch.” I handed her the paper, trying my best to relay a sense that I was freezing and needed to get going, which she ignored.

“Sorry?” she said. “I’ll tell you what’s sorry, young man.” She held the newspaper up. “More dead soldiers! That’s what’s sorry!”  She slapped the paper against her hand, knocking off the snow. “And this war will do about as much good as all the others.”

There was the drifting eye, off somewhere over my left shoulder, and the sharper eye drilling me.

“People in Washington,” she said, “are the ones who should be shot.”  It was her favorite line. I must have heard it a dozen times. 

She went on about money going overseas and how her social security check couldn’t keep up with food prices and the waste and the greed, and there I was, my hands and feet going numb from the cold.

“Look at that senator from Florida,” she said, slapping the paper against the door. “Four homes. Now you tell me why on earth anybody needs four homes! Selfish is what I call it. All of ‘em out for themselves!”

My ten-year-old brain could take only so much. It drifted, to Christmas cookies and milk and Hogan and Klink and Schultz. I glanced to see if Frankie was on the other side of the street. He was probably finished and wasn’t going to wait. We’d agreed a long time ago that if one of us got caught by Mrs. Hadley, the other would just go home. Why have us both suffer?

But I wanted him to suffer with me. 

The sun was halfway through the trees west of the trailer when Mrs. Hadley slapped the paper one last time.  “It’s cold,” she said. “Look at you, that thin coat! Go on. You should be at home eating your dinner!” She turned and went back inside. 

I couldn’t feel my toes. The wind had picked up and I still had six newspapers left in my bag. I trudged through the trees, back to the street, where I saw Frankie, arms crossed, waiting for me on the corner. 

“Let’s go, Daniel,” he said. Both of us shivered. We finished the route together and went home.

~~~

Teeth chattering, I came through the door, wondering if Dad would take pity on me, or maybe he’d forget. 

Mom had the therapy light set up on the table away from the Christmas tree, Dad was in the reading chair with the newspaper, and all through the house was the smell of roasted chicken mixed with cookies and the blinking lights on the tree.

“Was that enough to distract Dad from whatever he had in mind,” I asked myself.

Dad cleared his throat. I held my breath. 

“You boys are a little late,” he said, folding the newspaper and setting it down. 

“Danial was talking with Mrs. Hadley,” Frankie explained.

“Real long,” I said. “I about froze to death.”

“Sorry to hear that, Daniel. I know how Mrs. Hadley can talk,” 

“Sure can,” I said, suddenly feeling that maybe nothing would be said about me at all. I was in the clear.               

“Well,” he said, “It looks like you boys have been pretty busy, with school, your paper route and all.”

“We’ll be even busier this weekend,” Frankie said. “With Christmas. . . collecting on Saturday.”

Collecting. It gave me a warm feeling just thinking about going door to door the last Saturday before Christmas. I’d be right there beside Frankie, holding the large green tip bag.

Sometimes customers gave us boxes of peanut brittle and chocolate covered cherries along with big holiday tips.

It was Frankie’s route, but I helped almost every day of the week, so we’d agreed on a 60-40 cut. 

Forty percent was a lot. Enough money I could get myself a sled or maybe a new baseball glove.” 

“That’s sort of what I want to talk about,” he said. 

He looked at me, then at Frankie. “I know you’re excited about those tips. You have a good sized route and do very well. 

”He put his hands together under his chin, the way he did when he was thinking about something important. “We’re all doing quite well,” he said. “I have a good job and your mother’s working nearly full time at the credit union. We have a lot to be thankful for. We’ve stayed healthy. All in all we’ve had it pretty good. On a scale of one to ten, I’d say we’re up there close to eight or nine at least.”

More like a ten, especially with the Christmas tips. The year before, my first year as Frankie’s helper, I’d ended up with twenty dollars! This year it might be more.

“So,” Dad said. “I was wondering if you boys have ever thought about doing something extra for somebody. Maybe there’s a person on your paper route who might need a little something. Heaven knows there are always people who could use some help.” 

“Like shoveling their walk,” I said. 

The last time we had a big snowfall, people hired Frankie and me to shovel. Mr. Oliver had us shovel his walk and his whole driveway and paid us five dollars. 

“Well, Daniel, I was thinking more about a person who could use a little something extra. A little Christmas cheer. A gift or two.”

Frankie looked at me, then at Dad. “You mean, with our tips?”

Dad nodded. “Maybe you can think about it,” he said.

Suddenly the warm feelings turned into something like my frozen feet when I was at Mrs. Hadley’s. I kept an eye on Frankie, wondering what he’d say. It was his route.

“How about if Daniel and I talk about it?” he said. 

He got up, waving me to follow. We went up the stairs, to his room, which all of a sudden became a conference room. Frankie was on the bed, hand to his chin, looking at me.

“We need to figure it out,” he said. “Somebody on the route who needs something.”

“Dad said we should ‘think’ about it,” I said. “First we have to decide if we even ’want’ to.”

“Dad was being nice. He doesn’t want us to just think about it. He wants us to do something.” Frankie paused. “Can you think of anybody?”

I closed my eyes, waiting. Nothing came. A total blank.

“What about the Smiths?” he said. “They got that old truck with the loud muffler. Maybe we could give them some money toward a new one. Ten, fifteen dollars.” 

“Ten or fifteen dollars!” 

Frankie shrugged. “Or how about Mr. Crowe?” 

Mr. Crowe was old and lived by himself in a run down house with four tall, thick pine trees. There was a long walkway up to a big old porch completely shaded by the trees. It felt creepy there. 

In the two years I’d helped with the route, I’d only seen Mr. Crowe twice. He had so many cats you could smell them a mile away. I’d get to the creaky old porch, hold my nose, and pitch the paper. The cats would arch their backs, ears pinned back. As soon as the paper hit the door, they’d all scatter. 

“Maybe get him a couple bags of cat food,” I said, thinking it’d be no more than five dollars. 

“Or cigarettes.” There was a bucket on the front porch next to the rickety door that was always full of cigarette butts.

“We’re not buying cigarettes,” Frankie said.

I pretended to hold a cigarette to my lips, puffing wildly. Frankie rolled his eyes.  

I didn’t say anything. I needed a break and maybe Frankie did, too. It was too much. It felt like there was a cloud in my brain.

“We gotta decide something,” Frankie said. “Name somebody.” 

“I can’t. My brain’s a massive fog. It’s not working.”

“Mrs. Hadley then,” said Frankie. “She needs it the most.”

I protested. “She needs too many things! She’ll break the bank!”

“Daniel, we’re not getting her everything. Just a few things.”

“She needs a new coffee pot,” I said. 

“Good. Let’s get her that. And she’s always wearing that old bath robe. And those worn out slippers. We could buy her a new robe and some slippers.”

“Amen,” I answered, meaning that I agreed, and also that we needed to stop right there because Mrs. Hadley needed a new carpet and the outside porch was rickety and there were rust stains on the siding and the kitchen window had a good sized crack, not to mention things we didn’t even know about!

“I’ll tell Dad,” Frankie said. “We can go to Penney’s on Monday.” 

~~~

Downstairs, the luscious smells didn’t smell so luscious. “Joy to the World” was playing but I couldn’t feel any joy. All I was thinking about was the dent we were about to  put in our Christmas tip money.

Frankie told Dad and Mom the plan.

Dad nodded.

“What do you think, Daniel?” Mom said. 

“She definitely needs things,”  I said.

“It’s very thoughtful of you boys,” Dad said. “I know it’s hard. You’ve worked hard for those tips.”

“And I want a sled, and a new glove!” I blurted out. 

“We’ll get the clothes at Penney’s,” Frankie said, “and the coffee pot at the second hand store.”

“Think she might want a tree?” Mom asked. 

“She has one,” I said, before anyone had a chance to agree. 

“Not really,”  Frankie said. “She’s got that little fake tree. Three feet tall. The old frosted stuff on it’s peeling.”

“She might appreciate a real tree,” Mom said. “And we have some extra ornaments.”

“A lot of people have fake trees,” I argued, thinking about the robe, the slippers, and on top of that, a tree. “Maybe she likes fake trees.”

“A fresh tree doesn’t necessarily have to cost anything,” Dad said. “You could go up by the power line. Cut a small one. We have a hatchet in the garage.” 

He looked at me. “Maybe you could help cut the tree, Daniel.”

Okay. Maybe. If it didn’t cost anything. I thought about it, out in the woods with a hatchet, hacking away, bringing down a tree. I’d have it cut down in a minute.

~~~

The Saturday before Christmas I woke up early, not so wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. By nine o’clock, we’d had breakfast and Frankie had run his belt through the four-barrel money changer. It was grey and dreary as we set off.

Frankie did all the knocking and door bell ringing, telling customers what they owed, making sure to say, “Merry Christmas!”

Some customers came to the door with their Christmas envelopes, or their boxes of candy. Others had to be reminded. Frankie would sing out “Merry Christmas!” and a look would come over them. They’d disappear someplace and come back to the door, usually without a Christmassy envelope. Usually with just a dollar or two folded up. 

Not Dr. Wingarten. He was our dentist and was very tall. Maybe seven-foot tall and hardly an extra pound. He wore wire rimmed glasses and was bald. When he came to the door, he loomed over us like he loomed over me in the dentist chair.

“What do I owe you?” he asked.

“Fifty-five cents for the week,” Frankie said.

Dr. Wingaten reached a long hand into his pocket, pulled out out the change and handed it to Frankie. 

Then he reached behind and drew a bright red envelope from his back pocket, holding that out to Frankie too. “You boys stay warm now,” he said. “Merry Christmas!”

I hurried to open the envelope first, before sticking it into the bag. There was the face of Alexander Hamilton peeking out through the hole of the insert. I imagined getting a couple more Hamiltons. They’d cover Mrs. Hadley’s presents!

Halfway down Wilson Street was Mr. Harvey’s house. He came to the door with a lit cigar. There was always the smell of cigar smoke inside Mr. Harvey’s.

He handed the cigar to Frankie and searched his pockets for change. The smoke rose into Frankie’s face. He tried blowing it away. He coughed. On top of that, the room was getting warmer and warmer with our heavy coats while Mr. Harvey took his sweet time.   

“How’s the little helper today?” he said, grinning at me while picking through a pile of coins. Ashes dropped from the cigar onto the tile floor. 

Finally I coughed as loud as I could. That got Mr. Harvey’s attention.

“Is the smoke bothering you?” he asked, and took the cigar, tapping a ring of ash onto the floor, then rubbing it with his foot. He finally handed Frankie the money.

“And we can’t forget it’s Christmas,” he said, handing Frankie a quarter and a couple of nickels, then me just an old dime. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” he said. 

We closed the door behind us and followed the steps to the next house.

“Don’t spend it all in one place,” Frankie said, grinning.

Sometimes it happened. There were the Dr. Wingartens and the Mr. Harveys. 

~~~

Up and down the streets, the green tip bag got heavier and heavier. I’d check the envelopes before dropping them into the bag. Washingtons, Lincolns and a Hamilton. 

We reached Mrs. Hadley’s trailer and Frankie made sure I kept the green bag behind my back, knowing she probably couldn’t afford much of a tip.

When she answered the door, Frankie never mentioned Christmas.  

We went into the kitchen, onto the linoleum just inside the door. Dishes were piled by the sink but Mrs. Hadley didn’t seem to care a lick about it. Some people might apologize for a mess like that, but she didn’t. There was the old stained coffee pot and the cord, taped in two places. On a shelf were a couple old coffee cups. There was a small shelf by the window where she kept her pills.

She got her purse and put on her reading glasses. 

“What do I owe ya?” 

“Fifty-five cents for the week,” Frankie answered.

On the table, Mrs. Hadley doled out a quarter and the rest dimes. She scraped them into her hand, then took Frankie’s hand and slid them into it.

“There,” she said, mumbling something about how people in this country should be getting a little more help, instead of giving all their money to some guy overseas with a name she couldn’t pronounce.

No Christmas envelope.

Afterward, we crossed the street and finished up the route. The snow sparkled and the sun had come out and glared off the icy street. My feet were freezing again, and I added to my wish list a good pair of wool socks I’d seen at Sweeney’s Store downtown.

We sat on the rug by the fire and I opened the bulging green bag, laying out ones, the two dollar bills, a few fives and only the one ten dollar bill that Dr. Wingarten gave us. There were boxes of peanut brittle and chocolate covered cherries too. 

Our final tally was about what we’d done the year before. Minus Mrs. Hadley’s take.

~~~ 

That same afternoon we went to the second-hand store to get a few things for Mrs. Hadley. We found a used coffee pot pretty quickly. It had a strip of masking tape that read, “TESTED.” Just two dollars! 

I wanted to look around and mosied over to the coffee mugs. Just twenty-five cents each! There were decorated candles for a quarter and little knick-knacks. A piece of wood with a painting of trees and squirrels and blue birds. One dollar. I picked it up. Three pairs of socks for two dollars. I figured Mrs. Hadley and I had about the same size feet, so I’d give her two and I’d take one.

“Daniel, what are you doing?” Frankie reached for the ceramic mug I held. It had a beautiful elk and a sunset. Black letters at the bottom read, “Montana Paradise.” 

“We’re in Vermont,” Frankie said. “Elk don’t even live here.”

“She needs a coffee cup,” I said. “Actually, two.” I picked up another cup with a blue bird perched on a little house overlooking a golden field. “Just fifty cents,” I said.

“Okay if you want to burn through all your tip money.”

I shrugged.

On the way to the register, we passed the kitchen area and there was an almost brand new frying pan for three dollars. I was about to pick it up.

“Daniel!” Frankie almost shouted. “She’s got a frying pan!”

“How do you know!” I shouted back. 

“Put it back. She doesn’t need it.”

I put it back and followed Frankie to the register. We unloaded everything and the man behind the counter tallied it up.

“Call it five even, Christmas discount.”

One deal on top of the other got me going. On the way home, I convinced Frankie to stop by Sweeney’s Grocery. Some coffee would be nice to go with the coffee pot and the mugs.

“Sweeney’s won’t be close to a discount,” Frankie said.

“I don’t care,” I said.

Frankie rolled his eyes at the check out. 

~~~

It was two nights before Christmas, but I wanted to deliver the gifts to Mrs. Hadley right away.

“It’s not even Christmas Eve!” Frankie said. 

“I don’t care!”  I blurted out.

“Let’s talk to Mom and Dad.”

So we did. Dad said showing up on Mrs. Hadley’s door unannounced might not be such a good idea.

“Don’t you like surprises?” I said.

“Maybe tomorrow night,” Mom said. “Christmas Eve would be nice.”

That night I dreamed of a load of presents on Santa’s sleigh, through the snowy trees. 

The next night was clear and cold. We took the sled under the stars, pushing through a foot of snow, Frankie pulling the tree and the boxes all wrapped and decorated while I followed behind. 

Half way there, Frankie came up with a second surprise, a double whammy. What if the next morning we took the vacuum and cleaned her trailer?

“Icing on the cake,” I said, by then resigned to do everything we could for Mrs. Hadley..

~~~

When we got to Mrs. Hadley’s trailer, there was a single light over the porch and barely any other light coming from inside, which is why I started second guessing our plan. 

I’d pictured lights and music, the way it was at our house, but the trailer was almost completely dark. Mrs. Hadley was old. She was probably in bed. Maybe not asleep yet. Maybe like me when I stayed awake listening to Red Sox games on the radio before drifting off.

Frankie seemed a little nervous, too. He stopped the sled and looked at the single light.

“What do you think?” he asked. 

“Maybe we should just come back tomorrow,” I said. The wind was blowing. I could hear it whipping through the trees.

“But we’re here now,” Frankie said. “I don’t really want to come back. Let’s go.”

I followed him up to the little porch, climbing the steps, where Frankie stood on his tiptoes and looked through a small square window near the top of the door. 

“There’s a light on,” he said. “She’s in the chair, reading.” 

He knocked on the door, once, then again. He peered through the window, then he turned and whispered, “here she comes!”

The light went on. Mrs. Hadley’s face appeared in the little square window, then she opened the door.. 

“Who is it!” Her voice cackled sharply through the jarred door. She was in her old robe and didn’t have her glasses. The one eye drifted out into the cold night while the other, I’m sure, was pointed right at Frankie. I inched into the shadows behind him.

“What do you want!” she demanded.

I wanted to tell Frankie, “see?” We should have turned around and went home.  Mrs. Hadley was mad. 

Then Frankie sang out, “Merry Christmas!” 

Mrs. Hadley opened the door a crack and peered out. “Who is it?”

“Me,” Frankie answered. “Me and Daniel. We have some presents!”

That sort of froze her, like a Bill Lee eephus pitch. She disappeared for a moment, then came back wearing her glasses. 

“What on earth!” she muttered. A gust of wind almost took the door from her and she swept us inside. “Sit down,” she said, pointing toward the small kitchen table. It was cluttered with balls of yarn and knitting needles, scissors and little picture frames and a half jar of Planters roasted peanuts. She moved a few things to the far side of the table and pulled out two chairs.  

“We can’t stay very long,” Frankie said. “We just wanted to give you something. We left a tree outside by the door. We’ll stop by tomorrow morning and bring it in. We’ll bring a stand and some ornaments.” 

“I have a tree stand,” Mrs. Hadley said. “I have ornaments.”

I couldn’t tell if she was angry or just plain ornery. 

“We have another surprise,” Frankie said.

Mrs. Hadley looked at him over the top of her glasses.

“And what is that!”

“Can’t tell you,” Frankie said, grinning. “Then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

The good eye went straight at Frankie, like it wanted the truth. Frankie didn’t budge.  

“You’ll find out tomorrow,” he said, and waved and backed up toward the door.

“Don’t come before ten o’clock.” The truth eye was on me now, the other eye drifting toward the window. “Not before.” 

Frankie dragged the empty sled home, under the stars, through the cold night. 

I looked up and saw the bright shining Northern Star, but I wasn’t feeling the spirit. We’d intruded. We’d barged in with our plans and who could tell what Mrs. Hadley was thinking? 

Frankie didn’t say a word all the way home. When Dad and Mom asked us how it went, he said, “Fine. I think she liked it.”  

But it wasn’t fine. I knew that. And the double whammy surprise that Frankie wanted the next morning, I just thought it was going way overboard. 

That night I dreamed of Santa, but it wasn’t the kind of Santa dream I had before. I was on the sleigh with Santa’s reindeer going down the road on the darkest night when all of us, the sleigh, Santa, all those toys, went skidding out of control. I tried pumping the brakes, but it didn’t stop us from going over a cliff. 

The next morning, I told Frankie maybe we should just help Mrs. Hadley with the tree and forget the vacuum.

“No,” he said. “She’ll like it. She will! I’m sure!”

I was never so unsure in all my life.

~~~   

The neighbors must have wondered what we were doing, hauling a vacuum cleaner on a sled across the snow, across five streets to Mrs. Hadley’s trailer. I felt like one of those convicts in front of the cameras, covering his face with his hands

Cars whizzed by and I turned away.

I knew Mrs. Hadley wouldn’t like us barging in, cleaning her carpet. It was dirty. There were dusty gray spots everywhere. It was like the dishes, I thought, Mrs. Hadley probably didn’t care how her carpet looked either.

~~~

The snow was deeper. We shuffled up the drive and parked the sled on the side of the porch. Frankie grabbed the tree we’d leaned against the trailer and pounded on the door. 

I heard music inside. 

“She can’t hear you,” I told him. I thought we should leave. I would leave. Leave Frankie there, since it was his stupid idea. 

He pounded again, louder, five, six, seven knocks. When Mrs. Hadley finally appeared at the window, she had a bow in her hair. 

The door opened and Frankie and I went inside. I stopped in my tracks. For a moment, I almost wondered if we were at the right trailer. 

There was the smell of coffee and baked cookies as we hauled in the tree and placed it to the right of the door, then hauled in the vacuum, though there was no need for it anymore. The carpet was clean as a whistle.

We shook off the snow. Mrs. Hadley told us to take our boots off. Then she stopped and looked at the vacuum cleaner.

“What’s in God’s name are you doing with that!” she demanded.

We were speechless.

She looked at us and I felt like saying maybe we could vacuum out some cobwebs in Frankie’s head.

Then Frankie started to explain, but Mrs. Hadley cut him off. “Put that thing outside,” she said.

In the kitchen she had a plate with a pile of cookies; stars and trees and boots and Santas. The radio was tuned to the local radio station playing holiday songs. Mrs. Hadley wore a black and red buttoned up dress and black shoes. She had powdered her cheeks and started swaying when the radio played “The Holly and the Ivy.”

“Let’s take a look at that tree,” she said. She pointed toward the corner where she’d had the TV, put on some old work gloves and handed me a pair. We held the tree while Frankie got under it and cranked the screws that held it in the stand. After a minute, the tree stood solid. 

“Nothing like a real tree,” Mrs. Hadley said. “Take a whiff! Makes you feel like you’re out in the forest!”

She brought out a box with lights and tinsel and ornaments. There were shiny bulbs and some of the ornaments had little framed faces of kids. One had Mrs. Hadley and an older man. There was a little wooden Flexible Flyer sled, and I told Mrs. Hadley that I might be getting a real one for Christmas.

She directed me and Frankie to drape the lights a certain way, and the tinsel. She knew what she was doing.

“Walter and I did this for fifty-two years,” she said. 

“After Theo was in high school and even after he left. He works for the electric company, down in Boston. Still, every year we’d go out and get a tree and decorate it, up until Walter got sick.”

I thought about Mrs. Hadley and her husband. I thought about some whole other life when she was younger.   

She asked me to put up the star and Frankie brought over the chair. I stood on it and placed the star on top while she stood, hands on hips, evaluating. 

“Leaning to the left,” she said. I straightened it. “There,” she said. “Good enough.” 

We went to the kitchen and she got out a quart of Lawsons. Frankie and I ate cookies and drank milk while Mrs. Hadley had coffee from her new pot. She talked about Walter and about her family instead of the war and the government and taxes. Then she took a sip of coffee and looked at me.

“Where’d you get this?” 

“Sweeney’s,” I told her. I didn’t tell her we paid extra for the fancier stuff that was on the specialty shelf with the fancy cheeses and the Godiva and the Ghirardelli chocolates. “It’s from Ethiopia,” I said.

“Ethiopia!”  She took another sip and licked her lower lip and smiled. “It’s good stuff.” She raised the cup. It was the Montana elk cup, after Frankie had given me such a hard time.  

When we got up to leave, Mrs. Hadley told us to stop by again sometime. Then she did something that scared me a little. Scared me because it wasn’t the Mrs. Hadley I knew. Something had gotten into her. She reached out and took my hand and brought it close to her and put both her hands around it. She looked at me and then at Frankie.

“Thank you, boys,” she said. ”Thank you.”

Afterwards, we took the sled and the vacuum cleaner back through the snow. I don’t know about Frankie, but I didn’t care a lick about cars passing by, seeing us with the vacuum. 

When we got home, we told Dad and Mom about how we helped decorate Mrs. Hadley’s tree and she’d baked cookies for us.

I didn’t think I could ever explain it. There weren’t words for it, the way Mrs. Hadley took my hand, and how warm her hands were and how radiant she was, like the Northern Star, and how not once the whole time did I notice the wandering eye or the other one.

So I didn’t mention it.

Jerry Schneider is a Hardwick resident who wrote this story in 1982 while he was living in Montana. The story was based on his childhood as a paperboy in Ohio.