The sound of sleigh bells drew her quick attention. “They’re here!” she whispered, yanking her apron off.
With a pounding heart she gazed around her again. Her gaze stopped at the wrapped packages beneath the tree. She had had such fun choosing the gifts from the trading post for everyone.
“And Strong Wolf is learning how we white people celebrate Christmas,” she whispered, smiling as she recalled how he questioned her about everything that she did in preparations for this special day: The tree, the ornaments, the holly and sprigs of evergreens, her insistence of baking everything that she could think of these past several days on the new woodburning stove that Strong Wolf had surprised her with one day.
It even had a portable oven, that which made baking cookies and plum pudding great fun. There was also a sheet-iron heat stove in the corner of the room, glowing cherry red from the flaming fire inside.
“Hannah?”
Hannah’s face flushed a soft pink with anxiousness when she heard the soft voice of her mother outside the door. She grabbed a shawl from a peg on the wall.
She then flew to the door and opened it widely, not even noticing the rush of cold air on her cheeks as she ran on outside and flung herself into her mother’s outstretched arms.
“Mother, it’s been so long,” Hannah murmured, relishing the feel of her mother in her arms. She inhaled the expensive French perfume on her mother’s black velveteen cape. “I wish I could have come to Saint Louis before now, but Strong Wolf doesn’t allow me to travel very far now. I’ve only been as far as the trading post and Fort Leavenworth.”
Over her shoulder Hannah saw her father walking toward Strong Wolf who was coming back from the river with his mother. It made her heart sing and swell with joy when the two men embraced.
She then watched Strong Wolf introduce Swallow Song to her father, and smiled to herself when she saw the look of appreciation in her father’s eyes as he gazed upon Swallow Song’s earthy loveliness.
“Where on earth is your father?” Grace said, stepping away from Hannah. She turned and gazed around her, then smiled when she caught sight of Howard now walking with Strong Wolf and Swallow Song toward the house.
Grace turned toward Hannah. “And is that Swallow Song?” she asked, brushing flakes of snow from Hannah’s hair as it began snowing again.
“Yes, that’s Strong Wolf’s mother,” Hannah said, hugging herself with her arms.
“Why, she doesn’t look a day older than thirty,” Grace said, gazing at Swallow Song again.
Then she turned to Hannah, frowning. “We must get you back inside the house before you take a death of cold.”
Hannah hurried back inside. “Yes, Strong Wolf’s mother is quite beautiful, and she has aged gracefully,” she said, slipping the shawl from around her shoulders.
She hung it on the peg again, then helped her mother with her cape. She swung it around a chair so that it could dry.
“How lovely!” Grace said, lifting the hem of her silk dress into her arms as she stepped farther into the room. “Oh, Hannah, it reminds me so much of the earlier homes that your father and I lived in, and the way I decorated them for Christmas.”
She stopped and fingered the decorations on the tree, then turned and took a slow look around her. When she spied the stove in the kitchen, her eyes widened. “And you have two new stoves? One for cooking? One for the living room?” she marveled. She inhaled the aroma of the baked goods. “Do I even smell plum pudding?”
“Yes, plum pudding, apple pie, and sorghum cookies,” Hannah said, hurrying into her kitchen. “Come, Mother. See how your daughter has changed from a tomboy into a cook. I am so proud of all that I prepared for today’s celebration.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Hannah, Chuck will be along shortly,” Grace said. “He is coming by way of Clara and White Beaver’s house. He will bring them in his sleigh.”
“Isn’t it grand, Mother, that Clara found herself such a wonderful man such as I?” Hannah said, setting a teakettle of water on the stove, for tea.
“It’s not something I would have expected from Clara,” Grace said, laughing softly. “She always had her nose pressed in books, men seemingly the last thing on her mind.”
“And now she is not only married, but with child,” Hannah said, beaming with the news that had only been brought to her yesterday.
“With . . . child . . . ?” Grace said, her jaw going slack with surprise.
“I shouldn’t have said anything, Mother,” Hannah said, reaching up inside her cupboard to take a stack of coffee cups from the shelf. “I should’ve waited and let Clara tell you the news.” She placed the cups on the table, and then reached for the saucers and placed them on the table beside the cups.
She went to her mother and took her hands. “But, Mother, I am so excited about Clara’s news, I can hardly contain myself,” she said. “I will be an aunt.” She laughed softly. “Aunt Hannah. How do you like the sound of that, Mother?”
“I shall be a grandmother twice in so short a time,” Grace said, sighing. “I wonder if it will make me feel so much older? Always in my mind’s eye, when I hear a reference to a grandmother, I see someone much older.”
Hannah stepped back from her mother and looked her slowly up and down. Her pale blue silk dress, with its embroidered decorations of iris on the skirt, nipped in delicately at her tiny waist, and her face had only a trace of wrinkles. “Mother, you do not look your age at all,” she said. “Why, you look hardly older than twenty.”
Grace laughed softly. “Now, that is stretching it just a mite, wouldn’t you say, Hannah?” she said, then turned as everyone started coming into the cabin.