Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [131]
In spite of Esther’s remonstrations, she had created a beautiful meal of yams, biscuits, the last slices of ham from Hilltop, her own special version of hopping John with beans and bacon, and shoofly pie for dessert. Eli bowed his head to pray.
“Don’t be giving a whole sermon, now,” Esther warned, “or this food gonna be stone cold.” Luella and Ruby snickered.
“Massa Jesus,” Eli prayed, “you been real good to us this year. We got plenty food to eat and plenty love to share round this table, and we thank you for both these things. We ask you to watch over our loved ones who’re far away, and bring them back to us just as soon as you see fit. We know you always in control, because you are God Almighty. And we know you love us more than anything in the world because you sent your Son on that first Christmas night. We love you, too, Lord. And anything you want . . . well, we’re here to do it for you. Thank you, Massa Jesus. Amen.”
“Amen,” I repeated. I started to reach for the bowl of yams, but Ruby sprang to her feet and insisted on serving me. None of the others would put a single morsel of food on their plates until I had been served and had taken my first bite.
“Mmm. This is delicious, Esther. You’ve prepared a feast,” I said.
“My whole life I never pay more than twenty cents a pound for butter,” she grumbled. “You know what they asking now, Missy Caroline? Man wanted four dollars! Four dollars for one pound of butter! Couldn’t believe my eyes. He say, ‘You gonna buy that butter or you just gonna stare at it?’ I tell him, ‘I’m gonna keep staring till I see what make this butter so special it cost four dollars.’ Butter that expensive too valuable to eat. Even butter you get in heaven don’t cost no four dollars a pound.”
Luella looked up from her dinner in surprise. “You mean we be paying for things in heaven, too? I thought everything up there gonna be free.”
“Don’t listen to her, Luella,” Eli said. “Everything free in heaven, even the butter.”
“I did buy a little bacon for the hopping John,” Esther said, “on account of it being Christmas. But I ain’t even saying what I pay for that. Before the war, I can buy twenty pounds of bacon for the price they charging me now for one measly pound. I want to know what they feeding them pigs to make their sorry little rumps cost so much.”
Eli grinned. “Maybe they feeding them some of that fourdollar butter.”
The laughter and love we shared that night in the steamy kitchen brought back happy memories of my childhood. The only sorrow came with my thoughts of Grady, taken from us nearly ten years ago.
Christmas dinner at the St. Johns’ the following day wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as my simple meal with the servants. Mr. St. John still acted coolly toward me, and Sally’s vibrancy was dimmed with worry over Jonathan. Reminders of Charles and of our engagement party two years ago magnified my loneliness. We would have been married eighteen months ago if it hadn’t been for the war, enjoying our second Christmas as husband and wife. We might even have been blessed with a child by now.
The melancholy I felt was echoed all over Richmond as people gazed at the empty chairs around their tables. For many of the women from our sewing circle, mourning dress replaced their usual Christmas finery. Mrs. Goode’s son was now crippled with an amputated leg, and only two of Mrs. Randolph’s five sons were still fighting—one had been killed, one wounded, and one taken captive. If the war didn’t end soon, I feared it was only a matter of time before something terrible happened to Charles. With all the fierce fighting he’d done, it was a miracle that he had remained uninjured for as long as he had.
Even though the St. Johns weren’t in mourning, their holiday parties lacked the extravagant luxuries they’d been famous