~Chapter 14~
Christmas Eve
This winter season in Centerville had been a mild one so far and only a few gentle snowfalls had drifted down from the great northwest, to remind the town's residents that the month of December and wintertime were upon them. The delicate snowfalls and gentle northern winds that swept over the Centerville valley left only a sprinkling of white as they passed by.
Inside every home, the fireplaces were all aglow, throughout the land warming tiny hands and hearts. Families huddled together at night by the glow of the incandescent and candlelight to read fables and poems to their children and play music that was passed on from generation-to-generation and to sing the songs of Christmas past and present.
Winter was anticipated to mild and peaceable. All the planning throughout the year would surely make the upcoming holiday season: joyous and bright.
Everyone in town had finally settled back into their normal routines after so much excitement from a few weeks back. Louis was out of school on vacation for the entire month of December for Christmas vacation. Louis, Chug, and all the rest of their friends were now busy with their reading assignments for winter break given to them by Mrs. Trumble the Schoolmaster.
She was an older, frail Lady who had very white thinning hair and wore very large, thick black eyeglasses that were always found perched upon the tip of her long nose. Mrs. Trumble had a very vivid imagination much like that of Mr. Beamer and Louis.
She would assign books for the children to read like the ones Mr. Beamer would read to the children from his backyard porch during the summertime. Books of history, travels to far-away lands, and books about great men and great deeds.
Louis especially like the books about travel and far-away lands, for this only enlivened his daydreaming that much more. He hoped someday that he too could go on a great journey to the North Pole like Mr. Beamer had to see great snow panthers in the wild, caribou, arctic polar bears, arctic wolves, proud snow fox, and other wild animals.
The Centerville school was a large A-framed building fashioned out of red brick and the roof was thatched and covered with layers and layers of dried hay. The school was located a few miles from Louis's farm and found on a nearby hilltop, with a lovely view of Centerville down below in the valley. Most of the kids arrived to school every morning on horseback or by horse-cart. All the children in town gathered in this one room for their lessons from third grade all the way to twelfth grade.
The town did not have enough money for more schools or more schoolrooms for that matter.
Louis with his daydreaming and visions only got worse, during the wintertime because, he had more time on his with school being out, and less chores to do outside.
When he would read his books in his bedroom nightly, he would occasionally find himself closing his eyes and daydreaming. That he was on a lion safari in Africa with a wide-brimmed, white hunter's hat on chasing big game across the African plains, or at other times, he would imagine that he was in the wild Adirondacks Mountains in Alaska, searching for his fill of gold nuggets with fifty mules to drive to the gold fields. Sometimes Louis's daydreaming would take him across five thousand miles of lands, from northern most tip of India to the wide-open expanse of the Himalayan Mountains while riding in a camel train. Alternatively, travels to the Ganges River in China, floating slowly along on a lazy ancient river in a long shallow hollowed out canoe.
Books and daydreams allowed Louis to enjoy all these things even though he never would leave the warmth and safety of his bedroom. How wonderful it was to be a child and explore your inner mind by using your imagination to explore the real world in such a way.
The early century in Centerville was mostly peaceful and prosperous now. The war that Louis's father had gone off to so many years ago was now ending. The war was forgotten by some and certainly not forgotten by most. Louis still thought about his father "daily" and loved to hear the stories from Mr. Beamer, about the war and all the great deeds that happened during that time.
The stories filled his imagination with outsized ships crisscrossing the high seas, long arduous treks over dangerous and very deep valleys and over long high plateaus. Seeing out of the ordinary and very strange animals in the wilds was another one of Louis's constant daydreams and visions. Enormous bull elephants, wild rhinoceros's, stately elk or even a reindeer or two all filled Louis's broad imagination.
Nevertheless, for Charlie the wintertime was the hardest time of all.
His job delivering the ice in his ice-wagon to all the children and townsfolk would come to a quick ending for almost four long agonizing months. This left, Charlie with nothing to do but to stay in the barn all day and try to keep warm. He would always get the Christmas blues no matter what amount of soothing from Louis and the other barnyard animals gave him. It would never cheer him up. Charlie felt older-as each year passed-more obsolete and unwanted, as each new invention by man caused his services and chores more and useless.
The new steam cars and trucks Charlie had been seeing rumbling down the town's brick roads the last year or so, with their loud clunky engines, strange sounds and plumes of steam raising up in the air had Charlie considerably more worried. He thought someday he would not be needed at all to help plow the cornfields or haul supplies into town.
They already had one of those new horseless carriages that were used to deliver the milk now. Baron Von Beck was a horse who was a good friend of Charlie's in town and he had lost his job delivering the milk for Mr. Wellmont a few months back when he, bought one of those strange things for his farm. The Baron now had nothing to do all day and he was never found to be the same horse again. He just stayed in the barn all day long from that day on.
What a horrible fate thought Charlie.
Charlie had seen those big steam driven trains rolling into town as well the last few years and surely horses pulling ice-wagons was sure to come to a untimely, and quick ending next. However, Charlie sure didn't want to burden anyone with his troubles so he always tried-the best he could-to stay cheerful and happy.
"Good morning Charlie" said Louis as he opened up the double-Dutch doors on the side of the barn.
"Good morning Louis. Did you sleep well last night and more importantly did you get all your household chores and your reading for school done yesterday?" inquired Charlie back in a playful tone.
"Not only did I get all my chores done but I also finished my homework that Mrs. Trumble gave me and I finished reading that book Mr. Beamer gave about going on lion safaris and about some of the wild animals that live in Asia and Australia. Did you know there are great snow panthers in China and the most famous of all of them was a great leader named Panthera? Did you know that he was the bravest of all the snow panthers...to ever live?"
"No I didn't know that but I sure have heard the name before."
"I read all those books?till almost three in the morning last night. You know Charlie I bet you could scare off a wild tiger, a fierce snow panther, or terrible lion with your mighty whinny you know the same way you scared off those three "Missouri Rats". And what's the difference if it's a tiger, lion or bank robbers?" asked Louis as he sat down on a large bale of hay.
"Well, there's a big difference from bank robbers and wild, ferocious animals", said Charlie as he raised his hooves up, to make the image of a tiger pawing in the air.
Charlie continued.
"And, let's sure hope we don't ever have to try and scare off any tigers or lions. I am sure they would scare us a lot more than we would scare them."
"Yeah, I guess your right Charlie. Now Charlie?I've got a few other questions?for you."
"OK Louis?what's on your mind?"
"Now tell me about yourself again and what you were like when you were young?you know what I mean. Now you told me that crazy, outrageous story about you being an "Arion" horse and something about being older than you really are and about you coming from some
far-away land but Charlie, you can't have been serious. Do you remember that conversation we had a few months back? No really Charlie tell, me more about your "real self"."
"Well you are going to make me sad if we bring this up again?but if you insist. Ok?Louis?yes Louis I am an "Arion" horse as I said before. Could you not find anything about my race of horses in any of those books that Mr. Beamer or Miss Trumble gave you?"
"No Charlie. I looked but could not find anything about you or your family."
"Well there are great books written about my family. I know I will someday find one of those books myself, and give it to you to read then, you will believe me.
"That would be great Charlie. I would really love to read them."
"As I once said Louis all of my relatives that Mr. Beamer told you about have all passed away because there were no more great feats for them to do in the world. Therefore, you see "I am the last of my kind on earth". I now know that I will never marry or have a family to call my own. That is the saddest thing of all Louis," said Charlie as tears started to well up in his eyes.
"Well don't cry Charlie. You don't know that, you might still get married one day and even have a little Charlie?to call your own. His name could be "Junior"."
"Wouldn't that be something, me a real father?"
"Maybe next year Charlie?you know I had a vision about it a few weeks back. I dreamed that you were up in the North Pole running things, that you were married and just as happy as can be."
"Aw, Louis you're just trying to make me feel better."
"Someday Charlie, it might just come true."
"OK Louis enough about me for now and as for me being an "Arion" horse?I know you don't believe me but someday I might just be called on again to do one last great deed. You just wait and see. Someday Louis" said Charlie as he nodded his head up and down as if to tell Louis?one more time, "you just wait and see."
Charlie just stood there: deep in thought with a look on his face of despair and sadness over the fact that his best friend did not believe in him, questioned his truthfulness and didn't appreciate the "special secret" that he had given to Louis.
"OK Charlie sooner or later I might believe you and your great stories but as for now I want to change the conversation a bit. You know I saw a cranky, steam truck the other day pulling a bunch of supplies into town. It was heading over to Mr. Wellmont's house. I don't know if you saw that darn thing. Nevertheless, did you know that Baron Von Beck has not been seen for months. I heard he just stays in his barn all day and does nothing. I'm going to have to go over there and have a talk with him. Maybe I can go tomorrow. Charlie I hate to tell you that but what if they soon start pulling ice-wagons with those new steam-belching contraptions?
"I've been thinking about that myself lately Louis."
"What would you for work, Charlie?"
"Well, to tell you the truth Louis, I'm scared that my days of pulling the supply-wagon and the ice-wagon are going to be over with pretty soon. They're not going to need me anymore Louis. I can just see it that coming."
"I'm afraid you're right Charlie. How sad is that going to be?"
Louis's eyes all of a sudden lit up with a look of pure delight in them. A great idea had quickly popped into his head.
"Well?one thing they can't have with those junky, steam-belching monsters is a real honest-to-goodness?sleigh ride!"
Louis smiled broadly at the idea of it all.
"We'll have one on Christmas Eve Charlie! We haven't had a sleigh ride for a few years. How about it? We can decorate that old one-horse open-sleigh that's out back and dress you up in the finest Christmas outfit anyone has ever seen. We can find those old sleigh-bells and grand old red ribbons Hattie May has stored in the attic. We can make some pine-wreaths and everyone can bring pies and cookies to eat and hot apple cider to drink for the ride. Do you remember that one sleigh ride we had a few years ago? Remember how fun that one was?"
Charlie barely heard what Louis just said. He could not stop thinking now about being out of work again and not being able to deliver the ice anymore. He slowly walked over to his hay bed at the back of the barn to lie down and rest his tired old bones for a while.
"Don't think about those old steam cars anymore Charlie and about you being out of work. Let's have some fun first and think about that other stuff later. Plus... you don't want to let the other kids in town down do you? They always look forward to Christmas sleigh rides," said Louis as he playfully jumped on top of Charlie lying on his hay bed.
Charlie looked up at the delight found in Louis's eyes. He knew he could not let him down.
"All right Louis..."
"Great Charlie, I'm glad you're starting to come back around to the Ole' Charlie, I love so much."
"All right, you set up the sleigh ride and get the sleigh ready?and I'll go. You know me. I don't want to let the kids down ever. Not a single one...not even one. I can't always be thinking about myself first...that will only make things worse."
"Great, let's do it in two weeks. I must go now and get a few more chores done so Hattie May and Mrs. Beamer won't yell at me again. See ya, Charlie" said Louis as he got up off Charlie's hay bed and headed towards the open doors of the barn.
"You're right Louis, this will be fun. After all it'll be Christmas before we know it."
"Don't forget, we'll do it on Christmas Eve. It will be the best sleigh ride ever. Bye now" said Louis as the side barn doors now swung closed behind him and he passed out of sight. Christmas was only two weeks away and a sleigh ride is exactly what Charlie needed?to cheer him up thought Louis.