The New Year's Quilt (Elm Creek Quilts Novels) (9 page)

They carried the crock upstairs to the kitchen. There Grandma instructed Sylvia to put on her apron and help her peel potatoes. Grandma looked thoughtful as she took a potato from the burlap sack on the floor and inspected it for bad spots. “My mother called the celebration of the New Year ‘Hogmanay,’ ” she said, setting the sharp blade of her paring knife against the dusky potato skin.

“What does that mean?” asked Sylvia. By the sound of it, it had something to do with pork, lots of it.

Grandma shrugged. “She never said. I’m not sure she knew. She had so many funny words for ordinary things that I never questioned it.” She smiled as she sent potato peelings flying neatly into the trash bin. “I remember we had to clean the house thoroughly before we could give any thought to a celebration. Before midnight on New Year’s Eve, the fireplaces had to be swept clean and the ashes carried outside. All debts had to be paid, too. Sometimes my mother would send one of my brothers running to a neighbor’s house after supper with a coin or two to pay off a debt, even though most of our neighbors weren’t Scottish and wouldn’t mind if she waited another day. The purpose was to prepare yourselves and your home to begin the New Year with a fresh, clean slate, with all the problems, mistakes, and strife of the old year forgotten.”

“I like that idea,” said Sylvia. Her family never seemed to forget any of her mistakes. It would have been nice if a holiday obligated them to try.

“My parents followed other traditions in their homelands that they didn’t carry with them to America.” Grandma placed a potato in Sylvia’s hands. “You can peel while you listen. That’s a good girl.”

Sylvia peeled the potato slowly, wary of cutting herself. “What did they do in Scotland that they couldn’t do in Pennsylvania?”

“It’s not that they couldn’t. I suppose they could have, but some traditions are simply more enjoyable when everyone in the town joins in.” Grandma smiled, remembering. “My mother told me about a tradition called First Footing, which told that the first person who crossed the threshold after the stroke of midnight would determine the luck of the household for the coming year. The year would be especially prosperous if a tall, dark-haired, handsome man was the first to enter the house on the first day of the New Year.”

“Why did it have to be a handsome man?” asked Sylvia, placing her peeled potato in the bowl next to Grandma’s and reaching for another. “Why not a pretty lady?”

“If the lady was expecting a child, or if she was a new bride, she was also considered to bring good luck,” Grandma said. “A blond man, on the other hand, was believed to bring bad luck. My mother said that was because a dark-haired man was assumed to be a fellow Scot, but a blond could be a Viking, come to pillage and plunder. Naturally, since everyone wanted good luck and no one could stay shut up in their homes until the appropriate person came to the door, the tradition changed. Tall, dark-haired, handsome men would be enlisted to go around to the homes of their neighbors, bringing with them symbolic gifts such as coal for the fire, or salt, or a treat like fruit buns or shortbread. No one was supposed to speak to the First Footer until he entered the house, gave them the traditional gifts, and spoke a blessing: ‘A good New Year to one and all and many more may you see.’ After that you could speak to the guest and offer him a drink of whiskey before he departed for the next house.”

“My father would be a good First Footer,” said Sylvia. “He’s tall, he has dark hair like mine, and he’s very handsome. Everyone would be glad to see him on New Year’s Eve.”

Grandma laughed. “I’ve always thought he was very handsome, too, but he’s my son, so I can’t pretend to be impartial. Oh, there’s something else my mother told me about that I’ve always wished I could see. The young men of her village would build large balls about a yard wide from chicken wire, paper, tar, and other materials that would burn. They would attach a chain, light the ball on fire, and walk through the streets of the town swinging the burning fireball around and around. It must have been a dazzling sight, all the young men out in the streets lighting up the darkness with those crackling circles of fire. When the fireballs were almost burned out, or when the young men tired of the game and wanted to celebrate with more whiskey, they would parade down to the riverside and send the fireballs sailing through the air into the water below.”

Sylvia shivered with delight. It sounded terribly beautiful, and terribly dangerous. “I probably wouldn’t be allowed to try that here,” she said.

“Absolutely not,” said Grandma. “It’s a wonder those Scottish villages weren’t burned to the ground, or the young men seriously injured. As much as I’d like just once to see those fireballs swinging, I suppose it’s just as well that my mother’s family left that tradition behind when they came to America.”

“Maybe someday we can go to Scotland for the New Year and see them.”

Grandma smiled at her affectionately for a moment before taking up her paring knife again. “Perhaps you will someday, my dear. I hope you travel far and wide and see many beautiful and wondrous things in your lifetime.”

Sylvia bit back the impertinent question that immediately sprang to mind: Then why did Grandma fear the Wandering Foot quilt pattern so much? Wasn’t what Grandma wished for her exactly what the quilt was supposed to bring?

She almost, but not quite, wished that someone had given her a Wandering Foot quilt when she was a baby. Maybe Claudia’s choice wasn’t so bad after all—not that Sylvia would ever tell her sister that.

Since Claudia had taken Mama her breakfast tray, Sylvia was granted the honor of serving her the special New Year’s Eve dinner. Sylvia entertained her mother by retelling Grandma’s stories of Scottish New Year’s celebrations and imagining what would happen if she tried to make a fireball of her own. “Your father would have a fit, that’s what would happen,” her mother said, smiling. “Grandma would never tell you another story out of fear that you might decide to try it.”

“How did you celebrate New Year’s Eve when you were a little girl, Mama?”

Her mother regarded her with mild surprise, and Sylvia felt a quick flush of shame. It was true that she rarely asked her mother to share stories of her girlhood in New York. Unlike Claudia, she had little interest in descriptions of pretty dresses and fancy balls, of dance lessons and learning good manners. Her mother never spoke of mischief or play, but only of rules and restrictions. Grandfather and Grandmother Lockwood had raised her to be a proper young lady, and since this was the very sort of well-behaved child Sylvia invariably failed to emulate, her mother’s stories seemed like dull morality tales. Sylvia had decided long ago that the Bergstrom family was far more interesting than the Lockwoods. Unlike Claudia, who hung on their mother’s every word, Sylvia paid little attention when a distant look came into her mother’s eyes as she remembered events long ago and far away.

“I really want to know,” Sylvia persisted.

“We didn’t eat pork and sauerkraut,” said Mama. “My father believed hard work brought one good luck, and my mother put her faith in knowing the right people. My parents almost always went to a New Year’s Eve ball at one of their friends’ homes or somewhere else in the city. When we were older, my sister and I were allowed to go with them. The men wore elegant coats and tails, and the ladies dressed in stunning gowns and wore their finest jewelry. The orchestra played, we danced and danced, and at midnight we threw streamers and drank champagne. My sister and I were quite grown up by that time,” she hastened to add.

“That sounds like fun,” Sylvia said gamely.

Mama tried to hide a smile. “You might truly think so when you’re older. My favorite New Year’s Eve came years before I was allowed to go to fancy balls. I was ten years old in 1900, and the city was electric with anticipation for the turning of the century. My parents and sister celebrated by going to the theater and then to a party at the home of my father’s biggest business rival. The men didn’t get along, but they ran in the same social circle so they had to include each other in their gatherings or people would talk. They were both glad, too, for any opportunity to show off their wealth and success to the other. If my parents refused the Drurys’ invitation, it would be seen as admitting they could not compete or, worse yet, rudeness.”

“Your sister got to go but you didn’t?” Sylvia exclaimed. “Again?”

“I was too young, and my mother thought I would catch a terrible chill if I stayed out so late on a winter’s night.”

“That’s silly. You would have been indoors almost the whole time. You could have worn a coat.”

“That’s what I told them. My father and sister stuck up for me, but my mother wouldn’t hear of it.” Mama smiled and lifted her shoulders as if to say it had happened so long ago that it no longer mattered. “I was terribly disappointed to be left behind. After they left, I went upstairs to work on my Crazy Quilt. It was nearly finished, and stitching upon it usually lifted my spirits, but not that night. A new century was about to begin, and I would have to watch its arrival through a nursery window.”

Sylvia stung from the unfairness of it all. “I would have snuck out of the house and followed them.”

“The last time I had tried anything like that, I got my nanny fired,” said her mother. “I loved her dearly, too, so it was a great loss to me. But after they sent her away, there was no worse punishment they could deliver, or so I thought at the time. I waited for my mother’s maid to fall asleep, then I dressed in my warmest clothes and left the house.”

Sylvia stared, disbelieving. “Where did you go? What did you do?”

“I walked through the city, enjoying the lights and the celebration. I had a little pocket money, so I bought myself a cup of hot chocolate and a cinnamon doughnut at a small café that my mother would never have considered worthy of her patronage. I walked a long, long time until I came to City Hall Park in lower Manhattan. I had overheard other passersby say that there would be fireworks at midnight, and I thought there could be no better way to welcome the New Year than with fireworks.

“I had never seen such a crowd, and I was thrilled to be a part of it. Everywhere, people were laughing and singing, too distracted with their own fun to notice one little girl all alone. Finally, at the stroke of midnight, City Hall went dark for just a moment, and then suddenly all the lights came on and fireworks lit up the sky. All around me people were cheering and kissing, and sometimes, above the din, I heard the bells of Trinity Church ringing in the New Year several blocks away.

“Then, suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. ‘Miss Lockwood?’ I heard a man ask. He spun me around and I found myself looking up into an unfamiliar face, rough and incredulous.

“I gulped and spoke not a word. ‘You’re the younger Miss Lockwood, aren’t you?’ the man asked. I didn’t see any point in denying it, so I nodded. He glanced around for my parents, but of course, they were nowhere to be found. ‘What are you doing out here all alone?’ he asked. ‘This is no place for a girl like you.’

“When I offered no explanation, he shook his head and said that I must return home at once. He told me he worked on the loading docks at my father’s store, and he had seen me come in just days before to pick out my Christmas present, as my sister and I were allowed to do every year. He took me firmly by the shoulder and steered me out of the crowd. Somehow he managed to hail a cab, and he gave the driver strict instructions to take me home and not to leave until he saw me safely inside. I was mortified when the man dug into his pockets and counted out change to pay my fare. I knew he couldn’t possibly earn very much; the low wages of my father’s store employees had been a constant source of disagreement between him and my nanny, who supported workers’ rights to form unions. I wanted to apologize, but I was speechless from embarrassment. I could only nod as he warned me never to do such a dangerous thing again, shut the cab door, and waved the driver on.”

“You were so naughty,” breathed Sylvia.

“Oh, don’t I know it, but I was lucky, too. I crept off to bed and was sound asleep long before my parents and sister returned home.”

“Did they ever find out?”

“At first, I wasn’t sure.” Mama finished her supper, wiped her lips, and set the tray on the nightstand. “My father stayed home from work on New Year’s Day, but he kept to himself in his study and I only saw him at mealtimes. I watched my mother carefully to see if she suspected anything, but she was too busy going over every detail of the previous night’s party with her maid, Harriet. My sister assured me that the play had been dull and the party afterward even worse, but I knew she was only saying so to make me think I had not missed out on anything. I didn’t breathe a word of my New Year’s Eve adventure even to her, and I was relieved that I had apparently gotten away with it.

“The next day my father returned to work and, as usual, did not come home until supper late that evening. My mother, sister, and I were already seated when he strode in and took his place at the head of the table. ‘Did you hear about the panic at City Hall Park two nights ago?’ he asked us.

“ ‘Of course, my dear,’ my mother told him. ‘I do read the papers, you know. It was all over the
Times
. Some of the worst of it happened right in front of its building.’

“I kept silent while my sister begged our father to explain. I then learned that I had unwittingly been part of a historically momentous gathering. Remember that I told you I heard the bells of Trinity Church from where I stood at City Hall Park, several blocks away? An enormous crowd had massed in the narrow strip around the church, as well, and as the night went on, both gatherings swelled to such numbers that the two crowds, thousands strong, merged on Broadway. The revelers made merry until shortly after midnight, but then chaos erupted as people set off at cross-purposes, some trying to make it to the Brooklyn Bridge, others fighting their way up-town. Families were separated, and a child was trampled underfoot as the revelers pushed against one another. It was a terrifying scene, and the police could do little to manage it.