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Whenever Adam wasn’t around—that is, whenever she couldn’t detect that he was present, which quite often he was not—she just had to talk to Hreapha or Robert, or to herself. “I need to grow up fast,” she said one day, to any ears that cared to hear it. Her own ears did: she was painfully aware of how little and helpless and innocent she was, and she wanted to become an adult as soon as she could. But the more she thought about it, and wondered how long it would take for her to become an adult, the more she understood that actually what she really, really wanted, more than anything else in the world, was just to stay the age she was right now forevermore. Just not ever change, just always be little and fragile and simple.

She knew she spent too much time thinking. And too much thinking wasn’t good for her. She tried to avoid it by spending as much time as she could with her two precious books, the old
Cyclopædia
filled with all kinds of handy hints on how to live and manage a homestead, and the Bible filled with all kinds of interesting stories.

Much of the
Cyclopædia
was either over her head (“Farm Fences,” “Making Our Own Fertilizers,” “Caponizing,”) or useless (“The Best Known Recipe for Corning Beef,” “To Banish Crows From a Field,” “How to Judge a Horse”) but there were pages and pages of things she ought to know (“How to Keep Sweet Potatoes,” “Winter Egg Production,” “To Stop Bleeding,” “Washing Made Easy,” “Burns and Scalds”), and there were hundreds of recipes to be tried out, and she proceeded each day to try a new one: hominy fritters and potato cakes for breakfast, chicken patties and potato salad for lunch. There was something called “Sauce Robert,” easy, with onions, which she couldn’t resist making and trying out on her kitty, who liked it if it was poured over protein like chicken or ham. There were desserts galore she tried. There were sixty different recipes for pudding, but she had the ingredients for less than half of them, which was more than she could eat. Her favorite was called “Kiss Pudding,” using mostly egg yolks (which was spelled “yelks” throughout the book). There was a simple recipe “To Cook a Rabbit,” so with Hreapha’s help she went out and shot a rabbit and cooked it according to the directions and it was delicious, although not that much different from chicken. One dish that was different somewhat from chicken was the pigeon pie. She used the .22 rifle to kill a few pigeons (remembering of course Sugrue’s “Pigeon eat”). The recipe called for lining the bottom of the dish with a veal cutlet or rump steak, which she did not have, so she substituted ham, and it was just fine. She always shared her dishes with Hreapha and Robert, who greatly appreciated them.

She also took her mind off of thinking too much by playing with her paper dolls in her paper town of Stay More. The problem was that her paper dolls talked to her. Oh, of course it was probably just her own voice, but the paper dolls, those old country people of Stay More named Ingledew and Swain and Whitter and Duckworth and Coe and Dinsmore and Chism and so on, seemed to be talking to her in voices that weren’t her own, that she couldn’t even imitate, because they were country voices, like Adam’s. They told her stories that she couldn’t possibly have made up by herself, stories about floods and droughts and periods of darkness and periods of light, and an Unforgettable Picnic and the organization of a Masonic lodge—surely she couldn’t have been making all of this up in play. But she distinctly heard their voices.

“Hreapha, can’t you hear them too?” she asked, but her adorable dog just cocked her head to one side as if she were trying to listen, without acknowledging the voices.

For the longest time she had persuaded herself that the voice of the ghost Adam Madewell was just something she was imagining, although she couldn’t imagine how she would have been able to know the particular way he talked and some of the words he used. But how could she explain his finding those two books for her? Did she just have a hunch to see what was beyond that little door in the ceiling of the kitchen and go up there with her flashlight and find those two books? Well, it wasn’t impossible, but she was pretty well convinced that there really was a ghost named Adam who sometimes talked to her. And what about that business of singing the “Farther Along” hymn? She had heard Sugrue make some references to it, but he’d never sung it, so how did she learn the words and tune, unless she learned them from Adam?

She loved that song, and every day she sang it; she even sang it in bed at night when she was trying to go to sleep. She understood that “Farther Along” was a funeral hymn and ought to be reserved for funerals, but day by day the people in her paper town of Stay More began to die, of natural causes or illnesses or whatever people died of, including murder, and while she didn’t actually try to bury the paper dolls she had a little memorial service for those who died and sang “Farther Along.”

And when she got to that lovely verse which said, “When we see Jesus coming in glory, When He comes from his home in the sky; Then we will meet Him in that bright mansion, We’ll understand it all by and by,” she always began to wonder if this old house in which she lived might possibly be That Bright Mansion. She had never seen a mansion; Harrison had some fancy houses but not any mansions, which she knew were supposed to be very large and very imposing, neither of which this old house was. Still, she began to think that perhaps when Jesus came to meet her in this house, the house would be transformed into a mansion, just as pumpkins could be transformed into coaches in “Cinderella.”

Robin was ready for Jesus. She took the Bible and, avoiding all those stories about unpronounceable names like Zelophehad, Ahinoam, Zedekiah, and Athaliah, began at the beginning of the New Testament and read the four gospels. It took her a week to read each one, but by then according to the Ouija Board it was Christmas, appropriately, because she could celebrate the first Christmas in her life in which the meaning of the day had real significance as the birthday of the nice interesting kind man named Jesus, who was called the Christ.

She had got out the Ouija Board again and with Hreapha’s help determined that Christmas this year was only three days away. She took the axe and cut down a little cedar tree behind the house, and figured out a way to make it stand up in the living room, “planting” it in one of the wooden bails from the cooper’s shed. “Adam, do you mind if I borrow this?” she asked, but got no answer. She decorated her Christmas tree with stars that she cut out of toilet paper tubes (although she never used the outhouse any more, she still used toilet paper) and colored with her crayons, which were in danger of being used up. Searching through the storeroom for the possibility that Sugrue might have bought more than one big box of crayons, she came upon a paper sack she’d overlooked before. In it were a half dozen ears of dried up yellow corn, and there was a note, hand-lettered on a piece of brown paper, which said, “THESE HERE IS POPCORN, FOR YOU TO POP ON THE STOVE AND EAT OR MAYBE MAKE YOU SOME STRINGS FOR YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE. SORRY THERE’S NOT NO ORANGES TO PUT IN YOUR STOCKING BUT I GOT YOU SOME RIBBON CANDY SOMEWHERE AROUND IN HERE. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND LOVE, SUGRUE.” Before she shelled the kernels from the ears and attempted to pop them, she had to spend just a little time crying. Then when her tears were dry, she put some of the popcorn in a pot and popped it, and spent the rest of the day stringing it on coarse cotton thread (although Sugrue had never thought to have bought some scissors, he’d stocked a supply of other sewing things, like needles and thread). Thus her Christmas tree was garlanded with white fluffy strings of popcorn. It was the prettiest Christmas tree she’d ever had. She had a bit of trouble keeping Robert from climbing the tree, but she scolded him about it, and he left it alone, although when he thought she wasn’t looking he took a swat or two at one of the dangling stars.

The next day she took the shotgun and the turkey caller and went off with Hreapha (she had to shut Robert in the house to keep him from going too, commanding him to stay off the Christmas tree) to find a turkey for Christmas dinner, although she’d eaten so many leftovers from Thanksgiving that she was really tired of turkey and didn’t care whether she found one or not. The
Cyclopædia
had a great recipe for roast partridge and another recipe for a bread sauce for partridges, but she had no idea what a partridge was, apart from the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song. There was a pear tree up in the old orchard (which hadn’t borne any fruit this year), and she looked there first for the partridge. “Hreapha, do you know what a partridge looks like?” she asked. Poor Hreapha looked very sorrowful not to be able to help, but Robin assumed that one bird was the same as the next to her.

The snow in the woods was deep in places, and they couldn’t go very far. Robin didn’t even bother with the turkey caller. She decided just to serve ham for Christmas and turned around and headed back toward the house. Suddenly a large bird of some kind flew up out of the leaves and landed on the limb of an oak, and she loaded the shotgun with one shell and aimed it and fired, and the bird was hit. She didn’t know if it was a partridge or maybe a prairie chicken or grouse or quail or what.

But she plucked all the feathers off and washed it and stuffed it and prepared to cook it according to the
Cyclopædia
’s recipe for partridge. Christmas morning they woke early because of the brightness: it had snowed during the night and the sunlight was reflecting off the snow and brightening up everything (“In that bright mansion,” she sang.) Still entertaining a shred of hope that Santa might somehow have found her house, she ran to the Christmas tree, but could only stand there pretending, “Oh look! A bicycle!” She realized there really wasn’t any place she could ride a bicycle in this weedy wilderness. “Oh look! Skis!” she exclaimed and sat down to try them on. Hreapha and Robert observed her oddly. “Merry Christmas, Hreapha!” she said. “Here’s a sweater I knitted for you!” and she pretended to put the play-like sweater on Hreapha. She noticed that Hreapha’s belly was really swollen. “Merry Christmas, Robert!” she said. “Here’s a toy mouse I got for you to chase!” and she wound up the make-believe toy mouse and set it free, but Robert wouldn’t chase it. She was sorry that animals couldn’t make-believe. She had gift-wrapped just a few of the presents that Sugrue had intended to give her, which were real, not make-believe, and she slowly opened them and thanked him for each one.

She could not help wondering what she might actually have received at Christmas from her mother (and maybe even her father too). She wondered how much her mother missed her, and thought that possibly her mother had even gone ahead and wrapped gifts for her even though she wasn’t there. But she was proud of herself for putting together such a good Christmas without any help from her mother.

She’d left three of Sugrue’s long socks (which she’d laundered) tacked to the wall beside the stove, and filled them with ribbon candy and popcorn balls made with sugar syrup. Hreapha’s stocking also had in it some of the Purina dog chow (which was running low), and Robert’s stocking had a can of tuna-fish, and the animals were really able to appreciate the edible contents of their stockings, except the ribbon candy, which they wouldn’t eat.

Robin put the partridge (if that’s what it was) in the oven to bake. The sun was so bright they went out to play in the snow for a while, and Robin decided to see if they could go as far as the beaver pond, to wish a merry Christmas to their beaver friends. She had to carry Robert because the snow was too deep for him, but it wasn’t too deep for Hreapha, who managed to sort of leap in and out of it. They reached the pond to find it covered with ice, but there was an opening through the ice near the beaver’s lodge, and when Robin called “Merry Christmas!” a few times the family of beaver came up through that hole in the ice and even attempted to walk on the ice, which was too slippery for them. But Hreapha barked her “Hreapha!” and Robert mewed his “WOO! WOO!” and they were all one big happy family for a little while until Robin began to get very cold, and they just barely made it back to the house before freezing to death.

She had to warm up and dry off at the stove for a long time before she could resume preparing the Christmas dinner. When it was ready, just as she had done at Thanksgiving, she sat Hreapha and Robert at the table and tied little napkins around their necks. She said a kind of grace, “Dear Jesus, I have got to know you pretty well by reading about you, and I do believe you’re here with us on your birthday, aren’t you? Thank you for being here, Jesus, and thank you for all this food and for keeping us warm and safe. If there was anything I could ask for, it would be that you would let Adam be here too. Happy birthday, Jesus, and Merry Christmas. Amen.”

She waited just a few moments, and then called, “Adam? Adam! Don’t you want to eat Christmas dinner with us?” There was no answer. She said, “Well, I’m being silly, because ghosts don’t eat anything. Do they?”

And his voice replied!
I aint no ghost, you dizzy gal. Ghosts is dead people, I aint never been dead, though I’d felt close to it sometimes.

“Merry Christmas, Adam!” she said.

Merry Christmas to you, Miss Robin. You’ve sure been doing it up proud the way my maw would’ve done, with them popcorn balls and all.

“I’m sorry you can’t eat with us, but I’ll set a plate out for you anyhow.”

Thank ye kindly. Howsomever, that aint no partridge. It’s jist a big fat bobwhite. I’ll bet it tastes real good anyhow.

They had a nice fine dinner and everybody was happy and after dinner there was just one more thing Robin wanted to do for Christmas. She took a shovel and found the spot under the porch where Sugrue had said he’d buried the money box. She started digging it up. Hreapha stepped in and helped and was a faster digger than Robin, although her swollen belly hampered her and tired her out. They dug up the box and took it into the house, and Robin used the key which Sugrue had given her to try to bribe her into shooting him.

Just for the fun of it, and with nothing better to do for a couple of hours, she counted all the money, which was mostly in hundred dollar bills, four thousand and twenty of them. She might not ever be able to spend any of it. But it sure was nice to have that much, almost half a million.