A Gift for Mary Lou
It was the depths of the depression
and he was glad to have a job of any kind.
$30.00 dollars a month, bunk house and grub
was not big money but it was the best he could find.
Ranches were having a rough time of it
and a lot of ranchers had folded in and quit
but Old Hiram Jones, who owned the 2 Bar M
back in a canyon off of Sedona Creek,
had hired him on and he was riding out seven days a week.
Each month he sent home $28.00 to Mary Lou
to keep the kids fed and to see them through.
It was Christmas and he was riding down Prescott way.
Mr. Jones was a good man and he’d said
“Go see your wife, son, but be back New Year’s Day.”
Hank had only had money to buy Millie a little doll
and Jessie just one little tiny soldier made of tin.
No Christmas present for Mary Lou, once again.
She’d understand and, sure enough,
there’d be a scarf or a sweater for him she’d knit
but no present for her hung heavy and he worried about it.
“Dear Lord, I just wish I had something nice for her.”
Ah, well! Not this Christmas but next one, for sure!
The ride over the mountain had been right tough
and bitter cold as his old leather coat wasn’t warm enough.
He was glad to ride down into the lower valley at last,
particularly knowing the hour to his spread would go fast.
He passed through the village and by the general store
and he wrestled once again, once more,
with the want and the need to get something for Mary Lou
but he had only 4 cents in his old jeans. What would that do?
As he rode out of the village, he was deep in thought on
what he would say to her
and his thoughts and eyes both seem to blur.
Suddenly his mind startled as from behind he heard
A merry shout and a kindly spoken word:
“Good morning, young cowhand!
Merry Christmas to you and to yours!”
Riding up next to him was an antique of an old man
showing the wear of many years from the battered hat
down to his old Spanish spurs.
“Good morning back to you, Sir! I trust you are well!”
Yep! Thank you, young feller. With your kind permission
I’ll ride with you for a spell
On out to just past the old Spanish Mission."
The old man’s Sorrell settled in at an easy pace
and a smile lit up the deeply tanned weathered face.
“You look a tad worn for a fellow’s got the world by the tail
Hank laughed about that as they rode along the trail.
“I’m going home to see my wife, daughter, and my little boy.”
Then, for some reason, he told about the doll and little tin toy.
“What’d you get for your wife,” asked the old man.
“That’s all I could do as it was all the money I had to hand.”
“Too bad, young feller. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
With that he reached down on the off side of his mare
and hauled up a tie of flowers so grand they’d make you stare.
Where had the old man got such flowers at that time of year?
In the high mountain desert the ground was frozen solid
up to a hundred miles from there.
“They’re silk,” said the old man. I ordered ‘em from back New York way.
She loves flowers. Yes Sir! She loves flowers, my Anna Mae.”
“They’re right nice, sir!” Hank said with a wistful glance.
They rode in silence to the trail leading off to Hank’s ranch.
“Well, sir. I turn off here, so I wish a fine Christmas to you and your Anna Mae.”
“Thank you, lad! I’m just going a little further up this way.”
Then the old man held out the flowers, saying “Take these for your Mary Lou.”
“I couldn’t do that, sir. I’m grateful and it’s real fine of you.”
“Don’t you argue with your elders. Take them, young man!”
“I can tell you for sure that my Anna Mae will understand!”
“She’s had flowers going on thirty Christmases, pretty near
And that wife of your’s deserves something special this year.”
Haltingly and with tears in his eye, Hank took the bouquet,
said his goodbye and rode up the trail on his homeward way.
The old man smiled and urged his horse on down the trail.
Hank topped the ridge, looking back as the light started to fail
and by straining his eyes and focussing real hard
he could see the old man ride into the untended grave yard
at the abandoned old Spanish church ground.
He dismounted beside a weathered cross on a grave mound
and kneeling, holding his hat in his hand,
he explained to Anna Mae, and he was right, she did understand.
Thirty Christmases later,
Mary Lou told her grandchildren the best
Christmas she ever had after marrying Hank
and moving out West
was the one when she got the silk flower bouquet
and how happy it had made her that Christmas day.
Hank never told her that he’d stopped at the general store
and inquired after the old wrangler
whose flowers for Anna Mae had warmed Mary Lou
down to the core.
Anna Mae had died nine years before, taken by the flu,
and her husband, Luther, had died the next year, in 1922,
when he and his big Sorrell horse had been swept away
in a coulee flooded by a cloud burst on Christmas Day.
© 12/2000 ”Doc” Dale Hayes, All rights Reserved
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