A Farmhouse Christmas Tale
By
Russ Mclean
Cup Towel, Dish Cloth and Sink Rag lived together in a farmhouse kitchen many years ago. When they were not at work, they hung beside the white enameled sink. Each had its own special hook on the wainscoted wall. They worked with their friend Scald, the kettle, to wash and dry the dishes. After each meal Scald filled the wash basin, Dish Cloth scrubbed the dishes in the hot soapy water, and they were then placed in a rack on the counter. Scald came back with boiling water for a final rinse and then Cup Towel wiped the dishes dry so they could be put in the cupboard. Sink Rag was held in high esteem by the others because she was the eldest in the Cloth family and she had done all the other jobs in her time. She had begun life as a bright and colorful cup towel sprinkled with red roses but when she wore thin and her color faded, she had been cut in half and hemmed along the cut to make two dish cloths. Scrubbing dishes was a tough job and so all dish cloths eventually frayed and tattered. They then, each in turn, became a sink rag and took their place on the third hook.
The girls living in the farmhouse washed the family dishes after each meal. They would take turns washing or drying the dishes while their mother had a cup of tea and tended the wood stove to keep Scald on the boil. The farm boys did not do the dishes. They worked in the farm fields with their father or helped him in the barn to feed the animals and to milk the cows. One day the youngest boy learned the difference between a cup towel and a sink rag. He had come into the kitchen with an armload of firewood to fill the wood box, one of his daily chores. He did not notice that he was followed by a little puppy. It scampered around sniffing the linoleum floor until it stopped and had a pee.
“Boy! Look what your pup has done!”, scolded mother. “We agreed you could have a pup if it stayed in the woodshed until it was trained. Look at that mess on my floor! It was scrubbed just this morning. You clean up that mess right now!”
The boy grabbed the first cloth he saw and moved toward the puddle.
“No! Wait!”, shouted his mother. “For heaven’s sake child, that’s a cup towel. Use the sink rag. Here! This is what you use to clean messes. Cup towels dry our dishes. You don’t want dirt off the floor in your food, do you?”
“It’s not such a big deal Mom. When the crew ate lunch while the firewood was being cut, one of them said that our house was so clean you could eat off the floor.”
“Well, that’s just the silly sort of thing men say when they want to butter you up. He probably wanted another slice of pie. No one eats off floors. Now take that rag and rinse it under the tap and wring it out. Keep wringing until it doesn’t drip and then put it in the trash. I’ll put out another.”
Grandma also lived in the farmhouse. She had her own rocker in the living room, but often she went upstairs to her room away from all the noise. The boy could visit her so long as he knocked first. Christmas was coming, and so if he knocked, he heard her moving things before she said, “come in”. He knew she was knitting Christmas gifts that she had just then tucked under her bedding.
But on this evening, he did not go to Grandma’s room. He heard her come down the stairs and go to the kitchen. He peeped in quietly as she went to the trash bin, dug out the sink rag he had thrown away, and took it to the sink and washed it in soapy water. She washed and wrung it dry several times, folded it over her wrist and went back upstairs.
The next day the boy told his mother about the strange thing he had seen Grandma do.
“Your Grandma doesn’t like to throw things out”, his mother said. “When people get older, they get set in their ways. They do things the way they were always done, and they don’t like to change. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
“But if we want a dish cloth”, said the boy, “we could get one at the store. It makes no sense.”
“Well, when Grandma was young times were hard and they never wasted anything, especially cloth. You have heard her say ‘waste not, want not’. Your Grandma sewed dresses from flour sacks, and she made rugs and quilts from cloth rags. That was what people had to do in those days.”
The boy thought about this and then his mother went on. “It’s best not to mention this to her. It would only upset her. Best just to forget about it.”
“She got upset the other day.”
“Oh? How was that?”
“She was going around looking for her glasses. I told her they were on top of her head and the girls laughed.”
“I will speak to your sisters. They are old enough to know better. They shouldn’t laugh at Grandma. Old folks get a bit forgetful.”
“But sometimes it is funny.”
“Well then you just smile to yourself. You don’t laugh out loud. Now, you go on out and play with Rex and then bring in some more firewood. I’m baking all day today.”
And so, he never mentioned what he had seen Grandma do, not even to his sisters. and it was forgotten in the excitement of the season. Christmas morning finally came, and they had gathered round the tree to open their presents. He was admiring his skates when his oldest sister said, “Where did that new decoration come from? I don’t remember hanging that one.” She pointed midway up the tree to where a tinselled ornament glittered. It was a star framed with pieces of garden cane tightly bound at its tips with yarn. Each edge of the star had been carefully wound with tinsel and a piece of cloth stretched from tip to tips like a spider’s web.
“Grandma! You made this star didn’t you!” she said, “It’s so beautiful!”
The boy stood up to look more closely and saw that in the center of the star there was a small, faded rose that had been outlined by a tiny golden thread. “Grandma! “, he shouted. That’s that old sink rag! You made it into a star!”.
“You probably thought I was a bit daft the night you watched me take it out of the bin”, said Grandma. “Oh yes, I saw you, but I never let on because I wanted it to be a Christmas surprise.”
“Grandma”, said the boy, “you rescued the sink rag.”
“It’s not a sink rag anymore”, said grandma. “It’s just the memory of a sink rag. A memory of a something that is gone, a day that is past.”
“I’m sad that it’s gone,” said the boy.
” But memories do not have to be sad “, Grandma replied. “Think about your pup, Rex. He will grow up with you, but dogs don’t live as long as we do. So someday he will be gone, and you will miss him and feel sad. But at Christmas time, when you put a star on the tree, you will remember Rex and the day you tried to clean up his mess with a cup towel. That will make you smile.”
When it came time for Christmas hugs all ‘round, he did not hug Grandma with a quick loose hug like children give to be polite. He hugged her very tightly.