An Indiana Christmas Read online

  Advance Praise for An Indiana Christmas

  “An Indiana Christmas is a real treat, a guest list for the ideal Hoosier literary Yuletide dinner party … old friends sharing the table with charming new company. Any home in the state would do itself proud to have this delightful book placed above the hearth, at the ready for aloud sampling throughout the holiday season.”

  —Nathan Montoya, Proprietor, Village Lights Bookstore

  “A grand and thrilling selection of Hoosier writing presented through the fraught lens of Christmas. Both the new voices and the Pulitzer Prize winners here remind us of the dangers of nostalgia while also giving license to the deepest pleasures of memory. This is a fascinating and utterly enjoyable read, and I’m sure I’ll pick it up again over many Christmases to come.”

  —Michael Dahlie, author of A Gentleman’s Guide to Graceful Living

  “The stories, poems, and essays in An Indiana Christmas will stay with you long after reading, no matter the season. The anthology brings to life all manner of Hoosiers: bearing casseroles, pierogi, and trifles; snowblowing neighbors’ driveways just because; losing and finding religion; and posing as Santa or his grinchy counterpart. You’ll see yourself in this book made by, for, and about people searching for identity in a place as complex as any.”

  —Sarah Layden, author of Trip Through Your Wires

  “In this anthology, Furuness has successfully captured both the uniqueness and the universality of an Indiana Christmas. Some experiences—like a child’s wish for a Red Ryder BB gun—transcend time, age, and circumstance; others—like Susan Neville’s depiction of a country Christmas party—remind longtime Hoosiers of holiday gatherings as reprieves from dark, cold nights in a ‘landlocked state.’ The collection brings Indiana’s great writers—past and present—into conversation with each other, exploring the way in which this special time of year connects us with community and, ultimately, brings us home.”

  —Megan Telligman, Program Manager, Indiana Humanities

  An

  INDIANA

  Christmas

  An

  INDIANA

  Christmas

  Edited by

  BRYAN FURUNESS

  INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

  This book is a publication of

  INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

  Office of Scholarly Publishing

  Herman B Wells Library 350

  1320 East 10th Street

  Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA

  iupress.indiana.edu

  © 2020 by Indiana University Press

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Furuness, Bryan, editor.

  Title: An Indiana Christmas / Bryan Furuness.

  Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, 2020.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019050616 (print) | LCCN 2019050617 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9780253050281 (hardback) | ISBN 9780253050298 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Christmas—Literary collections.

  Classification: LCC PS509.C56 I53 2020 (print) |

  LCC PS509.C56 (ebook) | DDC 813/.01080334—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050616

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050617

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  Reprinted by Permission

  “Winter Scene, Past Midnight” by Matthew Brennan, originally published in The Cape Rock magazine in 1985. Reprinted in The Music of Exile by Matthew Brennan, published by Wyndham Hall Press. Copyright © 1994. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Fable of the Cut-Up Who Came Very Near Losing His Ticket, but Who Turned Defeat into Victory” by George Ade from The Girl Proposition, published by Harper & Brothers. Copyright © 1902. Reprinted from public domain.

  “Making Pierogi on Christmas Eve” from Beyond the Velvet Curtain by Karen Kovacik, published by Kent State University Press. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Keeping Christmas Our Way” from Laddie: A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton-Porter, published by Indiana University Press. Copyright © 1988. Reprinted from public domain.

  “Digging and Grousing” by Ernie Pyle, originally published in Scripps-Howard newspapers. Reprinted in Ernie’s War: The Best of Ernie Pyle’s World War II Dispatches, published by Random House Publishing Group, edited by David Nichols. Copyright © 1943. Used by permission of the Scripps Howard Foundation.

  “The farm wife finds grace in her empty barn” from The Farm Wife’s Almanac by Shari Wagner, published by Cascadia Publishing House LLC. Copyright © 2019. Used by permission of Cascadia Publishing House LLC.

  “The farm wife makes her Christmas list” by Shari Wagner, originally published in From the Edge of the Prairie by the Prairie Writers Guild. Reprinted in The Farm Wife’s Almanac, published by Cascadia House Publishing LLC. Copyright © 2019. Used by permission of Cascadia Publishing House LLC.

  “Indiana Winter” from Indiana Winter by Susan Neville, published by Indiana University Press. Copyright © 1994. Reprinted by permission of Indiana University Press.

  “Home for the Holidays” from Hit the Ground by Liz Whiteacre, published by Finishing Line Press. Copyright © 2013. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “A Reversible Santa Claus” from A Reversible Santa Claus by Meredith Nicholson, published by The Riverside Press. Copyright © 1917. Reprinted from public domain.

  “Definition of ‘Christmas’” from The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, published by Arthur F. Bird. Copyright © 1906. Reprinted from public domain.

  “Letter” by Ambrose Bierce from A Much Misunderstood Man: Selected Letters of Ambrose Bierce, published by Ohio State University Press, edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz. Copyright © 2003. Used by permission of Ohio State University Press.

  “Shepherds, Why This Jubilee?” by Bryan Furuness, originally published online at www.barrelhousemag.com. Copyright © 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Pictures from a Clapboard House” from The Friendly Persuasion by Jessamyn West. Copyright © 1945, renewed 1943 by Jessamyn West. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

  “Too Cold” by Jayne Marek, originally in The Bend. Copyright © 2013. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Winter Runes” from The Tree Surgeon Dreams of Bowling by Jayne Marek, published by Finishing Line Press. Copyright © 2018. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Trifles” by Lori Rader-Day, originally published as “Layers of Love” in Good Housekeeping. Copyright © 2010. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Nanny Anne and the Christmas Story” by Karen Joy Fowler, originally published online at www.subterraneanpress.com. Reprinted in Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume 2 by Michael Kelly and Kathe Koia. Copyright © 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Blessed rancor of music” by Curtis Crisler, published in Tipton Poetry Journal by Brick Street Poetry, Inc. Copyright © 2012. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Christmas Long Ago” by James Whitcomb Riley, originally published in The Interior. Copyright © 1894. Reprinted from public domain.

  “A Feel in the Christmas Air” by James Whitcomb Riley, originally published in The Journal of Education. Copyright © 1894. Reprinted from public domain.

  “A Song for Christmas” from The Old Soldier’s Story: Poems and Prose Sketches by James Whitcomb Riley, published by The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Copyright © 1913. Reprinted from public domain.

  “The Toys I Remember” by Melissa Fraterrigo, originally aired on The Art of the Matter on WFYI. Copyright © 2017. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Letters to Santa reproduced by permission from Indiana University Press, Letters to Santa Claus (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015).

  “Howard Garfield, Balladeer” by Edward Porter, originally published online in 2012 for Booth literary magazine. Reprinted in Winesburg, Indiana by Indiana University Press, edited by Bryan Furuness. Copyright © 2015. Used by permission of Indiana University Press.

  Excerpt from Mr. Bingle by George Barr McCutcheon, published by Dodd, Mead and Company. Copyright © 1915. Reprinted from public domain.

  “The Schneebrunzer” from Looking for God’s Country by Norbert Krapf. Reprinted in Bloodroot: Indiana Poems by Indiana University Press. Copyright © 2005. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Myth of the Perfect Christmas Photo Family” by Kelsey Timmerman, originally published on www.whereamiwearing.com. Copyright © 2015. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Treasure!” by Eliza Tudor, originally published in Flock. Copyright © 2019. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Excerpt from “December” in Abe Martin’s Almanack by Kin Hubbard, published by The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Copyright © 1908. Reprinted from public domain.

  Excerpt from Beasley’s Christmas Party by
Booth Tarkington, published by Harper and Brothers. Copyright © 1909. Reprinted from public domain.

  Excerpt from In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd. Copyright © 1966 by Jean Shepherd. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved.

  “While Mortals Sleep” from While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction by Kurt Vonnegut. Copyright © 2011 by The Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Trust. Used by permission of Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

  This book is dedicated to all the readers and writers in our fair state. Here’s to a new golden age of Indiana literature.

  Contents

  Preface

  Acknoweldgments

  Earthbound / Barbara Shoup

  Winter Scene, Past Midnight / Matthew Brennan

  The Fable of the Cut-up Who Came Very Near Losing His Ticket, but Who Turned Defeat into Victory / George Ade

  Making Pierogi on Christmas Eve / Karen Kovacik

  Keeping Christmas Our Way / Gene Stratton-Porter

  Digging and Grousing / Ernie Pyle

  The farm wife finds grace in her empty barn / Shari Wagner

  The farm wife makes her Christmas list / Shari Wagner

  Indiana Winter / Susan Neville

  Home for the Holidays / Liz Whiteacre

  A Reversible Santa Claus / Meredith Nicholson

  Two Pieces / Ambrose Bierce

  Shepherds, Why This Jubilee? / Bryan Furuness

  Pictures from a Clapboard House / Jessamyn West

  Too Cold / Jayne Marek

  Winter Runes / Jayne Marek

  Trifles / Lori Rader-Day

  December Barns of Darkness / George Kalamaras

  In Sunset and Moonlight, What Gathered Our Thoughts Was the Adhesive Dark / George Kalamaras

  Nanny Anne and the Christmas Story / Karen Joy Fowler

  Blessed rancor of music / Curtis L. Crisler

  Wealth / Scott Russell Sanders

  The Christmas Long Ago / James Whitcomb Riley

  A Feel in the Christmas Air / James Whitcomb Riley

  A Song for Christmas / James Whitcomb Riley

  Baby Alive / Melissa Fraterrigo

  Santa Claus, Indiana / Bryan Furuness

  Howard Garfield, Balladeer / Edward Porter

  The Five Little Sykeses, excerpt from Mr. Bingle / George Barr McCutcheon

  The Schneebrunzer / Norbert Krapf

  The Myth of the Perfect Christmas Photo Family / Kelsey Timmerman

  Treasure! / Eliza Tudor

  December, excerpt from Abe Martin’s Almanack / Frank McKinney Hubbard

  Beasley’s Christmas Party / Booth Tarkington

  Excerpt from In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash / Jean Parker Shepherd Jr.

  While Mortals Sleep / Kurt Vonnegut

  Contributors

  An

  INDIANA

  Christmas

  PREFACE

  THE OTHER DAY I WAS HAVING COFFEE with Megan from Indiana Humanities. Her organization has a lending library that sends books to reading groups all over the state at no charge. When I told her about this anthology, she said that a book club had just checked out a set of Christmas books.

  “Really,” I said.

  It was August.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have been puzzled. After all, I had passed a happy summer reading Christmas stories and poems and essays for this anthology. I may have been sitting on my deck in a tank top and sunglasses, but in my mind I was tromping through the snow on a Christmas tree farm with Kelsey Timmerman, or riding a horse-drawn sleigh to Jessamyn West’s clapboard house, or standing in a stubbly field with the December barns of a George Kalamaras poem.

  Of course, my excuse was an August deadline. Why would a book club choose to read about Christmas in the summer?

  Christmas can’t be the sole source of the appeal. If it was, you’d hear Christmas music in July—and to my knowledge, that doesn’t happen.

  The appeal must come from the intersection of Christmas and reading. When you cross those wires, you get a strange and powerful synergy.

  Picture a deep chair, a soft blanket, a crackling fire, thin branches tapping against a dark windowpane, a Manhattan on the end table, glowing in the firelight like a ruby (I didn’t even mention a book, but you imagined one in your lap, didn’t you?). Forget coziness; this scene evokes a deep contentment. A nested feeling. Hygge, as the Danes call it.

  Or picture yourself as a child, on your belly on the floor, paging through a book while music plays low on the stereo and the grown-ups murmur on the couch, someone chuckling, someone stringing popcorn. Now we’re in the territory of nostalgia—for your childhood, or maybe for the childhood you wish you’d had.

  Obvious answers, perhaps. But I wonder if the appeal of Christmas stories goes deeper than hygge and nostalgia. Further back than childhood.

  You know how sometimes, when you’re drifting off, you suddenly feel like you’re falling? Someone told me this is a vestigial remnant of our old monkey-selves, from the nights we slept in trees and the worst thing that could happen was to fall down to the forest floor where the predators prowled.

  This explanation is probably BS. Even so, it’s the kind of BS I like: wrapped in a story, harming no one. It’s like an old myth, the kind the ancients would make up to explain the world around us, to explain ourselves to ourselves. Like the kind of story you tell around a fire with the cold and the dark pressing in all around, which makes you feel like you’re in a diving bell of light and heat. Stories are best when nights are long.

  Let’s stay with that image of a fire and all the listeners gathered around. It’s not unlike the nativity scene, is it? A little group, looking inward, huddled together in a vast universe. Christmas is a story of togetherness, a story set and told on a long, dark night.

  Picture one more thing for me, and then I’ll let you go to the next fire, the next gathering in this book.

  Close your eyes. Imagine yourself falling, back into your past, or into a better dream of your past. When you land, don’t open your eyes. Not yet. Not until you feel warm hands on your cheeks, cradling your face. Not until you hear that voice, the one you thought you would never hear again, say, “Welcome home.”

  You’re right where you belong. That’s how you know it’s Christmas.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING: INDIANA UNIVERSITY Press for trusting me with this anthology and for bringing this book into the world. Butler Libraries, for their help with research and tech tools, especially Amanda Starkel, Jennifer Raye, and the dean, Julie Miller. George Hanlin of Indiana Humanities, for pointing me in the right direction on that Nicholson story and for a hundred dazzling bits of Indiana history. Kasey Kirchner, my literary assistant, for handling fun stuff like retyping ancient stories and creating citations for the frontmatter. Pip, my dachshund, for helping me stay on task by settling into my lap and groaning loudly every time I tried to get up.

  EARTHBOUND

  Barbara Shoup

  WE WERE SPINNING ON THE GREEN CHAIRS. They were ugly modern chairs my father had bought when my mother said we needed new chairs for our new house. He’d been so pleased to surprise her with them that she hadn’t had the heart to tell him to take them back and get two sensible, earthbound chairs.

  My brother and I spun to outer space on those chairs. We time-traveled to the places I read about in books. Blindfolded, we spun each other silly. We loved to time how long it took us to get our bearings and stop walking into walls. It drove our mother crazy. During the daytime, she’d yell at us and make us stop; but at night, when our father was home, she’d let us spin to our hearts’ content. Eventually he’d snap, and she’d give him her how-could-you-be-so-dumb expression. Anyone could have told you that if you buy chairs that spin, kids will spin them.

  Tonight she was letting us spin even though our father wasn’t there. It was Christmas Eve. As long as we were spinning, we weren’t asking her when he was coming home. We weren’t fussing to be allowed to open just one present early. We’d had our dinner and our baths. Our good clothes were laid out on our beds. Waiting for our father so we could go to the party at Aunt Rachel’s house, we spread-eagled ourselves on the green chairs as if held there by gravity, pretending we were on the Tilt-a-Whirl we rode each summer at the Catholic Carnival.