Christmas Visitor by Linda Byler

rain that hadn’t started to fall. Elmer said later that was why he didn’t see the oncoming truck — it was gray, too.
    Ruth saw the whole thing from the kitchen window and clutched Benjamin with one hand as she clapped the other across her mouth to stifle a scream. She was completely helpless as she watched Elmer pull out directly in front of a pickup truck. She saw him come down hard with the leather reins on the pony’s haunches, scaring poor Oatmeal out of her wits. The driver also hit the brakes, and Oatmeal lunged forward, spilling both boys out onto the road.
    Roy came screaming and crying, completely beside himself with pain and fear and holding his left wrist with his right hand. Ruth laid crying Benjy into his playpen and asked Esther to watch him, please. She’d be back.
    The driver of the truck was middle aged, lean, and sensible but most definitely shaken up and unhappy with his circumstances at that moment. Elmer was running down the road after his surprised pony, Roy was yelling senselessly, and some very black tire marks stretched along Hoosier Road. But thank God, no one was seriously injured.
    The driver’s name was Dan Rogers, and he offered to call the police, although his truck wasn’t damaged. Ruth grasped her sweater at the waistline and shivered as her teeth chattered. She told him it was fine, she’d have the wrist checked by their family doctor.
    Dan stayed long enough to watch Roy spread his fingers, lift and lower his hand, and rotate his wrist. Then he waited until Elmer returned with Oatmeal and the cart, apparently unharmed, although Elmer had telltale streaks of gray where he’d wiped fiercely at his little boy tears.
    Ruth hugged both boys together, gathering them close in a thankful embrace. That night she spent a very restless night as Roy woke up continually, calling for his mother because of the pain.
    In the morning, resignedly, she took Roy to Intercourse to Doctor Pfieffer, who did a quick diagnosis and said it was only a bad sprain as the x-ray showed no fracture. He put a splint on the wrist and wrapped it over and over.
    Ruth wrote out a check for two hundred and fifteen dollars, signed her name, and took Roy home again. She settled him on the couch with a few books and then took Benjamin and walked down the road to Mamie’s house. Ruth knocked on the front door and was greeted by the usual insane yipping of Mamie’s brown Pomeranian.
    Mamie opened the door, a men’s handkerchief of a questionable cleanliness tied around her head, a torn bib apron sliding off one shoulder, and Waynie, as usual, stuck on one hip like a permanent fixture.
    â€œI don’t know why you think you always have to knock,” she said as her way of greeting Ruth.
    â€œIt’s polite, Mamie.”
    â€œWho’s polite? What is that? Here, give me your precious bundle. Waynie, go play now. Trixie, shoo. Gay! (Go!) Waynie, Trixie!”
    Waynie sat down and howled. Trixie continued yipping, and Benjamin’s eyes grew very wide and uncertain.
    â€œAch my! My house is a total circus. Johnny, come get Trixie. Put her in the kesslehaus. Fannie, come get Waynie. Susan, where’s Fannie? Well, here, Susan, give him a graham cracker in his high chair. Trixie! Johnny! Come get this dog!”
    Ruth couldn’t stop smiling, the warmth spreading through her like bright, summer sunshine. She loved Mamie so much she wanted to send her a card with a funny saying about friends or a bouquet of flowers, but as it was, she knew she could afford neither, so she unwrapped Benjamin and handed him to an eager Fannie. She was Mamie’s oldest daughter, tall and slim, with a splattering of freckles and brown eyes. She had magically appeared after Susan, her younger blonde-haired sister, had taken away the wailing Waynie.
    â€œHe’s teething,” Mamie sighed.
    â€œPoor Waynie, he looks unhappy.”
    â€œHe is.”
    â€œWell, Mamie, I came to