as she said. She had given way gently to her years, lowering the window upon her past as on a too early snow, yet thoughtfully aware of its delicate weight on the high eaves of her household. None of her family lived beneath her roof, nor even in the township of Concord, but they were present nevertheless, in neat smiling ranks upon her bedroom tables, ones and twos and threes, and in various postures of memory throughout the rooms. Most of them would gather for her German Christmas, and the rest had preceded her into the ground. These she had long ago forgiven, they lost no favor on the bedroom tables, represented only a certain unsatisfactory transience, like gypsies or violets. In the dark December of 1941, I alone among Madrina’s descendants suffered no misgivings about her festival. To a boy of fourteen, German Christmas meant receiving presents twelve hours in advance and Christmas Day free to enjoy them, and had nothing whatever to do with Germany. The relation of Christmas to war seemed as tenuous to Madrina as to myself.
