WIDE MEADOWS: GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN (A CONTINUING SERIES)

Editor's note: Jean Bell Mosley's book was first published in 1960.

Everything would have been lovely that Christmas if only the Claytons and the McClanahans would make up and start speaking to each other. Their long-standing feud was an awful bother. You had to remember it even when you had your mind on more pressing matters.

In time of trouble, if Mrs. McClanahan brought us over a cake, we mustn't forget and offer her any of the pie Mrs. Clayton had brought, or vice versa.

When Ladies Aid met, the hostess always had to be careful and show Nettie McClanahan to a chair clear across the room from Bessie Clayton. You couldn't put them on the same committee, of course; and if one voted for, the other automatically voted against.

How the trouble started, no one was quite sure. Some said it was over a line fence way back ten or fifteen years ago. Others said it was over sheep and a dog. Anyway, when the farmers traded work at haying or butchering time, you could be dead sure coy McClanahan wouldn't show up to help Tom Clayton. Or vice versa.

Like I say, that feud was a bother. But whenever anyone got fed up with it and spoke out in plain terms, someone also would point out that every community has its McClanahans and Claytons -- it's a cross you have to bear.

Lou was not above using the grudge to advantage. When she and I sold Ease-All Balm, she'd casually mention to Nettie McClanahan that Bessie Clayton had bought three bottles, and we could count Nettie's buying four. Or maybe it was the other way around.

"Maybe it'll ease all between them," Lou said one day, coming away from such a sale.

"Will it?" I asked eagerly, not being sure just what the balm was supposed to cure.

"No, it'll take something stronger than this, I'm afraid." Her brow wrinkled up in that familiar fashion it always had when she was working on a knotty problem.

"It's pretty strong," I said, opening a bottle and taking a whiff. When you held it close it made your eyes turn red and get watery and your nose burn.

The hard feelings might have reached over into the younger generation of McClanahans and Claytons if there hadn't been such a difference in ages. McClanahans' Maggie was in the seventh grade with our Lou, and the Clayton's only child was just four months old.

Lou and I loved to play with Maggie. Besides being pretty -- black hair and smutty-fringed blue eyes -- she could sing like there was a thrush in her throat, make a Jacob's ladder, and whistle through a split blade of grass. She never talked about the Claytons, and we never mentioned the trouble either, because you could see it embarrassed her.

When Lou drew Maggie's name for the Christmas-gift exchange at school, you'd have thought she was planning a present for the First Lady, the way she worried. "I could crochet her a tam," she mused, "but Mrs. Clayton has a tam, so Maggie's mother wouldn't let her wear one."

It was a problem. "You could cross-stitch her a petticoat in the Hearts and Flowers pattern," I offered. But Lou said no, everyone knew she got that pattern from Mrs. Clayton.

Then everything took a back seat while we got ready for the Christmas program. I was a real good reader, so I was assigned the Christmas story to read just before the final tableau. That wouldn't have bothered me, except Lou kept at me to practice "Peace on earth, good will toward men." "That's important," she'd say. "You've got to put meaning in it."

You'd have thought Lou herself was preparing for a command performance before royalty, the way she worked on her part of Mary the Mother for the tableau. "I must have blue muslin," she decided, and spent a dreadful sum -- all the money she had -- for enough to drape herself in. Of course Grandma promised to buy the muslin later for quilt lining.

Lou practiced constantly before the mirror, draping the muslin first one way, then another. She'd nestle the Baby Jesus doll in her right arm, then try the left. Still unsatisfied, she announced dramatically: "I must have a real baby."

Mama protested. "Oh, honey, the doll is all right. A real baby might squall its head off."

"A doll is too stiff," Lou argued. "Anyway, don't you suppose the Baby Jesus cried sometimes with all those strange people coming to see Him?"

The teacher was skeptical, too, about using a baby; but if you're in doubt as to who won the argument, it's because you didn't know my sister, Lou. The result was that the Claytons' baby was elected. Mrs. Clayton was willing, especially when Lou mentioned that Maggie McClanahan was singing a solo part in "O Come All Ye Faithful."

Lou had invested so heavily in muslin that she couldn't afford to buy Maggie's present. She would up with a string of blue and yellow beads she made from two old necklaces of Mama's. They were put together real artistically, and Grandma gave her a satin-lined box for them and some holly-sprigged paper.

"While I wrap them, you'd better rehearse the Christmas story," she told me. "You don't have it right yet. When you say good will toward men' you've got make people feel it."

"Even the McClanahans and the Claytons?" I asked, and was immediately sorry I'd brought it up because here came that puzzled expression to Lou's face again and I knew she had more important things to think about.

"Even them," she said, slowly, thoughtfully, holding the beads against the muslin of her costume. "These ought to be worn together," she said.

"You wouldn't have the nerve," I said, "to ask Maggie to loan you those beads right after giving them to her."

Lou just stared out the window a long time while the wrinkles in her brow disappeared one by one. She looked like someone who had turned to the back of the book and found the answer was right.

We had our gift exchange Friday afternoon and Maggie just loved her beads. Lou said, "Be sure and wear them to the program tonight," and Maggie said, "Oh, I will!"

Just before we started for the schoolhouse that night, Lou put a bottle of Ease-All Balm into the pocket of her skirt.

"You going to try to sell some tonight?" I demanded.

She didn't answer, just looked mysterious.

The schoolhouse smelled good and cedary. Red and green crepe paper made a canopy of the ceiling. There were reindeer and evergreen decorations at the windows, and the teacher had erased our demerits from the blackboard. There was a good crowd, too -- McClanahans prominent on the left, Claytons on the right as usual.

Everything proceeded nicely until just before the final manger-scene tableau. When Mrs. Clayton brought baby Robert behind the curtain, I got to hold him while Lou unwrapped her Mary costume.

I'd been noticing something odd about Lou. Her eyes were watery and pink-rimmed, and she was sniffling. "Are you crying?" I asked.

She shook her head feebly, pulled out her handkerchief and blew her nose long and hard. "I don't feel so good," she confided. Then, loudly: "I'd taking a nawful gold!"

"So you've got a cold -- so what?" said a Wise Man from the East. Lou withered him with a watery glare. "So naturally I can't be Mary and hold that baby in the tableau," she said firmly. "You want him to catch cold and be sick?"

Lou could always get attention. Full attention. Maryellen Britt halted her angel costume halfway over her head, and the wings stuck up like big ears. The teacher looked up, startled, from helping Cabe button his striped-housecoat robe.

"Don't worry," Lou said. "Maggie can be Mary in my place. All she has to do is hold the baby."

It got real quiet back there then, until finally someone said right out: "It's the Claytons' baby."

We all looked at Maggie and then looked away, ashamed, when she said quietly: "Why, I'll do it if the baby's willing."

The teacher stepped in front of the curtain and announced that for the final number there'd be a slight change in the cast of characters she'd typed up on the program. While that was going on, Maggie took her place on a low stool on stage, and Lou draped the blue muslin around her. I put the Claytons' baby in Maggie's arms, and Joseph, in his tow-sack robe, stood behind them. The choir scurried for position behind scenes and started humming softly so I could go out and begin the Christmas story.

I gave "Peace on earth, good will toward men" all I had, and then our teacher slid back the curtains while the choir, still muted, sang "Silent Night."

We knew that tableau was a beauty from the "ohhh's" that rippled over the audience. Then a wave of loud gasps told us that everyone had recognized Maggie McClanahan holding the Claytons' baby. I looked at Mrs. Clayton and Mrs. McClanahan, and saw them both sit forward in their seats.

Then the baby woke up and started whimpering. His mother made a move like she'd go to his rescue; but Maggie rocked him gently in her arms, and Mrs. Clayton settled back.

About that time the baby reached up and grabbed for Maggie's blue and yellow beads. Maggie bent down and kissed his little hand and didn't pry it away as you'd expect. The choir was singing so low you could hear the baby making gurgly, contented sounds.

Well, Lou's cold couldn't hold a candle to the one that hit the audience right then! You could hear noses blowing all over the schoolroom.

No one clapped when the tableau was over because it was too beautiful and sacred. Instead, people turned to each other and started shaking hands like they hadn't seen each other since the last Christmas.

When I took Mrs. Clayton's baby to her, Mrs. McClanahan was standing close by. "Here, let me hold that little thing," she said, and Mrs. Clayton let her. And when Maggie came to get her hair ribbon tied back on, Mrs. Clayton said, "Let me do that."

Back near the door Mr. Clayton was holding out his hand to Mr. McClanahan, or maybe it was vice versa.

When Lou came out from backstage, Mama felt her forehead and looked puzzled. She didn't dope my sister's cold that night with a greasy flannel rag; but next day Lou got to wear Grandma's ring and Mama's rouge, and I heard them plotting to make her a ruffled petticoat from Mary's robe. She got to eat with the silver spoon throughout the holidays.

And that's not all. On Christmas Eve Mrs. Clayton came over with some cookies and sailed right into a piece of the pie that Mama specifically said Mrs. McClanahan had brought. Or maybe it was vice versa.