THREE Christmas STORIES FROM THE HOME COUNTRY BY SLIM RANDLES

II There is a nighttime sweetness and hope that
hovers over us this time of year here at home. This is a
time for summing up and looking ahead … and a time for
dreams.
And at night… ah, that’s the time, isn’t it? Outside it’s
dark, December dark, and we’re inside and warm and cocooned
up. The cold makes our world shrink, especially
at night.
But we have our dreams.
For Janice Thomas, our art teacher at the high school,
it’s that painting she’s planning. She makes starts at it,
from time to time, but she’s wise enough to know she isn’t
good enough to paint it yet. She paints other things well,
but that one … it has to be perfect. It will be the painting
of a lifetime, she knows.
Doc will drift off to sleep tonight thinking about that new
fly rod. He has half a dozen, of course, that will take about
any weight line, and let him catch anything from mouse to
moose. But even the most expensive rod isn’t
what he dreams of. This year, for Christmas,
he’s giving himself a rod-builder’s jig, and he
will make his own rod from a Sage blank. That
will be the one. It will have his own wrappings
and he’ll put the ferrules on it himself. He’ll be
able to feel the fish breathe with this one. It will
be true and wonderful and last forever.
F or c owboy S teve, t he D ecember d ream
is always the same: fixing up that little cabin,
and a little corral to go with it. The cabin will
have a stone fireplace when he gets through
with it, and knotty pine walls. He’ll sip coffee in
this cabin, and listen to music on the radio and
hear the breeze going through the pines outside.
And in the corral, ol’ Snort waits for him to
get ready for another ride.
There is a nighttime sweetness and hope
that hovers over us this time of year. Here’s to
dreams.