The Homecoming (aka The Waltons)

by Earl Hamner Jr.

Christmas had always been a time of rejuvenation to Olivia, a time to reaffirm her faith in God’s goodness, to enjoy the closeness of friends and family; a time to believe in miracles again.

“I wish my daddy could fly,” said Shirley solemnly. Shirley was the sensitive one with a head covered with auburn ringlets. Her father claimed that she was prettier than Shirley Temple and often vowed that if he could get her to Hollywood, California, she would be bound to become a movie star.

“Huh!” said Olivia, with the contempt she reserved for alcohol, those who sold it and those who had a weakness for it.

Clay had found work as a machinist at the Du Pont Company in Waynesboro, which was forty miles away. He had no car, so every Friday night he would take the Trailways bus to Charlottesville, transfer to the southbound bus that let him off at Hickory Creek on Route 29, which was also called The Seminole Trail. From there Clay would walk the remaining six miles or hitchhike if a car happened to go past.

If Clay-Boy had any wish in life it was that his mother would stop reminding him that he was the oldest. It took all the fun out of things to be constantly reminded that he was a combination policeman, referee, guardian and nursemaid to his younger brothers and sisters.

“I’m like some old mother duck,” thought Clay-Boy as he made his way through the new snow to the barn, followed by Matt, Becky, Shirley, Mark, Luke, John and Pattie-Cake.

Each of the children had red hair, but on each head the shade was a little different. Clay-Boy’s hair was the color of dry corn shucks. Matt’s was the red of the clay hills. Becky’s straight bob was the pink of a sunset. Shirley’s curls were auburn. Luke’s hair was the russet of autumn leaves. Mark’s was reddish blo...

Hands in the belt loops of her blue jeans, Becky sauntered to the sink in imitation of Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy. When the water from the faucet was running full and splashing into the sink, she thought the noise was loud enough to cover her voice and she swore vehemently, “Dammit!” A swat on the seat of her blue jeans told her that the water had not been loud enough, and as Olivia glowered at her, Becky wondered how many dishes she might break and make it seem accidental.

Ahead of him Spencer’s Mountain loomed snow-white, pine-green, arched with the misty blue of a cold, snowy December afternoon.

Clay-Boy thought of his father ruefully. Clay Spencer was a hard man to measure up to. Like all the Spencer men he was a crack shot, a good provider for his family, an honest “look-’em-in-the-eye” man, an enthusiastic drinker, a prodigious dancer, a fixer of things, a builder, a singer of note, a teller of bawdy stories, a kissing, hugging, loving man whose laughter would shake the house, and who was not ashamed to cry. He seemed to his son an outsized man, bigger than life. It was with a sense of wonder that the boy observed his own body’s growth and found his head reaching, it seemed to him almost overnight, to a level with his father’s head, shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye.

The house was not really a house, but a dream his father had. It was Clay’s dream to build a house with his own hands, a house his wife and children could see being constructed, a house that would give strength and love to their lives because they would see the strength and love with which it was built. “I can see it now, a white house with green shutters on the windows. Your mama sitten up there on the front porch resten of a Sunday. Your mama will plant flowers down the walk on either side and I’ll put in a bed of grass where my babies can play.”

The meadow was dotted with many trees, but Clay-Boy went directly to one of them. The tree was six feet tall, a perfectly symmetrical eastern hemlock. Even in the brisk winter air, Clay-Boy could smell its pungent evergreen scent. He and Mama and the children had come upon it last summer on a berry-picking expedition. They had agreed, even that long ago, that this particular hemlock was to be this year’s Christmas Tree. Whenever some chance brought them to the mountain, they had visited it and envisioned it standing in the corner of the living room, festooned with ropes of silver tinsel and hung with ornaments of red and green and gold, crowned at its very tip with the silver star which had been in Grandma Spencer’s family for generations.

At the edge of the wood, the buck stopped and turned, looked back with crazed eyes as Clay-Boy emerged from underneath the ragged tree, still holding his torch aloft. The doe had nearly succeeded in freeing herself. Keeping one eye on the buck, who stood pawing the ground at the edge of the pine wood, Clay-Boy grasped one large tree limb in the deadfall, gave it one powerful tug, and the doe leaped free. Limping slightly she bounded into the forest. The buck turned and followed.

“Merry Christmas, you hellion!” shouted Clay-Boy, his voice fading quickly in the insulating snow. Clay-Boy picked up his ax and looked back at what was to have been the Christmas Tree. The ground around it was churned and torn from the buck’s onslaught. The tree itself had been ruined, but Clay-Boy was grateful for the protection it had afforded him. It would not be hard to find another. The woods were full of Christmas Trees.

Once it stood in a corner the tree released its wintery green aroma, which quickly permeated the living room. A tree in the house brought with it a feeling of mystery. Into the house the tree brought with it the memory of thousands of white-hot summer suns, the long wilderness silence of snow-mantled winters, the crash of thunderous storms, the softness of a new green spring, and all the wild things which had rested in its shade or nestled in its branches. There was something pagan and alien in its presence which pervaded the house.

Alone with his wife, Homer was tender and dependent, an indulged child as much as a husband, but when they were in the presence of others he found it necessary to deride Ida’s talents and personality. “That woman is crazy,” remarked Homer with a wondering shake of his head. “Don’t listen to him,” whispered Ida, unbuttoning her coat.

“The Little Old Cathedral in the Pines.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Becky,” said Matt. “Oh, you’re all a bunch of piss-ants,” swore Becky. “Mama! Mama!” several voices chimed at once. Olivia appeared at the door, wiping her hands on her apron. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Becky made Pattie-Cake cry and she ruined the Christmas Tree with bird poop, and she said a bad word!” cried Shirley, her eyes blinking with indignation.

Charlie’s face was jolly and round. His eyebrows and his hair were thick curls of reddish blond. When he smiled his brown eyes twinkled. He looked for all the world like a rural Santa Claus on his day off, doing some work around the farm.

“Ep Bridges been around tonight?” Ep Bridges was the local sheriff and game warden, the beefy red-neck descendant of a Hessian deserter and a Siouan squaw. He was ardent in his enforcement of law and order, especially those laws concerning the taking of wild game out of season.

Clay-Boy thought of the albino deer and the doe. He wondered where they were now and whether the buck had covered the doe successfully. Late breeding would mean that the fawn would be born past the season next summer, and might not mature enough to survive the winter. He resolved to watch for the fawn when summer came. A baby deer would be almost impossible to find because of the near perfection of its camouflage, but if the new creature took its father’s albino coloration, Clay-Boy thought he might have a better chance.

The thought of the two animals mating sent a quick rush of longing through the boy. How simple it must be to come together with the freedom of wilderness creatures. Clay-Boy had never made love to a girl. Desire and yearning would engulf him at the thought and would remain with him, a persistent ache. At school he would boast to the other boys about his conquests, but the other boys must have been as innocent as he to have believed his lies.

The thought and the deed were equally sinful, and he would pray earnestly to God to relieve him of his wicked thoughts. Each year at the Revival at the Baptist Church, when the minister would work himself into a tremulous frenzy of salvation, when, in a voice worn to a rasping whisper, he would plead for God to touch the sinners in his congregation, Clay-Boy would sit in rigid terror, knowing that God could see into his mind, knew the ugly lust that was entwined in his brain, and he knew that he was past even God’s help, for that Healing Touch fell on all shoulders but his own. He would watch with en...

Clay-Boy inserted the long wooden dasher into the churn and began the steady upward and downward churning that would turn the sour clabber into buttermilk.

It was a night of miracles.

The city lady started toward the group, now knowing the problem, but bent upon making amends. Before she reached them a great feeling of shame swept over Clay-Boy. He felt that he had betrayed his father and brought dishonor to the family. He reached down, scooped Pattie-Cake up in his arms and led the way off toward home. Not one of them looked back to their friends and neighbors who had lowered themselves by accepting something they had not earned. No one spoke on the way home except for Becky, who cursed aloud to the night and the snow. “Sons-of-bitches! It’s just like Daddy always claims,” said Becky bitterly. “Nobody ever gave away anything worth keepen!” And for once everyone was in complete agreement with Becky.

It was a village custom that if the man of the house did not return home at some reasonable hour the oldest child in the family would go looking for him.

Clay-Boy slipped into his father’s old sheepskin jacket and buttoned it across his chest. The jacket was big on him, and he seemed to disappear somewhere inside it, his thin, freckled face swimming inside the turned-up collar.

“My daddy been by here tonight?” asked Clay-Boy. “Nobody breezed in here but that trash that calls himself the Law.”

Row after row of black faces looked back at him questioningly. He stood there for a moment, uncomfortable that he had interrupted the service, seeing in the eyes that gazed at him that he had no right there and was not welcome. A wave of resentment flowed through the congregation, a murmur of whispered voices melting toward anger. He wanted to speak, to tell them that he was not one of the white men who desecrated their church with their poker playing, but he could not find the words to say it.

Clay-Boy was reassured by the smiles of the two little boys sitting next to him. He had never been anywhere where he was the only white person present, and it made him nervous. He had been told things about Negroes, told that they were different from white people. Wondering how they worshiped God, he guessed maybe they might sing spirituals or roll on the floor like Holy Rollers.

Following Claudie was little Emmarine Hoover, the daughter of Estelle Hoover who taught the one-room Negro school. As Mary, Mother of Jesus, she was clad in a white tunic and on her head was a glowing silver halo. The children reached the wooden cradle, stole a furtive look out toward the congregation, then knelt in practiced unison.

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining, It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining Till He appear’d and the soul felt its worth. Shivers went down Clay-Boy’s back. He had heard the hymn since he was a baby, carried to church in his mother’s arms, but he had never heard it sung this way before. Hawthorne crooned the song, stroked and caressed it with tenderness, letting his voice cling to the melody, elongating the last line as if reluctant to let it go, until the feeling and the events the song described seemed to be taking place now and here and not two thousand years ago in some distant Biblical storybook place. A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices! O night divine! O night when Christ was born! O night divine! O night, O night divine.

Hawthorne bowed his head, and the congregation followed suit. “We thank Thee Father for the Gift of Thy Son. Help us to be worthy of Thy sacrifice, and to walk in Thy light all the days of our lives. Amen.”

As he made his way past the Negro faces it came to him that he did not really know any Negroes. He knew those in the village, but he had never been in one of their homes and did not know what they yearned for or what their dreams were. He felt a sense of loss that an entire community existed within the larger community and he did not know one of them beyond his name and face.

“It ain’t all that far if you’ve got transportation,” said Hawthorne. “You come and ride on General with me.” Gratefully Clay-Boy accepted the offer and a short while later was riding through the silver night on a white horse with a black man guiding the way. Once the snow lifted, the moon shone sulkily through scudding clouds. Clay-Boy could see their shadow moving along with them in the glittering luster which blanketed the world. We could be two of the wise men, hurrying after some bright star, thought Clay-Boy.

Etta opened the box of decorations and was swept into yesterday. Emma watched, taking pleasure in their yearly visit with the decorations they had known since they were children. Out of the box and onto the tree went doves made of spun glass, angels with wings of gauze, ropes of glass beads, a dozen little tin trumpets, stars of gold, and glass bells with glass clappers, a hand-carved Santa Claus and all eight reindeer.

While Etta worked at the tree, Emma arranged the crèche on the old walnut end-table beside the horse-hair sofa. She had placed the Jesus figure in the manger and was reaching for a lamb, when there came a knocking at the front door.

From Clay-Boy down to Pattie-Cake their shadows made a stairstep pattern in the snow.

Children are such fragile things, she thought. Arrows shot from her body, gone now beyond any calling back. She catalogued them in her mind. Clay-Boy, so smart and ambitious. Becky, so independent, so capable and vulnerable. Shirley, so beautiful and so maternal. Matt, so self-reliant and full of love and promise. John, with the talent born in his hands to play music on a piano. Mark, all business one minute and wanting a hug in the next. Luke, the handsome wild one with his eye already on some far horizon, and Pattie-Cake, too spoiled to turn her hand for herself, too pretty and sweet to spank. What will become of them all, God only knows. Life be good to them. God, help us all.

And then across the hills came the deep bong, bong, bong, of the bell in the steeple of the Baptist church. Old Mr. Higgenbottem always waited there to ring the bell at the stroke of midnight and let the world know that Christmas had come again.

The children stopped their onrush and huddled together at the living room door as Olivia unlocked the back door and apprehensively swung it open. Framed in the doorway was Clay Spencer, half-frozen, an impish grin on his face, his arms overflowing with bundles. “I’ve been worried sick about you,” said Olivia but her voice broke, and she buried her face in her hands and wept. “Mama, don’t cry,” said Clay-Boy. “He’s home!” Struggling with packages, Clay entered. He placed his bundles down on the table, knelt and opened his arms and immediately they were filled with children, brushing the snow from his face, hugging him around the neck, crashing his chest with their frantic embraces.

Now he rose and the children watched with delight as he crossed the floor to Olivia. He kissed her tenderly on the cheek, but then, and this was what the children were waiting for, he picked her up and danced about the kitchen shouting joyously. “God, what a woman I married!” while Olivia shouted indignantly, “Put me down, you old fool!”

Pattie-Cake, cradling her doll in her arms, suddenly became aware of something which saddened her, and her lips quivered. “You didn’t get nothen, Daddy,” she said. Gently Clay lifted the little girl in his arms and looked around the room at his family. “Sweetheart,” he said, “I’ve got Christmas every day of my life in you kids and your mama.” He turned to Olivia. “Did you ever see such thoroughbreds?” “I see some sleepy children,” said Olivia. “Off to bed now. You can play in the mornen.”

“You must have spent every cent of the paycheck,” she said. She tried to sound cross but somehow she didn’t succeed. “Just about,” he admitted cheerfully. “What are we goen to live on this comen week?” she asked. “Love, woman,” he said, and this time he did not seize her in his arms and waltz madly about the room, but kissed her gently and took her hand in his.

Around the house the world lay bright as day. The moon blazed down its cold light on an earth that was touched with magic. An ancient wind sighed along the ridges of crusted snow. Angels sang, and the stars danced in the sky.