Trinka Hakes Noble

“The day before Christmas came. Mama made her clove apple and began baking pies. Papa brought in a fresh pine tree and they decorated it with the beautiful apples. But to Katrina it just didn’t feel like Christmas.
Even when she went to bed on Christmas Eve, Papa was still sawing away at the apple tree.
On Christmas morning their stocking were filled with oranges, wild hickory nuts, black walnuts, and peppermint sticks. Josie gave Papa and Mama their scarves, and Katrina gave Mama the pincushion. But it still didn’t feel like Christmas to Katrina.
Then Papa said, “Now my little ones, turn around and close your eyes. No peeking.”
First Katrina heard Papa ask Mama to help him. Then she heard him hammering something to the beam, then he dragged something across the floor.
“All right, you can look now,” said Mama.
They whirled around.
There, hanging from the beam, was Josie’s swing, the very same vine swing from the apple tree. Sitting on the swing was a little rag doll that Mama had made.
Near the swing was a drawing board made from the very same limb that had been Katrina’s studio. On the drawing board were real charcoal paper and three sticks of willow charcoal.
Katrina softly touched the drawing board. She wanted to say, How wise and wonderful you are, Papa and Thank you, Papa and I’ll always love you, Papa. But all she could say was, “Oh, Papa.”
Papa didn’t say anything either. He just handed her the three sticks of charcoal.
Josie began to swing with her doll and Katrina started to draw. Now she could see how beautiful Mama’s clove apple looked on the white tablecloth and how shiny red the apples were on the Christmas tree. Now she could smell the fresh winter pine tree and the warm apple pies. Now it felt like Christmas.
Katrina gave her first drawing to Papa. It was a picture of the day when Papa picked the apples and Mama made apple butter and Katrina and Josie sorted the apples.
In the corner Papa wrote:

This picture was drawn by
Katrina Ansterburg on
Christmas Day 1881.

Then he hung it in his woodshop and there it stayed for many long years.”
― Trinka Hakes Noble, Apple Tree Christmas

“For my wise and wonderful Father,
who made a drawing board for me,
many years ago…
on which I drew this book for him,
many years later...”
― Trinka Hakes Noble, Apple Tree Christmas