I kept thinking, this morning, that December 27 must be of historical significance or religious significance. St. Swithin came to mind. I looked it up and since it is July, this can’t be the day to celebrate that good saint. It is significantly wet here in NWArkansas and, although Christmas Day the sun shone, the next day was back to business as usual–cloudy. So where is the Christmas snow, I wondered. And then, I found it! On page 161 of Best Left Buried.
The sleet and rain that helped put out the fire at Old String’s place turned to snow. Giant cotton ball flakes fell softly three days and when the snow ended, Ventris County lay under twenty inches of white.
“Darcy, we need to get everyone together. I feel that our friends and the people involved in this mystery we’ve been embroiled in should know the story,” Mom said as we sat at her old wooden table eating oatmeal and toast and sipping coffee.
I glanced out the kitchen window at her rose bush gently brushing the screen. A cardinal flew down on one of the limbs, a brilliant crimson accent that reminded me of a rose against the snow.
“That’s a good idea, Mom. Why don’t we phone everyone and see if they can be here tomorrow?”
So that’s how it came about that six people sat around the fireplace the next day, coffee cups in hand. Grant, Jackson Conner, Pat, and Burke all came.
Isn’t it great that books can do that–take you away and plop you smack in the middle of a warm living room with friends and coffee inside and snow outside? So, if you are, as I am, just a bit tired of damp, gray, blah weather, curl up in your favorite chair with a hot drink and take a little trip to other climes–Levi, Oklahoma, for instance.
To paraphrase an old Irish saying, “If it’s snowy and cozy within the pages of your book, what does it matter that it’s gray and gloomy outside?”
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