Last week, I was leafing through the New York Times “T” magazine.
A drawing of two candy canes and two little cakes caught my eye.
I hadn’t seen that particular piece of art in at least 40 years, but I recognized it immediately.
I knew the drawing was by Garth Williams; and I knew that it belonged to a Laura Ingalls Wilder story—one about Christmas.
I read the essay accompanying the art (“The Good Enough Holiday,” by Liesl Schillinger) and came to these lines: “Laura and her sister Mary woke that holiday morning to empty stockings at the fireplace—until a family friend knocked on the door. He had intercepted Santa, he told them, and forded the raging waters of the Verdigris River to bring the girls their gifts: two tin cups, two candy canes, two little cakes and a ‘shining bright, new penny’ each.”
I read those words and the whole of the story came flooding back to me.
I was nine years old again.
That Christmas memory of Laura Ingalls Wilder might as well have been my memory. I recalled it that intensely.
This is the power of books that we read when we are children.
We carry the stories with us for the whole of our lives.
I knew those candy canes, those cakes, as soon as I saw them.
They are imprinted on my heart.

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