One fine winter evening

Foreword: A Short story dedicated to my sweet granny:)

The first daffodils were blooming with the soft and tenderness of its budding state. There were these two kids who came trudging down the lane on one fine winter evening .They looked like children who were coming home from school, as each of them was carrying a bag in which might have been their books. Years ago, Charlie, Josephine, Julianne and Alice used to trudge the lane on their daily trips to school. Now they had children of their own who made their way to school.

She was making hot cookies, for which the wide-mouthed jars stood waiting on the table, and then once more looked out the kitchen window. The two of them were closer now and she could see that the boy was the older of the two - ten, perhaps, and the girl no more than eight.

It first seemed that they are going past her house nevertheless that did not seem too likely, for the lane led to this farm and to nowhere else.

They turned off the lane before they reached the barn and came steadily trudging up the path that led to the house. There was absolutely no hesitation in them about their footsteps and neither did they appear to be lost.

She stepped to the screen door of the kitchen as they came onto the porch and they stopped before the door and stood looking up at her.

The boy looked up and said firmly,” Hello grandma. Dad said we were to say at once that you were our grandma.”

“Well its not...” she said, and stopped. She had been about to say that it was impossible that she was not their grandma. And, looking down into the charming faces, she was glad that she had not said the words.

'I am Susanne,' said the girl, in a piping voice.

'Why, that is strange,' the woman said. 'That is my name, too.'

The boy said, 'My name is Robert.'

She pushed open the door for them and they came in, standing silently in the kitchen, looking all about them as if they'd never seen a kitchen.

'It's just like Papa said,' said Susanne. 'There's the stove and the churn and...'

The boy interrupted her. 'Our name is Hallidays,' he said.

This time the woman couldn't stop herself. 'Why, that's impossible,' she said. 'That is our name, too.'

The boy nodded affirmatively. 'Yes, we knew it was.'

'Perhaps,' the woman said, 'you'd like some milk and cookies.'

'Cookies!' Susanne squealed, delighted.

'We don't want to be any trouble,' said the boy. 'Papa said we were to be no trouble.'

'He said we should be good,' piped Susanne.

'I am sure you will be,' said the woman, 'and you are no trouble.'

In a little while, she thought, she'd get it straightened out.

She went to the stove and set the kettle with the cooking apples to one side, where they would simmer slowly.

'Sit down at the table,' she said. 'I'll get the milk and cookies.'

She glanced at the clock, ticking on the shelf. Four o'clock, almost. In just a little while the men would come in from the fields. Samuel Hallidays would know what to do about this; he had always known.

They climbed up on two chairs and sat there solemnly, staring all about them, at the ticking clock, at the wood stove with the fire glow showing through its draft, at the wood piled in the wood box, at the butter churn standing in the corner.

They set their bags on the floor beside them, and they were strange bags, she noticed. They were made of heavy cloth or canvas, but there were no drawstrings or no straps to fasten them. But they were closed, she saw, despite no straps or strings.

'Do you have some stamps?' asked Susanne.

'Stamps?' asked Mrs Hallidays.

'Do not pay attention to her,' said Robert. 'She should not have asked you. She asks everyone and Mama told her not to.'

'But stamps?'

'She collects them. She goes around snitching letters that other people have. For the stamps on them, you know.'

'Well now,' said Mrs Hallidays, 'there may be some old letters. We'll look for them later on.'

She went into the pantry and got the earthen jug of milk and filled a plate with cookies from the jar. When she came back they were sitting there sedately, waiting for the cookies.

'We are here just for a little while,' said Robert. 'Say for a short vacation. Then our folks will come and take us back again.'

Susanne nodded her head vigorously. 'That's what they told us when we went.”

'And where are you from?' asked Mrs Hallidays. 'Why,' said the boy, 'just a little ways from here. We walked just a little ways and of course we had the map. Papa gave it to us and he went over it carefully with us...'

'You're sure your name is Hallidays?'

Susanne bobbed her head. 'Of course it is,' she said. 'Strange,' said Mrs Hallidays. And it was more than strange, for there were no other Hallidays in the neighborhood except her children and her grandchildren and these two, no matter what they said, were strangers.

They were busy with the milk and cookies and she went back to the stove and set the kettle with the apples back on the front, stirring the cooking fruit with a wooden spoon.

'Where is Grandpa?' Susanne asked.

'Grandpa's in the field. He'll be coming in soon. Are you finished with your cookies?'

'All finished,' said the girl.

'Then we'll have to set the table and get the supper cooking. Perhaps you'd like to help me.'

Susanne hopped down off the chair. 'I'll help,' she said.

'Robert,' said Mrs Hallidays, 'it might help if you'd tell me what your father does.'

'Papa,' said the boy 'is an engineer.'

Later when Samuel Hallidays arrived, at once came out the voices “Hello Grandpa!” from inside. Later, the kids enjoyed the talk with the old folks.

The two older people were in the living room.

'You never saw the likes of it,' said Mrs Hallidays. 'There was this piece of metal and you pulled it and it ran along another metal strip and the bag came open. And you pulled it the other way and the bag was closed.'

'Something new,' said Samuel Hallidays. 'There may be many new things we haven't heard about, back here in the sticks. There are inventors turning out all sorts of things.'

'And the boy,' she said, 'has the same thing on his trousers. I picked them up from where he threw them on the floor when he went to bed and I folded them and put them on the chair. And I saw this strip of metal, the edges jagged-like. And the clothes they wear. That boy's trousers are cut off above the knees and the dress that the girl was wearing was so short...'

'They talked of plains,' mused Samuel Hallidays, 'but not the plains we know. Something that is used, apparently, for folks to travel in. And rockets - as if there were rockets every day and not just on the Earth.'

'We couldn't question them, of course,' said Mrs Hallidays. 'There was something about them, something that I sensed.'

Her husband nodded. 'They were frightened, too.'

'You are frightened, Samuel?'

'I don't know,' he said, 'but there are no other Hallidays. Not close, that is. Charlie is the closest and he's five miles away. And they said they walked just a little piece.'

'What are you going to do?' she asked. 'What can we do?'

'I don't rightly know,' he said. 'Drive in to the county seat and talk with the sheriff, maybe. These children must be lost. There must be someone looking for them.'

'But they don't act as if they're lost,' she told him. 'They knew they were coming here. They knew we would be here. They told me I was their grandma and they asked after you and they called you Grandpa. And they are so sure. They don't act as if we're strangers. They've been told about us. They said they'd stay just a little while and that's the way they act. As if they'd just come for a visit.'

'I think,' said Samuel Hallidays, 'which I'll hitch up Nellie after breakfast and drive around the neighborhood and ask some questions. Maybe there'll be someone who can tell me something.'

'The boy said his father was an engineer.”

'I think,' said Mrs Hallidays, 'I'll go upstairs and see if they're asleep. I left their lamps turned low. They are so little and the house is strange to them. If they are asleep, I'll blow out the lamps.'

Samuel Hallidays grunted his approval. 'Dangerous,' he said, 'to keep lights burning of the night. Too much chance of fire.'

The boy was asleep, flat upon his back - the deep and healthy sleep of youngsters. He had thrown his clothes upon the floor when he had undressed to go to bed, but now they were folded neatly on the chair, where she had placed them when she had gone into the room to say goodnight.

The bag stood beside the chair and it was open, the two rows of jagged metal gleaming dully in the dim glow of the lamp. Within its shadowed interior lay the dark forms of jumbled possessions, disorderly, and helter-skelter, no way for a bag to be.

She stooped and picked up the bag and set it on the chair and reached for the little metal tab to close it. At least, she told herself, it should be closed and not left standing open. She grasped the tab and it slid smoothly along the metal tracks and then stopped, its course obstructed by an object that stuck out.

She saw it was a book and reached down to rearrange it so she could close the bag. And as she did so, she saw the title in its faint gold lettering across the leather backstrap - Holy Bible.

With her fingers grasping the book, she hesitated for a moment, and then slowly drew it out. It was bound in expensive black leather that was dulled with age. The edges were cracked and split and the leather worn from long usage. The gold edging of the leaves were faded.

Hesitantly, she opened it and there, upon the fly leaf, in old and faded ink, was the inscription:

To Sister Susanne from Emma Nov. 30, 1943

Many Happy Returns of the Day

She felt her knees grow weak and she let herself carefully to the floor and there, crouched beside the chair, read the fly leaf once again.

30 November 1943 - that was her birthday, certainly, but it had not come as yet, for this was only the beginning of October, 1943.

And the Bible - how old was this Bible she held within her hands? A hundred years, perhaps, more than a hundred years.

A Bible, she thought - exactly the kind of gift Emma would give her. But a gift that had not been given yet, one that could not be given, for that day upon the fly leaf was a month into the future.

It couldn't be, of course. It was some kind of a prank. Or some mistake. Or a coincidence, perhaps. Somewhere else someone else was named Susanne and also had a sister who was named Emma and the date was a mistake - someone had written the wrong year. It would be an easy thing to do.

But she was not convinced. They had said the name was Hallidays and they had come straight here and Robert had spoken of a map so they could find the way. It was totally fitting!

Perhaps there were other things inside the bag. She looked at it and shook her head. She shouldn't pry. It had been wrong to take the Bible out.

On 30 November she would be fifty-nine - an old farm-wife with married sons and daughters and grandchildren who came to visit her on week-end and on holidays. And a sister Emma who, in this year of 1943, would give her a Bible as a birthday gift.

Her hands shook as she lifted the Bible and put it back into the bag. She'd talk to Samuel when she went down stairs. He might have some thought upon the matter and he'd know what to do.

She tucked the book back into the bag and pulled the tab and the bag was closed. She set it on the floor again and looked at the boy upon the bed. He still was fast asleep, so she blew out the light.

In the adjoining room little Susanne slept, baby-like, upon her stomach. The low flame of the turned-down lamp flickered gustily in the breeze that came through an open window.

Susanne's bag was closed and stood squared against the chair with a sense of neatness. The woman looked at it and hesitated for a moment, then moved on around the bed to where the lamp stood on a bedside table.

The children were asleep and everything was well and she'd blow out the light and go downstairs and talk with Samuel, and perhaps there'd be no need for him to hitch up Nellie in the morning and drive around to ask questions of the neighbors.

As she leaned to blow out the lamp, she saw the envelope upon the table, with the two large stamps of many colors affixed to the upper right-hand corner.

Such pretty stamps, she thought - I never saw so pretty. She leaned closer to take a look at them and saw the country name upon them. Israel. But there was no such actual place as Israel. It was a Bible name, but there was no country. And if there were no country, how could there be stamps?

She picked up the envelope and studied the stamp, making sure that she had seen right. Such a pretty stamp!

She collects them, Robert had said. She's always snitching letters that belong to other people.

The envelope bore a postmark, and presumably a date, but it was blurred and distorted by a hasty, sloppy cancellation and she could not make it out.

The edge of a letter sheet stuck a quarter inch out of the ragged edges where the envelope had been torn open and she pulled it out, gasping in her haste to see it while an icy fist of fear was clutching at her heart.

It was, she saw, only the end of a letter, the last page of a letter, and it was in type rather than in longhand - type like one saw in a newspaper or a book.

Maybe one of those new-fangled things they had in big city offices, she thought, the ones she'd read about. Typewriters - was that what they were called?

If you feel that you must, at least, send the children back, think a moment of the wrench it will give those two good souls when they realize the truth. Theirs is a smug and solid world - sure and safe and sound. The concepts of this mad century would destroy all they have, all that they believe in.

But I suppose I cannot presume to counsel you. I have done what you asked. I have written you all I know of our old ancestors back on that Wisconsin farm. As historian of the family, I am sure my facts are right. Use them as you see fit and God have mercy on us all.

Your loving brother,

Samuel

PS: If I can finish up work here and get away, I'll be with you at the end.

Mechanically she slid the letter back into the envelope and laid it upon the table beside the flaring lamp.

Slowly she moved to the window that looked out on the empty lane.

They will come and get us, Robert had said. But would they ever come. Could they ever come?

She found herself wishing they would come. Those poor people, those poor frightened children caught so far in time.

Blood of my blood, she thought, flesh of my flesh, so many years away. But still her flesh and blood, no matter how removed. Not only these two beneath this roof tonight, but all those others who had not come to her.

The letter had said 1951 that was eight years away - she'd be an old, old woman then. And the signature had been Samuel - an old family name, she wondered, carried on and on, a long chain of people who bore the name of Samuel Hallidays?

She was stiff and numb, she knew. Later she'd be frightened. Later she would wish she had not read the letter. Perhaps, she did not know.

But now she must go back downstairs and tell Samuel the best way that she could.

She moved across the room and blew out the light and went out into the hallway.

A voice came from the open door beyond.

'Grandma, is that you?'

'Yes, Robert,' she answered. 'What can I do for you?'

In the doorway she saw him crouched beside the chair, in the shaft of moonlight pouring through the window, fumbling at the bag.

'I forgot,' he said. 'There was something papa said I was to give you right away.'