The Christmas Bear

The Christmas Bear

by Lavinia R. Davis

Fritzie Apful hurried down the street with his hands in the pockets of his lederhosen. It was cold and a little damp and the air smelled as though snow was coming. Fritzie crinkled his short nose and sniffed. He loved snow. Even in a city it would be fun to have snow for Christmas. At home, in the Austrian Tyrol, it was the most beautiful and exciting thing in the world.

That last year before the war Fritzie had been at home in his Tyrolean mountain village. Just before Christmas he had helped his father ship off a box of wooden toys for sale in America. Now here he was in America himself.

America wasn't a bit the sort of place that he had imagined when they had skied down to the railroad station with packages of toys on their shoulders. This part of America was all tall buildings, and hurrying people, and narrow wind-swept streets that seemed colder than the snow mountains had ever seemed at home.

Fritzie turned up the collar of his short blue jacket and jerked down his Tyrolean felt hat. From his leather shorts to the gay feather in his hat he was dressed in his Tyrolean best. But here people stared as though it were a fancy-dress costume.

Fritzie turned down a side street. Now he was near Uncle Anton's violin shop. Already he could see the bright light of his window. Uncle Anton never pulled down his shade and sometimes a little crowd of boys watched him at work. Fritzie was glad that there was no one there tonight. Boys who laughed at his good clothes would laugh at Uncle Anton and Aunt Lena.

Uncle Anton opened the door for him, holding his violin in one hand. “You are just in time,” he said. “I am practicing the good Christmas music to play at your mother's tree, and while you work you shall be my audience.”

Fritzie kissed his aunt and then went over to Uncle Anton’s workbench and took down a cardboard shoe box. He lifted the cover and drew out a small bear carved out of wood. It was his own work, his Christmas present for his mother. In five more days it would be Christmas Eve and time for the family tree. In the meantime he had to finish his bear.

Fritzie rubbed the hard wood of the bear until began to shine with polishing. It was all finished but the paws. A square little bit of wood had chipped off and the paws were difficult. Perhaps Uncle would know what to do. The small, perfect bridges that he made for violins with squirrels or gnomes or a little leaf pattern had been famous in the Tyrol. Even in this country people valued him as an expert carver.

“Uncle,” Fritzie waited until Uncle laid down his violin. “Uncle, what can I do with the bear's paws? The wood is split. Could I mend it perhaps?”

Uncle Anton looked up. His blue eyes concentrated on the bear. “If there were something in the paws perhaps, something that a bear might have, you would not notice the chip.”

Fritzie studied the bear. What would a bear have in his paws? Honey or a honeycomb perhaps? That would be very difficult to carve.

Fritzie went out into the kitchen and Tante Lena gave him a big hug. “Ach, Fritzchen. You have come at just the right time. Surely you will chop the nuts for the Christmas cake?”

Fritzie nodded. Of course he would. At home everybody had a part in making the Christmas cake.

“What would a bear hold in his paws, Tante Lena?” he asked as he began work. “In his front paws when he was standing up straight?”

“There was a trained bear once in the Tyrol,” she said. “Your mother took you out to see it, do you remember?”

Fritzie's round, solemn face was suddenly divided by a smile. Of course he remembered. “He had an apple, Tante Lena,” Fritzie said. Of course it had been an apple. A bright red one, held against his black fur. An apple was the perfect thing. He could carve it separately and then glue it over the bear's paws.

Fritzie worked hard for the rest of the evening. Uncle played and Tante Lena cooked and Fritzie carved and thought about Christmas.

It was quite late when Fritzie went home with his cardboard box under his arm. He went past the big schoolhouse and suddenly he felt less warm, and comfortable, and at home than he had felt at Uncle Anton's. This was the place where the boys laughed at his clothes and joked over his name.

There were still people streaming out of the school doorway. It was the rehearsal for the Christmas play, Fritzie realized.

He nearly bumped into Andy Pierce who was coming down the steps. “Hello, Applecake,” Andy grinned. “What you got in the box?” Fritzie squirmed. He hated being called Applecake.

He didn't want to show Andy the bear a bit, but Andy almost pulled the box out of his hands. “Golly,” said Andy, “did you carve that bear?”

“Ya,” Fritzie said, and tried to pull away.

“Don't go.” Andy held on tight to the box. “You've got to enter this in the hobby show.”

Fritzie didn't want to do any such thing. He wasn't quite sure what a hobby show was. It sounded so very American, and he wasn't good at American things. And the bear with his little apple in his paws was very Austrian. The boys would laugh at him just the way they laughed at Fritzie.

But once Andy's mind was made up nothing could change it. “Come on,” he said. “You've got to enter it right now before Miss Keating leaves.”

“Oh, Fritzie, that's lovely,” Miss Keating murmured. “Please leave it right here. The judges are going to look over the things on Monday morning early and the prizes will be given out just before school closes for the holidays.”

Fritzie went to school very early on Monday feeling uncomfortable. Nobody would like his bear. They'd laugh at it and think it was foreign.

Fritzie had plenty of time to look at the hobby show before the judges came. At the very end of the hall was Fritzie's bear still with the apple in his paws. Fritzie wished that he could have taken the bear away and put him back in his shoe box. But it was too late.

Suddenly Fritzie had an idea. He looked around and then when no one was looking he grabbed the little card that said “Woodcarving by Fritz Apful” and crunched it up. If people didn't know who had made the bear, they couldn't laugh. Perhaps he could make Andy promise not to tell.

At assembly at the end of school Fritzie chuckled to himself. The headmaster was beginning to talk about he hobby show. Fritzie was glad that the headmaster couldn't know about the little Tyrolean bear. He watched Jimmy Ragan getting a prize for his radio and then he listened to the headmaster's voice announcing the next prize. “There was a wood carving,” the headmaster said, “that the judges agreed was the best thing in the show. Not only was it well made, but it had a genuine flavor all its own. It was really typical of the work done in the Tyrolean alps. Best of all was the signature.” He held up the bear for the school to see. “Look,” he said, pointing to the little apple in the bear's paws. “Here is the signature. Apple, Apful. Fritz Apful, come forward and get your prize.”

Somehow or other Fritz arrived at the platform and the headmaster gave him his bear and then his prize. It was a silver cup. A real silver cup that would shine proudly on his mother's mantel. The apple had given him the prize. The apple that was like his name that the boys had joked about.

Fritzie went back to is chair and the school clapped and clapped. “Good work, Applecake,” Andy Pierce said. “I thought you'd win, and I'm glad.” Fritzie looked at Andy. He had thought that Fritzie would win? He was glad? Fritzie was so surprised that he hardly heard Andy as he went on talking. “And say, Applecake, do you suppose we could go into your uncle's shop? Just to look at his tools, you know, and to watch him at work?”

Fritzie put the bear in his box. “We'd like to have you come to the shop,” he said.

The school began to stand up to sing, “Silent Night, Holy Night.”

Fritzie held on to his box while he sang. The school seemed suddenly as familiar and welcoming as Uncle Anton’s shop. And all because of the Christmas Bear.