Author's Note: This is a present for a special person who has waited patiently for far too long.

It's Beginning to Smell a Lot Like Christmas

by

Owlcroft

"This one looks good, doncha think?" Hardcastle shook the tree gently, testing the needles for looseness.

McCormick looked over at the tree, then shook his head slightly. "Keep it in mind, but. . ." he wandered off toward another batch of evergreens, "it's not quite perfect."

The judge sighed, shrugged, told the tree, "I may be back; you wait here, okay?" and followed his friend.

"Whatever happened to cedar trees?" that friend complained, reaching in between two spruces to see what was behind them. "A friend of my mom's always had a cedar tree because she liked the way it smelled." He withdrew his arm, treeless, and moved off again.

"Yeah, cedar's nice. They don't spread out the way these do, ya know, leaving space for the ornaments and all." Hardcastle spotted a possibility and strode off toward it, calling behind him, "I haven't seen a cedar for sale in years."

A curly head poked around a tall white pine and smiled hopefully at the judge's current point of interest. "That's a good one!" He joined Hardcastle at the seven-foot blue spruce. "This is a really good one." He checked the tag and hastily added, "But expensive!"

"Yeah, but I like it." The judge rubbed his chin and walked all the way around the tree thoughtfully. "You like it, too, right?"

"Yeah," was the tentative response.

"Okay," Hardcastle slapped his hands together in satisfaction. "We'll take this one."

ooooo

The tree was riding comfortably in the back of the pickup truck and Mark had found some not-too-sappy Christmas music.

"If I never hear 'Holly Jolly Christmas' again, I'll be happy," he muttered. "So why aren't there any cedar trees any more at Christmas?"

"I dunno." Hardcastle passed a slow-moving car with its tree tied onto the roof. "Maybe they don't grow well out here. Maybe they don't transport well. Gotta be a reason."

McCormick nodded, brow wrinkled. After a moment, he said, "I don't even really remember what they smell like. Do you?"

"Hmm. Kinda." The judge squinted in concentration. "Maybe. I remember they did smell good, though. Maybe sorta like those car dinguses – you know, the little trees that people hang from their rear view mirrors?"

"You do know that's against the law, don't you?" said Mark sternly. "But, nah, I don't think that's right. They're supposed to be pines, aren't they?"

"Yeah, guess so." The judge drove silently for another mile, approaching the Gull's Way drive, then, just as he put on his left turn signal, he said, "Hah!"

McCormick jumped slightly, having been deep in thought of presents under the blue spruce in a day or so, and said testily, "What?"

"I know what cedar smells like!" in a triumphant tone. "And so will you. Just wait 'til we get this guy set up,"' he jerked a thumb toward the tree in the back.

ooooo

Hardcastle dragged McCormick toward the stairs, saying, "Come on, come on, come on. We can decorate in a few minutes."

"But where – what – " Mark was still pointing toward the tree, barely set up in the den. "What in the world do you have upstairs that smells like cedar, Judge?"

"This," Hardcastle pulled him into the small room known as the sewing room and used as an emergency second bedroom.

Mark stood looking down at a wooden box, three feet long and two high. "Okay, what's that?"

"My wife's cedar chest!" The judge bent down and rubbed a reverential hand across the shiny surface, then pulled the lid up to reveal a small pile of tidily-stacked material.

McCormick leaned over, sniffed, then knelt down and lowered his face into the cedar chest. "Yeah! That's it. That's what the trees smelled like!"

The judge joined him on the floor, sniffing appreciatively himself.

Another couple of deep breaths, and Mark asked, "But what's a cedar chest? I mean, okay, it's made of cedar and it's a chest, but you said it like I should know what it is."

Hardcastle smiled at the pile of linens. "I guess you don't see a lot of 'em these days. Time was, every unmarried female had a cedar chest – sometimes they called 'em hope chests, 'cause they were hoping to meet the right guy – and they kept all their stuff in 'em. Towels and sheets and tablecloths and all kinds of linens for the new home when they got married. This was my wife's and she told me she hemmed the sheets herself and hand-embroidered the table napkins with our monogram when we got engaged."

McCormick eyed the linens with respect and even stretched out a careful finger to touch them. "So these are what's left?"

"Yeah, and see – the cedar keeps the moths from getting into everything and spoiling them."

"Oh, yeah. And they all did that, collected stuff for when they got married?" Mark took one more deep breath of the cedar smell and leaned back.

"Sure. Took years, sometimes." The judge lifted himself a tad stiffly from the floor and closed the chest with care. "Put fancy nightgowns in there, and quilts. I wonder if anybody still does that these days. Maybe they all think it's old-fashioned."

McCormick led the way back to the stairs. "Well, I hadn't heard of them, but then I don't go around talking to a lot of woman about getting married."

That brought a snicker from the judge, but then Mark continued.

"But I think it's kinda sweet. You know, looking forward to a big day, getting married and moving into your own place to start a new life."

They reached the foot of the stairs, and the judge plucked at the younger man's sleeve to tug him toward the kitchen. "Yeah, it was. A shame if nobody does that any more, doncha think?"

"Yes, but don't tell me you have your cedar chest in the kitchen, Judge. What are we doing now?"

Hardcastle rubbed his hands together and grinned. "You start the coffee." He opened an upper cabinet and stretched a long arm up, pushing various packages aside. "I gotta a box up here somewhere . . ." A grunt of satisfaction, and then, "Here it is. I'll get this gingerbread mix in the oven and we'll have another Christmas smell going while we do the tree!"

finis