Once upon a time, a loving wife and mother, Annie McVee, died of a sudden illness, leaving two children; Harold and Eleanor, aged five and seven. They had only their hard-working father, Alex McVee, to look after them. The children helped with chores but their father had much work to do on the farm. He worked from dawn to dusk. He and the children missed their wife and mother, Annie, very much.
One Alex McVee's friends in the village was Tommy. He had an older sister, Jane, who never married. When this sister was quite young, she had lost an eye. Several red-hot embers from her family's fireplace flew out and hit her face when her little brother Tommy had carelessly tossed a log on the fire she was sitting next to. Their mother's comment at the time had been, "Thank goodness the ember didn't strike the boy." Jane's missing eye had disfigured her face and made her bitter, although she was known as a hard worker in the village.
Encouraged by his friend, the father married the sister with one eye (Jane) so that the children would have a mother and the meals and the house would be taken care of.
As a new stepmother, Jane treated the children meanly, perhaps because her own mother had treated her meanly. "Children cannot be pampered, if they are to grow up responsible," was a favorite expression of hers. She had learned it verbatim from her mother, of course.
The stepmother also resented the first wife's precious things. For example, one of the children's mother's treasures had been a large supply of blankets and linens. As new wife, Jane stored these blankets away in her hope chest under lock and key.
The nights got colder as Summer turned to Autumn. The one-eyed mean stepmother refused to bring out the warm blankets for the children's bed. All they had on their bed was a few worn out rags. When winter settled in, they huddled together shivering with the cold, until they fell asleep.
But each morning of this first week of winter, when the children woke up, they found themselves wrapped cozy and warm in their mother's blankets. Their stepmother was livid. She screamed at them and smacked them up side their heads in frustration. But she knew in her heart that the only key to the chest, where the blankets were locked, was safely hidden under her own pillow. She, of course, had a very warm blanket on her bed.
Then one cold winter's night young Harold fell asleep quickly but Eleanor could not. She was so cold, bitter cold, and she lay awake shivering, deep into the night.
Suddenly, the bedroom door opened, and Eleanor saw a lady dressed in a long shimmering white dress. As the ghostly lady approached, the lock on the chest sprang open and she brought out two blankets and wrapped the children in them.
The lady leaned down to kiss the children and as she did Eleanor recognized her mother.
Eleanor whispered, "Mother?" but the lady in white turned away and vanished into the darkness.
When Eleanor told her family what she had seen, the stepmother relented and allowed the children to have warm blankets on their bed.
They didn't exactly live happily ever after, because no one does, but the children were on better terms with their stepmother for those short years that children live at home with their parents.
