Years ago, a few days before Christmas, three-year-old Amber Leigh declared she knew Santa would bring her a doll buggy so that she could ride her much-loved little family around the art classrooms of the little red brick cottage on Chestnut Street.
After this short notice, futile trips to nearby department stores found no buggy in stock, and times looked very bleak for a last-minute add-on to Santa’s list.
The stoplight turned green and I rounded the corner heading away from Chestnut Street in one final attempt to find that gift. By chance, I happened to glance at the hardware store at the corner of the alley.
I had passed that old building many times but today it brought to mind a childhood dream I had when I was sure Santa would take the Red Ryder BB Gun from Beasley’s Hardware Store near where we lived and deliver it to my home on McKay Street.
Being a girl, not even great faith in Santa could overcome the drastic shattering my mother gave to that notion and my visits to Beasley’s.
So I walked into Oscar’s Hardware Store that Christmas Eve and as I felt the old floorboards creak under my steps, I knew I was moving into the setting of a Christmas Miracle that I would never forget.
The buggy had been sitting there for several years, waiting for the right list to place it in a little girl’s heart.
I would return to Oscar’s many times for advice and odds and ends while rehabbing the red brick cottage and two other buildings.
Later I would sculpt the building’s facade to include in my “Old Town Village”. The Hardware Store no longer stands by the alley, but when I see it displayed in the home of a relative, I think back to that Christmas and a little girl who put a bonnet and a dress on a cat named Prissy. Along with a lion and dollies, they had many adventures on Chestnut Street.
I am sure Oscar would also be proud of the dream he helped to come true.