A CHRISTMAS gift by Glendon Swarthout is a sweet and tender tale of growing up on a Michigan farm during the Great Depression of the 1930s. A middle-aged man remembers a Christmas Eve miracle involving an antique pump organ, a smoke-belching 1928 Rumely OilPull tractor, and a strange cavalryman wearing a blue uniform, with a saber scabbard and a Colt revolver on his belt.James, the narrator, tells us: “Now, this autumn, as the days wither and the stars recede and another Christmas nears, I am old enough to tell it truly, and young enough at last to know what it means.”In such hard times James’s father can’t find work in Philadelphia and depends on “relief” checks to feed his family. James is 13 when he’s sent to live with his grandparents, Ella and Will Chubb. He thinks of his grandparents as kindly old people with one foot in the grave, but he helps with chores and enjoys farm life. The Chubbs raise chickens and sheep and have plenty of food. One neighboring family is so poor it’s said they run their Model T to church “on a mixture of pee, vinegar and piety.”The Chubbs don’t have electricity or a car but they have two valuable possessions. Will has a Rumely Oil Pull tractor, a monstrosity weighing almost six and a half tons. Ella sometimes plays their pump organ, also known as a melodeon. It was purchased in 1863 by Will’s father Ephraim just before he went to war with the 10th Michigan Cavalry. Will’s mother Sarah played the melodeon and taught Will to play it when he was six years old.Ephraim was listed as missing in action until his remains were found in 1869, shipped home and buried near the church three miles from the Chubb farm. Will, who had a natural talent for playing the melodeon, never played another note after he learned his father was dead. James’s reaction when he heard the story: “I had not realized that loss could be so long-lived. I had not known that tears, like flowers pressed between the pages of a book, could be indefinitely preserved."Ella suggests donating the organ to the church as a Christmas offering. Can’t be done, Will says. A blizzard has roared down from Canada and the tractor can’t pull an organ through three miles of snow drifts. But the idea takes hold and Will and James plot to deliver the organ as a surprise Christmas gift to Ella. Will plies Ella with applejack until she’s tiddly and falls sound asleep, and off he and James go.When they stop at a neighbor’s place to get warm, an exhausted Will falls asleep. The neighbor is sick in bed but his wife sends their four girls along to help James deliver the organ. It’s a perilous trip in blinding snow but eventually they pull up to the front porch of the church. So far, so good, but they aren’t strong enough to slide the organ off of the stoneboat and into the church. All five of them—James and the four girls—burst into tears.Suddenly it stops snowing. Into the silence rides the strange cavalryman on a black horse. He dismounts and easily gets the organ into the church, chatting with the children to reassure them. Before riding back into the darkness he extracts a promise from James that the boy will find hard to keep.I read this book twice and kept a box of tissues handy both times.