Frog Legs for Christmas

Chessa drove her old beat-up Volkswagen as far off the slushy, muddied road as possible.

"Just great, Chessa," she muttered under her breath. "Just great."

The thirty-something brunette looked at the surrounding forest with bleak eyes. She couldn't see the beauty of the forest, lushly covered under the blanket of mostly undisturbed snow. Her grey eyes, though peering into the foliage, couldn't fathom anything of beauty surviving the harshness of the winter landscape.

She grabbed her jacket and gloves, plopped her hat on her hair, then wrapped her scarf tightly against the cold, prepared to brave the white cold outside her V-W, in search of help.

As Chessa pondered going back the way she had come, snow began to fall.

"Well, no use going back, I know nothing's that way, and these tire tracks have to lead somewhere."

With one extra tug on a glove, Chessa stepped out into the muck that should have been a road.

* * *

As the storm grew more fierce, Daniel threw a few extra logs onto the fire. The brandy he'd poured earlier into fine crystal glowed a deep red, the exotic and heady scent, beguiling.

He'd made the trip into town earlier in the day, just getting back to his cabin in the woods ahead of the purported blizzard the weathermen were all predicting. He had stocked up on all of the essentials; plenty of Chocoroos, his favorite inspirational food source, milk, and a whole case of Mac and Cheese. Yep, other than the brandy and his two extra large cans of coffee, Daniel needed nothing else. Except his trusty old typewriter and plenty of paper too, that is.

As the logs settled into the glowing embers, Daniel picked up his glass, then headed into the kitchen.

"No use putting it off any longer," he said as he looked at the usually tidy counter tops. Flour was liberally sprinkled over the golden pine finish, his spice rack, and the area in front of the not used much stove. As he passed by the window and caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection, Daniel gave a startled laugh.

"I could pass for a ghost, or Jack Frost," he thought, "Depending on what you were more inclined to believe in, that is." He stuck his tongue out at himself then laughed at the thought.

As he stared out at his reflection, another face stepped into his view and Daniel's heart skipped a quick beat as he yelped out loud. It took but a moment to realize that the stranger was a woman, not some snow beast staring back at him, and he lunged for the back door to let her in.

"Lady, are you all right?" Daniel prodded the woman into the living room nearer the fireplace, brushing off the snow from her jacket as they went. "What in the world were you doing out there?"

Chessa's teeth were chattering so hard, the merest mumble was incoherent. Daniel disappeared back into the kitchen, then reappeared with the decanter of brandy and an empty glass.

"Here," he said handing her the fragile stemware, "Drink this, it'll warm you from the inside."

"Tttthhhhhhhssss." A shudder shook her entire frame, and Daniel began rubbing her arms, trying to get the circulation going again.

"Don't try to talk yet. Is anyone else out there with you? Do I need to call into town for help or anything?"

Her quick negative shake of the head would have been missed except that the woman also managed a terse "Nnnnn."

"Good, that's good."

Chessa wanted nothing more than to step into the fireplace and get warmed up as quickly as possible. Instead, she stood looking up into the brown? eyes of a man almost completely doused in flour? or baby powder, she couldn't tell. He stood head and shoulders above her five foot five frame, but his hands were gentle and his voice like velvet.

She swallowed the first bit of Brandy too quickly, then gasped, trying to catch her breath.

"Smooth," she said while inhaling, "Very smooth." Her fingers, tingling now, were warming and she wondered at the fineness of the crystal she held. "Your place?" she finally managed. She pulled the hat from her head, then began unwinding the scarf from her neck.

"Uh.....yeah.....mine." He spoke in grunting bursts as he tugged a quilt from the couch, draping it over Chessa as she finished removing her jacket.

"Thanks. My name is Chessa Roberts." She extended her gloved hand, then pulled back, removing her glove. "Sorry," she smiled, "Bad manners."

"Daniel. Call me Danniel if you like. It's okay, the glove I mean. I mean, it's okay about the glove, not that the glove is okay. Not that the glove is not okay. I mean, okay." he turned a pink shade, or she thought he did, it was kind of hard to tell with all the flour on him.

"So, Daniel-call-me-Daniel, why are you covered in flour?" Chessa figured in for a penny, in for a pound.

A silly grin played at the edges of Daniels mouth, "Well, the pond froze over, see? And I was up there ice fishing and got skunked. But when I was getting ready to come home, I saw these big old frogs all frozen like, just under the ice, so I thought to myself, 'Hey, self, try some frog legs!' so I did and there you go."

"Frozen frogs legs?"

"Yeah. Well, did you know that frogs legs will jump right out of a frying pan?"

"I can't say that I knew that, Daniel, no." Chessa, warming up now, tried to keep from laughing out loud.

"Well, if you ever come across a frozen pond and you see a three-legged frog, just walk on by. He whupped me, ruined a perfectly clean kitchen, and near scared the bejesus out of me. I thought he was dead all frozen like that, but God taught me a lesson today."

Mirth twinkled in Chessa's eyes as she asked him "What lesson was that, Daniel?"

"The way I see it, He sent a plague of locusts and frogs down on Pharoah in the Bible when Moses wanted his people freed, and one of them frogs used found his way here to my pond. Just God's way of reminding me to stick to m'Chocoroos!"

* * *

Chessa waved farewell to Daniel as she drove her V-W down the now plowed road. Her eyes took in the wonders of Nature that she had before now ignored. If a frog could sacrifice his leg to remind a man about his faith, then she could learn from it as well. There was more to life than her own narrow view, after all, it was Christmas!