Wolves are often portrayed as a threat to humans, particularly little girls. Here is a true story that brings that portrayal into question.
THE CHRISTMAS WOLF by Tessie Lutz
It was Christmas Eve, 1923, when the incident took place. It was back on our farm in Orange, Pennsylvania. I was a 7-year-old girl then.
“We need more firewood!” I can again hear my mother saying to my father. “In a week it will be Christmas Eve. When you’re sitting there smoking your pipe in front of our fire with no more logs to bum, you’ll get angry at me.”
“Woman,” he replied, “I’ll fetch you your firewood.”
My father bundled himself up, took his rifle, walked to the barn for his ax and saw, and hitched up the horse to the sled. “Can I come along?” I shyly asked. “Ah, my Tessie, my sweet Tessie, yes, come along if you wish.”
The horse pulled the sled through the snow-covered forest. My father knew where a few fallen trees were located. He found the dried logs under the snow and quickly went to work. Suddenly there was a stillness. I no longer heard my father chopping or sawing firewood. When I looked up, I saw him standing motionless and silently staring. I followed the direction of his eyes. At first, I thought that figure might be a dog, but from my father’s seriousness, I knew it must be something more. Then my father broke his stillness and went to the sled for his rifle. I looked at the gray- orange animal standing in the clearing, staring at my father and me. It was not moving, but not afraid. I said to my father, “What is it, daddy?”
“It’s a wolf, honey. They’ve been gone from this area for 50 years, but there it stands.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Shoot it, so don’t move.”
I watched as my father got into position arid raised his rifle. I walked beside him and palled on his jacket. “Honey, don’t do that!”
“But daddy, I said, “Why are you shooting it? Why are you shooting the pretty dog?”“It’s not a dog, honey, it’s a wolf.”
“But the wolf isn’t harming us, daddy.”
“I suppose you’re right, Tess.”
I gazed at the wolf. It was still standing there, strangely, almost mystically staring. “You’re lucky, wolf, for Tess was here today to protect you.” The wolf boldly took a last look at my father and me, then scampered away into the deep forest. My father finished his work and we rode home.
On Christmas Eve, relatives started arriving; there was kissing and hugging, and gifts exchanged. Yet I was getting bored with all the commotion. What I wanted to do was open my gifts which were under the tree, but mother said I had to wait. I asked, “Mommy, can I go our and play for a while?” She was occupied with other matters. “All right, but stay around the house. Your father says a storm’s coming.” I was quickly out in the Christmas Eve snow. I wandered toward the woods. Before I realized it night was nearly upon me. It was a silent twilight, then suddenly the storm hit. One second the forest was calm, and the next the wind was blowing the heavily falling snow in my face, blinding me. It was getting colder and darker. I started immediately for home, but every step was a struggle. I kept walking for what seemed like hours, and finally in desperation I started shouting. “Mommy! Daddy! Help me!
I don’t know how long I walked around that night, but finally, exhausted, I stumbled under a pine tree’s branches and closed my eyes. I was still was still too young to understand such concepts as death, so I didn’t know I was slowly freezing to death. Suddenly; 1felt a strange weight upon me, and a welcome warmth. It was an effort to open my eyes, but when I did, I thought someone had covered me with some sort of gray-orange blanket. But then I saw it wasn’t a blanket, but the dog my father and I had seen the week before — the dog my father had called a wolf. Strangely, I wasn’t frightened, but relieved that I wasn’t alone any more. The heat from the animal gave off started to warm me when the cruel Pennsylvania blizzard blew. On that Christmas Eve, I was rocked gently to sleep by the heartbeat of the animal my father almost shot. The next time I opened my eyes, I heard my father’s voice calling, “Tessie! Tessie!” It was light out.The wind was no longer blowing and the snow had stopped. Then I saw the wolf. It was standing near me, shaking the snow off its back. Its ears shot straight up as my father’s voice called out again. The wolf took one last glance at me, then quickly disappeared. “Daddy,” I said weakly, “here.” I saw my father’s face staring down at me. He was crying. He said, “Thank God, she’s still alive.”
When I opened my eyes again I was in my own bed, warm at last. My mother was sitting at the side of the bed; my father was standing by her, and he said, “It’s a miracle she’s alive. By all practical reasoning, the should have frozen out there.”
“The dog, daddy,” I said weakly. “The dog we saw in the woods. When you were chopping and sawing, daddy. The dog was with me. The dog kept me warm all through the night”
“What is she saying?” my mother asked.
“She’s saying a wolf kept her alive! The day we went wood cutting and she came along, she stopped me from shooting a wolf. I think she is saying the wolf kept her warm through the night.”
“Yes,” I said, “it was the wolf.”
“Impossible,” my mother said.
There’s only one way to find out,” my father replied. “I’m going back to the place where I found her.”
When he returned, he confirmed my story Indeed, he had found a wolf’s tracks there.
I’ve never forgotten that Christmas Eve, with the wolf warming me and rocking me gently to sleep in that bitter blizzard, giving me the greatest Christmas gift of all — life.
Wolves & Related Canids
Winter 1992
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