The Journey of the Shadow Bairns

by Margaret J. Anderson

  Elspeth awakened with a start. From the sounds around her she could tell that it was morning. For a moment she was alarmed to find that Robbie wasn’t there, until she remembered he was with Mrs. Beattie. She wriggled out of their corner and scampered through the hold in her eagerness to see him.

  He was sitting on the edge of Mrs. Beattie’s bunk, his face clean and his hair neatly brushed. His face lit up when he saw Elspeth.

  “Where’s Pig-Bear?” he asked. “I want to go outside.”

  “You can take him up on the deck for a bit,” Mrs. Beattie said. “The air is fresher there, but keep him out of the wind. He mustn’t get cold, and don’t let him run about.”

  “Thank you very much, ma’am,” Elspeth said earnestly. “Robbie, say thank you!”

  Robbie leaned against Elspeth twirling his hair with his forefinger, and smiled shyly at Mrs. Beattie. But she had settled herself on the crate and was staring off into the distance again. After a few uncertain moments, Elspeth and Robbie went to fetch Pig-Bear and then climbed the stairs to the deck.

  Rebecca and Rachel were waiting beside the lifeboats. “Mama’s awfully sick, so Papa sent us out,” Rachel said. “We want to play Shadow Bairns.”

  Elspeth shook here head. “Robbie’s been sick too, and he mustn’t run about. But I’ll tell you more about Manitoba—the place we’re going to.”

  With the ship cutting through the choppy sea, and Robbie better, Elspeth felt in touch with the future again. She began to describe the winding streets of Manitoba, the brick houses, the flower gardens.

  She was unaware that Matthew had joined them and was also listening until he interrupted. “You’ve got it all wrong! Manitoba isn’t a town. It’s a country.”

  “Canada’s the country,” Elspeth argued. “Manitoba is just a place there. It’s where Aunt Maud and Uncle David live.

  “Manitoba’s part of Canada, but it’s as big as a country,” Matthew insisted. “It’s ten times bigger than Scotland.”

  “Ten times bigger than Scotland!” Elspeth echoed. “Then how would you find someone who lived there?”

  “I don’t see how you could,” Matthew answered. “Not if all that you knew was that they lived in Manitoba.”

  Elspeth stared at Matthew, the color draining from her cheeks.

  “All this about Shadow Bairns—and going to find your aunt and uncle. . . . You mean it’s all true?” he asked.

  Elspeth nodded.

  “You’re just by yourselves? Alone?”

  Elspeth nodded again.

  “I thought your ma was seasick, like mine. I’m always being told to keep these two out of the way.”

  “We don’t have any Mama or Papa to tell us what to do,” Elspeth said in a low voice. “This woman came and she was going to put Robbie in an orphanage and get me a job as a maid, but I’d promised Mama I’d look after Rob—so we ran away.”

  “But how did you get here by yourselves? Are you stowaways?”

  “Oh, no!” Elspeth said. “Papa had bought the boat tickets before—before—”

  “How did you get to Liverpool?”

  “That wasn’t hard. I used to take Robbie to the station all the time to watch the trains. There’s a board that tells where the trains are going. We used to pretend—”

  “But it’s not just getting on the right train . . . ” Matthew’s voice trailed off as he thought back over the way his parents had discussed and argued about what they should take and what they should leave behind, what they’d need on the boat, and what they’d need once the got to Saskatoon. They had worried about what day to travel and where to stay in Liverpool. He couldn’t possible have managed without his family, and he was older than Elspeth. Think of being on his own with just Rachel and Rebecca. . . .

  “So your aunt and uncle don’t know you’re coming?”

  “No,” Elspeth admitted. “There wasn’t time to write, and anyway, I don’t know their address.”

  “When did they go to Manitoba? Will they remember you?”

  “They went six years ago. Robbie wasn’t born then, so they don’t know about him. Before they left we had a big party at the croft—a ceilidh, we called it. Uncle Donald played the pipes. I remember my cousins dancing—Mary and Charlie and wee Donald. Wild, they were!”

  “You might have more cousins by now—after six years,” Matthew pointed out.

  And they might not want her and Robbie. At that moment, Elspeth faced the awful truth that the Aunt Maud and Uncle Donald in the stories she told Rob were no more like the real people than her picture of Manitoba was like the real place. The night of the ceilidh was suddenly vivid in her mind. The cottage had been filled with the exciting sound of Uncle Donald’s pipes, but she had stood by Mama, too shy to join in the dancing. Aunt Maud had called her a plain wee thing and said she liked to see more spirit in a child. “She’s not used to so many people,” Mama had said, making excuses for her, but Aunt Maud had just tossed her dark curls and gone off dancing with Papa, leaving Mama and Elspeth by themselves, watching. Maybe Aunt Maud wouldn’t like her any better now than she did then. And she wasn’t sure she would like Aunt Maud. It was Mama and Papa she really wanted, and Aunt Maud wasn’t a bit like Mama. Even Uncle Donald wasn’t like Papa, although they were brothers.

  “Don’t just sit there,” Rachel said, interrupting her thoughts. “Tell us more of the story.”

  “Matthew can tell it,” Elspeth said. “He knows more about this place Manitoba than I do.”

  “But what are you going to do?” Matthew asked, not paying any attention to Rachel.

  “I’ll ask Mr. Barr to help me. He’ll know how to find Uncle Donald,” Elspeth answered, although she was no longer sure that was what she wanted.

  “”Isaac Barr!” Matthew shouted. “Talking to him won’t help. Pa says he’s just out for himself. He doesn’t trust him, and lots of others on the ship don’t either.”

  “He’s a minister,” protested Elspeth. “He’s got to help people.”

  “Being a minister doesn’t make any difference. Not with him.”

  “He has promised to find farms for people, and to help them.”

  “And he promised us a decent boat to sail in,” scoffed Michael.

  “What’s wrong with the boat?” Elspeth asked defiantly.

  “It’s an old cattle ship,” Matthew said. “Where the whitewash is flaking off the walls you can see manure. And it was meant to hold about eight hundred people and he has crammed in more than two thousand. If that’s how it is now, do you really think it will be any better in Canada?”

  “I’ve talked to him,” Elspeth said. “He feels responsible for us.”

  “And well he should—he’s got our money.”

  Suddenly Elspeth felt defeated. “What am I going to do?”

  Matthew shrugged. “Maybe someone will help you when we get there.” Then he added hopefully, “After all, the government must keep records of all the land they give away—so they don’t give it away twice. Someone will know where your aunt and uncle settled.”

  “But suppose they don’t want us? Suppose they haven’t room?”

  “You should have thought of that sooner. It’s a bit late now.”

  “Maybe I can get work.”

  “You’re hardly old enough to find a job, and what could you do?” Matthew asked. “Now if it was me, I could get a work on a farm, But there’s not going to be much call for girls building houses or breaking new land.”

  “You’re horrible! I hate you!” Elspeth shouted. All her anger and frustration was suddenly centered on Matthew. It was fine for him to be so sure of himself. He was fourteen years old, big for his age, and a boy besides. But it wasn’t his problem they were talking about.

  Matthew was a bit taken aback by Elspeth’s sudden burst of temper, and when she grabbed Robbie, saying it was time to go inside, he didn’t follow.

  That was the end of playing Shadow Bairns for Elspeth. She had no heart for it now. Matthew, the twins, and R
obbie still played, and other children were drawn into the game. It reached a grand climax the day before the ship docked at St. John. The weather had changed, and they were shrouded by fog so thick that their whole world was no bigger than the overcrowded ship. All day long the foghorn sounded its melancholy note, but for Shadow Bairns it was perfect weather. Dozens of children glided over the deck like gray phantoms, dodging, hiding, and pouncing on one another in a game that lasted all day long.

  But for Elspeth there was only worry. She had embarked on a journey with no destination beyond the fog.

  Chapter 6

  “Drawbacks”

  APRIL 10-17, 1903

  When the sun finally broke through the fog on Good Friday, the passengers on the Lake Manitoba caught their first glimpse of the New Land. Elspeth, standing at the rail with Robbie, shared everyone’s feeling of hope and excitement. But enthusiasm changed to impatience when the passengers learned that there were no trains waiting at St. John to meet the boat. Impatience was fanned to anger when rumors spread that Isaac Barr had bought up all the flour on board and had ordered it to be made into bread, which he was selling for twice as much as the bakers charged in St. John. Even so, people lined up to buy the loaves, knowing they needed food for the long train journey to Saskatoon.

  When nothing seemed about to happen, Elspeth and Robbie joined a crowd of people making their way down to the dining room, hoping for a last meal before they landed. The room was packed, but there was no sign of anything to eat.

  “What’s everyone doing here?” Elspeth asked a steward. “Don’t we get dinner?”

  “We’ve turned the dining room over to the bankers, who've come aboard from St. John. Everyone’s changing their money into Canadian dollars.”

  “Changing their money,” Elspeth repeated, puzzled.

  “Aye, you need dollars instead of pounds for spending in Canada,” the steward explained.

  When Elspeth realized she and Robbie were going to need some of these dollars, she wasn’t sure what to do. The bankers would likely wonder how a young girl came to have so much money. They’d ask a lot of questions about where it came from. She finally turned to Robbie and said, “Do you think you could find Matthew and ask him to meet me here?”

  Robbie nodded eagerly and scampered off. Elspeth, meantime, went down to the hold. She hurriedly took two bundles of pound notes from the bodice of her skirt. She wasn’t going to part with all her pounds until she was sure that these strange Canadian dollars were real money.

  When she returned to the dining room, Matthew and Robert were waiting for her. She felt rather nervous about asking Michael to do her a favor, but when she explained, he only said, “So you do have money! I’d been wondering about that.” He took her pounds and pushed his way through the crowd.

  After some time, he returned, disheveled but triumphant.

  “I got it!” he told Elspeth. “But let’s get away from here! There’s going to be trouble. The bankers are out of dollars and can’t get more until after Easter. Everyone’s blaming Barr.”

  Elspeth wanted to point out that it wasn’t Isaac Barr’s fault that the bankers hadn’t brought enough money on board with them, but decided now wasn’t the time for another argument with Matthew. Instead she thanked him and went down to the hold to hide her money.

  Two days later, on Easter Sunday, the air was filled, not with the sound of hymns, but with the creak of cranes, the crash of shunting engines, and the raised voices of the crowd. Trains were at last waiting, but the dock was so congested with baggage that there was no room for the passengers to disembark until the cranes were halted.

  The Canadian officials on shore, waiting to check papers and tickets, shook their heads in disbelief at the accumulating piles of boxes, trunks, sofas, and even pianos. Hadn’t anyone told these people of the difficulty and hardship of travel in the west? And where was this Isaac Barr who was supposed to be in charge?

  Elspeth, dragging their traveling bag and clutching Robbie by the hand, was near the front of the crowd that finally surged down the gangplank. She looked around, hoping to see the twins or Matthew, but was hemmed in by strangers. There was no reason why they shouldn’t let her get on the train, she told herself. She had the papers and tickets from Papa’s box. She straightened her shoulders and tried to look confident.

  When they stepped onto firm ground, Robbie, who had been so sure-footed on the lurching deck, stumbled and fell into a puddle formed by the recently melting snow, dropping Pig-Bear. Elspeth rescued Pig-Bear and wiped Robbie off as best she could, begging him to be a brave boy. Men pushed past, ignoring the two children in their eagerness to get through Customs and onto the trains. When Robbie’s cries quieted to intermittent sniffles, Elspeth joined the crowd again.

  “Who’s next?” a stern-looking official demanded, looking over Elspeth’s head.

  “Me, sir!” Elspeth said timidly.

  “Where’s your pa?” the man asked impatiently. “Who’s with these children?”

  No one came forward to claim them, but the next man in line thrust his papers under the official’s nose.

  “Stand there and watch for your ma and pa,” the official told Elspeth, gesturing toward the end of the table. “You all need to get on the train together.”

  Elspeth, holding Robbie firmly by the hand, moved off to the side. The official picked up the next man’s papers. Confronted by some new problem, he began to question the man and Elspeth saw her chance. Like Shadow Bairns, she and Robbie merged with a group of men heading through to the station entrance.

  The station was disappointingly unlike the Glasgow railway station. There was no departure board to tell Elspeth how to get to Manitoba—or anywhere else. The train, standing beside the platform with its doors gaping open, was huge and foreign. The great wedge-shaped cowcatcher in front, the clanging bell on top, and carriages so high above the platform you had to climb steps to reach the door, looked strange and unfamiliar.

  Further down the platform a uniformed official was heading toward them. “Come on, Robbie! This way!” Elspeth said, pulling Robbie across the platform and up the steps into the train, heaving their bag and bundle of blankets on ahead of them.

  Inside, the train wasn’t divided into compartments like the one in Glasgow, nor were the seats covered with red velvet. Instead Elspeth found herself in a long coach furnished with seats made of slatted wood.

  “We’ll sit here,” she said, pushing Robbie into a seat. He sat down quietly, sucking on Pig-Bear’s ear, watching wide-eyed as groups of men jostled their way onto the train. Elspeth wished they could see some of the children they knew from the boat, but all the passengers were men, most of them quite young.

  “Is this the right train? Should we be here?” Robbie asked, giving voice to Elspeth’s own doubts.

  “Of course it's the right train,” Elspeth answered sharply. “Did you see any other?”

  Someone outside was yelling to a few late arrivals, who were running toward their coach, dragging bags and bundles. Doors banged shut down the length of the train, a bell clanged, and the engine got up steam. After the train started, Robbie was quiet for a while looking out the window, but then he began to experiment with the venetian blind. It came rattling down, frightening both Elspeth and himself.

  “Do sit still and let things be,” Elspeth said crossly. She could tell it was going to be hard to keep Robbie amused after the freedom he’d had on the boat. She wished again that there were other children on the train.

  “Can we walk about?” Robbie asked.

  “Maybe later,” Elspeth answered. “Just be still for now.” She wasn’t about to leave her seat and meet the curious gaze of all these men.

  “I have been sitting still—for a long time,” Robbie complained.

  The argument was cut short by the appearance of the conductor. Elspeth’s heart pounded at the sight of a uniform—people in uniform always seemed like them. She turned away and stared out of the window.

  “
What have we got here?” the conductor asked, stopping beside them. “I was told there would only be single men on this train. People with children were to travel together on the third train. So what in the name of heaven are you two bairns doing here?” He took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair.

  He spoke in a soft Highland voice, just like their father’s. So much so that Robbie looked up at the man, held out his arms, and wailed, “I want Papa! I want Papa!”

  “Don’t tell me you children got on the wrong train all by yourselves.”

  Elspeth nodded, not knowing what else to say. After all, it was true. They apparently were on the wrong train and they were by themselves.

  “I can’t turn the train back, you know. What am I going to do with you?”

  “I want Papa!” Robbie wailed again.

  “And he’ll be wanting you,” the man said. “How did you manage to get on the train by yourselves? Though from what I saw of that mess on the dock it will be a wonder if there are only two lost bairns. But to get on the train alone! Such a bother your mama and papa will be in. Did you never think of that?”

  Elspeth, who had managed to control her tears for so long, began to sob. It wasn’t the man’s scolding. It was the way he made Mama and Papa seem real again—as if there was someone who was worrying about them.

  “Crying will help nothing,” the conductor said severely. “I could put you off in Montreal to wait for their train, but you still might miss them. Besides I wouldn’t feel right leaving you there alone.”

  In his preoccupation, he ran his fingers through his hair again, and then crammed his cap back on, leaving his hair sticking out in unruly tufts.

  “Maybe it would be better to have you bide here where I can keep an eye on you. I’ll send a telegram to St. John telling your parents you got on the first train, and then I’ll put you in care of someone in Saskatoon till your papa gets here. Yes, that would be the best way,” he said, nodding to himself. “I’ll need your names so I can send the telegram.”

  “Elspeth and Robert MacDonald,” Elspeth whispered.