Far From Home

by Nellie P. Strowbridge

  Treffie looked down at her green enamel plate as if her eyes were following its white trim. She lifted her eyes without raising her head; the whites showed big and curved under blue irises. Her thin, light eyelashes flickered as she protested in a weak voice, “But Miss, I always use my left hand. That’s the way it comes to me to do.”

  There was no hint of leniency in Missus Frances’s voice: “Here you must follow the rules. Those who do not do so are punished.” She paused, then continued. “Other children came from across the Labrador Straits before you, Trophenia. They were not used to seeing food left on a plate. Some of them would eat their own food and anyone else’s, if they were not watched.” The mistress’s eyes lifted to include all the children. “No child shall take food from another child’s hand or off someone else’s plate. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” The children’s voices rose in unison.

  Clarissa’s lips moved but she made no sound. She was glad when the mistress excused herself from the room, leaving Ilish in charge. Ilish the Butter Dish, a couple of the boys had nicknamed the plump girl behind her back.

  Clarissa frowned at the bowl of the coarse-looking porridge. If she didn’t eat it now, the punky porridge covered in cold, sticky molasses would be staring her in the face at lunchtime. If she left it then, she would face it at supper. She spread her brown handkerchief across her knees and, when Ilish wasn’t looking and the tattlers around her were digging into their porridge, she dumped hers into her handkerchief and pushed it into her pocket. When the children were dismissed, she left the dining room with the soggy porridge against her hip. She reached the dormitory as fast as she could, and flushed the porridge down the toilet. She had done this once before, after a bowl of porridge she wouldn’t eat for breakfast was left for her lunch. Then, like today, the cold mess had fallen from her bowl into her handkerchief in a shiny, round lump, leaving the bowl looking as clean as if she had licked it. She washed her porridge-messed handkerchief in the scratchy tub by the toilet, and left it on the radiator to dry. She would have her regular lunch and supper now.

  Church bells were ringing, calling people to worship, as Clarissa hurried down the stairs and out the door to where Cora was waiting for her. As they made their way along the road, Clarissa looked around to make sure no one was walking close to them. “I had a bad dream about the box last night,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I’m glad we didn’t open it.”

  “What did you dream?” Clarissa asked eagerly.

  “I can’t remember.” Her hand lifted to her mouth in a fist and she coughed into it. “And it seems that if I do remember, I can’t tell,” she added with a frown. “I’m never supposed to tell.”

  “Don’t, then,” Clarissa said crossly. She couldn’t see why anyone would say they had a dream if they could never tell what was in it.

  She struggled over the steep hill, to the beautiful, clear pealing of the bells, stopping to rest on her crutches and pull her coat tight. Cora kept on going.

  “’Tis a soft wind gettin’ ready to shiver across the harbour this morning,” observed Uncle Aubrey on his way past Clarissa. The caretaker always dressed for church in a vest over a collarless white shirt and narrow-cuffed pants under a long coat. His grey head was topped with a quiff hat, making him look almost as distinguished as Dr. Grenfell. He stopped to knock his clay pipe against his hand. Ashes floated into the air. Now it would be cool enough to lie in his coat pocket until the service was over.

  Clarissa looked towards a spread of fishing boats asleep on the still water of the harbour, the likeness mirrored on the calm surface. The wind livened and brushed away the image. The water’s lips sucked the keels of the little boats; they began to rock and nod under a sky alive with clouds scudding like a school of mackerel. It was almost time for the fishermen to haul up their boats for the winter.

  Missus Frances spoke from behind Clarissa: “If I had to struggle like you with your braces and crutches I’d go mad, and I’ve not near the miles left in my life that you have to travel.”

  Clarissa stiffened. Her lips tightened in resolve. I’m going to be well, she vowed silently. I’m going to grow out of this. She didn’t know why the mistress didn’t know that. As she hobbled along on the crutches, she often told herself, sometimes aloud, “Each step is taking me closer to where I’m going and then I’ll be there.”

  She finally reached the little white church. The caretaker kept the door open as she swung herself inside, smiling and nodding thank you to him. She slid down next to Cora in the pew, steadying her crutches against the seat in front of her.

  There was no sign of Dr. Grenfell. He sometimes joined Reverend Penny and preached, although he didn’t have a licence. After these services, some of the parishioners would trot off mumbling that he should stick to games of chess when he wasn’t practising medicine.

  Reverend Penny was soon sniffling through his sermon on Proverbs. “Give me Agur’s wish,” he said piously. “Let me have neither poverty nor riches.”

  Clarissa wanted riches and the full use of her body. Some Sundays Reverend Penny read about Jesus helping a lame man walk and raising a twelve-year-old girl from the dead. If God could do all that, He shouldn’t have any trouble making her well. Cora needed more breath too. Some days, hers seemed to be stifled inside her.

  There was a stir in the seat behind the girls. They looked at each other. Peter and some of the other boys were doing it again: mooching from church on the pretense of going to the outhouse. Clarissa sat listening to the sermon, knowing that the boys were having more fun sneaking down to Bottom Brook behind the orphanage to go hoosing for pricklies. She imagined them slipping their hands under the tiny, freckled water striders skimming across the fresh water. Sometimes they threw out an empty bottle tied to a string. After a time, they pulled it in with pricklies swimming inside. Often, they hid the bottle behind a tree and came back to church before the service ended.

  Reverend Penny hurried down the aisle after the service to shake hands with the parishioners before they left the church. He had a pleasant face, and he always touched Clarissa’s shoulder without speaking. Today as she made her way along the road, he overtook her, commenting, “My, it must be awfully hard walking that way. You’re our little pet.” She looked around to make sure no one but Cora heard him. She didn’t mind being called a pet as long as the other children didn’t hear. It was kind of Reverend Penny to say that to her; suddenly he wasn’t just a sniffling preacher. He was someone who understood.

  Clarissa always felt hungry after the Sunday service. Now she could hardly wait to get to the orphanage. She was always excited about the Sunday lunch of baked beans and spiced, black bread, and curious about the pudding dessert. She made a wish: Let it be chocolate, and not tapioca or rice.

  She panted her way up the orphanage steps and stepped inside. Cora had gone on ahead and was already seated with the other children around the long table by the time Clarissa came from washing her hands. She moved as fast as she could to sit as graciously as she could in her seat at the head of the table.

  After the children had finished their rice pudding and were dismissed by Ilish, Clarissa called, “Come on, Treffie, I’ll take you to the study room and show you some pictures.”

  The younger girl looked at Clarissa with large, clouded eyes, but she followed her into the study room. Her eyes lost their uncertainty as Clarissa sat down and pulled an album off a side table. She opened it to a photograph of Dr. Grenfell and eighteen children sitting on the school steps.

  Clarissa grinned. “There’s me. I was only ten then. And there’s Cora.” She smiled at the sight of the girl in the striped dress leaning forward carelessly, her dark, straight hair parted at the left and pulled straight across her forehead. It framed a glad face and a wide smile, though the eyes were dark and shadowed. One arm was over Clarissa’s shoulder as if to show the world that they were friends, friends forever, even if they couldn’t skip down the road holding hands like some of the other
girls.

  Clarissa pointed to Alice, one of the girls in her dormitory. She was wearing a light gimp and dark blouse trimmed with a white, pansy collar; her hands were clasped as if they were holding each other for comfort. Her face had a worried, heavy look. It always looked like that, even when she was doing things like blowing out her birthday candles. Alice was paired off with Ettie, who looked sensible and serious. Ettie’s hair was parted to the right and pulled tight across her forehead and pinned with a barrette. Then there was Imogene who was older than Clarissa. Imogene stayed with Ettie and Becky in the dormitory on the third floor.

  Except for Cora, the girls seemed to be in rack with each other, leaving Clarissa out. They think they can catch my lameness, she thought. She often watched the other girls go hippity-hopping down the road, holding hands and swinging them.

  “Youse all looks to be a big family,” Treffie said wistfully.

  “You’re in that family now,” said Clarissa. “I’m sure you’ll have your photo taken soon.”

  “I’ve never had my picture snapped. I wish Mammy and Poppa could see me on paper.” The girl’s eyes filled with tears, her voice faltering over the words. “Poppa was hunting – he got lost in the woods. And Mammy – she had the consumption; it drove the air out of her lungs and wouldn’t let it back in.”

  Clarissa smiled wistfully. “There are mountains and the ocean between my mother and me. She’s not an angel, so she can’t see me. Your mother can see you from Heaven, you know.”

  “You mean Heaven’s got windows in the floor? Sure, dat’s a strange place.”

  “Heaven is a glass house you can see through, no matter where you look,” Cora said as she came into the room. “Golden streets run right through the house and you can walk on them and look down to earth. I dreamed all about it.”

  Treffie lifted her shoulders and let out a sigh. She seemed relieved that the older girls knew so much about the place where her mother had gone.

  Clarissa leaned her arms on the table and said in an optimistic voice, “One good thing about having your mother dead is that she can come to where you are without having to go by boat or dogsled. She can move lighter than smoke, and she can get you out of trouble. Mr. Manuel, the old caretaker we had here before Uncle Aubrey, said to me, ‘Clarissa, yer mudder could do a lot fer yer if she wus dead. Mine let me outta a cellar after me stepmudder locked me in it.’ He said it just like that. Your mother would have let you out of the closet if Missus Frances hadn’t. Anyway, time always moves a punishment to an end.”

  “Pay no mind to the mistresses,” Cora said, lifting her nose disdainfully. “Most of the grownups here are from away. They come to look after poor white and dark natives, and to look down on us at the same time. No one stays long – sometimes we get a nice one.”

  “Have youse been here a while?” Treffie asked Clarissa.

  “It seems like forever,” Clarissa said slowly, her eyes moistening. “I came to the hospital first, then to the old orphanage. From there I was sent home for a little while. Then Dr. Grenfell had me brought back to the hospital. That’s where I met Nurse Helen Smith.”

  Treffie looked at her curiously. “I’ve never been to a hospital and I’ve never seen a real nurse.”

  “You should be glad for that,” Clarissa answered, “though a nurse, in her white gown with a cloud of white veil framing her face, can look like an angel. Nurse Smith wore white stockings and thick, white shoes. When I was operated on, she shaved my skin and washed me with green soap. Then Dr. Grenfell put ether on a cloth and told me to count to ten after him, and breathe deeply. I went out like a light, and he sliced my leg open and sewed it up without me feeling a thing. I woke up in a big, white room, and the pain was terrible. My hip and leg were wrapped in a cast. When it got dark, I fell asleep with my hand out over the bed. I woke up screaming – something was chewing on my finger. Nurse Smith rushed in with a lantern. I held out my hand and she looked at it. ‘Shush! Shush!’ she said. ‘One of the rats inhabiting this place bit your finger. I’ll wash and sterilize it for you. Keep your hands under the covers from now on.’ I was terrified.

  “The next time Dr. Grenfell came to operate, I thought it was about the finger the rat bit. ‘It is your hip, Clarissa,’ he explained, his eyes twinkling as if he was about to burst out laughing. When I woke up, there was a new cast on my hip.”

  Treffie’s eyes followed Clarissa’s glance down to her high, laced-up boys’ gaiters with hooks and eyes, and a brace that came up to her left knee. The other brace went from her right ankle to her hip.

  “See, the brace fits into metal clips and is held by cleats. I pull a lever up and down to bend my leg.” Clarissa laughed as if she didn’t care.

  “Would yer let me see your legs?” Treffie asked.

  Clarissa drew back. Treffie’s legs were perfectly shaped from knee to toe; Clarissa was sure that under her knitted stockings, her skin was unblemished.

  “No!” The word dropped from her lips like a hot potato. She didn’t know why anyone would want to see the marks made by Dr. Grenfell’s knife. He had cut into her limbs because she had what he called infantile paralysis and other people called polio. Her left ankle was not only marked, the skin was puckered. Her feet looked like odd socks.

  Clarissa took a deep breath, and said in a forlorn voice: “I miss Nurse Smith. When I was at the hospital, she often put my hair in ringlets and tied ribbons in it, and she let me piggy-back down the stairs. Then she would run back up and get my crutches. Sometimes she took me to her office and read me Peter Rabbit. Other times when I was sitting in bed waiting for my cast to come off, she would hurry in wearing her coat and boots and call, ‘Come on, Clarissa, we’re going on a sleigh ride.’ And we did!”

  Clarissa looked at Treffie. “I couldn’t be too big of a crybaby because Nurse Smith always said, ‘Clarissa, you have a sunshine smile.’ But one night I couldn’t help crying myself to sleep. I got punished for something I did when I shouldn’t have or for something I didn’t do when I should have. I can’t remember which it was. When I woke up, Nurse Smith and another nurse were by my bed, their faces looking out of white clouds. Nurse Smith whispered, ‘The poor little thing! I hate to punish her. She’ll be excited when she sees these little, brown shoes.’”

  “Did yer like the shoes?” Treffie asked eagerly.

  “I loved them, but they wouldn’t fit over my crippled feet. I cried to keep them to look at, but the nurse was firm. She said they would fit some other little girl’s feet. When Nurse Smith had to leave St. Anthony and go back to the United States because of chilblains, she hugged me and told me to write her a letter when I learned how. She sent me a beautiful blue handkerchief trimmed with white lace. When I’m in bed and I feel the tears coming, I pull my handkerchief from under my mattress and let the tears drop into it. Nurse Smith told me that God takes all our tears and puts them in a big, blue bottle. When the bottle gets full, He empties it into the ocean. That’s why the ocean is always full of salt water. It holds the tears of everyone who was ever born. Nurse Smith was the most wonderful person – like a mother.”

  “But you’ve got a mudder somewhere. Can’t she take yer home?” Treffie asked.

  “She will,” Clarissa answered firmly. “Someday she will.”

  No one said anything for a moment. Clarissa’s eyes clouded. “I thought I was going home after I got better from the operations, but then I was sent over to the old wooden orphanage. We didn’t have flush toilets there.”

  Cora grinned. “But we had an indoor outhouse fastened to the orphanage. Wintertime, the floor got covered in ice. You should have seen Clarissa sliding on her skittering stumps. She’d be dancing to stay standing.”

  “It was the fastest times I moved,” Clarissa admitted, tossing her head back and laughing. She stopped suddenly, sadness crossing her face.

  Treffie’s face filled with excitement. “I’ve never seen toilets inside a house before, ones with handles to churn water around and make everyth
ing disappear. That’s a wonderful t’ing. I never knowed that water could run hot unless a fire wus under it, and I never seen lights that didn’t start with a chuffie match.”

  Clarissa shrugged. “The mistresses spare electricity. They still use lanterns, like in the old place. Miss Elizabeth called the old orphanage “a home of rags and patches.” It was built with green wood, likely cut when the moon was waning. Uncle Aubrey said that wood shouldn’t be cut under a losing moon. The timber used in buildings shrinks, leaving gaps for the north wind to whistle through. Sometimes frost burst the pipes and we had to huddle together to stay warm. We moved into this orphanage three or four Christmases ago. The harbour boys make fun of it; they call it a cracker box because of the flat roof.”

  “Sure, there was a fire in the old place,” Cora said.

  “Not much of one,” Clarissa was quick to tell Treffie.

  “Uncle Aubrey was accused of smoking in the furnace room, though no one knows for sure what happened. Uncle Aubrey knew I was worried about not being able to run if I was caught in a fire, so he gave me a lucky rock. It has a hole worn through the middle. ‘Think on it, and when there’s trouble you’ll have the perseverance to run through it like water runs a hole through a hard rock,’ he said.”

  Clarissa shifted on her chair. “I was beaten in the old orphanage, sometimes with a rope.” She looked around to make sure the mistresses were not within earshot. “Once, when Missus Leah was here, she made me come into her room. I knew what was coming when I saw the stick with splinters in it. She made me lie across a trunk. I cried before she hit me; in my mind I could already feel the splinters. She gave me one hard bang on my bare behind. I think Dr. Grenfell took her out of there so she wouldn’t knock the daylights out of all of us. I haven’t been beaten since then.” She crossed her fingers.

  “You got beaten like I wus at home,” Treffie said in a timid voice.