by Ruth Glover
“Here, right here.” Her finger followed the North Saskatchewan’s beginning at the foot of the Saskatchewan Glacier and along its thousand-mile downhill plunge to Lake Winnipeg. She traced the South Saskatchewan as it branched toward the prairies and located Prince Albert and Bliss in the center of the Y where the North and South branches met.
“Kisiskatchewan,” the Indians called it—the river that flows rapidly. Up its waters had come the French in their canoes; in her imagination Birdie could hear the cadence of their songs as with a strong, digging rhythm they pulled against the stream. Laden with furs they floated back down, their canoes settled deep in the tawny water. Then and later, always, the river was a highway, slowly taking men and their supplies up, quickly and easily bringing them downstream, headed east. Pelt by luxurious pelt the wilderness riches were transported to civilization.
Here in this green and flourishing garden, hemmed in by the river, fate had seen fit to transport her, Bernadine Wharton. The parkland, or bush, it was called; and it was beautiful and it was fragrant, in its wild way. But it was deceiving, so deceiving. The Saskatchewan way was not an easy way, not a soft way, turning out men and women of endurance and strength or breaking them. Axe stroke by axe stroke they literally carved out their kingdoms—sixty acres of land for a filing fee of ten dollars. By the thousands they came, eventually tens of thousands, for some of the best free land remaining in the world, many of them investing their very lives before they were done.
And she, Birdie Wharton, could file for none of it. Penniless, she could buy none of it. Still, she felt it to be her own; she counted herself a pioneer.
As Miss Wharton the teacher, she strove to instill in her pupils an understanding of the size and scope of their new homeland as it stretched from the wilderness of the Island of Vancouver on the west to Newfoundland—called Cradle of the Wave by the Indians—on the east. She reminded them of the freedom it offered all comers; she challenged them to make it the finest place on Earth.
Flushed with her thoughts and the sight of the matchless country stretched out before her, so much of it still unexplored, most of it still unsettled, Birdie snapped the map back into place and turned, cheeks pink, eyes bright, face alive with her enthusiasm. Turned, to find a man of massive proportions standing, hat in hand, on the other side of her desk.
Big Tiny.
Big Tiny—Wilhelm Kruger—was not unknown to Birdie. Church, Sunday dinners, and school functions such as the Christmas “concert” and Field Day had been times of getting acquainted with the parents of her pupils. Big and Little Tiny lived on his homestead alone, wife and mother having met the fate of so many women of the day and place—death in childbirth.
Perhaps it was his size, perhaps it was the twinkle in his eyes, but Big Tiny Kruger tended, for some foolish reason, to intimidate Birdie Wharton. And so when she spoke now, it was sharply.
“Heavens! Don’t creep up on a person that way!”
“Creep?” Big Tiny repeated, his cheeks crinkling as laughter touched his eyes. “Me, creep?”
It was ludicrous, having been wrung from Birdie in reaction to being found defenseless, relaxed, guard down.
The pacs on the big man’s feet—a leftover reminder of colder days—had quite successfully silenced his advance from door to desk.
“You surprised me, that’s all,” Birdie defended, making an attempt to settle her ruffled feathers.
“I should have knocked,” Big Tiny was quick to offer. “I’m sorry.”
Knocked, on an open door? And apologizing for not doing so?
Birdie found herself flushing, a most unacceptable reaction. Would a flush—caused by aggravation—look like a blush? Birdie Wharton despised, above all things, blushing, simpering women.
“I was studying the map,” she felt impelled to explain. “That’s what had my attention.”
“Ya, I saw.” Big Tiny, a dozen years or so from the Old Country and speaking and reading English very well, still showed strong traces of his roots in his accent and speech. “It has Bliss on it?” he asked, his gaze going over her head to the maps, once again neatly rolled.
“No, Bliss is far too small. But it does have Prince Albert—”
“Ya?” Interest lit the broad face, shone in the blue eyes, eyes that showed an intelligence often overlooked because of the slow speech, the patience, the stolidity of the man. “Would you mind pointing it out to me?”
“Of course not.” Actually, it was the delight of her life, and Birdie turned again to the wall, pulled down the map of Canada, and fondly pointed out the meandering line that was the river Saskatchewan, locating Prince Albert and the Y and Bliss’s approximate location.
“There are no red men along the Saskatchewan, I’ve heard it said,” the big man said.
“You are right,” Birdie said, surprised. “Swarthy, brown, or dusky is what they are. The explorers and fur traders recognized that and stated as much in their journals. That’s probably where you learned it. Are you a reader, Mr. Kruger?”
“Only a little, I’m afraid,” Big Tiny said quickly. “Books—they are hard to come by. And when I was in school, in the East, we never studied about the Cree in the territories.”
Quick to notice an opportunity, Birdie said, “I could see that certain books come your way, if you’re interested. Are you, Mr. Kruger?”
“Very much. I’d like that!” Big Tiny said from his great height. “You could send them with Little Tiny—that is, Nelman. I’d take good care of them and see they get back to you safely.”
Birdie looked up speculatively at the big man, face shining with good humor and expectation. “Did you know,” she said on impulse, “that among the chiefs—Sweet Grass, Poundmaker, Red Pheasant, and the others—Big Child was actually a small man for an Indian?”
Big Tiny, so called because he was large, threw back his head and guffawed delightedly. Apparently there was drollery in Indian camps, as in white.
“Right here,” Birdie said, pointing to the map and in spite of herself taking pleasure in the sharing of knowledge, “in 1876—not long ago—on a grassy knoll on the Carlton side of the North Saskatchewan, white man and Indian eventually met; the Indians had finally recognized the need to treat. The Lieutenant Governor stood regally on the required piece of red carpet, red-coated Mounties stood by stiffly, and the Indians, in full regalia, advanced majestically—they love this sort of thing, you know, pomp and display. Soon the pipe stem—”
“The symbol upon which no woman must ever look,” Big Tiny interjected. Surprised again, Birdie lost her thought momentarily.
“Why, yes,” she admitted. “Though heaven knows why. Did you also know,” and Birdie’s eyes snapped, “what happened to women when the missionaries began baptizing the Indians?”
“No, not that,” Big Tiny said humbly.
“If an Indian man had two wives,” Birdie said, “he couldn’t be baptized. So what did he do? How did he solve the problem?” Almost grinding her teeth at the injustice of it all, she continued, “One wife was... discarded.”
“Discarded?” Big Tiny asked cautiously.
“It was the way he did it! The Indian male took his wife out in the canoe, presumably fishing. When he returned, he was alone. Next day,” Birdie’s eyes glittered, “he went to receive the drops of holy water.”
“Thank Gott,” Big Tiny said seriously, “our preacher don’t do things that way. We just need to accept Jesus—”
“Yes, yes,” Birdie acknowledged. “A much better system. But where were we?”
“The pipe stem—” Big Tiny recalled.
“It was pointed to the east and west, north and south. Then the Indians, satisfied that the proper courtesy had been shown the Cree people, sat down on the grass, prepared to treat.”
“Oh, ya.” Big Tiny shifted his massive weight, and the slight motion broke the spell in which Birdie had found herself.
“My goodness! How I do run on! You are a good listener, Mr. Kruger. I’ve completely for
gotten the time.”
“You’re a good teacher, Miss Wharton. It’s too bad,” he said, brightening, “there aren’t classes for us grownups. Maybe night classes for people like me who want to learn more, particularly about our country. Did you ever think of that?”
“Why, Mr. Kruger,” Birdie said, pleased in spite of herself, “it seems a wonderful suggestion.”
“But of course not in summer,” Big Tiny said regretfully. “Maybe in the fall, do you think?”
“It’s certainly something to think about. Now,” Birdie was all business, “was there something you wanted to see me about?”
“I was just going by on my way home from the store, and I thought Little Tiny—Nelman—might like a ride. But I see he’s gone—”
“Yes, they’re all gone. I think I let them go a little early.” Birdie, recalling her strange mood of earlier in the day and remembering why it had seemed important for the children to clear out, cast a glance toward the letter on her desk.
“Well then,” Big Tiny said, twisting his hat a little, looking at her steadily, “would you like a ride? I go right by the Blooms’, you know.”
So that’s what it was all about! Birdie, who had almost been beguiled into some semblance of camaraderie—two pioneers devoted to learning more about their adopted country—stiffened immediately.
“I’m not ready to go home yet,” she said tightly, and Big Tiny Kruger turned toward the door. If he were disappointed, it didn’t show on his broad, pleasant, sun-browned face.
“But thank you,” she added belatedly, and Big Tiny bowed in her direction slightly, put his disreputable hat on his head, and slipped out as silently as he had come.
Staring at the doorway, empty indeed since the large figure of the man disappeared from it, Birdie Wharton’s lips tightened. Why would anyone be interested in a... creature like that, when this awaits?
Her eyes dropped to the envelope. In spite of herself she felt a tug, if not on her heart, then on her imagination.
It was Saturday, time to do all the pre-Sunday chores that fell to a homemaker. Ellie lifted a cake from the oven, thrust a broom straw into it, deemed it done, and set it aside to cool for Sunday dinner.
Bliss churchgoers took literally the admonition of Exodus 20:9–10, “Six days shalt thou labour... but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God.” Saturday night would find not only Sunday’s clothes sponged, pressed, and ready for donning the next morning and shoes cleaned and polished but the house spic-and-span as well. Sunday’s dinner would be ready—pie or cake covered and waiting, fresh buns baked and awaiting reheating, vegetables peeled and set in water overnight.
At least, Ellie always thought, cleaning up the kitchen for the last time Saturday night, perhaps consoling herself for her single estate, there were no children’s baths to give, no little heads to wash. Having been a part of the bathing ritual for many years, she was well accustomed to the Saturday night regimen—dragging in the zinc tub, setting it before the stove and filling it with water, climbing in, doubling up, washing from head to toe.
Growing up the youngest member of the Bonney family, she had the privilege of the first bath. After she was off to bed, her parents took turns, first Serena, presumably not as dusty and dirty as her husband, then Bran, scrubbing away the week’s grime. Ellie always felt sorry for her father having to bathe in used bathwater, but he laughed at her concern and assured her he didn’t mind her “little bit of clean dirt.”
Thinking of those days, Ellie couldn’t refrain from smiling, almost chuckling aloud, as memory took her back to that day of the Busy Bees’ first assignment: the scrubbing of the heads of the Nikolai children—all but the baby who wouldn’t be pried away from his mother’s arms. The startled parents, probably puzzled at the practices of these new-country people, had submitted with good nature as the girls arrived, soap and towels in hand, to set up basins on old tree stumps in the yard, fill them with water brought from the range’s reservoir, and, one by one, bend the matted blond heads of the children and begin soaping. An assembly line of sorts had been devised, with Marfa and Vonnie washing, Flossy rinsing, and Ellie combing. The Busy Bees had left the Nikolai farm that day riding the crest of satisfaction for a good deed well done. Though they would have liked to, they knew themselves to be too young to give the overburdened mother the stern injunction, “These heads should be washed every Saturday night!”
Tucking away the memory—the inauguration of the Busy Bees’ pursuits—Ellie returned to her preparations for Sunday.
She had been well taught; Serena had automatically performed duty after duty, week after week, year after year and, as a good mother, had instructed the daughter who was always at her side.
The final task remaining to Ellie this Saturday was to search out a chicken—the unlucky one that didn’t scurry squawking away as quickly as the others—chop off its head, scald and pluck it, clean it, and hang it down the well. Sunday morning, before leaving for church, she would put it into a roasting pan and pop it into the oven. With the firebox stoked with wood and the damper adjusted, dinner should be ready and waiting when she and her father got home. It was a good system; all over Bliss it would be in effect. A good system and, they believed, a godly one.
But there was good sense mixed with bush beliefs. Did not Jesus himself say, when he was criticized for healing on the Sabbath, “Doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?” (Luke 13:15).
In the Canadian bush, not only was there the watering of animals but feeding and milking as well. And if a cow should decide to give birth on a Sunday, or if a horse cut itself on barbed wire, had not the “ox fallen into a pit,” and did not the Lord make allowance for that? And did not his Word say, “He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster” (Prov. 18:9)? Waste, as far as the bush people were concerned, was a sin of major proportions. Obviously it went hand-in-hand with sloth. Yes, certain chores had to be done on Sunday, as any day. But there were many that could be taken care of beforehand. Saturday was a busy day.
“Let’s see...,” Ellie said thoughtfully to nobody but Wrinkles. Wrinkles, ensconced regally on a cushion in a chair, viewed the Sunday preparations with tolerance, having seen them before, as had his ancestors, back and back to the first Wrinkles, so named by a small Ellie because his skin fit him so loosely. “I believe I’ll just go out to the garden and pull a few radishes and have them ready for tomorrow.”
At last—fresh vegetables, after many months of no green thing. A plain lettuce salad, radishes gleaming like rubies in a simple crockery saucer on the table—these were first. First, and as treasured as though they were gems of incomparable worth. They were the forerunners to peas and new potatoes. Could any dish on a king’s table surpass a bowl of tender new potatoes and peas, creamed and slathered with sweet butter? Gardens in Bliss received much tender, loving care, rewarding their keepers by prodigious growth, as though they knew the time was short for performing and producing. In actuality, it was the long growing hours of the brief summer days—when the sun came early and stayed late—that caused garden and grain to spring forth as though by some magic. Summers, short and hot, could result in excellent crops, but often lack of rain brought discouraging harvests. Tightening their belts in the lean years, thanking God for the good ones, the people of the bush persisted, endured, and slowly, slowly moved ahead.
Taking a small basket, Ellie proceeded to the garden, followed by Wrinkles, who wound himself around her legs, tail aloft, when she paused at the radish row. She bent to rub his head, only to straighten at the sound of a well-known voice.
“Hey, Ellie!” It was Tom.
Freeing herself from the cloying cat, Ellie turned with glad steps toward the approaching buggy.
“Tom! Whatever are you doing in the middle of the morning on a busy Saturday?”
“I’ve called it a day, Ellie, as far as field work is concerned. And that’s because
my plow should be in. I’m on my way to Prince Albert to get it.”Tom, usually relaxed, comfortable, casual, revealed his satisfaction in the acquisition of the new plow by the lilt to his voice and the pleased expression on his face. He had not ordered a gang or sulky plow, or even a subsoil lister—all of which were available and often used on the prairie and in the bush. Instead, Tom had ordered and would put to good use the Brush Plow. Having cleared another portion of his land’s dense growth, he thought this plow, intended for “new and brushy land, where there are stumps and roots,” would be invaluable, saving time and much human effort.
“Good!” Ellie responded. “That didn’t take long, did it? Have you got time to come in, maybe have a cup of coffee?”
“I’ve got to get on my way; I need to make it back for chores. But Ellie—could I persuade you to come with me?”
Ellie’s eyes lit; it was what she needed—a break in the work, a lift to her spirits. Nothing could do it like time spent with Tom.
“Why not!” she answered impulsively. “I’ll take the opportunity to shop a little, perhaps.”
“Why not!” he mimicked, grinning. “Hustle along, then, while I get turned around.”
Hastily changing her clothes, straightening her hair, and washing her hands and face, Ellie was soon ready. Hunting a scrap of paper and a pencil, she wrote her father a note and left it propped on the table.
I’m going to P.A. with Tom. Beans should be ready on the back of the stove. The cake is for tomorrow, but there’s fruitcake in the bread box! I’ll be home in time to fix supper.
Breathless, she ran for the buggy and Tom. He reined the horse steady while she clambered up into the seat beside him, eyes more green than hazel, strands of hair curling in careless abandon around her face, flushed by the sun and the exertion of the last few minutes.