by Ruth Glover
The first thing Birdie did—proving, perhaps, her recovery and her self-control—was to sit down, remove her dusty shoes, reach under the bed for her comfortable soft-soled slippers, and put them on.
Next, she stepped to the chiffonier, deliberately delaying the moment she reached for the letters, as though they didn’t matter, taking time to straighten her hair, rearrange the collar to her waist, drum her fingers, breathing, just breathing.
Coolly she unlocked and opened the drawer and removed the two letters; casually she turned to the bed. Searching out Buck’s account of Canada’s early beaver trade, she laid it side by side with the letters from the envelopes. There was no doubt about it—they were written by the same hand, though the letters were done with more care and without erasures.
She picked up the letters and calmly returned them to their envelopes. With steadfast step she turned toward the door, heading for the kitchen and the stove. She took a first step—and faltered.
Gasping, falling on the bed in a passion of tears, for one weak moment Birdie cried out her humiliation and hurt.
Rising, wiping her eyes, straightening her shoulders, Birdie marched down the stairs to the kitchen stove, lifted a lid, and, in spite of Lydia’s wide-eyed gaze, thrust the letters inside. Turning, dusting her hands in a manner that spoke as loudly as words, she said, “A good cup of tea would go well about now, Lydia.”
Wise Lydia; her teapot poured out love and compassion as well as tea. That, along with the subtle strength received in the buggy sitting beside the big man on the way home, ministered very well to the bruised heart and stinging ego of Birdie Wharton.
I don’t think I’ll go today,” Brandon Bonney said at the breakfast table.
“Not go?” Astonishment raised Ellie’s voice a notch or two and her eyebrows as well.
Not go to the picnic? The event of the year? On a par with the Christmas concert, the sweetest celebration of the year, and the Fall Frisk, a celebration of harvest completed and crops garnered—and to be deliberately missed?
“I just don’t feel like myself,” Bran said mildly enough. Even so, Ellie, immediately alarmed, rose to her feet, rounded the table, and pressed a hand to her father’s forehead.
“You don’t seem to have a fever,” she said. “What is it, Dad? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing much,” Bran said, shrugging, wishing he hadn’t mentioned it. “As I said, I don’t feel quite myself, that’s all.”
“You do seem a little pale,” Ellie said, stepping back and looking at her father critically.“Does your head ache? What about your stomach—you haven’t eaten your breakfast!” There was reproach in her voice.
“I’m not hungry. As I said, I don’t feel well. A day at home will fix me up just fine.”
“Well, I’m not going, either.” And Ellie, her mind made up, settled the question.
“Of course you’ll go!” Bran said firmly. “The lunch is all ready—I saw how you baked yesterday; I see all the things laid out, ready to be packed. Tom’ll be by to get you. Of course you’ll go.”
“No, indeed,” Ellie said.
“Ellie, please—”
“No, Dad. I know you. You’d never admit to feeling poorly if you didn’t. And you’d never miss the picnic unless you had to. I wouldn’t have a moment’s peace if I left you here, alone and feeling bad.”
Nothing he could say changed her mind. She began methodically fixing a pan of hot suds, preparing to wash and dry the breakfast dishes.
“Then I’ll go,” Bran said. “Get on your picnic duds and pack up the box.”
Ellie whirled from the dishpan. “Do you think I’d drag you off to the picnic just so I can have a few hours of fun? Nothing doing! There will be plenty more picnics.”
Bran sighed. What a stubborn daughter! Just as stubborn, perhaps more so, than he was. Look at the way she refused to consider marriage. And all because of some dim and distant tragedy that was not her fault. The Mounties had determined that. What if some members of the community—thoughtless, irrational people—blamed her, an innocent child? What if, a few times, the word murderer had been whispered where she could hear it, even written on the blackboard at school, sent through the mail a time or two. All this had hurt, apparently maimed, his daughter in a deep, psychological way, so that her life seemed to be warped, her expectations shattered.
Bran sighed, watching the sweet shell that was his daughter and knowing it to be empty of hope and perhaps happiness.
But all that—that bad time—was over and gone, buried in the Bliss cemetery. The years, as they came and went and as Ellie grew and matured, should have dimmed every memory. Perhaps they had.
For everyone except Ellie...
“And where are you off to this afternoon?” Serena asked, watching her daughter collect certain items for her basket, her Busy Bee basket: jar of soup; pencil and tablet (Ellie wrote letters for her “patients”); needle and thread in case mending was needed; small tin of Camphor Cold Cream—“salve of remarkable healing properties, it cannot be excelled as a soothing and healing application to burns, and a dressing for abrasions of the skin, pimples, boils, etc.”; camphorated oil—“excellent for rubbing on chests and throats in case of croup, difficulty in breathing, sore throat, coughs”; olive oil...
Simple remedies all, items her mother had approved and which might bring ease to a sufferer, and in any case, would do no harm.
“Is it Aunt Tilda again today?” Serena asked, and Ellie flashed her mother a quick smile.
Such satisfaction for one so young! Surely her “calling” was to care for the sick, the needy, the lonely. Barely twelve years old, and already expending herself for others. And her friends right along with her. Flossy, Vonnie, and Marfa, faithful in this as in all else, were active participants in the Busy Bee motto: “Let us bee about our Father’s business.”
“Yes, it’s Aunt Tilda,” Ellie said now. “We went last week, you know, and she just loved having us there.”
“Are you sure, Ellie? She can be cantankerous, I’ve heard.”
“She gets a little cross with us,” Ellie said, chuckling a bit in recollection of the elderly woman’s crotchety ways. “But she can’t do much about it; she can’t chase us off. And she can only take a swipe at us with her cane if we do something that upsets her.”
“I hope you don’t do that, Ellie,” her mother said. “Remember, you promised me the purpose of the club is to help. You’re big enough now to be a real help, if you go about it in the right way.”
“Bee-ee-ee helpful, that’s me,” Ellie sang out. “Aunt Tilda really needs help, Mum.”
“I know that,” Serena admitted, regretting that her strength these days was too limited to allow her to do more than care for her own family. “It was so sad when Mr. Beam died; at least they managed until then. I hope some family member will come forward with an offer of help before winter; she’ll never make it through that alone. Apparently she has no wood up for winter; as for food—no one has taken care of her garden since her collapse—”
“She says she had a brain spasm.”
“Brain spasm? I’ve heard of heart spasms...”
“Anyway, whatever happened, she can’t get around anymore. And it’s hard to understand her when she talks. People bring meals to her, leaving the food close by the bed so she can get it. But she spills something awful. You should see her bedding, Mum. Ugh!”
“You can’t wash bedding, Ellie! Don’t even try. Maybe the missionary society ladies will come in before long and do that and whatever else needs to be done. In the meantime,” Serena finished fondly, “I’m sure she appreciates what you girls do to make her comfortable. I’ll talk to the minister and see if he knows what plans are being made for her. He’s been writing relatives, I believe.”
“Well, I gotta go, Mum.” Ellie picked up her basket and turned toward the door, happy as a Saskatchewan lark, doing the thing she enjoyed most—caring for someone sick or afflicted or weak, needy in some way.
“Your badge, Ellie. I haven’t seen you wearing it for a while. After all that effort to make it—”
“I have to share it with the girls, so we take turns. Vonnie has it now and she doesn’t want to give it up. Ta ta, Mum!”
The Beam homestead was about three miles away, if one went by the road. But people made paths across their property; there were paths going in all directions, paths cutting down the distance and the length of time it took to get to a neighbor, either to get help or to give it. Ellie cut through the woods and across corners of homesteads, traveling well-marked trails, making the distance less than a mile. Vonnie and the other girls did the same, converging on the small cabin and ready to make the life of old Aunt Tilda Beam a little more bearable: chop wood or fill the wood box, wash the elderly woman’s wrinkled face or read to her, fill the lamps, sweep the floor—whatever needed doing, they would do, working as true busy bees should do. (There were no drones in this hive, Ellie often reminded them.)
Trotting into the Beam yard, the few remaining chickens—those that hadn’t died or disappeared into the bush for lack of care—scattered at her approach, going off somewhere to scrabble a living for themselves. Before she went into the house, Ellie threw out some grain for them and filled their water pail.
There was no greeting from a friendly dog; the old Beam dog was long gone, perhaps along with the Beam son, Clayton. He had filed on the homestead, stayed a few seasons, established his aged parents, and taken off. Everyone assumed he’d be back, come spring and time for field work, but he hadn’t been seen or heard from in two years or more. The old father had died, and Tilda, called “Aunt” in the habit of the bush, had slowly grown more feeble, more senile, less capable of caring for herself. The pastor of the small church, alert to the problem, was attempting to organize the ladies of the church so that Tilda was never alone too long and so that there was a supply of food and water, wood and kerosene at all times.
The Busy Bees, ever on the alert for something constructive to do, came as often as time and mothers allowed. Ellie, with her mother’s help and the aid of the catalog, had gathered together a few simple remedies to take with her on her “rounds,” and she usually found herself rubbing the old woman’s back, or feet, or temples with one of her salves or potions. Whether or not they did any good, both Aunt Tilda and Ellie felt the better for her efforts, Aunt Tilda moaning with pain and pleasure, Ellie swelling with a sense of satisfaction known at no other time.
A half-wild cat scooted from the house as soon as Ellie opened the door, and she held her nose. Obviously the last person to leave had failed to put the animal out, and it had been inside too long. Grimacing, Ellie knew immediately there would be cleanup, a task she hated above all.
“Hello, Aunt Tilda! It’s me, Ellie Bonney,” she called into the shadows of the small room. Shadowed because there were only two windows, and they were small.
In response to her greeting there came a grunt and a rustle of bedclothes. Ellie wisely left the door ajar, both to give light and to alleviate the noxious cat odor.
Although there were two rooms to the log house, one had been abandoned when it came to looking after the elderly woman. Her bed and belongings had been brought into the room where the living was done and where the stove was located, the table, and all the kitchen items; here it was much easier to care for her. And here—while she was still able to get up—she had managed to do a few things for herself.
Ellie laid aside her basket and approached the bed. It too was odorous, and Ellie’s nostrils flared again. Staunchly, like a true Bee, she stood her ground.
“How are you today, Aunt Tilda?” she asked loudly, and a claw-like hand appeared at the edge of a quilt, followed by a sticklike arm, pushing aside the bedding until Aunt Tilda’s shrunken face appeared.
Today, Ellie realized, was one of Aunt Tilda’s bad days. Her eyes didn’t focus, her toothless jaws worked as though she were masticating something toothsome, and the words she uttered were meaningless jabber.
Aunt Tilda’s arms flailed, and Ellie helped pull her up from the tangle of bedclothes, fluffing the pillow and leaning the emaciated form against it.
The fire was out, of course, and there was no warm water. Ellie knew how to light a fire and soon had paper and kindling flickering, adding pieces of wood as needed. It was then smoke had begun billowing into the room, puffing from the stove in great gusts, rising in waves to the already blackened ceiling. No wonder it had been allowed to go out! Coughing, she fought her way through the smoke to the stovepipe and the damper; to her surprise, it was open.
Ellie was enough acquainted with stoves to conclude almost immediately that there was some blockage in the stovepipe. But what to do about it? She went outside and looked up; sure enough, very little smoke lifted from the pipe; perhaps a bird had built a nest in it. Helplessly she watched, knowing she had neither the ability nor the tools to clean it out, even if she were able to locate a ladder and climb the roof.
There was nothing to do but wait it out. Slowly the fire burned down, died away, went out. During that time and while the stove top was somewhat warm, she put the soup she had brought into a pan and attempted to warm it a little. Then, when the air was clearing, she tucked a towel under Aunt Tilda’s chin and spooned the soup into her flaccid mouth.
“Swallow, Aunt Tilda,” she said cheerfully time and again, murmuring encouragingly and wiping the chin when necessary, skillfully avoiding the mindlessly waving hands.
When the fire was out and the room cleared of smoke, Ellie set about washing the old lady, brushing her hair, rubbing olive oil into her dry and skinny arms and legs, crooning to her, talking to her even though no understandable answer was forthcoming. Finally it was time to locate the cat’s mess and, loathing every minute of it, clean it up and scrub down the floor in that spot. When that was accomplished, inspired, she poured a few drops of her precious Peppermint Oil on the spot, breathing in its fragrance gladly.
At the last, in answer to a plaintive cry for “light,” she lit the lamp and set it by the bed. Aunt Tilda could blow it out later.
“There, Aunt Tilda,” she shouted, and she was rewarded by a toothless grin and a watering of the rheumy eyes.
“Here’s fresh water if you want a drink. Is there anything else you would like me to do before I leave?”
Just a mumble and a restless picking of the quilt.
Patting the frail shoulder and giving the quilt one last tug into place, Ellie turned to go. But first she reached into the basket, removed the pencil and tablet, and wrote a message in large letters:
DO NOT LIGHT A FIRE IN THE STOVE! THE STOVEPIPE IS PLUGGED UP! ELIZABETH BONNEY.
Propping the paper in plain sight on the table, Ellie proceeded to pick up her basket and back out of the cabin, calling, “I have to go now, Aunt Tilda. I’ll see you soon. Sweet dreams!”
Lest the miserable cat be tempted to sneak in once again, Ellie pulled the door tightly shut behind her, glad, in some ways, to escape the sickness and smells but having a happy sense of accomplishment.
Home again, weary but happy, Ellie put the basket away, set the empty mason jar aside to be washed with the supper dishes, and reported on her day to her mother.
“Aunt Tilda didn’t even know me, Mum. It’s awfully sad. I hope I don’t end up that way!”
“No one wants to, Ellie. Hopefully you’ll always be where family and loved ones are around to care what happens to you. Now, rest for a moment, then wash your hands and help me prepare the vegetables.”
The family was at supper when a horse pounded up the driveway. The rider, a neighbor, leaped from its back, knocked once loudly, thrust his head in the door, and hollered, “Fire! There’s a fire somewhere over yonder, Bran! I’m on my way; thought maybe you might be able to come help.”
Even as the face disappeared, Brandon Bonney was getting to his feet, turning to the door.
“I’ll ride, I guess, but I won’t take time to saddle.”
Ellie and S
erena followed Bran out onto the stoop to see in the distance a black cloud of smoke rising over the bush and shot through from time to time with flickers of flame.
“Oh, my gracious! My gracious!” Serena put her hands over her mouth in dismay, her eyes large in her thin face.
“I’m going, Mum!”
“No! No, Ellie—”
But Ellie was off and running. Running the same path she had taken earlier. Running, straight as an arrow, toward the Beam cabin and the fire.
Gasping, almost staggering, she joined the silent, grim-faced men and women gathered in the Beam yard. No chickens now, no cat.
No cabin.
The fire had not been discovered until it had all but consumed the small structure. Built of the same wood folks burned in their heaters and stoves, and well-aged, it had been a tinder box. Even as the onlookers watched, the blaze slowed, having done its worst. The roof was long gone; soon the entire structure was nothing but a heap of blackened beams with a bent stovepipe protruding at a rakish angle from the rubble. And starkly outlined against the setting sun—the iron bed frame that had held the helpless form of the old woman. On the bed—a heap of ashes.
Men were wandering around the shell of a building, raking, clearing the ground from any possible spread of the dying embers, helpless to do more.
“Who got here first?” someone asked.
“One of the Nikolai boys,” someone answered.
“It was in flames when I got here,” the boy stuttered, white-faced. “I couldn’t get anywhere near it. The flames were shooting out the windows even then.”
“Did you hear any calls for help?”
“Nothing. It was silent as the... as the tomb,” he finished lamely.
Finally—very soon, it seemed, when one realized an entire life’s accumulation of goods had just disappeared—someone began drawing water from the well while others dashed it on the smoldering heap until all danger of the flames springing to life again had disappeared. Soon only a few thin wisps of smoke lifted from the ashes.