by Ruth Glover
“Ellie, Tom has asked me to marry him.”
Standing in the dust of the road, Birdie paused and studied the farmyard spread out before her. But not spread very widely, for it was a small, new homestead, recently cut out of the bush, still raw, exceedingly humble, redolent not only with the tang of fresh-cut trees but with a mysterious drift of hopes and dreams.
“Go by the Dunbars’,” Lydia had suggested when Birdie started out on her mission of acquainting the district with her plan for a reading society. “Tierney Dunbar, the dear, was with us several months as a domestic, having come to Canada under the auspices of the British Emigration Society.”
“I’ve seen her at church, I believe,” Birdie said. “Scotch, aren’t they—she and her husband?”
“Aye, that is, yes. See, I’m still influenced by her. The dear.” Lydia spoke of her former help with fondness, and Birdie, knowing Lydia well, was certain this Tierney lass had stepped into a happy situation when she found herself settled in the Bloom household. An unbelievable story, Lydia was explaining, for Tierney and Robbie, her true love and long parted, had found each other here in the mostly vacant deep and distant depths of Canada’s territories. Lydia couldn’t help but dwell on it happily.
“It’s what happens when your life is in the Lord’s hands,” she explained, concluding her account, “and when you pray about everything.”
“Yes, yes,” Birdie murmured rather impatiently, only to regret her abruptness when Lydia added gently, “As I do. I pray for you. Daily I pray for you.”
Now, looking at the peace if not prosperity of the Dunbar farmyard, Birdie wondered if there wasn’t something to this praying after all. But it was a fleeting thought, for a slim figure, appearing top heavy with a head of vibrant hair, stepped from the low doorway of the cabin, a basket in her hands, heading toward the clothesline.
Stepping briskly now, Birdie made her approach.
“Hello there!” she called.
The amazing head of auburn hair peered around the corner of a sheet, followed by a vivid face. “Oh, hello! I didn’t see you...”
“I’m Bernadine Wharton—”
“I know who ye are. And it’s most welcome y’are, too. Gi’ me a moment tae get these things from the line.”
Laying her things aside, Birdie began unpinning clothes, folding them, and dropping them in the basket. It was a strangely rewarding task, simple, homey, satisfying. It was a task reminiscent of other days... other clothes.
“There, that’s it, then. Coom now, Miss Wharton—”
“Birdie, please.”
“Birdie it is. An’ I’m Tierney. Tierney Dunbar o’ Bliss, as thought she would never be anythin’ but Tierney Caulder o’ Binkiebrae.” Tierney sang out the name and the statement as though they were a rhapsody. Here, obviously, was a happy and fulfilled young woman. “So, coom now, Birdie Wharton, and we’ll hae a cuppa together and ge’ acquainted.”
The cabin into which they stepped, though spotlessly clean, was barren of anything but the basic necessities of life. And some of those were in poor supply. The table and chairs were of the homemade variety, sturdy and plain; the wash basin was scarred, the bit of mirror above it chipped; the pans on the wall were somewhat battered; the range was obviously secondhand. The teapot, however, when it appeared, was porcelain graced with a spray of anemones and glowed in the rude cabin like a jewel in a coal mine.
Tierney caressed it for a moment before filling it. “ ’Twas a wed-din’ gift,” she explained. “Anything here that’s new or shiny was given to Robbie an’ me when we got married. The district jist took me in, as they had taken Robbie in when he first came. Hae ye heard the story, Birdie? ’Twould amaze ye, that’s for certain...”
About to promote the pending reading society and explain how it was to be funded by the pennies of the members, Birdie did some on-the-spot revising of the rules. How could she charge people like the Dunbars, for whom, she was quite sure, a penny was not easy to come by and for which so many uses could be found? Here, obviously, was a couple who would benefit from the fellowship of the society, if not the literature itself. Even while she was thinking through the adjustments, Tierney spoke, softly, jubilantly, wonderingly, telling her story, a story Birdie had largely heard from Lydia.
Having come to enlist and enroll the young Dunbars in her project, Birdie stayed to hear once again the miracle that had brought Tierney across an ocean and a continent “straight as a sparrow to its hoosie,” to the one spot in the world where her heart, in dreams and prayers, had preceded her.
“’Twas the loving hand of the Father himsel’ that brought it aboot,” the Scotch lassie said, concluding the story but still wondering and marveling that it should all have come about.
“An’ now, Birdie,” she invited, “did ye have summat ye wanted to talk wi’ me aboot?” Tierney, in spite of great effort, had yet to correct her accent.
Feeling that her business was humdrum and drab indeed, and entirely without any praises to the “Father himsel’,” Birdie briefly explained the tentative plans for a reading society.
“Of course,” she concluded, “I’ll get back to you when final plans have been made. I have to see what the reaction of the community is, whether enough people will be interested, where we’ll meet, and when, and all of that. I’m just doing a sort of preliminary survey at this time.”
“It sounds wonderful to me,” Tierney responded with some enthusiasm. “Winters here can be verra lonely; we’re shut in for days at a time. Of course,” she added with a glow in her eyes, “I hae Robbie.”
Rather than a trial, it sounded as though winter or anytime in the small cabin was close to being heaven itself to Tierney, because Robbie was with her.
When it seemed that the young wife was about to go off into more raptures concerning her happiness and God’s goodness—a happiness and a goodness about which Birdie knew nothing—Birdie began hastily collecting herself together for departure.
“Ye’ll hae to coom back an’ meet Robbie himsel’,” Tierney invited, as though she were offering a rare treat.
Birdie stepped from the hand-sawed planks of the floor of a rustic cabin, through a handmade door, onto split-log steps, feeling as though she were leaving as warm, as blessed a nest as could be found in this great Northwest. She felt that, for a moment, she had warmed herself at another’s fire.
That’s the way it ought to be, her lonely heart cried out as she turned her feet toward the road and the next farm.
Very shortly she heard the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves behind her and, stepping aside into the grass at the edge of the road, heard the cheerful voice of Big Tiny Kruger.
“Whoa! And is that you, Miss Wharton, out and about in the heat of the day?”
Birdie couldn’t keep the pleasure from her voice (anyone would be glad for a ride, wouldn’t they?), though her prim words revealed none of it.
“Why, it’s Mr. Kruger, I believe. And what are you doing out like this on a busy day?”
“Just taking the week’s cream to Bliss. It’s carted to Prince Albert today and will spoil if I wait another week. Climb in, and I’ll tell you about it.”
With alacrity, Birdie stepped up into the buggy, her hat tipping a bit in the effort, a lock of hair coming loose and her cheeks pinking—surely from the small effort involved.
“I know about cream, Mr. Kruger,” she said when she had seated herself, speaking rather severely, perhaps to compensate for the fact that she was a little breathless. Clutching her papers and her bag with one hand, she attempted to right her hat with the other. It didn’t help her equilibrium any to look up at the big man at her side and catch—without any doubt—a keen, noticing look in his eye.
Startled, and not quite sure what this meant but knowing she must proceed with caution, still Birdie’s heart lifted. Immediately she stifled unacceptable responses; quickly she took it for what it obviously was—a look of friendship. And yet—against her very will, in opposition to her good sense, w
ithout her permission, a frisson of pure pleasure ran through Birdie’s rather gaunt frame.
“So you know about cream,” Big Tiny said, a twinkle replacing the previous glint in his eyes, a glint of unknown meaning.
“I come from a small town, Mr. Kruger. A town where cows were kept behind many homes. My family had to buy its milk, but still, I knew where it came from.” Birdie’s tone was crisp, as though she couldn’t believe she was engaged in a conversation concerning cows and their output.
“But did you know that we keep it from souring by hanging it down the well?”
“Of course,” Birdie responded with some annoyance. “The Blooms, however, have an icehouse. A reasonable edifice to erect, I should think.”
“To dig, you mean. It’s mostly underground. And I’ll have one, I suppose, in due time. When I’ve been here as long as, er, some people.” Good, kind Big Tiny Kruger would not point out the obvious—that the Blooms had been here much longer than he and, moreover, were able to afford a hired man.
Realizing that Herbert and Lydia had arrived with money to invest and ease their way, while many homesteaders arrived with little but their bare hands for resources, gave Birdie a small sense of shame for her small dig concerning the icehouse. She thought back to the Dunbar farm and cabin—meagerly supplied, poorly furnished, hardly productive, struggling in all respects, yet bursting with everything that mattered, like hope and confidence, youth and resilience. Money wasn’t everything; an icehouse wasn’t the answer.
“And did you know that the selling of it supplies us with our living expense?” Big Tiny was saying, continuing their conversation. “Cream and eggs—the money they bring in is how we get by from harvest to harvest.” His big fist indicated the box at his feet, a box he had removed from the seat at his side when he invited her to ride.
Big Tiny was returning from the store with a few items he couldn’t raise for himself—sugar, tea, yeast, salt, baking powder. He would set these simple staples into his cupboard with a grateful heart, knowing that, once again, he had kept the shadow of starvation from his door by his own hard-won provision. What satisfaction these homesteaders must feel! Having left all things familiar and secure, striking out into the unknown to survive by the skill of one’s own hands and wits—it was a moving thought to Birdie Wharton. It made her comfortable paid position seem most colorless in comparison.
“How did we get to discussing the price of cream and eggs,” Big Tiny said, shaking his head, “when there’s so much more to talk about? You, for instance—weren’t you going to tell me why you are trudging these dusty roads when you don’t need to, when school is out and you should be enjoying a well-deserved rest?”
Of course! The reading society! Birdie had found her thoughts straying far, far from the business at hand.
“You remember, Mr. Kruger, that you mentioned an interest in some kind of class, to begin in the fall, that adults might attend, learning, studying together?”
“Ya, I remember,” Big Tiny said. “Have you been working on it?”
“Yes, indeed.” And Birdie was off and running along lines that were familiar to her, once again the teacher, once again properly businesslike.
“My idea is to make it a reading society. We can go from book to book and subject to subject, fine literature, historical matters, even novels. That way it will be a pleasure as well as a learning tool.”
“Sounds good to me,” the good-natured man responded.
“But it will depend on how many people show an interest, as the Dunbars already have. I think I may count on your interest, Mr. Kruger, right?”
“Ya, of course. I’m very enthusiastic about it myself.”
“It was your suggestion that put the entire thing in motion,” Birdie said and wondered why it gave her such satisfaction to supply this large man with this bit of appreciation. Why did she feel such a glow about it all?
Riding along companionably, it occurred to Birdie that here, in this soft-spoken, bighearted man, she might have a friend. She—the friendless one—might have a friend. Along with the glow came a lump in her throat.
Life, indeed, seemed to be opening up for Birdie Wharton. Life in Bliss might yet be just that—blissful.
“By the way,” Big Tiny said, reaching down into the box of supplies, “I picked up the Bloom mail.”
Dropping the reins momentarily, which made no difference whatsoever to the plodding horse, he shuffled through the assortment of letters and papers headed for homes along his route.
“Here,” he said, turning toward Birdie, a small sheaf of mail in his hand.
On top, staring her in the face—a plain, white envelope bearing her name. No stamp, obviously stuffed into the Bloom box by hand—a local epistle.
Birdie’s eyes widened. For one long moment she looked at the envelope, then raised her eyes.
Big Tiny Kruger’s expression seemed incongruous; holding toward her an envelope that was a cruel stab to her heart, his face was kindly, his smile open, his eyes interested.
No doubt he saw her expression; perhaps he sensed her turmoil of spirit. “It’ll be good news, I’m sure,” he said gently.
“We’ll see about that,” she said grimly. And taking it in her hand, she thrust a thumbnail under the flap and ripped the envelope open. No matter that Big Tiny was watching; no matter that she might unveil and reveal the whole miserable account of the previous letters. Birdie had had enough. Without care for the repercussions and with a certain fury, she dragged forth one white sheet, opened it, scanned it... and blinked.
Blinked several times, frowned, read more slowly:
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
Joseph Addison, 1712
She read it once; she read it twice. Then, stupidly, she read it a third time. Expecting some tommyrot from Buck or perhaps one of his brothers, she couldn’t immediately grasp the beauty of the scribbled quotation. Even the quick reading, with her mind half on the poem, half on her questions concerning it, the wonder of it gripped her; the meaning of it demanded earnest thought and study, perhaps memorization.
When, dazed, she looked up, it was to find Big Tiny’s blue eyes—from underneath his black mop of hair and above his black mop of beard—twinkling down at her like two stars in a dark night.
Slowly she folded the paper; slowly she inserted it into the envelope.
“Well?” Big Tiny questioned.
“It’s... it’s nothing. That is...”
“It’s not upsetting, then?” he probed, possibly worried on her behalf. “Not unwelcome—?”
“No. No... I think it may be... rather... good news.”
“That’s good, then.” And Big Tiny turned his attention to his driving.
Staring off into Saskatchewan’s “blue ethereal sky,” her heart struck by the thought of the Originator of it and all the other beauty around her, and someone’s—some unknown someone’s—concern to bring it to her attention, Birdie’s hat slipped again, and the recalcitrant curl escaped and her color heightened, and she knew it not, nor cared.
If her cup had been full, Ellie would have scalded herself, so startled was she and so violent was her reaction upon hearing Vonnie’s announcement: Tom had asked her to marry him.
But her teacup was almost empty. And, thankfully, Vonnie was not watching; her back was turned as she gazed, seemingly intently, out of the window at nothing any more fascinating than the familiar farmyard.
Carefully, as though in a dream (or was this another nightmare?), Ellie set her cup aside, dabbed automatically at her trembling lips with her serviette, and spoke. Spoke in as calm a tone as though Vonnie had announced that a chicken had escaped the hen house. And the words she spoke were casual, as though chickens escaped the hen house every day; the tone was conversational, as though a chicken’s flight was an incident not unexpected, certainly not to be worrie
d about.
“Well then, I wish Tom, and you...”—though Vonnie hadn’t said, Ellie had no doubt that she had accepted the proposal—“much happiness.”
Now Vonnie turned from her study of the farmyard—or the bush, or the sky, whatever she had fixed her attention upon while she had, simply and starkly, blown Ellie’s world to smithereens.
“We’re planning a quiet wedding,” she said rapidly, fixing Ellie now with her light blue gaze. “After all, I haven’t been a widow for very long, and Tom—well, Tom’s been ready for marriage for a long time. That is, his place is ready... his house—”
Vonnie, for all her outward aplomb, was actually stumbling.
But was his heart ready? Ellie, though her lips spoke proper words, was having trouble with her thoughts, which were wildly scattered. Was Tom really and truly heart-free and ready to turn from one love to another? Or was he acting from hurt, rashly? And would he live to regret the day and the decision?
Caring for Tom as she did, as she always would, yet not enslaved by him or by the need to keep him tethered to her, Ellie may have been more troubled than torn, more filled with sympathy than sorrow.
And yet the haste with which he had made the transfer of his interest couldn’t help but sting—one more wound that would need the Lord’s healing. Along with the nightmares, Ellie laid the fresh hurt, almost a humiliation, at the Father’s—her heavenly Father’s—feet. If there was healing for the one wound, there was healing for the other. It was all that made the future—the long, chill winter, for body and soul—livable.
Still, when Vonnie left, with cheeks ablaze and a triumph in her eyes that she couldn’t hide, perhaps didn’t care to, there was for Ellie the refuge of her earthly father readily available to her.
She sat at his feet, her head on his knee as he rocked gently in his old chair at the side of a dead fire, his rough hand caressing her head, soothing her brow, and her choked voice poured out the story. Bran had known, of course, that Tom hadn’t been coming around, that Ellie was ominously silent concerning him, and that things between them were not as they had been. Now Ellie explained, to some extent, and Bran listened gravely.