The Paradise Tree

by Elena Maria Vidal

  “Thanks be to God!” Aunt Lottie exclaimed and Uncle Henry nodded in approval, taking his wife’s hand. As newlyweds, they were always close together. Aunt Lottie looked much younger than her thirty years, with sweet blue eyes, wide apart, an oval face, curling chestnut-blonde hair with a fashionable bang and a gentle smile. Fergie thought she resembled her older sister, Aunt Margaret, but Grandpa once was heard to say that she had a bit of the look of Grandma when she was young. She had helped to take care of Grandma. After Grandma’s eyes failed, Aunt Lottie became her eyes, describing everything for her. And after Grandma passed away, Lottie married her friend Doctor Palmer, with whom she had corresponded for some years.

  “What a blessing,” commented Aunt Mary. She was plump and her reddish-brown curly hair was streaked with gray. She could have been Aunt Joanna’s twin, so closely did they resemble each other, except that Aunt Joanna’s hair was already snow white. Fergie had once heard Grandpa say that Joanna and Mary reminded him of his mother whom he had left behind in Ireland. Aunt Mary had met Uncle John Desmond in New York State when she went to visit the O’Connor relatives in the Irish settlement outside of Ogdensburg. They had a farm at Brasher Falls and many children.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Ellen. “Although Charlie still complains about having the blues, especially since Pa died. I told him he should be glad that our poor father passed away on his birthday, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, but he said that it doesn’t help, just makes him more distressed.”

  “Well, then Ellen,” declared Aunt Mary. “Refrain from making the connection. It may be consoling to you, but it is obviously not consoling to Charlie. Perhaps he thinks Pa died to save him, or something.”

  “Oh, Mary. If Charlie had strong faith he would be comforted by such things.”

  “Enough, Ellen. Charlie has very strong faith. He just has a sensitive soul.”

  “Oh, Mary, you and Brig are always defending him . . .” Aunt Ellen was interrupted by Aunt Annie.

  “Hush, now. Fergie is stirring,” whispered Aunt Annie, and they all fell silent. Aunt Annie sometimes gave the impression of being overshadowed by Aunt Ellen, but when she spoke as she did then, she left no doubt that she had a mind of her own. Annie’s penetrating blue-green eyes surrounded by thick lashes dominated her angular, ascetic face. With her stubborn, pointed chin, she was not beautiful but rather compelling, with a trace of fierceness. Her abundant black hair was pulled into a tight knot on the top of her head, but tendrils escaped, and the corkscrew fringe over her forehead was always unruly. Thirty-three years old, she had devoted herself to taking care of Grandpa in his last years with energy and humor. Fergie wondered if now she would get married. He had often seen her nod with a shy but defiant smile to Mr. John MacDonald, the younger brother of Aunt Margaret’s husband, Uncle James, after Mass. Mr. John MacDonald’s gaze would follow Aunt Annie as she strolled away, and he had heard Mother whisper to Father, “Now there’s a match made in heaven!”

  Aunt Ellen draped a quilt over Fergie as he rolled over to face the back of the horsehair sofa. His mind sleepily pondered the words about his father. He recalled St. Patrick’s Day not ten days earlier, when his mother’s singing of “Saint Patrick’s Day in the Morning” had awakened him at dawn. Later, at breakfast, Father had said, “Your singing helped me to shake off the blues today, Emily.” And that evening Father played his violin for the first time since Grandpa had died, all the old Irish airs, with Mother singing along in her sweet voice. Fergie was glad; he had been worried about his father being so sad all the time.

  Fergie was happy to think that it would soon be spring and Easter, and they would walk in the woods in search of mayflowers and bloodroots, listening for the loons and watching for the first swallows. Then when the days were warmer, his mother would often in the afternoons put aside her many chores to read to him under the trees, usually Scott’s Lady of the Lake and Tennyson’s The Idylls of the King. On Thursdays they would often go fishing in the afternoon, in order to catch fish for the next day’s dinner.

  The morning of the funeral, they all arose early for the long drive to Brewer’s Mill to fetch Grandpa’s body from the vault where it had been deposited all winter. It was a chilly, damp morn. The roads were muddy and would have been impassable if it had not been for the labors of the local landowners to maintain them. They passed the stretch of road known as the “O’Connor Job” maintained by Grandpa and now by Father, with split logs covered with packed down dirt and stones. As the adults fell to discussing the weather and the crops, Fergie reflected on other snatches of the conversation from the previous evening through the mists of his sleep.

  “He took it hard, you know,” sighed Aunt Mary, pouring herself some more coffee.

  “Took ‘what’ hard?” asked Aunt Ellen, passing her the sugar.

  “The teasing at school,” replied Aunt Mary. “Charlie could not bear it.”

  “Well, they teased all of us,” Aunt Ellen briskly affirmed. “Pa told us to offer it up.”

  “Teased you? Why?” asked Uncle Henry.

  “For being Catholic, dear,” responded Aunt Lottie.

  “Oh.” Uncle Henry shook his head in disgust.

  “There was a particularly nasty boy in his class,” said Aunt Mary. “Charlie would run home in tears. I remember him weeping in Ma’s arms when he was very small. Pa told him not to cry because others were rude and ignorant.”

  “He was a gentle soul and it hurt him,” said Aunt Lottie.

  “Children always tease each other,” declared Aunt Ellen. “We have all been schoolteachers. If it hadn’t been about being Catholic, it would have been about something else. Why, even now the children at school tease Fergie about how Emily and Charlie give food and lodging to beggars. They say we keep a “room for tramps” at Long Point. Silly! One must ignore such foolishness.”

  Fergie was shocked to hear Aunt Ellen use the word “tramp” because it was one which he was never permitted to utter when describing the homeless, older men who wandered the roads in the summer. They were given a plate of food by his mother and Fergie was told not to “bother” them while they ate. At night they were allowed to ascend the back stair to the spare room.

  “Charlie should not have taken things so much to heart,” Aunt Ellen was saying. “He has his Emily and the farm and Fergie…he should be content.”

  Fergie thought that his Father was content and sleepily wondered what Aunt Ellen meant. He supposed she was referring to what Father called “the blues.” As for himself, he liked school well enough, although occasionally he would be branded a “papist,” but he knew what that meant so he did not mind, having been told never to allow the rudeness of others make him feel sad. Often the teacher boarded at his house since it was across the road from the school, and usually got along quite well with his parents, so that if any child forgot his lunch pail or felt ill, they would be sent to Mother for food and succor. The meadows of Long Point were the site of wonderful school picnics in the spring and summer, when Father would bring over his work table to be draped in one of mother’s spotless linen cloths, laden with salmon, beef, sandwiches and cake. Aunt Ellen would come with a pail of cookies and show the girls how to weave daisy chains. Fergie and the boys would play “Eenie Aye Over,” a game which involved throwing a ball over the school house roof and trying to catch it. Then they would follow the creek which ran down the gully below the school where there was an old bear cave. The bear no longer lived there; Grandpa had shot it long ago. Fergie enjoyed school, for the most part, in spite of the black snakes that lived in the trees.

  The morning fog wafted upward as they carried Grandpa’s coffin up from the grey stone vault and into the hearse, draped in black. Most of the cemeteries of Leeds County had such a vault. Outwardly, it resembled a small chapel, but inside it was a crypt, and the bodies of people who died during the winter were stored there until the ground thawed.

  Tears began to flow, particularly among his aunts. “Poor, dear Father,�
�� wept Aunt Ellen. Mother was pale. To Fergie, it felt as if Grandpa had died only a day ago. As they made their way towards Philipsville, the sun emerged and it felt as if spring had come. As they wound through the wet woods and fields, they passed a solitary knoll, where there stood a very old woman. She bowed as Grandpa’s casket passed her by.

  “It is Mother Barnes,” whispered Aunt Ellen to Fergie’s mother. “We ought to acknowledge her.” The ladies nodded to the ancient dame, their black crepe veils blowing on the light breeze which had arisen. Mrs. Barnes curtseyed deeply in return, as if royal princesses were going by. Fergie waved to her, and she waved back at him, with a wink.

  “It is the witch,” he whispered to George. George did not reply, but gazed at the Widow Barnes with wide eyes.

  “Fergus, please do not mumble,” corrected Mother, gently. “Now, what have you to say?”

  “It is the witch, the Witch of Plum Hollow,” he repeated, looking at the carriage quilt that covered his knees against the chill.

  “Well, I would not go so far as to call Mrs. Barnes a witch, “ replied Aunt Ellen. “She has the ‘second sight’ as they called it in the old country.”

  “She is clairvoyant, Fergie. It is a special gift, a preternatural one. She can discern things that are not seen by the eye,” explained Mother.

  “Yes, I remember,” nodded Fergie. “Mrs. Barnes helped Grandpa find his sheep when they were stolen.”

  “Grandpa held her in high regard,” said Aunt Ellen. “They both came from County Cork, you know. He felt sorry for her, being a widow with all those children. He frequently sent food over to her, especially after the time she told him where the Chase gang had taken his sheep. Mother Barnes told Pa to go to a place outside Sopertown and to follow a certain side road and he would see a lot of sheep. If he knew his own sheep he could pick them out. Well, he said the sheep would follow him, and they did.” Fergie had heard the story many times before and so had George, who grinned mysteriously.

  Eventually they approached the Church of the Japanese Martyrs. The fog had lifted, revealing the red earth of the fields, sodden and dormant. The road wound around the pink and grey hued cliffs beyond which lay the simple sandstone church. Like most of the other Catholic churches located in the villages of Leeds County, it was on the outskirts of the village Philipsville. The Protestant majority did not relish the idea of papists worshipping in their midst. The church stood on a small hill above an embankment of stones. Carriages, wagons and buggies lined the road for a quarter of a mile in every direction. The local Protestant clergy, all of whom had held Grandpa in high esteem, stood outside the church, doffing their hats as Squire O’Connor’s remains approached.

  “At least our poor father can be buried from a church, and not someone’s parlor, as was so often the case in the old days,” remarked Aunt Ellen. “It was seldom that a priest had a station at Kitley. Mother and he used to take a child a piece on horseback and ride all the way to the Kitley church, or to someone’s house, to have them christened. Lottie and Annie walked nine or ten miles with Pa to old Mr. Fodey’s where they stayed all night, went to confession at the Grady’s where the priest was holding a station and there the girls made their First Holy Communion. How blest we are to now have Mass once a month and in such a grand, lovely church as this one!”

  “It is because of gentlemen like Grandpa and your Grandpa Andrew that we have churches,” commented Mother to Fergie and George.

  “And we can ride to church in buggies like kings and queens!” Aunt Ellen observed. “How things have changed since I was young . . . and for the better, too. Not all changes are bad.”

  In one of the buggies ahead of them sat Aunt Annie, with Aunt Margaret and Aunt Joanna. As the pallbearers carried Grandpa up the hill to the church, Mr. John MacDonald strode up to the buggy and extended his hand to Aunt Annie. She rose and hesitated, looking coldly down at Mr. John, who blushed to the roots of his hair. But then Annie lurched forward unexpectedly and practically fell out of the buggy into his arms.

  “Margaret must have kicked her,” whispered Mother to Aunt Ellen.

  “Our Annie will be gone soon, I can see it coming,” lamented Aunt Ellen, with a sigh. “I will be all alone. How shall I bear it?” She murmured the last as if praying to God.

  “Now, Ellen,” said Mother, firmly. “You shall never be alone. We are all right here for you, always. And if Annie does choose to marry John, Sand Bay is no great distance from Long Point.”

  Cousin Charley Joe O’Connor, one of Uncle Mick’s sons, came over to help them out of the buggy. He was one of Aunt Ellen’s favorite nephews, and often helped her around her place in his spare time. He was in his twenties and handsome, with fair hair and blue eyes, “like our Trainor uncles,” Aunt Ellen often said. She nagged Charley Joe mercilessly, but he kept coming back.

  Cousin Charley Joe took Aunt Ellen’s arm while Mother took Fergie’s hand. “I’ll look after the horses and meet you in Church,” George whispered to Fergie. He waved to Fergie and Fergie waved back. Aunt Ellen frowned at him and glanced at Mother with an upraised eyebrow; Mother shook her head at Aunt Ellen, and gripped Fergie’s hand more firmly as they went up the sandstone steps into the church, named for martyrs who had died in a faraway land.

  CHAPTER 20

  The Quick and the Dead

  March 27, 1887

  "When will heaven, her sweet bell ringing,

  Call my spirit to the fields above?"

  —"Silent O Moyle"

  The interior of the Church of the Japanese Martyrs glowed with white light, for the windows were of milky glass, filtering the sun through the gothic carvings into outlandish patterns. The statues were covered with purple cloth because it was Passiontide. The altar glimmered with candlelight mingling with the rays of the morning. Light gleamed upon the sacred gold vessels and the silver embroidery of the black vestments. The black of the vestments and of the mourning clothes impressed upon Fergie the sorrow of the present time and yet the darkness could not compete with the radiance of day. The golden carved medallion on the center of the ceiling represented the glory of the world above, which in some measure they could even now possess.

  Fergie sat between Mother and Aunt Ellen in the second pew directly behind Father and the other pallbearers, who were in the first pew. There issued forth from the choir loft a unique Gregorian rendition of Requiem in aeternam, slightly off-key and inharmonious, but nonetheless moving. He felt at home, and yet on the brink of eternity. He wondered what was taking George so long. He glanced over his shoulder to see if George was coming down the aisle. Craning his neck, he saw his friend was in the choir loft, and raised his hand to motion for him to come down. Mother frowned at Fergie.

  Aunt Ellen nudged him. "Keep still," she whispered. She handed him her missal, and pointed out the readings so that he could follow them in English. Soon it was time for the homily. Father Spratt preached about death and judgment and purgation and eternal bliss. Suffering, illness, death, loss, and life were all transformed with a new meaning and purpose, rendered as intricate threads woven together to make an elaborate tapestry. He then spoke of Grandpa and how passing on the faith to his children was the most important task in life for him.

  "What an accomplishment it was, to build such a Catholic family, and at a time when many Catholics were abandoning their faith. Daniel O'Connor, with his zeal for true doctrine, became an example for others to follow. We will never know how many were inspired to persevere in their religion because of him."

  Fergie’s mind wandered as he remembered his last walk with Grandpa across the meadow the previous June. Grandpa loved to walk across his land but he needed someone to accompany him in case he fell. So when Aunt Annie was gone to market or visiting, Fergie and Grandpa would set out hand-in-hand. The daisies had swirled in the breeze in an untamed waltz. Fergie called the meadow "Daisy Land," for amid the white and gold profusion one seemed to enter a separate realm.

  "What did you want to be, Grandpa, when
you were a boy?" he once asked. The security of Grandpa's leathery, gentle hand emboldened him to wonder aloud.

  "I wanted to be a doctor," Grandpa replied.

  "Why, Grandpa?"

  "There are many people who die who would have lived if only they would have had a doctor. It was more so in times past, but even now, especially here in the countryside, there is a great deal of suffering that could be remedied by proper medical care. To be a doctor is to assist Our Lord in His mission of healing the sick. It is a noble and holy profession. I tried my best to become a doctor, but it was not to be."

  Fergie blinked and recollected himself. The meadow disappeared and he tried to focus on the sermon.

  Father Spratt was saying: "Of Daniel O'Connor it may be truly said that his faults were few and his virtues many. But all is now over: the grave covers perfections and imperfections alike. Upright and honest, a true hearted Irishman, he leaves behind him memories which link his name with those of the true and trusted who have gone before him."

  Suddenly Aunt Ellen rose to her feet. Fergie was astonished to see her stiffly make her way out of the pew, genuflect, and head for the back of the church. He would have been less surprised to see an angel fly through the sanctuary for Aunt Ellen had never before walked out of Mass.

  Father Spratt continued speaking as if nothing had occurred. "Daniel's death was the result of the natural decay of old age more than actual sickness. And he died fortified by the sacraments of the church, in peace with himself, in peace with his fellowmen, and in peace with his God. If there be consolation outside the hope of a blessed reward for the loss of a beloved father, the children of the deceased must indeed be consoled by the tender and affectionate regard shown by the people of Long Point. They are sympathized with in their bereavement, wherever the family is known. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."