“Aha!” I cried, as I spotted an old book behind a stack of mixing bowls. The string binding had come loose and the pages were literally hanging by a thread. They were stained but perfectly legible. On the brown cover was a faded illustration of a little girl wearing a blue-and-white checked dress and a chef’s hat, with the title: Five Roses Cook Book. I opened the flyleaf. It was copyrighted 1913.
I had never learned to cook. Mrs. Sampson wasn’t much of a cook and even if she had wanted to teach me, I preferred to hide in my bedroom with my nose in a book. We dined on a steady diet of tuna casseroles, macaroni and cheese, and wieners and beans, with a pot roast served every Sunday.
When I lived on my own, I survived with takeout food. After Bridget was born, I either picked up dinner on the way home, or we ate homemade tacos or grilled cheese sandwiches. We dined frequently on something I called “snack plate” — raw vegetables, cheese, crackers, and cold cuts. I learned to make a few simple main dishes, like meat loaf, by watching the Food Channel. We never visited restaurants, of course, because of Bridget.
Here at Wildwood, I didn’t think we were eating too badly in spite of our humdrum diet. We no longer ate chips or candy or ice cream. If Bridget was hungry, she helped herself to an apple. If she was thirsty, she drank pure water that she pumped herself from the well.
But surely I could prepare something more appetizing than scrambled eggs. I opened the cover of the cookbook. On the flyleaf was a poem in my great-aunt’s handwriting:
We may live without poetry, music, or art,
We may live without conscience and live without heart,
We may live without friends, we may live without books,
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
I sat down on the rocking chair and started thumbing through the pages. Since it had been published by a flour milling company, most of the recipes were for baked goods. These had intriguing names, especially the cakes: Black Hill Cake, Gold and Silver Cake, King Edward Cake, Jersey Lily Cake, Marguerite Cake, Sunshine Cake, Ribbon Cake, Watermelon Cake. I read these aloud to Bridget.
“You’re not going to make devil’s food cake, are you, Mama?” she asked fearfully. “I don’t want cake that the devil eats!”
Perhaps to atone for this, there was a recipe for Scriptural Cake. Each ingredient listed was followed by a relevant Bible verse. For example, one-half cup of sour milk was paired with: “She brought him curds in a Lordly bowl.”
Almost every recipe called for Five Roses flour, but I hoped that the brand wasn’t important. None of the ingredients had changed since 1913, and thankfully the measurements were Imperial, not metric, one advantage of using a cookbook that pre-dated the metric system in Canada.
“Do you want to help me bake a pie, Bridge?”
“I didn’t know you could make pie, Mama!”
“I’ve never tried, but our great-auntie’s cookbook will tell us how.”
The section on pies began with a quotation attributed to Emerson: “Give me the luxuries of life and I will do without the necessities.”
I pored over the cookbook until I found the simplest recipe, with just four ingredients:
“Two cups rhubarb, stewed; one cup sugar; two tablespoons Five Roses flour; one egg. Bake with two crusts.”
If there was one thing we had in abundance, it was rhubarb. With Bridget and Fizzy following me, I carried a sharp knife into the overgrown garden and began to hack away at the rhubarb stalks. When we had a bunch the size of an armload of firewood, I brought them inside, washed them and chopped them into pieces.
I wasn’t quite sure what stewed rhubarb was, but I filled a saucepan with bite-sized pieces, covered them with water and put them on the stove to boil.
“Mama, what does rhubarb taste like?”
“It’s delicious. You’ll find out when the pie is finished.”
“I never knew we could eat weeds.”
“Rhubarb isn’t a weed, it’s just surrounded by weeds. Next spring we’ll explore the garden and see what other good things are hidden out there.”
While the rhubarb was bubbling away, creating a pungent odour, I turned to the pastry section. After reading a long list of instructions about chilling and rubbing and sprinkling, I felt slightly daunted. I chose the first recipe, which looked the simplest: Short Pastry. “One pound Five Roses flour, one-half pound shortening, ice-cold water.”
I followed the directions to mix flour and shortening into dough, using water to hold it together. “Turn out on board and knead only enough to make the ball smooth.” So far, so good.
After letting the dough cool off in a covered bowl on the back steps, Bridget helped me roll it out to a thickness of one-quarter inch and press it into two tin pie plates. By the time we finished, the pastry was warm and sticky and dotted with little finger-prints.
The recipe called for a quick oven. No temperature was specified, and the stove didn’t have a temperature gauge anyway. But there were further instructions:
Be sure you understand your oven. If the hand can be held in from twenty to twenty-five seconds, it is a quick oven; from thirty-five to forty-five seconds, it is a moderate oven, and from forty-five to sixty, a slow oven. Do not open the oven door for at least ten minutes, and then you may peep in to make sure the pies are baking nicely.
I opened the oven door and stuck in my hand. Bridget counted aloud with me for twenty seconds, and then I said ouch and took my hand away. It was quick, all right.
The rhubarb looked nice and mushy now, so I drained off the water, then stirred in the sugar, flour, and egg. I hesitated, wondering if I should taste it, but since there was a raw egg in the mixture I didn’t want to take the chance of getting salmonella.
I divided the whole pink gooey mess between the two crusts, covered them rather inexpertly with pastry, and popped them into the oven. I wished the oven had a glass panel. There was no way to see inside without opening the door, and that was forbidden.
I waited the specified ten minutes and peeked in. The crusts were beginning to brown and the room was filled with a delightful fragrance. I waited another ten minutes, then checked them again. They looked like perfection itself.
Making sure that Riley wasn’t around, I cooled my pies on the back steps and then brought them inside while Bridget hung around, begging for a piece. I arranged two generous slices on our Old English flowered plates, beaming with self-satisfaction, and we sat down at the table.
Bridget took one bite and grimaced. “Ew!” She spat her mouthful onto the tablecloth.
I took my first bite and almost did the same. The filling was so sour that it made my mouth pucker. “Oh, Bridget, the rhubarb isn’t sweet enough! I should have added more sugar to the mixture!”
I set down my fork, feeling the old familiar surge of inadequacy. Whatever made me think I could learn to bake?
“Mama, the pie makes my face go like this!” Bridget pursed her lips into an exaggerated pout. “It makes my mouth look like Fizzy’s bum!”
The attic yielded yet another treasure. I was rifling through my great-aunt’s sewing trunk when I noticed a cardboard carton behind the trunk that had never been opened. It was tied with twine, an address label still pasted across the flaps. I slit open the label with one dirty fingernail and unfastened the knot.
Inside was a matched set of twenty-six children’s books, with textured cream-coloured covers bearing black and red embossed illustrations. Inside the envelope lying on top of the books was a gift card: “Best Wishes From Your Dear Friend Mabel Livingstone, Toronto, Ontario.” It was dated October 7, 1926.
I examined the books. They were brand new, the spines still stiff, and the pages crisp and clean. Called The Bedtime Story Books, each one featured a different animal story by Thornton W. Burgess. There were charming illustrations of animals wearing clothes: Peter Cottontail with a red waistcoat and bowtie, Prickly Porky in a pair of one-shouldered overalls.
This was a welcome discovery since I thought I would
go mad if we read The Cat in the Hat one more time, and I had long since exhausted my repertoire of fairy tales. But why, I wondered, would Mabel Livingstone have sent my great-aunt a box of children’s books? And more to the point, why hadn’t she opened it? It was a mystery.
That night I showed Bridget the books, and we washed our hands carefully before touching them. Although we always washed before meals, and after using the pioneer potty, we were more relaxed about keeping our hands clean. It was an impossible task.
We decided to start with The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver, a natural choice since we had our very own beaver dam. I began to read. “Of course the first thing to do was to build a dam across the Laughing Brook to make the pond Paddy so much needed. He chose a low open place deep in the Green Forest, around the edge of which grew many young aspen trees, the bark of which is his favourite food.”
Bridget listened with her eyes wide and unblinking. “We have our own Laughing Brook, don’t we? And our own Green Forest!”
“Yes, and it’s filled with aspen trees, just like the ones in the book. Except we call them poplars.”
She snuggled against my shoulder and I stroked her curly dark head.
“I like reading better than TV, don’t you?” she asked.
“I thought you liked TV.”
“I got kind of tired of it.”
“But you hardly ever watched it.”
There was a pause. Bridget glanced up at me out of the corner of her eye, then down again. “Mama, will you get mad if I tell you something?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know yet. What is it?”
“Gabby let me watch TV every day, all the time.”
I felt rage rising in my chest. I had paid Gabriella an exorbitant amount to entertain Bridget with mind-expanding activities like word games and educational toys. She was supposed to be talking to her, working with her every day, encouraging her to speak.
“Really, darling?” I said between gritted teeth. “What was she doing while you were watching TV?”
“She was watching the other TV in your bedroom. She said I could watch my shows and she could watch her shows. She called them her soaps. That’s a funny name, isn’t it, Mama?”
“Why didn’t you tell me before, sweetie?”
“Gabby said you would be very, very mad.” She looked so worried that I knew her babysitter must have really threatened her. Once again I felt the sting of betrayal.
“Gabby did two bad things. First of all, she shouldn’t have let you watch TV, and even worse — she shouldn’t have told you to lie about it. You must never lie to me, darling. No matter what. I promise I will never be mad at you for telling the truth.”
The next morning, I scrubbed my white pillowcases furiously on the washboard while I dwelt on Gabriella’s treachery. If I had my cellphone now, I would call and give her a piece of my mind. But that was impossible.
This was my alternate Monday for washing the sheets. I never imagined using the same bedding for two whole weeks, but it was such hard physical labour that I had reluctantly lowered my standards.
I fed the two sheets, two pillowcases, and four towels through the wringer, the soapy water overflowing onto the floor. As I lifted the load of wet linen, I looked down at my bulging biceps. Really, this was better than any workout.
The stained items came clean if I put them in a copper boiler on the stove and let them simmer for a while. Sometimes I put the soapy clothes in the tin tub on the kitchen floor and allowed Bridget to jump up and down on them, wearing only her panties.
I staggered out to the clothesline and began to hang the sheets. Riley greeted me enthusiastically, rubbing himself back and forth against my legs.
The sheets would remain outside overnight, where they would absorb the freshness of the northern breeze and the scent of evergreen needles. In spite of my anger at Gabriella, I felt an atavistic pleasure in the warmth of the northern sun. The vaulted blue sky above provided a splendid backdrop for my mundane task. The edges of the clouds were as crisp as clamshells, whiter than my sheets.
Wynona came around the corner of the windbreak. The poplars were now as bare as exotic dancers, with only a few leaves clinging protectively to their naked branches.
“Hi, Wynona! Don’t you have school today?”
“I hate school. It sucks. Lots of days I just stay in bed until the bus is gone.”
“Hmm. Here, will you help me with these sheets, please? They’re so darned heavy.”
Together we lifted and pinned the sheets, which began to snap satisfyingly in the brisk breeze. We came into the kitchen so suddenly that Bridget, who was sitting at the table with a crayon in her hand, didn’t have time to scamper into the next room.
Her flower-like face closed up like a bud, but she didn’t move. Instead she lowered her face to her artwork, her nose almost touching the paper. I glanced over her shoulder to see that she was drawing a picture of the two of us. She drew a green circle for a mouth on the smaller figure, then a similar green circle on the face of the larger figure.
Without speaking, Wynona sat down across from her. After a few minutes of silence, which I dared not break, she pulled a sheet of paper toward her and began to sketch the orchid sitting on the table.
October 18, 1924
George went into Juniper this week, and left me here alone for the first time. He was very reluctant, but I convinced him that I would have to be alone sometimes, and I might as well begin. I wasn’t afraid, not in the slightest. In fact, I enjoyed the feeling of immense solitude, as soothing to the mind as the reviving air of evening refreshes the body after the hottest day. As Byron said:
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but Nature more.
When George arrived home, he brought me an unexpected gift — a pair of trousers from the trading post! When I asked him if this was the custom, he admitted that he had seen only one other woman in breeches, and she hid behind the haystack when she saw him coming. I felt positively wicked when I came downstairs in them, but George assured me that it would be easier to ride my horse “boy-fashion” in breeches.
It will indeed be simpler to mount my horse, Brownie, who is a joy to ride. I was afraid I might get a horse that stands on his hind legs at the slightest provocation, but Brownie is a perfect lamb. He’s fifteen hands high and I must lead him to a rock before I can climb onto his back, but once I do, we make a handsome pair! He is so sure-footed that he can turn on a shilling.
I’m afraid Pocahontas didn’t appreciate my stylish new breeches. When I went outside to do the milking, she upped her tail and ran away bawling. I returned to the house and changed into my skirt. When she saw me as I normally appear, she allowed me to lead her into the barn, as gentle as a kitten. Mysterious, as are all God’s creatures.
George and I had a good laugh over this. There is something so satisfying about having a partner to share one’s ups and downs. I feel that anything is possible with George at my side. He has pulled me through many a time when I felt my courage oozing out of my pores and vanishing like smoke. He says he is very proud of his “cheechako” — that is what they call a greenhorn here.
Our farm, with our own home, animals, barnyard, garden, and ourselves, forms a little community so entertaining that we have no need of anyone or anything else. Whenever I return home from a night away, I want to kiss the cows with delight. I’m very fond of them all and will shed many bitter tears when we are forced to butcher them. I have heard terrible stories of families eating their horses to stay alive over the winter. I can’t imagine eating Brownie. I would feel like a cannibal. I can easily understand how settlers make close companions of their animals when there is little contact with other human beings.
Because George does the heavy work outside, I take care that he has little to do inside
. After his evening chores, I have hot water ready for his wash, clean clothes laid out upon the bed, and supper on the table. Tonight I roasted a duck and baked a parsnip casserole. For afters, we had canned peaches with our own rich cream.
For some household tasks I do require his assistance. Once the fall work was in hand, I asked him to help me wallpaper the parlour. First he stepped into the paste-bucket, and then a sloppy strip of paper drifted down and stuck to his hair. By the time we finished, we looked a funny pair of ginks and had to plunge into the icy creek. How we did laugh! But the parlour with its new embellishment of pink roses tied with green ribbons looks simply grand.
I set aside the diary and looked around at the faded wallpaper in the living room. The border of roses had long since been covered with other layers of paper, but for a moment I sat with the ghosts of George and Mary Margaret, laughing together as they worked. What would it be like, I wondered, to have that kind of companionship?
I picked up the lamp, which shed its golden light on the flower-sprigged walls, walked into the hallway, and studied the photographs hanging below an embroidered sampler that had probably been made by my great-aunt’s nimble fingers: “Home Is Where the Heart Is.”
These people were my own flesh and blood. I guessed that the couple in an oval brass frame were Mary Margaret’s parents, my great-grandparents. Another group was seated in a garden, the women wearing loose, shapeless dresses with long strings of beads and cloches pulled low over their eyes.
Next to that was my favourite photograph: George and Mary Margaret on their wedding day. I lifted the lamp high so the light fell upon their faces. Great-Uncle George, a handsome man with a luxurious moustache, sat on a straight-backed chair. He wasn’t smiling, but he had a good-humoured expression, as if he were pleased with the world. My great-aunt stood behind him with her gloved hand resting on his shoulder. A luxurious mass of dark curly hair was pinned up underneath her hat, and I could see my own resemblance in the shape of her face and the curve of her heavy eyebrows.
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