by Carol Matas
As we went along, Sophie pointed out the sites. Here was the Anglican cathedral, which oddly enough is built of logs, and here was the Hudson’s Bay Company mill, and Mr. Jackson’s drugstore.
Just then Jean Paul pointed out the police blockhouse. The day was suddenly ruined for me, as that was the building where Papa, Adrian and so many others were imprisoned after the battle of Batoche. When I told Moushoom about all this, saying that I believed the blockhouse should be torn down, he only laughed. That blockhouse still stands, he said, but then so do the Métis people.
Moushoom. How wise he is.
Later, though, he and Papa talked about our friend One Arrow, who is still in prison in Manitoba. It must be so hard for a man who has always lived in a teepee to be trapped in a stone building. I will pray tonight that One Arrow will soon be free.
Le 24 décembre 1885
There was no quiet in the house today, but no one seemed to mind. After all, Christmas is tomorrow!
Le 25 décembre 1885
Christmas, weather mild
Christmas dinner was a fine one, with a goose that Sophie and I stuffed. Louise and Madame Montour prepared a Christmas pudding in the English style, which I must admit was delicious. And I have tasted an orange for the first time! How wonderful it was. As well as the oranges, there were hair ribbons in Sophie’s and my stockings. Father Christmas somehow knew that my favourite colour is blue.
He left something very strange in the boys’ stockings, a toy called a bandelure. When used correctly, the wooden quiz unwinds itself from a string that you place over your finger, and then pops up most amazingly. The boys have yet to master their toys, though. Louise says that the bandelure is also called a Prince of Wales toy, which made us all laugh. And when Armand said that if the prince has a bandelure, perhaps Queen Victoria also has one, we laughed harder than ever.
What a happy day this was!
Le 27 décembre 1885
Papa has decided that we will set out for home tomorrow after Mass. Although Adrian is capable of taking care of what remains of our property, his Christmas must have been a lonely one. What is more, Papa feeels the itch to begin rebuilding, and the only way that itch can be scratched will be with hard work.
I will miss Sophie and these kind people, but she has promised to write. Oranges taste wonderful, and Christmas trees are beautiful, but I do long for Batoche.
Le 31 décembre 1885, tard
We are home, and a complete family again. How good it was to see Adrian after so long. And Moon! He yelped and whined with joy to once more be with Moushoom. I knew that I had missed both the dog and my brother, but I had not realized how very much until I had to struggle to keep the tears from my eyes. The struggle was a short one, though, as contentment quickly took its place. And weariness, since we could not let this year end without a small celebration. To bed, Josephine.
Après minuit
It was the firing of Papa’s rifle that woke me, one shot to the west to bid the old year farewell, and one to the east to welcome in the new year. What a sad and strange time it has been. So many changes. So much lost. I suppose the loss is why I had decided not to write about what happened yesterday, but then that would not be the right thing to do. A story needs its ending, even when the ending is not the sort you hoped for. And Moushoom did tell me to always write the truth.
So. We did stop at Madame Halcro’s house, after all. It was another one of those moments where our family all seemed to be thinking the same thing, although none of us spoke it aloud. She was more than happy for a bit of company, and for word of the goings-on in Prince Albert. Then she offered to show us Monsieur Riel’s sash, and even let each of us hold it.
When my turn came, I expected to feel simply wool. Instead — and I will only tell this here — I felt far more. It was as though something of Monsieur Riel had been left behind in that sash. I thought that I could almost feel his spirit, but now I wonder if I was feeling the spirit of the Métis people.
I suppose there is no answer to that, and perhaps none is needed. After all, who can say what will happen this new year of 1886. I can say that when Papa spoke of rebuilding a few days ago, it seemed to me that he was talking about more than a house and barn. Together once more in Moushoom’s cabin, I feel that our family has already begun.
Eliza’s brothers both enlisted to fight in World War I. On the Home Front there were coal shortages, rationing, heart-stopping news of soldiers missing or dead. While praying for her brothers’ safe return, and longing for her very own friend, Eliza’s greatest comfort was the warmth of her exuberant and loving family. But Christmas Day 1919 brings a new challenge.
Like a Stack of Spoons
Friday, December 26, 1919
At Tamsyn’s house
Dear Diary, thank you, thank you, thank you! Father says you are probably the first blank notebook in the history of the world to save the lives of an entire family. It is true. If it weren’t for you, we all might have died in our beds last night when our house caught fire! If I had not accidentally left you downstairs and gone down to fetch you, I would never have seen the smoke. You have a slightly smoky smell, Dear Diary. Don’t worry. I don’t mind it.
Today is really Boxing Day for the Bates family. Before, we were always the ones who took food and things to needy people on the day after Christmas, but today we are the ones who need boxes of food. Almost all the food in our house was ruined.
Thank goodness the fire didn’t happen on Christmas Eve. We had all carted our presents up to our rooms before supper last night, so none of them was damaged. Mind you, nothing in the parlour was destroyed.
But I can’t write the whole story down right now. Everything is too muddled and I can’t sit still and write, especially when I am not at home. It should be fun staying here at Tamsyn’s house, and it is now and then, but I am too upset, I guess. I keep wondering how the others are and wanting to be with them, and worrying whether some other disaster is happening to them and I am not there to know about it. We will be meeting for supper, but that seems years away. I miss Mother. I even miss Verity! I never dreamed I would miss her so much when she left home to nurse overseas, but today she seems farther away than before.
I think of Hugo too and want to tell him our dramatic story. Maybe he knows. People say those who have died watch over us. I wish I knew this for sure. I loved him so much that I can still barely think about him being killed at Vimy, Diary. But I can’t write about that now when my mind is full of what happened just last night. Oh, Dear Diary, thank you again! I will treasure you all my life long.
Saturday, December 27, 1919
Tamsyn’s house, bedtime
Mother says I am too melodramatic at times, but even she has to admit that this has been a dramatic story in all our lives. So, Diary, here is what happened.
I planned to write in you after Aunt Martha gave you to me on Christmas morning, but I never did. Now I can write a little of what happened on Christmas night, because Tamsyn is having a bath and getting her hair washed so she will be ready for church tomorrow. This gives me a peaceful few minutes on my own. I have already gotten totally clean because I smelled so badly of smoke this morning. I think maybe I still do, but Tamsyn sniffed me and says I do not. Her mother washed my hair over and over! And I will have to wear one of Tamsyn’s dresses because mine are all smoky.
One of the things that made this Christmas different was that I offered to look after Roo while Jack and Rosemary had a night without him. My little nephew Rufus is a darling, but he is also a handful. (Mother says Jack was just as bad when he was little. Poor Mother!) Anyway, I decided they deserved a short holiday from being his parents. It was my Christmas present to them. We set up the crib in my bedroom and we had lots of fun getting Roo into it. I finally got him to sleep and went to bed. But I could not get to sleep myself.
Maybe I had a premonition — but I think I didn’t. I just was not used to sharing my room with a baby who snuffles in his sleep and sucks his thu
mb. He sounds like a little suckling pig.
Then, all of a sudden, I realized I had left you downstairs and I was afraid Belle would find you in the morning and draw pictures in you before I could rescue you. So I pulled on my bathrobe and went tiptoeing down and found you. I shoved you into the patch pocket and started to go back up. I did not notice the smoke until I was halfway to the top of the stairs. Even then it did not seem significant. I guess I just thought it was from the fire we had had in the parlour fireplace. But when I was back in bed I knew, all at once, that something was wrong. The smoke had come from Father’s study on the other side of the hall, and in that fireplace the chimney has been blocked off.
I jumped back up and ran to the head of the stairs and saw the smoke wisping up toward me. Then I ran to wake Father and tore back to snatch up Roo. So you were still with me when I got outside. Thank goodness for that pocket. If it had not been there, you might have been lost forever. Even though I had not yet written in you, you were precious to me from the moment I unwrapped you and knew I could go on with my life story.
We are all of us scattered throughout the town tonight. I am next door at Tamsyn’s, as I already explained. Otherwise I would go ahead and write the whole story down. But now Tamsyn is back, smelling sweet from powder and shampoo, and her mother says we must put out the light.
Tomorrow, Dear Diary, I will get back and not leave out a single exciting detail.
Sunday, December 28, 1919
After supper
The church was jam-packed with people this morning. Usually they come out in droves the Sunday before Christmas and then on Christmas Day, but the next Sunday lots of them stay home. Maybe they were so glad we were all alive. Maybe they wanted to hear Father preach. There is something in the Bible about a “brand snatched from the burning” and maybe that is how they see us. Even Tamsyn’s family came, and they are Anglicans. She told me afterwards that it was the first time she had ever gone to a Presbyterian church.
I forgot to put in about Rosemary and Jack coming to get Roo. While Jack was hugging Roo so tightly that he yelped, Rosemary grabbed you, Dear Diary, and kissed you. That was after I told her how you had saved her precious child. She kissed me too, since I actually carried Roo out of the burning house. It was noble of me, as he was yelling and kicking the whole way. Maybe he was frightened. I was. But he just seemed mad as a wet kitten. They stuck around for a while, but then they took their blessed baby back to the farm. They offered to take me too, but I wanted to stay close to Mother and Father and our house. This is where I belong.
Father told us that the fireman said the fire started in the cellar, in one of the beams. The person who put electric wiring in was somebody in the congregation, and Father suspects he made a mistake. The fireman thinks the fire went up the wall into the chimney that led up into the old fireplace and then began licking its way along the wall. By the time I woke Father, there were flames and it had gone through to the kitchen. We are lucky the firemen came like a shot. There is smoke and water damage and a big hole in the one wall and everything stinks, but they say it can all be fixed.
Moppy was away visiting her sister over Christmas, but she came rushing back as soon as she heard the news. She wasn’t happy to see how much would have to be cleaned up. It will make her usual job of keeping us tidy all the more difficult.
Belle was badly frightened by the whole thing and clings onto Mother’s skirt all the time. Well, she is only seven. Charlie and Susannah strut about, bragging about their narrow escape, but now Charlie keeps Isaac on a leash all the time. I thought Isaac was lost when we first got out of the house. I could hear him barking but couldn’t see him anywhere. Charlie had him clutched in his arms under the blanket somebody had wrapped around him. I should have guessed.
Enough for now.
Monday, December 29, 1919
Tamsyn’s house
I am glad we are having Christmas holidays this week, because otherwise Mother would have packed us off to school. I am also glad that Tamsyn’s family lives right next door to the Manse so I can see what is happening over there. One thing amazed us. Belle’s goldfish almost froze in their bowl, but when we thawed the ice they were still alive! If Isaac had been trapped in the house, he would have died for sure. He is pretty smart though. He might have found himself a place to wiggle out.
The burned holes in Father’s study wall are boarded up now and the wallpaper is ruined. The men from the congregation are already at work on the repairs. Mother says we will be able to move back in by Twelfth Night. Oh, I can hardly wait. I need to be back where I belong.
I sound ungrateful but I am not. Tamsyn is wonderful and her parents are really nice to me, but my family is all split up and scattered. The twins are at the Moffatts. Belle and Mother and Moppy are at Mrs. Mansefield’s. She loves having them. Father was forever feeling sorry for her for living by herself, and inviting her over to supper on Sunday night. But now we are the Lame Ducks in need of kindness. I find it humiliating to have to be grateful to her after I have disliked her so much. We have to keep saying thank you and smiling. I will have to stop thinking of her as a Lame Duck.
I have decided to face the fact that I am not a nice person. But maybe I am learning to be nicer.
Tuesday, December 30, 1919
Well, we are not the only family with troubles. The telephone rang in the middle of the night. When Tamsyn’s father came back up we could hear her mother say, “Heaven preserve us, what now?” Then their bedroom door shut and we could not hear any more.
This morning we found out that Tamsyn’s big sister Lavinia is coming home today with her baby. It was her husband David who phoned. She had Spanish Flu just after the War ended and, although she survived, it left her with weakened lungs or something. Then she had a baby and David said she needs more care than he can manage. He is a doctor who was overseas and, although he came home without a scratch, there is something wrong with him. I don’t know what it is, Dear Diary, but you can hear worry in Tamsyn’s parents’ voices whenever they speak about him. Albert, the baby, has colic.
I must go over and tell Mother what is happening. I think I cannot stay here if Lavinia and the others come.
It is queer how you think things are over, bad things like the War and the Flu epidemic, and then you discover that they are not done with after all. Some trouble has spilled over from them and it keeps coming back. It is like breakers rolling up on a shore just when you thought the ocean was peaceful. You stand at the edge, all happy, and then the undertow sweeps you away. So far we have struggled out onto dry land again, but it has been hard for our Jack, coming back from the War so badly burned, and Father still grieving for Hugo.
I am afraid I will have to go to Mrs. Mansefield’s with Mother and Belle. Oh dear, oh dear, oh drat! This will test my resolution to be kinder. I think Moppy has trouble with niceness too. She has gone back to her sister’s until our house is ready. She said she would take Belle with her, but Belle went into hysterics at the very thought of being away from Mother. I think she believes another fire might break out and she wouldn’t escape this time. It was Mother who got her out of the house the night of the fire, while Father rescued the twins.
Tamsyn says she wants to love Lavinia’s baby — he is her nephew, after all — but his colic drives Tam crazy. She says she has the feeling that he hates her.
I have heard of colic. Mother says Jack and Verity suffered from it, and she made me promise, the day I was born, that I would not get it. This is a joke, I know, but she sounds as though it was very hard. Tamsyn makes it sound dreadful, but surely it can’t be all that bad. Albert is five months old. I remember Roo at that age. He was so sweet. Tamsyn says Albert never stops screaming. I am sure I could get him to settle down. I seem to have a way with babies. I did not say so, but we shall see.
Later
I talked with Mother and I am moving to Mrs. M’s tomorrow afternoon. Lavinia and her family will not get here until then, since they have so far to com
e. I asked Mother again about Albert’s yelling and she says it will stop any day. Having a baby with colic is like a nightmare, she says, and then you wake up and it is hard to believe how dreadful it was.
Wednesday, December 31, 1919
Tonight is New Year’s Eve. We should be celebrating but we are moving instead. I am going to be sharing a double bed with Belle. I do love my little sister dearly, but she is not a restful bedmate. Mother has promised that we will be going home in just two or three more days! I never realized how precious my own house is to me. My room seems like paradise. I don’t mind a smell of smoke as long as I can be back where I belong.
I was just leaving Tamsyn’s when Lavinia and her husband drove up in the station taxi. Her husband helped her out and she lifted the baby in her arms. I felt truly sorry for her. She is so pale she is almost grey and her eyes look sort of empty and blank, as though she has not laughed for weeks. She is also far too thin.
That baby really does scream. He made my ears ache. I darted forward before I had time to think, and held out my arms to take him. I felt sure Lavinia would never be able to make it to the house without dropping him. I found out later that Albert’s father does not carry him because it seems to make him cry even more. Or that is what Lavinia thinks. She practically threw Albert at me and staggered off up the walk into her mother’s waiting arms. David — Dr. Lewis — followed with their baggage. He is tall and very straight and he did not smile or even look at me and the squalling baby.
I walked up and down with the baby while they all came and went with suitcases and things. Dear Diary, Albert is not a normal child. He is a noise machine with a knotted-up, purplish face, and fists like flying hammers. No matter how I wound the blanket around him, he got a hand loose and smacked me with it.
Then I remembered something I saw Mother and Moppy do when Belle was small and raising a rumpus. When nobody was watching, I took him and sneaked into our smoky kitchen and found the honey in the cupboard. It was not as easy to do as you might think with Albert clutched to my chest. I dipped my finger in and put a drop between his lips. It worked! For about ten seconds, he was busy sucking at the taste. My ears rejoiced in the small rest from the assault and battery of his crying. Before he got going again, I gave him another taste and, during the stillness, took the honey jar and put it into my coat pocket, making sure the lid was on tight.