The Glory Wind

by Valerie Sherrard

  Trembling, I lifted my hand again. I told myself I would stand it better this time, but the second strike was just as forceful, and it had the advantage of connecting with flesh that was already throbbing. Another involuntary gasp of pain betrayed me.

  I took four straps on each hand that day and I’m ashamed to say that by the time it was over I was bawling, even though I could see that this added to the miserable creature’s satisfaction.

  I prayed that night for harm to befall her, for some injury to strike that would keep her from the class. Later, overcome by guilt, I took it back and told myself that she wouldn’t be teaching us for more than a few days.

  The next morning there was general dismay when the other girls discovered that their victory had been snatched away—the painted desk was gone. It would be some time before we learned its fate. In its place stood a plain, rough table and a three-legged stool. I saw at once that this would become Gracie’s place, and I was right. The seat was quickly dubbed “the milking stool” and Gracie was treated to witless remarks about cows and milk buckets on a regular basis.

  Weeks passed and still there was no sign of another teacher coming. Instead, there was the steady stream of cruelty and ridicule that Mrs. Drillon seemed to enjoy heaping on us. Both Gracie and I found ourselves on the receiving end of the strap more than once, and for the flimsiest of reasons. Seeing Gracie stand there and take the pain of that leather strap was worse than getting it myself.

  It wasn’t long before I overcame my earlier guilt and began to pray in earnest for Mrs. Drillon to be struck dead.

  I’ve heard folks say that children don’t understand what death is. It’s possible that this is true for children who grow up in the cities, but those of us who live on farms make death’s acquaintance at a very early age. I surely knew what it was, and I knew exactly what I was asking for in my anger and hatred toward the woman who was causing both Gracie and me such torment.

  I confided in Gracie one day, telling her of my horrible prayers. Rather than being shocked, she was quite interested.

  “Will it work?” she asked, her keen eyes watching my face for any sign that I was having her on.

  “I don’t think so, since it’s a bad prayer,” I admitted.

  “How does this prayer thing actually go then?” she asked.

  “Well, since God is good, you have to ask for good things, like for sick people to get better or for other good things to happen.”

  “And do the sick people always get better?”

  “They only get better if it’s God’s will,” I said, reciting the explanation my mother had given to me when Uncle Malcolm died.

  “So, God only answers prayers for things He was already going to do anyway?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, feeling suddenly confused.

  “Well, anyway, why don’t you pray for a new teacher to come? That would be giving someone a job—which is a good thing. And we’d be rid of that awful Mrs. Drillon at the same time.”

  I agreed that this might be a better plan and changed my petition that night at bedtime, even though in my heart I still hoped something dreadful would happen to Mrs. Drillon.

  I can’t say whether my altered prayer had anything to do with it or not, but the very next morning when we entered the classroom a new teacher was waiting for us.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was a relief to discover that our new teacher, Mr.Wolnoth, wasn’t mean. He wasn’t much of anything, really. Tall and thin, he taught our lessons with a defeated air, as though he knew in advance that we were unlikely to absorb the information he was offering.

  He spent a good deal of time standing in the doorway, smoking and staring off into the distance. Often, when he turned back to face us, it was with a tiny start, as though he was surprised to find himself confronted by a room full of students and didn’t know quite what to make of it.

  Speculation about him was high for several weeks after he first arrived, but the whispers and gossip settled when it seemed there was nothing very exciting to be learned. He was boarding at the home of one of the older students and she reported that he’d come from Winnipeg in answer to the job posting.

  “He’s never been married and when he’s not taking walks, he’s mostly in his room,” she told us. “The only time we see him is at meals and even then he’s as quiet as a church mouse. Why, I think he’d starve if we didn’t pass things to him, for he never asks for anything. He’s just about the dullest person I ever met.”

  Gracie had another take on him.

  “He seems so sad,” she said as we sat together on my back step one Saturday, late in the fall.

  “I guess,” I said.

  “Or maybe it’s not sad, exactly. It’s more like he’s, I don’t know…disappointed most of the time, don’t you think?”

  “Disappointed about what?”

  This brought an eye-roll and a look of exasperation, but then she laughed, as she often did when she’d decided there was no hope for me to ever understand anything.

  “Never mind,” she said, patting my hand. “Let’s go to my place for a while.”

  “Isn’t your mom working?” I had never told Gracie that I wasn’t supposed to go to her house. Instead, I’d avoided it as much as I could without making her suspicious, and when that wasn’t possible I went ahead and hoped I wouldn’t get caught. I figured if Ma found out, I could always claim I’d forgotten—at least the first time.

  “She was supposed to but she was sick this morning, so she’s taking a day off.”

  “Won’t she get in trouble with her boss for not showing up?”

  “No. Mr. Manby went to tell him.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Manby. He’s a new friend of hers. He came over early this morning for breakfast. My mother sent him to tell her boss she was sick but he came right back. His car has a rumble seat; want to go see it?”

  “Sure!” Sporty cars were in short supply in Junction, where far more practical means of transportation were the norm. I’d seen coupes before, but never close up.

  My eyes could hardly take in the sight of the car that was filling the Moors’ gateway when we got there. It was cherry red with a light tan-coloured convertible top, and it shone magnificently under the autumn sun.

  The windows were down and Gracie and I stepped onto the running board, barely resisting the urge to hop inside. I could almost feel what it would be like to sit in the driver’s seat, hands on the steering wheel, while the engine rumbled under the hood. Pa had let me sit with him and help steer the truck lots of times, but I knew that wouldn’t compare to being behind the wheel in this beauty.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?” a man’s voice boomed behind us.

  Gracie and I whirled around and jumped off the running board to find ourselves facing a man in a dark grey suit and fedora of the same colour. He looked angry.

  “Nothing,” Gracie said. “Just looking at your car.”

  “What about you, kid?” he turned his dark eyes to me. “What’ve you got to say for yourself?”

  “We didn’t touch anything,” I stammered.

  “You weren’t making to steal my car now, were you, kid?”

  “No way!”

  “You sure about that?” A smile played at the corner of his mouth. He tucked it away quick, but not before I’d seen it. “After all, it’s a pretty nice car. Used to belong to a guy who knew Gary Cooper.”

  “No kidding, mister?” By then I knew he’d been teasing us, pretending to be angry. “Would I kid you, kid?” He laughed at this and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a key. My heart began pounding furiously for the second time in the space of a few minutes.

  “Anyone want to go for a drive?”

  “I know I do.” Raedine had appeared on the front step. She was leaning against the post, smiling. I was glad to see that she seemed fully recovered from her illness earlier. Her face had a pink glow and she looked very young and happy.

  “Ca
n we go in the rumble seat?” Gracie asked, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.

  “Unless you plan to drive, I reckon that’s the only place left for you to sit,” Mr. Manby told her.

  As we drove, Mr. Manby told us that the car was a 1938 Packard Super Eight Convertible Coupe and that he’d won it in a card game in Chicago one dark night. Raedine told him not to be talking nonsense and filling our heads with stories about gangsters when the truth was he’d bought it from a used car lot in Regina.

  Conversation trailed off after that since we were picking up speed. With the motor revving and the air rushing around us in our seat outside the back of the car, we wouldn’t have been able to hear them even if they shouted.

  We had half a dozen drives in that Packard over the next month or so, until Mr. Manby quit coming to see Raedine, but none compared to the exhilaration of that first one.

  After Mr. Manby there were several other men who visited Raedine. Each of them would come around for a few weeks or even months, but the friendships never lasted much past that.

  As winter’s snow and wind arrived and filled our fields, this mini-parade of men walked in and out of Gracie’s life. They joked around with her, brought her little presents, and called her things like “kiddo” and “squirt.” Sometimes it was hard to tell them apart.

  There was one who was pretty memorable though. His name was Charlie Lipton and he had black hair that never moved, no matter how windy it was outside. Raedine said that Charlie was rich enough for ten men and, whether or not that was true, he sure seemed to spread money around. He gave Gracie a whole dollar every time he came over and he bought things like dresses and necklaces for Raedine.

  One morning, Gracie met me at the bus stop with the thrilling news that Charlie was going to marry her mother and then he’d be her new daddy and no one would be able to say she didn’t have a father anymore.

  Raedine was like something lit up for a while after that. She talked a lot about the rock Charlie was going to buy for her. That puzzled me until I realized she meant a diamond ring. And she told us that Charlie didn’t want her to work anymore after they got married, and it sure didn’t sound like she minded the idea of leaving her job.

  But Charlie never did produce the rock Raedine was expecting. Instead, just like the others, he stopped coming around. It was a while before Raedine seemed to understand that he was gone for good. When she did, she said things like she sure could pick ’em and she was through with “fellahs” because none of them were any good anyway.

  But it wasn’t long before she changed her mind. She told us that when you fall off a horse, you have to pick yourself up and dust yourself off and get back out there.

  Of course, it would have been impossible for Raedine’s men friends to call on her without all of Junction hearing about them. Around the middle of winter the town had decided it was time to show its disapproval once again.

  By that time most of the boys my age had completely lost interest in ignoring me. It didn’t much matter to me, for I’d come to realize that Gracie was worth a whole heap more than any other friend I had—more than all of the others combined, in fact.

  And that was a good thing, because I was still the only friend Gracie had.

  I don’t know if I fully realized at that point that I loved her. I was barely twelve and I’d never given a full moment’s thought to love.

  But I know it now. And I can tell you that if I live to be a hundred years old, I’ll never love another human being more than I loved Gracie Moor.

  PART FOUR

  The Sounding

  Some of the damages that are blamed on tornados are actually caused by downbursts, or “plough winds.” Like tornados, downbursts occur during severe thunderstorms, when powerful concentrations of air plunge to the earth’s surface and spread out.

  Downbursts have been known to produce straight wind speeds of up to 200 kilometres an hour and can cause a “roaring” noise that is very similar to the sound a tornado makes.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The way Gracie told it, three callers from the Junction Ladies Circle burst into her house like a winter blizzard on the first Friday evening in March. Gracie did a fine imitation of Mrs. Anderson batting her eyelashes while she said how terribly sorry they were for not coming sooner, while Mrs. Stafford and Mrs. Anstruther smiled and nodded.

  “What did they want?” I asked, though it was hard to stop laughing with Gracie’s face shoved toward me and her eyelashes fluttering like moths at a flame.

  “It seemed like they wanted to be friends, but that was only at the start. They all smiled a good deal and everyone admired what Momma had done with the house. Then they talked about how nice it was to see the spring coming and such. I was there for that part, and then Mrs. Anstruther stood up and said there was a matter they’d like to bring to Momma’s attention without little ears around.”

  I had no trouble imagining the mayor’s wife making this announcement.

  “So then Momma winked at me and told me that was a very secret code which I could probably never understand, but it meant I should play somewhere else so these ladies could speak to her privately.” Gracie paused. She looked very solemn.

  “Of course I wasn’t going to miss whatever was coming next, so I went out the front door, around the house, and in the back. I hid under the kitchen table and I heard everything. They started out nice again, telling Momma they were concerned about her and it was their duty to help her.”

  Gracie took a deep breath. Her eyes were pools of sadness as she continued.

  “Then the ladies said Momma was on a dangerous path and that her soul was in grave danger. They said they had a prayer team just for Momma the week before, and they believed it was their duty to help her. Then Momma said they could all just help themselves out the door and she left them sitting there and came into the kitchen.”

  I laughed, picturing the shocked and angry faces of the three women. I stopped when I saw the look on Gracie’s small, serious face.

  “That’s when Mrs. Stafford told Momma she was very, very sorry for her and that they had done their duty to save her soul. And Mrs. Anstruther said again that Momma’s soul was in grave danger, and she feared it may already be too late for Momma to repent.”

  Gracie’s voice dropped to a trembling whisper as she asked, “Do you think it’s true, the things they said, Luke? Do you think something terrible is going to happen to my momma?”

  At this, Gracie broke down and cried. She cried so hard that she couldn’t catch her breath, and all the while her eyes were pleading with me to say something to make it all right. Except, I didn’t have the first clue what to say, and I knew she could see that.

  “I have to go talk to Carmella!” she said when she could speak again.

  Selfishly, my first thought was that the snow was still several feet deep in spite of the early spring thaw we were experiencing. If we went to Carmella’s place we’d have to take the long way around, which meant trudging for miles through muck and slush along the roads.

  Of course, there was nowhere else to go when there was something we needed to ask an adult. Through the summer and fall we’d spent many afternoons in Carmella’s kitchen, drinking tea or buttermilk and eating biscuits while she answered our questions and told us stories of her childhood. But when winter had arrived in full force, the shortcuts through the fields disappeared and the visits were put on hold.

  “Those ladies probably don’t even know what they’re talking about,” I told Gracie, hoping to avoid the long, messy walk.

  But she was determined, and when Gracie was determined there was no sense in wasting your time trying to change her mind. She told me she’d go without me if it was too much trouble, and I told her of course I would go and I hadn’t meant anything by it, and she forgave me right on the spot, which was a relief. Gracie always forgives me when I’ve done something wrong, but sometimes it takes a little while.

  So, we set off for Carmella’s place
to ask for answers neither of us could have ever hoped to get at home.

  It was cold and windy, but as luck would have it, we didn’t have to walk far at all. We’d barely turned the corner onto the road that would take us to the Tait farm when a Plymouth sedan pulled onto the shoulder ahead of us. I recognized it as Roy Hilbert’s car, which surprised me. I’d seen him sitting in church with his widowed mother most Sundays and he’d never once struck me as the friendly or obliging type.

  “Need a lift?” he asked as we reached the car.

  “We’re going to the Tait farm,” I told him. Looking down at our feet I thought to add, “Our boots are pretty muddy.”

  “No matter.” He nodded toward the door and we climbed in. The motor went from a rumble to a roar as he pulled back onto the road.

  “How are your folks, Luke?” Roy asked as we bounced along over the dips and bumps in the road, which were worse in the spring than at any other time of year.

  I told him they were fine and he said I should tell them hello for him.

  “And how’s your mother, Gracie?” This question was so unexpected that I turned to look at him, but Roy seemed to be concentrating hard on watching the road, even though it ran straight as an arrow for miles and miles.

  Gracie told him her mother was fine too, and then he said she should tell her mother he said hello.

  “Yes, sir,” Gracie said.

  “Mayhaps there are times your mother needs something done around the house…something that calls for a man,” Roy said then. His face was darkening into a near plum shade and I noticed that he was gripping the wheel tightly with both hands. “You tell your mother that I’d be happy to oblige if she needs help at any time.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gracie said. She looked pleased.

  “Tell your mother I’d be proud to help out, as a good neighbour,” Roy finished up, expelling a breath of relief. I figured that had probably been the longest speech he’d ever made.

  By then we’d reached the lane leading to the Taits’ house. As Roy pulled the car to a stop, Gracie spoke.