The Able McLaughlins

by Margaret Wilson

  From the day that Wully took Chirstie home, until the first week of January, Barbara McNair had but one visitor in her prison, and that one was her sister-in-law, Libby Keith. She had to turn to Dod to companionship, which no boy could have grudged to so unfailing a source of cakes as his new mother. His Spartan scorn of the cold brought her, many a time, near to tears. He was anointing his frozen ears one morning, and when she cried out in pity of him, he remarked indifferently that this was nothing. She ought to have seen last year, the time his mother died. With what keen sympathy could she appreciate that story now. She asked without hesitation;

  “It was no colder than this, was it?” She couldn’t imagine anything worse. Oh, said Dod, they were alone last winter, and his mother and Chirstie had sometimes to help shovel out. But they had had Chirstie’s husband, hadn’t they, to do that hard work for them? Indeed they hadn’t! Dod himself had been the man of the farm. Wully had come but lately. Not lately, surely, she exclaimed. Yes, only in harvest. They had been married right in harvest. He was sure of it. What month would harvest be in this land? she had asked hurriedly. He informed her, and took up his story. He had had to go alone that morning after his mother’s death to his uncle’s, to get help, and hadn’t it taken them three hours to get the sled over the two miles of drifted snow. He told all the tale, even how the little sister was playing alone, and Chirstie had fainted.

  All that afternoon there came little words of pity to Barbara McNair as she fondled her little Jeannie; sometimes, when she was making that great, most magnificent cake which appeared unashamed on the supper table, she had to stop and wipe her eyes. Alex McNair had but begun to disapprove of that delicacy when she ordered him so sharply to hold his tongue that he all but obeyed. And after supper, she made him lift down her kists, which because of the narrowness of the sty had to sit one above another in her bedroom. She opened the third one from the top, and took out a dress, wine-colored and soft, and looked at it carefully a long time, examining the seams. Then she sat down, and by candle light began to rip it apart, basque and polonaise and all, to make a dress for the erring Chirstie.

  It was the next afternoon that she saw a bobsled drive in. She could see the bundled driver when he was yet some distance from the house, but as he drew near, and stopped, she saw another great be-shawled bundle rise from behind the sideboards of the sled. This bundle came at once towards the house, wiped its feet carefully on the doorstep, and, unwrapping layer after layer of covering, revealed itself Isobel McLaughlin. Mrs. McNair could hardly have been more surprised if she had seen an angel descending from heaven. That any woman would be riding around the country in weather like this had not entered her mind. Her concern seemed mildly amusing to her guest, who quickly disclaimed any conduct especially praiseworthy.

  It wasn’t really cold now, she explained. It was thawing. This was what is called the January thaw. A body can’t just stay cooped up in the house all the winter, and besides—and this was the great affair—Mistress McNair would be glad to know that she had a fine strong grandson, born a week ago, the mother doing well! Mrs. McLaughlin had wanted to bring the news herself, she was that pleased! She had stopped, too, at a neighbor’s, Maggie Stewart’s, who had a baby exactly the same age, a woman whom always before Mrs. McLaughlin had helped through her confinement. She didn’t add she had made that visit with the hope of lessening the fierceness of Maggie’s slander-loving tongue, though if a good opportunity came she intended explaining to this newcomer the unusual circumstances of the child’s birth, which sooner or later she would be sure to hear some way. But no opportunity came. The new Mrs. McNair was so unfeignedly glad to see her, she brought out that wonderful little robe so timidly, that Mrs. McLaughlin had to admire it even more than it deserved. Chirstie hadn’t many new things for her baby, because there were so many little things of the young McLaughlins saved for future need. Not that any of them had had so fine a garment as this Mrs. McNair had made. Speed, rather than elaborateness, had always been Mrs. McLaughlin’s motto, necessarily. But Chirstie would be that proud of such a little dress! Mrs. McLaughlin could just see her delighted with it. This seemed to comfort Mrs. McNair, who then ventured to show the red dress, all pressed and ready to be put together again, by a method which she hoped would make it large enough for Chirstie—that is, if Chirstie would not be offended by having a made-over dress offered to her. Mrs. McLaughlin again thanked her, and assured her that she need not worry about that. Then Mrs. McNair wondered if Mrs. McLaughlin would take home to the girl her part of her mother’s housekeeping things, which the new mother had wrapped and made ready for her. She had divided the few sheets and spoons and cups into two parts, one for each of the sisters—that is, she hoped Mrs. McLaughlin and Chirstie would be satisfied with such a division. Mrs. McLaughlin, feeling sure that Alex had no knowledge of a plan so bountiful, protested that Chirstie didn’t really need the things, that Wully could get her what she needed in the town. But Mrs. McNair wouldn’t hear of such a plan for a minute. The lassie must have her share of what had been her mother’s. She forebore to mention that she had brought a great deal of household stuff, of a quality much superior to any she found awaiting her. Mrs. McLaughlin, impressed by this spontaneous liberality, began to wonder if, after all, the avenging hand of God might not be seen in this second marriage of Alex McNair.

  The hostess was overflowing with questions, the burden of them all being just the one unanswerable one that constantly confronted her—namely, how did civilized persons live through winters of this sort? Why did they endure life in small prisons buried under snow? Had there ever before been a winter equal to this one? And did Mrs. McLaughlin look forward with composure to living through such another one?

  Mrs. McLaughlin recalled with amusement and sympathy her own horror of her first winter, enlarging upon her experience. Had not she and her husband and their ten, and the Squire and his ten lived through one winter all together in an unfinished cabin, with a row of beds three deep built right around the walls, and a curtain across the middle of it! Often in those terrible nights she had risen from her bed to go about and feel the legs of her wee sleepers, to be sure they were not all freezing solid. Of course there had not really been as much danger as she imagined, but one of the McKnights had frozen to death that winter, being overtaken on his drunken way homeward by a great storm. That had shocked her until she was really foolish about her children. Her twins had been born that year, too, before the cabin was sealed, and the first snow had drifted in upon the bed where she lay. Fine strong bairns they were, too. The cold didn’t really hurt anyone.

  Moreover, it drove the fever away, so that they welcomed its coming in the fall, when the whole family would be shaking at one time. Fever wasn’t as bad now, either, as it had been at first, though she still fed her family quinine regularly every Saturday during the spring and summer. When the land had all been plowed once or twice, there would be no more of it, ’twas said. And there had been much typhoid at first, before they had realized how much more defilable the new wells were than those in the old places had been. Five of the McLaughlin children had escaped typhoid altogether, which was very lucky indeed, and none of them had died of it, although many of the young ones of the settlement had. These things had all made a good deal of nursing necessary, for thirteen, but undoubtedly the worst days were over. And it was these winters which made the children strong as little lions. Every tree that was planted, moreover, every year’s growth of their cherished windbreaks, took away something of the winter’s severity. And when spring came, besides, in the glory of that season one forgot the cold, and all one’s troubles.

  When would spring be coming? asked the longing stranger. Would it be in February, now that January was said to be thawing? No, not February. Nor in March. Sometimes it was a bit springlike by the first of April. But the spring really opened in May. Everyone got out then. Oh, sometimes if the roads were good, the women got out to church in April. Once even there had been a large congregation in
March. Mrs. McNair sighed. It was a shame, now, commented her visitor, that she should have had to be alone so much of her first season. If there had been an older daughter, now . . . if Chirstie had been at home with her . . .

  Mrs. McNair wondered timidly if Chirstie couldn’t come home for a visit, when it got a little less freezing. Mrs. McLaughlin, thinking quickly that Chirstie would surely be happy with this simple gift-giving woman, thought it possible that Wully might bring her over for a few days in March. At least in April. And when she saw the poor, wee body seize upon this hope of companionship, she felt more sure than ever that Chirstie would enjoy the visit.

  If only she would come, that dress should be made for her, Mrs. McNair ventured to promise. And she went on to get more information. What sort of a little house would it be, now, that Wully was building for his wife? What could houses be like in these parts? How many rooms would it have? Isobel explained that there were to be three rooms on the first floor, a parlor, a kitchen and a bedroom, and two bedrooms above. Certainly it would be plastered, all white and clean. Doubtless it would be painted in time, not just at first, of course, but as soon as Wully could manage it. Of course it would have a fence around it, like those Mrs. McNair had seen from the train, and trees, most certainly. They had been planted last fall. Trees were one thing essential on the prairies. Well, likely flowers, too, in time, although women as yet had so much to do that there weren’t many flowers about. Mrs. McLaughlin had herself often sighed for a few wee rosebushes. And she had a fine young orchard set out and flourishing. Had not Alex McNair been in these parts as long as the McLaughlins, the new wife asked. And Mrs. McLaughlin, hiding her malice sweetly, didn’t doubt but what he would be setting out an orchard soon. “The poor wee body!” she said to herself. “Her wanting flowers, and a man like Alex!”

  The pitied one set out such a tea, she sent her guest home with such an abundance of sweeties for her bairns, that Mrs. McLaughlin talked hopefully about her all the way home to her husband. She solemnly affirmed that that new wife would give away Alex McNair’s last sock, if she could find anyone to take it; and for her part, she hoped fervently that she could.

  That evening as Alex sat smoking his pipe, with his stocking feet well into the oven, his wife asked him artlessly:

  “Will Chirstie’s man have much, now?”

  “What would he have but his land?”

  “But he’s building a fine house!”

  “He would. The McLaughlins were ever spenders and poor. Not that the house would cost much,” he added.

  “Now what would such a house as his be costing?” It seemed a natural question.

  “Four hundred dollars. Or maybe five.” She was surprised, for once, almost excited.

  “You could build a castle with your money from Scotland!”

  “Likely!” he commented, knocking his pipe’s ashes into the stove.

  “But a little house like the new one would do me fine!”

  “Don’t say new house to me, woman!” he roared.

  A great deal of good his roaring did him! It was as if she never heard him protesting. “I canna live in a sty,” she explained, for the thousandth time, and she said new house to him without ceasing, without haste or rest, by night and by day, apropos of everything he mentioned, till he began to wonder if he were indeed a God-fearing Presbyterian, with such murder in his heart. He couldn’t quite beat a woman—a small woman—no matter how utterly she might deserve punishment. He could scarcely do that. But he sometimes wondered if there was any other measure of relief for him. He thought longingly of the silences of Chirstie’s mother. He remembered story after story of men who had beat their wives. He experienced a sharp sympathy for them. Doubtless when men do such desperate things, they have adequate reason, he reflected often. He was at his wits’ end. He was in despair. That he might have made himself comfortable by granting her request never occurred to him. He was already deliberating upon certain pieces of land he intended buying.

  And that woman didn’t seem able to believe that he would really buy more land. She simply looked out of the window when he mentioned it, looked out of the window at the winter, and then turned puzzled to look at him, as if trying to fathom why anyone should desire more of such a country.

  So February passed, tantalized by new houses, and March got away, maddened by little white fences. Chirstie came over for her visit at home, the first of April, and that first week was frenzied by plans his wife insisted on drawing of her grounds and garden. Alex was no special lover of babies, but he was driven to feigning a prodigious interest in his grandson to escape even temporarily from the meek, eternal din of her ambitions.

  Chirstie had come with misgivings, somewhat doubtful of her welcome. But she perceived the first hour in the house that her stepmother was lonely enough to have welcomed the most disgraceful, the most evil of women. She wondered sometimes if she was not dreaming. After all that had passed, how strange it was to be sitting honored in her father’s house, coddled, waited on, made much of, by this harmless stranger, who cooked surprising rich things for her delectation, and was making her the most beautiful dress she had ever seen.

  She was so happy that she almost regretted that Wully came for her so soon. Mrs. McNair was determined that she must try on the new dress to show it to him. She had forbidden him at first to look in their direction, so he sat with his back to them, holding his little sister-in-law in his lap by the fire. After pinnings and bastings and warnings and ejaculations they had bidden him to turn and look. Chirstie was standing by that window, in the sunshine, where he had first seen her. And now, turning towards her, he gave a little involuntary gasp of delight, more flattering than anything he could have said. He had never seen her before in a soft, rich thing like that. She had worn, of necessity, gray or brown calico garments. And the glowing crimson fabric brought out the whiteness of her neck, the darkness of her hair, the softness of her coloring cheeks, as he cried sincerely;

  “Why, Chirstie! You queen! Turn around!”

  She turned around for his inspection.

  “Goodness!” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t have known you! What’ll I do now? I won’t can walk beside you in my old rags! I’ll have to get some store clothes!”

  They laughed for delight.

  “What’ll I get to match it?” he went on, looking at his mother-in-law. “I ought to have—a purple coat—or something magnifical! Chirstie, do you remember that window! She was standing there the first time I ever saw her!” he explained to Mrs. McNair.

  And then at length, in their high, young spirits, they went away, and left her alone there. She was a puzzled woman. A man like that, and a scandal like that! It was incomprehensible. A man building so happily a new house for his wife, with a little fence around it!

  That evening Alex McNair gave vent to a great, wicked, blood-curdling oath, most surprising, most improper—all for no reason at all—apropos of nothing. His innocent wife had simply remarked that she couldn’t live in a sty.

  CHAPTER XI

  THE infamy of Chirstie’s condition, becoming known, had been scarcely less interesting than the scandal of Isobel McLaughlin’s attitude toward it. She herself had told her sister and her sisters-in-law what was soon to be expected from the girl, and all her cousins and friends. She had informed them of it casually, without the flutter of an eyelid, as if, to be sure, a little less haste might have been from some points of view desirable, but, after all, Wully’s marriage was the one she would have chosen for him if she had had her choice, and the young pair would be happier with a baby. The neighbors had certainly never expected Isobel McLaughlin to “take on” in such a fashion. Some of them had been annoyed at times by her self-reliance, her full trust in her own powers, and were not exactly sorry to hear of this affair which must “set her down a notch.” But not a notch down would she go Her pride, it appeared, was too strong for even this blow. The way she talked about her expectations scandalized the righteous. Maggie Stewart said one would ha
ve supposed Wully had waited ten years for that baby.

  It had been bad enough in the beginning, but after the child was born it grew out of all bounds. Her husband’s younger sister, Janet, a woman still of child-bearing age, came to remonstrate with her. For the sake of the other young people in the community, to say nothing of her own family of half-grown boys and girls, she really ought to moderate her raptures somewhat. She was just encouraging them in wrongdoing! But Isobel replied simply that since she had always had to be painfully modest in praising her own children, she was going to say exactly what she thought about this grandchild. She philosophized shamelessly about the privileges of grandmothers. And, after all, if she was his own grandmother who was saying it, Janet would have to acknowledge that the baby was an unusually fine child.

  Janet did have to grant that. She was the first one, too, to notice the remarkable resemblance the child bore to his father. Isobel was grateful to her for that hint, and after that day no visitor departed without agreeing that wee Johnnie was a living picture of great Wully. Isobel would recall her son’s infant features. Wully’s nose had been just like that. And his eyes. She minded it well, now. This child brought it all back to her. She had occasion to repeat these reminiscences, for baby-judging, giving a decision about his family traits, was nothing less than a ritual among these Scots. A woman could hardly acquit herself with distinction in it with less than six or eight of her own. And men, even fathers of thirteen, knowing how far short of the occasion they would come, generally avoided it as best they might.