With Love from Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  Pulling up to the fence, Henley brought the buggy to a halt. Jumping out, he moved to the mare’s head, looking back to see if Della had gotten safely out of the rig. Dudley waited alongside, still mounted.

  Immediately both Henley and Dudley realized that Della was stiffly upright on the buggy’s seat, her reproachful eyes on her husband.

  As many times as Henley had been called upon to help her alight, it seemed he still managed to forget. And always in a public place, because it was only in public places Della insisted on the gentlemanly gesture. At home she leaped out by herself, with no hesitation, and this made it difficult for Henley to remember to offer aid at other times. He realized he was sorely at fault this morning for his oversight.

  “Hen, dear,” she caroled brightly, “I’m waiting,” and only her husband and son heard the unspoken, “Dolt!”

  “Watch the mare, son,” Henley said quietly, for the horse was skittish amid the noise and confusion of the moment and needed to be checked. Henley made his way back to the side of the buggy.

  “Sorry, hon, I should have been more thoughtful,” he murmured apologetically, taking her outstretched hand and helping her down.

  Not only was Della seething at his oversight, but she was highly embarrassed, for several people had noted the little interchange and were obviously hiding grins. And an embarrassed Della was a fount of fury. The brightness of her smile and the coldness of her eyes sent chills down Dudley’s spine.

  She spoke far, far too sweetly: “Thank you, Hen.”

  The Sabbath as a day of rest was strictly observed in backwoods Canada, and nowhere was this more true than in the community of Bliss in the Saskatchewan Territory. The few places of business in the small hamlet—blacksmith shop, general store and post office, grain elevator—closed for the day. Almost without exception entire farm families, in direct obedience of the commandment “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” made the seventh day a time of rest. Of course there was always the “ox in the pit” clause that allowed for necessary labor.

  Physical bodies, weary of their labors, attested to the necessity of a day of rest; souls, though as needy, sometimes ignored the Bible’s additional injunction of “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.” Church attendance, however, was the practice of most, and this day was a fine example. The little schoolhouse was packed.

  Just inside the entrance was the cloakroom area where the children’s lunch pails were kept in a closet, where the water pail sat on a shelf, the communal dipper hanging alongside, and where, on both walls, wraps were hung. Below these hooks were long supply cupboards; with the lids down they made excellent seating. It was here the young people of the community sat during church services. Beyond, and divided from the cloakroom by a big heater that roared red-hot most of the school year, was the schoolroom proper. In front of the smallest desks was the teacher’s battered desk, and behind, the blackboard stretched from wall to wall. Above the blackboard hung two large, oak-framed pictures. One depicted a child walking on the edge of a dangerous precipice through the gloom of a storm, with an angel hovering above, wings outspread protectively. The second pictured a huge dog beside a seething sea, a childish form crumpled on the sand at his feet as though just dropped from his open jaws. In each, it seemed clear that protection and rescue were available for children, but Dudley, who had studied them countless times across the years, never could decide whether to put his trust in angels or dogs.

  Now, settling himself on the side bench with the youthful males of the community, Dudley—out of school several years and no longer concerned with the mishaps of children, whether pictured or real—focused his attention on the bright gaggle of girls seating themselves, with much flouncing, whispering, and giggling, on the opposite bench. And on one girl in particular.

  Fair hair done in braids and wound around her head, face prim and proper, Matilda Hooper’s blue eyes were less severely under control and, for a moment, flickered across the room to the watching Dudley. Both young faces colored brightly, and anyone watching would be quite certain there was more than casual friendship between the two.

  Both Matilda and Dudley had gone through the Bliss school. Dudley was now verging on eighteen, Matilda on seventeen, and both considered themselves old enough to think seriously of their future. That it might be together was not an impossibility. In fact, since last night, it looked like a distinct possibility. Obviously, from the attention each now fixed on the other, things had progressed to a tentatively serious plateau. While Dudley was young, for a man, to be considering marriage, not so for Matilda; girls married at fourteen and fifteen in this land that was fast filling with bachelors and widowers. Marriageable women were at a premium; no female had to settle for second best when, with a little patience, another prospect would be along with another proposal.

  Just last evening, Dudley and Matilda, walking out together, had found the courage to share the private thoughts each had hidden thus far. Even so, plans were in that dreamy, nebulous stage where anything could be considered and all things were possible. Dudley, very manly in Matilda’s presence, felt old enough and capable enough to register for a homestead of his own; Matilda, feeling equally grown up, was thrilled by the challenge—pioneer days were by no means over!—and confident she could do her share in making such a venture a success. Though they were penniless, their dreams could see a way. Their future, after all, lay here in the north, with other homesteaders no better prepared than they were.

  The first settlers to dare the western wilderness had hugged the wooded areas commonly called “the bush.” One immediate problem was easily solved—material for a home. It grew right on the property and in abundance: trees. By law, land had to be cleared almost immediately to prove up a claim, and felling logs for a home was a good place to begin. Caulked with clay or mud, with hand-hewn shingles for the roof—or sod if one were in a hurry—a log house could be ready for occupancy. Hopefully one could afford the extravagance of doors and windows brought in by cart or steamboat; inside, mud-plastered walls were whitewashed. A rug, if it was available, was placed over the packed-dirt floor, a few treasured items were hung on walls or placed on shelves, and home took on a certain comfort and familiarity.

  Though all this had been accomplished on his father’s homestead before his memory, Dudley was certain that he, too, could make a home out of almost nothing. And he dared to believe he would be happy in it—a great incentive. Away from his mother’s eyes and tongue, Dudley was a different person, less gauche, more self-assured, even standing more erect and speaking with more confidence.

  Yes, he could accomplish all they planned but not in Bliss, for a couple of reasons. Della was one of them. Secondly, though still considered the far-flung frontier, Bliss was, to its second generation, well established and lacking the spirit of the pioneer.

  Daringly Matilda and Dudley considered their options: strike out on their own or move in with one set of parents or the other. Moving in with parents was ruled out immediately.

  “I don’t want to be anybody’s man . . . or boy, if you know what I mean.” Dudley had expressed himself bravely. “I want to stand on my own two feet. Dad says, when we’ve talked about the future for me, that I have all the gumption he had and says it’ll be enough. I want to make it on my own.”

  “Your mum? What does she say, you being the only child?” a cautious Matilda asked.

  “Well,” he had said, more uncertainly, “I haven’t mentioned it to her. But,” he added, “if I go, I go, and that’s that. It’s not like it isn’t happening all the time—children leaving to start their own lives. Ma and Pa, in their day, came from the east coast and were among the first to settle here. Things were rough for them—”

  “And for my folks as well,” Matilda said. “But I don’t know, Dudley; I’m still very uncertain about all this, and I haven’t agreed for sure, you understand.”

  “Well, of course I understand. I haven’t asked for sure either, have I?” Dudley was
full of bravado on the outside, very uncertain on the inside, especially where girls were concerned. It was a marvel and a miracle that Matilda had responded as she had, the very first time they talked about it. Well, he admitted, groundwork had been laid for several months, ever since he had noticed her particularly at the Sunday school picnic and dared to eat his picnic dinner with her. That Matilda would so much as consider a poor fellow like him for a life’s partner! It was almost too much to hope for.

  “If I say yes,” she had continued primly, “and if we do get . . . married—”

  “If I ask,” Dudley had answered, surer of himself suddenly and more independent.

  “Yes, all that. If we do, where would we go? What do you have in mind?”

  “Oh, I dunno,” Dudley had answered airily, unsure again but determined to be a man and knowing some decisions were up to him. “Perhaps the Peace River country.”

  Matilda had looked doubtful. “That’s a long ways away. And it’s terribly primitive there, isn’t it? I just don’t know—”

  “But you’ll think about it, Tilda?” Dudley had asked, his thin face earnest and his eyes filled with hope and dreams.

  Looking into her eyes, lost in them, drowning in them, it was then Dudley determined to be a man indeed. He leaned forward, pursed his lips, closed his eyes, and kissed her lips, already half raised to his. In accordance with her proper training regarding young men and their passions, it could not be said that Matilda fully responded. Neither did she refuse him. Nor did she back away as she surely would have done if she had truly objected. And there was no slap, the reaction that all young men feared! One brief moment and she had pulled back, looking up at Dudley with startled, surprised eyes. Startled, Dudley supposed, because she hadn’t thought him capable of such a momentous act, and surprised (he hoped) because she had found the experience to be pleasurable, as he certainly had.

  After that, it was with swirling head and mind filled with plans Dudley had made his way homeward to help with the chores, evade his mother’s keen eyes at the supper table, and go to bed. Here, daydreams turned to nightmares where his mother’s scornful lashing stripped away every dream as surely as winter stripped the trees bare of every leaf.

  Waking in a sweat, his heart pounding, Dudley vowed, silently and fiercely, that whatever the cost, his dreams would come true. He dreaded the morning light and reality.

  That it had started with his mother reprimanding him for syrup on his Sunday shirt should have been laughable; instead, it plunged him into a gloom of despair and hopelessness that lingered all through preparations and the horseback ride to church. And so it had been with sweet relief and a lift to his spirits—in the schoolhouse that Sunday morning—that he met Matilda’s glance and found himself ready to dream again and believe that, after all, all things were possible.

  When the first song was announced and the congregation rose to its feet, Dudley was able to sing “The Glorious Hope” with zest, if not with harmony:

  A land of corn, and wine, and oil;

  Favored with God’s peculiar smile,

  With ev’ry blessing blest;

  There dwells the Lord, our Righteousness,

  And keeps His own in perfect peace,

  And everlasting rest,

  And everlasting rest.

  All mistakenly Dudley equated the peace and rest with the fulfilling of his own plans; that it would take divine intervention for them to come to pass, he understood not at all.

  Parker Jones was at his serious best. A young man with a mission, Parker Jones was bent and intent on winning for the kingdom the good (and bad) people of Bliss. But even his sermon, intended to bring an unbelieving heart to trust in God and a rich fulfilling of His blessings, was misinterpreted by at least one young hearer.

  “‘Go thy way,’” the preacher read from the open Bible on the stand before him, and Dudley’s heart lifted and he silently responded, My way! It’s a sign to go my way!

  “‘. . . and as thou has believed, so be it done unto thee.’” Parker Jones concluded the day’s Scripture reading, and an exalted Dudley, eager for his own way and knowing little or nothing of God’s, believed. But believed in his own strength and way and counted it done according to God’s Word.

  Caught up in dreams as he was, catching Matilda’s eyes occasionally, even winking once to her confusion and his enjoyment, he was startled when, slicing through the reverent atmosphere of the service, a woman shrieked, and shrieked again.

  Ma!

  Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent; it is ready to burst like new bottles,’” Kerry quoted, totally happy in her misery. This having plenty to eat, three times a day, had never ceased being a marvel.

  No matter how many times she did it—speak out of turn, that is—her uncle and aunt appeared to be shocked. Now Sebastian frowned and looked at his wife to rectify the present situation.

  “Kerry!” Charlotte said, and her tone of voice conveyed her reprimand very clearly.

  “I was just saying, Aunt,” Kerry explained reasonably, “that I’m full. Elihu said it, in the Bible, you know,” and she looked hopefully at her aunt, trusting that her defense would make a difference.

  It didn’t strengthen her defense any that Frances, seated across the table, was stifling laughter in her serviette, her eyes dancing over the edge of it, her face red against its snowy whiteness.

  “Never repeat that verse again!” Charlotte continued. “Your body parts are your own personal and private business. And never, never inform your dinner companions that you are full, for heaven’s sake. It just isn’t done!”

  Kerry was silent; not mutinously so, but, as often happened, truly puzzled.

  “Do you understand, Kerry?” Aunt Charlotte’s voice wobbled a little, as if she weren’t quite as adamant as she might be.

  Still Kerry was silent, staring down at her empty dinner plate.

  “Kerry? Why don’t you answer me?”

  “‘I am young,’” Kerry said dolorously, her face long, “‘and ye are very old; wherefore I was afraid, and durst not show you mine opinion.’”

  “Does the child have a Scripture for everything?” Aunt Charlotte cried, to no one in particular and to all in general, throwing up her hands in despair. “You may be excused, Kerry! Frances, go with her. Try . . . again . . . to reason with the child. I certainly don’t seem to be getting any results.”

  Frances laid aside her serviette and, barely managing to keep a straight face, said, “Come, Kerry, we’ll go upstairs. Excuse me, and good night, Aunt Charlotte. Good night, Uncle Sebastian.”

  Kerry, looking properly chastened, excused herself and said her good nights, and the girls slipped away from the table.

  When Charlotte dared look at her husband, it was to find Sebastian in a reflective mood. “Hmmm,” he said. “I’m beginning to see what you mean, my dear. This blatant Bible quoting is one thing when we’re here in the privacy of the family; it’ll be another thing if she comes out with some such . . . er . . . tarradiddle when guests are present.”

  Charlotte, having just reprimanded Kerry, now felt a perverse need to defend her. “She’s really doing better, Sebastian. When the governess arrives—”

  “La,” Sebastian put in, rolling eyes like raisins in a puffy bun, “what will she have to say about all this?”

  “I was saying,” Charlotte continued, with dignity, “that when the governess arrives and has the teaching of the child every day, some of the responsibility will be on her shoulders. No doubt we shall see a vast improvement then. As to what she’ll think about it—she’s paid not to think, isn’t she?”

  Having made this confounding summation of the situation, Charlotte looked a little confused herself. Sebastian seemed to be having trouble with the whole concept and blinked slowly a few times as he thought out the problem.

  “I do hope so,” he said finally, though he didn’t seem to be sure just what he was hoping for. There was silence while Sebastian stirred cream into his coffee.
Finally, the plump cheeks spread in a hint of a smile. “But it certainly does liven up the meals, doesn’t it?”

  It was all Charlotte needed. Gasping, Charlotte’s full-bodied figure shook with her attempt to stifle an eruption of mirth. Soon she was joined by Sebastian in the best laugh they had had together in many years. Only when Finch appeared to remove their dessert dishes did they drop their eyes and fiddle with their fingers, while their nostrils flared and their faces pinked.

  Outside the door Finch paused, his ear to the crack, his long face taking on a knowing look at the sounds of laughter that burst forth behind him and which, he could tell, could not totally be muffled, though the mister and missus made a mighty effort.

  “You’ll never believe it, Olga,” he said in the kitchen. “They’re laughing together.”

  “Well, it’s laugh or cry, with that’n,” Olga said, smiling, too, and remembering the time she had been making plum duff and Kerry had sat at the kitchen table watching. With dark eyes aglow at the mystery of the production and in anticipation of the sweet, Kerry had half-whispered, “Thy paths drop fatness!” It was a high compliment to the cook who spent her days preparing food for others to consume and who, oftentimes, went unthanked and, she felt, unappreciated.

  “Did I tell you what she said to me the other day when I served lunch? Something about me giving them their ‘meat in due season.’ Did you ever hear the like? Perfectly serious, she were, the little lamb.” Olga, too, had come under the spell of the “little lamb.”