Ghost of the Southern Cross

by Nellie P. Strowbridge

Jacob took the news with a deep sigh. “I could see it comin’,” he said. Then he told George what had happened the night before.

  “Mourning I won’t be doing, then,” George said belying his distressed look. “He had to have had wonderful strength to be able to walk out of his body and up the lane. Someone who can do that got no worries about gettin’ where he wants to go in the hereafter.”

  The hereafter was a place most cove people expected to go. Though they weren’t in any hurry. Something was coming that would change that for many.

  60

  Jacob and Elizabeth were washing out salt fish readying them for the flakes when Elsie, now thirteen, came running and calling, “The Missioners is comin’!”

  “Well they can keep on comin’ and goin’ past my door,” Jacob answered swishing a fish around in the puncheon. “I knows everything I need to know about God and He knows everything about me.”

  “Shush, Jake,” admonished Elizabeth. “You don’t know when you’ll be smitten by God’s power.”

  “I don’t know where you got so much religion,” Jacob said. “It wasn’t passed down.”

  He knew stories about his father-in-law. It was nothing for William to drive his horse and loaded wagon down to the sawmill in Middle Bight to have his logs cut regardless of the day. One Sunday morning when he knocked on the door of Lester Mun who ran the mill the man told him to go on home. It was the day of rest. William muttered that he didn’t think Sunday should get in the way of a man’s work. It never got in the way of woman’s labour, which, on the occasion, meant pushing out a baby or two.

  “You won’t care about work when you’re six feet under,” the man growled.

  William shook his head and muttered, “Under those same circumstances you won’t care about Sunday either. God likely hasn’t rested a day since He made man, not with all the wicked people keepin’ Him on the hop from Monday to Sunday.”

  “What’s your religion, then?” the man asked.

  William pointed upwards and answered, “That’s between me and the man above. I’m an atheist.”

  The man gave him a solemn look and asked, “A Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?”

  Jacob liked to tell the story when Elizabeth wasn’t around. It made for a good laugh.

  Down at a gathering place known as The Tell on a day when heavy seas lashed the beach and rocked boats on collar every fisherman was on land. The men took a spell on the rock walls built against an ochre shed at the fork in the road between Hibb’s Cove and Pick Eyes. They leaned toward each other chewing the fat, the bibs of their caps hauled down over their foreheads to shade them from the sun.

  Jacob and George sauntered up over Cliff Path and down to the The Tell.

  Henry Porter was saying, “There’s a new religion on the go, so I’ve been told. A spinster calling herself Sister Alice Belle Garrigus come from the States back in 1910 and started up a mission in St. John’s. Her converts have already invaded Clarke’s Beach and they’re on their way to Port de Grave. There’s talk they’ve rented the Orange Lodge.”

  “Ump,” said Esau Porter. “Give the Missioners—holy rollers to some people—their breakfast and they’ll come back for their supper.”

  “Yes,” said Steward Lear, “the Church of England’s been here the longest. It don’t take to other forms of religions stealin’ their sheep. Renting the Orange Lodge to the Missioners is lettin’ the fox into the barn.”

  “Alice’ll have her work cut out if she shows up here. The French Catholics come a long time ago and burned the place twice,” Tom Porter said.

  A young Pick Eye’s fellow lumbering along overheard the remark and grinned. “You minds it, do yer?”

  “No, me son,” he answered, “but tongues are like chains. They link stories from generation to generation and from century to century. The Irish Fenians from Harbour Main thought to tackle the place and help their Catholic friends take over. When the Church of Englanders got word of the invaders their sealing guns and whatnot come out. They sent a message warnin’ them that if they come they better bring the pine for their coffins. They never come. Sure, the graveyard is all that’s left of any of ’em.”

  “Look what happened to the Methodists,” Silas Bishop said with a pull on the thick whisker above his lip. “They got their windows smashed, but they stayed. The Salvationists had eggs thrown at them. Only a few of them stayed.”

  “Aunt Maud over in Lear’s Cove is one of those,” Esau said. “She sings Ira Sankey hymns while she milks her cows. Sometimes she’s skimmin’ the cream off milk boilin’ on the stove and toppin’ it up with a hymn sailin’ through the open window to where Uncle Abe is tying up his boat. She’ll die a Salvationist.”

  Silas squinted against the sun. “Dan, me youngest son, spent all winter in St. John’s doing carpenter work. He heard of the St. John’s meetin’s and went. He almost got himself saved.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt Dan to get saved,” Ethan Newel, who never went to church, not even to have his children baptized, drawled. “I hear he’s been chasin’ women, the wildest kind, in St. John’s.”

  Silas jumped up, his face red. “That’s not for me to say or you to know.” He took off up over the school hill.

  The other men turned back to their canting.

  “Nothin’ a’tall wrong with it,” said Ned Morgan, who’d been quiet until now. “Gettin’ saved gives people so much energy they dance about the church in a glory fit. Mind you,” he added with a grin, “once when the glory fell at the St. John’s Bethesda mission Sister Garrigus’s petticoat fell along with it. She was dancing on the altar when it slipped down around her ankles. She picked it up and kept on dancin’ without missin’ a beat.”

  “So much for a woman makin’ a fool of herself,” scoffed Richard Newell, a grizzly old fisherman. “St. Paul would turn over in his grave. He wanted women to be seen and not heard in church.”

  “Yer,” said Ethan. “He claimed to have a thorn in his flesh. Likely a woman. Either that or he sat on a bush and got a thorn in his hinder.”

  There were gales of laughter.

  Esau lifted his cap and scratched his white head. “I hear that mission women must’n cut their hair. It’s got to be battened down in a bun or rolled at the poll under a hairnet.”

  “Looks like they got to wear a black or navy dress with a white lace collar,” Ethan said. He laughed. “I don’t mind as long as men gets to wear the pants.”

  “Don’t be argufying religion when you don’t have the rights of it. What if Sister Garrigus got the full gospel?” Ned said.

  Ethan drew himself up straight, his look disdainful. “Phew! I suppose the rest of us lives half the gospel.”

  “You don’t,” Ned snorted, “not even half of half.” He banged his pipe against a slate, sparks flying.

  The scent of salt beef, vegetables, and boiled raisin pudding in a bag wafted on the wind. Isaac lifted his head, drew in a breath and got up. “The woman’s got the dinner on and ’tis calling me a lot louder than the mission preacher.”

  Jacob hadn’t commented until now. “Elizabeth is on two minds about goin’ to the mission,” he said.

  George, standing beside him, said, “The women’s all for something new.”

  Esau quipped, “The next thing you’ll be up to the Orange Lodge raising your handkerchief and singing, ‘Hold the fort for I am coming.’”

  George frowned. “I won’t, then.”

  Richard let out a jeer. “Not until Alvina hauls you there by the ears.”

  “No woman’ll get that privilege,” George said. He went off in a huff.

  When Jacob and George came home from fishing one Monday afternoon Silas Bishop was standing on the stagehead. He leaned forward and caught the ropes Jacob threw up to tie the boat.

  “Have you heard the news, Jake, bo
y?” he asked. “Harry Petten is the first to drop himself at the Missioners’ Mercy Seat and thinking himself none the worse for it. Pastor Bob English out from St. John’s got him good with all the fiery preachin’ a redhead can muster.”

  George pulled the boat close to the stagehead and lifted his arm across his sweating forehead. “Got religion, then, has he? That man raised his fist to the heavens at God for takin’ his first wife almost as soon as he married her.”

  Jacob climbed the rails. “We’ll see how his new religion works when he’s out on the fishin’ grounds lookin’ for the buoys holding his spot and finds out that another fisherman’ve stolen his spot.”

  When Elizabeth went to the Orange Hall she met Sister Garrigus, who had come from St. John’s for a meeting. She was a short, dark-eyed woman, her face dowdy and masculine. She had a broad forehead, a long, straight nose, and a chin that could balance a pearl if she had believed in wearing pearls. She was plainly dressed in a black dress with white lace at her throat. Her white hair was braided and, according to one convert, coiled on the top of her head under her black hat. Elizabeth had heard that she had one straw bonnet to her name. It got cased in white satin in summer and black velvet in winter.

  During the boisterous singing Elizabeth felt an exuberance she hadn’t felt at any other time. Joy whirled through her until she wanted to dance. But she wasn’t one to make a show of herself, not like some of the cove and harbour women. Not like Sister Garrigus, who dropped her petticoat. Elizabeth’s cares loosened and she felt swaddled in peace as she knelt at the altar and prayed quietly for Jacob to be saved.

  After coming from a meeting Elizabeth told Alvina, “The world is due for a change. St. Paul had his say. Now it’s a woman’s turn.” She convinced Alvina to attend a meeting.

  “It soothes me grief at losing Nellie,” Alvina told George.

  “God giveth,” Alvina said two years later when her second child was on the way. “I hope He don’t take this baby away.” He didn’t and Alvina couldn’t thank Him enough for Shirley. Later she would thank Him for Violet and Newman.

  “I’m saved now,” Alvina told George. “I must love God above everything and everyone else.”

  George complained to Jacob that he had to share Alvina with God. He sputtered that God should be satisfied that he and Alvina loved each other and they were making babies to keep the world going. What more could He want?

  Alvina had dragged George to a service, one button of his jacket latched above a rotund middle. “I’m Church of England. Sure, that’s good enough,” he had argued. “I go, I listen, I drop in me dues, and leave. That’s it unless there’s a funeral or a weddin’ to interfere in the business of the week.”

  He came home from the lively mission service and poured a drink. “You’ll stop having rum in this house,” Alvina warned. “Look at your gut. Sure, it’s out like a keg. I could roll you down Kennedy’s Hill and you’d go faster than a barrel.”

  George drained the glass and smacked his lips. “A drop of rum to make the spirit merry is no harm,” he said.

  “A drop!” Alvina was indignant. “You’ve been havin’ more than a drop. Your stomach’s so stogged it looks ready to blow.”

  Jacob liked a drink of rum on a Saturday evening.

  Elizabeth eyed him and George up on the hill sitting out on casks and lowering tumblers of grog. Her dark brows drew together. “Jacob, get on down here,” she sputtered to herself. After some time he made his way down the hill, up the lane, and across the path to the steps bridging the house, his steps slow and clumsy. “Mind the babies,” he said coming into the porch and taking in Elizabeth’s stormy look. “Don’t upset their little hearts.”

  “You’ll be stuck with ginger wine from here on,” she warned.

  On Monday while Elizabeth was pegging her clothes to the outdoor clothesline Alvina came down the path in a hurry. “I want to get George off the rum,” she said. “Sure, his stomach’s roundin’ like a keg and when he’s on the liquor he’s got only enough sense to muddle me in me work.”

  “Well,” said Elizabeth, a glint in her eye, “Jesus turned water into wine. Turning rum into water is something we can do.”

  “Now Liz Emma, what is it you’re up to?” Alvina pursed her lips.

  “Time’ll tell,” she answered, her blue eyes widening in mischief.

  One day when the men were out fishing and the wind was offshore Elizabeth and Alvina rolled the rum barrels over the cliff and watched them bobbing and dancing on the water, on and on out into the bay.

  “There’ll be a dance in that for the one who picks it up,” George said after he came home.

  Alvina drew in her chin and raised an eyebrow. “Not likely! Maybe a few drunk fish in your nets. We pulled out the bung.”

  George clicked his tongue and shook his head. “No rum for your Christmas cakes, Vine, maid. Ah, then, I guess I’ve lost me job as a crank maker. The crowd of yers’ll be losing the Christmas spirit.”

  George made the best ice cream: canned milk, sugar to taste, and generous shots of rum all placed in the ice cream maker with ice around it. He cranked out enough ice cream to serve everyone on the hill during the Twelve Days of Christmas.

  She glared at him. “I’d rather no cake and ice cream than you drinkin’ till you’re spinnin’ and your words stumblin’. We can have cake and ice cream without the rum.”

  The men at The Tell heard about the rum going over the cliffs.

  Richard Newell dragged on his matted beard and grunted. He looked at the other men. “Jake’s woman come from over on the shore and hove his keg of rum over the cliffs making the fish drunk and more glassy-eyed than they was already. Who’s to say she won’t throw Jacob over next?”

  Susanna, Richard’s wife, coming down the lane, wiped her hands in her white apron and called, “If he was anything like you he’d jump in after his rum.”

  “Pffft!” he said. “The new religion got Elizabeth bound up so tight her hinder end will soon be squawking hymns.”

  “Now, then,” she said, “there’s nothing like a mouthful of blaighard. The way men talks about women they should have their tongues circumcised. They thinks they’re gold and women the baser ores. I’ve a mind to go off to the mission meetin’ meself.”

  “Then I’ll turn the key in the lock.”

  “Not if I take it with me.”

  “Go on, then, but don’t be telling me I’m goin’ to hell.” He turned to the other men. “See, the woman preacher got the tongues of the women all loosened. Next thing they’ll be payin’ no mind to us.”

  “That’ll be it,” Silas Bishop said.

  The others all nodded.

  * * * * *

  Jacob agreed to go to the Orange Lodge. “Just to see what all the fuss is about,” he said.

  Elizabeth washed, starched, and pressed his white shirt. He buttoned the high stiff collar and tightened a tie around his neck. He inserted silver links in the cuffs and pulled on silver armbands. His black serge suit now had a green cast from lying in his closet since his marriage. He had spread a little and his jacket was tight. He pulled on his black greatcoat as if he were going to a funeral. Then he and Elsie walked to the service. It was Elsie who tugged on his sleeve to go forward to the altar call. He dropped to the penitent’s seat like a sack of potatoes, his shoulders shaking as he cried for mercy.

  George eyed him the next day and asked, “What would Ma say, she a strict Church of England woman?”

  Jacob gave his brother a determined look. “From now on it’s what God says.”

  When Elizabeth and Jacob came downstairs the Sunday after he’d joined the Missioners he headed toward the window at the end of the hall and pulled white lace curtains aside. His eyes crinkled against the bright splash of sunshine. “What a day on the water. Not a breath of wind!”

  T
he twenty-three boats on collar were settled in the calm water like ducks. Even fishermen who didn’t go to church were too superstitious to fish on Sunday.

  While Jacob watched, wind like a soft sigh moved across the water. It riffled the surface and the likeness of the boats painted on its face was washed from sight. The wind moved stronger and water sucked the keels of little boats rocking and nodding listlessly beneath a mackerel sky.

  Jacob turned from the window and got out the Bible while Elizabeth stirred banked coals into a fire and set a pot of water on the stove to boil porridge for breakfast.

  The children gathered around the table and Jacob read the Bible: “And on the seventh day God . . . rested—”

  “And man,” Elizabeth added placing a bowl in front of Jacob. “A woman can never get a day of rest.”

  Jacob glanced up at her. He said nothing as he turned back to the Bible and read about Jesus walking on water.

  “Was it frozen?” Jane asked.

  “No, silly,” Elsie said.

  “Maybe the ice pans were in the bay and he walked across them.”

  “Your mind is busy, Jane,” her father said. “Jesus didn’t need to make ice before he could walk on water. Anyone who can make the earth as fit as it is for people and other creatures can do anything. Close your eyes, now. We’ll have family prayers while your porridge cools.”

  Jacob prayed for his father-in-law. “William only thinks he’s an atheist. He can’t know what atheist means. He believes in you in his own way.”

  “It can’t be done, this figuring out things beyond our knowledge. That’s like trying to hold the wind in your hands,” Elizabeth’s father had told her years before. “Enjoy what you can and forget the rest. If you feel you don’t know enough think of all the people who lived believin’ the earth was flat. That’s not what killed them.”

  Church was an event for the God-fearing fishermen. After wearing the same overalls all week the men cleaned up on Saturday for Sunday. There was something refreshing and renewing about having a change of pace: men’s hands idle from hauling nets and trawls and women’s hands free from fishing chores. There was order to the day and gentility as families dressed in their finest. Women who stayed home from the morning service cooked a salt beef dinner for the men and children gone to church.