by Ruth Glover
“Oh, Robbie,” the girl rejoiced, “tha’s wonderful. An’ is this your hoosie?” She nodded toward the small cabin at the edge of the field, not far from where they were standing.
“Thass it, Tierney,” he said, with some pride, some humility. “An’ sma’ though it is, it’s not any smaller than some o’ the crofts in Binkiebrae. Aye, an’ Allan has his hoose, too. We’ve made a good start, Tierney.”
“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Dunbar,” Herbert was bold enough to interject into what could well be a continuing conversation, “why don’t you come over to our house for supper tonight? I know Lydia will be preparing something special for this first night when Miss Caulder is with us, and you’re welcome. Then you and Miss Caulder can continue your talk and get acquainted again. I’m sure there is much you have to say to each other.”
“Aye, Robbie! Please coom. I’ve sae much to tell ye . . . all aboot how I came to make the trip—”
“Aye! And I have sae many things to ask,” Robbie said in reply.
“She’ll tell you all about it this evening,” Mr. Bloom said hastily, remembering that his wife was probably wondering where he was and why he was delayed, and supposing the conversation was about to take off again into lengthy explanations and reminiscences.
“Oh, aye,” Tierney said happily. “That’s verra nice o’ ye, Mr. Bloom. Do coom, Robbie.”
“Let’s set it for about seven o’clock,” Herbert Bloom said, pulling out his pocket watch, shaking it, checking the sky, and speaking judiciously. “That’ll give us time to do the chores first. I suppose you’d be free after that, wouldn’t you, Mr. Dunbar?”
Robbie Dunbar, brought back to earth and something so routine as farm chores, seemed to collect himself with a start. Strangely—or so it seemed to the watching Herbert Bloom—the glow had faded from the dark eyes, the eagerness slipped from the square, good-looking face, and (it couldn’t possibly be true, could it?), the suntan was actually replaced by a definite paling of the complexion. The picture Robbie Dunbar presented, Herbert Bloom concluded, was very like that of a gunnysack that had been punctured and out of which the grain was dribbling away.
“Ah,” Robbie stammered. “Ah . . . I dinna think I can come tonight after all.”
Disappointment changed the girl’s bright face to shadow.
“Aye,” Robbie Dunbar continued, sounding more certain of his decision, “I’m quite sure of it, now that I think aboot it.”
“Robbie . . .” the girl objected, half pleading.
“Tomorrow, tomorrow for sure,” Robbie said quickly.
“Weel, then,” Tierney said uncertainly and stepped toward the buggy. Robbie took her elbow and helped her up into the rig, which rocked and righted itself and engaged her attention momentarily.
“For supper tomorrow night, then?” Mr. Bloom asked, with some relief, aware that his wife would not thank him if he surprised her with an unexpected guest. Besides, he and Lydia needed the evening to get acquainted with the girl.
“Aye. Seven o’clock.”
Robbie Dunbar stood at the side of the buggy, looking up, his face—if Herbert Bloom was any judge—suddenly haggard, his eyes almost desperate. Herbert Bloom clucked to the horse, made a wide turn, and headed the buggy toward the road. The girl Tierney kept turning her eyes, whichever way they were headed, so that she could see the face of the man standing alone beside his plowed field and watching them until they were out of sight.
As the horse and buggy reached the road, Tierney turned apprehensive eyes on her new acquaintance, her employer, and said, through stiff lips, “Somethin’s not reet . . . right, Mr. Bloom. I know Robbie Dunbar well, and somethin’ . . . something’s not right.”
As though in a dream, Robbie Dunbar turned back to his plowing. The letter, a communication from Prince Albert concerning the sale of a seeder, delivered by—was it indeed a dream?—Tierney Caulder herself, was stuffed into a pocket and forgotten for the time being. Who was there to write him anything personal? Certainly no one here in this new land in which he found himself, a stranger among strangers. Except for Allan, his brother, Robbie was as alone as though he had gone to the end of the earth and found it uninhabited. And mostly uninhabited it was, this isolated corner of the world.
Hard as it had been to leave Binkiebrae, home, and all things known and dear, still something in him had thrilled at the challenge opening before him—to tread on land never before stepped on by human foot, to slide a plow into soil that had never felt a blade’s bite, to build a “hoosie” of his own on land of his own. Yes, it had been the chance of a lifetime, and, to a young, healthy man with little to look forward to, tremendously challenging.
Robbie’s gaze drifted to the cabin. Just down the road stood its duplicate—Allan’s. Crude they both were, and rough, the one rougher than the other, for they learned together as they erected Allan’s cabin, then turned their attention to Robbie’s, to proceed with a little more finesse. They had been warned that the logs, being green and unweathered, would undoubtedly shrink, allowing for drafts, even snow, to blow in. But just now they were snug and sturdy dwellings, and Robbie felt king of all he possessed when, at night, he shut the door behind him, sat up to the side of his small stove, and took his rest from a hard day’s labor.
Simple and rustic as things were, they had not been easy to come by. Though only $10.00 was needed for the filing fee, there was much to buy before the two men could live on the land and make it productive. Houses, of course, were made from the trees on their own property, but the motley assemblage of items to put in them—a stove, a few dishes, a bed, a couple of chairs—all basic and necessary, had to be purchased. Besides the small supply of household goods, there were windows to buy, doors, nails, axes and countless other tools. As for horses to work the land, a cow for milk, and a few hens for eggs, these items were being shared between the brothers, one set doing both places for now. Certainly there were no frills on the Dunbar homesteads. Even as Robbie used the team for plowing today, he could hear Allan’s axe as he worked doggedly and persistently at the task of clearing land so that, in three years, he might have the proper number of acres cleared and so fulfill that requirement to prove up his land; it took constant and persistent work.
Allan and Robbie had chosen to build separate cabins rather than live together. Each wanted the satisfaction of stepping out of his house in the morning and looking over land he could call his own. But their cabins were not far apart, each built almost on the line dividing the properties. The thick, unrelenting bush between the cabins remained intact, dividing house from house as surely as though it were a curtain. At times the brothers could hear the ring of an axe or the bawling of a cow or smell the smoke of a chimney, but they could not see one another for the thick and rampant bush between them; they rather liked it that way. A narrow path threaded the bush and made quick contact possible; what it would be like in the dead of winter was yet to be seen.
Robbie and Allan had come too late to be among those fortunate Scots who had settled a dozen years and more ago near Wapella. The philanthropic Lady Gordon Cathcart had proposed a plan to the Department of the Interior whereby she, and her funds, would assist Scottish families to settle in the Northwest Territories; she had advanced up to l00 pounds each, a tremendous encouragement to anyone considering such a move. The first ten families were followed by forty more, and though they suffered much hardship and deprivation in the early years, the settlement had taken root and eventually prospered.
Such knowledge encouraged the Dunbar brothers—it could be done!—but was no real or practical help. They had to make their own way, every step of the way, every cent of the expense. However, Robbie and Allan, attending the Bliss church one Sunday, had been happy to make the acquaintance of at least one Scottish family who lived nearby—the Morrisons. The Morrisons’ story was still largely unknown to them, but it seemed their daughter Molly was keeping company with the pastor.
Church services, held in the schoolhouse, were a goo
d deal different from those in the kirk back home, but they offered the best chance of meeting other members of the community. The dear and friendly people of Bliss had gathered Robbie and Allan to their collective bosom and had showed their welcome and friendship by turning up for a “building bee” when the young men had erected their cabins.
Before that, however, having arrived in Canada with no resources whatsoever, Robbie and Allan had spent their first months in the territories working for the railroad. The money earned had been used for the filing fee and the basic necessities to begin homesteading. With the land near the Wapella settlement taken up, they had turned farther north, ending up in Bliss. Whether or not it would live up to its name they would have to see.
With the astonishing appearance of Tierney Caulder, it certainly had every opportunity to be blissful for Robbie Dunbar.
Robbie’s sturdy Scottish heart had nearly failed him when he had told Tierney of his father’s decision regarding his and Allan’s future. The awful blankness, followed by anguish, that he had seen reflected in Tierney’s amber-colored eyes that day, had almost been his undoing. Yet with heartbreaking reticence she had said little or nothing, realizing, as he did, the uselessness of it. Therefore, the words he had never said, planned someday to say, dreamed of saying, were never spoken. He had left her, lonely as the passing cloud, and leaped away, never to see her again. Until today.
“Think on’t,” he muttered now, still half dazed, shaking his head.
Making a few more rounds he concluded the day’s plowing, then turned the team homeward, to unhitch, water the horses, and turn them loose in the small pound he had built at the side of his barn, working and walking through it all with a feeling of unreality.
Dreams, it seemed, did come true. But was it too late?
Herbert Bloom, though intent on his driving, could sense the troubled spirit of the young woman sitting next to him in the buggy.
“Ahem!” he said, being given to clearing his throat at auspicious moments. Tierney jumped a bit, startled into giving attention to something other than Robbie Dunbar’s peculiar reaction to an invitation to supper during their final moments together.
“This place we’re passing,” Herbert said, nodding to his left, “is the homestead of Robert Dunbar’s brother, Allan. As he said, the two places are much alike.”
Tierney studied with interest the small cabin in the clearing in the bush and the collection of additional buildings, which she supposed were barn, chicken house, and perhaps shed or granary. It was rough, it was raw, it was rudimentary—just the basic things needed to get started. And yet there was a charm about it that caught and held a breath in Tierney’s throat.
Perhaps it was the trees, in their crisp new spring green. Perhaps it was the blossoms that graced some of those trees and promised a harvest of fruit, wild though it might be and of a sort unknown to her. Whatever it was, the buildings cuddled in the arms of the bush, Tierney thought fancifully, rather than huddled. Both places—Robbie’s and Allan’s—looked so homey.
Far from home, still it seemed to Tierney that she had found home.
It was a strange sensation. And confusing; it was a feeling she would have to explore as time and experience allowed. Perhaps it would pass as the people of the community became known as humans with joys and problems the same as any other spot in the world, their homes just places of abode like everywhere else.
“Ahem,” Herbert said, getting Tierney’s attention. “Your comment back there—about something being wrong where Robert Dunbar is concerned—”
“Aye?”
“Maybe,” Herbert Bloom said, “you are imagining it. You haven’t seen Robert for a while, have you? How can you be certain you are reading the signs correctly? I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, if I were you. This country changes people, you know. Why, I myself—”
“I know Robbie Dunbar, Mr. Bloom,” Tierney said quietly, though positively.
Herbert Bloom took a moment to reflect on the fact that indeed even he, a stranger in most ways to Robbie Dunbar, had noticed the definite paling of the ruddy face and the almost stricken look that had touched the gray eyes.
“Well,” he said placatingly, “it’ll all straighten out tomorrow when you see him. He had to be very surprised, isn’t that so?”
“Verra surprised indeed,” Tierney confirmed. “As I was to see him. I had no idea he was within a thousand miles o’ here. You see, I left Binkiebrae before his family had heard from him and his brother. I mean, they didn’t know where he was, so they couldn’t write and tell him I’d coom over too. And even if they had, letters take a long time, goin’ overseas and all.”
“Yes, I suppose it seems very far indeed. Lydia and I were born in Canada, in the east, actually, so we never had that long ocean voyage to endure, though our parents did, and have told us about it many times. They always talked of taking a trip back—to England, that is—back home. But we never made it, of course. Once here it’s very unusual to be able to afford to go back just for a pleasure trip. No, it’s good-bye for all time.”
“Aye, and that’s what Robbie and I thought when we parted, he to coom to Canada, me to stay in Binkiebrae. Heaven knows we niver thought to meet up like this. I hoped that in time I’d hear from me brother, and maybe he’d have some idea where Robbie was, and I could write to him. Even then—well, it’s a big land, reet?”
“Right, a big, big land. It was no picnic for us, either, coming this far west, I can tell you.” Herbert Bloom clucked, as though recalling very difficult days indeed. “Maybe Lydia and I left it too late in life; one needs to be young to make such changes. But our daughter was coming—Lavinia, and her husband, Will. And they moved. And she had our first grandchild.
“And here we are, Lydia and I,” he continued, “permanently situated, I suppose. It’s too much to think of picking up and moving again. And of course our parents are long gone and we don’t have any reason to go back east anymore.”
Herbert Bloom fell silent, thinking, Tierney supposed, of his move, his so permanent move west, his only child gone. “So I guess,” he finished eventually, “Bliss is our home. Sink or swim, survive or perish, it’ll be in Bliss.”
“It’s beautiful, at least this time of year.” Even while talking to her companion, Tierney had been engaged in absorbing her surroundings. And indeed, she found them beautiful past expressing.
“Oh, it’s beautiful any time of year, though in different ways. Trouble is, one is so isolated, especially in the winter, though the land is quickly filling up, and neighbors are not as unusual as they once were. Do you,” Herbert Bloom said, changing the subject abruptly, “attend church, Miss Caulder?”
Tierney brightened, weary though she was and distracted by her meeting with Robbie Dunbar.
“Oh, aye! Do ye?” In her enthusiasm Tierney forgot—as she was apt to do in moments of excess feeling, whether joy or sorrow—to mute the Scots accent that she had been told, by Ishbel Mountjoy and others, made it difficult to understand her.
But now she tended to forget all else except her satisfaction in her recent conversion. Church, Christians, the Bible, to Tierney Caulder, were subjects of supreme interest. Having known the Lord Jesus a short time, still He was a dear friend to this lonely misplant from home and family and all things known and loved.
So “Oh, aye!” she said enthusiastically. “That is, I attended kirk, back home in Binkiebrae. Here, I’ve had nae chance. Still, I would love to. Do ye and yer guid lady go, by any chance? Tell me aboot it!”
Thus invited, Herbert, first, breathed a sigh of relief. It would make things so much more pleasant if the newcomer to their home knew and loved their Savior as they did.
“We passed the local church—kirk to you, I suppose—when we passed the schoolhouse in Bliss. We make good use of that building. It’s the center of much that goes on. Not far from it, by the way, is the small log house that the congregation erected on land donated for that purpose, and we call it a parsonage, tho
ugh it’s just like many another homesteader’s first home in the area.”
“And do you,” Tierney interrupted, mending her speech in order to be better understood, “also live in a cabin?”
“No. We sold out back east before we came, and so we arrived with sufficient funds to build a frame house and barn and so on, though I don’t suppose we’re any more comfortable than many folks are in their cabins. But it’s larger, having an upstairs, for one thing. I guess that’s one of the reasons why we need help to keep it up—it’s too big for just the two of us. Our daughter and her husband wanted a place of their own. They preferred the prairie, and it meant a move away from us. So we ended up rattling around in a big house. I guess,” he finished with a sigh, “we thought our children and grandchildren would share it with us from time to time.” Herbert’s tone was melancholy.
He sat up alertly—a rig was approaching—and began sawing on the reins, pulling the horse from a trot to a walk and urging it toward the side of the road, not an easy thing to do because of the wild tangle of pea vine and other growth.
Her attention taken from him, Tierney turned her head to see the rig and to note that it was coming fast. The driver, finally becoming aware of them, pulled to the side also, and both buggies stopped, almost wheel to wheel.
“Well, Miss Molly,” Herbert Bloom said cordially, doffing his hat with one hand while restraining his horse with the other. “Where are you off to so frisky-like?”
“Now where would I be going, Mr. Bloom, except to Bliss—”
“And the parsonage,” the man supplied good-humoredly.
“The dear parson would starve, I do believe,” the young woman Molly said, tapping a box at her elbow, “if we didn’t take pity on him from time to time.” Her gaze shifted to Herbert’s passenger.