by Ruth Glover
If ever a man had given up everything, Parker Jones was that man.
He saw with new eyes the poor pieces of furniture, the almost empty cupboard, the old stove that seeped smoke at times, the linoleum that had seen better days, the collection of ragtag items that furnished his living quarters. The bedroom beyond was no better; it held a sagging, cast-off bed, an ancient chiffonier, a single chair, and a wire across one corner to hang his scanty wardrobe on. The single window had a dark green blind.
True, someone had made curtains of red check for the windows in the room in which he now sat and covered the seats of his battered chairs with cushions of the same material. Even now the Morrison men were working on a hand-turned settee, and Mary and Kezzie were preparing to pad it, making a comfortable and attractive seat. Herkimer Pinkard had pledged a new stove after harvest, depending, of course, on how bounteous the harvest was this year. One dear lady came weekly to scrub his floor, clean his cupboards, and gather up his bedsheets and take them home, returning with clean ones. It was kind of her, but again it was evidence of his total dependence on the charity or the parsimony of his parishioners. Parker Jones, a proud man once, had become, of necessity he supposed, a humbled man.
At least he had his privacy. Lonely as it was, at times, and skimpily as the small house was provided for, still it was better than the arrangement for his keep the church had made when he first came.
Stepping from the train in Prince Albert, Parker had been met by Angus Morrison and taken directly to his home, with an explanation that permanent quarters were in the planning stage, that a “parsonage” would be forthcoming. Until then, the plan for his board and room was that he spend a month in various church homes.
One good thing had surfaced right away: The new pastor had come into immediate and rather intimate contact with that black-haired, blue-eyed dynamo, Molly Morrison. Molly’s obvious enjoyment of life in general, her abounding energy along with her good humor and laughter, all mixed with a generous, loving heart, had won Parker over from the beginning.
A month later he had packed up his things and moved to his second assignment—the Dinwoody home. After a month there it had been on to the Condons, Platts, Mudges, even the bachelor quarters of Herkimer Pinkard. Month by month he had shifted his clothes, his books, his belongings, from the home of one parishioner to another. At the Mudges he had shared the unfinished upstairs with the three Mudge sons. It had been the dead of winter, and the upstairs was heated only by a single stovepipe that passed through the floor from the room below and out through the roof, and from which only a faint heat radiated. Occasionally, during a storm, he had watched the tin pipe trembling in the wind, at the same time freezing his fingers as they tried to set down his sermon thoughts. The boys, housebound much of the time, roughhoused and cavorted nearby while Parker attempted to study.
At the Platts’, Jacob had taken ill, and Parker had spent most of his month chopping wood, filling the wood box, hauling water, milking and feeding cows. The Platts were apologetic but helpless, and Parker hadn’t really minded. Until, that is, Sunday rolled around and he was sure that his congregation, looking to him with expectant eyes for their week’s spiritual food, were disappointed in the skimpy hash of a message he served them.
Yes, if ever a man had little or nothing of worldly goods, it was Parker Jones. And, as an offering to the Lord, they were a very small gift indeed; how much of himself had been given up?
Dreading further painful revelations of his role and his inadequacies concerning it, Parker Jones’s eyes returned to the Scriptures. Returned, opened wide, blinked, misted: “. . . as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”
Had he not, in forsaking home and parents and siblings, found a home in the heart of the bush, in the hearts of its people? Had he not, in giving up an opportunity to amass this world’s goods, made an exchange for true riches? In seeking the will of One higher than himself, had he not set his feet upon a path that had brought intense satisfaction and fulfillment?
Present temptations should not, would not, turn him aside from his chosen calling.
With fingers that trembled from the assurance that warmed his heart and the relief that flooded his troubled spirit, Parker Jones scrabbled through the thin pages of his Bible until he found the very consolation he needed: “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich). . . . Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer . . . be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Rev. 2:9–10).
God would show him; God would be patient while he, Parker Jones, struggled with the troubling question of His will.
There was considerable excitement at the Bloom home: The new hired man was to arrive today.
True to his word, Rob Dunbar had searched out the man he had met at the Lands Office in Prince Albert, still hovering over possible moves on his part.
Wanting to file on a homestead, Quinn Archer lacked the cash to do all those things necessary to prove it up in the allotted length of time—erect living quarters, buy certain pieces of equipment, clear the bush—and was pondering his options. Should he, he wondered, file for a homestead now, leave the land sit idle and get a job for a while, or get a job, save some money, and then file?
“I’m afraid,” he told Rob, “all the land in the vicinity of Prince Albert—that is, within reasonable driving distance—will soon be gone, and I’ll be stuck out in some remote hinterland where it’ll be hard to get the crop to the railroad, or get mail, or supplies.”
Robbie Dunbar was quite at sea concerning where or what the hinterland might be, but he supposed it was a poor place and to be avoided.
Quinn Archer, from whose tongue the word had rolled effortlessly, was, in spite of rough clothes and a seeming lack of this world’s goods, a man of some education and, perhaps, of some polish, though this remained to be seen.
“Aye, it’s fillin’ in, I guess,” Robbie responded, grateful again that he and Allan had the great good fortune to locate on some of the last land in the Bliss area. “I know there are places at Carrot River. And of course much, much land farther oot. It’s still an untracked wilderness in many places. Or there’s always the possibility of findin’ someone who for one reason or another hasna been able to stick it oot, and he’ll sell his homestead, and probably cheap, jist glad to get oot.”
“I’ve had a chance or two like that,” Quinn Archer said, nodding. “A couple of men were hanging around the Lands Office, wanting to dump their homesteads. The wife of one man had died and he couldn’t make it alone, and the wife of the other one was slowly losing her mind, or so it seemed. Anyway, that poor man said she was stubbornly refusing to go through another winter in the bush.”
“Thass hard, for sure,” Robbie said sympathetically, thinking of his own cheerless cabin, “especially when winter cooms, and a man is hoosebound a lot o’ the time.”
Robbie’s winter, probably, would be spent in the comfortable quarters of Alice Hoy and her sons. Just thinking of it brought a stab of condemnation to his heart. What had seemed, in the first place, to be a fine opportunity, had now taken on more than a hint of ugliness.
And why? Not because the plan was not a worthy one with Alice desperately needing help, but his eyes had been opened—when he saw Tierney Caulder again—to the crassness of the venture from his viewpoint. Suddenly the proposed marriage took on an almost obscene aspect. To marry—without love! To marry—for the reason of obtaining the bride’s property!
Until the arrival of Tierney, Robbie had felt few, if any, qualms about the proposed marriage. Alice had presented the arrangement so sensibly.
Sensibly, and bravely. “Robbie,” she had said one evening when he had stepped into the house with a brimming pail of milk to be strained, “sit down, please. I . . . I have something I’d like to talk over with you.”
Puzzled, Robbie had sat. “Aye, Mrs. Hoy, an’ is there somethin’ I can do for you? You’ve jist to ask.”
Alice immediately look
ed relieved. “I truly hope so . . . once you’ve heard my proposal—” And then, in spite of her calm demeanor to this point, Alice had blushed and stammered.
“Proposal?” Robbie had asked slowly, totally in the dark but intrigued by the word and Alice’s reaction to it.
“Aye . . . that is, yes,” Alice had continued, still flustered. “It’s really . . . really a business proposal, Robbie. You see, it’s this way—”
And Alice Hoy had, steadily and clearly, spelled out her astounding offer: They would marry, Robbie would take on the care of the homestead and of the boys, would, in fact, raise them. For she, Alice, was certain she was not long for this world.
And certainly she didn’t look well. Even Robbie, with a man’s eyes, could see that. She was frail, pale, and often clutched her hands over her . . .
Robbie hesitated. Even in his thoughts, he hesitated, reluctant to so much as think the word stomach in regard to the female anatomy. And belly seemed degrading when applied to the gentle sex. So he settled for midriff. Alice often pressed her hands to her midriff.
She spoke delicately of another aspect of the arrangement. Though natural reticence kept her from mentioning the matter specifically, it was Robbie’s understanding that it was to be a relationship without intimacy. It would not be a true marriage, but a business affair; no word of love was ever mentioned between them.
Until that moment, Robbie, to do him justice, had not thought, even remotely, of marriage with Alice Hoy. Having heard of her illness, he had gone over to the Hoy place after the death of Barnabas simply to be a good neighbor, knowing there was a great need of a man on the place. After all, there were chores every day, the seeding hadn’t been done or the garden planted. He and the other men—and women, too—of the district had taken on these responsibilities, though it meant some neglect of their own places in a very busy season of the year.
Yes, Robbie’s one thought had been to help—that was his purpose in going, his only purpose. Realizing that he had not harbored cunning thoughts or had any devious plans concerning the Hoy property, was the only comfort Robbie had at this time when, at last, he saw the entire situation through another’s eyes—the eyes of Tierney Caulder. Now it seemed wrong, all wrong.
Again the image of Tierney’s stunned face rose before him, stamped on his heart from the moment he had tried to explain. Stunned and anguished then, it had not been much different each time he had seen her since that dreadful night.
When he went to talk to her, Robbie had thought that he and Tierney would be comforted by the realization that all would yet be well, that the present circumstance was for a purpose, and that he and she were, in truth, bonded in heart and mind, now, as ever.
It had not turned out that way. Tierney had staggered as from a physical blow, her face desolate, her eyes brimming with a pain that she did not, probably could not, express in words. Instantly Robbie knew he had done a terrible thing.
And she had avoided him from that night on. The first time or two that he had gone to the Blooms to see her, her white face and stricken eyes had struck panic to his heart—had he irrevocably destroyed their chance of happiness together?
Tierney had sat on the step with him, wringing her hands helplessly, and talked, or tried to talk, of his plans.
“I’m happy for ye, Robbie,” she had said, “if that’s what ye want sae bad—more land. I’d hae thought y’d be happy as a king wi’ your ain wee homestead.”
The Scots accent and the muffled words told of the misery of her heart.
And then she had said, “Ye canna keep coomin’ o’er here, Robbie. I’ll nae see ye again . . . it’s not reet . . . right. Dinna coom, Robbie.”
And Robbie knew she was right; he stayed away.
He had seen her next at church. Though Robbie had not made church attendance a practice, he went the first Sunday Tierney was in Bliss, knowing she would be there with the Blooms—faithful members. Sitting behind her, watching the sun through the window as it rollicked among the glints and gleams of her ravishing head of hair—his heart turned over. He had, indeed, done a terrible thing. Perhaps a final thing.
Then, remembering Alice, too ill to come to church, he felt that he was being unfaithful, in some way, by hungering for Tierney, and he groaned within himself over the strange turn of events that had brought him to this painful moment. Promised to one woman by words, pledged to another in his heart—Robbie, quite naturally and for the first time in his life, felt guilt-ridden. Perhaps a prayer . . .
But Robbie Dunbar was not a praying person. Perhaps, if he had been, he thought grimly, he wouldn’t have gotten himself in such a fix.
He had erred. He had erred greatly. Not only to Tierney but to Alice. Alice deserved better, if only for the short time she had left.
It became clear to Robbie, as he thought on the entire sordid situation, that he had placed himself in as unprincipled a state as could be imagined. Loving Tierney, marrying Alice—and accompanying this was the unspoken thought that he was waiting for Alice’s death.
When this realization sprang full blown in Robbie’s mind, he almost gasped aloud, so stricken was he by the truth, the miserable truth. It had sounded so good on the surface: help Alice; be there for the boys; be bighearted; do a generous act of kindness. But even the kindness aspect faded when he thought further about the boys, who were, he admitted, beginning to turn their affections toward him, looking to him as a father figure in their lives, and who might yet be disappointed. Surely there was more selfishness than wisdom in what he was doing.
Under the sound of the gospel message as delivered by Parker Jones that morning, arrows of conviction struck and stayed and quivered in Robbie Dunbar’s heart.
The sermon was based on the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, “The love chapter,” Parker Jones called it, and faithfully pointed out the “more excellent way.”
“Charity [or love, Parker substituted] . . . doth not behave itself unseemly.”
In the light of the Scripture and the sermon, what Robbie had done was not only unacceptable but reprehensible . . . unseemly! And try as he would to think calmly about it, the idea that he had behaved toward Alice, and toward Tierney, in a most unacceptable way, could not be excluded any longer from his thinking.
What a fix to be in! What could he, honorably, do? Alice was innocent, needy, depending on him. And he had given his word. By agreeing to marry her he had done one dishonorable thing; he’d not compound it by another.
Shaking hands at the close of the service, smiling, talking, heart beating heavily all the while, Robbie thought he was, after all, just “sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal,” and no real man. And certainly not a man of God, a man of principle.
Bowing his head over the mane of his horse as he rode home—with Tierney quiet and reserved in the Bloom wagon, her eyes hurt and avoiding his glance—Robbie Dunbar prayed what was probably the first serious, earnest prayer of his life. It was preceded by the thought “Only God can get me out of this mess that I’m in.” And not himself only; Alice Hoy and Tierney Caulder were deeply affected by his actions, by his choices.
O God! Please solve this terrible situation . . . please show me what to do, he prayed.
Well, that’s ready, Tierney said to herself, stepping outside the small shack that was the quarters of the Blooms’ hired man. She had spent an hour cleaning it thoroughly after Ahab’s departure, sweeping the board floor, shaking the rag rug, plumping up the pillow on the rocker beside the small heater, stripping the bed, turning the mattress, and putting on clean sheets and blankets. Any moment now the new man, Quinn Archer by name, would arrive. Arrive in time to do the evening chores. Without Ahab the last few days, Herbert had roused himself to unusual activity and had milked and watered and fed the animals by himself, though with a good deal of “Ahemming” sprinkled throughout his conversation all day long. Herbert felt put upon, doing his own work.
In the house, where the hired man ordinarily took his meals along with the f
amily—though he could, if he wished, do so on the small stove top in his shack—special preparations were underway. First impressions were important! One needed to impress the hired man, after all. Good help was hard to find! Or so Lydia told Tierney every once in a while, with a solemn shake of the head followed by a kind smile.
“Whatever would we do without you . . .”
“It wasn’t nearly so good before you came!”
And just flat out “I’m so glad you came to be with us!”
Lydia saw the two horses and their riders from the kitchen window. “That must be him—that Quinn fellow,” she said to Tierney, who stopped beating the cream for the top of the pie and came to stand beside her.
“And that’s Herkimer with him,” Lydia continued. “You met Herkimer at church, you may remember, my dear. He’s a bachelor, of course. He knows right well it’s suppertime. And he knows Lydia Bloom never turns anyone away hungry. Might as well,” she warned, “be prepared to set another plate on the table. No doubt about it—Herkimer will eat supper with us.”
“Those’re the Bloom cows over there,” that worthy gentleman was saying, pointing to a dozen or so cattle in a nearby pasture as he and Quinn Archer came down the road at a comfortable pace. “Say, Archer, do you know how to calc’late the number of cows in any herd?”
“I thought I did,” the stranger said, with a wry glance at his loquacious companion, a man of considerable girth and as full of fun as of talk.
Herkimer Pinkard had attached himself to the newcomer in the hamlet of Bliss, offering generously to show him the way, personally, to the Bloom homestead, and already Quinn Archer had an understanding of the sort of fellow Herkimer was—neighborly, open, given to great good humor.
“But I’m sure,” Quinn continued now in response to Herkimer’s question, “if there’s a better way to figure the number of cows in a herd, you’re about to tell me.”