by Ruth Glover
“The little boy?” Lydia inserted rather blankly, being caught so completely by surprise.
“Aye, Alice’s son, Barney. He’s jist five years old, and he’s lost.”
“Lost?—”
“Somewhere in the bush, we suppose.”
“O Lord . . .” Lydia breathed, and it was a prayer. How often she had worried and prayed over her own small grandson on the prairie, that God would keep him from wandering away in that unending sea of grass. It happened. Many were the stories of people—adults and children—lost on the prairie, lost in blizzards, lost, yes, lost in the bush. That it should happen here!
“There isna time to tell you all aboot it,” Robbie said desperately. “We looked the best we could, and when it seemed he wasna in the farmyard, we knew we needed help. I stopped at Allan’s, and he’s headed over to help look. Can someone from here—Quinn maybe—give us a hand?”
Robbie’s usually bronzed face was white and taut with anxiety.
“Of course! Tierney, run and get Quinn. Tell him to hitch up the buggy, and you better go with him.”
For once Lydia had no secret motive in sending Quinn and Tierney off together; her concern for the lost child was uppermost in her mind.
Robbie was already turning toward his horse, mounting, heading out. “I’ll stop by Herkimer’s, too. Thank you—” And he was gone in a cloud of dust, pounding down the road.
Tierney and Quinn pulled into the Hoy yard to find Alice, half collapsed, leaning against the post on the porch, Billy beside her, sucking a thumb, looking solemn.
“Any luck?” Quinn asked after alighting from the buggy. Tierney hurried after him to Alice’s side. Putting her arm around the trembling woman, Tierney persuaded her to sit on the step.
“No, there’s no sign of him. Allan is out in the woods somewhere. I’ve looked everywhere . . . everywhere except—” Alice’s eyes turned fearfully toward the well.
What a thought! In spite of reluctance to consider such a possibility, all three adults turned apprehensive eyes on the well. Quinn cleared his throat.
“I’ll check it,” he said.
“Come inside,” Tierney urged, feeling Alice could withstand no more. Alice complied, moving, under the pressure of Tierney’s guiding hands, into the house, sagging into an overstuffed chair.
When Quinn reported that the well was clear, thrusting his head in the door to do so, Alice whispered, “Thank God. Well, then, it’s got to be the bush. We’ve looked everywhere else.”
Almost immediately Robbie and Herkimer were galloping into the yard, to be met by the news that there was no news.
“Which way did Allan go?” Robbie asked, but Alice seemed not to know. “He tied up his horse and just headed out . . . somewhere.”
“We three will start—one this way, one that way, one over there,” Robbie said, “but I think maybe you better stay wi’ Alice, Tierney. A’ reet?”
Tierney nodded and headed for the stove to build the fire, boil the kettle, and apply the calming properties of a soothing cup of tea.
The three men started out blindly, doing the only thing they knew to do. Clattering off the porch, they scattered out toward the bush that pressed the farmyard on three sides, the road making the fourth.
“Hey, fellas! Alice! Tierney!” It was a shout from Herkimer Pinkard.
Robbie and Quinn, about to slip into the circling bush, paused and turned. Alice heard and opened her eyes and made an effort to struggle to her feet; Tierney left the teapot and hurried to the door.
In the fading light of the sun, standing in the open barn door—a small figure.
Barney stood, alone and forlorn, while the searchers gathered round him. Robbie and Quinn strode toward the barn from the edge of the bush; Tierney and Alice—suddenly invigorated and flying toward her son on light feet—came from the house. Herkimer, the first to reach the child, stood looking down on him.
About to snatch the small boy up into her arms, the others standing in a semicircle, watching, Alice paused.
With a curious dignity, she spoke. “Barney, where have you been?”
Barney’s head drooped. “In . . . there,” he said, indicating the barn.
“We looked in there. Where, in there?”
“Up there . . . in the hay,” Barney admitted in a low voice. It didn’t take a close inspection to see the telltale signs of his hiding place—hay stuck to his clothing, hay clung to his hair. Burrowed into the hay, he had been invisible.
“I looked there,” Alice said. “I called, again and again. Didn’t you hear Mother?”
Slowly, slowly, Barney nodded.
“Were you hiding?”
Barney looked at his feet. Barney squirmed. Barney—finally, reluctantly—nodded.
The semicircle stirred. Tierney, Quinn, Herkimer, Robbie—looked at each other and blinked their shock and surprise.
Alice, it seemed, was moving ahead with purpose and with surprising calm.
“I see. I think, son, that we need to talk. All right?”
Now a tear appeared in Barney’s eye, to trickle down his cheek. Alice reached into her apron pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and handed it to him.
Stepping to his side, she put her hand on his shoulder and drew him to her momentarily.
“Go on into the house, Barney,” she said firmly then, “and I’ll come in a moment.”
Barney shuffled, sniffling, past the ring of searchers, his small brother in his wake. The little group watched in silence; the slam of the screen door brought them from their silent study, to look at Alice.
“You see how it is,” Alice said, turning to them.
“Not really—” someone said doubtfully.
“It’s my fault,” Alice said, her face white but her eyes set with purpose. “It’s my fault. I haven’t been . . . myself since Barnabas died. I’ve been excusing myself. Selfish is what I’ve been, lost in my own grief. Barney is smart enough to see it. What he needs—now that he doesn’t have a father—is a mother.”
No one argued with her.
“I’ll go on in to him now,” Alice continued. “But I want you to know how much I appreciate you. Thank you . . . thank you for coming. I believe I can do what needs to be done—”
Quinn stepped toward her. Alice looked up, met his gaze, gave him a small smile. Robbie cleared his throat; Alice turned to him, nodded. She squeezed Tierney’s outstretched hand and touched Herkimer on the sleeve.
Slowly the group dispersed.
Alice stood on the porch until Quinn and Tierney had pulled out in their buggy, until Allan and Herkimer and Robbie had mounted their horses. Watching them go, she lifted her hand in a small salute and turned toward the house.
Barney stood uncertainly beside the oak table in the middle of the room, his eyes, large and round, fixed on his mother. Billy was curled up on the sofa, thumb in mouth and clutching a scrap of a blanket, a serious onlooker.
Crossing the linoleum to her son’s side, Alice’s eyes fell on the envelope, addressed to the catalog, ready to mail. With no hesitation at all she swept it up, walked to the stove, removed a lid, and thrust the envelope inside. Watching it catch fire and curl into ash, a curious expression touched her face. One would almost say it relaxed; perhaps it was the ruddy reflection of the fire, but Alice’s face seemed brighter, free, at rest.
While the boys watched—Billy’s bright eyes peering over the edge of his “bankie,” and Barney staring openly—Alice turned and marched to the corner cupboard. There the usual blind scrabble brought forth the familiar dark bottle. Holding it by the neck Alice walked to the wood box, gave the bottle a smart rap on the edge, another and another, until the bottle broke, scattering its contents into the box and down the sides of the box onto the linoleum, to puddle harmlessly there.
For a five-year-old, Barney’s eyes looked wise indeed. Wise and comprehending. With a rush he was in his mother’s arms, his tears, checked until that moment, flowed freely, his voice choked with sobs, his body racked w
ith sobs.
“I’m sorry, Mama! I’m sorry!”
“And I’m sorry, too, Barney. So sorry.”
Alice, with the dusty, sticker-covered boy in her arms, sank onto the sofa, there to gather her sons to her. Rocking, crooning, she held them until Barney’s weeping subsided.
It was as Alice suspected. Though Barney wasn’t able to put his grief, frustration, and anger into words, they were there. Alice did little but listen and hug and whisper, “Things will be different now, Barney. We’ll work on it together. I know I can count on you to be the man of the family. Little Barnabas.”
Eventually a supper of sorts was set out (not porridge!) and the family of three ate together. Alice brought in the galvanized tub, filled it with warm water from the reservoir, bathed both boys tenderly, and took them upstairs. Billy, sleepy-eyed, was tucked into his small cot and almost immediately went to sleep.
“Come, son,” Alice said, taking the nightgown-clad Barney by the hand and leading him into the adjoining bedroom, the room that had been hers and his father’s.
Alice went to the bureau and opened the top drawer. From it she removed a small wooden box, and together she and Barney sat on the edge of the bed, the box between them.
Alice lifted the lid, moved an item or two aside, and located what she was looking for. Holding it up in the day’s waning light, she said, “Do you know what this is, Barney?”
Barney’s eyes were big and dark. “Dad’s watch.”
“Your father’s Royal Waltham. The one he carried every day of his life.”
Barney seemed mesmerized. “But . . . but . . .” he stammered.
“But what, son?”
“But I thought . . .”
“What did you think, Barney? You can tell me . . . please tell me.”
“I thought,” Barney stuttered, “I thought it . . . went into the hole in the ground.”
Having seen his father in the coffin, dressed in his suit, Barney had assumed that the watch, as always, was in the fob pocket. In the pocket and in the grave.
Alice barely refrained from snatching the boy into her arms, falling into a spasm of grief once again for the husband and father who was gone from them. Only her newfound determination allowed her to put it aside, to smile, somewhat shakily, and put the watch in Barney’s hand.
“This is a man’s watch, Barney. Only a man can carry it. I think you are on your way to being such a man.”
Barney looked at the watch with awe. With his thumb he rubbed the scrollwork. With a little effort he pressed the magic spot, and it opened. Not yet able to tell time, still he studied the numbers critically.
“I think a boy like you can look forward to the day when he can wear his father’s watch—”
“Yea-a-a-ah,” Barney breathed, caught up in the wonder of the moment and not finding words to express himself.
“In the meantime, we’ll keep it safe here in this box. What would you say if—every Sunday afternoon—we get it out, wind it, check it over, and let you wear it around the house?”
“Yea-a-a-ah,” Barney breathed again.
With Barney tucked into bed, falling asleep almost at once, Alice sat in the gloom beside the two small creatures who had, in God’s wisdom, been left in her care.
One step. She had taken one small step in the right direction. With His grace, the next one would be forthcoming, and soon.
Parker Jones, heading for the schoolhouse and the Sunday service, walked through the early morning dew, his troubled soul feasting on the freshness and quiet of the new day.
It was the harvest season. Summer had slipped away, gone on the warm wings of bird and butterfly, never to return again. Reaping time, and his harvest had been discontent and uncertainty. Rather than offer the Lord of the harvest a bounty of joyous service rendered, he came with empty hands, barren heart, faded hopes. What had begun as vision had turned to empty shadows. His high-flying dreams of the pastorate had wavered and reshaped—under his doubts—to the routine of a job, a job not that well done. Or so it seemed.
The offer of a teaching position at Mount Moriah—it had all the earmarks of a plain old “job” also. But if it were not possible to work under the high command of a “calling,” any job would do. And this one would offer a certain balm to his conscience, because he would be teaching the Bible. This one promised a salary sufficient to live on. To marry on.
Parker’s footsteps dragged, his ear lost its ability to hear the muted sounds of the bush all around him; his nose failed to catch the autumn scents of grain and straw, drying grass, shriveled berries; his eyes were dimmed to the changes of color in bush and field. Beautiful Bliss. Blessed Bliss. Could Prince Edward Island and Mount Moriah offer the feast for body and soul that he had found in the bush country of northern Saskatchewan? Parker trudged on, caught up in another round of introspection, trying to solve the problem that plagued him.
On this morning, of all mornings, Parker needed to avail himself of the healing peace of the bush, for his heart was sorely torn since his last talk with Molly; his mind had performed whirligigs of thought and emotion—round and round and round—and still no answer.
One thing was clear: If he left Bliss, it would be alone. Molly had refused to go with him.
Having declared his love and having finally, even passionately, asked her to become his wife, Molly had sat in silence for . . . for far too long. Her gaze was lowered, her fingers plucked at the grass on which they sat, while she hesitated.
“Well, Molly?” he had urged.
Parker Jones felt that, if he knew anything at all, Molly Morrison loved him. At a time when everything else seemed uncertain, he knew Molly loved him. Knew it, depended on it, cherished it, and—now—claimed it.
“Molly,” he said again, reaching for her hand and speaking gently, “Molly girl, have I made it plain? I love you. I love you and want you to be my wife. Well, Molly?”
Parker gazed earnestly at the flushed face, so dear, usually so full of life and now so still. He gave her hand a little shake.
“Am I so hard to love, Molly?” he asked, a little puzzled now, a little uneasy.
“Not hard to love, Parker. Not hard to love. Lord,” she murmured, and it startled Parker, “help me say it right.”
“Say what, Molly?” Parker asked, his heart beginning to beat heavily.
“I’ve been aware of some of the doubts and questionings you have been going through . . . we’ve talked a little about them from time to time. We’ve talked, and I’ve prayed. I had to have some answers, Parker—”
Molly’s eyes lifted, full of pain and unshed tears. But her voice, though unsteady, carried on.
“I had to know God’s will for me, Parker—”
“Well, of course. I’d want you to. I’ve hoped it would be the same as His will for me.”
“Anyway,” Molly said, continuing on, plowing ahead, “Mam prayed with me—it was a few moments well spent.”
“Are you telling me you heard from God?”
“For me, Parker, just for me. I can’t tell you what God’s will is for you. Don’t you see—we each need to know for ourselves. I was miserable, uncomfortable, trying to . . . to hitch my wagon to your star. It wasn’t working.”
No mention of the fact that Parker, at the moment, had no star, that he seemed, to Molly, a soul adrift. A soul not one bit sure of his place, his future, or God’s plan. Or whether indeed God had a plan.
“All I know, Parker, is—” Molly’s voice quavered. She was, after all, responding to the marriage offer about which she had dreamed and hoped and prayed. To be the wife of Parker Jones had seemed heaven on earth to Molly Morrison for some time now.
“My place is here, in Bliss, for now,” she continued, rather desperately but firmly. “I know it. The realization gives me peace of mind, and I can’t jeopardize that, Parker. It’s been too long in coming. It’s like . . . like a very narrow path, and I can’t argue with it or stray from it, or I’m truly all at sea again. I have this little
bit of knowing in my spirit, and it came after prayer. I can’t ignore it. So you see, Parker, I can’t go to Mount Moriah.”
“I . . . see,” Parker said slowly, hungry for the same knowing in his spirit about what was right for him.
What more was there to say? When eventually Parker rose to his feet, offered a hand to Molly, and helped her up, both faces were stiff, perhaps to keep from weeping, certainly to keep from looking into each other’s eyes and falling into each other’s arms. But Molly had found her answer, and Parker, who had preached faith and trust, would not attempt to budge her from her place of peace and confidence. He understood the biblical principle of Isaiah 30:2l: “This is the way, walk ye in it,” and he could wish her nothing better than to know and do God’s will.
His mind full of his conversation with Molly, his senses blind and deaf to his surroundings, heavy of heart, Parker made his way, Sunday morning, to his pulpit, there to preach—as best he could in this state of mind—the Word of God.
Arriving before anyone else, the only tasks he had to perform—except in winter when the fire had to be lit a good hour before church started—were to bring in the bench that served as an altar, place it at the front of the room, just below the blackboard, and dig the battered songbooks out of a cupboard that was designated for church supplies.
“Good morning, Pastor!” It was the Dinwoody family, come early so that Sister Dinwoody could practice the hymn selections on the pump organ. The Dinwoody children distributed the hymnbooks, Brother Dinwoody laid out the offering basket, and all was in readiness.
The Condon family group came in—Bly, Beatrice, a cowed Vivian. For close on her heels, grinning from ear to ear, pressing close, hat in hand—Herkimer Pinkard.
Almost desperately Vivian crowded in between her aunt and uncle, but to no avail. Herkimer would not be denied. “Move over, Missy,” he urged, and though Vivian rebelled and kept her place without budging, Aunt Beatrice, with an uncertain smile, moved, and Herkimer sat down beside Vivian.