Grist

by Linda Little

  One day Donny arrived back from the smithy with a pair of wheels on his shoulder and various rods and pieces protruding from the top of a sack. I had understood from Ewan’s drawings and hammerings that he intended to set the wheels under his body but the day for that seemed impossibly distant. I was certainly unprepared the following afternoon when he summoned me to help him out of bed.

  Ewan’s contraption featured a hammock-like seat rigged with straps and buckles on an iron framework. The framework protruded out where a sling hung to support his leg. Two large wheels framed the seat and in front, a half-size, articulated wheel was attached to a sort of rudder. Tool baskets of various sizes and shapes he had tucked in here and there around the chair. I stood back in the doorway of the little room making placating noises, praising his efforts but insisting we must wait for the doctor and perhaps in a month or so…

  Even as I spoke I could see him gauging the distance between the bed and the cart. “Help me or I’ll jump for it myself and bugger the pain.”

  Of course he would. There was no question. There was no place to begin an argument or a negotiation. I folded a blanket into the seat at least. It was all the concession I could wrest from him. Ewan was all concentration and instructions; his eye fixed on the goal. He would carry as much of his own weight as he could on his good leg and I was to heft the broken one into place. The manoeuvre was far from smooth. I tried my best to keep the awkward limb in line with his body but he had to wriggle somewhat to get himself settled into the seat. He blanched in pain, tiny beads of sweat emerging on his forehead, but he did not waver. I fussed with the blanket while he recovered himself but as soon as he had caught his breath he grabbed hold of the wheel rims and propelled himself through the doorway and into the kitchen like a bird through an open window.

  “Help me to my shop. I have to get some tools together. I need to screw some boards onto those brackets. In there by the bed, see? Bring them along. That’s the ramp. Get the wheelbarrow.”

  He sent me down to the mill first with the wheelbarrow to set up the ramp he had made for the mill steps. By the time I returned he was beside himself with impatience. He had wheeled himself to the door of the shop, his tools stowed in the various compartments of the chair, but he could go no farther. The contraption could wheel around freely on even floors but Ewan was at my mercy when it came to navigating steps or the ruts and bumps of the uneven ground beyond. I took up my position behind him and wielded the contraption across the yard, along the road, down the mill lane and finally, after more than a three-week absence, up the ramp and into his mill. He wasted not a moment in celebration.

  “Go down to the meal floor. That stone over there. That’s the one I want you to engage. Pull out the wedge and make sure that nut has settled snug into the spur. Then come back up.”

  “Ewan, I don’t … I can’t…”

  Ewan pushed himself forward but too fast and slapped his leg on the oat vat. He gasped in a pain but paused only a moment.

  “Ewan, let me help. Where are you going?”

  “To the desk.” He waved me off, eased himself around the corner, but over compensated and had to pull himself to a stop before his broken leg caught the corner of the wall. He needed to conceive of the shape of his body differently. I could see him already drawing the new shape in his mind. At the desk he scooped up his time book and pencil. “Look.” On a blank page he drew the clean lines of a shaft and a toothy representation of a wooden stone nut. “Here. You’ll see a wedge in here, look. You’ll see a bar on the floor. Push that nut up a little so you can pull the wedge out. Then that nut will slide down on that shaft.” He pointed to the far corner of the mill. “That stone. Just tug out the wedge. That nut’ll snug down. Go on.”

  Carefully this time, watching how his cart reacted to different pressures, pulls and pushes, he eased his way across the mill floor and around to his buhrstone. What choice did I have? I trotted down to the meal floor and located the proper spindle. On the floor directly above my head I heard the wheels of his cart roll up to the vat. I followed his instructions, wrestled with the bar until the wedge dropped free and the stone nut fell into place just as Ewan had described. I stood there a moment staring at what I had done, certain yet at the same time unsure. Ewan’s voice cut short my dithering.

  “Now go around outside and open the sluice.”

  WORD OF EWAN’S RETURN TO WORK SPREAD QUICKLY. The farmers lined up with their wagons loaded with grain, amazed to see him darting around in his contraption. Between the cart and the wife in the mill, there was not a soul within ten miles who could resist the spectacle.

  The men did the best they could to welcome him back. “Ah you’ll soon be back to dancing just as free and jolly as you ever did.” A chuckle all around, a ripple of laughter, a moment of levity meant to bring Ewan into the company of men.

  Ewan turned a cold stare on this farmer and I cringed as the man withered into silence. All of these men had joined the frolic that had raised this building last year; all of them had a drop of sweat in these boards. I wished that I had been blessed with the kind of quick wit that could salvage the situation and put everyone at ease, but quips evaded me. In the icy moment that followed I understood with such clarity the fact that Ewan did not have a single friend. Nor was it likely that he ever would. He had never spoken of a childhood playmate, or play at all for that matter. And he never mentioned men he met or served or worked with or hired except to complain about their shortcomings. I suppose I had never organized my knowledge into this single thought before and his isolation chilled me. More than this, I realized that he understood this isolation as a normal state. I could not stop to consider all the ramifications of this with sacks of oats and wheat piling up by the scales and the kiln fire needing tending, but I would hold it in my mind.

  “I could spare my oldest lad, if your missus has other work to do,” one farmer offered.

  “No more boys,” Ewan said, and wheeled away.

  The men turned back to their own company, laughing and smoking outside the door, safe from Ewan’s glare. I could hear them just beyond the window.

  “I’ll have to get my wife up workin’.”

  “Maybe you could get her in the harness and save yourself a horse.”

  “She already eats like a horse.”

  “Course, you’ll want a horse you can drive and ride both.”

  Great hilarity. Ewan called to me to engage the shelling stone.

  NEEDLESS TO SAY, MY OWN WORK WAS LEFT IN A SHAMBLES. A woman’s work was of no account to Ewan. He was in a blind rush to get down to the mill each day and he was loath to leave it. It was all I could do to wrest an hour at noon to run up the hill to the house and put our dinner together.

  As I look back searching for the turns in the path that led us to our troubles I strive to remember these days in their entirety, to judge the good with the bad. And silver linings did peek out from the clouds. Yes, I was bone weary from running up and down stairs all day and trying to squeeze two days’ work into one. But between the comings and goings I glimpsed the magic in the workings of the mill. The aroma of wheat and oats and barley filled the air with unexpected warmth even when the temperatures dropped. The French buhrstone with its damsel slapped out a perfect and irresistible “Saint Ann’s Reel” which I found myself inadvertently humming from time to time. I loved the tidy order of Ewan’s daybook with its weights and measures and accounts. Although I most decidedly did not appreciate being made a spectacle, I admit to a glimmer of pride. It surprised me to discover what a lady could absorb about cogs and belts and pulleys. But then again, why did I expect such a mystery? Why should a woman’s mind be so different from a man’s? When out from under the gaze of farmers, working alone on the meal floor, I felt the power of the machinery and felt my own strength of mind and body in the running of it.

  THE WEEKS STRETCHED OUT, ONE AFTER ANOTHER. Ewan was almost as anxious to get out of his cart as he had been to get into it. As soon as the doctor could n
o longer guarantee catastrophe if Ewan took up crutches, Ewan summoned Donny Cunningham for the final time and sent him to fetch him some good strong ash wood.

  “Now get out and don’t come back here—I don’t want to see you again,” was all he said to the boy once he made sure the wood would serve his purpose.

  Ewan spent several evenings building his crutches. Before long he was able to shift himself in and out of his cart. Then he could hobble his way across a floor and up or down a step or two. Although Dr. Thomas continued to counsel caution, Ewan finally forced him to admit that the bone could likely withstand a little weight. He traded his crutches for canes. One morning when I was weighing out some barley he made his way down the stairs and engaged a gear. I didn’t see him until he had made it, leaning heavily into the stone foundation wall by the stairs, nearly all the way back up to the main floor. He waved off my help with his cane.

  “Go on up to the house now, I don’t need you. And I’ll want a proper dinner today.”

  This was my thanks. Was I supposed to be grateful for my release?

  “You’re welcome, I’m sure. It was no bother at all.”

  I might as well have been the oat bin for all the notice he took of me standing there with my hands on my hips. I started across the mill after him to demand a civil thanks at least, but the barley’s owner let out a low whistle and cocked his eyebrow. I turned back towards the door. “Oh, weigh your own sacks,” I told him and swatted him out of my way. By the titter that rose behind me as I climbed the hill I knew he had heard me muttering, “I’ll break your other leg, Ewan MacLaughlin.” That’ll make a story to pass around, no doubt.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Are you impatient, Granddaughter? All this talk and still there’s no sign of even your mother? But this is the way of our stories; they start long before we arrive and continue farther down the road than we can ever see. Listen. Waiting is the longest part of making anything. I had married for a home not just a house, but the only warmth I knew came from the fire in the stove. All this time I waited and yearned for a child to love.

  I SOON RELAXED BACK INTO MY OWN ROUTINE. When I pressed Ewan about his leg he admitted to a twinge that buzzed on the impact of each step. He admitted to a heaviness that I suspected came with a persistent ache. His right leg paused in a slight limp but I considered us fortunate to have escaped with only these consequences.

  Every day I looked for happiness in my lambs and calves and chicks, in my new puppy from the Browns’ spring litter, in Abby’s children who swam in the old millpond and regaled me with tales of their adventures. Young Frankie and Peter discovered the treasures of the old millpond and began promising careers as fishermen. I looked up from my garden one afternoon to see them trotting up the lane, smiles as bright as oranges.

  “I caught the big one, Mrs. MacLaughlin!” Peter proclaimed. “Frankie caught the little one. We’re going to catch some for Mama tomorrow but she said we should practise out on you first.”

  “What a fine supper we’ll have tonight! I’d say those hearty specimens would be worth a nickel a piece plus two ginger cookies.”

  “Sold to the pretty lady in the apron,” Frankie said. Already Frankie showed his father’s easygoing nature and quick wit.

  Whenever I had a few moments on a summer’s afternoon I would skip up to Abby’s to see where I could lend a hand. She was expecting child number six in the fall, which made me ache with jealousy in my lonely hours. While in her company, however, she always made me feel as though my own child’s conception was imminent, that we were mothers together. She shared her children with me, even when scolding me for my doting.

  “Now don’t you go wasting your good money giving it to my lads for playing in your pond. Lord knows we owe you strings of fish and more for all you do for the little scamps.” She laughed her silver laugh. “They were racing their nickels on the table after breakfast—rolling them on their edges to see whose is first to the string. I told them they better have those nickels in their fists when it came time to buy their copybooks and pencils in the fall or they’d be drawing in the dust with their fingers.”

  “You know I love to give them little things.”

  “That’s enough though now. You’ll have your own little ones to think of before you know it. I asked them how it was right that you pay them for fish living in your own millpond and Frankie—you know that one’s always smart with an answer—says it’s not for the fish exac’ly, Mama, it’s the carting fee to get them from the brook to the kitchen.”

  COME FALL THE WHIRLWIND OF HARVEST SWEPT UP EVERYONE BUT NO one more than millers. I raced about trying to get the last of the fall chores done before winter set in. I was pleased with the amount of produce I had managed to get to Nettle over the fall, over and above what I put by for ourselves. Our two pigs were slaughtered at last and I was busy with sausage and potage and tending to the ham and bacon in the kiln. I had tallow stored for a batch of soap and then candles to make. The harvest arrived by the wagonload and the mill growled away through every daylight hour.

  “I have to go and see about a mill,” Ewan said as he got up from his supper one night.

  Having been deep in my own thoughts I was more startled by the fact of conversation than the information. “About a mill? How do you mean?”

  “Advice on improvements.”

  “Oh, this is news. Whose mill is this? Did he ask for you?”

  “A man named Peter Gilbert who lives in Curry Point. He needs instruction. He won’t have anyone but me.”

  “Curry Point! That’s so far away. It would take you all day to travel.”

  “Better to improve mills too distant to offer competition, I’d say.”

  “Well yes, I suppose that’s true. I don’t understand, though. How could you do it? You are so busy.”

  “It is my Christian duty.”

  I cocked my head, perplexed. This was a novel interpretation of Christian duty for Ewan. And certainly no answer to my question. “And so you intend to go?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  He stood and headed for the door. He shrugged on his coat as he answered. “Shortly. I’ll stay a fortnight. Investigate the problem. See what can be done. Set him to work on it.”

  “Not in the middle of the harvest, surely!”

  He shut the kitchen door behind him, leaving me to wonder.

  On Sunday, when Ewan was harnessed to the idleness of the Sabbath, he took up the subject as though the conversation had never been interrupted.

  “A child could run that mill,” he said out of the blue, as though this were the final word in a protracted argument.

  I looked up, my mind scrambling to situate the comment. Ewan patted a corner of bread into his broth and brought the morsel carefully to his mouth. “That Curry Point mill?” I asked.

  “Mine! My mill. Weigh the grist and figure their fee or their percentage. Collect what is owed, keep one man’s batch separate from the next, and maintain the quality of the grind. There’s precious little to do—the design being what it is. I ran it lame. I could run it in my sleep.”

  “Ewan, what are you saying?”

  “You’re looking at me like I’m mad but I’m not the foolish one. The foolish notion is that all over the civilized world men are tied up running operations that could be easily managed by women and children. Consequently men are kept from work that could better employ their strength and skills.”

  “What?”

  “Have you gone thick? A man and his wife are one. While I’m away you’ll run my mill.”

  “That’s the most foolish notion I’ve ever heard! I’m a woman, Ewan, which you well know. I have my place and my work here in the house. And I’m no miller.” I laughed. I can hardly remember it but I’m sure I must have. The idea, if I understood him correctly, was ludicrous, of course. “Don’t be so utterly foolish!”

  “Foolish? Now you tell your husband what’s proper? Is that so? What is wise and wh
at is foolish?”

  “It seems I must, yes! If you go, and honestly I don’t see why you would, you can hire a man. Hire the sawyer.”

  “I will not see another man at my work, jabbing and poking at my good mill.”

  “Better a man who knows the mill than me marooned there to poke and jab! This is preposterous! You can’t leave the mill in my hands. Leave it in the hands of someone who knows better. Why would you leave anyway? Here you have your beautiful new mill and you’re running off to tend to someone else’s work. You have all you could want—why leave it? Or if you’re determined to go, then shut your mill for a couple of weeks. Resume work when you return.”

  “Shut a mill in the fall! Now who’s foolish?”

  “There is no place for a woman in a mill! I cannot do it. I will not. I have my work here in the house.”

  His voice turned glacial. “The work you do is running up the road to sit and visit with the layabout neighbours, clucking and laughing and drinking tea. I will not have you defy me. You will do this work and if it pleases God you will be rewarded for it. I will ride over the mountain next Sunday.”

  I opened my mouth but could not form a word.

  “MacCarron’s boy will come to help you shift sacks if you like, although I hardly see it’s necessary. You’re hearty. And the lane’s blocked with farmers from sunup to sunset. They can wield a few sacks of grain, I suppose, between their chatter and resting. That MacCarron boy is a lout but I suppose he can mind a kiln.”