Back Roads to Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #6): A Novel (28 page)

The makeshift sleeping arrangements were the cause of much grunting and groaning, shifting and complaining from time to time all through the night. Two children, somewhere, fell out of the overhead trays, to fill the night air with shrieks and howls. Babies wailed, women plodded to the stove or the cistern. Somewhere, muffled by its mother’s efforts to silence it,
a child coughed the night hours away. In spite of it all, people slept. Worn by the day’s stressful inactivity and wearied by the anticipation of another such day ahead, they slept.

The morning brought great stirrings, much shifting of supplies, and dogged preparations for another meal. Allison, no doubt inspired by the selfless service of the unnamed man of the day before, offered to hold the baby while Sylvie took her turn at the stove, preparing sausages to go with the drying bread from her basket. Nothing would do but that Allison must share the simple meal, which she did with gratitude, for no peddler had made an appearance, and no stops of any account had been made.

She was caught unawares when, without warning, her heart lurched. A lurch caused not by the rough tossing of the car but by catching sight of yesterday’s man, once again making an appearance, walking down the aisle. For a moment she thought he was heading directly to her; to her thudding heart was added a quickened breath.

“Good morning!” he called cheerily, going past her to the ailing woman in the next section. Allison was disappointed.

“How are you this morning?” he asked her neighbors, and he spent a few moments listening, a few more moments encouraging. Then he proceeded along the car, being greeted by numerous voices as he went, stopping occasionally to make an inquiry, to touch a hand, to ruffle a child’s head. Everywhere he was greeted with smiles, albeit some wan and all weary.

He had made a difference. In one day he had made a difference. Into Allison’s mind flashed a thought of the remittance men and their self-absorption along with the guilty realization that she was, after all, such a one—a remittance girl. Or so she had been labeled, first by Theodora, then by Binky and his friends. Now it all seemed so useless, so selfish, so
wrong
.

Later, coming from the small, crowded, odorous room allotted to women and their needs, she came face-to-face with him again. And could do no less than smile, even as others had been doing. With little to smile about, she could only smile into the
face that some, less observant, would casually call handsome but that she knew was much, much more.

There, swaying in the aisle, surrounded by confusion, they paused a moment while he inquired about her burn. Allison assured him it was fine.

“You’re traveling alone, aren’t you?” he said. “I don’t believe you are part of the little family in your section. Will you be meeting someone? I mean—is there someone special waiting for you up the line somewhere?”

“Friends,” Allison explained. “I’m meeting friends.” Strange, but she had a feeling that, given time and opportunity, this man, this stranger, would be a kindred spirit, perhaps knowing the Lord, for surely his actions indicated this.

“I don’t know your name,” she said, turning to go to her seat and feeling that a rare treasure, a once-in-a-lifetime acquaintance, was slipping away from her. “I watched you all day, I had tea with you, and I don’t even know your name.”

“You may not believe it,” he said with another of his wry grins, “but my mother actually named me Ebenezer—”

Allison had only a moment to glimpse the startled face of the young man Ebenezer as the train’s brakes shrieked and the train did its best to grind to a halt, a moment while everyone was frozen in position. And then—as the train jerked to a stop—all fury broke loose. People were tossed into the air, into the aisle, on top of one another . . . screaming.

Overhead, the trays disgorged their contents like a volcano spewing forth its lava. Tumbling, falling, bouncing—a wooden case fell with particular force onto Allison’s head. Fainting, falling, she heard her voice, like a distant whisper:
Ebenezer
 . . .

I
t was the church board’s final meeting before the arrival of Ben Brown.

He couldn’t rightly be called Reverend because he wasn’t ordained, having been a student until now. Perhaps, being young, he would feel the necessity of a formal title—like “Pastor,” certainly “Mr.”—to give him a sense of his position in the community. Perhaps, being young, he would settle for the casual “Ben.” “Brother Brown” was what most people would call him.

“Tomorrow,” Angus reminded the board unnecessarily now, “is the day of his arrival.”

No one had forgotten; they had the date marked on their calendars—it was liberation day for them. It was a day setting them free of the onerous task of preaching. But to admit this was another matter.

“Well, pshaw,” Brother Dinwoody said offhandedly, “I’ll have to put away the message I was working on. It was coming along well, too—”

“What is this one about, Brother?” Herkimer asked, gravely innocent. “Now that you’ve brought down the topknots of the district.”

Brother Dinwoody spluttered but refused to be baited. Rather, with a fine and unusual dignity and a rare flash of wisdom, he counterattacked, “I’m thinking about ‘Be ye kind one to another.’”

“Good choice,” Angus interjected quickly, calming the troubled waters.

Brother Dinwoody, poor man, would never live down his one and only sermon. Although his wife seemed to have forgiven him and allowed him back into her good graces, she seemed devoted to the new hairdo. It was like a burr under a saddle blanket to her husband, who was thus constantly reminded of his inglorious attempt at preaching, an attempt that had given him the exact opposite results of those he had hoped for.

“Perhaps this Ben Brown fella will be sick some Sunday and need a fill-in,” Herkimer, the rascal, who loved to tease, offered. “If I was you, Brother, I’d go ahead and get the sermon ready.”

“Brethren,” Angus broke in, “we are here to see if there are any last-minute details to be taken care of before the new man’s arrival.”

“The parsonage is finished—”

“But did the linoleum get laid?”

“Yep. Linoleum laid, firewood stacked—”

“But is there an axe?”

“In the shed.”

“Food?”

“The ladies are set to stock the cupboards in the morning—fresh milk, bread, butter, and so on.”

And thus it went, until someone asked, “Who’s going to meet the train? You, Angus?”

“I thought I would,” Angus said.

“Aren’t you too busy for that?” Bly Condon asked.

And Brother Dinwoody saw his chance. “We’re all too busy,” he interjected firmly. “All us men, anyway. But,” this is where he got devious, “how about one of the women doing it? They could easily take the day to go to P.A. to meet the train. Say!”—an amazing solution seemed to present itself—“I’ll bet Eliza would do it!”

Eliza Dinwoody, Brother Dinwoody’s oldest daughter, was turning seventeen, a marriageable age. She was a pretty girl, and the young swains of the district were gathering around like mosquitoes to an exposed ankle. Brother Dinwoody, desperate at the invasion, was of a mind to solve the problem himself. And who better, more trustworthy, than a man of God?

Angus, Bly, Herkimer—all turned reproachful eyes on Brother Dinwoody. After all, their gazes said, this is the Lord’s work and serious business.

Brother Dinwoody, with a sigh, gave in and gave up, and proceedings went on as though they had not heard his solution. Eliza Dinwoody indeed! A minx if there ever was one, as they all knew. She’d find a husband, they were convinced, without the help of anyone, her father in particular.

But it showed how certain members of the district, fathers included, were scheming, planning, working—a new, single man was a challenge. The supply of bachelors far exceeded the demand, and unmarried females could afford to be choosy. It was rather like the bees’ courtship, some thought: A vast number of suitors for the queen bee’s attention were disdained, rejected, refused, and her favors were granted to one and one only, but the one of her choice. The women of the Territories—widows and singles alike—often had numerous proposals before making up their mind, before settling on the one of their choice.

“I need some parts for the mower,” Angus said now, “and so I don’t mind taking the time off. It may take most of the day, for who knows whether the train will be on time or not. Probably not.” “You’ll be lucky just to have it come in on the right day, if you ask me,” Bly said, knowing well how undependable the
train could be and usually was. But they all remembered the days not too long ago before the railroad reached them and the isolation they had felt. The train track was a slim thread of contact with another world. Schedules were kept much better in summer than in winter, when sometimes for days, even weeks, trains couldn’t get through. Still, even in summer anything could happen—a log across the tracks, collision with wild animals, torn-up tracks, surprising snowstorms.

“What’s the word from Parker and Molly?” someone asked, having discussed Ben Brown “until the cows come home,” as Herkimer put it, weary of the subject and having “milked” (Hahahaha—Herkimer again) it to death. Angus reported that things were going well for his daughter and her new husband; they had settled in with Parker’s mother and sister and were getting certain things accomplished.

“Parker is having opportunities to preach from time to time,” he said, “and that pleases him.”

“When you write,” Brother Dinwoody said with a mix of anxiety and pride, “do you report on the services here . . . the, uh, the sermons, for instance?”

“I do,” Angus replied. “Or Mary does. Between us we keep them informed of how things are going.”

“Does Parker, uh, ever ask for sermon notes?” Brother Dinwoody continued with an innocent face. The further removed he was from the cataclysmic day of his preaching, the more time pulled a blanket over the sorry aspects and magnified the good, such as a picture of himself standing boldly before a congregation, expounding the Word of God. A high and holy calling, and he had attained to it—once. He was convinced now that there were certain redeeming features to the discourse; perhaps Parker Jones would benefit from them. And Molly—Molly’s hair was often left free; the modest bun, suggested delicately, was certainly appropriate for a minister’s wife. His sermon might yet bear fruit.

“Not yet,” Angus replied with a straight face, “but you must remember mail takes a long time going and coming. I’d hang on to those notes, if I were you.”

Mollified, Brother Dinwoody headed for home.
It’s funny
, he thought,
how things have a way of turning out all right, if you just wait
. He suspected he could feel another sermon coming on. Perhaps something about “let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap.” One thing he knew for certain—there’d be no more mention of women’s hairstyles.

As it turned out, Angus was not the only member of the welcoming committee. Several families of the Bliss congregation were represented the following day, few men among them, it’s true.

When at last the train, much overdue, chuffed its way into Prince Albert, scattering cinders far and wide, shrieking its welcome to the skies, shooting steam in great gusts, the crowd on the platform—many of them having come just to marvel at this amazing example of modern inventions—included a dozen or more Bliss people, eagerly waiting, anticipating; they had been a long time without a pastor. Ben Brown might look like a gargoyle and waddle like a duck, but they would be happy to see him.

As it was, framed in the door of the car, awaiting his turn to step down, was a fine-looking, clean-cut, upstanding young man. Sturdy of build, one had the impression that he may have outgrown his clothes all his life. Nevertheless, his suit fit him fairly well, though it was considerably wrinkled. His shirt collar was rumpled, his narrow tie awry. His hair, obviously just wet, had been slicked into place. And not a mother in the group but what had her heart go out to him and longed to launder his clothes, iron his shirt, feed him.

His eyes—curiously taking in everything, from the wide, stretching sky to the raw settlement rapidly becoming a full-fledged town—settled on the eager faces lifted toward him, and his square face broke into a smile. Recognizing that they were there to greet him (the rapt gazes were fixed on him), he lifted a hand in greeting.