Back Roads to Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #6): A Novel (32 page)

“Tonight?” the pastor repeated slowly, and Victoria nodded, again nudging her sister, whose expression never changed but remained cool and distant; clearly she was not happy with the situation.

“Tonight,” Ben Brown explained with relief, “I have an invitation to eat with the Condons. Thank your father for me. And your mother,” he added hastily.

“Eliza—” Victoria spoke crossly now, obviously tired of the responsibility of talking to their new preacher.

Eliza Dinwoody turned large, violet eyes on him, and with a look that could only be interpreted as reluctant, asked, “Tomorrow then?”

“Tomorrow,” Ben stumbled, having no ready excuse. “Tomorrow will be fine.”

The girls turned as one, stepped off the porch, and marched toward the road.

“Eliza!” On an impulse Ben called after them; they paused and the older girl turned. Raising his voice a little, Ben asked, “Would you mind coming back for a moment, Eliza?”

With only a brief hesitation the young woman walked woodenly back to him. Victoria stayed where she was as she supposed she should.

Ben Brown stifled a smile at Eliza Dinwoody’s coldness; laughter would not be the best medicine at the moment.

“Eliza—” Ben said, looking at the closed expression, the tightened lips; here was one female who wasn’t interested in the new pastor as husband material.

“Well?” she asked shortly.

“Would you rather I didn’t come?” he asked.

The girl’s face flamed. She was embarrassed; she was, possibly, ashamed.

“I won’t, you know, if you’d rather I didn’t,” Ben said kindly. “There’s no reason for me to come. No reason. None at all,” he repeated.

Eliza raised her eyes to his. “It’s Lars, you see,” she muttered, tears very near the surface, held back by anger. “It’s because of Lars Jurgenson.”

And it was enough; her meaning was clear.

“Lars,” Ben repeated, searching his memory and coming up with a picture of an energetic, rollicking sort of young man, blond, blue-eyed, full of life and laughter. “I see. And does Lars feel about you as you do about him?”

“Yes. But Papa; Papa—”

“I’m sure,” Ben explained, “he believes he has your good at heart.”

“I know that; he just cares too much! I’m old enough to make up my own mind! But Papa . . . Papa just drives me crazy! He’d make all my . . . our . . . decisions for us, if we’d let him. Fusspot!”

Ben threw back his head and laughed at her description of the fussy little man he knew as Brother Dinwoody. Eliza’s threatened tears disappeared as she joined in.

“Perhaps,” the pastor suggested at last, “when he finds out I’m not a possibility, he’ll be willing to settle for Lars.”

“Oh, thank you!” the girl breathed, her relief obvious. “And, and do come, Brother Brown. Do come tomorrow. I think,” she said with an open face and true smile at last, “I’ll enjoy it. Really enjoy it.”

“It’s settled then.”

“Settled,” she affirmed and walked to join her sister with a lightened step and, no doubt, a lightened heart.

Abandoning the sermon on visiting and having fellowship, Ben, new at sermonizing and searching his textbooks and theological tomes for another topic, settled on “Hypocrisies and Encouragements,” Paul’s warning to his disciples about the Pharisees. And wondered why, when Sunday morning came and he read his text, a ripple stirred through the congregation.
And why Brother Dinwoody sank in his seat until only the top of his thinning hair showed.

“Whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear . . . shall be proclaimed upon the housetops” (Luke 12:3).

I
t’s beautiful . . . so green! The birds! The sky!” Allison was captivated by the bush after the long and barren trek through the prairie. “And it’s full of berries, I suppose—”

“There are berries,” Angus confirmed, seeing through her eyes the beauty of the bush as he did at the first, before its crushing workload settled on him, never to leave nor lighten. “Berries of one sort or another during the spring and summer, hazelnuts in the fall. But it’s the poplars we benefit from the most, I suppose—logs for building, wood for burning. What we clear from our land goes right back into the homestead one way or another. But,” he said, knowing full well from experience, “we’re talking about the good weather. Winter is another matter. These friends of yours, the Abrahams, will be working night and day to be ready for it.”

“I can help,” Allison said, but without the conviction she would have liked. Help—when her lily-white hands had never so much as washed a dish? Help—when her gardening experience had been limited to snipping flowers for the house?

Help—when her garments had been whisked away as soon as she disrobed, to be hung up by another, or washed, dried, and ironed before she saw them again, and all without any effort on her part? Help—when she had never so much as scrubbed a potato in her life, let alone boil it or mash it or cream it or scallop it or whatever else they do with potatoes?

“I’m terribly ignorant, I’m afraid,” she admitted in a small voice. Playing the piano a little, singing a little, playing cards, serving tea—these graces seemed the most inconsequential of achievements when compared with milking cows, churning butter, baking bread, canning.

“But you’re young, and you’re healthy!” Angus said. “And you can learn. Many of us have had to do that; many of us are still doing that. That cream I left back there—I had never in my life collected cream, nor had I ever imagined living from its proceeds until the crop, good or bad, was harvested. We do what we have to do to survive; it becomes the source of our happiness, yielding enormous satisfaction. We learn to enjoy the little things—the first crocus in the spring, a new calf, fresh bread from our own grist, sunsets more glorious than any canvas in a king’s palace—all for free.”

Angus, in his rich Scot’s burr, spoke eloquently and even passionately.

Allison recognized that here was a man of quality, probably well educated, yet a man who had forsaken everything he had known for the uncertain success of a Canadian homestead.

“These friends of yours,” Angus said, “may be happy to have an extra pair of hands. You dinna know where their homestead is located, I take it.”

“No,” Allison admitted. “They just called out to me as they were leaving, separated from me by the crowd and the noise, and spoke the word ‘Bliss.’ We’ll be in Bliss, my friend said, and though at first I thought she was describing her happiness, I knew it was a real place when she added that it was in Saskatchewan. Her last words urged me to keep in touch. I felt she really cared . . .”

Allison’s voice trailed off. This fine man, this gentleman, knew nothing of her remittance girl status and would not. Born again, the child of the King, starting over in all ways, still Allison found herself ashamed of the remittance girl status.

She hadn’t been in Canada long when she realized that many people strongly disliked remittance men. Educated but fit for nothing; ignorant of clearing land and farming, engaged in nothing productive, they were held in contempt. Having money and spending it foolishly when other immigrants lived on porridge and rabbits, they were envied even as they were despised. Staying to themselves, not taking part in Canadian society, they were unpopular. Their foolish behavior made them the butt of jokes; their uselessness was sneered at.

The fact that their culture would eventually have some good effect on the raw land was not yet foreseen. The fact that a few of them would forsake hunting and fishing and idleness for ranching and farming or other lucrative work had not yet become obvious. No, remittance men . . . and a remittance girl if there happened to be such a sorry creature . . . were not people to admire.

She realized that Angus Morrison and others, as she came to know them, would wonder what she, a girl and unchaperoned, was doing in the backwoods of Canada. A full explanation would be due Georgina and David; others would have to wonder. She could not, would not, admit to being a member of that graceless and feckless group—the remittance outcasts.

If Angus wondered about her hesitation to explain further, he said nothing. The West held many secrets, some better left that way.

Angus made the wise decision to ask about the Abrahams at the Bliss store. The general store supplied more than sugar and tea, nails and whitewash. It was the headquarters for news, the center for information both told and heard. It was as good as, or better than, a daily newspaper, some declared. No one wanted to drive ten miles to the store and ten miles back home and not have tidbits to share around the supper table with a
family starved in more ways than one. Who in the district, for instance, had given up and moved away; who had been born; who had died or was likely to; who had married or was getting ready to, and much more.

And sure enough, the storekeeper, who was also the postmaster, knew exactly where the Abrahams had located.

“They’ve taken over the Mikovic place,” he said in response to Angus’s inquiry. “And you know where that is . . . just beyond Big Tiny’s.”

The Mikovic story had been a sad one, Angus told Allison as they moved on. “They were not prepared for the hardships,” he said. “Not by any means. For one thing, they settled for living in a dugout—”

“Dugout?”

“Just a room scooped out of the side of a hill, dirt on three sides, logs or lumber across the front, and in this instance, not a single window in it. They were absolutely without funds when they arrived, but even so, they might have made it if they’d had a decent place to live. Winter in that dugout must have been like living in a rabbit hole. Mrs. Mikovic, I’m told, went mad. Raving mad. And who can blame her. We blame ourselves, in a way. Mary and I could have taken them in, made room for them until spring, if we’d known. But Mr. Mikovic put his wife on a sled and pulled out in a snowstorm, he was that desperate. We never heard,” Angus said, shaking his head, “if they made it. At any rate, they lost the place.”

In spite of the warmth of the day, Allison shivered. The beauty of the bush—it was deceptive. The dream—how quickly it could become a nightmare.

“Mary will be wondering where I am,” Angus said, “and it’s just aboot chore time. Would you consider staying the night with us, lass, and going on in the morning?”

And when Allison saw the snug home and met the gracious Mary and the sweet grandmother, Mam, who lived with them, her hesitation faded and she accepted the invitation happily. The supper was wholesome, the bath welcome, the bed
comfortable. Allison sank into it and into sleep as though settling into sheer bliss. Small amenities, small blessings, loomed large in the bush.

It was Mary, after all, who took Allison the remainder of the way in the morning; Angus, having been away one day, was pressured by the work awaiting his attention. Allison thanked him warmly for his care of her and his goodness.

“I don’t know what I would have done,” she said. “You made it into a pleasant experience. It was the first day I haven’t been anxious for a long, long time. I think my heavenly Father had it planned—that you’d be there to help me. Do you believe in things like that?”

She knew he did when, at the close of the morning meal, Angus bowed his head and prayed. It was the prayer of someone on intimate terms with his God.

Strengthened, body and soul, Allison climbed into the buggy with Mary and drove off through the dewy morning down narrow roads through pressing greenery, serenaded by choirs of birds. Passing an occasional cabin or house where someone pulled back a curtain and waved, they jogged along, talking comfortably together, until they pulled into a small opening in the bush, and Mary said, “This, I believe, is the Mikovic place, or was.”

The first thing Allison noticed was the smoke lifting from a stovepipe that seemed to be set directly into the hillside. The dugout.

I
f Allison had entertained any doubts about her welcome, they were laid to rest in those first few minutes.

As a dog barked a friendly greeting and the buggy creaked to a halt, a woman . . . girl . . . stepped from the dugout. At first Allison was unable to see the girl’s face because she was bending her head to accommodate the low doorway, but as she raised it, Allison recognized her—Georgina!