Back Roads to Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #6): A Novel (34 page)

“The smiler. The smiling servant. Would that be a good way to describe him?”

Allison’s face lit up. “Perfect!” she said. “He served and did it with a smile. I can’t help but wonder—did he know the Lord? I think so; I can’t help but think so. Well,” she said regretfully, “I may never know.” And she added, because her armor had fallen and she was truly among friends, “Though I’ve prayed . . .”

“His name, Allie? Do you remember his name?”

“Even in the worst moments, in the dark and dizzy places, I remembered his name. Oh, yes, I remember his name—“Ebenezer.”

That night, before they went to sleep and while the light of the long northern evening lingered, David read, at Georgina’s request: “Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the L
ORD
delighteth in thee” (Isa. 62:4).

A
lthough she refrained from saying so, Allison was taken aback by the size of the proposed log house. The small size.

But David explained, as he showed her the area marked out with the prepared logs lying nearby: “It’s small for good reason. First, because of the logs already cut by Stanislas Mikovic; second, because of the heating problem—a big house demands more heaters and more wood, not an insignificant consideration. A small house is so much easier to keep warm.”

“And third,” Georgina said, “we don’t have furnishings for a large house. As it is, we’ll have to make do.”

Make do. It was a term they all came to know and use. You made do when the butter ran out; bacon grease, or even cocoa thinned with a little milk, could be spread on bread. You made do when bread ran out and there was no more yeast; you made bannock. You made do when there were no clothespins; you spread the washing over the grass and low bushes. You made do when you didn’t own a churn; you put the cream in a sealer or canning jar
and shook it—no matter how long it took or how weary the arms became—until butter formed. You made do when you ran out of tea and there wasn’t money for more—boiling water, poured into teacups with milk and sugar added to taste, gave you “Tea Kettle Tea.” That is, if you had milk and sugar. If the teakettle bottom was blackened from sitting over the fire, you made do by taking it to the edge of the garden or plowed ground and turning it around and around until the earth scoured off the soot.

Standing beside the hole that David had scooped out, Allison looked down and imagined lowering herself into it, no doubt holding a lamp aloft with one hand and gripping a ladder with the other; she thought she’d feel like a gopher. Such a small hole, to hold supplies for a year or until the garden produced once again.

“There will be bins for the garden stuff,” David explained, pointing here and there, “and shelves along the wall to hold the canning Georgie will do—”

Georgie took a deep breath and squared her shoulders in a gesture of pure bravado.

“I’ll help,” Allison said. “I plan to make other living arrangements for myself, but not too far away—probably in Prince Albert.”

“Oh, Allie,” Georgina answered, startled, “why in the world would you do that? You’ve just got here—”

“There will be a good boardinghouse in Prince Albert, I’m sure,” Allison said as positively as possible. “I’ll get along very well until money from home starts arriving. The first thing I must do is write my father. He has no idea where I am or where to send the . . . the remittance.”

She used the word reluctantly, even to Georgina, to whom she had made an explanation of sorts on the ship.

“That’s all behind you now,” Georgie said. “This is a new beginning for you as it is for me, for David, for most everyone here.”

“Yes, I know,” Allison said. “That is, I know it with my head—”

“But you still feel . . . how do you feel, Allie?”

“Sorry, embarrassed, ashamed.”

“As far as the east is from the west—listen to what the Bible says—so far has God removed our transgressions from us. That’s good news, Allie, good news!”

“Yes, good news.” Still, her foolish waywardness lay like an icicle in her heart.

“As for moving to P.A.—Allie, we want you to stay with us. Please stay here, at least this first winter!”

Allie blinked at the urgency in her friend’s voice.

“You see, Allie,” David put in, “I’m going to have to find work for the winter. We can’t live all winter on our small supply of money and have any left over for seed and things like that in the spring. I hope I’ll find work in P.A., perhaps at the grist mill or lumber mill, in which case I’ll get home from time to time. But I’ll not be the only man needing winter work, and I may end up going north to the woods. And that’ll leave Georgie alone here for weeks at a time. We’ve yet to spend a winter here, but we’ve heard how hard it is, how cold, how long. The thought of Georgie being alone, facing everything alone, is more than I can bear. And yet we haven’t known how to solve it. Until now, that is.”

“And the house,” Georgina said, “small though it may be, will have one end divided into bedrooms—one for us, one for you. So say you’ll stay, Allie. Say you’ll stay!”

Georgina’s plea was difficult to resist. Especially when she added, “Perhaps that’s one reason the Lord sent you to us—we need you!”

Never having been needed in her life, Allison was powerfully moved. Besides, she really had no other place to go, nothing to do, no one else to care.

“It sounds like a good solution for all of us, put that way,” she said. “So let’s think and pray about it.” She knew her funds, once they began arriving, would be a tremendous help as she found ways to apply them on the homestead. Never in her life had she appreciated money; never had she been concerned about it or the lack of it.

Allison turned from the hole in the ground—cellar and storage place for their winter food—and felt an excitement, an expectation of things to come, things to overcome.

“I’ll go write my father,” she said, turning away. “If you could let me have some paper?”

“And we’ll get it to the post office and do a little shopping at the same time. Oh, Allie,” Georgina said, changing the subject, “it’s such an experience, shopping in Bliss’s one store. It seems like a treasure trove when you need everything. I love browsing, dreaming of the things we’ll get when we can. And when I make my purchases I pick and choose as though I were deciding between diamonds and rubies. Never have I been so careful, so selective. So thrifty! If red beans are cheaper than white beans, we eat red beans. And when it comes to buying flour, I get the hundred-pound sack and make sure it has the pattern I want so that eventually I’ll have enough material to make something. It’ll seem like getting something for nothing! We’ll really feel like pioneers, Allie, when we wear flour-sack dresses.”

Rather than being dismayed at the prospect, Allie found herself anticipating the new experiences, the simpler garb. Her own garments, removed from the trunk and shaken out, seemed pitifully inadequate for the tasks at hand. Hoeing in the garden, she hiked up a dress of french chelsea; kneading dough, she shoved up cuffs of foulard percale; a silk moire skirt, gathered up in her hands, served as a basket for eggs.

Her Creme Riviere, a “healing, cooling and penetrating ameliorative cleanser of the skin,” and her Poudre Merveilleux, “this preparation gives the nails a splendid, lustrous and rosy appearance, which enhances so greatly the charms of a lovely and beautiful hand,” were powerless to help her now. She got dusty and bathed in a zinc washtub; she got mosquito-bitten and uselessly dabbed on soda; she got sunburnt and applied kerosene.

Because of the sunburn, Allison decided against going to church, reluctant to meet the people of the district for the first time with a flaming nose.

It had been a week of firsts: first dishwashing, first baking, first chicken plucking, first bean stringing, first jelly making.

“I’ll take the day to rest,” she pronounced, “and recuperate. There’ll be a busy week ahead, I’m sure. I’ll try and use a little sense and protect myself from the sun. That way, I’ll be fit to be seen next Sunday.”

Georgina and David were anxious to go, eager to worship, looking forward to meeting their new friends. “And what’s more,” Georgina said, “David is hoping to approach the men of the church about raising the house.”

“How exciting! I’ll look forward to hearing all about it when you get home!” Allison said as she watched the wagon trundle off happily enough; there would be plenty of time for getting acquainted. She admitted to herself that she was showing unusual signs of reticence; she hesitated to think of it as shyness. Probably—she thought honestly—it was a reluctance to sit among blood-bought, born-again, heaven-bound people, contemplating her own unworthiness. A remittance girl! What would people think of her if they knew?

Allison squirmed uncomfortably. She knew she was forgiven; she didn’t doubt it. But her humiliation at being thrust from home and hearth was profound. It was something she’d have to deal with, sooner or later.

It was a good time to wash her hair—she decided, turning her thoughts deliberately to other things—to sit in the sun and let it dry, to comb it and twist it and fasten it up.

Studying her shining head and her shinier nose in the mirror, she gaped at herself and hardly recognized the sunburnt face as the Allison Middleton—well-coifed, smooth-featured, self-assured—of a couple of months ago.

“If Mama could see me now—” she thought and almost shuddered for her poor mother’s sake.

She managed to feed the range and keep the fire going, burning herself only once, which she counted an accomplishment. She managed to pull up the pail from the cold depths of the well, a well dug and lined by the absent Stanislas Mikovic,
without tipping the bucket and losing the contents. She managed to combine the remains of last night’s supper—a roast and potatoes and carrots—into a savory stew.

She managed, without any trouble at all, to burn it.

And didn’t know it until Georgina and David were home, their clothes changed, and the three of them were sitting at the table in the shade of the poplar. Allison proudly filled three plates. Her first clue to the disaster was the grimace, quickly hidden, on David’s face, and the warning signal flashed to him by Georgina, who, undaunted, took a bite and chewed valorously.

Tasting the concoction gingerly, and with difficulty swallowing it rather than spitting it out in disgust, Allison raised tragic eyes to her friends, to be met by their bursts of laughter.

“Don’t look so miserable!” Georgina said. “It isn’t a tragedy of major proportions!”

But to Allison, who knew the state of the cupboard, it seemed so. What else was there among the skimpy supplies that could be fixed quickly and easily—porridge took a long time; chickens took forever to chase down, butcher, pluck, and . . .

“We have plenty of bread,” Georgina continued, “so we’ll splurge and have bread and syrup. It’ll be a treat.”

Poor David, kind David. He gallantly ate most of a loaf of Georgina’s good white bread, which was dripping with Rogers’ Golden Syrup and accompanied by massive cups of tea, and declared himself “full as a tick” and just as happy.

Later, indulging in the ritual of the Sunday afternoon nap and realizing for the first time in her life how blessed it was, how necessary, how satisfying, Allison wisely counted the stew fiasco another learning experience and closed her eyes with a genuine feeling of satisfaction for a week’s work accomplished.

At the table, David had announced that arrangements had been made: The men of the Bliss church would show up Tuesday for a log-raising bee.