Bittersweet Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #5): A Novel (2 page)

“Good morning, love,” he said, setting down the pails. “You all right this morning?”

“Just fine, Dad.”

“Was it the old nightmare?”

“Yes, but,” she added quickly, “I think they’re not as bad as they used to be. In fact, I’m sure of it. Can you recall the last one? Months ago.”

And Ellie, that lightly, that skillfully, that falsely, dismissed the night’s torment.

Bran’s concern was not so easily appeased. With a shake of his head he went about the task of straining the milk into the separator bowl and, while Ellie took the pails and straining cloth away to wash them, turned the crank, always a satisfying experience and no chore. For many years he and Serena had let the day’s milk sit in flat pans for the cream to rise, then skimmed it by hand. So many years, in fact, that the simple but amazing distribution of the milk through the “wings” of the separator, producing “the smoothest of cream and the bluest of milk,” never failed to be a blessing.

Ellie toyed with her breakfast even though a busy day awaited her, one of the heaviest of the week—ironing day, only a little less wearying than wash day. Even now the heavy garments awaited, having been sprinkled down the evening before, rolled tightly, placed in a basket, and covered. Already Ellie had set two chairs in place, laying across their backs the padded board that was her ironing surface.

Bran studied his daughter’s face, wondering how he would have made it without her, yet regretting that she hadn’t seen fit to marry. Just what he would do in such an instance, Bran had no idea. But he had bached before, and he could bach again.

In all honesty, Bran Bonney didn’t believe he was the reason Ellie remained single long after the age most girls married. And it wasn’t for lack of a suitor. Tom Teasdale, her childhood friend and as dear to her as a man could be, had waited patiently, was waiting patiently. No, Ellie had remained single against her father’s best wishes for her and in spite of Tom’s persuasion.

Looking up and catching her father’s glance, Ellie smiled and said gently, “Don’t look so worried, Papa,”—it was her childhood name for him and never failed to touch his heart—“I’m fine. Fine and ready to get to work. The weather is beginning to warm up, though, and I’ll need to get at the ironing as soon as possible. If you’re finished, I’ll just clear the table—”

Putting action to words, Ellie put the breakfast dishes to soak in a dishpan of hot, soapy water and left them sitting on the back of the kitchen range for a more convenient time. Bran excused himself and, after a hesitant look at his daughter, picked up his old hat and left the house, headed for the fields.

With the slam of the screen door, Ellie placed both hands momentarily to her temples, her eyes closed. Perhaps it was a sigh that lifted from her lips, perhaps a prayer. Years ago Ellie, along with her dear friend Marfa—together in this as in all else—had knelt at the rude “mourner’s bench” one Sunday morning and had, with a short prayer and the required (she thought) few tears, accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. Rather than being the somber experience she had imagined, having watched many a sin-darkened adult go through the same process with considerable regret for a wasted life, it had been a happy time; her heart was lightened with the assurance that she had made her “calling and election sure.” Ever since, prayer had been a mainstay.

Strengthened, Ellie turned to the task at hand. First she took a scrap of old toweling and wrapped it around a brick. With this she commenced polishing the top of the range, a precaution against soot or other dirt transferring to the bottom of the irons and staining the clothes. Then, opening the warming oven, she withdrew the set of irons—rightly called “sad” irons, many a woman thought—and set them on the stove to heat. “No. 1 weighs 4 lbs. and has one end rounded for polishing,” the catalog unflinchingly informed; “No. 2 weighs 5⅛ lbs., No. 3 weighs 5⅜ lbs. The detachable handle is of wood and fits naturally to the hand without straining the arm or wrist.” Oh, if that were a guar
antee! After a long day of ironing, not only did the arm and wrist ache but the shoulder, the back.

Nearby she had laid out a clean sheet, to be placed on the floor beneath the ironing board when long items were ironed. There was no way a housewife was about to rewash and re-iron an item because of careless dragging on a dusty floor.

Placing the sad iron stand on the end of the ironing board, she was ready for business.

When the bottom of an iron sizzled to a damp touch, the heat was just right. But Ellie found she was often wrong in her judgment, scorching an article before she knew it, having to toss it aside to be treated and returned to the laundry. More than once her father, like other husbands and fathers in the community, wore a shirt with a clear imprint of the iron forever branded on his back.

If pressing was needed, Ellie dipped a white cloth in water, wrung it out, and placed it over the garment when ironing; this resulted in a good, firm crease. If she got it right the first time, she considered herself lucky; more than once—when she was learning the fine art of pressing—Bran wore trousers with a lopsided crease. And said nothing. And no one, to her knowledge, had pointed it out.

Dear Dad! Patient and loving always, he must be concerned over her reluctance to marry. Certainly he didn’t understand it when her friends married and children arrived, and she remained single and childless. No doubt he longed for grandchildren. But she couldn’t... it just wasn’t possible.

With the rigid determination she had learned to summon up, Ellie turned her attention to other things. The trouble with ironing—she thought and not for the first time—was that it left the mind free to wander.

Nevertheless, it had to be done. With the iron handle clamped in place on No. 3 (might as well get the heavy things done first), she lifted it, turned it, licked a fingertip and applied it briefly to the hot surface, heard the necessary
zzzzzz
, and turned with determination toward the ironing board and a pair of her father’s bib overalls.

Instantly she was back a dozen years and watching her mother iron bib overalls.

“Mum,” Ellie said, dropping her books and lunch pail on the table and speaking excitedly, “we’ve got a new club!”

“Another one?” her mother asked mildly, well aware of the scope and duration of the last one, unrealistically but imaginatively named “Skull and Crossbones.” For many weeks Skull and Crossbones (the girls had been going through a pirate/treasure-hunting/sword-wielding phase) had been the topic of conversation as Ellie reported its progress—the making of a pennant to fly over the raft the girls cobbled together out of odds and ends, the contriving of insignias to wear pinned to their clothes, the locating of a small box to serve as a chest for their collection of chicken and beef bones. Then ideas had seemed to shrivel and dry up, even as the spring sloughs dried up and rafting was no more, and Skull and Crossbones began to lose its allure.

“What’s the purpose of it?” her mother had asked once when Ellie was fretting about the lack of inspiration for the future of the club. Ellie, not being a bit certain by this time, had taken the subject to the girls.

Marfa, Vonnie, and Flossy had also been at a loss to define its reason for being. Aside from the now defunct pennant and the motley assemblage of bones that they laid out solemnly in crossed position from time to time, it had no connection faintly piratical. Mainly, it seemed, it was a bond to tie the four together and to make them the envy of lesser mortals who could in no way attain to membership—a “gang of four” they were, and a gang of four they would remain, no matter who hinted, even begged, for admittance. And although the girls had clung to the rather pointless Skull and Crossbones long after its uselessness was established, it had eventually died for lack of purpose. “Childish” they called it, and they discarded it and moved on to bigger and better ideas.

“And what’s the name of this new one?” Serena asked concerning the proposed club and wrestling the heavy garment into position to iron the bib itself.

“I... that is, we haven’t decided yet,” Ellie said, reaching for the bread and jam and glass of milk her mother had set out for her.

“And the president of this one?”

“Well,” Ellie said a little uncomfortably, having been the president of every undertaking thus far, “we haven’t picked her yet. In fact, we haven’t had our first meeting. Marfa and I did the planning and have written notes to the others; we couldn’t talk in front of all the other kids. We’re going to meet Sunday afternoon and make the final plans, prob’ly pick the name for the club, prob’ly pick the president.”

“I see. Well, Sunday afternoon should be all right.”

Ellie finished her snack and went to change her clothes, her mind busily engaged in the possibilities of the new club.

Such an innocent beginning for something that was to change one small girl’s life forever.

Twelve years later, bent over the ironing board and her father’s bib overalls and recalling that day clearly, Ellie’s forehead beaded with perspiration. A perspiration not caused by the heat from the No. 3 iron.

M
iss Wharton, seated at her desk in the front of the schoolroom, glanced behind and up, checking the clock once again. As always, the face of the “Drop Octagonal” stared implacably ahead, unrelentingly ticking away the minutes of the day.