Bittersweet Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #5): A Novel (28 page)

I
n wagon after wagon, buggy after buggy, they came. No matter that the day had a hundred other things—important things, life-changing and life-preserving things—to do, they came.

One after another they pulled into the Bonney yard, eventually filling it and overflowing onto the road itself. From each rig sober, Sunday-dressed people climbed to make their way gravely toward the yard in back of the house, some of them with flowers from gardens or garnered by the roadside to set in Mason jars as humble love offerings to the departed man and his grieving daughter. Here, on sawhorses—not far from the house he had built on one side, the barns he had erected on the other—had been placed the handmade coffin containing the final remains of Brandon Bonney, neighbor and friend. A fitting epitaph, more than one person thought somberly, would have been, “Worked himself to death.”

Around the makeshift bier had been placed the home’s few chairs. Boards laid over kegs and crates made additional seats,
and here the elderly and the ailing were placed. Behind them, standing and pressing close—the remainder of Bliss’s people.

Sitting up front—the one and only remaining member of the Bonney family—daughter Ellie. If there were other relatives, they were too far away to have received word of Brandon’s death, let alone make the trek west for the occasion of his burial. Funerals were conducted with dispatch in the summer. And still it was better, many vowed—having lived through a winter death—than placing your loved one in cold and lonely isolation in a barn or granary to await the spring thaw when the ground would yield reluctantly to the shovel. Better a hasty burial than the torment of long months of waiting.

At Ellie’s side and, at times, gripping her hand, her friend Marfa. If there were those who wondered why Vonnie, another member of their well-remembered “gang,” was not with them, they didn’t wonder for long. In the back of the crowd, standing close together—Vonnie and Tom Teasdale. Tom’s face, in the bright morning sun, showed white through the summer tan. Difficult as it may have been to come, there was no way to ignore the funeral of a man who had been close to him across the years, and Tom, grimly perhaps, came to show his respect. Why Vonnie, in this hour of her friend’s grief, had not chosen to be by her side was a troubling question in the minds of some, plainly understood by others. Vonnie, everyone knew, could be dependable and sympathetic at one time, coldly uncaring at another.

Parker Jones, pastor to this group of people who were isolated by their own choice, dying far, far from home and family, drew the little band together for one more farewell.

But Brandon Bonney—overworked, under-paid, worn out too young—was not to go in defeat. Rather, triumphantly, the overcomer rather than the overcome, the victor rather than the victim. “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7), the pastor read.

“And that,” Parker Jones said sincerely, “says it all.”

Still, he enlarged on the good fight that Brandon Bonney, and all of them, had been and were still engaged in. He confirmed the
way in which the departed one had been committed to his faith. He rejoiced in the comfort of “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day” (v. 8).

“‘... and not to me only,’” the minister concluded with such confidence that those listening—the bent, the broken, the struggling, the deprived of this world’s goods—felt a surge of gladness as an amen rose in their spirits, “‘but unto all them also that love his appearing.’” Such comfort! And how good to be reminded of it. There would be a day when the final harvest would be in. And God, being faithful, as He always has been and always will be, would gather the precious sheaves to Himself. It was their confidence and their hope.

There was the long and cheerless ride to the cemetery, the dusty line extending half a mile as, one after the other, worn and weary rigs followed the wagon, a rude catafalque bearing the coffin and the final remains of Bran Bonney.

There was the committal as the coffin was lowered into place; Brandon and Serena would lie side by side once more.

There was the ride, less dismal this time, back to the Bonney home where kind neighbors had a generous repast ready for the mourners. There were the final hugs and assurances of prayer—“Just let me know how I can help.” There were the final tears.

And then Ellie was alone.

Before the silence in the house became unbearable, Ellie grimly and steadfastly changed her clothes, donning work gear. The silence in the barn was no better. Desperately Ellie set about the chores.

When at last, weary to the bone and emotionally exhausted, she pulled the covers over her head and went to sleep, it was only to plunge into the nightmare. As often as she had experienced it, the fear and horror hadn’t abated over the years; the sound of the fire and the sight of the flames were as vivid as the first time it happened, the struggle to waken just as convulsive. But this time, there were no loving arms to go around her, no soothing voice calling her from the nightmare’s chilling grip to blessed release.

Papa!... Papa!... Father!... Heavenly Father
.

Though the arms of the one were denied her, the everlasting arms were faithful. In them she sobbed out her fear, her heartbreak, her anguish, her loneliness, and found herself not alone after all, not helpless, and not hopeless.

The wedding of Tom Teasdale and Vonnie Whinnery took place as scheduled. Because of the haste, and because Vonnie was such a recent widow, it was done privately, with only family members and a few invited friends present. Ellie’s bereavement had neatly settled, for Vonnie, the problem of whether her childhood friend should be invited, and, for Ellie, the problem of how to refuse such an invitation.

Having been urged to come and having said she would, Marfa attended with George and baby Bonney. Throughout the entire ceremony Marfa was sadly torn, even feeling a certain anxious disloyalty to her dear friend Ellie. Consequently, when next they met, Marfa could only ignore the subject of the wedding with guilt, and this she could not abide.

“Shall I tell you about it, or not?” Marfa asked, not knowing what Ellie would prefer or expect and wanting to do the right thing.

“Yes, tell me,” Ellie said quietly.“I might as well know as wonder, conjuring up all sorts of scenes. Though I try not to.”

“Well, Flossy came, after all, and stood up with her. Yanni Nikolai stood up with Tom.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen Flossy. I wish she might have stayed over.”

“She brought her baby with her. There are three more at home, she said. She looked a little worn, I thought. She said to give you her love.”

“Dear Flossy. She meant so much to the three of us, in her quiet way, and I do miss her.”

“There’s really not much else to tell,” Marfa said. “They stood up in the front room and Parker Jones married them. Vonnie was, I suppose you’d say she glowed. And Tom...”

“And Tom, Marfa?”

“Tom was Tom. Rather more quiet than might have been expected, I thought, but with no halting or stumbling, either. Vonnie was vivacious enough for both of them.”

“I can picture her quite clearly. Vonnie glows magnificently. Not only her eyes but her skin, though that’s hard to imagine. Looking back, Marfa, I think Vonnie has had special feelings for Tom for years. Those looks she gave him from time to time, even as a child, were very... well, telling, is the word. They said a lot.”

“Tom always took it casually, just sort of basked in the interest and adoration of all four of us. We all felt he was the most special boy on earth. But we knew, right from the beginning, who his favorite was.”

Ellie, remembering, drew a deep breath. “The good old days, I suppose.”

“When Parker Jones asked if there was anyone who knew any reason why Vonnie and Tom should not be joined in marriage, I...”

“You what, Marfa?”

Marfa looked uncomfortable. “I wanted to speak up. I wanted to say, ‘Yes, there’s plenty of reason!’ I wanted to say, ‘Tom loves someone else!’”

“I’m glad you kept quiet. I believe—if Tom did love me—it’s faded, or at least fading. And that’s good, Marfa. I don’t want him going through life grieving over a lost love. Neither would I want to cast any kind of a shadow on his marriage or stand in the way of his happiness. When I made my decision, it was the right one. And if it’s right for me, it’s got to be right for Tom.”

Marfa sighed. “I suppose so. Well, he’s got a lot of years to be happy about his decision, or regret it. But what about you, Ellie? I worry so—”

“Well, don’t. The future looks pretty blank right now, of course, but just before Dad died he said something that has stayed with me—he said, ‘God is working.’ He said, ‘Watch for the next step.’ And right away there were two steps—his death and this marriage.
I’m holding on to the fact that the steps will come in the right order and at the right time.”

It seemed frail hope to Marfa, whose practical side wanted something more substantial.

“It keeps me wondering—what next.” Ellie managed to sound cheerful.

Marfa sighed. “And in the meantime, you’ll try and hang on here, Ellie? Doing the chores and all? It seems too much to ask of a woman. You’ve never done much outside work.”

“Other women have done it, Marfa. I’ll keep up with the day-by-day chores—the milking, the hens, the pigs, the garden. I’ll have to see about someone to help with the harder things, like getting up the hay, the wood, and so on. Especially the threshing. I admit the thought of threshing gives me the chills.” Ellie’s voice trailed off. In spite of her insistence that she could carry on, what she was contemplating seemed insurmountable, impossible.

God would, indeed, need to come through with a next step.

T
he summer fled by, for Birdie as well as for all those more passionately involved in preparing for the coming winter.

Her preparations for the opening of school seemed simple compared to the efforts being expended by the rest of Bliss’s people and by all homesteaders across the vast expanse of the Canadian Territories—physical efforts, exhausting, dawn-to-dark physical efforts.

Sporadically, she helped Lydia with the workload that had that good lady overwhelmed. How she kept working, Birdie sometimes wondered, for her hands were twisted with rheumatism, and her slow gait indicated, at times, that her feet fared just as poorly.

The trip to the river had been a special day; Tierney Dunbar, whom Lydia loved as a daughter, went with them. The wagon, rattling across Bliss and filled with happy conversation, finally came to rest at a spot Lydia—who knew the area—deemed best for their purpose of locating and picking the highbush cranberries.

Here they clambered down, tied the team to a nearby bush, and prepared to invade the rampant growth that bordered the river.

Lydia was distracted momentarily when she spotted a few berries she identified as bearberry. “Or kinnikinnick,” she said.

“I’ve heard of it.The Indians smoke it, don’t they?” Birdie asked.

“They do, drying it and mixing it with sumac and willow leaves and, I believe, the inner bark of the dogwood. I guess it’s no stranger than the white man and his tobacco!

“It has the most unusual tiny pink and white urn-shaped flowers that grow in clusters among the leathery leaves. The Indians boil the plant for tea. But,” Lydia said skeptically, devoted to her aromatic beverage, “I can’t say it would be a good substitute.”

“Why,” Tierney asked suddenly, suspiciously, “is it called bearberry?”

“Just as you’d suppose,” Lydia said, looking around carefully. “Because bears like to feast on them.”

Although bears largely had retreated northward with the invasion of the homesteader, encounters with them were not unheard of. Sobered by the possibility, Lydia, Tierney, and Birdie proceeded with caution.

With syrup pails cinched around their waists by a piece of twine and wide-brimmed hats securely fastened on their heads, protection from the thrusting bush they would encounter, the three made their way toward the river and were not long in locating a flourishing cranberry thicket. The girls, never having encountered highbush cranberries before, were delighted to find them hanging in clusters, able to be stripped off readily, a handful at a time. Pails filled rapidly; again and again Birdie and Tierney trudged back to the wagon to empty them into the boxes they had brought with them, saving Lydia the extra effort.