[Canadian West 02] - When Comes the Spring (26 page)

Suddenly I thought of something. I turned slightly in the sleigh.

"Wynn," I hollered against the swishing of the sled runners and the
yipping of the dogs. "Do I need a boy-name or a girl-name?"

There was laughter in Wynds voice as he called back, "A boy-name,
Elizabeth."

I named my dog Kip. If someone had asked, I really wouldn't have
been able to explain why. It just seemed to suit him somehow. He was
a smart little thing, and Wynn said that it was never too early to begin
his training. So I started in. I didn't know much about training dogs.
Wynn told me obedience was of primary importance. A dog, to be
useful and enjoyable, must be obedient. Wynn gave me pointers, and
in the evenings, if duties did not call him out, he even worked with
me and the young dog.

It was amazing how quickly Kip grew. One day he was a fluffy
pup, and the next day it seemed he was a gangly, growing dog. He
turned from cute into beautiful. His tail curled above his silver-tipped,
glistening dark fur. He was curious and sensitive and a quick learner. I
loved him immediately and he did so help to fill my days. Aware of his
needs, physical and emotional, my own life was enriched.

Kip needed exercise, so I took him out for walks, bundling myself
up against the cold. It was a good way to get my exercise as well. When
the snow got deeper and more difficult to navigate, I asked for snowshoes so that I might still keep up the daily exercise program. Wynn
brought some home and took me out to introduce me to the use of
them. They were much more difficult to manage than it seemed when
watching Wynn maneuver in them. I took many tumbles in the snow
in the process of learning. Kip thought it was a game; every time I
went down, he was there to lick my face and scatter snow down my
neck.

Eventually I did get the feel of snowshoes. The cold or the snow
no longer kept me confined. I walked along the river trails, along the
treeline to the west, and to the settlement. Whenever I went to the
store with Kip, I picked him up and carried him. He was getting heavy and he was also getting impatient with me. He hated to be carried; he
wanted to run. But I was fearful about all the dog fights I had seen on
my trips to the village. I did not want Kip to be attacked. And so, as
the weeks went by, each time our outings included the store, or Nimmie's for Bible study, I picked up my growing, complaining dog. I
wondered just how much longer I could manage it. I hated to be stuck
in the house, and I hated to leave Kip at home alone. I guessed that
eventually all our walks would have to take us away from the dogs and
the village and into the woods instead.

As the weeks went by, more snow piled up around us. The people
began to be concerned about food and wood supplies. It took all their
time and attention to provide a meal or two for the day and to keep
their homes reasonably warm.

Christmas seemed unreal to me. There was no village celebration,
no setting aside of this important day. Wynn and I celebrated quietly
in our home. We read the Christmas story, and I shed a few tears of
loneliness. I tried not to let Wynn see them, but I think he was suspicious. We did not have a turkey dinner with all of the trimmings. We
had, instead, a venison roast and blueberry pie made from the berries I
had gathered and canned. The Indian women had dried theirs, but I
knew nothing about the drying process. Besides, I thought I preferred
the canned fruit; to my way of thinking, they did taste awfully good in
that Christmas dinner pie.

In the afternoon, Wynn suggested we take Kip for a run. It was
fun to be out together, but the weather was bitterly cold, so we did not
stay out for long. I think even Kip was glad to be back inside by our
warm fire.

We were soon beginning a new year. Repeatedly, Wynn had to dig
us out from a new snowfall in the mornings. If it had not been for
Kip, I'm sure I would never have left my kitchen. He would whine and
scamper about at the door, coaxing for a run.

The trappers now and then brought home meat for their families.
The women supplemented this with some ice fishing in the nearby
river. It was cold, miserable work; and I ached in my bones for them.
Children and women alike were often out gathering wood from the nearby forest. I wondered why more of them did not prepare for the
winter by stacking up a good fuel supply. Most of the Indians gathered
as they needed it, and that was a big task when the fires had to be kept
burning day and night.

I still met for studies with Nimmie and Miss McLain, though she
still had not thawed out much. She seemed so deeply bitter and troubled. Little by little I learned her story. She had been orphaned at the
age of three; Ian was five at the time. A fine Swedish family in the East
had taken pity on the two children and raised them along with their
own six. They had been treated kindly enough, but the family was poor
and frugal, and all the children were required to work at an early age.

Schooling was one thing the family had felt was important, so each
one of the children had been allowed to attend the local school as high
as the grades went. When they reached their teen years, they were soon
on their own. When Ian left the family, he apprenticed to a merchant
in a nearby town as a bookkeeper and stock-checker. The man was
German, and Ian lived in his home and learned German. Katherine
had her heart set on being a schoolteacher, and so she found employment in the home of a doctor as housemaid and took classes whenever
she could crowd them in.

The woman of the house was impossible to please, and young
Katherine often found herself the victim of fits of fury. She would have
left if she had had any place to go. At length her schooling was completed and she was able to obtain a position at a local school. The
doctor's wife suddenly realized that she was losing good help, and she
tried to bar Miss McLain from getting the job. It didn't work. Miss
McLain was hired and moved out of the home and into a boarding
house. There was a young man staying at the boarding house as well;
and, after some months, they became attracted to one another and
eventually engaged. Miss McLain was now a happy girl. For the first
time that she remembered, she had a job she loved, a salary on which
she could live, and-most importantly-someone who loved her.

The young man seemed happy, too, and he was anxious for the
wedding to take place. Miss McLain told him she had to wait until she
could afford her dress and all the other things she needed. The man
declared that he hated to wait longer and then came up with a lovely plan. He had a sister in town. He was sure she would be ever so glad
to help them.

They boarded a streetcar and went to see the sister. Miss McLain
was excited. If her John was correct in assuming his sister would help,
she would soon be a married woman with a husband and home of her
own.

When the streetcar stopped and they walked the short distance to
the sister's home, Miss McLain could only stand in frozen bewilderment. There must be some mistake. They were at the home of her
former employer.

She did go in, but things did not go well. Not only did the angry
woman refuse to help her, but she raged and ranted about her dishonesty, her ill temper, her laziness, and even her bad name. John only
stood there like a statue, not even defending his Katherine.

In the end, the rift between them was so great that it could not be
repaired, and John called off the engagement. Miss McLain left behind
her school and her dreams and headed for her brother, who was by
now living in the North.

She had never buried her bitterness. In her twenty years in the
North, she had nursed it and fostered it and held it to her until now it
was a terrible, deep festering wound in her soul. She was miserable; she
deserved to be miserable; I think she even enjoyed being miserable; and
she did a wonderful job of making those around her miserable, too.

In spite of her bitterness and her anger with life, I began to like
Miss McLain. I felt both sorry for her and angry with her. Other
people had suffered; others had been treated unfairly. They had lived
through it. There was no reason why Miss McLain could not pull herself out of her misery if she had a mind to.

Nimmie was always patient and loving with her. Miss McLain, in
turn, was spiteful and cutting with Nimmie. She didn't bother much
with me. Perhaps she didn't think I was worth the trouble, or perhaps
she thought I would not be intimidated by her; I do not know.

In spite of the difficulty, we were able to proceed with our Bible
study. As we went through the lessons together, I was sensing a real
change in Nimmie.

There was an eagerness, a softness, an openness that really thrilled me. She was so disappointed if a storm kept us from meeting. After a
morning of study, she would share with Ian at night the things that she
had learned. I was surprised and delighted that Ian seemed interested
in what Nimmie told him. He, too, seemed eager to hear truth from
God's Word.

In the middle of January, a had storm hit. In all of my life I had
never seen so much snow fall in so short a time. I was worried about
Wynn; he was somewhere out in that whiteness with the dog team. I
knew that dogs had an unusual sense of direction even in a storm, but
I paced and prayed all day that the animals wouldn't let us down now.

The temperature dipped and the water in the basin again glazed
over with ice. I worked hard to keep the cabin warm, adding fuel to
the fire regularly. Kip whined at the door to go for a run, but I put
him off. He was so insistent that eventually I sent him out for a few
minutes on his own. I had never let him out alone before and I was
afraid he might not come back. But he was soon crying at the door to
be admitted to the warmth.

I fed Kip and made myself tea. Still Wynn did not come.

It was dark outside when there was a thumping at the door. I ran
to it with my heart in my throat. Who could it be? Wynn did not
knock at his own door. Who else would be coming and why? Has
something happened to Wynn?

But it was Wynn, and in his arms he had a bundle. I opened the
door wide for him.

"It's Crazy Mary," he said. "She was alone in her cabin with no
heat and no food."

I hurried ahead of Wynn and tossed the cushions from the cot to
make a place for her.

He opened the blankets, and she lay shivering. For a moment, I
wondered if she was conscious, and then her eyelids fluttered and she
looked at us. I smiled, but it was not returned.

"Do you have any food ready?" asked Wynn.

"There's soup in the pot, and I just made tea."

"A little soup. Not too much. I'll have to feed her."

While I went for the soup, Wynn finished unbundling the blankets from Mary, and now he removed the moccasins and wrappings of hide
from her feet. He was working over her feet when I came with the
soup. He went to take the bowl from me, but I indicated her feet. "I'll
feed her," I said. "You do whatever is necessary there."

At first she refused the soup on the spoon; but when I was able to
trickle a little of it into her mouth, she opened it ever so slightly and I
was able to give her more. She swallowed several spoonfuls before I
decided it was enough for the time.

"Should I give her some tea?" I asked Wynn.

"A little," he replied, and I got a cup of tea and spooned some of
it into the woman's mouth.

She still shivered. I had never seen anyone who looked so cold. I
went for more blankets.

We fixed a bed for Mary on the cot and looked after her throughout the night. Several times I awoke to find Wynn absent from bed
and bent over the old woman, spooning hot soup or massaging her
frostbitten feet.

The next few days were taken up with nursing Mary. Her toes
swelled to a disturbing size. There didn't seem to be much more we
could do for them. About once an hour I would spoon-feed her. She
ate more heartily now, though she still was unable to feed herself.

I knew she could talk, but she did not speak to me. I had heard
her talking to Wynn the day we had visited her on her trapline. She
had been quite vocal then. I knew her silence now was not because she
couldn't speak but because she chose not to. For whatever reason, I
decided to respect it. Oh, I talked to her. I talked to her as I fed her
and as I cared for her feet. I talked to her about the weather as I moved
about the house doing the dishes or feeding the fire. I talked to her
much like I talked to Kip-including her in my activities but not
expecting an answer.

She lay on the cot, her black eyes watching every move I made;
but she said nothing.

When the worst of the storm was over, Mrs. Sam and Evening Star
came for tea. It had been some weeks since I had had their company
and I was so glad to see them. I suspected they had come to see Mary.
They may have, but if so they certainly kept it well hidden. After one glance in the woman's direction, they completely ignored her. They
crossed to my kitchen table where they knew they would be served,
and seated themselves.

They talked about the storm, the need for wood for the fire, the
difficulty in catching fish-mostly communicating with waving,
expressive hands, though they did add a word here and there. Evening
Star played with Kip, seeming to like my dog. The Indians were not
accustomed to having a dog in the home, and it must have seemed
strange to her.

When they rose to leave, I followed them to the door.

"Mary is getting much better," I said quietly, to introduce the subject of her stay with us into the conversation. "In a few days, we hope
she will be able to sit up some."

There was no response.

"As soon as she is able to sit, we think she will be able to feed
herself, and then before too long she will be able to get around again.
It's going to take a while, but she is getting better."