Bittersweet Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #5): A Novel (22 page)

Ernie Battlesea, an only child and continually under his mother’s watchful eye and restrictive thumb. No wonder he relished his freedom at school until he could almost be said to be out of control. Now Birdie understood, and she knew she could have more patience with the explosive little boy next year.

Victoria Dinwoody—whose prim little mouth would never soil itself by uttering a gee or a golly and who reproached those who did (what a little prig she was!)—walked and talked decorously when in her mother’s line of vision, only to pinch a bottom on the sly here and there, or “accidentally” trip a fellow competitor in a race.

And then there was Nelman—Little Tiny. Over-large, to be sure, but filled with boyish enthusiasm and an energy not suspected. Perhaps that bunglesome body was not so much fat as bone and muscle; certainly it appeared so in his father, whom he strongly resembled. Birdie had watched Little Tiny with interest in a setting other than the schoolroom. Somehow she was not surprised to see him wait patiently for little Ernie Battlesea when the boys all took off for the lake and Ernie lagged, almost weeping, in the rear. She saw him receive a bowl of ice cream, only to hand it over to bent and aging Grandma Jurgensen, who was having trouble
standing in line. She saw him, time and again, run to his father’s side, look up, smile, say something, and dash off again to play.

And again, as previously, Birdie’s heart had panged for the sweetness and the sadness of certain memories.

Big Tiny—Wilhelm Kruger—now there was a surprise if ever she had encountered one. Seeming such an oversized mass of manhood, he was remarkably fine-tuned. For such a mountain of incipient energy and force, he was amazingly controlled, like a powerful engine throttled to a mild and manageable hum. For one so massive, his movements were precise, bordering on delicacy—a pussycat of a man parading as a tiger. The man who had expressed an interest in learning was certainly as given to mind as to muscle.

Birdie’s evaluation of the day and its people ceased abruptly when her gaze fell again on the bed and the envelope, innocent enough in appearance but like a coiled rattlesnake ready to inject its venom.

Prompted by anger and pain, Birdie snatched it up. About to rip it in half and tear it to shreds, she paused: The end of the story was not yet written; the last word had not been spoken. There would come a day when its pages would shout, “Wicked tormenter!”There would come a day when the letter itself would unveil and disclose the evil behind the deed. She was so sure of it that she almost wished she had kept the first two, with their evidence of the mean heart of the writer. Anonymous letters—as low as a human being could sink.

Thoughtfully she turned once again to the chiffonier. Here, in one of its drawers, she laid the incriminating letter. Turning the key, she drew a deep breath, noting only then that she was trembling.

That’s that
! And just as certainly as she locked the chiffonier drawer, she put a lock on all thoughts of the envelope and its cruel intentions.

Now for a good summer
! Buck was gone; there’d be no more foolishness.

W
ork. Housework, yard work, farm work. Hard as it was and unremitting, it could be a blessing as well as a burden, a panacea as well as an endless pressure. Perhaps it was even a godsend.

Blessing, panacea, godsend—work, for Ellie that summer, was all of those.

As with all homestead children, Ellie had taken her place in the family work pattern at an early age. Before school age, boys and girls alike had the task of filling the wood box, hunting up broody hens and getting them back into the hen house, going for the cows at milking time. They learned to identify weeds in the garden and to pull them carefully, already well aware of the necessity to preserve the food supply for the dreaded winter months. At six or seven they milked their first cow, carrying pails so large and full they flopped painfully against their shins; equally large pails of water were trudged into the house for the reservoir, and pails of slop were lugged out of the house to the pigs.

By ten or eleven a boy was riding a rake, gathering together the hay from the meadows and from around the sloughs; cleaning the barn; hauling stone boats of manure to the fields and unloading them; handling a pitchfork taller than himself; handing his father tools when he repaired or oiled machinery; lending a hand at countless tasks, constantly working at the side of his father, learning the ways of the farm.

Mothers taught their daughters the rudiments of housekeeping; after all, they too would be wives and mothers someday; the well-being of their family would depend on them. Baking—first biscuits, and eventually, when their small muscles could manage it, bread. Washing clothes—sorting, scrubbing, bluing, starching. Ironing—beginning with handkerchiefs and serviettes, hefting the irons around while standing on a stool, suffering many a burn, many a weary arm. Every girl knew how to milk a cow as well as her brother did, how to harness a horse, how to light a fire.

The work was there to be done, and they did it; eventually it became automatic. They put their clothes on in the morning, and they went about their chores. When they had eaten breakfast, they walked to school. Sometimes they plowed their way to school, the drifts of snow being unbroken by previous walkers or riders. They walked home or struggled home, to work again.

But not a bush child grew up without fond memories of happy times, the comfort of a warm home, the association of good friends. Not a bush child but what blessed his parents for choosing the life of a homesteader; not a child but loved Bliss and counted as home every farm within its boundaries.

Children made their own fun. They fashioned rough bows and arrows; they made their own bats and balls; they made whistles. They played tag, hide-and-seek, run-sheep-run, pom-pom-pullaway, and mother-may-I; in winter they played crokinole and checkers. They built log forts in summer and snow forts in winter. They exchanged or bartered gooseberries in the spring and hazelnuts in the fall. They made heaps of snowballs in the winter and engaged in some of the greatest battles the world had ever seen. They slid down hills on whatever was available—sleds if
they were so fortunate as to have them, boards, shovels, hides. They made snow angels; they built snowmen.

In winter, by the light of a coal oil lamp and huddled close to the side of a blazing heater, they read. Bliss children were good readers. Every magazine, every book that found its way into the district went the rounds from home to home, as prized as rare gems. Puzzles were made from magazine pictures pasted on cardboard and cut into pieces; checkerboards were handmade, the pieces sawed from a small, round limb. Button boxes offered endless fascination.

Especially favored was the child who had a parent with imagination, if not skill, who could contrive gifts for Christmas—something whittled by a father, something sewn by a mother: a tiny wagon, a toy rifle, a few building blocks; a rag doll, a ball, a pair of mittens, a scarf.

Across all the years, Ellie’s vivid imagination, her lively interest, her ability to make something from nothing, had been responsible for a trail of fun, frolic, experiments, and accomplishments, touching and enriching not only her own household but those of her friends. One year she and Vonnie, Marfa, and Flossy had made a gift for each Nikolai child—and there were about seven of them at that time. With many meetings and plannings and scurryings to and fro, with materials gathered and lists written and rewritten, they sewed, for the small children, something that resembled an animal (no one knew quite what it was, though the mane of yarn hinted at a lion), soft and cuddly, cut from old scraps of flannel and stuffed with batting. For the older children, various puzzles and games with enough mazes and directions to keep them absorbed for hours. The awe of the Nikolai children on Christmas morning that year could only be imagined.

Children—hardworking, inventive, imaginative—were an important part of the community, keeping hope alive with their eager spirits and never-failing expectations, bringing cheer, music, and games into the most remote cabin, and making all the hard work and effort worthwhile for the overworked homesteader.
Children were the future; children were cherished; children were important.

With no children on the Bonney farm, Ellie had it all to do herself, the small chores as well as the big ones. Time and again all day long, every day, she made trips to the woodpile or to the well. There were the chickens and turkeys to feed, the eggs to gather. Although her father did the milking, there was the milk to care for, the butter to churn. There was bread to bake—six loaves at a time. Every Monday there was the washing to do, the ironing every Tuesday. In between times there was the canning of the vegetables as the garden flourished and produced; there was the making of jams and jellies, the storing of summer’s bounty in the cellar. There was the mending, the darning.

Through all the long, hard summer, Ellie was rather desperately grateful for the unrelenting round of things to do. Rising early, she worked until late and went to bed exhausted, seeking the oblivion of sleep, dreading the intrusion of the nightmares.

Bliss’s summer was notable for three things: a birth, a death, a wedding.

The first was natural enough. And expected. Marfa Polchek—to the interest of the community that had first hoped, then grieved, with her and with George through three previous pregnancies—had grown increasingly uncomfortable, alarmingly puffed, reduced to a waddle, but she had remained consistently cheerful.

“Everything will be all right; you’ll see,” she maintained in the face of her husband’s anxiety, her friends’ concern, her mother’s hovering solicitude. It was a confidence born out of prayer.

Marfa had been through too many disappointments, shed too many tears, to trust in luck. A casual Christian most of her life, she had, early in this pregnancy, tied the frail craft of her faith to the Rock, and there she anchored, buffeted and storm-tossed but weathering every storm.

Marfa raised a tumult of protest from people and pastor alike when she dared quote, as her scriptural portion, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given” (Isa. 9:6a).

“Marfa, Marfa,” one and all admonished, “don’t you know that’s a prophecy, a promise of Christ’s coming?”

Though at first Marfa had been tempted to bristle and become defensive, she had learned to smile and to stand firm against this assault on her anchor. “But I can appropriate it for myself, can’t I?” she asked, and who among them, including the pastor who was always encouraging them to stand on the promises, could tell her otherwise, expounding that certain Scriptures were not for her?

“Doesn’t the Bible say,” Marfa asked reasonably,“that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God? So isn’t all of it available to me?”

“Well, yes,” they would respond guardedly, not knowing whether this might lead to some heretical doctrine. Bliss Christians were strong on the Word and in believing in “rightly dividing the word of truth.”

“And doesn’t it say it is ‘profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness’?”

“But,” someone pointed out triumphantly, “it also says that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation!”

Driven by their superior knowledge back to her original stand, Marfa insisted, “It says
all
Scripture, and this one is mine.” And who among them could take that refuge from her? So they held their peace, while fearing and trembling for her faith should there be another dead baby and another grave in Bliss’s cemetery.

As with all of them, whether in childbirth, injury, agony, or even death, Marfa had received no medical consultation, examination, or advice. For years the only help available had been from the Mounted Police medical officer, but finally a doctor had settled in Prince Albert. Poor overworked man that he was and skimpily equipped to handle the traumas of these backwoods, he was apt to be gone when a sick person struggled to his office for help or a
lone rider galloped up pleading with him to put bag in buggy and hasten to a bedside many miles away.