Earth, Air, Water, Light

by C L Lassila

  Immediately upon sitting at the table both men realized the stroke of good fortune that had come their way. It would prove to be a very costly night at cards for Mr. Brookstone. He was the type of man whose ego would not allow him to accept that he could lose at something. As his money dwindled and refusing to leave the night a loser, he left the game to replenish his funds from the vault in his place of business.

  The last hand was played. Mr. Brookstone threw his gold pocket watch into the pot, still believing that he would win back everything that he had lost that night. He was a good poker player and he refused to believe otherwise.

  The hand went to Jonas. Adelaide would have her first watch.

  Mr. Brookstone ordered a bottle of whiskey from the barkeep on credit. He took the bottle and went upstairs with one of the girls to drown his misery in the ways that men do.

  Before leaving he told the two men, “Next Saturday night I want the chance to redeem myself."

  He did not wait for their answer. By the following Saturday both men would have moved on.

  Calix took the half empty bottle of whiskey from the table and tossed a coin to the bartender.

  “That’s for you. Put the whiskey on Mr. Brookstone's tab,” he said.

  Calix and Jonas left the bar together. Laughing, amazed at how lucky they had both been that night, they walked back toward Jonas's home, passing the bottle back and forth between them. Calix was heading to Lanse the day after tomorrow. If the Roses wished, they could travel with him and then take the boat further on to Copper Harbor. The men shook hands, agreeing to the plan, and then sat down on Jonas’ porch to finish the bottle.

  Adelaide found them both, sprawled on the porch, sleeping soundly, the next morning.

  Chapter 5

  The small, open boat would take them to Lanse, before following the shoreline up to the port in Copper Harbor. If everything went as planned they would arrive at their final destination within the week. Mr. and Mrs. Lessing came to the docks to see them off. Mrs. Lessing gave Adelaide four Cornish pasties wrapped in paper for them to eat on their trip. Jonas and Adelaide and Mr. and Mrs. Lessing stood and conversed while the boat was being loaded. The subject matter was light fare. Mr. Lessing commented that the weather was perfectly suited for travel by boat. The sky was a cloudless, deep blue and the winds so calm that the surface of the lake lay so still it resembled glass.

  Calix Purchase accompanied by Albert Ten Crows and another Indian approached. The group of men brought the items that they were carrying out onto the dock to be loaded into the boat.

  Seeing this, Elenora Lessing leaned in closer to Adelaide and Jonas and whispered with alarm in her voice, “Are you sure that it is safe to be traveling with those heathens?"

  Adelaide looked Mrs. Lessing directly in the eye and said, “Did it ever occur to you that those heathens may be right in their beliefs and that you are wrong in yours?”

  Mrs. Lessing turned away, appalled by Adelaide’s statement.

  “Sacrilege, I will pray for your soul, child. I will pray for your soul,” she said before she stormed off.

  Mr. Lessing looked at Adelaide and asked, “If the heathens are right then why is God giving us this country?”

  Hearing this and anticipating his wife's reaction, Jonas stepped between the two. He took Adelaide by the arm to pull her away, not wanting the argument to escalate.

  “What ignorance," Adelaide said.

  Jonas put his hand out to Mr. Lessing.

  “Thank you for all of your kindness, sir,” he said.

  Mr. Lessing replied, “Have a talk with your wife, son.”

  ****

  The weather remained agreeable to their progress and they arrived in Lanse Township in good time. There were times when the wind spoke so softly that the only movement on the surface of the water was the ripples caused by the pulling of the oars. It was as though the lake was holding its breath until they reached their destination. The lake was still but the birds were active. Whenever Adelaide caught sight of one she would bother the men by asking that they identify it for her.

  Calix Purchase, Albert Ten Crows and the third man, whose name was Charles Loonsfoot, disembarked at Lanse. As Adelaide watched them walk off she felt envy for the lives that they led. Lives seemingly free from the limits of social convention that she felt confined by.

  Adelaide enjoyed the next leg of their trip immensely. They would begin at dawn, slipping out onto the water in the open boat with the sun just beginning its ascent into the sky. With the men doing the rowing she was left to sit and watch the shoreline slip by. It was a shoreline devoid of any sign of human habitation after the mission settlement at Lanse. At night the men found a good place to anchor and the group, after building the campfire and having a meal, slept out under the stars. Although it lasted for too short a period of time, this was, by far, Adelaide’s favorite part of their extended adventure. She enjoyed being free of what she considered to be tiresome, the duties of housekeeping. But even more enjoyable was the fact that, for all three hundred and sixty degrees around her, there was not a manmade structure to be seen. She immersed herself in the many shades of blue displayed in the water and the sky. She would watch as the hues shifted depending on the placement of the sun in the sky, presenting shades of blue that she had never before seen. Often she found herself entertained by the numerous birds that made their living off of the stores of fish in the lake. At other periods in the journey she just watched the unbroken line of trees, at times seeming to grow right down to the water’s edge. At other times the trees would dip behind a sandy beach or climb up and over a rock outcropping. Sunrise and sunset were magnificent, with the sky then painted in vibrant colors. After the darkness fell, she slept under a canopy of stars so dense and bright that she could not decide if the sky was more black or white. Was this what the entire world had been like before it was damaged by man?

  All too soon the men who were piloting the boat announced that they were approaching Copper Harbor. Adelaide watched as the beauty of unspoiled wilderness was once again transformed into the grey ugliness of an environment created by people. She was relieved to discover that Copper Harbor was still a very small settlement. At the time of their arrival there were more tents than permanent structures. Evidently the mining companies were not yet certain of any profit to be made from the copper deposits being discovered there.

  There was one wood frame hotel, with a broad front porch, that stood on a muddy road just down from the harbor. This would be Jonas and Adelaide’s temporary home until something else could be arranged. Jonas had planned to buy a small parcel of land, where he could build a small cabin and plant a garden in the spring. But the many delays on their journey had set them behind schedule.

  As had happened all along their journey, Jonas began making the acquaintance of the people in the community and, as before, made friends quickly. Adelaide found herself once again in a place where the men far outnumbered the women. Jonas had become much more comfortable with her ability to look after herself, even after her fall in the river, and so while he was out putting together the various pieces of their future life in Copper Harbor, she was left to her own devices.

  Initially Adelaide was concerned that the men would be ill mannered and bothersome to an attractive, young woman. But to her surprise she found that the men were off, busy building their lives, like Jonas. This was a place to which men had traveled great distances for the purpose of creating new lives for themselves. Whether working at the docks, fishing or engaging in the business of the mining industry, the men were working too hard to cause her any concern when she ventured away from the hotel to explore. It also occurred to her that the people who were attracted to that type of adventure, those that would leave everything that they knew and travel to a remote place in the hopes of being struck by good fortune, were most likely people to whom adhering to social conventions was not a great concern.

  The town of Copper Harbor was not much to speak of. There was a fo
rt nearby but the soldiers had been sent elsewhere. Tents were more numerous than the permanent structures, although that would not be the case for long. The Whitehouse Hotel was the biggest building in town, holding a saloon and restaurant on the first floor, with rooms for boarders on the second level. The resident population consisted mostly of men working for the mines and a small group of business men, those involved with commerce and shipping. There was a small number of the Ojibway tribe that lived in the area. They would sometimes come into town to trade. Most of the residents were men, only a few of them had chosen to bring their wives on the adventure with them. Many more of the men were single or had left their wives behind in a more settled place until they determined if their venture there would be a success.

  It was only a few days after their arrival that the Roses were again hit with a stroke of good luck. Jonas, who still had a considerable amount of money left from his windfall night playing cards in the Sault, heard about a house, one of only a few in the area, that might be available. He had been told that a woman who had recently lost her husband wished to leave Copper Harbor as soon as her affairs could be put in order. She had plans to return to New England, where her family lived, and wanted to depart as soon as possible in order to get back East before the arrival of winter. Few of the men there were ready to invest in a house. A good number of them planned to leave for the winter and return in the spring. Others wanted to wait to see if, in fact, there was money to be made there before putting down roots. So it was that Jonas was directed to the widow, Mrs. Greenfield.

  Although his plan had been to build a cabin himself, given their late arrival in Copper Harbor, buying one that was already constructed would allow them more time to settle in and begin preparations for winter. Jonas decided to go and visit Mrs. Greenfield on his own, not wanting Adelaide to be disappointed if a deal could not be made. He found the modest log dwelling on a small clearing a short distance outside of town. Enough land had also been cleared for a good sized garden, and a barn and woodshed had been built behind the house.

  A robust woman, wearing a black dress, was sweeping the front porch.

  “Mrs. Greenfield?” Jonas inquired.

  The woman stopped what she was doing and looked in his direction.

  “Hello. My name is Jonas Rose. I’m new in town. I am from Cornwall. I came here to work in the mine. Mr. Gale, from the mining agency, suggested that I come by to talk to you… about buying your place.”

  “Oh, yes. You are that foolish young man that brought his wife all of the way out here,” she responded.

  Jonas, feeling defensive but not wanting to be disagreeable, replied, “Yes, Ma’am. That would be me.”

  “You were thinking that you might buy my house,” she added.

  Jonas was a bit put off by her harsh demeanor.

  “If you were thinking of selling,” he said.

  “You are a godsend,” Mrs. Greenfield said. “Come on in and have a cup of coffee.”

  Jonas followed her into what seemed to be a sturdily built and comfortable house. She directed him to have a seat at the kitchen table.

  “I lost my husband not very long ago. He worked for the mining agency. He had gone down to the Sault on business. His boat went down in a storm,” she told Jonas, her voice cracking.

  “The Northern Constellation?” Jonas inquired, knowing now that Mr. Greenfield had been one of the corpses that he had seen laid out on the beach.

  “That god forsaken boat,” Mrs. Greenfield said. “My family is in New England. I will be returning there as soon as I get the property taken care of. I lost my two children last year. Both of them are lying out there in the yard. It was dysentery that took them. It will be difficult to leave them but I will not spend another winter in this place.”

  She set two coffee cups onto the table and settled into a chair. “I have been wearing black for too long of a time,” she continued.

  Jonas sat quietly for a moment, pondering the considerable hardships that Mrs. Greenfield had faced.

  “I had hoped to build a little place for me and my wife,” he said. “But we got here later in the year than I had expected.”

  Mrs. Greenfield looked at Jonas and said, “You will find the winter here long and hard.” She paused. “You seem like a nice young man. To be honest with you, I do not have the luxury to wait for other offers. I don’t want to spend the winter here. And once I am gone I do not want to be reminded of a place that brought me so much sorrow. I only want to take a few personal items with me. Everything else can stay with the house. I have no desire to be concerned about transporting things. And I really am not attached to anything. The house is sturdy, well made to withstand the harsh winter and very comfortable. But … I think that it is cursed. That being said, make me a fair offer and it is yours, the house and most everything in it, and the land, of course.”

  Jonas took a drink of his coffee and thought for a moment. He then made a fair offer but one that he thought Mrs. Greenfield might consider too low, in that all of the furnishings would be included. Instead of making a counter offer, Mrs. Greenfield grasped his hand and thanked him. She was relieved to be free of the property that had come to be a burden to her.

  When they stood up she embraced him.

  “You and your wife have a new home,” she said.

  “I will bring the money tomorrow morning,” Jonas said. “And I am so sorry about the loss of your husband and children.”

  As he said his goodbye to Mrs. Greenfield he noticed two small, white crosses under a large oak tree just behind the house. The grave markers of her two dead children identified the places on the land where they had been buried, land that would soon belong to the Roses. The Greenfield’s misfortune had been the cause of good fortune for Jonas and Adelaide. Jonas was relieved to know that they would be well settled into a home before the arrival of winter. Not only was there a house, much better than one that Jonas could have built on his own; there was a garden still ripening for harvest, and a number of chickens as well.

  The following morning Adelaide walked with Jonas to Mrs. Greenfield’s. She was happy that their stay at the hotel would soon be over. After months of traveling it would be good to settle into a place that was their own. As they approached the house they could see Mrs. Greenfield in her black dress tending to the two small graves at the edge of the property. The Roses stopped at the fence which bordered the road, not wanting to disturb her. They waited there until she noticed them.

  “I was just telling Jimmy and Eliza why I had to leave them,” Mrs. Greenfield said. “Will you look after them for me?” she asked. “They will be all alone. Their father is buried in the Sault.”

  “Of course,” Adelaide said. “We will. I promise.”

  Jonas and Adelaide followed Mrs. Greenfield as she moved into the house.

  “It isn’t what we thought would happen here,” Mrs. Greenfield added. “Sit down, please. Would you like some coffee?”

  “No, thank you. We had some at breakfast,” Jonas replied. He placed the envelope carrying payment for the house on the table.

  “There is a boat to the Sault on Friday,” Mrs. Greenfield stated. “I will be leaving then and the house will be yours.”

  She went to the sideboard and retrieved a piece of paper which she handed to Jonas. It was the deed to the land.

  “I hope that you will have better luck here than we did,” she said.

  Friday morning, as Adelaide sat on the porch of the hotel drinking coffee; she saw a wagon transporting Mrs. Greenfield, heading down to the harbor. There were two trunks in the back and nothing more. The widow, again wearing all black, did not acknowledge Adelaide.

  Adelaide thought of the men twisted among the rocks on the beach at the Sault and those tossed on the surf like driftwood. She wondered which of the corpses had been Mr. Greenfield. Had she looked at the face of the dead man whose house was now hers and whose dead children lay in her yard?

  Shortly after Mrs. Greenfield’s wagon had p
assed by, Jonas pulled up in front of the hotel in a wagon that he had borrowed to carry their meager belongings to their new home. Each of them had a trunk with personal items, clothing and mementos from their home back in Cornwall. A third trunk, purchased in the Sault, held some provisions and various things that they needed to set up housekeeping. They knew that Copper Harbor was a town that was just at its beginning and they hadn’t known what type of merchants had set up shop there. Having Mrs. Greenfield leave most of her household items behind was another piece of good luck for Adelaide and Jonas.

  The wagon took them along the dirt road past the edge of town out to where the forest grew undamaged. It was a rich mixture of greens and yellows, greys and browns, made up of both evergreen and deciduous trees. Adelaide was delighted that the property was away from town. Jonas knew that it was a gamble to buy property so quickly, without first having definite employment. But he trusted that he would have no trouble finding work. He had experience working in the mines back in Cornwall. Both he and Adelaide had wanted a parcel of land where they could do some farming and the Greenfield farm was a bargain too good to pass up.

  The homestead was on ten acres of land, only a small portion of which had been cleared. The house sat on a small hill, well off of the road. Originally it had been just two good sized rooms, but at some point two more rooms had been built onto the back of house, along with a second porch which ran along the length of the back of the building. The front of the house, with its broad porch, faced the south. Large evergreens had been left standing around the house to serve as a windbreak.

  The Roses were now the owners of these ten acres of land. About one third of the ten acres had been cleared for the barnyard and a garden. A small stream ran along one side of the property. Perhaps two acres of the cleared land had been planted with what looked to be mostly potatoes and turnips, plants that would be good and filling staples through the winter. Another small section had been planted with strawberries. There was everything on the ten acres that they would need to make a good life out of this new beginning.