Brothers Far from Home

by Jean Little

  The Duck who came to dinner turned out to be Mrs. Mansefield, who is a widow. She said, in a mingy voice, that she was surprised to see the young people going out with skates on Our Lord’s birthday. There was an awkward silence. Then Grandmother said, “I think they went out so I could have a quiet house for my afternoon nap. They are such thoughtful young people.” “Oh,” was all the Duck could say. Jack choked and had to be pounded on the back by Rufus. Grandmother is a brick.

  Oh, good. Verity is putting her pen away. I will write another bit just to show her and then I will be free.

  Good night, dear Reader.

  Boxing Day

  Tuesday, December 26

  Last night, after we had turned off the lamp, I had the strangest thought. Jesus never had a chance to celebrate Christmas. Last year, it dawned on me that he did not speak English. I know this is true but I still do not quite believe it. I can’t imagine him saying “Suffer the little children to come unto me” in Aramaic. That is the language Father says he spoke, Aramaic. Or was it Hebrew? I wonder what it sounded like. Anyway, he was a little boy once, as young as Charlie, and he never knew a thing about Christmas. I hope they celebrated birthdays at least.

  Today we are all going skating, even Belle. Father is actually leaving the church to manage without him. He does not mind if I cling some of the time.

  I wonder where Hugo is today and if he ever gets a chance to steal away from the War and go skating. They must skate in Europe. They surely do in Holland. You just have to remember Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates. I wonder what Hugo did for Christmas Day, and what kind of dinner he had. In their letters, they complain a lot about the food. But surely they will give the soldiers special food on Christmas Day! We don’t get ice cream or cookies either, with sugar being so scarce, but we do get cottage pudding with last year’s preserved fruit on top.

  Now I will embark upon a description of the Bates family.

  Mother and Father are the best of parents but they don’t have much time to listen to me. Nobody has time for me.

  I guess I should not blame them. It is not their fault that my brothers and sisters are all much older or much younger than I am. Hugo calls me Monkeyshines partly because I’m the monkey in the middle. Hugo is the eldest. He’s my favourite. He joined up when the Germans sank the Lusitania in 1915. He was going to the University of Toronto, getting his B.A. He was twenty then. His birthday is on Valentine’s Day.

  Jack is next. He is nineteen now. He was going to the Agricultural College, hoping to farm. Mother’s family owns a farm just outside Guelph where Aunt Martha and Grandmother live. Jack has always loved it there.

  Then comes Verity Susan who is seventeen and thinks she is a Woman. I’ve already told you enough about her.

  After her, comes myself, Eliza Mary.

  If my twin sister had not died when she was just two months old, she and I would have been close companions. Grandmother told me that she was too frail to thrive, but Mother never speaks of her. Grandmother also said she was a perfect baby.

  I wonder what sort of baby I was. Grandmother just smiled when I asked. I’ve seen some positively repulsive babies brought to be baptized. They improve later, usually, but at first they slobber and look like little red monkeys. Bald and bawling. I have seen a picture taken of myself when I was three weeks old. I was not bald. It is too bad you can’t take coloured photographs. I am wearing a bib but no drool shows. I do not look ugly but blurry. That is all I can see for sure.

  Next to me come the Twins, Charlie and Susannah. They are named after the Wesleys. (Mother was a Methodist before she married Father.) They are eight. I don’t believe Susannah and Charlie are ever lonely the way I am. When the Twins were small they had a secret language nobody else could understand, but they finally started talking to the rest of us. Now that they go to school and have other friends it is a little better, but they are still as thick as thieves. Lots of times they know what the other one is thinking without saying a word. I suppose that is the way with twins.

  I had a pretend friend called Posy Pretty when I was six, but she was too babyish. I really loved her when I was Belle’s age, but she did not grow older with me the way a real friend would.

  Belle, whose whole name is Emily Belle, is the baby. She turns five in a few days. She’s supposed to be frail but Father says she’s really as tough as an old boot. She has fair hair, silvery and bright, and huge deep blue eyes. Everyone spoils her but she stays sweet in spite of it.

  So now you have met us all, dear Reader, the children of Sam and Annabelle Bates.

  When I was coming inside earlier today I saw Cornelia at her window again and I waved harder, but she did not look up. She had on spectacles. Maybe she did not see me before. She must have been busy embroidering! I called her name but she still did not glance up.

  I prick my finger when I sew and the seam gets lumpy and then either the thread tangles or breaks. I don’t mind really. I think sewing is tedious. Mother keeps threatening to buy me a sampler but she is not serious. Aunt Martha did one when she was little, but modern girls don’t have time for such ladylike pursuits. Even Verity has not done one, although she has embroidered pillow shams for her hope chest. When I was about six or seven I imagined myself someday making a tapestry with flowers and deer and tall hound dogs, but I had not yet understood how I hate sewing. I had no notion they made those elegant pictures stitch by tiny stitch. I feel for all those court ladies. Father says they made them to help keep out the cold in those old castles, but I think I would have thought of some other way.

  Wednesday, December 27

  I got a postcard from Hugo today. He had a short leave in England before they start on some new push. He couldn’t say what, of course. And he sent me a picture of the home of Charles Dickens, which he went to visit for my sake. Hugo is the best brother alive. He said nothing at all about the War except he hopes it will soon be over, but he doubts it. It must soon be over. It has lasted more than two years already and, in May, Hugo will have been gone two years. It feels like forever.

  Mother and Father got a proper letter from him and he said not to be anxious about him because he has had three narrow escapes and gotten away without a scratch. When the War ends, he promised, he’ll come home with bells on and all in one piece.

  “Amen,” Father said.

  I never thought before of your having a family, dear Reader, but you are becoming so real to me now that you must have relations to bless and beset you.

  Mother told me once that, when she was twelve, she sometimes loathed Aunt Martha. I was flabbergasted. They seem to understand each other perfectly now.

  We had a taffy pull too. My hands ended up sticky as a pot of flour paste, but sweeter. I wouldn’t have spent so much time licking off flour paste. It wasn’t just my hands either; I was taffy all the way to my elbows. Rufus made joking remarks but I did not let him get me riled. I was showing them how mature I could be but I don’t think they noticed. It is very annoying when people notice your weak moments but never see your strong ones.

  Thursday, December 28

  I forgot to tell you that Father gave me my first fountain pen for Christmas. It’s the prettiest green. It is so nice not to have to keep dipping the nib in the ink bottle or stopping to sharpen the pencil. I got my fingers inky when I was filling it, but I liked making it suck the ink up into itself. It makes a funny little noise like a mouse’s hiccough.

  I spent most of the day out-of-doors and all that fresh air has made me too sleepy to keep on writing, even to you.

  Friday, December 29

  On New Year’s Day Jack and Rufus have to leave for England. Once they get there they’re going to try to join the Royal Naval Air Service and defend England from the air. I have kept making myself forget, but now it is too close. Norah Sweet, Jack’s girl, is coming to Uxbridge to visit on Saturday afternoon. They are not engaged, but everyone knows they plan to get married when the War ends. They are still too young, according to Mother and
Father. She is so lovely to look at and she has a voice as soft as a cooing dove. Her eyes are big and velvety brown like pansies. Hugo did not seem to like her as much as the rest of us do, but everyone else thinks she is practically perfect.

  Jack is excited about her coming. I can tell. Rufus keeps teasing him.

  Saturday, December 30

  Belle made the mistake of coughing just as we were about to go skating this afternoon. So Mother kept her home. The rest of us had a glorious time. True and Rufus were there as well as Verity and Jack, so they all got a chance to see me skate. I never went near them.

  After we had been there quite a long time, Rufus came over, though, and asked me to skate with him. He is much taller than I am but we managed beautifully. We glided so smoothly.

  He asked me about Norah.

  “She is beautiful and Jack adores her,” I told him. He will see for himself when she turns up. She was supposed to arrive last night but we have not heard from her. Maybe Jack has had some private word but has not told us.

  Rufus changed the subject but he had sounded funny.

  Jack thinks she is perfect. He sent her a fancy valentine last February. She showed it to me. He could not sign it, of course, but under the printed words he wrote, I would swim the deepest ocean or climb the tallest mountain for you! Or even shinny up a beanstalk. And he signed it, The Giant Killer. He’s pretty smart, is Jack.

  Norah has lovely eyes and silvery fair hair. But she does gush a bit. And she flutters her lashes. “Oh, Jack, you wouldn’t!” she coos at him, gazing up, all flirty. This looks silly to me but Jack seems to eat it up.

  Charlie teases him about his “lady love.” He bats his lashes and pretends to swoon until Jack is in a right royal rage and then, just as Jack is about to trounce him, Charlie springs away like an antelope.

  When we got home at last, Norah was sitting in front of the fire talking with Mother. I no sooner said hello than Mother sent me up here.

  When I objected, she said, “Leave them alone, Eliza. It is the least we can do when they have so little time left.”

  But Norah could have come skating.

  Later on they are going to a New Year’s party where there will be dancing. They won’t do it tomorrow night because it is the Sabbath. Jack and Father were arguing about this. Jack cannot see any harm in dancing and playing cards as long as you don’t gamble or “go too far.” I was glad Grandmother was out of earshot. She calls cards “the Devil’s playthings.” Mother says it is because people use them when they gamble.

  Early afternoon, New Year’s Eve

  Sunday, December 31

  Norah’s aunt was at church this morning and she told Mother that Norah slept in. I did not think true love would sleep in when her sweetheart is going away to war tomorrow. But I have never been in love so I could be wrong. Maybe Norah needed her beauty sleep.

  Rufus and Jack and a bunch of other young people went off to a big farewell party for the boys leaving for the Front.

  I was standing at the door watching them go off down the street and Father came up behind me and looked out too. Then he said, under his breath, “Bring them safely home.” I felt a shiver go right up my back. I ran upstairs to get away from whatever he might say next. Of course they will come safely home. How could they not? But I keep hearing Father’s voice, so low, saying the words.

  Was he talking to God? I suppose he must have been.

  1917

  January 1917

  Monday, January 1, 1917

  Happy New Year, dear Reader! Or Happy Hogmanay, as Father said last night. He says we must not believe in foolish superstitions, but every New Year’s Eve Hugo has gone out and been the young dark man who puts the “first foot” in the door and calls out, “Good luck and God’s blessing on all in this house.”

  Nobody has ever asked Father if “first footing” is a foolish superstition. He might just laugh, but he might be hurt somehow. He is strange about certain things.

  New Year’s dinner is not quite the same as Christmas dinner. For one thing, we always have goose. We do not have a haggis although my father always says we should. Haggis is not, in my opinion, a treat.

  But New Year’s dinner is a feast even now when there are shortages. I am not fond of being a minister’s daughter except at times like New Year’s. Father’s parishioners bring him special treats. That is where the goose came from. Also the carrot pudding and the jar of mincemeat. And best of all, a box of fudge from old Mrs. MacDougall. She must have been saving up her butter and sugar for weeks. Maybe she begged some from her daughter in Toronto.

  She handed me the box with a stern look and said, “Now, lassie, you make sure and certain the reverend gets his fair share of these sweets. I made them for him and not for a lot of greedy bairns to gobble up.”

  I took the box straight to him and hid some in the drawer of his desk where the Twins won’t be likely to find them.

  I told him what she said and he smiled but he still looked sad. The boys go on the afternoon train. It is hard to be really joyful today even sucking a great chunk of fudge.

  After supper

  We all went to the station to see the boys off. Jack and Rufus weren’t the only men going. It was confusing. People were laughing and crying at the same time. Sweethearts were there, sobbing and hanging on to the men as though they would never let them go. Children dashed up and down the platform. Women held babies up to the train windows for one more kiss. Norah was gazing at Jack, getting ready for their last kiss. Then the train gave a toot and a big chuffing noise and pulled out of the station, leaving Norah puckering up for a kiss that never happened.

  “Blow him one,” Belle told her. “Hurry and blow him one, Norah.”

  For a split second Norah looked madder than a kicked cat. Then she smiled at my baby sister and blew a kiss after the vanishing train.

  “He’s blowing one back,” Belle assured her in her shrill little voice that cuts through any hubbub.

  Everyone was smiling by then and Norah had begun to blush.

  “Belle has excellent eyesight,” I told her.

  She looked at me then. She did not smile. Then she walked away from us and joined up with a bunch of young people.

  Poor Norah.

  I secretly thought I would not miss Jack the way I missed Hugo when he left. But I do miss Jack. And I miss Rufus too with his red hair and big grin and his eyes that sparkle so when he is teasing.

  Oh, dear Reader, let us both pray that 1917 finishes off the terrible War.

  I still have not settled on a name for you. You will be more real with a name. I surely do like having someone to tell everything to. I can picture you reading all my adventures with baited breath. Maybe it is “bated” breath. Oh well, Reader, you know what I mean.

  Grandmother and Aunt Martha took the next train into Toronto. They would have to change to go to Guelph. It was nice having them visit. But I am relieved that they are gone. If I told Mother that, she would scold, but I am certain she feels the same relief.

  It is much, much quieter without those big boys and there is not nearly as much housework — but I wish they were back here, teasing but safe. Everyone cried when they left. Even Charlie blubbered a bit and had to pretend he had grit in his eye. I’m glad I am not a boy and can howl whenever I feel like it.

  “Be a man, Charles,” they tell him.

  I don’t see why he should. He is not nine yet.

  Maybe it is not as wonderful as I used to think to be a boy.

  Tuesday, January 2, 1917

  How strange it feels to write 1917!

  Let me tell you a little more about us and our manse, dear Reader. I left out a lot on Boxing Day and, since then, I’ve been so busy I forgot.

  My father became the minister of Chalmers Presbyterian Church here in Uxbridge after the last minister dropped dead of a heart attack. Father had been in Guelph for years and was thinking of preaching for a call when he was asked to take over here. The manse is a brick house and mo
st people would call it large. But our family fills every nook and cranny to bursting. It is a good thing, dear Reader, that you can sleep in a book instead of needing a bed.

  Whenever someone makes a remark about seven children being too many for a poor clergyman, Mother points out that the Wesleys had nineteen and, if Mrs. Wesley had not kept at it, she would not have had Charles and we could never have sung Hark the Herald Angels Sing, or Love Divine, All Loves Excelling. I am sure you know that Charles was her eighteenth child — if you count them all. I am thankful that she does not mention that Mr. Wesley, like Father, was also named Sam.

  I am even more thankful that my parents did not have eleven more children on the chance that the eighteenth would write wonderful hymns. Six brothers and sisters are more than ample.

  The church ladies don’t know where to look when Mother talks that way, but Father says he treasures her outrageous side, so that is that.

  Maybe they don’t care about singing as much as we do, but most of the best hymns seem to be written by Charles Wesley or Isaac Watts.

  Mind you, Oh for a Thousand Tongues to Sing My Dear Redeemer’s Praise always gives me the giggles. Imagine trying to sing anything with one thousand tongues in your mouth! Oh, I know it really means languages or people but it still tickles my funny-bone.

  We are a musical family, dear Reader. On Sundays after we get home from evening service we gather around the piano and sing before bed. Sometimes some of the young people come over from church and join in. We often have a Duck or two still around. Singing seems to cheer them up. Even Miss Cadwallader who makes sheep’s eyes at Father is not so bad when she is singing Fight the Good Fight With All Thy Might. Everyone gets to pick a favourite hymn. I love The Ninety and Nine because it tells a good story and Will Your Anchor Hold because it has such a great swing to it.