A Prairie as Wide as the Sea

by Sarah Ellis

  Life is not fair. Miss Hutchinson is not a nice teacher. Elizabeth is not my friend. I hate Canada and as soon as I’m fourteen I’m going to get a job and make enough money to go home to England.

  Nyla Muir steals a poem. Nyla Muir cheats. Nyla Muir gets a prize she doesn’t deserve. Nyla Muir commits plagiarism. (That’s the word for stealing a poem. Miss H. used it.) But – who gets in trouble? Me!

  I can’t write any more. I’m so angry I just want to stick this pen right through the paper.

  Later

  I went out and kicked the fence. Now I can continue.

  Last night, Elizabeth (my former friend) and I decided that the best thing to do would be to cut the poem out of the paper and put it in Miss Hutchinson’s desk. Then she would know that Nyla cheated but she wouldn’t know who told her. So yesterday at recess whilst Miss H. was out playing with the little ones we sneaked into the school and put the poem in her desk.

  When we got back from recess Miss H. didn’t say anything, but just before lunch she asked Nyla to stay behind and help her with the blackboard erasers over lunch. Elizabeth and I didn’t look at each other but WE KNEW. Nyla took a long time coming out with the erasers, but when she did she was really whacking them against the shed wall. Chalk dust was flying everywhere.

  So I thought justice was done. But then, after lunch, Miss Hutchinson pulls the poem out of her desk and holds it up. Not so that you can see what’s on it, just like a little flag. Then she says, “Somebody in this class knows about this piece of paper. I expect that person to come see me privately.”

  I just stared at my desk. Somebody named Howard once wrote his name on the desk in little ink dots. I tried to think of how many words you could make with the letters of Howard.

  After school Elizabeth said that we should go and see Miss H. But I said why are we suddenly the bad ones? If we just left it for a few days then everybody would forget about it. Then we had a fight and I called Elizabeth a goody-goody and a teacher’s pet and she called me a coward and said if I don’t go on Monday she’s going to go alone. But she’s not going to tell Miss H. that I’m part of it. So, of course I felt really bad and told her that she was a blackmailer.

  I wish I’d never found the darn poem.

  We had tripe for dinner. Mother made me eat it. I hate tripe. The twins called me a crosspatch.

  March 28

  A New Week

  I take it back. Miss Hutchinson is a nice teacher. Elizabeth is back to being my friend. Nyla Muir is still a toffee-nosed creepy plagiarist though.

  I had a horrid weekend. Friday night I couldn’t sleep because I had tripe in my stomach. Saturday night I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking how lonely it is not having a best friend.

  So this afternoon I went out to Elizabeth’s and then we both came into town and went to the teacherage and told. Miss Hutchinson said it was brave of us to come and what she wanted to say was that putting the poem in her desk was not the best thing to do. We should have told Nyla quietly and given her a chance to own up. What we did was sneaky. But now it was over and we wouldn’t refer to it again. Then she gave us a cup of tea in really pretty cups and showed us her picture postcard collection. Miss Hutchinson has little bits of ribbon in her picture frames. It looks very smart.

  I know we’re not supposed to talk about this again but I don’t think talking to your diary really counts. There is a hole in Miss Hutchinson’s line of thinking. What are the chances that Nyla would have confessed? I would say 0%. What are the chances that Nyla would just have hated us even more than she does now? I would say 100%. Final question and then my lips are sealed on the subject of Nyla’s poem forever. Even if I was on the medieval torture instrument I would not say another word after this one:

  What was Nyla doing in the school barn?

  April 1

  Fools

  Whilst we were having breakfast today there was a sound like a pig outside the kitchen window. Mother said, “Cor, what is that?” Turned out it was Dad playing an April Fool’s trick. He got punished by having to serve breakfast to the boarders and do the washing up.

  At school Miss Hutchinson had a mouse in her desk but she wasn’t one bit scared. Then just before recess there was an explosion in the stove. Somebody had put a .22 shell in there and it went off. Nobody owned up and Miss H. said she hoped we knew that April Fools ends at noon. Then she gave up and read us some stories about tricking. There was a very funny one about a giant who dresses up like a baby.

  April 2

  Two Turn Seven

  The twins decided for their birthday present they wanted to be treated like a king and queen all day. They wore their bathrobes and paper crowns and ordered us around. Everyone played along. Mr. Ambrose was especially good. He walked backwards out the door because he said that you must never turn your back on royalty. The twins ate all their meals in tiny pieces out of the celery dishes. (The celery dishes are yellow glass and they pretended they were gold).

  Mother said that she wished that birthdays ended at noon like April Fool’s. At five o’clock Harry ordered us all to be executed and Mother said she would welcome the escape.

  April 3

  Selling Up

  Abel is moving. His father told us after church today. He said the hail ruined his crop last fall and it was the last straw and he just can’t make a go of it. They are going to move to Vancouver where maybe Mr. Butt can get a job in a sawmill. I hauled Abel off to talk. He wasn’t jokey at all. He said his dad told him that in Vancouver they have trees along the streets that bloom in the spring and that the blossoms fall like pink snow. But he said he still didn’t want to leave.

  I thought if you had a farm you were all set. We don’t even have a farm. I wonder if we’re going to make a go of it. But we do have Mother and the hotel (with THREE guests at the moment) and William and the store. Abel and his dad have only each other. I will miss him. He is jolly and a better poet than a certain plagiarist I could mention, but won’t.

  April 4

  **?!#*&#! (That is a bad word)

  Mother has a broken wrist and it is all my fault.

  The other day Mr. Ambrose was talking about magnets. I must be a magnet for trouble. Invisible bits of trouble float around and when they get near me they jump right onto me.

  This morning Mother asked me to go down to the cellar to get some potatoes. Whilst I was down there William called me and said, “Come quick!” So I raced up the ladder and the kitchen door was open and William was outside. He said I should come with him quick, so I did, around to the back of the house.

  There was a gopher. The first one of spring. Big teeth. Bright eyes. It was like seeing an old friend.

  Then we heard a crash and a yell from inside. I knew right away what had happened. I had left the cellar trapdoor open. The only question was who.

  It was Mother. She was carrying a tray in from the boarders’ breakfast and she fell right down into the cellar.

  We helped her up but the damage is:

  1. two broken plates

  2. one broken teacup

  3. one broken wrist

  I won’t write down what she said about me. It is all true. I thought everything would be better when I was twelve years old. When does it get better?

  April 7

  Too busy to write. Helping with washing and baking and minding. Mother says I have to be her right hand.

  April 12

  Elementary, My Dear Watson

  Snow day! I knew there was snow even before I opened my eyes. How did I know?

  Like Mr. Sherlock Holmes I used my powers of observation and deduction.

  1. I could see the brightness of the room through my eyelids.

  2. I heard William talking in the kitchen. Usually he has left for the store by the time I wake up.

  3. Gladys was standing at the window, jumping up and down and singing, “Snow, snow, snow.”

  It is not just snow but deep snow and blowing so we can’t go to school. Good. It w
as going to be a grammar bee. Grammar has a lot of ways to be wrong and hardly any ways to be right. After I finish this I’m going to write to Auntie Lou and tell her that here it is five days before Easter and it is snowing. She will be amazed. I guess Elizabeth wasn’t exaggerating when she said that you have to keep your long underwear on until the 24th of May. I’ll bet that gopher has gone back underground.

  April 13

  Miracle

  Four o’clock in the afternoon. I am so tired that my head wants to roll off my neck but I just want to say that the most amazing thing happened today. And yesterday.

  April 14

  The Arrival

  It is five o’clock in the morning. Everybody in the house is asleep. Now I can tell the story.

  On Tuesday, the snow day, I did write to Auntie Lou. Then I helped Mother make bread. I had to do the kneading. We made cloverleaf rolls for a treat. The snow got heavier and heavier and blowier and blowier (blowier is probably not grammar but Miss Hutchinson is not going to be reading this). I remembered the day last fall when I burnt up the chairs.

  After the bread was set to rise I went upstairs to play juicy meat with the twins when it all started. (If you want to know how to play juicy meat see the P.S. Otherwise just go on with this story.) Mother came upstairs and she looked so serious that I thought we were going to get in trouble. (Juicy meat can be quite a noisy game.) But she just told the twins to go down to the kitchen and then she sat on the edge of the bed and told me she needed me. She told me that Mr. Nygaard was downstairs and that Mrs. Nygaard had started to have her baby and that the doctor was snowed in at a farm near Stanton and couldn’t come. Mr. Nygaard needed Mother to come because he knew she had been a midwife in England. “But,” said Mother, “I can’t manage with my wrist. Mr. Nygaard thinks I need to come straight away and the snow is getting heavier by the minute. Mrs. Johnstone has gone to Stanton with the doctor and I don’t have time to fetch Mrs. Gilmour. I need you to come and help. Do you think you can do it?”

  How do you know if you can do something you’ve never done? I felt scared. I said, “I think so.”

  Then Mother got very brisk. She got out her carpetbag and I went around and collected things like scissors, soap, the ragbag and the oilcloth from our table. At the last minute Mother put the cloverleaf rolls in a bag. “Don’t know what we’ll find,” she said. We put on our warmest clothes. I borrowed William’s jacket and toque. The only good thing about the walk to the Nygaards’ was that the wind was behind us, pushing us along.

  We arrived at the Nygaards’ farm. Mother went right into the bedroom. I unpacked the bag. When Mother came out she said it would be a while yet and that Mr. Nygaard should go out and water the stock. Then she made a cup of tea and we sat for a minute and she talked to me. She was serious but not cross. She said that it took a long time for a baby to be born, that there was going to be pain and mess, but that we must keep our minds on the fact that we had a job to do, to help Mrs. Nygaard as much as we could. Then she said it was a good thing that she had never been one for telling us that babies were found under gooseberry bushes or any of that nonsense and we both laughed a little bit.

  It’s true. I did know how babies are born. But I didn’t really know. Not like you know when you’ve been there and seen it. It was very surprising and amazing and scary and happy and I don’t know what other descriptive words to use.

  We arrived at the farm about three o’clock in the afternoon and the baby was born at ten the next morning. An afternoon, evening, night and morning and everything got mixed up in time. First thing we did was cut our fingernails and scrub our hands until they were pink. Then we remade Mrs. Nygaard’s bed with the oilcloth under the sheet. Nobody said this was because there was going to be blood and things but I figured it out and it made my stomach jump up and down a bit. Then Mother got me to sew clean rags around fat bundles of sheets of newspaper. It wasn’t good sewing but nobody cared.

  Sometimes Mrs. Nygaard lay on the bed, and sometimes she walked around and Mother said things about breathing and told her she was a “good girl.” Mother was different. She didn’t once tell Mrs. Nygaard to buck up.

  I did ordinary things like making tea and buttering rolls and feeding the cat and sweeping the kitchen. When Mrs. Nygaard cried or moaned I felt scared. Mr. Nygaard came in and held her hand and said things in Norwegian. But when the baby really started to come everything got really busy and I stopped feeling scared. Mr. Nygaard started to look a bit peaky, though, and Mother sent him out to the kitchen to boil some string. When he left Mother smiled at me and said, “A fainter. You can tell. Best to send them off to boil something.”

  Then we saw the top of the baby’s head (black hair!) and Mother told me what to do and I just did it. And the baby slithered out and Mother said “It’s a girl” and told me how to clean the face and hold the baby up and the baby cried (loud!) and Mother wrapped her in a blanket and handed her to Mrs. Nygaard who cried too (soft) and Mr. Nygaard came in and then he cried.

  Later I got to hold the baby in my lap and rub her with baby oil and then rub it off. I just kept thinking, “They are letting me do this.” Whilst I was cleaning her she grabbed my finger. She had the most amazing tiny fingernails. I never thought of that before, how we are born with fingernails.

  When it was all over and everything was cleaned up and the baby was cuddled up with a hot water bottle Mr. Nygaard said, “Listen.” And then we heard the dripping. The snowstorm was over and already the snow was melting. I looked out the window into the bright sun and then I looked back at Mrs. Nygaard and the baby in bed and they looked like a Christmas card.

  When we were walking home I was so tired that I looked down at my feet and they didn’t look as though they belonged to me. Like it was some sort of joke that they were attached to the ends of my legs. My brain was too tired to think much, but I did have room for one thought. I remembered that in the whole night Mother had never once said I was clumsy or dreamy. She hadn’t clicked her tongue once. Then when we were nearly home she squeezed my shoulder and said thank you to me for my SPLENDID help and then she said it was obvious that I had a gift for nursing.

  If my feet had belonged to me I would have done a jig all over the yard.

  April 15

  Ivy’s Official Juicy-Meat Guide

  I read over yesterday and realized I had forgotten the P.S. In the game juicy meat you chase somebody all over the house threatening to bite them and saying “Juicy Meat.” The twins invented it. They love it.

  April 16

  Modifiers

  A miracle happens and the world just goes plodding on. The grammar bee was postponed, not cancelled. I got bumped out in the first round yesterday because I didn’t remember that adverbs modify adjectives. The fact that I am a splendid person with a gift doesn’t butter any parsnips with Miss Hutchinson when she’s doing grammar.

  April 18

  Goodbye This Book

  This book is nearly finished. William bought me a new one. Mr. Burgess gave him a raise at the store and he bought us all presents. William is the best brother in the galaxy. But I’m going to write small so I can fit in this one last thing because it should go in the same book as everything else about coming to Canada. Today Mother and I went to visit the Nygaards. The baby is lovely. Mrs. Nygaard told me that they’ve chosen a name for her. They are going to call her Ivy. After me. She is going to be my namesake. Mr. Nygaard said that she is a little Canadian Ivy. Then Mother said that I am a big Canadian Ivy.

  Later

  I just read over the first part of this diary. On May 19th, 1926, I said that the only thing the same about my new address was me and The World.

  Now I am:

  Ivy Doris Weatherall

  The Bank Building

  Milorie, Saskatchewan

  Canada

  North America

  The World

  Except now I’m not the same Ivy Weatherall. So the only thing the same is living in The World.

&
nbsp; Epilogue

  Ivy did not become a deep-sea diver. But, just as her mother said, she did turn out to have a gift for nursing. Pursuing her education was tough for Ivy. In 1929 Canada entered the Great Depression. Times were tough everywhere, but they were worst on the prairies. The economic depression coincided with years of terrible weather for farmers. But Ivy persevered and managed to get her high school education, and then to move to Vancouver to go to nursing school. She loved life as a student. She made many friends among her fellow students. She hiked the local mountains.

  Most of all, she discovered a passion for science. When she graduated as a registered nurse she got the highest marks in all of Canada. After nursing for several years she was given a scholarship to return to university for a nursing degree. She eventually became a professor of nursing at McGill University in Montreal. Her many nieces and nephews adored visiting her. The fact that she owned a succession of sports cars might have had something to do with her popularity as an aunt.

  William spent several years working as a clerk in various stores, in Milorie and later in Calgary. During the Depression, when work was scarce, his was often the only family income. In his mid-twenties he joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and was posted to the far north. He spent his whole career in the land of the midnight sun and was very happy there. He married and had four children. His son Gordon lived with his Aunt Ivy when he went to university in Montreal.

  When World War II began, Gladys followed in her father’s seagoing footsteps and joined the Royal Canadian Navy. Here she met the man who was to become her husband. Later they settled in southern Ontario, where they started a nursery business.