Bittersweet Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  Around the makeshift bier had been placed the home’s few chairs. Boards laid over kegs and crates made additional seats, and here the elderly and the ailing were placed. Behind them, standing and pressing close—the remainder of Bliss’s people.

  Sitting up front—the one and only remaining member of the Bonney family—daughter Ellie. If there were other relatives, they were too far away to have received word of Brandon’s death, let alone make the trek west for the occasion of his burial. Funerals were conducted with dispatch in the summer. And still it was better, many vowed—having lived through a winter death—than placing your loved one in cold and lonely isolation in a barn or granary to await the spring thaw when the ground would yield reluctantly to the shovel. Better a hasty burial than the torment of long months of waiting.

  At Ellie’s side and, at times, gripping her hand, her friend Marfa. If there were those who wondered why Vonnie, another member of their well-remembered “gang,” was not with them, they didn’t wonder for long. In the back of the crowd, standing close together—Vonnie and Tom Teasdale. Tom’s face, in the bright morning sun, showed white through the summer tan. Difficult as it may have been to come, there was no way to ignore the funeral of a man who had been close to him across the years, and Tom, grimly perhaps, came to show his respect. Why Vonnie, in this hour of her friend’s grief, had not chosen to be by her side was a troubling question in the minds of some, plainly understood by others. Vonnie, everyone knew, could be dependable and sympathetic at one time, coldly uncaring at another.

  Parker Jones, pastor to this group of people who were isolated by their own choice, dying far, far from home and family, drew the little band together for one more farewell.

  But Brandon Bonney—overworked, under-paid, worn out too young—was not to go in defeat. Rather, triumphantly, the overcomer rather than the overcome, the victor rather than the victim. “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7), the pastor read.

  “And that,” Parker Jones said sincerely, “says it all.”

  Still, he enlarged on the good fight that Brandon Bonney, and all of them, had been and were still engaged in. He confirmed the way in which the departed one had been committed to his faith. He rejoiced in the comfort of “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day” (v. 8).

  “‘... and not to me only,’” the minister concluded with such confidence that those listening—the bent, the broken, the struggling, the deprived of this world’s goods—felt a surge of gladness as an amen rose in their spirits, “‘but unto all them also that love his appearing.’” Such comfort! And how good to be reminded of it. There would be a day when the final harvest would be in. And God, being faithful, as He always has been and always will be, would gather the precious sheaves to Himself. It was their confidence and their hope.

  There was the long and cheerless ride to the cemetery, the dusty line extending half a mile as, one after the other, worn and weary rigs followed the wagon, a rude catafalque bearing the coffin and the final remains of Bran Bonney.

  There was the committal as the coffin was lowered into place; Brandon and Serena would lie side by side once more.

  There was the ride, less dismal this time, back to the Bonney home where kind neighbors had a generous repast ready for the mourners. There were the final hugs and assurances of prayer—“Just let me know how I can help.” There were the final tears.

  And then Ellie was alone.

  Before the silence in the house became unbearable, Ellie grimly and steadfastly changed her clothes, donning work gear. The silence in the barn was no better. Desperately Ellie set about the chores.

  When at last, weary to the bone and emotionally exhausted, she pulled the covers over her head and went to sleep, it was only to plunge into the nightmare. As often as she had experienced it, the fear and horror hadn’t abated over the years; the sound of the fire and the sight of the flames were as vivid as the first time it happened, the struggle to waken just as convulsive. But this time, there were no loving arms to go around her, no soothing voice calling her from the nightmare’s chilling grip to blessed release.

  Papa!... Papa!... Father!... Heavenly Father.

  Though the arms of the one were denied her, the everlasting arms were faithful. In them she sobbed out her fear, her heartbreak, her anguish, her loneliness, and found herself not alone after all, not helpless, and not hopeless.

  The wedding of Tom Teasdale and Vonnie Whinnery took place as scheduled. Because of the haste, and because Vonnie was such a recent widow, it was done privately, with only family members and a few invited friends present. Ellie’s bereavement had neatly settled, for Vonnie, the problem of whether her childhood friend should be invited, and, for Ellie, the problem of how to refuse such an invitation.

  Having been urged to come and having said she would, Marfa attended with George and baby Bonney. Throughout the entire ceremony Marfa was sadly torn, even feeling a certain anxious disloyalty to her dear friend Ellie. Consequently, when next they met, Marfa could only ignore the subject of the wedding with guilt, and this she could not abide.

  “Shall I tell you about it, or not?” Marfa asked, not knowing what Ellie would prefer or expect and wanting to do the right thing.

  “Yes, tell me,” Ellie said quietly.“I might as well know as wonder, conjuring up all sorts of scenes. Though I try not to.”

  “Well, Flossy came, after all, and stood up with her. Yanni Nikolai stood up with Tom.”

  “It’s been so long since I’ve seen Flossy. I wish she might have stayed over.”

  “She brought her baby with her. There are three more at home, she said. She looked a little worn, I thought. She said to give you her love.”

  “Dear Flossy. She meant so much to the three of us, in her quiet way, and I do miss her.”

  “There’s really not much else to tell,” Marfa said. “They stood up in the front room and Parker Jones married them. Vonnie was, I suppose you’d say she glowed. And Tom...”

  “And Tom, Marfa?”

  “Tom was Tom. Rather more quiet than might have been expected, I thought, but with no halting or stumbling, either. Vonnie was vivacious enough for both of them.”

  “I can picture her quite clearly. Vonnie glows magnificently. Not only her eyes but her skin, though that’s hard to imagine. Looking back, Marfa, I think Vonnie has had special feelings for Tom for years. Those looks she gave him from time to time, even as a child, were very... well, telling, is the word. They said a lot.”

  “Tom always took it casually, just sort of basked in the interest and adoration of all four of us. We all felt he was the most special boy on earth. But we knew, right from the beginning, who his favorite was.”

  Ellie, remembering, drew a deep breath. “The good old days, I suppose.”

  “When Parker Jones asked if there was anyone who knew any reason why Vonnie and Tom should not be joined in marriage, I...”

  “You what, Marfa?”

  Marfa looked uncomfortable. “I wanted to speak up. I wanted to say, ‘Yes, there’s plenty of reason!’ I wanted to say, ‘Tom loves someone else!’”

  “I’m glad you kept quiet. I believe—if Tom did love me—it’s faded, or at least fading. And that’s good, Marfa. I don’t want him going through life grieving over a lost love. Neither would I want to cast any kind of a shadow on his marriage or stand in the way of his happiness. When I made my decision, it was the right one. And if it’s right for me, it’s got to be right for Tom.”

  Marfa sighed. “I suppose so. Well, he’s got a lot of years to be happy about his decision, or regret it. But what about you, Ellie? I worry so—”

  “Well, don’t. The future looks pretty blank right now, of course, but just before Dad died he said something that has stayed with me—he said, ‘God is working.’ He said, ‘Watch for the next step.’ And right away there were two steps—his death and this m
arriage. I’m holding on to the fact that the steps will come in the right order and at the right time.”

  It seemed frail hope to Marfa, whose practical side wanted something more substantial.

  “It keeps me wondering—what next.” Ellie managed to sound cheerful.

  Marfa sighed. “And in the meantime, you’ll try and hang on here, Ellie? Doing the chores and all? It seems too much to ask of a woman. You’ve never done much outside work.”

  “Other women have done it, Marfa. I’ll keep up with the day-by-day chores—the milking, the hens, the pigs, the garden. I’ll have to see about someone to help with the harder things, like getting up the hay, the wood, and so on. Especially the threshing. I admit the thought of threshing gives me the chills.” Ellie’s voice trailed off. In spite of her insistence that she could carry on, what she was contemplating seemed insurmountable, impossible.

  God would, indeed, need to come through with a next step.

  The summer fled by, for Birdie as well as for all those more passionately involved in preparing for the coming winter.

  Her preparations for the opening of school seemed simple compared to the efforts being expended by the rest of Bliss’s people and by all homesteaders across the vast expanse of the Canadian Territories—physical efforts, exhausting, dawn-to-dark physical efforts.

  Sporadically, she helped Lydia with the workload that had that good lady overwhelmed. How she kept working, Birdie sometimes wondered, for her hands were twisted with rheumatism, and her slow gait indicated, at times, that her feet fared just as poorly.

  The trip to the river had been a special day; Tierney Dunbar, whom Lydia loved as a daughter, went with them. The wagon, rattling across Bliss and filled with happy conversation, finally came to rest at a spot Lydia—who knew the area—deemed best for their purpose of locating and picking the highbush cranberries.

  Here they clambered down, tied the team to a nearby bush, and prepared to invade the rampant growth that bordered the river.

  Lydia was distracted momentarily when she spotted a few berries she identified as bearberry. “Or kinnikinnick,” she said.

  “I’ve heard of it.The Indians smoke it, don’t they?” Birdie asked.

  “They do, drying it and mixing it with sumac and willow leaves and, I believe, the inner bark of the dogwood. I guess it’s no stranger than the white man and his tobacco!

  “It has the most unusual tiny pink and white urn-shaped flowers that grow in clusters among the leathery leaves. The Indians boil the plant for tea. But,” Lydia said skeptically, devoted to her aromatic beverage, “I can’t say it would be a good substitute.”

  “Why,” Tierney asked suddenly, suspiciously, “is it called bearberry?”

  “Just as you’d suppose,” Lydia said, looking around carefully. “Because bears like to feast on them.”

  Although bears largely had retreated northward with the invasion of the homesteader, encounters with them were not unheard of. Sobered by the possibility, Lydia, Tierney, and Birdie proceeded with caution.

  With syrup pails cinched around their waists by a piece of twine and wide-brimmed hats securely fastened on their heads, protection from the thrusting bush they would encounter, the three made their way toward the river and were not long in locating a flourishing cranberry thicket. The girls, never having encountered highbush cranberries before, were delighted to find them hanging in clusters, able to be stripped off readily, a handful at a time. Pails filled rapidly; again and again Birdie and Tierney trudged back to the wagon to empty them into the boxes they had brought with them, saving Lydia the extra effort.

  “It’s a blessing we’re in the bush,” Birdie remarked, pausing to wipe her forehead. “Fancy what it would be like without the shade while we do this.”

  “We can dabble our feet in the river, if we wish,” Lydia said, “but one has to be careful. It’s a river to be wary of. Besides, here it runs between such deep escarpments it makes dabbling a risky business.”

  Dabbling, consequently, was rejected in favor of a rest in the shade while they ate the sandwiches they had brought with them, the bright, flavorful tomatoes, and the crisp cucumber slices.

  It was then Tierney, flushing prettily and stumbling somewhat in her speech, shared her news.

  “Ye’ll be the first to know,” she said, “other than Robbie, of course...”

  “Yes? Yes?” Lydia, an incorrigible lover of news, asked urgently. “Weel, I’m goin’ to... that is, Robbie and me, we’re havin’ a babby.”

  Lydia’s and Birdie’s responses were wonderfully gratifying. Their oohs and ahs and other exclamations of approval and delight would have impressed any skeptic of the blissfulness of things maternal.

  “And to think,” Lydia said reproachfully, “we let you carry those pails of berries.”

  “I’m pairfectly healthy an’ strong,” Tierney assured her.

  “Still, you should be more careful...” and Lydia delivered a small sermon on prenatal care, a topic largely ignored by reason of the heavy cares and responsibilities of life in the bush. No one in the bush had time nor inclination to pamper herself, and women carried on as usual whether sick or, in this case, pregnant, often working themselves into the grave. That it should not happen to “her” Tierney, Lydia was adamantly insistent.

  “We’ll hae to build on to our hoosie,”Tierney said practically, changing the subject wisely, “but thass a guid thing; we need more room.”

  The remainder of day—picking until their boxes were full and then driving home—was filled with excited talk concerning the arrival of the newcomer.

  “I’d like to think I’m about to be a grandmother again,” Lydia said wistfully, her only grandchild far away on the distant prairie, and Tierney promptly confirmed it.

  “With me own mither dead and me da too, this puir bairn’ll need a grandmither.”With that spate of Scots rolling forth, Tierney subsided and made an effort to speak more plainly again.

  Tierney was dropped off at home, with the assurance of jars from the Bloom supply, and reluctantly giving over to Birdie the task of lugging a box of cranberries into the cabin. Birdie and Lydia made their weary way homeward, a little sunburnt, greatly mussed, somewhat dusty, and fully satisfied with their day away from humdrum tasks. It was too late, of course, to start the canning, so the cranberries were taken to the cellar to await the morrow and renewed strength and dedication to the task.

  Though Herbert was absent from the house, obviously busy elsewhere on the Bloom homestead, someone had been to the post office and dropped off the mail. Spread out on the kitchen table were several papers, a letter from Buster, Lydia’s and Herb’s grandson, and—Birdie’s heart quickened—a plain, white, unstamped envelope for her. Picking it up quickly, she slipped it into her pocket.

  Soon she said casually, “I’ll go on up and clean up,” and she disappeared up the stairs to her room. Lydia, sharp-eyed and sharp-witted, noted the letter, observed the shifty hiding of it, understood the seemingly leisurely escape. With a shake of her gray head she went about her own wash-up and change of clothes.

  Kicking off her shoes, Birdie dropped on the side of the bed and—it must be confessed—with a certain flutter to her pulses and a spark of interest she couldn’t quell, opened the envelope.

  As with the last one, it contained a few lines that, at first glance, revealed it to be another quotation. A closer look seemed to confirm that it was done by the same hand that had printed the other a few weeks previously.

  With a strange mix of curiosity and dread—curiosity about the contents, dread that it might be a disappointment, she read:

  Through the dark and stormy night

  Faith holds a feeble light

  Up the blackness streaking;

  Knowing God’s own time is best,

  In patient hope I rest

  For the full day-breaking.

  —John Greenleaf Whittier

  Her breath caught in her throat. How beautiful! How expressive! How... pertine
nt. As though chosen for her. Was there someone—some sensitive someone—out there, watching, caring, tuned to her private, inner person? And comprehending enough to offer the encouragement of sentiments such as these? And such beautifully expressed sentiments! What a choice person this must be.

  Wanting desperately to know who it was, it was wonderful not knowing. To know would spoil it; to know would put the burden of response on her.

  Birdie clasped the page to her breast and felt her eyes sting with tears. That someone would share with her something so meaningful, knowing her that intimately, understanding the heart of her that personally, was deeply moving, even thrilling.

  If Birdie had had any lingering doubts about whether or not the gangling young man Buck was responsible for the new rash of correspondence, she wondered no longer. Not only was he long gone from Bliss, and his brother, who might have been his coconspirator, with him, but the thoughtfulness, the beauty, the meaning of the quotations proved otherwise. No, it was not Buck; it was someone mature, well-read, passionate of heart, fine of spirit.

  And so, in her thinking, Birdie began to picture, to see with her mind’s eye, perhaps with her heart, the refined man of the world, removed from civilization and secluded in the wilds, a man who spent his lonely hours and long winter evenings garnering literary treasures. And sharing them with her!

  With a long, indrawn, quivering breath, Birdie arose from the bed and went to the chiffonier to locate the previous communication she had received, glad now that she hadn’t carelessly discarded it as meaningless.

  Now, in the light of the new letter and the insights she was gathering concerning the writer, the other was opened and reread, more appreciated than before, and finally also laid out on the bed. The scholar in her thrilled to the quality of the material; the woman in her was intensely curious about who it was from, and why; the hungry heart in her noted that each had a spiritual application, a pointing toward God. Thoughtfully Birdie read each quotation again.