Bittersweet Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  They were not hard to commit to memory, so that when they were folded and put away, the beautiful phrases rose and rang like a sweetly tolling bell in her heart. Particularly—In patient hope I rest for the full day-breaking!

  Was it possible? Could there yet be a daybreak for her? Almost... almost she found herself not quoting but praying. Was that, after all, the intent of the mysterious writer?

  The first flakes of winter were drifting down, as gentle as a baby’s breath, as deceitful as a faithless lover’s kiss. Promising beauty, promising quiet and peace, by the flakes’ rapid profusion the weather quickly turned threatening. Single flakes, airy and lovely, soon became a thick blanket, a shroud through which it was difficult to see clearly. The whiffle of snow on a horse’s back and swirling around the buggy became a thick coating and a trackless wasteland.

  As sight blurred, sound faded. Falling with no sound whatsoever, which could, of itself, be terrifying in its remorselessness, the snow deadened all of life’s normal activities. No bird sang; the dog’s bark was indistinct, issuing as it were from behind a curtain. Voices drifted as from an empty void, ghostly rather than human.

  Ellie had been uneasy that morning as she climbed into the buggy and headed for a home clear across Bliss and well into the neighboring district of Fairway. One of the Monck boys had arrived, galloping up to the house furiously, announcing in a high, thin voice that his mum was in a bad way and needed Ellie to come.

  It was Greta Monck’s thirteenth child, and with every one after the third she had been certain she would not pull through. People suspected that, weary of bearing and raising babies, she had a secret, spiteful desire to go to her eternal rest and leave her husband with the gargantuan task of raising them all by himself. But, strong as a horse and more prolific, Greta always managed to pull through in fine fettle. The latest addition always blended into its host of siblings and was simply called “Baby” until the next Baby arrived, when it was granted its own name. All the family joined in the naming and scoured the pages of the Bible for their choices. Beginning with Asher, they had proceeded methodically through the alphabet.

  It was Nimrod who came, pell-mell at his mother’s urging, to engage Ellie’s services for the birth of the thirteenth child. The three girls in the family, weary of the work and bombarded day and night by boys, gave two-year-old Baby the name of Uriah and declared that the newborn should be named immediately. Letters V, W, X and Y would be bypassed, and the newborn would bear the name Zebulun. There was no alphabet remaining; there would be no more babies!

  Greta had borne Zebulun with the dispatch that had marked all her other births. By this time, the oldest daughter was practiced in the art of midwifery and had things well under control by the time Ellie arrived. Other than a few futile gestures, Ellie had nothing to do, and Zebulun arrived as easily and as casually as all the others. With a few encouraging words to the new mother, partaking of a cup of tea and a piece of bread and butter prepared by Jezreel, the middle girl, Ellie put on her coat, hat, and gloves and bade the boisterous family good-bye one more time. It was almost a relief to shut the door on the teeming horde of humanity—cooped up in their log house like baby chicks in a box, crowded and trampling over each other with happy carelessness—and breathe fresh air again.

  When Ellie stepped outside, ready to mount the buggy and begin the return trip, she first congratulated the sheepish father who, as always, had escaped to the barn for the birthing ordeal, and then turned her thoughts to the weather, looking up with anxiety. Her earlier fears were confirmed: It was a snow sky.

  Sullen in appearance, the heavens hung heavy and full; the buggy and its occupant seemed bug-size under the menace of the big Saskatchewan sky, and like bugs crawling through the bush, Ellie and the rig crept homeward to shelter.

  And didn’t make it.

  The first few flakes of winter would have charmed her if she had been inside her own home, watching through a window, with the stove blazing at her back, the wood box and the water pail full, and a line stretched from house to barn. As it was, it was with mounting dread she noted the thick coat accumulating on the horse’s back and, in spite of its body heat, staying. She had covered her knees with the old quilt kept under the buggy seat for such purposes but found herself shivering in spite of it, her hands becoming numb in their tight grip on the reins.

  “Giddup, Ned!” she urged time and again, and Old Ned would quicken his pace, bobbing his head in rhythm, plowing through the unbroken blanket of snow that very soon covered the road before him, the grass at the side of the road, and the bush beyond that. It was, shortly, a white, white world.

  In such a blizzard, it was easy to lose one’s bearings. Bush people had reason to be grateful for the growth that crowded most roads, making turns improbable if not impossible; they could follow the road home whether they could see it or not. There were, however, numerous logging roads taking off here and there, entrances to homesteads, and, every mile, an intersection with its four roads.

  Finally, the buggy looked like nothing so much as a snowdrift on the move. Ellie’s shoulders were white, her head snow-capped, her lashes snow-laden.

  Old Ned plowed on, slowly now, blindly, by instinct. The reins, Ellie finally realized, were useless, and she dropped them to pull the quilt up around her and huddle on the buggy seat, her inadequately gloved hands growing colder and stiffer by the moment, her feet becoming blocks of ice.

  Where are we! Trees were no landmark, for they were everywhere. Now ghostly in appearance, they faded into the gray sky behind them. A sky that was lowering even more as the afternoon waned and the early dark came on, earlier and darker than usual.

  We should be in Bliss by now! We must have taken a wrong turn! Ellie’s eyes had been shut while she prayed. It was all she knew to do. But opening her eyes, it was to find herself completely disoriented. It’s up to you, Ned!

  Many were the accounts of horses making it through when driver or rider knew not where he was. Ellie was confident that Ned would make it home, make it somewhere, if she gave him his head. But would the buggy? Already it was dragging, bogging down. And the dark settled rapidly, making sight impossible.

  The problem was the drifts that began to pile up. The wind, absent at first, now seemed determined to get in on the act. Hampered and bounded by the phalanx of trees and brush, it swept down the open area of road as though it were a tunnel, driving the loose snow before it, piling it in great heaps here and there.

  As dark as it was, lamps would be going on in homes along the way, homes until now hidden in the shroud of snow. But Ellie saw nothing, peer as she might. Not all of Bliss, Fairway, and the other surrounding districts had been settled; there was still land to be homesteaded, land on which no tree had been removed, no home built. Ellie, certain now that she had taken a wrong turn, realizing the seriousness of her predicament and feeling as isolated as though she were on the moon, shivered with something other than the cold and redoubled her praying.

  It was the cessation of movement that jolted her from a half-somnolent state. What now?

  Pulling aside the quilt that half covered her face, Ellie peered out. Ned had stopped, his breath curling in white swirls around his drooped head.

  Beyond Ned’s snowy ears—a lamp-lit window.

  Knowing that any tears of joy would freeze almost immediately into icicles on her lashes, Ellie allowed herself a few relieved whimpers as she swept aside the quilt and slowly, stiffly, rose to her feet. Reaching a hand to the armrest to steady herself, she lowered herself toward the ground. Her foot slipped on the buggy’s small iron step, and she fell... plunged to the ground. No matter! The same snow that got her in this fix cushioned her fall, and Ellie—none the worse except that the snow managed, finally, to invade her person, sifting down her neck, coating her clothes, sticking to her flailing limbs—struggled to her feet and headed for the door of the dimly outlined house.

  It was a snow-covered figure that stood in the shaft of light when the door ope
ned in response to her repeated hammering. From beneath a snow-tilted hat and above a turned-up collar, Ellie’s face, if she had but known it, peeped almost drolly out, her eyes wide and green in the light of the lamp in the hand of the man, the tip of her nose red, her lashes fringed with snow.

  No wonder the man’s expression was one of surprise, almost astonishment. Here was this snow-lady appearing, as in some fairy tale, out of the dark and the storm, to open her mouth and chatter, “May I come in?”

  Quickly the man handed the lamp to the boy who pressed close to his side, curious about their mysterious visitor. About to draw Ellie in, practicality took over, and he paused.

  “Here, wait a moment,” he said, and he stepped out onto the small porch to brush a veritable storm of snow from his unknown guest’s shoulders and coat, even raking off the snow that had settled on her head. Ellie, dazed but understanding, dutifully stamped her feet a few times until her feet were comparatively free of snow. Then, assisted by her unknown host, Ellie stepped into his house—log like her own, simple and snug—and felt herself to have arrived at a sanctuary.

  Standing in the patch of lamplight, she said, “I’m lost,” and she never knew why the man’s mouth twitched as though he struggled with a smile.

  “Well,” he said gently, “thank God you’re safe and sound.”

  With that simple statement Sam Dickson expressed his faith; with his gentleness he revealed his nature, while his square-jawed face spoke of the strength that gave him balance; his strong, well-shaped body revealed his maleness. His twinkle told of his humor. His glance—direct, steady.

  Ellie, in that moment, felt a warmth—not of the heater—flood through her trembling body. Only then did she crumple, overcome by the ride, the fear, the cold, the rescue. The revelation. And as yet, she didn’t even know his name. All she had time to comprehend, beyond the startling connection with those eyes, was that there was no woman hovering in the background.

  Strong arms caught her, eased her to a chair at the side of the stove. Compassionate hands removed her wraps, her shoes. Gentle hands massaged her hands, her feet, until they began to burn and sting, and she flinched with a small cry.

  Recovered enough by this time to be aware of her surroundings, Ellie noted not only the boy who had held the lamp and who now stood uncertainly alongside his father, but a girl, younger, smaller; they were probably about eight and ten years of age.

  Ellie’s hands and feet were pulsating with the blood that flowed through them. She could feel her cheeks blazing as they thawed out and was certain she looked like Mrs. Santa herself come to visit. What a way to make an acquaintance—first freezing, then flaming; first white with snow, then red as a beet.

  The man slowed his ministrations to her extremities, sat back on his heels, smiled, and introduced himself at last. “I’m Sam Dickson,” he said, and Ellie would have extended a hand, but it felt the size of a ham on the end of her arm.

  “And I’m Ellie, that is, Elizabeth Bonney.”

  “From Bliss. I know your place. In fact, I met your father at a homesteaders’ meeting once. Fine man.”

  “He’s... my father is dead, did you know?”

  “Yes, I’d heard. I’m sorry about that. I know how painful it is for you; my wife passed away several months ago. Childbirth,” he said, and it was explanation enough—there was no woman in the household; there was no baby.

  “I’m sorry,” Ellie murmured, noting the wistfulness that came into the eyes of the children. Blue eyes and blond hair, clear, fair skin, and pink cheeks—the picture of what ideal children should be.

  “These are my kids, Hans and Gretchen,” Sam Dickson said, adding, “Their mother was Dutch.”

  The children nodded and murmured a few words, Gretchen turning a rosy pink, and Hans scuffing a boot on the linoleum.

  The place was scrupulously neat, Ellie noted and appreciated.

  “Gretchen,” her father said, rising to his feet, “pull that soup pot to the front of the stove. Now, Miss Bonney—”

  “Ellie, please.” It seemed slightly ridiculous to answer to a formal title to someone who had been performing the intimate task of rubbing your feet.

  “Now, Ellie, either you came walking or you have some mode of transportation just outside the door.”

  “Oh,” she said, startled, “of course. My horse and buggy are out there. Poor Old Ned must be freezing to death! I guess I owe my life to him in a way. For I certainly was lost.”

  “What were you doing out in a snowstorm in a buggy?” Sam Dickson asked as he turned to the rack at the side of the door and lifted from it a heavy mackinaw.

  “It does seem the height of foolishness. Believe me, I know better! But when I left home this morning, there was no snow. I hesitated but felt I had to go. I was called, you see, to the Monck place—”

  “Know them well,” he said, buttoning the coat and reaching for a flap-eared cap. “Another baby?”

  “Right. The snow began about the time I started home. I truly think I might have frozen out there in a snowbank, except for two things.”

  “Old Ned,” Sam said, and the children listened with interest. “And prayer.”

  And thus Ellie confirmed, with a couple of simple words, her faith in the heavenly Father.

  “Of course,” Sam Dickson affirmed, with a nod of the head. “Now, I’ll go out and take care of that faithful horse of yours. You relax, get acquainted with the kids, and I’ll be back soon, and we’ll have some supper. You’ll have to be content to stay, you know. When the storm is over, perhaps by morning, I’ll get the cutter out and take you home. I think the snow has come to stay. It’ll be months before it’s buggy weather again.”

  With a swirl of snow and a blast of wind, Sam Dickson opened the door, slipped out, and shut it snugly behind him.

  Leaning her head back against the chair and closing her eyes briefly, Ellie found the tears, quenched earlier, now smarting her lids. Thank You, heavenly Father. Oh, thank You!

  What she was thanking Him for was unclear; she didn’t specify. She only knew that her heart was full and running over. Fancy losing one’s way, putting one’s life, as it were, into the keeping of a dumb animal, and ending up... ending up meeting Sam Dickson.

  Lilting into Ellie’s mind came a portion of an old hymn:

  God moves in a mysterious way

  His wonders to perform.

  Birdie glanced at the Drop Octagonal ticking peacefully into a room charged with uneasiness. The school day had barely begun.

  Even the children, young as they were, could feel the menace of the gray and lowering sky that shuttered the windows to all but its grim threat. Heads studiously bent over a desk would lift, would cock as though listening, tuned to catch a change in the wind, perhaps; eyes would shift from the distraction of a book to the reality of the viewless void that existed beyond the windows. And then those eyes would swivel, questioning, to Birdie, searching for any indication of nervousness on her part. Noting her calm demeanor and relieved for the moment, heads would bend again, eyes would center on book or paper, and for a few minutes, anxiety would be stifled.

  But not for long; they were too well taught, too wise to the ways of the weather, too aware of the danger to be unconcerned. Again and again heads would bob up, seek the outline of a window and study the teacher’s face, and the tension, though unspoken, mounted.

  They had hardly been called in from early-morning play, removing their wraps and hanging them up, taking their seats and opening their books, before the first flake drifted down, unseen, but presaging the arrival of an untold multitude just like it.

  It might have been exciting, fulfilling—winter was finally fully upon them—had it not been for the sky—weighty, pressing, portending doom in some mysterious way. The feeling grew as the snow settled silently, persistently, on the world and everything in it that was careless enough to be exposed. From their seats the children could see inch after inch of snow pile on the window ledges; Birdie almost expected
an explosion of hysteria, so real was the sensation of being slowly, inexorably, suffocatingly enveloped in the cloying grip of the snow.

  She glanced at the clock again, and this time, every head in the schoolroom lifted, and every eye checked the time: 10:45. All eyes turned, again, to Birdie’s face.

  “I think, children,” she said, calmly for their sakes, “we shall discontinue school for the day. I think it would be well for each of you to leave your books and lunch pails here, and get home as quickly as you can.”

  Even as she spoke books were being shut, shoved into desks, and a great flurry of activity ensued as though the pent-up tension had burst its bonds, relieved to be doing something at last.

  They were still going about the business of donning their wraps when the first rig arrived. Birdie noted it with relief. Obviously parents would concur with her decision; some already had hitched horses to cutters or sleighs for the first time that season and made their way through the curtain of snow to pick up their children and see they got home safely. There were those who lived farther out; if those parents were coming, it would take a while to arrive, and children decided to start out to meet them.

  With considerable concern Birdie bade good-bye to those who trudged off on foot, to be swallowed up quickly by the snow and dimness of the day, disappearing into its gloom as totally as though they had stepped off the face of the earth. Hopefully, somewhere along the route, they would meet the family rig or perhaps a neighbor’s—a small island of safety in a world in which they could lose their bearings.

  With some reluctance she saw Little Tiny and the Nikolai children on their way, urging them to stay together, wishing she were free to accompany them; they lived in her direction. But she glanced down at the small face and big eyes looking up at her so trustingly and knew she couldn’t send little Ernie Battlesea, the only child remaining, out into the storm alone. “Come, Ernie,” she said briskly, “let’s play a game of tic-tac-toe.”