Bittersweet Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  Ernie’s face lit up. “Yeaaah,” he said happily, forgetting the storm, unconcerned about their isolation, untouched by their aloneness.

  Birdie chunked another piece of wood into the heater, regretting the voracious appetite of the metal monster and noting with concern the half-empty wood box. But for the moment they were warm and safe.

  The next hour dragged by, with many glances at the Drop Octagonal, which, as always, ticked steadily and inexorably toward whatever the next minute had in store.

  Birdie was about to suggest they eat their lunches when the door opened and a snow-covered figure—with a drift of snow and a blast of wind—stepped inside and slammed the door shut behind him. Big Tiny Kruger. Not the child’s parents, not Herbert Bloom (whom Birdie knew to be sick with a bad cold), but Big Tiny Kruger.

  Such a feeling of relief and gratitude swept over Birdie that, for the moment, she was speechless. Heart full, eyes blinking back silly tears, it was all Birdie could do to keep from rushing into those snow-covered arms. Big arms. Big enough for her problems. Big snowy arms. Snowy enough so that Birdie hesitated and the moment passed, and the mad impulse.

  “Oh, Wil!” she found herself half crying, half laughing. For he was peering through snow-covered lashes from below a cap peaked with snow; ear flaps encased the broad face; whiskers and mustache were split by a wide and merry grin.

  Whether it was the “Oh, Wil,” the look on her face, or the absurdity of the moment, the man, so accustomed to being called Big Tiny and perhaps weary of it, had no concern about the snow on his person or the restraint she might feel and swept Birdie up in his arms. And they were, indeed, big enough for her.

  Set back on her feet and never feeling the cold, Birdie listened to Big Tiny as he explained that he had met his son and the Nikolai children and, having learned that Birdie had no ride, had delivered them all to the Nikolai house and turned around to come for her.

  “Get the boy ready,” he commanded, while he warmed himself briefly at the side of the heater. “We’ll have to take him home. It wouldn’t do to take him to your place or mine. His folks might come looking for him.”

  As they did. No more than a mile from the schoolhouse, a horse and cutter drifted toward them like apparitions out of the ghostly shroud—Luella Battlesea herself. Her husband, she explained, had fallen and twisted a leg badly, delaying her trip to rescue Ernie. Somehow the transfer of the child from one rig to the other was accomplished; somehow both rigs got themselves turned around.

  Birdie watched the Battlesea cutter disappear as totally and silently as it had come. Shivering, she found herself moving close to the large form at her side; she was quite sure it would be radiating warmth.

  And so, companionably, Birdie and Big Tiny made their way homeward toward the fires awaiting, with fires of another sort kindling in the Kruger sleigh.

  To Birdie’s intense satisfaction, the Reading Society had gotten off to a fine start. Meeting in various homes, it had a feeling of fellowship about it, as a dozen people and more read a chosen piece of literature and, later, shared tea and coffee and discussed their reactions, gave their opinions, voiced any criticisms. It had been food for the starving soul of Birdie Wharton.

  Several times, as summer faded and fall with its threshing and the opening of school brought great activity to Birdie and all the people of Bliss, she had received the by-now-familiar white envelope. Each time it had spoken not to her ears only but to her heart. Along the way she had ceased searching the faces of the people she met for some clue as to the writer, content to relish the unusual messages without having to know who sent them.

  The beauty, the sheer beauty of still another, charmed her thoroughly so that she went about half dreamy that full day, repeating the words over and over until she, too, should have them memorized. Her heart, she felt, was beating in cadence with that of the writer. A writer unseen, unknown, who spoke silently but powerfully to her innermost being; a writer who knew her; a writer she knew, in the ways that mattered most.

  Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day

  Stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintops.

  —Shakespeare

  “Jocund,” she murmured to herself, savoring the new word, wishing for opportunities to use it and wondering if her Silent Speaker, as she called him, was using it also.

  Another quotation, arriving in the midst of harvest, was tremendously moving for that reason if for no other: The man’s thoughts were loftier than the mundane duties of threshing. Even in the midst of stress and toil, the writer’s thoughts soared to the reflective, the meditative.

  These lines, though not entirely new to Birdie, spoke to her as they never had upon previous readings. They pointed, as others had, to God:

  He prayeth best who loveth best

  All things both great and small;

  For the dear God who loveth us,

  He made and loveth all.

  —Coleridge

  This man, this thoughtful man—why did his thoughts turn often to God? Because she had such confidence in the unknown writer and admired his mind so thoroughly, she had to consider this aspect. Was she, after all, missing out on the sweetest and best in life by ignoring God and the Bible? Sliding, gliding along in the sleigh in the overwhelming silence, Big Tiny at her side, Birdie had time to reflect on this.

  This very morning Birdie had opened a desk drawer and found an envelope containing Bible quotations so beautiful in expression, so poetic in quality, that she was quite captured. Was her mysterious writer in tune with nature and its designs? As the day progressed, the words seemed prophetic.

  Sitting quietly at the side of her good friend Wil Kruger, Birdie let the Bible’s expressive words fill her mind, rolling the timely phrases over in her thoughts. If they were true—and her Silent Speaker seemed to think so—there was no reason to dread the day and fear the storm; in fact, there was great reason to rest and trust:

  Praise ye the Lord...

  He giveth snow like wool:

  he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.

  He casteth forth his ice like morsels....

  He sendeth out his word, and melteth them:

  he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow....

  Praise ye the Lord.

  —Psalm 147:1a, 16–17a, 18, 20c

  “Wil,” she said rather dreamily, and she never knew his breath caught in a special way at her use for the second time that day of his given name, “do you suppose...is it possible...that God sends the snow? Makes it and sends it? That it isn’t just a whim of nature?”

  “The Bible says,” Big Tiny answered thoughtfully,“‘he stretches out the heavens like a curtain...he waters the hills from his chambers... he sends the springs into the valleys...’”

  “And ‘casteth forth his ice like morsels.’That’s what the snow is like—morsels. Isn’t that a... a delectable way to say it?”

  “Delectable?” Big Tiny said, and she could sense a smile in his words. “I guess I’d use another word. Descriptive, maybe. Yes, the Bible is wonderfully descriptive.”

  “Hmmmm. I’ll have to look into it a little more.”

  Big Tiny was silent. But then, that wasn’t unusual for Wilhelm Kruger, Birdie was beginning to know. How comfortable he was to be with. What a fine friend.

  And then, all that was shattered.

  “The Bible also says,” Big Tiny said quietly into the face of the storm but not so quietly but what Birdie, at his side, heard clearly, “‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing.’ I think I’ve found that good thing. In you, Birdie. I think I’ve found that good thing in you.”

  Birdie was stricken dumb. All her dreams of friendship with this good man went crashing to the ground, tumbled by his words. Things could never be the same between them again. If he insisted, and she told him what she would have to tell him...

  “Do you hear me, Birdie? In the middle of a snowstorm, cold as we are in body, can you feel the warmth of my heart in what I’m saying?”<
br />
  If she hadn’t been so dashed, she might have recognized the poetry in his remarks, might have thrilled to the originality of his words. As it was, her whirling thoughts were to stop this before it went any further, before a perfectly good friendship was spoiled, before things had changed between them irrevocably.

  “Oh, Wil,” she said, perhaps a trifle too shrilly, “don’t. I can’t... can’t be anything but a friend to you—”

  “I’ll always be your friend, Birdie,” Big Tiny said quietly, “but I am wanting... asking, for more.” And he turned and looked down into her eyes with a look so tender, so deep, so meaningful, that her heart could only lurch, and she could only blurt, “Wil. Wil—listen to me, Wil. I’m not free to fall in love; not free...”

  “Not free?” No wind was colder than the one that swirled around them now.

  “I’m... I’m married. Wil—I’m married.”

  Morning brought with it a magical sight: The entire world was crisply, glowingly, scintillatingly white. The sky, having dumped its load as a pillow might expel its feathers, was unendingly blue, and the sun—muffled in darkness yesterday—sparkled so brilliantly from a trillion and more reflected points that the watcher’s eyes were dazzled.

  The turnaround—from dark to dawn—was typical of the bush and the lives of its people. Much of the time for them, it was feast or famine, pain or pleasure, glory or gloom. The sweet and the bittersweet kept close company. Those who had not learned along with the apostle Paul, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Phil. 4:11), were sorry people indeed.

  Having made her way from the small bedroom she shared with the girl Gretchen for the night, Ellie found the house warm, the kettle steaming, and signs that Sam Dickson had opened the door, shoveled away a heap of snow, and made tracks for the barn. Literally made tracks; Ellie could see through the frost-encrusted window where he had plowed his way through knee-deep snow—to the well, to the chicken house, to the barn. Here the door was open to the light, and a drift of steam emanated, lifting to the sky.

  In the snowy yard, fluttering around the exposed tops of bushes and hopping over the drifts, chickadees sought seeds and rose hips—anything—for breakfast. Where had they been during the storm? Farm animals were safely harbored and sheltered, chickens snugly cooped; but the wild birds—where had they huddled, heads under wings, dumbly and numbly waiting out the storm and the arrival of a new day? As always, it was a puzzle to Ellie, and she greeted their cheerful presence with a rush of pleasure.

  Turning toward the kitchen end of the long room, Ellie contemplated breakfast for herself, the man, and his children. There was no sign of oatmeal simmering on the range, and there wasn’t time to cook it; it was a job that took hours, even overnight.

  Pancakes! Pancakes would be perfect. Even now she heard thumps from the bedrooms that indicated the children were getting up; soon they would be out, hungry and, for once—if she hurried—finding breakfast ready.

  Accustomed to making pancakes for two, Ellie quickly doubled the recipe. Locating the necessary ingredients in the kitchen cabinet, she set about the familiar task:

  Beat 2 eggs until fluffy

  Add ½ t salt and l T sugar

  3 T bacon grease [easily located in a can next to the stove]

  1½ c buttermilk

  Finding no buttermilk, resourceful Ellie switched to sweet milk, omitting soda and adding 3 teaspoons of baking powder, then beating in 2 scant cups of flour or enough to make the batter—as her mother had taught her—the consistency of thick syrup.

  By this time blond-braided Gretchen was at her elbow, her eyes sleep-filled but sparkling with the anticipation of breakfast fixed by someone other than herself.

  When Sam stamped in to hand the pail of milk to Ellie and divest himself of his wraps, the children, seated at the table, had been fed; their plates, clean of pancakes, showed traces of the deep purple-blue of the chokecherry syrup they had doused them with. They greeted their father with a grin, obviously enjoying the rare treat of a good, warm breakfast served without a lifting of their own fingers.

  “Well, what have we here?” Sam, cold-faced and cold-handed, rumpled the boy’s fair head and laid his cheek alongside that of his daughter, who squealed and turned her face away—a frosty beard was no fun!

  “Sit down and eat,” Ellie—her face rosy from the range’s heat—suggested, and Sam dipped warm water from the reservoir and washed his hands while Ellie watched several pancakes bubble, then turned them and poured a cup of coffee and set it beside the plate on the table.

  “Hey, pancakes!” the man said, looking down at his breakfast and then at the cook. “But don’t make me eat alone! Sit down with me.”

  Ellie filled her own plate and joined the little family, though the children soon excused themselves and left the table.

  “Does it look like I can get the buggy out of here this morning?” Ellie asked.

  “No, not the buggy. I’m afraid it’s out of commission for the winter. It’s cold out there! Probably twenty below. This isn’t going to melt. It’ll settle a bit, though, and then the roads will open as people plow through, crossing the district for one reason or another. There’s no school, though, I’m sure of that, for Bliss or for Fairway.

  “I should think that before the day is over I can get you home in the sleigh; luckily it’s ready and waiting. I got the box put on the runners a few days ago, anticipating this. But perhaps you can stay over another day?”

  Sam’s uncertainty showed in his tone of voice; he well knew the problems of a farm left untended.

  And he was right; chores called at home. There would be animals to feed, a trough to chop free of ice, longsuffering cows to milk, fires to build, a freezing house to thaw.

  “I need to get home, of course,” Ellie said and wondered if she sounded regretful. It had been a while since she sat at a table with anyone present but herself. She didn’t relish the long winter just begun, shut in, isolated, cooking for herself, voiceless and alone, with only an occasional meow from Wrinkles to break the silence.

  By early afternoon the snow—four feet deep in places—had settled under the bright but cold sun, and a rig or two had passed by on the road, breaking a trail and making it possible for Sam to take Ellie home.

  With Hans and Gretchen bundled into the back of the sleigh, excited over the snow and the first sleigh ride of the year, Ellie sat on the spring seat beside Sam, covered with a blanket. The magnificence of the snow-wrapped world was breathtaking.

  “And to think,” Sam said vibrantly, “our sins, scarlet though they may have been, are made as white as snow. Now, that’s some miracle.”

  Why, Ellie thought, did her heart rejoice to hear this small testimony? Surely it made a bond—each of them knew Christ as Savior.

  At any rate, it led to a sharing of faith, a witness of the grace of God during the recent bereavements each had suffered, a voicing of faith concerning the future and the good things in store from the Father’s hand.

  Sam’s faith had overcome the dread of raising his children without a mother; Ellie’s faith reached out to embrace the help and grace she would need from the Father as she carried on alone, attempting to run a farm that was too much for her in all ways.

  Did she secretly wonder if she might, in some way, be a help to Sam? Did he privately consider whether he might take on some of her workload? The vast silence of the land, if it knew or suspected, echoed only with possibilities, not prophecies.

  Upon reaching the Bonney homestead, Sam insisted on staying long enough to get the fires lit in the range and heater, while Hans and Gretchen filled the wood box, stacking extra on the porch. Sam chopped the ice from the trough, refilling it and bringing the animals to drink, one by one, and returning them to the barn. Hans and Gretchen fed and watered the chickens.

  Finally, with the kettle boiling, Ellie was able to make a cup of tea. Removing their coats, the four sat around the heater, holding warm cups in their cold hands—the children�
��s tea liberally laced with milk—and carefully nibbling frozen cookies.

  With an expansive sigh, Sam set his cup aside and turned toward the hooks at the side of the door. “Sorry, but all good things must come to an end,” he said, shrugging into his coat. Then, with a smile, he added, “It’s an ill wind, they say, that blows no one some good. That one yesterday—it blew good to the Dickson family, I’d say.”

  “And a lot of trouble it caused you!” Ellie replied, feeling wonderfully happy at his comment.

  “A good breakfast, a pleasant drive,” he said.

  “And now the drive home, with all your chores to do.”

  Putting his cap on his head and rescuing his gloves from the range’s warming oven where they had been drying, the children fastening their overshoes and playing a final moment with Wrinkles, Sam said, “I hope our acquaintance won’t just fade away, Miss Bonney... Ellie. Having begun so amazingly, so surprisingly, perhaps it’s intended that we... that we... that is, that we get to know each other better. Would you mind terribly if the children and I drop in once in a while?”

  “Please do,” Ellie responded, so earnestly that it brought a light to the questioning eyes of Sam Dickson and the hint of a smile to the square-jawed face.

  “And,” he offered, “if I should be the one to help with your crop next season, well—we’ll talk about that, all right? As for your buggy, it’ll remain right where it is for now.”

  Ellie, a peculiar lightness in her heart, stood on the porch and watched Sam and his children as the sleigh headed down the lane, to the road, and out of sight.

  Only then, as she turned to the house, shutting the door against the winter and its threat, leaning against it momentarily, did the thought—as cold as the north wind—strike a chill to her heart:

  The nightmare! There was still the nightmare.... There was still the guilt.

  Winter had dragged by for Birdie, day after similar day. Only the variation in the weather distinguished one day from another. For the most part it was snow on snow. But interspersed were days of brilliant sunshine and sparkling beauty, enough to enrapture any heart but the sourest.