Girl in Falling Snow

by F. M. Parker

  Brutus came and lay down beside Paul. Together they watched the fire. The flames burned into a pocket of pitch in one of the pine knots and heated it to a gas that exploded with a foot-long, super hot lance of hissing flame. Brutus jumped at the noise. Paul laughed at the dog. Brutus looked at him with a quizzical expression. The dog’s reaction to the flame and the laugh made Paul laugh even harder, and that brightened the dark evening.

  *

  Paul awoke to the sound of wolves running deer in the forest not far off. He sat up in his sleeping robe to listen. Brutus rose beside him and growled his dislike for wolves.

  Paul opened the flap of the tent and poked his head outside to listen. Brutus shoved past him and went out and stood in the snow and stared off in the direction of the wolves yapping to each other as they pursued the deer. He growled again.

  Paul looked up at the full moon floating in the center of the heavens and casting its silver light down upon the lake. A multitude of stars like diamonds flung across the ebony sky added their frail light. Ice crystals in the snow twinkled as brightly as did the stars. Paul’s heart beat pleasantly at the sight for it was a fine night to be alive.

  Brutus growled more fiercely as the wolves’ noisy pursuit grew swiftly closer. Paul knew from the sound of the chase that it would pass very close. He reached out and pulled Brutus down beside him. He didn’t want the dog to fight a pack of wolves. Though Brutus could kill any single wolf, a pack of them could tear him to pieces.

  Wolves and cougars were the top predators of the forest and held the most interest for Paul of all the forest animals. The big cats were handsome animals, however their lives were secretive and mostly silent and rarely did Paul see one. Wolves were Paul’s favorite of the two predators. They were different being clannish and running in packs, and very vocal with their barks and howls and yips. They gave the forest a voice to show it was alive.

  A doe running for her life, exploded from the forest not ten yards from Paul’s camp. She stumbled, exhausted, and almost fell. The plumes of her rapid breathing were white geysers in the moonlight. She gathered herself together and raced out onto the ice covered lake and onward toward the far shore.

  A moment later, six wolves bounded from the forest and into view on the lake. As of one accord, they stopped and began to scoop their open jaws in the snow, mouthing a little of the frozen wetness to slack their thirst from the chase. Then seemingly forgetting the deer, they began to twist and turn and leap in silence, and their breaths smoking in the cold air as if they burned with some inner fire. One tackled another and they rolled in play. A third pounced upon the two and the three powerful bodies tumbled about in a tangle as would pups.

  Paul watched, mesmerized by the splendid animals living for the moment in their friendly play. He knew they would all be of the same pack, and most of them relatives. After a minute or so of frolicking, one of the wolves lifted its muzzle and gave a series of yips in a clear tenor voice. All came instantly alert. The one that had given the signal sprang away on the trail of the deer. The others fell in behind. Running swiftly, they vanished from Paul’s view.

  Paul ducked his head and entered the tent. Brutus followed him. Paul wrapped himself in his thick sleeping robe and immediately went to sleep. Brutus lay down on a corner of the robe, sighed with contentment, and joined his master in sleep.

  Chapter Three

  The Emigrants

  Alice was born in the coal mining town of Terryville located 60 miles west of Manchester, England. She and her parents lived in a rented cottage just outside town and between a dairy and a coal mine. Her father worked in the darkness of the mine far underground digging coal that was shipped by steam boat and barge along the River Mersey and the Sankey Canal to Liverpool.

  The coal had made a deep impression on Alice because of her father who would return home in the evenings from work with his face covered with coal dust and only the whites of his eyes showing through the blackness. He would smile at her and his white teeth would flash as he laughed. That black face with the white eyes and white teeth was riveted into her memory. He would bathe and afterwards take her up into his powerful arms and hug her to him. With her heart ready to burst with her love for her father, she would snuggle against his broad chest and breathe him in savoring the familiar scent of him. Part of that scent was the smell of coal dust for it was ground into his skin.

  Alice’s mother began to teach her to read and write on her fourth birthday. That was the day Alice made the amazing discovery that a few squiggly lines written on a piece of paper made words, words that contained meaning and emotion when spoken in the right tone of voice. For the following Christmas, her parents gave her a thin dictionary and her mother showed her how to use its storehouse of many words. Mathematics was added to her studies and another miraculous avenue of knowledge opened for Alice. Her mother enforced rigorous study times, and pushed Alice to the limits of her youthful intelligence. Books on geography, history, and many other subjects were acquired from the rental library and Alice read for hours.

  Her mother wrote poetry and kept them in a small notebook. Alice would hear her reading the poems out loud at the table where she worked on them and would quickly come to sit beside her. She was amazed by her mother’s knowledge of words, and the quickness with which she could arrive at a word that propelled a poem onward to a rhyming ending that evoked a strong emotion, sometimes sad, but mostly a happy one.

  Alice quickly grasped the concept of writing a poem, the necessity to choose the precise words to convey the story told in every poem.

  A most enjoyable routine developed. Her mother would seat herself at the table with paper and pen. Alice would join her, and leaning close, read the words springing out from the nib of the pen and onto the paper. After but a few words, she grasped the story her mother was telling, and would close her eyes and search through her own reservoir of words. Most often her mother had written a word that perfectly fit before Alice could speak.

  Alice’s nimble mind began to arrive at words that her mother accepted as the best ones to carry the poem along and to bring it to a dramatic, rhyming conclusion that stirred the emotions of them both. When Alice won the unspoken contest, her mother would clasp her close and hug her.

  The day the decision was made to come to America, her father had come home early from work. His shoulder was badly bruised. When her mother asked him what had happened to his arm, he tried to put her off with a smile and a nonchalant comment that it was nothing, just an accident. Her mother had insisted that he tell her the complete story. He explained that a section of mine tunnel roof had collapsed close to him and the edge of the slab of rock had struck his shoulder. “But I’m all right” he quickly assured her.

  “You shouldn’t work in the mine,” her mother had said forcefully. “It hurts me when you’re hurt.”

  “And what do I do if I quit. There’s no other work here. I’m just lucky to have a job. There’re a dozen men here in town who would jump at the chance to take my place below ground.”

  Both mother and father had looked at Alice. Nothing more was said about the accident.

  In the night, Alice had risen from bed and was at the water bucket and drinking from the dipper, which she wasn’t suppose to do, when she heard her mother’s worried voice. Alice cocked her ear but could not make out the words. She crept to their bedroom door that was open a few inches and peeked into the room. The two were near the bed and facing each other.

  “I don’t want you killed,” her mother said worriedly. “You’ve told me that it’s a black hell down there in the dark with the coal dust so thick you can hardly breathe. And pieces of rock often fall from the tunnel roof. There were three men killed last year. All crushed to death. Do you remember that?”

  “I remember. I helped dig their bodies out.”

  “I know that. Let’s save money as fast as we can and go to America.”

  There was a long silence as her father looked into his wife’s eyes. Then he spoke,
“All right. I haven’t heard any complaints from those who’ve gone over there. And I don’t want Alice to marry a miner. And I think she’d like the adventure.”

  “Oh, yes, she would. I’ll send off some of my poetry to that publisher in Liverpool. He bought those other ones and maybe he’ll buy a few more of them.”

  An expression of love and desire came upon her father’s face and he reached out and touched Martha’s cheek. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world. And the best wife. How could I have ever won you?”

  “Maybe I was the lucky one,” her mother said.

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She returned his kiss and held him tightly to her.

  Alice wanted to run into the room and throw her arms around both of them. But she could not for that would give away the fact that she had been eavesdropping. She was gladdened by what she had seen and heard. Her father’s words were true; her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world.

  *

  The scrimping and saving began, a sixpence, a shilling, even a pound note now and again were tucked into the beautifully old cream pitcher once used by Martha’s grandmother. The publisher in Liverpool bought six of her mother’s poems for six pounds and that went into the pitcher.

  Two months later, Alice’s world was shattered. Deep in the coal mine, a section of tunnel collapsed and killed her father and several other men. Every available miner was set to the task of clearing away the fallen rock to reach the men’s bodies. The work was hazardous with slabs of rock falling from the ceiling and the miners barely avoiding being injured. On the fifth day, the mine owners and the government officials called a halt to the rescue effort, saying the tunnel was too hazardous. The dead would be left buried in black rock deep in the ground.

  Alice and her mother wept in private, and often together with their tears mingling. They had no grave to kneel by and mourn a father and a husband. All they had was a large hole in their hearts.

  *

  Very early one chilly, foggy April morning shortly after the rescue effort for her husband had ceased, Alice’s mother came into her room and shook her awake. “Get dressed and pack your clothing. We’re going to America just as we planned with your father.”

  “Really, mother?”

  “Yes. We’ll go to Liverpool and catch a ship to America.”

  “Do we have enough money?”

  “It will depend on how much we can get from the sale of our furniture. Now you let me worry about that. Start getting your things together. Remember just pack those things you can’t do without. And we must be able to carry everything”

  “Yes, mother.” Her mother was very brave to make the long journey to a foreign land with a eleven year old girl. She wished, oh, how she wished her father was alive to travel with them. With the three of them, the voyage would have been perfect.

  *

  Alice drew on a heavy coat against the cold and slipped away from the house as her mother packed. She hurried along the road to the gate in the woven wire fence that surrounded the mine. The guard, a Mr. Carrey that Alice had seen before on those times she came to walk home with her father, sat reading a newspaper in his watchman’s shack. Alice crept past the man and onward across the black coal dust earth to the box-like lift with its wench and steel cable hanging over the shaft down which the men were lowered to the coal seam. She peered down into the narrow space between the side of the lift and the sidewall of the shaft into the darkness, the scary darkness of the earth that hid her father from her.

  Strong hands caught her by the shoulders and turned her around. “Now what are you doing here, missy?” Mr. Carrey asked. “Kids aren’t allowed on mine property. Now skedaddle home before I tell your parents you were here.”

  “But I must tell my father something.”

  “Tell him when he gets home this evening.”

  “He won’t be coming home any more.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “He’s buried down there,” Alice pointed at the mine shaft. “And I must tell him something very important.” Alice stared into Mr. Carrey’s face. He must let her do this thing.

  “What’s you name, missy?”

  “Alice Childs.”

  “You’re Benjamin Child’s girl?” The man’s expression had softened.

  Alice nodded. “And I got to tell him goodbye before mother and I leave and go to America.” Alice knew what she wanted to do was childish, even foolish. Still she must do this to honor her father.

  Mr. Carrey looked from Alice to the mine shaft. “I knew Benjamin. He was a good sort. Big enough to whip any man in the mine, but never lifted a hand against anybody. You want to tell him from way up here?”

  Alice knew from the tone of Mr. Carrey’s voice that he wasn’t going to laugh at her. “Yes. Do you think he could hear me?”

  Mr. Carrey looked away from Alice and out across the piles of coal to the wooded hills far off. After a moment, he brought his eyes back to Alice. “Yes, he could hear you for the shaft and the tunnels guide voices real well for long distances.”

  “Even if I just whisper?”

  “Miners have good ears. He’ll hear you.”

  “May I tell him now?” Alice knew that Mr. Carrey and she were playing a game that both understood.

  “Sure. Let me raise the lift a bit so that there’s more room for you to talk down through.”

  Mr. Carrey pulled the lever that operated the wench. With a low growl, the wench turned and hoisted the lift until its bottom was above the surface of the ground and the full width of the mine shaft was exposed.

  Alice had an instant feeling of being sucked into the gaping, black mouth of the shaft. She drew hurriedly back.

  Mr. Carrey caught Alice by the hand. “Don’t be afraid.”

  “Will you hold my hand?”

  “I’ll sure keep you from falling. Now just bend down and tell your father whatever it is you want to say.”

  “You won’t listen, will you?” Play the game.

  “No. I’ll shut my ears.”

  Alice leaned over the black opening of the shaft. She felt the guard’s hands tighten more firmly on hers. She liked that.

  She whispered,

  Father, I’ve come to tell you goodbye.

  Mother and I are going to that distant land.

  Just as you and she and I made our plan.

  I love you dearly and I grieve.

  Father, I tell you goodbye as I leave.

  Goodbye, father, goodbye, goodbye.

  Alice looked up at Mr. Carrey. His eyes were moist as if he was near to crying. He was a kind man.

  “Thank you, Mr. Carrey. Thank you very much.”

  Alice hurried across the black coal dust earth to the gate. There she broke into a run along the road toward the cottage.

  *

  Martha and Alice sold their household possessions and added that money to the sum that had been saved. They packed their clothing and personal treasures in two pieces of luggage. The most valuable items were a picture of Benjamin and his pocket watch. In the picture, Benjamin was dressed in his Sunday suit and standing and smiling as he looked directly at them. Alice had always thought the expression in his eyes said I love both of you. The pocket watch had a silver case, a white face across which rotated the jet black hour and minute hands, and an eight inch silver chain. Her father kept the watch fastened to his vest when they went to church.

  The keys to the cottage were given to the owner. Then carrying their luggage, they walked to the railroad station.

  “We must be very thrifty with our money,” Martha whispered to Alice as they boarded the train that would carry them to Liverpool. “We’ll have enough for the voyage. After that we’ll have only a few pounds to live on until I find work in America. It’s going to be very difficult making enough money to live on without your father.”

  “I’ve saved almost seven shillings,” Alice said and held up her purse for Martha to see.

  “We may n
eed it later.”

  “What kind of work would you like to do?”

  “Work for a book publisher. That way I could earn money and learn more about writing. Maybe someday I could write a book of poems.”

  “You already have enough for a book.”

  “Yes. If all of them were good enough to be published.”

  “I think they are.”

  “I have much more to learn.”

  “You can write more poems while we cross the ocean to America.”

  “And you can help me.”

  “I’d like that.”

  *

  In Liverpool, Martha and Alice hired a cab to transport them from the railroad station to the waterfront. They found it a noisy place with a throng of people bustling about and nearly every pier lined with ships. Gangs of stooped stevedores carried big loads on their backs up and down gangways. Noisy clanking cranes hoisted heavy pallets of cargo off and onto ships. People dressed for travel and carrying luggage were winding a path through the hectic activity from ships recently arrived, or to vessels scheduled to soon sail.

  At the Cunnard Steamship Company they purchased two second class tickets on the Pannonia for the long sea voyage. The ship was scheduled to depart the following day in mid-morning. They spent a quiet night in a hotel near the waterfront. Early in the morning, they carried their luggage to the pier where the Pannonia was tied with thick hawsers.

  Upon sight of the Pannonia, Alice stared in awe. The ship was hundreds of feet long and towered six stories high. The hull was painted a light gray color from five feet above waterline to the main deck. The three story superstructure was a brilliant white. Below the main deck, three horizontal rows of round portholes extended along the Pannonia’s side from the stern to near the bow marking the location of three lower levels of the colossal ship.

  She and her mother queued up with other arriving passengers and climbed the gangway to the purser, a slender man with a short, full beard and immaculately dressed in a starched white uniform with a billed hat.