by Paul Almond
Later when I’d go back fishing, there she’d be standing watching. So one day I brought back a spare pole and taught her how to thread worms onto the hook. Raine sure got excited at that. You should have seen her when she caught her first trout! She danced round like a fairy. Them trout, I guess they provided her brothers and sisters with a good meal or two.
Sundays me and Raine took to walking back into the woods together, along trails she knew. No stick of work to be done Sundays on our farm, that’s for sure. Nor any farm in Shigawake. I kind of began to rely on those walks, but I sure kept quiet about them, because side-hill folks — well, nice Shigawakers never got along with them. I was the only one. Old Poppa let them use our property to go trapping of a winter, up the east fork over by Mr. Nelson. I trapped up the west fork, which curved past beyond our head field a good ways into the woods. I’d catch a few muskrat and mink over the winter and sell their furs for a bit of cash for the household.
The sun was sinking fast, making it colder. Should I just cross the log bridge and go bang on that door? But what would her family say? Like as not, they wouldn’t appreciate a young man who goes banging on doors to meet young ladies. Not that Raine was any young lady, she was just a kid.
Well sir, bang on the door I did. Never trust Tuffield, they said: when drunk, he got kind of wicked. No wonder liquor was never allowed in our house. And I probably subscribe to that. None of us Alfords ever drank.
The door opened and there he stood. Old Tuffield.
I tensed up.
I dunno why we called him “old”, he was probably only in his forties, but he rarely shaved, his beard was already white, teeth missing so his mouth made a wide flat line across his grizzled face. Not tall, probably my size, he stood squinting at me with glazed blue eyes.
I found myself blurting out, “I came to say Merry Christmas. Is Raine in?”
Tuffield stood looking at me without saying anything. Then he turned and shut the door.
I turned away, then I heard a commotion inside. The door opened and out came Raine, quickly closing it behind her. She started down the path over the snow with her pail.
I followed. I couldn’t take my eyes off her bare, skinny legs under that coat with her mother’s worn shoes and thin socks, much too thin and short, for sure. That was no way for a girl to walk in the snow. She didn’t even have a tuque. From what I could see, no scarf neither. I felt guilty, with my own scarf knitted by Momma, my warm coat, wool trousers and long socks.
“Raine!” I called.
When she didn’t stop, I called again, “Raine!”
She turned.
“Can you get yourself snowshoes?”
She stood and looked, then nodded and ran back to the house. In no time, she came out carrying a ragged pair. I generally used Old Poppa’s, also old but well made: gotten from my grandfather who knew Micmacs.
Well, I followed her along the packed path over the snow down the steep hillsides out of sight. Once across the brook, she sat on a stump and struggled to fasten snowshoes on over her indoor shoes.
“Don’t you have no moccasins?” High moccasins were soft and warm, and pliable enough for the babiche, or rawhide webbing, of the snowshoes.
She shook her head.
I knelt to help. I could see that she had almost nothing on under her mother’s coat, just that same cotton dress, and probably a worn undershirt. A plan was forming in my mind. I motioned, and she followed me across the flat Hollow. But when I started up the Mill Road, she stopped. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” Better not say I was taking her home. I didn’t even think about the fuss that might cause. But I was just counting on Old Momma, who had a heart big as an elephant although she was tiny and wizened from years of work. “I can’t tell you yet, it’s a surprise.”
“I don’t like surprises.”
“Of course you like surprises, Raine. Everyone does.”
“I never yet had a surprise that was nice.”
“Well, if you trust me, this one might be.”
We climbed the Mill Road, tramped along the brow to the level field on the hill behind the house. When we stopped to look down on the Old Homestead, Raine got really balky. “I’m sure not going down there,” she said loudly. “You can’t make me, and I won’t.”
Raine had a mind of her own; best go along with it. “All right,” I said, “I have to get something; you stay here. I’ll go down.”
I won’t deny that I was even more nervous going into my own house than I had been at Tuffield’s door. I knew darn well what Old Poppa thought of those shacks and its colony, and what Earle would say. He’d seen me and Raine once or twice, and he would snigger and make rude remarks — jig-a-jig, and all that stuff, which was the furthest thing from my mind.
I opened the door.
Old Poppa was upstairs having a rest and my sister Lillian was off getting her baby Henry to sleep, three months old and prone to crying. Happily, Earle was out in the barn pulling hay down from the mow to feed the cattle and horses. Now I just had to deal with Old Momma, cleaning up from our big Christmas dinner. In the end, it proved easier than I hoped.
Back out the kitchen door once more, I waved hard. Raine got up, tense as a groundhog when I sight down my .32. I waved again. She shook her head. All right, I started up the hill making as if I was annoyed. Well sir, down she came and we met half way.
“I’m not going into no house.”
“Yes you are! I’m telling you, Raine, you’re coming in. You’re gonna get the surprise o’ your life, and you’re gonna never regret it, I promise.”
“No, I am not going in.”
“You mean to tell me you’re not hungry? Your stomach is so full from Christmas dinner?”
I could tell by the look in her eyes that no matter what she told me, she needed a good meal. “Please, Raine, let’s just you and me go in for a bite.”
She hesitated.
“Momma’s getting it ready.”
In we went, down past our indoor pump and into our new breakfast room, next to the hot kitchen with its big stove and smells of Christmas dinner. The table had been cleared and Momma was setting a place. She straightened and looked closely at Raine.
I went to help Raine off with her coat but she hugged it tight. Then I realized she didn’t want to be seen in that old frock on this special day. My heart nearly broke.
“She don’t have to take off no coat if she don’t want, Eric,” Momma said. “You just bring the girl over here and let her eat something. I’ll fix her up good.”
Raine stood for a moment, bewildered. I guess she wasn’t used to people being nice. Whenever them lot from the shacks went to the store, our people kept clear like they was full of meningitis. And here was Old Momma reaching out and putting her hand on her shoulder as if she were her own child.
Well, sir, I never seen anyone eat so much. “Now Raine dear,” Old Momma said, “better to take your time and chew slowly. You’ll enjoy it more.” But still, she wolfed it like a starving puppy.
I sat down and had a glass of milk and some bread and molasses to keep Raine company, while Old Momma disappeared inside. Momma and Lillian baked twice a week I don’t know how many loaves. For molasses, I was the one to go down to Mr. Ernest Hayes’s store with a gallon jug. So we always had plenty.
Pretty soon Momma came back and said, “Now Raine, you just come upstairs with me. I’ve got some things for you.”
Raine gave me a startled glance and I nodded. I knew Momma never threw anything away, and with my two sisters Winnie and Margaret Jean off in the big city, in the upstairs drawers lay all sorts of warm clothes that couldn’t be passed on to me or Earle. So Raine followed Momma.
I was finishing my bread and molasses when in stormed Lillian. She was older than me by a good bit and had been upstairs with her baby, Henry, poor little fella with no father. You see, after Lillian had gone to the Canadian Labrador with my brother Jack in ’97, she’d headed west teaching and had f
allen in love with a Mr. Wright. But before she could bring him home to meet the family, didn’t he up and die of pleurisy in Montreal? So here she was coping with the baby, glad of Old Momma’s help. But since she’d arrived, I’d found her acting a bit funny. They say that when you give birth all your emotions change.
Well sir, she stood in the doorway looking as fierce as a badger. “What the blazes do you mean bringing that girl here? You know what Poppa says about them lot back by the bridge.”
I got up quickly. “I didn’t mean no harm, Lillian, honest. Didn’t you see what she’s wearing? And listen, it’s Christmas Day! She’s hungry. I thought you’d not mind if we —“
“Not mind? I didn’t see any of them at church this morning. If they’re so hungry, why didn’t they come and worship with the rest of us? There’s plenty of folk would give them a square meal, if only they’d ask.”
“What do you mean, come to church, Lillian? What would they wear? And you know what the likes of our churchgoers would say about them coming into our church, no matter what the Reverend Mr. Vibert preaches about loving your fellow man. They’re probably Catholic, too.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right.” I could see her softening.
“Is Henry asleep?”
She nodded and came to snack on the bread and molasses. “Momma’s upstairs going through Margaret’s and Winifred’s clothes. That girl’s going to get a bundle.”
“Now is that such a bad thing Lillian? Isn’t that what Mr. Vibert would have told us to do? And her name is Raine.”
Lillian gave me a look. “I hope nawthin’s goin’ on between you two,” she said firmly.
***
When Raine came outside to put on her snowshoes, she was a changed person. What a Christmas Day, she must have thought, all wrapped up with warm wool leggings, Wyn’s heavy coat — a bit large but cozy — a nice old wool scarf and tuque, and a good old pair of moccasins: she was one of us. “Right now,” she bubbled, “I could snowshoe back past the Second to the Third Range, and way beyond, and just keeping going, far, far away from them shacks and everything.” She grinned and my heart almost brimmed over from that look in her eyes.
“Right then, let’s go.”
It’s impossible to describe to someone who’s never done it, what it’s like to snowshoe across the drifts where no one else has been. The silence is so thick you could almost chew it. You make your way between birch and spruce hung with icicles, or snake around a nice big fir tree capped with tufts of snow, never knowing what to expect: tracks of jackrabbits, and sometimes foxes. I was secretly hoping we’d see a bear track, but they was all bedded down for the winter. Way back, you could sometimes find a cougar’s track, or a lynx, but they’d be starving, so best not to run across those fellas.
The only sound was our snowshoes padding over that fluffy surface, everything so muffled. Christmas Day, so no one was cutting wood. Off in the distance I heard barking. “Bet that’s some team going out with a brand new dog sled.”
Raine grinned. “Sounds travel a good ways in this air.” Her spirit was just sailing over the pristine, white, wind-drawn contours.
After our walk over rolling fields and through heavy woods, we reached the forks of the brook. We crossed and I led her up along the east side of the west fork. We soon got to a spruce whose lower branches I’d cut to make a kind of hideaway. In it I’d fashioned a bench for fishing. Raine sat down while I set about breaking twigs for a fire. The brook was mostly frozen, but it still made a nice gurgling background to the crackling fire, once I got it lit by matches from a tin I’d hid. Raine fetched some brush and threw it on and stood watching the tiny sparks flaring out from the pine needles. Then she sat down, too. We’d never sat so close before. I guess now she was beginning to trust me.
We warmed our hands over the flames, saying nothing. Finally I decided I’d better come out with it. “I’m gonna build me a cabin here next autumn,” I said. But I stopped myself. First of all, I was not going to stay, and that’s not what I came to tell Raine about. I’d better get on with my main purpose. “So Raine, you know there’s a war on?”
“Of course. Everyone knows.”
Before I could go on, she looked at me sharply. I knew what she was thinking.
Then I remembered the skates. I reached down and handed the package to her. “I had to guess at the size. Could be too big, but I figured maybe you’d be growing...”
She opened the package slowly, bit by bit. Then she looked at the boots with the shiny metal skates attached, turning them over and over. She looked with such big eyes — had she never got any present like that before? Maybe she’d never even got a present.
“I thought maybe ya’d come skating with the rest of us. You know, like anyone.”
She leaned over and gave me a kiss.
And then right then and there, she bent down, hauled off her shoe and snowshoe. “You’ll have t’ learn me how to skate.”
“I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you for sure.”
“I see ’em all out there on the ice. I always wanted to go. But I never thought...”
She seemed so happy, trying on the second skate, I thought, well, now’s the time to tell her... “Raine,” I started.
Something in the tone of my voice made her stop. She looked at me. “The war? Is that what you’re going to tell me?” I saw her little form slump, like a bicycle tire with the wind gone out.
“Yes.” I paused. “I’m going to join up next summer.”
She bent over. I thought she was trying on the other skate, but then I saw, no, she was holding her stomach, trying so hard not to cry.
But I had more say. “My brother, he’s a chaplain, he’s written us a couple letters from the Front. He says they need every man they can get.”
She lifted her head and stared, speechless.
“A bunch of the fellas around here have already gone,” I added.
She seemed not to believe what she’d heard. “You don’t mean, you’ll be leaving here?”
I nodded.
“But Eric...” She looked down into the fire. I think I heard her breathe a word: “Please.” So quiet to almost not be heard.
I felt helpless. I reached out and put my arm around her.
That did it. She leaned head against my shoulder and started crying. “You can’t, Eric, you just can’t.” Crying like a little girl.
I didn’t know what to do. This sort of thing had never happened to me. Did I mean that much to her? She was just a scrawny kid, probably fifteen maybe sixteen — just looking so young because she was small, never eating enough.
And then I thought, Heavens, am I being selfish? Going off to see the world, and leaving her... Maybe I should think this over again.
We just sat on that log, two helpless souls, kind of young and not really able to say what we felt, while she cried and I held her tight.
Finally, I blurted out, “Well maybe, Raine, maybe I’ll think it over some more. I had no idea that you...”
She began to brighten. I hauled out my red handkerchief and handed it to her.
She blew her nose. “I’ll be all right, Eric, no matter what, I’ll be all right.”
But I knew she was just saying that for my benefit. No, I’d better think of her first. The fighting would probably be over by next autumn anyway, they were all saying. So right then and there, I changed my mind. No war. University.
Chapter Three
Spring 1915
“That there Raine, she’s so skinny, be like doing jig-a-jig with a lobster.” Earle laughed.
That did it. I took a swing at him. He ducked. My punch caught him on the side of the head.
“Well, you little —” Earle lunged at me. He was bigger, taller, twenty pounds heavier. I fell back into the snow and hit my head on a stump.
I felt groggy, but tried to get up anyway. No luck — I just fell over again.
“That’ll teach you to take on your brother!” laughed Earle. “Little fella
s like you should know their place!”
I wasn’t going to let him get away with that! I got to my feet, ready for a real fight when I stopped. That sound!
Earle turned, too. We both looked up the frozen brook.
The spring break-up. Just what we’d been waiting for. Like hundreds of guns going off, cracking and booming with distant thunder. We both grabbed our pickpoles. We had been waiting around since dawn, while Zotique snoozed on a pile of logs we’d roll down into the brook. Poppa had hired him to help. “Zotique!” Earle hollered. “Wake up.”
Zotique jumped up, grabbed his axe and stared upstream, all three of us tense, anxious. This was as dangerous as it ever got on the Coast.
For the next few days all over the Gaspe, rivers and streams would be scenes of frenzied activity. The lumber cut during the winter had been hauled by horses and piled up on banks or just dumped on the ice to await the “drive”. When the break-up freed the frozen waterways, swirling waters would send this lumber downstream to the sawmills.
Joe’s mill in the Hollow was no different. He had sent teams up this east fork of our brook to cut wood for his box factory. Fifteen years ago he had started making these boxes for the Robin’s company in Paspébiac to ship its fish abroad, to Europe and the West Indies. Charles Robin, even before my grandfather’s time, had started the biggest industry on the Coast: codfish. So Joe became the biggest employer in Shigawake, no doubt.
Joseph Hayes was a tough man, too, as well as a hard worker. Many’s the stories told about him, but the one I liked the best was him setting off in a rowboat with one of his men in 1900. They rowed near seventy-five miles through the rough waves to Dalhousie at the upper end of Chaleur Bay. He bought a big wood-planer and rotary saw and the next morning they set off at sunrise — they couldn’t swim either, mind you. They rowed back across a bay filled with chunks of spring ice and even arrived at the breakwater by Shigawake Brook before midnight. Some feat, I’ll tell you.
