by Terrie Todd
The fact that Miss Johansen remembered this detail about my first day spoke volumes about her interest in her students, and this made me admire her all the more.
Chapter 2
While I served my detention, I thought about my first day of school. Seven years old, and all I’d wanted was to go home to Ireland, go back in time to before Ma and Pa ever got on that boat with my little brother and me. Sure, we were hungry then—but hunger felt normal. The boat did not. Cramped in steerage with hundreds of others, my poor pregnant mother felt ill from the moment we boarded. The disease took my little brother, Tommy, and then Ma, while we were still on the boat. I was too little to understand that, in the end, it was Ma’s broken heart just as much as it was the tuberculosis that ripped her from us. She mustered the strength to brush my hair just before she passed into unconsciousness. Two days later, my hair was still neatly braided from her work as I stood beside Pa, watching them lower Ma’s body into the cold water far below.
So Pa and me were the only two from my family who got off the boat on this side. I remembered little about the long train trip from Canada’s east coast to Manitoba and understood even less. How Pa ended up in Bleak Landing while the other surviving Irishmen stayed in Newfoundland was a mystery to me until the day I overheard him saying he’d won his plot of ground in a card game during our sea journey.
So here we were, in a ramshackle hut that was worse than the one we’d left behind and cold as the grave. I didn’t know it was possible for winter to be so severe. Pa said we lived in the promised land now and I’d be going to school to learn to read.
I felt almost excited, that first day. Pa had made it sound good, and the stove in the middle of the classroom provided more heat than the pitiful fireplace at home. But then Miss Johansen called me up to the front and said, “Class, we have a new student.” She looked at me. “Can you please tell us your name and a little about yourself?”
The teacher talked funny. I looked around the room. Not one student had red hair like mine. Most of them were fair-skinned with blond or light brown hair and blue eyes. I’d learn later that their names all ended in s-e-n or s-o-n, though I hadn’t learned even a single letter at that point.
The teacher prompted me again. “Can you tell us your name?”
“Bridget O’Sullivan,” I said. I heard snickers. What else did the teacher want me to say? I looked at the floor, and thankfully, she didn’t press me further. But then she said something that made me want to crawl into a hole and never come out.
“Bridget and her father have come all the way from Ireland. How many of you remember studying about the Irish potato famine in our history lessons last year?” A few hands went up. “Well, that’s the country where Bridget was born. Sadly, her mother and brother did not survive the voyage. I will expect you all to treat her with kindness and welcome her warmly to our school.”
She might as well have just hit me over the head with the water dipper.
“Rebecca Olsen, please raise your hand,” the teacher said. A girl with tightly woven braids identified herself. “Bridget, you may take a seat next to Rebecca.”
Relieved, I moved toward the girl who’d lifted her hand. As I passed a blond boy with pronounced ears and buck teeth, I heard him whisper, “Woodpecker!” This brought another round of snickers. I slid in beside Rebecca. As I did, she scooted as far from me as she could without falling off the bench, and I heard more giggles. I stared at the surface of my desk, studying the various scratches former occupants had carved into its wood and wishing I could read what they said.
But all that was five years ago. By the end of that first day, I’d learned the boy who called me “Woodpecker” was Bruce Nilsen, and with one swift poke to his left eye at recess, I’d killed the nickname on its third use. Bruce’s pal Victor Harrison wasn’t as easy to persuade. Victor’s name of choice for me was “Carrots,” and I got riled every time he used it, no matter how much I tried to hide it. The odd thing was, any time anyone else tried to call me “Carrots,” Victor put a stop to it quick as anything. I never could figure out why everybody did whatever that boy said. By the time we got to Grade Six, he was some kind of hero with the little kids. He’d reached the physical height of any man in Bleak Landing, except he was as skinny as a stick. The Grades One and Two boys would line up at recess and take turns riding around on Victor’s shoulders, where they’d pretend to be king of the world.
The girls figured Victor was pretty swell, too. But then, he acted nice to them. I thought Rebecca Olsen’s eyelashes would bat themselves right off her face whenever Victor got within ten feet of her, and Margaret Mikkelsen made a fool of herself trying to act coy. Made me feel embarrassed to be a girl. Maybe that’s why I stuck to myself most of the time.
Though I never succeeded in making friends, I learned to read better than anyone in the school, even the oldest of them. Before my first year ended, Miss Johansen was calling on me to help the other students—most of whom were older and had been in school longer. This did not endear me to them any more than if I’d suddenly sprouted horns. But in time some of them—the girls, at least—appreciated me as a good tutor and welcomed my help. Usually.
More importantly, I learned I didn’t need friends. While the other girls played their made-up games or braided each other’s hair, chatting endlessly about dresses and boys, I sat under the big oak tree with books Miss Johansen loaned me. She had no fewer than three of Jane Austen’s books on her personal shelves, and I figured she must be the wealthiest and most generous person alive. I’d read them all several times over, and my favorite so far was called Sense and Sensibility. And though she wouldn’t allow me to take it outdoors, I spent many a recess poring over the school’s copy of Mr. Webster’s dictionary.
After I’d finished my detention following the outhouse incident, I walked to the front of the classroom where the heavy dictionary sat on its special stand and flipped it open. One of my favorite things to do was choose a new word and mull it over on my walk home from school. I’d spell it in my head, repeat the meaning, and put it into sentences. Once I even tried a sentence out on Pa, but he told me to quit talking fancy or he’d smack me upside the head and remind me of my place.
This time the word gregarious jumped off the page at me. The dictionary said the word described someone with a “liking for companionship.”
I pushed the school door open just enough to look around the yard. Victor was nowhere in sight, and I guessed he had finished his work. I stepped out into the bright sun, thankful it was Friday, and started my walk home. It was only a mile, but that was far enough for me to work on gregarious until it was in my head for life.
“Bridget O’Sullivan is not a gregarious girl.” I kicked a stone and followed it down the dusty road.
“If Bridget O’Sullivan was more gregarious, perhaps one of the other girls would have unlocked the outhouse door.” I kicked the stone with my other foot.
“Victor Harrison is far too gregarious for his own good.” I gave the stone a sideways kick as hard as I could, sending it off the path and out of my life forever.
At the thought of Victor, my fists automatically tightened. His latest actions were the last straw. I would be hearing the story of my outhouse imprisonment for months, even without popular Victor saying a word. The other boys would praise his courage for showing the dirty little Irish girl her place. The girls would twitter and giggle behind their hands. If they were half as clever as I was, they’d come up with catchy rhymes, like calling me “Bridget the fidget” when I avoided the outhouse, even when I needed it desperately.
Good thing they weren’t.
And good thing I didn’t care. The fact was, that day’s experience only made me more determined to leave Bleak Landing at the first opportunity. I told myself that one day in the not-too-distant future, I would wash the dust of this hateful community right off my feet and catch a train for Winnipeg, where no one knew me. There, I’d become a completely new person. Why, I might even be
come gregarious.
And I would never, ever, ever return.
Chapter 3
Our house sat on the north edge of Bleak Landing—the last building on Fattigdom Road. The word is Norwegian for “poverty,” and I couldn’t help wondering what the founding fathers went through to make them give such depressing names to everything. Pa wasn’t home when I got there. With any luck, that meant he was working today. Pa never kept a steady job, but he managed to find work most days helping farmers or carpenters. They couldn’t always pay him in cash, but he often brought home food and firewood. He was known to be a good worker when sober and a harmless jester when drunk.
Harmless, that is, to everyone but me.
Already behind because of my detention, I changed into my overalls as fast as I could and headed for the garden—Pa’s pride and joy. I never did figure out how Pa could be so meticulous about his vegetable garden but not give two hoots about the condition of our house. I guess that made us a good team. I kept the house as clean as I could and nagged Pa when he dragged mud inside. Pa insisted on planting the garden himself so the rows would be perfect and harassed me if I didn’t keep up with the weeding and watering.
I’d been working for about half an hour when I saw Miss Johansen approaching. I stood up straight but didn’t move or let go of my hoe.
“Hello, Bridget,” she called out. “Is your father home?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I was hoping to speak with him. I’ve just come from Victor’s house, where I spoke with his mother about what happened at school today.”
I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to say. I never knew what time Pa would get home or what frame of mind he’d be in when he did. The only thing I felt sure of was that I’d be in far deeper trouble when he found out I’d gotten into hot water at school than I would already be in for not having my chores done. Maybe I could get rid of my teacher before Pa got home, and he’d never need to know.
“Victor’s mother is a very kind lady,” Miss Johansen continued.
“Yes, ma’am, she is.”
“She suggested that Victor probably deserved what you gave him and hoped your father would go easy on you.” She looked around at the garden for a moment. “I wonder why she’d say that about your father.”
When I made no reply, she put her hand on my elbow until I raised my eyes to her. “Can you think of any reason Mrs. Harrison might say such a thing, Bridget?”
I looked briefly into her blue eyes and then turned my attention back to my hoeing. “I’ve learned it’s best to get these things over with sooner rather than later, ma’am.” And it was. The anticipation could be worse than the punishment. So I felt almost relieved when Pa came around the corner, toolbox in hand. I could tell by his walk that he was sober. “Here comes Pa now.”
Pa walked straight toward us. “What’s this, then? Teacher come a-callin’?”
“Good afternoon, Mr. O’Sullivan.”
Pa looked from Miss Johansen to me and back again. “My girl in some kind of trouble, then?”
My teacher paused. “Not at all, sir. Your daughter is my top student. I was passing by and stopped to drop off this book for her.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a copy of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. She held the book out to me and nodded for me to take it. She knew I’d read the book more than once already, and I could see her own bookmark sticking out of it. It seemed I was being granted an impromptu reprieve. I was glad, though, that Pa couldn’t read the title. Pa couldn’t read much besides his own name. He surely wouldn’t approve of Miss Wollstonecraft’s axioms.
“Glad to hear it,” Pa said. “But you’d best keep the book. Bridget’s got no time for story reading. Not with the corn six inches high and the weeds nearly eight.”
“I see.” Miss Johansen returned the book to her bag. “Well, it’s a lovely day for garden work. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I stayed and helped awhile?”
“Ain’t got but the one hoe. And you still in your school frock.” Pa’s tone alone dismissed Miss Johansen.
“Very well, then. I’ll see you at school on Monday, Bridget.” She turned and continued walking into town, where she stayed at Sigurdsons’ boardinghouse.
Pa watched her leave and then turned to me. “What did she come here for?”
I resumed my hoeing. “To loan me a book.”
“Why didn’t she do it at school?”
“She was passing by, like she said.” I bent to pull an extrastubborn stringy vine and tossed it to the side.
“Don’t treat me like I’m daft, girl. If you’re in trouble at school, I’ll find out, sure. You best be mindin’ your ways or you’ll be stayin’ home and gettin’ something useful done. No point in education if you throw it away misbehavin’.”
“No, sir. There isn’t.” Whatever else Pa might say, I could agree with him on that point. I kept working and he went inside the house.
Later, as we sat at the table eating potatoes and more of the Harrisons’ eggs, we heard a knock at the door. Pa looked at me and raised his brows. No one ever came to our house, and now we’d had two visitors in one day. I’m sure my own brows reached for the sky, too, when I opened the door and saw Victor Harrison standing there.
“Hello-Bridget-I-came-to-apologize.” He stared at his feet and spoke so fast, I wasn’t certain what he’d said. But his swollen nose sure made his face look funny.
I managed not to laugh. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I came to apologize.”
“Your mother make you do this?” I asked, hoping Pa hadn’t heard.
“Yes.”
“May your cat eat your liver and the devil eat your cat, Victor Harrison.” It was the worst insult I knew. His eyes went from my face to just behind me, and I knew my father stood there.
“Young Harrison, isn’t it?” Pa said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You came all this way to apologize to Bridget? What for, lad?”
Victor glanced at me, then down at the ground. “I’m sorry I locked you in the outhouse.”
Pa laughed. “Is that all? Your ma made you come all the way here to say you’re sorry just for that?”
“And because teacher kept us after school.” Victor Harrison was making my life worse by the minute.
Pa stopped laughing. “What do you mean? The both of you?” He looked at me, and I nodded as slightly as I dared. “I knew that teacher had more to say than she let on.” He turned back to Victor and took a closer look at his face. “Where’d you get the puffy nose? Did Bridget do that to you?”
Victor’s face turned as red as my hair.
But Pa wouldn’t let it go. “Not much of a man, are you, lad?”
Victor looked down at his shoes. “No, sir. That’s what my pa said, too. I’d best be getting home. Just came to say I’m sorry and it won’t happen again.”
Pa watched Victor leave, then slowly closed the door and turned around.
“You lied to me.”
I hadn’t. Not really. I may not have disclosed the whole truth, but I hadn’t outright lied. I knew, though, that it was better to keep my mouth shut and not argue with Pa.
“If there’s one thing I cannot tolerate, it’s lyin’.”
It seemed to me there were a whole lot of things Pa couldn’t tolerate, especially when it came to me. But I kept quiet.
“It’s one thing to get in trouble at school, but you will not lie to me. Turn around.”
He grabbed the willow switch from its corner of the room and began to strike before I could find anything to lean on. I stumbled forward, bracing my fall with my arms so that my left wrist hurt worse than my backside. Pa wasn’t done. I didn’t try to count the number of times the switch came down on my back and buttocks. What was the point? The only thing I knew for sure was that Victor Harrison could apologize until his tongue turned purple, but I would never forgive him.
His anger spent, Pa threw the switch into the corner. “Don’t
you ever lie to me again. And if you get into another fight at school, I’ll give you twice that. Your poor mother would be disgusted with you, her own daughter fightin’ with boys and lyin’ to her pa. She’d want you to be a lady. Best start actin’ like one.”
Finally he left the house, and I didn’t see him again until morning. While I wrapped my aching left wrist in strips of fabric for support, I thought about the lady Ma would have wanted me to be. The best example I could picture was Victor Harrison’s mother.
Chapter 4
July 1935
The grown-ups were calling it the hottest, dirtiest summer on record. I figured most of our topsoil was somewhere in Ontario by now, having been replaced entirely by Saskatchewan’s. Until the wind changed direction, that is. Then it would all fly back again in an eternal swirl of dust. I spent my days outside, pumping pails of water and carrying them to the pathetic mounds of potato plants and cornstalks Pa and I were trying to grow in our garden patch. The dust and grasshoppers made the effort a losing battle. Each night I filled a basin with water and washed myself from top to bottom, but I never could get all the dust out of my hair. Though I was tempted to chop it off, I could never quite bring myself to do it.
“You have beautiful hair,” Miss Johansen had said to me more than once. “I’d love to brush it out and style it for you sometime.”
“I do my own hair,” I told her, clenching my teeth so she’d know I meant it. I suppose it sounded a little rude, but nobody was touching my hair.
The one consolation was that everybody else was covered in dust, too. At least our well still produced. Not everyone was so fortunate. Several of the homes and farms surrounding Bleak Landing sat abandoned, the last pig or chicken already eaten or dead of starvation. Somehow, Pa managed to keep bringing home flour and enough cash to send me to the Harrisons’ for eggs most weeks. When we didn’t have money for eggs, Mrs. Harrison took my Irish soda bread in trade. Pa taught me how to make it, and some days that’s all we had to eat. I tried making dandelion-leaf sandwiches after someone said they were good for eating. That’s when I decided there were two kinds of “good for eating”—that which tasted good, and that which provided the body some nourishment. The dandelions definitely fell into the second category, but we ate them without complaint.
