Flying Geese

by Barbara Haworth-Attard

  “Martin!” Mrs. Brown admonished.

  Margaret’s eyes flew to her father’s bowed head.

  “. . . that’s all we’ve had lately, Lord. Trouble, and we need a miracle to survive,” he continued. “Though there has been a shortage of miracles around here lately.”

  “Martin,” Margaret’s mother exclaimed again. “What kind of a blessing is that!”

  Mr. Brown thumped his fist on the table. “There’s been no harvest for two years, Olivia, then finally I get a bumper crop and hail wipes it out. And this . . .” He grabbed the letter sitting beside his plate and waved it in the air. “It’s the bank telling me they are foreclosing on the farm as we owe money for seed and equipment and I can’t pay it back. And there’s other bills. We still have to pay the doctor and the hospital . . .” He stood abruptly and his chair crashed to the floor. Timothy began to wail. Taylor immediately joined him. “And now Edward’s going off who knows where to fight in a war,” he shouted over the crying. “I can’t run the farm alone.”

  “Dad. I’m sorry.” Edward’s face was stricken. “I guess I wasn’t really thinking . . .”

  “No,” his father interrupted. “You’re a man now. You do what you have to do.”

  Margaret pulled Timothy from his chair and joggled him up and down on her knee. “Dad, I can help farm. I’m getting bigger now. I’m even stronger than George.”

  George looked at her in disgust. “You aren’t stronger than me and girls don’t farm,” he told her.

  “Sure they do,” Margaret argued. Timothy grabbed a stray piece of hair and pulled hard, bringing tears to her eyes. She quickly dumped him on Evie.

  Evie yelped. “Don’t put him on me. He’s all wet!”

  “I’ve helped in the fields before,” Margaret protested, ignoring Evie.

  “Helping is not the same as real farming,” George told her.

  “Margaret, take him back! He’s soaking. He’s ruining my dress.” Evie held Timothy away from her skirt.

  “Enough!” Mr. Brown roared. He limped to the porch door. Yanking it open, he stopped and spoke into the sudden silence. “Olivia, start packing. We’re going to Ontario.”

  Chapter 2

  Margaret sat, her back against the kitchen wall and knees drawn to her chest, trying to shut out the voices from the yard. It was disturbing having people going over her family’s belongings, knowing in a few hours Evie’s and her bed would be in someone else’s house, other people sleeping on it. Just as disturbing was the bare kitchen, stripped of table and chairs, even Mama’s corner cabinet Dad had built special to hold her few precious pieces of china. Except for some pots and pans and plates that could fit into suitcases or be easily carried, everything was up for auction, the money needed for train tickets to Ontario.

  She held tight to her quilt and a large bag of Grandma Brown’s remnants of material, fearful even they might be torn from her arms and sold. Occasionally, she would finger a triangle or square in the quilt, taking comfort in the memory of her grandmother’s voice. That light blue is from a dress I had as a young girl. Your grandpa said it was that dress matching my eyes that made him decide to marry me. You put it in a quilt someday, Grandgirl. Maybe it will bring you good luck and a handsome man, too. Margaret remembered blushing at that.

  The past two weeks had been a rush of packing, arranging the auction, and Edward leaving for the army. He was out there now in the yard in his brown uniform, given leave from the camp to return home to say goodbye to them before they left for Ontario the following morning.

  “Margaret? Where are you?” Her friend, Catherine, banged into the kitchen, peered around its dim interior until she spotted Margaret, then flopped down beside her.

  “You’re really going then?” she cried.

  Margaret nodded.

  “I didn’t think it true until I got here and saw all the people at the auction. Dad’s here for the corner cabinet for Mother. He says your father’s carpentry is second to none.” She paused, taking in Margaret’s sad face. “Oh, sorry,” she apologized. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  Most of the people out there weren’t thinking, Margaret thought angrily. Friends, neighbours, church folk—all rudely pawing through their possessions and discussing the value like her family had gone already and been forgotten.

  “Grandmother has sent me some new dress patterns,” Catherine chattered. She spread them over the kitchen floor. “I brought them to show you. Mother and I are making this one first.”

  Margaret glanced down at the pattern her friend thrust into her hands. It was a lovely dress made up in green wool with a lace collar to finish it.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. Her hand shook as she handed it back, suddenly aware of the worn material in her skirt, the white lines where the hem had been turned down as far as it could go. She was shooting up like a weed, Mama said, sighing, making Margaret feel like she’d done something bad by growing. She was already Evie’s height, so there were no more hand-me-downs left for her. Her sturdiness was the Wallace side of the family, Grandma Brown had often told her. Margaret took after her grandmother’s mother’s people: solidly built to work well in the fields. And those same people had passed on skilled hands that made tidy stitches, Grandma Brown had added. A stab of envy went through Margaret as she fingered Catherine’s patterns. She’d never had a new dress that was just her own.

  She leaned her head back against the wall, suddenly exhausted. She loved her friend dearly, but today Catherine’s chatter grated on her ears. Fighting back tears, she pretended to study the patterns, when suddenly the edge of one caught her eye. She burrowed a hand beneath the pile and pulled it out.

  “Flying Geese Quilt,” she read. “Did your grandmother send you this too?”

  Catherine glanced over, then quickly away, uninterested. “Yes, but I’m looking for . . .” She rifled through the patterns. “Where is that adorable blouse?”

  Margaret studied the orderly rows of V-shaped patchwork. They looked exactly like the geese flying over her house, but with material rather than feathers.

  “Here it is,” Catherine crowed. With a last, longing look, Margaret put the Flying Geese pattern down.

  “Margaret.” Evie poked her head in the door. “Mama wants you to watch Taylor and Timothy. The auction is about to start, and she doesn’t want them bothering people. I have to help bundle up the linen.”

  Margaret climbed to her feet.

  “And straighten your hair. You look like you just got out of bed,” Evie added.

  Margaret stuck her tongue out at her sister, then ran quickly upstairs and pushed her quilt and Grandma’s remnant bag into a corner behind her satchel, packed and waiting to go. Hopefully, the bag would be safe from the auction there.

  Back in the yard, she rounded up the twins. “Play, Margaret,” Taylor shouted. She tossed him a rag ball.

  “Edward looks quite handsome,” Catherine whispered into her ear.

  Margaret looked around the yard until she saw her brother leaning casually against the fence, crisp uniform shouting new. Handsome, yes, but with his thin build—small bones from the Brown side of the family—he looked like a little boy dressed in his father’s clothes. She didn’t recognize him anymore in that uniform. Her Edward wore overalls and pulled her braids and teased her. Not unkindly like her classmates did last year when she shot up over even the tallest boys in her school, but in a gentle, laughing way. This new Edward in uniform was a stranger. Men slapped him on the back and shook his hand. Moving closer, Margaret heard one say, “Congratulations, young fellow. Wish I was younger so I could go myself. Hate missing all the excitement.”

  George swaggered after his older brother, imitating his casual pose, hands in pockets and beaming as if he were the new soldier going off to war. Mama, too, was watching Edward, Margaret saw, eyes sadly following him around the yard. Why were the men so pleased to see him leave, she wondered, and the women sympathetically patting Mama on the shoulder and her looking ready to burst i
nto tears?

  Why did he have to go to a war so far away? Just because they were part of the British Empire didn’t seem reason enough to go over the ocean to Europe. She wished now she’d listened more closely to their teacher, Mr. Johnson, reading from the newspaper when the war started last year. August of 1914 that had been. She remembered it had to do with some countries called the Balkans, and the Germans, and a duke who had been assassinated, but she’d found it all so confusing she’d paid scant attention.

  Mr. Murphy, Catherine’s father, came up and reached behind Margaret’s ear. “Look what I found here!” he exclaimed. With a huge grin he handed her a copper penny. “I guess it’s yours, young lady.”

  With a weak smile Margaret took the coin. Cheeks perpetually red, lips always smiling, Mr. Murphy’s bulk strained the buttons of his railroad guard’s uniform. Margaret didn’t think she’d ever seen Catherine’s father without a smile. She watched her own father make his way through the crowd with his awkward limp. When was the last time a smile had lit his gaunt face and erased lines etched deep from sun, work, and worry? Perhaps the difference was Mr. Murphy had a steady paying job on the railroad and only Catherine to worry about, while her dad had a whole farm, six-nearly-seven children, and a bad back.

  The auction began in earnest and Margaret watched the kitchen table go, followed by Mama’s rocking chair. The chickens and cranky rooster, the cow bawling its protest, and the horse, skittish from the noise, went quickly. As the afternoon wore on wagons pulled away from the house to the main road, new purchases tied securely in back, until there was only Mama’s cupboard left.

  “We will begin the bidding at ten dollars for this fine piece of craftsmanship,” the auctioneer announced.

  Mr. Murphy immediately put up his hand.

  “Wait! Wait!” Margaret’s father made his way to the front of the small crowd. “I’m sorry, folks. That piece is not for sale. It’s going with us.”

  Margaret saw her mother put her hand to her mouth, surprise widening her eyes. With murmurs of disappointment, the crowd thinned. Margaret’s father came up to Mr. Murphy. “Sorry about the confusion. I know you came for that piece in particular, but Olivia has her heart set on keeping it.”

  Mr. Murphy smiled and waved a hand in the air.

  “Not to worry.”

  Margaret’s mother came up. “We could have got good money for the cupboard,” she said in a low, anxious voice. “Heaven knows we could use it.”

  “We don’t have to sell the very life in us,” Margaret’s father said abruptly, then turned back to Mr. Murphy. “I wonder if I might ask a favour of you. I’d like to take the cupboard down to the train station right away and see about having it shipped to Ontario and . . .” He looked around the yard as if surprised to see it empty. “. . . I don’t have a wagon anymore.”

  “We’ll drop Catherine at home first, then head to town,” Mr. Murphy assured him. He closed one eye in an exaggerated wink. “I might be able to get you a good rate, being a railroad man and all.”

  “I’m obliged. I’ll have Edward and George put it in the wagon then, while I speak to the auctioneer and get settled up with him.”

  Margaret held out a small piece of paper to Catherine. “This is my Uncle Harold’s address. Will you write to me?”

  “Of course I’ll write.” Catherine’s voice wobbled.

  “It’ll only be for a short while,” Margaret went on. “Another year George and I will be grown enough to help with the farm and then we’ll be back.” After all, she had a solid Wallace build that could work well. Grandma Brown had said so.

  She caught Mr. Murphy’s puzzled eyes on her, but stubbornly ignored him. They would be back. Like the geese.

  Catherine suddenly leafed through the sewing patterns and shoved one into Margaret’s hands. “I want you to have this as a goodbye gift.”

  The Flying Geese quilt! Margaret squeezed Catherine’s hand, unable to speak.

  They stood side by side watching Edward and George wrestle the cupboard over the wagon tail. Mrs. Brown handed them blankets to wrap it in, with instructions to make sure it was secure. Finally, it was done to her satisfaction and they jumped down from the wagon.

  “I’ll be going into town with Dad and Mr. Murphy,” Edward announced. “I have to catch the train back to camp.”

  Margaret felt her heart sink. First Edward, then them leaving. She stared down at her feet, feeling as if the very earth beneath her was eroding away. Where would she stand then? She headed quickly for the house and upstairs to Evie’s and her bedroom, lowered herself to the floor, and hugged Grandma’s ragbag to her chest.

  “Margaret!” Edward called but she didn’t answer. A moment later he appeared in the doorway.

  “Weren’t you going to say goodbye to me?”

  She shrugged.

  Edward squatted down beside her. “Just imagine. I’ve never seen anything but prairie all my life and soon I’ll be going straight across Canada, then over the ocean! What an adventure.”

  Margaret tried but could not imagine an endless stretch of water, an ocean. She’d only known land, the prairie. She gripped his arm until her knuckles showed white. “Mama says you’re too young to be a soldier. You’re only seventeen.”

  “I’ll be eighteen in two months. Dad says I’m a man. Besides, it’s my duty to go. You wouldn’t want me called a coward.” She wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her or himself.

  “There’s men fighting over there on the Western Front,” he added. “Fighting for us so we don’t become a German colony. I have to go help.”

  Put that way, Margaret almost wished she was a boy so she could go, too. Almost. She scrambled to her feet. “Dad says it’ll be over soon. Maybe even before you finish your training and you won’t go over the ocean at all.”

  Edward swung her off her feet. “I hope not. I don’t want to miss all the fun. Don’t get too caught up in those flashy city ways,” he teased her.

  Margaret squeezed him back fiercely, then stared at him hard.

  “Why are you looking cross-eyed?” he demanded.

  “I’m remembering what you look like right into my mind, so I don’t forget,” Margaret told him.

  Edward fished in his pocket a moment before holding out a photograph. “It’s me and Christian standing in front of our barracks. Now you don’t have to rack your brain with remembering.”

  “Thanks,” Margaret croaked as she took the picture, unable to force words past a huge lump in her throat.

  “Now come and give me a proper send-off,” Edward told her.

  He pulled her down the stairs and into the yard, then climbed into the back of the wagon. Her father heaved himself up beside Mr. Murphy, who clicked to the horses and the wagon swayed to the end of the lane. She watched as it turned down the road, became a tiny black dot against pink-tinged evening clouds, then vanished.

  Her mother sighed, wiped her eyes on her apron, then slapped her hands together briskly. “Evie, help me finish the lunches for tomorrow. We’ll be making an early start. George, clean up out here and make sure the barn is tidy. I want to go away with a sure mind that the place is neat. I won’t have anyone say the Browns left things in a mess. Margaret, keep the twins out from under my feet.”

  Margaret looked at the picture of Edward and Christian standing in front of a large tent, grinning sheepishly as they squinted into the sun. She placed it carefully in her pocket. It was all she had left of him now.

  After a cold supper of bread and pork eaten while sitting on the kitchen floor, Margaret joined her father outside. He stood, one foot on the fence rail, looking over night-blackened fields. The wind bit harsh with a hint of coming frost. She’d be grateful for Grandma’s quilt tonight, especially as they were sleeping on the floor. She looked at the white stars littering the sky. Would they hang this low and shine this brightly in Ontario? she wondered.

  “How long are we going to stay at Uncle Harold’s?” she asked.

  “Don’t kno
w,” Mr. Brown replied shortly. “I got enough money from the auction to get there and let us live a couple months until I find work. Not enough to get back. Besides . . .” He gestured over the fields. “There’s nothing to come back to. The equipment’s all gone. I’m leaving debts behind. I’d have to start over again and I’m too old for that.”

  A tumbleweed rolled across the field, coming to a stop at Margaret’s feet. She stepped to one side and let it go on its way. She opened her mouth to tell him her plan to come back when she and George were grown, but a sharp honk and the dark shadow of five geese against the night sky made her forget.

  “Dad! Look!” She pointed up, but he stared straight ahead, mouth set.

  “Does something to you inside, having your whole life spread out for the world to see and realizing there is so little of it,” her father said softly and Margaret knew he was speaking to himself. “And now it’s gone. It’s all gone.”

  He turned and headed for the house. “Let’s hope things are better in Ontario like your Uncle Harold says.”

  Margaret stood a moment longer, knees trembling. What her grandmother would think of the auction and them leaving, she didn’t know. Then she did. Grandma Brown would say, What has to be has to be; no sense fretting about it, and she’d pull out her ragbag and begin another quilt. Margaret thought about the Flying Geese pattern tucked safely inside her satchel.

  Chapter 3

  So this was Ontario, Margaret thought. London, specifically, and even more specifically, Uncle Harold’s house. She trailed behind her two cousins, Pauline and Mary, who were “acquainting them with the house,” as Aunt Dorothy put it. Pauline was twelve, two years older than Mary, but despite the age difference they looked like twins in identical navy serge dresses, white stockings, shiny black shoes, and brown bobbed hair. They were showing the piano to Evie, who was making appropriate noises of admiration.

  “We also have a Victrola and some music recordings to play on it . . .” Pauline crossed to the far side of the room and pointed to a large wooden cabinet next to a couch. “. . . but you better not wind it because you won’t know how it works.”