“And this is our telephone,” she continued importantly, moving to the hall. “You speak into this end . . .”
“We do know how to use a telephone,” Margaret interrupted.
Evie quickly grabbed her sister’s arm and squeezed it hard. “We had telephones back in Saskatchewan,” she told her cousins. Margaret noticed she didn’t elaborate on the fact that the Brown family did not have their own telephone but used the general store’s.
“I guess we’ll show you the bedroom then,” Pauline said with a glare at Margaret.
They filed down the hall towards the kitchen, stepping over Timothy, who was mashing a half-eaten bread crust into the floor. From upstairs they could hear Taylor whining, fussy from a cold he picked up on the train.
“Your brother is making a mess on our floor,” Pauline said.
Evie quickly bent down and picked up the crust. Timothy threw himself full length and banged his heels against the floor. “Mine!” he screamed. Margaret grabbed the bread from Evie and gave it back to him and he quieted immediately, grinding it into the hardwood again.
Pauline sighed exaggeratedly, but continued down the hall.
“Mother likes us to use the back stairs,” Mary told them shyly. “The front stairs are only for good company.”
Voices filtered into the hall from the kitchen, stopping the girls.
“. . . seeing it written in a letter is one thing. Seeing all those children in front of me is something else altogether.” Aunt Dorothy’s voice came shrill through the closed door.
Uncle Harold’s low rumble followed, but Margaret could not make out what he said.
“Well, we can’t keep them indefinitely,” Aunt Dorothy went on. “We just haven’t the room. I had no idea there were so many of them and poor as paupers. That one girl has no shoes! You’d think at the least Olivia could have cleaned them up a bit.”
The door swung open and Uncle Harold came out. Margaret felt her face flame as she met his eyes. They’d been on the train for four days and nights, a strange, dreamlike time of hard seats, black soot, and khaki-clad soldiers sitting and lying on the floor or playing cards, all heading to Quebec for training, then catching ships for England.
She’d smoothed her quilt over the wooden train seat so Mama and Dad would be more comfortable, but they all soon tired of sitting upright day and night. Dad let George and her wander the train car when their legs got too restless, but Evie wasn’t allowed to walk around on account of the soldiers, except to go with Mama to the train’s toilet. The toilet. It’d scared Margaret the first time she’d gone into that small, cramped room, locked the door behind her, and raised the lid of the toilet seat to see gravel and wooden railroad ties rush dizzily beneath her. She’d slammed it right back down, vowing she’d never sit on it. What if she fell through? Yet four days was a long time, so she’d become used to it. Gritty, black soot from the engine soon covered them from head to toe, and Mama gave up the battle to keep them clean.
Margaret glanced down at her bare feet to see black grime crusted beneath her toenails and quickly thrust one foot behind the other. The soles of her shoes, leather long gone and replaced by cardboard, had worn through again. Mama had promised to put new cardboard in them once they arrived in London. It didn’t bother Margaret not having shoes. Back home, they went barefoot all spring, summer, and fall, so the undersides of her feet were hard as shoe leather. Maybe people in the city weren’t used to bare feet. She frantically tried to tuck the stray ends of her hair into its plait. Evie had braided it neatly for her that very morning, but as Grandma Brown told her, your hair has a mind all its own.
Evie bent, trying to pick up the bread crumbs from the floor, while Timothy slapped at her hands.
“Are you showing your cousins where they’ll sleep, my pets?” Uncle Harold said heartily. As he went past, he gently patted Margaret on the head and winked, then scooped up Timothy and put him on his shoulders. “I’ll take care of this young fellow. You ladies go on.”
Margaret followed Evie’s stiff back up the stairs. Obviously she, too, felt embarrassed by Aunt Dorothy’s comments. Even Mary had red in her cheeks. Only Pauline seemed unconcerned, wrapped in her air of superiority.
“And this is our bedroom,” Pauline said, flinging a door wide to show a large room with two beds and a dresser. She pointed to one of the beds. “That’s where you two will sleep. Mary and I will sleep in the other. We usually have our own beds, but Mother said we had to share while you were here.”
“Evie and I always sleep together,” Margaret told her.
Pauline bounced on her bed. “You’re awfully fat, aren’t you? I bet you don’t leave much room for your sister.”
“I take after my grandmother Brown’s people,” Margaret told her and headed for the window. “They were farmers and so am I.”
“Margaret is big-boned, not fat,” Evie added, her voice sharp. “George is going to be the same when he gets older.”
Margaret looked at her sister with surprise. She distinctly remembered Evie rolling her to one side of the bed just last week, complaining that Margaret took more than her share of the bed. She struggled to push the window up and leaned out. She needed air; the house was suffocating her. After a few gulps she took a moment to look around, awed by the brilliant crimson of the tree in the front yard, one of a long line of maples stretching down the dirt street.
She’d never seen so many trees in her life as she had the last few days from the train window—or colourful leaves. Crossing from Manitoba, she’d been amazed by the number of small, blue lakes, but nothing had prepared her for the vast grey waters of Lake Superior. Even thinking of the cold, dark-looking lake now sent a chill up her spine. Dad had said their trip was better than any geography lesson at school.
She’d had to force her trembling legs to climb from the station platform up the iron steps into the stomach of the hissing monster, clouds of white steam rising from its body to envelope the waiting people. Her stomach hadn’t much liked jouncing around in the train, and Timothy and Taylor’s constant fretting had put her teeth on edge. But every day brought something new to see out the window, and it had been cosy wrapping herself in her quilt, snuggling up to Dad’s shoulder and listening to the rhythmic clack-clack of the train’s wheels beneath them until she’d drifted into sleep. There certainly hadn’t been any cousins in matching dresses.
“Margaret,” Evie called. “We should help Dad unpack and get our things.”
Turning from the window, Margaret studied the room. It was pretty, she had to admit, with red rosebud wallpaper and matching white spreads on the beds. She felt a lump rise in her throat and blinked rapidly several times. No matter how pretty it was, she wanted her own bedroom at home in Saskatchewan. Wanted to look out the window and see the cow and the chickens scratching in the yard, not a house so close to the next one that she could reach out her hand and touch its brick. She’d never get used to so many buildings crowding each other. Margaret staggered slightly. It’d been half a day on land, yet her feet believed they were still on the moving train. Miserable, she followed Evie down the stairs, then grabbed her sister’s arm.
“I want to go home,” she said in a small voice.
“Well, we can’t,” Evie told her. “This is where we live now.”
“Don’t you want to be back home?”
Evie shrugged. “As long as I can go to school and still be a teacher, it doesn’t matter where I live. Now hurry along. Dad’s waiting.”
Cartons and satchels surrounded the cupboard on the front lawn.
That was Evie, Margaret thought, always practical.
Uncle Harold eyed the tall corner cabinet. “I’m not sure where to put that. It won’t fit in the house. We could store it in the cellar, I suppose.”
Aunt Dorothy looked up and down the street. “Just put it somewhere quickly, Harold. The neighbours are watching.”
“It has to be dry,” Margaret’s mother insisted. “I don’t want damp to get into it.
Martin made it for me.”
Margaret caught the fleeting smile that passed between her mother and father and suddenly felt lighter. Lately, Mama and Dad had exchanged harsh words or sat inside long silences, but this look was warm and familiar, one she’d often caught between her parents in better times.
“The cellar’s fine, Harold. We’ll wrap blankets around it. That’ll keep it dry,” Margaret’s father said. He began to tug at the cupboard.
“Here, let me help you with that, Martin. Mind your back.” Uncle Harold hurried forward.
“You’re in your church clothes,” Mama protested.
“No, No. These are my work clothes,” Uncle Harold told her.
Margaret gaped. Dad and most of the rest of the men in Saskatchewan wore overalls or old pants and suspenders, except Mr. Murphy who had his uniform, but she’d never seen anyone working in their Sunday tweed suit and shirt collar and tie, yet it seemed her uncle did every day at the store.
Aunt Dorothy and Margaret’s mother went into the kitchen while everyone else carried the cupboard through a door at the side of the house and into the dark cellar. Coal filled half the room, waiting for winter. Climbing up the stairs into sunshine, Margaret realized the front of her dress was black with coal dust. Mama wouldn’t be happy about that. Outside, she grabbed a handful of grass to scrub it off, but only managed to leave long streaks of green warring with black.
“You are a complete mess,” Evie exclaimed. “I was in the cellar, too, but do you see any dirt on me? I don’t know what Mama will say.”
Margaret didn’t know either, but she knew it wouldn’t be good. She sidled into the kitchen behind Evie. Her mother stood at a table, spooning beans into a bowl. Aunt Dorothy hurried from stove to sink to table, skirts swirling over the wood floor, checking the roast and slicing bread, then to the icebox for butter. She must get awful tired if she moves that fast all the time, Margaret thought. She studied her thin, tall aunt, watching her nervous hands stirring pots on the stove, then fluttering to a dish of butter.
“You girls could put these bowls out on the dining room table,” Mrs. Brown said. She looked at Margaret and frowned fiercely at the girl’s dress. Margaret grabbed the beans, twitched her skirt to hide the worst of the stains, and bolted out the door.
As they all sat crowded around the dining room table, Margaret stole a look from beneath lowered eyelashes at the tops of heads bowed for the blessing: Dad’s wiry yellow hair like her own, Uncle Harold’s pink bald spot, Mama’s brown bun newly threaded with silver. She remembered another blessing that seemed years ago, followed by her father’s announcement they were moving to Ontario. Saskatchewan seemed a dreamtime now.
That night, standing in front of Pauline’s bedroom mirror, Margaret struggled with a comb. Even though it wasn’t a Saturday night, she and Evie had to take a bath and wash their hair before Aunt Dorothy would allow them to climb under the white bedspread. Margaret muttered to herself impatiently. The more she tried to smooth the strands of hair down, the more they flew, framing her face in a halo of gold. She threw an envious look at her cousins’ short hair.
“It’d just stick straight up from your head and you’d look worse,” Evie advised her, reading her mind.
Margaret sighed. Evie was right. Her hair would never fall in a sleek bob.
“If you brush your hair by the light of a candle and look in a mirror,” Pauline declared, “you’ll see the face of your husband-to-be behind you.”
“That’s just nonsense,” Margaret snorted, but she immediately put down her comb. She didn’t want to risk being married to skinny Lyle Ashford from back home, his huge Adam’s apple bobbing nervously up and down his neck every time he swallowed.
“It’s true,” Pauline insisted. “I once saw Peter Stevens in the mirror so I already know who I’m marrying. He’s the best-looking boy in my class and his father owns the drugstore.”
Margaret averted her eyes from the mirror. True, she wasn’t using a candle—as Pauline had boasted three times, Uncle Harold was one of the first people in London to have hydro electricity—but just to be safe she’d comb her hair in the daytime only.
“We didn’t have to go to school today because you were coming,” Mary said. “Mother says we have to go back tomorrow.”
“You will be in my class, Margaret,” Pauline told her. “Mother says I am to take you and introduce you to the teacher.”
School! Margaret climbed slowly into the bed. She rolled over next to the wall, making room for Evie. She’d almost forgotten about school. Dad had pointed it out to them when they’d driven by on the way to Uncle Harold’s: a large, two-storey, brown brick building with a single tree in the dirt yard and lots of staring windows. Her stomach knotted painfully. It’d be strange not to have George and Evie in her classroom. All the grades sat together in her old school. Evie wouldn’t even be in her building as she had to go to the collegiate.
She reached under her pillow and pulled out the Flying Geese quilt pattern, then leaned over and rummaged under the bed, reassuring herself that the soft bundle of scraps was still there. She’d carried that bag clutched to her chest all the way from Saskatchewan. A fat tear fell out of her eye and rolled slowly down her cheek. Feeling that bag reminded her of home. They’d left more than the farm behind. They’d left Grandma and Grandpa Brown in the church cemetery, and Edward going to war. Was he on a ship for England or still in training camp? They had no way of knowing, until a letter arrived.
“What’s that you have there?” Pauline jumped on to the bed, snatching the pattern from Margaret’s hand.
Enraged, Margaret fought the urge to grab it back. Mama said that they had to get along, had to keep in mind how kind it was of Uncle Harold to let them stay, and had to take care not to cause trouble.
“Oh, it’s not a dress,” Pauline said, and tossed it away.
Mary picked the pattern up. “A quilt. It’s very pretty,” she said. “Are you going to make it?”
Margaret shrugged and plucked the pattern from Mary’s hand, thrusting it under her pillow. She didn’t know if she could make it. She’d been piecing simple patches since she was five, Grandma Brown using them in their everyday quilts. But the special quilts that took time and skill, those her grandmother had pieced herself. Had she learned enough about quilting from her grandmother and the other women to make one of her own? Margaret thought of the quilting bees, the women inside, the older children out in the yard running wild until one of the ladies would holler that they needed needles threaded. We need your young eyes, Grandgirl. She’d thread a bunch of needles, then watch the women stitch until called back outside to play. Margaret lay down and faced the rose bud wall. Somehow, Pauline had trampled on those memories by touching her pattern.
Chapter 4
“But, Mama,” Margaret protested. “I could stay home and help you with the wash instead of Evie.”
Her mother was sorting a mound of dirty laundry. Margaret hated wash day, hated her hands red and soft from the water, hated hauling basket after basket of soggy clothes to peg on the line, but if it kept her out of classes one more day . . .
“No. You’re going to school.”
“But I don’t even like school and Evie does,” Margaret objected.
“I know you don’t,” her mother replied. “That’s why you’re going and Evie’s staying home to help me with the wash.” She held up a pair of George’s knickers and shook her head disgustedly as she put her hand through a jagged tear. “These may as well be thrown out. They certainly can’t be patched anymore.” She glanced at Margaret, then sighed and put an arm around the girl’s shoulders and squeezed briefly. “I know it’s a new school, but putting off going for another day won’t make it any easier for you tomorrow. By tonight you will be home telling me all about your teacher and classmates.”
Margaret leaned into her mother for a moment, finding momentary comfort before drawing away. “Don’t throw out the pants,” she said. “I’ll put them in my ragbag.”
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Glumly, Margaret trailed Pauline, Mary, and George down the street. George chattered away, not the least bit worried about school or the fact the black stockings stretching from his feet to his knee-length pants were more darning than sock. But then George, Margaret thought resentfully, always took it for granted people would like him, and they did. She glanced down at her feet. At least she had shoes. Evie had lent her her own so Margaret didn’t have to go barefoot. Back home most of her classmates came barefoot until winter cold set in, but somehow she didn’t think they would in a city school. Besides, she doubted she could face her new classmates without shoes on her feet. They arrived at the brown brick building, and Margaret read the name over the door—Talbot Street School.
Pauline led her inside and down a long hall smelling of lemon oil polish. Their boots echoed in the quiet building, brick walls so thick the schoolyard din was barely heard. Pauline turned into a classroom, empty except for a woman sitting at a desk in front of a blackboard. She looked up and smiled as they approached.
“Miss Simmonds,” Pauline said, “this is my cousin Margaret, who’s come to stay with us for a while because they’re very poor and her father can’t find a job.”
Margaret stared dumbfounded at Pauline, feeling heat creep up her neck to her forehead.
“Well, Margaret. How very nice to meet you,” Miss Simmonds said. “It’s sad, but a lot of people are out of work these days. But with more young men leaving for the war, jobs will open up and your father should find employment soon. It’s a shame, though, that it takes a war to build an economy. The rest of us should count our blessings.” Miss Simmonds raised her eyebrows at Pauline, but the girl didn’t seem to notice.
“Where did you come from?” Miss Simmonds asked.
“Saskatchewan,” Margaret replied. “We have a farm there.”
“What a long way. I am very happy to have you in my class.”
Margaret studied the teacher and relaxed. Miss Simmonds’s smile reached right up into her grey eyes. Chestnut-brown hair was parted in the middle and pulled into a soft bun on the back of her head.
Flying Geese Page 3
