Margaret immediately decided George would be the one to do that. The less she saw of Aunt Dorothy and Pauline the better.
“Thanks, Harold.” Mr. Brown sat opposite him. “Don’t worry about it. There’s no jobs in the paper anyway. I put my own ad in a couple days ago.” He flipped through pages, searching, then stabbed his finger at one. “Here it is. Middle-aged man wants steady work at inside job. I have to go down to the newspaper office and check whether they got any responses. It’s my last resort. Took all our money so I don’t know what we’ll do now.”
Evie put a cup of tea in front of her father and uncle.
“I’d help you out if I could . . .” Uncle Harold began. “But with my pay cut so much . . . and not knowing when I’ll be back . . .”
“No. No. We’ll manage somehow. We always do.”
“You did a good job on Olivia’s cupboard,” Uncle Harold said. “Could you do some carpentry work?”
“No one’s building houses now that it’s winter. I doubt I’d be able to do the work anyway with my back. I could probably make furniture and such except I sold most of my tools.” Mr. Martin explained. “I’d given it some thought, though.”
“Anything I have, you can use,” Uncle Harold offered.
“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind, but you’ve done enough for us.”
Mr. Brown looked around at Evie rocking Timothy and George combing his hair. “Though, Harold, I can’t help but think we would have been better off in Saskatchewan. At least we had the garden for food. I found myself actually begging for a job the other day. Begging! Made me feel like I was nothing . . .” His voice trailed off. He suddenly saw Margaret standing at the door. “Didn’t I tell you to go to the drugstore?” He half rose from his chair and Margaret scurried out.
She remembered his words as she pushed open the door to Stevens’s drugstore and hunched her shoulders protectively around her ears. Dad was right. Every time she asked a store for credit, it felt like she was nothing.
A couple of women stood at the counter talking to the female sales clerk, so Margaret moved to one side, waiting near the plate glass window. The same window, she realized, that Jean’s father had thrown a brick through. She thought she could hear the shattering of glass, see silver splinters showering the floor, all for a package of tobacco and a chocolate bar.
Wrapped up in her imaginings, she didn’t hear the clerk ask what she wanted. She started when the clerk repeated her question louder.
The two women had not left yet, but stood talking together.
“The doctor said to get this medicine for my brother for his earache,” Margaret said. She pushed a note over to the woman.
“You’ll have to wait while I get Mr. Stevens,” the clerk told her.
Margaret nodded and stepped back, making a show of studying a display of postcards.
“Mrs. George Miller has gone into hospital,” one of the women said.
A bell rang as the door opened, and a rush of cold air swept in with a customer.
“Well, you know once you get into hospital, the only way you come out of that place is in an undertaker’s hearse,” the second woman said dourly.
Margaret’s legs turned to ice. Did that mean that Mama wasn’t going to get well? That she would come out in a funeral hearse?
Blindly, she moved away down an aisle, wanting only to escape the women’s voices. A flutter of black at the edge of her vision caught her eye and she could hear the sound of a broom sweeping behind a stack of soap.
“What are you doing here?” A girl’s voice spoke at her ear, making her jump. Pauline.
“Getting medicine for Timothy’s earache,” Margaret muttered.
“Mother sent me to get Catarrhozone for Mary as she isn’t feeling well. Influenza, Mother thinks.”
Poor Mary, Margaret thought. If there was anything good about being poor, it was that there was no money for medicine to dose them. It seemed everything that supposedly made them better had to make them worse first. All medicine tasted so awful.
Margaret saw Mr. Stevens returning with Timothy’s ear drops and hastily made her way to the counter, but to her annoyance Pauline followed.
The drugstore owner set a small bottle down next to the cash register. “Now that will be one dollar,” he said.
“Can we put that on credit?” Margaret whispered. She felt heat creep into her cheeks.
“Credit? Isn’t your father out of work?”
Margaret nodded, knowing the two women and Pauline were listening to every word.
Mr. Stevens hemmed and hawed for a long time. “I can extend credit until Saturday afternoon,” he told her. “But only if you promise to pay me then.”
Margaret looked at him dumbly. She couldn’t promise any such thing.
“Maybe I could work for you to pay for it,” she offered desperately. “Timothy’s ear is hurting really bad and he needs the medicine.”
“I already have my son to work for me. I don’t need other help.” He gestured to one side and Margaret turned to see Peter standing with a broom in his hand, watching her. Probably thinking she was nothing, too, Margaret cringed.
“We’d pay you as soon as we could,” Margaret told the store owner.
“Some people would rather live on credit and handouts than get themselves a job,” one of the women commented.
“You should be down on your knees thanking God that your Irwin has a job, Florence Hadley.” Mrs. Ferguson pushed her way between the two women. She dropped coins on the counter. “That’ll pay for the ear drops. I’ll be thinking about taking my business elsewhere, Mr. Stevens.”
Mr. Stevens looked stunned. “But, Mrs. Ferguson, you are one of our favoured customers,” he wheedled.
“I said I’d be thinking about it.”
She swept out of the store, Margaret scuttling behind her. As the door shut, she heard her cousin say in a loud voice, “We need some medicine for my sister’s influenza and we can pay for it.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Ferguson,” Margaret said.
“I was just doing my Christian duty,” the woman told her.
Margaret felt her back go up. She didn’t think she wanted to be someone’s “Christian duty.”
“Besides, Florence Hadley always did get above herself and needs to be taken down a peg or two occasionally, but she is right in some respects—poor people cannot expect others to always pay their way.”
Margaret felt her face get hot again. “Dad has never been out of work,” she declared indignantly. “He always worked hard on the farm. He hurt his back and can’t stand for long or lift anything heavy now.” Talking back to her elders, she knew, but she couldn’t help it.
She didn’t know how to tell Dad about Mrs. Ferguson paying for Timothy’s medicine. He wouldn’t be happy at all.
“You and that girl can come back and see me Wednesday afternoon,” Mrs. Ferguson went on, ignoring Margaret’s comments. “You haven’t been since Christmas.”
“With Mama in hospital, I have to help Evie with the wash. It takes forever,” Margaret told her.
They walked in silence until they reached the brick house, then Mrs. Ferguson said, “You and your sister can use my washing machine on Tuesdays. Just Tuesdays, mind you. That’s the only day I can spare it. I’ll expect you Wednesday as usual.” She climbed the steps to the house. Slowly Margaret made her way across the yard to the cottage and shrugged out of her coat.
“Evie, Mrs. Ferguson says we can do our washing in her machine on Tuesdays,” she told her sister.
Everyone stared at her. “That’s what she said,” Margaret told them, seeing disbelief in their eyes. “She wants me to start coming as her companion on Wednesday afternoons again.”
“You don’t have to go,” her father told her. “I’m tired of everyone bowing and scraping to that woman just because she’s our landlady.”
“I don’t mind,” Margaret told him. And, she realized, she didn’t. It would be nice to go somewhere quiet and warm for a littl
e while, and work on her quilt. And besides, she thought guiltily, there were sandwiches and tea. “Dad, she paid for Timothy’s medicine,” she blurted out. “Mr. Stevens wouldn’t give credit.”
Her father’s cheeks bloomed into red. He stood and loomed over Margaret, making her step back. “Why did you let her pay?”
“I couldn’t stop her, Dad. She put the money on the counter and left. And Timothy needs the medicine.”
“Charity. So that’s what it’s come to. Charity!” He slammed the palm of his hand down on the table. “I’ll pay that old harridan back if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll get the money somewhere.”
He stood and walked over to the cupboard and ran his hands over the wood, considering it. “I’ll get the money somewhere. You’ll have to stay home from school, Evie, to care for Timothy and Taylor while I look for work. I can’t ask Dorothy to watch them anymore.”
Evie’s face dropped. “I’ll never be able to keep up my school work and if I fail, I won’t be able to be a teacher.”
“It can’t be helped. You’re the oldest. I can’t take any of the others out of school. They’re too young and I don’t have the money to hire anyone to watch the boys. Margaret will stay home on Tuesdays and help you with the wash.” His face turned bleak and hard. “Use Mrs. Ferguson’s machine. It’ll be easier on you both.”
Timothy began to cry and Evie bit her lip as she picked him up, fighting back her own tears.
“Here’s his ear drops,” Margaret handed the medicine to Evie. Seeing it brought back the conversation and the fear that had filled her in the drugstore—fear that her mother would leave the hospital in a hearse.
“Dad . . .” she began but found that she couldn’t ask. She pulled out her quilt top and began to stitch furiously.
“Why you’re so darned caught up in that sewing, I’ll never know,” her father said irritably. “We never see your face, always bent over that thing. There’s lots of chores you could be doing to help out instead of working on that.”
“I’ll help right now, Dad. Really, I will,” Margaret said desperately, scared he’d forbid her to work on her quilt anymore and then they’d never get home. At one time she could have told him how she felt, but not now. Not when there was this strangeness between them she didn’t understand. She quickly swept scraps into her bag and stuffed it in a corner and put bowls on the table. “George, get some spoons,” she ordered.
George didn’t move. “Girls set tables, not boys.”
“Get the spoons if you’re planning to eat.” Margaret glared at him, until he shrugged and sauntered over to the cupboard, returning with a handful of cutlery.
Evie picked up the remaining half loaf of bread and sliced it thinly. “Put another cup of water in the soup,” she whispered to Margaret. “Otherwise, it won’t go round.”
Margaret did as her sister said, stirred a moment to heat it, then ladled the soup into each bowl. Mr. Brown took a slice of bread. “Isn’t there anything to put on this?”
“No, Dad, we’re out of butter and preserves,” Evie said.
He tossed the bread back on the plate, took his spoon, and dipped it into the soup and blew on it, then swallowed. He immediately threw the spoon down. “This is mostly water!” he spluttered.
“I’m trying to make it go around,” Evie murmured, close to tears. “There’s nothing left to eat.”
Mr. Brown pushed his chair back and got to his feet.
“There’s Edward’s army pay, Dad. He told us to use it if we needed it,” Evie ventured.
“I’m not touching his money. I want it waiting for him when he comes back.” He grabbed his coat, opened the door, and slammed it shut behind him as he went out.
Margaret shoved her own bowl aside, nodding to George that he could have her soup. She wasn’t hungry anymore.
Evie began crying. “I’ll never be a teacher. You should be the one staying home.” She pointed a finger at Margaret. “You don’t like school anyway. You don’t want to be anything.”
“I do too want to be something,” Margaret protested.
“What?”
Margaret couldn’t think of a thing she wanted to be.
“That’s what I thought.” Evie grabbed her school books and went up the stairs.
“I want—I want to work on the farm,” Margaret shouted to her sister’s back.
“Girls can’t be farmers,” George told her.
Margaret retrieved her quilting from the corner and picked up two patches and began to sew them together. She had to make her geese fly.
Chapter 14
“Evie, there’s a big army parade through downtown, and Uncle Harold’s going to be marching in it. We have the day off school.” Margaret shook out a sheet, holding an end to her sister to lift over their bed, then let it drop. She rapidly shoved her end under the mattress, watching impatiently as Evie smoothed the creases and carefully folded, then tucked, the sheet in the side.
Straightening, Evie saw the bunched-up cotton by Margaret. “Take that out and redo it,” she ordered.
“What does it matter?” Margaret retorted. “You kick all the sheets off when you’re sleeping anyway. What’s the point of making a bed when you use it every night?” But she pulled the corner out and quickly folded it and tucked it back in. “There! Is that better?”
“Not really,” Evie sniffed. “But it will do.”
“No wonder you want to be a teacher. You like bossing everybody around.”
“I do not,” Evie exclaimed.
“Yes, you do,” Margaret argued.
“I’m the oldest. It’s a big responsibility,” Evie said stiffly.
“No, Edward’s the oldest.”
“Well, Edward’s not here!”
Margaret snapped her mouth shut. Evie was right. Edward wasn’t here. Her eyes wandered over to his picture propped up on a shelf.
“I miss him, too,” Evie said gently.
“Evie, don’t you hate it here?”
“Well, the cottage is pretty horrible—” her sister began, but Margaret interrupted. “I mean all of London. School, Pauline, asking the stores for credit.”
Evie shrugged as she spread out a blanket. “I have a good friend here and I like my teachers, though I wish I could be at school. Pauline, well, she’s taking right after Aunt Dorothy, so she can’t help the way she is. I wish I had some of her dresses, though.” Evie sighed. “Grab an end of this blanket. No creases.”
They lowered the blanket, then smoothed Margaret’s quilt over top.
“I guess a place is just what you make it,” Evie said suddenly.
Margaret stared at her sister in surprise. “Why, that is just what Grandma Brown would say.”
“Is it?” Evie plumped their pillows into place.
“Yes.” Margaret ran her fingers over the pieced pink and yellow flowers and brown baskets, marvelling anew at the neat quilting. Twelve to fourteen stitches to the inch. That’s the sign of a good quilter. But some of the stitches in the quilt were large and uneven, her grandmother’s eyes and fingers slowly failing. Margaret didn’t mind. They were all the more precious for that. “Do you remember Grandma making this for me, Evie? It was the last quilt she ever made.” She herself remembered well. You’re given the bits of material like God gives the bits of life to us, but it is up to you to put them together the way you can best. A pang went through Margaret. Could even her grandmother have made something out of the bits God was giving them now?
Evie shrugged. “I’m just thankful it keeps us warm. I nearly froze last night. The wind comes right in through the walls! I could have done with a dozen quilts on me.”
She was right about that, Margaret silently agreed. The water in the basin had had a thin crust of white ice on it when they woke up that morning, and even now, while making the bed, their breath puffed white. They were in the middle of a deep late January freeze, as Dad called it. The only warm place in the whole cottage was right next to the stove, and then only your front or back
got warm, depending on which faced the stove. But there was one advantage to the cold.
“The rink at Victoria Park is ready for skating. Everybody’s going after the parade,” Margaret told her sister eagerly. “Say we can go, Evie.”
“There’s still the stove to be cleaned out and biscuits to be made. Aunt Dorothy gave me some flour, though I sure hated asking,” Evie said hesitantly. “And what about the boys? We can’t leave them here alone.”
“Timothy’s feeling better. He and Taylor will like the band and parade. We’ll do the chores lickety split. I’ll get George to help,” Margaret pleaded.
Evie looked doubtful. “I’m not sure what Dad would say. He went out early this morning and he’s not back yet.”
“You might see your friends from school. They can tell you your homework. Please say yes,” Margaret urged her.
Two hours later they stood at the side of Dundas Street, listening to the military band that marched down the middle of the road.
“Why don’t the horns stick to their lips?” George asked. “It’s cold enough.” His nose was bright red.
Margaret puzzled over that question for a moment, then gave up as she saw the men in their uniforms swinging down the street. She stood on tiptoe. “Do you see Uncle Harold?”
George hefted Taylor up in his arms and Margaret picked up Timothy. “There he is,” Evie cried.
They called out and waved but Uncle Harold didn’t turn his head. “Not allowed to,” George told them knowledgeably.
After the parade, they made their way towards Victoria Park. People crowded on wooden benches, putting on their skates. Children darted recklessly through the more demure grown-up skaters, and the people from the parade joined those on the ice until it swirled with colour. George plopped down on the nearest snowbank and struggled to clamp his blades on his boots.
Margaret held out a pair of skates to Evie. “You can go first,” she told her sister, anxious that Evie have a good time and stay. There was only one pair of skates, Mama’s from when she was a girl, so they had to share. Margaret pulled her younger brothers onto a small patch of clear ice and twirled them around in their boots. With dismay she saw Timothy had lost one of his mittens. They were the only pair he had. She took off one of her own gloves and pulled it over his fingers, shoving her bare hand in her pocket to keep it warm. She looked around the rink and dug in the snowbanks, but didn’t find the mitten. She towed the twins back up the path leading into the park.
Flying Geese Page 12
