by Laura Best
“Things are looking up for the Burbidges!” she said, whooping in a way I’d never heard her do before. Of course we all whooped and hollered too. Then she walked down to Mrs. Hurley’s store with all four of us in tow, smiling back at us from time to time.
We stood in the doorway, unable to believe what was happening, as Mama told Mrs. Hurley to count out some peppermint candies in a small paper bag. Mama ignored Mrs. Hurley when she said, “Some would say it’s not right for the county to be paying for such unnecessary indulgences.”
Even Mrs. Hurley’s sour comments could not dampen Mama’s spirits that day, and for the first time in a long time I remembered what it felt like to be able to buy something that wasn’t absolutely needed. It almost made up for me not having a bright shiny new lunch kettle or a big box of crayons with so many different colours you knew you’d never get the chance to use them all.
We didn’t waste the candies. Mama set them out on the table when we got home and doled them out into four piles. When Jesse saw that Mama didn’t keep any for herself, he insisted that she take her share. We all had to sing out that it was only fair and true for her to share in our good fortune before she collected them up from the table.
“I really shouldn’t,” she said. “Oh, the toothache I’ll get.” “Eat them one at a time, Mama,” Flora said, her cheek bulging as she held a peppermint in her mouth. This sent us all into a fit of laughter. Flora could not for the life of her understand what was so funny. The truth of it was that we’d have laughed at anything Flora said since we were all stirred by our imaginations over what all this extra money would mean. We didn’t know then how quickly our happiness would be pulled out from under us.
When Mama got sick, Mrs. McFarland started coming by every week, some days staying until we got home from school. She cleaned all the corners of the house and mixed up bread for us to eat and wasn’t the least bit backwards when it came to asking Mama questions like did she think Daddy would ever come back?
“When pigs fly,” Mama would answer with a rigid jaw. I knew that Mama wasn’t about to have Mrs. McFarland take pity on her just because Daddy hadn’t come home from working in the tobacco fields. By this time it had been nearly a year since he’d left and it hardly seemed possible that he was planning on coming back. Flora would sometimes cry after Mrs. McFarland left. I think it made her miss Daddy even more the way Mrs. McFarland was always asking about him. Mama said no one should have to put up with the likes of Emily McFarland and her “none-of-your-business” questions.
Sometimes Mama would lie down and rest while Mrs. McFarland worked, but that wouldn’t stop Mrs. McFarland from talking to Mama through the open bedroom door. Other times Mama felt up to sitting in the rocking chair or even sweeping the floor or washing dishes. Later, she would chide herself over some of the things she’d told Mrs. McFarland without meaning to.
“She’s like a dog with a bone. Never happy until you tell her something. And the questions she can come up with,” said Mama, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you’d have to tell her to keep her satisfied.”
“She’s got no business asking anything,” said Jesse. “Tell her to get lost. Tell her we don’t want her help.”
“She’ll get tired of this eventually,” Mama told us as she stood by the window one day watching Mrs. McFarland walk down the driveway on her way home. But a few weeks turned into a month, and still Mrs. McFarland made her rounds. Then one day she started telling Mama over and over that it was time she should see a doctor.
“I’m not sick. I’m just tired,” Mama would say, smiling like Mrs. McFarland was forcing some good health on her. But we could all see the dark lines beneath her eyes, the hours she spent sleeping only to awaken tired. And then one day Mama fell on her way upstairs. Her foot went through a rotten floorboard on the sixth step. We helped her to her bed and Jesse fixed the broken board as best he could but he had very little to work with and could not do a proper job.
“Out back near the well, the yarrow is rich and high— go pick some, Pru,” Mama said, looking up at me from the bed, her face drained of its colour.
“What’s it for, Mama?” asked Flora, giving Mama a peculiar look.
“Pru knows,” said Mama, flashing me a knowing look. It pleased me to know that Mama had so much faith in me, even though I had never yet had reason to use any of Gran Hannah’s remedies, and even though I wasn’t altogether sure I would do it right.
So I did as Mama asked, spurred by a sense of urgency—already I could see a swelling beginning to fester in her ankle. I pounded the yarrow leaves to a pulp and placed the compress on her ankle and hoped for the best. “You’re learning, Pru,” said Mama. “This is good practice for you. In the morning I’ll be good as new.”
“I wish I didn’t need to practise anything at all,” I said, a gnawing feeling growing inside me—a feeling that everything would not be good as new the way Mama had predicted.
The next day Mama’s ankle was black and blue. Her leg was black and blue as well. She was always black and blue after that, each time some new place. Every time it happened Mrs. McFarland would tut-tut over it, telling Mama to take herself to the doctor.
Mama didn’t know how else to make Mrs. McFarland go away, so one day she had Reese Buchanan drive her to a doctor she didn’t know in Bridgewater. She called it assurance.
“I want to be sure the doctor doesn’t know who I am. People have big enough mouths as it is and the worst of it is they never get the story straight. At least this’ll put an end to Emily McFarland harping at me all the time.” There was a slight hesitancy in her voice when she said this. I think even then Mama had some inkling of what was to come.
After Mama’s trip to the doctor I had to learn to sign her name on the government cheques, even though it felt wrong to be doing it. And Mama said we had to get rid of Mrs. McFarland. We had to stop her from coming to the house.
Chapter Five
Mama told Mrs. McFarland that her blood was low and the doctor had put her on iron pills. “The silly little things that can go wrong with a person’s body,” she said, tossing her mane of auburn hair.
“I’m not surprised,” said Mrs. McFarland. “It’s all part of the curse, you know.”
“What curse?” Flora asked.
“Why, the curse of being a woman, child. But you’ll find that out someday,” she said, reaching beneath her flabby chin for her coat button. She removed her coat and hung it on the door, on the same nail Daddy used to hang his jacket, and went for the broom.
“Pru just swept the floor,” Mama said, stopping Mrs. McFarland before she made it to the corner of the kitchen where the broom stood.
“Why, you darling, thoughtful girl. You’re growing into quite a young lady,” said Mrs. McFarland, beaming a smile so bright and shiny at me that I dreaded the thought of what was to come. I imagined her hauling her dress up above her knee, heaving one leg over the broomstick, and flying out through the open door, cackling like the witch I thought her to be. Except I knew it would not be so easy. I knew that even if Mrs. McFarland possessed special powers like that she was not about to take her leave without a great deal of resistance.
Maybe Mama thought the same thing too, because then she said something that made Mrs. McFarland furious. She told her there was no need of her coming by and doing her work for her.
“As soon as my iron is built up I’ll be fine. So I don’t see any reason for you to be doing what you’re doing. Besides, Pru is a big enough help now. She’s capable of doing most everything.” Mama’s voice was deadly serious. She was looking directly at Mrs. McFarland, and there wasn’t a sign of a smile on her face.
“She can’t mix bread,” said Mrs. McFarland, all red-faced like someone had just slapped her hard on the cheeks.
“But she’ll learn.”
Mama continued to speak softly but firmly, with a clear determination that this was the way she wanted it—with no butting in from Mrs. McFarland. The house became incredibly
calm, like the quiet of the leaves right before the rain comes pouring down.
“Of all the ungrateful…of all the ungrateful…” Mrs. McFarland’s mouth opened up like a trap door. She pulled her coat off the back of the door and shoved her arms in the sleeves. As she fastened her coat, that double chin of hers quivered like the wattles on a turkey gobbler’s neck. “She can’t mix bread. Pru can’t mix bread,” I heard her say as she hurried for the door. But when she reached the door she turned around with spite. “Some day you’ll wish you hadn’t turned down my help, Isadora Burbidge. It might be too late then.”
Mrs. McFarland marched down the steps, her arms moving mightily back and forth as if she was pounding the air. Mama didn’t say a word as she watched her walk away for the last time.
“I could write Tom,” said Mama, as if thinking aloud, once Mrs. McFarland was out of sight.
“No! Not Uncle Tom,” Jesse cried out. “Not after what he did to you, Mama. To all of us.”
Mama looked up at Jesse in surprise. “You call on family when you need to,” she said.
“Family!” exclaimed Jesse. “Daddy always said family’s the worst—they’ll steal the eyes right out of your head if you give them the chance.”
“Well, Daddy didn’t know everything!” Mama cried back.
Jesse stormed from the house, the door rattling in his wake.
Tears formed in Mama’s eyes as she pulled out her tab–let and began to write. “Sometimes you have to swallow your pride, Pru. It’s time Jesse learned that.”
Right before Christmas the people from Red Cross showed up at our door with winter coats. This did not come as any surprise, as they had done so the year before. I hated walking into the schoolhouse wearing the Red Cross coats for the first time because I thought everyone could tell they were welfare coats, given to us because otherwise we would not have had a thing fit to wear in public.
Willie Thompson would sometimes come to school without a coat on at all, except he lived right across from the schoolhouse and no one dared to laugh or make fun of him. Not big Willie Thompson, who didn’t give a fig if he learned or not as long as his mother got her monthly cheque. And he sure didn’t mind telling Miss Pinkham this, either. No sir, not Willie. There was nothing back–wards or shy about the way he’d rest his head on his desk after lunch and have himself a little snooze.
In the beginning Miss Pinkham would try and rouse him from his sleep. He’d pick his head up from his desk and say, “I just got to be here, Miss Pinkham. Government can’t make me learn.”
All Miss Pinkham could do was sigh and say, “Oh dear. I hope the rest of you don’t feel that way.” If anyone did they didn’t answer. Somehow it didn’t seem like a question Miss Pinkham wanted an answer to at all.
I tried hard to let Miss Pinkham help me learn and she seemed very pleased whenever I picked something up easily. We hadn’t ever gone to school, but Mama had taught us plenty at home. We already knew our letters and numbers, and for some reason the moment those letters were put together it all made perfect sense to me. It was not so easy for Jesse. He threatened to quit almost every day in the be–ginning. I had to remind him of the real reason we were in school and tell him it didn’t matter how much he learned. “Willie Thompson doesn’t care, and there are probably more kids too.”
But I knew deep down that Jesse wanted to be learning just as much as me. I knew he longed to pick up a pencil and put down words and have them all make sense. I knew that most of all he didn’t want to feel stupid. Willie Thompson wasn’t the brightest person around, and whether you said it or not you still thought it. I knew Jesse didn’t want to end up like Willie, sleeping his days away with his head resting on his desk. Jesse was too bright for that.
The only person who knew Mama’s real situation was Reese Buchanan. His was the only help Mama was willing to accept. Reese didn’t do a lot of talking. He didn’t do a lot of anything without being asked, but when Mama needed a favour he was right there to lend a hand. He took us to town when we needed to go and he helped Jesse with the firewood. When springtime came, he hooked his horse, Ned, up and brought him around to plough us a piece of ground. We didn’t have seeds, but he gave us some. He told Mama he had bought too many and that they’d go bad if they weren’t put in the ground. I don’t think that was the complete truth, but Mama never questioned anything Reese had to say. She tied a rag around her head and sowed every one of the seeds Reese had brought into the ground: beans, peas, lettuce, beets, and cucumbers. As she worked, tiny drops of blood began to drip from her nose, and she asked Jesse to get her a cloth.
“I can finish this, Mama,” said Jesse as she sat back on her knees and pressed the cloth to her nose. “Pru and I can do it.”
Mama didn’t want any part in that. “You’ve got to learn these things if you’re going to make a go of it after I’m gone.” She kept dropping the seeds into the dirt one by one and patting the ground down nice and firm. She said for us to watch, to pay close attention. When she was finished she went inside and slept the rest of the day.
Later I saw Davey in the garden, down on his hands and knees. He was pressing his little hand inside Mama’s handprints and studying them with the utmost interest. It looked to me like he was trying to commit the pattern to memory, like he knew that quite possibly it would be his last chance at doing so.
I knew Mama had given up waiting to hear anything from Uncle Tom months ago. For weeks and weeks she’d ask if there was a letter for her when Jesse came back from fetching the mail, and each time I’d see that flicker of disappointment in her eyes when Jesse said no.
“Don’t you worry about us, Mama,” Jesse would say to her, patting her on the back as if she was a small child. “We’ll do just fine on our own. I promise. You’re teaching us real good.”
Chapter Six
The apple blossoms smelled sweet enough to eat that spring. That must have been the way the cedar waxwings felt as I watched them one morning in late May. They were sitting amongst the tree branches, eating all the pretty pink blossoms like hungry, hungry pigs, ripping at the petals and gaping as they struggled to squeeze them down their gullets. What few they left behind blew off the tree the next day and scattered on the ground like big fluffy snowflakes. I picked them up and pressed their silky petals to my lips. It was no wonder that the tree did not manage to produce any apples that year.
It was some time after all the blossoms had gone that a porcupine climbed that very tree early one morning and Jesse shot it. Jesse went to the closet, took Daddy’s shotgun out, and with one mighty blast it was over. We all came running, and there was Jesse, holding Daddy’s shotgun with a big old grin on his face. Mama brought her hands to her mouth and gasped, not knowing what had just happened. Jesse stepped aside and we saw the porcupine lying in a round ball near his feet. Flora took one look at the porcupine lying dead on the ground and began to cry. She buried her face in Mama’s dress and Mama put a gentle hand on her head.
Later, Mama taught Jesse how to skin the porcupine. I cooked it in the oven and we ate it for our supper. Flora cried the whole time it was sizzling in the roaster. We had never eaten porcupine before. We’d never had to.
After that, Mama started thinking. She thought about all the things Gran Hannah had shown her when she was small, all those things that had made her father so angry. “I’ll teach you what you need to know,” Mama said to me later. “All the things Gran Hannah showed me. And then I know you’ll be fine.”
Daddy moved us to the deserted farmhouse on the Dalhousie Road sometime after Nanny Gordon passed away. The house belonged to Reese Buchanan, an old-time friend of Daddy’s, and Daddy promised to pay Reese a little bit every month to help with the taxes and upkeep.
“If things go right and we get far enough ahead I’ll see about buying it one day,” Daddy promised.
The only comment Mama made was that the place was surrounded with woods and the woods were filled with enchantment. Mama said she liked trees. Daddy laughed and
said, “There’s plenty of them here, Issy.” And that was no exaggeration.
The house was old, having been built around the turn of the century, nearly eighty years from the time when Lord Dalhousie had marched his men all the way from Annapolis Royal to Halifax. They had blazed a trail through the wilderness as they went, with plans of building a military road through the centre of the province. They’d stopped to rest near the place where the Anglican Church was later built. Some woman by the name of Hutchinson had been in charge of building the church until her husband up and died, and then the frame they had started building blew down in a windstorm one year. “And the rest got tore down by a bunch of drunken lumbermen,” Daddy said, laughing like it was some private joke that only he was in on. Daddy told us these stories about Dalhousie hoping to make it sound like a better place to live and trying to breathe life into this little community, so deep in the wilds of Nova Scotia. The Annapolis Valley was to our north and the South Shore to our south and there we were, smack dab in the middle of it all.
Flora and Davey said they didn’t want to move, and Daddy told them they should be right proud to be living in what many would call a “heritage home.” Only none of us cared about some lord who trudged through this place over a hundred years before we got here or living in an old rundown house and making it out to be something it wasn’t. Why would we care about a church that blew down and got rebuilt? Especially when there were two other churches there and not once had any of us set foot inside a church.
Then one night a few months after we’d moved in, we found Daddy sitting on the steps of that little Anglican Church, singing at the top of his lungs and holding an empty bottle in his hand. It was the happiest I’d seen him in weeks, ever since Elmer Galloway had died and been buried in that very cemetery. Daddy was singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” and when he saw Mama standing there at the foot of the steps he looked down at her and said, “Dammit, woman, you’re part Irish. Why aren’t you smiling?”
