Emily stared at her surroundings in amazement. At least twenty-five rigs – wagons and carts – were parked along the trail and in the yard, most on the bald prairie, or under a few scraggly trees. The horses and oxen had been unhitched and led to a fenced area in a meadow where they grazed on short grass, or stood in the shade of a grove of poplars and chokecherry bushes. Some men had arrived by horseback, dismounting and joining the jovial crowd. The Elliotts alighted from their wagon amid cheery greetings from those arriving nearby.
Emily jumped off the wagon and moved away from the family, as they gathered the food they had brought. Geordie accepted a pie handed to him and motioned Emily to follow him up the curved dirt lane. They kept their distance from the family as much as possible without it seeming odd that Geordie wasn’t joining in the festive behaviour. Molly acknowledged Emily with a smile and a little wave, but skipped ahead to join some other little girls.
In the yard, a small one-and-a-half-storeyed stone house stood before her with Virginia creeper crawling up its sides. The entrance to the back garden was through an arbour made of thin, stripped tree trunks and latticed branches. Although creeper grew on its sides, flowering sweet peas were also intermingled, and the whole thing decorated with colourful ribbons.
Emily stood with her back against some caragana bushes and watched everyone mingling and chatting. Then suddenly, there was a hush as the door opened and the minister strode into the yard. As he took his place near the arbour, the guests positioned themselves for good viewing.
Moments later, Sandy appeared with a huge grin on his face. He and his best man, his older brother Jack, joined the staid Presbyterian minister to his left. A lovely voice began singing and a delighted Molly traipsed from around the side of the house, strewing her path with fresh wild rose petals from a small willow basket. Behind her, a young woman appeared, holding a small bouquet of cut flowers, followed by the bride in a floor-length cream-coloured silk voile dress, with a wreath of multi-coloured blossoms adorning her head. She held a bouquet of sweet peas and ferns, and smiled demurely as she came to stand beside the grinning groom.
The guests stood patiently listening to the traditional words. Emily found herself fascinated, just looking at all the old-fashioned outfits. The men wore shirts, ties, and waistcoats, and some held soft felt hats or straw ones in their hands as they stood respectfully listening. The women, in their long dresses with leg-of-mutton sleeves and turned-down lace collars, did not wear any hats, which surprised Emily.
When the final words ended and the bride and groom sealed their ceremony with a kiss, the minister led the bridal party back inside the house to sign the necessary documents. They returned a few moments later through the arbour, and stood just inside the yard.
The minister announced, “I present Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Elliott.”
The crowd pressed forward with words of congratulations. A small man appeared at the back of the crowd with a big black camera on a wooden tripod. He set it up near the entrance of the house and pointed it at a large area in front of some trees. Once he had inserted the glass plate, and drawn the black cloth over the back of the camera, he began gathering everyone for a photograph.
Emily watched from the corner of the house. It seemed to take longer to line up the forty people for the photograph, than the whole ceremony had taken, but at last, they all were ready. As the photo was taken, Emily suddenly realized this was the one she’d found in her grandmother’s attic in the spring. She shivered at the thought of actually being present for the taking of that photo.
After the group photograph, the crowd dispersed, leaving only the wedding party, and then finally just the bride and groom to have their shots taken. Meanwhile, several men set up plank tables with crude sawhorses for legs. Subdued chatting continued as everyone took their places at the long benches and tables. Some children and bachelors sat on the mowed grass. Emily was amazed when several ladies brought a hearty soup out of the kitchen and served everyone.
Soon afterwards, the aromas of rabbit stew, roast chicken, meat pie, and cold ham filled the air. Emily watched as these foods were passed from one to another, along with potatoes, cooked carrots, and creamed peas. Hard-cooked eggs, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, cheese, and other delicious side dishes followed. Once these were consumed, the women brought out oatcakes, Scotch shortbread cookies, scones, wild raspberry jam, saskatoon pies, and other fancy baking.
There were many speeches and toasts and finally the married couple cut the wedding cake – heavy fruitcake full of currants and peels. Not long afterwards, the minister left, and then the wedding guests lightened up and the merriment began with fiddle music and dancing.
Emily knew she had to go long before the Elliotts would be ready to leave. The little problem of how to manage it niggled at her now. She was at least four miles away from the sentinel rock, and even further from the stone house. How was she going to return home?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Geordie seemed to sense her dilemma. He excused himself from the happy throng with a smiling nod and motioned for her to follow him out of the yard. Emily ducked between some trees and met him near the meadow where the horses browsed.
“What are we doing?” Emily asked.
“Going to get you home,” Geordie turned his smiling freckled face to her.
“Won’t they notice you’re gone?”
“I won’t be gone long!” He shook his head. “Have you ever ridden a horse before?”
“Once or twice,” Emily said, staying where she was. The huge muscular Percherons, Clydesdales, and other large draft horses intimidated her by their sheer size.
“But we’re four miles away from the sod house. You’d be gone a long time.”
“Not cross-country,” he said, slipping under the fence.
“It’ll take too long to saddle up,” she said. She looked around for saddles, but didn’t see any. Geordie was petting one of their Clydesdales.
“We don’t need to,” he laughed.
“We’re going bareback?” Emily gulped. She preferred something to hang onto. It at least gave her the illusion of being safe. “I’ve never done that before.”
“Guess, this will be your first time, then!” Geordie laughed. “Come on, I’ll get you back, but we’ll have to be quick.”
Emily climbed under the fence, and moved close to Geordie. She stared up at one of the Elliotts’ immense Clydesdale horses, standing like a solid brick wall in front of her. She was only half its height. She swallowed hard.
“Uh, I don’t think I can get up on it.” She stepped back, suddenly feeling overwhelmed.
“Sure you can,” said Geordie. He led the animal to a large boulder. Standing on the rock, he mounted, then held out his hand to Emily.
Knowing there wasn’t any choice, Emily grabbed Geordie’s hand and pulled herself up on the rock. Still holding his hand for support, she managed to get her leg over the horse’s broad back and mount behind Geordie.
They swayed and the horse did a little dance. She was sure they were gong to topple over.
“Whoa, Betsy,” he spoke to the horse quietly.
“What if we both fall off?” Emily quavered.
“We won’t. I promise.”
Emily nodded, not taking her eyes off the huge beast beneath her.
“Hang on tight, lass!”
“I will,” she all but whispered into his back.
“Ready?” he asked Emily.
“Yes.”
Geordie leaned over the horse’s neck and grasped the coarse mane with both his hands. Emily leaned with him, staying as tight to him as she could, with her arms wrapped around him in a tight bear hug. As he dug his heels into the horse’s side, Emily closed her eyes. They were off.
After a while, Emily glanced at her surroundings. Wisps of trees and clouds sped by as they cantered along. She clenched her teeth to keep them from rattling in her head.
“You don’t have to hold onto me so tightly,” Geordie called back to
her. “I’d like to be able to breathe!”
She loosened her fingers from their white-knuckle grip, but kept her arms clasped around his thin body. She never relaxed the whole time.
When they arrived at the stone house, she slid off the horse gratefully and almost collapsed on the ground. Geordie laughed at her. She straightened herself up, pushing her hair away from her face. Somewhere along the way, she’d lost her hairband.
“The wedding was fabulous!” Emily said. “And thanks for getting me back!”
“I’m happy you enjoyed yourself, lass,” he said. “Come again, when you can!”
“I will,” she called up to him.
He saluted her. Then he spun the horse around and headed back across the pasture at a trot, his red hair flying back against the wind.
When she’d straightened up, Emily sprinted for the stone house. She eyed the back door, her mind whirring with the possibility of going inside. She wouldn’t really be breaking and entering. She lived there, after all. She just wanted a quick peek to see if they’d done more work on the fireplace.
Cautiously, she mounted the plank stairway and opened the door. On tiptoes, as if afraid to disturb anyone or anything, she made her way into the parlour. She dropped to her knees in front of the unfinished fireplace and studied the construction. The stone chimney was partially finished and the hearth was all but done. She saw the rock that needed to come out to reveal the hiding place, but it took some time to figure out how the contraption worked to move it. At last, she rested on her heels and smiled. She knew the answer. No time to lose. She had to return home!
She slipped outside and made sure to close the door properly. She knelt at the house foundation. Without hesitation, she placed the carving into its hole and found herself crouched in the flower bed behind her grandmother’s house.
Agnes Barkley stood above her, shrieking.
Although dazed, Emily jumped to her feet.
“What’s wrong?” she yelped. “What’s happened?”
She took a quick look around. There were just the two of them. And neither of them was bleeding as far as she could tell. By then, some of the nearby auction-goers rushed around the side of the house. Among them was Emily’s mom.
“What’s all the commotion?” Kate asked, going first to Agnes Barkley’s side.
Mrs. Barkley shook from head to toe and her jowls wagged as she pointed speechlessly at Emily. Kate turned to Emily.
“What’s wrong? Is someone hurt?” She turned back to the still-shaking woman. “Mrs. Barkley, are you okay? Can you talk?”
Aunt Liz appeared with a glass of water and handed it to Mrs. Barkley, who downed it in one solid gulp that left her gasping. A few people stayed, but most of the small crowd disappeared again when they didn’t see anything amiss.
“You!” Mrs. Barkley shrieked, pointing at Emily. “You just appeared out of the air and dropped at my feet!”
“And you scared the living daylights out of me,” rebuked Emily, trying to prepare a plausible explanation.
“Come now, Agnes,” Eunice Henderson, one of the other ladies, patted her on the back. “You know that’s not possible.”
“But she did,” Mrs. Barkley insisted, her double chins trembling with emotion.
“Emily, what did you do?” her mom demanded.
“Fell into the flower bed,” Emily said, as truthfully as she could manage.
Aunt Liz looked from Emily to the flower bed to the step and back again. She had a queer look on her face, but she said nothing.
“What were you doing back here, anyway?” asked her mom.
“Just taking a break.”
Her mom eyed her suspiciously. “We’ll discuss this later,” she said. “Now, apologize for scaring Mrs. Barkley.”
“Me scaring her!” Emily muttered to herself, but then she caught sight of the glare in her mom’s eyes. She apologized contritely.
One of the other ladies, Eunice Henderson, guided Agnes Barkley back to the front of the house.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Kate warned Emily.
Aunt Liz interrupted. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” she said. “Agnes will get over it. You know how she’s always reading things into situations that aren’t really there.”
“I suppose,” answered Kate. “Guess we’d better get back and see how things are going.”
Emily followed the others back into the main yard. The crowd had thinned considerably and the auctioneers had moved their gear to the row of implements. The women mostly sat around the front step, sipping cool lemonade as they waited for their husbands to bid on the farm equipment. The yard was almost empty now that all the smaller goods had sold. Some people had paid for their purchases and left, while others would come back later or even the next day to haul the bigger stuff away.
Mrs. Barkley sat in the shade on the veranda, fanning herself, her eyes closed. Emily crept past her and sauntered into the kitchen, which was cluttered with empty plastic bins, bowls, pans, and utensils. Empty cardboard boxes and garbage bags full of used paper plates and glasses littered the floor. Emily groaned when she saw the sink heaped with dishes.
Searching around in the fridge, she found a leftover chunk of cheese, and munched on it as she watched the scene through the window. The community women cleaned off the tables and cleared out the veranda, trotting back and forth into the house. Emily knew there was no point in touching the fireplace until everyone had gone. She sat down at the table and glanced at the local newspaper, paging through it absent-mindedly.
Mrs. Henderson offered her a plate of leftover sandwiches and goodies, but Emily declined. She accepted a tall glass of lemonade, though, thinking about the wedding she’d just attended. They’d been drinking some kind of sparkly raspberry punch. Then she remembered the wedding photo. She had the original in her room.
Dashing up the stairs two at a time, Emily got to her room and rummaged around in the trunk until she located the group photo. The sepia-toned print clearly showed the smiling newlyweds and their many family members and friends, just as Emily had seen them not long before. She flipped over the print and looked at the writing on the back – Alexander and Susannah Elliott, 1900. The date wasn’t right. She’d been back in the past attending the wedding in 1903. She looked closer and noticed the last digit was faint and it was really a three. Satisfied, Emily wrote the date darker, before she returned the print to the trunk.
What seemed like hours later, they finally had the house back to themselves, and Emily made her way to the kitchen. Aunt Liz sank into a chair at the table. She waved away a cup of coffee that Kate offered her.
“I’ve had enough today to sink a battleship, as they say!”
“I think it’s ‘float’ a battleship,” Kate said.
Aunt Liz poked at her. “Whatever.” She sighed.
Emily laughed as she sat down beside her, sipping a bottle of water.
“Everything went well!” Kate said, pulling out another chair.
“I’m amazed at what some people pay for junk!” Aunt Liz remarked.
“At least, we got rid of it all.” Kate smiled.
“I’m bushed,” said Aunt Liz. “How about we just have some poached eggs and toast for supper?”
“Sounds great. I couldn’t face another sandwich or hot dog,” Kate sighed.
After they’d eaten and talked over the day, Emily sidled out of the kitchen. Moments later, she stood in front of the fireplace, studying the configuration of the stones. Remembering what she’d seen in the past, she wiggled several until the large stone at the base clicked. She dropped on her hands and knees, and wrenched the stone free.
“Mom, Aunt Liz! Come here!”
“What on earth?” her mom, exclaimed, from the doorway.
Aunt Liz swept by Kate and they both joined Emily, staring at the gaping hole at the bottom of the fireplace.
“How did you figure it out?” her mom asked.
“She obviously has more patience than we d
o!” Aunt Liz said. “Well, go ahead, see what’s inside.”
Emily felt inside the dark crevice. Her fingers touched something heavy and square. The secret box, she thought, reaching in to pull it out. But when she had the object in the light, she found instead a large, black, leather-bound book.
“The family Bible!” Aunt Liz took it from Emily. “I wondered why we never found one.”
“Is there anything else?” Kate asked.
Emily peered inside and felt around some more, but all she came out with was mortar dust.
“I’ll get a flashlight,” Aunt Liz handed the Bible to Kate and rose to her feet.
Moments later, they were all trying to peer inside.
“Nope, it’s empty,” Emily declared, deflated. “Then where’s the box?”
“Maybe it doesn’t exist anymore,” her mom said, giving her a little hug.
Emily shook her head. “I don’t believe that!” Perhaps she could learn more if she went back to the past one more time.
“This is pretty exciting anyway,” Aunt Liz said, indicating the Bible.
They returned to the well-lit kitchen and gently turned the pages. They found the family information on pages in the centre of the book. The entire Elliott family was listed, even farther back than Emily had expected.
“Do you know how valuable this is?” Kate asked.
“Priceless,” Aunt Liz answered with a hint of a smile.
“We can trace our family back to the late 1700s.” Emily was thrilled.
She could draw up a family history chart and maybe even connect some of the old photographs to the people named. Even more reason for wanting to keep her grandmother’s stone house. There was just too much history embedded in it, right from the land and the building of the house, to the family living in it so many years, and all the memories it held in its walls and in Emily’s heart.
“We just have to keep this house,” Emily spoke determinedly. “There’s too much of us here!”
“I agree that it will be hard to leave it, Emily,” her mom said, “but you know the reasons why we have to let it go.”
The Secret of the Stone House Page 10
