Seasons of Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  Vivian Condon ate off the anemone-sprayed blue semi-porcelain ware and seemed properly awed, perhaps surprised, to the amusement of Angus and Mary, and perhaps Kezzie, who had served a notable and ancient family for many years in Scotland before coming to Canada and the West.

  Someone asked the guest, politely, how long she would be in Bliss.

  “All summer,” that young woman said briefly, her interest turned to the slender, dark-haired, fine-featured, intense man across the table from her.

  “And you, Reverend,” she asked, studying Parker Jones rather too carefully, “aren’t you an outsider, too? Have you been in Bliss long?”

  “Two years,” the pastor replied, helping himself to a generous mound of rice. “And you might as well call me Parker, everyone does, usually. Oh, I get Pastor or Reverend in church, but I think most of these people are my friends, not constituents only.

  “But I wouldn’t class myself as an outsider; I have been well received by the folks of Bliss. My vision goes only to its boundaries. In other words, I guess you’d have to say I feel that this is my parish.”

  Vivian Condon’s next insensitive move was to ask, as she held the gravy boat in her hand and looked around, “Potatoes—are there mashed potatoes?”

  “Rice,” Molly said, handing her the bowl. “There’s rice.”

  “Oh,” flatly. “Oh. That’s fine, I’m sure.” And Vivian laid aside the gravy, took the bowl offered by Molly, and helped herself to a few grains of rice. “It’s just that I love potatoes . . . mashed potatoes. They seem so right with gravy of this sort.”

  Mary, at her end of the table, bit her lip, but whether from laughter or vexation was not clear. Her eyes raised to her husband’s, however, and it was Angus who spoke.

  “Yes, potatoes would be better, I suppose,” he said agreeably. “Have you ever lived on a farm, Miss Condon? If not, of course you can’t know how all root vegetables—carrots, turnips, potatoes—wither during a long winter. We hope we put enough away in the fall to do us the rest of the year, until a new crop comes in, but when winter is over they are a sorry sight indeed. I suppose if we dug around in the bin in the cellar we’d come up with a few shrunken tubers.” Angus smiled at his own description of the few remaining potatoes in the cellar under his feet. “But we’ll save them for stew and things like that. We feel blessed, I suppose, to be able to buy rice as a substitute. There were years we couldn’t, and subsisted through the last weeks of winter on oatmeal and pancakes and whatever we could manage.”

  “But,” Vivian said blankly, “the store—”

  “Yes, the store. But most of us are into it for more money than we care to think of, come spring. We still have a fair supply of rice on hand—right, Mary?—and we’ll make it through in fine shape.”

  “The potato seed is in the ground, and that’s good news,” Cameron said cheerily. “Margo here, for the first time ever, helped plant a garden.”

  “Yes, and I loved doing it,” that young lady chimed in. “And I can hardly wait until we can reap the rewards of our efforts. The lettuce, very soon now, should be ready to pick. My mouth just waters, thinking about it.”

  And so the meal progressed along happier lines. But it was quite clear, as the afternoon wore on, that Miss Vivian Condon did her best to monopolize Parker Jones. She had no competition, for Molly, clearing the table, putting Grandmam down to rest and returning to help with the dishes, went about it all quite naturally. Never would this independent young woman lower herself to compete for the attention of any man, even her adored Parker Jones.

  But Vivian’s conversation was scintillating, clever, even interesting at times. So lately come from “civilization,” she was full of news that the community of Bliss was slow in hearing. Molly had been raised in Bliss, and though a self-possessed young lady of considerable charm and plenty of independence, felt herself today, to some degree, to be at a disadvantage. Parker Jones, a city man born and raised, Bible-school trained, had chosen to come to this backwoods corner of the world and had immersed himself in its culture—or lack of it—wholeheartedly. But surely, Molly thought, there must be times when he yearned for wider contacts, for more intellectual conversations, for something more challenging than the people of Bliss offered.

  And so it was there, around the comfortable circle chatting amiably in the Morrison home that Sunday afternoon, that the first hint—just a troubling nibble—of concern, raised its head in Molly’s thinking.

  She had been so sure, had felt so secure in the relationship that had sprung up between herself and Parker Jones. Parker, Molly well knew from their many close conversations, struggled with a sense of inadequacy and was often tempted to feel he wasn’t doing the job properly, that the needs of his parishioners were more than he could meet. Consequently he delayed and could not bring himself to face a decision concerning marriage.

  “What if I fail,” he had brooded. “There are so many needs, such deep needs, and sometimes I don’t seem to connect with them.”

  “Give yourself time, Parker!” Molly had encouraged. “Not every problem is settled overnight. Look at the good being done, the sermons being preached, your life being lived before us all. Think on these things.”

  “I need to settle this, Molly,” Parker had said, more than once. “Can you be patient? Who knows if I’ll even be here, in Bliss, the rest of my life. Would that matter?”

  “But, Parker,” Molly had said in a low voice, “don’t you know that I’d go with you, wherever you went, and I’d support you, whatever you did?”

  Parker’s hand had reached for hers and, she thought, his eyes may have misted.

  “Be patient with me, Molly,” he had asked, beseechingly.

  And Molly was content to wait, though being patient was not in her makeup. Miss Molly Morrison was learning many lessons these days, lessons of curbing her impatience, her tongue, her reactions. To be a good preacher’s wife—that was her goal, and it was worth any sacrifice if Parker Jones was the preacher.

  Of course it would mean sacrifice. Parker’s salary, if such it could be called, consisted of the scant offerings received Sunday by Sunday. “Not enough to keep a bird alive unless that bird is a chickadee,” Herkimer Pinkard had declared one Sunday when he was given the task of counting the meager change in the offering basket.

  And truly Parker might have suffered if it were not for the generosity of the good folk as they shared what they had. Though money was scarce, food was usually abundant, and many a box found its way to the little parsonage and the pastor’s table. And sometimes Parker Jones managed to time his calls to coincide with mealtime and was never slow in accepting a hearty invitation to join the family at their meal. Whatever was served, he partook of it gratefully. Many a cook was rosy-cheeked at his compliment.

  Molly had been raised in Bliss and was accustomed to hard times. Enough land was cleared now on the Morrison place to bring in a fair, even good, harvest, but when she was small, the Morrisons had “made do,” just as other settlers had done and were still doing. Yes, Molly Morrison would make a fine bush pastor’s wife.

  Parker knew he needed a wife, knew it badly, knew it particularly when he looked around at the small house that desperately needed a woman’s touch. Knew it in the long winter evenings when he was shut in, day after stormy day, weary of his own company. Thinking of his miserable bachelorhood status, Molly smiled now. She wanted to help—like bringing food, tidying up the parsonage at times—but she didn’t want to make him too comfortable!

  Parker Jones, fresh from Bible school and with the true call of a pastor on his heart, had earnestly and passionately promised the Lord that he would serve Him anywhere. Places lowly, insignificant, remote—it mattered not—he, Parker Jones, was ready to spend his life and his strength in the King’s service, wherever that might be.

  Bliss was all those things; certainly it was remote, almost at the end of the white man’s encroachment, except for some loggers and fishermen, and—with the decimation of the buff
alo and the depleted supply of beaver—a dwindling number of hunters and trappers.

  As for the Indian, the great chiefs were coming to be remembered in the names of the reserves they selected: Sweet Grass, Poundmaker, Red Pheasant, Mistawasi, Strike-Him-on-the-Back, Thunderchild, and others.

  But here in the area called “the bush,” situated between the north and south branches of the Saskatchewan River, small farms flourished; here God’s finger had pointed. Even in his loneliest, darkest moments, Parker Jones was confident of one thing: God had directed him to Bliss.

  But as for a wife, God had not spoken.

  Molly had made her own commitments, had her own dreams. If, in God’s wisdom, they should include Parker Jones—so be it! Amen and amen!

  Deep in happy thoughts, wrapped about with spring’s fresh mantle, Molly pulled Kip off the road and through the gate into the parsonage yard, careening in her usual vigorous manner up to the door, the box of foodstuff bouncing at her side.

  There, head drooping half somnolently, standing on three legs with the fourth resting comfortably—the Condon horse and buggy.

  With the chores all done—horses curried, watered, loosed to graze, chickens fed and eggs gathered, cow milked, milk strained, strainer and pail washed, dish towel, dishrag, and strainer hung to dry, pail turned upside down on the small porch—Robbie turned his attention to his own dusty, dirty self.

  Dipping warm water from the range’s reservoir into an enameled basin and removing his stained and sweaty shirt, Robbie gave his face and upper body what was known as a sponge bath, dunked his head into the water, reached for a sacking towel, dried himself, and peered at his reflection momentarily in the small mirror.

  It was the same square-jawed, ruddy face he’d seen all his life, but now burned brown. His hair was lightened by the sun; picking up a comb he ran it through the fair mass badly in need of cutting. Running a rough hand over a rough chin, he grimaced, deciding to wait another day before shaving. After all, Alice was accustomed to a farmer and his ways.

  Robbie moved to the corner of the room and the twine that was stretched across it on which his scanty wardrobe hung. Selecting a shirt—clean but not ironed—he put it on and buttoned it. Glancing down, he noted the day’s accumulation of dust on his shoes and took a moment to rub each one on the legs of his pants. One additional glance into the mirror and, with a rather tentative smile at his own reflection, he turned and left the house.

  Briskly he started across the yard, past the barn, heading for the thick bush at the back of the clearing. Whiskers, as usual, trotted close to his heels; he would turn aside before Robbie had gone a hundred yards. Whiskers was a cat to be depended upon. It was the only thing Robbie had acquired that he could truly call his own; everything else was shared with Allan. Whiskers had been given to him by Barney and Billy, Alice Hoy’s boys—who had also named him—when he was only a few weeks old.

  Mice, everyone told him, were a real scourge; he hadn’t been properly introduced to them yet, he was assured. Just let him get some grain on the place, or leave food around in the cupboard. Except for an occasional small rodent scampering quickly out of sight when he reached into a lower shelf for a kettle and a lonely one or two fleeing before him in the barn, he had seen none, thanks to the faithful performance of the cat Whiskers. Robbie reached down now, scratched the gray and white ears, and walked on. Whiskers lingered uncertainly; he had reached his boundary. That is, Robbie thought with a grin, until he aged a little and developed an amatory bent.

  Robbie knew a little about amatory bents. His experience with love and desire had all been directed, back home, toward Tierney Caulder, that auburn-maned, amber-eyed, trimly formed sister of his friend James. Having seen her all his life, he had watched her womanly development happen slowly and naturally before his very eyes. It wasn’t only her physical attributes that attracted him; Tierney was a girl to be prized in regard to her personality—which sparked at times with a fire that kept him bewitched—and her nature, which was as sweet as her face and figure.

  But the love they both came to recognize and accept ripened slowly; slowly but surely. After all, life had gone on for generations, in Binkiebrae, in exactly the same manner, unchallenged and unchanged. As it would for them. Never, in his wildest dreams had Robbie Dunbar imagined leaving Binkiebrae, family, and Tierney Caulder. That she had turned up here, in remote Bliss, seemed so fantastic as to seem fated.

  Feeling an elation with life in general and his own in particular, Robbie reached now toward a spray of blossoms, plucked one, and stuck it in a buttonhole.

  What the particular bush was or what sort of berries it would produce, he did not know; this was his first season of spring in the bush. But he did recognize the small, blue saskatoon and, as he made his way through the thick growth, snatched off a few to eat; mild, they were, but satisfying to an appetite that had tasted no fresh growing thing in many months.

  With regret he recognized that his cellar, come winter, would be barren of all such delicacies. His time wouldn’t allow for canning, nor did he have the equipment for canning.

  Would Alice pick and can this year? Even as he asked the question he knew that she would not.

  The Hoy place, toward which he was making his way, was one of four in the section, the other three being his, Allan’s, and Herkimer Pinkard’s. It was much easier and quicker to walk across from one homestead to the other rather than going around by the road. And of course a buggy would never make it through the narrow aisle as it twisted and turned through his property onto hers. A horse could make it, but limbs and branches would slap a rider in the face constantly, Robbie knew. Besides, he enjoyed the walk, found it refreshing, and found, too, that he usually pressed on eagerly because of hunger pangs.

  Alice was a good cook; there were those days, however, when she simply couldn’t stand on her feet long enough to put a meal together. Then Robbie did it, under her instructions, with the boys helping, young as they were.

  How would she be this evening? Before too long they would need to talk again, and talk seriously, finalizing their plans, firming their agreement. As it was, Robbie—realizing he was on Hoy property—found himself looking around with a proprietary air.

  He could hardly believe his good fortune! To obtain more land and to have it so soon! Robbie’s heart sang—if not his lips—and his heart exulted.

  Stepping from the gloom of the brushy passageway at last, Robbie let out a shrill whistle, the same whistle his father had used across the years to summon Robbie and his brothers and sisters for some reason or other. Two tow-colored heads appeared as if by magic, one popping up from the yard where he had been romping in the grass with one of Whiskers’ siblings, the other sliding helter-skelter from the hayloft, each head bobbing on a thin neck as Barney and Billy raced to meet him.

  “Robbie!”

  “Wobbie!”

  With considerable screeching they reached him, Billy to leap into his arms, Barney to clutch him around one leg and sag there, laughing, defying Robbie’s efforts to get him loose, or walk another step. Finally, with a boy perched on one shoulder and the other under one arm like a sack of oats, Robbie continued across the farmyard to the house.

  This was no cabin. Barnabas Hoy had arrived with enough money to set himself up in style. The house, every outbuilding, the barn, all had been built from lumber. They were left unpainted, and they had weathered, in the six years or so since they had been built, into a soft gray that blended well with its background—brush on two sides, the road on one side and a field on the other.

  The Hoy homestead had been proven up and was well on its way to becoming a producing farm when Barnabas had been gored, just six weeks ago, by an angry bull, bringing all his dreams to an end and leaving Alice to run the place and raise the boys.

  But Alice was ill, seriously ill. Something to do with her “innards,” Robbie had been told by Herkimer Pinkard, who always seemed to know everything that went on in Bliss.

  Some days,
when Robbie got there, Alice would be abed, the house uncared for, the boys running wild. At other times she managed fairly well—Robbie had figured out that these times coincided with the days he brought small packages from the post office. He felt sure there was medicine in them; the garbage heap, several hundred yards from the house and in the edge of the bush, had revealed tin boxes, not yet rusted, that read “Dr. Wilden’s Quick Cure for Indigestion and Dyspepsia—THE GREAT STOMACH REMEDY.” Now these were replaced with bottles—first one ounce, then two ounces, now three ounces—marked “D188 Laudanum (Tinc. Opium).”

  Coming across the yard now and seeing Alice watching, Robbie waved; Alice nodded from the kitchen door and smiled what seemed like a bittersweet smile; the boys were still clinging to him like leeches from their own slough.

  “Boys,” she chided, but not too sternly, “give Robbie some peace now. You can have a romp later on,” and reluctantly they slid down, to stand nearby, faces lifted to him like dandelions toward the sun.

  The Hoy chores took longer than his own; the reason was simple: Barnabas Hoy had amassed a fair number of cattle; the fowl included ducks and geese and a few turkeys; and besides the work team there was a dandy riding horse. Robbie eyed it with a gleam in his eye. As things worked out, and in time, this treasure, too, would be his.

  When Robbie had first come to the Hoy home, to offer his condolences to his bereaved neighbor and to ask, as others did, if there were anything he could do to help, he little suspected the turn of events soon to unfold. And yet he was the logical one, he or Allan, and Allan was even younger and far from inclined to take on the work and responsibilities of another farm, though he, too, could see the advantage of obtaining more land.