Seasons of Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  Parker Jones’s integrity and moral ethics were part of that challenge. Here was a man who professed virtue, honor, scruples—but underneath, would he be like the men of the world who were part of her circle back home?

  Vivian, not accustomed to challenges, was becoming a little weary of this one and the slowness of the progress she had made. If the handsome minister could not be wooed and won by feminine wiles, what would it take? Money? Prestige?

  “Hmmmm . . .” Vivian half-crooned, wondering, thinking, planning.

  The wagon made its rattling journey along a Bliss road hemmed in places by pressing bush, open in other areas to fields becoming burnished with golden grain, and the girl was oblivious to it all. She fretted over the dust that rose and settled on her clothes and was blind to the goldenrod nodding by the side of the road; she waved away the flies that accompanied the horses and the wagon and was deaf to the plaintive, penetrating cry of the killdeer; she wrinkled her elegant nose over the smell of warm horse flesh while the potpourri of the bush escaped her.

  How could Herkimer, who had been behind them, get his horse tied up at the Morrison fence and be at the side of the Condon wagon when Vivian was ready to descend? Yet he was. His big face beaming, his red-gold beard glinting in the sunshine, his shoulders covered with dust, his hat on the back of his head, he reached a hand upward to the girl preparing to climb down, a move as treacherous as the climb up had been. Pausing, she saw, this time, how the sun glistened on the thick mat of hair on the back of his hand and shuddered visibly.

  Heavens! What a bull moose he was!

  If there was a glint in Herkimer’s eyes, Vivian, in her agitation, failed to notice it.

  Holding to the wagon she ignored the hand and reached a leg over the side, furious that he should stand there and watch her in this undignified pose. Why couldn’t these rubes have carriages like civilized folk!

  She should have taken his hand. Her foot, searching for the hub, missed it, and with a small shriek she plummeted toward the ground. Plummeted and would have fallen except for the strong arms of Herkimer Pinkard.

  “Whoops!” he said, catching her, holding her . . .

  “Let me down!” she ordered, her hat atilt once again, her skirts in disarray, her face flushed and damp.

  If Herkimer’s bushy beard touched the scarlet cheek for an instant before he set her on her feet, who was to say? No word of hers gave it away, and no one at all noticed the reappearing glint in the narrowed eyes of the man.

  “Careful!” her aunt instructed. “You could take a nasty tumble if you don’t watch!”

  “There you are, Missy,” Herkimer said smoothly, setting the irate woman on her feet, standing back, his head cocked, his lips smiling, his eyes admiring.

  Vivian, without waiting for her aunt and uncle, flounced her way into the house. Here people were already filling plates, some to return to the yard and seats set up there, some to stand around the walls, a few to find chairs.

  Molly was busy at the table, helping fill plates, pouring drinks, engaged in conversation with the friends passing through the line. Nevertheless, she noted Vivian’s entrance and, in spite of herself, her heart sank. Clearly Vivian was looking for someone—Parker Jones, of course. For as soon as she spotted him she began weaving her way through the crowd toward the corner where he stood, leaning against the wall, watching Molly.

  Watching Molly Morrison! Vivian’s lips tightened. As slender as she was, it was no chore to slip between people. It was a wonder, then, that Herkimer Pinkard, as large as he was, had, once again, managed to precede her. Vivian, within a few steps of her goal, found her nose pressed against a broad chest, a chest that smelled disgustingly of horse and man. Wrinkling that delicate feature she raised her gaze impatiently to find herself looking into the placid face of Herkimer. Again!

  She stepped to the right; Herkimer was there. She moved left; Herkimer was there.

  Though he spoke quietly into the hubbub of the chattering group, she heard him clearly: “‘All the thoughts of a turtle are turtles; and of a rabbit, rabbits.’”

  “Whatever is that supposed to mean?” she asked furiously.

  “Just recalling something I read once. I think a man named Emerson said it. I thought you might find it amusing.”

  She looked at him blankly. “Amusing—you? Laughable, maybe, but amusing? Think again! Now, will you let me pass?”

  “You’ve passed the table, that’s what you’ve passed. Now come, Miss Condon. Let me help you into the line . . . here, take a plate.”

  With his big hand once again under her elbow, lifting, propelling her forward, Vivian had no choice but to dance on tiptoe to the table. Helplessly she took the plate put into her hands, helplessly she was herded along the display of food . . .

  “I was wondering,” Herkimer behind her was saying, bending low, speaking intimately into her ear, “if you would do me the honor of allowing me to drive you home?”

  I hate oatmeal!” Barney said crossly, mixing the thick serving his mother had set before him, stirring in a generous helping of brown sugar and good, rich milk until his breakfast was more a soup than a porridge.

  “Why, Barney,” Alice said reproachfully, “you’ve never said that before, and we have oatmeal every morning.”

  “That’s why I hate it. I’m tired of it. Sick and tired of it.”

  Barney’s rising tones and the use of the unaccustomed, unchildish phrase, startled his mother. Uneasily she wondered if she used it, more, perhaps, than she should. It wasn’t the only matter she had been pondering recently.

  “Yes,” the small boy repeated, relishing the words, “sick and tired of it. Sick and tired. Sick—”

  “All right, I hear you. You’re sick and tired of oatmeal. Eat it anyway.”

  It wasn’t as if there was any choice. Breakfast, on the homesteads of the vast area that was becoming known as the prairie provinces and settled largely by immigrants counting themselves fortunate to have anything at all to eat, was usually oatmeal. Yes, and it was oatmeal for too many dinners and suppers for many a frustrated bachelor. Coming in from a long day’s work, with no wife to do the womanly things, and with no meal ready and perhaps only a few coals alive in the range, oatmeal was a quick and simple solution after the fire had been roused to life again.

  Oatmeal for breakfast, however, was a staple. Oatmeal “stuck to your ribs.” At five years of age, Barney had had a lifetime of breakfast oatmeal.

  Bacon and eggs would have been a fine alternative, and eggs were in vast supply. But bacon? In summer? No one butchered in summer—there was no way to keep the meat from spoiling. One could hang only so much in a pail down the well, and that space was needed for milk and butter. A few fortunate families had an icehouse; dug into a hillside, it was filled, in winter, with ice from the lake and smothered in sawdust and usually lasted throughout the summer months, offering a way to keep food—meat particularly—fresh, even frozen.

  Alice studied the rebellious face before her, tousled her son’s unruly mop of hair, and suggested eggs. “I’ll be happy to cook them for you,” she said. “A poached egg, maybe?”

  Barney made a face. Billy, in his high chair across the table, gravely spooned up his porridge with his good hand, the left arm still bandaged. His face, however, was free of the bandages that had annoyed him endlessly and at which he had picked and pulled until Alice had removed them. Air was good for the burn, it was supposed, and it was healing, leaving scarlet patches over the left side of his face. No one knew how well or how poorly he saw from that eye; he was impatient with testing, jerking his head away and refusing to say what he saw and what he didn’t see.

  Barney, it seemed, was as sick of eggs as of oatmeal.

  Alice pressed a hand to her middle, drew a few deep breaths, and cast a desperate eye toward the corner cupboard. Only she—and Quinn Archer—knew how barren it was. Still, turning toward it, she scrabbled blindly in its depths, coming up, half sobbing, empty-handed. After a moment’s though
t, she ran for an ancient bag hanging on a nail with coats and sweaters by the door. Feeling it, her eyes lit, and she reached a greedy hand inside. Unsteady now in her excitement, she withdrew a dark bottle, held it up to the light, observed its half-contents and, flushed and victorious, withdrew the cork, taking a long and satisfactory swallow of the contents. Recorking it, she leaned momentarily against the wall, eyes closed, the paleness receding from her face, her breathing steadying.

  Barney banged his spoon loudly on the tabletop, drumlike.

  “That’s enough, Barney,” Alice said, straightening herself, turning toward the boys.

  Barney was making strange noises, loud noises, silly noises.

  “Eat your porridge,” Alice said unsteadily.

  “Shan’t.”

  Barney stopped playing with his breakfast, sat on his hands, and set his small face in determined lines. What was wrong with the child! He had been more or less unmanageable for . . . well, since Barnabas died.

  Where, oh where, was Robbie! Often, when the boys’ antics were too much for their mother, she turned them over to the handling of Robbie Dunbar. She, Alice, had been incapacitated (a good word, she thought guiltily) ever since the loss of her husband, surely an understandable and excusable reason. The boys, and Barney in particular, had caught on to her spells of . . . of weakness and took advantage of them.

  “I guess, then, you won’t be able to help Robbie today,” Alice offered as a desperate ploy. “He’ll be disappointed.”

  Barney looked up uncertainly.

  “A weak, hungry boy doesn’t have any strength. I thought you were going to ride the rake with him this morning. Too bad—”

  One hand came free, hovered over the spoon, grasped it, and slowly stirred the despised porridge.

  But he didn’t give in easily. “Why can’t we buy that Cerealine stuff?” he asked sulkily.

  “Cerealine Flakes? They cost a lot of money. Fifteen cents a box in fact.”

  Barney’s face was mulish.

  “I’ll tell you what—why don’t you try and find old Biddy’s nest hidden out there somewhere in the bush and gather the eggs and take them to the store and sell them. Maybe you’ll have enough money to buy a box of Cerealine Flakes. I think there may be other secret nests . . . I hear cackling out there in the bush every day, don’t you? You could be,” she inserted cleverly, “a big game hunter in search of prey.”

  Barney, pondering the suggestion, was intrigued, in spite of himself. While he gave his mind to the idea of stealthy searches, moneymaking, and cereal buying, his spoon rose automatically to his mouth.

  “How about that Granula?” he asked, not giving up entirely, gulping a mouthful of porridge and allowing a little excitement and hope to filter into his voice. “The stuff in the catalog—the stuff you read about.”

  True, at one of their catalog-studying sessions—a favorite pastime—they had lingered over the “Farinaceous Goods.” Listed along with flour, popcorn, beans, barley, corn meal, farina, hominy, and the ubiquitous oatmeal—fine ground, medium steel cut, coarse steel cut, Scotch ground, rolled—was the mystifying Granula. “One of the best known foods for infants and children. It is thrice cooked and will keep for years,” was the promise. Why would it last for years if it was tasty, Alice wondered privately.

  “I remember the Granula,” Alice answered now. “Sell enough eggs, Barney, and you can try that, too, if you wish. We’ll have to check the catalog and see how much it costs.”

  Barney began a scramble from his chair in the direction of the catalog, never far away.

  “Hold on, young man! The porridge? Finish it first.”

  It didn’t take long now. Barney shoveled oatmeal into his mouth, cleaning his bowl in seconds, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, and returning to his pursuit of the catalog.

  He paused, abashed, “But I can’t read!”

  “Just look through it until you find the proper page,” Alice said, reaching for his bowl and spoon, preparing to wipe up his spills and make a clean place to lay the cherished book. “It’s near the front with the other foods—tea, coffee, spices, canned and bottled goods, things like that.” With almost 800 pages, that should keep the child quiet for a while!

  “And I can pick out the Granula by its picture. It has heads of wheat on it.”

  “That’s right. And you know your numbers, so you can figure out how much it costs.” (Twelve cents a package, if her memory served her properly.)

  Barney was engrossed in his search; it didn’t matter how long it took, the search itself was satisfying.

  But as so often happened, he lingered over men’s watches, pages and pages of pictured watches—14 karat, gold plate, silverine case, solid coil silver, hunting case, glass on both sides, 18-size, screw back and bezel, dust proof, engraved, thin model, and the awesome timers and chronographs. Barney knew them all, knew them by sight, by description, knew them by name: Trenton, Appleton, Crescent Street, New Railway, Special Railway, Vanguard, Boss, Giant Elgin, and more.

  He had a preference, a strong hankering, for the “Glass on both sides,” model.

  “‘You can see the movement in your watch at any time without opening the case,’” he had memorized.

  “It’s a man’s watch, Barney,” his mother had said dampingly at one of his dream and scheme times.

  “But you said,” Barney reminded her quickly, “that it is ’spesh’lly strong!”

  Alice had sighed but had to agree. “‘Don’t be afraid that they are not strong enough,’” the catalog had assured, and she had been foolish enough to read aloud, “‘for we believe that if they were placed on the floor, they would support the weight of an ordinary man without breaking.’”

  “Do you s’pose it would hold Herkimer?” Barney had asked, marveling at the catalog’s claim and longing to test it.

  “It says ordinary man, Barney,” Alice had explained, and Barney had subsided, for the moment.

  “Well, Robbie then.”

  Ordinary Robbie. It was true. Robbie—in Alice’s estimation—was ordinary. Perhaps that was why she had had the courage to approach him with her momentous proposal—to marry in order to leave the homestead and the boys in good hands. Thinking about it now, Alice took a deep breath and assured herself that it didn’t matter whether he was ordinary or out-of-the-ordinary—love was not involved. And wouldn’t she, after all, be joining Barnabas soon in the great beyond, forever free of anxiety and responsibility and heartbreak?

  Shaking herself, Alice put doubts away from her concerning her agreement with Robbie Dunbar. She had made her decision.

  Barney was still poring over the catalog, detoured from his search for Granula. This fetish of his for watches was unsettling; Barney had a way of putting his mind to something and clinging to it grimly, willing it to come true by his very persistence. In a contest of wills, Barney had the edge these days.

  “It wouldn’t have to be the one with glass on both sides,” he said wistfully and quoted, “though ‘nothing is more fas . . . fas-cin-a . . . ting than seeing its different parts, such as train wheels, the pallet, the hair spring—’”

  “Oh, Barney, must you go over all that again?”

  “‘An’ the balance wheel,’” Barney quoted without pause, “‘which makes eighteen thousand beats per hour, four hundred and thirty-two thousand per day or’—read this for me, Mum. About the millions of times it beats per year, I mean.”

  “Forget the watches, Barney—”

  “One million . . . read it, Mum!”

  “No, Barney, I’m not going to read it again. Who do you suppose counts that many ticktocks, anyway? It’s a lot of foolishness—”

  Barney looked stricken.

  “It wouldn’t have to be this one, Mum. But it’s almost the cheapest one in the book. See, it’s only $4.25 for seven jewels with Seth Thom . . .”

  “Seth Thomas,” Alice provided reluctantly, proud of her son’s memory and sorry for her foolishness in aiding and abetting his fan
tasies.

  “Seth Thomas movement. What’s a movement, Mum? Does that mean works?”

  “I think you’re giving me the works,” Alice said, with a firmness she hadn’t shown for a long time. “Now give your attention to something else.”

  Barney, recognizing the authority, cocked his head on one side, listened as to some distant drumbeat, and slowly turned from the fascinating watches.

  “The Granula, son?” his mother prodded.

  With a sigh Barney moved on.

  Before he had located the proper page the door opened and Robbie leaned in.

  “Good mornin’! Is there a laddie in here thass goin’ to work wi’ me today?”

  With a joyous squeal Barney climbed from his chair and flung himself at Robbie.

  “Me! It’s me, remember? You said I could ride the rake with you!”

  “So I did. An’ are ye ready then?”

  Robbie closed the door behind him and moved into the room, going first to the side of Billy, to caress his head lightly and pat his good arm. Billy ate on placidly, reduced now to the stage where his small finger swiped the inside of the bowl, scooping out the last of the porridge.

  Alice retrieved the bowl and substituted a piece of toast.

  “And how are ye this mornin’?” Robbie asked, turning at last to Alice.

  And it was with reluctance. The hesitation he was feeling regarding marriage to Alice—to anyone other than Tierney Caulder—was turning, in his troubled heart, to grim certainty that this was wrong. All wrong! And yet he was bound by his word. God help me! he cried and not for the first time.

  But God—if He heard and if He cared—was silent. Was it, Robbie wondered uneasily, because he, Robbie, really wasn’t on speaking terms with the Lord of the universe?

  Robbie had no trouble believing that God was indeed Lord of the universe. But anything more personal—that was harder to grasp.