Back Roads to Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  Still, there was truth in what the girl had said; it was apropos, to be sure. Allison allowed herself to think of it fleetingly: In essence she was saying the past is over and done. Move on; forget it. The future is ahead, offering new opportunities, another chance at happiness and fulfillment. Paul or no Paul, Scripture or not, the concept was a good one and worthy of consideration.

  With a sigh, the girl turned her back on the distant dock and the hope of waving one final time to her loved ones. “It’s just as well, I suppose,” she said. “I need to get used to the idea that they are no longer part of my life. I made my choice, knowing it would cost me my family. It’s one of the prices we pay for going so far away. We might as well be going to the moon, as far as seeing them again is concerned. But I’m not sorry for my decision!” The girl’s voice had no hesitation in it, no hint of second thoughts.

  Though Allison was reluctant to pry, she was intrigued. “Ah, mmm,” she said cautiously, “it was that important to you, then?”

  The deep-set eyes turned to Allison with a fervor that might have lit the eyes of Joan of Arc.

  A pioneer! The girl was consumed with the passion of the pioneer. Allison was sure of it. “Well, then,” she said, “you are heading for the Canadian prairies, perhaps, to take up land?”

  The girl looked surprised. “That may well be,” she said. “But that’s not my reason—”

  “So why,” Allison found herself asking, “are you going? What is so compelling as to take you halfway around the world, leaving your family—”

  “That’s an easy question to answer. I’m going to Canada to be married.” The words sang, the young woman’s eyes shone, the mouth couldn’t help but smile.

  Remembering her own abortive attempt at marrying, Allison was tempted to feel a belated pang of regret. But then she recalled Stephen’s too-willing acceptance of her investment in his future and arrangement for his escape and was filled with a profound thankfulness that she had found him out in time. Allison Middleton could never settle for a weak man.

  “I think we should get acquainted,” the young woman at her side was saying. “My name is Georgina Barlow—”

  “And I’m Allison Middleton—”

  “Georgie for short—”

  “Allie—”

  With a burst of laughter, the two young women sealed a friendship that was to mean more than they could have known.

  David Abraham had felt the pull of the land. Free land! It was a magnet drawing men from all parts of the older world to the Canadian Northwest, and David Abraham, a day laborer mired in a meaningless job and destined to slave at it for the rest of his life, had broken away. Though it meant leaving the girl of his choice behind, he had dared take the chance in order to make a new life for both of them.

  “It was three years ago,” Georgina said, recounting the story, and Allison thought she could see in the girl’s eyes the painful price that had been paid.

  And now it was to pay off.

  “David has been working in Ontario, saving his money,” she explained, “but is ready to take up homesteading at last. One shouldn’t go West without a certain amount of money, you know, or the entire experience may be a failure. It’s a gamble anyway, with many terrible stories of defeat. But David and I are young and strong, and—” Georgina’s voice lifted, “we’ll be together.”

  Allison realized how quickly, how easily, she and Stephen had forsaken their plans and each other, and recognized that love, true love, had not been experienced by either of them. How blessed to have that sort of love, the kind of commitment that endured. The “until death do us part” kind of commitment.

  “David will come to Quebec City to meet me, of course,” Georgina said. “He will quit his job at that time and have things in readiness for us to head for the Territories where we’ll file for our quarter-section of free land. We’ll be married right away and head off together.”

  Off—into the unknown. Into drudgery, into sacrifice, into backbreaking labor harder than they had ever known. Into challenges they could not imagine, deprivations of the meanest sort, and discouragements to daunt the hardiest soul. And do it willingly, happily, even eagerly.

  Allison felt humbled before such dedication, such commitment. Consequently, her answer to Georgina’s inquiry into her own plans began as a mumbled sketch.

  “I’m going to, that is, hoping to . . . Oh, fiddledeedee, Georgina! I might as well start off by being honest with you. You see . . .”

  What followed was an outline of home, hopes, plans, failure, and repercussions—the whole story in a nutshell. “I can see now what a childish thing it was I tried to do and how foolish. It was a romantic venture, I suppose, certainly not love. I don’t know what love is, at least not love such as you and David have for each other. And I’m not a bit sure of what lies ahead for me.

  “This Maybelle Dickey, for instance, who is meeting me and into whose care I’m to be placed—I’ve never met her. In fact, my parents have never met her.” For the first time, Allison admitted a sense of desperation, even fear, regarding the unknown future.

  “So you don’t know where you’ll be, or what you’ll be doing,” Georgina said thoughtfully, quite neatly summing up the entire situation.

  “That’s it, I guess,” Allison acquiesced, wondering where her bravado of earlier in the day had gone. And gone so quickly. And so totally. She was, she realized, a frightened girl . . . child—for she felt terribly young, terribly ignorant, dreadfully alone.

  “Georgina!” It was a voice calling for their attention.

  Suddenly it dawned on the young women that the ship was moving, had been underway for a while and they had not realized it.

  “That’s one of the girls I’m traveling with,” Georgina explained, and she waved at the woman, indicating she’d heard and would come in a moment. “I suppose it has something to do with arrangements. You are billeted first-class, I imagine—”

  Allison nodded.

  “I’m in steerage and happy to have that. But,” Georgina said, stepping away as she spoke, “I don’t know how often we’ll get to see each other—”

  “Often, I hope,” Allison said feelingly.

  “Perhaps there are rules about the different classes mixing. We may have different times scheduled when we can come on deck. Our meals will be . . . well, let’s just say they won’t be at the captain’s table.” A glint of humor lit the deep-set eyes, the thickly lashed eyes, the kind eyes. “You haven’t said—are you traveling alone, Allie?”

  “I haven’t gotten around to mentioning . . . Miss Figg.” Georgina’s eyes were shrewd. “A traveling companion?”

  “I suppose she’d agree to that. Just how companionable we are—well—”

  “You needn’t feel like you are alone,” Georgina said. “I have a friend I can recommend, and He’ll be with you, stay with you—”

  “He?”

  “You can talk to Him, and He’ll listen to you—”

  “He?” Allison repeated skeptically.

  “Jesus, of course,” Georgina said, smiling, and with the air of introducing a familiar friend. “Just thought I’d mention it. Ta ta for now, Allie.”

  Although it was Sunday and not a proper day to meet and transact business, it only made good sense during a hectic summer. And it was, after all, the Lord’s business.

  Mary Morrison greeted Bly Condon, Herkimer Pinkard, and Adonijah Dinwoody as they arrived, holding open the screen door, inviting them to join Angus and partake of the lemonade she had prepared for them after their dusty excursion in the middle of a hot afternoon. Where she had obtained the lemons was a mystery; the ice, of course, came from the icehouse, having been stored there the previous winter. If occasionally a leaf or some unrecognized object appeared as the ice melted, the drinkers wisely refrained from speculation and downed the cool and refreshing drink, grateful for it.

  Having forgone their usual nap for the meeting, they sank wearily into their chairs, happy for the only rest they wou
ld enjoy this Lord’s Day.

  No one had an evening to give to board meetings or anything else, aside from dire necessity. Beginning their day at four in the morning and having completed a normal day’s work by noon, they returned to their fields and barns to put in another eight hours before caving in for the night. Their wives and children spent few if any idle minutes as well.

  Angus, before the others arrived, had searched for a Scripture that would be fitting for the occasion of this day’s meeting, deciding against David’s “The king’s business required haste” in favor of Jesus’ words “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” The work-worn men, hearing it, nodded affirmation and were relieved of any niggling worry they might have harbored concerning the breaking of the Sabbath, and they bent shaggy but humble heads to ask for divine guidance on their deliberations.

  “Welcome, gentlemen,” Angus said, and the meeting was officially brought to order.

  It was obvious that Brother Dinwoody, who had stood in the pulpit and delivered his heart that morning in the sermon of the day, was experiencing some tension. Sitting on the edge of his chair, playing with his drink, looking expectantly around the circle, he was awaiting the reactions of his fellow board members. A desperate light in his eye revealed his poorly hidden anxiety.

  “Congratulations on the sermon,” Bly Condon said at last, opening the subject and expressing nothing. Perhaps he was remembering that it would be his turn next Sunday.

  Herkimer said thoughtfully, “I never heard that particular Scripture interpreted in quite that way before,” and neatly passed the problem on. “How about you, Angus?”

  “Er,” Angus hesitated, then proceeded with caution while Brother Dinwoody waited. “It was a new thought to me, too.”

  Brother Dinwoody, dissatisfied, said, “I thought some people looked at me a little strangely afterwards. In fact, it seemed people avoided meeting my eyes, sorta looking through me and past me.”

  “Especially the women, I’ll be bound,” Herkimer said with a guffaw, unable to restrain himself any longer.

  Brother Dinwoody frowned. “Angus?” he pursued.

  “It’s a touchy thing, I suppose, to lift portions of Scripture out of context—”

  “But it needed to be said!” Brother Dinwoody defended. “What, exactly, needed to be said?” Angus asked, though he suspected.

  “Haven’t you noticed the trend among women of late?” His wife, he meant.

  “What trend is that, Brother?”

  “Putting their hair up on top of their heads!”

  “I don’t see—” Bly Condon began, mystified.

  “Distracting! Worldly! What’s wrong with a bun on the back of the head?”

  The three listening board members obviously struggled with mixed feelings—hilarity over the foolishness of Brother Dinwoody’s opinion and dismay over the public airing of it. In spite of themselves, their weathered faces creased before their grins could be controlled.

  Adonijah Dinwoody, his dignity injured, breathed righteous indignation.

  The plan for the board members to take turns preaching Sunday by Sunday until the new man arrived had started out well with Angus and Herkimer taking the first two Sundays, and they had all been lulled into a false sense of satisfaction concerning the arrangement. But this morning, from the pulpit, Brother Dinwoody, the most reasonable of men under most circumstances, had taken the opportunity to flail out at his wife in particular and all women in general.

  One day the previous week, Vesta Dinwoody, a dumpling of a woman trying to cool her heated neck, had casually pinned her hair on top of her head, had found she rather liked it that way, and had continued the practice. Accustomed to the rigid bun on the back of her neck, Adonijah, for some reason, had found himself aggravated by the change—perhaps it was the heat, perhaps he was overtired. He had simply frowned at first, then, when she ignored his disapproving glances, he fussed a little. Still Vesta went her own blithe way, and Adonijah, more and more churned up about it, demanded, then commanded, that she return to the modest hairstyle of previous days, calling the new arrangement worldly, even scandalous.

  Vesta had laughed. She laughed! In fact, she had laughed merrily. She had laughed and ignored what her husband considered his better, wiser judgment.

  Adonijah Dinwoody—wishing he’d never started the controversy but driven, somehow, to insist on having his way—found himself helpless to do anything about his wife’s dereliction from her known duty to obey her husband and brooded all week.

  Having been married for twenty-five years and both being of easygoing natures, Vesta and Adonijah had gotten along together very well until now, amicably solving any problems. This was the first time he had tried to exert his masculine prerogative, and he had failed. Stung, Adonijah grew moodier as the week progressed.

  Vesta put her hair on top of her head in the morning and left it there all day, with only an occasional swipe of her hand to catch up any recalcitrant curls that, surprisingly, appeared in the short hairs on the back of her neck. Rather than enjoying them, Adonijah found himself glowering at these marks of Vesta’s independence.

  “For goodness’ sake, Ijah,” Vesta had eventually been driven to say, “quit grumbling about such a small matter. Go out into the highways and byways and reform the drunkards and gamblers and leave women to their few simple pleasures.”

  There was nothing left to Adonijah but silent indignation.

  Quite thoroughly silenced at home, defeated on his own turf and resenting it, the poor, foolish man had used the pulpit as an opportunity to expound on the subject. No matter if his wife, listening in surprise and dismay, spluttered and fumed silently; no matter if—as soon as they got into the buggy headed for home—she took her turn at preaching.

  Brother Dinwoody had taken as his text the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew. His topic was the abomination of desolation, a controversial topic at the best of times and one better left in the hands of biblical scholars.

  Undaunted, he had plowed through the list of coming tribulations, culminating in verses sixteen and seventeen with the instructions regarding fleeing to the mountains for refuge during those dreadful days. “Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house.” It was a simple enough verse with a clear enough message: Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house.

  But Brother Dinwoody, wholly untrained and untaught and with a bone to pick with his spouse, had isolated the words “top not come down,” giving them a meaning never intended, a twisted meaning. Perhaps in his ignorance he really believed “top not” meant “topknot”; perhaps he misquoted it purposely to use it against his wife.

  “Topknot, come down,” he thundered with appropriate thumps on the pulpit, and numerous topknots had quivered—whether from the wearer’s laughter or indignation was not clear.

  “It was the most flagrant misuse of Scripture I’ve ever seen,” Angus had declared to Mary as they made their way homeward, leaving bedlam of a sort behind them. “I don’t know if we’ll survive until our pastoral replacement arrives. We can’t have any more fiascoes like this one.”

  “He’s taken his turn,” Mary soothed, “and won’t need to do it again for four weeks. Surely by then the new man will be here.”

  Angus sighed, the responsibility of the church heavy on his shoulders.

  That afternoon, at the board meeting following The Sermon That Would Never Be Forgotten, Brother Dinwoody, fresh from his wife’s scouring and scorning, looked to his fellow board members for some crumb of support.

  “The proof of the pudding,” Herkimer offered finally as the men sat contemplating Brother Dinwoody’s unorthodox sermon, “is in the eating. If topknots come down all over the district, we’ll assume you were a sower whose words fell on good ground. On the other hand . . .” he mused. Herkimer had heard the preacher of the day castigated by the usually long-suffering congregation.

  “I declare!” more than o
ne had said with some heat.

  “What next!” “For heaven’s sake!” “Saints above!” These comments and others had accompanied the shuffling feet out the door.

  “Poor Sister Dinwoody,” a few had murmured.

  “Poor Brother Dinwoody!” most had concluded.

  “Well,” Angus said, clearing his throat and getting the wandering attention of his board members, “I think no damage, no permanent damage, was done.” And that, apparently, was the only solace he could come up with.

  And with that, the strange case of Brother Dinwoody’s pulpit ministry came to a conclusion, in the church if not at home.

  More than a little surprised at the ruckus he had raised and struggling between satisfaction and embarrassment, Brother Dinwoody’s thoughts turned to the vagrant curls—the cause of it all—that had sprung up damply on the nape of Vesta’s neck, and he fought against developing a liking for topknots.

  Anyway, he thought with mixed feelings, he had concluded his pulpit assignment. In spite of the repercussions, he had quite enjoyed the renown.

  “Let us move on,” Angus said finally and turned to two letters laid out before him on the table.

  “This first one is to me and my family,” he explained, “and I won’t read it aloud but just report that Parker and Molly arrived at their destination safely, have settled in, and Parker is finding much to do to help his mother and sister.”

  “Does he mention when he’ll come home?” Bly asked hopefully, all the while knowing it could not possibly happen before next Sunday and his pulpit assignment.

  “No. I think he’ll stick by his plans as outlined to us when they left. It’ll be several months, I’m sure, maybe even taking us into winter.”

  Bly Condon groaned inwardly but brightened; nothing, nothing could be worse than Brother Dinwoody’s pulpit performance.

  “That’s fine,” Herkimer said. “It’ll give us time to complete the parsonage.”

  The discussion switched to the building, its progress, its problems. It would be a fine substantial home when completed, of that they were confident and to that they were committed.