by Ruth Glover
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard of them,” Binky said blithely. “Windermere in East Kootenay, Nelson in West Kootenay. Isn’t that name just a scream? Kootenay!”
“I find it rather . . . appealing,” Allison murmured, while Binky talked on.
“We know about these communities, you understand, because they are touted all over Britain. Beautiful places, we are told, paradises where British people can live the lifestyle to which they are accustomed, the aristocratic way of life, so to speak.”
Something in Allison rebelled. Something in her resisted the very thought of recreating the lifestyle to which she had been accustomed. She might as well have remained in England! In the Kootenay communities she would find the same stifling Victorian conformities she had struggled against back home, and they had no appeal for her.
With glad cries of welcome, Freddy and Gilly fell upon them, and when told by Binky of Allison’s difficulties, repeated his invitation to join them until Allison was bombarded by goodwill and the generous offer of comradeship.
“Wait, wait!” she managed, laughing in spite of herself. “Give me time to think.”
With the three young men posed around her, Allison gave serious thought to the situation. After a few minutes Binky took out his pocket watch, looked at it, and said, “Well? What have you decided?”
Not one whit less confused than she had been, Allison could only sigh and throw up her hands. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted.
“Choose one of the British communities,” the fellows at her side encouraged. “You’ll be welcomed and made to feel at home.”
“And you’ll be chaperoned by us—at your service!” Three well-groomed heads bowed gracefully.
But did she want to feel “at home”? And wouldn’t thoughtfulness dictate that she not move on without at least contacting Maybelle Dickey? To leave her in the lurch without explanation would be as bad as what Theodora had done.
“I need to get myself to Toronto first of all,” she decided. “This Maybelle Dickey may be the answer to everything.”
Binky and company had to be satisfied with that, though they sighed and shook their heads, expressing their disapproval and disappointment. A remittance person, be it man or woman, could still command a good life if proper plans were laid. For once in their short lives they were in a place to make their own decisions, and unanimously, it was to go on to Kootenay’s British communities.
Shrugging, they made preparations to board the train; there would be no dawdling in Quebec City. They hastened to leave the unknown for the known, the unfamiliar for the familiar. Prepared for adventure, they settled for routine.
Allison was astonished at the amount of luggage Binky and his friends had brought with them.
“We have to be prepared for every contingency,” they explained solemnly, checking on the stack awaiting loading. Allison could see tennis rackets, cricket bats, fishing rods, guns, boxes of games, a chest of medical supplies, an easel and paint boxes, a croquet set, a couple of musical instruments—a violin and tuba—and, pointed out with pride by Freddy, a full tea service of fine china and silver.
In their trunks, they reported, was a veritable repertoire of outfits. First of all, of course, was the formal dinner wear, a necessity wherever one went. Then the supply included polo uniforms, croquet party clothing, hunting wear, and even, in Freddy’s case, a cowboy costume.
It made Allison’s own steamer trunk seem pathetically inadequate to face whatever this land might offer or threaten.
Thus it was that eventually Allison, Binky, Freddy, and Gilly, plus additional “boys” of the remittance variety, found themselves gazing out the windows of a passenger coach chugging relentlessly out of Quebec City and headed west.
Allison had allowed herself to be talked into first-class accommodations, though she flinched at the inroads on her funds. She hoped that Maybelle Dickey would be well fixed, able to extend the financial help she would need until she could write her father, explain the situation, and receive a remittance from home.
The day offered the usual round of drinks, much laughter and good-natured chaffing, an occasional stroll through lounges, corridors, and stately dining rooms set with flowers and crystal and attended by thoughtful stewards. Just a car or two away, second-class passengers, bunched together like a hive of bees, made tea and cooked sausages on the communal stove, changed wet and smelly nappies, consoled their sick and elderly, and did it all with a conglomeration of languages that fell on the ear of the listener like water over Niagara.
But in first-class, civility reigned. Cocooned in the familiar, perhaps they shrank from the reality of what they were facing and the road to reach it.
Talking, strolling, eating, and drinking, their attention was rarely given to the countryside. One young man, glancing out, said uneasily, “I say, it’s deucedly overrun with trees!”
Allison, more attentive, was stirred and awed by what she saw. Trees were everywhere, as far as the eye could see, the greenery laced with silver birches and all untouched by the woodcutter’s axe. She lost count of the lakes, some of them still frozen, dotted with islands. Silently, overhead, passed great phalanxes of geese, drawn by some inner compulsion to the untouched waters of the north. Miles and hours passed without sign of houses or people. They stopped occasionally but saw no stations.
The train was a small caterpillar creeping its way through a vast primeval forest.
Pale in spite of the summer sun’s relentless battering, shaking in spite of good strong muscles developed from the homestead’s unending workload, Blystone Condon took his place behind the “sacred desk,” knowing it was simply hand-hewn black poplar and he the frailest of clay.
It was his Sunday to fill the pulpit.
In spite of earnest, even desperate, prayer, the interim preacher had not made his appearance between last Sunday and this one, Bly Condon’s appointed day to bring the message.
As full of words as a cloud is of rain when face-to-face personally with any one of the people seated before him, it was another thing to see them in a group, dressed in their Sunday best, their eyes turned on him expectantly. The sight caused Bly’s sturdy knees to knock and his mouth to go dry.
Knowing he was sure to blunder badly, Bly wished he hadn’t been so critical last Sunday of Brother Dinwoody’s sermon, poor as it was. And Brother Dinwoody, in his corner, could be excused if he had a rather defensive look on his face that seemed to say, “All right, Mister, let’s see how well you do.”
Angus Morrison had opened the service; the singing had been spirited, the prayer satisfactory. The offering plates had been passed—all blurred insofar as Bly Condon was concerned. With his Bible clutched between his knees, he had been engaged in one final, desperate prayer, and it wasn’t for words of wisdom and grace, for power to preach the Word unflinchingly, or for high and lofty thoughts to share. It was for deliverance, for some miracle that would keep him from the pulpit.
But God, Bly recalled, had not delivered the beleaguered Daniel from the lions’ den; he had chosen, rather, to bring him through the ordeal. This truth should have been encouraging, could have seen him through. But Bly, certainly no Daniel, pled for deliverance, for bodily translation to some distant place far from the congregation gathered to hear him preach.
Angus had announced a brief meeting of the church board to follow the service. “We are still in the process of getting the interim pastor here,” he explained to the patient congregation, and they nodded. “I encourage you men to set aside a few hours here and there to put in some work on the parsonage. As you know, the logs are up, the roof on, the floor in, and we are putting in the door and windows and working on the chinking. Here our women can help . . .
“And now, Brother Condon will bring the message of the morning.”
Bly Condon sat like a rock imbedded in a school desk. Doom had struck. It was the fateful hour, and he had not been translated; neither had the Lord returned to catch his bride away, for which
Bly, in his desperation, also had prayed.
His wife nudged him in the ribs and hissed, “Up, Bly! Get up!”
Bly stumbled to his feet and tottered to the front of the room, to wonder eventually how he got there—the memory of those few steps was forever blanked out.
The only Scripture that seemed real at the moment was Job’s plaint: “The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me” (3:25). Bly groaned in spirit.
But then his glazed eyes noted the lifted faces of his friends and neighbors. Without exception they were kindly, supportive, expectant (Bly wisely kept his gaze from the corner where Brother Dinwoody sat).
Of course! One and all, they were waiting for the Word of God to be disseminated to them. Sheep they were, awaiting what the faithful shepherd would give them for the day. And humbly he saw that no matter how faltering, how halting, how inadequate these lips of his might be, the Word of God would minister to them. For did not the Bible say, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63b)?
Strengthen these weak hands, O Lord, Bly prayed silently, touched by the need and inspired by the supply, and confirm these feeble knees, and dared to believe it had been done.
Yea, verily!
Bly had forgotten the scribbled notes he had pored over so painstakingly all week and laid aside whatever dim plans he had made. Lifting his voice, he said, “The Word itself will minister to us. This is going to be your service. We’ll call it an old-fashioned people’s meeting. Everyone who wishes to do so will have an opportunity to share a favorite Scripture, perhaps tell us why it means so much in their life.”
It took the congregation only a moment to make the adjustment; it took a little longer to have the courage to stand before the others and witness to God’s grace.
Slowly, creakily, old Brother Polchek rose and recounted how God had brought him and his numerous children and grandchildren from the old country. They had dared step out and make the change on the strength of Acts 7:3: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee.”
“Dis iss God’s country,” he declared earnestly, his rheumy eyes aglow. “For da Polcheks, dis iss God’s country.” And only his wife Olga’s tug on his coattail stemmed the words of gratitude that threatened to flood forth and take up the entire hour.
Brother Polchek wasn’t alone. Following his testimony it was as if a dam had broken, and the water spilled out as, one after another, the good people of Bliss stood and with smiles and tears gave God simple praise.
Each story was the same, yet different. One after another they recounted the dangers involved in their trek to the new land, the fears overcome, the grace experienced. And without exception the audience listened, enthralled, hearing their own story once again in someone else’s words.
It wasn’t until the Drop Octagonal, the schoolhouse clock, tolled the hour of twelve that Bly Condon, as caught up in the heartfelt stories as any of them, reluctantly announced that the time had run out.
“The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad” (Ps. 126:3), he read in closing to hearty amens. Offering up a simple prayer, he dismissed the service.
And when enthusiastic comments came his way, or compliments, or praise for the morning’s events, it was with true humility Bly shook his head, confessing his helplessness and God’s help.
But, “Lord,” he whispered fervently, doubtful it could ever happen again, “let that man get here before another four weeks roll around!”
No one was happier than Bly Condon with the results of the short business meeting that followed the morning service (unless it was Brother Dinwoody, who was still smarting under his wife’s unabated fury and still bearing with her continued wearing of her hair atop her head, a style he suspected she herself was weary of but too stubborn to change).
“It’s a letter from Ben Brown,” Angus, as chairman of the board, reported.
“Let’s hear it.” Herkimer, a bachelor, was never in a hurry to get home.
Gentlemen,
Thank you for your patience as I’ve made preparations here to be gone for a few months, disposing of certain possessions, renting my small apartment to a friend until my return to finish my studies.
I look forward to being with you, feeling God is in your invitation and in my decision.
My train will arrive in Prince Albert on the 15th. You are familiar, I know, with the unreliability of the railway and if I should arrive off schedule and find no one there to meet me, I’ll understand and find transportation out to Bliss, as you suggested.
Sincerely,
Ben Brown
Two would-be preachers, at least, sighed with relief, lighter of heart than they had been for weeks, and vowed they’d never again criticize a man of the cloth as long as they lived.
Weary to the bone, soiled and in need of bathing, half nauseated, Allison opened her eyes to another day trapped in the train.
She was berthed in a section serving four people. When the beds were made up, Allison, horrified at the arrangement, refused to consider climbing into a bunk, even fully dressed; her bunk mates were Binky, Freddy, and Gilly. So she had stepped into the corridor until the young men were in bed, cheerily calling out the all clear, then had returned to sit, stiff as a poker, cold and uncomfortable, the entire night.
In the ladies’ room in the morning, doing her best to wash herself and bring order out of the chaos of her clothes, Allison could only imagine what it was like in tourist- and second-class accommodations. If this was roughing it, that must be barbarism.
Her clothes were locked away in her steamer trunk; her portmanteau held only basic items, not articles of clothing. Allison would have felt highly embarrassed at the condition of her toilette if she’d been the only one; everyone was in the same state of disrepair. Even so, she was chagrined, dismayed, perturbed. No one, nothing, had prepared her for this sort of life.
The discomfort helped her make up her mind: She would, under no condition, consider going on with Binky and the “boys.” Grateful to them, still she didn’t relish putting up with their lifestyle any longer than was necessary to get to Toronto. There she would attach herself to—submit herself to?—Maybelle Dickey, at least for the present. It would give her time and opportunity to see what this new land might have to offer an immigrant of the female variety. Brushing elbows already with freedoms she never knew were possible, she found herself longing to explore, to step out, to dare. But she knew not what, or where, or how. It was a daunting thought . . .
A loud banging on the door startled Allison out of her reverie. Hastily gathering up her scanty personal items, she made way for a wan lady with a handkerchief pressed to her lips who pushed past with more vigor than one would have imagined in a woman so pallid and prim.
When the train pulled into Toronto, huffing and puffing to a standstill at last, Allison would not be cajoled into going farther, though Binky and company did their best to persuade her to reconsider.
“Thank you, thank you so much,” she said with some depth of emotion, for truly the young men had been a port in a dreadful storm. But the train trip had given her time to think, to get her bearings, to pray—hesitantly, it’s true, not confident of her rights. Does the Good Shepherd hear the bleatings of a lamb outside the fold? she had asked herself.
Binky and the others would be going on—on to Winnipeg, on to Calgary, on to Kootenay. The very thought of the trip made Allison feel faint. No, thank you, she would stay in Toronto.
Still, it was with tears in her eyes she stood on the platform, her luggage at her feet, waving at the three young men outlined in the train window. Their farewell hugs had been warm and generous; Binky’s final call repeated their invitation one more time.
“If you change your mind,” he shouted, “come on. You know where to find us—”
“Yes . . . Kootenay . . .”
Toronto was Quebec City all over
again. As there had been no Theodora Figg in Quebec City, there was no Maybelle Dickey in Toronto.
But this time there was no Binky. Binky had been dismissed, had thrown a good-bye kiss, had waved farewell from an open train window. Binky had disappeared down a train track until all that remained to Allison’s vision was a faint trail of smoke lifting into the blue of the sky. Soon that too was gone.
It was then Allison turned to search the platform, the waiting room, the people coming and going. In the first place, she had no idea what this Maybelle Dickey looked like, how old she was, what she might be wearing—a flower in the lapel would have helped, a discreet sign bearing either her own name or Allison’s would have been an excellent idea. She might have left word at the ticket counter—Allison inquired so often the agent eventually shook his head when he saw her approaching.
Not knowing what else to do, Allison found herself intercepting any woman who showed signs of pausing, lingering, looking around. “Are you, would you possibly be, Maybelle Dickey?”
At first she was hesitant, apologetic, mannerly. But as the hours passed and darkness threatened and the negative answers accumulated, she grew quite desperate, finding herself prone to grasp some woman by the arm, or step in front of her as she was about to pass by. Her voice sounded shrill to her own ears: “Maybelle Dickey?”
At one point a crowd of immigrants gathered on the platform to meet an arriving train, a heaving, shoving, jabbering host of people bent on boarding, having waited days and fearful of waiting more. Allison could only back off, circling the throng, continuing her search as she could, finding herself rejected impatiently by those whose thoughts were turned elsewhere. Many of them couldn’t understand her and shook their heads and pressed on toward the quickly packed train.
Finally, worn-out, hungry, sick at heart, Allison sank onto a seat in the waiting room and let the panic surface: strange surroundings, no friendly or sympathetic face, very little money, alone. And cold. As the day waned the cold set in; the northern winter was not yet a thing of the past but lingered, blustering intermittently, reluctant to give up its grip on the land.
