Back Roads to Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  Large boots, solidly planted, plunked themselves before her downcast eyes. Slowly Allison looked up, past the boots to the uniform—it was the policeman she had seen patrolling the area from time to time and watching her suspiciously.

  “Now then, young lady,” he said brusquely. “Want to tell me what in the world you think you’re doing?”

  The law! It was the last straw. Allison’s face crumpled; tears welled and spilled.

  “Here, here,” the large man said. “This’ll never do. I think you may be searching for someone. You have all the earmarks of being forsaken. Am I right?”

  Allison nodded miserably. But even this contact with another human being was an encouragement, and she spoke up, explaining her predicament. “Do you know a Maybelle Dickey?” she asked at the close of her account.

  Of course the policeman did not; the city was large and growing rapidly, with vast numbers of immigrants arriving almost daily, moving on, being replaced by others.

  “I don’t know her, never heard of her, wouldn’t know how to find her,” the man said, not unkindly, slapping a nightstick against his sturdy leg in a manner Allison found nerve-wracking. “But,” he continued firmly, “you can’t stay here forever looking for her. You’ll have to move on; you don’t want to be labeled a transient. Get yourself a room is my suggestion. After a night’s sleep you can consider your options—going back home being the sensible one for a young lady alone.”

  England? That was out of the question. Perhaps her face looked as hopeless as she felt; at any rate, the policeman said, “I can direct you to a nearby hotel, Miss, and see that your baggage is taken there. That’ll get you out of the cold, at least. Agreed?”

  Allison could only nod helplessly; what other option did she have? Perhaps tomorrow . . . perhaps Maybelle Dickey had her dates mixed. Perhaps the ship’s arrival had been off schedule—Allison wished she had paid more attention to details rather than leaving everything to Theodora—and May-belle Dickey had given her up. Perhaps Maybelle Dickey, like Theodora, was faithless, unconcerned, a deserter. Perhaps, and this seemed most likely to Allison, Maybelle Dickey had never received her father’s letter; perhaps she didn’t even live in Toronto now, if she ever had. Allison felt a stab of bitterness toward her father. It was squelched as being useless, serving no purpose whatsoever, wasted emotion.

  The room in the simple hotel was barren, impersonal, not a place one would want to linger. It had a fireplace, however, and was warm, and the dining room was adequate. Paying for her room, ordering a bowl of soup, Allison’s heart quailed to see her funds dwindling. Tomorrow must yield some solution!

  But it did not. Allison, in desperation, went from establishment to establishment, speaking the name of Maybelle Dickey so often it became a shibboleth. Almost she expected to hear criers running up and down the streets calling the name of Maybelle Dickey until it echoed the length and breadth of the city.

  Her effort was useless before it began. Leaving the area around the railway station and making her way to the mercantile district, she was stunned at the length and breadth of King Street, a glittering thoroughfare of fashion and commerce with magnificent emporiums and elegant shops and thronged with people. And none of them Maybelle Dickey, insofar as anyone knew. Allison, a country girl in the main, rarely having been out of Midbury, was acutely aware of the swirl of the city about her and felt like a fly on the windowpane of the world, infinitesimal, unimportant, dispensable.

  She stumbled back to the hotel both angry and frightened. Helpless. Hopeless.

  That night, sitting on the side of the bed, she emptied out her remaining money and counted it. After some figuring, she decided she could pay her hotel room and eat for approximately thirty days or take the train to Kootenay. But what would she do when she arrived? Who would pay her way then? The knowing, too-eager look in Gilly Greenborn’s eyes, until now ignored, had to be recognized as rapacious; Gilly would offer succor, Gilly would extend largesse—but at what price? It was not to be considered. And if she chose to stay here, what would she do when her current funds ran out? She could never hear from her father in thirty days, perhaps not twice thirty days.

  Suddenly home and shelter loomed large and important and then faded to far, far away and unreachable. There was no hope from that quarter. She could not go back; they would not come to her. She recalled her father’s stiff and condemning farewell; her mother’s good-bye had been accusing, careless. Home and shelter, mother and father, love and nurture, were nothing but memories; the reality was a small, remote room in a strange city.

  At that moment of complete aloneness, Allison was flooded by hopelessness; her unflagging spirit collapsed in despair.

  With a sigh that was surrender, a sob that was a prayer, she fell back onto the bed, her meager worldly goods scattered around her, and looked beyond the barren walls, beyond Gilly Greenborn, beyond Maybelle Dickey, beyond Theodora Figg, even beyond her father, mother, and sister. Looked to the One who, through it all, had never forsaken her, the One whose voice she had heard but had silenced, whose presence she had sensed but had rebuffed. In her prosperity, with her youthful strength, because of her wit and will, she had ignored the presence, turned a deaf ear to the voice.

  She heard it now: When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.

  With a small cry Allison was off the bed and digging into her trunk, looking for the Bible she knew was there. The passage had rung a familiar bell, and with a little searching she found it; with tears she read it—David’s twenty-seventh psalm. Here was another such as she, needing shelter, needing deliverance: “In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion . . . leave me not, neither forsake me . . . lead me in a plain path . . . I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord.”

  There, secreted away in a small corner of a second-rate hotel, in a burgeoning, bustling city in a vast, mostly unexplored country, the Father found His child. There, on a sagging bed, deserted and alone, the child crept into her Father’s arms. And found acceptance, found love that would never let her go, found rest.

  And in the creeping and in the finding she confessed her foolishness, her waywardness, her rebellion, her selfish independence, her sin. How sincerely she regretted them; how gladly she abandoned them.

  Finally, with the very peace of God settled in her heart and stamped upon her face, Allison drifted off to sleep.

  She awoke to the realization—clear and bright in the gathering gloom of the room—that she would buy a ticket for, turn her attention to, follow her heart to . . . Bliss.

  It was a new day, new in more ways than one; new in ways that counted.

  “And now, Father, lead me through this day,” Allison prayed before ever rising from bed, and she was conscious of her heavenly Parent’s love, of His presence, warmly reminded of His promise never to leave her nor forsake her.

  Never forsake her! The realization brought quick tears to her eyes and a glow to her heart, and for a moment she took time to revel in the wonder of it all: once an outcast, thrust from home and fireside and family, disgraced, guilty, now welcomed, forgiven, warmly embraced, approved. It was enough to fill her heart with happiness and her day with sunshine.

  Her decision of the previous evening—to make her way to Bliss in the territory called Saskatchewan—held steady, as though it were right and proper.

  It was, in fact, the only thing to do. To align herself with the remittance men in British Columbia was out of the question; there wasn’t time or money available to continue her search for Maybelle Dickey; there was no way of going back, back to Quebec City, to the ship, to England.

  The thought of locating Georgina Barlow, probably Georgina Abraham by now, was a slim but substantial lifeline. If this plan was of her heavenly Father, it would work out; somehow it would work out. But there was much to be done.

  Rising, bathing, packing took but a short time. At the desk following a quick breakfast, Allison arranged to have her tru
nk transferred to the railway station. Following her baggage, she approached the ticket office.

  The man in the ticket window recognized her immediately, her frantic inquiries of yesterday fresh in his mind.

  “No, she hasn’t showed up. And no one has asked about you,” he said rather curtly, perhaps torn between duty and sympathy. He heard so many strange tales, answered so many questions, was asked to solve so many problems, that he might be excused for his reluctance to get involved one more time.

  But his tautness melted before her smiling face; his defensiveness faded before the small dimple at the corner of her mouth. It was a total turnaround. Had this young woman been playing games with him? Or was it that she . . . could it be . . . was it possible that under yesterday’s heavy strain, she had snapped? For if he had ever seen anyone distraught, it was this young woman, yesterday.

  “I understand,” she was saying now serenely. “I’ve given her up—the person I was searching for. And now, sir, I’d like to purchase a ticket for Bliss.”

  The man had faced some ridiculous, some dreary, some desperate situations in the course of his workday, but this topped them all—a ticket for Bliss. She had snapped! Either that or she was playing games with him. In either instance the ticket seller was of no mind to cooperate.

  “Bliss, eh?” he said with exaggerated interest, his sympathy dissipated. “We’d all like to find it, I’m sure. And if we could sell tickets to it, we’d have a trainful in a minute. Would you care to settle for a ticket to ecstasy? Or paradise?

  “Now, lady,” he concluded, having had enough of this foolishness, “if you’ll just move on; I’ve got serious customers here.”

  Allison said with a twinkle, “You don’t understand. Bliss—it’s a place, a real place in . . . well, somewhere in the Territories. Saskatchewan, I think.”

  “Saskatchewan, you think,” the man said, becoming peevish. “Well, I can tell you it isn’t on the list of stops for the Canadian Pacific, that’s for sure. Maybe you’re thinking of the Heavenly Express, ma’am. Now, if you please—”

  And he dismissed her, moving his gaze past her to the man behind her in line peering over her shoulder, listening with interest.

  “Help the lady,” the listener said. “I’ll wait.”

  With a sigh, the ticket seller turned back to Allison. “Bliss, you say?”

  “Bliss,” Allison supplied. “I have it on good authority—there is a place called Bliss. Would you, could you please ask? Ask someone back there—” and she indicated others working beyond the man serving her. “Perhaps someone will have heard of it.”

  “For Pete’s sake!” the man muttered, adding other, less acceptable words under his breath as he walked rather stiffly to a desk in the rear. There a brief conversation took place, and the ticket man, rather subdued, returned to report, “There is a hamlet by that name in northern Saskatchewan. In the bush country, actually. But no train goes there. The nearest station is Prince Albert—the end of the line. Is that where you want to go?”

  He sounded skeptical, not sure why anyone would choose to go to the “end of line” by choice. A hopping-off place, that’s what Prince Albert was.

  “That’ll be it,” Allison said, though not entirely certain. Still, the little arrow inside her heart pointed in that direction; the peace persisted.

  The ticket seller raised his eyebrows when Allison—a young woman of obvious good breeding, whose clothing was expensive and whose manner reflected the delicate things of life—requested a one-way, second-class ticket.

  “You can have tourist-class for just a little more,” he suggested, to be kindly but firmly refused.

  Allison walked away, pocketing her ticket, leaving the man shaking his head, racking up one more unbelievable story to tell around the boardinghouse table that night at supper. “Bliss!” he would say. “Can you believe it? Bliss, in the bush? Someone with a belief in fairy tales must have named it.”

  This journey would not be like the previous one; there would be no amenities in second-class. Allison understood this, but the state of her finances had demanded the lower-priced fare. She stepped out onto a platform bright with the morning sun and already crowded with people.

  There was nothing to do but wait; the stationmaster could make no promises regarding the schedule. Allison was intrigued when a train chugged into the station with a large white canvas sign stretched the full length of one car: Solid Trainload of Settlers for Alberta, it read, and a great mass of humanity, having boarded in Colorado, poured out, stumbled out, more than ready for a break before resuming the journey. How weary they looked, how battered. How harassed the adults, how rambunctious the children. And how grimly, soon enough, they climbed back aboard, enduring what had to be endured until their goal should be reached. They would grind across Manitoba, then Saskatchewan, finally reaching Alberta and, for them, the end of the rainbow.

  The sight awed the watching Allison. She caught a glimpse of the lure of free land and the tenacity of men to have it for themselves.

  When at last a train was announced for Saskatchewan and points north, Allison hastened to board, locating the second-class car without any trouble—she followed the bulk of the crowd, the unwashed, the weary, the bedraggled, the single-minded crowd. Standing helplessly in the aisle as this mass of humanity surged around her, Allison was eventually invited to join a young couple and their three children. Gerhardt and Sylvie Barchev had quickly dumped their belongings and plunked their children into a section designed to hold four people. But noting the number of passengers, some standing with little hope of finding space, they wisely gathered their gear together, put their children on their laps, and offered a seat to Allison. With gratitude she sank into it.

  Families of six to ten members were attempting to accommodate themselves in the small sections. Overhead was a tray-shaped affair used for baggage, closed up for the day. At night the baggage would be removed and stowed under the seats; the trays would be pulled down and became beds into which two adults or numerous children could climb; the seats below made two additional beds.

  The car was greatly overcrowded at first, although Allison was to discover it would become roomier the farther they went, as family after family disembarked, some at sidings where no station existed and no one awaited their arrival. They and their meager belongings were set out alongside the track and the train pulled away, leaving them alone with only stretching prairie as far as the eye could see. Others on the train, heading for the same fate, watched in silence.

  Before that, however, came the boarding, locating seats, getting seated, and the hubbub was great. While mothers attempted to settle their families and arrange their goods, children bounced up and down, screeching, crying for attention, eager to run the crowded aisles and finding it hard going because of the mass of bodies.

  “It was good of you to make room for me,” Allison said with appreciation once she was seated, with her portmanteau shoved precariously into place overhead. “I don’t know where I would have found a spot otherwise. I . . . I didn’t realize it would be quite like this.”

  Sylvie Barchev smiled wanly and admitted, in her broken English, “We would have had to make room for another adult, I’m sure, for we’ve come all the way from the east coast by train and have seen how people have to shove together. We found right away we were smart to make the selection ourselves rather than have someone force their presence on us.”

  Sylvie’s gaze swung to the next section where an elderly couple and their daughter had found part of their space taken over by a rough-appearing man, unkempt, whiskery, large. Poor man, his looks were against him. Actually, he settled himself with a sigh, closed his eyes, and caused no trouble aside from the fact that his feet were large and always in the way, and—obviously long without a bath—his odor permeated the space like heavy fog.

  It was only one smell among many; soon the foul air in the car was almost more than a person could bear—not only body odors but soiled babies, garlicky cooki
ng, and eventually the smell of sickness. But to open a window allowed for soot and smoke, with many complaints on that account.

  The daughter of the elderly couple was obviously ill. Seriously so. At first she leaned her head back, pale and perspiring. Soon her face became flushed, her eyes too bright, clearly feverish. The man in the corner of the seat, with no alternate seating available to him, did his best to keep out of the way, sleeping much of the time, looking on uneasily at other times. The old mother wrung her hands, helpless to do anything to help her daughter.

  It was then Allison noticed him for the first time—the man who was to make a difference in the entire atmosphere of the car, who was to spread cheer wherever he went. And he went everywhere. No baby too croupy but what he took it in his arms and walked the aisle, giving the distracted mother a chance to rest, to sleep. No child too wild but what he calmed it. Groups of restless children were enticed into quiet games. Cups of water were brought from the cistern to the aged and infirm, cups of tea were provided for those needing solace and comfort.

  In spite of herself Allison found her eyes following the tall young man with fascination. Who was he? Was he an employee of the railway? This she doubted—he certainly wasn’t the usual conductor. For one thing, his “uniform” was a dark suit, far from stylish, in fact rather shabby, as though having seen much use. For another, she had never seen a railway employee dry the tears of a youngster who was upset for some reason or other.

  The Barchev children, before the day settled into night, became restless, hungry, whining for something to eat. The prepared food from a basket had been doled out earlier in the day, and now Sylvie made the decision to use the stove at the end of the car to heat a meal of sorts. The crowd there had thinned a little; perhaps she could find a spot to set a pot into which she was emptying a can of beans. These, with some bread from her basket, would feed the family for the night.