Back Roads to Bliss

by Ruth Glover

  With some dismay Allison pinched and pulled, stretched and smoothed, and still it bunched in strange places, bagged in others. If she hadn’t lost weight throughout the days and weeks of her unconventional travels, it would never have fit at all.

  Ella fussed around the young woman, with a yank here, a pat there, to say finally, with a sigh, “We did the best we could—”

  “I know,” Allison said quickly. “And I’m so grateful. I’ll make out just fine. The West is not devoted to furbelows and finery, I’ve discovered that.”

  “We dress for utility, I suppose,” Ella said, having worn nothing but cotton housedresses for weeks. A change to gingham or percale was the best she could hope for.

  Allison turned from the mirror, satisfied that the bruising on her forehead had faded; the swelling was gone, and she had been able to pull her hair satisfactorily over the injury now well healed and of little or no concern.

  She had tried to express her thanks to the Dabneys and Goffs, to Ella—a mother figure such as Allison had never known—in particular. She had tried to press payment upon them, half ashamed to do so, more ashamed not to. Perhaps suspecting her limited means, they had refused.

  “We don’t need money,” Ella had insisted and added with a wry smile, “but if you have any marmalade in your trunk . . .”

  Ella had a hankering for marmalade; sometimes, she admitted, it haunted her dreams. To savor once again a genuine English muffin liberally spread with marmalade—heavenly!

  Of course there were no oranges, little sugar. “We think we’ll find wild plums in the coulee,” she said. “Plum jam will have to do, I guess. That is, if the sugar holds out.”

  Allison determined then and there to send a jar or two of marmalade to her hosts just as soon as she could. She had been impacted deeply by the sacrifices these folks were making to see their dream fulfilled. Life had held no such challenges for her.

  To lose oneself in something meaningful, to see results, good ones, fulfilling ones. To rest at the end of the day with a sense of satisfaction in a task well done. To dream, and to work for the fruition of that dream. To serve . . .

  Ebenezer . . .

  Again the name—ephemeral, shadowy, fleeting—nudged her mind only to escape again.

  Ebenezer. That it had something to do with someone on the train, someone who had unconsciously made a difference in the direction of her life, Allison now knew, but in a foggy way. Always the full memory of the man escaped her.

  But now, constantly tugging at her mind, was the growing realization that life, after all, was not the proverbial bowl of cherries, that self was not the most important person in the world, that true satisfaction might be found in “doing unto others.”

  The influence of that sketchily remembered meeting on the train lingered on; those conversations, along with the kind ministry of Ella and her family, changed Allison forever.

  Another thing—the teamwork of husband and wife here on the prairie homestead surprised and amazed her. Joe and Ella, Jerry and Dora—each couple was a unit. Neither could accomplish the task of wrenching a home out of the wilderness without the other. They were united in spirit, in purpose, in effort. Each had his or her own task to do and never counted it the less important contribution.

  Allison recalled the pointless existence of the women of her mother’s circle: A housekeeper ran the household, the husband ran the business, while the wife, a social butterfly, fluttered from one engagement to another, concerned more with the costume of the day than with the state of the empire or her next-door neighbor.

  Surely there was more.

  With her own future dim but promising, Allison’s immediate goal was to meet up with Georgina and her husband, trusting it was the door to whatever else the Lord had in store for her. Surely it would not be to continue the meaningless existence she had known; surely a purposeful future awaited. It had become her hope and her prayer.

  Whatever it was, it would not be defined by a perfect wardrobe! Knowing that the train, if on time, was due shortly, Allison tugged and straightened the shrunken clothes with a will and assured Ella and Dora they had done a good job on her behalf. More she found hard to say; words escaped her as she recognized the sacrifice these people had made for her, turning aside from the mountain of work that awaited them before winter set in on the prairie, sharing what they had with her, and doing it good-naturedly and generously.

  Her appreciation was expressed in tearful embraces as the train appeared on the distant horizon and bore down on them. Jerry had taken a stance a few hundred yards up the track to signal that a stop was necessary.

  With the iron monster vibrating, spewing steam, impatient to be on its way, and with their ears filled with noise, the time for words was past. Kisses and hugs were hastily given, hastily received, and Allison was assisted up the high steps into the car, hastening to a window where even now Dabney’s Place was sliding past, a place poor in this world’s goods but rich in all things that counted. And now, rich in memories.

  Wee-sack-ka-chack—says the Cree version of Saskatchewan’s history—built a raft and saved all the animals and birds from a great flood. He sent out a muskrat that returned with a fragment of dirt in its paw, and from it the land of today was created.

  Ages and epochs passed, and settlers called the northern half the Canadian Shield, and the area to the south they called the Great Plains. Most of the Shield region was covered in boreal forest, the Plains in grass.

  Where the Shield met the Plains there was a richly treed strip known as the park belt. Through it ran the Saskatchewan River, rising in the Columbia ice field, splitting into the North and South branches, flowing across the southern half, emptying eventually into Hudson Bay.

  Homesteaders called it the bush. Although the frost-free season was, at best, one hundred days or so, the long summer days allowed for maximum hours of sunshine, and barring early frosts, grasshoppers, fire, and other deterrents, fine crops were possible.

  The lure of this agricultural land as it became free for a ten-dollar filing fee was to draw hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the Northwest, eager to begin new lives, eventually to build a new society.

  The trickle, soon to turn to a torrent, had just begun; Allison’s train, snaking its lonely way across the plains to the bush, was filled with one wave of eager land-seekers.

  Knowing nothing of the forces of nature—the pressure, heat, water, wind, and volcanic action that had shaped and formed the land over seemingly endless ages—Allison saw it as empty and echoing, and felt for the first time its pull, its attraction, its siren song.

  But the song and the appeal arose in her heart only as the barren lands were left behind and the first scattering of bush appeared, enchanting her as it surrounded her and reached out to embrace her. The stretching prairie, in that moment, was forgotten.

  It wasn’t long until they pulled into Prince Albert, the end of the line. Named for Queen Victoria’s beloved consort and founded by a Presbyterian minister in 1866, it was a vital community for homesteaders and settlers from the beginning. Now, just before the turn of the century, with the Lands Office established and doing a thriving business, it had become an important center for supplies and a jumping-off place for immigrants seeking a homestead.

  With her baggage unloaded at her feet on the platform of the raw station, Allison’s gaze took in the bustling town, and she felt the thrill of the pioneer.

  Others, equally rapt and strongly focused, went their way with no thought, no glance, for the lone young woman.

  Locating a hotel and obtaining a room was no problem; Allison was becoming an old hand at traveling. More tired than she knew, she collapsed on the bed, feeling a sense of arrival, of having completed her journey. Could such a thing be? Or was it possible there was farther to go—Kootenay and the remittance men’s colony, for instance. She hoped not; passionately she hoped not.

  A short rest, a scanty wash, a refreshing cup of tea, and Allison was ready, eager, to press
on—to Bliss.

  “Is there,” she asked the waitress in the hotel’s dining area, “a place by the name of Bliss around here somewhere?”

  “Yes, indeed,” the young woman replied. “It’s about a dozen miles that way—” and her finger pointed in the general direction of east. “Fairway, Deer Hill, Regency—they’re all out that way. Families with children move into an area, and a school comes into being. The community takes the name of the school, or vice versa. You got someone out that way?”

  “I don’t know; I hope so. Abraham is the name. Do you know anyone by that name? Georgina and David Abraham?”

  “Sorry,” the girl said regretfully.

  “Well,” Allison said, “I didn’t expect to be that fortunate—to locate them that easily. They’ve just been here a short time, a few weeks, really.”

  “So what will you do about it?” the waitress said, beginning to gather up the dishes.

  “Ask around, find a way to go out there, I suppose. Say, tell me—do they need any help here?” Allison was more than a little anxious now about the entire escapade (which made the elopement with Stephen Lusk seem like a romp), worried about her money running out, feeling very alone, very vulnerable, most unsure.

  “Perhaps. You can always ask.” The departing girl cast a skeptical look at Allison’s clothes, fresh from the trunk and wrinkled but obviously well made, of excellent material, and stylish, insofar as she knew.

  Allison took the remainder of the day to walk around, acquainting herself with the town, finding the energy exhilarating, captivated by the lack of fripperies and foofaraw, recognizing signs of certain small luxuries, catching a glimpse of the seriousness, and the excitement, of the homesteading of the West.

  “You might inquire at the Creamery,” the desk clerk at the hotel offered in response to her inquiry regarding Bliss. “No doubt someone has to bring the cream from Bliss farms to town regularly, perhaps daily, now that it’s getting warm.”

  It was a good suggestion, and Allison, early the following day, did just that, making her way to the Creamery and asking if a delivery was due from Bliss.

  “Yes, ma’am,” a tall, rawboned man nodded. “Probably before noon.”

  “May I wait?” Allison asked, and who could refuse the big-eyed, anxious-browed young woman anything?

  “Of course. And you may sit in the office, if you wish,” the man offered. “In fact, I’ll tell you when the wagon from Bliss arrives.”

  The man was as good as his word. Amid the clashing of unloading full cans and the loading of empties, he gave a jerk of the head and pointed with his nose toward a particular wagon being drawn up to the loading ramp.

  Having waited three hours, Allison had lost all sense of propriety. Approaching the middle-aged man, she blurted, “Sir—I understand you are from Bliss, and I wonder if you can help me.”

  Angus Morrison—for it was he—turned his rugged, worn but still handsome face toward Allison and saw, with a father’s eye, the taut grip of the hands as they clasped each other, the tense lines of the young, pretty face, and said gently, “Aye, lass. Tell me how I can help.”

  “I need,” Allison said, ready to break down and weep now that the crucial moment had come, “I need to locate some . . . some friends of mine.”

  “An’ are they livin’ in Bliss?” Angus asked.

  “I think so,” the girl answered him.

  “And what’s the name?”

  “Abraham. David and Georgina Abraham.”

  The Scotsman shook his head slowly, and Allison’s heart plummeted. To have come so far . . . to have felt so led.

  “Wait a minute; I’m remembering—”

  “Oh, please—”

  “Would they be churchgoers, d’ye think?”

  Allison, actually knowing David not at all and Georgina just a little, nodded without a moment’s hesitation. If there was one thing she was certain of from her short acquaintance with Georgie, it was that she was a church attender. If at all possible, Georgie would be in church. And she would have married a man of the same persuasion.

  “I’m sure of it!” she said a trifle breathlessly.

  “Well, then,” the man said, “I think you may be in luck. There was a new young couple in church last Sunday. Seems as if I heard someone call him David. I was watching out for our pastor—he’s still getting acquainted, learning names, and a’ that. This other lad, the one I haven’t met yet, is young, tall, big—”

  “Oh, I’m sure it must be David! Well, you see, sir, I need transportation out there; I have a standing invitation to join them, and I need . . . I need—”

  No further explanation was necessary. Angus Morrison introduced himself, learned the young woman’s name, disposed of his load of cream, and drove her to the hotel to pick up her baggage.

  Sitting on the high wagon seat, a heady experience for the gently bred English girl who was more acquainted with surreys and carriages, phaetons and hansoms, landaus and barouches, Allison was giddy with more than the elevation.

  “Can it be,” she asked tremulously, “that I’m really on my way to . . . Bliss?”

  Angus, who himself had experienced the feeling—a mix of anticipation, unbelief, and satisfaction—said, “I found it so, m’self.”

  Having settled very nicely into the new parsonage and finding it comfortable and even attractive—picturesque to his eastern eyes, huddling as it did, low, whitewashed, a small gem in a green setting—the newly arrived pastor felt he was favored of God. He had been prepared to sacrifice, to suffer, to die if need be, for the sake of the “work.” This piece of the wilderness wasn’t as “wild” as his imagination had supposed. And its people were not the world’s offscourings but men and women of spirit, determination, purpose. Having dared all, they were committed to making a go of it, however rugged that might be.

  Ben Brown was immersed in study at the parsonage’s round oak table, his books spread out before him, his hair in disarray from running his hands through it from time to time, when the first visitor of the day arrived. Rather reluctantly leaving his studies and the train of thought for next week’s sermon, he went to the door.

  “Good morning, Brother Brown.”

  It was . . . who is it? Still new to the district and the church and determined to be a good pastor, perhaps a superior one, Ben Brown realized he’d have to do better in regard to remembering his congregation. His classes had emphasized the importance of knowing every member personally in order to be a true shepherd of the flock. The face of the woman peering up at him seemed familiar, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember the name.

  Struggling with his memory and sweating a little because of it, with the seconds ticking away while she waited, expectant, for his greeting, he did the best he could. “Good morning!” he responded in a too-hearty tone.

  She was onto him; he could tell that. Her features took on a pinched, scornful look. This was not going well!

  His options flickered through his mind: Make a guess? Ask her name? Apologize?

  “Well,” she said in a flat tone, obviously disappointed in him, recognizing and pointing out, without spoken words, his dereliction of duty, “I’ve brought you something from the garden—cucumbers, tomatoes, squash.”

  Ben Brown silenced a groan. Where, oh where, would he put the stuff? Never fond of squash, this green variety seemed rampant in Bliss gardens, and heaps and piles of it were arriving daily. He didn’t know how to prepare it, and moreover, he did very little cooking, as hot as it was these summer days and receiving as many supper invitations as he did. The district, enthralled with the new pastor, had opened their hearts and tables . . . and gardens . . . to him without stint. And while he appreciated and responded to the love and the tables, he was having difficulty with the gardens.

  “That’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” he said now, as enthusiastically as he could, adding lamely, as she seemed to wait and the silence lengthened, “Will you come in—”

  The face was not only cr
itical now but frosty. “Come in? That would be a most improper thing to do! Never let it be said that Thelma Bell didn’t know her place!”

  “I’m sorry,” the harried pastor said, relieved to know her name now but wondering what was so improper about it and supposing young men shouldn’t extend hospitality to middle-aged women. Why hadn’t the class on ministerial protocol covered situations such as this! Better still, why didn’t he have a wife to be the “helpmeet” a pastor obviously needed! Ben Brown, to date a contented bachelor, was finding his single blessedness far from being a blessing.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated before the disapproval on her prim face. “I certainly didn’t mean any insult. I wasn’t suggesting anything, er, unacceptable.”

  Perhaps she believed him; perhaps she decided to put him out of his misery. Most likely she had accomplished what she had in mind: establishing her pure motives, lest it seem odd that she should show up on the pastor’s doorstep with an excuse as flimsy as vegetables. Thelma Bell was a virtuous woman! And definitely not searching for a husband! Not by any means; let no one think it!

  Whatever the reason, it seemed Thelma’s heart softened toward him, and in spite of her age and recent widowhood, or perhaps because of it, she did an about-face. It was fine to be straightlaced, but it should only be carried so far.

  “I can see you meant no harm,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “So . . .”

  With horror Ben Brown realized she was, indeed, going to come inside. What could he do but step back and allow her to precede him into the parsonage?