Little Bird Lands

by Karen McCombie

“Of course!” she replies, as if my brother’s concern is a little ridiculous.

  I swear the doctor is becoming more stubbornly independent the bigger her belly gets. And I don’t just mean in her last-minute decision to head west to Minnesota with us instead of heading back east. I mean she has been especially driven to prove that a woman in her condition is as capable as the rest of us; as able to take a turn walking and not riding in the wagon, as able to squat down to wash clothes in a river or cook over an open fire.

  “Hold on, I feel stiff – I’m going to walk,” I call out so that Father doesn’t urge the horses on before I have a chance to grab the pup and clamber down on to the wild-grass verged trail that leads to the settlement ahead.

  Happy to be free, floppy-eared Patch lollops on, leading the way as the wagon rumbles forward. I lollop a little myself, trying to hide that I am limping. The miles and miles of walking have taken their toll on my twisted foot, but I suppose I am as stubborn as Dr Spicer and have admitted the fact to no one.

  Ignoring the jarring ache in my ankle, I take a quick look at the wooden buildings we approach: several houses and cabins at first, next a lumber yard, a blacksmith and then many stores that I cannot yet make out due to the crowds and the horses and carts that are halted in the street.

  The folk ahead are too caught up in whatever excites them to notice our arrival. Except for one tall woman, her black hair scraped into a neat, low bun at the nape of her neck, her skin dark against a striped, pale-blue dress and white apron. She holds a hand to her brow, staring our way.

  And what does she see? What must our little party look like? A great rollicking wagon like ours being driven by a heavily pregnant woman – it must be an unusual sight, I would think. And the fierce red hair of Father and Lachlan cannot easily be missed. With my own black hair long and loose as usual, perhaps from a distance I might look a little like an Anishinaabe girl and not the scrawny Scottish lass I am in truth. For I have glimpsed my reflection in mother’s old hand mirror in the wagon and watched as the skin of my cheeks and nose burnt first pink, then turned nut-brown, from the glare of the spring sunshine and my wilful lack of bonnet.

  Then there’s Easter waving a wary Miss Kitty to come on now, since there’s nothing to be feared of, and the two of them falling companionably together like sisters, though one is as dark-skinned as the other is milk pale. And all of us – no matter how we tried to keep ourselves clean as we travelled – are coated in a light layer of dust from the churning of the wagon wheels as we jiggled and journeyed our way here.

  “Mrs Campbell? MRS CAMPBELL!” Easter calls out suddenly.

  The watching woman stares harder, then puts a hand to her mouth in surprise as my friend begins to run towards her.

  “Easter? EASTER!” The lady gathers herself together enough to call back before turning to a heavyset man who stands laughing at the high jinks and tomfoolery going on in the street. “Solomon, look who has come to us!”

  I slow, smiling at the scene of reunion, while Father ties Sultan to a wooden rail next to a small but smart-looking, sided wagon with gilt letters upon it: “Jakob Wahle, Photographer”. The vehicle next to it is larger, with seats inside and a hand-painted sign that reads “Minnesota Stage Company”. We have been locked away in the snowy world of Hawk’s Point for so long – not to mention the endless trails here through woods and wild-flower prairies – that the busyness and noise of this place seems quite bedazzling.

  “Well, so let’s see if we can find out what’s afoot here!” says Father, carefully helping Dr Spicer down from the wagon.

  The tone of his voice is bright but I see he looks nervous. On the way west, Father had talked of what a fine thing it was that Mrs Clarice Campbell had written such a detailed letter to her young friend Easter, telling her how good the land around Hopetoun was and how many homesteads were still available to purchase. But I wonder if he worries that in the year since the letter was sent, many more people like us will have come and there may be no land left to claim?

  And at this moment, my own cheerfulness deserts me as I realise I very much need to answer a call of nature. Out in the wild it is so easy to discreetly hide behind a tree or dip into the waist-high prairie grasses. Oh, how I wish I hadn’t dropped off to sleep when I took a turn resting in the wagon! Where am I to go here in town when I know no one?

  Though I remind myself that Easter does. I must be brave and ask Mrs Campbell for assistance, I think.

  And so once Lachlan has tied up Pip and scooped up his little dog, he and I follow Father and Dr Spicer. Together we make our way towards the couple who seem so very delighted to set eyes upon the foundling they first came across at the pastor’s house and church in Chicago. As we reach them, Easter is just breaking away from a tight, tearful hug.

  “I would’ve written to you, Mrs Campbell, only we’ve been cut off all winter in Michigan,” she tells the older woman. “We just came out on the first ship of the spring and figured we might get here quicker than any letter!”

  Mr and Mrs Campbell, they “ahh!” and they “ohh!” as she speaks but look on curiously at her strange troupe of travelling companions. Becoming suddenly aware of the need for introductions, Easter turns first to the young lady who stands next to her.

  “This is Miss Kitty,” says Easter. “She was my mistress in the mining town but not any more.”

  On the day of departure from Hawk’s Point, I think we all knew that the clearly terrified Miss Kitty would never manage a minute alone in Chicago. She was pathetically grateful when Father and Dr Spicer suggested she join us on our adventuring.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Miss Kitty trills in her best cut-glass English voice, oh-so-delicately holding out her hand to shake Mr and Mrs Campbell’s. She does try very hard to hold on to her niceties and manners, even when she is as filthy and as much in need of a bath as any of us after our long journey.

  “And this is Dr Spicer,” Easter continues.

  Mr Campbell reaches a hand out to Father, who quickly corrects the mistake by turning to the real doctor.

  “Dr Stephanie Spicer, pleased to meet you,” says our friend, stepping forward to shake Mr Campbell’s offered hand.

  “And these folks are from Scotland,” Easter adds, turning to us with a wide smile. “This is Mr Robert MacKerrie, Lachlan and Bridie…”

  Mr and Mrs Campbell look what you might call bamboozled. I dare say they are confused as to who is kin to who and what relationship we might be to one another. Together we must appear like the mismatched creatures of the “Happy Family” exhibit back at Barnum’s American Museum in New York City!

  But the Campbells are not the only ones to be bamboozled. For we have yet to find out the cause of the revelry going on about the town. I suspect Father is about to ask when I realise I can wait patiently and politely not a moment longer, and step myself closer to Mrs Campbell’s side.

  “Excuse me, might you know of a privy I could use?” I ask in a low voice.

  “Uh, yes, of course,” Mrs Campbell replies. “This is our store here – you’ll find the privy out back.”

  As I turn, I take a fleeting look at the wooden storefront, and through the open door I see long thick bolts of patterned cloth stacked one on top of another, as well as men’s suits hanging up and dressmaking paraphernalia piled on a counter.

  “I’ll come with you!” Easter calls out, quickly catching me up as I head down the scruffy, weed-strewn alley between the Campbell’s building and the one next to it.

  The door to the privy is a little open and I am quickly inside, much to my relief.

  “Did you see all the things in the store?” I hear Easter say as she waits her turn on the other side of the rough-planked door. “It looks like such a grand sort of place, doesn’t it? I remember Mrs Campbell saying she was a seamstress back east. She and Mr Campbell must have decided to continue in that trade.”

  “But why would they do that?” I ask as I fix myself up and step out of the privy. “I thought
they’d come out here to homestead.”

  “Maybe they realised they were better shopkeepers than farmers,” I hear Easter reply as we swap places and she disappears inside.

  Now that I am able to relax, I find myself staring out at the countryside that lies beyond the town. I step across the scrubby back lot to take a better look at the soft green-and-gold prairie dotted with the gentle rise of a tree-covered hill here and there. Marvelling at the cloudless blue sky that seems more enormous than is possible, I take a few steps further and see a cheerful tumble of yellow-headed flowers at my feet. I pick a small bunch and smell their light scent of newly woken spring.

  “What a long way we have come, eh, Mother?” I mutter softly, thinking of the wildflowers I’d sometimes pick and place on her grave.

  A sharp cough suddenly sends me spinning around to see a gentleman standing at the back of the neighbouring building, his hands placed on a great, wooden camera fixed to three wooden legs.

  “My apologies, I did not want to startle you,” he says, touching his hand to the brim of his neat felt hat. “But I felt I should let you know I was here.”

  “Oh, I … no, I mean yes, thank you,” I answer flustered, wondering what he must have made of me chattering to no one of this world. “Is that your wagon out front? You take tintype photographs?”

  Jakob something, the sign on the side had proclaimed. His voice has a clipped sound to it, akin to the voices of Henni and Matilde I think. So he might be German perhaps, or Bohemian, or Austrian?

  “Yes, I do travel the country taking tintypes,” he says. “But this … this is my new camera, which takes very special photographs. And what a perfect day to use it!”

  “What kind of photographs does it take?” I ask.

  The young man’s face lights up. “Well, you see, I take several pictures of the same scene, focussing a little differently each time. And then I will develop the negatives and do what is called a ‘combination print’. The finished image is very different from a tintype; it is as if it has the qualities of a painting.”

  I smile, understanding nothing of what he says. But I like the brightness in his eyes as he speaks.

  “May I take your image? Miss…”

  Just call me Bridie, I’m about to say – when something stirs in me and a different name altogether comes to my lips.

  “I am called Little Bird,” I tell him, pushing the hair back from my face, defying him to ask for a more usual, expected name.

  “Well, Miss … Little Bird,” he says with a lift of his eyebrows, “the light of the landscape behind you and the darkness of your hair, it would make a pleasing composition I think.”

  I nod yes – I can see no reason why not. And perhaps I am vain enough to be pleased to be chosen to pose for him.

  “Stay as you are!” he tells me, picking up his camera and its stand and bringing them closer to me. “But look off to the side, please. And keep very still for the exposure, and so I can change plates…”

  I lift my weaker hand to my chest, clutching my posy, almost daring the photographer to comment on it or ask me to change hands, but he says nothing. So I begin to relax and turn my head as he has asked, wondering if the vista I look at is facing west. The wind whips up a little, lifting my hair with it, and I remember that chilly day on the top of the Glas Crags when I stared off in the direction of America, thinking I would never in all my life travel there. Ha!

  “Finished! Thank you,” says the photographer after no time at all.

  As I ease my pose, I see that my friend is standing with her hands on her hips, smiling at me.

  “I heard you say that it was a ‘perfect’ day to use your new camera,” Easter says to the young man. “What is the celebration about on the street?”

  The photographer looks from Easter to me and back again, seeming almost shocked.

  “You do not know?” he asks.

  “We’ve been travelling and are newly arrived,” I tell him.

  The photographer’s face breaks into a smile as he announces, “The war is over! The news just came to town this morning!”

  “The North won?” I check, though how can it be otherwise with the jubilation we witnessed on the street?

  “Yes, the North – the Union Army – won,” he assures us with a very certain nod as he folds up the legs of his camera stand and lifts the whole contraption to his shoulder.

  Oh, my … what a thing, what a thing! Soldiers – like Marthy-Jane’s dear papa – can lay down their arms and make their way back home after four long, hard years of fighting. And for the slaves of the south, in their prison of tobacco and cotton plantations, this day is beyond imagining. Their lives and their children’s lives will be forever changed!

  “Bridie! Easter! Come quick!” I hear Miss Kitty call out sharply down the side of the building.

  Together we two girls hoick up our skirts and run back toward the main street.

  “You’ll never guess the news!” Miss Kitty says excitedly, with a smile as bright as noon-day sunshine.

  “The war is done with – we’ve just been told!” I reply, indicating towards the photographer who has followed us down the alley and begun to set up his camera again. “But what is happening here?”

  The crowd have gathered around something or someone. As they begin to hush, I hear the clear notes ring out from Father’s tin whistle and Lachlan begin to sing a Gaelic air in his sweet, high voice. Quickly I hurry around the blurred edge of the townspeople the better to see my father and brother.

  “Is this your Scots language?” asks Easter, following close at my heels. “What do they sing of?”

  My mind is a jumble and muddle of joy at what we have so recently heard, but translating from Gaelic to English is as simple as breathing.

  “It is a Scottish poem, turned to music. In Gaelic it’s called ‘Is Braithrean Sinn Uile’ – ‘We Are Brethren All’,” I tell her as the audience of men, women and children around me listen so keenly to the lilting tune. “Father says it’s about folk all being the same and how better the world should be if we considered ourselves family to one another.”

  And then I see Father look at Lachlan and nod over at me, and – in that strange and wonderful moment – I know what he wishes me to do.

  Before I allow myself to feel nervous, I step forward to join my father and brother. Reaching a pause in the song, Lachlan turns to me and I begin translating the first verse into English as best I can.

  “A happy home,

  This old world would be,

  If men while they’re here,

  Would try to agree.

  And one could say to his neighbour

  In cottage or hall,

  ‘Come give me your hand,

  We are family all…’”

  I stop at that for I have not much of a voice. But even if I cannot sing sweet as a songbird, it does not much matter to the folk listening in the crowd, who seem to like the words very well and applaud for me, some of them brushing a tear away at the sentiment.

  But I myself am so very far from tears. A hopeful smile slowly spreads across my sunburnt face as my gaze settles again on the rippling prairie, visible in the gaps between wooden buildings. For the farm we will settle on, it is somewhere out there, waiting for us, is it not?

  A war ended, a blue sky, a fine family of sorts and normal life.

  Dare I think I might have found myself nearly home at last?

  Perhaps I am a strange creature, but though my twisted foot now aches so very badly, I am determined to walk this last stretch to our new home.

  “Are you all right, Bridie?” asks Dr Spicer from the sitting board of the wagon, reins in hand. “Do you want to ride up here with me and Miss Kitty?”

  “No, I’m fine,” I lie as the fence comes into view, the fence Mr Campbell told us of in his directions to his homestead. Our soon-to-be homestead, which Father purchased from the Campbells since – as Easter guessed – the small-town life and their busy draper’s store suits Mr an
d Mrs Campbell better than farming.

  So what are the sights we have seen since we left Hopetoun, full as it was today with high hopes and high jinks?

  A gushing, tripping river to the left of the rough track we travel along, with clusters of swaying bulrushes bristling at its edges.

  To the other side of us, meadows that stretch on and on, filled with flowers I do not yet know the names of, and no doubt some creatures I might be wary of getting acquainted with. (Sultan near enough reared backwards into the wagon when a snake slithered across our path not long ago.)

  We watched as a pair of curious birds of prey spiralled above us, keeping their beady eyes on us – or more likely on the lookout for their dinner in the long grasses.

  We came across a fierce, little white-faced possum that Patch took to chasing, till it chased her right back.

  Then there was the farm we passed by, a hunched older man so lost in the business of his ploughing he did not hear Father helloing.

  And now we are at a split in the track we have been travelling on – the left path leading towards the steep-sided riverbank, the right to the meadows and a not-too-distant low hill.

  “We can’t be far now,” Father announces. “About half a mile more I think, perhaps a little less.”

  “Look! Mr Campbell told us to aim for that!” Lachlan says excitedly, pointing off towards the hillock I have already noticed.

  “Clarice’s Hill,” Easter murmurs. She can’t get over the romance of Mr Campbell naming it for his wife. Though I’m sure it had a name long before the couple bought the nearby homestead last year. The Ojibwe tribes of Minnesota – close relations of the Chippewas of Michigan – no doubt have a fine enough name for it that we might never know of.

  But my thoughts suddenly drift as much as the lazy, hazy trail I now see. Puffs of smoke come directly from a tin chimney, a chimney that pokes straight out of the grass of the riverbank!

  “Hey, that must be the dugout Mrs Campbell told us to look out for,” I say, alerting everyone to the peculiar sight – a clue that directly below, unseen from the track, lies an earthen cave carved from the riverbank itself. It’s currently home to some Irish family who are resting there before heading further west, Mrs Campbell said. Many riverside homesteaders have made shelters like this, Father has heard, as temporary living quarters till they build themselves proper wooden houses.