Читать книгу Susannah of the Yukon - Muriel Denison - Страница 5

Table of Contents

“My goodness,” said Sue to Hawkins the next morning, “but we did have a stormy night.”

“What happened?” asked Hawkins, as he brought Sue her porridge. It was very pleasant to be having breakfast once more in Bachelors’ Hall, with Uncle Dennis’s orderly to look after her.

“The whole fuss was about me,” said Sue. “Hawkins, do you think I’m too little to go to the Yukon?”

Hawkins blinked with surprise. “You go to the Yukon, Miss Sue?” he exclaimed. “You! Oh, no, Miss Sue, that would never do.”

Sue nodded. “That’s what they all say. But, Hawkins, there’s one person that believes I can really go and that’s Michael.”

“Then what’s all the fuss about?” smiled Hawkins, for he knew that when Mr. O’Dare approved of Sue’s actions, she generally got her way.

“It’s partly me and it’s partly Matilda.” Hawkins shuddered at the mention of Matilda’s name. “You don’t like Matilda, do you, Hawkins?” asked Sue.

“I do not,” replied Hawkins, stoutly. “I like women that can stand on their own feet, not the kind that are always feeling faint or asking you to give them a hand with work that is strictly theirs.” Hawkins twirled his mustaches and looked very indignant.

“I know,” said Sue, “and that is part of the trouble. Uncle Dennis says I must have a nurse so that Mummy won’t have too much to do for me. Daddy says the sooner I learn to look after myself the better. Major Bell says I can go, but not Matilda, that if I can’t look after myself, the Yukon is no place for me.”

“The Major is always right,” agreed Hawkins, pompously.

“Yes,” Sue chuckled, “and it pleases me, for if there is anything I hate most in the world it’s having my hair brushed. Hawkins, do you know that I have to have it brushed one hundred strokes every morning and one hundred every night?”

“Whose orders?” asked Hawkins, briskly.

“Matilda’s,” said Sue. “If I go to the Yukon, there won’t be time for Mummy to brush her own hair and mine, too,” she added.

“That’s an idea,” said Hawkins, filling her glass with milk. “I think you could make it, Miss Sue. I’m going with this detachment and I’d give you a hand anytime you needed it. But tell me, what do you want to go up there for? It’s very cold and rough.”

“I want to find a gold mine,” said Sue. “Everyone says gold lies around in heaps and I like gold. Mummy and Miss Vicky have gold in their hair and gold rings and necklaces, and all the men at the Jubilee had gold on their uniforms.”

“You have to work hard to get it out of the ground,” said Hawkins.

“I wouldn’t care,” said Sue, piling marmalade on her toast and hoping no one would come down to breakfast before she had finished what was left in the dish.

Mrs. Schofield, the housekeeper, put her head in the door. “Mr. O’Dare is coming down,” she said. Hawkins drew out a chair.

Michael came in busily, kissed the top of Sue’s head, twirled the empty marmalade dish around and said, “Hawkins, where is the marmalade?”

“In me,” said Sue, before Hawkins could answer, and they all laughed together.

“Michael,” said Sue, leaning her elbows on the table in the way she had been taught was very bad manners indeed, “am I going to the Yukon or am I not?”

“If your father has anything to say about it, I think you’re going,” answered Michael, “but you mustn’t say I told you.”

“Well, what’s all the fuss about?” asked Sue. “I’m strong enough and I’m obedient, at least I am most of the time. I can ride and Mummy is good at all of these things.”

“Yes,” said Michael, “but it’s a long trip in, Sue, and over a big mountain and there’s a terrible climb over a place called Chilkoot Pass. You’d have to walk quite a bit of the way, and if you couldn’t keep up with the others, you would hold a whole party back. That’s another thing that’s worrying Major Bell.”

“If I couldn’t walk, I could run,” Sue protested.

“Yes,” said Michael, “but you couldn’t run all day. Still, I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you, Sue, for I wouldn’t be surprised if you got your way.”

Sue wasn’t so sure, as she sat before the mirror having her hair brushed. Her father and mother were discussing what everyone called “the dangers of the trip.” One moment there seemed to be no dangers at all, and the next moment there seemed to be nothing but danger. She couldn’t make it out at all. She only knew that they would have to decide very soon, for in thirteen days they would have to leave Regina for Vancouver. At Vancouver they would take a steamer to some other place, somewhere they would use sleds and toboggans and other places they would ride, and altogether it sounded like a great adventure.

But Beppo was at the door, a meadow lark was singing outside her window, and Sue set off across the prairies, full of an adventure of her own. Somewhere, just beyond Pile o’ Bones Creek, she had thrown away her little bag of pemmican. She hadn’t liked the smell, but if she was going to the Yukon, she might need her pemmican and, anyway, it would show Michael and the Major that she was ready to leave at once.

A few spikes of goldenrod were showing, gophers whisked gaily into their holes as she passed, and the blue sky dipped down to the edge of the world. Beppo’s canter dropped to a walk as they crossed the little creek, and then the search began. The leather of the bag was brownish gray, just the color of the prairie grass, Sue knew, and would be hard to find. Getting off Beppo, she hobbled him lightly and then started on her hunt.

She brushed the long grasses down, turned aside the spikes of late tiger lilies, and retraced her steps over and over again. The sun beat down upon her head and Sue loosened her jacket at the throat, but she persisted, and, close to the trail that led toward the line of tepees, she found the little bag. It was cool, lying against the dark moist earth, and Sue held it gingerly to her nose.

“It doesn’t smell,” she said. “Michael was right. It was the camp that smelled like a skunk. Perhaps it won’t be too bad to eat.”

Scrambling up on Beppo’s back and tying the bag of pemmican to her saddle, Sue trotted home, full of dreams of how she would climb snow mountains, ride toboggans, and snowshoe through a world that led to a gold mine, so full of gold that she not only filled her pockets but those of all around her.

Luncheon was a very grim meal, Sue decided. Her father and mother had little lists beside them and were jotting things down in a businesslike way; Uncle Dennis was very cold and distant; Michael put his head in the door, winked at Sue, and left.

When Sue began to tell them about the bag of pemmican, Hawkins made a warning face at her from the sideboard. Sue sighed. It was pleasanter out in the sunshine. She asked to be excused, and, as no one answered her, slipped away quite unnoticed. That in itself, she felt, showed that things were very grim.

Matilda was in what she called a “wax.” She had heard rumors that the family were going to the Yukon. “Well, you can go without me, Miss Sue,” she said crossly. “I wouldn’t go into those wild parts for anything in the world.”

Sue chuckled as Matilda pulled her white dress over her head and tied her sash. At last she would be free of hairbrushing.

“There you are,” said Matilda, with a sniff, “but you’d better go straight to the Commissioner now, for it won’t be long before you’re mussed and untidy.”

Sue felt very happy as she went over to the Commissioner’s office. He was an old friend and she wanted to talk to him about the Yukon and gold mines, but he only smiled and shook his head.

“I know nothing about gold mines, Sue,” he said, “only how to protect the miners, and that’s why this party is going out to give further assistance to Superintendent Consell.”

“Well, who should I talk to?” asked Sue. “Uncle Dennis is so cranky about it all that I’ll need help.”

“What about your father and mother?” asked the Commissioner.

“Oh, Commissioner,” said Sue, in a shocked voice, “they know nothing at all about life on the prairies and what the Mounties have to do.”

“What do you know about the Yukon?” persisted the Commissioner.

“Not much,” said Sue, “but more than they do. Why, I’ll have to help them.”

The Commissioner laughed. “Come along over and let us talk to Mrs. Walsh,” he said. “She may be able to help us.”

Mrs. Walsh was just coming down the stairs. “Let’s go into the dining room, Sue,” she said, “and help Dawson put the salted almonds and bonbons in dishes for the party.” Mrs. Walsh was giving an afternoon tea in honor of Sue’s mother that day.

While they arranged little cakes and sweetmeats in small silver filigree baskets, Sue told Mrs. Walsh all about her hopes of going to the Yukon. Mrs. Walsh shook her head.

“You’re far too young, Sue,” she said, “and your mother is too tiny and delicate to take such a long trip.”

Sue sighed. She was tired of hearing that her mother was delicate and fragile. “You talk like Uncle Dennis,” she exclaimed. “Why, last night I heard Daddy tell Uncle Dennis that Mummy was as tough as a nut, that she could ride a camel on the desert and an elephant in India, so why couldn’t she ride a burro in the Yukon? What’s a burro, Mrs. Walsh?”

“A small donkey,” answered Mrs. Walsh, “and that is what you are, too, Sue. Stop talking now and carry these little dishes into the drawing room.”

Sue didn’t mind being called a donkey a bit, for it sounded as if there might be donkeys to ride in the Yukon. She wondered if you rode a donkey in the same way you rode a pony and decided she must speak to Sergeant Major Whiteside about it, when the party began.

It was lovely meeting all her old friends again. The Bishop was there and the Lieutenant Governor and everyone told her how “exquisite” her mother was, and they all hoped she would grow up to be like her.

“‘Exquisite’ is a hard word,” thought Sue. “I like ‘salubrious’ and ‘dashing’ better.” These were new words Sue had learned coming back on the boat from the Jubilee and Sue loved words that sounded important. “Exquisite,” she said softly to herself. “It sounds soft and pretty. But I like ‘gold’ better and ‘Yukon’ and ‘Mounties.’”

Dawson handed her another little dish of cakes. “There are more guests in the hall, Miss Sue,” he said. “Will you take these out to them?”

But after a while everyone left but Major Bell, Uncle Dennis, and Sue’s father and mother. They all made pretty speeches to the Commissioner and Mrs. Walsh, about how delightful the party had been and how much they had all enjoyed it. Mrs. Walsh put an arm around Sue. “We are going to miss her,” she said, smiling at Uncle Dennis. “I must say ten is very young to be going to the Yukon.”

“My goodness,” murmured Sue, “they are at it again.”

And they were. Uncle Dennis said they shouldn’t and couldn’t go; Daddy said Uncle Dennis was ridiculous; the Commissioner laughed; Major Bell said they could go “under certain conditions”; Mrs. Walsh said they would all be miserable at the thought of Sue and her “exquisite” mother going out to that rough country.

Everyone sat down again. Finally Major Bell said, “Well, as you’ve so set your heart on the trip, I’ll admit it could be done, but you’ve only twelve days left to get your equipment and it can’t be managed in that time.”

Everyone looked relieved but Sue’s father, and he just laughed. “I can get equipment in three days,” he said. “The Hudson’s Bay Company catalogue arrived this morning.”

“Now see here, Jimmy,” began Uncle Dennis, sharply, but Mrs. Walsh broke in, “How I wish we could have an outside opinion on this Yukon trip, someone who has not been mixed up with all this argument and could judge the whole matter calmly and coolly. If only Lady Charlotte were here.”

“Let’s cable her,” suggested Uncle Dennis, and they wrote the cable then and there.

LADY CHARLOTTE DAWKINS

GLENTOCH CASTLE

RAVENSWOOD

SCOTLAND

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION AS TO ADVISABILITY OF SUE AND HER MOTHER ACCOMPANYING JIMMY WINSTON TO THE YUKON FOR A YEAR

DENNIS LYONS

“How soon can we get an answer?” asked Sue, as she skipped along beside her father on the way home.

“In twenty-four hours,” he answered. “And during that time, Sue, it might be best for all of us if we didn’t talk about the Yukon or gold at all.”

But Sue couldn’t resist telling Minnie-Pooh-Pooh about it, when she undressed the little Indian doll and put her to bed. “If I go to the Yukon, you go, Minnie-Pooh-Pooh, and if I find a gold mine I’ll get you a gold necklace and bracelet,” Sue told her as she tucked in the blankets.

A few minutes later Matilda tucked Sue herself into bed, and she fell asleep wondering if the next day would ever come and if the gold in the mines glittered like her golden crest at the foot of her bed.

But they didn’t have to wait twenty-four hours. It was only sixteen hours, in fact just after luncheon the next day, when the answer came.

CAPTAIN DENNIS LYONS

ADJUTANT NORTH WEST MOUNTED POLICE HEADQUARTERS

REGINA NORTH WEST TERRITORIES

CANADA

SO LONG AS MOUNTIES ARE WITH SUE AND HER FAMILY SHE CAN GO ANYWHERE

CHARLOTTE DAWKINS

What an afternoon that had been! Everyone thought that the cable was exactly like Lady Charlotte herself. Uncle Dennis had said, “Well, that’s that, Jimmy,” and had shaken hands with her father, and then all of them sat around the dining-room table with lists and pencils and catalogues and there were fresh arguments about how much to take, and what to take.

The Northern Supply Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company had illustrated catalogues, and Sue’s mother was all for ordering a “quilted, dark red silk, hand-embroidered peignoir, guaranteed to keep out cold in the draftiest room,” but her father laughed and called her a goose, and told her she must take practical and serviceable things, such as warm flannels, that would wash.

The lists grew and grew and grew. Uncle Dennis told them they couldn’t have trunks; that small duffel bags of rainproof material were wiser; that baggage that had no hard corners could often go over a trail where a trunk couldn’t.

“You can carry a soft duffel bag on a sleigh, a horse, or a man’s back,” he explained, “but you can’t tie a brassbound trunk on a pony’s back.”

Hastily they revised their lists, so that all would be ready when Major Bell arrived for tea. “He is going to check our lists,” said Sue’s father, “so that we can post them to the Hudson’s Bay Company tonight. If you have anything you want to take with you, Sue, you had better have it ready by the time he comes.”

Up the stairs Sue ran. She knew just what she wanted to take. By the side of Minnie-Pooh-Pooh’s cradle stood a tiny nail-studded leather box. It had belonged to Miss Vicky’s grandmother, but had been given to Sue for her doll’s clothes. Sue called it her treasure box. Inside lay several extra blankets for Minnie-Pooh-Pooh, the feather headdress that Chief Laughing Cloud had given her the year before at the Gymkana, the little knitted purse her father had given her when she left Montreal, a paintbox of real oil paints, a doll’s bonnet of silk and feathers, a tiny pair of beaded moccasins, a police whistle, and a mouth organ.

She laid them out on the bed. There they lay, and all of them treasures.

What else was there she couldn’t live without? Her habit! Hastily she added it to the pile on the snowy counterpane.

Her red coat! She spread it out on the place of honor—the bolster.

Was that all? At the top of Minnie-Pooh-Pooh’s cradle hung a little bunch of soft, gray, furry tails. Little Chief had given them to her in remembrance of her first gopher hunt. She placed them beside the red coat. The shining golden crest with its motto “Maintiens le Droit” was still fixed to the bulletin board at the foot of her bed.

“I’ll wear it,” said Sue to herself, “so everyone’ll know I’m a Mountie.”

Carefully she packed the things back into the little trunk, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the habit in and the red coat and the headdress. She sat on the lid. She pushed and struggled but it did no good. The lid would not close. Putting on her headdress and wearing the red coat and the crest, she half-carried, half-dragged the trunk downstairs and into the drawing room.

“Here are all my treasures for inspection, Major Bell,” she said, “but I can’t make them all go in. Someone will have to sit on the lid.” Everyone laughed at her but the Major. He inspected her “kit” very carefully, but advised against her taking the feathered headdress.

“It would look a bit vain,” he said, “for not everyone has a headdress up there.”

He felt the same way about the doll’s bonnet and advised a whole leather suit for Minnie-Pooh-Pooh, instead of the changes of blankets. In fact, he even promised to see that a leather suit was provided.

“Your father’s taking his paints,” he went on, “so you won’t need these and you’ll have to have a different kind of habit, so I’d hang this one up until you come home.” He lifted the red coat.

“This is too precious to take on a journey,” he said, gravely. “It might be lost and you could never replace it. Why don’t you ask the Commissioner if you may hang it with his mess jacket until your return?”

Sue hadn’t known what an understanding person the Major could be. He seemed to appreciate just how she treasured the red coat and so gave it the most important place in the Barracks while she was away.

“Is everything here?” he asked.

“Almost,” said Sue.

“What have you left?”

Hastily Sue ran out into the hall and returned with her small bag of pemmican. “Chief Kicking Horse gave it to me,” she explained. Major Bell handed it back to her with an approving nod.

“Take good care of that, Sue,” he said. “It may come in very handy.”

Sue counted her remaining treasures. Moccasins, whistle, mouth organ, the knitted purse, the gopher tails. “But, Major, they’re my littlest treasures,” she cried. “Can’t I take more?”

“Anything you can carry yourself, Sue,” he said firmly, “you can take. Nothing more. Do you understand?”

Sue nodded, but she wasn’t so sure she wasn’t going to cry. The back of her eyes felt hot. She loved her treasures so dearly and the Yukon suddenly seemed a long, long way from the things she loved best.

The Major put his hand on her shoulder. “Come along, Sue,” he said, “and help me with your mother. She is sure to have too many things on her list, too.”

He was right. Her mother wanted everything that looked pretty in the catalogues and had ordered at least fifty times more than she could carry with her, the Major said. Her father, too, had ordered artists’ supplies that would never get into the Yukon, but had been very wise about clothes. Uncle Dennis had a perfect list for them both.

Matilda gave Sue her supper on a little table in the window so that she shouldn’t miss any of the excitement. Mrs. Walsh came in and measured Sue for her coats. Michael added to the general excitement by declaring that Sue would have grown at least an inch before she reached the Yukon and that her clothes would be too small before she wore them.

“And that, Sue,” he said, “would mean you would have to wear mine or go home.”

Mrs. Walsh remeasured Sue then and added half an inch all the way around.

The lists were finished, check inclosed, and the envelope stamped, just in time for Sue to run across the Square and hand it to the constable driving the outgoing mail cart.

It was a week before the order came from Winnipeg, and when it was delivered at Bachelors’ Hall there were so many boxes that it was like Miss Vicky’s trousseau arriving. When you bought clothes to be married in, Sue found, you called it a “trousseau,” but when you bought clothes to go to a cold climate, they were called an “outfit.” Sometimes Sue wondered if you could ever learn all the words in the English language, and now Mummy was teaching her French. If it hadn’t been for the promise to herself of finding a gold mine, she would have been depressed at the thought of all the learning she had to do before another winter was past.

Sue loved her outfit. She had two bags of her own called “holdalls,” made of waterproof canvas. They looked like very large sausages, she thought. She had two bottle-green duck suits, made with a loose blouse closing at the neck and wrists with narrow bands. She wore no skirt, but full, pleated bloomers that buttoned around her waist. Leather leggings were worn with this and a little round hat of the same green duck. Her brown boots had elastic sides and were put on before her gaiters. There was also a waterproof suit with a tarpaulin hat to match. Sue thought it both heavy and hot. Her winter coat was heavy blue blanket cloth lined with red quilted silk. It had a red-lined hood that pulled tightly down over her head, a red sash to tie around her waist, and with it was worn a chamois jacket. It was a hot, sticky sort of thing, Sue thought, but Uncle Dennis told her she would be glad of it when the Northern winds blew.

But this, Sue found, was really only the beginning of her outfit. There were boots, dozens of boots. Rubber boots for swamps, leather boots with thick rubber soles and studded with hobnails for mountain climbing, great soft leather boots lined with fleecy lamb’s wool to sleep in on winter nights, felt boots with thin felt soles to wear in the house, canvas sneakers with rubber soles for summer weather. And there were doeskin mitts, lined with homespun flannel, fur caps that came down like hoods and that even tied across the face so as to keep out the cold. Fur gauntlets, warm woolen stockings, long woolen underwear, a little knapsack to strap on her back to hold her treasures, and finally an aluminum pail that contained plates, knives, forks, and cups, all her own.

Two things interested her most, a mosquito veil and a sleeping bag. The mosquito veil was gathered full and had an elastic that fitted around the crown of her hat. The ends were long and tucked into the collar of her blouse. The rim of her hat held the netting out from her face so that no mosquito could touch her. The sleeping bag looked like a huge bolster. It was made of canvas, lined with heavy flannel and interlined with eiderdown. It opened halfway down with buttons and ties and was roomy enough to slide into without too much difficulty. On very cold nights, Sue learned, she would have to wear a sleeping hood of the same material. She tried it on and found it left only her eyes and mouth uncovered. Last of all there was a waterproof sheet to spread upon the ground under the sleeping bag.

There were awful ructions when they started to pack

There were awful ructions, though, when they started to pack. They had been warned that they must concentrate on warm and not becoming clothes. Sue’s mother listened patiently and packed steadily. Each morning Sue’s father would insist on more being taken out of her bags, and one morning before breakfast, in going through her holdall, he discovered two pairs of high-heeled satin slippers. He put them in the wastepaper basket.

“You can’t take these, Aileen,” he said. “You are going to rough it for a year and you won’t need fripperies.”

Sue’s pretty mother had cried then and said she wouldn’t go if she couldn’t take just one feminine thing with her. “I don’t want to look like a bundle of fur all the time,” she wailed.

Just then Uncle Dennis came in. He looked more worried every day, Sue thought, and he was quite cross with her mother, and told her she should stay at home with her child and let her husband go to the Yukon alone.

Sue’s mother picked up the nearest shoe and threw it at Uncle Dennis. “I’ll go where I like,” she said, “and I like to be with my husband.” And Sue’s mother had made a dreadful face at her brother.

Uncle Dennis apologized then and explained that it was his anxiety about them that made him so cranky. Sue thought they were all cranky and making a terrible fuss about things and she had a long chat with Hawkins. Hawkins comforted her.

“I’ll tell you what you do,” he said. “Find a pair of slippers that your mother likes and I’ll take them in my bag and you can give them to her when you’re out there.”

It was all exciting in a queer, new way, Sue thought, not a bit like a wedding or a Jubilee, where you wanted to quiet your heart’s beating, but rather as if everyone was in a hurry and anxious to push everyone else out of the way.

Two days later she watched the Canadian Pacific Railway Transcontinental Limited thunder into the Regina Station. Amid the bustle and excitement of good-bys, Sue suddenly found herself on the train, with wheels already turning beneath her.

The single line of Mounties filed through the Pullman.

“Quick, Sue,” said Michael, and running with her to the end of the last car, he opened the door. “Hold tight,” he cautioned. Sue tightened her grip on Michael’s arm as the train gathered speed and swept westward.

“Look,” said Michael.

They were passing the Barracks and close to the tracks stood two Mounties at attention. Between them was Beppo. It was Sergeant Major Whiteside and her old friend, Smith, bidding her good-by.

Sue raised her hand in a farewell salute.

The great Yukon adventure had begun.