Читать книгу The Stream Runs Fast - Nellie Letitia McClung - Страница 7

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Manitou had three doctors in 1896, and they were very important to us for a drug-store was really a drug-store then, whose chief reason for being was the making up of prescriptions. Our front windows contained show bottles, green, red and blue, standing about three feet high, and beautiful to behold, though prone to freeze when the weather turned cold. I was somewhat disillusioned when I found the contents were made from Diamond dyes and water from the pump, but nevertheless they made a dignified insigne of an ancient profession.

Dr. Moore was the old doctor, beloved of many, a genial, kindly man with many degrees and great dignity. He signed his prescriptions with his name and often quoted a Latin phrase and its translation: "In this manner was a cure effected". Then there was the young doctor, a graduate of Manitoba Medical College, Harry Cook, whose father was an Anglican missionary, and the third doctor, who had recently arrived from Cypress River on the Glenboro line, was Dr. R. W. MacCharles, a Dalhousie man from Cape Breton. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with greying hair. He had all the reserve of his Scotch ancestry, but when I met him in the store and noticed his keen blue eyes and his finely-shaped capable hands, I declared that he would be the McClung family doctor, if and when a doctor were needed.

Wes and I agreed on the subject of raising a family. We were going to have six. That is, of course, some time in the future. The future does not bother anyone until it begins to turn into the present, so I was quite philosophical about the prospect.

But there came a morning in October when I was not sure that I wanted any breakfast, and I felt dizzy. A possibility not entirely pleasant suggested itself: I had read of lovely ladies growing deadly pale, and fainting at inopportune times, and I knew what it meant in fiction, but it just couldn't be—I was bilious, that was all; and anyone could be bilious. I had been staying in too much. I must get out and walk more.

In about three weeks, after tramping the roads and drinking lemonade and taking soda to settle my stomach, all to no effect, I was feeling pretty low in my mind. On October 20th, my birthday, I walked out the three miles to my old district. I had often walked this road and knew every foot of it. I knew I would feel better if I could sit on the moss-grown stone in the coulee where I often sat when I was coming back from Hazel School to my boarding house, and where I had dreams—such noble dreams—of being a writer. It was a bright, crisp day, with high, white clouds drifting against the ground wind. From one field I could hear a thrasher at work, with its familiar shaking rhythm that made me ache for something that was gone. Perhaps it was my far off youth, I was twenty-three that day, but the years are long to the young.

The day was so beautiful it hurt like an old tune. I could hear the geese going south, with that keening cry that always tore at my heart even when I was a child. Flocks of prairie chicken fed on the yellow stubble and then winged their way over to the straw piles, whirring then floating, then whirring again. Beside me a stunted rose bush waved its crimson haws slowly as a curling wind went by. Little warm winds passed over my face, coming from nowhere. I had often met these welcome little gusts as I was returning home from Hazel School, which stood on the wheat land above, and I had imagined them to be the contribution of some kindly hollow which absorbed in the daytime more sunshine than it needed, but held it until nightfall and then released it to comfort some tired man or woman coming home from work. Everything was the same as it used to be, the sky, the clouds, the sounds, the tawny grass in the coulee dripping and bending, and yet nothing was the same. For my stomach was sick, and I saw no beauty anywhere. I was lonely as a lost dog, and felt cheated, too, for Wes had gone to Winnipeg that day without me. We had counted on this trip to the city, on my birthday, and now I could not go. How could anyone travel with a stomach like mine? We had planned to stay at the Leland Hotel, and go to the Bijou Theatre at night to see a play. I loved to see a play and had seen but few . . . how I had looked forward to being in our seats early, not to miss that dazzling moment when the lights go down in the pit, conversation ceases, and the crimson velvet portieres are folded back by invisible hands, and then slowly and noiselessly the curtain rises on the scene of enchantment!

And I had planned to wear my nice blue dress, trimmed with passementerie and have my hair done at a hairdressers. But here I was in a tweed skirt and jersey, my old coat and dusty shoes, sitting huddled in misery on the shady side of a cold grey stone, sorrier for myself than I had ever been before. Then I grew resentful, not because I was going to have a baby, and not because I was afraid of pain or minded the prospect of losing my lead pencil figure either. I weighed an even hundred pounds. No one can raise a family without putting on some flesh, and anyway, older women looked better when plump. But why had not something been found to save women from this infernal nausea? What good was it? If it had been a man's disease, it would have been made the subject of scientific research and relieved long ago. But women could suffer; it kept them humble! I had heard about the curse of Eve, and here it was in full measure. But what useful purpose did it serve? Life at that moment looked like a black conspiracy against women. If God ordained that the race was to be perpetuated this way, why had he thrown in this ugly extra, to spoil the occasion? I was not like God . . . who paints the wayside flower and lights the evening star, . . . who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb and notices the fall of the sparrow.

That terrible description of a sick stomach as told by Mulvaney in Soldiers Three exactly described mine, but when I thought of it, I grew sicker. . . . I was too miserable to go across the fields to see my good friend Clara, who lived in the yellow farmhouse, not half a mile away. I did not want to see anyone.

Women had endured too much and said nothing. I certainly was not going to be meek and mild and resigned. Women should change conditions, not merely endure them, and I was positive something should be done. I remembered with particular bitterness hearing the men in our neighborhood joke about Mrs. Jim Barnes who got her husband to move the stairs in their little log house every time another baby was coming. She said it made her feel she had a new house, and it became a joke up and down the neighborhood. I remember on my first visit to Brandon, when I was riding on a load of wheat, hearing Mrs. Barnes' brother-in-law shout to the other men: "The stairs are on the move again!" And one of them shouted back in a great burst of laughter: "That's fine! I hope it's twins!" When I thought of it now, it cut like a knife. I could see Mrs. Barnes, a pallid, overworked little Englishwoman, homesick, and old at thirty. They already had more children than their little house could hold. Two little ones had died, but these husky brutes, strong as young bulls and with a similar mentality, could laugh and actually find a cause for merriment in the poor woman's pain. I cursed them now with a horrible Irish curse, which came from some dark morass of memory. . . . Then suddenly I found myself crying, not for myself but for all the overburdened inarticulate women of the world. . . .

That pulled me up with a start, and I wiped my eyes hastily. Tears were not the remedy. Women had cried too much already. The sun was getting low, and the sunshine pale and cold when I started back. I was not in a hurry, no one was waiting for me, and that was a strange sensation. Mother had always been watching for me when I lived at home, and had an irritating way of welcoming me in by saying: "What kept you?" I thought of her now with a lump in my throat, and wished I could hear her say it. I was alone now, in a new and rather terrifying world. It seemed like ten years since I used to ride the sorrel horse into Manitou and tie him to the hitching post in front of the Farmer's store. Many years afterwards when I read D. H. Lawrence's gripping story entitled The Woman Who Rode Away, it brought back this chill pale afternoon when my heart was troubled. It was a low moment in my life; surely a climacteric, when the eyes that look out of the windows are darkened. Many bewildered women have gone down this same dark road.

When I reached Front Street I had no desire but to gain the long stairway and get under cover. Suddenly I saw Dr. MacCharles walking towards his office, and an impulse came to me. Here was one person I could talk to, the logical person, the deep well in whom the secrets of all hearts were safe. I was still in a raging mood and I wanted to get a few things said. All that I remember about his office was that the walls were of new lumber, and there was a volume of Burns' poetry in a plaid silk cover on his table.

I sat down in the patient's chair, and he sat across the table and listened. He let me talk it out, showing no surprise, but I could feel his interest. People were passing the window but they seemed to belong to another world. When I stopped, he began, unhurried and sure, yet not too sure. His tweedy, Scotch way of speaking was comforting. His words were not so much addressed to me as all womankind. He said women did bear the heavy burden of reproduction, and he had often wondered about it, too. Certainly it was not fair. No one could say it was fair, but then there are many things in life which are not fair. Human justice is something we have to work for. It does not come ready-made; women have all the human diseases and then a few of their own, while they are not as strong physically as men, they are stronger to endure. Undoubtedly, women are better patients than men, and every doctor knows it. That the race has survived and is improving is proof of women's fidelity and fortitude. He said the nausea I was going through was due largely to nerves, for naturally the beginning of a new life make great psychological demands, but I would soon feel exceptionally vigorous. Medical science, he said, is only in its infancy. There will be great discoveries; some diseases have been conquered, and others will be. Not once did he tell me that I had a good man, and was young, strong and healthy and really had no reason to be disturbed. His silence on this subject was a compliment to my intelligence, and I certainly was in no mood to have platitudes flung at me.

I do not know exactly how he did it, but I know that once again I was a member in good standing in the human family, and more than that, he made me feel that I was one of the standard-bearers of the race, pledged to its protection and continuance. Any little inconvenience suffered by me would be small dues for me to pay for membership in this greatest of all societies.

There began one of the enriching friendships of my life, which, happily, has continued to this day.

When I came out of his office the sun had gone down, but its last rays made violet and rose edges on the clouds above the town, mellowing the stern reality of the unpainted houses. There was a hint of winter in the air, bracing and cheering. I went up the covered stairway with one driving desire. I wanted to eat. I'd had nothing since morning, less than nothing. I lighted a fire in the square, black stove and cooked myself a good meal of bacon and eggs, and fried two slices of bread in the bacon fat, with a gay disregard of the evils of fried food. I made a good brew of coffee too, with thick cream and opened a jar of strawberries.

Before I went to bed I went out on the back verandah to have a look at the night. (This nightly observation came of being farm-bred, and accustomed to that nightly round of the stables to see that all was well with the stock.) On that night I could only look up at the stars shining bright in a chill October sky. Very pleased I was to see them smiling down on me, with a new friendliness, and I knew what it was. The stars in their courses, were not more a part of God's great plan of creation than I.

As I listened to the faint night sounds, the distant bark of dogs, the rumble of wagons, women calling in their children, I could hear again over and above it all, the honking of wild geese, but their cry now was not one of longing or pain; it was a hymn of high adventure. They knew where they were going. They were travelling "on the beam". Then came back to me Bryant's confident words:

"He who, from zone to zone Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright!"

We had a very good time that winter. My sister-in-law, Eleanor McClung, came out and stayed a month with us and we also had a visit from Florence McLean, the well-known Scottish singer, for whom our Florence is named. By putting a stretcher in one corner of the kitchen we could accommodate a guest. I remember with great pleasure the nights we spent skating at the rink, and the miles I walked along the prairie roads. I was determined that I would do all I could to give the baby a good mind and a strong body.

The economic aspect of having a baby had no fears for us. Doctors were modest in their fees—twenty-five dollars covered everything, and there were no hospital fees, for no one went to a hospital for a little thing like having a baby, and there was no fee for the anaesthetist, for no anaesthetic was used, except when something went wrong. The practical nurse charged one dollar a day and had to be spoken for several months in advance. Then she wrote your name on the calendar above her kitchen table, and that was a solemn contract. She stayed with you for nine nights and then if everything was all right, came in the morning and went home at night for another two weeks. It was all very simple and satisfactory.

In my spare time I studied mathematics, especially geometry. Edgar Burgess, the Principal of the school, often brought over a few deductions and we spent many a happy hour working them. I also began to do puzzles from the Detroit Free Press, and won honorable mention and subscriptions, and I read poetry.

The two boys who worked in the store, Herb, my young brother-in-law, and Charlie Hasselfield, one of my former pupils at Hazel School, had their meals with us, and how I combined literature and cooking is still bright in my memory and I hope in theirs. They had an early dinner and I read to them while they were eating. Herb said he liked to hear me read. It took his mind off my cooking, but Charlie was loyal to his old teacher, so it was two against one. In the drug-store we carried a good stock of books and I remember particularly the pleasure we had in Bret Harte's short stories and poems. Sometimes to vary the exercise we did a bit of memorizing. One good one remains, immortal in its beauty. It is Bret Harte's Tribute to Dickens—

"About the pines the moon was slowly drifting, The river sang below, The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting, Their minarets of snow. "The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted The ruddy tints of health On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted In the mad race for wealth."

There is enough beauty in that poem to carry anybody over a meat-pie with a tough crust.

The first time I went home after I was married I brought a box of drugs to my mother, having now a connection, by marriage, with the British Pharmacopoeias, which I called familiarly the "B.P." I was somewhat ashamed of the home-made remedies still used by my family, and felt it my duty to lift them into higher realms of healing where there would be fewer charms and more chemistry. My mother believed tea-leaves was the best remedy for burns. But in my superior wisdom I produced a fine big bottle of caron oil, explaining to her that while cool tea leaves would undoubtedly be soothing, and would keep out the air, they could not possibly heal a burn. Mother listened to me and thanked me for the oil, and told me she knew that limewater and sweet oil shaken together was good for burns, but was glad to know the proper name. As long as she kept house the brown bowl remained for the tea leaves! And now tannic acid is recognized. So again the old remedy scores!

I brought resinol too, to replace the Balm of Gilead salve—which she made each year out of the sticky buds in early spring, combined with mutton tallow and a few drops of carbolic acid. But that remedy was too firmly established to be changed. She did express approval of the tube of lanoline, but she held to her belief that the real wool off the sheep's back, lightly washed and kept wrapped is still the best remedy for grass cuts—a few strands of it wrapped around the injured toe is not only a salve but a bandage. Beef Iron and Wine for a spring tonic did not get much of a welcome. It was too easy to take, and therefore was not to be depended on like the one she made herself from a prescription given many years ago in the Medical Department of the Family Herald.

No doubt each generation feels itself wiser than the one before, and remembering how I regarded my parents has made me charitable to the many evidences of this in my own family. I have received much correction at their hands and have taken it. I knew they too would learn. The stern old world has pounded many lessons into proud young hearts, and so the old play goes on. Only the players change!

I wish I might worthily portray the social life of our little town in that remote day when no telephone or radio broke the stillness of our lives. I remember how ceremoniously we called on each other, duly observing days and hours. Mrs. R. W. McClung was at home on the first and second Tuesday, from three to five, and had cards engraved with that information. So the first and second Tuesday was the time to have the four rooms, including hall and stairway, as clean as mortal hands could make them. Although the calls were brief, I knew how sharp-eyed the callers were, and if there was a cobweb on the ceiling, they would see it, though they would not be so rude as to lift an eye in that direction.

I prepared for my first calling day with great thoroughness. I swept and dusted. I polished the black stove, legs and all. I put out fresh stand covers, removed the fur from under the bed, and put out the best marseilles bed spread—colored spreads were unheard of. I washed and ironed the pillow shams, and carefully adjusted them on the wooden bar. The pillow shams were one of my prized possessions, and were one of my wedding presents. On one was embroidered a beautiful child asleep on a pillow of roses, on the other the same child awake, still buttressed with roses and the inscriptions read: "I slept and dreamed that life was beauty" on number one, and on number two—"I woke and found that life was duty!"

I washed the morning-glory lamp shade and polished the gold acorns. I washed door knobs, polished floors, straightened pictures, made the table small, and put on a white linen cloth embroidered in violets. This embroidered table cloth was my own effort, and I hoped nobody would look at it too closely.

To Mrs. Ruttan, who was my guide and friend, I went for final instructions. What should I give my callers to eat on this first day? She said a cup of tea and a piece of wedding cake was the correct thing, but that looked pretty skimpy to me, so I added some home-made candy, and still the table looked bare, but Mrs. Ruttan held firm. I must remember that the ladies were only calling—it was not a party.

But having cooked for threshers, I had a fear of running short, and so made a loaf of sandwiches, cutting them so thin and so small they looked foolish. But I knew that a thick sandwich would constitute a social error. I balked at cutting off the crusts though—that was the McCurdy strain in me that "could'na thole the waste". I was very glad that I had the sandwiches, for the callers came that first day in such numbers that if my good friend, Mrs. MacNamara, hadn't gone down the back stairs and across lots to her own house to bring me a full-sized chocolate cake, the news might have gone abroad that the bride had failed to provide enough food.

Altogether I have happy memories of that first day. Even the mournful remark of the dismal old lady who looked me up and down and said with a sigh, "I'm glad to see that you are wearing your wedding dress. Wear it while you can." Poor old dear, she made her contribution to the gaiety of our little town too, by her sad forebodings. Her face should have been furrowed with care, for her mind ran continually on death and sorrowing. She saw warnings in the clouds, and heard wailing voices in the winds. But her brow was calm and unwrinkled, and her cheeks as smooth as a calla lily. Sorrow was becoming to her, as moonlight to the lady in the beautiful song. She never missed a funeral and became an authority on procedure. To end the picture and make it complete, she wrote obituary verses.