Читать книгу Clearing in the West. My Own Story - Nellie Letitia McClung - Страница 11

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It was a warm clear day with blue shadows toward the end of September when we left the main road, and turned southeast on the Yellowquill trail toward the Assiniboine River. The muddy roads with their terrors were past for we were now traversing a high sandy country with light vegetation, and raspberry brakes. The blue sky had a few white clouds that held the colors of the sunset. The hills around were pricked with little evergreen trees. The oxen sensing the nearness of home, stepped livelier and everyone’s spirits rose.

The wagons had to be locked going down the long bank of the river, and at the bottom we came face to face with the clear, zinc-blue water of the Assiniboine. Willows hung over the stream, whitening as the wind turned their leaves, and just above the water, on a dry grassy bank, a fire was soon burning and the black pot boiling. We had a tin stove which held two pots, and a bannock was soon cooking in bacon fat, and the smell of coffee hung pleasantly over the camp.

The river water, clear and soft, gave us all the opportunity of a bath, and with a change of clothes, peace and contentment came down upon us with a great feeling of thankfulness. The little black cow “Lady,” who never needed to be hobbled at night, “let down” her milk that night as if she knew her long journey was almost over.

In the early dawn we forded the river. The big oxen drawing the covered wagon, and driven by Will, went first and when we saw them safely climbing up the opposite bank, it was easy to get the little oxen to take the water. The pony cart came next and the cow followed. She had all the intelligence of a good dog and needed no guidance.

We crossed just above the junction of the two rivers, the Souris and Assiniboine, for though the waters are low in September we thought it best not to risk the added volume of the Souris. The Souris was a pretty little stream with deep pools connected by an amber current that twisted around the sand-bars. Both rivers had good hard gravelly bottoms.

And so the last barrier was passed.

I don’t believe any of us knew what strain this fourteen-day journey was on my brother Will. He was only twenty years of age, and on him, the responsibility of bringing us out to this great new unknown country, had fallen. I have heard him say that when he got the wagons over the Assiniboine, knowing there were only seven miles more of easy travelling, a thousand years rolled off him.

We reached home at noon of the day we forded the two rivers and found George all ready for us, with a fine pot of potatoes cooked.

No one could fail to be thrilled with the pleasant spot that Will had found for us. A running stream circled the high ground on which the log house stood. Away to the south, hazy in the distance, stood the Tiger Hills; to the northwest the high shoulder of the Brandon Hills, dark blue and mysterious, enticed the eye. Near the house there were clumps of willows on the bank of the creek and poplar bluffs dotted the prairie north of us.

Before we were unloaded from the wagons, mother was deciding the place she would plant the maple seeds she had brought with her from Winnipeg, the hardy Manitoba maple.

The log house had a thatched roof, made from prairie hay and was not chinked, but it had a floor of rough lumber brought to Currie’s Landing on a river boat, and one window facing west. One window might be thought insufficient for a house that must lodge eight people, but light and air came in unbidden through many openings; indeed how to keep out the cold became our great problem. We brought a real stove with us and pipes and the first day saw it set in place and mother could then begin her bread, real bread, made with a Royal yeast cake, to displace the soda bannock, cooked in bacon grease, which had been the backbone of our diet on the journey.

The weather favored us; for a long fair autumn gave us an opportunity to get ploughing done and a good stable built for the oxen and Lady. Cattle have been wintered outside in Manitoba but my father believed it was too severe a strain for any animal, and the winter that followed justified his fear.

I remember the pleasant autumn weather, with blue veils over the hills and the long clear moonlight nights, with the light shining in through the unchinked logs, over the bed, where Lizzie, Hannah and I slept.

The stove stood in the middle of the floor, with a long L-shaped length of pipe running to a tin chimney, with a spark arrester in the roof. We had home-made bedsteads made of poplar poles and spread with planks to hold the feather ticks, and with plenty of bedding and pillows we slept very comfortably. Sometimes the howling of the prairie wolves drove away sleep and caused me to shudder with fear; there was something so weird and menacing in their shrill prolonged cries, which seemed to rise and fall in a rhythm which brought them nearer and nearer. Just how terrible their wailings could be, we were destined to know all too soon.

I have spoken of the great love we had for our little dog, and the place that animals fill in the lives of lonely children, but I have not said enough about “Lady,” the little black cow. She was a graceful, gentle, intelligent little animal, and had supplied us with milk and butter all summer. On the trip she followed the wagons without being tied, sometimes stopping for a mouthful of grass by the roadside and then hurrying on to fall in behind the procession, and at night when we camped she got her oats when the oxen got theirs; and by this means she made the long trek of a hundred-and-eighty miles without losing her fine sleek coat.

She was particularly my mother’s pet and every scrap of food from the table was saved for Lady, who relished cooked potatoes, crusts of bread, or a bit of turnip, and was partial to anything that was sweet, and often for a special treat, was given a slice of bread, soaked in syrup.

She wandered the prairie at will, though never strayed far, and came home running if she heard a wolf howl, her fine big cairngorm eyes wide with fear. Before the stable was built, she spent the night close beside the house, and often in the stillness I was glad to hear her regular breathing, close beside me, on the other side of the unchinked wall.

It was in December; Lady was still milking and that precious quart of milk night and morning was a welcome addition to the porridge breakfasts. The stable had been built, a three-sided building whose sod roof was covered with prairie hay, two stacks of which stood on the north to give more shelter and in this, the four oxen were tied every night and Lady went in and out as she liked.

The hay stacks were fenced with poplar poles to keep out the oxen for it was thought wise to save the hay for the time when the deep snow would prevent them from getting at the prairie grass.

The thirteenth of December came and with it dark tragedy. Will who had gone out first, brought in the bitter word. Lady was dead! She had caught her horns in the fence and in trying to extricate herself had fallen and broken her neck.

We were eating breakfast when Will came in, and I was pouring milk from a glass pitcher on my porridge when the black blow fell. We cried out that it could not be, and hurried to the place of horror! There she lay, cold and stiff with horribly staring eyes. No warm place under her now to warm bare feet; no gentle regular breathing. It was my first sight of death and it shattered something in me that could never be replaced, a sense of security maybe. Now I knew that there was always a grim possibility, a shadow that can fall on the brightest day. A sinister presence unseen, but none the less real.

Years afterwards, the Rev. Isaac Newton Robinson, a Methodist minister held revival meetings in Northfield school and during one of his appeals quoted the words, new to me then,

“O sinner think

Of the feeble link

Between you and the grave.”

I knew what it was. Lady alive, breathing, warm beloved Lady with her soft brown eyes and sweet breath, who came to us when we called her and followed us like a dog; and then the ghastly misshapen bulk, cold and stiff with blind glassy eyes, that made no response, no motion.

The ground, iron hard with frost, could not be dug to bury her. So the men drew her away behind a poplar grove and we all cried again, as we watched that melancholy procession moving over the snow, the little dog marching behind barking.

And the nights that followed were terrible when the wolves fought and cursed and cried over her and we had to hear them, and see them too, for it was clear moonlight and they seemed to come from the four corners of the world, snarling, snapping, hungry ghouls, grey, lean and terrible.

It was on one of these nights that we saw for the first time the Northern Lights in all their majesty and awesome beauty, and it was not only in the north that they flickered and flashed, and rolled and marched, for their bright banners ran up into the highest parts of the sky right over our heads. If we had not been in such trouble over the death of Lady, we would have loved all this color and movement, but there did not seem to be any kindness in the sky in spite of the pale green and rose and lilac streamers fluttering and dancing like long lines of fairies’ petticoats hung out to dry on a windy day.

I tried to think that what I saw was really great companies of little angels out having a game of “Crack the Whip,” all dressed in their lovely dresses, bright and shiny, and that the crumpling sound I heard was the rustling and cracking of the silk as they swung together, but I could not get far with any thought as pleasant as that, with poor Lady lying out under the moon and the wolves fighting over her.

Long after the last bone of Lady was gone, the wolves still came back on the moonlight nights hoping that some other evil thing had befallen us, and their cries were so horrible that I had to sleep with my head under the pillow instead of on it.

Mother wrote her friend, Mrs. Edward Lowery:—“Our first Christmas was not very happy because we lost our nice little black cow. . . . I can’t tell you how I miss her. . . . . She had winsome ways, coming to the door and shoving it in with her nose if it wasn’t latched, or rubbing the latch up and down, reminding me it was milking time. I had great hopes of Lady! She was going to establish a herd for us, all having her gentle disposition, but that’s past! You know I do not cry easily but that morning I did. Just for a minute, and when I saw I was breaking up my whole family, I had to stop, though I would have been the better of a good cry to ease my heart, but when a woman has children, she has no freedom, not even the freedom to cry.

“Lady was more than a cow to us. She was a pleasant companion. Poor Will felt it terribly. He always knows what I feel better than any of the others, and he kept saying: ‘Don’t cry, mother, I can’t bear to see you cry!’ Just as soon as the snow is gone, I’ll go to the Portage and get two cows—he will too, poor lad, tramping every step there and back. But there can never be a cow like Lady—. We’re all well now, the little girls had sore heels; blood out of order, no doubt, not enough variety in their food, but salt and water healed them in time. The snow was six feet deep on the level, but Willie has snowshoes. He and George got out. We have come through well so far, and will have a garden this summer. There’s a great comfort in a garden. It’s heartsome to see things grow. There are neighbors coming too, a family from Renfrew. That is good news!

“I get worried sometimes about my own health and wondering what would happen to the little girls, if I should be taken. Boys can always get along but it’s a hard world for girls; sometimes I blame myself for coming away so far. There’s no doctor closer than Portage, which is eighty miles away. I can’t say this to anyone but you, I don’t blame Willie; he is a good boy, if there ever was one. It’s at night, when every one is asleep and this great prairie rolls over, so big and empty, and cruel. John is as happy as a king, never thinks of anything beyond today, so long as he has a place to grow potatoes! He has a field now for his pigs—I never can like pigs, dirty squealing brutes, never satisfied, but we’ll be glad of the meat next winter, and will have some to sell too, if there is anyone to buy them.

“Much love to all of you. We’ll see you again some day, God willing. John sends his love too, we speak of you often and all the dear friends.”

But the trials of that long first winter were not ended. In March the snow fell continually, it seemed, and with the wind shrieking over the plains, packing the snow in drifts as high as houses, we were entirely shut in. It was in this time of isolation that my eldest sister took sick, with a heavy cold, that in spite of turpentine and goose oil and mustard foot-baths, went steadily on through chills and fevers, until it seemed that she would die. She had reached a state of coma, her jaws were locked, and her eyes though still open, did not see. She lay, with her two long braids of bright brown hair, beside her little white face, a tired young traveller, ready to drop out of the race.

My mother, who was a wonderful nurse, had tried every remedy she had, but there was not one flicker of response. Hannah and I were doing what we could to get meals ready, but on this worst day of the storm, no one wanted to eat. It was like a horrible dream. The storm tore past the house, and fine snow sifted through the walls.

Mother came out from behind the quilts which hung around Lizzie’s bed, and sitting down in the rocking-chair buried her face in her hands.

“I’m beaten, John,” she said. “I can’t save her! I am at the end of my resources!”

Her shoulders shook with sobs and it seemed like the end of everything. No one spoke. Behind the quilts, that labored breathing went on, hoarser and heavier.

“My little girl is dying for want of a doctor, in this cursed place—that never should have been taken from the Indians. . . .

“The Indians have their revenge on me now, for it’s tearing my heart out, to see my little girl die before my eyes. . . . We shouldn’t have come John, so far—so cruelly far—What’s money?—What’s land? What comfort can we have when we remember this—dying for want of a skilled hand—the best child I ever had. Her willing little feet and clever hands will soon be as cold as iron. The fluid is rising in her lungs, and I can’t stop it, only a doctor could drain it off and give her a chance.”

My father tried to comfort her. “You’ve done all anyone could do, Lettie; don’t give up, you always said you wouldn’t give anyone up while they were breathing. You’re tired woman dear, tired and discouraged, but maybe she’s right at the turn now, who knows?”

I couldn’t stand any more—I got my coat and cap and mittens and slipped out. I could get to the stable and stay in with the oxen for awhile. The house had grown horrible to me.

When I got out I waited in the shelter of the house for a lull in the storm; the cold struck my face like a lash and seemed to sink its teeth in me—but it gave me a savage relief too. I didn’t care if it did strike me! I would face it! I would take its blows! I made my way against it to the stable and stood watching the turmoil of snow; there was no earth and sky now, just one great rolling confusion that cleared for a moment, then thickened and rolled and screamed past. I couldn’t think of anything only that Lizzie was going to die, and we couldn’t do without her!

In the lull of the storm, I could see perhaps a hundred yards across the creek, and over the drifts I saw a man approaching. My heart turned over with joy, and I ran back to the house, bursting with the news.

Someone was coming on snowshoes.

He came in hastily shutting the door quickly behind him to keep out the storm. A big man in a fur coat; one cheek was frozen but he had a handful of snow to rub it out.

“I heard you had a sick girl,” he said, “and I have some medicine in my bag. I am the Methodist minister who has just come to Millford. My name is Hall—Thomas Hall.”

“You are as welcome as an angel of God,” mother said solemnly, as she rose to meet him.

From the moment he entered the feeling of the house changed. I saw the fear vanish from mother’s face. She was herself in a moment, taking his coat and cap, setting a chair for him beside the stove, and putting on the tea kettle.

When the chill was gone from his clothing he went to see Lizzie and felt her pulse. “She has a good strong heart and I believe we can pull her through; she has youth on her side and God always helps,” he said.

I could have knelt at his feet and worshipped him.

For three days he stayed with us, taking charge of the case like a doctor and when he left, Lizzie was able to speak and could drink beef tea. She made a complete recovery in the next few weeks.