FullReads

The talk goes back to the old times. But these people talk with difficulty when their theme is themselves. But my interest and questions draw their story from them.

Fifteen years ago the father and mother left the cozy Glasgow home and the busy life of that busy city, and came over sea and land with their little girl and baby boy to Winnipeg. There they lived for two years, till with the land-yearning in their hearts they came out from the town to this far-back spot away beyond the Marshes. Here they cut out of the forest their home, and here they have lived amid the quiet, cool woods ever since, remote from the bustle and heat of the great world.

“Why to this place instead of to any other?” I ask.

“There was the hay from the Marshes to be sold, and the wood, too,” answered the little man. “But,” he went on, “I could not make much out of the wood, and I was too old to learn, so I gave it up, and went into Winnipeg to work at my trade. And, indeed,” he added cheerfully, “I made very good wages of it.”

I look at him and think of the day when he gave up the fight with the wood, and came in beaten to tell his wife how he must go to the city. I know she smiled at him, her heart going down the while, and cheered him, though she was like to despair at the thought of the lonely winter. Ah, the pathos of it! Did God help them that day? Ay, and for many a day after. And may He forgive all people whose lives overflow with plenty of everything, and who fret their souls for petty ills.

Through the winter the snow piled up round the shanty where lived the little fair-haired woman and her little girl of nine years and two babies now, thinking, talking, dreaming, weeping, waiting for the spring and the home-coming of the father. One of the horses died, and the other was sold. Their places were taken by oxen. “And the oxen are really very good; I like to work with the oxen,” says the little man, with heroic Scotch philosophy and invincible content. He cannot have the best; he will make the best of what he can have. Again, may God forgive us who fling down tools because they are not the best, and refuse to work, and fret instead.

Those days are all gone, but they are not yet passed out of the life of this family. They have left their stamp on heart and character of these steadfast, gentle people, for they are a part of all that they have met.

After tea I am told that I have not yet seen Katie, and the manner of telling makes me feel that there is something in store for me. And so there is. I am taken across a narrow hall and into another room, spotless as the kitchen, the same white walls, white floor, and dainty curtains. This is Katie’s room, and there upon a bed lies Katie herself. I have come into the heart of the home.

Katie is the eldest of the family. She is the little girl of nine that stayed through the long winter with the mother, and helped her with the babies inside and the beasts outside, and was the cheer and comfort of the house, while the father was away in Winnipeg, brave little girl that she was. She is now twenty-four, and for the last nine years she has suffered from a mysterious and painful illness, and now for eighteen months she has lain upon her bed and she cannot rise. We all have in us the beast feeling that shrinks from the weak and wounded; but when I look at Katie there is no shrinking in me. Her face has not a sign of fretful weakness. It seems as if it had caught the glitter of the home, of the pewter covers, and the old silver teaspoons. It is bright. That is its characteristic. The broad brow is smooth, and the mouth, though showing the lines of suffering–what control these lines suggest!–is firm and content. The dark eyes look out from under their straight black brows with a friendly searching. “Come near,” they say; “are you to be trusted?” and you know you are being found out. But they are kindly eyes and full of peace, with none of that look in them that shows when the heart is anxious or sore. The face, the mouth, the eyes, tell the same tale of a soul that has left its storms behind and has made the haven, though not without sign of the rough weather without.