F. P. Grove's In Search of Myself
e-Edition ©2007
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IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 308
On
Monday morning, July 1st, I did the
last few things that had to be done
and got ready to leave on my twenty-six-mile
drive to Leifur. It was a glorious,
sunny day.
When I swung up on the seat of my wheel, the children of the district were arriving from all sides; my wife stood on the stoop of the school, and our little girl was excitedly toddling about; she had never seen so many children together. I waved a last farewell and was off. My own part of the summer and winter that followed, I believe, is abundantly given in The Turn of the Year and Over Prairie Trails, the one dealing, at least in part ( The Gloom of Summer ) with the two months which followed immediately; the other, with the fall and winter drives to be made when I had returned to Gladstone. For me, it was a period of recuperation; matters spiritual as well as material fell once more into their proper places. In that respect these rides and drives had, on me, the effect of poetry; under their influence matters resumed their proper proportions. This period, therefore, remains to me the climax of my life. But I must give at least a hint of my wife's side in all this as, in snatches, she revealed it to me at a later date. MANHOOD -- Page 309
Most people
have the idea that courage consists
in doing the difficult and even dangerous
thing without knowing fear. But not
to know fear often simply argues ignorance
or lack of sensibility. It implies a
far higher type of courage to know fear,
to conquer it, and to act as though
no such thing existed. It was this kind
of courage that was called for on the
part of my wife.
I have already said that she had never lived any life other than a sheltered one. Born in a town and raised within a large family, she had, as a child and an adolescent, never known what it is to be alone. It is true, she had, in her early girlhood, lived for a year or two in pioneer districts, earning her living as a teacher among people who seemed more or less alien to her; but even then all responsibilities had been those of others; she had returned to a town and, a year later, had married me. What this marriage was to imply, she had so far, happily, never known. My long illness at Virden had been a sore trial of her strength; but only now did circumstances combine to lay the axe to the root of her spirit. It was an experience which, like having gone through death and come out living, left her a changed being. The first inkling of the true nature of the position in which she found herself came through the little girl who, throughout that day and the next, wandered disconsolately about, unable to grasp the fact that I was gone; surely, she seemed to say, I must be hidden somewhere about the place. For several days she never smiled; and she did not fully recover from the shock sustained until, on Friday evening, with a thunderstorm just breaking overhead, I jumped off my wheel and caught her up in my arms to run for the shelter of the porch before the downpour started. IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 310
Of the
people among whom my wife was to live
alone for close to a year, she knew
nothing. They were rough and ready;
they were often coarse in manner and
speech; many of them were formidable-looking;
they were powerfully built for their
task which so far consisted largely
in felling trees and grubbing out their
roots. They were honest and fundamentally
decent-minded; but they were not her
kind. Gentle manners and polite speech
meant nothing to them. She was as much
an exile as I had been among the hoboes
twenty-odd years ago.
Above all, the cottage stood by the road; and that road was to become almost personified as a conception of horror. It was no more than a graded trail connecting two towns locally important for their trade in timber and firewood; as I have said, the nearest neighbours were a mile away, to west as well as east. The towns, Amaranth and Glenella, were rough, noisy places where Indians, Icelanders, and Ukrainians congregated in stores kept by Jews and Armenians, all of them types unknown to her. The school stood in a wilderness surrounded by forest and swamp. At night, the wolves howled close to the cottage, driven by hunger. On one occasion, late in the fall, when I was already driving Peter, the horse, but before I had built a log-stable to house him, I saw myself forced, on one of my week-end visits, to go out after dark to catch that horse which, frightened by its strange surroundings, had broken loose and would not let anyone else approach him. It was a black, wind-tossed night, and within ten yards of the porch steps I ran into a bewildered pack of coyotes - so bewildered that, before they scattered in every direction, in wild, elastic springs, they had touched me and knocked their heads against the lantern which was swinging from my hand, and turned, snapping and MANHOOD -- Page 311
yelping. Every now and then there was
a story going the rounds, of the larger
timber-wolves having laid low a calf
or a colt. Both coyotes and timber-wolves,
which met in this district, hunted in
packs, with a cunning almost human,
driving their prey into the swamp where
horses and cattle were equally helpless.
I once saw horse and buggy disappearing
in it, the driver having jumped to the
road. On another occasion I watched
a number of them manoeuvring, in the
dusk of the evening, to cut off a flock
of geese which was trying to cross the
road, to return to the farmstead whence
they had strayed. Since they disappeared
in tall sedges, I did not witness the
end, but terrified squawks proclaimed
their fate. Slantwise across the road from the school, to the northeast, the swamp was so treacherous that, more than once, before it froze into solidity, a horse or a team disappeared in it; below the deceptively green surface covering it like a film a few inches thick, there were huge pockets of water. Once, after a heavy rain, four horses drowned in a shallow ditch west of the place because they could not extricate themselves from the clinging and yet spineless mud of silt, with its binding admixture of alkali. The gravel ridge on which school and cottage stood was, in that respect, safe enough, of course; but to the northwest the forest that had once covered it had been burned over in one of the periodic bush-fires. The sight of it, with charred boles reaching into the sky like a forest of Flying-Dutchman's masts, was anything but cheering. During that fire, a settler had saved himself by spending several days in his well. In myself there is something, a chord, which resounds to any kind of desolation; there was no such chord in my wife. The whole landscape, hot IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 312
and humid in summer, bitterly cold in
winter, and utterly untamed by man,
gripped her soul as in a vice.
It is one thing, in winter, to watch a prairie blizzard from the warmth and comfort of a well-built house in city or town, and to admire the utter unconcern with which elemental forces interfere with man's devices and institutions. It is quite another to feel your very walls moving and shaking under the impact of ruthless squalls while the snow piles in on the lee side to above the height of the windows; especially when you know that your husband is out on the marsh, many miles away, stolidly fighting his way against wind and drift, in constant danger of being jammed tight among the stumps of trees buried under the snow, or of going astray in the utter confusion of nature. The country is full of stories of people who, under such circumstances, have lost their lives, to be found in spring, in the icy slush-pools left behind by the melting snows. On occasion the drift was so thick that it was unsafe to leave the cottage even to cross to the school without carrying a string as an Ariadne thread by which to find the way back. Before long this young woman lived only for the weekends and the rare holidays. It soon became clear that, on Sundays, I always had to leave early, from Falmouth, no later certainly than at noon, and often right after breakfast, if I wanted to feel sure that I could make Gladstone in time for school on Monday. From Gladstone, no matter what the weather, I always left, with one exception, on Friday after four. But it was often Saturday morning, and once or twice it was late in the afternoon of that day before I reached Falmouth. On account of the prevailing winds it was always more difficult to go north than to go south; and invariably it took longer. MANHOOD -- Page 313
Since
so much depended on the weather, we
became, at both ends, the most anxious
watchers of sky, wind, and cloud. Sometimes,
when I had to leave the cottage, there
was anguish in my wife's face. Perhaps
a blizzard threatened; perhaps the air
was opaque with flying or drifting snow.
Since I had to go, I tried not to see
it. On one occasion, though I had left
the cottage on Sunday morning, at ten,
and though by that time I was driving
two strong horses, I did not reach Gladstone,
forty-five miles away by the road I
had had to adopt, until eight-thirty
on Monday, with just enough time to
spare for changing clothes before, without
breakfast, I had to hurry to school.
And for every minute of these twenty-odd
hours I had been driving my horses,
over drifts in which I sometimes did
not see them, with muscles taut and
nerves tense. Any rare holiday - Thanksgiving,
Christmas - made us feel as though we
must make the most of it by living faster,
by putting more things into the pockets
of time. Throughout the winter, it was
always a triumph when I got home before
midnight on Friday; it happened rarely
enough. Invariably I found my wife waiting;
and then there was a whole, unbroken
day ahead. Once, soon after school had
opened at Gladstone - I was still riding
the bicycle - rain overtook me on the
way out before I had left the town more
than six miles behind. For the remainder
of the trail which I was still following,
twenty-eight miles, I had to walk and
to push my wheel which was heavily laden
with supplies. It was the first time
I had been delayed; and it gave my wife
a foretaste of many an experience to
follow.
Whenever I arrived during the night, the little girl woke up; and, as soon as I entered the cottage, she climbed out of her cot and snuggled sleepily down on my knees IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 314
where, wearily, I had dropped into a
camp-chair. By that time she had accepted
the routine of my being absent during
the week. All of which may sound pathetic enough; but it was only that outside of the young woman's life which I could see as well; the inside of it I did not know until years later. Let me mention the subject of heating. Even that tiny cottage could be kept warm only by means of two stoves, one in the kitchen, the other in the living-room for which a small, so-called air-tight heater was supplied. In this bush, swept by the relentless winds of a Manitoba winter, there was always the danger of fire; sometimes, during a blizzard, a sudden up-draught would suck streams of sparks into the flying air above the roof. My wife never dared to go to bed before both fires were out. Invariably she ceased adding fuel about eight o'clock; and gradually the inexorable cold - it was often forty below and sometimes lower - invaded the cottage. Bed was the only place where, with the help of a hot-water bottle, it was possible to keep warm; but she never lay down until, shivering, she had convinced herself, by stirring the ashes, that there was not a spark of glow left in the stoves. Often, in the intense cold - in the coldest nights the -air is always calm - the trees all about would startlingly come to life with reports like pistol-shots; their wood was splitting by uneven contraction; or their bark was bursting in long strips. Or, when the wind was blowing and whistling or shrieking weirdly around the eaves, boards in the shell of the cottage would creak or rattle. Or the screech owl, resident here in its northernmost range, would launch its startling, laughter-like call. When my wife ran out to see that everything was in order about the place - as she always did, at the very moment when MANHOOD -- Page 315
darkness fell - the snowy owls would
circle about her head, so close that
she could hear the whir of their wings.
It was characteristic of my wife that nothing frightened her for long which, in some way, she could explain. In that respect, she formed a striking contrast to such of the wives of the settlers as dropped in on her, now and then, at night. Hearing a creak or a rattle, these women would sit there, bathed in a cold sweat, not daring to speak above a whisper. My wife laughed at them; and then they would launch into tales of ghosts and werewolves and evil spirits; for, while racially Germans, they had come from Voihynia in Russia where the belief in witch-craft and in the animistic malice of nature is far from being extinct. But they never succeeded in frightening my wife. It was worse when they spoke of actual experiences, sufferings from loneliness or illness or bereavement; from poverty beyond the power of man to endure; or from loss sustained by reason of such poverty; or, still worse, by reason of their being shut off from help, cooped up, as they were, in this northland with its arctic cold; above all when they talked of men frozen to death while trying to get home through a treacherous stretch of the subarctic forest. For such tales had a personal application; and at the least they left a depressing effect behind. Often, there disengaged itself, from such tales, an impression as if nature, instead of being merely indifferent. were animated by an active ill-will; as if it were vindictively lying in wait and lurking for a mistake a man might make in dealing with it; then to pounce on him and finish him off; the malice of circumstance. Thus a whole, sunny, calm week was often followed by a lowering or vehement Friday, just when my wife's most ardent wishes IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 316
were for a continuance of unchanged
weather. It seemed that all untoward
metereological events were reserved
for the week-ends. Thus, in summer,
when that had been welcome, there had
not been a single thunderstorm except
on Friday or Saturday. Now it came to
the point where she looked with misgiving
on sunshine, or on a rise in temperature,
if either came between Monday and Friday;
for only one law of the weather seemed
certain, namely, that it was subject
to change. If Wednesday was propitious,
Friday was almost sure to be forbidding.
Even the men, bringing their children
to school in their bob-sleighs, were,
in such cases, often discouraging; when,
on Friday morning, the snow was flying
or drifting, they would say when asked
- and how could my wife resist the temptation
of asking them? - "No. He can't start
today. He'd never make it." So that,
the last day, she was often divided
between her wishes; she wanted me to
come; but she did not want me to expose
myself to danger which stay-at-homes
exaggerated to themselves. At any rate,
I always came. But it was true that,
on occasion, I had come near giving
in; in such cases, it was precisely
the thought of wife and child which
kept me going. Once, on my way out,
the temperature being very close to
fifty below zero, I saw, in a fearful
snow-drift no more than six miles from
Gladstone, the head of a horse sticking
out of the snow, frozen stiff; and as,
turning aside, I passed with a shudder,
I saw a corner of the sleigh and the
head of the driver who was still sitting
upright in death. On my way back to
Gladstone, I watched for the sight;
but it had been buried under an additional
layer of snow two or three feet thick.
The worst enemy of man, however, is man. As I have said, the cottage stood no more than fifty feet from the MANHOOD -- Page 317
road, the only clear road in the district
which led right through from the town
in the east to the town in the west.
A good deal of the wood that was cut
for fuel in this section, to be used
in the towns to west and south, and
even in the more distant cities, was
hauled along this road, eastward or
westward, to Amaranth or Glenella, there
to be piled in long tiers and finally
to be shipped by rail; and much of it,
as I knew only too well, was hauled
at night when the roads were smoother
and harder.
The whole country is rolling, from ridge to ridge; I have already mentioned that it is scored by moraines running roughly from north to south. Now it so happened that the highest of these ridges, apart from the so-called Big Ridge which out-topped them all, was the one crossing the west-east road a mile or a little more from school and cottage. During the summer this had been a welcome fact; for, in coming, on my bicycle, from Leifur, I could always be seen five or ten minutes before I arrived; and the little girl was sure to be watching for me. She had been told that this was the day when I should come home; so that there were wavings of hands and joyous shouts preceding the meeting which invariably took place on the road. But in winter I came from south or west, where the land lay low and marshy and the view was cut off by the forest which crowded close. Every chance traveller from the east, however, rare as such were, had a full view of school and cottage in their bluffs of trees and shrubs the moment he topped that ridge; and if it was night, he saw every light that might happen to be burning at either. We had, of course, long since seen to it that blinds were sent out; unfortunately, when they arrived, they were white, allowing the light to shine through. Every night, IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 318
then, my wife hung the windows, which
gave on all sides, with dark rugs, pinning
them to the window-frames and stuffing
the interstices between lintels and
curtain-rods with rags. Then, in the
falling darkness, she went out to make
sure that no ray from her lamp betrayed
the light inside. Yet, whenever, in
this utter wilderness where sound carried
far, through an atmosphere made dense
by the contraction of the cold, the
rattling of wagon-wheels reached her
ear, or the jingling of sleigh-bells
-and she was everlastingly listening
for them - she got into a panic; and
in her panic she would blow her lamp,
to sit there in inky blackness, following
the passing teams with her mind until
she was convinced that they were once
more out of eye or earshot. Only then
would she dare to relight the lamp;
for, once the little girl had been put
to bed, what could she do with herself
until it was time to lie down, but sew
or read? In such a district, with the
school overlooking the road, she always
knew, of course, when a settler of the
neighbourhood whom she knew had gone
to town in the morning; and at night
she often said to herself, "That is
so-and-so now, going home"; and her
feelings were friendly enough; the very
sounds seemed reassuring. But she could
never feel certain; and no precaution
was ever neglected. It might even be
that she had asked such a settler to
bring her supplies from town; and then
she would sit breathless in the dark
until she heard his voice when he called
to his horses to stop.
Sometimes whole strings of teams passed - I myself had once counted twenty-two in a line - carrying loads of firewood; and she could hear the men shouting from one to the other, perhaps angrily, perhaps jocularly. She would listen to the heavy tramp of their feet on bare MANHOOD -- Page 319
ground - for the high grade was swept
by every wind -or to the crunching of
the snow under their steps as they trudged
stolidly along by the side of their
horses; for on account of the intense
cold it was rarely safe for them to
sit on their loads. Occasionally, too,
gay young gallants would drive past
in smart buggies or cutters, waking
the echoes with their songs or their
ribaldry.
There was still another cause for anxiety. Ever since my long illness at Virden my health had given rise to worry. Was I well? For there had been times when I was not. During that winter I suffered from at least one vicious cold, with my temperature running high; and I had secured leave of absence, grudgingly given, for the school-board considered that my wife's place was in town; and I had myself driven out to Falmouth, to go to bed and be nursed. The question arises: then why? Why should this young woman bear what she was bearing? I did not know; I should have been happy there; and she professed to be happy. She would have done anything on earth for me. She believed that what she was doing was in my interests. Consequently, there was never even the remotest thought of her giving up, of not going through with it. At the time, she did not even give me the slightest hint of the fact that she was living in constant, deadly fear; it was years later before she confessed to it. And the almost incomprehensible thing about it all is that, taking matters all in all, we were both happy. Today, it seems to have been the happiest year of our lives. IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 320
To that
result, one thing contributed more than
anything else, at least as far as I
was concerned; I was writing again.
Not, for the moment, in the sense that I was producing finished books; for that there was hardly the time; but I was taking copious notes - which were never used. The taking of notes merely helped me to clarify matters in my mind. For those who know the handful of books which I have published, I need hardly say that this was the time when Over Prairie Trails and The Turn of the Year took shape. Settlers of the Marsh became an obsession, though I planned it at the time as it was written later on, as a trilogy with the title Pioneers; and Len Sterner or Adolescence , for which a publisher invented the preposterous title, The Yoke of Life, a work of much older origin, became definitely located two miles north of Falmouth. Many things crystallized in my mind. And then fate played me another of its little tricks. A vacancy occurred in a rural school no more than six miles from Falmouth; and simultaneously I had at Gladstone just one unpleasantness too many. Since it has some historical significance, if only for the war psychosis, I will briefly touch upon it here. It was, by the way, the year 1917. In previous years, a Governor-General's medal had been awarded to the student ranking highest on his aggregate in the final examinations of every high school in Manitoba. For economy's sake, and on account of the war, this medal had been withdrawn for the time being. But an assistant of mine boldly hinted that I, being "some sort of a foreigner", was purposely suppressing that medal. What my purpose in doing so could possibly have been, she never explained. One Saturday, in my MANHOOD -- Page 321
absence, she broke open the drawers
of the desk in my class-room where,
among other private things, I kept my
correspondence under lock and key; there
were letters from my wife, for instance.
Needless to say, she found nothing to
confirm her preposterous accusation.
In my indignation I took the matter
to the school-board; but this body supinely
professed to be unable to see what they
could do about it. I had expected that
at least they would offer to see the
egregious lady and to exact an apology;
but they didn't. I promptly applied
for, and obtained, the appointment to
the vacancy in the bush-land and resigned
my position at Gladstone. This meant,
among other things, that I had to dispose
of most of our precious furniture, the
last payment on which had just been
made. It goes without saying that I
did not get half its value; but there
was no choice. We could not have afforded
to pay storage.
Financially, the arrangement we had entered into the previous summer had proved a success. We were free of debt at last; we even had a small reserve; and I owned two good horses one of which I promptly sold when I joined my wife; the other I still needed to take me back and forth to Ferguson School - which, in older books, figures under the name of Macdonald. The proceeds of that sale we invested, as we had done with the rest of our savings, in Victory Bonds. Meanwhile our joint earnings were still to amount to a hundred and thirty dollars a month, which was more than we needed. We continued to live at Falmouth; for, small though the cottage was, the one at Ferguson was no larger; and the improvements we had made at Falmouth gave it some semblance of a home. IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 322
It will
be noticed that, by taking this step,
I was cutting myself loose from what,
three years before, had opened up before
me as a career. I was fully aware of
it; but I did not care any longer; my
true career had once more identified
itself with my life as a writer. On
account of the expense involved, in
examination fees and for an entirely
imaginary extra-mural tuition, I had
also, in the disturbance of all these
moves, dropped the idea of getting a
degree from the university. It seemed
too irrelevant. Now, during the following summer, the yard of Ferguson School was to be fenced; and, being on the spot, I was to act as the representative of the official trustee in making the arrangements. I had to call a meeting of the ratepayers and ask for tenders. One evening in July I drove over to preside at my school. For two miles the road led north, along the margin of the swamp, where it followed the windings of the ridge on which stood Falmouth School; then, for three or four miles, it led straight west over a graded trail laid through dense forest. At one of the highest spots of this east-west road, where the ground sloped gradually up from the south - it was another of those ridges, though an insignificant one -there was, to the north, an abrupt descent, perhaps a sort of pot-hole, accentuated by the fact that, in order to maintain a uniform level, yes, a slight descent eastward, in the floor of the ditch which was designed to carry the water out to the lake, it had to be cut the deeper the higher the ground rose. At this point, then, this road was thirty or forty feet above the forest floor to the north. I, being preoccupied with the task ahead of me, and perhaps with the plan of a book, was driving absent- MANHOOD -- Page 323
mindedly along; Peter, the horse, knew
anyway where we were going.
But at the precise moment when we were topping the crest of that ridge, out of the bush to the south, straight and swift as an arrow, there tore a vicious dog, half wild, perhaps with an admixture of wolfish blood. With one leap he hurled himself at the horse's nose and hung there, snarling and shaking the head of the horse. Peter, frenzied with panic and pain, rose on his hind-feet, pawing with his fore-feet for his assailant; and the next moment, coming down in front, he lashed out with his iron-shod hind-feet, demolishing the buggy at the first blow. In order to save myself from these feet, I had no choice but to leap; and I did so blindly. There was not even time to look; and so I leapt to the north where the descent was perpendicular. As I landed on my feet, I felt something giving in my spine and collapsed. For perhaps a second I lay stunned. Then the horse's wild, thundering gallop along the road brought me back to consciousness. I rose, somewhat painfully, it is true, but without becoming aware of any serious injury received. I regained the road where the fragments of the buggy lay strewn about, with nothing but the wheels intact, and set out to follow the horse. About half-way to the school I came upon the dead body of the dog, trampled down, at last, by the horse's hoofs. At the school, the horse, still bleeding from his nose, was wildly circling about the yard, to escape from the pursuing settlers who were trying to capture him. As soon as he heard my voice, he stood, apparently docile; but when I touched him, he trembled and snorted. We tied him to a tree. IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 324
After a brief explanation, the meeting was held; and then we placed Peter, for the night, in a nearby stable to let him calm down. I went home in a borrowed outfit. While I was wincing with all sorts of sharp, shooting pains, I paid no particular attention; I ascribed them to the severe shaking-up I had received. It was only the next day that I became alarmed I was working in the garden which we had cleared and dug when suddenly, without warning, my legs crumpled up under me. I had no feeling in them, nor any power; I don't remember how I got into bed. But a few days later I seemed to be recovered; I resumed my drives to the other school; and in my leisure hours I worked again in the garden. It became, however, at once apparent that Peter, the horse, was spoiled for my work; he had become a run-away, getting scared at mere nothings; at the sound of a cough, for instance. I had to dispose of him, which I did reluctantly, exchanging him for a much lighter but quiet mare which I counted myself lucky in finding without delay. It took weeks and perhaps months for it to be borne in upon us that henceforth I could no longer trust my limbs; and towards the fall of the year I went to Winnipeg to consult a doctor. This consultation opened a prolonged tussle with members of the medical profession which was to last for nine years and to end with a clear and unequivocal vindication of my own diagnosis of a spinal lesion. So far, the man consulted professed that he could not find anything wrong; but he expressed a suspicion that there was trouble with my kidneys. He advised me to see a specialist; and that specialist pronounced me a diabetic. Hearing where I lived, quite out of reach of medical help, and making a favourable estimate of MANHOOD -- Page 325
my mental powers, he named certain books
for me to read, on the "starvation method
of treating diabetes", and told me to
take matters into my own hands.
I still see, with my mind's eye, the dismay in my wife's face when, on my return home, she caught sight of those books in my suitcase. Henceforth, then, it seemed, I was an invalid and had to be treated as such. Every now and then, during the years to come, I was to have a breakdown, accompanied by a sudden paralysis of my lower limbs. In the intervals, though often subject to excruciating pains, I was able to go about my business. I failed, of course, to see how diabetes could account for these attacks; but, when you are in the hands of the doctors, you are helpless. It is best to give in. It was this threat of invalidism which hung over me which led to our next step. For what should happen if I were disabled? The point was this: my wife's certificate was not, so far, a life certificate; and it was on the point of expiring. The regulations of no Canadian Department of Education take successful experience into full account; on the expiration of a given period, at least up to a certain point, they require the holder of a certificate to attend another Normal Session before a new certificate is issued. My wife might have carried on for another year; perhaps for two years; but what if the state of my health deteriorated to the point of total disablement? We talked the situation over with the greatest care and came to the conclusion that she should attend that Normal Session at once; that is, during the fall of 1919. What was I going to do? The problem was to find some way for my wife to get home at least once a month; the little girl would have to remain with me. We had IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 326
a few hundred dollars in reserve; but
it was not sufficient to carry the two
of us. I should have to teach.
At Ferguson School, where I had engaged on leaving Gladstone, my salary was sixty-five dollars a month, not enough to see us through, for my wife's trips home were bound to be expensive. The ratepayers with whom I talked matters over were sufficiently appreciative of my services to declare, at a meeting held for the purpose, that they would gladly pay somewhat higher taxes if I could be retained at a salary of a hundred dollars. That, my wife and I agreed, was in excess of our needs. I asked the official trustee to raise me to eighty-five dollars. He refused. This was the time when, as a consequence of the war and its immediate aftermath, even teachers' salaries had begun to rise at last. We secured some newspapers and became aware of three vacancies in high schools so located as to make it possible for my wife to join me and the little girl for an occasional week-end. I applied for all three and was promptly engaged by the board of the Consolidated School at Eden, in the foothills of the Riding Mountains, at a salary, if I remember aright, of eighteen hundred dollars. That seemed to solve at least our financial problem. It was true, the through train over the main line of the C.N.R. did not stop at Eden; and there was only one local train a day from Winnipeg, which arrived about four o'clock. The train in the opposite direction left Eden at nine in the morning but did not run on Sundays; which made a combination about as unfavourable as it could well be; for my wife would invariably have to ask for leave of absence on Monday if she wished to spend the Sunday with us. On the other hand, there was, eleven miles south of Eden, MANHOOD -- Page 327
the town of Neepawa, on the C.P.R. line,
where a daily train from Winnipeg arrived
at two at night, meeting the opposite
train, to Winnipeg, at about the same
hour. By that road, my wife would be
able to leave the city on Friday evening,
arriving at Neepawa in the small hours
of Saturday; and on Sunday, this being
a daily train, she could leave Neepawa
at the same hour and arrive at Winnipeg
in time to reach the Normal School at
the opening hour. There remained, of
course, the problem of how to meet her
at Neepawa; but we left that to be solved
later on.
I promptly sold horse, buggy, and sleigh. We did not make the move till towards the end of summer, packing up the remainder of our furniture in perfect leisure. Having done so, we went to Winnipeg, to spend a few days in the city, shopping. My wife promptly found a boarding-place, at thirty-five dollars a month, which was approved by the authorities of a paternal Normal School; and we expended an indispensable minimum on her wardrobe; not, however, enough to give her, at ever rising prices, a coat fit to wear in a Manitoba winter. We had never felt as downcast as we did when, on August 5, at eight in the morning, we took leave from each other on the platform of the Union Station where I, with the golden-haired little girl, boarded the train. That train had barely begun to move when the little girl, whose fourth birthday it was, flew into a panic at her mother's remaining behind; and till we arrived at Eden I had all I could do to distract her from the full realization of what this separation was to mean to her. She had taken my absence tragically enough at Falmouth; IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 328
but she had never
yet been away from her mother. The
world seemed very cruel indeed.
At Eden we were received by the secretary of the board, a Methodist minister who proved to be most helpful and kind. The first night, he informed me, we should necessarily have to spend at the hotel; and there would be great difficulty in finding a suitable house. At night I wrote to my wife in as cheerful a tone as I could, dwelling on the one point which I could praise; the school building deserved the highest commendation. Next morning, accompanied every step of the way by the little girl, I explored the town which consisted essentially of a line of shops and stores strung out along the gravelled highway which ran from Dauphin to Neepawa. After a while Mr. Henley, the minister, joined us. Incidentally, in the course of the morning, I happened to ask him why my application for the position had been so promptly accepted. At Gladstone, I had, in reply to a similar enquiry, been told that the board had asked the high-school inspector to look over the list of some sixty applicants; and he, in his own list, had placed my name first. At Eden, to my consternation, I was told that mine had been the only application received which asked for a salary of less than two thousand dollars. I had been accepted for reasons of economy. It was not exactly the answer I had expected. There was only one house available, a small, tumble-down shack in the last stages of decay. Downstairs, there was a single, if large room with a lean-to cubbyhole which might conceivably serve as a "kitchenette"; upstairs, there were two rooms quite uninhabitable on account of their utter dilapidation. Its situation was at the southern extremity of the village, in line with the MANHOOD -- Page 329
school which stood west of it. Beyond,
there stretched the fields. It was a
case of necessity; I had lived in worse
places; and my wife, whom I could not
have asked to share such quarters, was
not with me.
The rest of the day was taken up with moving in. I had my furniture brought over by a dray and was soon busy knocking down the crates. There were only two large pieces left: a very comfortable, wide bed, and the huge, fiat-topped desk at which I am writing this minute. In addition, I had a deal table, a few straight-backed chairs, a camp-chair, a coal-oil cook-stove, several boxes with dishes, and books, books, books. With the latter I had not yet parted; and they overflowed everything. Carefully, on account of my disability, I set about arranging these things in the room. The bed I placed in one of the far corners; my kitchen-equipment, in the other; and the desk I set up in the centre where it would receive light from two windows. By night I was installed. It was inconvenient; it lacked all comfort; but I could have endured conditions much worse had it not been for my wife who was bound to suffer severely under the separation. Sharing our bed, for May had outgrown her cot, the little girl and I lived through the night; and next morning there came what, for the moment, proved to be an alleviation of at least one of my worries. A young matron came to see me about May. She had a little boy of May's age; and she found it exceedingly difficult to keep him at home; for he had no playmate. She would be delighted to take care of May during school hours if I would let her be that playmate. I arrived at a favourable estimate of Mrs. Cannon who, being the daughter of a minister in the city, had had a corresponding education. IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 330
It seemed
to be a solution for one of my major
problems; and tentatively I agreed to
the proposal.
What Mrs. Cannon thought of me and my surroundings in this shack I do not know; and, at the time, I cared less. Henceforth, from the day when school opened, I took May over to Mrs. Cannon's apartment - she lived above her husband's hardware store - starting every morning before half-past eight; occasionally I dropped in at noon; and invariably I fetched her at four o'clock. In the afternoon of the first day I had a letter from my wife which seemed to indicate that she was keeping her courage up; and I answered it by as cheerful a missive as I could find it in my heart to write, giving her, of course, the news of the arrangement I had made with regard to May. As far as I was concerned, the opening of school eased matters for the moment; I was too busy to give in to my manifold misgivings. As I have said, this was a Consolidated School comprising seven separate districts each of which was served by a van transporting the children to and from school. These vans had to be checked on arrival and before departure; and the pupils remained at school during the brief noon-hour, when supervision had to be provided for. My lunch consisted of a hurriedly-taken bite or two, got ready in the morning, according to formulas prescribed for diabetics. At night, I prepared supper for the little girl as well. The only alternative to the arrangement which I had made would have been to engage a girl or a woman to look after the household; but that would have cost more money than, under the circumstances, I could afford to spend. A few days went by; and matters seemed to settle into an established routine. MANHOOD -- Page 331
Then Friday
came, the first Friday after the opening
of school. At four o'clock, heaving
a sigh of relief, both on account of
the momentary cessation of work and
of the fact that things seemed to have
worked out well, I went to fetch the
little girl and crossed the street to
get my mail.
I found a letter from my wife which completely upset me. She had lost her courage. I might say that this was the only occasion on which, in a quarter century, I have found her despondent. I canvassed all the possibilities of relieving her distress. Unfortunately, I was, for the moment, without ready money; my wife's installation at Winnipeg had consumed the greater part of our available funds; and I, of course, had not yet received any payment on salary account. But there were our Victory Bonds, deposited at the local bank. It was after hours, of course; but I hunted the banker up at his house; and when I explained the situation to him, he readily returned with me to the bank where I hypothecated one of the bonds. He sent my wife fifty dollars by telegraph. This remittance she could not cash that night; she would have to wait till Saturday morning at ten; and by that time the train for Eden would have left Winnipeg. So I sent an additional wire, asking her to take the Saturday night train to Neepawa where I should meet her. Then I searched the town for a car whose owner would be willing to take me to Neepawa during the small hours of the following night. I found one who was willing to call for me at one in the morning if I paid him ten dollars for the trip. It goes without saying that the little girl and I talked and laughed all day over the impending visit of her mother. It seemed like manna fallen from heaven. IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 332
On Saturday
I spent the greater part of my time
cleaning up the shack so it would not
have too depressing an effect on my
wife; and while I did so, the little
girl ran after me, trying to be helpful,
and laughing by the hour.
At night, I put May to bed fully dressed; and in spite of her excitement she promptly went to sleep, so completely had her emotions exhausted her. I was seized with a sudden inspiration. I sat down at my desk and, in a veritable fervour of creation, wrote down, in its practically final form, the first chapter of Over Prairie Trails. No matter how severely, both in an emotional and physical sense, the next five months were to tell on me, as a writer I was to flourish amazingly. When, an hour after midnight, the rickety Ford, exhausts wide open, thundered to a stop on the highway in front of my shack, I picked May up, bed-clothes and all, without even trying to waken her, and carried her to the back seat of the car. During the whole of the precipitous and rough ride I sat by the driver's side, half turned in my seat, and held her with outstretched arm to keep her from rolling down on the floor which was littered with a miscellaneous assembly of tools. As, through the inky darkness, we approached Neepawa, the train was just rounding the last curve from the east, with a mysterious shifting and blinking of red and green lights. When we came to a stop at the station, I had the greatest difficulty in rousing the little girl to a realization of the fact that her mother was coming. We spent a glorious Sunday in the late-summer weather at Eden and had a long walk in the hills. Having seen Mrs. Cannon and approved of the arrangement I had made with her, my wife picked up courage again, little as she liked the shack where I lived. We pressed the owner of MANHOOD -- Page 333
the ancient Ford into service once more;
and during the night from Sunday to
Monday my wife returned to the city.
The little girl seemed to accept the
situation with a courage which could
hardly have been expected from so young
a child.
Three weeks went by. If, by the end of the term, we were to balance accounts, it seemed imperative that my wife should hold out for the full month. But by that time we were both satisfied that we had come through so far. She asked for, and obtained, leave of absence on Friday, so that she could take the direct train from Winnipeg which arrived at Eden about four in the afternoon. Unfortunately I had a slight cold; and in my case any cold, no matter how slight, was cause for worry. Unfortunately, too, I had, in my letters, quite truthfully boasted of the exceptionally good health which I had enjoyed during the, so far, glorious fall of that year. My wife, finding me somewhat under the weather, suspected that my favourable reports had been given only to keep her from worrying. It was not the case; but I will admit that it looked uncommonly like it. On this occasion I was able to read her three completed chapters of Over Prairie Trails. I felt rather proud of them; but that, of course, meant nothing. What did count was that it revived her courage. The thing had to be gone through with, that was all. She returned to the city by the Sunday night train from Neepawa. During the following week, however, I missed two days at school, Wednesday and Thursday, while I nursed the cold which had reached its crisis. I took all possible precautions, called in the doctor who was reassuring, and followed his instructions. During these two days, IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 334
the little girl went to Mrs. Cannon's
by herself. But I made the mistake of
saying nothing of my cold in my letters
to my wife.
She, mistrustful, called up the local postmaster over the telephone. This was early on Friday morning; and, naturally, she received the information that I had not been at school for two days. The postmaster did not know that I was sufficiently recovered to resume my duties within an hour. It so happened that this was the day of the local school fair; and in the afternoon I was kept busy till about five o'clock. To my amazement, at half-past four, accompanied by the little girl, my wife walked in. She had taken the morning train without even asking for leave of absence. Naturally, I laughed as though the joke were on her; for here I was at school. As a matter of fact, however, the cough still persisted; and, not without a feeling of relief, I obeyed peremptory orders and went home and to bed. Monday, for some reason or other, was a holiday in the city, though not at Eden; and my wife had two full days, with Friday evening and Monday morning thrown in. This allowed time for me to get rid of my cold, in spite of the fact, or perhaps because of it, that, on Friday night, the weather had taken a sudden turn; snow had fallen; and, as it turned out, it had fallen for the winter. In western parlance, it had "snowed up". Thus, when Monday morning arrived, my wife felt reassured and promised, of her own accord, that this time, unless the unforeseen happened, she was going to wait the full four weeks. For various reasons we arranged that, the next time, I was to be the one to make MANHOOD -- Page 335
the trip. That would involve still greater
expense; but, for reasons which I have
forgotten, it seemed the indicated course.
When I had to go to school without seeing her off at the station, the parting between us was, thus, an exceptionally cheerful one. Unfortunately, the little girl took it, for the first time, tragically, in the full sense of the word "tragic" which implies the acceptance of a cruel fate. Leaving me at the gate of the school-yard where the vans were already arriving, my wife took May over to Mrs. Cannon's; and already there lay a shadow on the face of the little girl. In front of the door which my wife had no longer the time to enter, for the whistle proclaimed the approach of the train, she bent down to kiss her good-bye. Spasmodically, for a moment, May clung to her. She did not cry; but she was fighting her tears down; and when she had entered, she ran to a front window and stood there, her face glued to the glass. My wife had crossed the street and looked up; and, seeing her, she read the child's expression of wordless despair. That, barring one other, which remained mercifully hidden in her ignorance of the future, was perhaps the most heart-breaking moment in my wife's life with me. Merciless though the thing was, it seemed it had to be done unless my wife was willing that all that had gone before during that fall should be jeopardized now. She hurried on to the station. The little girl was a changed creature. It was as though an almost adult realization of her plight had come to her; as though she had looked behind the veil. Ordinarily, of course, she was still the little girl; she forgot herself and played about with apparent unconcern; but she gave the impression that she knew there was something IN SEARCH OF MYSELF -- Page 336
that
must be forgotten; and that is one
of the most cruel things in life.
At times she became unnaturally thoughtful;
on many a day to follow, when I took
her down to Mrs. Cannon's where she
had so far seemed perfectly at home,
she suddenly clung to me as if she
could not face the ordeal of seeming
cheerful in a strange house. And then,
one morning, she did burst into tears
and begged to be taken along to school.
This happened with increasing frequency;
and invariably I did what she asked
me to do, in spite of the fact that
Mrs. Cannon disapproved. At school,
I put her in the teachers' office,
with some picture books to look at;
or, on some rare occasions when her
case seemed especially grievous, I
let her sit in my class-room, in a
back seat, where she never disturbed
anyone in the least. |
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