Seasons of Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #4) (18 page)

Once again Lydia was grateful for Tierney’s young strength and her willing spirit. With her crippled hands, many tasks were beyond her. One of numerous nice things about Lydia was that she never hesitated to express her appreciation. “There! That’s it!” “Good job!” “Whatever should I do without you!”

Ridiculous as it seemed, Tierney almost felt privileged, given the most odious tasks—liming the toilet, emptying the slop bucket, gutting a chicken—to be the one to do them, so genuine and unfailing was Lydia in her gratitude.

Tierney stepped lithely up on the chair Lydia steadied, reached gingerly for the thumbtack fastened in the ceiling, and took down the traps, holding them at arm’s length until she could get down and walk with them to the stove. Here she lifted a lid with her free hand and flung the revolting twists of sticky paper and their graveyard of flies into the fire.

Then, of course, new tubes had to be opened and untwisted and hung. About this time Quinn Archer appeared on the stoop. About to open the screen door, he was stopped by Lydia’s screech.

“Wait! Wait, Quinn!”

Lydia left Tierney to her own devices in the hanging of the last fly trap, snatched up her dish towel once again, toddled to the door, and began flapping.

“Now,” she said, “come ahead.”

With the towel swishing over and around him, Quinn made his entrance, ducking his head against the attack and putting a protecting arm over his face.

“See,” a deep-breathing Lydia said with satisfaction, “it’s ever so much better in here. Now, Tierney, if you’ll just come on down—”

A gallant Quinn was holding out his hand. Tierney took it and stepped lightly down to the floor. Tall, she was, for a woman, but Quinn Archer, standing closely beside her, was much taller. He smiled down at her.

“We could use your help with the flies out in the barn,” he said. “I often get bitten when I’m milking and both hands are engaged.” He rubbed his neck ruefully.

“You can help Tierney pull up the blinds again,” Lydia, who loved to be in charge of good help, suggested, and soon the house was restored to normalcy.

“Herbert has decided,” the hired man said, “that he can let me off tomorrow, and if you can do the same for Tierney, we’ll take a turn at helping with the garden and the canning at the Hoy place. He says he agreed to tomorrow.”

Quinn had made reference to Sunday’s announcement concerning the church’s responsibility where the sick widow woman was concerned. Immediately hands had gone up and a schedule of sorts worked out whereby the various households would leave their own work for a day to help Alice Hoy get ready for winter. In spring, soon after her husband’s death, volunteer help had plowed the Hoy fields and planted the grain and the vegetables; summer had seen the weeds chopped, the garden tended, and now the rampant growth was ready for picking and canning or storing in the cellar. Soon the grain would be ready for harvesting. All of it was necessary if Alice and the boys were to survive throughout the long winter months. And all of it was accomplished by the callused hands, the strong backs, the
weary forms of concerned neighbors who were never quite sure when they themselves might need a helping hand.

When Parker Jones made the announcement from the pulpit, calling for a concerted push to get the Hoy garden harvested, there had been a general nodding of heads, Herbert Bloom’s among them. The good people of Bliss would lay aside their own work, if need be, to assist the needy neighbor. If it wasn’t for Rob Dunbar looking after the chores each day, they all agreed, the situation would be hopeless indeed.

If the widow weren’t so sickly—dying, perhaps—a husband would have been forthcoming immediately. Why, she had three bachelors living on her own section: Rob Dunbar, his brother, Allan, and Herkimer Pinkard. The Dunbar brothers were a little young, perhaps, and Herk a little . . . well, heads were shaken as Herkimer’s assets and liabilities were totted up, and all concluded that Herkimer was . . . Herkimer.

“You know vat he said d’ udder day?” Gebhard Popkin reported when caught in the midst of such a discussion. “It was the day d’ skunk did his bizness ’roun’ our place, and Herk come by: ‘Vat kills a skunk is d’ publicity it gives itself.’ That’s vat he said!”

“My land! What next?” someone offered, with more of the head shaking that seemed to affect all in general when Herkimer was mentioned. “Where’d he get such an idea?”

“He said it vas dat American president—Lincoln—dat said it.”

“Well, who knows enough about it to argue with him?” No one, it seemed.

“It would take a saint to put up with that Herkimer Pinkard!” more than one woman was heard to mutter. And yet, when asked just what the problem was, they fell silent, with more muttering and very little substance. And the conclusion of all was that Herkimer was, after all, a fine man . . . in his way.

But husband material for Alice Hoy? No one even suggested it. Alice was a gentle lady, Alice was refined, Alice was
sick
.

“I went by the other day,” more than one Bliss homesteader or his wife reported, “and she could barely get to the door. All glassy-eyed, she was.”

Other times she seemed quite normal, like herself, except that she had grown excessively thin, even frail, with blue veins showing in her temples and on the backs of her hands. Her white hands. For Alice spent more time on her sofa than at her tasks.

So, “Yes, of course,” Lydia said now in response to Herbert’s reminder through Quinn, that tomorrow was their scheduled day to help at the Hoy place. “Tierney can be free whenever you can, Quinn. I wonder if Alice has cleaning materials or if the ladies take their own . . .” and Lydia was off and running, planning the next day’s activities.

“Of course, Tierney,” she concluded, “after you whisk through the house—and no doubt it needs it, what with Alice being so sickly and all—the main thing is to get at the canning. Hopefully she can help; it’s a terrible task for one alone, as you know.”

After the canning sessions in the Bloom household, Lydia felt confident that Tierney, by herself, could do the job, but the workload would be heavy, hot, and wearing to the extreme.

“Quinn can pick and gather,” Lydia continued, “and you, Tierney—and hopefully Alice—can get the jars to boiling, the vegetables chopped and ready for the water bath. For heaven’s sake, Tierney, wear your coolest cotton! It’s going to be a scorcher. I’m sorry to do this to you, dear. It isn’t a day to anticipate, that’s for sure.”

Anticipate? Tierney dreaded the experience, getting to know, to see, to watch, the woman Robbie would be marrying. Cleaning
their
home, putting up the vegetables that
they
would enjoy next winter, touching the items, the household equipment, that would be
theirs
.

In bed that night, desperately in need of a da’s comfort and a mither’s loving arms, Tierney found them both in her heavenly Father.

“Dear Father,” she wept into her pillow, “Ye’ve brought me sae far, sae verra far, from home, and I know Ye’ll no’ forsake me. Niver, niver! Help me tomorra, gi’ me grace for tomorra. In Jesus’ precious name . . .”

P
arker Jones looked up from the books spread before him on the dining table—his place of study—his attention caught by the sound of a rig.

Usually, a rig passing by on the road was enough to call any member of a household to the window or to the barn door, simply to see who was passing by. It wasn’t because curiosity was so great; what was almost overwhelming at times, particularly during the winter season, was the loneliness. Shut into a small enclosure with only yourself for company or the well-known members of your family—so well-known, in fact, that there were no surprises remaining—a new face, a fresh train of thought, some outside interest, was enough to brighten the darkest and longest of days. There was life, after all, on planet Earth! The small satisfaction of a glimpse of another living, breathing, toiling human, with perhaps a wave, a smile, a
halloo, gave encouragement and uplift that was often much needed.

Even so, Parker Jones, during his sermon-building sessions, would not be roused and turned aside by a passing rig. But this one, on this particular day, had turned off the road, was pulling up to the house, was stopping.

Reluctantly Parker turned from his notes, sighing at the interruption. It was, he supposed, someone bringing an offering—of baking, cooking, canning.

And he was always grateful; such donations kept the proverbial wolf from the parsonage door. At times, for meals, the pickings were slim. Last night’s supper, for instance, was a pot of soup made from a jar of canned tomatoes—curdling when the milk was added, to Parker’s dismay and disgust but not changing the taste greatly—and a few great slabs of bread and butter. There was plenty of it, but sometimes the lack of variety in his diet was wearisome. When it became too hard to take, or when he was tired to death of his own cooking (or when he had burned his meager meal past redemption), he simply turned his coin-toed shoes in summer, his overshoes in winter, in the direction of the home of a parishioner. And local hospitality was such that he had never been turned away. The fare might be just as simple as his own, but it was shared with goodwill and friendliness, never apologies, and Parker went home blessed in spirit and tight of belt.

Of course he was always welcome—almost as a son of the family—in the Morrison home. Here the fellowship of the dignified Angus and the gracious Mary were reminders that, outside of this remote corner of the world, life went on with civilized people engaged in everyday affairs and with no worries whatsoever about what the weather was doing to the crop. Angus and Mary had been among the first to settle in Bliss, but traces of a better life were clear, with touches of other days, other places, remembered niceties.

And Molly—Parker admitted that Molly Morrison was the chief attraction. With her vivacious face, lively hair, and
equally lively ways, yet knowing when to be gentle, when to be thoughtful, when to be quiet, she was a pearl among women, to Parker’s way of thinking. And to the thinking of others, for bachelors continually showed up at the Morrison home and, Parker noted, with some embarrassment for his own similar practice, always at mealtime. In spite of their persistence, Molly had remained heart-free until those vivid blue eyes of hers had turned seriously upon the new minister, and the independence that marked her ways gave place to a passion for Parker Jones that was only guessed at, except perhaps by Parker Jones.

Even so, there was a restraint about Molly, a cool exterior that belied the depth of feeling within, except when she chose to let it be glimpsed. And, since the arrival of Vivian Condon, Molly had been restrained indeed, cool indeed. Not cold, never cold. Quick to respond, to smile, to listen, but with something . . . something that Parker Jones was at a loss to explain but felt, instinctively, uncomfortably, that it was related to the arrival of Vivian Condon.

Now, with a sense of dread, almost a premonition, Parker Jones rose, stretched himself, and went to the open door. Immediately he recognized the Condon horse and, hitched to it, the Condon buggy. But it was not Blystone or Beatrice holding the reins, looking expectantly toward the parsonage door.

Stepping outside onto the stoop, closing the screen door behind him, Parker nodded to the driver of the rig—Vivian herself.

“Good afternoon, Miss Condon,” he said, his heart sinking.

Every time Vivian Condon appeared on the scene something dramatic happened, something that made him uneasy, almost guilty. And there was no reason, no reason whatsoever, to feel guilt! He had done nothing reprehensible, nothing to reproach himself for, not in the least. If Molly was disturbed by the other young woman’s presence—

Parker Jones found himself on the verge of anger with Molly for—he could find no reason. He realized he was being unreasonable, and it pulled him up short, astonished that he should
blame Molly Morrison for the tension he was feeling over Vivian’s effect upon him.

But it was happening again: Vivian Condon had no more than driven into the yard and here he was, on the spot again, flustered again, at a loss again.

“Good morning, Pastor!” Vivian’s expression was pleasant, her words ready, her smile smooth.

Parker Jones stood indecisively on the porch, his hands in his pockets, his tie awry, his dark hair slightly mussed, and was not aware of the picture he made. Was not aware that his very air of reluctance was fuel for the fire of this woman’s interest.

Vivian Condon was not accustomed to disinterest. But this, she figured shrewdly, was not disinterest; it was hesitation. And hesitation was a challenge, especially at a time in her life when she was cut off from her circle of friends and their round of pleasures.

Only once in her lifetime had Vivian been thwarted: Ted Kingsley had wooed, and won, and flouted. Not so much brokenhearted as chagrined, Vivian had hastened to escape the pitying glances of her friends and had fled to her father’s brother and his wife in the heart of the bush. Here, she was not long in realizing, life was much different, much more serious.

The occasional social times enjoyed by the people of Bliss were rare in the summertime, and when they occurred they were, to Vivian, so bucolic as to be heartily boring. The Sunday school picnic with its long tables of food that seemed to be the chief attraction—its children racing and leaping and yelling, its youth awkwardly flirting with members of the opposite sex, its men sitting in one group, talking, the women doing the same in another, the seeking of shade from the hot sun, the fanning of the face, the perspiration—was a trial for the city born and bred girl. The talk, of course, was mostly of crops and rain—too much or too little—cows freshening and chickens laying, garden stuff and canning. And it was so interspersed with mosquito-slapping and fly-shooing and featured refreshments as heavy as pie or as tasteless as pudding, that Vivian had
great difficulty suffering the entire event without displaying her contempt of it all.