Part 1 (2/2)
They'd allus been so durned respectable, too.
Anyway, mother's folk as a tribe, is millionaires in grace and pretty well fixed in Nova Scotia. She'd talk like a book, too. You'd never suspect mother, playing the harmonium in church, with a tuning-fork to sharpen the preacher's voice, black boots, white socks, box-plaited crinoline, touch-me-not frills, poke bonnet, served all round with scratch-the-kisser roses. Yes, I seen the daguerreotype, work of a converted photographer--nothing to pay. Thar's mother--full suit of sail, rated a hundred A-one at Lloyd's, the most important sheep in the Lord's flock. Then she's found out, secretly married among the goats.
Her name's scratched out of the family Bible, with a strong hint to the Lord to scratch her entry from the Book of Life. She's married a sailorman before the mast, a Liveyere from the Labrador, a man without a dollar, suspected of being Episcopalian. Why, she'd been engaged to the leading grocery in Pugwash. Oh, great is the fall thereof, and her name ain't alluded to no more. ”The ways of the Lord,” says she, ”is surely wonderful.”
In them days the Labrador ain't laid out exactly to suit mother. She's used to luxury--coal in the lean-to, taties in the cellar, cows in the barn, barter store round the corner, mails, church, school, and a jail right handy, so she can enjoy the unG.o.dly getting their just deserts.
But in our time the Labrador was just G.o.d's country, all rocks, ice, and sea, to put the fear into proud hearts--no need of teachers. It kills off the weaklings--no need of doctors. A school to raise men--no need of preachers. The law was ”work or starve”--no place for lawyers. It's police, and court, and hangman all complete, fire and hail, snow and vapors, wind and storm fulfilling His word. Nowadays I reckon there'd be a cinematograph theater down street to distract your attention from facts, and you'd order mola.s.ses by wireless, invoiced C. O. D. to Torngak, Lab. Can't I hear mother's voice acrost the years, and the continents, as she reads the lesson: ”'He casteth forth His ice like morsels: who can stand before His cold?'”
Father's home was an overturned schooner, turfed in, and he was surely proud of having a bigger place than any other Liveyere on the coast.
There was the hold overhead for stowing winter fish, and room down-stairs for the family, the team of seven husky dogs, and even a cord or two of fire-wood. We kids used to play at Newf'nlanders up in the hold, when the winter storms were tearing the tops off the hills, and the Eskimo devil howled blue shrieks outside. The huskies makes wolf songs all about the fewness of fish, and we'd hear mother give father a piece of her mind. That's about the first I remember, but all what mother thought about poor father took years and years to say.
I used to be kind of sorry for father. You see he worked the bones through his hide, furring all winter and fis.h.i.+ng summers, and what he earned he'd get in truck from the company; All us Liveyeres owed to the Hudson Bay, but father worked hardest, and he owed most, hundreds and hundreds of skins. The company trusted him. There wasn't a man on the coast more trusted than he was, with mother to feed, and six kids, besides seven huskies, and father's aunt, Thessalonika, a widow with four children and a tumor, living down to Last Hope beyond the Rocks.
Father's always in the wrong, and chews black plug baccy to keep his mouth from defending his errors. ”B'y,” he said once, when mother went out to say a few words to the huskies; ”I'd a kettle once as couldn't let out steam--went off and broke my arm. If yore mother ever gets silent, run, b'y, run!”
I whispered to him, ”You don't mind?”
He grinned. ”It's sort of comforting outside. We don't know what the winds and the waves is saying. If they talked English, I'd--I'd turn pitman and hew coal, b'y, as they does down Nova Scotia way--where yore mother come from.”
There was secrets about father, and if she ever found out! You see, he looked like a white man, curly yaller hair same as me, and he was fearful strong. But in his inside--don't ever tell!--he was partly small boy same's me, and the other half of him--don't ever let on!--was mountaineer injun. I seen his three brothers, the finest fellers you ever--yes, Scotch half-breeds--and mother never knew. ”Jesse,” he'd whisper, ”swear you'll never tell?”
”S'elp me Bob.”
”It would be h.e.l.l, b'y.”
”What's h.e.l.l like?”
”Prayers and bein' scrubbed, forever an' ever.”
”But mother won't be there?”
”Why, no. It hain't so bad as all that. She'll be in Heaven, making them angels respectable, and cleaning apostles. They was fishermen, too.
They'll catch it!”
Thar's me on father's knee, with my nose in his buckskin s.h.i.+rt, and even to this day the wood smoke in camp brings back that wuff, whereas summers his boots smelt fishy. What happened first or afterwards is all mixed up, but there's the smoke smell and sister Maggie lying in the bunk, all white and froze.
There's fish smell, and Polly who used to wallop me with a slipper, lying white and froze. And yet I knew she couldn't get froze in summer.
Then there's smoke smell, and big Tommy, bigger nor father, throwing up blood. I said he'd catch it from mother for messing the floor, but father just hugged me, telling me to shut up. I axed him if Tommy was going to get froze, too. Then father told me that Tommy was going away to where the milk came out of a cow. You just shove the can opener into the cow so--and the milk pours out, whole candy pails of milk. Then there's great big bird rocks where the hens come to breed, and they lays fresh eggs, real fresh hen's eggs--rocks all white with eggs. And there's vegi tables, which is green things to eat. First time you swell up and pretty nigh bust, but you soon get used to greens. Tommy is going to Civili Zation. It's months and months off, and when you get there, the people is so awful mean they'd let a stranger starve to death without so much as ”Come in.” The men wear pants right down to their heels, and as to the women--
Mother comes in and looks at father, so he forgets to say about the women at Civili Zation, but other times he'd tell, oh, lots of stories.
He said it was worse for the likes of us than New Jerusalem.
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