Part 25 (1/2)

The Stopping Place was a rambling shack, or rather a series of shacks, loosely joined together, whose ramifications were found by h.e.l.l and his friends to be useful in an emergency. The largest room in the building was the bar, as it was called. Behind the counter, however, instead of the array of bottles and gla.s.ses usually found in rooms bearing this name, the shelf was filled with patent medicines, chiefly various brands of pain-killer. Off the bar was the dining-room, and behind the dining-room another and smaller room, while the room most retired in the collection of shacks const.i.tuting the Stopping Place was known in the neighborhood as the ”snake room,” a room devoted to those unhappy wretches who, under the influence of prolonged indulgence in h.e.l.l's bad whisky, were reduced to such a mental and nervous condition that the landscape of their dreams became alive with snakes of various sizes, shapes and hues.

To Mandy familiarity had hardened her sensibilities to endurance of all the grimy uncleanness of the place, but to Moira the appearance of the house and especially of the dining-room filled her with loathing unspeakable.

”Oh, Mandy,” she groaned, ”can we not eat outside somewhere? This is terrible.”

Mandy thought for a moment.

”No,” she cried, ”but we will do better. I know Mrs. Macintyre in the manse. I nursed her once last spring. We will go and see her.”

”Oh, that would not do,” said Moira, her Scotch shy independence shrinking from such an intrusion.

”And why not?”

”She doesn't know me--and there are four of us.”

”Oh, nonsense, you don't know this country. You don't know what our visit will mean to the little woman, what a joy it will be to her to see a new face, and I declare when she hears you are new out from Scotland she will simply revel in you. We are about to confer a great favor upon Mrs. Macintyre.”

If Moira had any lingering doubts as to the soundness of her sister-in-law's opinion they vanished before the welcome she had from the minister's wife.

”Mr. Cameron's sister?” she cried, with both hands extended, ”and just out from Scotland? And where from? From near Braemar? And our folk came from near Inverness. Mhail Gaelic heaibh?”

”Go dearbh ha.”

And on they went for some minutes in what Mrs. Macintyre called ”the dear old speech,” till Mrs. Macintyre, remembering herself, said to Mandy:

”But you do not understand the Gaelic? Well, well, you will forgive us.

And to think that in this far land I should find a young lady like this to speak it to me! Do you know, I am forgetting it out here.” All the while she was speaking she was laying the cloth and setting the table.

”And you have come all the way from Calgary this morning? What a drive for the young lady! You must be tired out. Would you lie down upon the bed for an hour? Then come away in to the bedroom and fresh yourselves up a bit. Come away in. I'll get Mr. Cameron over.”

”We are a big party,” said Mandy, ”for your wee house. We have a friend with us--Dr. Martin.”

”Dr. Martin? Indeed I know him well, and a fine man he is and that kind and clever. I'll get him too.”

”Let me go for them,” said Mandy.

”Very well, go then. I'll just hurry the dinner.”

”But are you quite sure,” asked Mandy, ”you can--you have everything handy? You know, Mrs. Macintyre, I know just how hard it is to keep a stock of everything on hand.”

”Well, we have bread and mola.s.ses--our b.u.t.ter is run out, it is hard to get--and some bacon and potatoes and tea. Will that do?”

”Oh, that will do fine. And we have some things with us, if you don't mind.”

”Mind? Not a bit, my dear. You can just suit yourself.”

The dinner was a glorious success. The clean linen, the s.h.i.+ning dishes, the silver--for Mrs. Macintyre brought out her wedding presents--gave the table a brilliantly festive appearance in the eyes of those who had lived for some years in the western country.

”You don't appreciate the true significance of a table napkin, I venture to say, Miss Cameron,” said the doctor, ”until you have lived a year in this country at least, or how much an unspotted table cloth means, or s.h.i.+ning cutlery and crockery.”

”Well, I have been two days at the Royal Hotel, whatever,” replied Moira.