Journey to Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #3) (10 page)

“And how can that be,” Anne had muttered in Tierney’s ear, “when they are far from us, and farms are miles apart, and roads turn to ice? And that bachelor—I thought we would not be goin’ anyplace whaur there’s no woman.”

“This all started oot as a matter of puttin’ our trust in the Society,” Tierney reminded the cold-footed Anne, who hadn’t regained her composure from the moment she had glimpsed Lucian MacDermott when they were departing Binkiebrae. “The same gumption that got us oot o’ Binkiebrae will get us oot o’ any miserable spot we might get in.”

“I certainly hope so,” Anne replied grimly. “As for me, I’m no’ goin’ tae take any place like the Madam read aboot this mornin’, I can tell you that. No single men. . . .”

“Ye’re reet, Annie. Girls are no’ placed where there’s no woman in the home,” Tierney consoled Anne. “It’s one o’ the rules. What Mrs. Mountjoy read is a marriage proposal, and wasna addressed to the Society.”

Anne’s spirits seemed to lift, as though a great load had been taken from her shoulders.

“O’ course!” she said, much brighter now and clearly relaxing. “We’ll be happy as newborn lambs. Reet?”

“Reet,” Tierney confirmed, with a hasty glance toward their leader to be sure their Scot’s interpretation of “right” had not been overheard.

“I thought,” Pearly, who had been listening, said doubtfully, “lambs was dreffully weak little fings. I thought wolves got after ’em.”

“Not in Binkiebrae Scotland!”

“But in Canada maybe?”

H
aving quickly gotten their “sea legs,” the Mountjoy girls, as they were called, thoroughly enjoyed the ocean trip, at least as much as was possible considering the distinctly inferior food, lack of water for personal cleanliness and the washing of clothes, crowded conditions, and too many hours in the gloom of the hold where they were billeted. Youth, and a natural ebullience, triggered their sense of adventure, perked their interest in this new experience, and lifted any depression caused by farewells.

It was a time of getting acquainted; after all, they would be together for weeks, probably months, as they crossed an ocean and most of a continent, eating and sleeping in close quarters, sharing their most intimate moments. Hardly a secret would be kept hidden by the time this was all over and everyone scattered to their assigned place. In a few cases friendships were made that would endure across the years and through many exigencies
of life. In a few instances there was bitter feuding and antagonism, and enmities were made that also lasted a lifetime.

A sewing project occupied a good bit of time. To Norma, a settled, placid, mature young matron, was given the responsibility of entering Madam’s cabin and using the sewing machine provided for the occasion. With a helper, Norma ran up the side seams of the skirts that had been cut and labeled at some previous headquarters in England. Those who had no such garment in their wardrobe would be hand-sewing the remainder of the seams and the hem. The costs involved would be paid from the emigrant’s salary, added to the amount already due the British Women’s Emigration Society, as arranged, and promised by the girls themselves as they made their “X,” if nothing else, when they signed on.

Though Tierney already had a serge skirt, Anne did not; and neither, of course, did Pearly, who actually had so little that it was an embarrassment to her new friends, though Pearly herself was cheerful about it.

In fact, so cheerful was Pearly that others, of a more pessimistic nature, grumbled and complained about her; some went so far, in their gloom, to ask her to hush. Pearly was never squelched for more than a moment. One of her favorite testimonies was through the singing of a hymn; her choice usually spoke to the problem better than she could in her fractured English. Surprisingly, Pearly had a good voice, sweet and full at the same time.

When she understood that Tierney and Anne and others, with their own wardrobe obviously poor and insufficient, found hers to be pathetic, she burst into song. Naturally it was one she had learned at Chapel. To Pearly it took care of the situation, and there was no need for fretting.

Children of the Heav’nly Father

Safely in His bosom gather;

Nestling bird nor star in heaven

Such a refuge e’er was given.

God His own doth tend and nourish;

In His holy courts they flourish.

From all evil things He spares them;

In His mighty arms He bears them.

“I guess that’s good enough for me,” Pearly said, twinkling a little. Her eyes, wide and purple as pansies in her small, rather peaked face, smiled easily, and she radiated great good humor. “If the heavenly Favver cares for the little sparrer,” she added, “He’ll look after me, won’t He?”

No one resembled a sparrow of the street more than bird-frail Pearly; if the thought gave her comfort, so be it, Tierney and Anne agreed.

“But you haff to wear more than fevvers,” someone pointed out. “Did y’ ever see a sparrer in a serge skirt?”

Pearly cocked her head, more like a sparrow than ever. “The King’s daughter,” she said brightly, “is all glorious within.”

“Hmmmph,” was the frustrated reply, while another doubter said, “Not the queen’s consort; you’re not his daughter. Everyone knows he’s dead and been dead too long to be your father.”

“Oh, not Albert,” Pearly said with a trill of laughter. “I mean the one who ’dopted me. Abba Favver, see?”

“No, I don’t see,” the questioner said crossly. “Can’t you speak plain English, you little cockney? Abba? Abba? Sounds like baby talk to me!”

“Maybe it is,” Pearly responded spunkily. “Cos I fink it means daddy.”

The questioners and doubters, now surrounded by several listening, sometimes amused girls, shook their heads and marched away, muttering.

Pearly was more grieved about the confrontation than she had let on and shared with Tierney her regret over how she had handled the conversation.

“I guess I should keep me mouf shut when I don’t know any more about the Bible than I do,” she said, sighing. “I want to
tell uvvers how I feel inside, in my heart, but it’s hard to put it in proper words. You know . . . it’s better felt than tellt.”

Teirney laughed at the odd phrase and put her arm around the drooping shoulders. She didn’t understand, either, but wouldn’t hurt her new friend and sister for anything.

“If ye feel ye jist have to say something,” she advised, “jist toss it out there, like chicken feed, and let the chicks pick up what they can.”

Pearly brightened at what seemed a splendid idea. But she did attempt to use more wisdom than she had formerly. If it dulled her bright testimony a little, still it shone like a light in a dark place to the unbelievers in the ship’s lower deck.

“I am . . . the door, by me . . . if . . . any man . . . enter in . . . he shall be . . . saved.”

Flushed and victorious, Pearly looked up at Tierney from her reading lesson, her finger in place so that she could continue in a moment or so.

Saved
. There it was again—that strange word. Tierney looked into the charming little face at her side, aglow with some inner satisfaction. One almost had to believe, listening to her, watching her. But believe what? That Pearly was
saved?
It didn’t make a lot of sense to Tierney.

“Why did you read that, Pearly?” she asked rather tensely. “I mean, why did you begin yer readin’ there? If you can’t read very weel . . . well . . . how come you chose that verse? Was it jist by chance?” Surely Pearly wouldn’t choose a verse to purposely annoy her! Why did she keep harping on being saved!

“No,” Pearly answered promptly. “It’s one of me favorites. I have it marked, see? It’s marked ‘number two,’ see?” And Pearly tipped the Bible so that Tierney could indeed see a childlike figure 2 scrawled there in the margin.

After several days with Pearly in almost constant attendance, Tierney was becoming accustomed to this strange girl’s “testimony” and so continued cautiously.

“I see. So, if there’s a ‘two’ there must be a ‘one.’ Reet?”

“Reet . . . right,” Pearly said, correcting herself and Tierney too. “And it’s prob’ly me favorite of all. Do you want me to read it?”

“Na, na,” Tierney said, so hastily she forgot herself and her pronunciation. “That’s all reet . . . right. Dinna worry aboot it.”

Pearly’s enthusiasm faded for the moment. But it would return; there was no denying the reality of her “Meffodist” experience. She had learned to say “Methodist,” but the correction had not dimmed her testimony.

Pearly had such a bright mind and was such an imitator that her ways were changing more quickly, it seemed, than for any of them. She listened avidly to Ishbel Mountjoy, and her speech was clearing and refining wonderfully as she imitated that paragon of all things English. She watched Tierney and Anne and soon mimicked their small ways of thoughtfulness with each other, their kind concern for those around them, and once in a while a smidgen of their Scottish speech turned up in her speech. She read—to the best of her ability—her small Bible and incorporated its teachings into her life and ways as she could.

Pearly’s attempts at reading were the result of her association with the Methodist Chapel. She had trouble, often, with the words and sometimes with their meaning. Tierney, therefore, sat by her side to help her. But when it came to the scriptural meaning, she found herself truly at sea. With actual waves tossing the ship and Pearly spelling out some worrisome Bible verse, Tierney’s body was no more tossed than her heart.

The Bible seemed to be the only reading material available. With their belongings pared to a minimum, few girls had dared include a favorite book, considering it the extra baggage Mrs. Mountjoy had declared must be eliminated for the sake of space. “Be practical when it comes to packing,” she had said. “Try and imagine a day’s work in a kitchen or a hotel. Try and imagine yourself in a garden, or feeding turkeys and chickens, and bring what’s appropriate.”

Chickens, Anne knew, demanded a “practical” gown, and she and the others had been guided by Ishbel’s suggestion; their garments were, hopefully, suitable for the life of a domestic in the wilderness of the area called the North West Territories, soon to become, legally, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba.

To newly “saved” Pearly, her most precious treasure was the Bible the Chapel had given her, with the wish inscribed in the flyleaf that she “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Pearly would as soon have stayed behind herself as leave her Bible.

At the urging of the Chapel friends when they told her good-bye, Pearly not only kept up her reading lessons but writing lessons as well. One of the girls eventually loaned her a slate, though heaven alone knew why or how she had brought it along. On this Pearly could practice to her heart’s content, erase, and begin again.

Stopping by one day as Tierney and Pearly sat hunched over Bible and slate, Mrs. Mountjoy nodded her approval, both of the slate and the Bible.

“Study to show thyself approved,” she had quoted, “a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,” and, having disseminated her wisdom, moved on, like a ship under full sail.

“It all makes me feel like such a gowk, such a lack-wit,” Tierney admitted to Anne after one session with Pearly. “I wish to heaven there was some other readin’ material. I’m gettin’ weary o’ all this Scripture. How coom we never heard these verses afore . . . before?”

“I dinna know,” Anne admitted. “But since it’s her own wee finger pointin’ them oot, and her own sweet voice readin’ ’em, we canna help but admit they’re in the Book, a’ reet.”

“All right,” Tierney corrected automatically, and Anne dutifully repeated it.

The girls had agreed to help each other where their speech problems were concerned. Occasionally, when talking to Mrs. Mountjoy and using words such as
afeart
or
muckle
for
afraid
and
much
, they noted the briefly closed eyes, the pained expression
as though the hearer were suffering, and recognized the need to change those particular words’ pronunciation.

Yes, they were
all
learning, not only Pearly. As Pearly practiced her reading and Tierney supposedly tutored her, more learning was taking place than was intended; Tierney had just absorbed a verse from the Bible that—try as she would to forget it, work as she would to ignore it—would stay with her forever: “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”