They Called Her Mrs. Doc. (14 page)
It was another three weeks before the first flakes of snow began to drift around the little town, burying the bare brownness of the yards and garden spots. By then Cassie was resigned to staying where she was, but she still hated the thought. Deep down inside a new storm was brewing. She was a bit angry with Samuel. Her anger swung from hurt to frustration to bitterness, and the enemy of her soul used all three to feed her loneliness and dissatisfaction.
“I can’t do a thing about it now,” she told herself, “but come spring, I am going home.”
Samuel must have noticed the difference in his young bride. Or he most certainly would have if his busy practice had given him time to notice anything. But he continued on in the same manner, enthusiastically leaving the house early each morning and whistling his way home again at the end of a long, yet rewarding day. On Sundays he tried to free the day the best he could so he might attend the morning worship service and then share the rest of the time with Cassie. It was the only day that Cassie felt as if she had a husband—and even then it was often interrupted by some emergency.
Cassie planned over and over to use one of those Sundays to tell Samuel exactly how she felt about his West, but his never-changing cheerfulness always made her feel like a whiner, and she couldn’t get the words through her choked throat.
“There’s no use telling him right now,” she would reprimand herself. “We have a whole winter to face with only each other as company. It will be even more difficult if we quarrel. But come spring—come spring I’ll ask Samuel to take me home,” she determined, breaking the covenant she had made with herself not to force Samuel’s hand but to wait until he realized that the West was an impossible place to live. Now he seemed to be so wrapped up in his work that he was blind to everything else, she decided. She knew that if her situation was to change, she would have to demand a release from the horrors of the little town.
“I just can’t bear it any longer,” she cried almost every day. “I just can’t.”
Cassie braced herself for a long winter. Somehow she must endure until spring.
To all appearances things remained the same. Each Sunday morning she still taught the children of Jesus’ love and God’s goodness, then dutifully, even with some pleasure, played for the congregation. On the first Thursday of the month, she met with the Mission Circle at the Rays’ and stitched little garments for overseas babies or quilts for needy families, but inwardly her heart was crying out for the winter to end quickly so spring might release her from this prairie prison.
And Samuel had no idea.
Cassie found more to keep her busy with Christmas approaching. She helped bake for the food baskets to be sent to poor families in the city with the Rev. and Mrs. Ray, who would spend their holiday with family in Calgary. She sewed simple garments for a family who had lost their home in a fire. She volunteered for the Christmas program committee and rehearsed with the children every day after school. But none of her frantic activity eased the pain in her heart.
Christmas came and went and she felt first anguish, then relief. She had always loved Christmas. Christmas had meant home and parties and plays and “occasions.” There was none of that for her this year. She had feared she would never make it through Christmas in the town of Jaret—Christmas in her own lonely little house. Then it was over—her first Christmas away from home. Surely a bit of her pain would also subside. Besides, now they were on the down side of the long winter. Now she could begin to count the days until spring—and home.
But in March, Cassie discovered she was expecting their first child. The excitement was tempered with disappointment. It would not be wise to travel come spring. She would need to wait until the baby had been safely delivered. But the baby was not due until the first week of October. By the time she could travel they would be heading into a new winter. Would Samuel agree then to her and the new baby traveling the roads to Calgary to catch the train to Montreal?
The weather was quite favorable on the first Thursday of April as Cassie picked her way through the spring mud to the home of Mrs. Ray. She was looking forward to the afternoon. The ladies of the small group were no longer just names and faces, and though she didn’t feel that she had much in common with any of them, at least they were company.
The usual group lined the small parlor, sewing in their laps and needles in their hands. But as Cassie let her eyes scan the room, and greeted familiar neighbors, she noted that a new face had joined the crowd. Something about that face drew her. It wasn’t just that the young woman seemed to be about her age. And it wasn’t just that she noticed almost instantly that the woman was expecting. There was something else in the face that seemed to pull at Cassie.
As the meeting began, Cassie found herself lifting her eyes to catch glimpses of the woman. Where had she come from and would she be staying? But Mrs. Ray was soon to answer both questions.
“Ladies,” the pastor’s wife said, “we are most happy to welcome a new member of the Sewing Circle today. Mrs. Foigt grew up in Winnipeg. She and her husband have purchased the town drugstore and will be joining our little congregation. We are so happy to have them here.
“Mrs. Foigt has some interesting experiences that perhaps she can share with us sometime, for they have lived in the North before coming here. Perhaps at one of our meetings we can have her tell us a little of life near the Arctic.”
Cassie could not keep her eyes off the face of the young woman. What was it about her?
Mrs. Clement’s voice interrupted Cassie’s thoughts. “What’s wrong with now? We can listen and sew at the same time,” she said bluntly.
“Well, it seems rather short notice,” responded Mrs. Ray with a little chuckle. “It may be that Mrs. Foigt would prefer a bit of time to sort of get acquainted and—” She stopped and looked inquiringly at the newcomer.
“I wouldn’t mind,” said the young woman softly. “I—I haven’t prepared anything, but if you’d just ask questions, I’d be glad to answer them.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Ray replied sincerely. “Perhaps you could begin by telling us where you were and why you were there.”
The young woman stood to her feet. She seemed a bit timid, but there was a serenity about her that put everyone at ease.
That’s it!
thought Cassie.
She seems so—so totally—calm. At peace.
But the young woman was speaking.
“I went North because my husband went North,” she said and smiled. “Actually, my husband had a dream of one day owning his own drugstore—but by the time he paid for his education, he had little money to make a purchase. A friend visited and told us that if a man had a few good years in the North, he could make a lot of money trapping and selling furs. I didn’t like the idea of trapping. I don’t think my husband did either—but he did want the store and he didn’t know of another way to make enough money to purchase one.
“So we talked about it and finally decided that it was what we should do. We moved up there shortly after we were married three years ago. We didn’t make lots of money—but we did make enough to come back and put a down payment on the little drugstore here in this town.”
She hesitated as though awaiting her first question. It came quickly.
“What was it like?”
She smiled then. A soft, gentle smile. “It was cold and white and barren,” she replied. “I thought I would never warm up. Everything one did had to be done enshrouded in furs. Even the cabin was cold, though we kept the fire burning at all times.”
“Were ya by yerself or in a town?”
“We were in a village. Mostly made up of native people.”
“Were they—did you visit back and forth?”
“There wasn’t a lot of visiting. Most of one’s time in the North is spent keeping a fire going and looking after one’s needs. In the beginning I didn’t know anybody. Most of the people couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t speak the native language, so it was hard at first to really make friends. We’d smile and nod when we met—but that was about all.”
Silence. Each of the eleven women in the room seemed to be considering the situation.
“Weren’t there any whites?” asked a frail elderly woman tucked away in a corner of the room.
“A few other trappers lived there, but only one of them had a white wife and she was quite old and not well. We did have a Mountie, but he was single and was usually on the trail. I didn’t get to know him well, though my husband did. He liked him.”
“What was the village like?”
“There was one store—a trading post. You couldn’t find much there but you could get essentials. They carried more traps and knives than they did grocery items.” She smiled again as though she found that amusing. Cassie cringed at the thought.
“The village was scattered little shacks, I guess,” she said with a careless shrug.
“Wasn’t that—sorta hard?” asked Mrs. Trent, her eyes wide.
She must feel as I do,
Cassie was thinking.
I can’t think of anything more horrid than living in an old shack with everyone around me speaking a different language—and in constant winter.
But Mrs. Foigt was continuing. “It was. At first, I—I guess I thought I’d never be able to stand it for one year—let alone three or four. We didn’t know how many years it might take. But then God began to work in my heart. I knew He had promised, ‘I will be with thee whithersoever thou goest,’ and I knew that must also include the North. I had told my husband I would support him in what he was planning to do, and I decided that if I was going to do that and not become ill from tension, or bitter from resentment, then I had to work on my attitude.
“Well, I did try to work on it. The harder I tried to accept things, the angrier I became inside and the more I hated the North. I finally decided I could either let my anger and bitterness make me—and Morris—totally miserable for three or four years—or I could go to God for the help I needed. I knew I couldn’t do it by myself. I had to learn to give the whole thing over to Him. When I learned to be totally honest and open with God, He was able to give me the help I asked Him for. The years in the North turned out to be good years.
“Oh, I don’t say they were easy years—but they were growing years—and they were good years for Morris and me. We learned to love each other even more, and we both learned that the same—the same commitment we made to God and to each other to get us through those difficult times also can see us through whatever life brings to us. We know that just because we are back home, to a lovely little town, with all the fine things of life and a church and new friends and a nice little house where we can keep warm even in the winter—that doesn’t mean that things will always go easy for us. Difficult things can take one by surprise wherever one lives.”
She seemed so sure of her words. Cassie was having a hard time keeping up with her own thoughts. This young woman was describing their town, their simple little back-of-the-world prairie town as “lovely,” “with fine things.” At first Cassie felt a surge of pity that the girl knew so little about real life. Real living. Then just as quickly she felt shame. Was she justified in feeling as she did? Certainly this prairie town was far from the culture and refinement of Montreal, but she was not suffering any real physical hardships.
Then Mrs. Clement with her usual candor asked frankly, “This yer first baby?”
The serene eyes shadowed for just a moment, then the same look of peace returned. “No,” she said softly. “We buried our first son in the North.”
Cassie felt her whole being tremble.
How can you? How can you?
she wished to cry out.
You stand there and—and say that just as though—just as though—
But the woman was speaking again. “That was when I really learned to love my neighbors,” she said softly, and Cassie thought she saw tears glistening in her eyes. “When our baby was sick the native women made sure that I was never alone. Morris was out on the trapline, and there was no way to get word to him. We didn’t have medicine—but the women—they were with me—night and day. We tried some of the native remedies but nothing would work. But they didn’t leave me. They brought food, they tended my fire, they just sat silently beside me. Then I knew—I really knew that there was a God and that He loved me. That He cared about my loneliness and my sick baby. That He sent His ministering angels to care for me—way up in that frozen northland—and I knew I could trust Him.”
“But yer baby died,” clicked Mrs. Clement in reminder.
“Yes. Yes, he did. God took him home. It wasn’t what I would have wanted but—God did it so gently. And every woman in the village knew exactly what I was going through. There’s not a mother up there who hasn’t lost at least one child. If I had been here—in some town or city—I would never have received the love, the support, the understanding that I received from those who knew exactly how I was suffering. And they showed their love in a hundred different ways. You see, by the time I left I had a bit of their language—and many wonderful friends.”