Journey to Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #3) (24 page)

And so they jounced and bounced over the prairie, homeward, as certain of their future as though it had been spelled out in frothy clouds in the vast blue sky above them. And, who knows, perhaps it had. Certainly heaven seemed to smile on them, the earth around them reflected only bounty and blessing, and the very breeze was pungent with promise.

And when, toward the end of the afternoon, the rig pulled into the grandparents’ yard and Franz and Gussie came out to greet the newcomer, they saw a wisp of a girl, all hair and eyes, step down and turn toward them with a smile that superceded the written contract. In that moment the barrier of hired and hirer was erased.

“T’ank Gott!” Gussie whispered, all her fears laid to rest, all her hesitations settled over having a stranger in the house, an unmarried female around the bachelor grandson who was the apple of her eye and heir to the spreading Franz homestead.

There was no hesitation: Gussie took the London waif in her arms. “Velcome—you iss so velcome, mein liebchen,” she said.

Pearly had come home.

She stepped into a simple house, as solid and substantial as its inhabitants. Here the delicious odors of fresh strudel made the ever-hungry Pearly heady with its unspoken welcome—it was so
homey
. Her hand touched the few family treasures scattered around the room, and it was a touch of loving possession. She pulled back the handmade lace curtains and looked out on a yard where trees had been set out and watered faithfully and
a garden flourished under the prairie sun and rain, and felt the satisfaction of a home-owner.

And when she was escorted to the room that would be hers, and hers alone—a first for Pearly Gates Chapel—she burst into tears. But they were tears of pure joy. Frank, behind her and carrying her shabby bag, set the load down and, without a word, took Pearly into the shelter of his arms, patting her until her sobs abated. They were the happiest tears he had ever seen; they were the happiest sobs.

“Gott,” the little mimic said through her tears, never realizing she was already adapting Schmidt ways and the Schmidt accent into her love- and family-hungry self, “iss so good.”

Anne’s tears were of another nature entirely.

She had come back to the hostel, after seven solid hours of work—she had started three hours late—to fold herself onto the bed and realize she was alone, tired, and afraid.

But she wasn’t hungry. There was food, and in abundance, for the kitchen help at the Madeleine. And, to be fair, hard and steadily though she had worked, there had come a time when Mrs. Corcoran had put her hand on Anne’s shoulder, turned her from the dry sink where she was still bent over what seemed to be an unending supply of vegetables, and said, “Come now, stop a while, dearie. It’s time we all put our feet up and had a bite to eat.”

Whether Mr. Whidby approved, or even knew, the kitchen crew ate exactly what the paying guests ate. “The workman is worthy of his hire,” Mrs. Corcoran declared, and who among them, even Mr. Whidby, dared argue. Mrs. Corcoran did such a superb job, had so many admiring and satisfied customers, that no one interfered with her performance.

“Stick with me, dearie,” she said to Anne, “an’ you’ll learn how to become a A-one cook one of these days.”

Thereafter Anne had watched in fascination as Mrs. Corcoran had prepared, for certain customers, venison, elk, and even a bear steak. Pies, pies, and more pies were forthcoming—apple pies, gooseberry pies, lemon pies, even something called Saskatoon pies.

“Named for the town, or the town named for them?” Anne asked, wishing to sink her teeth into a decent scone or oatcake.

“It’s like the chicken or the egg—nobody knows which came first,” Mrs. Corcoran said comfortably, holding aloft a generous pie with one hand and turning it, and slicing off the extra dough with the other.

“Now I take this extra dough,” she continued, setting the pie aside, “and roll it out, sprinkle it with sugar,” and she suited action to words, “then roll it up, slice it into little rolls, and bake them. They are tasty snacks for the cook—the workman is worthy, remember—also, you can tell, from these little samples, before ever you serve the pie, if the dough is going to be good and flaky, or heavy and tough.”

Mrs. Corcoran’s pies were never tough. Neither were her buns, which were the result of pinching off portions of a rich dough, shaping them into tiny “loaves,” and baking them, supplying individual, separate servings, crusty and tasty, to the diner rather than sliced bread. These farmers, Anne discovered, downed more bread than she would have thought possible. Some sopped up their gravy with it, many ate it with jam or syrup smeared generously all over it, some ate it with pudding, others even ate it with pie! Children, she was told, if hungry aside from meal times, sat down to a bowl of bread and milk sprinkled with a little sugar—if they were fortunate enough to have sugar—and perhaps a little cinnamon. What’s more, they were happy with it.

No wonder, Anne thought with astonishment, they grew so much wheat! As for oats, the grain of her country, aside from the ubiquitous porridge for breakfast, it didn’t seem to be much in evidence.

After a hearty supper of roast beef, mashed potatoes, and carrots (those she had spent most of the day peeling), something called cabbage slaw, some of Mrs. Corcoran’s fluffy buns, and a piece of her delectable lemon pie, Anne was dismissed for the day.

“You’ve done enough for the first day,” Mrs. Corcoran said kindly. “And enough for me to tell you’ll work out just fine. Now scoot on home, wherever that is—the hostel, you say?—and take care of getting settled for the duration, for we’ll be countin’ on you. Be here at ten tomorrow and plan on working twelve hours—that’s a normal day. You’ll skip the breakfast hour and work through the supper hour. Sometimes it will be the other way ’round. Got it?”

Anne, weary, her back breaking, “got it” and was only half-satisfied. Would working on the Schmidt farm have been better, after all? Then she remembered again the ever-so-masculine form of Mr. Frank Schmidt and her aversion to men in general, and she felt she had made the only choice possible.

How was Pearly, poor chick, faring? Somehow Anne had the idea Pearly had been happy, even eager, to make the switch, riding off into the unknown expanse of the prairie with that . . . that
male
. As for Tierney, Anne hadn’t seen her all day, and wondered what was happening with her.

She soon found out. Arriving at the hostel, she was stopped by the clerk and handed a note. Mystified, Anne went to her room—which was ominously empty—shut and locked the door, took off her shoes, lay back on the bed, propped herself up on a pillow, and opened the note, which was, she realized, in Tierney’s handwriting.

Perhaps Tierney, too, had found a job and was at work. Then the emptiness of the room struck her. Not only were Pearly’s things gone but Tierney’s also. Heart thumping, Anne read what was, after all, but a brief scrawl:

Weary, homesick, lonely, it was then Anne pulled a quilt over herself, curled into a ball, and cried herself to sleep.

W
hat is it?” Will Ketchum asked, even before he embraced his wife. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“It could have been worse—”

“What is it, Lavinia!”

“The chickens—”

“What about the chickens?” Her husband was too impatient, perhaps, but it was their livelihood.

“Give me a chance, Will. Lemuel . . . well, Lemuel left the doors to one of the pens open, and some of the chickens got out.”

Will Ketchum smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “That lackwit! I was afraid he would do something dumb when I hired him. But it’s not easy finding one lone man, willing to work for little or nothing, and do it away out here. Where is he?”

“Well, that’s the rest of it. He was scared, I guess. He quit and took off.”

“Leaving me with no help whatsoever. What am I going to do? If I’d only known when I was in town!”

The eyes of husband and wife, after one brief pause, swung to Tierney. Still on the wagon seat, she was aware her mouth had dropped open and closed it quickly.

“I’ll help,” she said weakly, picturing herself thrashing through the grasses in search of escaping chickens.

“How long ago was this?” Will asked as he turned to help his son out of the wagon, then reached a hand toward Tierney.

Stepping out backward onto the wheel, reaching a foot for the hub, then jumping to the ground, Tierney sighed to note her dingy “outfit”—the serge skirt dust-covered, the white waist soiled—and was certain her face showed the same wear and tear. What a way to greet Mrs. Ketchum, who stood, neat as a pin in her calico dress and bib apron, on the kitchen stoop.

Several years older than Tierney, Lavinia Ketchum was as unremarkable, in a feminine way, as her husband. But she conveyed, somehow, the same strength of spirit that Tierney had discerned about her husband. Here was a pair who were, she was certain, the salt of the earth, though never considered diamonds, especially not diamonds in the rough.

Therefore she was not surprised when Lavinia said calmly to Will, “Come on in, wash, and have your supper, and you’ll handle things better.” Then she turned her attention to Tierney.

“Welcome, Miss Caulder. I’m sorry to have introduced you to our farm in the way that I did, but Will, here, understands me well, and had guessed that something had gone awry. Perhaps he expected it. Did you, Will?”

“I don’t know about that,” he answered, preparing to remove the gate from the rear of the wagon and retrieve the items he had purchased, as well as Tierney’s things. “I suppose I’ve been a little suspicious of that Lemuel . . . he was too footloose. I wondered what he was doing way out here on the prairie, looking for work in a little burg like Fielding. He seemed shifty-eyed—”

“Come now, Will, you’re dredging up things you didn’t see before. You needed help; he needed work. It’s about as simple as that. Anyway, he’s gone. Supper’s waiting. It’ll be served up by the time you get the team cared for.”

Buster was in his mother’s arms, his tired head on her shoulder, as they turned toward the house, entering, as in all farm homes, through the kitchen.

The house, which Tierney had studied as they approached it, was tall and narrow, jutting up on the landscape like a sore thumb. Still, it wasn’t a soddy, though she could see one nearby, obviously in use for one thing or another, perhaps as the domicile of the missing rascally Lemuel.

“Miss Caulder,” Lavinia Ketchum said, “your room is at the head of the stairs. There are only two rooms up there, and you’ll see that one of them is Buster’s. He’s been down here, with us, until now. It’s a good time to make the change, while you’re here, and before the new baby comes. Why don’t you go on up, wash if you wish, then come on down, and supper will be ready. I’ll feed Buster, if he’ll eat, and Will can carry him up; he’ll hardly know he’s in a new bed, he’s so worn out.”

Tierney did as instructed, carrying with her the bag that contained what she would need to tidy her hair. Her own room for the first time in her life! A small room, simply furnished but clean, with a white coverlet on the bed and a colorful rag rug in front of it. Besides a dresser, there was a small table and one chair, and Tierney could picture herself writing to Annie this very night before crawling into that downy bed and dropping off to a much-needed sleep.

Will was drying his hands and face at the washstand when Tierney came into the kitchen again, and he was saying, “I see a few of them scrabbling around in the dust outside the run. All of them in that pen have probably been out, but some of them have gone back in, now that it’s getting dark. I’m leaving the door open, hoping others will join them. I think there were a hundred or so in that pen, and there are fifteen in there now.
Before I go to bed I’ll go out and close the door. Those that are still out, we’ll try and round up in the morning.”