Seasons of Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #4) (11 page)

Yes, a good report was important.

But Vivian—usually managing by some means or another to make Parker feel like a perfect stick—had, this very day, breezed past him after knocking at his door. She had sailed, uninvited, into the house, laughing, tossing her head as she left him standing at the entrance feeling like a stiff and stilted theologian rather than a living, breathing male.

Once inside, Vivian had removed her short cape and made herself at home, demanding a cup of coffee. Before Parker—having entered the house reluctantly—could do more than clear his throat and begin an explanation of why she would have to leave, Molly had showed up. And left again, almost as summarily! How awkward it had all been! No wonder, Parker thought now, he was uncomfortable in his spirit.

He read on: “. . . as deceivers, and yet true—” Was there such a mix in himself?

“. . . as chastened, and not killed—”

Chastened indeed. Sometimes he thought it would be better to be killed outright than suffer the pangs of chastisement.

Parker hurried on and felt his battered spirits lifting a trifle as he came to “as poor, yet making many rich . . .”

How apropos for a bush pastor. Hadn’t Brother Dinwoody, just last week, assured him that the sermon was enriching? The dear people of Bliss were kind and responsive to his sermonizing, urging him on with hearty amens, shaking his hand warmly at the close of each service, and “God-blessing” him faithfully. Yes, he dared to believe that not only his sermons, but his very presence in the barren homes of Bliss, brought a measure of enrichment.

Parker continued to read: “. . . as having nothing—” He turned his eyes from the Book in front of him with its curiously timely applications to himself and looked around his living quarters.

If ever a man had given up everything, Parker Jones was that man.

He saw with new eyes the poor pieces of furniture, the almost empty cupboard, the old stove that seeped smoke at times, the linoleum that had seen better days, the collection of ragtag items that furnished his living quarters. The bedroom beyond was no better; it held a sagging, cast-off bed, an ancient chiffonier, a single chair, and a wire across one corner to hang his scanty wardrobe on. The single window had a dark green blind.

True, someone had made curtains of red check for the windows in the room in which he now sat and covered the seats of his battered chairs with cushions of the same material. Even now the Morrison men were working on a hand-turned settee, and Mary and Kezzie were preparing to pad it, making a comfortable and attractive seat. Herkimer Pinkard had pledged a new stove after harvest, depending, of course, on how bounteous the harvest was this year. One dear lady came weekly to scrub his floor, clean his cupboards, and gather up his bedsheets and take them home, returning with clean ones. It was kind of her, but again it was evidence of his total dependence on the charity or the parsimony of his parishioners. Parker Jones, a proud man once, had become, of necessity he supposed, a humbled man.

At least he had his privacy. Lonely as it was, at times, and skimpily as the small house was provided for, still it was better than the arrangement for his keep the church had made when he first came.

Stepping from the train in Prince Albert, Parker had been met by Angus Morrison and taken directly to his home, with an explanation that permanent quarters were in the planning stage, that a “parsonage” would be forthcoming. Until then, the plan for his board and room was that he spend a month in various church homes.

One good thing had surfaced right away: The new pastor had come into immediate and rather intimate contact with that black-haired, blue-eyed dynamo, Molly Morrison. Molly’s obvious enjoyment of life in general, her abounding energy along
with her good humor and laughter, all mixed with a generous, loving heart, had won Parker over from the beginning.

A month later he had packed up his things and moved to his second assignment—the Dinwoody home. After a month there it had been on to the Condons, Platts, Mudges, even the bachelor quarters of Herkimer Pinkard. Month by month he had shifted his clothes, his books, his belongings, from the home of one parishioner to another. At the Mudges he had shared the unfinished upstairs with the three Mudge sons. It had been the dead of winter, and the upstairs was heated only by a single stovepipe that passed through the floor from the room below and out through the roof, and from which only a faint heat radiated. Occasionally, during a storm, he had watched the tin pipe trembling in the wind, at the same time freezing his fingers as they tried to set down his sermon thoughts. The boys, housebound much of the time, roughhoused and cavorted nearby while Parker attempted to study.

At the Platts’, Jacob had taken ill, and Parker had spent most of his month chopping wood, filling the wood box, hauling water, milking and feeding cows. The Platts were apologetic but helpless, and Parker hadn’t really minded. Until, that is, Sunday rolled around and he was sure that his congregation, looking to him with expectant eyes for their week’s spiritual food, were disappointed in the skimpy hash of a message he served them.

Yes, if ever a man had little or nothing of worldly goods, it was Parker Jones. And, as an offering to the Lord, they were a very small gift indeed; how much of
himself
had been given up?

Dreading further painful revelations of his role and his inadequacies concerning it, Parker Jones’s eyes returned to the Scriptures. Returned, opened wide, blinked, misted: “. . . as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”

Had he not, in forsaking home and parents and siblings, found a home in the heart of the bush, in the hearts of its people? Had he not, in giving up an opportunity to amass this world’s goods, made an exchange for true riches? In seeking the
will of One higher than himself, had he not set his feet upon a path that had brought intense satisfaction and fulfillment?

Present temptations should not, would not, turn him aside from his chosen calling.

With fingers that trembled from the assurance that warmed his heart and the relief that flooded his troubled spirit, Parker Jones scrabbled through the thin pages of his Bible until he found the very consolation he needed: “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich). . . . Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer . . . be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Rev. 2:9–10).

God would show him; God would be patient while he, Parker Jones, struggled with the troubling question of His will.

T
here was considerable excitement at the Bloom home: The new hired man was to arrive today.

True to his word, Rob Dunbar had searched out the man he had met at the Lands Office in Prince Albert, still hovering over possible moves on his part.

Wanting to file on a homestead, Quinn Archer lacked the cash to do all those things necessary to prove it up in the allotted length of time—erect living quarters, buy certain pieces of equipment, clear the bush—and was pondering his options. Should he, he wondered, file for a homestead now, leave the land sit idle and get a job for a while, or get a job, save some money, and then file?

“I’m afraid,” he told Rob, “all the land in the vicinity of Prince Albert—that is, within reasonable driving distance—will soon be gone, and I’ll be stuck out in some remote
hinterland where it’ll be hard to get the crop to the railroad, or get mail, or supplies.”

Robbie Dunbar was quite at sea concerning where or what the hinterland might be, but he supposed it was a poor place and to be avoided.

Quinn Archer, from whose tongue the word had rolled effortlessly, was, in spite of rough clothes and a seeming lack of this world’s goods, a man of some education and, perhaps, of some polish, though this remained to be seen.

“Aye, it’s fillin’ in, I guess,” Robbie responded, grateful again that he and Allan had the great good fortune to locate on some of the last land in the Bliss area. “I know there are places at Carrot River. And of course much, much land farther oot. It’s still an untracked wilderness in many places. Or there’s always the possibility of findin’ someone who for one reason or another hasna been able to stick it oot, and he’ll sell his homestead, and probably cheap, jist glad to get oot.”

“I’ve had a chance or two like that,” Quinn Archer said, nodding. “A couple of men were hanging around the Lands Office, wanting to dump their homesteads. The wife of one man had died and he couldn’t make it alone, and the wife of the other one was slowly losing her mind, or so it seemed. Anyway, that poor man said she was stubbornly refusing to go through another winter in the bush.”

“Thass hard, for sure,” Robbie said sympathetically, thinking of his own cheerless cabin, “especially when winter cooms, and a man is hoosebound a lot o’ the time.”

Robbie’s winter, probably, would be spent in the comfortable quarters of Alice Hoy and her sons. Just thinking of it brought a stab of condemnation to his heart. What had seemed, in the first place, to be a fine opportunity, had now taken on more than a hint of ugliness.

And why? Not because the plan was not a worthy one with Alice desperately needing help, but his eyes had been opened—when he saw Tierney Caulder again—to the crassness of the venture from his viewpoint. Suddenly the proposed marriage
took on an almost obscene aspect. To marry—without love! To marry—for the reason of obtaining the bride’s property!

Until the arrival of Tierney, Robbie had felt few, if any, qualms about the proposed marriage. Alice had presented the arrangement so sensibly.

Sensibly, and bravely. “Robbie,” she had said one evening when he had stepped into the house with a brimming pail of milk to be strained, “sit down, please. I . . . I have something I’d like to talk over with you.”

Puzzled, Robbie had sat. “Aye, Mrs. Hoy, an’ is there somethin’ I can do for you? You’ve jist to ask.”

Alice immediately looked relieved. “I truly hope so . . . once you’ve heard my proposal—” And then, in spite of her calm demeanor to this point, Alice had blushed and stammered.

“Proposal?” Robbie had asked slowly, totally in the dark but intrigued by the word and Alice’s reaction to it.

“Aye . . . that is, yes,” Alice had continued, still flustered. “It’s really . . . really a business proposal, Robbie. You see, it’s this way—”

And Alice Hoy had, steadily and clearly, spelled out her astounding offer: They would marry, Robbie would take on the care of the homestead and of the boys, would, in fact, raise them. For she, Alice, was certain she was not long for this world.

And certainly she didn’t look well. Even Robbie, with a man’s eyes, could see that. She was frail, pale, and often clutched her hands over her . . .

Robbie hesitated. Even in his thoughts, he hesitated, reluctant to so much as
think
the word stomach in regard to the female anatomy. And belly seemed degrading when applied to the gentle sex. So he settled for midriff. Alice often pressed her hands to her midriff.

She spoke delicately of another aspect of the arrangement. Though natural reticence kept her from mentioning the matter specifically, it was Robbie’s understanding that it was to be a relationship without intimacy. It would not be a true marriage,
but a business affair; no word of love was ever mentioned between them.

Until that moment, Robbie, to do him justice, had not thought, even remotely, of marriage with Alice Hoy. Having heard of her illness, he had gone over to the Hoy place after the death of Barnabas simply to be a good neighbor, knowing there was a great need of a man on the place. After all, there were chores every day, the seeding hadn’t been done or the garden planted. He and the other men—and women, too—of the district had taken on these responsibilities, though it meant some neglect of their own places in a very busy season of the year.

Yes, Robbie’s one thought had been to help—that was his purpose in going, his only purpose. Realizing that he had not harbored cunning thoughts or had any devious plans concerning the Hoy property, was the only comfort Robbie had at this time when, at last, he saw the entire situation through another’s eyes—the eyes of Tierney Caulder. Now it seemed wrong, all wrong.

Again the image of Tierney’s stunned face rose before him, stamped on his heart from the moment he had tried to explain. Stunned and anguished then, it had not been much different each time he had seen her since that dreadful night.

When he went to talk to her, Robbie had thought that he and Tierney would be comforted by the realization that all would yet be well, that the present circumstance was for a purpose, and that he and she were, in truth, bonded in heart and mind, now, as ever.

It had not turned out that way. Tierney had staggered as from a physical blow, her face desolate, her eyes brimming with a pain that she did not, probably could not, express in words. Instantly Robbie knew he had done a terrible thing.

And she had avoided him from that night on. The first time or two that he had gone to the Blooms to see her, her white face and stricken eyes had struck panic to his heart—had he irrevocably destroyed their chance of happiness together?