“I have to get up to fix Habit his coffee,” Elizabeth jested in return.
Wynn chuckled. Christine knew that he made the morning coffee almost as often as her mother did, but she let it pass.
“You both waste good sleeping hours,” she scolded good-naturedly.
Wynn shook his head. “We don’t waste them. They’re perfect for quiet times. We read. We talk. We just . . . tune up for the day.”
Elizabeth was pulling another bowl from the cupboard. “Want to join us for some porridge?”
“What kind is it? I don’t like—”
“I know what you don’t like. It’s oatmeal. No rye.”
“I’ll have some.”
“Get yourself some cutlery and a cup.”
Christine moved toward the cupboard.
“And maybe you’d better make a couple more pieces of toast,” her mother instructed. “I wasn’t counting on your being up so early. The strawberry jam is in the pantry.”
A strengthened gust made the small house shudder. Even the dog lifted his head and whined.
“Oh boy—if I don’t have shingles to replace after this storm, it’ll be a wonder,” Wynn commented wryly. “It’d like to strip things down to bare boards. Haven’t heard such an angry wind since I don’t know when.”
Christine carried her cup and the coffeepot to the table. She refilled her father’s cup, poured for her mother and herself, and started back to the stove. It was true. It was an angry wind. But it felt so good to be safe and warm. In some strange way she felt favored. Special.
“My . . . I do hope they aren’t getting this storm down on the prairies. I’d hate to think that Henry—”
“Now, Mother. Henry’s quite able to look after himself. He’s well trained in survival and knows . . .”
Christine tuned her father out but could not hide a smile. The role had now been reversed. Her father was trying to assure her mother about their son, not the son maintaining that their father would be all right in the storm.
Wynn reached out a reassuring hand to grasp Elizabeth’s as she lowered herself to the chair beside him. She forced a smile and a nod, but Christine noticed that, once again, the worried look did not really leave her eyes. Her mother’s fingers curled around the hand that held her own as though clinging to the promise that had just been spoken.
“Has Henry called?” asked Christine, taking the chair on the opposite side of the small table.
“Not since last week.”
“I thought he said he’d let us know as soon as he and Amber decided on a wedding date.”
“He did. So I guess they haven’t decided yet.”
Another gust of wind rattled the windowpane.
“I hope they don’t expect us to travel in this.” Christine’s eyes went to the window.
“This will blow itself out in no time. Always does,” answered her father.
True, the storms did not last long. But when one held you in its icy grip, it seemed as though it never intended to let you go again.
“Is it actually snowing? Or just blowing around what fell last night?” Christine wondered.
Wynn chuckled. “It’s hard to tell. I took the dog out earlier, and you couldn’t see two feet in front of you. Part of it was the darkness—but even in the light from the windows, I still couldn’t see.”
“I guess I won’t be leaving today,” Christine mumbled under her breath.
Elizabeth looked up, her eyes wide. “You weren’t planning—?”
“No, not really,” Christine quickly reassured her mother.
“But I really do have to go look for a job. I can’t just sit here and—”
“I thought we’d agreed that you’d wait until after Henry’s wedding.”
Christine shrugged. “You did suggest that. But Henry doesn’t seem to be in too big a hurry to set his date. I can’t just sit here and sponge off you and Dad.”
“You aren’t sponging. We like to have you with us. Your company more than makes up for the little that you eat. It’s been wonderful to have you help take in the garden and clean out the root cellar and rake leaves and . . .”
Christine smiled as the list continued. It was nice to be wanted at home. But she was grown now. She had experienced what it meant to earn her own keep. She really needed to be out of this cozy, comfortable nest, out on her own.
In spite of the warmth of the kitchen, though, she felt a chill as she thought about heading back to the city. She really was not a city girl. She loved the openness, the freedom of the big sky. Nature—even in its fierceness—was one with her soul. The city seemed to drown her in its haste and closeness and rushing humanity.
“Will Mr. Kingsley give you a reference?”
This brought another chill to Christine’s soul. Was Mr. Kingsley, her former boss, still angry that she had refused to marry his son? If so, would he be fair? She had been a satisfactory employee. No—even more than satisfactory. He had preferred her work to the other secretaries in the office. Surely he would not jeopardize a future position merely out of spite.
But Christine was not sure. Perhaps she would be wiser not to risk asking the man for a reference.
“I don’t know,” she answered her mother, her voice sounding low and strained.
“Well, you got your first job without a reference. I’m sure you can again.”
Her father seemed quite confident that she’d have no problem obtaining employment.
“I wish there was someplace here. . . .” Christine did not finish the thought. The wind seemed unable to disturb it, leaving it hanging there for each one around the table to mull over once again. They had discussed it before in the attempt to think of some means of employment for Christine in their little town so she would not need to leave the family once again. “Even if you moved into a place of your own nearby,” Elizabeth had said, “though you know you are welcome here for as long as you wish. . . .” But each time the exercise resulted in failure. There seemed to be nothing for Christine in the small town or surrounding area.
“Maybe you should accept Aunt Mary’s invitation to join them in Calgary,” Elizabeth said now, seemingly fully occupied with spreading marmalade on her toast.
“But it’s so far away from home.”
“At least you’d be with family. And the train—”
“The train is pokey. It stops in every little town along the way. I thought I’d never get to Calgary last time. Then I still have to—”
“I know.” Elizabeth sighed. “It’s hard. There are just too many miles to separate us.”
“I need my own car, that’s what. Then I could—”
“Mercy me.” Elizabeth flung up her hands. “Then I’d never get any sleep. With your own car—all on your own—driving all over the countryside. Why, I’d never have any peace of mind.”
“Oh, Mother.”
“It’s true,” Elizabeth defended herself. “It’s bad enough having Henry off in one of those—and him a man. But you.
What if a tire went flat or—?”
“I’d change it.”
“How could you. . . ?”
“With the jack. They all have jacks. You just—well, I watched a man change one once. It didn’t look so hard. Any woman could.”
Elizabeth lifted her eyes to the ceiling and threw up her hands again. Wynn chuckled. Outside the storm still howled.
“Would you rather have me out with a dog team?”
The question was asked teasingly, but Elizabeth did not accept the bait. “Yes, I guess I would. At least the dogs don’t get flat tires or suddenly quit, or . . . or boil up and shoot out steam or get stuck in mudholes or snowdrifts.”
Christine laughed in spite of herself. “But you used to worry about Dad when he was off with the team.”
Elizabeth’s expression admitted she’d been caught, but she refused to concede. “That was different,” she argued.
“Different how?”
“Well, it wasn’t the dogs I was worried about.”
“What, then?”
“Some . . . some drunk or half-crazy man with a knife . . . or a gun. Some . . . some sudden storm, or river or lake with rotting or eroded ice. Lightning strikes that started tinder-dry forests on fire. That sort of thing.”
“Mama,” Christine announced, “I think you are just a worrier.” But she said it with love, not condemnation, in her tone.
Elizabeth’s response was to rise and refill their coffee cups. Christine watched her mother fondly. She knew her mother had tried over the years to take each concern to God in prayer. It was not hard to pray about one’s fears and doubts. But leaving the burden with God was sometimes a more difficult thing. Elizabeth had told Christine once that she kept taking her worries back. Working the difficulty through her heart and mind again. Fretting when she should have been relaxing in her faith. She said she’d had years of practice, and yet . . . yet . . . she wondered if she was improving in her trust level—or getting worse. Christine had given her a hug and told Elizabeth she couldn’t answer that, but she did know her mother had been an example to both Henry and her over the years of what it was to trust deeply in God.
Now Wynn admitted, “I guess I might worry some, too, thinking about you out on the roads alone in an auto. Those driving machines seem to—well, need a man’s hand. At least up here in wilderness country.”
Christine stared at her father. Wynn had never been one to designate what was or wasn’t suitable for each gender. Her face must have shown her surprise, for Wynn hurried on. “Not that a woman can’t do those things—change tires, fill radiators, and all that. But it just seems to me that she shouldn’t have to. It’s hard, dirty work. Not much suitable for clean skirts and soft hands.”
Before Christine could respond, her father continued, “It’s like this here war.”
The war. Yes, Canada was now at war. Christine felt another chill. True, it didn’t seem real, and true it was many miles away. On another continent, in fact. Yet the fact remained, their country was now officially at war. Christine, along with many others, had been shocked by the September 1, 1939, newspapers, which carried the stark and frightening headlines. Germany had invaded Poland. The next day the papers screamed out in bold print that Britain had declared war. Canada, an independent country, had followed suit one week later. Young Canadian men—and some women—were rushing to enlist and join the cause. Christine had found herself wondering if that was what she should do. Defend her country. Be part of the troops going off to stop the enemy. She had not dared to mention that thought to her parents.
Suddenly it felt as if those chill winds had finally managed to find their way into the small kitchen. Christine saw her mother shiver, and she unconsciously pulled her own warm robe more closely about herself.
“I can understand why the young men are anxious to defend their country—all that we believe in. If I were younger, able”—Wynn’s eyes inadvertently dropped to his injured leg— “I’d want to go myself. But the young women? That just doesn’t seem right to me somehow. The mud and muck of trenches isn’t the right place for women.”
“But they aren’t in the mud and muck,” protested Christine. “They are in the dispensaries and canteens and offices.
They—”
“The horrors of war still reach them. There’s no escaping it.”
“How did we get off on this . . . this morbid subject?” Christine protested. “It was a perfectly good morning, and now, here we are, discussing the war.”
A perfectly good morning? The wind howled and tore at everything in its path. The snow whipped and beat on the sides of the small cabin. The temperature had dropped dangerously low, making the wind chill unfit for man or beast. Yet the fire still crackled, the coffee steamed in the cups, their stomachs were full, their feet warmed in snug slippers. They were safe in their small world.
“Until this conflict is over, it’s going to affect everything we think or do,” Wynn predicted. It was a sober thought. “I lost another young officer yesterday. He says he has to go or he’d not be able to live with himself. I understand that. I’d feel the same way.”
Christine knew that many young Mounties shared the opinion. Would Henry? But he was engaged to marry Amber. Would he now just walk away from her and her little Danny? Could he?
“Did you know that John Beavertail and Wynn Ermineskin have both enlisted?”
Christine had not known. Both young men were from village families that had embraced the Christian faith. Both had been educated in her mother’s small schoolroom and were to have made a difference for their people. The Ermineskins had even named their baby boy after the Mountie they so admired. Wynn was not a name used among the Cree until her father had earned their trust. Christine felt fear clutch at her stomach.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Why did this man—this Hitler— think he could march out and take over the world? Why? Why didn’t God just strike him down? It wasn’t fair. Why did good people have to die? Why would young men—and women—be called to give their lives to stop such evil?
Christine pushed away from the table. “I’d better get dressed,” she said as her excuse, but really she just wished to get away. To try to escape, in some way, the presence of the faraway war that seemed to hang in the air like a pall, holding the entire country—the entire world—in its evil grip.
Someone needs to stop him,
she found herself thinking as she fled to her room.
Then a new thought.
That is exactly what they are trying to
do—all the young men and women who have rushed off to enlist.
Gone to offer up themselves—their very lives if need be—to try to
halt this wave of evil across the ocean
.
Why did she think she could just stay at home and enjoy the world as she had known it? Shouldn’t she go too? Was her life more precious than the others who had already gone? And yet. . . ?
A sudden feeling of fear and dread gripped her heart, and her face flushed with shame. She might talk big. She with her feelings of what a woman could do if she put her mind to it. But she was a coward. She did not wish to go. She would hate the muck and mud of war that her father had described. She did not wish to face the possibility of death, of an enemy bullet ripping through her flesh.
When she reached her room she did not dress as she had stated but flung herself facedown on her bed. The chill of her heart was far greater than the chill of her unheated bedroom.
God,
she cried,
how many others are going through this . . . this
anguish? How does one know if it is right to go—or stay? I want
to pray—to beg—for safety. That you’ll keep those I love here. Protected
from the evil. But is it fair? Is it right? I don’t know. I just
don’t know. Who, then, will go? Who will stop this madness? This
desire for power? The wickedness of war. It isn’t right
.