ANNIE GRAY'S STORY
The Purple Springs district was going through a period of intense
excitement. Housework languished, dough ran over, dish-water cooled.
The news which paralyzed household operations came shortly after one
o'clock, when Mrs. Cowan phoned to Mrs. Brownless that the teacher had
just been in, and said she was going to board with the woman who lived
alone. The teacher had said it, according to Mrs. Cowan, in the "most
off-hand manner, just as if she said she had found her jackknife or
her other rubber--just as easy as that, she said she had found a
boarding house. Mrs. Howser could not take her, but Mrs. Gray could,
and she was moving over right away."
Mrs. Cowan, according to her own testimony, nearly dropped. She did
not really drop, but any one could easily have knocked her down;
she could have been knocked down with a pin feather. She could not
speak--she just stared. She went all "through other," and felt queer.
"Do you know that woman has a child?" she managed to say at last, and
the teacher said, "Sure--one of the nicest I've ever seen--a perfect
beauty."
Mrs. Cowan admitted to Mrs. Brownlees, who sympathized with her, that
she did not know what to say then.
At last she said, "But she has no right to have a child," and the
teacher said:
"Why not if she wants to. She's good to him, dresses him well and
trains him well. My mother had nine--and got away with it--and likes
them all. Having a child is nothing against her." Now, wasn't that an
awful way for her to talk?
Mrs. Brownlees said it certainly was fierce! and the other listeners
on the phone, for the audience had been augmented as the conversation
proceeded, politely said nothing, but hung up their receivers with
haste, and acquainted the members of their household with the
disquieting news.
Mrs. Switzer threw her apron over her head and ran out to the pump,
where Bill was watering his three-horse team. Bill received the news
in that exasperating silence which is so hard to bear. When urged for
an opinion, he said crustily: "Well, what's the girl goin' to do? None
of you women would take her--she can't starve--and she can't sleep in
the school woodpile. Mrs. Gray won't bite--she's a fine lookin' woman,
drives a binder like a man, pays her debts, minds her own business. I
don't see why it wouldn't be a good boardin' place."
In telling about it afterwards to Mrs. Howser, Mrs. Switzer said, "You
know what men are like; in some ways they are hardly human--they take
things so easy."
Pearl was surprised at the storm that burst, but soon realized the
futility of further speech. They would not listen--they were so intent
on proving the woman's guilt, they would hear no defence. From what
they said, Pearl gathered that they knew nothing about Mrs. Gray
except what the sewing-machine agent had told them, and even he had
not claimed that he had any definite knowledge. The worst count
against her was that she would not tell anything about herself.
That she would not tell anything about herself, could only have one
explanation! There must be nothing good to tell!
On Sunday, at the little stone church in the valley of the river Pearl
took her place among the worshippers. The attendance was unusually
large. A new bond of interest was binding the neighborhood together,
and they spoke of it as they congregated in the church-yard before the
service. Pearl sat inside and watched them as they talked together
excitedly. Snatches of their conversation came to her. "Well-behaved
people should stay with well-behaved people, I say"--this was from
Mrs. Switzer.
The men did not join in the conversation, but stood around, ill at
ease in their stiff collars, and made an attempt to talk about summer
fallowing and other harmless topics. Their attitude to the whole
affair was one of aloofness. Let the women settle it among themselves.
From the window where she sat Pearl could see far down the valley. The
river pursued its way, happily, unperturbed by the wrongs or sorrows
of the people who lived beside it. Sometimes it had reached out and
drowned a couple of them as it had done last year--but no one held it
against the river at all.
The rejuvenation of nature was to be seen everywhere, in springing
grass and leafing tree. Everything could begin life over again. Why
were the people so hard on Annie Gray, even if all they believed about
her were true? Pearl wondered about the religion of people like the
group who were so busily talking just outside the window. Did it not
teach them to be charitable? The Good Shepherd, in the picture above
the altar, had gone out to find the wandering sheep, even leaving
all the others, to bring back the lost one, sorry that it had been
wayward, not angry--but only sorry--Pearl hoped that they would look
at it when they came in. She hoped too, that they would look at the
few scattered tombstones in the churchyard, over which the birds were
darting and skimming, and be reminded of the shortness of life, and
their own need of mercy--and she hoped that some of the dead, who lay
there so peacefully now, might have been sinners who redeemed the past
and died respected, and that they might plead now with these just
persons who needed no repentance.
But when the service was over, and a brief sermon on Amos and his good
deeds, the congregation separated, and Pearl went back to the brown
house with a heavy heart, and the cry of her soul was that God would
show her a way of making the people understand. "Plough a fire-guard,
O Lord," she prayed, as she walked, "and let these deadly fires of
gossip run their noses square into it and be smothered. Use me if you
can--I am here--ready to help--but the big thing is to get it done."
Around the open grate-fire that night, after James had gone to bed,
Pearl and Mrs. Gray sat long before the pleasant wood fire For the
first time Annie Gray felt she had found some one to whom she could
talk and tell what was in her heart, and the story of the last eleven
years was revealed, from the time that pretty Annie Simmons, fresh
from Scotland, arrived at the Hudson's Bay post at Fort Resolution,
coming by dog-train the last two hundred miles to her cousin, the
factor's wife--the thin-lipped daughter of the Covenanters--who kept
the pretty young cousin closely at work in the kitchen with her pots
and pans when the traders came in, for Mrs. McPherson had no intention
of losing Annie and her capable help after bringing her all the way
from the Isle of Skye.
After a year of hard work, and some lonesome times, too, in the long,
dark winter, there came to the Post a young trapper and prospector,
Jim Gray.
"When I saw him," said the woman, with the silver bands of gray
encircling her shapely head, "I knew him for my own man. He was tall
and dark, with a boyish laugh that I loved, and a way of suddenly
becoming very serious in the middle of his fun--a sort of clouding
over of his face as if the sun had gone under for a minute."
She spoke haltingly, but Pearl knew what was in her heart, and her
quick imagination painted in the details of each picture. She could
see the homesick Scotch girl, in the far Northern post, hungry for
admiration and love, and trying to make herself as comely as she
could. She could sense all the dreams and longings, the hopes and
thrills.
"Tell me more about him," Pearl urged.
"He had the out-of-doors look," said Mrs. Gray, "big, gentle,
fearless. I knew as soon as I looked in his eyes that I would go with
him if he asked me--anywhere. I would dare anything, suffer anything
for him. Nothing mattered; you will know it some time, Pearl, I hope.
It brings sorrow, maybe, but it is the greatest thing in life. Even
now, looking back down these black years, I would do the same--I would
go with my man.
"My cousin and her husband, the factor, forbade him the house when they
saw what was happening. They had nothing against him. Every trapper
said Jim Gray was straight as a gun-barrel. It was just that they
would not let me go--they wanted my work, but I had already worked out
my passage money, and considered myself free. They locked me in my
room at night, and treated me like a prisoner. They said abominable
things.
"One night a tapping came at the little square window It was a heavy,
dark night in July, with thunder rolling in great shaking billows. It
was Jim, and he asked me if I would come with him. He had spoken to
the missionary at the post, who would marry us. Would I come? I did
not know whether he had a house, or even a blanket. I only knew I
loved him.
"Under cover of the storm Jim took out the window-frame, lifted me
out, and we were off through the rain and the storm. But when we got
to the missionary's he would not marry us--the factor had forbidden
him. Jim would have taken me back but I was afraid. The factor had
said he would shoot him if he ever came for me. He was a high-tempered
man and ruled the post and every one in it with his terrible rages.
What would you have done, Pearl?"
"Was there no one else?" said Pearl, "no magistrate--no other
missionary or priest?"
"There was a missionary at the next post, sixty miles away. We could
reach him in two days. What would you have done, Pearl?"
Pearl was living with her every detail, every sensation, every thrill.
"What would I have done?" she said, trembling with the excitement of a
great decision. "I would have gone!"
Annie Gray's hand tightened on hers.
"I went," she said, "and I was never sorry. Jim was a man of the big
woods; he loved me. The rain, which fell in torrents, did not seem to
wet us--we were so happy."
"At the missionary's house at Hay River we were married, and the wife
of the missionary gave me her clothes until mine dried. We stayed
there three days and then we went on. Jim had a cabin in a wonderful
hot springs valley, and it was there we were going. It would take us
a month, but the weather was at its best, hazy blue days, continuous
daylight, only a little dimming of the sun's light when it disappeared
behind the mountains. We had pack-dogs from the post--Jim had left
them there--and lots of provisions. I dream of those campfires and the
frying bacon, and the blue smoke lifting itself up to the tree-tops."
She sat a long time silent, in a happy maze of memory.
"I had as much happiness as most women, but mine came all at once--and
left me all at once. We reached the valley in September. I was wild
with the beauty of it! Set in the mountains, which arched around it,
was this wonderful square of fertile land, about six miles one way and
seven the other. The foliage is like the tropics, for the hot springs
keep off frost. The creeks which run through it come out of the rocks
boiling hot--but cool enough to bathe in as they run on through the
meadows. Their waters have a peculiar purplish tinge, which passes
away after it stands a while, and a delicate aroma like a fragrant
toilet water. I called it the Valley of purple springs'."
"Our house was of logs, and built on a rock floor, which was always
warm. There were skins on the floor worth fortunes, for the animals
came to the valley in winter by the hundreds, black foxes and silver,
martins and bear. They came in, stayed a few days and passed out
again. The ferns in the valley stood seven feet high, and the stalks
were delicious when boiled and salted.
"Jim had planted a garden before he left, and we had everything,
cabbages, cauliflower, beets, mushrooms. Jim got the skins he
wanted--he didn't kill many--and we tanned them in the Indian way.
"At first the Indians had been afraid to come. They called it 'The
Devil's Valley,' and though the young bucks might come in and spend a
night, just as a bit of bravado, they were frightened of it; but after
I came they took courage and came in.
"We found out that the water in the streams had healing power, and
made one's skin feel soft as velvet, especially one stream which had
the deepest color. One old squaw, whose eyes had been sore for years,
was healed in three weeks and went back to her people with her
wonderful tales of the valley. After that we had Indians with us all
the time. They brought their sick children and their old people, and
the results were marvelous. I never knew the stream to fail. Even the
tubercular people soon began to grow rosy and well. The food seemed to
have healing power, too, and some who came hollow-cheeked, feverish,
choking with their cruel paroxysms of coughing, soon began to grow fat
and healthy. At first the sick people just slept and slept on the warm
rocks, and then came the desire to bathe in the stream, and after that
they went searching for the herbs they needed.
"We lived there three years. At the end of the first year little Jim
was born--my precious Jim, with his wonderful eyes, reflecting the
beauty of the valley. The Indian women tanned the softest buckskin for
his little things, and he had the most elaborately beaded garments.
No little prince was ever more richly dressed. He grew lovlier every
day."
Pearl could refrain no longer: "Why did you ever leave?" she asked
breathlessly.
"Conscience," said Annie Gray, after a pause. "We couldn't keep it all
to ourselves and be happy over it. We couldn't forget all the sick
people to whom our purple springs would bring healing. Mind you, we
tried to deaden our consciences; tried to make ourselves believe it
was not our duty to give it to the world. We fought off these spells
of conscience--we tried to forget that there was a world outside. But
we couldn't--we owed a duty, which we had to pay.
"One day, with our winter catch of furs packed on the dogs, we came
out. The Indians could not understand why we were leaving, and stood
sorrowfully watching us as far as we could see them--there was a
heaviness on our spirits that day, as if we knew what was coming.
"On the Judah Hill, at Peace River, came the accident. The train went
over the bank. When I came to I was in the Irene Hospital there, with
little Jim beside me quite unhurt. But I knew--I knew. I saw in the
nurses' face--my Jim had been killed."
All the color had gone from her voice, and she spoke as mechanically
as a deaf person.
"He was instantly killed--they did not let me see him.
"I went on. I knew what I should do. I would carry out as far as
possible what Jim and I had started out to do. We had filed on the
land, and I had the papers--I have them still. In Peace River we had
sold the furs, and I had quite a lot of money, for furs were high that
year.
"Jim had told me a lot about his father, a domineering but kindly old
fellow, the local member of Parliament in a little Eastern town--a man
who had had his own way all his life. Jim had not got along well with
him, and had left home at eighteen.
"I remembered Jim had said that he wouldn't tell his father about the
valley until he had talked it over with a lawyer and got everything
settled, for the old man would run the whole thing. So when I went to
his home I said little about our valley, except to tell them of the
beauty of it.
"I was very unhappy. He raged about Jim and his wild ways. I could
not bear it. He knew nothing of the real Jim that I knew, the tender,
loving, sweet-souled Jim. I could see how he had raised the devil in
the boy with his high-handed ways.
"He was passionately fond of the little Jim, and foolishly indulgent.
He would give the child a dollar for a kiss, but if he did not come
running to him the very moment he called he would be angry. Yet I
could see that he adored the little fellow, and was very proud of his
clever ways.
"One day he told me he was going to send Jim to a boy's school in
England as soon as he was nine. I told him it could not be. Jim had
said to me that we would bring up our boy in the wild, new country,
where men are honorable and life is simple. I would follow Jim's
wishes--our boy would not go to England. I defied him. I saw his
temper then. He told me I had nothing to say about it, he was his
grandson's guardian. Jim had made a will before he left home, making
his father executor of his estate. He told me the father was the only
parent the child had in the eyes of the law, and I had no claim on my
boy.
"I had no one to turn to. Jim's mother was one of those sweet,
yielding women, who said 'Yes, dear,' to everything he said. She
followed him around, picking up the things he scattered and the chairs
he kicked over in his fits of temper. Sometimes when he swore she
dabbed her eyes with a daintily trimmed handkerchief. That was her
only protest. She advised me to say nothing, but just do whatever
'father' told me, and I said I would see him in hell first, and at
that she ran out with her fingers in her ears.
"Then a strange thing happened. McPherson, my cousin's husband, the
factor from Fort Resolution, met Jim's father at a lodge meeting, and
told him Jim and I had gone away without being married--the missionary
had refused to marry us--and we had gone away. I think he knew better,
for in the north country every one knows everyone else, and it was
well known that Jim and I were married at Hay River. He came home
raging and called me names. I'll never forget how they went crashing
through my brain. He was a proud man, and this 'disgrace' of Jim's,
as he said, was the finishing touch. But when he began to abuse Jim
I raged too. I said things to him which perhaps had better been left
unsaid. I was sorry afterwards, for Jim was fond of his father for all
his blustering ways. I did not tell him that Jim and I were legally
married, for the fear was on me that he could take little Jim from
me, and it did not matter to me what they thought of me. I had one
thought--and that was to keep my boy and bring him up myself--bring
him up to be a man like his father.
"That night I left. I was proud, too, and I left money to pay for
the time I had been with them. I had a few hundred dollars left, not
enough to take me back to Purple Springs. My first plan was to get a
housekeeper's position, but I soon found I could not do that--the
work was hard, and Jim was not wanted. I worked as waitress in a
restaurant, and as saleslady in a country store, but Jim was not
getting the care he should have.
"One day I saw an advertisement in a paper. A prospector, crippled
with rheumatism, wanted a housekeeper. It said 'a woman with sense and
understanding,' and I liked the tone of it. It was blunt and honest.
"When I went to see him I found a grizzled old fellow of about sixty,
who had been most of his life in the north, and when I found he had
known Jim, and had trapped with him on the Liard River, and knew what
a splendid fellow he was, I just begged him to let us stay. He was as
glad to get me, as I was to find a home.
"I cared for him until he died. He was a good man, a man of the big
woods, whose life was simple, honest and kindly.
"In the little town where we lived the people gossiped when I came to
him. They wanted to know where I had come from, and all about me. I
told them nothing. I was afraid. I had changed my name, but still I
was afraid Jim's father might find me. Mr. Bowen thought it would be
better if we were married, just to stop their tongues, but I couldn't
marry him. Jim has always been just as real to me as when he was with
me. Mr. Bowen was kind and gentlemanly always, and many a happy hour
we spent talking of the big country with its untold riches. If I could
have taken him to Purple Springs he could have been cured, but we knew
he could not stand the journey, for his heart was weak.
"I went to night school while I was with him, and learned all I could
for Jim's sake. But he died at last, and left me very lonely, for I
had grown fond of him.
"By his will he left me all he had, and the deed of this farm was part
of his estate. So, after his death, Jim and I came here. Mr. Bowen had
advised me to stay on this farm--he had taken it because there were
indications of oil, and he believed there would be a big strike here
some day. He also left me four thousand dollars, and I have added to
it every year. Sometimes I've been tempted to sell out and get back
north, but Jim is too young yet, I think, I should go somewhere and
let him go to school. I thought when I came he could go here. I have
only one thought, one care, one ambition--I've lived my life--I've had
my one good, glorious day, and now I want to see that Jim gets his.
"It's a queer story, isn't it, Pearl? I ran away and got married,
and then I ran away from marriage to keep my boy. I could prove in a
moment that my marriage was legal, of course, the certificate is here,
and the marriage was registered by the missionary, who has come back
now and lives in the city. But I dare not tell who I am--Jim does not
know who his grandfather is."
"He surely couldn't take your boy," cried Pearl. "There is no justice
in that."
"Only the unmarried mother has the absolute right to her child," said
Annie Gray, as one who quotes from a legal document. "I talked to a
lawyer whom Mr. Bowen sent for. He showed it to me in the law."
"Peter Neelands was right," said Pearl after a while, "it is exactly
the sort of a law he said the other one was."
The two women sat by the fire, which by this time was reduced to one
tiny red coal. There was not a sound in the house except the regular
breathing of little Jim from the adjoining room. A night wind stirred
the big tree in front of the house, and its branches touched the
shingles softly, like a kind hand.
"I'll tell you the rest of it, Pearl, and why I am so frightened.
Perhaps I grow fearful, living here alone, and my mind conjures up
dreadful things. Jim's grandfather has moved to this Province from the
East. I read about him in the papers. He is a powerful man--who
gets his own way. He might be able to get doctors to pronounce me
insane--we read such things. He has such influence."
"Who is he?" asked Pearl wonderingly.
"He is the Premier of this Province," said Annie Gray. "Now do you
wonder at my fear?"
Pearl sat a long time silent. "A way will be found," she said.