THE time of great winds has come, the heavy November gales that roar down
the lakes, lashing the water into white-capped waves, dashing the
driftwood against the rocks and decking the beaches with long wreaths of
yellow foam. The swell is so strong and the waves so high that even the
men do not care to venture out. When I must get over to Blake’s farm I
hug the shore of the island to the point, then dash across the channel
between this land and his, and the wind turns my light skiff round and
round before I can catch the lee again.
All night the house rocks and shivers and the trees creak, groan and
crash down in the woods. I am afraid to walk the trails because of
falling branches, for if I were struck down I should lie in the path for
days and no one would know that I had been hurt.
These winds give the strangest effect of distant music. I am always
thinking that I can almost hear the sound of trumpets, blowing far away.
Inside the house is warm and comfortable, with its creamy yellow walls of
unpainted wood, its many windows, its pictures, its books; but I am
lonely; I cannot settle to any occupation. The constant roaring of the
wind unnerves me, the gray, scudding clouds depress me. A hound on the
shore bays and howls day and night. I have heard no human voice for more
than a week.
The storm died away in a smothering fog that settled down on the very
surface of the lake, blotting out everything. I could not see one inch
beyond the shore. The mainland was hidden, the opposite island was
invisible—everything was gone except the land on which I stood. I could
hear voices at the farms, the sound of oars, and people talking in the
boats as they passed. Men were hunting on the mainland, almost a mile
away. I could hear their shots and the cries of the hounds, but I might
as well have been stricken blind, for all that I could distinguish. All
sorts of fears assailed me. Suppose men should land on the island in the
fog, how could I see to escape them? Suppose the fog should last and
last, how would I dare to go out in a boat for any provisions? Suppose I
should be ill, or hurt, how could I signal to the farm for help?
By evening the fog had thoroughly frightened me; it was time to pull
myself together. So I cooked a particularly good dinner, read a new book
for awhile, then went to bed praying that the sun would be shining in the
morning.
After being asleep for what seemed hours, I was aware of a loud shouting,
followed by heavy steps on the porch and a voice calling as someone
knocked and pounded on the door. I stumbled out of bed, half asleep, and
groped my way to the lamp, fortunately forgetting all about the pistol
laid by my side for just such an emergency. When the door was finally
opened, the shapeless bulk of a woman confronted me—the very largest
woman I have ever seen. She loomed like a giant against a solid bank of
fog that rolled in behind her.
“I don’t know where I am,” she announced. “I’m all turned round. I’ve
been rowing hours and hours in the fog, and I’ve a boy, a pail of eggs, a
mess of catfish and a little wee baby in the boat.”
“For mercy’s sake,” I ejaculated, “what are you doing out in a boat with
a baby on a night like this? Who are you anyway?”
“I’m from Spriggins’ farm,” she answered, “the place where you gits yer
chickens at. I’ve been over at Drapeau’s spending the evening and I
started to row home two hours ago. But the fog got me all turned round,
and when I struck this shore I says: ‘This must be the island where the
woman’s at. Ef she’s to the house I’ll wake her and git me a light.’”
I gave her a lantern and she went off to the shore, while I threw fresh
logs on the smoldering fire and tried to wake myself.
Presently a dismal procession returned: a boy, laden with shawls and
wraps, the woman carrying a baby. When that infant was unwrapped, it
needed not its proud mother’s introduction to tell me whose child it was.
Harry Spriggins is a small, wiry man, with sharp, black eyes and a face
like a weasel. The baby was exactly like him. They were a forlorn trio,
and, oh, so dirty! My heart sank as I surveyed them, realizing that they
were on my hands for the night. Then I felt properly ashamed of myself,
for if the poor soul had not found the island she might have been on the
lake in an open boat until daylight; and by this time a rain was falling,
quite heavily enough to have swamped so unseaworthy a craft as her small,
flat-bottomed punt.
For some time we sat gazing at one another, while I tried to determine
what should be done with my guests. Finally I sent the boy to the
storehouse for extra mattresses, and prepared them beds on the floor.
Clean sheets were spread over everything. Probably the woman had never
slept on clean sheets before, but I reasoned that sheets could be washed
more easily than blankets, and just then washing seemed to me very
essential.
About one o’clock we all settled down for the night, but not to sleep—oh,
no! The woman was far too excited for that. Thanks to the fire that I
had made, in my stupidity, and to the air in the cabin, I could not sleep
either, so I heard a great deal of the inside history of the
neighborhood, before morning.
I learned that minks are a menace to the poultry industry here about. In
Spriggins’ own barnyard, a flock of thirty-six young turkeys were found
all lying dead in a row, with their necks chewed off—a plain case of
mink, and a dire blow to the finances of the family.
At three o’clock I had the life history of a Plymouth Rock rooster, of
superlative intelligence, that always crowed at that precise hour. At
four I was roused from an uneasy doze by the query: “Do you know anything
about Dr. So-and-So’s cure for ‘obsidy’?”
After puzzling over the word for some minutes I gathered that “obesity”
was what was meant, for my guest went on, pathetically enough, to tell me
how hard her work was and how she suffered in doing it, burdened with
that mountain of flesh.
“There’s another cure,” she went on. “It’s Mrs. So-and-So’s, but it
calls for a Turkish bath, and where could I get that? Beside, I could
never do all that rolling and kicking.”
Peering through the gloom at what looked like the outline of an elephant
on the floor, I did not see how she could, but I felt that if there were
any known way of getting that woman into a Turkish bath I would
cheerfully bear the expense.
At six I gave up the struggle and rose for the day, stumbling about from
cabin to kitchen to cook breakfast in the semi-darkness, for the fog was
still thick. At nine, the day being a little lighter, I made the mistake
of suggesting that the boy row over to Blake’s for some bread and the
mail. He departed, and stayed for hours. Soon his mother began to
fidget and finally set off for the shore to search for him, leaving that
changeling of a baby in my care.
There it lay on my bed, staring at me with its black beads of eyes, and
looking as old as the Pharaoh of the Exodus and as crafty. The mother
stayed and stayed away. I had visions of being left with that child on
my hands all winter. I saw myself walking it up and down the cabin
through the long nights. I saw myself sharing with it my last spoonful
of condensed milk, but, as I surveyed it, I knew what I would do first.
I would give it the best bath it had ever had in its short life and I
would burn its filthy little clothes.
But while I was harboring these designs against that innocent child its
mother came back, her hands full of green leaves. She had not found the
boy, but she had gathered what she called “Princess Fern.”
“This is awful good fer the blood,” she announced. “Ef yer blood is bad,
this will make it as pure as spring water; if it’s pure, this will keep
it so. It’s good fer you either way.”
The mention of blood led naturally to the recital of the various
accidents she had seen, and I learned that there are several blood
healers in the neighborhood—persons who can stop the flow by the
recitation of a certain verse of Scripture. A man can perform this
miracle for a woman and a woman for a man, but a man cannot cure another
man, nor a woman another woman. This charm must never be revealed. It
can only be transmitted at death. It is a sure cure for blood flow and
quite authentic, according to Mrs. Spriggins, who has seen the blood
stopped.
While we were discussing this mystery the boy came back, smilingly, from
quite a different direction from the one in which he had been sent. He
had never found the farm, but had been all this time wandering in the
fog. It was all too like a nightmare. I did not tempt fate by offering
any more suggestions. Instead, I bundled the party into their various
wrappings, led them to their boat, and turned their faces firmly in the
direction of home. Then I sat on the porch, tracing their progress down
the lake by the wailing of that wretched baby. When the sounds had
finally died away, I went in and scrubbed the cabin from end to end with
strong, yellow soap.
And the sequel to all this? She was not Spriggins’ wife at all, but
“Spriggins’ woman,” and she was not lost.
When I mentioned her visit the neighbors shook their heads.
“You couldn’t lose old Jane on Many Islands,” they scoffed. “She wanted
to see you, that was all; and she knowed you wouldn’t let her land if she
come by day.”
But two men were lost on the lake that night, and I believe that Jane was
lost too.
With the rural love of scandal and the usual disregard of all laws of
probability, the people accuse this woman of all sorts of outrageous
crimes. It is said that she murdered her daughter for the girl’s bit of
life insurance, that she has strangled her own babies, that she bound her
aged aunt face downward on a board, and pushed her out on the lake to
drown. And here was I, all ignorant of the character of my guest,
gravely discussing with this alleged criminal the proper feeding of
infants and the rival merits of toilet soaps.
I stopped at her house the other day to inquire my way. She greeted me
with much cordiality.
“You was certainly fine to me that night,” she said. “I donno what we
would a-done, ef you hadn’t took us in. The baby would a-been drownded,
I guess.”
Now I am glad that I was “fine” to her, for poor Jane is gone, and she
died as she had lived—without help and without hope.
Her children’s father was away at a dance in Sark when she fell in their
desolate house. Seeing that she did not rise, one frightened child crept
out of bed and covered her nakedness with an old quilt. In the morning
two little boys, crying and shivering, made their way along the shore to
the place where the man was sleeping off his debauch.
“Come home, Pop,” they cried. “Mom’s dead.”
But he would not heed them.
“It’s only one of them spells she gits,” he grunted. “She’ll be all
right.”
“No, it ain’t no spell, Pop,” they cried. “She’s dead, I tell you.
She’s cold.”
Then the neighbors, who had never gone to that house when Jane was alive,
went now and comforted the children. They followed the poor body along
the ice to its grave, and Mrs. Spellman, who has six little ones of her
own, went over and took the baby home.
There are a great many of these irregular unions here, for Canada is no
land of easy divorce. If you are a poor man, and have any predilection
for being legally married, you must stay with the wife with whom you
started. Divorce and remarriage are not for you.
In a little book of instructions for immigrants and settlers, published
by one of the newspapers, the matter is made very plain:
“In Manitoba, Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan there is no divorce
court. Application must be made to the Dominion Parliament, by means of
a private bill, praying for relief by reason of adultery, or adultery and
cruelty, if it is the wife who is seeking a divorce from her husband.
The charges made are investigated by a special committee of the Senate,
and, if a favorable report is presented to the House, the bill usually
passes.” But the little book goes on to state, very simply, that “The
expense of obtaining the bill is very great, exceeding in any event five
hundred dollars.”
So for men like Harry Spriggins, whose wife deserted him, or for Black
Jack’s woman, whose husband beat her, there is no way out. They simply
take another mate, and stand by the arrangement as faithfully as may be.