THE HOUSE OF TROUBLE
There! little girl--don't cry!
_----James Whitcomb Riley._
A MILE from the Chicken Hill School stood the little vermin-infested
house in which the Cavers family lived after they abandoned the
weed-choked farm on the river-bank. This unpretentious log house had
been the first home of Mr. and Mrs. Steadman, and was part of the
"improvements" specified by the Government to show that a homestead
is entered in good faith. The land had been rich and productive, and
from it George Steadman had made the money to buy the half-section of
school land just across the road and to erect the magnificent brick
house and splendid barns that were the pride of his heart.
George Steadman was so keen after money that he even overworked his
farms, and now his old farm was so impoverished that it was unable to
grow a heavy crop. This was the principal reason he had for letting
it to such an undesirable tenant as Bill Cavers. No wide-awake tenant
would take it, and, besides, if he had rented it to almost any person
else, he would have had to spend some money fixing up the house,
which was in a most dilapidated condition.
Bill Cavers had lost the ambition that he once had, and now did not
care very much what sort of house he lived in. Bill was content to
live the simple life, if the liquid refreshment were not simplified
too much, and Mrs. Cavers never complained.
The Caverses had only one child living, Libby Anne, eleven years old;
but there were several little unmarked mounds in the Millford
cemetery that Libby Anne and Mrs. Cavers sometimes piled high with
white cherry-blossoms or blue anemones. Little George had lived to be
two years old, and Libby Anne remembered that when he died there was
a funeral, with horses and buggies in the yard, and the minister
prayed and there was singing, and Martha Perkins brought over little
cookies with pink seeds on them, and it was fine!
But for days and days Libby Anne would steal up the narrow stairs,
fully expecting to find her little brother sleeping under the pink
quilt on his mother's bed, but there wasn't ever even the dint of him
on the quilt, and Libby Anne at last went up with her eyes shut to
feel around the bed, so as not to be disappointed so soon. Then her
mother told her about the beautiful country that little George had
gone to, and Libby Anne was glad to know that no one there was ever
cold or hungry, and that nobody's father ever came home drunk. One
day in school Libby Anne told the teacher what heaven was like, and
when she mentioned this last and greatest advantage of living there
he told her gently that she must not say such things.
For some time after coming to the Steadman farm things had gone
better with the Caverses, for a strong influence was brought to bear
on Bill, to keep him sober. Mr. Steadman had never taken any interest
in the liquor question--he had no taste for whiskey himself, and,
besides, it costs money--but now, with Bill Cavers for his tenant, he
began to see things differently. If Bill Cavers drank he would not be
able to pay the rent. So Mr. Steadman desired Bill to be a sober man,
and to this end had a very straight talk with him on the subject of
total abstinence.
Bill Cavers was a very poor farmer, as one look at his abandoned
homestead would show; that he was not a success as a husband no one
would doubt after seeing Mrs. Cavers; and that he was a conspicuous
failure as a father, Elizabeth Anne Cavers, his daughter, with her
frightened eyes and sad mouth, would abundantly testify. But there
was one capacity in which William Cavers was a spectacular success,
and that was in maintaining the country's revenue from malt and
distilled liquors, for Bill was possessed of a thirst that never
faltered.
Bill was quite different from the drunkard who consumes and never
produces, for he would work and work hard; and he was strictly honest
with every one except himself and his family. Sandy Braden was not
afraid to trust Bill with all the whiskey he wanted, for Bill would
surely pay. His wife might not have respectable clothes to come to
town in, and Libby Anne knew what it was like more than once to go
hungry to bed, but Bill always paid what was chalked up against him
at the Grand Pacific without question. All the neighbours called Bill
Cavers a good, straight fellow.
When Bill was sober, he bitterly regretted the way he had wasted his
money, and he often made solemn protestations as to his future
conduct, the strange part of it being that at such times he fully
believed that he would never drink again, and his wife was always,
sure that he would not.
In this way life was harder for her than it would have been for a
less sanguine woman, who would have long ago given up all hope, but
Mrs. Cavers always saw her husband as he had been in his good days;
his drinking had never ceased to be a shock to her; she never could
accept it as the inevitable, but constantly looked for better days to
come.
Mrs. Cavers often told Libby Anne about the lovely home she had when
she was a little girl, and showed her just how the flower-beds were
laid out and how the seat was put in the big elm-tree outside her
mother's window, where she often sat and read and dreamed; and so it
was no wonder that her mother's old home in Ontario, where her
grandmother and Aunt Edith still lived, became to Libby Anne a sort
of Paradise Valley, the delectable country of her dreams, and through
all her colourless childhood there ran a hope like a thread of gold
that some time she and her mother would go back.
The last summer that they had been on their own farm this hope had
been very real, for her father had said one day, when he was in his
best mood, that if the crop turned out well they would all go down
east for three months.
Then what a busy, hopeful time began for Libby Anne and her mother.
Everything was bent toward this one end. Mrs. Cavers made butter and
sold it. Libby Anne looked faithfully after the eggs, and made every
old hen give an account of herself each night. By getting the
neighbours to subscribe to a magazine, Mrs. Cavers was able to add a
few dollars to her savings. The kind-hearted neighbours, who knew of
the projected visit, were all ready to help.
Martha Perkins gave Libby Anne ten fine young turkeys, half-grown, to
help to buy new clothes for herself, and the thought of the lovely
red curly cloth coat that she would be able to buy when she sold her
turkeys comforted her not a little when, tired out with her other
work, she came to gather them in for the night, and they obstinately
would scamper away into the trees; as unconcerned as if there was
never a wolf or a mink or a weasel in the world.
No crop was ever watched with greater hope and fear than that one.
Every bank of cloud that gathered in the west seemed to sit like a
dead weight on Libby Anne's heart, for it might bring hail, and
a hailed-out crop meant that they could not go home, and that
was--outer darkness. Perhaps it was the child's wordless prayers
that stayed the hail and the frost and the rust, for certain it is
that none came, and the crop was most abundant.
Libby Anne and Mrs. Cavers worked in the field to save a hired man's
wages. Libby Anne was a tireless little worker, and though many, many
times her thin arms must have ached, she never complained, because
every sheaf that she carried brought her nearer the Promised Land.
People driving past looked with pity at the tired-looking woman and
the little girl in the faded derry dress carrying sheaves almost as
big as herself, and one day Mrs. Burrell, the minister's wife, spoke
to them sympathizingly. Libby Anne flashed back at her almost
scornfully. "Don't you know we are going home?" she said, her tired
face kindling.
At last the grain was harvested and threshed, the neighbours kindly
assisting, and Bill began to sell his grain. He paid his store bills,
his binder-twine bill, his blacksmithing, and made the payment on his
binder. Libby Anne sold her turkeys and got her coat, and the day was
set for them to go east--December the first, the first excursion!
The day before they were to start, Bill went to town to cast his
vote; the Provincial elections were held that year on the last day of
November. There was a good deal of excitement over the election, for
Sandy Braden, the popular proprietor of the Grand Pacific Hotel, was
running against a Brandon man, and Millford was standing solid for
their own man. The bar could not be opened until after five o'clock,
when the voting was over, but after that there was nothing to prevent
good-fellowship abounding.
It did abound all night. There was a bonfire in front of the hotel
when the returns began to come in, for Sandy was winning easily, and
Sandy certainly showed his gratitude for the way the boys had stood
by him.
Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne waited all that long night. They tried to
keep up each other's courage, making all sorts of excuses for Mr.
Cavers's absence. Mrs. Cavers knew, but she did not tell Libby Anne,
that he was going to cash the wheat-tickets that he had saved for the
trip, for the train went so early in the morning he was afraid he
might not have time then.
Libby Anne went again and again into the little bedroom to look at
the trunk already strapped. Surely people always went if the trunk
was strapped, and she tried and tried to feel what it was like
yesterday.
Just as the sun was rising on the first day of December ushering in
the first day of the winter excursions, they heard him coming. He was
coming with the Thomas boys, who were often his companions on similar
occasions. Some one had loaded them up and started them for home,
trusting to a drunken man's luck not to get killed.
Round the turn of the road they came singing, and Libby Anne and her
mother listened with sinking hearts as the sound came nearer and
nearer:
"Who's the best man in this town?
Sandy Braden, Sandy Braden."
they sang, putting the words to that good old rollicking Scotch tune
of "Highland Laddie."
Bill fell out of the waggon at the door. He was covered with dirt,
his clothes were torn, and one eye was blackened, but he was in a
genial mood, and tried to dance on the door-step. They got him in at
last and put him to bed, where he slept profoundly until the next
afternoon. He brought home out of his wheat-tickets thirty-five cents
and the half of a dollar bill--the other half was torn away!
Libby Anne did not shed a tear until she saw her mother unstrap the
trunk to get out something, and then suddenly all the strength went
out of the lithe little arms that had carried the sheaves so bravely,
and she fell in a little heap on the floor, sobbing out strangely.
Her mother gathered her up in her arms and rocked her for a long time
in the rocking-chair, crooning over her queer little rambling tunes
without meaning; only once she spoke, and then what she said was
this: "Libby Anne, I hope you will never be as lonely to see me as I
am right now to see my mother."
Just then a still later consignment of Mr. Braden's supporters drove
past the house gaily singing the same refrain:
"Who's the best man in this town?
Sandy Braden, Sandy Braden."