Dear Mam:

Feb. 11, 1879

One thing I will say about the life of a homesteader: the role of womanhood is greatly respected. Here, on the frontier, our worth is being recognized! While, of course, our physical strength remains inferior to our men’s, our strengths in other areas are far superior. I think history must show it to be so.

Our special gifts, Mam, are not only shown in the old, recognized ways—housekeeping, child-bearing, and so on, but in nursing, teaching, and all the finer skills that are so often taken for granted. If there is no wife and mother in the pioneer homestead it is a sorry place indeed.

Pity the poor bachelor! And we have several in Bliss and the surrounding areas. Sometimes they are unmarried, other times the wife cannot or will not submit to the stringent requirements to prove up their place. I figure, Mam, that what Angus must endure, I must also. As for the children, they will remember these days, I think, as sweet in many ways. Certainly the family is close in all ways, for we need each other so. Company is always enriching in one way or another, and every little gain, in any way, is a source of satisfaction.

Winter is upon us, and it is severe. Hidden away here in our wee ‘hoosie,’ we’re not much different than the rabbits when they burrow away, or the beavers hidden in their lodges. For us all, survival is basic.

But for us humans there has to be more than food to make us feel fulfilled, and this is where a mother is so important (never have I blessed my role so fervently as I do these days, nor appreciated how important it is).

It was a great moment when we unloaded our carts and emptied our tent and moved into our cabin. Of this I’ve written before, and trust my letters have reached you. We must go to Prince Albert for our mail and, during this winter weather, that is not often, so we hear from you seldom. I must say, when Angus makes the trip, I am overcome with dread that he will not return, or that he will be greatly delayed somewhere, and we will be left alone here, with wood for the stove running out, food getting low, and the animals in the little barn needing attention. I know this is wrong of me and that I am showing little faith in the love and care of my heavenly Father. I do need help along this line so much, Mam! I feel like I am holding on to a very slender thread, having been taught so little and being so ignorant of spiritual things. All I know is, the slender thread has been enough. I know God won’t let go, and I daren’t. But oh, I need discipling so badly! I read my Bible and pray.

“Mummie!” Cameron called from the window. Having heard a sound other than the scratching of his mother’s pen, the popping of the fire, and the stirring of his small sister in her sleep, he had hurried to the window, breathed on its ice-furred glass, rubbed and scraped a hole, and discovered the source of the sound, now the jingle of harness, and turned to call over his shoulder excitedly, “Comp’ny! Somebody’s coming!”

Hastily gathering up her writing material, Mary thrust it aside, gave a hasty glance down at her apron, found it spotted and removed it, and joined Cameron at the window. Sure enough, a horse and cutter had stopped at a hearty “Whoa!” As Mary and Cammie watched, the lap robe was pushed back, and someone reached a foot toward the snow-packed patch of yard just outside the cabin door.

So bunglesome were the newcomer’s wraps that Mary had the door open and had called a greeting before she determined if it was man or woman (or bear!) that approached. But the voice echoing cheerily through the scarf wound around the head was clearly feminine. Behind her, another figure had gone to the horse’s head, and called, “Is there room in the barn?”

“Yes, yes, of course!” Mary called back. “Angus—my husband—is there—”

“I’ll find him,” came the response, and the man led the horse and rig toward the small log barn. The nearer rotund figure had reached the door, stamping at the sill to remove whatever snow had been picked up on the way from the cutter, gray eyes sparkling and the mouth, as soon as the scarf was unwound, smiling.

There they stood—two strangers—smiling so happily at each other that they might have been bosom friends for many years. And indeed, if it hadn’t been for the bulky, snow-flecked wraps, Mary might very well have drawn this new acquaintance into a warm, welcoming embrace. As it was, her voice rang with the sincerity of her feelings.

“Oh, do come in. I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to see you. I’m Mary Morrison—”

“I know,” the voice emerging from the scarf said. “Sadie LeGare told me.”

God bless dear Sadie!

“We were in town last week. Sadie saw me in the store and told me about the new family in Bliss.” Removing her gloves, stuffing them in her pockets, and beginning to unbutton the fur coat that made her almost as round as the beavers it had originally graced, the woman added, “We’re the Raabs. I’m Cee, short for Celia, and Bela, my husband. No children—yet.” And the removal of the coat revealed the reason for the rolling gait and the round form: Cee Raab was very much “with child.”

“Due—soon?” Mary asked, though it was not too difficult to assume as Cee seated herself to better remove the overshoes on her feet and even then, with a laugh, needed to submit to Mary’s help.

“Very soon. And that’s one of the reasons I’m here. Though I’d have come anyway—to get acquainted.”

“I’m so glad you did,” Mary said fervently, setting the overshoes by the stove and hanging up the coat and scarf on the nails beside the door where her own family’s wraps hung.

“This is Cameron, our son,” Mary said, turning to the boy standing expectantly at her side. Like a man, Cammie extended his hand, his warm, small one going into the icy-cold one, in proper fashion.

“And this,” Mary added, having caught sight of Molly’s black, tousled curls peeping around the curtain that had been strung to partition off part of the cabin in an effort for privacy for sleeping and dressing, “is Molly.” In a flash Molly was across the floor and to her mother, burying her head in her mother’s skirt; it had been a while since the Morrisons had had “comp’ny.”

Mary moved her guest to the comfort of a rocker and the warmth of the spot at the side of the stove. While Cee spoke to the children, Mary stuffed fresh wood in the range and pulled the kettle toward the front where it would quickly boil. Tea—good, hot tea—that was the next step in protocol, whether in croft in Scotland or cabin in Canada. Tea—it would bond the two new friends as they sipped together, equally as important as the warmth and comfort it would minister to the traveler.

While the water heated and the teapot warmed, Mary turned to the newcomer, seating herself and saying, “Now, tell me about yourself, Celia Raab.”

“Well, for one thing, we live about four miles from you. We’re closer to town, near enough to the road so you could stop and see us whenever you go.” Cee Raab looked hopeful as she said this. She was, obviously, as lonely as Mary, but without the company of children and the attention and time they consumed in a long, isolated day.

“I’ll get my story over quickly,” Celia Raab said, adding, “I’m interested to hear yours.”

And the two friends settled down while the kettle came to the boil, to begin a friendship, knowing they had all the time they needed to share whatever they wanted. If time ran out today, all the better; there would be another trip and another visit to look forward to, a small glimmer in a dark winter.

“I may as well tell it first as last,” Cee said. “If I don’t, someone else will. It’s not unheard of, but unusual enough to cause considerable interest. You see, I’m a mail-order bride, I guess you’d call it.”

Mary’s eyes widened. “Hold it,” she said, “while I get the tea things. I must hear all about this.”

Mary made the tea and, as it brewed, set out the remains of a gingerbread cake she had made the day before. Flushing with satisfaction, she drew her few dainty cups and saucers down from the shelf where they were on display, brought from her trunk four crisp serviettes, and served up the treat.

“You’ll stay for supper, of course,” she said, thinking ahead.

“ ’Fraid not,” Cee Raab said with regret. “It gets dark far too soon these days, and we’ve a distance to go. And if you haven’t learned it yet, you will—there are the everlasting chores to take care of. Feeding, milking, egg gathering, not to mention straining the milk and washing the pans and all those things. I guess,” she said thoughtfully, “I’m grateful for them, keeps me from going crazy, I suppose.”

But Cee spoke with such a good humor and the by-now-familiar sparkle in her eyes that Mary wasn’t alarmed. Rather, she was encouraged. Cee Raab had an outlook that was healthy, and Mary was the better for having had a glimpse of it.

“The mail-order bride part—” Mary prodded.

“I guess you know the plight of bachelors here and across the prairies. Truly pathetic, and many of them don’t make it, just fold up and quit. Or almost starve to death.” Again the twinkle. “Well, Bela was one of them. He’d come from the old country—Hungary—five years ago. Worked in the east for a while until he got enough money . . . and nerve . . . to tackle the wild west. And, of course, here in the bush it’s about as wild as you can get. He’d been alone here a couple of years when he met a neighbor of ours from Iowa who gave him my name and suggested he write.”

“So you started a correspondence—”

“Not really. His very first letter was a proposal. It was startling, to say the least. But I looked around me—my first husband had died, I was living with my brother and his wife and not too happy about it, and I had no future as far as I could see. The person courting me was a miserable excuse for a man, but my brother was pressing me to get married again. I saw Bela’s letter as an avenue of escape—not a very good reason for marriage, I suppose. But having decided to accept his proposal, I made up my mind to make a go of it and be a good wife, regardless of the price I had to pay.” Cee’s laughter trilled out, happy and free. “Oh, what a price! I gave up nothing, really, and gained so much. And on top of all the blessings Bela brought into my poor, lonely life, there’s this—” And Cee’s hand was placed gently on her rounded waistline.

Mary couldn’t help it; her eyes misted. “Someday,” she murmured quickly, for she could hear the men approaching, “I want to hear the details of this remarkable love story.”

“And I want to hear yours,” Cee said, confident that her new acquaintance, so simple and honest and direct, had a love story of her own.

After Angus and Bela Raab laid aside their wraps, there were the necessary introductions and the seating around the stove—the designated spot for fellowship in any snow-wrapped, bush-bound home—and the subsequent enjoyment of tea and talk.

The following two hours fled by far too rapidly, a wintry oasis in a long dry spell of meaningful relationships.

Finally, when Bela’s sigh and glimpse of his pocket watch indicated the time had come to leave, Cee said, with a rush, “Oh, I’ve forgotten my most important part. Is it possible . . . do you think?”

“Yes?” Mary prompted.

“When it’s time . . . for the baby . . . would you come, Mary?”

Mary’s eyes grew wide; perhaps the shadows in them were discerned by the expectant mother, for she said, with a rush, “Am I asking too much? Please . . . feel free to tell me if I should look for someone else. But I thought . . . having two of your own—”

“Yes,” Mary said slowly, “I’ve had two of my own. But not these two,” and she indicated Cammie and Molly playing quietly nearby. “There was another. . . .”

Angus’s hand reached for his wife’s as Mary’s tale faltered. “We lost our second child on the trip over. I’m not sure Mary has gotten over the experience. Cameron is ours by love, not birth.”

“It’s time,” Mary said into the silence that fell with only the popping of the poplar wood to interject sound, “it’s time . . . for healing. I don’t know how much good I’ll be, Cee, but I’ll come and do what I can, and gladly.”

Obvious relief struggled with uncertainty on Celia Raab’s round face.

Angus’s words sealed the bargain. “Good girl,” he said quietly to his wife. To his new friends he said, “Get word to us, and I’ll see that Mary gets there. Now, if you are sure you can’t stay for supper—”

But Bela Raab was rising and turning toward his coat and overshoes; Cee took Mary’s hand in a quick grasp and, smiling, said through tears, “Thank you, my friend.”

With the cutter once again at the door and Bela waiting, Cee, bundled and swathed, gave the children bearlike hugs and said her good-byes. With her hand on the doorknob, she turned, drew the enveloping scarf away from her mouth, and said: “I almost forgot the best part . . . the best part of my story. It’s about my heritage. You see,” the gray eyes shone, “I’m the child of a King.”

“A . . . a king?” Mary questioned, clearly surprised, and clearly puzzled by such an amazing confession.

“By birth,” Celia Raab explained happily. “New birth, actually. I’ve been born again.”

“Why then . . . why then . . .” Mary whispered, beginning to grasp the implications of what this new acquaintance was saying, “why then, we’re sisters.”

“Oh, Mary! Have you . . . are you—?”

“Yes! Yes!” Mary was singing, her joy in her friend more than she had known it would be. “I’m part of the family!”

In spite of Cee’s girth, the two women wrapped their arms around each other; in spite of Cee’s awkwardness, the two women performed a small jig of pure delight before they stepped apart, Mary’s tears mopped by a corner of the clean apron she had donned and Cee’s tears disappearing into the wool of her scarf.

“And Bela?” Mary finally asked.

“Bela, too,” Cee said. “It’s what finally caused me to write and tell him I’d come. He ended his letter, you see, by telling me he was a Christian and had prayed over the whole plan and hoped I was the same, and praying, too. How could I have come, otherwise?”

After the cutter disappeared, with Mary and Angus and the children waving a shivering farewell from the snowy step, the small house seemed a bright haven to the little family who shut the door on snow and ice that went out across their known world, over the bush, over the silent and frozen lakes and the frozen tundra, to the north pole, and beyond. Here they were safe, here they were content. Here, in this wee spot, their dreams were incubating and, with spring and sun and showers, would blossom into reality.

Mary chattered on about her new friend, telling as much of Cee’s story as she knew. “To have a friend and not too far away, Angus,” she said, “means so much. And then to know she, too, is part of the family . . .” Starry-eyed with the wonder of it, Mary’s voice trailed off.

Bela, it seemed, as overflowing in his witness as his wife, had left a small but clear testimony with Angus. On top of all that Mary had shared across the past months, it was all that was needed.

“Do you think,” Angus asked quietly after the children were snug in bed for the night, “there’s room for one more son in the family?”

Bowing his head over the oak table, the icicles around Angus’s heart melted in a God-sent chinook that warmed and melted all resistance, and tears—first of repentance and then of pure joy—ran down his craggy Scottish face to be absorbed eventually by that long-suffering apron as Mary wrapped her arms around her husband and welcomed him to the family of God. Now, truly, her heart told her, they would be a close-knit unit. Now they could be the parents they ought to be; now they would be the influence and blessing this new land needed. Yea . . . yes, yes, yes . . . happy is that people, whose God is the Lord .

Mary’s letter, long unmailed because of many interruptions including storms and birth, was finally to be completed.

Dear Mam:

I hope you don’t think we’re dead or, at the best, snowed in. We have been that—snowed in. Thank God for a good woodpile and a fairly well-filled cellar. As I told you, we did a lot of preparing, or as much as time allowed, before winter hit.

We’re so blessed, Mam. Since my last attempt at writing, more than one significant thing has happened to add to those already considerable blessings. First, Angus found the Lord! That does seem like a ridiculous way to put it, as if the Lord were lost or something. It’s more like the Lord found Angus, for he’s the one who was lost, and the Lord, the Good Shepherd, was the one doing the seeking. It all came about this way.

It being a long day, with no interruptions, Mary filled the time with writing the details of the Raabs’ introduction into their lives, of learning that Celia was a Christian and her husband, also, of how Bela had quietly dropped a word in Angus’s ear as they visited in the barn and how the Holy Spirit had used it to fan the small flames already ignited and smoldering into a bright flame in Angus’s heart.

My joy is complete , Mary wrote, trying to express the happiness.

It seems to me that both husband and wife should believe, truly making them one, and that a father and mother should be of one mind in what they tell their children and how they live before them.

As for the Raabs, they have become dear and trusted friends. And how we do need one another on the frontier. One never knows when an emergency will arise. Cee Raab is what is known as a mail-order bride, a fascinating story and one that turned out well. Others, in like situations, find themselves not only married to a stranger but one for whom they have little or no liking, and with whom they have to live in the most close, even most intimate, association. I shudder to think of it, shut in for long months with some unwashed, uncouth, unlearned—Oh, I could go on and on as I conjure up the dreadful picture of such marriages.

Though I dreaded it much, I promised Celia that I would be with her at the time of the birth of her expected bairn. Some stranger came for me, since Bela would not leave Cee in her fears and anxieties. Believe me, it took a lot of pluck on my part, and more on Angus’s part, to climb into the sleigh of a complete stranger and head out into the whiteout with no sure destination in sight. But people are honorable and helpful, and women are much respected, and I was perfectly safe, being delivered to the Raabs’ door.

Of the birth I will write but little, Mam. It brought back memories, few of them good. I tried to think about Molly’s birth and the joy, but horrible memories of my wee Angel’s arrival and death threatened me every moment. Oh, how I prayed (and Angus has told me he did the same, here with the children), and somehow I got through. And I was able to be happy for my friends in the safe arrival of wee Howard, who was almost immediately called Howie, whether or not due to his howls I can’t say!

I stayed another day with the Raabs, and Cee and I had many a good talk. We long to spend more time together. Homesteads, though isolated from each other, are not so, extremely, and it is possible to visit from time to time. Prince Albert, I understand, has its Merrie Minglers Sewing Club, about which Cee and I are somewhat dubious, not being the greatest seamstresses. But we will surely set up some system just as soon as we can find out what other women may have settled in our district.

You know, of course, that we have no school as yet, and that I am teaching Cammie and will teach Molly. Usually, in these homesteading areas, the community is quick to build itself a school, and this will come along in due time. Right now our children are too scattered. But with spring and better weather, the available land will be taken up, it is believed. And when a school is erected, Mam, can church services be far behind? This thought occupies our thoughts and prayers very much. Many such church services carry on without a minister, with the women (I must admit, sadly) usually carrying the responsibility. Cee and I are willing to do this but feel blessed that in our case we have menfolk who are as eager for spiritual things as we are.

“I’m hungry, Mummie,” a small voice said at Mary’s knee, and she looked into the eyes—so like her own—of her own dear Molly.

“Why, of course you are, lassie! It’s time for tea and Da will be in soon. Give me a moment to finish my letter to Grandmam—”

The birth of wee Howie, Mary wrote lastly , has made me long for another bairn for Angus and me. Seeing Bela Raab with his son made me yearn to place a son of his very own in Angus’s arms. And then, I suppose every woman feels a sort of sadness when she thinks she may have given birth to her last child. The Lord (and Angus) willing, I shall experience that wonderful blessing once again.

Yr. loving daughter, Mary