On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, the August sun warm, the sky a fading blue, Jack Hamilton collected Polly McGillvray and wee Clare from Armagh station and drove them the two miles to Robert Scotts at Salter’s Grange.
Clare was ecstatic. She had never driven out along Loughgall Road before and being used to the more leisurely pace of walking she tripped over herself as she told her Uncle Jack who all the houses and farms belonged to. It seemed no time at all before they pulled up the short hill and turned left into the bumpy lane that led to the low white forge with its high-pitched, dark-felted roof.
‘Not too far, Jack dear. You might pick up a nail in your tyre. Down here will do nicely,’ Polly warned, remembering the slow puncture her brother Bob had discovered after the funeral.
Clare had forgotten how to work the handle of the door so Uncle Jack had to come and open it for her. She stuck out one foot, clutched Granny Hamilton’s shopping bag in one hand and picked up Edward James Bear with the other.
From the forge, she heard the ring of metal on the anvil. No wonder Granda hadn’t heard the car, he was making such a noise. Like a big bell tolling, slowly and regularly with a funny little tap dance of the anvil in between.
She swivelled on her bottom and stood up, bag in one hand, bear in the other, pushed the door closed with her bottom and began to make her way across to the grown-ups where they stood looking in through the dark doorway of the forge. As she stepped carefully over the scattered bits of metal and wove a path between pieces of machinery, she saw, over on her right by the hedge, dotted through the rusting harrows and the reaping machines that needed new blades, a whole crowd of dog daisies.
They swayed in the slight afternoon breeze, nodding their dazzling white heads, the sun catching their bright golden eyes.
‘Look, Edward James Bear,’ she said quietly, ‘Just you look over there. Daisies. Aren’t they beautiful? You are going to be so happy in your new home.’
Polly would have liked to stay with Clare at the house beyond the forge for a couple of days or more. She reckoned that would give Clare a chance to settle in and herself a bit of time to size up how her father was going to cope. There was no doubt about how much the house needed her attention. It had been looking neglected even before her mother’s recent illnesses and now, without Ellie’s visits to keep a check on things, it looked as if Jinny who came on Saturdays to do a weekly clean, was doing as little as possible.
But Polly could stay only one night. It was not just the wedding dresses that preyed on her mind, there were all the arrangements for going back to Canada as well, with or without Clare. Preoccupied as she was, she still put in a hard day’s work on the one day she did have. She cleaned out cupboards, boiled up stained and greasy drying cloths and towels, changed both the beds, cleaned the front-facing windows and showed Clare how to wash and rinse her own vest, knickers and socks.
‘You can leave them to dry on the elderberry bush round the side of the house, like Mummy and I always did, but if it’s wet there’s nothing for it but the plate rack above the stove.’
When Polly looked at the rack she found it was thick with grease from Granda’s frying and liberally speckled with flecks of soot.
She brought a basin of hot water and a bar of Sunlight and started rubbing vigorously.
‘When the wind blows back down the chimney on bad days ye get the soot on top o’ the grease, so mind ye wipe it well before ye put yer clean things on it,’ she warned her.
Clare did her best to help. Before Aunt Polly had used up all the hot water from the stove’s own tank Clare had filled kettles and saucepans to boil on top of the stove. She fetched water for rinsing from the rainwater barrel and held on tight to one end of each wet sheet while Polly twisted to get the water out.
As Polly worked, she explained important things like making sure there was torn up newspaper in the privy in the orchard when you needed to go there and how it was all right just to nip out behind a bush for a wee-wee but not for anything else. On really wet nights you could use the chamber pot at bed-time but you must be sure to empty it first thing next morning and rinse it out with water from the rainwater barrel.
‘Don’t on any account put the chamber in the barrel to rinse it. Use the old cracked mug to bale the water out into the pot. Rinse it round and then throw the rinsing water over the flowerbed,’ she said as she began to wring out the towels she had just washed. ‘Away and see if that old mug is still there in the flowerbed. If it isn’t we may find something else,’ she said wiping her forehead with her sleeve, as she tipped a saucepan full of steaming tea towels into the metal basin on the scrubbed wooden table under the window.
The old mug, cracked and chipped, with the almost invisible words ‘A Present from Belfast’ was still there, exactly where Polly expected it to be, inside the stone surround of the flowerbed. It sat in a small depression between the hooped wooden water barrel and a great clump of purple aquilegia that was just beginning to drop its petals on the well-trodden path into the orchard.
‘The better the day, the better the deed,’ said Polly as they gathered up all the damp sheets and towels and followed the path along the front of the house round the gable and into the orchard. There, on an area of shorter grass beneath the tiny back windows of the house, they spread everything out in the sunshine.
‘That’s what your Granny woud call “the gypsies washin’,” she said laughing, as she straightened up. ‘An’ rite cross she’d be too if there wasn’t enough room on the clothesline or if it’d blown down. “Dacent people hang out their clothes”, she useta say, ‘“’tis oney gypsies lays them on bushes or the groun’”.’
‘But I can be a gypsy with my knickers and vest,’ said Clare, cheerfully.
‘Ye can. But mind, niver put washin’ out on a Sunday where anyone can see it.’
‘Yes, I’ll mind,’ said Clare agreeably.
‘No, you’ll not,’ said Polly quickly. ‘You’ll remember. Just because I drop back into a country way of speakin’ you’re not to do the same. Your mother taught you to speak properly. Now don’t you let her down. It’s one thing talkin’ to your Granda, but when you go back to school you remember your ings.’
‘But I haven’t got any rings,’ said Clare, perplexed.
‘I didn’t say “rings”,’ Polly laughed. ‘I said “ings”. Like walking, talking, running. Not walkin’, talkin’, and runnin’,’ she said cheerfully. ‘The pot callin’ the kettle black, that is, me tellin’ you to mind your “ings”. But just remember, won’t you?’
It was only hours later when she was sitting in the train to Belfast that Polly realised what she’d said. School was still three weeks away and the plan was that she would come back in a fortnight to see whether or not Clare could stay. Polly smiled to herself. She knew Clare had her mind made up. She was a great wee lassie for making up her mind about things. That was all very well, but what about Clare’s Granda? He’d have something to say about taking on a wee girl and him with no idea at all about children or about housekeeping. The more she thought about the whole idea, the more nonsensical it seemed.
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right, lovey?’ Polly asked, for at least the fourth time, as they washed up the tea things and kept an eye through the front window for Uncle Jack’s car. He was coming over from Richhill to take Polly to that same evening train she and Clare had travelled on nearly six weeks earlier.
Polly hugged her and thought what a little scrap of a child she was to be left alone with an old blacksmith. Not that her father wasn’t a good, kind man but he’d never had the first idea about children. Children were women’s work. He must have loved his own children to have worked so very hard to provide for them, but he’d never found any way of showing it. He was never close to them. Indeed, looking back to her girlhood, Polly sometimes thought he looked quite bewildered when he cast his eyes round his own kitchen at the crowd of young people who laughed and joked with each other as they sat at the table, morning or evening.
‘Now, Daddy, if the wee one is too much for you, get Margaret Robinson or one of the girls to ring me an’ I’ll come up,’ she said as she walked down the path with him. ‘She’s a good wee thing but ye might find it too much. Don’t be afraid te say. An’ if I don’t hear, I’ll be up in a fortnight to see how ye are. Davy might get the loan of a car, t’woud be awful handy, though Jack Hamilton has been more than kind fetchin’ and carryin’ us.’
‘Aye, he’s a good sort, Jack. Like the father. Gran’ people the Hamiltons,’ he said quietly, as he limped along beside her.
Clare was skipping down the path ahead of them, already beyond the most recent pair of propped up gates and a reaper waiting to be mended. She hopped up and down as Jack got out of his car.
‘I’ve found the place my great-granny had her garden, Uncle Jack, and I’m going to dig it all up and plant flowers. You can come and see it when I’ve finished if you like.’
‘I will indeed, Clare,’ he said warmly. ‘Have you any plants for it yet?’
‘No. I thought I’d better get it ready first so they’d have somewhere to go. Do you think Granny Hamilton could put a few more of her bits in tin cans for me? They take a while to grow, don’t they?’
‘Aye, but some’s faster than others. Yer a bit late this year for flowers, but we could maybe put in the odd wee bush. I’ll see what I can do,’ he promised, as he turned to greet Polly and her father.
‘I see ye have a wee gardener here,’ Jack said looking up at the older man.
Robert nodded and raised his eyes heavenward. ‘It wouden surprise me. Sure all the weemen in this family has green fingers an’ sure whativer I woud put me han’ to, it dies,’ he laughed wryly.
After Auntie Polly had hugged and kissed her, Clare climbed up on the bank by the furthest end of the forge and waved to the car as it turned out of the lane and moved slowly down the hill. Then she jumped down and ran after Granda Scott as he made his way back to the house.
‘Granda, why do you have a limp?’ she asked as he pushed open the door into the big dark kitchen.
He looked down at her, slightly startled, thought for a moment and replied; ‘Ach, an’ oul horse kicked me, years ago.’
‘Oh dear. Did it hurt badly?’
‘Aye, it did. It gave me gip for months an’ then it just stopped. But I’ve had a hippety-clinch ever since.’
Clare was about to ask what that was, when she saw him look towards the door of the sitting room, beyond which lay his bedroom.
‘If I take haf an hour on the bed, will ye be all right?’ he asked anxiously.
‘Yes, of course,’ she assured him. ‘Anyway, I have the washing to pick up and fold. Auntie Polly said to be sure and do it before the sun dropped too far and the dew fell.’
‘Aye, that’s right,’ he said hastily.
But the way he said it Clare wondered if he really did know about washing and how important it was to have it bone dry and properly aired.
It was the sunshine that woke Clare the next morning. Through the fluttering foliage of the climbing rose that had grown far beyond the wrought-iron arch framing the front door and now clothed the whole length of the long, low dwelling, a beam of light fell on her pillow, flickered and settled on her pale skin and dark curls. She felt its touch on her eyelids, opened them promptly and looked around her.
She was here. Here, in the bed Mummy had shared with Auntie Polly and sometimes when they were still little with Auntie Mary as well. A big bed with a horsehair mattress. She had thought it rather hard and lumpy when she climbed up into it the first night, but it was all right when you got used to it. She lay now looking up at the ceiling. Its wooden boards had been painted white but she thought it must have been a long time ago for the distemper was flaking. Where tiny snowflakes of paint had already fallen, the previous layer of much-less-white distemper was revealed underneath. As her eyes moved round the whole ceiling above her, she found in different places little suspended white flakes spinning in the draught coming round the door. What could possibly have made the invisible threads on which they spun?
She counted the boards that made up the ceiling. There were twenty-nine and a half by the door but only twenty-nine above the sash window that was set into the thick plastered walls. Some bits of wall were very thick indeed. Just behind the door into the bedroom there was a huge bulge that ran halfway up the wall. The windowsills were nearly two feet deep.
‘That’s why it’s only twenty-nine over there,’ she said quietly to herself, when she worked out that the walls were not even. She felt so pleased that she had solved the puzzle.
One day, she thought, when I’m old, I shall remember lying here in this bed counting the boards in this ceiling. And I shall remember what it’s like being nine years old. And I promise, absolutely, Brownie’s honour, if ever any child I know asks me what it was like when I was a child, I shall tell them all about it and not just say that I can’t remember, the way so many grown-ups do.
She wondered if she should get up. Beside the bed was a washstand with a delph basin and a big jug. The jug was only half full of water because otherwise it was so heavy she couldn’t lift it. She knew the water would feel very cold because she was lovely and warm, so she snuggled down further under the eiderdown and continued to study her new bedroom.
Across the small linoleum-covered space by the bed stood a large dressing chest, a solid piece of furniture with three big drawers and a dark-starred mirror whose screws had worked loose so that it now tilted either too much or not enough. All the drawers had been empty and had smelt strongly of mothballs when Auntie Polly had unpacked Granny Hamilton’s shopping bag and started putting her clothes away.
There was another smaller chest of drawers under the window. They didn’t need any more drawers to put her things in because she didn’t have very many things, but Clare pulled open the drawers anyway, just out of curiosity. But it was Auntie Polly who got a surprise. She thought one of the lower drawers was full of sheets and that the other one had a spare bedspread and some material for new curtains she had brought up but hadn’t had time to make. But all the drawers were empty. Completely empty, but for an old newspaper lining one of them.
‘Oh, look Auntie Polly,’ she cried pouncing upon it. ‘What lovely horses, Granda will love these.’
She spread out the faded copy of the Belfast Telegraph on the bed and began to read: ‘Three in hand pull their weight in an Ulster harvest field. Eight months ago Ulster farmers heard and answered the “Grow more Food” call. Today a happier note rings out. It is “Reap for Victory”. Never before has the autumn beauty of the countryside been so enriched by fields of golden grain. This war harvest promises to be the best in the history of the Province.’
Auntie Polly finished putting the clothes away and sat down on the edge of the bed. Clare looked up at her, saw how tired she looked and stopped reading.
‘Go on,’ said Polly, ‘Read me a bit more.’
‘There may be dark days ahead, times perhaps, in which hearts will be heavy, but thanks to the farmers who rallied so well to the “dig” campaign, we shall at any rate have full larders this winter.’
‘That must be September, 1940,’ said Polly abruptly.
‘Oh you are clever, Auntie Polly. Look, it’s a bit torn but if I hold it together you can see the date; 2, September 1940, just what you said.’
‘It is, it is indeed. I remember it all right. I put that paper there when I did out these drawers. That was the last time this poor old house had a spring-clean, albeit it was almost autumn. I left Davy and Eddie with their Granny McGillvray and brought Ronnie up with me. Granny Scott wasn’t very well so I spent a whole week going over the place. How long is that ago?’
‘Six years, all but three weeks,’ replied Clare quickly.
‘Long time, Clare, and a lot has happened,’ she said sadly. ‘The war was far worse than anybody ever thought it would be, even here in the country. You’ll understand better when you’re older. Often if you knew how bad somethin’ was goin’ to be you couldn’t cope with it atall, but if you take it as it comes you get by. It’s only afterwards you wondered how you managed.’
‘Ronnie told me about the barrage balloons. He said he was so frightened,’ Clare said quietly.
‘He was indeed. We were all frightened, Clare, but the grown-ups pretended they weren’t to try to help the children. I think maybe Ronnie knew how bad things were. Davy and Eddie never seemed to realise that we might all be dead by mornin’.’
‘Did lots of people die?’
‘Oh yes, lots and lots of people, not just here but all over the world. So many no one will ever be able to count them all.’
‘And children too, and babies?’
‘Yes, lots of children and babies too.’
Clare thought she had never seen Auntie Polly looking so sad even when she talked about Mummy and Daddy.
‘Do you think anybody will remember them all, Auntie Polly?’
Polly looked surprised. She stood up and with a visible effort collected herself.
‘Yes, Clare, some people will. People like you and Ronnie. Now put that picture of the horses out o’ the way in the window to show to Granda and let’s get on with our work. If we sit here talkin’ we’ll never be straight by teatime.’
On the wall beside the door leading into ‘the boys’ room’ was an illustrated text. The colours were rather blotchy and faded but the words were still clear: ‘The Coneys are but a feeble folk yet they build their houses in the rock.’ Coneys meant rabbits, that she knew, but rabbits didn’t build in rocks. Surely everybody knew that they had burrows in sandy places, like the Whinny Hills where she’d been for a picnic when she went to Brownies.
She had forgotten about Brownies. It seemed a long time ago now. Her dress and tie and hat would all have been burnt with the rest of her clothes. Gnomes, Elves, Dwarfs and Leprechauns. Those were four groups they had and each one lived in a corner of the big, bare hall where they met. She had been a gnome.
Brown Owl had a campfire that she kept in a big cupboard, a pretend campfire for when they met in the hall. But it did have real sticks and bits of red paper that looked like flames when she put her torch inside it and switched on. Round the campfire they sang songs and listened to a story and then they all promised ‘to be faithful to God and the King, to help other people every day, especially those at home. Lah. Lah. Lah.’ It was ages before she found out that ‘Lah, Lah, Lah’ meant Lend a Hand.
Well she could do lots of good deeds every day now, for Granda Scott certainly needed someone to help him. Auntie Polly said she thought he never washed up, that he just used the same dishes all week and left them piled up on the wooden table for Jinny to do on a Saturday morning. That was just like one of the neighbours in Anne of Green Gables. Mr Harrison used to wash the dishes on Sundays in the water barrel until Anne came to help him and taught him how to do things properly.
From the kitchen, Clare heard the sound of the stove being raked and the rings being pulled back. Moments later, smoke swirled past outside her window flowing upwards in the beam of sunlight that still threw a bright patch on her pillow. Granda must be lighting the stove.
She climbed out of bed, shivered as her feet touched the cold lino and pulled the small rag rug over to the wash stand with her toe. She washed very quickly but did all the bits that Mummy had always done and then put her clothes on as fast as she could. She was just combing her hair, crouched down on the floor so that she could see into the mirror which had now tipped forward, when she smelt burning.
‘Clare, are ye up? The breakfast’s ready.’
She heard him unlatch the heavy front door which would stand open all day except in the very worst weather or when he went into Armagh on the bus to do his shopping.
‘I’m here,’ she said, blinking in the dazzling light of the hallway.
She followed him back into the big kitchen. Although great beams of light poured through the newly-cleaned, south-facing window and lit up the scrubbed table where all the work of the house went on, its brilliant rays were soon defeated by the smoke-blackened ceiling and the mud-tramped stone floor. Little light penetrated to the further corners of the room that were made darker still by a heavy, brown varnished wallpaper covering the lower part of the walls and the darkened wood of the furniture which stood against them.
Clare blinked, confused by the sudden dimness. She was enveloped in wisps of blue smoke that had risen from the frying pan and now oscillated in the movement of air as she closed the door behind her.
‘There’s no sweet milk,’ he said abruptly, as he sat down in his chair, dropped his cap on the fender and poured the last few drops from the jug into his half pint mug of tea.
‘I don’t drink milk, Granda.’
Clare sat down at the oilcloth-covered table which stood under the tiny back window of the cottage. Beyond the shorter grass where she and Polly had spread out the washing, the morning light glanced off apple trees that were now weighed down with ripening fruit. Already she could hear the hum of bees happily at work on the windfalls surrounding each laden tree.
On a plate in front of her was some fried soda bread, burnt round the edges and bone dry in the middle. She picked up the first piece and munched steadily.
‘What do ye drink?’ he asked, glancing at her in amazement, the whites of his eyes in his permanently grimy face making him look even more startled than usual.
‘Water mostly,’ she replied, judging that there would be no orange juice in a house with no children.
‘It’s in the enamel bucket in the press.’
She slid down off her chair and crossed to the other end of the kitchen where the tall press ran up to the low ceiling to the left of the scrubbed wooden table. The enamel bucket was nearly empty but she managed to bale out a cupful of water and carry it back to the table.
‘Whit’ll ye do all day?’ he asked, as he finished his fried bread and took a long drink of dark brown tea from his mug.
‘I think I shall go exploring first,’ she began, ‘then I’ll start digging the garden and then I want to try out the paint-box Ronnie gave me,’ she continued.
It occurred to her that perhaps she should begin with the housework but she wasn’t quite sure about what she should do, except, of course, the breakfast dishes.
‘Is there anything I can do to help, Granda, any jobs you want doing? I can sew quite nicely if you have any tears or holes in your clothes.’
‘Ach, nat atall,’ he replied, picking up his cap. ‘Away and play yerself,’ he added as he headed for the forge.
Clare collected up the cups and plates and took the tin basin from under the wooden table. It really was very dirty under there but Auntie Polly had said that that was Jinny’s job and she must have had to leave it so she could do other things to help Granny. Clare decided she must make friends with Jinny when she came and then she could ask her to show her how to do things. There were lots of jobs Auntie Polly hadn’t had time to explain to her.
She dried the cups and plates, put them away in the press and was about to throw the dirty water out through the front door, when she saw someone coming up the path from Robinson’s, the nearest of the neighbouring farms. The path ran through a flourishing bed of nettles that were so stingy on bare legs that Auntie Polly said she was to go the long way round when she went for the butter and eggs, down to the forge and across the top of the front orchard. But the figure who approached through the nettles was wearing trousers and boots and didn’t seem to notice that they were there at all.
He was carrying an enamel bucket of water in one hand and was smiling to himself as he hurried with a strange shuffling walk, towards the open front door. Peeping out of the window, Clare saw he had a flat cap over what looked like a completely bald head and he held the bucket in a funny way with his thumb stuck out as if he didn’t want it to get wet.
‘God bless all here,’ he shouted as he shuffled across the hallway, opened the inner door and came into the kitchen.
‘Hello.’
Clare watched him open the bottom cupboard of the press, lift out the almost empty enamel bucket and refill it most carefully from the exactly similar one he carried. He didn’t seem to see her or to notice she’d said hello. She wondered how he could have missed seeing her, standing as she was in the middle of the room, watching him. Perhaps his eyes didn’t focus very well. They did have a rather strange look about them.
He shut the cupboard door, picked up his bucket and was about to leave when he stopped abruptly, turned and walked towards her. Still smiling, he put out his hand and touched her hair.
‘Ach, wee Ellie, I’m heart glad to see ye again.’
Clare smiled warmly at him and was wondering how best to explain who she was, when she heard the familiar, uneven tap of boots hurrying under the arch and into the hall.
‘Hello, Jamsey. Are ye rightly, man?’ Granda Scott asked as he came through the door.
Clare noticed that his tone of voice was different from usual, louder and brighter. Normally, he was so soft-spoken.
‘I am, the best atall,’ Jamsey said cheerfully, his smile broadening yet further. ‘I’ve brought you the spring. I’ll be over later with the sweet milk.’
‘Good man, good man yerself. Have ye said hello to wee Clarey? Polly brought her up yesterday for a holiday.’
Jamsey stared at Clare, a strange blankness replacing his beaming smile.
‘Ellie,’ he said, softly. ‘That’s Ellie.’
‘Ah, yer not far wrong, Jamsey. Yer not far out atall,’ said Robert reassuringly. ‘That’s Ellie’s wee girl. Wee Clarey. Ye’ll say hello to her.’
‘I will that,’ said Jamsey, positively, sticking out his hand so that it looked as if it didn’t belong to him.
Clare took it and he shook her hand vigorously up and down.
‘I’m pleased to meet ye, Clarey. Your mother was a powerful nice lady. She used to let me play her gramophone.’
‘Sure don’t you play it still, Jamsey, when we’ve all our work done?’
‘Ach aye,’ Jamsey nodded. ‘We’ll have a bit of a tune later.’
He nodded again as if to himself. Then a sudden look of concentration appeared on his face. He picked up his bucket and made for the door. ‘God bless the work,’ he called out, without a backward glance.
Robert looked at Clare who had moved to the window and was watching Jamsey as he disappeared at speed through the nettles.
‘Were ye frightened?’
‘No. He’s a nice man, but he’s not quite right, is he?’
‘Poor Jamsey, he’s kinda simple, but there’s no harm in him atall. He’d not hurt you,’ Robert said emphatically, ‘though sometimes he gets in a mood and ye can’t get a word out of him. Other times he’ll curse and swear. Pay no heed to that. He doesn’t understand the words atall. Sometimes he forgets things, other times he remembers what happened years ago. And he loves music, the gramophone, the radio, songs, bands. Anything like that. Yer mother useta sing to him.’
He stopped abruptly and for one single moment Clare wondered if he might cry. But he just blew his nose on a very dirty-looking handkerchief and said he must away and put more coal on the fire in the forge or it would go out.
After Jamsey’s visit, Clare felt she should begin her exploration with the house. She was not very hopeful of finding a forgotten attic in the single storey building or a secret passage set into the thick stone walls but she thought she ought at least to look at each room carefully.
She stepped into the sitting room, ‘The Room’ as her grandfather called it. It was cooler, but brighter than the big kitchen, its white ceiling and pale-washed walls almost unmarked by soot and smoke. In the alcove to the left of the decorated iron fireplace was a tall built-in cupboard. She climbed up on the armchair by the fire, opened the upper part and found it was disappointingly empty.
The lower one yielded only a string of very battered silver bells which must have been a Christmas decoration a long time ago. She was about to put them back when she noticed that where the silver had peeled away there were marks, rows of little designs with dots and squiggles. It was newspaper, old newspaper, but it was from Japan or China and it had been used to make papier mâché like they did at school.
Some little girl with tiny feet and sloping eyes, the visiting missionaries at Sunday School had told her about, had read the newspaper to her parents and then sent it away to a workshop so that someone could make silver bells. Bells for Christmas on the other side of the world.
She closed the cupboard doors carefully and began to study the pictures in their heavy frames. Haggar and Ishmael she knew. They were from the Bible and they looked terribly unhappy. But who was the big lady with the huge bosom and the big dress, posing against the pot plant?
And then, quite suddenly, she found herself looking at her mother. To the right of the fireplace there hung a framed photograph of a Sunday school picnic. The grown-ups were standing up very straight and the littlest children were sitting on the grass in pretty white dresses. She recognised Granda and Granny at once, so those four children sitting in front of them had to be Polly, Ellie, Bob and Mary. Johnny and Florence weren’t there. Perhaps they weren’t born yet, or maybe they were too small to come on a picnic. And of course, poor little James who was never baptised, certainly wasn’t there.
How very tidy everyone was. They must all be wearing their Sunday best. Perhaps, after all, it was an excursion. But then, she could see the baskets of food arranged in the corners of the picture. Granda Scott must have a fob watch in his waistcoat pocket for she could see a chain quite clearly. His collar looked most uncomfortable but it was snowy white. Granny wore a pleated blouse with a high collar and a cameo brooch and a long dark skirt with frills. Polly was grinning, Mummy was looking wide-eyed at the photographer, Bob had moved, so you couldn’t see his face properly and Mary was gazing across the picture at something far away.
‘A long time ago and a lot has happened since,’ she whispered to herself as she stood looking at all the people she didn’t know, friends and neighbours, all the people who went to the little church perched up on top of the hill.
The sun was making dappled patterns on the worn linoleum. The elderly three-piece suite was dark and split in places so that the stuffing leaked out of the arms. It was not a very cheerful room.
Suddenly, she wanted to be in the sunshine. She would go and reap the harvest of the prairies, just like that picture of the three in hand they had found in the bottom drawer of the chest in her room.
She ran down the path to the forge, picked her way carefully through the bits of metal and machinery and climbed up into the seat of the reaping machine that sat awaiting its repair. The seat was slightly springy and she bobbed up and down vigorously to take advantage of it. Below and around her the bright eyes of the dog daisies winked up through the tangled grass, nodding to her, watching her as she prepared to set off.
‘Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, here I come, harvesting the golden acres to give grain to all the world so that everyone, everywhere, will have enough to eat. Whatever darkness there may be to come, the larders will be full. Hey there, Hup there, pull away my beautiful horses, we have a long way to go,’ she cried.
In the forge, Robert laid down the callipers and chalk beside the metal bar he was marking and moved silently across to the door of the forge. Out of sight himself, he watched the child set her face to the horizon, gather up the reins in her arms and launch herself across half of Canada. Then, shaking his head and smiling to himself, he went back to his work.