“Rose! Get stirring yourself, girl.” Mam’s voice floated up the stairs from the kitchen to the bedroom, where I stood in front of the small mirror over the dresser.
“She dawdles something awful, Mam.” I heard my sister Winnifred’s voice. “Can’t I go on ahead without her? The Sisters don’t like us being late.”
“No. You wait for Rose. You’re too young to be travelling the streets on your own. There are too many strangers around. Halifax has become far too big for itself, what with half the country flocking here for war jobs,” Mam told her.
I stirred myself by spitting on my finger, then smoothing an eyebrow. Mam wouldn’t approve of a girl spitting, even on her own finger, but Winnie had used all the water in the china jug and I didn’t want to go downstairs to refill it. I patted the blue bow in my hair, pleased with myself. I looked half presentable today. Mary had tied my hair up in rags last night and, for a wonder, the curls were staying put. Every one of us had Da’s red hair, from Winnie’s ginger to Mary’s auburn, but mine had to be the brightest. Add to that the raspberry freckles splashed across my nose and . . . well, when God handed out beauty, I must have been at the end of the line—the brains’ line too. I have asked Him why that was on a number of occasions, but He’s not answered yet.
“Rose!”
Mam was getting annoyed now, but I couldn’t seem to move any faster. Winnie was right. I did dawdle, but it was hard to hurry for something you absolutely hated, and I absolutely hated school.
I clattered down the stairs and burst into the kitchen. Mam’s face was a picture of vexation.
“Mary curled my hair last night and I had trouble taking the rags out,” I explained hurriedly. “But look . . .” I shook my head from side to side. “They’re staying in. She set them with sugar water.”
Mam raised her eyebrows at that, but thankfully didn’t pursue it. “Gather your books up, then, and off you go.”
Ernest came up from the basement with a scuttle of coal that he set beside the stove. “Is that enough, Mam?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed a cap and rammed it sideways on his head.
“Now, where are you off to in such a hurry?” Mam asked. “It certainly isn’t school that has your feet moving so fast.”
Since the boys’ school burned down, Ernest had attended the girls’ school, St. Joseph’s. We had classes in the morning, the boys in the afternoon.
“Patrick and me, we’re going to the barracks to watch the cadets parade,” Ernest said.
Patrick was our cousin from around the corner. What Ernest saw in him, I’ll never know. Soft and pudgy, he was a lump of a boy whose main purpose in life seemed to be to hurt anything that got in his way—animal or person. I knew. I had been on the receiving end of his jibes many times. I tried telling myself that was just Patrick, but it still rankled.
“Put that hat on properly. You look like a ruffian,” Mam scolded.
Grinning broadly, Ernest yanked open the door and headed out at a run, hat still askew. I grimaced at his departing back. Ernest could get away with almost anything. All he had to do was give his cheeky smile and people forgot his misdeeds. Or maybe it was because he was a boy. It seemed to me boys went through life easy. For some reason God had seen fit to make me a girl. I’ve asked Him about that, too, but He’s not answered yet.
Mam caught my down-turned lips. “You keep that sour look on your face, missy, it might stay that way forever,” she warned me.
I hastily straightened my mouth. Red hair, freckles and a sour face. I’d be an old maid for sure.
Mam turned to the table. “Oh! Would you just look? Frederick’s gone off to work and left his lunch—again. He’d forget his head if the good Lord hadn’t attached it to his neck.” She pursed her lips. “Well, he can’t spend a day on the docks working without a lunch in him. And you know your father—he’d bluster about a bit, then share his own. Then they’d both be hungry. You’ll have to take Frederick’s lunch to him, Rose.”
My stomach tightened.
“Winnie, you will have to walk to school by yourself. Don’t talk to anyone,” Mam cautioned.
“Not even the other girls?” Winnie asked.
“Of course, you can talk to the other girls. I meant any strangers—grown-up strangers.”
Winnie took everything a person said exactly the way they said it. It could be quite bothersome at times.
“If I take Fred’s lunch to him, I’ll be dreadfully late,” I ventured. I didn’t like going to the docks. They were noisy and confusing and full of men. “The Sisters will be mad,” I added. Not that it mattered. They were always mad with me, anyway. Still, when Sister Frances’s ruler came down across a person’s knuckles, it hurt for the entire day.
“I’ll go, Mam,” Winnie offered.
And she would, too. Nothing scared Winnie. She raced around every corner anxious to see what waited for her there.
“The Sisters don’t get as mad at me. Just at Rose because she does poorly in school.”
Shame washed over me. Winnie was three years younger, yet she was smarter.
“No, Rose will go,” Mam said. She handed me Frederick’s lunch. “Tell the Sisters I kept you back for an errand. Now step along smartly. Da said they’d be working at the rail yard. And don’t dally down there. So many rough men around these days: sailors and soldiers and the like. But I guess I shouldn’t complain. It’s the extra work and the extra pay the war’s brought that’s let us buy our own home.” She glanced around the kitchen with satisfaction. “Oh, and Rose, if you see Duncan doing his rounds, would you tell him to stop by? He forgot the cream last delivery. Now, you heard me?”
“Yes, Mam,” I replied, swallowing a small lump of hurt. True, I occasionally did forget to do the things Mam asked me. Well, more than occasionally. I’m fine with a single errand, but more than one and I can’t seem to keep them straight in my mind. But I’d been trying harder lately, though no one seemed to notice. No one saw the things I did right, just the ones I did wrong.
“Albert!” Mam suddenly exclaimed. “You naughty boy. Get out of my bread dough. I’ll give you such a hiding . . .”
I smiled as I thrust my arms into my coat. Mam threatened someone with a good hiding nearly every day, but she’d never touched any of us. Mam loved us all, right from seventeen-year-old Mary down to four-year-old Bertie.
Mary worked as a secretary on a typewriter for a bank in the heart of Halifax. Da was so proud of her, he was fit to burst at times. But then, Mary was a bit of a wonder in our neighbourhood, where most of the girls worked in factories. She left each morning to catch the tram long before Winnie and I kicked the bedcovers off ourselves. Frederick, at sixteen, had been working on the docks with Da these past few months, loading ships with supplies for the war in Europe. He proudly brought home a man’s pay at week’s end. Ernest was twelve, exactly one year and a day younger than me. People often took us for twins when we were smaller. Winnie, ten, came next. Then there was the baby of the family, Bertie. As I let myself out the door, I heard him squeal happily. Mam hadn’t given him a hiding, but a big hug.
I carefully shut the gate and stood looking at our house. Two-storied and wood-framed, it was identical to the others on Albert Street, but, to my eyes, was tidier than the rest. When you had a landlord, you didn’t bother to pull weeds from the front garden. Because we owned our house, Da insisted Ernest keep the yard neat and the fence whitewashed. That fence was Da’s pride and joy, put up right after he made the first payment on the house. In summer, Mam grew fresh lettuce, peas and beans in the kitchen garden out back.
Downstairs was the parlour, the kitchen, an enclosed back porch, and Mam and Da’s bedroom. Upstairs were two bedrooms, one for the girls and one for the boys. All were spotless as Mam was quite house-proud.
The kitchen, warmed by the black coal stove, always smelled of fresh-baked bread. When just Mam, Bertie and I were there, the room seemed huge, but when the entire family sat around the table for supper, it shrunk. Strangely, we could still squeeze in Granny and Grandpa Dunlea, Da’s sister Aunt Helen, Uncle Lyle and Patrick, Da’s younger brother Uncle James, his new bride Aunt Ida, and there was still room for a neighbour or two to bring their fiddle or pipes for an evening of music. There is a story in the Bible that Father McManus read our class one day, of Jesus feeding a multitude of people with just a few fish and a loaf of bread that kept on multiplying so no one went hungry. I think the walls of our kitchen were the same. They kept growing to let everyone in.
God sure knew how to tell some good stories, and I loved every one I heard. Which was a puzzling thing, because stories are made up of words and, for the most part, I hate words. The Germans might be our enemies in the war, but my own personal enemies were words and letters. I fought them every day at school.
I turned onto Hanover Street and headed downhill toward the rail yard. A heavy rain the night before had left silver puddles on the road. Water dripped from tree branches, lampposts, and telephone and electric wires. A November fog crept up from the harbour to shroud the houses in mist. I shivered as its cold fingers slipped inside my coat. Despite the discomfort, I was enjoying my walk. It was the quiet time of morning when the women cleared the breakfast from tables and tidied beds before they set out for the shops. The dock and factory workers had been a good two hours at their jobs, and the office workers were even now riding trams downtown.
I came to Granny and Grandpa Dunlea’s house. Grandpa paced back and forth in front, sucking on his pipe. Granny didn’t let him smoke inside.
“Raw today, Rose,” he said when he saw me. He hadn’t bothered with his false teeth so early in the morning and his mouth caved inward. “Kind of cold that gets into your bones and leaves them aching. I wouldn’t be out here, but your granny hates the smell.” He waved his pipe in front of me. “Where are you off to?”
I stopped, surprised at the unusual flow of words from Grandpa. He wasn’t much of a talker. “I’m taking Fred’s lunch to him. He forgot it—again.”
One of Granny’s hens came from back of the house and strutted between my legs. I picked it up and handed it to Grandpa.
“Thanks, Rose. Blasted things. Always getting out,” Grandpa said. He glanced at the house. “Better get moving before your granny sees you.”
We exchanged a grin. I knew exactly what he meant. Granny could talk the hind leg off a mule, Mam said, and once Granny got talking, well, Frederick would never get his lunch nor would I get to school. I’d asked Mam once why Grandpa didn’t say much of anything, and she’d laughed. Granny talked so much, she told me, he couldn’t fit a word in edgewise. A curtain twitched at an upstairs window in Granny and Grandpa’s house, where Aunt Helen, Uncle Lyle and Patrick lived. I broke into a trot and waved goodbye to Grandpa. If there was one person in the world who could talk more than Granny, it was Aunt Helen. Mam often wondered how the two of them sharing the same roof ever got their housework done.
I continued quickly to Veith Street, where I judged it safe to slow and catch my breath. I was far enough away that I could pretend to be out of earshot if Aunt Helen called after me. A steady clop-clop and squeak of wheels came to me first, then a horse and wagon materialized out of the fog and pulled up beside me.
“Hello, Rose. And top o’ the mornin’ to ye, as they’d say in old Ireland,” a voice called.
“H-hello, Duncan,” I said shyly. I could never seem to speak properly when he was around.
Despite being a year older, Duncan MacDonald was Frederick’s best friend. He drove the milk delivery wagon for his father’s dairy. I wished desperately that something clever to say would come to me, but my mind just didn’t work that fast. Now Mary . . . she would have tossed her auburn hair and smiled saucily and asked Duncan what, if anything, a Scots boy would know about Ireland.
“And how are all the Dunleas this fine day?” he asked.
“We’re well,” I replied, though I knew what Duncan really meant was, How is Mary? Everyone knew he’d been sweet on my sister for years, but Mary was keeping company with a clerk from her bank. Horace was his name and his father was the bank manager. Our family had only met Horace the once when he’d come to pick up Mary. He’d driven an automobile that had brought out the entire neighbourhood for a look. But for the life of me, I couldn’t see why she preferred that skinny, fussy milksop to Duncan. Duncan, with his black hair and startling blue eyes, could stop any girl’s heart. And he was always cheerful, white teeth flashing in a generous smile. But Mary . . . she just muttered something about delivery boys and went out with Horace. I stopped thinking of Mary for a moment as something nagged at the back of my brain.
“Oh!” The word burst out of me as I remembered. I blushed and lowered my voice. “Duncan, be sure you stop at the house. My mother wants to talk to you.”
“Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good. I better not keep her waiting, then.” He waved, and clucked to the horse. “Get going, you old nag. And, Rose . . .”
I turned back.
“It’s been a while since I went, but I think school’s the other direction.” Duncan grinned widely.
“Fred forgot his lunch,” I yelled after him, then quickly looked around to see if anyone was about. Mam didn’t think it proper for girls to shout on the streets.
Duncan raised a hand in farewell, and I continued downhill. A light breeze stirred the hair about my face, carrying the tang of salt water and fish and coal fumes. It also brought a dampness that I knew would flatten my curls. My heart flattened right along with them. Now I’d arrive late at school looking bedraggled with stringy hair and a nose bright red from the cold.
Men’s shouts, and the high, frightened cry of a horse floated toward me on the fog. My feet stumbled a bit as I hurried down Barrington Street and past the telegraph office toward the Canadian Government Railroad freight yard. Here the breeze picked up and pulled apart the mist to reveal the chaos of the rail yard and docks.
Men milled about, shirtsleeves rolled to their elbows, caps perched on their heads. Voices shouted and a burst of laughter sailed high over the noise. Boxcars shunted with a teeth-grinding bang, metal scraping over metal. Cigarette smoke tingled my nose. It could be dangerous work at the rail yard. Men had been crushed by falling crates or shifting trains. We children were to take care there. Da cautioned us many times. I looked around wildly. How on earth would I find Da and Fred in this crowd of workers?
“Out of the way,” a man growled. I jumped back as he peered at me from behind a wheeled trolley piled high with wooden boxes. “You shouldn’t be down here, little girl. You’ll get hurt.”
“I’m looking for my brother or father,” I hurriedly explained.
The man stopped and pulled out a cigarette, scraped a match across a thorny palm and lit the cigarette, all the while studying me. “You must be one of that carrot-topped bunch from Albert Street. Michael Dunlea’s pack o’ brats.”
I nodded, though I didn’t much like his description of us. Mam wouldn’t, either.
“Your father’s unloading a rail car.” The man pointed behind us to a line of boxcars.
“Thank you,” I said politely. I quickly jumped over a grid of iron train tracks.
“Da,” I called.
He wrestled a box out of a railway car onto a wagon, then turned to me. “Rose. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in school?” He pulled off his gloves, wiped his forehead with the back of a grimy hand and frowned at me. Da wouldn’t hear of any of us playing hooky. He believed in an education for girls right along with the boys.
“Mam sent me with Fred’s lunch. He forgot it.”
Da shook his head impatiently. “Your brother’s farther down, trying to get horses out of the train and onto a ship.”
I stepped back and looked along the line of boxcars to see Fred struggling to hold a nervous horse in check. “He’s having a hard time of it,” I said. “I guess they don’t want to go to war.”
“No more so than the men, but they have to go anyway.”
“Da, will Fred ever have to go?”
“Hopefully not. He’s needed here on the docks. This is vital war work, too. Not to say he’ll never go, but he’s two years away from eighteen and there’s no sense borrowing trouble.”
Maybe I shouldn’t borrow trouble, as Da said, but the war had been going on for over three years now. The year 1917 was drawing to a close and no end to the war was in sight.
“Mam says we should pray it is over soon,” I said.
“Yes. Well, if your Mam says so, you better do it.”
Da didn’t like the religion as much as Mam did. He didn’t have much use for priests and confession and penance, happy to leave the saving of our souls up to our mother. But if Mam said we were to go to Mass or confession, he’d make us do it. Da turned and picked up another crate. I watched his arm muscles strain as he hoisted it on top of the other box. Da wasn’t the tallest man around, but his shoulders were broad and his hands splayed wide could encircle Mam’s waist. Mam said our Da was the most handsome man in Halifax, or would be, but for the thinning ginger hair on top of his head. She always added that bit with a laugh and a gentle pat on his bald spot.
The fog vanished as quickly as it had come. A watery sun struggled weakly through high cloud, but held little warmth. I shielded my eyes and looked out over the harbour to where the Dartmouth Ferry was crossing. “There are a lot of ships in today,” I said.
Small vessels expertly wove their way between schooners, transports, freighters and merchant ships. The bright red cross painted on the side of a hospital ship reflected vividly against the steel-grey waters. Those ships arrived with grim regularity. I hated to think of all the young men who returned to Canada hurt, or worse, didn’t return at all. A blast of a ship’s horn made me wince.
“A convoy’s getting organized to go overseas,” Da said. He pulled out his tobacco pouch and rolled himself a cigarette. “That’s where the horses and these supplies are going. It’ll be a large one this time. We’re losing so many ships to German submarines, they thought they’d send a huge convoy protected by warships. Safety in numbers. But then, I guess I shouldn’t be discussing this with you. I don’t know if you’re really a German spy pretending to be my daughter.”
“Da!”
He laughed. “Give me Fred’s lunch. I’ll hold it back a bit before letting him have it. Make him think he’ll have to work all afternoon on an empty stomach.” His hazel eyes shone with mischief. “Think he’ll learn a lesson, then, Rose?”
I took one last look down the train to my brother. Fred had always been absent-minded. “I don’t think I’d count on it, Da.”
I continued looking out over the harbour, reluctant to leave for school. I wouldn’t want to be going to war, but I couldn’t help but wonder about those countries on the other side of the ocean. Did they have trees? Did the air smell different? The globe on Sister Frances’s desk had coloured lands broken by blue painted water. Ireland was pink, meaning it was a British possession, as was Canada.
Ireland was where Mam and Da’s family originally came from. My Mam’s grandmother Rose made the journey to Canada with her children, one of them Mam’s mother, in hopes of a better life. I watched a milk-white gull wheel in lazy circles overhead and wondered if it had ever flown to Ireland. Had it looked down on the green fields and hedges I’d heard about so many times in my grandma’s stories? Trouble was, I found it hard to believe Ireland was there on the other side of that vast expanse of heaving water. I was, I had long ago decided, one of those people who need to see things for themselves to believe. Still, I mused, I wouldn’t half mind being that gull high above the docks.
Da flicked his cigarette end away. “Off to school with you now, my Wild Irish Rose.”
I smiled slightly at my father’s nickname for me. Why he’d settled on that one I never understood. Ernest, Winnie or Mary—they could be wild, but me? Then again, there probably wasn’t a song about a Wild Irish Mary or Ernest or Winnie.
“And Rose . . .” Da’s voice stopped me. “I know you find the studying hard, but keep at it. You can do anything you want with a good education. Look at Mary. I always regretted that I left school early, but your grandpa being laid up with no money coming in meant I had to go to work to support the family. I don’t blame him, mind you. A body does what a body has to do. But I want you children to have the opportunities I didn’t.”
I nodded. I’d heard all this from Da before.
“You’re a smart girl. You remember that and work hard.”
My feet dragged as I left the rail yard and headed up the steep hill toward St. Joseph’s School. Da might think I was smart, but I knew better. I was slow—leastways, that’s what the Sisters called me. Patrick—he had other, more hurtful names for me.
I knew my ABC’s, but couldn’t get them to form proper words. I’d stare at them until my eyes watered, willing them to shape themselves into something sensible for me to read, but they never did. It was the same with numbers. I could recite the times tables flawlessly, add and subtract in my head, but when it came time to write them down, I’d mix them all up. I swear that the numbers and letters moved around right in front of my eyes, taunting me.
Sister Frances thought me lazy and inattentive, a daydreamer, she said. I had to admit that sometimes it was easier to gaze out the classroom window than wrestle with my letters. She often made me stay in at the mid-morning break to finish my work. It was embarrassing to be kept in, but worse was the fact that I was the oldest in my class, having been held back twice already. Thank goodness, I’d not grown much yet so I didn’t look too much bigger than my classmates, but if I got held back one more year it meant I’d be in Winnie’s class. I vow I would quit school before I’d go into Winnie’s class.
Breathless from the long climb, I stood and looked up at the two-storey school. I caught my reflection in the glass pane of the door. Sure enough, the wind and damp had flattened my curls and the cold had made my freckles stand out like a measles rash. Unable to put it off any longer, I pulled open the heavy door, walked past the marble statue of the Virgin Mary and climbed the stairs to my classroom.