The Citizen, 1988-12-21, Page 26PAGE 26. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1988.
The baby was going to die, everyone knew it
Continued from page 25
us back. Perhaps itwas a stirring of
our greatgrandfathers who had
come from England or France or
Ireland with a dream of making a
home.
Our great grandfathers had
failed and they and our fathers and
ourselves just lived on and had
many children.
We buried many children too.
We buried them back of the big
rock and often you can hear them
crying there in the night for they
were babies that were never
baptized so they must stay there
forever and ever. They were very
little babies too, and it is sad to hear
them crying there in the night.
Eloise was going to die. You can
always tell when God has marked a
child to die.
If they start a sort of weak crying
and keep it up all night and all day,
there is nothing you can do except
put the charms on their necks and
on their hands. There isn’t any use
getting a doctor from miles away
for he would ask much money, and
no doctor can help a child who has
been marked by God to die.
But Eloise was Marjan’s favor
ite. When he came from work that
winter day at five o’clock, his other
children told him Eloise would die.
He grew very angry and he walked
rightinto our house. Eloisewas
lying on the table and we were all
there and the charms had been put
on her blanket and on her neck.
Marj an be nt down a nd looked at
her and then he talked angrily in
another language but we knew he
wascursingus. He was a pagan.
None of us, not even big Joe, tried
to stop him. He threw the dirty
blanket at us and he stripped Eloise
naked of all her dress and the dress
tore in his hands. He wrapped her
little body in his leather coat and
the women screamed but Marjan
just walked out in the storm.
After a long time, we five men
got our guns and the women came
too and we went to Marjan’s shack
and stood outside. One of our
children pushed open the door for it
was not barred. Eloise was asleep.
Marjan was rocking her gently to
and fro. He had washed her and
wrapped her in a cloth that was soft
and white. She had stopped crying.
She was asleep and as we looked at
her she looked as pretty as the
picture of the angel. Marjan had
given her milk mixed with warm
water.
Next day Marjan did not go to
work. He would not let even the
mother of Eloise come near. He
told us he would bring police if any
of us went to his shack. He called a
little girl who was age fourteen and
let her stay, then he went
twenty-two miles to town.
When he came back he had milk
from a cow in a bottle. He had got it
from the dining car when the great
Pacific train stopped for the tank.
And in his pack he had many tins of
other milk.
Eloise did not die.
When she was well again,
Marjan made us buy the commun
ity cow.
We meant to tell him that there
would be no feed and that the cow
would be too much trouble by
getting lost in the bush and the
muskeg and that she would freeze
in the shack.
But big Joe had sold a fox pelt so
he gave nine dollars, Frank gave
four dollars and the rest of us had
two dollars and eighty cents.
Marjan put thirty-one dollars and
twenty cents and he also bought
some bales of hay. He said that
next summer there would be lots of
hay on the beaver meadows and
everybody would cut some and
carry some and someday we would
have a horse and some pigs and
some hens and a garden.
He was a foreigner and did not
know as much about Canada as we
did for our great-grandfathers and
our fathers had been poor here in
the muskeg and rocks. But we did
not say much for we were afraid of
Marjan and somehow we were
afraid of the way Eloise laughed
but she was only three years old.
She did not laugh like the other
kids. She laughed more like the
other kids laugh when they were
playing in a ring around Marjan’s
gramophone.
The first night we had our cow
she gave a pail of milk nearly to the
top. All our women wanted to try
her and all our children said her
hair was soft. Everybody wanted to
taste the milk.
When we were sitting around
the shack with the milk pail on the
table we got talking about cows we
had seen and big Joe said he was
going to get a red one for they were
the bestfor the feed you put into
them. Our cow was black and
white.
Itwasfunnythat cow made us
talk. Maybe the women had always
wanted to have something like that
to talk about. Maybe their great
grandmothers once had cows with
soft hair in England or France or
Ireland. We men felt sort of funny
about that cow too.
A t first our cow had to stay in the
room with Isadore and his children
but when Sunday came, Marjan
made us all goback tothe bush with
himtopullin logs by hand. We had
told him you need a horse to do that
work but Marjan is a foreigner and
doesn’t know how things should be
done in Canada. He made us go.
It was funny about that cow
house. When it was finished it was
a far better house than the houses
we lived in. It was very straight and
it had windows and the windows
seemed to make it smell nice.
Itwas funny what that cow of
ours did. All the kids wanted to
carry waterforitand one kid sawed
a window in his shack like the
windows we had sawed in our
cow’shouse. And big Joe started to
build a lean-to at his place. And
after the fur-buyer passed, Frank’s
woman sent for a nine dollar
gramophone with ten records and
Isadore gota pig. It wasn’t much of
a pig and it died, but Isadore had
the notion for a pig and said where
he was going to get another in the
summerwhentherewasfeed for it.
Big Joe sold his illicit beaver
pelts ... fourteen of them, but
because they were illicit the
fur-buyer did not have to give him
much for them. But Joe went to
town and next day he came back
with a lot of candy just like Marjan
got for the kids. And the next day
after that the train stopped and
unloaded a cow ... a whole cow all
for Joe and it was a red one. It
didn’t give any milk and it was very
thin but Joe had an idea he could
make it into a good one.
Seven or eight of our kids ... the
smaller ones ... were getting to
looklike Eloise ... sort of rosy, I
mean, and they laughed in a
different way.
Marjan had said that Eloise was
to name our community cow. And
Eloise had named it “Peter”. We
were getting to laught at things like
that now. It was funny what that
cow, Peter, did.
A summer came. When summer
passed and the muskeg brush
turned pretty as Eloise, we had
twenty-seven bags of potatoes that
grew where nothing ever grew
before. They grew in the odd
patches of ground that showed
between the swamp stretches or
between the out croppings of
bed-rock back on the hill. Besides
our cow, Peter, there was Joe’s
thin cow and Isadore’s three pigs.
None of us talked of moving away
like we had talked other years. The
girls had fixed up curtains so our
houses were like two rooms now.
Elaine had flowers growing in
cans. Nearly everything was differ
ent.
Nearly everything except
Marion.
Marion hadn’t been around
when we first got our community
cow. She had been away in some of
the camps making her living. She
wasjustabouttwenty-three but
she was very lucky for all her babies
had died. You could hear them
crying in the night with the others
back of the big rock. Her last baby
hadn’t died yet but she meant to
make it die soon.
Marion only came to us for the
babies and most times it hadn’t
made any difference, but this
summer none of us seemed to want
her to stay in our shacks. She was
the only one who wouldn’t want to
milk our cow. She seemed to hate
Peter for some reason and anyway
Marion was always a trouble
maker.
She would just leave the baby
crying until one or other of the
women gave it something to eat or
Continued on page 27
Merry Christmas
and a
Prosperous
New Year
to our good friends
and customers
from the
Boneschansker
family,
Ethel
See you next
Springduringthe
strawberry season.
IrivA
q^ally
Great
Qloliday
We wish you
all the blessings
of the season.
It’s been a
delight doing
business
with you.
ETHEL
GENERAL
STORE
887-6039 Ethel
yuletide
Cheer
May Christmas
and all the joy
it brings
be yours throughout
the coming year.
COMPLIMENTS OF
THE
SAXON FAMILY
SAXON’S APPLIANCE
REPAIR LTD.
887-9287 R. R. 3 BRUSSELS
MERRY
CHRISTMAS
May your season be
brightened by
expressions of love,
peace and good will.
Many thanks, friends.
Evans
Hardware
ETHEL 887-6979
GREY
TOWNSHIP
Council and Staff