CHAPTER IX
AT THE LANDING.
A city founded is no city built
Till faith becomes prolific by the fathering tale
Of good report and all-availing effort.—J. M. HARPER.
The sweet of life is something small,
A resting by a wayside wall
With God's good sunshine over all.—R. W. GILBERT.
This is the rainy season at Athabasca Landing, so that the streets are very muddy. Long ago, it was like this in Edmonton, my continuing city, but when we were come to a very considerable puddle our escorts carried us. This is why big, fine-looking men were in high demand.
But, this day, by some strange providence, the glut of rain has abated and the clemency of the sky fills me with an importunate inclination to gad about and use my eyes. There are no moments to be lost, to-morrow it is sure to be raining again. Never was land more golden; never one more grey.
Here at the Landing, it makes no difference where one goes in search of diversion, for it is to be found in all directions and every foot of the way. This morning I preferably take to the hill back of the town, for the water has drained off it to the river and the footing is good.
The hill is held by the Honourable the Hudson's Bay Company, who have owned it time out of mind. It hurts the Company to sell land, for they are the true lineal descendants of that classical tree which groaned with torture when a limb was dissevered from its trunk. This being the case, they may be expected to hold the hill until the municipality taxes it away from them.
Ignorant people like the wheat-sellers of Winnipeg, speak of this settlement as a new place, a mushroomic upstart of yesterday, whereas it was an old post before Winnipeg was thought of. North of the Landing, there are thirty thousand people who depend on the local rivermen to bring down their year's supplies, so that this is a place of no small concernment and it has seven streets, you might say. As yet, its houses and public buildings do not run to paint or useless ornamentations, and there is a stolid practicability about its front doors.
But about the hill: Terry, who is in "the Mounted," tells me it is a walk of three cigarettes to the top of it, but two if you step lively. This Terry has a bold and busy fancy, and if he cared to write, he would, like Xenophon, be "an author of wonderful consequence." Once, he tried to set down a story, but it was like trying to make a fire with a wet match.
Aha! Terry, Aha! you have said it exactly—defined it to a hair's-breadth—the plight of the authors who would rise up on wings as eagles but only they faint and are weary. A wet match! What greater or more invincible deterrent could exist to the kindling of a fire? If Terry's manners were less adroit and his hair less curly, I could almost love him. I am half-purposed to anyway.
And now that we are on matters literary I wish to announce that some day, when my thoughts have come to issue, I intend writing an article on the evil taste of pen-handles. There are several million dollars in store for the man who will manufacture handles that are toothsome—say of licorice, cinnamon, or sassafras wood, or of some composition agreeable to the palate. The connection between the tongue and the pen is a much closer one than generally recognized.
We might even have pleasantly medicated pen-handles guaranteed to stimulate our addled heads, or—Heigh, my hearts of the fourth estate!—to fill us with an irresistible desire to work when there is music and laughter downstairs, or a horse and sunshine out of doors. The invention of such a pen could not fail to be imparted as righteousness.... The roses are in full blast, and all the way along I walk the earth in a fine rapture. On the hill-top, there is a spread of blue hyacinths like a torn veil that has been thrown to the earth. Here, in bewildering array, grow wild parsnips, feverfew, painter's brush, mint-flowers, and lilies that flame riotously across the sheens and greens of the open ways. I love the crimson glories of these lilies; they seem to bring grist to life. Indeed, there is no question but they do.
The poplars and cottonwoods are hanging out long tassels of woolly silver. It is a pity these do not pledge fruit like the tassels of the Indian corn. Mayhap, some day, a scientist will cause the black poplar to produce something for the sustenance of the North. Even the honey which the bees store in its cavities becomes bitter and acrid to the taste. Or it may happen we shall discover a cordial substance which will transmute the tassels of the poplar into something else—say into mulberries. Long ago, the English orchardists believed such things to be possible, for, in the fourteenth century, one wrote down that "a peach-tree shall bring forth pomegranates if it be sprinkled with goat's milk three days when it beginneth to flower."
It is good to be here this day enjoying the pleasant amity of the earth and sky. One may draw physical and spiritual renovation from both. It is very good to feel on one's face the soft-handed wind that is seldom still. This is the kindly unrestricted breeze which brings gifts to the North and West. It blesses the grain by swaying it to and fro, for the word "bless" means literally to fructify. On some such day as this I will come back here from the dead.
On this hill, the Hudson's Bay Company, the world's oldest trust, have erected their storehouse and factor's residence. These are log buildings, austerely square and ugly in the extreme. In the factor's garden is an old sundial which adds the needed touch of romance to the place; also, it connotes a fine leisureliness.
The erstwhile typical régime of a Hudson's Bay fort is a phase of existence which shortly will be sponged off human memory. It has never been as fully explained to me as I could desire, but as nearly as I can make out, the staff of a well-manned post consisted of the factor and chief factor, the trader and chief trader, an accountant, a postmaster, two or more clerks, a cooper, a carpenter, a blacksmith, and labourers, the work of the last mentioned being to haul water, cut wood, and secure meat. There were also as many cooks as required. Food was sometimes scarce, so that the men were required to lick their platters clean. Contrariwise, they drank not a little of heady beverages which they are said to have "carried well."
The Indian's idea of a house is a different one to the trader's. It is not a place to be lived in, but exists merely as a shield from the weather. Accompanied by Goodfellow, a frowsy, stump-tailed dog from the hotel, I visited the Indian houses hereabout. Goodfellow came with me, not as a protector, but because he wouldn't be driven back. He is a reprobate cur, forever spoiling for a fight; a natural born feudist who lives in a state of violent excitement. Terry says he is "no bloomin' lap-dog," but a four-legged incarnation of the devil himself. Sometime soon, this dog's day will be over, for he is surely going to die of lead poisoning.
All the way to the Indians, with a stupid malignity, and in defiance of the plainest laws of fence, Goodfellow gave chase to every cat and rabbit and bit every cow. It is not open for me to say what I thought of him, except that his conduct was solidly wrong. It was, accordingly, of high gratification to the rancour I hid in my heart when the Indians' huskies made short shrift of him. Like Humpty Dumpty, it will be hard to put him together again. They are no dealers in sophistries, these wide-mouthed wolf-dogs, with their wicked teeth, and would fight against the stars in their courses.
When the women have beaten them off and learn I am not offended concerning Goodfellow's drubbing, they are pleasant to me. A thin, pock-marked squaw invites me into a shack or, more properly speaking, into a baby-warren which fairly bristles with a flock of semi-wild children, for, as yet, the squaws have not deliberately ceased from having children.
What I said awhile ago about the Indian's house applies equally to his children's wearing apparel. It shelters rather than ornaments. Their clothes seem to have no visible supports, but are held to their small fat bodies by some inexplicable attraction. One may see the same phenomenon on the apostolic figures on stained glass windows.
A chocolate-coloured baby with blackberry eyes is propped against the wall in a moss bag, and looks for all the world like a cocoon that might any moment push off its sheath and take to wings.
An unsavoury mess of entrails is stewing in a black pot and filling the house with an unpleasant odour. I try not to show my repugnance lest my hostesses consider the white woman to be proud-stomached with no proper appetite for lowly faring. I tell them as I take down the blanket from the door—not untruthfully you understand, but as a small matter of immediate expediency—how it is light one desires rather than fresh air, and that it is hard to see aright when one has been walking in the sunlight.
This Hudson's Bay blanket is, next to uskik, the kettle, the one indispensable thing in an Indian household. It serves as a door, a coat, a carpet, a bed, and for other things which it boots not to mention. It is, therefore, well to be explanatory when one removes it from its place, just as it is wise to apologize when one pokes an Englishman's fire of coals.
Mrs. Lo tells me the old woman who is making moccasins is Naka, which word, she explains for my better understanding, is the Cree for "My Mother." Naka is a very old woman and "can no English say." Neither can she be considered as typical of Whistler's mother.
There are amusing things to be done in this shack. For instance, you may by signs and smiles make Naka, my mother, to understand how you greatly desire to sew upon the moccasins she holds, and Naka may, in the amiability of her disposition, accede to your importunity.
As thread, deer sinew is not so easily manipulated as you might imagine; indeed, I should say it is distinctly uncontrollable. The audience, in spite of its manifest efforts at politeness, is nevertheless widely diverted. Who would have thought a white woman could be so droll in the woods, and so very stupid?
Huh! Huh! she may be so stupid that even old Naka, who is a proper woman with her needle, has to scrub the air with her arms and show her yellow gums in laughter.
Their always wakeful curiosity leads the maidens to enquire as to what might be inside a white woman's hand-bag, and that they may sufficiently know about this matter, the white woman empties it upon her knees. Immediately, the articles are passed around for appraisal and approval. Bank cheques! ... Oui! Oui! The men who work on the boats get these. The girls know how it is talking [Transcriber's note: taking?] paper to get money.
My penknife, pencil, note-book, purse, and handkerchief are duly examined and quietly commented upon, but a package of tablets packed in a silver paper, and small tube of cold cream, cause no small flutter in our circle. When I am through demonstrating their use, every one's breath is laden with the odour of mint, and their hands with that of roses. Um—m—m—mh!
The women feel my arms, try on my bracelet and rings, and ask me to take off my hat that they may see my hair, which, alas! is devoid of all waywardness and coquetry. I can see they are disappointed in this and think me what Artemus Ward calls "a he-looking female."
In one shack to which the girls accompany me, an emaciated, coughing boy is bed-ridden and near to death. Lili Abi has him in her arms, and he may not go free.
Who this Lili Abi, or Lilith, is does not certainly appear, but, according to the Rabbis who wrote of old time, she is the first wife of Adam and queen of the succubi. Some there are who declare this to be an ill-framed story, and a conceit of the fancy, but others hold it as a creed that she lives by sucking the blood of children till they fade away and die. It is from Lili Abi that we get our word lullaby. The malific lullaby she sings has come nigh to breaking the heart of humanity, but, one day, it shall happen that a sure and strong-handed scientist will get a strangle hold on Lili Abi and pierce her to death with his slender but omnipotent needle.
Amil, who is the lad's father, says, "I am mooch scare' 'bout leetle boy, for sure. I ees pray all tam to de holy mother. Mabbe he ees get well... la bonne chance ... mabbe non! Leetle boy sing all de tam when he ees well."
Amil has never been to the south, or over the mountains, but he has heard much about these countries. He has been told how, in the United States, they do not believe in the pope and get married many times. He has also heard that the Yankees mean to conquer Canada and pull down the tricolor.
Michele Daubeny, who once went across the mountains to where the fish-eaters are, told him that the ocean never freezes. But this Michele has a tongue which is not straight, also he has been known to steal fur out of the traps, so that Amil does not know what to believe.
"I have mak rip'ly," says Amil, "dat mabbe by'me by, I ees tak de trail dem queeck an' see kickekume, de great sea water, to myse'f."
And when I leave the shacks and go back towards the village, I fall in with some swart broodlings, who are shooting with arrows. At first, they will have none of me until I make the mortifying confession and concession that I cannot shoot and desire greatly to be taught. After this, nothing could exceed their pedagogic enthusiasm. Apollo, prince of archers, could do no better.
In the pale face, the hunting instinct, while never entirely lost, is still greatly modified. In the red man it is a passion. Watch this little lean-bellied Indian as he stalks his game. The bird rises and settles again a few yards away. The boy trails it up closer and closer with a feline softness of tread, a queer slurring movement that belongs only to animals of prey, and then, standing taut and tense as a finely-bred setter making game, he concentrates the whole energy of his body on one piercing point and sends his arrow home.
The bow-and-arrow stage through which these Indian lads are passing corresponds in the white boy to that inevitable condition of development known as gun fever. In our city, at a highly immoral price, we dress up in khaki the boys of the lower classes, give them guns, and call them scouts. I like the Indian way better. Of course, there is this to be said for our method, that it instils a martial spirit into the youngsters so that when they are grown larger we shall have no lack of soldiers. This is a statement so obvious and axiomatic that it hardly needs writing down.
Well, so be it! How else are our bonds to be protected? And may not the lower classes be relied upon to constantly produce batches of boys to step into the ranks? Yes! I believe in Boys' Brigades and in war. I have some bonds myself.
In the village, several homesteaders who are trending northward to the Peace River country, have drawn up to the hotel. Their wagons are piled high with farm implements and household stuff which they purchased at Edmonton.
All of these people are topful of enthusiasm, being of wise and gallant mind. Indeed, the whole country seems surcharged with it and even the poplars clap their hands. The settlers will tell you the only knocker here is Opportunity. There is always a mirage in the pioneer's sky which, God be praised, he manages to haul down bit by bit and pin to the solid earth. "The pins!" you ask. Ah yes! I may as well tell you; they are surveyors' stakes and tamarack fence-poles.
I have some little talk with a woman who is resting on the balcony while her horses are being fed. She comes from the United States and, until her marriage three months ago, practised her profession as a trained nurse. Her husband is going to make entry for a homestead, and when, in three years, he has "proven up," they will open a store in one of the villages. By that time, the railway will have reached their district. Here is a woman of varied interests and many pursuits; one with more than an arm up her sleeve. I am doubly sure of her practicability now that she has told me of the stuff she has packed in the corners of the wagon, and in the narrow spaces between the household utensils. She has seeds for her kitchen garden, also sweet peas, mignonette, sunflowers, hollyhocks, and pansies. The firebox of her stove contains a hand sewing-machine, while the oven is the receptacle for a guitar, some music a surgical case, a box of medicines, a small looking-glass, two metal candlesticks, a roll of coloured pictures for her walls, a few thin paper classics, stationery, fishing-tackle, and a well-stored work-bag. The matches she carries in a case with a close top, while the groceries are packed in tin bread boxes which will serve the same end in her new home. Besides their cooking utensils, toilet articles, clothing, blankets, and tent, this couple carry a rifle, a shot-gun, ammunition, and other small but useful things like a map, a compass, and an almanac. The wagon has a canvas top.
One man who is also heading for the far north tells me he has sold everything from painkiller to mining stock. Of late, he has been selling real-estate, but the bottom has dropped out of this business. For the future, he intends raising potatoes on the land instead of prices. He has "cleaned up" eight thousand dollars in real-estate, but he wishes me to understand he made this honestly by taking options on property and selling before the options came due.
With remarkable precision of language, he explains how the slump in real-estate is chiefly due to those large, didactic gentlemen of slow conscience and insulting superior manner who come here by the trainload and tell the North she is still a flapper, and that it is unbecoming of her to do up her hair and lengthen her skirts, after which cheap and unsolicited advice, they take themselves and their pestiferous money homewards.
Their opinions are quoted from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which I must know takes in Spruceville, till the bankers are seized with the complaint known as cold feet—pest take them!—and "get orders from headquarters" to close up all outstanding accounts. These banker fellows, my informant says, lose their beauty sleep, but as far as he can see, lose nothing else. A business man may be potentially rich and yet be put into bankruptcy by a corporation, the spoils going to the corporation, or its manager. There should be a law against elderly wide-jawed financiers who prophesy hard times because, with them, the wish is father to the thought. There is nothing in all the world they desire so much in order that they may, by their phenomenal rates of interest, pillage the country to their heart's satisfaction. So gainful is their pursuit, my friend will not be at all surprised if, at the last day, it is found that these tongue-lolling financiers have a lien on heaven; indeed, he believes this to be inevitable. Owing to the fact that we are unaccustomed to it, the process of thinking is a somewhat painful one to us of Alberta, but it is wonderful what flashes of illumination come to us sometimes.
To-day, the first train of cars has entered this place. It belongs to the Canadian Northern Railway Company. For many years Edmonton was known as the last house in the world. This, of course, was not literally true, and it would be hard to state where or which is the ultimate hearth-stone in this very good land of Canada, but assuredly Edmonton was the last post-office and, until this year, the End of Steel. To-day, this road is born. When will it die? We fall into a way of thinking it is here for eternity, but railways vanish like everything else. Even the great Appian Way, which lasted for over two thousand years, has, in these last centuries, become little more than a name.
To build even one of our railways, a hundred forests are sacrificed, and, in the uncanny gloom of the dead country which lies in the heart of the earth, thousands of bowed, grim workers toil, Vulcan-like, for the iron to make its spikes and nails.
The railroad seems like a huge centipede with rails for the body, ties for the limbs and smoke for the breath. The men who stand by her side are the waiters who feed her with coal and slake her thirst with water. Sometimes, when she is weary of the freightage these men lay upon her, she rises and crushes it to atoms. Men call this happening "a broken rail" or "an open switch," but we know better.
Or we may think of the railroad as a streak of light through desolate places telling the pioneer to be strong and of good courage with the hope of better days.
Or, again, it is a belt which binds the lustrous provinces of the East and West into the eager land of Canada. What odds that the belt, partaking of its environment, is rocky here or sandy there, so long as it be really a belt?
No one can truly say when this road will die. It may be—if one may hazard so saucy a suggestion—that the airships will kill her by taking her traffic in men and merchandise. And maybe the great-grandchildren of the "Coming Canadians" who arrived this year from Scandinavia or Austria, will plough long furrows on her right-of-way and haul off her bridge timbers for firewood. Guesswork all!
I might have gone on musing about this railway until now, and computing what its advent means to the North, the country which has hitherto been the land of the dog and the canoe, had not a commanding voice bade me come and "drape" myself with the crowd beside the first train in order to have my picture taken.
"I won't go! not a toe," said I, but I went, for no woman who is even fairly normal can successfully resist having her photograph taken. She always hopes it will turn out better than the last one, and I hoped so too.