The Able McLaughlins

by Margaret Wilson

He brought back with him only a little sugar, and most of it the coarse brown kind, and a jug of sorghum which was to last till spring. She fell upon her boxes eagerly, and adorned the sty amazingly with rich looking things which never really seemed at home there. She made a new dress for her little stepdaughter at once, and set about making Chirstie’s baby a robe. She seemed almost to have resigned herself to the deluge. She spoke with gayety about her ark to the children, and told them to keep their eyes open for the dove. And then, just when she seemed to be getting settled, the winter set in.

Rains she had seen, and could understand, and snows, too, in moderate fashion. But snow like this, continuing; winds like these, whirling darkening wild clouds of whiteness to burst against windows and doors, rocking the little sty as if it were an insecure cradle—winds with horror howling in them, howling all night through the shaken darkness, triumphant, unconquerable winds against which no life could stand—she had never imagined anything like them. She had never before risen in the morning to find doors drifted tight shut, windows banked with white. She had never seen men burrow out of windows to dig open their doors, and tunnel a way to their barns. The well was as distant as if it had been in Patagonia. The newborn calf froze in the barn with its first breath. The men’s ears froze, their hands froze, their feet froze. Everything in the house froze solid. The bread had to be thawed out in a steamer over a kettle before they could get a bite to eat in the morning. The milk had to be pounded into little bits and melted. The cold—its intensity, its cruelty, staggered her.

Her work would be done early in the morning, while the men were yet melting snow at the stove to water their beasts—that is, all the work she chose to do. To conquer those long, dark hours she worked away on the baby dress. When it was all finished—alas, too soon for one having endless time to beguile—she looked at it with satisfaction. She had made every stitch of it by hand. It was a yard and a half long, with seven clusters of seven tiny tucks around the skirt, with hand embroidery between some of the rows, and darned net between others. It was ruffled and shirred, and smocked and featherstitched and hemstitched, eyeleted and piped and gathered. And a tiny darned net bonnet, which went with it, was worthy of it. It had taken many weeks to complete it. And always when her eyes were worn by the fine stitching in the flickering candle light, she made cakes, for a change, sparing white sugar with noble economy, using only brown sugar, whatever eggs were unfrozen, fresh butter, and thick cream, and raisins and currants while they lasted.

From the day that Wully took Chirstie home, until the first week of January, Barbara McNair had but one visitor in her prison, and that one was her sister-in-law, Libby Keith. She had to turn to Dod to companionship, which no boy could have grudged to so unfailing a source of cakes as his new mother. His Spartan scorn of the cold brought her, many a time, near to tears. He was anointing his frozen ears one morning, and when she cried out in pity of him, he remarked indifferently that this was nothing. She ought to have seen last year, the time his mother died. With what keen sympathy could she appreciate that story now. She asked without hesitation;

“It was no colder than this, was it?” She couldn’t imagine anything worse. Oh, said Dod, they were alone last winter, and his mother and Chirstie had sometimes to help shovel out. But they had had Chirstie’s husband, hadn’t they, to do that hard work for them? Indeed they hadn’t! Dod himself had been the man of the farm. Wully had come but lately. Not lately, surely, she exclaimed. Yes, only in harvest. They had been married right in harvest. He was sure of it. What month would harvest be in this land? she had asked hurriedly. He informed her, and took up his story. He had had to go alone that morning after his mother’s death to his uncle’s, to get help, and hadn’t it taken them three hours to get the sled over the two miles of drifted snow. He told all the tale, even how the little sister was playing alone, and Chirstie had fainted.

All that afternoon there came little words of pity to Barbara McNair as she fondled her little Jeannie; sometimes, when she was making that great, most magnificent cake which appeared unashamed on the supper table, she had to stop and wipe her eyes. Alex McNair had but begun to disapprove of that delicacy when she ordered him so sharply to hold his tongue that he all but obeyed. And after supper, she made him lift down her kists, which because of the narrowness of the sty had to sit one above another in her bedroom. She opened the third one from the top, and took out a dress, wine-colored and soft, and looked at it carefully a long time, examining the seams. Then she sat down, and by candle light began to rip it apart, basque and polonaise and all, to make a dress for the erring Chirstie.

It was the next afternoon that she saw a bobsled drive in. She could see the bundled driver when he was yet some distance from the house, but as he drew near, and stopped, she saw another great beshawled bundle rise from behind the sideboards of the sled. This bundle came at once towards the house, wiped its feet carefully on the doorstep, and, unwrapping layer after layer of covering, revealed itself Isobel McLaughlin. Mrs. McNair could hardly have been more surprised if she had seen an angel descending from heaven. That any woman would be riding around the country in weather like this had not entered her mind. Her concern seemed mildly amusing to her guest, who quickly disclaimed any conduct especially praiseworthy.

It wasn’t really cold now, she explained. It was thawing. This was what is called the January thaw. A body can’t just stay cooped up in the house all the winter, and besides—and this was the great affair—Mistress McNair would be glad to know that she had a fine strong grandson, born a week ago, the mother doing well! Mrs. McLaughlin had wanted to bring the news herself, she was that pleased! She had stopped, too, at a neighbor’s, Maggie Stewart’s, who had a baby exactly the same age, a woman whom always before Mrs. McLaughlin had helped through her confinement. She didn’t add she had made that visit with the hope of lessening the fierceness of Maggie’s slander-loving tongue, though if a good opportunity came she intended explaining to this newcomer the unusual circumstances of the child’s birth, which sooner or later she would be sure to hear some way. But no opportunity came. The new Mrs. McNair was so unfeignedly glad to see her, she brought out that wonderful little robe so timidly, that Mrs. McLaughlin had to admire it even more than it deserved. Chirstie hadn’t many new things for her baby, because there were so many little things of the young McLaughlins saved for future need. Not that any of them had had so fine a garment as this Mrs. McNair had made. Speed, rather than elaborateness, had always been Mrs. McLaughlin’s motto, necessarily. But Chirstie would be that proud of such a little dress! Mrs. McLaughlin could just see her delighted with it. This seemed to comfort Mrs. McNair, who then ventured to show the red dress, all pressed and ready to be put together again, by a method which she hoped would make it large enough for Chirstie—that is, if Chirstie would not be offended by having a made-over dress offered to her. Mrs. McLaughlin again thanked her, and assured her that she need not worry about that. Then Mrs. McNair wondered if Mrs. McLaughlin would take home to the girl her part of her mother’s housekeeping things, which the new mother had wrapped and made ready for her. She had divided the few sheets and spoons and cups into two parts, one for each of the sisters—that is, she hoped Mrs. McLaughlin and Chirstie would be satisfied with such a division. Mrs. McLaughlin, feeling sure that Alex had no knowledge of a plan so bountiful, protested that Chirstie didn’t really need the things, that Wully could get her what she needed in the town. But Mrs. McNair wouldn’t hear of such a plan for a minute. The lassie must have her share of what had been her mother’s. She forebore to mention that she had brought a great deal of household stuff, of a quality much superior to any she found awaiting her. Mrs. McLaughlin, impressed by this spontaneous liberality, began to wonder if, after all, the avenging hand of God might not be seen in this second marriage of Alex McNair.

The hostess was overflowing with questions, the burden of them all being just the one unanswerable one that constantly confronted her—namely, how did civilized persons live through winters of this sort? Why did they endure life in small prisons buried under snow? Had there ever before been a winter equal to this one? And did Mrs. McLaughlin look forward with composure to living through such another one?

Mrs. McLaughlin recalled with amusement and sympathy her own horror of her first winter, enlarging upon her experience. Had not she and her husband and their ten, and the Squire and his ten lived through one winter all together in an unfinished cabin, with a row of beds three deep built right around the walls, and a curtain across the middle of it! Often in those terrible nights she had risen from her bed to go about and feel the legs of her wee sleepers, to be sure they were not all freezing solid. Of course there had not really been as much danger as she imagined, but one of the McKnights had frozen to death that winter, being overtaken on his drunken way homeward by a great storm. That had shocked her until she was really foolish about her children. Her twins had been born that year, too, before the cabin was sealed, and the first snow had drifted in upon the bed where she lay. Fine strong bairns they were, too. The cold didn’t really hurt anyone.