A Prairie as Wide as the Sea Read online

  Everything worked perfectly. Our jelly is a beautiful colour, it isn’t one bit cloudy and it jelled perfectly. Mrs. Muller says that if it doesn’t jell you just call it sauce but there is no Junior Sauce prize. We’re off to the fair!

  July 24

  Defeat

  Phooey. Guess who entered Junior Jams and Jellies? Guess who entered with crabapple jelly, just like us? Guess who cut little circles of gingham cloth with her pinking shears to make little bonnets for her jelly jars? Guess who won first prize? The answer to all of the above questions is a girl whose initials are N.M., also known as Toffee-Nose. I think she won for her bonnets, not for her jelly, which wasn’t nearly as beautiful as ours. We won third prize.

  The fair was fun, though. Mrs. Muller won a prize for her quilt. There was a new kind of threshing machine that had all the men admiring it. I wanted to look too but the salesman was a grump. “No kids around here,” he said.

  We did get to ride home in the Model T. I guess we are forgiven.

  Good thing about Canada: bare feet. Dusty roads are very soft.

  July 25

  Something to Remember

  Today it was very hot and Elizabeth was busy and the twins were speaking their secret language and I told Mother that I was bored. So she sent me to the neighbour’s field to collect meadow muffins. Meadow muffins are cow manure. You dry them and then you can burn them in the stove. This is a completely horrid job. The thing to remember is never never say to Mother that I am bored.

  July 27

  A Sad Day

  This afternoon Mother and Dad took Jack over to Uncle Alf’s. When they came home they had no Jack and bad news.

  Uncle Alf and Auntie Millie and Baby Jack are going home to England. Mother wrote to Millie’s people and told them about Auntie Millie being sad and sick, and Uncle Alf owing all the money and all that. So Auntie Millie’s father sent them the fares to go home. They are leaving on Thursday.

  There is an empty place in the house where Jack used to be. I will miss him.

  July 28

  Farewell

  They all came for supper this evening. Dad got some beer for himself and Uncle Alf but it wasn’t a jolly party. Uncle Alf was too quiet. The twins behaved very badly and Mother blew up at them and said, “Is this the way you want your aunt and uncle to remember you?”

  Uncle Alf is going to work for Auntie Millie’s father. He makes prams.

  After supper Uncle Alf did tease a bit. He asked me if I wanted to go with them, and said that he was sure they could find a hidey-hole on the ship. For a minute I wanted to say yes. Not because of Grandad or Ethel or even Chivers. It was because of the cupboard under the stairs on Halley Road. I used to go there to hide. It smelled like boot polish.

  Baby Jack is teething and he was grizzly so I took him outside and played peepo and tickle-under-the-chin. He snuggled right in and held my ear and said, “I-bee.” That’s his way of saying Ivy. I cried a bit when I thought that he might be a grown-up man before I saw him again. Then he put his hands over my eyes and made his bubble noise with his mouth. He was trying to cheer me up.

  It is going to be strange in Canada with no relatives. Empty.

  August 2

  Kitten Surprise

  Today we found out about a Canadian animal. Gladys and I were helping Mother hang out laundry this morning when Harry came around the corner of the house and said, “Look, I’ve found a kitten.”

  Mother was just saying, “Well, that’s all we need, a cat,” when she turned to look and there was Harry standing with a skunk in his arms.

  Mother froze and then she said in a very low calm voice, “Just put the kitten down, Harry.” But then Harry said, “Can’t I keep it? Can’t I keep it?” jumping up and down. Before anybody could do anything the skunk gave a wriggle and sprayed Harry.

  I’ve smelled faint skunk on the breeze before, but skunk close up is different. It is absolutely disgusting. It is like having something sweet and horrid stuffed up your nose.

  Harry yelled and dropped the skunk. The skunk ran away in a hurry.

  Mother put Harry and all his clothes in the washtub in the yard and scrubbed them but Harry still has a terrible pong.

  Gladys was eager for Harry to get into trouble but Mother says how was he to know about skunks. He knows now.

  August 3

  Jam for Wages

  Dad has another job. He’s working with the railway crew who repair track. He doesn’t get paid with money, but they give him food. Today he came home with a HUGE pail of strawberry jam.

  August 7

  Traitor

  I hate William. I hate and detest and loathe him and I am never going to speak to him for the rest of my life. This I vow and promise and I won’t go back on it ever. He is a sneak and a loathsome vermin.

  Today I went to town with Dad. I was supposed to go to Bill Bowler the butcher to get the free liver. (Canadians don’t like to eat liver and kidney so Bill Bowler gives it to us for free.) I was walking by the general store and there was a bunch of boys larking about the back door. They were all carrying gopher tails and waiting to collect their money from Mr. Burgess. I hardly looked at them. I hate seeing those bloody tails. You know what they do, dear diary? They pour water down the holes and when the gophers come up they bash them on the heads. Those little faces and the way they pop up and look around. The farmers say they eat the grain. I DON’T CARE. There is lots of grain. There is grain till half past tomorrow. The gophers can have some.

  Anyway, the way those boys were laughing I knew they liked killing the gophers, they liked being murderers. Boys are horrible.

  And William is ONE OF THEM.

  He was there. With those boys. With gopher tails in his hands. With the murderers. He didn’t see me. I ran away as fast as I could. And then I looked down at the package of liver in my hands and blood was leaking out of it so I threw it over the fence into the Battrum’s yard. Then I had to climb over the fence and go get it, because that’s what we’re having for tea.

  From this day forward, now and forevermore, William Walter Weatherall is not my brother and so I sign in blood.

  Later in the Day

  Dear Diary, I take it back. I can because I didn’t sign in blood after all. I tried to pull the scab off my knee to get some blood but it hurt too much. Then I went down to the kitchen to get some liver blood but Mother was already cooking it.

  Here is what happened. I didn’t speak to William at tea. I treated him with cold disdain. But nobody noticed. Mother was talking about the cutworms who ate her lettuce. Then the twins started speaking their secret language and pretending not to know English, which makes Mother furious, and there was a big row. I felt like I was wasting my disdain.

  But then after tea I went to the outhouse and there was William, behind it, vomiting. He was white as milk. And he was blinking. He has been blinking a lot since we came to Canada. And he looked so miserable and white and blinky that I forgot my vow of silence and asked him what was what. He put his head under the pump and then we walked away from the house, where no twins could find us, out to the coulee.

  He told me how much he hated killing the gophers, how they bleed when you bash them but how if he didn’t go kill gophers he wouldn’t have any friends. He says all the boys hate him because he is English and they say he talks funny and he doesn’t know how to swim and they call him “Dirty Will” because of the elevator cleaning job. So he pretended to like killing gophers. But he said that he’s not going to do it anymore. He said, “I’ll learn to swim and I’ll talk like a Canadian, but I’m not going to do any more killing.”

  I asked him how much money he got from the gophers. He said fifteen cents but he gave it away to Daft Binnie who sits in front of the livery stables. He said I was his only friend and I felt bad that I wrote that he was a loathsome vermin. At least he didn’t know. Sometimes it is better to insult people in a diary than to their face.

  I feel really sad that William doesn’t have any fri
ends. Elizabeth Muller doesn’t mind that I don’t talk Canadian. She likes it when I say treacle and nappies and tea instead of syrup and diapers and supper. I think it is harder being a boy. I’m glad I’m not one.

  I asked William if he wanted to go home to England but he said that he didn’t because in England he would never get to be anybody in particular, but here he was going to be somebody. He sounded very fierce. Walking back to the house I wondered if I was going to be somebody. I’ve never thought of that before.

  August 10

  A Beating from the Sky

  I’m writing this in bed. My fingers are the only part of me that doesn’t hurt. Gladys is beside me, asleep. We have two hot-water bottles.

  Early this morning we went out to the coulee to pick saskatoon berries. We nearly had our pails full when all of a sudden it got really dark, like somebody had thrown a cloth over the sun. And hail started falling, faster and faster, big hailstones like walnuts. It was hitting the ground and bouncing back. There was nowhere to hide. Gladys started screaming so I grabbed her hand and we tried to run. But the hail was icy cold and slippery and when we got to the road Gladys fell down and she couldn’t get up. I tried to shelter her but the hail was coming from all directions. I don’t know how long we were there but then the Chicken Lady appeared. She took off one of her jackets and held it over us. And finally finally finally it stopped. But we still couldn’t walk because our feet were icy cold and blue and the hail was deep. The Chicken Lady told me to ride piggyback and she picked up Gladys and carried us home. Her big boots went crunching on the hail. The only part of me that wasn’t freezing was my front on her back. Too tired to write more.

  August 10, later

  I fell asleep before I put the pen down and now ink has leaked onto the quilt.

  The rest of the story is that halfway to home Mother came and found us and took Gladys. When we got home we couldn’t stop shivering. Mother put us to bed. When I was trying to protect Gladys from the hail I thought we were both going to die. I don’t want to think about this anymore.

  August 10, after supper

  Gladys and I had supper in our nightgowns. Everyone talked about the hailstorm. It wasn’t everywhere but some farmers lost whole fields of grain. One farmer said that his fields looked like summer fallow. Then William told a story that he heard at the store. He said that one of the Butt family’s pigs was out of the barn and when they got to her she was pulling herself along on her front legs because her back was broken by the hail. When William said this I remembered Abel Butt’s pig in the bonnet at the Chautauqua parade and then I wondered if it was the same pig and then I just started to cry and shiver and I couldn’t stop. Dad took me on his lap even though I’m too big and Mother made me drink two cups of sweet tea.

  Gladys asked what happened to the pig and William said the farmer had to kill it. I know that pigs are killed. I know what bacon is. But I wish I didn’t have that picture of the pig in my mind. I would like to take a rubber and erase the whole thing, pig, hail, Gladys crying. Now I’m tired again.

  August 11

  I ache all over. Gladys and I both have blue bruises on our legs and arms. The hail is all melted and outside it just looks like ordinary summer again. But part of me thinks it is a trick. Mother says I am excused from chickens today. Gladys and I are going to help make a cake for the Chicken Lady to thank her.

  This is the most Lost in the Backwoods thing that has ever happened to me.

  Mother wasn’t angry about the quilt. She said that she will teach me how to take out the inky piece and put a new piece in.

  August 16

  Hair Ribbon Hatred

  I’m not allowed to get my hair bobbed. Mother says I’m too young and she doesn’t want me to look like a flapper. I’ll probably be the only eleven-year-old girl in school who still wears hair ribbons. I said that all the girls I have seen in Milorie, except for little ones, have bobs. She said if all the girls jumped down the well, would I? She wants me to be miserable.

  August 17

  Wrongly Blamed

  I’m in trouble again. If I had one of those printing sets I would just make up those words and print them in this diary every time I got into trouble, which is always.

  It started because William dropped a tin of lard onto his foot. And his big toe was all swollen and red and horrible looking. And I remembered something from Lost in the Backwoods. There’s this bit where Catharine sprains her ankle and Louis and Hector take some strawberries and crush them and apply them to her ankle as a “cooling poultice.” Nobody was home and William was limping around and then I remembered the big tin of strawberry jam that Dad had earned on the railway. And I figured that strawberry jam must be just about the same as crushed up strawberries. So I took some and made William sit in the front yard with one foot up on a chair. I covered his toe with jam. In the book they put on the poultice with oak leaves and bind it with strips of bark. I used caragana leaves and string. Then, “rendering the application even more generous,” just like Louis and Hector, I got William a drink of water and went inside to put away the jam.

  Next thing I know I hear a yell and I look out the window and there is William dancing all over the yard and beating at the air and then Mother comes home. Turns out that the jam attracted wasps and they were stinging William and now he has wasp stings as well as a swollen toe. Mother got very angry at me and she thought the swollen toe was from the wasps as well. I said, “That’s not wasps, that’s a tin of lard.” But nobody was listening to me.

  These are my crimes:

  1. wasting food

  2. causing my brother to be stung by wasps

  3. answering back *

  That’s it. I’m not going to try to be resourceful anymore. If I had had proper oak leaves and moosewood bark it probably would have worked fine. That’s my last poultice. I think I’ll go live in the wilderness.

  * The answering back is when I said, “Well, it is just a wasp sting. Not the Great War.” Things just pop out of my mouth before I can stop them.

  August 18

  Halleluiah

  I am the happiest girl in Saskatchewan or maybe the world. I have a horse. Mr. Burgess found a horse for us because Mother and Dad thought it would be too far for the twins to walk to school. Her name is Dot. She is dappled grey. She has very soft lips and already I love her.

  Mr. Burgess gave us a lesson and he said I was a quick learner. (He didn’t know that I had already practised on Ruby). Then Gladys and Harry tried and they didn’t fall off. I asked if we were going to have a saddle but Mr. Burgess said that saddles are too dangerous for children. What if the horse bolts and the children fall off but they get caught in the saddle and are dragged. I don’t understand why this is more dangerous than falling off on your head. But I don’t care about a saddle. I have a horse!

  I found out everything about caring for her. She has to be combed and brushed and have her hooves waxed with floor wax. She eats oats twice a day and hay and water. When we take her to school we keep her in the school barn and we take her dinner with us.

  Harry said could he gallop and Mr. Burgess said he wasn’t ready yet and besides he had his doubts about whether Dot could gallop. He called her a steady, reliable school horse. But I think she is a noble steed.

  Mother is happy because of the manure for her garden. Of course.

  August 25

  Thoughts on Mosquitoes

  I’m nearly at the end of Lost in the Backwoods. (I stopped for a while because Elizabeth lent me her Anne of Green Gables. It was swell.) Catharine has been captured by Indians. Louis has given way to transports of grief and despair. I’m pretty sure Louis is sweet on Catharine. Mrs. Traill does not mention mosquitoes. I have twenty-seven mosquito bites. I tried sleeping with my sheet over my head but I nearly died of sweating. I am trying self-control not to scratch them. Gladys’s are all bleeding. Mother tried putting a baking-soda paste on them but it doesn’t really help. The only thing that helps is slapping the bites. But
it only helps for a minute. And you have to slap hard.

  Dad says mosquitoes like fresh English blood. He says they say to each other, “Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.”

  Question about mosquitoes: Why? I understand about them biting. They want our blood for lunch. But why make an itchy bite? It doesn’t do the mosquitoes any good. It makes us more likely to swat them and kill them. And it doesn’t do humans any good. Aren’t we more likely to get infections if we have bloody wounds on us? It would work out better for everybody if we could just hold out our arms and say, “Come and get it,” and give mosquitoes a free lunch without getting itchy.

  Mother was at the Homemaker’s Club today. The news is that Doctor Johnstone’s niece is coming to visit. Her name is Lorayne LaMott and she is seventeen years old and she attends the Marvel School of Cosmetology in Regina.

  August 28

  A Visitor

  Lorayne LaMott has arrived. We were in town shopping and I saw her coming out of the drugstore. She is beautiful. Her hair is perfect. Dark red-brown like Ruby. In little perfect waves. Oh, I wish I could get my hair bobbed. Just looking at her I felt lumpy and mosquito-bite spotty. I wasn’t the only one staring either. Wilson Abernathy was staring so hard he tripped over his feet and fell off the boardwalk. I wonder if I’ll ever be the type that makes somebody fall over. Or fall in love. Not that I would like Wilson Abernathy to fall for me. He talks through his nose. When Miss Lorayne LaMott walked by the livery stables one of those men who sit outside smoking made a remark. But she just went right on by, with good posture.