With Love from Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #2) (9 page)

Like his son before him, Henley prompted, “his problem?”

“Henley,” she said impatiently, “his pimples, of course.” And the eyes of both parents turned on the pinking face of their son. Mouth full of breakfast, Dudley stopped chewing momentarily and looked guiltily at his parents as though sorry to have brought this problem upon them. Della studied the young face critically; Henley more casually. It was a thin face, unformed now, with only a promise of what the man would look like. Lank brown hair fell over a high forehead; the teeth, at this age, appeared too large for the narrow face; a faint fuzz sprouted from the long upper lip; and—yes indeed, numerous eruptions blossomed from ear to large ear and hairline to sensitive, tender mouth and chin.

“He’s no worse than I was at his age,” the man offered. “He’ll outgrow the skin problems; kids always do.”

“Still, if there is something that can be done—”

“It don’t bother me none, Ma,” Dudley said mildly and resumed his chewing.

“I despair of your grammar,” Della lamented, sidetracked for the moment. “Not
don’t,
and not
Ma,
for heaven’s sake! You sound just like the Jurgensons! Perhaps Scandinavians don’t know better, but you are English, Dudley, pure English. Now, what were you saying—correctly, if you please.”

“It doesn’t bother me, Mum,” Dudley said meekly, but not too meekly to refuse to say Mummy.

“Now, hon,” Henley interjected smoothly, as though from long practice, “what is this about pimples?”

“Impure blood. They’re caused by impure blood,” Della said with the air of one unearthing a gold mine. “Doesn’t that sound reasonable?”

“Impure blood?” Henley repeated, peppering his eggs. “With all this good farm food, milk, and all? I find that hard to believe. It’s probably some blockage of the pores, probably too much oil. It’s just an overabundance of youthful, er—” Henley hesitated, ignorant of the word
hormones
and at a loss to acceptably explain the masculine tides rising in the young man’s system—“vigor,” he finished inadequately.

“Vigor! The only vigor I see is in his eating.” Della watched a final bite of toast disappear into her son’s mouth, noted the working of the prominent Adam’s apple in the thin throat, sighed, and turned to the paper and her original thought.

“Yes, impure blood,” she repeated, “and these people should know what they’re talking about much more than you do, Henley. ‘Pimples and sores,’” she read, “‘are all positive signs of impure blood. No matter how it became so, it must be purified in order to obtain good health.’”

“He has excellent health,” Henley observed. “He’s just growing fast, is all. Here, let me see that.”

Della turned the paper over to her husband grudgingly. “Why can’t you just believe what I say, for heaven’s sake?”

Henley located the proper place and said, “This lists additional signs of impure blood as ‘dull headache, pains in various parts of the body, sinking at the pit of the stomach’—say, I had sinking in the stomach just before I sat down here. Do you suppose that means I have impure blood?” Henley laughed, and Dudley with him. Henley was the picture of health.

“Pet,” Della said in a certain tight tone, and both man and boy knew to beware; “Pet” spoken in this way and in this tone was not an affectionate name. She proceeded in her most gentle voice, “I have great confidence in your wisdom, Henley; you know that. But shall we consider whether, by some chance, this company—trained and practiced in the art of identifying and curing bodily ills—may be better qualified to judge such matters.”
Then, gentling her tone even more until it was a soft purr, she finished with the knockout punch: “Wouldn’t you agree, . . .
Hen?
”

With “Hen,” a shortening of his name meant to equate his brains with those of a barnyard chicken and only used in contempt, Henley seemed to deflate like a pricked balloon. He gave his wife one sober glance and then turned his attention to his breakfast. One had the idea that the food was not only cold but tasteless in his mouth.

“It says,” Della continued smoothly, “that it is a wonderful remedy and every bottle is sold with a positive guarantee. Now, isn’t it worth a few cents to give your one and only son a beautiful complexion?”

“Of course, hon. Whatever you say.”

Dudley could never understand his father’s quiet compliance, his capitulation in every confrontation. Too young to understand the strength it took to do it, and not fully appreciating the peace that invariably followed, Dudley raged over his father’s humiliation and his mother’s cruelty. Whether to feel more anger at his mother or his father, he couldn’t decide.

Rising, Della kissed her husband’s cheek, ruffled his hair, and said, “There’s a dear. I was sure you wouldn’t object to my ordering a bottle.”

Folding the paper, laying it aside, and beginning to gather up the breakfast dishes, she directed, “You men go and get ready for church while I take care of the dishes and get a chicken in the oven. First, Henley my dear, I know you’ll take care of straining the milk. Dudley, you seem to have gotten a smidgen of syrup on your shirt front; wipe it off, dear. That’s my boy. Do you think you can keep yourself clean while you hitch up? Your shoes, particularly—watch where you step. I’ll be ready in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. I do so look forward to Sunday service and the inspiration of Parker Jones’s sermon. Now you pay attention this morning, Dudley, and don’t sit in the back with the Jurgenson boys. Don’t you think that’s a good suggestion, Henley?” She turned to her husband with a brilliant smile.

Henley swallowed a last gulp of coffee, heard his name, turned toward his wife, and said apologetically, “Sorry, hon, but I was swallowing. What was it?”

“Henley, Henley, that wool gathering will surely get you in trouble someday,” Della said lightly. “Time to stop daydreaming, Pet. I said I thought the Jurgenson boys were a bad influence. Would you agree?”

“I’m sure you’re right, hon.”

Beyond Dudley’s remembrance were the early days when Henley’s submissive responses—“Whatever you say,” and “You’re probably right, hon”—had greatly irked his bride. Confrontations, even the smallest difference of opinion, had thrown Della into such a miserable mood that the young husband, to keep the peace, had begun using the terms. At first, he only succeeded in angering her further. But eventually, as Della became convinced that Henley was not being sarcastic, her annoyance ceased, and she took his answers as confirmation that her opinion was correct, her way best. Never had she understood that Henley was avoiding the scenes that had so marred their first weeks of marriage and so shocked him. And since he never spoke in anything but a peaceable tone, Dudley, too, usually heard without reaction. His father’s words, after all, were the words that set everything right.

But as he grew older, things didn’t seem right. Dudley had a natural rebellion toward his mother’s overbearing ways and his father’s knuckling under. Once, in the barn, after a particularly strained encounter between his parents, ending with the accustomed giving in by his father, Dudley had burst out, “
Why,
Pa . . . why don’t you stick up for yourself? You know you were right in there. I know it; I think Ma knew it, too. Why do you give in like you do?”

Henley had rested on the handle of the pitchfork he was using to clean the stalls and said, reasonably, “She means well, son. Some people have this nature, you see, where they need to be right. I think your mother may be threatened in some way when anyone opposes her. It doesn’t hurt me to let her have her way, to give in, to bite back an angry response. It would only make for considerably more trouble if I didn’t.

“And I don’t like trouble, son.” Henley spoke with a certain grimness. “I guess that’s your whole answer. I’m just grateful it’s me and not you. You’re the apple of your mother’s eye. Everything she does for you is out of love, I’m sure. I pray you’ll be allowed to grow up to be a real man. That’s what I want for you.” Then, with unexpected passion, he said, “I’d lay down and die for that.”

His usual calm restored, Henley resumed his work.

Eventually Dudley was to conclude that his father sometimes took abuse in order to keep his son from facing it. It made him uncomfortable, even guilty at times. And, at times, he felt like a miserable milksop—the very thing he criticized in his father—hiding behind his father rather than facing up to his mother’s unreasonableness. But it was so much more peaceful that way . . . he was, he guessed, more like his father than he had realized.

Buggy was the preferred mode of travel on Sunday, which meant that Dudley rode alongside, the one-seater buggy not accommodating more than two unless a person stood behind the seat. The weather being pleasant, numerous rigs could be seen making their way toward the hamlet called Bliss and the schoolhouse, which also served as the place of worship for the community. Here, people were alighting—some gracefully, some awkwardly; women holding skirts away from the rig’s wheels, children jumping over; men greeting one another with hearty handshakes; women, at times, planting a kiss on a proffered cheek. Bibles and quarterlies were gathered up, and the adults made their way into the small white building to look for seats that would accommodate their bulk. Children lingered outside as long as they could.

Pulling up to the fence, Henley brought the buggy to a halt. Jumping out, he moved to the mare’s head, looking back to see if Della had gotten safely out of the rig. Dudley waited alongside, still mounted.

Immediately both Henley and Dudley realized that Della was stiffly upright on the buggy’s seat, her reproachful eyes on her husband.

As many times as Henley had been called upon to help her alight, it seemed he still managed to forget. And always in a public place, because it was only in public places Della insisted on the gentlemanly gesture. At home she leaped out by herself, with no hesitation, and this made it difficult for Henley to remember to offer aid at other times. He realized he was sorely at fault this morning for his oversight.

“
Hen,
dear,” she caroled brightly, “I’m waiting,” and only her husband and son heard the unspoken, “Dolt!”

“Watch the mare, son,” Henley said quietly, for the horse was skittish amid the noise and confusion of the moment and needed to be checked. Henley made his way back to the side of the buggy.

“Sorry, hon, I should have been more thoughtful,” he murmured apologetically, taking her outstretched hand and helping her down.

Not only was Della seething at his oversight, but she was highly embarrassed, for several people had noted the little interchange and were obviously hiding grins. And an embarrassed Della was a fount of fury. The brightness of her smile and the coldness of her eyes sent chills down Dudley’s spine.

She spoke far, far too sweetly: “Thank you,
Hen.
”

T
he Sabbath as a day of rest was strictly observed in backwoods Canada, and nowhere was this more true than in the community of Bliss in the Saskatchewan Territory. The few places of business in the small hamlet—blacksmith shop, general store and post office, grain elevator—closed for the day. Almost without exception entire farm families, in direct obedience of the commandment “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” made the seventh day a time of rest. Of course there was always the “ox in the pit” clause that allowed for necessary labor.

Physical bodies, weary of their labors, attested to the necessity of a day of rest; souls, though as needy, sometimes ignored the Bible’s additional injunction of “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.” Church attendance, however, was the practice of most, and this day was a fine example. The little schoolhouse was packed.

Just inside the entrance was the cloakroom area where the children’s lunch pails were kept in a closet, where the water pail sat on a shelf, the communal dipper hanging alongside, and where, on both walls, wraps were hung. Below these hooks were long supply cupboards; with the lids down they made excellent seating. It was here the young people of the community sat during church services. Beyond, and divided from the cloakroom by a big heater that roared red-hot most of the school year, was the schoolroom proper. In front of the smallest desks was the teacher’s battered desk, and behind, the blackboard stretched from wall to wall. Above the blackboard hung two large, oak-framed pictures. One depicted a child walking on the edge of a dangerous precipice through the gloom of a storm, with an angel hovering above, wings outspread protectively. The second pictured a huge dog beside a seething sea, a childish form crumpled on the sand at his feet as though just dropped from his open jaws. In each, it seemed clear that protection and rescue were available for children, but Dudley, who had studied them countless times across the years, never could decide whether to put his trust in angels or dogs.

Now, settling himself on the side bench with the youthful males of the community, Dudley—out of school several years and no longer concerned with the mishaps of children, whether pictured or real—focused his attention on the bright gaggle of girls seating themselves, with much flouncing, whispering, and giggling, on the opposite bench. And on one girl in particular.