Back Roads to Bliss Read online

  Unfortunately, he thought with some regret, there was not so much as a cookie crumb left from the baking Molly had delivered the day before. The men of his board, cold when they arrived, would welcome a cup of hot coffee and would understand his lack of baked goods. Perhaps, sympathizing with his pathetic limitations, they would be spurred on in their avowed plan to enlarge the cabin so that he and Molly could marry.

  Parker Jones, not long a pastor, felt himself blessed to have ended up in the Saskatchewan Territory among the good people of Bliss. No better people existed, he was sure, certainly none who would have made him feel more needed, more welcome. They felt keenly their lack of sufficient monetary support and regretted it—Parker existed on the offering that was placed in the basket each week, usually egg and cream money, and some weeks it was pitifully small. But in the fall, when the crops were harvested, the faithful would bring in the tithe. And if the crops were good, so was the tithe. Cash might be sparse, but there would be bushels of garden stuff, shelves of canned goods, sacks of flour. The enlarged parsonage would need a roomy cellar—he must remember to mention that today; picking up a pencil, he jotted it down.

  Feeling at last that things were in order, Parker seated himself in a rocking chair at the stove’s side and picked up his book. A man of medium height, with a shock of dark hair, a sensitive face often grave but capable of breaking into an infectious smile, Parker Jones was clearly a man of good breeding and obvious gentility. He exuded masculinity in the same way a spring crocus exudes sturdiness.

  His hands, not accustomed to the plow or harrow, were fitted to the pages of a book.

  Regardless of all else—no matter the season, through meals of beans, bannock, rabbit stew, and pancakes, enslaved by the endless feeding of wood into the stove, sidetracked by board meetings, engaged in courting—sermon preparation had first priority. It was as though—when he pledged himself to the ministry—he had taken a vow as solemn as the wedding vow and much like it: for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health . . .

  Therefore, the amenities completed and all things prepared for the monthly board meeting, Parker Jones returned to his studies. With the cabin cradled in a blanket of snow and silence, the only sounds now were the popping of the fire and the occasional creak of the hand-me-down rocking chair.

  Here, in the backwoods (also termed the bush), in this place rather incongruously called Bliss, an outpost was burgeoning to fruition and vigor, a colony marvelously free of the bondage of the old world. Here, men and women enjoyed opportunity and freedom such as they had never known, gladly paying the price and embracing the struggle. Here, though it seemed a most unlikely reality, dreams came true.

  Most of the civilized world thought of Canada as a wilderness. An idyllic wilderness, perhaps, with a charm that beckoned the adventurer, but a wilderness nevertheless. And they were not far wrong; wilderness it was, for the most part. Such a huge land and so few adventurers.

  But that was changing; they were coming. What had begun as a trickle was to become a torrent as men and women—downtrodden, poor, hopeless—turned their shabby shoes and beaten wills westward.

  On the frontier, one of the most important figures was the preacher. His presence supplied one of the only antidotes for the loneliness of the isolated lives of the hardworking pioneer. His bodily presence—being there with them—was a tremendous encouragement; his messages, much needed: God loved them; God was with them; they could never get beyond His care. The preacher performed their marriage ceremonies, buried their dead, baptized their believers.

  At times revival meetings were announced, and emotion ran high, stirring dry-as-dust spirits and warming the hungry hearts of those needing the strength, the encouragement, the peace offered. Attendance was good; the warning against sin and unrighteousness was powerful, the invitation to turn from such ways was fervent. The Church of England, more formal, popular in larger cities, was not widely popular on the frontier. The rugged, the real, the tried—that was what satisfied.

  Education and religion went hand in hand; schools invariably sprang up where churches went. It was a Methodist minister who set into operation a province-wide system of government-controlled primary education. The new Canadians were serious about education; even those whose broken English kept them tongue-tied managed to make themselves understood: There should be schools for the children.

  Schools and churches often shared the same building. This was true of the hamlet and community called Bliss.

  Bliss was named to honor the first settler in the area, George Bliss; by and large, the people of Bliss were satisfied with it. “What’s in a name?” Herkimer Pinkard had been known to quote philosophically whenever the subject came up, adding, “That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”

  With no dissenting voice across those first years and no better suggestion, in time “Bliss” became the name of the schoolhouse. And when the church was established, the name seemed particularly suitable, the worshipers maintained.

  George Bliss himself had drawn together the first circle of believers. They met in his home, eventually outgrowing that and welcoming the opportunity to conduct services in the schoolhouse. Having become a real congregation, a real church, they contacted a Bible school in the East for a pastor.

  Parker Jones was that man.

  And to think, he sometimes marveled, that it was here, back of beyond and far, far from the madding crowd, he had met the one girl in the world for him. Walking into the Morrison home, the first place he was to board—the initial arrangement the church had made for a pastor—he had walked directly into Molly herself. And heaven’s gate, and—bliss.

  Molly Morrison was a treasure. Vibrant, full of life and love she was, slender as a willow withe, with black hair that tumbled in lively disarray around a face both angelic and magical. Best of all, Molly loved the Lord and loved Him best of all. This arrangement—with him, Parker, being second best—was satisfactory with Parker Jones.

  The coffee was burbling, filling the air with fragrance, when the first rig pulled into the yard. Before Parker had welcomed his prospective father-in-law, Angus Morrison, a man of tremendous standing in the community and a worthy father of the matchless Molly, Herkimer Pinkard arrived. Herkimer of the wild orange beard and a gift of coming up with quotations, jokes, bits of choice wisdom or humor from the inspirational to the downright ridiculous. A bachelor, if he wanted a wife, Herkimer had not been able to find one among the few, very few females available on the frontier. “He scares them off or they die laughing” was the opinion of Bliss’s sympathetic populace. Everyone loved him; no one wanted to marry him. Herkimer managed very well by himself and never complained of his single state.

  Stomping the snow from his boots on the porch, coming into the house through the door Parker held open for him, Angus greeted his pastor warmly and handed him a box, his blue Scottish eyes twinkling in his rugged face.

  “From the womenfolk of my hoosehold,” he explained unnecessarily, and suddenly Parker’s supper took on possibilities: The fragrance of roast beef wafted enticingly into the room.

  “Lift oot the pan and set it in the oven, laddie,” Angus directed. “Those’re the instructions given me. When you’re ready to eat, supper’ll be ready and waiting.”

  The others, when they came in, were equally generous. Parker realized, with gratitude warm in his soul, that he should have expected it, might have known, could have counted on it. But then, he reasoned, if he had taken it for granted, he wouldn’t have been so wonderfully surprised, so blessed, so appreciative.

  Bly Condon brought butter and eggs; Brother Dinwoody (so called not because of his position or dignity or spirituality but because his name, Adonijah, fractured the speech of anyone trying to pronounce it) proudly set a chocolate cake on the table. And even Herkimer, bachelor though he was and no cook according to all who had occasion to eat his food, brought a jar of fresh, sweet cream—Parker Jones could almost see it sw
irling in thick, golden richness over a piece of the Dinwoody chocolate cake at suppertime. All these items had been carefully wrapped and arrived unfrozen and savory.

  “Lay aside your wraps, gentlemen,” Parker invited, and coats were hung on the nails by the door, overshoes set in a row beneath. Protocol for this procedure was the same in every Bliss home. There was, usually, one entrance: It was a kitchen door and was used for everything and by everyone.

  All four turned as one man to the stove, huddling around it and holding out cold hands and rubbing them, until Parker ushered them to chairs around the table.

  Cautiously holding the metal handle of the coffeepot with what he had been informed by Victoria Dinwoody—the child who made it—was a hot pad, Parker poured the steaming brew into each cup. Silence reigned as this rite was performed, the men watching, then reaching, then wrapping work-hardened, icy hands around the comfort of the cup. Setting the pot back on the stove, adding water, and recklessly throwing in a few more grounds—sometimes Parker got tired of endless scrimping—he paused, hesitating before sitting down to the table and his own cup.

  His eyes went to the Morrison box, as yet divested only of the pot roast, and then sought Angus’s face with an unspoken question.

  Angus nodded. “You’ll find oatcakes in the box, laddie.” Gladly Parker dug into the boxed treasures and passed around the plate that bore the treat.

  “No doot aboot it,” Angus said, with more than a touch of the accent that had been largely muted for years, “we’ve got to get the mannie a wife.”

  The others grinned and nodded and ate and drank and eventually sat sipping as the meeting was called to order.

  The minutes of the previous meeting were read.

  “Seems, Angus,” Bly Condon said, “you made the same remark about the mannie needing a wife a month ago.”

  “He needed her then, and he needs her now,” Angus said, unabashed.

  The minutes were approved.

  The treasurer’s report was given, briefer and skimpier than ever; with some shuffling of feet and a few chagrined sighs, it was accepted.

  “A short horse is soon curried,” Herkimer said thoughtfully. And that about summed it up.

  Old business was called for, and the enlarging of the parsonage was discussed.

  “We’ll need to time things exactly,” Brother Dinwoody said, having given the plan considerable thought. “We know we need to start on it as soon as the first chinook blows and the logs are uncovered, in order to get it up and finished before the land dries enough to put in the plow. We all know what that means . . .”

  There was silence as the men contemplated the end of the still and quiet season and the burgeoning of the time of sixteen-hour days of hard and unrelenting labor. The long days and short nights would make it possible to reap a crop in the one hundred frost-free days Mother Nature might allot them—if she were in a benign mood. If she were to be capricious, as she so often was, it would be survival only, the tightening of belts and “making do” for another year.

  “We can mend harnesses now,” Bly Condon said, “and grease machinery and such things, if we haven’t already done so.” Winter was filled with harness mending, furniture making, whittling, the chopping of wood, busywork to keep a man from going mad, and his wife, housebound with him, the same.

  Out came the rough plans, and the men passed them around and could find no improvement to be made in them. Since the logs were already cut, there was no possibility of changing the concept originally decided upon; they simply needed to fix the plan more firmly in their minds and renew their interest and determination. And of course, they assured Parker Jones, a fine, generous cellar would be included.

  About to adjourn until the following month, Herkimer remembered that he had mail to distribute, having been to the post office that morning. Parker Jones took the one item addressed to him and looked at it, interest sharpening his eyes. Mail was always a high point and in the winter months was all too often delayed for one reason or another.

  “Please excuse me, gentlemen, while I open this.”

  “Of course . . . go right ahead; don’t mind us.”

  Bly, Angus, Herkimer, and Brother Dinwoody prepared to push themselves back from the table, to put on their heavy garments once again, to pull on their overshoes and leave for home. Already dark was descending. It would be chore time when they reached their own homesteads.

  Their general comments were interrupted by a strange sound from the seated Parker. Turning as one man to their pastor, they were startled by the shock in the dark eyes raised to them.

  “What is it, Parker? Something wrong?” Angus asked.

  Parker Jones gripped the letter, obviously deeply affected by something in its pages. “Perhaps,” he said, “you should sit down again.”

  Surprised, the men turned back to their seats and looked expectantly toward their spiritual leader and friend.

  “Give me a moment,” Parker said in a faltering voice. “I have an idea this—” he indicated the letter, “might change everything.”

  Without a word, Parker’s board members seated themselves once again at the table, their eyes fixed on the face of their pastor. Not knowing the problem, yet sensing one, their kindly faces were anxious.

  “What is it, Parker?” It was Brother Dinwoody who asked this time, but there was a question in all eyes.

  A question and a dread. None of them had been immune from the miseries and agonies—often swift and deadly—that marked the life of the pioneer.

  Even those who arrived with money and possessions—pianos, silver tea services, fine china, canaries in cages—were not exempt from brokenness. Even they knew the defeat of overwhelming despair, being driven out by drought, bankruptcy, hopelessness.

  Most of them, however, came with nothing, except perhaps a change of clothing wrapped up in a bedroll and hoarding in their pocket the required ten-dollar filing fee that would put them on their own land. Holding on by their broken fingernails, surviving grimly, if at all, working themselves to death—that was how it was.

  They lived by the hard work of their hands, endured by the strength of their wills. They gritted their teeth against all odds—hunger, cold, disaster—and endured.

  Death, capricious and merciless, was a stalker that followed each lonesome trekker across the prairie or into the heart of the bush; cemeteries were staked out before school lands.

  Their experiences were the same; they knew what their neighbor was going through. And they were bonded as perhaps no generation had been before them or would be again.

  Parker saw the instant concern in the work-worn faces of the men gathered at his table and felt a surge of warmth for each of them: Blystone Condon, who with Beatrice, his wife, had known better times, better ways, before giving it all up and coming west to live in a cabin and start over; Brother Dinwoody, a fussy little man, learning to overlook the inconsequential, concentrating on the overall need for survival; Herkimer Pinkard, that rare individual with the courage to be himself, keeping his corner of the world refreshed, and always greeted, wherever he went, with smiles. Herkimer took his good times along with him.

  These three, and Angus—and Parker knew he could call on a dozen more, if need be, who would lay aside personal needs and problems in a heartbeat to come to his side—turned their attention on this one needing them, regardless of chores awaiting and a cold trip home through the gathering dusk.

  Parker clutched the pages of his letter, crushing them in the intensity of the emotions that gripped him. “It’s my father—”

  “Yes, laddie?” Angus, already sure of the answer, asked it anyway.

  “The letter,” Parker said, “is from my mother. She’s written to tell me that my father . . . my father . . . has died.”

  “Ah, laddie . . . Ah, Parker . . . I’m so sorry.”

  Four pairs of hardened, callused hands stretched across the expanse of the oilcloth to touch Parker’s hand, his arm, his shoulder, as gently as a mother. Or
a father. Three voices murmured sympathy, comfort, consolation. Parker had the distinct feeling of being a tender sapling in the woods, tossed by winds, held straight and true by the sturdy trunks around it. Reaching for the sun. The Son.

  “Let’s pray,” Angus said, and as one man they rose and came around the table. Three grizzly, rough, home-cut heads of hair bowed over their pastor’s bent head as they looked to the One who promised, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Each could personally testify to the truth of it; each could witness to the strength of the sustaining Presence.

  “Thank you, my friends,” Parker managed through tears.

  Still there was no rushing off. Seated again, they waited for Parker’s explanation, Parker’s decision. For had he not said this might change everything?

  “My mother writes,” Parker said eventually, returning to the pages in his hands, running his eyes down them, “that it was sudden. His heart, apparently. It seems so odd . . .” Parker’s voice trailed off, and his eyes raised to stare off into space—a long, long way.

  “Odd?” someone prompted. Sad, they might have expected, or painful, or grievous, but odd?

  “So odd, that while I’ve been going about my work, talking, laughing, eating, doing all the normal things, my father has been in heaven. In heaven, and I didn’t know it.” Parker’s gaze lowered, and he looked at the men around him. “He was dead and buried, and I was living a happy, fulfilled life.”

  Parker seemed to ponder for a moment or two; the men gave him time.

  “So why should I,” he said, struggling with a new thought, “having heard about it now, go into a spasm of grief? I believe the Lord is showing me something here.” Parker was silent again.

  “It’ll be something I’ll study on and pray about,” he said finally. “Perhaps it’s similar to what we read in Second Samuel 12:23 about King David, who prayed and fasted for the life of his child but went back to normal living when the child died. ‘Wherefore should I fast?’ he asked those who questioned him about what they saw as a casual attitude. ‘Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.’”