Then one day when even starving stomachs almost revolted at the continued coa.r.s.e mixture, a ribbon of blue proclaimed the open sea, and into those waters swept the longed-for ship. Yet, strangely enough, that night the "Mother o" the Men" wept a storm of tears, the only tears she had yielded to in those long five years. For with its blessing of food the ship had her hold bursting with liquors and wines, the hideous commerce that invades the pioneer places of the earth. Should the already weakened, ill-fed and scurvy-threatened garrison break into those supplies, all the labor and patience and mothering of this courageous woman would be useless, for after a bean diet in the Northern lat.i.tudes, whiskey is deadly to brain and body, and the victim maddens or dies.
"You are crying, mother, and the ship here at last!" said Grahamie"s voice at her shoulder. "Crying when we are all so happy."
"Mother is a little upset, dear. You must try to forget you ever saw her eyes wet."
"I"ll forget," said the boy with a finality she could not question.
"The ship is so full of good things, mother. We"ll think of that, and--forget, won"t we?" he added.
"_All_ the things in the ship are not good, Grahamie, boy. If they were, mother would not cry," she said.
"I see," he said, but stole from her side with a strained, puzzled look in his young eyes.
Outside he was met by a laughing, joyous dozen of men. One swung the child to his shoulder, shouting, "Hurrah, little "North-West"!
Hurrah! we are all coming to pay tribute to your mother. Look at the dainties we have got for her from the ship!"
"I"m afraid you can"t see mother just now," said the boy. "Mother is a little upset. You see, the ship is so full of good things--but then, _all_ the things in the ship are not good. If they were, mother would not cry." In the last words he unconsciously imitated his mother"s voice.
A profound silence enveloped the men. Then one spoke. "She"ll never have cause to cry about anything _I_ do, boys."
"Nor I!" "Nor I!" "Nor I!" rang out voice after voice.
"Run back, you blessed little "North-West," and tell mother not to be scared for the boys. We"ll stand by her to a man. She"ll never regret that ship"s coming in," said the gallant soldier, slipping the boy to the ground. And to the credit of the men who wore buffalo-head b.u.t.tons, she never did.
And in all her Yukon years the major"s wife had but one more heartache. That agonizing winter had taught her many things, but the bitterest knowledge to come to her was the fact that her boy must be sent "to the front." To be sure, he was growing up the pet of all the police; he was becoming manlier, st.u.r.dier, more self-reliant every day. But education he _must_ have, and another winter of such deprivation and horror he was too young, too tender, to endure. It was then that the battle arose in her heart. The boy was to be sent to college. Was it her place to accompany him to the distant South-east, to live by herself alone in the college town, just to be near him and watch over his young life, or was it here with her pioneer soldier husband, and his little isolated garrison of "boys" whom she had mothered for two years?
The inevitable day came when she had to shut her teeth and watch Grahamie go aboard the southward-bound vessel alone, in the care of a policeman who was returning on sick leave--to watch him stand at the rail, his little face growing dimmer and more shadowy as the sea widened between them--watch him through tearless, courageous eyes, then turn away with the hopelessness of knowing that for one entire endless year she must wait for word of his arrival. [Fact.]
But his last brave good-bye words rang through her ears every day of that eternal year: "We"ll remember Sergeant Black, won"t we, mother? And we"ll each fight it out alone, single-handed, and maybe they"ll give us a chevron for our sleeves when it"s over."
But that night when the barracks was wrapped in gloom over the loss of its boy chum, the surgeon appeared in the men"s quarters.
"h.e.l.lo, boys!" he said, none too cheerfully. "Dull doings, I say.
I"m busy enough, though, keeping an eye on Madam, the major"s lady.
She"s so deadly quiet, so self-controlled, I"m just a little afraid.
I wish something would happen to--well, make her less calm."
"_I"ll_ "happen," doctor," chirped up a genial-looking young chap named O"Keefe. "I"ll get sick and threaten to die. You say it"s serious; she"ll be all interest and medicine spoons, and making me jelly inside an hour."
The surgeon eyed him sternly, then: "O"Keefe," he said, "you"re the cleverest man I ever came across in the force, and I"ve been in it eleven years. But, man alive! what have you been doing to yourself?
Overwork, no food--why, man, you"re sick; look as if you had fever and a touch of pneumonia. You"re a very sick man. Go to bed at once--at once, I say!"
O"Keefe looked the surgeon in the eye, winked meaningly, and O"Keefe turned in, although it was but early afternoon. At six o"clock an orderly stood at the door of the major"s quarters. Mrs.
Lysle was standing on the steps, her eyes fixed on the far horizon across which a ship had melted away.
"Beg pardon, madam," said the orderly, saluting, "but young O"Keefe is very ill. We have had the surgeon, but the--the--pain"s getting worse. He"s just yelling with agony."
"I"ll go at once, orderly. I should have been told before," she replied; and burying her own heartache, she hurried to the men"s quarters. Her anxious eyes sought the surgeon"s. "Oh, doctor!" she said, "this poor fellow must be looked after. What can I do to help?"
"Everything, Mrs. Lysle," gruffed the surgeon with a professional air. "He is very ill. He must be kept wrapped in hot linseed poultices and--"
"Oh, I say, doctor," remonstrated poor O"Keefe, "I"m not that bad."
"You"re a very sick man," scowled the surgeon. "Now, Mrs. Lysle has graciously offered to help nurse you. She"ll see that you have hot fomentations every half hour. I"ll drop in twice a day to see how you are getting along." And with that miserable prospect before him, poor O"Keefe watched the surgeon disappear.
"I simply _had_ to order those half-hour fomentations, old man,"
apologized the surgeon that night. "You see, she must be kept busy--just kept at it every minute we can make her do so. Do you think you can stand it?"
"Of course I can," fumed the victim. "But for goodness" sake, don"t put me on sick rations! I"ll die, sure, if you do."
"I"ve ordered you the best the commissariat boasts--heaps of meat, b.u.t.ter, even eggs, my boy. Think of it--_eggs_--you lucky young Turk!" laughed the surgeon.
Then followed nights and days of torture. The "boys" would line up to the "sick-room" four times daily, and blandly ask how he was.
"How _am_ I?" young O"Keefe would bellow. "How _am_ I? I"m well and strong enough to brain every one of you fellows, surgeon included, when I get out of this!"
"But when _are_ you going to get out? When will you be out danger?"
they would chuckle.
"Just when I see that haunted look go out of her eyes, and not till then!" he would roar.
And he kept his word. He was really weak when he got up, and pretended to be weaker, but the lines of acute self-control had left Mrs. Lysle"s face, the suffering had gone from her eyes, the day the n.o.ble O"Keefe took his first solid meal in her presence.
Even the major never discovered that worthy bit of deception. But a year later, when the mail went out, the surgeon sent the entire story to Graham, who, in writing to his mother the following year, perplexed her by saying:
"....But there are three men in the force I love better than anyone in the world except you, mother. The first, of course, is father, the others, Sergeant Black and Private O"Keefe."
"Why O"Keefe?" she asked herself.
But loyal little "North-West" never told her.
The Nest Builder
"Well! if some women aren"t born just to laugh!" remarked the station agent"s wife. "Have you seen that round-faced woman in the waiting-room?"
"No," replied the agent. "I"ve been too busy; I"ve had to help unload freight. I heard some children in there, though; they were playing and laughing to beat the band."
"_Nine_ of them, John! _Nine_ of them, and the oldest just twelve!"
gasped his wife. "Why, I"d be crazy if I were in her place.
She"s come all the way from Grey or Bruce in Ontario--I forget which--with not a soul to help her with that flock. Three of them are almost babies. The smallest one is a darling--just sits on the bench in there and dimples and gurgles and grins all the time."
"Hasn"t she got a husband?" asked John.
"Of course," a.s.serted his wife. "But that"s just the problem now, or rather he"s the problem. He came to Manitoba a year ago, and was working right here in this town. He doesn"t seem to have had much luck, and left last week for some ranch away back of Brandon, she now finds out; she must have crossed his letter as she came out. She expected to find him here, and now she is in that waiting-room with nine children, no money to go further, or to go to a hotel even, and she"s--well, she"s just good-natured and smiling, and not a bit worried. As I say, some women are born just to laugh."
"Have they anything to eat?" asked the agent, anxiously.
"Stacks of it--a huge hamper. But I took the children what milk we had, and made her take a cup of good hot tea. She _would_ pay me, however, I couldn"t stop her. But I noticed she has mighty little change in her purse, and she said she had no money, and said it with a round, untroubled, smiling face." The agent"s wife spoke the last words almost with envy.