The Serial: Far From the Rowan Tree Day 56

“When Ronald did eventually turn up he looked tired and dejected. Anxiously I asked him how his day had gone. “Not too well,” he admitted

The boys enjoyed the picnic in the car and afterwards, much to my relief, fell asleep.

Mahri-Louise followed suit after a feed and an awkward change of nappies.

I, too, nodded off. Gradually the hot sticky afternoon wore on. It was after four when Ronald came back the next time. I could see anger in his eyes, also new resolution.

“He hasn’t showed up yet!” he said. “Come back at six, they say, don’t leave it longer than that.”

“You could drive us back to Joe’s Little Acre,” I said, “and come back on your own at six ...”

My words trailed away. Ronald wasn’t listening. Something had changed in the atmosphere. I could feel it in my bones.

“That’s me finished with the sponsors,” he said in a voice that brooked no contradiction. “I didn’t come to Canada with no thought other than farming anyway. I want to try something else and now’s the time.”

“Did you tell them that?” I asked. “No,” he replied, “and I don’t intend to.” I said no more accepting the fact that, once again, life for us was going to change dramatically.

Explanation

“We’ll go back to Joe’s Little Acre,” Ronald said. “Start again tomorrow.”

Joe didn’t seem all that surprised to see us when we arrived back on his doorstep.

“Thought you folks might be back,” he said handing us the key, “kept your cabin for you!”

By way of explanation Ronald told him of our difficult day and how, quite suddenly, something had snapped in him and he made up his mind to forget about the sponsors.

Joe made little comment about this, not saying whether he thought it a wise move or a foolish mistake. He probably saw Ronald had made up his mind anyway, and anything he said would be ignored.

Ronald went on to tell him that we intended renting a house in Edmonton and asked how to go about it.

“It’s sure not difficult,” he said. “A lot of them cost a bit. Get an Edmonton paper and you’ll find them listed there.”

We were relieved to hear this. Back home it could be quite difficult getting accommodation. Rules and regulations were becoming so strict that landlords were inclined to sell off their property rather than rent it.

Joe told us that there were very few rules here and consequently all sorts of places for rent, even rooms in houses.

Joe, as before, was very practical and helpful. He told us where to get the newspaper that listed them and which supermarket sold the best and cheapest food.

The boys were delighted to be back in Joe’s Little Acre and the moment they were allowed to escape from the car made for the swings.

Ronald, also without delay, went to get a carryout meal for us all, some essential supplies from the supermarket Joe had recommended and a newspaper from the nearby drugstore.

That evening after the boys were fast asleep in their bunks and Mahri-Louise in her cot, Ronald and I studied the long columns of accommodation for rent. We carefully marked those that looked most suitable.

Dejected

“I’ll go and see them tomorrow,” said Ronald. “No need for you and the children to come with me. If I find something that I think will do, I’ll come and take you to see if you like it.”

Ronald was later than I expected in arriving home the following day. When he left in the morning he assured me he would be home by teatime and I had made a particularly nice meal for him.

When he did eventually turn up he looked tired and dejected. Anxiously I asked him how his day had gone.

“Not too well,” he admitted. “Every house or flat has some snag or other. I wasn’t being at all fussy but the main snag is price. They all seem very expensive – more than we can afford!

I’ve only come up with one that might do. I’ll take you to see it tomorrow. It’s not much, but at least it’s within our price range.

“It’s a big old house down by the river, one of the first houses built in Edmonton probably. The worst thing about it is that the owner, an old man, lives in it also.

“He has two rooms of his own partitioned with a piece of sacking over his door...”

I had been ready to agree to almost anything but inwardly I stiffened when he mentioned the old owner-occupier.

I didn’t like the sound of that at all. I could see however that Ronald was dispirited and knew that the money we had brought from Scotland was running out. I promised I would look at the house.

It was worse than I expected. I knew, as soon as I saw it, that I wasn’t going to live there. It was old and hadn’t stood the test of time all that well.

Dingy

The paint, once white, was very dingy and peeling off in places.

There were several shingles missing from the roof but worse than that, it stood all by itself in a sort of muddy swamp down by an uninteresting stretch of river.

Here and there, town garbage littered the mud. Try as I could, I found it hard even to imagine Red Indians in their canoes paddling past on the chalkcoloured water.

I’d read somewhere that they had used this river in the old days, before there were roads or the railway.

Once it had been the main highway of commerce at the time when the Hudson Bay Company was setting up their bare outposts at intervals along its sandy flats.

Today what made the landscape even bleaker was that there were no trees and very little greenery.

If there ever had been trees they were all gone now and even with the sun lighting the whole area it was gloomy and depressing.

The old man showed us over the house. I hardly looked at the rooms at all. In my mind’s eye all that I saw was the mud and this man watching us from behind the sacking door and shuddered!

(More tomorrow.)

By Margaret Gillies Brown