The Serial: Far From the Rowan Tree Day 39

Black terror enveloped me as I sprinted over the yard, got hold of the boys’ hands and pulled them out of the narrow fierce path of the wind

How he had got so many ants on him, I shall never know. There were hundreds of them, crawling on his face, arms, legs, everywhere. It took quite some time to brush them all off.

Meanwhile, the girls came in with Michael who stood watching me with a fascinated horror in his eyes.

He came closer and closer as I brushed the ants off Richard almost as though drawn by what he most feared.

“Keep away!” I warned him, “or you’ll get them on you as well.”

Too late! One solitary ant landed on Michael and began to crawl slowly up his leg. The screams that came from the ant’s new host could have been heard far across the prairie.

Richard seemed none the worse of his infestation and he and Michael were soon all smiles again. I gave them a picnic along with the girls, out on the sunny deck, of chocolate milk and biscuits from the cookie jar.

Not dangerous

Mandy told me these ants were not dangerous. She had had them on her on occasions. “It’s probably the cloth slippers that attracted them,” she said.

As far as I could find out there wasn’t much that was dangerous in these parts, but I couldn’t be sure. I had been warned about poison ivy in Canada but Betty Jacobs said there was none around that she knew about. In fact, she didn’t think there was any in Alberta.

However, there was one thing that she hadn’t warned me about and it happened one day when she and the girls were away shopping in Sandyhills and the men were all back out on the prairie attending to the wheat crop, which was throwing a greenness over the land.

This time I really did get a fright. As usual it was a lovely sunbright morning. I was out on the wooden deck washing clothes.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and if there was disturbance in the air, I certainly didn’t notice it. The boys were down on the other side of the yard engrossed in some game or other.

Suddenly I heard a tremendous noise resembling a fleet of heavy bombers approaching. This was surprising as we saw very few planes.

Suddenly the huge noise seemed to be passing me by but at a distance. Where I stood nothing was happening at all. The sun was shining, everything was still.

I looked towards the boys on the other side of the yard. There I saw total confusion. A wall of swirling dust had arisen and within its frightening clutches the boys, like so much jetsam caught in a whirlpool, were turning and falling, screaming and crying, a massive wind lifting them off their feet.

Black terror enveloped me as I involuntarily sprinted over the yard, got hold of the boys’ hands and pulled them out of the narrow fierce path of the wind.

Trembling

I was trembling from head to foot. The boys were thickly covered in dust. They were badly frightened but, apart from a few bruises, unhurt.

As suddenly as it came the wind went, pursuing its furious way across the prairie towards the Rocky Mountains.

“A ‘twister’, a ‘dust devil’,” Betty Jacobs called it later when listening with sympathy to my tale. “I guess we get them from time to time. They sure are nasty if you happen to be in their path.”

The boys didn’t take long to get over their fright. I bathed them and again out came the cookie jar and the chocolate milk.

Soon they were laughing and waiting with impatience for Dad to come in for lunch so that they could tell him about “the big wind”.

“Homesteaders’ Parade – breakfast in the streets of Sandyhills,” Mandy told me. “Bacon and pancakes cooked on barbecues set up on sidewalks,” Susan enlarged on the event.

“Afterwards a long parade through the town with everyone dressed up, decorated trucks, horses – lots of horses, music and, and ...” Mandy hurried on before her sister was able to get a word in, “and then the wildest stampede in all Alberta.”

Mandy was a loyalist when it came to anything that happened around and about Sandyhills. She was also an enthusiast, one who made everything sound so good that it bred heightened anticipation in others. As far as she was concerned, Sandyhills was the best place on earth.

“It sure is top town around these parts,” she told me with pride one day. “It has paved streets and traffic lights and no other town has that all the way to Edmonton.

“Also,” she continued, “it’s real, real old – all of 50 years. That’s why the stampede is to be extra special this year, the town is celebrating its 50th anniversary.”

The morning dawned clear and bright as it usually does in Alberta. In this respect how different from home.

Here families could really plan an outdoor event and be pretty certain the weather would stay fair. For all of us at Jacobs’ place, the atmosphere was charged with excitement.

Show off

The boys were up early. We intended going into Sandyhills as soon as possible.

I thought breakfast in the streets was a lovely idea. I could smell the bacon sizzling on the barbecues, see the foamy yellow pancakes running with maple syrup.

However, an unplanned change of events kept us from this ritual. Principally it was Adrian who was responsible for the change in plans.

Back home in Somerset he had taken part in amateur dramatics. In a good-humoured way he was a bit of a show-off and a clown and this hobby suited his extrovert nature.

His aptitude for public entertaining had been somewhat thwarted since coming to Canada and he was determined to make use of every opportunity to redress the balance.

He wanted to take part in the parade but he needed a partner. He had thought it all out. Being roundfaced, over six feet and broad with it, he thought he would make an excellent oversized “baby”.

All he needed was a slightly smaller “mother”. At the last moment his more sober friend Phil on the neighbouring farm, who had never been too happy with the idea, refused to do it. (More tomorrow.)