Galloping hooves were pounding on gravel. Curious, I craned my neck to see further down the road. A cloud of dust was approaching

Iwaited behind for a while to make sure the others were sound asleep. Bob, the manager of the supermarket, who was giving the party, had been very good to us ever since we first arrived in Sandyhills.

He was a comparative newcomer himself. Ronald and he had taken an instant liking to each other. Bob was a pleasant man with a good sense of humour.

The day we arrived in Sandyhills it was early closing day and all the stores were shut but he had opened up the supermarket especially for us.

Since then, each Saturday the supermarket was kept open longer than usual.

“Only for you folks,” he would tell us every Saturday after our shopping was done, when along with one or two others of the store’s employees, we had a little party – a dram for the menfolk, cake and popcorn for me and the children.

Also Bob never let us leave the store without some candy for the kids and food that would soon be beyond its sell-by date

Only the previous Saturday, he had given us several bunches of celery, three or four pounds of apples, four cauliflowers, a bunch of bananas, a melon and potatoes. He had a compassionate heart.

Cheerful

We never put on a poor face but reading between the lines, he knew it was not easy for us to manage on the wages we got.

On that evening after the stampede I joined the party for a short time.

To the melodic strains of a guitar plucking out western tunes, we danced up and down the aisles – past cans of peas, carrots, sweetcorn, past watermelons, onions, cabbages, past huge boxes of detergent, high towers of toilet paper.

Miraculously, while we were there, no great pyramids came tumbling down on top of us. Soon we left the throng of cheerful dancing people and the music of guitar and mouth organ.

I had always liked Western music but tonight I was completely captivated. As we drove home under a sky thick with stars, I started to sing: Give me land, lots of land

In the prairies that I love, Don’t fence me in: Give me land, lots of land Neath the starry skies above, Don’t fence me in ...

I sang until I ran out of words. From nowhere, it seemed, a stray thought came into my head saying: “This is all very well, this seduction by the new, but you mustn’t forget the old – your heritage, the land of your birth and all that you are. You must try to give the children something of that.”

Ronald, who had been singing along with me, was silent now also, concentrating on driving along the rutty tracks.

Mahri-Louise lay in my arms, half awake, half asleep. As we drove closer to our clapboard shack the night became punctuated with the howl of the coyotes and I found myself crooning to my youngest child, Canadian by birth, a song completely alien to this strange land: Oh Rowan Tree, oh Rowan Tree Thou’lt aye be dear tae me Entwined thou art Wi’ mony ties o’ hame and infancy ...

Opportunity

One day not long after the stampede, I was sitting in the living room comfortably curled up on the window seat.

Ronald had made it for me with bits of wood he had found. I had padded it out with some unwanted material given to me by Betty Jacobs and covered it with curtain material brought from home.

The rays from an afternoon sun streamed through the thin glass that kept the black flies from entering the house. Mahri-Louise was asleep in her pram.

The boys were outside playing with Mandy and Susan. I had seized the opportunity, while it was quiet, to write a long letter to my mother. Eventually I laid down my pen and looked out of the window.

Perhaps I had become distracted by an unexpected sound – galloping hooves pounding on gravel. Curious, I craned my neck to see further down the road. A cloud of dust was approaching.

Suddenly it was right outside my window. The dust settled to reveal a girl on a horse. I was hardly prepared for this apparition.

The girl’s long tawny hair settled round her shoulders as she patted the sweating neck of the horse, then she jumped from its back, tied it to the picket fence and with one hand on the end post jumped over the fence clearing it easily. Between the teeth of this lithe and handsome girl I noticed what looked like a letter.

She made her way round the side of our cabin to its only door which faced on to the yard. I went to meet her and ask her in. Her dark eyes had the soft glow of someone in love.

I was struck by her stance and colouring. She told me her name was Gloria which seemed to fit her perfectly. She handed me the letter.

“I’d sure be glad if you could give this to Adrian.”

Teased

“Certainly,” I said, too taken by surprise to say much more. Not that she gave me time. Before I could find words, she had leapt over the fence again and was on her horse.

Down the trail they galloped leaving only dust and a memory.

By the time Ronald returned for tea I had a lovely romance going, everything cut and dried. When Adrian came over later we teased him.

“You’ve been quick off your mark, you’re a quiet one,”

I said as I handed him the letter. He took it all in his good humoured stride and seemed pleased. Later he told us about Gloria.

“Her parents have a quarter section not far from here,” he said. “She is one of a big family. I couldn’t say exactly how many. Everytime I go there seems to be one I haven’t seen before!”

A distressed look came into Adrian’s usually cheerful countenance. “I wouldn’t have believed people could be so poor.

“They’ve nothing to show for all their years of hard work. They’ve very little furniture and their curtains on windows and doors are pieces of sacking sewn together.” (More tomorrow.)