Chapter XVIII: Standing in the Breach

A WEEK slipped away; the dreadful parting was over. Tom had gone, and the little household had settled down to make the best of the six months of solitude, narrow means, and general monotony.

Just at present Bertha was much too busy to notice the monotony. The days were only about half long enough for all that she had to do in them, and the nights seemed only about half long enough either for the amount of sleeping that she desired to get through.

Housework had scanty attention just now. Other things were so much more important, and so the things which mattered least had to go. She had discovered that she could shoot birds, and although she simply hated to do it, the birds were such a valuable addition to the food supply, that she forced herself to the necessary hardness of heart. Of course, if she did not shoot them somebody else would, or the poor creatures would die of want when the snow came, or a dozen evil fates might befall them, and, comforting herself with these reflections, she took out Tom’s gun every morning and did such execution among the prairie chicken, that the little household was well supplied still, even though the master of the house was far away.

Bill Humphries had brought her over a dog, and already the creature was of the utmost value in retrieving the chicken, so that she was spared the horror of having to dispatch the birds which she had only winged. The children always prepared the birds for cooking, and were by this time quite expert at the task, which would certainly have taken away Bertha’s appetite if she had had it to do.

In the middle of the second week after Tom went away there came a letter from him, the last that they could receive, so they believed, until his party made their way back to civilization once more. It was written from a place beyond Porcupine Mountains, where the expedition had halted for a week of exploring in a wild district into which, so far as they could discover, no white man had ever penetrated before.

Tom was in his element. There was a great love of primitive life in him, and very often during his days at Duck Flats the call of the wild had been almost too strong to resist, would have been quite too strong, probably, had not his duty bound him with fetters of steel. So now that it was his duty to go forth, he could enjoy the adventurous days to the full, and indulge his bent for prospecting as he had never been able to do before.

So far he had not discovered the real intentions of the expedition. Sometimes he was disposed to think that they were merely out on a general survey in the interests probably of some syndicate, formed for the purpose of buying up land, but there were indications in plenty that they were keeping their eyes very widely open for everything else which was there to be seen. The men were promised bonuses on certain finds, in addition to their pay, and this had the effect of making everyone exceedingly alert; for who should say what riches the wilderness might not reveal to those who had eyes to see them?

“Poor Tom! this will seem like a real holiday to him after his hard years of homesteading,” said Grace, with a sigh of content for her husband, when she had read and re-read the letter which had come to her from the edge of the unknown.

Bertha looked at her and marvelled anew at her patience. Surely it must have needed a tremendous amount of courage to consent to his going, seeing how helpless Grace was, yet she had never, by word or look, tried to hold him back, but had sent him forth with a heroic cheerfulness which had been a credit even to a strong woman.

“I suppose that he will have to work pretty hard there. They would hardly pay so well if they did not expect some adequate return for their money,” Bertha remarked as, by dint of much pushing and tugging, she got Grace on to the wheeled chair and dragged it into the bedroom, where, by dint of more pushing and tugging, she got her on to the bed, which was all the change of place and position the invalid could have.

“Oh yes, there will be awful work to be done,” answered Grace. “Those poor fellows will have to stagger along under burdens that will make their shoulders raw, they will be footsore and thirsty, they will be scorched with heat, devoured by mosquitoes, and, later on, they will be nearly starved from the lowness of their food supplies, and frozen by the bitter cold. And yet, if I know them, it will seem like one long picnic, and they will go on from day to day with the zest of school-boys out on holiday. I should love it myself, I know. Why, when I was a child I was always wishing that I had lived about a hundred years ago, so that I could have been carried off by Micmacs or had adventures of sorts. And really, you know, life nowadays is very tame indeed.”

Bertha laughed, although in truth she could just as easily have cried, to hear the poor helpless woman talking of adventures with such incredible zest. What a fine plucky spirit it was that was caged in that prison-house of clay! And the difference between Grace and herself struck her more forcibly than ever.

“I wish you could give me some of your love of enterprise,” she said wistfully. “I always feel more or less of a fraud when people are kind enough to say nice things to me, because I know that underneath I am a most awful coward.”

“What matters about what is underneath if you can but succeed in keeping it there?” laughed Grace. “If you come to bed-rock personalities, I guess that you would find we are all more or less cowards, and the best thing to be done is not to admit it, even to ourselves, lest in an unwary moment our bottom nature should rise up and gain the mastery over us. Now, get off to bed, you dear, plucky Bertha, and let us have no more talk of secret quailings.”

And Bertha was so glad to go to her well-earned rest, that it seemed too much trouble to undress. It was always an effort to get Grace from couch to bed, and to-night the task seemed harder than usual. But it was done, and now there was nothing more for tired limbs until morning. Oh, how beautiful it was to rest!

She had flung herself on the bed, all dressed as she was, intending to just lie there for a few moments, and then get up and undress before going to bed properly. But alas for good intentions! In about a minute she was sound asleep, and not even the twins in the little truckle bed in the corner lay in profounder repose. How long she had slept she had no idea, but suddenly, for no reason at all, she became quite dreadfully wide-awake. What was the matter? Something must be wrong, she was sure of it, for she had not waked up like that for months.

Sitting up in bed, or rather on the bed, she strained her ears in listening for some faintest sound which might seem to indicate anything gone wrong. Her heart was thumping at a tremendous rate, there was a creeping, crawling sensation all over her, and she would have been thankful for the privilege of screaming in a wild hysterical fashion. But it would never do to upset Grace and the children in such a fashion, so she must control herself and keep down that impulse for screaming. Then the dog whined, and, with a sudden access of courage, Bertha slid off the bed and opened the door.

“Bertha, what is wrong?” asked the voice of Grace from the other room.

“I don’t know, dear, but I came awake suddenly, and so I thought that there must be some reason for it, and I got up to see,” replied Bertha, more thankful than she could express to find that Grace was awake, for it seemed to take away half the loneliness and the horrid weird fear which had gripped her.

“Bouncer has whined once or twice, but he often does that, because the poor old fellow feels as if he would like to have his liberty on these fine nights,” said Grace, in a tone which was devoid of the least shadow of fear.

“Shall I go out and see what is wrong?” asked Bertha, who was feeling quite valiant now.

“I should not trouble if I were you; it will only wake you up and spoil your chances of going to sleep again,” replied Grace. “If you feel at all nervous, come and lie down here beside me, and I can rouse you at once if there seems any need.”

“But you will want to go to sleep yourself,” objected Bertha, to whom, however, the plan commended itself as the most reasonable thing to do.

“Oh, it does not matter when I sleep; I do not know that it would very much matter if I stayed awake all night,” said Grace, “although, as a matter of fact, I am always as sleepy as if I worked hard all day. But, Bertha, I’ve got a piece of news for you, and I feel as if it will not keep until the morning. I have distinctly felt my big toe to-night.”

“What do you mean?” asked Bertha, who was too sleepy to take in the full significance of this information.

Grace laughed softly. “Don’t you understand that for all this time since my fall I have had no feet at all? When anything has touched my foot or feet I have not known it, unless I have seen it. Imagine, then, what it is to feel that one has suddenly acquired a big toe, even though all the parts in between are missing.”

“Oh, my dear, how glad I am!” cried Bertha, leaning over to kiss Grace; and just at that moment Bouncer whined again, and then began scratching at the door in sign that he very badly wanted to get out.

“I guess that a friend of his has come for a stroll in this direction to-night. Let him out, Bertha; he is not likely to run away before morning, and you will get no more sleep if the creature is going to be restless,” said Grace.

Bertha got up then and, feeling thankful that she had not undressed on the previous night, felt her way carefully across the outer room to the door, at which the dog was eagerly scratching to get out. There was no anger in the dog’s manner, only joyful excitement, and the creature nearly knocked Bertha down as, with a chorus of joyful barks and whines, it burst out at the door and tore away across the dark paddock. But there was no more sleep for either Grace or Bertha that night, for from the distance Bouncer made night—or rather darkness, for it was really morning—hideous with his lamentations—whining, barking, howling in a passion of entreaty (so it seemed to those who listened from the inside).

Grace would not hear of Bertha going out to see what was wrong. “Time enough when daylight comes for investigations of that sort,” she said, and Bertha had not the least desire to withstand the mandate, for all her own feelings pointed to the desirability of staying where she was.

At last came the grey light of dawn, and Bertha sprang up, eager now to enquire into the disturbance of the night. The first thing she saw on opening the door was a good-sized packing case standing on the edge of the veranda, and all at once she realized that it must have been this being put down which had roused her from sleep so suddenly in the night; but Grace would not have heard it, because her room was on the other side of the house, and her window looked the other way. Farther away she could see Bouncer, tied in an ignominious fashion to one of the posts where the lines were stretched for drying clothes, and then she understood that the intruder, whoever he was, must have been known to the dog, which wanted to follow him, but got tied up instead.

“I wonder who sent the thing; I mean, I wonder who brought it,” she said to herself, and then she walked round the box, which was a good big one, and looked heavy. But there was not much enlightenment to be got from an outside survey, for the box was merely labelled, “This side up, with care“, and had “Mrs. Ellis” marked with a burnt stick in big letters at the side.

“Grace! Grace!” she cried, running back into the house. “Someone did come last night, and left a big case, directed to you, on the veranda. They must have put it down very softly, too, for it is just outside my window.”

“What sort of a case?” asked Grace, in bewilderment.

“A big packing case, a deal box, you know, rather rough, and nailed down in all directions. I wonder what it is that has been sent in such a mysterious fashion?” Bertha was so excited, because it was such an unusual thing for anything unexpected to arrive, and this thing had come in the dead of night, too, which made it all the more remarkable.

“It is a box as big as a house,” shrieked Molly, who had been out to investigate, clad only in her nightgown, and who was now prancing about with bare feet, while the twins, aroused by her shouting, came tumbling out of bed to see what was going on, and only Dicky and little Noll slept serenely on.

“Bertha, do make haste and get it open; I feel as curious as possible to know what is inside,” said Grace, whose eyes were positively eager.

“I am afraid that I shall have to open it outside, but I will drag it along in front of the door, so that you can see me do it,” said Bertha, and then she went off for a chisel and a hammer; for the person who had nailed the box up had plainly meant that it should not come undone in a hurry.

The children were rushing round and round like wild things, the twins had dragged Dicky and Noll out of bed, and the clamour was something tremendous, while Bouncer from the background kept putting in his ideas on the subject, only, as they were all set forth in dog language, no one was a whit the wiser.

By dint of much hard work with the chisel, a good bit of hammering, and some bashing of her fingers, Bertha finally succeeded in getting the cover off the box, revealing a layer of brown paper. But before this was lifted she managed to drag the thing over the threshold, so that Grace should share in the fun of the unpacking, and then, with a crowd of eager little ones pressing round, she lifted the brown paper, and then the white paper, which lay immediately underneath.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh!” burst in excited chorus from the children, while Grace exclaimed, “Bertha! Bertha! Who could have sent it?” as the lifting of the white paper revealed a whole stock of invalid comforts in the shape of bottles of meat juice, packets of nourishing soups, tins of cocoa, arrowroot, and biscuits, jellies in packets, custard powders, and so many other nice and nourishing things, that Bertha was fairly bewildered by their number and variety.

Underneath these was a thick layer of big juicy apples, at the sight of which the children set up a wild shout of joy, for apples were a luxury quite out of their reach under present circumstances, and the only approach to fruit they could get were melons and squashes.

Below the apples came household stores, currants and raisins, packets of tea, coffee, sugar, rice, and beans, a square tin box full of the most delicious cookies, and a great packet of candies, which could only be for the children; then right at the bottom of the box a layer of books, which looked as if they might have been bought from a secondhand bookstall, but that were none the worse for that.

“New books!” cried Grace, her voice almost a shout. “Oh, Bertha, what a winter we shall have!”

“It is the nice things for you that please me most,” said Bertha, in an unsteady tone. “It makes me feel bad to see you trying to eat the rough stuff that the rest of us can enjoy, and now I shall be able to get you nice, dainty things for months to come. But oh, I do wonder who could have sent it? And oh, I wish that he or she could be here to see how delighted we are with it all!”

“So do I,” replied Grace, and then she said, with a merry laugh, “What elaborate precautions the donor took to get his gift here unobserved! Fancy travelling to a lone house like this in the middle of the night for the sake of dumping a box unobserved upon the veranda.”

“And incidentally scaring us all nearly out of our senses. I don’t think that I will ever let myself be scared by a noise in the night again, only, as it happened last night, it was not so much a noise as a sensation,” said Bertha, who sat on the floor surveying the riches contained in the packing case as if she did not know what to make of it all.

“I wonder who could have sent the things? Oh, how I would like to thank them!” said Grace.

“We can’t have all we want in this world, and so I am afraid the knowledge will have to be one of the things that you will have to go without,” Bertha answered, with a laugh, and then, springing to her feet, she began unpacking the things and putting them away.

“Bertha, suppose it is a mistake, and that they are not meant for us,” objected Grace.

“There could not possibly be a mistake that I can see; the things were brought to the house, the case has Mrs. Ellis on it in big letters, and we are going to keep it,” said Bertha decidedly; then she suddenly jerked out, “Don’t you think that perhaps Tom sent it?”

“No, I don’t, for the very good reason that the poor, dear fellow had no money to buy things with; indeed, Mr. Brown had to advance him the money for the journey when he went to join the party, and Tom had only one solitary half-dollar of his own in his possession,” Grace answered.

“It would not be anyone at Pentland Broads, either, because, of course, they are all as poor as we are; indeed, some of them must be poorer,” said Bertha musingly.

“Much poorer, I fear, especially the Longs, who have lost house, furniture, and everything else, and will not even get their insurance, because the destruction was from tempest and not mere carelessness,” said Grace, with a fine edge of irony in her tone.

“Perhaps we shall never know, but we can be just as grateful, and time will show,” answered Bertha.