The Next of Kin Part 6

He went past her into the bedroom and spoke hurriedly to his wife; but Mary did not hear what they said.

Suddenly she heard her mother cry and instinctively she ran into the room.

Her father stood beside the bed holding his head, as if in pain.

Mary's mother had turned her face into the pillow, and cried; and even little Bobbie, who had been awakened by the unusual commotion, sat up, rubbing his eyes, and cried softly to himself.

Mary's father explained it to Mary.

"Mrs. Roberts has gone away," he said. "I went over to see her to-day.

We were depending on her to come over and take care of your mother--for a while--and now she has gone, and there is not another woman between here and the Landing."

"It's no use trying, Robert," Mrs. Wood said between her sobs; "I can't stay--I am so frightened. I am beginning to see things--and I know what it means. There are black things in every corner--trying to tell me something, grinning, jabbering things--that are waiting for me; I see them everywhere I look."

Mr. Wood sat down beside her, and patted her hand.

"I know, dear," he said; "it's h.e.l.l, this lonely life. It's too much for any woman, and I'll give it all up. Better to live on two meals a day in a city than face things like this. We wanted a home of our own, Millie,--you remember how we used to talk,--and we thought we had found it here--good land and a running stream. We have worked hard and it is just beginning to pay, but we'll have to quit--and I'll have to work for some one else all my life. It was too good to be true, Millie."

He spoke without any bitterness in his voice, just a settled sadness, and a great disappointment.

Suddenly the old dog began to bark with strong conviction in every bark, which indicated that he had really found something at last that was worth mentioning. There was a sudden jangle of sleighbells in the yard, and Mary's father went hastily to the door and called to the dog to be quiet. A woman walked into the square of light thrown on the snow from the open door, and asked if this was the place where a nurse was needed.

Mr. Wood reached out and took her big valise and brought her into the house, too astonished to speak. He was afraid she might vanish.

She threw off her heavy coat before she spoke, and then, as she wiped the frost from her eyebrows, she explained:--

"I am what is called a pioneer nurse, and I am sent to take care of your wife, as long as she needs me. You see the women in Alberta have the vote now, and they have a little more to say about things than they used to have, and one of the things they are keen on is to help pioneer women over their rough places. Your neighbor, Mrs. Roberts, on her way East, reported your wife's case, and so I am here. The Mounted Police brought me out, and I have everything that is needed."

"But I don't understand!" Mr. Wood began.

"No!" said the nurse; "it is a little queer, isn't it? People have spent money on pigs and cattle and horses, and have bonused railways and elevator companies, or anything that seemed to help the country, while the people who were doing the most for the country, the settlers' wives, were left to live or die as seemed best to them.

Woman's most sacred function is to bring children into the world, and if all goes well, why, G.o.d bless her!--but when things go wrong--G.o.d help her! No one else was concerned at all. But, as I told you, women vote now in Alberta, and what they say goes. Men are always ready to help women in any good cause, but, naturally enough, they don't see the tragedy of the lonely woman, as women see it. They are just as sympathetic, but they do not know what to do. Some time ago, before the war, there was an agitation to build a monument to the pioneer women, a great affair of marble and stone. The women did not warm up to it at all. They pointed out that it was poor policy to build monuments to brave women who had died, while other equally brave women in similar circ.u.mstances were being let die! So they sort of frowned down the marble monument idea, and began to talk of nurses instead.

"So here I am," concluded Mrs. Sanderson, as she hung up her coat and cap. "I am a monument to those who are gone, and the free gift of the people of Alberta to you and your wife, in slight appreciation of the work you are doing in settling the country and making all the land in this district more valuable. They are a little late in acknowledging what they owe the settler, but it took the women a few years to get the vote, and then a little while longer to get the woman's point of view before the public."

Mary Wood stood at her father's side while the nurse spoke, drinking in every word.

"But who pays?" asked Mary's father--"who pays for this?"

"It is all simple enough," said the nurse. "There are many millions of acres in Alberta held by companies, and by private owners, who live in New York, London, and other places, who hold this land idle, waiting for the prices to go up. The prices advance with the coming-in of settlers like yourself, and these owners get the benefit. The Government thinks these landowners should be made to pay something toward helping the settlers, so they have put on a wild-lands tax of one per cent of the value of the land; they have also put a telephone tax on each unoccupied section, which will make it as easy for you to get a telephone as if every section was settled; and they have also a hospital tax, and will put up a hospital next year, where free treatment will be given to every one who belongs to the munic.i.p.ality.

"The idea is to tax the wild land so heavily that it will not be profitable for speculators to hold it, and it will be released for real, sure-enough settlers. The Government holds to the view that it is better to make homes for many people than to make fortunes for a few people."

Mary's father sat down with a great sigh that seemed half a laugh and half a sob.

"What is it you said the women have now?" asked Mary.

The nurse explained carefully to her small but interested audience.

When she was done, Mary Wood, aged eleven, had chosen her life-work.

"Now I know what I'll be when I grow big," she said; "I intended to be a missionary, but I've changed my mind--I am going to be a Voter!"

CHAPTER VIII

"PERMISSION"

He walked among us many years, And yet we failed to understand That there was courage in his fears And strength within his gentle hand: We did not mean to be unkind, But we were dull of heart and mind!

But when the drum-beat through the night And men were called, with voice austere, To die for England's sake--and right, He was the first to answer, "Here!"

His courage, long submerged, arose, When at her gates, knocked England's foes!

And so to-day, where the brave dead Sleep sweetly amid Flemish bowers, One grave, in thought, is garlanded With prairie flowers!

And if the dead in realms of bliss Can think on those they knew below, He'll know we're sorry, and that this Is our poor way of saying so!

The war has put a new face on our neighborhood life; it has searched out and tried the hidden places of our souls, and strange, indeed, have been its findings. By its severe testings some of those who we thought were our strongest people have been abased, and some of the weak ones have been exalted. There were some of our people who were good citizens in the normal times of peace, but who could not stand against the sterner test of war; and then again we have found the true worth of some of those whom in our dull, short-sighted way we did not know!

Stanley Goodman came to our neighborhood when he was a lad of sixteen.

The Church of England clergyman, who knew his people in England, brought him to Mrs. Corbett, who kept the Black Creek Stopping House, and asked her if she could give him a room and look after him. He told her of the great wealth and social position of the family who were willing to pay well for the boy's keep.

"If they are as well off as all that," said Mrs. Corbett, "why are they sending the wee lad out here, away from all of them?"

The clergyman found it hard to explain. "It seems that this boy is not quite like the other members of the family--not so bright, I take it," he said; "and the father particularly is a bit disappointed in him!"

"Do you mean," said Mrs. Corbett, "that they are ashamed of the poor little fellow, and are sending him out here to get rid of him? Faith, if that's the kind of heathen there is in England I don't know why they send missionaries out here to preach to us. Bad and all as we are, there is none of us that would do the like of that!"

"They will provide handsomely for him in every way, Mrs. Corbett, and leave no wish ungratified," the minister said uneasily.

Mrs. Corbett was a difficult person in some ways.

"Oh, sure, they will give him everything but love and home, and that'll be what the poor wee lad will hunger for! Money is a queer thing for sure, when it will make a mother forget the child that she brought into the world!"

"I think the mother--from what I can gather--wanted to keep the boy, but the father is a very proud man, and this lad aggravated him some way just to see him, and the mother yielded to his wishes, as a true wife should, and for the sake of peace has withdrawn her objections."

"A poor soft fool, that's all she is, to let a domineering old reprobate send her poor lad away, just because he did not like to see him around, and him his own child! And even you, Mr. Tilton, who have been out here living with civilized people for three years, have enough of the old country way in you yet to say that a true wife should consent to this to please the old tyrant! Faith, I don't blame the Suffragettes for smas.h.i.+ng windows, and if I wasn't so busy feeding hungry men, I believe I would go over and give them a hand, only I would be more careful what I was smas.h.i.+ng and would not waste my time on innocent windows!"

"But you will take him, won't you, Mrs. Corbett? I will feel quite easy about him if you will!"

"I suppose I'll have to. I can't refuse when his own have deserted him! I would be a poor member of the Army if I did not remember Our Lord's promise to the poor children when their fathers and mothers forsake them, and I will try to carry it out as well as I can."

Stanley was soon established in the big white-washed room in Mrs.