Mother was more than a meddler. Call her a tyrantess. My father Cameron Myles she badgered til he took the only honourable way out–signing up for the Gordon Highlanders, the regiment garrisoned in Victoria, the capital city, stuck way down at the heel of Vancouver Island. Shipped overseas, he was quick to give up the ghost. Lance Corporal Myles, dug in deep like a vole, got strangled by a poison fog slithering out of the Hun lines. I stayed behind on the farm. His tree stumps, gnarled and witch-haired, I pulled. Wreckage I piled and torched. His ditches I mucked out, leaving a sludge boot-lace deep. His posts I pounded into clay. The clobbered alder stuck fast. And between those posts I strung barbed wire taut as a choker. That kept his stock in the field and the rovers out. I stayed, though I was rangy enough to be taken by a recruiter. But Mother treated me no better for being steadfast.
Usually I kept my yap clamped tight as a mudflat clam. Despite Mother’s prying–her jimmying. But one moony night over a cold supper, she started muttering about how she just didn’t get me. My father had been red-blooded enough to take her on. He didn’t shilly-shally about. They first met in the early days of harvest, when she stepped in for her own father who was dickering poorly, losing ground with a stump farmer over a used harness. Poor tack it was, tarnished and shredded, and she drove the price down to a steal. My future father was at market for a lark, not buying or selling that day. But her hard-headed haggling caught his eye. He took a shine to how she went after a good bargain like a black lab after a gunshot goose. So he introduced himself and they soon hopped to it–getting churched before the weather turned cold. Her Ronny didn’t turn tail til he was past forty, hustling off to Flanders in a khaki kilt. But as she saw it her own son, not even twenty, was quitting the field of females before he even got started.
She was getting to me. I started to give way but clenched my jaw.
She went on about how she just didn’t understand why I was steering clear of the ladies–whether I couldn’t be bothered or was just bone lazy.
Taking good aim she was and hammering home. Like a crowbar busting open a barred door. I stammered how I meant to wait. How I was hanging back til the girl was out of school.
Mother’s mouth twisted and her left eyebrow, black as chimney brush, rose. What girl? I coughed up the name.
Mother told me flat out she didn’t think much of my choice, Ruth Bertram. She didn’t care for that fluff of a girl, especially when Lotte Marshall–whose parents held the best bottomland on Vancouver Island–was willing. I was told how Lotte’s own mother confided loudly every time they met up at a church social how willing her daughter was. How Lotte had saved up a fancy trousseau piled high as a haystack, and how, being the only daughter of two ageing parents, she wouldn’t wander far. Before you knew it, my mother claimed, the old folks would be planted ten feet under and I’d be turning black sod on a first-rate farm.
To my mind, getting hitched to the Marshall girl would be like being buried alive in her hope chest. I saw myself slaving away like a hired hand on that soggy bottomland for long years til I came into my own farm when my widowed mother finally kicked the bucket. She wouldn’t be perishing any time soon. Her own granny outlasted two loafing husbands, five shiftless sons, and eight grandsons, all slackers. And my slogging for a Marhall bride would get me nothing. The Marshall place would go to their eldest son Sidney, unless he drowned first in that bog of a farm. It was no prize holding but a sorry spread, mostly flood plain, hard by the river. You’d need an ark more than a barn down there. Not that I said any of this aloud.
Mother said I was being mulish. She griped about how she was tired of having me underfoot all
the time, and how I ought to be pointing my spade at a grown woman like Lotte instead of lolling about, mooning after a schoolgirl whose cedar chest was likely stuffed only with moldy old books.
Though I had lived with a human hurricane my whole life, it just didn’t occur to me that my mother might rush out and put Ruthie to the test. Mother was no matchmaker of mine come market day when she marched over to the neighboring farm to catch the girl alone. After, she delighted in telling me about the whole disaster. Knock down a fence, Mother had said to the girl, and we’re more than neighbours. Mother admitted to Ruthie she was fixed on getting me off her hands fast but let it slip she wasn’t at all keen on having a Bertram as a daughter-in-law. As Mother told it, by the end of the spiel, that red-lipped chit looked flabbergasted. The girl’s mouth gaped like a hooked rock cod.
Likely Ruthie had no clue about my plans until Mother took to wooing. Mother knew her words would spook the girl good and warn her off. But my mother had bulled in. Too far. Without my say-so she’d horned in. So I had to tell her, for the first time ever, to step back and get out of my business.
She scowled, soot under a cold stone brow. Six days in a row she burnt my porridge black. Only on the Lord’s Day were the oats safe from a scorching. She kept working me over, warning how my intended had no feelings for me at all, how the whole Valley knew the schoolgirl was smitten with her wavy-haired schoolmaster. And that I should take neither hope nor comfort in the ironclad fact that the teacher was all heart-sick for Esme Fathom, the Anglican Minister’s brand-new second wife, who danced like a hurdy-gurdy girl and who smelled even showier than the store-bought blooms did at the first wife’s funeral. Because, Mother insisted, young Ruthie was a goose: the girl knew nothing of the ways of men. She was blind to the facts–and stuck fast on the schoolmaster. Like a fruitfly in corn syrup. Besides, Mother claimed, she’d told the missy that I was the kind of man who was too dull–and maybe even too idle–to do his own romancing. And she recited how she complained to Ruthie about how the chore of wooing had fallen, as all tiresome tasks did, to her, the woman-of-the-house. She, my mother, wasn’t just the go-between; she was a drover, the “go-git- ‘er.” So, Mother urged me, I ought to take her advice and throw over Ruthie Bertram for Lottie Marshall, who lived on loamy land easy to plow, and who kept safe a hope chest foaming over with fine-spun bed linens, calico quilts and needlepoint doilies.
But I wasn’t keen to listen. I saw I had to step up and start courting quick before Mother’s meddling had me roping the heifer she cut out for me. And I had a plan but no words to back it up. I was a rough sort with only a bit of schooling. Six years in grade school is more than enough for working a farm, Mother had always said. I’d heard Ruthie loved her poetry–but I knew nothing about verse except the first few lines of “God Save the King” and some snatches from the Psalms like “Lay me down in green pastures.” So I swallowed my pride and wandered up to the schoolhouse after classes to haggle with the teacher. For my part of the barter, I’d haul and split a winter’s worth of wood: a deal in kind.
“I’ll swap ya four cords for the right words,” said I.
The wavy-haired teacher stood tall and grand in the doorway to the schoolhouse with his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his blue satin vest. Smiling like a riverboat gambler, he asked, “Whatever for?” “I’ll be doing some, er, courting. I’m aiming for the top-notch kind. Of keeping company. And Iheard poetry is a sure-fire way.”
“I see. And what sort of poetry does the young lady, ah, favour?” “Dunno. But I know how she looks to me.”
“How’s that?” I hesitated.
“Come on, man.” He grinned. “Out with it.”
I blurted, “She’s got a kisser on her–just like a cherry.”
“Ah,” he answered, then dashed into the schoolroom, and strode back waving a leather-bound book. “Herrick!” he almost hollered. “Now there’s a poet for courting and sparking!”
The teacher dusted off the top plank of the schoolhouse steps. Then he pinched the front pleat of each baggy pant leg, hitching the cloth up, and plunked himself down. He had me hunch over to follow along. But he soon took to reciting so loud, like a preacher in a pulpit, that I swivelled my head around to make sure nobody was nosing about:
Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry,Full and fair ones; come and buy. And if you ask me where They grow, I answer: There Where my Julia’s lips do smile; There’s the land, or cherry-isle, Whose plantations fully show All the year where cherries grow.
“I’ll buy,” said I, “Though her name’s not Julia, I can make it fit.”
The schoolmaster snickered, then pointed out in his teacherish way, “Her name won’t scan. Not a monosyllable like–Ruth.”
I accused, “You knew. From the start.”
“The whole Valley knows. Your mother’s was traipsing around telling anybody who cares to listen about how the impertinent snippet turned her down.”
The thought of all those tattlers gabbing about my own business made me steaming mad. But I held my temper and asked him to hear me read. The teacher corrected me til I had it passable.
I promised, “I’ll be back with an axe and wedge.”
“No,” he said. “I shouldn’t be putting a price on it, on poetry.”
“You sure?” I asked but I didn’t argue. Cause it wasn’t a fair swap to start with. A fellow just reading out of a book don’t work up a sweat. Not a drop. And, after splitting even one cord in exchange, I’d have been drenched.
But I spoke up on something else, barking away like my own mother who was famous all over the Valley for speaking her mind. Big-hearted she was in handing out opinions by the shovelful. She had a take on most things. Her every say-so was given out like a favour, whether she was scheming at the time or plain-dealing.
Straight to his face, I accused, “Bet you’d take the poetry over the real person, wouldn’t ya?”
The apple sure don’t tumble far. I was blaring away loud and smug as the woman-of-the-house. All I needed was a big calico apron to curl my fists in. But the schoolteacher just sighed and tugged the forelock of his ripplely hair.
It took me a good week of reciting to get the words right. Sure, my head and tongue were out of kilter at first but I worked on the poem steady, even when mucking out the barn. A top-notch set of gear I ordered to match the words. Nothing run-of-the-mill for me. Special-rush-ordered it was through Proctor’s. But I learned that hovering around the store don’t make a shipment come in any quicker. And that people do talk–about how the hardworking son of a hard-talking woman can turn loafer. The order moved slow and by the time I got word the packets were in, I had spit-polished those lines. I hustled down to Proctor’s. That stack of parcels tied up with twine, those would be my courting clothes, fresh in by ferry and rail from Frisco. Inside one of these packages would be what I was counting on most as gear–a blue satin vest glossy as the waistcoat of the most high-falutin’ gentleman caller. Too eager to wait til I got home, I ripped at a corner of the most likely parcel–judging by its size. But the colour that shone through was not true blue but a blaring fire engine red.
“Took a peek myself,” drawled the owner Proctor, leaning thick elbows on his saw-board counter and propping up his bulldog jowls with both chunky palms, “just ta make sure nuttin’ was damaged–and nuttin’ was ‘cept the colour. The wife calls it crimson. Though some might call it hussy red.” Then he dropped his paws off his doggy jowls and hardy-harred.
Picking up my goods, I hot-footed it home. I hauled water for a three-bucket bath, though it wasn’t Saturday night, and gave my back and knees a good scouring. I wrestled into the gear. Soon I was slicked up and ready for sport. All afternoon I watched out for Ruthie. Then I spotted her heading up to the spur road. Her step was brisk. Her straw hat bobbing as she bounced along. Scrambling, I got to the end of our lane without a spill. Then taking long strides, my new Oxford bags whiffling around my legs, I caught up to her on the road.
“Ruthie–Miss Bertram,” I greeted her, doffing my rabbit-felt Homburg hat and knocking the creased crown against my knee.
She turned and drew herself up, raising a hand to touch her hat strings. I let my linen jacket and my wool Ulster fall open to show off my vest, ruddy as a spring robin.
She answered stiffly, “Er. Hallo. Er. Alfie.”
Nervous, I wiped my left hand against my thick coat. “I’m going by Alfred now,” said I. “More refined.” There was a crack of a smile. “So. Alfred.”
“Not that you called me much of anything. Before. Not even Alfie. Much. So it should be easy for you to call me something else. You weren’t in a rut. At all. Over my name.”
She paused, then answered, “True.”
And I just stood there, like a scarecrow, raggedy-headed and stuffed with straw. She said, “So. Er. Then. Good-bye.”
She took one two three steps away.
All in a rush, I blustered, “So I’ve been learning some poetry, seeing I’m more refined now.” She turned about. Big-eyed as a pine squirrel, she looked me over.
And I launched into Herrick, putting in, for effect, extra helpings of “ripe ripe ripe.”
At the end she looked wholly astonished, as if a toad had hopped up to her and sung like a lark. But I felt grand, getting all the way to, “All the year where cherries grow,” without a stumble. And I knew I looked grand, not a loose thread on my coat, not a kink in my hair–and sporting a vest like the first sunrise of spring.
Grinning, I asked, “There’s a dance Saturday night. Will you go with me now that I’m refined?” She spoke slow like she was stepping across mucky ground, “But I’ve never been.”
Quick to answer I was. “Me neither. But I figure, after reciting, prancing up and down in a clean-swept barn otta be easy.”
“Er. Ah. All right,” she said.
So I did some practicing up for the dance. Next few nights I was in the cow pasture after sundown, whirling about like a maple seed. Then, turns out I was as light on my feet as she was easy on the eyes. So I kept inviting Ruthie to dances from Cumberland to Qualicum til there was no kind of asking left, apart from one question–which I wouldn’t be leaving to the tyrantess to ask again.
So before I put the question to the girl, I decided to have a chin-wag with the master once more. And I tracked him down after supper. He sat, long legs sprawled out, on the plank floor of the schoolhouse, with a bottle of kill-devil, the top half gone, in his mitt.
“She won’t run away with me,” the teacher moaned, his hair tossed and stormy. “Esme told me she’d miss her comfortable pew.”
“Bah,” I answered, hunkering down on the floor with him. “The woman’s wedded. Like you’d really want another man’s mare. Who’s used to taking the same old path to pasture every living day. Though she might crop a daisy or two along the way.”
Handy in my pocket I found my own flask of fancy man’s drink, London dry gin. I leaned over and offered him a swig.
He took the flask, praising me, “My good man, you’re right. Like yourself, I need to find a fine young, ah, filly.”
“And,” he took a slug, “I like your manner of speaking.”
Passing the drink back, he cuffed me on the shoulder with his other hand. Rum and sloe gin, a bad boozy mix, had him slurring a word or two, “You, you show a touch of poesy.”
Being a greenhorn at all this, I asked him how best to put the question.
“Never asked it myself, not exactly, never out loud,” the schoolmaster admitted. There was a lull. A spell of quiet. Except the glug of drink.
Then he lurched to his feet, crowing, “Got it. You could ask her to solve a riddle and if she can’t give the answer, well … she’s yours.”
He yakked on, a tipsy lilt to his tongue, “Confounding a bride, winning her through a confusing riddle or a love-crazed wager, goes a long ways back. Time-honoured. From the high age of heroes. Your Ruth knows about riddling contests from the old tales–a princess robbed of her night robe and the chieftain’s daughter leaving her plaid in a fortune-hunter’s fist. So how about a baffling rhyme?–
"A one-legged lass In a red petticoat,A shine on her cheek, And a stone in her throat.”
With my cracked nails I scratched away at my scalp, which does wonders for shifting nits but nothing for thoughts. I asked for a hint, which he refused.
Stumped, I griped, “What in the blazes is the answer?”
He gave me the solution, got me to repeat the puzzler til I knew it like an old saw, then added almost soberly, “Alfred, when you’re courting, you needn’t get so gussied up. Only the likes of me have to be dandies, strutting about in fancy duds.”
So, this time wearing home-laundered clothes, at ease in a warm meadow, I wooed my lady. I spouted some more poetry, then offered to do some riddling with her at a price. Fixed. No haggling. And winner take all. Truth be told, I had my doubts about romancing through riddles. But by then I knew how Ruthie loved sass and silliness. She didn’t need any coaxing at fun.
Tossing her hay-coloured hair, she laughed gaily at the rules of the deal, saying, “I’m not a girl to turn down a challenge.”
She heard out the whole brain-wringer. For a while she hummed, tilting her head to and fro. Then, batting spidery lashes at me, she pleaded for “just a bit of a tip, a smidgen of a clu-oo-ue.”
Coldly, I gave her none. She pouted. Frowned. Then her lips pursed. Cinched tight. Drawing back her thin shoulders, she tilted up her nub of a chin. She gave me a snippy look.
The corner of my mouth started to twitch with triumph. Until she let slip, “Cherry.”
I ho-ho-hoed at her play-acting. Wasn’t she the wily one? Hoodwinking me. Shamming at being bamboozled. Looking all knotted up. When the riddle was just a highwayman’s hitch in her hand. A breeze to tug loose. But there was no real ranting from me. I took my lumps, admitting loudly that she was the brainy one. She’d come out ahead even against my own widowed mother, who sure was an old fox. Ruthie judged I was a good loser, the mark of a sound husband. She’d bested me–and she’d be my missus. And I swore to stick by her. I wouldn’t be running off to any Great War, if one ever came up again, though I’d never been even a mile offshore. She claimed to have not one worry in her head about me straying. She always knew I was steady. Keeping my hand on the plow. For her, the clincher was my ranking of her smarts above the widow’s. And surely not my reciting.
So my own true words sealed the deal. Not second-hand sweetness. Not fruit stole off a high branch.
Nothing borrowed or showy or sly.