A Ribbon of Shining Steel Page 7

  The mail finally came through with a parcel from Grandma Forrest. Three birthday presents — one for Toby, one for Andrew and one for me. I wish England were closer. Our presents always arrive too early or too late. Eventually they do arrive, and for that I am thankful.

  Saturday, January 27

  Washed hair — and it is still not dry, even though I’ve been brushing it by the fire for what seems like half a day.

  Once a fortnight is far too frequent for this chore. Wash with borax and olive oil, rinse in cold water, apply two egg yolks and rinse again. What an ordeal! Mama says I’ll be thankful one day, as my hair is my most attractive feature.

  I think not. It is too long and thick and wavy and brown — brunette, says Mama — and it has an unruly mind of its own. Why can’t it be straight and fair like Anne’s?

  I read an article in Girl’s Own Paper that says “the secret to having a good head of hair is to cultivate a calm and unruffled frame of mind.” If this is true, I must surely be the exception.

  February 1883

  Saturday, February 3

  I love it when Papa is home. Last night we played Charades and Parcheesi and cracked nuts by the fire.

  This morning he told us the railway news — six Chinese workers died at Camp 14, from scurvy. When I asked why they did not go to the Hospital before it was too late, he reminded me that the Hospital is only for accidents. Even if white railway workers are sick they can’t go into the Yale Hospital. But they can go to the one in Lytton. He also told us that seven more Chinese died below Hope.

  Toby said, “You mean they were beyond hope?”

  He meant it as a joke but it wasn’t funny and nobody laughed.

  After lunch, Papa went to visit Mr. Hagan. He tells him the railway news so it gets printed in Thursday’s Sentinel. Sometimes when I help Mr. Hagan set the type I see the news I already know.

  Wednesday, February 7

  On Sunday Papa went back to work but he is home again already! He says it is too stormy and cold for railway work — the Chinese workers stay inside their tents and the engines can’t run because of the snow and ice on the rails.

  I think it is too stormy and cold for anything. The wind could shave a bear let alone a mouse. At least our house is cozy, especially since Papa and Andrew filled the cracks around the windows. Now the wind can whistle all it likes. It can’t get inside.

  Thursday, February 8

  Here is a riddle I read in the Sentinel:

  Why are young ladies at the breaking up of a party like arrows?

  Because they can’t go off without a beau and are in a quiver till they get one.

  I told Papa I did not understand and he said I would soon enough. Which was NOT a helpful answer.

  One week till my birthday.

  Friday, February 9

  I’m happy Papa is home. The Salmon River Bridge is even longer and higher than the last one.

  Monday, February 12

  Papa has gone again. Why couldn’t he stay home until my birthday? I hate the railway. I wish they would get it finished once and for all.

  Tuesday, February 13

  Splendid day! Sunshine, sledding and a letter from Rachel. Tucked inside was a handkerchief she embroidered for my birthday. It has pink hearts and blue and yellow flowers in the corners. It is very fine — even Mama was impressed. Rachel was all thumbs when it came to embroidery, even thumbier than me.

  She told me all about Angela College and her new friends, and how much she misses her horse. So could I please go to the farm and give Fireweed a good fast canter and a kiss on the nose.

  I hope I can. But sometimes Spuzzum seems as far away as Victoria. And Victoria might as well be in England.

  Only 2 days until my birthday. I’ll be thirteen.

  Thursday, February 15, 1883

  Today is my birthday — but it did not start out very nicely. Last night the water pipes froze all over town so everyone was out with buckets carrying water from the river, including me.

  I had a wonderful birthday, once I finished hauling water. When I got to school, Anne gave me a white linen handkerchief like the one I received from Rachel, but instead of embroidery, she crocheted lace around the edges. I told Anne it was such a fine piece of work she should have sent it to Princess Louise instead of giving it to me. She looked very pleased.

  Rusty gave me a card with a poem he wrote himself. It says:

  The rose is red

  The violets blue

  Pinks are pretty

  And so are you.

  He blushed when he gave it to me and I must have blushed, too, for my face certainly felt hot. It feels hot just thinking about it. And it is almost the end of the day.

  Andrew gave me a picture of a mountain that he made with pyrography and Grandma Forrest sent me a pretty thimble and a whole new set of Girl’s Own Papers. Mama and Papa gave me a silver locket in the shape of a heart.

  Toby gave me something unexpected — my jade rock! Cut in half and polished! He said he cut it with an axe — along with the tip of his thumb (a Toby Joke) — then polished the two cut edges with an emery board. It really looks like a precious stone now.

  Mama made a cream cake with lemon frosting and I was just about to blow out my candles when in walked Papa. It was a perfect surprise.

  Later

  Now I have the biggest surprise of all. Mama just came in to kiss me good night and told me that come September, I’ll have a new baby brother or sister. Please let it be a sister.

  Friday, February 16

  Mama told me that I will soon be a woman and there are some things I should know. So she told me. But she can’t have told me everything because I’m terribly confused. To go through the misery she described, every month for years and years and years? The thought is unbearable. I refuse to write another word about it. Not even when the dreaded event takes place.

  I wish I could have stayed twelve forever. I’m certain that Rachel feels the same, although she has been thirteen since June and may be quite used to it by now. The next time I write I’ll ask her how she feels.

  Saturday, February 17

  I cut out a piece from the Sentinel a while ago and I’m copying it into my Diary as a way of practising my Penmanship. Here it is. (A lady wrote it, not Mr. Hagan.)

  Upon the whole, it is a dreadful bother to be a woman, and to do the business up in good shape.

  In the first place, You’ve got to look well, or else you’re nobody. A man may be homely, and still popular. Whiskers cover up most of his face, and if he has a large mouth nobody mistrusts it; and if he has wrinkles on his forehead, his friends speak of his many cares, and of his thoughtful disposition, and tell each other that his wrinkles are lines of thought. Lines of thought, indeed, when in all probability his forehead is wrinkled by the habit he has of scowling at his wife when the coffee isn’t strong enough.

  Papa never scowls at Mama.

  A woman can’t go out alone, because she must be protected. She can’t go anywhere when it rains, because her hair won’t stay crimped

  What is crimped hair? If I had crimped hair would I still have to wash it once a fortnight in egg yolks?

  and she will get mud on her petticoats and things. She can’t be a Free Mason, because she would tell their secrets and everybody would know about that goat and that gridiron.

  Goat and gridiron? I do not understand. Now my fingers have writing cramps so I’ll finish another time.

  Sunday, February 18

  Church.

  Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner — and I made the Yorkshire pudding. It was done to a turn, although a little too brown on top. But nobody scowled.

  Here is some more about being a woman:

  She can’t smoke because it wouldn’t be feminine.

  Who would want to? Toby dared me once and I did and it made me sick.

  She can’t go courting, because it is unwomanly. But she must get married before 30, or people will sigh and wonder why the men don�
��t seem to take, and all the old maids and widows will smile significantly and keep quiet.

  Why do they smile significantly?

  It is everybody’s business who a woman marries. They put their heads together and talk over the pros and cons and decide whether she is good enough for him. And they criticize the shape of her nose and the way she does up her hair and relate how lazy her grandfather was and how her Aunt Sally sold beans and buttermilk.

  I love buttermilk. What is the harm in selling it?

  A woman must wear No. 2 boots on No. 3 feet, and she must manage to dress well on seventy-five cents a week; she mustn’t be vain and she must be kind to the poor, and go regularly to the sewing society meetings, and be ready to dress dolls, make aprons and tidies for church fairs.

  Mama does all that (except for wearing undersized boots) and helps at the Accident Hospital. Altho’ she is not helping quite so much any more because of the Baby.

  She must hold herself in continual readiness to find everything her husband has lost — and a man never knows where anything is. He will put his boots away on the parlour sofa, and when he has hunted for them half an hour he will appear to his wife with a countenance like that of an avenging angel and demand to know “What she has done with his boots?”

  Just like my brothers.

  She must shut all the doors after her lord and master, and likewise the bureau drawers, for a married man was never known to shut a drawer. It would be as natural for a hen to go in swimming for recreation.

  We might go on indefinitely with the troubles being a woman brings; and if there is a man in the world who thinks that a woman has an easy time of it, why just let him pin a pound of false hair to his head, and get inside a new pair of corsets and put on a pull-back overskirt, and be a woman himself, and see how he likes it.

  Great Galoshes, I’d like to see Papa try. Or my brothers.

  Thursday, February 22

  The snow is disappearing. We are back to rain and dark, gloomy weather, like my mood. At least the water is running in the pipes again. No more Bucket Brigades to the river.

  I’m exceedingly sad about Rachel being in Victoria. I may never see her again. Mama says of course I’ll see her, she has not moved away for good, her parents are still in Spuzzum so she’ll be back for holidays and Victoria is not the end of the Earth, we can write letters, we will always be friends, and so on. But it won’t be like that, I know it won’t, because the same thing happened the time I left Ottawa and the time before that when we moved from Toronto. I hate moving away and leaving my friends, and I hate it when my friends do the same. It is not fair.

  I told Mama we are like corks on the water, tossed about higgledy-piggledy by the whims of our parents and the wretched railway. She merely smiled and told me I was being melodramatic. At that I burst into tears and came up to my room. She never takes me seriously.

  Friday, February 23

  Today Mama said she understands how I feel because once upon a time she was my age. She said that life does not always turn out the way you want it to, but I’ll make many new friends — like Anne, for instance — and it is all right to have a good cry. Then she made me a cup of tea.

  I felt the time had come. While we were having our tea, I told her that I would like to go to Angela College after all. She said, “Angela College? We were never planning to send you to Angela College. Wherever did you get that idea?”

  So I told her. She said I had taken a few words out of context and created a story that wasn’t true — a perfect example of why one should never listen in on conversations. LESSON LEARNED.

  She admitted that she and Papa had once thought of sending me to a girls’ school in England — the same one she had attended — but they could not afford the cost. As for Angela College, they had known for some time that Rachel’s parents were sending her there. The conversation I’d overheard might have been the time they were talking about Rachel and wondering how she would manage at the College, being “as wild as Kate,” and how it would take some doing to turn Rachel into a lady.

  So there it is, and what a fine kettle of fish. I leap before I look and jump to conclusions, all for naught. For months I’ve been agonizing over Angela College — first dreading, then anticipating — and wasting time on the mastery of Social Graces. I would have been better off learning pyrography. Or plunging deeper into Mental Arithmetic. ANOTHER LESSON LEARNED.

  Mama told me she would never send me away, she would miss me too much. And she would certainly never send me away now, because she needs me at home. Because — and this is a revelation — because after my sisters died there were two other times when she was expecting a baby. And each time she lost the baby before it was even born. This time, she is counting on me to take over much of the cooking and cleaning so that she can rest and keep the Baby safe.

  Now I’m weary of talk and revelations. I’m going to see if Toby wants a game of Checkers before bed.

  Saturday, February 24

  Papa is home with sad news — two more Chinese workers died from scurvy. The other day Mr. Hagan said it is dreadful that the railway does not take better care of them since it is the railway that brought them here. I mentioned this to Papa and he said there is nothing he can do, he is not in charge.

  Then he said that some Chinese business people in Yale formed a society called the Benevolent Society and they are going to open a hospital in Yale or somewhere on the railway line for the Chinese who get sick or injured.

  Toby said he had heard about corpses floating down the river because the bodies were not properly buried. Papa said it was only a rumour.

  I like the sound of the word, benevolent. It means doing good.

  Monday, February 26

  Finch fell through the ice and it serves him right. We were skating after school and Finch started a game of Red Rover, boys against the girls. Anne insisted we call him over so we did and he broke through our line and picked me. On the way back to the boys’ side he gave me a push and I went flying off on my own.

  There was a loud CRACK and everybody screamed and I turned around and Finch was in the pond. It is not a deep pond but he was soaked up to his waist. Good thing he pushed me on ahead or I would have gone down, too.

  After that we came home and Mama made us hot cocoa. Rusty came over to read some Boy’s Own Papers with Toby, but he played Parcheesi with me instead. Toby played, too.

  Tuesday, February 27

  Rain. Snow slides. No more skating.

  In school today I skipped ahead in my Reader and read all about the Taking of Quebec on the Plains of Abraham. Here is something I discovered about General Wolfe. As he prepared his men to attack the French, he recited lines from Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard,” one of the many English poems Mama compelled us to memorize during our period of home schooling. This is how the poem ends: The paths of glory lead but to the grave. It was truly prophetic because General Wolfe was killed on the battlefield. General Montcalm was mortally wounded and died the next day. But there is no mention of the poem he may have recited.

  Wednesday, February 28

  More snow slides today. They sound like explosives.

  I wanted to help Mr. Hagan after school but Mama said it was high time I had a new coat. So off we tramped through mud and slush to Kwong Lee’s because all the winter goods are on sale. Nothing fit and I was so cross — and then Rusty walked in, just as Mama was saying, “Katie, you’re growing in all directions at once.” HUMILIATION! Especially when Rusty smiled. I wanted to bury my head in ice.

  March 1883

  Thursday, March 1

  March is in like a lamb instead of a lion and the roads are drying up. Today I walked to school without squishing and sloshing.

  Mama told me there is now a Chinese Hospital in Yale, set up in Sam Sing’s house in Chinatown. He runs the laundry where Mama sometimes sends our washing.

  I do not know how Mama can say I’m growing in all directions. Upwards, yes, but outwards? I’m still as fl
at as a flounder.

  Friday, March 2

  Mr. Hagan says a newspaperman must be objective and not allow his personal beliefs to colour what he reports. But he should practise what he preaches. This is what he said in last week’s Sentinel:

  Why no more interest is felt for the semi-slaves of China is somewhat surprising. No medical attention is furnished nor apparently much interest felt for these poor creatures. We understand Mr. Onderdonk declines interfering, while the Lee Chuck Co., that brought the Chinamen from their native land, refuses to become responsible for doctors and medicine. Surely some action should be taken by the locals, if not for the sake of the unfortunate Chinamen themselves but for the protection of the white population.

  Saturday, March 3

  Four more Chinese died of scurvy.

  Friday, March 9

  Papa came home and I showed him what Mr. Hagan wrote. He said it is brave but foolhardy for Mr. Hagan to write such things. None of the other newspapers in the province would be so bold, for fear of losing their readers. He says no one wanted the Chinese to come, but everyone wants the railway. And the railway cannot be built without them.

  Mama asked Papa what shape the Wagon Road is in and Papa said bad shape. But it would be in good order by spring and then he would take me to Aspen Hill Farm to give Fireweed a good gallop. I’d told him about Rachel’s request weeks ago and he remembered. He said, “I’ll take my favourite girl.”