Fraser and her husband seemed glad to see me when I visited. So were the twins. So, I think, was Jenny.
Pa had begun to tease me about my “Scottish lassie,” and even Ma would frequently ask about her. “As soon as the weather’s better, you must bring her for Sunday dinner,” she said. “It’s a long walk to our home in this cold, but once spring comes I expect to meet this young lady of yours.”
“She is not my ‘young lady,’” I said. “We’re just friends.” “Aye,” Pa said, winking at Ma.
“Indeed,” Ma said, winking back.
“I shall go outside to chop firewood,” I said, making a dignified retreat and hoping the back of my neck wasn’t as bright red as I knew my face was.
In March the pussy willows came out. I picked some and brought them to Jenny. She took them graciously but seemed puzzled. “These are sticks,” she said.
“No, look more closely. See the buds? They’re soft, like a cat’s fur.”
“Oh, they’re tiny pussy willows. Thank you.”
She still looked mystified. How could I explain to her that those soft buds meant spring was coming? That they were the first sign that other plants would bloom, that the creek would thaw, the snowbanks melt, that winter would end, no matter how long and hard it had been?
My mother always gathered an armful of pussy willows, placing them in vases around the house. “These are nature’s promise to those of us who live in this fearful climate,” she would say. “The promise that summer won’t forget us.”
Jenny dipped her head to sniff the branches, then looked up and smiled. “I smell spring. It’s been such a long winter— and it’s nae over yet—but when I smell these, I can smell spring. Thank you.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed me on the cheek.
“Me, too, me, too!” clamoured the Fraser twins.
“Oh, you want a kiss, too?” Jenny teased.
“No. Kittens. Little kittens.”
She handed them each a willow branch. “Poor dears. You want to be outdoors as much as I do. Don’t worry. Soon we can go out every day and you can pick your own sticks—or flowers.” Then she gasped. “There will be flowers, won’t there, Ted? Real ones? Flowers do grow in this dreich country?”
“Most definitely,” I said. “The Cariboo doesn’t always look so drab. There are many wildflowers here—golden dandelions, red paintbrush, tiny blue violets, orange tiger lilies, pink lady slippers, purple fireweed, soft white Saskatoon blossoms. Soon you’ll have all the flowers you want, Jenny.”
“It will never be soon enough. I’m most fearfully tired of winter.”
We were all tired of winter, but by April the snow on Barkerville’s main street was replaced by deep mud. It froze solid nearly every night, but by mid-afternoon it was thick and gooey, treacherous to foot passengers and horses alike. Between the buildings, however, the heaps of snow that had slid from the steep roofs all winter still reached higher than my head.
People began returning to the gold fields; the stagecoach was full almost every time it pulled up at Barnard’s Express office. Moses’s barbershop reopened, as did two of the general stores. Restaurants ordered new supplies, miners arrived, stocked up with provisions, and headed out to their claims. Winter’s back was broken, and Barkerville seemed to come alive again. More and more people braved the muddy streets to venture outside during the day.
By May we no longer had much frost at night. The piles of snow between the houses were almost gone, and the trees were leafing into a soft green. The mud grew deeper, especially after rain, but when the mud dried it became as hard as rock. Clumps of dried mud clung everywhere—to boots, to the hems of ladies’ skirts, to the bottoms of men’s trousers. But the sun shone, the days lengthened, and the robins returned. Spring had finally come.
Jenny and the twins now spent a great deal of time out of the house. “The bairns are so speeritie,” she said one day, sighing. “It is as much as I can do to keep them from running off.”
“Spirit tea? Is that something to drink, or is it another of your Scottish words?”
She laughed. “Nae to drink, you glaikit boy. It means having much energy.”
“Oh, I understand. Yes, the twins are energetic.”
“Indeed they are. Sometimes they have so much energy that I become tired. But if they run and play outdoors in the fresh air, then they go to bed early and sleep most soundly. So we spend much time outside these days, though I’m afraid I’ll lose one of them. They run quickly, and they like to hide.”
After thinking about Jenny and her two speeritie charges, I fashioned a sort of double “leash” for Andrew and Robert-two leather straps that attached around their waists and then to a belt encircling Jenny’s waist. My invention was a wonderful success. Jenny did complain that sometimes it seemed as if the boys, if they decided to head in opposite directions, would pull her apart. But she was grateful she could now safely take her charges for walks, without fear of them escaping. The sounds of their running feet, the fast thump of four small boots, followed by the lighter patter of Jenny’s feet as she followed—or was dragged—became a familiar sound along the boardwalks. The three of them often moved so quickly that passersby dodged out of their way, ducking into the shelter of doorways.
Although Bridget told me disapprovingly that “tearing about town like a wild animal” wasn’t ladylike behaviour and she wished her cousin wouldn’t do it, most of the townsfolk enjoyed seeing Jenny and the twins. There were only a few children in Barkerville; most of the miners had left their own families behind when they came to search for gold. So whenever the three young people made their frequent appearances on the streets, they brought smiles to many faces.
At Bridget’s urging, though, I suggested to Jenny that perhaps she should try to slow down, to walk rather than run when she and the twins were in public. But she laughed. “I will nae be bothered by what a bunch of nosy glib gabbits say,” she said. “If some women have naught better to do but gossip, well, let them. I’m doing nothing wrong.”
She didn’t have to explain to me what a glib gabbit was. I had met a few of them myself, people who would rather gossip about others than mind their own business.
I went to the Fraser home for dinner regularly now, and afterward Jenny and I strolled together, breathing deeply of the soft air, slapping at the mosquitoes and black flies that, like us, were enjoying the spring weather. Jenny visited the carpentry shop often, sometimes bringing with her fresh biscuits or a slice of cake. Pa was very fond of the little boys and kept a box of wooden scraps for them in a corner of the shop. The children called these their “blocks” and stacked the bits of wood into towers, or built roads and walls with them, while Jenny shared a cup of tea—and, of course, conversation—with us.
“She’s a fine lass,” my father said, “but she does blether on.”
“She does not blether, and besides, I like the sound of her voice,” I said defensively. “It’s like a song.”
“Aye, it’s musical, granted. But she does use it a great deal.”
Much as I cared for Jenny, I had to admit Pa was right.
But
