The grace of kindness and friendship. I first saw the Mulligans one burning hot day in July the year I was eleven and Maggie was nine. Its long sgo now, but I remember every detail of how it was. That was out second summer in the every detail of how it was. That was our second summer in the Rainy River Valley, and I remember Mother standing tall and straight in the open doorway of the new squeared-log house, with her skirts pinned up at the sides to keep the hem free of dust. Come, fetch me a pail of creek water, she called to Maggie and me. She held the pail out, and Maggie ran and took it, swinging it by the handle. Now hold it on its side and let it dill slowly and dont rile the water, Mother said. We got water that was clear enough, but the creek flowed through muskeg, and it was amber, not crystal. We set the pail upon the bank, hard and brown with drought that year. Then, holding our skirts and petticoats high, we waded into the creek for a few minutes of sensual delight in its gasping coldness and in the silken feel of mud between our toes. The day was silent and still with heat, and we eased our way along, pushing sluggish, soundless waves ahead of us, absrbes in their changing patterns of light and shadow. After a time we sensed, rather than heared, someone come and atand on the bank above, and looking up, we saw a child a stranger. She was three, perhaps four,, and elflike, with a small, pointed face and large, solemn dark eyes. She stood perfectly still, hands clasped in front of her faded calico skirt, bare toes curled against the prickly grass. For a moment surprise toonguw-tied both Maggie and me, for we got to see our known neighbors seldom enough., and strangers almost never. Then Maggie, always quicker than I, hissed in my ear, She can be the little girl when we play house! She called out a welcoming Hello, and bagan to scramble up the bank. The child did not speak or smile but unclasped her hands caught the sides of her skirt and retreated a few steps, her eyes never leaving us. Dont go away, entreated Maggie, We want to play with you. At that moment we heared a mans voice calling, Nellie, Nellie, and the little girl turned instantly and ran. When we got to the top of the bank we could see two figures a little distance sown the tote road-a man, stocky and square and with a heavy, bearded face, and a woman, slight and frail like the chils. They were carrying lard pails, and we knew tthey must have been up on the rock picking blueberries. Maggie called outHello again and waved her hand, but they turned quite as if they had neither heared nor seen us and, with the child trailing after, disappeared in a twist of the trail. Maggie and I, surprise still weighing our toungues, took our pail of water up to the house in silence, then burst upon Mother with a flood of words. I dont know who they might be, Mother mused, pouring the water into a pan for warming. I havent heared of anyone coming in, or anyone down the line expecting visitors. We learned more about the strangers two days later. Father took the wagon and four miles out the road to Alex Stewarts for flour and tea and the mail. Their names Mulligan, he explained to Mother on his return, and Stewart says they came in with their stuff piled into the back of an old broken-down democrat behind the sorriest-looking horse he has been in a lifetime. They gave cash for their groceries, even when he told them hes give credit till the timber came out in the fall. Theyve taken Bill McCulloughs place. That misreable shack? There was genuine alarm in Mothers voice. The rats took it over when Bill left. Now Ada, theyve all summer to build. This was no palace when we came, remember. Stewart said his wife invited them in for a cup of tea, but Mulligan said no thanks, theys best be on, and the woman said not a word, but sat starring straight shead.Most unfriendly, Stewart said. He asked where they come from and Mulligan answered back East without a word more, and cleared out I think, Ada, wed do well to just let the Mulligans be. But Mother was not one to let anyone be. Spurred by her own loneliness and the compassion that was the hartcore of her nature, she baked a pan of buns, and set out along the trail to the McCullough place with Maggie and me tagging along. Wed been there before, in winter bouncing over snow-covered stumps on the stoneboat, in spring picking our way carefully along the edgesof water-filled holes. This day the trail was summer-shady and filled with birdsong. The McCullogh shack looked deserted. Weeds grew among the stumps pf the little clearing right to the very door. But there was a horse gazing behind the poplar-pole stable and wisp of smoke rose from the stovepipe that was thrust through the roof.We expected someone to notice us and open the door, but nothing stirred; so Mother tapped lighly and called out. We listenedand thought we heared a faint rustling within. Mother tapped again while Maggie and I peered around the sides of the shack and scanned the fringes of the bush. All was silence. They must be away picking berries, Mother said at last, and set her pan of buns on the doorstep. We turned away, but when we reached the spot where tha path dipped into the bush I looked bak at the window of the lonely little cabin and caught a fleeting glimpse of a tiny pale face. Mother! I gasped her sleeve. Shes there, inside- the little girl! But now the window gave an ampty share. Im sure I saw her, I said, denying my own creeping doubt. Mother shook her head. You must have imagined it. The sunlight on the window played a trick. And so, though the image persisted, I could no longer believe it. That might I lay wakeful in the bed beside Maggie, Feeling at once the beating heat from the day warmed rafters and the cooling eveing breeze from the open window. I could hear Mother and Dad speaking softly in their room below, and gradually I became aware that they were taling about the Mulligans. There was a stovepipe hole in the floor, and now, trembling a little with guilt. I crept out of bed and put my ear to it. Someone was in the cabin,: Mother was saying. Im sure I heared movement, and then Annie looked back and saw the little girl window. I cant understand it, John. Everyone else is so eager to make friends when they come in. You might as well forget any notion of making friends of the Mulligans. Dad said. I was talking to Ben snythe. His wife went over-walked the whole five miles-and like you., got no answer to her knocking. Then Joe Taylor asked Mulligan to help with his hig slaughtering and got a flatno. In a very few weeks, stories of the new family had spreas from farm and wagging tongues and curious minds had discovered a multitiude of reasons for the Mulligans unusual behavior. The woman and chikd are bith deaf and dumb critters and Mulligans embarrased for them. The womans simple minded since the child was born. Theyre living in sin and ashamed to face Christians. Mulligan murdered a man Down East. The laws on his trail. Maggie and I heared all these rales and discussed them in hushead whispers. Wouldnt it be awful to be deef and dumb? The most horriblest thing in the worls. I bet Mr. Mulligan carries a pistol all the time- him being a criminal. Were lucky he didnt shoot us when we went up to the door. I wouldnt go up to their door again for anything. I might. I would for sure if he wasnt there. I had to make statements like this sometimes, lest Maggie forget that I was the older. Besides, I was a plan looking child, gangle and frecled. while Maggie was acclaimed for her red-gold curls and our older sister Min commended on her baking skill- while brother Bert was admired for his gift with horses and little Willie loved for his cherubic face and merry nature. I could only be praised beacuse I was a good girl, obedient and dependable. It was never enough for me. You wouldnt dare go there. Maggie saed now, positively I wouldnt too. Ill do it first time I know for sure he isnt around. Cross your heart and hope to die? I made the gesture and said, hope to die? woth no real thought of the consequences, but whitin a week the almost forgotten promise loomed large and inescapable. We were going to Ben Smythes place with his mall, and we met Mr. Mulligan face to face in a bend of the road. We stopped and stood like startled fawns, and he stopped too, and for a long moment I looked full into his face. It was heavy-jowled and swarthy, but I saw a strange sadness there that haunted me ever after. He opened his lips as if he might speak, but then a heaviness settled on his countenance, and he close them and brushed by us. Maggie had taken hold of my skirt and hels it bunched up in her fist. Now her whisper came shrilly to my ear. Youve got to go and knock on their door. You said hope to die, she reminded me. I was torn beteen a real fear of approaching the can=bing and dread of Maggies taunts if I failed my promise. I was also afraid of the power of hope hope to die. Little Nellie was playing outside the door as we came into the Mulligans clearing, so we stopped and called to her. She stood up, hugging a raggled little dolly against her chest and staring at us. Then, surprisingly, Mrs. Mulligan opened the door. Could we have a drink of water? Maggie asked boldly, nudging me with her elbow. I managed to add, And could we play with your little girl for a while? Mrs. Mulligans lips curved in a faint smile. Come along in, she said. The cabin was poor, even by th meager standards of that time and place. Mrs. Mulligan gave us dipperfuls of cool water from a crock near the door, and we sat on the edge of a bunk while she passed sugar cookies. Take two, theres more, she said proudly. All the time we were there, she kept going to the door and looking out along the trail, and after no more than twenty minutes she said, Youd best go now. Youve a long way. Nellie, who had been sitting in silent wonder between us, smiled and whispered good-bye as we left. One things sure, theyre neither of them deef and dumb, MAggiw sais as we started down the trail. And Mrs. Mulligan is kind. But he must be real mean. She only lets people in when hes away, and then she watches out the door for him. Mother pursed her lips and a little frown flickered on her forehead when we told her of our visit. I dont think you should have bothered them, she said. Leastways, dont go again, unless the call to you as youre passing. But they did not call to us nor to anyone else, and feeling against them deepened. The gossip grew more vicious. At night, awake in my bed, I would see Mr. Mulligan face as I had seen it that one time close at hand, and tears would well up in my eyes. They were like the tears I had shed the day Dad brought down a hawk from high above the yard, and it sprawled awkwardly in the dust and tumbled there a time before it lay still. This was the bird that taken one of my very own chickens the day before, but I wept for it, and could not explain my tears to anyone. Afterwards, when no one was around, I took the bird, folded its wings and smoothed its feathers, and carried it into the bush. There I scooped a hollow grave. I still went sometimes and put flowers or bright leaves over the place and felt better for it. Now it seemed I should go to the Mulligans and take something bright to that dismal home. But that would be outright disobedience. If Mother should stroke my hair as she sometimes did, and say softly, Youre a good girl, Annie. would I be able to bear it? Still, something compelled me, until finally one day I cut across the pasture, following the cattle trail to the creek, and coming out just below the Mulligan place. I had it in my mind just to stand near and see if theyd ask me in. Then I saw Mrs. Mulligan and Nellie annoying slowly among the wild raspberry bushed at the edge of their clearing. Mrs. Mulligan apparently sensed my presence, for she straightened and turned to face me. For an instant her eyes held a look of alarm, but it faded as she recognized me, and she smiled. I stayed about an hour with them, picking berries and talking to Nellie, who acknowledged me shyly. After that I began to slip away for visits often, making up various excuses for my absences from home. I was following a whiskey-jack to see where it had its nest. I would say, or I came upon a beaver cutting a poplar by the creekand bid and watched. I was able to keep this up for three weeks, and saw my new friends seven or eight times. Nellie began to greet me with affection, hugging me around the knees with her bony little arms. Mrs. Mulligan smiled more, and asked me questions about my family and about school. But she gave me no clue as to why they chose to live in seclusion. Mr. Mulligan was always in the bush behind the cabin. I used the steady sound of his axe as my clue that it was safe to visit. Then one day he came in unexpectedly I was sitting in my familiar place on the edge of the bunk with Nellie. He stood in the doorway, his great shoulders blocking it, and stared a me with an expression sober and concerned. Its the little Jamieson girl, said Mrs. Mulligan. She comes to play with Nellie now and again. Disapproval darkened Mulligans face. He did not speak to me, but burned to his wife. Ellen, Ellen, how many times have I told you its better we keep to ourselves. His tone held more of sadness than it did of anger. Mrs. Mulligan said, But Nellie was lonely. He drew his lips together in a tight line, and advanced a step toward her shaking his head in exasperation. Its better my way, I tell you. Its better my way. His voice rose. Terror held me motionless. Everything I had heared about him seemed to come crowding into my brain, whirling around in a confusion of leaf. Before I could move, before I could think, I heared an ugly sound and saw Mrs. Mulligan fall, headlong face down, on the rough plank floor. She lay there, and her entire body jerked and twitched with grotesque unnatural movement. There was a moan, but it came not from her, but from her husband. He had dropped to his knees beside her and was cradling her head in his arms and talking to her in a sobbing voice. Ellen, Ellen forgive me. Oh God, why cant I learn patience? Nellie had pressed her face into the folds of my skirt and was crying soflty. I could not move. Mrs. Mulligan lay quieter in a moment or so and her husband picked her up and laid her gently, on the bed at the other side of the room. I caught a glimpse of his face and saw that his eyed were full of tears. Then tears coursed down my own cheeks. He took a blanket and covered his wife carefully and then he looked at Nellie and me. For a moment his face showed only surprise, he had forgotten I was there. He came and caught me by the shoulders and his hands were hard. Now you will not tell what you have seen, he said. You understand me? You will not tell anyone. I think I must have nodded, and I think my tears softenef him. He drew his hands away, toughed my hair briefly and said more gently, I am not cruel, little one. Sometimes I foret, and I should but I am not cruel. But there are those who are cruel. The things they say! The way they whisper, whisper. Remember now, you must not say a word. My lips felt stiff and strange, but I managed to ask, Is she alright? He nodded. Shes alright. Shell waken in a little while. He sighed and picked up his little daughter, held her against his shoulder, and rocked her gently. I started off for home then, running headlong through the bush. When I got to the creek. I remembered my tears and stopped to wash my face, wiping it on the corner of my pinafore. That evening after the cows were milked and the supper dishes set away. Mother went out and sat down on the low front doorstep to watch the last soft light fade from the sky. She drew up her knees and tucked her skirt around her legs, and I went and sat down beside her and leaned against her. She reached out, brushed a wayward strand of hair from my eyes and offered the old, familiar solace. Youre a good girl, Annie. For a long time I could not speak at all, but finall I asked the question that troubled me most. Mother, is it true, what old Mrs. Masclontosh says, that people who have fits have the devil inside them? I was shocked when Mother chuckled, but then she sobered and replied soflty. You mudtnt heed what Mrs. Maclntosh says. Shes a very old lady with some queer notions from times past though shes not alone in believing them. No, fits are a sickness. You remember when Jeannie Brackens baby had the convulsions? Its somthing like that, and the devil has naught to do with it. Im sure. Such things bother you young ones sometimes! I was comforted, but even so I wanted until time had dimmed the frightening memory of Mrs. Mulligans twitching body before I went to visit Nellie again. It was a drizzly day, chill with fall, when I finally slipped away. More than anything I wanted them all to know that I had kept their secret. I was hoping they would smile and say I was a good girl. I was in the midst of my favorite daydream, in which I saw myself grown beautiful and famous, when I realized I was in a new clearing. It was dotted with stumps and ppiles of slash. A corner of Mulligans land estended across the trail here and he had begun to take timber from it. I stopped to look around, and heard a low call from the far side. At first I thought it was some kind of animal, but it came again, and I knew it for a mans voice. Then I saw there was a huge tamarack tree freshly down, and somthing stirring its branches went over as quickly as I could, picking my way over the rough ground and found Mr. Mulligan lying in the tangle with the grea trunk of the tree across his thighs. His face was beaded with sweet and his eyes were dulled with pain, but he smiled a little. You were coming to play with Nellie after all, he said, though this were the most important thing. I nodded and we looked intently at each other. There was nothing I could do ofr him alone, and we both knew it, but the need of secrecy still bore heavily on us, so when we talked about getting help, we did it apologetically. Ill have to get my father, I said. Its the only thing to do, he agrees. I think one leg is broken Ill have to be taken to town. Father will take you, I said I wondered if Mr. Mulligan understood that along with his secret Id had one of my own to keep. It will be a great shock to Mrs. Mulligan, I whispered and waited. She should not be upset-it will.. His voice trailed away. I took my handkerchhief from my pocket and knet down and wiped his face with it. It was what I always did for little Will when he came to me with a scraped knee or cut. My mother will look after her, I promised, She saved Jeannie Breckens baby that had the convulsions. And she wont talk of it, believe me, Mr. Mulligan. His eyes lighted a little, and he reached his hand to my sleeve. Youre... he began and I waited for the familiar a good girl, but these were not the words he spoke. Youre a brave girl, he said, Youll be a fine, beautiful woman some day. I got up. My skirt clung wetly to my shaking knees and I shivered in the cool, misty air. I had been deceitful and disobedient and now it would be known, but it came to me that I had been no more wicked than the hawk that soared above the yard, then swooped to take my chicken, for I too, had done only what I thought I must. Ill not be long, and its going to be alright, Mr. Mulligan, I said, and somehow my voice sounded strangely like my mothers. Then I tore off through the clearing like a colt newly freed from in first wearing of a saddle.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 12:41:20 +0000
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