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<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> The time of great winds has come, the heavy November gales that roar down the lakes, lashing the water into white-capped waves, dashing the driftwood against the rocks and decking the beaches with long wreaths of yellow foam.  The swell is so strong and the waves so high that even the men do not care to venture out.  When I must get over to Blake’s farm I hug the shore of the island to the point, then dash across the channel between this land and his, and the wind turns my light skiff round and round before I can catch the lee again. All night the house rocks and shivers and the trees creak, groan and crash down in the woods.  I am afraid to walk the trails because of falling branches, for if I were struck down I should lie in the path for days and no one would know that I had been hurt. These winds give the strangest effect of distant music.  I am always thinking that I can almost hear the sound of trumpets, blowing far away. Inside the house is warm and comfortable, with its creamy yellow walls of unpainted wood, its many windows, its pictures, its books; but I am lonely; I cannot settle to any occupation.  The constant roaring of the wind unnerves me, the gray, scudding clouds depress me.  A hound on the shore bays and howls day and night.  I have heard no human voice for more than a week. The storm died away in a smothering fog that settled down on the very surface of the lake, blotting out everything.  I could not see one inch beyond the shore.  The mainland was hidden, the opposite island was invisible—everything was gone except the land on which I stood.  I could hear voices at the farms, the sound of oars, and people talking in the boats as they passed.  Men were hunting on the mainland, almost a mile away.  I could hear their shots and the cries of the hounds, but I might as well have been stricken blind, for all that I could distinguish.  All sorts of fears assailed me.  Suppose men should land on the island in the fog, how could I see to escape them?  Suppose the fog should last and last, how would I dare to go out in a boat for any provisions?  Suppose I should be ill, or hurt, how could I signal to the farm for help? By evening the fog had thoroughly frightened me; it was time to pull myself together.  So I cooked a particularly good dinner, read a new book for awhile, then went to bed praying that the sun would be shining in the morning. After being asleep for what seemed hours, I was aware of a loud shouting, followed by heavy steps on the porch and a voice calling as someone knocked and pounded on the door.  I stumbled out of bed, half asleep, and groped my way to the lamp, fortunately forgetting all about the pistol laid by my side for just such an emergency.  When the door was finally opened, the shapeless bulk of a woman confronted me—the very largest woman I have ever seen.  She loomed like a giant against a solid bank of fog that rolled in behind her. “I don’t know where I am,” she announced.  “I’m all turned round.  I’ve been rowing hours and hours in the fog, and I’ve a boy, a pail of eggs, a mess of catfish and a little wee baby in the boat.” “For mercy’s sake,” I ejaculated, “what are p. 66you doing out in a boat with a baby on a night like this?  Who are you anyway?” “I’m from Spriggins’ farm,” she answered, “the place where you gits yer chickens at.  I’ve been over at Drapeau’s spending the evening and I started to row home two hours ago.  But the fog got me all turned round, and when I struck this shore I says: ‘This must be the island where the woman’s at.  Ef she’s to the house I’ll wake her and git me a light.’” I gave her a lantern and she went off to the shore, while I threw fresh logs on the smoldering fire and tried to wake myself. Presently a dismal procession returned: a boy, laden with shawls and wraps, the woman carrying a baby.  When that infant was unwrapped, it needed not its proud mother’s introduction to tell me whose child it was.  Harry Spriggins is a small, wiry man, with sharp, black eyes and a face like a weasel.  The baby was exactly like him.  They were a forlorn trio, and, oh, so dirty!  My heart sank as I surveyed them, realizing that they were on my hands for the night.  Then I felt properly ashamed of myself, for if the poor soul had not found the island she might have been on the lake in an open boat until daylight; and by this time a rain was falling, quite heavily enough to have swamped so unseaworthy a craft as her small, flat-bottomed punt. For some time we sat gazing at one another, while I tried to determine what should be done with my guests.  Finally I sent the boy to the storehouse for extra mattresses, and prepared them beds on the floor.  Clean sheets were spread over everything.  Probably the woman had never slept on clean sheets before, but I reasoned that sheets could be washed more easily than blankets, and just then washing seemed to me very essential. About one o’clock we all settled down for the night, but not to sleep—oh, no!  The woman was far too excited for that.  Thanks to the fire that I had made, in my stupidity, and to the air in the cabin, I could not sleep either, so I heard a great deal of the inside history of the neighborhood, before morning. I learned that minks are a menace to the poultry industry here about.  In Spriggins’ own barnyard, a flock of thirty-six young turkeys were found all lying dead in a row, with their necks chewed off—a plain case of mink, and a dire blow to the finances of the family. At three o’clock I had the life history of a Plymouth Rock rooster, of superlative intelligence, that always crowed at that precise hour.  At four I was roused from an uneasy doze by the query: “Do you know anything about Dr. So-and-So’s cure for ‘obsidy’?” After puzzling over the word for some minutes I gathered that “obesity” was what was meant, for my guest went on, pathetically enough, to tell me how hard her work was and how she suffered in doing it, burdened with that mountain of flesh. “There’s another cure,” she went on.  “It’s Mrs. So-and-So’s, but it calls for a Turkish bath, and where could I get that?  Beside, I could never do all that rolling and kicking.” Peering through the gloom at what looked like the outline of an elephant on the floor, I did not see how she could, but I felt that if there were any known way of getting that woman into a Turkish bath I would cheerfully bear the expense. At six I gave up the struggle and rose for the day, stumbling about from cabin to kitchen to cook breakfast in the semi-darkness, for the fog was still thick.  At nine, the day being a little lighter, I made the mistake of suggesting that the boy row over to Blake’s for some bread and the mail.  He departed, and stayed for hours.  Soon his mother began to fidget and finally set off for the shore to search for him, leaving that changeling of a baby in my care. There it lay on my bed, staring at me with its black beads of eyes, and looking as old as the Pharaoh of the Exodus and as crafty.  The mother stayed and stayed away.  I had visions of being left with that child on my hands all winter.  I saw myself walking it up and down the cabin through the long nights.  I saw myself sharing with it my last spoonful of condensed milk, but, as I surveyed it, I knew what I would do first.  I would give it the best bath it had ever had in its short life and I would burn its filthy little clothes. But while I was harboring these designs against that innocent child its mother came back, her hands full of green leaves.  She had not found the boy, but she had gathered what she called “Princess Fern.” p. 70“This is awful good fer the blood,” she announced.  “Ef yer blood is bad, this will make it as pure as spring water; if it’s pure, this will keep it so.  It’s good fer you either way.” The mention of blood led naturally to the recital of the various accidents she had seen, and I learned that there are several blood healers in the neighborhood—persons who can stop the flow by the recitation of a certain verse of Scripture.  A man can perform this miracle for a woman and a woman for a man, but a man cannot cure another man, nor a woman another woman.  This charm must never be revealed.  It can only be transmitted at death.  It is a sure cure for blood flow and quite authentic, according to Mrs. Spriggins, who has seen the blood stopped. While we were discussing this mystery the boy came back, smilingly, from quite a different direction from the one in which he had been sent.  He had never found the farm, but had been all this time wandering in the fog.  It was all too like a nightmare.  I did not tempt fate by offering any more suggestions.  Instead, I bundled the party into their various wrappings, led them to their boat, and turned their faces firmly in the direction of home.  Then I sat on the porch, tracing their progress down the lake by the wailing of that wretched baby.  When the sounds had finally died away, I went in and scrubbed the cabin from end to end with strong, yellow soap. And the sequel to all this?  She was not Spriggins’ wife at all, but “Spriggins’ woman,” and she was not lost. When I mentioned her visit the neighbors shook their heads. “You couldn’t lose old Jane on Many Islands,” they scoffed.  “She wanted to see you, that was all; and she knowed you wouldn’t let her land if she come by day.” But two men were lost on the lake that night, and I believe that Jane was lost too. With the rural love of scandal and the usual disregard of all laws of probability, the people accuse this woman of all sorts of outrageous crimes.  It is said that she murdered her daughter for the girl’s bit of life insurance, that she has strangled her own babies, that she bound her aged aunt face downward on a board, and pushed her out on the lake to drown.  And here was I, all ignorant of the character of my guest, gravely discussing with this alleged criminal the proper feeding of infants and the rival merits of toilet soaps. I stopped at her house the other day to inquire my way.  She greeted me with much cordiality. “You was certainly fine to me that night,” she said.  “I donno what we would a-done, ef you hadn’t took us in.  The baby would a-been drownded, I guess.” Now I am glad that I was “fine” to her, for poor Jane is gone, and she died as she had lived—without help and without hope. Her children’s father was away at a dance in Sark when she fell in their desolate house.  Seeing that she did not rise, one frightened child crept out of bed and covered her nakedness with an old quilt.  In the morning two little boys, crying and shivering, made their way along the shore to the place where the man was sleeping off his debauch. “Come home, Pop,” they cried.  “Mom’s dead.” But he would not heed them. “It’s only one of them spells she gits,” he grunted.  “She’ll be all right.” “No, it ain’t no spell, Pop,” they cried.  “She’s dead, I tell you.  She’s cold.” Then the neighbors, who had never gone to that house when Jane was alive, went now and comforted the children.  They followed the poor body along the ice to its grave, and Mrs. Spellman, who has six little ones of her own, went over and took the baby home. There are a great many of these irregular unions here, for Canada is no land of easy divorce.  If you are a poor man, and have any predilection for being legally married, you must stay with the wife with whom you started.  Divorce and remarriage are not for you. In a little book of instructions for immigrants and settlers, published by one of the newspapers, the matter is made very plain: “In Manitoba, Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan there is no divorce court.  Application must be made to the Dominion Parliament, by means of a private bill, praying for relief by reason of adultery, or adultery and cruelty, if it is the wife who is seeking a divorce from her husband.  The charges made are investigated by a special committee of the Senate, and, if a favorable report is presented to the House, the bill usually passes.”  But the little book goes on to state, very simply, p. 74that “The expense of obtaining the bill is very great, exceeding in any event five hundred dollars.” So for men like Harry Spriggins, whose wife deserted him, or for Black Jack’s woman, whose husband beat her, there is no way out.  They simply take another mate, and stand by the arrangement as faithfully as may be. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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