together last fall in Chase River. Can she add that they were both in the same grade, because Stella was repeating and Jane had been put forward after the first week when the teacher saw her skills and ability? Those things make her sisters and brother proud of her schooling in Wales. No, she cannot worry them in every letter about how much she misses school.
She can still feel the way her stomach twisted the day Mama said, âThings are getting left undone at home.â She knew what it meant. If only she did not have the long walk to and from school every day, she would have more time for her chores. For a while she got up in the dead of night to bake pies and make soup, and have Tommyâs meal ready to warm up when he came home from the mine. She even managed to wash clothes quietly at the same time, boiling white laundry in kerosene cans on the stove, while using a washboard in a galvanized tub for the pit suits outside in the dark. But the extra coal needed to heat the stove so early went beyond Tommyâs quota, so that was that.
Jane never did tell her sisters or anyone else about her last day. How Stella left at the same time, gleeful because she was with child, knowing Lance Cruikshank would marry her and that would mean the end of school forever. Through Stellaâs giggles, Jane had to fight back tears because school was her favourite place in Canada so far. She was top student in all subjects and dreamed of becoming a teacher herself some day. In the classroom she lived in a different world, away from scrubbing coal dust from stiff work clothes until her fingers bled. When she carried out her books on the final day with her stomach bilious, she felt fifty years old instead of fifteen. The teacher, Miss Maasanen, almost cried herself when she gave Jane a copy of Tess of the DâUrbervilles because she knew how much she liked to read. Looking back, she is thankful she did not also know on that unhappy day that she would soon be washing clothes for the girl cackling in front of her.
Her sisters and brother have enough to worry about without her whining, so she will tell them instead about Mr. Louis Strong. Yesterday he brought them another piece of lamb along with his laundry. The lamb comes from Henry âButchâ Hargraves, whose cabin and meat sheds Jane passes on the way to Louisâ place. Jane does not like the way he looks at her, but Louis seems friendly with him, so she always says âGood dayâ before hurrying on. When Louis pays for her services, he always compliments her on the fine way she presses his clothes with the flatiron and folds them neatly. This makes her smile because it does not take much to smooth out overalls and iron sheets and a few flannel shirts. What a difference between a farmerâs and a minerâs clothes, especially a farmer as careful and orderly as Louis Strong, who spends his days among fruit trees.
She could tell them how she has never heard an accent like Mr. Strongâs â soft and easy, from the southern United States. Maybe when both families save enough to bring Cassie over to live with them, she will have enough time to tell her all about Louis Strongâs life. How he was a slave, even though his father was the white plantation owner. How he bought his freedom twice and still was not allowed to leave. How he finally fled to California only to learn Negroes were not welcome there, any more than they had been in Mississippi or Tennessee. (An excellent speller, Jane likes writing those words with their clusters of double letters, so she might have to include this information before she sees Cassie in person.) Mr. Strong told her that Governor James Douglas, a mulatto himself born in a South American country called British Guiana, invited Negroes to come and settle in his new colony of British Columbia, so thatâs how he and his family ended up here. He had bought some land on Vancouver Island a few years ago to experiment with
She can still feel the way her stomach twisted the day Mama said, âThings are getting left undone at home.â She knew what it meant. If only she did not have the long walk to and from school every day, she would have more time for her chores. For a while she got up in the dead of night to bake pies and make soup, and have Tommyâs meal ready to warm up when he came home from the mine. She even managed to wash clothes quietly at the same time, boiling white laundry in kerosene cans on the stove, while using a washboard in a galvanized tub for the pit suits outside in the dark. But the extra coal needed to heat the stove so early went beyond Tommyâs quota, so that was that.
Jane never did tell her sisters or anyone else about her last day. How Stella left at the same time, gleeful because she was with child, knowing Lance Cruikshank would marry her and that would mean the end of school forever. Through Stellaâs giggles, Jane had to fight back tears because school was her favourite place in Canada so far. She was top student in all subjects and dreamed of becoming a teacher herself some day. In the classroom she lived in a different world, away from scrubbing coal dust from stiff work clothes until her fingers bled. When she carried out her books on the final day with her stomach bilious, she felt fifty years old instead of fifteen. The teacher, Miss Maasanen, almost cried herself when she gave Jane a copy of Tess of the DâUrbervilles because she knew how much she liked to read. Looking back, she is thankful she did not also know on that unhappy day that she would soon be washing clothes for the girl cackling in front of her.
Her sisters and brother have enough to worry about without her whining, so she will tell them instead about Mr. Louis Strong. Yesterday he brought them another piece of lamb along with his laundry. The lamb comes from Henry âButchâ Hargraves, whose cabin and meat sheds Jane passes on the way to Louisâ place. Jane does not like the way he looks at her, but Louis seems friendly with him, so she always says âGood dayâ before hurrying on. When Louis pays for her services, he always compliments her on the fine way she presses his clothes with the flatiron and folds them neatly. This makes her smile because it does not take much to smooth out overalls and iron sheets and a few flannel shirts. What a difference between a farmerâs and a minerâs clothes, especially a farmer as careful and orderly as Louis Strong, who spends his days among fruit trees.
She could tell them how she has never heard an accent like Mr. Strongâs â soft and easy, from the southern United States. Maybe when both families save enough to bring Cassie over to live with them, she will have enough time to tell her all about Louis Strongâs life. How he was a slave, even though his father was the white plantation owner. How he bought his freedom twice and still was not allowed to leave. How he finally fled to California only to learn Negroes were not welcome there, any more than they had been in Mississippi or Tennessee. (An excellent speller, Jane likes writing those words with their clusters of double letters, so she might have to include this information before she sees Cassie in person.) Mr. Strong told her that Governor James Douglas, a mulatto himself born in a South American country called British Guiana, invited Negroes to come and settle in his new colony of British Columbia, so thatâs how he and his family ended up here. He had bought some land on Vancouver Island a few years ago to experiment with
Similar Books
