Read Online Sisters of Grass by Theresa Kishkan - Free Book Online
Authors: Theresa Kishkan
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cradleboard: perhaps birds had taken away the buckskin, the hairs of the blanket made of fawn skin, perhaps mice had nested in the remains. So much could go wrong in a life, even if all the measures were taken in time.
Margaret had not had much formal schooling. The school was down in the community of Nicola Lake, too far to ride to every day. Sheâd gone for a week at a time some spring and autumn months, staying with a family, the Pooleys occasionally, the Howses, doing her sums by lamplight at night at the round table in the Pooleyâs parlour. She loved reading, everything from the new Nicola Herald to the family Bible; the words made such a clear picture sometimes, staying in her memory like photographs. When God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, when He asked, Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or has thou seen the treasures of the hail? , Margaret could see the opening into the blizzard that God certainly meant, and surely He himself had seen the summer ground covered with hailstones all glittering and cold, looking like Culloden after a storm. And once Reverend Murray had read the sixty-fifth psalm in church, and she thought she would swoon with the loveliness of the picture: Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers: thou blessest the springing thereof. . . . The pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing . It was as though God was speaking of her own ranch, the beauty of the hayfields ripe with grass, and the music of the yellow-headed blackbirds in the marsh.
When she was staying with the Howses one spring, in their big house across from the church, there had been an entertainment in the hotel and a number of people sang or played the piano or recited poetry. One man, a visitor at Quilchena, recited a sonnet by Mr. William Shakespeare, and Margaret never forgot it, especially the way the man had said each word slowly and dramatically, even sighing after the first line, From you have I been absent in the spring , so that you could feel the longing of the poet for his love.
Nor did I wonder at the lilyâs white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
The room was quiet after the conclusion of the poem, as though everyone there was putting a face to the object of the poetâs longing. Margaret copied out that poem later from the volume of Shakespeare at school and kept it in her Bible at home so that she could feel again the shiver of delight the words created in her, the sweet sadness of the feeling, although she had no face to praise or long for.
When we sat by our campfire at night, I could almost hear voices, but listen as I might, hard as I could, I could never make out what they were saying. It was enough to almost hear them, I thought, feeling the deep heartbeat of the ponderosa pines in the ground below our tent. When the moon was right, there was a path of moonlight from our camp to Quilchena. And all around, the grass turned obscure in the darkness, no longer gilded with endless skies of sunlight or shadowed by high tumbling cloud.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads
   of old mothers.
Darker than the colourless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
Sometimes I looked at the crescent of houses on the road in to the campsite and thought about buying one. I wanted a way to locate ourselves in the dry soil of the Nicola Valley, a place to dream about when elsewhere, a site to venture from on exploratory drives up over that hill or along the road following the river west to Spences Bridge. But it wasnât this time that I felt drawn to, not the trim Lindal houses with their gardens of saucer-sized dahlias and their squares of watered lawn. It was more to an interval, maybe only a
Margaret had not had much formal schooling. The school was down in the community of Nicola Lake, too far to ride to every day. Sheâd gone for a week at a time some spring and autumn months, staying with a family, the Pooleys occasionally, the Howses, doing her sums by lamplight at night at the round table in the Pooleyâs parlour. She loved reading, everything from the new Nicola Herald to the family Bible; the words made such a clear picture sometimes, staying in her memory like photographs. When God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, when He asked, Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or has thou seen the treasures of the hail? , Margaret could see the opening into the blizzard that God certainly meant, and surely He himself had seen the summer ground covered with hailstones all glittering and cold, looking like Culloden after a storm. And once Reverend Murray had read the sixty-fifth psalm in church, and she thought she would swoon with the loveliness of the picture: Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers: thou blessest the springing thereof. . . . The pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing . It was as though God was speaking of her own ranch, the beauty of the hayfields ripe with grass, and the music of the yellow-headed blackbirds in the marsh.
When she was staying with the Howses one spring, in their big house across from the church, there had been an entertainment in the hotel and a number of people sang or played the piano or recited poetry. One man, a visitor at Quilchena, recited a sonnet by Mr. William Shakespeare, and Margaret never forgot it, especially the way the man had said each word slowly and dramatically, even sighing after the first line, From you have I been absent in the spring , so that you could feel the longing of the poet for his love.
Nor did I wonder at the lilyâs white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
The room was quiet after the conclusion of the poem, as though everyone there was putting a face to the object of the poetâs longing. Margaret copied out that poem later from the volume of Shakespeare at school and kept it in her Bible at home so that she could feel again the shiver of delight the words created in her, the sweet sadness of the feeling, although she had no face to praise or long for.
When we sat by our campfire at night, I could almost hear voices, but listen as I might, hard as I could, I could never make out what they were saying. It was enough to almost hear them, I thought, feeling the deep heartbeat of the ponderosa pines in the ground below our tent. When the moon was right, there was a path of moonlight from our camp to Quilchena. And all around, the grass turned obscure in the darkness, no longer gilded with endless skies of sunlight or shadowed by high tumbling cloud.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads
   of old mothers.
Darker than the colourless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
Sometimes I looked at the crescent of houses on the road in to the campsite and thought about buying one. I wanted a way to locate ourselves in the dry soil of the Nicola Valley, a place to dream about when elsewhere, a site to venture from on exploratory drives up over that hill or along the road following the river west to Spences Bridge. But it wasnât this time that I felt drawn to, not the trim Lindal houses with their gardens of saucer-sized dahlias and their squares of watered lawn. It was more to an interval, maybe only a
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