Brothers Far from Home Read online

  Wednesday, March 7

  There has been a revolution going on in Russia. Some of the Session Elders were here and they could talk of nothing else. The Czar may even have to give up his throne. Father is unhappy about the whole situation in Russia. When I asked him why, he said I would not understand unless I knew how the Russian peasants have lived for years, and that he would give me a book to read.

  “Not War and Peace,” Mother said. “I know Eliza is a great reader, Sam, but there are limits.”

  It was War and Peace. It comes in two volumes and it is enormous, but I will try. I am proud Father thinks I can do it. Mother told me not to be afraid to skip if I got bogged down. She says all the parts about Natasha I would like, but she was not sure I would take to Napoleon. She helped me figure out their names. Each of them has a whole bunch which sound not at all the same.

  Soon it will be spring and maybe soon the War will end. We have to plough up the earth and plant vegetables for our garden, so we can be more self-sufficient. But that is a while away yet.

  The Missionary Society are putting on a concert to raise money for the War. People in Toronto have already raised enough money to provide a whole hospital ship. And mothers whose husbands are away at war need help, too. Father has suggested that Verity and I perform a dialogue. She takes elocution lessons and recites poems making grand gestures. I secretly think she looks silly and poems don’t need all that hand waving and clutching the heart. The elocution teacher even rolls her eyes up to show woe or surprise or something. I opened my mouth to say “No!” but Verity beat me to it. She has already agreed to do “Abou Ben Adam” by Leigh Hunt.

  Mrs. Macdonald, who wrote Anne of Green Gables under her maiden name of Lucy Maud Montgomery, is a great reciter and she works for the Red Cross and knits. She is the Presbyterian minister’s wife at Leaskdale, which is near Uxbridge, so we see her now and again. Mother says we must invite them to dinner but she has not done it yet. I know she is nice because I have read all her books, but she is not like Anne Shirley. Maybe it is because she is married to a minister. I have a feeling Father and Mr. Macdonald are not kindred spirits by the way Father’s voice changes when he speaks of him.

  I never told you what a success the school pageant was. Mabel’s sash fell off right in the middle of her big speech. I did not laugh but it was a struggle.

  Thursday, March 8

  The strangest thing happened. I feel I must write about it and yet perhaps I should not. Perhaps I was wrong about what I thought. Mother had gone to the store today and they had a tiny drop in the price of beef, so she got some for us and for the Webbs too. She sent me over with it. Nobody seemed to be home so I just went in quietly to put it in the icebox. When I got to the kitchen I was so startled I dropped the package. Richard was standing beside the sink with a paring knife in his hand. He had his sleeve rolled up, and he was shaking like a poplar leaf.

  “What are you doing?” I stammered. “You’ll cut yourself.”

  I know, dear Reader. It was stupid. But I could not think of anything else to say. He dropped the knife with a clatter and lunged around and glared at me. His eyes were so wild!

  “What if I do?” he shouted. “Why shouldn’t I? Who would care?”

  I don’t know what possessed me. I think I knew what he meant but I made myself sound cross and as ordinary as I could.

  “Your mother would care,” I said. “She’d have to clean up the mess. My mother says no man ever cleans up after himself.”

  He laughed — a croaky laugh, but it was a laugh.

  “Oh, does she? I’ve cleaned up plenty of messes,” he got out. “I hope you never see such bloody messes …”

  I picked up the knife and dropped it into my coat pocket. I had no idea what to say next but I grabbed at the first idea that came and blurted it out. “If you hurt yourself, it would break your father’s heart,” I said. “And your mother’s too.”

  He just stood there, holding onto the edge of the sink and shaking his head. He looked a bit dizzy.

  So I reminded him that Dr. Webb went all the way to England to fetch him home. “Cornelia says he cries over you,” I ended up.

  “He never cries,” he said. “None of the old men cry. They don’t know how! Go away.”

  I had been backing toward the door. I knew he had seen where I put the knife. I forgot all kitchens have more than one knife and I wanted to escape before he tried to get it away from me. I made it out the back door and ran for home. Just as I got safely into our kitchen I remembered the meat on the floor. It would spoil if it was left. And Richard would not know what it was.

  I didn’t want to, but I made myself go back, and it still lay there. I heard Richard in the front of the house. He was singing in this sort of crazy voice. I didn’t wait to hear more than a few words, and it wasn’t until I was safe in my room that I knew he was singing, “Nine men slept in a boarding house bed.” It is a silly song Hugo used to sing. I couldn’t believe it. Why on earth would he be going to hurt himself one minute and start singing the next? I wonder what I ought to do with their knife.

  Saturday, March 10

  I took the knife back in the same coat pocket. Mrs. Webb let me in. I stood there like a stick until she offered to get me a gingerbread man. When I nodded, she went to get it from the pantry. I slipped the knife into the sink, took the cookie, thanked her and left without ever saying a word about why I had come. She must have wondered. The gingerbread man was hard as rock. He must have been left over from Christmas. I gave him to Charlie, who will eat anything and hardly ever gets any sweet treats. While I was there, I could hear Richard and his father arguing in the front parlour. I was so glad to get away without meeting him.

  Sunday, March 11

  I can tell the war news is bad. Father hardly ever teases these days. We don’t know where Hugo is right now. The Allies seem to be losing, but Hugo said in his last letter, “Never lose hope, Eliza. We will win. And I will see you again.” I cling to that.

  When I get to crying, Mother says, “Do not be tempted into the slough of despond, my daughter. Spring begins this month.”

  It does not look like spring but I will do my best not to despair.

  Wednesday, March 14

  It will soon be Easter but Moppy says she cannot make decent hot cross buns with sugar so dear and with the awful flour we get these days. Also we’re supposed to be thrifty and not waste any food, but Mother will dye some eggs for the little ones. She has done without to save them up.

  Yet I saw through Mrs. Burns’s windows one day and there she sat gobbling down a big plateful of eggs and bacon. Her brother brings them from the farm. She never shares with anyone. Belle was sick and we needed special food for her and prices just seem to keep going up and up. And all the time Mrs. Burns seems to have everything she needs.

  St. Patrick’s Day

  Saturday, March 17

  Top o’ the mornin’ to you, dear Reader.

  I have moved my journal upstairs. I kept missing out days with it in the basement. I am tired of running up and down to tell you things. I will leave you in my ribbon drawer today and tonight I will carry the trunk to our room and tell Verity what is in it and hang the key around my neck where she cannot get it.

  As I wrote that, I realized that the two of us get along better than we used to. I wonder why. Maybe it is having our brothers so far away. We have needed each other as friends in a way we didn’t before. But I will hide my key anyway.

  Tomorrow is the Missionary Society concert. I am reciting “Crossing the Bar” by Tennyson. It is sad but it sounds lovely. Like music.

  Mother is making over a blouse which used to be hers. It is Chinese silk that Uncle Jack brought back from one of his sea voyages. I will wear it tomorrow night and on Easter Sunday with my plaid skirt and black velvet jacket. I am to have a new hat too. I was not going to, but Belle found my old one with the little nosegay on it and took it apart to make a wedding bouquet for her dolls. How clever of Belle!
r />   Sunday, March 18

  The concert was a great success. I brought tears to several eyes. I didn’t hear sobs but they told me about the tears. Verity did very well too. Mother and I talked her out of rolling her eyes. We made more than two hundred dollars.

  April 1917

  April Fool’s Day

  I caught a cold. Nothing as bad as Cornelia’s grippe but I was sick enough not to feel like writing even to my dear Reader. But I am back again now and I will soon be right as rain.

  Why do they say that? You would think it would be “right as sun.”

  Friday, April 6

  The Americans have come into the war on our side at last! Surely their coming will turn the tide. Even Father looks more hopeful tonight.

  Richard Webb had a relapse but seems to be improving again. I never go over there now. I have not seen him since the day I took the knife.

  Everyone is singing American songs and nobody is saying that it took them a long time to see where their duty lay.

  Easter Sunday

  April 8

  War news seems bad in spite of the Yanks. And spring is cold but we sang Jesus Christ Is Risen Today! and the old words rang out bravely just as they have every other year. Mother used onion skins and watercolour paints and did make lovely eggs for the three little ones. They were so excited. I tried to be glad I was not a little one any longer, but it was not easy.

  Then, under the edge of the tablecloth, Mother slipped me an egg which was a deep yellow with my name painted onto it in curly dark red letters. I turned it over slowly, marvelling. On the other side, it said Daughter.

  “Not a changeling,” she murmured.

  I could not eat it. It is so beautiful and it gives me a warm feeling right down inside. It is sitting in the drawer with my penny whistle. I told Mother and she said it will go bad and I would have to eat it eventually or throw it away, and it wasn’t a good idea to waste an egg.

  “It’s the memory you keep,” she told me.

  Easter Monday

  Mother and Moppy have started spring cleaning. I have to dust the books. We own millions of books. Usually I am glad, but not at spring cleaning time. Dusting is easier than some jobs, though. Verity has been out beating rugs in the snow. Her hands were a purplish blue when she came in.

  Tuesday, April 10

  There was a great battle on Easter Monday. At Vimy Ridge. They said it could not be taken. The French were driven back and so were the British. But our Canadian boys took it! Father says they must have been planning it for weeks. It was a great victory! But many men died, I think.

  It is hard to keep all the battlegrounds straight and they have such foreign names. I hope nobody we know was there. People go on and on about what a triumph it was for Canada, but we don’t know the details yet. Perhaps, when it is in the paper, Father will let me cut it out and paste it in here. A victory, at last, after so many setbacks and defeats!

  Verity and True went and got their hair bobbed in celebration. They look so changed. Verity does not look nearly so proper. She was actually dancing in our bedroom. I wonder what Grandmother will say. She said girls with bobbed hair were “fast” and “asking for trouble.” I wonder what trouble she means.

  I heard Verity humming tonight while she was taking her bath. “If you were the only boy in the world …” she sang.

  I popped my head around the screen and asked her, “If who was the only boy?”

  “Eliza Mary Bates, get out!” she shouted in a whisper. (It is perfectly possible to shout in a whisper.)

  Susannah heard her too and we ran into Mother and Father’s room and laughed until we cried. My stomach still hurts. I wonder what the boys will say when they come home and see her. I would not tell her this, but she looks prettier with short hair, almost dashing, like Lillian Gish.

  Later

  Father was not in the same mood as the rest of us. “Paid for with blood,” was all he would say about Vimy Ridge. It is true that all the reports lately have been full of news about casualties, even as they praise the Canadians for taking the ridge. (They call one part of it the Pimple. Isn’t that strange, dear Reader?)

  Wednesday, April 18

  Hugo was at Vimy Ridge and he is missing. The telegram came today. We must still hope. Everyone is celebrating the victory at Vimy, but not in our house.

  But I am sure he will be found. He must be lying in a hospital with a wound and he has just lost his memory or something. I got up in the middle of the night last night and knelt down to pray and Verity woke up.

  “Eliza, what is it?” she said.

  I did not answer and then she slipped out from under the covers and knelt too, and we both prayed that our brother would be found. We did not say anything out loud but when we got back into bed, we both cried and cried.

  God must listen. He must. If only Hugo is all right, I will be good forever and ever.

  Thursday, April 19

  Mother let me stay home from school today. It was a terrible day. I kept watching for a telegram. Nobody came. No news. She says I must go back in the morning because this may go on for months. It was as though the sun was stuck and the world could not move on.

  Months! How could we bear it?

  Friday, April 20

  Mother sent me back to school. Her voice is steady but her lips are pale. It seems so strange. The little ones don’t know what is wrong, but they know there is something. You can tell because they tiptoe and whisper and look afraid. Belle cries more than usual and cannot say what is the matter. Isaac wags his tail less and gazes up at us with big anxious eyes.

  You would think pets would be in the way now, but it isn’t true. Isaac and Ezekiel help us because they need to be cared for and they expect us to keep being our normal selves. Only it breaks all our hearts when Ezekiel speaks in Hugo’s voice. I can’t write for crying. But I am still hoping against hope that there is some mistake. In books, often in the last chapter, the soldier everyone thought was dead returns. But that is something that maybe only happens in stories.

  At moments like this, dear Reader, it is hard to believe in you. And I cannot love God, even though I keep praying that He will find Hugo alive and whole. I don’t want my brother to suffer.

  But what about all the others? Who prays for them? And how does God decide?

  I asked Mother. She says she thinks God does not decide the way I imagine. She says that wars are made by humans and humans must abide the consequences. “Pray for courage,” she told me. “And faith and a loving heart.”

  “And for Hugo,” I said.

  She nodded. She could not speak and I saw her eyes were flooding.

  Saturday, April 21

  There is no use hoping. Our hope is gone, dear Reader. My brother is dead.

  Mother and Father never say things like “passed away” or “gone to God” like other people do. They say the real word in a quiet, serious voice. I will try to do this too. But I understand why people use the other words. They are hiding from the terror of it.

  Oh, how can I go on?

  I stop writing and then I feel as though I am drowning.

  After many tears

  I went to Mother and Verity came too and we all cried. But then somebody came. Moppy can only keep them off for so long. Everybody needs someone to grieve with, Verity says.

  But it will soon be time to go to bed. Will we sleep?

  I will try to tell you how it happened. When the telegram came, it was late afternoon and we were all home. The Twins raced to get the door and then just stood there, so I went to let whoever it was in. It was Matthew Blake, who is one year ahead of me in school. He is at the high school and I won’t be there until September. He stood there looking sick. I took the envelope and carried it in, leaving the door open.

  “Shut the door, Eliza, for heaven’s sake,” Mother said. “We can’t afford to heat all outdoors, not with this wretched stuff they call coal.”

  It is queer how clearly I can still hear what she said and h
ow impatient she sounded.

  Then she saw what I was holding. She held out her hand for it and I saw that her hand did not even shake though her face went wooden. She carried it straight to Father and I turned and went back to speak to Matthew. I had left him outside on the step without a word.

  “Thank you,” I said to him. Why did I thank him?

  I kept hoping it was going to say Hugo was found, but it did not.

  KILLED IN ACTION it said.

  Father went white as marble.

  These were the words, at least some of them.

  DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU PTE HUGO JAMES BATES INFANTRY OFFICIALLY REPORTED KILLED IN ACTION.

  We all hugged each other.

  Father went to his Session meeting after Matthew left. There was some quarrel among two or three Elders and he said it had to be settled. Mother wanted to be with him but, of course, there are no women Elders and they would have known something was wrong. I don’t see how he can face their eyes. I wonder if he has told them yet.

  Later on

  Mother just came in and found me lying wide awake with Verity sleeping next to me. She told me that Father was home and that he did not tell them about Hugo until after the meeting ended. They said his strength was an inspiration. Nobody dared to say anything about his sympathy for the German soldiers and how did he feel now knowing some Hun had shot Hugo. But a few probably thought such cruel thoughts. I just feel rage so boiling hot I can’t bear it. I ache all over.

  Sunday, April 22

  Everyone feels so sorry for Mother and Father and so do I. But it is hard for everyone — even Belle, who still does not understand that Hugo is gone forever.

  Cornelia came over with a loaf of fresh bread. “I’m sorry, Eliza,” she said, looking at her feet. Then she kissed my cheek and ran for home. It was a wet kiss, which I was ashamed of myself for noticing. After all, it was sincere, and I cried after she was gone, the kind of crying that helps ease the pain.