Author: Madeleine Horton

The Words of Christmas 2 (Madeleine Horton)

~ Madeleine Horton ~ Leave a comment

 One year my sister gave me a gift I have continued to treasure. It is a gift of words. She gave it at a time when she had two young children and little money. However, she has always been resourceful.

She gave me a photocopied page from my Grandmother’s journals set in a gilded wooden frame. It has become a touchstone of Christmas, set out as early as possible.

My Grandmother’s journals are written in a flowing script with elegant capital letters. I first became aware of them as a child when I saw her writing in a scribbler and asked about it. She told me she recorded such information, as when the first and last frost came, when crops were planted and harvested, the price the geese and pigs brought, for Grandpa. I later have learned they contain more than that, but they are never confessional, not often reflective but they show the daily life of my rural grandparents in my Grandmother’s voice I remember well.

My frame has entries from December 23- December 25, 1945. As always the weather hovers about like a background character determined to take the front of stage. On the twenty-third and fourth, it is 20F below. Molly, a cow, freshened Sunday Dec 23rd, (they) are calling it Mary. Small farmers like my grandparents who would have no more than a dozen cows typically named each one. A sow had birthed a dozen piglets. That Saturday night friends, the Yoeman’s, dropped in after we were to bed, but we got up and had a cup of tea together and when they departed we gave them the 3 pigs we had in the house to see if they could have any luck with them. Friends dropping in without calling is usual and acceptable, newborn pigs at risk are brought into the house, and my Grandparents went to bed early. Best to draw a curtain on that. By the next day we just have four baby pigs now all told, I guess it was too cold for them to move and the sow laid on them. gosh it sure is bum luck. Sows lying on their young is an all too common trope. In the daytime, my Grandmother goes into London, about ten miles, to her sister-in-law Beatrice to help prepare for the next day’s dinner.

Christmas Day, 1945. My Grandparents’ two eldest sons are still overseas in the army. For my Grandmother, here’s the day all the kids look for, but oh gosh what a day it has been. Rain and sleet, we could not get to Beat’s too darn icy. George (her husband) and Vernon , (the youngest son who stays home on the farm), went up to Dales to phone her and got soaked it was raining so hard  and had an awful time to keep from falling it was so icy, they couldn’t get (through) to her, guess the wires were either busy or down, but we had a chicken picked (plucked) so we had chicken for Christmas dinner steamed pudding and a mincemeat pie. Vernon got the dime out of the pudding and George the nickel. George gave me a lovely pair of ornaments. Lady and Gentleman, in blue and gold, they are real good china not Woolworth’s goods. I gave him an Oddfellow’s (his Lodge) pin and a steel measuring tape he had been wanting. Vernon got a pair of skates from the baker. So we’re all happy. 

 I read the words of my Grandmother and I am there magically seeing her younger self and I am at the same time in that house, where she wrote her words, at many later Christmas gatherings with my family and cousins. Now I read and smile about the Yoemans, wonder at a heifer called Mary, at pigs kept around the wood stove, and the joy of real good china. I am humbled by the simplicity. So we’re all happy. I am remembering my Grandmother, a small woman with little education who came to Canada as a Home child from England, who raised five boys and buried her only daughter at three, who married another like her from England, who worked nine years as tenant farmers before they bought their own fifty acre farm. The many Christmases at my Grandparents blend into one happy memory of sledding down the hill in the pasture, skating on the creek, presents from the cedar tree, angel hair, mittens knitted for every child, and once lovely horse head bookends from Kingsmill’s, not Woolworth’s. Grace before the food imagined for weeks. The bird, of course, and all the trimmings. Then the desserts. Christmas pudding with its special caramel sauce. Mincemeat pie, completely homemade like everything else. In the evening the adults played cards, children played crokinole or with some present, perhaps read. In the evening, the Christmas cake is brought out, admired and sliced. The chocolates with the cherry in the middle I had helped make are passed around. Adults glare at children to let them know to only take one. So we’re all happy.  

 Reflections on a Pond – Madeleine Horton

~ Madeleine Horton ~ 4 Comments

When I was a child, my English Mother told me about the fish pond in the back garden of her childhood home. No one I knew had a fish pond and it added to the exotic appeal her home, which even had a name, Icona, had to me. I wished when I grew up to have a house with a fish pond.  

When I eventually bought my home, I was delighted to discover it had a fish pond, a concrete fish pond, probably built with the house in 1949. Well, it probably was not built as a fish pond exactly, as I slowly figured out. It was large and kidney shaped, measuring at least  fifteen feet long and at points, six feet across. However, it had sloping sides so parts were shallow and no part was deeper than two feet. I think it was originally designed as a lily pond. And rather than a natural concrete colour, it was the aquamarine of a swimming pool.

There is a saying, “Be careful what you wish for,” the implication being the wish might not be exactly what you hoped for. I had wished for a fish pond, but strangely I had never owned fish, never thought about fish, knew nothing about fish. It took a while to dawn on me that if I had a pond fish, the pond was not deep enough to winter fish over. I would need an indoor aquarium with all the trimmings and some time to keep the fish clean and healthy. Still, in the early years, I was undaunted, even by the dreadful aquamarine paint, as besides a few fish, I planted water lilies whose lovely flowers and spreading leaves distracted from the swimming pool colour.

I did overwinter fish in a tank in the basement, surprisingly to me, with little fish loss. With spring, there was always a lot of cleaning to do after the winter had filled the pond with snow water and leaves that appeared despite a fall raking. Over some years too, the water lilies bloomed less and less as the surrounding trees grew more and more. I had to give up on the lilies which made me more  aware of the dreaded colour of the pond. There followed a series of attempts, too painful and too boring to recount, to change the colour of the pond until I discovered a product called rubber cement for ponds. It changed the pond to a satisfying black colour, but the wonder product itself  was not without issues of needing continued renewal, again too boring to recount.

With all this, you might wonder why I didn’t just have the pond filled in. Sometimes I wonder if it’s more the idea of having a fish pond than the reality. But ultimately, I think not.

It brings me joy to sit quietly and watch the fish swim freely. The pond is big enough that they seem to be exploring it, leisurely, alone or in a group. If fish can be happy, my fish are happy in the pond. I have replaced the water lilies with water hyacinths and pots of impatience in small pots that float in a styrofoam ring. There are no frogs around but dragonflies. Several kinds of birds come to the pond to drink and bathe.  Robins particularly seem to like a good bath and will spend several moments wetting themselves and then fluttering off the water. The squirrels and the couple of resident chipmunks come to drink.

Recently I have had to rehome eight of my fish as they have grown, over the past five years, too big for the indoor tank. I knew this coming winter, they would be shoulder to shoulder for those long winter months. When I left the aquarium store where I was able to take them, I felt sadder than I ever thought I would.

The ancient sage, Aesop, advised to be careful what you wish for because you may get it- and get unexpected consequences. I truly get the unintended consequences. Though my pond may be no Walden Pond, it gives me lovely reflections.

Christmas Concert – Anne of Green Gables (Madeleine Horton)

~ Madeleine Horton ~ Leave a comment

This piece owes its first three lines to Anne of Green Gables and references a concert put on by Anne and her classmates for Christmas.

We had recitations this afternoon. Our last practice.  I just put my whole soul into it. And now…

            I am standing on the stage, holding my cardboard letter turned into me. My letter is M. I turn my letter to the audience and speak. My voice is loud, clear, and stilted. M is for magical- Santa coming down the chimney. Relief, I’ve said it all and now can look down the line as each classmate in turn flips over a cardboard letter, -E R R-, down the line, some yelling out their piece- C is for Christ, the reason for the season- or whispering- H is for holy, Oh holy night- some shocked into silence until loudly prompted behind the curtain- T is for turkey, roasted and stuffed- some giggle, some shuffle, some look down at their feet, until the final card is flipped, a large exclamation mark to signal everyone to shout, “Merry Christmas” and to allow little Evalina to take part. Evalina who is in grade two and who would be in grade two when I graduated from grade eight in that one room school, Evalina still in the same desk, still the same size, with her face like a rubber doll and her hair ever wispy and white like an old woman’s.

            We are grade 2’s and 3’s at S.S.11 Public School and we are the closing act of the annual Christmas concert held in the basement of the United Church (established 1873) and this is the culmination of our weeks of preparation. It starts on the Friday afternoon after Hallowe’en when we begin the walk to the church, a stone’s throw away from the school and a blessed relief from the dreaded reading to an older student, possibly a boy, maybe dour Jacob Liemann, the oral math genius, reading that marked long afternoons.

            The concert is of course more ambitious than the presentation of my junior classmates. The serious Irene Black who is not allowed to play baseball for fear of injuring her fingers plays a classical piano piece. Three Grade 8 girls sing their song with harmony, the one prepared for the Rotary Music Festival. Shirley Gough plays her accordion. Two of the big boys give a comic recitation. As we prepared, there was an unstated message from our formidable teacher that somehow our work here will be evaluated, hence no writing of our short recitation on the back of our cardboard letters. I am in awe of the bigger kids, those who have a role in the two marquee presentations of the evening- Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and the always required retelling of the Christmas story. I am unaware that our twenty minute version of the Dickens’ classic is greatly abridged but am impressed because I have a part in the play. I am one of the Cratchit children though admittedly I have no real lines. Instead, as we play on the floor, we have been instructed by Mrs. McKenzie to say “rhubarb” over and over again which will make it seem as if we are having conversations. We have learned that this is what professional actors do in crowd scenes so feel disproportionately important. But my real awe is reserved for the grade eight boy who plays Scrooge who has many lines and never stumbles.       

            The retelling of the Christmas story is required every year and never varies much. The central figures, Mary, Joseph, and the Christ child doll take centre stage. Mary has nothing to say but has mastered her look of wide-eyed adoration as she leans over the manger and beholds the Christ doll. I am dimly aware that the girl chosen to be Mary is the prettiest of the senior girls, a slim girl with long wavy blonde hair and no trace of pubescent imperfection in her creamy skin. She seems as serene and elevated as a fairy tale princess awaiting a troop of suitors. Joseph is the dark haired captain of his bantam hockey team and already marked as cool. The angels come and go, the shepherds guard their stuffed toy sheep, the Wise Men trek across the stage to deliver their three gifts and few words to the holy couple, and circling this tableau, the massed choir of the rest of the school sing carols artfully chosen by Mrs. McKenzie to link the story together. There is huge applause at the end of the presentation.

            I look out from my place at the side of the stage near the front where the smaller students sit to sing. I can see my mother and my father. They are sitting in a row with Evalina’s parents and grandparents, the only people in that row. My father is right next to the grandfather, the scary Mr. McVicar with the sunken face and the jaw that looks all eaten away. “Cancer,” my mother has said and it is rude to stare at him. Evalina’s parents are there, her mother looking almost as old as my grandmother, her father looking as if he has just come in from the barn, still wearing a denim smock coat. I have asked my mother why they look so different from everyone else. “They are poor,” my mother said, “but Evalina has such a pretty name.” My mother is most impressed with names and has saddled me with a name I greatly dislike at this time. I am Briony and I will not hear that name given to any other girl until I am an adult of some years.

            The basement is overflowing. Every pupil’s parents and many grandparents are there along with younger siblings. There may be over one hundred people. So many that some are standing at the back. These are mainly youths as old as seventeen or eighteen, all young men, all tall and gangly, looking uncomfortable in starched shirts and dress jackets, hair freshly combed and brylcreamed, young men who have just finished the evening’s milking. They are both awkward and intimidating standing there, sometimes laughing together for a moment between acts of the concert. They are intimidating but not so much as they will be in a few years when I am on the cusp of being a teenager and am a large girl in a pink taffeta dress, tragically the same dress as a grade eight girl who has recently lost many pounds of weight from a magic pill her doctor gave her, and we must make our exit from the stage, down the aisle, and past that clutch of perennially looming youths.

            But this night is one of great happiness. I have remembered my words. I have been a Cratchit child. Santa has come at the end of the program. And I do know already that he is just pretend, that the thin man with the skimpy beard is Mr. Hipley the Sunday school teacher and that the present he handed to me is the scarf I saw my mother accidentally leave in a bag on the table. I do not yet know how much I will later think about my mother and my father sitting with Evalina’s parents nor how the mysteries of early memory shape us and visit us especially at Christmas.

Lost (Madeleine Horton)

~ Madeleine Horton ~ 1 Comment

As a young man, my grandfather Walter Freidrich Karl Ernest (anglicized from the original Ernst) spent much of his life in Africa, from about 1895-1910. His apparent facility learning languages led to employment as an interpreter with the native labourers building the railway in British East Africa. He was also a keen amateur photographer.

 My Aunt Dorothy, my mother’s older sister, seventeen years her senior, had many albums of his photos, which she dramatically called the Safari Books. On an early visit to Canada, she brought one. It cemented my fascination with this branch of my family which seemed then so much more exotic and interesting than my farming grandparents who lived down the road, a mere half mile from my family. All this was, of course, before words like colonialist and settler had taken on the negative connotations they have today. Interestingly though, in the early eighties my Aunt Dorothy said she would not be offering the Safari Books to Africa House in London. She was aware, with the many newly independent nations in Africa, photos taken by a dead white man from England might not be welcome.                                                     

When I made my first trip to England, my aunt offered to let me choose an album. It was the nicest gift she could give me. I felt honoured that I was being entrusted with a piece of family history.                                                                                                                                       

So for a long time now, I have felt an ongoing sense of guilt. Somehow I have lost my Safari Book.                                                                                                                                             

I did not lose it during my travels. Nor on the way home. For many years, it was in the same place on my bookshelf in my den. Periodically I took it out, always amazed at the enduring quality of the sepia photographs. Others in my family enjoyed seeing it. I remember only once taking it to my school to show an art teacher who had travelled to Africa. I remain sure I brought it home and remember packing it up to clear the room when the den ceiling needed major renovation. I have turned out every box and scoured all the places where I squirrel away papers. I have looked under beds and taken apart closets. All to no avail. I regret bitterly that I did not have the foresight to scan the photos.

For myself, I seem to remember the photos clearly, their sepia tones ever bold. Though, as time goes on, I wonder how many I have already forgotten. The pages seem to flip before my eyes ~ two views of the forbidding Zambesi River flowing into impenetrable jungle ~ a small building, dwarfed by the jungle behind it, seemingly set on stilts, captioned in my grandfather’s flowing cursive “Hotel, Umtali” ~ a very tall man in a flowing white robe in front of an arched and carved doorway framed by the two huge elephant tusks he holds. The building a mosque, the man perhaps a Somali or Ethiopian from his features ~ a panorama of the port at Mombasa, the end point of the railway ~ several photos of the railway being constructed in British East Africa. Men dwarfed by the giant jungle trees on the slopes behind them. Wielding pickaxes behind the trains in front of them. Perhaps clearing land for a small settlement ~ my favourite, a Black youth standing on the front of a locomotive. (I’m not sure why. I never asked myself if he was posed.) He isn’t smiling. He just looks like a young boy who has scrambled to a cool position to get his photo taken ~ a portrait of a priest, presumed Anglican or Catholic, formal, unsmiling. (One wonders about this context too.) ~ a room titled someone’s office. The desk, a table really, covered with a fancy linen cloth, draping to the floor. A coal oil lamp. an inkwell and fountain pen in a stand. Papers. On the wall, several animal skins. Zebra, leopard, some kind of antelope, horns ~ 

I wish I could see it once more. Though I feel differently now about pinning the skins of animals to walls for decor. I still have the feeling of the room. It feels stuffed and stolid. As if the walls could be wood panelled with a fireplace. Perhaps an attempt to conjure up faraway home. But is it not simply a hut? 

 ~ a group of men dressed in suits. The background now unclear. But I remember the caption “The Ananias Club” and then a strange quote about wood and water which I can no longer remember but never did understand ~ 

I have discovered what may be the origins of “Ananias Club.” It is apparently an expression, used as a euphemism by Teddy Roosevelt, for the word “Liar.” In my imagination, it is ironic or perhaps ironically accurate. A Club where men got together and told of their exploits in those lands. I recognize the short man with the trim moustache, my grandfather.

 ~ finally, three grave markers: simple slabs of stone etched with names and the stark details. One died of malaria, one was killed by natives, one was killed by a lion ~ 

Are their gravestones too now lost?

I confess I have shed tears over the loss of that album. I am not sure why its loss has bothered me so much. The world it showed is itself lost and most would say good riddance.

On a personal level, I never met that grandfather, who was over sixty when my mother was born. But I do remember my formidable Aunt Dorothy who still had some memories of her early childhood in Africa and how her stories nourished my imagination. She entrusted me with the album which had endured so long and travelled so far. 

And I lost it.

A Canadian Moment of Meditation (Madeleine Horton)

~ Madeleine Horton ~ 1 Comment

Across the street Teagan comes out of his house. Plaid hat, snow pants, large gloves, swimming in his coat. The lawn is covered with snow. The boulevard is banked high with huge chunks of snow after yesterday’s storm. Teagan begins to carry chunks of snow to the lawn. He is choosy. Sometimes walking further down the street to find the perfect chunks. He is building, not a snowman, a snow fort. Some of the chunks are so large he struggles to carry them, until one overcomes him, and he falls. Face down in the snow he lies for long seconds until he rises, snow covered, shakes himself, and trudges over to a smooth piece of snowy lawn. He lies down and makes a snow angel. Refreshed, he arises and goes back to finding the next perfect chunk. Refreshed, I turn from my window to do an adult task.

Eldorado (Madeleine Horton)

~ Madeleine Horton ~ 1 Comment

My sister thinks I have a lot of crackpot theories. Not that she would use a word like that. She says in an even voice, “You might want to not broadcast those ideas too loudly.” That would be her theory about our trip to Red Butte.

I was working at a small stable. In the middle of nowhere or what passes for nowhere in that part of southern Ontario. I was doing massage on an older mare. I used to do people too, but I got tired of it. Too much complaining about my fees and come-ons from older guys.

Janis was standing at the head of the mare in case it got antsy. An excuse. Janis is a real talker and there aren’t many people around in the daytime. Most of her boarders are working so they can pay for these massages.

I’ve known Janis for years. She’s on the wrong side of forty and looks it. Too much sun. Her arms are real sinewy, ropey-like. Her hands are always calloused and raw, almost every finger crooked, from making a living wrangling rebellious horses at the end of a line. Still attractive at a glance though. She wears her hair long – lucky because it’s dead straight. I had to shorten my curly hair years ago. I knew it had the blowsy look.

I met Janis at a stable. She was one for the dramatic scene from the beginning. She married a pilot and on the wedding day, he parachuted onto the cross-country field and she picked him up in a two-horse carriage she borrowed.

I lost track of her for a few years until she started her stable. She told me she had kicked the bum, the pilot, out because his layovers were, well, lay overs. After that I saw her occasionally with an assortment of men at horse shows, usually guys looking baffled and doing her bidding. Carrying water and such. I had to admire how she made her little stable work.

So, I was stunned when she was holding that horse and said, “Ellen, I’ve got big news. I’m selling up and moving to live with my boyfriend.” I had not even seen a man lurking around there for a while.

I took my hands off the mare’s haunches and stepped closer to her. “You have got to be kidding.” I saw right away that was wrong and felt bad. “Tell me all about him.” That got me off the hook.

“His name is Colton” – I forget the last name – “and he owns a ranch that breeds and trains cutting horses.”

She met him on-line. I must have had a sceptical look because she laughed. “Oh, Ellen, come on. Everyone does it now.”

He was near her age. Divorced, of course. No kids. Had sold horses to Robert Redford and that media guy, Jane Fonda’s ex. Liked western sunsets, loved to barbeque, preferred sitting around the fireplace to bars. I was tempted to ask about quiet walks along the beach but held back. Instead, “When will I meet him?”

Her voice softened and she spoke in that tone young, untested brides do. Not like her at all. “I don’t think you will. Unless you come visit. Which I’d love for you to do. In South Dakota.”

“South-frigging-Dakota. You’ve got to be kidding. You read about women doing such things.”

She was set on it. Business was down, dealing with spoilt horses was getting harder. This was a chance for a real future.

She wouldn’t take her horse.

“No, it will be just Tucker-dog and me.”

She admitted Colton hadn’t mentioned a dog. “You can usually trust a man with a dog.” I said.

She settled up quickly. Turned out she only rented the land. Gave her horse to a friend. Sent most of her possessions to Goodwill. She gave me a wrought iron hitching post with a horse’s head I had admired. The day I went to pick it up she gave me a piece of paper with her address. I stared at it as if deciphering hieroglyphics. It read:

Eldorado, nr. Red Butte, South Dakota 37558

“Keep in touch,” she said.

Janis isn’t a hugger and nor am I. We looked at each other, quiet. “See you,” I said as if I’d be back in a month.

I waited to let her settle in. I phoned first. Number no longer in service. Unsurprising now she was stateside. The letter was not returned so I assumed she had it. No response. But at Christmas a strange postcard arrived. A black and white photo of three early settlers, a man and two women standing outside a cabin, more like a shed. Where they stood was a nowhere, not a tree or shrub or rise of land for a location. I turned it over. The postmark was illegible. The faded pencil scrawls were inked over with my address and a wobbly heart and ‘Janis’ printed in the large unruly letters a first grader might produce. I knew I had to visit Janis.

My sister and I were driving along the Needle Highway in South Dakota. A scenic detour she wanted to make. Thankfully she agreed to make the three-day trip from Phoenix with me. I think she gets bored. Her husband is retired but does a lot of contract work.

Peggy was excited about the rock formations she knew we would see. I think people who like rock formations are the same people who like abstract art. Peggy has a lot of that in her house. Myself, I could never settle in a place without real trees. Oak, ash, maple. Not the scrawny trees we saw there. I told Peggy about the mystery man Janis met over the internet, the quick move, and the long silence. Nothing of my suspicions or the post card.

“You always have strange friends.” I let that comment pass. It did irk me though. Peggy’s life has been highly conventional. Her husband is an on-the-move-research scientist. Their two daughters are high achievers. All their friends are doctors and lawyers and such, as the song says.

I decided I might as well tell her about what I thought was really going on. “I don’t want to alarm you but I suspect we might not see Janis. I have a feeling she is being held captive.”

 “Good God, Ellen, then what are we doing here? And what do you mean a feeling? A feeling or a theory?” You might know she was a linguistics major.

As I said, she thinks I am always promoting some cockeyed views about events. Not conspiracy theories, of course. “What do I mean?”

“Yes. Like your idea that violence and rioting in some places are explained by dehydration because no one has enough water to drink and dehydration causes irrational behaviour.”

I did happen to think that. Too many men running amok without water bottles. But I ignored that dig. “As it happens, I do have some thoughts on missing women. Don’t you notice how many aren’t found? It’s not easy to move and conceal a body. I think a lot of them are being held captive. I’ll bet it’s way more common than you think.”

“That is so disturbing. I don’t know how you can think about things like that.” She changed the subject to more of her research on South Dakota vegetation.

We reached Red Butte late afternoon. A faded sign announced, Home of the Pheasant Festival. “Must be the ringed neck pheasant. The state bird.” I wanted to show I knew something.

Peggy laughed. “You must mean the ring-necked pheasant. Though possibly true at the festival.” She took her hands off the steering wheel, twisted both hands on her neck and mimed breaking it.

Sometimes she breaks out in weird humour.

We pulled into the only motel in town. A six-cabin affair. The Pheasant Motel- surprise. A worn-out looking man booked us in. He seemed uninterested in our business there.

We set out for the Post Office where I hoped to get directions. Closed. Open three days a week for two hours according to the window sign. Next door another older man sat behind the counter of the hardware store, reading a Bible. I made some small talk about the pheasant festival but the man said it was mostly a local affair.

I was looking for directions to a place our GPS would not track I said. “The Post Office is closed,” I added as if this would be news.

“They don’t know much anyways. It’s all cluster mailboxes out there now. Some folks they never see.” I heard Peggy’s muttered, “Good God.”

“We’re looking for a place called Eldorado.”

He looked up now with interest and fixed his eyes on me. “I know about it on account of the name. Some like to dream big.”

He had never been there. Didn’t know anyone who had. But drew a map to an old logging road. It was about twenty miles away. I figured the kilometres roughly in my head.

“Hope you got a decent truck.” He nodded when I said I was from Canada.

My sister says she doesn’t care about vehicles as long as they run. I could sense otherwise. She was tense with all the jarring and bumping given to her SUV. She clutched the steering wheel with both hands and looked straight ahead.

“At least we aren’t on a mountain road.” Outside nothing but phallic-like rocks – her words from earlier – struggling aspen trees and in the distance ponderosa pines. Her research again.

The road ended abruptly in a turnaround and small clearing. An old trailer curved and shaped like an egg huddled alone in dry weeds. Amidst its rust, I could make out the original maroon and gold colour. “Do you know it’s called a teardrop trailer?”

“I suppose you think that makes it an omen.” I’ll say this. Peggy is often good at reading me.

No one was there. No one had bothered to shut the door properly. Inside, scarcely room for two people to move around. Peggy started going through the cupboards. I slid by her to the sleeping area. The mattresses were thin and dirty. I was leery of mice. I can’t abide a mouse inside.

“Nothing much here,” Peggy said. “A few mugs, a part of a jar of instant coffee, a can opener, cutlery, two cans of chili, matches.”

I looked under the mattresses as if expecting some big revelation. Nothing. There wasn’t much else to inspect. An oil lamp, a couple of musty pillows, a brown towel, no blood. “I think that’s it. I’ll take a quick look around the outside of the trailer.”

Peggy was already out the door.

I opened the cupboards again. One mug had a hunting scene with a horse and hounds coursing a fox. I put it in my jacket pocket.

I walked around the front of the trailer. Looking for I knew not what. Above the tiny front window was a chrome name plate: Eldorado. The brand of the trailer. Not even an original name for the place then. Behind the trailer was yet more untidy. Several empty oil barrels, a couple of tires, a broken webbed chair, all partly visible in the scrubby grass and weeds. Two more folding chairs, upended, around a fire pit filled with ashes and poked through by shards of grass. Something hung around the arm of one chair. Closer, I could see it was a dog’s collar, Tucker’s braided leather collar, and in the fire pit bones and some bits of charred black fur. “Fuck,” I said, and ran.

You know how the drive back from a place can seem shorter than the drive to the place. Not this time. I wanted to tell Peggy to drive faster but I didn’t want to scare her. Besides what were we running from? It was dark when we got to Red Butte. I couldn’t face staying there again. We drove to the nearest city, three hours away.

“What did you hope to find?” Peggy asked after a long shower in the security of a national brand hotel. I sat in a comfortable chair with the mug in my hand turning it around and around, looking at the hounds coursing the lone fox. There wasn’t much to say. Janis, of course. A ranch, maybe a struggling business. Maybe the guy would be a lot older than Janis but still it would all be good. Tucker would come out to greet me the way he always did.

“It was Eldorado.” Peggy looked up from the phone that now engrossed her. “I saw the name on the trailer, Eldorado, a brand plate. And Janis was there. I’m pretty sure.” I paused. “Didn’t you notice this mug with the hunt scene? That’s not the kind of mug a man out here would have. It’s fine china.

English made. English scene. The kind Janis would bring. The others were thick, dollar store junk.” “Shouldn’t we call the police or something?” Peggy would like that much drama.

Maybe I should have told her about finding that collar. I don’t know why I didn’t. Everything seemed to become more unreal when I saw that fire pit. It wasn’t the sort of thing that happens to Peggy and me. “There’s not much to go on. An adult woman, from out of the country, hooks up with a guy over the internet. Last name unknown. First name probably common here. Said by another woman, also from out of the country, to have disappeared. Oh, and the mug. What cop is going to understand about the mug?”

It wasn’t like we could go searching for Janis. Where would you begin in that vast emptiness? Peggy looked at me but said nothing. I don’t usually get this worked up. I walked over to her, bent down, and even hugged her. “Thanks for being such a good sport with all the driving and everything.”

At the window I looked into the dark. I wanted to go home. To my home, not Peggy’s. To see real trees. Pick up Ranger from the boarding kennel. Settle in on our couch. Make a real cup of tea. Why can’t the Americans make a proper cup of tea? Dishwater. Damn Janis. After all, I tried to warn her about him. What else could I do?

“You know,” I said more to myself than Peggy, “that was just the kind of place where someone like Janis could walk into a hardware store one day and announce she escaped years, say seven years, of being held in an abandoned cold war bunker.” Things like that happen. I tried picturing it all out.

Instead I kept seeing that collar. Such a shame about the dog.

A Summer Trip on the Ottawa River (Madeleine Horton)

~ Madeleine Horton ~ 1 Comment

I am not a water person. Growing up on a farm in the Fifties, my experience with water was limited to the once or twice Sunday trips each summer to Port Stanley where I would venture out only far enough beyond the discouraging stones to splash a little and then float.

In my late twenties, with little water in between, two friends and I took a short camping holiday in Algonquin Park. My two friends were both experienced canoeists and parked me in the middle of the craft. I enjoyed canoeing small lakes joined by rivers. The rivers I liked best for the sense of being able to almost reach out and touch the branches of overhanging trees on either side. For the sense of being in nature, to my mind. And probably for the sense of security.

On the last day of our holiday, Elsie proposed we drive to the Ottawa area and go white water rafting. It would be the highlight of the holiday for her. Sheila in her always soft and firm voice at once said she would not go. She would happily wait for us on shore. My first impulse was to decline also. But Elsie did not want to inconvenience us both. I said I would go.

White water rafting was still rather new at that time. Elsie had heard of one outfit, probably the least expensive. I knew absolutely nothing of the different rafts used nor of the different reputations of the different companies. The company we went to turned out to be one with a reputation for being the wildest. The rafts were like large rubber dinghies with no fixed oars—a feature I was later told made for a larger, safer raft.

We were issued life jackets of a sort. I spied some helmets which were not offered and asked about wearing one. I suppose this caution came from always being required to wear a helmet when riding. I asked about having one. I was given one, with a bemused smile. No one else asked for one.

The leader for our trip was a young French Canadian, not a large man but wiry and well-muscled. He spoke little, gestured extravagantly, and used the expression “it’s a real rush, man” frequently. That perhaps should have been a warning.

We were led to to see the first set of rapids. I looked down at churning, rushing waters forced through what seemed a narrow canyon. The guide said these were the strongest rapids and  where people most often were flipped off the raft. Usually two or three per trip. With twelve trippers, the dreaded thirteen counting the guide, the odds did not sound great. We could choose not to do this part. Instead, cross a stream he pointed out, and meet the raft at a point a short distance away. My hand went up. He casually pointed to the stream some distance away and left with the group.

The stream flowed down a sharp incline. It was like a chute. Around two hundred yards from where I stood, it emptied into the river. I stood and looked down at it. .The water was crystal clear, several feet deep, and rushing. I looked across it. It did not look that wide. Perhaps three feet across. It must have been stepped over by others than me. The Guide had been offhand as he waved me towards it.

I did not make the opposite bank. I was swept away.

I remember that with absolute clarity. My life did not flash before me. I was on my back. My eyes were open. I remember seeing how crystal clear the water was above me. How far I was from the surface. I did nothing. It was so fast. I felt no pain. I made no struggle. I felt no fear. It was just sensation. Me and the clear water above me. 

I did not think then of those many in Greek mythology who sought to confound their fate, only to be forced to endure it. 

I surfaced in the river, further than I could ever swim. There were two canoes near me at once. I would not want a recording of my struggle to get into the canoe. They (I have no sense of my helpers) rowed me to the shore where the raft had pulled up. No one had flipped from the raft.

The Guide was enthusiastic in his effort to convince me to continue the trip. The rest of the rapids would be easier. He really wanted me to do it. It would be a rush.

Reader, I went. The Guide was more or less correct. Most of the rapids I do not recall. Except for one when the front of the raft went so high in the air I thought it was going to completely turn head over heels. (Would that be keel?) At the last second, the front bent forward and we continued on our way. 

Later, as my friends and I drove to find our last campsite I assessed the damage. I had lost a pair of prescription sunglasses. My left shoe had been sucked off my foot. That foot was swollen and bruised.  It was only when I was at home late the next day and looked in a mirror, that I saw a chain of large purple bruises down my spine that must have been caused by hitting rocks. I thought of my head and the helmet. A reluctant trip to a Walk-in Clinic confirmed a sprained ankle. 

Sometimes I think of the lessons I took from that experience. I wonder if they are the right ones.

Green Thumb: The tomato which inspired a contest, kept a family in touch, and eased a pandemic. (Madeleine Horton)

~ Madeleine Horton ~ Leave a comment

Several years ago, I stopped at a Pick Ur Own vegetable farm. I picked some tomatoes on a row marked Heritage Varieties: Sicilian Saucers. They proved to be, to my mind, the most flavourful tomatoes I had ever tasted both for cooking and for fresh eating. The next year, to my dismay, the farmer turned his land to cash crops and planted soybeans and corn. I decided I wanted these tomatoes but cannot grow them myself in my shady yard. So I announced a Tomato Contest to my family in hopes that most of them could deliver their entries in person. For the two brothers in the West, photos were the only option. The cash incentive attracted my competition loving family, including this year both my nephews.

The Sicilian Saucer tomato is as the name suggests one that can grow very large, thus making it good for a contest. The central prize has been for largest tomato. That continues this year. Contestants have been reminded that the margins of victory can be close. Last year’s winner, my nephew in Drayton, Ontario edged out his mother by only six grams. My brother in Hope, B.C. has for the past two years submitted a photo of an impressive looking Sicilian posed beside an egg. Regrettably, the concrete scale of his rivals has overruled his subjective egg; it has been suggested he borrow a scale this year if possible.  

Sicilian Saucers are the workhorses of tomatoes. Because of their large and irregular size, they do not fit neatly into commercial containers which favour a one size for all, a one shape for all. They are not a pretty face; they will never be celebrated at the Royal Winter Fair where the flashy Beefsteak tomato flaunts itself. They will never grace the cover of  Gourmet magazine. They are rough and robust, the proletarians of the tomato world, never to be relegated to the regimens of a greenhouse. But they have a noble heritage, the sunny fields of Sicily, the renowned pots of masters of tomato cuisine in the Mediterranean. 

But, they are a challenge to grow. Sicilian Saucers are not a hybrid tomato with all their inherent quirks engineered out of them. They are prone to blight. Because of their size, they easily crack and split. They need a longer growing season than some others.

The first year of the contest, my youngest sister, an avid and usually successful gardener discovered the difficulties.  She, however, is nothing if not an optimist and in late October she appeared on my doorstep, and held out her hand holding one, small, hard, green, Sicilian Saucer, perhaps in hopes that her siblings had had even less success. We have laughed about that since then.  Last year a nephew who had never gardened before produced the winner of the largest tomato. This year he emailed me in February asking about the contest because his two children were keen to help again.

This year, the third year, and perhaps the Grande Finale of the contest, some new categories have been announced and others expanded. The unassuming Sicilian Saucer will not mind and the changes will promote good will, dispelling any feelings of disgruntlement in the West that the contest favours the climate conditions of the East. Hence, there will be a new category- A Medley of Three Varieties of Tomatoes. For this the Sicilian Saucer may be called to step aside, if needed, mindful that they also serve, who only remain on their stake.

Another new category opens equal opportunity for all vegetables- A Medley of Any Three Different Vegetables. For those whose Sicilians are substantial but not the biggest, the popular Pair of Sicilian Saucers class returns. For those who have an artistic eye, there are now two prizes for Photo Presentation of Your Produce- one to include a Sicilian Saucer. Last year the sister who appeared the first year with the hard, green tomatoes presented a photo worthy of a poster- her ample Sicilian posed with rustic pottery and vintage tins.

So, what started as a simple who can grow the biggest tomato challenge has morphed into something more. Last year, with the bigger challenge of the pandemic, and already this year, as the pandemic stubbornly hangs on, this little contest has brought good natured ribbing, laughs, new interests, and a little relief to me and my family. Nice work for a modest tomato, the Sicilian Saucer.  

A Dog’s Thoughts on a Human (Madeleine Horton)

~ Madeleine Horton ~ Leave a comment

You ask me about my Upright. Let me start by saying I think all their problems come from being two-legged Uprights. Have you ever tried to walk on two legs? Painful. Whatever made them do it?

Still my Upright is good to me. The dish, ah the dish. As soon as I hear, “There’s something in your dish,” I’m out to the kitchen. Dish, the magic word. It used to be just the kibble, ok but boring after a while. Then one day, a little piece of juicy chicken on top and some carrot. Another day a bit of potato and a piece of a fish. I could smell it from the den where I was stretched out on the couch. It wasn’t everyday though. But I got to thinking. If I didn’t eat that kibble, she would understand and put something delicious on it. It didn’t take me long and she was trained. Something every day. One day though, for some unknown reason there was nothing. I decided to wait it out. It was really hard. All that evening, through the dark, until the next day when the dark was coming again. But it worked. Beautiful chopped egg.

Then I noticed the portions getting some smaller. I would eat but my stomach growled. So I would go into the den where she sat and sit down right in front of her and give her my stare and purse my lips and give a new little moan. It works. Always a little something more, usually one of those lamb biscuits, my favourite.

I like the couch. Just the one in the den. I don’t know why the other one is “Off.” Sometimes I stretch out on my back and I feel so relaxed. I let me head flop to the side and punch my front paws into the air. And I love to splay my back legs out. “You are a shameless dog,” she says, laughing. I have no idea what she is getting at but then she comes and gives me a belly rub. Nothing feels better.

Sometimes when I am in the house, I can hear the squirrels jump from the roof to the birdfeeder and I run to the window and give them a good barking. I don’t know why she doesn’t bark at the squirrels. She’s really missing out. 

In the night-time, we sit in the den and look at the big window on the table. There are always dogs and more dogs to see though they never hear me when I rush to the window and put my face right on it. I even know the names of two who come around all the time. She will say, “Alfred’s here or your friend Sikes.” As soon as I hear their names, I’m there if I’m in another room. There are other creatures, some I know like squirrels and ducks or horses, and others that look big and strange. I’m not really interested.

Nothing beats a walk. She lets me sniff. I have heard there are dogs that don’t get to sniff. Nothing beats a walk except a ride to the place with the horses. As soon as we get there, she opens the door and says, “Go wild.” I can run as far as the woods, roll over in my favourite smell pits, sometimes jump in the pond, play with three other dogs, and try to get the cat’s food. I have found the horse leaves some dropping in his stall and I’ve eaten a piece. That gets me a big, “bad dog.” I know what that means but I don’t understand really.

At night when we cuddle in the den, she will say. “Little dog, I love you so much.” More unclear words but it always gives me a warm and safe feeling.

Spontaneous Combustion (Madeleine Horton)

~ Madeleine Horton ~ Leave a comment

Nothing seemed unusual that day at school. Mrs. McColgan flared up after low sounds of cows and pigs and sheep arose around the room during mental arithmetic. I knew from my younger brother that older boys who hated standing up and computing numbers had planned the disruption. It was a favourite one among rural boys. No one would own up to the noises. Recesses were cancelled. Everyone had to sit and read or draw. We were kept indoors at lunch and restricted to quiet talking or crokinole for amusement. After lunch, the teacher read Lassie Come Home to us for much longer than usual. It did not seem strange that she read for so long or that all were punished for the misdeeds of a few. She was mercurial. I had heard older boys released from one of these days running to the road say she must be on the rag. I did not know what it meant but understood its dismissive tone. This day she looked down from her desk on the platform and asked my brother and I to stay after class dismissed. I sat while the other students left and stared at the print of the young Queen Elizabeth, the only picture on the walls. I dreaded being asked if I knew who made the noises. Mrs. McColgan had a way of detecting the most compliant students.

She came down to my desk and said, “Your barn burned down today.” That was it. Nothing else. No hug, no hands on a shoulder. No offer of a ride home. Unlikely as she herself waited for her husband to pick her up later. I felt embarrassed as if I had drawn this attention to myself. I reached into my desk and got my reader and my lunch bag. No one came for us. My brother ran ahead of me and I walked the half mile home alone. I could see nothing but the fir trees that lined the driveway and the empty space where the barn had risen. I thought of her, standing on that platform, looking out the high set windows that seemed designed to prevent young minds from wandering from their tasks. She must have seen it all, from bursting flames to lingering smoke, without as much as a telltale grimace as my family’s animals burnt alive. For a long time I hated her in that heated way of being nine and thinking I understood her behaviour, hated that she was so placid, a word I learned from my word obsessed mother.

My grandparents had come from their nearby farm. My grandmother met me in the driveway, wheezing more than usual from her asthma in the cold. A couple of neighbours lingered under the willow with my grandfather halfway to the barn. I looked but could see nothing of the horror behind the high cement walls and gaping window cavities. Some charred remains of the collapsed great timbers still smouldered and poked into the air. The smell of heavy smoke lingered. The firetruck had left.

In the house, my mother seemed bewildered and kept looking out the window that faced the barn. She repeated, “It was engulfed in flames when I saw it. Engulfed in flames.” I looked out the window and wondered if she had been reading. Her reading was already a small sore point and my mild-mannered grandmother had said to me more than once, “Your mother likes to read,” as if it were an affliction. My grandmother busied herself making my brother and me hot cocoa. She fretted about my father. He could not be contacted directly as he was at a service call to fix a tractor but would come home directly. I sat beside Jack who sat on the lounge by the wood stove, his pipe in his mouth unlit. He said nothing to me and there was nothing for us to do.

Jack was our hired man though my father never called him that. He was thin and seemed very old. He was a relative of a neighbouring farmer who had an abattoir. I knew this meant he was a butcher. Jack came to live with us because the butcher had no room for him and nothing to do. We did not really need a hired man. But since my father now worked off the farm so he could keep the farm and because, as I later realized, my father was kind, Jack came to us. He came with the smallest of suitcases and minimal desires. He smoked a pipe in the evening. He would not hear of my brother and I sharing a room so he could have one. Instead he slept on the lounge and was up so early it was like he had never slept there. Jack and I always started the evening chores before my father got home.

Having a hired man ranked high among the boys at school. Somehow, they knew about Jack but not from me for I was terrified of these older boys who took any bit of my lunch that suited them. A couple had been held back for two years in a time of no social promotion to the next grade. They seemed privy to all the talk of their fathers and had already embarrassed me by asking if my father couldn’t pay his taxes. They were well versed in who counted as a real hired man and said Jack was just some old guy, probably a drunk, that nobody wanted. “Your dad don’t pay him,” one told me.

I liked Jack. He was clean, he called me Miss, and he gave me a jackknife. “You’ll be needing this, Miss,” he said, “to cut the twine on the bales.” I was not yet strong enough to break the hay bales apart with my knees. It was the first time I had been given something that admitted me into a corner of the male world, a place I was beginning to realize would be separate and special. Already my brother, Tom, was talking about when he would be able to help other farmers with haying and get paid so he could buy a geared bike. I had asked my father about such work only to be told bluntly, “Girls don’t work off the farm like that.”

It was almost dark when my father got home. He was often late. The neighbours had left. I could only imagine the shock as he drove in the driveway and saw the silhouette of the barn, as he met his father, as they walked to the barn shell. When they came into the house, my father was silent as he sat down at the table where my grandmother laid out a plate of food for him. I sat in the background and watched him eat mechanically.

“It had to be spontaneous combustion according to the fire fellows, Ed,” my grandfather said. My mother jumped in, almost lit up. This was something she thought she knew about. She put my youngest brother down from her knee where she had busied herself keeping his toddler enthusiasms at bay. “It means huge pressure builds up in the hay and it heats and when it reaches a certain temperature, it bursts into flames. People can combust too.” At this, my grandmother looked at her with alarm. My mother continued, more directly to me. “Freud knew about it and said it happened when people were under pressure. They were consumed with anxiety and burned from the inside out. Dickens knew about it too and put it in a book.” I did not know who Freud was but I knew of Dickens and Scrooge and I knew my mother was smart. I saw my grandmother exchange a glance with my grandfather about the Freud comment. My father continued to sit at the table, his head in his hands, quiet.

I crept off to bed. I dreaded going to school the next day knowing I’d be circled by boys questioning me like a court, weighing in with their theories of what happened. I thought about what my mother said. The spontaneous combustion. It made sense. I worried for a moment that it would happen to my father but decided he was too sensible to combust. Then it struck me. If people could combust, cows could too. The cows or maybe just one cow must have burst into flames from being locked up all winter in their stanchions. In the kitchen, I could hear my parents, now alone, talking. “You make too much of things. You’ll give her wild ideas.”

I was beginning to feel that my family was different. Neighbouring families had lived there for generations. Many farms had two houses, a couple three. The generations shifted between the houses as elders died, as parents moved into the smaller house, as a son took over the central house. Century farms would be designated in the centennial year with plaques. The families married closely. My mother was a war bride. My father had served overseas. He was the only one in the neighbourhood except for a bachelor family of four boys. Two had gone to war. One came back with a leg missing and the other odd. I was given to theories at a young age and had decided that our family’s unsteady financial state could be explained by my father’s going to war unlike any of my classmates’ fathers. When I mentioned this once at supper, my father would have none of it. “You don’t know what you are talking about. The men on the farms were needed to produce food for the war effort.” My mother looked at me reproachfully as I had earlier raised the idea with her. She said it would not be a popular one. She had heard there were many young men from farms who served and died.

As soon as I returned to school, I was surrounded by boys. I felt sick when they asked if I had looked at the dead stuff. I was spared from replying. “Probably not,” one said to another. “She’s a girl. Wouldn’t be allowed.” They launched into their interrogation with all the presumed authority of well-groomed heirs. “Was it faulty wiring? Did your dad try to do it himself?” “Have you got rats? They chew wiring you know.” “Was it that guy who lives with you? Was he smoking in the barn?” “My dad says he” – here a hand mimed a bottle being drunk and boys snickered – “likes the bottle.”

“It was spontaneous combustion,” I said proudly. “It wasn’t our fault.”

“My dad said it wasn’t spontaneous combustion. February’s too late for hay to combust.”

This dogged certainty, the echoes of his father’s voice picking over my family’s tragedy, enraged me and made me reckless. “It wasn’t the hay. It was the cows or maybe just one cow.”

The boys all laughed. I saw some girls looking over from their circle but none came over. I did not leave it there. Their laughter egged me on to more outrageous assertions. “The cows wanted to get out. They were upset at being in the barn for so long. They got so upset one of them just blew up in flames. My mother told me so. And there is a guy called Floyd who knows about it too.”

This completely set the boys off. “You’re nuts. Like your mother. She should’ve stayed in England. My mother says she don’t know a thing about farming.”

“Most likely the old guy.” The oldest of the boys said this with a finality that convinced them and they lost interest in me and went back to their snow fort.

Where had Jack been? In yesterday’s confusion I had not considered Jack. I remembered him sitting in his usual place by the wood stove, head down, not smoking his pipe. After school I asked my mother.

“He was out in the woods checking his rabbit snares for most of the morning. He couldn’t hear or see anything. The fire truck didn’t use a siren. No need on these roads.”

I was relieved. Now I could clear Jack from suspicion. And distressed. Since he came, we had eaten rabbit frequently. My father was pleased with the free meat and even my mother who had eaten it during the war did not object. I was embarrassed about it. I had heard boys ask Henrik the immigrant from Holland whose father worked as a hired hand if they ate squirrels. I knew eating rabbit would be no better. But Jack was not to blame for the fire. Tomorrow I would face the boys and tell them the truth.

That evening I sat at the little table in my room and drew two pictures. My mother made sure I always had drawing paper. She believed in art. I wanted to remember the barn and the way everything was. I drew its layout with each of the stanchions for the cows, the three calves’ places beside their mothers, the pens at the rear for the sows and their piglets, the stairs to the hay mow, the room for the pig chop and chicken feed, the place for hanging the forks and shovels, the taps and opening where the hay came down from above. I drew another picture with the cows’ heads in their stanchions, their large liquid eyes facing me. I labelled the cow with the white heart-shaped marking in the middle of her black forehead that I named Valentine. I showed some chickens roosting on the bar above the cows.

When I was finished, I took my drawings to the kitchen where Jack lay asleep on the lounge and my father sat at the table examining sheets of important looking papers. I showed him the drawings. He held onto the one with the cows in their stanchions facing out and stared at it for moments until I felt uncomfortable, sad. “They wouldn’t suffer,” he said. “The smoke would get them first.” I wondered if this was one of the lies adults told children but knew I should not ask. I leaned over and kissed him. It was the first time I had done this for some time, feeling I was too old for such a nightly ritual. I took the drawings and retreated to my room. I locked them in my treasure chest. They would stay there – comforting, enduring, kindling for memories. Memories locked away, waiting to combust.