Old Joe had brought the screens out of the barn and covered the windows so we could open them without fear of bugs. He had even brought along his riding mower and cut the tall grass and weeds between the former garden on one side of the yard and the log barn on the other, so now we had a clearing of sorts around the house.
I reversed Silver to the three back steps, worn down in the middle by decades of footsteps, the depression that Old Joe referred to as a saddle. They led into a generous room called a back kitchen, a one-storey addition tacked onto the rear of the house.
Inside the back kitchen were a zinc-lined icebox on one side of the door and a huge woodbox on the other. Three round galvanized tin tubs sat on a wooden bench in the corner, and hanging over them were shelves bearing an assortment of ancient cleaning supplies. A row of hooks along the opposite wall held old cloth coats and knitted caps, even a buckskin jacket with fringed sleeves.
The back kitchen had the added advantage, Old Joe told me, of protecting the main kitchen from winter’s worst. It formed an added layer of protection between the inner house and the frozen outdoors. “When it gets really cold, you stick your nose outside and ping, it’s frozen solid, just like that,” he said. I was pretty sure he was joking.
Bridget announced that she was going to show Fizzy the rainbow window. I was happy she had something to take her mind off the dirt. I stood in the kitchen, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task before me. But there wasn’t any point putting things away until the kitchen was clean, so I thought I might as well start here.
I changed into my new overalls and a long-sleeved cotton shirt while standing on the back steps. The great outdoors was cleaner than the inside of our house. I couldn’t find a scarf, so I tucked my hair inside a plastic shower cap from the hotel.
Bridget came to the doorway, carrying the patient Fizzy around by his armpits. His tail dragged on the floor, leaving a trail in the dust. “Why are you wearing a shower crap?”
“Shower cap.” I turned away to hide my smile. “I don’t want to get dirt and cobwebs in my hair. It’s going to be really hard to wash ourselves here because we don’t have a bathtub.”
Her expression changed to one of horror. “But I hate being dirty!”
“Oh, well,” I said gaily, contradicting every single message I had given her since the day she was born, “a little dirt never hurt anybody!”
She looked at me doubtfully, frowning.
“We’re going to play a new game while we’re here. It’s called the pioneer game. Pioneers didn’t mind the dirt. At least, they got used to it. And do you know where pioneers went to the bathroom?”
“Where?”
“They had their own special place outside. Come on, I’ll show you.”
I led Bridget down the path and around the corner of the barn where the toilet was hidden from view. While she waited behind me, I pushed open the door and peeked inside to see a wooden bench with one round hole. Warily, I inhaled. There was no smell.
With trepidation, I switched on my flashlight and shone it into the hole. I don’t know what horrors I expected to find, but I saw nothing but dust and cobwebs, and a few shreds of paper. On the whitewashed wall was a list of notations in masculine printing: May 31, 1942: First crocus. July 7, 1954: Three inches rain.
“Come on, Bridget!” After much coaxing, she allowed me to pull down her pants and lift her over the hole. To my dismay I realized that it was much too big for a child. I had a sudden vision of her disappearing into the black void below.
“Put your arms around my neck.” She was getting heavy now and my back felt the strain of her desperate clinging.
“Don’t let me touch the dirty seat!” she squealed. I would have to find a way to make the hole smaller. Perhaps I could nail a board across it.
As we walked back to the house, Bridget was quite pleased with herself.
“I went pioneer potty, didn’t I?”
“You sure did. Let’s wash our hands, and then I’m going to start cleaning the kitchen while you play with Fizzy.”
Bridget sat on the back steps, where I could see her through the open door, and she could see me. Trying to remember Old Joe’s instructions, I carefully lit a fire in the stove using copious amounts of kindling and newspaper taken from a ceiling-high stack in the back kitchen.
I needed to make friends with this metal monster, since it was the only thing that would keep us from freezing to death. It seemed like a very complicated invention. On the left side was the firebox, where the wood burned. Underneath this was the drawer for the ashes. At the far right, a rectangular reservoir with a lid, where water could be heated. Then there was the oven, and below it a drawer for pots and pans. The eye-level bin across the top was the warming oven, where hot dishes were kept.
Suddenly smoke started to billow out of every crack on the surface of the stove. I leaped for the lever at the back, which controlled the flow of air into the firebox, and shoved it to the right. I had forgotten that the draft had to be open when I started the fire, but closed after the wood began to burn.
The smoke stopped abruptly, but by now the room was filled with a thick haze and my eyes were smarting. I ran to the back door and flapped a towel to clear the room. Bridget stuck Fizzy’s head under her shirt so that smoke wouldn’t get in his eyes. Tears ran down my cheeks, too — and not only from the smoke.
After a few minutes, the air cleared and the wood started to crackle nicely, so I pumped icy well water into several large pots and placed them on the stovetop. As I thrust another stick of firewood into the stove, a fragment of memory rose before my eyes. It was so powerful that I caught my breath.
My father’s hands. At first that’s all I saw in my mind’s eye — his strong hands stacking chunks of mesquite in a pyramid shape, his brown wrists sticking out of his red plaid shirtsleeves. Then the circle of memory expanded. He was showing me how to build a fire. We were camping on the desert, just the two of us. The night was warm and dark, and we wanted to roast marshmallows.
It had been so long since I remembered anything about my parents, let alone such a happy memory, that it was like discovering a golden loonie glittering on the floor of the ocean. My knees felt weak and I sat down heavily in the rocking chair next to the stove. Closing my eyes, I tried to conjure up his face or the sound of his voice.
There was nothing else. Yet the image of his hands was so vivid that I could see the shape of his fingernails. I tried to freeze it in my mind so that it wouldn’t melt away. “Daddy,” I whispered.
The memory faded and the picture dissolved. But I felt warmed by the afterglow, as if my father had reached out from beyond the curtain and patted me on the shoulder with one of his strong, brown hands.
August
Six hours later the sun was sinking, and so was I. The groceries were safely stored in the icebox and the pantry. Before scouring the kitchen, I wrapped a towel around my broom and swept the ceiling and walls. Dirt fell onto every surface including my head and shoulders. Obviously I had never fully appreciated owning a vacuum cleaner before.
After changing my clothes once again, I spread a clean tablecloth over the table, and Bridget picked an armful of purple wildflowers from the edge of the yard -- Old Joe had called them "fireweed" -- and arranged them in a pitcher.
A green painted washstand stood in the corner. Above it was a small wall cabinet with a mirror, where I found a tin of something