But Flora had trouble charging into the new session as she was used to doing. She found herself sleepy all the time, without the energy she usually took for granted. Before long, she was pretty sure she knew why. When she no longer had room for doubt, she said, 'Hosea, I'm going to have a baby.'
His eyes grew very wide. After a moment, he started to laugh. 'So much for prophylactics!' he blurted. Then he gave her a kiss and said, 'That's wonderful news!'
Flora wished he'd said that before the other. 'I think so, too,' she said. 'The world he'll see…'
'I know. That's astonishing to think about.' Hosea Blackford ran a hand through his hair. It was thick, but gray. 'I only hope I'll see enough of it with him for him to remember me. This is one of those times that reminds me I'm not so young as I wish I were.'
'You're not too old,' Flora said slyly. Her husband laughed again. Even so, the moment didn't quite turn out the way she wished it would have.
T he McGregors' wagon plodded toward Rosenfeld. The horse's tail switched back and forth, back and forth, flicking at the flies that came to life in the springtime. Mary McGregor felt like a turtle poking its head out of its shell. All through the harsh Manitoba winter, she'd stayed on the farm. Going into town then wasn't for the fainthearted. Her mother had done it, for kerosene and other things they couldn't make for themselves, but she hadn't wanted to take Mary or Julia along.
A Ford whizzed past them. The horse snorted at the dust the motorcar kicked up. Mary coughed, too. 'Those things are ugly and noisy,' she said. This one had been particularly ugly-it was painted barn red, so anyone could see it coming, or going, for miles.
'They go so fast, though,' Julia said wistfully. 'You can get from here to there in nothing flat. And more and more people have 'em nowadays.'
'People who suck up to the Yankees,' Mary said.
Her older sister shook her head. 'Not all of them. Not any more.'
From the seat in front of them, their mother looked back over her shoulder. 'We're not getting one any time soon,' Maude McGregor said, and brushed a wisp of hair back from her face. Her voice was harsh and flat, as it so often was these days. 'Hasn't got anything to do with politics, either. They're expensive, is what they are.'
That silenced both Mary and Julia. The farm kept them all fed, but it could do no more than that-or rather, they could make it do no more than that. If Pa were alive, and Alexander, we'd be fine, Mary thought. But there was always too much work and not enough time. She didn't know what to do about that. She didn't think anybody could do anything about it.
'We ought to be coming up to the checkpoint outside of town pretty soon,' Julia said.
'We've passed it by now,' Maude McGregor said, even more flatly than before. 'It's not up any more.'
Mary felt like bursting into tears. Two or three years before, she would have. Now she faced life with a thoroughly adult bleakness. 'The rebellion's all over, then,' she said, and nothing more lived in her voice than had in her mother's.
'It never had a chance,' Julia said.
That was enough to rouse Mary, whose red hair did advertise her temper. 'It would have,' she said, 'if so many people hadn't sat on their hands. And if there hadn't been so many traitors.'
For some little while, the clopping of the horse's hooves, the squeak of an axle that was getting on toward needing grease, and the occasional clank as an iron tire ran over a rock in the roadway were the only sounds. 'Traitors' is an ugly word, Mary thought. But it was the only one that fit. The Americans had known the uprising was coming before it really got started. The Rosenfeld Register — the weekly newspaper-had even said a Canadian woman with a name famous for patriotism helped with information about it because she was in love with a Yank. The only famous woman patriot Mary could think of offhand was Laura Secord. Did she have descendants? Mary wouldn't have been surprised. She didn't think the uprising would have had much of a chance anyhow. With such handicaps, it had had none. All that was left now was punishing those who'd done their best for their country.
Maude McGregor drove around a muddy crater in the road. This one was new; it didn't date back to the days of the Great War. Mary hoped it had blown up something large and American.
Before long, Julia pointed ahead and said, 'There it is! I see it.'
Mary McGregor saw Rosenfeld, too. Like her sister, she couldn't help getting excited. Rosenfeld had perhaps a thousand souls. If two railroads hadn't come together there, the town would have had no reason for existing. But there it was. It boasted a post office, a general store, the weekly newspaper, a doctor's office, and an allegedly painless dentist. He'd filled a couple of Mary's teeth. It hadn't hurt him a bit. She wished she could say the same.
'I suppose Winnipeg's bigger,' Mary said, 'but it can't be much bigger.'
'I wouldn't think so,' Julia agreed. Neither of them had ever seen a town bigger than Rosenfeld. Up in front of them, Maude McGregor chuckled quietly. Mary wondered why.
Regardless of whether there were towns bigger than Rosenfeld, it was quite crowded and bustling enough. Wagons and motorcars clogged its main street. Locals in city clothes-white shirts, neckties, jackets with lapels-and U.S. Army men in green-gray shared the sidewalk. Women wore city clothes, too. Julia pointed again. 'Will you look at that?' she said, deliciously scandalized. Mary looked-and gaped.
'Disgraceful,' her mother said grimly. Maude McGregor's skirt came down to her ankle, as her skirts had done for as long as Mary could remember. But this woman showed off half her legs, or so it seemed.
'If it's the style, Ma-' Julia began, her voice hesitant.
'No.' Her mother hesitated not at all. 'I don't care what the style is. No decent woman would wear anything like that. No daughter of mine will.' Several women in Rosenfeld wore dresses and skirts that short. Were they all scarlet? Mary didn't know, but she wouldn't have been surprised.
Her mother had to pull off the main street to find a place to hitch the wagon. As Maude McGregor got down to give the horse the feed bag, Mary pointed to a signboard plastered to a wall. 'Ma, what's a Bijou?' She knew she was probably mispronouncing the unfamiliar word.
'It's a motion-picture house,' her mother answered after reading some of the small print under the big name.
'A motion-picture house? In Rosenfeld?' Mary and Julia exclaimed together. Julia went on, 'This is the big city,' while Mary asked, 'Can we go see something, Ma? Can we, please?' She knew she sounded like a wheedling little girl, but she couldn't help it.
'I don't know.' Here her mother wavered, where she'd been very sure about skirts. 'The flyer says it costs a quarter each to get in, and seventy-five cents is a lot of money.'
'We'd only do it once, Ma. It's not like we come here every day,' Mary said, wheedling harder than ever.
Julia added, 'It's a new business in town. It's not like those start up every day, either.'
'Well-all right,' Maude McGregor said. Mary clapped her hands. 'But only this once, understand? You pester me about it every time we come to town and you'll find out your backsides aren't too big to switch.'
'We promise, Ma,' Mary and Julia chorused. They looked at each other and winked. They'd won! That didn't happen very often.
A line snaked toward the Bijou's box office. A lot of the people in the line were American soldiers. Mary ignored them. The soldiers ignored her, too, though they plainly noticed her older sister and her mother. Julia and Maude McGregor paid no attention to the men in green-gray.
Three quarters slapped down on the counter. Mary heard her mother sigh. The fellow behind the counter peeled three tickets off an enormous roll and handed them to her mother. Another young man at the door importantly tore the tickets in two. Inside the theater, the smell of buttered popcorn almost drove Mary mad. Along with the popcorn, the girl behind the counter sold lemonade and more different kinds of candy than Henry Gibbon carried in his general store.
Maude McGregor led Mary and Julia past such temptations and into the theater itself. Both her daughters let out pitiful, piteous sighs. She took no notice of them. She was made of stern stuff.
The maroon velvet chairs inside the theater swung down when you put your weight on them. That proved entertaining enough to take Mary's mind off candy, at least for a little while. A couple of rows in front of her, a little boy bounced up and down, up and down, up and down. She wanted to spank him. Before too long, his father did.
Without warning, the lights went dim. A man at a piano-a man Mary hadn't noticed up till then-began to play melodramatic music. The curtains slid back from an enormous screen. Some sort of machine behind her began
