Travels and Tales of Miriam Green Ellis by Miriam Green Ellis Patricia Demers

Author:Miriam Green Ellis, Patricia Demers [Miriam Green Ellis, Patricia Demers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Canada, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Gender Studies, Women's Studies, Fiction & Literature, Essays & Letters, Essays
ISBN: 9780888646941
Publisher: University of Alberta Press
Published: 2013-06-07T04:00:00+00:00

A WAR BRIDE’S RETURN (UNDATED)

* * *

JOHN BEAR WAS ON THE WAY TO THE STATION to meet his fair-haired bride, whom he had left in England, the day of their marriage seven months before. It was still an hour before the train was due, and as he walked westward, along the broad Edmonton street, his steps were slow, his eyes thoughtful. He saw none of the crowds that jostled him on their way to the theatre, saw none of the beauty of that glorious summer evening. Although he was looking right at it, he did not realize the beautiful sunset with its brilliant but soft blending colours of rose and purple. Ordinarily John Bear loved those sunsets, which seem more brilliant in Western Canada than anywhere else, and many a time he had tried to describe them to Rose, who could not believe that in June the nights never got really dark, that the city lights were not put on till close to eleven, and that there was a reflection of the sunset in the sky all night. John had loved the incredulous look of surprise that came when he told her of these things, and the eagerness with which she drank in all his tales of the wonderful rivers that had their origin in the snow-capped mountains, and of the little wild deer and moose that had scampered away from the river’s edge as his canoe came round a bend in the stream.

But he was thinking of none of these things now. He wondered how Rose would like it here. It was all so different from the home she had known all her life, the little vicarage with its clinging vines, and the garden where the roses were the chief pride and joy—after his daughter—of the old doctor. What with his roses and his books, he had scarcely time to prepare his sermons, and it was Rose’s regular Saturday night duty to urge her father to prepare a new sermon for Sunday. Those books on early English drama were his great hobby, and John remembered how Rose had laughed when he had said that one needed to have a harelip to read those old books, with their s’s made like f’s. He had fancifully raised his daughter after these two hobbies.

After the last operation on his leg, the doctors had decided that John would never be able to go back into active service again, and arrangements were made for his return to Canada. They said that he would eventually be strong and well again, but that he should live an outdoor life. Even yet, when he was tired, he limped a little, just reminding him of the treachery of the German prisoner pretending faintness, who had shot him in the hip as John turned to get him a drink of water.

All those long days, as he lay in the hospital, his only hope in life was Rose’s regular visit. She came every afternoon to relieve the nurse in charge,

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