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Perhaps it was a silly thing to do. What she’d really like to do was draw the hens, and in her mind’s eye she could see the bold pencil lines and imagine how she would shade the sun slanting across the dusty yard.
Ellen knew she could ask Uncle Hamish for paper, but something kept her back. She wasn’t ready, somehow. She hadn’t drawn anything in so long, since before Mam had become really sick.
Mam would want me to keep drawing. Ellen could almost hear Mam’s voice, telling her she had a gift, a gift from God she should use well.
Yet she’d been wasting her gift for years, it seemed, first doodling on scraps of paper and then doing nothing at all. Yet now with the fresh wind blowing over and the sun shining so bright she thought she might like to draw again. Still she didn’t move, just sat on the steps and let the sunlight wash over her.
Even with the prospect of new dresses and ice cream, she still felt uneasy, like when food wouldn’t settle in your stomach. The truth was, she wasn’t quite sure she fit in here... or if she ever would. She hadn’t even dared to sit on the front porch yet, for fear of being watched like she was an oddity in a zoo or museum. She hadn’t liked the way Mrs. Cardle had looked at her in the store yesterday, as if she were something almost dirty.
Ellen knew she wasn’t like the people here, who ate ice cream and rode in motorcars and did things she hadn’t dreamed of back in Springburn. Her accent was too strong and raw, her manners strange and perhaps even coarse compared to what they were used to, but she knew underneath—she hoped anyway—she was still the same. Eating ice cream didn’t make you that different, did it?
This was her home now, Ellen reminded herself, for better or worse. She would just have to get used to it, and, she determined resolutely, it would have to get used to her.
The day of the ice cream social dawned bright and hot. Ellen twirled in her new dress, even though there wasn’t enough fabric to make it float out. Still, she pressed her hands down the soft, new material and took in a deep breath of pure pleasure.
“Like it, do you?” Ruth asked, a faint thread of laughter in her voice. Ellen smiled up at her.
“Oh, yes, thank you, Aunt Ruth. I’m sure it’s the nicest dress I could ever have.”
Aunt Ruth pursed her lips in a gesture Ellen was becoming used to. “Well, perhaps we’ll make something flowered for you in the spring. No doubt you’ll have grown again by then.”
Ellen found her father in the kitchen, sticking his tongue out in concentration as he tried to flatten his hair with a bit of water from the pump.
“I look a sight, don’t I?” he said ruefully, and then whistled softly. “Ellen Copley, if you aren’t the loveliest thing I’ve seen this side of the Atlantic!”
Ellen laughed in delight and twirled again. Her hair, brushed hard by Ruth’s relentless hand, lay against her shoulders in shiny chestnut waves. Aunt Ruth had found a matching navy hair ribbon, even if it was plain cotton.
“You look fine too, Da,” she said, and he made a face.
“I’m not used to this dressing up. I think I prefer my work coat, grease stained as it was.” There was a wistful look in his eyes that made Ellen prickle in alarm.
“But you’ll get used to it, won’t you?” she said in what she hoped wasn’t too pleading a voice. “You do look smart, Da, in a tie and those new trousers.” Douglas had also been given goods from the store.
He glanced down at her, a gentle smile softening his features. “Oh, aye, I’ll get used to it. Have to, won’t I?”
Ellen nodded, but a faint uneasiness continued its prickling along her spine. Since their arrival in Seaton her father had not worked in or even familiarized himself with the store. He hadn’t met anyone that she could see. In fact, he hadn’t done much of anything at all, besides sitting out on the porch and whittling away at a piece of wood, whistling tunelessly, his gaze on the distant horizon.
Sometimes, at night, Ellen would gaze out at the star-pricked sky and think of how large the world was, how the sky covered them all, from sleepy Seaton to the noisy rail works of Springburn. And she wondered where her father belonged, because she was beginning to suspect he couldn’t be happy in either place.
Ruth and Hamish entered the kitchen, Ruth looking imposing and grand in a summer dress of lavender silk, Hamish pulling at his celluloid collar.
“Well, then.” Ruth looped her reticule over one silk-clad arm. “Shall we?”
The whole town seemed to be out on Seaton’s one main street, as far as Ellen could see. Girls and boys in their Sunday best, with scrubbed faces and straw boaters; women bearing baskets of food or cake platters, chatting amiably while their husbands loitered and laughed, hands stuffed into trouser pockets.
It was hot, hotter than Ellen had ever known, and the sun shone down on her bare head. Aunt Ruth had given her a straw hat with a navy ribbon tied round its brim, but Ellen was afraid to wear it. She couldn’t see properly with the thing on, and she didn’t want to trip and ruin her whole outfit, so she held it in her hands. Besides, there was her perfectly tied hair ribbon to think about.
Everyone was making their way to the village green across from the church, a large white building with a spire that seemed to pierce a sky so blue it looked to crack right open.
Long trestle tables had been set up on the grass, with big buckets set in ice—whole chests full of ice—and inside the most delicious-looking ice cream, softly whipped mounds of pink and brown and white.
“This is my niece, Ellen Copley,” Aunt Ruth introduced her to a series of forbidding-looking matrons, their faces sober as they inspected her dress, her shoes, the hat she held awkwardly in her hands. Da seemed to have disappeared with Uncle Hamish, leaving Ellen to trot obediently after Ruth, having been reminded to speak only when spoken to and not before, which she couldn’t imagine doing anyway.
Finally, after Ellen had been introduced to so many names she couldn’t remember and her head ached from the heat, Ruth dismissed her. “You may go get some ice cream, Ellen, and introduce yourself to the children while I take some refreshment.”
Ellen walked away from her aunt with a certain amount of trepidation, for now that she was free she didn’t know where to go. She wanted to try the ice cream, but what if she made a fool of herself? She wished she knew where Da was, for she thought she'd enjoy sharing the experience with him, but she couldn’t see him anywhere, even though Uncle Hamish was now fetching Ruth some lemonade.
Squaring her shoulders, Ellen marched to the chests holding the ice cream. She’d faced much worse than this. She’d haggled with every peddler and street seller in Springburn, and nearly always came out the victor. Why was she so afraid of this world?
