The Youngest Sister: A Tale of Manitoba

BERTHA heard the commotion as she came round the bend, where the road from Paston led out on to the cliffs. It was a very quiet day, although there was a heavy swell on outside,...

ANNE DOYNE was a really striking personality. Had she been born in a different class of society, she might have been a reigning beauty, so perfectly moulded were face and figure...

IT was a whole fortnight before Bertha was able to leave her bed and creep about the little drab-painted house again. An anxious fortnight it was for the two elder sisters, who...

A FIT of shivering seized Bertha. Of course she was weak and unstrung still, or the incident would not have struck her as being of such magnitude. As it was, she felt as if she...

IT was a week later, and the first snow had fallen, just a thin white coating on the hills and the plains, while the wind moaned with a new mournfulness through the forests of p...

IT was over at last, and Bertha was on board the train which was to take her through to Winnipeg. In a certain sense it was a huge relief when the last goodbye was said and the...

A TIMBER house, a barn, two sheds, and a fenced enclosure, that was all, and they stood black specks on the vast snowfield, visible for miles before they were reached.

SPRING was coming. The feel of it was in the air, and though howling winds and driving rains swept over the plain, while the earth was like a quag on Duck Flats, everyone remark...

“WHAT is it, oh, what is it?” cried Bertha, not really wideawake even now, and so bewildered by the strangeness of her waking as scarcely to know what she was about.

“Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” cried Bertha; and now, under pressure of this new calamity, her overstrained nerves gave way, and, sitting down on the doorstep, she burs...

BERTHA stared at the doctor in speechless horror, but he was stirring his coffee again and frowning at the tablecloth as if it had offended him. Then she turned and walked out-o...

THE magic of Manitoba was laying hold of Bertha. There was a vigour and a stir in the wild, solitary life of the prairie which was like new life to the girl who had been so pale...

POOR old Pucker had a good deal of stick on the return journey also, but he was a horse that mostly needed considerable encouragement of this kind. Moreover, Bertha was sick wit...

“OH, if the days were a little longer, what a comfort it would be!” sighed Bertha, as she hurried to and fro setting out a supper for the harvest helpers on the veranda.

THE rush of harvest work was over. The threshing machines had gone, and all the men were busy on some other farmer’s holding. Even Tom was away most days helping his neighbours,...

IT was summer again, and for more than a year Bertha had borne the burden of the household on her shoulders. They were stronger shoulders from the strain, which had not broken h...

IT was not the Ellises alone who suffered on that disastrous Sunday before harvest. Every man whose land was within the area of the storm had his wheat beaten flat, twisted, cut...

A WEEK slipped away; the dreadful parting was over. Tom had gone, and the little household had settled down to make the best of the six months of solitude, narrow means, and gen...

THE weeks of fall weather went swiftly on, the nights grew longer and colder and darker, save when there was a moon to shine with frosty brilliance from a sky that was studded w...

THE snow came down and hid the ruins of the ungathered harvest from sight. The nights were long, and on some days there seemed almost no daylight at all. It was so different fro...

THE new year was only a week old when there came a blizzard of such violence that for three days it could not be said to be light at all, and during all those hours it never cea...

BERTHA had no chance of going to bed that night, and very little opportunity for lying down either. The stranger was very ill, and, although there was little that she could do t...

“OH, GRACE, he has gone, really gone; now I shall be able to breathe freely again!” cried Bertha, skipping into the kitchen again after she had seen the sledge with the police a...

THE weeks of winter dragged on; January wore itself out in fierce storms. February was a month of keen frost and bright sunshine, which reduced Bertha to the infliction of weari...

BEFORE that week was out, a howling storm of wind and rain swept across the prairie, and for three whole days it raged without ceasing. There was discomfort in plenty for a litt...

BERTHA gave a little gasp of surprise. An hour ago she would have been most dreadfully dismayed at such a disaster, but now it seemed like a providential chance which would admi...

It seemed to Bertha that the horrible noise and rattle had been going on for hours, and days, and weeks. Her head ached from the constant noise and the lack of ventilation, her...

THE end of steel, as railhead is called, on this particular bit of track, was at the junction of a small river with a large one, which necessitated the building of an extra long...

THE men had seen the two huddled figures high up in the trestling, and were climbing as fast as they could go to reach them. Bertha ceased to shout when she saw them coming. Her...

A CURIOUS change came over Edgar Bradgate at the sight of Bertha’s breakdown, and, leaning forward, he gently touched the bowed shoulder that was nearest to him and asked, in a...

ROWNTON was not reached until nearly noon on the following morning, and Bertha’s first care was to discover if the wagon which Bill Humphries had left for repair was finished an...

GRACE was not on the couch where she had lain so long, but was sitting in a chair by the stove. Her face was hidden in her hands, and she appeared to be weeping bitterly. Plainl...

Noll burst into howls of terror, and the twins speedily followed suit, the three of them scuttling away to their mother’s sofa, under which they bolted like rabbits to their bur...

IT was more than a week later before Tom Ellis was well enough to be carried to his home at Duck Flats, and by that time everyone knew all that there was to be known of his wond...