From the Relief Society Magazine, April 1964 –

The Storm

By Lila Spencer

At four o’clock that winter day a slender girl with the still, pale face of a cameo climbed aboard the bus. It was almost dusk, and a brisk wind whipped Miriam’s fur coat about her legs as she stepped up. There were only four other passengers. A mother in a worn cloth coat occupied one seat, and beside her was a lunch hamper. Her two little girls in red snowsuits and red mittens bounced up and down in the seats behind her, chanting, “We’re going to visit Grandma! We’re going to visit Grandma!” They stopped just long enough to call out a merry “Hi!” in Miriam’s direction. Across the aisle and a few seats back, a young man in spectacles nervously checked through a bulging briefcase. The motor of the bus had been purring quietly for some time before the driver walked through and took their tickets. Then he folded himself into the driver’s seat with a quizzical glance out the window, and the bus began to move. Miriam tried to relax in her seat, ignoring the friendliness of the children. Ever since the unexpected termination of her engagement the week before, she had been an automaton, armored against the world, numb and frozen. After a sudden decision in the night she had hurried all day to get away. Escape and isolation — that was what she wanted. Were they the answer to her unhappiness?

She snuggled down in her fur coat and buried her face in its collar. Her heart felt as bleak as the cold gray city streets outside. Mechanically, with cold eyes, she watched the changing winter scene as the bus left the city limits and moved into the country. As she glanced at the evening sky a faint foreboding touched her. She looked at the highway, and snow was sifting across the road in quick continuous series like troubled ripples on windswept water. There was nothing to worry about yet. There was something comforting in the chatter of the little girls and the rustling papers of the young man. The miles sped by; Miriam dozed. A sudden lurching of the bus awakened her, and then she, as all the others, was on the edge of her seat, staring with worried eyes at the road ahead. The ripples had become waves of snow that whipped across the road in great gusts. In the nearby fields the cattle, hoary with snow, stood with their backs humped against the storm. The bus was traveling much slower; it swayed with the heavy gusts.

Miriam turned her eyes from the road to look at her fellow passengers. The mother still sat on the edge of her seat and looked outside with growing apprehension. Behind her the children peeked solemnly out the window. The young man shifted restlessly and with tense fingers tapped an irregular rhythm on his briefcase. At the front the driver crouched over the steering wheel and peered closely through the windshield. The storm continued.

It was dark now, and they had changed directions and were driving into the storm. In order to see at all the lights of the bus had to be on low beam. The snow came at them like millions of fierce, ice-tipped needles. The bus rocked and shook with the fury of their attack. All about them was the roar and the vibration. The driver muttered under his breath, and tried to see out the coated windshield. The wiper groaned as it made a feeble effort to clear a space. The bus inched along, and after a tense interval crawled to a stop outside a small restaurant in a village with an impossible Indian name. Miriam remembered it from other trips. It served as the bus stop for the area. To the girl it was almost primitive, n o electricity, no plumbing, just gasoline lamps and two buildings at the back of the lot. The driver stood up on cramped legs, and pushing up his cap with a tired hand, said wearily, “This is as far as we can go. We’ll wait out the storm here.” He led the way and held the door while they climbed out. The fury of the storm lashed out at them. The wind nearly blew them off their feet, and the snow slapped their faces. The children shouted and clung to their mother. They went into the restaurant in a herd.

Inside was light and warmth. They stamped and brushed off the snow, and crowded around the small circulating heater, rubbing chilled fingers, blowing noses, clearing throats. The young restaurant owner and his wife hurried to place steaming bowls of homemade soup on the counter. He told the driver, “We were getting worried about you.”

At his urging they all sat down on the stools and took up their spoons. They were arrested by crisp tones from a small battery radio on the counter. “Blizzard warning continues. Motorists are urged to stay off the highways. All householders are asked to leave lights on by a window to guide lost travelers.”

They spooned down the thick, hot soup, and listened in silence to the news report: “An unprecedented blizzard that surprised even the weatherman has lashed across the Canadian prairies with winds of sixty miles an hour, gusts up to eighty-five, leaving hundreds of motorists stranded. Conditions are worsened by the twenty below zero temperatures. Heavy snowfall has disrupted communications and literally cut off many areas. However, the storm is expected to abate sometime during the night. At United Nations today. . .

There was much head shaking among the adults as they solemnly broke crackers and finished their simple meal. No one spoke. Miriam looked at the small cafe as if she had never seen it before. Last summer she had viewed with derision its gray walls, brown counter top, and two mustard-colored booths. Now she almost felt affection for it. The kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling spread out a warm, golden light that covered the obvious defects, muted the stark colors, and made it cheery and homelike.

The adults did not hurry to get down from the stools. The children finished first and discovered a playful tabby kitten to tease. Their happy play was a pretty complement to the solemn tones of the grownups.

After a time, the cafe owner came out of his living quarters behind the cafe with a high pile of blankets and quilts. His wife followed with three pillows. “I wish we had beds for you all, but we’ve only one back there, and Mary needs it.” His young wife was obviously pregnant. “Use these things to make yourselves as comfortable as you can. Pillows for the women and children.”

With quick resourcefulness the mother made a bed on the tabletop in the far booth for the two little girls. She removed their shoes, tucked them in snugly. Then she kicked off her shoes, and wrapped herself in a blanket on the bench beside them. Miriam did the same. The driver and the young man settled down in the next booth; the young man kept the briefcase within reach, like a constant bedfellow. After the owner of the cafe had turned down the big hanging lamp, he and his wife retired to their quarters, leaving the door ajar.

The roar of the storm filled the night. To Miriam it seemed that the house itself was bending with the storm. The very nails seemed to stretch and yield. She heard their creaking protest. The others were asleep. She listened to the even breathing of the children, the quiet shifting of the mother, the young man sneezing in his blanket, the driver snoring in a low key. From her hard bed she looked at the isinglass window of the heater and the warm embers winked back at her.

The storm was abating. Now, the noise was a mournful moaning and a sad sobbing. It was like a woman with wild hair wailing in a wilderness. Miriam felt a strange kinship with her. The tears she had kept frozen inside her began to course down her cheeks as the icy core inside melted away. Her thoughts no longer chased about in a wild frenzy, but bathed themselves in her tears. After a time she dried her face. The fire through the tiny window still kept a friendly vigil. Outside, the storm continued to retreat. The time of frenzy and woe was over. Now there was a low, murmuring sound, comforting like a mother’s gentle lullaby. Hush! Hush! The girl slept.

Miriam awoke next morning to happy children’s voices. The adults, easing their cramped muscles, and yawning, took longer to get up. By the time Miriam was walking about, the young owner had already shaken down the fire and carried out the ashes. The young man, for once separated from his briefcase, thawed out a peephole in the frosted window of the front door, and invited the others to see for themselves. Miriam could hardly believe it was the same world. How peaceful! How still! A block away she saw the white village church with its steeple, as serene as the painted scene on a Christmas card.

Everyone was jolly and friendly. The bespectacled young man parked his fat briefcase behind the counter and forgot about it. He borrowed the cafe owner’s parka, boots, and heavy mitts, and shoveled wide paths to the outbuildings. It was cold. From the back window Miriam could observe him stop and slap his mittened hands vigorously against his thigh at intervals. He came in when his task was finished, with rosy cheeks and hoary eyebrows. He pushed his frosted spectacles up on his forehead to clear the lens, and to Miriam it seemed that his eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

Meanwhile, the bus driver went out to the bus to see if it would go. From inside they heard the motor’s strangled sputterings and chokings. He coaxed it along until it roared in protest, then finally settled down to a resonant hum. He let it run awhile before he came back indoors, blowing on his fingers and rubbing his hands. Together, Miriam and the mother folded blankets and quilts and put them away. Then they took their turns at the washstand. The hand pump was temperamental. It creakingly refused to yield any water to Miriam’s gingerly, inexperienced handling.

“Here, let me show you.” The cafe owner pumped energetically, and water spurted out into the tin pail. “You weren’t holding your face right,” he teased her. The children thought it was fun to wash in the enameled basin. “Where are the taps?” the older asked. They only protested when their mother combed through their tangled hair.

“Breakfast is ready,” the young wife called.

They sat down at the counter to a country breakfast — porridge, pancakes, bacon and eggs, and mugs of hot chocolate. No one hurried. It would be hours, they knew, before the highway was cleared. Miriam, to her amazement, found herself involved in a political discussion with the young man and the bus driver. She had not known that she had strong inclinations one way or another until they challenged one of her random statements. She defended her opinions with fervor. She caught herself punctuating her remarks with jabs at the unoffending breakfast on her plate. The men laughed at her, and after a moment she laughed with them.

The meal over, the children looked through the toy catalog while the women chattered over the dishes. Afterwards, the young wife took the mother and Miriam to her bedroom. From a bottom drawer she brought out the tiny garments she had made for her expected baby. She lifted them from their tissue-paper wrappings and showed them with something akin to reverence on her freckled face. She might have been an empress displaying her jewels. From the restaurant they could hear the men loudly talking about late model cars and hockey players.

Miriam didn’t realize it, but she came out of the bedroom with a forlorn face. The young man declared positively, “You need a walk in the snow. Bundle up and we’ll take these kids for an outing. They’re getting a bit bored with that catalog.” The children excitedly ran for their snowsuits. Miriam put on her coat, but wisely laid aside her modish hat and felt boots with their ridiculous high heels. With a woolen scarf on her head, and borrowed overshoes, she felt more comfortable. The children ran outside like caged animals suddenly liberated.

“Yes,” the young man said, as they followed them, “an experience like this is good for us. We get down to the essentials and realize just how many of the things we work for and are concerned about are just the trappings of civilization. Doesn’t this arouse your pioneer spirit though?” He trudged through the snow with purposeful strides, and Miriam followed in his tracks. At the edge of the field they caught up to the little girls who were bent over something small and dark on the snow. It was a frozen field mouse.

“Is it dead?” The older girl raised stricken eyes.

“Yes,” the young man answered. “It got lost in the storm, I guess.”

“Why didn’t it stay in its own little home?” asked the little one.

“Why? Probably because it was hungry.” They found a sheltered hole by a tree, and covered the mouse over with snow. “There, it’s safe now,” they told the children.

“Let’s go tell Mama about it,” one suggested, and the two of them turned back across the field.

“Just a little mouse,” mused the young man, “and yet for me it poses all the major questions of life and death. I had a little mouse once, the smallest, ugliest little creature I had ever seen.”

As they slowly followed the little girls he told Miriam how he had visited his grandfather’s farm when he was a lad of six. They had gone for a walk in the fields one day and had found a mouse nest that had been run over by a hay rake. The mother and all her babies except one were dead. His grandfather wished mercifully to kill the little mouse, for it was less than an inch long, with no hair, only rudimentary ears and eyes — a pink squirming mite was all it was, with a hungry mouth and a pathetic, thread-like tail. He had begged for the mouse for a pet, and for a day he had kept it alive, feeding it warmed milk from an eye dropper, putting it to sleep in a soft little bed. How it had thrilled him to hold its tiny vibrant body in his fingers. But it had died and he had been heartbroken. Why he kept asking – why? His grandfather had tried to explain.

“Why? Only God knows. Maybe it was because we didn’t know how to care for it. Maybe we fed it too much – maybe we handled it too often. Never mind, lad. It’s for the best. Never regret the love you gave the wee mite. It was not wasted, boy, it was not wasted.”

It was not wasted. The words warmed Miriam’s heart. The peace that had come to her in the night was strengthened now by this wisdom. She saw it clearly now. Her love, even thought it had ended in disappointment and heartbreak, and her unhappiness even, were not wasted emotions. For a time they had seemed like last night’s storm, unpredictable and destructive, but she knew now they were, instead, a discipline and a preparation for better, more lasting relationships. She felt as unmarked by bitterness as the snow before them. How foolish to think she could cut herself off from others – how foolish to want to hide. Beside her the young man was muttering, almost to himself, “I hadn’t thought about that mouse for years.” They walked slowly through the peaceful fields.

About noon the snowplow cleared the highway. It passed in a shower of snow and a wave from the driver’s furry gauntlet. The bus driver warmed the motor, and the children skipped ahead. It was with reluctance that the older passengers said goodby to the café owner and his wife. At the last minute the young man remembered that he had forgotten his briefcase, and ran back for it. Miriam shared a seat with the young mother; the children swung their legs in the seats ahead. The young man and his briefcase sat across the aisle. They smiled companionably at one another as the bus moved onto the highway.