Down Jasper Lane (Amherst Island Trilogy)

Hamish fidgeted in his seat. “My brother Douglas is coming in,” he admitted, “with his daughter. They’ve come all the way from Scotland, on the ship, you know.”

“I didn’t think they’d come all the way on a train,” Orvis replied with a chuckle, and Hamish suppressed a sigh. It seemed he was always saying something foolish.

He leaned back in his seat, enjoying the sun on his face. Ever since he and Ruth had opened the Seaton General Store eight years ago, he’d spent most of his time indoors, behind the counter. It worked better that way; the people of Seaton liked to see Hamish, jovial and easygoing, slip the children barley sugar and chat with the old-timers. But they preferred to do business with Ruth.

Orvis stuck his head to look down the railway line. “Nothing yet,” he announced cheerfully. “Three more minutes.” He leaned back, looking again at Hamish. No one else was at the station, and sometimes nobody got off the train at Seaton at all.

“Your brother, you said? What made him finally come, then?”

“His wife died.” Hamish didn’t remember Ann Copley all that well. She’d been a fragile, wispy little thing, although he knew Douglas had loved her to distraction. She’d been sickly even when he and Ruth and Rose had left all those years ago. He remembered Douglas telling him they hadn’t saved enough money, and he knew why they hadn’t. Medicines were expensive, brown bottles of costly hope. Besides, they’d all known Ann Copley wouldn’t be let through Ellis Island with that rattling cough, and Douglas wouldn’t go without her. Hamish had almost volunteered to take Ellen with them, but something in him had held him back. He’d never been a brave man, and even at four years old Ellen Copley had been a queer little thing, with all that hair and those serious eyes. The way she’d stared at you, as if she knew what you were thinking! Hamish had decided Ellen would be better off with her own parents. Besides, he and Ruth had been hoping for their own family once they were settled. By God’s design it hadn’t happened.

Now Hamish wondered how his little brother had changed in the last eight years. Before they’d emigrated, Douglas had been the one with the energy, the dreams.

“The secret,” Douglas would say, tapping a row of advertisements in the newspaper, “is to find your market. Something that hasn’t been made before. Something that’s needed.”

Hamish always nodded, although he didn’t quite see himself as an inventor. And whenever he asked Douglas just what they’d be inventing, his younger brother would shrug and laugh.

“Who knows, as long as it sells?”

It made sense, of course, and there were hundreds, even thousands, of men in America who had invented something no one else had even known was necessary. What about Coca-Cola, that funny, fizzy drink, and even the iceboxes to keep it in?

Hamish chuckled to himself. It had all been nonsense, of course. He wasn’t an inventor, and running a general store suited him admirably. He’d done well enough so now he could put Coca-Cola in his own icebox, if he so desired, no matter who’d done the inventing.

Would Douglas still have the old dreams, he wondered, the ambitions to invent something and be a man of the world? The thought gave Hamish a vague sense of alarm. He liked his life, comfortable and ordinary as it was, and he wasn’t quite sure how he saw his brother and his queer little girl fitting into it.

“It’ll be good to see him again,” he told Orvis with more heartiness than he actually felt. “Him and the girl.” He wondered again about Ellen—was she still as serious as before? He liked children, always had a kind word for the schoolchildren who came into the store for sweets. He’d like to be kind to Ellen, and of course, he’d be seeing more of the girl since she would be living with them... even now, Hamish wasn’t quite sure how it was all meant to work out. Would Douglas work in the store with him? Would he get a job in Seaton?

When Ruth had read the letter from Douglas, she’d merely pressed her lips together, her nostrils flaring. “I suppose it’s our Christian duty to put them up.”

“Douglas is a good worker,” Hamish had offered, awkwardly, and Ruth had given him a hard stare.

“I remember him as a foolish dreamer. But his girl should know how to be of some use, having nursed her sick mother. And in any case, it’s no more than we ought to do, taking them in. Christian charity.” Yet Ruth hadn’t sounded very charitable, and after eight years of managing their own shop and its rather easy prosperity, Springburn, and the family he’d left there, seemed very far away.

“The train’s here,” Orvis announced with pride. “I see her coming down the line.” A few minutes later the black engine came into view, with two dusty, tired-looking passenger cars behind. Hamish swallowed and jumped down from the buckboard, cramming his hat back on his head.

As the train slowed to a stop, he saw a child’s face in one of the carriage windows, little more than wide eyes and a tangle of hair. Then the train stopped, Orvis threw the passenger door open, and Douglas Copley stepped out, the girl behind him.

“Hamish?” Uncertainty flickered in his eyes for the barest of moments before he went forward to embrace his brother. Hamish’s arms closed around Douglas automatically. “It’s been a while, eh? You look well.”

“Lost most of my hair,” Hamish said self-consciously, for he’d removed his hat when Douglas and his daughter stepped from the train. “And you...” Hamish did not finish for he did not know what to say. The truth was, the sight of his younger brother had shocked him into speechlessness. He may have lost his hair, but Douglas had lost his vitality.

Eight years ago Douglas had been young, dark haired, handsome and charming. Now his hair was gray, his face tired and lined, his shoulders stooped.

“It’s been a long time,” Douglas acknowledged, “but we’re finally here.” He moved aside, bringing his daughter forward with an arm around her shoulders. “You remember my girl, Ellen. She’s been a blessing to me and her mam.”

“I’m sure she has.” Hamish smiled at the girl, who looked, he thought, pale and underfed, and still with far too much hair. It surrounded her face in a dark tangle, and she regarded him out of those wide, hazel eyes he remembered, so unsettlingly serious. She hadn’t changed much then, just grown a bit taller. She had coal smuts on her face.

“Pleased to meet you, Uncle Hamish.”

Uncle...! The realization surprised Hamish into giving her an awkward hug. “Well, of course I’m pleased to meet you, little miss. Though I’ve known you since you weren’t higher than my knee.” He laughed, a rather forced sound, and said, “Let’s get your bags.”

Hamish received another shock when he saw what they were traveling with, just one worn carpetbag and a small, battered steamer trunk. Sometimes it was hard to remember that he and Ruth had come to America with little more. Prosperity had a way of dulling the memories, or sweetening them, perhaps.

“You must be tired,” Hamish said. “I’ll take you right home. Ruth’s minding the store. We live next door, you know, built our own house five years ago, when the store started doing well.” He found himself swelling proudly, and then looked away, ashamed of his own smugness.

“We can hardly wait to see it,” Douglas said cheerfully, and Ellen smiled. Hamish felt soothed as he put their cases in the wagon and helped Ellen climb aboard. Perhaps it would be all right.

They were silent on the short journey from the station into Seaton. Out of the corner of his eye Hamish watched Ellen gaze at everything with wide eyes. He thought of Springburn, with its grime and noise, and vaguely remembered his own surprise and delight at the simple greenness of Vermont. The grass was soft, vivid, and hopping with crickets; the clouds in the sky looked like bits of cotton wool. Hamish smiled.