"I'm leaving."

Will realized he had shouted it, as stunned silence fell over the dinner table. He hadn't meant to, but tension had been building in him all through the meal as he waited for an opening in the usual stream of chatter between his mother and younger brother Mark. He had always been the quiet one, no one expected him to say anything. Dessert was on the table and still he had no chance to tell them the news that had been weighing like a millstone on him all day.

Now he had their attention, all right. His mother was staring, and Mark looked wide-eyed, almost frightened. The room had gone so still he could hear the soft sigh of ashes settling in the cook stove and the gabbling of his mother's geese out in the yard.

He cleared his throat and tried again. "I've got a job in the mines. Up in Flin Flon. The letter came yesterday. I start work on Monday."

"No." His mother dropped her fork with a clatter onto the faded oilcloth. "Will, no! You mustn't - . We need you here at home in Aberdeen."

"I must." It was hard to keep his voice from rising again. They had been over and over the same argument for months, and he was sick of the hopelessness of it. "You know we can't go on any longer like this. We're losing money with every bushel of wheat we sell, the cattle aren't worth the feed we're putting into them, and the bank is refusing us any more credit. Someone has to bring in an income from outside the farm, and I'm the oldest. I've got a job in the mines. I bought my ticket this afternoon for the Saturday train north."

"Oh, Will." His mother fumbled her handkerchief from the pocket of her faded apron. "We need you here. Why, you'll be missing your graduation, and you've worked so hard to finish your schooling. If only your Dad was still alive - "

"Well, he isn't. There's no point in wishing." Will had been the one to find his father after their temperamental Shorthorn bull had broken loose in the barn and turned on his owner. He didn't want to relive any part of that memory again. "Mark can handle things here, if he hires in some help now and then. I've talked to old Jack Wilson. He'll be glad to lend a hand at harvest. And Abe Friesen is always looking for a bit of paid work."

"Mark's only sixteen! You can't expect - "

"Mom." Mark caught her hand, squeezed it tight. "Will's only expecting what he has the right to expect. I'll do what needs doing. Another year like the last one, we'll lose the farm. That's not what Dad would have wanted. Not what any of us want."

He looked up at his brother, his eyes old beyond his years. "Don't worry, I'll take care of things. I'll do your chores tonight, too, if you like. You'll be wanting to see Carrie. I'm guessing you haven't told her yet?"

"No." Will pushed himself from the table and swallowed down the lump in his throat. "Thanks. I will go see Carrie tonight, if you'll chore up for me. Get any ideas she might have had about me out of her head."

Mark's smile twisted. "It's a little late for that, big brother. Carrie's had ideas about you for a long time. I doubt you'll find it easy to persuade her otherwise."

One thing about Carrie, she was quick. And she knew Will through and through. One look at his face as he stepped into her family's big farmhouse kitchen, and her welcoming smile vanished. She caught up her coat and led him right back outside. In a house of six sociable people, half of them inquisitive brothers, outside was the only place where they had any hope for a private conversation.

They walked past the barn and the chicken house in silence, down to the bank of the creek that wound along the edge of the yard. Will said what he had come to say. Under the shimmering silver of the freshly leafed poplars, he wrenched out his farewell in disjointed phrases. Carrie said not a word, just listened with her eyes fixed on his face. When he had done, she turned away to gaze out over the water to the pasture beyond, where new calves were kicking up their heels with the sheer exuberance of life. The quiet stretched to the horizon, broken only by the plaintive cry of a whippoorwill in the long grass along the creek's edge.

"Carrie - "

"It's alright, Will. I understand. You have to do what you can, being the man of the family now." She turned back to him, her expression set hard. "You'll write."

It was a command, not a request. He hesitated. "I - don't know. Now that we've broken it off, wouldn't it would be best just to - ?"

"We're still friends, aren't we? Or are you here to end that, too?" As he stammered shocked denial, she gave a crisp nod of her head. "Well, then. You'll write."

For a moment, her eyes glittered diamond bright in the dying rays of the sun. Then she turned and walked away from him, her spine poker-straight under the soft printed cotton of her blouse.

He wrote. In those first few months of desperate homesickness, he would have given it up and bolted back home if it hadn't been for those letters. Flin Flon's stony barrenness, its rough, ugly huddle of tiny dwellings and stark industrial buildings, was so far different from the rich, open farmland and flower-bordered homes he had grown up with, he felt like he had been dropped onto the far side of the moon. Mark wasn't much for letter-writing and his mother's epistles were a depressing litany of worry. It was Carrie who gave him the support he needed, whose steady stream of correspondence kept him on the right side of sane.

In his letters to her, he poured out his loneliness, the weariness of long, backbreaking shifts in the mine and the constant racket of the overcrowded bunkhouse which made sleep impossible. Her twice-weekly letters back to him were friendly, sympathetic and encouraging. She wrote again and again that he was doing the right thing,. Her father admired Will for taking care of his family, doing what he had to, to hold onto the farm. In the little coffee shop at Aberdeen, it was the talk that Will was smart to be going where the money was. The North was the new frontier. A man with his brains and strength could do well there. It was only natural that it would take a little time to find his feet.

Gradually, he did. At Carrie's urging, he left the rough, noisy bunkhouse and found himself room and board in a private home. The room was tiny, hardly big enough for a single bed and the steamer trunk that held his clothes and beloved books. But it was quiet and his landlady's cooking was good. Best of all, it was cheap. Every dollar he could spare went home to his mother and Mark, who were struggling to harvest the meagre crop which had survived that summer's scorching drought. It had been the hottest year in prairie history.

As it turned out, it worked to his advantage that he couldn't afford the liquor and gambling offered to lonely miners on "the Hill", the brothel area of town. His need for the money kept him sober, conscientious in his work and eager for extra responsibilities. By the time winter set in, he had been promoted to a job in the mill, helping to operate the massive machinery that rough-cleaned the copper, zinc and gold from the raw ore before the final smelting. From his days with the threshing gangs at home, he knew all about the mechanics of separating wheat kernels from straw. Harvesting raw metal from tons of solid rock was a far more complex feat of chemistry and engineering. He found the process deeply fascinating and set to work learning all he could about it.

Back in Aberdeen, Carrie was quick to notice the change in Will's letters. He spoke of his new job with growing enthusiasm. He mentioned making friends with one or two other displaced farm boys among the miners and joked about his clumsy attempts to use the second-hand snowshoes he had purchased for exploratory treks into the rugged boreal forest surrounding the town. He also informed her, with some pride, that he had taken up pipe-smoking. He thought it make him look older, more worldly.

"I hear that Mark Patterson was hit hard on the grade for that load of wheat he sold this week." Her father looked over his newspaper one cold February evening and eyed the letter Carrie had been reading by the light of the parlour oil lamp. "Maybe it's time you stopped pinning your hopes on Will. He isn't likely to be back in Aberdeen anytime soon. There's plenty of other young men around, willing enough to come courting."

Carrie folded the letter with meticulous care and slipped it back into its envelope. She lifted her gaze to meet her father's. "I know. But Will's the one I'm going to marry. It's just going to take a little longer than I planned."

She laughed as her brothers, who had been idly listening to the conversation, erupted into indignant cries of derision. "I am not hunting Will! He is mine and always has been. One way or another, we'll be together in the end. You just wait and see."

She was still smiling as she left the parlour, but her father's words echoed her own growing unease. Since their earliest days of playing Tag and Red Rover together in the school yard, Will had been the only boy in the world for her. He had always loved her, too. He still did. She was certain of it. His clumsy attempts to cut her free before he left hadn't fooled her a bit. Neither did the occasional guarded comments in his letters about the fun she must be having at the school dances and Glees. She had no intention of taking any of that nonsense seriously.

But circumstances had set them far apart and there was no sign of an end to his exile. There were even worrying hints in his latest letters that he might settle happily into life as a miner for the long term. He would not be the first farm boy who went north to make a few dollars and ended up staying there for life.

She was thoughtful as she settled to her homework. Only a few more months and she would have her High School diploma. The country school in Aberdeen only went as far as Grade 11. She wasn't sure quite what impulse had led her to take her Grade 12 by correspondence. There may have been some instinctive wisdom working there. It did open more possibilities to her. It was time to think seriously about her next move.

Will's heart sank into his boots when Carrie's letter came telling him she was leaving Aberdeen and going to Normal School in Brandon to take her training as a teacher. Although the break had been hard to make when he left, he was resigned to it now. Still, the realization that she was moving on, building a new life without him, cut deep. He spent sleepless nights imagining the men she was meeting at the college in Brandon. Smart fellows with an education and good prospects, the kind that a girl like her deserved for her husband. He began to dread each new letter from home, waiting for the inevitable news that she had taken up with someone else.

On a sultry July evening in 1938, a letter came with startlingly different news than expected. Will read it in disbelief. Carrie had accepted a teacher's position in Flin Flon. She was writing to tell him, with cheerful assurance, to meet her at the train that Wednesday night.

Wednesday! It was Tuesday evening now. She must have already left Winnipeg. There was no way to reach her now, to tell her not to come. He cursed himself for a fool, for not having the strength to cut off their correspondence. There was no hope, none at all, for the two of them. It was all he could do to give Mark what he needed to keep the farm precariously afloat. Pinching every penny as he was, there was nothing left to support a wife. To have her actually in Flin Flon, so near and so dear, with no hope of a happy ending - his heart constricted at the thought. It could only be misery for both of them.

He was hollow-eyed with sleeplessness and irritation as he stood on the station platform the next night, waiting for the train to rumble to a stop. His heart jolted with joy when he saw Carrie jump down from the steps of the dingy passenger car and hurry over to him, looking even more lovely than he had remembered. Then reaction set in. A wave of helpless fury. How could she put him through this torment?

"Why did you come?" He caught her arms as she ran to hug him and shoved her away with furious strength. "I told you it was over between us! You know I can't marry you. Why did you come?"

Carrie could only stare, stricken. She had waited so long for this reunion. The anticipation of it had warmed her through so many long, lonely nights. She had imagined their first meeting unfolding in a dozen tender ways. After the long, exhausting train trip, this cruel rejection was like a whiplash across her face. For a moment, she hovered on the brink of weeping hysteria. But there were curious eyes on them, people turning to stare in surprise at Will's raised voice. She bit her lip hard, forced her chin to come up and her voice to hold steady.

"I don't remember asking you to marry me, Will Patterson. You always were a conceited beast! And I don't need your permission to go anywhere I please." She spun and strode blindly down the platform, stumbling on the rough boards in her hurry to get away from him and the wreck of her dreams.

"Carrie, wait. Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said -" She felt his hand on her shoulder and wrenched away.

"You don't want anything to do with me, f- fine! I thought you'd be happy to see s-someone from back home, but that's obviously n - not true. Oh, just leave me alone." To her horror, she burst into tears.

Will caught her as she stepped off the platform and swung her around to him.

"Carrie, listen to me. I didn't mean that, I swear. You know I couldn't be anything but happy to see you."

Carrie's temper fired again. "You didn't sound happy. And I wanted so much to see you again. And it was such a long, horrible trip, the train was so stuffy, it made me feel sick - " She balled up a fist and punched him in the chest. "And after all that, you don't even want me here!"

"I do, I swear I do. It's just - darn it, we can't talk here. I feel like a villain, with you bawling your eyes out and all these people staring."

"You are a villain." Carried blew her nose vigorously into her handkerchief. "Only a monster would say such a thing to me, after that awful trip. But you don't need to worry. I won't be bothering you any more. There was a nice man on the train who seemed very interested in being friends. I'm sure he'll be happy to show me the way to the teacherage."

This time Will didn't try to stop her as she walked away. For that, she thought, she would never forgive him.

It wasn't easy avoiding each other in a town as small as Flin Flon, but they did their best. With the population so heavily weighted with single men, Carrie found herself more popular than she imagined possible. There would have been no problem at all in finding herself a steady beau, or several, had she wanted them. But despite her determination to show Will she didn't need him at all, she held back from anything but the lightest flirtations and spent most of her limited free time with the little band of female teachers who boarded together. It still didn't feel right to be with any other man. Will, for his part, never came near her if he could help it. When he did, he greeted her with stiff formality and a face set in stone.

It was six months later that a rookie blaster misjudged the placement of his dynamite deep in one of the mine drifts. The charge triggered a rock burst, collapsing the tunnel. When the news reached the teacherage, Carrie hurried to the site along with several other women to help supply hot coffee and sandwiches to the rescue crews. Will was among them. Caked with dirt and looking taut and grim, he gulped down a steaming cup before hurrying back to the shaft. He was still underground when the frantic cry went up that a second section of the drift had collapsed, coming down on the rescuers.

The next twelve hours were a nightmare. Carrie never left the coffee table during that endless night, feeling in some desperate way that keeping the rescue crews warmed and fuelled might somehow speed their efforts to reach the trapped miners below. It was late in the morning before the first stretchers began to emerge from the mine. One man dead, six injured . . . the grisly parade went by her, one by one. Then came the walking wounded, trudging with heads bent and eyes over-bright in the grimy blackness of their faces. Among the last to stumble out into the grey winter light was Will.

It was the end of their estrangement. From the moment he fell, hurt and exhausted, into her arms, Will and Carrie were a couple again, without a word being said or needed to make it so. Despite the first sweet, wrenching transports of love regained, marriage was still out of the question. With reluctant necessity, they resigned themselves to a long courtship.

Life settled into a satisfactory rhythm of work and quiet moments together. There were good times with other young couples who became close friends. With limited recreational facilities available, their little group had to make their own fun. They became ingenious at doing so. There were swimming parties, canoeing trips and campfire sing-a-longs in the summer, winter picnics in rough-built cabins by the lake and snowshoeing treks in the winter. There was a good deal of frustration in Will and Carrie's situation, and at times it was hard not to rage at the circumstances which held them in limbo. Still, they had learned to cherish the happiness that was given to them and not demand perfection in life.

Engrossed as they were in their own lives, the first rumblings of war made only a small, disturbing ripple in their consciousness. Miners were encouraged to stay at their jobs since metal was essential to the war effort, and Flin Flon's isolation made the grim news seem less urgent and very far away. It wasn't until Canada's role in the conflict began to escalate that they felt the first bitter shock. Two of Carrie's brothers enlisted in 1942, along with half the boys from Will's high school class. The first Aberdeen casualties came in the summer of '43, when two young men they knew well were reported killed in action and another went missing.

The news shook Carrie loose from her restless compliancy. Enough was enough. Life was uncertain and risks needed to be taken if they wanted the best from it before it was too late. It was foolish now to let caution rule. She set about persuading Will that it was time for them to marry. He wavered, torn between desire, duty, and the pride that would not let him take a wife without the certainty that he could support her.

Just as the arguments were beginning to wear on their relationship, relief came in the form of an exultant letter from Mark. Grain prices had finally risen to over a dollar a bushel, and the crop was the best they had harvested in years. After all the hard years of drought and low prices, the farm was beginning to pay its own way. Will read the letter twice and headed out whistling to the local jewellery store.

In a rushed trip home, they were married in the parlour of Carrie's home in Aberdeen. It was a simple but joyous ceremony. Their closest friends and family were there to wish them well. Their wedding night was spent in Winnipeg, in the big hotel across from the train station. It was a luxury neither had ever experienced before. The next morning, far too early, they were on the train heading north again.

They had managed, through rigid economy, to scrape together the down payment for a tiny two-room house on the outskirts of town. Will felt he had to continue contributing toward paying down the debt on the farm, and money remained tight. Fortunately, since male teachers had become a scarcity in wartime, Carrie was given permission by the school district to continue teaching despite being married. It was a concession that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier.

1948 marked a major turning point in their marriage. Mark, who had grown into a broad-shouldered and handsome man, married a girl who brought him a quarter-section of good farmland as her dowry. With the additional land and five good crop years behind them, the junior Pattersons no longer had any need of Will's financial aid. Will and Carrie celebrated by adding another room to their house, and began to prepare for their long-delayed family.

John was born in 1949, Bev in 1951 and William Jr. (Bill) in 1954. As the family grew, Will spent much of his free time building onto the house, until the original two rooms had expanded to six. The children were healthy, happy and a delight to their parents, although they caused a few grey hairs with their adventuring. With its endless resources of rocks, trees, lakes, bugs and wildlife to explore, the Canadian Shield was a wonderful place to grow up. It wasn't always the safest one.

Every three years, Will and Carrie managed the cost of the train trip south to visit their families in Aberdeen. The children loved these rare trips and the chance to play with their cousins. Most of all, they revelled in the luxury of being able to eat all the crisp garden vegetables and fruit they could hold. Fresh produce was an expensive and carefully rationed luxury in the north, where it had to be brought by train over miles of rock and muskeg.

The Patterson's life in Flin Flon came to an abrupt and unforeseeable end in 1966. Mark's wife phoned in tears to inform them that he had developed severe asthma. His farming days were over. With mixed feelings, Will and Carrie sold their house, said farewell to their many good friends in the north, and moved back to Aberdeen to take over the family farm.

It was not an easy adaptation after so long away from the land. The agricultural world had changed dramatically in the last thirty years. It was a struggle to learn all over again.

The children adjusted more easily to their new lives. Only Bev, however, developed a real interest in farming. Her brothers did their share of driving tractors and mucking out the barns, but neither had any desire to make farming their future. John was a serious student whose interests revolved around the Science Club, rock 'n roll music and his beloved HO model train. Bill was the rebel of the family, a bright, intense child who felt every injustice in the world as a personal affront. He was involved in student protests and political debates before he was out of Junior High.

Unlike her brothers, Bev was out with her father in the fields and the barns as often as possible. With the proceeds from the sale of her prize-winning 4-H calves, she bought a riding horse and spent many happy hours galloping down country lanes and herding their few placid cows. From both parents, she inherited a love of reading, and of writing. She became the editor of the school newspaper as well as the author of most of its articles.

Will had always regretted leaving high school before graduation. He was determined that his children would have a better education. Although it wasn't always easy to manage the cost, he and Carrie sent all three children to university.

John took his Science degree at the University of Manitoba, and to the surprise and delight of his parents, applied for and was accepted into Dentistry at the University of Toronto afterward. Proud as they were of him, they couldn't give John much financial help, with Bev already in the second year of her Agriculture degree at the U of M. Nor would he accept it. He was grateful for the solid start they had given him, but determined to earn his own way from then on. He did accept Will's help in finding him summer jobs in the mines up north, and with the additional aid of student loans, he managed an adequate if frugal lifestyle as a student.

In the summer of 1971, Bev brought home a tall, rangy young man with curly red hair for her parents' bemused inspection. Dan Cruikshank was in his final year of Agriculture at the U of M, and was a farm boy through and through. He and Will bonded firmly and forever, after one strenuous day repairing a broken shaft on the combine. Carrie's approval took a little longer. She fed Dan a lavish supper and, once he was lulled with the drugging effects of roast beef and apple crisp, put him through an interrogation that would have done credit to an agent of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Although they worked hard at their farming and were reasonably successful with it, Will and Carrie had never really fallen in love with the life again. They were glad enough when the opportunity came to let the next generation take over. In the summer of 1972, when Bev and Dan became engaged, Will and Carrie agreed to sell them the farm. They worked out a long-term instalment plan that was satisfactory to everyone, and happily packed up for the move into town.

There was a comfortable, newer home for sale on a small acreage just a mile from Aberdeen. Will and Carrie bought it, fixed it up to their taste, and settled in to a life of semi-retirement that was just as busy as their years of farming. Carrie did some substitute teaching at the school and became deeply involved in volunteer work with the local UCW, Friendship Centre, Scouts, and Hospital Aid Committee. Will became a town councillor and served for several years on the Regional Development and Water Management Boards. Despite his obligations, he made time every year to help out Dan and Bev with seeding and harvest. In the winters, he puttered contentedly in his workshop and added to his rock collection. It was a busy, sociable and satisfying time.

Will and Carrie heard less and less often from their son John as he settled into his studies and his new life in Ontario. It came as a jolt when, in his third year of dentistry, he phoned to tell them that he and his girlfriend Elly Richards were getting married. They worried about the financial difficulties the young couple were facing, but were determined to be supportive. Although Elly's family lived in Vancouver, the wedding was held in Winnipeg for the convenience of Bev and Dan, who couldn't leave their livestock for long, and Bill, who was deep into his first year of Political Science at the University of Winnipeg.

It had sometimes worried his parents that Bill was so dedicated an activist to every cause that roused his indignation. Their worry came sharply to a head when, a year after finishing his degree, he left Canada to join Greenpeace in their daring and dangerous maritime protests against whaling in the Pacific.

To their surprise, Bill not only survived his hair-raising adventures on the high seas, but thoroughly enjoyed them. Will and Carrie could only conclude that he took after the distant Patterson ancestor who had enjoyed a short but lucrative career as a pirate before ending up on the gallows. Bill was considerably more fortunate than that ancient seafarer. After three years as a volunteer activist, he was offered a management position with Greenpeace in Australia, where he married an Indonesian girl of equally radical views and settled happily to a life dedicated to disturbing the complacent.

Will and Carrie were thrilled to become grandparents in 1976, when John and Elly had their first child, Michael. Knowing the young couple was still struggling with the heavy debt load of their student loans, they sent a generous cheque "to buy a crib". When they arrived in Milborough for their first visit to their grandson, they noted with amusement but no surprise that the baby's crib was second-hand. The money had obviously been needed more urgently elsewhere. They weren't at all offended. It was a satisfactory way to help out the new family with no pride hurt.

Two years later, Bev and Dan made them grandparents a second time with the birth of their daughter Laura, a sociable child with her father's strong features and amiable nature.



Will and Carrie always enjoyed visiting their children and grandchildren, although they made a point of never going too often or staying too long. It was a pleasure to know that their children still needed them at times, whether it was to help with the harvest on the farm or as baby-sitters for Michael and Elizabeth while John and Elly took a much-needed holiday to Mexico. Sometimes they found their help needed in more unusual ways.




Christmas was always a favourite time to visit with John and Elly, although they sometimes wondered if their grandchildren weren't being spoiled a little by the emphasis on gifts and commercialism in the modern celebration. They remembered Christmas as a simpler time in their childhoods, and perhaps more meaningful.



Nevertheless, it was hard to resist joining in the extravagance and spoiling the grandchildren a little themselves when the opportunity came.



Watching their children take their place in the world and start their own families sometimes made Will and Carrie feel their age. There was compensation, though, in seeing their children mature into responsible adults and loving parents. They may not have achieved great things in their lives, but they had done just fine in raising their family.



It was also satisfying to know that they had full and independent lives of their own, and a wonderful network of friends across Canada, as the harvest of their years. They had kept in touch with many of their friends from Flin Flon. As these retired, they met up with them whenever possible on day trips to Winnipeg and in their occasional winter travels south to "snowbird" country. It was a delight to continue the friendships they had cherished twenty-odd years ago and find them as strong and durable as ever.

Will and Carrie are now almost 90. After a couple of scares with their health, they sold their house near Aberdeen in 2006 and are comfortably established in an Assisted Living Centre in a larger town thirty miles away. Several of their old schoolmates are residents there as well. They sometimes joke that they are back where they started in kindergarten, doing crafts, listening to music and playing games together.

Carrie has to be very careful about managing her diabetes, and Will has had two mild heart attacks and suffers from a troublesome cardiac arrhythmia. Still, they rarely complain. Being together after 64 years of marriage is a joy few are given, and they are thankful for it. It would, they feel, be gross ingratitude to fuss about the aches and pains of old age when they have not only each other, but also a strong and healthy family, now satisfactorily expanding into the fourth generation.