Chapter Twenty-one
Belle's Lot.
The birth of Jack proved to be a disaster for Belle. Ma Benson descended into deep depression after the birth and rarely left her bedroom. As a result, Mary, who normally helped Belle with all the cleaning, was in almost constant demand in the nursery. The baby suffered chronically from colic and Mary spent many long nights in futile attempts to soothe the child. Consequently the burden of laundry, the normal weekly load plus innumerable cloth diapers, fell on Belle's shoulders.
Laundry on a farm, even in the summer, is a gigantic task. Winter worsens the situation, forcing all the work inside. Every Monday morning, after breakfast, Belle reported to the washhouse where she invariably faced a mountain of laundry. Her first task was to wash and rinse all items in three large tubs, one for washing, the other two for rinsing. She doused all the whites in a fourth barrel containing "Dolly Blue" brightener. Using a mangle, she then wrung dry the soaking wet items. After the starching, that both her mother and Mrs. Maclean insisted upon, she loaded all the clothes into huge baskets and carried them to the adjacent kitchen. There she hung the clothes to dry on ropes stretching the width of the room. This took care of Monday.
She spent the entire day on Tuesday, ironing. There were two ironing boards, one about two feet wide, used for sheets, the other, smaller and narrowed at the end, for shirts and dresses. Belle heated the iron, made of cast iron, to spit sizzling temperature on the wood stove before smoothing each item. Despite her best efforts, most of the cottons needed multiple ironings before they lost the scrunched up appearance so frowned upon by her mother. Many Tuesday's Belle ended up toiling over the ironing board well into the night.
It was customary in the winter for everyone to take his or her weekly bath in the kitchen. This became a nightly occurrence because Mary insisted on bathing the baby every night. Since they didn't want to waste the bath water, one or more of the Bensons would follow. Belle made sure that each evening she had enough hot water to one third fill the largest of the laundry tubs, which she placed directly in front of the stove, shielded from the draughts by a large blanket spread over two chairs. Bill was the only member of the family who could sit comfortably in the tub. Everyone else, except Dan, had to sit with knees to chin. Dan found this impossible and usually sat with his feet dangling over the edge. Belle made sure that the appropriate night attire or clothing was warming in front of the stove. Bath time over, she drained the tub, removed the dirty clothes and towels and readied the kitchen for next morning's breakfast.
The job Belle detested the most was emptying the slops. Each morning she took a covered diaper pail in to every bedroom and poured the contents of each chamber pot in to the bucket. She then took the human waste to the outhouse for disposal. Every Saturday morning she cleaned all the chamber pots. This required washing with hot water and vinegar and finishing up with a Bon Ami scrub. Normally Mary would have shared these duties but she not only had to deal with the baby, she also spent a great deal of the afternoon tutoring Betty, and the evenings studying with George.
On Saturday mornings Mary helped by cleaning her own bedroom, her parent's bedroom and the nursery. To appease Belle, she would also scrub the seats and floor of the outhouse and fill the two pails, one with sawdust for number one, and the other with ashes for number two.
Belle had expected farm work to be hard and never would have complained if only there had been some social outlet. From Monday to Friday, her life was one of drudgery. Even in the evenings, there was little respite as she was not interested in study or handicrafts that kept the others occupied. Any spare time she had, she spent devouring the pages of the Gazette, and bemoaning the life she was missing in the big city.
Saturday afternoons were her time to relax, and she usually spent them in the company of Meg, who did everything possible to avoid the attentions of the obnoxious Mr. McLeod. Often they went for prolonged sleigh rides or skating on the rink besides the Catholic Church in Knowlton. There at least she had contact with some lusty males. This came to naught as they were under strict orders to be home in time for the evening meal, a ghastly hour made unbearable by the pontifications of Mr. McLeod and the obdurate silence of lovesick Ernest.
During one of their sleigh rides Belle brought up the idea of going to another dance. She was quite surprised at the response. Apparently not long after Meg's first dance a preacher at the chapel had railed about the immorality of modern dance, and threatened with hell fire any member of the congregation who participated. Meg's mother, influenced by this tirade, made it abundantly clear to Meg that there would be no more dances for her.
On Sunday mornings, Belle went to church with the rest of the family. Worship was not on her mind, just the hope that some Captain Meredith might unexpectedly appear. She was doomed to disappointment. The rest of the day, after the traditional Sunday lunch, she usually spent with Dan, either helping to refurbish his cabin or aiding him in cider production. The freezing temperatures that came with nightfall often drove them back to the farmhouse where they became unwilling participants in parlour games.
Often during those long winter nights, she found herself reminiscing about her furtive visits to the Vulcan Hotel and the frantic fumblings of that hunk Bill Evans. Was she destined to end up with one of those Quebecois that tried to impress her on the ice rink? It seemed inevitable.