From New Brunswick they boarded another train, traveling through the wooded hills of Maine to Montreal, where Maud went out on her own along the Old Port, as her grandpa had stayed at the hotel to get some rest. She stayed close enough to the hotel so she wouldn’t get lost, but she couldn’t help feeling a spice of adventure in walking alone in such a big city where no one knew who she was.
They took a sleeping car that evening and Maud woke in a region that was all stumps and rocks in Northern Ontario and wrote in her travel journal as they entered the province of Manitoba. After a short stop in Winnipeg, which looked as though someone threw a handful of streets and houses down and forgot to sort them out, she and Grandpa finally arrived in Regina, Saskatchewan, at five o’clock in the morning. It was so cold and foggy that it was hard to see the city; she could only make out a series of gray buildings and matching gray sky. Grandpa checked them into the Windsor Hotel across the street from the train station, and Maud was so exhausted that she almost didn’t make it up the stairs into bed before falling into a dreamless sleep.
—
A few hours later she was woken up by a knock at the door. She was expecting to see only Grandpa, so it took her a few moments to realize that the man standing beside him was her father. A few more lines to his face since the last time she’d seen him, but with the same brown hair and beard, and friendly cobalt-blue eyes that were exactly like hers. At the sight of her, he opened his arms and, without hesitating, she stepped into his big hug and breathed in his smell of summer sun, fresh-cut wheat, and tobacco.
“I’m so happy to finally have you here,” he said, with his hands on her shoulders.
“I didn’t expect to see you until we got to Prince Albert,” she said, delighted.
“We didn’t know if we would be able to arrange it.” Grandpa slapped Father on the back and laughed. Maud had forgotten how they shared the same explosive laugh.
“I was able to come with a friend of mine who was traveling here on business,” Father explained to Maud, “but we are going to have to be creative getting back to Prince Albert.” Father unbuttoned the top of his jacket and sat down on one of the plush mauve chairs. “While the freight train now goes to Prince Albert, there’s no passenger car. So we have to stop in Duck Lake first.”
Maud had an absurd vision of them lugging their trunks through acres of wheat fields.
Her father laughed when he saw the dubious expression on her face. “At the end of every freight train, there’s a little red wooden carriage called a caboose,” he went on. “It’s a three-hour journey, and it will be a little cramped, but nothing we can’t handle, right, Maudie?”
Her father’s enthusiasm was contagious and, even though her sense of adventure had left her in Winnipeg, she found herself smiling back at him.
“In the meantime, I was able to arrange a horse and buggy to tour Regina for the day so we can see the sights—what sights there are to be seen,” he said. “How does that sound?”
Maud couldn’t stop staring at her father. The whole trip out West, Maud had been worried that he would be ashamed of her, but, instead, he had planned something for them to do together. “Yes!” she said, when she could find her voice. “That sounds wonderful.”
After Maud got herself dressed and had a quick breakfast of tea with toast and jam, they stepped out of the hotel onto Broad Street, where the horse and buggy were waiting. Around the train station, a new business district had formed, and as Father drove Grandpa and Maud through Regina, Maud watched people going about their everyday lives. She had never seen a North West Mounted Police before and was struck by how many of them they were—and how handsome their uniforms were. She had seen police officers when she had visited Charlottetown with Grandma, but there wasn’t much of a need of one in Cavendish. Regina was also so new-looking, compared to her home’s older, more established houses and farms, whose founding families had come over one-hundred-and-fifty years before. The recently completed Government House, the official residence of the lieutenant-governor for the North-West Territories and Saskatchewan, was a grand two-storey imposing building made of stone and—according to Father—had running water and flushing toilets.
When Father detoured outside of Regina to show them the farms in the area, all Maud could see was dust and dirt; she prayed that Prince Albert would be better. She longed for Cavendish’s rolling hills and deep green pastures and red shores.
All through the tour, her father and grandpa chatted, and while she appreciated the time to absorb her new surroundings, she also couldn’t wait to be alone with her father so she could talk to him about Mother’s Commonplace Book, and about Mother. She knew this wasn’t the right time, though; if she were going to find out the truth, the timing would have to be perfect.
So she sat back and listened to Grandpa and Father discuss the “rough and tumble” Prince Albert politics.
“I’m glad that you got that matter settled with your supervisor,” Grandpa said.
Father cleared his throat. “In addition to my duties as agent at the Confederation Life Insurance Company, there are a few ventures that look promising.” When Grandpa didn’t respond, Father went on. “You’ll find that I’m quite well respected in Prince Albert, Father. People are happy I’m back, and there’s talk of me running for local government.”
“Following in the family business,” Grandpa said. “About time.”
When they finally boarded the caboose later that evening, Maud found herself shivering in the tiny car, which was lit by oil lamps and not much else. Her head hurt and she ached for a warm bed and some hot tea. A few hours later, they arrived at Duck Lake, a small town a few hours south of Prince Albert, where they stayed with one of Father’s friends, Mr. Cameron. It was so late when they arrived that Maud just tumbled into the small bed in the spare bedroom and fell immediately into a deep sleep.
Maud woke refreshed the following morning and was relieved to find the world outside had changed from dusty brown to luscious green. There were even some poplar trees nestling in the distance.
After breakfast, Father’s father-in-law, John McTaggart, arrived to take them on the last stage of the journey to Prince Albert. Mr. McTaggart was a local businessman and government land agent; his job was to convince people to move west—and to hear him talk, it was all he could do to keep people from coming. “Everyone wants to start fresh. Already Prince Albert can boast two thousand homesteaders who have come to work the land,” Mr. McTaggart said as they drove away in his horse and buggy and started the journey north.
“It’s a fool’s notion,” Father said. “I’m not going to rely on the land; I’ve seen too much of that back East. I make a good living as an auctioneer and, then—” He turned and winked at Maud. “Who knows.”
“Yes,” Grandpa Montgomery said, “who knows.”