Saturday, December 29, 2007

My Work: Homestead Part 2

“Other people claim, and there’s no real evidence for this, that there’s a different story. I was told this by family and, if you weren’t like family to me, I wouldn’t be passing it on. They say that Virginia grew tired of the hard life and listening to Angus blame her because they never had any children. She started to make any excuse she could to get away from him for a while, walking to the neighbor’s or just taking the buggy down the trail for a day or so.

“Angus thought she was stepping out on him, seeing other men, and he blamed her all the more for that. One day he couldn’t take it no more, and he locked Virginia up in the loft so she couldn’t wander. He kept her there, giving her just enough food and water to keep her alive, hoping to kill the wandering spirit in her. But he never could.

“She tried desperately to get out, she ran and smashed into the walls, trying to break them down. She pushed on the roof and tried to tear back the tin from the inside but, every time she got it loose a little, Angus would nail it back down. They say she smashed against that south wall so much, she made the top of the homestead lean right over.

“No one is really sure what happened. After Virginia disappeared, Angus wouldn’t let anyone on his place. He’d meet visitors out by the road, and there weren’t many, about one every couple of months. He’d go to other farms and help out, but never asked or allowed anyone to help him. He never said a word about Virginia, never spoke her name. People thought he was embarrassed because she left him.

“After they found Angus and cut him down, they went into the old homestead but didn’t find nothing. So nobody really knows what happened. I do know that the homestead hasn’t changed much since Angus died, and nobody’s ever lived in it since. You know, once a building starts to go, it usually goes all the way, especially after it has a lot of years on it. But that one has looked frozen like that, leanin’ just that much and no more, for as long as anyone around here knows.

“Some of the people who’ve lived on your place have complained about how hard it was to keep that tin roof nailed down, and some never had a bit of trouble. I guess you’ll be finding it hard.” He shrugged, stubbed his cigarette against the sole of his boot, and went back to work, and that was more than I’ve heard Ray say at one time before or since.

I’ve often sat and pondered our bathroom door with the wide boards and homemade nails until someone pounds on it asking me to hurry up and get out, and the tamarak tree by our driveway still reminds me of Angus.

We’ve used McIntyre’s homestead to house the tiller and other odds and ends. We thought about making it into a sheep shed, but the sheep didn’t seem to want to go in it, maybe because it looked unstable to them. We’ve kept it pretty much like it was since we came here, and more than one person has stopped and asked us if they could photograph it. I’ve twice been on the roof and nailed down the tin.

The true story will never be known, I guess. I do know that when I hear that tin roof banging on calm nights, especially around Halloween, I can imagine Virginia inside, still trying to get out.

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