Falling for Rain by Gina Buonaguro, Janice Kirk Page B

subject well. "Michael Alexander was British and helped defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. After the war, he was given the job of escorting Napoleon to his place of exile at St. Helena.  When he returned to Britain, he was granted this piece of land as a reward."
    "How do you know all this?" she asked with genuine curiosity, her fear forgotten for a moment.
    "There’s a book on the subject," he said.
    "On my ancestors?" she asked with surprise.
    "That's right." He left his station by the tree and walked down to the beach, careful not to get too close to her. He picked up a smooth, flat pebble from the beach and expertly skipped it across the water.
    "Like so many settlers,” he continued, “Alexander and his wife were not prepared for the hardships. The first winter they nearly starved. They had arrived late in the fall and had to live on the food they had brought with them, which wasn't much.
    “When the ox they bought for clearing the land died of cold and starvation, they ate it.  Other more established settlers gave them what they could spare in the way of flour and sugar, and Alexander himself was able to hunt with some success. At one point during the winter, a Mohawk man travelling in the area stopped by their cabin with a brace of rabbits.”
    Rain stopped to look at a shell he had found among the pebbles before continuing. “The next year was little better. Alexander wasn't a farmer, he was a soldier. Back in England, he had been led to believe that the land in Canada was so fertile that one only needed to drop seed on the ground in the spring to enjoy a bountiful harvest in fall. What a shock he must have had. Forest and rock – that’s all there was.  The land had to be cleared of trees, stumps, roots, and rocks before anything could be planted. And remember, they had already eaten the ox. That year, he barely grew more potatoes than the seed potatoes he planted.”
    Emily looked around, thinking that despite “progress” in the form of roads and farms, how little this part of the country had changed. It was still trees and rock.
     “That fall they had a baby boy named August,” Rain went on, looking out across the water, as if he were seeing the country through Alexander’s eyes.  “Alexander decided that the only way they could get through the winter was if he went to work trapping for the Hudson Bay Company. So, in early November, off he went, on foot, to find the Hudson Bay Company, promising his wife he'd be back by Christmas.
     “Two weeks before Christmas, it got very cold. The baby was sick, and Alexander’s wifewas worried about him getting a chill. She built a big fire in the fireplace, and the wooden chimney caught on fire."
    "Wooden chimney?" Emily asked in surprise.  “That sounds dangerous.”
    Rain started in surprise at her voice. He had become so absorbed in his own story, he had almost forgotten he was telling it for her benefit.
    "Yes. They often built wooden chimneys. Although they must have known how dangerous they were. It was easier though, given the scarcity of materials."
    "Did the house burn down?" she asked with genuine interest. She had never given much thought to her ancestors, but Rain was making them seem so real, she couldn’t help but be curious.
    "To the ground,” he said with a sigh. “She saved the baby and a few blankets from the bed, but not much else. Fortunately, the little food she had was stored in the root cellar dug into the cabin floor. She took the baby and their meagre belongings she had saved into the cellar, closed the trap door over her head, and stayed there with the baby in the dark and the cold, virtually buried alive, with nothing to eat but potatoes."
    "And they survived?" she asked incredulously.
    Rain smiled inwardly. He was pleased with himself. He couldn’t have hoped for a better reaction. A few minutes ago, she had been hostile, but now she was animated and friendly. He decided to push his luck.  “I’ll tell you