Dry Water: A Novel by Robert J.C. Stead

Variant Readings

305 Variant Readings There are numerous variants among the four extant typescripts of Dry Water, far too many to list here in their entirety. The following variant readings are intended to illustrate the main changes made between the first and second versions (the first typescript [ts1] and the third typescript [ts3]) as well as the extensive cuts made to ts3 in the preparation of the last version (the fourth typescript [ts4]). Spelling and punctuation errors in the variants have been silently corrected and regularized. Please see the “Textual History” section at the beginning of this book for a complete explanation of the interconnectedness of the four typescripts. 5.1–8.3 In the winter … grew up.] The branch-line train to Alder Creek left Winnipeg in the early morning in 1890, as it does to-day. The occasion for its early rising has never been apparent, for, once out of the yards, it abandons all pretense of haste and lumbers amiably up the Red River valley. Perhaps the wide landscape, offering few marks against which to register progress, accentuates the deliberation of its pace. Prairie trains never seem to travel as fast as those which plow through forest lanes or swing on sharp curves around rock or lake obstructions. Perhaps, too, its pace is set by a certain sense of inevitableness, superior to haste, indigenous to the prairie country. In the early winter morning, awaiting its small quota of passengers, the train suggested comfort and escape from the bleak wind which whirled about the unprotected platform. Travellers in heavy cloth or coonskin overcoats , with fur caps pulled well about their ears, hurried across the space between the station and the cars; among them a woman, holding a small boy by the hand, and with the other arm carrying a pudgy valise of the type in vogue in that period. “Is this the right train for Alder Creek?” she asked of the brakeman. The railwayman extended a helping hand. “Yes ma’am, get right in,” he said. Dry Water 306 “But I ’m not going—just the boy. Will you see that he gets off at Alder Creek?” “Better speak to the conductor. He’s in the car.” The air inside was warm, strong with the smell of disinfectants and that peculiar odor which attaches itself to day coaches. The oil lamps, hanging in their brass brackets, only partially dissipated the gloom of early dawn. Passengers were busy stowing away their luggage, removing their overcoats, pre-empting double seats by the simple process of tipping over the backs in front and lounging their feet on the exposed cushions, a procedure which the conductor, large and important, observed with no small degree of latent disapproval. “Will you see that this boy gets off at Alder Creek?” the woman asked, approaching the uniformed dignitary with some awe. “He is going to his uncle there.” “He has a ticket?” The woman produced the necessary strip of paper, and the official unbended slightly. “All right,” he said. “I’ll see that he gets off. Has he his lunch with him? It’ll be late when we get to Alder Creek—bad rail to-day— and we stop at noon for lunch.” The woman explained that the boy was provided with lunch. “All right, son, sit down here,” said the conductor, suddenly becoming quite human, “and don’t get out of the car until I tell you.” “Yes sir,” the boy answered, momentarily raising his eyes from the heavy gold chain which looped about the great man’s frontal protrusion. The woman dropped her arm about the boy’s neck. “All right, Donald; you’ll be all right, and your Uncle will meet you at Alder Creek. Be a good boy, Donald.” She was pressing her lips hard. “For your mother’s sake, Donald. Always remember your mother——” The conductor touched her arm. “Better get off, Madam. We leave in a moment.” The boy seated himself by the window and watched the red and green lights flick by as the train settled into motion. Three days and two nights already on board train had robbed the experience of some of its novelty, but this was his first time to travel quite alone. After his mother’s death, when it was decided that he was to live with his uncle and aunt at Alder Creek, Mrs. Barrow, a friend of the family, who was travelling to Calgary, had agreed to bring him as far as Winnipeg and...