AWAE 25 Days of Christmas Day 17: “You want to stop and feel the snow?”
Bash’s first winter in Avonlea had not been one he enjoyed. It was cold. There was white, wet muck falling from the sky all the time. The sun hid behind clouds for three months straight and the only flavoring for miles was salt. Blythe was totally unsympathetic to his plight. The only good things about that first winter, in Bash’s opinion, was Mary and his first Christmas dinner, in that order.
When Bash’s second year came around, he thought he was prepared. He pulled out the blankets. He chopped twice the amount of wood in the fall so that they could have a fire going all winter. He hid the salt from Blythe and banned him from the kitchen (an action whole-heartedly supported by Mary).
“Your god-cursed Canadian winter is not getting the best of me this year,” he swore vigorously when Gilbert asked if Bash was planning to build a second house with all the wood. “I know what’s comin’ this time.”
Bash’s preparations were not a day too early. The first flurries arrived in November. Mary and Gilbert both treated this as if it were some miraculous thing, leaping out of their seats at the first snowflake and staring out the window.
Bash, like the sensible man he was, glared out the window. The snow was his enemy, and he would not forget it. Who on God’s great earth could like something that hid all the bright colors of the sky and ground? Pure nonsense.
For a few weeks, there were only flurries. Then, as Gilbert and Bash were making their way back from town, the skies clouded over and snow began to fall thickly, blanketing Avonlea. Within minutes, it felt like it was three inches deep. Bash swore he could feel icicles forming off of his nose.
They were still a few miles from the house, so Bash pressed forward as quickly as he could, determined to get home before they froze to death.
“Bash, wait,” Gilbert laughed from behind. The idiot mook was grinning up at the sky as if he had never seen snow before, stretching out his hands to catch the snowflakes. “Try it!” He called out.
“Are you kidding Blythe?” Bash said incredulously. “We’re in the middle of a blizzard and you want to stop and feel the snowflakes?”
“This isn’t a blizzard,” Gilbert scoffed. “The snow is falling too slowly for that, and there’s not enough wind.”
Bash stared at him. He had always been told a blizzard was when a lot of snow fell from the sky. When Bash saw his first snowstorm, he had assumed that that was it. After all, how could snow possible fall more?
“It can get worse?”
Mary was just as unsympathetic as Gilbert when she learned of Bash’s confusion. In fact, Mary and Gilbert began to team up to tease him whenever they caught Bash shivering or looking out the winter dolefully. It was an absolute betrayal that Bash was certain would not have taken place were it not for the existence of winter.
Bash witnessed a real blizzard that year. He did not enjoy it. To make matters worse, his carefully procured stash of blankets were pilfered from him one by one.
“But Mary, I’m freezing,” Bash pleaded when she took yet another one from his pile. He was down to only three now, all atop him like a strange circus tent. Gilbert snickered from his armchair. Like a true nutter, he didn’t have any blankets on him at all.
“I’m from Trinidad, Mary, I need the blankets.”
“And I’m pregnant,” Mary responded. Which, there was not much Bash could argue with that. Balefully, he let her steal another blanket.
Really, the only good thing about that winter was the birth of Dellie. Bash found he couldn’t hate the snow quite as much when he remembered how the soft, freshly fallen snow around him when he had held his daughter for the first time.
For his third Canadian winter, Bash had manfully committed to gritting his teeth through the season in silence. He had two years under his belt now, after all, and he was beginning to acclimate at last to the colder temperatures of the north. Besides, he had already given Blythe two years of ammunition, and he didn’t want Elijah to join in. This year, he was determined not to give either of the two young men the satisfaction.
They had already had several snowfalls by the time Gilbert returned from his first term in Toronto. Elijah had born the seasonal change with ease, and Dellie laughed every time she saw a snowflake. Gilbert’s homecoming coincided with a winter storm, and his teeth were chattering when Bash met him at the train station.
“Cold, Blythe?” Bash asked smugly. His own teeth were chattering too, but Bash ignored that.
Gilbert’s exchange with Eljah was stilted yet polite, but he greeted Hazel with a warm smile and hug.
“How are you finding your first Canadian winter, Hazel?” Gilbert asked politely, bending down to tweak a squealing Dellie’s nose.
Bash’s mother than did something he hadn’t seen her do in all of his years.
She pulled a face of disgust.
“In all honesty, Mist- Gilbert- the weather here is ridiculous. Who lives here in such cold!? Likely to freeze your blood and your brain in such weather. And there’s no sun! Who ever heard of living somewhere where the sun disappears behind clouds for months?”
Gilbert cast an amused look back to where Bash stood staring at his mother like he had just witnessed the second coming.
Bash was very busy trying to process two previously impossible thoughts.
Number one, for the first time in his life, he agreed whole heartedly with his mother on something.
And number two, he had an ally against this ridiculous weather! He wasn’t outnumber by fool hardy Canadians!
Which meant he could begin complaining again. “It’s total nonsense, I’ve been telling Blythe for years,” Bash said, shaking his head. “I don’t understand it. And this isn’t even the worst! There’s blizzards,” he shuddered.
Hazel gave him a horrified look. “It gets colder?”
Bash nodded solemnly.
“You can’t raise a child like this! It can’t be good for it’s health!”
Gilbert and Elijah both protested at that, being of Canadian stock. Bash left them to it, whistling happily to his daughter as he began pulling out extra blankets. “Sebastian! We need more wood! Immediately! Apparently this lasts for months!”
There was a long winter ahead of him, but it looked a bit brighter now that he had someone to complain with.
