Immigration Journal

1899

DECEMBER 14TH

Today my heart was smashed to bits.

I’d been sitting on the wooden fence of the farm belonging to the family of the boy named Ewan that I had been sure that I would marry and grow old with. Mrs. McKenzie, the mother of my potential husband, had given me a poppy from the flower garden that her and her daughters tended and I was methodically picking the red petals off one-by-one when the boy himself walked his fourteen year old self up through the cabbage patch that led to my fence and sat down.

At first we sat in silence, the seconds marked by the dropping of each petal, but when he took a deep breath and started talking I liked the silence better. Now comes the part where I dialogue, I can’t promise that it’ll be completely accurate - since it happened a while ago - but I’ll try my best:

“Moira…” he started, pausing to take a deep breath and steel himself. “The landlord of my family’s farm evicted us to herd sheep.”

“What? Your family’s owned this farm for years! How couldn’t you own the land?” I shouted in disbelief.

“I don’t know. All I know is that my family’s now without their jobs and homeless, we can’t live in Scotland anymore.”

“Y-you could stay with my family! And y-you and your f-father could get jobs of the Quintinshill railroad with my father, yeah!” I suggested, desperate to keep the McKinnons in Scotland.

He shook his head and looked at me sadly, “My parents have already decided that we’re going to America, land of opportunity and wealth.”

Tears were streaming out of my eyes now but I hurried to dry them, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t one of the seven leaving behind everything.

I was just someone being left behind.

“When do you leave?” I asked, looking down at my lap full of the petals of my one poppy.

“Tomorrow.” He answered, hopping down from the fence and helping me down after him.

“Oh.” I answered; nothing else came to mind to say.

“I just came for a proper goodbye. We’ll probably never see each other again after tomorrow, but I promise that I’ll never forget you.” He smiled and kissed me on the forehead.

Then he left back through the cabbage patch, not even turning his head when I blurted out that I loved him.

DECEMBER 15TH

Ewan and his family are leaving for America today, my mother and father left to see them off on the train that will take them to their boat but I stayed at home. Was that horrid of me?

Now don’t go forming any opinions. I’m not completely heartless, and neither is Ewan… I’ll be right back.

~~~~~~~~~~

An hour ago I left to try and catch up with Ewan and his family before their train left. It was raining hard outside and the packed dirt roads had become soup that reached my ankles when I stepped into it.

Multiple times I tumbled into the huge puddles as I ran, and by the time that I’d arrived at the Quintinshill railway station I probably looked like a madwoman with my ripped up skirt and scraped up knees showing. For the mean time though, I didn’t care.

By pushing through groups of people saying goodbye and hello, I made it to Ewan in time to see him disappear on the train. I wasn't ready to give up yet.

He whipped around in suprise and I was about to make my case when a man looking for tickets came around and started pushing me off the train when he found me without one.

“What are you doing?” Ewan tried to defend me, “She wasn’t going to stay!”

The man ignored him and finished pushing me off the train. I attempted to get back on – or at the very least shout what I wanted to say – but the man blocked the entrance like a force of nature.

So I stood there, my wet and ripped skirt showing more leg than was approved. My mother and father stood behind me looking shocked, but I only turned to them a few minutes after the train had left.

My mother seemed to understand the love thing at least, but all my father could see was his only child making a fool of herself in a very public way. They escorted me home and my mother scrubbed and mended my skirt as I soaked in lukewarm water, only having the patience to boil one pot of water. And in that tub was where I first came up with the idea to emigrate.