Sisters of Grass by Theresa Kishkan

our father and all that I’d wanted to leave behind. Not the people, if that makes sense, because I did and continue to love them, but their attitudes. And then I behaved just as they wanted me to, I don’t know why. I suppose old habits are hard to break. Anyway, girl, you’re seventeen now, a young woman, and it’s time you stood up for yourself. I’ll give you some money and you can buy yourself comfortable clothes for riding. Fair enough?”
    Margaret hugged her father and then the mare. The wrangler returned and William bargained a little to bring the asking price down, then the two men walked to the Inland Club to seal the deal with a gentleman’s whiskey. Margaret went shopping.
    There were so many establishments in Kamloops that Margaret spent a good part of the morning window-shopping. In a druggist’s window, a mannequin held a package of headache powders in one hand while the other hand was raised to her forehead as though to massage the pain away. A little pyramid of the powders sat conveniently on a table to her right, should she need more. Passing a bakery, Margaret’s mouth watered at the sight of the new loaves arranged in baskets in the window. There was also a shop with photographs in its window, and she stood there for some minutes, looking deep into the images displayed against a background of painted cloth. A wedding party, solemn faces staring out, all except the bride, who was smiling a secret smile, her pale shoulder touching the dark shoulder of her new husband. Various groupings of men in formal suits being handed keys or certificates. One she found almost unbearably sad, the Chinese camp, located a distance from the main part of Kamloops. Margaret guessed that most of the residents were railway workers, but she was shocked at the rows of tents shown in the photograph, the crouched figures in their muddy clothing, one of them looking at the camera with desolate eyes, even some children to one side, up to their ankles in mud. The photograph captured lives lived in squalor and despair, all the more poignant for its placement among the weddings and civil ceremonies of Kamloops. She looked at it for some time, wondering why she felt the way she did. She hadn’t known that photographs could do more than provide a picture, but this one seemed to speak a language whose vocabulary she could almost understand.
    Margaret found the store she wanted at last, John T. Beaton, Clothier. A sales clerk, dressed in a lovely dress of plaid taffeta with a velvet ribbon tied at her throat, helped Margaret find riding pants of soft green whipcord and a printed broadcloth shirt to go with them. Margaret inhaled the crisp scent of sizing or starch as the clerk led her to a room where she could try them on.
    â€œYou look dashing,” the clerk told her as she came out of the room in the outfit. “Not many women have been buying trousers, but that will change. There’s a lady photographer in town who wears them all the time, and I think she looks wonderful, but some people look at her as though she’s committing a terrible sin. Do you need anything else?”
    Margaret changed back into her shirtwaist and paid for the clothing, waiting as the clerk wrapped her purchases in brown paper and tied the parcel with string she cut from a huge roll suspended from the ceiling. She wondered if she’d be able to find her way back to the hotel, but with directions from the sales clerk, she was soon walking up to the entrance. Her mother and sisters and brother were sitting outside on chairs set under the trees, the children drinking sarsaparilla from tall glasses beaded with moisture. Jenny ordered one for Margaret, too.
    â€œFather bought the horse, Mother, and he wants me to ride her part of the way home. She’s lovely, quite the nicest mare I’ve seen in a long time, as nice as Daisy in temperament. And you’ll never guess! He gave me money to buy proper trousers