Early Life on the Prairies

The next summer after settling on the prairie, Father broke thirty acres of land, which would be 1887, and then in 1888 had 30 bushels of wheat to the acre and sold it for one dollar a bushel.

We children didn't do m uch of anything during these two years except play and study for two or three hours a day. I was the instructress. Held regular sessions of school and did my best to pass on what knowledge I had acquired to my brothers. Ettie was considered too young to s tudy.

We experienced terrible blizzards those winters. Our house was quite low in structure and the snow used to drift in great banks as high as the house. Father had a terrible time to get to the little stable to feed what stock we had. He had a rope or w ire stretched from the stable to house to hang on to or he never would find his way. My brother Johnny got lost in one blizzard with his team of oxen and sleigh and was out all night. He had gotten within a mile of home and wandered around all night so cl o se to home but as we found out, he had traveled in circles and when the storm died down the next day he could see the house and made it home, worn out and nearly frozen. Fortunately, he had the big sleigh and buffalo robes. How he survived that ordeal is a mystery.

Mr. Petrie got lost in a storm one night and after trying until he was worn out, buried the most of himself in the snow to keep from freezing. He had both feet frozen so badly his toes on both feet had to be amputated afterward. This happened ov er in "the bluffs" and how he managed to get to some homesteader's place, I do not know, but evidently he secured assistance in some manner, because he lived for many years.

The Freethys were nice people and came to see us often. In fact, they were about the only people who came to visit. Once in a while someone who was going to Regina from the Qu'Appelle Valley, or vice versa, would come in and stay overnight or come in and ask for something to eat. One such was a Mr. Binger, who with Mr. Kerr, had a lit t le ranch in the Qu'Appelle Valley. He used to ride horseback and being an Englishman, would ask for a cup of tea and some bread and butter. In those days we always gave whoever dropped in like that something to eat. Mr. Binger used to say, "I make a pot o f tea, get a loaf of bread, some butter, and a good book and by the time my book is finished, the bread and butter and tea are all gone." He wrote his mother in England one year that his wheat was all frozen; she sent him several hundred pounds (in English money) to build a barn to keep his wheat from freezing. Har!

We used to have terrible prairie fires in those days. One I remember came like a racehorse from Boggy Creek way. There was no cultivated land between us and Boggy Creek and the fire came roaring through the tall prairie grass within about 50 feet of our house. The only thing that saved us was the summer fallow in which the house was sitting.

Father and Mother, after seeing there was no danger to our house, went out and fought the fire nearly fo ur hours. It divided when it reached our place; the plowed land, which was a half-mile long, split the fire. It just divided -- one part going or following the long grass to the west, the other following the grass around the east end and swept on over the prairie to the prairie north of us.

Mr. and Mrs. Freethy were living on their own place north of the springs, got into their buckboard and raced over to the little shack which was used by that time for a school house and backfired the grass around the sha ck and saved that. There were the springs and quite a creek about two miles or maybe a mile north and between the Freethys and our place which finally quenched the fire. This creek flowed miles through the prairie and emptied into the Qu'Appelle Valley and river.

I never will forget the night of that fire. Though Father and Mother assured us we were safe, I took my Bible in my hands and went away out in the summer fallow and prayed to be saved. Ada, Reuben, Harry and Ettie stayed in the house. This Bible ha d been given me by the second probation Methodist student by the name of Joe Callister who was stationed in our district; the first one, I have forgotten his name, was a little red headed Englishman. He was a funny guy; by that I mean odd. But at heart a v ery earnest fellow. The first one rode a little Indian buckskin pony. He wore blue overhauls and no hat or coat and always carried quite a long stick in his hands as he rode. One could hear him urging his pony along as he rode, whirling his stick round an d round and calling out, "Whoop Sam, whoop Sam." Sam was the pony's name.

These preachers used to make the rounds of the settlement every so often. They would read a chapter from the Bible and asked if you loved the Lord and kneel down and have a word of p rayer and of course a meal or two or maybe stay the night. They had no fixed salary; just depended on donations from the people, and let me tell you, such donations, in money, were very little.

The church services at this time were usually held in the ho me of Mr. and Mrs. Purdy who lived about four miles from us. Then soon after Mr. Callister had served his probation there, we had a Mr. Worley and then Mr. Redd. Mr. Redd was an up-and-coming young man, very different from the others who we had.

Before going further, I must relate an experience which sister, Ada, brother, Reuben, and I experienced the first summer we lived on the prairie. Mother had us three go back in the bluffs to the Mintys to pick saskatoons. We had our pony, Jack, and our buckboard. Ada did the driving. Well, we had our \par lunch after our trip back there, then went out and picked our pails full of saskatoons and started home. We had gone probably a mile or so when our pony took fright at something. Ada had difficulty in controlling him. Just at the same moment we saw a big prairie wolf that had emerged from the bushes trotting along by the side of the road. Of course, we were scared stiff, remembering all the stories we had read and heard about how wolves had attacked and eaten travelers. Ada was white as a sheet and no doubt I was too. She put the whip to the pony and we lit out as fast as the pony could go, but as fast as we went, the wolf kept along side of us, sometimes getting ahead of us, crossing the road, sitting down, opening and shutting his mouth, then trotting along beside us as before. He kept this up for miles, until we came out of the bluffs to the open prairie when he disappeared to our joy and our peace.

Believe me, we were still in a terribly frightened state when we arrived home and related our experience to Mother. She never allowed us to go away like that again, that is so far or in that bluffy country.

There were so few people living in the bluffs; merely a small settlement of Crofters from the north of Scotland, poor as it was ever possible to be.

Wolves used to follow behind the sleigh or wagon when my father would be going for wood or returning with a load of wood. These were prairie wolves or coyotes and never once tried to do any harm. Why they followed like that, no one ever knew. One day one came quite close to our house and, having heard they liked music, I took a mouth organ, went out and played a tune on it to see what would happen. Sure enough, Mr. Wolfe stoo d stock-still and listened for some time, then skulked away.

Father used to trap both wolves and red fox. One day he came back with a live red fox in his arms. The poor thing was caught, one foot in the trap, and made no struggle to free itself. Father bro ught it in to let us see it. It was beautiful, but alas father took it outside and killed it, skinned it and tanned the skin and sold it for $5.00. He got that for wolf skins as well.

In those days, the Government gave a bounty for gophers' tails. The In dians used to snare the gophers, pull off their tails, and then let the gophers go. These little animals were very destructive and the idea of the government bounty was to rid the prairie of the pests. But what did the Indians care about that? They got five cents a tail.

Buffalo bones lay here and there all over the prairie and the Indians used to collect load after load and take them to Regina and sell them, to whom I do not know, but I do know they were shipped to sugar factories and used to refine sugar.

Father had to go away to these bluffs of which I have spoken, for wood and that was a lot of hard cold work in the winter. Sometimes the temperature would drop to 40 below zero. In the cold, frosty weather, one could hear the screeching of the sleigh on the hard snow for miles along the road.

We didn't have a hand sleigh, so we kids would take the big scoop-shovel, go up to the top of a big snow bank and take turns riding down the bank. Guess we did have plenty fun even in times like that. And there was beauty to be found even when the weather was cold. On moonlight nights the snow would glisten like millions and millions of stars, and the stars in the sky would shine brilliantly and beautifully. Then, another beautiful sight was the Northern Lights - A u rora Borealis. It is almost impossible to describe the beauty of these lights. They would start to shimmer along the northern horizon, then shoot up to the zenith, flicker, shimmer and shoot here and there, sometimes all colors of the rainbow; then they w o uld recede, then flare up again. Beautiful, beautiful. One unusual thing I remember seeing was a lunar rainbow. Mother and I were somewhere in the evening and a thunderstorm came up which kept us from getting home until quite late. The clouds had blown ov er to the northeast and the moon came out clear in the west, shining on the black clouds over in the northeast, bringing out the most beautiful rainbow. I believe this is rather an unusual sight and certainly one that is grand to see.

There were plenty of fierce electric storms on the prairie. One would wonder they did so little real damage. They did enough damage to one's nerves; at least to mine.

I think it must have been about 1887 when we had our first real school term. The schoolhouse was four miles f rom our home and our first teacher was a Mr. Taylor who was English. I remember he used to teach us not to kill flies. He claimed they purified the air by picking up germs on their wings and legs as they flew around. Well, I guess he was right about that part of the beasts, but he never mentioned what they did with these germs. How they deposit them on uncovered food or how they swam around in the milk and cream or dropped in one's tea. Well, thank Heavens we think differently now.

My brother, Reuben and I walked the four miles to school and back again over the prairie every day through the summer. During the winter we had no school, so we held school at home, as I have already stated.

The next summer we had a teacher by the name of Bill Adams. I remember when Mr. Adams was teaching we had no clock that summer at home. We went by the sun, and I was so afraid I might be late for school that Mother couldn't hold me. I would be at that schoolhouse while the shadow of the shack in which school was held was lo ng, long on the grass and long before the teacher came.

There weren't many pupils. Three of the Freethys. Sarah or Libb as she was called at home, her two brothers, Thornton and John James and sometimes Cecil Seed. Bill and Alice Petrie; oh yes, Maud Petrie; my brother Reuben and I.

This was the extent of my school days in Public School on the prairie. Then in 1888 sister Ada married Fred Cochrane. She had been teaching school over in Wascana district and fell in love with Fred Cochrane. That fall I went t o high school in Regina.

When the Petries heard Mother was sending me in to Regina High School, they decided to try to get Alice in too. Mother had been in to see the School Board about me getting in to high school as the examination had been held at midsummer.

The Board decided to give us, Alice and me, a special examination and if we were successful in passing, we would be admitted to High School. Well, I passed. Alice failed and the Petries didn't like it. They thought the Board of Examiners had favored me.

It must be remembered this history or story of things is written as they come to me and this next memory maybe should have been written sooner; I am not sure.

The Purdy family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Purdy, Annie, a daughter, Clifford a son and a goof - and Maud, a daughter, and their youngest. Mrs. Purdy was a lovely woman. Her husband, whom she always referred to as "Alfred" or "Pa" was an odd man. Everyone loved Mrs. Purdy. No one liked Mr. Purdy. \par Annie was a good girl with a decided lisp. She afterwards married a preacher by the name of Roberts. She died at the birth of, I believe, her fourth child. Maud was a queer girl. I never could like her, though she was quite clever and as she grew up became a fairly good singer. Her first husband died of TB. Later she married again and had a daughter named Ruth. Maud developed TB and passed away.

Well, anyway, Annie and I had been delegated to go out among the neighbors and surrounding country and collect money for Mr. Ridd, the new preacher who boarde d with the Purdy family. We collected $30.00 for the preacher. One Highland Scotswoman said, "No, we belong to the Free Kirk," whatever that was I do not know but suppose it was a church run without money. "Scotch" I would ride my pony over to the Purdy f arm in the morning then from there we would take the Purdy horse and buggy, be away all day, return to the Purdy home for supper, then I'd ride my pony home.

Well, one evening we were quite late getting back from our day's collecting, had our supper and Mr s. Purdy said, "Clifford, you had better get Minnie's pony saddled for her," so "Clifford" went out to the stable for my pony and he was the longest time coming to the house. Mr. Ridd, the preacher, kept making cracks at me about Clifford. How he must be b rushing up his horse to ride home with me and so on. The longer I waited for my pony, the madder I got. Finally, along came Clifford with his horse and buckboard and my pony saddled and tied along side his horse. Was I mad, but I felt I couldn't hurt Mrs. Purdy's feelings and though they all laughed and thought it was a fine joke, I got in the buckboard beside their dear Clifford and off we went.

Well, Clifford started singing the 'Yellow Rose of Texas' for my benefit and with each verse I grew madder and madder. I hated him so. Finally, I said, "Clifford, untie my pony and don't you dare come home with me." He just gave a silly chuckle and went on singing. Again, I demanded he stop and untie my pony and I said, "If you don't, I'll get out and untie her my self." So he stopped his horse, got out and untied my pony. I sprung into my saddle and without a word tore off in a gallop and left him there on the prairie.

Mr. Ridd told me afterwards that Clifford came home in so short a time that they all wanted to know what happened. Clifford didn't tell them but I guess they figured it out for themselves.

Another thing, which I should have written about long before this, was when I was attending school on the prairie. One day while playing at noon I injured one of m y feet. It hurt unmercifully all afternoon and I didn't know what I was ever going to do. I couldn't walk, it hurt so. I waited until the rest of the school children and teacher had gone, then tried to walk. I got a few feet away from the schoolhouse when the pain got so bad I couldn't stand up. I crept back to the schoolhouse and was sitting there crying, thinking I would have to stay there alone all night, and frightened at the thought, when a rig drove up. It was Mr. Taylor, our teacher. He had brought M rs. Taylor and Grandma Seed to see his schoolhouse. They - Mr. and Mrs. Taylor - had been to Grandma Seeds for supper. Of course, they were so surprised to find me there, unable to walk. They took me back with them to Grandma Seed's, gave me some supper, and then Will Seed drove me home. That sore foot kept me home a month.

One night I stayed with Minnie Seed while her folks were away somewhere. All we had for breakfast the next morning was a plate of mush made of bran and some blue skim milk. Some feed!

My sister, Annie, came out to us from the "Soo" two years after we came out. She had been teaching school on Manitoulin Island for a while and then she had been staying with sister Maggie in the "Soo"

We had an old fashioned clock, which we had brought o ut with us from the east and which Annie had always wound every night while she was home. It had never run all the two years we had been out west. Mother had taken it in to the repair shop in Regina and though it would run while in their shop, once she br o ught it home, it just wouldn't run, so we were without time other than Mother could tell time fairly accurately by the sun. Well, the minute Annie came home, she saw the clock wasn't running. Mother explained how it wouldn't run. Annie walked over to the clock, opened the door, swung the pendulum and away it started and ran for years.

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