The Petrie's |
Chapter 10
|
The Petrie's |
Chapter 10
|
To go back to our school days on the prairie. Once in a while I would go over to the Petries to visit Alice. She had a sister, Maggie, who had had rather an unfortunate life. She had a little girl named Mable and I think it rather embittered her life. She claimed the father of her baby promised to marry her; but he claimed he never had. It seemed, or so their story ran, this young man was a bachelor, living about a mile from the Petries and Maggie used to go over and do his washing for him, and I suppose nature took its course! Anyway, Mrs. Petrie would start talking about everyone in the neighborhood, and especially the McNeices. One time there was something doing in the neighborhood and she said she supposed all the gentry would be there. I asked who were the Gentry and she replied, "Oh, the Seeds, the McNeices and the Tegarts." It happened my family was the Tegarts.
Mrs. Petrie never seemed to have combed her hair, or at least to have it without a wisp of a tail hanging down on her back. Mr. Petrie was always quiet; never having a word to say to anyone. He is the man I wrote of previously, having been lost in a blizzard and having his feet frozen and having his toes amputated.
Mrs. Petrie was always complaining that "Pa" wouldn't give her any money. The age-old complaint of wives.
Well, anyway, the father of Maggie's baby afterward married Lizzie Kelly, the daughter of Peter Kelly, who was considered the very aristocratic and well to do farmer in the district. When Mr. Kelly found out Lizzie wanted to marry Tom McNeice, the war was on, though Mr. Kelly had always made so much of Tom, but marrying his daughter was another matter; so he put a stop to that nonsense.
Well, as time went on, Lizzie went over to the Seeds to make a dress for Minnie Seed and someone, I believe it was George (my husband later) who found Lizzie was at Seeds, so he told Tom and they got ready, took their horses and cutter, went over to the Seeds, got Lizzie and took Minnie Seed along and off they started to get married in Regina, a distance of some twenty miles away. Someone found out and told Mr. Kelly and away he started to overtake the prospective bride and groom! But, alas! He was too late. By the time he reached Regina, they were already married! He had nothing to do with Lizzie for years, nor would he allow Mrs. Kelly to have a thing to do with Lizzie, nor did they until after Tom's death.
This reminds me of the poem in our old reader:
One summer, my brothers, Reuben and Harry caught and tamed some gophers. The boys made a little box for them and they grew so tame they would run in and out of the house, just like little kittens. We could pick them up and pet them just as we would little kittens. What became of them I can't remember. Probably we let them go.
When Reuben was only nine years old, Mr. Kelly begged Mother to let Reuben come over to his (Kelly's) place to help him once in a while. Mother agreed after some consideration, so Reuben went. He used to walk home - three miles - on Sunday mornings, and I think Mother would drive him back in the evening. He was always so tired, and on pumping Reuben as to his hours, found out Mr. Kelly was keeping him up until midnight every night and up at five in the morning. So Mother put a stop to that. He surely was a bear, that Mr. Kelly. A regular miser'''
I well remember Mr. Kelly coming to our place on the farm when we children were alone. Father was away somewhere, also Mother. I think that was the summer Mother was on a visit to Portage La Prairie to a reunion of the sisters in her family, and whom she had not seen for years. Now, Father had several piles of stones, which he had picked up and intended to use for building. Well, Mr. Kelly asked if Father was home and, when we replied in the negative, he immediately began to load the stones into his wagon. He was building a stone barn. Well, we children were very, very angry, but we were afraid of the old sinner, so said nothing to him. There was one big flat stone partly buried in the ground, which he couldn’t raise though he worked and worked to break it and so he had to leave it. We wanted Father to go over to Kelly’s and make him bring the stones back, but Father wouldn’t so Kelly kept the stones. The old thief!
All this was before Ada was married and before we went to the Valley for the winters. The summer after I attended high school in Regina, Mother wasn't any too well. Annie was home that summer and she cooked up the idea that we ought to get Mother away for a time, somewhere, but where? Brother, George was in Detroit working for the Michigan Central Railroad. He had a secretarial position there; was married and had two children. Well, Annie persuaded me to write George and beg him to send mother a pass!' He did, but I bet Carrie, his wife, was mad.
Mother was away about three months. That was the summer I became engaged to George McNeice. We used to go horseback riding, go to picnics, to church and to whatever social affairs were going on. Annie, poor girl, was very jealous of me and thwarted me on every occasion she possibly could, but often failed in her endeavors. I usually managed to do as I pleased.
One Sunday, George and I, and I believe either Sadie Swartz or Lou Smith (who was teaching school in our community) rode horseback away over to a church in a Crofter’s settlement in the bluffs. It was somewhere to go just for the fun of it. On the way home, we were racing our horses. I was riding "Jack" a stallion. Jack stepped into a badger hole, went down and I went over his head, bang, onto the ground' It's a wonder both horse and I were not injured, but we weren't. The horse got up, shook himself, and stood there. I got up, got in the saddle and off we went for home. No need to say we did not tell our experience when we got home.
Then, one time I had been over to Swartz' and when I started for home, Sadie came along on her pony. Sadie looked so funny on her pony! She was so big and her pony so small' She was no horsewoman. We called at McNeices (Tom) and coaxed Lou Smith to come along. Don't know where she got her pony, probably from Tom McNeice; she boarded with them. Lou came along, and as usual we started to race, went flying up the road and as we came past the Seed house, there was a seed drill there. It had the tongue sticking up in the air or tilted up, and I suppose to keep it out of the way. Well, Sadie's pony ran under the elevated seed drill tongue and it - the end of the tongue - caught Sadie slam-bang in the mouth' Knocked her off the pony flat on her back on the ground where she lay for a while. Old Mrs. Seed came running out exclaiming, "You gurrels (she was Irish) will be the death of yourselves, the firrest thing ye know." Well, I don't know about Lou, but Sadie and I are still alive and that was 57 years ago.
One thing I must make note of. It was the summer Mother was in Detroit, before I was married. I had heard there was to be a picnic over at Carssdale, so I asked Sadie if she would ride over on her pony with me on mine and take in the picnic. I said I'd bake an apple pie. I don't know now what Sadie was to make, but anyway, we rode over and there was no sign of a picnic. No one was there but us two. We waited around for a long time and as no one came, we decided to eat our lunch. I can still see the two of us sitting down to the big picnic table. Me with my pie! It was dried apples and I hadn't known enough to cook the apples before putting them in the pie. It was as hard as a rock. We managed to carve a piece or two out of it and bravely endeavored to eat it. I acknowledged it wasn't much of a pie, but Sadie gallantly said as she tried to bite into her piece, "Well, it has a very nice flavor!" It was one of those glorious golden September days. If you know what I mean.
