Home on the Range

George worked away from home quite a lot that summer and of course, I was alone with my dog while he was away. I didn't mind it too much in the daytime but the nights were long and full of torture. I used to cover the windows at night with heavy blankets, lock the door and either sit there or lie on the bed, in torture. The dog - Colonel - used to lie in the bed, or rather on the bed, at night beside me all night long. One night, about ten o'clock, I was lying across the bed. Every once in a while, I would lift a corner of the blanket over the window and take a peek out. It was quite dark! On top of the stable (a sod stable) I saw the figure of a man dancing around, waving his arms. I nearly died with fright! Then, horror of horrors, the man slid down off the stable and came toward the house. I froze. He came to the door and scratched all over it. I screamed and screamed. Finally, George said, "What's the matter? Aren't you glad to have me come home?" It was fun for him, but torture for me. He played many such tricks on me.

I was very foolish in many ways, not knowing things, which I should have known, and no one warned me of things which were vitally important. During that summer, I became pregnant, and since then have often wondered how I ever lived through all the experiences I went through. I expected the baby the following January. My Mother never came near me to help or advise me about anything. Sister Maggie came out from the Soo and stayed a couple of months with me. They did a funny thing one Sunday. I often wonder why either one of them did it. It was unlike Maggie to do selfish things when her doing anything hurt me. This Sunday morning, the two of them got ready and drove off for the day leaving me alone. They went over to Uncle Tom's. Why I didn't get ready and go too, I don't know. They stayed away all day. Wasn't that love for you. George said I had better stay home, so I stayed home. He was given to those tricks.

Well, one day before Maggie came out, Annie Purdy drove over and said she was going down to the Valley and pick chokecherries, would I like to go along. So I got ready, got in the buckboard and George came out with a big fur robe and said, "Stand up girls, I'll put this robe over the seat and then if you get tired you can spread it on the ground and rest. Well, the horse took fright at the rattle of the robe and made a bound and away he went, pitching me out over the back of the seat right out on my head on the ground, with my one arm caught and hooked around the railing around the back of the floor of the buckboard, dragging me for a quarter of a mile over the horrible rough prairie. Somehow I was freed from the buckboard and the only thing I remembered was lying on the prairie and I saw George running towards me. Then I fainted and knew nothing more. Annie Purdy finally guided the runaway horse home, got her mother and raced back to our place. She afterwards told me she was sure I was dead, but I was still living. During the afternoon, I felt a lot better and foolishly Annie and I set off in the buckboard to pick chokecherries. What a foolish thing to do! I didn't pick any cherries. I lay on the blanket all afternoon. Then we drove back home, and never a well day again for many months. The one morning in November -- the third of November to be exact -- George was going over to help Tom thresh and I was feeling so rotten I was afraid to stay alone, so went with him. Aunt Lizzie was confined to bed; cousin Joe had been born two days before, and Aunt Amy, George's sister, was there cooking for the threshers. She often was very mean, if she thought she could lord it over anyone. During the afternoon, she told me to lift the boiler (wash boiler) off the stove and set it on the floor. I, of course, was green and quite embarrassed (being pregnant in those days was something to hide), so I did as I was told, lifted the boiler, half full of clothes off the stove and set it on the floor. Uncle Joe was sitting there and never offered to lift it for me and Amy was perfectly well, but I guess she thought she was being clever. Well, that night I lost my baby, a little boy, just six months on the way. I had to stay there at Tom's for three weeks, then come home. Mrs. Purdy came and took care of me when my baby was born. She was an angel.

Then, after three weeks, we went back to our own place. It was bitterly cold weather, around the 24th of November. We stopped at Purdys on the way home and Mrs. Purdy persuaded George to leave me at their place for the night and go over and get the shack warmed up thoroughly for me, then come for me next day, which he did.

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