Ain't Love Grand

We must have moved back to our own homestead in the spring of 1897 or maybe 1896. Reuben helped us move and George came home and I rather think must have stayed home then. The snow was going, and everything slushy. George took my brother, William, baby Eddie and me over in the afternoon, on towards evening. He and Reuben stayed at-Uncle Tom's place for the night and brought the furniture, what little we had, and our cow and the oxen; in fact, all our possessions over in the morning.

What a night we put in! William and I. Fortunately, Eddie was too small to be troubled about things. The shack had been vacant so long it was full of mice - and I do mean full! William caught eleven of them by the tail and whacked them bang on the floor, killing them dead! The shack was lined with building paper tacked on the studding and the pesky things had eaten holes galore in the paper. They would run up the paper on the inner side, poke their noses out the holes and watch us.

That night we slept on the floor. William had his own bedding and we each spread a few blankets on the floor for a bed or bunk. I think I had a straw tick. I kept a lamp burning all night beside my bed, thinking the mice wouldn't bother me when I had the light, but I had an awful time. They kept running over the bed all night. What a night!

I can't remember what we had to eat that night or the next morning, but one meal will always be fresh in my memory and should have mentioned long before this. It was the first meal we had in our own home after we were married in 1892. We had left Craven, where we were married in the afternoon, and come as far as Uncle Tom's and stayed there over night, leaving there in the next afternoon when we went to our new (old) home. George took a team of Uncle Tom's horses and his bobsleigh without the sleigh box. Folded one bob up on the other, and there we sat. Why we didn't take our own cutter from there, I do not know, but we didn't.

All the provisions George had in the shack to eat was a piece - a slab - of old salt pork and a jar of what once had been syrup, made from white sugar and water, which had crystallized, and which, in the summer time, the ants had taken possession of. They had either eaten too much for their own good, or died a sweet death just from sheer happiness. There they were, stretched out in all their beauty. Oh, I think we had a loaf of bread and a little pat of butter, which Aunt Lizzie donated us. Then we got fairly well ensconced in our 14x16 shack. George made a cupboard out of a packing box, in which I put my set of dishes which Aunt Lizzie, Aunt Amy and Uncle Joe gave me for a wedding present. I had several other pieces of china and glassware. There was a nice lamp which Uncle Tom gave me, and which Aunt Lizzie rather objected to his doing, as she said he told her she spent more than she should on the dishes, more than either Uncle Joe and Aunt Amy. Anyway, I had the lamp. Someone else gave us a lamp too. I do not remember who.

Moses and Cecil Seed gave me a jewel case. James Seed gave me a silver napkin ring. Miss Swanson, Mrs. Hoskins' sister, gave me the egg cruet, which I have given Noreen. The Swartz gave me a lovely Marcellais bedspread, the one I related which I hung out in the frosty air and which cracked in the wind, one half blowing away never to be found. Mother and Father gave me the bedroom set. Eliza Boulding gave me a little tray with vinegar pitchers and pepper and salt shakers. There were several other gifts but I have forgotten them, or who gave them.

We had an old wood stove in one corner, with cracked lids. George afterwards riveted the lids, a couple of kitchen chairs, and one little rocking chair, which made up our furniture effects. We had the stove in one corner, cupboard in another, bed in another corner, dresser in another and table between dresser and stove. George claimed the rocking chair, so I had to sit on a straight back chair. "Ain't love grand!" This was love on the prairie and a wonderful honeymoon, eh?

One day the preacher came to call and, as usual, had a word of prayer - that was the custom. We were down on our knees, he was praying away and I peeked with one eye and saw a bedbug running around on his coat collar. I watched the thing guardedly and saw it crawl down inside his collar. Then I closed my eyes.

All this from the beginning of another part of this recounting should have been written in the part which happened before we moved to Uncle Tom's place, but as so many times I have said, things keep coming back to my memory as I write. The very next day after we arrived at the shack (for our honeymoon) George saddled Silver, my pony, and rode away over to Tom's, leaving me alone with the salt pork and the crystallized ant syrup. Alone until nearly midnight (Again, ain't love grand.)

Well, the Purdys moved away from Tregarva, but before they left there, in fact before Uncle Tom moved to Regina, Uncle Tom and Mr. Purdy had some trouble. Mr. Purdy never liked Uncle Tom and they had some dispute. I really do not know exactly what, but Mr. Purdy had a frog pond right along side of the road where many people had to pass, and a good many people objected to it, but whether that was what started this disturbance or not, I can't say.

But, anyway, Mr. Purdy started telling or writing ungentlemanly letters to the Regina Standard, mentioning Tom's name (Uncle Tom). He continued doing this for some time. In one letter, he said McNeice was jealous of his frog pond, so Tom wrote a letter to the paper and in the letter said, "Why should I be jealous of his stagnant frog pond when I have a half-mile of fresh spring water meandering through my land." There were no more letters from Mr. Purdy.

Mrs. Purdy was a lovely woman. They had two daughters and one son. Annie, the oldest girl, married Mr. Roberts, a Methodist minister. They had several boys. Just before the last boy was born, Annie contracted pneumonia and, I believe she died in childbirth. They were living in British Columbia. Mr. Roberts was stationed there. Annie had been home on a visit to her people with her three boys and when going home she caught cold. I believe the last child was a boy too.

Maud married out in British Columbia but her husband died out there. Then she came home, lived with her parents for some few years and then married Mr. Caster. Maud had a good voice for singing and was quite in demand. Maud died, leaving a little girl named Ruth. Their son (Purdy’s son) was quite a goof. As time went on we prospered, though we had losses too.

The first summer we were back on our own place we built a big room to the front of our shack, a room twenty by sixteen, with an upstairs. This was the stairway where George put the piece of raw meat on one of the steps to keep Eddie from going up.

Eddie was two years old the summer we built this addition to the house and what a time I had keeping him away from where the men were working' They were so afraid of him getting hurt.

George had been doing some plowing that spring and every little while

I'd miss Eddie; I would look up the field where George was working and there I would see him, in his little pink sunbonnet, travelling along in the furrow behind the plow. I would have to run like the wind to get him before George would turn the horses around for the little fellow might get under the plow.

There was a creek a short way from the house running through our pasture. Eddie persisted in trying to get down to the water. One day he started down, laughing as he ran. I ran after him, caught him and held him over the water, shaking him. He really was frightened and never offered to even try to go down there again. He was such a lovely little boy.

When Eddie was two years old, I took the measles and was very sick.

George went for Mother. I had been delirious for two days. Mother came. That was the first time she had been in my house. Why, I couldn't say. She stayed until I was up, then never came back for a long time. Then I wasn't much more than out of bed when Eddie came down with the measles. He, too, was very sick. It was the real old fashioned measles and it surely left us both very weak.

Eddie did not recuperate as quickly as I. He had no appetite, and we were worried about him. Then, one evening when we were having supper, my brother

Reuben dropped in. He was very fond of Eddie and Eddie of him. Eddie always called him "Wogee." Eddie gave a great sigh when he saw Reuben. Reuben took him on his knee and talked to him, and from that moment, he commended to improve. In November of that year, Uncle Tom, Aunt Lizzie and their four children came up one Sunday from Lumsden to see our new house. That was the last time I saw Uncle Tom.

I was expecting another baby in December or early January and didn't go out at all. The weather was cold and travelling none too easy.

Tom took appendicitis and died the 23rd of December. He had a ruptured appendix. He took sick one afternoon in the store. They had moved from Regina, built a new home in Lumsden and opened a general store in the town. They sent for George about one o'clock at night. Chris Scott and someone else came up for him. He wanted to go right away but I was so nervous and so near my time and so afraid to be left alone, with only the hired man, I insisted George go over to McFaddens and bring Mrs. McFadden over to stay with me, which he did. She stayed for a couple of days and I sent the hired man for George. Tom was buried on the day after Christmas. He died the 23rd of December. George went back to Lumsden to help settle up his brother's affairs and I was left alone with the hired man.

George came home Sunday afternoon, and was going back Monday morning, but my baby, dear little Tom, came that Sunday evening. George sent for Mrs. Louis Kiel, who was a midwife. She delivered the baby and stayed with me ten days. That was the length of time women were kept in bed after giving birth to a baby in those days. All sorts of dire things were supposed to happen a woman if she got up any sooner.

George came home the following Sunday and, as Mrs. Kiel would be going home in a few days, he went for Aunt Alma, who was keeping house for her brother, Uncle Isaac.

On the ninth day, I became very ill; chills and fever. Alma became alarmed and sent the hired man to Lumsden for George, who came home at midnight. I then had to stay in bed for several days longer. Tommy was a dear roly-poly baby. I then had two boys to care for.

George stayed away all that winter, except he would come home on Sunday, back again Monday morning. When Tommy was six weeks old, he brought Lizzie and her children up for the day. She had five children -- Edna 9, Vinnie a year and a half younger, then Joe, another year and a half younger than Vinnie, Johnny, or Jack, a little younger and Stella, thirteen months younger than Johnny. It was too bad Uncle Tom had to go. He was needed so. He took sick one afternoon while in the store. Lizzie had taken the children and gone for a visit to the Dixons. Mr. Dixon had driven down from the farm to take Lizzie and the children to their place for the day. When they returned at night, they found Tom very ill. They sent for a doctor to Regina, but by the time the doctor arrived, Tom was gone. The doctor said no one could have saved him; that if they had tried to operate, Tom would have died on the table. It was very sad. Lizzie was left with those five little children. Her father and mother came, and all was forgiven. Tom is buried in Lumsden cemetery up on the hill, north of the town of Lumsden. Then, shortly after Tom's death, little Stella took sick and died.

A lot of things could be written about that winter, but better left unwritten. Let us just say I got better in spite of it all; my baby, Tom, grew like a little hero.

Uncle Oliver, who was Uncle Isaac's brother and lived not far from us, used to come over often and visit us. He would bring his gram-a-phone and records over and play them all for us. He would stay for midday dinner, usually going home before dark.

Oliver had a big black stallion, which was the terror of the neighbors.

He let it run at large and it used to chase people who were driving along the road. One day, someone shot his stallion. Oliver blamed Mr. Joe Wylie and had a warrant issued for him. Mr. Wylie was summoned to stand trial in Lumsden. The trial was held there but he was acquitted. Uncle Ed Carss acted as judge. This was the Mr. Carss who told me about the Indians camping on the north side of the valley when the Indians under Louis Reil arose in rebellion.

Mrs. Wylie was quite a character. She wore a false bang, evidently made of her hair when she was much younger. It was sandy color and her hair was quite gray and very thin. She was a good cook, but no better than she thought she was.

If one went to her place, she would always say, "You should have came yesterday.

"I had roast chicken," and she would enumerate a dozen other delicacies, which existed, only in her imagination. One Sunday morning Aunt Maggie and I drove over just to say hello. Mrs. Wylie had made some jelly and, as was her custom, she brought out a little bit of jelly in a tiny dish and a spoon for us to sample her jelly. Maggie took a little and handed it to me. I finished it'. When we drove away, Maggie started to laugh. I asked what was so funny. Maggie said, "Why, you ate all Mrs. Wylie's jelly sample; she intended that sample to do this whole neighborhood." I replied, "Too bad; that will teach her a lesson." Many times we have had a good laugh over Mrs. Wylie's jelly sample.

We had a beautiful pair of black Russian wolf hounds, Nero and Caesar. The men used to take them out in the winter to hunt prairie wolves, or coyotes, so one day on towards spring, George said to me, "Bundle the children up, we are going wolf hunting, and we will stop at Wylie's and have a visit there." We did, and it was around noon when we got to Wylies and, of course, Mrs. Wylie insisted on us staying for lunch (which we intended doing anyway when we left home!). Well, while we were eating lunch, the wolf hounds got into the wood shed and ate Mrs. Wylie's soft soap which she had made and which was in a pan on the floor! Mrs. Wylie said, very graciously, "I don't mind them eating the soap, but I am afraid of what it will do to the dogs!" Very likely, huh?

When Tommy was one year and eleven months, Huntley was born. He was a great big baby and we loved him very much. Mrs. Petrie said when she heard we had another baby, "Now Minnie will have to put her curls away." Well, that was over forty-eight years ago and I haven't put "my curls" away yet! I will be seventy-four years of age on March 20th, 1948. So Mrs. Petrie missed her guess.

During those years, things went along as usual on the farm. Seed time and harvests, bread, butter churning, setting hens, looking after chickens, knitting socks and mitts for the men, long stockings for the children, making their clothes; making buckskin mitts for George to wear over his double woolen mitts.

Piecing quilts and making the quilts, making rugs, sewing carpet rags – made enough for a rag carpet to cover the sixteen by twenty floor. Often sitting up nights as well as all day, taking care of the children when they were ill.

The winters were so terribly cold the children couldn't play outside but a few minutes at a time. By the time I'd get the last one bundled up to go out, the first one would be In with his feet and hands so cold he couldn't stay out. One couldn't hang their washings out for months in the winter. I would have to put lines up in the house at nights after all the rest were in bed; they would be dry in the morning.

One winter I never saw another woman for three months and, in all that time was compelled to stay in the house on account of blizzards and cold weather. That particular winter when it was so cold, Uncle Oliver really saved me from the blues. He brought over a whole set of Dickens novels for me to read. Often at night, after getting the children to bed, I would read for two to three hours. What a blessing it was to have those books to read!

People said the snow was five feet deep on the level that winter. I do not doubt it. I remember, looking out over the prairie, the snow lay in great waves resembling an ocean billowing in a great wind.

More winters than one we had blizzards so severe the men wouldn't venture to the barn to feed the stock for two days. One couldn't see a foot in front of him. We usually got a supply of stove wood on hand piled up where we wouldn't need to go outside for it, and about all the men would do was sit and play cards. The children would play around and I would knit, sew and cook, get meals and wash dishes. When the storm broke, the men got busy outside, I would bundle the children up and let them play outside for a few minutes while I went on with the usual household work. They were long monotonous winters, those winters on the prairie, but somehow they passed, as all winters do. Then, in the spring, when the snow began to thaw and the days grew warmer, what a joy it was, as soon as the grass was visible to go walking and pick the prairie crocuses. The crocus actually would actually be blooming before the snow would all be gone.

Then in May the summer school would open. It was about three miles from where we lived. It closed in November each year. One day, just after the men had gone out to the harvest fields, after lunch I heard a peculiar noise, looked around and here were flames going up the wall of the summer kitchen!

Fortunately, I had four buckets of water, which the men had brought in from the pump and I drenched the wall, or fire, with water and put the fire out.

A moment or so later, I went out for an armful of wood, which was at the back of the summer kitchen, and here there was the end of a sill ready to burst into flames. There was no foundation under the old kitchen. It was an old shack, just sitting on some rocks and someone had stuck pieces of old broken window glass, several pieces, one on top of another, some of them crisscross, and the rays from the hot sun, striking through the glass, had started the fire; the fire evidently took the path of least resistance and first went up the wall inside, as there was only siding on the kitchen and building paper on the inside. I wasn't long getting the fire out, but it was a near tragedy.

The ground used to form hummocks badly; in fact, the hummocks were always there. Cracks surrounded these hummocks, sometimes quite wide and deep. These hummocks were found only on the heavy soil. There were quite a few back of our house and some big cracks. In the spring, when the ground was soaked with the water from the snow, the cracks were not so noticeable, but as the ground dried, and the weather became hot, these cracks would expand.

One day, I could hear a chicken peeping, peeping constantly at the back of the house, and finally went to investigate and here, a half grown chicken had fallen into one of these cracks and couldn't get out' I found a narrow strip of board, shoved it down the crack and lifted the chicken up to safety.

One of our neighbors, Mr. MacKay, owned a billy goat. The thing liked to come over to our place for some reason. He used to put us all to flight, all except the men. One morning he came over and chased Tommy and Runtley up a ladder (it did not attempt to climb the ladder) and they sought refuge in a bin of wheat. They must have stood on a crosspiece to which the boards were nailed on the inside of the bin; otherwise they might have sunk down in the wheat. They stood there looking down at the old billy goat stomping his feet -- stomp, stomp, stomping on the ground. Poor little kids! They looked so pitiful up there, nothing to be seen of them but their heads sticking over the wall of the bin, consternation showing on their faces.

Then, another time, the old goat gave me a run for my life. I had occasion to take a trip to "ye little old backhouse" -- a two-holer -- which stood a short distance from the house. I must have momentarily forgotten the billy goat. I just got nicely on my way, when I heard a fearful sound behind me, and realizing it was my friend (?) the billy goat, I lifted up my heels and made for "little house." I managed to get inside and slam the door shut just in time. The goat stood there stomping his feet on the ground, waiting, I suppose, for me to come out, so he could again put me to flight. He kept me there for quite some time; then decided I was either not coming out, or had gone down the hole, and went away, but not far enough. I peeked through a crack and could see no sign of him, so cautiously ventured out, but, alas' the billy goat spied me. Did I take seven-league steps for the house? He followed me right into the kitchen, but I made it into the dining room and got the door shut just in time. The old beast stood there by the door for ever so long, stomping up and down at the door. When the men came in for dinner, the hired man took the billy goat by the horns and dragged him home to MacKay's. Shortly after that episode, the goat disappeared. MacKays said the coyotes got him, but George said he bet they ate him. Anyway, that was the last we saw of the billy goat.

One thing that I forgot to relate long ago and which should have been told about after, or no, it was before we moved over to Uncle Tomts place and happened the first summer we were married. It has just occurred to me now, so I had better set it down right now. George had been away for a day or two, and I had run out of oil for my lamps. I did not expect him for another day or two at least and, fortunately, he didn't come home. I knew the Moorehouses had gone away in the morning and had not returned, so I took a bottle and went over to their place, found their kerosene can, took some and started back to my shack. I got about half way home, when I heard a wagon in the not-too-far distance. It was quite dark by this time and I knew they weren't near enough to see me as I couldn't see them, so I ran a little way off the trail and hid my bottle under some weeds. Then I ran back on the trail again. Trail it was; not then a surveyed road. Well, the Moorehouses came along and seeing it was I, supposedly thought I had been over to their place and, finding them away, was returning home. They felt sorry for me when they found I had been staying alone, and made me get in their wagon and go back to their house and stay the night with them. I felt very guilty then and still do, when I think of that bottle of kerosene lying hidden in the grass.

Tom Burrows afterwards bought that half section and plowed it up and raised wheat on it. He bought the whole three hundred and twenty acres at two and a half dollars an acre. Wonder if he ever found the bottle of kerosene?!! Why George didn't buy that half then when he could have had it for so little, I don't know. He afterwards bought a half section north of us for a much higher price. Funny, I never did find that bottle of oil, though I searched many times

for it.

Another thing I forgot to tell about, when we were living on Uncle Tom's place and Amelia Denzin was married. As I said before, we were invited to the wedding. She was married to Will Seed. She wore a Navy blue dress which she made herself. She looked very nice, and, as I said, we could not dance -- against the rules of their religion -- they were Plymouth Brethren. So we sang hymns out of little red hymnbooks and played some games.

One thing I had actually entirely forgotten on the evening's program until I received a letter from Beckie Sutton yesterday. She recalled the thing I want to relate here. During the evening of the wedding, along about ten o'clock, Mr. Denzin went out to the stable and came in with a box containing a litter of new born pigs and put them by the stove in the kitchen. Beckie said in her letter, "Everybody thought it was time to go home, and went." I am glad Beckie recalled that episode to my memory.

The Denzin family is all grown up. Some are missionaries in India (no, its Beckie's sister Ida's son who is a missionary, he and his wife in India.) Her brother, Arthur and wife work among the Indians up north.

The fall before Irma was born, we had Ethel Bond come out and help me through harvest. She was a beautiful girl. We had visited at their place in Ontario some time before this, and of which I shall write later. She was grand help and did a lot of sewing for me too.

She made me a very pretty flowered muslin dress, and just because it had sleeves a little below the elbow, George wouldn't let me wear it. He sure was funny. Wouldn't let me wear a dress open at the throat, elbow length sleeves and hated to see even an inch and a half heels on my shoes. Why I let him rule my life the way he did, no one can tell. I got partly away from some of his ideas. Once, years later, I bought a beautiful big grey hat with a pink rosette on one side of the brim. He ordered me to put it in the fire. I wouldn't do it. I loved it and everyone said how becoming it was. George said all the men on the train coming out from Regina kept looking at me. You can see where the pain hurt.

Well, Ethel made Huntley's first suit. I had made all kinds of pants and blouses, but never a whole suit. One day, when she was trying to fit the suit on him, he was jiggling around and she said to him, "Whoa, Pat." He immediately snapped back at her, "I ain't a Pat."

Uncle Joe bought a mouth organ for Huntley when Hunt was only about six months old and was quite proud of the child because he would blow in it and make all kinds of weird noises.

It was when Hunt was about two years old they, the three boys, had whooping cough all at the same time. We never heard of shots being given for whooping cough at that time. Children just whooped for months, but the old folks had some very strange remedies. One was to dissolve egg shells in vinegar and give them a teaspoonful of that concoction. Another was to give them a teaspoonful of ground eggshell every morning and I remember Aunt Lizzie holding Vinnie down and endeavoring to force the ground eggshell down her, with no success. There was eggshell all over the outside of both of them, but none went down inside.

One day while Ethel Bond was with me, George and the hired man were going for a load of wood and before they went George killed a couple of chickens for me. We were going to have them for supper when the men got back with their load of wood. George said, "I killed the chickens and put them in that box behind the woodpile."

After I got my dishes washed, I went out to get the chickens and pluck and dress them. There were no chickens to be found. There were a lot of blood marks and I wondered what could have happened to them. I looked all around the yard, but could find no trace of them, so gave up looking. I told George when he came home at night and when he was doing up the chores, he came across the chickens sitting up on the chicken roost large as life. George always killed chickens by cutting a vein in their necks and I guess hadn't gone deep enough. Anyway, they got it right next time.

Then, another time, George was south of our place not so very far, shooting geese (wild) as they were flying north from the grain fields at noon. I was standing in the doorway watching to see if any fell, when I saw one goose getting lower and lower from the flock. I kept my eyes on it and saw it light just at the west end of our field, a full half mile from the house, and under a clump of bushes. I started out, and kept my eye on that clump of bushes all the way to just where I saw it fall. And there was my wild goose. It made no effort to get away, and I picked it up, and believe it or not, carried Mr. Goose back to the house in my arms and put him in a box and covered the box with weighted boards. Imagine the surprise the men had when they came back shortly after and I showed them my goose. Wild geese in those days were in such large flocks. The western sky would be black with them as they traveled from Long Lake south to the grain fields for their food and back again from noon 'til night, sometimes long after dark, to the water. Lots of them would light on our grain fields among the stokes of grain. George would take a horse or cow and his gun, keep the animal between himself and the geese, shoot and kill several and bring them in for me to clean or rather prepare for the oven. One year I kept count of the number of wild fowl that I prepared for the table; it was 70.

Occasionally the men would return empty handed from their game hunt. At such times we (the hired men and myself) would razz them unmercifully. One night they rather disliked any reflections on their ability to bring down the game; we said all right, we will clean and prepare for cooking all the game you can bring in tomorrow. Uncle Joe said, "Well, by God, that's a bargain," so the next afternoon off they went again on the hunt, guns and ammunition galore, shouting back, "Get your knives sharpened; you'll need them tonight." We gave them the "Haw. Haw"' feeling sure they would return as usual empty-handed. But they returned at night loaded down with twenty-three prairie chickens!

Lloyd, one of the hired help, and I rolled our sleeves up without a word and went at the fowl! It didn't take long. We skinned them and just used the breast and upper part of the legs. There isn't much on a prairie chicken except the breast and legs. Anyway, the next day I stewed the whole lot. Are they ever good! Irma used to wish the prairie chicken were as big as cows!

We used to have a great many wild ducks for the table too in those days but, oh, the geese! One Saturday morning when I was up to my eyes in baking break churning and doing the Saturday's general cleaning, George came in with eight wild geese' They had to be plucked, drawn, stuffed and cooked all that day. I finished up the whole lot somewhere around midnight. This was in the early harvest and, having no refrigeration (no one had in the country at that time) the geese simply had to be cooked to keep from spoiling.

This makes me think of Mrs. Chatterton, an English woman, who was telling the Ladies Aid of the Methodist Church in Lumsden, about the lovely goose they had on Sunday for dinner. It was so tender. She said, "Of course, it had been hanging awhile." Which makes me think of a story George used to tell about the Scotch old maid who was keeping house for her brother near Lumsden. When her brother shot a rabbit or fowl, she would hang it up behind the cook stove on a nail and, when the bird or animal became sufficiently "high" - enough to drop off the nail and fall to the floor -- then she proceeded to prepare it for the pot. Tasty, what? This is a true story. They liked them high.

George was a good shot. I have seen him take the head off a duck with his Winchester rifle, just like that. Once he nearly took my head off too' I was standing at our kitchen table on the farm, washing my noon dishes. George was sitting at the end of the table cleaning his Winchester rifle; didn't know it was loaded, when bang! It went off. The bullet or shell missed my face about three inches and tore a big hole in the door! That, I think, was the nearest call to eternity I ever experienced.

In the early days, George and some others would go to the foot of Long Lake, where there was a lot of marshy ground covered with long grass and bulrushes, and kill ducks by the dozen with nothing but a whipstock. The ducks would hide in the tall grass and it was very difficult for them to rise out of it. The water in the land was very low in those early days; there must have been a shortage of rain those days. That was long before I knew the McNeices.

We had a lovely farm in Canada and I never wanted to sell it. I wanted to rent it and go with the family to Lumsden where there was a yearly school, as our boys were of school age, and on the farm we had only a summer school, which opened in May and closed not later than the first of November; sometimes in October.

The boys had a pony, which their father told them was theirs; they would drive the pony and buckboard to school in the morning and back in the afternoon. I still can see them -- three little boys with their lunches, sitting on the seat, side by side, Eddie doing the driving.

By the way, George afterwards sold their pony, forgetting to divide the money between the boys. He one time gave them a pig, promising the money when he sold the pig, but he forgot that too.

Remember, he sold my pony Silver, and forgot to give me the money. He afterwards gave me a colt that he thought was going to die. I raised the colt and she became a grand driver, fast and beautiful. I named her Marengo. I surely loved her. Well, after a year or so, George, unknown to me, sold her to Fred Cochrane and forgot to give me the money. To compensate me for selling my mare, he gave me another mare, named Nell. She, too, was a beauty and I felt some better. Nell was a bright bay; Marengo a dark brown. Nell always carried her neck bowed up or arched and lifted her feet so high when she traveled. She was a picture to look at, that one. She looked awfully wild when driven double but was gentle as a kitten when driven single. The first time I drove her to Regina, when I took her to the livery stable to put her up, the men wanted to know if my husband knew I was driving that wild horse. I told them she wasn't wild, and besides - I guessed he knew, seeing he was the one who had harnessed and hitched her up for me.

One day, Aunt Maggie and I drove Nell to Regina; after turning off Albert Street to South Railway, we came to a new culvert that had just been put in. Nell shied at the new lumber and did not want to cross. I did not urge her too much. Rather than compel her to cross, we turned her down an alley. Almost at once, I spied an American dollar in the rut. It was on its edge, bright and shiny. I stopped Nell, got out, picked up the dollar and drove on in to town. We spent the great treat in those days - dollar by going to the Alexander Hotel for dinner -- and enjoyed it very much.

One time we were expecting some friends to arrive at Condie, a little box-car station, or stopping point for the train on its way to Lumsden. I drove down to Condie to meet them but they didn’t arrive. There was no station building there, just a boxcar sitting alongside the track. As I stood there, I saw a young fellow being hustled off the train, struggling at the same time to pull his overcoat on and looking so bewildered. The brakeman was none too gentle with him. He looked so woebegone. I felt sorry for him and asked him where he was going. He replied he was going to a Mr. Riley’s to learn farming. As soon as he spoke, I recognized his accent. He was from London, England, and as I was going his way, or he wanted to go the same direction as I was going, I told him he could come as far as our place with me and perhaps my husband would take him the rest of the way. He looked very dubious, probably thought I might kidnap him.

However, he took the risk and got in the democrat, which I was driving and I headed for home. Driving along the road, which, by the way, was newly surveyed but not graded, the young Englishman was astounded to see a woman handling a team of spanking horses, and after commenting on that, passed the remark, "It must be very dangerous driving after dark without carriage lamps." When we got to my home (we still were on the farm at that time) I jumped out of the democrat, started unhitching the horses and the fellow stood there, practically with his mouth open. Then, when I picked up the lines and drove the horses to the barn and he watched me unharness them, it was almost too much for him to take. He said, "My word" We gave him his dinner with the men - it was harvest time - and after dinner, George took him over to the Riley’s. I do not remember this lad’s name, but he evidently knew the Rileys in England, or his people did. Now, he was not dumb or ignorant; he just hadn’t been around. He had worked in an office all his life and had never been in the country. Actually, he had never seen a cow in his life. One time after working at the Riley’s, he asked George Riley, "How can you tell a bull from a cow?"

Now, the Rileys, too, had come from London, England, but they were smart and very observant and had picked up Canadian ways very quickly and had become prosperous farmers.

I remember a long, long time before this, two young Englishmen living in the Qu’Appelle Valley, writing home to their mother in England and telling her their wheat was frozen that year. Their mother immediately sent them one hundred and sixty pounds from England to build a granary to keep their wheat from freezing. Now, she was an educated lady, but unversed in wheat growing. These two young men were, indeed, very well educated, polished young men. The first time we saw either of them was one summer afternoon. Mother was working out in the garden and one of these young men came riding to the house (on horseback) and asked if he might "have a cup of tea and some bread and buttah (butter.)" Mother gladly obliged. He said he loved to sit down at home with a pot of tea and a loaf of bread and some "buttah" and a good book propped up on the table beside him, and by the time his book was finished, there wasn’t much of the bread and "buttah" left.

Our house, that is father’s house (this was when I was about twelve or thirteen years old) was twelve miles north of Regina on Albert Street, which was a road running north from Regina to the Qu’Appelle Valley. Many Mounted Police as well as other people were constantly stopping in - sometimes overnight or on their way to and from the city. The town of Regina and the Qu’Appelle Valley was very interesting to us kids and to Father and Mother as well. I imagine many changes have come to that country since those days.

The home we had after I was married was about four miles west of Father’s place and a mile west of a road that was put through from Regina. That road went on past the old Tregarva Post Office—not the one in use now; that one is on the C.P.R going north from Regina up the west side of the lake, or maybe the east side as it goes through Holdfast, Valeport and Craven, which all are on the east or northeastern side of the lower end of the lake (Long Lake). I shall ask Marie about this as she comes from Holdfast.

On the farm, I finally persuaded George to plant some Balm of Gileads. The way we did it was this. In the spring of the year, just as the frost was out of the ground enough to plow a furrow, we took the walking plow and one horse and plowed a furrow, then laid the Balm of Gilead (poles) down lengthwise in the fur-row. We first trimmed the branches off, then plowed another furrow, throwing the turned up soil from the second furrow over the poles which were laid in the first furrow. Then new shoots come up through the soil. We put in two rows around three sides of the house plot. We also put in some golden willows. And was I happy. I loved beauty in the form of trees and flowers and there, at that time, wasn’t much of either on the farms on the prairie in Saskatchewan. The man who bought our place grew roses right there on our old farm; but I heard he cut my beautiful trees down because the snow drifted badly around them in the winter.

One time, I had a number of little soft maple trees started in my garden and was so delighted! Well, that year we had a little English fellow working for us. He had been a sailor in the British Navy for years and was the shortest man I ever saw outside a circus. When he tried to put a bridle on the horses he was given to harness, he would have to stand on the manger in the stable and he actually would curse his maker for making him so short. Well, one morning George sent him out to the garden to do some weeding. I should have known better than let him in the garden! When he and the rest of the men came in to their dinner at noon, I slipped out to the garden to see how he had been getting along with the weeding. He had cut down all my little maple trees! Whacked them clear out of the ground! What I said to him was plenty. I even forget his name. He left soon after that. We surely had a mess of hired men at times. I used to do their washing and mending until I found none of the other farmer’s wives would do that for their hired men, so I quit.

In the spring of 1903, Irma was born. My sister, Ettie, was staying with me that winter and was to stay until I was able to be up and around. Uncle Johnny was with us too, that winter. Of course, Irma decided to arrive in the middle of the night and, when her actual arrival was announced, I happened to be alone. Ettie had gone down-stairs to mend the fire and George had gone for Mrs. Kiel, the midwife whom I had engaged. Uncle Johnny had lit out to the barn (it seemed it was improper for a man to hang around the house on an occasion of this kind). So when Irma came along, it just happened for the actual arrival, I was alone.

Ettie came upstairs to find the baby had arrived and I asked her to give me the essentials and I cut and tied the cord myself, then collapsed. George arrived with Mrs. Kiel shortly after the baby was born and all went well. We had a little butterball of a baby girl and were we happy! Just what I had prayed so hard for. She grew and was so healthy and we all loved her so. We loved our little boys too. They all were so lovely and sweet. Eddie and Tommy each had golden curls and blue eyes. Hunt had no curls but he was just as dear to me as the rest. As Huntley grew a little older and could read for himself, he liked poetry so well. I remember him lying on the kitchen floor on the farm reciting,

And then he would say, "Isn’t that lovely, Mmmm?"

Eddie was a lover of books. If one missed him any time, one would find him reading somewhere. He had such a darling laugh’ Just like a silver bell. Tom was such a loving little fellow. One instance I so well remember occurred in the fall of the year when the men were all away at a neighbor’s threshing. We had a grand collie dog, and when dusk was approaching I would say to Collie, "It’s time for you to get the cows home. Collie would trot off and bring them home.

But this night he came home without the cows; I tried to persuade him to go and get them, but he would just go a short way from the house and come whining back so I knew something was wrong.

Huntley was a little baby in the cradle and Eddie was sitting on a chair by the table reading one of Horatio Alger’s books. I told Eddie to take good care of the baby and I would take Tommy with me. Tommy was only about two and a half years old then. Eddie was so trustworthy! I knew he would watch the baby faithfully. So I set off, following the dog and Tommy by the hand. I had taken a stick with me more to guide the cows than anything. The ground was rather soft; there had been some snow, but had melted, yet not thoroughly dry under foot. The walking was rather difficult and poor little Tommy’s legs soon grew tired. I picked him up in my arms to carry him and he so lovingly said, "I’ll carry the stick, Mamma," thinking he was making my load lighter.

Irma loved animals. One day I found her with a big dead gopher in her arms, carrying it around and loving it like she would a kitten. Another day, I caught her dousing her little black kitten up and down in the water in the horse trough. When I scolded her for that she said, "Well, the poor kitty was so dirty."

After we sold the farm and went to Lumsden to live, the boys got work delivering groceries after school and on Saturdays. They always bought something out of their hard-earned money for me.

One time the family was supposed to go to the lake on a picnic; it was a holiday and Eddie wanted to stay home and work at the store to earn more money. I gave him 50c to have his dinner in the hotel, but instead he bought me a pretty hatpin.

Another thing or two which I should have written about sooner, was the fact that when Irma was born, Aunt Ettie received a letter from Charlie Joness, who she afterwards married, asking him to join him somewhere on a certain date, and she up and left me. George went down to the Valley and brought Aunt Maggie up. She stayed with me the balance of the ten days that I was to stay in bed.

Then, from that time out, I was on my own. One feels pretty shaky starting in to do all one’s own work after one has had a baby, even if one has been in bed for ten days. Now, women are gotten out of bed in two or three days.

Then, another thing which I intended to say was, when Tommy was only two or three months old, he, for some unknown reason, slept for two days without waking even at night. I wanted George to get the doctor, but no, he wouldn’t. Finally, Tommy wakened and seemed to be all right. George simply wouldn’t have a doctor. For fourteen years, we never had a doctor in the house (plenty since).

Then one time George took Eddie in to Regina to Dr. McClean and had his tonsils out. He wouldn’t let the doctor give Eddie an anaesthetic; just made him sit up in the chair and let the doctor take them out. Poor little fellow. They had driven in seventeen miles and he brought him home the same day (in the buggy) the seventeen miles back home, not even a cot to lie on all the way home. That was such a cruel thing to do, and in my heart I never forgave George for that. The poor little boy. I still can see him as he suffered for days and no medical help whatsoever.

I shouldn’t say hard things about the dead, but George in many ways was absolutely heartless. Yet, in many ways, a good man.

When Irma had her finger injured, he would not let me take her to the doctor until it was too late to save the tip of her finger. I was to blame myself. I should have insisted on taking her to the doctor; but women in those days obeyed their men more than they now do, and more than I later did. I learned, through time, to disobey quite often, much to the betterment of my soul.

We had quite a time deciding a name for our baby girl. Finally, we decided on Irma Marguerite. I had chosen the name Irma before she was born. George was quite satisfied. In fact, he said he wouldn’t choose a name for her because I didn’t like the one he selected for Huntley, when we named him. He wanted me to name him Della Hay! Why, I can’t imagine. I said, "Oh, no. All the kids will nickname him Hay, Hay! And, then what did George do? He went in to Regina and added two more names to the two we had decided on. Irma Edna Ann Marguerite! I nearly fell down when he came home and told me what he had done! But, of course, I should have gone with him, but I had so much to do at home. We named Eddie for his grandfather Tegart and his grandfather McNeice— gave him the name of James Edward McNeice, which everyone thought very nice.

We named Tommy George Thomas, for his dad and Uncle Tom, who died shortly before Tommy’s birth. We named Huntley for General H.D.B. Ketchen, our friend, who went with the Strathcona Horse to South Africa in charge of troops of the Royal NorthWest Mounted Police from Regina. Uncle Harry was in this bunch, which went over to the Boer War in South Africa. Uncle Harry made two trips over to South Africa. The first one when the troops were sent from Regina barracks, and maybe some went from other points. That I cannot say. As I previously noted, the Strathcona Horse was sent, as far as I know, from other places. They were fitted out entirely by Lord Strathcona.

Then, Uncle Harry returned from South Africa and must have been discharged, because he re-enlisted and went back. The war (Boer) was over before their ship docked at Cape of Good Hope, so he came home. He still was wearing his uniform when he returned. He looked real nifty in them.

But, during the period Harry was in South Africa in the war, George decided we were going to take a trip to Ontario for the winter I did not want to go because we had the three little boys. Eddie was five and a half years of age. Tommy was three and Huntley was barely a year old. Right or wrong, I had to go. Aunt Alma took full charge of Eddie all the way down, which was a big help. My father went along as far, I think as North Bay. I’m not sure, but he was going to visit his brothers at Allandale and I think had to change trains at North Bay.

He was far more bother than the children. I couldn’t keep track of him at all! Poor little Huntley nearly starved on the trip. I do not know whether there was a diner on the train or not, but I never got the opportunity to find out. We had a big lunch packed, both Alma Sutton and ourselves, and that was what we ate all the way down.

We got to Strathroy on Sunday about noon. Mr. Bond met us and took all of us out to his farm and that was home for all of us for the winter. There was George and myself, our three boys, and Aunt Alma all piled in at once.

I was completely exhausted, and my poor baby had his first real meal in five days. Yes, it took us five days to make the trip to Strathroy, but we had stopped overnight in Toronto. How well I remember that stopover. I cannot recall the name of the hotel. It was very nice and we were comfortable enough though the four of us slept in one bed. Alma and Eddie had a room to themselves. I rose early, went down to the kitchen to get some warm milk to make Huntley some food.

The janitor was there and turned the lights on for me in the kitchen, and you should have seen the cockroaches take to cover. I didn’t know what they were, so asked the janitor, and he said, "Only a few cockroaches, missus." It still was dark when we took the train for Strathroy.

We made the Bonds our headquarters while we were in Strathroy. I was a stranger to everyone, but people were grand. The Bonds took us to London for Christmas dinner. We all were up early to get a good start as Mr. Bond said we had a long trip ahead of us—eighteen miles! We had two separate rigs—whose the second one was, I don’t remember. Mr. Bond drove the head one, a team of horses and conveyance in which were George, Mrs. Bond, myself, Tommy and Huntley. These were in the first, or head, one. Mr. Bond, his two daughters, Ethel and Edna, Harold and Aunt Alma (Mrs. Bond’s sister). It seemed a long seventeen miles and did take us longer than it ever took us to drive twenty-five miles on the prairie.

We went to Sam Sutton’s for Christmas dinner and, after dinner, Sam took us down cellar to see all the apples he had packed in barrels, ready to be shipped to market, and after showing rooms’ full of beautiful apples, he never offered us a single apple. I couldn’t get over that’ We drove back to Bonds that night and considered we had had a big day and a very long drive. The Bonds were grand people.

From there, we went to Uncle James Browns. Uncle James Brown was George’s mother’s brother. There was quite a family of them. Uncle James and Aunt Josephine, Annie their daughter, Al, Ed and Ira, their sons. There, all five of us had to sleep in one bed. The Browns were so very nice and good to us too.

Uncle James and Ira used to get up very early to do their chores, but before going out to the barn, would always make themselves a pot of tea, strong as lye.

That reminds me. When we were on the train going to Ontario, George’s main duties were keeping a pot of hot tea on hand and playing the mouth organ. He would put some tea in the pot, fill the pot with cold water, set the pot on the floor by the hot air pipes and let it brew, He felt very proud of himself when he found he could make tea that way, for he was terrifically fond of tea.

We went to Aunt Ellen’s, George’s sister, from the Browns, but didn’t stay there very long. They weren’t very cordial. Poor Uncle Johnny was living there that winter too and Ellen was berating the schoolteacher. By the way, this teacher was getting only between two and three hundred dollars a year! Think of that!

From there, we went to the Wilson’s. Mrs. Wilson was a distant relative of the McNeices in some way. She had been dead for years. Mr. Wilson was a crazy old bat. He was very old and stone blind and almost deaf. George had told me a lot about him and I was scared stiff. I didn’t want to go there, but go I must. He was nowhere in sight the first night, but I expected him to appear around a corner or through a doorway any minute.

We were given a room upstairs to sleep in and, after supper when the children’s bedtime came around, I took them upstairs to put them to bed. I think either Ev or Lila (the two girls in the family) went up with me to the bedroom. Fortunately, there were two beds in the room.

On going up the stairs, right at the turn of the stairs, there was a landing there, a square place where, as I say, the stairs turned and went on up. There was a door opening into a room of some sort, and there I decided the old man was kept. Well, I got the three children to sleep, and then, how to get down past that door on the landing! The old man would surely pop out of that door and I just knew I would pass out. I got past the door without being "took" but when I got downstairs I just tumbled over on the couch! Everyone thought I was ill and I didn’t tell them different. Nevertheless, I was determined to find out where that old man stayed or was kept before I went to bed that night.

As was the custom, one of the girls, I think it was Ev, escorted me to the outhouse before we retired for the night. What an invention of some satanic mind those outhouses were in the winter! The seats were so cold, all the desire for a comfortable release was abandoned. The wind had a very cute way of stealing around one’s unmentionable parts and by the time nature came to one’s aid, one’s feet and legs were almost powerless with cold. The leaves from the catalogue were like so much ice to one’s nether parts. One hastened the final operation quickly as one could, straightened their garments, lit out for the house on the run, and sat by the cookstove for a considerable period until one thawed out.

In the summer time, one did not suffer from cold; it was the heat, flies and aroma. Pounds of chloride de lime and ashes were freely distributed and kept down the evil odor to a great extent, but one looks back and wonders how we ever lived with those antiquated contraptions.

When the winter’s snow and ice were gone, it was a solemn rite performed by all tidy housewives to make a pot of paste, and if one had it, some wall paper, Usually there would be some wallpaper left after papering the walls in the house. Then one would adjourn to the outhouse and paper the walls there. If one did not have any wallpaper, one took newspapers or some magazines and used the pretty pictures to decorate the walls.

Sometimes in reading the items on the walls, one imbibed very useful information. Once I obtained a recipe for cookies from reading said recipe off a leaf from a magazine which was pasted on the outdoors toilet wall, which had entirely escaped my notice when reading the magazine in the house before relegating it to its now menial service.

Now, back to my trip with Ev to their house of relief. I noticed a rope strung along the path from the house back door to the toilet and made some remark about having to do that on the prairie when we had our bad blizzards. But Ev said it was for their father to hang onto when he went out to the toilet to make sure he would reach the toilet; otherwise, he would wander away. Now was my chance to find out where the old man was kept in the house! So, I said to her, "It must be very hard for your father to go up and down the stairs from his room, isn’t it?" And, to my great relief, she answered, "Oh, he doesn’t sleep upstairs, he sleeps downstairs in a bedroom off the parlor." So I felt a great deal more at rest!

Well, we were there several days and, until the last morning when we were leaving, the old fellow kept to his room. His meals were taken in to him every day; but this morning he staggered out, carrying a cane and feeling his way around. He found the rocking chair near the stove and settled himself in it. Every once in a while he would poke around with his cane, give his chair a hitch, scratch his bald head viciously and mutter, "I’ll have to send Walter to Watford to buy me a fine comb." And he hadn’t a hair on his head! He sure was nuts. This operation, or antic, was repeated every few minutes. Thank the Lord he was no blood relation of the McNeices.

While we were staying with the Bonds, George, Eddie and I went to Detroit to visit my brother and his wife in Detroit. This was my brother, George who was a lawyer, working for the Michigan Central Railway. If I don’t forget, shall write more about George later on.

From Detroit, we made a trip to Niagara Falls and saw the sights there. We left Eddie with my brother’s wife, Evelyn. Part of this trip has faded from my mind, but I remember we went under the Falls on the Canadian side. The tunnel, which we went through, was not like it is now. It could not have been completed then and I hear it is much safer now. It was a great gorge hewn out of the rock and was lit here and there along the way with either gas or electric lights; very dismal. Then we came to the place where we went under the falls. We had to climb out through a large opening in the solid rock and could stand there under the great mass of water pouring its thunderous might out over our heads and roaring on its way. It was a wonderful sight, and awesome, and never to be forgotten. Before going into the tunnel, we were equipped with Mackintoshes, head gear and rubber boots; in spite of all this protection, we got quite damp.

From there, we saw the "Maid of the Mist," a little ferry-like boat that I believe took passengers for a trip on the river; how far, or just across from the American to the Canadian side, or vice versa, I do not remember. She was well named the Maid of the Mist, for at our first glimpse of her, there she was, mist from the Falls all around her. On the American side, I believe it was, we stood at the railing along the river almost as it tumbled down, and, if one wanted to, I believe one could almost touch the water as it tumbled over the edge. I didn’t do that though.

Then we went on to Captain Webb’s Wave, which was another beautiful sight. It was quite a little distance down (or up?) the river. This wave was named for a man by the name of Captain Webb who had undertaken to swim the river and got only this far and was lost. Whether his body was recovered, I can’t say.

The wave hit a great rock there, dashing against it with terrific force, sending the water many feet into the air to break and return in millions of drops of spray in all rainbow colors. When one realizes this is an endless repetition, day in and day out, year in and year out, and century in and century out, one really can hardly grasp the immensity of it all.

We had dinner on the American side, and while eating dinner, we heard people talking about a doctor who had come from Detroit and had committed suicide by leaping into the Falls from where we had been standing only a few minutes before. They said many people committed suicide from this self-same place.

I do not remember just where the museum was that we visited, but it must have been at Niagara Falls. I believe there was a painting in oils called, "The Maid of the Mist." It was a beautiful maiden standing in the mist at the foot of the Falls, with one arm upraised, beckoning to her lover above as he gazed down and luring him to his death. The lover, of course, was not shown — just the beautiful maiden.

There certainly was a tremendous power in the lure of that mighty water; that is, there would be for one morbidly inclined. This painting is a beautiful thing to behold. I shall never forget it.

We returned to Strathroy and to the Bonds, to find all well with them; but the sad part of our return was, little Huntley had forgotten me, his mother, and would have nothing to do with me. However, in a day or two I had retrieved my place in his heart.

It was while we were in Ontario that winter that Good Old Queen Victoria died. She had reigned for fifty years and Edward VIII came to the throne. We were visiting at some cousins of George’s, by the name of Johnston, when someone came out from Strathroy with the news of her death. She was a good Queen and loved by all. It is said that even the Indians living on the prairie mourned the death of the Great Mother across the water. I remember saying when we heard the news of her death that I surely felt bad, and Mrs. Johnson said, "Pooh, she wouldn’t feel bad if you died."

I begged to have pictures taken of the children before we left for home. George reluctantly gave his consent. We had a few of ourselves taken with the children and a few taken of the children alone. Also I had a few taken of myself alone, to show off my new hat and opossum neckpiece.

My hat was a small sailor shape, grey, with shot taffeta folds around it and a beautiful grey and green bird perched, with wings partly spread, on the side of the crown. Oh, me.

Everyone rose early the morning we left Bonds for home. Mr. and Mrs. Bond drove us in to Strathroy to take the train, and away we started for our trip, about eighteen hundred miles, home to the prairies.

Before we started east for the winter, George got Eddie a green (dark) suit — corduroy with brass buttons — very pretty and he looked so nice. I had made Tommy a kilted skirt like the Scotch men wear, a few lovely white blouses with ruffles all around and a black velvet jacket to wear over the blouse. Huntley wasn’t quite a year old when we left home on our trip, so he wore white dresses. No one thought of rompers for little baby boys in that day and age.

While we were in London, Ont., the lady we were staying with took me through the asylum there and all the old ladies went crazy over Tommy. He didn’t like them very well. They sure were a screwy bunch. One inmate, a man, called out to me, "You fetched fine weather with you, Miss Galbraith!" We listened at the door (closed) of the music room, where some of the patients were playing, preparatory to their monthly ball, and I never heard better music than they were playing.

The lady with whom I was visiting told me they had a ball once a month and that they dressed in formal evening dress for it and had a swell time.

There was a banker there who they said went crazy on his way to work one day. He spent his time counting bills — cutout newspaper, just the size of real paper money. He held it between his thumb and fingers and counted all through then smoothed it out and started all over again. The attendant told me that he spent every day from morning to night counting this imaginary money.

When we left the institution, I made the remark that it was hard to tell the crazy ones from the attendants. Only a few, whom we could tell by the way they talked and I observed to my friend, "No one would know that man sitting by the door reading was crazy." My friend laughed at me and said, "He is not crazy; he is the warden there." As a judge of mentality, I guess I was the world’s worst.

When we were at Niagara Falls, and I should have written about this sooner, we hired a cabby to take us sightseeing. He was a funny little man with a great big grievance. He drove an old sorrel horse and a yellow cab and wore a grizzly moustache and a mustard colored overcoat. Every time we stopped to visit a place, he always disappeared. When we came out, ready to go on, he would come popping out from somewhere on the run, smelling of whiskey, pick up his lines and away we would go, clomp-clomping along the street. His horse, I am sure, never won a race, but got there just the same.

The old cabby would relate his woes and as we clomped along, would say every few minutes, "There ain’t no jayustice," (If you can pronounce that more like "shayustice." Slur it a bit. Why the poor fellow wanted justice, we never did find out; probably he didn’t know.

Then, too, I mustn’t forget. We were over in Sarnia that time and visited another cousin of George. Ontario seemed to be full of the McNeices’ cousins.

For the moment, their name has slipped my memory. Oh, I believe their name was Simpson. While there we had a ride on a horse drawn streetcar. The car ran on rails, but was drawn by a team of horses that jogged peacefully along. I think we stayed at Simpson’s only one night. Mr. Simpson was a conductor or brakeman on a railway. He returned from work a few minutes after we got there, dead tired, and went upstairs to get some sleep. He had been in bed only a short time when a callboy came for him with orders to go out on another run so up and away he went. We did not see much of him.

We bought a few souvenirs at Niagara Falls, which, at that time, were wonderful to me. I remember one thing, which I bought, was a stickpin. It was made of the stone, which they told us was found only at Niagara Falls — a milky white stone — and was like a little barrel with a gold hoop around it. In one end was a magnifying glass and, when you held the little barrel close to your eye, and looked through the little glass; you could see all sorts of pretty things inside the barrel. I am not quite sure, but believe it was at Niagara Falls that George bought our stereopticon outfit too. Often times I wish we had kept it.

I forgot, too, that when we were in Ontario this first trip, George went on to Dansville and got Mrs. Swartz’ daughter and brought her back with us all the way to Regina. She was a very backward child, or girl, of about fourteen.

I wish I could remember to write these things in the order they happened but even though I make notes, then have written quite a few things, I remember others that I should have written long before, so there it is.

Well, as I said a while back, we left Strathroy and started the long, tiresome trip home. It was no joyride going either way. The trains were slow, not at all comfortable; packed with farmer tourists, who slept and ate in the same clothes all the way. There was a smoker attached to the car and the men spent most of their time in there, smoking, playing cards and some, by the odor they brought with them when they returned to the day coach, was a little stronger than tea.

One night about ten o’clock, we — our family - were asleep, stretched out on various seats. When the brakeman touched me on the shoulder, I awoke and he asked, "Is that little curly headed boy yours?" I jumped up and here Tommy had wakened and was having a high old time with a bunch of men. The brakeman was plenty mad. He said, "Well, he has let all the water out of the tank and we can’t get any more until we reach __________," naming a town further on. I was so mad at Tommy and I was going to punish him severely, but the men pleaded his case and I relented. Eddie seldom ever got into trouble, but Tommy kept me on my toes.

I remember one thing Eddie got into trouble over at the Bonds. He and Harold, their son, had been playing down at their barn and had thrown bricks into the hay. Mr. Bond didn’t like it any too well.

Our trip home was quite uneventful. Just long days, and a long time getting to Regina. It seemed we stopped every little while along the way. Trains weren’t very fast in those days; even in best weather, the average along the north shore and the prairies was about thirty miles per hour, though the Grand Trunk running through Ontario was said to travel eighty miles per hour. It had a wonderful roadbed and travelling on it was smooth as sitting on a rocking chair at home.

When we went east, there was a bride and groom in our car. The bride was about eighteen and the groom about forty. Poor bride, she was a nervous wreck from fear. She said if she ever got back home to Lethbridge, never again would anyone get her on a train. The groom slept most of the way, when he wasn’t in the smoking car, leaving his bride alone. Quite chummy, eh what?

Well, we arrived several hours late in Regina to find the only passenger train for Lumsden that day had gone. Well, George went off and lay down on a bench and went to sleep leaving me, as usual, with the three little boys to look after. We were hungry, tired and cold. I do not remember whether we had eaten on the train, or not; probably not. I wanted to take the children to a hotel and give them breakfast, but fortunately fate intervened.

I overheard a man at the wicket saying he wanted a telegram sent to the Superintendent asking permission for transportation on a freight leaving in a few minutes for Saskatoon. I at once stepped up to him and asked him if he could get transportation for me and my family, which he at once included in his telegram, "for himself and party of friends." As soon as permission came from the superintendent, I wakened George and told him to hurry, we were leaving at once for Lumsden. He wouldn’t believe me, but when he saw this strange man helping me with the children, he then realized I was in earnest and came along. I think he was a little bewildered and surprised that I, his ‘umble’ wife had bested him.

We got to Lumsden around noon and, of course, went to Aunt Lizzie’s for dinner. Then, after dinner, Mr. Kelly drove us out home to the farm, and our sporting days were over for a time. This trip was taken in the winter of 1900 and 1901, before Irma was born. She was born April 5^th, 1903.

Go to Contents, Next or Index