A Trip To The Fair

Another time, I left the children with Aunt Maggie while Father, Ettie and I drove to Indian Head to the Fair. Father wanted to go, so Aunt Maggie said she would keep the children if I would drive Father down there. I do not remember how Ettie came along. Our brother, William, had a photo studio there and we stayed at his place. Ettie made some Saskatoon berry pies, which did not suit William at all. Oh, now I remember, Ettie was already there keeping house for William, but she came back with Father and me when we returned to the farm in Tregarva. The fair was the usual affair — bread, cakes, pie, pickles, fruit, quilts, fancy work, horses, pigs, cows, chickens, grain and vegetables.

On our way to and from the fair, we walked and had to pass a livery stable, smelling of horse droppings, and swarming with flies, and a bunch of men sitting on tilted back chairs, smoking and "chawing terbaccer" and watching the ladies trip by. I was unlucky enough to really trip on a bump in the sidewalk, right in front of this gallant group of gentlemen, and would have fallen had not several of them jumped to my rescue, pipes, "terbaccer" and all! My family knows how easily I can "trip." Ettie declared I did it on purpose, just to see what the men would do, and that if she had been wise enough, she would have tripped before I did. We stayed in Indian Head for a few days and then left for home, taking Ettie back with us.

We didn’t make very good time, as it had rained and the roads were muddy; having only one horse, it was slow going, and to make matters worse, we got off the road, which was only a trail part of the way. Our trail led us right into a big field of grain. We couldn’t go through that, so for a minute we didn’t know what to do. It was evening and, before long, we would probably be hunting a trail in the dark. However, we saw a few lights off to the left and decided to make our way to them, which we did. We arrived at a little place called the "German Settlement" and, where (by the way) my sister Annie had taught school for a year or so and boarded with the Getners, where we called while in the German Settlement.

Father knocked at the door of one of the houses and asked if we might stay for the night. He explained how we got off our road and, as it was dark, we were afraid to go on. These people were really German; but they gave us permission to stay for the night, for which we were very grateful.

We (Ettie and I) were ushered into a big bedroom with a bed in one corner and another along the wall. These beds were piled high with feather ticks. Everything was spotlessly clean; sheets and pillow cases snowy white. The bedrooms were clean; the walls whitewashed snowy white and white curtains at the windows. Father was allotted another room somewhere in the house. In the room to which Ettie and I were assigned were a young girl about sixteen and a boy about eighteen. The girl had nothing to say, but the boy was quite talkative. He spoke very broken English. He regaled us with tales of travel, and informed us how one time he went to Regina, which he called "Rayeena" and which was about twenty-five miles from where he lived. Quite a traveler, eh what? The girl soon crawled in, clothes and all, between feather ticks on the bed along the wall. Ettie and I were so tired and we waited and waited for the young man to leave the room so we could undress and go to bed. He made no effort to leave the room and finally in his German accent said to us, "Air you not sleepy?" We said, "Yes, very." "Well," he said, "There is a bed, tumble in." So we "tumbled in" clothes and all. He then blew out the lamp, or rather the light, and we heard him flop on the floor and roll himself up in another feather tick and with a pleasant, "Good night" was soon fast asleep. Ettie and I then sat up in bed and disrobed as best we could in the dark.

When we awoke in the morning, both boy and girl were gone. We rose, dressed, and met Father who was up waiting for us. Father asked the woman of the house if we might have some breakfast. She put a loaf of black bread and some fat pork and black coffee on the table. We couldn’t stomach the looks of the fat pork, so Father asked if we might have an egg each. She then brought each of us an egg, barely warmed. I think I ate mine; maybe Ettie ate hers, but Father couldn’t eat his; it was so soft when he broke the shell the egg ran out like water. Father never would eat an egg unless it was really hard-boiled. Father asked the woman what he owed her for our stay and breakfast. She charged him fifty cents for each of us. We thought that was terrible as we hadn’t eaten anything but our egg and a little piece of black bread and Father hadn’t even eaten his egg.

While Father was busy looking after our horse, Ettie and I visited the little church close by. This settlement was very, very poor. Yet that little church was beautiful inside. No sign of poverty there. The priest was not at home; the German woman said he was away. Ettie disgraced me and shocked the woman by asking where the priest’s wife was. The poor woman replied, "Our priests do not marry." Ettie’s face grew red because she knew, had she stopped to think no Catholic Priest marries.

Then we went to the Getners for a little visit. They were very kind and sorry to hear that both Mother and Annie had died. I can hear Mrs. Getner still saying, "Ach! And now the poor father with the gray hairs iss left alone." They were very fond of Annie who, when she first went to teach in the settlement, found she did not have a single pupil who could speak a word of English and she could speak no German. Some very amusing, if crude, things occurred. One instance of this was, Annie noticed that a certain little boy was missing from his seat; on asking if anyone knew where Herman was, one little boy raised his hand and said, "He has gone out to shit." The poor boy knew no better than use plain English and to the point. Strange but true, all foreign people learning to speak English have a knack of learning vile words much quicker than poetic phrases. We then went on home to Tregarva.

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