So Sick I Could Die

One day, when George and I and Irma were sitting at the station at Chamberlain, I think this was the time we went up there to a picnic and the train ran off the tracks, we saw a man coming over to take the train too. He was carrying some heavy luggage and, as he set it down on the platform to rest and wipe his brow, George made the remark to him that he "must have gold in those grips." He smiled and said, "It is gold." He then opened his grips and showed us they were full of beautifully bound books. We got talking and he selected a book and handed it to me, saying he would like us to have it - that he had written it himself. I accepted very graciously. The book was entitled, "My Journey’s Far and Near." His portrait was on the flyleaf and his name was, if I remember correctly, Shields. He was English, I believe, and had a big handlebar moustache. I never saw him again, though his book remained in my possession many years. When we left Lumsden, nearly all my books remained behind; in fact, I sold a lot of them at our sale.

One summer while still on the farm, I had a terrible siege with stomach trouble. Couldn’t even take a sip of milk or water without the most excruciating pain. I had to work hard that summer. We had carpenters there building a barn, besides my husband and four children. Then, when harvest started, we had four hands hired and, of course, I had it all to do alone. Eddie and Tommy would help all they could after school, but though I was grateful for their help, it did not by any means lift the burden from my shoulders. Then Ev Wilson came to stay. She had only one hand. Her other hand been cut off by a mowing machine when she was little. She had toddled out to the hayfield where her father was working, grew sleepy, they think and lay down in the hay. Her father, unknowingly, drove right over her or on to her, cutting her hand off.

I grew more and more ill. Finally, one Sunday morning George said he would go down to Jeals and see if Mrs. Jeal would come up for a while. (I think he realized I was at the end of my rope.) All that Sunday I kept going, though I had to hang onto chairs or table to keep from falling as I went about the room.

Ev sat there all day long and never offered to help one bit. Finally, I grew so weak I could hardly get up the stairs to bed. George didn’t get back until midnight with Mrs. Jeal.

Now Ev, although she had only one hand, could do anything. She could peel potatoes faster than I ever could, wash dishes and dry them, make beds, sweep floors, knit and do all kinds of fancywork. She had lost her hand when so young that she never remembered having two hands, but there she sat and wouldn’t offer to do a thing. How I ever got through that day, a day of pain, weakness and misery?!

The next morning, Mrs. Jeal and George got the breakfast for the men. I got up and, by a superhuman effort, got my clothes on and got downstairs. I can still see the table full of men. Then I collapsed (fainted) and dropped to the floor. Some of the men helped carry me back upstairs and there I lay for two months. I had the most terrible pains in my head. It seemed to expand and retract to about the size of an orange and with each pulse-beat there was a noise like the screaming of a train whistle. Still no doctor was summoned! Mrs. Tom Burrows came over in the afternoon to say they were going to Lumsden and would tell Dr. Anderson to come out but George didn’t want him to come; said I’d be all right. However, I told Mrs. Burrows I wanted a doctor and to send one out. Mrs. Burrows said to George, "You should have a doctor; don’t you know Mrs. McNeice is terribly sick and has been for a long time?"

Well, Dr. Anderson was away and Dr. Boyd came out. The first thing he said, "Are you always that color7" They afterwards told me I was chalky white. Boyd left some pills and said he would have Anderson come out in the morning. I couldn’t sleep and this awful pain. For days and nights I couldn’t sleep and someone had to sit by my bed all night long.

Dr. Anderson tried to get a sample of my blood, but all he could get was a couple of drops of pinkish colored blood, which he put on a slide. He told

George he couldn’t give me anything to ease the terrible pain in my head, because if he gave me anything strong enough to ease the pain, it would stop my heart.

Every little noise hurt me so, and when the men learned how ill I was and how noise hurt me, they tried to be so quiet. They would tiptoe in to their meals and eat so quietly. They would also drive their loaded wagons away around so they would not make a noise passing the house. Ordinarily they drove right past the house to the barn. They were stacking a lot of grain by the barn so that if it rained when the threshers came, they could thresh from the stacks. In wet weather, they couldn’t thresh from the stokes in the field.

That was a terrible illness. I grew delirious and imagined George was trying to poison me and would take no nourishment unless they swore to me that George never touched it in the preparation. I can remember so much about that illness.

I remember Uncle Isaac and Aunt Beckie trying to get me to take something. Uncle Isaac was on his knees by the bed, coaxing me to take it, and I said, "No, George put poison in it." I was just as sure of this as of anything in my life. Of course, had I not been delirious, no such thought would ever have entered my mind.

Then finally, Dr. Anderson did give me some powders for my head. Gave them very reluctantly. George told him if he didn’t, my heart would stop anyway, so the doctor consented. He had been keeping me on brandy and milk for over a week. Well, I hadn’t had the first down, George said, more than ten minutes when he said I looked up and said, "The pain is all gone," and from then on I began to grow better, though it was a long hard pull. After the pain subsided, I went blind for days. Couldn’t see a thing. Then, one day, my sight began to return, slowly, and for days and days everything danced and trembled about me.

Mrs. Jeal stayed for some time and then Aunt Maggie came and stayed.

Then we got a Mrs. Oldham, an English woman to come. Dr. Anderson told George that I would have to go away for two or three months to recuperate.

I took to bed around the first of September and by the last of November was allowed to sit up five minutes. I thought I was able to get up and dress but before the five minutes were gone, I was begging to get back into bed. However, I grew stronger and before long was able to be downstairs.

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