Scarlet Fever

There was still a lot of snow on the prairie when we arrived home. Spring preparations for seedtime began. The men bluestoned their wheat for seed; harness was gone over and repaired; workhorses were rounded up and brought in off the prairie where they had run at large all winter.

Hogs were butchered and the meat cured for summer use. Oh! The big, lean hams! Housecleaning began. Quilts and blankets washed; children’s clothes made for the school season; cows freshening; lots of butter to be made. And, as the weather grew warmer, hens to be set, chickens to be hatched and cared for, and, when the snow disappeared, gardens to be made. The meadowlarks were singing so sweetly, making one feel it was good to be alive.

This brings Llewellyn Love to my memory. His mother had set a hen and had marked the eggs by scribbling on each one with a lead pencil. One day, Llewellyn discovered this nest with all its eggs scribbled on, and in great excitement, ran to his mother calling out, "Mamma, I found a nest full of eggs and the old hen has writ all over them."

The next year after our trip to Ontario, and probably the next two years, passed quite uneventfully. Just the usual round of work and a little play.

Then, one winter’s day I developed a bad case of scarlet fever. We, George and I, had been to Regina a short time before, I to get some teeth filled and the only places I had been for a month or more was to the dentist and to the Alexander Hotel for our lunch. First, one whole day, Irma lay and slept on the couch with a kitten in her arms. She had a slight temperature, but when I would ask her if she were sick, she would answer no. I remember in the afternoon, I was ironing some dresses for her, when all at once a sharp pain shot through my neck, and I suddenly grew quite ill. I didn’t do any more work that day, but I did undress Irma and put her to bed; and when I undressed her, I found she was completely covered with a bright red rash. And, of course, we didn’t send for a doctor. George said it was nothing — just pooh-poohed the idea of a doctor. Next day her rash was gone and she seemed perfectly well. But, was I sick! I do not think I ever was so sick in my life. A raging fever, headache, sore throat and covered with a rash, and to make matters worse, my neck swelled to an enormous size, my tongue also — it filled my mouth completely. I couldn’t speak and had to write anything I wished to say. This went on for days, me begging for a doctor, and being refused. Finally, one Sunday afternoon, I wrote on my paper, "George, if you won’t send for a doctor, I’ll get Jack to take me there."He then sent Jack Middlemas - our hired man - for Dr. Anderson. He brought the doctor up and had to take him back. Before the doctor got there, the abscess in my throat oozed oodles of dark gray matter. The doctor said I was lucky to be awake when the abscess broke, otherwise this matter might have gone into my stomach and poisoned me. I went nearly crazy with my limbs; they were red as scarlet and I never had one thing done to ease the terrible itching or pain. Not even the doctor gave me anything; no, not even a pill. The doctor said he forgot his grip, had been out on a case and just returned when Jack called for him; had just gotten into the cutter with Jack and so had forgotten his grip. So, there I lay and suffered until the disease wore itself out. The children had been in and out of the room at will until the doctor came, then George kept them out, but for days they had been running in and out as they pleased. Not one of them came down with the fever. Irma probably had a slight attack the day she slept all the time and had the rash, but the boys escaped it.

However, George came down with it, but would have no doctor. And, was he covered with a rash. He had it good and plenty, but fortunately for him he had no abscess in the throat. This was in the early winter.

But in the harvest time that fall, I had been confined to bed for some time and George had kept Eddie home from school to cook for the harvest hands. Poor little Eddie! He had no easy road to hoe. George told him if he would stay home and get the meals, he (George) would give him a gold watch. Eddie was only ten and afterwards, some years afterward, lost it in some way in a load of wheat he was taking to the elevators in Lumsden for his Uncle Joe. This was after we left the farm and were living in Lumsden. He grieved for that watch.

Then, it was only a year or so until I broke my arm. We had sold the farm one fall. I think it was the fall of 1907 and was to give possession sometime in the spring of 1908. I was opposed to selling the farm. I wanted to put a tenant on it and take the children to Lumsden where they could attend school the year around. As I related before, we had only a summer school, from some time in May until the weather became rough in the fall, usually October or maybe the first of November. I couldn’t see my children growing up with so little chance for an education. But, anyway, we sold, or George sold. A woman had no choice in money matters then. Of course, most men consulted their wives, but not mine. What George said went. Of course, I should have asserted myself, but one grows weary of arguing. It was a big mistake to sell.

The CPR had surveyed a line through our farm. It ran through our pasture and passed just a few rods just south of our house, and since coming to California, I hear that the spring which flowed summer and winter has been developed and has supplied the city of Regina with water.

The little spring from where, for years, until we dug a well up at the house, I used often to carry a pail of water, and other times took a team of oxen and the stoneboat and hauled a barrel of water for the house. One time, Willard Humphries, a cousin of George, went with me. When we had the barrel filled and started back to the house, me driving the oxen. They kept edging to the left too far. I kept saying, "Haw," and the oxen still kept edging too close to the fence. Willard started to laugh, and said, "I think you had better say ‘Gee.’ Try it for a while." Here, I should have been saying gee all the time. I was rather nonplussed for a while, for I surely knew which was which.

One thing I forgot is, Huntley was riding on the gangplow one day with his father, who was plowing. Someway Huntley fell off the plow and the plow ran over his head. It must have been one of the wheels and not the shear; otherwise, he would have been sliced to pieces. Another time, he and his brothers were playing on the top of the old stable, which was a log building and had a straw top. Huntley fell off on the ground and was pretty sick and dizzy for a while. Then, there was the time Eddie stepped on a rusty nail; poor boy, he pulled the nail out of his foot himself and I got a pan of hot water with a lot of turpentine in the water and soaked his foot for a long time. The pain was so intense he actually turned green. There was no such thing as rushing him to a doctor for a tetanus shot in those days. The turpentine evidently took the poison out. It got better.

Then there was the time Irma drank a lot of Hive’s syrup. That was when I was confined to bed and Eddie was doing the work. I had this syrup for their whooping cough the fall before and had it up on a shelf in my bedroom upstairs. I, at the time, had my bed downstairs. Now this shelf was up so high I couldn’t reach it unless I had a chair to stand on, and here the little monkey climbed up on a chair, then on the dresser and got the bottle down and helped herself. Dr. Kerns happened along at the same time that she came downstairs, looking so queer. I suspected what she had done and told Dr. Kerns. He didn’t seem to worry much; only he said to keep her walking and not let her go to sleep. The silly man, he should have pumped her stomach then and there. She got better.

Then, the following spring, in March, just three days before our auction sale, I fell on some ice outside the kitchen door and broke my right arm. I had so much company that day for dinner. Mrs. Purdy and Clifford, Mr. and Mrs. Swartz and some other people. Bert and Mable Gemmel drove up. They had Irma with them. They used to "borrow" her once in a while. They were very fond of Irma.

As I say, I ran out to greet them, slipped on some ice and broke my arm. George sent for the doctor to Lumsden. Dr. Kerns came out and set it and told George to keep me full of whiskey to deaden the pain. George obeyed his orders, because they said I sure talked the most of the night like a drunken sailor. This happened only three days before our auction sale. Mr. McInnis, from Regina, was the auctioneer. Mable Gemmel, Aunt Beckie, Aunt Maggie and Mrs. Swartz took charge of things around the house. George had advertised a free lunch at noon, and if we fed one, we fed two hundred. People came for miles and miles around. They started coming about four o‘clock the day before. The sale was in March, the roads were breaking up; snow and slush made travelling difficult. Where these people ate and slept that evening and night, I couldn’t say.

It grieved me to see all those beautiful horses and lovely cattle go under the auctioneer’s hammer. I did not want to sell; however, there was nothing I could do to persuade George to rent.

Everyone came in at noon to eat. The place was full of men. They stood while they ate and drank their coffee. Old Donald Jeffrey made himself comfortable on a chair by the table, and did he stuff himself! He ate as much as any three men put together. Donald always bought all the old bolts and nuts and waste iron at sales. He drove a lousy roan pony and cutter. He wore an iron gray beard and had catarrh. He sat at the table stuffing himself when someone came in and said, "Donald, your pony has taken off somewhere." Poor Donald, he was figuring on more stuffing for his elastic stomach, but had to go in pursuit of his pony. He said, "Why, I leaned her up against the clothesline post." He was too lazy to tie her. Donald was renowned for his laziness. He never got up in the mornings until he felt like it. He saw to it that his wife and daughter (Lena) got out in the fields in good time. They did practically all the farming that was done on the place. Mrs. Jeffery was a wonderfully good-hearted woman; Lena never had a chance. She was seldom at school and had no, or very little, education.

I remember one time, when I was about fourteen years of age Aunt Annie, Maggie Petrie and I went picking Saskatoons and we went over near Jeffery’s place. We weren’t picking the berries long when old Jeffery came along and informed us that we were "transpessing" on his property. He stood there, pointing to practically all the surrounding hills, saying, "This is mines, this is mines, this is mines." However, he allowed us to fill our buckets, or pails, as we call them in Canada. He insisted on our coming to the house when we were through filling our buckets and visit his "missus." We went to the house and Mrs. Jeffery had some lunch for us. She had several pies cooling in the woodshed, off the kitchen. They looked really nice; but, oh, the flies.’ Poor Mrs. Jeffery, everything was spotlessly clean, but every time one opened one’s mouth to take a bite, there were a dozen flies ready to take the dive down one’s throat. Just as Annie was going to take a sip of tea, three flies took a swim in her tea. That finished Annie’s lunch. Well we finally got everyone fed and out to the sale. It started at 12:30 and was not over until after dark.

We had such a beautiful farm, 640 acres with a fresh water spring and creek running through it. A beautiful herd of horses and cattle, a fairly comfortable house and no better land anywhere than that land of ours. But George would sell. I did want to get the children to a good yearly school and I was so physically unable to do the work that a woman was compelled to do on a farm; but I did not want to sell. I wanted to put a good tenant on the farm. Of course, some of our dearest and nearest relations blamed me for selling. As the years went on, I became so accustomed to censorship from them, that I just let it slide off my shoulders. Everything that went wrong was blamed on Minnie. That was me.

We must have gone to Lumsden that night, though we left the three boys at Johnson’s, who were living at, or on Sam Cullum’s place. They were to stay there until we got settled in our new place.

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