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The
Euro-Settler Experience
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Experiences of a Homesteader
By John Wilson
The Grain Growers’ Guide December 6, 1911
When
I was a small boy, I read a book called “Cedar Creek.” It was the
story of two English lads who went to Canada, took up homesteads
somewhere or other in that strange far away land, chopped down big
trees in a “primeval forest,” caught great trout in the creek, shot
deer, worked hard, had a good time and by and by became rich and
prosperous farmers. I made up my mind before I had read half way
through that book, that one day I would go to Canada and do as they
did. The only thing I did not like about those boys was that they
made the hired man whom they took with them – the son of an old servant
of their family, if I remember rightly – wait for his meals until they
had finished. It seemed to me that he was the best man of the
three. He could cook, and do lots of other useful things that
they were not able to do, he saved them from all kinds of trouble, and
I thought that he should have had a more prominent place in the story
than they gave him.
As I have said, I was a small boy when the ambition to become a
Canadian farmer first took possession of me, and though it was a dozen
years or more before I bade farewell to my English home, that idea
never left me. Meanwhile I finished my schooling, went to work in
a printing office and became a newspaper reporter. This did not
particularly fit me for chopping down big trees, but the boys of Cedar
Creek had not done any hard work before they went to their Canadian
homesteads and I thought that I could grow big muscles and learn to
swing an axe just as they had done. Well, I haven’t chopped down
big trees in a “primeval forest” yet – there are none on my homestead –
but I have grubbed willow roots and dug wells, which was just as good a
muscle maker, though not nearly so romantic to read about.
I Arrive at Winnipeg
I landed in Winnipeg on May 5, 1905. I was twenty-four years of
age and had English money worth $30.00 in my pocket. I have some
of those English coins yet. I got off the train, as I shall
always remember, on top of the C.P.R. subway, shortly before noon, and
looked down at the gateway city of the great west I had come to seek my
fortune in. A belated snowstorm had visited Winnipeg the night
before, and Main Street, which badly needed a new pavement in those
days, was a mass of black mud. So far as I knew, I had not a
friend in the city and as I stood there wondering where I should go
first, the prospect was not inviting.
At the Immigration Hall
However, I had read about the immigration hall, how kindly immigrants
were treated there, and what good jobs the officials found for people
wanting work, so I went there. They couldn’t give me a job just
then, but would have one for me in a few days, they said, so I
registered my name, previous occupation and so forth, and sat around
awhile and talked to others who were situated like myself and to some
who had been out on farms and had come back disappointed. Of
course, those who were satisfied with the jobs that had been found them
did not come back, so I was not much discouraged by the bad reports of
the unsuccessful ones. The immigration hall did not look an
inviting place to stay in – it has been improved since, I believe – so
I went to a boarding house on Selkirk Avenue, the address of which I
got from a dodger handed me outside the C. P. R. depot. This
place was in the foreign part of the city and was no better than the
immigration hall, but I did not find that out until I had paid a week’s
board in advance, so I stayed. The day I arrived in Winnipeg I
met two old school mates from home, and you may be sure it did my heart
good to see them. They were both doing well; one had his parents
and brothers and sisters with him, and I felt strongly tempted to try
and secure a position in the city and stay with them.
But I had come to Canada to be a farmer, so I went to the immigration
hall each day and looked for a job. After four days waiting, as I
was sitting in the immigration hall, I heard the official announce that
a farmer wanted an inexperienced Englishman. He got one.
Me. He lived at Carman, 57 miles out from Winnipeg. I was
to get $15.00 for the first month and after that we could make a new
bargain if we were both satisfied. I went out with my new boss
next day, but we were not satisfied, either of us. If I were to
tell you all about that farmer, and how he treated me, the editor would
probably be sued for criminal libel, so we will let that go, but after
planting five acres of potatoes, digging I don’t know how many acres of
garden with a spade, and getting kicked by all his horses and cows, not
to speak of losing all the skin off my hands, I returned to Winnipeg
with $7.50 for half a month’s work, and the belief that one Canadian
farmer, at least, was not fit to have any man, white, black or yellow,
working for him. He gave me one word of praise, though, which I
must not forget. He saw me one noon-hour stretched luxuriously
upon the manure pile and he remarked, “Well that Jack is the
comfortablest rester I ever had around the place.” I hope he will
see this article, so that he will know I did not starve to death the
first winter, as he predicted, and perhaps hoped, I should.
However, I did not think the Canadian farmers could be all alike, and
went out of Winnipeg the day after I arrived, this time to
Union Point, Man., from where a shipmate had written saying he had a
good job and could find me one near him.
$12 a Month
I got there at night, and the next morning started to work. I
hadn’t a very big idea of my own worth on a farm, and only asked for
$12.00 a month, which my new boss agreed to give me till the freeze
up. I found out afterwards that I could have got better pay if I
had asked for it, but I was well treated and learned a good deal about
farming, how to care for horses, how to plow and seed and harrow, to
pitch hay and build stooks and stacks, and also how to get up early and
keep on working till late at night. I stayed there till winter
began and then went back to Winnipeg, without much money but a lot of
experience, which I knew would be valuable when I took up my
homestead. I worked in Winnipeg that winter and went to Prince
Albert in the spring, wishing to get nearer the homestead country, but
determined to stay in town till I had made enough to make a fairly good
start when I should take up land.
The Doukhobor Land Rush
In June, 1907, a large number of homesteads, which had been held by
Doukhobors for about eight years, but had not been lived upon or
cultivated by them, were thrown open to the public, and I thought this
an excellent chance to get an extra good piece of land. I
accordingly visited the locality and inspected the lands, making a list
of the best sections in three townships, knowing from the number of
people I saw on the same errand that it would be no easy matter to
secure any particular quarter.
The rush for the Doukhobor lands was all that I expected. A crowd
camped on the steps and sidewalk outside the land office at Prince
Albert each afternoon, stayed there all night, and in the morning
fought among themselves and against new comers to see who should be
first at the counter to secure the choice locations. I watched
the proceedings for ten days, during which time a strong board fence
was built on the sidewalk enclosing a space about two feet wide and
twenty feet long outside the land office, and then made my effort to
get in the front rank. A party of us; strangers to each other
before then but firm friends ever since, joined together and formed a
line, with an experienced football scrimmager of 250 lbs. at our
head, and after an hour’s rib-cracking struggle forced our way between
the wall of the land office and the crowd of 300 men who swarmed and
sweated around the entrance to the enclosure. There we held our
ground until 5 p.m. when we were admitted behind the fence.
A Weary Vigil
Thus protected we stayed patiently – or impatiently – through the
night, some sleeping unconcernedly on the concrete sidewalk, while the
rest, myself included, sat on top of the fence or on improvised seats,
sleepless and anxious for the morning. We filed on our homesteads
at last, I being twelfth man at the counter out of forty who secured
homesteads in one township that day. Although I filed in June, I
did not enter into possession of my land until November. I was
not ready, financially, to go on the land immediately, buy oxen or
horses and start work, and by waiting till fall I was able to save some
money, and also to spend a whole year on the homestead and be putting
in residence duties practically all the time, from December, 1907, to
June 1908, being the last six of my first homestead year, and from
June, 1908 to December, 1908, the first six months of the second year.
A 75 Mile Trek
Three of my future neighbours were starting out at the same time, and
as two of them had a team of horses each they doubled up and hauled out
a big load of supplies for the party, filling a hay rack with tent,
stoves, bedding, groceries, a little bit of furniture, doors, window
sash, roofing and everything that was absolutely necessary to build and
furnish our shacks except lumber, which we got from a portable saw mill
which was working nearer to the homesteads. At that time my place
was 35 miles from the nearest railway station, Duck Lake, and going
from Prince Albert by trail we had a trip of about 75 miles to
make. We travelled by the old Carlton and Battleford trail,
stopped at a farmhouse the first night out, and if all had gone well
should have camped near our future homes the following day.
At the River
When we reached Carlton, where we had to cross the North Saskatchewan,
however, we found so much ice in the river that the ferry could not
run. There was nothing to do but wait till the river froze up, so
we pitched the tent and camped near the crossing. It was no
picnic watching the ice cakes grow larger and finally freeze up solid,
but after six days the ice was strong enough to bear light loads and we
then unloaded the wagon, carried our stuff across, lead the horses one
at a time, and pushed the wagon over.
Reaching the Promised Land
We camped that night on the homestead of my neighbor Shepley, the next
quarter to my own, and in the morning two of us started to dig a cellar
in the frozen ground while the other two went for lumber. The
only lumber to be had was rough lumber and flooring, so we took five
inch flooring for the sides of the shacks, and three inch for the
floors. At first we used only one ply of boards, putting thick
felt building paper outside the studding, tar paper over that and then
the boards. For roofing we used paroid, a tar material costing
about the same as shingles, and much easier to put on in cold
weather. It was cold, too, and I don’t think any of us really
enjoyed those first days on the homestead. In June, when I went
over the land, the prairie looked its best. The grass was green
and luxuriant, wild flowers grew everywhere; an occasional bluff of
poplars gave a welcome shade from the sun, and each of the little
sloughs dotted here and there on the rolling prairie had its family of
wild ducks that had never heard a gunshot and were not afraid of men.
A Changed Scene
Now in November all was different. Prairie fires had burned off
all the grass for miles around, leaving the earth bare and black.
The bluffs looked thin, and many of them contained but the charred
remains of young trees. The sloughs were dry or frozen to the
bottom, and the cold wind swept a chill to one’s bones. While we
were putting up the first house we slept in the tent, but as we had fur
coats and lots of blankets we kept warm at night and in the day time we
kept our blood in circulation by hard work. I was cook, and
operated in an outdoor kitchen equipped with a heating stove, tea
kettle, pot and frying pan. Beef, beans, frozen potatoes and
frozen bread made by the Doukhobors, who had a village two miles away,
were the chief items on the menu, but working outdoors all day supplied
the relish the cook failed to impart to the fare. In four days we
had Shepley’s house, which he made 14x20 feet, with ten foot walls and
a peak roof, near enough to completion to move in, and we then had a
little more comfort. Shacks similarly constructed were put up for
each member of the party in turn, I being content with a modest
structure, 12x14 feet, with eight foot walls, two large windows and
peak roof, with a ceiling of stout building paper.
Winter Building Costly
At $22 a thousand for rough lumber and $30 a thousand for flooring,
this cost me $75 for material, the lumber costing about $50 and the
roofing, sash, doors, nails, paper and other finish $25. My own
labor, and that of my neighbors, which I repaid by helping them, was
worth about another $50. The work could probably be done for half
that cost in warm weather, but driving nails and tacking up tar paper
is slow and unpleasant work in zero weather with a forty mile wind
blowing. When all of our party had shelter over our heads, I
settled down to put in the winter as comfortably as possible. My
shack was quite warm as long as I kept a fire going, but as I did not
attempt to keep the fire on during the night the temperature was often
down to zero by morning. I had at first only one stove, a small
cast iron box heater with two holes in the top, on which I could boil
and fry, and above this, fitted into the stove pipes, was a tin drum
oven in which I baked small things, such as pies and biscuits, and
which also helped to warm the shack.
Lazy but Comfortable
The stove stood in the centre of the room, and it was my custom before
retiring at night to cook next day’s porridge in a double boiler and
leave it and the tea kettle on the stove. Then I prepared
shavings, kindling and stouter wood, and left them handy to the
stove. In the morning everything in the shack would be frozen
solid, but I could light the fire without getting out of bed and so
stayed under the blankets until the shack was warm, the kettle boiling
and the porridge steaming hot. As I had no animals to care for, I
had no outdoor work to do except to provide myself with fuel. For
while I got sufficient dry wood from the bluffs near the shack, which I
hauled home on a hand sleigh which I made from willows, and when I had
used up all that was within easy distance I bought a big load of
dry poplar for $6.00 from a neighbor, who cut it from unoccupied land
about 16 miles away. At first I carried water from a neighbor’s
well, nearly a mile from home, and when I stepped in a badger hole just
outside my front door one dark night, and fell and spilled a pail of
water, I am afraid I said something that would not look well in a
Sunday School paper. Later I got water by melting snow. It takes
about ten pails of snow to make one pail of water, so I was pretty busy
on washing day, but there was plenty of time.
No Need to be Lonesome
My city friends have often asked me if I did not feel terribly
lonesome, living all by myself in my little shack all winter, but I did
not. Some men, I know, feel the lonesomeness, and to them a
winter on the prairie, even though they have company, must seem
interminable. I have read of such men going insane, though in a
pretty wide acquaintance of homesteaders, I never knew one who lost his
reason. People also go crazy in town, and I doubt if there are
not just as many in proportion become insane through dissipation in the
cities as through loneliness on the prairie. I know, too, that
many who were on the high road to ruin through drink and drug habits
who have been regenerated and become new men through the wholesome
surroundings and healthy life of the farm. There is no reason,
however, why a homesteader should pass weeks at a time, as some do,
without seeing a friendly face. I made it a rule that winter not
to stay at home alone more than one day at a time.
...The Grain Growers Guide December 13, 1911 p 8
If I stayed home one day, without having a visitor, I went off visiting
next day, travelling around the country on snow shoes and getting
acquainted with my neighbors for miles around. Twice a week I
went to the post office, six miles away, for mail, and on Sundays a few
of the neighbors would gather at one of the homes for service in which
singing and not preaching was the chief feature.
We Get a “School Marm”
Then I busied myself in connection with the organization of a new
school district, of which I was one of the first trustees, and the
erection of a school-house and the engaging of a teacher. I
succeeded in persuading my fellow trustees that we should not be doing
justice to the children (not to speak of the bachelors of the district)
if we engaged a male teacher, and if the very charming young lady who
came from Ontario to take charge of the school was as fond of male
company as she appeared to be, she must have had a good time. She
had at least ten proposals that summer, but turned them all down.
In the busiest season someone was sure to have an errand that would
take him past the schoolhouse about the time the children were
dismissed, and then, of course, duty and pleasure alike required him to
see her home. After the schoolhouse was built services were held
there every Sunday, the Church of England and Presbyterian
“missionaries” taking turns in conducting the services. Some of
the first pupils at our school were Doukhobor children, and though the
school cost considerable, both in time and money (the annual school tax
comes to $8 a quarter section), we were well repaid in seeing the
little “Douks” learning English, playing baseball, and making a start
towards becoming good Canadian citizens.
Schools for the Doukhobors
Since then schoolhouses have been built all through that section.
The Doukhobors have shown themselves very anxious to have their
children educated, and one school, which I had the pleasure of helping
to organize, started off with an attendance of 23 children, only two of
whom could speak English when the school opened.
The rest of the winter I spent quietly in my little shack, trying
experiments in the cooking line, and reading Ruskin, Henry George,
Dickens and the current farm and weekly papers.
Altogether I enjoyed the winter, but still I was not sorry when spring
came and I was able to begin the work of improving and cultivating my
homestead. The first thing was to dig a well, which I began before the
snow was entirely gone. This necessitated picking through six
feet of frozen ground, which seemed as hard as solid rock, but time was
not of much value then and I took a week to dig the first six feet,
working a few hours each day. Then I got assistance in hauling up
the dirt and soon had the well finished, only having to go down about
16 feet for a good supply of pure water. I finished off the well
with a square crib of lumber, and a good tight cover, and hung a pulley
over it on a tripod of poplar trees.
A Yoke of Oxen
When the snow was gone I got a yoke of well-broken oxen from a
Doukhobor, paying $120 for the team and harness, and a walking plow,
with breaker and stubble bottoms, for $28. Before beginning to
plow, however, I had to clear out some of the poplar bluffs and willow
patches, which, though they did not cover a large area – probably not
more than 10 acres of the 160 – were scattered all over the
quarter-section, so that it was impossible to plow a straight half mile
furrow without taking some of them out. The poplars were easy to
clear, and made good firewood when they had dried for a few weeks, but
grubbing willows, some of which have roots a foot thick and a yard
square, with branches going off in every direction underground, is
slow, hard work.
I had built the shack in the southeast corner of the homestead, facing
the road allowance on the south, and with sheltering bluffs of young
poplar on the north, east and west. Leaving these bluffs, and a
few trees along the boundary lines, I first cleared and then broke ten
acres near the shack.
Slow but Sure
Plowing with oxen is slow work at best, and until I got used to the
brutes, and they got used to me, I worked just about as hard as they
did. Often it took over an hour to make a round, turning over a
strip twelve inches wide and a mile long, and I thought I was doing
pretty well when I plowed over an acre in a day. The great
advantage of oxen is that beside costing so much less than horses they
require very little grain, and some people manage to keep them working
on nothing but grass. As all the grass in that district had been
burned off the previous fall, however, I had to buy some hay, which I
got from the “Douks” – who were universal providers for the district
while we were making a start – and when the oxen were working I fed
them a little chop, whole oats not doing them much good as they failed
to chew and digest them.
When I had ten aces plowed, toward the end of May, I hired a man with
horses and machinery to disk and seed it with flax, the cost being $5
for disking, $5 for seeding and $5 for seed, flax then being worth only
$1 a bushel, and half a bushel to the acre being sown.
The Boys Arrive
At the end of May my brother and a cousin arrived to spend the summer
with me. I walked the 35 miles to Duck Lake to meet them, wearing
my best clothes and a rubber collar, the first I had had on for nearly
six months. I think they were surprised at that collar, for I had
always been something of a dandy at home, but they did not say
anything. We went out with a hired team, and when we got “home,”
and they had looked around the little shack and seen me discard my
collar and Sunday best and put on my old brown overalls, they looked at
one another as much as to say “What kind of a place have we been
enticed to now?” However, when they had got well tanned by the
sun and had torn their clothes in the bush they got into overalls too
and soon looked as disreputable as I did. They turned in and
worked too, though I couldn’t pay them any wages, and I was glad both
of their company and their help.
I Get a Cook
My brother and I took turns at plowing and grubbing while our cousin –
who was in search of health, and found it too – was installed as cook,
housekeeper and milkmaid, a cook stove and a cow, the latter costing me
only $25, being added to the establishment when the boys arrived.
In our spare time, or perhaps I should say when we were too tired to do
anything else, we put in a few potatoes, onions, lettuce, radishes and
other garden stuff, and though the gophers, which were a great pest
till we poisoned a lot of them off, got more out of the garden than we
did, this enabled the cook to vary our diet somewhat. The cook
made very creditable bread too. Of course he made a mistake
occasionally, and turned out a wonderful batch of biscuits one day when
we had company, by using cream of tartar instead of baking powder.
Financial Stringency
By midsummer I was just about “broke.” I had $500 in cash when I
started homesteading, the rest of my savings having been invested in
town lots, but this was now all gone and nothing coming in but $10 a
month on some lots I had sold, and this was hardly enough to pay the
store bill, and for expenses such as sharpening plow shares, food for
the oxen, and so forth. A homesteader can get along without much
money, however, and I went to work for neighbors who had horses and
machinery, grubbing and breaking for them in return for discing and
cutting of my flax, and by fall I had thirty acres broken and disced
besides the ten acres to flax. The flax, unfortunately, did not
turn out well. The summer was dry, and it did not grow long
enough to cut with a binder, and had to be mowed and raked and stacked
like hay, a good deal being wasted in consequence. Then when
threshing time came, my little crop had to wait till last, and finally
the machine pulled out and left it. However, I was determined to
get all there was in my first crop, so I spread it on the ground after
the freeze-up, laying it out in a circle and driving the slow but
faithful oxen over it, and then lifting off the straw and putting the
flax and chaff through a fanning mill, borrowed of course.
Finally I got twenty bushels of flax, which I sold to the local
store-keeper for $1 a bushel. Thus my first crop realized just
$5.00 more than it had cost me for seed, discing and seeding. My
own labor of breaking and threshing and what I did in return for the
cutting brought me only $5.00 and what is more, the land that the flax
grew on has produced very poor crops of wheat since. The chief
reason for the failure probably was the dry summer, but I have learnt
since that the best authorities do not recommend the sowing of flax the
same year as the land is broken, except in heavy land and then only
when discing and seeding are done immediately after breaking before the
soil has a chance to dry out.
Altogether I put in a strenuous summer. Grubbing willows is a
back-breaking job and it was all we could do to get enough land cleared
to keep ahead of the plowing, slow though the oxen were. The oxen
did as well as could be expected, but I certainly had my troubles with
them. On hot days the poor brutes were sometimes in such distress
that I could not make them work. When they came to the end of the
furrow nearest the house they would make straight for the well, and
there was no getting them back again. Then when the mosquitoes
were bad, they often became almost unmanageable, and once they bolted
for a bluff dragging the plow on the dead run with me hanging on to the
lines and shouting “Whoa,” I might as well have tried to stop a
locomotive. The mosquitoes tormented me too, and on more than one
occasion I let the oxen go and put in the day grubbing in a smudge with
they also came around and enjoyed.
Sport with the Ducks and Geese
Harvest, which is the busy time of the established farmer, was a
holiday for us beginners, and in September we enjoyed good sport
shooting ducks and geese, with prairie chickens for a change when
October came. At the opening of the season the ducks and chickens
were so tame it seemed a shame to kill them, but after a while they
became very wild and it took considerable skill to get near enough for
a shot. I remember one day when we were completely out of meat
and I had no money to buy more, and only half a dozen cartridges were
left. I started out with my gun, promising the boys I would mot
come back till I got something. Everybody was packing a gun
wherever he went at that time, and the ducks and chickens were so
scared that they seemed able to smell a hunter half a mile away.
However, there was a large slough two miles from home where I had seen
before a large flock of geese and without venturing to look to see if
there were any there, I lay down flat about a quarter of a mile from
the water and wriggled on my stomach through the long grass. As I
got near I heard a “honk, honk” and when I parted the grass at the edge
of the lake, I saw fully five hundred geese swimming around in the
water and not one hundred yards away. It was a pretty sight,
especially to a hungry man. I must confess, I was not sportsman
enough to make them fly before I shot, but banged away into the middle
of them and got three with my first shot, and two more with the second
barrel as the geese rose and filled the air. I waded into the mud
and water to get them and used the rest of my cartridges to put the
finishing touch on some of the geese that were only wounded. And
what a reception I got when I arrived home staggering under my
burden! I have shot bigger bags before and since, but I never did
another bit of shooting that gave me quite so much satisfaction.
December 20, 1913 p. 19 &f 28
As a Hired Girl
An experience I shall not soon forget was a couple of weeks at
threshing time when I took on the job of cooking for the gang.
Homesteaders have to work at all kinds of jobs sometimes, but they have
not all had the distinction of working out as a “hired girl.” It
was stook threshing and there were twenty men on the job, including the
bachelor farmer for whom I first cooked and his men, and though the
thresherman’s appetite is proverbial, I never realized before how much
food men could really eat. I prepared the day before the
threshers arrived by baking a big batch of apple and raisin pies – not
“like mother used to make” but solid and substantial at least – and a
bushel or so of doughnuts, which did not prove so satisfying. The
outfit started work at 6 a.m., so breakfast, consisting of beefsteak
and potatoes had to be ready at five, which meant that I had to be on
the job at four. I cooked roast beef for dinner and boiled beef
for supper, with potatoes, cabbage and turnips from the garden, and pie
or apple sauce, prunes or rice pudding at each meal. Supper was
at seven, so that the men were working out doors for twelve hours a day
besides doing their chores, and they had a right to be hungry.
But while they worked twelve hours, I put in seventeen with hardly a
minute that I was not on the go. The actual cooking did not seem
a great deal of work, but the jobs of dish washing and potato peeling
and the constant trips for water to a well a quarter of a mile away,
made me glad I was not a woman all the time. I made quite a hit
as a cook though, and my fame evidently spread, for when the outfit
moved on after a week’s work the next farmer they went to got me to go
along and help his wife. Sleeping accommodation was scarce and at night
when the supper dishes were washed, potatoes peeled, steak cut and wood
made ready for the morning, I found myself a resting placed on a pile
of bagged potatoes, in the log stable in the stall next to old “Dan”
who used to be a trotting stallion, but now helps pull the plow.
Potatoes may be considered a hard bed, but if they were, I did not know
it, for I had no sooner lain down, it seemed to me, before I saw a
lantern flash and heard someone say, “Ho, Cookie- quarter of four – get
up.”
Xmas on the Homestead
I was away from the homestead for six weeks in the early winter,
earning a few much needed dollars, and so had to remain until the end
of January to complete my second year’s residence duties. This,
of course, meant Christmas on the homestead. I had spent the
previous Christmas on the prairie, but that was shortly after I had
commenced homesteading and when I was full enough of enthusiasm to
enjoy anything that had the spice of novelty about it. The first
Christmas day I spent at the home of my friend Shepley, with three
other bachelor guests. It was different from any Christmas I had
ever spent before, but not the least enjoyable by any means. We
had very little of the usual paraphernalia of Christmastime.
There was no Christmas tree, no holly, no mistletoe, and no girls to
kiss under it if there had been. But what really counts at
Christmas is a spirit of goodwill, a good dinner and a good appetite to
enjoy it. We had all of these. Shepley had been to town and
might have stayed there over the festive season, but he would not
disappoint the rest of us, and came back the night before with a pair
of nice fat ducks and a plum pudding. We all contributed
something to the bill of fare, and took turns at cooking and sawing
wood outside so that all should have appetites appropriate to the
occasion. Chicken soup preceded the roast duck, and plum pudding
and mince pies followed, and the feeling of sweet content that seemed
to steal over us all when we drew around the stove after dinner, made
us forget the homesickness which we all no doubt felt, but which no one
spoke about.
The second Christmas was different. We had by this time extended
our acquaintance considerably, and had discovered that there were some
ladies living in the neighborhood after all. We started to
celebrate on Christmas Eve, and with two teams and sleighs gathered up
a merry party of nearly twenty. We first went to a Doukhobor
village, and with one of the ladies of the party dressed as Santa
Claus, beard and all, visited each house leaving toys for the children
and having a great time generally. Then we went off to another
village, where the Catholic members of the party attended service
before we returned home in the early hours of the morning. The
festivities were renewed as soon as we had had a few hours’ sleep and
had done our chores, and the whole neighborhood started on a round of
visits which lasted till the New Year.
Social Life on the Prairie
Sometimes a bunch of a dozen or more would descend unannounced upon
some unsuspecting bachelor just as he was preparing for bed and proceed
to make ourselves at home in his shack. In case his pantry should
not be well supplied, we always took some eatables along, as well as a
few packs of cards and usually some kind of musical instrument.
When travelling on the prairie at night one is apt to get lost, so
being careful people we generally waited for daylight and breakfast
before dispersing. Those were good times, and no one who has not
taken part in the social life of a prairie settlement can understand
how enjoyable it can be made.
When I went to town in the fall, I had sold the cow and a newly arrived
calf, and disposed of the oxen for the winter by lending them to
another homesteader, who undertook to care for them till spring in
return for the use of them in hauling logs, fence posts and firewood
from the bush. I could not get what I considered a fair price for
the cow and calf in cash, which was a very scare article in that
district then, so I sold them for twelves acres of breaking to be done
the following summer, this work being worth $36 at the price prevailing
in the district.
Putting in the Crop
At the beginning of February, having two years’ duties done, I went to
Winnipeg, where I worked at various jobs until spring. I saved a
little money during this time, sold some lots which I had bought before
I homesteaded, and with all the money I could scrape up returned to the
farm in time for seeding. I bought another yoke of oxen, horses
still being beyond my means, and got an old seeder cheap from a man who
was buying a new one. Then when I had seeded my forty acres with
wheat I went to work breaking again, and with four oxen on the plow
made better time than the previous summer, sometimes turning over two
acres a day. I hired a man for a short time to help with the
grubbing. I was alone most of the summer, however, and having to
do my own cooking, as well as put in a long day in the field, made me
heartily sick of batching. Except on Sundays, which was washing
day about once a month, I never gave myself time to cook proper meals,
and in the evenings there was always something to be fixed or an errand
to do. To drive the oxen to the store and back, a journey of
twelve miles, took half a day and I did most of my errands on a bicycle
after supper.
A Good Harvest
That summer for the first time I went into debt. The fact that I
had oxen, which were paid for, and a crop growing, and had nearly
completed my homestead duties, enabled me to get credit at the store
and also to buy some machinery and lumber on time. My first
purchases were a disk, harrow, a binder and a wagon. I also put up a
rough stable for the oxen and a small granary, and bought a dozen hens
which kept me supplied with eggs. I broke sixty acres that summer,
including twenty acres that I plowed for another man at $3 an acre, and
got it all well disked and harrowed by harvest time. My crop
turned out well, averaging 24 bushels to the acre in spite of the fact
that the land where I had grown flax the year before yielded very
little. This gave me nearly 1,000 bushels of wheat which graded
No. 2 Northern, and I thus had almost 850 bushels to sell after
providing for next year’s seed. A new railroad had been built to
within fourteen miles of my place since I homesteaded, and I hauled
enough of the wheat right after the freeze up to pay my debts,
including the first payment on my machinery, and then
sold the four oxen for $200, payable in the spring, and went to town
for the winter. When I came back again I did not consider myself
a homesteader any longer, but a full blown farmer. I was not a
bachelor either – but that is another story.
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