Across The Prairie In A Motor Caravan Part 5

Then followed the usual breathless moment when the car charged forward on to the horses' heels. The boy then directed us to take a certain trail, and after his recent display of prowess we naturally followed his advice. But we soon found ourselves going up a very steep and narrow track with a bank on one side and a sheer drop into a ravine on the other, and with literally not an inch to spare on either side. On the steepest part of this road the car stopped dead, and I had to keep my foot hard down on the foot brake to prevent it slipping backwards. There was nothing for it but to unload the heaviest things, and I could not get out to help, as the car would then have run back. Winifred opened the back doors so that I could see behind me, and I managed to get safely down to the bottom of the hill, though it was exceedingly difficult to back round the sharp corners. I then put on full speed and rushed the car up, and at the top we loaded her again, thinking that the worst was over. But as we went on we found the road was as narrow as ever, with a very bad surface, big stones cropping out here and there. I was driving, with one wheel low down in a rut and the other high up, when the car again stopped at a steep bit, and I had to jam on the brakes as before whilst Winifred unloaded. But when I tried to release the brakes I found that the hand brake had jammed, and I could not get out and hammer it free as the van would have run backwards when I shifted it. At this crisis two men came along and helped us, and between us we put the brake right and got the car to the top of the hill. This was the only bad hill we had found and the only stony road. We discovered afterwards that it was not the right trail for Elbow. The town is so named because the Saskatchewan River runs in a elbow-like curve through the ravine at the bottom of this hill, on the crest of which the town is built.

We went on beyond Elbow to Loreburn, and camped near the vicarage for the night. The vicar and his wife had only just arrived in the parish, with a little baby of a month old. She looked hardly fit to cope with all there was to do, but they insisted that we should come in to meals with them. I was the more grateful for this as I had had a difference of opinion with the spirit lamp, which blew up in my face and nearly blinded me.

This was the first occasion on which we used the tent, and its erection was something of a puzzle, as we had no sketch of the finished article, and had never seen it in action. But by the time I had it all laid out, and was wondering how I should put it up without help (Winifred having gone to the vicarage), some boys appeared, and said that they knew all about tents, and helped me splendidly. There was no difficulty about finding the children at our stopping places, for the caravan drew them like a magnet. We reversed Froebel's injunction--"Come let us live with our children"--for the children invariably came and lived with us. On occasions their company was so persistent as to be rather embarra.s.sing.

One never knew at what moment the tent would be invaded by eager visitors. They were most delightful children, extraordinarily intelligent and full of practical wisdom. It was truly a case of "development by self-activity." They freely offered a.s.sistance and advice when they saw we were in need of either. It was a five-year-old girl who noticed one evening that I had laid the potatoes outside the caravan, and thoughtfully warned me: "I shouldn't leave those potatoes out all night if I were you; the gophers will eat them."

[Ill.u.s.tration: DIGGING OUT THE WHEEL]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TENT, AND MY a.s.sISTANTS AT LOREBURN]

_To face p. 48_

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. & 2. HOUSEHOLD TASKS (see page 54)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 3. MR. M. AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE ON THE RAILWAY TRACK (see page 63)]

On that first night at Loreburn we had torrents of rain, and next morning the trails were deep in mud. But I had promised to drive the vicar into Elbow, as he had no buggy as yet. We skidded violently from side to side of the road all the way, and had more than one narrow escape from a slough--I had horrid visions of a congregation waiting indefinitely for a vicar hopelessly submerged. I put on the Parsons'

chains before making the return journey. This is a job one willingly defers till it is unavoidable.

Despite the weather there were many people at church, so I was glad that I had made the effort. These prairie services really were an inspiration. In the afternoon I superintended the Sunday school, which consisted as usual of children from six to sixteen. Winifred and I divided the children into two cla.s.ses, and the vicar and a teacher listened to our teaching. The greatest difficulty, here as elsewhere, was the grading of hymns and prayers. The best way seemed to be to open with devotions suitable to the infants and then to let them go off to another part of the church for their lesson while we had other prayers and hymns for the elder ones, closing the school in a similar manner; but if this made the session too long, we began with devotions suited to the younger children and closed with those more suited to the elder.

After school there was the usual family service, at which I specially noticed how well the organist played. We were afterwards invited to supper with him and his wife, and were interested to find that they used to live at Leeds and had sung at Morecambe Musical Festival.

Canadian meals are delicious, and we had a sumptuous supper--bacon and eggs, layer cake and stewed fruit, and strong tea, very acceptable after our sketchy caravan meals. After supper we had some good music, and the organist told us some of his experiences as a prairie choir-master. His choir showed talent, so he felt that they were capable of chanting the psalms, and trained them to do so. He kept this as a pleasant surprise for the congregation, and felt very proud of his pupils when they duly acquitted themselves well. But the real surprise was his. Next day most of the congregation waited upon him in a body and stated that they would not attend church in future if such High Church practices were followed.

We had obtained permission from the trustees of the public school at Loreburn to give religious instruction in school hours, as it was more convenient for us. I took the upper division, children of twelve to eighteen, and Winifred took the lower form, children of six to twelve, it being a two-roomed school. (In these prairie schools the scholars stay from six to eighteen.) The teachers were very nice. They showed interest in our work and listened to our lessons. As I could give them only one lesson, I wanted it to be one of permanent value, sufficiently connected with their everyday experience to recur frequently to their minds, so I spoke on the Union Jack, which floats over almost all of these little schools. I began with the splendid work of Canada in the War, and referred to the men of the widespread British Empire all united under one flag, thus leading on to the unity of Christian soldiers and telling the stories of the three saints whose crosses unite in the British flag. (A further bond of empire now is the photograph of the Prince of Wales, which is found everywhere in this neighbourhood since his visit to Regina.)

After the lesson we gave each child a prayer card and a picture of the "Hope of the World" or "The New Epiphany." It was very distressing to find that only two or three of the thirty children present knew the Lord's Prayer. Apropos of this a clergyman's wife told me how she had asked a child, "Do you know _Our Father_?" and the child answered, "No, but I know our grandfather."

The children seemed to hang on our words, listening with intense eagerness to the lessons. "They listen to lessons here in this country that they would never dream of attending to in the Old Country,"

Winifred wrote home. "One has no fear here of possibilities of naughtiness either. They are good without being disciplined, not restless like the children at home."

The intense hunger for knowledge holds these st.u.r.dy, open-air little people in a trance of breathless interest. It was their desire rather than our skill which exercised the spell, as we knew well.

CHAPTER X

ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES

It rained hard all next day, so I spent the time in making some things for the caravan; in particular, a wire cage for the electric bulb, which was always being knocked against and broken. One could never start directly the rain ceased, the trails were too bad, and when we did take the road on the following day we found a sea of mud. On the second day we arrived at Outlook, and camped above the ferry. There was no resident clergyman here, but a local lady did what she could for the spiritual needs of the children, holding a very successful Sunday School in the church, where she had arranged a beautiful "Children's Corner." A few suitable pictures and simple printed prayers were pinned on the wall within easy reach of kneeling children. They are encouraged to make this spot their special oratory. This particular "Corner" was arranged near the font, which seemed a specially suitable place for it. Unfortunately, we were unable to meet this lady, as she was ill, but we went to see the lay reader who took the services on Sunday.

After we had camped that night a young girl came to talk to us. She explained that she was very unhappy and unsettled with regard to religion. She had gone to the "Pentecostals," poor child, because she was deaf, and could hear their loud declamations; but she had received no sort of help from them. Her parents belonged to the Church of England, but since they had been in Canada the younger children had not been baptized. Presently the girl's mother joined us, and we made friends at once and had "a good crack" when we each found that the other came from c.u.mberland. She told me that she had been brought up a Baptist, but had joined the Church of England. I urged her to prepare her children for baptism herself, and have them baptized at the earliest opportunity. This she promised to do.

Next day we had to cross the Saskatchewan River, no easy task from all accounts. We had been regaled with hair-raising stories of how a man drove his car too fast down the pier to the ferry boat, which had not been linked up, and the car plunged into the river and was never seen again. The same fate overtook a man who fell out of his boat when mending the ferry cable. I was not quite at my best for this particular undertaking, as I had one eye badly swollen from a mosquito bite through forgetting to put on my net when sitting down to write a letter. There were three ways of getting down the river bank to the ferry pier. One road zig-zagged so sharply that the long caravan could not turn at the bend, and the paling just there was so frail that had we run into it we must have broken through and gone down a bank. The other road was strewn with huge stones, so I eschewed roads altogether, and went down the rough gra.s.s bank, swaying and b.u.mping and almost overturning, but it seemed the least perilous pa.s.sage. I took the car down while Winifred was on in front, looking for a better road, as there was no reason why we should both be upset. A narrow road led on to the pier, which was a long wooden structure built over the sand and mud of the river's edge.

The ferry, a wooden barge worked by a cable, was moored to the end of it, and I drove on to it cautiously. The men working the ferry were three Englishmen, who had served with the Canadian contingent, and they hailed the van delightedly as a long-lost friend, at first thinking it was an old motor ambulance from France. We took photos of them, whereupon they begged that we would not exhibit them as "specimens of the white heathen we met out there." "I felt indeed that we must look missionaries of the fiercest type," was Winifred's comment on this incident.

There was only one trail to Bounty, our next destination, so when we came suddenly on a dreadful hole right across the path, with a bank on either side of the road, there was nothing for it but to go on. I tried to rush across, and suddenly felt an awful concussion. I was flung up against the roof of the van and saw stars for the moment, but somehow or other we got across. Then I went round to see what damage was done to our baggage, etc., and found that a three-gallon tin of coal oil had been flung up and had come down upside down. There it was, standing on its cork. I next examined the engine, which seemed very odd. The gear pedal had gone wrong and everything was crooked. Then I saw that the bonnet was not fitting. I lifted it up and found that the whole engine was two or three inches out of the straight. I saw that I could not put things right myself, and so determined to try to reach the town.

Meanwhile, in this as in other mishaps, Winifred helped me enormously by sitting calmly on the bank reading a novel. She never fussed or made worrying exclamations, or hindered me by offering useless suggestions or unwanted a.s.sistance. She never complained, either, under the most trying circ.u.mstances, or made the slightest sound in those wild moments when we were nearly thrown out of the van by the roughness of the road.

We were five miles from Bounty, but I found that I could get along on low gear. A few miles farther on we came to another bad place, where the conduit had fallen in, but we managed to crawl through somehow. I was thankful to find a big garage at Bounty, with an efficient mechanic. He and I examined the car and found that the frame was sprung three inches on either side. He said that the body would have to be slung up and the engine taken out and a new frame put in, and that this would take a week to do. So we unloaded the van by the church, and took out the mattresses also for use in the tent, and then left the poor invalid at the garage.

There are garages in every prairie town, even in what we should call little villages, for in Saskatchewan there is a car for every two people. These garages are well fitted up, and have all the latest inventions. Outside all of them there is a petrol pump and a "Free Air"

cable for the convenience of pa.s.sers-by. The latter has a gasolene engine which pumps up the air, so that you can fill your tyres in a second. No one thinks of using a hand-pump unless he has a burst right out on the prairie.

We lived in the tent this week, with most of our baggage stored in the church porch. As usual, the children helped us to arrange our things. I had quite a holiday, with the caravan off my hands, but Winifred's duties went on as usual. We had apportioned the work as follows: she was to keep the interior of the van clean and do all the washing-up, whilst I drove, cleaned the engine, did repairs, etc., and cooked. Winifred's job was no sinecure. She hardly ever had much water for washing-up, so she used to clean the horrid greasy dishes and things with paper and then rinse them; and though I sometimes nearly threw her out of the van, she in turn sometimes kept me out of it when she was having a thorough clean up--a necessary evil after a muddy day or a dust-storm.

I wanted to telephone to Mr. W. at Regina, as he was holding my insurance policy for the car, so I asked permission to do so from a resident who had already greatly befriended us. When 'phoning I found it very difficult to hear what Mr. W. said; it seemed as if all the receivers were open. I was further distracted by hearing the owner of the telephone remark to Winifred, as she gazed at my back, "Eh! isn't she fat?" as who should say, "No wonder the frame was sprung!"

Next morning I walked to Conquest (six miles away) to interview the secretary of the Munic.i.p.al Council, as the inhabitants of Bounty thought that the hole should have been attended to, and advised me to claim damages. I failed to get any compensation, but Bounty benefited from our misfortune, as the hole was immediately filled up. Calling at the Conquest post-office for letters, the old postman remarked to me, "I have heard all about your accident. You girls, you drive too fast." It seemed that the entire district knew all the details, even to the cost of the repairs. I now remembered having heard that a favourite winter amus.e.m.e.nt on the prairie was to take down your receiver and listen to the conversations along the line. Report said that a certain courtship had in this way provided entertainment for the whole neighbourhood.

CHAPTER XI

SOME ASPECTS OF PRAIRIE LIFE

It was unfortunate that there was no Anglican Sunday School in this place, where we had perforce to spend a week. There were very few Anglicans there at all, but a great many Presbyterians and Nonconformists, who united to form a Union church and Sunday School.

There was a very nice Anglican church, but most of the congregation lived at farms some distance away, coming in for Sunday services, when the vicar also came in from one of his other districts. He came to see us on the Sat.u.r.day night, and explained that on the morrow there would be a United Family Service in the Anglican church, to which he was inviting all the members of the Union church. He asked us to write out and fix up notices about it. He also asked if we would give an address after the service on the need for religious instruction for the children.

Sunday was a very hot day, and with sinking hearts we realised that the congregation would be arrayed in lovely summer clothes, and that it was up to us not to discredit the Old Country. But it is difficult to look one's best when caravanning, and even one of Paquin's frocks would lose its bloom in a cotton bag, and the smartest hat would look dashed after the three-gallon oil tin had collided with it. Personally, I felt that my bravest efforts would be futile since Winifred's remark as we arose that morning: "Let me look and see if you are as much a fright as you were yesterday." When your nose and one eye have been entirely remodelled by a mosquito bite you do not look your best, nor can you be quite unselfconscious in public, and, alas! _I_ should have to give that address, for Winifred had flatly refused.

Patience is required when attending prairie meetings. What with the immense distances, varying clocks, and unexpected obstacles on the trails it is difficult to get anywhere to time. In this case we waited an hour for the organist, whose car had stuck in a mud hole. Winifred rose to the occasion, and was just making her way to the organ when the belated car was heard and the big bronzed young farmer hurried in.

The elders of the Union church preceded the vicar and his churchwardens up the aisle. The service was a shortened form of evensong, interspersed with many hymns. The sermon was a clear but non-controversial exposition of the Apostles' Creed. It was remarkable to notice how the preacher held the attention of all present, from the child of five to the old lady with grey curls. One hoped that this united worship might pave the way for union on Christian essentials, so that Christian teaching might be agreed upon for the schools and a united stand made against materialism and the many so-called Christian sects.

After service I was called upon to address the congregation. I had to speak from before the altar rails, there being no other place from which to command the congregation, except the pulpit, which I did not wish to occupy. As there had been a fairly long service, and the church was very full and very hot, I thought that a ten minutes' address would be sufficient. So I spoke briefly on the importance of religious education, leading up from the wonderful way in which Canadians had helped in the War, to the need for their help in warfare against evil. Christian soldiers must be trained, and a young country needs a Christian foundation. It is extraordinarily easy to hold the attention of a prairie congregation, and I was told afterward that they wished I had gone on longer. It is indeed a preacher's paradise.

The vicar had to leave at once for his next service. He motored about eighty miles each Sunday and took four services. But the rest of us held a kind of social gathering outside the church, where we had opportunities of studying the prairie fashions. Most of these gorgeous garments are ordered by post from Timothy Eaton's store in Toronto. His enormous ill.u.s.trated catalogue is sent yearly to every house, and is commonly called "The Prairie Bible." The children know it by heart, and amuse themselves on winter evenings by cutting out and colouring the fashion plates, with the embarra.s.sing result that when they see a neighbour in her new spring costume they remark, "Oh, Mrs. So-and-So's new hat is on page 603, price so many dollars."

We had a washing-day on the Monday. When near a farm they allowed us to take our blouses, etc., and wash them with their apparatus, as the c.h.i.n.ks, who did our heavy washing, ruined the finer things.

On the Tuesday we went to Swanson by train (the trains only ran on certain days in the week). This had been one of the centres of the Railway Mission, and was worked with Birdview, but they had had no services for about a year, owing to the scarcity of clergy, and they felt the privation very much. The Railway Mission had now come to an end, and there were no clergy to supply these districts. We went to see the leading church people, with a view to taking Swanson on our return journey if it seemed possible to start a Sunday School there. We were told that there was no Sunday School of any kind thereabouts, and were advised to go to the day school and beat up recruits, which we did with great success. A farmer's wife promised to gather the people together for us when we came again, so that we could hold a demonstration school and a parents' meeting.

We wished to visit Birdview, but no train ran there that day. Our friend Mrs. T., however, said that her son should drive us in a car. A terrible sandstorm blew up, and we were almost blinded in the open car.

We realised once more the advantage of a caravan. Great drifts of sand lay on the trail, and the car skidded from side to side, but we got there. Mrs. T. had arranged by telephone that we were to stay the night with a storekeeper and his wife. There were not many church people in Birdview, so I wanted to go out to a little mission church in the centre of outlying farms which used to be worked by the Railway Mission. The only way to get there was by car, and the storekeeper thought that no hired car would face the storm. But, happily, the wind dropped and the sand subsided, and we found a car to take us. So the storekeeper's wife and I started off.

We were now in one of the "dried out" areas. There are certain belts of land in Saskatchewan which, when first taken up, nearly twenty years ago, proved very fertile. But over-cultivation, though advised by the Board of Agriculture in order to conserve the moisture, had rendered the soil so fine that most of it had blown away. It had been of no great depth to start with, and the sand below it had come to the surface, and now blew in great drifts. As the wheat came up, the flying clouds of sand cut it down, and even buried the scrub. Little vegetation was visible, and what wheat there was the gra.s.shoppers devoured. They were enormous things, 3 inches long. They flew into the car with a great "plop," and even jumped down my clothes. The farmers hereabouts were ruined, and n.o.body would take their farms. They had not sufficient capital to start again. Yet with all this they kept up their courage and hoped for better days.

When we reached the little church we stuck fast in a big drift, but I took the wheel while the man pushed, and at last we got out. We went on to the leading farmer's, where they welcomed us warmly. They had had no services there for a very long time. I explained that we should like to visit the place on our way back if they would collect the people to meet us. The farmer's wife expressed great delight at the idea. They had been so long without a clergyman, and had so much appreciated services when they had them. She found it very difficult, she said, to keep Sunday when there was nothing to remind her of the day. They felt their spiritual privation, especially now that their material troubles were so great.

I noticed here, as in many other places, an almost conscience-stricken look on the parents' faces when I mentioned the necessity of religious instruction for the children. It was not that they did not wish their children to be taught religious truths, but that they themselves were so cruelly overworked that they had no time for the care and forethought which the preparation of a lesson entails. When you work all the week from 5 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m. you are exceedingly tired on Sunday; and yet there is still some necessary work to be done if you live on a farm.

But give these parents some idea of how and what to teach, with a suitable book to follow and pictures to ill.u.s.trate the subjects, and they will do their very best, often making most excellent teachers. It is in places like this that the Sunday School by Post helps so greatly, especially in winter, when the children cannot attend a Sunday school at a distance.

We returned to Birdview that night (sticking again in the sand-drift on the way). Our kind host and hostess refused to let us pay for our entertainment. We were continually receiving most generous hospitality all the time we were on the prairie. We were never allowed to pay for our milk and eggs at a farm, and we were invited to many meals, which greatly helped our resources. We hardly liked to accept so much, knowing as we did how badly off the farmers sometimes were. But we knew how hurt they would have been had we refused. Their generosity was a great lesson in almsgiving. They always treat all missionaries in this way.