Across The Prairie In A Motor Caravan Part 8

CHAPTER XV

ON THE RETURN JOURNEY

The Chautauqua at Youngstown was now over, but we heard all about it from Mrs. S. It consists of meetings, with lectures on all sorts of international and intellectual subjects, interspersed with concerts and social gatherings. It seems a very good plan for places far from large centres of human life and thought. By this means they are brought into touch with modern movements. Speakers from all over the world lecture at these Chautauquas. Mrs. Pankhurst was speaking at this one.

That night we gave our promised picture talk around the caravan. We had a mixed congregation of Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Lutherans. The children seemed most interested, and would hardly go away. The Anglicans were without a clergyman at present, and they felt this privation very keenly. They had had one of the Railway Mission clergy, who had lived here and worked the surrounding district. The four missioners who had served this district at different times had all been killed in the War. Now no one was forthcoming owing to the distressing dearth of clergy. Everything was ready should anyone be sent. Monetary support was guaranteed. The vicarage was a nice little two-roomed shack with a garage and Ford car all complete. The church was dusty from long disuse, and Winifred spent all Sat.u.r.day cleaning it. The furniture had been made by one of the congregation. It was of some dark wood and of very original design. The asphalt path from the church to the vicarage had been laid by a Roman Catholic neighbour. This same spirit of goodwill was shown when I went to buy gasolene and oil from a Youngstown Roman Catholic. He refused to take any money for it, saying that he was glad to help on religious work amongst the children.

On Sunday we held a Sunday school at 3 p.m. The children were most eager for instruction; they knew almost nothing, poor little things. In the evening we had a service for adults in the church. A man took the collection in his hat because they could find nothing else. He carried it up the aisle and gave it to me, and as I laid it on the altar I felt that it was a more acceptable offering than many a laden alms dish offered that night in some rich cathedral. Here, as in many places, we were asked who paid us. When we explained that we were not paid, it seemed to give the people a better grasp of spiritual things. In this country of growing materialism, in which the monetary value of a thing is of first importance, it was difficult for them to understand anyone doing honorary work. They began to think religious education must be of real importance when they saw that we considered the work its own reward. The congregation asked us to keep the collection money for our work, so we thanked them and promised to use it towards paying for the pictures which we left at each place.

In all the parishes which we visited we left a dozen Nelson pictures backed on linen, with wooden slips top and bottom so that they could be hung up in the church, and also some small Nelson pictures for use in cla.s.s, as well as lesson books of different grades. Where the Canadian Sunday School magazine was in use the teachers found these additional books useful to supplement it both in matter and method.

We discovered that there were several outlying missions which had been worked from Youngstown, so we decided to visit the nearer ones, and take the others on our way back to Regina. On the Monday we went to Ryson and looked up the children at the farms and got them to join the Sunday School by Post. At one farm we were thankful to take shelter as a thunderstorm was raging. The farmer's wife was away, but he and two of his brothers were at home. The farmer was a great student of the Bible, so he and I had a theological discussion under cover of the piano where Winifred and the brothers made music.

After another day or two's visiting we started for Cereal, but lost our way and did not arrive until 10 p.m. Here, also, we took the names of several children for the Sunday School by Post. The next day we went to Stimson, over a very bad trail. We addressed the children in the afternoon, had supper at a farm, and then held a service in the school, with prayers, hymns, and address. The latter was given under difficulties. Several small children came with their parents, and several dogs accompanied their masters. Presently one baby fell down and began to cry, whereupon all the other babies howled in sympathy and all the dogs began to bark. I tried to make my voice heard above the din, but Winifred came to the rescue by collecting children and dogs and taking them all outside. Afterwards we discussed the best way to start a Sunday School, and took names for the Sunday School by Post in case it proved impossible.

We started about 8 a.m. next morning for Alsask and Kindersley. We meant to go over a hundred miles that day. The trails were awful, however, and presently we came to a graded place which was all loose earth, and the car skidded badly, running off the grade and sticking at an angle of 45 degrees. We unloaded, and when I got in again to drive it I had to hold fast to the wheel in order to keep my seat, the slope was so great. But I managed to get back to the trail. We reached Alsask about 2 p.m. and found Mr. H. there, who wanted to be taken on to Kindersley. After five miles the car stopped dead. On examination I found that the hub of a back wheel was broken in half. Just then two men came along in a car and said they were going to Alsask, so they took me and the wheel. While it was being mended I bought some food to take back with me to the others, but had to wait an hour or so till the men were ready to return. They took me back to the caravan, and I put the wheel on again and we started once more. But the car still went badly. Then we came to a steep hill newly graded, which we could hardly get up. At last I found that I must put in new sparking plugs, a difficult job in the dark. Whilst I was doing this Winifred had a splendid view of a distant electrical storm.

It was a magnificent sight to see the lightning flashes playing on a vast expanse of sky.

Then we came to a nightmare of a road, very steeply graded and with loose hard clods about 3 feet deep on the top. These nearly knocked the bottom out of the engine, so I had to drive on the side at an incredible angle, expecting every moment to be overturned, though my companions were steadying the van with might and main, the one hanging on to one side, and the other propping up on the other. Every now and then we had to stop and unload, or else we must have capsised. We arrived at Kindersley about 2.30 a.m., and found Mr. and Mrs. W. still waiting up for us with a splendid supper prepared, to which we did full justice.

About four in the morning a tremendous thunderstorm came on. I woke up with a start and suddenly remembered that I hadn't covered up the engine, so I scurried out to do so, otherwise my sparking plugs would have been ruined and the whole of the engine flooded. The difficulty was to keep the tarpaulin on, as there was always a big wind. I made up my mind that another year the engine should have a proper mackintosh cover to clip on.

We could not start for another twelve hours because the trails were so heavy after the storm. The Chautauqua had reached Kindersley now. The big brown tent was pitched just opposite the vicarage and I heard the singing, but had no time to go to any of the lectures, unfortunately. We did not leave for Rosetown till 4 p.m., but we arrived there at 9 p.m., a seventy mile run.

The next day (Sunday) we went on to Dinsmore, where the vicar lived whom we had met before at Bounty. We had not been able to hear from him, but knew he expected us to take a Sunday School and address parents somewhere in his district that afternoon. We started about noon, but lost our way, and when we inquired at a farm were wrongly directed, so we did not get to Dinsmore till 2.30. Just as we were entering the town we got on to a rough trail with a lot of big clods. A front wheel struck one of these and badly bent the steering-rod, which made it very difficult to steer the van, as it kept veering towards the left of the trail all the time. When we reached the vicarage we found the vicar had gone, but I knew that he had a service at Surbiton on Sunday afternoons and so asked the way there. The caravan got more and more difficult to steer. I tried to straighten the steering-rod with a tyre iron, but it was not strong enough. Then we came to a creek where there had been a bad wash-out, and a board up across the trail said "No road." But I noticed that cars had been going over the creek a little to the right, which meant going down a hill like the side of a house, over the stream, and up an equally steep hill on the other side. One needs to steer particularly well on these occasions, but I had to risk it and got across somehow.

At last we arrived at the school-house at Surbiton, and singing told us that service was going on. We crept in and found the room full; some of the congregation were even sitting in the porch. The Sunday School was over, but I was asked to give an address to the people.

The vicar had to go on immediately to another service, but he had a puncture and no spare tube, so I lent him one of mine. He introduced us to the Sunday School superintendent and her husband. She was most anxious to learn anything about methods. All the children of every denomination attended her school. She invited us to stop to supper, and it finally ended in our camping in their yard for nearly a week. We wanted to teach the children, so our host and hostess suggested that they should be invited to a cricket match, and have a picture talk afterwards in the evening. They complained of the lack of organised games for the children, a thing we had already noticed. Here and there a teacher would organise a base-ball team, and that was all. One felt how invaluable it would be to have more Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. The difficulty here lies in the lack of people for Guiders and Scout-masters.

The cricket match could not take place till after school, then the children arrived in cars and buggies, and we had a splendid game. We played till it was too dark to see, and then had the Bible picture talk by the light of the moon and the headlights of the cars. The day-school master and the parents standing behind the children seemed just as interested as the latter were.

CHAPTER XVI

AMONG THE PRAIRIE FARMS

Our host and hostess were charming, cultured people. He and his brothers, 'Varsity men, were farming in a little colony of their own. He was a member of the Provincial Parliament, or Senate. Our hostess was a trained nurse from St. Bartholomew's. She had been matron at a hospital in Rosetown, and she still helped in cases of illness whenever she had time. She told us how badly nurses were needed on the prairie. She was also President of the local Grain Growers' a.s.sociation, which is similar to the Home-Makers' Club and the Women's Inst.i.tutes--we got the latter idea from Canada. The chief aim of these a.s.sociations is the selling of farm produce and the general betterment of home and rural life. Our hostess was one of those who saw the need for a higher moral standard in the country, and her a.s.sociation had appealed to the Senate to that effect.

They were most kind and hospitable, and insisted on our having meals with them. The farm hands sat at the same table--in this democratic country no longer below the salt. On several evenings I went with our host and his children to play cricket at other farms, and I noticed that the farm-hands and everyone else joined in the game.

It was very interesting to go round the farm and see all the wonderful labour-saving devices. They had cut the hay and were getting it in. The term "wild and woolly West" is said to have originated from the "prairie wool," or natural hay, which is specially luxuriant on dried-up sloughs.

It is a gra.s.s with a fluffy, golden-brown plume. But this natural hay can only be cut every other year, hence many farmers are sowing hay seeds as well. The wagon which they use for carting hay and wheat has enormously high rack-like sides. On this farm, when carting hay, an immense canvas sheet with rings at the corners is put in the wagon and the hay piled up on it. When a wagon-load reaches the barn, a rope attached to a pulley in the barn roof is put through the four rings of the sheet, the horses are taken out of the shafts and harnessed to the pulley-rope, and the whole load is swung up into the barn, along a rod, and on to the rick. The whole operation only takes three minutes. There was a blacksmith's shop on this farm, and as some of the metal on my shock-absorber had broken, our host cut me a piece of metal, and I mended it with his a.s.sistance--a job which entailed lying under the car for an hour with earth falling into one's eyes. The vicar was famous as a "fixer" of broken-down Fords, and one day he came to the farm with his children to gather Saskatoon berries.[7] Whilst he was waiting for the party to start, he and our host took out my steering-rod and straightened it at the forge. As he put it back he eyed me solemnly and remarked: "I suppose you know that your two lives depend on this rod."

One very hot night we were sleeping in the van with all the doors wide open for the sake of coolness. I woke up suddenly to a tremendous clap of thunder with terrific forked lightning and a hurricane of wind, and hailstones the size of a hen's egg. I sprang up and pulled the wind-screen to and shut the side doors, and then woke up Winifred and told her that we must hold on to the back doors for dear life. If once the wind got in it would certainly overturn the van. How we got through the next half-hour I cannot tell. There was no catch inside the back doors, as we always bolted them from the outside, but so sudden and terrific was the storm that there was no time to run round and bolt them. The wind would have swept you off your feet, and you might have been struck by the lightning. For the same reasons it was impossible to make a dash for the farmhouse, and even if we had got there safely by any chance, the caravan would have been smashed to atoms as soon as an open door gave entrance to the wind. The only thing to do was to hold the back doors with our fingers in the c.h.i.n.ks, though how we managed it I do not know. The alternative was to abandon the caravan and lie flat on the ground, as one was advised to do in cyclones, but in this case we might have been killed by lightning. All through that half-hour the van quivered like a live thing, and we expected every minute that it would be blown away or broken in. I have never felt so near death. The storm lessened after a time, and then I bolted the back doors. In the morning we found that the farmhouse had been nearly flooded by the torrential rain, a stream of water having poured through the house. They had looked out at us anxiously from time to time, but could no more reach us than we could get to them when the storm was at its worst. Two great hay-wagons had been blown several yards into a fence, and we heard that a shack eight miles off had been blown over, and the settler had had all his limbs broken. We had often heard of these storms before. On one occasion such a storm burst upon a prairie school, smashing in the windows. The young teacher gathered the children into the porch, where they escaped injury. But when they returned to their homes most of them found the shacks blown over and their parents killed. A neighbouring school was entirely wrecked and the teacher and children killed.

On the Sat.u.r.day, when the trails had dried up, we started for Birdview.

We were now entering the dried-out area again, but the sand-drifts had sunk a good deal and become more compact, so we managed to get the caravan through, though she skidded a bit. We camped by the little prairie church, built miles away from any farm so that it might be in the most central spot for each. Beside it stood the vicarage, a one-roomed shack with a cellar beneath. There was also a good-sized parish hall and a stable for the parishioners' horses. This complete isolation has its perils. During the influenza epidemic in 1918 one of the clergy lay here helpless for three days before anyone knew that he was ill.

We stayed here for a week, having the place all to ourselves. We cleaned out the shack and had our meals in it, sleeping in the van. It was intensely hot, and we found the cellar a great boon for our b.u.t.ter, etc.

These cellars are a necessity on the prairie, keeping your food cool in summer and your house warm in winter. Mrs. M., the farmer's wife who had arranged for our visit here, used to bring us water and milk and eggs from her farm two miles away. The well at the shack was now very low.

She also drove us to visit a day-school teacher who had promised to carry on the Sunday School if we started it. We held the school on Sunday, and two prospective teachers listened. After school there was a most excellent tea in the parish hall, provided by the parents who had brought the children. Delightful _al fresco_ meals are a feature of prairie life. After tea we held a service in the church. We had made it as beautiful as possible, with golden rod in the altar vases. Members of the Women's Auxiliary had cleaned it thoroughly for us. This service will always remain in my memory. There were people of all ages present, and a large number of men, both middle-aged and young. Winifred played, and I read the service and gave the address. We had a shortened form of evensong. For the lessons I selected pa.s.sages from the Gospels about our Lord and the children. I also used some of the beautiful prayers written for the Forward Movement--in particular, the one for a parish left without a clergyman. We chose well-loved hymns, such as "Rock of Ages,"

from the Canadian hymn-book, which is beautifully called "The Book of Common Praise." It is the best collection of hymns which I have ever seen, including suitable ones for both children and adults. There is also a Canadian prayer-book, some of the prayers being for the special needs of the country, such as the prayer in time of drought. We used this one at the service on behalf of this dried-out area.

I spoke on the importance of religious education, building up my theme from the Gospel readings of the lessons. I tried to show how juvenile crime had increased in countries which neglected the spiritual welfare of the children. I ended by reminding them that, just as they had chosen a font for their War Memorial, so the children, properly trained, would be a living memorial of those who had laid down their lives for Christian ideals. It was very easy to draw a.n.a.logies between the spiritual life of the child and the growth of the wheat, which is so easily prevented by storms and drought from coming to its full perfection.

At the close of the service we went to the door to say good-bye to the people. I was very touched to see that some of them were crying, no doubt from memories which the old familiar hymns and prayers had brought to mind.

The next day we were invited to supper at a farm five miles off. On the way we had a feast of beauty from the flowers, which were especially glorious now. This is the native land of golden rod and Michaelmas daisies. I have never seen such a variety of the latter--little white ones growing low on the ground, little pale mauve ones, and great bushes of deep mauve and yellow ones. There were also perennial sunflowers with beautiful dark centres, and fine erigerons. At last we arrived at the farm. It was a melancholy sight, almost buried in sand, and the farmer was leaving it. In spite of being very badly off they gave us a most delicious supper--roast chicken and layer cake and fruit and tea. It was especially welcome just then as I had been doing a lot of cooking that week, so a meal which I had not prepared was a great treat. (This may be taken in two ways.)

The next day we taught in the day school and enrolled some children for the Sunday School by Post. Then we went on and paid several visits, finishing up at Mrs. M.'s farm, where we had supper. It was wonderful to see her small son, aged three or four, rounding up cattle mounted on a tall steed. This infant had already made our acquaintance, driving over to our shack all by himself to bring us eggs.

On Thursday we left for Swanson, nearly sticking in the sand more than once. At last the sub-radius rod broke with our continual skidding, but I was able to get another at a hardware store on the way. We reached Swanson that night and camped by the church. Next day we went to see the farmer's wife who had promised to get the people together to meet us.

The family consisted of Mrs. Z., a widow, her daughter, and two sons. As we drove up we saw that the wheat was being cut. Some of the binders were drawn by motor tractors and others by horses. After the tea-supper, which is the last meal of the day, Winifred went to the piano to play songs for the girl. I noticed that the two brothers looked very tired after their day's work, and guessed that they were waiting up for us as I had seen that our room led through another. At last in desperation they went to bed, and we found them fast asleep when we went through.

This shack was in advance of many, as it had a door between the rooms instead of a curtain, but the girl ingenuously suggested that as it was a hot night we should leave the door open.

The next day we went out to help them stook the wheat. It was a beautiful sight, the sky so very blue and the wheat so very golden. I felt quite at home at this job, though one had to stook from a quarter to half a mile before turning, and the sheaves in the stooks were placed in a circle instead of in our English way. Their aim is to keep out the sun and wind, which would dry the wheat too much, whereas ours, of course, is to let them in. They told us that a stooking machine had been invented, but it was not very satisfactory as yet. The wheat usually stands only a week in stook, and is then threshed on the field.

The rack (_i.e._, wagon) is accompanied by a loader (elevator) which shoots up the sheaves into the rack. When this is full it is driven to the thresher. This differs from our English threshing machine. Instead of coming out in bundles, the straw is cut fine and blown out of a funnel, acc.u.mulating in a heap on the ground. It is left there all winter, being used either as fodder or as fuel. The grain pours down a great pipe into a wagon, instead of being put into bags as with us. The wagon is then driven off to the nearest "depot," where there is always an elevator, as the tall buildings used for storing the wheat are called out here. The wagon drives into the building, where it is weighed with its freight. Then the wheat is tipped out and taken up to the store rooms above. From there it is shot down a pipe into railway trucks, and sent by train to Fort William on the Great Lakes. There it is cleaned and again stored in elevators, and then poured down a great pipe into the grain boats which carry it down the Great Lakes. Then it goes by train to Montreal and Quebec, where there are even greater elevators, whence it is sent all over the world.

We were told that this was the first good harvest in that district for five years, which shows what a gamble prairie farming is. What with drought and late frosts in spring, and hail and rain when the wheat is ripe, the result must always be uncertain. The farmers are obliged to put all their eggs into one basket, as they cannot store a root crop in winter owing to the intense frost. A daily paper, dated September, 1921, has the following news from Montreal: "Two feet of snow fell in the district of Saskatchewan, causing much damage to crops and bringing the snow-ploughs out. Drenching rains throughout the remainder of the province suspended harvesting and threshing. The storm is the worst for 25 years."

Of course I had put on my landworker's clothes to stook in, and to my surprise this caused a great sensation. They had never seen a landworker in real life, only pictures of them in the _Sketch_ and the _Daily Mirror_. They said the kindest things about British women war-workers.

[Footnote 7: Something like wortleberries.]

CHAPTER XVII

BACK TO REGINA

We returned to Swanson that evening in order to be ready for Sunday.

While we were hanging up pictures in the church two boys came in. We had already met these two out in the harvest field, and had asked them to come to Sunday School. One of them pointed to the cross on the altar, and asked, "What's that?" I found that he knew nothing about the Life of our Lord, so I showed him the picture of the Nativity, and from this and the other pictures told him the sacred story. The other boy joined in at intervals, supplementing my remarks. I found that he knew the story quite well, and asked him how it was that he knew so much, and he explained that he was a Roman Catholic. I told them that there would be Sunday School on Sunday afternoon, and asked them to come, which they did. (There was no Roman Catholic church in the place.) The children seemed to enjoy the school, and the teachers-to-be came to listen. A bad thunderstorm delayed us in beginning the service following, as the people could not get there. But they arrived eventually, and seemed to think the effort worth while. A few of the people from the Birdview district, who had attended our service on the previous Sunday, were among the congregation.

We were given an early supper by kind Mrs. T., who had mothered us when we were there before, and, thus fortified, started on our twenty-mile drive to the ferry over the Saskatchewan River, where we camped. There was another thunderstorm that night. I got up very early, and had an awful business cooking breakfast because of the raging wind. I had determined that on any future trips there should be a tin shield for the Primus, as digging a trench was of little use.

Meanwhile we heard that the ferry had not been running for several days, as the river had fallen and the sand had silted up. If I had known this sooner we might have crossed at Saskatoon, where there was a bridge, but we were now a hundred miles or more away. It was necessary to cross without loss of time, because Winifred wanted to catch the train at Outlook on the following evening. She was obliged to get back to England by an earlier boat than I was taking, because the tour had been prolonged beyond the original date, owing to weather and other difficulties.

When we had got down the steep, slippery trail to the river I found that the ferry-barge was not starting from the pier, but lower down stream where there was no pier, and between us and it was nothing but sand and mud and water in which the caravan would sink. There were two other cars waiting to cross. Their owners had gone over to Outlook in the ferry to get a team of horses to pull them through. Just at this moment a wagon and two fine horses drove down to the river bank. We explained our difficulty to the driver, and he offered to tow us on to the barge. The ferry-boat had now returned, and the touring cars were towed on with difficulty. The waggoner hitched us on to his wagon, and I asked Winifred to get out, as there was no reason why she should run the risk of being overturned. Then our wagon started, and I started the engine to help the horses, but this frightened them and they tried to bolt. The man shouted to me to switch off, which I did, but they still galloped on and seemed to be making straight for the river. Hitched on behind like this I was helpless. But the man was a splendid whip, and he knew his horses. He steadied them with his voice, and, getting them in hand, swung them sharply round and on to the barge, though still snorting and plunging in their fright. It was exceedingly difficult to steer the van round just at the right moment, but I managed it somehow. The barge men (our former friends) seemed to find it very hard work getting the heavily-laden boat across, with the wind against them. On the other side there was no pier to land on, only mud and water as before, so the waggoner offered to pull us ash.o.r.e. His horses were really magnificent--extraordinarily strong--for they pulled both the wagon and the laden van through the sand and water, past the touring cars stuck in the mud. The man refused to take any money for his services, though it was usual to charge a dollar or so for pulling out cars, etc. But only once in all our three months on the prairie, and with our numerous calls for help, would any man take money for his services to us. I am sure that our work was helped by our being women. Much more consideration was shown to us than would have been the case with men similarly situated.

Perhaps this is because there are fewer women than men out there. The men certainly seem to feel that they cannot do enough for them.