MEMOIRS OF GORDON WOLSELEY STEWART - Chronology Added by Kris S

GORDON WOLSELEY STEWART

1885 Ottawa ON
Gordon Wolseley Stewart was born in Ottawa, Ontario, on January 4th, 1885; the eldest son of Lt. Col. and Mrs. John Stewart. There were four children in the family; Gordon, Harry, Maida
and Andrew. 

When Gordon was born; the question of a name for the babe came up, and his Mother suggested "John Stuart Stewart", but his Father did not like the name About that time General Gordon (or Chinese Gordon as he was called) was in deep trouble in Egypt, and Lord Wolseley was sent to relieve Gordon. Wolseley was two days late, and Gordon had been destroyed. There was a great deal of talk and writing of the event, and as all liked the names, the baby was called after the two generals, Gordon Wolseley.

Lt. Col. John Stewart was a contractor who built quite a few of the Ottawa Government buildings, as well as the large riding building in Regina which burned a few years ago. He was building the Armories in Toronto when he suffered a heart attack that proved fatal. The estate was badly mismanaged, and in the end there was nothing left.

1894
Gordon was 9 when his Father passed away. He later completed two years in Public School Leaving Class, a class for boys who could not attend Collegiate.

Gordon Wolseley Stewart 2
At that time there was an exodus of settlers leaving for the great Western Prairies, and Gordon thought he would like to go. An Aunt, Mrs. Kate Taylor, wrote to a friend in Indian Head, Assiniboia (now Saskatchewan) asking if there was a chance of a job for Gordon if he went West. Mrs. McKay (the friend Aunt Kate had written to) knew Mr. J. H. Francis, a wealthy farmer of Indian Head and asked him if he could take Gordon on his farm staff. Mr. Francis replied that Gordon could report for work any time, so at the age of seventeen, Gordon left for the prairies.

1902
Dear Mother:
The last words I heard you say as the train pulled away from the station at Cornwall, was "be sure and write". And Uncle Charlie said "see you back in three months". Well, I will try to write every week, but about the three months, only time will tell. (I did not get back to the East for 47 years, never again to Cornwall.) I was glad the train stopped for so few minutes, for I felt tears coming, and I hate crying.

The train got to Ottawa without incident, and changed to the transcontinental, and what a train. It seemed so long, and had three kinds of coaches, colonist, next to the engine, tourist, as I was in, then first class at the end, with a diner between the tourist and first class. I had a lower berth, and had a very comfortable night, but did not enjoy the lunch Aunt Kate made for me, but it was better than nothing. I was afraid to go to the diner as I heard the prices charged for meals were very high.

During the day the negro porter came and asked me if I would trade my lower berth for an upper as a lady in the car ahead had two small children and could only get an upper berth and was having trouble getting up to it. I did not mind, and she was very
gracious in her thanks, but did not offer me the difference in cost, which I could have used. The porter changed the luggage, and I slept as well in the upper as in the lower.

The second day out I was sitting close to the open window enjoying the breeze, when suddenly something struck my eye and was it sore! I started to rub it, when a man in the seat accross the isle said, "you've got a cinder". It felt like quite a big rock. He came beside me, took my hands between his knees, and with my handkerchief, got the cinder out. That was sure a lucky thing, for I would have rubbed it in, and only a doctor could have got it out. I was lucky that man knew what to do and did it.

Next day I was not so lucky. Just after lunch, the conductor came to me and said I would have to get off at the next station, which was Broadview He said the train did not stop at Indian Head and I would have to get the local which did stop at Indian Head as it was called. This was Saturday, and the local did not run till Monday. I did not know any better, so got off that train and went to the hotel near the station, When a man was taking me to a room, I asked how much it would cost, and he said 25˘ a night and 25˘ a meal. What a rellef’ as I could finance that.

There were a number of men around the hotel, and they were very friendly. One told me I should have stayed on that train, they sold me a ticket to that point, and unless it said no stopping there, they would have to let me off, but in any case they stopped all right to take water for the engine. He asked how I would like to go on a freight that left early Monday, and I thought that would be fine, so he arranged with the conductor of the freight to take me. But the worst was, the local passenger passed the freight a couple of stations before we got to the Head. But it was an experience going on the freight.

I found Mrs. McKay all right, and she suggested I stay with her for the day and find Mr. Francis when he got home in the evening, which I did. She had a nephew living with her, about my age, and he took me around to see the town. It is so different from Broadview, there are trees at the Head and I did not expect to see any. Not very big ones, but trees. The nephew's name was Stuart, and he got a piece of string about 15 feet long, and showed me how to snare gophers. It was fun.but cruel on gophers. In the evening I went to see Mr. Francis, and arranged to go to his farm in the morning. He asked me if I could drive horses, and I said I could, "two better than one", and he smiled. It was not long until I smiled too, when I thought of that proud remark.

CHAPTER II
Well here I am still around, after being introduced to the foreman, Mr. Tom Needham. When Mr. Francis told Mr. Needham I was his new man, he looked at me and shook his head, but he was very kind, and put me to stooking sheaves. I don't know if you know what stooking is, but it is standing the sheaves made by the binder when it cuts the grain, which are kicked out of the binder as the sheaf is made. The process is hard to explain to you, but simple when you know what it is all about. Those sheaves were mighty heavy, and it was not long before I was kind of tired. But the next morning I was given a team, and told to take drinking water to the stookers and binder twine to the binders. That was a lot easier than stooking, and as the field was a mile long and half a mile wide, and the stookers at different places around the field, it kept the horses going to get water and twine to where they were needed. I soon got onto the job and found it fun. There were six binders and ten stookers, and those binders used up a lot of twine, and the men sure drink a lot of water. It was not long until some Indians with their own camping outfit and cook, came along and Mr. Francls put them to work They did not take nearly the looking after that the Canadians did, and while On Saturday night there were what looked like a field of loose sheaves, by Monday morning there weren't any not in stooks.

There were two young women cooks, and their brother Bill who was a choreman. I was put to use Bill's room and slept with him. For the first few days I was allowed to stay in bed till breakfast was ready, but after the break-in period, I got up with Bill at 4:3OA.M. We fed the horses and cleaned out the barn and as soon as breakfast was over, the teamsters went off to their different jobs and Bill and I did odd jobs around the buildings or fields, depending on what was needed. I rather like the work, but we have long hours. We, that is Bill and myself, are usually finished by six or a few minutes later, while after supper, the men have to comb their horses and get them comfortable for the night. Everybody is so kind, but the men take a lot of fun out of my umbrella. Most have never seen one before. They are not used here much by anyone, as they tell me there is a lot of wind and strong wind, strong enough to blow the umbrella inside out. My clothes are not what the other fellows use, but I guess I will get accustomed to them and get the right kind when I earn a few dollars. I am to get $25.O0 a month and bed and board for a couple of months, then take winter wages. I am not sure what that will be, but a lot less than $25.00 per month. The teamsters get $28.00 per month now, but they will be out to a lot less for the winter. There will be only four or five through the winter months when we will not be doing any field work.

Threshing the sheaves will soon be the job. As Mr. Francis says, that was what he has been waiting for, then hauling the grain to the elevators at Indian Head. Not likely I will do any hauling as it is a job for men who are teamsters and stronger than I am. But we will finish the threshing first. There are over a hundred acres of wheat to thresh, just now I have no idea how long that will take, but there will be a lot of men at it. First we fix up granaries, little buildings about 12 X 16 feet, and 8 feet high. Each holds about 1200 bushels of threshed grain. These buildings are built on skids, and are hauled to different places in the field and the threshing machine is pulled up beside them and the grain runs from the machine to the granaries. When a granary is full the machine is pulled to another granary and so on until the threshing of the field is completed. This is called stook threshing, and is almost a new way of threshing, which is usually done by first stacking the sheaves, then pulling the thresher to the stacks. The stook threshing saves stacking, which is hard and expensive work as well as slow. My job is to level the grain as it comes from the threshing machine so the granary will hold to its capacity.

CHAPTER III

Dear Mother:
I am afraid I am not writing every week but there is little time for writing except on Sunday, and on most Sundays I don't feel much like writing. Things went along pretty well. I was surprised to see how much we can thresh in a day. There are eight teams hauling sheaves to the threshing machine, which is driven by a large steam engine. They use straw that has been threshed for fuel, and it takes one man continually shoving straw into the engine fire box. The only rest the fireman gets is when the engine is stopped for some adjusting or something. I am kept very busy keeping the grain from blocking at the spout, which if it did block, would do damage to the machine and would be hard to clear out. I have not let it block yet, and I guess I had better not let it block.

We had a snow storm last night, and we are told there was a fall of 20 inches of snow on the ground, and there will be no more threshing for some days as we cannot thresh when the straw is damp. It sure is bad getting around in the mud and slush. I had to get a pair of rubber boots, the slush is over my leather shoes. The foreman is having a hard time getting jobs for all the men, but he seems to be able so far to keep us busy. I must say I don't like wading around in the mud and slush, but the days are very nice, and the snow is about all gone in two or three days. It will be a few days before we can thresh again, and in the meantime, teams are hauling grain to Indian Head where it is put in what are called grain elevators, high buildings that are built especially to hold grain. I believe the elevators buy the grain and ship it out, for the elevators are built close to the track where box cars are placed and filled with grain. The grain is put in sacks that hold two bushels each, and 30 sacks make a load to be taken to the elevator.

The cooks are leaving after harvest is completed, and Mr. Francis wants me to cook for the men who will be here all winter. Guess I will take the job, for jobs are scarce here in the winter. I don't know much about cooking, but it will not be fancy at all. The only cooking I ever did was frogs legs we caught in the big marsh just out of Ottawa, but there are no frogs here like those, so I will have to learn how to do cooking for five or six men including myself. I am to get the big wage of $6.00 per month and my board.  I will send you five dollars a month, it wlll help a little maybe, and I will have a dollar for myself, but I won't need much except for stamps and a writing pad.

The threshing is about over. It has been a little slow since the snow as the fields were so wet and soft that the teamsters could haul only a small load to the thresher. After that was done, the men brought loads of sheaves to the yard, and loads of oats which are used to feed the horses. There is no hay here and we just give the horses a sheaf of oats, which they seem to like. The men bring in the sheaves on eighty acres of land to be used next summer the horses get the threshed straw in the winter when they are not working. I won't have much to do with the horses during the winter, my job as I said will be feeding the men.

It seems a long time until spring, but I suppose the winter will pass. Mr. Francis goes to Ontario for the winter, so we will be under the orders of the foreman, I believe a man by the name of White will be the foreman as Mr. Needham is retiring and going East too. 

I started my cooking job the other day, and housekeeping. Can't say I am in love with it it is nicer being outside. The one feature of my work is that I go ahead no matter what the weather is like, while the other fellows can stay in and read or write while I have the house work to do.

But we get along. One thing a couple of days ago was exasperating. I thought rice would be nice for dinner, so I looked up in a book how to cook it. When I got the quantity of rice in a pot to boil, it sure looked a small amount for six men, so I added about a cup more. Well, I soon had rice all over the place. All the pots and sauce pans in the place were full of it. Next time I will stick by the recipe, it won't be far out. The next time I tried it, I put a cup of raisins in it, and the fellows thought it was not too bad.

Dear Mother:
I am afraid my weeks get a bit stretched, as it is more than a week since I last wrote. But all is well. We had a surprise this week, Mr. Francis came back. The men were away on an errand, and I was cleaning out the stables, as they were just too busy at other things and had to be at a neighbours. He asked how things were and where the men were, then raised my wages a dollar a month, because I was doing part of their work. If I keep on, I will end up in the millionaire class!

The foreman lost his job for no apparent reason, and a man by the name of McClinton is the new foreman. He has known Mr. Francis for some time, and really is a better man than White, though White and I got on very well. Jim McClinton and I will get on well too, he has been my teacher and could not be nicer.

Sometimes the gang will go to the Head, and usually get into the hotel bar and get a few too many drinks. Jim will let me have all the ginger ale I can drink, which is not very much on my earnings, but he will not allow me to even try beer or any hard stuff. Not long ago we all went to town in an ening and I was the only one Jim would let drive, as they were all just a wee bit too joyful and I was right up on the beam. Two of the men had to be carried to bed and the follows who could, took their (the tight ones) boots off but did not bother with their clothes. The sore heads some of them had in the morning was amusing, and one fellow swore he would never touch another drink as long as he lived. A couple of nights after that, he forgot all about his big bad head, and went through the same performance the following morning. That fellow came from a very good family, and is one of the more gentlemenly chaps in the group, but drink is his weakness, as I am told it was his Dad's weakness too.

I am to drive a four-horse team this summer, and Mr. Francis told me that Jim said I was as good a teamster as any of the others, and am to get the same pay, $28.00 a month. Can you feel my head swell?

I am not to drive the best outfit, those horses are given to the more experienced men. My outfit will be one that is made up of young horses, most of which I broke to harness. Mr. Francis bought twenty-one young horses, one or two broncos among them, but most come from a Clyde stud, and will make good horses if they get the right teamster to drive them after they get over their coltage ideas.

My job is mostly harrowing, and if you don't know what that is, well it is a frame with spikes through it, dragged over the ground that is freshly plowed, to break the lumps and smooth the ground. It means walking behind the harrows all day, and is very tiring. There are such things as harrow carts but we have none. Anyway, for a fellow to ride a cart is supposed to be terrible, though the new plows are equipped with seats for the operator to ride on. My idea is that it is easier or as easy on the horses for the man to ride, as it is for the teamster to walk and stumble over the rough ground and jerk the horses mouth every stumble. One of the first things I do when I get my own farm will be to make a harrow cart, even at the ridicule of the neighbours. When one gets them, it won't be long till they are standard equipment. I wore out a pair of shoes lately in four days. There was a sale of men's shoes and I was in town and saw them. They were light, the kind I like, so I bought a pair, put them on on Tuesday and threw them away on Friday. That shows how hard my job is on shoes.

We have a new plow now that is called a disc plow, and it is to take the place of the mould-board plow. And best of all, we ride it instead of /walking behind it. I am to get one of them, as we get six I am told. Some one else is to get the harrowing job.

I went my first round on a seed drill the other day. We have to walk behind the drill too, but the ground is smooth. It is a heavy job lifting a two bushel sack of seed, but I manage all right. We are supposed to make sixteen miles a day with the seeder, or drill as the machine is so often called. I won't give you a description of it, as you would not be interested. There are a lot of machines on a farm that I never heard of, but which are necessary to do the work. No more scattering the seed by hand. Like the threshing machine has taken the place of the flail. I used a flail for fun once at Deschene, but it would not be possible  to farm as much as we have here, if we just had the flail to do the threshing.

I believe that I can be called a farm hand. Some of these farm hands are very strong men, but if I live long enough, I will be nearly as strong as most of them. A favorite stunt is to stand in a bushel measure and lift a bag of wheat weighing about 120 pounds onto one's shoulders. I have not IK reached that stage yet, but some day I will.

Dear Mother:
A few days ago I got quite a surprise. I was in town on an errand, and met Mr. Francis.He asked me if I would like a homestead. "Yes I would Sir". "Well I am going to the Wascana district some of these days, and if I see a good quarter, I will get you on file on it, and I will stake you a yoke of oxen next spring". Naturally I thanked him the best I could, and he said "of course, I expect you will pay me some time".

As good as his word, in a few days he came to the farm and got me to go into town where the land agent lived, and filed on the N.E. 16-13-16W2. I bet that is as clear as mud to you. I was asked to
take an oath that I was the full age of 18, and a few other things, but I told the agent I was not 18. He asked when I would be 18, and I told him in three weeks. "Well, let it go, and take the oath" he said, "for by the time I write Ottawa for permission to hold that piece of land, you will be the right age". So I took my first oath and it was not exactly true.

There is a saying around here, that a homestead is a bet with the government, where you put up $10.00 to 160 acres of land that you can live on it for three years. Anyway I took the bet, and am now the possessor of 160 acres of Assiniboia, N.W.T.. But wasn't that wonderful of Mr. Francis? Then he said that when the work for the season is over "I will let you go so you can get a job with a small farmer, so you will see how a small farm operates". I will let you know my new address just as soon as I know what it will be, but I will be at the old address for a while yet. The homestead is about 53 miles from Indian Head, and so far there is no post office there, but the railroad is going through Francis, the name of the nearest town, so it won't be so terrible. The district is filling up fast I am told, so I won't be so isolated. Mr. Francis said he will keep an eye open for a homestead for you, as you are elegible for one, and if he sees one not far from mine, he will get the dept. to hold it till we get the papers from Ottawa so you can file. I expect to be here till freeze up, then look for a job on a small farm. After writing the above, I had a talk with Mr. Francis, and we came to the conclusion that I had better work another season before going to the homestead. The government will allow me a year off if I get five acres broken. I have arranged with Bert Allan to do that breaking in the spring, 
it is rather late for breaking this time of the season. So I will, in all probability, be here till a year from next spring. Can't say I am sorry, for I would not have enough money to get the things I need and food for that length of time.

Mr. Francis has bought 21 young horses and 209 cattle. He believes he can turn the straw that is wasted into beef and mature the young horses. He plans to build a shelter for the cattle, it will be about 160 feet square, and he will have the men haul the straw from the threshed stacks to bins in the shed. He has had equipment made to take care of the cattle during the winter, and in the spring will send them to a ranch south of
Indian Head. It will be my job to keep the cattle on the stubble and in the coral till seeding starts.

The cattle have to be branded and de-horne, and the young males castrated. I am delegated to the crew that will do that work. It will take several men, one of whom is an ex-cowboy. Branding is
necessary to prove the animal is owned by the one whose brand is on the beast. All brands are registered in Regina, and all cattle found with that brand are supposed to be owned by the one who owns the registration.

Branding seems to be to be so cruel, but the only way that stolen cattle may be recognised. The brand is put on the flank of the animal with red hot irons, about six inch letters, and some of
the cattle put up quite a holler, and I don't blame them. Then the de-horning is terrible. The ex-cowboy does that and he is the most cruel man I ever saw. The rest of the men dislike the cowboy immensely. He de-horned the herd bull, which never should have
been done, as later on we found out when the herd came from the ranch. A herd bull requires horns to protect themselves from steers, but more of that later.

Mr. Francis is trying a new scheme this year in handling the grain as it is threshed. Instead of running it into granaries, the wheat will be run into wagon boxes, and as a box is filled
it will be taken directly to the elevators. It will take several teams to keep the machine running all the time without waiting for the hauling outfit to return from the elevators to the machine. My job will be driving one of the teams. It is rather
hard on the horses, and I am not too keen about it, for there are occasions when we will have to run the horses to get back in time. But my job is not to reason why, but to do or die. 

We got several boxes made that will hold 75 or 80 bushels at a load. Then a new box came in that is somewhat different and is supposed to hold a few over 100 bushels, and Mr. Francis bought
it. I hauled the first load with it, and the foreman and I built a little more on than was wise, but it turned out all right. And I got my name in the Indian Head "Vidette", and later the item was used by the Winnipeg "Tribune". I was delighted about that, but it meant not a thing for no one ever heard of me. The article read "A rather large load of wheat was hauled into the Ogilvy elevator this week, when a team from the Francis farm, driven
by G. Stewart, hauled 111 bushels, said to be the biggest load of wheat up to this time ever hauled to an elevator in Indian Head." How the other fellows tried to beat that, but none succeeded.
That wagon box was much in demand by the neighbours and was borrowed every chance there was for a neighbour to haul grain. It was not long before boxes like that one were common in the district.

This will likely be my last weekly letter if my letters can be called weekly. You will hear from me often, and I will keep track of things as I go along, and sometime if you are interested, you will see the kind of work I do. 

Farm work was pretty well completed about this time, and next job was to get those cattle home. That job fell to me again, and here is a synopsis of what transpired. After the de-horning was completed, the cattle were driven to a ranch about 15 miles away,
where they will spend the summer, then brought back to the farm for the winter. When fall came I was sent to get the cattle, I did not count them, but believe the 209 were there. We rounded them up one afternoon but by the time we had them all, it was too late to start on the road home. There was a lad sent to bring home the cattle, about 30 head, belonging to another farmer near the Head. Poor chap was greener than I was, and his boss asked me
to help with his few and we would separate them when we got to town. I was pretty mad about that time, for I did not want to stay over. The woman in the house did not have accomodation for two extra, and showed her displeasure. I was given the floor in
a clothes closet, and it was horrible. For the first time since I left Ottawa, I was homesick; but there was nothing for it, and I was soon asleep.

I was up first thing, and got my cattle up to feed before we started. Once on the road there was no stopping till we reached our destination. As soon as we had breakfast, I got my animals together and started off; the rancher reminded me I was to help the other fellow, but I knew if I did, I would not get home that night, so away I went, and wondered how that other fellow made out. I felt that if I stayed to help him, there was no telling what would happen when we got to the Head, and tried to separate
30 head from 240 hungry animals.

The trip home was almost uneventful. The bull was the big trouble, he was so slow, with the steers bothering him as they did. So I cut him out and left him on the road. I told the boss what I had done, but I never saw that animal again.

It was getting dusk when I got to the Head, and as the farm was two miles past the town, the problem arose as to which route I would take to pass the town — down a back street or through the
business part of the place. My preference was the main street, for there would be no temptation on the part of the hungry animals to rob a nice cabbage patch, of which there were several on the back street, while none on the main street. The animals got closer together on main street, as they were not familiar with city life, and were a bit shy. All went well till we got nearly out of town, when a Collie dog joined the parade, and what a dog. That finished my herding, he took over as I never saw a dog before, who knew all about driving cattle Any straggler was well taken care of, as the dog would jump and bite the beast at the tip of its tail rather than the heels as any other dog I ever saw would do. When we got to the farm, I had to ride past the herd, and open the gates, and the dog seemed to know that too. Not one beast left the ranks, and soon the dog had the bunch in the pasture. I did my best to pat the dog and tried to get it to come to the cook house for a bite, but no, away he went trotting home.

CHAPTER
In the spring I was given a team that could be changed, and was changed very often. The boss had purchased 20 young horses that had never been broken, and my team had one or two of those. It is well known that each horse has its own degree of intelligence, and it was very interesting watching them as they learned their lessons. The first time they are hitched up, it is with an old horse, that knows what is expected of it, but the young one will
fight the harness, the wagon, and everything that is strange which means about everything. These youngsters were out of work mares, at least all but one were, and that one was a bronco. It required different handling, for it seemed to be living a life, waiting for the chance to do some damage to some one. It could not be trusted for a much longer time that it took the others to get accustomed to humans. But eventually it came to be one of the
gang. It seemed to me that I would no sooner get the horse broken to work, when it would be sold, and I would have to get another of the new ones, and break it in the harness and machinery. I found it very strange how fast I got to become quite fond Of each youngster as I drove it for a short time. And the youngsters got to like the working, or so I imagined. By fall they were nearly all disposed of, and just the older ones left on the farm. (That of course was before the days of the tractor.)

As I was going out on my own homestead in the spring, Mr. Francis thought I should have some experience on a small farm, so he let me go with the summer crew. I got a job with a farmer, 12 miles
from the town, and sure did learn that there is a big difference between a large farm, and what is often called a family farm. I got on very well with the farmer, but his wife disliked me very much, why I never could find out.

Six o'clock was my getting up time, and I lighted the fires, which had been left to die out, even in the coldest weather. Then there were the usual chores to do; getting several barrels of water from a well at the bottom of a coulee in the Qu'Appelle lake system. That had to be done morning and evening, for on cold nights any water left in the barrels would be frozen in the morning, and it was very hard on barrels getting the ice out of them. An uncle of mine sent me a daily Paper’ and that was the only reading matter in that house. Anyways I did not get much reading time.

That winter was one of Saskatchewan's bad ones, and it was warmer in bed than sitting around a cook stove trying to keep warm. I soon learned that if I wanted anything, I would have to get it some way, and put it back exactly as it was, or I would never get a chance at it again. For instance, I did not have enough blankets on my bed, but there was another bed in the room, so
I took some off of it. The extras were taken away the next day, and I never saw them again. Then they had a buffalo robe that was left on the spare bed in my room, and I used it, but was very careful to put it back every morning so my borrowing was not noticed. One night there was a bad storm, and snow was blowing in around the window. The farmer must have felt sorry for me, for he had some old rags which he brought in and stuffed the cracks. He came in after I was in bed with the robe on my bed, and I never saw that robe again. Why, I have been asked when I told that, did I stay with them. Well, I was going onto my homestead in the spring, and needed all the money I could get. To quit would mean at least a weeks loss of wages, if I could get another job, and that had to be considered I was getting $15.00 per month and my board, less 35˘ I had to give back because I broke an axe handle while cutting trees for firewood. 

On days it was too stormy or cold to do outside work, I had to stay in the barn - never once was I asked to come into the house where there was a heater going.

We hauled wheat to the Head, and the grain was shovelled into a granary from the sleigh boxes. When a grain car came in, I was taken to town to shovel the grain into the grain boxes again, while the boss and his brother hauled it to the elevator. After several loads, I was getting a bit tired, and they did get a man to come and help. I estimated that I shovelled almost a thousand bushels of wheat that afternoon. Of course this kind of thing did
not happen every day, but it was one of the outstanding things I remember, for I was only a few weeks past my eighteenth birthday. One would think that was a day's work, but after the 12 mile drive to the farm, it was up to me to go into the coulee and get water for the cattle, feed the cattle and horses and bed them down before flopping into my bed, which because the weather had moderated somewhat was not as cold as it had been.

CHAPTER
Spring came at last, and time to go to my homestead. That was a drive of over fifty miles, and was over a trail that was never graded to make a road. The last few miles were not even a trail,
but just a drive over the prairie. Getting my equipment together took the better part of two days. There was a small stove to purchase, grub for a few days, until I found a source of supply closer to the homestead, bedding, and things of that nature
that I know nothing about, and then a plow. I was given a walking plow, and that was all the machinery I was going to need at first. 

The trip took three and a half days (the same time it has taken me to go to Los Angeles, California in the car, a distance of nineteen hundred miles!). The first day I stopped for noon near a slough, where the oxen could get a drink, and grass to eat. I found that as soon as they were unhitched, they would lie down and chew their cud, so that in an hour or so I would have to get them on their feet to eat. That evening I stayed with a family who lived close to the road, and who was a homesteader too. He was in a much more settled community than the one I was going to.

On the second day, I passed a place where some men were building a house. It was about noon, and I stopped for lunch a short distance from the new house to feed the team, or yoke as they should be called, and have my lunch. Before I got to getting something to eat, one of the men from that new house, came and asked me to come and have dinner with them, and I did. That man was the only one of the people there who could speak English. There were four men and several women at the place. We were seated on benches around a few boards on a tressel. The only thing on the table were six soup plates, one of which had the meat and another the potatoes. Each man reached and pulled I would call it, meat and potatoes to his plate. There was one plate short of being enough for everybody, and one man did not use his plate, just pulled the meat and potatoes onto the table. The women did not sit down with the men, and there was not one
word spoken during the meal. One of the women walked around with a loaf of bread, cut a slice and flipped it to a man, and the slice landed as neat as could be, beside his plate. This was
continued until all were served. As soon as a man finished his bread, he was served another the same way. When he had enough, he put up his index finger, and his meal was finished. When it came my turn to leave the table, I turned to the woman who looked the oldest in the group, bowed and said thank you for such a good meal. They all seemed to be as flustered as I was, and I don't suppose they had any idea what I said. 

When dusk fell, I looked for a place that I might be able to stay for the night. There was one near the trail, and I asked if I could stay. There, too, there was only one who could speak
English, a fellow about my age, and he asked a man who looked to be the ruling monarch. Sure, the young man said, and he helped put the oxen in a building that had no roof, and walls which were made of mud. All the buildings on that place were made of mud and sod. I was asked in for the evening meal which began soon after I got there. It was much the same procedure as the one at noon, only these people had more dishes. I suppose the meal was good, but the garlic! After seventy years, I feel I can still taste garlic when I think of th at place. The women were as adept at throwing the slices of bread, as were the ones at noon. As I could not eat all of my first slice, because of the garlic, I had the honour of putting my index finger up to show I had enough. Every member of that family was most congenial, and did try to make me understand their language. That is, the men were congenial, the women stayed away from the men and as far as I could see, did not even speak to each other.

That house was quite a long building, and I was curious enough to find out why. The room we had our meal in was the dining room and the old couple's bedroom. The bed was about four or so feet high, and I wondered how the lady of the house could get up to it. (I never did find out.) Next room was the kitchen in which was what they called a stove, which was made out of mud and clay. One of the women seemed to be in charge of that department. To get the stove hot enough, she stuffed an opening with hay and set fire to it. When that burned out she did it over again, and kept at it until the top was hot. Then she put the things she wanted to cook or heat up, on the top, and it was not long before the kettle was hot enough; at least she took it off the plate, and the tea she made was very good and hot. I was told by the young man who was my keeper, that they cooked the bread in the compartment where they put the hay to burn. The next room was the bedroom for everybody else, boys and girls slept in the same room. Then came the hen house, then the cow stables and lastly, the horse stable — and all under the one roof. As far as I could see, there was very little material in the whole building that had been purchased, such as window glass, hinges for doors and little else. The cash out lay for that building was very small.

Bed time came early in that household, and one of the young women brought an armful of hay and spread it on the floor for a bed for me. They had sufficient blankets, and while all I removed from my attire was my shoes and jacket, I slept well. While I thought it was early to go to bed, I wondered if it was partly because lighting facilities were not plentiful, and they were as well in bed as sitting in the dark. I do not remember seeing any lamps. I was first up when daylight came, and it was but minutes till all the occupants of that room were around. Then breakfast, and it was about the same as the evening meal, with the smell and taste of garlic predominating. It seemed to me that even the eggs tasted of that stuff The men sat around the table, the women waited on us, while the old couple walked up and down the room praying. Every once in a while both would turn to me and bow. Was I embarassed! I did not know what it meant or what to do, but after a couple of bows, I bowed back. When the meal was finished, and we were going outside, I glanced to where I had been sitting, and my goodness! I had been sitting under a big crucifix. What a relief. I wasted a few bows, but otherwise I did nothing wrong. I thanked the young women but the heads of the place were too busy with their prayers to notice me, and I must say, the ones I did thank were not nearly as frustrated as were the ones at that new house the day before.

Before I hitched the oxen to the wagon, I asked my young friend how much the bill was. He did not know, but went to see his father, who put a price of one dollar for the night's lodging, two meals and feed for the oxen. I wanted to pay more than that, but the father said it was a dollar, and that was that. I was not more than half a mile on the road, when my friend came after me on horse back, and gave me back 50˘, father decided that one dollar was too much.

Shortly before noon, I came to the railroad, and the town of Francis. But the oxen did not want to cross the track. The rail was laid, but not spiked. The spiking crew and ballasting was coming, and were about a mile away from where we crossed — so I was there before the railraod. But to persuade the oxen to come along was a different matter. I tried everything I knew about oxen, but to no avail. I was going for help, and for some reason, I forgot what, started across the track, and those so and so oxen came after me. So that bridge was crossed. I had my lunch there, and rode to a shack where I saw a man, to see if he could tell me how to get across the Wascana Creek, which at that time was in flood. He gave me directions, and as I reached the place to ford, a couple of men came along with a cow in the wagon. My oxen took off after that cow, and another "bridge was safely crossed. The water did come into the wagon however, and was a bit hard on my supplies for cooking.

A few miles further on, some children, who had recently come from Ontario and had never seen an ox, ran down the road to meet me. They were also thrilled at my pony, which I don't believe I have mentioned in this story. I was bringing him with me as my only mode of transportation to get my groceries and mail. I stopped to let them pat the oxen, and I put two of them on the pony and took them to their home. They asked me if I would give the pony to them, as they didn't have one, and wanted one so they could be cowboys. I assured them that I could not part with Buster, and travelled on.

I was close to where I was to spend the night with a friend, who was also a homesteader, and who had oxen such as I had. I was able to make that my headquarters for a couple of days, until I found the homestead, and got some lumber from a town about 25 miles away, then build my shack. This friend, Herb Somerton, helped me frame the shack when I gdsthe lumber, and soon I was on my own land. What a feeling of owning something came over me. In the great plains, a quarter section, 160 acres, is not very much, but to one who never owned anything, it was quite a tract of land.

We got on fairly well with the framing of the shack, and had about half of the roof on the first day, the only day I had any help. The roof was what was called a car roof, there being a 2 X 6 piece of lumber a foot longer than the building, and set on the end plates. One-half inch, or re-sawn lumber 12 inches wide was laid accross that beam, and nailed at both ends, and was in the shape of the roof on a freight car. Tar paper was laid on the lumber, and another layer of lumber or boards on the tar paper, which made a fair weather proof top. It was a few days before the building was finished, for I could work on it only in the evenings.

Darkness was creeping on, so I made a bed out of a few boards, got an armfull of hay for a mattress, and went to bed. As I lay down, the light wind sighed through the grass, and it sounded like an army of wild men coming to attack me. My heart got into my throat and I was properly scared. I sat up in bed, wondering why the wind had to make such a racket. The second time I lay down, the same thing happened and I sat bolt upright again. When my heart got back to place, the thought came to my mind, "well, here I am, and can't get away, and there is no one within four or five miles, no wild animals or anything, so go to sleep". And that I did, sleeping till after daylight.

It was time to start breaking the sod, so as to have some crop the next year. It was very slow work, for the oxen were by nature very slow movers. Things went without incident, until one morning I overslept, and was an hour late getting the animals up to feed. I was going to work an extra round at noon and another in the evening, so as to get the miles I had planned for a day's work. Well at noon I started right on for the extra round, or thought I did, but the oxen had other ideas. They would not move an inch, try as I would to persuade them. I did not intend to let a couple of oxen tell me it was dinner time; I was boss and would tell them when it was time to quit. But after nearly half an hour fighting them, I gave in. The same thing happened that evening - when six o'clock came, they stopped, and I thought there was no use fighting them. I had lost a round by oversleeping and another by fighting, which was two rounds lost that day, and I made sure after then that there would be no being late for work.

And then the mosquitoes came! It is hard to believe they could be as bad as they were that morning. They were never quite as bad again. I had just returned with a barrel of water on the stone boat (a stone boat in farm language, is a sled made of two inch lumber, used as a conveyance for hauling things that could not be loaded easily on a wagon) when the mosquitoes attacked. The oxen went wild! I was able to get three traces off, then away they started, upsetting the barrel of water and getting the stone boat jammed up against the shack. It was very hard to get the fourth trace off, but when I did, away went the animals on the run, and I was about smothered with the pesky mosquitoes getting into my nose and mouth before I could get into the shack. I went to try to light a smudge, and stooped down to light some hay when one of the animals, thinking I was too slow, bunted me in the back knocking me head first over the pail of hay, which did not improve my temper at all. Eventually the hay started to burn and give off smoke. The animals knew what it was all about, and were at once in the smoke too.

That seige of mosquitoes subsided somewhat after an hour or two, and I was able to go back to the slough for another barrel of water, or the pony and oxen, as well as myself, would have none that day Since that day, I have been hard to convince that those pests hatch only in water, unless a heavy dew in the prairie can be called water.

The season was getting on, and the ground getting very dry, making it just too hard work for the oxen to pull the plow. The friend of mine who helped me when I came to the homestead, suggested that I take his yoke for a week, and put them with mine on the plow and he would get a job with a man who needed help to put up some hay. The next week he would take the four oxen and work on his land, and I would get the job. That arrangement worked very well. Harvest was coming on, and I felt I had to finish working my land, so as to be in shape for spring seeding. Then I would go out and earn money in the harvest and threshing times, as I just could not carry on without funds. Herb had a crop on his land, he had been on his homestead for a couple or years or so, and did not have to take outside work to carry on.

Getting water for the animals was the big factor for me. Herb was within a couple of hundred yards from a large slough, that, up to that time, had not dried up in any year, and there was an abundance of grass for the animals.

I had only one barrel for water, and the oxen drank a barrel at a meal, so getting enough for two meals was a problem too. On going to the spring one day, which was about three miles away (where I got my supply after the sloughs dried up), I found an empty barrel, and right there I borrowed it and that fixed me up just fine. I got up soon after four, to get the animals up, then went for the water, and that was every morning.

One morning there was a heavy dew, and the grass was very wet. It made for easy sledding, but the stone boat was wet and slippery. The ox farthest from me was not keeping up his end of the whiffletree and I stepped onto the stone boat to reach the ox with what I called a whip, and slipped off the front slat between it and the second one, and the oxen pulled the boat onto my leg. It did not take much to stop the team, but there I was, fast under the load and under the weight of the two barrels of water as well as the boat. I could not move, and wondered how long it might be before someone would come along to help me out. But that might be days, for I was the only one up till then who used that trail. I could reach the clevis from the boat to the whiffletrees, and it was loose enough to disconnect it, so that if the oxen wanted some grass and moved to get it, they would not move the load.

As luck had it, the pail I had for filling the barrels was hanging on a stick accross the top of the barrel, and I got it and bailed some of the water, which fell on me, and was it cold! But I was able to get enough water out to make it so that I could upset the barrel, and get my leg out. I took my boot off to see what happened, and the leg swelled so fast that I could not lace it on again. But I hobbled around and got the animals hitched up again and started home. Soon the lazy ox got a leg out of the trace, and I had to stop to get it in again, and that foot would not go to the ground. No use going home, so I drove to where Herb was cutting hay, and told him what happened. He upset the other barrel, and took me to the Reid farm, where Mrs. Reid took me in and heated a pail of water, and soaked the swollen ankle. They had a well, and a pail of the liquid meant nothing to them. I was sure it would be all right the next day, so the work on the land could be completed in time for me to go harvesting.

That ankle was not well enough to walk on for some time, ten days or so, and Mr. Reid made me a crutch to get around the buildings a little. To finish this episode, I will jump to the following March, when the ankle was bothering me and I went to see a doctor. He said the bone of the leg had been broken and that the ligaments between the ankle bone and the heel were still apart. He consoled me by saying it was a green twig break, and should not bother me again.

It was harvest time, and I had a job at Indian Head waiting for me, but it had to be filled before the binders started, so I got my pony and rode the almost fifty miles to the job. Fortune was on my side, for while I was to have worked at stocking, a man had left the farm, and I was given his outfit to drive a binder. It was well I did get the binder work, for I just could not have stooked and walked as the stocking would have required.

Then back to the homestead and my own harvest. In the spring I had sown an acre or so to wheat by hand, on a piece of land I had broken the year before as homestead duties, while I earned a few dollars.

On wet days the time went very slowly with nothing to do and nothing to read. One such day I thought a cake would be a change in my diet, which consisted of salt pork and bread. I got my bread from an English woman, who lived with her husband about four miles away, and I got a loaf of her bread every Monday evening. So, on that wet day, I hunted up a cook book that was among some things Mother had sent me and set out to bake a cake. It called for two eggs and that was the sum total of my eggs. Well, the first egg was bad, so I thought I would take a chance and bake the cake with only one. But that one too was bad, far worse than the first one. Since I had some ingredients mixed, I went ahead without eggs, and while I could hardly have won a prize in a fair for making cake, it was better than I expected it would be. It was a change, though not one I would recommend to anyone who likes good food.

Getting provisions was quite a job. It meant carrying groceries on horse back a distance of fourteen miles. I had heard that a woman around made butter, and sold it in rolls, so I went to see if I could get a roll and sure enough she had one. Four pounds if I remember right, so I took it. I had not even thought of garlic, and if possible, the garlic in that butter was worse than that I had in meals en route to the homestead. I did not have too many dollars to spend, and it was a wee blow to have to throw that roll of butter away.

As I have said, water was the big problem, for the oxen would consume a barrel at a meal. I used to get a pail full from the barrel before I unhitched the oxen after a trip to the spring, for they seemed to want more than I could give them — even after they had their fill at the spring, an hour before. On wet days they did not fight for a drink every time they saw the barrel, but would lie contented in the rain and chew their cud. That day was wash up time, for on working days, I used to just turn the plate I used for my meals, upside down so the mice, field mice of which I had quite a lot, could not have a meal off the same plate. I don't recommend that type of dishwashing either - just in case of emergency!

When I was writing home, I told Mother about the furniture and cupboard space I didn't have, and she sent me by freight, a cupboard, with a few things in it. Among the things was a bottle of what I thought was lard, it was the color of lard, but the way it acted in the frying pan when I tried to fry potatoes made me wonder what on earth it was. It was some time before I found out it was congeled honey, for up till then, I had never seen honey in that state.

The cupboard was some time reaching me, and while it was addressed correctly to Francis, Francis was a new station, and no doubt the freight agents at the shipping point had never heard of it. The shipment was sent to Strathcona, near Edmonton, and after the agent at Francis got trace of it, the railway charged me for taking it to Strathcona and back to Francis. While I did put a claim in, it was some time before I got my money back. Now, that would seem such a small thing, but at that time, when one was trying to finance on as little as I had, it was quite a large sum of money. There was no welfare or relief in those days, we had to make every cent count, for that was all I had, and I did not intend to starve on that homestead.

The one thing I could not get accustomed to was coming in for dinner and supper and finding nothing ready to eat. I used to eat soda biscuits and drink the juice from the bottled preserves, and that was my meal. But it was not many days until I found that was not going to work, and I had to make myself get a meal other than soda biscuits. I had become so sick of that menu that I could not stand the sight of those biscuits. For years after, I became very uncomfortable at a table that had any of them on for the soup course. My three meals were the same; salt pork and bread, the pork being parboiled three or four times to get the salt out of it. That method of curing meat seems to be a thing of the past, for it is many years since I have seen it any place. The meat would keep for a long time, but not many could eat it until the salt was removed or partly removed by boiling it in the frying pan for a few minutes several times.

One day one of the oxen became so lame it could not walk to pull the plow. I was held up from work, and did not know what to do about it. Then, out of nowhere, a man came past the shack, and called in to have a chat. I told him about the lame ox, and that I was at a loss to know what to do. "Fill the cleft in the hoof with axel grease" he suggested, which I did, for no other reason than it could not make the ox any worse. To my surprise, that evening the ox was as good as new, and went to plowing the following day. That was about seventy years ago, and I still think of the incident. Why did that man come past my shack? Where was he going? And how did he know anything about lame oxen? In the years that followed there were incidents that happened that I took as omens, believing that I should stick with the job, rather than falling in with my desires to throw the whole thing to the winds, and leave pioneering to those who could do the job better than I could, for I was from the city, not from a rural upbringing. That day when I turned to ask the stranger if that was what he meant, he was gone, and I never saw him again. Nor did I see where he went, and I could see for miles.

CHAPTER 
My leg was still a wee bit sore, and Mrs. Reid persuaded me to stay with them until after Christmas, to give the injury a little more time to mend. While I could hobble around, it would have been tough trying to do the kind of work I was fitted for. After New Years, I got a chance of a ride to Indian Head, where I hoped to get work until Spring. The conveyance I was able to get the lift on was a sleigh pulled by a team of large horses, but the sleigh had no box on it and we sat on the front bunks of the thing. All the overcoat I had was a waterproof, and the temperature was somewhat below zero. It was a drive I would not recommend to any but the hardiest, but we made it, and it was not long before I had work that paid fifteen dollars a month and board and a bed in a cold room where there was no heat. One morning when I got up, the temperature in the room where the stove was, snowed it 4° below zero. I don't believe it was any colder in my room, for the stove had been dampered so it would not burn coal needlessly. My job was not a very interesting one, just a jo-boy, Selling coal and setting up machinery and harness and things of that nature.

Fortunately, the winter was milder than Saskatchewan winters usually ares and there was very little snow, so that I was able to get to the farm quite early, and finish the house that my Mother and Brother and Sister were to live in when they came west in the Spring. I too would be able to live with my Mother, to complete my homestead duties, for according to the homestead act, I could live with my parents, but they could not live with me on my homestead.

One evening a prairie fire was coming my way, and I had no equipment to fight it, except a few old sacks, which I soaked in water so as to make better weapons with which to beat out the flames when they got close to the new house and my shack. Fortunately the wind went down, and as the grass on that heavy land was not heavy, the fire came slowly. At about 9:00 PM I went to bed, but set the alarm clock for 10:00 PM, to get me up to see how the fire was progressing. I should say it was at least ten miles long, or as far as I could see in either direction. It was coming steadily, but still half a mile away, so I set the alarm for eleven, and went to bed again. At eleven the fire was almost a quarter of a mile away from the buildings, so I set the alarm for twelve, and went to bed again. I did not hear the twelve o'clock alarm, and when I woke, it was daylight and the fire was out.

It had burned about half way across the house and shack, and had there been any weeds or shavings around, I would not be writing this diary. A great stroke of luck.

CHAPTER
While working for a living and to gain experience in farming, I was just a hired man, and was not brought into any conversations among people I was with. But I did realize that there was considerable discontent among the farmers over the way they had to sell their grain. The elevator operators had the say as to what grade the wheat was that was brought to the elevator. The farmer could either take what the operator offered or go to another elevator, in which he would get the same treatment. The operator decided what grade the wheat was and what amount of dockage in each load. When I was hauling grain for the farmer I was working for, I was astounded at the treatment the farmers got, and the grades given and the amount of dockage taken off each load; and I was then just a kid with no experience along those matters. Later when I got my own grain to sell, I knew what a fight the farmers were really having.

About that time, some farmers took the bull by the horns as it were. I think of men I did not know, but whose names were very much a topic of conversation. I think of the Partridge brothers of Sinvaluta, John Millar of Indian Head and Bill Motherwell of Abernethy, the latter later became Minister of Agriculture in the King Administration at Ottawa, having a meeting with officials of the C.P.R. and the Department of Agriculture in Ottawa. Out of that meeting there came the ruling that when a farmer wanted to ship his own grain, he could have that priviledge. Up to that time he couldn't ship a bushel except through the elevators, taking the grade and dockage of the elevator company. That new ruling was called the "car order book", and was a book kept by the Railway agent, and each farmer could sign for a car, if and when available. That was a step in the right direction, but far from perfect. The elevator companies signed the book as well as did the farmer, The name at the top of the list got the car, spotted at where he designated. The car had to be loaded within 2% hours, or demurrage was charged against the car, and had to be paid by the recipient of the car. That meant that many farmers could not get equipment enough to get a car load into the car in a reasonable time, so lost the car. It was not really a bad rule, for otherwise a car could be held up for too long a time, while a farmer who lived some distance from the loading platform, was hauling his grain to his car. For that reason, many farmers built portable granaries and placed them in the town and hauled the grain to their granaries. They could then load their car in a day.

But the Railway and elevator companies got around that. For instance, when the harvest was over and I was waiting for a chance to go back to the homestead, one of the elevator men asked me if I wanted a job to work all night. I sure did, and he said to come around at 9:30 PM that night and he would give job leveling grain cars. He would pay me a dollar for the night's work (which I never did get). At 5:30 PM a train of empty box cars came to town and spotted at the elevators, two or three to each elevator depending on the capacity of the elevator. It was a Saturday and raining. What farmers that had been in town had gone home by that time, and there were no telephones or cars or any way farmers could be notified that a car had come. The rule was, that when cars came to the point, a list was made of the men eligible for a car, as per the car order book. If the car was not claimed within two hours, that list was taken down and a new list of the next eligibles on the car was posted up. In two hours, if the car or cars were not claimed, that list was taken down, and the cars were given to the elevators.

When I went to the job at 9:30 PM and found out what had happened, I thought what a dirty deal the farmers on the car order book got that evening. True, on Monday morning there was room in the elevators for a lot of grain, but it meant those who hauled their own grain, had to take it to the elevator and take their grade and dockage.

That and other things somewhat along the same lines, were the reason the farmers got together and formed the Co—Op Elevator Company, which was very successful, and the forerunner of the Wheat Pool. The Co-Op gave the farmer what was coming to him from his sale of grain. Up to that time, any odd pounds over a bushel were not considered. When the Co—Op bought grain, the pounds were paid for. A strict rule was that there was to be no overage at the end of the crop year, and if there was any it was the wheat Co-Op who got it, not the elevator. The overages at the end of a crop year in some cases were huge, and were the property of the company, not the farmer. I often thought it was not always the company either, but the operator, who got the dockage, or overage as it was called.

The Winter of 1905 was a short one with very little snow, and the mild weather came quite early. It was decided that Mother and my youngest Brother and my Sister should come out, and make a new home on the homestead. But that meant building a house. I had no money to have a man do the job, but did have a few dollars with which to buy lumber. Friends came and helped me frame the house, and get a start with the rest of the building. But they could not stay long, as they had their own work to do, so I went at the house alone. After a few days, I went to a farmer who had a grown son, and got him to come and help me sheet the building in, and put on the roof. The building was 18' X 20' x 12' high, with a peeked roof, and was the largest building in the district at that time.

Spring was just around the corner as it were, and I told Mother to send the furniture, which she did, and which came quite quickly for freight. She did not pay the charges, and I did not have enough money to pay, so again I was up against odds. I wired her, and while waiting for a reply, two friends offered me a loan to pay the charges, and that hurdle was behind me. A few friends came with teams and wagons, and soon the furniture was en route to the farm. We put it in the house and straightened it around in kind of shape for Mother to straighten out. I look back at those years, and what a mess must have met Mother's eyes when she came in.

A neighbour with a spanking team and fine buggy met the family at Francis, and we were soon in business. Mother never said what she thought of the house and all, but I bet her heart sank when she saw it. We had come from a very large home in Ottawa and had been well off before Father died. But we made a new start, in a new kind of life. She was soon clearing up, and soon we had a very comfortable home away out on the prairies, where we could be called Pioneers.

Soon after the family arrived, the mosquitoes came. They had never seen anything like it, and Mother wondered what she can come into. She asked a neighbour how long they lasted, and he consoled her by saying that the first frost in the Fall would see the end of them for that year. It was not quite as bad as that, as a few weeks later the mosquitoe population did decrease Some, although they did last most of the Summer.

As Spring blended into Summer, quite a number of settlers came in, and soon there was quite a population. The new arrivals were nearly all Americans, and came via Milestone. I had come via the new line called the Arcola, that I mentioned earlier in this story.

We had very little room for storage, so one of the first jobs was to dig a cellar under the house. A few miles from us there were a number of American settlers, and one of the first things they did was dig a storm cellar. So I did that too. It was a hole in the ground about seven feet deep, and about seven feet square. We never did need it for a storm cellar, but it did come in very handy as a place to keep dairy products such as milk and butter, for we soon bought a cow that gave us a little of each. We could also use it to keep any extra meat supply for a day or two.

Our meat supply was composed of wild fowl mostly; ducks and prairie chickens. I kept the larder fairly well stocked with game. The number of those lovely birds called prairie chicken, did keep us in fresh meat. All over the prairie there were those chickens. We soon found out that they nested in the open land where the grass was not too long. I must say, the settlers did not like interfering with the chickens‘ nests, for if they were disturbed, in any way, no matter how little, the chickens deserted them and never came back. As we broke the land, so many nests were disturbed, and try as we would, it was impossible to get around the nests in such a way as to leave them untouched. We blamed that trait of the prairie chicken as the big reason they lasted so short a time after settlers arrived. The chicken would not share the prairie with anything or anybody. Ducks were different. We could move their nests quite a distance, and they would still find them and hatch the eggs. But, as more cultivation took place, the ducks too left the district. The cultivation got rid of the sloughs where the water laid, and of course, no water, no ducks.

We had a few wild animals in the early days. The occasional antelope and a few foxes and coyotes, but they soon disappeared. The gophers were the last to leave. Better grass for grazing was on other lighter soils, and lighter land was much easier for the animals that lived in holes to dig in.

While I had been working on the house, two men drove up in a buggy, and the spokesman said they were from the Presbyterian church, and looking for a place where they might hold services that Summer, and could I suggest something. I asked how this house would do, and he answered that he hoped I would say that. So it was arranged that services would start as soon as the house was finished and our furniture from the East arrived. That is the way religious services started in that district. The minister or encumbent was a young student from Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, and he lived with us and preached every Sunday. Our piano came with the furniture, and somehow hymn books were supplied, and things went along quite smoothly. That Fall, the people in the district gathered at the house one evening and arranged for a church to be built in the Spring. Thereby the Pleasant View church was born, and it served the community until about 1970, when due to the fact that everybody in the district had a car, it was easier to go to Francis for services than to have some one look after the needs of a church so far out in the country. The furniture was given to a new church in the far north of the Province, and the building sold to a local farmer, and Pleasant View church became history. Today there are but three or four of the original members of that congregation still living.

CHAPTER
That Spring I was able to get another ox, and what a difference the three oxen made in the working of the plow. When working on my homestead, I kept the pony with me so that at noon or in an unexpected trip to the house, and at night, I would feed the animals where I was working and ride home on the pony.

One afternoon one of those prairie storms came up, and to keep from getting a soaking, I unhitched the oxen and rode to the house. The storm lasted but a few minutes, and when I got back to the field, there was my new and best ox dead, struck by lightning. I just could not believe it, and though I started back to the house, I returned several times to see if it was really dead.

It was near the end of the season for working on the land, so I did not get or try to get another animal, but changed the whiffletrees for two instead of three draft animals, and finished the discing a bit short on power, but it got completed. Harvest was about ready, and as mine was very small, I was able to get work in the harvest and threshing so as to get a few dollars for winter supplies.

About Christmas, another ox died - did not seem to be sick at all - just died. That left me with one ox and a pony. The church services were over for that year, and I used the house as a workshop where I made a "jumper", we called it then. It was really just a sleigh so we could have some conveyance to get groceries and supplies from town 1h miles away.

That was an awful winter. The house was not much more than a wind break, and we could not leave water in the kettle for it would freeze and burst the kettle. The bread, even wrapped in several layers of paper, would be frozen solid by morning. How Mother stood it, I donlt know; unless after the sad experience of losing our home, the thought of being on her very own farm, and seemingly independant, made her stick it out — knowing that it would be hers in three years, when the homesteading duties would be completed.

The few acres that I had broken the year before, and had ready for se&L I put into oats. For some reason they did not grow. That was another blow for I had used all but a few dollars buying seed for that crop. But I was able to get a few more bushels of seed, and from that, there was threshed the total of 496 bushels on a measured plot of 6 acres. In the years I spent on that farm, I never equalled that yield again. It meant feed for my one ox and the pony.

Saskatchewan was built on optimism and credit. In some way, I was able to get four horses and some machinery and was able to farm. For harness for the horses, I bought from a mail order house, a side of leather and a box of copper rivets and made the harness, except the collars and hames, which had to be bought.

I had borrowed a seed drill from someone and had the crop about half in, when suddenly the horses became ill. I was at a loss to know why they got sick, and did not know what was wrong. A Veterinarian from a near-by town came to see them, and pronounced the sickness as Pink-eye, a very contagious disease in horses, and a very fatal one. Three of the horses died within a couple of days. When the third one died, I went into the house to tell Mother, and naturally we were all very down in spirits. It was about dinner time, and as usual before a meal I asked the blessing. I then asked Mother if she would have some meat, that I was serving as head of the table, and we all burst into tears. There we were, with the crop half in and no more power to finish the job. That afternoon, for no reason I knew of, I went to town, and there was a man with a carload of horses that were not selling very well, and I told him my story. On my note with interest at 8% before due, due first of November, and 10%
after due, he let me have four horses. While three was all I wanted, he would not sell an odd number as it broke the team. So I was in business again, and I soon had the crop in. 

What a thrill it was to see the field seeded to wheat, show a green tinge in the evening. One morning I awoke to find that it was all black, and could not understand why. It was soon evident that the cut worm was working, and in a few days there was no green tinge at any time. It was hard to accept that my crop had been destroyed by the out worm, and I had no more money to buy seed. The second crop I had lost.

The experimental farms were working on the cut worm question, as a lot of crops had been ruined and some method had to be found to counteract that pest. It seemed that those with the nicest worked land were the chief sufferers from the worms. Apparently, the moth that laid the eggs flew at night, and when over nice smooth land, with a dust mulch, would drop to the ground and deposit eggs. The eggs would lie there till Spring and then hatch into the worm that destroyed the tender shoots of the wheat plant. Some years later I saw how the cut worm laid its' eggs. Driving home after dark one night, I drove into a flight of these moths, until that time had no idea what a flight looked like. They were so thick flying over the road, that I had to stop the car till they passed, for I could not see past the radiator, and the reflection from the headlights shining on the millions of the pests, made it impossible to see even a few feet. It was not hard to understand after seeing that show, that called on a field that night, that there would be no crop the following year.

CHAPTER
About this time my Father's youngest Brother, a minister of the Church of Ireland in Ireland, wrote asking if I could take a son of another minister who wanted to come to Canada. So George Garstin came out and spent two years with us. More about George later, except to say he was a very fine young gentleman, but as green as they come.

It was soon summerfallowing time and time for more breaking. The latter I had done with a steam plow outfit, as breaking was just too hard on horses. I had raised some money by a loan on the
homestead, as by that time I had my final deed to it.

One of those horses I had gotten when the others died, had been one of a team that had been on a wagon that travelled the country selling stoves to farmers (a pest about as bad as the cutworms). Pity those who got into the clutches of those vendors. That team was a splendid team on the road, but when it came to field work, one of them did not like it at all, and needed a little persuading to keep his end up. One day while discing, this lazy one was hanging back and having his mate do all the pulling of the disc. I stepped down onto the cross braces and hit him with what I used for a whip. While I did not hurt him, he jumped forward, and away went the four horses. I could not get back on the seat to stop the outfit, but fell sideways off the braces and the disc ran over me, cutting me every six inches from forehead to ankile. The team did not run very far, and George, who saw them running, went after them and brought them home. I managed to get to the house and to bed, where I stayed for six days; my back so sore I could not get up.

Here I will mention a dog that I had; a registered Irish Water Spaniel, who was as fond of me as I was of her. While I was in bed, Dimple as we called her, got under the bed, and except for a short run every morning, stayed under my bed till I got up some days later.

Dimple was the most intelligent dog I ever owned, and a wonderful retriever. I had trained her to bring things back to me, and she would get my shoes if I asked for shoes, or overshoes if I asked for overshoes. But, she would not work under a gun as she was supposed to, and was no good duck hunting. And she was a notorious thief. One day I walked into the kitchen where Mother had a roast beef on the oven door to cool and found Dimple pulling the roast towards the door with her teeth bared and lips curled up so she would not get burnt. I caught her, got a small stick, and gave her a trimming. She howled and after I let her go, she ran away and I threw the stick after her." She brought it back to me! Dimple never got another spanking from me as long as she lived.

A few years after that incident, I walked into the kitchen one night and found Dimple stretched out on the floor, front paws stretched out in front of her and hind paws stretched out at her rear end and suffering untold agony. I had no idea what could be wrong, but she looked so pitiful, as if asking for help. I got my horse and drove to town 12 miles away, where there was a doctor, and he sold me a little chloroform. When I got home Dimple was lying there but did not notice me. In a few minutes she was only a memory, and while I did not shed a tear, I very nearly did.

CHAPTER
We had so much trouble getting coal that Winter, that when a tinsmith from a nearby town came selling straw burners, we bought one - or rather a pair, for it took two of them to operate the heater continuously. I don't suppose there are many people around now who remember them. They would heat the house to an almost uncomfortable degree, but that was their only good point. I can describe them as being three lengths of stove pipe material, about three stove pipes in circumference, with one end solid and the other with a cover on it. The cover had to be removed to fill the drum and empty the ashes from each filling. The smoke came out the hole about six inches from the bottom, to which was attached either an elbow or length of stove pipe and elbow to carry the smoke up to the chimney. There were three dampers equadistant, about six inches from the bottom to allow air into the drum. The drum was filled with straw — flax straw being by far the best for burning. A load of straw was kept near the back door, and the drum filled out there, tramped down as near tight as possible, the cover put on, and the thing carried into the house and attached to the waiting stove pipe. It was then lighted at the vents and the dampers set for the needed heat. The fire was of course at the bottom and the top of the drum quite cool. It depended on the velocity of the wind, as to how to set the dampers. If the dampers were open too far, the pipes would be red hot in a matter of minutes on a windy day, while on a calm day, they would have to be open almost full. When the drum was empty, it would be carried out and the full one put on the heater pipe. A fill of straw would last about two hours on a windy day while the same drum might last ten or twelve hours on a mild windless one. 

The drum sat on a base about six or so inches high, with two inch holes all around it, to keep it from becoming too hot. Even with the base, the floor would soon be scorched from the heat. Later in the season, the tinsmith made a kind of table which the flames had to go through to go to the chimney. We could cook on that table, and one would think it was a very good way to save money, but the drums would not last that long, they would burn out around the dampers, the draft could not be regulated, there was no way to shut the dampers so they would be air tight, and the fill of straw would last but a short time. The two drums cost about the price of a ton of coal, so no money was saved by using straw burners.

The biggest trouble with them was the smell of creosote. At night, when the draft was shut, the creosote from the straw would drip at every horizontal pipe length. Soon one could tell in a crowd just who was a user of straw burners. One season was enough for them to be in use - I don't remember anyone using those things a second season. True, they did fill a very important place in the house, and had it not been for them, there would have been a lot of cold homes, but when coal became available again, the straw burners were put out on the scrap heap.

The Winter of 1906 - 1907 is worth mentioning here. That was the worst Winter I have ever seen. In one storm the snow covered the horse stable, till its' location was but a mound of snow. I did not get into the stable for thirty-six hours during one storm, and when I did dig down to the door, I could see it would take several hours to get the door open and the stock fed. So, I cut the door in half, and opened the top half to feed the animals. They were soaking wet with sweat, the place was so air tight, and could not have lasted much longer in that place.

Then there was the question of getting coal for the house. Due to a strike in the mines, it was in very short supply when the snow came. I don't remember how many trips I made to the nearest town and returned with no coal, until it was getting very serious. There were no telephones then, and to get word to the distant farms when coal did come in was next to impossible. I had asked the livery man to get me a small amount, as the coal dealer rationed the coal and would allow each customer five hundred pounds out of a rail oar, if a car came in.

We were down to the last pail full of coal when I made another trip to town to find none had come in. It seems because of the terrible snow, the railroads were having difficulty getting the trains through On the way home, I passed a farm where the owner had got a car of steam coal the Fall before and had not used it all. He sold me three bags of coal dust, and it was the most welcome three bags I ever had. When I got home with my coal dust, Mother and my sister, who was with me that Winter, were huddled beside the stove, and the last chunk of coal we had, they were saving to warm me when I got home. It was a long slow trip, for the roads were so blocked with snow that the horses had to open the roads almost all the twelve miles.

That Spring was very late in coming and the question was what to plant for crops. Flax was one possibility, and several settlers (they were coming in quite fast to the district) said that they were going to sow some. Well, the ones who were going to plant flax were almost all Americans, who had some experience with the grain, but a silly idea got around that flax, or a couple of crops of it, would ruin the land. A lot of the Canadian settlers, myself among them, had had no experience with flax and did not use it except on a few acres as an experiment. That experiment showed that flax was indeed the thing to grow on that land, for wheat was not as reliable then as it became in later years. I got a few welcome dollars from the flax, and almost nothing from the wheat that season. I had as heavy a crop of wheat as I ever had, and it did look so good, but it did not ripen. An early frost and a heavy scourge of rust finished off what had promised to be a bumper crop. It ended up as a few bushels of #2 feed wheat, worth very little at the elevator. Still, we did get wages, not at today's price of labour, but something, which was better than the nothing we had been getting the past years.

Another season I put in about eighty acres of flax. Half of the field was the nicest crop I had ever seen, but the other half did not look so good. I had so many nice things said about the good part, until it was threshed and the good looking part of the field yielded almost nothing. So little, that we were very depressed again; falling as it were from wealth to nothing - in dreams that is. I remember the discussion around the dinner table that day as to what happened to that crop. The man who owned the thresher was disappointed too, as he was doing the job at so much a bushel. But, when the poor looking half was threshed, it almost filled the granary! How it ever yielded as it did is still a mystery.

Then came the hauling of the grain to get some money out of it. I was able to buy a wagon and grain box, payable when I got the grain out, with interest of 8% before due and 10% after due till paid. Well,I had to have it, and as it happened, when I got the returns from the grain, I had no trouble paying. What I had not figured on was that I would have to pay such a toll in selling the grain.

The first load was flax, and there was only one elevator in the town that was taking flax. When I had loaded it, a little was spilled and I took great pains to gather up the spilled grain, and put it in the wagon box. But in cleaning up, I must have got a wee lump of dried mud, so when the elevator man got a sample from the load, he got the lump and put it in the screen. The test showed 12% dockage, and I refused to accept the settlement with that amount of dockage, as there was not a weed seed in the whole load. While I was objecting to the settlement, the operator had elevated the flax, and mixed it with other flax that was very dirty, so I had no recourse but to take the cheque. That taught me a lesson, and I was not going to be caught in that predicament again I bought lumber and made a portable granary that I could haul home, and brought the rest of the flax from the farm and stored it in the new granary until such time as I had it all in, and maybe I could get a small car or make a deal with an elevator before I hauled him the balance of the crop. It didn't work that way.

Due to my inexperience with handling flax, I did not know that special bracing was needed in a granary — the one on the farm had been fine. With another hundred bushels to bring in, the granary burst and what a mess. I did not get any sympathy from the elevator operators, one of whom said he would take it in as he had another customer who had some to get rid of. So I had to haul the crop of flax to the elevator anyway, and had the work of building and moving that granary back to the farm - a distance of twelve miles. I was learning, but always the hard way. The rest of the flax did not have a 12% dockage though, which was something.

I had some wheat too to dispose of that Fall, and took a load to the elevator. "My but that looks like nice grain" the elevator operator said, "but I can only give you #3 for it. See those big kernels?" I did, but could see no difference except in size from the others. He said the millers don't want those in wheat, they don't make good flour, or some such excuse. The other elevator I went to had the same yarn, so I had to let that lovely wheat go for a #3 and dockage on top of that.

In cleaning the wheat for seed, I ran it through the fanning mill fast, so as to get the best and run over the seives any shrunken or off size kernals. That meant I had a lot of grain that had a lot of chaff and other things that were screened out. There was a change of operators at the elevator that I had taken the grain to the Fall before. I went to the new man and told him what I had done and he said to bring it to him, he would see what he could do with it. He put it through the sampling screen and said it was nice wheat, and he would give me #1 for it, less of course the dockage.

From what I had seen as a hired man hauling grain for farmers, and what personal experiences I had, I understood why men like those I mentioned, were properly fed up with the elevator companies, and the CPR. They seemed to work hand in hand to beat the producer. That kind of treatment was what brought on the organization of the Co-Operative Grain Co., and later the Wheat Pool. Some time after the above experience took place, I was sitting in an elevator engine room, where the power to operate the machinery was generated, and got into discussion with a man who was a stranger in the district.The conversation turned to the difference in the method of handling the grain from past years, when all grain was hauled in two-bushel sacks. He told me it was easier then to swipe a few bushels from the farmers than it was at the time we were talking. He told me he was a grain buyer in past times, and said when the farmer handed the sacks of wheat to the operator to empty into the scale hopper to be weighed, the operator kept a hole in the floor opened. He would then throw the odd empty sack down the hole. Then, when the load was all in the hopper, the man on the load would object to the weight, so the number of sacks was counted and multiplied by two bushels. Maybe you lost a sack or two on the way to town, which unfortunately was the case in many trips; so the operator had no trouble with the driver over a couple of lost bushels. Just count the empty sacks. 

Here is an example of what went on at the grain elevator. One of the operators, where I used to haul my grain, used to hire a man to run his farm while he would run the elevator. This farm hand was a brother-in-law of my best friend in those days. In one of our discussions he told me that he usually shipped a car of wheat in his name, for the operator, which the operator had collected from overages. From my experiences I believe he told us the truth. The operator could not ship in his own name. 

Here is another experience the farmers at Bechard, Saskatchewan had some sixty or so years later, that shows the one sided neutrality of the railroads. I was a member of the local wheat board committee, and was asked to see the railway superintenhnt at Regina on the matter of getting box cars to unload some of the grain in the Pool Elevator at that point. After some niceties he asked what my trouble was, and I told him that I had been asked to see if some cars could be sent to our shipping point, so the growers there could get the grain out, using our own facilities. He had some papers on his desk and after looking at them, he said the Pool Elevator there was the only one filled, and that the others had lots of space. Until all the elevators were filled, they could not put cars into Bechard. Shades of 190%! I could not see much difference between taking cars from the farmers who were under the car order book and flatly refusing cars until the opposition elevators were filled to capacity.

I have been asked several times if I ever saw a satisfied farmer. I have to ask, who would be satisfied under like conditions?

CHAPTER 
When I first came to my homestead, my nearest neighbour was about four miles from my shack. But that summer, a number of settlers came to the district and started farming come. Some bought Canada North West Land Co. land, and some by homesteading government land.

When the CPR put their railway line through the prairies, they were given, free, twenty-five million acres of land; and if the land they chose was not good farm land, they could change the acreage they had been given for other land more suitable for agriculture purposes. Their twenty-five million acres were to be within twenty five miles of the right of way. It so happened that a lot of the land they had been given was of very poor quality for farming, so an exchange was made, and a large territory south of the right of way, in what was then Assiniboia took in some of the best wheat growing land in Canada.

The country had been surveyed into sections and townships, which were composed of 36 sections. The CPR got every odd numbered section except sections numbered 11 and 27, which were reserved for school purposes. That land was sold to prospective settlers, who paid a nice price for it. I don't know what it all sold for, but I bought one quarter and paid $15.00 per acre for it. Some maybe sold for more, but I felt sure most of it sold for more than what I paid.

CHAPTER
Getting water for the house and the stock was a very big problem in theearly days. I had dug several wells, that were supposed to be wells, but which turned out to be just dry holes. Men would come around with what they called a divining rod, which was usually the branch of a tree, shaped like the letter Y. To find water, the man would grasp the two ends of the rod, walk over the land until the rod turned towards the ground, and there was supposed to be a stream of water under the surface. While I understand that it works in some places, it did not seem to work on our prairies. After paying the divinor his fee, usually five dollars, sometimes ten, we would go to work and dig until we struck whatwas called soap stone. That was a hard light colored clay, and water was never found in that formation. It was not lng until I found I could get the rod to work for me, and I did "find" several streams, but while I dug as far as 53' I had no better luck getting water than did the so called professionals. That was soon thrown out as no indication of finding water.

A few men who had some money to play with, got machines in that dug as far as five hundred feet, but they too found no indication of water. 

About four miles from our buildings, there was a spring that showed promise of giving a water supply. It was developed, and supplied the district with good water for years. I have seen as many as ten tank wagons waiting their turn to get their tanks filled. We had tanks to put on a wagon, that were used only for hauling water. We dug cisterns on the farm which we lined with cement and filled them for a supply for both the barn and house. But, with a number of horses and a couple of cows, it kept the tank wagons on the road too much of the time.

As long as the district was hauling water from the spring, the water was fresh and the supply was good; but later when tractors came in, and less water was taken from the spring, the water became so impregnated with alkali that it was not fit for human consumption. This brought about the digging of digouts. That was a hole in the ground, one of mine was 175' long, 75' wide and 12' deep, and after becoming full from the spring run-off, would provide a very satisfactory supply for the stock. This water was not very good for the house, and we tried filtering and running it through sand into a cistern, but it never was nice for drinking or household consumption. Then we made two cisterns, one for the kitchen use, and one for drinking. During the last two years we were on the farm, the water for drinking was hauled from a well some twenty five miles away. We had a five hundred gallon tank in a truck which we used to haul the water for the cistern near the house, and one tank would last nearly all summer.

Up to this time, the wheat mostly grown in the West, was Red Fife, but Red Fife had a weakness in that it shattered in the handling of the sheaves; both in the binder at cutting time, and in the handling of the sheaves till they got to the thresher. Experimental farms were working on that problem, and brought out a wheat they called Marquis. That was a lovely wheat, and very popular as it was easy to handle. But it too succumed to the ravages of rust. Although they did come out with several wheats that were very satisfactory, they were not resistant to rust.

Rust is a fungus that settles on the stem of the growing plant, eats across the stem and keeps the plant food that fills the kernal, leaving them badly shrunken and of no value in making flour. The rust is supposed to live over our long winters in the bad lands of the Dakotas and Montana, the host plant being the Barberry Bush. The plant grows in profusion there and as the fungus matures, it is lifted from the host plant by the wind, expecially on a hot day, and drifts north to our grain fields. Although scientists are continually finding new strains of wheat which are more resistant, Nature is continually making new strainsof rust which will attack them.

I have at times, had a number of wheats in experimental plots on my farm, one of which was maybe the nicest to handle I ever had. But it was very susceptable to grass hopper damage. There was a forty acre field of this grain that I was watching very closely for grass hopper invasion. I had the binders ready for instant use in the yard, in case of a grass hopper visit, for they seemed to come in fast and work fast. I had been to the field one afternoon and found everything in order, no grass hoppers. Next day, a Sunday, I went to see the plot, and found there was not one head of wheat on the #0 acres. It was unbelievable how those pests came in so quickly and out every head off. The heads were lying on the ground, but of course it was not possible to get them. Beside that field, there was a field oflhrum, and not one head was taken from that plot. Thelhrum was an experiment too, but the trouble was that the elevator did not want to take it unless there was a full car load to bulk-head out. Laterlmrum became quite popular, and at today's prices is a paying crop.

There is an incident I would like to mention, to show what foolish chances we took. I quiver to think of it now. 

It was 1908 and some relations of Jack Downes and George Garstin wanted to go to their homesteads that were south of Willow Bunch. That was a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles across country, and Downes suggested we take them there. It was near the end of November and we knew time was short, but the arrangements were made that there would be six men and three teams of horses making the trip. 

First day out, we got as far as Milestone, and bought our supplies. At the end of the second day we found a deserted farm where we put the horses in the stable and fixed up a bed for ourselves in the barn. We were not so fortunate the third day in finding any sort of lodging, so bedded down on the prairie. Lack of water for the horses was a problem, but we did find a slough with water under the ice which served our purpose The fourth night we also spent under the stars, and the fifth night found us in Willow Bunch. It was an old settlement with a Mounted Police depot nearby. They had room in their stable for our horses and lots of feed and water, which we were welcome to use. We slept with the horses, after promising not to smoke, and spent the best night we had so far on the trip.

The next day about noon we reached our destination, where we unloaded the goods and helped the fellows get settled that we were not taking back. Downes and I started back about midafternoon. 

We took a different road after leaving Willow Bunch, and the first night we reached a new settlement where they were building a hotel. There were a few rooms ready, and we were given one for the night. After an early start the next morning, we out across to find the trail we had taken on the southern journey. At dusk there was not a building in sight, and we were at a loss to know what to do, so we kept going. After a time we saw a light that seemed a long way off and we drove toward it. The light was just a small oil lamp in the window of a farm house. It was occupied by a woman who said she was expecting her husband any time, and she did not have room for a couple of men. After some talking and some promises she changed her mind, and we would be allowed to sleep on the floor with a blanket for a mattress. Wonderful — so we put the horses in the stable and then did her chores for her, feeding a few head of stock and milking the cow. She gave us a wee bit of something for supper, as she had very little in the house.

We were getting ready for bed - she had supposed her husband would not be home as it was getting late — when a wagon drove into the yard. Jack and I went to investigate and found it was her husband, so drunk he could not get ouiof the wagon. We managed to get him into the house and that was the last we saw of him. We put his horses away and did what was necessary for the night, and that poor woman was very thankful we were there. In the morning she gave us a bit of breakfast, and we were ready for the road. When we asked for her bill, she did not want to take anything, but we left a few dollars and were on our way, leaving a delighted, if half frightened woman, with her husband. 

That evening we reached Milestone where we had a good night's rest, then home the next day - December 8th and my sister's birthday. 

The weather during our trip had been lovely, and well it was, for had a storm come up as so often happens, we would not likely have ever reached home. The fine weather continued for a few days, with only a few snow flakes, but I don't believe there has been a fall like that since that year.

CHAPTER
About 1912, the Regina telephone department offered free poles to any group who would undertake to run phone lines, and a group of residents at Sedley accepted the offer. They did the canvassing to get the number required for a company. I was one of the signers and we soon had phone service. What a difference it made in the community! A day or so after the phones were connected, we had no service — something had gone wrong. Driving along the road about a mile from our farm, I found a broken wire on the main line so I Climbed the pole and fixed it. That was the first of many repairs, and I was kept at repairing lines and phones for the next 30 years. In fact, I was soon appointed Secretary and did the collections of long distance fees for the department. No one else seemed interested in the working of the lines, and I rather liked the job.

Later, radio came in and soon I was making what we called "crystal" sets for the neighbours. It did not take much making, and we were not in the crystal sets long until tubes came out. Soon we had both radio and telephone.

CHAPTER
Horses were beginning to give way to tractors about this time, and one enthusiastic farm machine dealer bought a car load of Titan Tractors, one of the earliest machines to take the place of the horse. I happened to be in Sedley at that time as it was our post office and where I did my trading in the early days before Bechard came into existance. The agent could not get the motors of the tractors to start, and quite a number of boys and men had gathered to see the fun. I loved machinery and could not keep away from the trials and tribulations of the local agent. In my prying, I did something to one of the tractors and away went the motor. With that much accomplished, I tried the gears, and they worked too, so I drove the machine to the agents office. In fact, I took them all to the office, and was so enthused with my success that I bought one.

That was the turning point in my farming operations. It was not till then that I realized that a horse, nice at it is, has not the ability to work long and hard stretches at a time. I changed the hitches on the machinery so the machines could be hitched to the tractor, and while the machinery I had was all too light for the tractor, it was not long before proper heavy machinery was made for use with the tractor. From then on, horses were seen less and less on farms as the noble animal that had worked so hard was replacedwith a machine that could do it better and faster.

CHAPTER
Large numbers of settlers were coming into the district, and soon there was a shortage of machines to thresh the crops the new settlers were growing, so three of us got together and bought a threshing outfit consisting of a steam engine and large separator. The outfit was shipped to the village of Sedley on the CPR, and the company man unloaded it for us, and we got a fireman and an engineer to take charge from there. 

Near Sedley there was what we called light land on which the crops ripened earlier than on the heavy land, which my farm had. The harvest was often about over on that land when the heavy land was just ready to thresh. A farmer from the light region asked if we would thresh his crops while waiting for ours to mature, so we took our machine directly to that farm, and soon we were in full swing.

It took quite a gang to keep our machine running; eight teams and wagons for hauling the sheaves to the mill, and a team and couple of water tanks to keep the engine with sufficient water (we used at least five tanks a day). We were able to get a crew from the surrounding farms. Our original engineer and fireman quit, and we were very lucky to find an experienced man to run the separator, and an excellent fireman, whose job had been firing trains out of Salt Lake City in the States. These men stayed with us for two or three seasons. We had a successful three years and made enough to make the payments on the machine,but it was a lot of work, as I ran the engine with the help of the separator man. It was also a lot of work for my Mother, cooking for such a big crew, and she too was tiring of her part of the arrangement.

One season, a son-in-law of our senior partner decided he should have a turn at looking after the outfit, and I was delighted to give it over to him. A few lines show how they got on: The first day they came to get me to find out why the water to the boiler would not let water in the machine. After getting that to work, they did not need me, so I went home; only to be called again for more help. The new engineer got his engine between the granary they were to thresh into, and the separator. I could see trouble looming, and was mighty pleased I had no part in it. We got them straightened out at the granary, but they could not keep a head of steam up, high enough to run the engine. They got a new fireman and engineer, but eventually we sold the machine, as everyone was tired of it. The new man had much the same experiences and parked the machine in a corner of his land. The last I saw of it was when it was being shipped to the new steel plant in Regina, and the separator was dismantled for parts. And such a grand machine! The old steam threshing machine was giving way to the swather and combine which made a big difference in the number of men and horses needed for harvesting and threshing.

CHAPTER
Mother's oldest brother who lived in Edmonton, lost the use of his arms, and had to have help for everything. He offered my youngest brother room and board and a chance of finishing his high school and going on to University, so he took the job and left the farm. The same chance was given to my sister, to get her education by looking after our Grandmother, so she too accepted the opportunity and left the farm. Mother and I lived alone for a while before she went to keep house during the winters and left the farm.

On one very special trip to Regina, I met Estelle Gallon, and so it was that when we were married in 1920, we were alone on the farm. Estelle was anything but a farm girl, and it was wonderful the way she took over all of the household duties. I don't believe either of us had any idea of what she was letting herself in for when she married me.

During the first ten years after our marriage, the crops were not too good. Then we reached the famous or infamous "3O's" when the world depression hit us pretty hard. We got a few fair crops, but did not get a price for them that would pay expenses. I sold wheat for 28˘ a bushel, and we sold eggs for 6˘ a dozen. The best beef cow I ever had, which I sold because it did not give the milk that we needed, brought the grand price of $12.50. Not a pound - but a cow! We got down to having no money at all - all of our neighbours were in the same position - and things were very tough going.

Then the depression was over, and we had one of the nicest looking crops we had had for years. We began to feel that we might have a few dollars to buy some necessities after all. Then, just one or two days before we would have started to harvest, a hail storm came up and in a few minutes we had nothing.

The storm was quite narrow, and did not take in a very wide territory, but it had made a clean sweep of all the crops we had. It was a bitter disappointment, and when the storm was over I went to the house to see Estelle. She met me at the door, and I could see that all of the windows and window screens on the north and west of the house were broken, and the place in a mess. "I'm sorry Estelle" I said, and she answered "It's not your fault, Let's gather some of the hail stones and make ice cream for the children." That is the kind of girl I married. That is the kind of stuff these farm women are made of, or they soon acquire it.

It was a hard pill to take, and the neXt summer it was even harder, when our neighbiurs on both sides of our farm were hauling out the crops that had benefited so from the rains on each side of the hailed out fields, and I had none to haul out.

These memoirs are the part that I took in our district, and I will confine myself to my small part, and how things came about.

One day some neighbours came and asked me if I would take on a job as trustee in the school district we lived in. I was married to a wonderful woman by that time, and we did not know but that we might need the services rendered by local schools. The job did not appeal to me as all I knew about schools I had learned in my home town of Ottawa, and a city school was an entirely different thing from a country school. In the end I consented to act in that capacity and see how I would fit in. This may bring on a lot of what seem like Mohammed Ali isms, but I don't write this with any other meaning than to show the part I took, rightly or wrongly, in my duties as a trustee.

The first thing I did was to look up some correspondence the secretary had with the Department of Education in Regina, and was rather surprised to see a letter saying unless something was done to bring this institution to the average on the inspectorate, the grant sent our district would be discontinued.

The water supply for the children was kept in a tank under the platform to the school. I opened the top of the tank, and almost lost my dinner. There in the water was about half a pail of dead mice. It was sickening, and I was glad no one but myself saw it. Close by was the axe the teacher used to make kindling for the stove, and I took the axe and out the bottom out of that tank, so it could never be used again. At the next board meeting I told the trustees what I had done, and they thought that for a new man I had taken rather drastic measures; but I did not tell them why I did it. I moved that we have a cistern dug at an early date, and that it be cemented and mouse tight. Then it was up to me it seemed to have that done. There was a man on the job by evening, and in a short time we had a nice cistern that could be filled with fresh water. I don't mind saying, I overheard the chairman tell someone that if it had not been for Stewart, they would still be using that old tank.

Gradually we got the school in a shape the inspector called passable, but there was more trouble brewing. I could not figure out why any antagonism was directed towards me, but I took it as what I was warned about: If you want trouble, get on the local school board!

One day the teacher noticed that two of the children had impatago, a skin infection, and following her duties, she sent them home and advised me of what she had done. The children were back to school the following day and had to be sent home again. These children were from a French speaking family who did not understand why they should be sent home. I tried to explain to anyone who would listen, that if they had been our own children, they would have been sent home.

It so happened that I had to be away for a few days and was taking the train where I ran into the local member of the municipality. We talked and I unloaded some of my school troubles to his shoulders, among them the two children we had to send home. The school nurse was also on the train so we talked with her and she agreed about sending the children home but said that they should see a doctor. Our school did not budget for a doctor and had no money to have one come to see the family, but the councillor said he would pay if I could find a doctor who would come. One was located in Francis, about 2O miles away, and it was the first time that family had had medical attention. He sent a medicant for the ailing ones, and the children were back in school in a week.

When I got home from my trip, one of the trustees met me at the train and wanted to know who gave me the authority to get a doctor, and said that a special meeting was called for the next day. The meeting was held in the school and the crowd to see the fun had every seat taken and standing room only in the back. A petition had been made up against the secretary, and he was beside himself with nervousness at being called before the meeting. I suggested he ask the chairman to allow me to take his case, as the secretary was too ill to defend himself. He was not the one who had sent the children home in the first place.

First question was who had sponsored the petition, and since no one came forward I asked that it be dismissed. The father of the children then said he would sponsor it. I asked him if he knew the school act and through the interpreter he replied that he did. There were between 40 and 50 clauses of the duties of trustees and I suggested we take ten at a time to find the clause the secretary had not complied with. Before we had completed the second 10 clauses, many asked that their names be deleted and the case was dismissed.

Then I gave a short talk to put my side before the meeting. It was me they were after in the first place I could see, but for some reason chose the secretary as the easiest target. I told of my conversation with the councillor and it was a surprise to the whole meeting. I got a thank you from even the children's father, and I put that day down in my memory as a great one.

There were other incidents that finally led to my resignation. At the meeting held to elect my replacement I foolishly allowed my name to be left on the ballot, and got all but two votes - one was a spoiled ballot that a lady had marked my name on twice. But my stay was short as I was most unhappy,so I resigned again, this time for good.

Fortunately, there was another school nearer than the first one, and we took our children to it. 

So far in these memoirs I have only mentioned my part in things, but I should tell of a homemakers club the ladies of the district had. One time in early spring, it was our turn to have them meet at our house. There were no paved roads in those days and driving was a hazard at any time. There was a mud hole about a mile and a half from the house that was difficult to negotiate, and knowing this I had a team harnessed just in case. Sure enough, as I watched the ladies in that conveyance, they got stuck. I went to help and one lady had a small baby that was kicking up quite a fuss. The mother said she could not get the baby to stop crying. "Oh? I said, "throw the darn thing in the ditch." An atomic bomb could not have gone off any louder than that mother did. "I will not" she yelled "She gives me a lot of trouble some times, but I won't throw her in no ditch!!"

Estelle and I had four children, William Gordon, John Marshall, Maida Estelle and Duncan Mackenzie. School for the children was a problem, so we moved from the farm to Francis where there was a high school. By this time we had no livestock as is was much simpler and cheaper to buy the produce we needed than raise the animals, so we were able to farm from Francis.

Then the children started leaving the home fires. Billie left to persue his career, and Marshall joined the navy and became a pilot of the airplane carrier Magnificent. He was in a plane accident near Halifax that cost him his life. His loss upset the house so much that we moved to Regina where there would not be so many reminders of Marshall. Then our daughter Maida married and left home, which left us with just the youngest at home, but Duncan too soon flew our nest, and Estelle and I were alone again.

One very hot day I was working the tractor in the fields when I stopped the tractor and said to myself, "Stewart, you are through". I was 75 years old.

Estelle and I had not raised any farmers, so we decided to sell the farm, and it was not long until a buyer appeared, asking if I wanted to sell. I was so anxious to sell that I said yes, and put a price on the farm that I was sure he would not take and we would have some bargaining. But, he accepted, and just like that my farm was sold. Had I not been in such a hurry, I could have got more than twice that amount, for the following year the land sales were terrific. Then for five consecutive years, the new owner threshed an average of 40 bushels per acre each year as all conditions were ideal. I had not been that fortunate in all the years since I located there. And the price of wheat went to $3.50 a bushel from a long time price of 50˘ to 60˘ per bushel. But I had no regrets for I had had all I could take; born a couple of years too soon. 

I am an old man now and coming to the end of my memoirs, which I want to finish so that my grandchildren can see a little of what it was like to live through that period of time.

I have been asked many times if I would do it all over again, given the opportunity, and I can only answer "maybe". I look back and see so many mistakes, and there is no way I could have avoided them except by luck. Wheat farming is likely a good profession, but one must have the money to invest in the proper machinery, and the knowledge of what it is all about. There are agricultural schools now where all these things are better taught by teachers who know their job, than by experience learned the hard way, as fellow such as I was. There is so much to know that a young fellow could and would be a lifetime learning the hard way, what he would learn in a year or two at a college.

If I were to start over again, I would first ask that I be given the same life partner that had been with me for fifty-seven years, but I would explain to her what she was undertaking.

This bring me to the end of my memoirs. You can understand dear reader, that a lot has been left out, but I hope there is enough to show what happened on a pioneer farm, where I spent so many years. My last birthday was my 92nd, and I am the last of my Father's family. My only sister, Maida, died the day after Christmas 1976. Harry died several years ago, he had been a rover, and saw most of the world. Andrew died a few years ago, after his superanuation from the C.P.R. where he was a divisional engineer till he retired.

Estelle and I have moved to Victoria, where we do not have to live through the long cold prairie winters, and we expect to end our years here. I cannot speak too highly of the assistance and encouragement I have had from Estelle over the years. I never would have made it alone.

We enjoy a quiet game of bridge, but I am not the one that everybody wants for a partner. She is. I was at a stag party one evening, and was surprised to find I had the highest score. As our host was giving me the prize, I said thank you, and added that I was surprised to find I had won. One of the other fellows answered "so is everybody else!".

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