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CHAPTER 21:

CONCERNING VARIOUS THINGS INCLUDING WEDDINGS

     Graham brought back quite a number of things with him, which served to make us more comfortable during this second year. One thing was a small chest of drawers, which was a great help in stowing away our goods, and another was a little washing machine and tub. This saved my knuckles as well as my temper. My dear mother was always thinking what she could send to help us out. However, the large trunk which also accompanied my brother was not quite such a success. It was very tightly packed. At the bottom was all my music, collected and learned with much care and trouble. The Wright's having their piano now, I hoped to have some pleasant hours enjoying my old friends. Alas, my hopes were destined to be disappointed. On the top of the music a large jar of marmalade was packed and then many other things, a big box of raisins, clothing, etc. When all was packed she remembered a 5 lb. parcel of white beans and simply scattered them through. As you may guess, the glass jar broke and everything, especially the music, was literally tarred and feathered. I shall never forget the appearance of that box or my despair over the music. A good deal of it I simply had to burn, some odd pages were able to be wiped off, but that was the end of the music. I never had time or opportunity to practise again and let it go. Not that I feel the time spent on it was wasted, for I believe the lessons in diligence and perseverance which I learned by means of it were worth far more to one than any number of sonatas.

     But to go back to the spring of '81, Graham had made a good many improvements to the house. It was now nicely "limed", so that water and mosquitoes could no longer

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get in. He had also dug a well, and had enclosed ten acres of pasture land, so he no longer spent hours hunting his cow. In due time a nice little red calf appeared, and once again we enjoyed the luxury of milk and butter. I made more butter than the year before, but easily disposed of it all. We arranged a basket with a pulley, so that we could keep it down the well, and it was always cold and nice. I always made it with a spoon in a big bowl, and many a long afternoon I spent sitting on our rickety table, a book spread out before me, beating away at the cream. I read for one thing all through Justin McCarthy's "History of Our Own Times". My butter accounts I kept on the wall of my bedroom and what was my indignation, coming in one day late in the summer, to find Graham had decided to put in a south window and had cut out the piece of wall with all my accounts. However, I had a pretty good estimate and the proceeds purchased oats for our horses for the winter.

     We had managed to buy half a dozen hens when we were returning from Emerson, and I raised quite a number of chickens. We also set up a pig, and our little Flossy presented us with four nice puppies, three black and one brown. But a few days afterwards Graham came in and said to me,

"There once was a puppy named Brown,
Upon whom his mother lay down,
And when she got up,
There was a dead pup,
And that was the end of Brown."
The remaining pups were named Syndicate, Sambo and Sancho and were a great amusement to me all the summer. The name "Syndicate" came from the continual conversation regarding the Canadian Pacific Railway which was being built, and many were the discussions as to the route it would take and whose land would get the benefit. It must have been this spring I think that Brandon1 was first heard of. I remember Bredin coming in and telling of the new city that was to be. A hundred tents were pitched and stores and business carried on in them.

     I have not said much about our young visitor 2, though he was quite a problem to us. At first he entered enthusiastically into the work and for a short time was quite a help

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getting firewood, planting the garden and so on, but it was not long before he became fearfully homesick, and if there is one thing more trying than another it is a homesick boy. He would lie on his bed, with his head buried in the pillow, mourning over the mosquitoes and fifty other things, till I was desperate. Between whiles he would cheer up and if the ponies could be spared, would go for a ride with me, and finally he decided to take up land. He spent much time hunting for a very choice section and at last he said the only really good "quarter" was that already taken by Jacobs and Irwin. We had seen nothing of them for nearly a year and the law was that if no work was done on a place for six months it could be taken by someone else. This they called "jumping". A good chance came along for Master Eddie to go to Nelsonville to the land agent and arrange the matter. Indeed he was to start early the next morning when, looking along the trail, we saw a little cavalcade approaching. "Jacobs and Irwin returning," I exclaimed, and true enough it was. They had been working hard and had saved enough to buy a wagon and oxen, a plough and other necessaries. They never knew how nearly they had lost their land. They spent the night with us and before long had a one-roomed shack up and some crop in. Then Jacobs went off again and Irwin remained and managed both places. This knocked Eddie out altogether and he decided to go home, and we were quite ready to let him.

     Soon after his departure we had a new inmate in our house. I began to feel very lonely and the work of the house weighed on me, for I was busy enough with washing and ironing, butter making, bread making, etc. I could not get out of my mind too the little boy 3 who had been with us in the autumn and what he had told me of his little sisters, so I suggested to Graham that we should offer to take one of the little girls for the summer. He was quite willing and I wrote proposing it to her mother. I had no answer and supposed she did not wish it, but one Sunday towards the end of May, when all the grass round the house was starred with violets, and the trees were just

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beginning to have their first shade of green, an old oxcart drew up at the door, and my friend Joe got out, followed by a pretty little fair-haired, blue-eyed girl. She might stay a month, her mother said, and then he would come back for her. He would only remain long enough for the ox to feed and then hurried off. He had a long fifteen miles to drive and oxen go very slowly.

     Emmie4 was quite a pretty child, though with a squint in one eye which rather spoiled her. One of the Indians had offered her father a pony for her not long before, but in spite of having five more little fair girls5, he had declined. She was of course very ignorant, but she was quick to learn and quite a help about the house. I used to pin up her reading lesson on the wall and she read it over as we washed the dishes. She told me a great deal about their life and all they had gone through, how soap was not to be had and the mother had given the children their Saturday bath with ashes; how good bread made of bran had tasted, after living all winter on turnips and boiled barley; how the house took fire one night and a big hole burned in the roof; how Daddy did not think it necessary to put any floor under the three double beds the family slept in, so the water collected there. It was good for their two little ducks to swim in, but mother was afraid Katie might fall in and be drowned. She told me also of their friends and near neighbours, the Turners, with their large family, mainly boys, but little Eva was her special friend and many games they had together.

     The great excitement of the spring was the double wedding at Mrs. Wright's6. Emmie had returned from Emerson when we did and all the spring the family was busy over trousseaux. I do not think silk underwear or crepe de chine nightgowns figured in their preparations, but they had a machine and the girls turned out many neat and dainty garments. Charlie, who had now procured horses, had to go to Emerson and bring back a minister as well as a list as long as your arm of other things, beginning with a wedding cake and ending with a bodkin 7. The weddings

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were very quiet. I think I was almost the only visitor. I had no way of procuring a new dress, so I wore a soft dark green cashmere; in fact it was one Marian8 had discarded for some reason and it had arrived in the bean and marmalade trunk.

     My hair was my great difficulty. It had begun to grow and would not stay "put", and I had no ribbon. Eddie Bishop (it was before he left) offered to take the black ribbon off his straw hat and lend it to me, and thus arrayed I sallied forth early one morning. The bushes were all white with blossom, the air was soft and balmy; every step of that mile and a half walk was a delight. We had the wedding early and then a substantial lunch, as Emmie had to get well on her way before nightfall and the minister had to hasten home. The river too was in flood and hard to ford. Mr. Ashby and his bride had only a few miles to go. They did not think of a honeymoon.

     Some little time afterwards Graham had business in that neighbourhood and took me to see my friend Edie. They had a nice little house and she seemed very happy. I do not remember ever meeting her again. While speaking of weddings, I must mention that my former pupil and dear friend, Lily Reid 9, was married during this summer to Eddie Checkley. They were both very young, but it was a true love match and lovers they have remained ever since. My old Muskoka friend Craven Ord was also married during this summer, to Miss Ehrle, much to his parents' disgust, as he was still at college.

1 In May of 1881, General Thomas Rosser chose a location for a major divisional point of the Canadian Pacific Railway and named this new townsite "Brandon". (www.brandonchamber.ca/brandon_history.aspx)
2 Eddie Bishop, The Days of My Pilgrimage Ch. 20 p. 147.
3 Joe Bradley. The Days of My Pilgrimage Ch. 20 p. 137.
4 Emmie Bradley, daughter of William & Ellen Bradley, sister of Joe Bradley. (1881 Canada Census - www.mirror.org/groups/genealogy/census.html)
5 Ellen, Mary, Sarah, Maria & Fanny Bradley. (1881 Canada Census - www.mirror.org/groups/genealogy/census.html)
6 Emmie Wright was to marry the druggist, Francis Carman, & Edie Wright was to marry Mr. Ashby.  The Days of My Pilgrimage Ch. 20 pp. 146 & 147.
7 1. A small, sharply pointed instrument for making holes in fabric or leather.
2. A blunt needle for pulling tape or ribbon through a series of loops or a hem.
Or 3. A long hairpin, usually with an ornamental head. (http://www.dictionary.com/)
8 Probably Marion Louisa Robinson, daughter of Sir James & Lady Robinson of Toronto.
9 Daughter of Margaret Reid of Bowmanville. The Days of My Pilgrimage Ch. 12 p. 75.
10 Possibly Grace Ehrle. (See Craven Ord 1901 Census-Canada - http://automatedgenealogy.com/census)
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