Canada and the British immigrant

by Emily P. Weaver

THE SASKATCHEWAN RIVER AT EDMONTON.

The tiny dwelling, lined with building paper and thin boards, was not plastered for a year or two and at first the one room was kitchen, dining-room and washhouse. The house was a full mile from the next one, and stood in the centre of a great field of wheat, which sometimes, when the babies (who soon arrived) began to toddle, seemed to the young mother to grow perilously high, for she had heard stories of little ones wandering off into the tall wheat and being lost.

The coming of the little ones to a pioneer woman is often a terrible test of courage and endurance, for it is hard to get either doctor or experienced nurse at the right time. Sometimes the prospective mother goes into town to a hospital or to some friend; but generally she stays at home. The neighbours do the best they can, and often all goes well—and sometimes it does not. In such a case and in many another emergency the rural telephone is a wonderful boon and comfort—and may be even counted a life-saving agency. Incidentally, I may mention that women, competent to take care of mother and infant or to help in case of sickness, who would be willing to take charge also of the domestic arrangements of a little house, while its mistress was incapacitated, would not be likely to lack work in the West. Many people, who could hardly meet the high charges for a regularly trained nurse, would be glad to pay well for such services. Mrs. Smith told me, however, that it was practically impossible to get help, and that a neighbour had driven hither and thither for a week in a vain search for someone to take care of his wife, at last getting an old woman from the immigrant shed in a somewhat distant town. My informant’s impression was that there was “a great chance” for “hired girls” in these prairie communities, for on the farms they are treated like “one of the family.” Nevertheless they generally prefer to stay in the towns.

Gradually things improve as the neighbourhoods get settled, though the great farms of the exclusively wheat-growing districts “make few neighbours.” The more so, because many a Western farmer develops a passion for adding field to field—or “quarter-section to quarter-section.” The Smith farm, for instance, grew to be “seven miles” round; and the husband was often working a mile away from home, but after the first few years he managed to get a man and his wife to live on the farm. Despite the isolation, Mrs. Smith did not regard the life as a hard one. She “liked the farm very much,” she said, and thought the women in the West had “easier times” than those in the East, for the regular “hired men” lived in the bunk-house, though they came to the house for their meals, and after the first two years she did not have to cook for the harvesters and threshers, whose meals were provided from “a cook car.” She was, however, fortunate in having a husband who was both considerate and capable.

As to the social aspects of life, she had been used in her girlhood, though that, too, was spent on a prairie farm—near Regina—to go out a great deal in the evenings “with her musical brothers” to meet other young people, and no doubt she felt the change to the new district, where, of the few women who could be counted neighbours, some were very rough. But soon there were alleviations. From the first there was a church only five miles away, and later there were services in the school-house, which, by the way, in that section at least was very much of a social centre.

Mrs. Smith usually boarded the lady who taught there, and the section had “fine teachers,” who brought on the little flocks of from sixteen to twenty-six children most successfully, lent books to the readers of the community and got up the summer picnics in connection with the school—the more enjoyed, perhaps, because other entertainments were so few and far between. These consisted of a Sunday school Christmas tree, an occasional concert, or a public dance to which “nice women” did not go—at least, in that particular district—as it was open to everyone who could pay, and was attended by men of the rougher sort, who thought it impossible to enjoy themselves without much whiskey.

By the help of the neighbours, the mail was usually brought from the post office, ten miles distant, three times a week, and the Smiths subscribed for several magazines and newspapers. The telephone, when it came, was “a great help”; but, when “the children began to want to see people” and to need somewhat better education than could be gained in the little country school, this family moved into one of the gay, bustling little prairie towns. Mrs. Smith’s experience, it must be remembered, was that of a pioneer, and there are districts in the provinces where that kind of life is becoming a thing of the past, though pioneers are still plentiful.

In the particular town to which the Smiths moved (and I have reason to believe it not exceptional) there is a high proportion of young people in the population and brides are often numerous, whose trousseaux are, perhaps, accountable for setting the pace in a style of dressing which is costly, and which seems almost incongruously handsome in comparison with the tiny houses in which many of the young couples dwell. But money is easily earned and quickly spent by the eager optimistic Westerner; and, doubtless, if domestic servants were easier to get and to keep, more well-to-do folk would turn their attention to building larger houses.

In the rural districts of the older provinces there are plenty of somewhat isolated farmhouses; but there are also many farming communities where the families are close enough together to enjoy a good deal of social life; and where this is the case the country life is a delightful one, for young folk especially. The boys and girls on the farms learn early to do the work of men and women; but it is work which, if not overdone in amount, is healthful for mind and body; and the informal country merry-makings have a charm of their own.

A sleigh ride of several miles, on a moonlight night, through a lovely snow-covered landscape of hill and woods and valley, does not detract from the enjoyment of an informal carpet dance, especially when the vehicle is a big box sleigh, filled with a dozen lively lads and lasses, whose songs and laughter ring out above the jingling bells. A wedding feast or a barn-raising bee, a church social, or a school concert, a “strawberry festival” or a “Christmas tree”—country folk know how to enjoy all these things; as they enjoy chance meetings in the store or at the church door—and now there are in most provinces Farmers’ Clubs and Women’s Institutes to aid in the good work of drawing together country neighbours of all the different denominations. Above all, the country is the place for the little ones, where they may spend their first years amongst the animals and birds and flowers, which the normal child loves, leading a simple, outdoor life.