CHAPTER XIII
FURTHER PRAIRIE SKETCHES
We had come to Coleville at the special invitation of Mr. H., the clergyman in charge of the district. It seemed strange to meet out here, he being the son of the late vicar of my parish at home. We had promised to spend a week in his district, and he had planned out a full programme for us. On the Monday we gave an address in Coleville school (during school hours), and then went on to Victory school. This school-house was a mile and a half from any other house, and many miles from a town. All around were wide stretches of unbroken prairie, with a few farms here and there. The prairie was covered with flowers of all colours—the wild, blue flax, flame-coloured mallows, many-hued vetches, and a lovely deep pink low growing wild rose with a very sweet perfume, and a small anousa of turquoise blue.
A Maple Leaf teacher was in charge of this little one-roomed school—a very pretty girl. She was delighted to see anyone out from England. After school was over the children brought round the teacher's horse, and then they all mounted and galloped away in a picturesque cavalcade. Most of them lived about four miles off.
We went on to Smilie in the evening, where I gave an address to parents and children. While I was buying gasolene next morning, a man came into the garage, and, seeing the name on the van, began a conversation with us. He was glad that someone was going round to teach the children, he said. He had been taught the Bible when he was young, but nowadays people knew nothing about it. Why, only the other day he had asked a workman if he knew what building it was which had been raised without sound of axe or hammer, and he actually didn't know! It was quite time the children were taught the Bible.
We had no housekeeping cares in this district, as Mr. H. had arranged for nearly all our meals to be provided. So generous, indeed, were the folk of this neighbourhood that all our gasolene was sold to us at half-price. On the Tuesday we went out to a prairie school where they were having holidays. But our visit had been announced, and the children drove in to have a Bible lesson, holiday time though it was. Moreover, after Winifred had given them an hour's lesson the class still refused to disperse.
Out here I saw the first flock of sheep which I had found on the prairie. We had dinner with the owner, an old Welsh farmer, and his wife. He remarked that he was very glad that we were going round to teach the children, and when I asked why, he replied that the young people now growing up hadn't been taught the Bible as he and his wife had been taught it at home in Wales, adding gloomily: "Half the motor cars you see in the town on a Saturday evening haven't been paid for. It's time somebody went round to teach them something."
He did not usually attend any meetings, it seemed, but we had evidently made a good impression, for, to everybody's surprise, he turned up in the evening at my address to parents. We had a special Welsh hymn in his honour. This meeting, as was often inevitable, was an hour late in beginning. Those who arrived first telephoned to the rest to know if they had started. It was rather like a Derby day, Mr. H., on the top of the caravan, announcing from time to time who was first in the field. While we were waiting, a good many young men were introduced with the usual formula, "Meet Mr. So-and-So, one of our bachelors," and etiquette obliged us to reply, "Pleased to meet you."
Next morning we went out to Travet Park school, miles away across the unbroken prairie. We should never have found our way had not Mr. H. accompanied us. It was pleasant to miss the telephone poles and see countless flowers instead. We never passed a farm all the way, and we could hardly see the trail. At Travet Park the teacher told us that she had started a Sunday School on Fridays after school hours, but very much wanted help with books. The children here listened with breathless attention to the lesson we gave them. It was most encouraging to find both teacher and children so keen. We had dinner at a farm, and afterwards I took the van to collect people for the parents' meeting—among others, a young mother with her tiny baby, and an old lady with a broad Cockney accent and a bonnet trimmed with black cherries, some of which were jolted off in the van and remained with us as trophies. It was a real cross-country run. We were actually told to drive over the wheat. Then we came to a ditch which we crashed into and out again, and then over a large badger's hole. By the time we arrived at the school I felt that all ideas had been jerked out of my head. But the meeting began with a hymn, and then Winifred said a few words, and by that time I had collected my scattered wits.
Next day we had a puncture far out on the prairie—our first misadventure of the kind. I had no spare wheel, and this entailed a hot job in the broiling sun. At last we arrived at the farm where we were taking Mr. H. to baptize two children—a child of three and an infant in arms. The father was ploughing, but he left his horses and came in for the baptism.