The next thing to do was to find a fellow-worker for the tour; and this was by no means easy, for she must not only have been trained at St. Christopher's and be physically strong, but she must be prepared to pay her own expenses, there being as yet no fund to finance the venture. Fortunately, however, an experienced ex-student, Miss Winifred Ticehurst, offered to go. She had trained at St. Christopher's soon after its foundation, and had since had considerable experience in Sunday-school and parish work.
Then came the difficulty of getting passages and passports. These would never have been granted had we not been able to prove that we were going out to work. After the trials consequent on a visit to Cook's agent the following incident in the current Punch seemed peculiarly apposite. Scene: The office of a travel bureau. Clerk (helping nervous-looking lady to fill up form): "And the address of the nearest relation to whom the body may be sent if found dead?"
I intended to travel via New York, in order to visit some cousins. I had heard of the fame of the U.S.A. Sunday-schools, and wished to see some of them. I also hoped to meet Dr. Gardner, the Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Department of Religious Education for the American Episcopal Church. It was therefore necessary to get my passport visaed at the American Consulate, and on presenting the customary letter of recommendation from a clergyman I was much amused when the clerk eyed me suspiciously and remarked: "A letter from a clergyman is nothing to go by. They are so easily taken in."
The question of equipment had taken considerable thought, and the result seems worth setting down, in view of its possible service to others. The chief items were: a motorist's 1919 tent with bamboo poles, sleeping-bags, a double Primus stove and a Tommy cooker, a ferrostate flask and two thermos flasks, canvas buckets, clothes both for winter and summer (landworkers' suits for driving the caravan, which, unfortunately, the Canadians regarded as displaying an undue amount of "limb"!). Then, for use in the prairie schools, sets of Nelson's pictures and Sunday School Institute models (given me by the Girls' Diocesan Association for Carlisle diocese), and a case of books of graded lesson courses and a quantity of postcard pictures of "The Hope of the World" and "The New Epiphany." A tip from an experienced traveller proved most useful. This was to fasten the packing-cases with bands of tin nailed on, instead of with ropes, as the latter frequently break when the cases are swung aboard ship, scattering the contents on deck.
In February, 1920, we embarked at Liverpool for New York. Winifred Ticehurst was to meet me at the boat, and my feelings may be imagined as the time drew on, the friends seeing me off had to leave, and still no fellow-traveller appeared. At last, five minutes before they raised the gangway, she ran up, breathless. Her passport had not been dated in London, and they had sent her back from the boat to get it dated at the American Consulate in Liverpool. It was an ill-omened opening for her voyage, which proved one of great discomfort, as she was more or less ill for a week. She managed to write descriptive letters, all the same, and the following extract is a vivid portrait of our fellow-travellers (we went second-class to save expense).
"The young men and maidens . . . sit about on one another's laps, and the correct way to get ready for lunch is, when you hear the gong, to part yourself from your companion, pull a comb out of your pocket and do your hair—then you are ready."
I did not suffer from sea-sickness myself, and never missed a meal. Indeed, the waiters seemed greatly intrigued at my appetite, and I fancy, from the way they pressed the various courses, that they were betting on how much I could eat!
A day or two before we reached New York there was a horrid orgy on board. Knowing that they were entering a "dry" country, many of the passengers got drunk, shouting and raging all night long, so that one could not sleep. On the prairie I afterwards found other ill-effects of prohibition—the smuggling of spirits and excessive drug-taking, the latter chiefly amongst women. Before passing such laws it surely would have been advisable to have created a stronger public opinion to support them. Otherwise there is danger of finding two evils in the place of one.
On the other hand, future generations should benefit greatly by this measure, however imperfectly it now works. It seems improbable that the health and industrial prosperity of non-prohibition countries will equal those of "dry" countries.
The day before we entered New York we got into the end of a blizzard. There was a tremendously high sea, and we moved very little that day. We received a wireless message from a ship just out of a Canadian port which had struck a rock in the storm, but we were too far off to go to her assistance.