Then McDougal lit his pipe. Grannie cleared up the table but left the dishwashing until after I had gone as she wanted to share the conversation. What a jolly three hours we had! Not a great deal there to make us happy, you would say; a lonely log-cabin in a far land and in the depth of an almost Arctic winter with no other human habitation within sight or sound. Yet we forgot the fierce cold that circled us, for the little place was comfortable, and better still our hearts were warm with love and friendship. McDougal was finely educated and had travelled, so the cabin was neither small nor lonely. Its walls expanded and took in many guests. A goodly throng was there for we wandered at will among a world of books and men. He loved a good, clean joke, and let me tell you when we got going the stories both grave and gay were worth your hearing.
Grannie was with us heart and soul in it all. Her face beamed with cheeriness and good will. Sometimes, however, a far-away look came into her brown eyes. I knew what it meant. She longed to get away from the North and back again to the sunshine of her Southern home. She was getting on in years and our extreme winters were very trying to her. Whenever she got half a chance she would tell us something about their home in California, the warm, bright summers, the lovely gardens she and her neighbours had, and the flowers growing in profusion, especially the roses charming the eye and filling the air with their perfume.
Dear wee Grannie, she never lived to go back. One winter the brutal cold gripped her and in spite of all we could do it took her life away. It was a sad day when we placed her body in the grave on that hillside. All the creek assembled to show their affection, and in deep sorrow. It was her last request that she should be buried there. She didn't want to be far from the man she loved even though it meant a lonely grave in a lonely land. The Klondike is for McDougal his homeland now. Fifteen years have passed since then and he still lives in that cabin on the mountain slope where the woman he loves best lies buried.
But there was no thought of sorrow that Christmas Day. Nowhere in the world was there a merrier party, and when it came time for me to go, (I had a wedding at Last Chance Roadhouse), it was with a feeling that the cabin had been a sanctuary of friendship, happiness and hospitality. When I went out into the darkness and the bitter cold I was hardly conscious of it for my heart was aglow. All through these years filled with many vivid experiences that day has kept its brightness. Nor will it ever fade away but seems to shine more clearly in the Halls of Memory as the years go by.
IV.
Some Klondike Weddings
In the fall of 1916, a month or two across from Canada, I was posted for duty at Shorncliffe Military Hospital, Major C. Reason of London, Ont, commanding. I was billeted for a few weeks in a Sandgate private house where the landlady used to do a little cheap profiteering on our coal allowance. She gave me mostly cinders for my grate, mixed with a modicum of coal. The room was altogether too large for the fireplace, and anyway I was fresh from Canada and wasn't inured to the rigorous climate that prevails inside English homes in winter. I used to write my letters in bed. It was the only way I could keep warm in my room for any length of time.
Major Reason soon arranged a place for me in the Officers' quarters and there I was quite cosy and happy. The Medical Officers were congenial and made my initiation into Army life a pleasant experience. The style of men they were can be judged by the fact that by common consent we decided to read aloud a portion of some worth-while book four evenings a week in the Mess after dinner. We chose "The Professor at the Breakfast Table" by Holmes, and that winter we read it through and no one played truant. Is there another Officers' Mess that has that record?
The Officers were all strangers to me except Captain Ferris of Edmonton, President of the Mess. I knew him in my Toronto University days in the class of '98, as "Buster Ferris," when he was one of the scrimmage bunch on the Varsity Senior Rugby team. Those were the days of "Biddy" Barr, Counsell, Hobbs and McArthur on the football field, and Hamar Greenwood, MacKenzie King, Arthur Meighen, Tucker, Billie Martin, and Eddie Beattie in the Literary Society. In 1894 the students boycotted all lectures because of the Senate's action in regard to Tucker and Prof. Dale. We were all wild "Bolshies" for a few weeks and those I have mentioned were our leaders. I wonder if they still remember those revolutionary meetings in the Spadina Ave. hall!
The Nursing Staff under Miss Urquhart gave their services in a wholehearted spirit that was beyond praise. Indeed, throughout the whole hospital staff "one unceasing purpose ran" and that was to serve the patients in every possible way.