One of the most inspiriting farms we passed was that of a man who had been out from Cheshire only three months. He was now a chicken rancher—kept fowls, as we say; and in his brief occupation had got up—off a quarter block—eighty tons of hay, besides winning thirty-eight prizes at Albertan poultry shows. This would seem to show that Alberta is not yet rich in pure bred fowls. The Cheshire chicken rancher said he hoped to show the people round what a good table bird ought to look like. He was already a Canadian in all but accent. May he prosper!
After talking with him we drove on again towards Nightingale in the same sea-wind along the same bad roads. The sameness of the country was amazing; nor should I have known in the end that we had come to Nightingale but for the man driving us. 'See that avenue?' he said. 'The shacks standing along that are the farms. It seems more sociable being along a road.' 'Certainly,' I said. So it is more sociable to live along a road, provided you know it is a road. I didn't, but the colonists did, and that was the main thing. We found those we visited apparently contented and undoubtedly hopeful. Canada has the gift of making men hopeful. Though it had been in this part a very poor year, owing to drought, and though the irrigation had not been properly ready (but accidents will happen, and the company was charging only a nominal rent as a result of this) the farmers seemed as cheery as they would have been dismal in England. The crops had been poor, but they would do for chicken-feed. A bumper year was a sure thing some time or other. The future held no clouds. They were going to study Canadian methods suited to the country. I rubbed my eyes. These sentiments were being enunciated by an English farmer, who was meanwhile giving us a most hospitable English lunch. He was going to tell more people to come out. It was the finest farming land possible, once you get the water on it. Only one must take local advice how to run things. It was no good standing out, and knowing better than people on the spot, as one of the colonists was doing. He, I gathered, was the only man regarded as likely to do badly, being determined to stick to the methods of his English forebears. His leading wrongheadedness was in declining to believe that the winter was going to be or could be as long and as hard as people said, and he had not got in half the food needful for his cattle.
I suppose, but for that winter, the prairie would be the most sought-after country in the world. But for that winter, however, it would not possess the amazing friable soil it does. As has been remarked, one cannot have everything all the time. The winter is very severe, and there should be no disguising of the fact, nor indeed any exaggerating of it. Formerly its hardships were no doubt exaggerated. People had no use for a hard winter. Nowadays leisured people go in search of it—on the understanding, however, that it shall be made easy for them. They would like it less if they had to work in it in a below zero temperature, twenty or thirty miles from anywhere. I do not say that work under such conditions should or would disgust healthy and energetic men, provided they were prepared for it. It might even delight them. But it should be prepared for. English farmers in particular should be made to understand the drawbacks as well as the advantages of the new land they are going to. Honesty is in fact the best emigration policy. Given that, it is tolerably certain that these transplanted English farmers are going to find it more than worth while to have settled in Nightingale or any of the newer prairie colonies, and what is more—Canada is going to find it more than worth while to have them settled there.
CHAPTER XVIII
INTO THE ROCKIES WITH A DEFENDER OF THE FAITH
For several days I had seen the Rockies far off—a black and jagged coil of mountains, that seemed at times almost to be moving like some prehistoric great scaly beast on its endless crawl across the plains. Now I was to see them near by—some part of them at least. What has any man seen in that ocean of mountains but a few drops?
At the unpleasing hour of 3.30 A.M. I disengaged myself from one of the three double beds with which my room in the hotel was furnished, washed slightly, dressed completely, and walked to the station. Calgary was quiet at last. There had been a sound of revelry by night. A man with a tenor voice had been singing songs in some adjacent room to the hotel up to 3.30. But his songs and the vamped accompaniment to them had ceased now, and peace prevailed. I don't remember to have passed any one on the way to the station. There were two or three sleepy-eyed people lounging about there; there always seem to be a few in Canadian stations, no matter what the hour. I think they must be out-of-works who keep their spirits up by listening to the squeaking and clash of shunting trucks, and the letting off of steam, and the great clang of the bells that are sounded from the engines as a trans-continental train comes in—all those sounds of life and hustle that are dear to the Canadian soul.
