Farmer's Glory

by A G Street

  As far as I can remember, oats at under thirty cents a bushel, and wheat at under eighty cents, meant poor times for the producer, while forty cent oats and dollar wheat meant prosperity.

  Looking back on that time I have come to the conclusion that the chief compensation for this continuous toil was the fact that the country as a whole considered that farmers were important people. Without farming Canada would have been nothing. If you went into a shop in Winnipeg, no matter what kind of shop, the proprietor would ask you quite seriously as to the crop prospects in the West. All the townsmen knew that they depended, and that they depended entirely, on the success and prosperity of the Canadian farmer. Consequently he considered, and quite rightly, that he was an essential factor in the scheme of things, which gave him self-respect. There is an interesting contrast in the attitude of the British public to-day to the British farmer. Quite a large proportion of them look upon him as an unnecessary nuisance.

  I did not know anything about the politics of the country and was not interested, and on the one occasion I voted at an election my vote was purchased at the price of a half-day’s holiday. I was ploughing one morning on our home farm during my last year in Canada, when a motor car of all things came along the trail near by and stopped. The driver, a burly man of about sixty, came across to me, and explained that as I was twenty-one and had been two years in the country I had a vote. He told me that he was the Liberal candidate, and inquired my politics in England. I said that I was a Liberal, and he said that I should of course be twice a Liberal in Canada. I pointed out that I knew nothing about Canadian politics, cared even less, and also that I was working for George Hartley and therefore could not get away to go to Barloe to vote. ‘That’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen George in the Lake this morning, and he said you could knock off to vote. I’ll drive you in, and he’ll come round that way this evening and bring you back.’ This was an entirely different proposition. I would have voted for the devil himself, if by so doing I could take a half-day off. ‘But I’m filthy,’ I said. ‘Never mind, I can wait while you clean up. Say, let me take ’em, and finish the turn.’

  I was driving five horses abreast on a three-furrow walking plough, and the old boy took on like a master. It was probably good electioneering for him to do so, but he knew all about it, and finished the round in fine style. While I was putting the team away, he went up to the shanty, lit the fire, and had some shaving water ready for me when I arrived. I think that almost everyone in Western Canada had been a farmer at some time or another. This man had, and as he drove me to Barloe, he told me that he would prefer to plough all day rather than go electioneering. I voted for him, and he got in by a large majority.

  One winter, Billy Page, Joe Haines—who was working for Henderson—and I went to Winnipeg for a few days’ holiday. Our combined ages totalled only sixty-six years, and we were hungry for town, bright lights, and crowds, after two years’ work with a complete absence of these delights.

  That holiday went the way of all such holidays. We feasted royally and expensively. We bought clothes, especially ties, which we wore on our return about three times a year. We took in the theatres and cinemas. We had one glorious evening at a boxing exhibition in the Walker theatre. We bought absurdly expensive presents for Mrs. Henderson and her kiddies, and weird and wonderful pipes for Henderson and George. We luxuriated in shaves, haircuts, baths, and face massage. We smoked cigars which we disliked, used hair oil which we loathed, and for some unknown reason purchased some real estate lots in Alberta. I shall always remember that real estate office because of a notice displayed in it. It went like this. ‘Please do not swear in this office, not that we give a dam’ if you do, but it sounds like hell before strangers.’ In short, we had a wonderful time, and spent most of our money.

  On our last evening Billy unfolded a scheme by which we could make our expenses. He had been told about it by an old man in Beaver Lake named Jim Bolton. Bolton was one of the old-time cowpunchers of whom there were then very few. I had seen him shoot with a heavy Colt, and he could keep a tin can jumping with it like a live thing.

  I did not much care about this scheme of Billy’s. There is a streak of caution, possibly a yellow streak, in me somewhere. I could never do risky things for the sheer joy of doing them as did Billy, although I could screw myself up to it if absolutely necessary. Still, my companions were set on it, so I meekly went with them, with a nasty, sickish sort of feeling in my tummy.

  Billy gave us definite instructions as to our respective parts; we took a taxi to a gambling hall, and left instructions with the driver to wait round the corner ready for a quick getaway. I suppose it was a typical gambling joint, but this was my only experience. Faro, fan tan, roulette, and poker, were in full blast in a large hall with about thirty or forty men present.

  We ordered drinks, and stood watching the roulette. Presently Billy drifted away, and fetched up at a table where a solitary man was idly playing with three walnut shells and a pea.

  ‘Say, Boss,’ said Billy, ‘what’s the idea?’

  ‘Quickness of the hand deceives the eye, stranger,’ was the reply. ‘Watch the li’l pea.’ Flip, flip, flip. ‘Where is she? Betcha a dollar you don’t know.’

  ‘I’ll go you,’ said Billy, pulling out a dollar bill. ‘Lemme think now. When you’re full, choose the middle one.’

  ‘You’re quick,’ said the dealer, turning up the middle shell and showing the pea hidden beneath it. He handed Billy a dollar and spread the shells out again.

  By this time Joe and I had drifted across to the table, and stood one on each side of Billy, who was sitting in a chair facing the dealer. After Billy had won five out of the next seven throws at a dollar a throw, the dealer dared him to have a decent bet.

  ‘I’m the owner of this layout,’ he said, ‘my regular dealer for this game’s away to-night. That’s why I’m wasting my time here, but it bores me playing for chicken feed.’

  ‘Well, I got a li’l roll I don’t mind adding to,’ said Billy, ‘but you must put your money up on the table alongside mine, if we’re going into bigger figures.’

  ‘Goddlemighty!’ said the dealer. ‘Whatcha take me for? I got more in my jeans than a farmer like you’se ever seen.’

  ‘Here you are,’ he went on, exhibiting a fat roll of bills. ‘What’ll a piker like you bet? One, two, three, five hundred? Anything you like up to a thousand.’

  ‘Alri’,’ said Billy. ‘I’m a farmer alright alright. Don’t get het up. I guess I’m a bit canned or something, but your face don’t look near as nice to me as it did a while back. Still, you said it. I’m a farmer, and I’ll go you five hundred bucks on one throw, an’ remember, farmers ain’t so easy as they used to be.’

  The two rolls of bills were counted and checked, and the thousand dollars placed in the middle of the table in one roll. The dealer spread the shells out swiftly, and said viciously: ‘Now then, farmer, where is she?’

  ‘Serious this,’ said Billy. ‘Lemme think. Never desert your first love’s my motto. She’s under the middle shell.’

  As he spoke, he reached out and covered the middle shell with his right hand, and grabbed the roll of bills with his left. Simultaneously, Joe’s forefinger descended on the left-hand shell, and mine on the right. Before the dealer had recovered from his astonishment, we turned up the two outside shells, to find no pea under either.

  Immediately Billy turned up the middle one with the same result, while Joe grabbed the dealer’s hand, and forced him to exhibit the pea, snugly hidden between his fingers.

  ‘Hi,’ he yelled, ‘watch the door. They’re bouncing me.’

  ‘No, darling,’ said Billy, ‘you’re just getting the rebound,’ and with a heave he upset the table on top of the dealer and dived for the door, closely followed by Joe and me.

  Two men got there before us, and must have regretted the fact for days after. Billy hit one beautifully on the jaw, and as he fell he was trampled in our wild rush through th
e door into the passage.

  Joe smothered the second man in a bear-like hug and bumped him into unconsciousness against the door jamb. Down the passage we rushed, luckily opening the street door without any difficulty, and ran swiftly round the corner to our waiting taxi.

  ‘Let her ramble,’ yelled Billy, as soon as we were all aboard. ‘We’re farmers all right, and we’ve finished harvest. You betcha!’

  CHAPTER XV

  I do not think that this record of my time in Canada does justice to George Hartley, my employer. Most of it seems to be about my doings with other folk as companions. Of course, when one lives so intimately with a man as I did with George, one is rather apt to take him for granted. But he was, without exception, the most kindly, courteous, good-natured gentleman I have ever met. He seemed to me a sort of Rock of Gibraltar on which I could depend in any difficulty. He never lost his temper, he was always fair, he told me quite flatly when I was a b—— f——, which was most of the time, and he suffered my mistakes with good humour. Also, I realize now that he looked after me both morally and physically much more than I knew at the time. He was thirty-two years old and I was nineteen when I arrived, so it was natural for me to amuse myself with younger men. Besides, he was engaged to be married to Sally Major, who was obviously a much more interesting companion for him than I.

  I had arranged to go home for a winter’s holiday in 1914 after his wedding in the fall, so we had to get a house built for him that summer. The preparations for the house we did ourselves, the first job being to dig a cellar the size of the proposed building. This we did chiefly with a road-scraper, which was a sort of large, glorified shovel, hauled by two horses. The only piece of that cellar hole which I threw out by hand, was the last piece, upon which the horses used to scramble out of the hole with a scraper full of earth.

  The cellar was an important feature of a Canadian house, as it contained the furnace for the central heating, and was the only frost-proof store for potatoes and similar goods which would be spoiled by getting frozen. Incidentally, onions so spoil. I saw a case of them in the store at Barloe one day, and visions of fried onions came to my mind so strongly that I purchased several pounds and placed them in the sleigh. I stopped at Henderson’s for supper on the way home, and left my parcels outside in the sleigh for some hours. It was forty below, and when I got home and took out the onions they were frozen right through like balls of glass, and when I thawed them out they were useless.

  The walls of the cellar were of brick, and formed the foundations for the house above, which was built entirely of wood save for the chimneys. A jobbing bricklayer and carpenter from Beaver Lake built the house, while George hauled the lumber, and I did the farm work. We had no bed for this craftsman, but he seemed quite happy on some horse blankets in a corner of the shanty.

  Canadians, as a rule, did not build any open fireplaces in their houses, relying on the central heating for warmth, and running a stove-pipe from the cooking stove into the chimney. But the English settler with memories of England’s homes had always one fireplace. He did not light this fire with the idea of warming himself, but it seemed like home to watch the flames flickering up the chimney. The Canadians laughed at this fancy, but to me it was very understandable. Some of my most pleasant memories are of Henderson’s fireplace. As he said, to be able to tap one’s pipe out in comfort, and throw nut shells into it, made it well worth the outlay.

  The news of the outbreak of war came in August, but very few young men enlisted immediately. We were in the middle of harvest, and a European war seemed very far away, while the needs of the land were urgent and important. The general idea was that after threshing, if this war business was not settled by then, we might consider it.

  George was getting another young lad out from England to take my place, but he was not arriving until after Christmas. My idea was to go home for the winter, and see if I could get my father to finance me in a farm in Canada. I had picked out the half-section I wanted to buy, and intended to return in the spring should my father put up the capital. If he would not, I was coming back to work for Billy Page, as I had sensed that the newly-married pair would prefer a stranger as hired man.

  George was married in early December, and I drove him up to the little town of Binden, a replica of Barloe and hundreds of others, for the wedding on the day before I left for England. And in the little wooden church they were married, and afterwards I drove them to the depot and saw them off.

  I turned away from the depot when their train was lost in the Western haze, and walked over to the cutter feeling very lonely. George and Sally Major. No! They’d vanished. Now it was Mr. and Mrs. Hartley. Damn it, I’d lost George. Like losing a leg almost. Duke nuzzled my hand. ‘Hell!’ I said to myself. ‘I’m getting weepy like a drunk. Never mind, Duke.’ I hopped into the cutter. ‘Come on, you little devil. Set ’em alight.’ I drove back to Sally’s home, where the wedding party were making merry.

  Late that night I drove back to the shanty, and the feeling of utter loneliness returned. I put Duke in the stable, and fixed him up for the night. All our other horses were turned out, and I was leaving Duke at Henderson’s in the morning.

  As I walked up from the stable I noticed George’s new two-storey house. It shone up in the bright moonlight, dwarfing the little shanty, and making it look like a hen-house. I wondered if George would be happier, or as happy, in the house as he had been in the shanty. I went into the shanty and lit the lamp. Brrr! It was cold. I lit the fire and looked round the shanty. It was sort of bare somehow. Of course, all my things were packed in my trunk. I was going home. I sat down and lit my pipe.

  I was going home, home to Partridge Farm…. Damn it! This was home. This dirty shanty. Here I had been happy; yes, happier than I had ever been. England would be strange. I’d feel like a foreigner. God! How lonely I was. George was gone, not just for a week but for ever. He would come back with his wife to the new house under the bluff, and probably put pigs in the shanty. Oh, hell!

  I blew out the lamp and got into bed.

  I wondered how George was making out as a married man. Funny, I had slept with him for three years, and now he was sleeping with Sally Major. Nice girl, Sally. I liked her eyes and the tilt of her chin. She was awful fond of George, too. There must be something to this love business. Still, of course, George was well fixed. He had a house and three quarters of a section of land. Would she have been so keen to marry George if he had had nothing?

  Still, that was George’s worry, not mine. I was going to England. I wondered how it would all have panned out when I returned. Perhaps I wouldn’t come back. This blinking war, now. Not going too well. Oh, why the hell had George got married? Why was there a war? Why on earth was I going home? I fell asleep.

  I woke next morning about seven, and was glad to find my fire still in. I pulled on a pair of overalls, overshoes, and fur coat, went outside and filled a bucket with snow, which I placed on the stove. I slopped down to the stable to feed and groom Duke. When I returned the snow was melted. I poured the water into a saucepan and began to dress. After a comfortable shave, I finished dressing, and got my trunk outside into the cutter. Where was my handbag? I had not seen it for years. I hauled it out from under the bed, and opened it. ‘Good Lord,’ I murmured. ‘That’s the ’jamas I arrived in three years ago. Lucky I found ’em, else I’d have to buy some.’ All my others had been worn out long ago as winter underwear. I put a few odds and ends into my bag, glanced round the shanty, went out, and locked the door for the first time since the shanty had been built.

  Joe Haines and a man named Ben Wyatt had taken up a half-section of prairie that summer and had broken nearly two hundred acres. They were going to Winnipeg for a short holiday, and were travelling down that far with me. We all met at Henderson’s for breakfast, as he was driving us up to Barloe. The conversation at breakfast was chiefly about the war. The latest reports were serious. Apparently it wasn’t just a job for the Old Country to put straight. A lot of m
en would be needed from the colonies. Fellows were enlisting all over Canada.

  ‘Well, we’re foot-loose,’ said Ben. ‘We’ll study this recruiting business in the Peg. What about it, Pop? S’posing we don’t come back. I sorta feel we got to look at this war a bit serious. Will you crop our place on shares if we do?’

  ‘Don’t you be fools. That’s a nice half-section you and Ben got. The war’ll be over long before they’ll make soldiers outa you. France is a hell of a long way away. Somebody got to farm.’

  ‘But will you do it, if we are fools, Pop?’ asked Haines seriously. ‘You got all our papers here, and the key of the shanty. We bought her for ten dollars per, and paid two down. Gotta payment of four hundred to make next fall. I somehow reckon we’ll take a whirl at the army, eh Ben?’

  Ben nodded. ‘There’s a heap of fellows going, Pop. Jack Cooper went last month. Old Gordon’s gone, and three of the Macdonald boys went last week.’

  ‘But there’s no time to get an agreement drawn up.’

  ‘Agreement, hell. You crop her. Get old George to help you. Good enough, Joe?’

  ‘Suits me,’ said Haines. ‘It’s a bet, Pop?’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Henderson, ‘anyhow, you’ll be back before seeding. Betcha you’re back next week.’

  I listened to this conversation rather guiltily. I discovered that I had been so happy and interested in Canada, that I had lost all interest in England and England’s troubles. Yet here were Haines and Wyatt, who had all their hard-earned savings invested in their farm, seriously considering that they ought to enlist Dash it! It was time that I remembered that my home and people were involved in this war. Well, I was going home anyway, so I would find out the real state of things.