How I recall the haying, usually brother Bill and I were chosen to go with Dad for the hay. You had to lay out the slings on the hay rack. Put so much hay on it, then lay another sling with hay until you had a load on, usually about 5-6 slings a load. Then when we got home, the rack load of hay was put at the end of the barn that had a crude door to put the hay in. You had to unhitch the horses and drive them to the other end of a barn where there was a rope cable that worked the hay track. The cable was hooked on to the double trews. At the end where the hay was was a cable that came down and hooked on the slings. When you started the horse up at the other end the sling would roll up then ascend up the wall to the door, then into the loft. The sling had a release cord you pulled to drop the hay in the loft. Bill was supposed to drive the horses but sometimes he’d con me into driving the horses and he’d run and jump into the sling as it was rolling up and when Dad would pull the release cord, out would fall Bill.
That spring when the stooks dried Dad hauled them into the yard and stacked them. Dad could really make stacks. He said he used to help thatch roofs in England. The stooks had to be removed from the fields in order to get any crop that year. By then the bees had made many hives in them, so it was quite a job for the men to remove the stooks without getting stung.
The government didn’t pay anything in those days if you lost your crop. I suppose there was hail insurance. Don’t think Dad ever got hailed. That spring after the fields were cleared and the crop in, Dad bought a hand fed threshing machine; every sheaf had to have the band cut before it went into the machine. Dad was the cutter and us kids were the crew. I can remember driving the rack too close to the machine and taking off a pulley. I was not too popular that day. I imagine Dad had to send to Brandon for a new one. I don’t know if he lost much time.
Then sometimes we had to hold bags under the grain spout, a horrible job. The thing was always running over. Dad had six car loads of wheat that year. I don’t think he sold much oats or barley, as we had a lot of stock. Some time before this I got badly burnt. After the threshing was done Dad told me to go the house as he was going to the other field. I hunched down playing with a fire in front of me and I didn’t notice a fire running in behind me until I discovered my dress was on fire. I started to run to the house getting over a fence. By the time I got to the house my hair was burning. Uncle Jim was mending the hay fence, he saw me on fire so he ran to the house (by this time I was in the house). Uncle Jim grabbed a sheep skin coat and wrapped it around me and smothered the fire. Buttons fell from my clothes and burnt the linoleum. I was four months laying on my stomach. My main diet was canned tomatoes. I had tomatoes and sugar for breakfast, soup for dinner and pepper and salt for supper.
Brother Bill got his arm burnt but his was a gas fire. He got gas spilt on his coat. He was bringing the gas in from the far field, and had his case of gas riding on the disc when it went over a bump of straw and some gas slopped out. He thought he’d burn the clump anyway, so he struck a match. His jacket had gas on it too, so he caught fire. He started running and Jack and Murray ran after him throwing dirt on him. They got the fire out. His arms and hands were quite badly burnt. Bill was a long time getting better. He was supposed to be helping us other kids pick potatoes. Mother always said that Bill was like a pig, either going into or just coming out of trouble.
Talking of pigs, Dad had a sow that was just no good. She ate her young and kept getting thinner and thinner, so dad decided he would kill her. Dad always did his own butchering. So one day he took her out to the manure pile in the field and struck her same as he always did. He was going to bury her later. Anyway, when he went to bury her, she was gone. He couldn’t understand it. Anyway, that night Octave Henuset phoned to say there was a pig in his barn covered with blood, was it his? (Octave lived about three-quarters of a mile away). Dad told him what he’d done and said he wondered how come he didn’t kill her and said you do whatever you like with her, she is no good. Octave kept the pig and marketed her in a few months, fat as a PIG. I guess her heart wasn’t in the right place.
Dad was a good hunter and a crack shot. One time when he was stooking on the north quarter there were two whooping cranes (you were allowed to shoot them then). Anyway, several farmers were trying to shoot them. One day Dad had seen them in the field so he took his shot gun with him when he went back to work after dinner. Sometime that afternoon he came home and got the horse and buggy as he had shot both of the cranes and they were too big and heavy for him to carry. Dad never wanted his picture taken, but this day he took the cranes into Pipestone and had his picture taken with them at Mr. Tarreries. The cranes were 7 feet from wing tip to wing tip and their feet from the knee to the top tips stuck up above his head. Dad brought them home and us kids cleaned them and Mother stuffed them and cooked them. I suppose they invited some friends in to eat them, they were like big geese.
One occasion Dad went down to the marsh (down where Stanley Campion lives). He came home with several ducks and one swan, which he had stuffed (mounted) and stood on the end of the chest of drawers covered in newspaper and a flour bag. We only got to see the beautiful bird when someone came. When he left Pipestone, he left it in the hotel.
Mother always insisted the ducks and geese Dad brought home be cleaned before us kids went to bed. Sometimes we were pretty sleepy and would let the birds fall into the feathers. Uncle Dave used to pay 5c to the one that plucked the most. Murray done most of the cleaning even though he could barely see over the table. We worked pretty fast when we were going to get 5c. The same thing with potato bugs. We’d have a tomato can with a little coal oil in the bottom so the bugs couldn’t crawl. Uncle Dave would pay the big picker 5c.
Dad and his old friend Mr. Jim Alford went hunting moose, up in the Riding Mtns. Mother would bake big batches of bread, cookies and fruit cakes for them to take with them. They would be away for two weeks. They’d load their sleigh, sometimes the wagon as there wouldn’t be any snow, with the grub and oats for the horses. They bought hay near the camp. Dad always got a moose or elk, sometimes both. There was always big excitement when Dad got home. He always brought us spruce gum. Was that ever good; nearly break you jaws chewing it. It must have been good for us as all the diseases we ever had was measles and chicken pox. When we had measles (they were the bad ones) mother would phone to the store for groceries and Dad would drive in for them. Mr. Breggett would set them out on the street.
We seemed to always be short on sugar. We were given hot brandy at night when we had the measles. We were always mad at Dad for favouring Murray as he was the only one that got sugar in his brandy.
Back to Dad and his hunting trips. The old dog (Watch) was always taken along. They put him in the bottom of the sleigh to keep their feet warm. Along with hot stones and bricks, sometimes the old charcoal foot warmer. Mr. Alford wouldn’t get out and walk. He used to say he’d rather freeze than trot behind like a dog. When spring came all the meat that was left had to be canned. Dad was lucky at fishing too. The fish were smoked for the summer. Us older four, Jim, Mary, Bill and I were sent to pick berries.
In 1915 we didn’t get any presents but Dad got us each something in the summer, I think Bill and I each got a Bible. There was always a big crowd at our place, Uncle Jim’s family, the George Wilcox family, Sam Howitt, Jim and Rosie Cheters, sometimes some of the Alfords. We didn’t have any upstairs but a big attic, only way to get up to it was by ladder. It was quite a big trap door in the kitchen ceiling. The door seemed to be open most of the time. Anyway, whenever there was a fight over some object, Mother would take it and toss it up in the attic. So when Christmas came and we were put up in the attic to sleep we spent most of the night collecting our things that were thrown up there during summer.
Mother always had a big cake made and a big plum pudding. Ducks and chickens were roasted. Don’t ever remember having turkey at home. Dad always bought a bottle of whisky for Xmas. The grown ups each had a drink. What was left was put away for when Dad got the gripe, they called it then. We call it the flu now. Dad was quite sick with stomach ulcers for years.
Dr. Clingan gave him some medicine that seemed to cure him. He never seemed to be bothered with the ulcers again. After supper the dishes were washed and the table taken down. The fiddlers would strike up the tunes. Eight people would form a ring, each seemed to know what to do. No one called the moves. They called the dance “The Lancers”. Then some sang or recited, one man I remember quite well was a young English lad that came with the Wilcox family. He always sang “Henry the Eighth I am”. I believe they called him Phillips. What his first name was I don’t recall. On New Years’ Eve the party was held at someone else’s place. Mum and Dad and some of us went, not all. Some were left home to do chores and get into mischief such as Bill taking the poker and hitting and breaking the tail feathers off the stuffed pheasant that Dad had brought from England and betting me I couldn’t even come near hitting. Well, I hit the other two feathers and broke them off bobbing the rooster (we both got the strap when Mother and Dad got home).
As I listen to the very young children of today talking of their Mummy going to have a baby, I think how dumb us kids were in those days. We didn’t know we were having a new baby until Mrs. Casson came to stay for a few days. I can still see Bill and I peeking through Mum’s window to see if the baby was in the bed yet. We were always excited to be having a new baby even though the last one was still a baby.
When my sister Betty was born on a Saturday night. Mary and I got lost in a storm coming home from church. We were lucky to get home. Bill and Jim wouldn’t wait for us. When we got home Dad was sitting by the stove with a bundle in his arms. He said to me,”Well Jenny Tatters (that was my nickname), here is another little fellow for you to look after.” Betty was 2 weeks old before I knew she was a girl. I got 25c a week to wash her diapers. By now that was no. 10 in our family. Dad’s two sisters stayed with us a lot. Aunty Jean and Aunt Ada. When the war of 1914-1918 started, they and Uncle Dave and his Scotch friend, Andrew Alston, left to go to England. The men went back but the Aunt’s didn’t.
Bill and I had the job of putting on the fire in the school each morning. Cold mornings we rode horseback. We were paid 10c a morning (5c each). By the end of the month we had to ride over to Mrs. Howitts east of Belleview for our pay. One year we pooled our money and bought Mum an amber bowl from Mr. Marks store(he kept everything in his little store). Anyway, Bill carried it home under his jacket as were on horseback. So it was too early to give it to Mum for Xmas, we buried it in the oat bin. Then one day we decided it was a poor place. Someone might break it with the shovel when they were getting grain. So we decided the best way to keep it was to give it to Mother. I still have the bowl.
I often wonder how Mother kept sane, some of the things that happened: when I was burnt and in bed. Ethel was born when Elsie was about 14 months old. She got into some coal oil and drank some. She nearly died that time.
Mother had a hired English girl working for her. She done her best but she hadn’t ever worked out before. Mother more or less raised her in a way.
We used to play some bad jokes on her, especially Bill. Jim Cheaters used to come to see her. Jim was quite bald. Bill had one of those pop guns with suctions on sticks. When you shoot it, the stick would stick to whatever it hit. Bill used to aim it at Jim Cheater’s bald head. It would stick to his head. Rosie would grab it and throw it in the heater. One time Bill crawled under the bed they sat on, he tied their legs together and when Rosie jumped up she fell. Jim Cheater just laughed. He had an open car, one with a Carlein tank on the running board that supplied the lights. He would take us kids for a ride. He chewed tobacco and when he spit into the wind, it would fly back in our faces. We didn’t mind, we were so pleased to have a car ride.
Don’t know how old Ethel was when she stuck her head in the old cream can that was lying on the ground. A hen had laid an egg in there and Ethel was trying to get the egg. I think Mother had to put Vaseline on her ears to get her head out. One time Dad and Mum were away, Jack and Murray decided to roast some wheat. They roasted it like popcorn, then put some butter on it while it was still hot. They ate too much and were really sick for a long time. Jack seemed to be the worst. He was delirious for weeks.
We had a lot of pigeons in the big barn. Jack and Murray used to hang a lantern in the middle of the barn, then take a binder whip and poke the pigeons out of their sleep. They’d fly to the lamp and flutter around. Dad told them several times not to do that. “How would you fellows like to be pushed out of your bed?” I guess Dad caught them at it again. Anyway one night when Dad came home from getting a load of coal, Dad said to Mary and Bill, “Get them small fellows out of bed and set them outside”. (wasn’t very cold out)P. In those days pyjamas weren’t heard of so they were in their short tails. Murray just walked around but Jack got up in the buggy and cried, “How would you like to be out here in the dark?” I think the pigeons slept soundly, undisturbed after that.
Dad used to have to go to the sandhills near Oak Lake to get wood. He quite often took us kids along. He would load the wagon with wood. Then he’d take his gun and go around the lake hunting ducks and we’d play along the beach. Dad seemed to be away for hours. Maybe it wasn’t so long as we thought, but we were sure he wasn’t coming back.
One time he went alone for wood. When he was coming home he dropped one line so got out on the tongue and held on with his arms and legs. The wood had shifted forward and every time the horses would slow up the poles would poke them and they’d run again. I can’t remember how he got them stopped.
Dad always took a load of wheat to Oak Lake to be made into flour. He’d wait until the lake was froze so as he could drive across it. It was a lot shorter. One time he was coming home: there was a wild snow goose on the path. He got out and picked the goose up and brought it home. The goose had been wounded and couldn’t fly. When Dad got, it was nearly starved to death. We had him for years. Dad had four other wild geese that he had just wounded. He was going to tame them and raise geese. Dad kept one wing clipped so they couldn’t fly. He kept them in a bin. Any way, someone stole them all. But the old goose that he got on Oak Lake, wounded and starved, came home two days after with his other wing clipped.
Every year when Dad went moose hunting to the Riding Mts he brought home a
Spruce tree that he’d put in a hole he had dug in the garden before the ground froze. The trees grew high and huge. There may be some of them still on the old place.
There were thousands of gophers around Pipestone. The Municipality paid 5c per tail so us kids were busy all summer catching gophers, trapping them, or snaring them. We caught quite a few through the summer: 10c for crow eggs and 20c for crows feet. The crows were hard on the young chickens, and bird eggs. We had to take the crow eggs and feet to Oak Lake to a Mr. Hawkins. Sometimes we had quite a few dollars. Mary and the boys were better tree climbers than I as I always tore my dress. That’s how I got nicknamed Jennie Tatters, rags and tatters. One day in harvest time Dad was out stooking. It was a hot day so Mother sent me out to the field with a drink of fresh water for Dad. He was pleased to have a fresh drink so he said to me. “Next time I go to town I’ll buy you a brand new nothing with a whistle on the end”. I went home happy I was going to get something the other kids weren’t going to get.
In the earlier days in the fall apples came in barrels to Searth. Dad would get four barrels each fall. They had to be kept in Mum’s bedroom, as we had only a dirt cellar and it was full of potatoes and vegetables.
- Jennie Hogg Holmes