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A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
A HOME-HELP IN
CANADA
BY
ELLA C. SYKES
AUTHOR OF "THROUGH PERSIA ON A SIDE-SADDLE'
"PERSIA AND ITS PEOPLE," ETC.
WITH A PORTRAIT
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1912
[All rights reserved] , >- ^
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50IG
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Pi land by BAU.AHTVNB, HAK*OM A- Co
At it R-lUniyo. ?,,
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the many friends,
British and Canadian, known and unknown,
whose kindness speeded me on my way
during my never-to-be-forgotten
tour in the Dominion.
PREFACE
I WAS greatly impressed by a letter in The Times,
that put in forcible words the hard lot of many of
the million surplus women in the United Kingdom.
It showed how the labour of educated women was
too often a drug in the market, and how difficult
nay, often impossible it was for a girl to earn enough
to support herself comfortably and lay by for old
age, and as a remedy for this state of things it men-
tioned the openings in the Overseas Dominions.
As the ideas in the letter appealed strongly to me,
I resolved to go out to Canada in order to investigate
what openings there might be in the Dominion for
educated women. Shortly before I started, it was
pointed out to me by a candid onlooker that I should
gain far more information if I would go as a home-
help for part of my tour, thus getting a practical
insight into the conditions of life.
I confess that the idea was distasteful to me, for
I had had little experience in the domestic arts,
viii A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
though I had undergone some "roughing" wh-n
travelling in Persia, and had always been strong.
But, as the answer to my objections was that "evi-
dently I wished merely to dip my fingers into the
water, and shirked taking a plunge that might be of
real use to the women I wanted to assist," I decided
to go, and am now deeply grateful for the somewhat
unpalatable advice, as I have learned so much from
having followed it.
This book is the plain, unvarnished record of what
saw during a six months' tour in 1911. Practically
all my remarks apply to Western Canada, as my
experiences were mostly limited to that part of the
Dominion, and must not be regarded as typical of
the Eastern provinces.
I wish it to be understood that, when writing of tin
five posts that I took as home-help, I have altered all
the names of those with whom I came into com
and have tried to conceal the locuhti. * in \vhirh th< v
lived, being most anxious not to give offence in a land
with tfreat kindness.
I was also careful to let it be known at the on
I was simply a " tempera iv," and I always
settled beforehand th<- duration of my engagements.
But, so badly is tin- hm,-h,-lp ne.-ded in Canada, that
PREFACE ix
my services were only refused once or twice, by mis-
tresses who most naturally wished to be "settled"
with their domestics.
From first to last, none of my employers had any
suspicion that I was under no necessity to earn my
livelihood, and I trust that my investigations may
prove useful to girls who wish to try their fortune in
the Dominion.
My own experiences are unattractive, because I was
an incompetent amateur, trained to do nothing pro-
perly that the country wanted. But I do not hesitate
to say, that if I were obliged to earn my living, were
proficient in some useful art, and knew what I know
now, I should not hesitate for a moment between the
wide, free life of Canada and my probable lot in over-
crowded England !
It is well for a woman to know, in Canadian par-
lance, what she will be "up against " if she crosses
the Atlantic, much of the literature treating of life in
the Dominion being so roseate-hued that the fact that
WORK, and usually very hard work, is the order of
the day there, is sometimes ignored. The girl who is a
failure in Great Britain will most certainly not be a
success in the Dominion.
Canada is a Land of Opportunity for the young,
x A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
strong, and resourceful, who can cheerfully adapt
themselves to entirely new conditions of life, in whi< h
they must divest themselves of many an English
prejudice, and not object, for example, as one girl
did, to the master of the house sitting at table in ln>
shirt-sleeves !
In order to succeed, a girl must be skilled in some-
thing that the country needs, such as teaching, steno-
graphy, dressmaking, poultry, or vegetable-raising, a
knowledge of the domestic arts being absolutely essi-n-
ti.il. I do not recommend an educated woman to
take up home-helping as a profession, save in certain
districts, as that calling is too often only another nam
for maid-of-all-work or drudge, 5 a month b
usually the highest salary for incessant work and
little relaxation. But if she can cook, bak , and
wash, a girl need never starve, and a few months of
domestic work will not be time wasted, as sh< will
learn the excellent Canadian methods of doing things,
and, what is perhaps more important, the Canadian
point of view, that will help her considerably wh-n
she starts on work more to her taste.
But she must not expect to receive wages and give
nothing in return, somewhat in the spirit of a girl who
wrote to me lately to inquire wlu-thcr she could y.
PREFACE xi
post as home-help " where the woman of the house
did all the hard work " !
Canadians are, as a rule, remarkably capable, and
have " no use " for the incompetent, who will find
the Dominion a hard country, with few to care whether
they sink or swim.
I ardently desire that British women shall help to
build up the Empire, and the sisters of the men who
are doing such splendid pioneer work in the Dominion
are surely fitted for the task.
But they must realise clearly what is demanded of
them in a new country if they are to do their part
worthily across the Atlantic.
E. C. S.
Sept. 1912.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE START FOR CANADA .... I
II. SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG . . 1 8
III. MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP . .41
IV. TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE . 6$
v. AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL .... 88
VI. ON A DAIRY-FARM IO8
VII. FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC . . .130
VIII. LIFE ON A CHICKEN RANCH IN BRITISH
COLUMBIA 152
IX. MY THIRD POSITION AS HOME- HELP . .171
X. A VISIT TO AN ALBERTA FARM . . . 1 86
XI. AT WORK IN A TOWN 2OO
XII. OPENINGS IN CANADA FOR EDUCATED
WOMEN 222
XIII. ON THE PRAIRIE DURING THE HARVEST . 243
XIV. EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS . . .284
xiii
NOTE
BY kind permission of the Colonial Intelligence League for
Educated Women (Office, 36 Tavistock Place, W.C.), I have
published a few extracts from the letters of girls who have gone
out under its auspices, and to whom it has given valuable aid in
finding work.
This Society aims at supplying reliable information to educated
women wishing to take up work in our Overseas Dominions.
In Canada, its Representative at Victoria, British Columbia,
helps them to get suitable posts, while various voluntary Com-
mittees in other parts of the Dominion undertake the same work.
As this book goes to press, the League is about to start a
Settlement in British Columbia, in which women may be trained
to the conditions of Canadian life before taking up land on their
own account.
A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
CHAPTER I
THE START FOR CANADA
IT was towards the end of April when I left Euston
for Canada, and I felt rather lonely at the idea of a
six months' tour without any travelling companion,
nor did I relish the thought of a second-class passage
with its cramped cabin accommodation. A lively
girl shared the railway compartment with me, a girl
whose crowd of relatives engaged in seeing her off
almost besieged the carriage ; and though they pre-
vented me from saying many last words to my own
friends, yet the general effect of all the laughter and
chat was certainly cheering.
When we boarded the fine Empress steamer, nearly
five hundred passengers sorted themselves in the
second class, and I hastened to find the cabin that
had been allotted to me, being far from pleased when
I discovered that it was on the lowest tier, lying
2 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
almost on the water-line. Though it had a port-
hole, yet I was not permitted to have it open, and
as luggage was piled on the three other berths, I
waited with some anxiety to see my fellow-passengers.
Two nice-looking girls made their appearance shortly,
and we " sized " each other up in the manner of worm n,
the result being luckily favourable on both sides. A
servant-girl of the " slavey " type, going out to her
brother in Vancouver, was the fourth of the party,
but she was such a trying room-mate when sea-sick,
that after the first night the steward took pity upon
us and removed her to another cabin.
With the exception of the closed porthole (a big
exception to me), there was nothing whatever to
complain of on board, as far as I was concerned. My
cabin companions could not have been more con-
>oderate ; and as we were all bad sailors, we had a
good deal to test us during two days of enforced cap-
tivity in our berths days that made us feel more
lik- <'!<! frimds than mere acquaintances.
Certainly no one could desire a nicer stewardess
than the one who supplied us liberally with oranges
during our sufferings, and sometimes the remarks of
the steward to other passengers gave us food for
amusement. He thoroughly disapproved of four
THE START FOR CANADA 3
youths who occupied a cabin next to ours, and one
rough day we heard him say to them :
" What, hungry again ! Why, you've just had
bacon and eggs and bread and butter and tea for your
breakfasts. If you're hungry like that you ought to
get up and go on deck ; you've no business to be
lying here with such appetites."
" I wonder whether we shall ever get upstairs
again and enjoy ourselves ? " said one of my room-
mates plaintively, as the second day dragged its
weary length to a close, and it seemed hardly likely,
with the big vessel pitching and tossing and rolling
as she was. But all things come to an end, and next
day, fortified by salt baths, we struggled up on deck
and began to make friends with our fellow-passengers.
I came across one woman who was an excellent sailor,
and she scoffed at the idea that we had had rough
weather, remarking, "I never call it bad unless you
stand on your head ! " Everyone was in high spirits.
Many were going to Canada for the first time, some
having only the vaguest idea of what they intended
to do when they got there ; but one and all were full
of hope and optimism.
A young girl, who sat opposite to me at table, inter-
ested me considerably. She was quite alone, but had
4 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
a boundless confidence in her own capabilities, and
^' was actually going right across the great continent
to make a home in Vancouver for her parents and
their other children. She had no introductions, and
apparently not a single friend in the whole Dominion ;
and not only did she intend to get work for herself
as a stenographer, but she was commissioned to buy
a house and get everything in readiness for the rest
of her family, who would follow her in a year's time.
There was a touch of the pathetic in the girl's absolute
certainty that she would " make good " at once, and
I wished that I could help her, but could only give
her the address of the Y.W.C.A. (Young Women's
Christian Association) in Vancouver, and impress
upon her to put up there, or at some lodging approved
of by the Society. I never saw her again, but I fancy
that she was of the type that succeeds.
A middle-aged couple with a charming dog were
pleasant acquaintances, and told me how they intended
to make their fortunes in fruit-farming. I was cer-
tainly ignorant enough of such matters, but it occurred
to me that people who had never done a day's manual
work in the whole course of their lives, and who had
no idea of the theory, much less of the practice, of fruit-
fanning, would be at a decided disadvantage ; and,
THE START FOR CANADA 5
as it turned out afterwards, my presentiment was
unfortunately true.
Canada is eminently the Land of Youth and Opti-
mism, but it is also in very truth the Land of Work,
and English people sometimes are apt to lose sight
of this side of the shield. An old man, over seventy,
with a young wife and several small children, was
constantly patrolling the deck, and I was aghast
when I was informed that he also was about to try
his luck at fruit-farming. The Dominion is cer-
tainly no land for the old and weak ; old-age
pensions and workhouses do not exist, and there
would probably be no charitable society to busy itself
about this helpless-looking family. Though there are
kindly hearts in plenty, yet Canadians are engrossed
with their own affairs, and would probably be annoyed
at such feckless folk coming out to a new country.
Fortunately these were the exceptions, and the great
majority of passengers on our crowded promenade-
deck were young and vigorous. As there was a
shortage of chairs, I usually went up early to secure
seats for my room-mates and myself from the sailor
who had charge of them ; and if the men wanted to
rest or read, they were obliged to do as best they could
on the deck. But repose was not much in their line,
6 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
and all day long we had displays of skipping and "cock-
fighting," and now and again there would be tugs-of-
war with the first-class passengers, in which the latter
were invariably beaten, to our unconcealed joy. It
was a standing grievance with the second-class that
the first-class passengers had such a liberal allowance
of deck space, part of which they never used, while
we were so crowded that there was barely room to
walk about at all.
I spent much of my time in chatting with Enp;li>h
people who were returning to the Dominion after a
winter spent in the Old Country. " We could never
live in England now, after having been in Canada,"
was the universal verdict ; and again and again I
heard the comment, " The life over there is so much
bigger." An Englishman, who had been out some
dozen years, pointed to his small boy with pride as
a "real young Canadian " ; but his wife gave me the
first hint of the unceasing work that, as a rule, falls
to the farm* rV wives.
is what she said to me one day as we sat
together on det k :
M My husband (we weren't married then) wrote to
me to come out to him at Winnipeg, as he had got a
h"inc for me at last, and I left my own people \\ith
THE START FOR CANADA 7
any amount of things for our new house, as Fred had
told me how dear everything was across the Atlantic,"
and she laughed a little at the remembrance.
" Well, he met me all right, and we were married ; s
but before we went off to the prairie I had to do some
shopping in Winnipeg, and I remember asking him
what was the colour of our bedroom paper, as I wanted
to get a toilet-set to match it. He didn't say much
then, but I shall never forget my feelings when I found
our new home was just a one-roomed wooden shack,
divided in two with a curtain, and not papered at
all ! It was an awful shock to me, I can tell you.
Of course I couldn't unpack my boxes, and I found
that I had to do the cooking and washing for three
men besides my husband, and was left alone all day
long. How I got through that first year I hardly
know," and a wistful look came over her worn face.
" After a time we had party after party putting up
at our farm for the night, men, sometimes with their
families, coming along the trail to take up home-
steads, and some of them were dirty beyond words !
They left things behind them, and one day I found
the house crawling ugh ! " and she shuddered with
disgust. " It seemed to put the finishing touch to
things, and I went to bed for a whole day, and cried
8 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
and cried, and just longed to talk it over with
some woman who would understand and not laugh
at me."
" Poor thing 1 " I murmured sympathetically, and
she smiled brightly, and continued,
" Oh well, I saw that it was no use crying over spilt
milk, and I must do the best I could, so next day I set
to work and got the upper hand of those horrible
insects after a time, though we were never rid of them
entirely."
14 But now that you are well off your life is much
easier, isn't it ? " I inquired, and was surprised when
she shook her head.
" Do you know, I had less work when I began
my married life as a poor woman than I have now,"
and at my exclamation she continued, " All these
farmers have a perfect passion for getting more and
more land. They will sacrifice everything to that,
and the house and its comforts have to come last.
My husband buys every acre he can get, and of course
has to engage hired men to work his farms ; and the
more men there are, the more work it is f<>r a woman
to prepare three hot meat meals a day and do all the
washing-up after them, not to speak of washing the
clothes and keeping the house clean.'
THE START FOR CANADA 9
I began to understand, as I listened to her, that the ^
great scarcity of women in Canada is the reason why
a prosperous farmer's wife who could afford a trip
to .England with her husband and child thus com-
plained of being overworked.
I also saw that a life such as she described would
be far harder to an Englishwoman, fresh from a com-
fortable home, than to a Canadian, and I was con-
.ed in this when, later on, one of these latter told
that she loved the prairie, and was sorry to leave
it when her husband got a good post in a town. " A
woman on the prairie can help the men in so many
ways," she said, "and my bread got to be the talk
of the district. The men used always to be begging
me to give them a loaf when I was baking."
There was a nice English girl on board, who had
constituted herself protectress of two poor children,
a boy and a girl, aged six and four respectively, going
out under the care of the Canadian-Pacific Railway to
their parents in Montana. Miss Roberts washed and
dressed these waifs every morning, played games
with them, and was quite a mother to them on board
ship. She was on her way West to marry her " young y
man," who had written home for her to join him,
and I hoped that she might have the good luck that
io A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
she so richly deserved. I used to amuse myself with
a lively little boy, whose mother was a martyr to sea-
sickness, feeling hopelessly ill even when the ocean was
quite calm ; and one day she inquired where I had
left my children, and was surprised to hear that I
was single.
" You always look so happy," she said, " that I felt
sure you must be married." This reasoning amused
me, and I was more amused when she added, after
a moment's reflection, " Perhaps you are so contented
because you are free and can do what you like ? "
This remark reminds me that nearly every girl on
board had her mind set on matrimony. Some acquaint-
ances confided to me their hope of being married in
Canada, where husbands were said to be a drug in the
market ; and I got rather horrified to observe how
free-and-easy became the relations of the men and
maidens, the manners of girls who seemed at first to
be "pinks of propriety," becoming what I imagine
is the fashion in the servants' hall. Our old coach-
man once told me that a man in his class could \valk
out with a girl for a year and no one would think
anything of it, but if it came to "waisting," as he
expressed it, this was a sign to all and sundry that
the couple were engaged ! According to this theory
8
'
THE START FOR CANADA n
there should have been many betrothals on our vessel,
as couples sat in the closest proximity, and embraces
were occasionally exchanged in public. Much coal grit
fell on the deck from the funnel, and this needed a
good deal of male help if it got into a girl's eye. One
young man on board was really most clever at curling
he eyelid up over a match and then removing any
irritating particle, and having watched him do this
once or twice, I myself experimented later on during
a railway journey with complete success on a little
boy who had been suffering for some hours with an
inflamed eye.
It got colder as we neared the land, and we had
the excitement of icebergs in the distance ; the air
was like champagne, making me long to walk for
miles, and infecting the men and boys to such an
extent, that they tore about the deck chasing one
another to the imminent danger of quiet passers-by.
Everyone was as good-humoured as possible, and
there was plenty of give and take in fact, I never
heard a cross word all the time I was on the vessel.
Most of us were hazy as to our geography when the
rugged coast-line of the Dominion hove in sight. Was
that land Newfoundland or Nova Scotia ? Were we
to thread the straits of Belle Isle, and could that coast
12 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
be Anticosti ? One ni^ht we were all roused by a
fearful grinding sound as the ship tried to force her
way through ice, and the sea was apparently one mass
of floes and ice-hummocks next morning, a wonderful
sight, and making me understand more fully the books
on Arctic travel. In fact, so beset were we that our
steamer had to back out and then turn, in order to
find a channel of clear water, thus wasting many hours.
Our steward told me that early in the mornini
had observed seals on the floes, but there was no life
of any kind visible when I made my appearance on
deck We were all afraid that we should be dis-
embarked at Halifax, and it was a great relief later
on to hear that we were heading for Quebec, and that
night the pink sunset flushed the blocks of ice with
which the sea was flecked, and showed us here and
there a fishing-boat, boldly making its way along what
seemed a perilous path, far from the long, grey, snow-
flecked shores.
The last day on board was a mixture of excitem- nt
and fatigue. No deck-chairs were provided, so we
tramped up and down more than usual, surveying the
somewhat dreary snow-covered hills bordering the
dulf of St. Lawrence. All our boxes had been dragged
upstairs and from the hold, and had been piled, one
THE START FOR CANADA 13
above another, on the long side-decks in readiness for
the Customs officials, and at Rimouski everyone
hung over the side, eager to see these latter and the
doctor and pilot come on board. From that moment
we were all on our feet, either waiting in a long
queue to be interviewed by the doctor, or making
herculean efforts to get boxes to the front and opened
for the inspection of the Customs officers. My cabin
trunk was in a place easy of access, and I wished to
engage the attention of one of the officials. " Don't
have him on any account," said a man near me, who
looked upon me as a friend, if not a relative, as he
had just discovered from the name on my box that
we were both called Sykes. " Why, he is the man
who pulls out everything, and has been dreadful to
all the first-class ladies." However, I decided to risk
it, as I was anxious to have my things examined, and
in a moment the official ferreted in my box and pulled
out a toque. " How much had I paid for it ? Was
it new ? Had I any new dresses ? " I answered him
truthfully, and was rather puzzled when he came
upon a little box of cough-lozenges, which he opened
and examined carefully. I could not imagine what
he wanted, until he remarked, " The l ad.' says these
are good for tonsilitis. I was laid up for three months
14 A HOME HELP IN CANADA
in hospital with it last winter, and my throat is feeling
rather bad to-day." " You are welcome to half the
box," I replied, rather amused at his coolness. But
he answered, " No, I will only take three," and slip-
ping one into his mouth then and there, he departed.
" Well, he does know how to make himself at home 1 "
was the remark of my namesake, as I went off for my
interview with the doctor, who by this time was not
nearly so beset as at first.
" What is your name ? Where are you going ?
Have you ever been to Canada before ? " were all
the questions asked of me, and I was given my paper,
and later on returned to the luggage to see whether
I could get my second box examined. It was in
another part of the deck, and an interested bystander
informed me that the official about to do it was a
"regular little devil." Certainly he seemed in a rage,
and the way he began to burrow in my trunk was by
ueans reassuring. " Is that new ? " he demanded,
as a white alpaca came to the top. " No, I have worn
it for two seasons," was my answer. " Well, you are
a careful dresser," was the retort, to the joy of tlu
bystanders, some of whom were disagreeably inquisitive.
I told him how many new dresses and hats \v< n in
the box, and he suddenly appeared to become con-
THE START FOR CANADA 15
vinced of my good faith, and said half-shamefacedly,
" Some of the ladies try to tip me and prevent me
from doing my work. Often the best-looking ladies
have the worst hearts." To this I made no reply,
and to my surprise he waxed quite communicative,
saying what a hard job this work was, and how he
must be at it till midnight, and then have to begin
again at six o'clock the next morning, until I felt quite
sorry for him.
At last the lights of Quebec came into view (what
a pity it was that we could not approach one of the
most beautifully situated cities in the world by day-
light !), and we of the second-class exchanged many
good-byes. The first-class left the steamer before
anyone else, and as we saw them getting off, a young
man remarked to me bitterly, " That is one of the
my privileges that first-class people have " ; and
felt rather mean as I retorted, "Well, I suppose i
they have a right to it, as they pay for it."
Yes, money does make a difference, and as I drove
off to the charming Hotel Frontenac in the darkness,
I was delighted to think that I should have two or
three days in comfort before I set to work as a home-
help. Food, service, and all were excellent on board,
but, being a bad sailor, I dislike the sea, and beyond
16 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
everything I thirsted to have the luxury of a room
to myself, and not be present "at a party all day
long," as a lady once described life on board ship.
I shall never forget my glimpse of Quebec. It was
the end of April, and hot as summer, yet patches of
snow lay about in corners. The views from the
famous Dufierin Terrace were superb, a panorama to
take one's breath away, with the St. Lawrence and
Charles Rivers, and the historic island of Orleans, off
which the English fleet once lay for so many months.
It was delightful to wander up and down the streets
of what looked like an old French provincial town,
the illusion heightened by hearing French spoken on
every side. Though several fine public buildings and
the trams give an up-to-date air to the city, yet the
massive walls and fortress-like gateways, the citadel
and ramparts take one back to the days of the " Grand
Monarque." The number of Roman Catholic chur<
and convents surprise the visitor, and the strong
Roman Catholic element, I was told, bars progress in
many directions. For example, if a good play or
opera be performed in the city, it is no uncommon
thing for the priests to find some fault with the work
in question and to forbid their flock to patronise it,
as in the case of Carmen, which was once'pla\vl
THE START FOR CANADA 17
to a wellnigh empty house owing to clerical inter-
ference.
The climax of my visit was the time passed on
the Heights of Abraham, where the column with its
inscription, " Here died Wolfe victorious, Sept. isth,
1759," brought vivid memories to my mind of a
man who was the very incarnation of patriotism, and
who won for us the great Dominion, on the threshold
of which I was standing.
CHAPTER II
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG
IT was early in May whrn I travelled from Montn al
to Winnipeg in the luxury of the Pullman car, and
about ten o'clock on the third night the negro porter
deposited my grip and hold-all upon the platform, and I
was asked by a couple of red-capped boys whether I were
not going to the big Canadian-Pacific Hotel. " No,"
I replied, "but will you take my things to the Home
of Welcome ? " At this they made themselves scarce,
and I heard afterwards that girls bound for tin-
Home seldom gave them a tip, and this disagree-
able experience accounted for their desertion. So I
had to drag my belongings into the big waiting-room,
crowded with men, until I captured another small boy,
offering him a quarter (is.) if he would help me, which
he did somewhat reluctantly.
Apparently the nearest way to the Home was across
many lines of rail, and I devoutly hoped that we
should not be knocked down in the darkness by the
trains that seemed to be running in all directions,
18
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG 19
the perpetual clanging of their big engine-bells rather
confusing than directing my steps.
At last we reached a frame-built house with a little
verandah, and I was kindly received and shown up-
stairs to the one " single " room ; for I had written
to the Matron beforehand, saying that I was coming
to Winnipeg in search of work, and would gladly pay
extra for the privilege of a bedroom to myself. It
was five dollars (i) a week, including my board, the
other inmates paying three and a half dollars, as they
had to share rooms.
Next morning a dressing-bell clanged at half-past
seven, but I was up half an hour earlier in order to
avail myself of the bathroom undisturbed, and at
eight o'clock descended to a breakfast of porridge,
tea, toast, butter, and marmalade ; on other mornings
we had bacon, and sometimes salt fish. I found that
my table-companions were mostly of the servant
class, some rather rough members of society ; but the
Matron 'whose kindness to me from first to last made
my life in the Home almost pleasant, presided, and
led the conversation with admirable tact. She inter-
viewed me after the meal, and I wrote my name in
her register, and explained that I wanted a post on
the prairie as home-help, but that I was neither com-
20 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
petent nor experienced. She looked at me rather
sadly as she said, " What a pity it is that English-
women are taught to do nothing properly," and I
agreed with her most heartily. She did her best to
help me, and I went to the Secretary of the Y.W.C.A.,
who advised me to put an "ad.," as they call it, into
the most widely read newspaper. This I did, and
worded it thus :
" Educated Englishwoman, inexperienced, wishes
to assist mistress of farm in housework."
Besides this, a lady, one of those who are the world's
helpers, was extraordinarily kind in trying to get me
work suited to my limited capacity, and I studied
the advertisements assiduously, but found that only
general servants were required in the town, and that
on the farms the mistresses demanded competence in
baking, laundry, and dairy-work, not to speak of
ordinary cooking and scrubbing.
One morning the Matron said that she had heard
of a possible post for me, and I made my way to a
neat wooden house in the city. A pleasant-faced, dis-
hevelled woman, clad in a collarlcss blouse, and with her
skirt sagging, opened the door and ushered me into
a well-furnished parlour. She wished to engage me
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG 21
for her sister, a mother of four children, and expecting
her fifth to arrive shortly.
My work would be to cook, wash, and clean for the
household, and keep an eye on the children, and for
this, to me, herculean task I was offered only fifteen
dollars (3) a month, as I was inexperienced. The
sister had been a Salvation Army captain, and had
had to discharge her last help because she was always
"running after the men"! I suppose my inter-
viewer did not think that this would be my failing,
for she urged me to accept the situation. " You are
real strong," she said, "and if you will only launch
right in you will have a lovely home." I knew my
many limitations too well to venture to follow her
advice, but we shook hands warmly at parting, and
she called after me as I went down the street to change
my mind and try !
As I walked back through the wide thoroughfares of
hustling, bustling Winnipeg, I felt that Canada is a
hard place for women who have brought out nothing
that the country wants, and was depressed at my
inability to cope with the circumstances in which I
had placed myself, wondering, not for the first time,
whether I were not a fool to have started on thisJ
absurd adventure. But it would not do to show
22 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
the white feather so early in the day, though the next
posts offered to me, the one to be maid-of-all-work
in a town doctor's family, and the other to be house-
keeper to a bachelor, were not such as I could accept,
and only increased my sense of failure.
The Home was not calculated to raise my spirits,
and I felt ashamed of myself for criticising the food
and the company of some of those who ate it with
me. For one thing, I missed the fruit and vegetables
to which I had always been accustomed they are
terribly dear in Winnipeg; I found the meat here
and throughout Canada very tough, as a rule, and at
first I disliked having tea with every meal. I would
have drunk water gladly, but had been specially
warned in England not to touch it in Winnipeg, though
later on I did so, when I discovered that there was a
patent filter of the most hygienic type screwed on to
one of the taps in the kit dim. All the inmates of
the Home would have to find other lodgings before
V long, as a big band of girl-immigrants was expected
:n England. These are lodged free for twenty-four
hours, the Government subsidising the Home for that
purpose, and fifty girls could be packed at a pinch
into the big room at the top of the house. This
innunt grant (I could have taken advantage of
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG 23
it myself) is occasionally abused, and I was told of a
case in which a well-to-do Englishwoman and her
two daughters actually got free board and lodging
before proceeding on their way west !
I soon became friendly with several of the inmates
of the Home, many of whom confided their affairs to d
me with the utmost frankness, and took a kindly
interest in my hunt for work, being greatly surprised,
however, that I wished to go on a farm, where the
life was, so they said, far harder than in the towns.
One delicate girl, who had been a book-keeper in
England, and who had imagined that she was going
to make her fortune in the Dominion, told me that
she had had nothing but poor posts and overwork
since she left her home. Her first place was in a shop,
where she worked all day long at book-keeping, and at
night slept in the store, in company with a bulldog
that guarded the safe 1
Another, who went out as a general servant, com- ?
plained bitterly of a late mistress, who had belonged
originally to Fanny Low's own class. This woman
was in the habit of giving large dinner parties, and
on one occasion, when the guests had departed and
midnight had struck, she commanded her overworked
" slavey " to scrub the kitchen floor. This order
24 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
made the proverbial \v>im M turn," and Fanny
notice and at last got her release, but not before lu-r
health had been undermined.
Irish Biddy, whose hair was apparently n<
brushed, and whose brogue was so strong as to be
almost unintelligible to me, seemed to be in a
petual state of taking situations and throwing tin m
up, when she would return to the hostel and indulge
in floods of vituperation against the unfortunate woman
who had had the ill-luck to engage her. Once I heard
her say at table that she never quarrelled, but her
opposite neighbour retorted immediately, " When you
have a bad break on, Biddy, and begin to curse and
swear, there's no one in the world that can put up
with you." As I was informed on good authority
that Biddy could not make toast properly, mud:
cook a potato, I felt sorry for her various cm pi
Many of the inmates of the host. 1 \\. re fond of run-
ning down the Canadians \vh..m they looked ujx.n il
merciless taskini-tn>, B, and apparently f-\v of them
wished to give a fair return for wages which certainly
were double, if not trrble, what they would ha\v
received in England. ( )iu reason for tin nism
was that British servant^ a IT u>u.illv ^nalMs. and
do not grasp that in Canada they must turn their
hands to anything, and be cook, house-parlourmaid,
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG 25
washerwoman, and perhaps baker and dairymaid all
in one ; and another reason is that they have the
haziest ideas as to the conditions of life that prevail
in the Dominion.
One pretty English girl told me of her experiences. />,
She had come out after reading some attractive litera-
ture about the good time that a home-help is sup-
posed to have in the country, and on the voyage had
hired herself to a farmer and his wife for the very
small sum (as wages go here) of seven dollars (i, 8s.)
a month. Once they had got her on to the prairie ,
they worked her all day, and gave her little, if any, ;
relaxation. She had expected to have been taken
drives with her employers, but they always went off
without her, sometimes leaving her alone for two or
three days with the hired men, and she was not really
treated as one of the family. On one occasion she
visited a friend on a neighbouring farm, and lost her
way on the prairie, and would have been out all night
if the barking of a dog had not guided her to a home-
stead, where the inmates, with true Canadian hospi-
tality, put her up. When she got home the next day,
she discovered that her employers had not made the
slightest effort to find her, and having had enough
of the way in which they scolded her if she did not
do her work to their liking, she decided to leave.
26 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
But this she had great difficulty in doing, as the
fanner and his wife asserted that she had promised
to serve them for a year ; and though she stoutly
denied this, she could hardly get away, and had even
more trouble in obtaining the wages due to her. This
experience is a rare one, Canadians being, as a rule,
most kind to their employees ; but it shows how un-
wise it is for young girls to venture alone into a strange
country instead of putting themselves under the
protection of the societies that have been formed to
help them, such as the British Women's Emigration
Society, which sends out so good a stamp of girls, that
the Matron told me that she only knew of two cases
that had been real failures out of the hundreds with
which she had had to do. Mary Black was, I frar,
/A of rather too independent a character, for she refused
to take a post that the Matron pressed upon her, and
tr went off to a small hotel as waitress. Here she had
to share a room with four others, two of the girls being
^ Galicians of such unpleasant habits that she gave up
the situation in a very short time, and was thankful
to take the one that ^he had despised before.
But these were not the only inmates of the H<>m-.
Two charming Englishwoman, who had been gover-
nesses, and who had made up their minds to try tlu-ir
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG 27
fortune together in the Dominion, stayed here for a
few days, and I shall not soon forget their radiant
faces as they came to tell me that they had been
engaged as waitresses at the Hudson Bay tea-rooms,
where the Matron and I repaired next day to wish
them good luck. The hours were not long ; they had
installed themselves in a "rooming-house," and had
all sorts of schemes for making money in various
ways, plans which, I trust, have been carried out
successfully by these brave-hearted women.
My sympathy was also roused by a young girl who
had come out with a sister, a mere child about fifteen.
The elder girl had acted and sung in public, and was
most hopeful about getting work ; but, as she ex-
pressed it, " I must first settle Laura (the little sister)
comfortably, and then I must find a place for Mother
with a photographer, as she paints photographs, and will
join us out here if I tell her that prospects are good."
" But can't your father help you, as he is in
Winnipeg ? " I inquired.
"Oh, Father ! " and young Eighteen laughed
pathetically. "He's an artist, and you know what
that means. If anything can be done here, I am the
person to buckle-to and do it. Father can only just
manage to keep himself going."
28 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
Both sisters started in a humble way as nursemaids,
but I feel sure that the indomitable pluck of the elder
girl will win a comfortable livelihood for them both,
if not for the whole family, in the future.
One of the inmates of the Home interested me by
giving me details of the way in which many of the
British girls hurl themselves, as it were, into marriage.
They were in the habit of frequenting a matri-
monial agency in the town, and some had actually
gone all the way to Vancouver to marry men whom
they had never seen ; while others told her, without
any appearance of shame, that tiny had left un-
satisfactory husbands behind them in England, and
intended to take fresh ones out here. One girl
had great difficulty in her hunt for a hustxmd.
Her advertisements met with no success, but finally
tin- agency provided a man, and the couple were to
meet for the first time at the church where the mar-
riage ceremony would take place. "Milly," said my
informant, " had no roof to her mouth, had a ii;
like a bolster tied in half, and a limp. When the couple
saw one another at tin- chui< h d><r, the girl stepped
..nd and s.iid, ' Milly Mnith i>, my name.' ' Mii.
Walk r, iv j.l icd he, and off he walked in a great hurry,
without another word, and she i-n't married yet 1 "
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG 29
This anecdote reminds me of what a girl at the hostel
said to me one day. " Before I came out to Canada,"
she remarked, " I read that I should find a number
of men on Winnipeg platform waiting to propose to
us girls, but, would you believe it, when I got out of
the train not a single man even spoke to me ? " and
her voice trembled with mortification. Of course, this
business-like way of looking upon marriage seems
horrible, but yet I saw things in rather a different
light when girl after girl assured me that she had no
idea of what she was in for when she came out to the
Dominion, and that she had never known the real
meaning of the word " work " until she got there.
Canada is a hard nut for a woman to crack unless she
be strong and self-reliant. It is a ruthless land for
the weak and incompetent, and to such as these the
idea of having a man to fend for them must be well-
nigh irresistible, while to be ill in a strange city,
without friends or money, and where hospital accom-
modation must be paid for, would try the nerve of
the strongest.
Winnipeg, the third city of the Dominion, is bright
and bustling, full of movement along the immensely
wide thoroughfares of Main Street and Portage
Avenue, with tramcars constantly running and crowds
30 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
for ever passing, the great majority being young
men. Here, as in the other towns of the West, save
Victoria, I noticed an almost entire absence of old
people, and wondered whether the strenuous life of
this Land of Youth was too much for them. Every-
thing goes hey presto 1 Here funerals pass at a smart
trot, and I could hardly keep up with the brisk pace
at which the choirs led the psalms and hymns in the
churches.
The greatest grain market of the American continent
is a kind of melting-pot of many nationalities, the
inhabitants of fifty countries being represented in the
Dominion. The British and Scandinavians are per-
I haps the most in evidence, but there are many French,
Germans, Spaniards, Italians, and Galicians, and all
of these will in a few years probably regard Canada
as their motherland.
Side by side with the handsome public buildings and
the numerous palatial-looking banks and big stores
are small frame-built shops that must inevitably be
pt away before long. There are excellent tram-
services, and one notices many good horses, tlu>
majority well-fed and groomed, but too often drive n
with the cruel bearing-rein. Winnipeg has its parks
and theatres, but the chief places of ami; >cem
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG 31
to be the cinematograph halls, with such attractive
titles as "Dreamland" and "Starland," and I saw
far too many drinking saloons. Despite their presence,
I hardly ever came across a drunken man. Once I
was somewhat persecuted by one when I was writing
in a hotel, and in consequence retreated to the
"parlour." However, my enemy found out my
refuge, but when I said sternly, " This is the ladies'
room, you must not come here," he replied at once,
" A' right, I good fellow ; I turn out," and off he
went, and did not reappear.
The Post Office was always thronged with people
waiting for their letters, standing opposite pigeon-holes
marked A-E, and so on, or opening little private
boxes and taking out their correspondence. One day,
as I stood in the long queue, a pleasant-faced old
gentleman bowed to me to take his place. I demurred
with a smile, but he insisted, with the words, " I
come from a country where the ladies go first ; in
Canada they go last 1 " To the latter part of this
remark I must take exception, for I was never made
to go " last " from the Atlantic to the Pacific and
back, and not once did I have to hoist my belongings
in or out of any railway car, meeting with the utmost
kindness again and again.
32 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
He went on to inquire what I was doing in Winnipeg,
and was quite distressed to hear that I was looking
for a situation as home-help, but said that he could
perhaps assist me by giving me an introduction to
some clergyman, a friend of his. I did not feel in-
clined to respond to this offer, and thought that the
incident was closed ; but a few days later I came
across the Englishman again, who put me to the blush
by urging me to write to him for help were I hard up
at any time in fact, I had considerable difficulty in
impressing upon him the fact that I was by no means
penniless.
" I know an educated woman when I see one," he
said, " and I feel that you are throwing yourself away
as a home-help."
I longed to tell my good-hearted acquaintance that
I was under no compulsion to earn my livelihood, but
I feared to trust ray secret to anyone, and, holding
out my hand in farewell, I assured him that I was all
rif^ht. " Do you think you will come through ? " and
tin -re was real concern in his voice. " I am perfectly
sure that I shall," was my answer, and I went my
way considerably cheered by one of the most genuine
bits of kindness that I have ever encountered.
It was curious how completely I had now merged
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG 33
myself into my part. It was no longer acting. I
knew the despairing feeling of hunting for work and
finding none, and I had a pang of disappointment
as girl after girl went off to her post, and I, the in-
competent, was left behind without one. I filled up
time with washing my clothes, thus learning the use
of a wringer and a washing-board, and the right way
to hang the garments on the line, and was humiliated to
find that I did everything in the wrong way if I fol-
lowed the light vouchsafed to me by Nature ; and I
also helped to clear the table after meals and assist
with the drying of the many cups and plates.
Part of my long delay in getting work was owing to
the fact that the newspaper had twice omitted to put
my " ad." into its columns, through some negligence,
and thus I was twice thrown back, as it were. I was
urged to take a post as telephone girl, where a salary
is paid and teaching given at the same time, and also
would I not be a waitress ? In each case, even if
I had not determined to go on the prairie, the stuffy,
overheated atmosphere of the offices and hotels would
have strongly repelled me; and in all probability I
should have been "fired " the next day, as I heard
again and again that English waitresses are looked
upon as too slow, and are speedily hustled out of
c
34 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
their posts by the alert Canadians, who seem to do
their work with lightning speed.
One day I found a letter in my "ad." box to the
effect that if I would call at such or such an office
I should hear of a " position " (they never speak of
situation) to suit me. Accordingly I went, and was
interviewed by a burly Canadian, who did not trouble
to rise from his seat or remove his hat as I entered.
"Mother is old and past her work," he began, "and
she wants a strong girl to take over things. My father
has a whole section, and there would be him and my
brother and the two hired men to * do ' for, and you
would have to milk three cows and make butter."
"As well as do all the cooking, bread-making, and
washing ? " I inquired. " Yep, it's a good bit of
work," was the answer, and I declined the post with
thanks.
On 1 4th May there was a procession in Winnipeg to
commemorate the Fish Creek and Batoche engage-
ments, in which the Red River Rising was put down.
A column opposite the Town Hall marks these vic-
tories, and from here the bands, with detachments of
different corps, marched by. And then came the
veterans. All the mm who had fought against Riel
strode past in their Sunday best, but wore slouch ft It
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG 35
hats with red bands and a couple of small brown
ostrich tips. Each man carried a bunch of flowers,
mostly carnations, and this reminded me that the
Matron had told me that that day was called " Mother
Sunday/' and it was incumbent on all to wear a flower
and to write to his or her mother, were she in the land
of the living, the preachers alluding to this custom in
their sermons. In some newspaper I read a letter in
which it was urged that a Sunday ought to be devoted
to the remembrance of the fathers, but I do not think
that the idea met with much acceptance. After the
men, two or three bands of well-set-up Boy Scouts
passed by, the whole procession on its way to St.
John's cemetery to lay flowers on the graves of the
dead heroes ; and there was much excitement when
the nurse, who had been at Winnipeg during the Rising,
drove past, a striking figure in her garb of red with
voluminous white head-gear. As I watched the pro-
cession, I entered into conversation with an elderly
Englishwoman who stood beside me, and who had
been twenty-seven years in Winnipeg, during the
infancy of the city living in a tent on the site of the
present big Canadian-Pacific Station. " I nearly broke
my heart at first," she said, " things were 'fierce,' and
often we had only bread to eat. My husband was a
36 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
carpenter, but sometimes had no work except sawing
wood, and I did the men's washing. Think of it 1
There were Indians all round us, and they used to
shoot wild-duck where the Town Hall stands."
" Do you want to go back to England ? " I inquired.
"Oh, dear no. I love Canada, and wouldn't live
in the Old Country for anything, for here we all have
money in our pockets, and over there we couldn't
make a living." Yet she bore no love towards the
Canadians, asserting that they looked down upon the
English, and she launched into a long account of the
slights inflicted upon her by her next-door neighbour.
" She was always rude to me until her daughter was
married, and then she came and begged me to help
with the wedding. Can you believe it ? None of
them knew how to clean a fowl I They would have
cooked 'em, insides and all, if I hadn't been there,"
and she laughed with much enjoyment. " And then
there was the wash. My neighbour said one day that
she couldn't imagine how I got my clothes to look
so white, and I answered her, * You Canadians are
like the ducks ; you just dip your linen in and out of
the water, and expect the sun to do the cleaning for
you.' And now we are the best of friends," she wound
up, the whole conversation leaving me with the im-
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG 37
pression that the much-resented attitude of superiority
was not on the part of the Canadian woman !
Not far from where we stood were the Government
Immigrant Halls, over which I was taken one morn-
ing. Here 450 immigrants can be accommodated at
a pinch, and they are given free lodging for seven days,
during which they are helped to get work. The whole
place was a miracle of good management. In the
rooms the beds were one above another as on board
ship, and could be chained up against the wall. They
were provided with wire and fibre mattresses, the latter
being destroyed at intervals for the sake of cleanliness,
and the immigrants supplied their own blankets.
There were baths and rows of washing-basins, with
hot and cold water laid on ; on each floor was a
kitchen with stoves and a batterie de cuisine; there
was a laundry for the women, a hospital, an office
where the immigrants could leave their possessions while
roaming about the city in search of work, and the
whole building was warmed with steam-heat. I was
greatly impressed with the good sense and kindly
thought of all the arrangements, which must be a
priceless boon to men and women seeking their for-
tunes in a new country.
At last I heard of a post that seemed within my
38 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
capabilities, but I urged my would-be employer to
meet me before I closed with her, and went to a
rendezvous at a stable at which she had put up
after driving into Winnipeg. She was a pleasant-
faced little woman, and her letters to me had been
nice, though vague. So I began to ask for a few
details. " You said, when you wrote," I remarked,
"that your family consisted of yourself and your
husband." "Sure," was her reply, and then she
hesitated for a moment. " Well, I think I ought to
tell you," she went on, " that my father-in-law of
eighty-two lives with us ; but he is hale and hearty,
and will turn the handle of the washing-machine on
Mondays. Then there is my brother-in-law and our
hired man, and " here she made quite a long pause
"there is my sister-in-law." "Oh, I suppose she
would help with the work ? " I put in, feeling rather
depressed at this category. " Well, she might, perhaps,
do something, but she isn't like other girls not mad,
oh no, but just queer and odd." She assured me that
all her neighbours considered her situation to be an
ideal one as regarded the w.-rk ; but when she spoke
of the thirty pounds of butter that it was " up to me " to
make each week, the chi;k-ns that I must ll lay down "
before long, and the addition to lur family that she
SEEKING WORK AT WINNIPEG 39
expected in July, my heart failed me. I explained
that I lacked the necessary experience to wash, bake,
and cook for four men and as many women, for she
intended to engage a nurse to look after her in a month
or six weeks' time. And yet I was so anxious to get
a situation, that I nearly closed with my would-be
employer to stay with her for two or three months at
ten dollars (2) a month, though the programme of
work would have staggered even an English " general."
But I had another string to my bow, so telling her of
this, and that I would clinch the matter by writing to
her on the Monday, as I could not come out to her
by the mail-cart until the Tuesday, we separated, and
a wire from my other " string " met me as I turned
into the newspaper office. It was from a widow on
a prairie farm, who did her own work and needed a
companion. As I felt that I could honestly under-
take this post, I accepted at once for a month,
wrote to decline the other situation, and on 22nd May
departed for my first venture. Though I left the
Home with joy, as the fortnight I had spent there had
been a very long one, yet it was with no little regret
that I said good-bye to the Matron, whose constant
kindness and that of her friend had meant much to
me. Everybody congratulated me on getting a con-
40 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
genial "position," and it was with an exciting sense
of seeking my fortune that I left the station with its
great clanging engines, beside which our English ones
look like toys, and set off for the goal of my desires, a
farm on the prairie.
CHAPTER III
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP
THE day got hot as the morning wore on, and I could
have wished that the occupants of the crowded
" first-class " car had not been so indifferent to the
charms of fresh air. A young Scotch mechanic, who
shared my seat, opened my window, propped it up
for me as the catch would not work, and entered into
conversation as the train passed through a prettily
wooded part of the prairie. He informed me that he
had left Scotland fourteen years ago, and had re-
visited his home after serving through the Boer War ;
and on my inquiry as to which country he preferred,
he replied, in a strain that reminded me a little of
Kipling's "Chant Pagan." "I wouldn't live in the
Old Country again for anything," he concluded. " It
was all so small when I went back, and it made me
laugh to see the ridiculous little fenced-in fields no
bigger than our gardens out here " ; and he glanced
at the magnificent sweep of the prairie as it rolled
towards a far horizon.
42 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
When the train stopped at his station, he said " Well
then ? " as a farewell salutation, and grasped the hand
of the home-help, in whose prospects he had taken a
frank interest ; and so we parted in friendly fashion.
When I reached my destination some hours later,
Mrs. Robinson's man was nowhere to be seen, so I
was advised to enter a kind of 'bus, that jolted and
bumped its occupants over a road more like a ploughed
field than anything else. Its goal was a grey-painted
wooden hotel, where finally a shock-headed youth
driving a buckboard made his appearance, and I was
jolted back again to the station for my trunk.
Here a difficulty arose. The baggage-room was
locked, and a bystander informed me that the station-
master was having his tea, and that I should disturb
him at my peril. My informant added that he him-
self wanted to get his boxes out of that room, as he
had a drive of five-and-twenty miles before him, yet
he would not venture to brave the baggage agent's
wrath. It was certainly a shame to disturb the poor
man at his meal, but, as T had some distance to go, I
summoned up my courage and knocked at his door,
which in a moment or two was flung open violently.
I poured out profuse apologies before the irate-looking
official who appeared on the threshold could say a
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP 43
word, and, as a result, not only was my trunk produced
in a jiffy, but the stationmaster himself helped it on
to the buckboard, and we parted the best of friends.
It was a lovely evening as my taciturn young driver
and I started off to my future home. The prairie was
undulating, with bluffs covered with poplar and wild
cherry, and here and there reedy " sloughs," as they
call them, alive with wild-duck. I had a sense of
adventure as mile after mile separated me farther and
farther from the railway, yet there was always an
uneasy feeling that perhaps I might not please my
new employer, and very probably would not be con-
sidered worth even the small salary of 2 a month.
The silent yokel who drove me had been three years
in Canada, but my questions as to how the Dominion
compared with his old home in the North of England
elicited the shortest and most reluctant of replies.
At last we reached a nice-looking wooden house,
surrounded by a little garden, and a pleasant-faced
lady came out, warmly welcomed and embraced
me, and then led me into a spotlessly clean and
well-appointed abode. I felt that I was indeed for-
tunate in my first venture, and enjoyed supper, which
was graced by my driver and his brother in their
shirt-sleeves. Mrs. Robinson then helped me to wash
44 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
up the supper things, showed me to a prettily furni
bedroom opposite to her own, and promised to call
me about six o'clock on the morrow. I had given her
a reference, kindly furnished by the Honorary Secre-
tary of the British Women's Emigration Society, but
she declined to read it, saying that " one look at my
face " was quite sufficient for her, so I felt that my
new life had begun under flattering auspices.
Next day it was a curious experience to dress h
and descend to the kitchen to help my mistress with
the preparation of porridge and fried bacon for breuk-
fast, and at half-past six the two youths appeared
with pails of new milk, and tidied themselves for the
meal. In the wooden lean-to, answering to the scullery,
was a basin of water, and into this they plunged tin -ir
heads and hands, and came dripping into the kitch< -n
to dry themselves with the roller- towel hung on the
door. They then combed their hair with the aid of
a small mirror on the wall, and sat down, waiting for
me to serve them with porridge out of the saucepan
excellent f.uv when accompanied by milk fresh fmm
the cow. They never thought of lending a hand as
1 passed them the jug, cut the bread, changed their
plates, placed the dish of bacon on the table, and
handed them the tea poured out by my employer,
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP 45
eating my own meal in the pauses of waiting. I con-
fess that it went somewhat against the grain to wait \
on them in this manner, and I had to remember that
they had been up early milking and feeding the animals,
and therefore deserved a good meal. As soon as they
had finished, they swung out of the kitchen and off
to their work of "seeding," while I rolled up the
sleeves of my apron and donned a pair of indiarubber
gloves for the wash-up.
Even this apparently simple operation has a right
and a wrong way of tackling it, and of course I took
the wrong way by putting a mixed assortment of
crockery and silver into the pan. My mistress now
showed me how to wash the cups and saucers first,
then the silver, then the greasy plates, the knives
receiving attention last of all, everything being piled
on a tray to drain, and scalded with boiling water
from the kettle in order to facilitate the drying opera-
tions, plate-racks being unknown on the prairie.
After this the washing-cloth must be rinsed out (in
many places a little mop is used), and I was implored
never to use the dish-cloths for opening the oven door
or for handling pots and pans. This was a lesson
hard of learning, as they hung invitingly from the line,
and the legitimate rag was never to be found when
46 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
wanted, while I soon learnt from painful experience
that every part of the stove was capable of inflicting
a burn upon bare hands.
The washing over I went upstairs to d> tin- rooms,
but the way in which I made my own bed met with
disapproval. The usual English manner of arranging
the pillows was stigmatised as " most untidy," and I
was shown how to place them in an upright position,
Canadian fashion, and lean against them an elabo-
rate pillow-sham, with the words " good-morning "
and " good-night " embroidered on opposite sides
of it.
We then descended to the " shed," as Mrs. Robinson
called the scullery, and my employer churned a mass
of cream, but would not permit me to assist her, as
she was sure that I should " make myself in a terrible
mess " if I did so probably quite true, but humiliating.
I was set to peel potatoes, to prepare rhubarb for pies,
and to draw water from the well just outside the back
door. To do this last job I had to let down a large
milking-pail by means of a strap, and had hauled up
/ two or three bucketsful when a catastrophe occurred.
>umably I had not fastened the strap properly,
but anyhow the pail vanished down the well, dis-
appearing with a resounding splash as it reached the
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP 47
water ! I uttered a cry of despair that brought Mrs.
Robinson out in a trice, and though she must have
felt much vexed, yet she behaved nobly, and said
that Jack and Harry had already lost two buckets in
this way, and mine made the third ; but she would
persuade them to descend with a ladder and retrieve
the whole lot, and meanwhile we must do the best we
could with a very inferior pail. I felt most grateful
to her for her forbearance, and later on, when the
midday meal was ready, we strolled to the barn and
found two fascinating colts eagerly awaiting their
mothers, that were at work ; and I cannot describe
the neighing and whinnying that took place when the
two teams at last came in (in Canada a pair of horses
is always called a team), the mares wild with im-
patience to get to their little ones.
Dinner consisted of fried bacon, for the second time
that day it is the staple food on most farms and we
had a milk-pudding for "dessert," as Canadians call
the second course. Tea, as is the custom throughout
the Dominion, was served at every meal, and at first
I got very tired of it, and used to supply myself with
hot water from the stove close at hand, to the surprise
of the others.
" Have you got ' nerves ' that you won't take
48 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
tea ? " Mrs. Robinson inquired, with a scarcely veil*
contempt.
" No, not yet," was my answer, " but I don't want
to have them."
Later on I took tea like everyone else, and got
accustomed to it, though I always reverted to cold
water whenever I could be sure that it was safe to
drink it. At one farm, when I asked whether the
water was good, I was not particularly reassured by
the answer, " Well, I can't quite say, but I have
never heard of anyone getting typhoid from it."
Mrs. Robinson, not content with tea three times a
day, partook of it during the morning, and again at
four o'clock, and I told her frankly that this indul-
gence partly accounted for the frequent attacks of
" nerves " to which she was subject.
I still remember how tired I felt that first day,
and how glad I was when my mistress said that I could
do what I liked till four o'clock, as she herself always
took " forty winks " during the afternoon. I lay
down for half an hour, and then intended to go for
a walk, but hardly had my head touched the pillow
when I was sound asleep, ami never awoke until I
was roused by Mrs. Robinson at half-past four. She
was kindness itself, and had lit the stove and made
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP 49
her afternoon tea, making me feel ashamed at having
performed my duties so badly, and firmly resolved to
do better in the future. In England I was usually
looked upon as capable, but here at every moment it
was borne in upon me that I was very much the
reverse, and this gave me a humiliating feeling of being
out of my element.
Next day I descended to the kitchen full of energy,
though the floods of rain coming down in a veritable
torrent had a depressing effect. The local butcher,
his wife, and a friend were expected to dinner, so we
had a busy morning cleaning the dining-room (we our-
selves always ate in the kitchen), getting out the best
glass, china, silver, and cutlery, and sweeping the
drawing-room, only used on state occasions.
Mrs. Robinson thought that her guests would hardly
venture on a twelve-mile drive in such a deluge, but
preparations had to be made all the same. Clad in
macintosh and rubbers, I drew water from the well,
got cream and butter from the little dairy, only a
stone's- throw from the house, and did my best at
chopping wood for the fire, which needed constant -
replenishing, no coal being used in this part of Canada,
and which went out in the most aggravating way if
left for only half an hour to its own devices.
50 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
At last all was ready ; the beef was cooking in the
oven, the potatoes put on to boil, the table laid in
the dining-room, and we could go upstairs to attire
ourselves. To my surprise the guests actually arrived,
driving up in an open buggy, from which they emerged
in a half-drowned condition, and we helped them off
with their dripping wraps, which we hung up to dry in
the little kitchen. When all were seated at table I
had my first experience as a parlour-maid, carrying in
the soup, the meat, the rhubarb-pie, and tea, and
changing and clearing away the plates and dishes. I
could have laughed as I waited on the company, so
entirely did I seem to have changed my identity, and
I sat at table and ate during the intervals of serving.
The guests were most kind to me, and seemed anxious
to know how I liked Canada, and whether I intended
to settle in the country, saying that they thought I
< was very brave to "pull up stakes " and come by
myself so far from home ! In my turn I asked the
butcher, who led the conversation with much
aplomb, how long it was since he had left England.
"Thirty years ago, and I've never gone back again
and never want to," was the uncompromising answer.
During the meal the guests discussed a sad case that
had occurred in the neighbourhood during the previous
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP 51
year. A farmer, in a small way, had hurt his arm, and
the doctor prescribed a linseed poultice for the wound,
but owing to gross carelessness the druggist gave the
man " bed-bug " poison by mistake, and the victim,
after enduring agonies of pain, was obliged to have
the limb amputated.
During his illness his wife tried to help with the
farm- work, and one day while driving the " mower "
she stopped to talk to a neighbour, dismounting from
her seat and omitting to put the catch on to the
machine. The horses began to move as she was
getting back, with the result that her leg was so
terribly gashed by the knives that she was permanently
imed, and one of the problems of the neighbourhood
how best to assist the "poor Cripples," as they
jre called, for unless they could work their land
ley would have no means of subsistence.
When dinner was over the women came into the
kitchen, and, in the friendly Canadian fashion, helped
me with the big wash-up ; I then kept a watchful eye
upon the tiresome stove, and at four o'clock carried
tea and cakes into the dining-room. Mrs. Robinson
had expected that her guests would have stayed to
the half-past six repast, but to my relief they de-
parted just before, shaking hands warmly with the
52 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
home-help, and inviting her to visit them in their own
homes.
It seemed a day devoted entirely to preparing meals,
and hardly was the buggy out of sight than we had
to hurry to get supper ready for Jack and Harry.
That night a coolness arose between my employer
and myself. The rain had ceased, but the air was
damp, and she wished me to sleep with my bedroom
window shut in case her lace curtains should get
draggled. This I declined to do, as fresh air is a
necessity to me, and, moreover, the room was small
and had no fire-place. Though I offered to close the
wooden jalousies she took my refusal in bad part, and
next morning, when the young men had gone off to
their work, she gave me my congt, saying that sho
was dismissing me for incompetence in laundry-work ;
and I now learnt by practical experience the Canadian
custom of '* firing " an employee without any previous
warning. Though it was humiliating to be turned off
at a day's notice, when I had intended to stay for a
month, yet I was not altogether sorry, as the life
was almost entmly an indoor oiu-, quite different to
what I had imagined existence to be on a prairie
farm, and the " daily round " was beginning to bore
me considerably. I said pleasantly that I would go
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP 53
whenever she liked, and she then asked me to stay
for a week, and straightway had a nervous attack,
which turned my feeling of irritation into pity. Poor
woman 1 The monotony of her life, combined with
no outdoor exercise and too much strong tea, was
ruining her health. Her chief amusement during the
ten days I was with her was to have daily chats with
her neighbours on the 'phone, this distraction having
its drawbacks, as some of the farmers' wives were
mean enough to listen to conversations not intended
for them, and Mrs. Robinson told me that she could
often hear the click, as some woman took up her own
" receiver " to overhear what was perhaps being
spoken in confidence. The whole circle of farms was
on the same telephone line, so the house was alive with
Us at all hours, rather a difference from the un-
>ken calm that is popularly supposed to brood over
the prairie. The ladies exchanged the local bits of
gossip, and most of them appeared to ** enjoy bad
health," a thing that seemed strange to me when I
was standing outside the house and drinking in the
glorious prairie air. The pity of it is that the women
have far too little of it, as they confine themselves to
their hot kitchens, and many hardly leave the house at
all during the long, severe winter. Mrs. Robinson told
54 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
me that she was indoors last winter for over a month
at a time, and it was far too cold to open the windows !
On the prairie there are no sash-cords, so the win-
dows have to be pushed up from the bottom and k< j,t
open by means of a stick, and it is usually impossible
to push them down a few inches at the top and thus
air the rooms, overheated by the furnace in the cellar.
Certainly the Dominion has no room for idlers. A
farmer's wife who rode past one afternoon said that
she had had to milk eight cows before having any
breakfast that morning, and felt "rotten"; and
Mrs. Robinson told me that all her friends would give
anything to be able to hire some capable " girl " to
help them, as they were getting on in life, and the
strain of the long years of drudgery was beginning to
upon them. The only servants obtainable seemed
to be Galicians, who do not appear to be very pleasant
inmates of a house, and, moreover, the farmers round
here wore apparently far from wealthy. But, of course,
there is a good deal in being accustomed to the work.
One nice small boy, belonging to a neighbouring farm,
told me that he had to milk six cows every day, and
had begun at the age of seven, but that his father's
hired man could though my
young friend had given him instruction.
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP 55
Mrs. Robinson herself was not overworked, but she
had lost the habit of repose, and was never quiet for
a moment. Not only did she sweep out the whole
kitchen and "shed," and shake all the carpets after
every meal, but she would ply the broom in between
times, when apparently it was entirely unnecessary
in fact, she was for ever goaded by a malignant demon
of unrest. Unluckily for her she had no outdoor
tastes, and was so nervous that she could not drive
herself ; and as the youths were fully occupied with
working the land, she had to stay at home for lack of
a charioteer, and never went farther afield than the
>wl-house. Here, and apparently all over the prairie,
there are terrible " electric " storms at intervals, and
Mrs. Robinson had many tales of men and horses
being struck by lightning, while the extremes of heat
and cold must be very trying to English people until
they get acclimatised to them. Though it was May,
yet the winds were bitterly cold, and on the 27th of
that month I awoke to a world covered in snow. All
the trees were bowed down with it, and the house
seemed quite dark, so thickly filled with flying flakes
was the air, and in spite of waterproof and galoshes, I
found that my visits to the dairy, the well, or the wood-
pile were fraught with much discomfort.
56 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
My poor mistress had had a bad night, and was full
of complaints as to Jack's surliness and his unwilling-
ness to take any advice from her. Certainly it is a
mistake for a woman to run a farm with hired help,
unless she is thoroughly conversant with all tin-
details of the work, which Mrs. Robinson was not.
This, of course, Jack knew perfectly well, and would
n to no suggestions from his employer ; but as
he was honest, capable, and sober she did not wish to
dismiss him, for she had once had a disagreeable
experience with a hired man who turned out to be
a drunkard, and she asked me whether I could say a
" word in season " to her factotum and his brother.
Personally, I had no cause to complain of either uf
my fellow-labourers, though their table manners were
a trial to me until I had firmly resolved not to notice
i. They were worthy young fellows enough, and
after a day or two Harry never failed to greet me
with a smilf and a cheery " Can I 'elp you ? " This
readiness to oblige was most useful, for he got me
wood and water, saving me many times from going
out in the rain or snow to the well or wood-pile. Mrs.
Robinson informed me that her last lady-help used to
romp with tin- yuihs, and in consequence they \
ready to do anything for her ; but my different methods
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP 57
appeared to answer well enough, for when my employer
was laid up for a couple of days, and I had to prepare
the meals unaided, I found the stove lit when I came
down in the morning, and the kettle filled with water.
They were always ready to find fun in the merest
trifles, and any antic of the elderly cat would send
them into fits of bucolic laughter.
I did my best to say a good word for Mrs. Robinson,
but it was a delicate matter, and when Jack made no
comment on my remarks, and Harry only vouchsafed
a "She's so silly about things," I felt that my well-
meant intervention had probably made matters rather
worse. To my suggestion that they should tell the
" missus " when she reappeared that they were glad
she was better, their uncompromising " But we ain't "
left me in a painful confusion.
As the time for me to leave drew nearer, my em-
ployer liked me better and better, and said that she
would miss my "bright face dreadfully," and now
and again she dropped me a word of praise on the
performance of the household "chores." One day, as
I was scrubbing the back staircase, she exclaimed,
" What a terrible come-down your mother would
think it could she see you now ! "
" I consider it a great come-up," I retorted with a
58 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
laugh, and felt quite proud when she said later on that
the stairs had seldom looked whiter.
We had always cakes or scones for tea, and I learnt
here the excellent and speedy Canadian method of
measuring flour, sugar, butter, &c. by the cup, and
small quantities by the table- and tea-spoon : I never
saw weighing-scales throughout my tour, but at first
found it difficult to translate the pounds and ounces
of my English recipes into " cups " and spoonsful.
On Saturday we had a general clean-up. I washed
with soap and water the shabby linoleum that covered
the kitchen floor, and the smart dining-room linoleum
was cleansed with skim milk, that gave it a wonderful
polish ; the drawing-room, a repository of countless
knick-knacks, had to be dusted, and the carpet -cleaner
diligently used here and in the bedrooms. The work
tired me hardly at all when I got into it, and my
chief concern was the fear that my hands would become
permanently blackened from the cleaning of dirty
ins, while the many washing operations made
my nails terribly brittl.
The kitchen floor was partly covered with loose
pieces of carpet that I was for ever displacing at
first, arousing my empln tic n marks
about my "shuffling tread." One length went from
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP 59
the "shed" to the kitchen table, and there was a
piece laid down for the feet of each youth, an attention
that they much disliked ; but I suppose it was easier
to shake the mud off bits of carpet than to remove it
from the linoleum. The pots and pans were kept in
the " shed," and here it was that I scraped out the
porridge saucepan every morning, a tiresome task
anyhow ; and as it had two holes that were stopped
up with scraps of calico, it behoved me to be careful
not to pull these out during my cleansing operations.
The kitchen table was covered with white oilcloth,
and on it Mrs. Robinson mixed her dough for bread
and pastry, without the aid of a board ; but for meals
we had a tablecloth, that the boys speedily soiled,
owing to the uncivilised way in which they ate their
food, and I should have infinitely preferred the oil-
cloth unadorned.
I had a hot position with my back to the stove,
in which there was one large oven in the middle, and
on the right a boiler that it was my task to keep
filled from the rain-water tank at the back-door.
Above the stove was a receptacle in which plates and
dishes could be kept hot, and on either side hung a
collection of pots and pans. The big block-tin kettle
was king of the kitchen, and it behoved me to be
6o A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
careful of it, as when on the boil the steam from its
spout was capable of inflicting a bad burn, as I dis-
covered to my cost.
During the daj-s of rain it was most difficult to keep
the fire alight with the damp wood, and we had re-
course to drying the logs in the o\vn ; and win -n tin-
weather suddenly got hot, the kitchen was a veritable
Black Hole of Calcutta, and the hateful house-fly and
mosquito began to annoy.
Sometimes I used to wonder whether it wen- indeed
I who was cleaning out rooms on my hands and knees,
or rubbing clothes on the washing-board, or ironing,
or replenishing that voracious stove with pieces of
wood. I must confess that though I gave my whole
mind to my work, yet I found the life very monotonous,
and it was hard at first to be ordered about, and not
to be mistress of my own time. Mrs. Robinson and
I had a curious kind of friendship. She liked im-
personally, invited me cordially to visit her later on,
confided in nv , uul begged in. t correspond with
her, and yet she not unnaturally hated tin- amateur
way in which I set about my work, and made me feel
that I did nothing right and was thoroughly incapable.
But my depression vanished wh.-n I awoke up one
morning to feel a warm wind blowing and to see the
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP 61
snow melting fast. The birds were all singing, and a
wren was actually building its nest in the pocket of
an old coat of Jack's that he had left hanging outside.
The trail had been so bad on account of the snow that
perforce I had stayed two or three days longer than
my week, and now that the roads were drying I made
a personal appeal to Jack to drive me to the station
the next day, for I knew that he and Harry would
miss me, and I had a lurking fear that he might tell
Mrs. Robinson that it was impossible for me to leave
for the present, in order to prolong my stay.
We had quite an excitement on my last evening, as
I persuaded one of the boys to go down the well and
make an effort to retrieve the three lost buckets. This
he accomplished finally with the aid of a rake, tied on
to a long clothes-prop, and I alternately watched his
efforts, which seemed to be attended with considerable
risk, and gazed at the young moon and stars in a
wonderful sunset sky, and at the long line of prairie,
purple as the sea where it lay on the horizon.
And now the time for my departure had arrived.
Mrs. Robinson had a meeting of the " Women's v
Auxiliary," a charitable society, at her house that
afternoon, and came up three times to my room as
I was finishing my packing, to urge me to come down,
62 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
as " the ladies all want to see you." When she paid
me my wages she gave me a little homily on the subject
of untidiness in my work, saying that she was speaking
for my good, and that I must improve if I intended
to be a success in my next situation ; but she tem-
pered her severity with a word of commendation of
my willingness, and said that I had learnt a good deal
while with her. I listened in a humble M!< -n < -, and
did not " answer back," though I wished that she could
have understood with what an immense effort I had
earned the money that she handed to ni !
At last the buckboard made its appearance. I bade
well to sunny-faced Hairy, who said, " Let us hear
how you get on," as he wrung my hand; and M;
Robinson embraced me, gave me a little souvenir, and
was genuinely sorry to say good-bye to me. The
colts insisted on accompanying their mothers, and
impeded our progress a good deal, one of them soon
beginning to lag behind ; but Jark had no pity for
uul iath i iiuelly remarked, "It would come
though it wasn't wanted, and so it must just take
the consequences."
I was delighted to be off after ten days of indoor
during which my horizon had been practically
bounded by tin- wi 11 aiul the wood-pile, ajid I enjoyed
MY FIRST POST AS A HOME-HELP 63
even the roughness of the track. " It will jolt your
bones up a bit," as Jack truly said, and I had to
plant my feet firmly on my "grip," lest it should
be shot out, and keep an eye on my trunk fastened on
behind.
But jolts and bumps were a trifle when one was
drinking in the intoxicating air. Summer had come
with a rush. The grass was starred with purple and
white violets, tiny wallflowers, pansies, and dainty
stitchwort ; grasshoppers were chirruping loudly, and
the frogs (" peepers," Harry called them) were croak-
ing in a jubilant chorus from every pond we passed.
The air was full of down from the poplars, a kind of
jummer snow ; small yellow canaries (I heard later
on that they came from Florida) flitted about, and
there were orioles, blue-birds, and wild-duck.
Everything was so full of life and freedom that I
quite sorry to reach the little prairie station and
bid farewell to my driver. He shook hands with me
warmly, saying that he hoped all would go well with
me, and when I thanked him for having been kind
and helpful, he blushed up like a girl, but looked
pleased in his rather boorish way. " Don't go to
Canadians in your next place, they know too much,"
was his parting advice, words that showed me that
64 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
he had not been unobservant of my numerous defi-
ciencies.
I had made my first venture, and though I had
been a failure, yet I knew that I had got more or less
into Canadian ways, and should probably succeed
better in my next situation. My mistress had shown
me much kindness, and I saw by the light of later
experiences that I had had a very easy place with
her, which only my lack of training prevented me
from filling properly.
The fine air had made me feel very fit, and capable
of doing double the work that I could have accom-
plished in England, but all the same I had a con-
viction, that only strengthened as the months went
on, that the post of home-help is not a suitable open-
ing for an educated woman, unless in some specially
selected district, where she can live in conditions
more akin to those of which I had read before I cam-'
out to the Dominion.
CHAPTER IV
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE
IN my efforts to investigate openings for educated
women, I travelled from the Atlantic to the Pacific
and back again by the Canadian-Pacific line, the
familiar C.P.R., that one hears spoken of so constantly
that I used to say that it was something like the
S.P.Q.R. of old Rome. My ticket was called "first
class," but it only entitled me to a seat in a long car
with a passage down the centre, and with little room
for hand-baggage if it chanced to be crowded.
Accordingly, if I made night journeys I took a berth
in the Pullman, and went in luxury, being, moreover,
entitled to sit in the fine Observation car at the end
of the train, a sort of glass coach with a platform
outside, from which one could see the often marvel-
lously beautiful panorama.
On any short day- journey, such as from Toronto or
Montreal to Quebec, the Pullman can be exchanged
for the Parlour car, where each passenger has a com-
fortable revolving arm-chair. These two are the real
<* E
66 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
first-class accommodation, and the Tourist car (almost
equally comfortable, though not as elaborately up-
holstered) is the second, while the Colonist or Emigrant
car, often crammed with Russians, Poles, Galicians,
Swedes, and Italians, is distinctly for third-class
passengers.
The huge engines make our English ones look almost
like toys by comparison, and the long carriages,
raised high above the platforms, have only an en-
trance at each end, and are approached by steps. I
was always haunted by the fear that the train might
glide off if I wandered far from these steps during
any halt at a station, for the conductor merely calls
out " All aboard ! " and even as he utters the words
the train begins to move.
My first long journey was from Montreal to \Yin-
nipeg. I had tried to interest some of the ladies of the
former city in my work, but the general opinion was
that the sexes were too evenly divided in East. m
Canada for there to be much scope for English worn, -n,
except as domestic servants, though I got much
encouragement from the Principal of the Victoria
Cafe*,
is a two nights* run from Montreal to Winnipeg,
and when I got into the Pullman I was interested in
seeing the negro porters making up the beds for the
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE 67
night. Each passenger has a plush-covered section
to himself, a section that would accommodate four
people seated opposite to one another, and these seats
are pulled out till they meet, and a broad shelf above
them is brought forward to serve as the top berth.
From this latter, mattresses, blankets, and green
curtains are produced, and the porter sallies out to
a particular cupboard and returns with spotlessly
clean sheets and pillow-cases. I always engaged a
lower berth, as a ladder is needed to ascend to the
top one, and likewise to descend ; and I was careful
to see that my window was drawn up, and a gauze-
filled frame, some six inches high, inserted into the
aperture in order to ensure fresh air during the night.
The green curtains were hung from a rail in order to
screen the occupants of both berths, but as I disliked
being at the mercy of the upper berth, I always insisted
on a second curtain of some thin material being hung
on a cord to the shelf just above my head, and thus
being entirely under my own control.
I found the negro porters very civil, but an American
lady from the Southern States on one occasion sharply
reprimanded one because he asked, " What do you
say ? " to a question of hers that he had not grasped.
She was annoyed with me because I declined to be
drawn into the controversy, and told me in rather a
68 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
pointed way an anecdote of an old negress, once a
slave, who had found her way into Canada. " How
do you like this country, Matilda ? " her former master
inquired. "You aren't ordered about here as you
were down South." " Oh no," was the reply, " it's
only gentlemen and ladies who know how to do that,
not this white trash ! "
Personally, I generally slept well in the Pullman,
though when men snored heavily and children crird
it was not always easy to abstract oneself. Dressing
in the morning was also a trial, as a mere slip of a room,
with two basins (towels in plenty), and no fastening
on the door, was all the accommodation provided.
It was almost impossible to dress if three or four la
wished to accomplish this feat at the same time, and
consequently I would either get up early, or mak.
the major part of my toilet in my berth, though it
was no easy task to do my hair in a space in which
I could not sit upright ! In fact, I was almost moved
to envy by the example of one old lady, whose snowy
coiffure was most elaborately waved and puffed and
curled. She was going right across to Vancouver, a five
days' journey, and told a passenger that she had had
her hair arranged on the day of the start, and that she
would not touch it until she reached her destination.
The meals served in the restaurant car were ex-
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE 69
cellent, though somewhat expensive, and as here and
at every good-sized hotel throughout Canada the
waiters expect to be tipped at every meal (the
scale was $d. to is.), money, I found, ran away
swiftly. In the Tourist and Colonist cars there are
stoves, &c., for cooking food, so that their occupants
can save considerably by bringing provisions with
them. The big parties of girls that the British
Women's Emigration Society sends out in charge of
matrons, travel in what are called "stripped " Tourist
cars. Each girl has to buy a straw-filled mattress,
illow, and blankets, most of the articles being useful
to her afterwards, and the matron lays in provisions
for the long train journey hams, tinned meat, bread,
cake, condensed cream, and so on. These "pro-
ted " parties are a great boon to inexperienced girls
f whatever class, as they are preserved from un-
desirable acquaintances on board ship, and are looked
after, together with their belongings, until they reach
their final destination.
At Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg are hostels,
where all women immigrants are given free board and
lodging for twenty-four hours, and are helped by the
matrons in charge to find work if they elect to stop
in these cities.
As railway porters are conspicuous by their absence
f~ f i
i
70 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
in Canada, everyone must be able to cany his own
hand-baggage, and I found that a flat suit-case, which
held my night-things, a book, and writing materials
was most useful. A woman travelling alone is always
the object of kindly attention, and never once did I
lift my " grip " in or out of any train, some passenger
invariably possessing himself of it and leaving me free
to clamber up or down the steps of my carriage in
fact, so well was I looked after that I feared that I
must give the impression of being rather helpless.
There is always a good deal of movement in the cars.
Men come round with newspapers, post cards, maga-
zines, fruit, and sweets ; the conductor wishes to
inspect your ticket, and often takes it away, giving
a slip of card in exchange, which he sticks into the
hat-band of all the men ; and the brakesman passes
to and fro constantly, wearing thick gloves.
On my arrival in Canada I was struck by the fact
that most men appeared to do their work in gloves.
Perhaps the reason is that they are obliged to protect
nds during the intense cold of winter, and so
get into the habit. Be that as it may, I was al
surprised to see men riding, driving, or using pickaxe
and shovel with gloved hands, and in the men
partment of the drapers' shops there were immense
piles of these handgear.
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE 71
The " check " system for luggage is what I was
accustomed to from Continental travel, and usually
it works splendidly. Once I lost a box for two or
three days during the height of the tourist season,
and on another occasion I had a good deal of bother
about retrieving an errant trunk. This was, perhaps,
partly my own fault. I travelled with two boxes one,
old and shabby, held my " home-help " possessions,
and this I kept with me ; while the other, containing
smarter clothes, was either sent on ahead, or left at
the station until I required it. On one occasion I
left this box for over a month, and it was finally
traced to the unclaimed baggage department at Win-
nipeg, the baggage-agent exerting himself nobly on my
behalf, sending constant wires, and assuring me that
he would leave no stone unturned to recover my lost
property, the check for which I had in my possession.
Travelling in Canada is very pleasant, because fellow-
passengers soon become friendly with one another,
and I never took a journey without getting informa-
tion of some kind from all sorts and conditions of men.
From Montreal to Winnipeg I was fortunate enough to
fall in with an American traveller and author, well
known in Canada for her explorations among the
Rockies. We walked and talked and had our meals
together during the two days I was with her, and as
72 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
both of us loved travel and had heard the "call of tin-
wild," we had plenty of subjects of conversation as we
watched the scenery from the Observation car. It
seemed a land all lake and river. The big trees had been
cut down, and were replaced by an after-growth of fir
and alder, crowded together ; boulders were sprinkll
about everywhere, and masses of grey rock cropped
out. There were no high mountains, but it was a
hilly country, with many a mile of muskeg or morass,
and reminded me of parts of Scotland, though here the
myriads of rushing streams were not brown but black,
this colour being supposed to come from the roots of
the firs, and, instead of the familiar heather, the ground
was carpeted with young shoots of the blueberry.
There were few signs of habitation to be seen as the
train sped along the well-laid track, but at one tiny
station a picturesque family emerged from the Colonist
car, the father and little son in leather fur-trimmed
coats and fur caps, while the mother wore a murh-
mbroidered scarlet dress. They were young and
strong, but behind them staggered a white-hain .1 ,,M
woman, with a sack loaded with In T belongings on her
bent back, poor soul, and looking very unfit to be
starting life in a new country. Here and thnv m
small wood-built t.wn with an air of tx-in- pitched
down anyhow, or a cluster of houses with makeshift
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE 73
trails to pass for roads, and now and again a desolate-
looking log-cabin, a sight that always gave me a
pang of possibly misplaced sympathy for its lonely
occupant. Noble lakes, fringed with trees that grew
to the water's edge and dotted with wooded islands,
were dreams of beauty, and usually there was no
trace that any human being had ever intruded on
their centuries of privacy, though occasionally I
noticed cut logs floating down the rivers, sign-manual
of the lumberman's activity. It was a country to
which Service's lines might apply :
" But can't you hear the wild ? it's calling you.
Let us probe the silent places . . .
Let us journey to a lonely land I know,
There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star
a-gleam to guide us,
And the wild is calling, calling ... let us go."
I was sorry to part with my charming travelling
companion when we reached Winnipeg, having no idea
that not many weeks would elapse before I came
across her again at Edmonton, just as she and her
party were about to set off "on the trail." We were
both of us interviewed in that city, and were amused
at the newspaper article, in which her achievements
in the Rockies and the objects of my tour, together
with my travels in the East, were described in care-
fully balanced alternate paragraphs.
74 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
A month later, when I had left my first post as
home-help, my box and I were deposited on the plat-
form of a little prairie station to await the arrival of
the daily train. So tiny was the station that it ap-
parently boasted of no official, and I wondered how I
was going to " check " my luggage. Two girls walking
up and down examined the trunk, and finally told
me that it ought to have a label with its destination
inscribed thereon, otherwise it would certainly go
astray. I thanked them, but said that I had no
labels, as I had been told that with the excellent
checking system they were quite unnecessary.
" Oh no, that is a mistake. We always tie tags to
our boxes," cried the girls in chorus. " But there is
Mr. Bright coming; I am sure that he will tell you
what to do if you will ask him."
Terrified at the idea of losing my belongings,
1 hastened towards a man who came up at this
moment, and laid my case before him. He tl
himself into the breach immediately, said he would
procure a label from his own house, and returned
t few minutes with one and a piece of string.
I felt most grat i we walked up and down,
talking of the Old Country, which he had never seen,
until the train arrived, when he helped me in and
told the conductor about my trunk. I mention this
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE 75
little episode, only one out of many, to illustrate the
innate kindliness of the Canadians.
It was an interesting journey to my destination, \
Edmonton, as new prairie land was being opened up
all along the line. I could see men ploughing the first ,
furrows of their homesteads, or building the lumber /
shack that was to replace the tent close by, and I
felt the splendid vitality of it all, and rejoiced to
think that my own race was still at its work of empire-
building, a work that had begun with great Elizabeth.
Men in grey slouch-hats were on the platforms at
every station, or lounged in front of the grey-painted
wooden hotel, near which were rows of gaily coloured
agricultural implements, a bright spot in the land-
scape. Everyone seemed to be poor, and my eyes
invariably went to the few women, who often dressed
with a pathetic attempt to follow the fashion, and
these nearly always looked thin and worn. Yes,
pioneer work is fine work, but it exacts a heavy toll
from the women, because they are almost everywhere
in the minority, and few of them compared favourably
with the lean, sinewy, fit-looking men. I fancy that
want of fresh air during the long winter must account
for a good deal of this, and often the mosquitoes and
flies are such a curse, that even in the summer the
women venture out very little. Then the isolation
76 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
must be taken into account, and the fondness for
too much, and too strong, tea plays its malignant
part, in company with monotonous and incessant
I travelled for some hours with a pretty English girl
who was going as teacher to a remote prairie school.
Her journey was a tedious one, as when she left the
train she would have a long wait for her connection,
and after that would have a drive of fifteen miles to
her post. She had no idea where she was going to
board, and my heart misgave me when she said that
she was about to teach Canadian children without
any experience beyond what she had gained in Eng-
land. It was no good to tell her that she should h.i\
gone through a short course in Canada, which would
have been of the greatest help to her. Probably she
knew it as well as I did ; anyhow, it was too lat. m
the day to give her the information. Brave as she
was, she felt depressed when we shook hands at part-
ing, and I wished her all success in her venture. But
I think that Fate will deal kindly with her, bei
she was so plucky and so determined to " make good."
On my way I was obliged to stop for a night at
Yorkton and another at Saskatoon, as my trains were
not particularly amenable. The first place appeared
to be merely one half-made street, and o-rtainly
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE 77
would never have ranked as a town in Europe, but
the life and stir of progress were unmistakable. I
descended among a group of men, rough-looking in
appearance, one of whom took my " grip " and hold-all
in charge, remarking, "Go on ahead, the hotel is
just past the Hudson Bay Store." I obeyed his
directions, followed a wooden side-walk, and found a
substantial-looking building with the hall full of men,
many of whom were being shaved. The clerk behind
his counter was busily chewing gum, and when I asked
for a room he made no answer, but simply pushed a
book forward in which I wrote my name. " Want
sup ? " he then condescended to inquire. " Yes, I
should like some food, please."
" In there," was his laconic reply, as he jerked his
thumb backwards over his shoulder in the direction
of an open door. I entered the dining-room, where a
waitress thrust the menu in front of me with a " stand
and deliver " air on her impassive face, and I was
served with canned salmon, beef with canned tomatoes,
and Indian corn, canned pineapple, and a cup of coffee
sickly sweet, as the milk was canned like everything
else. I ate the food, however, with relish, as it was
nice to have a meal which I had not helped to prepare,
and which would involve no " wash-up " afterwards.
When I emerged into the hall the clerk called out,
78 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
" Lady," (I wonder he didn't say " Woman ! "), " room
ii," and the man who had taken over my belongings
he station advanced, cap on head and cigarette
in mouth.
" Come right along, and I'll fix you up," he remarked,
with a pleasant smile, and he carried my things up-
stairs, lit my gas, and promised to call me at 5 A.M.
the next morning.
Certainly, if people go out " West " they must not
expect the deference to be found in old civilisations,
and in one hotel the conduct of the bell-boy, aged
fourteen, amused me not a little. He came into tlu>
" parlour " to make up the fire, and at some remark
of mine he left his work, took possession of a " rock- r "
near me, and swung himself to and fro as ho talk. d.
" This hotel is not used to bell-boys," he began, md
they arrange our hours very badly. The other boy
and I have been talking things over, and if they don't
give us more time off we have made up our minds to
resign." I hope that the manager shivered at this
ultimatum ! The same youth, a thoroughly nice little
fellow, when he received a small douceur from me at
parting, remarked, "Good-bye, Miss Sykes ; I hope
have a most successful journ<
This specimen of young Canada was only one among
many, and all these sturdy, inclrpcnclcnt offshoots of
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE 79
the Old Country are the right stuff to build up the
Overseas Dominions. I was very far from agreeing
with an Englishwoman, travelling in Canada, to whom
I narrated this small anecdote, thinking that it
would make her smile, and was taken aback at her
comment, " How dreadful ! Such conduct is quite
anarchical ! "
On another occasion, two small C.P.R. red-capped
boys accompanied me and my taxi to the hotel, into
which they carried my belongings with more zeal than
discretion, one boy whisking my hold-all through the
door to the imminent danger of the protruding um-
brella handles. I made no remark, but he turned
to me with the curious apology, "I'm thankful 'hey
are all right, for you would have killed me if I had
smashed them up ! "
I had been warned before I left England that
Canadians resented " frills," by which term they denote
airs of superiority, more than anything else, and I
bore this advice in mind throughout my tour. I was
somewhat taken aback once in the baggage-room of
a large station, for when the railway employees saw
my name painted on the lid of my box, one of them
called out, " Hi ! Dick, come here ! Your relative
has just arrived from the Old Country," and a pleasant-
faced young man was reluctantly dragged forward.
8o A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
With admirable tact he lifted his cap, and said with a
polite smile that he was " pleased to meet me " (the
usual formula of greeting), and I smiled in return for
lack of a suitable reply. But my attitude, I fancy,
must have been correct, as the baggage-agents began
at once to give me advice as to how to dispose of my
second trunk in the cheapest possible way.
When I left Yorkton, a little crowd was gathered
on the platform to speed the departure of a couple of
Boy Scouts who had been selected to go to the Corona-
tion, and later on, at Calgary, there was a fine muster
of Scouts and Scoutmasters, who paraded outside the
Cathedral to the strains of the town band, and tlu-n
attended the service, after which a sermon was preached
to wish them God-speed. In stirring words it was
impressed upon the lads that they must do th< -li-
nt most to uphold the honour of the Dominion in
the Old Country, and as I looked at the rows of
eager young faces, it seemed to me that the founder
of the movement had calhd into being a new
order of chivalry that would go far to neutralise
the dangers of materialism and the worship of
in.unin n.
My run ii- m Yorkton to Saskatoon, and again on
to Edmonton, filled mi- with exultation. When I
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE 81
had left the wooded country behind, we emerged on
to a vast expanse, Kipling's
"... far-flung fenceless prairie
Where the quick cloud-shadows trail,"
and which reminded me of the Persian Desert in its
infinity, its distant horizon, and its air of mystery.
But there is an enormous difference between the
two. The desert, with its wastes of rolling sand, might
well stand for a symbol of Death, while the boundless
prairie, with a soil only waiting for the plough in
order that it may supply food for millions, is an
emblem of Life. The keen tonic air that blows across
the desert and the prairie, filling those who breathe it
with the joie do vivre, and making them almost in-
sensible to fatigue, is practically the same, and con-
verts the Oriental traveller and the Canadian into
optimists of the first water. Even the horses and
cattle, galloping with outstretched tails as the train
passed, and the colts and calves, gambolling in a
pretended fright, were influenced by this Elixir of
Life ; and how much more so were the human beings,
who had to contend with countless difficulties in their
conquest of this enormous wheat-field, 900 by 300
miles, and said to be the largest in the world. When
I made the journey, many a station was marked by
F
82 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
a red-painted C.P.R. horse-box converted into a
couple of rooms, and here and there little colonies
seemed to be living in disused cars. At Leslie, " quite
a place," as a fellow-traveller remarked, there was
some kind of a ffite on, and a big party left the
train, most of the women bearing babies or leading
small children, and I felt that one of the crying needs
of Canada was for more women to come out to assist
their overworked pioneer sisters. It must be quite
an event for these lonely women to visit some little
town (every cluster of houses in Canada is a town, if
it is not a city), even if it only has a road or two
like a section of a ploughed field, with a few wooden
houses of all sizes and designs and colours planted
here and there, apparently at haphazard, along it.
Whenever I think of Saskatoon there always comes
into my mind the picture of a motor containing a
young man and a woman. It came full tilt along a
deeply rutted track, bumping up and down in a way
that would have shaken the machinery of any \\vll-
conducted English car to pieces, and rushing with an
apparently reckless disregard of consequences into the
main street of the town. I cannot quite say why.
but, as I watched its progress, I Mt almost as if it
were a manifestation of Saskatoon itself, an embodi-
of the splendid lif<- and energy that seemed to
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE 83
vibrate through the whole city, and I was sorry that
the kind deaconess, to whom I had a letter of intro-
duction, said that there was not much opening for
educated women in this "live wire," as I heard
it called. But when I left the next day, and
drove over the Saskatchewan River, through a hilly
district which promises to become the residential part of
the city, and made my way with many a jolt and bump
to the station at South Saskatoon, three miles off, it
seemed to me that the centre of some of the best wheat
country in the whole Dominion could not fail to need
.
the services of capable women at no very distant date.
Again I passed little towns in embryo, houses ap-
parently pitched down anywhere, many only contain-
ing a single room ; and there were frequent lakes
with alkali-covered shores, the water of which was
useless. And at all these tiny outposts of civilisation
my heart warmed to see the Union Jack flying over
the schoolhouse. A Canadian farmer's wife delighted
me by saying that the children were carefully in-
structed in the meaning of the flag, and that her small
boy was terribly upset when the symbol of empire on
his school had to be taken down to be repaired, as
he thought some disaster would certainly occur.
I ruffled another woman by commenting adversely
on the " gum-chewing " habit.
s. A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
"It depends entirely on how it's done," she re-
marked very stiffly ; but when she saw that I had no
wish to offend, she condescended to give me some
information about this curious custom.
She said that it was supposed to be good for the
digestion, a very different theory from that of a
revivalist preacher, who held up a long stick of this
flavoured wax at one of his discourses and denounced
it as a " root of all disease " ! I was also interested
to learn that it could be munched practically for ever
without diminishing in bulk, and was amused at the
tale of a small child whom the school-teacher forced
to eject the u gum " that she was chewing surrepti-
tiously during school hours. When the cherished
possession was confiscated, the little girl burst into
floods of tears, sobbing out that the stuff didn't belong
to her, but had been "loaned her " by one of tin
other pupils ! She also told me the curious fact that,
owing to the in t nsc dryness on the prairie, glass
tumblers, both in winter and summer, would now
and again crack with a noise like the report of a pist< >l.
As is usual in Canada, all the passengers v
11 v with one another, and I enjoyed the journey,
th"iigh the crying, bickering, and constant movement
of several children did not add to the general harmony.
Hut before I reached Edmonton a touch of tragedy
;
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE 85
came upon the scene. An old and a young woman
with two small children got into the car, and the
young woman found a place opposite to me, and soon
began to tell me a sad little history. The children's
father, a blacksmith, had ridden an untamed and
blindfolded horse in some races on Victoria Day, as
the holiday of May 24th is named, and the animal,
mad with fright, had pitched its rider on to a fence,
where he had sustained fatal injuries. His old mother
and children were going to bid him farewell in the
hospital, where the poor wife was nursing her hus-
band, and the kindly neighbour had decided to accom-
pany the desolate little party to Edmonton, and
begged me to excuse the lack of finish in her toilet.
I just got the news in the middle of my work, and,
s I am their nearest neighbour, I pitched on any old
thing and came right along, and my husband must
' bach ' * until I get home again," was the way in
which she spoke of her truly Christian act.
A friend, a well-known Canadian traveller, author,
and lecturer alas, now passed away had given me
excellent introductions to the ladies of Edmonton,
who with the Deputy Minister of Education and the
editor of the chief paper were all most kind and
helpful, and I learnt much in this finely situated city,
1 Live as a bachelor, and do all his cooking.
86 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
which seems certain to double, or even quadruple,
itself in the next few years, as the Peace River district
opens out.
What struck me most in the broad Jasper Avenue
was the fact that half the offices appeared to be for
the sale of " real estate," with " snap " building-lots
temptingly advertised ; and I did not wonder when I
was told that all the world dabbles in " real est.
even servant-girls putting their savings into a building-
lot, which they expect to sell in a year or two for
double or treble what they gave for it. In the streets
or on the cars the men seemed to talk of nothing but
" lots " and " deals," and hundreds of youths will
throw up any steady occupation and open offices
wherein to start this fascinating, but in many cases
risky, game. This passion, which, after all, is often
only gambling under another name, has infected the
scholastic profession, making it difficult to get nearly
enough teachers to staff the Government schools in
fact, so great is the deficit from this, among other
causes, that the province of Alberta alone has a
shortage of two hundred annually.
After three busy and enjoyable days in Edmonton,
it that I must set to work again, and I left the
city in a 'bus, that took me down the high bank of the
; to a bridge, which we crossed, and then up an
TRAVEL THROUGH WOOD AND PRAIRIE 87
equally steep wooded bank on the other side, which,
as at Saskatoon, was being turned into a residential
quarter. Then came a stretch over the prairie to
Strathcona, a town in the make, and where was the
C.P.R. Station.
It poured in sheets the whole day, so that I did
not much appreciate the pretty wooded country, which
after awhile changed to miles of flat prairie, and then
low hills, somewhat like our English downs, came into
view, and I was at Calgary, where I was about to try
and earn my living for the second time.
CHAPTER V
AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL
WHENEVER I left a situation in Canada I had to hunt
about for a fresh one, and every time it was born
upon me that I was too much of an amateur to turn
hand to anything, save being a home-help.
I hope that my college education might have a-
me had I entered the lists as a school-teacher, but I
cannot be sure even of that, as I was told that mathe-
matics were a sine qu<1 now, and that science has
always been my vulnerable point. Moreover, to
teach some eight or ten children of varying ages in
a prairie school would have been by no means to my
taste, nor could I take such a post and drop it at tin-
end of a month ; and governesses are seldom needed
in a land where all send their chiklivn to the public
schools to be educated togeth. u^h I had
learnt to type, yet I found that that accomplish; ;
was useless, unless accompanied by a knowledge of
shorthand, and, as I had no d< xt. ntv in any manual
art, I was fain perforce to be a hoin.-h.-lp.
There are, of course, dangers when a woman has to
i
as
Kx
AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL 89
get work through advertisements, and, whenever
possible, I applied first to the Y.W.C.A., which acts
as an employment bureau as well as a hostel. Usually,
however, I had to fend for myself and judge of a
situation by the letter in response to my notice, in
which I always put that I wished to assist the mistress
of ranch or farm.
The following was one of my answers :
"Dear Madam," it ran, "I seen your 'ad.' in the
Province. I have 100 and 20 acres of my hone, it is
all payed for I lost my wife 4 years ago I ham 36
years of age I have horses and cattle and a lot of
chicken would you cair to go in Pardners with me
I want to settle down again. Pleas let me know
by return mail."
I wondered how many " ads." he would answer
before he found any woman willing to " go in Pardners "
with him !
When I emerged on to the platform at Calgary, I
was told by a blue-clad nurse, who met me at the
station, that the Y.W.C.A., to which I had written,
was full, but that I could be taken in at the Women's
Hostel. Here the Matron received me most kindly,
and gave me a nice room, which I shared with a lady
who was considerate in every way, and I paid i a
90 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
week for my board and lodging. I went at once to
the newspaper office to insert my advertisement, and
then to the Y.W.C.A. to see if I could get work. The
only thing that the Secretary had on her books was
the post of general servant in a house where the wife
was ill, and there were four children, and the Matron
of my hostel offered me a situation twenty-nine miles
from the railway and among a Mormon community !
As neither of these posts attracted me, I went to an
employment bureau in the town, where two men,
seated, with their hats on and their hands in their
pockets, surveyed me as I stated my needs, and the
" boss " said that he was sure that he could find
something to suit me if I would call again. " Take
a drop in the morning" was his quaint expression.
On my way home I saw a notice in a confectioner's
shop that a girl was wanted as a waitress, so I went
in, and asked to see the manager. A good-looking
woman smiled as I somewhat abruptly started pro-
ceedings by saying, " I am not a girl, and I have no
experience in waiting, but you would find me strong
and willing."
"Everyone must have a first day," sh< .m-wered
pleasantly, and wmt into details of hours and wages.
" \\ ill you try me for a week, as a temporary ? " I
asked. To this she demurred, saying that I should
AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL 91
be nearly a week getting into the work, and it would
not do at all if I left directly I had mastered it.
Would I promise to stay the whole summer ? This
I could not engage myself to do, as during my six
months' tour I was anxious to have as varied an
experience as possible. So I was reluctantly obliged
to give up the idea.
While I was seeking work, I went about Calgary
with one or another of the inmates of the hostel. The
town is situated, as it were, in a cup on the banks
of the Bow River, and rolling downs rise around it,
while across the river is Mount Pleasant, from which
fine views of the Rockies may be obtained, and where
are some of the best residences. There are no trees
ive near the water, and as it was piping hot when
was there in June, I often wished that there had
m some public garden in the city in which we could
tve sat in the shade. It seemed a pity that no
provision had been made for a park while the town
was in embryo, but I suppose everyone was too busy
buying and selling building-lots to think of reserving
a few for the benefit of the public. I was told that
at first the smallest coin used was a quarter (is.),
and even now it is an expensive city, the vegetables
and fruit in the shops being at a premium. The
streets were full of men, who loafed in big groups
92 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
round the hotels, and as one passed, the talk seemed
all of "real estate," of "deals" and "building-lots,"
while the post office seemed a haunt of tlu idl , who
lounged, smoked, and spat, despite placards sternly
forbidding all these practices.
It was an extremely easy town in which to find
one's way about. Down the middle ran the l<n
Centre Street, from which branched off to east and
west the avenues (aves they are called), numbered hi M ,
second, third, and so on, these being crossed by th*
streets that were parallel with Centre Street.
The " moving picture " shows were the chief amuse-
ment here, as in most Canadian towns, and the only
theatrical performance that I witnessed was a lurid
in. 1". hama, but better, anyhow, than a play drama-
n-mg the exploits of the notorious Crippen, which was
widely advertised in a large city that I visited, the
posters being most repulsive.
Some of the shops had quaint notices "Hospital
for sick clothes " on one, cloth. . f,, r " nifty " men < n
another, and a bike for sale was 4t a snap for spot
cash " ; while there were " shine " parlours for black-
ing boots, and dental, optic, and even undtita!
parlours. Wedding li<-no->, were to be obtained at
the jewellers' shops a ( n\riii.nt arrangement, as
the ring could be bought at the sam time- -and I
AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL 93
was surprised to see that linen or calico was called
muslin, there being frequent sales of " under-muslins. "
The new Town Hall was an imposing stone building
with a clock-tower, but the big rooms were too low
for my taste. A gentleman, who had kindly consti-
tuted himself our guide, took us to the basement,
where I saw, to my horror, prisoners in iron cages,
shut in like animals, and seated on iron bedsteads
bare of any covering. The sight haunted me for
days, and I was thankful that our conductor inquired,
before leading us to their quarters, whether we should
like to see the women prisoners. " Oh no, not for
anything, poor creatures ! " we answered in chorus,
hastily, and were relieved to be in the open air again.
On another occasion we had the curiosity to attend
a " faith-healing " service held in a big tent. Here
the so-called " doctor " expounded a doctrine that
sounded queer and garbled to my ears, interspersing
his remarks with anecdotes, most of which bore little
on the points in question. The climax of the meeting
was when men and women came forward to be healed,
kneeling in front of him, and answering in the affirma-
tive to his question, " Do you love God ? "
He then anointed the afflicted part with oil, praying
that this brother or sister might be cured of sciatica,
deafness, or paralysis, as the case might be ; and
94 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
then came the parting benediction, " Now, brother,
you are plumb-healed if you will only believe it,"
and off the patient walked. During the next few
days the papers were full of testimonies from m-n
and women who had been cured by this treatment, but
I wished that I could have made a personal visit for
example, to the boy suffering from a badly injured
eye, from which the " doctor " removed the bandage
in order to lay my doubts at rest by ocular demon-
stration.
On my way back to the Atlantic, I found myself at
Calgary on September 4th, Labour Day, a holiday on
which every place of business was closed. During
the morning there was a procession, all the diffen nt
trades and professions filing past. The plumbers and
electricians, clad in blue, escorted cars festooned with
Union Jacks, and laden with lengths of huge piping
or telephones; painters in snowy white held al>ft
standards composed of brushes ; tin-workers wore
tin helmets, carried toy tin in^trunn -nts, and beat
tattoos on tin basins ; \\lul. the leather- workers had
belts and gauntletted gloves.
All looked well in these makeshift uniform-, and
were in pleasing conn a. t to UK- ban-l> .f m
middle-aged business men, who slouched along in tln-ir
dress behind a delightful little scarlet-clad boy,
AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL 95
who might have come out of a Carpaccio picture as
he marched ahead, bearing aloft a quaint banner.
The town band, headed by a man riding a spirited
horse, led the procession, and carriages, some con-
taining the City Fathers, drove behind it ; but the
weather was so cold and showery that the whole
show was somewhat depressing.
I greatly disliked being unemployed, and felt so
idle and useless at being out of work, that I could
thoroughly sympathise with the depression felt by
several in the hostel who could find no posts, though
their cases, alas, were very different to mine.
One day I heard of something likely to suit me, and
hastened to a hotel in the town, where a lively French-
woman, adorned with a profusion of imitation jewellery,
received me with an open-hearted kindness, and im-
plored me to come with her to help with the house-
work of a big farm at twenty dollars (4) a month. K
When she found I could talk French, she became still <
more anxious to engage me, saying that she wanted
a companion, and felt that she and I would get on
together splendidly. It never occurred to her, or to
any of my would-be employers, to require a reference
of any sort, and, accustomed as I was to English ways,
I used to think that they were very confiding.
But a Canadian explained the situation to me
96 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
thus. " We don't pay much attention to testimonials, "
he said, "because if a man is unsatisfactory his nli-
tives will be glad to give him flaming references in
order to get rid of him. So we are accustomed to take
you British at * face value.' '
The Frenchwoman's home was twenty-four miles
from a railway, and as she had three small children
and was very far from strong, I should probably have
had to " do " for the party, including her En^li>h
husband and the hired men. Therefore, knowing my
many limitations, I hesitated, said that I could only
come to her for a month anyhow, but would let In r
know definitely during the morning of the next day ;
and she gave me an address in the town, her 1 i^t
words being to urge me to close with her. The n< -xt
morning I went to the address that she had gi\vn m -.
but found the house shut up, and a neighbour told
me that the inmates were all away; and when I returned
to the hotel where I had had my interview, I t<>und
that Madame had "gone south " without leaving any
message for me. This would have been a cnu 1 hi . w
to a girl dependent upon her own exertin> for a
livelihood ; but as I had been uncertain <>f the wi
of going with her, it was almost a nlu f t ha\v tin-
matter taken out of my hands in this way. To do
her justice, she N -.th.it I got a ccuj
AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL 97
days later, in which she said that she had been called
home unexpectedly, and had, as unexpectedly, found
a girl to go with her.
At the hostel we all took a frank interest in one
another, and one or two of the lodgers who were
of all classes, seemed as anxious for me to get a
"position " as they were to get one for themselves.
There was a certain jealousy between the British
and the Canadians, which came out now and again in
the talk at table, at which both races were repre-
sented. An inmate of the hostel related that on one
occasion she went to apply for a post at a house in
the town. " We don't want any English here," was
the rude remark of the mistress, when she presented
herself ; but it elicited the retort, " If I had known
you were a Canadian, I should never have applied
for your situation," and Miss Bates flounced out
with her head held high. The lady sent after her,
saying that she would like to engage a girl who
showed so much spirit, but Miss Bates refused, not
unnaturally, to go.
Of course there are faults on both sides to account
for this attitude, but from what I saw during my
tour, I am bound to say that my compatriots are a
good deal to blame for it. They will persist in criti-
cising Canada and things Canadian by British stan-
98 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
dards, and do not boar in mind the precept that you
must "do at Rome as Rome does," apparently for-
getting that they have come to the Dominion to earn
th ir livelihood. As I was nearly six months in the
country, staying in many places, usually in the humble
position of a home-help, and was treated throughout
with kindness and courtesy, it seems to me that this
antagonism would speedily be done away with were
every Britisher to divest himself of English prejudices
and come out with a perfectly open mind.
Canadians are naturally intensely proud of the
Dominion, and have every reason to be so ; and if,
as yet, they have not the culture that has come to
England as a heritage from former generations, they
are abundantly endowed with qualities far more
valuable to pioneers. I was once asked whether I
were not afraid of travelling alone in a strange country,
but answered that as I was among my own kith and
kin in the Empire, I felt at home ; and this I maintain
is the right attitude.
Some of the inmates of the hostel had no right to
be in Canada at all, and had come out after reading
the alluring literature, in which things are, to say
the least of it, seen through rose-coloured glasses.
One lady, elderly and far from strong, who had had
good posts in Engl.in.l, had actually taken her ticket
AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL 99
for the Dominion after a talk with an enthusiastic
Canadian lady, who had spoken vaguely of the " crowds
of openings for women." My poor friend did not find
many when she arrived in the country, and when I
met her she was worn out with much work and little
pay as a matron, and was having a rest before trying
her luck afresh. She was skilful with her needle
and could dressmake, but, as she could not use a
sewing-machine, it would have been impossible for her
to get work in a land where " more haste " is not
always considered "worse speed." It was pathetic
for one of her upbringing to have to go as house-
keeper to three men on a ranch, and I confess that I
saw her off at the station with considerable misgiving.
Some months later, in passing through Calgary on my
way East, I called at the hostel, and found her back
again. Her health had broken down at the ranch,
she had also had an accident, and was about to take
a post as housemaid in a " rooming " house for a
month, at a low wage, after which she hoped to get
work again as a home-help.
Another, a particularly charming woman, had been
a governess with excellent posts, and was, moreover,
an accomplished milliner. Unluckily she refused to
turn this talent to account, but was determined to be
a home-help. A place was found for her, and off she
ioo A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
it, but returned in a couple of days, and amused
....-/ us all with her account of her experiences with a fussy
old lady. As I sat next to her at table, I asked why
she would not go round to the shops and see whether
she could get taken on as a milliner, but the bare
idea of asking for work at a " shop " was abhorrent
to her. I offered to accompany her in the quest, but
she still clung to her " home-help " idea.
*' You are most unfit for the post," I said to her
bluntly ; and indeed a delicate, highly-strung woman,
not in her first youth, cannot do the rough wrk that
is expected of her in Canada. " Why won't you be
a milliner or do dressmaking, and take to something
that you can do, and that will bring you in money ? "
I asked.
44 1 hate the idea of it," was her answer. ' l I want
to live in a home and arrange the flowers and h< lp
the lady of the house with her correspondence."
"I do not believe that there is such a post in all
Canada," I retorted, but she was by no means <
vinced. Her next step was to try work at an h -u-1
in the Rockies, but the high altitude was too much
for her nerves, and when I ran across her again
had thrown up the post and was doing nothing.
As I was then staying at an hotel, I was obliged to
let her into the secret of my 4< home-help " doings.
AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL 101
It was gratifying when she exclaimed with surprise,
saying that she and everyone at the hostel thought
that I was compelled to earn my livelihood, and more
gratifying to be able to introduce her to various ladies,
one of whom at all events has helped her to get work.
Another of my table companions was a nice girl,
who excited my warmest sympathy, as she was under
the impression that she was a complete failure in
Canada, and yet could not bear to return to England
and confess herself beaten. She had been home-help
to a small family, and was not a success, as she could
neither cook nor wash, and was unable to manage the
small boy who was placed in her charge.
When I met her, she had got a job of plain sewing
for some hours daily, and did not know what she should
do when the engagement was over. I had no idea
either, but I did my best to cheer her up, as her state
of hopeless depression was the very worst in which to
approach Fortune. Most luckily, an Englishwoman
stopping at the hostel took a fancy to her, and offered
to take her off to her ranch for a small salary, but
with the promise of instructing her in those domestic
arts, without a knowledge of which she should never
have come to the Dominion. On the very day that
this was arranged I went off to one of my situations,
and my new friend accompanied me to the station,
102 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
and said that I had given her courage, and that she
was determined to be a success this time. She was
young and adaptable, and I heard later on that she
was doing splendidly at the ranch, so I hope that
she will make her home in Canada.
All nurses ought to know that they cannot get on,
in Calgary, at all events, unless they have a General
Hospital certificate for three years. I made friends
with one nurse, who had had two years of General
Hospital training, and had been seven years as district
nurse, and yet, with all that experience, she got very
few cases, although they were certainly lucrative
when she did get them, as twenty to twenty-five
dollars (4 to 5) a week was paid for a case. Otln-r
English nurses told me the same tale of lack of work,
and two were going out as home-helps in despair.
At another town I came across a girl who had
been a trained nurse in a Children's Hospital, but
she could get no nursing, and, being a skilled
seamstress, took a post as needlewoman and house-
keeper combined. She had to sew from 9 A.M. to
6 P.M., and do household duties before she began 1 in-
work, so it was hardly surprising that her h< alth gave
way, and that she hated Canada and longed to return
to England. I understand that the reason of this
is that nursing is practically standardised in the
AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL 103
Dominion, and doctors naturally prefer to work with
women who employ Canadian methods.
^ Another ladv said that she had been a governess in
England, and could cook, iron, sew, had taken charge
of a house, and in her native land was considered
most capable. But it was very different when she
got to Canada, and because she could not scrub or do
heavy washing she was looked down upon as stupid
and incompetent, and had, as I had, a feeling of
depression and helplessness. /Certainly the Canadian
women are extraordinarily quick and clever in every
kind of housework, and I never ceased admiring the
way they could turn their hands to anything. The
houses are always spotlessly neat, they are first-class
cooks, and, as a rule, are very spick and span in the
way they dress, however simple may be their clothes.
On the farms they make the soap, cure the ham and
bacon, bottle quantities of fruit for winter use, rear
poultry, and on occasion can milk the cows, groom,
harness and drive the horses, and are most handy
with a hammer and nails.
After giving a somewhat gloomy picture of various
educated British women, I feel that I must now show
the reverse of the shield, though it must be under-
stood that the successful women are not, as a rule,
to be found in cheap hostels or in the hotels.
104 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
I met two sisters who had come out with the Arm
determination to work hard for three years and
to take whatever post was offered to them. Tin-
result of their efforts was a comfortable bungalow, to
which they have retired, and will keep poultry in
independence for the rest of their days. Again, the
Matron of a Y.W.C.A. Home told me that she was
the daughter of a Scotch captain in the navy, and
that when her father died she and her family were
left very badly off, and she supported herself by
teaching. One day she heard of the openings in
Canada, and determined to go there, finally arriving at
Toronto, at the age of seventeen, with only sixpence
in her pocket, most of which she spent in writing a
cheery letter home to her mother. Fortunately she
saw an advertisement in the newspapers, and inter-
viewed the manager of some business, who took her
then and there into his office as book-keeper, where
she remained for three and a halt years. She had
gone into a cheap boarding-house at Toronto, and, to
joy, the money that the manager gave her for
the half-week in his office just enabled her to pay IHT
week's board and lodging. Sh. learnt stenography in
her spare time, and then got a post in a larq.- bank,
where, if I remember rightly, she stayed twenty
years, and had the proud distinction of being the
AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL 105
first woman ever employed in a post of trust in any
bank in Canada.
The moment that she got regular work she gave
much of her time to helping others, and when her
connection with the bank was over she spent seven
years in teaching the Indians. Now, she told me,
she had two farms, some valuable stock and building-
lots, and had paid into the Dominion Annuity Scheme
in fact, was very well off, and had only taken the
post of Matron to help the Y.W.C.A. I felt, while
talking with her, that I had come across a remarkable
woman, and I saw that anyone with her brains,
pluck, and energy was bound to succeed, however
hard might be the circumstances in which she was
placed. A young girl, penniless and friendless, in a
new country, where there are few helping hands held
out to strangers, the odds seemed all against her, but
she had character, and triumphantly overcame every
obstacle.
This is an extract from the letter of an applicant
of the Colonial Intelligence League, who is working
as a stenographer in the east of the Dominion :
" February 1912.
" I have been at work only two weeks, and they
have paid me fifteen dollars a week (3, 2s. 6d.). . . .
io6 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
I do not think the same work in London would bring
in more than 305. a week.
" I got temporary work immediately . . . and took
three posts of a few days' each at los. 6d. a day. I
got these posts simply by going to the typewriting
offices and saying I wanted work. Apparently, after
you have finished with one post, the typewriter people
ring up the firm to find out if you have given satis-
faction, and if you have they are glad to keep you
on their list. I could have got half a dozen other
posts easily, as they were ringing me up before I
had done with one post to know if I could take
another I
" I do not find that living ... is quite so expensive
as one is led to believe, that is, in proportion to the
much higher salary one can get here. . . .
" I have not met with any antipathy to the English
stenographer ... but only the nicest treatment at
the employment agencies and in the offices."
While at the Women's Hostel I tried my hand at
book-canvassing, as one of the inmates, who had heard
that it was very lucrative, had started it, and asked
me to " do " a few streets and see how I liked the
job. She and I were to share any profits that might
result, and I was provided with a section of what is
AT A WOMEN'S HOSTEL 107
known as a " Red Letter " Bible, also a Life of King
Edward VII, and a " Household Companion."
The pamphlet of instructions advised, or rather
commanded, the canvasser never to reveal the object
of his visit until he had got admittance into a house,
never to let the volumes out of his hand, nor must
he ever take " No " for an answer.
I fear that I did not adhere to my instructions at
all, hence my lamentable failure ; in fact, I started
proceedings by stating my business, and as I was feeble
enough to take " No " for an answer, I did not get
a single order. After trying my luck at half a dozen
houses, I gave up the idea of practising a profession
that was utterly against the grain. Fate, however,
was good to me, and sent me a reply to my " ad.,"
written in so kindly a manner that I at once closed
with the writer, and set off anew on my quest for
experience.
CHAPTER VI
ON A DAIRY-FARM
I WELL remember how I arrived at my destination,
a large dairy-farm, after ten o'clock on a June night,
and wondered whether anyone would meet m
the station.
As I stood by my things on the platform, a man
stepped forward from among a group of working
men, and, with the kindness that I have encount
everywhere in Canada, asked me whether he could
cany them for me. I said that I was bound for Mr.
Brown's farm, and was engaged as home-help by his
wife. " Oh, that's all right," was the answer. " Over
there are two of Brown's boys. I'll tell them that
you are here, as most likely they have come to meet
you." This, as it happened, was the case, and I shook
hands with two taciturn yokels in " Buffalo Bill "
hats, who volunteered a timid remark or two as they
picked up my "grip" and hold-all and march, d m-
off between them into the darkness. After a while
we turned in at a gate ;md .stumbled along a track
among pines, where we seemed in danger of colliding
ON A DAIRY-FARM 109
with cows, their bells sounding on all sides of us as
we picked our way as best we could over the tree-roots
on the path. Though I had only engaged myself for
a fortnight, yet I was not quite easy in my mind,
for I knew that my success in this venture depended
almost entirely on whether my new " missus " and I
took to one another ; and I should have liked to
have questioned my guides about her, but of course
that would not have done at all. By this time we
were approaching a white-painted, log-built house,
with green doors and windows, and a woman, with
one of the kindest faces I have ever seen, came out
with a light and shook hands with me. I liked and
trusted her on the spot, and next day she told me
that she had had the same favourable opinion of me,
so our acquaintance had an auspicious beginning.
She pressed food upon me, but I was tired and not
hungry, and was glad to go upstairs to my room.
This, I may as well say at once, was one of the draw-
backs of my new situation, for it was only divided
from that used by the family by a thin partition ; and
as it had no door, merely a curtain, every sound in
the next room was plainly audible, and I never felt
as if I had any privacy.
Mrs. Brown asked me to be in the kitchen next
morning by seven o'clock, in order that she and I
no A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
might get breakfast ready for her husband, his three
hir<>d men, and the three children. Mr. Brown always
quietly crept down the staircase at five o'clock,
roused his men sleeping in a shack close by, and he
and they started to milk forty cows before the eight
o'clock breakfast. This began with porridge, eaten
with new milk, the staple dish throughout Canada ;
and then would come fried bacon or boiled eggs, and
plenty of hot toast and butter, with, of course, the
inevitable tea, usually too potent a beverage for my
taste. Mrs. Brown and I used to have our breakfast
alone if the men were late, as was often the case, and
this arrangement I liked, for directly they appeared
our work was cut out in waiting upon them. We
all ate in the dining-room, and had a good deal of
running into the adjoining kitchen to fill their pi
and those of the children, from the porridge-pot, to
bring in the eggs, bacon, and toast kept hot in the
oven, to pour out their tea, and so on. During the
progress of breakfast, the children would begin to
straggle down in stockinged feet, and would hunt
about in the kitchen for their boots. Kitty, aged
seven, could attire herself, but usually needed some
little assistance with her dress, that fastened behind ;
Master Joe, aged five, could manage for himself, with
the exception of tieing his boot-laces ; but the youngest
ON A DAIRY-FARM in
hope, only just three, had to be got up by Mrs. Brown,
who always disappeared for that purpose as soon as
breakfast was under weigh.
I do not wish to run down the youth of Canada,
but certainly in the three situations in which I en-
countered children I found them rough, mannerless,
and unruly, a great contrast to their courteous parents :
they were always undisciplined, and completely lack-
ing in deference to their elders.
The young Browns did not go to school, but hung
about all day, and not having enough vent for their
energies, used to squabble constantly, the one who
was worsted in any encounter, howling so vigorously,
that at first I used to rush to the spot, feeling sure
that some fearful accident had occurred. One reason
of this was that the parents were far too busy to
bring up their children in the way they should go,
and Mrs. Brown, who was under no illusions as to
her noisy family, used to lament to me that she, who
had been a school-teacher, could not keep her own
treasures in better order.
After breakfast came the " prose/' as my " missus "
called it, of washing-up ; but as we always washed
the crockery and dried it turn and turn about, it was
not nearly as monotonous a job as I found it later
on. Moreover, my employer and I had got into
ii2 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
sympathy with one another from the first, and en-
joyed working together.
She told me that the moment she saw the word
"educated" in my "ad." she longed to secure my
services, more as a companion than as a hom -li< lp,
and I felt that first day as if I had anchored my bark,
for the present, in calm water. My new mistress was
most easy to get on with, and did not make me nervous
or find fault with me. To use her own expression,
she " never looked out for flies." She assured inr
that she would be delighted to show me how to do
things, but that she did not mind at all if I did my
work in the English way, and she would like me to
make my own cakes and puddings, as they would be
a pleasant change from her own. She was liberal
and yet economical, and often said that a bad house-
wife "could throw out more with a spoon than h< r
hu-band could put in with a shovel." I learnt much
from her and enjoyed her teaching in fact, so kind
was she, that after a day or two I had to insist on
doing more work, as she was far too ready to tak<
the lion's share of every task, and my salary was n \v
at the rate of 3 a month.
My first task after breakfast was to sweep out t lu-
men's shack and make their beds ; thm there were
the two bedrooms upstairs to be done, the dining-
ON A DAIRY-FARM 113
room and kitchen to sweep out, water to fetch from
the well close at hand, and wood from the wood-pile
near by ; the fowls also had to be fed and watered.
When these " chores " were done, it was time to peel
a bowl of potatoes, the only vegetable used in many
parts of Canada, and then I laid the table for the
one-o'clock dinner, and put the potatoes on to boil,
and began to turn pieces of steak in the frying-pan.
Canadians have a perfect horror of meat being " rare,"
as they call it, and so the steak had to be cooked
until it was almost of the consistency of leather. We
women waited on the men as soon as they appeared
and had taken their seats, and we ate our own meal
in the intervals of supplying them with meat, bread,
and potatoes, pouring out big cups of tea for them,
and dispensing slices of rhubarb-pie. This differs
from our English fruit-pies, as the rhubarb, sliced
small, is placed on one round of pastry and covered
by another, and then baked. Though nice when
freshly made, the lower crust soon becomes sodden
as the juice oozes through it. Meat and "dessert,"
which answers to our pudding course, were served on
the same plate ; but considerate Mrs. Brown produced
another one for me, saying, "I expect that Miss
Sykes is accustomed to have two plates." Of course
I declined a privilege shared by none of the family,
H
H4 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
and indeed, so many ways are there of looking at
things, I soon got to approve of the " one-plate "
system, as it meant nine plates less to wash up after
the meal !
Mr. Brown was a good-looking, intelligent young
man, and often talked well when he had got accus-
tomed to me, but at first the three hired men were
very "bashful," as Mrs. Brown expressed it. She
told me later on that since my advent they
spent twice as much time as formerly in washing
themselves and brushing their hair before m-;iK at
which they always appeared in their shirt-slt-<
Poor fellows! they had a hard life I thought. M >
and men were up at five o'clock, and would drive
the forty cows into an enclosure and milk them.
Some sixty gallons of milk had then to be strained
twice, the pails well washed, and the milk put into
cans, which were half sunk in the water of the " milk-
house," a wooden building that floated on the stream
close by.
After breakfast one man had to drive the herd to
a pasture a couple of miles away, where they fed
until they were rounded-up and driven in again for
the evening milking. During the night the animals
wandered among the spruces round the house, and at
first used to keep me awake with the noise of tlu-ir
ON A DAIRY-FARM 115
bells. Another man had to send a great part of the
milk off by the morning train, and went round with
a cart to supply the hotel and various customers in
the little town ; while there were cow-houses to clean
out, and endless pails and cans to be washed and
then scalded. As far as I could gather, the men had
only an hour to themselves after the midday meal,
and there was a good deal to be done before they
were free after the evening milking.
Later on, when the weather became sunny, I pro-
duced my camera, and took snapshots of one and
all. Fortunately most of my portraits turned out
well, and gave great pleasure to my sitters, who in
time got less tongue-tied.
Usually I was free in the evening about seven
o'clock, and I often went for a stroll then, as it was
perfectly light till quite late in fact I have written
without artificial light at a quarter to ten. Kind
Mrs. Brown warned me that I might find some of
the men " forward " if I walked alone, but I had no
cause for alarm in this respect, and, as a rule, Kitty
would accompany me, chattering volubly the whole
time.
As I was treated with such consideration by my
employer, I felt that I ought to do something in my
turn, and my conscience smote me for appropriating
n6 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
the whole of one room with a big double-bed, while
the entire family slept in the other. Accordingly I
did great violence to my feelings, and offered to share
my couch with Kitty I On the second night Mrs.
Brown carried her in fast asleep, and deposited her at
the foot of my bed ; but it was a most unpleasant
experience, as the little girl fidgeted and kicked me
the whole night through, woke up in the darkness,
wondered where she was, and was terrified. I had
only the shortest snatches of sleep, and felt half dead
with fatigue next morning, finding it a great effort to
get down by seven o'clock to make the breakfast.
Fortunately for me, the child had suffered just as
much as I had done, and was quite ill from her bad
night, so that there was no question of having her
as a room-mate again, and my conscience was appe.
Certainly Canadian air, as a rule, is most invigorating ;
and I worked sometimes from half-past six to halt-
past four without a pause (barring meals), and did
not feel the slightest fatigue. But personally I could
not have borne to have lived my whole life in this
way, so much housework and so littl. ivl,i.\.ui<.n ;
and if I found the life monotonous in lovely summer
weather, what would it have been in tho winter, with
the house probably over-heat, d, th windows hardly
ever opened, and the minimum of outdoor exercise ?
ON A DAIRY-FARM 117
The personal washing of the entire family here, and
on most farms that I visited, was performed in an
enamel basin in the kitchen, and faces and hands dried
on a roller-towel, hung on the door, I being the only
member of the household who had a jug and basin in
my room, which I supplemented by my folding india-
rubber bath. I used to go upstairs at intervals to
wash my hands ; though my kindly " missus " begged
me to avail myself of the kitchen basin and towel
instead, apologising for the griminess of the latter,
as the children always had such dirty hands ! She
seemed surprised when I declined her offer !
Sunday was just like any other day, as the meals had
to be at the same hours, the cows had to be milked
and driven to pasture, and milk and cream taken
round to customers. I urged Mrs. Brown to attend
church and leave me in charge of the one-o'clock
dinner, and I myself went to the service in the even-
ing. The clergyman was respected by one and all,
and the quietest of the hired men said to me, when
I asked whether he knew him, " Oh, he's the right
sort ! He says that people needn't go crazy about
religion."
It always seemed to me that I got through very
little in the morning, though I was down at seven
o'clock. Breakfast would be ready by eight ; but
n8 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
often the men did not get in till half an hour later,
and the porridge, bacon, toast, and eggs had to be
kept hot for them.
Mr. Brown and two of the men would appear first ;
then, about nine o'clock, the man who had driven the
cows to their pasture would turn up, and often ate
his meal in solitary state. I would bring in the food
that had been kept warm, and would venture on a
remark or two as I carried plates and dishes out to
the kitchen to wash them, or brought them into the
dining-room to pack them away in a cupboard. He
usually answered with a simple " Yes " or " No,"
and Mrs. Brown said that the reason of his terseness
was that he got chaffed by the other men about coming
in alone and being served by the new home-h< lp.
Often it was ten o'clock before all was cleared away
and I could start off on my housemaid's work.
The two boys were rather a trial to me, as they
were in and out of the kitchen all day long, drinking
water at frequent intervals, with the dipper, out of
the pails. The habit prevails throughout Canad
using the tin dipper as a drinking-cup. The men,
after drinking, toss away the rest of the water, but
the children, unless my eye were on them, would
drink and put what they did not finish back into th-
bucket. Kitty, an intelligent child, began the rudi-
ON A DAIRY-FARM 119
ments of the three R's in my spare moments, and got
on quite nicely ; but the boys, who never left the
enclosure, seemed to be in mischief every few minutes,
as an outlet to their bubbling-over energies. There
were so many " dont's " in their lives that I had
involuntary sympathy for them in spite of the
way they bothered me.
(1) The fence bordering the railway track must
never be crossed.
(2) The creek by the milk-house (the most tempt-
ing spot in the whole domain), must never be
approached.
(3) The pump must not be touched.
(4) They must not play in the wheat-shed.
(5) They must not chase the hens.
To this long list I added a few " dont's " of my
own as to teasing the dog and keeping grasshoppers
and toads imprisoned in their hot little hands.
It really was quite a responsibility when Mr. and
Mrs. Brown went away once for a few hours, and left
me in sole charge of their active family. There were
fearful roars from the youngest, who had somehow
or other mounted on to the edge of the soft-water
barrel, and had then lost his balance and fallen heavily
to the ground. Hardly had I ascertained that he had
no limbs broken, when yells from Joe announced that
120 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
he had hit his own finger with his father's hammer
in place of a nail ; and later on little Tom was dragged
up to me by the two elder children, as he had made
off to seek his mother, and was found in the very
of creeping under the forbidden fence. I thought tlu-y
were very quiet after this, and felt cross when I found
that they had emptied the pails I had just filled, and
were using the water to make mud-pies in the sandy
soil outside; and later on, \vlxn I went to refill the
buckets, I discovered that they had "primed" tlu
pump with sand, which forced me to fling away a
good deal of water before it would run clean. Cer-
tainly I do not altogether disagree with a lady by
whom I sat one night in a hotel, and who said to me,
" Never go anywhere where there are children they
are the very devil ! "
I was with the Browns on Coronation Day, and to
mark the event I gave " Coronation " post cards all
round at breakfast. Mr. Brown said that h< thought
he ought to run up a flag to show his loyalty, and of
course I applauded the idea warmly, but nothing
was done we were all far too busy. It was washing-
day for us women, and directly we had cleared away
breakfast and had swept the rooms, we began.
Brown rocking the " cradle," and I turning the wrii
She did not mak as toilsome a business of the
ON A DAIRY-FARM 121
whole operation as I found prevailed elsewhere in
Canada, and we got the family washing all hung out
to dry soon after midday. On the other hand, it was
by no means as snowy white as when I saw it done
by other housewives, though probably the sand that
got into everything may have been the cause of this.
Certainly I have never been in a place where so much
sweeping was required, every breath of wind seeming
to cover the kitchen floor with sand in spite of all
our care.
Mrs. Brown had had a hard life since her girlhood,
and, though a comparatively young woman, looked
far older than her years, worn out with ceaseless work.
Like the great majority of Canadian women, she was
extraordinarily quick and capable, and, as I told
her, would have concocted a cake and put it in the
oven, and perhaps baked it, before I had collected the
materials to make mine. But the Demon of Work
had got her in its clutches, as it seems to get so
many Canadian women, and she could not rest or
take things easily.
She had been for four years on a ranch completely
bare of crops, as it was a cattle-range and she said
that the great expanse got on her nerves, and she
hated it, save when in the spring the ground was
starred with myriads of tiny flowers. Her husband
122 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
and the other men were off with the cattle during the
greater part of the day, and she told me that without
her children she thought that she would have gone mad.
In summer the heat was great, and the mosquitoes
were so bad that she hardly ever left the house, but
lived behind the wire screens, which were in front of
all the doors and windows ; and she often watched
her husband riding off, looking as if he and his horse
were in a mist, so dense was the cloud of these pesti-
lent little insects. The men all wore veils and gloves,
and covered their horses as much as possible with
sacking. The poor cattle, however hungry they
might be, dared not feed when the air was still, but
lay in the barns to get refuge from the mosquitoes,
waiting there until a breeze sprung up, when tlu-y
would hurry out to the pasture. Sometimes the
winters were terrible, so severe that the cattle died
on the ranges, and she was kept indoors for weeks at
a time. Mr. Brown, most fortunately, had a i
store of hay, and once fed his sheep, over two thou-
sand in number, daily, and he and his partner had a
snow-plough that tossed away the snow, and enabled
the animals to feed on the grass underneath. They
got to understand the purpose of this plough very
soon, and the whole flock would follow it in a strag-
gling line, perhaps a mile long, browsing as they went.
ON A DAIRY-FARM 123
Canadian as she was, Mrs. Brown had ever a good
word for the English, who, she said, were considered
to make the kindest husbands of any, in the way of
helping their wives, though the Canadians were sup-
posed to give money more freely for household ex-
penses. Again and again on the prairie an English-
man would give her a hand with the interminable
dish-washing, and would sometimes be sneered at by
the other men for so doing. The rough old Scotchman,
her husband's partner, would never help her in any
way, and she quoted to me more than once the remark
of a Scotchwoman on the prairie, who said to her,
" My countrymen seem to think that there is no limit
to a woman's strength."
Day after day she rose to a round of unending toil,
and during all the incessant work her three children
arrived. The second came before his time, and as \
a snowstorm was raging, it was impossible to go for
the doctor ; so she and her husband had to do as best
they could. Usually the women go into the nearest
town for their confinements, every hospital in Canada
having large maternity wards for the purpose ; and
as all Canadian men are as handy at household
" chores " as their wives, they can look after them-
selves and the children very well for a time.
My employer and her husband were a thoroughly
124 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
united couple, yet she assured me that had she had
a vision of what her early married life would be, she
would never have linked her fortunes with his.
" I haven't a single good word for the prairie," she
would say, "and I got to hate the very sight of a
man when I was there." I was surprised at this, and
inquired why.
" Because a man meant preparing a meal. Our
ranch was on a main trail, and man after man as he
came along would drop in and ask for food, as a mat tn
of course, and very seldom did he give me a word of
thanks for it."
How horrid ! I should have felt inclined to refuse
to cook for such ungrateful creatures," I remark- d.
" Oh, well, I felt like it very often," was her reply ;
" but if I had done so, we should have got a bad name
in the district, and I had to think of my husband. It
was a life of slavery. Just imagine it ! In shearing-
time I had to cook for fifteen men, and they needed
five meals a day, and I couldn't get a woman to help
me for love or money. I was too busy to go and see
my neighbours the nearest lived four miles off and
I just got into the way of thinking of nothing but how
to get through the day's work."
" Don't you think that tin- nun would have helped
you if you had asked them ? I -aid. " I met a girl
ON A DAIRY-FARM 125
who told me that her husband had a ranch, and that
she rode half the day and ' jollied the boys/ who did
her work for her."
" Yes, there were women in our part who went on
like that, but," and Mrs. Brown's voice had a tragic
note, "they could never get free of the prairie as
we have done. They took their freedom while they
were there, wasted the time of the hired men, and
there they will have to stay all their lives," and she
shuddered at the mere thought of it.
" But aren't there some women who love the life ?
In England we hear so much of the ' call of the prairie.' '
My mistress looked dubious. " There may be some,"
she conceded, " but I never met them. All my
^
friends hated the loneliness and the lack of amuse-
ment and the same dull round day after day. Do
you know, if ever I sat down and wrote, or did some
sewing, Kitty would come up to me to ask whether
it were Sunday, so astonished was she to see me rest-
ing, as on the week-days I was on the ' go ' all the
time. I have heard since from two or three of our
% neighbours, and they are all suffering from 'nerves/ -K
and I myself am worn out and old before my time
with the life."
This was true ; but I pointed out to her that now,
as they were so well off that Mr. Brown need not
126 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
work at all, she ought to rest every afternoon, or go
out and see some of her neighbours. But this was
a counsel of perfection. She saw its wisdom, but
said sadly that she was so wound up, as it were, that
she positively had to keep going all day, and that she
had now lost all desire for social intercourse. And
this I found to be the case with many Canadian women.
The habit of work was so deeply ingrained in them
that they went on when there was no necessity for
it, and far too often broken health and mental de-
rangement stop this activity. From the Atlantic to
the Pacific the women in country districts, as a rule,
wore far worse than the men, and the monotonous
work, too much tea, little outdoor exercise, and few
neighbours or amusements appeared to me to be the
causes of this. The men have a far better life, though
the extremes of heat and cold must be very trying.
They work with other men, and have the animals to
look after, and, best of all, are in the open air most
of the day. As Mr. Brown re marked to me when
talking of their life on the ranch, " The prairie is no
; ' for a woman."
The isolation makes men and women shy and
nervous, and I had an example of this when three
smartly dressed ladies turned up at the kitchen door
one wet afternoon, asked to buy eggs, and requested
ON A DAIRY-FARM 127
glasses of water. Mrs. Brown had a fit of shyness,
and her home-help had to give the ladies water and
tell them where to go, as they wished to interview
Mr. Brown about supplying them with milk. Poor
things ! they had to wait a long time in the rain near
the cow-house before one of the four men summoned
up sufficient courage to emerge from it and confront
them. Mrs. Brown chaffed them about their cow-
ardice when we were all sitting at tea afterwards,
and her husband turned to me and explained the
matter thus, " You see, Miss Sykes, those ladies were
real * toney ' folk. They weren't in our class, and
so we didn't feel comfortable with them."
They were all quite " comfortable " with me,
but this state of things was nearly destroyed one
day, when in the course of conversation at table I
carelessly dropped the information that I spoke French.
There instantly ensued an uneasy silence, and the
faces of the grown-ups wore a look almost of dismay,
until I explained that owing to the nearness of Eng-
land to France this accomplishment was naturally far
commoner than it would be in Western Canada.
This leads me on to make a few diffident remarks '
on the subject of class distinctions in the Dominion.
It struck me again and again that the difference
between England and Canada in this respect was
128 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
c/,4A* 1*4 <*- i *^
that England acknowledged these distinctions, and
Canada pretended to ignore them. In the big towns,
where I had introductions, things seemed to be very
much as they are in the Old Country; but on the
prairie, and in small towns, where everyone is "on
the make," all are on an equality, and one realises
that one is in a land developed by the pluck and
energy of self-made men and women. It is a kind
of paradise for the labouring classes, and, as a working
woman remarked later on, "I call upon people 1
who would not have taken any notice of me in Eng-
land." Culture and refinement, art and literature.
are not much wanted as yet. The ideal side of lift
is left out; the material side is often too much in
evidence, as money is the criterion of success, and a
man wins respect according as he " makes good."
All this is inevitable in a new country, a land full
of such splendid opportunities and possibilities that
even a traveller feels exhilarated by the atmosphere of
optimism, and I longed again and again for Briti-h
women with high ideals to come out and do th-i:
in building up the Emj
At last tin tim came for me to leave Mrs. Br'wn,
and though I had only engaged myself to her for a
fortnight, yet I had a sense that I was deserting lu-r,
so often had she said th.it my presence made the
ON A DAIRY-FARM 129
work a pleasure to her instead of a toil. All were
sorry to say good-bye to me, and though the three
men had an access of shyness as I shook hands with
them, they managed to stammer out good wishes for
my success. Mr. Brown invited me to stay as a
guest at any future date, and Mrs. Brown came to
see me off at the train, the tears in her eyes as we
embraced at parting.
" You have been a good ' missus ' to me ! " I ex-
claimed gratefully.
" I have only treated you as I should like anyone
to treat me," was her reply, but it was typical of
the whole woman, and I knew that I should have to
travel far before I met her like again.
"All aboard!" called out the conductor, and we
exchanged a last hurried handclasp as I took my
seat, and was borne off to seek another situation in
another province.
CHAPTER VII
FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC
WHEN the rolling downs round Calgary are left behind,
the traveller enters a region of foothills, and then
comes upon the glorious peaks of the Rockies, my
journey in this enchanted region always remaining
in my mind as more of the nature of a wonderful
dream than a reality. A few points stand out from
a vision of snowy peaks, great glaciers, headlong
streams, and foaming waterfalls. I remember an
evening at Banff, for example, when I stood on the
bridge over the Bow River, watching a sunset of in-
describable loveliness. As I turned away, my eyes
met those of a woman who was gazing as I was, and
at the same moment we said to one another, " How
beautiful it is ! "
" Have you seen the falls ? " she inquired, and on my
negative she offered to guide me to the spot through
the pine-woods to where, after a stretch of rapids,
the river hurls itself finely down a rocky desa-nt .
My acquaintance, a school-teacher on her holiday,
an impassioned love of nature, and the peaks
FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC 131
round Banff were all personalities to her, her voice
becoming touched with emotion as she pointed out
the lovely Cascade Mountain, its crest wreathed in
fleecy rosy clouds. Another memory of Banff is my
visit to the herd of buffalo in the National Park, and
I had a distinct pang of apprehension when my com-
panion and I found ourselves close to the great animals,
which were feeding quietly among the short scrub,
apparently quite unconscious of the tourists. They
came towards us, browsing as they went, and
a man, armed with a camera, snapped a big bull
that came up close to him, and passed, munching
away unconcernedly the whole time. Having read
in my youth of the wild fury that was said to possess
the herds of buffalo and incite them to mad charges,
I trusted that nothing would occur to irritate these
animals, as there was no shelter of any kind where
we were.
I stopped at Laggan in order to have a glimpse of
Lake Louise, with its wonderful blue-green water, a
vision of perfect beauty, and here I fell in with a couple
of school-teachers. One in her twenties, frank, free,
and full of joie de vivre, interested me by her recital
of how she had made her way. She had been a nurse-
maid in order to get money to pay for her college fees,
had been a waitress twice, and this holiday was the
i 3 2 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
result of many an economy. Did I like her dress ?
She had made it all herself; and I wavered miser-
ably between truth and charity as I regarded the
skin-tight black sateen robe, with low-cut neck and
elbow-sleeves, curiously out of place in this mountain
resort, where everyone wore tweeds.
The girl loved her work, and was proud of her
influence over the children. She told me of one poor
jt little Galician boy who knew not a word of English,
and was mocked at by the whole class for his ignorance.
The child's misery aroused his tea h-r's pity, and she
laid her hand kindly on his shoulder, and from that
moment he adored her as a goddess, worked like a
slave at his lessons, and one day, with an immense
pride, brought her a sparrow that he had killed. She
grasped at once that this was a great achievement
for the boy, and instead of reproving him for cruelty,
she accepted the dead bird, and thanked him for the
gift.
On one occasion she noticed that another of her
pupils had the throat of his red flannel shirt fast
with a nail ! She offered to sew a button on, and
then to her horror discovered that the mother had
stitched the child up in las shirt for the winter! So
she used her influence to get him bath- d, .md actually
made underlinen for him, and washed it herself at
FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC 133
intervals. As she chatted on, my admiration for
her grew, for I realised that this one girl was uncon-
sciously sowing seeds of chivalry, courtesy, and the
love of goodness, which would go far to counteract
the influence of many a miserable and squalid home.
When I left Lake Louise and got into the " char-a-
banc" to take me the two and a half miles downhill
to the station, I was amused at a quaint American
lady, who told me that she was bored to death with
a three months' trip of sightseeing. " Nothing gives
me the faintest pleasure now," she said, " but I should
hate to miss anything."
She went on to say that she knew that I was English
by my accent, and that when she was in London she
had picked up the English mode of speech " in fact
it came quite naturally to me, and was not an affecta-
tion."
This reminded me of an American I knew, who
told me that he could hardly understand me on first
acquaintance, because my " English accent was so
strong." Later on in my tour I found myself at a
hotel table with Canadians and Americans, and one
of the latter insisted that the English all spoke with
an incorrect accent, and that Americans and all
foreigners had the correct one. To prove this state-
ment, she began by saying that our language was
134 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
based on Latin. To this I firmly demurred, but she
carried the table with her by remarking triumphantly,
" Why do they teach Latin in the schools, th< -n ?
Of course it is because English is derived from it."
Anxious to enlighten my ignorance, she demanded,
" Aren't the French, Italian, and Spanish languages
based on Latin ? " and when I agreed to this, she
clinched her argument with the following : " Well,
when French, Italians, and Spaniards learn English,
they always speak it with the same accent as we
Americans do (I have often taken them for Americans
myself), and as they are Latin races, of course they
know the right accent for a language based on Latin."
It was useless to remark that in all likelihood the
foreigners she had come across had learnt English in
the land of the Stars and Stripes, so I was obliged to
subside unconvinced.
Golden was another of my stopping-places, and
here I hoped to find work in the newly opened-up
Columbia Valley, but was advised to go further to
some big centre, as the valley was reported to be
colonised for the most part by bachelors.
"If you have a little money, don't let on about
.lid my kindly informant, " for someone or othrr
will be sure to get it out of you if you do. We
call that class ' daylight hi^hw.iym.-n ' h -r. -." Conse-
FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC 135
quently I only spent a night in the beautifully situ-
ated little town, and in the afternoon walked along
the " track " to a splendid canyon through which the
Columbia River rushes. The hotel proprietor, who in-
terested himself in my doings, warned me to be care-
ful, as the thunder of the water in the narrow gorge
would completely drown the sound of any approaching
train ; and owing to this my walk was not an unmixed
pleasure, as I was continually on the alert for danger.
The hotel manager saw me off when I left, pointing
out to me two men who were about to get a free railway
ride by sitting in between the cars when the train came
up. He said that he had land in the Columbia Valley,
for which he had paid fifteen hundred dollars, and
it was now worth as many thousand. He had tried
to farm it himself, but found the life so " lonesome "
that he came into the town ; but he had no intention
of selling out, as he predicted a great future for the
valley, which, he said, was beginning to attract a good
class of settlers.
An American lady chatted to me as we came
from Golden, and somewhat got on my nerves, be-
cause at the sight of every rushing stream or graceful
waterfall she exclaimed, " What a dreadful waste
of water-power ! " She was also greatly adverse to
foreign missions, and remarked, " I'd never give a cent
136 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
to them. The good God created the h.-athm as they
are, and can take care of them it is just foolishness
on our part to try and alter their ways." This I
could not allow to pass, and I rather opened her eyes
by giving her some idea of what her position would
be had she been born a Mohammedan woman, for
example.
Glacier was my last halt in the Rockies, and it
seemed to me as if the scenery reached a climax of
wild grandeur here ; the panorama was so majestic and
stupendous, and the huge glacier, that comes down to
the pines, and appears to overhang the hotel, was
a wonderful sight.
It was a superb day, and the moment my small
belongings were deposited, I set out to walk to the
ice, along a trail with little plank bridges at intervals
laid across the rushing torrent, soon reaching tin-
boulder-strewn moraine, across which I stumbled to
the ice itself, and sat down to enjoy the wonderful
blue of the crevasses, and to gaze at th stately out-
lin- of Sir Donald, th Mat t.i horn of the Rocki-s.
An ice-cold stream emerged from beneath the gl
and a brown-clad lady, her brown hair dripping,
bronzed face wreathed in smiles, and a i:
exultation in her eyes, told me that she had phi;
her head and feet into the chilly water, and was only
FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC 137
grieved that she was unable to yield herself more
completely to the torrent.
As I reluctantly returned to the hotel I was for-
tunate enough to run across my American lady
traveller for the third time, and also found another
author, an Englishwoman to whom I had a letter
of introduction, and whom I had been most anxious
to meet, feeling that her knowledge and advice would
be of much assistance to me. It was very pleasant to
see friends after having been for so long with strangers,
and I was sorry to be unable to spare more than one
perfect day to the many charms of Glacier.
Again I was in the train ; the passengers all stood
up to see the marvellous Loop, where the line makes
a kind of figure of 8, and a little later we got out
to get a view of the fine Albert Canyon, various people
asking me how I thought the Rockies compared with
the Alps. It seemed to me that the pine-forests,
the rushing torrents, and countless waterfalls were
much alike; but the Rockies are more terrifying in
their grandeur, for though they have comparatively
little snow on their peaks in the height of summer,
yet there are no long grassy slopes gemmed with
myriads of tiny flowers, no tinkling cow-bells, no
goats, and no chalets, all of which give such a happy
charm to the Swiss mountains.
138 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
One of my fellow-travellers told me of some of the
difficulties that had to be overcome before the great
railway bored its way through the giant barrier of
the Rockies. At one point it was necessary to climb
the face of a rock, and so perilous was the under-
taking that man after man refused the task, until
a Chinaman offered to go up ; and not only did he
reach the indicated niche, but he actually stayed for
two or three days on his giddy perch until the work
was accomplished.
Certainly the C.P.R. by linking the East with the
West, and thus opening up the enormous continent,
has done a great work, and in her turn the Dominion
is repaying the debt in a manner worthy of the colossal
enterprise.
At Sicamous Junction (aptly nicknamed Mosqui-
tomous !) I left the main line, and went down the
Okanagan Valley. Enderby, Armstrong, and Vernon
are all pretty little towns, situated in lovely scenery,
near beautiful lakes, and surrounded by wooded
hills, in which live bears and deer. My object was
to find out whether fruit-farming is a suitable nj* -n-
ing for the average outdoor woman, and the almost
universal consensus of opinion was that it was not.
Could women do the necessary ploughing ? The
spraying was a horribly dirty operation ; and
FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC 139
though they might prune, pluck, and pack their
fruit, yet it would be practically impossible for
them to run a fruit-ranch without hired help. This
appeared to be exorbitantly dear, as I was informed
that a competent man would require 10 a month,
with his board and lodging thrown in, and that a
Chinaman demanded 8s. a day for a long job, and
los. for a short one.
Fruit-ranching, I was told, needs careful and
continuous attention, except for a couple of months
during the winter, and really only pays if done on a
large scale. A man by constant labour, i.e. working
from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M. with the aid of scientific know-
ledge, can make a competence out of a ten-acre plot,
but fruit-growing on less would be starvation. One
acquaintance, who had been eighteeen years in Canada,
said that he had never made a single cent out of his
orchard, and that in his district all the peach trees
were being cut down, as so many had succumbed
to the frosts, and the fruit was invariably tart in
flavour. The cost of planted land in the Okanagan
is high, so greatly has this valley been " boomed," and
more than one man told me he would be thankful to
sell his ranch if he could get the price he gave, and ^
would then buy land in Ontario for about a quarter
of the money, labour there being cheap in proportion.
140 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
In the Vernon district there were plenty of charming
ranches, but I found on inquiry that they wrrc often
the property of people who had private means, and
therefore were not dependent on their labour for a
livelihood in fact only one man was quoted to me
as having made a fortune in fruit, and I discovered
that he had bought his land very cheaply before the
" boom," and had sold the greater part of it at a
high rate. I must also confess that Canadians were
critical of the English fruit-growers, as they say that
they spend many a working hour in playing temu\
and by no means come up to the dour ideal of " all
work and no play."
A North-country man who drove me to th
Coldstream ranch, with its acres and acres of beauti-
fully tended apple trees, told me that he had been
three years in the Dominion, had turned his hand
to many occupations, and hoped to start fruit-fanning
soon on his own land. "'Making good' in Can
means lots of hard work,*' he remarked, " and I
often think that too much is made of the successes,
for I never hear anyone talk about tlu hundreds of
failures who have k-it th- country. I have come
across men from public schools and the Universr
who are just day-labourers hen-, and n. \ r will be
FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC 141
"Would you care to go back to the Old Country,
then ? " I inquired.
" Certainly not, except on a visit to see my people.
There is work and to spare here for all who can do it.
It is not like England, where every man is ready to
cut another man's throat, just to get his job."
Again and again cases were brought to my notice
of the folly of paying premiums to farmers to teach
fruit-farming, or indeed anything else, to British
youths, as every strong, handy lad is well worth his
board and lodging; however inexperienced he may
be. A public-school man told me of a school-friend
of his, whose relatives had paid a Canadian farmer
to teach him all about fruit-farming. He found on
his arrival that there was no ranch, only a small
orchard ; he had to sleep in a shack on the floor,
wrapped in his own rugs, no bedding of any kind
being provided; he was not well fed, and the family
hardly spoke to him. Another word of warning,
given me by many, was never to buy land in Canada
without seeing it, and never to risk money in any of
the various fruit-growing Companies that are so widely
advertised in England.
Certainly this long valley, with its lake scenery, is
most lovely, and I was delighted with its profusion
of wild flowers. Lupin everywhere, three or four
142 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
kinds of clover, yellow daisies with velvety brown
centres, corn-cockles, tall mulleins, and forget-me-nots ;
but not a single buttercup or daisy lifted their familiar
little faces to the blazing sunshine. Masses of small
mauve asters mingled with vetch, pink mallow, and
the rose flush of the willow-herb, while in the wooded
parts syringa bushes were in full bloom, their gusts
of perfume overpowering the delicate sweetness of
countless pink wild roses. The birds were singing
lustily, and orioles and blue birds flew about, making
lovely flashes of colour in fact the whole place was
a kind of Earthly Paradise, serpent and all, for I was
told to beware of rattlesnakes in the long grass.
From the Okanagan I made my way to Vancouver,
a very hot journey. On leaving Sicamous we seeml
to be hours in going round the vast and lonely Shuswap
Lake, with its great arms; then came the Thompson
River, flowing between high flat-topped sand-cliffs,
an arid region with a stony soil. As we passed
through Kamloops we were told that it was 105
degrees in the shade that day, and this I could
w 11 believe. Then came a stretch of gloomy
desolate count ry, until we reached the Fraser River,
with gloriously wild scenery, here and tlu'iv the water
swirling and foaming at the foot of stupendous gorges.
The trains went slowly when they followed the
FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC 143
windings of the rivers, and the lines were laid in huge
curves. At these points the outer rails were higher
than the inner, in order to prevent derailing, so that
sometimes we seemed to be tipping over, in a way that
made a few of the passengers quite unwell.
At some parts the shaking was violent, and on
one occasion I was flung forward and bruised con-
siderably, being informed by a fellow-traveller that one
of his friends had had a limb broken from this cause.
When the thirsty-looking Dry Belt was left behind
, we ran into a beautiful land of mountain and lake,
river and marsh ; but it was also a land where the
mosquito was a curse, and I pitied the railwaymen at
Mission Junction, who were all wearing blue gauze veils
and gloves. The horrible little insects invaded the train
here, and for the rest of the journey the passengers
were in a state of irritation bordering on fury.
Before this invasion, I had become friendly with
some of my fellow-travellers. One pleasant Canadian
was interested in the object of my tour, and said that
Englishwomen were usually much liked in Canada,
but that he could not recommend the life of a home-
help to anyone brought up as a lady. " The life is
that of a drudge," he said, " and the woman who
undertakes it becomes a drudge," and I agreed with
him. He complained that Englishmen were often
144 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
most unadaptable, saying that once he gave an English
clerk in his office a letter to copy. The document had
the word waggon spelt d FAmericaine with one g, and
not only did the man spell it in the copy with two g's,
but he actually corrected the word in his empk
letter. My companion also told me that a firm known
to him had got some excellent millers out from
England, but, as they entirely refused to adopt
Canadian methods, they had to be dismissed. A
Canadian editor said much the same thing, amusing
me with an anecdote of an English waiter, who, when
reproved for not conforming to some Canadian custom,
retorted, " As you all belong to us, you ought to do as
we please ! " 1
This acquaintance considered that Canada \\MS
greatly in need of culture, as the main, if not the sole,
subject of conversation was the " almighty dollar,"
and he thought that an influx of educated British
women with high ideals would do much to raise many
a standard.
Though personally I met with nothing but kind-
ness from the day I landed to the day I left the
Dominion, yet I sometimes came across members of
;cctl that Canadians were apt to classify the Britisher into
Scotch, Irish or English, frequently reserving their approval for the
fut -named.
FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC 145
the party who talk of " Canada for the Canadians,"
and speak of the British race as effete. To this I
always had the same answer. I agreed promptly
that we English must be effete, and I judged this to be
so from the fact that we have possessed ourselves of,
and continue to rule, one-fifth of the whole world !
Of course the refusal to ratify the Reciprocity Agree-
ment showed that an overwhelming majority in
Canada dreaded the very suspicion of a problematic
annexation by America in the future ; but the influx
of Americans and foreigners is so great, that every
British woman, worthy of the name, who settles in
the Dominion is, as it were, a standard of Empire,
and if, as is probable, she marries, she will train her
children to love the Union Jack.
And so
" We rode the iron stallions down to drink
Through the canons to the waters of the West ! "
and at last reached big, bustling, prosperous Vancouver,
with its fine town hall and handsome public buildings,
its good shops and comfortable hotels, and it was
impossible to believe that this beautifully situated
city was twenty-five years ago a mass of burnt wooden
shacks. I found myself in luxury at Glencoe Lodge,
served by picturesquely clad Chinese, and sent out
my letters of introduction, my new acquaintances
146 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
being, as everywhere, most kind, interesting them-
selves in the objects of my mission, and in many
cases giving me valuable information. It seemed
wonderful to me to be living beside the Pacific Ocean,
to reach which I had travelled some 3500 miles from
Quebec, and I never ceased admiring the splendid
scenery, the island-dotted sea, ranges of beautiful
peaks, and masses of giant pines silhouetted against
a deep blue July sky. Stanley Park, about a thou-
sand acres in extent, and lapped by the sea, was a
superb playground for the city, and I duly visited
the mighty trees that rose straight as arrows, one
huge pine being 222 feet in height, and a veteran
cedar measuring 47 feet in girth. I was warned,
more than once, never to go off the main roads, as
modern highwaymen, intent on plunder, are said to
lurk in the alluring-looking by-paths.
I spent one afternoon in a visit to the Grand
Canyon, a ferry, tramway, and motor conveying my
friend and me to a glorious gorge, which might well
have been in the heart of the Rockies, so remote did
it seem from all civilisation ; I also went out to Point
Grey, the beautiful peninsula now being laid out as
a suburb of Vancouver, and was motored one day
to South Vancouver, our drive being a series of jolts
and bumps on the roughest of roads. Here the chanvd
, FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC 147
stumps of lofty pines looked pitiable objects among
the bracken and willow-herb, and the frame-built
houses being erected in all directions seemed a sorry
exchange for the primeval forest. Mighty roots had
been heaved up and were standing right out of the
ground, and here and there were great fragments of
trees, shattered and broken with dynamite ; tram lines
and water pipes were being laid down with astonishing
celerity, men and horses working with a will, and the stir
and life that accompanied this task of evolving order
out of what seemed chaos, was most inspiring, and
reminded me of Service's lines in The Younger Son :
" And where Vancouver's shaggy ramparts frown,
When the sunlight threads the pine gloom he is fighting might
and main
To clinch the rivets of an Empire down."
From Vancouver I made the four hours' steamer
trip to Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, a
most beautiful journey, landlocked most of the way,
past a splendid coast line and myriads of rocky
islands. The difference between Victoria and
Vancouver was striking. The one all bustle and
progress, the other quiet, if not sleepy ; the one so
spick and span, with crowds of people in the streets,
up-to-date shops, and expensively dressed women
whirling about in motors ; the other with certainly
148 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
some fine erections, such as the Parliament buildings,
but many shabby residences and untidy corners in
the streets, English goods in the shops, English harness
on the horses, and with a curiously home-like air as of
an English country town. In the Vancouver post office
there were about six pigeon-holes labelled with dif-
ferent letters of the alphabet for the delivery of leti
and I had always to stand one of a long line before
that marked R-Z, but here in Victoria there were
only two, and I had hardly ever to wait ; here at the
newspaper office, where I had sent an advertisement
offering myself as home-help on a chicken ranch, a
boy took a few letters out of a drawer and lok-<l
through them to see if any were marked with my
number, very different from the Winnipeg and Calgary
offices, where each advertiser had his or her particular
box ; in Vancouver I had to beware of trams and
motors as I crossed the road, but here the streets
seemed half empty in comparison. Everyone falls
in love with Victoria, that city of pretty homes and
beautiful gardens, and I saw plenty of elderly people .
so conspicuous by their absence on the prairie ; while on
Sunday, at the Cathedral service, the old ladies appc
in bonnets and mantles of unmistakable English
style, taking my thoughts to my own country church
so far away.
FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC 149
As usual, all to whom I had introductions were
anxious to help me, and I was taken various motor
drives in different parts of the lovely island that is,
as yet, not fully explored. We drove through forests,
had exquisite peeps of sea, lake, and mountain, passed
by chicken farms and fruit-ranches, and admired
the charming residences in and about Victoria.
These invariably have beautiful gardens, their velvet
lawns and riotous masses of flowers giving a
thoroughly home-like feeling, while the great grey
boulders, that cropped out constantly from the soil,
were often covered with ivy, or turned into fascinating
rock-gardens.
One afternoon I was taken on the Observation
Car, a great institution, to see the well-laid-out parks
among many other things, and we also visited Esqui-
malt Harbour, where the cruiser Rainbow is the only
reminder of the Pacific fleet that formerly lay in the
fine harbour.
In old days Victoria had been a Crown Colony, a
lady, whose grandfather had played a great part in the
past, telling me that in those bygone times sailing
ships that went by way of Cape Horn, brought letters
and parcels to the settlers only once a year.
Later on the mails came by way of San Francisco
and took a month, and it was a great event when
150 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
the Canadian Pacific Line linked Quebec with Van-
couver, surmounting the tremendous barrier of the
Rockies, and bringing the East into touch with the
West.
Partly owing to this long isolation, and probably
due in great measure to the splendid climate, the
Crown officials used frequently to settle down for
life on Vancouver Island, which in some respects is
plus loyalists que Ic roi.
During my stay I made a flying visit up to lovely
Duncans, an English colony in the interior, situated
in the midst of most romantic scenery. Grouse, quail,
partridge, and pheasant appeared to be in profusion,
and I was told that there were deer innumerable in the
pine woods, also bear, panthers, and wolves, while
trout abounded in the streams, making the island a
perfect hunter's paradise. Here all seemed to do
their nun work with the aid of lady-helps, who had,
I was assured, a pleasant life, as they were made one
of the family, belonged to the tennis club, and were
always taken to the frequent winter dances. I tried
to get a post as a " temporary " on the island, in order
to judge of this by practiral < xj>erience, but I failed
to do so, as I could only promise to stay for a month,
and my would-be employer not unnaturally wanted
permanency.
FROM CALGARY TO THE PACIFIC 151
The climate is magnificent, rather warmer than
in the south of England, but never unpleasantly
hot ; it is said to rain usually at night, a most con-
venient proceeding, the winters are short and pleasant,
and the good roads never impassable. In parts it
is much like the Austrian Tyrol, with wild chasms,
pines, and bracken, and it was curious to come upon
groups of Indians in such scenery, a queer-looking
race, more akin to the Japanese than to the Redskin
of the Continent. The Indian reserves comprise some
of the best land in the island, and Canada has treated
her aborigines so well that she has never had an
Indian war.
And now it was time to turn my face Eastwards,
and I had a keen regret at bidding farewell to the far
West and beautiful British Columbia, but I felt that
my experiences would be incomplete unless I could
obtain further glimpses of life on chicken ranch or
prairie farm.
CHAPTER VIII
LIFE ON A CHICKEN RANCH IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
POULTRY-FARMING is constantly mentioned as being
a good opening for educated women wishing to <
tli.-ir livelihood in Canada, and while I was in the
Dominion I was lucky enough to become the guest
for ten days of a young English couple who were
running a chicken ranch.
Mr. and Mrs. Bent, as I shall call them, wen- lull
of enthusiasm, and were working their farm on approved
up-to-date methods, so I felt that I could not 1
come to a better place for information.
The ranrh was situated not far from Vancouver,
was a nine-acre clearing in the midst of the lovely
primeval forest, where spruce, hemlock, cedar, fir, and
pine raised their lofty heads, alas, all too soon to be
turned into unsightly bl.uk. iud stumps, one of tin-
signs of the progress of civilisation about here.
My host, accompanied by a friendly bull-t< rri- -r,
in.-t ni. at the electric tram which conn. > t> tin- vi
with Vancouver and New Westmin>t.-i. and drove
me to his pretty bungalow. At first my hostess wantrd
LIFE ON A CHICKEN RANCH 153
to treat me as a guest, but I had not served my
apprenticeship as a home-help for nothing, and
insisted on sharing the work, beginning by lending
a hand with the evening meal, after which we all
three sallied forth to put dozens of young Leghorn
pullets to bed.
These tiresome birds were in the habit of roosting
anywhere but in the right places, and would have
fallen a prey to rats, minks, or racoons had they not
been looked after. Night after night we " bedded
down " the fowls, and I enjoyed the work when it
was fine, and the moon and stars were shining in
a sky of purple velvet. But one evening it was
raining hard, and we had to make our rounds clad
in waterproofs, giving me some idea of what the work
would be like during the winter.
Though early in August, it was quite dark, and
as the ground had only lately been cleared of the big
firs, it was full of holes and inequalities. Here and
there were stumps not yet rooted up, or bits of lumber,
or a long hose-pipe like a snake, and worst of all, many
of the tree-roots were twisted into big loops. I caught
my foot in one of these once and nearly fell headlong,
but luckily saved myself for I was clasping three
pullets at the moment ! There were also stones in
abundance, nasty snags, and small patches of bracken
154 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
in unexpected places, so, if possible, I was always the
bearer of the little lantern, and Mrs. Bent assured me
that she had had many a bad tumble before she had
learnt to know the ground.
First a round of the " brooders " would be made
to see that the lamps were all lit and working pro-
perly, and that most of the tiny chickens were safely
housed. Then one or two motherly old hens, sitting
on the ground with a score apiece of little white
balls tucked under their wings, would be visited and
enclosed in small wire-netting pens, over which
mackintosh would be drawn to keep them safe from
rain or animal. This done, we would betake ourselves
to the fowl-pens, where dozens of heedless pullets h.ul
to be picked up from the sandy ground dotted with
fronds of bracken, that concealed many a hole from
the unwary, and put into sacks. These I would
hold open, and when all were collected, we would
carry the sleepy birds carefully and put them into the
various boxes prepared for their reception. These
young Leghorns were particularly fond of roosting
on the floor of the big barn, a dangerous spot, as the
grain kept there attracted so many rats, and the birds
were most difficult to catch, except with a net that
both Mr. and Mrs. Bent wielded with great skill.
Even with the net it was a lengthy process, as they
LIFE ON A CHICKEN RANCH 155
seemed to be gifted with almost superhuman agility,
so one evening the fiat went forth that their wings
must be clipped. I held bird after bird, while husband
and wife cut the feathers of the right wing until some
two hundred lusty pullets were operated upon and
deposited in the sacks, the chase and capture afford-
ing us quite an exciting hour's sport.
My host was trying to get his stock up to a thousand
birds, and calculated that a good hen laid about two
hundred eggs per annum, and ought to be worth
eight shillings a year to her owner. He kept Leg-
horns for the most part, as being the best breed for
laying, getting 2s. a dozen in Vancouver for his eggs
during the summer, and in winter 35. to 45., while
table-fowls were profitable, and his cockerels found
a ready sale at the hotels as " roasters." x There
were, however, a good many drawbacks, hawks and rats
being constant enemies to the chickens. Mr. Bent
shot several of the former, as the old hens always
warned him of their approach by uttering a curious
cry; but the rats were more difficult to circumvent
as they worked by night, and on one occasion killed
over fifty chickens, hiding the corpses in a little drain
to which the victims were traced by their feathers.
1 In 1912 fowls fed for table fetched 35 c. (is. 5rf.) the pound,
14 roasters " the same, and spring chickens were as much as 45 c. (is.
the pound.
156
A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
Many pullets were foolish enough to dispute the meal
with the pigs, that soon acquired a taste for fowl, and
got in the habit of snapping up and devouring any
unwary birds that perched on their troughs.
It is considered a good average if fifty per cent,
of the chickens reach maturity, for they die so easily,
poor little things, in spite of every care. If one of
them hurts its foot and it bleeds, the others all rush
upon it and peck at the wound, the blood seeming to
excite them to a kind of passion. They are troubled
by various diseases, to prevent some of which tin -ir
drinking water is specially doctored, and they must
be carefully guarded from damp and cold.
My host was emphatically a " man ot his hands,"
and I never ceased admiring his energy. He built his
hen-houses, his barn, and his stables, and carted gi
beams of wood from the trees he had lelled, to saw them
up into logs for the greedy kitchen-stove with the help
of a little wood-cutting engine, and ground up bones
for his fowls with another implement. He cleaned
out ln> h-n -houses every other day, dug up and disin-
fected the runs, and a ek drove his waggon into
New Westminster, to return laden with sacks of grain,
bones, chicken-food, and so on for his big family.
Every Friday he went into Vancouver to sell his
this necessitating an early start. They were
LIFE ON A CHICKEN RANCH 157
beautifully packed, free from every speck of dirt,
and carefully graded as to colour brown, buff, cream,
and white all in separate boxes. Whilst I was at the
ranch I used to wash the eggs for market, Mr. Bent
being most particular as to their appearance, and
often I was obliged to have recourse to Dutch
Cleanser to remove any stains that would not yield
to ordinary water, as if left, they would mark the
white albumen within the egg.
Besides the fowls, my host had to feed and water
his pigs twice a day, and of course look after his
faithful horse. Throughout my tour I heard again
and again what "paying " animals pigs were, and in
this case they were useful in other ways, for they
cleared the ground, rooting up the bracken in their
enclosure, which had, however, to be strongly fenced
to keep them from rampaging in the garden. This
latter was a boon to the housekeeper, for it produced
peas, cabbages, lettuces, beans, vegetable marrows,
and rhubarb, not to speak of sweet peas and migno-
nette, and one day I observed my host at the tiresome
task of tieing up and staking many dozens of sturdy
tomato plants : he would blow up a tree at any odd
time, and usually had a bonfire going in which to
burn old tree-roots and rubbish.
Mrs. Bent was almost as fully occupied as her
158 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
husband. Her house was beautifully clean and well
kept, her stove brightly polished, and she had to
prepare four meals a day, afternoon- tea being in-
cluded in their menu, and also make her own br<
Once a week she scrubbed out her large kitchen and
pantry (probably she will have recourse to covering
the floor with linoleum later on, or painting it), on
Monday she did the household wash, and Tuesday
was ironing-day.
Most women would consider that her house gave
her occupation and to spare, especially as she was
dainty in her table appointments and always had
flowers in the pretty living room, but she did almost
as much on the ranch as her husband. The stock
had to be fed, and needed water at frequent intervals,
this being mixed with a few grains of permanganate
of potash as a disinfectant, and clover had to be
gathered daily at some little distance from the house
to provide green food for the hens which were shut up
in runs. The fowls were fed three times a day, twin-
with grain, and their "balanced ration" (a mixture
of grain, meal, powdered green food and ground- up
bone), was given them in the evening, while the
chickens required five meals. She also washed and
packed the eggs for market, put the chickens into
" brooders " for the night, and lit the lamps to keep
LIFE ON A CHICKEN RANCH 159
their shelters up to the right temperature, and on
occasion she would chop up logs to feed the insatiable
stove, wielding an axe with skill, and making me
feel ashamed that I never got much beyond splitting
up kindling wood with this weapon, so dangerous in
unaccustomed hands.
Though she never grumbled, yet to me her life
seemed lacking in relaxation. She and her husband
could not leave the ranch together, unluckily she
had no congenial neighbours close at hand (they
were of the English labouring type), and as her
chief friends lived at a distance, she did not care to
go and see them by herself in fact, I believe that
during my visit she went farther afield than she had
done since her marriage.
To balance this, she was young and full of hope,
there was the possibility that people of her own class
might settle near them later on, and more than all,
the encouraging sense that she and her husband were
making their way in the world together, and that
their efforts had every prospect of being crowned
with success.
During my visit in August I was full of praise
of the fine climate, though I felt absurdly slack and
sleepy at first, as I had come so lately from the tonic
air farther east. But my hostess had another tale
160 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
to tell of the winter with its rainy season, to which,
according to one Englishwoman whom I met, it takes
three years to become accustomed. When the ground
was covered with snow she used to struggle to UK
creek for water, scrambling down a slippery path
to the stream with her pails, and she had to tend In T
incubators and chickens in deluges of rain and seas of
slush. But now the Bents have the luxury of water
laid on in their bungalow, and the palatial hen-house
and runs which Mr. Bent was building during my visit.
will save those evening rambles after recalcitrant fowls.
One day, when my host had gone off to the t.wn
for fodder, we women had to catch a hundred or so of
pullets that had got into the barn and deposit tin -ni
in pens. Although this was after their wings had
been clipped, yet the birds were active as mice on
tlu-ir feet, and both of us were quite exhausted when
we had at last cornered and caught all of them, putting
about a dozen at a time carefully into sacks which
we carried off to empty into the pens. After this
came the feeding and watering of th< cntii
and during this occupation we became Middmlv
aware that a big sow had broken loose and was coming
towards us. Both of us. I contr^ it, were trnitied,
as these animals were reputed to be tierce, and
were alone on th- pratttofc H-- \\vver, it ran up
LIFE ON A CHICKEN RANCH 161
to the enclosures where were the boar and various
sows and piglets, and Mrs. Bent conceived the bright
idea of driving it into an outhouse, as if allowed to
wander it would assuredly root up the potato patch,
not to speak of devastating the cabbages and cauli-
flowers. Accordingly we hurriedly pulled all the
sacks of grain and bran out of this building, and my
hostess put a pail of pig-wash on the threshold. As
soon as the sow reappeared, we rather nervously
headed it towards this place, and to our joy, attracted
by the bucket, it went three parts inside the door,
whereupon Mrs. Bent boldly advanced and gave it
a resounding thwack with her stick on its hind
quarters. Any decent animal would have started
forward in a fright, but this creature turned sharply
round and rushed out, while we fled precipitately to
the house ! I kept an eye on the vagrant from the
back-door, while my hostess went to the front and
produced somewhat discordant sounds on a trumpet
in order to call the nearest neighbour to her assistance ;
but as no one came she ran to his house, and returned
shortly, accompanied by Mr. Gray, armed with a big
stick. I had not thought much of this neighbour
before, but when I saw how the sow " minded " him
(it had treated us with the utmost contempt !), and
how skilfully he herded it at last into its enclosure,
162 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
my opinion of him rose by leaps and bounds. The
animal had got out by rolling a log aside, and
women helped at piling up stones and a tree-trunk
against this, feeling very brave as soon as the truant
was safely inside. Mr. Gray explained that he had
heard the braying of the trumpet, but as he knew that
Mrs. Bent had a friend with her, he imagined that
she was giving me a lesson on that instrument, hence
his delay in coming to the rescue !
He cheerfully informed us that a convict had
broken loose from the penal establishment not far
from here, and had begged for food from houses
near to his; but this news left us calm, for when
you have little or nothing to lose, a possible
highwayman is not of much account. A Canadian
told me that most women conceal their cash in tlu-ir
stockings, and that some years ago, when a train was
held up by bandits, every woman was forced to take off
her hose, which the men carried away. " Only one girl
saved her money," went on my informant, " and where
do you think she had hidden it ? Why, in her ' rats ' ! "
I must explain that the term " rats " is used for artificial
hair, and at Calgary I heard an itinerant preacher
urging the female portion of his audience to " fling
away tin -ir ' rats * " as savouring of worldly vanity, much
as Savonarola might have done in Florence long ago.
LIFE ON A CHICKEN RANCH 163
It was rather thrilling to feel that all round the
chicken ranch lay the great pine woods in which
bears wander. As a rule they do people no harm,
Bruin usually making off if he spies a human being,
but if he stands his ground it is not wise to dispute
the road with him unless the wayfarer be armed.
On Mr. Bent's ranch was a creek with a dam that
supplied water to the house, and here bears had been
seen. This I could well believe, as the stream seemed
to be in the heart of the primeval forest, and could
only be approached by scrambling down a steep path
through trees, the ground being always damp and
boggy, and long " weepers " of moss hanging from
the firs.
Across the water was a natural bridge, formed of
the trunk of a huge cedar, once a giant of the woods,
and from the moss and soil collected on its enormous
girth, trees were growing actually sturdy trees. It
was an eerie spot, the silence brooding over it was quite
uncanny, and the huge firs that rose on all sides made
a soft twilight, the sun being only visible when I
gazed far up to where it glinted through their boughs.
I was shown the difference between pine and spruce,
cedar and hemlock, the latter tree always having
drooping leaders however high it may grow. The
cedar is the best of all, as its beautiful red wood will
164 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
last for a century, and I saw Douglas pines shooting
to a height of 150 to 200 feet, and was informed that
300 feet is the limit that is reached by these giants.
They are now being laid low with a ruthlessness that
went to my heart, alders springing up to replace
these splendid monarchs of the forest, and the " fire
weed" (willow herb), so called because it springs
up whenever burning has taken place, appearing on
the ground in great rose-hued patches. At intervals
one heard the sound of blasting, a sign that some hu^
was being upheaved by the power of dynamit*
roots torn out of the ground, and all the valuable
timber made into bonfires. This seei ipp illing
waste, and "progress" here apparently meant
of charred stumps. Yet it could not be helped, and
there was something exhilarating in this wrestle of
man with Nature in the wilderness, this effort of
pun>* human beings to cut out a home for themselves
in the vast forest, to wrench the soil from the grasp
of the great trees and to force it to yield a livelihood.
The pioneer, with his pluck, energy, and endur;
always aroused my sympathy, and my hope that a
man, such as my host, who had gone through the
storm and stress, might reap the n ward.
A forest fire must be an awful though splendid
sight, and one evening Mrs. Bent and I were startled
LIFE ON A CHICKEN RANCH 165
by observing a red glare behind the firs that shut
in the ranch on all sides. We heard the crackling
as the flames burnt up the wood, and shivered at the
thought that if they came towards us there would be
no possibility of saving the stock or the bungalow, and
that in all probability we should have some difficulty
in escaping ourselves, so rapidly do the flames leap
from tree to tree. A man, who had been " burnt
out " himself, told me that his house was a mass
of charred timbers in twenty minutes, and that
it had been impossible to save any of his household
gods from the flames. It was a lovely night and
the full moon was riding in a purple sky, but the
broad rosy flush in the east had something menacing
about it, the crackle of the flames making me
think of some great beast of prey lapping up
the blood of one victim while it lusted for more
and yet more food. It was a relief when a couple
of men, who had business with Mr. Bent, assured us
that the fire was merely a huge bonfire of waste wood,
and yet when I went to bed, I could not refrain from
thinking how awful a fate it would be to be caught in
a big forest fire, such as had taken place in Ontario
that same summer. On these occasions the great
firs blaze like monster torches, and in the summer
drought, or if a wind be blowing, the conflagration
166 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
cannot be checked by human agency, but springs, a
veritable demon of destruction, across wide open
spaces to reach its prey, the tall, straight, resinous
pines.
A woman, who had been driven from her home
by one of these terrible visitations, told me that though
she and her husband saved themselves by tim.-ly
flight, yet they lost all they had in the world and
had to begin life again ; and their nearest neighbours,
a family of nine in number, were surrounded, and
perished in the flames.
But let us turn to a lighter subject, illustrating
one of the experiences of the housekeeper in Canada.
It was a day when Mr. Bent was in Vancouver, and
my hostess and I set to work to scrub out the kitchen
and pantry. Of course I took my share of the house-
work during my visit, and I confess that it filled me
with pride when Mrs. Bent praised my culinary and
other efforts, wondering how it was that I had learnt
to do so many things in the Canadian manner. I did
not betray that I had already been a home-help more
than once, and had not altogether wasted my oppor-
tunities in fact I only gave myself away once in Can
and then the temptation was irresistible. It was
in this manner. A Canadian had talked to me in tin-
train, and, as usual, I tried to interest my travelling
LIFE ON A CHICKEN RANCH 167
companion in the objects of my journey. " Well, I
should say that if you want to gain real, first-hand
information, you ought to take a post as a home-help
yourself," was his comment, and I shall never forget
his look of astonishment when I answered calmly,
" Yesterday I left my third post as home-help,
and am now on my way to look for fresh work."
But I have wandered from my point. Mrs. Bent
and I had breakfasted at seven o'clock that morning,
and after the wash-up and the usual feeding and
watering of the fowls, we set-to at our scrubbing, the
many pantry-shelves and cupboards being cleansed
at the same time. At last all was done, it was past
eleven, and we intended to have a rest from our labours
and partake of a bread-and-butter-and-jam lunch an
hour later in order to save us the bother of cooking,
when suddenly visitors turned up quite unexpectedly.
A lunch had to be got together somehow. A tongue
was opened (what a stand-by these are in out-of-the-
way places !), eggs were scrambled, and a batch of
scones made as soon as we could get the stove, which
we had allowed to go out, lit and heated. I remember
that after this meal had been discussed and the
crockery and cutlery had been washed, I slipped off
to my room for a little siesta, and to my horrified
surprise knew nothing further till afternoon-tea-
168 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
time, when I reappeared much refreshed, but
rather guilty at having given Mrs. Bent no help with
the entertainment of her guests.
One day I was driven into New Westminster, the
oldest settlement in British Columbia, the inhabitant s
of which say that it ought to have been chosen for
the capital of the province, as it is finely situated on
the Fraser River, with miles of water frontage. Ac-
cording to the story, Victoria on Vancouver Island
was selected because a meeting was being held tli.-iv
at the time, and of course, at that date, the big, rich,
progressive Vancouver of to-day was merely a little
himber town of no account. We reached the city by
a hilly road with plenty of loose stones lying about,
and Mrs. Bent had to drive with care when we came
to a dangerous place where the tram and railway lines
inrt. We passed sawmills, with their huge piles of
stacked-up lumber, a big machine factory, a salmon-
canning works, to which we saw men carrying en- i -
mous fish, and across the river was visible the largest
nill in the world: the broad main ifc
ty of good shops and some handsome build i:
but it had none of tli stir and bustle that so
icterises its mushroom rival Van
I was very sorry when the time ramc for me to
leave the Bents and as I got into the waggon t>
LIFE ON A CHICKEN RANCH 169
Mr. Bent, and drove off to an accompaniment of
squeaks and squeals from a couple of small pigs con-
fined in a packing-case behind us, I felt that this
was the close of a pleasant episode in my Canadian
tour. It had left me with the conviction that poultry- \
farming would be a profitable undertaking for active
women with a little capital, who would work in partner-
ship. They must be capable, all-round girls, accus-
tomed to make the best of things, and, of course,
properly trained for the work. Let no elderly woman,
who has looked after the fowls in England with a boy
under her to do all the rough work, think that she
will " make good " in the Dominion, unless she is ex*
ceptionally vigorous and adaptable. Canada is the
Land of Youth and Hope. Everyone seems to have a
sense of the great openings and possibilities there are
in the country, and this helps the new-comers to tide
over many a rough bit ; but the life is not an easy one
in many ways, and the hardships would be intolerable
to a middle-aged woman wedded to English comforts.
The work on a chicken ranch is constant, and outside
distractions would be few, for girls must be prepared
to do everything themselves, as hired help is most
expensive and would eat up all their profits.
A Canadian authority on poultry-farming said that
this industry, to be really paying, should be carried
170 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
on in connection with a farm, because then the birds
could be fed with much that would otherwise be
thrown away. It would be a good plan for a girl,
who had had some experience in England, to go for
a course of poultry-raising, either at Guelph College in
Ontario, if she intended to settle east of the Rockies,
or at Pullman College in Washington, U.S.A., if British
Columbia were her goal. At present the demand for
poultry and eggs far exceeds the supply, and this
pleasant state of things for the producer will probably
increase with the population.
CHAPTER IX
MY THIRD POSITION AS HOME-HELP
THE neighbourhood to which I now betook myself
was supposed to be one that afforded great openings
for the home-help, and I felt sure that I should speedily
find a post.
s As usual, I went to insert my advertisement in the
newspaper, and when the editor heard my errand he
gave me an address to which to write, and pointed
out a situation that might suit me in last week's issue.
Would I take a place where there were many children ?
Remembering how tired I had got of the perpetual
clamour of the juvenile Browns in my last post, I
frankly confessed that I preferred their absence to
their presence. With that he looked at me with the
most reproachful face, and without a ghost of a smile
exclaimed, " And you a jvoman I " ^
I should like to have inquired whether he had any
of his own !
I was put into touch with a lady who, I was told,
might possibly help me to get what I wanted, and she
kindly gave me an interview. She said that she had
172 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
spoken to two or three of her friends about my case,
but that I must not dream of being treated as one of
the family in this district, and must have my nv.ils
apart, and so on.
I answered that I had heard that lady-helps were
much in request in the neighbourhood, but thi> sh-
denied emphatically. " They are only wanted on the
prairie or in lonely places, but here we have our own
friends, and wish to have our family life to ourselves.*'
I quite saw the matter from her point of view, as I
should much dislike to have an unknown stran^
part of my home circle, but all the same my h< -art
sank as she continued, " Of course, if you got on
really well with your mistress, she might relax li r
rule and admit you to a partial intercourse in time, but,
believe me, you will be far happier if you will tak a
situation as a general servant." and with that she
dismissed me.
I felt absurdly depressed as I walk but, as
li id happened again and again during my jounx \ ,
an unexpected piece of kindness came to rherr m< up.
A ramshack; MI by a donkey, .ml
with a ladder sticking out behind, rattled along the
road, and in it sat an old man an "I suppose
I wouldn't care to a- ; <id the
J hu.
MY THIRD POSITION AS HOME-HELP 173
" Indeed, I should be very grateful for one," was
my reply, and I scrambled awkwardly enough into
what is known as a " democrat." The old man had
come, in his youth, from a part of England that I
knew, and inquired most kindly as to my business in
. the neighbourhood. He urged me to call at every
ranch in the district and offer my services ; but
though I did not feel equal to doing this, his spon-
taneous sympathy was most cheering, and by the time
had extricated myself from his funny little trap
my forlorn feeling had quite vanished.
An English woman whom I shall call Mrs. Down ton,
appeared to engage my services, and I asked for details
of the work. She wished me to do all the cooking
and cleaning of the house, and look after her children
on two afternoons of the week. Could I have a room
to myself, an hour or two off during the afternoon,
and should I be treated as one of the family ? I asked.
She agreed to all these conditions, but her whole
manner was that of a superior to one vastly her
inferior, and I saw at once that I was " up against "
the English " caste " system.
As I had been "one of the family," almost more
than I wished, elsewhere, I wondered how it would
feel to be treated as a menial, and I prudently offered
my services for just a week if she cared to accept
174 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
them for so short a period. As she was hard up for
help at the time she agreed, and offered me wages
at the rate of fifteen dollars (3) a month.
The time of my arrival coincided with the depar-
ture of the last "girl," and the leave-taking between
mistress and maid was anything but cordial. Mrs.
Downton then led me into the kitchen, and, pointing
to a paper fastened to the door, said, " Here are my
rules for the work of each day," and showed me my
room, comfortable save for the lack of a chair or any
place to put my things, except a few nails on the door,
and told me to prepare supper as soon as I had taken
off my hat and jacket.
This was eaten at seven o'clock in the dining-
room, and, in my capacity as lady-help, I sat at table
with the husband and wife and the " man," a depressed
youth, who never opened his lips. As Mr. Downton,
kind and pleasant from first to last, was conversation-
ally inclined, I quite forgot my inferior position,
and chatted away during the meal, though I had
1 had rather a blow as I entered the room. ^jPoes
she eat with us ? " had been the remark <>f M
Tom, the elder hope of the family, and he stared
at me, greatly surprised, as I took my pla
I cleared away after supper, and during the washing-
up Mrs. Downton looked into the kitchen and asked
MY THIRD POSITION AS HOME-HELP 175
very stiffly whether I would care to sit with them
in the drawing-room. I politely declined this honour,
and immediately my employer's manner became less
glacial, so great was her relief, poor woman, and
indeed I could sympathise with her. This was the
first and last occasion that I was invited to enter
the family circle, save at meal-time.
Next morning I was in the kitchen by half-past
five to start preparing the breakfast. To my relief
the stove behaved well, and I lit it with no trouble
(here, as in many parts of Canada, only wood was
used), and set about cooking porridge and bacon,
making toast and laying the table. All was ready
by half -past six, and the family assembled.
When I got into the dining-room (I was always
a little late, as I had to wash my hands and remove
my apron after dishing-up) everyone was eating
busily and there was no chair for me. I straightway
forgot that I was a home-help, and was greatly
annoyed at the discourtesy of the men. " May I
have a seat, please ? " I asked in a tone that brought
them to their feet in a second, and Mr. Downton
rushed into another room to supply my need !
When breakfast was cleared away, I started on
my daily round of sweeping. Carpets had to be
cleaned with one implement, the linoleum and matting
176 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
had a special broom, and the rooms with only bare
boards another. Then all the skirting had to be
wiped round with a dry cloth, and it was in vain th;it
I begged leave to use a damp one, as the dust m
flitted from one place to settle in another. Alt* r
this operation I was told to do the bedroom-, and
when they were finished it was time to peel pota
for dinner and supper, and to begin preparing Un-
substantial midday meal.
That over, and the washing-up accomplished, I
made a cake and blancmange for supper, and, ;
was now four o'clock, I was allowed my freedom f<>i
an hour and a half. A good part of this pre<
time was occupied with my toilet (it was \vrv cursory
in the mornings), and then I rested as I had a " crick "
in my back. A friend was expected to Mipp-r that
evening, so we had soup, fish, m< t. .m.l iweets, and I
had to change the plates, bring in the dishes, and \\
up the fish plates to do duty fT th<> pudding cor.
as the crockery ran short.
My fellow-hireling and I were left entirely out
of the conversation not that my employ
in the least unkind, it was merely that \
dependents and thrivl".iv did not c..unt.
During my stay I met a homc-lnlp who spoke
( nth .lly o( thr way in which IKT cmpl
MY THIRD POSITION AS HOME-HELP 177
treated her, but on inquiry I found that the lady
was a Canadian, and therefore had not the British
" caste " ideas. My acquaintance assured me that
she would not have been treated as well as she was in
any other household in that district, and said that
she would dissuade all girls from coming to this
particular neighbourhood as lady-helps, and I quite
agreed with her.
Certainly the English do not always appear to under-
stand the home-help in the way that the Canadians do,
the reason being that she is not a British institution.
A girl I met, who was acting in that capacity to
an English family in another part of the Dominion,
told me that not only was she cook, parlour-maid,
and housemaid combined, but that she had actually
to wait upon the children's nurse, a woman socially
much her inferior.
The master of the house came home for week-ends,
and during his spare time used to chop up a quantity
of wood which he imagined would last until his return.
As it only held out for three or four days, my poor
friend was reduced to " grovelling about " for fuel,
as she expressed it, before preparing any meal, and
not only had she to cook and serve the usual three
meals a day, but this family insisted on having a
substantial afternoon tea with cakes and scones.
M
178 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
The lady of the house gave her no help in any
way, very unlike most Canadians, and she was sure
that had she stayed on for any length of time In -r
health would have broken down, and she herself
would have lost all care for her personal appearance.
The poor girl looked perfectly worn out when I met
her, and said that she wished she could send her
experiences to some magazine, in order to warn prls
against going as home-helps unless their posts were
carefully selected for them.
She had come out from England full of hope,
and had imagined that her work would have been
varied with social distractions, such as tennis, driving,
or dances. Certainly, as there are ten men to <>n
woman west of Winnipeg, she was not unreasonabl.
in her expectation of some amusement, but, unluckily
she was thoroughly disappointed, and the Dominion
had no charms for her.
The Canadian air is so bracing that I rolled out
of bed at five o'clock every morning without much
effort ; and though I was certainly tired in the evening
(Mrs. Downton's place was considered in the neighbour-
hood to be a hard one), yet I slept so well that it did
not matter. The " man/* who worked on the farm,
brought in wood and water every morning and emptied
a kerosene can, which served as a receptacle for
MY THIRD POSITION AS HOME-HELP 179
kitchen refuse. He slept in a tent near the house,
and it was surprising how neat and clean he always
looked in spite of a good deal of hard work. He and
I, of course, became friendly at once, " a fellow-
feeling . . ." and I was also sorry for him, as he
seemed so depressed and shy.
I generally exchanged a few words with him
while I stirred the porridge or fried the bacon for
breakfast, and one morning he told me that he was going
to try his luck elsewhere, and asked whether I were
staying on. When I answered in the negative, he said
fervently, " Oh, I was sure that this place would never
suit you ! " but I let the remark pass, as I did not want
to discuss our joint employers in their own kitchen.
On Saturday I had to work my hardest, as not
only were there special cleaning operations, but I
had to cook everything for dinner and supper in
order to devote myself to the baby during the after-
noon when the Downtons went off to a party.
All instructions as to baby's bottles, his undressing
and putting to bed were given to me, and I hoped
to have a peaceful time reading and writing in the
verandah, with the child sleeping in his " pram."
This programme, however, was by no means
carried out. Baby was easily amused as I washed
and put away the dinner things, but when the time
i8o A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
came for him to take his first bottle, there ensued
frantic struggles, yells apparently of fury, and an
unmistakable determination not to imbibe his milk
and barley-water. Feeling that I was somehow in
fault, I warmed the bottle again and again, and only
after a weary hour with much rocking of the peram-
bulator did he condescend to take some nourishment.
This incident had spoilt his temper, so my ideas of
reading or writing were quite dissipated, and I had
to soothe his screams as best I could.
\\ith the second bottle there ensued the sam-
scene as the first, and in the middle of it all little Tom
came howling to me to say that the two dogs \v--rv
killing a sweet little kitten that had been a real joy
to me in the kitchen. Baby and bottle were de-
serted, and I rushed after the boy to the spot, to find
the " man " already there and driving the dogs off,
but, alas, it was too late. Tom had set the dogs
and again on one or other of the cats in spite of all
that his parents and I could say, and now I tu
upon him and "spoke my mind," only wishing that
I could have whipped him soundly for his cruelty.
I think, however, that th sight of poor kitty lying
dead made a far gr. at r impression than anything
I could say, for though a miM-hi.-vous boy, he was
hk able in many ways.
MY THIRD POSITION AS HOME-HELP 181
Baby's yells made me hasten back to my charge,
who had to be rocked and carried about until it was
time to put him and Tom to bed, giving the latter
his supper.
It was a great relief when my youngest charge
finally dropped off to sleep, and when Mrs. Downton
returned she discovered that she had put no sugar
into his bottles, this omission amply accounting for his
trying conduct. She was full of sympathy for her
" poor darling," but had none for the home-help, who
had passed a most harassing afternoon in consequence
of her mistress's negligence. I wonder if that editor
who reproved me had ever been in charge of an
enraged baby ?
On Sunday, the Day of Rest, though there was no
possibility of going to church, I hoped to have part
of the afternoon to myself, according to the arrange-
ment when I was engaged, and I felt decidedly " put
upon " as the servants say, when Mrs. Downton asked
me to look after baby again, as she and her husband
had another party on hand. She had the grace to
apologise, but I replied, somewhat contemptuously I
fear, "As I am only here for a week I will do any-
thing you please, but if I were staying on I should
certainly make conditions with you." My employer
was a woman constitutionally unable to see things
182 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
from any point of view but her own, and I felt that
any girl who went to her as a lady-help would have a
dreary existence, all work and no play. There
guests invited to dinner twice during the week I
was there, and though it did not matter to me, who
was only playing a part, yet I could imagine some girl,
every whit as well bred as her employer, washing up
in the kitchen, and always debarred from the talk
and laughter going on in the drawing-room. It
would not be of much benefit to the help to know
that dances and other kinds of social distractions took
place, for Mrs. Downton would probably never diva in
of letting her have a share of any amusement.
When I arrived in her house a lady was staying
there for two or three days, and apparently would
have departed without any leave-taking if her ho
had not appeared somewhat unexpectedly. "
you going off ? " the latter inquiivd. " Yes, good-
bye," was the laconic answer, and 1 felt that my own
farewell would be much aiti-r tin- sam< p att m
Up to now I had never done tin washing of all the
dishes and pots and pans alone. It is tin u>ual
kindly Canadian custom to share it, the hme -help
doing the washing and the mi>tiv>- the drying. II
1 had to wash up everything after each of the three
1>, and I found it a very monotonous
MY THIRD POSITION AS HOME-HELP 183
and sympathised with the lady who asked another in
the railway carriage, " Have you a great antipathy
to washing ? " the ensuing conversation revealing that
it was not the cleansing of the person, but that of
pots and pans to which she was alluding. Here, be-
sides the usual greasy saucepans and frying-pans,
were the pots in which the remains of baby's food
turned to a gluey mass unless they were washed at
once. My hands got ingrained with dirt, and my
rubber gloves had played me false by tearing them-
selves somehow or other into ribbons, and my house-
maid's gloves were useless for the wash-up. I shivered
to look at my nails, which had got extremely brittle,
besides being dirty, and from the first I was never
free of a burn somewhere or other, and feared that one
on my arm, where I brushed an almost red-hot stove-
pipe, and another on the back of my hand, caused by
steam from a big kettle, would remain as mementoes
of my Canadian tour to the end of my days I
One morning I was rather pluming myself on having
done the breakfast extra well, as I had made soda
scones and fried the bacon to a turn ; but pride
had a fall, for the porridge was salt as brine. I had,
with gross carelessness, shaken in salt from the bag
instead of ^measuring it, and I felt terribly ashamed
of myself for ruining the pi&ce de resistance of the meal.
184 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
To do them justice, my victims behaved most kindly,
Mr. Downton merely asking me to taste my own
share, and laughing when he saw my face of disi
and Mrs. Downton saying that she had burnt the
porridge more than once.
As my week drew to its close my mistress got more
and more friendly, and I felt sorry for her, as I saw
that in many ways her life was a hard one.
One evening she had an accident, which soft,
my heart towards her considerably. She was going
with some food down into the cellar, which was D
as larder and dairy, when a cracked step, that hail
always made me nervous, suddenly broke right across,
and she and the pudding were precipitated to tin-
bottom. Fortunately no bones were broken, th
the poor thinn was much bruised and shaken,
vellously plucky about her mishap.
She had not heard of anyone to replace me, ami
d.iy whetht-r 1 kin-w of any agency to which
she could apply for another lady-help. I t- Id h< r
bluntly that her plan- was only suitable for a gei
servant, but I could not help sympathising with hei
longing to get some one to whom she could coi.
h r children, as she was badly in need of a hoh
on-taut round of monotonous \\-nik beginning to
t.-ll upon
MY THIRD POSITION AS HOME-HELP 185
But, sorry as I was for her, yet I could not meet
her half-way when she unbent, because I felt that any
penniless girl, who had gone to her under the impres-
sion that she was to be treated as one of the family,
would have had a rude awakening when she realised
that she would never see anyone or be taken any-
where.
I had a small triumph on the last day, when she
offered me something over and above my wages, be-
use I had been " so good and kind and such a stand-
y." Though I refused the extra money, yet I was
gratified, and would have liked to have said some-
thing nice to her as we shook hands at parting ; but
before me rose a vision of the lot that she would mete
out to any girl who might come to her as lady-help,
and I hardened my heart and made my farewells cold
and formal, though it went against the grain to do so.
CHAPTER X
A VISIT TO AN ALBERTA FARM
SOME English friends of mine, whom I will name
Gibson, were starting their married life on a prairie
farm, and had warmly invited me to pay them a
visit during my tour in Canada.
To reach them I had to rise at an unearthly hour,
and as my Calgary hotel declined to provide break-
fast, I had to get some food at a restaurant close to
the station.
It was curious to be the only woman among a crowd
of men, who were eating with true Canadian velocity,
many seated on high revolving chairs at a count IT.
My hurried meal of as much coffee and bread and
butter as I could consume only came to fivepence, and
I was soon in the train, crossing the prairie, with view>
of the Rockies in tin- distance, the great peaks looking
queerly shortened and unimpressive when seen cut off
above the far horizon.
It was a hot day towards the end of August, and the
train stopped for a quarter of an hour at each little
station on this branch line, spinning the journey out
A VISIT TO AN ALBERTA FARM 187
to an abnormal length before we drew up at my
destination, merely a few frame houses on either side
of a short street, and the usual white-painted wooden
hotel. Young Mr. Gibson and a big deerhound met
me with the buggy, and when my bag and hold-all
were packed in behind, we started off on our nine-mile
drive across the prairie by a good track, which we
left now and again and took to the grass when we
came to mud-holes. By and by we saw many acres
of waving grain wheat, oats, and barley but all in
sore need of the ripening sunshine. An undue amount
of rain had fallen during the year, and as a consequence
the hopes of the farmers in this district were almost at
zero.
Several neat, little four-roomed houses were dotted
about, and at last we drew up at the one belonging
to my host, with a tent beside it, making an extra
apartment, and I was warmly welcomed by his charm-
ing wife.
I was introduced to the team of fine Percheron greys,
to the pretty mare which had conveyed me from the
station, the Hereford cow, the pigs, turkeys, and fowls,
and last, but by no means least, to two fascinating
fox-terriers, and felt that it would be my own fault
if I did not enjoy my visit to the full in such pleasant
company. With characteristic energy, Mr. Gibson
i88 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
had turned one of the rooms in his bandbox of a house
x into a store, and already the goods, bought at a vvh< -lr-
sale shop in Calgary, were paying a handsome per-
centage, and at all hours people dropped in to buy
bacon, canned foods, and many of the necessaries of
life, which they could obtain here at the same |ri<v
as in the store of the little town nine miles away.
It was an amusement to me to serve occa.-i.n;illy
behind the counter, and I found that the custom* i>
were scrupulously honest, boys, for instance, wh<>
came to buy sweets, watching the scales as I weighed,
in order to check me directly I had put in tin- i
amount. They would then offer me their pure]
of candy, saying, "Won't you have some?" with
the most engaging courtesy, and then, donning their
caps, they would swing out of the rim ml in-aint
their ponies with the high-peaked Mexican saddles.
The kitchen, though small, was a miracle ui
ness, and I never ceased admiring the manner in
which Mrs. Gibson packed away all h r JMIH md
crockery, as tidily and in as small a space as t li-
on board ship.
The house \v i with wire-netting dx.r> and
windows, but in >pit- ! .ill precaution* it was im-
possible to exclude the flies, which, in conjunction
with th- mosquitoes, UN a perfect pest on the prairie.
A VISIT TO AN ALBERTA FARM 189
During the summer months these insects hold high
carnival, and no human, or rather Canadian invention,
appears able to cope with them. Indoors the flies
must be fought with incessantly. The horrible, sticky
" tanglefoot " papers assisted in the crusade. At one
place we shut all the doors and windows and sprayed
the whole place with insect powder, but the result
was disappointing ; and we often tried to darken the
house, and " shoo " out the invaders by means of
waving cloths or fly- whisks. But the flies were always
masters of the situation, owing to the fact that the
door of the house opened directly into the kitchen,
so that everyone entering was accompanied by a
battalion of these small nuisances. Outside the mos-
quitoes were extremely active just before rain, and
settled on my face and hands, biting viciously, if I
ventured forth unprotected by a gauze veil. The poor
cow used to retreat to the barn in order to escape
from them ; and though Mr. Gibson made a " smudge "
for his horses (a kind of bonfire constructed to give out
clouds of smoke), yet the tortured animals were driven
nearly mad one day, and tore about the field, kicking
up their heels in vain attempts to escape their tor-
mentors. Mr. Blake, a young Englishman, who was
engaged in a fencing contract for the Company that
had organised the farms in this district, told me that
A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
on one occasion he had had a terrible experience with
mosquitoes. He was riding through a thinly popu-
lated district, and the insects rose in swarms, settling
on him and his horse, neither man nor beast being
protected in any way. The torture of the innunn T-
able bites was quite indescribable, and both nearly
went mad with pain, the horse galloping along blindly.
Fortunately Mr. Blake came across a lonely farm, and
he rushed into the house without ceremony to implore
relief. The woman gave him a paste of baking powd r
to smear over the bites, and provided him with a \ il
and gloves, helping him to cover his horse with old
sacks, and he rode on his way with a badly swollen
face and neck. He said that he was thankful to 1
escaped so easily, as an acquaintance, who was obliged
to spend the night in the open, got blood-poisoning
from this cause, and hovered between life and death
for some time after he reached UK hospital.
Such experiences are not likely to occur to any
woman, and, moreover, the mosquitoes decrease ap-
preciably as soon as land is opened up to cultivation.
On my first ev-nin^ at th- tarm I was given a lesson
in milking the cow, luckily a very quiet animal, as I
that my amatmi t fforts must have worried her
considerably at first. She behaved, however, with
exemplary patience, yielding her milk willingly to my
A VISIT TO AN ALBERTA FARM 191
inexperienced fingers, and only once did she nearly
kick over the bucket. But, indeed, this was hardly
her fault, as the house-cat, which always took a great
interest in the milking operations, had on this occasion
suddenly leapt upon her back, startling her violently !
My hostess told me that she and her husband had
had a terrible time in getting to their farm in March.
They had set off from a town sixteen miles away,
Mr. Gibson driving his greys in the waggon, that was
loaded with their household goods, when a snowstorm
came on and they were nearly lost on the prairie.
She said that it was almost by a miracle that they
found a track that led them to a farm, where they
were obliged to stay until the snow allowed them to
proceed. When they reached their own house at
last, they found it bitterly cold work camping in an
unused dwelling, and it took them some time to haul
the rest of their belongings sixteen miles across the
snow to their new residence. Unfortunately, the water
in the well was so bad that both got ill from using
it, and though the Company had promised to bore
another well, yet during my visit in August the job
had not yet been put in hand, and all the water had to
be carried from a neighbouring farm, Mr. Gibson filling
two big barrels at a time, which we used for ourselves
and the animals with a certain amount of economy.
192 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
On the morning after my arrival I was awak< -nrd by
the sound of loud talking, and found th.it 1 had si. -pi
till the abnormally late hour (on a prairie farm, at all
events) of seven o*clock. It was pouring with rain,
sheets of water descending, and the vast grey
all around looked rather depressing. While I
hastily dressing, Mrs. Gibson knocked at my door
to say that she was called away to a poor neighbour
who was just about to become a mother, and her
husband was putting the mare into the buggy in
to drive her over. Neither of them had had any
breakfast, but of course I promised that coffee, por-
ridge, toast, and bacon should be ready wln-n th.-v
came back. It was such a pleasure to feel that I
could be of some use, and when they return* d. wrt
and hungry, about nine o'clock, they were d< -lighted
to find a hot meal awaiting tln-m in a tidy kit< li n.
Shortly after breakfast the fanner r.
Mrs. Gibson, who had had nursing to go
again U) hi- wilr, and my hostess put on her divided
riding-skirt, and was wrapped up in a long yell\v
her," tiring a wonll.-n < ap on to h r h-ad. Thru
she mounted Nan- v ,m<! d off to her work ot
mercy in the pouring rain, and it was five o'clock in
tlir altrrnoon bx-ioiv >hr cam lurk, very tired with
all that shr had gone through. '1 hough ti
A VISIT TO AN ALBERTA FARM 193
rain and to spare coming down from the heavens that
morning, yet my host had to go off with his team to haul
water, and I found that I had plenty to do with washing
up the breakfast things and getting dinner ready. I
made rissoles from some remains of beef, serving
them with a sauce, which I looked upon as rather
an achievement; mashed potatoes, a salad, a sub-
stantial pudding, and coffee completed the repast,
which Mr. Gibson and I much appreciated when he
came in from his work.
As Mrs. Gibson went off daily after breakfast to
play the good Samaritan, my " home-help " experiences
came in most usefully, and I felt proud at being able
to assist my hostess, who otherwise would have been
decidedly overworked.
It was surprising how much I found to do in the
little house, but the preparing of meals and the wash-
ing up afterwards, the scalding of the many parts of
the separator, the sweeping and cleaning of the rooms,
the laundry-work, and so on, all took time. Of course
I was not nearly as quick as my hostess, nor did I
know where to lay my hand on everything, not having
had, as yet, half enough of the " practice that
makes perfect " ; and I felt, by no means for the
first time, how invaluable a course in some English
training college would have been to me during my tour.
N
194 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
In Great Britain people do not always appreciate the
incessant work incumbent on all women who run a
household unaided on a prairie farm or a ranch, but
I believe that an experience such as the following is
extremely rare. A girl came from a comfortable
English home to a brother who was ranching in
Alberta, and on board her smart clothes aroused
the attention of an acquaintance of mine. This lady
knew the owners of a neighbouring ranch and made
a few inquiries as to the brother and his residence.
"Poor girl!" was the reply. " She little knows
that young Roberts lives in a perfect hovel. He
does nothing all day long but loaf round with a
gun, and he is so terribly lazy that he doesn't cvm
trouble to cook his porridge, but eats the oatmeal
raw!"
Has he horses ? " asked my informant, " because
Miss Roberts tells me that she has brought out a
brand new habit."
"Yes, he has two horses, but so far he h
broken them in, and they run wild more r
less."
I was not surprised to hear that Miss Roberts'
visit to her brother was of the shortest duration, and
ir that for the rest of her days she will drpict
ranch life in Canada as a terrible- God-forsaken exist-
A VISIT TO AN ALBERTA FARM 195
ence, and will do her utmost to dissuade any girl
from trying it.
On the other hand, I travelled home with another
English girl, who had also been ranching with a
brother, and in her own words was " just crazy " to
return to the prairie.
" But a girl must be prepared for shocks if
she goes out to Canada," she remarked; and on my
inquiry as to what kind of " shock " she was alluding
to, she said,
"Oh, think of it ! A man will come in with a great
mass of raw meat, and just dump it down in the
kitchen, and very likely say that he has no time to
cut it up at present, but will come in later. That
sort of thing is terribly trying to the nerves just at
first."
Personally I thought that I should not complain
of ranch life if no worse " shocks " were to be appre-
hended than this.
Now and again we had our excitements. One
evening a badger ran past, and Mr. Gibson raced after
it, calling to his wife to bring up his rook-rifle, but
the animal got off scot free. It is supposed to make
away with the fowls, as do the coyotes, which the
big deerhound would wildly chase if he sighted them
on the prairie, and he was particularly quick in
196 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
pouncing upon unwary gophers, the little creatures
taking too heavy a toll of the wheat for the farmer
to regard them with a favourable eye.
On Sunday, the Day of Rest, we all got up late
and sat talking over our breakfast, but none of us
were in good spirits, as there had been a hard frost
during the night (it was only August 27th), and the
Gibsons feared for their crops. The day was superb,
and merely to breathe in the air gave me a feeling
of exultation that I was alive, but the fact remain* l
that though so far the wheat and oats were spa
yet the potatoes must be dug up at once, losing ]>< -i !
a third of their marketable value, as they had not
nearly reached maturity. And as the grain was by
no means ripe, if these frosts continued there would be
no harvest this year for my friends.
Perhaps it was a good thing that Mrs. Gibson had
to go off to her patient, so that all of us were busy until
a late dinner, after which we bumped across thi j.niirif
in the waggon to have tea with some nice neighbours.
Here the men discussed the burning question of
"frosted" crops, but we shook off the fet-lin:
depression that was hanging over us, and Mr. Gibson
and his neighbour arranged to go off to the coal-mine
with thrir t-ams in order to get that necessary of life
for th<-ir respective households.
It svas a fcri-at uiuh-i taking a^ the mine wa^> thirty-
A VISIT TO AN ALBERTA FARM 197
eight miles off, involving an absence of at least two
days, and in wet weather the trail to it was practically
impassable. Mrs. Gibson and I packed up a goodly
supply of food for her husband. We made sand-
wiches of beef and potted shrimp paste ; bread,
butter, salt, tea, sugar, oranges, canned fruit, slices
of meat, cake, matches, and cigarettes were all thought
of, as well as water, knife, fork, spoon, plate and cup,
soap and towels. At last everything was ready, and
both of us felt a little depressed as the big greys passed
out of the gate along the winding trail in the wake
of the neighbour's team. It was a perfect evening,
and that night the Northern Lights were wonderfully
brilliant, forming a great arc and streaming across
the sky like search-lights, throbbing and pulsating as
they changed their form. I sat outside until it was
time to go to bed, working busily at turning a bowl
of cream into butter by means of an egg-whisk, rather
a lengthy operation, and listening to the howl of the
coyote, which is much akin to the heartrending yell
of the jackal of the East.
Next day we were short of water, but relied on the
good services of Mr. Blake and his team, our spirits
being somewhat dashed when we learnt that the
aforesaid horses had wandered off over the prairie
and were nowhere to be found. Their master would
have given his folks at home a decided shock if they
198 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
had seen him in working kit as I did at our first meet-
ing. He was carrying a couple of pails, and his mud-
encrusted boots, his trousers of the baggiest Canadian
cut, his shirt in need of the wash-tub, and an old cow-
boy hat jammed on to a mass of fair hair that no
barber had touched for many a month, concealed
from my eyes the English gentleman that lay beneath,
until he removed his hat and spoke. When we got
frinidly I took a snapshot of him in this costume
to amuse his mother in the Old Country or would
it make her sigh ? He was only twenty-two, and
was a proof of the openings that Canada offers to tin-
man with brains and ready hands. He had depended
solely on his own exertions from the day he had lam led,
had done any work that offered its* If, was ii"\v
"making good money," and would probably soon
be taking up a big fencing contract with a gang of
men under him.
But to return to the water question. The day
was hot, and the mare, the cow, and tin- poultry
up to the house for drink, and Mrs. Gibson pun
a bucket from the well, thinking that i* -ih .i\* tin-
animals might stave off tin ir craving with it. It
was yellow with a scum u|><>n it, and though the cow
came up to it twice, sniffing loudly, yet sin- ti:
away in di^u>t, ln-r example- lx-ing fnllnwed by the
mare and even the hens. Mr. P.lake apj>cared at this
A VISIT TO AN ALBERTA FARM 199
crisis, saying that he was about to draw water for us
from a certain stream on a farm close by, and we
tipped the well produce down a deep badger-hole
that acted the part of a kitchen sink to the establish-
ment, and carrying pails and jugs followed in his wake.
There were two barbed-wire fences between us and
our goal, and in my haste I did not flatten myself
out sufficiently as I wriggled under them, my error
resulting in disastrous consequences to my dress. We
got water and to spare for all our stock, and filled
every receptacle in the house as well, and on the
day after, Mr. Gibson and his greys were sighted
at some distance off, and soon were with us, both
master and horses looking tired and travel-stained,
but so glad to be at home again. My hostess and I
had surpassed ourselves with our culinary efforts, and
the midday meal was a great success.
I felt as if I were leaving a bit of England when I
said good-bye to all my friends, the human beings and
the animals, and it was with much regret that I heard
later from Mrs. Gibson that their wheat had been
" frosted," and that they were giving up the farm and
seeking their fortune elsewhere. It seemed hard that
this was the result of their first year of married life,
but both husband and wife are optimists, and have
made a fresh start in a locality where apparently the
crops are never ruined by " Jack Frost."
CHAPTER XI
AT WORK IN A TOWN
IT was a bright morning early in September \vh n I
was deposited on the platform of a prairie town very
much "on the make," and as I made my way out of
the station, carrying my " grip," building was going
on in all directions, and there was an atmosphci
movement and progress around me. The lit* --giving air
blew across hundreds of miles of land, cither golden
with grain or waiting for the plough of the settler, an
air that tempts those who breathe it to dare the
apparently impossible, and to accomplish such feats
as throwing railway lines across mighty chains of
mountains. As a man once said to me, " You can't
get the ' blues * on the prairie," and though I do not
altogether agree with him as regards the women,
there is much truth in it for th< m, -n.
By this time I knew that I could always earn my
bread in the Dominion, and th< knowledge gave in-
a pleasing s< ; ;:id j* -iul-n< < -. v TV different from
my earlier feeling of helplessness, and as a first step
in seeking \v<>rk I ;isk-d my way t> th.- V.\\ .< \.
AT WORK IN A TOWN 201
Hostel. I was soon being interviewed by a most
kindly Secretary, and said that I wanted a post in the
town as home-help, but that I could not claim to be
very experienced. This remark she paid no attention
to whatever, as I heard her say through the telephone
to a lady who needed a " girl," that " a most capable
and competent Englishwoman had just come into the
hostel ! "
The lady wished to engage my services then and
there, but I thought it better to have a personal
interview, and offered to go and see her, finding my
way with some difficulty to her home in a new resi-
dential quarter, where nice-looking wooden houses
were being run up in all directions on the prairie.
Mrs. Madden, as I will dub her, was a pretty little
woman, and had been only three days in her new
home. She was an embodiment of nervous activity,
as are so many in this country, but, according to her
own account, a bad cook, and she hoped that I would
take that part of the work off her shoulders.
I began on the subject of wages, and asked for
twenty dollars (4) a month. To this she demurred,
saying, that as all the heavy washing went to a laundry,
she could only give fifteen (3). As I was always
handicapped in my hunt for work by my inability to
stay any length of time in a post, and was naturally
202 A HOME HELP IN CANADA
anxious to be fair to my employers, I seized on this as
a good excuse for leaving at the end of a fortnight.
Accordingly I said that I considered I was worth twenty
dollars a month, but would stay with her at fifteen
for a couple of weeks as a " temporary," if she cared
to take me on those terms.
So great was the demand for domestic labour, and
so scanty was the supply in that district, that *h.-
closed with me at once, refused to let me return to
the Y.W.C.A. for my belongings, but " 'phoned " to
the station for an express agent to bring them, and
set me to work in removing paint from the glass-doors
of various cabinets.
The house was well planned and airy, with a good
living-room, dining-room, and kitchen on the ground-
floor, three bedrooms above, and underneath the
building a large cellar lit by a window. Here was the
furnace to heat the house in wint.-r. .m<l here wood,
coal, and stores were kept. No w 1 as yet been
laid on, and men came round in a tank-cart at intei
to fill a big cistern by the back-door, while there was
a receptacle for rain-water in the cellar. This, at
present, *M n.-.irly empty, and we had to use all tin-
water with the utmost care, as, owing to the dry
summer, the. town was short of this necessity of life.
My mistress told me that what there was was so had
AT WORK IN A TOWN 203
that typhoid was a frequent visitor here, and the
newspapers warned the residents to boil the water
even for washing purposes.
I saw from the first moment that I was not to be
" one of the family " in any way, and very soon Mrs.
Madden asked me my Christian name, wishing to call
me by it/' as they do the servants in England ! " For
a moment I was taken aback, as hitherto I had always
been addressed as Miss Sykes ; and feeling that I really
could not submit to being ordered about by my real
name, I answered, " Please call me Ellen," and from
morning till night that name resounded from bedroom
to basement.
As there was no servant's room in the house, I was
it into the prettily furnished guest-chamber, she
and I dragging a big carpet upstairs, which we laid
on the floor with much effort ; and then curtains and
a bedspread were brought, and I was housed in luxury.
After this it was time to get supper ready scones,
tinned shrimps, done up with a white sauce and served
on biscuits, a fruit-salad, and tea. I laid the dining-
room table for two, and wondered whether I was to
partake of my meals in the kitchen, as I had heard
that home-helps in the towns were usually required
to do so. Of course I said nothing, but awaited
developments, and Mrs. Madden, who was a curious
204 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
mixture of kindness coupled with a desire to get
the last cent's worth of work out of anyone wlim
she employed, came into the kitchen and said, " I
don't like to think of you eating your meals in here,
so you may have them in tin- dining-room when we
have finished." I thanked her, and she ordered break-
fast to be ready at " half-past seven o'clock sharp " on
the morrow, and went off to feed with her husband.
Thus began a decidedly lonely fortnight, though
my mistress worked along with me in the mornings,
and soon gave me various interesting confidences
about herself and her relatives ; but tin- master <>f the
establishment never addressed a word to me, save
that occasionally he would come into the kitchen -
to intimate that he wished breakfast to be sci
without delay. Mrs. Madden's great friend, who
came daily to the house with her nice little boy, and
spent hours there, used to enter by the kitrhen door,
sweeping past me with a cold unseeing gaze, and
the only really rude Canadian that I encountered on
all my travels. I used to think sometime* that a
British girl would have been wretched, as, barring
my own mistress, I spoke to hardly anyone, save
perhaps to exchange a "good-day " with the ti\i
men's boys. It reminded me of a picture in Punch
years ago, in win. h a \\V>t Knd young lady is in-
AT WORK IN A TOWN 205
structing some factory girls how to behave in society.
She is telling them that no lady ever speaks to a man
unless he is introduced to her, and one of them re-
marks, " Yes, miss, we know it, and we've always
felt so sorry for you ! "
The town itself was not interesting, save as a mani-
festation of Canadian energy, but here and elsewhere
I was struck by the practical drinking-fountains.
Unlike those in England, none of them had the un-
hygienic arrangement of a drinking-cup, but by press-
ing a metal ring the water bubbled up out of a pedestal,
ending in a kind of vase, and could be drunk without
fear of infection.
Occasionally I would take snapshots of any specially
fine team working on the prairie round the town, and
the owners were always anxious to " pose " for me,
and sometimes begged for copies of their portraits.
One man asked for four prints of his horses ; but when
I laughingly replied that I could only afford to give
him one, he said earnestly, " Oh, you shan't be the
loser. I'll pay up honest whatever you ask. " Having,
however, no mind to enter into commercial dealings
with this chance acquaintance, I compromised with a
gift of two photos, which I duly despatched to an
address that he gave me.
On my first morning I was in the kitchen at half-
206 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
past six, and soon had porridge, toast, and coffee under
way. The meal was laid as elaborately as in any
English household with an embroidered table-centre, on
which were flowers or a plant, and a good many small
silver salt- and pepper-pots, and, what I greatly dis-
liked, a little silver bell. This is what happened one
day as I waited in the kitchen, not daring to go up-
stairs to make the beds and tidy the rooms. Tin kit 1
tinkle I tinkle 1 I passed into the pantry and pushed
open the swing-door into the dining-room. ** Ellen,
have you made any more toast ? " my mistress
asked, and I answered in the affirmative, returning with
what I had prepared for my own meal, and then
retired.
Tinkle ! tinkle ! tinkle ! again resounded. This was
to show me the remains of what looked like grub> in
the porridge 1 I had told Mrs. Madden that the oat-
meal was musty, but she had paid n< heed to my
words until brought up short, as it wort, with dis-
agreeable facts. Tinklr ! tinkle ! tinkle ! A.uain 1
entered the dining-room, to be ordered to bring some
hot water Id the coffee. We usually had tln> when
Mr. Madden was at home, a ; from the
eternal tea, and he told his wife to learn fi< -in me how
to mtk it, as my brew was the best he had ever
drunk in a private house. My simple recipe was to
AT WORK IN A TOWN 207
put plenty of coffee into the pot, many Canadians only
using the same quantity that they would if making
tea, and I always added a pinch of salt to bring out
the flavour.
Tinkle ! tinkle ! tinkle ! This was the fourth time,
and I felt slightly ruffled. " Ellen, Mr. Madden has
a fancy for a couple of eggs. Mind you boil them very
lightly."
In a few moments the eggs were cooked and brought
into the dining-room, and I again retired, only to hear
an enraged and prolonged roulade of tinkling. What
could it be this time ? I hastened in, to hear in irate
tones from my mistress, " Ellen, you have boiled those
eggs too hard. You must do some more. Get the
sand-glass and take them out of the saucepan the very
second that the last grain of sand has run through."
This I did, and a lull ensued, during which I made
myself some toast for my own breakfast.
At first I was supposed to pour fresh water on to
the tea-leaves that had been drained by the Maddens,
who usually sat some time over their meals ; but I
soon rebelled, saying that I did not wish to start
" Canadian indigestion." Mrs. Madden tried to com-
promise by showing me a packet of cooking soda, and
telling me to partake of it if I felt any pangs. On
this point, however, I stood firm, saying that my aim
208 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
was prevention, not cure, and was allowed to make
a fresh brew of tea for myself at each meal !
The house needed many finishing touches, and the
day after my arrival I was set to work at waxing the
floor of the hall and large living-room. The hard
wood was covered with dirty marks left by the work-
men, and I was provided with a tin of polishing
and various rags, and was instructed to rub out the
stains, working hard at them with the tips of my
fingers. To encourage me, Mrs. Madden said that
had made extremely slow progress with the \\ rk on
the previous day, and had hurt her naiK badly. This
I quite believed after a few moments, and asked for
a scrubbing-brush. Though my mistress was
that it would be of no use, I said that I should like to
try it, and to her surprise it answered admirably. I
made capital progress, went up several pegs in her
esteem, and was proud to have given a tip to the
omniscient Canadian woman !
In our agreement I was to have some time to my
every afternoon, but as my mistress had a larp t. a-
party on my second day, I was let off for an hour be
tin- one o'clock repast, and called at th- Y.W.C.A. to
thank the Secretary for helping me to find w.-rk, and
from her surprised pleasure I inferred that not many
had the grace to follow my example. She
AT WORK IN A TOWN 209
anxious for me to become an amateur nurse -to an
invalid, as that post was to be had with high pay, and
was good enough to say that my appearance was
in my favour. I said that I should greatly dislike
nursing, but should be glad to hear of a temporary
job on the prairie in a fortnight's time. She gladly
agreed to help me, but thought that I was very mis-
guided to refuse the nursing post, saying that it would
have been a social rise for me as well as giving me
increased wages.
One of the drawbacks of my new situation was
the constant hunting for wood to feed the stove, as
no coal was used at first. When the house was built,
all the odds and ends of " lumber " were thrown in
a great heap into the basement, and from here I had
to pick out short lengths. I would also go searching
round the house on the same errand, and often had
to make an expedition during the preparation of a
meal, so quickly were these thin bits of wood burnt
up. Later on, some sacks of coal arrived, and things
were easier, though I had to break up the huge blocks
with an axe before I could use them. After her tea-
party, at which I had waited, and carried in relays
of thin bread and butter, my mistress instructed me
to prepare a curious sort of " resurrection pie " for
supper. Layers of biscuit-crumbs, tomato, tinned
210 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
Indian corn, cold sliced potatoes, and pieces of hard
boiled egg, were put into a fire-proof dish that was
placed in the oven, and wanned through ; and Mr.
Madden arrived hungry from his office to sit down
to this unsubstantial repast, the meals in this estab-
lishment being often of a Barmecide character.
Next day I had the fatiguing task of washing out
the rooms upstairs, no light work for me, and whirh
started a backache that lasted the whole time that I
stayed with Mrs. Madden, and after the midday wa>h-
up I asked for a couple of hours to myself as I t-lt
extremely tired, the effects of a morning on my knees
in company with the wash-pail, When thus was
granted, I inquired whether my mistress were not
going to have a rest herself, as she had been on tin-
" go " the whole time, hammering up curtains, work-
ing at her sewing-machine, and so on. " Oh dear no,
she never did such a thing," and there was more th.m
;nge of contempt in her voice. She n< -v -r could
sit still if she felt that therv was anything to be d
and was, in that respect, like her mother. As >!
went on to say that this lady \v.is a martyr to a t. mbl.
form of indigestion that prevented her from eating
lie were ever agitated, and that M-nt her to bed
and into the hands of the doctor for weeks at
time, I " forgot my place," as the servants say,
AT WORK IN A TOWN 211
told my mistress to take warning, or she might be in
the same plight before long.
Later on, when I was plucking and preparing a
couple of wild ducks, I was amused to observe the deep
interest that Mrs. Madden took in my operations.
She said that the friend who had shot these had sent
her a brace the year before, but that as neither she nor
her " girl " knew how to deal with them she had buried
them ! " But," she said with pride, " I know that
they have to be cleaned. I am not like a friend of
mine who cooked them with everything inside ! "
Yet, though her culinary skill was small, she was a
notable housewife in other respects, and would detect
in a moment any deficiency in my work. On one
occasion, when I was cleaning all the rooms on the
ground floor, and had worked, as I imagined, most
conscientiously, her eagle eye discovered that I had
omitted to dust the rungs of the dining-room chairs.
As a rule, I had finished my work about half-past
three or four, but even when I got upstairs I had to
make my bed and tidy my room, then change my
dress, so sometimes it happened that I could not get
out till five o'clock, and had to walk my hardest if I
went to the Post Office for letters, as I had to be back
by six. Often I would make for a retired part of the
prairie, and rest in the sunshine, until it was time to
212 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
return to the " House of Bondage," as I whimsically
called it. Before I went to bed I always cleared
out the stove, threw away tin ashes, and laid the
fire ready for the morning ; then I had to wipe the
stove all over with a special cloth, wash the kitrhm
table, sweep the dove-grey painted floor, and lastly
put the empty milk bottles between the b i. k door and
the wire-screen, with a ticket to denote the amount
needed on the morrow. Usually I stepped out upon
the prairie to drink in a few full breaths, and to 1
a look at the harvest moon riding like a shield of
burnished gold on a purple velvet sky, before I en pt
upstairs to bed.
Saturday is, of course, always a day of cleaning
up everywhere, but as the kitchen of this house had
not been touched since the workmen vacated it, I
had my work cut out in scrubbing the floor of this
room, together with the pantry, and the steps and
passage leading to the back door. Scrub away as
1 might, it seemed impossible to get the light (
flooring clean, until I used a patent soap that cleai
like magii-, though probably it was not the best thing
in the world for the paint. My back ached badly
when this task was through, but Mrs. Madden did
not allow me to rest for a moment, sending me to
wipe down the staircase. " Be careful to do the corners
AT WORE IN A TOWN 213
of the steps, and pass the cloth between each rung
of the banisters, Ellen," was her injunction, but she
called me off in the middle of the work, as it was high
time to light the stove again, to peel and cook
potatoes, get the steak ready, and put the Sunday
roast into the oven.
Though my mistress was nice to me in her way,
and likeable, yet she was a born " hustler," and wanted
everything to be done at top-speed, never allowing
sufficient time for the preparation of the midday
meal, for example, which always had to be got ready
" full steam ahead." When I was working away at one
task, she would rush in to urge me to hasten in order
to begin on something else in fact, she entirely lacked
the element of repose. She did her best to hurry me
over my meals, but I remonstrated, saying that I
positively must be allowed fifteen or twenty minutes
in which to eat them quietly, and she had to give in.
When I went, later, to see the Secretary of the
Y.W.C.A. about another post, she asked me to tell
her in confidence my opinion of Mrs. Madden as an
employer ; and I said, that though kind, she was such
a taskmistress that she would have no mercy on
anyone slow or delicate, and I felt that her situation
was only suited to a robust girl, blessed with .a phleg-
matic temperament.
214 A HOMTMIFT.P IX r. \\.\D.\
At last Sunday arrived, but it was by no m TU
Day of Rest to the home-help. As there were to be
an afternoon tea-party and a late dinner-party, I
asked whether I could go to morning church ; but
my employers did not get down to breakfast till t -n
o'clock (of course I had my breakfast in the kitc.h.-n
on this occasion before they appeared), it was im-
possible for me to reach the church until th
was more than half done. A young man, who acted
as verger, beckoned me to a chair beside his. just inside-
the door, took my parasol from me, and found me the
place in a hymn-book ; and on the following Sin
n I made my appearance even later, ii 1 me
with a reproachful smile, when I again sank int< the
same seat. The congregation was composed mostly
of men, and these seemed to be nearly all of th< sh"j>-
keeping and labouring classes. There was not an old
man to be seen among them, and they looked thin,
eager-eyed, and restless, as if they never slept their
fill ; and this I can well believe. labour fn-in
the iir>t glint of dawn to the last ray of daylight during
tin- summer months. The winter comes as a merciful
period of hibernation, when, as a farmer said to in- -,
M \Ve all lie abed."
Directly I got back from church I was set to dust
the stairs, to polish the mirrors, clean the Mhvr, and
so on; and it was after three o'clock that I was able
AT WORK IN A TOWN 215
to partake 'of a meal of potatoes and beans, washed
down with a cup of tea. All our efforts were concen-
trated on the tea- and supper-parties, and I cut relays
of lettuce sandwiches for the former, and made a
trifle, among other things, for the latter. The guests
came about eight o'clock, and certainly Mrs. Madden 's
dinner-table, which she laid herself, looked charming,
with its embroidered cloths, a big bowl of flowers,
pretty china, silver, and cut-glass. I waited on the
guests, changed the plates, and ate " snacks " of food
myself in the kitchen in the intervals of washing up.
It was a long and wearisome job to wash and dry and
put away everything ; and when that was done at last
I must lay the fire for the morrow, wipe the stove, and
sweep out the kitchen. It was past eleven o'clock
when I went to bed, thoroughly tired out, and
wishing that something might occur to prevent Mr.
Madden requiring his breakfast at half-past seven
next day.
Whilst in Canada I acquired the useful accomplish-
ment of being able to call myself at any hour, and
consequently was never late with the breakfast. But
my slumbers were by no means as profound as they
usually are indeed, I often woke up two or three
times during the night, so anxious was I not to over-
sleep myself and owing to this I seldom felt really
rested, and when I was at any hotel between my posts
216 A HOME HELP IN CANADA
I would " sleep the clock round " to make up. An
alarum clock would have been a help, but, as it was,
the prairie air took away all fatigue when I was up
and doing, and I will now jot down from my diary
what I did on a " full " day.
I had breakfast ready by half-past seven, and when
the things were washed up and put away, Mrs. Maddm,
who loved all household ** chores " save cooking,
began to wash up a month's personal clothing. Th<
I was not allowed to take my share of this, yet I was
kept fully employed in running up and down the si
basement stairs with pails of water, cracking up big
blocks of coal to fill the coal-box, and making up a
hot fire from its contents. In the intervals I had t>
wipe over all the woodwork of the dining-room, wax
and polish the staircase, also make a "layer " cak .
By this time the clothes were ready to hang out on
the line, and before I had finished fastening thrm up
with pegs, I must peel the potatoes, put the nu at and
pudding into the oven, and lay the lunch -table. Ti
was a special cloth for each meal, and after tl.
everything was cleared away, and a plant or a bowl
of flowers placed on the polished table. On this par-
ticular day, when the lunch (I got none till half-past
one), was disposed of, and the washing-pan and table
scoured, I had to wash the kitchen floor, as a giv.u
deal of c.-al-dust had got sprinkled about (how often
AT WORK IN A TOWN 217
did I wish that the aforesaid floor had not been of so
delicate a grey that it showed every mark !), and
bring in all the clothes, dry by this time, as a high
wind was blowing. It was nearly five o'clock before
I had done my room, changed my working dress, and
was ready to enjoy my one hour " off " during that
day. Throughout Canada the home-help is always
free after she has cleared away supper and tidied up the
kitchen, and I felt decidedly " put upon " later on when
my mistress, before going forth to spend the evening
with friends, told me to ice the cake that I had made,
and also to sprinkle the big basketful of clothes, and
roll them up tightly in readiness for the morrow's
ironing. I made no remark, though I was both tired
and cross ; but after I had operated upon seventy-five
articles, not counting handkerchiefs and such little
things, my anger rose, and when I got upstairs after a
day's work that had lasted from half -past six in the
morning to half-past ten at night, and during which
I had really only had an hour to myself, I de-
termined to have " words with the missus " on the
morrow 1
Accordingly, after breakfast next day, I laid the
matter before her. She said that a general servant
must expect to have lots to do.
I answered that I was a home-help, and as such was
in a different category.
2i8 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
She instantly changed her ground at this, and de-
manded if she had ever treated me as she would treat
a general servant ? She had met m< half-way.
considered, and had she ever ne to work in the
evening until now ?
I answered to the last question, " No; but what has
occurred once may happen again."
Upon this our discussion ended, but I found that I
had improved my position by standing up f<>r my
;hts." Mrs. Madden volunteered to help me with
tin midday wash-up, asked me to have a cup of
afternoon tea, and offered to give me a ticket for a
Conservative meeting that evening (she and I were
both keenly interested in the Reciprocity qm-stinn),
and during the rest of my stay behaved far more
considerately to me. Mentioning Reciprocity reminds
me of an Englishman who came to the house with
groceries while I was there. Mrs. Madden, \\h>
in the kitchen, remarked on the Conservative b
he wore in his button-hole. " I should just think I
am for the Conservat i- said. "It is Pro I
that has turned me and ever so many of my rn
nut nf Britain, and I say," and his tone was furious,
" that every Enjjli^hm.in who votes for Reciprocity
1 t. lx- ham
Mr. Madden had been from home for a couple of
AT WORK IN A TOWN 219
days, and I had done up a dish of fried potatoes and
eggs for Mrs. Madden and myself for supper. The fire
was just going out, and I was waiting for my mistress
to vacate the dining-room in my favour, when the
telephone bell rang loudly. Mrs. Madden went to
hear the message, and returned with a glad face to
say that her husband was coming back unexpectedly,
and would be at the house in half anjiour's time. I
have sometimes read in a novel (not one written by
a domestic, if any such exists), that "master's" home-
coming is a source of unmixed pleasure to his servants,
who joyously rush to and fro at their mistress's bid-
ding to have everything in order against his return.
Ellen, I fear, was no faithful handmaid of this type.
She had been working hard all day, had had nothing
since her dinner, and now would probably be deprived
of her supper for an indefinite period. The stove had
to be made up a process that involved descents into
the cellar for coal and wood bacon had to be sliced
and fried, eggs poached, toast made, water boiled for
a fresh brew of tea, and so on. She felt rather gloomy,
but things took on a brighter hue when her mistress
said that she had better have her meal at once in the
kitchen, after which she was ready to receive
" master " and his orders for an extra early breakfast
with equanimity !
There were several houses in course of construction
220 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
in this suburb of the rapidly-growing prairie town,
and Mrs. Madden viewed with a covetous eye the solid
little blocks of wood that were left scattered round
them when the workmen went home. Twice she
asked me in the politest way whether I would accom-
pany her at night to one or other of these residences,
and we carried a big sack, which we filled with < -In inks
of wood, just the right size to feed the stove, and
which saved me from many a hunt in tin* a-llar. My
conscience, however, was by no means easy on these
expeditions, though there was a sense of adventure
as we stumbled along in the starlight, picking our
way as best we could among the holes and uneven
places on the short grass. Mrs. Madden had rnn.ukfd
that all these bits of wood that tin- builders rejected
were really the property of the owner of the house,
and would finally be deposited in his basement, as
they had been in ours ; and her excuse for taking
th.-m was that she was quite sun- that others had
annexed her blocks of wood, but I did not consider
this at all a convincing reason. She nearly came to
grief one evening, as she boldly went inside one of these
h. i It-built residences, and in the darkness could not
see that the room was only partially floored, and >h<
just saved herself by her extraordinary quickness,
from falling through a hole into the basement below, .t
fall that probably would have resulted in a In "ken
AT WORK IN A TOWN 221
Though I was only a fortnight in Mrs. Madden's
employ, yet the time seemed very long, and it was
with a feeling of joyful relief that I woke up on the
morning of my last day in her service. I had had
while with her a sensation of being utterly friendless,
such as I had not had anywhere else in Canada, and
when a lady in the town asked me through the tele-
phone whether I would take a situation with her, I
felt that one post in Newton had been quite enough.
It had left me with a tiresome backache, and on the
last day I had acquired many bruises by falling head-
long down the staircase, on which I had expended
much wax and " elbow grease " in polishing, and which
in consequence had become a most dangerous highway.
My parting with Mrs. Madden was friendly, for I
saw that from her point of view she had treated me
well. She knew that I was going the next day to a
farm on the prairie, and offered to put me up if I came
back through the town ; or, if I did not require a bed,
she said that she would be delighted to give me a
meal. With a kindly wish for my future success we
parted, and I turned my back on her pretty house
with very much the same feeling as if I had just escaped
out of a prison, eating my supper that evening with
the delightful consciousness that it would not be in-
terrupted by any tinkling silver bell !
CHAPTER XII
OPENINGS IN CANADA FOR EDUCATED WOMEN
THERE is work and to spare for the right type of
woman one who is robust, adaptable, and thoroughly
trained in some calling that is needed in a new country.
Very few on the wrong side of forty ought to try their
fortune across the Atlantic, because they are, as it
were, in the British groove, and will find it almost
impossible to fit into an entirely new environment.
Let me quote the words of a Canadian lady who has
done a great work for the English girl in the Dominion.
" Canada," she writes, " is essentially a country for
the young and strong, both mentally and physically,
as the cnideness of many things out here an- only
sources of amusement and provocative of
energy to overcome them to the buoyancy of the
young ; but to the woman turned forty, they are
burdens."
I hear often that British girls are not strong enough
for the life in Canada, but I do not hold at all with this
opinion. Young women who are experts at tennis,
hockey, or golf will do well there, if they will only lit
OPENINGS FOR EDUCATED WOMEN 223
themselves beforehand for the different existence that
they will have to lead.
If a girl has a comfortable post in Great Britain and
an assured future, perhaps she had better stay in the Old
Country ; and she who has spent her whole time in
playing games will be sadly disillusioned if she thinks
that her amateurish efforts will pass muster in a land
that has no use for the inefficient. There are hun-
dreds of girls at the present day who are living in
country parsonages, or whose fathers are retired
officers, professional or business men. What prospect
is there for many of these when the head of the family
passes away ? Far too often a poverty-stricken future
awaits them. Some, for lack of anything better, may
fill the already overstocked profession of governess,
which reminds me that a few days before I sent this
book to press, a friend told me that in answer to her
advertisement for a nursery-governess she had between
seventy to eighty replies !
Some of the girls that sent her those letters may
possibly end their days as pensioners of some charitable
society, or even and the cases are more numerous
than is usually believed in the workhouse.
Surely it would be better to stave off such a fate
while a girl is young, and can be trained for some pro-
fession that will ensure her a comfortable livelihood
224 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
and the opportunity of laying by for old age ? If
she has that dash of pluck and the pioneer spirit in
which our race has never been lacking, she will make
light of the hardships and discomforts inseparable from
life in a new country.
Her reward will be a wider outlook and more.
opportunities of "making good," than she would
probably have found in England, and after a time
she will share the legitimate pride of all Canadians
in this splendid part of the Empire. As a British
woman of this type said to me in Victoria, " I could
never go home again for good because everything
seems so poverty-stricken in England in comparison
with Canada. Out h- m all make our way, and
there isn't such a thing as a beggar in the country."
But whatever she undertakes, a girl mu>t not think
of coming out to the Dominion without a know-
ledge of cooking, washing, and so on, this l>
absolutely necessary in a country whn .nly livr
per cent, of thr \\. >mn have servants. She mu>t
also be smait in aj.j.raranrr, as that will trll .qieatly
in her favour wh n .-. kiiiK w>ik. An Engli>h 1.
living in a big Canadian town, t<>M UK th.it sin- always
kn w her own country-women by tin ir ill-hung sk
their badly-cut bl>iix-> f with a i^aj> 1- -jit and
:id then llj aj.j
OPENINGS FOR EDUCATED WOMEN 225
in strong contrast to the Canadian working woman
in her well-starched "waist," or neat cotton dress.
British girls make a great mistake when they think
that " anything will do " for an office.
HOME-HELPS
The one calling in which a girl can get immediate
employment is that of home-help, but I fear that
this occupation has not always been presented in
its true light. The mere words " Golden West "
teem with allurement, and there is a charm in the
idea of helping with the pioneer work of a new country.
Before I went to Canada I gathered from the litera-
ture treating of this subject, that I should probably
have riding or driving in the afternoons and that
there would be some social intercourse among the
neighbours, many of whom would be of my own class.
Nothing, or hardly anything, of this fell to my lot
in the five situations that I filled during the summer,
and maid-of-all-work as I was, I should have been
too tired to have enjoyed such distractions had I had
the chance of them. Canada is certainly the paradise
of the labouring classes, but the girl who goes by the
name of " lady " in the British Isles will find that her
culture is little if at all appreciated by her employers.
I also found that in the towns the home-help was treated
226 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
v merely as a servant, and was not in any way made
one of the family, even in the case of an Ei
clergyman's daughter, who was acting as nurse to
some children.
One of my mistresses told me that her former
companion, a nice-looking girl, usually played the part
of a wall-flower at the winter dances, and I was
astonished when she accounted for this by saying
that the men looked down upon her because she was
a home-help ; and later on, a lady confided to me that
she had filled this position before her marriage, and
begged me not to mention the fact.
Personally, I was treated almost as a guest wlu n
on the farms, but in two of my situations I was m;
to feel that I filled an inferior position, none of
visitors of either sex who came to the house
any notice of me, and, as a rule, I had to work fi
m- 'ruing till night without any time to cultivate
mind, and often without the privacy which is usualh
so priceless a possession to the educated woman.
Of course, owing to my lack of training, I did not get
through my work quickly, and it must also be re-
in* mbered that the life is gi -ally simplified. N
think that my experience would be corroboral
by the majority of hnme-helps throughout
Dominion, but, as exceptions prove the rule, I bdi<
OPENINGS FOR EDUCATED WOMEN 227
that on Vancouver Island, and in a few other places,
a woman may become a home-help without degene-
rating into a drudge, and will have the opportunity
of mixing on equal terms with her own class. In
support of this I will quote the words of a lady who
worked in that capacity on the Island for over a year.
She says : " If real ladies come here, and are young
and capable, willing to learn and ready to begin at
ten to twelve dollars a month (2 to 2, 8s.), they will
have a really good time, as there is a large Anglo-
Indian society here, and the girls are invited to all
the dances, picnics, and lawn-tennis. The idea is
for everyone to live a happy, healthy, outdoor life,
and, as Chinese servants demand exorbitant wages,
the residents are delighted to get lady-helps to assist
them, but they do not want ill-educated and un-
trained girls to enter their home-circles."
The following concerns two applicants of the
Colonial Intelligence League, who went to Western
Canada as home-helps :
"June 1912.
"We have been very fortunate in getting posts
at once. . . .
" We are going to do the cooking and the dining-
room. There are only three meals a day, and as there
is no meat or fish, the establishment being conducted on
228 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
strict vegetarian principles, there will be no really dirty
work.
"The house is heated with central heating, and
there is electric light everywhere. The cook's sahiry
is $35 a month (7), and the one who undertakes
the dining-room work will get $20 a month (4).
" We think ourselves extremely fortunate in getting
posts so quickly, and also to be with gentlefolk. We
must and will do our best to keep them. . . .
"It is a great pity that more of the upper classes do
not come out. There are certainly openings for all."
With the last words of the letter I am in complete
agreement, but unless a girl is really fond of domestic
work I should advise her to take the post of home-
help merely as a stepping-stone to something better,
which is certain to turn up if she be compeU-nt.
Let us now discuss some of the other openings
in Canada that might mm< n<l themselves to a
capable and energetic woman.
In every case, save that of home-help, the demand
for which is never ending, a woman nught to have
sufficient money to keep herself until she finds suit
work.
Teaching in the Government Elementary Schools
offers a fair prospect to a girl, who is already qualified
OPENINGS FOR EDUCATED WOMEN 229
in England, or who would be ready to go through a
training in Canada, and details can be obtained from
the office of the Board of Education at Whitehall.
The demand for teachers throughout the whole
Dominion far exceeds the supply, and the Deputy
Minister of Education for Alberta informed me that
he could give posts to some two hundred girls annually
in that one province, and had entered into an agree-
ment with our Board of Education, by which certain
British certificates held by girls would enable the
possessors to start teaching at once in the Dominion,
gaining their Canadian certificate later. But they
would be wise to go through a six weeks' course;
planned by the Minister, this entailing no expense
save their board and lodging and a few books.
The minimum salary is 125 per annum, but I
have lately read a budget of letters from English
girls, all in their first posts, and in each case the salary
was 132, and they were paying 3, 4$. a month for
their keep. Several of the letters said that the pros-
pects for teachers were far better in Canada than
at home, and certainly the social position is a good
one in the country, all the farms competing for the
honour of boarding the teachers.
The following is taken from the letter of one of the
girls helped by the Colonial Intelligence League :
230 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
" Winter of '1911.
" The authorities were exceedingly kind, and had
I not been in communication with you " (the repre-
sentative of the League in British Columbia), "would
have interested themselves in me, and found me a
post. . . .
" Everybody on the island is exceedingly pleasant,
and does everything possible to make my life happy.
There are eight children in the school, between the
ages of six and fourteen years, which makes the tea h-
ing a little complicated, but one soon gets used to it.
I am very fortunate to have got a post like this. . . .
I am boarding in a most comfortable house, and am
well looked after
Of course there are drawbacks. An English girl,
accustomed to plenty of friends at home, ma}- find
living on a lonely farm rather trying, for in many cases
there is no social li; VXT. Her pupils may be
under a dozen, and of all ages, but, as a rule, she will
find that they ' lit, and eager to learn.
never staying away from school if they can help it.
They may also consist of half a dozen nation
and >h- will have th- >pl ndid work of turning them
into loyal nti/rns <t tin- Km;
Behind the neat schoolhouse, over which the L'ni"ii
OPENINGS FOR EDUCATED WOMEN 231
Jack flies, there will most likely be a stable, for pro-
bably some of the children have to ride or drive long
distances, the Government, I was told, providing a
horse for the teacher if she has to board far from her
work. One Canadian ex-teacher told me that she had
had to drive five miles to her school in all weathers,
only passing two houses on her way; "but," she
added with a laugh, " I had the best social position
in the district, and the pick of all the husbands ! "
If the British girl " wins her spurs " in the country,
she will, in time, be eligible for a town school, with
higher pay, or she may find a position in one of the
Secondary Schools. In passing, it is well to note that
as all classes send their children to be educated at the
Government Schools, there is practically no demand
for governesses in the Dominion.
Nursing is another good opening for a girl who has
qualifications for this profession. But by this I
do not mean that nurses who have received their
training in England should come out. Unless these
latter possess a three years' General Hospital certificate,
they will not be admitted into the Canadian Nursing
Association ; and as the methods in use in the Do-
minion are in various instances different from those
in vogue in Britain, it is not to be wondered at that
Canadian doctors prefer to employ Canadian-trained
232 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
nurses. This, at least, was the case in Winnipeg,
Edmonton, and Calgary during my tour. But t
is a great demand for probationers, between the ages
of twenty-two and thirty-four. The work is hud
during the three years' course, but the girls are w< 11
looked after, carefully nursed if ill, and their future is
assured when the training is over 4 to 6 a w.-.-k
being given for private cases.
I cannot do better than quote from a letter sent
to me by an English girl who has gone through
one of the big hospitals in th :id has lately
married a Canadian doctor.
" The nurses serve two months as probationers, and
then have an entrance exam. If this is satisfactorily
passed, and the Lady Superint. -ndont considers the
girl likely to make a good nurse, she is rr<vi\vd into
the training school, signing a paper to the effect that
she will stay three years, unless prevented by illness.
. . . Hoard, lodging, and laundry are all provi
We had a verv m< Home, with a large reception-room
and library, and each class was allowed to ent itain
one night a week from eight o'clock to t.-n
on special occasions we wer pvn Lit- leave till
tw.-lve o'clock. As for oth.-r detractions, the day
nurses were off duty at 7.30 P.M., and could go when-
OPENINGS FOR EDUCATED WOMEN 233
they liked, provided they were in by 10 P.M., when
the Home was locked up. But the training is a hard
one, and social distractions after twelve hours' hard
work do not appeal to you as much as your bed !
" The training is an excellent one in every branch.
The hospital is very loyal to its graduates, and the
Lady Superintendent finds them posts when they first
leave the school. ... I consider that nurses are
better treated in Canada than in England, and it is
the Land of Opportunity for young people who are
willing to work, but it will only spell disaster to those
who go expecting to get something for nothing."
These last words ought to be taken to heart by
every girl who thinks of trying her fortune in the
Dominion.
Stenographers (i.e. shorthand writers and typists).
These are in demand throughout Western Canada, the
salaries ranging from 8 to 20 a month ; but as
Canadian girls go in much for this profession, with the
result that it is overstocked with indifferent typists,
the British woman must be thoroughly competent in
order to succeed. More than one man, however, told
me that he would take an English in preference to a
Canadian stenographer, as the former was, as a rule,
better educated all round, and could write a letter
234 A HOME-HFLP IN CANADA
from notes and take an intelligent interest in the
details of the business.
This letter from an applicant of the Colonial Intelli-
gence League, who has tried her fate in Western
Canada, is full of encouragement to the efficient :
"June 1912.
" I was only a week here when I started work as
stenographer at $55 a month (11), with the promise
of $60 to $65 later on (12 to 13). . . .
" Of course there is a great deal that I have to
learn, as Canadian business methods are very different
to those at home ; but in about a month, I think, I
shall have grasped these, and then I have been told
by various business men here that I shall have no
difficulty in getting $75 a month (15).
" There is a large demand for experienced steno-
graphers here. Any girl of average ability would
have no difficulty in getting a situation here within a
week of her arrival."
Journalism did not stiik me as a wry
opening save for a few who have special gifts for that
calling. I met one English girl who had supj
herself entirely for six \var> a> a j"Uinah>t, but she
told me that every now and a^ain she had been out
if wrk, and had had a hard tin. rlu-r ^a\v me
OPENINGS FOR EDUCATED WOMEN 235
the details of a day's work, which partly consisted in
constantly telephoning to hospitals and fire-stations
in order to report all accidents and fires, and also
running a " Personal and Social " column, reviewing
books, music, and the drama. The hours were long,
the strain continuous, and the average salary of the
rank and file was only about 10 a month, which seems
little enough when the printer, who sets up the type,
is often paid at the rate of i a day !
Dress also is a considerable item, as the journalist
is expected to mingle with the guests at social func-
tions, in order to describe the toilettes there dis-
played ; but one acquaintance told me that this part
of her work was so distasteful to her that she was
accustomed to mount into a gallery and make her
observations with the aid of opera-glasses.
Dressmaking and millinery are most profitable pro-
fessions for the expert, and from Toronto to Van-
couver I heard complaints as to the dearth of skilled
couturier es ,
A lady, lately come from British Columbia, told me
thatshe had paid between 13 and 14 for a perfectly
plain though well-cut coat and skirt in which to
travel to England ; she could not get a passable
"knockabout" hat under 3; and she assured me
that 20 was a usual price to pay for an evening
236 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
dress by no means out of the ordinary run. I noticed
that, in the Western towns, really smart hats \\vu
priced 5 to 10, and I reluctantly paid over 3 for a
headgear that I could have got for 12s. gd. in any of
the Kensington High Street shops, and when 1 1<
at straw shapes with an eye to trimming a hat myself,
I found that i was a usual price. These figures only
apply to Canada west of Winnipeg, and relate to the
year 1911.
All the shops give high salaries t< divssmakris and
milliners, as they fear that they may start business
for themselves, thus en trim- th< in.nk t as rivals.
But I should advise no woman to risk her capital in
this way for several months. If she does not care to
work in a shop, she can get 8s. to 105. a day and her
meals by going out to make blouses and cotton dresses,
or she can advertise saying that .she will take in work
at home, and, if quick and clever, she will in all j :
bility get far more orders than >he can cope with.
Waitresses at good hotels expect to earn about 8
;i"Mth, in< ludini; their tips, and are lodged and
boarded; but as this is a favourite calling for the
i Canadian, the British girl must be particulaily
k and ea |able if >he is to
1 m.-t an Englishwoman who \va^ starting a restau-
rant in a Western eity, ..ml begged her to employ
OPENINGS FOR EDUCATED WOMEN 237
educated British women as waitresses. But this
she declined to do, on the ground that they were
too slow, and that only a few days before she had
been inquiring about some compatriots who had been
working in a Canadian cafe, and the answer was,
" Oh, we fired them all out ; they were no good, as
they couldn't hustle." Certainly a Canadian waitress,
when I asked her how she remembered all the orders
she had to take, gave me much the same idea. "Sure,
it's c hustle ' that does it. At first I used to say all
my orders over and over 6 roasts, 4 mashed, 5 corns,
and so on and one had to be pretty quick in picking
up the dishes in the kitchen, I can tell you ; it was
more like a baseball match than anything else with
all of us calling out at the same moment. But it is
often the men who are tiresome, and Heaven help the
man who can't order properly ! "
" What do you do then ? " I asked.
" Oh, we bring him something to eat, and then
there's a row ; but one must make up one's mind to
that," and she shrugged her shoulders philosophically.
On the other hand, I came across British girls who
were getting on well in the C.P.R. summer hotels and
the Hudson Bay Stores tea-rooms.
Factories, shops, &c. At Toronto the "white-
wear " factories (i.e. blouses and underlinen), offer i
238 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
a week to start with, rising to 2 or even 4, the
surroundings are clean and airy, and the hours ei^ht
and a half daily. Shop assistants have shorter hours
than in England, but I should only recommend edu-
cated women to take up these callings until they found
more congenial work.
Manicure, hairdressing, and face-massage are cer-
tainly profitable when practised in the towns, and
several English girls whom I questioned told me how
much better they were doing in Canada than they
could possibly do at home, and those that had been
a year or so in the country said that they could
easily start a lucrative business for themselves had
they sufficient capital.
" Were you obliged to wait some time before you
got employment ? " I ;^k< d women in different towns,
and the answer was invariably the same.
" Oh no, I went to the shop with my references, and
they took me on then and there. You see they
always afraid that a girl will s-t up for herself in
opposition to them." But in spitt . f this I should
not recommend a woman to have these professions
as the only string to her bow, nor should she depend
on playing or singing at the C.P.R. hotels during
the season, or at restaurants during the meal-tn
though possibly she may find employment for these
OPENINGS FOR EDUCATED WOMEN 239
talents, or even succeed with acting, photography, or
painting, after she has learnt the ways of the country.
If two or three capable women with some capital
could join and start a boarding or a " rooming " house,
the venture, if well managed, would be a profitable
one, the usual plan being to put down 80 to 100 at
first, and pay off the rest by monthly instalments.
Hundreds of men are obliged to live in hotels in
Western Canada, and many would much prefer a
boarding-house, where they would pay according to
accommodation. In a " rooming " house no meals
are provided, but hot and cold water and electric
light, with steam-heat in winter, are supplied to each
room.
Restaurants and tea-shops are also lucrative ; but
women, I was told, should serve in a smart, up-to-date
American cafe before starting on any venture of their
own in the Dominion, in order to get le dernier cri
in the decoration of their rooms, the arrangement of
their wares, and the newest mechanical contrivances
to assist them in their work. In all these cases it is
imperative that the girls should be able to do the
entire work of boarding-house or restaurant them-
selves, as hired help of any kind is uncertain, and, if
efficient, is costly.
Only the other day an Englishwoman discussed with
240 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
me her idea of starting a boarding-house in Can
with the aid of servants that she would bring out with
her from England. " Could you manage the cooking
and cleaning yourself, supposing your maids got
married or left you from any cause ? " I asked ; and,
as I expected, her astonished answer was in the
negative.
There are many openings for the woman fond of
an outdoor life, and if she has capital she could start
small fruit, vegetable, or flower-raising (in 1911 straw-
berries in the West were 8J<f. a lb., cauliflowers is.,
cabbages 5^., tiny bunches of carrots and turnips 5</.,
while a dozen roses fetched 45., arum lilies 45. a bloom
and violets is. a bunch, all this at the height of tin-
season ; while tomatoes or mushrooms raised unl-r
glass realised high prices in Vancouver). I was told
more than once that the tending of small town gardens,
or landscape gardening, or bulb- and serd-rai>ing,
would be lucrative tailings, while bcc-kccping is ii"t
to be despised as a side-industry in a clover dMri t.
Poultry-farming is another pursuit fitted for women,
and at Vancouver eggs fetch 2d. when the fowls are
Dg I In ir best, and 3<f. to ^d. during tin winter.
Girls, however, must be j to do all the work
themselves, bbing labourer and the handy-boy
are prai tk.ilK n< : .ada.
OPENINGS FOR EDUCATED WOMEN 241
Again and again it was pointed out to me that
women ought to take up dairy-work, as there is plenty
of pasture in British Columbia, and at the present
time Canada imports much of her butter from New
Zealand.
But I should strongly dissuade a woman from laying
out capital in any of the above callings until she has
been some time in the country. She might, as I have
said before, take a course at the Agricultural College
of Pullman, Washington State, America, if she in-
tended to settle in British Columbia, or one at Guelph
College, Ontario, should she elect to start in the East.
Failing this, she could get employment in some market-
garden or chicken ranch in order to gain the practical
experience that will be invaluable to her later on. I
should certainly not advise anyone to act in the way
that one Englishwoman whom I met contemplated
doing. She wished to buy a chicken ranch and start
working it, having had only one month's training at
an English agricultural college and no previous ex-
perience. She admitted that her equipment was
scanty, but said that she was advertising for some one
with the requisite knowledge to enter into partnership
with her by no means a safe proceeding in a new
country such as the Dominion. I think, however,
that my remark that if she put her trust in strangers
242 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
she would probably gain experience at th- pa mini
cost of losing her capital made her reflect somewliat.
To sum up, though I do not affirm for a moment
that women will make their " fortunes " by goin^ in
for any of the above openings, yet they will gain their
living, and will be able to look forward to old age
without apprehension, especially if tiny invest in the
Government Annuity Scheme, by which tin -y can get
120 per annum after fifty-five.
It is also no exaggeration to say that the judicious
investment of savings in a country that otters surh
large return for capital as does the Dominion,
possibly result in real affluence.
This chapter may not unfittingly be concluded with
the words of a distinguished Canadian journalist,
words that gave me much food for thought : " In the
Dominion/' she remarked, " we consider that there is
something wrong about a woman it she cannot earn
h. i own livelihood."
en a
may
L-,f I,
CHAPTER XIII
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING THE HARVEST
IT was the latter half of September when I got into
the train that was to convey me to my fifth post as
home-help in the province of Saskatchewan, shortened
to Sask, the other provinces in which I had taken
situations being known respectively as Man, Alta,
and B.C. (Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia).
On either side, as far as eye could see, the prairie was
covered with stocks of golden corn glittering in the
sunlight, and representing the food of many thousands.
There it was, the sign manual, as it were, of the pros-
perity of this magnificent country, the wheat just wait-
ing to be taken to the threshing machines. After that
it would be hauled to the huge grey elevators, that in
their turn would hand it over to the railway, which
would pour its precious freight into the holds of many
a vessel crossing from this New World to the Old. It
was a bumper harvest, though in other parts of Canada
the crops had been " frosted," and I was not surprised
that various of my fellow-travellers ejaculated, " That's
great ! " as they gazed from the windows of the car.
343
244 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
I was about to enter upon my last situation, and
had given as an excuse for its temporary nature, that
I was now leaving Canada and returning to my own
country. I had felt that my experiences would be
incomplete unless I were on the prairie during the
busy season of harvesting, and that over, I intended
to fling aside my working dress and aprons for good.
The position of home-help had not appealed to m .
Though I had experienced much kindness from some
of my employers, and though by this time I was by
no means incompetent, yet I felt it would be an aw ml
fate to pass my days in cooking and dish-washing,
sweeping and scrubbing, having practically no time
to cultivate my mind or to care for my appear-
| ance in fact, to sink to the level of a hous< h>ld
\drudge.
The Canadian women often evoked my warmest
admiration. My fourth mistress, for example, was a
perfect miracle of activity. I have seen her do the
weekly wash in the morning, have a guest to lunch,
after which she might go for a ride or play golf, getting
moon-tea for herself and anv trends and in the
ning have a bridge-party, or sally forth, .
attired, to some friend's house. She was alw.i\s neat,
and could on occasion look as if she had just come
out of a fashion plate, and added singing and playing
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 245
to her list of accomplishments. But it must be
noted that she was quite young ; and I remarked that
the older women by no means rejoiced in household
" chores," and I often heard them lament that they
were unable to have many outside interests, so tired
did they become with the day's toil.
If Englishwomen come out to the Dominion they
most emphatically ought to come young. An elderly
lady with whom I travelled one day told me that she
and her husband and family had all gone out to Canada
to live on a ranch, and that though the younger
generation loved the life, yet the change from her
British ways had nearly killed her. After little
over a year she had had a serious nervous collapse,
and when I met her she was leaving the ranch for
probably six months. " I have heard people in
England talk about the ' call of the prairie ! ' " she
said, " but I never could see any charm in it, and I
only felt that I was the ' prisoner of the prairie/ caught
and helpless and never able to escape. I had always
loved music and sketching, and though I could turn
my hand to household work, yet it was intolerable
to have to do it day after day, and to find no time
or opportunity for the things I cared about. I could
not play, as we had no piano, and as for trying to
sketch the prairie " and she shivered at the bare
246 A HOMKHKI.P IN CANAPA
idea. This talk ("ninm.-.l m- in my conviction that
the middle-aged should not come out to Canada, as
they can seldom adapt th< in^-lvrs t-> an environment
so totally different to tint t< whidi they were accus-
tomed in the British Isles.
But I must IT turn to my own expcrit i It
was early in the afternoon wh< n I alighted at a little
town (a village we should call it in England), composed
of one strap Meet of wooden houses with a
or two, a grey-painted " lumber " hotel, an<l
tlu- usual display of gaudily painted agricultural im-
].! ments.
I had had an interview with tin- daughter of my
new employer, and she had said that I should be
met h'iv. as th- farm lay some dozen miles from
th station. But no one took any no tin- of m.-.
though I placed my "grip " in Mich a m.mnrr that
my name, painted on it, was in full view. Tlu little
crowd on the platform dwindled away, and still I
waited, and n< ar in-- ll 1 a dark man rlad in
dirty blue overalls. At last lie addn ,1 me. and
inquired whether I was expecting Mr. M
to meet me. I said that I was, and not unnaturally
jumped to the conclusion that my qu
ot the laim hands.
"1 have little j.>b on at the blacksmith's.' lie
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 247
continued, in a pleasant voice, " but if you don't
mind waiting here for half an hour I will come and
fetch you with the buggy."
Of course I agreed to this, and within the time
he mentioned a ramshackle vehicle with a pair of
good horses made its appearance. I was helped in,
a dubious-looking rug disposed across my knees,
and my acquaintance took the reins, while a couple
of rather seedy-looking men got in behind. These
were to help with the harvesting, and we started off,
crossing the prairie by a road that must be almost
impassable in winter, as it was composed of the thick
black loam that produces these wonderful " bumper "
harvests. After a while I asked my driver how near
we were to the Mackenzies' farm, and was decidedly
taken aback when he answered that we were not
going there at all.
" Then where arc we going ? " I demanded.
" Oh, the Mackenzies' ' girl ' has settled to stay on, /v
and, as Mr. Mackenzie's sister wants one, we thought
you had better go there it's all in the family."
I was not best pleased at being handed about
in this way from house to house like a parcel, but
apparently there was no help for it.
"And what is the name of Mr. Mackenzie's
sister ? " I asked, somewhat stiffly.
2 4 8
A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
x "Oh, she is called Anderson that i> my n
and he smiled shyly.
The truth began to dawn upon me. " Are you
.Mr. Anderson ? " I demanded of th ni n whom I
I had taken from the first to be a farm labouivr,
and when he replied in the affirmative, I wondeivd
what kind of a household was that of whn h he
the head.
" My wife was a dressmaker and wants to sew
day, but her sister-in-law is with us, and she would
do a good bit if her baby weren't generally cross."
My heart sank. My experience of babies h id not
been happy so l
"Have you any rhildivn ? " and I meanly h
for an answer in the negative.
"We have three, but only Daisy is at hom
day, the other two go to school."
Three children (I knew that they would be
!.-). and a baby! Well. I was in for it. and nm-t
do the best I could. I felt from tin- fir>t mment
that he address d ni- . that the farmer was kindly,
but I could not be sure of his wife, and my fate for
the next fortnight lay in her hands. Seeing that 1
was interested in the crops, he told me wh.v
on his 640-acre section. Wheat was the great stand-by,
and the most profitable, but flax, oats, and bailey
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 249
were by no means to be despised. To my surprise
the flax was grown entirely for the oil in its seeds,
and the fibre was not used at all. The whole district
was parcelled out into farms, and in many cases huge
barns were in course of erection, a sure sign of pros-
perity. Mr. Anderson said that he had bought his
land five years ago at less than twenty dollars an
acre, and that now it was worth fifty ; that he had
paid off the borrowed capital with which he had
started his venture, and that now he intended to
enlarge his house, and might take a trip to England
with his family during the winter. The mosquitoes,
he said, used to be a real curse at first, but they had
decreased appreciably owing to the land having been
brought into cultivation, and he found the weeds far
more trying than the insistent gnat, as his exertions
in keeping his own land clean were often rendered
useless owing to the carelessness of his neighbours.
On our way we passed a long stretch of unfilled
prairie, flat as a billiard- table, and this had been pur-
chased by some American speculator, who refused to
sell, but let his land lie fallow, an act equivalent almost
to a crime in the eyes of the farmers of the district.
It got colder as the time went on, and I wondered
when we should reach our destination. At last we
came to a small wooden house with various barns and
25o A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
outhouses near it, a well with a lofty wind-wheel, and
a general untidy look that was far from inviting. Not
a word did my driver say, but I concluded that we had
arrived, as a fair-hair* <1 woman wearing glasses came
up to the buggy, shook hands with me and asked me
to enter the house. She told me later that her husband
had feared to be too explicit when he met in. lirst. lot
I should refuse to go with him if I had grasped that
I was not being conveyed to the Mackenzie*' farm!
When Mrs. Anderson led me inside, my practised eye
noted that the slip of a kitrh. n was very clean and
n-at. but it M-mird terribly small when a sister-in-law,
Mrs. Mackenzie, rame forward, holding a sickly baby
of some eight months in her arms, and three children,
aged ten, eight, and five respectively, crowded round
the new-corn
"This is Maggie, who Bleeps with vu." said Mis.
Anderson, as I shook hands with her eldest h<
and the announreni'-nt was a n,d >h.ck. N-c..
when I liad Ixvn ( -n^.i^eil bv tli- Other Macki-r./.
I had stipulated, as I did invariably, that I >h"uld
have a room to myself. I expect that 1 looked ratlin
disconccr I inquired whether I had a separate
bed, but as thr answer was in the affirmative, I felt
that matters might have been far worse, and folio
Maggie up a narrow, wooden staircase hung with
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 251
many old clothes, through a narrow room in the pitch
of the roof, to a second that lay beyond it. Here I
found two pallets with a space between them, just
enough to accommodate a chair, on which stood a
jug and basin (welcome sight !). I found later that
the mattress was merely a cotton-padded quilt, and,
until I learnt how to manage them, my bed-clothes
invariably slid off during the night. There was a
chest-of-drawers, crammed with garments, and many
dresses hanging behind it ; and I was given a couple
of pegs and half the top of the drawers to use as a
dressing-table. But as I had only a bag and hold-all,
my wardrobe was by no means extensive, and this
scanty accommodation sufficed.
I took off my coat and hat, put on a navy-blue
blouse-apron, and descended, to find Mrs. Mackenzie
sprinkling and folding up the clothes in readiness for
the morrow's ironing ; and when Mrs. Anderson looked
into the kitchen a moment later, she said, in tones of
pleased surprise, " Begun to work already ? " and
both women admired my " dandy " apron and wanted
to take its pattern. Later on I peeled and boiled
potatoes and fried steak for supper, and was helped
to lay the table in the dining-room. At half-past six
Mr. Anderson and two taciturn hired men made their
appearance, and we sat down, a party of nine ten, if
252 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
the baby on its mother's lap be included and had a
substantial meal, which I enjoyed, as I had had no-
thing since an early midday lunch. Maggie helped m<-
with the wash-up, but, as her mother prophet,-,! truly,
>he w..uld not continue to do so for long ; and as soon
he things were packed away on the dresser-shelves,
(it always seemed marvellous to m< h>w they could
ever be stowed into the limited spao ). 1 w- nt up to
bed, as I was obliged to be in the kitchen at tiv, o'clock
every morning to prepare breakfast, this bnn- tin-
only nval that I got ready without assistance.
Everyone was most kind to me during my time .it
the farm, but there were certainly some drawb
to my new post. One was my room-companion, who
was a terribly restless sleeper, often leaping about in
bed during her slumbers and talking loudly. She had,
moreover, a rooted objection to the open window,
but on this point I was firm as adamant. Tin- tl::
door, guiltless of any handle, burst open during the
first niuht. and next .lav I had to invent a primitive
fastening with stnn- and nails in order to secun
privacy. As there was the thim utiti. n
tween my room and that occupied by Mrs. Mackenzie,
I was kept awake frequently by her poor baby, who
would sometimes cry for an hour at a time, givim
| ycll>. SOCT] i both mother
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 253
and child, yet I felt a good deal of sympathy for
myself when I had to turn out morning after morning
at half-past four after a disturbed night. It was
quite dark before the dawn, and I lit a lamp by which
to make my hurried toilette, and, carrying it, would
pass through the outer room and down the narrow
staircase into the kitchen. The kindly farmer would
often light the fire for me ; and as he brought in a
pail of water the last thing at night, I had not to go
to the well, and need only go outside in order to empty
yesterday's ashes on to the ash-heap near at hand.
If it were a porridge morning, I would fill the kettle
and saucepan with water and set them to boil, while
I pushed open the swing-door between kitchen and
dining-room, propping it back with a brick, and carry-
ing in plates, cups and saucers, knives, spoons, forks,
and so on, to lay the table for nine people. As there
was no tray in the establishment, everything had to
be carried by hand, and I moved as noiselessly as
possible, as Master Billy lay slumbering on the sofa,
and in the room beyond, only separated by a curtain
from the dining-room, was the rest of the family.
When the table was laid I had to descend into the
Egyptian darkness of the basement, pulling up a trap-
door and going down a breakneck staircase. Mrs.
Anderson said that the man who had designed this
254 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
knew nothing about his business, and she was cer-
tainly right. The steps were all placed at unequal
distances, making it most easy to lose one's footing,
and various members of the family had had miraculous
escapes of sudden death at one time or another.
Maggie had fallen headlong, but had been caught and
held suspended by a foot, and another child had been
unconscious after a tumble from top to bottom. I
my horror, I myself nearly caused an accident by
carelessly leaving the trap-door open on my second
morning, for one of the hired men, going to get a milk-
pail, did not observe the abyss, and only saved him-
self from falling in by a timely leap.
The cellar was used as a dairy, larder, and store-
room, so I had to bring up bread, butter, milk, and
bacon from its depths. As soon as I had got my
burdens safely into the kitchen, (I always put tin- lamp
on the top step in order to light me during my umk r-
ground groping), it was high tim to ^-t about tin-
breakfast proper. The porridge would be >tinv<l into
the big saucepan, bacon would be slio-d mt<
frying-pan, (I was obliged to parboil it first with milk
and then fry it, as it was too salt), the j*>tatoes from
last night had to be sliced and frit .1 up with a little
dripping, and lastly, coffee and a pinch of salt put into
the big enamel pot, which I filled up with boilii
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 255
and set upon the stove, now hot. As only coal was
used in this part of the prairie, it was comparatively
little trouble to keep the fire going all day ; but it
was not so easy to start it in the first place, and I
always poured a little paraffin-oil on the bits of paper
and kindling wood, using great caution, as a farmer's
wife had told me of women whose faces had been
terribly burnt by this practice.
About twenty minutes to six the farmer would
come in with pails of milk fresh from the cow, and
when he had stumbled down into the cellar with these,
he would perform his ablutions in a small tin basin,
which, in company with two water-pails, stood on a
low cupboard in the kitchen. After he had dried his
face and hands on a roller-towel hanging on the door,
and had combed his hair with the aid of a tarnished
little mirror, he would stand on the steps outside
and yell the word " Breakfast ! " in stentorian tones.
This would promptly bring the two hired men, who
did their wash just outside the door, but their drying
and hair-combing inside. (I don't think I ever saw
any man use a hair-brush all the time that I was
in Canada.)
By now I would be serving out plates of porridge
to master and men, carrying in the bacon and potatoes,
and also, what I forgot to mention, toast browned in
256 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
the oven. The establishment did not boast of one
of the excellent wire toasting implements which I
saw in other places, and once I forgot this particular
" chore," and burnt the bread to a cinder.
Mrs. Anderson and the elder children would begin
to make their appearance, and Mrs. Mackenzie, K
ing her baby, would descend into the kitrln-n. All
washed in a very sketchy way in the little enam< 1
basin, using the same towel, and were soon seated at
the breakfast-table. Everyone ate as if engaged on
a wager, never speaking a word, save perhaps to a>k
for something to be passed to them ami. directly they
had finished, would help themselves to toothp:
the men flinging out of the room and tramping off to
their work.
To prepare a breakfast such as I have described
was not altogether a light task, but when it came to
having pancakes nearly every morning, my heart almost
failed me. Mrs. Anderson, luckily, was one of the
kindliest of employers, and got up early twice to help
m-- with their prep.-: ind before I left I made
them as well as my mistress. On a "pane
morning 1 was in the kit. h< k I
had to make a batter "1 ll<>ur. buttermilk. fre>h milk,
and eggs, boating it up while the big girdle-iron
getting hot upon the stove. Bacon was being
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 257
pared during this operation, and a syrup of brown
sugar and water was being boiled up. When the
batter was ready I would pour a couple of spoonfuls
at intervals on the girdle-iron, which I had first smeared
with dripping, smoothing the mixture into small
rounds ; and as soon as bubbles rose, it was time to
turn them over. Each cake was turned twice, and I
had to make enough to fill three or four plates, piled
high. The disagreeable part of the work was the smoke
that rose from the dripping on the hot girdle-iron, and
that, in spite of open door and window, used to make
my eyes smart and stream with involuntary tears. As
soon as the pancakes were done (they ought to be
eaten quite hot), everyone took them in haste, put
fried bacon upon them, and poured syrup over, eating
this strange mixture with the utmost relish. Being
always anxious to "do at Rome as Rome does," I
followed their example, and was surprised to find how
good the food tasted. Certainly getting up at half-
past four (there are no cups of early morning tea on
the prairie in Canada !), and working at high pressure
until six, would have given me an appetite for nearly
any kind of food, and I have no ambition to introduce
this menu at our own breakfast-table in England.
As a reward for my early rising I was often the
spectator of the most glorious sunrises that I have
R
258 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
ever seen ; but of course I could only enjoy them in
hurried snatches from the kitchen window, and had
better luck with the sunsets, as they occurred at a
time when there was usually a lull in the day's work.
Before I left England, a lady who had been travelling
in Canada amused the guests at a tea-party by nar-
rating that she had astonished her host and hostess
of one night (who, by the way, were living in primitive
style and doing all their own work), by asking f
morning bath. " None of us ever wash till four
o'clock," was the answer to her demand an answer
that made us laugh, but which came home to me
during my experiences as a " help," as it was the hour
at which I usually made my own toilette.
Sometimes I wondered whether the farmer class <
" washed " at all, as I understood the word, and on
one occasion an agreeable travelling companion horri-
fied me by saying, " When I 'bached ' I never washed
my clothes just wore them till they fell into ra
Upon an exclamation from me he amended his state-
ment by saying, " Well, if I happened to bathe I
would sometimes go in in my shirt, and then hang it
out to dry in the sun."
Certainly ** baching " sometimes means a good deal
of dirt, and, as a woman once remarked to me of nun
living alone, " Scrape out the porridge-pot ? Not
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 259
they. They let the dogs lick it clean to save them-
selves the trouble. I'm not talking through my hat
it's bare facts I'm telling you."
During my stay at the Andersons' the harvest season
was in full swing. All farming folk were at work during
every hour of daylight, and I was most anxious to see
something of the operations by which the sheaves of
corn were pitched into the " separators " and came
out in streams of grain. Though there was a good
deal of talk about the snapshots that I was to take
with my camera, it all came to nothing, so fully occu-
pied were we. I was surprised to hear that if winter
came on before all the grain was threshed, it would
be left lying under the snow until the spring, when
it would not be much the worse for this long exposure.
The threshing machines were all around us, and
Mr. Anderson and his brother-in-law had a big gang
of men and various teams to haul the wheat to the
threshers. On this occasion the men had their own
cook and " caboose," in which they fed and slept ; but
Mr. Anderson had to provide half their food, and took
milk, meat, flour, sugar, potatoes, and so on, to supply
their needs. During the previous season Mrs. Anderson
and her sister-in-law had undertaken the cooking
themselves, and probably it was the enormous amount
of work involved that had knocked my mistress up,
26o A HMMK-HELP IN CANADA
and had made the doctor Ml her to rest as murh as
possible ; but this command she obeyed very im-
perfectly, her times of " repose " being spent chiefly
at the treadle sewing-machii
During my stay in Canada I heard a good deal about
farming for women, and how they ought to take up
homesteads, therefore I was in invited to come across
the young daughters of a neighbouring i -.\h>
acted as hired men to their father. Mrs. Anderson
said that they rode wonderfully, could hand 1
better than most men, drive the "binders," and do
the whole work of a farm; but she o>nMdned that
the life they led was unsuitable for a woman, and was
unfitting these girls for becoming wives and mothers
in the future in fact, the feeling of the country-side was
strongly against their father. For my own part, the
more I saw of faun life the less I considered it to be
a suitable opening for educated girls, save in excep-
:\al cases and for exceptional women.
On the morning of September 2yd I noticed
frost-flowers on my window-panes as I dressed, and
on opening the kiteh.-n door to throw away the ashes
of the stove, I found that tin- wholr world was wra;
in snow, and looking indescribably grey and dreary.
Accordingly after breakfast I donned my rubbers,
(no one understands what you mean if you call them
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 261
galoshes), and made journeys to the coal-house to
fill the scuttle and to the well to get water. This
was always an easy matter when there was a wind,
as I had only to pull down a handle to set the wind-
wheel in motion, and then hang the buckets on to the
pump and let them fill. When the sun got up the
snow melted away, leaving the rich black loam, which
makes all the farmers so prosperous, in such a sticky
condition that I had to scrape it off with a knife from
my foot-gear before I could enter the house, and the
kitchen linoleum, which it was my daily task to wash
after the midday meal, was in a terrible mess from the
mud left by the men and the children.
I found my new mistress most easy to get on with.
She never fussed or " hustled "me, and usually had a
word of praise for my culinary operations. " I enjoy
everything you cook, you do it all so daintily," was
one comment that filled me with pride, and put me
on my mettle to do yet better. She liked me to make
English dishes, confessing that she had got tired of
her own cooking and had little appetite for it, and,
as she was very intelligent, we soon got to discuss all
sorts of subjects if we were working together at bottling
plums and peaches for the winter, or making pickles,
and she expressed her wonder that I did not qualify
for a school-teacher. The sister-in-law, a happy-go-
262 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
lucky Irishwoman, whose favourite expression was
" For land's sake," was equally agreeable, but failed to
understand how any woman could come out to Canada
and not wish to marry and settle down in the country,
and it was useless to assure her that I had no sn< h
intention. She tried to encourage me by saying that
the farmers in this district did not care for young
girls, as they considered that the older women made
much better housekeepers !
" Now there is my sister," she began one day, "an
was waitress at the hotel in Bridgewater, and the lady
who employed her said she would make Mary
quainted with a smart young man who was doing \\vll
as a butcher. But my sister told her not to trouble,
as she cared for no man and did not want to marry
at all. However, when Edwin called with the nx at
next day, the lady shouted for Mary, who came
quite innocent like into the kit-hm, and was i
acquainted with him th-n and there. He used to
ask to see her when he drove his cart to the hotel, and
one day he invited her to go for a drive with him.
She said she wouldn't go alone, so Edwin says, ' Bring
any girl you choose/ and he was so nice about it
that next time sh- w.-nt alone with him. And now
they are married, and have a house with the '
and a ' phone,' and Edwin looks so well dressed and
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 263
is that particular about the way he folds his clothes
(he is English and they always have so much style !).
He is full of his jokes, and has lots of friends, so they
see a good bit of company, and he makes my sister
keep in with the newest fashions " and Mrs. Mackenzie
gave a sigh, for her husband was not " making good "
at present, and she was leading a " mean " life as she
expressed it. He had earned a livelihood by cutting
down and selling the valuable timber on his ranch
in the West, but a terrible forest fire had burnt the
fine trees to the ground, and had driven him and his
family forth to begin life afresh.
During my visit at the farm he was earning the
high wage of five dollars (i) a day as " separator "
of a big gang of threshers, but when there was a spell
of rainy weather all operations had perforce to stop,
and he came to stay with his wife, receiving no pay
for the days he was not working, though the farmer
who employed him would have to feed the men and
the teams of horses. It was a hard life when the
men were in full work, as they began at five o'clock,
and if the gang had to move on to another part of
the neighbourhood, they would often not be in bed
till midnight. Though one man affirmed that thresh-
ing was to him as the " call of the wild," it seemed a
very exhausting pursuit, and Mr. Mackenzie was
264 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
always dead-tired when he came to see his wife, and
spent most of his time in bed. I certainly sympathised
with him, for I never got my full quantum of
while in the service of Mrs. Anderson, and hat.-d
/ getting up at half-past four, though the splendid nil-
warded off fatigue when I had once begun my labours.
Monday was an extra busy day, as the we.-kly
wash had to be done as soon as the breakfast things
\\vre cleared, and the dining-room and kitchen -
out. Mrs. Anderson and I would drag the heavy
washing-machine out of the coal-house into the k-n
air, and the boiler, full of soft water, was already
on the stove with a cake of soap sliced into it. My
special duty was to work the machine, whieh I did by
pushing a handle to and fro, in order to make the
clothes revolve in the soap-suds with whieh the big
tub was filled. I had to do this for ten minutes to
! ^arnv-nts. then pass them through the
wrin^.T. alter whieh I took them into the kit
to be put into the boiler on the stove. From
they were soused in a tub of cold <iuezed
through the wringer, and then dipped into blu< \
and wrung out for the third time. Certainly tin-
lm n 1. ., hite when we hun^ it up <>n tin-
long lin-s, and I < ii)<>v d working out of doors, though
tli wind was cold ,11, d tli- MIH ^a\v littl warmth
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 265
here at the end of September. When the last con-
signments, terribly stained overalls, shirts, and socks
belonging to the men, had been rocked in the water
(they had to be put into the machine twice), and
had been wrung and rinsed and wrung again, I felt
almost as if my arms had been torn out of their sockets.
We used to work from seven o'clock till half-past
eleven, and then had a rush to get a midday meal of
fried ham and eggs and the inevitable potatoes
ready. After dinner the washing-machine was rinsed
out and dragged back to the coal-house, there to
rest for another week, and the wringer and washing-
board went to keep it company. When a very high
wind was blowing we were obliged to take down the
clothes from the lines lest they should get torn, and
I always had to wash over the kitchen floor before I
could get upstairs at half-past two or three o'clock
for a badly needed rest. At four o'clock I was down
again, sprinkling and folding up the clothes in pre-
paration for the morrow's ironing, after which there
were scones and buns to be made for the half-past
six supper.
I have a theory that one reason for the small
amount of crime in Canada is that everyone works
so hard. Satan, according to the rhyme of our child-
hood, occupies himself especially with the idle, and
266 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
as practically everyone is busy in the Dominion,
and there is no drink to be had on the farms, all the
world behaves as it should.
Of course there are exceptions to this somewhat
Utopian picture.
One evening, for example , I had kept supper hot
for some hours for the hired men, who had gone into
the town on an errand of hauling grain, and I was
anxious for them to make their appearance in ordT
that I might clear the table and go to bed.
It was a very wet night, and when at last we h
sounds of arrival the farmer went out to investii
It was some time before he returned, and then he
came alone. " Aren't the men coming ? They must
be soaked, poor fellows!" I exclaimed. "Yes, th -y
are," was his answer, " but soaked inside" and he
smiled grimly at his small joke. " I've sent tin -m
to bed."
Certainly I hardly ever came across a " loafer " ;
but though work is good for all, too much of it is not
so healthy. Much has been written of the charm of
the prairie, and the air here was like a tonic ; but, as
I spent nearly all my time indoors, I did not get
ly enough of it. In fact, I loved going to tlu- \\vll
for water, and to the coal-house to fill the scuttle, in
order to drink in deep draughts of air before returning
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 267
to the hot kitchen, where, as a rule, the windows
were closed out of deference to the sickly baby.
Sunday was a day when one " walked as one
pleased," as Mrs. Mackenzie expressed it. Breakfast
was an hour later ; but as company descended
upon us unexpectedly on one Sabbath, and was in-
vited on the second, the home-help had as busy a
morning as usual. This was the day on which the
farmer dipped his entire head into the tin basin in
the kitchen, and on my first Sunday, about half-past
ten, while he was shaving and I was peeling potatoes,
a buggy with a young farmer and his wife and boy
drove up to the back-door, that was the only entrance
to the house. They had come to dinner, and threw
the whole household into a stir of preparation, though
the lady adjured Mrs. Anderson to make no difference
in the usual family repast on their account.
My mistress was worried about making room at the
table for twelve, and accordingly I proposed that the
hired men should eat with me in the kitchen. She
said that even to suggest such a thing to the taciturn
yokels would offend them mortally, and when a
farmer's wife of her acquaintance had done it on a
like occasion, it had been the talk of the whole dis-
trict. Come what might, the men must be squeezed
in somehow, though I said that if I had no objection
268 A HOMIMIELP IN CANADA
to a meal in the kitchen they could hardly raise any.
But they were not put to the test, and we man-
aged all right, tin- "chair" question being settled by
packing-cases brought up from the cellar. I sallied
forth to hoe potatoes, mashing them with milk
butter, and I chopped up a raw cabbage, which made
an excellent salad with a dressing ; the " roast " was
big enough for double the number, and Mrs. Anderson
had busied herself in making " pie " the day before.
I was helped to lay the table with the best dinner-
set, and " dished-up," changing the plates between
the courses, handing round tea and coffee, and serving
out apple-pie, with a chunk of cheese to eat with
help, eating my own meal hurriedly in the inU:
of serving.
On this particular Sunday I intended to go to tin-
weekly Methodist service in the little schoolhouse,
though I was not of that persuasion m\>--lt.
Anderson wanted me to drive with the children, \vh<>
had a Sunday-school class beforehand, and
/ement when I said that I would start an hour
later and walk. " It is over a mile," she said in
astonished tones, as if she were speaking of ten ;
I nt>' ain how seldom Canadians walk, though
they would think nothing of riding or driving all d
Hi. took I was to follow was pointed out to me.
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 269
and as I could see the top of the building across the
prairie, there was no fear that I should lose my way.
Accordingly Mrs. Mackenzie and I did the large
dinner "wash-up" at top speed, and as I was late I
set off at a brisk pace, which I was told afterwards
quite surprised the men, who said that they could not
have kept up with me. The trail led past a farm,
and here two big collies rushed out, barking furiously,
and one followed for some distance, sniffing suspiciously
at my ankles. But, as I went on and pretended
not to notice, I got past them safely, though I heard
afterwards that that particular dog had a bad reputa-
tion for biting people.
As I got near the schoolhouse, I was over-
taken by a buggy and team, and the driver leant
forward and asked me to have a lift. I thanked him,
but said it was hardly worth while as I was going
to the service.
"So am I," he answered; "we might as well go
together." And I stepped in, imagining that my
new acquaintance was some prosperous farmer.
He inquired my business in these parts, and when I
told him, he said that the Andersons were " fine folk."
As I was always anxious to get a little information, I
remarked that I was an educated woman, come out to
see what openings there were in Canada, but that, as I
270 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
had no special training for anything, I could only
take the post of home-help, that led to nowhere. To
this he agreed, but advised me to qualify for a school-
teacher or a stenographer, and by this time we had
reached our destination, and I alighted, while he drove
round to the back of the building to unhitch his horses.
When I entered the schoolhouse, with its maps and
blackboard, and sat down in company with some half-
dozen men and women on the narrow little seats de-
signed for the use of children, the Sunday school, con-
ducted by a farmer, was in full swing, and Maggie,
with conscious pride, was giving answers to nearly
every question. Presently the minister made his
appearance, and opened the service with a hymn, and
I was surprised to see that he was my driver. He
gave a most excellent sermon (I was told afterwards
that he had a great reputation as a preacher), and,
when the little congregation was about to disperse,
he shook hands with all of us, saying a few kindly
words to me. This small incident greatly inter*
the Anderson family, who considered that I had been
highly honoured by the notice of the minister in
fact it gave me a distinct social rise.
After the service the children " hitched up," and
four of us packed into the two seats of the buggy,
Billy, aged eight, driving us in masterly style, urging
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 271
the horse at full speed along the rough track, and
trying to race a team just behind us. This boy was
typical of the youth of Canada. He chopped the
kindling wood for the house, often helped me to
carry the heavy pails of water from the well, or
get the coal, had to turn out the cows daily and
picket them in the pasture before he went off to school,
and collected the eggs, that were kept during the
winter embedded in oats. He could ride any horse
bareback, and it was fine to see how he scrambled
up, and managed the big creatures with the utmost
ease, and as he always had nails in his pockets, and
was as handy as a man with any little carpentering
job, he was on the road to " make good " when he
grew up. Moreover, he was very intelligent, and
was delighted one evening when I strolled out after
my day's work and pointed out the various constella-
tions as they hung like lamps in the sapphire heaven.
In his turn he bade me observe the great arc of the
pulsating Northern Lights, and told me that the
fires I saw in every direction were burning up huge
masses of wheat-straw, a useless commodity here,
where only the oat-straw is kept as it is good feed
for the animals during the winter.
The speed and ease with which the average
Canadian woman gets through her work, was partly
272 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
explained to me when I saw Daisy, aged five, sweep
out the rooms, iron small .nti l.-s quite nicely, or
her tiny hand at kneading the bread in short, begin-
ning at her early age the proverbial "practio that
makes perfect."
Unfortunately, all the children were rude and
mannerless such a contrast to their polite parenN
and aunt. At meals they shouted their Ion
for " Meat ! " " Cake ! " or " Sauce ! " (by this latt.-r
they meant fruit preserved in syrup which we ,
had for supper), and no one reproved them for their
lack of courtesy. They were also very greedy, ami
if they considered anything to be " terrible nice "
or " terrible good," they would take far more on to
their plates than they could possibly eat, and lit t It-
Daisy was munching something or other all day long.
As I was brought up on the principle of " nothing
between meals," it surprised me to observe their
frequent visits to the cupboards or cellar to get buns.
scones, or fruit, and I was sometimes annoyed, as
would gobble up my chociest efforts in this line, a
large cake seldom sufficing for more than one i
owing to their depredations. Indigestion, according
to the advert i>einent>, and according to what I 1
and saw, appears to be one of the .staple coinpl
of the Dominion, and I should think that this ii
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 273
criminate eating must have much to do with it. If
the children were not eating they were chewing " gum,"
and this habit prevails throughout the whole country,
young and old being apparently equally addicted to it.
At first I imagined that the people were not " through "
with their meals, as the jaws of hotel managers, whom
you approached on the question of rooms, were work-
ing busily, and the habit only added to the impression
I gained that there is little repose in Canada. The
nation is a " live wire," as a man expressed it to me,
and the climate induces a ceaseless energy, though I
fancy that it must wear people out by over-stimu-
lating them.
Certainly I could never have done in England
half of what I accomplished in Canada; but when I
reached the Pacific Coast, my energy partially deserted
me for the time, and I felt as though I could have
slept all day long.
Up to now I had experienced for the most part
superb weather on the prairie, a brilliant sunshine
that glorified the mean outhouses and touched
the miles of wheat lying cut on every side with gold,
and a clear atmosphere in which we could see objects
distinctly at long distances across the vast plain.
But suddenly all this was changed, the rain fell
in torrents, and I had a period of acute discomfort.
s
274 A ROM I HI-LP IN CANADA
It had been a wild night of storm and wind, and when
I got into the kitchen at five o'clock one morning,
I found that the coal-scuttle was nearly empty.
Fortunately, I had carried my rain-coat and nil
down with me as I left my bedroom, and 1 >allied
forth to the coal-house that was quite close. The
ground resembled the day loam on a ploughed
field in England after several days of run, and I had
difficulty in keeping on my galoshes even for that
short distance. After the breakfast wash-up I had to go
to the well, which was a little distance from the house,
and as the horses and cows drank from big tubs close
beside it, the earth was trampled into a regular
morass, in which my rubbers stuck fast and could
not be kept on my boots. I staggered back to the
house with one pail at a time, and, with the aid ol an
old knife, got rid of some of the mud that I was carry -
ing on my feet and that felt as heavy as lead. 1 he
howling wind, the beating rain, and my load all com-
bined, inad- me thankful to feel that I was only
playing at being a home-help and was not forced
to lead the life in reality. Directly I had got my
pails to the kitchen door and given them to
Mackenzie, I had another journey in the mud to till
tin- coal-scuttle (would that it had been bigger !),
and to procure .salt from a little sack that was kept
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 275
in the coal-house. Then a longer tramp to the
clothes-lines to unpeg and bring in a quantity of
garments that had been left out during the night,
in the vain hope that, as it had rained the day before,
it would have been fine the next day.
After this I returned to the house, which was only
twenty-eight feet by sixteen, and had the merest slip
of a kitchen. So small was it that it was hard for
two people to pass one another in the narrow space
between the stove and the table, and anyone coming
from the upstair bedrooms had to open the door at
the foot of the staircase most cautiously, lest it should
knock some one, while the doors of the china cupboard,
if open, would fly in the face of anyone entering the
kitchen from the dining-room. The window, con-
trolled by means of a stick, opened the whole top-
half or not at all, and as everyone objected to the
rain beating in in wet weather, or complained of
the cold, or said that the stove would never heat
properly if the fresh air blew upon it, or believed
that the puny baby would catch a chill, the net result
was a stifling atmosphere, and I always felt that we
were only saved from suffocation by a big crack
under the outer door !
In this room we three women worked during a good
part of each day ; here the baby sat in her chair with
276 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
many a scream, in spite of protests on nr
the unhealthy way in which she was being brought
up, and here the three children wandered in
out all day long when it was too wet for them to go
to school. Every entrance into the house, or exit
from it, was accompanied by a loud bang of the \\in-
gauze screen-door; the noise and movement
perpetual ; and yet, wonderful as it may seem, I
never heard a cross word exchanged among the grown-
ups, though the children were very far from following
the excellent example set them by their rlder>.
On the particular afternoon about which I am
writing, I had to remove the stems and cut in halves
hundreds of crab-apples that Mrs Anderson was ^
to make into jelly, and Billy, the nicest of the ju\
trio, announced that he would help me. So we got
to work, and I narrated incidents to him of t
of Troy, and as many of the adventures of mu h-
travelled Ulysses as I could remember. M
volunteered her in order to iM.-n. and Mrs,
Anderson brought her dressmaking t the dining-
room table, round \\: were Mtting. At last the
hero returned to Itha.-a. his laithfnl dog had recog-
nised its master and died, and w; ses had
drawn his mighty bow and slain the suitors, I
for lack of further matter. BilK , \
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 277
spellbound, heaved a deep sigh of pleasure, and I felt
well rewarded when he remarked, " That is just the
kind of story that I like ! "
The bad weather made me ask Mrs. Anderson about
the winter months, and I inquired whether the windows
were ever opened when the snow lay on the ground.
" Not when it is very cold, and we often get fifty-
six degrees of frost."
A vision rose in my mind of the furnace in the
dining-room and the stove in the kitchen burning all
day and several hours of each night, and never a
breath of fresh air in an atmosphere that would half
kill me !
I asked my employer what social distractions there
were, as the farms about here were comparatively
close to one another. She said that in the summer
there was nothing, as the work of farming went on
at high pressure from April right into October, and
there was no time for amusement. In the winter
there were a few dances, but, as the farms were so
small and most of the neighbours poor, they had not
many of these. The chief recreation seemed to be
" socials " in the schoolhouse. Each woman would
bring a basket, in which she had put up a dinner for
two, and her name was inside out of sight. All the
baskets were held up to auction, and there was much
278 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
fun as the men bid against one another for th-m.
Then the winners of each basket found out to whom
it belonged, and he and she sat at one of UK- uncom-
fortable little school-desks and ate the food together,
the money going to some charitable object.
To vary this, tin- ladies would stand bt-hii.
and the men bid for these " ghosts," as they called
them. As women were in the minority, little school-
girls also acted as " ghosts/' but these stood on boxes,
as the men would not have cared to buy them had
they suspected their youth, for " they all want young
ladies," as Mrs. Anderson expressed it.
When all the " ghosts " were bought, they emerged
with numbers pinned on to them, and, bearing their
baskets, they shared the contents with their pur-
chasers. The entertainment was concluded with
music and recitations, and Mrs. Anderson begged me
to stay on for the winter, as she thought that I might
lu lp in these diversions.
Now and again there were tin "surprise" parties
about which most of us have heard. The woman thus
md w.is usually inveighled from her home for a
few hours, and n turn* <1 to find a troop of neighbours
in possession of the house, and h-r table spread with
the eatables they had brought. After a hearty meal,
dancing would take place; but in the kitrln -n, with
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 279
the stove in full blast, the dancers got far hotter than
was at all comfortable, and must afterwards drive
home in a temperature below zero, a dangerous
proceeding.
Mrs. Anderson told me that when she gave a party
at Christmas, some of the guests lost their way in the
snow while returning to their homes, and during the
winter the blizzards were so bad that the school had
to be closed for a month. The silent Mr. Anderson,
at the mention of the word blizzard, suddenly burst
into speech, and related how he had got caught in
one coming home from the town. The air was filled
with snow, fine as flour, a cruel wind was blowing,
and about three miles from home he lost his way
completely. But a dog from a neighbouring farm
had followed his buggy from the town, and at
this point the intelligent animal, which appeared to
grasp the situation, ran on ahead barking to him,
and running back at intervals as if to direct him.
The horses appeared to be as much at a loss as the
farmer, but the latter followed the dog blindly, and
is sure that he could never have reached his home
without its aid, and might have perished in the snow.
These blizzards are terrible ; men have been known
to lose their way between the house and the barn, and
have wandered on and on until they have succumbed
28o A llo.MK-HKLP IN CANADA
to the cold, and their bodies have not been reco\
until the spring sunshine has melted the snow away.
Mrs. Anderson said that sometimes she could not 1
tin house for days at a time, and that sin got to
tin- monotony of the great wastes of snow all around
her.
Tastes certainly differ, but for my part i lelt thankful
that I was not called upon to spend my lile upon a
Canadian farm. There would be too little " call of
the prairie " and too much " call of tin- kiu b
me, too much work and too little relaxation. On
Tuesdays, for example , I had to iron three to four
hours on end, and my ba'k > enu-d broken wl.
had at last smoothed out the extensive family u
Moreover, every three or four days there was churning
to be done, and a heavy barrel of cream had to be
mad t<> i volve by means of a foot-treadle and a
handle. Once or twice Mrs. Anderson did not trouble
to get the cream up to the right t< nip. rature before
she set me to work, and the result NM .ui boor'fl hard
labour before the little round of glass at one end oi the
barrel was clear, showing that the butter had lorni. d.
and on one occasion a swollen knee, win. h made me
extra nervous in lin^ the breakneck cellar
steps. To be a home-help on the prairie would, as a
rule, have little attraction for an educated English-
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 281
woman, and she would greatly feel the lack of social
intercourse, the want of books and congenial com-
panionship, unless she had the good fortune to be
with people of her own class, in which case it would
be very different.
At last the day of my departure arrived, and I was
glad to be leaving, though I was not ungrateful for all
the kindness that I had received. As I turned out of
bed at half-past four, I felt thankful that it was the
last time that I should have to make pancakes in
floods of tears ! Mrs. Anderson offered me a dollar
over and above my wages (I refused it with thanks,
though highly gratified at this recognition of the
worth of my services), and she said that she had much
enjoyed my company and would miss me, while
Mrs. Mackenzie, to whom I had bequeathed my
" dandy " aprons and various other extremely shabby
belongings, presented me with a keepsake of her own
handiwork, begging me to write to her, and both
united in hoping that I should get home safely
to England. At seven o'clock the farmer brought
his buggy round, my belongings were hoisted in,
and I was driven off amid warm farewells from
the women and children. I felt half ashamed of
myself for feeling so delighted to be leaving them all,
but the life was by now becoming intolerable to me,
282 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
and I could hardly have stood another week of it. I
had felt like a prisoner cooped up in the little house,
and now I was my own mistress again, and would
have a room to myself where I could shut the door
and be quite alone. This seemed the height of
luxury after enduring such a restless room-mate as
Maggie had proved herself to be.
It was a lovely morning, and Mr. Anderson drove
across the short grass of the prairie, keeping clear
of the road that was like a wet ploughed field, and
even winding his way in and out among the sheaves
of corn in order to avoid the trail. I did not quite
appreciate his tactics until we were forced to cross
the highway, and in a moment the wheels were cm-
bedded in the sticky mud, and the poor horse stopped
in mute protest at having to drag such an unexpected
weight, but the earth fell off in lumps as soon as we
got on to the grass again.
The farmer said that he could not begin " seeding '*
(i.e. sowing the wheat) until the middle of April, as
the frost was not out of the ground before then.
During the winter there were the animals to be
and always something to be done on the farm when
the weather was not too bad, while there was gram
to be hauled if the snow permitted. As we got near
the little prairie town, fences made their appearance
ON THE PRAIRIE DURING HARVEST 283
on either side of us, and we were forced to take to
the road. We toiled along at a foot's pace, and the
horse rested at intervals, and though we had driven
only twelve miles, yet we had taken three solid hours
in which to reach the station, and should have been
treble the time if we had not had so many stretches
of prairie, which helped us greatly. The fanner drove
me up to the little scarlet-painted depot and handed
out my belongings, and then we shook hands warmly.
He was essentially a man of deeds and not of words,
and had shown me various little kindnesses, beside
the much appreciated one of lighting the stove in the
mornings, and I felt that we parted with a mutual
liking and sympathy.
CHAPTER XIV
EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS
MY six months' tour was coming to an end, and I
was soon to leave the Dominion, poorer in purse
though richer in experience. Certainly the hotels
are expensive, and though the best ones are fitted
up with every luxury, yet you have to look a
yourself in many ways. For instance, there is a
telephone in each bedroom, by means of which all
orders are given. If there is no bathroom attached
to your bedroom, you " 'phone " for the bell-boy to
bring you up the key of the public one. No chamber-
maid carries hot water to you in the mornings and you
must wake yourself, unless you happen to be leaving
the hotel by an early train. In that case you mention,
at the office the night before, the time at win- h you
wish to be awakened, and at the hour you are roused
from your slumbers by the telephone bell, that i
without ceasing until you call down the tube. A
custom that is pleasanter for the employees than for
trav -11. rs. is that, in the hotels run Canadian fashion,
it is impossible to get any food either before or after
EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS 285
stated hours. Often if I were obliged to make
an early start I could get no breakfast, and in
one frequented hotel the doors of the dining-room
were shut at a quarter to eight o'clock in the evening,
which caused some hardship during the tourist season
when all the trains were late, no expostulations being
of the least avail. A friend came to see me when I
was staying at one place, and as it was four o'clock
I asked a waiter to bring tea, and was taken aback
when a voice called out from the office : "No teas
are served in this hotel."
The Western hotels are usually run en pension,
which entitles the traveller to order as much as he
chooses from a long menu, the three meals having a
considerable resemblance to one another, as tea and
coffee, bread and butter (the latter a pat on a little
plate), are served at each, and I greatly missed fiesh
vegetables, the price of the latter rendering them
almost prohibitive.
I found that laundry-work was at a premium. My
under-linen was of the plainest, yet at Vancouver I paid
eight shillings on one occasion for seven articles that re-
quired no starching or " getting up," and these prices
forced me to wash my own handkerchiefs, plastering
them, when damp, on mirrors or window-panes, a
method that answered almost as well as ironing
them. In hotels, where hot and cold water was laid
286
A HOM1- HELP IN CANADA
on in the bedrooms, there were always notices forbid-
ding the washing of clothes in the marble basins, but
I fancy that few Canadian worn- n would att.-nd to
this regulation, and most of them carry about an
electric iron in order to press out their blouses and
cotton dresses. Chinamen seem to " run " the majority
of the laundries out West, but I was told that their
methods do not commend themselves to all. For
one thing they are supposed to use the minimum of
water in their cleansing operations, and for an
they are said, when ironing, to spray the garm. -nts
with water ejected from their mouths !
As for boot-blacking, I carried a Nugget outfit
and did my own, as I had no fancy for sitting on the
high chairs in the " >hine parlours" that seem to be
frequented by men alone. No one, of course, would
im of placing his boots outsid. his b- droom door
at night if he wished to see them a^ain.
I constantly compared tin- prices of clothes in
the shops with those in England, and came to the
conclusion that cotton dresses, blouses, and under-
clothing were about the same, but that serges, tweeds,
woollen underwear, and boots were far dearer. An
English woman, living in Vancouver, said that sh-
pay 10 for made coat and skirt that
she could have got for 4 in England, that the boots
advertised to " trip out " at one and a hail dollars
EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS 287
had no wear in them, and she pointed out to me that
such things as newspapers, car fares, reels of cotton,
pencils, and so on were all 2 \d. in the West instead of
id. as in the Old Country ; in fact, I became so accus-
tomed to consider the five-cent bit as the lowest coin
in circulation, that I was quite puzzled to be given
copper coins, one or two cents in value, when I got
east of Winnipeg.
Though " quick lunches " are advertised at is., yet,
on the whole, living is dear in the West, a fact to be
taken into account by girls who may have to wait
before getting work to their taste. An English lady,
who earned her livelihood by supplying offices with
soap and towels, mirrors and whisks, told me that she
could not be comfortably lodged and boarded at less
than 8 a month, and often paid fy ; while a friend,
working as a stenographer, paid 175. a week for her
room, which was the smallest in the " rooming "
house, and her expenses came to over fy a month, a
sum that ate up the lion's share of her salary. She had
tried going in for cheap meals, but found that she
must pay is. $d. in order to get decent food ; and she
invariably made her own breakfast, and did all her
laundry-work in the marble basin in her room with
hot and cold water laid on, drying her clothes at the
window in summer, and on the radiator in winter, and
ironing them with an electric iron.
A HOM1MI1-I.P IN CANADA
Of course things would be much cheaper in Montreal
or Toronto, but salaries would be lower in proportion.
These "rooming" houses, owing to the lack of
women's hostels, are greatly patronised by girls, a "d
it is a good plan for a couple of friends to share a
room ; but it is a lonely life for a solitary woman, as
the tenant is cut off absolutely from the family hie
of the house. She may not even enter tin kit dun.
and, as one girl remarked to me, " I might be ill, or
dead, and no one would think of coming near m<
perhaps for cl
It is, moreover, hard to have to go out in all w.-.n
to the restaurants for meals, and tin- YAV.C.A. in each
big town is indeed a boon to tin- working woman.
Being partly supported by rharity, it only charges
ut fi a week for board and lodging. Its rooms
'Iw.ivs full, ;ind at meal-time*, it> tabl< \vded
with girls who come in for their food, and thus get
ipanionship and probably make friendships. In
town aft. i t<>\vn I tri.'d in vain to g--t a bed at the
V.Y. IK! m\ i . tn this \\a> the
offer of the sitting-room sofa on one occasion. Hut
this was speedily taken from me owing to tl it-
arrival of a sickly-looking girl, evidently in tmuM.-,
upon whidi the matron said, that as I appeared to
be so strong, would I mind giving up the s>fa and
getting a lodging < .The women's hostels,
EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS 289
subsidised by Government, charge about the same
rates as the Y.W.C.A., but unluckily there are not
nearly enough of these most useful institutions.
I was told that if girls would club together, they
could hire an unfurnished flat with four bedrooms and
a bathroom at about 7 a month. In this case they
would buy some second-hand furniture, cook their
own meals, and could live cheaper than in any board-
ing-house. But, of course, this plan would be hardly
practicable for a new-comer.
I got to know a young Canadian stenographer, who
used to come in for her meals at a women's hostel,
and sat next to me at table. Apparently she had a
very easy time at her office, her employer often order-
ing in ice-creams, " soft " drinks, and chocolates, of
which she would partake during business hours ; but,
despite these attractions, she was hesitating whether
she would not transfer her services to another office
belonging to some " real estate " agent, who, she
assured me, was deeply in love with her. She
was not quite certain whether this would be a
desirable arrangement, and in the frankest manner
asked for my opinion. This I gave in such an un-
compromising fashion, that it helped to turn the
balance in the direction that she herself really saw
was the right one. She and the " chum " who shared
her room were quite nice girls, and would, I was
T
290 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
convinced, steer clear of the dangers that lit- in wait
for women who earn their livelihood in fact, th
system of co-education helps girls greatly when they
go into business. It enables them to compete with
men, to stand up for themselves, and to value tln-ir
own work, for in many cases the weaker sex wins all
the prizes at school, and is far "smarter" than tin
boys. But an acute observer told me that though
the sense of comradeship thus engendered was a ^
safeguard, yet the system was apt to destroy idealism
in love and marriage, and in many cases tended to
make the boys effeminate.
In Western Canada, where men are so much in the
majority, girls can easily have a good time, but tin-
free confidences of my young acquaintances made in.
wish to protect their admirers. I ivnurkrd that n
drives lasting for many hours, dinners at hotels,
th.Mtrical entertainments, and so on were not to be
got for nothing, and surprised tln-m 1>\ pointing out
that d-l)t, followed by embe//lrm<-nt, might be- the
result of these costly outings to their " parti- ular
irimds," as they called th-m.
I have been frequently asked concerning the climate
of Canada, but it is difficult to dogmatise about a
huge Continent in which thirty United Kingdoms or
eighteen Germanys could be packed. From all I
(\, I should judge that British Columbia h
EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS 291
magnificent climate; Vancouver Island is free of the
rainy season that visits Vancouver, and the winters
on the whole Pacific slope are mild, not unlike those
of Devonshire, I was told. Farther inland there is
snow and frost, yet the cold is seldom severe, and is
comparatively short-lived.
East of the Rockies it is different, and an English-
man said that, when a new-comer in Alberta, he had
had his hands and feet frost-bitten, and even his nose
had not escaped in fact, when working in the open
during the winter it was necessary to rub the face
with snow constantly in order to escape this danger.
The snow lies for several months on end, except in
the districts visited by the balmy Chinook wind, and
a woman whom I met in the train told me a pathetic
tale of a young child who strayed out-of-doors during
a snowstorm, and, in spite of the frenzied search made
by its parents, the little body was only found when
the snow melted in the spring. Here is an extract
from a letter written by an Englishwoman, a widow,
farming in North Alberta, dated November 16, 1911 :
" The weather is Utter for five to seven months of
the year. In winter I am up at 5.30 A.M., and try
to get the house above zero, and the food thawed out
and eatable, and the creatures fed. This year our
crop was badly frosted, and the prices offered for it
A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
so low that the expenses are higher than the income
from it. Our potatoes and crop of garden vegetables
were frozen in the ground, and are under six inches of
snow as well, and will only do as pig-feed in the spring.
" We are told that it pays better to use all our
frozen grain as feed, and convert it into beef and pork
and poultry, instead of selling it at such low prices. As
I write to-day, it is 27 degrees below zero, and a cnirl
wind blowing, but we must make the best of it." . . .
Yet, to counterbalance this picture, I heard again
and again that though the thermometer is low, yet
the sun, as a rule, shines brilliantly, and the buoyant
air fills one and all with vitality, new-comers, curiously
enough, seldom feeling the cold at first, and oft n
hardly wrapping up until they have been a year or
two in the country. Indeed, many prefer the cold
to the somewhat enervating climate on the Pacific
slope, a Lotus-land where I could have slept a wax-
half my days. But it is a useful rest cure, for while
I was at Vancouver I met several ladies who
come from Alberta, and they said that they got so
strung up with the hi^'h altitude and the tonic air of
their own homes that an annual visit to the <
was imperatively neo-ssary for them. As one lady
put i: 1 am wound up like a m.rhanical toy, and
I .an going on and on, and can't stop myself
EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS 293
if I try I can't even sleep so I come here, and then
the whole thing runs down of its own accord at once,
and my nerves get all right again."
On my way back to the Atlantic I had many an
interesting talk with fellow-passengers. I was on one
occasion, in a dining-car in British Columbia, placed
opposite a young man, who looked like a navvy in his
costume of an old red jersey and a dark-blue flannel
shirt. In appearance he was far from being an ideal
table-companion, but when I ventured on some
remark I found that I was much mistaken. My
acquaintance turned out to be a forest surveyor, an
enthusiastic lover of the romantic scenery through
which we were passing, and he told me much of the
lore of the woods, his talk reminding me of The Blazed
Trail, that fascinating epic of the lumber-trade. He
was an ardent admirer of the Songs of a Sour-dough,
and explained how " the wilds where the caribou
call " had laid their spell upon him, unfitting him for
the life of towns; and I, in my turn, begged him to
read Kipling's haunting " Feet of the Young Men."
Another table-companion, an Englishman in the
prime of life, interested me by recounting how he had
" made good " in the Dominion. At first he had
turned his hand to everything, had been employed in
road-making, had worked on the railway, and so on.
But all the time he was keenly noting the possibilities
294 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
in the country of his adoption, and putting his earnings
into well-selected building lots tli.it \\vre humanly
certain to rise in value as the city prospered and ex-
panded. As a result, he had built up a big business
by his own unaided exertions, his special " chum "
in those early days sitting at present in the Dominion
Parliament. Englishman though he is, he regretfully
owned that he had tried again and again to employ
his countrymen in his office, but that he was forced to
dismiss them owing to their lack of adaptability. In
fact, so depressed did I become at this almost universal
charge, that I felt cheered when a Canadian woman
remarked, " At first, when Englishmen tried to get into
my husband's office, he used to turn them all down, but
now he hasn't a single Canadian there." I inquired
the reason of this, but her answer was not exactly
encouraging. " Oh, it's just because the Canadians
won't stay anywhere ; they are always on the lookout
for something better, but the British want to settle
down and not be for ever on the hustle." *
Once when I went into a large church, the Engli>h-
man employed in looking after it came up with a smile
to show me its beauties, and soon told me about
1 These remarks do not apply to the educated Englishwoman w ho, if
capable, is welcomed everywhere, and my successful compatriot said that
his head stenographer was ul that class. " She draws 125 dollars a month
(25), a good salary, but she is worth every cent of the money," was his
comment upon this lady.
EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS 295
himself. He said that he had come from a big manu-
facturing town, lured by the glowing account of the
well-paid work to be had for the asking in the
Dominion. At first he was sadly disillusioned, one of
his worst experiences being the life in a construction
camp with Armenians of indescribable dirtiness, who did *<
not know a word of English. After this he was a fire-
man, and had the ill-luck to be in Toronto at the time
of the " slump " caused by the American bank failures.
During that distressing period there were actually
advertisements in the papers from men offering money
to anyone who would give them work, and he himself
was reduced to becoming a dish-washer in a restau-
rant, which, as he expressed it, was " the limit."
" Now," he concluded, " I have got into ' Easy Street,'
and I always give any jobs I can to the English, but
they won't fit in with the country the Scotch and
Irish are much better. I give the church cleaning to a
man who came out with his wife and children and
didn't know where to turn for a meal, and he's always
on the grumble. Only the other day I asked his wife
to help with the big church lunches, and she actually
refused, as the work would be beneath her ! What
do you say to that for a woman who was nearly a beggar
a few months back ? It makes me tired to think of
her." With the remembrance of his own struggle
with Fate fresh in his mind, my friend said that he
296 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
thought that Canada was a far easier hind for a woman
than for a man, if the former had only pluck. " There
are any amount of soft jobs for a girl. \Vliy, she can
always be a waitress ; that's easy enough."
I did not agree with him in this, for unless a woman
has plenty of physical strength and a steady nerve,
she will find Canada a ruthless country, with few help-
ing hands to aid her.
As I made my way East I halted for a day or two
at those prosperous twin-cities. Fort William and
Port Arthur, situated on beautiful Lake Superior,
and my Canadian authoress having written about
to various of her friends, some of the ladies arranged
a meeting, at which I spoke to them about my work.
A lady journalist who was : rath-r surprised
me by saying that what had struck her most on a
at visit to England was the profound ignorance,
coupled with indifference, of the British as regarded
conditions of life in Canada. This attitud< i> a pity,
and accounts for some of the antagonism that occa-
sionally crops up. An Englishman, who had 1
many years in the Dominion, told me that if his
adian friends sneered at the Briti h. In said that
the latter were different, owing to the great heritage
tin \ 1. lr-m l: He hii.
could not overestimate the intlurn.rth.it Westminster
Abbey, St. Paul's, or the Tower had had on him as
EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS 297
a boy, an influence making for culture and the pursuit
of the ideal. " In my small way," he concluded,
" I uphold the Flag in the town where I live, and now
and then am able to do a bit of quiet work for the
Old Country." He was interested in the idea of
helping educated women to settle in Canada, grasping
at once that their presence might become a power
for good in welding the nations more closely together.
Certainly Canada is, at least in the West, so new,
so much on the make, that men are apt to put their
entire energies into the business of money-making.
The miles of corn, the great forests, the mineral
wealth, practically untouched as yet everything so
vast, opportunities so immense, the splendid climate,
the very optimism of the race, all seeem to be added
temptations to materialism. But the women are
different. Busy as they are, most of them insist on
having some culture in their lives, and thousands,
by enrolling themselves as " Daughters of the Empire,"
uphold patriotism, and never allow the Flag to be
spoken of lightly in their hearing. I was told that
when the Reciprocity Agreement was the burning
question of the hour, the women threw themselves
into politics as never before, because they believed
that the question was an Imperial one. Throughout
Canada there are branches of the "Women's Auxil-
^J
iary," a society that, as far as I could gather, does
298 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
the work of many charitable organisations rolled into
one. When I went to Toronto I had the privily
of addressing a crowded meeting of this society,
assembled to discuss missionary matters, the seer
having most kindly proposed that I should try and
interest the audience in the objects of my journey,
if I could do so in the space of five minutes. I did
my best to explain them, but certainly got more
information than I gave, as various ladies spoke to
me afterwards on the subject of openings for educated
women in the Eastern cities.
During my visit I went to see the comfortable
women's hostel, a boon indeed to girls in search of work.
Two big parties, sent out by the British Women's
Emigration Society, had just arrived from England,
the members of which were given board and lod^in^
free for twenty-four hours, as the Home has a Go\ . i n-
ment grant, and the whole house was crowded with
servant girls and ladies wishing to engage them as
domestics. How one hoped that all these young
things would succeed in the Dominion ! As
girl was suited, she came, often with tears standing
in her eyes, to bid good-bye to the kind Superintend- nt
who has done so much for British women in Canada,
1 I understood that the last link with "Home"
was now being broken, that laic wells had been said to
the companions of the long journey, and that th
EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS 299
was entering on a new life. It lay with her whether
she was to be a success or a failure, and much would
depend on whether she were adaptable or not.
There are few specialists in the domestic line in
Canada ; a girl will have as a rule to do the work of
a general servant, and probably be expected to turn
her hand to odd jobs that do not fall to the lot of even
the maid-of-all-work in England. Though the wages
are high, yet the work is hard in proportion, and two
friends of mine whose servants have left to seek their
fortunes in the Dominion, have received letters, in
each of which was the significant phrase " I lived
like a lady when I was with you and didn't know
what real work meant."
I also spent a most interesting day at the Guelph
Agricultural College, travelling through charming
scenery, gorgeous in October trappings of gold and
scarlet. It was very hot ; as usual the windows of the
crowded carriage were shut, and when I shoved mine up
from the bottom (none open from the top), I found that
the catch did not work, the window in consequence
refusing to stay open. An elderly Canadian farmer
kindly sacrificed a pencil to act as a prop, and we were
soon engaged on the Reciprocity question. His ire
had been strongly aroused by the party that had
taken "British born" for its election cry, and he
remarked that, as we all belonged to the same Empire,
500 A HOME-HELP IN (ANAPA
such a feeling only caused friction and disruptu
This was by no means the first time that Canadiai
had commented to me about this party-cry, so sadly
at variance with Lord Grey's fine motto : "I live
in the Empire, but Canada is my Home."
When my friend left, his place was taken by a man
as averse to Reciprocity as the other was for it. He
lived at London, Ontario, where the river Thames
is crossed by Blackfriars Bridge, and where the streets
are called by the familiar names of Piccadilly, Regent
Street, and so on. I was quite sorry when I reached
the junction where I had to change, and my new
acquaintance helped me and my belongings out of
the car, saying, as we shook hands, that he hoped
to see the original London some day. At Guelph, a
well-built and prettily situated town, I took a tram
to the College, set out in its large grounds, and waft
hospitably received by the wife of the Principal
(her husband was away for th- day), and by the lady
President of the Macdonald Institute, where the women
students reside and are instructed, When I waft
taken over this latter, and saw the charming rooms
whir re the students live, the fine dining-hall, gymnasium,
and public sitting-rooms, I frit that Canadian girls
owe a MK d bt of gratitude to the generous donor.
In another building were the class-rooms, and h-
a laundry equipped with wa^h-tubs and wringers
EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS 301
worked by electricity, where the water was for ever
on the boil, and where rows of clothes were hanging
in hot cupboards to dry them. Such luxury reminded
me of a recent experience of mine on the prairie, when
floods of rain had induced us to leave the clothes hanging
on the line during the night, the result being that they
were found frozen stiff the next day, and had to be
washed again to the accompaniment of a piercing wind.
In this laundry were also wash-tubs and wringers
such as are in use on every prairie farm, and,
in the beautifully arranged and spotlessly clean
kitchens, the batterie de cuisine was just what
the girls would have at their own homes, every effort
being made to ensure that the training is thoroughly
practical. Cards of instruction hung on the walls,
and I perused the one treating of dish-washing with
especial interest. Sewing, dressmaking, and millinery
are taught, in fact everything to make a girl a good
housekeeper, and I only wished that I could have
entered for a course myself six months earlier. Later
on I was taken over the poultry farm and saw the
dairy- work. This is in the men's part, but women
are allowed to take a month's course in the rear-
ing of fowls and the making of butter and cheese.
Everybody was most kind to the inquiring stranger,
and I thoroughly enjoyed my day, one of the last
spent in the Land of the Maple Leaf, for it was
302 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
well into October and time for me to be returning
home.
I had been since the end of April in Canada, and
had tried never to lose sight of the fact that I
in the country to investigate what it offered to tin-
educated British woman, and now I had come to
certain conclusions which I will sum up shortly.
The quality that spells success in Canada is efficiency,
and if that is allied to an energetic, adaptable nature
possessing some business capacity, its possessor will
without fail " make good."
Canadians are so capable themselves that there is
no room in the country for the amateur, " un>ki!K -d
labour," save in the kitchen, being even more
discount here than it is in Great Britain.
The British woman who comes out wt 11 equipped
with something that the Dominion needs may very
likely have to " start in " at the bottom and work h-r
way up, for she is beginning her life across tin Atlantic
under entirely different conditions to those that pre-
vail in the Old Country. But, to counterbalance this.
the girl who is dependent on her earnings is not looked
down upon socially, except, perhaps if she be home-
help in a town. " We despise people out hen- if they
won't work," were the words of a cultivated Eneji-h
woman in the Far West, and the bracing climate is of
marvellous assistance in inducing energy and opti-
mum. In (in-. it Britain th<-r<- ar million mre
EASTWARDS AND HOMEWARDS 303
women than men ; in Canada, west of Winnipeg, I
am told that there are about a dozen men to every
woman, therefore the field for feminine work is im-
mense. Life in the " Golden West " may be devoid
of many of the comforts that we in the United King-
dom have come to look upon as necessaries, but it
offers opportunities that are not to be found in the
crowded British Isles. In the words of a travelling
acquaintance, " In England, whenever there is a good
post, there are hundreds after it, but out here there
may be only one woman capable of filling it."
One of the heads of the Emigration Department, in
speaking about the objects of the League, said of the
British woman of to-day, " The stock is all right, but
the training is all wrong," and his words are well
worth considering.
But though efficiency is so important, yet character
perhaps counts for more in Canada than in the British
Isles ; and the most highly trained girl, if devoid of
energy and resource, might very possibly go to the
wall in a land where all must fend for themselves.
I shall be richly rewarded if this book, in which I \
have tried to portray things exactly as I saw them,
makes some of my sisters realise the importance of
becoming experts instead of being amateurs ; and
though I trust that the unfit, such as I was, may be
discouraged from trying their fortune in the Dominion,
yet I hope that what I have written may be useful to
304 A HOME-HELP IN CANADA
^^
the right type of woman, who cannot see her w.
earning a livelihood and providing for her o'd age ii
England. In weighing the " pros " and " cons " o
settling in Canada, she ought to take into ronsi
tion what kind of a future will probably be h T- it
remains at home.
We hear so much talk nowadays about the "
fluous woman," that surely, rather than be incli
in that depressing category, it would be well
girl's while to put up with some discomfort and
in the Dominion, where she is badly needed,
where, if of the right type, she will in all lik lilu
succeed beyond her anticipations.
> I consider that it is an Imperial work to help
of a high stamp to seek their fortunes beyond
seas women who will care for our glorious Flag and
what it signifies, who will stand for higlu-r id.-als than
the worship of the " almighty dollar," and who will
do their part in the land that their brothers are de-
v loping so splendidly.
It is not too much to say that a British woman.
Worthy of her great hen 1 in Mr. Chamlx-rlain's
unforgettable words, be in very deed a " missi-
of Em}
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