Across The Prairie In A Motor Caravan Part 4

Meeting another car was an awkward matter as it meant climbing out of the ruts and running with one wheel in the gutter. Sometimes, in trying to avoid a mud hole or something, we ran at such an angle that I only kept my seat by clinging to the steering-wheel, and how Winifred kept hers is a mystery. Straw and sand are sometimes thrown into these mud holes, in a vain endeavour to fill them up. When stuck fast in one it was little consolation to be told that it was probably an old buffalo wallow.

This is how Winifred described the trail in one of her letters: "The road was long, the ruts were deep, the sloughs were lined with mud. The road was narrow, and on each side those watery sloughs did gleam with tempting sunset gleams of cherry, pink and gold, a warm, warm glow. They said 'Oh, guide your car into our gleams and spend the night with us.'"

CHAPTER VIII

FROM WINNIPEG TO REGINA

The first night we camped near a farmhouse so as to be able to get water. We did this whenever it was possible. Going to bed in a caravan proved to be an acquired art. First we had to put all the camping equipment, etc., either in front of the driving seat or outside the van covered over with a waterproof sheet (there was always a very heavy dew at night); then we let down the mattresses and arranged the bedding.

Next came the difficulty of undressing, there being barely 12 inches between the mattresses when they were let down. We could not make a dressing-room of the prairie because we generally camped near a farm, and anyhow the clarity of the atmosphere and the flat ground made one visible from a long distance. This first night we sat on our mattresses and wriggled out of our clothes, there being no room in the van to stand upright. Afterwards we adopted the plan of going to bed one by one. We put up the tent for a second room whenever we stayed long enough in a place to make it worth while. We had been obliged to do this trip without our sleeping-bags, and so were very cold at night, as the temperature then falls very low even in the summer. You really need a sleeping-bag as well as blankets on the prairie. Our excellent health throughout the tour was probably largely due to our precautions in this matter. My sleeping-bag had already done much service, having been lent me by a cousin who had used it on the French and Italian fronts, and my mosquito net was a loan from a padre who had served at Salonica. This preserved me from much discomfort and blood-poisoning, as later in the summer the mosquitoes were very ferocious, especially to us newcomers.

We started on our tour with a due regard for appearances, both of us armed with travelling looking-gla.s.ses. But these soon got smashed in our b.u.mpy progress, and henceforth we contented ourselves with tidying our hair from our shadows cast on the ground or our reflections in the wind-screen, or, Hyacinth-like, gazed fondly into the sloughs.

I turned out first in the morning, as I was going to cook the breakfast, and found it decidedly cold. When I went to the farm for milk and eggs the nice woman would not let me pay for them. We found great generosity wherever we went. We had brought sufficient water from Winnipeg in the ferrostate flask for tea, but this was too precious to use for was.h.i.+ng up, so we had our first experience of getting water out of a prairie well. This shortage of water and the expense of boring very deep wells is one of the farmers' great trials. In certain places you have to go down forty feet for water. If there is no gasolene engine or windmill it has to be drawn up with a bucket and rope. This is by no means easy, the problem being to prevent the bucket from floating empty on the surface of the water. To avoid this you have to swing the bucket so that it falls in sideways and fills itself, but if you are not very careful when drawing it up it will sway violently and spill half the contents. On this first occasion, having proudly drawn up my water, I essayed to take it away in our canvas bucket, but not knowing the habits of the latter it turned over just as I had got it filled. Afterwards I circ.u.mvented it by weighting it with a stone or propping it up.

When at last we were all ready to start, the engine unfortunately wasn't. I thought that the sparking plugs had probably got damp with the heavy dew, or had got oily, so I took them out and cleaned them and also cleaned the carburetter. In the meantime Winifred went off to the neighbouring town to fetch help from a garage, but they were all too busy with motor tractors to come. Presently two farm men came and talked to me and helped to undo screws, but did not seem to know much about a car. The small boy from the farm saved the situation by his cheerful chatter. He kept telling me that the radiator was like a letter-box.

At last I got the car to start, and then it went very well. The trail was very sandy, bordered with coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and p.r.i.c.kly scrub, and there were hills at intervals. The car skidded badly in the sand, and once swung round broadside on up a bank, and nearly turned over. We had to cut down some of the th.o.r.n.y bushes in order to get it out without damaging the headlights. We had not gone much further before the car stuck in the sand again, going up a hill. Some men came by in a car and advised me to tighten the gear pedal, which I did. New cars need continual adjustment at first, of course. When we had done about fifty miles I thought that the engine smelt hot and found that the fan was not working, so I screwed up the belt and it was all right for a time. We pa.s.sed through several towns that day, and stopped for the night near a slough, outside Alexandra. For the first time we were hushed to sleep by the "Canadian Band," as the frog chorus is called.

The next day was Ascension Day, and we hoped to reach some town in time for a service, but difficulties beset us from the first. I had to get some gasolene out of the side tanks, and this meant siphoning it, an exceedingly unpleasant performance, no less than sucking it through a tube to start the flow. Then the electric starter went wrong, and the engine was terribly hard to crank, as the starting-handle had not been used. At last we were off, but the trail was heavy with sand, and the engine got very hot and presently stuck fast at a hill. I found that the fan had gone wrong again, and took it down, and while trying to put it right found that a nut had not been properly adjusted. A man came along in a car and at once went to my aid. Then two more men came by and also stopped to help, and when we had adjusted the fan they all three pushed the van off and we went up the hill.

But our troubles were not over yet. An immense hole, about five feet deep, yawned across our path as we topped the hill, and there was nothing for it but to plunge through it and down the hill beyond. The caravan swayed so violently that I expected every moment that we should be upset, but it always righted itself just in time, though everything on the shelves was hurled to the floor--a continual occurrence until we put up the netting. The sand was so thick here that we got on to a gra.s.s track beside the trail, hoping for better going, but this soon ended, and we had to b.u.mp back on to the trail again. In so doing we stuck fast in the ditch. By racing the engine I got her out, but we soon stuck fast again, this time up to our axles in sand. After we had tried in vain for an hour to get the car out, we gave it up and sat down by the roadside to read the service for the day in our prayer-books. It was easy to enter into the spirit of the festival out there on the wide prairie, with its immense distances and glorious blue sky. We were about thirty miles from any house.

After a time we started to dig out the wheels with our hands, but just then two of the men who had helped us before came back along the trail.

"How many more times shall we have to help you two girls out of a hole?"

they cried, and with much good nature proceeded to a.s.sist us, until at last, with reversing and pus.h.i.+ng and putting our blankets under the wheels, we got out. We had to go half a mile back and along another trail, but at last reached Verdun. We only did twenty-seven miles that day.

We didn't stick fast anywhere next day, but the trails were very bad, and we were shaken to pieces. My arms became very stiff with the vibration from the steering-wheel, and sometimes it was nearly knocked out of my hands when a front wheel struck big clods. One had to hang on like grim death. After a time, however, I quite got into the way of driving in ruts. We stopped for the night at Wapallo, and were just going to have supper when the vicar came along and saw our van, whereupon he promptly took us home with him. His wife was most kind to us, and at once supplied our greatest (and most obvious) need by inviting us to wash. A real wash is a great treat on the prairie, where water is so scarce. After supper we went to evensong in the pretty little prairie church, near which we afterwards camped. We had done ninety-two miles that day.

Next day, when we stopped at Medicine Hat for gasolene, a man came out of a store close by, and, seeing the van, introduced himself as the superintendent of the Anglican Sunday School there. He was most anxious that we should stop over Sunday, but we thought it best to get to Regina as soon as possible. As we neared the town we had a narrow escape from a slough. Going into Regina there was a very bad turn, in negotiating which the car swung round and one of the front wheels went into a muddy ditch. By putting on the brake with great force, I managed to stop her from plunging farther in. I think I was getting a little tired. We had done 120 miles that day. Winifred went off to find help, but a big motor lorry came along as I sat waiting with the car, and stopped at once, seeing I was in difficulties. The driver called out that he would pull me out if I had a rope. I always carried one, and with its aid he soon towed me out backwards. When I thanked him he said: "You're Scotch, aren't you? I was in a hospital in Scotland during the War, and the nurses were so good to me that I'm glad to help any girls from the Old Country."

Everyone seemed both pleased and surprised to see us back, though unfeignedly astonished that one so "green" should have been able to bring the car through alone. It is 412 miles from Winnipeg to Regina--farther than from London to Glasgow. Far from being exhausted by our adventures, we felt braced up by the glorious suns.h.i.+ne and invigorating air of the prairie, and we did full justice to the feast of welcome prepared. Folks were interested in the caravan, and various remarks were made about it. Even to our fond eyes it could not be called exactly beautiful, but it was rather cruel of Canon X. to observe: "Ah!

a Black Maria, I see."

On the Monday following, while I was in the midst of preparations for our start that week, Nona Clarke rang me up to say that Aylmer Bosanquet was very ill, and could I come at once to help to bring her into Regina.

I had about ten minutes in which to catch the train. Helped by kind Mrs.

W., I bundled a few things into a suit-case and ran. But I had to stop at a drug-store to get some sort of stimulant for Aylmer, as Nona had said that she seemed on the verge of a collapse. It is in a case like this that prohibition is so inconvenient. I could get neither brandy nor sal-volatile without a doctor's certificate--and yet I had often seen people who did not _look_ ill produce a certificate and get the stimulant they asked for. "Is there nothing you can give me?" I asked in desperation, and the shopman handed me some kind of ammonia, saying that was the only thing he could let me have. The bottle bore no directions, and when I asked how one should take it, and whether the dose would be about the same as sal-volatile, he replied indifferently: "Oh, yes, I think so."

I just caught the train, which then steamed out of the station and waited an hour at North Regina.

I found Aylmer very ill indeed, hardly able to speak, and without any of those little comforts which mean so much in sickness. The shack was all in disorder, too, as they were packing up to go on the prairie in the Ford roadster. Although she was so weak and ill she was full of interest in our work, and made me describe the journey from Winnipeg, but I soon saw that conversation was too much for her. Nona telephoned to a doctor in Regina, asking him to come out next day to see if the patient were fit to travel, in which case he was to accompany her back by the next train.

All that night a dust storm raged, succeeded next morning by torrential rain. I went out to get milk and bread for breakfast, buying the latter from the Christian Chinaman, who inquired anxiously for Aylmer, and said, when I wished to pay for my purchase, "Eef it ees for de missionarees you need not pay." Then there was the problem of how to get the invalid to the station, as the shack was by this time surrounded with a sea of black mud which no car could traverse. But Nona found a man with a dray who promised to come if needed. The doctor's train was so late that there was only a quarter of an hour between his arrival and the departure of the return train. But he made a hasty examination, and said that though she was very weak it would be better to take her into Regina. It is so difficult to get nurses or medical attendance out on the prairie.[4]

I dressed her with difficulty, and she lay on the bed while we all combined to lift it bodily on to the dray. But the rain and wind were still so strong that Nona had to kneel beside the bed holding on fast to the rugs, while I held an umbrella over Aylmer's head. It was pathetic to see the people waving good-bye from their houses as she pa.s.sed, for though they did not guess how ill she was, they knew that she was leaving them, perhaps for ever. Arrived at Regina, we took her to the Grey Nuns' hospital.

I had now only three days in which to complete our preparations if we were to start on the date fixed, which it was necessary to do if we were to fulfil our engagements. I went to see Aylmer as often as I could, and of course drove the caravan up to the hospital for her to see from her window. It grieved me very much (apart from my anxiety about her illness) to think that she could now take no part in this adventure, the idea of which was all her own. Indeed, this was to prove her only glimpse of our van, in the details of which she would have revelled, for before we returned from the prairie she had been ordered to British Columbia and then on to California. I never saw her again.

[Footnote 4: See Appendix II.]

CHAPTER IX

SANDSTORMS AND SUNDAY SCHOOLS

We had arranged to start on Friday, May 21, and the day dawned beautifully fine. I fetched the caravan round to the parish hall, where our things were stored, and we loaded up. This was no easy task, for unless you did it very carefully you could not get everything in. The packages reached from floor to roof now that we were fully equipped.

Whilst we were busily engaged in this task we did not notice that the weather had changed, but presently a great wind arose, and then an ominous darkness blotted out the sun. We knew that that horror of horrors, a fierce dust storm, was raging. It was a veritable blackness that might be felt; and when we went to say good-bye to some Regina friends they begged us not to start. One of them travelled for a firm, and he a.s.sured us that no commercial traveller would venture out in such a storm. It was bound to get worse and worse, he said, and he did his best to dissuade us. But I had arranged to get to Buffalo Lake by Sunday, and I had already been obliged to alter the date once owing to the delay in getting the caravan, so I felt that I could not put them off any more. If one delays for difficulties one will never do anything.

So we started.

The wind whipped and whistled around the caravan, and blew the earth in great clouds over us, and formed huge drifts on the trail, which made the car skid as on loose sand. It was distressing to remember that this earth was full of newly-sown wheat. It was hard enough to see the way when we started, though Winifred held the map and directed me; but after sunset it was impossible to go on, as the headlights could not penetrate the dense clouds of dust. However, we had gone a good distance, and therefore decided to camp. Meanwhile our late host, at the urgent instigation of his wife, was searching the trail for our mangled remains.

The next morning was fine, and we started early; but quite soon we struck sand, and after the storm of the day before it lay in drifts. I tried to rush through at full speed, but with a tremendous skid the car lurched sideways and stuck fast in a drift. We got out, and tried to jack it up in order to wind rope round a wheel, as I had been told that Parsons' chains are useless in sand. To crown our misery the wind now began to blow hard, and we were almost blinded by the flying sand, which stung our eyes cruelly. In the dust-storm of the previous day we were spared this torture by the wind-screen and side-doors being kept shut.

But help was at hand. One after another six men in all stopped their cars and came to our a.s.sistance. It was easier for them to get through the sand-drifts than for us because their cars were so much lighter, although a good deal of the caravan was made of a kind of stout beaver-boarding to save weight, but this was counteracted by our camping equipment, etc.

Our helpers pulled us out with great difficulty, and we continued on our way through Moose Jaw. Towards evening we sighted Buffalo Lake church and steered for it, expecting that the vicarage would be near by. But before we reached it, in trying to negotiate a mud hole, we stuck fast once more. A farmer ploughing near came to our aid, and fastened his team to our rope. One of the trials of a mud hole was that when you got out to adjust the rope, etc., your boots became thickly coated with sticky mud, so that you could scarcely work your gear pedal. It was also exceedingly difficult to drive the car close at the heels of restive horses. They hated the noise of the engine, and were all ready to kick; and when the car reached firm ground it rushed forward almost on to the horses, and was only stopped by jamming on the brakes.

Thanks to this timely aid we reached our goal in good time to make camp.

But the wind was still blowing strong, and as I was cooking on the Primus it suddenly burst into flames. Thinking the caravan in danger, Winifred hastily threw earth on it--which put an effectual end to my culinary efforts for that night. We made a fair meal on the food we had with us, and just as we had finished a buggy came along with the vicar and his family. They had been shopping in the neighbouring town. From the van he guessed our ident.i.ty, and came up to ask how we had managed our cooking in this wind. We tactfully evaded this point, and a.s.sured him that we had made a good meal. But we were not sorry when he said that next day we must have meals at the vicarage.

The next day was Whit Sunday, and we were very glad to be where we could have an early Celebration. So widely scattered is the population that there was only one other wors.h.i.+pper besides ourselves. After breakfast the vicar was going to take duty at a place about five miles away, so I offered to drive him in the caravan as there was another dust storm blowing up and he had nothing but an open buggy. As he was the first vicar I had driven I determined not to disgrace myself by sticking on the trail, and so went full tilt all the way and successfully ploughed through the drifts. We skidded and swayed a good deal, but my pa.s.senger seemed thoroughly to enjoy it. When we arrived, however, we found that none of the congregation had cared to face the storm; we therefore did a little visiting and returned home.

There was a regular weekly Sunday School here in which two of the parents taught. It was brilliantly fine in the afternoon and the children and their parents were all able to come. Car after car drove up, until there was a long line of them. The children were most beautifully dressed, with dainty white frocks and pretty hats. The parents and the elder boys and girls were also extremely well turned out. Indeed, it is one of the most striking features of prairie life that, with all their heavy manual work, the people dress well when not engaged in actual toil--a fine example of personal self-respect.

It was delightful to see this school, conducted by two of the mothers.

We longed to give professional a.s.sistance but hesitated to offer it, as of course the idea of constructive criticism and demonstration lessons was quite foreign to them. But an opportunity for the latter presented itself when we gave round "Hope of the World" postcards and the children began to ask questions about them, whereupon the mothers appealed to me to give the explanation.

After the school there was a Family Service (characteristic of the prairie) at which all are present, from the father to the infant in arms. There were a great many baptisms, which made one think of Whitsuntide in the early Church. A delightful feature of the service was the freedom with which the children ran out to play when tired. I could see them from the window jumping in and out of the cars. But when they had worked off their superfluous energy they came back quietly to their places.

After the service we were introduced to all the people, and one young man remarked: "We thought your car was a motor ambulance and supposed there'd been a sc.r.a.p."

The fervour of these people, and their evident appreciation of the services of the Church, made a strong impression on me. It was shown by their coming long distances--twenty miles in some cases--after working very hard for very long hours all the week.

In the evening I drove the vicar to another church for evensong. It was coated so thickly with dust from the storm of the morning that we had to clean it down before a service could be held.

Next morning the vicar showed us his stable, and we photographed his special pride, a handsome colt which he had broken himself. We had had a most delightful week-end, and were much cheered by our kind reception from the vicar and his wife, and felt quite weak with laughter at the former's amusing stories.

In the afternoon we started for Eyebrow, but did not get very far that day, as we stuck in the mud and had to wait to be pulled out. We arrived at Eyebrow next day, however, and went to see the layman in charge of the mission. It had not been possible as yet to arrange for us to visit any schools, so we decided to go on and spend some time here on our return journey. They entertained us most hospitably to supper, and allowed us to put our baggage in the church porch as it was raining in torrents. We next made a two days' journey on to Riverhurst, and on arrival went into a Chinaman's restaurant for supper. The food in these restaurants is both good and cheap. A three-course dinner costs only about one and eightpence in English money. As we were comfortably eating our supper we were surprised and rather alarmed to see a district policeman making straight for us. He put us through a searching catechism. Who were we and where did we come from? A brother officer had seen us and put him on our trail. We told him who we were and whose authority was behind us, and after a few more questions he seemed satisfied and left us to finish our supper in peace. We longed to know what crimes he had mentally charged us with.

We found that there was a Union Sunday school at Riverhurst which all the children attended, including the only Anglican children in the place, four in number. It seemed hopeless to try to start a Sunday School for these four, so we noted them for enrolment in the Sunday School by Post, and went on towards Elbow.

We started in a dust storm, the unpleasantness of which custom cannot stale. I took some photographs of it, however. Presently we thought that we must have taken the wrong trail to Elbow, and so tried to turn on what looked like firm gra.s.s, but the ground was soft underneath, and the heavily-weighted car stuck fast, sinking in up to the axles. It was far away from any sign of human habitation, and the recommendation of Dr.

Smiles seemed the only solution. So I started to dig out a wheel.

Suddenly a boy on a horse appeared as if by magic, and asked if we wanted help, saying that he would go back to his father's farm for horses, which sure enough he did, and handled them manfully. He fastened his team to our rope, and I got into the car and started the engine.