PREPARATIONS AND DEPARTURE
The first idea was to buy one of the Red Cross motor ambulances then
being sold off in London, but transport difficulties made it impossible
to take one across. Meanwhile Aylmer Bosanquet, having returned to
Canada, found that the Saskatchewan Bible Society had a Ford caravan in
which a man could live and sleep, travelling about the province with
Bibles. Also, Archdeacon Burgett, the Diocesan Missioner for Qu'Appelle,
was having a Ford caravan built for two of his mission clergy. She sent
me details of these vans, and I asked her to order me a similar one, the
interior fittings to be decided upon when I came out in the spring.
The next thing to do was to find a fellow-worker for the tour; and this
was by no means easy, for she must not only have been trained at St.
Christopher's and be physically strong, but she must be prepared to pay
her own expenses, there being as yet no fund to finance the venture.
Fortunately, however, an experienced ex-student, Miss Winifred
Ticehurst, offered to go. She had trained at St. Christopher's soon
after its foundation, and had since had considerable experience in
Sunday-school and parish work.
Then came the difficulty of getting passages and passports. These would
never have been granted had we not been able to prove that we were going
out to work. After the trials consequent on a visit to Cook's agent the
following incident in the current _Punch_ seemed peculiarly apposite.
Scene: The office of a travel bureau. Clerk (helping nervous-looking
lady to fill up form): "And the address of the nearest relation to whom
the body may be sent if found dead?"
I intended to travel via New York, in order to visit some cousins. I had
heard of the fame of the U.S.A. Sunday-schools, and wished to see some
of them. I also hoped to meet Dr. Gardner, the Secretary of the
Executive Committee of the Department of Religious Education for the
American Episcopal Church. It was therefore necessary to get my passport
visaed at the American Consulate, and on presenting the customary letter
of recommendation from a clergyman I was much amused when the clerk eyed
me suspiciously and remarked: "A letter from a clergyman is nothing to
go by. They are so easily taken in."
The question of equipment had taken considerable thought, and the result
seems worth setting down, in view of its possible service to others. The
chief items were: a motorist's 1919 tent with bamboo poles,
sleeping-bags, a double Primus stove and a Tommy cooker, a ferrostate
flask and two thermos flasks, canvas buckets, clothes both for winter
and summer (landworkers' suits for driving the caravan, which,
unfortunately, the Canadians regarded as displaying an undue amount of
"limb"!). Then, for use in the prairie schools, sets of Nelson's
pictures and Sunday School Institute models (given me by the Girls'
Diocesan Association for Carlisle diocese), and a case of books of
graded lesson courses and a quantity of postcard pictures of "The Hope
of the World" and "The New Epiphany." A tip from an experienced
traveller proved most useful. This was to fasten the packing-cases with
bands of tin nailed on, instead of with ropes, as the latter frequently
break when the cases are swung aboard ship, scattering the contents on
deck.
In February, 1920, we embarked at Liverpool for New York. Winifred
Ticehurst was to meet me at the boat, and my feelings may be imagined as
the time drew on, the friends seeing me off had to leave, and still no
fellow-traveller appeared. At last, five minutes before they raised the
gangway, she ran up, breathless. Her passport had not been dated in
London, and they had sent her back from the boat to get it dated at the
American Consulate in Liverpool. It was an ill-omened opening for her
voyage, which proved one of great discomfort, as she was more or less
ill for a week. She managed to write descriptive letters, all the same,
and the following extract is a vivid portrait of our fellow-travellers
(we went second-class to save expense).
"The young men and maidens . . . sit about on one another's laps, and
the correct way to get ready for lunch is, when you hear the gong, to
part yourself from your companion, pull a comb out of your pocket and do
your hair--then you are ready."
I did not suffer from sea-sickness myself, and never missed a meal.
Indeed, the waiters seemed greatly intrigued at my appetite, and I
fancy, from the way they pressed the various courses, that they were
betting on how much I could eat!
A day or two before we reached New York there was a horrid orgy on
board. Knowing that they were entering a "dry" country, many of the
passengers got drunk, shouting and raging all night long, so that one
could not sleep. On the prairie I afterwards found other ill-effects of
prohibition--the smuggling of spirits and excessive drug-taking, the
latter chiefly amongst women. Before passing such laws it surely would
have been advisable to have created a stronger public opinion to support
them. Otherwise there is danger of finding two evils in the place of
one.
On the other hand, future generations should benefit greatly by this
measure, however imperfectly it now works. It seems improbable that the
health and industrial prosperity of non-prohibition countries will equal
those of "dry" countries.
The day before we entered New York we got into the end of a blizzard.
There was a tremendously high sea, and we moved very little that day. We
received a wireless message from a ship just out of a Canadian port
which had struck a rock in the storm, but we were too far off to go to
her assistance.
Our stay in New York proved to be an amazing and exhilarating
experience. The palatial manner in which, in a private house, one is
assigned one's own "compartments," would have satisfied Mr. Salteena;
and the restaurants are a paradise for the discerning palate. A brief
but thorough experience of American luxury in a great city was, from its
very contrast, a fitting prelude to the rough life of the prairie. You
get a more complete picture with strongly-drawn lights and shades.