One of the Settlers
"Now we get right in to business," said Sam, two days after the ship
had brought them to Quebec, and he and Joe had gradually recovered
their usual appearance. For, till then, they were hardly presentable,
both having had every hair singed from their heads, while Sam, who wore
a moustache, as a rule, merely retained a few straggling ends of that
appendage. As for Joe, his hands were so blistered, that even now he
was able to do little for himself.
"But you've got something inside there in your pocket that'll make
amends," grinned Sam, as they sat in the parlour of the little hotel to
which Sam had taken his wife, and whither Joe, Jim, and Claude had
accompanied them. "You've got notes in that 'ere pocket that'll make
you ready and eager to get burned again. There! Ain't I speaking the
truth? I'm fair jubilant."
A cockney from his birth upward, Sam had not, even now, lost touch with
the Old Country and its manner of speech, though into his conversation
there was now habitually pressed many a Canadian slang expression, many
an Americanism which to people of the Old World is so peculiarly
fascinating. He pulled a huge leather wallet from his own hip pocket,
a capacious affair that accommodated quite a mass of material, and was
fellow to one on the far side harbouring a revolver. Not that Sam was
of a pugnacious frame of mind; on the contrary, he was just one of the
numerous citizens of Canada whose daily thoughts were centred in
"making good". Indeed, as is the case with all in the Dominion, with
few exceptions, Sam was out, as he frankly admitted, to make a pile, to
build up a fortune.
"And I'll tell you for why," he had once said to our hero. "It ain't
only because dollars look nice and can buy nice things. It ain't only
because I'd like to be rich, to put by a heap and feel and know that me
and the missus needn't want when the rainy day comes along, and we're
took by illness or old age. Don't you go and believe it. There's
people will tell you that Canadians think and dream of nothing but
dollars, and jest only for the sake of the dollars. Don't you go and
believe it. They're jest like me; they've been, many a one of 'em,
down on their beam ends in the Old Country--couldn't get work, for one
cause or another. Then they've emigrated, fought their way through,
nearly gone to the wall maybe, and then made good. It's making good
that fascinates us, young feller. Making good! Jest that and mostly
only that. I'd be a proud man if I could put by a pile; for, don't yer
see, it shows as I've succeeded. That's what I and many another are
after. We've been failures, perhaps. We want to show the world that
we're good for something. Dollars spells success--that's why we're
after them all the time."
But Sam was not pugnacious, as we have observed. He dragged his huge
leather case from one hip pocket and his revolver from the other,
laying both on the table.
"I always carry a shooter," he said to Joe, "and so'll you after a bit.
The usual run of fellow you come across is a decent, hard-working man.
But this here country's full of 'bad men', as we call 'em.
Ne'er-do-weels, remittance men, as some are known, loafers, and
thieves. A chap as shows he's got sommat to defend himself with has a
good chance of sendin' 'em off; so I carry a shooter. But we was
talking of the stuff you'd got in your pocket, same as me. That makes
up for burned hands."
Very deliberately he began to count out the values of the flimsy,
blue-backed money notes rolled in his wallet, while Joe dived into an
inner pocket and did likewise. He drew out quite a respectable bundle
and counted the amounts also.
"Two hundred and fifty dollars," said Sam solemnly. "Reward for work
done aboard the burning ship."
"Seven hundred and fifty dollars," murmured Joe, blushing when he
thought of the amount.
"Jest so--reward for pluck and fer gumption," declared Sam. "My,
wasn't you bashful up in the office when we was called in! You was for
refusing almost. Said as you'd done nothing. That ain't the way of
Canadians, lad. You did do good work; it was you who organized the
volunteers and led 'em. That's a deal. It ain't nothing! It helped a
whole heap, and therefore a reward was earned. That's the way in
Canada--but let's get to business. What'll you do?"
"Act on advice you've already given," said Joe, pocketing his money.
"My idea is to learn farming out here, and some day to take up a
quarter section of land. But I'm going to learn the work first. I
couldn't so much as milk a cow at this moment."
"Jest so," observed Sam dryly. "That's sense, that is. There's
prosperity in this country, as I've told you often enough, but only for
the workers. There's millions of acres, too, and no fear that if you
wait you'll find none left for you. But where men fail is if they come
out ignorant like you and pitch upon a quarter section when they ain't
got the knowledge to choose their country. Their difficulties would
often enough kill a man with farming knowledge; but, bless you! without
even that knowledge, often enough with precious little money, they goes
under almost afore they've had time to look round. So I say it's sound
advice to you to say, 'Learn the farming work first'. Then take up
your quarter section; for you'll be eighteen by then. Now, New
Ontario's booming. Me and the missus will make there and prospect for
a little. A single man can take a hundred acres in New Ontario for
nothing. So can a married man; while, ef he's got a child under
sixteen years of age, he can have two hundred fer the asking. Any more
that's wanted costs two shillings and a halfpenny an acre. Cheap,
ain't it? Wall, now, we comes again to you. You learn farming this
summer. In the winter, get along into the towns and take most any job;
next summer come right along to us. We'll have fixed a location by
then, and you can take up a holding close handy. We'll get Claude and
Jim in too, with one or two others, and we'll run co-operative farms.
That is, instead of each man having a bunch of hosses, we'll keep
enough for all, and help plough each other's holdings. We'll buy seed
in bulk and get it cheaper fer that reason. And we'll sell our stuff
in the same market, making one doing of the transport--so you come
along next summer."
"I will," agreed Joe. "I've thought it over a lot, and will do as you
advise; meanwhile, I shall bank most of the money."
"And mighty wise of you; only, see here," said Sam, his face wrinkling.
"There's money to be made often enough by a wise fellow if only he has
a little capital. With the sixty pounds you brought along, and the
hundred and fifty you've been given, you've a tidy nest egg. Now you
bank most of it, keeping twenty pounds for emergencies. One of these
days, along where you're working, you'll drop on a site where the
railway's approaching, and where there's likely to be a town. Towns
spring up in new countries like mushrooms. Acres bare now, and worth
perhaps two shillings, are worth twenty and thirty and more pounds in
English money within a few years if they gets covered by a town. So,
likely enough, you may drop on sich a place. Then draw the money
you've banked, buy your land, and sit down to wait. Only, don't put
all the money into one holding. Spread it about, young fellow. Don't
put all the eggs into one basket."
There was little doubt that Sam was perfectly right, indeed, the
experience of huge numbers in the Dominion goes to prove that. Towns
do spring into being almost with the rapidity of mushrooms. A tiny
settlement composed of wooden huts, called "shacks", and perhaps a log
church, may, in the matter of three or four years, develop into a town,
and, later on, even into a city. Those with knowledge and experience,
and possessed of far-seeing eyes, may, by a fortunate purchase in the
early days reap a big reward, and many a one has done so.
"So that's fixed," said Sam. "And now fer orders. We leaves here
to-morrow fer Sudbury--that's beyond Ottawa. There me and the missus
gets off the train. We'll buy a "rig", as a cart and horse are known,
and we'll make off to the north-west looking fer a holding. You'd
better come along with us to Montreal, where you can switch off fer
Toronto, and look out in that direction fer a farm job, or you can come
right along to or beyond Sudbury. Round Toronto you get Old Ontario,
the country that's been known and settled this many a year. They're
mostly fruit and dairy farmers about Toronto. North-west Ontario, New
Ontario as it's called, is a different country. People kinder missed
it till lately. It wasn't known that it was jest as good as many
another, and no colder. But it's booming now, and there's where you'll
find heaps of men jest wheat-growing. You could, of course, go right
along to Manitoba, getting off at Winnipeg or somewheres close. But
it's wheat-growing land there also; so ef you're going to join up with
us later on you might jest as well stay somewheres near in Ontario."
Joe put on his cap and went out for a sharp walk. He clambered up the
steep, old-fashioned streets of Quebec, still preserving their old
French houses, to the Plains of Abraham, once the scene of a fierce
engagement between English and French, when the gallant Wolfe won
Canada for our Empire from the equally gallant Montcalm. He looked out
from the heights across the flowing St. Lawrence River to the Isle
d'Orleans, where Wolfe's batteries once thundered against the forts of
Quebec, and past which the fierce Irroquois Indians, in days long since
gone by, paddled their war canoes and kept the French colonists from
crossing. And all the while he debated his future movements, for with
the practical mind that his father had helped to train in him, Joe
wanted to see his way clear. He had his future to make; a false step
now might delay that success at which he aimed, at which, according to
the worthy Sam, all newcomers and old colonists of the Dominion aim.
Let those who would sneer at the seemingly grasping methods of many in
Canada not forget what Sam had to say. Dollars do not spell happiness;
they spell success. The immigrant who has few, if any to speak of, on
arrival, and who fails to make wealth, is a failure, and failure causes
a man to become despondent and to lose self-esteem. But gain, riches
to one who was poor, who broke from old paths, left home and friends
and all to start a new life, dollars in his case spell success, success
that raises his head and his own self-esteem.
"I'll go along to Sudbury," Joe told himself. "Then I'll look out for
a farm, and I'll bank all the money save fifty dollars. That's it; pay
for my transport, and then bank all but fifty dollars, keeping father's
letter with me."
The following morning found our hero aboard the train bound for
Sudbury. They occupied places in a long car with two rows of seats,
one on either side. At the far end of the car there was a miniature
kitchen, where a fire was burning in a stove. Others who had crossed
from England were with them, and the party soon settled down to their
journey. Mrs. Fennick, with experience gained by earlier travel, had
provisioned a basket, and with the help of Joe's kit, containing kettle
and teapot, the little party were never at a want for good things to
eat and drink. At night the seats, which were arranged in pairs facing
one another were pulled out, making a respectable couch for one person,
while the negro attendant lowered other bunks hinged to the side walls
of the enormous car high overhead.
Late the following day the train pulled up at Sudbury, and they got
down. Then Joe, Claude, and Jim waited till the Fennicks had bought a
rig and had set out on their journey, when they, too, shouldered their
bundles and strode off along the track, out of the town and into the
open country. An hour or more later his two companions had accepted an
engagement with a farmer whom they met driving along the track. Joe
bade farewell to his two chums and strode onward.
"I'll make away more into the open," he told himself. "I'll get away
from the settlements, so as to see what the life is really like, and
whether the loneliness is so irksome as some make out."
Trudging along contentedly, he had covered some miles by noon, and then
sat down to devour his luncheon. All that day he tramped, and the
following one also, spending the night in the open; for it was
beautiful weather, and frosts had long since departed from the land.
Here and there he came upon settlements, and many a time was employment
offered him, for the busy season with farmers was at hand, and labour
always scarce. Sometimes he passed isolated farms, and on the third
night put up in the shack of a settler who had little cause to complain
of his progress.
"Came out as a youngster," he told Joe. "Took jobs here and there for
four years, and then applied for a quarter section. It happened to be
free from trees, though there was many an old rotting stump in the
ground. I ploughed a quarter of the acreage the first year and secured
a fine crop. Next year I did better, and broke up still more ground.
If things go along nicely I shall do well, while already the section is
worth some hundreds of dollars. Am I lonely? Don't you think it!
I've too much doing in summertime and sufficient in winter. The chaps
as is lonely are those who've lived in towns all their lives, and are
used to people buzzing about them, and to trains and trams. They want
to go to a theatre or a picture entertainment most every night, and
having none about find things lonesome. I don't. If I want company I
get the rig and drive off to a neighbour, or use the sleigh if the
snow's too deep. Then there's a moose hunt at times, while always
there's work to be done--tending the cattle, feeding the pigs and
poultry, sawing logs, and suchlike. In summer there's picnics with the
neighbours--shooting and fishing too at times. No, I ain't lonely."
Joe left his hospitable roof and pressed on towards the north-west,
with his back to the railway. And a little later he came upon a small
settlement, with farms immediately adjacent. Here he had no difficulty
in obtaining work as a farm hand, the payment to be ten dollars a month
and his board and keep.
"Know anything?" asked his employer, a man of some forty years of age,
a colonial born, to whom Joe soon took a liking.
"Know anything about farming?" repeated Peter Strike, the man in
question.
"Nothing," was Joe's answer, with an accompanying shake of the head.
"Never farmed, eh?"
"Never; couldn't milk a cow."
"Yer don't say so," grinned the farmer. "Now you'll do, you will,
fine."
Joe was at a loss to understand. It seemed somewhat curious to him to
hear that a hand engaged on a farm would do well when it was known that
he was utterly ignorant. He explained the difficulty.
"Of course you don't understand," said Peter, guffawing loudly; for
Joe's open speaking delighted him. "Of course you don't, 'cos back in
England a man would be expected to know everything. But I'll tell you
how it is with us. You're English; wall, now, in past years Englishmen
got such a name with us colonials that we wouldn't employ him if we
could help it. Eh? You'd like to know why? That's easy. Your
Englishman would reach here dressed in knickers, perhaps--a regular
swell. Us colonials with our old clothing would be fair game for him.
Then he'd know everything. He'd be wanting to do things as he'd done
'em back in his own country, and not as we've learned they has to be
done here. He'd want to teach his master, and grumble--my word,
nothing pleased him! Now that's all getting altered. We find
immigrants readier to learn, and you're one of 'em. Mind you, there's
faults with others besides the Englishman who knows everything.
There's faults with us. There's a sight of colonials who think they
know more than they do, and when they get having advice from a man
fresh out to the country--why, they get testy. It makes 'em angry.
They ain't too fair to the newcomer. But guess that's getting altered,
as I've said. Anyway, you don't know anything, ain't that it?"
"Nothing," laughed Joe; for the open-hearted Peter amused him.
"Then you come along in and see the missus and the children.
Afterwards there's a job for you."
Joe was introduced to Peter's family circle, consisting of his wife and
four small children. He found the shack to contain three rooms, a
somewhat liberal allowance.
"Most of 'em has but one or two," explained Peter. "A man who has to
be his own house builder can't afford too much time for fixing rooms.
However, I made two, the kitchen here and the bedroom. Later on I
built a lean-to, making an extra room. That'll be for you. Now we'll
feed. Like beans and bacon?"
"Anything," said Joe heartily. "I've had a long tramp and am hungry.
This fine air gives one an appetite."
"It's jest the healthiest place you could strike anywhere," cried
Peter, his face glowing. "We've been here this four years. I bought
the section from a man who had broken most of it and then got tired.
You see, we've prairie all round, save for the settlement close handy.
They say that the railway'll soon be along here. Anyway, there's no
muskegs (swamps) hereabouts, and therefore no mosquitoes to speak of."
"He don't know what's a muskeg," laughed Mrs. Strike. "Tell him."
"It's a swamp, that's all," came the answer, "and there's miles of them
in Canada. Often enough they're covered with low bush and with forests
of rotting trees that ain't worth nothing as timber. But here we've
open prairie, with plenty of wood, and huge forests at a little
distance; so it's healthy. Now, you come along out and fix this job,"
he said, when Joe had finished the meal and had swallowed a cup of tea.
"I'm so busy I haven't had time to see to a number of things, specially
since my man was taken ill and left. There's the pigsty, for instance;
it wants cleaning out. You jest get in at it."
Joe had long since donned his colonial outfit. He wore a slouch hat,
with which no one could find a fault save for its obvious newness. An
old pair of trousers covered his legs, and thick, nailed boots were on
his feet. His jacket he had carried over his arm, and it was now
reposing with his baggage, while a thick brown shirt and a somewhat
discoloured red handkerchief completed his apparel. He followed Peter
to an outhouse, and found at the back a range of wooden pigsties which
might, with truth, be said to be in an extremely unsavoury condition.
There was a fork and a spade near at hand, together with an old tin
bucket.
"Right," he said briskly, turning up the ends of his trousers; "I'll
make a job of it. I should say that a chap who had no knowledge of
farming could do this as well as any other. I'll come along when I've
finished."
Peter stood watching his new hand for some few moments, and then strode
off out of sight. Joe turned his sleeves up, climbed into the sty, and
set to work with a will.
"Not an overnice job," he told himself, "but then it's part of farming
work. If I turn up my nose at this sort of thing and think myself too
good for it--why, that would be a nice sort of beginning! Someone has
to clean the sties on a farm. I'm the labourer, and so it's my job."
His jovial whistle could be heard in the shack as he worked, and
brought Mrs. Strike to the door with an infant in her arms.
"Why, it's the new hand," she told her husband. "He's whistling, as if
he liked the job you'd given him. Now I think that was a little hard.
You can see as Joe's a better sort of lad. He's had an education, and
I wouldn't wonder if he was something in the Old Country. And you put
him right off to clean out the sty."
She regarded her lord and master with some severity; but the latter
only grinned. Peter had a most taking face; in fact, his features were
seldom severe, and more often than not wore a smile. He was a tall,
burly man, with broad shoulders and long limbs. Possessed of fair hair
and of a peaked beard, he was quite a handsome fellow, though
wonderfully neglected as to his raiment. Indeed, contrasting Joe and
Peter, one would have said offhand that the latter was the labourer and
Joe the owner of the property.
But that is just the curious part of things outside the settlements in
Canada. The more patched a man's garments, the more probable it is
that he is successful. A colonist is not there judged by his fellows
because of his clothing. He is judged by results--results of his
labours on the soil or his astuteness in business. Compare this with
England, where fine clothes make fine birds, where appearance is of so
much importance, and do not let us sneer at either people. Custom has
brought either condition about, and no doubt with good reason.
As for Peter, he was grinning widely as his wife turned somewhat
sharply upon him.
"You've given him right off the nastiest job, and he quite green," she
said.
"And I've done so with a reason," laughed Peter. "There's men I have
hired before who had obviously seen something better back where they
came from. They would have kicked at doing that sty. They would have
forgotten that their old life was nothing to me, and that they were
seeking their living in this country. Their old pride would be too
much for 'em, and I would have to suffer. Now a chap who comes out
here has to drop pride. If he's ignorant, he oughtn't to be above
starting right at the bottom. I like hearing that lad whistling; he
ain't too proud to earn an honest living, even if the job is what it
is."
"Hallo!" he called, coming over to Joe some half-hour later and looking
into the sty. "How're you doing?"
"Fine," said our hero, borrowing an expression somewhat common in the
Dominion. "Almost finished."
"Then you've been mighty slippy," admitted Peter, his eyes opening when
he saw that our hero had indeed almost finished the task. "This lad'll
do for me," Peter said to himself. "He works, he does. He's the kind
of fellow who likes to get ahead, whether he's working for another or
for himself. My, if he ain't washing the place down now!"
Evidently his new hand was cleanly also, and that was pleasing. Peter
began to think that in gaining Joe's services he had made quite a
bargain.
"That'll fix it right, lad," he sang out. "You've made a fine job of
it. Jest you hop out now, and put the fork and spade back where you
found 'em. It's yer first lesson in farming and in other things."
Joe looked up smiling. "Eh?" he said.
"Yes," went on Peter, "Mrs. Strike's been pitching into me for giving
you such a job first off; but I wanted to see for meself whether you'd
kick, or whether you meant to get on whatever came along. Reckon
you'll do--now come along in and feed the hosses."
When a month had passed, Joe found another ten dollars added to the
fifty he had kept by him; also he had settled down wonderfully with the
Strikes, and was already getting along with his farm work.
"He's a treasure is that lad," admitted Mrs. Strike warmly, when she
and her husband were alone one evening. "It don't matter what it is
that's wanted, he'll do it. If it's one of the children to mind, he'll
smile and wink at the bairn. If it's water for the shack, he's
willing. And if it's a log for the stove, he jest takes the saw and
goes off whistling. That lad'll get along in the world."
"He's fine," agreed Peter. "He's the sort we want out from the Old
Country."
Whether he was or not, Joe had taken kindly to the new life, without a
shadow of doubt. His attentive mind was constantly absorbing details
from the garrulous Peter or from his neighbours, and the end of that
month's service on the farm had taught him quite a smattering of the
profession he was to follow. As for being lonely, that he certainly
was not; he was almost too busy even to have time for thinking of such
a matter. Then, too, there were neighbours, while each shack actually
possessed a telephone. However, if there were monotony in the life he
was living, it was not long before an exciting incident occurred that
would have aroused anyone even more lethargic than our hero.