Part 9
Is there anyone who doesn’t love the smell of homemade bread in the baking? Living on the prairie, mother had to bake her own and I loved the smell so much that I hung around the kitchen to get my nostrils full of the pungent appetising odour.
When one decides to make a new home on the prairie it is necessary to find a water supply, and this is usually done by digging a well. At first, we had to carry our water in buckets from the well of our nearest neighbour who (fortunately) lived in a shack only about 500 yards away, but (unfortunately) at the bottom of a hill. When going down the hill, our buckets were empty, but when returning up the steep hill they were full and heavy! We carried two buckets, one in each hand, and I had to take my turn. This arduous task we had to contend with for many weeks until we had sunk our own well, going through earth, gravel and clay for sixty feet before striking water.
Father and my two elder brothers, Jack and Charlie, did the digging, shoring up the sides as they went lower and even lower. I helped occasionally by hauling up buckets of earth and stones over a pulley that had been rigged up at the top. That sixty feet of digging and hauling took great effort, patience and perseverance and when water was finally struck, and the little trickle developed into a good flow, mother rushed out of the house to learn what all the cheering was about.
I have a special memory about the digging of the well and this has remained with me throughout my life. Father was digging at the bottom, alone, and I was pulling up the heavy bucket. Whether what I am about to relate was due to a lapse in concentration on my part (not unusual for me), I do not know, but when I was about to control the lowering of the empty bucket, the rope slipped from my grasp and the bucket went crashing down, banging its way from side to side, as if determined to smash to pieces anything that got in its way, making as much commotion and clatter as possible in the process…
Now, I have always been afraid of my father, for he had a fierce temper and nearly a lifetime’s experience of unchallenged parental authority, and as that bucket bounced its inexorable way downwards, wreaking its vengeful, determined intention to the bitter end, my heart beat wildly with sheer terror. When the dreadful plunge was completed, I looked down the well and, trembling with fear, listened. There was an ominous silence and then, quaking, I stuttered, “Are you alright?” To which there came a choking reply in the affirmative, followed by dire threats of what would happen to me once my father could get his hands on me.
From this I knew that the choking sound was due, not to physical damage, but to wrath, so I fled for my life across the prairie, my intention being to put as much distance as possible between me and the enraged parent. I know that I didn’t return home until darkness had enveloped the daylight and I could creep into our little wooden house and to bed without being seen.
On special occasions, such as a Sunday school outing, we were taken to Banff to spend three or four hours in the mountains. But it was the trip that excited us children, for the train journey of about sixty miles took between three and four hours in each direction, mainly due, in those early days, to it being a single track for a good part of the way and we had to wait for a seemingly endless time on a siding at one point for the train from the west to arrive and pass. It was on the main Canadian Pacific route and some of us children spent the time standing around the great engine; indeed, I still have a snapshot of my young sister of three standing on the cow-catcher.
There were two moving sights I remember well as we reached the Rockies; one was the Three Sisters – I have since seen peaks bearing the same name in South Africa and Australia – for when we saw those three striking, snow-capped summits standing out from the rest of the range, we knew we were almost in Banff. And the other lovely sight was the beautiful tiger lilies growing in gorgeous profusion alongside the railway track.
But the place I loved to see tiger lilies most was growing on the prairie. Suddenly, I would come upon one, almost hidden in the browny-green grass, a little streak of flame sending out its modest message of grace and beauty. When I found one I always cupped it gently in my hands, never picking it, simply because I couldn’t bear to feel that I was shortening its life. So I just sat beside it with the admiration of a boy who loved the rapture of perfect things. I even remember thinking gratefully of the bird who had brought the seed and dropped it on the prairie, probably having carried it all the way from beside the railway track at Banff.
What I remember of Banff in those early days before World War 1, is of a few houses and shops in a single street, edged by a wooden sidewalk, all set in the midst of scenic grandeur, surrounded by mountains, one or two buggies moving aimlessly and a few cowboys’ horses tied up to posts. A sign pointed to a zoo and this I found contained about a dozen animals, including a couple of buffaloes, a mountain lion, a lynx, some brown bears and coyotes.
The bears in the mountains were fairly tame, especially if there was food about, as I found when camping there a year or so later with some other boys, we being awakened in the morning by seeing the flap of our tent opened and a brown nose pushed inquisitively inside!
The day of the Banff visit was never long enough but, like most other exciting things, it had to come to an end and the clanging bell told us it was time to return to Calgary – and home.
