Classic Audiobook Collection - Lady’s Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil Hall ~ Full Audiobook [biography]

Starting point is 00:00:00 preface and letter one of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall preface these letters were never intended for publication and were only the details written to our family of an everyday life and now put in the same shape and composition not as a literary work but in hopes that the various experiences we underwent may be useful to future colonists intending to immigrate and farm either in manitoba or coloradova or coloradoe M. G. C.H. Letter 1. Queenstown, April 14th. What joy! Four hours in Harbor given us to recruit our emaciated forms, and write you a few lines of our experiences and trials. You wished us to keep a diary with every detail, which we will try our best to do, beginning by telling of the cheerless journey to Liverpool and rain, the elements even seeming to lament our departure. The bad weather has lasted more or less ever since, just one gleam of sunshine brightening us up on leaving the wharf, but we saw nothing of the mercy or the surroundings. The only thing that struck us most forcibly was the smallness of our ship, though it was six thousand tons. It has just been redocked and overhauled, and still smells horribly of paint and full of workmen, whom, however, we drop here in exchange for twelve hundred immigrants. These, with about sixty first-class passengers and a hold full

Starting point is 00:01:31 of potatoes, form our cargo. We began life bravely last night, enjoying a very good dinner, and after playing a rubber of whist, retired to our births congratulating ourselves on what excellent sailors we were going to be, but alas, dressing this morning was too difficult, the ship rolled fearfully, even the friends who came with us thus far, and consider themselves first-class sailors, think that it would be more prudent to go by train through Ireland home, instead of waiting for the return-boat of the same line, which calls here on Sunday, and is to take them to Liverpool. We almost wish we could turn tail.

Starting point is 00:02:09 The prospect of ten days more of the briny ocean is not what at this moment we most fancy. However, in the short time we have been in harbor we have been recruiting to start afresh, and hope for better weather. End of letter 1. Read by Sibel A Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 2 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall.

Starting point is 00:02:43 Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. Mid-Atlantic. Dearest M. I sadly fear I must have contributed more paving stones for a certain region, for many good resolutions i did make in starting and not one of them has been kept not even so much as writing daily a portion of a letter to be sent home from new york and now my long story will have to be cut short and the doings of the last fifteen days will have to be crowded into a very limited space for we are in sight of land and our excitement can only be compared to that of schoolboys the last day of the term the joy of landing will not be unmingled with regrets imparting from our fellow-passengers with whom we have become fast friends and we are inclined mutually to believe in transmigration of souls and that we must have known each other in some prior state some are going to minnesota three of them having bought thirteen thousand acres in the red river valley which they are going to farm on a large scale and hope in four years to have made fortunes another owns mines in colorado having been one of the first pioneers of the san juan district he is in a fair way to a princely fortune

Starting point is 00:03:55 i fear golden apples will not be strewn on our paths even though we are bound the farthest west fifteen days we have been out of sight of land two days out from queens town we broke a piston rod which obliged us to lay to in a fearfully rough sea for five hours next day one of our four boilers burst and again another piston rod which accidents combined with contrary winds and heavy seas reduced our speed to nearly half for the remainder of the journey our spirits have not flagged as thanks to various small games such as pitch and toss running races when the ship was rolling quoits and cards we have not found time unbearably long the last few days we have had big sweepstakes on the run of the ship but unfortunately none of our party have won them one evening we had a concert but you may imagine the talent on board was not great when they had to call upon one of us to accompany the prima donna and the other to sing a second in a duet and another evening we danced or rather tried to our band consisting of a concertina and a flute played by two of the steerage passengers but the vessel rolled so persistently that we often lost our equilibrium and reeled like drunken men and women I must stop. Curiosity bids me go on deck. We shall shortly be in the quarantine harbor, the entrance of which is said to be very fine, though I very much doubt our being able to see anything, as in spite of being in this much-boasted climate of the new world, it is raining

Starting point is 00:05:29 and is dull enough to rejoice the hearts of true John Bulls like your daughters. End of Letter 2. Read by Sybella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter number three of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. Navy Yard, New York, April 30th. I hope you will have got our letters sent off by the ship's boat

Starting point is 00:06:06 the night before we were allowed to land. As though we arrived in the quarantine harbor at 7 o'clock, it was too late for the custom house and medical officers to inspect us. We therefore had to lay two, and only moved up to the wharf about eight o'clock the next morning. We were greeted by a most kind letter of welcome, and the first thing we saw, as we got to the dock, was the Navy Yard tug, with the Commodore and daughters on board to receive us, and thanks to them we had no difficulties or bothers. The custom-house men went through the form of opening two of our boxes,

Starting point is 00:06:39 and inquiring into the age of our saddle, which had been used but looked terribly new, hardly as if it had been in wear six months, which is the given period for things to pass in free of duty. We then steamed round New York through much shipping and under a most marvelous new suspension bridge, which is to join New York in Brooklyn, to the dockyard, where we had another most hearty reception from our hostess. They had all been in a fidget at our being so many days late, and directly the ship was telegraphed off Sandy Hook the last night, in spite of the pouring rain, the Commodore had gone. down in the tug to the quarantine harbor to try and get us off. Since our arrival we have been doing New York, and are woefully disappointed in the sides of the

Starting point is 00:07:23 streets. Fifth Avenue I expected to find a Parisian boulevard with trees lining the sidewalks, instead of houses of all shapes and sizes, which are good inside, judging by one of the large ones we went to see, but nothing much from the outside. Daylight in the streets is almost shut out in the city part of the town by the endless telegraph. wires and advertisements hung across, to say nothing of the elevated railroads built on iron girders, which circulate round at the height of second-floor windows. We have made a good deal of use of the railroad. It is pleasanter than our underground, the atmosphere being rather clearer, though at first it is startling to see the twists and curves the trains give to get around the

Starting point is 00:08:05 corners of the streets, and to watch the moving of objects at about forty feet below you. I am not at all surprised people do not care to drive much, as tramways pass through every street almost, and are all so badly paved that paint and springs would suffer. The ferry-boats which ply between the cities, starting every five minutes from different wharves, astonished us most. Wagons, carriages, and etc. all drive on twenty at a time, and three or four hundred foot passengers, the latter paying two cents per passage. On the whole I think we have seen almost everything that is to be seen. We spent an afternoon in the Central Park, lunched at both of Delmonico's restaurants,

Starting point is 00:08:48 dined at the invitation of our banker at Pinnards, where the roses were lovely, the center bouquet measuring two feet across, and each lady having different colored bunches on her serviette. A play at Wallach's, theater both pretty and well-ventilated, and a most splendid exit, the stalls on the same level as the street, the whole place seemed to empty itself in about five minutes, and a day's expedition to Staten Island, from which we had a lovely view of New York, its surroundings, and the whole harbor. Tomorrow we are to go for three nights to Washington, returning here to start westwards on Monday, though everybody tells us we are going too early in the year. The spring in Manitoba has been very late. A, riding on the 26th of April, says they are just

Starting point is 00:09:35 starting work, but cannot do much at present on account of the water from the melted snow not having run off. The rivers have broken up. The Red River carried away one of the two bridges at Winnipeg. He happened to be in town at the time, and although he didn't see the bridge go, saw it afterwards and the jam. The ice was blocked for about a mile above, tumbling all over the place, making the river rise about ten feet an hour, washing out all the neighboring houses. It lasted about ten hours, then crash, it all went, floating quietly down the stream, the water receding at the same time. There has been so much snow this year, which makes everything backward, but it is all gone in a week. It must be quite marvelous how quickly it disappears, as going from one farm to the other,

Starting point is 00:10:23 distance about seven miles, starting at four o'clock a.m. with the thermometer showing twenty degrees of frost, when the sun got up it was so hot he, A, couldn't get back. Next, next to the morning, starting equally early, he only traveled two miles. The snow was so soft, and the horses sank at every step above their knees. He was trying to take a sledge-load of hay over to his Boyd farm. The cattle there, having run very short lately, they even had to take some of the thatching, which was of hay, off the roof of the stable to feed the animals. We may have difficulty in getting up to Winnipeg, as the railroad is washed away within about eighty miles of the place, and the passengers are transferred to a steamer, which takes them 20 miles to another train. There was a fear of famine in

Starting point is 00:11:09 Winnipeg, as no provisions could be got up. Lots of immigrants, when they saw the water, turned back. Good night. We have packing to do to be off early in the tug which takes us over to Jersey City to catch our train to Washington at 10 o'clock on the Pennsylvania Railway. The Commodore's son, who is home on leave, goes with us, and we have many introductions. We are bidden to a reception at the White House, and have been vainly endeavoring to get into some of our hostess's smart gowns, but, alas, they are all too short, so we shall have to be content with our own black failures. End of letter three.

Starting point is 00:11:47 Read by Sibel Oden. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter four of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. read for Libravox.org into the public domain. Riggs House, Washington, May 2nd. We had our first experience of drawing-room cars coming down here with very comfortable armchairs,

Starting point is 00:12:19 and one seems to do the journey of 200 miles easily, in about six hours, through very pretty country. I never saw such people as Americans for advertising. All along the line, on every available post or rail, you see Chew Globe Tobacco, sun-stove polish and etc we enjoyed the reception at the white house our invitation was from eight to ten o'clock p m we arrived before the doors were open and had to wait some few minutes in the entrance which is glazed in and where the drums of our ears were sorely tried by a noisy military band which when you get into the rooms and at a distance sounded well but not just alongside after depositing our cloaks we filed by two and two past the president, shaking hands with him and the wife of the Secretary of State, who receives when there is

Starting point is 00:13:11 no Mrs. President, and then wandered through the six remaining rooms, being introduced to several people as Mrs. H. of England, and Miss W. of England, which we thought would not convey much to their minds, excepting that we were two very unsmart English women, though we were much consoled about our clothes, which did not look so peculiar, every sort of costume being worn, even to bonnets. no refreshments were given so that we were glad that supper was included in the menu du jour at our hotel i shall not pretend to describe washington to you any guide-book would give a more satisfactory account but it is much more my idea of a city of the new world the streets are well paved are nice and broad then the houses are generally standing in their own grounds with trees and flowers altogether it may be called an elegant city the people were most kind and so that the people were most kind and so that were most kind and so that the people were most kind and civil to us. One afternoon we made two cabinet calls on ministers, but the other afternoon we went for a drive across the Potomac to Arlington, the ancestral place of the Lees, which was confiscated after the war,

Starting point is 00:14:16 and is now a soldier's burying ground. It has an exquisite view across the river. The only thing that distressed us was the bearing reins on the nice little pair of chestnuts in the buggy. The rains are crossed over their nose, passed between the ears, and fastened tight to the saddle, which forces the head right back and nearly saws the mouth into. We never rested until we had loosened them, which was supposed to be the reason why the horses broke in their trot afterwards, as they were supposed to require a support. The weather has been quite delightful, bright, sunny days, but not hot, and if only the houses and hotels were not kept at such a suffocating temperature, we should be very happy both in and out of doors. The artificial heat has completely knocked us up in Brooklyn,

Starting point is 00:15:02 We had a lovely big room with a large bay window beside another window, where we often retired for a blow of fresh air. The result has been that we both have had bad, crying colds. End of Letter 4. Read by Sabella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravops.org. Letter 5 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. read for Libravox.org into the public domain. Chicago, May 11th. We are now halfway to Manitoba,

Starting point is 00:15:44 and have really done the journey thus far so easily that it seems nothing of a drag, and if it wasn't for the Atlantic, A would not seem to be at the end of the world, which we fancied whilst in England. We left Brooklyn on Wednesday morning, very sorry to part from the Commodore and his family, who have been most kind and friendly,

Starting point is 00:16:04 trying their best to make us feel at home. Unfortunately, having only just got the appointment and lately taken up their residence at the Navy Yard, they could do no entertaining. Anyhow, we have had a very pleasant insight into the home life of America, which differs in small ways a good deal from ours, and in character, habits, and everything, there is a wildish gulf between the two races. Our train here was a splendid one, stopping only about sixteen times, and doing the 900 miles in 36 hours.

Starting point is 00:16:37 We had a section in the Pullman, which makes a double seat facing each other by day, and at night the two seats are converted into a bed, with the second bed being pulled down from the roof, on which mattresses, blankets, and sheets are all arranged with a projecting board at the head and foot, and a curtain in front, so that one is quite private, and we slept like tops. We also had a dining car on, where every luxury of the season, to strawberries and cream were served by the blackest of ends in the whitest of garments for the sum of a dollar ahead per meal. Only fancy our delight after leaving Harrisburg at about three o'clock in the afternoon to find friends in the train,

Starting point is 00:17:19 people from an adjoining county in England who knew all our friends, and with whom we had much in common. I need hardly tell you that we did Chinn it until our ways parted at this station, they going to the Grand Pacific, we to the Tremont, which had just been recommended to us, as being a quieter hotel for ladies alone. Men make these hotels their clubs, where they smoke and lounge all day, but as there is a second door for ladies, one is not bothered in any way, unless you want to go to the office for information. We are astonished at the enormous piles of buildings in this city. Land, one would think, must be cheap. All the shops cover an equally large area, though in many several offices are on one floor. It is too marvelous to think, when one looks at this place, that three and a half square

Starting point is 00:18:08 miles in the center of the town, which is now in regular, handsome broad streets, the fire of eleven years ago should have so completely burnt everything to the ground, though now not a vestige of the conflagration is left. The houses have even had time to get quite blackened with the smoke of the soft coal they use, which is found in great quantities all through Pennsylvania, the mines and furnaces we passed on our way up. The country the whole way was very pretty. We crossed the Susquehanna River, which is grand in width and scenery, and started the Juanita through a chain of mountains,

Starting point is 00:18:43 turning in and out with every bend of the river, so that one felt always on the sland, and could generally see either end of the train. Unfortunately, it poured with rain the whole way, so any distant views or tops of mountains were invisible. Some of the country is like England, undulating, rolling, well-cultivated fields, enclosed with palings which overlap each other, and would be awkwardish obstacles in a hunting country, but one misses, like abroad, the cattle. We saw one or two stray cows, but little else. Around Chicago it is a flat plain, and as there has been a good deal of rain lately, water is out everywhere. For the last hour of our journey we came through the suburbs, and is there is no protection what's to the line, we had to come very slowly, about seven miles an hour, ringing a great bell attached to the engine to announce our arrival, as children, cows, fans, etc., go along the line in the most promiscuous way. It is extraordinary that more accidents do not happen. By law, I believe the train

Starting point is 00:19:47 ought to go very slowly, whenever lines cross each other. Anyhow, they must ring the bell, the result being that the bells seem going all day when you are anywhere near the station. We were given instructions to one or two people here, one gentleman putting himself at our disposal to show us around straightway, and we visited the principal shops, streets, park, which is land reclaimed from the lake, and the tramways, which are worked with a pulley from a center about six miles off. A Chinaman in San Francisco was once heard to describe the said tramways as, no horsey, no steamy, go helly. The weather has unfortunately been wet, and much against sightseeing, the streets in consequence are too indescribably dirty mud inches deep and every one is so busy making money that they have not time to pull up those who are responsible and insist on the streets being cleaned though the money is yearly voted by the municipality and generally supposed to be pocketed by the authorities

Starting point is 00:20:46 we leave this to-night for st paul much impressed on the whole with chicago there are one or two more sights i should like to have seen such as the two tunnels under the river but i fancy one leaks and the other is unusable for some reason i should even have liked to have been to one of the negroes revival meetings but not to the port manufactory where pigs go in alive are killed and cured ready for exportation in less than twenty minutes our friends went there this morning and the descriptions they gave were not particularly inviting. The lady hadn't been able to touch a mouthful of food all day afterward, and declared it it would be years before she could eat pork. I also have been dying to see a house on the move, but had to content myself with looking at a large brick house, which not three years ago had been moved back 150 yards bodily. Chicago is getting too old a city, and ground is too expensive, for people to be able to change the sights of their houses when the fancy takes them. In St. Paul or winnipeg we may have the satisfaction of meeting one coming down the street end of letter five read by sabella denton all librivox files are in the public domain for more information please visit libravocs dot org

Starting point is 00:22:06 letter six of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for libravox dot org into the public domain merchant's hotel st paul may sixteenth we left chicago friday night for this place at about nine o'clock, and thanks to a letter of recommendation to the conductor, two lower berths were assigned to us, and we even have the privilege of not having the uppers pulled down. It is a curious regulation in the Pullman cars that should the upper not be tenanted, it must be opened, or else paid for by the occupant of the lower. So unless one takes a whole section, one is bound to have a great board just above one's head, which in nine cases out of ten prevents our sitting up in bed, and one can never have much ventilation. We were awoke earlier on Saturday morning than we either of us quite appreciated, to be in time for breakfast at La Crosse at seven o'clock.

Starting point is 00:23:02 La Crosse is a large settlement of sawmills on the banks of the Mississippi for cutting up the wood brought down by the curiously flat-bottomed steamers worked by a paddle in stern the same width as the boat, and which push innumerable rafts of wood before them. We saw several of these steamers, and were detained for a long time on the bridge which crosses the Mississippi. Mississippi, said to be about a mile and a quarter long, whilst the farther end of it was drawn aside to allow of two steamers passing through. Our railroad skirted the banks of the river, and we were very excited at seeing an Indian and his squaw in a canoe going downstream. The conductor of the car conversed with us a good deal the whole way, was most anxious to know all about our comings and goings, and told us he would be glad to learn the train by which we returned, as no ladies would ever be allowed to leave Manitoba.

Starting point is 00:23:54 Unfortunately, we took his advice about the hotels in this place, and on arriving came to the wrong inn. This one is the most frequented, being close to the station, but certainly is not as pleasant, either as regards company or situation as the other, the Metropolitan. We found one of our fellow Atlantic passengers at the last named, and I never saw anyone so genuinely glad to see friends. He is one of the three men we told you about, who have invested in 13,000 acres in Minnesota. He is down here trying to hurry the contractors who are to build their houses and stables at Warren,

Starting point is 00:24:31 also to buy farming implements and lumber. His horses and mules he intends buying at St. Louis. He gives a most vivid account of all the roughing they have undergone. They are living in a small wayside inn. Nine men in one room with no furniture. One of them managed one day. night to get a hold of a stretcher in lieu of a bed, and just as he was settling down to his first beauty sleep, a Carter came and told him to move on, as the stretcher was his. He suggested that, as we are to pass Warren, we should pay them a visit on our way up, that he would take up a tent and furniture, besides provisions, but I do not think it sounds inviting enough, as though I do believe we should do the community of good turn, besides the

Starting point is 00:25:14 pleasure of our company, they would have a tent and a few luxuries after our departure. instead of feeding, as they daily do, on beans and bacon, living in a filthy hotel, and having had nothing to wash in until they bought themselves a bucket. Last night, just after we had gone to bed, a loud knock was made at our door, and a man asked if we intended getting up to-night, at which we were furious, but he persisted in the most determined way in questioning us as to whether it wasn't Mrs. H's room, and we had time to get more than angry before we recognized A's voice, and, Simultaneously, both jumped out of bed to receive him on De Chabille.

Starting point is 00:25:53 It is very nice of him coming all this way, 400 miles, to meet us. He looks much the same as ever, only as brown as a berry from the reflection of a fortnight sun on the snow. He is wonderfully cheery, seems glad to see us, has so many questions to ask of you all, and swears by the healthiness of the Canadian climate and the life they lead at the farm. We are none of us ever going to be sick or sorry again. We have been a long drive today, starting at eleven o'clock, and only back just in time to do our last packing, send off this letter, and dine before we go to Winnipeg at about seven o'clock. We drove across a bridge on the Missouri to Fort Snelldon, a miniature aldershot, with huts and tents, and a beautiful stretch of grass for maneuvers or galloping, onto the Minnehaha Falls, where we stayed some time gazing and admiring, and even walking under the falls.

Starting point is 00:26:48 The volume of water falling seemed extraordinary, but was completely eclipsed by the falls of St. Anthony at Minneapolis, which we saw later. The latter originally fell perpendicularly, but to utilize them for the enormous sawmills built at the water's edge, they have been underplanked, so that the water goes down in a slant. We were most fascinated by the site, and watched the torrent from various points of view. Minneapolis is much like other western towns we have seen, semi-detached houses standing in their own grounds, the grass in many instances well kept,

Starting point is 00:27:24 but utterly destitute of flowers, which one misses so much. This place, St. Paul's, is beautifully situated, built on both sides of the river, the banks of which are very steep. Good night, in twenty-four hours more we hope to be at our destination in the far northwest, but we are not to go out immediately to the farm, as we are arriving rather earlier than a expected, and the men who have been living with him all the winter cannot turn out before Friday to make room for us, so we are to stay in Winnipeg for a day or two. End of letter six, read by Sabella Denton.

Starting point is 00:28:01 All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravops.org. Letter seven of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba. by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. Winnipeg, May 18th. Here we are, and we do feel ourselves really landed in the far north, after a most preposterous journey the whole way.

Starting point is 00:28:32 We arrived quite on time last night, rather an unusual thing with these trains, particularly since the floods, when the passengers were dependent on the steamer. We saw yesterday as we passed high and dry on the prairie, which had to convey them from one train to another across the floods close to St. Vincent. Oh, the prairie! I cannot describe to you our first impression. Its vastness, dreariness, and loneliness is appalling. Very little is under cultivation between this and St. Paul, so that only a house here and

Starting point is 00:29:04 there breaks the line of horizon. There are a few cotton and aspen trees along the Red River Valley, but with that exception the landscape for the last 15 hours traveling has been like the sea on a very smooth day, without a beginning or an end. We were met at the station here by one of A's friends, who drove us out about a mile and a half from the town across the Assiniboine over a suspension bridge, built exactly opposite the old Fort Garry, and somewhere close to the spot where our first English pioneers must have landed from the river steamer some twelve years ago, to a very comfortable house belonging to another mutual friend a dear kind old gentleman whose wife and daughter being away has placed the whole house at our disposal until we can get out to the farm which we find is sixteen miles off it will be very difficult to describe everything to you to begin with the depot or station presented a curious appearance such crowds of men loafing about with apparently no other object but to watch the new arrivals so different to english stations where at a curious appearance such crowds of men loafing about with apparently no other object but to watch the new arrivals so different to english stations where at the new where everyone seems in a hurry, either coming or going. And then the roads we had to drive along to fie description.

Starting point is 00:30:17 The inches, no other word, of mud, and the holes which nearly capsize one at every turn. Even down Main Street the roads are not stoned or paved in any way. We bumped a good deal in our carriage, and for consolation at any worse bumping than usual, we were told, This is nothing. Wait until you get stuck in a mud hole out west. Then our route, thank you. to the floods which have been very bad this year and are still out enormously, the upper floors of two-storied houses only being visible in many places, was most intricate. We had to be

Starting point is 00:30:51 pioneered over a ditch into a wood, supposed to be cleared, with the stumps of trees left sticking about six inches out of the ground for your wheels to pass over, onto a track, and then threw a potato garden to the house. We were quite ready for our supper, it being about eight o'clock when we got there, and the food at Glendon, where we stopped twenty minutes in the middle of the day to put away the contents of sixteen dishes of some various mess or another, had not been of the most inviting of meals, and though the chops here were the size of a small leg of mutton, and had the longest bones I ever saw, hunger was the best of appetizers, and we did credit to our meal, which had been cooked by our host.

Starting point is 00:31:33 This morning we were awoken by the same kind of person depositing a can of water at our door for our bads. He gets up very early, as he has to fetch the water, milk the cow, feed the calf, etc., all before breakfast in starting off for his office. There is a man-servant here who gets five to six pounds a month, apparently to do nothing, as he is the only one on the premises who can afford to be idle and smoke his pipe of peace. But servants are so difficult to get in this country, and our host being on the move, having got a better government appointment at Perth, is anxious not to change. now, so, like everybody else, he puts up with anything.

Starting point is 00:32:13 The last servant they had in this house was the son of a colonel in the English army, who was described as a nice boy, but very lazy. But this man's servant hasn't even the recommendation of being nice. He was out at the farm working for his board and lodging, and no wages for some months, but A. could not stand his idleness. We all had to cook our breakfast this morning, and as every one was, by way of helping, either making toast, poaching the eggs, cooking hunks of bacon, or mending up the fire, the stove was pronounced much too small. The moment we had finished our meal, we had to retire

Starting point is 00:32:48 upstairs, and make the beds and tidy up a little. A half-breed woman living about a half-mile off is supposed to come in for an hour and wash up and clean the house, but if it is bad weather, she is unable to get through the mud. Therefore, when the ladies of the establishment are away, the house is left a good deal to its own devices. The dust, and cobwebs not often disturbed. End of letter 7, read by Cibela Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 00:33:26 Letter 8 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. read for Libravox.org into the public domain. C. Farm, May 21st. Our last letter to you was written with the first impression of our colonist life whilst in Winnipeg. where we had a very good insight of the way English people will rough it when they come out. It would horrify our farmers to have to do what gentlemen do out here. They are all their own

Starting point is 00:33:54 servants. That lazy servant in Winnipeg, we were told, gave notice to leave, because one night he was requested to keep the kitchen fire in, so that we might have a kettle of hot water when we went to bed. We spent as little time as we could at our suburban residence, so as to save him any extra trouble, always lunching and sometimes dining in Winnipeg, and though all the restaurants are bad, still the food was almost as good as what we cooked ourselves. Our chief mistake for our first meals was that we put everything on the fire at the same time, and funnily enough our fish boiled quicker than the sausages, and they again much quicker than the pudding. Once there was a bread and butter one, about which there has been a good deal of chaff, as it was supposed to be first cousin to bread and milk.

Starting point is 00:34:39 The weather was very bad, constant rain, and we had a fair specimen of Winnipeg mud. To these buckboards, which is a buggy with a board behind for luggage, or to any of the carriages, there are no wings to protect one from the mud, so that we always came in bespattered all over, a great trial to our clothes. But in spite of the rain and bad weather, we were all determined to come out here on Friday. We hired a Democrat, a light wagon with two seats. and started during the afternoon in the rain, hoping it might clear, which it eventually did,

Starting point is 00:35:15 when we were about a third of our way. It was awfully cold, and the dolting of the carriage over the prairie so fearful that our wraps were always falling off. I had always understood the prairie was so beautifully smooth to drive over, but found it much resembling an English arable field thrown out of cultivation, with innumerable mole-hills and badger-holes, and natural cracks about an inch wide, which drain the water off into the marshes. If your carriage is heavily weighted, it runs pretty easy, but woe betide you, if driving by yourself, you bump up and down like a pee on a shovel. We nearly upset, shortly after leaving Winnipeg, as a house was on the move, or, more properly speaking, had been, as it was stuck in a mud-hole. A load of hay, trying to get

Starting point is 00:36:01 around it had stuck as well, and the only place given us to pass was fearfully on the slant down to a deepish dike, into which a buggy had already capsized. We caught the first glimpse of our future home eight miles off, the house and stables looking like three small specks on the horizon. It is very difficult to judge distances on the prairie, and the nearer we seem to get to our destination the further the houses were removed. The farm had an imposing appearance as we drove up to it. Mr. B., who met us at the gate, was most anxious that on arrival we should be driven to the front door and not to the kitchen one, which being the nearest, is the handiest. He, poor man, has given up his bed and dressing-room to us, and we find ourselves very comfortable.

Starting point is 00:36:47 End of letter eight, read by Sabella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter nine of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. C. Farm, May 24th. The two young men, Messrs H and L, who inhabit a tent about two miles from here, and who are building themselves a stable, are going into Winnipeg tomorrow for more lumber, and, as I don't know when I shall have another opportunity of sending letters in, I send you a few lines.

Starting point is 00:37:32 These two men have been living with A all the winter, and only turned out for us the day we arrived. It was such bad weather they hoped and speculated on our not coming. so that when we were seen in the distance there was a general stampede to clear out. I must say I should have been very lothed to turn out, during this cold weather, of a comfortable house into a tent, and, had I been they, I should have wished us somewhere. We have already had a taste of the cold in these regions. Friday, when we drove out here, was bad enough, but on Saturday when E and A went into town again to take our carriage back,

Starting point is 00:38:07 they were nearly frozen with the biting wind and sleet they had to face the whole of the sixteen miles home. On Sunday the thermometer was down to 22, or ten degrees of frost, with a bitter northwest wind, and we had an inch of snow on the ground, and though the sun melted most of it, the thermometer at night went down again to 24. I don't think I ever felt so cold in bed, in spite of a ton weight of clothes. Luckily, the stoves are still up in the house. In summer they are generally put away in the warehouse to give them room,

Starting point is 00:38:39 so that we have been able to make a light both night and day. We are told the weather is most unusual. Anyhow, it is mighty cold. Those poor men in the tent have suffered a good deal. One night the pegs to the windward gave, and the snow drifted against their beds as high as their pillows. They luckily have got a stove, but are obliged to leave their door open to allow of the pipe going out. Unfortunately, they have no extra tin or iron to put on the canvas round the pipe, which is the usual way to prevent it catch. fire. To describe our life here will take some doing, and after the novelty is worn off,

Starting point is 00:39:15 it will not amuse us quite so much, nor shall we be so keen of helping our Abigail, who is the wife of the carpenter, and made of all work, in everything, excepting that she must always have a great deal to do for a large household like ours, consisting of four men and our two selves, and we shall always want employment, and I don't think we shall either of us care to ride or drive much. We have fallen into it, the life, wonderfully quickly, completely sunk the lady, and becomes sort of maids of all work. Our day begins soon after six o'clock by laying the breakfast, skimming the cream, whilst our woman is frying bacon and making the porridge for the breakfast at six-thirty.

Starting point is 00:39:56 Mr. B and A are out by five o'clock, in order to water, feed, and harness their horses all ready to go out at seven o'clock, when we get rid of all the men. We then make the beds, helping the washing up, clean the knives, and this morning I undertook the dinner, and washed out some of the clothes, as we have not been able to find a towel, duster, or glass-cloth, whilst Mrs. G. G. cleaned out the dining-room. The dirt of the house is, to our minds, appalling, but as Mrs. G. only arrived a few days before we did, and all the winter the four men were, what is called in this country, batching it, from Batchelor, namely, having to do everything for themselves, it is perhaps, not surprising that the floors are rather dirty, and that there is a little dust.

Starting point is 00:40:42 The weather is much against our cleaning, as the mud sticks to the boots, and do what you will, it is almost impossible to get it off, not that the men seemed to have thought much about it, as until we arrived and suggested it, there was no scraper to either door. Poor Mr. B. was rather hurt in his feelings this morning, on expressing some lamented the late, sharp frosts, that all his cabbages would be killed. When we said that it was a pity he had sown them out of doors, as he might almost have grown them on the dining-room carpet. He amuses us by lamenting that he did so much cleaning and washed the floor so often, he might just as well have left it until we arrived. Our time is well filled up until dinner,

Starting point is 00:41:22 at twelve-thirty, at which we have such ravenous appetites, we are told, no profits made on the farm will pay our keep. At half-past one, when the men turn out again, we generally go out with them, and some outdoor occupation is found for us, either or driving the wagons or any other odd jobs. There is a lot of hay littered about, and that has to be stacked. Also, the waste straw, or rubbish which is burnt, and the fires have to be made up. Three quarters of an hour before either dinner or supper, the latter meal, is about half-past six. A flag, the Union Jack, is hoisted at the end of the farther stable. If neither A nor Mr. B is about, we undertake to do it, to call the men in, and they declare the horses see the flag as,

Starting point is 00:42:07 as soon as they do and stop directly. The class of horse here is certainly not remarkable for its good looks, but they are hard, plucky little beasts, and curiously quiet. The long winter makes them, as well as all the other animals, feel a dependence upon man, and they become unusually tame. The cows, cats, and everything follow the men about everywhere. They used to have to keep the kitchen door shut to prevent one of the cows walking in. A. has got a jolly old cat who follows him like a dog, sleeps on his bed, and sits next to him at meals. Mr. B. has a dear collie, with whom he carries on long conversations, particularly on the subject of the coolness of the morning, and the water in his bath, so, you see, we have plenty

Starting point is 00:42:51 of animal life about. The men at the tent have a black water spaniel, which greatly prefers our fair and warm house to the tent, so is nearly always here. End of letter nine, read by Sabella Denton. files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 10 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall, read for Libravox.org into the public domain. May 25th. We overslept ourselves this morning, it being a dull day and no sun to wake us up, so that it was past six before any of us made our appearance. The way we work here would rejoice Uncle F's heart and amaze some of our

Starting point is 00:43:39 farmers, wives, and daughters. My advice to all immigrants is to leave their pride to the care of their families at home before they start, and, like ourselves, put their hand to everything. We have had some funny experiences, but for all our hard work we get no kudos or praise. It is all taken as a matter of course. I would not live in such a place for worlds, but while at last it is great fun, and I think we have done good by coming out, if only to mend up all the old racks belonging to these four men. We were much in want of dusters, etc., the first days, and were told that when the three months wash, which was in Winnipeg returned, we should find everything we wanted, instead of which there was a fine display of torn under linen, and stockings by the dozens, which we have been doing our

Starting point is 00:44:26 best to patch up and darn, but no house-linen. We shall do as much washing as we can possibly manage at home, I expect, as the prices are so fearful, to say nothing of the inconvenience of being ages without one's linen. I will just quote a few of the prices from our bill of the Winnipeg steam laundry. Shirts 15 cents, night ditto, 10 cents, vests and pants, 25 to 50 cents, blankets 50 cents, counterpains 35 cents, tablecloths 15 to 35 cents, sheets 10 cents, pillow slips, five to 15 cents, night dresses 15 cents to $1, petticoats, 30 to $1, etc., everything in proportion. We thought one dollar per dozen all around was exorbitant, but when hardly anything is less than eightpence, as a cent, according to the exchange, is more than a half-penny, it seems ruinous. We get four dollars eighty cents only for the sovereign here, being ten pence short of the five

Starting point is 00:45:26 dollars. End of Letter Ten. Letter Eleven of a Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Librevox.org into the public domain. Our weather is improving. Today has been lovely, but alas, with the warmth have come the mosquitoes. I don't believe you will ever see us again. They, the mosquitoes, bite so fearfully, even in the daytime, that they will devour us up entirely. A. is having wire coverings made for the doors and windows, but unfortunately, owing to the floods after the melting of the snow, all the stores which ought to have arrived in Winnipeg a month ago, have been delayed, and the shops are very short of goods,

Starting point is 00:46:15 of all sorts and kinds. There are said to be four thousand cars with provisions, etc., between this and St. Paul. A. and I spent an afternoon at the other farm, Boyd, which he rents of a Mr. Boyd, three thousand acres, for forty pounds a year. It is covered with low brush-wood, with a few trees here and there, and a good deal of marsh, and therefore unfit for cultivation, so they keep it entirely for their cattle and for the cutting of hay in summer. It is a much prettier place than this, the house being surrounded by trees, whereas here we haven't one within seven miles, though last year they did their best and planted nearly five hundred round the house as avenues to the drive,

Starting point is 00:46:55 but only a few survived the drought of last autumn and severe cold of the winter. The rest are represented by dead sticks. We tried to see the cattle at Boyd's, but they were always feeding on the marsh and could only be looked at from a distance, as we neither of us felt inclined to run the chance of being bogged, or of wetting our feet. in coming home we called at the tent and i was surprised to find how quickly messrs h and l were building their stable which is to be large enough to hold two stalls and a room beyond which when they have a house will make a good loose box but for the time being they intend to live in it either sleeping in the loft or tent to build a house or stable is not very difficult but with no carpenter or experienced man to help it wants a certain amount of ingenuity you lay out your foundation by putting thick pieces of oak called sills on the ground in the shape of your house. In town these

Starting point is 00:47:50 sills are nailed to posts which have been driven eight feet into the ground, but on the prairie they are simply laid on the flat. Onto the sills come the joists, planks two by six, placed on edge across, two feet apart. Then the uprights, which stand on the sills two feet apart, form the walls. To these you nail rough boards on each side, with a layer of tarpaper in between if building a stable. If a dwelling house, on the inside, you put against your rough board, lathes, and then plaster, on the outside, the tar paper and siding. The floor is made by nailing rough boards on the joists, then tar paper, and on top of that, tongued and grooved wood, fitting into each other to make it airtight. The roofs, which are almost always pointed on account of

Starting point is 00:48:36 the snow, are composed of rafter two by four, two or three feet apart, with rough boards across, then tar paper and shingles, the latter are thin, flat pieces of wood laid on to overlap each other. We send you a small sketch of our buildings, which will give you a better idea of these frame houses than any description. They can be bought ready-made at Chicago, and are sent up with every piece numbered, so that you have no difficulty in putting them together again. Our own house is 24 feet square with a lean to as a kitchen. The dining and drawing-rooms are each 12 feet square, separated by sliding doors, A's bedroom, the entrance hall, and staircase, dividing the remainder of the house. Our front door is not quite in the center,

Starting point is 00:49:23 but thanks to the veranda, one does not perceive it. Above, looking due south, we have a bedroom, dressing-room, and large cupboard for our clothes. There are two other rooms at the back for the men. The other house is for the laborers, of whom there are eleven, with a woman as cook, the wife of one of them, It is also for a warehouse, where all the spare implements and stores are kept. Besides these houses we have two good stables, one holding fourteen horses, the other the remaining six, also the cows, pigs, and chickens during the winter, piggeries, and at last but not least, my chicken-house. A. has presented me with a dozen hens, for which he had to pay thirteen dollars, which with the seven old ones are my special charge, and are an immense amusement and occupation.

Starting point is 00:50:11 his farm here as he has other land elsewhere besides the boyd farm consists of four hundred and eighty acres half of one section and a fourth of another all the surveyed country in the northwest territory has been divided into townships thirty-six square miles and they again into sections of a mile square which are marked out by the surveyors with earth mounds thrown up at the four corners in the form of right-angle pyramids with a post about three feet high stuck in the centre The mounds are six feet square with a square hole on each side. To the marking of sections, a similar mound is erected, only of smaller dimensions. The sections are numbered as shown by the following diagram. Southeast is number one. Southwest is number six. Northeast is number 36. Northwest is number 31.

Starting point is 00:51:06 The townships are numbered in regular order northerly from the international boundary line or 49th parallel of latitude, and lion ranges numbered east and west from a certain meridian line, drawn northerly from the said 49th parallel, from a point ten miles or thereabouts westward of Pembina. When the government took over the territory from the Hudson Bay Company in 1870, two entire sections in every fifth township, and one and three quarters in every other, were signed to the company as compensation. There were also two sections reserved as endowment to public education, and are called school lands, and held by the Minister of the Interior, and can only be sold by public auction. The same was done for the half-breeds. Two hundred and

Starting point is 00:51:53 forty acres were allotted to them in every parish. Their farms are mostly on the rivers, along the banks of which all the early settlers congregated, and to give each claimant his iota, the farms had to be cut up into long strips of four miles long by four hundred yards wide. On every section line running north and south and to every alternate running east and west, nine feet, or one chain, is left for roads. Our farm buildings are not quite in the center of the estate, on account of having to make the drive up to the house beyond the marsh on the eastern boundary. I have drawn you a plan of the farm.

Starting point is 00:52:30 The space is covered with the little dots are the marshes. The one on the west extends for miles, and has a creek or dike dug out by the government to carry off the water. From the drawing it looks as if there was much Mars around us, but this bit of ground was the driest that could be found, not already taken up. As it was, A. purchased it of a man who has some more land near Winnipeg, giving him $5 per acre. The numbers 30 and 31 mean the section of the townships.

Starting point is 00:53:00 For immigrants wishing to secure a homestead, which is a grant of 160 acres given by the government free, with the exception of an office fee, amounting to $10, on all the even-numbered sections of a township, he will now have to travel much further west, as every acre around Winnipeg is already secured, and has in the last two years risen most considerably in value. The Canadian Pacific Railroad Company, which was given by government 25 million acres, besides the $25 million to make the line across the country from Thunder Bay on Lake Superior to the Rockies, sell their land, which is on odd-numbered sections of every township.

Starting point is 00:53:40 for 24 miles on each side of the track, with the exception of the two sections, 11 and 29, reserved for school lands, for $2.50, or 10 shillings per acre, to be paid in installments, giving a rebate of $1.25, or $5 shillings per acre, if the land is brought into cultivation within the three or five years after purchase. A man occupying a homestead is exempt from seizure for debt, also his ordinary furniture, tools and farm implements in use one cow two oxen one horse four sheep two pigs and food for the same for thirty days and his land cultivated provided it is not more than the one hundred and sixty acres also his house stables barns and fences so that if a man has bad luck he has a chance of recovering his misfortunes in one of your letters you ask if a poor man coming out as a laborer and perhaps eventually taking up land as a homestead or otherwise would encounter many difficulties.

Starting point is 00:54:43 I fancy not, as both the English and Canadian governments are affording every facility to immigrants, who can get through tickets from Liverpool, London, or Ireland at even a lower rate than the ordinary steerage passenger. They can have themselves and their families booked all the way, the fares varying from nine pounds five to the 28 pounds paid by the saloon. On board ship, the steerage have to find their own bedding and certain utensils for use. otherwise everything is provided, and I am told the food is both good and plenty of it. Regular authorized officers of the Dominion Government are stationed at all the principal places in Canada to furnish information on arrival. They will also receive and forward money in letters,

Starting point is 00:55:26 and everyone should be warned and put on their guard against the fictitious agents and rogues that infest every place, who try to persuade the newcomers into purchase of lands or higher rates of wage. We heard the other day of an English gentleman being taken by one of these scoundrels, and giving a lot of money for land which, on examination, proved to be worthless. Luckily for him, there was some flaw in his agreement, and his purchase was cancelled. Men who intend buying land should be in no great hurry about their investments. The banks give a fair percentage on deposits, and it is always so much more satisfactory to look around before settling.

Starting point is 00:56:04 as she has to cart all her own sods to make a foundation and then heap soil onto them. But having brought a quantity of seeds from England, she feels bound to sow them, and hopes they will make a grand show later on, and the place quite gay. You should have seen the beam of delight which shone on the countenance of a stranger who had come out from Winnipeg for the night, when on arrival he was immediately pressed into ease service to carry water for these said seeds. The temperature is now at 64 degrees. and as things grow as if by magic, we hope they will soon put in an appearance. Oates planted only a week ago

Starting point is 00:56:41 are now an inch above the ground. We have had a nice breeze the last two or three days, so that the mosquitoes have not worried us so much. The prettiest things to see here are the prairie fires at night. The grass is burnt in spring and autumn, so as to kill off the old tufts and allow of the new shoots for growing hay. The fires look like one long streak of quivering flogers. flame, the forked tips of which flash and quiver in the horizon. Magnified by refraction, and on a dark night are lovely. In the daytime one sees only volumes of smoke, which break the monotony of the landscape, though I don't know that it is picturesque.

Starting point is 00:57:21 With a slight breeze the fire spread in a marvelous way, even at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour. The other day A and Mr. H, whilst putting up their tent, did not perceive how near a fire they themselves had lighted at some distance was getting, until it was upon them. They then had to seize hold of everything, pull up the tent pegs as best they could, and make a rush through the flames, singing their clothes and boots a good deal. The pastures on the burnt prairie are good the whole summer, and animals will always select them in preference to any other. The wild ponies, be the snow and winter ever so deep,

Starting point is 00:57:57 by pawing it away, subsist on these young shoots and leaves of grasses, which are very nutritious, and apparently suffer little by the frost, which only kills the upper leaves, but does not injure what is below. The mirage is also very curious. The air is so clear that one often sees reflected some way above the horizon, objects like the river, trees, and even the town of Winnipeg, which we could not otherwise see. We could actually, one evening, at sunset, distinguish the gas lights. End of Letter 11.

Starting point is 00:58:30 Read by Sibelidenton. All Libra Vox files are in the public domain. domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 12 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall, read for Libravox.org into the public domain. Sunday. This is a real day of rest, and the men really do deserve it. We all have a respite, as regards breakfast, it being at nine o'clock instead of 6.30, and do we not appreciate the extra forty wings? The whole day is spent more or less in loafing, We having no regular church nearer than Winnipeg, 16 miles,

Starting point is 00:59:13 though an occasional service is given at headingly, eight miles off. The men lie stretched on the straw heaps in the yard, basking and snoozing in the sun. We generally have some stray men out from Winnipeg, and are much struck with the coolness of their ways. Colonial manners, somehow, jar a good deal on one. They take it as quite a matter of course that we ladies should wait on them at table, and attend to their bodily comforts.

Starting point is 00:59:39 on the other hand they never seem to object to any accommodation they get and are perfectly satisfied with the drawing-room sofa for a bed even with sheets taken out of the dirty linen bag which has been once or twice the case when our supply has run short i don't object to their coming only that our sunday dinners have to be in proportion and as all our provisions come out from winnipeg it is rather difficult catering we have no outside larder or anywhere to keep our meat and butter so have instituted a lovely one by putting all our things down the well, which is nearly dry and is under the kitchen floor. In winter there is never any need of a larder, as the meat is frozen so hard that it has to be twelve hours in the kitchen before they can attempt to cook it. Our food is very good, and we have the best of all recipes, ravenous appetites for every meal. Our breakfast consists of porridge, bacon, and any cold meat, jam, and any quantity of excellent butter and bread. Dinner, a hot joint and a pudding of some sort, finishing up with coffee.

Starting point is 01:00:41 Supper much the same. We have coffee for every meal, and as the pot is always on the hob, anybody can have a cup when they like. The men have about two cups apiece before breakfast when they first get up. We never mind any amount of coffee, but wage war against the cocktails, taken before meals as appetizers. A cocktail is a horrid concoction of whiskey, bitters, sugar, and water, which are all mixed together with a swittle stick, Which stick is always on the wander, and for which a search has to be made. Nipping is too much in vogue in this country, but we are told that a lot of support is wanted, the air is so rarefied and the water has so much alcohol eye in it, and therefore not supposed to be healthy,

Starting point is 01:01:23 but it is most beautifully clear and delightfully cold to drink. It certainly does disagree with the horses and cattle when first imported into the district. End of letter twelve. Read by Sabella Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 13 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall.

Starting point is 01:01:54 Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. June 3rd. If you happen to know of anybody coming out here, and so many do, and if you would like to give A a present, I wish you would kindly send him a few tablecloths, dusters, towels, and pairs of sheets. in short any linen would be most acceptable as we are so short how these men managed when the linen went into winnipeg to be washed and was sometimes kept a month ere it came home is a mystery these extra men living in the house have none they facetiously describe their ideas of dirt by saying if the table-cloth however filthy it might look when flung against the wall didn't stick it went on for another week if it stuck was then and there consigned to the dirty linen bag

Starting point is 01:02:40 since we have been here we have instituted a weekly wash every monday and tuesday e and mrs g preside at the tub all day and even then our sheets and towels often run short every colonist ought to provide himself with two pairs of sheets half a dozen towels two table-cloths and a few dusters and as those things and his wearing apparel if in use six months previously are allowed into the country free of duty they might as well bring them over as everything of that sort in winnipeg is so fearfully dear i do not like buying anything there We sent for some unbleached calico the other day, worth two pence, halfpenny, was charged twelve cents or sixpence a yard. Besides the four yards of calico there were ten of bed-ticking, also ten of American cloth, and the bill was six dollars seventy cents, nearly seven and twenty shillings. Everything is equally dear, the demand is so much greater than the supply. Beef is tenpence to thirteen pence a pound, mutton about the same, bacon tenpence, tenpence, chickens four and twopence each. We use a good deal of tinned corn beef, and very good it is,

Starting point is 01:03:51 it makes into such excellent hashes and curries, and is so good for breakfast. A. also wants a pair of long, porpoise-hide waterproof boots sending out. They are quite an essential, as after the heavy rains water stands inches deep in our yards, and he has so much walking into the marshes. In the spring, when the snow is melted, the sloughs are mud-holes along all the tracks and across the prairie are so deep that horses and wagons are repeatedly stuck in them, and the men have to go in, often up to their waist, to help the poor animals out. The only way sometimes to get wagons out is to unhitch the horses, getting them onto firm ground, and by means of a long chain or ropes fastened to the poles, pull the wagons out, which as a rule have previously had to be

Starting point is 01:04:36 unloaded. The clothes these men wear are indescribable. A, at the present moment, is in a blue flannel shirt, a waistcoat the back of which we are always threatening to renew inexpressible sometimes spotty darned and torn and thanks to one or two washings have shrunk displaying a pair of boots which have not seen a blackening brush since the day they left england coats are put on for meals to do honour to the ladies but seldom worn otherwise the coarser and stronger the clothes are the better a's straw hat is also very lovely it serves periodically for a mark to shoot at with the rifle on Sunday mornings, or when company come out from town. We both of us feel much like our old nurse when we are doing mending, cutting up one set of old rags to patch another, but thanks to ammonia and hot irons, we flatter ourselves when we make them almost look respectable again. There is a half-breed called L'Espirons, who lives about eight miles from here, on the banks of the Assiniboine, and one of our neighbors telling us the other day he had several buffalo

Starting point is 01:05:40 robes to sell, we drove over to inspect them, and saw some more. real beauties for ten or twelve dollars. At the Hudson Bay stores in town they asked sixteen for them. Lesperance himself wasn't at home when we got there, but his wife, a fine, tall woman, speaking of peculiar French patois, showed us around, also the Pemison, which is buffalo meat pounded, dried, and pressed into bags of skins, it keeping good for years in that way. It looked nasty, but the children were chewing it apparently with great relish. whilst in the shanty we heard a great noise, and running out found our horse, which had either taken right or been stung by some fly, tearing past us with the buggy through the old lady's potato

Starting point is 01:06:23 field into the bush. E. tore after it, and in a few hundred yards came up to the horse standing trembling, and gazing at the shattered remains of our poor vehicle. He had tried to turn the corner when the whole thing capsized Topsy-turvy, and he had almost freed himself of all the harness. luckily he was considerate enough not to have given that one more struggle which would have indeed settled the whole question and obliged us to foot it on our ten toes home curiously enough the shafts were not broken but the splinter bar was there was quite a procession back to the shanty the half-breed woman and one girl dragging the buggy one child carrying the cushion the other the whip and wraps and e leading the horse we set to work to make good the damage as best we could with

Starting point is 01:07:10 with thin strips of buffalo hide, and started homewards, but without buying our robes, not daring to add to our weight. The men at the ferry-boat gave us an extra binding up, and by going cautiously we got home, though we feared every moment would be our last, as regards driving, as the bound-up parts creaked most ominously all the way, and we fully expected it every rough bit to go in half. The horse is generally so quiet that we never mind where we leave them standing. I luckily have just given A a new carriage, which will come in very handy. It is to be a Democrat, double seats, and one long enough to be able to carry luggage. These small buggies are beautifully light, but will carry next to nothing, and we always have

Starting point is 01:07:53 difficulty in accommodating all our parcels every time we come out of Winnipeg. End of Letter 13. Read by Sibelenton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravoc's. letter fourteen of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for librivox dot org into the public domain june sixth a wagon is going into town to-morrow to fetch a sulky and a gang plow and some potatoes for seating and we hope a few also of the latter for eating as hitherto our only vegetables have been white beans and rice you may be wondering what these ploughs are a sulky is a single fird sixteen inch plow, to which are harnessed three horses, a man riding on a small seat and driving them instead of walking, and a gang is a two-furrowed twelve-inch plow, and drawn by four to six horses,

Starting point is 01:08:55 and which will break over four acres a day, the sulky about three. A has had one for some time, but as yet only the deep ploughing or back-setting of last year's breaking has been going on, and until the seating and harrowing is finished, which ought to have been done before now, but this year has been delayed by the lateness of the spring, and the snow being so long and melting, no fresh breaking has been begun. There are still about 280 acres to break, or more properly speaking, 240, as 40 acres are in marsh, in which water stands so deep no cultivation would be possible, though later on the marshes yield beautiful crops of hay, rather coarse-looking stuff, but undeniably nutritious, and not distasteful to either horses or beast. It has often,

Starting point is 01:09:41 been speculated as to whether there was any means of draining the marshes, but owing to the extreme, level character of the country, you could get no fall, and tiles would not do on account of the severity of the frosts, which penetrate deeper into the ground than the drains could be carried. The government have cut good-sized ditches at right ankles to the river, and they are found to be the only practical drainage which is feasible, and, when once cut and the water-set running, have no tendency to fill up, but gradually wear deeper and, and they are found to and broader, so that in time they almost become small rivers. We have one running through our west march, and on a by-day we sometimes fish in it for pike, not that any of our party have been

Starting point is 01:10:22 successful, but some of our neighbors catch fish, and very fair-sized ones. The land is wonderfully rich and good, a black loam, which color is no doubt due, partly to the gradual accumulation of the charred grasses left by prairie fires, of about two feet in depth, with a clay, and and sandy subsoil, and in which they say they will be able to grow cereals for the next twenty years, without manure or its deteriorating, though if there was only time to do it before the snowfalls, it seems a pity not to put the manure onto the land instead of burning it, as they do at the present moment. Perhaps when all the land is broken, which they hope will be by the end of next summer, they won't be so pushed for work as they are. The ground here

Starting point is 01:11:08 requires a great deal of cultivation. It is first of all broken with a 14 or 16 inch plow, so shaped that it turns the sod over as flat as possible, generally from the depth of one to two and a half inches deep, the shallower the better, and then left to rot with the sun and rain for two months and a half. It has often been tried, and with very good results, to put in a crop of oats in the first breaking, sewing, broadcast and turning a very thin sod over them, and the sod pulverizes and decomposes under the influence of a growing crop, quite as effectively as if only turned over and left to itself. There are also fewer weeds, which is of importance, as it often happens that the weeds which grows soon after the breaking are as difficult to subdue as the sod.

Starting point is 01:11:56 If the soil is nice and soft, a man and team of horses will break an acre and a half a day, and averaged throughout the season an acre. The breaking goes on until the middle of July, and the end of August the back setting begins, which is plowing the same ground over again about two inches deeper. The following spring, the Harrows, which are a disc of a peculiar shape, 12 to 18 razor wheels on an axle, and in going round, cut through and break any sods, are run over repeatedly both before and after the seating. The ground is also rolled and then left, and for the two and a half bushels of oats or two bushels of wheat seed per acre, hopes for a grand return being always entertained. By some experts, late autumn sewing is strongly advocated, as during the fall,

Starting point is 01:12:45 owing to the dryness of the atmosphere, there is scarcely any growth, so that the grains sewn late cannot germinate, nor can it absorb water or rain enough to rot it, the winters being so dry. And when the first days of spring come, the snow melts, the starch of the seed has changed to grape sugar and begins to germinate, so that the young plants will in no way be damaged by subsequent droughts, nor by the frosts was sometimes come after heavy rains in August, and much injure the crops. At the present moment we are craving for rain, and should the crops not be as plentiful this year as expected, on account of the drought, I should feel much inclined to try autumn sewing. Before the prairie is broken, the turf is very tough, and requires a great deal

Starting point is 01:13:29 of force to break it, but when once turned the subsequent plowings are easy. Our chief difficulty in trouble are the stones. They generally lie just beneath the surface, differing very much in size. Some are huge, and have to be regularly trenched round, and horses harnessed to a chain put round them, to raise them out of the ground, when they are put onto the stoneboat and conveyed to the boundary fence. It generally falls to ease and my special lot to drive the stone boat, or the wagons, whilst the men with crowbars and spades go before the plows, clearing them all away, for fear they may blunt the shares and throw them out of the furrow the last two or three days when not stone-picking a and mr b have been stretching the barb wire with which they are enclosing the property and there has been a great chaff about our jehu ship the wooden posts along which the wire is run are put in the ground and they then have to be rammed down with a fearfully heavy wooden mallet which i can hardly lift to get purchase on the mallet a mounts into the wagon which accordingly

Starting point is 01:14:34 has to be driven quite close up to the post without touching it. The two old mares we drive are more than difficult to turn or stop to a nicety, the result being that once I went too near and broke off a piece of the wagon. Another time, after a corner post had been driven in most securely with props, E. drove up against it, taking the whole concern away bodily. The weather is quite delightful, no mosquitoes as yet to speak of, but the two big marshes on either side of the farm harbored them dreaded. wild duck also abound in these marches. There are thousands about, and we have found many nests

Starting point is 01:15:10 and have been reveling in the eggs, a delightful change to our regular menu. The nests are very difficult to find. We two went one afternoon in the buggy to look for some, and the men declare we looked in the marshes themselves for them, which was not certainly the fact, though after driving round all the outsides, and not having been warned that the marsh on the eastern boundary of the farm was very deep, we came home that way, not at all liking the water coming up to the axle trees, and the horse floundering about at every step. To turn back was as bad as to go on, and as we saw wheel tracks along the fence we stuck to them, thanking our stars when we got through safely. End of Letter 14, read by Sybella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more

Starting point is 01:15:57 information, please visit Librevox.org. letter fifteen of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for librivox dot org into the public domain june twelfth we have had a real visitor lately i mean one who has brought a change and a toothbrush and for the auspicious event we rigged him up a stretcher bed the most comfortable of things canvas stretched on to a wooden frame with a mattress on the top you could not wish for anything softer he was one of our ocean companions his nickname of mike still sticks to him on getting to winnipeg at night he had great difficulty in finding our whereabouts even at the club he was told the only w known kept a store in main street luckily from the club he went to a's livery stable which is exactly behind it where a man offered to drive him out forthwith having driven another man here only four days ago but he preferred waiting until the morning getting here somewhere about nine o'clock when he was set down immediately to work to stone the raisins for a plum-cake and when tired of that had to help a planting potatoes he declares he never will come here with his best clothes and a boiled shirt on again as we have worked him so hard the accounts he gives in an exaggerated irish brogue of his experiences in minnesota have kept us in fits of laughter the description of their first drive when both he and his companions were all bogged and how that twenty-seven mules and twenty-eight horses bought at st louis all arrived one night at the station about five o'clock after sixty hours travelling with no food-reveau

Starting point is 01:17:42 water, had to be unloaded from the cars, and they hadn't a halter or even a rope to do it with. Eventually they got all the poor beasts into a yard with wooden paling round, but something startling them, they made a rush, the fence gave way, for which damage the proprietor charged them ten pounds, and all galloped straight onto the prairie, and it took the men all night getting them together again. One pair of horses disappeared altogether, but were brought back when a reward of $30 was offered. They had wandered 19 miles. Mike slept in A's room. They talked so much and told so many funny stories that we despaired of ever getting them down to breakfast. Mike declaring he would like to bring his bed along with

Starting point is 01:18:25 him as he hadn't slept in one or been between sheets since leaving New York, six weeks previously. We drove him over one afternoon to fish in the creek about two and a half miles off, but as we had to go in a light wagon and with only one, spring seat, both Mike and A had to hang on behind, with a plank as seat, which was always slipping and landing them on their backs at the bottom of the wagon. When we were about half a mile from home, E made a wager that she would get through the wire fence and home across the prairie before we could get round and the horses be in their stable. We had a most exciting race, the gates, which our only poles run from one end of the wire

Starting point is 01:19:04 to another, were a great impediment, and I believe it really was a dead heat. all the laborers entering into the joke and rushing to unhitch the horses, which were disappearing into the stable as E was at the kitchen door. I fancy that, on the whole, in spite of his hard work, Mike enjoyed his visit, not only for the pleasure of our society, but as he had never seen a piece of meat, nor anything but pork and beans and bad coffee at Warren, nor had a bed to lie on, nor as much water as could be held in a teacup to wash in. He must have felt he had dropped into a land of Goshen by some happy mistake. To give you a clearer insight into our daily life, and as I have nothing really to write about

Starting point is 01:19:46 this week, I think I cannot do better than copy out our journals, which we try to keep regularly, though in our monotonous everyday life it is sometimes difficult to find incidents to chronicle. Monday. Wash and cook all the morning, E and A. plant willows in the marsh during the afternoon. I wander about the prairie in search of a duck's nest I saw yet. yesterday, and thought I had marked, but the tracks, stones, and ridges on the prairie are so alike that it is almost impossible to remember any place. Anyhow, I cannot find the nest.

Starting point is 01:20:19 I could not take it yesterday, as I was riding, and the animal will not stand still to let you mount, and had I had to scramble up on her, I should certainly have broken all the eggs I took. An exhausting day with hot wind blowing, we are craving for rain, and thankful for the slight showers that fell during last night. It is marvelous how quickly vegetation will grow. Some sample wheat planted in the garden, of which there was no sign yesterday, thanks to the rain and sun, has grown quite an inch by six o'clock this evening. The grass is beginning to look so green and nice. Tuesday E. and Mrs. G. finished their wash, which they could not get through yesterday.

Starting point is 01:21:00 I go up to the tent with Mr. H. to drive his wagon, and help him unlumber the wood he brought out yesterday from Winnipeg. Riding on these wagons loaded, and without a spring seat, is anything but pleasant over the prairie, but Mr. H is so accustomed to it now that he can stretch himself on the top and sleep soundly, and once or twice, coming out from town, has found himself in quite the wrong direction by allowing the horses to go their own way. E. and I spend our afternoon cleaning up the tent. Wednesday. A. and I drive into Winnipeg. We have had various commissions to do, and A had to attend a meeting at the club. Mr. W. H. has most amiably put his house, consisting of two rooms and a kitchen below, at our disposal whenever we want to rest.

Starting point is 01:21:48 So I spent my whole afternoon there, nominally reading the St. James's Gazette, but I fancy, indulging in forty winks whilst waiting for A. We afterward dined with the judge in his very nice pretty house called the Willows, driving home later. The cold was so great that A, who had brought no great-coat, was forced to run behind the buggy some way to get warm and produce circulation. The prairie fires, quite lovely, on all sides, quivering high flames for miles, and the night being dark, they looked very bright. Thursday. Was so tired after my day in town that I breakfasted in bed, disgraceful. By the time I get down the family have all dispersed to their various works.

Starting point is 01:22:32 After dinner E. and I drive a wagon over to the Boyd farm to fetch oats for mr h the students who haven't much to do are enlisted into the filling and loading of the sacks rather glad we fancy of some occupation on our return we found a friend of mr bees who having heard of our proximity he living at headingly has come over to dine and sleep our parlor sofa as usual is called into requisition it will soon be worn out so many sleep on it i think last week it was occupied nearly every night friday We have had very smart company today, as the judge, his wife, niece, and another man came over. We hoped they would stay to dinner, and had killed fatted calf, but I fancy the ladies dreaded the prairie by night, and insisted upon returning. We could hardly persuade them to take a cup of tea, fearing that they might be benighted. Saturday. Hard at work cleaning all the morning. Mr. B.'s friend leaves after dinner, and I'd drive the mares in the wagons whilst the men stretch the wire fencing.

Starting point is 01:23:35 E arrives to the tent with letters. We sustained rather a shock to our nerves today. About 12 o'clock a buggy was seen coming towards the house, just as we were sitting down to dinner, and as our food was scanty we did not know how we possibly could feed three extra men. Luckily, they only came to inquire their route to the tent, and it was a relief when they drove on, though we felt we ought to have given them some food, as the tent could only provide bacon and biscuits. "'Sunday. Mrs. G., our fact-todum, has holiday, and goes over with some of the other laborers to spend the day at the other farm. E. and I have to undertake the menage for the whole day. Our mutton, a leg, was very nicely done, also our vegetables, rice, and beans, but the evaporated apples, which we use much, required boiling previous to being put in a tart, which we neither of us knew. Therefore they were not done, and the crust was all burnt. the men from the tent who generally spend their sundays here were allowed some dinner on condition that they washed up afterwards end of letter fifteen read by cebella denton all librivox files are in the public domain for more information please visit librivox dot org

Starting point is 01:24:56 letter sixteen of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for librovocs dot org into the public domain june eighteenth I am afraid our letters will not be so interesting as the novelty wears off. The monotony of our life may begin to pall upon us. We hardly ever go two miles beyond the farm, to take our neighbors at the tent their letters or parcels brought out from town is about the limit to our wanderings. We did drive one of the wagons to our neighbor, Mr. Boyle, to fetch home some oats the other night,

Starting point is 01:25:30 and we also have been into town to pay our respects to the governor and his wife. We happily don't want much outside attraction, for we have so much to do on the farm. The men work us pretty hard, I can tell you, as besides all our indoor work, we have had three afternoons cutting potatoes for seed until our hands are too awful to look at, and the water is so hard that we shall never get them a decent color again.

Starting point is 01:25:55 Some white elephant potatoes, planted three weeks ago, thirty in number we cut into four hundred and twenty pieces, already make a great show, and we'll want banking up next week. About ten acres of ground, close to the house, have been reserved and are called the garden, in which have been planted turnips, flax, beetroot, lettuce, tomatoes, and potatoes. In short, all the luxuries of the season. But I am afraid none will be ready before we leave, if we carry out our idea of going to Colorado

Starting point is 01:26:24 early in August. We have been craving for rain, and at last, luckily, had a delightful shower a few days ago, which has freshened us up and will make things grow. There is no grass, as yet, above four inches in height, and this time last year they were haymaking. The men are beginning to fear there will be none, but with a little warm weather and a certain amount of rain everything grows as if by magic, so we may still hope to have a good season. Only very few of the garden seeds have made their appearance, which is disappointing after all the trouble they were, but the wild flowers are beginning to come out on the prairie. Small bushes of wild rose are all over. There are also very pretty sunflowers, a tree maiden hair, several different vetsches, sisters, yellow daisies, etc.

Starting point is 01:27:12 Many we cannot name, indigenous to this country, we conclude. End of Letter 16. Read by Sibeladenton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 17 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. read for Libravats.org into the public domain. June 26th. We quite feel as if we had been here years instead of about five weeks, and though it was prophesied before we left England that, after turning the house upside down and making the men very uncomfortable with our cleanings, we should then go on strike,

Starting point is 01:27:57 it has not been altogether fulfilled. We certainly did try to clean up a bit, but we still help in housework, and have to do as the servants at home. If we expect visitors or on a Sunday put on a tidy gown, otherwise we generally live in the oldest of frocks, which are more or less stained with either mud or the red paint, with which we have been painting the roofs of both the stable and the laborer's house, very big aprons, sleeves to match, and our sunbonnets. E. has concocted for herself a thin, blue and white shirt, and as she generally lives with her sleeves tucked up, her arms are getting quite brown and sunburnt. Our boots are the only things we do not much like cleaning. They get so soon dirty again, and we have come to the happy conclusion that unblackened boots have a cachet that blacked boots have not.

Starting point is 01:28:47 When we first arrived the men promised to do them for us every Sunday, which promises, like so many, have partaken of the nature of pie crusts. We are both delighted to have come. The whole experience is so new, and what we couldn't have realized in England, and I am sure, in spite of the boulevers, of the bachelor regime, it is a great pleasure to the men we are here. Our Winnipeg acquaintances tell us that A is quite a changed man, so cheery and even bumptuous, and that everything is now

Starting point is 01:29:17 what we do at the farm. It is all very well, however, in the summer, if obliged to say through the winter it would be quite another pair of shoes. The thermometer often registers forty degrees of frost, though the effects of this extreme temperature in the dry, exhilarating atmosphere, is not so unpleasant as might be imagined, but the loneliness and dreariness of the prairie with two or three feet of snow would be appalling. The cold is so great that you have to put on a buffalo coat, cap, and gloves, before you can touch the stove to light the fire, and notwithstanding the coal stove, which is always kept going in the hall to warm the upstairs room, through which the pipe is carried, the water in buckets standing alongside gets frozen. Then the blizzards, which are storms of sleet and snow driven with a fierce wind, and so thick that it is quite impossible to get out of doors, or see it all, would be too trying. Even to get across the yard, to the further stable, the men have to have a rope stretched as a guide so as not to lose their way, and these storms sometimes, as they did last year, continue for

Starting point is 01:30:23 three weeks consecutively. The snow on the prairie is never very deep, but it drifts a good deal, and was to the depth of twelve feet on the west side of the house. No work can be done much in the winter, on account of the cold and snow, so that from the middle of April, when the snow begins to go, until the beginning of October, everything has to be rushed through, and as many hands put on as they can possibly get, who are all discharged at the end of the summer, and only two or three kept to look after the animals.

Starting point is 01:30:54 After threshing, these men have little or nothing to do, digging out the well to water the horses, teeming hay into the town on slays and fetching timber over from the other farm is about their only outdoor occupation. All the animals in the shape of horses, cows, pigs, and chickens are huddled together in the stables for warmth. End of Letter 17, read by Sibel Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Librabox.org. Letter 18 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B.

Starting point is 01:31:35 Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. July 5th. We have received our letters most unexpectedly today. Two of our gentlemen coming out last night from town brought sundry parcels, newspapers, etc., but never thought of turning round to see if all was safe in back of carriage, declaring it was such rough driving they could only think of how to hang on and not be jolted out, so that by the time they got home, letters, a horse-collar, spare cushions, etc. were all gone. It was too late to send after them, but one of the men started back at 3.30 this morning, finding most of the lost things strewn broadcast over the prairie, even to

Starting point is 01:32:16 within a short distance of Winnipeg. He went on to feed and bait his horses, at the same time inquiring for letters, finding ours just come in, and which would have lain there until our next opportunity. Our variety today has been the absence of our cook, and we are again left in charge, and we flatter ourselves the dinner was immense. Stewed beef, rice, mushrooms, of which some were rather burnt, others not quite done enough, but that is a trifle, Yorkshire pudding, baking powder making an excellent substitute for eggs, and an apple tart. What more could you want? We are quite ambitious now, and have curries, risoles, etc. A. used to say he hoped we should not expect either him or his friends to eat our dishes,

Starting point is 01:33:02 as they would have to go to bed afterwards for at least three or four hours, but they very much appreciate any change made in the menu. We are longing to make bread, which takes up a great deal of our factotum's time, as it has to be set overnight and kneaded three or four times the following day, but are begged to defer that amusement until within a few days of our departure, as it would so entirely upset our American trip if we had to attend A's obsequies. The bread is perfectly delicious, so light and safe, so white in color. The flour is excellent. It is not made with brewer's yeast, but with a yeast

Starting point is 01:33:38 gem dissolved in warm water, to which is added a handful of dried hops boiled beforehand for about ten minutes and strained. To that is added a cupful of flour, a teaspoon of salt, and one of sugar, and the whole is put into a warm place to ferment, when fermented, which takes about twelve hours into a cool place, where it will remain good and sweet some time. A recipe for breadmaking Put ten large spoonfuls of flour in a breadpan And add enough warm water to make it into a thin batter Add half a pint of yeast mix well

Starting point is 01:34:12 And having covered the breadpan with a cloth Put it in a warm place near the stove overnight During the night it should rise and settle again In the morning add enough flour to make it into a thick dough And knead it on a breadboard for ten minutes put it back into the pan for two hours and let it rise again. Grease your baking tins, knead your dough again, and then fill the tins half full. Put them close to the stove to rise, and when they have risen thoroughly,

Starting point is 01:34:40 grease the tops of your loaves with a little butter, preventing the crest breaking and giving it a nice brown color, and put them into the oven and bake for an hour to an hour and a quarter. As E had not Mrs. G to wash up with her, she enlisted one of the men, and it was very funny to see him in a hat three times too big for his head, a pipe in his mouth, sleeves turned up, drying the dishes and putting a polish on them. Talking of hats, E. has at last got one and a half. It literally covers even her shoulders, and at midday she declares she is as much in shade as under a Japanese umbrella.

Starting point is 01:35:17 For trimming, a rope is coiled round the crown, the only way to make it stay on the head. Of her gloves there is only the traditional one left, the other is among the various ars, particles we have left on the prairie, bumped out of the buggy one day when she took them off to take care of them in a shower of rain. That driving on the prairie is loathsome, but if we want to get about it all we must do it, as we don't like the riding horses. At the present moment we have got one of the plow animals, which is ridable. The poor beast was frightened one night three weeks ago, during a fearful storm of thunder

Starting point is 01:35:50 and lightning, and ran into the barbed wire, wounding itself horribly on the shoulders and neck. The skin had to be sewn up, and it cannot wear a collar for the present, so we have it to ride if we like. It is not a slug like the other two. The thunderstorms here are frightful. They are also very grand to watch, as we can see them generally for miles before they come up.

Starting point is 01:36:12 We luckily have about ten lightning conductors on the houses and stables so that we feel safe. A thunderbolt fell pretty near the other day, destroying about six posts and the wire of our north fence. Thanks to the rain we have lately had, and the warm sun, we find such quantities of mushrooms all over the prairie. They grow to such a size. We measured two. One was twenty-one and one-half inches around, the other twenty-one, very sweet and good, and as pink underneath as possible. The laborers have been so pleased with them that last Sunday they began picking and cooking them early in the morning, going on with relays more or less all day, so that by the evening they couldn't look another in the face, and it will be some time before they touch them again.

Starting point is 01:36:57 We have them for every meal. Our diaries here are more or less public property, and as we have been nowhere or seen anything at all exciting since we last wrote, I am going to copy down from the journals the incidents, if any, of the last week. You seem to appreciate it the last time we sent you home a copy, but you must forgive if it is somewhat of a repetition to our numerous letters. The weather, for one thing, is daily chronicled, as it takes up so much of our thoughts, so much in the future depending on its being propitious, just at this time of year, when the seeds are all sown and the hay almost ready to cut. Tuesday. Beautiful day, so warm and nice, without being hot. Everything growing, too, marvelously, even the seeds in the garden, which we began to despair of, are coming

Starting point is 01:37:45 up. The men have been very low, on account of the scarcity of rain, but we have had one or two thunderstorms lately, which have done good, and in this climate I do not think one ought ever to give up hopes. E. has been painting wildflowers, which at this moment are in great profusion and variety all over the prairie, most of the day, varying her work by painting the doors of the room, which were such an ugly color, a pale yellow-green, that they have offended our artistic eyes ever since we have been here. I am said to have wasted my whole morning watching my two-days-old chickens, supposed to be the acme of intelligence and precocity. The afternoon was spent in shingling the hen-house.

Starting point is 01:38:27 It was only roved over with tar-paper laid on to the rafters, which answers well if the wind doesn't blow the paper about, or that it has not had any holes. But as the hen-house is only a lean-to of the stable, the roof of which we have been very busily painting, it has been trodden upon a good deal in getting on and off the roof, and in consequence the paper is much like a sponge, letting any rain in and drenching the poor sitting fowls.

Starting point is 01:38:53 But with the shingles overlapping each other on the tar paper, the roof will be quite watertight. Wednesday. Our factotum has gone into town, and we are left in charge. E. Parlor Made, Mr. B. Scullery made, and I cook. We have heaps of mushrooms at every meal, a most agreeable change to the rice and white beans we have only hitherto had. Thursday. Hot day. A. went into town to some meeting of the club. We have been dreadfully tormented with mosquitoes today, also the big bulldog fly,

Starting point is 01:39:25 which, whenever the kitchen door was left ajar, came into the house in myriads, but we find that Keating's powder most effectually destroys them, and in a very few seconds. We have been busy making a mattress and pillow for Mr. H. Really, one does not realize how clever one is until our genius is put to the test in an establishment like this. E. and I drove up to the tent after supper with our handiwork, and had great pleasure in seeing it filled with hay. Our drive was not the most enviable. We had a wagon with no spring-seat, only a board, which was always moving, to sit upon. One horse would tear along, the other not pull an ounce, in spite of applying the whip a good deal, and we were nearly smothered with mosquitoes.

Starting point is 01:40:10 I never saw such clouds of them, and on our return home there was a general rush for the bottle of ammonia, which is the only thing that allays the irritation. Friday. Excitments have been crowding in upon us today. Bob, one of the laborers, who went into Winnipeg yesterday, only arrived home at three a.m. this morning. He left town at six, but the night being dark he lost his way, and finding himself on the edge of a marsh, having a feed of oats with him, wisely unhitched his horses, tied them to the wheels, and waited patiently for daylight. Just as we were sitting down to dinner, three men who have been surveying the government ditching, near here, came and begged to be fed. Luckily, we had soup and plenty of cold meat,

Starting point is 01:40:54 but our pudding, the less said about that the better. We always have the evaporated apples as a stand-by, and they are delicious, so with quantities of butter and milk we never need starve. Then in the evening, when Mr. B. was going to the stable to serve out the oats for the horses, he came in for the finish of an exciting race between two of the plow horses. The jockeys, or riders, were told forthwith that a wagon was going into town the following morning, and that their services would be dispensed with in future. Just as we were going to bed we heard A. coming in, and with him a stranger, who turned out to be our cousin, only fifteen days out from England, via Canada. He looks very delicate. Saturday. We had made no preparation for E. P. last night, so he had to occupy the parlour

Starting point is 01:41:42 sofa, and says he slept like a top. Doubtlessly did not require much rock. as he had traveled through almost without stopping. We were busy all this morning writing letters for the discharged miscreants to take into town. It has been very hot and close all day. I rode up to the tent and hurried home, seeing a thunderstorm coming up, which was grand, and it was very lucky that I got home, as it began to rain at three o'clock, and is still pouring in perfect torrents at ten o'clock p.m. Sunday. The yard is in such a fearful state of dirt, the water standing inches deep, that it has been nearly impossible to move beyond the door. I put on A's long waterproof boots, and managed to get as far as my hen-house, and found

Starting point is 01:42:28 two of my chickens dead. Another sitting hen has been a source of great anxiety, as she will peck her chicks to death as they hatch, and out of a sitting of eleven eggs we have only been able to save five birds. A wet Sunday hangs very heavily on our hands here, as there is nothing to be done. Monday. Big wash as usual all the morning, and just as E and I were to drive a wagon over to Mr. Boyle for some oats, which required fetching, we had quite a scare. A lady and a gentleman were seen to be riding up. We both of us rushed upstairs to put on some clean aprons to do honor to our guests,

Starting point is 01:43:06 who, with another man, also out from town, remained the whole afternoon. We have never dined as many as nine people in our vast apartments before, but we managed very nicely. We have had heavy showers with high wind, and the thermometer down to fifty all the afternoon. We tried to persuade our lady-visitor to stay the night, A, offering to give up his room, but she persisted in going back, and, I am afraid, will have got very wet, in spite of E. lending her waterproof jacket. Tuesday. The household had a long turn in bed this morning, Mr. B. only getting down, at about 7.15, when various things were offered him to prop open his eyelids when he did appear.

Starting point is 01:43:48 The weather has been slightly better than yesterday, but the wind has been very high, and it was really quite cold, buried by slight showers of rain in the morning. In the afternoon we all made hay. I worked my rake until my horse beat me by refusing to move in any direction except homewards, and I had to call A, who was stone-getting to my rescue. He, with judicious chastis-dust in the shape of a kick or so made the horse work. E. and E.P. loaded hay. Thanks to the late rains, the marshes were heavy, and they very nearly struck once or twice in going through them. There were no mosquitoes which was a blessing, but one is never troubled with them in high wind. End of letter 18, read by Sabella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain.

Starting point is 01:44:36 For more information, please visit Librevox.org. Letter 19 of a Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall read for Libravox.org into the public domain. July 9 You should have seen A and his equipage start into Winnipeg two days ago. He and the men from the tent had to go in and bring out a wagon and the new Cortland wagon, my present, and they had to take in the broken buggy to be mended. So they started with a foreign hand to their cart, the broken buggy tied on behind,

Starting point is 01:45:14 and another pair of horses behind that again. The buggy, they say, very nearly capsized going over the bridge of the creek, when near Winnipeg. Otherwise, they got on beautifully, but it was a funny arrangement altogether, and they seemed to cover a quarter of a mile of ground as they left here. Winnipeg grows in a most astonishing way. Every time we go in, a new avenue or street seems to have started up. Immigrants, they say, are coming in at the rate of a hundred a day. A few years ago the population was about 5,000.

Starting point is 01:45:46 In 1878, about 10, now over 40,000, a fourth of whom are living under canvas. It was estimated last winter that the building operations this season would amount to $4 million, but double that amount is nearer the mark, and many are obliged to abandon the idea of building on account of the difficulty of getting timber and bricks. Every house or shanty is leased almost before it is finished. winnipeg as you know was formerly known as fort garry and one of the chief trading stations of the hudson bay company of the old fort i am sorry to say there is very little left and that is shortly to be swept away for the continuation of main street the governor now occupying the old house is to have a splendid building which with the houses of legislature are in the course of construction rather farther away from the river the town is built at the confluence of two great rivers the red and assiniboine the former rising in minnesota and flowing into lake winnipeg one hundred and fifty miles navigable for four hundred miles the assiniboine has many steamers on it but the navigation being more difficult the steamer is

Starting point is 01:46:57 often sticking on the rapids, it is not much in vote with immigrants going west, particularly now that the railway takes them so much more rapidly. There is a large suburb of the town on the other side of the Red River called St. Boniface, the sea of a Roman Catholic Archbishop, possessing a beautiful cathedral and a great educational school for young ladies. For some reason or other, we never managed to get over there to see it, though the cathedral is a grand landmark for a great distance. The railway traffic is also enormous. During the flood, 4,000 freight wagons were delayed at St. Vincent. Now they are coming in at the rate of 4,000 per week, and still people cannot get their implements, stores, etc., fast enough. We have asked several times for some turpentine at one of the shops, and the answer always given is,

Starting point is 01:47:45 it is at the depot, but not unloaded. We have been wanting turpentine to mix with the brown paint, with which we are painting the dining room floors. But first of all, the paint fails, and then the and I fully expect our beautiful work of art will not be finished before we leave. End of letter 19, read by Sabella Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 20 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain.

Starting point is 01:48:26 July 12th. It is very certain that no gentleman ought to come out to this country, or, when here, can expect to prosper, unless he has some capital, heaps of energy and brains, or is quite prepared to sink the gentleman and work as a common laborer. The latter command the most wonderful wages. There is such a demand for them that one can hardly pick and choose. A plow-boy gets from four to six pounds a month, an experienced man from eight to ten pounds, besides their board and lodging. A mechanic or artisan from fourteen to sixteen shillings a day. Women's servants are very scarce. They get from four to six pounds a month.

Starting point is 01:49:07 We were so astonished at the wages in New York, the head gardener in the Navy Yard was receiving 150 pounds a year, his underling, 75 pounds, the groom 100 pounds. It is surprising to me that the whole of the poorer classes in England and Ireland, hearing of these wages, do not immigrate, particularly when nowadays the steerage and the passenger ships seems to be so comfortable and that for about six pounds they can be landed on this side of the Atlantic. We have nine Britishers and two Canadians on this farm, and the amount of ground broken up does everyone great credit, considering that the whole place is only of a year and a half's growth.

Starting point is 01:49:46 Since we arrived, we can mark rapid and visible strides towards completion. The house has been banked up and grasped, a fence put to enclose all the yard, and we have actually had the audacity to talk about a tennis ground, which would take an immense deal of making from the unevenness of the soil. The water, having no real outflow, makes itself little gullies everywhere, which would be very difficult to fill up level. But I don't know that, until we are acclimatized to the mosquitoes, said to be the happy result of a second year's residence,

Starting point is 01:50:18 that we should feel inclined to play tennis, as we could only indulge in that diversion of an evening when work was ended, and that is just the worst time for these pests. They spoil all enjoyment. We can never sit out under the veranda after supper, which we should so like to do these warm evenings. They bite through everything, and the present fashion of tight sleeves to our gowns is a trial, as no stuffs, not even thin dogskin, are proof against them, and our faces, arms, and just above our boots are deplorable sights. Ammonia is the only remedy to allay the irritation. I am not drawing a long bow when I say that in places the air is but. black with them. The poor horses and cows are nearly maddened with them, if turned out to graze, and the moment the poles across the road are withdrawn, they gallop back to their stables. The mosquitoes are great big yellow insects, about half an inch long. The house and country at Boyd's farm is much prettier than this, from the lot of trees round it, and the ground

Starting point is 01:51:19 not being so flat, but we wouldn't change for all the world. It is so stuffy, and the flies and mosquitoes are much worse there than here, where we catch the slightest breeze of wind, which always drives them away. We were dreading making the hay in the marshes on account of them. I do not think we shall suffer much from the heat, as nearly always, even in the hottest part of the day there is a breeze, and as yet the nights are deliciously cool. We have never found one blanket too much covering. We talk of going an expedition up west next week, taking the carriage and horses, and driving as far as Fort Ellis. I don't know that we either of us look forward to the expedition very much, as we fear we shall have to rough it too greatly, but on the other hand it seems

Starting point is 01:52:05 a pity not to see something more of the country. There are hardly any inns or resting places, the accommodations may be fearful. We hear that about fourteen people are lodged in one room as an ordinary rule. A. has gone into Winnipeg to make arrangements, and if he finds we cannot depend on the we shall take a tent and camp by the towns going in for our meals to restaurants end of letter twenty read by sabella denton all librivox files are in the public domain for more information please visit librivox dot org letter twenty one of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for librovox dot org into the public domain in the train two hundred miles west of winnipeg july twenty four eighteen eighty two as we seem to stop every two or three miles for some trifling cause or another i am in hopes i may get through a long maybe disjointed letter to post to you on our way through winnipeg to-night which we wish to reach about six o'clock giving us time to drive out to the farm before it is quite dark i told you we were proposing a trip up northwest and we really have had a most successful journey a has a friend manager of the burtel land company who with others has bought up land intends breaking so many acres on each section and then reselling it hoping thereby to clear all expenses and make a lot of money besides and as he had to go up and look after the property it was settled that we should all go together

Starting point is 01:53:44 and very glad we are that we did do it though we have had some very funny experiences we are pleased to find that all the northwest is not like the country around winnipeg so awfully flat and without a tree on the contrary we have been through rolling prairie almost hilly and very well wooded in places we started last monday the eighteenth having got up at four fifteen which we did not think so terribly early as we might have done before the days we were accustomed to breakfast at half-past six but had even then a terrible run for the train we had some heavy thunderstorms on the sunday and though we allowed two hours and three-quarters to do our sixteen miles into winnipeg station the roads were so heavy and the mud so sticky and deep that we really thought we should be taken up for cruelty to animals hustling on our two miles to winnipeg station the roads were so heavy and the mud so sticky and deep that we really thought we should be taken up for cruelty to animals hustling on our poor little mare. As it was, we arrived just in time to get into the cars, our packages and bundles being thrown in after us as the train was on the move. Luckily, we managed to get all on board, and found plenty of friends traveling west. One, a government inspector, a most agreeable man, who has to certify and pass the work done on the line before government pays its share of the expenses. He was telling us how he and two other men spent three hours finding names for all the new

Starting point is 01:55:02 stations along the line, and could only think of three. The stations are placed at the distance of eight to ten miles apart, and they are bound not to have any name already taken up in Canada, so that, for a way-of-way extending over three thousand miles to the Rocky Mountains, names are difficulty. We did him the favor of writing out a few, taking all the villages one was interested in in the old country, for which attention he seemed most obliged, and has promised a timetable of the line with the nomenclature of its stations when opened. They are building the Canadian Pacific at the rate of 25 miles a week, and every available man is pressed into service, so that it is not so surprising the poor farmers cannot find labor. The wages, $2 to two and a half a day, are more

Starting point is 01:55:50 than we can pay. There has not been much engineering required or shown on this line, as we went up and down with the waves of the prairies, and had only two small cuttings between Winnipegian, and Brandon, 300 miles, and were raised a few feet above the marshes, but considering how fast they work and how short a time they have been, it is creditably smooth. We disembarked at a city called Brandon, which last year was unheard of, two or three shanties and a few tents being all there was to mark the place. Now it has over three thousand inhabitants, large sawmills, shops, and pretentious two-storied hotels. We found our carriage, which had been sent on two-day-day- previously, waiting for us at the station, as we were to have driven on that night to Rapid City,

Starting point is 01:56:37 but owing to the manager not being able to get through all his business, and his not liking to leave the two laborers he had with him on the loose, for fear they should be tempted by higher wages to go off with someone else, we decided to remain that night at Brandon, and were not sorry to retire to bed directly after dinner, about 8.30. We were given, not a very spacious apartment, the two double beds filling up the whole it. In all the hotels we have been into, they put such enormous beds in the smallest of space, I conclude speculating on four people doubling up at a pinch. We luckily had brought some sheets, the ones supplied looked as if they had been used many a time since they had been last through

Starting point is 01:57:17 the wash-tub. I cannot say we slept well, chiefly, I think, owing to lively imaginations, and the continual noise of a town after the extreme quiet of the farm. And, as there was only a canvas partition between us and the two men, who snored a lively duet, we had many things to lay the blame to. We were on the move again at about 5.30, intending to breakfast at half-past six, and start on our travels directly after, but somehow, what with one thing and the other, the various packing-way of our different packages and parcels into our three wagons, it was past eight o'clock before we got off. We were rather amused at the expression at breakfast of our waiting-made, when asked to bring some more bread and then tea. She wanted much to learn if we had any more side orders.

Starting point is 01:58:05 Alcoholic spirits are quite forbidden in this territory. To bring a small keg of whiskey and some claret with us we had to get a permit from the governor. I am afraid the inhabitants will have spirits. The first man we met last night was certainly much the worse for liquor, and though in our hotel there was no visible bar, an ominous door in the back premises was always on the swing, and a very strong odor of spirits emanated therefrom. Our cavalcade, A, and the manager in the Democrat, we too in a buggy, and the two laborers with a man to drive in another carriage, produced quite an imposing effect. We had to cross the Assiniboine on a ferry, and then rose nearly all the way to Rapid City,

Starting point is 01:58:48 twenty-two miles, going through pretty country, much wooded, with hundreds of small lakes, favorite resorts of wild duck. The flowers were in great profusion, but we saw no animals anywhere, excepting a few chipmunks and gophers, which are sort of half rats, half squirrels. The chipmunks are dear little things about the size of a mouse, with long bushy tails and a dark stripe running the whole length of the body. Rapid City is a flourishing little town of some fifty houses, and is growing quickly. It is prettily situated on the banks of the little Saskatchewan, and has a picturesque wooden bridge thrown over. over the river. We had lunch, picnic style, and a rest of two hours. There was a large Indian camp just outside the town, and as we sat sketching several Indians past us, their style of

Starting point is 01:59:37 dress is grotesque, to say the least of it, one man passed us in a tall beaver hat, swallow-tail coat, variegated colored trousers, moccasins, and a scarlet blanket hanging from his shoulder. The long hair, which both men and women wear, looks as if a comb never had to be. had passed near it, and gives them a very dirty appearance. They all seemed affable, and gave us broad grins in return for our salutes. The Indian tribes on Canadian territory are the Blackfeet and the Pygans. The former used to number over ten thousand, but now are comparatively few. The smallpox, which raged among them in 1870, decimated their numbers, also alcohol, first introduced by Americans who established themselves on Belly River, about 1866,

Starting point is 02:00:25 and in which they drove a roaring trade, as the Indians sacrificed everything for this fire-water, as they called it, and hundreds died in consequence of exposure and famine, having neither clothes to cover them nor horses nor weapons wherewith to hunt. Luckily, in 1874 the mounted police put an entire end to this abominable sale of whiskey. The Indian is naturally idle. To eat, smoke, and sleep is the sole end of his life, though he will travel immense distances to fish or hunt, which is the only occupation of the men, the women doing all the rest, their condition being but little better than beasts of burden. The Indian of the plains subsists in winter on buffalo, dried and smoked, but in spring,

Starting point is 02:01:08 when they resort to the neighborhood of the small lakes and streams, where innumerable wild fowl abound, they have grand feasting on the birds and animals. eggs the tribes living near the large lakes of manitoba winnipeg and winipagosus have only fishes food which they dry and pack for winter use and eat it raw and without salt which sounds very palatable when the dimensioned government obtained possession of the northwest territories by the extinction of the hudson bay company's title in eighteen sixty nine it allotted to the tribes inhabiting the country on their resigning all their claims to the land land, several reserves or parcels of ground, which were of sufficient area to allow of one square mile to every family of five persons. On these lands the Indians are being taught to cultivate corn and roots. Implements, seeds for sewing, and bullocks are given them, besides cows and rations of meat and flour, until they are self-sustaining. They are also allowed five dollars a head per annum,

Starting point is 02:02:10 so that several wives, polygamy being allowed, and children are looked upon as an insured income, by a man. This treatment by government has been very successful, and many tribes are abandoning their precarious life of hunting. Horse-stealing in former days was looked upon by the young men as an essential part of their education, but now the settler need be in no dread of them, as they are peaceably inclined and kept in check by the mounted police. A corps of whose services, and pluck all who have had any dealings with them, cannot speak too highly. The officers are men of tact and experience, and the core numbers about 500 strong. They move their headquarters from fort to fort, according to the movements of the Indians and the advance of immigration.

Starting point is 02:02:56 On leaving Rapid City, we took a shorter track than what is generally taken, thereby saving ourselves at least 40 miles to Burtle. Our first night, distance about 20 miles after luncheon, we spent alongside of a small storehouse on the Oak River. passed some very comfortable-looking settlements that afternoon, one where we got information about our road, belonging to a man called Shank, who had been settled about four years, and had quite a homely-looking shanty covered with creepers, and a garden fenced in. At Oak River we had rather speculated on getting both food and lodging, but when we found the fair offered no better than ours, we decided to have our own supper, getting the woman to boil us some water for our tea. We also refused the lodging. The house was scrupulously clean, ditto the woman, but we

Starting point is 02:03:46 couldn't quite make up our minds to share the only bedroom with her, her husband and two other men, one ill with inflammation of the lungs, rejoicing in an awful cough, and rather given to expectoration. So we had our first experience of real camping out. Our tent was an A-tent, just big enough to allow of two people sleeping side by side, the only place to stand up in was exactly the middle, but we arranged it very fairly comfortably by putting some straw under our buffalo robes and our clothes as pillows.

Starting point is 02:04:18 The men had to make their couch under the carriage with whatever cloaks we didn't want, to keep the dew off them, and by lighting a large smudge to keep off the mosquitoes, we all slept pretty well, though Mother Earth is very unrelenting. If, however, we wanted to change our position, we were sure to awake.

Starting point is 02:04:36 The following morning, Tuesday, the men had a bathe in the river which we very much envied them though having brought our india-rubber bath and there being plenty of water handy we did very well we were off again at seven o'clock our breakfast bill of fare not much varied from that last night tea corned beef ox-tong and bread and butter the country through which we passed was not so pretty as on monday with fewer trees our cavalcade was increased by another man in his buggy who was on his way to edmonton and he traveled with us most of the day. Midday, after 18 miles, we came on a small settlement of four Canadians who were just finishing their dinner. They were very nice, delighted to see ladies, placed the whole of their place at our disposal, and though of course they could do but little for us, we were not allowed to wash up our plates nor to draw our own water. They had everything so tidy and nice, rough it was bound to be. Like thousands of Canadians, they have taken up land, two

Starting point is 02:05:37 hundred and forty acres apiece and are working them together, with two yoke of oxen and a pair of Indian ponies. Whilst we were resting, the manager drove on to find his farm, but as they have bought several sections in different townships from the railway company, it was difficult to find out on which section his men were working. The only thing he knew was two of the numbers of the section, the only thing he knew was two of the numbers of the section, and that the Arrow River ran through the property. The Canadians told us that four Ford Mackenzie, for which we had been steering all the morning, was six miles further on, so that when we left them about two o'clock, amidst many expressions of regret,

Starting point is 02:06:18 they repeated to us several times how delighted they were seeing ladies, not having seen a petticoat since they came up last spring. We had to wonder many a mile, before finding either the Ford or the farm. As it was, we mistook the Ford and had to cross and recross the river three times, which we in our buggy didn't at all appreciate. The best of the Banks were so steep we felt we might easily be pitched out. At McKenzie's Ford we found a wretched man, who, having settled here two years ago, and was getting on well, had last month brought his wife and children up by steamer on the Assiniboine, where they had caught diphtheria. Two children had succumbed to the disease, and his wife, he greatly feared, couldn't live.

Starting point is 02:06:59 We luckily had some whiskey with us, and were glad to be able to give him some, as the doctor had recommended stimulants to keep up the poor woman's strength. from him we heard where the manager's camp really was and reached it very tired about seven o'clock to find everything in the most fearful state of disorder and mismanagement not even a well dug to provide water for man or beast the men had mutinied ten of them gone off and only three in a woman as cook left she had known much better days and was perfectly helpless and unable to manage the stove or the cooking in a shed made of a few poles with a tarpaulin thrown over a is the most splendid man whatever difficulties there are he makes light of them and directly the horses had been unharnessed he set to work to put our tent up and lay out our supper which was improved by the addition of some fried potatoes our table was the spring seat of the wagon our seats the boxes the stores have come in or our bundle of rags and though the ground was harder to sleep on as we had no straw under our buffalo robe still we got a fair amount of rest at night two very pretty italian greyhounds we had brought up with us kept our feet warm as it was quite chilly the dews being very heavy the men were horribly disturbed all night by the mosquitoes which were in myriads no smoke of the smudges really keeps them off though it stupefies and bothers them a good deal on wednesday contrary to expectation we got some water to wash with the manager having had a hole dug water is so easily procured with digging and at no great depth that we had some water was to wash with the manager having had a hole dug water is so easily procured with digging and at no great depth that we are very depth that we had to the

Starting point is 02:08:35 there is no excuse for not having it in abundance. We then spent our morning, whilst the men were going over the various sections, in trying to teach the woman to cook, making biscuits, which were not a success, mending clothes, and writing up our diaries, so that the time flew all too quickly. We drove on twenty-two miles in the afternoon, and being all down wind, were pestered with mosquitoes and most fearfully bitten. The country much the same as the previous day, very little taken up, but the wildflowers lovely. We counted 42 different specimens, those yellow orchids you are so proud of at home, also red tiger lilies, feloxes, and endless other varieties. Bertel, another mushroom town, looked so pretty and picturesque as we came down upon it by the

Starting point is 02:09:24 evening light, situated in a deep gorge much wooded on the Birdtail Creek. You would have laughed to see us arrive at what we thought our destination, a nice house on the top of the opposite hill belonging to a friend of the managers, where we were to be hospitably entertained. The house was locked up, but that was no obstacle. We forced the windows open, and whilst A. put the horses up, the manager went down the hill for water, I foraged for eatables, E for wood to light the fire, and we very shortly afterwards sat down to a very fair meal, our neighbors, bacon, and tea, but our own bread. luckily a winnipeg lady hearing of our arrival came up to offer her services in the shape of food or lodging the latter we too greatly accepted instead of pitching our tent outside the house which was already full three bachelors living there and our two men intending sleeping between the walls kut kut kutkakut the house we spent our night in was a log one and though unpapered looked very comfortable and was prettily hung round with japanese fans and scrolls and various photographs

Starting point is 02:10:30 We had a funny little canvas partition in the roof allotted to us, but were not particular, and did a great credit to our feather bed. And how excellent our breakfast was next morning, porridge and eggs, we hardly knew when to stop eating. We started early to Fort Ellis, one of the Hudson Bay forts, hoping to find the steamer on the Assiniboine to take us back to Winnipeg, but unfortunately it had stuck on the rapids. So, after waiting twenty-four hours at the fort, we determined to drive down to the end of the Canadian Pacific Railway and so home. The old fort is very altered from what it used to be, surrounded by its wooden palings and having a store on the left side of the entrance gate,

Starting point is 02:11:11 where all the Indians come to make their purchases in cotton goods and groceries in exchange for their blankets, moccasins, or furs. The Assiniboine we cross just before getting to the fort, on a ferry. It is a grand, winding river with fearfully steep banks, 380 feet almost straight up, which was a pull for our horses, the tracks being very bad and not well engineered, going perpendicularly up the hill. Mr. MacDonald is the boss at the fort, and had known two of our friends who were up here several years ago. There is a Lincolnshire man, farming on a large scale, settled not very far away from the fort, but we had neither time nor inclination to go further north. We had hoped against hope that the steamer might get up, but on Saturday

Starting point is 02:11:57 gave it up as useless, and settled to drive towards going. Gopher Ferry, trying to find a friend who, when out at Sea Farm, told us he was living on Section 27 by 13 and near two creeks. For the first five miles our road lay along the Beaver Creek, which was pretty, but afterwards the scenery much resembled Winnipeg, flat and uninteresting, not a tree, and without even the beautiful vegetation and flowers we had had on our previous drives. We had to stop several times to look at the section posts. It was quite an excitement to mark every new number we came to. Our road took us pretty straight to the Mouse Mountain Trail, but at a shanty being advised to leave the track and go straight over the

Starting point is 02:12:39 prairie, we overshot the tents we were in search of by a short distance. Our friend had not returned from Winnipeg, but we made ourselves quite at home, pitching our tent alongside of his men's. He had four Englishmen working for him, two of them were tenant farmers at home. One man, who had been out two years, had a large farm near King's Lynn. and has taken up a section close by. But as he bought his land too late in the spring to do anything to it, beyond hoping to build himself a shanty before the winter set in, he is working for our friend, who has two thousand acres. Another of the men was a newly arrived immigrant. He and his three children were nearly devoured by mosquitoes, and were most grateful for some concoction we gave

Starting point is 02:13:22 them to allay the irritation. He had been quite a gent in his own country, but bad times and alcohol had been too much for him. I don't think he had all relished the work he had to do, plowing with oxen all day, etc. They plow almost entirely with oxen up in this country. The oxen are easier to feed, and don't suffer so much from the alkali in the water. But most of the Englishmen, when they first get out here, dislike using them. They are so slow, and I should agree with them. A great many newcomers find the ways and means difficult to conform to, and would give a good deal to go back, but after they have been out a year or two they drop into fresh habits and seem

Starting point is 02:14:01 to like the life. On Sunday we started late for two reasons. The horses, which had been very restless all night, driven mad by the mosquitoes, could not be found, having wandered over the brow of the hill to the river edge to catch the slight breeze blowing, and secondly we thought we would have a rest, and did nothing but regretted all day, as the heat was fearful, and as we went down when the mosquitoes were ditto. Also, we got into camp very late at Flat Creek, where we had hoped to find a freight train to get on as tax as Brandon, whereas we had to camp close to a marsh just outside the city, the city comprising a cistern to provide the engines of the train with water and half a dozen tents all stuck on the marsh. We were rather amused by the name

Starting point is 02:14:45 of one lodging tent, the unique hotel. In other words, beds were divided off by curtains, so that you were quite private. We pitched our tent on the highest spot we could find, but the mosquitoes, to accommodate us, left the marshes and came in perfect myriads around us. We lit smudges on all sides, but as there was hardly a breath of air, the smoke went heavenwards, and consequently we had to sit almost into them, and could hardly see to eat for the denseness of smoke. Query, which was the worst, the evil or the cure? That last night was the most uncomfortable of the whole lot, and I don't think any of us disliked the prospect of a comfortable bed. But in spite of all our roughing, we have enjoyed it, and very glad we went.

Starting point is 02:15:29 It is satisfactory to know that all the prairie is not as flat as around us at Sea Farm, that it is rolling, and covered with bluffs or brushwood. A is pleased, as he has seen no ground as good as his own, and declares he wouldn't exchange his four hundred and eighty acres for a thousand up west. The land is certainly of a much lighter nature. having more sand in it, and is easier to get into cultivation and consequence, but he doesn't think it will stand the same amount of cropping. The trails which are only tracks made by the half-breeds and Indians on the prairie have been good throughout, but in spring are full of mud-holes

Starting point is 02:16:05 or slows. The new carriage has turned out quite a success and been very useful, as it has carried all our clothes, buffalo robes, buckets and oats for the horses, our provisions, etc., even to our tent, the poles of which were slung along the carriage just above the wheels, and the whole so light that A pushed it easily three or four hundred yards when we were moving our camp at Fort Ellis. End of Letter 21. Read by Sibeladenton. All Libravox files are in the public domain.

Starting point is 02:16:36 For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 22 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. Maine. Queen's Hotel, Winnipeg, July 25th. We cannot fancy ourselves in this elegant brick edifice, but it's an ill wind that blows no one any good, and had we not been nervous of driving sixteen miles in a raging thunderstorm last night, you would not have received a letter by this mail. The heat is so great that I am afraid my ideas won't flow. It is a hot, thundery day, cloudy and close. The thermometer is at one hundred and nine degrees in the shade, and everything one

Starting point is 02:17:26 touches seems to be at melting point. Unfortunately, we have had all our cool things for our journey, and they are too dirty to wear in a live town. These last three days are the only days we have had to grumble at the heat, and I expect if we had been out at the farm, quietly doing our various works, we should not have felt it so much, but a tent on a hot day is like a stove-house, quite fearful. We have had a very successful tour of seven days, sleeping five nights on Mother Earth, which was mercilessly hard. Lived chiefly on corned beef, tea, and marmalade three times a day, driven 173 miles nearly the whole time in pretty, sparily inhabited, wooded, and undulating country. Had another three hundred miles to and fro in the train, and arrived here last night,

Starting point is 02:18:15 hoping to get home to our own beds, when we distressed at finding no buggy from the farm, though we sent them a telegram early in the morning before leaving Flat Creek, which we conclude they haven't received. Just as we were starting, and before our small packets could be fetched from the station, a fearful thunderstorm, preceded by a dust-storm, came on, and we had to take refuge in an hotel, which, contrary to our expectations, was not only clean, but comfortable. The climax to all our troubles has been that the man from the livery-stable was unable to get our hand-bags, so that we actually had to go to bed last night and get up this morning without a sponge, comb, toothbrush, or any blessed thing. We were nearly sprinkling ashes on our heads and rending

Starting point is 02:18:59 our garments when the fact was broken to us, but considering we had no other clothes to fall back upon, we suppressed our feelings and drowned our tears in sleep, putting in nearly twelve hours, as it was nine-fifteen when we woke this morning, and it was not very late when we retired. We had neither of us slept well the night before, and it had been a hot, suffocating day for traveling, so that we were very tired when we got in. What useful things hairpins are! I have always found them excellent bodkins, button-hooks, wedges for miss fending windows, and, etc., but until to-day I had never realized what a capital comb they would make held tightly. I don't know that we have had any very amusing adventure, but the whole expedition has been an

Starting point is 02:19:42 adventure, and therefore, as it proved the business of the day, it was taken seriously. I mean, we hardly laughed when we all shared the same drop of water in a bucket to wash our faces and turns, and then hands, drying ourselves with the same towel, which was not always of the cleanest, and when we shared the same tin cup to drink out of. Of course we managed to get in a very fair amount of chaff, and it was said that if ever there was a hole or stone on the trail I used to bump, bump over it, shooting the others almost out of the carriage, so that there were cries of danger ahead, when they declared they had to to hang on to each other for safety. We had to leave A behind us yesterday at Flat Creek with

Starting point is 02:20:23 the carriages and horses to follow us in a freight train, and he has just turned up, very hot and weary and out of temper with the railway authorities, as they make so many unnecessary difficulties in unloading. Instead of following us directly yesterday, as he was told he would do when he first put the horses on the train, they did not start until late in the afternoon, and have been traveling all night, A, sleeping very peaceably in the horse-box. We are about to go out to the farm as soon as the horses have been fed, and we can reclaim our lost baggage of last night. I am thankful to say that we never came across any snakes during our expedition, though

Starting point is 02:21:00 they are said to abound by Brandon and further west. The only one we saw was when the conductor on our train brought us a parcel and showed one coiled up inside. It was a trial to our feelings, but I believe it was dead. There are none around Winnipeg, not even a worm. End of Letter 22, read by Civella Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 02:21:27 Letter 23 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall, read for Libravox.org into the public domain. C. Farm, July 30th. We found the most lovely batch of letters, almost worth being away from home for ten days, on our arrival here at twelve o'clock p.m. on Tuesday, which completely revived our drooping spirits. We were feeling rather limp and tired after a long day in Winnipeg, and losing our way across the prairie coming home. It was very dark, and the only guide we had was when the vivid flashes of lightning reflected the farm buildings. As it was, we drove through the big

Starting point is 02:22:05 marsh the mosquitoes nearly eating us up, and A, so worried by them that he couldn't think of the trail, and trusted to the horses finding their way. The joy of coming upon our own fence is better imagined than described. I picture to myself that we should be like one of our laborers, who, having gone into town just before we started up west, lost his way coming out, unharnessed his horses, and picketed them, and sat down quietly, waiting for daylight before he ventured on. It is marvelous that any one finds their way on the prairie. There are numberless trails made during the hay harvest,

Starting point is 02:22:41 which may mislead, and in a country which has been surveyed some time back the section posts have almost entirely disappeared, the cattle either knocking them down, or they having been struck by lightning. We found our bedroom very full of mosquitoes, so that our sleep was much disturbed. In fact, we never slept properly till after the sun rose, but our letters cheered us up and were far more refreshing than ten hours sleep. The netting over our windows had got torn from the attacks, so that the mosquitoes had come in by shoals just to show how they appreciated the attention of having things made easy for them. Otherwise, we are not generally much bothered with them in the house, netting being over every door and window. The cat sometimes thwarts our protection by

Starting point is 02:23:25 jumping through them in the morning, and no thumping seemed to impress her with respect for the said net. We are told the mosquitoes will be gone in a fortnight. Certainly the big yellow ones have lived their time and are not so plentiful, but they have been succeeded by a small black species, which is quite as venomous, and not so easy to kill. We went to church yesterday at Headingley, quite a red-letter day. It was only the second time we have been able to manage it in the ten weeks we have been here, and though it was very hot in church, we were ashamed to take our gloves off, on account of the scars. The church is quite a nice little building, and the service delightful after so many weeks of not hearing it. We had to take our horse out, tie it to the churchyard pailing,

Starting point is 02:24:09 and put the dog in the buggy to take care of our goods and chattels. We are getting quite low at the thought of leaving this in ten days' time, being rather like cats, attached to any place where one has heaps of occupation, and where one is treated kindly and well-fed, however ugly that place may be. We have been very busy hay-making since we got home, and a grand stack is in the course of erection nearly opposite the dining-room window. You never saw anything so astonishing as the way the oats, potatoes, etc., have shot up in our absence. Even the puppy, which we left a fluffy ball, seems to have grown inches. Then all my chickens are hatched, and are an endless pleasure and anxiety. I am supposed to spend hours over them. We have received four sheets of official paper from Mr. W.,

Starting point is 02:24:55 full of directions about our journey to Colorado, describing his home, etc., even to the nickel-plated tap we shall find in his kitchen, which is to supply us with an unlimited amount of water. He tells us we need bring nothing but a saddle and a toothbrush. He will find all the rest, and that we are to make it a note that it is one of the strictest rules of mining camps, that guests are never allowed to pay for anything. As we hope he is making a fortune by his mines, we shall not have so much compunction of accepting these terms. We are to sight-see, climb mountains, go into the mines, fish for trout, and do nothing the living, the living, long day but amuse ourselves. I'm afraid A. will miss us terribly, dear old soul. He is very fond of

Starting point is 02:25:39 having us here, and is always bemoaning our departure. I think it will make a great difference to him, and to his humdrum, hard-working life, as we are always cheery, and never have had a difficulty or annoyance of any sort. End of letter 23, read by Sibela Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Librevox. letter twenty four of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for libravox dot org into the public domain august sixth we are rejoicing now that we have settled to go to the rocky mountains as the hot weather we speculated on avoiding has come in with a rush and for a whole week the thermometer has been at eighty to eighty five degrees one morning before a thunderstorm when it fell forty degrees in a few hours it was up to ninety degrees We have had some rain, but not the heavy, if storms we have seen wandering round which generally follow the course of the Assiniboine, a relief to our minds, as our hay is still out. It has been cut nearly all round the property outside the fence, in spite of the risk one runs

Starting point is 02:26:55 of having it subsequently claimed by the owner of the section, who is generally a half-breed, a loss only to be avoided by leading it home at once, which we are doing. This has happened to our neighbor, with whom I afraid we do not simply very keenly, as he had taken up the marsh which our men cut last year, and had the full intention of doing again this year, so they looked upon it in the light of their special property. We have only two wagons working here, as nearly all the men and horses are gone over to Boyd's, and as our hay is a mile and a half away, we don't get much more than five loads a day, so that the stack does not grow very fast.

Starting point is 02:27:33 Our excitement this week has been a cricket match with Boyle's Farm. Four of their men we challenged. It really was too amusing. They had a bat and a ball, stumps but no bales, and played on the prairie, which was so fearfully rough that it was almost dangerous. The ball shot in such various directions after hitting the tufts of graphs. Everybody fielded, but a ball going into the wheat-field behind the wickets was not counted as a lost ball. The total score of the two innings was only ten, and in one our opponents went without a single run, so you may fancy the howls of either applause or derision at every ball. End of Letter 24.

Starting point is 02:28:14 Read by Sibela Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 25 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. August 17th. The farm, with all its toils and fun, pleasures is a thing of the past. We were both very low when we turned our backs upon it and its

Starting point is 02:28:46 inhabitants just a week ago. We have been in such robust health the whole of our three months, hardly a headache or finger-ache. Our maid of all work, life, has suited us, and we have acquired such an immense deal of practical knowledge that for those reasons alone we might be gratified and pleased we came. Since then we have been staying with Mike in Minnesota, where we were either riding or driving, anything to do with horses, all day long, driving four miles, jumping the horses over a pole, taking them down to water, having a mule race, which was truly amusing, as the course was just in front of the house and several bolted home, and driving, a gang-plow, where a few of the diversions found for us. Our host was most kind and anxious to make us

Starting point is 02:29:32 comfortable. He worked heaven and earth to get his house ready, the contractors having taken so much more time than they said. Anyhow, he turned the carpenters out of the house the day previous to our arrival, carried in the furniture, nailed up mosquito blinds, and did many things himself, so that everything should be in spick and span order. As these men, Mike having two partners, are farming thirteen thousand acres, they are on a much larger scale as regards buildings, numbers of horses, etc., to anything we have seen before. Their living houses are about double the size of sea farm. They have also huge stables, which A fancies will be cold in winter,

Starting point is 02:30:12 but have a most imposing appearance, as have also their implement houses, sheds, etc. The lands seem much the same as ours, a rich black loam, but very much wetter, marshes everywhere. They have broken two thousand acres since the beginning of June, and were busy whilst we were there, cutting hay, Mike hoping he had already got over 500 ton up. We drove one day to see a neighboring farm, which is said to be the boss one in all the country, belonging to a man who has been out five years. He was just starting to cut his two square miles of wheat, and we watched the seven self-binding machines with great interest. They seem

Starting point is 02:30:52 as light as a reaper, and the machinery comparatively not intricate. We were driven through some corn, which was rather agonizing to our British ideas, but he thought nothing of it. The straw was four and a half feet high, and he hopes to get 42 bushels to the acre. His farm, being on the Snake River, and having many creeks running through his drainage, is a great advantage. His vats were pronounced no better, if so good, is ours at Sea Farm. We remained at Warren a day longer than we had intended, as we got to the station just in time to see our train move off. we accused mike's irish groom who is quite a character of bringing round the carriage too late on purpose if he did i think all the party forgave him we were very happy it gave us another night of a's society mike was low at our going poor man one cannot be much surprised at his liking to keep us as besides the fascinations of ladies society he has no neighbours whatsoever and accepting the two men he has in the house there is not a gentleman nearer than winnipeg

Starting point is 02:31:56 he offered me seventy-two dollars a month to be his housekeeper e was to have two dollars a week as parlor-maid which c considers an insult or she might have seventy-five cents a day if she would drive the plows servants and laborers get higher wages there than in manitoba all the men were averaging thirty-five to forty dollars a month and their keep they were all swedes and germans of whom there is an enormous colony in the state we are now trying to spend our day at council bluff a large junction of the grand pacific railway having come in here at eight o'clock this morning and our train to denver not leaving till seven o'clock this evening the hotel is right on the station the weather is so hot that at eight o'clock this morning and our train to denver not leaving till seven o'clock this evening the hotel is right on the station the weather is so hot that as yesterday at St. Paul's, where we also had to spend a whole day, we have never summoned up courage to go beyond the door. It was suggested we might take the tram and go up into the city, but E has a notion that one city is much like another, particularly on a hot day. It is curious how Americans live in hotels. There are several families in this, and if my letter is not very intelligible, you must forgive me, as I am riding in the grand corridor to try and catch the slight

Starting point is 02:33:07 draft of air blowing through, at the same time that half a dozen children are playing up and down. The scenery yesterday from St. Paul's all along the banks of the Missouri was very pretty. We both of us sat outside the Pullman as long as daylight lasted, feasting our eyes on the water, trees, etc. The height and luxuriousness of the latter seemed quite incomprehensible after the total absence of forest scenery for so many months. It is pretty round here, and by the time we get to the Rocky Mountains, we shall have got beyond the stage of thinking a hillock a mountain, and fairish-sized trees not so wonderful after all. But at the present moment we are in that pleasing state, ready to admire anything and everything. We hope to get to Denver on Saturday

Starting point is 02:33:53 night, and rest there Sunday and part of Monday, and we also hope to get to church there. Mike offered to drive us into Warren last Sunday, but as the service was a Swedish Presbyterian, we didn't think we should be much edified. End of Letter 25. Read by Sybella Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 26 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall.

Starting point is 02:34:29 Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. Denver, August 21st. We arrived here Saturday evening, very tired, and not at all sorry to exchange the Pullman for a comfortable room in bed. which we had telegraphed for, and therefore not, like so many of our fellow passengers, obliged to seek shelter elsewhere. The Pullmans are most comfortable, and for a long journey like hours nothing could be so good. But I am glad that in England we don't have either these or the ordinary American car in general use. The publicity is so odious, and one does get bored

Starting point is 02:35:05 by the passengers constantly wandering up and down the train, and the boys who pass and repass every ten minutes selling books, newspapers, cigars, candy, and the unripes of fruit, which they are always pressing you to buy. To say nothing of chewing, spitting Americans, one has to countenance all day long. The last four and twenty hours of our journeys have been very tiring. The scenery has been so monotonous, endless, long, undulating plains like the waves of the sea, covered with grass quite dried up, a few flowers, and a bee-shaped cactus. The heat was a impressive, a hot sorroca wind blowing which obliged us to keep our windows shut on account of the fine alkaline dust. E. had her window open last night, and awoke this morning to find herself

Starting point is 02:35:52 in a layer of ashes. We skirted the South Platte River most of the time. It was only a bed of shingles, wide and shallow, with not a drop of water in it. These plains, extending for thousands of miles in all directions, are the great ranching or cattle-forming districts, formerly the favorite breeding grounds and pastures of the buffalo, which, alas, have all disappeared. We only saw a few tame ones amongst the herds of cattle. They have been killed in the most ruthless, indiscriminate way for their furs, and will soon be things of the past. We have wondered much, with the river and every visible stream so dry, how the large herds of cattle and horses were watered, but have since been told that water is so near the surface the herdsmen have no great depth to dig,

Starting point is 02:36:40 to procure any quantity. We thought we could have made a good pick or two amongst the horses, but we didn't care for long-legged, ugly, big-horned cattle brutes. Here and there was a herdsman mounted on a small Indian pony with a high Mexican saddle, enormous spurs, and a long lasso, galloping and dexterously turning his animals. Our train had to pull up several times and whistle loudly to turn the animals off the track, there being, as usual, no rail or protection, but pulling up for them was not half as exciting on Thursday night, when we stopped repeatedly to turn a man off the train, who not having paid his fare, nor apparently intending to do so, had swung himself in some marvellous way under the cars, hanging on by the brake.

Starting point is 02:37:26 Whenever we slackened speed he jumped off, walking quite unconcernedly alongside, but the moment we moved on he got on again. We never knew how far he continued his perilous ride. I fancy that even the officials gave up. up remonstrating anyhow as long as daylight lasted and we could watch the man no efforts on their part seemed to make the smallest impression three hours before getting into denver we had our first glimpse of the rockies and although they were then only in the blue distance we were quite excited about them and at greeley station much impressed on our minds by having read miss bird's book just before coming here we came in full view of long's peak almost wishing mountain jim might still be alive to his own send it with us, and the whole of the gorgeous range, and quite one of the loveliest sights I ever saw was watching two thunderstorms on either side of the peak, break and disperse, whilst the

Starting point is 02:38:21 reflections from the sunset glow lit up the rest of the heavens. The railway and Denver City itself is about thirty miles distant from the mountains, but the atmosphere is so clear that they look as quite within an easy gallop. It is difficult to understand why the town has been built so far from the mountains, situated as it is on a sandy, treeless plain. It is growing, like most of the western towns, at a tremendous pace, and we are lodged in a luxurious hotel, our room on the fourth floor, numbers four-fifty-four. We found the avenues of trees lining every street an immense boon this morning in going to church at the cathedral. The heat, though great, is not so oppressive as at either St. Paul's or Omaha, but then we are at a height of 5,000 feet,

Starting point is 02:39:08 and this afternoon the air has been cleared by a thunderstorm preceded by a great sandstorm, which we watched from our windows encircling the town, so thick that mountains and all view was obliterated for the time being. Denver is a great resort for invalids, chiefly those suffering with asthma. End of Letter 26, read by Sabella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain, For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 27 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. August 22. Before leaving Denver, we went to a gunsmith and invested in a fishing rod and numberless flies,

Starting point is 02:39:59 with which we intend to do great execution. We also went to the exhibition, opened a month ago, and still unfinished, one of the leading men, to whom we had a letter of introduction, showed us everything. It is chiefly interesting to miners, as the display of minerals from Western America is unrivaled. There seemed in the specimens enough gold and silver to make us rich forever.

Starting point is 02:40:22 Unfortunately, our ignorance on the subject of ore is too great to thoroughly appreciate it. End of Letter 27, read by Sabella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. letter twenty eight of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for librivox dot org into the public domain ure august twenty fourth it is not easy to sit down and write after forty-eight hours travelling as we have been doing since leaving denver on monday night at seven o'clock but in such scenery and air so exhilarating we do not feel as tired as we expected you should have seen the omnibus stagecoats charit or any other name as you please to give the lumbering vehicle, in which we performed our last

Starting point is 02:41:18 twelve hours drive. It looked truly frightening when it drove up to Simmeron Depot, one tent last night to pick us up, intended for twenty passengers in any amount of luggage, and swung on great straps. It was wonderfully well horsed, and we changed our teams every ten miles, but only then came at the rate of five miles an hour. We both of us started for our sixty-four miles drive on the box seat with the driver, who happened to be an extremely nice man and an experienced whip. In former days he had driven the stage coaches across from Omaha to San Francisco, a journey of three weeks. But he took up much room on the seat, and every time he had to pull up his horses, his left elbow ran into me, until he guessed my ribs would be pretty well bruised.

Starting point is 02:42:05 At about midnight, when our only other fellow-passenger turned out from the inside of the coach, I entered it, though I expected nearly every moment would be my last, the bumping was so fearful. I managed to get a few winks of sleep towards morning. Ease sat outside all night, finding it very difficult not to drop off the coach from drowsiness. The early hours of the morning, after the moon went down until dawn, were truly wretched, what between the outer darkness, the flickering of our lamps, the unevenness of the road, and the clouds of dust, and one almost began to wonder if the journey was worth so much trouble. But with daylight we quite altered our opinions, as really I do not think, if you searched the whole world over, you would find anything more beautiful than the

Starting point is 02:42:49 Uncompahgra Valley and Park looked in the morning light. Mr. W. met us at five o'clock a.m. at the hot springs, so-called from the boiling water that gushes out of the ground, and which is said to give the name of Uncompahagra to the district, that being the Indian word for hot water. he brought us out hot coffee and food to refresh us and drove us the last nine miles up the valley we came slowly thoroughly enjoying the scenery on either side of the road are well-cultivated farms within two miles of oire the park narrows into a magnificent gorge bounded on each side by precipitous cliffs of red sandstone covered with pines and quaking aspen the whole crowned by arid peaks From this gorge you suddenly come upon the town, situated in an amphitheatre of grand gray, trachyte rocks. Our house is in Main Street.

Starting point is 02:43:45 The ground floor is an office. Our four rooms are on the first floor, to which we ascend by a wooden staircase outside. Every nook and corner is filled with some curiosity or mineral specimen. Our host, being a great sportsman, there are various trophies of the chase. A mountain lion, wild sheep's heads, bears, cranes, even to a stuffed donkey's head. There are also cabinets of fossils, specimens of ore, etc., and great blocks of the same piled on the floor. Our family consists of our two hosts, Mrs. W. and B., two Indian ponies, a mule, two setters, two prairie dogs, which are reddish-buff

Starting point is 02:44:26 marmots. We are only to remain here one night, and if thoroughly rested after our journey, go up to the log cabin in the Imogen basin, 3,000 feet higher. We are both looking forward to it immensely. It is right in the heart of the mountains, 10,600 feet, and with no one near us, as all the mines surrounding the cabin belonged to a company which had to suspend its works last month for want of funds, so that they are not being worked. The air is glorious, and we feel already perfectly restored to our usual health,

Starting point is 02:44:59 though we are warned that strangers cannot walk much at first, the air is so rarefied, that one is soon out of breath. Anyhow, the atmosphere has been so clear that it much added to our enjoyment in seeing the ever-varying beauties and distant mountain view all along our journey from Denver to here. We unfortunately came through the Grand Canyon at night. Had it been clear, the porter on the car was to awake us to see it, we could quite picture to ourselves its beauty by the sea. the scenery in the Black Canyon we came through yesterday by daylight. The engineering all along the line

Starting point is 02:45:34 is marvelous, the way we rose nearly 7,000 feet by a zigzag over the Marshall Pass, or the great divide, going down nearly as many feet on the other side, and then through these canyons, which are only narrow gorges for a raging torrent to rush through on its headlong career. Our train was a very narrow gauge with bogey wheels, and we twisted so, in and out of the bends of the river, that the engine often looked as if it might easily come into contact with our carriage, which happened to be the last. It is the great advantage of the Pullmans. They are always, on last to the train when passing through any pretty country, and when there are no other carriages of the same, so that one can sit on the rear platform and see all the scenery.

Starting point is 02:46:19 We entered into conversation with two Germans, and were amused by one of them surreptitiously bringing us two pink trout from his luncheon at the Wayside Hotel. we having remained in the carriage for our frugal meal, and though we had got to the sweets stage, felt hound to begin again, and much enjoyed our fish. The food provided at these wayside ins is generally so bad and dear, a dollar ahead charged for sixteen to eighteen dishes, of almost uneatable messes,

Starting point is 02:46:49 that we prefer the tinned meats and fruits we have in our luncheon basket, and for drinks we have beautifully iced water in all the carriages, the ice being replenished at every big station. The last 40 miles of our railroad journey was over a line only open ten days ago, by which, I am thankful to say, we avoided 12 hours more of the stagecoach, and a night in a Colorado Inn, which we are told is anything but pleasant. There are always being many more bedfellows than what one bargains for, and we should have not seen the Black Canyon and its 13 miles of grandeur and sublimity.

Starting point is 02:47:24 The railroad track is cut out of the sides of the overhanging rocks, and in places is built on a bed of stones in the creek itself. The rocks at times almost seemed to meet overhead, then widened, we crossing and recrossing the torrent by wooden bridges, which shortly are to be replaced by iron ones. The coloring was so beautiful, the chasm being generally in shade with the mountains above, standing out in glorious sunshine, covered as they were in many places, even as far down as the water's edge, with pines. Nature is marvelous in its productions, but the ingenuity of man is also wonderful, and we quite came to the conclusion that the scenery of that canyon was worth

Starting point is 02:48:08 coming all these thousands of miles to see. End of Letter 28. Read by Sabella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravoc.org. Letter 29 of a late life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for librivox dot org into the public domain ure august twenty seventh the name of ure given to this town is from the last chief of the youths who with his tribe lived to within a couple of years on a reserve down in the park the first stake is said to have been struck by white men in eighteen sixty five but no cabin was built until eighteen seventy four and from that time the town

Starting point is 02:48:59 has been growing rapidly, having now about 1,000 inhabitants. In the southwest portion of the basin in which it stands, and where the waters of Canyon Creek flow into those of the Incomahagre, there are some lovely canyons and picturesque gorges, and here, in places where the hot springs overflow the banks of the mainstream, the rocks are covered with maidenhair and other ferns. These hot springs serve to keep the river unfrozen, even in the severest weather. End of Letter 29, read by Sabella Denton.

Starting point is 02:49:33 All Libravox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 30 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. Mountain Bats Nest Imogene Basin, August 27th. This is a glorious region, and we send you the enclosed sketch to show our picture of comfort and perfection. I assure you, nightly as we sit down to our evening repast, or later round our wood-fire in our parlor, we congratulate each other, and fancy we would not

Starting point is 02:50:15 change places with the highest of the land. The air and life are so intoxicating. After twenty-four hours in Urre we came up here, sending the darky Henry and our luggage on before us in a wagon. We have brought nothing but the bare necessities of life. All our heavy boxes are gone to Chicago to await our return, being mourned to bring as little as possible, on account of the difficulties of transport in the mountains, also of only being allowed fifty pounds weight on the coach, every extra pound charged ten cents. We ourselves rode up here, arriving about six o'clock, and found poor Henry waiting outside, not having been able to get into the cabin, the door-key being carefully in Mr. W.'s pocket,

Starting point is 02:50:59 it. But, as everything is always left in order, it didn't take us long to make ourselves comfortable, and as at sunset the cold had been piercing, a fire soon lit was very acceptable. This cabin is quite unique. It consists of two rooms on each side of the front door, with a tiny passage used as larder, wood-hole, saddle-room, etc. Our room is our bed and drawing-room combined, which is hung all round with every imaginable skin, wolf, skunks, links and etc., stuffed animals and birds, guns and traps, to say nothing of shelves covered with different specimens of ore taken out of the adjoining mines. It was quite creepy, the first night, having to sleep with a bear's head at the foot of our

Starting point is 02:51:45 bed, with a stuffed fox just over our head, which has the most awful squint, and is the first object that catches the eye on awakening, and a dried root, the fibers of which so much resemble a man's beard that it looks horridly like a scalp. The hay mattress on our bed has to be shaped into grooves for our poor bones to rest comfortably. In the daytime it is covered up with skins and then is called the lounge. Our washing stand is primitive, a box standing on end, in which our tin basin and cans are concealed, so that we consider our parlor quite correct. Our other room is the kitchen, and fitted up with four bunks against the wall, which Mr. W. and Henry occupy. We breakfast and dine out of doors, at a table placed just outside the cabin,

Starting point is 02:52:33 and on the only bit of flat ground we have near, as we are situated on the slope of a mountain, and a most beautiful stream of cold water runs about forty feet below us, with the clearest and coldest of water. One of our first occupations in the morning is to take the animals down to water, and afterwards to picket them in amongst the long grass, growing in great profusion and height during the short summer on all the foothills and wherever there is an open space. The first afternoon we were up here we went for a ride around Imogen Basin, and were delighted with the wildflowers which are quite innumerable, Columbine, phloxes, blue gentian, dandelions, harebells, vetches, and fifty other species.

Starting point is 02:53:17 E. picked a good many, and hopes to draw them for the benefit of you all at home. The flowers shoot up almost before the snow is melted, and make the most of their short existence, which lasts about two months and a half. We tasted the bear-berry, which grows as a bush and has a round-brown berry, quite bitter, but, as the name shows, is much appreciated by the bears, who come any distance to get it. End of Letter 30, read by Sybella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 02:53:52 Letter 31 of a Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall read for Libravox.org into the public domain. September 4th We are enjoying this mountain life, the weather is all we can desire, and we are in the most robust of health. We live almost entirely out of doors, sketching all the morning, in the afternoons making expeditions, either into some of the mines, or over a mountain pass, and for tender feet, the name given to all newcomers, are pronounced to be good mountaineers, but our ponies and mules are so sure-footed and pleasant that we follow any trail, however narrow and uneven, with the greatest

Starting point is 02:54:33 confidence. The scenery everywhere is far beyond our sketching capacities, but we find spoiling many sheets of drawing-paper a never-failing amusement and occupation, and we can sit out anywhere, as neither snakes nor mosquitoes or known in these altitudes. our darky's criticism might be discouraging he's saying he cannot understand our wasting so much time on things not at all like nature were it not counterbalanced by the praise given us in the oray times which paper we sent home to you last week the balsam pine which is about the only tree we have is rather monotonous and sombre-looking being of a blackish green and we have not here as in the valley around oray the beautiful sandstone and porphyry rocks for back background, only never-ending blue distances, brought out so clearly on account of the extraordinary dryness and purity of the atmosphere. We have been escorting two men today over a pass

Starting point is 02:55:31 twelve thousand five hundred feet, part of the way to San Miguel, going as far as the ridge, from whence we had a most glorious view in panorama, as we could see into the valleys and canyons some miles below. Mount Wilson, which unfortunately was shrouded in dark, stormy clouds, a range of mountains in Utah called Sierra La Salle, about 120 miles distance, and a long way into New Mexico. In returning home we got into clouds, and could hear a thunderstorm raging in the valley below us, for some little time, losing our trail, and not sorry when we found it again and were able to descend from higher regions. The cold was so intense, not so superpowers, but surprising, as we found when the mist lifted that snow had fallen on all the surrounding peaks.

Starting point is 02:56:18 End of Letter 31, read by Sabella Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librabox.org. Letter 32 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. Imogen Basin, September 12th. after our expedition to San Miguel, we awoke to find ourselves in a white world, the snow being two inches deep. It is said to be a most unusually early storm, but it was not altogether a surprise. The glass had been falling, and storms had been audibly growling all round us. The

Starting point is 02:57:05 snow only lasted about twenty-four hours, just long enough for us to realize and admire Imogen in its winter garb, and enable us to try and walk in snow-shoes. We did not attempt either going up or downhill in them, so that our performance was confined to the small space in front of the cabin. With the exception of this one storm, our weather continues lovely. Bright, sunshiny, warm days, we do not even require an extra jacket out of doors until after sunset, with a slight frost every night. Last Monday we started early, taking provisions with us, and spent a long day in Red Mountain Park, sketching the marvellously brilliant Scarlet Peaks, while still Mr. W. shot grouse, of which he got three and a half brace. The grouse are pretty much like ours,

Starting point is 02:57:54 only larger and roost in trees. These parks abound in game. We have been wishing to see a bear, at a safe distance, perhaps, but have never succeeded, although several have been killed since our arrival. Whilst shooting, Mr. W. came upon the fresh trail of one and its unfinished meal of a gopher, not very far from where we lunched. Only fancy what a stampede there would have been had the bear appeared. We are always looking out for thin trees round which a bear's claws would overlap, and therefore they could not climb to take refuge up in case of danger, but they very seldom attack, unless wounded or a she-bear with cubs. In the spring and autumn these parks abound in deer, but in summer they go above timber-line to graze on the succulent bunch grasses and to be free from

Starting point is 02:58:43 flies. There are also mountain sheep, coyotes, and foxes, and along the stream several beaver, but we never have seen any animal bigger than a prairie dog, or smaller than a cooney. Chipmunks and the mountain rats disturbed our slumbers at night, running about the cabin, and I do not think at all we should like our dormitory where we not watched over during our slumbers by a cat, the most sociable of beasts, who as a rule sleeps between us, and protest loudly if we either of us move or wake him. End of letter 32, read by Cibela Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain.

Starting point is 02:59:21 For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 33 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. September 7th. By degrees we are learning something of the mines and miners, also are beginning to know all the pack. who daily go up and down the trails, each with a train of ten donkeys, carrying the oar from the mines. The men's appearance is of the roughest, but they, one and all, are most civil,

Starting point is 02:59:59 both of speech and manner. Women are rare in these districts, the wife of the manager of the Wheel of Fortune mine being the only one living up here. She has been here two years, and is quite idolized by the miners and trappers, as she has never been known to refuse hospitality to any. much amused, whilst going through the Wheel of Fortune tunnels last Saturday, to hear one of the miners ask who we were, and when told with the ready answer, natural to this country, that we were duchesses, he wished much to know if that was not something like the Prince of Wales. We went into a lower shaft, whilst two fuses were fired in an upper. The anticipation of the shock was worse than the realization. Each of us carried a candle, and the concussion blew them

Starting point is 03:00:46 all out. But beyond that, the smell of gunpowder and smoke we experienced no harm, and as we had matches and the candles were soon relit, we had not to grope our way back in darkness. We have been into several of the tunnels on the eight well-defined lodges in this basin, also into some in sneffles. These veins may all be traced through into Red Mountain Valley, which seems to be the volcanic center of this neighborhood. The porphyry vein, matter, or ore-bearing quartz, having decompose, composed more readily than the track-ite of the mountains which they intersect, in some instances, as in the peak just above our cabin, they have cut deep notches in the summit of the ridges,

Starting point is 03:01:28 making the outline very jagged and rugged-looking. The mineral wealth around us is astounding. Hundreds of rich mines have been discovered in all the surrounding mountains, and are being discovered now. Three men, whilst at a dinner a month ago in Red Mountain Valley, in picking around with a small axe where they were sitting, knocked off a piece of rock which, when analyzed, proved to be so valuable a load, that they have since then sold their claim for $125,000.

Starting point is 03:01:59 Any man can stake a claim of fifteen hundred feet on a vein, if not previously done, but he has to expend one hundred pounds on it in the first five years to enable him to obtain a patent from the government, which secures the property to him forever. There must be a certain amount of excitement to miners as to what treasure will be be produced after every blast of gumpowder. But oh, how I should hate the life, living underground in these subterranean passages, which are all more or less wet from the water percolating through the rock, and never able to see the sun or the beauties of nature. The wages of the men are enormous, able miners getting four dollars a day, Sorders, or the men who break and turn over

Starting point is 03:02:40 the stone, three and a half. Mr. W. had a hard life when he first came out here in 1877. as he and his partner worked with no other help for four years underground mining, besides having to build their cabin, being their own blacksmiths, assayer, cook, etc., and he declares he enjoyed it immensely, with the exception, perhaps, of the first winter. When, getting in their supplies very late, they had to live on bacon, and that, rancid, and flour, but little else. Stores for the winter have to be brought up in October, as the trains early become impassable, and all outer communication can only be kept up on snow shoes.

Starting point is 03:03:21 The snow averages about seven or eight feet, though in this basin it has been known to be 38 deep, but in the Uncambhagra Valley and down by Ure, it averages only a few inches. Animals are left out to graze there all the winter. End of letter 33, read by Sabella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. letter thirty four of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for librivox dot org into the public domain the ranch encompehagra park september sixteenth ten miles below

Starting point is 03:04:09 amidst many tears and regrets we have torn ourselves away from the cabin where we could have spent another month or six weeks in perfect contentment but a storm being predicted and duck shooting and fly-fishing being part of our colorado program, we accepted the loan of a house on a farm down in the valley and are installed in it. It wanted a certain amount of pluck on first seeing our accommodation to come down. Our house is one room, thirty feet long by about eighteen wide, an open roof with plenty of air-holes and no partition whatsoever, excepting what we have made by hanging three blankets from a rafter, behind which is our bed, or lounge in daytime, the washing-stand, a box set up long ways, and a tin basin, an arm-chair which consists of two pieces of wood, and an old wolfskin, much worn, and a rickety table, at which I am writing now, lighted by a candle stuck into a bottle.

Starting point is 03:05:05 On the other side of the blanket partition is the kitchen stove, big table, store-shelves, a pile of saddles, etc. Mr. W. sleeps in a tent outside, Henry in a wagon. He, poor man, is not at all happy, as he imagines bears and coyotes are nightly intended making their evening meal off his portly form. He is the greatest coward I ever saw, and came in horror confiding to me that he had seen a snake, yards long, which Mr. W. killed the day following, and it proved to be a small water-snake, hardly ten inches. Henry affords us a great deal of amusement.

Starting point is 03:05:42 He does not at all presume, but in his quaint way wishes to tell, and asks so many things, queries which are often almost unanswerable. The day we spent an Ure on our way down from the cabin here, we much distressed him by not striking a show in the street, and not wearing smart clothes which had a toad, if it were only to show that we consider Mr. W. a big bug. He left his wife in the South eleven years ago, and, in spite of all our protestations and lectures, informs us he is going to marry again, as in the Bible he reads that it is wrong for man to live alone. It is a matter of infinite surprise to him how we can remain out of doors with no

Starting point is 03:06:23 coverings on our heads. He could not stand the rays of the sun as we do, and why our complexions and consequence are not as dark as his is a mystery to him. End of Letter 34, read by Sybella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit. Libravox.org. Letter 35 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall, read for Libravox.org into the public domain. The ranch in Kumpahagra Park, September 24th.

Starting point is 03:07:03 Although this house does consist of only one room, is situated in a stony field, with not a tree near us, and that we are not having good sport, either trout fishing or duck shooting, we should be quite happy and contented, were it not for the B flats which abound, the first we have come across, which Henry assures us are not from dirt, but grow in the pine-wood. Why are they not, then, in the log-cabins which are entirely built of pine? We have not disclosed the fact to Mr. W. He is so thoroughly enjoying his holiday, as we know that we should instantly be ordered back to Ure, where he would have to begin his work. Whilst he is out shooting, we can make expeditions, exploring all over the foothills.

Starting point is 03:07:46 One day, after wandering up a beautiful valley, we came upon a park, or mesa, and I do not ever remember having seen such a view, miles of grass on which wild cattle and horses were feeding, with clumps of trees artistically dotted here and there, and for background the orange and scarlet-tinted foothills, pines on higher regions, and a glorious panorama of snow-capped mountains beyond. But for the mountains one might almost fancy oneself in some English park, and at every turn we felt we ought to come upon an Elizabethan house. There were many tracks of deer, but none were visible. We overtook a man driving a team of ten oxen with lumber,

Starting point is 03:08:28 and of him asked our way, as one might very easily lose oneself in these rolling park-like glades, intersected with deep canyons, with no trails or roads, excepting here and there one made by lumberers. In coming down the hill again, close to a large sawmill, we watched a man breaking in a horse of five years old. He had secured a dozen, all wild, in a corral or fenced enclosure, and had thrown a noose over this one's head. He was trying to draw it up by means of a thick rope to the fence, the rope getting tighter and tighter as the animal backed or tried to gallop around with the other horses. Finally, when the poor brute was almost choked, and perspiration

Starting point is 03:09:09 was streaming down him, he allowed the man to go up to him, who very dexterously and quickly slipped a halter over its head. The horse then was tied up to the post, the others turned out, and the man intending keeping him there until the following morning without any food, when he would put a saddle on and ride him, and hoping to sell him as broken for eighty dollars. Many of these horses are not broken at all. We were shown a good-looking mare of thirteen years old, who had never had a bit in her mouth. End of Letter 35, read by Sybella Denton. All Librevox files are in the public domain. for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox dot org letter thirty six of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for libravox dot org into the public domain the ranch september twenty ninth this is the country i should like to have a farm in where i bound to immigrate in this valley every sort of grain and vegetables seem to grow in the most luxuriant way and we have been feasting on tomatoes cabernets and

Starting point is 03:10:20 beverages, beets, lettuces, etc. The butcher, who is also green grocers, sent a potato twelve inches long by nine round, hoping the ladies would take it in their trunks to England as an average specimen. Then on the mesa, or parks above the foothills, large herds of cattle can always graze through the winter. We have had jelly made of squawberries and the Oregon grape, which is excellent. There are also wild gooseberries and black currants, both of which we have found this ranch is one hundred and sixty acres the only buildings the owner has put up are the dwelling-house and one shed as a stable and implement house hay last year was selling at ten to twelve pounds a ton potatoes threepence to sixpence a pound oats fourpence a pound and everything in proportion eggs three shillings to four shillings a dozen all the year round milk sixpence a quart so that any man ought to make a very large profit the land originally costing him nothing, and accepting in hay or harvest time, very little labor required.

Starting point is 03:11:26 Oats are cut very green and stacked for winter fodder. These fertile valleys are very limited in number, and, as the consumption must be on the increase, mines being discovered and opened out, some time must elapse, and the railway come nearer, air competition reduces the prices, or the farmer's profits are lessened. The people round are most kind and friendly, and would be more so had they received the slightest encouragement, but Mr. W. gave out we wanted to know no one, that we were not to be an Ure, and that all our time was to be taken up seeing the country. We went one day up Bear Creek, as Mr. W. was asked to see a mine, and dined with the manager and his wife. They gave us a sumptuous repast, and tried to persuade E. and I

Starting point is 03:12:11 to remain the night, though we were only about four miles from home, but even we two are not un-Englishified as yet not to object to sleeping with two other people. They had only one room for kitchen, bed, sitting-room, etc., and it is curious how little one thinks of the bed standing in one corner, the washing-stand in another, whilst the kitchen-stove and scullery fill up a third. I suggested that when strangers did sleep there, they gave them the adjoining cabin, but was told that a trussle-bed put alongside of the host took no room whatsoever. Mr. W. tells a funny story of a picnic party in the mountains in an old cabin of his, which only contained one room, and where five women and six men had to sleep the night,

Starting point is 03:12:55 the women occupying the bunks, the men, after promenading outside whilst the women were getting into bed, sleeping on the floor. They all laughed and talked so much that daylight almost appeared before any of them got to sleep, and there was a regular stampede under the blankets among the ladies when a match was struck, one of the men objecting to his neighbor lying alongside of him with all his clothes on. End of Letter 36. Read by Sybella Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain.

Starting point is 03:13:25 For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 37 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. October 3rd. How the time flies! In forty-eight hours from now we shall have said good-bye to the most fascinating of regions, and Oire and the Rocky Mountains, with all the glorious scenery, will only live in our memories and be things of the past.

Starting point is 03:13:59 I fancy one could never tire of it, and wish so much I could describe the view we had from our ranch, looking up the Unca Bajagra, the valley, bright yellow with the grasses and aspen trees, turning color from the frosts, the scarlet dwarf oak in the foothill, the mountains lost in the blue distance, During our six weeks' stay we have tried all the different phases of life.

Starting point is 03:14:21 The cabin life, in amongst the mountains and miners, the ranch and town, and certainly give palm to the first mentioned. As we anticipated, our ranch life was brought to an abrupt end the moment we owned to Mr. W., how our slumbers were disturbed, with the B-flats. We had to return into Oire, and have been living here some days. Mr. W. found such an accumulation of work on his return that, accepting at meals we never see him, and have to content ourselves wandering and exploring on our ponies all the different trails, and we shall soon be acquainted with everyone within miles. The only ride we do a shoe is the

Starting point is 03:15:00 toll-road up the park, the only piece of flat ground anywhere about, and fit for cantering along. It is the favorite resort of the ladies of the town, who are smartly arrayed in very long-skirted habits ornamented with brass buttons and velvet jockey caps and who must naturally look down upon us as disgracefully turned out in our everyday gowns and broad-brimmed hats which to say the least have seen better days ladies riding alone are required to pay no toll a custom we think ought to be very much encouraged all over the civilized world we have spent one more night at the cabin in imogen leaving henry and oray and doing for ourselves and whilst mr w and the expert for whom we went up were inspecting mines we too fetched the water made bread and had a general sweep-out the cat was supremely delighted to see us and could not apparently make enough of us when not allowed on our knees stood up against or walked round us the heavy snow-storm of last week destroyed all the grass-and-and-aunted the grass-storm of last week destroyed all the grass and flowers. They were so high when we left that a mule could hardly have been seen whilst grazing, and now they are laid quite flat, with not a vestige of their beauty left. The wind was very high as we went up the canyon, so we had to hurry past the patches of Aspens growing on the rocks,

Starting point is 03:16:21 and having very little hold for their roots, which were being blown over and pleasantly near us. This will be the last letter you will receive, as when once started we shall go as fast as the stage-coach, rail, and steamboat can take us to England, I having had a telegram which hurries us home. Goodbye. We look forward immensely to seeing you all again, but we have had such a pleasant trip throughout, without a single contrataum, that we can but be delighted we came, and shall always look back with immense gratification on our six-month sojourn in the Western Hemisphere. End of Letter 37. Read by Sebela Denton. All Libre Vox-Vy are in the public domain for more information please visit librovops dot org letter thirty eight of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for librovocs dot org into the public domain

Starting point is 03:17:22 london december eighteen eighty two since arriving in england i have received the following letter from my brother in manitoba and as i want this book to be a sort of guide to colonists i think it well to add it sea farm november fourteenth i am writing now to send you a kind of statement of our farm accounts though it cannot be quite correct this year's crop of oats not having been thrashed out so that the calculation can only be approximate first the land the cost of the land is taken as the first purchase money and the amount it has cost to bring four hundred and ten acres under cultivation second the buildings they consist of two dwelling houses and two stables, one of the houses being for the men, is also used as a warehouse and granary. The contract price was very low, and also the price of timber, now both gone up, but put down at the original cost. Third, the horses, valued, I think, rather low at $250 a team, $500 for the stallion. The $4,326 include their cost, the amount of oats and the hay they have eaten.

Starting point is 03:18:35 The cows include their original cost, hay, and percentage of keep. The price of cattle now is high. We sold two cows this summer at an average price of $75. Implements have been reduced about 35% for their two years' wear. Carriages, being new, we have taken nothing off them. Pigs have the cost of their feeding added, the young ones taken at an average of $10. Furniture, a slight deduction for wear and wear. tear. Oates. We are calculating 2,500 bushels off 181 acres. Hay is difficult to calculate.

Starting point is 03:19:15 I do not think we have 400 tons. The price now is very low, $5 a ton, and it would cost us $3 to get it into Winnipeg. Potatoes are uncertain. They are worth $1 a ton now, and if we can manage to keep them during the winter they will be worth a good deal more, but they are difficult to keep, although we have a good root house, if the frost happens to get to them they will all spoil, and it is difficult to keep the frost out, going as it does twelve feet into the ground. The fence is quite worth the money, so you see that putting most things at a low price, one has a certain profit, though not in hard cash, and it is satisfactory to find that one hasn't been working for two seasons for nothing. No one expects a farm to pay in this country

Starting point is 03:20:01 during the first two years. Land, 480 acres. Original value, $4,110, worth $30 an acre, present value, $14,400. Building, two houses and two stables, $4,814, present value $4,814. Horses, 21 horses, one stallion,

Starting point is 03:20:27 $4,326, present value $3,000. Cattle, 84 cows, $2,668, 80 cows and 466, $3,700. Carriages, $229, present value $229. Harness, $410, present value $300. Implements, $1,810, present value $800. $1,810, present value, $800. Pigs, $125, pigs and 29 young, $350. Poultry, $20, $33, $33 chickens, present value, $40. Furniture, $495, $400, profit and losses, $10,681, oats, $2,500, $0,000, $0,000, $0,000, $0,000, $0,000, $0,000, $0,000,000,000,000.

Starting point is 03:21:28 $1,250. Hay, 400 tons at $5,000, $2,000. Potatoes, 1,000 bushels at $1,000. Flacks, $100. Wire fence, $500. Original value, $29,180, present value, $32,888.

Starting point is 03:21:56 NB, the profit and loss comprises the wages to laborers and cost of living both to masters and men this estimate is given after two years farming end of letter thirty eight end of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall

Classic Audiobook Collection - Lady’s Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil Hall ~ Full Audiobook [biography]

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.