tion>
Emily F. Murphy
Seeds of Pine
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066174408
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
WESTWARD WITH THE GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC
"'What went ye out into the wilderness to see?' They answered thus, 'So that we might not see the city.'"—SIR WILLIAM BUTLER.
The new steel trail the railway men are laying from Edmonton leads away and away, I cannot say whither. For these many days I have had an anxious desire to follow it and the glories thereof. I am tired of this town and of the electrical devices that appear and re-appear in the darkness like eyes that open and shut—wicked eyes that burn their commercial message into my very soul. I am sick of these saucy, swaggering streets and of sundry of the townspeople. Come you with me and let us travel down the ways through the heart of the summer! We shall have breeze and sun in our eyes, and breeze and sun in our hearts. If you like not the prospect, pray, come no further, for we be contrary the one to the other and no way-fellows.
As we climb on the train this morning, it seems as though our quest for quiet is to be cheated by the wallowing wave of humanity that threatens to submerge us. Who are these close-nudged folk and whither away?
She who runs may read them for hard-headed, white-handed men in search of "prospects"; brown-throated homesteaders; real-estate agents out for talking points and for snap fortunes; mining engineers with dunnage bags—young fellows all in the full force of life—these, and "the gang," who are ill-looking men and rather dirty. The gang fare forth to work on the railway grades. They are always ganging—that is going—for the words are strictly synonymous. The gang going to the city meet the gang coming out. And so in everything they are retroactive, and fight much, and swear, to give weight to their differences of opinion. In one thing only is the gang agreed, no navvy has yet been found who disputed the axiom that the Boss is a yellow canine.
There is a sprinkling of women, too, and we talk to each other in the friendly manner of the country. A couple of them are half-breed girls, with drooping feathers and skirts that have a hiss. Surely their men are industrious Indians. Both are cinched into their clothes like a cayuse into its pack-saddle. Both have skin the colour of brown coffee into which milk has been poured, and always they are fussing with their pinned-on curls. "The judicious Hooker" once watched some women doing this, and he said they were "a-dilling and burling their hair." No one may ever hope to strike out a more apt expression. The younger of the girls has an indiscreet mouth and desirous eyes. I should not be surprised, if one of these times our little brown woman found these to be a mortgage on her soul somewhat difficult of discharge. And the usury, little woman, it troubles me, the usury!
The farmer's wife who shares my seat came to this province ten years ago from the United States. Her husband made entry for a homestead and she built the house, outbuildings, and fences on it, and bought the implements with money she had saved from school-teaching. The first year, their crop was frozen; the second, it was hailed out; and the third, a spark from the threshing-machine burned their wheat stacks. Their horses died and they had to incur debt for others. All this time, the woman supported the household with the returns from her poultry yard and dairy. These last years have been fat ones, thus enabling them to save sufficient money to send two of their sons to the business college in Town. The eldest girl is walking with the young man on the adjoining farm and a wedding is brewing.
To my thinking, this homely, ill-accoutred woman is something like a heroine, and it is a pity the end of her troubles is not yet. Her husband, who appears to be a flabby-spirited fellow, has always wanted to, and has finally decided that he will sell the farm and go to the town to keep a boarding-house. She is opposed to the move and has been in the town endeavouring to protect her interests in the property, but finds she is unable so to do. Because of this she has decided to buy the farm from him and has the agreement ready for his signature. I am astounded by her hardihood. She has the soul of a warrior. If the recalcitrant spouse refuses to sell—no, I won't tell what she intends doing, for