Seeds of Pine. Emily F. Murphy
men are here preparing to take the wagon trail to Grand Prairie in the Peace River District. This trail, they tell me, is one hundred and fifty miles long, and may be traversed in six days, a journey which from other points formerly took as many weeks. Hitherto, it has seemed the faraway edge of the world, a place for none save the adventurous blooded and sturdy, but in this day it seems to lie at our very door, for, in the North, one hundred and fifty miles is merely a stone's cast. In the spring, fifteen thousand homesteads will be thrown open for entry, so that presently it will seem that all creation is trekking this way.
And why not? It requires no fore-vision to know that the land has a future above anxiety. Up this trail there is a new world to be possessed, an unequalled empire, in which men may go hither and yon as they please. It gives my feet a staccato movement to think of it. Some city folk there are who might fear the trail, but this were foolish. It is good to ride on a long trail and laugh out loud for sheer joy. On the trail, the ear of Society is closed and there are smoked goggles on her eyes.
I have been talking to a stripling from Nova Scotia, who has been here these four months. When first he came, there were but three girls in the village; now, there are eighteen. As a result of this increased immigration, the weekly dance is better attended and is more amicable.
Besides his outfit, this Nova Scotian is taking in a year's provision to his homestead, and so has been working to secure a sufficiency of money. He hopes to get a steading that will one day become a town site. This is the dream of every northern farmer: it is the gold at the foot of the rainbow. Perhaps, my Boy o' Dreams may find it. Who can say? Providence keeps a closer eye on farmers than we imagine. As yet, the boy has not persuaded any girl to accompany him to Grand Prairie. I would go myself only (I had the reason a minute ago but it has escaped me); what was it? Oh yes! I remember now, I am already married. The Land of Cockaigne could not have been situate in the North, for in that most blessed land every Jack has his Jill and found no difficulty in keeping her. No! it was never in this latitude.
I went to two hotels before I could find a room. I should have registered at once instead of loitering at the station. In the first hotel they could eat me, but to sleep me was out of the question. In the second, a stout well-looking German—or, as I prefer to call him, a coming Canadian—took possession of me, remarking in one breath, but with an air of great punctilio, "You would in my house put up? Der conductor-man he so told me you to me might come. This my wife is. You should become to each other known. She a bed for you will get—water!—towels!—whatsoever Madam she may desire."
"Urbanity" is the one word that fits the German, my host. His Frau, who is of the pure Teutonic type, has a heart of great goodness, with emotions that lie close under the exterior.
All might have been well with me at this hotel, but, unfortunately, in descending the closed-in stairway, I stepped on a sleeping cat and plunged headforemost to the bottom. … "Der drouble mit you," says my host, "a crick in der back is." The cat's "drouble" seems to be paralysis.
Some one has said that reserve is a sign of great things behind. Sweet Christians! this is entirely true; I realized it to the full while holding back the tears and assuring the assembled household I was not even jarred. I am proud of the way I behaved, and sorry my own folk were not there to see. Now, they will never believe it.
One of the maids brought me brandy which I did not drink, but after awhile, my hostess fed it to me in what she called canards. You dip a lump of sugar into the cognac and transfer the lump to your mouth—that is all. You could never believe how nice they taste, or how curative they are for "crick" in the back.
Before long I am able to limp down the street and call on the doctor. I used to know him in days when we both lived farther south. But any way, a previous acquaintanceship would have made no difference. We do not need introductions at a frontier post like this, for there is an undercurrent of good fellowship which understands that the stranger who talks to you is not necessarily a scalawag, with subtle designs on your purse or your person. Any one who fails to grasp this plainly obvious fact is either a newcomer or a solemn humbug.
This doctor has charge of the hospital car that lies in the station yard, and most of his time is spent travelling from camp to camp down the line of construction. I saw the car to-day, or rather I nosed it, for the smell of iodoform came siftingly through like dry cold. It is owned and operated by the railway company for the benefit of their employees. At certain stations along the line, the company have placed cottage hospitals where emergency cases are treated. Those who have fevers or require major operations, are usually taken to the city.
Long ago, when the earlier railroads were being constructed it was not possible to supply such life-saving appurtenances, so that nothing remained for the wretched fellows but to drag themselves away and die like hurt dogs. There is a current aberration that the golden age was "once upon a time," but, in my opinion, it is here and now, or at least it will be when every municipality has instituted classes to teach policemen the difference between drunkenness and a fit. I will say a prayer about this some of these days. One must be business-like.
As he builds up and smokes a cigarette, the doctor tells me that the navvies and teamsters have a singularly critical taste in the matter of medicine. They do not like tablets or medicine with an innocent flavour. Unless it be distinctly pungent, they feel cheated.
"Do you accede to their demand?" ask I.
"I do, Good Lady," says he. "It is modesty that prevents my describing to you the excellency of my flavours" (and here he assumed a truly sagacious air): "my medicines have 'nip' to them and a body that is really desirable. They are indescribable, but most they approach the little girl's definition of salt—'that which makes potatoes taste bad when you do not eat it with.'
"I see, Dear Lady, you are still of inquisitive mind," says this Man of Medicine. "Yes! I can see that and I dare say you will put me in a book, so I shall not rise to your questions—not I! Let us prefer to talk of how we shall invest our money when we sell our lots, and things like that."
"Real-estate is a valuable asset in this place," continues he, "if you buy it 'near in' on the original town site, but three miles out of the subdivisions, it is equal in value to a pop-corn prize. And yet who can say? Who knows? In these new places, the bread we cast on the sub-divisions has a way of returning to us in meat and pie and cake. It is often the height of wisdom to be foolish. That singularly unattractive person on the doorstep across the way—the shrunken, hollow-stomached one—has made much money in buying and selling."
"Do you believe me?" he asks with some trace of heat; "then pray heaven speak!" For I have fallen into silence. But I will not speak—not one word—but only smile in an enigmatical way, for the stop I am pulling out is one of intended indifference. It is about the navvies and teamsters I would talk and not of hollow-stomached men who gather much money.
The doctor rolls up two cigarettes and offers me one.
"You will smoke?" asks he.
"No!" says I, "not till I am sixty."
"Let me see your palm and your nails. Humph! Lady, you had better start now as a mere matter of expediency. Why not try this one? Where's the use of a mouth and an index finger if you do not smoke?"
Now, I cannot say why I do not smoke, except that there are so many reasons why I should, and so I return to our first topic and ask, "Does your medicine make the men well again?"
"No, no, decidedly no!" he replies—"they allow me to hold no such illusion. The talismans they carry, work the cure—a bear's tooth, a lucky penny, or the image of a calendar saint. A snake's rattle is a panacea for anything but a broken heart. Time was when men only choked on grape seeds as did the old poet chap, Anacreon, but in these days, the navvies get appendicitis from them. It would be offensive to suggest other causes, in spite of the fact that most of them never taste grapes. No! it would not be right for me to put my patients in the wrong and shockingly poor policy."
"Have you much trouble with drunkenness?" I query.
"Not a great deal!" he makes answer, "for the Mounted Police have a disconcerting habit of probing into bales of hay and