Читать книгу The Young Emigrants - Catherine Laura Johnstone - Страница 5

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“Cheer, boys, cheer! here’s wealth for honest labour;

Cheer, boys, cheer for the new and happy land!”

THIS song proceeded from the steerage of the Sardinian while preparations were being made to enable the passengers to walk on shore at Quebec. Who has not heard of Quebec, and of the great battle on the Heights of Abraham, between the French under General Montcalm and the British force commanded by the hero General Wolfe? That battle decided the fate of Canada, and New France, as this part of North America was called by its earliest European colonists, became from that time a British possession, which now enjoys almost complete self-government.

But Quebec is still quite a French town in appearance, and has a strong look of Calais. Some of the people wore red caps like those of French sailors, and Johnnie heard them talking French as they stared at the English emigrants. A special train was put on for the passengers of the Sardinian, and was to start as soon as the baggage had been examined by the Custom House officers, and this was a very lengthy proceeding. It must be remembered that although Canada belongs to England, it makes its own laws, and it will not allow people to bring new clothes or other manufactured goods into the country, of the value of more than four shillings, without paying a heavy tax upon them, if they are intended to be sold. The Canadian Government is, however, anxious to induce emigrants to settle in the country, and its officials have directions not to be very strict with the goods brought by emigrants from England, if they are clearly intended for their own use; so Mr. Evans had told all his boys to put “Emigrant” under their names on their boxes, and the Custom House officers did not even open them. These same officers looked very carefully into the baggage brought by some of the first-class passengers, and charged them heavily for new things they brought with them; but then they were known to be ordinary travellers, who had been through the country before.

There were refreshment-rooms at the Quebec station, where loaves, cheeses, and other substantial articles of food were sold, and Mr. Evans bought a number of loaves, some butter, a cheese, and a few tins of potted meat, for the use of his party on the journey to Winnipeg. He told them they would probably have no opportunity of buying anything more to eat on the way, so they must be careful of their provisions.

A few boys found situations at Quebec, but all the rest went on in the train—“the excursion train from the old country,” as the Quebec stationmaster called it.

The carriages, or cars as the Canadians term them, are much larger than English ones, and will hold about fifty people if crammed full. There is a kind of second story of sleeping-places, which slide up and down from the top, according as they are required or not; so the passengers were able to stretch themselves out at night, and sleep as well as the shaking of the carriages would permit. At the end of each carriage there was a cistern of water for drinking or washing, and also a little balcony on which the boys stood and looked out at the country they were passing on their way.

Rather a stirring incident took place on this little balcony. A splendid waterfall was to be seen, and the boys crowded the platform, one of them climbing on to the railing. There was a good deal of pushing and hustling, and somehow this one boy was pushed off the railing on to the railroad. The train was going at its greatest speed. There were a scream and a rush, and the conductor was called, and as soon as it could be done the train was stopped. It had already run a mile beyond where the boy had fallen, but he had soon picked himself up, and when the train stopped, was seen running after it. The engine-driver declared that the next time such a thing happened, the boy who fell should be left to look after himself, for they could not be stopping the Canadian express on account of stupid little English chaps.

The boys were in the train for five days before they arrived at Winnipeg. Only one or two of the stations had refreshment-rooms, and there was so little sold in them, and such a high price was asked, that only the older and richer people had a chance of buying anything. They passed Ottawa, the capital of Canada, but the London boys thought that it looked like nothing but a village. Then they came to a huge lake all covered with ice. They could not see the other side, so to them it seemed as big as the sea. They passed through forests of fir trees with little wooden huts among them for the wood-cutters; and they noticed in some parts that the fir and larch trees were growing on the top of granite rocks. A Norwegian emigrant said it reminded him of Norway. Then they left the trees behind, and came to a bare, open country, and very early one morning the train drew up in the middle of a town which they were told was Winnipeg. They heard that they should stay here for several hours, till another train was ready, in which they would continue their journey.

It was a great relief to all the emigrants to be able to take a little exercise after so many days’ confinement in the train. The Winnipeg station was the largest they had yet seen in Canada. A great many people came out of the town into the large waiting-room to see if they could engage any of the new-comers as hired boys or girls; for that is the term used in Canada for those whom we call by the old-fashioned name of servants. One young man accepted an offer to become a waiter in a hotel; a young woman, well dressed and wearing spectacles, was taken as a governess; but there did not seem to be any demand for the younger boys, and Johnnie was almost the youngest of them all. A clergyman on the train, who was also going to the North-West told them not to be down-hearted, for they would find farmers very glad to engage them in the agricultural districts, which would be better for them than a large town. The boys had exhausted all their provisions, and went out into the town to try to obtain some more. They saw some tempting-looking apples and oranges, but they were dearer than in London. The bread looked very light and good, and eggs and butter were not dear. The shopkeepers asked them if they had come from the “old country,” by which they meant had they come from England. Although the lakes they had passed were covered with ice, and it was only April, the sun felt as hot as it often does in England at midsummer; and an ice-cart set down a large lump of ice as clear as glass on the wooden pavement in front of all the butchers’ and fishmongers’ shops. The boys noticed that almost all the houses were built of wood, as well as the “side-walks,” as the Canadians call the pavement for foot-passengers. They read a great many German, Norwegian, Italian, and even Chinese names over the shops and houses, and they saw several negroes walking about, who had probably come from the United States. Winnipeg is over eleven hundred miles from Quebec, and Johnnie had still about three hundred and sixty miles to go before he could reach Qu’appelle.

About three o’clock in the afternoon the train was ready to start, and the boy who was going to Vancouver was told that he need not get out of it again till he reached his destination. Johnnie would arrive at Qu’appelle about half-past four the next morning. One of the young men who came with the party said that he had inquired for something to do in Winnipeg, but that as he did not like the occupations he was offered, he meant to go on to Regina, about forty miles beyond Qu’appelle, and enlist in the North-West Mounted Police, who, he heard, were a very fine body of men. He would get two shillings a day at once, his clothes and his board and lodging, with very little to do. A clergyman in the train told him that it was not always a good thing for a young man to have very little to do, for he was more liable to be tempted to gamble and drink, particularly in a new country away from all his friends; but this young man seemed very confident that there was no fear that he would fall into such errors. He had heard that there was an amateur dramatic club in Regina, and many amusements.

They had now entered on the prairie, but saw belts of trees occasionally in the distance. The boys thought of the waste of wood they had seen in Northern Ontario as they came along, where they had noticed that trees had been burnt off the ground to clear them away. Here they were in a part of Manitoba where wood was evidently scarce.

Johnnie was afraid to go to sleep, lest he should miss Qu’appelle; but the conductor told him he would wake him up at the next station before they came to it. The young clergyman asked him if he were going to a situation there. Johnnie said he had to look for one. Had he brought a character with him from his schoolmaster or minister, or from a magistrate? No, Johnnie had never thought that would be wanted.

“It is better to have one,” said the young clergyman, “because we get a good many young scamps out here, and the farmers are beginning to be afraid of English boys, unless they are recommended by some responsible person.” He asked the boy a few more questions about his parents and where they lived, and evidently thought the answers satisfactory, for he wrote down something on a paper and said to him: “Here are the names of two or three farmers round there, one of whom I think wants a boy. I have mentioned you below as recommended by me, as you seem a quiet, steady fellow, and have not joined with some of the other boys in the train in making a disturbance to the annoyance of older passengers.”

The conductor did as he promised, and roused up Johnnie at Indian Head Station. He looked out: it was beginning to grow light, and the landscape was prettier, being interspersed with groups of trees, underwood, and bushes, which the Canadians call bluffs. The next station was Qu’appelle. At Quebec a brass ticket with a number had been put on to his box with a little strap, and he had been given another just like it. When he showed this to the porter, his luggage was identified among the heaps of other boxes by the corresponding number upon it, and was handed over to him. Then there was a shout of “Hurry up, all on board”—the Canadian way of saying “Please make haste”—and the train proceeded on its way, leaving Johnnie and a few more standing on the platform in the early morning, hardly knowing what to do next.

Some of them with more money than Johnnie said they should go to a hotel. There were two close by—the Leland and the Queen. They left their luggage on the platform, so Johnnie asked if he might leave his box and rugs there till he knew where he was going, and then he walked into the street. As it was Sunday morning, all was quiet; the houses were closed, and only one or two people were about. He had some of the bread left that he had bought at Winnipeg, and he ate that for his breakfast.

The town consisted entirely of wooden houses, and there was a wooden church with a metal spire. There was a wide green near to it where some cows were feeding. Presently the young emigrant saw a boy bringing some water from a well on the pasture; and as the dry bread had made him rather thirsty, he tied his jacket and waistcoat and pocket-handkerchief together, and fastened his little tin mug to the end of them, and tried to reach the water with this rope of clothes; but it was not quite long enough.

Just then a young woman came out of one of the houses to meet a cow that was coming up to be milked. She saw what Johnnie was doing, and asked him if he were thirsty, and where he came from. She seemed very kind, so he told her that he had just come from England, and was going to try to find work. She gave him a cup of milk, and said there were many people round there who wanted boys, but he was rather young. Was he not very cold and tired standing about there? He might come into her house if he liked, and he should have some breakfast, if he would wash up afterwards and clean the boots.

Johnnie was very thankful for the offer, and followed the young woman into one of the wooden houses. There was an iron closed stove in the middle of the kitchen, and a saucepan of porridge simmering upon it, and a pan of potatoes and bacon frizzling—a more sumptuous meal than he had eaten since he left the Sardinian. His kind friend lived with her mother and brother; so while breakfast was preparing he cleaned the boots, then fetched some wood for the stove from a great pile that stood in the little yard, and after breakfast washed up. When she asked him what his father was, and he told her that he was a letter-carrier, he found that there was no such occupation as his father’s in the north-west of Canada, and that letters remained at the post-offices till the owners fetched them. Even the telegrams were not delivered.

At last the bell began to ring for the morning service, and Johnnie went to church. Some boys think that being far from home is a reason why they need not go; but the church bell reminded Johnnie of home, and as he was very simple, it was quite a surprise but certainly a pleasure to him to find that not only the same prayer-book was used at Qu’appelle as in the church to which his mother was accustomed to send him in England, but also the same hymn-book. There was a surpliced choir, and he thought that perhaps some day he might be admitted to it. The congregation looked just like an English one, as it might well do, for Qu’appelle is almost an English colony. Some of them came from quite a distance, and drove there in all kinds of conveyances.

Several people in the church noticed Johnnie, and recognized him by his fair, soft face as an English boy just out of England. After church, the wife of one of the farmers who had gone to “hitch up,” as the Canadians call putting a horse in the shafts, spoke to the boy, and asked him if he had got a place yet. When he said he had not, she said they wanted a help; what could he do? could he milk or ride? Johnnie had never been in the way of doing either, but he said he thought he could soon learn. Well, he could chop wood, she supposed. That he had never done, but if he had an axe he would try.

“You are from London, I suppose?” she said; “for you seem to have been brought up very helpless.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Johnnie, “but I helped myself all the way here.”

“Well,” she said, “that was something certainly. I suppose you can light a stove and do house-work?”

Johnnie said he could wash up, and make a bed, and look after children, and clean lamps, and light a fire; so the end of it was, when her husband came with the “buckboard,” as the Canadians call a kind of gig with a place behind for luggage, she suggested to him that he should engage this little fellow. Mr. Freeman therefore offered him a dollar a month.

“A dollar!” said Johnnie; “that is four shillings—it is very little.”

“No; a dollar is four and twopence,” said Mr. Freeman.

“I owe my father money,” said Johnnie. “I must earn a little more than that.”

“Well,” said Mr. Freeman, “suppose we say a dollar and a half, the first month at any rate, and then I shall see what you’re worth. You will have to work hard for that, you are such a little chap. Nobody would give you more unless he wanted a jockey.”

So Johnnie engaged himself, and sat with his box at the back of the gig during the six miles which lay between Mr. Freeman’s farm and the town. In Canada they call railways roads, and carriage-roads trails. This trail was like a cart-track among grass and bushes. They passed two or three solitary wooden houses, nearly a mile away from each other, and then Johnnie’s future abode came in view—a wooden house like the rest, with out-buildings such as he had never seen out of Canada; also some ricks and a few cocks and hens. The complete silence the whole way had struck the boy more than anything else, and there seemed to be nobody here but themselves. However, when they went into the house, they found a girl minding two little children and setting dinner. The house looked so small that he began to wonder where he was to sleep.