Читать книгу The Stories from Canada's Frontier - Julian Ralph - Страница 4

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There is a very remarkable bit of this continent just north of our State of North Dakota, in what the Canadians call Assiniboia, one of the North-west Provinces. Here the plains reach away in an almost level, unbroken, brown ocean of grass. Here are some wonderful and some very peculiar phases of immigration and of human endeavor. Here is Major Bell's farm of nearly one hundred square miles, famous as the Bell Farm. Here Lady Cathcart, of England, has mercifully established a colony of crofters, rescued from poverty and oppression. Here Count Esterhazy has been experimenting with a large number of Hungarians, who form a colony which would do better if those foreigners were not all together, with only each other to imitate—and to commiserate. But, stranger than all these, here is a little band of distinguished Europeans, partly noble and partly scholarly, gathered together in as lonely a spot as can be found short of the Rockies or the far northern regions of this continent.

DR. RUDOLPH MEYER'S PLACE ON THE PIPESTONE

These gentlemen are Dr. Rudolph Meyer, of Berlin, the Comte de Cazes and the Comte de Raffignac, of France, and M. Le Bidau de St. Mars, of that country also. They form, in all probability, the most distinguished and aristocratic little band of immigrants and farmers in the New World.

Seventeen hundred miles west of Montreal, in a vast prairie where settlers every year go mad from loneliness, these polished Europeans till the soil, strive for prizes at the provincial fairs, fish, hunt, read the current literature of two continents, and are happy. The soil in that region is of remarkable depth and richness, and is so black that the roads and cattle-trails look like ink lines on brown paper. It is part of a vast territory of uniform appearance, in one portion of which are the richest wheat-lands of the continent. The Canadian Pacific Railway crosses Assiniboia, with stops about five miles apart—some mere stations and some small settlements. Here the best houses are little frame dwellings; but very many of the settlers live in shanties made of sods, with such thick walls and tight roofs, all of sod, that the awful winters, when the mercury falls to forty degrees below zero, are endured in them better than in the more costly frame dwellings.

SETTLER'S SOD CABIN

I stopped off the cars at Whitewood, picking that four-year-old village out at hap-hazard as a likely point at which to see how the immigrants live in a brand-new country. I had no idea of the existence of any of the persons I found there. The most perfect hospitality is offered to strangers in such infant communities, and while enjoying the shelter of a merchant's house I obtained news of the distinguished settlers, all of whom live away from the railroad in solitude not to be conceived by those who think their homes the most isolated in the older parts of the country. I had only time to visit Dr. Rudolph Meyer, five miles from Whitewood, in the valley of the Pipestone.

WHITEWOOD, A SETTLEMENT ON THE PRAIRIE

The way was across a level prairie, with here and there a bunch of young wolf-willows to break the monotonous scene, with tens of thousands of gophers sitting boldly on their haunches within reach of the wagon whip, with a sod house in sight in one direction at one time and a frame house in view at another. The talk of the driver was spiced with news of abundant wild-fowl, fewer deer, and marvellously numerous small quadrupeds, from wolves and foxes down. He talked of bachelors living here and there alone on that sea of grass, for all the world like men in small boats on the ocean; and I saw, contrariwise, a man and wife who blessed Heaven for an unheard-of number of children, especially prized because each new-comer lessened the loneliness. I heard of the long and dreadful winters when the snowfall is so light that horses and mules may always paw down to grass, though cattle stand and starve and freeze to death. I heard, too, of the way the snow comes in flurried squalls, in which men are lost within pistol-shot of their homes. In time the wagon came to a sort of coulee or hollow, in which some mechanics imported from Pa ris were putting up a fine cottage for the Comte de Raffignac. Ten paces farther, and I stood on the edge of the valley of the Pipestone, looking at a scene so poetic, pastoral, and beautiful that in the whole transcontinental journey there were few views to compare with it.

INTERIOR OF SOD CABIN ON THE FRONTIER

Reaching away far below the level of the prairie was a bowl-like valley, a mile long and half as wide, with a crystal stream lying like a ribbon of silver midway between its sloping walls. Another valley, longer yet, served as an extension to this. On the one side the high grassy walls were broken with frequent gullies, while on the other side was a park-like growth of forest trees. Meadows and fields lay between, and nestling against the eastern or grassy wall was the quaint, old-fashioned German house of the learned doctor. Its windows looked out on those beautiful little valleys, the property of the doctor—a little world far below the great prairie out of which sportive and patient Time had hollowed it. Externally the long, low, steep-roofed house was German, ancient, and picturesque in appearance. Its main floor was all enclosed in the sash and glass frame of a covered porch, and outside of the walls of glass were heavy curtains of straw, to keep out the sun in summer and the cold in winter. In-doors the house is as comfortable as any in the world. Its framework is filled with brick, and its trimmings are all of pine, oiled and varnished. In the heart of the house is a great Russian stove—a huge box of brick-work, which is filled full of wood to make a fire that is made fresh every day, and that heats the house for twenty-four ho urs. A well-filled wine-cellar, a well-equipped library, where Harper's Weekly, and Uber Land und Mer, Punch, Puck, and Die Fliegende Blätter lie side by side, a kindly wife, and a stumbling baby, tell of a combination of domestic joys that no man is too rich to envy. The library is the doctor's workshop. He is now engaged in compiling a digest of the economic laws of nations. He is already well known as the author of a History of Socialism (in Germany, the United States, Scandinavia, Russia, France, Belgium, and elsewhere), and also for his History of Socialism in Germany. He writes in French and German, and his works are published in Germany.

PRAIRIE SOD STABLE

Dr. Meyer is fifty-three years old. He is a political exile, having been forced from Prussia for connection with an unsuccessful opposition to Bismarck. It is because he is a scholar seeking rest from the turmoil of politics that one is able to comprehend his living in this overlooked corner of the world. Yet when that is understood, and one knows what an Arcadia his little valley is, and how complete are his comforts within-doors, the placidity with which he smokes his pipe, drinks his beer, and is waited upon by servants imported from Paris, becomes less a matter for wonder than for congratulation. He has shared part of one valley with the Comte de Raffignac, who thinks there is nothing to compare with it on earth. The count has had his house built near the abruptly-broken edge of the prairie, so that he may look down upon the calm and beautiful valley and enjoy it, as he could not had he built in the valley itself. He is a youth of very old French family, who loves hunting and horses. He was contemplating the raising of horses for a business when I was there. But the count mars the romance of his membership in this little band by going to Paris now and then, as a young man would be likely to.

Out-of-doors one saw what untold good it does to the present and future settlers to have such men among them. The hot-houses, glazed vegetable beds, the plots of cultivated ground, the nurseries of young trees—all show at what cost of money and patience the Herr Doctor is experimenting with every tree and flower and vegetable and cereal to discover what can be grown with profit in that region of rich soil and short summers, and what cannot. He is in communication with the see dsmen, to say nothing of the savants, of Europe and this country, and whatever he plants is of the best. Near his quaint dwelling he has a house for his gardener, a smithy, a tool-house, a barn, and a cheese-factory, for he makes gruyere cheese in great quantities. He also raises horses and cattle.

The Comte de Cazes has a sheltered, favored claim a few miles to the northward, near the Qu' Appele River. He lives in great comfort, and is so successful a farmer that he carries off nearly all the prizes for the province, especially those given for prime vegetables. He has his wife and daughter and one of his sons with him, and an abundance of means, as, indeed, these distinguished settlers all appear to have.

TRAINED OX TEAM

These men have that faculty, developed in all educated and thinking souls, which enables them to banish loneliness and entertain themselves. Still, though Dr. Meyer laughs at the idea of danger, it must have been a little disquieting to live as he does during the Riel rebellion, especially as an Indian reservation is close by, and wandering red men are seen every day upon the prairie. Indeed, the Government thought fit to send men of the North-west Mounted Police to visit the doctor twice a week as lately as a year after the close of the half-breed uprising.