Читать книгу The Letters of a Remittance Man to His Mother - W. H. P. Jarvis - Страница 6

Table of Contents

♦ A Setting Out ♦ Obstreperous Oxen ♦ A Retreat ♦ New Ways and Means ♦ ♦ No Damage Done ♦ Game in Plenty ♦ Local Economy ♦ Fair Play ♦

The Oaks,

Winton, Manitoba,

September 15, 1—-.

My dear Mother,

I am thoroughly convinced that oxen are the most detestable creatures on earth. As I intimated before, I decided to purchase oxen in lieu of working horses as a method of offsetting my extravagance in purchasing a hunter.

When I landed at Winton, the nearest town to the railway to The Oaks, I put my intention into acts, and purchased Moody and Sankey, two sleek, well-fed, guileless-appearing bovines, four years old. I immediately took quite a fancy to the animals, the more so as all with whom I spoke assured me that oxen were preferable to horses for a beginner, because they require less attention, and are less particular about what they eat than are horses. I am still persuaded that this argument is sound when it applies to oxen which are trained, or broken, as the expression is here. To make a long story short, I had these wretched oxen which I had bought, brought round to the hotel where we were staying the morning we were to leave town. (It is the custom in this country to call the veriest settlement a 'town,' and I find myself doing even as the Romans.) The loafers from the hotels gathered on the street to see us set out, all with idiotic grins upon their faces. To Jenkins, from the fact of saying he had driven oxen in the colonies, I gave the team in charge, and he untied them from the post, and, with our belongings safely packed in the waggon, the guns and rifles easily attainable should we meet any wild animals, we moved ahead. I mounted Nero and took the lead, and with my eyes roaming over the boundless prairies, I began dreaming of the Indians and bison which once possessed these plains, when I was brought down to the present by hearing Jenkins exclaim: 'Get up, you horrid Canadian ox, or I shall hit you.' I turned Nero's head, and saw that the team had come to a stop, and that Jenkins was hitting Moody with the whip. The crowd, or some of them, were walking towards the waggon when I rode Nero back. Moody first put his head in the air, then down to the ground, and then started to back, while Sankey decided to go ahead, and got his leg over the trace. Buckingham caught Moody by the horns and gave him a pull. 'Better build a fire under him,' shouted one of the crowd. 'Get into the scrimmage,' called a man to me. (This fellow, I believe, is an Englishman, who has been 'civilized,' or imbued with the customs and language of the country.) 'Twist his tail,' came from another, and on this advice Jenkins acted. I was now off my horse and beside Jenkins, to see if I could do anything. I picked up a stick and hit the obstreperous Moody over the flank, when he immediately sprang forward, and Sankey with him, and away they went down the road, dragging Jenkins by the reins, who, as they turned off the road to the right shouted: 'Gee! gee!—no, I beg your pardon: haw!—you ugly brutes.' But they tore off across the prairie, and the crowd roared with laughter as our goods were scattered along the route, while we did our best to keep up. Across the path lay a wire fence, and they went into this at full speed, breaking through; but a wheel catching in a post, their mad career was stopped, and Moody was thrown on his back, kicking wildly. When we arrived, I could not help laughing at the sight, and Jenkins remarked: 'Look at the beastly antics the blooming animal is kicking up.'[1]

The men came out from town and immediately suggested that we untangle the oxen, which they finally did for us, and we found that the animals were not injured further than being badly cut by the barbed wire. We all went back to town, and collected our goods and chattels on the way, and two days later left again for this place.

While in town I visited several of the shops again, and in one of them I saw some appliances made of two straps connected together by a chain, which I learned were hobbles, used for fastening the feet of horses together that they might not run away. I asked the shopkeeper if they could be applied to oxen, and was assured they could. As I had been warned about a steep bit of a hill which lay on the way to this place, and that I should not let the oxen run down it, I conceived that if I should hobble them at the top of the hill there should be no danger of them going too fast.

When we again set out and when we came to the hill about which I had been forewarned, I stopped Moody and Sankey on the brow and put the hobbles on them. They were at first very reluctant to move, and it was only after considerable urging that I induced them to budge. Finally I got them going by the liberal use of the whip, and away they started. I immediately saw that I had made a mistake in hobbling them, as it made them break into a kind of a canter which they could not maintain, and the first thing I knew was that they had fallen down and the waggon was pushed down on top of them. Fortunately, just then a man accustomed to oxen came along, and very kindly helped us to extricate poor Moody and Sankey, and I was delighted to find that neither was injured.

Our new friend saw us safely off for this place, at which we safely arrived at last.

From a conversation I had with a very nice chap, whom I met in town during my stay there, I gather that my oxen have had but very little training, and that the names 'Moody' and 'Sankey' had been given them as satire on account of the reputation oxen have of inspiring profanity. This may convey a good idea of our experiences with these horrid creatures. Jenkins assures me he has never known any such, and his experience had not embraced Canadian oxen. As he expressed it: 'My dear Brown, I have never had to do with horrid Canadian oxen. The oxen I have had to drive are those the poets sing about, the gentle, mild-eyed creatures one heard of in one's nursery days.'

We are now fairly well settled at The Oaks, and though the house is nothing more than a 'shack' (the Western name for a small shanty built of rough boards), we are quite happy.

The game in the vicinity, though small, is abundant, there being no end of prairie chicken (a species of grouse), while the ducks in the autumn are very abundant; and I have a large lake, or slough, upon my farm, in which, I am told, they congregate in the autumn.

The prairie, as you know, is a vast level plain almost totally devoid of trees. It is covered with grass and wild-flowers, many of which latter are pretty, but have no perfume.

The sunsets here are really glorious, and now that the harvesting season is here the sky is lit up at night by countless fires caused by the farmers burning their straw. Some of my neighbours whom I have seen tell me that I should plough my land this fall (autumn), so as to be ready for 'seeding' in the spring; but others, again, say I can plough it in the spring and then plant my corn.

As I am having a man train Moody and Sankey, and as I lack the implements necessary, I have decided to forego these operations until the spring. As I find myself short of money, and as I feel I shall need some for my expenses this winter, and it will be necessary to purchase machinery in the spring, I think I must call upon you for a hundred pounds or so, to see me through. Please see the Governor on this point. When you have explained matters to him, I have no doubt he will send the needful.

Many of the settlers here 'swap' work and machinery — that is, one man works so many days with his neighbours, and then his neighbour works so many days with him, and a like trade is made with their machinery. In this way they manage very nicely; but of course, being an Englishman, I cannot become so intimate with my neighbours, but must have a complete set for myself.

By way of getting in training, we three are now digging a well, or rather deepening one which has gone dry. It is already quite deep. One of us works in it for ten minutes at a time, and then the other hoists him out by the windlass. By this method we have deepened it as much as a foot in a day. A visitor one day told me that we were using most of the time 'hauling' each other out of the hole; but I believe in fair play, and turn about is fair play.

With kind wishes and hoping you will use your good offices with the Governor, I remain,

Ever your affectionate son,

Reginald Brown.