The evenings were so pleasant that most people wanted to be outside parading up and down the sidewalks – seeing and being seen by others

Every Saturday evening without fail we went shopping, baby and all. Sandyhills was the metropolis upon which we all descended.

Jacobs let Ronald off work at 4pm and after he had eaten, washed and changed, we all bundled into the car. The boys were always excited about these evening excursions. The stores remained open longer than on weekdays and everyone for miles around came to town – farmers and hired hands alike.

Everyone mixed with everyone else, the rich and the struggling. People treated each other as equals, much more so than in rural towns back home in the 50s. I revelled in the atmosphere.

Saturday was definitely the family night out. Canada, in her attempt to fill up the wide open spaces, encouraged the bearing of children. Consequently, there were some large families about.

On Saturday evenings the streets were always busy. Quite the opposite from what it had been like on the afternoon I went into hospital to have Mahri-Louise.

Festivity

On Saturdays there was always an air of festivity, which increased as the days grew warmer. Parties in the supermarket ceased.

The evenings were so pleasant that most people wanted to be outside parading up and down the sidewalks – seeing and being seen by others.

Mostly, everyone knew everyone else and we were getting to know a few people.

Our shopping completed, we would sit up on high stools at the bar of an ice cream parlour and order ice cream floats. Then we would drift outside again into the warm air.

It was noisy outside with the chatter of people and the sound of traffic. Many of the cars on the road were old bangers owned by young men, their windscreens pitted, their silencers removed to make them roar more loudly.

Sometimes a young girl was driving. I remember one occasion particularly well. I heard behind me the screech of sudden braking and a strident female voice shouting: “Take your God-damn beer and git out!”

Whereupon the car door flew open and a cowboy rolled at my feet. Several cans of beer came flying after him.

One almost hit me. The cowboy got up, dusted himself down and with a string of oaths, picked up the cans of beer that had rolled into the gutter.

Apart from us, no one seemed to take much notice so we assumed it was a usual occurrence.

Sometimes after the stores closed and darkness began to thicken, along with other families we made for the outdoor cinema.

When first confronted with a huge silver screen stuck in the middle of nowhere I wondered what possible use it could have. Loosely fenced in from the prairie, it stood facing orderly rows of car-high posts.

Because it stood in an otherwise featureless plain, it looked tall and impressive and could be seen for miles.

The procedure, after entering the field, was to drive up to a vacant post, drop the appropriate coins into a slot provided, unhook a microphone and take it into the car through the window.

Grotesque

Michael and Ronnie were excited by the moving pictures on the screen but very quickly fell asleep. Richard, on the other hand, never got sleepy.

He watched the screen assiduously and refused to consider leaving as long as there was a flicker on it.

I remember, one night, longing for Sinbad the Sailor to end.

I was tired and didn’t care for this kind of picture at the best of times but these grotesque creations of the imagination, prancing on the screen and intruding into the car, had a way of demanding attention. I would much rather have watched the stars in the night sky.

Sometimes after these Saturday excursions I drove home. Ronald wanted me to get used to driving on gravel roads and on, what was for us the wrong side of the road.

Having a licence to drive enabled me to go to the dentist under my own steam. The day for the appointment eventually arrived.

From day one of our arrival in Canada, the removal of this troublesome tooth had been one of my main desires.

I made it a policy not to ask Mrs Jacobs for help if I could possibly avoid it.

However, the day previous to my appointment she made a hurried visit to the cabin with a bundle of rhubarb, beet tops and Swiss chard from her garden and I mentioned it.

“I’ll look after Mahri-Louise for you if you like,” she said. I accepted her offer gladly. “Sandyhills is sure lucky to have a good dentist,” she added.

“He’s a pleasant, able man. He sure won’t take long to pull your tooth.”

Mrs Jacobs was rather like Mandy in that everyone and everything was good in Sandyhills. I reserved my judgement.

On the day of the appointment I wasn’t feeling well. I had become used to the constant ache of the errant tooth but on top of that I had caught a feverish cold from Ronald.

He had been off for a couple of days in bed with a high temperature. Jacobs had been driving Adrian and Ronald hard again, reseeding a quarter section of land.

Tropical heat

They were working night and day in temperatures that varied from tropical heat under a noonday sun to the Arctic coldness of midnight.

I was feeling decidedly groggy on the day of the appointment. But, short of pneumonia, nothing would have stopped me from keeping it.

The boys came with me. I parked outside the surgery door and left them in the car with toys and books to look at and with strict instructions to Richard to look after his wee brothers.

“I won’t be long,” I assured them,” and if you’re all good, I’ll buy you sweets when I come out.”

Fortunately the dentist took me right away and I was soon in the chair. He examined the tooth touching it with a fine probe. The tooth screamed.

He gave me an injection into the gum and left it for a while. When he came to touch it again the reaction was no better.

Once more he gave me an injection and waited – no better.