Far From the Rowan Tree Day 49

Advertisements offered schemes connected with farming that made us frighteningly aware of our lack of knowledge of the system in Canada

We would leave the car in the shade of the sparse poplars and birches and make our way on to the shore to be among people and watch the fun in boats and waterskis. Once we travelled further to a Canadian salt lake – a small sea complete with waves, a beach and salty winds in the middle of a huge empty landmass.

We enjoyed these excursions but at the back of our minds was the knowledge that we would have to leave Jacobs’ place before early winter set in.

Jacobs hadn’t said in so many words that he wouldn’t require Ronald over the long winter months but every so often the information was implied. Although I had grown to like the place I knew we must leave.

Jacobs was a man of dangerous moods. When would he break out next?

“I must find another job,” Ronald said to me one day. “Something a bit closer to town. I don’t think I really am the pioneering type. Pleasant “I would like, if possible, to break away from our railway sponsors and find a job for myself.”

“Get the Prairie Gazette,” I suggested. “I think the Jacobs buy it once a week. We could get one on Saturday when we go shopping.”

The following Saturday we woke up to grey skies, which was most unusual. Actually we rather enjoyed it. It was pleasant for once not to have the constant glare of the sun.

All the contours of the Earth were softer. Later in the morning the sun broke through and the skies became blue again – but not for long.

Mandy and Susan came running over from the farmhouse to warn me about the weather.

“Dad says there is a storm brewing,” said Mandy before Susan had time to get it out. We saw it coming long before it arrived.

Far away in the west, where we knew the ramparts of the Rocky Mountains made a barrier on the skyline, we could see a leaden blackness coming towards us.

As it drew closer a wind rose and tumbleweed rolled across the prairie. Then thunder rumbled as powerful as the roaring of many lions and the sky was rent by electric blue threads illuminating the earth.

I found it exciting to watch a storm coming for 100 miles or more.

Nothing that we could do would stop it. Eventually it reached us, engulfing us in heavy rain that the soil soaked up in gratitude.

The storm had almost abated by the time we went on our weekly shopping excursion into Sandyhills. The streets and sidewalks were all running with water.

The sound of it was everywhere and people and shops had taken on a new kind of buoyancy.

Everyone spoke to everyone else – for once they had a topic of conversation common to everyone – the rain!

Now that the storm had passed it was just plain dull. It could have been a day back home in Scotland. Fortunate We were fortunate to get a Prairie Gazette as often they were sold out by the time we got into town.

When we got home, after putting the children to bed and stowing away the groceries, we sat down by the black cook-stove to go through it, looking for opportunities.

The evening fell decidedly chill and for once damp. We were glad of the heat from the spurting and singing logs that smouldered to begin with but burst into lively flames when they became sufficiently dry and warm. The kitchen smelt of poplar.

We found the column advertising jobs and avidly scanned its contents.

It was longer than we expected and the advertisements were couched in a different language to that used back home.

Quite often we didn’t really understand what they meant. Share cropping – what exactly did that term imply?

In fact, advertisements offered all sorts of schemes connected with farming that made us frighteningly aware of our lack of knowledge of the system by which farming worked in Canada.

We had no blueprint for reading between the lines. There were very few straightforward jobs that would have been in any way suitable. – Then almost at the end of the column we spotted it

FARM MANAGER WANTED. Doctor Knight wishes some capable man in his early thirties to manage his small and exclusive dairy herd on an excellent farm near Edmonton.

Good wages. New immigrant would suit. Good family house.

Ronald read it out several times. It seemed just right for us. As the address was supplied we decided to go and see it next day.

All the way to Edmonton! We had never been that far in the car before. What new townships would we see? What new landmarks? What new people? What adventures might befall us?

I didn’t expect the townships we passed to be up to much as the Jacob girls had often told us that Sandyhills was by far the best place on the road to Edmonton. Adventure “The Jacobs will be wondering where we’re off to,” I said as we passed the farmhouse and saw Mandy lift up the edge of the lace curtain. “Let them wonder,” Ronald said and laughed. The boys waved to Mandy from the back of the car and she waved back.

They were looking forward to this new adventure and to coming back telling the girls all about it.

The landscape didn’t change much mile after mile. It became a little less sandy perhaps but otherwise we saw the same plain contours.

They were lacking in distinctive features apart from the grain towers rising at intervals along the railroad, looking like apostrophes on an almost empty page.

However, the crops and what scrub trees there were looked fresh after the rain.

Some of the names of the small towns off the highway attracted my attention. Half way to Edmonton we came on a sign pointing to Pioneer.

“How do you think it would come by a name like that?” I asked Ronald

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” he replied laughing, “but let’s turn in and see if it has a shop open that sells Coke.”

(More tomorrow.)