The following day had been christened ‘Surprise Day’ by the children because they never knew what they would get

Tommy was trying to rule the roost. Billy kept up a sulky silence and Chillas girned all day long. Richard fortunately was looking forward to going to school again.

He was growing really tall and selfassured. Michael was four and a half. “In Canada children didn’t go to school until they were six but Jean Nykiforuk said to me one day: “They take kids in at five and a half now if they have been at playschool.

“They watch how they make out and if they do well they take them in.”

Because of what she said Ronald and I thought it was important that Michael should go to playschool. Michael was not of the same opinion.

He didn’t want to go to any kind of school and let it be known by a loud wailing.

It upsets me yet when I think about his first days at playschool – his drooping eyelids that made his eyes look sad anyway, his tear-stained face.

The playschool wasn’t far away. To begin with I always went with him but as the winter took hold it got too difficult to dress up and take the little ones on the sledge every morning.

Pleasure

Gradually Michael began to accept the playschool. The teacher was good with him. To begin with he refused to join in with the others.

She put him at a small table by himself and every day drew it a fraction closer to the long one where the rest of the children sat painting, drawing or making things.

By Christmas his small table was joined on to their long one and the teacher found to her pleasure that Michael, who had refused to join in the singing or reciting, knew all the words and had been learning all the time.

With Tommy and Billy at school and Michael at playschool, I got a bit more time to concentrate on Chillas.

I was determined to find out what was wrong with her and make her into a healthy little girl. I got a clue to the problem on the first day I got her.

“Chillas sure isn’t much trouble,” Carmen told me. “She doesn’t eat much but likes her bottle of milk about every hour. She needs to have it – otherwise just biscuits or cake or something, that’s all she’ll take.

“It’s the same at night with the bottle. I’ve got to get up two or three times to give her the darn thing.”

Every morning before she left Carmen gave me a full baby’s bottle of milk and more to top it up with during the day.

It was hard going but gradually I began to succeed in weaning her off it until she was only getting milk out of her bottle twice a day.

Gradually I got her on to more nourishing solids. It wasn’t, however, until two or three weeks after coming to me, that I got to the real root of the problem.

One day I thought the milk in Chillas’s bottle looked funny. I smelt it. It was off.

I didn’t give her any that day at all, just poured it out and gave her milk out of Mahri’s drinking cup.

I didn’t wash the bottle wanting to find out what would happen.

The following day the bottle came back – refilled but with a sour smell again.

Delighted

Carmen hadn’t washed the bottle. I couldn’t believe it – Carmen who was so neat and clean in every other way didn’t wash or sterilise the bottle properly, just filled it with fresh milk every morning.

I stopped giving Chillas milk from the bottle altogether but she was still getting it from her mother.

I didn’t like to say anything to Carmen so each day I accepted the bottle of milk, poured it out and sterilised the bottle.

Chillas began to improve by leaps and bounds. Carmen was delighted.

“My mother was a bit dubious about you looking after the kids to begin with,” Carmen said to me one day.

“Even although I told her you were a nurse. Seemed to think that being a poor immigrant you mightn’t give them enough to eat but after seeing Chillas lately and after hearing what Tommy had to eat the other day at your place – well!”

“What did he tell her?” I asked. “Well, he said he had asparagus soup, stewed beef and potatoes, marshmallows, a chocolate biscuit and a slice of water melon.”

“They don’t always get such a variety,” I said. “That was Surprise Day.”

One evening a week, just before closing time, the supermarket sold off cheaply whatever was at the end of its sell-by date. I was always there to pick up the bargains.

The following day had been christened ‘Surprise Day’ by the children because they never knew what they would get.

Fortunately Ronald was getting some sales. He had sold quite a few lakeside lots during the summer – a farm and one or two acreages.

We had enough money to buy another second hand car. The men in the Real Estate office used to laugh at Ronald’s old car with its badly pitted windscreen and faded paintwork.

Better appearance

The boss, Bill Martin, didn’t think it gave the right image for Empire Real Estate. The new used car had a better appearance.

We had got a Chevrolet again because despite the age of our first one, it had given a good performance. Ronald was happy because the new one would be less likely to break down in outlandish places.

We had taken some awful risks in the old one, sometimes going off to the lake with bald tyres and no spare that was any better, but the old Chevy had seldom let us down.

Ronald was enjoying his job. Empire Real Estate was pleased with his work. He wasn’t a high-powered salesman.

He refused to pressure anyone, so the customers trusted him – it worked.

He had been taught a lot about the tricks of selling, but some of the advice he got he didn’t agree with or adhere to. One such piece of advice was what they called ‘selling the sizzle not the steak’.

Ronald believed honesty was the best policy and stuck to it. (More tomorrow.)