III.-THE SHACK.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11280, 22 May 1902, Page 2

111.-THE SHACK.

However, this is a digression, and it is lime I was getting on to the shack To put is mildly, our equipage in which we were to make our seven miles journey had seen b?tter days. I could not at first appreciate its merits, and was in mortal terror lest it should collapse, for there seemed to be a considerable superfluity of string and rope about the concern which threatened And when we started—my brother and I in front, with the lugjrage tied in behind— ugh! it was awful. The roads, as I have said, were koee-deep in slush ;and if we attempted to go beyond a foot's pace, great clods of mud bespattered us, until we looked more like exaggerated mud-pies than anything else. When this wasn't happening, we were plunging through slextghs (good sized posds) tne horses taking it all as a matter of course, Rowing that this was not their first experience, by any means. At first. I wanted to get out, and, I suppose, take a little swim on my own account; but after a few salutary truths had been hurled at mc, I did as I was told and ' sat tight for the rest of the journey, which, to my unutterable surprise, was accomplished in safety. We' passed no houses, but could see in the distance three or four farmsteads; tne prairie, here all unbroken, being one mass of lovely pate purple anemones (very l*ke our crociis in form, but with an exquisite silvery, fur-like calyx), which appear immediately the thaw Fets in; heralding the spring, and gladdening the hearts of those who have been Jooking so longingly towards its advent. As we drove up to the shack, there appeared a, young Hercules, whom J. introduced as "Ralph, who is helping ais a bit." "You see Ralph, my sister has actually come, after all," he added. The- young man raised his cap, and* seizing my hand, looked mc straight in the eyes, and casually remarked, "I wonder if you'd give a fellow a kiss." I was petrified with horror at this awfut remark, feeling I had indeed landed among savages, though I admit the creature was not unprepossessing in appearance. It was not until I saw a smile on J.s face that I grasped that the young giant was my small brother W., who had five years previously ]«ft mc. nearly drowned in my own tears, because he seemed co young to begin to fight life's battle in the Western wilderness- Certainly the Xorrh-West has treated him right royally, and made him into one of her most devoted sons. They had had a great argument as to whether I should know him or not r hence the littte comedy, which emphatically proved that I did nor. "By Jove! there was m-urder in v«ur eye, and I believe if we hadn't laughed you'd have jumped ou* of the back of the rig and made a streak for town," said W., when I had recovered my equanimity. This uproar brought out of the shack" H., the middle brother. I can see him now in my mind's eye. They had not expected mc till after dinner., so his costume was decidedly of the neglige order; in one hand he held a huge carving-knife, in the other a flitch of bacon, both of which he dropped on an old box outside when he came to give ms a fraternal embrace.; then he escorted mc into the house, picking up tho knifa and flitch «i passant, and proceeded to cut the bacon for the day's dinner, aH he was cook and general chore-boy of the establishment. A log shanty about sixteen feet square, two-thirds of which formed the dweilingroom, the other third being a kind of passage, debris tshed, cail it what you will. In the dwelling-room a stove, a table, a bench, three or four wooden chairs, a book-case-cupboard arrangement, and a bed in the corner, used as a sofa in the day-time; on this bed two dogs and a cat, on the stove a frying-pan wi£h bacon frizzling, a pan of potatoes," and a huge kettle boiling; on the table, a plate, a knife and fork, a cup, and (generally) a saucer for each person, a sugar basin and salt and pepper castors. Such was the vision that greeted mc. Such is the vision that would greet most, sisters who go out to their bachelor brother?. Of cleanliness little, comfort a minus quantity; the bare logs showing where the paper had fallen off. "and daylight appearing here and there where -the Ifine had fallen away. I was describing the scene awhile ago to some friends in England when one of these brothers was -with mc. . "Oh, come, draw it mild," he said, "it wasn't as bad as that" "Wasn't it?" I said; "what about Araminta running in and out through; some of the holes 2" "Araminta. might run through one or ; two," he said, meditatively; "but,you must remember she was a very smalt cat," which, as you will readily perceive, '■effectively proved what horrible hbs I had been guilty of telling! Holes through which a cateven a small one—can crawl, being so usual in housss in England that it is hardly worth mentioning the fact. Under the shanty was a cellar, but the ladder down to it: was.risky, so, needles* to say, I never went. Up a step-ladder with some- of stepe a'missing was .the sleeping-room, into which I was told I must not pry; as, though, they had cleaned the dwelling-room, they had had no time to do anythiflg. upstairs. Being a daughter of Eve, one day I thought, like Fatiiua, to probe the mysteries of this Bluebeard's chamber, and with difficulty ascended, intending to put it to rights. But one. glimpse showed mc I could not. enter upon that herculean labour, and I went down in &■ hurry;: nor did I ever go up again ;until we had our new house built, with nice, clean, comfortable bed-rooms; and I thought, "by way of contrast, I would look once more upon the scene which had horrified mc so that day; by which time I suppose I had become more accustomed to roughing it, at any rate the place did not appear anything like so desperately awful as it previously had done, and I believe my brothers sleep no more comfortably on their good spring beds in the new establishment than they did on straw mattresses pn the floor*of tlfe oW; and sometimes, perchance, they sigh for the good old days, when they could do exactly as they liked, with no thought of anyone beyond themselves. t , Later experiences proved that I could not possibly have hit upon a more inconvenient time than.l dicl for my brothers, as they were in the miaSfc of seeding operations, and had to leave their work in order to look after mc; and, ac" there was not even .the corner I had. so built; upon for my place, they had, in spite of my previous protestations, to drive mc twice a day to and from the kind neighbour who hospitably entertained mc for the short time I could then spare for the prairie. It was not worth my brothers' while to make any. unnecessary preparation tilt they found whether I really would stay with them, and that my much-talked-of plane would not end in smoke. But it was great fun, and I would not have foregone that fortnight on any account. It was so delightful being as abominably untidy as one could be, knowing it did not matter to anyone; for, in spite of our vaunted civilisation, there's a good deal of barbarism left in some of p. Even in this short time I had two visitors—husbands sent over by their wives to spy out the tand and see what I was like. The fir3t one came in his working clothes, and found mc sweeping out the room; to him I could talk with ease, for was he not just as we were? But the other was so well-dressed I had to dust a chair before I could possibly dream of letting him sit on it, while I sat -with the dogs and cats on the couch and tried to talk prettily to him, knowing all the while my face was black as a negro's from cleaning the stove, and that, there was a distinctly dishevelled air about the whole establishment not very likely to prepossess a a state of affairs I candidly confess not tending to put one at one's ease. Since then I have become case-hardened, and even if my lord bishop arrives, I go out to welcome him with the repose of a Vere de Vere, no matter what may be the occupation of the moment. All day my brothers ■ and the tyro young mm helping them were at work on the'land, , and only used to come in for meats, dinner at twelve o'clock, sapper at cix. In those halcyon days washing-up was reduced to a minimum, fox the beef used to be put on the table in the tin ib had been roasted in, and tie potatoes remained in their pan on ' tie stove to be dug out as required: "only a srigantic tea-pot graced the board, farmers being inveterate drinkers of that beverage. At first there was no cream, all the cows being away, for it was considered too much fag to milk them. That was the first improvement the "Missus" effected: a cow was fetched forthwith, and since then the ranch? has never be?n without a splsndid sunplr of milk. It is ijuite a rare thing for a bachelor to keep a cow, and be drinks hie tea from one year's end to another without a drop of cream in it, and pretends he likes it. Be?sng that one can buy a cow for £5. aw} its keep costs practicaSy nothing. I cas"t for the life of mc imagine -why this useful nnimal i*n': a member of "every bachelor's establishment, just as a pig is. This reference reminds mc of an amusing

episode of six months later, after niy return from British Columbia, when "The Boys" had made a little room beside the shanty for mc to live in, until our new house"was buHt. The little spot had formerly been a granary—well known to our porcine friends, no doubt, and it was he-re that I was sleeping placidly one moon-light night when I was awakened by most mysterious sounds difficult to define. Scared out of mv wits, I sat up in bed, and there before trie were six or eight little porkers foraging among my lares and penates for the grain they thought-ought to be there. They had prized the door open evidently with their snouts, and were having a high old time amongst mv clothes. In a moment I was out of bed and among those astonished pigs. At first they gazed in hopeless bewilderment- You know the way they look, IMe snouts in the air, little bead-like eyes peering curiously, little tails curled, and all so alert and ready for whatever may betide. What is this white-clad avenging fiend? they asked—then uttering ear-piercing squeals and grunts they made a desperate rush for the world outside. I, with the lust of vengeance strong upon mc. followed barefooted "in their wake, and the fast I saw of them was their little pmk bodies rushing madly down the bank towards the creek, irresistibiv reminiscent of a scene on the banks of' the Lake of Galilee two thousand years before. _•■•,. Happily" no dire result ensued m this case, for "they were all perfectly sound and flourishing the ne_t day, though no doubt if they had been asked they would have told you they were suffering from nerves, and their descriotion of the ni?;ht before would have been'worthy of Sir John Mandeviffie or tlie redoubtable Baron Munchausen ; but never asain did they dare to approach the shanty, let alone come into the inner sanctum of my room-, where they had seen so appalling an apparition, enough to have sent any less well-balanced piggies into a state of raging lunacy. The amazing part of the whole business was that my belongings in the shack never heard anything, but slept peacefully through it ad, which alarmed mc more than the adventure itself had done. . They forthwith had a strong bolt put on the door by way of atonement for such unf rateroal callousness; though they told mc that if I wanted to dance about the prairie after pigs in _ the moonlight in such madcap fashion, I might have the dogs and cats to assist mc, but they must beg to be excused from joining in "such an unconventional proceeding, as they at a.ny rate had a hitherto unblemished reputation" for sanity to maintain.