A Lady's Life on a Farm in ManitobaHall, M. G. C. (Mary Georgina Caroline)
History
A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba
Hall, M. G. C. (Mary Georgina Caroline)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Manitoba; Manitoba -- Description and travel
cat who follows him like a dog, sleeps on his bed, and sits next to
him at meals. Mr. B---- has a dear colley with whom he carries on long
conversations, particularly on the subject of the coolness of the
morning and the water in his bath; so you see we have plenty of animal
life about. The men at the tent have a black water-spaniel, which
greatly prefers our fare and warm house to the tent, so is nearly
always here.
* * * * *
May 25th.
We over-slept ourselves this morning, it being a dull day and no
sun to wake us up, so that it was past 6 before any of us made our
appearance. The way we work here would rejoice Uncle F----'s heart
and amaze some of our farmers' wives and daughters. My advice to
all emigrants is to leave their pride to the care of their
families at home before they start, and, like ourselves, put their
hand to everything. We have had some funny experiences; but for
all our hard work we get no kudos or praise, it is all taken as a
matter of course. I would not live in such a place for worlds, but
while it lasts it is great fun; and I think we have done good by
coming out, if only to mend up all the old rags belonging to these
four men. We were much in want of dusters, etc., the first days,
and were told that when the three months' wash which was in
Winnipeg returned we should find everything we wanted, instead of
which there was a fine display of torn under-linen, and stockings
by the dozens, which we have been doing our best to patch up and
darn, but no house linen. We shall do as much washing as we
possibly can manage at home, I expect, as the prices are so
fearful, to say nothing of the inconvenience of being ages without
one's linen. I will just quote a few of the prices from our bill
of the Winnipeg Steam Laundry. Shirts 15 cents, night ditto 10
cents, vests and pants 25 to 50 cents, blankets 50 cents,
counterpanes 35 cents, table-cloths 15 to 35 cents, sheets 10
cents, pillow-slips 5 to 15 cents, night-dresses 15 cents to 1
dollar, petticoats 30 cents to 1 dollar, etc., everything in
proportion. We thought one dollar per dozen all round was
exorbitant, but when hardly anything is less than eightpence (as a
cent, according to the exchange, is more than a halfpenny) it
seems ruinous.
We get 4 dollars 80 cents only for the sovereign here, being
tenpence short of the five dollars.
* * * * *
May 28th.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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