Chapter 2.
Early Days on the Homestead
In the Grouard barber-shop Jack learned from Sourdogh Johnson, the barber, that the type of land he was looking for could be found across the West Prairie River about twenty miles from town.
Jack located a quarter about four miles from the present town of High Prairie, and was clearing a spot for a garden when his Uncle John came and told him he was leaving the country and he wanted his half of the outfit, one horse and harness for him and half of the wagon.
The horse was to be broke to drive single and Uncle John was to take the pick of the team.
This was to Jack a body blow that was almost a killing punch. For a long time he had thought that dying was the best thing his Uncle ever would do but he hadn't expected this.
Uncle John leaving with half the outfit would leave him practically helpless and almost in the class of a Suitcase homesteader.
Much of the flour he had shipped to Grouard had been ruined by water, while in the Companys warehouse and now besides losing his food supply he was losing half his outfit. He could only accede to John's demands, however and break the buckskin gelding John had chosen to drive Single. He drew what consolation he could from alternitively wishin he had murdered John back in the swamp, or that John's parents had practised a more rigid form of birth control
Uncle John left for Grande Prairie on the tenth of June driving a cart he had made out of the hind wheels of the wagon over the Sturgeon Lake Trail which is now Highway Thirty Four.
Jack heard with unchristian Joy the next winter that he had struck such tough going that he didn't get to Grande Prairie till after freeze up though it's only about one hundred miles.
After Uncle John left Jack and Bill Cross, Jacks only neighbour, combined their horse power and did their breaking with three horses. They went to Grouard for the Dominion Day Sports and were rainbound in town for the next three or four days.
While in town Jack strained both his. his credit and his vocabulary talking a dealer out of a new mower and rake which he and Bill were taking home with them over the water soaked Grouard Trail.
After straining their horses their backs and their combined vocabularies for hours they arrived at the East Prairie River and found the bridge washed out. Jack wanted to build a raft and ferry their stuff over but Bill wanted to go back and travel to their homesteads by the Big Prairie Trail a distance of fifty miles. By this time Jack was well used to arguing with his partners at bad spots along the trail and he usualy lost the argument. But this time an Indian happened along before the discussion became heated and told them that all the bridges were washed out on the Big Prairie Trail.
they had just finished building a raft when Lew Hyslop arrived with thirty seven pack horses and a party of workers for the railroad right of way that was being cleared by the Edmonton, Dunvegon and British Columbia railroad. The railroad, later was often called Ever Dangerous and Badly Constructed Railroad.
Crossing swollen rivers was a common place occurance to Lew Hyslop who immediately took charge of the situation. He sent six men to the farther bank with an endless rope made by tying the lash ropes which had held the packs on the horses together.
He sent the horses across first. They were tied to the endless rope about ten feet apart and were sent to the other side of the river, the six men pulling on the rope, saved them from the danger of being swept downstream and drowned.
After the horses were safely across the raft was tied to the rope and went back and forth across the river until all the equipment and people had crossed on Lew's impromptu and efficient ferry.
It was far too wet to do any haying so Jack got a job hauling supplies with a wagon for the survey party.He used Bill's wagon and borrowed a horse from Lew to drive with Queen.
Though the outfit he drove had a multitude of owners the job was still a godsend to Jack, for it enabled him to earn wages in the daytime and still get his residential duties in on the homestead by spending nights there. Residential duties were always a headache to Northern homesteaders. The law required a man to live on his homestead for six months of a year for three years and he also had to accomplish a certain amount of improvements such as breaking the land and putting up buildings.
Winter wages were low so if a man worked out all winter he still didn't have enough money to live on during the summer and pay for his improvements. On the other hand if a man worked out in the summer he couldn't do much on the homestead in winter because the snow was too deep.
The job with Lew tided him over nicely but he didn't get a chance to use his new mower and rake that summer because it rained to much to put up any hay.
That winter he got a job with a Dominion Land Survey outfit which was working North of Gourard. The crew did their work on the snowshoes and slept in tents. It was a poor sort of camp even for those days. There was no bull-cook and the men had to saw wood for the bunk tent fires after a full days work in the bush. There are still four men from that camp in the country. The three besides Jack are; Bill Jacobs, Andrew Neary, and Jack Morris. (3 have passed away now. June 1975).
Jack quit the camp in March and go a job hauling feed for a farmers stock. He spent Seventy five Dollars for a horse and harness and though the horse was too small to mate Queen, at least he had two good horses he could drive together. He contented himself with the knowledge that homesteaders didn't usually have matched teams and he and Bill Cross could hook four horses onto four horse machinery.
The summer of 1914 passed uneventfully. Jack and Bill worked together to get their tiny patches of crop seeded and to get a little more clearing and breaking done on each of their homesteads. Other homesteaders filed on land on their side of the river. The war raged in Europe for weeks before news of it arrived at Grouard.
The local homesteaders decided to hold a fair at High Prairie which at that time consisted of one house, and the 18th of September was the date agreed on. The people enjoyed the get together though the exhibited vegetables lived up to neither the governments promises nor the pictures in the seed catalogue.
Because Jacks little mare Queen had won all the horse races in the country since he had brought her to High Prairie people thought Jack was a wonderful rider. The credit belonged to the horse not the man. But neither Jack nor his neighbours knew that Guy Rogers asked him to ride a mare he had in one of the races. Jack agreed to do so.
At the start of the race Jack was riding in, his mount refused to run and started to buck instead. Jack was thrown into a big willow bush and his foot was twisted till it was right angles to his body. His spill from the horse was followed by great excitement and little help.
There wasn't a person in the crowd who knew the first thing about first aid. Someone produced a bottle of whiskey from which Jack drank in an expert manner while the excited first aid volunteers bandaged his leg in an inexpert manner with a towel.
The only Doctor in the district had left Grouard the day before on the last boat of the season. The whiskey put Jack to sleep till 3 o'clock in the afternoon. That was to be the last unbroken sleep he'd had for sixteen years. Jack stayed for a week with Fred Couture and his siter who owned the only house in High Prairie at that time.
At the end of a week he had learned to get around a little on crutches and he moved back to his own cabin on the homestead. The infant community of High Prairie still accepted full responsibility for him however and two local girls Hazel and Stella Smith came every day to look after his pig and chickens and see that there was plenty of prepared food on hand.
He was learning to get around better on his homemade crutches by that time but the girls daily visits helped ease the loneliness of the seriously ill, but nothing seemed to ease the pain in his ankle except rubbing it with turpentine and holding it in a pail of ice (insert: cold) water
The sick always suffer worst at night and though the girls visits made the days tolerable the nights seemed both endless and unendurable. The pain was so severe that he could only get about ten minutes sleep at a time and could only endure the night and hope for the dawn and the girls company to take his mind off the pain.
Every Sunday a bunch of the local boys arrived to saw a weeks supply of wood for him and have a part after they had made sure his needs for the week were amply supplied.
Thus the fall passed with entire community accepting Jack as its own responsibility and everyone doing all in their power to ease his lot. One man rented Jacks team for threshing and with the money added to what he had made on the railroad grade earlier that summer and the sale of his tiny bit of crop he was able to live through the fall.
"Ladies and Gentlemen I have an announcement to make, " cried the caller at a dance in a homesteaders house at High Prairie later that fall, "We are now going to draw lots to see who wins the sow Jack Napier is raffling off. Jack as you all know is our most useless citizen. He is too decrepit to work and too stubborn to die. He has survived the Ladies cooking and the mens jokes all fall and has lived in spite of my most heartfelt prayers.
Seriously though folks were our positions reversed we all know Jack Napier would be the first man to offer his help. I only made those opening remarks for whatever humor their may be in them.
And now Jack have you any last request to make before we draw lots for the pig?
"Yes I have, " Jack answered. There are three tickets left and I want to donate one of them to each of the three girls who were most active in selling tickets for me. They were Mildred Munhall, Stella Smith, and Gladys Bliss."
Mildred and Stella accepted their tickets with Thanks but Gladys demured.
"I have no way of getting the pig home even if I do win it Jack, " she told Jack.
"You just go ahead and win that pig and I'll deliver it for you, " Jack promised.
"Thats a double header for you Glady, " some one in the crowd said, "you win the pig and deliver too, the rest of us have to get it home by ourselves if we win."
Gladys finaly accepted her ticket and the tickets were finaly placed in a hat and well stirred up. The floor manager drew a ticket out of the had and called the winner's name.
"Glady Bliss" he announced is the winner of the pig."
The next day some of the neighbour boys came over and loaded Gladys's pig onto a sleigh and insisted on Jack coming with them to the Bliss home.
The entire Bliss family insisted on Jack staying with them for a few days. The pleasure Jack got out of spending a week in a family circle after three months batching in his physical conditio was almost indescribable.
Jack refused to stay with them all winter. He took stock of his assets and decided that he could be partly self supporting. There were a number of men who had worked teams on the railroad grade all summer who now had neither work for their horses nor a place to keep them.
Jack had his homestead all fenced and he made a deal with some of these men to let their horses loose on his quarter and in return they were to supply him with grub. They did a little better than he asked. One or two of them always showed up to saw his firewood and they did most of the cooking. There was always some one to see that his needs were met without too much effort on his part.
In spite of all the help the community gave so willingly Jacks misery was beyond belief. The pain in his ankle was so intense that he could only sleep about ten minutes at a time and to do that he had to keep rubbing it with turpentine and hold t in a tub of snow.
He decided against going to Edmonton by freight team, on the trail he would have to camp out at night and could only freeze during the day.
When the long awaited railroad got to High Prairie in the Spring of 1915. Jack was the first to use the train service from High Prairie.
Jack had very little money left but a collection was taken up and he was able to eat and buy a ticket to Edmonton. In Edmonton he met Tom Moody whom he had known well in Perth Ontario. At that time Tom was planning to run a stage line from the end of steel at Reno to Peace River.
He was buying horses for his stage line and he gave Jack the job of city breaking them. The horses had already been broken to harness, but they needed training in handling themselves in heavy traffic.
The other men hitched the team to be driven unto a buggy and Jack took them into the places where the traffic was most congested and drove them around there for an hour or so than drove back to the barn and took another team into heavy traffic and repeated the performance. The other men attended to the hitching and unhitching of the horses so Jack was spared the pain of hobbling around on crutches after he once got into the buggy.
While Jack worked for Tom Moody he stayed at the Moody home where he was treated as one of the family.
The Edmonton Doctors had told him that they could do nothing for his foot except take his leg off at the knee. Jack didn't like that idea at all and decided to see what the Eastern Doctors could do and to see his parents at the same time.
Tom's daughter Ellen, had come to Edmonton from Jack's home town and she had a return ticket. The ticket was still good when Jack finished working for Tom and she gave it to him to go East with.
He had Thirty Five Dollars and his ticket when he left Edmonton, He had to practically hoard these few dollars on the trip EAst and hoarding money is not an easy thing for a man of action to do on the tiresome trip from Edmonton to Eastern Ontario
On arrival at his home, is parents did all in their power to have his leg fixed but it was useless. The Eastern Doctors could only do what their Western Colleagues had offered to do, cut his leg off at the knee. The ankle-bones had all grown into a misshapen mess beyond the medical skill of that time. The exposed nerve which caused the pain was beyond them too. His father refused to advance money to have his leg amputated, not because he begrudged the money, but he felt that any foot was better than none.
After Jack had accepted the fact that he was to be a cripple for life he decided to return west again. Though both his father and mother pleaded with him he remained firm in his decision to return to his homestead. He knew that if he stayed with his parents their kindness to him would sap his self reliance and he would eventually become wholly dependent on them.
That decision of Jacks caused this book to be written. He refused to accept money from his father who cried at this departure. Jack came west on a harvest excursion. He borrowed a few dollars from his brother Dan who went west with him to see what the west was like.
They went to Antler Saskatchewan where Jack had worked before he had moved North. He had belonged to the Atheletic Club and had won a lot of wrestling matches while he lived there. When the people who knew him learned of his condition the town all but adopted him.
He got a job driving a binder. The farmer saw to it that he had a gentle outfit of horses so he could ride one to and from the field and carry the crutches he had learned to use so skillfully. Though his pain was almost unendurable he quietly and courageously accepted his lot and neither complained nor expected sympathy. He realized that about the only work he could do was drive horses on some work that required the teamster ride the equipment behind the horses. Fortunately for Jack there were many such jobs available then. After harvest he got a job tanking for a threshing outfit.
****On the back of this page is written the following: Charlie Spalding didn't buy Mac Leods out till 1918. It was Mac Leods who took Jack in . gave him livery work etc. ****
The farmer saw to it that Jack had a gentle team that would carry him and his crutches to and from the barn. He made a rest for his knee beside the pump on the tank and was able to use both hands to pump the tank full of water. The engine pumped the water from the tank into its boiler so Jacks duties consisted mostly of driving the team and looking after them. During the Forty Seven days Jack put in threshing he proved to the world and his own satisfaction that he was still useful enough to make his own living.
After threshing he returned to High Prairie where he found his crop ruined by loose stock. ****Charlie Spaulding had bought Mack Leods hotel and Charlie**** through sympathy for a cripple gave Jack a job in the livery barn. His wages included board and room and a stall in the barn for his team and feed for them so with the extra work he got in with his time he did well.
The railroad had moved its camp form High Prairie but there were still a lot of shacks to be shipped from High Prairie to the camp that was then being used
Jack got all of this work.
Thus Jack found as many other Courageous cripples and that there are many willing to help the handicapped if they have the courage to help themselves.
For a time he worked with Slim Levans Slim was a large good-natured man but very bullheaded. He was also inexperienced with horses and would listen to no instructions concerning their care and handling. He was married to Mac Leods daughter Arabelle.
He and Jack went with two sleighs for feed. Though the snow was deep and the trail badly cut off in places Slim insisted putting on two hugs loads. After repeatedly upsetting both loads they put on one small load and went home with it and got the other two loads next day.
Later they were going for a load of wood with four horses on one sleigh. Jack was to do the driving and Slim as to cut the load. Slim had bragged in his good natured fashion that he was going to bring in the biggest load of wood High Prairie had ever seen. When they arrived at a good place to cut dry wood Jack went ahead of the team to find a place to turn the sleigh around Slim commenced to get chilly so he decided to fall a tree to warm up. His judgement in falling timber proved as faulty as it was in loading hay. The top of the tree he had cut down hit one of the horses in the head and knocked it down. When Jack returned to the sleigh he found Slim down on his knees in the snow holding the horses mouth open and blowing down its throat to revive it. The horse was past reviving by artificial means in fact it was dead.
The people in High Prairie kidded Slim a lot for killing the horse. Slim took it good naturedly for quite a while but at last it got under his skin. They continued to tease him till one man went too far altogether. Before the kicking and biting was finished High Prairie in general, and Slim's antagonist in particular knew that while Slim was no teamster and a worse woodsman he was a well trained athlete.
When you drive a man of Slims disposition to violence you have something very unpleasant on your hands. None of the holds Slim used on his discouraged victim were calculated to be soothing. At last he decided that the man had seen the error of his ways and Slim let him go. Slim's victim in common with the rest of High Prairie sought less violent forms of amusement from then on.
Before the railroad came North a real estate company had sold town lots at Grouard that were at the bottom of Lessar Slave Lake and covered with six feet of water. People who had invested money in these sunken lots came to High Prairie by train to inspect their property, Jack usually got the job of driving them to Grouard where they found that though the real estate company had vanished the Lake had not and the railroad had missed Grouard by eleven miles. On the trip back to High Prairie he listened to their ideas concerning the evils of humanity. Jack is the soul of sympathetic understanding so he made many friends among the victims of the swindling company. He got extra pay for all these trips so he did well all winter.
In the Spring Mc Leod staked his son-in-law Slim Levans to a farming outfit and made arrangements for Jack to work with Slim til Slim had some idea of how the work was accomplished.
Jack was driving three horses on a Sulky plow and Slim drove two big colts on a twelve inch walking plow. Jack made the first strike out for Slim and than made another strikeout for himself. He didn't want to work with Slim's team behind or in front of him.
When Slim started to plow he showed as little judgement as he had formerly used. A huge strong man and a trained athlete holding a walking plow was nothing for him, so he decided he could plow faster at a trot. Trotting with a tiny walking plow was nothing for the big fresh colts he drove so for a time Slim went round his field in sort of a race with himself. Meanwhile he occasionaly called over to Jack to, "com on you little shrimp keep up." Jack called back. "I'll have alot more done tonight than you will."
Slim and his team continued to plow at a trot using much of muscle and little of mind till the plow hit a stump. Neither the plow rigging nor Slim's body were meant to stand this treatment. The clivis that holds the doubletrees to the plow broke and Slim had the lines tied around his back. The team took off when the clevis broke, they knocked Slim's wind out against the crossbar between the plow handles, and when the lines went over his head they almost tore his ears off.
The team ran with the doubletrees swinging behind them and Slim followed them at a broken winded gallop. Jack saw the accident but could only take his plow out of the ground and trot his team behind Slim and the runaways. The colts ran over the creek bank at the end of the field and itno the creek just as the doubletrees caught on a birch stump. The sudden stop threw both colts and the taut traces held them helpless in the water.
When Jack arrived on the scene Slim was standing helplessly on the creek bank almost sobbing, "Jack I've killed my horses, " he repeated over and over. "Cut the hamestraps and bellybands, " Jack ordered as soon as he saw the predicament the horses were in.
At the word cut Slim pulled a razor sharp hunting knife and plunged down the creek bank in a frame of mind that can only be described as knife happy. Instead of cutting the hamestraps and bellybands as Jack had told him to do he cut every strap as he came to it. Traces, backbands, lines were all slashed before Jack could hobble down the brush choked creek bank and talk some reasoning ability into Slim's overwrought mind. When the team were finaly cut loose a set of harness that had been new that morning was almost beyond repair. Mac Leods mental condition when he saw the shape of the new harness was in is better imagined that described.
Slim's farming didn't improve and much internal strife developed between him and fatherinlaw concerning farming facts and fancies. Later in the summer Slim enlisted in a section of the army where their were no horses. The only thing wrong with Slim was a around High Prairie he was a square peg in a round hole. He was loyal to his friends and generous to everybody but he couldn't understand the type of work he was trying to do.
At the time (inserted: in fall of 1917) Spaulding bought the hotel from Mac. Leod, it was a frame building with a canvas roof. With the influx of new settlers a good building became imperative and Spaulding built the present hotel across the street from the old canvas covered structure. Much has been added to the hotel Charlie Spaulding built but the original building is still a part of the hotel. The old canvas covered hotel was torn down and hauled away.
Spaulding kept Jack steadily at work. He used Jack's horses for his draying work so Jack was sure of his living and could spend a little to improve his homestead.
One of his pleasantest duties while he worked for Mr. Spaulding was keeping the driving teams exercised. Charlie kept the best buggy team in the country and he kept them in the barn. If he didn't use them it was Jack's job to drive them a few miles a day to keep them fit for the hard trips Mr. Spaulding sometimes had to make. If Jack wanted to take a girl out he had the free use of the driving team and buggy, if Mr. Spaulding didn't need them.
At the end of the second winter Jack had worked for Mr.Spaulding , a Hudson Bay Official came with a rush order for four teams to take a load of freight to Sturgeon Lake. The teams each hauled two tones of freight. The bottom was completely gone from the road and the sleighs cut off and threatened to upset continually. The South side of th ehils were bare, on some of the worst hills they had to hitch two teams to each sleigh to get to the top. In spite of all this grief they made Gladues stopping house at Snipe Lake the first of the day.
In the morning they had some difficulty starting Sig Fewang's load which was frozen down. The other teamsters had put poplar poles under their runners so the sleighs were easy to start in the mornings but Sig had just unhitched from his sleigh and the four runners were frozen into the slush. The sleigh was eventually jarred loose and the journey resumed.
At the crossing of the Little Smoky River there was a lot of water on top of the ice and the men were doubtful of the ice holding up under the loads. The ice held up however and their onl trouble was when one of Sig's horses balked on one of the hills. The horse at last decided to work. They had to hitch two teams to each sleigh on the worst parts of the trail till they reached Valley-View. From there on their the sleighing was good. At Sturgeon Lake the men received their pay which amounted to a homesteaders fortune. They got forty Dollars a piece and the trip back with the empty sleighs was uneventful.
Every Sunday a bunch of the local boys arrived to saw a weeks supply of wood for him and have a part after they had made sure his needs for the week were amply supplied.
Thus the fall passed with entire community accepting Jack as its own responsibility and everyone doing all in their power to ease his lot. One man rented Jacks team for threshing and with the money added to what he had made on the railroad grade earlier that summer and the sale of his tiny bit of crop he was able to live through the fall.
"Ladies and Gentlemen I have an announcement to make, " cried the caller at a dance in a homesteaders house at High Prairie later that fall, "We are now going to draw lots to see who wins the sow Jack Napier is raffling off. Jack as you all know is our most useless citizen. He is too decrepit to work and too stubborn to die. He has survived the Ladies cooking and the mens jokes all fall and has lived in spite of my most heartfelt prayers.
Seriously though folks were our positions reversed we all know Jack Napier would be the first man to offer his help. I only made those opening remarks for whatever humor their may be in them.
And now Jack have you any last request to make before we draw lots for the pig?
"Yes I have, " Jack answered. There are three tickets left and I want to donate one of them to each of the three girls who were most active in selling tickets for me. They were Mildred Munhall, Stella Smith, and Gladys Bliss."
Mildred and Stella accepted their tickets with Thanks but Gladys demured.
"I have no way of getting the pig home even if I do win it Jack, " she told Jack.
"You just go ahead and win that pig and I'll deliver it for you, " Jack promised.
"Thats a double header for you Glady, " some one in the crowd said, "you win the pig and deliver too, the rest of us have to get it home by ourselves if we win."
Gladys finaly accepted her ticket and the tickets were finaly placed in a hat and well stirred up. The floor manager drew a ticket out of the had and called the winner's name.
"Glady Bliss" he announced is the winner of the pig."
The next day some of the neighbour boys came over and loaded Gladys's pig onto a sleigh and insisted on Jack coming with them to the Bliss home.
The entire Bliss family insisted on Jack staying with them for a few days. The pleasure Jack got out of spending a week in a family circle after three months batching in his physical conditio was almost indescribable.
Jack refused to stay with them all winter. He took stock of his assets and decided that he could be partly self supporting. There were a number of men who had worked teams on the railroad grade all summer who now had neither work for their horses nor a place to keep them.
Jack had his homestead all fenced and he made a deal with some of these men to let their horses loose on his quarter and in return they were to supply him with grub. They did a little better than he asked. One or two of them always showed up to saw his firewood and they did most of the cooking. There was always some one to see that his needs were met without too much effort on his part.
In spite of all the help the community gave so willingly Jacks misery was beyond belief. The pain in his ankle was so intense that he could only sleep about ten minutes at a time and to do that he had to keep rubbing it with turpentine and hold t in a tub of snow.
He decided against going to Edmonton by freight team, on the trail he would have to camp out at night and could only freeze during the day.
When the long awaited railroad got to High Prairie in the Spring of 1915. Jack was the first to use the train service from High Prairie.
Jack had very little money left but a collection was taken up and he was able to eat and buy a ticket to Edmonton. In Edmonton he met Tom Moody whom he had known well in Perth Ontario. At that time Tom was planning to run a stage line from the end of steel at Reno to Peace River.
He was buying horses for his stage line and he gave Jack the job of city breaking them. The horses had already been broken to harness, but they needed training in handling themselves in heavy traffic.
The other men hitched the team to be driven unto a buggy and Jack took them into the places where the traffic was most congested and drove them around there for an hour or so than drove back to the barn and took another team into heavy traffic and repeated the performance. The other men attended to the hitching and unhitching of the horses so Jack was spared the pain of hobbling around on crutches after he once got into the buggy.
While Jack worked for Tom Moody he stayed at the Moody home where he was treated as one of the family.
The Edmonton Doctors had told him that they could do nothing for his foot except take his leg off at the knee. Jack didn't like that idea at all and decided to see what the Eastern Doctors could do and to see his parents at the same time.
Tom's daughter Ellen, had come to Edmonton from Jack's home town and she had a return ticket. The ticket was still good when Jack finished working for Tom and she gave it to him to go East with.
He had Thirty Five Dollars and his ticket when he left Edmonton, He had to practically hoard these few dollars on the trip EAst and hoarding money is not an easy thing for a man of action to do on the tiresome trip from Edmonton to Eastern Ontario
On arrival at his home, is parents did all in their power to have his leg fixed but it was useless. The Eastern Doctors could only do what their Western Colleagues had offered to do, cut his leg off at the knee. The ankle-bones had all grown into a misshapen mess beyond the medical skill of that time. The exposed nerve which caused the pain was beyond them too. His father refused to advance money to have his leg amputated, not because he begrudged the money, but he felt that any foot was better than none.
After Jack had accepted the fact that he was to be a cripple for life he decided to return west again. Though both his father and mother pleaded with him he remained firm in his decision to return to his homestead. He knew that if he stayed with his parents their kindness to him would sap his self reliance and he would eventually become wholly dependent on them.
That decision of Jacks caused this book to be written. He refused to accept money from his father who cried at this departure. Jack came west on a harvest excursion. He borrowed a few dollars from his brother Dan who went west with him to see what the west was like.
They went to Antler Saskatchewan where Jack had worked before he had moved North. He had belonged to the Atheletic Club and had won a lot of wrestling matches while he lived there. When the people who knew him learned of his condition the town all but adopted him.
He got a job driving a binder. The farmer saw to it that he had a gentle outfit of horses so he could ride one to and from the field and carry the crutches he had learned to use so skillfully. Though his pain was almost unendurable he quietly and courageously accepted his lot and neither complained nor expected sympathy. He realized that about the only work he could do was drive horses on some work that required the teamster ride the equipment behind the horses. Fortunately for Jack there were many such jobs available then. After harvest he got a job tanking for a threshing outfit.
****On the back of this page is written the following: Charlie Spalding didn't buy Mac Leods out till 1918. It was Mac Leods who took Jack in . gave him livery work etc. ****
The farmer saw to it that Jack had a gentle team that would carry him and his crutches to and from the barn. He made a rest for his knee beside the pump on the tank and was able to use both hands to pump the tank full of water. The engine pumped the water from the tank into its boiler so Jacks duties consisted mostly of driving the team and looking after them. During the Forty Seven days Jack put in threshing he proved to the world and his own satisfaction that he was still useful enough to make his own living.
After threshing he returned to High Prairie where he found his crop ruined by loose stock. ****Charlie Spaulding had bought Mack Leods hotel and Charlie**** through sympathy for a cripple gave Jack a job in the livery barn. His wages included board and room and a stall in the barn for his team and feed for them so with the extra work he got in with his time he did well.
The railroad had moved its camp form High Prairie but there were still a lot of shacks to be shipped from High Prairie to the camp that was then being used
Jack got all of this work.
Thus Jack found as many other Courageous cripples and that there are many willing to help the handicapped if they have the courage to help themselves.
For a time he worked with Slim Levans Slim was a large good-natured man but very bullheaded. He was also inexperienced with horses and would listen to no instructions concerning their care and handling. He was married to Mac Leods daughter Arabelle.
He and Jack went with two sleighs for feed. Though the snow was deep and the trail badly cut off in places Slim insisted putting on two hugs loads. After repeatedly upsetting both loads they put on one small load and went home with it and got the other two loads next day.
Later they were going for a load of wood with four horses on one sleigh. Jack was to do the driving and Slim as to cut the load. Slim had bragged in his good natured fashion that he was going to bring in the biggest load of wood High Prairie had ever seen. When they arrived at a good place to cut dry wood Jack went ahead of the team to find a place to turn the sleigh around Slim commenced to get chilly so he decided to fall a tree to warm up. His judgement in falling timber proved as faulty as it was in loading hay. The top of the tree he had cut down hit one of the horses in the head and knocked it down. When Jack returned to the sleigh he found Slim down on his knees in the snow holding the horses mouth open and blowing down its throat to revive it. The horse was past reviving by artificial means in fact it was dead.
The people in High Prairie kidded Slim a lot for killing the horse. Slim took it good naturedly for quite a while but at last it got under his skin. They continued to tease him till one man went too far altogether. Before the kicking and biting was finished High Prairie in general, and Slim's antagonist in particular knew that while Slim was no teamster and a worse woodsman he was a well trained athlete.
When you drive a man of Slims disposition to violence you have something very unpleasant on your hands. None of the holds Slim used on his discouraged victim were calculated to be soothing. At last he decided that the man had seen the error of his ways and Slim let him go. Slim's victim in common with the rest of High Prairie sought less violent forms of amusement from then on.
Before the railroad came North a real estate company had sold town lots at Grouard that were at the bottom of Lessar Slave Lake and covered with six feet of water. People who had invested money in these sunken lots came to High Prairie by train to inspect their property, Jack usually got the job of driving them to Grouard where they found that though the real estate company had vanished the Lake had not and the railroad had missed Grouard by eleven miles. On the trip back to High Prairie he listened to their ideas concerning the evils of humanity. Jack is the soul of sympathetic understanding so he made many friends among the victims of the swindling company. He got extra pay for all these trips so he did well all winter.
In the Spring Mc Leod staked his son-in-law Slim Levans to a farming outfit and made arrangements for Jack to work with Slim til Slim had some idea of how the work was accomplished.
Jack was driving three horses on a Sulky plow and Slim drove two big colts on a twelve inch walking plow. Jack made the first strike out for Slim and than made another strikeout for himself. He didn't want to work with Slim's team behind or in front of him.
When Slim started to plow he showed as little judgement as he had formerly used. A huge strong man and a trained athlete holding a walking plow was nothing for him, so he decided he could plow faster at a trot. Trotting with a tiny walking plow was nothing for the big fresh colts he drove so for a time Slim went round his field in sort of a race with himself. Meanwhile he occasionaly called over to Jack to, "com on you little shrimp keep up." Jack called back. "I'll have alot more done tonight than you will."
Slim and his team continued to plow at a trot using much of muscle and little of mind till the plow hit a stump. Neither the plow rigging nor Slim's body were meant to stand this treatment. The clivis that holds the doubletrees to the plow broke and Slim had the lines tied around his back. The team took off when the clevis broke, they knocked Slim's wind out against the crossbar between the plow handles, and when the lines went over his head they almost tore his ears off.
The team ran with the doubletrees swinging behind them and Slim followed them at a broken winded gallop. Jack saw the accident but could only take his plow out of the ground and trot his team behind Slim and the runaways. The colts ran over the creek bank at the end of the field and itno the creek just as the doubletrees caught on a birch stump. The sudden stop threw both colts and the taut traces held them helpless in the water.
When Jack arrived on the scene Slim was standing helplessly on the creek bank almost sobbing, "Jack I've killed my horses, " he repeated over and over. "Cut the hamestraps and bellybands, " Jack ordered as soon as he saw the predicament the horses were in.
At the word cut Slim pulled a razor sharp hunting knife and plunged down the creek bank in a frame of mind that can only be described as knife happy. Instead of cutting the hamestraps and bellybands as Jack had told him to do he cut every strap as he came to it. Traces, backbands, lines were all slashed before Jack could hobble down the brush choked creek bank and talk some reasoning ability into Slim's overwrought mind. When the team were finaly cut loose a set of harness that had been new that morning was almost beyond repair. Mac Leods mental condition when he saw the shape of the new harness was in is better imagined that described.
Slim's farming didn't improve and much internal strife developed between him and fatherinlaw concerning farming facts and fancies. Later in the summer Slim enlisted in a section of the army where their were no horses. The only thing wrong with Slim was a around High Prairie he was a square peg in a round hole. He was loyal to his friends and generous to everybody but he couldn't understand the type of work he was trying to do.
At the time (inserted: in fall of 1917) Spaulding bought the hotel from Mac. Leod, it was a frame building with a canvas roof. With the influx of new settlers a good building became imperative and Spaulding built the present hotel across the street from the old canvas covered structure. Much has been added to the hotel Charlie Spaulding built but the original building is still a part of the hotel. The old canvas covered hotel was torn down and hauled away.
Spaulding kept Jack steadily at work. He used Jack's horses for his draying work so Jack was sure of his living and could spend a little to improve his homestead.
One of his pleasantest duties while he worked for Mr. Spaulding was keeping the driving teams exercised. Charlie kept the best buggy team in the country and he kept them in the barn. If he didn't use them it was Jack's job to drive them a few miles a day to keep them fit for the hard trips Mr. Spaulding sometimes had to make. If Jack wanted to take a girl out he had the free use of the driving team and buggy, if Mr. Spaulding didn't need them.
At the end of the second winter Jack had worked for Mr.
In the morning they had some difficulty starting Sig Fewang's load which was frozen down. The other teamsters had put poplar poles under their runners so the sleighs were easy to start in the mornings but Sig had just unhitched from his sleigh and the four runners were frozen into the slush. The sleigh was eventually jarred loose and the journey resumed.
At the crossing of the Little Smoky River there was a lot of water on top of the ice and the men were doubtful of the ice holding up under the loads. The ice held up however and their onl trouble was when one of Sig's horses balked on one of the hills. The horse at last decided to work. They had to hitch two teams to each sleigh on the worst parts of the trail till they reached Valley-View. From there on their the sleighing was good. At Sturgeon Lake the men received their pay which amounted to a homesteaders fortune. They got forty Dollars a piece and the trip back with the empty sleighs was uneventful.
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