DEPTH OF THE FURROWS 279 



purpose to haul in a wagonload to the elevator you 

 couldn't get a decent offer for it. So that you pulled off 

 your mitts and clenched your frost-cracked hands as 

 you prepared to turn homeward with but a pitiful 

 portion of the food and clothing you had promised the 

 family you would bring. As you spread across your 

 chest, inside your sheepskin coat, the old newspaper 

 somebody had given you would your soul expand with 

 the joy of living while you headed out into the snowy 

 waste at forty degrees below zero? 



And if after you got home and the crying young ones 

 had been put to bed in the corner behind the canvas 

 curtain and your wife came and sat beside you, her own 

 tears bravely dried if then you read in the paper that 

 the Government had decided you farmers were so 

 prosperous you should contribute from your easily 

 gained wealth a free gift to manufacturers, financiers, 

 railway magnates or others then would you say with 

 a great booming, hearty enthusiasm and shining eyes : 

 " I tell you, Wife, this is the life!" would you? 



Or would you just proceed to swear naturally, suc- 

 cessfully, in what is known as "flowing" language? 



By just such pioneer hardships were the farmers of 

 Western Canada driven to organize in self-defence. It 

 has ever been the history of revolt that its wellspring 

 was the suffering of the people. Pioneer hardships it 

 was that caused the various movements which agitated 

 the farmers of the Western States in earlier days. 

 When fingers become hardened and crooked from 

 unceasing toil that achieves nothing but premature old 

 age; when hope withers in a treadmill that grinds to 

 the very soul then comes rebellion. 





