138 Old Days on the Farm 



chine with a long rope — the horses drew the sepa- 

 rator about from place to place. We were boarded 

 by the farmers but carried our bedding with us 

 and slept in granaries, stables and sheds. Most 

 farmhouses in those days were very small and the 

 advent of sixteen men meant crowding. Those 

 who were crowded out went to the stable or gran- 

 ary. To-day, I am informed, many Western out- 

 fits — and there are thousands in the West now — 

 have their own cabooses to sleep in and furnish 

 their own meals. 



Compared with the ** Threshing Day" meals 

 that I remember in Old Ontario, that Western 

 grub was poor indeed. Down here at least, the 

 women of the farmer's household vied with each 

 other in old days, in furnishing the most appetis- 

 ing and attractive meals that could be produced. 

 Out West we had potatoes, bread, glucose syrup, 

 salt pork and a very indifferent quality of butter. 

 Fruit was a luxury, indeed, and rarely on the 

 bill-of-fare in any form. But we had appetites, 

 oh, my I 



A **suepbise" party 



I recall one evening that our outfit was domi- 

 ciled in a bachelor's small frame house near Lake 

 Manitoba. The whole sixteen were sleeping in 

 the loft on the floor when a ''surprise party" of 

 young folks from High Bluff or Poplar Point, 

 invaded that bachelor's home. They had driven 

 nearly twenty miles across the prairie to *'sur- 



