26 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



On that afternoon tall groups of sunflowers and 

 banks of golden rod lifted rain-washed faces to the 

 warmth of the harvest sun. Masses of mauve 

 daisy reminded one that sweet and somewhat sad 

 September was in London too. Gorgeous violet 

 thistles, looking like kings of Scotland in love with 

 exile, mingled with roses whose colour deepens 

 and glows with the tint that the sun brings back 

 from the land beyond the horizon. In full bloom 

 and full head they reigned amidst vagrant beds of 

 barley, of vagabond wild oats ; they curled round 

 the stems of the sunflowers, and clung to the beds 

 of burr which marked the place where the blue 

 forget-me-not had been; and even in the few 

 solitary acres which my predecessor had turned 

 in July the rose of the prairie triumphed over 

 the power of the plough. From end to end 

 of this exquisite garden the measure was half 

 a mile. I never walk or work on " forty acres " 

 without remembering it as I saw it then; and 

 although the price of that lovely vision proved 

 to be several seasons of anxiety, toil, and an extra- 

 ordinary share of that burden of financial worry 

 which must attend every business proposition 

 not soundly enclosed within a fence of adequate 

 capital, it lives in one's memory as a sunbeam, and 

 it was a phase of Canada that one knew even better 

 than the Canadians — those flowers were peculiarly 

 mine. Within the month I was a guest at a party 

 given by a neighbour in order that I might meet 

 other neighbours. Some one asked me what I 

 found the chief attraction of the prairie. I said 

 " the flowers." " The flowers ? " inquired my 

 hostess, who lived in a tiny house at the corner of 



