OF^HARVEST, WAGES, IMPLEMENTS 41 



Viking, and left without the conventional farewell ; 

 but in explaining his sudden exit, with the opinion 

 that we were the queerest outfit that had yet arrived 

 in Canada from the old country, he sharply defended 

 us against an accusation of meanness in the fact of 

 that twenty-five cents. 



We were completely fed-up with feeding hired 

 men. Hilaria expressed the hope almost hourly and 

 seldom devoutly that she might never again look 

 upon roast beef and bacon to the end of her days — 

 the meat which had been so far away as to seem a 

 boon in the place of my brother's homestead had 

 become as the quails of the wilderness. My brother, 

 not altogether unpleased with the situation, decided 

 that with a spurt he could manage to finish the 

 ploughing ; and our neighbour kindly offered to 

 help with the carrying of the hay. I think the 

 turning of about two-thirds of the fifteen acres was 

 accomplished, but very little of the grass in the few 

 sloughs which our predecessor had left became hay, 

 and before the end of the winter we were in diffi- 

 culties over feed. From the moment the harvest 

 was down my mind attached itself to the possibility 

 of improvement, and my neighbour warned me 

 that it was necessary to see about new granaries, as 

 the only one on the place would contain barely 

 two thousand bushels, and he considered we might 

 expect at least two thousand five hundred bushels 

 of wheat, and about four hundred bushels of oats. 



The carpenters had to come to build the granaries, 

 and in that fact I will plant my first mistake in 

 completely embracing the cottage with an eight-foot 

 roofed and floored veranda, a luxury primarily 

 designed to conceal its bald lack of attraction. 



