62 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



" I should like to meet the Canadian who would 

 haul water for an Englishman's bath, or an English- 

 woman's either ! He would be the rarest bird I 

 have yet encountered in Canada. However, as you 

 have bought the thing, I suppose we must see what 

 can be done. There are four pails, two lard con- 

 tainers which leak, and the potato boiler. I think 

 we might make a faint impression in three journeys." 



We ran lightly to the well with our empty pails, 

 but my sister and I returned slowly enough beneath 

 the burden, which in those days was new to us. 

 My brother swung along in front, reciting " More 

 servants wait on man " with fine sarcasm, which I 

 feel sure " the beautiful psalmist of the seventeenth 

 century " would have been the first to pardon had 

 he found himself within kicking distance of a like 

 circumstance. At the end of the third journey we 

 agreed to draw lots for the bath, which had been 

 conveyed with much difficulty into the kitchen. 

 Afterwards it took our combined force to carry it 

 to the veranda, which was the only place from 

 which the water could pass through the ingeniously 

 contrived exit without disaster. Within the month 

 we unanimously decided to abandon it in favour of 

 some less imposing vessel of ablution, and I agreed 

 to sell it at its original price to a friend who embraced 

 me at the mere suggestion of the deal. I let her 

 have it with an easy conscience as she lived on the 

 Lake shore. It was not my fault, but the irony of 

 fate, that within six months her husband built a 

 bungalow at the top of the Western Hills, to which 

 water had to be hauled from a distance of two miles. 

 The last time I caught sight of it was in the spring 

 of 1 910, when I went to buy seed oats of its owner. 



