196 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



it was in a measure due to my carelessness. I had 

 tethered my two small beasts in the garden as usual, 

 and immediately after breakfast had gone out picking 

 stones. I had to scramble to prepare dinner in time, 

 and when I went out after the men were served 

 I found the younger calf lying down and obviously 

 sick. Roddy McMahon said it was sunstroke, and 

 acting on his advice, I bathed it frequently with 

 cold well water ; but all in vain, at sunset the 

 little thing died. It sent a gloomier shadow over 

 my deep anxiety about my brother, until my 

 neighbour came along with a wire which told me 

 he had arrived safelv but had been detained in 

 Montreal. 



On the evening he came we walked all round the 

 farm. The mosquitoes were out in furious swarms, 

 but he said he did not mind a bite or so. He was 

 full of admiration for the oats, which were really 

 very beautiful : strong and healthy and thick enough 

 to conceal all weed. He thought, too, that the 

 wheat-fields looked beautiful, but not as thick as in 

 England, where, however, I believe grain is never 

 sown on stubble. He raised my spirits almost to 

 the point of rapture by saying the farm surpassed 

 his expectations, and that in England such a place 

 might be worth three hundred pounds a year. Nearly 

 all the land in my immediate neighbourhood was un- 

 cultivated, and one of the first visits we paid was to 

 one of the model farms of the further neighbourhood, 

 owned by Mr. Thomas Grigg, who came up from 

 Eastern Canada with less than two hundred pounds 

 capital, but had bought and sold pigs and horses and 

 steers and dairy produce all the time, so that he made 

 enough money to cultivate his grain land really well. 



