Chapter 45.
I have not spoken much of the children, but they were very much in evidence in the house. Dorothy was a demure little maiden, always ready with an answer, but much quieter than her little brother, who was always gay and smiling, albeit he was still very delicate and the black rings round his eyes often went to my heart. He daily visited his grandmother, who breakfasted in bed, and shared her little jug of cream. He was a little over two years old and beginning to talk a little. I can see him now in a little gray pleated dress made of an old one of mother’s, and as he felt the cold so much I made a little jacket of the same material and he looked almost square. He never left me for a moment; he was truly his mother’s boy.
Dorothy was very fond of stories, especially Bible stories, and I remember her asking me: “Why did not Elijah marry the poor widow?” and again, when I remonstrated with her for beating her doll, she gravely replied: “You would not like me to be like Eli”. The first time she saw a roasted heart she eagerly asked: “Where are the sins?”
They each had a little basket and used to carry little dainties to an old woman called Mrs. Haskill who was blind and very old, ninety-nine I think, but she knitted Jack a pair of socks. She would feel a visitor’s hands and face and said that was instead of seeing them. She could repeat hymn after hymn and told us interesting tales of when Port Hope was only a few houses and the Ganaraska River, then quite wide, had no bridge. Food was very scarce and she well remembered her father carrying a bag of bran all the way from Kingston to make bread.
Our next neighbor was a dear, motherly old lady, Mrs. Robertson. She had two pleasant daughters Jenny and Emma, who made a good deal of the children. Mrs.
Robertson’s strong point was her garden and she spent a good deal of time working it and a very pretty garden it was. One wet day in April—it was the 10th—Dorothy and Christopher went to spend the afternoon with their kind friends. What a play they had. Miss Emma never forgets how “Tiller” as Dorothy called him would come up every now and then to her and say “A bid Hud”. He was a loving little chap. When evening came and they had to come home to bed, they were indeed surprised to find mother in bed and beside her a tiny little brown-eyed brother. Christopher looked dubious but said nothing, but Dorothy was overwhelmed with joy and delight and could hardly tear herself away. “He was such an interesting born baby” she explained later on.
I think her delight was quite shared by her mother and father. This baby was so unlike the other two. From the very first his eyes were dark brown and he was as brown skinned as the others had been fair. He was a good baby too and not so averse to sleeping as his brother and sister had been. We named him John Somerville after his two grandfathers and my grandmother always said he was the flower of the flock.
I was a busy woman when the nurse left, but I felt well and strong and able to be busy. Both my promising maids had been obliged to leave, and as mother was now going into a house of her own, I managed to get on with only one young girl, Annie Woods, who was a great comfort and help to me.
My sister had left my aunt in Germany and after spending a month in Paris and paying some more visits in England was coming home in July, so mother took a small house at a short distance from us and we all had some busy weeks helping her to settle. We expected Dora the beginning of August, but the day she was to come she did not appear and instead came a telegram telling of a bad railway accident on the New York Central Railroad. How thankful we were to hear she was safe, but it was a great shock to mother to hear what she had been through. It was a hot night and when they left New York Osmond Cayley, with whom she was traveling, suggested checking everything they could. At four o’clock in the morning the train, which was running at sixty miles an hour, ran into a freight train. In the Pullman where our travelers were they only felt a rather severe jolt and then all was quiet. They got up and dressed and went into a meadow at one side, where they could see what had happened. The baggage car had telescoped into the 2nd class car and many were killed. The first class car too was knocked to pieces. Then the whole thing took fire and they had the agony of watching the injured people being dragged out of the burning cars while every bit of the luggage was consumed. At the time all attention was given to the terrible suffering of human beings before their eyes, but later came the disappointment of feeling everything she had been collecting as gifts for her family for a year and a half was utterly gone. Besides these things, of course, there were her own personal possessions; all her little stock of jewelry, her Bible, a beautiful silk dress given her by Lady Seafield, Mrs. Graham’s sister, and many other things. But as far as mother and I were concerned we were so thankful to have her back unhurt that we did not mourn over what we might have had. The only thing I really regretted was the diary which I had kept while in Manitoba, which she had taken home to read to our English relations. Dora was not one to bewail herself. She waited long enough in Toronto to get some calico and other material and set to work at once to replace her lost goods.
Nothing of any particular consequence happened that summer. We went for various picnics to the grounds of the unoccupied houses of Mrs. Seymour and Mrs. Williams and once or twice we were asked to tea at Mrs. Frazer’s house. Mrs. Frazer was Mrs. Williams’ eldest daughter and she and her husband and her daughter Lily lived very quietly in a large house a little way out in the country.
Towards the end of the summer both the elder children developed a nasty low fever, somewhat akin to typhoid.
After doing what we could to cure it we applied to Dr. Reid of Bowmanville, who gave us something which helped them at once, but they both looked so white and thin that we decided to take them away for a week to Gore’s Landing, a small place on Rice Lake. The only way to get there was by driving. It was September now and we thought the hotel would be sure to be empty, so we got a cab and were driven off. Dora had promised to go with me and Jack, though he would not allow himself a week’s holiday, thought he might take one day, so we were quite a gay company with the three children and a little luggage. Our first misfortune was that the driver lost his way, which gave us nearly ten miles extra driving, but we reached our destination at last only to find the hotel closed for the winter. This was very trying but we had decided to go to some place and hearing of another hotel some miles farther on, we pushed on. We found we had to leave our cab and go by boat for several miles, but we finally got there, found the place empty and the woman in charge glad to take us in. I think as it was now dark Jack stayed the night and got home in some roundabout way in the morning. As far as the location, Idyl Wyld was a beautiful place, but the food and accommodation were far from satisfactory. I especially remember the butter and cake, which remained on the table from meal to meal, generally covered with flies.
Dorothy enjoyed herself very much and Somerville was an ideal baby, but Christopher was hard to do with; a half sick child and put out of his ways; he was a real care. We tried bathing, but I took a chill and had high fever for a day or so, therefore when Jack came for us at the end of the week we gladly and thankfully went home. The children, however, were better and soon recovered their usual vigor.
We had another visit from my grandmother towards Christmas and great talks she and Dora had over the old Tiverton days and the various places Dora had visited. She was much pleased with our baby, especially as he was called after my father. I remember one night he was restless and kept us from sleeping after we went to bed. She came in and carried him off and amused him for a couple of hours, and brought him back ready to fall asleep.
One evening while with us she read a piece from the newspaper about putting out fires. The directions given were not to attempt to put out lighted coal oil with water but with earth. She had not been gone many days when I brought this into use. Jack was out at a meeting, the children in bed and the baby asleep in a hammock in the back drawing room. I went into the room, which had been mother’s, which we now used for a day nursery, carrying a large lamp. I put it on the chest of drawers and walked to the other end of the room, when suddenly I heard a crash and was left in darkness. The lamp had fallen and broken to pieces and rolled across the room, blazing as it went, to the corner where I washed the baby. A little stool was there which immediately took fire. I ran out of the room crying: “Annie, Annie, come down, the house is on fire and I am in the dark”. She came quickly down and, remembering my grandmother’s words, I directed her to bring up a large box of plants from the kitchen. We were only just in time, for the fire had caught the corner of the wall, but the earth checked it at once and I was thankful indeed when the flames subsided and finally went out. I could not but feel how wonderfully our lives are ordered and how gracious and kind is our Heavenly Father.