Chapter 37.
When once we had induced my mother to agree to the move, we soon carried it out. Mr. Irwin was anxious to get into the house and there was no reason for delay. After much searching, a cottage was found. I suppose it would be considered very small and insignificant now and the street on which it stood poor, but to us it stood for all that was pleasant and inviting. It had five rooms, a bedroom and sitting room, one on each side of the front door, with a tiny hall which led you into a good, airy dining room, with a little bedroom opening off it. At the back was a fairly large kitchen opening on to quite a large garden with a number of English gooseberry bushes.
Having secured the house, the next thing was to furnish it. We had quite a number of things picked up from time to time. My grandmother brought forth out of her stores a beautiful old walnut table, a rag carpet, a very large dinner set and various pillows and blankets. My mother gave us a tea set. Our knives and forks were mostly wedding presents, and my grandfather’s gift had been used to purchase a bedroom set and mattress. Dora and Sophie helped to settle us in, and when the last plates had been put in the kitchen cupboard, and all our pretty silver things on the little sideboard, we did indeed feel proud. “You just want a table in your sitting room,” was Jue’s comment, and she straightway sent one up. Sophie felt we were not complete without a geranium in the window and ran across to the florist’s across the way to procure one.
We moved on Good Friday, a fine warm day, but it was followed by a heavy snow storm, and our poor cat —I forget where she came from—was snowed up under the front steps. But this was the last kick of the winter, and we went on without one drawback into spring and summer; it was one of the most perfect springs I have ever seen. We had secured a little maid, one Katie Morgan, a child of twelve, but who was very useful, so much so in fact that her mother found she could not get on without her, and sent for her to return home. However, her cousin Maria took her place and being somewhat older was able to do most of the work.
I shall never forget the happiness of those first few weeks and indeed of all the year we spent in Bleaker Street. I was not very strong and had to spend a good deal of my time lying down, but we bought a small stretcher, and I used to lie in the garden reading or working or lying still and thinking. Then in the evening my husband came home and what happy evenings there were.
Our first great experience was a conference which was held that spring. The visitors, all brothers, were to be entertained in the houses, and after one of the meetings each person was asked how many he could take. Some said one, others two, but when Jack’s turn came he said “Four”. “Impossible,” said the brother who was taking down the names, but Jack stuck to it and we really had the privilege of entertaining four brothers. Two of these, who slept in our room, were Mr. Blunt and a Mr. Johnson, and two more, who slept in the sitting room, were our dear friend Mr. Heney, and Mr. Cullum of Alma. It was a wonderful time, and when all was over, Mr. Heney came back and stayed two or three weeks with us.
Our next adventure was trying to reform old John, an old man who brought apples into the bank. Jack was sorry for him, and wishing to get him to break away from “the drink”, invited him to come and sleep in our shed. He was quite willing and soon was established. All went well for a while; John kept steady, cut our little lawn and in every way seemed an acquisition to the family. We went for a few days to Hamilton to stay with our friends the Trigges, who were then living in their pretty place on the mountain, Anchmar, but John was everything to be desired and looked after things in our absence.
A few days after our return from Hamilton, Jack brought home a little boy of four years of age. He was the eldest of four children and his father was dying of heart disease. We kept him with us (though he cried terribly for his mother the first night) for several weeks. While he was with us, Jack was suddenly sent off to Newmarket to take the manager’s place while he went on holiday. He was distressed at leaving me alone. My mother was in Castille at the water cure we had spent so many happy weeks at years before. My sister was in Muskoka, but my grandmother was in town and she agreed to come and stay with us.
On Saturday evening, as Jack was expected home, she went back to her house, leaving me alone with the little boy and Maria. We had just had our tea when I heard a great noise in the kitchen and John appeared, frightfully drunk. I do not know which was the most terrified, Mary or I, but in the nick of time my husband walked in and ordered old John out of the house. Jack had returned to take me back with him, and on Monday morning we shut up the house, sent Maria home for a holiday, and taking little Freddie with us, started for Newmarket.
Such a quiet, sleepy little town, and such a peaceful, happy fortnight we spent there. We found the old Quaker lady we boarded with was no other than the mother of Dr. Stevens, whom we had met and loved at the “Cure” years before. When Mrs. Stevens and her husband found we knew and appreciated their much loved daughter, they could not do too much for us. She was married at this time to a Dr. Frizell, and her little two year old boy was spending the summer with his grandmother. Sitting here, as I write this in a tall Chinese house, looking over the blue waters of Hong Kong Harbor, sparkling in the sunshine, I feel as if once again I was sitting in the pretty wood near Mrs. Stevens’ house, the sun shining through the leaves of the maple trees, the two little boys playing round me, and Jack stretched out beside us. But it is all long passed now; the children who had not then come to gladden our home have grown up and scattered, and the child at my feet is a little Chinese waif.
I think those peaceful, sunny days in Newmarket did me good, for I was much better on my return. Life was becoming filled with a new interest, and my time was taken up with stitching at little frocks and petticoats. Once every week I spent the afternoon with dear old “Aunt Biddy”, as we young people called Mrs. Judge Wilson. She lived quite close, and very pleasant times I spent in her cozy little home. Lady Robinson’s house was quite near too and Mim lived just a short distance in the other direction.
As the winter came on mother returned and spent many a day in our little home. The Irwins had taken a house of their own, also quite close to us, and my mother had rented her house for the winter and was living in Sullivan Street in a small flat. Dora was of course with her and still teaching Emma and Ada Cayley. Neen Checkley was still far away in Mississippi, but two sisters were in Toronto; Conny, who had spent the previous winter with us, and Kathleen, who had gone as nursery governess to Mrs. Hallows. They were often with us on a Sunday, and Mr. Murray and Mr. Rouse also came at times to partake of our hospitality, so we had plenty of friends. Sophie was constantly at the cottage too and as the winter came on she and Jack and I undertook a new scheme, quite an ambitious one this time; no less than a tract depot.
Mr. and Mrs. Haylos had cared for the tract depot for years, but it did not pay and some time before had been given up. Our capital was small—we had just $50—but with this we made a beginning, thirty-nine years ago, and it has been carried on ever since. We had not much money and we had not much space. Jack got several secondhand bookcases and in these we stowed the contents of the one small case our $50 bought. Orders came in quickly, for there was a real need, and soon we prepared a catalog and sent it out and had many orders for magazines. “Things Old and New” had, I think, been given up at this time, but we sent out “Simple Testimony”, “The Christian Friend”, “Faithful Words,” for the young, and “Pure Streams”, a child’s magazine. We were very happy in this work and Sophie and others took a great interest in it. What busy days they were when the magazines were sent out. Little by little our stock got larger and we found it hard to stow away all our books. So the time went quickly on until we reached Christmas, but what happened then was so important it must have a chapter to itself.