Chapter 7
Our journey was uneventful and we reached Toronto on June 5th, early in the morning. Our good friends the Robinsons were expecting us but no one met us. Instead of taking a cab and being driven to the right address, we decided to try the streetcars and got on a Yonge Street car. Not an electric car; they did not come in for twenty years after this. No, it was a large clumsy car drawn by two horses and running from the St. Lawrence Market to Bloor Street. A second car ran, also from the market, along Queen Street to the Asylum, which was practically in the country Another small car, drawn by one horse and managed by one man, ran along King Street. There were no double tracks, and the horses got a chance for a good rest waiting on the side track for the down coming car. A good deal of Yonge Street was not built up, College Street was little more than a country road, and Bloor Street was considered the end of all things. There the car stopped and turned and we got out. We knew Lady Robinson’s house was at the corner of Bloor and Sherbourne Street, but made the mistake of turning in the opposite direction. But as we only arrived at trees and fields, we retraced our steps and tried the other direction. It was not long before we saw our friend Fred coming to meet us, accompanied by his two sisters. Dear Mim and Jue; I can see them before me now in their pretty light print dresses, with their hair waving over their shoulders. Jue was but a child of twelve, Mim was older and beginning to grow into a dainty young girl. They gave us a warm greeting. Mim still maintains that, owing to a bet with Fred, she welcomed Graham with, “Hail King of the Caw Caws”. This had been a favorite title at school and Fred was “King of the Abbas”. How firmly some things are impressed on our minds! It all comes before me as if yesterday: the pleasant dining room, so cool and refreshing after our hot walk in our winter clothes; the table with its spotless cloth and pretty dishes, the bread and butter and the dish of clear honey; the kindly welcome from dear Sir James and Lady Robinson.
After an early dinner the girls took us over to Rosedale to visit our cousins the John Cayleys. Rosedale was still unadulterated country; hills and ravines untouched by man. Drum Snab, the Cayley’s house, was one of the very few houses standing in large grounds. Our cousin Mrs. John Cayley had four children, the youngest Osmund, just the age of my brother, was already in the Dominion Bank, Claude, a year or two older, was studying to be an engineer. At that time he was working with two other young men, his cousin Beverley Cayley and Gerald Scott, in a machine shop in Oshawa. They were all Christians, and Gerald and Claude at the Lord’s Table and very bright. Lord Cecil, Mr. Dunlop and Mr. Hook, all well known, had been preaching in many places, and I fancy these young men had been with them a good deal. Mrs. Cayley’s two older children were daughters; Addie, who married Dr. Christopher Wolston not long afterwards, and Louey, who eventually married Mr. Burton in England.
The day after our arrival was Sunday. Mother arrived early in the morning, and we all went to the meeting. It was held in a large building called the “Tabernacle”, on Albert Street, long since pulled down to make way for warehouses and workrooms for Timothy Eaton’s store, at that time not heard of. It was a long walk but no street cars ran on Sundays. Lady Robinson had a cab, but we young people walked. I always remember Jue pointing out a large teapot, which hung as a sign in front of a store. “When you see that teapot you know we are nearly there,” Jue said. The meeting room was very full—I daresay three hundred people. It all seemed very strange and new to us. We rested in the afternoon, but walked down again to the Gospel preaching in the evening. Young people in the ‘70’s did not think much of a two-mile walk; they had not been spoiled by motors and streetcars.
I must not linger over these weeks at Lady Robinson’s, pleasant as they were. Mint, Jue and I had lessons every morning in the library from a daily governess, Miss Harvey, and played wild games in the afternoon, either in the large garden or on the open commons around the house.
Sherbourne Street was just beginning to build up, but all beyond lay fields where cows, always my bugbear, peacefully pastured. One game we delighted in we called “Navigation”. We laid a long board across the swing and Mim and I stood one on each end, holding the swing rope, while we teetered and swung at the same time, the great art being to avoid the trees around us. Jue declined to play in this game, but Mim and I were kindred spirits. While we were enjoying ourselves in this tomboyish fashion, mother and Dora were going about visiting our various relations and seeking to find occupation for my brother. He was now nearly sixteen but his one idea was business. My mother did not wish to remain in Toronto; I think she rather dreaded the many worldly relatives of my father’s who lived there. She also wished to find some place where she and Dora could open a school. I have often pitied my sister, barely seventeen but long dresses and hair done up and looked upon as quite grown up and able for the responsibilities of life.
After about two or three weeks, mother had an invitation to Brantford, to stay with our old friends the Joseph Robinsons. They were in no way related to Sir James but were also in the meeting and had recently purchased a large house, with about sixty acres of ground around it, some two miles from Brantford. Mother accepted the invitation and took Graham with her. I need not go into details, but the result of this visit was that my brother was settled in a hardware store, at $1.00 a week, and there seeming to be an opening for a school at Brantford, we all moved there, sometime in July, Sir James Robinson and his family leaving almost immediately afterwards for England.
We all stayed for a week or two at Mr. Joseph Robinson’s. He was a most extraordinary man, certainly 6 feet 2 or 3 inches, and broad in proportion. Perhaps erratic is the word that describes him best, and I should judge that, though a good man, he must have been a trial to his wife. Years afterwards, when she was nearing her end, someone asked after her, and his reply was characteristic: “Pluming her wings, pluming her wings, pluming her wings,” each time higher than the last. This was his usual mode of talking. They had sons, Jim and Arthur, the same ages as my sister and myself, and a small girl Josie, reported to have insisted on walking home alone from the meeting as she “wished to meditate”. As Mrs. Robinson was very delicate and could get no servant, it was not convenient for us to remain at Cedar Glen very long, and we went to a boarding-house for a short time until we could get a house. The only thing I really remember of the boarding house is finding “Little Men” on the table and the intense enjoyment I had out of it. I think as a rule a child lives a solitary life, paying little attention to the affairs of those around her. I certainly did at that time. We settled down at last in a tall red brick house, with a basement kitchen, and procured a servant, of whom I shall have more to say later. Mother and Dora had paid a number of visits to the well-to-do members of the community, and as a result they began the school the first week of September, with eleven pupils, one of whom, Lizzie Mercer, was to be a weekly boarder.