Chapter 64.
“You are rather stout, you know, my dear, for a young girl,” said my old friend Mrs. Job, when paying me one of her annual visits. “But,” I replied, “I am not a young girl but a woman of forty and the mother of five children.” And such I essentially felt my position in the year 1898, when on returning from Fairy Lake we once more took up house. But I did not feel old. Oh no, far from it. I once more felt well and strong and able for the battle of life in the heat of the day. After my long time of weakness and weariness it was indeed good to be once more able to pick up the threads of my daily life; to care, as far as in me lay, for my husband, my children and my house.
Jack was very glad to get me back, though he had been very comfortable at Mother’s all the summer, and Edie was rejoiced to once more hold her dear babies in her arms. We were not long in finding a house and it was, I think, the most comfortable one we lived in while in Port Hope. It was close to my mother’s and had a nice bit of ground, with apple trees and a few raspberries and a good sized stable, in which we kept only rabbits and guinea pigs. The house itself boasted of five bedrooms, two sitting rooms and a little sunny sewing room, besides of course kitchen, back kitchen and pantry. It was on Bramley Street.
We soon got our furniture in and had time to paint and polish it up while still staying with my mother. About the middle of September Dora and the older children returned and we finally moved in. School began at once and Somerville was now included in the pupils. They were such a nice group: Katie Baines, Rita Henderson, a new little girl, Winifred King, then Philip Passey and Lewis Clark, besides our three. It certainly was a wonderful privilege for these children to have such a teacher as my sister. The effects of her influence must have always remained with them—I am sure it did with ours. She interested them in so many things, from ancient history to modern missions, and they were all so happy together and on the whole well behaved. Lessons only lasted for the morning, so that after dinner I still had the opportunity to read to them, and we always had a happy hour together.
My life was a very busy one as our children grew older and required more to be expended on them. We felt we could only afford one servant, so Edie became our one factotum, with Mrs. Taylor, now growing to be an old woman, to wash and iron. With a family of eight and a baby to be cared for there was naturally a good deal to do and I helped in many ways. One thing I always did was to wash the breakfast dishes, as I could teach Helen at the same time, while Edie made the beds and cared for little Hope. Helen was a charming pupil and the drudgery of dish washing was quite forgotten in my interest in her rapid progress. She never needed to read a lesson a second time, and in three months had the multiplication table at her finger tips.
It required great economy to make two ends meet at this time. We had certainly more than the $1,000 we had begun with—I think perhaps $1,500. When Helen was still in long clothes we had a photo taken of the four and Jack sent a copy to Mr. Strathy, saying it was “four good reasons for an increase”. Mr. Strathy generously replied by a larger increase than was usual. I kept rigid accounts, putting down every penny I spent and counting up every month what I had spent on food, clothes, wages, gift a/c, etc. I remember that for the three years we lived in “Chestnut Cottage” the amount spent on clothes for myself and the five children was $165 each year. Boots and stockings and the boys’ suits were perhaps the most expensive items. Jack once invested in new underwear and I cut all the nice pearl buttons off and put them on Helen’s pinafores, as I felt china ones would do for underclothes. The apples were always a great help. We had a good many in the garden and they could be bought for 10 cents a peck. Thyra Chowne was now living at Mother’s and going to the high school, and she always dined with us.
I dreaded February in those days and this year was no exception. Helen took a severe cold and from bronchitis it ran into bronchial pneumonia and we had an anxious three weeks. Kind Dr. Reid came over several times and it was a glad day when he pronounced her out of danger. Her sixth birthday came soon afterwards and we had several of the school children to tea and Dorothy had little charades prepared for them. “Gulliver and the pygmies” was represented by her large doll Frances surrounded by a multitude of 1/2 dolls. Several others were shown and last came Red Riding Hood. The wolf was represented by Daisy our cat in the doll’s bed with one of Hope’s little bonnets on. Hope was an interested spectator in Edie’s arms and greatly resented this free use of her possessions, causing great amusement. The bran pie, always part of Helen’s birthday, came in the afternoon. These little festivities were a great delight to all the children but especially to Dorothy, who was very clever with her fingers and used to make most ingenious little things for a very small amount of money.
Christopher, of course assisted by his faithful Sommie, had begun a museum some time before this. Going to the woods one autumn afternoon with Edie, they came across the skeleton of a horse. Christie was greatly impressed and insisted on taking as many bones as possible home. Edie, Dorothy, Katie and the boys were laden, and this was the beginning of his museum, which proved a great source of pleasure and interest to him. The bones were by degrees discarded and smaller and prettier things took their place. He made a set of shelves for them in his bedroom.
The chipmunks were a source of pleasure to us while in this house. They were so tame they used to open the cage door and run all over the house and garden, always coming back at night and secreting themselves in my darning or wool bag. I remember Mrs. Job’s amusement when one climbed on her shoulder and took off her spectacles. One morning I saw them sharing little Hope’s breakfast of bread and milk. In the winter they would go to sleep in a baking powder tin which Jack had suspended from the top of the cage. One would sleep for weeks together, but the other came out every morning for his breakfast. We also had the flying squirrels, but they never got so tame, and a bird or two, to say nothing of Daisy and a multitude of furry folk in the barn. I have often wondered how I made time every morning to feed and clean the cages of birds, squirrels and chipmunks. The boys looked after the guinea pigs and rabbits.
Our first summer was spent at home, that is to say we did not go far afield. Mother and Dora had taken a cottage at Fairy Lake, in partnership with our cousins George and Bessie Wilgress, and they invited our little boys to go up for the month of July. Dorothy was invited to Port Union where Mrs. Rubidge had a summer camp, so Jack and I had a quiet month at home with the little ones. Dear little Hope had had quite a bad chill in the spring, which ended in convulsions, and I decided to get a second girl for the summer, so that she might spend most of her time out in the air.
It was the middle of August, I think, when on a general holiday we decided to go to Mrs. Holdaway’s farm for a long all day picnic. I forget how we went, but I know that picnic was an immense success. We had the three Rubidges staying with us, Etta, Fred and Reg, and with our own five and Mrs. Holdaway’s children it was a lively party. On our return Jack and I discussed it. “How delightful it would be to live out of doors altogether,” he said, and I heartily echoed the desire. “But why should we not,” I remarked, “if we only had some tents.” “I think that we could hire tents,” said Jack, “I will inquire tomorrow.” And so he did and the result was that in four days we were all camped out at the back of the farm.
We had two tents. In one Jack and the boys slept, with Reggie Rubidge, who came with us. In the other I and my three little girls and Edie. We were there a wonderful fortnight, never to be forgotten. The children reveled in the free life, the tents, the campfire on which we did our cooking, the rides on Mr. Holdaway’s old white horse and our tea parties in her large homey kitchen. Then almost at our feet was the beautiful lake, with bathing each day, and behind the tents a shady wood in which they could play. The children returned home fat and rosy and with their minds quite made up that camping was the most delightful thing in life. It was only the other day that I heard Helen remarking that she believed those summers in camp were her best preparation for missionary life. And so our lives are overruled and “By paths they have not known, He leads His own”.
Before closing this chapter I must mention my dear friend Emilie Mitchell whom I met that summer for the first time. Her husband having met with an accident and thereby lost his arm, had gone to the Klondyke, and she with four children and small means had retired to Port Hope, hoping that my sister would educate the two older children, Dorothy and Hugh. She lived near us and we soon became great friends. I think this friendship meant a great deal to us both, for I had no personal friends in Port Hope, and of course she was quite a stranger. The two little children, Jack and Barbara, and our little Hope, became fast friends. The children were constantly at our house and no picnic or tea party was complete without them.