Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1906-02-18
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@ when Dick Prothero left the West
EskgkSAl Cornwall Rangers, and took him a
wife. determined TO settle down to
agricultural retirement in the Far West, fatal
ill-fortune seemed to dog and pursue him with
merciless persistence. At least, so Dick said
though people who knew Manitoba better, doubt
ed within themselves whether the discipline OF
the messroom in crack regiment, where Dick
had stood junior captain on the list, was quite
the sort of thing TO prepare man beforehand
for becoming a vigorous and successful farmer
in raw community. At any rate, things some
how didn't seem to prosper with Dick Prothero
The horses were always getting CHAMBERS at un
happy moments: the COWS we're always poisoning
themselves with uncanny prairie weeds; the rain
was always rough on the standing hay; the fall
wheat was always getting nipped by the first
sharp frosts of Canadian springtide. Dick
worked as hard, to be sure, as a man could work;
but he didn't work the right way on so ex.
perts sad-all his energy and good will were
quite thrown away through his want of knowl
edge of practical farming.
The worst of it was, too Manitoba didn't
agree with Bertha, and that was Dicks greatest
cross Of all. For himself, he didn't much mind
the small frame house, the long cold winter when
the grouse was on the wing, or the changeabe
spring with its teal and wild duck. A strong
and hearty young man, with sound constitution
and natural love of outdoor sport, can put up
with roughing it for himself very well in those
wild west countries. But to see his pretty young
English wife, decately bred and nurtured in a
Devonshire Rectory, shrinking from the priva-
tions Of the frozen prairie-that was the sort
Of thing that makes regret he hadn't in
vested his money instead at two and three-quar-
tiers per cent. in the munifcent hands Of the
Right Honorable the Chancellor of the Excheq-
Tf Golx could havo done If he'd have sold
his farm: but it's always easier to buy land any
where in the world than sell it.; so Dick had TO
hang on as best he might, hoping for better
times and turn in the real estate market
Still il it hadn't been for little Daisy and
his brother Archie. Dick who was a sentimental
rather elo-dramaticaly-mn young lin
spite of his Sandhurst training), would sometimes
have sat down Respondent in the frame house,
with fixed determination to blow his unlucky
brains out But little Daisy, thank heaven, was
as strong toy Shetland pony; and Archie,
good fellow, was always helpful and always
CHEEKY, even when the rain came and spoiled the
harvest. Archie the best brother any man
in this world ever had; nobody could help being
cheered and helped on by that dear, good
Archie.
The frame house where they all lived together
Dick and his wife. and little Daisy, and Archie
was situated good many miles from anywhere,
and at great distance from Winnipeg the cen
tire of mushroom civilization in the Canadian
Northwest at the present moment. 1t was alto
gether about dreary place as any fellow
could well ask young English wife to settle in.
1t stood alone upon the wide open prairie,
square, bare box, just perched upon the soil,
with doors and windows like those of German
toy house, and with not tree or shrub standing
anywhere in sight of it. In front you looked
out upon the waving plain of grass and cornfed
--monotonous. arid, as far as the eye could reach,
with only few more equally square and bare
little wooden shanties dotted about here and
there to relieve it's utter blank of sameness and
dreariness. Sometimes in dry weather the whole
UNMARRIED plain caught fire at once, from
careless pipe or matcn, and then the smoke of it
went up to heaven in great dusky column, and
the flames marched abreast like army over the
land and the farmers defended their own houses
and Yards as best they might by cutting down
and wetting the grass all round; and next morn
ing nothing remained of the years labors but
vast black desert, smoking dismal and gray to
the lurid sky, where yesterday had been whole
acres of corn and meadow land. Those are the
chances of war in the great Northwest-the
chances of that terrible pioneer warfare which
man wages singlehanded with valorous heart
against the fierce blind powers of unconscious
nature.
And in this bare bleak house. with its unlove-
" surroundings, gentle and delicatey nurtured
English Bertha had to live by herself, for the
most part servantless. Now and then, to be
sure. some young Irish lass fresh out from the
Oud Country, with bright red face, and a
fine, rich brogue would accept for week or
two a situation general help, to assist in the
cooking and take care of Daisy. But at the end
Of a fortnight the help usually came in and in
formed Bertha, with tears in her eyes, that she
found it lonesome" and that if Bertha would
"suit herself when the month was up, she'd
like to go back to place in Winnipeg. Bertha,
as rule, did not succeed at all in suiting her
self; so she had to do all the cooking, and wash
ing. and nursing, and mending, more than half
her time for those two strong men and for lit
tie Daisy.