EVOLUTION OF TOWNS AND VILLAGES.
ABOUT WOMEN PIONEERS.
It was our intention to endeavor to do some measure of justice to the
part played by the gentler sex in the development of Saskatchewan,
but we find the task is so far beyond our powers that we must be content
with some general observations. So many and varied are the present
activities of the sex in the planes of social, moral, educative and religious
effort, to say nothing of their participation in the political life of the
province that their mere enumeration would occupy considerable space.
We naturally turn to the early days-the days of the ox and the Red
River cart, the days of the first coming of the railway, to be shortly
succeeded by the Red River Rebellion. Peter Hourie, the great half-
breed, once said to me, in recounting some far-away reminiscence, "The
white woman is brave as a lion." Mr. Hourie's sole knowledge was
of the western woman, for he was born in the Stone Fort country, and
never was out of the Canadian and American West, so that his testimony
is of value; but it is only fair to say that after a pause he added "And
so is the squaw."
It was our lot two winters and one summer to bore for water for
settlers who had been unable to procure wells for themselves. Women
who had to be all the time short of water were certainly pursuing their
domestic duties under difficulties which their fellow pioneers, who had
abundance did not experience; so that in their case the test was of the
severest. We bored for Canadians, English, Scotch, foreigners-all sorts
and conditions of men. Some women were well-educated, some the con-
trary, but in only two instances did we meet settlers' wives who were
not "playing the game" with cheerfulness and courage; and in the two
cases the unfortunate creatures were temperamentally unfitted for th~
hard row they had to hoe. I heard stories of scares during the Rebellion.
Eastern Assiniboia was of course far from the actual scene of conflict, but
the Indians were on the move all the time and it was not known from day
to day but they might go on the war path. Numbers of the men were
away on the transport and the women and children were alone. When-
ever Indians hove in sight, travelling from one reserve to another, the
feelings of these lone women can be imagined. Fortunately nothing
happened, but the danger of a general Indian outbreak was very real.
One or two instances must suffice. A lady, subsequently very well known,
raised in London, was left with four young children on the lonely home-
stead. One day looking out she saw four Indians coming across the
prairie; and could have fainted, for she was but newly in the country.
The Indians came to the door, and sullenly demanded food. She gave it
them with much appearance of hospitality, and when at last they went
away she sank down in a state of semi-collapse. But she stayed on the
farm~ Another lady, a Canadian who was a hundred miles from a
railroad with young children, was left alone while her husband went for
supplies. She sent the eldest boy, a little shaver of ten, out to herd the
cows on a pony on the open prairie and told him if he saw any Indians
he was to tie his handkerchief on his gad and wave it; and here was
Willie waving his handkerchief and riding for the house, like mad. The
mother's feelings may be "better imagined than described," expecting
to see red men in chase of her offspring. Fortunately it was a false
alarm. His father was getting back earlier than expected. Willie had
caught sight of the team; and forgetting all about Indians was making
his best licks for home with the joyful tidings that Dad was returning.
At that time labor-saving appliances were almost unknown on the set-
tlers' homes. The cream separator was unknown; the washing machine
a gilded dream; here and there was a sewing machine; and there were
no creameries; but for the most part the women had to set the milk in
pans, and churn it in a dash churn and make the butter by hand; the
family washing had to be done in a tub; and the sewing and clothes
mending performed after night by the light of a coal Qil lamp after the
children had gone to bed. The women's work was much harder than
that of the men; and it had the exhilarating feature that it was never
done. When the man had done his stable chores he was through; but
the woman was never through. A pleasant feature in the summer was
the settlement picnic. I never saw a dirtY child at one of these gather-
ings, or a little girl whose summer duds was not ironed up and furbelowed
in some shape or other. Many of the homes in which these hard-working,
kind, neighborly, irrepressible women lived were distressingly inade-
quate so that everything was done more or less under difficulty, and the
wonder was how many of the women got through at all. And yet if one
was storm-stayed or visiting, in some extraordinary way a shake-down
for the night was always cheerfully provided, and the best the house
afforded was at the disposal of the friend or stranger as the case might
be. And when the churches came into being who were their main sup-
port"-the women, the women who were not permitted to have any vote
in matters of church policy, but were kept strictly by their lords and
masters where the Apostle Paul had kindly put them two thousand years
before.
The reader does not need to have contrasts with the present-day drawn
for him. The old-time happy drudge now has the vote, she rides in an
automobile, she is reaching out for the "chief place in the synagogue,"
her organ isations and her activities are without number; she has a mem-
ber in the local house (Mrs. Ramsland) and a Judge upon the Bench
(Miss Ethel McLachlan). All I can do is to sincerely hope that she is
very much happier than she was in the days of her restricted and more
or less enforced domesticity.
Bibliography follows:
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