I think it must truly have been line upon line, not always precept upon precept, because I had to investigate and find out for myself. First of all I found great trouble with my language -- I spoke as many in the west and south-west of England speak, notoriously misplacing that unfortunate letter h, and making use of words and phrases which in England were quite alright but in Canada were simply ridiculous. For instance -- the farmer's wife kept a large barrel outside of her kitchen door, into which she emptied all the kitchen food refuse preparatory to having it carried to the pigs. This collection of dishwashings, potato peelings, and so forth was called "swill", and the barrel was called a "swill barrel". When therefore, after the fashion in England I proposed to wash myself, and said I would "have a swill", I drew forth peals of laughter, which very much upset my sensitive nature; it seemed to my hearers that I was proposing to help myself to the pig's swill-barrel. When I asked for a basin of porridge, I was met with the question should it be the kitchen basin or the parlour one; the Canadian word was "bowl", as a table vessel -- "basins" were used to wash the hands in. The younger man in the household had no doubt my improvement in mind, but he made much sport of my language and used sarcasm. I believe he was a good teacher, because he always asked me some sarcastic question that forced me to think and furnish the answers.
My first farm work consisted of "chores", that is a variety of little odd bits of work that relieved older hands from detraction from the larger things; that is, it became my duty to carry the water for house purposes from the well; I had to carry in the stove wood from the woodyard; it was for me to carry food to the pigs; and it was mine to go down the lane and call the cows home for milking. This latter was a rather pleasant duty because it suited the poetry of my nature -- it gave me time to observe the growth of flowers and grass, to note the nimbleness of the lambs, and to listen to the Bobolink that flew up from the fence corner with his song of "Bobolink-a-link-a-lum", but best of all it was mine to invite the cows with that strangest of all calls -- "Co boss; co boss; co, co, boss" -- and I was really surprised to see the charm that there was in the song, and how the cows would come "lowing" in response towards me. When the cows were brought in I could stand by and watch how the milking was done, which of course became a preliminary to the time when I became a milker.
Aside from these little acts of service, my greatest work for many months was in the house. It did at times seem too girlish, and while I could endure being called "Bub" by some one who did not know my name, I did not want to be called "Sissie". Yet I do not regret today that the affliction of "salt rheum" on the hands of the farm-wife created the necessity for me to become the house girl, and thus I was let into the secrets of cookery, and household affairs generally; the knowledge so gained has stood me in good stead in the after years and campaigns of life.
It was early discovered that I had had a training in Bristol in gardening, and this was turned to good account by installing me in charge of the garden, which covered considerable area and was in three sections -- the vegetable garden, the small fruits section of currants, raspberries and strawberries -- and the flower garden. The flowers were new to me, but what matter? One can always learn, and he does not wish to minimise himself who intends to get on; besides there was "Vicks Catalogue" always available, and I became its diligent student.
At fifteen years of age I was becoming adept in using the axe and cutting up the large logs of wood, twelve feet in length, drawn from the woods or small forest, and deposited on the woodyard at the back of the farmhouse, and I enjoyed my pride in being able to cut in on a length of twenty inches, cutting straight down on the remaining portion of the log, and sloping towards it on the "slab", and then turning my axe edgeways, splitting the slab off -- I prided myself on good clean work with the loss of very little in "chips"; this was especially possible when the wood was maple. In spring and summer time I often did the chopping standing in my bare feet, and to this day I am carrying an identifying scar across my big toe, the mark of a too careless handling of the tool.
I lift my eyes from the wood and the wound to the gateway leading into the nearby orchard of one hundred trees. I never look at Holman Hunt's "Light of the world" but I think of this orchard, and I seem to see the place where the great artist might have sat night after night gathering his clues and his colors; and this orchard of the farm rises up before me as holy ground. It was holy because there I learned so many things that were good and useful. I may not forget the time of cherry picking, and how I climbed far out on the branch to reach the utmost cherry, and then there was a crack! I did not quite go, but I was going, and head first. One of the men was in the tree behind me, and he caught me by the foot. There was one apple tree close by the gateway, and nearest of all the trees to the farm house. Its branches hung over the fence and the fruit dropped plentifully on the house side of the fence. Farmer S. had said to me shortly after my arrival:- "Now you can eat all the apples you want". What a charter of liberty that was! And I did not neglect my opportunity. The name of the apple was "Seek-no-further" -- an apple that well deserved its name. Even the modern, much famed "Mackintosh Red" does not equal it. I truly fell in love with it, and I found that I wanted more apples than time would permit me to gather. One day I was wielding the dash churn, making butter when suddenly the house wife excitedly asked:-- "What's in your pockets?" My trousers' pockets were bulging with apples, and while I worked the dash with one hand I was busy feeding my mouth with the other.
It was shortly after my first appearance in church that the Rev Ebenezer Robson drove over from his village parsonage to take dinner with the family of Farmer S. and incidentally to get better acquainted with the new arrival from England. I was formally introduced, and had to undergo some questioning, some of it being slightly more personal than comfortable, and I was anxious to get away, when the Pastor said: "It's a fact that we have two ministers of your name already in our ministry, and I believe they also came from Somerset way. Well, be a good boy and perhaps you may some day be a minister also", and he laid his hand on my head as he said this last word. But like Sarah in the tent, I got into another room and laughing to myself I said :- "Yes, He'll never make a minister of me".
So my heart went into the farming. At fifteen I was up at five in the morning and milking twelve cows in time for the milk wagon to collect the cans for the cheese-making factory. At sixteen I was driving the horses and holding a steady hand at the plough, priding my art especially in making a straight furrow in cutting sod, and in laying the sod up on its edge. At seventeen I was the loader in gathering up the sheaves from the harvest field, and prided myself on building a wide load well bound, which would neither fall off nor tip over. In winter I was mastering the felling of giant trees, maple and oak, knowing how to cut so that they fell where I wished them to lie. At eighteen I was master of the farm, for the old people had retired to town, and the elder son had become my employer.
I should say that there were two sons in this family, and no daughters; the oldest son was named Hiram Jeremiah, and the younger Thomas Nathaniel. Thomas Nathaniel did not care for farming; he took himself and wife away to town and engaged for a time in tinsmithing. From this he launched into being the owner and editor of a newspaper. Thereafter he engaged in real estate development and erected several houses to his credit. He found his way to Toronto, and thereafter I trust to eternal glory. Such a name ought to take him there. As for Hiram Jeremiah -- he became incapacitated for walking about the farm; so it fell to me to discuss his purposes and thereafter go out to the fields and fulfil them. And I was strong. Out in the field in an autumn morning before the day was light enough to permit of seeing the neighbour's house; laying out "lands" twelve paces wide -- that involved setting three stakes in line across a field forty rods long, keeping the stakes in line between the two horses as they moved forward, and as we came up to a stake, removing it and going twelve more paces of three feet each, and there planting the stake in readiness for a new "land". At the "headland" my horses turned to the right, and so I "back-furrowed", going back and forth until I had touched the last furrow of the last "land", then I was ready for a new section. It was our custom after reaping the harvest from the land to "stubble" plough, that is, with a wide "share" to turn the stubble under to a depth of three or four inches, and allow it to lie for a month, rotting under the rains, and thus enriching the soil, in preparation for the later ploughing which called for a deep turn up and which became mellowed by the winter frost that formed the land into a rich soil for the next spring's sowing. I was ambitious about this "stubble" ploughing, especially as a good share of my work could be seen from neighbouring farms and I preferred to be ahead rather than behind any one, hence getting to the field before clear daylight, which involved doing "chores" in the barn by lamplight, and which gave me a record of ploughing two and a half acres per day. In stiff "sod", that is grass land which had long been lying in grass, the record was one and a half acres per day, and in the ploughing for spring sowing, I counted my day complete only when I had ploughed two acres. Those were not yet the days when plough men rode on their ploughs which came on later with wheels attached and having shares cutting three furrows instead of one. As yet the country was new, although we lived less than five miles from the railroad, and agricultural machinery had to have its development later on -- a development which did not always bring wealth to the farmer although it brought him considerable worry in paying agent's bills. I remember when a "reaper" came into the neighbourhood; what a funny sight to see four rakes whirling in the air, one after another, gathering the grain on a "table" that moved along on the ground, until a bundle called a "sheaf" was ready for tying, and was then brushed off onto the ground when men, who were following closely, gathered it up and tied it with a band of straw. There was but one such machine in our neighbourhood; the day when a machine would arrive that would cut the grain, gather it in a sheaf and tie it with "binder twine", and lay it off, one man thus doing the work which three had done, was to come after my farm days were over. In my time we used what was called a "cradle"; this was a scythe on a broad and heavy scale, and was attached to a frame having four long wooden fingers, and a handle peculiarly bent, and by which the user caught the grain as he cut it, gave his cradle a deft turn, and laid a fine square swath behind him. It was my delight to swing this cradle and cut down four acres of standing grain per day. I did it repeatedly for ourselves; and occasionally as "exchange" of work, I went over and did it for neighbours. No doubt I knew what it was to become tired; but it was fine and healthy work. All departments of work went on in similar fashion.
I loved the farming; it was free, independent, and had little worry about it except as we worried over the weather, or over the prices of wheat, hogs, or milk; indeed I did a little scientific philosophising and in time concluded that the farmer was determined to complain about something. I was happy because the other person was not. I had no "chips" on my shoulders. Indeed I quietly looked forward to the day when I would become "twenty-one" and would be a proper applicant to the Crown lands department of the Government for a grant free of one hundred and sixty acres of land; and then I would show people how to make a farm! I loved to see things growing, and I loved the consciousness that to some extent I was, as God intended me to be, creative. I was interested in this particular farm; I could not have been more so if it had been my own.
Mrs S., who had selected me on that wonderful Saturday night when no other had been selected, had a few little proverbs which she did not hesitate to recite quite frequently, and they clung to me as the laws of navigation cling to a sea captain, and as those create a love in the captain for the stormy sea and his ship, so these proverbs gave me a watching mission over garden and field. One of her proverbs was: "Never pull up one tree until you have another to put in its place" -- it was an acacia or locust tree, but the saying applied to more than garden trees, and it has bountifully rankled in my brain all these years. Another of her proverbs was:- "If you see a thing needs to be done, do it; don't wait to be told". I was busy in the far end of the garden weeding among onions, and alongside of the path over which I had walked several times there was growing a lusty and daring "pig-weed"; it was no part of my business just then to be concerned with that weed -- I would attend to it later on, to do so just now would interfere with the continuity of my work. But Madam coming over to inspect what I was doing, caught sight of the intruder and forthwith interfered with its life and carried it forward as an illustration for her weighty prudential philosophy. It entered very compactly into my mentality, did that little exhortation; and what a world of trouble it has brought me to, as I have gone about life trying to rectify wrongs without being asked to do so. A faithful minister of the Gospel for instance, must count it his business to keep watch over the flock and affairs of the fold, but does he not often "burn" his fingers touching matters that he knows to be out of keeping with the cause of Christ, and which no layman will touch or notice, until the minister attempts to do so, when the layman comes to the defence of the "pig-weed" as if it had been a beautiful rhododendron! I have the satisfaction of knowing that I have removed many pig-weeds, and have found considerable help in doing so. Again, she said:- "Bees must be followed, if you wish to gather honey"; she said this when the bees were swarming out of their hive, and with a great noise were travelling above the trees, and apparently proposing in their language to get away. If their purpose was allowed then their valuable product would accrue to some one else. A few pails of water and a dipper to throw it at the turbulent creatures, soon dampened their ardour and caused them to shorten their journey and alight in a nearby tree, from whence they were easily persuaded to take up in a new home. What a bit of practical political prudential philosophy is wrapped up in this bit of farmhouse common-sense, especially for Empire builders!
What self-containment and thrift there was in farm life! All of the old rags, for instance, were used either for making rugs or beautiful "hit and miss" carpets. I never knew a "ragman" to come and buy paper or rags. And the days of "diamond dyes" had not yet dawned. It used to be my part to gather the goldenrod to make yellow dye, elder for a black, the bark of wild cherries for a dark red, butternut for a rich brown.
Yes, I loved the farm. So much so that I, who had been born in the world's largest city, and had been used for twelve years of my life to a city, went out from this farm to the village five miles away, only once a year in eight years.
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