1930 - Annual Convention Report

              76 A L B E R T A W O M E N ' S I N S T I T U T ES
country people would call the second " kitchen," meaning preserves or the
l i k e : crab apples, plums and wild raspberries for the ordinary run of visitors,
blueberries and wild strawberries for the special visitors, and a_ jar of strained
honey, in case anyone should be sick— it was good for a cold. In the summer
time before the coming of the cheese factory, the cellar had been used as a
sort of creamery, after it had been house- cleaned and white- washed; I re­member
that the thick cream on the pans went rather happily with brown
sugar, and by that time the outer cellar- way was open.
The woodshed was a large building that stood near the house, and was
used for more than holding the year's wood. The wood was piled neatly along
each side, and the large centre space was used to hold the road vehicles in
seasonal use— buggy, buckboard and cart in summer, cutter and box- sleigh in
winter. The upper half of the building was occupied by bins to hold the
grain on one side, and a crib for the ears of corn on the other, while the
fanning mill and the corn shelter stood somewhere ready to hand. One
corner for many years held the equipment designed for the purpose of handling
the farm wool— spinning- wheel, reel, swifts and loom. The spinning- wheel
was one of the walking type, that is to say it carried a large wheel which
the operator turned with the right hand, as she stepped forward and back,
to draw out, with the left hand, the yarn that was being twisted upon the
spindle, accompanied by a most characteristic musical hum. that rose and
fell according to the speed at which the spindle was rotated. The reel was
a machine that employed a series of eight arms, built like short croquet
mallets, and set into a hub, the arms being whirled around to form a " skein"
of the yarn, wound from the spinning wheel spindle when the latter had been
filled. The swifts, as the device was called, was a simple contrivance for
holding the skein, and allowing it to revolve as the yarn was wound by hand
into a b a l l ; if there was not much yarn to be wound, the skein was stretched,
even as today, upon the forearms of some unlucky captive, or upon two chair
backs. As to the hand loom, it had just about served its day, but I have one
distinct recollection of seeing my young mother seated upon the massive
bench of the great timber frame, and I recall how she shot back and forth
the wooden shuttle that held the bobbin of yarn, and how she worked the
pedals which manipulated the longitudinal threads of the web to be woven.
So queer is memory that I recall, too, the fact that, as she worked, she was
singing " Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon." *
Close to the woodshed, there was at one time a wide, squat log building
that functioned as a blacksmith shop; it was rather pretentious for a farm
smithy, because at one time, when father was a boy, he had yielded to an
urge to leave the farm, to the extent of serving a year's apprenticeship with
a blacksmith. Returned to the farm, he had fondly hoped to eke out a
scanty income by doing custom work for the neighbours— so the shop had
been outfitted. History shows that the venture was a financial failure, and
the books have never been audited, but the shop stood for many years as a
very useful factor in the farm operations, and served as a most interesting
centre upon a rainy day. It held two benches, upon each of which was piled
a motley array of metal scraps, and to one of which a vise was attached. In
the centre stood the anvil which only father could lift with one finger, and
• beside it a water tub, festooned with all sorts of pincers, while one end of
the shop was occupied by the great leather bellows with its swinging arm.
and by the roaring forge with its heap of coal at one side. By one outside
corner of this shop there was a remnant of an old pine stump, to which
grandfather used to point, as he graphically told of the day. when he had
first brought his young wife and his mother to the small clearing, and of how
they had seated themselves upon this stump, to have a good cry over the
loneliness of prospect and over the lost home land.