Village Squire, 1975-01, Page 13It always flows,
bringing thoughts of the way things
used to be
BY ADRIAN VOS
Behind my house is a spring that runs day
and night, summer and winter.
Sometimes it makes me think of the people
who lived here before us. What were they
like, what did they do? Take the time of about
150 years ago. I try to visualize the sunrays
breaking through the branches of the elms
and maples and falling on a small
encampment of an Indian family. A summer
shelter with the father just returning from a
hunting trip with a deer slung over his
shoulder. He is tired, as tired as the modern
farmer after a day of hard work. His wife
sharpens her knife on a rock, a flint knife or a
knife made in Manchester England, and
proceeds to skin the animal.
The children crowd around and make a
nuisance of themselves as all children do to
this day. The older ones help with the
butchering and the little ones play hunting
games even as our children, imitating their
parents.
In the open space what is now my wife's
garden the venison is hung up to dry while a
fresh hunk is roasting over the fire. The meal
is a feast with venison and Indian corn
washed down with water from the spring.
Afterwards the children are sent to bed while
the parents discuss the happenings of the
day. Deer are scarce and it is not every day
that the family can go to bed with a full
stomach.
Fifty years later it is a different scene that
greets our eyes of imagination. A lean-to is
built in the little clearing beside the spring.
Just some tree limbs leaning against a
horizontal branch of a low growing tree. A
bearded white man and his wife are working
hard to clear a patch of land to plant some
turnips and some potatoes. This is the first
thing that has to be done for, success or
tailure of the settlers depend on food for the
winter.
They have come walking beside their cow
12, VILLAGE SQUIRE/JANUARY 1975
from Toronto on the Huron trail. The cow
pulling a cart with their meagre possessions.
Full of hope they left Britain, lured by
promises of a farm of their own.
To be your own master. Ah, what promise.
They are still young and can do much work
and when sons are born and grow up they can
help on the farm and make it even bigger.
They got good land. A spring, A creek. Plenty
of water for the live -stock and for the house.
They don't even need a pump.
Once the trees are cleared from the side of
the rise where the spring bubbles up the
water can be led right into the house. The
house, ah, and the young man feels new
strength when he thinks that a house is
needed before winter, for his wife is pregnant
with their first child. It must be a son, for
much labour is needed to clear the hundred
acres. He fells the trees in what is now a
cornfield behind the house. He squares them
and notches them and he and his wife pile
them on top of one another until it gets to be
too high for her ancl the last layers are put on
with the help of a neighbour. In turn he will
help the neighbour if and when he needs it.
When winter comes, the house is snug with
maybe a wooden chimney and the cow on one
side. There are turnips and potatoes to eat.
Some of these are traded in Goderich for seed
staples as flour and salt. The next year a baby
is born and it's a girl. Well, that's the way it
goes. Next time better luck.
A log barn is built on the same place where
my bank barn stands today and the cow gave
a good calf. The young family is prospering.
What happens next? Does the young family
stay and clear more land every year or does
stricken strike and extinguish all the hopes
and dreams?
Whatever happened, the farm was begun
and the maples and elms were cut down. The
stumps were pulled and the land on both
sides of the creek turned into pasture and
cropland.
The log house, built with such backbreak-
ing labour was pulled down and around the
turn of the century a yellow brick house was
built by excellent craftsmen. I know, for the
house still stands, straight and square and my
family and I live in it now. The spring still
runs day and night, summer and winter and
provides us with the best drinking water to be
had anywhere. Drinking water for us and for
our animals.
The log barn too was torn down long ago
and the new bank barn still stands straight
and proud, as a testimony to the men who
built it. The interior changed as its use
changes. It's been used for horses and cattle
and swine. It's been adapted to the changing
times, and undoubtedly it will change some
more, until inevitably the time will come that
it is no more suitable for change and will be
torn down in its turn.
I hope that time will be far away, for the old
barn has character, which our steel clad barns
of modern times miss. The old barn was used
for raising animals while our new barns are
used for. manufacturing animals.
Are we, who live on the place now any
happier than the Indian family of 150 years
ago or the settler of 100 years ago? I don't
think so. We are better endowed with worldly
goods, but our family ties are much looser
with our rapid transportation. Our depend-
ance on one another is much less and instead
of trying to feed our family from our own
farm, we buy most of our food in the store just
like any other consumer. So we lost some of
the quality of life that the old Indian and his
family had, as well as the people who cut the
trees on our farm. But that is called progress
In the meantime our spring still runs to
remind us sometimes of bygone times when
life was much simpler and at the same time
much harder. Seeing the spring run makes us
grateful for all we have now, thanks in part of
the settler and his family who cut the trees
and cleared the land.