Seeking Fortune in America - F. W. Grey

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bushy-haired and bushy-bearded man). He was a sight to see as he pranced up and down, full of whisky and music. This he and his brother alternated with old Scotch songs and ballads, while we refreshed ourselves with whisky, which we drank out of polished horn cups. One of these the laird gave me, which I kept as a memento for many years after. Horn, he told me, was the proper vessel to drink out of, as no one but yourself could know the size of your tot! In the morning we went on to Strathclair, to find that the fire had been in the railroad station, which was burned to the ground, including the station-master’s house and the freight warehouse. All my trunks were lost, and I had nothing left but the clothes I stood in, my rifle, shot-gun, and a few things I had in a gladstone bag. This necessitated my return to Guelph to replenish my wardrobe; but Geekie was pressing in his invitation to stay on a few weeks, and draw on him for anything I needed in the way of clothes.

      The hunting round Strathclair was very good, there being plenty of rabbits, prairie chickens in myriads, and a few miles north, in the timber country, plenty of moose, elk, and spruce partridge; while on the prairie there was plenty of fun to be had shooting wolves, coyotes, and foxes for their pelts, and in trying to trap them. I say trying to trap them, as I put in a week at the game, trying every device I had ever read or heard of, and only succeeded in catching one coyote in a trap. However, I poisoned a good many, using a rabbit for a drag on horseback, and dropping baits at intervals; but in this method there is considerable trouble in finding your game after you have poisoned them, as they will sometimes travel miles from where they picked up the bait, and trailing on hard snow is slow work. The most satisfactory way is to shoot them, and I got more this way than any other, but it means heavy walking in the snow. Geekie had a fine larder, such as is only found up in that country. It consisted of an unchinked log-house, in which hung, while I was there, three sides of moose and simply hundreds of prairie chicken and spruce partridge, uncleaned and unplucked, but frozen as hard as a rock. This was his winter’s meat supply. I heard a story there, in regard to being careful while trapping, about a poor old man who made a living trapping, and who was accidentally found with both his hands caught in a trap he had been setting, and which was chained to a log. He had been dead a couple of days when found, from the cold. No one will ever know how such a man, who had spent years at the business, came to be caught.

      Manitoba is not all prairie, nor timberless, as so many people imagine. In the west and the south are immense stretches of country, dead level, and with hardly a tree; but north, on the Manitoba North-Western Railroad towards Strathclair, the country is rolling, and there are patches of timber, mostly small. Still farther north the country gets quite hilly, and there are large stretches of fine timber. It is all capital wheat country, and also good for cattle, the only drawback being occasional summer frosts and poor means of transport, though this latter will soon be remedied by the advent of the new Grand Trunk Railway which is building across the country; and also, as I understand, the Hudson Bay Railway is finally to be built. The country, however, is far from beautiful.

      The people dispense hospitality with a lavish hand so far as they are able. The accounts of toasting and drinking in India in the early days remind me of a dance I attended near Strathclair, where the host, having lost the use of his legs, lay propped up in his bed (his bedroom being used by the men for their wraps and coats), with a keg of whisky on a chair by his side. There he lay in state, not too far gone still to dispense his hospitality and drink with every one who came into the room. After a few weeks’ stay I left Manitoba and returned to the college at Guelph. In the spring of 1893 I started for Chicago, really to begin the earning of my own living.

      The expression “batching,” mentioned before, means men doing for themselves—a rough business out West. Exhausted with labour, the man comes in, has a wash, cuts and toasts some rashers, prepares scones, half-burnt, half-raw, from the barrel of flour in the corner, and brews coffee. He had no time in the morning to sweep or to make his bed. There it is, some tumbled blankets in a box of straw; and after a pipe he rolls into it, to sleep like a log till habit wakes him an hour before dawn to split wood, fetch water, light a fire, and prepare his meal as before. Such was the ménage of the young Lincolnshire men referred to in the first of these experiences. Such was the life which awaited myself but for the fire which destroyed, not my trunk only, but my farming outfit, and made me abandon the idea of exploiting my land in Strathclair. But if Western farming life is hard for men, what is it for women who are not to the manner born? The natives can stand it, also the Russian, Scandinavian, and German immigrants, all of the labouring classes. But “back to the land” is madness for well-nurtured Englishwomen; better the shop, or even domestic service.

       Table of Contents

      Chicago—American Business Methods—Work as a Carbonator—Chicago Fair—“Hard-luck” Stories—Remittance-men.

      Chicago, which lays claim to having the largest in everything, whether it be drainage canals, skyscrapers, slaughter-houses, or the amount of railroad traffic, is certainly a wonderful city.

      The first thing that strikes any one on arrival is the hurry and rush. Everybody seems to be going somewhere in a terrible hurry, but after you have been there a few months you find yourself getting into the same habit. My first position—i.e., appointment as distinguished from job—I got through a friend, a Mr. Bole, of New York, who gave me a letter to the Chicago Great Western Railway, where I secured a post in the claims department of that road. Here I worked two months, and drew the large salary for a beginner of $50 per month. Then there came a change of management, and out I went along with hundreds of others. Here, let me remark, lies one of the curses of American business methods. A new head of a department, new manager, or new president in any corporation, generally means a change of men all the way down the line, as all of them have men of their own to fill the places. So that generally a superintendent, manager, or president has a set of men that follow him around from place to place. These are his henchmen, and he sees that they get places where he is. They are, of course, efficient, and men he can trust, and whom, therefore, he wants near him; but what of the poor devils that are ousted?

      Of course none of this applied to my case, as I got my position through pull (recommendation), though I had to hold it down myself, and naturally went as soon as my pull went. But I have known many cases where there was much hardship and wrong done. I know a man who worked twenty-six years for one railroad corporation, working his way up from brakeman to divisional superintendent, which position he held during the four years I knew him; a harder worker and a finer man I never knew. A new president was elected from another railroad, and this man and five other divisional superintendents were forced to resign in the first three weeks of the new reign, to make way for men off the railroad from which the new president had come.

      Long service can claim no reward as in England, and that is why there is not the same loyalty of the men to their employers as there; and that is why a man is always ready to leave one firm and give his work and the experience he has gained to an opposition firm, provided there are any inducements offered. However, the main thing was to get another job, and I was lucky enough to hear of one almost at once. The firm who had the soda-water concession at the fair-grounds were looking for carbonators, and were offering $3 per day; so I hastened to apply. I had not the remotest idea what the work consisted of, but in America that is not considered a bar to a man applying for any job. When I was shown into the august presence, he snapped out, “What do you want?” I replied, “Job as a carbonator.” He scribbled on a piece of paper, handed it to me, and said, “Report Monday, office electrical building,” and I was duly hired. Luckily, he was too busy to ask me for any references. The next thing was to find out what I was hired to do. So off I went to the fair-ground, and looked around till I saw some men installing a soda-fountain in one of the buildings. These I asked where I could find one of the carbonators, and, getting the desired information, I looked the man up, got into conversation, and, finding him a decent sort of fellow, proceeded to explain to him the situation, and offered him $5 if he would show me the work and teach me enough to pass inspection the Monday following. He started right in, and I spent the rest of the time with him, learning to rock the cradle, handle the gas-tanks, and watch the pressure-gauge—in fact, all the secrets of carbonating. On Monday I reported

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