The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1982, Page 40

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SUMMER, 1982
monkey on this crew. A straw monkey
stood on the rack that was fed by the
blower of the threshing machine, forked
the straw off this rack and pitched it to
the engine where it was burned. The burn-
ing straw produced the steam pressure that
kept the engine going. This was not a hard
job, but because we sometimes worked
from fourteen to sixteen hours a day, I was
usually very tired by the time the working
hours were over. At first I slept in the hay-
stacks, but later I found that if I were to
allow the rack to overfill with straw, the
straw would run over the sides of the rack
so that the fireman and I could spread some
of it beneath the wagon, thus providing us
with a soft and sheltered bed. This
arrangement gave us some good sleep until
the weather turned cold. Then we took to
sleeping in the granaries, the sheds, or the
chicken coops, the latter resulting with
many specks upon our blankets. I was
small for my age, sixteen years, and this
entire experience hardened me up a bit. We
rose at 5:30 a.m. to feed and harness the
horses, had breakfast, which in some
places was very good and in others was not
so good, worked all day, had supper at 8 or
9 o’clock at night, then went to bed. We
began working on September tenth, thresh-
ing from the stooks until the snow was too
deep, then threshing from the stacks. I
worked until Christmas and earned
$128.00. My pay was one dollar a day.
On January 1, 1911, I went to live with,
and work for, Mr. and Mrs. B. Jassonson,
friends of my parents and one of the first
four families to settle in the Foam Lake
area. These people settled at that location
in 1892, and by the time I went to work for
them they were considered well off finan-
cially. Besides helping with the family
chores, my duty was to drive the two chil-
dren, a boy and a girl, to school. I, too,
went to school during the three months of
each of the two winters that I spent with the
Jassonsons; the only formal schooling that
I was to have. Being the oldest boy in my
family, I had to earn money. However, I
always did try to read and to learn as much
as I could outside of school.
The teacher at our small school during
that time was a fine gentleman who had
come from Ontario and had taken a home-
stead near Kristnes. He was a well edu-
cated man and very strict. Most of the
students at the school were Icelandic,
though a few were Swedish and a few were
English. The Icelandic students were not
allowed to speak their mother tongue inside
the school grounds, nor were they allowed
to read that language. One day the teacher
caught me reading a paper that he thought
was Icelandic. It was actually a Swedish
newspaper that had been used to wrap a
lunch belonging to one of the other pupils.
The teacher made me stay after school,
which meant that I had to walk the two
miles home, but when he found out what
the situation had really been, he apolo-
gized. While staying at the Jassonson home
my wages were fifteen dollars a month,
about five cents an hour, plus board.
My father had always been in business in
the old country. He had never been a
farmer, so he found the changes in the new
land more difficult than most. In the spring
of 1911 my family moved to the homestead
of Lui Laxdal. Lui had moved to the town
of Kandahar and had gone into the lumber
business. At the time of his move he
offered the use of his buildings, which
were much better than ours, to my parents.
In addition to giving the family better
living conditions, this change in location
put them three miles closer to the school at
Kristnes, thus allowing my younger brothers
and sisters to go to school. However, since
we kept our cattle on the home place, and
since someone had to care for these ani-
mals, I was left behind.
We bought a team of oxen, Swen and
Dell, during that spring of 1911. Swen was
part Holstein, fast and always thin. He had