; and three days elapsed
before the husband and father was able to reach the little border
town where his wife and ample family had been installed as
residents of the general waiting-room of a small, scantily-equipped
station. No beds, no washing conveniences, no table, no chairs;
just the wall seats, with a roof above them and the pump water
at the end of the platform to drink from and dabble in. The
distressed man arrived, harrassed and anxious, only to be met by a
round-faced, laughing wife and nine round-faced, laughing children,
who all made sport of their "camping" experience, and assured him
they could have "stood it" a little longer, if need be.

But they slept in beds that night--glorious, feathery beds,
that were in reality but solid hemp mattresses--in the cheapest
lodging-house in town.

Then began the home-building. Henderson had secured a quarter
section of land and made two payments on it when his wife and
children arrived, with all their "settlers' effects" in a freight
car, which, truth to tell, were meagre enough. They had never
really owned a home in the East, and when, with saving and selling,
she managed to follow her husband into the promising world of
Manitoba, she determined to possess a home, no matter how crude,
how small, how remote. So Henderson hired horses and "teamed" out
sufficient lumber and tar-paper to erect a shack which measured
exactly eighteen by twelve feet, then sodded the roof in true
Manitoba style, and into this cramped abode Mrs. Henderson stowed
her household goods and nine small children. With the stove, table,
chairs, tubs and trunks, there was room for but one bed to be
put up. Poor, unresourceful Henderson surveyed the crowded shack
helplessly, but that round-faced, smiling wife of his was not a
particle discouraged. "We'll just build in two sets of bunks, on
each end of the house," she laughed. "The children won't mind
sleeping on 'shelves,' for the bread-winners must have the bed."

So they economized space with a dozen such little plans, and all
through the unpacking and settling and arranging, she would say
every hour or two, "Oh, it's a little crowded and stuffy, but it's
_ours_--it's _home_," until Henderson and the children caught
something of her inspiration, and the sod-roof shack became "home"
in the sweetest sense of the word.

There are some people who "make" time for everything, and this
remarkable mother was one. That winter she baked bread for every