ght before and early in the day the accommodations were
taxed to the limit while the livery stables were overflowing with the
teams of farmers from every direction. All forenoon the trails were
dotted with incoming sleighs and the groups which began to congregate
on Main Street grew rapidly in size and number. The shop-keepers had
stayed up half the night to put the final touches to their holiday
decorations and make their final preparations for the promised rush of
Christmas buying.

Many prominent men would grace the town with their presence before
nightfall. The Premier of the North-West Territories, Hon. F. W. G.
Haultain, would be on hand, as well as Hon. G. H. V. Bulyea and Senator
William D. Perley; coming to meet them here would be Premier R. P.
Roblin and other gentlemen of Manitoba. Certain boundary matters,
involving the addition of a part of Assiniboia to the Province of
Manitoba, were to be discussed at a public meeting in the Town Hall at
night.

Messrs. Motherwell and Dayman had chosen their date well, many farmers
having planned already to be at Indian Head on the 18th. The grain
growers' meeting was announced for the afternoon and so keen was the
interest that when order was called the chairman faced between sixty
and seventy-five farmers, as well as a number of public men, instead of
the dozen-or-so whom W. R. Motherwell had ventured to expect.

Although it was December out of doors, the temperature of that meeting
was about one hundred in the shade! As the discussion expanded feeling
ran high. Farmer after farmer got to his feet and told the facts as he
knew them, his own personal experiences and those of his neighbors.
There was no denying the evidence that it was full time the farmers
bestirred themselves.

W. R. Motherwell and Peter Dayman spoke earnestly in favor of immediate
organization along strong, sane lines. The farmer was always referred
to as the most independent man on earth, and so he was; but it was
individual independence only. He had come lumbering into the country
behind his own oxen with his family and all his worldly goods in his
own wagon; had built a roof over their heads with his own hands. Alone
on the prairie, he had sweated and wrestled with the problem of getting
enough to eat. One of the very first things the pioneer learned was to
stand on his own two feet--to do things by himself. His isolation, the
obstacles he had overcome by his own planning, the hardsh