Produced by Al Haines
Which Tells of Pioneer Trails Along Which the Farmers of Western Canada Fought Their Way to Great Achievements in Co-Operation
By
GEORGE J. McLEOD, LIMITED
BY GEORGE J. McLEOD, LIMITED
Foreword
I The Man on the Qu'Appelle Trail
II A Call to Arms
III The First Shot is Fired
IV "That Man Partridge!"
V "The House With the Closed Shutters"
VI On a Card in the Window of Wilson's Old Store
VII A Fight for Life
VIII A Knock on the Door
IX The Grain Exchange Again
X Printers' Ink
XI From the Red River Valley to the Foothills
XII The Showdown
XIII The Mysterious "Mr. Observer"
XIV The Internal Elevator Campaign
XV Concerning the Terminals
XVI The Grip of the Pit
XVII New Furrows
XVIII A Final Test
XIX Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan
XX What Happened in Alberta
XXI In the Drag of the Harrows
XXII The Width of the Field
XXIII The Depth of the Furrows
XXIV And the End is Not Yet
Appendix
Once in awhile, maybe, twenty-five or thirty years ago, they used topack you off during the holidays for a visit on Somebody's Farm. Haveyou forgotten? You went with your little round head close clipped tillall the scar places showed white and you came back with a mat ofsunbleached hair, your face and hands and legs brown as a nut.
Probably you treasure recollections of those boyhood days when a rawfield turnip, peeled with a "toad-stabber," was mighty good eatin'.You remember the cows and chickens, the horses, pigs and sheep, the oldcorn-crib where generally you could scare up a chipmunk, the gnarledold orchard—the Eastern rail-fenced farm of a hundred-acres-or-so.You remember Wilson's Emporium at the Corners where you went for themail—the place where the overalled legs of the whole community drummedidly against the cracker boxes and where dried prunes, acquired withdue caution, furnished the juvenile substitute for a chew of tobacco!
Or perhaps you did not know even this much about country life—you ofthe Big Cities. To you, it may be, the Farmer has been little morethan the caricatures of the theatres. You have seen him wearing bluejeans or a long linen duster in "The Old Homestead," wiping his eyeswith a big red bandana from his hip pocket. You have seen him danceeccentric steps in wrinkled cowhide boots, his hands beneath flappingcoat-tails, his chewing jaws constantly moving "the little bunch ofspinach on his chin!" You have heard him fiddle away like two-sixty at"Pop Goes the Weasel!" You have grinned while he sang through his noseabout the great big hat with the great big brim, "All Ba-ound Ra-oundWith a Woolen String!"
Yes, and you used to read about the Farmer, too—Will Carleton's farmballads and legends; Riley's fine verses about the frost on the pumpkinand "Little Orphant Annie" and "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse!" Andwhen Cousin Letty to