Write On!

              occupied the tree house with Charles and Porgy.
As the years slid by Charles joined a Scout troop organized
by the Presbyterian minister. The boys had a wonderful time and
I'm sure there wasn't one complete uniform amongst them all as
finances were still a problem. They went camping for a few days
down by the Wapiti River. There standards were almost non­existent
compared to today's rules and laws. It was a great
experience, the boys thoroughly enjoyed the camp and Charles
certainly did justice to our meals on his return.
Our district organized whist drives in the school house
once a month which were well attended. One occasion Charles
begged Dad to let him come with me to the card party. So off we
walked to the school house on a cold snowy night All went well
and we were home after midnight and he was tired. Saturday was
always busy at our house. I was baking bread, Dad bagging
potatoes in the root cellar. Charles was pretty sleepy in the A. M.
and was trying so hard to prove to Dad that he could be up late and
still carry out the jobs assigned to him. After lunch I had the bread
in the pans rising in the warming oven on the wood stove. Dad
needed assistance in the root cellar. Down I went leaving Charles
with specific orders to keep the wood stove stoked, put the bread in
the oven at a given time. I would come back and take it out an hour
later. As I started for the house, there was no smoke coming out of
the chimney. Also, the fire was nearly out. Some of the bread was
collapsed in the oven and Charles was asleep on the couch. He
insisted he had stoked the fire as he put the pans in the oven. With
further investigation we found that he had put two blocks of wood
in the water reservoir on the stove and left one pan in the warming
oven. Poor Charles— it took days to live that episode down.
Every once in a while Charles and I would have supper
early and walk the six miles into town to see a movie. Spencer
Tracy and Boy's Town pictures were enjoyable and he loved them.
We sat down for the two hours and rested, out at nine, sometimes
get a lunch and walk home. One night in March a terrific blizzard
came up while we were in the theatre but we didn't hear it inside.
What a shock when we walked out as the temperature had
drastically dropped plus a strong N. E. wind with heavy drifting
snow faced us. Now what to do? Dad hadn't a phone and we could
come on two different roads home and how would he know where
we were. We quickly started out and decided to go the two miles
on the highway as when we turned south the neighbour's field was
fenced and we could be guided by this if visibility worsened. The
wind was howling, blowing snow and walking more difficult every