“… in the good old horse and buggy days,” a radio-voice sang to us in the kitchen this evening. The work of day was ended. James had come to the old armchair and his reading. Granddaughter, curled up on one end of the couch, where we sat darning the heel of one of James’ work-socks was lost in the pages of a book… Since a small one, reading has been a love of this one girl of the name. And even though she had expressed the thought that “I suppose by rights I should be studying.” we could appreciate the relaxation and rest after her days at classes, and the sheer delight she was enjoying then.

James smiled. “It’s all very well for them to sing about the good old horse and buggy days, Ellen,” he offered, lowering his newspaper, “but they had their drawbacks too. I was thinking that when I was tending to the chores in the piggery this evening. I couldn’t help comparing the easy method of feeding now with the toil of days gone by. Now there’s nothing to it- you put some meal and its balanced ration into the troughs, and you reach for the water to a tap. And its done But in the olden times what work there was to dragging up baskets of small potatoes from the cellar to cook in the farmers’ broiler: bringing in kindling and wood there… and water.”

“But the sight of the fire, the sound of the water bubbling as the potatoes cooked, and the mingled scent of it was good.” we remembered.

He sighed. “Pail after pail of water was carried from the pump in the yard — and wasn’t it good to have it to carry, instead of having to haul it in casks from the stream!”

“There was poetry in pumping a pail of water in the out of doors there was so much to see and hear in the world about. And sometimes you’d catch sight of a bit of blue sky, or a leafy branch in the pail, as well as the choice drink to be had”

“Poetry!” Granddaughter murmured smiling absently.

“There wasn’t too much poetry to it in winter,” James said. “The sleigh-bells- remember hearing them on a market-day on the teams off to town?”

James nodded, smiled. “Now I’m not saying. Ellen, the old days hadn’t their niceties…

They did. Many a one comes to mind. And often. But there was more toil to the living of then. The machinery of now…”

“And the coming of electricity,” we said.

“Have given us a new way of life.”

Today with Alex, we counted tulips reaching up to the sun and sky from the lawn-border.

“When they bloom…” he began

“The hummingbirds will be here,” we said

“And the swallows!” He smiled to think of it.

“There’ll be lilacs then.”

Lilac clouds, like islets floated away from the sunset this evening. And there was scarlet flame behind the firry treetops, great ribbons of it against the blue. The rich colors lingered before fading to a rose-hue which glowed and spread away from the gates of the west. And east? The Lady Moon came smiling down serenely on this valley, on the houses and barns sitting so content in their fields.

-Ellen’s Diary, April 26th, 1962

Source: islandnewspapers.ca