Jany. 31st

Sunday. The Sun this morning rose very bright + clear, but towards noon, a cold wind started from the North and in the afternoon it snowed. Everything looks blue, and I feel blue therefore prepare to have some of my surplus spleen, vented on your unoffending head. Are you ready? Perhaps if I first give my reasons for being blue, you will know better how to laugh or cheer me out of them. In the first place I am blue because I am without you; next because being here I also am not able to hear from you; again, because you did not receive my last letters + will be so anxious to hear from me, + perhaps will get the blues yourself, which gives me a fourth reason viz because I cannot be at hand to comfort you. Poor old girl. Don’t get disheartened, if you do not hear from me nor of me, so often as you could wish, try and think of me as writing to you at that moment. Think that I am well and hearty and strong with a wolfish appetite, + with the means to satisfy it too. Lift up your head and think that by laughing and trying to be happy you are making me so. And Our Father whose unremitting care watches over us, or will gather us tenderly to his bosom. Darling did you ever think of the time when one of us must leave the other, no more to come back? Child I charge you Pray for me as ever, to be kept in the right way, to be made to look at events + trials in their proper light, that I may be kept from useless and causeless repinnings. Lizzie would you mind giving me one of the prayers which you daily use. I would so like to have the same form of words as you have, so that I might feel myself nearer to you, + be more in unison with you. Perhaps you would rather not or cannot single out the one you like best. If you have the slightest hesitancy in agreeing with my proposal please don’t feel obliged to say yes. Will you not dear? There is one prayer I always use, night + morning. It is the Collect for Whitsunday. In the Church Prayer book. I have used it for a long time.

This is the end of the first month of the New Year. How quickly it has gone. Do you remember that song “And the years glide by”? There is an ode in Horace with the self same words – “Labuntur Anni” “And the years glide by” Three years will soon slip away, + then the Homeward Journey – will the long stretches of level prairie seem so endless then? Will the days journey be so stirring then? And when I reach the railway, will not my heart fleetly outrun the huge iron horses. Ah, trust me it there cannot go too fast for me. There is something going on tonight Capt. Winder and a party of armed men have just started off, for somewhere to try and do something – more anon. It is snowing now + is past nine o’clock.

Jany. 30th

The Mail has come back and the letters that by this time should have been in Benton + on their way East, were redistributed to us, a sore disappointment is was, + must be for you, for it is now some time since you got a letter from me. we have had quite a long spell of very moderate weather, today the wind is blowing a gale, but from the South West and it is not cold.

Jany. 29th

The usual rounds today. Capt. Jackson immediately began rebuilding his fallen roof. Nothing more is going on. Our hopes of a Mail are very very dim, even our mail that was to have gone out so quickly, has not yet started. I have been busy for a day or two in making out a report of the Medical Department entrusted to my care since last September, and it is quite a piece of work however since it gives me something to do I don’t mind it much.

Jany. 28th

No return of the toothache. The Mail man has not yet gotten all his mules together. I have been busy nearly all day, making out a report of the Medical Department entrusted to my care, since last October it is an awful job. I expect to be busy at it for some weeks. However it will cause the time to pass more quickly.

This afternoon while sitting in my room I heard a sound as of some heavy body falling and some of the mud from the roof came tumbling down. I saw men running towards our quarters and I too went out to see what was the matter, + found the roof of Capt. Winder’s room had caved in, the large center beam supporting the roof had broken and so the roof fell in. Jackson was in the room at the time but fortunately almost miraculously escaped unhurt. He is staying in our room now, + Winder in the Mess Room. His was the only room that had not posts to prop up the center beam, + hence its downfall. Ours had props so there is no danger of it coming down. How thankful I was that I had left their house.

Jany. 27th

My tooth has not ached to day, my throat is yet a little sore, but that is nothing. The man with the mail started out yesterday and came back this morning to look for his mules that had strayed off during the night.

Jany. 26

Conrad dined with us tonight and after dinner we had some, or in fact almost all the musical men in the force, in the Mess Room, + sang and danced, + handed round coffee + crackers. It was quite a ball, I had not enjoyed myself much all day, nor in truth since last Friday. On Friday afternoon to vary the monotony of this dreary place, I tried the pleasant experience of a jolly good toothache. The same tooth that troubled me and which I had filled about a year ago. I bore it for some time with fortitude, because it gave me something vivid to think about, but it too began to get very monotonous + on Sunday I was very tired of it. On Monday I tried to do something for it + saturating a small bit of cotton wool in Carbolic acid, let it fall down my throat and nearly choked myself, as well as added a severe sore throat to my other pleasures. Finally disgusted with everything I took the instrument which we have, which combines the principle of the lumberman’s lever with the appearance of that thing that pianos are tuned with, and for an hour I did my very best to pull that tooth out, but I could not. However it moved slightly, and although my face was very sore and my throat nearly boiled, I found that the tooth had ceased aching. So I went and enjoyed myself.

Fort Macleod Jany. 25th 1875

Dearest Liz,

It is snowing to day, + blowing considerably – there is nothing like this country for wind + changeable weather. The mail has not yet left here, the bag is closed and I do not care to trust my letter alone to the care of the man taking it out. Today at 11 o’clock I held an inspection of the men, they are a very fine set of men physically speaking.