Henderson stowed
her household goods and nine small children. With the stove, table,
chairs, tubs and trunks, there was room for but one bed to be
put up. Poor, unresourceful Henderson surveyed the crowded shack
helplessly, but that round-faced, smiling wife of his was not a
particle discouraged. "We'll just build in two sets of bunks, on
each end of the house," she laughed. "The children won't mind
sleeping on 'shelves,' for the bread-winners must have the bed."
So they economized space with a dozen such little plans, and all
through the unpacking and settling and arranging, she would say
every hour or two, "Oh, it's a little crowded and stuffy, but it's
_ours_--it's _home_," until Henderson and the children caught
something of her inspiration, and the sod-roof shack became "home"
in the sweetest sense of the word.
There are some people who "make" time for everything, and this
remarkable mother was one. That winter she baked bread for every
English bachelor ranchman within ten miles. She did their washing
and ironing, and never neglected her own, either. She knitted socks
for them, and made and sold quantities of Saskatoon berry jam. When
spring came she had over fifty dollars of her own, with which she
promptly bought a cow.
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