I was always so jealous of the riding to school stories, although now that I’m older and understand how much I don’t like the cold I’m not as jealous.

Riding to school all winter was sometimes quite a challenge. The horse would stand in the cold barn all day and could hardly wait for me to get on at night. By now I had two or three lively horses to ride. Sometimes it seemed we would hardly touch the ground but just sailed out of the barn until we climbed the hill north of the creek. I often drove a cutter to school when the sleighing was good. A kind neighbour gave me a set of sleigh bells and the pony I drove tried her best to run away from those bells but the harder she raced the more music they made. It was exciting. One very, very foggy morning while riding along the little path over the hills to school, I heard what seemed like a whole pack of coyotes howling quite close to me. Out alone in a dense fog makes you feel so all alone in the world. I rode over a knoll and onto a lone coyote sitting on the side-hill howling his heart out. I was really quite close to him and he had his head thrown back and was half way through a shocking howl when he saw me and shot straight up in the air then hit he ground and disappeared in a flash. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen a coyote howl.

One Saturday, George Campiden decided to be generous and let his sister Elise and me go fishing with him. We walked the two miles down to Big Hill Creek and got quite bored standing there quiet, watching George fish. Suddenly he caught one, much to his surprise I think. He yanked it out and it hit Elise across the face and she fell off the bank into the murky edge of the creek. She got all wet and muddy and so did I helping her and we got heck from George for being so noisy and clumsy, so we went home and left him there.