Now Don't Snicker

Two Aylmer Boys Return Home 1905, Part: 8

Oct 1, 1905 from Mary to Fred in Fairfaix, Manitoba

“Now say don’t you start to read this till you have a day off for it will take you a day hard work.

Thursday night (the day pa went) we got four letters and last night two and he (Frank) gets ours in piles just the same. In every one of those letters he begs for pa to hurry up he wants to come home so badly. He says pa can’t be too quick but he can be too long. In one he said, 'I will not wait any longer than next week, so there.' Isn’t that savage. Poor boy he is so homesick he even wanted us to send him a telegram when pa started. Said if he was’nt there this week he was going to start alone for he could’nt stand it any longer also that they used him well but he would be used well home too. I did’nt send the telegram for knew he should have two of our letters telling him when by the time we got his. So I suppose the poor boy is as happy as he can be under the circumstances to-night. 

The Dr and nurse both told him that he might just as well be home as there now and they thought it would be all right if some person was with him to look after him and keep his foot up for fear of bleeding. But he is going to be helpless longer than I expected for the Dr told him he thought by Christmas he would be able to use the one foot and a crutch, so you see that is a long time yet but he said in time it would be all right, so that is quite a lot to look forward to. They have been doing some skin grafting lately, taking it off his arm. 

I don’t know what the poor fellow will l have to go through next. Dr Beck was going away on a trip so he settled up with him a few days ago and his bill was $50.00. That includes all his Dr bill while he is there. Dr Beck hires another in his place, and his hospital fees will be $1.00 per day so that will bring it up to 80 or $85 and I think he is getting off very well, no more than we expected and hardly as much.

I was so glad you wrote to Tom. Ward and I wrote a couple of weeks ago and we each got a lovely long letter. He said the Dr said he was too weak to travel then but he is some better now and says he is coming home soon. I guess his uncle is just a pretty tough place for a sick boy or a well one either by the letters he writes home and what they say. He says he thinks his Aunt is getting tired of him now for she is very careless about him now. He has no comfortable place to sleep and nothing else comfortable and no nourishing food like he should have. 

His father sent him the check for $41.85 and I guess he had quite a time to get it. After they had asked him all sorts of questions they asked him if there was any person in Holland who could identify him and he told them no person but his uncle, and his father had told him whatever he did not to let them know about the money for it would be just like them to get it away from him, if they could, so I don’t know how he made out but he got it some way, I know by the letter he wrote Vi and me last night. He wrote a lovely letter thanking us. He said he felt very uncomfortable before as he only had $3.00 left but he felt so much better now for he had money to help himself with.

Now Fred I have woke up in the night for the last two or three nights and thought about you and those colts. Now do be careful. I know you are a good hand with horses but lots of people who were good hands with horses have been killed with them. Now don’t snicker and just be careless but mind what I tell you.”

Oct 1, 1905 Fred in Fairfaix, Manitoba to Ward, in Bayham, Ontario, “I am very sorry about Tom. We have written to him twice and got two letters but I had no idea he was so bad till I got mother’s letter. I have been looking for a job for him ever since but would not find an easy one. If I had knew about it in time he could have got the job of waterboy with the machine. He could have done that alright, all they have to do is draw four tanks of water a day and buck straw to the engine that is the only snap about the machine.”

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