In another part of the same Manitoba town lived John Watson, unregenerate hater of books, his wife and their family of nine.  Their first dwelling when they had come to Manitoba from the Ottawa Valley, thirteen years ago, had been C. P. R. box-car No. 722, but this had soon to be enlarged, which was done by adding to it other car-roofed shanties.  One of these was painted a bright yellow and was a little larger than the others.  It had been the caboose of a threshing outfit that John had worked for in ’96.  John was the fireman and when the boiler blew up and John was carried home insensible the “boys” felt that they should do something for the widow and orphans.  They raised one hundred and sixty dollars forthwith, every man contributing his wages for the last four days.  The owner of the outfit, Sam Motherwell, in a strange fit of generosity, donated the caboose.

The next fall Sam found that he needed the caboose himself, and came with his trucks to take it back.  He claimed that he had given it with the understanding that John was going to die.  John had not fulfilled his share of the contract, and Sam felt that his generosity had been misplaced.

John was cutting wood beside his dwelling when Sam arrived with his trucks, and accused him of obtaining goods under false pretences.  John was a man of few words and listened attentively to Sam’s reasoning.  From the little window of the caboose came the discordant wail of a very young infant, and old Sam felt his claims growing more and more shadowy.

John took the pipe from his mouth and spat once at the woodpile.  Then, jerking his thumb toward the little window, he said briefly: 

“Twins.  Last night.”

Sam Motherwell mounted his trucks and drove away.  He knew when he was beaten.

The house had received additions on every side, until it seemed to threaten to run over the edge of the lot, and looked like a section of a wrecked freight train, with its yellow refrigerator car.

The snow had drifted up to the windows, and entirely over the little lean-to that had been erected at the time that little Danny had added his feeble wail to the general family chorus.

But the smoke curled bravely up from the chimney into the frosty air, and a snug pile of wood by the “cheek of the dure” gave evidence of John’s industry, notwithstanding his dislike of the world’s best literature.

Inside the floor was swept and the stove was clean, and an air of comfort was over all, in spite of the evidence of poverty.  A great variety of calendars hung on the wall.  Every store in town it seems had sent one this year, last year and the year before.  A large poster of the Winnipeg Industrial Exhibition hung in the parlour, and a Massey-Harris self-binder, in full swing, propelled by three maroon horses, swept through a waving field of golden grain, driven by an adipose individual in blue shirt and grass-green overalls.  An enlarged picture of John himself glared grimly from a very heavy frame, on the opposite wall, the grimness of it somewhat relieved by the row of Sunday-school “big cards” that were stuck in around the frame.