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|   Get to Know Her Describe what a typical day is like for you. What is my day like? Do you want a day early in our journey, or one in the middle, or one near the end? I thought the days were hard in the beginning, getting up when it was still dark and traveling for a couple of hours before we stopped for breakfast, walking all day, being bitten by insects. I was never seasick in the long prairie grass, but some of the men were. I was tired all the time. At night, I wanted nothing more than to crawl into my blankets, but I said I would milk the cows and I did. Well, that was easy compared to later. There were days when it rained all day, and everything got wet, bedding, clothes and all, day after day. There were days of swamps, days of deadfalls, days of rafts and rapids, hungry days. I was soft when we started out, but a journey like ours makes you tough. Who is the most important person in your life? When our family set out to go to the gold fields, Papa was the most important person in my life. On our long journey, though, I grew very close to Ma. When baby Rose was born, I helped. What thing do you love most in the world? What thing do I love? I loved Ma's horse, Star, and I could ride her and rub her down and feed her, but I wouldn't call her a "thing." Maybe my old trunk, with my own mother's clothes, and the precious letters that I couldn't read because they were written in German, but they would be waiting for me when I was grown up. We had to leave my trunk behind in Fort Garry; that was hard, even though Papa promised we'd send for it when we found gold. What is your greatest wish? I still want to go to the Cariboo. I want to discover gold, lots of gold. My aunt and uncle took me in after my father died. They are my family now. I want to do something wonderful for them, and for the children. What is your greatest fear? I used to be afraid of milking the cows. That seems silly now. I almost drowned in the rapids, but I saved my brother, and Mr. Holes saved both of us. There's not much to be afraid of after that. What do you do for fun? Panning for gold is fun, if you can keep the pan from tipping over. If it tips over, you lose all the little bits of gold dust. What aspects of the twenty-first century do you think you would love the most? They tell me that people can fly in the air in airplanes. They can go further in five hours than my family went in five months -- easily. They don't have to build bridges over rivers and tramp through swamps; they don't get eaten alive by black flies and mosquitoes. Of course, they don't have adventures either, like trading my hair ribbons for salmon, or sliding down a mud hill behind a runaway ox. There are roads everywhere, I believe (though it's hard to believe; sometimes we didn't even have trails). There are cars; people don't use Red River carts any more; they don't ride horses, they don't walk much. I think they must be pretty lazy, but there are times when I would love to be lazy like that. What aspect of the twenty-first century would you dislike the most? It was bad enough being ten years old in my time, but I think it would be worse in the twenty-first century. I'd hate to be treated like a child. I wouldn't like the bad air in the cities either, or the way so many people get sick, although I'm told that there are amazing cures nowadays. But it's better not to get sick in the first place. Some men in our party were not strong when we set out, but our journey made all of us tough and strong and healthy. I'd hate the way families break up in the twenty-first century. So many people get married and then they break up. I think lots of them don't try very hard. It must be horrible for the children. I always knew Ma and Papa would never, never leave each other. I just knew it. I never even thought anything could change. One of them might die, of course. Both of my real parents died, but that's not something they chose to do, like leaving each other. Maybe people know too much in the twenty-first century. If there was a war somewhere in my time, I didn't know anything about it, unless I was where it was happening, like what happened with the Sioux when my family lived in St. Paul. In the twenty-first century, people see horrible things happening all over the world on a thing called television. That must be really scary for everyone, especially the children. |
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