{Lutheran Theological Seminary and Waterloo College
Waterloo, Ontario}
Waterloo, Ont.,
Sept. 25, 1921.
Dear Mother:-
Here I am again after so long a time, but as usual without any thing extraordinary to relate. September is approaching its close and so far the month has been ideal. I don’t think we have had a single frost this month so far, which is very unusual. But to-day the weather turned rapidly colder and as the wind has died down to-night I shouldn’t be surprized if we had a fine white frost in the morning. I noticed in looking over the calendar that I started up the furnace last year Sept. 20. So I have already gained a few days over last year’s record; and I think we can probably hold out this year until the first of October. Yesterday the boys and I hulled the most of our beans. They made more than a large dish pan full and we still have a considerable pile to do. I think we will have plenty to last us until next spring. I also chopped down and piled the cornstalks for conflagration when a suitable day arrives. I had Bonnie to put me up 10 jars of brandy peaches last week. Those I had put up a year ago were very good but are all gone now, and these will come in good next summer or later. My Elderberry wine is the most beautiful wine you ever saw and tastes quite as good as it looks.
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Tomorrow I am getting some grapes to make grape wine. When the cider mills open I am going to get a lot of cider and doctor it up for safe-keeping. As long as we could import liquors, though I never had the money to buy any, I never bothered about making any thing. But now that we are “bone dry” it seems that I ought to make all I can. After a while they might become as fanatical as they are in the States and take what little liberty we have left away. It’s a pretty bad state of affairs in your country [when?] a person can’t make up his own wine or cider without being in danger of going to jail. Canada has gone far enough in the way of restricting liberty but she hasn’t gone that far, I am glad to say. We are going to have an election this fall for the Dominion Parliament. I don’t know when it will come off but it will be sometime between now and Christmas. As to the outcome only one thing seems to be certain and that is that the Present Tory Administration will be defeated. It is a question as to whether any party will have a clear majority in the next parliament, though there seems to be little doubt that Liberals will be the largest group. The Farmers' party will probably be next and the Tories will bring up the rear. This will add a little interest to politics this fall. To-morrow afternoon the Public School Fair will be held. Carolus and Herman and Marion and Arthur will all have exhibits on, though the Fair comes a little late for our garden and I doubt if they will get any prizes. I think we could get prizes on our White Leghorn
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chickens if we sent a pair down; but I’m afraid they are still lousy, which would knock them out of the race. Our last canteloupes would certainly have taken a prize, but they are all gone. The College and Seminary is moving along fine. All the old students but one got back last week, bringing our membership or enrollment up to 68. On the whole we have a very fine set of boys and we expect to make a good record this year. Bonnie has put up so far about 120 jars of fruit, pickles etc. We have some thing of almost everything except plums. They were rather scarce and only on the market for a short season and we didn’t get any. Grapes are on the market now but are very high so far, 60₵ a small basket. We haven’t bought any yet and can’t buy any before Oct. 1, when my cheque comes. But we should be able to get grapes all through Oct. Pastor Bockelmann is giving me wild grapes for my wine. Bonnie and Herman went to Church to-night and I am expecting them back now any minute. The other children are all in bed and in the arms of Morpheus. Even the rats are not stirring to-night. The boys have been catching them in traps at 5₵ per rat and the dead ones cant and the live ones are afraid to move. Yesterday when we were hulling beans out in the barn a hen cackled and I sent Robert to see if there was an egg. Presently he returned with a look of disgust on his face and said, “She was only cackling for hen-dirt.” I asked him how he knew and he said, “I saw the black dirt on the nest.” He likes to go to school now and is learning some new songs. Well I must close. With love
I am, Most Sincerely yours,
[signed] Carroll H. Little
