One cannot
be much surprised at his liking to keep us, as, besides the
fascinations of ladies' society, he has no neighbours whatsoever,
and, excepting the two men he has in the house, there is not a
gentleman nearer than Winnipeg. He offered me seventy-two dollars
a month to be his housekeeper. E - - was to have two dollars a
week as parlour-maid, which she considers an insult; or she might
have seventy-five cents a day if she would drive the ploughs.
Servants and labourers get higher wages there than in Manitoba,
all the men were averaging thirty-five to forty dollars a month
and their keep. They were all Swedes and Germans, of whom there is
an enormous colony in the state.
We are now trying to spend our day at Council Bluff, a large
junction of the Grand Pacific Railway, having come in here at 8
o'clock this morning, and our train to Denver not leaving till 7
o'clock this evening. The hotel is right on the station. The
weather is so hot, that as yesterday, at St. Paul's, where we also
had to spend a whole day, we have never summoned up courage to go
beyond the door. It was suggested we might take the tram and go up
into the City; but E - - has a notion that one city is much like
another, particularly on a hot day.
It is curious how Americans live in hotels; there are several
families in this, and if my letter is not very intelligible you
must forgive me, as I am writing in the grand corridor to try and
catch the slight draughts of air blowing through, at the same time
that half a dozen children are playing up and down.
