April 30, 1917
As with spring, the smells get better, or in the case of Mowat Lodge, worse. Fortunately, my bedroom on the second floor, facing the lake, is situated favourably so I am not subjected to the occasional malodorous event.
Not so, for the Crombies. Their bedroom faces away from the lake, overlooking the outbuildings, the privies in the back. For some inexplicable reason, the breeze off the lake, working in my favour, makes its way through the stable to the south, collecting the smell of the animals, wafting northward over the privy, and entering the open bedroom window of the Crombies.
Normally, the arriving smell would not be a problem for a guest of normal constitution. But Lt. Crombie, in his diminished consumptive state, it has become unbearable. During the colder weather, the heat from the box stoves would drive the warmer and better smelling air from within, carrying wafts of Annie’s cooking and exiting through the unseen crevices known to exist because of the draft. But the warmer spring weather is encouraging the opposite flow of the draft and the afflictions of the unseen are wreaking themselves on the Lieutenant.
Robin (as I refer to Daphne’s husband, outside of his presence) had another coughing fit in the early morning. By 6am, the entire lodge was awake. By 7am, Old Mrs. Fraser was stripping the bedsheets and Daphne was bundling up Robin for another fresh-air session of the verandah.
Annie was making preparation for two more guests, tenants, rather. George Chubb and Bob Little, staying for the winter at Taylor Statten’s cottage on Little Wap Island, were moving to the Mowat lodge tomorrow, for the summer season. I promised Bob and Chubbie (as we all called him) that I would help them bring their stuff to the lodge.
Tom Thomson's Last Spring 