Roughing It In The Bush Read online

  “To be sure I will; I never break my word.”

  “Well, I guess you are not so clever as our people, for they only keep it as long as it suits them. You have an honest look; I will trust you; but I will not trust him,” nodding to Mr. ——, “he can buy and sell his word as fast as a horse can trot. So on Monday I will turn out my traps. I have lived here six-and-thirty years; ’tis a pretty place, and it vexes me to leave it,” continued the poor creature, as a touch of natural feeling softened and agitated her world-hardened heart. “There is not an acre in cultivation but I helped to clear it, nor a tree in yonder orchard but I held it while my poor man, who is dead and gone, planted it; and I have watched the trees bud from year to year, until their boughs overshadowed the hut, where all my children, but Joe, were born. Yes, I came here young, and in my prime; and I must leave it in age and poverty. My children and husband are dead, and their bones rest beneath the turf in the burying-ground on the side of the hill. Of all that

  once gathered about my knees, Joe and his young ones alone remain. And it is hard, very hard, that I must leave their graves to be turned by the plough of a stranger.”

  I felt for the desolate old creature—the tears rushed to my eyes; but there was no moisture in hers. No rain from the heart could filter through that iron soil.

  “Be assured, Mrs. H——,” said Moodie, “that the dead will be held sacred; the place will never be disturbed by me.”

  “Perhaps not; but it is not long that you will remain here. I have seen a good deal in my time; but I never saw a gentleman from the old country make a good Canadian farmer. The work is rough and hard, and they get out of humour with it, and leave it to their hired helps, and then all goes wrong. They are cheated on all sides, and in despair take to the whiskey bottle, and that fixes them. I tell you what it is, mister—I give you just three years to spend your money and ruin yourself; and then you will become a confirmed drunkard, like the rest.”

  The first part of her prophecy was only too true. Thank God! the last has never been fulfilled, and never can be.

  Perceiving that the old woman was not a little elated with her bargain, Mr. —— urged upon her the propriety of barring the dower. At first, she was outrageous, and very abusive, and rejected all his proposals with contempt; vowing that she would meet him in a certain place below, before she would sign away her right to the property.

  “Listen to reason, Mrs. H——,” said the land speculator. “If you will sign the papers before the proper authorities, the next time your son drives you to C——, I will give you a silk gown.”

  “Pshaw! Buy a shroud for yourself; you will need it before I want a silk gown,” was the ungracious reply.

  “Consider, woman; a black silk of the best quality.”

  “To mourn in for my sins, or for the loss of the farm?”

  “Twelve yards,” continued Mr. ——, without noticing her rejoinder, “at a dollar a yard. Think what a nice church-going gown it will make.”

  “To the devil with you! I never go to church.”

  “I thought as much,” said Mr. ——, winking to us. “Well, my dear madam, what will satisfy you?”

  “I’ll do it for twenty dollars,” returned the old woman, rocking herself to and fro in her chair; her eyes twinkling, and her hands moving convulsively, as if she already grasped the money so dear to her soul.

  “Agreed,” said the land speculator. “When will you be in town?”

  “On Tuesday, if I be alive. But, remember, I’ll not sign till I have my hand on the money.”

  “Never fear,” said Mr. ——, as we quitted the house; then, turning to me, he added, with a peculiar smile, “That’s a devilish smart woman. She would have made, a clever lawyer.”

  Monday came, and with it all the bustle of moving, and, as is generally the case on such occasions, it turned out a very wet day. I left Old Satan’s hut without regret, glad, at any rate, to be in a place of my own, however humble. Our new habitation, though small, had a decided advantage over the one we were leaving. It stood on a gentle slope; and a narrow but lovely stream, full of pretty speckled trout, ran murmuring under the little window; the house, also, was surrounded by fine fruit-trees.

  I know not how it was, but the sound of that tinkling brook, for ever rolling by, filled my heart with a strange melancholy, which for many nights deprived me of rest. I loved it, too. The voice of waters, in the stillness of night, always had an extraordinary effect upon my mind. Their ceaseless motion and perpetual sound convey to me the idea of life— eternal life; and looking upon them, glancing and flashing on, now in sunshine, now in shade, now hoarsely chiding with the opposing rock, now leaping triumphantly over it,— creates within me a feeling of mysterious awe of which I never could wholly divest myself.

  A portion of my own spirit seemed to pass into that little stream. In its deep wailings and fretful sighs, I fancied myself lamenting for the land I had left for ever; and its restless and impetuous rushings against the stones which choked its passage, were mournful types of my own mental struggles against the strange destiny which hemmed me in. Through the day the stream still moaned and travelled on,—but, engaged in my novel and distasteful occupations, I heard it not; but whenever my winged thoughts flew homeward, then the voice of the brook spoke deeply and sadly to my heart, and my tears flowed unchecked to its plaintive and harmonious music.

  In a few hours I had my new abode more comfortably arranged than the old one, although its dimensions were much smaller. The location was beautiful, and I was greatly consoled by this circumstance. The aspect of Nature ever did, and I hope ever will continue,

  “To shoot marvellous strength into my heart.”

  As long as we remain true to the Divine Mother, so long will she remain faithful to her suffering children.

  At that period my love for Canada was a feeling very nearly allied to that which the condemned criminal entertains for his cell—his only hope of escape being through the portals of the grave.

  The fall rains had commenced. In a few days the cold wintry showers swept all the gorgeous crimson from the trees; and a bleak and desolate waste presented itself to the shuddering spectator. But, in spite of wind and rain, my little tenement was never free from the intrusion of Uncle Joe’s wife and children. Their house stood about a stone’s throw from the hut we occupied, in the same meadow, and they seemed to look upon it still as their own, although we had literally paid for it twice over. Fine strapping girls they were, from five years old to fourteen, but rude and unnurtured as so many bears. They would come in without the least ceremony, and young as they were, ask me a thousand impertinent questions; and when I civilly requested them to leave the room, they would range themselves upon the door-step, watching my motions, with their black eyes gleaming upon me through their tangled, uncombed locks. Their company was a great annoyance, for it obliged me to put a painful restraint upon the thoughtfulness in which it was so delightful to me to indulge. Their visits were not visits of love, but of mere idle curiosity, not unmingled with malicious hatred.

  The simplicity, the fond, confiding faith of childhood, is unknown in Canada. There are no children here. The boy is a miniature man—knowing, keen, and wide awake; as able to drive a bargain and take an advantage of his juvenile companion as the grown-up, world-hardened man. The girl, a gossiping flirt, full of vanity and affectation, with a premature love of finery, and an acute perception of the advantages to be derived from wealth, and from keeping up a certain appearance in the world.

  The flowers, the green grass, the glorious sunshine, the birds of the air, and the young lambs gambolling down the verdant slopes, which fill the heart of a British child with a fond ecstasy, bathing the young spirit in Elysium, would float unnoticed before the vision of a Canadian child; while the sight of a dollar, or a new dress, or a gay bonnet, would swell its proud bosom with self-importance and delight. The glorious blush of modest diffidence, the tear of gentle sympathy, are so rare on the cheek, or in the eye of th
e young, that their appearance creates a feeling of surprise. Such perfect self-reliance in beings so new to the world is painful to a thinking mind. It betrays a great want of sensibility and mental culture, and a melancholy knowledge of the arts of life.

  For a week I was alone, my good Scotch girl having left me to visit her father. Some small baby-articles were needed to be washed, and after making a great preparation, I determined to try my unskilled hand upon the operation. The fact is, I knew nothing about the task I had imposed upon myself, and in a few minutes rubbed the skin off my wrists, without getting the clothes clean.

  The door was open, as it generally was, even during the coldest winter days, in order to let in more light, and let out the smoke, which otherwise would have enveloped us like a cloud. I was so busy that I did not perceive that I was watched by the cold, heavy, dark eyes of Mrs. Joe, who, with a sneering laugh, exclaimed,

  “Well, thank God! I am glad to see you brought to work at last. I hope you may have to work as hard as I have. I don’t see, not I, why you, who are no better than me, should sit still all day, like a lady!”

  “Mrs. H——,” said I, not a little annoyed at her presence, “what concern is it of yours whether I work or sit still? I never interfere with you. If you took it into your head to lie in bed all day, I should never trouble myself about it.”

  “Ah, I guess you don’t look upon us as fellow-critters, you are so proud and grand. I s’pose you Britishers are not made of flesh and blood like us. You don’t choose to sit down at meat with your helps. Now, I calculate, we think them a great deal better nor you.”

  “Of course,” said I, “they are more suited to you than we are; they are uneducated, and so are you. This is no fault in either; but it might teach you to pay a little more respect to those who are possessed of superior advantages. But, Mrs. H——, my helps, as you call them, are civil and obliging, and never make unprovoked and malicious speeches. If they could so far forget themselves, I should order them to leave the house.”

  “Oh, I see what you are up to,” replied the insolent dame; “you mean to say that if I were your help you would turn me out of your house; but I’m a free-born American, and I won’t go at your bidding. Don’t think I come here out of regard to you. No, I hate you all; and I rejoice to see you at the wash-tub, and I wish that you may be brought down upon your knees to scrub the floors.”

  This speech only caused a smile, and yet I felt hurt and astonished that a woman whom I had never done anything to offend should be so gratuitously spiteful.

  In the evening she sent two of her brood over to borrow my “long iron,” as she called an Italian iron. I was just getting my baby to sleep, sitting upon a low stool by the fire. I pointed to the iron upon the shelf, and told the girl to take it. She did so, but stood beside me, holding it carelessly in her hand, and staring at the baby, who had just sunk to sleep upon my lap.

  The next moment the heavy iron fell from her relaxed grasp, giving me a severe blow upon my knee and foot; and glanced so near the child’s head that it drew from me a cry of terror.

  “I guess that was nigh braining the child,” quoth Miss Amanda, with the greatest coolness, and without making the least apology. Master Ammon burst into a loud laugh. “If it had, Mandy, I guess we’d have cotched it.” Provoked at their insolence, I told them to leave the house. The tears were in my eyes, for I felt certain that had they injured the child, it would not have caused them the least regret.

  The next day, as we were standing at the door, my husband was greatly amused by seeing fat Uncle Joe chasing the rebellious Ammon over the meadow in front of the house. Joe was out of breath, panting and puffing like a small steam-engine, and his face flushed to deep red with excitement and passion. “You—young scoundrel!” he cried, half choked with fury, “if I catch up to you, I’ll take the skin off you!”

  “You—old scoundrel, you may have my skin if you can get at me,” retorted the precocious child, as he jumped up upon the top of the high fence, and doubled his fist in a menacing manner at his father.

  “That boy is growing too bad,” said Uncle Joe, coming up to us out of breath, the perspiration streaming down his face. “It is time to break him in, or he’ll get the master of us all.”

  “You should have begun that before,” said Moodie. “He seems a hopeful pupil.”

  “Oh, as to that, a little swearing is manly,” returned the father; “I swear myself, I know, and as the old cock crows, so crows the young one. It is not his swearing that I care a pin for, but he will not do a thing I tell him to.”

  “Swearing is a dreadful vice,” said I, “and, wicked as it is in the mouth of a grown-up person, it is perfectly shocking in a child; it painfully tells he has been brought up without the fear of God.”

  “Pooh! pooh! that’s all cant; there is no harm in a few oaths, and I cannot drive oxen and horses without swearing. I dare say that you can swear too when you are riled, but you are too cunning to let us hear you.”

  I could not help laughing outright at this supposition, but replied very quietly, “Those who practise such iniquities never take any pains to conceal them. The concealment would infer a feeling of shame; and when people are conscious of their guilt, they are in the road to improvement.” The man walked whistling away, and the wicked child returned unpunished to his home.

  The next minute the old woman came in. “I guess you can give me a piece of silk for a hood,” said she, “the weather is growing considerable cold.”

  “Surely it cannot well be colder than it is at present,” said I, giving her the rocking-chair by the fire.

  “Wait a while; you know nothing of a Canadian winter. This is only November; after the Christmas thaw, you’ll know something about cold. It is seven-and-thirty years ago since I and my man left the U-ni-ted States. It was called the year of the great winter. I tell you, woman, that the snow lay so deep on the earth, that it blocked up all the roads, and we could drive a sleigh whither we pleased, right over the snake fences. All the cleared land was one wide white level plain; it was a year of scarcity, and we were half starved; but the severe cold was far worse nor the want of provisions. A long and bitter journey we had of it; but I was young then, and pretty well used to trouble and fatigue; my man stuck to the British government. More fool he! I was an American born, and my heart was with the true cause. But his father was English, and, says he, ‘I’ll live and die under their flag.’ So he dragged me from my comfortable fireside to seek a home in the far Canadian wilderness. Trouble! I guess you think you have your troubles; but what are they to mine?” She paused, took a pinch of snuff, offered me the box, sighed painfully, pushed the red handkerchief from her high, narrow, wrinkled brow, and continued:—“Joe was a baby then, and I had another helpless critter in my lap—an adopted child. My sister had died from it, and I was nursing it at the same breast with my boy. Well, we had to perform a journey of four hundred miles in an ox-cart, which carried, besides me and the children, all our household stuff. Our way lay chiefly through the forest, and we made but slow progress. Oh! what a bitter cold night it was when we reached the swampy woods where the city of Rochester now stands. The oxen were covered with icicles, and their breath sent up clouds of steam. ‘Nathan,’ says I to my man, ‘you must stop and kindle a fire; I am dead with cold, and I fear the babes will be frozen.’ We began looking about for a good spot to camp in, when I spied a light through the trees. It was a lone shanty, occupied by two French lumberers. The men were kind; they rubbed our frozen limbs with snow, and shared with us their supper and buffalo skins. On that very spot where we camped that night, where we heard nothing but the wind soughing amongst the trees, and the rushing of the river, now stands the great city of Rochester. I went there two years ago, to the funeral of a brother. It seemed to me like a dream. Where we foddered our beasts by the shanty fire now stands the largest hotel in the city; and my husband left this fine growing country to starve here.”

  I was so much interested in the old woman�
��s narrative—for she was really possessed of no ordinary capacity, and, though rude and uneducated, might have been a very superior person under different circumstances—that I rummaged among my stores, and soon found a piece of black silk, which I gave her for the hood she required.

  The old woman examined it carefully over, smiled to herself, but, like all her people, was too proud to return a word of thanks. One gift to the family always involved another.

  “Have you any cotton-batting, or black sewing-silk, to give me, to quilt it with?”

  “No.”

  “Humph!” returned the old dame, in a tone which seemed to contradict my assertion. She then settled herself in her chair, and, after shaking her foot awhile, and fixing her piercing eyes upon me for some minutes, she commenced the following list of interrogatories:—

  “Is your father alive?”

  “No; he died many years ago, when I was a young girl.”

  “Is your mother alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is her name?” I satisfied her on this point.

  “Did she ever marry again?”

  “She might have done so, but she loved her husband too well, and preferred living single.”

  “Humph! We have no such notions here. What was your father?”

  “A gentleman, who lived upon his own estate.”

  “Did he die rich?”

  “He lost the greater part of his property from being surety for another.”

  “That’s a foolish business. My man burnt his fingers with that. And what brought you out to this poor country—you, who are no more fit for it than I am to be a fine lady?”

  “The promise of a large grant of land, and the false statements we heard regarding it.”

  “Do you like the country?”

  “No; and I fear I never shall.”

  “I thought not; for the drop is always on your cheek, the children tell me; and those young ones have keen eyes. Now, take my advice: return while your money lasts; the longer you remain in Canada the less you will like it; and when your money is all spent, you will be like a bird in a cage; you may beat your wings against the bars, but you can’t get out.” There was a long pause. I hoped that my guest had sufficiently gratified her curiosity, when she again commenced:—