LETTER VIII.
I begin this letter with a few observations in support of my oft-repeated assertion that poor ladies and gentlemen form the worst, or at least the most unsuccessful, class for emigration to Canada. I must give you a slight sketch of the class of settlers we have here, and of the conditions they must fulfil before they can hope to be in easy circumstances, much less in affluent ones. Of course I am speaking of settlers from the “old country,” and not of Canadians born who sometimes find their way from the front to try their fortunes in the backwoods. The settlers in this neighbourhood, for a circuit of about eight miles, are all of the lower classes; weavers from Scotland, agricultural labourers from England, artisans and mechanics from all parts. Whatever small sum of money a family of this class can collect with a view to emigration, very little of it is spent in coming over. They are invariably steerage passengers, and on landing at Quebec are forwarded, free of all expense, and well provided for on the road, by the Emigration Society, to the part where they intend settling. Say that they come to the free-grant lands of Muskoka. The intending settler goes before the commissioner of crown-lands, and (if a single man) takes up a lot of a hundred acres; if married and with children, he can claim another lot as “head of a family.” He finds the conditions of his tenure specified on the paper he signs, and sees that it will be five years before he can have his patent, and then only if he has cleared fifteen acres, and has likewise built thereon a log-house of certain dimensions. He pays some one a dollar to point out his lot, and to take him over it, and then selecting the best site, and with what assistance he can get from his neighbours, he clears a small patch of ground and builds a shanty. In the meantime, if he have a wife and family they are lodged and boarded for a very small sum at some near neighbour’s. When he and his family have taken possession, he underbrushes and chops as much as he possibly can before the winter sets in; but on the first approach of the cold weather he starts for the lumber-shanties, and engages himself to work there, receiving from twenty to twenty-five dollars a month and his food. Should he be of any particular trade he goes to some large town, and is tolerably sure of employment.
It is certainly a very hard and anxious life for the wife and children, left to shift for themselves throughout the long dreary winter, too often on a very slender provision of flour and potatoes and little else.
When spring at last comes, the steady, hard-working settler returns with quite a little sum of money wherewith to commence his own farming operations. One of the most respectable and thriving settlers near us is a man who began life as a sturdy Kentish ploughboy. He is now an elderly man with a very large family and a good farm. He has thirty acres well cleared and under cultivation, has thirteen head of cattle and some fine pigs, has the best barn in the place, and has just removed his family into a large commodious plank house, with many rooms and a very fine cellar, built entirely at odd times by himself and his son, a steady, clever lad of eighteen.
This man for several years has gone at the beginning of the winter to one of the hotels in Bracebridge, where he acts as “stable-boy,” and makes a great deal of money besides his food, which, in such a place, is of the best. He could very well now remain at home, and reap the reward of his thrift and industry, but prefers going on for a year or two longer, while he still has health and strength.
Now it is obvious that ladies and gentlemen have not, and cannot have these advantages. The ladies of a family cannot be left unprotected during the long winter, and indeed are, for the most part, physically incapable of chopping fire-wood, drawing water, and doing other hard outdoor work; I speak particularly of poor ladies and gentlemen. Should people of ample means choose to encounter the inevitable privations of the Bush, there are of course few which cannot be at least alleviated by a judicious expenditure of money.
It may well be asked here, who is there with ample means who would dream of coming to Muskoka? I answer boldly, none but those who are entirely ignorant of the miseries of Bush life, or those who have been purposely misled by designing and interested people.
Here the settlers’ wives and daughters work almost as hard as their husbands and fathers—log, burn, plant, and dig; and, in some instances, with the work adopt the habits of men, and smoke and chew tobacco to a considerable extent. This, I am happy to say, is not the case with all, nor even, I hope, with the majority; but nearly all the women, long before attaining middle age, look prematurely worn and faded, and many of the settlers themselves bear in their faces the unmistakable signs of hard work, scanty food, and a perpetual struggle for existence.
I have not yet mentioned the subject of wild beasts, but I may truly say that ever since I came out here, they have been a complete bugbear to me, and my dread of them is still unconquerable. I have been much laughed at for my fears, but as it is well-known that there are wild animals in the recesses of these woods, and as they do sometimes show themselves without being sought for, I cannot consider my fears groundless.
I have been told by one settler, who has been here for many years, and has often “camped out” all night in the woods, that he has never seen anything “worse than himself;” but another settler, the trapper mentioned in a former letter, kills some wild animals every year, and two or three times he has been met going over our lots in search of some bear or lynx which had escaped him.
We are told that when the clearings are larger, and more animals kept, especially pigs, that our visits from Bruin at least will be more frequent; and since your brother Charles, some months ago, got two fine pigs, he has repeatedly found bear-tracks in his beaver meadow, and even close up to the fence of his clearing. To say the least of it, the pleasure of a solitary walk is greatly impaired by the vague terror of a stray bear confronting you on the pathway, or of a spiteful lynx dropping down upon your shoulders from the branch of a tree.
The morning before H. L. left us for Toronto, he went to the post-office, but before he got to the end of our clearing, he saw at some distance a grey animal, which at first he took to be a neighbour’s dog; long before he got up to it, it cleared the fence at one bound, and vanished into the Bush. He thought this odd, but went on; returning in the twilight he was greatly astonished to see the same animal again in the clearing, and this time he might have had a good shot at it, but unfortunately he was encumbered with a can of milk, which he had good-naturedly brought for me, and before he could bring his gun to bear upon it, the creature was again in the depths of the Bush.
Much conversation ensued about it; some thought it must have been a chance wolf, but Charles, whose opinion we all looked to, was more inclined to the idea of its being a grey fox; he hardly thought that any other wild animal would have come so fearlessly into the clearing.
H. L. went to Toronto, and in a few days your brother received a letter from him saying that he had just seen a lynx newly killed which had been brought into the town, and that in colour, shape, and size, it exactly resembled the animal he had seen in my clearing. It has since been supposed that this might be the lynx the trapper said he was tracking when he passed near here in the spring.
I have often spoken of the broad deep gully at the end of my lot near the “concession” road. We had an old negro located on the strip of land between for more than five weeks. One fearfully cold day last winter, during a heavy snow-storm, your brother Charles came upon the poor old man “camping” for the night on the road near here. He talked to him a little, gave him all the small change he happened to have about him, and coming home and telling us, we made a small collection, which with a loaf of bread, he took to the old man next morning before he went away.
Before the close of this autumn, Charles again met his old acquaintance, looking more ragged and feeble than ever. He had with him only his axe and a small bundle. He said that he was making his way to a lot which he had taken up eight miles off, where he was going to locate himself and remain. He spoke too of having friends in the front who would give him some assistance, and at least send him some flour.
Again he camped out for the night, and we held a family consultation about him. Your brothers proposed going with him to his lot, and helping him to build his shanty. They talked of taking provisions and being out for some days. They also spoke of taking him food twice a week during the winter for fear he should starve, as he complained that his neighbours were very unkind to him, and did not want him located among them.
We all loudly protested against this plan as being altogether quixotic, and reminded them that to carry out their plan they must periodically neglect their own work, leave us alone, and run the risk of being often weather-bound, thus causing injury to their own health, and much alarm to us. We suggested an expedient, to let poor Jake settle himself near my gully for the winter; your brothers to build him a shanty there, and to take him every day sufficient warm food to make him comfortable. Charles promised to join with us in giving him so much bread and potatoes every week. I paid one visit to the old negro, whom I found dirty, and with only one eye, yet not at all repulsive-looking, as he had a very pleasant countenance, and talked well and intelligently.
He agreed to our plan, and your brothers soon raised the logs of a good shanty, and till it was completed he built himself a wigwam, Indian fashion, which he made very warm and comfortable. We told him also that if he liked to make a small clearing round his shanty, we would pay him for his chopping when he left. The winter soon came, and the snow began to fall. The first very frosty night made us anxious about our old pensioner, and your brother went to him early the next morning with a can of hot tea for his breakfast. What was his astonishment when he crossed the gully to hear loud voices in Jake’s little encampment.
On reaching it he asked the old man who was with him. He significantly pointed to the wigwam, from which a woman’s voice called out:
“Yes! I’m here, and I’ve got the hagur!” (ague).
A few minutes afterwards the owner of the voice issued from the hut, in the person of a stout, bold-looking, middle-aged woman, (white), who evidently considered old Jake, his shanty, his wigwam, and all his effects, as her own undoubted property. We found that this was the “Mary” of whom Jake had spoken as being the person with whom he had boarded and lodged in the front, and who had found him out here. In the course of the day both your brothers paid the old man a visit, and signified to him that it would be as well if he and his companion took their departure, as we knew he was not married to her, and we had a wholesome dread of five children, whom Jake had incidentally mentioned, following in the wake of their mother.
We gave them leave, however, to remain till the Monday following, as we did not wish to drive any one out precipitately who was suffering from the “hagur.” Till they went, we supplied them with provisions. On the following Monday they departed. Your brothers gave poor Jake two dollars for the little bit of chopping he had done, and we gave him some bread, coffee, and potatoes, as provisions for his journey. Your brothers saw him and Mary off with all their bundles, and returned home, leaving my gully as silent and solitary as ever.
We heard afterwards that Jake did not go to his own lot, as he seemed to intend, but was seen with his companion making his way to the main road out of the Bush. A settler overtook them, and told us they were quarrelling violently for the possession of a warm quilted French counterpane, which we had lent to old Jake to keep him warm in his wigwam, and had allowed him to take away.
We were disappointed this year in not having a visit from the old colporteur of Parry’s Sound. He came last year during a heavy storm of snow, with a large pack of cheap Bibles and Testaments, and told us he was an agent for the Wesleyan Society, and had orders to distribute gratis where there was really no means of paying. In answer to some remark of mine, he said that “the Bible must always follow the axe.”
I recognised more than ever, how, by the meanest and weakest instruments, God works out His mighty designs. This poor man was verging towards the decline of life; had a hollow cough, and was in frame very feeble and fragile, yet he was full of zeal, travelled incessantly, and dispensed numbers of copies of the Word of God as he passed from settlement to settlement. I bought two New Testaments for eight cents each, well printed, and strongly bound.
I am at work occasionally at my pleasant task of recording Bush reminiscences. My labours have at least kept me from vain and fruitless regrets and repinings.
“Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate!” How often have I repeated these dismal words to myself since I came into the Bush, and felt them to be the knell of hope and happiness! But time flies whether in joy or sorrow. We are now in the middle of our second winter, those dreadful winters of close imprisonment, which last for nearly seven months, and which your sister and I both agree, form the severest trial of Bush life. My aspirations, in former years, were manifold; but were I asked now what were the three absolute essentials for human happiness, I should be tempted to reply, “Roads to walk upon, a church to worship in, and a doctor within reach in case of necessity!” All these are wanting in the Bush; but as we have incessant daily occupation, an extensive correspondence, and as providentially we brought out all our stock of cherished books, we manage to live on without too much complaining.
Your brother Charles is doing pretty well, and hopes to bring his few animals safely through the winter. Your brother-in-law also is making progress, and is expecting from England a partner (a young relation of his own) whose coming will probably insure him success. We remain just as we were, striving, struggling, and hoping against hope, that success may yet crown our endeavours. Our farm stock is easily counted, and easily taken care of: your brother’s dog, with three very fat puppies; my pretty cat “Tibbs,” with her little son “Hodge,” and a magnificent tom puss, whose real home is at “Pioneer Cottage,” but who, being of social habits and having a general invitation, does me the honour to eat, drink, and sleep here.
My sketches of Bush life are an occupation and an amusement to me, but I can truly say that they very faintly portray our sufferings and our privations.
LETTERS FROM AN EMIGRANT LADY.
Part II.
WRITTEN TWO YEARS AFTERWARDS.
LETTERS FROM AN EMIGRANT LADY.
PART II.
In my former letters I spoke in a tone of mingled hope and fear as to the result of our efforts to make Bush-farming succeed without capital, and without even the means of living comfortably while trying the experiment.
It is needless to say to those who know anything of Muskoka, that the misgivings were fully realised, and the hopes proved mere delusions, and melted away imperceptibly as those airy fabrics too often do. We were certainly much deceived by the accounts given of Muskoka; after a four years’ residence I am inclined to think that from the very first the capabilities of its soil for agricultural purposes have been greatly exaggerated.
It will require years of extensive clearing, and constant amelioration of the land by means of manure and other applications, before it will be capable of bearing heavy grain crops; it is a poor and hungry soil, light and friable, mostly red sandstone loam and if a settler chances to find on his lot a small patch of heavy clay loam fit for raising wheat, the jubilant fuss that is made over it shows that it is not a common character of the soil.
The only crops at all reliable are oats and potatoes, and even these are subject to be injured by the frequent summer droughts and by the clouds of grasshoppers which occasionally sweep over Muskoka like an Egyptian plague.
For years to come the hard woods on a settler’s lot will be his most valuable source of profit; and as the railroad advances nearer and nearer, the demand for these woods for the lumber market will greatly increase.
But to return to our domestic history. The autumn of 1873 saw the first breaking-up of our little colony in the final departure from the Bush of my dear child, Mrs. C——, and her young family. My son-in-law, Mr. C——, soon found his Bush-farming as wearisome and unprofitable as we did ourselves. Having formerly taken his degree of B.A. at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and his wishes having long tended to the Church as a profession, nothing stood between him and ordination but a little reading up in classics and theology, which he accomplished with the assistance of his kind friend the Church of England clergyman at Bracebridge.
He was ordained by the Bishop of Toronto in October, 1873, and was at once appointed to a distant parish. The final parting was most painful, but it was so obviously for the good of the dear ones leaving us that we tried to repress all selfish regrets, and I, in particular, heartily thanked God that even a portion of the family had escaped from the miseries of Bush-life.
Our small community being so greatly lessened in number, the monotony of our lives was perceptibly increased. None but those who have experienced it can ever realise the utter weariness and isolation of Bush-life. The daily recurrence of the same laborious tasks, the want of time for mental culture, the absence of congenial intercourse with one’s fellow-creatures, the many hours of unavoidable solitude, the dreary unbroken silence of the immense forest which closes round the small clearings like a belt of iron; all these things ere long press down the most buoyant spirit, and superinduce a kind of dull despair, from which I have suffered for months at a time.
In conversation once with my daughter-in-law, who was often unavoidably alone for the whole day, we mutually agreed that there were times when the sense of loneliness became so dreadful, that had a bear jumped in at the window, or the house taken fire, or a hurricane blown down the farm buildings, we should have been tempted to rejoice and to hail the excitement as a boon.
And yet, strange as it may appear, I dreaded above all things visits from our neighbours. It is true they seldom came, but when they did, every one of them would have considered it a want of kindness not to prolong their visit for many hours. Harassed as I was with never ceasing anxiety, and much occupied with my correspondence and other writing, I found such visits an intolerable nuisance, particularly as after a little friendly talk about household matters, knitting, etc., where we met as it were on common ground, there was invariably a prolonged silence, which it required frantic efforts on my part to break, so as to prevent my guests feeling awkward and uncomfortable. On these occasions I was generally left with a nervous headache which lasted me for days.
One well-meaning, but especially noisy and vulgar individual was a continual terror to me. She more than once said to my eldest son:
“Your pore ma must be that lonesome and dull, that if it warn’t for the children I would often go and cheer her up a bit.”
My dear boy did his best to save his “pore ma” from such an infliction, and was thankful that the children presented an obstacle which fortunately for me was never got over.
In my estimation of the merits and agreeable conversation of our neighbours I made one great exception. Our nearest neighbour was an intelligent, well-conducted Englishman, who lived a lonely bachelor life, which in his rare intervals of rest from hard work he greatly solaced by reading. We lent him all our best books and English newspapers, and should have been glad to see him oftener, but he was so afraid of intruding that he seldom came except to return or change his books; at such times we had much really pleasant conversation, and often a stirring discussion on some public topic of the day, or it might be a particular reign in Cassell’s “English History,” or one of Shakespeare’s plays, both of which voluminous works he was reading through.
He had been head clerk in a large shop in Yorkshire, and was slightly democratic in his opinions, my tendencies being in the opposite direction; we just differed sufficiently to prevent conversation being dull. A more intelligent, hard-working, abstemious and trustworthy man I have seldom known, and we got to consider him quite in the light of a friend. For three winters, whether we had much or little, Mr. A——g was our honoured guest on Christmas Day.
One great solace of our lives was the number of letters we received from the “old country,” but even these were at times the cause of slight annoyance to my ever-sensitive feelings. All my dear friends and relations, after warm condolences on the disappointments we at first met with, would persist in assuring me that the worst being over, we were sure to gain ground, and meet with more success for the future. From whence they gathered their consolatory hopes on our behalf it is impossible for me to say, certainly not from my letters home, which, in spite of all my efforts, invariably fell into a melancholy, not to say a grumbling tone. I knew too well that, however bad things might be, the worst was yet to come, and with a pardonable exaggeration of feeling under peculiar circumstances, often said to myself:
“And in the lowest deep, a lower deep,
Still threatening to devour me, opens wide.”
The autumn and winter of 1873 passed away with no more remarkable event than our first patch of fall wheat being sown, from which, in a burst of temporary enthusiasm, we actually expected to have sufficient flour for the wants of at least one winter. 1874 having dawned upon us, we by no means slackened in our efforts to improve the land and make it profitable; but we found that although our expenses increased, our means did not. The more land we cleared, the more the want of money became apparent to crop and cultivate it, the labour of one individual being quite insufficient for the purpose.
To remedy this want, my son resolved to do what was a common practice in the settlement—go out to work for his neighbours, receiving from them return work, instead of any other payment. Our only difficulty in this matter was the having to provide sufficient food, even of the plainest kind, for hungry men engaged in logging; but even this we managed during the first half of the year. 1874 seemed to be a year of general want in our settlement; for when my son came home from his day of outside toil, our usual question was, “Well, dear, what did you have for dinner?” To which the reply mostly was, “Oh! bread-and-treacle and tea,” or “porridge and potatoes,” etc. And this in the houses of the better class of settlers, who were noted for putting the best they had before any neighbours working for them. In fact, there was so little of the circulating medium in the place, that all buying and selling was conducted in the most primitive style of barter. A settler having hay, corn, or cattle to sell, was obliged to take other commodities in exchange; and more than once, when we wanted some indispensable work done, my son, finding that we could in no way provide a money payment, would look over his tools or farm implements, and sometimes even his clothes, and part with whatever could possibly be spared.
I have mentioned our fall wheat sown in the autumn of 1873. Alas for all human expectations! The crop was pronounced to be a magnificent one by experienced judges; but when it came to be threshed, every grain was found to be wizened, shrivelled, and discoloured, and fit for nothing but to feed poultry. The crop had been winter-killed; that is, frozen and thawed so often before the snow finally covered it, that it was quite spoiled. We suffered at intervals this year more severely from the want of money than we had ever done; and had even long spells of hunger and want, which I trust have prepared us all to feel during the remainder of our lives a more full and perfect sympathy with our destitute fellow-creatures. In vain did we hope and wait, like Mr. Micawber, for “something to turn up;” nothing did turn up, but fresh troubles and increased fatigues.
Had it not been for the exceeding kindness of our friendly lawyer in London, and of a very dear friend of my early years (himself a lawyer), who sent us occasional assistance, we must have sunk under our wants and miseries. I did my very best to keep the “wolf from the door” by my literary efforts, and met with much kindness and consideration; but after unceasing industry, long continued, got to know that a few articles inserted at intervals in a fashionable American magazine, however much they might be liked and approved of, would do but little towards relieving the wants of a family. I became at last quite discouraged; for so much material was rejected and returned upon my hands, that I was fain to conclude that some frightful spell of dulness had fallen upon my once lively pen.
The work of this year appeared to us all to be harder than ever, and my eldest son’s health and strength were evidently on the decline. It is true that nearly every day he did the work of two men, as, in addition to the cultivation of the land, he had to chop all the fire-wood for daily use, to draw the water, and to do various jobs more or less fatiguing to insure anything like comfort to the family. He became so attenuated and cadaverous-looking, that we often told him that he would make his fortune on any stage as the lean apothecary in “Romeo and Juliet.”
It was with scarcely-suppressed anguish that, night after night, we saw him so fatigued and worn-out as to be hardly able to perform his customary ablutions and toilet before sitting down to the reading and writing with which he invariably concluded the day, and which was the only employment which linked us all to our happier life in former days. Indeed, both my sons, in spite of hard work and scanty fare, managed to give a few brief moments to study, and both at intervals wrote a few articles for our local paper, which at least showed an aptitude for higher pursuits than Bush-farming. Both my sons at times worked for and with each other, which was a most pleasant arrangement.
At this time my youngest son was going through, on his own farm, the same struggles as ourselves, and was, I am bound to say, in every respect as hard-working and energetic as his elder brother. His family was fast increasing, as he had now two little boys, in addition to the one of whom we had charge; and before the end of the year, he was thankful to accept the situation of schoolmaster at Allunsville, which added forty pounds a year to his slender means.
On one occasion, when he was working on our land with his brother, and when four other men were giving my son return-work, and were logging a large piece of ground near the house, having brought their oxen with them, we had half an hour of the delicious excitement of which my daughter-in-law and myself had talked so calmly some time before.
It was a bright sunny day, and my daughter and myself were busily engaged in cooking a substantial dinner for our working party, when, chancing to look up, my daughter exclaimed, “Mamma, is that sunlight or fire shining through the roof?” I ran out directly, and saw that the shingles below the chimney were well alight and beginning to blaze up. Calling to my daughter in passing, I flew to the end of the house and screamed out “Fire! fire!” in a voice which, my sons afterwards laughingly assured me, must have been heard at the post-office, three miles off. It had the immediate effect of bringing the whole party to our assistance in a few seconds, who were met by my daughter with two pails of water, which she had promptly procured from the well.
My two sons, both as active as monkeys, were immediately on the roof; one with an axe, to cut away the burning shingles; the other with water, handed up by men, to keep the fire from spreading. In ten minutes all danger was over; but it left us rather frightened and nervous, and I must confess that I never again wished for excitement of the same dangerous kind.
In the summer of this year I went to Bracebridge, on a visit to my daughter, Mrs. C., whose husband had lately taken priest’s orders, and been appointed by his bishop resident Church of England minister in that place, a change very agreeable to him, as he was well known, and much liked and esteemed by the inhabitants.
When I left the Bush to go into Bracebridge, it was with the full intention of never returning to it, and all my family considered my visit to Mrs. C. as a farewell visit before leaving for England. I had made great exertions to get from my kind lawyer and a friend an advance of sufficient money to take one of us back to the dear “old country,” and all agreed that I should go first, being well aware that my personal solicitations would soon secure the means of bringing back my eldest son and daughter, who, being the only unmarried ones of the family, were my constant companions.
Having, unfortunately for my plans, but quite unavoidably, made use of part of the money to leave things tolerably comfortable in the Bush, I waited anxiously till the deficit could be made up, which I fully hoped would soon be the case, a work of mine, in fifteen parts, having been forwarded to a publisher in New York, with a view to publication if approved of. What was my distress at receiving the manuscript back, with this observation appended to it: “The work is too English, local, and special, to be acceptable on this side of the Atlantic”! Other articles intended for the magazine I sometimes wrote for were also returned upon my hands about the same time. I draw a veil over my feelings, and will only say that disappointment, anxiety, suspense, and the burning heat of the weather gave me a very severe attack of illness, which frightened my dear child Mrs. C. most dreadfully, and left me so weak, feeble, and completely crushed, that I was thankful to send for my son, and to go back ignominiously to the hated Bush, to be tenderly nursed by my dear children, and to grieve over the loss of money so utterly thrown away.
The year wore slowly away, and Christmas Eve came at last; the snow had fallen in immense quantities, and the roads were nearly impassable from the deep drift. Our worthy friend Mr. A——g was away at the lochs, eight miles off, where he had taken a job of work, and we therefore felt pretty sure that he could not pay us his customary Christmas visit. We felt almost thankful, much as we liked him; for we had been literally without a cent for two months, and all our provision for Christmas festivities consisted in plenty of potatoes and a small modicum of flour.
But we were not to escape the humiliation of having nothing to put before our invited guest. Long after dark a well-known knock at the door announced Mr. A——g, who came for the key of his house, of which we always had the charge, and who had walked the whole way from the lochs to keep his tryst with us, over roads deep in snow and quite dangerous from snow-drifts at either side, which were so many pitfalls for unwary travellers. He came in, and we made him directly some hot tea—a welcome refreshment after his cold and fatiguing tramp of six hours.
When he was gone, we held a committee of ways and means; but as nothing could be done to alter the state of affairs, and as there was absolutely a ludicrous side to the question, we laughed heartily and went to bed.
Having edified the public with an account of our first Christmas dinner in the Bush, I cannot resist the temptation of giving the details of our last, which certainly did not show much improvement in our finances.
On Christmas morning, 1874, we very early heard a joyous shout, and saw dear Charles advancing triumphantly with two very small salt herrings (the last of his stock) dangling in one hand, and a huge vegetable-marrow in the other, these articles being the only addition he could make to our Christmas dinner, which for the three previous years he had been mainly instrumental in providing.
What could we do but laugh and cheerfully accept the situation? Charles promised to bring his dear wife and the two babies down on the ox-sleigh as early as possible. We borrowed, without hesitation, some butter from our friend Mr. A——g, who had a stock of it, and my eldest son went himself to fetch him before dinner, fearing that delicacy would prevent his coming, as he could too well guess the state of the larder.
Our guests assembled and dinner-time arrived, I placed on the table a large and savoury dish of vegetable-marrow mashed, with potatoes well buttered, peppered, salted and baked in the oven; the two herrings carefully cooked and a steaming dish of potatoes, with plenty of tea, made up a repast which we much enjoyed. When tea-time came, my daughter, who had devoted herself for the good of the community, supplied us with relays of “dampers,” which met with universal approbation.
In compliment to our guest, we had all put on what my boys jocosely term our “Sunday go-to-meeting clothes!” I was really glad that the grubs of so many weary weeks past on this day turned into butterflies. Cinderella’s transformations were not more complete. My daughter became the elegant young woman she has always been considered; my sons, in once more getting into their gentlemanly clothes, threw off the careworn look of working-day fatigue, and became once more distinguished and good-looking young men; and as to my pretty daughter-in-law, I have left her till the last to have the pleasure of saying that I never saw her look more lovely. She wore a very elegant silk dress, had delicate lace and bright ribbons floating about her, a gold locket and chain and sundry pretty ornaments, relics of her girlish days, and to crown all her beautiful hair flowing over her shoulders. I thought several times that afternoon, as I saw her caressing first one and then another of her three baby boys, that a painter might have been proud to sketch the pretty group, and to throw in at his fancy gorgeous draperies, antique vases and beautiful flowers, in lieu of the rude coarse framework of a log-house.
I could not but notice this Christmas Day that no attempt was made at singing, not even our favourite hymns were proposed; in fact the whole year had been so brim full of misfortune and trouble that I think none of our hearts were attuned to melody. Ah! dear reader, it takes long chastening before we can meekly drink the cup of affliction and say from the heart, “Thy will be done!” Let you and I, remembering our own shortcomings in this respect, be very tender over those of others!
Our party broke up early, as the children and their mother had to be got home before the light of the short winter-day had quite vanished, but we all agreed that we had passed a few hours very pleasantly.
Very different was our fare on New Year’s Day of 1875—a sumptuous wild turkey, which we roasted, having been provided for us by the kindness of one whom we must ever look upon in the light of a dear friend.
The “gentlemanly Canadian,” mentioned by me in my Bush reminiscences, read my papers and at once guessed at the authorship. Being in Muskoka on an election tour with his friend Mr. Pardee, he procured a guide and found us out in the Bush. He stayed but a short time, but the very sight of his kind friendly face did us good for days. Finding that I had never seen a wild turkey from the prairie, he asked leave to send me one, and did not forget his promise, sending a beautiful bird which was meant for our Christmas dinner, but owing to delays at Bracebridge only reached us in time for New Year’s Day; which brings me to 1875, an era of very important family changes.
I began this year with more of hopefulness and pleasure than I had known for a long time. My determination that this year should see us clear of the Bush had long been fixed, and I felt that as I brought unconquerable energy, and the efforts of a strong will to bear upon the project, it was sure to be successful. I had no opposition now to dread from my dear companions; both my son and daughter were as weary as myself of our long-continued and hopeless struggles. My son’s health and strength were visibly decreasing; he had already spent more than three years of the prime of his life in work harder than a common labourer’s, and with no better result than the very uncertain prospect of a bare living at the end of many years more of daily drudgery. His education fitted him for higher pursuits, and it was better for him to begin the world again, even at the age of thirty-two, than to continue burying himself alive.
We had long looked upon Bush life in the light of exile to a penal settlement without even the convict’s chance of a ticket-of-leave. All these considerations nerved me for the disagreeable task of getting money from England for our removal, in which, thanks to the unwearied kindness of the friends I have before mentioned, I succeeded, and very early in the year we began to make preparations for our final departure. It required the stimulus of hope to enable us to bear the discomforts of our last two months’ residence in the Bush.
After the turn of the year, immense quantities of snow continued to fall till we were closely encircled by walls of ice and snow fully five feet in depth. The labour of keeping paths open to the different farm-buildings was immense, and the unavoidable task of cutting away the superincumbent ice and snow from the different roofs was one of danger as well as toil. I was told that we were passing through an exceptional winter, and I must believe it, as long after we were in Bracebridge the snow continued to fall, and even so late as the middle of May a heavy snow-storm spread its white mantle on the earth, and hid it from view for many hours.
The last day at length arrived, we sat for the last time by our log-fire, we looked for the last time on the familiar landscape, and I, at least, felt not one pang of regret. My bump of adhesiveness is enormous; I cling fondly to the friends I love, to my pet animals, and even to places where I have lived; in quitting France I could have cried over every shrub and flower in my beloved garden. How great then must have been my unhappiness, and how I must have loathed my Bush life, when at quitting it for ever, my only feeling was joy at my escape!
At the time we left, the roads were so dangerous for the horses’ legs that my son had the greatest difficulty in hiring a wagon and team for our own use—all our heavy baggage had been taken in by ox-sleighs. He succeeded at last, and in the afternoon of the 2nd of March our exodus began. My son and the driver removed all but the front seat, and carefully spread our softest bedding, blankets and pillows, at the bottom of the wagon, and on these my daughter and myself reclined at our ease with our dear little charge between us. My favourite cat Tibbs, of “Atlantic Monthly” celebrity, was in a warm basket before me, and her companion Tomkins, tied up in a bag, slept on my lap the whole way. My son sat with the driver, and Jack, our black dog, ran by the side. We slept at Utterson, and in the morning went on to Bracebridge, where my son had secured for us a small roadside house.
When we were tolerably settled Edward started for Toronto and Montreal in search of employment, taking with him many excellent letters of introduction. In Montreal he was most kindly and hospitably welcomed by two dear friends, ladies who came out with us in the same ship from England, who received him into their house, introduced him to a large circle of friends, and did much to restore the shattered health of the “handsome emigrant,” as they had named him in the early stages of their acquaintance. Eventually finding nothing suitable in either place, our dear companion and protector for so many years decided to go on the Survey, his name having been put down by our kind friend, the donor of the wild turkey, on the Staff of his relation, Mr. Stuart, appointed by Government to survey the district of Parry Sound. Severe illness of our little boy, followed by illness of my own which still continues, was my welcome to Bracebridge, but still I rejoice daily that our Bush life is for ever over.
Here I finally drop the curtain on our domestic history, and make but a few parting observations. I am far from claiming undue sympathy for my individual case, but would fain deter others of the genteel class, and especially elderly people, from breaking up their comfortable homes and following an ignis fatuus in the shape of emigration to a distant land.
I went into the Bush of Muskoka strong and healthy, full of life and energy, and fully as enthusiastic as the youngest of our party. I left it with hopes completely crushed, and with health so hopelessly shattered from hard work, unceasing anxiety and trouble of all kinds, that I am now a helpless invalid, entirely confined by the doctor’s orders to my bed and sofa, with not the remotest chance of ever leaving them for a more active life during the remainder of my days on earth.
A WEDDING IN MUSKOKA.
An Incident of Life in the Canadian Backwoods.
