FOOTNOTES:
[5] History of the American Revolution. By George Bancroft. Vol. I. Boston, Little & Brown, 1852.
From the London Literary Gazette
LIFE IN CANADA.
BY MRS. MOODIE.[6]
If there be one of life's affairs in which woman has a peculiar right to have her wishes considered and her veto respected, it is that of emigration. For, in the arduous task of establishing a new home in a half-settled country, let man do what he will to alleviate, on her fall the burthen and heat of the day. Hers are the menial toils, the frequent anxieties, the lingering home-sickness, the craving after dear friends' faces and a beloved native land. Hers, too, the self-imposed duty and unselfish effort to hide regret under cheerful smiles, when the weary brother or husband returns at evening from toil in field and forest. Blessed and beautiful are the smiles of the sad-hearted, worn to wile away another's cares!
Love in a cottage has long been jeered at, and depicted as flying out of the window. It seems miraculous to behold the capricious little deity steadfastly braving, for many a long year, the chilly atmosphere of a log-hut in an American forest. In the year 1832, Mrs. Moodie (here better remembered as Miss Susanna Strickland, sister of the well-known historian of the English and Scottish Queens) accompanied her husband, a half-pay subaltern, to the backwoods of Canada. Many were her misgivings, and they did not prove unfounded. Long and cruel was the probation she underwent, before finding comparative comfort and prosperity in the rugged land where at first she found so much to embitter her existence. Nobly did she bear up under countless difficulties and sufferings, supported by an energy rare in woman, and by her devoted attachment to the husband of her choice. For some years her troubles were not occasional, but continual and increasing. Her first installation in a forest home could hardly have been more discouraging and melancholy than it was:
"The place we first occupied was purchased of Mr. C——, a merchant, who took it in payment of sundry large debts, which the owner, a New England loyalist, had been unable to settle. Old Joe H—, the present occupant, had promised to quit it with his family at the commencement of sleighing; and as the bargain was concluded in the month of September, and we were anxious to plough for fall wheat, it was necessary to be upon the spot. No house was to be found in the immediate neighborhood save a small dilapidated log tenement, on an adjoining farm (which was scarcely reclaimed from the bush), that had been some months without an owner. The merchant assured us that this could be made very comfortable until such time as it suited H—to remove."
With singular want of caution, Mr. and Mrs. Moodie neglected to visit this "log tenement" before signing an agreement to rent it. On a rainy September day they proceed to take possession:
"The carriage turned into a narrow, steep path, overhung with lofty woods, and after laboring up it with considerable difficulty, and at the risk of breaking our necks, it brought us at length to a rocky upland clearing, partially covered with a second growth of timber, and surrounded on all sides by the dark forest. 'I guess,' quoth our Yankee driver, 'that at the bottom of this 'ere swell, you'll find yourself to hum;' and plunging into a short path cut through the wood, he pointed to a miserable hut, at the bottom of a steep descent, and cracking his whip, exclaimed, 'It's a smart location that. I wish you Britishers may enjoy it.' I gazed upon the place in perfect dismay, for I had never seen such a shed called a house before. 'You must be mistaken; that is not a house, but a cattle-shed, or pig-sty.' The man turned his knowing keen eye upon me, and smiled, half humorously, half maliciously, as he said, 'You were raised in the old country, I guess; you have much to learn, and more perhaps than you'll like to know, before the winter is over.'"
The prophet of evil spoke truly. It was a winter of painful instruction for the inexperienced young woman, and her not very prudent husband. We might fill columns with a bare list of their vexations and disasters. Amongst the former, not the least arose from the borrowing propensities of their neighbors. They had 'located' in a bad neighborhood, in the vicinity of a number of low Yankee squatters, "ignorant as savages, without their courtesy and kindness." These people walked unceremoniously at all hours into their wretched dwelling, to criticise their proceedings, make impertinent remarks, and to borrow—or rather to beg or steal, for what they borrowed they rarely returned. The most extraordinary loans were daily solicited or demanded; and Mrs. Moodie, strange and timid in her new home, and amongst, these semi-barbarians—her husband, too, being much away at the farm—for some time dared not refuse to acquiesce in their impudent extortions. Here is a specimen of the style of these miscalled 'borrowings.' On the first day of their arrival, whilst they were yet toiling to exclude wind and rain from the crazy hovel, which their baggage and goods filled nearly to the roof, a young Yankee 'lady' squeezed herself into the crowded room:
"Imagine a girl of seventeen or eighteen years of age, with sharp, knowing-looking features, a forward impudent carnage, and a pert flippant voice, standing upon one of the trunks, and surveying all our proceedings in the most impertinent manner. The creature was dressed in a ragged, dirty, purple stuff gown, cut very low in the neck, with an old red cotton handkerchief tied over her head; her uncombed, tangled locks falling over her thin, inquisitive face in a state of perfect nature. Her legs and feet were bare, and in her coarse, dirty, red hands she swung to and fro an empty glass decanter."
The mission of this squalid nymph was not to borrow but to lend. She "guessed the strangers were fixin' there," and that they'd want a glass decanter to hold their whisky, so she had brought one over. "But mind—don't break it," said she; "'tis the only one we have to hum, and father says it's so mean to drink out of green glass"—a sentiment worthy of a colonel of hussars. Although quite pleased by such disinterested kindness and attention, Mrs. Moodie declined the decanter, on the double ground of having some of her own, and of not drinking whisky. The refusal was unavailing. The lady in ragged purple set down the bottle on a trunk, as firmly as if she meant to plant it there, and took herself off. The next morning cleared up the mystery of her perseverance. "Have you done with that 'ere decanter I brought across yesterday?" said the 'cute damsel, presenting herself before Mrs. Moodie with her bare red knees peeping through her ragged petticoats, and with face and hands innocent of soap. The English lady returned the bottle, with the remark that she had never needed it.
"'I guess you won't return it empty,' quoth the obliging neighbor; 'that would be mean, father says. He wants it filled with whisky.'"
The hearty laugh which this solution of the riddle provoked from the inmates of the log-house offended the female Yankee, who tossed the decanter from hand to hand and glared savagely about her. But the ridicule was insufficient to deter her from the whisky hunt. When assured there was none in the place, she demanded rum, and pointed to a keg, in which she said she smelt it. Her keen olfactories had not deceived her. The rum, she was told, was for the workmen:
"'I calculate,' was the reply, 'when you've been here a few months, you'll be too knowing to give rum to helps. But old-country folks are all fools, and that's the reason they get so easily sucked in, and be so soon wound up. Cum, fill the bottle, and don't be stingy. In this country we all live by borrowing. If you want any thing, why, just send and borrow from us.'"
When the decanter was filled and delivered to this saucy mendicant, Mrs. Moodie ventured to petition for a little milk for her infant, but Impudence in purple laughed in her face, and named an exorbitant price at which she would sell it her, for cash on delivery. It seems incredible that, after this ingratitude, Mrs. Moodie continued her 'lendings' to the family of which her new acquaintance was a distinguished ornament.
"The very day our new plough came home, the father of this bright damsel, who went by the familiar name of Old Satan, came over to borrow it (though we afterwards found out that he had a good one of his own). The land had never been broken up, and was full of rocks and stumps, and he was anxious to save his own from injury; the consequence was, that the borrowed implement came home unfit for use, just at the very time we wanted to plough for fall wheat. The same happened to a spade and trowel, bought in order to plaster the house. Satan asked the loan of them for one hour, for the same purpose, and we never saw them again."
The other neighbors were no better. One Yankee dame used to send over her son, a hopeful youth, Philander by name, almost every morning, to borrow the bake-kettle, in which hot cakes were cooked for breakfast. One day, when Mrs. Moodie was later than usual in rising, she heard from her bedroom the kitchen latch lifted. It was Philander, come for the kettle.
"I (through the partition): 'You can't have it this morning. We cannot get our breakfast without it,' Philander: 'No more can the old woman to hum,' and, snatching up the kettle, which had been left to warm on the hearth, he rushed out of the house, singing at the top of his voice, 'Hurrah for the Yankee boys!' When James (the servant) came home for his breakfast, I sent him across to demand the kettle, and the dame very coolly told him, that when she had done with it I might have it; but she defied him to take it out of her house with her bread in it."
Since the request of the drover who begged his comrade to lend him a bark of his dog, we have not heard of queerer loans than some of those solicited of Mrs. Moodie:—
"Another American squatter was always sending over to borrow a small-tooth comb, which she called a vermin destroyer; and once the same person asked the loan of a towel, as a friend had come from the States to visit her, and the only one she had, had been made into a best 'pinny' for the child: she likewise begged a sight in the looking-glass, as she wanted to try on a new cap, to see if it were fixed to her mind. This woman must have been a mirror of neatness when compared with her dirty neighbors. One night I was roused up from my bed for the loan of a pair of 'steelyards.' For what purpose, think you, gentle reader? To weigh a new-born infant. The process was performed by tying the poor squalling thing up in a small shawl, and suspending it to one of the hooks. The child was a fine boy, and weighed ten pounds, greatly to the delight of the Yankee father. One of the drollest instances of borrowing I have ever heard of was told me by a friend. A maid-servant asked her mistress to go out on a particular afternoon, as she was going to have a party of her friends, and wanted the loan of the drawing-room."
Traits such as these exhibit, more vividly than volumes of description, the sort of savages amongst whom poor Mrs. Moodie's lot was cast. They had all the worst qualities of Yankee and Indian—the good ones of neither. They had neither manners, heart, nor honesty. The basest selfishness, cunning, and malignity were their prominent characteristics. A less patient and good-tempered person than Mrs. Moodie would, however, have had little difficulty in getting rid of the troublesome and intrusive borrowers. They could not bear a sharp rebuke, and, more than once, a happy and pointed retort rid her, for weeks, or even for ever, of the pestilent presence of one or other of them. An English farmer, settled near at hand, to whom she mentioned her annoyances, laughed—as well he might—at her easy-going toleration. "Ask them sharply what they want," he said, "and, failing a satisfactory answer, bid them leave the house. Or—a better way still—buy some small article of them, and bid them bring the change." Mrs. Moodie tried the latter plan, and with no slight success.
"That very afternoon, Miss Satan brought me a plate of butter for sale. The price was three and nine pence; twice the sum, by-the-bye, that it was worth. 'I have no change,'—giving her a dollar—'but you can bring it to me to-morrow.' Oh! blessed experiment! for the value of one quarter dollar I got rid of this dishonest girl for ever. Rather than pay me, she never entered the house again."
The strange names of some of the farmers and squatters in Mrs. Moodie's neighborhood exceed belief. Amongst the substantial yeomen thereabouts were Solomon Sly, Reynard Fox, and Hiram Dolittle. Ammon and Ichabod were two hopeful Canadian youths, the former of whom—a child of tender years—was in the habit of hideously swearing at his father, and then scampering across the meadow, and defying the pursuit of his pursy progenitor. This is another family of which Mrs. Moodie gives amusing glimpses, in a style sufficiently masculine, but therefore all the better adapted to the subject:—
"The conversation was interrupted by a queer-looking urchin of five years old, dressed in a long-tailed coat and trowsers, popping his black shock head in at the door and calling out, 'Uncle Joe! You're wanted to hum.' 'Is that your nephew?' 'No! I guess it's my woman's eldest son,' said uncle Joe, rising; 'but they call me Uncle Joe. 'Tis a spry chap that—as cunning as a fox. I tell you what it is—he will make a smart man. Go home, Ammon, and tell your ma that I am coming.' 'I won't,' said the boy; 'you may go hum and tell her yourself. She has wanted wood cut this hour, and you'll catch it!' Away ran the dutiful son, but not before he had applied his forefinger significantly to the side of his nose, and, with a knowing wink, pointed in the direction of hum. Uncle Joe obeyed the signal, drily remarking that he could not leave the barn door without the old hen clucking him back. At this period we were still living in Old Satan's log house, and anxiously looking out for the first snow to put us in possession of the good substantial log dwelling occupied by Uncle Joe and his family, which consisted of a brown brood of seven girls and this highly-prized boy."
The names of the squatter ladies were of a far superior description to those to which their brothers answered. Looking down upon the Old Testament, their godfathers had resorted for suggestions to the Italian Opera, the heathen mythology, and the Minerva press. She of the purple garment was called Emily. This was quiet enough. But her associates were Cinderellas, Minervas, and Almerias; and Amanda was the baptismal appellation of one of Ammon's sisters.
Old Joe, it will be remembered, had agreed to quit, when winter set in, the house belonging to the farm which Mr. Moodie had purchased. But even in civilized and lawyer-ridden England possession is held to be nine points of the law, and in Canada the other tenth is thrown in. Old Joe's mother, an abominable Yankee Hecate, grinned like a whole bag-full of monkeys when informed that her son was expected to dis-locate as soon as sleighing began.
"'Joe,' she guessed, 'would take his own time. The house was not built which was to receive him; and he was not the man to turn his back upon a warm hearth to camp in the wilderness. It was neither the first snow nor the last frost that would turn Joe out of his comfortable home.'"
Mrs. Hecate spoke a true word. Frost came, sledges ran, thaw began—not an inch budged Joe. The sun gained power, a soft south wind fanned the frozen earth, the snow disappeared—still the reckless, dishonest scamp made no sign of removing, and replied with abuse to the remonstrances of those to whom his dwelling belonged. In the States, and with a brother Yankee, his obstinacy might have led to revolver and rifle work. The English emigrants patiently waited, to their own great inconvenience. Joe reckoned he shouldn't move till his 'missus' was confined—an interesting event which was expected to come off in May. About the middle of that month the Joe family was increased by a sturdy boy, whereupon its chief declared his intention of turning out in a fortnight, if all went well. Mrs. Moodie did not believe him—he had lied so often before; but he was determined to take her in at last, as he had done at first, for this time he was as good as his word. On the last day of May they went, bag and baggage, and Mrs. Moodie sent over her Scotch maid-servant and Irish serving-man to clear out the dwelling, which she justly expected would be in bad enough condition. But her expectations were far exceeded by the reality. The malignity of these people, who from her had received nothing but kindness and good offices, was degrading to human nature. Presently the Irishman returned, panting with indignation:
"'The house,' he said, 'was more filthy than a pig-sty.' But that was not the worst of it; Uncle Joe, before he went, had undermined the brick chimney, and let all the water into the house. 'Oh! but if he comes here agin,' he continued, grinding his teeth and doubling his fist, 'I'll thrash him for it. And thin, Ma'arm, he has girdled round all the best graft apple-trees, the murtherin' owld villain, as if it would spile his digestion our ating them.'
"John and Bell scrubbed at the house all day, and in the evening they carried over the furniture, and I went to inspect our new dwelling. It looked beautifully clean and neat. Bell had whitewashed all the black, smoky walls, and boarded ceilings, and scrubbed the dirty window-frames, and polished the fly-spotted panes of glass, until they actually admitted a glimpse of the clear air and the blue sky. Snow-white-fringed curtains, and a bed with furniture to correspond, a carpeted floor, and a large pot of green boughs on the hearthstone, gave an air of comfort and cleanliness to a room which, only a few hours before, had been a loathsome den of filth and impurity. This change would have been very gratifying, had not a strong, disagreeable odor almost deprived me of my breath as I entered the room. It was unlike any thing I had ever smelt before, and turned me so sick and faint, that I had to cling to the door-post for support.
"'Where does this dreadful smell come from?'
"'The guidness knows, ma'am; John and I have searched the house from the loft to the cellar, but we canna find out the cause of the stink.'
"'It must be in the room, Bell, and it is impossible to remain here, or to live in the house, until it is removed.'
"Glancing my eyes all round the place, I spied what seemed to me a little cupboard, over the mantel-shelf, and I told John to see if I was right. The lad mounted upon a chair, and pulled open a small door, but almost fell to the ground with the dreadful stench which seemed to rush from the closet.
"'What is it, John?' I cried from the open door.
"'A skunk! ma'arm, a skunk! Sure, I thought the devil had scorched his tail, and left the grizzled hair behind him. What a strong perfume it has!' he continued, holding up the beautiful but odious little creature by the tail.
"'By dad! I know all about it now. I saw Ned Layton, only two days ago, crossing the field with Uncle Joe, with his gun on his shoulder, and this wee bit baste in his hand. They were both laughing like sixty. 'Well, if this does not stink the Scotchman out of the house,' said Joe, 'I'll be content to be tarred and feathered;' and thin they both laughed until they stopped to draw breath.'
"I could hardly help laughing myself; but I begged Monaghan to convey the horrid creature away, and putting some salt and sulphur into a tin plate, and setting fire to it, I placed it on the floor in the middle of the room, and closed all the doors for an hour, which greatly assisted in purifying the house from the skunkification. Bell then washed out the closet with strong ley, and in a short time no vestige remained of the malicious trick Uncle Joe had played off upon us."
The smell of skunk and Yankee eradicated, there still was much to be done before the house could be deemed habitable. It swarmed with mice, which all the night long performed fantastical dances over the faces and pillows of the new comers. The old logs which composed the walls of the dwelling were alive with bugs and large black ants, and the fleas upon the floor were as thick as sand-grains in the desert. With the warm weather, then just setting in, came legions of mosquitoes, that rose in clouds from the numerous little streams intersecting the valley. But in spite of all these discomforts, summer was felt to be a blessing, and "roughing it" in the woods was far less painful than in the season of snow, and frost, and storm.
"The banks of the little streams abounded with wild strawberries, which, although small, were of a delicious flavor. Thither Bell and I, and the baby, daily repaired to gather the bright red berries of nature's own providing. Katie, young as she was, was very expert at helping herself, and we used to seat her in the middle of a fine bed, whilst we gathered farther on. Hearing her talking very lovingly to something in the grass, which she tried to clutch between her white hands, calling it 'pitty, pitty,' I ran to the spot and found it was a large garter-snake that she was so affectionately courting to her embrace. Not then aware that this formidable looking reptile was perfectly harmless, I snatched the child up in my arms, and ran with her home, never stopping until I reached the house and saw her safely seated in her cradle."
Sixteen years elapsed after the departure of Joe and his brood from her neighborhood before Mrs. Moodie heard any thing of their fate. A winter or two ago, tidings of them reached her through one who had lived near them. Hecate, almost a centenarian, occupied a corner of her son's barn. She could not dwell in harmony under the same roof with her daughter-in-law. The lady in purple and her sisters were married and scattered abroad. Joe himself, who could neither read nor write, had turned itinerant preacher. No account was given of the hopeful Ammon.
Mrs. Moodie's work, unaffectedly and naturally written, though a little coarse, will delight ladies, please men, and even amuse children. On our readers' account we regret our inability to make further extracts from its amusing pages. The book is one of great originality and interest.