'You see, papa, I thought it never would get on, it was such a sickly little thing; but it must be growing strong, or it could not put out a bud. How glad I shall be to see a daisy's face again! I would give all the fragrance of the blue wild iris for one. But, papa, the laurel cuttings are dead, I fear.'
They looked very like it, though Mr. Wynn would still give them a chance. He apprehended the extreme dryness of the air might prove too much for the infant daisy also. But Linda would see nothing except promise of prosperity as yet.
'Now, papa, when I am done with my melons, and you have finished Georgie's lessons, I want you to walk down to Daisy Burn with me. I have something to say to Edith.'
'With pleasure, my dear. But I have always wondered why that name was given to that farm, except on the principle of lucus a non.'
After the mid-day dinner they went. Meeting Andy on the road, trudging up from the 'Corner' on some message, he informed them that the captain and his son had gone to a cradling-bee at Benson's, an English settler a few miles off. 'But as to whether 'tis to make cradles they want, or to rock 'em, meself doesn't rightly know.'
The fact being that a 'cradle,' in American farming, signifies a machine for cutting down corn wholesale. It is a scythe, longer and wider than that used in mowing hay, combined with an apparatus of 'standard,' 'snaith,' and 'fingers,' by means of which a single workman may level two acres and a half of wheat or oats in one day.
'Captain Armytage is of a very sociable disposition,' remarked Mr. Wynn, after a few steps. 'A man fresh from the mess table and clubs must find the bush strangely unsuitable.' He was thinking of certain petty occurrences at his own bee, which demonstrated the gallant officer's weaknesses.
'Oh, papa, did you ever see anything like these vines? Grapes will be as plentiful as blackberries are at home.' For along the concession line many trees were festooned with ripening clusters; and deeper in the woods, beyond Linda's ken, and where only the birds and wild animals could enjoy the feast, whole hundredweights hung in gleams of sunshine. Well might the Northmen, lighting upon Canadian shores in one hot summer, many centuries before Cabot or Cartier, name the country Vine-land; and the earliest French explorers up the St. Lawrence call a grape-laden rock the Isle of Bacchus.
'But is it not a wonder, papa,' pressed the young lady, 'when the cold is so terrible in winter? Do you remember all the endless trouble the gardener at Dunore had to save his vines from the frost? And Robert says that great river the Ottawa is frozen up for five months every year, yet here the grapes flourish in the open air.'
'I suppose we are pretty much in the latitude of the Garonne,' answered Mr. Wynn, casting about for some cause. 'But, indeed, Linda, if your Canadian grape does not enlarge somewhat'—