Thousands of Andy's countrymen find the same relief to their consciences as soon as they tread the free soil of Canada West.
Truly a primitive settlement was the 'Corner.' The dusk forest closed about its half dozen huts threateningly, as an army round a handful of invincibles. Stumps were everywhere that trees were not; one log-cabin was erected upon four, as it had been, legs ready to walk away with the edifice. 'Uncle Zack's' little store was the most important building in the place, next to the sawmill on the stream.
'The situation must be unhealthy,' said Robert; 'here's marsh under my very feet. Why, there's a far better site for a town plot on my land, Holt.'
'Ay, and a better water privilege too. Let me see what your energy does towards developing its resources, Robert.'
They discovered one source of the storekeeper's prosperity in the enormous price he exacted for the commonest articles. Necessity alone could have driven Arthur to pay what he did for the wretched little window of four panes to light the shanty. And Uncle Zack had as much to say about the expense and difficulty of getting goods to a locality so remote, and as much sympathizing with his purchaser because of the exorbitant cost, as if he were a philanthropist, seeking solely the convenience of his neighbours by his sales.
'That fellow's a master of soft sawder when he chooses: but did you see how he clutched the hard cash after all? My opinion is, he don't often get paid in the circulating medium,' said Arthur.
'Of that you may be sure,' rejoined Sam Holt; 'currency here lies more in potash or flour, just as they have salt in Abyssinia. Society seems to be rather mixed at the "Corner." Yonder's a French Canadian, and here's an Indian.'
No glorious red man, attired in savage finery of paint and feathers; no sculptor's ideal form, or novelist's heroic countenance; but a mild-looking person, in an old shooting jacket and red flannel shirt, with a straw hat shading his pale coppery complexion. He wield a tomahawk or march on a war trail! Never. And where was the grim taciturnity of his forefathers? He answered when spoken to, not in Mohawk, or Cherokee, or Delaware, but in nasal Yankeefied English; nay, he seemed weakly garrulous.
'There's another preconceived idea knocked on the head,' said Arthur. 'My glorious ideal Indian! you are fallen, never to rise.'