Seeds of Pine

by Emily F. Murphy

Here are the grades I descended a couple of years ago while prospecting over this ground. What slopes these are to put a horse down. They are like those described at St. Helena, upon which you might break your heart going up or your neck coming down, with the additional risk of being arrested as a trespasser. On this place where we once ranged for coal-rights, the real-estate agents have sub-divided the surface into desirable building lots, that sell from three to five hundred dollars the lot.

One day, this lake shore will be a hive of industry, for deep in her loins Mother Earth had hutched her riches of coal and fire-clay, and, mayhap, more minerals that are precious. Once, in drilling here, our men came upon black sand with a showing of gold, but it petered out, after a couple of inches. It was with great difficulty they were persuaded to go on with the drilling instead of going to town to file on claims.

Already there are several towns along this lakefront—that is to say, towns consisting of three or four tents or houses. In the earlier days of the North each settlement was commenced with a fort, now it is begun with a railway station. The next building to be erected is the station agent's house, which is quickly followed by a restaurant, and a general store with a post-office. This is the axis from which the homesteaders radiate into the surrounding country, and, presto! before you know it, there is a bank, an implement shop, a church, a hotel, and the other conveniences of modern civilization including mortgages.

Already you may see trails like long black welts across the land—trails that appear to fare forth without any preconceived plan and to hold a lure in their far reaches for happy-go-idlers like you and me. There is no telling what we might find on them a goodish way off. The only straight trails made in this North land are made by the engineers, and as you look down the lines you may readily see that they lead into the sky. I like greatly the unthanked, unknown engineers who beat out these paths for the people who are to come after. No trumpets herald their coming, or announce the leagues they have herded behind, but I tell you these fellows are a commonwealth of kings, and we may as well stop here for a moment and stand at salute.

And after the engineers came the builders with their sinews of steel to bind the trail. It is this steel strength that makes the land to bud and blossom. It is creative. Well and truly has a builder said that the land without population is a wilderness, and the population without land is a mob. Yes! it is a steel idol we worship in this country and not one of gold, and we do refuse to grind it to powder and drink thereof, no matter what any Moses or Aaron may say.

This last hour I have been in mind-to-mind talk with a young Englishman who does not think much of Canada. He speaks of our dismal respectability, our tombstone virtues, and our provincial small-mindedness. We call our gardens yards, and have no manners to speak of. Indeed, nothing but a major operation could remedy our boorishness.

Now, all he says is quite true but I don't believe it; besides, his English-sure way of summing us up is irritating to my sense of patriotism.

In some places up here he has had to sleep in puppy's parlours, which means with his clothes on. This must have been uncomfortable in that he still wears leather puttees which are the true hall-mark of men from the British Isles. He talked about our cold winters and how unbearable they were, just as if the cold were not the sepia the North shoots forth to protect herself from joyous loafers. I did not say this, for one cannot be polite and patriotic at the same time, and it is well to be polite ... only I remarked that one of these cold days we will shut off the Gulf Stream instead of sending it out to heat up England.

I have no doubt he has private means, for he has travelled widely and is a well-educated man. He came here to have a go at homesteading. "Have you succeeded?" I ask. He does not reply except to ejaculate, "Farming—my hat!" whereupon we both laugh, he at the Canadians and I at the English.

The average youth from England finds it trying to be stripped of precedent, and there is nothing approximating Canadian homestead life in London. We too often forget this and so fail to make allowances for his prejudices and lack of adaptability. Our government mounts him and puts his foot in the saddle, but he must set the pace himself. One can hardly expect the government to do more, but yet, it seems a pity so much excellent material is annually lost to the Dominion because we have not the time or means to work it up. It will take some years to manipulate the crude European immigrants into the mental and physical trim of this Britisher and to inculcate them with equally high political standards. We do not recognize this, or maintain an easy passivity to it, until at some election crises our hearts fail us for fear because of the preponderance of the foreign vote in educational and moral matters.