Again I took mental note that loudness and profanity are not evidences of pluck or manliness.
Old Bob was about to lock me in my stateroom, but I pleaded to be allowed to remain with him on deck. Signals of distress were made. The captain thought we were in the vicinity of an island, and if we could be heard, some fishermen might light a beacon-fire, and thus we might be saved by getting under the lee of the island.
The danger was imminent. Anxiety and sustained suspense were written on every face, when suddenly through the black night and raging storm there flashed in view a glimmer of light. Presently this assumed shape, and the captain was right—we were near an island; and in a little while, by dint of strong effort, we were in the lee of the same and safe for the while. Then I went to sleep, and when I awoke we were far on our course, and in due time reached Owen Sound. I went to my uncle's, about two miles in the country, but still it was hard to distinguish very much between town and country.
From my uncle's kind but humble home I wended my way every school-day to the old log school-house in Owen Sound. The teacher believed in "pounding it in," for, like now, "Children's heads were hollow." I saw a great deal of flogging, but somehow or another missed being flogged at that school. Through the rain and mud, through the snow and slush, through the winter's cold, I plodded back and forth morning and evening from school to the little log-house under the limestone cliffs.
This last autumn, in company with my cousin, Captain George MacDougall (who was born in this log-house), we drove out to look at the spot once more. The farm, hill, and cliffs were there, but the house was gone. Here we had sheltered and played and grown, and felt it was home—now it was gone. A strange home was built near the spot, stranger people lived in it, and with feelings of melancholy we turned away.
Twice during that winter I had intermission from school. Another uncle came along and took me down to Meaford, where my grandparents lived, and this gave me a delightful visit and a holiday as well.
Another time I was chopping and splitting wood in the morning, before starting for school, when the axe slipped, and I cut my foot almost in two. Alas! I had my new boots on—long boots at that. No one knows how much sacrifice my father and mother made to provide me with those boots. I went and got my measure taken. Every other day or so I went to see if the village shoemaker had finished them. At last, after weary waiting, they were finished. How proudly I carried them home! With what dignity I walked to school with them on! Very few boys in those days had "long boots," and now alas! alas! I had cut one of them almost in two. That was the thought that was uppermost in my mind, while my aunt was dressing my foot and saying "Poor Johnnie," and pitying me with her big heart; and I was, so far as my foot was concerned, rather glad, because it bespoke another holiday from school. But my boot—could it ever be mended? would it ever look as it had? Oh, this worried me a lot.
Early next summer I went back to Garden River, and was delighted to be home again. Then father found a place for me in the store of Mr. Edward Jeffrey, at Penetanguishene, to which place I went on the same old steamer. We happened to reach there late one evening, when the whole town was in a blaze of burning tallow. Every window had a candle in it, and we on the boat, as we steamed up the bay, could not help but wonder what had happened. Presently as we neared the wharf someone shouted across to us, "Sebastopol is taken; Sebastopol is taken!"
Here was a "national" spirit in earnest. Away in the heart of Europe British soldiers were in conflict; they and their allies won a victory, and out here in the heart of this continent, a hamlet on the shore of this distant bay is aflame with joy. Why, I walked from the wharf to my future home amid a blaze of light. Every seven-by-nine had a tallow-dip behind it.
Here, for about nine months, I worked in the store and on the farm. The greater part of our customers were French, and I soon picked up the vernacular, and became quite at home in serving them.