"Harold tells me that a hundred miles as the crow flies on the Madawaska would be two hundred by the windings of the stream.
"But my ague is coming back. I must stop my scribbling, and will start it again to-morrow. It is so lonely out here in the woods that writing is like talking to an old friend. Oh, those wretched little imps! There they are again! You infernal bug-a-boos! You think you frighten me, do you? Oh, I wish Harold was here, but he can't be until night! How my head aches and swims, too! Still, I hate to give in. There, Emmiline in the other end is singing. So I will put down what she says, if I can, in spite of the little fiends who have been chasing me ever since I left the Ottawa.
Rock-a-bo babee up de tree Like vas de early morn, And ve vill mak de feu de joie And roast de Ingin corn. Rock-a-bo babee, airly an' lat, Ven sweet de birdies sing; Petite garçon laugh an' ee grow fat, An' make de woods to ring. Rock-a-bo babee, Patre is come From drivin' ever so far, Over de rivare, so glad he's home To wife and child, by gar.
"What a mercurial nature! She feels well and can sing a child song, notwithstanding all her sorrow."
Diary continued next day.
"My ague was not so bad yesterday, though I did see the little devils, and was disconsolate and blue all day, the bottom for a while being knocked out of everything. But the long rest helped me, and now that I feel better and have time, Mrs. Diary, I will have a good long chat with you. The men finished fixing the shanty this morning. The two women have a big kettle of water boiling outside and are doing some washing for the men. They say there is enough to keep them busy every day for a week. Emmiline—and, by the way, she sang that ditty very sweetly yestereen—is cooking over the fire at the other end of the room. She's as happy as a queen and is singing again. This time it's habitant love song. How good-natured and volatile these French-Canadians are! The loss of her two babies seem to be entirely forgotten in the joy of travelling out west with her husband. Outside we can hear the axes of Bateese and another driver chopping firewood for our camp. Harold, as well as Bond and Hardman, are all away with the Colonel and his men cutting a new road in and out among the granite boulders through the woods. They will be back to-night to remain with their wives until the morning. It seems an awfully funny arrangement—four married men with their wives to sleep together in a single shanty. What a terrible thing it would be if any of them got mixed!
"Strange, we never think of these things until they come upon us, and then we take them as a matter of course—simply, I suppose, because we have to. If I had known what lay before me on leaving England, I am just as sure as—Still—I would have done a great deal for Harold—God knows I would—and perhaps, yes, perhaps—What's the use of talking, anyway? Whatever is, had to be; and whatever lies before us, we must face, whether we will or no.
"Still, these men are not a bit rude to me, and our long shanty is so arranged that our end is cut off from the rest, though what is said in ordinary talk can be heard all over the room. Then about our bed, I was going to tell how we make it, but I won't, even to you, Mrs. Diary.
"'Still keep somethin' to yoursel'
You'd scarcely tell to ony.'