Christmas at Cedar Hill

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

"People were beginning to make improvements pretty fast, and our mill being in a convenient and healthy situation, a little village was fast springing up around us."

"So there was a great demand for lumber, and the mill was kept very busy. I was always fond of machinery, and my grandfather seeing, after a while, how my taste turned, took me in to help him 'tend saw-mill. Though very strict in requiring obedience and attention to business, he was as kind a man as ever lived, and I was as happy with him as I have ever been in my life. I loved to help him haul the big logs and get them on the carriage, and then see the gang of sharp saws eat through them from end to end. I liked to talk to the teamsters who came to the mill for lumber or hauled the logs out of the woods. And above all I liked to ride or drive round to the shingle camps, to see what the men were about there, and sometimes to carry them a great pie or a basket of hard gingerbread which my grandmother had baked for them. There were many Indians about the country at that time, and we used often to have our barns full of them for days together."

"Were you not afraid of them?" asked Agatha.

"O no; they were very friendly and well-behaved, unless when they got drunk, though we had to keep a sharp lookout to prevent their stealing. I learned a great deal from them about shooting and trapping, and by degrees I got to be a capital shot and a good deal of a woodsman."

"There was one thing which I missed very much, and that was the church. I was not particularly serious at that time, but I had been used to go to church and Sunday-school every Sunday since I could remember. My grandfather always read the service in his own family every Sunday, and frequently two or three of the neighbors would drop in at these times. We had a schoolhouse, of course, and now and then some minister would give us a Sunday, but there was no regular church, and, as I said, I missed it very much."

"The next fall, after I came to the mills, my grandfather went to Detroit, a few weeks before Christmas, and when he came back, besides quantities of groceries and dry goods, he brought home a very unexpected guest—neither more nor less than a very pretty young lady. Her name was Caroline Merton. She was a niece of my grandmother's, and, being a little out of health, her parents had sent her out into the country for change of air and scene."

"At first I thought it would be a great nuisance to have a young lady in the family, but when I became acquainted with Carry I changed my mind. Though a little bit of a body, and very nice and dainty in her dress, she was as nimble as a squirrel and as fearless as any boy. I soon found out that she could ride and drive, make snowballs, slide, and skate, and that she was no more afraid of a gun than I was. Besides, she was a capital cook, and could learn any sort of work directly, so she was a great help to my grandmother."

"My grandfather had given me a fine young horse of his own raising. Of course I felt very grand at owning a horse, and my grandfather, having a nice light cutter, I took great delight in driving Carry about the country whenever I could be spared from the mill."

"Well, the day before Christmas came a welcome guest—a clergyman, who had been an old friend of my grandfather's, and who had been sent by the Bishop on a sort of tour of inspection through the country to visit the new settlements, especially those where there were no churches. He had written to give notice of his coming, but the mails were not very reliable, and, as it happened, the letter arrived about two hours after the writer. Mr. Burgess proposed to spend Christmas and the Sunday after at the mills, and it was decided to hold a Christmas service in the schoolhouse, and to send word to as many people as possible meantime. There were a good many church people settled in a neighborhood about ten miles away, and it, was decided that I should ride over and carry them notice of the services, calling at as many of the outlying houses as I could take in my route."

"The weather was pleasant, though cold, and the sleighing as fine as possible, and my grandmother suggested that Carry should go along with me. Nothing could have pleased either of us better, for Carry was always ready for a sleigh-ride, and I felt quite grand and manly at being intrusted with the care of her. I always felt ten inches taller when I had her on my arm or by my side, and I used to wish sometimes that we could be thrown into danger, that I might have the pleasure of protecting her. Well, we took an early dinner, and set off about one o'clock, provided with abundance of blankets and buffalo skins, and having in the bottom of the cutter a large basket filled with tea, sugar, rice, and other good things, which we were to leave at the house of a poor sick woman on the way."