And they did not meet often. The mistress of a new farm found little time for visiting. Winter had its own work, and the snow and the bitter cold kept them within doors. When winter was over they could only think how best to turn to account the long days of the short Canadian summer for the subduing of the soil, out of which must come food for their hungry little ones. Every foot reclaimed from the swamp or the forest, every unsightly thing burned out of the rough, new land, meant store of golden grain and wholesome bread for the future. So, with brave hearts and willing hands, the North Gore women laboured out of doors as well as within, content to wait for the days when only the legitimate woman’s work should fall to their share. There were some exceptions, of course, and friendly relations were established between individuals, and between families, in the North Gore and the village; but a friendly feeling was for a good many years by no means general, and two distinct communities lived side by side in the town of Gershom.
Even the good people among them—God’s own people—who have so much in common that all lesser matters may well be made nothing of between them—even they did not come together across the wall which ignorance and prejudice and circumstances had raised. At least they did not for a time. The Grants and the Scotts and the Sangsters travelled Sabbath by Sabbath the four miles between the North Gore and the village, and, passing the house where a good man preached the Gospel in the name of the Lord Jesus, travelled four miles further still for the sake of hearing one of their own kirk and country preach the same Gospel in the name of the same Lord. And so the Reverend Mr Hollister, and Deacon Moses Turner, and other good men among them, thought themselves justified in setting them down as narrow-minded and bigoted, and incapable of appreciating the privileges which had fallen to their lot.
There was really no good reason why they should not all have worshipped together as one community, for in the doctrines which they held, the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers differed little from those who had been taught in Scottish kirks the truth for which their fathers had fought and died. The little band who kept together, and held to the form of church government which they had learned to revere in their native land, were by reason of their isolation, practically as independent in regard to the matters of their kirk as were their Puritan neighbours who claimed this independence as their right.
In point of numbers, and in point of means, the older settlers were the stronger of the two parties; in point of character and piety, even they themselves were not sure that the superiority was on their side. However that might be, all felt that the coming in among them of the North Gore men and their families was much to be desired, and after a time measures were taken to bring the subject of union before them in the most favourable manner.
So, accompanied and encouraged by Deacon Turner, Mr Hollister, the minister, visited the North Gore folk family by family, and was respectfully and kindly received by them all, but he did not make much progress in the good work he had undertaken. His remarks about brotherly love and the healing of breaches were for the most part listened to in silence, and so were Deacon Turner’s cautious allusions to the subscription-list for the dealing with current expenses. Nowhere did they meet with much encouragement to hope that their efforts to bring the two communities together would be successful. For several years after this the North Gore folk continued to make their “Sabbath-day’s journey” past the village church. Then for a while they had the monthly ministrations of a preacher of their own order in their own neighbourhood, and on other days kept up meetings among themselves, and did what they could in various ways to keep themselves to themselves as of old.
But time wrought changes. The children who had come to the North Gore grew up, and they did not grow up to be just such men and women as their fathers and mothers had been. It is not necessary to say whether they were worse men or better. They were different. There was not much change in the manner of life in many of the homes. The Sabbath was as strictly kept, and the young people were as strictly taught and catechised and looked after in Scottish fashion as of old, and they bade fair to grow up as cautious and as “douce,” and as much attached to old ways and customs as if they had been brought up on the other side of the sea, quite beyond the reach of Yankee innovations and free-and-easy colonial ways. But even the most “douce” and cautious amongst them were without the stiffness and strength of the old-time prejudice, and the young people of the different sections of the township, brought together in the many pleasant ways that are open to young people in country places, no longer kept apart as their fathers had done.
There were troubles in Gershom still of various kinds, misunderstandings and quarrels, and violations of the golden rule between individuals and between families, and some of them took colour, and some of them took strength, from national feeling and national prejudice; but there were no longer two distinct communities living side by side in the town, as there once had been. And by and by, when old Mr Grant and Deacon Turner, and some others of the good men who had held with one or other of them on earth, were gone to sit down to eat bread together in the kingdom of heaven, the good men they had left behind them drew closer together by slow degrees. And when Mr Hollister grew old and feeble, and unable to do duty as pastor of the village church, all agreed that the chief consideration, in the appointment of a successor, must be the getting of such a man as might be able to unite the people of all sections into one congregation at last.
This was the state of things in Gershom when it began to be whispered that there was serious trouble arising between Jacob Holt and old Mr Fleming.