We only just arrived in time; the rain began again and continued for some days. We had much trouble with the rain drifting in through the clap-boards of the roof. What would Mr. Punch have said could he have seen two ladies in bed with a baby between them, and a large umbrella fixed at the head of the bed to save them from the roof-drippings!
We had two visits this autumn from which we derived much pleasure. One from our old friend C. W., and one from a friend and connection of your sister-in-law’s family, her eldest brother having married one of his sisters. H. L. was quite an addition to our working party. More than six feet high, strong and active, he fraternised at once with your brothers, and cheerfully helped them in their daily labours. Your brother hired a team of oxen for some days, and had the remaining trees lying in our clearing logged up, and watched for the first fine dry day to complete the burning begun in spring. Our two young friends assisted him in his labours, and they managed so well that the regular day’s work was not interfered with. Every evening they set fire to some of the log-heaps, and diligently “branded” them up till they were reduced to ashes. As we could not admit our friends into the house after a certain hour in the evening, and as their vigils extended far into the night, your brother used to provide the party with plenty of potatoes, which they roasted in the ashes and ate with butter and salt, with a large pot of coffee and an unlimited supply of tobacco—they being all inveterate smokers. As they had all fine voices and sang well together, the gipsy party was not a dull one, and the forest echoed with their favourite songs. Fortunately there was no one in our solitary neighbourhood to be disturbed from their slumbers, and provided they did not wake the baby, we rather enjoyed the unwonted noise, knowing how much they were enjoying themselves. Perhaps the most amusing time of all was the Saturday afternoon, when what we ladies called the “Jew trading” invariably took place. I really think that every article belonging to our young men changed hands at these times, and the amusing manner in which the stores of each were laid out for public admiration and regularly haggled for, cannot be forgotten. In this manner your eldest brother’s celebrated chassepot gun, picked up on the field of Sedan, gave place to a Colt’s revolver and a small fowling-piece; his heavy gold seal (a much-coveted article) took the more useful form of corduroy trousers and heavy boots; in like manner both your brothers gladly bartered their fine dress shirts, and handkerchiefs, and satin ties, for coarser garments better fitted for the Bush, of which both C. W. and H. L. had a good stock now quite useless to them, as neither could make up his mind to a Bush life. These amusing transfers of property came to a close at last, after some weeks of incessant trafficking, with your brother’s solemnly asking my permission to hand over to H. L., as a make-weight in the scale, a large woollen comforter which I had knitted for him. Some of the bartering went on at “Pioneer Cottage,” your brother Charles’ place, a name most appropriately given, as he was the first of our party in the settlement. I called my log-house “Cedar Lodge” at first, and headed some of my letters to England with that elegant name, understanding that I was the happy owner of a number of cedar trees, but finding that my riches in cedar consisted in a small portion only of a dirty cedar-swamp, from which not one tree fit for building could be extracted, I dropped the grandiloquent nomenclature, and simply put for heading to my letters, “The Bush—Muskoka.”
We felt quite dull when our friends left, but they correspond with both your brothers, and H. L. is not far from us, having married and settled at Toronto.
A very grave subject of consideration has arisen among us on the subject of domestic servants. Should any providential improvement in our circumstances take place, or our farms become even moderately thriving, we should certainly once more require these social incumbrances, but where to find them would be a question. Certainly not in the settlement to which we belong. Not one of the ladies in our three families has a special vocation for cooking and house-tidying, though all have done it since we came here without complaint, and have done it well. Indeed, a most respectable settler, who, with other men and a team of oxen, was working for some days on our land to help your brother, remarked to his wife that he was quite astonished that a young lady (meaning your eldest sister), evidently unaccustomed to hard work, could do so much and could do it so well. He had noticed how comfortably all the different meals had been prepared and arranged. Your sister F——e too, in spite of the hindrance of three little children, has always given great satisfaction to the workmen employed by her husband. We should of course hail the day when we could have the help in all household matters we formerly enjoyed; but we must surely seek for it at a distance from here.
The children of the settlers, both boys and girls, know well that on attaining the age of eighteen years, they can each claim and take up from Government a free grant of one hundred acres. They naturally feel their incipient independence and their individual interest in the country, and this makes them less inclined to submit to the few restrictions of servitude still sanctioned by common sense and general observance. They serve their temporary masters and mistresses under protest as it were, and are most unwilling to acknowledge their title to these obnoxious names. They consider it their undoubted right to be on a footing of perfect equality with every member of the family, and have no inclination whatever to “sit below the salt.”
When your sister-in-law returned from Bracebridge, her health was for some time too delicate for her to do any hard work, and we, having charge of the baby, could give her no assistance. Your brother Charles looked about the settlement for a respectable girl as a servant. He found one in every way suitable, about sixteen, and apparently healthy, strong, willing, and tolerably competent. He liked her appearance, and engaged her at the wages she asked. She entered upon her place, did her work well, and gave entire satisfaction. Everything was done to make her comfortable, even to the extent of giving her the whole Sunday to herself, as she was in the habit of attending the church some miles off and also the Sunday-school. In little more than a week she suddenly left, assigning no reason but that she was “wanted at home,” which we knew to be a falsehood, as she had two or three sisters capable of assisting her mother. We were greatly puzzled to find out her true reason for leaving. After a time it was made clear to us by a trustworthy person who had it from the family themselves. The young lady had found it intolerably dull, and it was further explained to us that no settler would allow his daughter to be in service where she was not allowed to sit at the same table with the family, and to join freely in the conversation at all times!
