Such being the case, no wonder that Malcolm McAlmon and other young fellows contended for her hand in marriage. But Malcolm won the preference, and blithely he set to work to build a splendid log shanty, twenty-five feet square, divided into inner compartments, with windows and doors, and other unequalled conveniences for domestic comfort new to the settlement; and when it was ready, and supplied with plenishings of all kinds, Flora and Malcolm were married amid the rejoicings of the whole township, and settled quietly down to the steady hard work of a life in the extreme backwoods, some miles distant from our clearing.
The next thing I heard of them was many months afterwards, when Malcolm was happy in the expectation of an heir to his two hundred acre lot, in the ninth or tenth concession of the township. But alas! as time stole on, accounts were unfavourable, and grew worse and worse. The nearest professional man lived at Barrie, thirty-four miles distant. A wandering herb doctor, as he called himself, of the Yankee eclectic school, was the best who had yet visited the township, and even he was far away at this time. There were experienced matrons enough in the settlement, but their skill deserted them, or the case was beyond their ability. And so poor Flora died, and her infant with her.
The same day her brother John, in deep distress, came to beg us to lend them pine boards enough to make the poor dead woman a coffin. Except the pine tree which we had cut down and sawn up, as related already, there was not a foot of sawn lumber in the settlement, and scarcely a hammer or a nail either, but what we possessed ourselves. So, being very sorry for their affliction, I told them they should have the coffin by next morning; and I set to work myself, made a tolerably handsome box, stained in black, of the right shape and dimensions, and gave it to them at the appointed hour. We of course attended the funeral, which was conducted with due solemnity by the Presbyterian minister above-mentioned. And never shall I forget the weeping bearers, staggering under their burthen through tangled brushwood and round upturned roots and cradle holes, and the long train of mourners following in their rear, to the chosen grave in the wilderness, where now I hear stands a small Presbyterian church in the village of Duntroon.
CHAPTER XX.
FROM BARRIE TO NOTTAWASAGA.
For nearly three years we continued to work on contentedly at our bush farm. In the summer of 1837, we received intelligence that two of our sisters were on their way to join us in Canada, and soon afterwards that they had reached Toronto, and expected to meet us at Barrie on a certain day. At the same time we learnt that the bridge across the Nottawasaga river, eleven miles from Barrie, had given way, and was barely passable on foot, as it lay floating on the water. One of our span of horses had been killed and his fellow sold, so that we had to hire a team to convey our sisters' goods from Barrie to the bridge where it was necessary to meet them with our own ox-team and waggon. I walked to Barrie accordingly, and found my sisters at Bingham's tavern, very glad to see me, but in a state of complete bewilderment and some alarm at the rough ways of the place, then only containing a tavern or two, and some twenty stores and dwellings. My fustian clothes, which I had made myself, and considered first-rate, they "laughed at consumedly." My boots! they were soaked and trod out of all fashionable proportions. Fortunately, other people in Barrie were nearly as open to criticism as myself, and as we had to get on our way without loss of time, I forgot my eccentricities of dress in the rough experiences of the road.
From Barrie to Root's tavern was pleasant travelling, the day being fine and the road fairly good. We took some rest and refreshment there, and started again, but had not gone two miles before a serious misfortune befel us. I have mentioned corduroy-bridges before; one of these had been thrown across a beautifully clear white-paved streamlet known to travellers on this road as "sweet-water." The waggon was heavily laden with chests and other luggage, and the horses not being very strong, found it beyond their power to drag the load across the bridge on account of its steepness. Alarmed for my eldest sister, who was riding, I persuaded her to descend and walk on. Again and again, the teamster whipped his horses, and again and again, after they had almost scaled the crest, the weight of the load dragged them backward. I wanted to lighten the load, but the man said it was needless, and bade me block the wheels with a piece of broken branch lying near, which I did; the next moment I was petrified to see the waggon overbalance itself and fall sideways into the stream seven or eight feet beneath, dragging the horses over with it, their forefeet clinging to the bridge and their hind feet entangled amongst the spokes of the wheels below.
My elder sister had gone on. The younger bravely caught the horses' heads and held them by main force to quiet their struggles, while the man and I got out an axe, cut the spokes of the wheels, and so in a few minutes got the horses on to firm ground, where they stood panting and terrified for some minutes. Meanwhile, to get the heavy sea-boxes out of the water and carry them up the face of a nearly perpendicular bank, then get up the waggon and reload it, was no easy task, but was accomplished at last.
The teamster, being afraid of injury to his horses' legs, at first refused to go further on the road. However, they had suffered no harm; and we finished our journey to the bridge where my brother awaited us. Here the unlucky boxes had to be carried across loose floating logs, and loaded on to the ox-waggon, which ended our hard work for that day.
Two days longer were we slowly travelling through Sunnidale and into Nottawasaga, spending each night at some friendly settler's shanty, and so lightening the fatigues of the way.