Her accounts of Mrs. N——, and her family, soon deeply interested me in her fate; and Jenny never went to visit her friends in Dummer without an interchange of good wishes passing between us.
The year of the Canadian rebellion came, and brought with it sorrow into many a bush dwelling. Old Jenny and I were left alone with the little children, in the depths of the dark forest, to help ourselves in the best way we could. Men could not be procured in that thinly-settled spot for love nor money, and I now fully realized the extent of Jenny's usefulness. Daily she yoked the oxen, and brought down from the bush fuel to maintain our fires, which she felled and chopped up with her own hands. She fed the cattle, and kept all things snug about the doors; not forgetting to load her master's two guns, “in case,” as she said, “the ribels should attack us in our retrate.”
The months of November and December of 1838 had beer unnaturally mild for this iron climate; but the opening of the ensuing January brought a short but severe spell of frost and snow. We felt very lonely in our solitary dwelling, crouching round the blazing fire, that scarcely chased the cold from our miserable log tenement, until this dreary period was suddenly cheered by the unexpected presence of my beloved friend, Emilia, who came to spend a week with me in my forest home.
She brought her own baby-boy with her, and an ample supply of buffalo robes, not forgetting a treat of baker's bread, and “sweeties” for the children. Oh, dear Emilia! best and kindest of women, though absent in your native land, long, long shall my heart cherish with affectionate gratitude all your visits of love, and turn to you as to a sister, tried, and found most faithful, in the dark hour of adversity, and amidst the almost total neglect of those from whom nature claimed a tenderer and holier sympathy.
Great was the joy of Jenny at this accession to our family party, and after Mrs. S—— was well warmed, and had partaken of tea—the only refreshment we could offer her—we began to talk over the news of the place.
“By the by, Jenny,” said she, turning to the old servant, who was undressing the little boy by the fire, “have you heard lately from poor Mrs. N——? We have been told that she and the family are in a dreadful state of destitution. That worthless man has left them for the States, and it is supposed that he has joined Mackenzie's band of ruffians on Navy Island; but whether this be true or false, he has deserted his wife and children, taking his eldest son along with him (who might have been of some service at home), and leaving them without money or food.”
“The good Lord! What will become of the crathurs?” responded Jenny, wiping her wrinkled cheek with the back of her hard, brown hand. “An' thin they have not a sowl to chop and draw them firewood; an' the weather so oncommon savare. Och hone! what has not that baste of a man to answer for?”
“I heard,” continued Mrs. S——, “that they have tasted no food but potatoes for the last nine months, and scarcely enough of them to keep soul and body together; that they have sold their last cow; and the poor young lady and her second brother, a lad of only twelve years old, bring all the wood for the fire from the bush on a hand-sleigh.”
“Oh, dear!—oh, dear!” sobbed Jenny; “an' I not there to hilp them! An' poor Miss Mary, the tinder thing! Oh, 'tis hard, terribly hard for the crathurs! an' they not used to the like.”
“Can nothing be done for them?” said I.