“Come here, Susanna, and tell me what has been buried here. It looks like the tail of a dog.”
She might have added, “of my dog.” Murder, it seems, will out. By some strange chance, the grave that covered the mortal remains of Chowder had been disturbed, and the black tail of the dog was sticking out.
“What can it be?” said I, with an air of perfect innocence. “Shall I call Jenny, and dig it up?”
“Oh, no, my dear; it has a shocking smell, but it does look very much like Chowder's tail.”
“Impossible! How could it come among my peas?”
“True. Besides, I saw Chowder, with my own eyes, yesterday, following a team; and George C—— hopes to recover him for me.”
“Indeed! I am glad to hear it. How these mosquitoes sting. Shall we go back to the house?”
While we returned to the house, John, who had overheard the whole conversation, hastily disinterred the body of Chowder, and placed him in the same mysterious grave with Tom and the pig.
Moodie and his friend finished logging-up the eight acres which the former had cleared the previous winter; besides putting in a crop of peas and potatoes, and an acre of Indian corn, reserving the fallow for fall wheat, while we had the promise of a splendid crop of hay off the sixteen acres that had been cleared in 1834. We were all in high spirits and everything promised fair, until a very trifling circumstance again occasioned us much anxiety and trouble, and was the cause of our losing most of our crop.
Moodie was asked to attend a bee, which was called to construct a corduroy-bridge over a very bad piece of road. He and J. E—— were obliged to go that morning with wheat to the mill, but Moodie lent his yoke of oxen for the work.