In this fast nineteenth century, in these days of divorces and of free love, it is really a pleasing spectacle to be able to point to one of our elderly Canadian couples, who had been companions, one and inseparable, for sixty years. They were married at twenty-two, and at once began clearing a Canadian forest farm. During the previous fall the expectant bridegroom alone had chopped and cleared some five or six acres out of the dense forest, and erected a log-house in the clearing.
In due time he brings his bride to his home—a home as yet in embryo; but there are four willing hands to work together, hard but contentedly, to make it a home in reality.
The wife has got as her portion the usual Canadian portion of that day, and, for that matter, very much of this day as well. A feather bed, some chairs, a table, some bedding and a cow made her simple dowry. Alone and almost unaided they work honestly and faithfully day after day, subduing the “forest primeval.” Crops are gathered annually, and they are on the high road to prosperity. Children have come to grace the household, and the loneliness is broken. As the roads become improved around the settlement, Sunday morning finds them both arrayed in their best, and, with their span of horses hitched to the waggon, on their way to the nearest church. With all their eagerness to get on they do not at any time forget to worship God, and their place at the little church is seldom vacant unless it be exceptionally stormy or the roads exceedingly bad, as is frequently the case in the spring and fall.
The farm is cleared and a new house built, and he is now among the well-to-do of the locality. Another farm has been added to the homestead, but the good pair never so much as think casually that they might cease their arduous labors. No family jars occur to disturb their serenity, but day succeeds day in right good fellowship, and each performs his and her individual part faithfully and earnestly. Divorce forsooth! The thought of such has never entered their minds in the most remote degree.
Time steals imperceptibly but surely along, and the eldest girl has arrived at marriageable age. Neighbors’ sons call in occasionally, and it takes many such calls before the good parents really get it into their heads that the daughter has suitors. A few months roll around, and there is a rural wedding. The minister from the near village has been called in. He comes before dinner, and after partaking of it, chats gaily with the neighbors who begin to assemble. Four o’clock has arrived, and it is time for the ceremony to proceed. The young couple join hands, a few words are spoken, the assent is given, and they are man and wife. As the mother got her dowry, so she (the daughter) gets hers. And the household goes on again in the ordinary way; only one member less sits around the family board and assists at the daily tasks.
The eldest son has taken a fashion of being out at nights a good deal of late. Not content with this, he must have a smart buggy, and his horse must be well groomed, as he goes away with his rig solitary and alone. But if he goes away solitary and alone, his lonesomeness is soon broken and dispelled by the presence of a neighbor’s daughter. For a few months this process goes on, when the youth announces to father and mother that he is about to marry. The good couple can scarcely realize that they have a son old enough to wed. Their lives are spent in downright usefulness and whole-souled earnestness; time has literally stolen a march upon them, and it almost dazes them to think that their son is to marry and leave them. This time something more than ordinary is expected and given. An outlying farm must be given to the son, and horses to work it with, as well as stock and some seed-grain. Thereupon the son and his young bride begin their life’s journey in rural Canada; but whether they will accomplish as much as the father and mother, or whether they will imbibe the roving notions of many of our younger people, is a question that remains to be solved.
At last, and not until now, the old couple, who have never yet had a thought separate and apart from the other, realize they are growing old and must soon cease from hard work. To their honor, and to the credit of our country, be it said, in order that their other children may contract good marriage alliances, the family gathering is still kept up, the family board is ever open, and a place always is ready for the worthy neighbors. To the utmost of their physical abilities they perform all the manual labor they can about the farm and homestead. The dollars have accumulated, and there are sundry loans here and there in the neighborhood, both on mortgage security and notes of hand as well. Their money-making has been by no speculative risk in any sense, but, like the even tenor of their united lives, has simply flowed along, gradually accumulating, and not being made by any lucky stroke.
A few years more and the scene shifts—shifts materially—for the family are all married and gone, and once more the old couple are where they commenced years and years ago, in the first days of their young manhood and womanhood—alone again in the world, but still faithful to each other, and still doing their duties daily and faithfully. But the old farm is yet on their hands, while their strength is not equal to the task of attending to it. Reluctantly they consider it best to rent the home farm and purchase a neat and commodious cottage in the adjacent town. It was a “corners” not many years since; some time later it became a village, and some four or five years ago it grew ambitious and took upon itself the name of a town. Here they purchase a little home in which to quietly spend the last years of their lives. They are free from worry, free from anxiety, and, as during the years long past, they have no thought that is not shared in common. Old neighbors, as they come to town, call upon them, and their lives are diversified and enlivened two or three times a week by such visits. Their children, most of whom reside within driving distance of their parents, drop in upon them at any time, and thus in perfect happiness and serenity they pass down the sunset slope of life. Their lives and individual characters are towers of strength in the neighborhood for rectitude and uprightness, and the community without a dissent recognizes their true worth. One is almost tempted to wish that their already long lives might be yet prolonged for many years, that they may continue to be as bright and shining lights in the community. But the dreaded day comes at last. The good wife and mother has fallen ill. Daily the town doctor visits her and does all that medical skill can do in such a case, but no resource of science is able to renovate the worn-out human body. Perhaps the most affecting sight one could view in these days would be to see the old husband and partner of sixty long years sit hourly and daily by the bedside, disconsolate and lost, as he sadly views the daily emaciating face of her whom he had chosen in the bloom of youth.
The inevitable comes at last, and the spirit forsakes its worn house of clay. At the funeral gather the whole country-side about the former home. The carriages fill the road and the yard, and the cottage is packed to the doors. From the town church the minister has come. He stands in the hall, reads from Sacred Writ, admonishes, gives a few words of solemn warning; the procession moves on, and in a few minutes all is over. Back to the cottage home comes the aged man, alone in this world—literally alone, for no one but persons of such advanced age can so keenly feel the absolute loneliness. Forty years ago he might have thrown off his grief and faced the world again, but for him now the day is gone beyond recovery. His eyes have suddenly dimmed, his one-time firm lower jaw relaxes, his step grows feeble. Evidently his days are numbered, and the reader must allow me to kindly draw the veil over him and leave him, as we see him, tottering down to join his companion of the past sixty years, who has preceded him but a few months.
But is there in our country any more pleasing example of success than this old couple present? Successful they have been in a most eminent degree. They may not have accumulated any great store of wealth, but they have raised to Canada a family of sons and daughters who are a credit to our beloved country—sons and daughters whose families are working their farms and fields and helping to make our Province what it is to-day.