An increasingly large number of Canadian girls are taking University courses, or courses in technical colleges and musical conservatoires, with the idea of fitting themselves as High School teachers or for the medical profession.
In speaking of the girls of Western Canada, one must not overlook the Swedish, Russian, Italian, Galician, and other Europeans who have made their home in the Dominion.
The Handicrafts Guild is helping these girls to support themselves by basketry, weaving, lace and bead making, pottery, and needlework generally. Prizes are offered annually in the different centres for the best work, and all articles submitted are afterwards placed on sale in one of their work depositories. This association is doing a splendid work, in that they are making the arts both honourable and profitable.
While this article has chiefly concerned itself with the domestic and peaceful pursuits of our Canadian girls, it must not be forgotten that in times of stress they have shown themselves to be heroines who have always been equal to their occasions.
Our favourite heroine is, perhaps, Madeleine de Verchères, who, in the early days when the Indians were an ever-present menace to the settlers on the St. Lawrence River, successfully defended her father's seignory against a band of savage Iroquois.
Her father had left an old man of eighty, two soldiers, and Madeleine and her two little brothers to guard the fort during his absence in Quebec.
A Girl Captain
One day a host of Indians attacked them so suddenly they had hardly time to barricade the windows and doors. The fight was so fierce the soldiers considered it useless to continue it, but Madeleine ordered them to their posts, and for a week, night and day, kept them there. She taught her little brothers how to load and fire the guns so rapidly that the Indians were deceived and thought the fort well garrisoned.
When a reinforcement came to her relief, it was a terribly exhausted little girl that stepped out to welcome them at the head of the defenders—Captain Madeleine Verchères, aged fourteen!
Yes, we like to tell this story of Madeleine over and over.