The scene I have described was in that fine colony of Old England across the Atlantic Ocean, called Canada, and in a newly opened district of its north-west part between the great river Ottawa and Lake Ontario.
Old and young were all at work. There were some women and children of the party. The women were busy in front of some rough huts which had been built Indian fashion, something like gipsy tents in England, and covered with large sheets of birch-bark. They were soon made, with a ridge pole, supported by cross-sticks ten feet long. Other thin poles were placed sloping against the ridge pole, and then the birch-bark was put on. The bark comes off the trees in lengths of eight or more feet, and two and three wide.
By the side of the huts casks of provisions, pork, flour, tea, sugar, and such-like things, and household goods, were piled up, covered over with bark or bits of canvas. In front of each hut was a fire, at which some of the women were busy, while others were dressing or looking after the younger children.
“Breakfast ready, breakfast ready,” cried out the women one after the other, as they placed ready for their husbands and sons savoury dishes of pork, or beef, and fish, with hot cakes of wheaten flour or Indian-corn, baked in the ashes, to be washed down with good tea, sweetened with maple sugar. Of milk and butter of course there was none. The men soon came in, and sat down on the trunks of trees rolled near for the purpose, with appetites sharpened by their morning’s work.
With one of the families we have most to do. The father, Michael Hale, was a broad-shouldered, fair-haired, blue-eyed man, with a kind, honest look in his face. Following him came his three stout sons, Rob, David, and Small Tony, as he was called, and small he was as to height, but he was broad and strong, and so active that he did as much work as any of the rest. He was such a merry happy little chap, with such a comical face, so full of fun, that he was a favourite everywhere.
Two men also sat down to breakfast whom Michael had hired to help him clear his ground.
Mrs Hale had two stout girls well able to help her, and three smaller children to look after, while her eldest girl, Susan, had gone out to service, and was getting good wages.
“Well, Martha, I hope that we shall have a house ready for you and the little ones in a few days in case rain should come on. We’ve got stuff enough to build it with,” said Michael, pointing to the huge logs he had been felling.
“We do very well at present in the hut,” answered his wife, smiling. “I have a liking for it—no rent and no taxes to pay; it is ours—the first dwelling we ever had of our own.”
“Ay, wife; and now we have forty acres of land too of our own: little value, to be sure, as they are; but in a few months, when we have put work into them, they’ll yield us a good living,” observed Michael, glancing his eye down his allotment, which reached to the lake. “We shall have four acres cleared, and our house up, before the snow sets in; and if the boys and I can chop three more in the winter, we shall have seven to start with in the spring.”