madam? My boy neither swears, drinks whisky, steals, nor tells lies.”
“But you allow him to perform tasks of the most menial kind. What is he
now better than a hedge-carpenter; and I suppose you allow him to chop,
too?”
“Most assuredly I do. That pile of logs in the cart there was all cut by
him after he had left study yesterday,” was the reply.
“I would see my boys dead before they should use an axe like common
labourers.”
“Idleness is the root of all evil,” said the captain. “How much worse
might my son be employed if he were running wild about the streets with
bad companions.”
“You will allow this is not a country for gentlemen or ladies to live
in,” said the lady.
“It is the country for gentlemen that will not work, and cannot live
without, to starve in,” replied the captain, bluntly; “and for that
reason I make my boys early accustom themselves to be usefully and
actively employed.”
“My boys shall never work like common mechanics,” said the lady,
indignantly.
“Then, madam, they will be good for nothing as settlers; and it is a
pity you dragged them across the Atlantic.”
“We were forced to come. We could not live as we had been used to do at
home, or I never would have come to this horrid country.”
“Having come hither you would be wise to conform to circumstances.
Canada is not the place for idle folks to retrench a lost fortune in. In
some parts of the country you will find most articles of provision as
dear as in London; clothing much dearer, and not so good, and a bad
market to choose in.”
“I should like to know, then, who Canada is good for?” said she,
angrily.
“It is a good country for the honest, industrious artisan. It is a fine
country for the poor labourer, who, after a few years of hard toil, can
sit down in his own log-house, and look abroad on his own land, and see
his children well settled in life as independent freeholders. It is a
grand country for the rich speculator, who can afford to lay out a large
sum in purchasing lands in eligible situations; for if he have any
judgment he will make a hundred per cent. as interest for his money
after waiting a few years. But it is a hard country for the poor
gentleman, whose habits have rendered him unfit for manual labour. He
brings with him a mind unfitted to his situation; and even if necessity
compels him to exertion, his labour is of little value. He has a hard
struggle to live. The certain expenses of wages and living are great,
and he is obliged to endure many privations if he would keep within
compass, and be free of debt. If he have a large family, and brings them
up wisely, so as to adapt themselves early to a settler’s life, why he
does well for them, and soon feels the benefit on his own land; but if
he is idle himself, his wife extravagant and discontented, and the
children taught to despise labour, why, madam, they will soon be brought
down to ruin. In short, the country is a good country for those to whom
it is adapted; but if people will not conform to the doctrine of
necessity and expediency, they have no business in it. It is plain
Canada is not adapted to every class of people.”
“It was never adapted for me or my family,” said the lady, disdainfully.
“Very true,” was the laconic reply; and so ended the dialogue.
But while I have been recounting these remarks, I have wandered far from
my original subject, and left my poor log-house quite in an unfinished
state. At last I was told it was in a habitable condition, and I was
soon engaged in all the bustle and fatigue attendant on removing our
household goods. We received all the assistance we required from ——,
who is ever ready and willing to help us. He laughed, and called it a
“_moving_ bee;” I said it was a “fixing bee;” and my husband said it was
a “settling bee;” I know we were unsettled enough till it was over. What
a din of desolation is a small house, or any house under such
circumstances! The idea of chaos must have been taken from a removal or
a setting to rights; for I suppose the ancients had their _flittings_,
as the Scotch call it, as well as the moderns.
Various were the valuable articles of crockery-ware that perished in
their short but rough journey through the woods. Peace to their manes! I
had a good helper in my Irish maid, who soon roused up famous fires, and
set the house in order.
We have now got quite comfortably settled, and I shall give you a
description of our little dwelling. What is finished is only a part of
the original plan; the rest must be added next spring or fall, as
circumstances may suit.
A nice small sitting-room, with a store-closet, a kitchen, pantry, and
bed-chamber, form the ground-floor; there is a good upper floor that
will make three sleeping rooms.
“What a nut-shell!” I think I hear you exclaim. So it is at present; but
we purpose adding a handsome frame front as soon as we can get boards
from the mill, which will give us another parlour, long-hall, and good
spare bed-room. The windows and glass-door of our present sitting-room
command pleasant lake-views to the west and south. When the house is
completed we shall have a veranda in front, and at the south side; which
forms an agreeable addition in the summer, being used as a sort of outer
room, in which we can dine, and have the advantage of cool air,
protected from the glare of the sun-beams. The Canadians call these
verandas “stoups.” Few houses, either log or frame, are without them.
The pillars look extremely pretty, wreathed with the luxuriant hop-vine,
mixed with the scarlet creeper and “morning glory,” the American name
for the most splendid of major convolvuluses. These stoups are really a
considerable ornament, as they conceal in a great measure the rough
logs, and break the barn-like form of the building.
Our parlour is warmed by a handsome Franklin stove, with brass gallery
and fender. Our furniture consists of a brass-railed sofa, which serves
upon occasion for a bed, Canadian painted chairs, a stained pine table,
green and white curtains, and a handsome Indian mat that covers the
floor. One side of the room is filled up with our books. Some large maps
and a few good prints nearly conceal the rough walls, and form the
decoration of our little dwelling. Our bed-chamber is furnished with
equal simplicity. We do not, however, lack comfort in our humble home;
and though it is not exactly such as we could wish, it is as good as,
under existing circumstances, we could have.
I am anxiously looking forward to the spring, that I may get a garden
laid out in front of the house, as I mean to cultivate some of the
native fruits and flowers, which, I am sure, will improve greatly by
cultivation. The strawberries that grow wild in our pastures, woods, and
clearings, are several varieties, and bear abundantly. They make
excellent preserves, and I mean to introduce beds of them into my
garden. There is a pretty little wooded islet on our lake, that is
called Strawberry Island—another, Raspberry Island; they abound in a
variety of fruits—wild grapes, raspberries, strawberries, black and red
currants, a wild gooseberry, and a beautiful little trailing plant that
bears white flowers like the raspberry, and a darkish purple fruit
consisting of a few grains of a pleasant brisk acid, somewhat like in
flavour to our dewberry, only not quite so sweet. The leaves of this
plant are of a bright light green, in shape like the raspberry, to which
it bears in some respects so great a resemblance (though it is not
shrubby or thorny) that I have called it the “trailing” raspberry.
I suppose our scientific botanists in Britain would consider me very
impertinent in bestowing names on the plants and flowers I meet with in
these wild woods; I can only say, I am glad to discover the Canadian or
even the Indian names if I can, and where they fail I consider myself
free to become their floral godmother, and give them names of my own
choosing.
I was tempted one fine frosty afternoon to take a walk with my husband
on the ice, which I was assured was perfectly safe. I must confess for
the first half-mile I felt very timid, especially when the ice is so
transparent that you may see every little weed or pebble at the bottom
of the water. Sometimes the ice was thick and white, and quite opaque.
As we kept within a little distance of the shore, I was struck by the
appearance of some splendid red berries on the leafless bushes that hung
over the margin of the lake, and soon recognised them to be the
high-bush cranberries. My husband soon stripped the boughs of their
tempting treasure, and I, delighted with my prize, hastened home, and
boiled the fruit with some sugar, to eat at tea with our cakes. I never
ate anything more delicious than they proved; the more so, perhaps, from
having been so long without tasting fruit of any kind, with the
exception of preserves during our journey, and at Peterborough.
Soon after this I made another excursion on the ice, but it was not in
quite so sound a state. We nevertheless walked on for about
three-quarters of a mile. We were overtaken on our return by S——, with
a hand-sleigh, which is a sort of wheelbarrow, such as porters use,
without sides, and, instead of a wheel, is fixed on wooden runners,
which you can drag over the snow and ice with the greatest ease if ever
so heavily laden. S—— insisted that he would draw me home over the ice
like a Lapland lady on a sledge. I was soon seated in state, and in
another minute felt myself impelled forward with a velocity that nearly
took away my breath. By the time we reached the shore I was in a glow
from head to foot.
You would be pleased with the situation of our house. The spot chosen is
the summit of a fine sloping bank above the lake, distant from the
water’s edge some hundred or two yards: the lake is not quite a mile
from shore to shore. To the south, again, we command a different view,
which will be extremely pretty when fully opened—a fine smooth basin of
water, diversified with beautiful islands, that rise like verdant groves
from its bosom. Below these there is a fall of some feet, where the
waters of the lakes, confined within a narrow channel between beds of
limestone, rush along with great impetuosity, foaming and dashing up the
spray in mimic clouds. * * * * * *
What a different winter this has been to what I had anticipated! The
snows of December were continually thawing; on the 1st of January not a
flake was to be seen on our clearing, though it lingered in the bush.
The warmth of the sun was so great on the first and second days of the
new year, that it was hardly possible to endure a cloak, or even shawl,
out of doors; and, within, the fire was quite too much for us. The
weather remained pretty open till the latter part of the month, when the
cold set in severely enough, and continued so during February. The 1st
of March was the coldest day and night I ever experienced in my life;
the mercury was down to twenty-five degrees in the house: abroad it was
much lower. The sensation of cold early in the morning was very painful,
producing an involuntary shuddering, and an almost convulsive feeling in
the chest and stomach. Our breaths were congealed in hoar-frost on the
sheets and blankets. Every thing we touched of metal seemed to freeze
our fingers. This excessive degree of cold only lasted three days, and
then a gradual amelioration of temperature was felt.
During this very cold weather I was surprised by the frequent recurrence
of a phenomenon that I suppose was of an electrical nature. When the
frosts were most intense, I noticed that when I undressed, my clothes,
which are at this cold season chiefly of woollen cloth, or lined with
flannel, gave out when moved a succession of sounds, like the crackling
and snapping of fire, and, in the absence of a candle, emitted sparks of
a pale whitish blue light, similar to the flashes produced by cutting
loaf-sugar in the dark, or stroking the back of a black cat; the same
effect was also produced when I combed and brushed my hair.
The snow lay very deep on the ground during February, and until the 19th
of March, when a rapid thaw commenced, which continued without
intermission till the ground was thoroughly freed from its hoary livery,
which was effected in less than a fortnight’s time. The air during the
progress of the thaw was much warmer and more balmy than it usually is
in England, when a disagreeable damp cold is felt during that process.
Though the Canadian winter has its disadvantages, it has also its
charms. After a day or two of heavy snow the sky brightens, and the air
becomes exquisitely clear and free from vapour; the smoke ascends in
tall spiral columns till it is lost; seen against the saffron-tinted sky
of an evening, or early of a clear morning, when the hoar-frost sparkles
on the trees, the effect is singularly beautiful.
I enjoy a walk in the woods of a bright winter-day, when not a cloud, or
the faint shadow of a cloud, obscures the soft azure of the heavens
above; when, but for the silver covering of the earth, I might look
upwards to the cloudless sky and say, “It is June, sweet June!” The
evergreens, as the pines, cedars, hemlock, and balsam firs, are bending
their pendent branches, loaded with snow, which the least motion
scatters in a mimic shower around, but so light and dry is it that it is
shaken off without the slightest inconvenience.
The tops of the stumps look quite pretty with their turbans of snow; a
blackened pine-stump, with its white cap and mantle, will often startle
you into the belief that some one is approaching you thus fancifully
attired. As to ghosts or spirits, they appear totally banished from
Canada. This is too matter-of-fact country for such supernaturals to
visit. Here there are no historical associations—no legendary tales of
those that came before us. Fancy would starve for lack of marvellous
food to keep her alive in the backwoods. We have neither fay nor fairy,
ghost nor bogle, satyr nor wood-nymph; our very forests disdain to
shelter dryad or hamadryad. No naiad haunts the rushy margin of our
lakes, or hallows with her presence our forest rills. No Druid claims
our oaks; and instead of poring with mysterious awe among our curious
limestone rocks, that are often singularly grouped together, we refer
them to the geologist, to exercise his skill in accounting for their
appearance; instead of investing them with the solemn characters of
ancient temples or heathen altars, we look upon them with the curious
eye of natural philosophy alone.
Even the Irish and Highlanders of the humblest class seem to lay aside
their ancient superstitions on becoming denizens of the woods of Canada.
I heard a friend exclaim, when speaking of the want of interest this
country possessed, “It is the most unpoetical of all lands; there is no
scope for imagination; here all is new—the very soil seems newly
formed; there is no hoary ancient grandeur in these woods—no
recollections of former deeds connected with the country. The only
beings in which I take any interest are the Indians, and they want the
warlike character and intelligence that I had pictured to myself they
would possess.”
This was the lamentation of a poet. Now, the class of people to whom
this country is so admirably adapted are formed of the unlettered and
industrious labourers and artisans. They feel no regret that the land
they labour on has not been celebrated by the pen of the historian, or
the lay of the poet. The earth yields her increase to them as freely as
if it had been enriched by the blood of heroes. They would not spare the
ancient oak from feelings of veneration, nor look upon it with regard
for any thing but its use as timber. They have no time, even if they
possessed the taste, to gaze abroad on the beauties of nature; but their
ignorance is bliss.
After all, these are imaginary evils, and can hardly be considered just
causes for dislike to the country. They would excite little sympathy
among every-day men and women, though doubtless they would have their
weight with the more refined and intellectual members of society, who
naturally would regret that taste, learning, and genius should be thrown
out of its proper sphere.
For myself, though I can easily enter into the feelings of the poet and
the enthusiastic lover of the wild and the wonderful of historic lore, I
can yet make myself very happy and contented in this country. If its
volume of history is yet a blank, that of nature is open, and eloquently
marked by the finger of God; and from its pages I can extract a thousand
sources of amusement and interest whenever I take my walks in the forest
or by the borders of the lakes.
But I must now tell you of our sugar-making, in which I take rather an
active part Our experiment was on a very limited scale, having but one
kettle, besides two iron tripods; but it was sufficient to initiate us
in the art and mystery of boiling the sap into molasses, and finally the
molasses down to sugar.
The first thing to be done in tapping the maples, is to provide little
rough troughs to catch the sap as it flows; these are merely pieces of
pine-tree, hollowed with the axe. The tapping the tree is done by
cutting a gash in the bark, or boring a hole with an auger. The former
plan, as being most readily performed, is the most usually practised. A
slightly-hollowed piece of cedar or elder is then inserted, so as to
slant downwards, and direct the sap into the trough; I have seen a flat
chip made the conductor. Ours were managed according to rule, you may be
sure. The sap runs most freely after a frosty night, followed by a warm
bright day; it should be collected during the day in a barrel or large
trough, capable of holding all that can be boiled down the same evening;
it should not stand more than twenty-four hours, as it is apt to
ferment, and will not grain well unless fresh.
My husband, with an Irish lad, began collecting the sap the last week in
March. A pole was fixed across two forked stakes, strong enough to bear
the weight of the big kettle. Their employment during the day was
emptying the troughs and chopping wood to supply the fires. In the
evening they lit the fires, and began boiling down the sap.
It was a pretty, a picturesque sight, to see the sugar-boilers, with
their bright log-fire among the trees, now stirring up the blazing pile,
now throwing in the liquid and stirring it down with a big ladle. When
the fire grew fierce it boiled and foamed up in the kettle, and they had
to throw in fresh sap to keep it from running over.
When the sap begins to thicken into molasses, it is then brought to the
sugar-boiler to be finished. The process is simple; it only requires
attention in skimming and keeping the mass from boiling over, till it
has arrived at the sugaring point, which is ascertained by dropping a
little into cold water. When it is near the proper consistency, the
kettle or pot becomes full of yellow froth, that dimples and rises in
large bubbles from beneath. These throw out puffs of steam; and when the
molasses is in this stage, it is nearly converted into sugar. Those who
pay great attention to keeping the liquid free from scum, and understand
the precise sugaring point, will produce an article little if at all
inferior to Muscovado.
In general you see the maple-sugar in large cakes, like bees’-wax, close
and compact, without showing the crystallization; but it looks more
beautiful when the grain is coarse and sparkling, and the sugar is
broken in rough masses like sugar-candy.
The sugar is rolled or scraped down with a knife for use, as it takes
long to dissolve in the tea without this preparation. I superintended
the last part of the process, that of boiling the molasses down to
sugar; and, considering it was a first attempt, Mid without any
experienced person to direct me, otherwise than the information obtained
from ——, I succeeded tolerably well, and produced some sugar of a fine
sparkling grain and good colour. Besides the sugar, I made about three
gallons of molasses, which proved a great comfort to us, forming a nice
ingredient in cakes, and an excellent sauce for puddings.
The Yankees, I am told, make excellent preserves with molasses instead
of sugar. The molasses boiled from maple-sap is very different from the
molasses of the West Indies, both in flavour, colour, and consistency.
Besides the sugar and molasses, we manufactured a small cask of vinegar,
which promises to be good. This was done by boiling five pails-full of
sap down to two, and fermenting it after it was in the vessel with barm;
it was then placed near the fire, and suffered to continue there in
preference to being exposed to the sun’s heat.
With regard to the expediency of making maple-sugar, it depends on
circumstances whether it be profitable or not to the farmer. If he have
to hire hands for the work, and pay high wages, it certainly does not
answer to make it, unless on a large scale. One thing in its favour is,
that the sugar season commences at a time when little else can be done
on the farm, with the exception of chopping, the frost not being
sufficiently out of the ground to admit of crops being sown; time is,
therefore, less valuable than it is later in the spring.
Where there is a large family of children, and a convenient sugar-bush
on the lot, the making of sugar and molasses is decidedly a saving; as
young children can be employed in emptying the troughs and collecting
firewood, the bigger ones can tend the kettles and keep up the fire
while the sap is boiling, and the wife and daughters can finish off the
sugar within doors.
Maple-sugar sells for four-pence and six-pence per pound, and sometimes
for more. At first I did not particularly relish the flavour it gave to
tea, but after awhile I liked it far better than Muscovado, and as a
sweet-meat it is to my taste delicious. I shall send you a specimen by
the first opportunity, that you may judge for yourself of its
excellence.
The weather is now very warm—oppressively so. We can scarcely endure
the heat of the cooking-stove in the kitchen. As to a fire in the
parlour there is not much need of it, as I am glad to sit at the open
door and enjoy the lake-breeze. The insects are already beginning to be
troublesome, particularly the black flies—a wicked-looking fly, with
black body and white legs and wings; you do not feel their bite for a
few minutes, but are made aware of it by a stream of blood flowing from
the wound; after a few hours the part swells and becomes extremely
painful.
These “beasties” chiefly delight in biting the sides of the throat,
ears, and sides of the cheek, and with me the swelling continues for
many days. The mosquitoes are also very annoying. I care more for the
noise they make even than the sting. To keep them out of the house we
light little heaps of damp chips, the smoke of which drives them away;
but this remedy is not entirely effectual, and is of itself rather an
annoyance.
This is the fishing season. Our lakes are famous for masquinougé,
salmon-trout, white fish, black bass, and many others. We often see the
lighted canoes of the fishermen pass and repass of a dark night before
our door. S—— is considered very skilful as a spearsman, and enjoys
the sport so much that he seldom misses a night favourable for it. The
darker the night, and the calmer the water, the better it is for the
fishing.
It is a very pretty sight to see these little barks slowly stealing from
some cove of the dark pine-clad shores, and manœuvring among the islands
on the lakes, rendered visible in the darkness by the blaze of light
cast on the water from the jack—a sort of open grated iron basket,
fixed to a long pole at the bows of the skiff or canoe. This is filled
with a very combustible substance, called fat-pine, which burns with a
fierce and rapid flame, or else with rolls of birch-bark, which is also
very easily ignited.
The light from above renders objects distinctly visible below the
surface of the water. One person stands up in the middle of the boat
with his fish-spear,—a sort of iron trident,—ready to strike at the
fish that he may chance to see gliding in the still waters, while
another with his paddle steers the canoe cautiously along. This sport
requires a quick eye, a steady hand, and great caution, in those that
pursue it.