COLLINGWOOD.
“Forests burned for clearing, to spare the woodman’s stroke,
Buttonwood and chestnut, and ash, and giant oak.”
A bright band of light clearly defined the eastern horizon, and heralded
the approach of the sun. A steamer, making its way along the shore,
stood out with great distinctness in the clear atmosphere. They were in
Georgian Bay, dotted with pretty islands, and near the southwestern
shore, deeply indented and covered with timber.
“There are our friends, the sea-gulls,” exclaimed Norman. Yes, there
they were—
“The hungry sea-gulls
Came back from the reedy islands,
Clamorous for the morning banquet,”
their white wings glancing in the sunlight. At length Collingwood was
visible, a stone light-house, on an island, passed, then another wooden
light-house, and they were in the harbor.
Norman saw two wigwams among the trees, and a “dug-out” with four or
five Indians in it.
The train had left twenty minutes before the smoke of the Planet was
seen, and a telegram was sent to Toronto requesting a special train,
which it was thought would be granted. The passengers were all seated in
the cars, the locomotive had its steam up, when a telegram came to say
that there could be no train before four o’clock.
Collingwood is a collection of unpainted houses built in the sand, most
dreary and uninviting in its aspect. Norman and his mother, and Alfred
Scarborough, walked through its streets. The stores are shaded by
evergreens, stuck in the ground, to afford a temporary shade. They went
into several stores, to buy some Indian things, but there was no one in
the store to sell them, and after waiting a while they were obliged to
leave. At length Mrs. Lester found some pretty boxes, worked with
porcupine quills, and Norman bought an Indian battle-axe.
After wandering a while on the shores of the lake, looking down into its
clear transparent waters, and gathering some wild flowers, they returned
to the boat, where they found the other passengers. The view of the
harbor of Collingwood was very pretty, the waters were blue and
beautiful, and the breezes cool and bracing.
Norman watched with great interest a race between a little sloop and
schooner, round the light-house. The wind was so fresh that the vessels
leaned very far over, and seemed in some danger of being capsized.
While the train was coming slowly up from the pier to the station, where
the passengers awaited it, a gentleman, with a baby in his arms, was
walking on the track. The English clergyman rushed forward before it,
waving his umbrella and crying, “Off, man, off the track, or in one
moment you will be crushed to atoms.”
Again they were seated in the cars. “What beautiful spikes of purple
flowers,” exclaimed Mrs. Lester, “and close by the station. I wish we
had seen them.”
“And those brilliant red flowers,” said Norman, “Did you ever see
anything prettier?”
“Do you think they are flowers or berries” asked his mother; “we go so
fast that I cannot tell which they are.”
At a station where they stopped, a gentleman got out and gathered some
of these red berries, handing them to Mrs. Lester through the window.
“Red elderberries,” said Mrs. Lester; “very pretty, but not the gorgeous
flowers we thought them; we cannot press these.”
The road lay through timber, and the stations were groups of unpainted
houses in the clearings. Felled trees and blackened stumps met the eye
in every direction.
At a station near Lake Simcoe the train stopped for two or three
minutes, and Norman and his mother rushed to an opening, where they had
a lovely view of the pretty sheet of water.
A longer view they had, though not so lovely, when the train went down
on a short railroad running to the lake, to take the passengers who had
made the circuit of it in the little steamboat. The boat was in sight,
but some distance off, so that the passengers seated themselves on the
pier, or on the piles of boards that encumbered it. Logs and boards met
the eye in every direction, and an immense steam saw-mill was at work,
converting the felled trees of the great forest through which they had
passed, into the boards with which the settler builds his house.
“Where is Norman?” asked Mrs. Lester anxiously of Mr. Campbell, a Scotch
gentleman. “I do not see him anywhere.” The gentleman told her he would
look for him, and in a few minutes he returned with the boy.
“Mother, I went up to that wood to gather some of these beautiful purple
flowers for you, and for that young lady. She said she would like some
of them, and I saw that the steamboat was so far off that I had time.”
“You should have told me where you were going, my child, and you would
have spared me some moments of anxiety.”
“I am sorry, mother, but I was in no danger. I wanted to get some red
berries for that young lady, but I could not find any.”
“You may have these,” replied his mother; “I do not want them;” and
while Norman went to give his berries and flowers to the young lady,
with whom he had had many pleasant talks on the Planet, his mother
pressed the pretty spikes of purple flowers in her guidebook.
The English clergyman stayed that he might go around Lake Simcoe, of
which most of the passengers thought they had seen enough. It was dark
when they reached Toronto, and Norman did not see much, roused as he was
from a sound sleep, till he walked through the stately halls and parlors
of the Rossin House, and into his comfortable room.