ONE DAY IN JULY.
A summer more glorious than our settlers could have imagined, followed
on the steps of the tardy spring. What serene skies--what brilliant
sunshine--what tropical wealth of verdure! At every pore the rich earth
burst forth into fruit and flower. Two months after the grass had been
sunk deep beneath the snow, sheets of strawberries were spread in the
woods, an extemporized feast.
One might think that the cottage at Cedar Creek had also bloomed under
the fair weather; for when July--hottest of Canadian months--came, the
dingy wooden walls had assumed a dazzling white, with a roof so grey
that the shingles might have been veritable slates. Resemblance to the
lime-washed houses of home was Robert's fancy; which, in Zack Bunting's
mind, was a perverted taste, as he recommended a brilliant green
groundwork, picked out with yellow, such canary-bird costume being
favourite in Yankee villages.
The few feet of garden railed off in front are filled with bushes
of the fragrant Canadian wild-rose; yellow violets, lobelias, and
tiger-lilies, transplanted thither from the forest glades, appear to
flourish. The brothers had resolved that Linda should not miss her
flower-beds and their gentle care even in bush-life.
For the rest, the clearing looks wild enough, notwithstanding all
civilising endeavours. That mighty wall of trees has not been pushed
back far, and the _debris_ of the human assault, lying on the soil in
vast wooden lengths, seems ponderous even to discouragement. Robert has
been viewing it all through stranger eyes for the last week, since he
heard the joyful news that they for whom he has worked have landed at
Montreal; he has been putting finishing touches wherever he could, yet
how unfinished it is!
To-day Andy alone is in possession; for his young masters have gone to
meet the expected waggon as far as Peter Logan's--nay, to Greenock if
necessary. He has abundance of occupation for the interval; first, to
hill up a patch of Indian corn with the hoe, drawing the earth into
little mounds five or six inches high round each stalk; and after
that, sundry miscellaneous duties, among which milking the cow stands
prominent. She is enjoying herself below in the beaver meadow, while
the superior animal, Andy, toils hard among the stumps, and talks to
himself, as wont.
'Why, thin, I wondher what th' ould masther 'ull say to our clearin',
an' how he'll take to the life, at all, at all; he that niver did a
hand's turn yet in the way of business, only 'musin' himself wid papers
an' books as any gintleman ought; how he'll stand seein' Masther Robert
hoein' and choppin' like a labourin' man? More be token, it's little o'
that thim pair down at Daisy Burn does. I b'lieve they 'spect things to
grow ov thimselves 'athout any cultivatin'. An' to see that poor young
lady hillin' the corn herself--I felt as I'd like to bate both the
captin an' his fine idle son--so I would, while I could stand over 'em.'
He executed an aerial flourish with his hoe, and the minute after, found
practical occupation for it in chasing two or three great swine who were
poking at the fence, as if they longed for the sweet young cornstalks
within. Whence the reader may perceive that Mr. Wynn had become proprietor
of certain items of live stock, including sundry fowls, which were apt to
keep all parties in exhilarating exercise by their aggressions on the
garden.
'Musha, but 'tis very hot intirely,' soliloquized Andy, returning from
the aggravated stern-chase of the swine, and lifting his grass hat to
fan his flushed face. 'The sun don't know how to obsarve a madium at all
in this counthry, as our poor ould Irish sun does. We're aither freezin'
or fryin' the year round.' Hereupon, as reminded by the last-named
experience, he threw down his hoe, and went to settle the smouldering
fires in the fallow, where one or two isolated heaps of brush were
slowly consuming, while their bluish smoke curled up lazily in the still
air. 'It's quare to think of how lonesome I am this minnit,' continued
he, as he blackened himself in ministering to the heaps. 'Sorra livin'
sowl to spake to nearer than the captin's, barrin' the cow, an' the
pigs, an' thim savidges down at the swamp.'
Here he made an infuriate swing backwards of a bush, fortunately in
his hand; but it was against no Indian foe; on the contrary, his own
shoulders received the blow, and another to make sure; whereby an
individual enemy was pasted to the spot where its proboscis had
pierced shirt and skin, and half-a-dozen others saved themselves by
flight--being the dreaded black flies of Canada.
'Why, thin, ye murtherin' villins, will ye follow me into the smoke
itself?' said Andy, whirling his bush in the air to disperse their
squadrons. 'I thought ye wor satisfied wid most atin' us last week, an'
blindin' the young gintlemin, an' lavin' lumps on their faces as big as
hazel nuts. Betune yerselves an' the miss kitties, it's hard for a man
to do a sthroke of work, wid huntin' ye. Ay, ye may well moo, ye crathur
below in the meadow, that has only horns an' a tail to fight 'em. An'
sure, may be 'tain't the cow at all that's roarin', only one of them big
frogs that bellows out of the swamp, for all the world as if they was
bullocks.'
To settle the question, he walked away down to the beaver meadow, now
an expanse of the most delicious level green, and found that the cow
had protected herself against all winged adversaries by standing in
the creek up to her throat in the cool water, where she chewed the
cud tranquilly, and contemplated with an impassive countenance the
construction of a canoe at a little distance by two red men and their
squaws. Andy paused and looked on likewise.
One woman was stripping a large white birch of its bark with a sharp
knife; she scraped away the internal coating as a tanner would scrape
leather, and laid the pieces before the other squaw, whose business
was to stitch them together with bast. The men meanwhile prepared a
sausage-shaped framework of very thin cedar ribs, tying every point of
junction with firm knots; for the aforesaid bast is to the Indian what
glue and nails are to the civilised workman.
'Throth, only for the birch threes I dunno what they'd do; for out of
it's skin they make houses, an' boats, an' pots to bile vittles, an'
candles to burn, an' ornaments like what Mr. Robert has above.' A pause,
as he watched the bark turned over the ribs, and wedge-shaped pieces
cut out to prevent awkward foldings near the gunwale--all carried on in
solemn silence. 'Well, there's no manner of doubt but savages are great
intirely at houldin' their tongues; sure, may be it's no wondher, an'
their langidge the quare sort it is, that they don't want to spake to
each other but as little as they can help.'
Here the nearest Indian raised his head, and appeared to listen to a
distant sound; a low word or two attracted the attention of the others,
who also listened, and exchanged a few sentences, with a glance at Andy,
whose curiosity was roused; and he asked, chiefly by signs, what it was
all about.
'Oxen--waggon,' was the reply; 'me hear driver. White man no have long
ears.'
Andy fled with precipitation to his neglected duties, while the red men
laughed their low quiet laugh, knowing that the waggon they heard could
not reach Cedar Creek in less than an hour.
But at last it came. At last Linda, pressing eagerly forward upon
Robert's arm, had caught a first glimpse of their cottage home, and
exclaimed, 'O Bob, how pretty! Why, you told me it was a rough sort
of a place; how very pretty!'
'Well, you can't deny that the _place_ is rough,' said he, after a
pause of much satisfaction; 'look at the log-heaps--as tangled as a
lady's work-basket.'
'Never mind the log-heaps; the house is neat enough for a picture; and
the view! what a lovely placid lake! what islands! what grand woods!'
Linda's speech was nothing but interjections of admiration for the next
half-hour; she _would_ be charmed with every handiwork of the dear
brothers who had wrought so hard for them. And how were these repaid
for that past toil, by the sweet mother's smile as she entered the neat
little parlour, and was established in the rocking-chair which Arthur
had manufactured and cushioned with exceeding pains! The other furniture
was rather scholastic, it is true, being a series of stools and a table,
set upon rushen matting of Indian make; the beams overhead were unceiled,
and the hearth necessarily devoid of a grate. But the chimney space--huge
in proportion to the room--was filled with fragrant and graceful forest
boughs; and through the open casement window (Arthur had fitted the
single sash on hinges, doorwise) looked in stray sprays of roses,
breathing perfume. Mrs. Wynn was well satisfied with her exile at that
moment, when she saw the loving faces of her sons about her again, in
the home of their own raising.
A most joyful reunion! yet of that gladness which is near akin to tears.
Robert would not give anybody a minute to think, or to grow sad. His
father and George must walk with him all round the clearing and down to
the beaver meadow. His acres of spring-burned fallow, his embryo garden,
his creek and its waterfalls, must be shown off as separate articles of
the exhibition.
'Bob, what are these?' The old gentleman stopped before an expanse of
blackened stumps, among which a multitude of molehills diversified the
soil.
'Potatoes, sir. That's the Canadian way of raising them on new land--in
hills of five thousand to the acre. You see ridges would be out of the
question, or any even system of culture, on account of the stumps and
roots.'
'I suppose so,' said Mr. Wynn drily; 'such ground must certainly require
a peculiar method of working. I daresay you find it incumbent on you to
forget all your Irish agriculture.'
'Well, I had a good deal to unlearn,' answered Robert. 'I hoped to have
had our logging-bee before your arrival, and then the farm would have
looked tidier; but I could not manage it.'
'Do you mean to say the trees stood as thick here as they do there? If
so, you have done wonders already,' said his father. 'My poor boys, it
was killing work.'
'Not at all, sir,' contradicted Robert right cheerily; 'I enjoyed it
after the first few weeks, as soon as I began to see my way. We've been
quite happy this winter in the woods, though bush-life was so new and
strange.'
'It seems to me simply to mean a permanent descent into the ranks of the
labouring classes, without any of the luxuries of civilisation such as
an English artisan would enjoy,' said the old gentleman.
'Except the luxury of paying neither rent nor taxes,' rejoined Robert
promptly.
'You seem to have been carpenter, house-painter, wood-cutter, ploughman'--
'No, sir; there isn't a plough on the premises, and I shouldn't know what
to do with it if there were.'
'Had you no assistance in all this?'
'Oh yes; invaluable help in Jacques Dubois, a lively little French
Canadian from the "Corner," whose indomitable _esprit_ was worth more
than the stronger physique of a heavy Anglo-Saxon. But come, sir, I hear
the dinner bell.'
Which was the rattling of a stick on an invalided kettle, commonly used
by Andy to summon his masters home. To impress the new arrivals with a
sense of their resources, a feast, comprising every accessible delicacy,
had been prepared. Speckled trout from the lake, broiled in the hot wood
ashes, Indian fashion; wild-fowl of various species, and wild fruits,
cooked and _au naturel_, were the components.
'I hardly thought that you would have found time for strawberry
cultivation,' observed Mr. Wynn the elder.
'And we have far more extensive strawberry beds, sir, than I ever saw
in Ireland,' said Robert, with a twinkle of his eyes. 'I'm thinking of
turning in the pigs to eat a few pailfuls; they are quite a drug for
abundance.'
'A raspberry tart!' exclaimed Linda, 'and custards! Why, Bob!'
'Would you like to know a secret?'--followed by a whisper.
'Nonsense! not you!'
They seemed to have other secrets to tell by and by, which required the
open air. The eleven months last gone past had brought many changes to
both. And there they walked to and fro on the margin of the forest,
until the moon's silver wheel rolled up over the dusk trees, and lit
Cedar Creek gloriously.
'What pure and transparent air!' exclaimed Linda, coming back to the
present from the past. 'Is your moonlight always laden with that sweet
aromatic odour?'
'Don't you recognise balm of Gilead? Your greenhouse and garden plant is
a weed here. Our pines also help in the fragrance you perceive.'
'Robert, I know that the red patches burning steadily yonder are the
stumps you showed me; but the half circular rings of fire, I don't
understand them.'
'The niggers round the trunks of some trees,' explained Robert. 'That's
a means we use for burning through timber, and so saving axe-work. Do
you notice the moving light in the distance, on the lake? It comes from
a pine-torch fixed in the bow of a canoe, by which an Indian is spearing
fish.'
'Oh, have you Indians here? how delightful! I have always so longed to
see a real live red man. Are they at all like Uncas and Chingachgook? I
shall pay them a visit first thing in the morning.'
'You'll be visited yourself, I imagine;' and Robert laughed. 'You don't
know the sensation your arrival has caused.'