all the strength of husband and wife to make both ends meet; but by
dint of rigid economy, they saved enough to take them across the water
in the steerage of a great ship. This couple, with their little ones,
found themselves at the end of their journey on a homestead, but with
scarcely a cent left. The people around them were very poor, some of
them living the first winter on potatoes and salt, not having either
bread or milk. But in some way they managed to live, cheered by the
hope that any move must be upward, and in the near future comfort, and
farther on affluence. The same economy that saved the passage-money
kept a little for a rainy day, no matter how hard the times were.
When I became acquainted with them they owned a large farm, a small
log house and stable, several cows, horses, pigs, and poultry. Around
the house was a neat picket-fence, every picket being cut out and made
with axe and jack-knife during the long winter months. The vegetable
garden was well-stocked; but what appealed to me most was the richness
and the variety of the flower-garden,--roses, pansies, wallflowers,
sweet-pease, hollyhocks, and mignonette. It was truly a feast for the
eyes. The little house and the milk-room, the latter made of
lilliputian logs, were dazzling white by the repeated coats of
whitewash. The whole formed a pretty picture; and for so new a country
it was more than a picture,--it was an education for every settler
near them.
I tried to fancy my host's feelings as he thought of the sharp
struggle in the old land, and as he looked over his broad acres now,
richer than the farmers he once envied as they drove in on their stout
cobs to market.
Near by was another home. Here, too, were fine gardens, and another
old couple out of the grip of poverty, which well-nigh killed them in
the struggle. This good lady was once the only white woman on a large
island, which to-day is laid out in sections, has towns, villages,
schoolhouses, and churches, and every farm occupied. The old couple
had an unmarried son left; and he, too, was about to quit the parent
nest, and start a home for himself. And now I must tell about the
wedding.
But first a word about the climate, soil, and conditions, in order to
understand what follows. The whole country had once been forest, the
home of the Hurons, Chippewas, and other tribes of Indians. The Jesuit
had roamed here, suffered, and often become a martyr. Some time in the
past, either from Indian fires or carelessness, the forest caught
fire, and tens of thousands of acres of choice maples and birch were
burnt down to the very roots. The soil is clay, but so charged with
lime that you can plough while the water follows the horses in the
furrows in rivulets that dash against their fetlocks. This in clay, as
a rule, would mean utter ruin until frost came, and the ground thawed
again. But not so here. As the ground becomes dry, it pulverizes
easily under the harrow.
This section was subject to storms that filled the narrow streams
until they became dangerous torrents, sweeping all before them, and
sometimes making a jam of logs twenty miles long. One spring I
noticed that all the bridges were new, and that they had all been
built some four feet higher than before. I was told that the spring
freshets had swept everything before them, and had been so unusually
high that the change of level became necessary.
It was the night before the wedding, and I was preaching in a little
schoolhouse that held about twenty people. It was a very hot night for
that latitude, and every one was depressed with the heat. A great
black cloud covered the heavens, except an ugly streak of dirty yellow
in the west. It was not long before the yellow glare was swallowed up
by the night; and then from out of the dense black canopy shot streaks
of vivid lightning, forked, chained, and of every variety, and "long
and loud the thunder bellowed."
We were not long in closing that meeting. All that rode in our wagon
had more than two miles to go. The horses were terrified, but to those
who enjoy a thunder-storm it was sublime. We crossed one bridge in
the nick of time; for it went thundering down as the back wheel bumped
against the road, only just clear of it.
One man was asleep in his shanty, and did not know of the storm until
his little dog, tired of swimming around the room, climbed on the bed,
and licked his face. The man awoke, and put his hand out of the
clothes and felt the water. He sprang up and lit a lamp, and found two
feet of water in his room. In the morning it had run off and taken all
the bridges again.
And this was the wedding morn. The bridegroom had been away for the
ring, but had not returned. We were getting anxious for him when we
saw two horses coming on the jump, and a wagon that was as often off
the ground as on it, as it thumped along the macadamized road of a new
country, with stones as large as a cocoanut, five and six feet apart;
but, as the settlers said, it was good to what it once was, and I
believed it too.
He came in splashed with mud; but although he had been without sleep,
victorious love shone in those light blue eyes, and with his fair
complexion and rich rosy cheeks he was the personification of a Viking
after victory. He had covered four times the distance on account of
bridges carried away.
A hasty breakfast, and off we started, forgetting, until we were
almost there, the bridge which had gone down the night before. We
turned back to find another bridge afloat and in pieces; but, luckily,
the stream had become shallow, and after the horses had danced a
cotillon, we succeeded in getting across.
As we came to the farm where the fair young bride was waiting, we
found the fields under water nearly to the house. I hardly knew how we
should reach it. But the bridegroom and the horses had been there
before; and, as the water was only a few inches deep, we were soon at
the house. The youngsters were all in great spirits. This was the
first wedding in the family; and I remember how awestruck the
children seemed when the bride came out, looking queenly in her white
robes, but soon recovered themselves as they recognized their own
sister.
The wedding over, then came the dinner. Who would have thought, as
they passed that farm, of the world of happiness in that little log
house? And the dinner,--a huge sirloin, which made us sing, "Oh, the
roast beef of old England!" Precious little had these people had in
old England; but now, besides the mighty sirloin, there were capons,
ducks, lamb and green pease, mint sauce, delicious wild strawberries,
damson pie, and raspberry-wine vinegar for drink.
Thank God for the possibilities of our glorious land to those who are
frugal and industrious.
After dinner we sang "The Mistletoe Bough," "To the West, to the
West," "Far, far, upon the Sea," "Home, Sweet Home," and "America,"
the youngsters singing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and some of the
old ones "God save the Queen," to the same tune.
The young couple had the only spare room in the house, and the rest of
us went up-stairs into a room that was the size of the house. There
father and mother hung a sheet up, and went to bed. Some grain-sacks
made the next partition; and a young student and myself took the next
bed. Golden seed-corn hung over my head from the rafters; oats, pease,
and wheat were in bins on either side of the bed.
To-day that one family has become many families. The old people go to
church in a covered buggy. The youngest are on the home farm, and live
with the parents, and lovingly tend those two brave hearts who now sit
content in their golden age, waiting for the call to that better land,
where the Elder Brother has prepared a mansion for them and a marriage
supper, with everlasting joy.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained
except in obvious cases of typographical error.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
paragraphs.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Minute Man of the Frontier, by W. G. Puddefoot