[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic
text is surrounded by _underscores_.]
Our Little Canadian Cousin
THE
Little Cousin Series
(TRADE MARK)
Each volume illustrated with six or more full-page plates in
tint. Cloth, 12mo, with decorative cover,
per volume, 60 cents
LIST OF TITLES
BY MARY HAZELTON WADE
(unless otherwise indicated)
=Our Little African Cousin=
=Our Little Alaskan Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Arabian Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Armenian Cousin=
By Constance F. Curlewis
=Our Little Australian Cousin=
=Our Little Brazilian Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Brown Cousin=
=Our Little Canadian Cousin=
By Elizabeth R. MacDonald
=Our Little Chinese Cousin=
By Isaac Taylor Headland
=Our Little Cuban Cousin=
=Our Little Dutch Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Egyptian Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little English Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Eskimo Cousin=
=Our Little French Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little German Cousin=
=Our Little Greek Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Hawaiian Cousin=
=Our Little Hindu Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Indian Cousin=
=Our Little Irish Cousin=
=Our Little Italian Cousin=
=Our Little Japanese Cousin=
=Our Little Jewish Cousin=
=Our Little Korean Cousin=
By H. Lee M. Pike
=Our Little Mexican Cousin=
By Edward C. Butler
=Our Little Norwegian Cousin=
=Our Little Panama Cousin=
By H. Lee M. Pike
=Our Little Philippine Cousin=
=Our Little Porto Rican Cousin=
=Our Little Russian Cousin=
=Our Little Scotch Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Siamese Cousin=
=Our Little Spanish Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Swedish Cousin=
By Claire M. Coburn
=Our Little Swiss Cousin=
=Our Little Turkish Cousin=
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
New England Building, Boston, Mass.
[Illustration: "TWO CHILDREN SAT ON THE GRASS UNDER THE LILACS"
(_See page 2_)]
Our Little Canadian Cousin
By Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald
_Illustrated by_
L. J. Bridgman
[Illustration]
Boston
L. C. Page & Company
_Publishers_
_Copyright, 1904_
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
Published July, 1904
Fifth Impression, June, 1908
Preface
IN "Our Little Canadian Cousin," my intention has been to tell, in a
general way, although with a defined local setting, the story of
Canadian home life. To Canadians, _home life_ means not merely sitting
at a huge fireplace, or brewing and baking in a wide country kitchen, or
dancing of an evening, or teaching, or sewing; but it means the great
outdoor life--sleighing, skating, snow-shoeing, hunting, canoeing, and,
above all, "camping out"--the joys that belong to a vast, uncrowded
country, where there is "room to play."
This wide and beautiful Canadian Dominion possesses, of course, a great
variety of climate and of scenery. To treat at all adequately of those
things, or of the country's picturesque and romantic history, would
require far more scope than is afforded by this one small story.
List of Illustrations
PAGE
"TWO CHILDREN SAT ON THE GRASS UNDER THE LILACS"
(_See page 2_) _Frontispiece_
FREDERICTON 22
IN THE GOVERNMENT HOUSE GROUNDS 28
"THE TREE-CLAD SHORES WORE A FAIRY GLAMOUR" 47
"A GREAT BONFIRE WAS BUILT" 64
"NOTHING, DORA THOUGHT, COULD BE MORE BEAUTIFUL
THAN THOSE WOODS IN WINTER" 99
Our Little Canadian Cousin
CHAPTER I.
IT was the very first day of the loveliest month in the year. I suppose
every month has its defenders, or, at least, its apologists, but
June--June in Canada--has surely no need of either. And this particular
morning was of the best and brightest. The garden at the back of Mr.
Merrithew's house was sweet with the scent of newly blossomed lilacs,
and the freshness of young grass. The light green of the elms was as yet
undimmed by the dust of summer, and the air was like the elixir of
life.
Two children sat on the grass under the lilacs, making dandelion chains
and talking happily.
Jack, a little fair-haired boy of six, was noted for his queer speeches
and quaint ideas. His sister Marjorie was just twice his age, but they
were closest chums, and delighted in building all sorts of air-castles
together. This afternoon, when she had finished a chain of marvellous
length, she leant back against the lilac-trees and said, with a sigh of
happiness:
"Now, Jack, let's make plans!"
"All right," Jack answered, solemnly. "Let's plan about going to Quebec
next winter."
"Oh, Jackie! Don't let's plan about winter on the first day of June!
There's all the lovely, lovely summer to talk about,--and I know two
fine things that are going to happen."
"All right!" said Jackie again. It was his favourite expression. "I
know one of them; Daddy told me this morning. It's about Cousin Dora
coming to stay with us."
"Yes--isn't it good? She's coming for a whole year, while uncle and aunt
go out to British Columbia,--to make him well, you know."
"I wish she was a little boy," said Jackie, thoughtfully. "But if she's
like you, she'll be all right, Margie. What's the other nice thing you
know?"
"Oh, you must try to guess, dear! Come up in the summer-house; it's so
cosy there, and I'll give you three guesses. It's something that will
happen in July or August, and we are _all_ in it, father and mother and
you and Cousin Dora, and a few other people."
They strolled up to the vine-covered summer-house, and settled down on
its broad seat, while Jack cudgelled his brains for an idea as to a
possible good time.
"Is it a picnic?" he asked at last.
Marjorie laughed.
"Oh, ever so much better than that," she cried.
"Try again."
"Is it--is it--a visit to the seaside?"
"No; even better than that."
"Is it a pony to take us all driving?"
"No, no. That's your last guess. Shall I tell you?"
"Ah, yes, please do!"
"Well,--mother says, if we do well at school till the holidays, and
everything turns out right, she and father--will--take us camping!"
"Camping? Camping out? Really in tents? Oh, good, good!"
And Jackie, the solemn, was moved to the extent of executing a little
dance of glee on the garden path.
"Camping out" is a favourite way of spending the summer holiday-time
among Canadians. Many, being luxurious in their tastes, build tiny
houses and call them camps, but the true and only genuine "camping" is
done under canvas, and its devotees care not for other kinds.
As our little New Brunswickers were talking of all its possible joys, a
sweet voice called them from the door of the big brick house.
"Marjorie! Jack! Do you want to come for a walk with mother?"
There was no hesitation in answering this invitation. The children
rushed pell-mell down the garden path, endangering the swaying buds of
the long-stemmed lilies on either side.
Mrs. Merrithew stood waiting for them, a tall, plump lady in gray, with
quantities of beautiful brown hair. She carried a small basket and
trowel, at sight of which the children clapped their hands.
"Are we going to the woods, mother?" Marjorie cried, and "May I take my
cart and my spade?" asked Jackie.
"Yes, dearies," Mrs. Merrithew answered. "We have three hours before
tea-time, and Saturday wouldn't be much of a holiday without the woods.
Put on your big hats, and Jack can bring his cart and spade, and
Marjorie can carry the cookies."
"Oh, please let me haul the cookies in my cart," said Jack. "Gentlemen
shouldn't let ladies carry things, father says,--but Margie, you _may_
carry the spade if you want something in your hands very much!"
"All right, boy," laughed Marjorie. "I certainly do like something in my
hands, and a spade will look much more ladylike than a cooky-bag!"
The big brick house from which Mrs. Merrithew and the children set out
on their walk stood on one of the back streets of a little New
Brunswick city,--a very small but beautiful city, built on a wooded
point that juts out into the bright waters of the St. John River. Of
this river the little Canadian Cousins are justly proud, for, from its
source in the wilds of Quebec to its outlet on the Bay of Fundy, it is
indeed "a thing of beauty and a joy for ever."
Our little party soon left the streets, went through a wide green space
covered with venerable maples, crossed a tiny stream and a railway
track, and entered the woods that almost covered the low hill behind the
town. Though it was really but one hill, the various roads that
subdivided it gave it various names, some derived from the settlements
they led to, and some from buildings on the way. It was through the
woods of "College Hill" that Marjorie and Jack and their mother
wandered. Being all good walkers, they were soon back of the fine old
college, which stands looking gravely out over the tree-embowered town
to the broad blue river.
When the delicious green and amber shadows of the woods were reached,
little Jack at once began to search for fairies. Marjorie contented
herself with looking for wild flowers, and Mrs. Merrithew sought for
ferns young enough to transplant to her garden.
"I am afraid I have left it rather late," she said at last. "They are
all rather too well-grown to stand moving. But I will try a few of the
smallest. What luck have my chicks had? Any fairies, Jackie?"
Jackie lifted a flushed face from its inspection of a tiny hole in the
trunk of a fir-tree.
"No fairies _yet_, mother; but I think one lives in here, only she won't
come out while I am watching."
Mrs. Merrithew smiled sympathetically. She heartily agreed with the
writer (though she could not remember who it was) who said: "I always
expect to find something wonderful, unheard-of, in a wood."
"In olden days," she said, "people believed that there were beautiful
wood-spirits, called dryads, who had their homes in trees. They were
larger than most fairies, and yet they were a kind of fairy."
"Please tell more about them, mother," said Marjorie, coming up with her
hands full of yellow, speckled adder's-tongue.
"I know very little more, I am sorry to say," their mother answered,
laughing. "Like Jackie with _his_ fairies, I have always hoped to see
one, but never have as yet."
"Are they good things?" Jackie asked, "or would they frighten little
boys?"
"Oh, my dear, they were always said to be kind and beautiful, and rather
timid, more apt to be frightened themselves than to frighten any one
else. But remember, dears, mother did not say there _were_ such things,
but only that people used to think so."
"Please tell us a story about one, mother," Jack pleaded.
But Mrs. Merrithew shook her head.
"We will keep the story for some other time," she said. "Let us have a
cooky now, and a little rest, before we go home."
This proposal was readily agreed to. They chose a comfortable spot where
a little group of white birches gave them backs on which to lean, opened
the precious bag, and were soon well occupied with its crisp and
toothsome contents. Mrs. Merrithew, knowing well that little folk are
generally troubled with a wonderful thirst, had also brought a cup and a
bottle of lemonade. How doubly delicious things tasted in the clear,
spicy air of the woods!
By the time Jack had disposed of his sixth cooky he felt ready for
conversation.
"Mother," he said, "I wish you would tell us all about Dora."
"All about Dora, dearie? That would take a long time, I expect. But it
would _not_ take long to tell you all that I know about her. I have only
seen her twice, and on one of those occasions she was a baby a month
old, and the next time only two years,--and as she is now, I do not know
her at all."
"But--oh, you know, mother--tell us about her father and mother, and her
home, and everything like that. It makes her more interesting," urged
Marjorie.
Mrs. Merrithew saw that she was to be beguiled into a story in any case,
so she smiled and resigned herself to her fate.
"Well, my dears, I know a great many things about Dora's father, for he
is my only brother, and we were together almost constantly until we were
both grown up. Then your Uncle Archie, who had studied electrical
engineering, went up to Montreal, and there secured a good position. He
had only been there a short time when he met a very charming young lady"
("_This_ sounds quite like a book-story," Marjorie here interposed) "by
whom he was greatly attracted. She was partly French, her mother having
been a lady of old French family. But her father was an English officer,
of the strongest English feelings, so this charming young lady (whose
name was Denise Allingham) combined the characteristics--at least all
the best characteristics--of both races. Do you know what that means,
Jackie?"
Jack nodded, thoughtfully.
"I think so, mother. I think it means that she--that young lady--had all
the nicenesses of the French and all the goodnesses of the English."
"That is just it, my dear, and a very delicate distinction, too," cried
his mother, clapping her hands in approval, while Jackie beamed with
delight.
"Well, to continue: Miss Denise Allingham, when your Uncle Archie met
her, was an orphan, and not well off. She was teaching in an English
family, and not, I think, very happy in her work. She and your uncle had
only known each other about a year when they were married."
"And lived happily ever after?" Marjorie asked.
Mrs. Merrithew considered a moment, then:
"Yes, I am sure I can say so," she answered. "They have had some
business troubles, and a good deal of sickness, but still they have been
happy through it all. And they have one dear little daughter, whom they
love devotedly, and who is named 'Dora Denise,' after her mother
and--who else?"
"You, mother, you," both children exclaimed.
"The chief trouble this happy trio has had," Mrs. Merrithew continued,
"has been the delicate health of your uncle. For the last four years he
has not been strong. Twice they have all three gone away for his health,
and now the doctors have ordered him to try the delightful climate of
British Columbia, and to spend at least a year there if it agrees with
him. He needs all his wife's attention this time, and that, my dears, is
why little Dora Denise Carman is coming to spend a year with her New
Brunswick relations.
"And now, chicks, look at that slanting, golden light through the trees.
That means tea-time, and homeward-bound!"