Part 8 (2/2)
”I wonder that you allow George to degrade himself so,” she said, addressing his father.
The captain looked up with surprise. ”Degrade himself! In what manner, madam? My boy neither swears, drinks whiskey, 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 a.s.suredly 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 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 circ.u.mstances.
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 land 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 compa.s.s, 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.sistance 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 circ.u.mstances. The idea of chaos must have been taken from a removal or a setting to rights, for I suppose the ancients had their _flitting_, 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 circ.u.mstances 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-sh.e.l.l!” 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 gla.s.s door of our present sitting-room command pleasant lake-views to the west and south. When the house is completed, we shall have a verandah 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 sunbeams. The Canadians call these verandahs ”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 bra.s.s gallery, and fender. Our furniture consists of a bra.s.s-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 circ.u.mstances, 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 culture. 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 th.o.r.n.y) that I have called it the ”trailing raspberry.”
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