Part 11 (2/2)
The atmosphere was unusually calm, and in two of the three instances warm and agreeable.]
CHAPTER XI.
STRAWBERRIES--CANADIAN WILD FRUITS--WILD RASPBERRIES--THE HUNTER AND THE LOST CHILD--CRANBERRIES-CRANBERRY MARSHES--NUTS.
One day Lady Mary's nurse brought her a small Indian basket, filled with ripe red strawberries.
”Nurse, where did you get these nice strawberries?” said the little girl, peeping beneath the fresh leaves with which they were covered. ”I bought them from a little Indian squaw, in the street; she had brought them from a wooded meadow, some miles off, my lady. They are very fine; see, they are as large as those that the gardener sent in yesterday from the forcing-house, and these wild ones have grown without any pains having been bestowed upon them.”
”I did not think, nurse, that wild strawberries could have been so fine as these; may I taste them?”
Mrs. Frazer said she might. ”These are not so large, so red, or so sweet as some that I have gathered when I lived at home with my father,” said the nurse. ”I have seen acres and acres of strawberries, as large as the early scarlet that are sold so high in the market, on the Rice Lake plains. When the farmers have ploughed a fallow on the Rice Lake plains, the following summer it will be covered with a crop of the finest strawberries. I have gathered pailsful day after day; these, however, have been partly cultivated by the plough breaking up the sod; but they seem as if sown by the hand of nature. These fruits, and many sorts of flowers, appear on the new soil that were never seen there before. After a fallow has been chopped, logged, and burnt, if it be left for a few years, trees, shrubs and plants will cover it, unlike those that grew there before.”
”That is curious,” said the child. ”Does G.o.d sow the seeds in the new ground?”
”My lady, no doubt they come from Him; for He openeth his hand, and filleth all things living with plenteousness. My father, who thought a great deal on these subjects, said that the seeds of many plants may fall upon the earth, and yet none of them take root till the soil be favourable for their growth. It may be that these seeds had lain for years, preserved in the earth, till the forest was cleared away, and the sun, air, and rain caused them to spring up. Or the earth may still bring forth the herb of the field, after its kind, as in the day of the creation; but whether it be so or not, we must bless the Lord for his goodness and for the blessings that He giveth us at all times.”
”Are there many sorts of wild fruits fit to eat, nurse, in this country?
Please, will you tell me all that you know about them?”
”There are so many, Lady Mary, that I am afraid I shall weary you before I have told you half of them.”
”Nurse, I shall not be tired, for I like to hear about fruits and flowers very much; and my dear mamma likes you to tell me all you know about the plants, trees, birds and beasts of Canada.”
”Besides many sorts of strawberries, there are wild currants, both black and red, and many kinds of wild gooseberries,” said Mrs. Frazer: ”some grow on wastes by the roadside, in dry soil, others in swamps; but most gooseberries are covered with thorns, which grow not only on the wood, but on the berries themselves.”
”I would not eat those disagreeable, th.o.r.n.y gooseberries; they would p.r.i.c.k my tongue,” said the little girl.
”They cannot be eaten without first being scalded. The settlers' wives contrive to make good pies and preserves with them by first scalding the fruit and then rubbing it between coa.r.s.e linen cloths; I have heard these tarts called thornberry pies, which, I think, was a good name for them.
When emigrants first come to Canada, and clear the backwoods, they have little time to make nice fruit-gardens for themselves, and they are glad to gather the wild berries that grow in the woods and swamps to make tarts and preserves, so that they do not even despise the th.o.r.n.y gooseberries or the wild black currants. Some swamp-gooseberries, however, are quite smooth, of a dark red colour, but small, and they are very nice when ripe.
The blossoms of the wild currants are very beautiful, of a pale yellowish green, and hang down in long, graceful branches; the fruit is harsh, but makes wholesome preserves: but there are th.o.r.n.y currants as well as th.o.r.n.y gooseberries; these have long, weak, trailing branches; the berries are small, covered with stiff bristles, and of a pale red colour. They are not wholesome; I have seen people made very ill by eating them; I have heard even of their dying in consequence of having done so.”
”I am sure, nurse, I will not eat those wild currants,” said Lady Mary; ”I am glad you have told me about their being poisonous.”
”This sort is not often met with, my dear; and these berries, though they are not good for man, doubtless give nourishment to some of the wild creatures that seek their food from G.o.d, and we have enough dainties, and to spare, without them.
”The red raspberry is one of the most common and the most useful to us of the wild fruits. It grows in abundance all over the country, by the roadside, in the half-opened woods, on upturned roots, or in old neglected clearings; there is no place so wild but it will grow, wherever its roots can find a crevice. With maple sugar, the farmers' wives never need lack a tart, nor a dish of fruit and cream. The poor Irish emigrants' children go out and gather pailsful, which they carry to the towns and villages to sell. The birds, too, live upon the fruit, and, flying away with it to distant places, help to sow the seed. A great many small animals eat the ripe raspberry, for even the rac.o.o.n and great black bear come in for their share.”
”The black bears! Oh, nurse, oh, Mrs. Frazer!” exclaimed Lady Mary, in great astonishment. ”What! do bears eat raspberries?”
”Yes, indeed, my lady, they do. Bears are fond of all ripe fruits. The bear resembles the hog in all its tastes very closely; both in their wild state will eat flesh, grain, fruit, and roots. There is a small red berry in the woods that is known by the name of the bear-berry, [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote moved to end of chapter.] of which they say the young bears are particularly fond.”
”I should be afraid of going to gather raspberries, nurse, for fear of the bears coming to eat them too.”
”The hunters know that the bears are partial to this fruit, and often seek them in large thickets, where they grow. A young gentleman, Lady Mary, once went out shooting game, in the province of New Brunswick, in the month of July, when the weather was warm, and there were plenty of wild berries ripe. He had been out for many hours, and at last found himself on the banks of a creek. But the bridge he had been use to cross was gone, having been swept away by heavy rains in the spring. Pa.s.sing on a little higher up, he saw an old clearing full of bushes; and knowing that wild animals were often to be met in such spots, he determined to cross over and try his luck for a bear, a rac.o.o.n, or a young fawn. Not far from the spot, he saw a large fallen swamp elm-tree, which made a capital bridge. Just as he was preparing to cross, he heard the sound of footsteps on the dry crackling sticks, and saw a movement among the raspberry bushes; his finger was on the lock of his rifle in an instant, for he thought it must be a bear or a deer; but just as he was about to fire, he saw a small, thin, brown hand, all red and stained from the juice of the ripe berries, reaching down a branch of the fruit; his very heart leaped within him with fright, for in another moment he would have shot the poor little child that, with wan, wasted face, was looking at him from between the raspberry bushes. It was a little girl, about as old as you are, Lady Mary. She was without hat or shoes, and her clothes were all in tatters; her hands and neck were quite brown and sun-burnt. She seemed frightened at first, and would have hid herself, had not the stranger called out gently to her to stay, and not to be afraid; and then he hurried over the log bridge, and asked her who she was, and where she lived. And she said 'she did not live anywhere, for she was lost.' She could not tell how many days, but she thought she had been seven nights out in the woods. She had been sent to take some dinner to her father, who was at work in the forest; but had missed the path, and gone on a cattle track, and did not find her mistake until it was too late; when she became frightened, and tried to get back, but only lost herself deeper in the woods. The first night she wrapped her frock about her head, and lay down beneath the shelter of a great upturned root. She had eaten but little of the food she had in the basket that day, for it lasted her nearly two; after it was gone, she chewed some leaves, till she came to the raspberry clearing, and got berries of several kinds, and plenty of water to drink from the creek.
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