Part 12 (1/2)
One night, she said, she was awakened by a heavy tramping near her, and looking up in the moonlight, saw two great black beasts, which she thought were her father's oxen, and so she sat up and called, 'Buck,' 'Bright,'-- for these were their names,--but they had no bells, and looked like two great s.h.a.ggy black dogs; they stood on their hind legs upright, and looked at her, but went away. These animals were bears, but the child did not know that, and she said she felt no fear--for she said her prayers every night before she lay down to sleep, and she knew that G.o.d would take care of her, both sleeping and waking.” [Footnote: The facts of this story I met with, many years ago, in a provincial paper. They afterwards appeared in a Canadian sketch, in Chambers' Journal, contributed by me in 1838.]
”And did the hunter take her home?” asked Lady Mary, who was much interested in the story.
”Yes, my dear, he did. Finding that the poor little girl was very weak, the young man took her on his back,--fortunately he happened to have a little wine in a flask, and a bit of dry biscuit in his knapsack, and this greatly revived the little creature; sometimes she ran by his side, while holding by his coat, talking to her new friend, seemingly quite happy and cheerful, bidding him not to be afraid even if they had to pa.s.s another night in the wood; but just as the sun was setting, they came out of the dark forest into an open clearing.
”It was not the child's home, but a farm belonging to a miller who knew her father, and had been in search of her for several days; and he and his wife were very glad when they saw the lost child, and gladly showed her preserver the way; and they rejoiced much when the poor little girl was restored safe and well to her sorrowing parents.”
”Nurse,” said Lady Mary, ”I am so glad the good hunter found the little girl. I must tell my own dear mamma that nice story. How sorry my mamma and papa would be to lose me in the woods.”
The nurse smiled, and said, ”My dear lady, there is no fear of such an accident happening to you. You are not exposed to the same trials and dangers as the children of poor emigrants; therefore, you must be very grateful to G.o.d, and do all you can to serve and please Him; and when you are able, be kind and good to those who are not as well off as you are.”
”Are there any other wild fruits, nurse, besides raspberries and strawberries, and currants and gooseberries?”
”Yes, my dear lady, a great many more. We will begin with wild plums: these we often preserve; and when the trees are planted in gardens, and taken care of, the fruit is very good to eat. The wild cherries are not very nice; but the bark of the black cherry is good for agues and low fevers. The choke-cherry is very beautiful to look at, but hurts the throat, closing it up if many are eaten, and making it quite sore. The huckleberry is a sweet, dark blue berry, that grows on a very delicate low shrub, the blossoms are very pretty, pale pink or greenish white bells, the fruit is very wholesome; it grows on light dry ground, on those parts of the country that are called plains in Canada. The settlers' children go out in parties, and gather great quant.i.ties, either to eat or dry for winter use. These berries are a great blessing to every one, besides forming abundant food for the broods of young quails and partridges; squirrels, too, of every kind eat them. There are blackberries also, Lady Mary; and some people call them thimbleberries.”
”Nurse, I have heard mamma talk about blackberries.”
”The Canadian blackberries are not so sweet, I am told, my lady, as those at home, though they are very rich and nice tasted; neither do they grow so high. Then there are high bush cranberries, and low bush cranberries.
The first grow on a tall bush, and the fruit has a fine appearance, hanging in large bunches of light scarlet, among the dark green leaves; but they are very, very sour, and take a great deal of sugar to sweeten them. The low bush cranberries grow on a slender trailing plant; the blossom is very pretty, and the fruit about the size of a common gooseberry, of a dark purplish red, very smooth and s.h.i.+ning; the seeds are minute, and lie in the white pulp within the skin; this berry is not nice till it is cooked with sugar. There is a large cranberry marsh somewhere at the back of Kingston, where vast quant.i.ties grow. I heard a young gentleman say that he pa.s.sed over this tract when he was hunting, while the snow was on the ground, and that the red juice of the dropped berries dyed the snow crimson beneath his feet. The Indians go every year to a small lake called Buckhorn Lake, many miles up the river Otonabee, in the Upper Province, to gather cranberries, which they sell to the settlers in the towns and villages, or trade away for pork, flour, and clothes. The cranberries, when spread out on a dry floor, will keep fresh and good for a long time. Great quant.i.ties of cranberries are brought to England from Russia, Norway, and Lapland, in barrels, or large earthern jars, filled with brine; but the fruit thus roughly preserved must be drained, and washed many times, and stirred with sugar, before it can be put into tarts, or it would be salt and bitter. I will boil some cranberries with sugar, that you may taste them; for they are very wholesome.”
Lady Mary said she should like to have some in her own garden.
”The cranberry requires a particular kind of soil, not usually found in gardens, my dear lady; for as the cranberry marshes are often covered with water in the spring, I suppose they need a damp, cool soil, near lakes or rivers; perhaps sand, too, may be good for them. But we can plant some berries, and water them well; in a light soil they may grow, and bear fruit, but I am not sure that they will do so. Besides these fruits, there are many others, that are little used by men, but are of great service as food to the birds and small animals. There are many kinds of nuts, too-- filberts, with rough p.r.i.c.kly husks, walnuts, b.u.t.ternuts, and hickory-nuts; these last are large trees, the nuts of which are very nice to eat, and the wood very fine for cabinet-work, and for firewood; the bark is used for dyeing. Now, my dear, I think you must be quite tired with hearing so much about Canadian fruits.”
Lady Mary said she was glad to learn that there were so many good things in Canada, for she heard a lady say to her mamma, that it was an ugly country, with nothing good or pretty in it.
”There is something good and pretty to be found everywhere, my dear child, if people will but open their eyes to see it, and their hearts to enjoy the good things that G.o.d has so mercifully spread abroad for us and all his creatures to enjoy. But Canada is really a fine country, and is fast becoming a great one.”
[Relocated Footnote: Arbutus ursursi--”Kinnikinnick,” Indian name.
There is a story about a bear and an Indian hunter, which will show how bears eat berries. It is from the Journal of Peter Jacobs, the Indian Missionary:--
”At sunrise, next morning,” he says, ”we tried to land, but the water was so full of shoals, we could not without wading a great distance.
”The beach before us was of bright sand, and the sun was about, [Footnote: We find some curious expressions in this Journal, for Peter Jacobs is an Indian, writing not his own, but a foreign language.] when I saw an object moving on the sh.o.r.e; it appeared to be a man, and seemed to be making signals of distress. We were all weary and hungry, but thinking it was a fellow-creature in distress, we pulled towards him. Judge of our surprise when the stranger proved to be an enormous bear.
”He was seated on his hams, and what we thought his signals were his raising himself on his hind legs to pull down the berries from a high bush, and, with his paws full sitting down again to eat them at his leisure.
”Thus he continued daintily enjoying his ripe fruit in the posture some lapdogs are taught to a.s.sume while eating. On we pulled, and forgot our hunger and weariness; the bear still continued breakfasting.
”We got as close on sh.o.r.e as the shoals would permit, and John, (one of the Indians,) taking my double-barrelled gun, leaped into the water, gun in hand, and gained the beach. Some dead brushwood hid the bear from John's sight, but from the canoe we could see both John and the bear.
”The bear now discovered us, and advanced towards us; and John, not seeing him for the bush, ran along the beach towards him. The weariness from pulling all night, and having eaten no food, made me lose my presence of mind, for I now remembered that the gun was only loaded with duck-shot, and you might as well meet a bear with a gun loaded with peas.
”John was in danger, and we strained at our paddles to get to his a.s.sistance; but as the bear was a very large one, and as we had no other firearms, we should have been but poor helps to John in the hug of a wounded bear. The bear was at the other side of the brush-heap: John heard the dry branches cracking, and he dodged into a hollow under a bush. The bear pa.s.sed, and was coursing along the sand, but as he pa.s.sed by where John lay, bang went the gun.--The bear was struck.
”We saw him leap through the smoke to the very spot where we had last seen John. We held our breath; but instead of the cry of agony we expected to hear from John, bang went the gun again--John is not yet caught. Our canoe rushed through the water.--We might yet be in time; but my paddle fell from my hand with joy as I saw John pop his head above the bush, and with a shout point to the side of the log on which he stood, 'There he lies, dead enough.' We were thankful indeed to our Great Preserver.”--_Peter Jacob's Journal._
Though fruit and vegetables seem to be the natural food of the bear, they also devour flesh, and even fish,--a fact of which the good Indian Missionary a.s.sures us; and that being new to my young readers, I shall give them in his own words:--