Cedar Creek: From the Shanty to the Settlement. A Tale of Canadian Life

'Well, you can't deny that the place is rough,' said he, after a pause of much satisfaction; 'look at the log-heaps—as tangled as a lady's work-basket.'

'Never mind the log-heaps; the house is neat enough for a picture; and the view! what a lovely placid lake! what islands! what grand woods!'

Linda's speech was nothing but interjections of admiration for the next half-hour; she would be charmed with every handiwork of the dear brothers who had wrought so hard for them. And how were these repaid for that past toil, by the sweet mother's smile as she entered the neat little parlour, and was established in the rocking-chair which Arthur had manufactured and cushioned with exceeding pains! The other furniture was rather scholastic, it is true, being a series of stools and a table, set upon rushen matting of Indian make; the beams overhead were unceiled, and the hearth necessarily devoid of a grate. But the chimney space—huge in proportion to the room—was filled with fragrant and graceful forest boughs; and through the open casement window (Arthur had fitted the single sash on hinges, doorwise) looked in stray sprays of roses, breathing perfume. Mrs. Wynn was well satisfied with her exile at that moment, when she saw the loving faces of her sons about her again, in the home of their own raising.

A most joyful reunion! yet of that gladness which is near akin to tears. Robert would not give anybody a minute to think, or to grow sad. His father and George must walk with him all round the clearing and down to the beaver meadow. His acres of spring-burned fallow, his embryo garden, his creek and its waterfalls, must be shown off as separate articles of the exhibition.

'Bob, what are these?' The old gentleman stopped before an expanse of blackened stumps, among which a multitude of molehills diversified the soil.

'Potatoes, sir. That's the Canadian way of raising them on new land—in hills of five thousand to the acre. You see ridges would be out of the question, or any even system of culture, on account of the stumps and roots.'

'I suppose so,' said Mr. Wynn drily; 'such ground must certainly require a peculiar method of working. I daresay you find it incumbent on you to forget all your Irish agriculture.'

'Well, I had a good deal to unlearn,' answered Robert. 'I hoped to have had our logging-bee before your arrival, and then the farm would have looked tidier; but I could not manage it.'

'Do you mean to say the trees stood as thick here as they do there? If so, you have done wonders already,' said his father. 'My poor boys, it was killing work.'

'Not at all, sir,' contradicted Robert right cheerily; 'I enjoyed it after the first few weeks, as soon as I began to see my way. We've been quite happy this winter in the woods, though bush-life was so new and strange.'

'It seems to me simply to mean a permanent descent into the ranks of the labouring classes, without any of the luxuries of civilisation such as an English artisan would enjoy,' said the old gentleman.

'Except the luxury of paying neither rent nor taxes,' rejoined Robert promptly.

'You seem to have been carpenter, house-painter, wood-cutter, ploughman'–

'No, sir; there isn't a plough on the premises, and I shouldn't know what to do with it if there were.'

'Had you no assistance in all this?'

'Oh yes; invaluable help in Jacques Dubois, a lively little French Canadian from the "Corner," whose indomitable esprit was worth more than the stronger physique of a heavy Anglo-Saxon. But come, sir, I hear the dinner bell.'

Which was the rattling of a stick on an invalided kettle, commonly used by Andy to summon his masters home. To impress the new arrivals with a sense of their resources, a feast, comprising every accessible delicacy, had been prepared. Speckled trout from the lake, broiled in the hot wood ashes, Indian fashion; wild-fowl of various species, and wild fruits, cooked and au naturel, were the components.

'I hardly thought that you would have found time for strawberry cultivation,' observed Mr. Wynn the elder.

'And we have far more extensive strawberry beds, sir, than I ever saw in Ireland,' said Robert, with a twinkle of his eyes. 'I'm thinking of turning in the pigs to eat a few pailfuls; they are quite a drug for abundance.'

'A raspberry tart!' exclaimed Linda, 'and custards! Why, Bob!'

'Would you like to know a secret?'—followed by a whisper.

'Nonsense! not you!'

They seemed to have other secrets to tell by and by, which required the open air. The eleven months last gone past had brought many changes to both. And there they walked to and fro on the margin of the forest, until the moon's silver wheel rolled up over the dusk trees, and lit Cedar Creek gloriously.

'What pure and transparent air!' exclaimed Linda, coming back to the present from the past. 'Is your moonlight always laden with that sweet aromatic odour?'

'Don't you recognise balm of Gilead? Your greenhouse and garden plant is a weed here. Our pines also help in the fragrance you perceive.'

'Robert, I know that the red patches burning steadily yonder are the stumps you showed me; but the half circular rings of fire, I don't understand them.'

'The niggers round the trunks of some trees,' explained Robert. 'That's a means we use for burning through timber, and so saving axe-work. Do you notice the moving light in the distance, on the lake? It comes from a pine-torch fixed in the bow of a canoe, by which an Indian is spearing fish.'

'Oh, have you Indians here? how delightful! I have always so longed to see a real live red man. Are they at all like Uncas and Chingachgook? I shall pay them a visit first thing in the morning.'

'You'll be visited yourself, I imagine;' and Robert laughed. 'You don't know the sensation your arrival has caused.'

CHAPTER XXX

VISITORS AND VISITED

And next day Mrs. and Miss Wynn had indeed visitors. Up from the 'Corner' trundled Mrs. Zack Bunting on the ox-sled, accompanied by her son Nimrod, and by her daughter Almeria; and truly, but for the honour of bringing a vehicle, it had been better for her personal comfort to have left it at home. Dressed in the utmost finery they could command, and which had done duty on all festive occasions for years back, they lumbered up to the front door, where Linda was doing some work in the flower-beds.

'Good morning, Miss. Is your ma to hum?' said Mrs. Zack, bestowing a stare on her from head to foot. 'I'm Miss Bunting, as you may have heerd Robert speak on. This young lady is my daughter Almeria; I guess you're older than her, though she's a good spell taller. Nim, call that boy to mind the oxen while you come in, or I've a notion they'll be makin' free with Miss's flowers here.'

The boy was George Wynn, who came up slowly and superciliously in answer to Nim's shout, and utterly declined to take charge of the team, intimating his opinion that it was very good employment for 'swallow-tail' himself. Which remark alluded to the coat worn by Mr. Nimrod—a vesture of blue, with brass buttons, rendered further striking by loose nankeen continuations, and a green cravat.

How insignificant was gentle Mrs. Wynn beside the Yankee woman's portly presence! How trifling her low voice in answer to the shrill questioning! Linda cast herself into the breach (metaphorically), and directed the catechism upon herself. As for the young lady Almeria, she was quite satisfied to sit and stare with unwinking black eyes, occasionally hitching up her blue silk cape by a shrug of shoulder, or tapping the back of her faded pink bonnet against the wall, to push it on her head. Nim entered the room presently, and perched himself on the edge of a stool; but his silent stare was confined to Linda's face, now flushed prettily through the clear skin with a mixture of anger and amusement.

'I guess now, that's the latest Europe fashion in yer gown?' taking up the hem of the skirt for closer inspection. 'Half-a-dollar a yard 'twould be in Bytown, I reckon; but it's too fine for a settler's wife, Miss. You've come to the right market for a husband, I guess; gals is scarce in Gazelle township,' with a knowing smile. The crimson mounted to Linda's brow, under the conjoint influence of Nimrod's stare and also of the entrance of another person, Sam Holt, who had come with the party yesterday from Mapleton.

But in two minutes he had quietly turned the conversation, and repressed, as much as it was in man's power to do, Mrs. Bunting's interrogative propensities.

'That's a washy, good-for-nothin' woman, that Mis' Wynn,' was the visitor's judgment, as she departed in state on the ox-sled. 'The young un's spryer; but I'd like to be waitin' till they'd ha' the house clar'd up between 'em, wouldn't I? Did you see that hired help o' theirn, Almeria?'

'Yes, ma, an Irish girl, I guess. She was a-top o' the waggon yesterday.'

'So our Libby hain't no chance o' bein' took, 'less this young un should grow cockish, as 'most all Britisher helps does, when they gets a taste o' liberty. Wal, now, but I'd like to know what business them ladies has—for they're rael, an' no mistake, very different from Mis' Davidson, with her hands like graters an' her v'ice like a loon's so loud an' hard—an' you may know the rael ladies by the soft hand an' the aisy v'ice.'

Almeria rubbed her own knuckles, seeking for the symptom of gentle blood.

'What business has they,' continued Mrs. Zack, 'away down here in the bush? I guess they couldn't wash a tub o' clothes or fix a dinner for the men.'

'But they hadn't need to,' put Miss Almeria, out of sorts at finding her hand rough as a rasp. 'They've helps, an' needn't never look at a tub.' Which circumstance apparently set her in a sulk for the next mile.

Although Mrs. Davidson was failing in some ladylike requirements, as the storekeeper's wife had indicated, and also came to visit her new neighbour in a homespun suit, the very antipodes of Mrs. Zack's attire of many colours, yet her loud cheery voice and sensible face—with a possible friendship in it—were exceedingly pleasing, in contrast with the first visitor's nasal twang and 'smart' demeanour. Mrs. Wynn would like to see her often; but the Scotchwoman was thrifty and hardworking, with a large family to provide for: she could not afford to pay visits, and scarcely to receive them.

'I wadna ha' come down the day, but thinkin' mayhap ye wad be wantin' help o' some sort; an' if there's anything we could do—Sandy or me and the lads—just send your lad rinnin' up; we'll be glad eneugh. Sabbath, may be, I'd ha' time to tak' a stroll down: ye ken there's na kirk.'

Ah, it was one of Mrs. Wynn's greatest troubles in coming to the bush that there were no public means of grace, and that no sound of the church-going bell was ever heard in these solitudes.

Late in the afternoon Linda was able to find Robert, and bring him with her towards the Indian encampment. Sam Holt joined them.

'Now for my first introduction into savage life: I hope I shan't be disappointed.'

'Unreasonable expectations always are,' observed Mr. Holt. 'Don't expect to find Fenimore Cooper's model Indians. But I believe them in the main to be a fine people, honest and truthful where "civilisation" has not corrupted them.'

'Is it not dreadful that the first effect of European contact with original races everywhere should be destructive?' said Linda; 'even of the English, who have the gospel!'

'Yes: how sad that they who bear Christ's name should dishonour Him and thwart His cause among men, by practical disregard of His precepts! I shouldn't wonder if the red man hated the white man with a deadly hatred; for to him is owing the demoralization and extinction of a noble race—if it were by no other means than the introduction of the "fire-water," which has proved such a curse.'

'I have heard,' said Robert, 'that in the Indian languages there are no words which could be employed in swearing; and the native must have recourse to the tongue of his conquerors if he would thus sin.'

'And has no effort been made to Christianize them?' asked Linda.

'I have visited the Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron,' said Mr. Holt, 'where the remains of several Indian tribes have been collected by Sir Francis Head, with a view to their civilisation; and I can hardly say that the experiment impressed me favourably. It is the largest fresh-water island in the world, more than a hundred miles long, and serves as a fine roomy cage for the aborigines, who support themselves by hunting, fishing, and a little agriculture, and receive those luxuries which to us are necessaries, such as blankets and clothes, as annual presents from Government. They seemed miserably depressed and stolid; but the schools are well attended, and we may indulge some hope about the rising generation.'

'They seem too apathetic to improve,' said Robert.

'Still, it is our duty to work, however unpromising the material. I was pleased with a service which I attended in one of their log-schoolhouses. Nothing could be more devout than the demeanour of the Indians; the women's sweet plaintive hymns haunted me for a long while.'

'That's curious; for in their wild state I can't make out that they sing at all,' remarked Robert. 'The noise they call music is far more like the growling of beasts; and their only instruments, that I have ever seen, is a sort of drum with one head.'

'Hush, here are some of them,' said Linda.

In a glade of the forest two young girls were cutting wood, wielding hatchets as though well accustomed to their use, and displaying finely formed arms at every movement. For, as a general rule, the hardworking Indian woman is more strongly developed in proportion than her lazy lord. Lounging against a pine close by, was a tall, slender young man, attired in a buffalo skin cloak, of which the head and fore-legs portion hung down with a ragged effect; from under his arm projected an ornamented pipe.

'I think he might work, and the ladies look on,' observed Linda.

She could hardly repress an exclamation as he turned his face towards her. Round his eyes were traced two yellow circles, and his mouth was enclosed by a parenthesis of vermilion; an arabesque pattern adorned each dusky cheek.

'Isn't he a brilliant fellow?' whispered Robert. 'A lover, you may be certain, who has attired himself thus to come out here and display his painted face to these girls.'

'But he does not appear to speak a single word to them.'

'Oh, they do a good deal with the eyes,' he answered, laughing. 'Now that I look at the girls, one of them is quite pretty, and I fancy I can detect a blush through the olive of her cheek.'

'What a hideous custom that painting the face is!'

'I can't agree with you; that young fellow would look much worse if he washed the paint off, and he knows it. You'd regret the change yourself, when you saw him look mean, dirty, and insignificant, as at ordinary times; for rarely he decorates himself thus.'

'Well, I beg you won't carry your liking so far as to practise it, nor Mr. Holt either.' Sam bowed obediently.

Perhaps nothing in the camp amused the European young lady more than the infants, the 'papooses,' in their back-board cradles, buried up to the armpits in moss, and protected overhead by an arch of thin wood, whence hung various playthings for the inmate.

'Now I can comprehend the use of this rattle, or even of the tiny mocassins,' said Mr. Holt philosophically, as they investigated the pendants to the papoose. 'But why this piece of deer-leather, with bits of stag-horn attached? Except as a charm'—

Here nature answered the ingenious speculation, by the little coppery hand put forth to grasp the debated toy, and champ it in the baby mouth, after the fashion of our own immemorial coral-and-bells. This was the beginning of Linda's acquaintance with, and interest for, the poor Indians. She afterwards saw much of them in their wigwams and at their work. A little kindness goes far towards winning the Indian heart. They soon learned to regard all at Cedar Creek as friends, while to the young lady they gave the admiring cognomen of Ahwao, the Rose.

CHAPTER XXXI

SUNDAY IN THE FOREST

Linda soon learned to hail it with delight. For the overwhelming labours of the other six days were suspended during this bright first: the woodman's axe lay quietly in its niche by the grindstone, the hoe hung idly in the shed; Robert shook off sundry cares which were wont to trouble his brotherly brow from Monday till Saturday, and almost to obscure the fact of his loving little sister to his brotherly eyes; and was able to enjoy that rarity in bush-life, an interval of leisure.

She found a considerable development in these brothers of hers. From coping with the actual needs and stern realities of existence, from standing and facing fortune on their own feet, so to speak, they had mentally become more muscular. The old soft life of comparative dependence and conventionality was not such as educates sturdy characters or helpful men. This present life was just the training required. Linda discovered that Robert and Arthur were no longer boys to be petted or teased, as the case might be; but men in the highest attributes of manhood—forethought, decision, and industry. It was on Sunday that she got glimpses of their old selves, and that the links of family affection were riveted and brightened; as in many a home that is not Canadian.

For the rest; these Sundays were barren days. The uncommon toil of the past week was not favourable to spirituality of mind; and which of all the party could become teacher to the others? Mr. Wynn had some volumes of sermons by old orthodox divines, brought out indeed in his emigration with a view to these Sabbath emergencies. When prayers were read, and the usual psalms and lessons gone through, he would mount his silver spectacles, fix himself in a particularly stately attitude in his high-backed chair, and commence to read one of the discourses (taking out a paper mark beforehand) in a particularly stately voice. It is not exceeding the truth to say that George oftentimes was driven to frantic efforts to keep himself awake; and even Arthur felt the predisposition of Eutychus come stealing over him.

Sometimes the Davidsons came down. The sturdy Scotchman had all his national objections to 'the paper;' and when convinced that it was better to hear a printed sermon than none at all, he kept a strict outlook on the theology of the discourse, which made Mr. Wynn rather nervous. A volume of sermons was altogether interdicted as containing doctrine not quite orthodox; as he proved in five minutes to demonstration, the old gentleman having fled the polemic field ignominiously.

'Robert, in all your dreams for a settlement, have you ever thought of the church there ought to be?'

'Thought of it?—to be sure, and planned the site. Come along, and I'll show it to you—just where the tinned spire will gleam forth prettily from the woods, and be seen from all sides of the pond. Come; I'll bring you an easy way through the bushes:' and as she was leaning on his arm for an afternoon stroll, with the other dear brother at her left hand, of course she went where he wished.

'When I was out with Argent last winter,' observed Arthur, we came to a lot of shanties, called by courtesy a village (with some grand name or other, and intending, like all of them, to be some day at least a capital city), where they were beginning to build a church. It was to be a very liberal-minded affair, for all sects were to have it in turn till their own places were built: and on this understanding all subscribed. Odd subscriptions! The paper was brought to Argent and me, he gave a few dollars; most people gave produce, lumber, or shingles, or so many days' work, or the loan of oxen, and so on.'

'And as they do everything by "bees," from building a house down to quilting a counterpane, I suppose they had a bee for this,' said Linda.

'Exactly so. But it seemed a great pull to get it on foot at all. New settlers never have any money—like ourselves,' jauntily added Arthur. 'I never thought I could be so happy with empty pockets. Don't be deceived by that jingling—it is only a few keys which I keep for purposes of deception. Haven't I seen Uncle Zack's eyes glisten, and I am certain his mouth watered, when he thought the music proceeded from red cents!'

'But why must our church have a tin spire?' asked Linda by and by. 'It would remind me of some plaything, Bob.'

'Because it's national,' was the reply. 'But you needn't be afraid; if we have a shed like a whitewashed barn for the first ten years, with seats of half-hewn logs, we may deem ourselves fortunate, and never aspire to the spire. Excuse my pun.'

'Oh, did you intend that for a pun?' asked Linda innocently. 'I beg your pardon for not laughing in the proper place. But how about the minister of these bush churches, Bob?'

'Well, as the country opens up and gets cleared, we may reckon on having some sort of minister. I mean some denomination of preacher, within twenty-five or thirty miles of us; and he will think nothing of riding over every Sunday. It's quite usual.'

'He's a zealous man that does it in the bitter winter, with the weather some degrees below zero,' remarked Arthur.

'How happy he must feel to be able to deny himself, and to suffer for Jesus' sake,' said Linda softly. 'Robert, I often think could we do nothing down in that wretched place they call the "Corner," where nobody appears to know anything about God at all? Couldn't we have a Sunday school, or a Bible class, or something of that sort? It hardly appears right to be Christians, and yet hold our tongues about our Saviour among all these dark souls.'

The thought had been visiting Robert too, during some of his Sundays; but had been put aside from a false timidity and fear of man. 'How holy must be my life, how blameless my actions, if I set up to teach others?' was one deterring consideration. As if he could not trust his God's help to keep him what a Christian ought to be!

'We will think over it, Linda,' he said gravely.

An opening seemed to come ere next Sabbath. On the Saturday arrived at the 'Corner' the worthy itinerant preacher who occasionally visited there, and was forthwith sent up to the Wynns' shanty for entertainment by Zack Bunting; who, however willing to enjoy the eclat of the minister's presence, was always on the look-out for any loophole to save his own purse; and had indeed been requested by Mr. Wynn to commit the pastor to his hospitality when next he came round. Little of the cleric in appearance or garb was about this man of God. A clear-headed, strongly convictioned person, with his Bible for sole theologic library, and a deep sense of the vast consequence of his message at his heart, he dismounted from the sturdy Canadian horse which his own hands were used to attend, and entered the emigrant's dwelling with apostolic salutation—'Peace be to this house.'

'Very unlike our old-country ministers, my dear,' said gentle Mrs. Wynn to her daughter; 'and I fear I never could get reconciled to that blanket-coat and top-boots; but he's a good man—a very good man, I am sure. I found him speaking to Andy Callaghan in the kitchen about his soul; and really Andy looked quite moved by his earnestness. It seems he makes it a rule never to meet any person without speaking on the subject: I must say I highly approve of that for a minister.'

What a strange congregation was gathered in Zack Bunting's large room next noon! All sorts of faces, all sorts of clothes. Mrs. Zack and Almeria in rainbow garments; the Davidsons in sensible homespun; the Wynns in old-country garb, were prominent. News had gone far and near that preaching was to be enjoyed that Sabbath at the 'Corner;' and from daybreak it had made a stir along the roads. Ox-sleds, waggons, mounted horses, came thither apace by every available path through the woods. Old men and maidens, young men and matrons and children, crowded before the preacher, as he spoke to them from the verse—'Peace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.'

Now an emphasis was laid on those last two words that might well make hypocrites wince. And Zack Punting had been singing with considerable fervour various hymns totally unsuited to his state of soul; as proprietor of the meeting-place, it became him to set an example of devotion—besides, was not religion a highly respectable thing? Among other hymns had been that beautiful outpouring of individual faith and love,—