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CHAPTER XXIX

ONE DAY IN JULY

A summer more glorious than our settlers could have imagined, followed on the steps of the tardy spring. What serene skies—what brilliant sunshine—what tropical wealth of verdure! At every pore the rich earth burst forth into fruit and flower. Two months after the grass had been sunk deep beneath the snow, sheets of strawberries were spread in the woods, an extemporized feast.

One might think that the cottage at Cedar Creek had also bloomed under the fair weather; for when July—hottest of Canadian months—came, the dingy wooden walls had assumed a dazzling white, with a roof so grey that the shingles might have been veritable slates. Resemblance to the lime-washed houses of home was Robert's fancy; which, in Zack Bunting's mind, was a perverted taste, as he recommended a brilliant green groundwork, picked out with yellow, such canary-bird costume being favourite in Yankee villages.

The few feet of garden railed off in front are filled with bushes of the fragrant Canadian wild-rose; yellow violets, lobelias, and tiger-lilies, transplanted thither from the forest glades, appear to flourish. The brothers had resolved that Linda should not miss her flower-beds and their gentle care even in bush-life.

For the rest, the clearing looks wild enough, notwithstanding all civilising endeavours. That mighty wall of trees has not been pushed back far, and the débris of the human assault, lying on the soil in vast wooden lengths, seems ponderous even to discouragement. Robert has been viewing it all through stranger eyes for the last week, since he heard the joyful news that they for whom he has worked have landed at Montreal; he has been putting finishing touches wherever he could, yet how unfinished it is!

To-day Andy alone is in possession; for his young masters have gone to meet the expected waggon as far as Peter Logan's—nay, to Greenock if necessary. He has abundance of occupation for the interval; first, to hill up a patch of Indian corn with the hoe, drawing the earth into little mounds five or six inches high round each stalk; and after that, sundry miscellaneous duties, among which milking the cow stands prominent. She is enjoying herself below in the beaver meadow, while the superior animal, Andy, toils hard among the stumps, and talks to himself, as wont.

'Why, thin, I wondher what th' ould masther 'ull say to our clearin', an' how he'll take to the life, at all, at all; he that niver did a hand's turn yet in the way of business, only 'musin' himself wid papers an' books as any gintleman ought; how he'll stand seein' Masther Robert hoein' and choppin' like a labourin' man? More be token, it's little o' that thim pair down at Daisy Burn does. I b'lieve they 'spect things to grow ov thimselves 'athout any cultivatin'. An' to see that poor young lady hillin' the corn herself—I felt as I'd like to bate both the captin an' his fine idle son—so I would, while I could stand over 'em.'

He executed an aërial flourish with his hoe, and the minute after, found practical occupation for it in chasing two or three great swine who were poking at the fence, as if they longed for the sweet young cornstalks within. Whence the reader may perceive that Mr. Wynn had become proprietor of certain items of live stock, including sundry fowls, which were apt to keep all parties in exhilarating exercise by their aggressions on the garden.

'Musha, but 'tis very hot intirely,' soliloquized Andy, returning from the aggravated stern-chase of the swine, and lifting his grass hat to fan his flushed face. 'The sun don't know how to obsarve a madium at all in this counthry, as our poor ould Irish sun does. We're aither freezin' or fryin' the year round.' Hereupon, as reminded by the last-named experience, he threw down his hoe, and went to settle the smouldering fires in the fallow, where one or two isolated heaps of brush were slowly consuming, while their bluish smoke curled up lazily in the still air. 'It's quare to think of how lonesome I am this minnit,' continued he, as he blackened himself in ministering to the heaps. 'Sorra livin' sowl to spake to nearer than the captin's, barrin' the cow, an' the pigs, an' thim savidges down at the swamp.'

Here he made an infuriate swing backwards of a bush, fortunately in his hand; but it was against no Indian foe; on the contrary, his own shoulders received the blow, and another to make sure; whereby an individual enemy was pasted to the spot where its proboscis had pierced shirt and skin, and half-a-dozen others saved themselves by flight—being the dreaded black flies of Canada.

'Why, thin, ye murtherin' villins, will ye follow me into the smoke itself?' said Andy, whirling his bush in the air to disperse their squadrons. 'I thought ye wor satisfied wid most atin' us last week, an' blindin' the young gintlemin, an' lavin' lumps on their faces as big as hazel nuts. Betune yerselves an' the miss kitties, it's hard for a man to do a sthroke of work, wid huntin' ye. Ay, ye may well moo, ye crathur below in the meadow, that has only horns an' a tail to fight 'em. An' sure, may be 'tain't the cow at all that's roarin', only one of them big frogs that bellows out of the swamp, for all the world as if they was bullocks.'

To settle the question, he walked away down to the beaver meadow, now an expanse of the most delicious level green, and found that the cow had protected herself against all winged adversaries by standing in the creek up to her throat in the cool water, where she chewed the cud tranquilly, and contemplated with an impassive countenance the construction of a canoe at a little distance by two red men and their squaws. Andy paused and looked on likewise.

One woman was stripping a large white birch of its bark with a sharp knife; she scraped away the internal coating as a tanner would scrape leather, and laid the pieces before the other squaw, whose business was to stitch them together with bast. The men meanwhile prepared a sausage-shaped framework of very thin cedar ribs, tying every point of junction with firm knots; for the aforesaid bast is to the Indian what glue and nails are to the civilised workman.

'Throth, only for the birch threes I dunno what they'd do; for out of it's skin they make houses, an' boats, an' pots to bile vittles, an' candles to burn, an' ornaments like what Mr. Robert has above.' A pause, as he watched the bark turned over the ribs, and wedge-shaped pieces cut out to prevent awkward foldings near the gunwale—all carried on in solemn silence. 'Well, there's no manner of doubt but savages are great intirely at houldin' their tongues; sure, may be it's no wondher, an' their langidge the quare sort it is, that they don't want to spake to each other but as little as they can help.'

Here the nearest Indian raised his head, and appeared to listen to a distant sound; a low word or two attracted the attention of the others, who also listened, and exchanged a few sentences, with a glance at Andy, whose curiosity was roused; and he asked, chiefly by signs, what it was all about.

'Oxen—waggon,' was the reply; 'me hear driver. White man no have long ears.'

Andy fled with precipitation to his neglected duties, while the red men laughed their low quiet laugh, knowing that the waggon they heard could not reach Cedar Creek in less than an hour.

But at last it came. At last Linda, pressing eagerly forward upon Robert's arm, had caught a first glimpse of their cottage home, and exclaimed, 'O Bob, how pretty! Why, you told me it was a rough sort of a place; how very pretty!'

'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.