Johan Olof Wallin - "The Angel of Death"

Ministry of Education Ontario - "Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools"

James Lane Allen - "Bride of the Mistletoe"

Benvenuto Cellini - "The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Young Fur Traders

R >> R.M. Ballantyne >> The Young Fur Traders




As the sun's last rays sunk in the west, and the clouds, losing their
crimson hue, began gradually to fade into gray, the boats' heads were
turned landward. In a few seconds they grounded on a low point,
covered with small trees and bushes which stretched out into the
lake. Here Louis Peltier had resolved to bivouac for the night.

"Now then, mes garcons," he exclaimed, leaping ashore, and helping to
drag the boat a little way on to the beach, "vite, vite! a terre, a
terre!--Take the kettle, Pierre, and let's have supper."

Pierre needed no second bidding. He grasped a large tin kettle and an
axe, with which he hurried into a clump of trees. Laying down the
kettle, which he had previously filled with water from the lake, he
singled out a dead tree, and with three powerful blows of his axe,
brought it to the ground. A few additional strokes cut it up into
logs, varying from three to five feet in length, which he piled
together, first placing a small bundle of dry grass and twigs beneath
them, and a few splinters of wood which he cut from off one of the
logs. Having accomplished this, Pierre took a flint and steel out of
a gaily ornamented pouch which depended from his waist, and which
went by the name of a fire-bag in consequence of its containing the
implements for procuring that element. It might have been as
appropriately named tobacco-box or smoking-bag, however, seeing that
such things had more to do with it, if possible, than fire. Having
struck a spark, which he took captive by means of a piece of tinder,
he placed in the centre of a very dry handful of soft grass, and
whirled it rapidly round his head, thereby producing a current of
air, which blew the spark into a flame; which when applied, lighted
the grass and twigs; and so, in a few minutes, a blazing fire roared
up among the trees--spouted volumes of sparks into the air, like a
gigantic squib, which made it quite a marvel that all the bushes in
the neighbourhood were not burnt up at once--glared out red and
fierce upon the rippling water, until it became, as it were, red-hot
in the neighbourhood of the boats, and caused the night to become
suddenly darker by contrast; the night reciprocating the compliment,
as it grew later, by causing the space around the fire to glow
brighter and brighter, until it became a brilliant chamber,
surrounded by walls of the blackest ebony.

While Pierre was thus engaged there were at least ten voyageurs
similarly occupied. Ten steels were made instrumental in creating ten
sparks, which were severally captured by ten pieces of tinder, and
whirled round by ten lusty arms, until ten flames were produced, and
ten fires sprang up and flared wildly on the busy scene that had a
few hours before been so calm, so solitary, and so peaceful, bathed
in the soft beams of the setting sun.

In less than half-an-hour the several camps were completed, the
kettles boiling over the fires, the men smoking in every variety of
attitude, and talking loudly. It was a cheerful scene; and so Charley
thought as he reclined in his canvas tent, the opening of which faced
the fire, and enabled him to see all that was going on.

Pierre was standing over the great kettle, dancing round it, and
making sudden plunges with a stick into it, in the desperate effort
to stir its boiling contents--desperate, because the fire was very
fierce and large, and the flames seem to take a fiendish pleasure in
leaping up suddenly just under Pierre's nose, thereby endangering his
beard, or shooting out between his legs and licking round them at
most unexpected moments, when the light wind ought to have been
blowing them quite in the opposite direction; and then, as he danced
round to the other side to avoid them, wheeling about and roaring
viciously in his face, until it seemed as if the poor man would be
roasted long before the supper was boiled. Indeed, what between the
ever-changing and violent flames, the rolling smoke, the steam from
the kettle, the showering sparks, and the man's own wild grimaces and
violent antics, Pierre seemed to Charley like a raging demon, who
danced not only round, but above, and on, and through, and _in_ the
flames, as if they were his natural element, in which he took special
delight.

Quite close to the tent the massive form of Louis the guide lay
extended, his back supported by the stump of a tree, his eyes
blinking sleepily at the blaze, and his beloved pipe hanging from his
lips, while wreaths of smoke encircled his head. Louis's day's work
was done. Few could do a better; and when his work was over, Louis
always acted on the belief that his position and his years entitled
him to rest, and took things very easy in consequence.

Six of the boat's crew sat in a semicircle beside the guide and
fronting the fire, each paying particular attention to his pipe, and
talking between the puffs to anyone who chose to listen.

Suddenly Pierre vanished into the smoke and flames altogether, whence
in another moment he issued, bearing in his hand the large tin
kettle, which he deposited triumphantly at the feet of his comrades.

"Now, then," cried Pierre.

It was unnecessary to have said even that much by way of invitation.
Voyageurs do not require to have their food pressed upon them after a
hard day's work. Indeed it was as much as they could do to refrain
from laying violent hands on the kettle long before their worthy cook
considered its contents sufficiently done.

Charley sat in company with Mr. Park--a chief factor, on his way to
Norway House. Gibault, one of the men who acted as their servant, had
placed a kettle of hot tea before them, which, with several slices of
buffalo tongue, a lump of pemmican, and some hard biscuit and butter,
formed their evening meal. Indeed, we may add that these viands,
during a great part of the voyage, constituted their every meal. In
fact, they had no variety in their fare, except a wild duck or two
now and then, and a goose when they chanced to shoot one.

Charley sipped a pannikin of tea as he reclined on his blanket, and
being somewhat fatigued in consequence of his exertions and
excitement during the day, said nothing. Mr. Park, for the same
reasons, besides being naturally taciturn, was equally mute, so they
both enjoyed in silence the spectacle of the men eating their supper.
And it _was_ a sight worth seeing.

Their food consisted of robbiboo, a compound of flour, pemmican, and
water, boiled to the consistency of very thick soup. Though not a
species of food that would satisfy the fastidious taste of an
epicure, robbiboo is, nevertheless, very wholesome, exceedingly
nutritious, and withal palatable. Pemmican, its principal component,
is made of buffalo flesh, which fully equals (some think greatly
excels) beef. The recipe for making it is as follows:-First, kill
your buffalo--a matter of considerable difficulty, by the way, as
doing so requires you to travel to the buffalo-grounds, to arm
yourself with a gun, and mount a horse, on which you have to gallop,
perhaps, several miles over rough ground and among badger-holes at
the imminent risk of breaking your neck. Then you have to run up
alongside of a buffalo and put a ball through his heart, which, apart
from the murderous nature of the action, is a difficult thing to do.
But we will suppose that you have killed your buffalo. Then you must
skin him; then cut him up, and slice the flesh into layers, which
must be dried in the sun. At this stage of the process you have
produced a substance which in the fur countries goes by the name of
dried meat, and is largely used as an article of food. As its name
implies, it is very dry, and it is also very tough, and very
undesirable if one can manage to procure anything better. But to
proceed. Having thus prepared dried meat, lay a quantity of it on a
flat stone, and take another stone, with which pound it into shreds.
You must then take the animal's hide, while it is yet new, and make
bags of it about two feet and a half long by a foot and a half broad.
Into this put the pounded meat loosely. Melt the fat of your buffalo
over a fire, and when quite liquid pour it into the bag until full;
mix the contents well together; sew the whole up before it cools, and
you have a bag of pemmican of about ninety pounds weight. This forms
the chief food of the voyageur, in consequence of its being the
largest possible quantity of sustenance compressed into the smallest
possible space, and in an extremely convenient, portable shape. It
will keep fresh for years, and has been much used, in consequence, by
the heroes of arctic discovery, in their perilous journeys along the
shores of the frozen sea.

The voyageurs used no plate. Men who travel in these countries become
independent of many things that are supposed to be necessary here.
They sat in a circle round the kettle, each man armed with a large
wooden or pewter spoon, with which he ladled the robbiboo down his
capacious throat, in a style that not only caused Charley to laugh,
but afterwards threw him into a deep reverie on the powers of
appetite in general, and the strength of voyageur stomachs in
particular.

At first the keen edge of appetite induced the men to eat in silence;
but as the contents of the kettle began to get low, their tongues
loosened, and at last, when the kettles were emptied and the pipes
filled, fresh logs thrown on the fires, and their limbs stretched out
around them, the babel of English, French, and Indian that arose was
quite overwhelming. The middle-aged men told long stories of what
they _had_ done; the young men boasted of what they _meant_ to do;
while the more aged smiled, nodded, smoked their pipes, put in a word
or two as occasion offered, and listened. While they conversed the
quick ears of one of the men of Charley's camp detected some unusual
sound.

"Hist!" said he, turning his head aside slightly, in a listening
attitude, while his comrades suddenly ceased their noisy laugh.

"Do ducks travel in canoes hereabouts?" said the man, after a
moment's silence; "for, if not, there's someone about to pay us a
visit. I would wager my best gun that I hear the stroke of paddles."

"If your ears had been sharper, Francois, you might have heard them
some time ago," said the guide, shaking the ashes out of his pipe and
refilling it for the third time.

"Ah, Louis, I do not pretend to such sharp ears as you possess, nor
to such sharp wit either. But who do you think can be _en route_ so
late?"

"That my wit does not enable me to divine," said Louis; "but if you
have any faith in the sharpness of your eyes, I would recommend you
to go to the beach and see, as the best and shortest way of finding
out."

By this time the men had risen, and were peering out into the gloom
in the direction whence the sound came, while one or two sauntered
down to the margin of the lake to meet the new-comers.

"Who can it be, I wonder?" said Charley, who had left the tent, and
was now standing beside the guide.

"Difficult to say, monsieur. Perhaps Injins, though I thought there
were none here just now. But I'm not surprised that we've attracted
_something_ to us. Livin' creeturs always come nat'rally to the
light, and there's plenty of fire on the point to-night."

"Rather more than enough," replied Charley, abruptly, as a slight
motion of wind sent the flames curling round his head and singed off
his eye-lashes. "Why, Louis, it's my firm belief that if I ever get
to the end of this journey, I'll not have a hair left on my head."

Louis smiled.

"O monsieur, you will learn to _observe_ things before you have been
long in the wilderness. If you _will_ edge round to leeward of the
fire, you can't expect it to respect you."

Just at this moment a loud hurrah rang through the copse, and Harry
Somerville sprang over the fire into the arms of Charley, who
received him with a hug and a look of unutterable amazement.

"Charley, my boy!"

"Harry Somerville, I declare!"

For at least five minutes Charley could not recover his composure
sufficiently to _declare_ anything else, but stood with open mouth
and eyes, and elevated eyebrows, looking at his young friend, who
capered and danced round the fire in a manner that threw the cook's
performances in that line quite into the shade, while he continued
all the time to shout fragments of sentences that were quite
unintelligible to anyone. It was evident that Harry was in a state of
immense delight at something unknown save to himself, but which, in
the course of a few minutes, was revealed to his wondering friends.

"Charley, I'm _going!_ hurrah!" and he leaped about in a manner that
induced Charley to say he would not only be going but very soon
_gone_, if he did not keep further away from the fire.

"Yes, Charley, I'm going with you! I upset the stool, tilted the ink-
bottle over the invoice-book, sent the poker almost through the back
of the fireplace, and smashed Tom Whyte's best whip on the back of
the 'noo 'oss' as I galloped him over the plains for the last time:
all for joy, because I'm going with you, Charley, my darling!"

Here Harry suddenly threw his arms round his friend's neck,
meditating an embrace. As both boys were rather fond of using their
muscles violently, the embrace degenerated into a wrestle, which
caused them to threaten complete destruction to the fire as they
staggered in front of it, and ended in their tumbling against the
tent and nearly breaking its poles and fastenings, to the horror and
indignation of Mr. Park, who was smoking his pipe within, quietly
waiting till Harry's superabundant glee was over, that he might get
an explanation of his unexpected arrival among them.

"Ah, they will be good voyageurs!" cried one of the men, as he looked
on at this scene.

"Oui, oui! good boys, active lads," replied the others, laughing. The
two boys rose hastily.

"Yes," cried Harry, breathless, but still excited, "I'm going all the
way, and a great deal farther. I'm going to hunt buffaloes in the
Saskatchewan, and grizzly bears in the--the--in fact everywhere! I'm
going down the Mackenzie River--I'm going _mad_, I believe;" and
Harry gave another caper and another shout, and tossed his cap high
into the air. Having been recklessly tossed, it came down into the
fire. When it went in, it was dark blue; but when Harry dashed into
the flames in consternation to save it, it came out of a rich brown
colour.

"Now, youngster," said Mr. Park, "when you've done capering, I should
like to ask you one or two questions. What brought you here?"

"A canoe," said Harry, inclined to be impudent.

"Oh, and pray for what _purpose_ have you come here?"

"These are my credentials," handing him a letter.

Mr. Park opened the note and read.

"Ah! oh! Saskatchewan--hum--yes--outpost--wild boy--just so--keep him
at it--ay, fit for nothing else. So," said Mr. Park, folding the
paper, "I find that Mr. Grant has sent you to take the place of a
young gentleman we expected to pick up at Norway House, but who is
required elsewhere; and that he wishes you to see a good deal of
rough life--to be made a trader of, in fact. Is that your desire?"

"That's the very ticket!" replied Harry, scarcely able to restrain
his delight at the prospect.

"Well, then, you had better get supper and turn in, for you'll have
to begin your new life by rising at three o'clock to-morrow morning.
Have you got a tent?"

"Yes," said Harry, pointing to his canoe, which had been brought to
the fire and turned bottom up by the two Indians to whom it belonged,
and who were reclining under its shelter enjoying their pipes, and
watching with looks of great gravity the doings of Harry and his
friend.

"_That_ will return whence it came to-morrow. Have you no other?"

"Oh yes," said Harry, pointing to the overhanging branches of a
willow close at hand, "lots more."

Mr. Park smiled grimly, and, turning on his heel, re-entered the tent
and continued his pipe, while Harry flung himself down beside Charley
under the bark canoe.

This species of "tent" is, however, by no means a perfect one. An
Indian canoe is seldom three feet broad--frequently much narrower--so
that it only affords shelter for the body as far down as the waist,
leaving the extremities exposed. True, one _may_ double up as nearly
as possible into half one's length, but this is not a desirable
position to maintain throughout an entire night. Sometimes, when the
weather is _very_ bad, an additional protection is procured by
leaning several poles against the bottom of the canoe, on the weather
side, in such a way as to slope considerably over the front; and over
these are spread pieces of birch bark or branches and moss, so as to
form a screen, which is an admirable shelter. But this involves too
much time and labour to be adopted during a voyage, and is only done
when the travellers are under the necessity of remaining for some
time in one place.

The canoe in which Harry arrived was a pretty large one, and looked
so comfortable when arranged for the night that Charley resolved to
abandon his own tent and Mr. Park's society, and sleep with his
friend.

"I'll sleep with you, Harry, my boy," said he, after Harry had
explained to him in detail the cause of his being sent away from Red
River; which was no other than that a young gentleman, as Mr. Park
said, who _was_ to have gone, had been ordered elsewhere.

"That's right, Charley; spread out our blankets, while I get some
supper, like a good fellow." Harry went in search of the kettle while
his friend prepared their bed. First, he examined the ground on which
the canoe lay, and found that the two Indians had already taken
possession of the only level places under it. "Humph!" he ejaculated,
half inclined to rouse them up, but immediately dismissed the idea as
unworthy of a voyageur. Besides, Charley was an amiable, unselfish
fellow, and would rather have lain on the top of a dozen stumps than
have made himself comfortable at the expense of anyone else.

He paused a moment to consider. On one side was a hollow "that" (as
he soliloquised to himself) "would break the back of a buffalo." On
the other side were a dozen little stumps surrounding three very
prominent ones, that threatened destruction to the ribs of anyone who
should venture to lie there. But Charley did not pause to consider
long. Seizing his axe, he laid about him vigorously with the head of
it, and in a few seconds destroyed all the stumps, which he carefully
collected, and, along with some loose moss and twigs, put into the
hollow, and so filled it up. Having improved things thus far, he rose
and strode out of the circle of light into the wood. In a few minutes
he reappeared, bearing a young spruce fir tree on his shoulder, which
with the axe he stripped of its branches. These branches were flat in
form, and elastic--admirably adapted for making a bed on; and when
Charley spread them out under the canoe in a pile of about four
inches in depth by four feet broad and six feet long, the stumps and
the hollow were overwhelmed altogether. He then ran to Mr. Park's
tent, and fetched thence a small flat bundle covered with oilcloth
and tied with a rope. Opening this, he tossed out its contents, which
were two large and very thick blankets--one green, the other white; a
particularly minute feather pillow, a pair of moccasins, a broken
comb, and a bit of soap. Then he opened a similar bundle containing
Harry's bed, which he likewise tossed out; and then kneeling down, he
spread the two white blankets on the top of the branches, the two
green blankets above these, and the two pillows at the top, as far
under the shelter of the canoe as he could push them. Having
completed the whole in a manner that would have done credit to a
chambermaid, he continued to sit on his knees, with his hands in his
pockets, smiling complacently, and saying, "Capital--first-rate!"

"Here we are, Charley. Have a second supper--do!"

Harry placed the smoking kettle by the head of the bed, and squatting
down beside it, began to eat as only a boy _can_ eat who has had
nothing since breakfast.

Charley attacked the kettle too--as he said, "out of sympathy,"
although he "wasn't hungry a bit." And really, for a man who was not
hungry, and had supped half-an-hour before, the appetite of
_sympathy_ was wonderfully strong.

But Harry's powers of endurance were now exhausted. He had spent a
long day of excessive fatigue and excitement, and having wound it up
with a heavy supper, sleep began to assail him with a fell ferocity
that nothing could resist. He yawned once or twice, and sat on the
bed blinking unmeaningly at the fire, as if he had something to say
to it which he could not recollect just then. He nodded violently,
much to his own surprise, once or twice, and began to address remarks
to the kettle instead of to his friend. "I say, Charley, this won't
do. I'm off to bed!" and suiting the action to the word, he took off
his coat and placed it on his pillow. He then removed his moccasins,
which were wet, and put on a dry pair; and this being all that is
ever done in the way of preparation before going to bed in the woods,
he lay down and pulled the green blankets over him.

Before doing so, however, Harry leaned his head on his hands and
prayed. This was the one link left of the chain of habit with which
he had left home. Until the period of his departure for the wild
scenes of the Northwest, Harry had lived in a quiet, happy home in
the West Highlands of Scotland, where he had been surrounded by the
benign influences of a family the members of which were united by the
sweet bonds of Christian love--bonds which were strengthened by the
additional tie of amiability of disposition. From childhood he had
been accustomed to the routine of a pious and well-regulated
household, where the Bible was perused and spoken of with an interest
that indicated a genuine hungering and thirsting after righteousness,
and where the name of JESUS sounded often and sweetly on the ear.
Under such training, Harry, though naturally of a wild, volatile
disposition, was deeply and irresistibly impressed with a reverence
for sacred things, which, now that he was thousands of miles away
from his peaceful home, clung to him with the force of old habit and
association, despite the jeers of comrades and the evil influences
and ungodliness by which he was surrounded. It is true that he was
not altogether unhurt by the withering indifference to God that he
beheld on all sides. Deep impression is not renewal of heart. But
early training in the path of Christian love saved him many a deadly
fall. It guarded him from many of the grosser sins, into which other
boys, who had merely broken away from the _restraints_ of home too
easily fell. It twined round him--as the ivy encircles the oak--with
a soft, tender, but powerful grasp, that held him back when he was
tempted to dash aside all restraint; and held him up when, in the
weakness of human nature, he was about to fall. It exerted its benign
sway over him in the silence of night, when his thoughts reverted to
home, and during his waking hours, when he wandered from scene to
scene in the wide wilderness; and in after years, when sin prevailed,
and intercourse with rough men had worn off much of at least the
superficial amiability of his character, and to some extent blunted
the finer feelings of his nature, it clung faintly to him still, in
the memory of his mother's gentle look and tender voice, and never
forsook him altogether. Home had a blessed and powerful influence on
Harry. May God bless such homes, where the ruling power is _love!_
God bless and multiply such homes in the earth! Were there more of
them there would be fewer heart-broken mothers to weep over the
memory of the blooming, manly boys they sent away to foreign climes--
with trembling hearts but high hopes--and never saw them more. They
were vessels launched upon the troubled sea of time, with stout
timbers, firm masts, and gallant sails--with all that was necessary
above and below, from stem to stern, for battling with the billows of
adverse fortune, for stemming the tide of opposition, for riding the
storms of persecution, or bounding with a press of canvas before the
gales of prosperity; but without the rudder--without the guiding
principle that renders the great power of plank and sail and mast
available; with which the vessel moves obedient to the owner's will,
without which it drifts about with every current, and sails along
with every shifting wind that blows. Yes, may the best blessings of
prosperity and peace rest on such families, whose bread, cast
continually on the waters, returns to them after many days.

After Harry had lain down, Charley, who did not feel inclined for
repose, sauntered to the margin of the lake, and sat down upon a
rock.

It was a beautiful, calm evening. The moon shone faintly through a
mass of heavy clouds, casting a pale light on the waters of Lake
Winnipeg, which stretched, without a ripple, out to the distant
horizon. The great fresh-water lakes of America bear a strong
resemblance to the sea. In storms the waves rise mountains high, and
break with heavy, sullen roar upon a beach composed in many places of
sand and pebbles; while they are so large that one not only looks out
to a straight horizon, but may even sail _out of sight of land_
altogether.

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