Life in the Backwoods

S >> Susanna Moodie >> Life in the Backwoods

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

Out stalked the offending party. I thought, to be sure, we had got rid of
him; and though he deserved what was said to him, I was sorry for him.
Moodie took his dinner, quietly remarking, "I wonder he could find it in
his heart to leave those fine peas and potatoes."

He then went back to his work in the bush, and I cleared away the dishes,
and churned, for I wanted butter for tea.

About four o'clock, Mr. Malcolm entered the room. "Mrs. Moodie," said he,
in a more cheerful voice than usual, "where's the boss?"

"In the wood, under-bushing." I felt dreadfully afraid that there would be
blows between them.

"I hope, Mr. Malcolm, that you are not going to him with any intention of
a fresh quarrel."

"Don't you think I have been punished enough by losing my dinner?" said
he, with a grin. "I don't think we shall murder one another." He
shouldered his axe, and went whistling away.

After striving for a long while to stifle my foolish fears, I took the
baby in my arms, and little Dunbar by the hand and ran up to the bush
where Moodie was at work.

At first I only saw my husband, but the strokes of an axe at a little
distance soon guided my eyes to the spot where Malcolm was working away,
as if for dear life. Moodie smiled, and looked at me significantly.

"How could the fellow stomach what I said to him? Either great necessity
or great meanness must be the cause of his knocking under. I don't know
whether most to pity or despise him."

"Put up with it, dearest, for this once. He is not happy, and must be
greatly distressed."

Malcolm kept aloof, ever and anon casting a furtive glance towards us; at
last little Dunbar ran to him, and held up his arms to be kissed. The
strange man snatched him to his bosom, and covered him with caresses. It
might be love to the child that had quelled his sullen spirit, or he might
really have cherished an affection for us deeper than his ugly temper
would allow him to show. At all events, he joined us at tea as if nothing
had happened, and we might truly say that he had obtained a new lease of
his long visit. But what could not be effected by words or hints of ours
was brought about a few days after by the silly observation of a child. He
asked Katie to give him a kiss, and he would give her some raspberries he
had gathered in the bush.

"I don't want them. Go away; I don't like you, _you little stumpy man!_"

His rage knew no bounds. He pushed the child from him, and vowed that he
would leave the house that moment--that she could not have thought of such
an expression herself; she must have been taught it by us. This was an
entire misconception on his part; but he would not be convinced that he
was wrong. Off he went, and Moodie called after him, "Malcolm, as I am
sending to Peterborough to-morrow, the man shall take in your trunk." He
was too angry even to turn and bid us good-bye; but we had not seen the
last of him yet. Two months after, we were taking tea with a neighbour,
who lived a mile below us on the small lake. Who should walk in but Mr.
Malcolm? He greeted us with great warmth for him, and when we rose to take
leave, he rose and walked home by our side. "Surely the little stumpy man
is not returning to his old quarters?" I am still a babe in the affairs of
men. Human nature has more strange varieties than any one menagerie can
contain, and Malcolm was one of the oddest of her odd species.

That night he slept in his old bed below the parlour window, and for three
months afterwards he stuck to us like a beaver. He seemed to have grown
more kindly, or we had got more used to his eccentricities, and let him
have his own way; certainly he behaved himself much better. He neither
scolded the children nor interfered with the maid, nor quarrelled with me.
He had greatly discontinued his bad habit of swearing, and he talked
of himself and his future prospects with more hope and self-respect.
His father had promised to send him a fresh supply of money, and he
proposed to buy of Moodie the clergy reserve, and that they should farm
the two places on shares. This offer was received with great joy, as an
unlooked-for means of paying our debts, and extricating ourselves from
present and overwhelming difficulties, and we looked upon the little
stumpy man in the light of a benefactor.

So matters continued until Christmas-eve, when our visitor proposed
walking into Peterborough, in order to give the children a treat of
raisins to make a Christmas pudding.

"We will be quite merry to-morrow," he said. "I hope we shall eat many
Christmas dinners together, and continue good friends."

He started, after breakfast, with the promise of coming back at night; but
night came, the Christmas passed away, months and years fled away, but we
never saw the little stumpy man again!

He went away that day with a stranger in a wagon from Peterborough, and
never afterwards was seen in that part of Canada. We afterwards learned
that he went to Texas, and it is thought that he was killed at St.
Antonio; but this is mere conjecture. Whether dead or living, I feel
convinced that

"We ne'er shall look upon his like again."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FIRE.

The early part of the winter of 1837, a year never to be forgotten in the
annals of Canadian history, was very severe. During the month of February,
the thermometer often ranged from eighteen to twenty-seven degrees below
zero. Speaking of the coldness of one particular day, a genuine Brother
Jonathan remarked, with charming simplicity, that it was thirty degrees
below zero that morning, and it would have been much colder if the
thermometer had been longer.

The morning of the seventh was so intensely cold that every thing liquid
froze in the house. The wood that had been drawn for the fire was green,
and it ignited too slowly to satisfy the shivering impatience of women and
children; I vented mine in audibly grumbling over the wretched fire, at
which I in vain endeavoured to thaw frozen bread, and to dress crying
children.

It so happened that an old friend, the maiden lady before alluded to,
had been staying with us for a few days. She had left us for a visit to my
sister, and as some relatives of hers were about to return to Britain by
the way of New York, and had offered to convey letters to friends at home,
I had been busy all the day before preparing a packet for England. It was
my intention to walk to my sister's with this packet, directly the
important affair of breakfast had been discussed, but the extreme cold
of the morning had occasioned such delay that it was late before the
breakfast-things were cleared away.

After dressing, I found the air so keen that I could not venture out
without some risk to my nose, and my husband kindly volunteered to go in
my stead. I had hired a young Irish girl the day before. Her friends were
only just located in our vicinity, and she had never seen a stove until
she came to our house. After Moodie left, I suffered the fire to die away
in the Franklin stove in the parlour, and went into the kitchen to prepare
bread for the oven.

The girl, who was a good-natured creature, had heard me complain bitterly
of the cold, and the impossibility of getting the green wood to burn, and
she thought that she would see if she could not make a good fire for me
and the children, against my work was done. Without saying one word about
her intention, she slipped out through a door that opened from the parlour
into the garden, ran round to the wood-yard, filled her lap with cedar
chips, and, not knowing the nature of the stove, filled it entirely with
the light wood.

Before I had the least idea of my danger, I was aroused from the
completion of my task by the crackling and roaring of a large fire,
and a suffocating smell of burning soot. I looked up at the kitchen
cooking-stove. All was right there. I knew I had left no fire in the
parlour stove; but not being able to account for the smoke and smell of
burning, I opened the door, and to my dismay found the stove red hot,
from the front plate to the topmost pipe that let out the smoke through
the roof.

My first impulse was to plunge a blanket, snatched from the servant's bed,
which stood in the kitchen, into cold water. This I thrust into the stove,
and upon it I threw water, until all was cool below. I then ran up to the
loft, and by exhausting all the water in the house, even to that contained
in the boilers upon the fire, contrived to cool down the pipes which
passed through the loft. I then sent the girl out of doors to look at the
roof, which, as a very deep fall of snow had taken place the day before, I
hoped would be completely covered, and safe from all danger of fire.

She quickly returned, stamping and tearing her hair, and making a variety
of uncouth outcries, from which I gathered that the roof was in flames.

This was terrible news, with my husband absent, no man in the house, and a
mile and a quarter from any other habitation. I ran out to ascertain the
extent of the misfortune, and found a large fire burning in the roof
between the two stone pipes. The heat of the fires had melted off all the
snow, and a spark from the burning pipe had already ignited the shingles.
A ladder, which for several months had stood against the house, had been
moved two days before to the barn, which was at the top of the hill, near
the road; there was no reaching the fire through that source. I got out
the dining-table, and tried to throw water upon the roof by standing on a
chair placed upon it, but I only expended the little water that remained
in the boiler, without reaching the fire. The girl still continued weeping
and lamenting.

"You must go for help," I said. "Run as fast as you can to my sister's,
and fetch your master!"

"And lave you, ma'arm, and the childher alone wid the burnin' house?"

"Yes, yes! Don't stay one moment."

"I have no shoes, ma'arm, and the snow is so deep."

"Put on your master's boots; make haste, or we shall be lost before help
comes."

The girl put on the boots and started, shrieking "Fire!" the whole way.
This was utterly useless, and only impeded her progress by exhausting her
strength. After she had vanished from the head of the clearing into the
wood, and I was left quite alone, with the house burning over my head, I
paused one moment to reflect what had best be done.

The house was built of cedar logs; in all probability it would be consumed
before any help could arrive. There was a brisk breeze blowing up from the
frozen lake, and the thermometer stood at eighteen degrees below zero. We
were placed between the two extremes of heat and cold, and there was as
much danger to be apprehended from the one as the other. In the
bewilderment of the moment, the direful extent of the calamity never
struck me: we wanted but this to put the finishing stroke to our
misfortunes, to be thrown naked, houseless, and penniless, upon the world.
"_What shall I save first?_" was the thought just then uppermost in my
mind. Bedding and clothing appeared the most essentially necessary, and
without another moment's pause, I set to work with a right good will to
drag all that I could from my burning home.

While little Agnes, Dunbar, and baby Donald filled the air with their
cries, Katie, as if fully conscious of the importance of exertion,
assisted me in carrying out sheets and blankets, and dragging trunks and
boxes some way up the hill, to be out of the way of the burning brands
when the roof should fall in.

How many anxious looks I gave to the head of the clearing as the fire
increased, and large pieces of burning pine began to fall through the
boarded ceiling, about the lower rooms where we were at work. The children
I had kept under a large dresser in the kitchen, but it now appeared
absolutely necessary to remove them to a place of safety. To expose
the young, tender things to the direful cold was almost as bad as leaving
them to the mercy of the fire. At last I hit upon a plan to keep them from
freezing. I emptied all the clothes out of a large, deep chest of drawers,
and dragged the empty drawers up the hill; these I lined with blankets,
and placed a child in each drawer, covering it well over with the bedding
giving to little Agnes the charge of the baby to hold between her knees,
and keep well covered until help should arrive. Ah, how long it seemed
coming!

The roof was now burning like a brush-heap, and, unconsciously, the child
and I were working under a shelf, upon which were deposited several pounds
of gunpowder which had been procured for blasting a well, as all our water
had to be brought up-hill from the lake. This gunpowder was in a stone jar
secured by a paper stopper; the shelf upon which it stood was on fire, but
it was utterly forgotten by me at the time; and even afterwards, when my
husband was working on the burning loft over it.

I found that I should not be able to take many more trips for goods. As I
passed out of the parlour for the last time, Katie looked up at her
father's flute, which was suspended upon two brackets, and said,

"Oh, dear mamma! do save papa's flute; he will be so sorry to lose it."

God bless the dear child for the thought! the flute was saved; and, as I
succeeded in dragging out a heavy chest of clothes, and looked up once
more despairingly to the road, I saw a man running at full speed. It was
my husband. Help was at hand, and my heart uttered a deep thanksgiving as
another and another figure came upon the scene.

I had not felt the intense cold, although without cap, or bonnet, or
shawl; with my hands bare and exposed to the bitter, biting air. The
intense excitement, the anxiety to save a11 I could, had so totally
diverted my thoughts from myself, that I had felt nothing of the danger to
which I had been exposed; but now that help was near, my knees trembled
under me, I felt giddy and faint, and dark shadows seemed dancing before
my eyes.

The moment my husband and brother-in-law entered the house, the latter
exclaimed,

"Moodie, the house is gone; save what you can of your winter stores and
furniture."

Moodie thought differently. Prompt and energetic in danger, and possessing
admirable presence of mind and coolness when others yield to agitation and
despair, he sprang upon the burning loft and called for water. Alas, there
was none!

"Snow, snow; hand me up pailfuls of snow!"

Oh! it was bitter work filling those pails with frozen snow; but Mr. T____
and I worked at it as fast as we were able.

The violence of the fire was greatly checked by covering the boards of the
loft with this snow. More help had now arrived. Young B____ and S____ had
brought the ladder down with them from the barn, and were already cutting
away the burning roof, and flinging the flaming brands into the deep snow.

"Mrs. Moodie, have you any pickled meat?"

"We have just killed one of our cows, and salted it for winter stores."

"Well, then, fling the beef into the snow, and let us have the brine."

This was an admirable plan. Wherever the brine wetted the shingles, the
fire turned from it, and concentrated into one spot.

But I had not time to watch the brave workers on the roof. I was fast
yielding to the effects of over-excitement and fatigue, when my brother's
team dashed down the clearing, bringing my excellent old friend, Miss
B____, and the servant-girl.

My brother sprang out, carried me back into the house, and wrapped me up
in one of the large blankets, scattered about. In a few minutes I was
seated with the dear children in the sleigh, and on the way to a place of
warmth and safety. Katie alone suffered from the intense cold. The dear
little creature's feet were severely frozen, but were fortunately restored
by her uncle discovering the fact before she approached the fire, and
rubbing them well with snow. In the mean while, the friends we had left so
actively employed at the house succeeded in getting the fire under before
it had destroyed the walls. The only accident that occurred was to a poor
dog, that Moodie had called Snarleyowe. He was struck by a burning brand
thrown from the house, and crept under the barn and died.

Beyond the damage done to the building, the loss of our potatoes, and two
sacks of flour, we had escaped in a manner almost miraculous. This fact
shows how much can be done by persons working in union, without bustle and
confusion, or running in each other's way. Here were six men, who, without
the aid of water, succeeded in saving a building, which, at first sight,
almost all of them had deemed past hope. In after years, when entirely
burnt out in a disastrous fire that consumed almost all we were worth in
the world, some four hundred persons were present, with a fire-engine to
second their endeavours, yet all was lost. Every person seemed in the way;
and though the fire was discovered immediately after it took place,
nothing was done beyond saving some of the furniture.

Our party was too large to be billetted upon one family. Mrs. T---, took
compassion upon Moodie, myself, and the baby, while their uncle received
the three children to his hospitable home.

It was some weeks before Moodie succeeded in repairing the roof, the
intense cold preventing any one from working in such an exposed situation.
The news of our fire travelled far and wide. I was reported to have done
prodigies, and to have saved the greater part of our household goods
before help arrived. Reduced to plain prose, these prodigies shrink into
the simple, and by no means marvellous fact, that during the excitement
I dragged out chests which, under ordinary circumstances, I could not have
moved; and that I was unconscious both of the cold and the danger to which
I was exposed while working under a burning roof, which, had it fallen,
would have buried both the children and myself under its ruins. These
circumstances appeared far more alarming, as all real danger does, after
they were past. The fright and overexertion gave my health a shock from
which I did not recover for several months, and made me so fearful of
fire, that from that hour it haunts me like a nightmare. Let the night be
ever so serene, all stoves must be shut up, and the hot-embers covered
with ashes, before I dare retire to rest; and the sight of a burning
edifice, so common a spectacle in large towns in this country, makes me
really ill. This feeling was greatly increased after a second fire, when,
for some torturing minutes, a lovely boy, since drowned, was supposed to
have perished in the burning house.

Our present fire led to a new train of circumstances, for it was the means
of introducing to Moodie a young Irish gentleman, who was staying at my
brother's house. John E____ was one of the best and gentlest of human
beings. His father, a captain in the army, had died while his family were
quite young, and had left his widow with scarcely any means beyond the
pension she received at her husband's death, to bring up and educate a
family of five children. A handsome, showy woman, Mrs. E____ soon married
again; and the poor lads ere thrown upon the world. The eldest, who had
been educated for the Church first came to Canada in the hope of getting
some professorship in the college, or of opening a classical school. He
was a handsome, gentlemanly, well-educated young man, but constitutionally
indolent--a natural defect which seemed common to all the males of the
family, and which was sufficiently indicated by their soft, silky, fair
hair and milky complexion. R____ had the good sense to perceive that
Canada was not the country for him. He spent a week under our roof, and we
were much pleased with his elegant tastes and pursuits; but my husband
strongly advised him to try and get a situation as a tutor in some family
at home. This he afterwards obtained. He became tutor and travelling
companion to the young Lord M____; and has since got an excellent living.

John, who had followed his brother to Canada without the means of
transporting himself back again, was forced to remain, and was working
with Mr. S____ for his board. He proposed to Moodie working his farm upon
shares; and as we were unable to hire a man, Moodie gladly closed with his
offer; and, during the time he remained with us, we had every reason to be
pleased with the arrangement. It was always a humiliating feeling to our
proud minds, that hirelings should witness our dreadful struggles with
poverty, and the strange shifts we were forced to make in order to obtain
even food. But John E____ had known and experienced all that we had
suffered, in his own person, and was willing to share our home with all
its privations. Warm-hearted, sincere, and truly affectionate--a gentleman
in word, thought, and deed--we found his society and cheerful help a great
comfort. Our odd meals became a subject of merriment, and the peppermint
and sage tea drank with a better flavour when we had one who sympathized
in all our trials, and shared all our toils, to partake of it with us.

The whole family soon became attached to our young friend, and after
the work of the day was over, greatly we enjoyed an hour's fishing on
the lake. John E____ said that we had no right to murmur, as long as we
had health, a happy home, and plenty of fresh fish, milk, and potatoes.
Early in May, we received an old Irishwoman into our service, who for four
years proved a most faithful and industrious creature. And what with John
E____ to assist my husband on the farm, and old Jenny to help me to nurse
the children, and manage the house, our affairs, if they were no better in
a pecuniary point of view, at least presented a more pleasing aspect at
home. We were always cheerful, and sometimes contented and even happy.

How great was the contrast between the character of our new inmate and
that of Mr. Malcolm! The sufferings of the past year had been greatly
increased by the intolerable nuisance of his company, while many
additional debts had been contracted in order to obtain luxuries for him
which we never dreamed of purchasing for ourselves. Instead of increasing
my domestic toils, John did all in his power to lessen them; and it always
grieved him to see me iron a shirt, or wash the least article of clothing
for him. "You have too much to do already; I cannot bear to give you the
least additional work," he would say. And he generally expressed the
greatest satisfaction at my method of managing the house, and preparing
our simple fare. The little ones he treated with the most affectionate
kindness, and gathered the whole flock about his knees the moment he came
in to his meals.

On a wet day, when no work could be done abroad, Moodie took up his flute,
or read aloud to us, while John and I sat down to work. The young
emigrant, early cast upon the world and his own resources, was an
excellent hand at the needle. He would make or mend a shirt with the
greatest precision and neatness, and cut out and manufacture his canvas
trowsers and loose summer-coats with as much adroitness as the most
experienced tailor; darn his socks, and mend his boots and shoes, and
often volunteered to assist me in knitting the coarse yarn of the country
into socks for the children, while he made them moccasins from the dressed
deer-skins that we obtained from the Indians. Scrupulously neat and clean
in his person, the only thing which seemed to ruffle his calm temper was
the dirty work of logging; he hated to come in from the field with his
person and clothes begrimed with charcoal and smoke. Old Jenny used to
laugh at him for not being able to eat his meals without first washing his
hands and face.

"Och! my dear heart, yer too particular intirely; we've no time in the
woods to be clane." She would say to him, in answer to his request for
soap and a towel, "An' is it soap yer a wantin'? I tell yer that that same
is not to the fore; bating the throuble of making, it's little soap that
the misthress can get to wash the clothes for us and the childher, widout
yer wastin' it in makin' yer purty skin as white as a leddy's. Do,
darlint, go down, to the lake and wash there; that basin is big enough,
any how." And John would laugh, and go down to the lake to wash, in order
to appease the wrath of the old woman. John had a great dislike to cats,
and even regarded with an evil eye our old pet cat, Peppermint, who had
taken a great fancy to share his bed and board.

"If I tolerate our own cat," he would say, "I will not put up with such a
nuisance as your friend Emilia sends us in the shape of her ugly Tom. Why,
where in the world do you think I found that beast sleeping last night?"

I expressed my ignorance.

"In our potato-pot. Now, you will agree with me that potatoes dressed with
cat's hair is not a very nice dish. The next time I catch Master Tom in
the potato-pot, I will kill him."

"John, you are not in earnest. Mrs. ____ would never forgive any injury
done to Tom, who is a great favourite."

"Let her keep him at home, then. Think of the brute coming a mile through
the woods to steal from us all he can find, and then sleeping off the
effects of his depredations in the potato-pot."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16