In spite of the cold,
several kind friends had waded through the deep snow to say, "God
bless you! - Good-bye;" while a group of silent Indians stood
together, gazing upon our proceedings with an earnestness which
showed that they were not uninterested in the scene. As we passed
out to the sleigh, they pressed forward, and silently held out their
hands, while the squaws kissed me and the little ones with tearful
eyes. They had been true friends to us in our dire necessity, and I
returned their mute farewell from my very heart.
Mr. S - - sprang into the sleigh. One of our party was missing.
"Jenny!" shouted my brother, at the top of his voice, "it is too
cold to keep your mistress and the little children waiting."
"Och, shure thin, it is I that am comin'!" returned the old body,
as she issued from the house.
Shouts of laughter greeted her appearance. The figure she cut upon
that memorable day I shall never forget. My brother dropped the
reins upon the horses' necks, and fairly roared. Jenny was about to
commence her journey to the front in three hats. Was it to protect
her from the cold? Oh, no; Jenny was not afraid of the cold! She
could have eaten her breakfast on the north side of an iceberg, and
always dispensed with shoes, during the most severe of our Canadian
winters. It was to protect these precious articles from injury.
Our good neighbour, Mrs. W - -, had presented her with an old
sky-blue drawn-silk bonnet, as a parting benediction. This, by way
of distinction, for she never had possessed such an article of
luxury as a silk bonnet in her life, Jenny had placed over the
coarse calico cap, with its full furbelow of the same yellow,
ill-washed, homely material, next to her head; over this, as second
in degree, a sun-burnt straw hat, with faded pink ribbons, just
showed its broken rim and tawdry trimmings; and, to crown all, and
serve as a guard to the rest, a really serviceable grey-beaver
bonnet, once mine, towered up as high as the celebrated crown in
which brother Peter figures in Swift's "Tale of a Tub."
"Mercy, Jenny! Why, old woman, you don't mean to go with us that
figure?"
"Och, my dear heart! I've no band-box to kape the cowld from
desthroying my illigant bonnets," returned Jenny, laying her
hand upon the side of the sleigh.
"Go back, Jenny; go back," cried my brother. "For God's sake
take all that tom-foolery from off your head. We shall be the
laughing-stock of every village we pass through."
"Och, shure now, Mr. S - -, who'd think of looking at an owld
crathur like me! It's only yersel' that would notice the like."
"All the world, everybody would look at you, Jenny.
