I took the broom from the corner, and began to sweep; still my
visitor did not stir. The dust rose in clouds; he rubbed his eyes,
and moved a little nearer to the door. Another sweep, and, to escape
its inflictions, he mounted the threshold. I had him now at a fair
advantage, and fairly swept him out, and shut the door in his face.
Philander (looking through the window ): "Well, I guess you did me
then; but 'tis deuced hard to outwit a Yankee."
This freed me from his company, and he, too, never repeated his
visit; so I found by experience, that once smartly rebuked, they did
not like to try their strength with you a second time.
When a sufficient time had elapsed for the drying of my twenty
bushels of apples, I sent a Cornish lad, in our employ, to Betty
Fye's, to inquire if they were ready, and when I should send the
cart for them.
Dan returned with a yellow, smoke-dried string of pieces, dangling
from his arm. Thinking that these were a specimen of the whole, I
inquired when we were to send the barrel for the rest.
"Lord, ma'am, this is all there be."
"Impossible! All out of twenty bushels of apples!"
"Yes," said the boy, with a grin. "The old witch told me that this
was all that was left of your share; that when they were fixed
enough, she put them under her bed for safety, and the mice and the
children had eaten them all up but this string."
This ended my dealings with Betty Fye.
I had another incorrigible borrower in the person of old Betty B - -.
This Betty was unlike the rest of my Yankee borrowers; she was
handsome in her person, and remarkably civil, and she asked for the
loan of everything in such a frank, pleasant manner, that for some
time I hardly knew how to refuse her. After I had been a loser to a
considerable extent, and declined lending her any more, she
refrained from coming to the house herself, but sent in her name the
most beautiful boy in the world; a perfect cherub, with regular
features, blue, smiling eyes, rosy cheeks, and lovely curling auburn
hair, who said, in the softest tones imaginable, that mammy had sent
him, with her compliments, to the English lady to ask the loan of a
little sugar or tea. I could easily have refused the mother, but I
could not find it in my heart to say nay to her sweet boy.
There was something original about Betty B - -, and I must give a
slight sketch of her.
She lived in a lone shanty in the woods, which had been erected by
lumberers some years before, and which was destitute of a single
acre of clearing; yet Betty had plenty of potatoes, without the
trouble of planting, or the expense of buying; she never kept a cow,
yet she sold butter and milk; but she had a fashion, and it proved a
convenient one to her, of making pets of the cattle of her
neighbours. If our cows strayed from their pastures, they were
always found near Betty's shanty, for she regularly supplied them
with salt, which formed a sort of bond of union between them; and,
in return for these little attentions, they suffered themselves to
be milked before they returned to their respective owners. Her mode
of obtaining eggs and fowls was on the same economical plan, and we
all looked upon Betty as a sort of freebooter, living upon the
property of others. She had had three husbands, and he with whom she
now lived was not her husband, although the father of the splendid
child whose beauty so won upon my woman's heart. Her first husband
was still living (a thing by no means uncommon among persons of her
class in Canada), and though they had quarrelled and parted years
ago, he occasionally visited his wife to see her eldest daughter,
Betty the younger, who was his child. She was now a fine girl of
sixteen, as beautiful as her little brother. Betty's second husband
had been killed in one of our fields by a tree falling upon him
while ploughing under it. He was buried upon the spot, part of the
blackened stump forming his monument. In truth, Betty's character
was none of the best, and many of the respectable farmers' wives
regarded her with a jealous eye.
"I am so jealous of that nasty Betty B - -," said the wife of an
Irish captain in the army, and our near neighbour, to me, one day as
we were sitting at work together. She was a West Indian, and a negro
by the mother's side, but an uncommonly fine-looking mulatto, very
passionate, and very watchful over the conduct of her husband. "Are
you not afraid of letting Captain Moodie go near her shanty?"
"No, indeed; and if I were so foolish as to be jealous, it would not
be of old Betty, but of the beautiful young Betty, her daughter."
Perhaps this was rather mischievous on my part, for the poor dark
lady went off in a frantic fit of jealousy, but this time it was not
of old Betty.
Another American squatter was always sending over to borrow a
small-tooth comb, which she called a vermin destroyer; and once the
same person asked the loan of a towel, as a friend had come from the
States to visit her, and the only one she had, had been made into a
best "pinny" for the child; she likewise begged a sight in the
looking-glass, as she wanted to try on a new cap, to see if it were
fixed to her mind. This woman must have been a mirror of neatness
when compared with her dirty neighbours.
One night I was roused up from my bed for the loan of a pair of
"steelyards." For what purpose think you, gentle reader?
