"You should have begun that before," said Moodie. "He seems a
hopeful pupil."
"Oh, as to that, a little swearing is manly," returned the father;
"I swear myself, I know, and as the old cock crows, so crows the
young one. It is not his swearing that I care a pin for, but he will
not do a thing I tell him to."
"Swearing is a dreadful vice," said I, "and, wicked as it is in the
mouth of a grown-up person, it is perfectly shocking in a child; it
painfully tells he has been brought up without the fear of God."
"Pooh! pooh! that's all cant; there is no harm in a few oaths, and I
cannot drive oxen and horses without swearing. I dare say that you
can swear too when you are riled, but you are too cunning to let us
hear you."
I could not help laughing outright at this supposition, but replied
very quietly, "Those who practice such iniquities never take any
pains to conceal them. The concealment would infer a feeling of
shame; and when people are conscious of the guilt, they are in the
road to improvement." The man walked whistling away, and the wicked
child returned unpunished to his home.
The next minute the old woman came in. "I guess you can give me a
piece of silk for a hood," said she, "the weather is growing
considerable cold."
"Surely it cannot well be colder than it is at present," said I,
giving her the rocking-chair by the fire.
"Wait a while; you know nothing of a Canadian winter. This is only
November; after the Christmas thaw, you'll know something about the
cold. It is seven-and-thirty years ago since I and my man left the
U-ni-ted States. It was called the year of the great winter. I tell
you, woman, that the snow lay so deep on the earth, that it blocked
up all the roads, and we could drive a sleigh whither we pleased,
right over the snake fences. All the cleared land was one wide white
level plain; it was a year of scarcity, and we were half starved;
but the severe cold was far worse nor the want of provisions. A long
and bitter journey we had of it; but I was young then, and pretty
well used to trouble and fatigue; my man stuck to the British
government. More fool he! I was an American born, and my heart was
with the true cause. But his father was English, and, says he, 'I'll
live and die under their flag.' So he dragged me from my comfortable
fireside to seek a home in the far Canadian wilderness. Trouble! I
guess you think you have your troubles; but what are they to mine?"
She paused, took a pinch of snuff, offered me the box, sighed
painfully, pushed the red handkerchief from her high, narrow,
wrinkled brow, and continued: "Joe was a baby then, and I had
another helpless critter in my lap - an adopted child. My sister
had died from it, and I was nursing it at the same breast with
my boy. Well, we had to perform a journey of four hundred miles
in an ox-cart, which carried, besides me and the children, all
our household stuff. Our way lay chiefly through the forest, and
we made but slow progress. Oh! what a bitter cold night it was
when we reached the swampy woods where the city of Rochester now
stands. The oxen were covered with icicles, and their breath sent
up clouds of steam. 'Nathan,' says I to my man, 'you must stop and
kindle a fire; I am dead with cold, and I fear the babes will be
frozen.' We began looking about for a good spot to camp in, when I
spied a light through the trees. It was a lone shanty, occupied by
two French lumberers. The men were kind; they rubbed our frozen
limbs with snow, and shared with us their supper and buffalo skins.
On that very spot where we camped that night, where we heard nothing
but the wind soughing amongst the trees, and the rushing of the
river, now stands the great city of Rochester. I went there two
years ago, to the funeral of a brother. It seemed to me like a
dream. Where we foddered our beasts by the shanty fire now stands
the largest hotel in the city; and my husband left this fine growing
country to starve here."
I was so much interested in the old woman's narrative - for she was
really possessed of no ordinary capacity, and, though rude and
uneducated might have been a very superior person under different
circumstances - that I rummaged among my store, and soon found a
piece of black silk, which I gave her for the hood she required.
The old woman examined it carefully over, smiled to herself, but,
like all her people, was too proud to return a word of thanks. One
gift to the family always involved another.
"Have you any cotton-batting, or black sewing-silk, to give me,
to quilt it with?"
"No."
"Humph!" returned the old dame, in a tone which seemed to contradict
my assertion. She then settled herself in her chair, and, after
shaking her foot awhile, and fixing her piercing eyes upon me for
some minutes, she commenced the following list of interrogatories: -
"Is your father alive?"
"No; he died many years ago, when I was a young girl."
"Is your mother alive?"
"Yes."
"What is her name?" I satisfied her on this point.
"Did she ever marry again?"
"She might have done so, but she loved her husband too well,
and preferred living single."
"Humph!
