FOREST LIFE IN CANADA WEST. LADIES of Britain, deftly embroidering in carpeted saloon, gracefully bending over easel or harp, pressing, with nimble finger, your piano's ivory, or joyously tripping in Cellarian circles, suspend, for a moment, your silken pursuits, and look forth into the desert at a sister's sufferings! May you never, from stern experience, learn fully to appreciate them. But, should fate have otherwise decreed, may you equal her in fortitude and courage. Meanwhile, transport yourselves, in imagination's car, to Canada's backwoods, and behold one, gently nurtured as yourselves, cheerfully condescending to rudest toils, unrepiningly enduring hardships you never dreamed of. Not to such hardships was she born, nor educated for them. The comforts of an English home, the The Far West of Canada is so remote a residence, and there is so much oblivion in a lapse of twenty years, that it may be necessary to mention who the authoress is who now appeals (successfully, or we are much mistaken) to the favour of her countrymen, and more especially of her countrywomen. Of a family well known in literature, Mrs Moodie is a sister of Miss Agnes Strickland, the popular and accomplished historical biographer. In 1831, Miss Susanna Strickland published a volume of poems. Had she remained in England, she in time, perhaps, might have rivalled her sister's fame as one of the most distinguished female writers In 1832 she sailed, as Inevitable hardships, some ill luck, some little want of judgment and deliberation, make up the history of Captain and Mrs Moodie's early days "I give you just three in Canada. years to spend your money and ruin yourself," said an old Yankee hag with whom the Captain was concluding the purchase of a wretched loghut. It scarcely took so long. Borrowing our colours from Mrs Moodie's pages, we may broadly sketch the discomforts of the emigrant's first few months in Canada. These were passed near the village of C-, on the north shore of Lake Ontario. A farm of one hundred and fifty acres, about fifty of which were cleared, was purchased by Captain Moodie, for £300, of a certain Q, a landjobber. "Q- -," says the Captain, who has contributed two or three chapters to his wife's book, "held a mortgage for £150, on a farm belonging to a certain Yankee settler, named Joe H, as security for a debt incurred for goods at his store. The idea instantly struck him that he would compel Joe Hfarm, by threatening to foreclose the mortgage. I drove out with Mr Qnext day to see the farm in question. It was situated in a pretty retired valley, to sell him his Roughing it in the Bush; or, Life in Canada. By SUSANNA MOODIE. VOL. LXXI.—NO. CCCCXXXVII. In 2 vols. 2 A surrounded by hills, about eight miles from C, and about a mile from the great road leading to Toronto. There was an extensive orchard upon the farm, and two log-houses, and a large framebarn. A considerable portion of the cleared land was light and sandy; and the uncleared part of the farm, situated on the flat rocky summit of a high hill, was reserved for a sugar bush,' and for supplying fuel.” Pleased with the place, Captain Moodie bought it, and, having done so, had leisure to repent his bargain. Of the land he got possession in the month of September; but it was not till the following summer that the occupants of the house could be prevailed upon to depart. Until then the new comers dwelt in the wretched hut already mentioned. Even to this hovel Mrs Moodie's English habits of order and neatness imparted something like comfort; but a still greater evil, beyond her power to remedy, was connected with her residence. Her nearest neighbours were disreputable Yankee settlers. "These people regarded British settlers with an intense feeling of dislike, and found a pleasure in annoying and insulting them when any occasion offered. They did not understand us, nor did we them, and they generally mistook the reserve which is common with the British towards strangers, for pride and supercili All that poor Mrs Moodie endured from her reprobate neighbours, could not be told in detail within the compass of a much larger work than hers. But we may glean a tolerable idea of her constant vexations and annoyance from her first volume, which contains sketches, at once painful and humorous, of the persecutions to which she was subjected. Impudent intrusion and unscrupulous borrowings were of daily occurrence, varied occasionally by some gross act of unneighbourliness and aggression. Although evidently a person of abundant energy and spirit, Mrs Moodie, partly through terror of these semi-savages, and partly from a wish to conciliate and make friends, long submitted to insolence and extortion. The wives and daughters of the Yankee settlers-some of whom had "squatted," without leave or license, on ground to which they had no right, made a regular property of her. Every article of domestic use, kettles and pans, eatables, drinkables, and wearables, did these insatiable wretches borrow-and never return. They would walk into her house and carry off the very things she at the moment needed, or come in her absence and take her gown from the peg, or the pot from the fire. The three families from which she had most to endure were those of a redheaded American squatter, who had fled his own country for some crime; of "Uncle Joe," the former proprietor of her farm, and still the occupant of her house; and of "Old Satan," a disgusting and brutal Yankee, who had had one eye gouged out in a fight, and whose face was horribly disfigured by the scars of wounds inflicted by his adversary's teeth. A pertinacious tormentor, too, was old Betty Fye, who lived in the log shanty across the creek. Having made Mrs Moodie's acquaintance, under pretence of selling her a "rooster," she became a constant and most unwelcome visitor, borrowing everything she could think of, returning nothing, and interlarding her discourse with oaths, which greatly shocked the good-tempered English lady. "Everybody swears in this country,' quoth Betty Fye. My boys (she was a widow with twelve sons) all swear like Sam Hill; and I used to swear mighty big oaths, till about a month ago, when the Methody parson told me that if I did not leave it off I should go to a tarnation bad place; so I dropped some of the worst of them.' "You would do well to drop the rest; women never swear in my country.' "Well, you don't say! I always hear'd they were very ignorant. Will you lend me the tea ?" Tea to-day-it was something else to-morrow. Mrs Moodie tried every means of affronting her, but long without success. The most natural and effectual plan would have been to refuse all her demands; but to this Mrs Moodie, perhaps from unwilling "This was said very coaxingly. 'Oh, pray don't trouble yourself. What next?' I was anxious to see how far her impudence would go, and determined to affront her, if possible. "I want you to lend me a gown and a pair of stockings. I have to go to Oswego, to see my husband's sister, and I'd like to look decent.' "Mrs Fye, I never lend my clothes to any one. If I lent them to you, I should never wear them again.' "So much the better for me,' (with a knowing grin.) I guess if you won't lend me the gown, you will let me have some black slack to quilt a stuff petticoat, a quarter of a pound of tea and some sugar; and I will bring them back as soon as I can." "I wonder when that will be. You owe me so many things that it will cost you more than you imagine to repay me.' "Since you're not going to mention what's past, I can't owe you much. But I will let you off the tea and the sugar, if you will lend me a five-dollar bill."" This was too much for even Mrs Moodie's patience. She read the incorrigible Betty a sharp lecture upon her system of robbing under colour of borrowing, and concluded by saying she well knew that all the things she had lent her would be a debt owing to the day of judgment. "'S'pose they are,' quoth Betty, not in the least abashed at my lecture on honesty, you know what the Scripture saith, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." 666 'Ay, there is an answer to that in the same book, which doubtless you may have heard,' said I, disgusted with her hypocrisy, 'The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.' "Never shall I forget the furious passion into which this too apt quotation threw my unprincipled applicant. She lifted up her voice and cursed me, using some of the big oaths temporarily discarded for conscience' sake. And so she left me, and I never looked upon her face again." Uncle Joe was another pleasant neighbour, and brought up his children to resemble himself. Mrs Joe would occasionally stroll over to visit Mrs Moodie, and exult over the unaccustomed toils to which the young English wife and mother submitted with a cheerfulness that did her infinite honour. It was a rough and hard life, even for men, in that Canadian loghouse; much worse, then, for a delicate woman, and worst of all for one who arrived there with an infant, and whose family rapidly augmented. "For a week I was alone," writes Mrs Moodie, in the early days of her exile, "my good Scotch girl having left me to visit her father. Some small babyarticles were needed to be washed, and after making a great preparation, I determined to try my unskilled hand upon the operation. The fact is, I knew nothing about the task I had imposed upon myself, and in a few minutes rubbed the skin off my wrists, without getting the clothes clean. The door was open, as it generally was, even during the coldest winter days, in order to let in more light and let out the smoke, which otherwise would have enveloped us like a cloud. I was so busy that I did not perceive that I was watched by the cold, heavy, dark eyes of Mrs Joe, who, with a sneering laugh, exclaimed, Well, thank God! I am glad to see you brought to work at last."" Further, the amiable Mrs Joe declared her intense hatred of all Britishers, and her hearty wish that her unoffending neighbour might be brought down upon her knees to Mrs Moodie had scrub the floor. sense and dignity enough merely to smile at her vulgar malignity. The impudence of these people knew no bounds. The same evening, Mrs Joe sent over two of her offspring to borrow something she needed of the woman she had spitefully abused in the morning. During Mrs Moodie's abode near C, Old Satan got married for the house, but the bridegroom boldly stepped to the window and told them to try it, and before they could light a torch he would fire among them again, for his gun was reloaded, and he would discharge it at them as long as one of them dared to remain on his premises. They cleared off." fourth time. This was the occasion of a charivari, a custom dating from the French occupation of Canada, and still kept up there. Mrs Moodie has an amusingly naïf chapter on this subject, concerning which she has collected some curious anecdotes. It is hardly necessary to explain that a mismatch-of a young and an old person -is the usual pretext for a charivari. "The idle young fellows of the neighbourhood disguise themselves, blackening their faces, putting their clothes on hind part before, and wearing horrible masks, with grotesque caps on their heads, adorned with cocks feathers, and bells. They then form in a regular body, and proceed to the bridegroom's house, to the sound of tin kettles, horns, drums, &c. Thus equipped, they surround the house, just at the hour when the happy couple are supposed to be about to retire to rest, beating upon the door with clubs and staves, and demanding of the bridegroom admittance to drink the bride's health, or in lieu thereof, a certain sum of money treat the band at the nearest tavern. to Mrs Moodie expresses all a woman's indignation at what she styles "a lawless infringement upon the natural rights of man." The charivari is usually bought off-she mentions an instance when thirty pounds were disbursed by an antiquated swain who had wedded a handsome widow-but sometimes the victim resists, and the consequences are serious. Shortly before old Satan's bridal, a tragical affair had taken place at one of these saturnalia. "The bridegroom was a man in middle life, a desperately resolute and passionate man, and he swore that if such riff-raff dared to interfere with him, he would shoot at them with as little compunction as if they were so many crows. His threats only increased the mischievous determination of the mob to torment him; and when he refused to admit their deputation, or even to give them a portion of the wedding cheer, they determined to frighten him into compliance by firing several guns, loaded with peas, at his door. Their salute was returned from the chamber-window, by the discharge of a double-barrelled gun, loaded with buck-shot. The crowd gave back with a tremendous yell. Their leader was shot through the heart, and two of the foremost in the scuffle dangerously wounded. They vowed they would set fire to the 66 a In point of amusement there is little difference between the first and the second volumes of Mrs Moodie's book-which, however, is not intended merely to amuse, but also as for the benefit of, and conveying usework of practical experience," written ful hints to, persons contemplating emigration to Canada. The first volume is the gayest of the two; there is a vein of great humour in Mrs Moodie's descriptions and sketches of her neighbours, and of her wild Irish servant, John Monathrashing for purloining the captain's ghan, who gave Uncle Joe an awful hay; and of Mrs D., the Yankee lady, who considered her English neighbours shocking proud because they did not eat with their " helps," but was of opinion that all negroes were children of the devil, for that "God never condescended to make a nigger." But it is in the second volume that the interest is strongest, and at times becomes intense. Disgusted with their neighbours, Captain and Mrs Moodie left their farm at C, and removed to the township of Douro, forty miles off, in the backwoods, where they had friends and relatives settled, and where the society-consisting chiefly of English, Irish, and Europe, and many of them half-pay Scotch gentlemen, recently come from officers-was more congenial to their tastes and habits. Unfortunately, about this time Captain Moodie sold his commission, in consequence of an intimation in the newspapers that half-pay officers must either do so or join a regiment. This was not enforced in the case of officers settled in the colonies, and the captain greatly repented his haste; the more so, as of his sale in shares in a steamboat he was induced to invest the proceeds on Lake Ontario. Q- the landjobber, appears to have led him into this investment. He received no interest on his shares, and when, some years afterwards, the boat was sold, he got back only a fourth of his capital. The mistake he made in parting with his half-pay was the cause of great privations and anxiety. ness. "It was a bright frosty morning," says Mrs Moodie," when I bade adieu to the farm, the birthplace of my little Agnes, who, nestled beneath my cloak, was sweetly sleeping on my knee, unconscious of the long journey before us into the wilderIt was not without regret that I left Melsetter, for so my husband had called the place, after his father's estate in Orkney. It was a beautiful, picturesque spot; and, in spite of the evil neighbourhood, I had learned to love it; indeed, it was much against my wish that it was sold. I had a great dislike to removing, which involves a necessary loss, and is apt to give to the emigrant roving and unsettled habits. But all regrets were now useless; and, happily unconscious of the life of toil and anxiety that awaited us in those dreadful woods, I tried my best to be cheerful, and to regard the future with a hopeful eye." Most nobly, when the toil and anxiety came, did this high-hearted woman bear up against them. Severer hardships and trials were perhaps never endured, for so long a period, by one of her delicate sex. At first, affairs looked promising in the forest. A timely legacy supplied means to purchase and clear land and to build a house; a considerable sum still remained in hand, and a good income from the steamboat stock was looked upon as certain. The first spring in the forest was spent in comparative ease and idleness. "Those were the halcyon days of the bush. My husband had purchased a very light cedar canoe, to which he attached a keel and a sail; and most of our leisure hours, directly the snows melted, were spent upon the water. These fishing and shooting excursions were delightful. We felt as if we were the first discoverers of every beautiful flower and stately tree that attracted our attention, and we gave names to fantastic rocks and fairy isles, and raised imaginary houses on every picturesque spot which we floated past during our aquatic excursions. I learned the use of the paddle, and became quite a proficient in the gentle craft." They received visits from the Indians, a number of whom (of the Chippewa tribe) frequented a dry cedar-swamp hard by, fishing, shooting, and making maple-sugar, baskets, and canoes. They were friendly and communicative, grateful for the slightest kindness, never intrusive or offensively familiar; in short, they were born gentlemen, and in every respect a perfect contrast and immeasurably superior to the Yankee squatters at CMrs Moodie devotes the greater part of a most interesting chapter to stories and traits of her red friends. No attention, however small, was lost upon these warmhearted people. One cold night, late in autumn, six squaws asked shelter of Mrs Moodie. It was rather a large party to lodge, but forest hospitality is not stinted. There was "Joe Muskrat's squaw" and "Betty Cow," and an old white-haired woman, whose scarlet embroidered leggings showed her to be a chief's wife. After they had all well supped, mattresses and blankets were spread on the parlour floor for their use, and Mrs Moodie considerately told her servant to give the aged squaw the best bed. "The old Indian glanced at me with her keen, bright eye; but I had no idea that she comprehended what I said. Some weeks after this, as I was sweeping my parlour floor, a slight tap drew me to the door. On opening it I perceived the old squaw, who immediately slipped into my hand a set of beautifully embroidered bark trays, fitting one within the other, and exhibiting the very best sample of wondering what this might mean, the the porcupine-quill work. While I stood good old creature fell upon my neck, and kissing me, exclaimed, You remember old squaw-make her comfortable! Old squaw no forget you. Keep them for her sake,' and before I could detain her she ran down the hill with a swiftness which seemed to bid defiance to years. I never saw this interesting Indian again, and I concluded that she died during the winter, for she must have been of a great age." When fortune frowned on Nonocosiqui," the humming-bird," (the name given to Mrs Moodie by the Indians, in allusion to the pleasure she took in painting birds,) when her purse and pantry were alike empty, and, in Indian phrase, "her hearthstone was growing cold," many an acceptable supply of much-needed food was brought to her by her red friends. |