When we were finished eating, Mr. Stanton brought out a fiddle and the dancing began. I saw Danny heading toward me, no doubt intending to ask me to partner him, but thanks be Duncan beat him to it and I made certain to avoid Danny from then on. I danced with Duncan until I was quite dizzy. Duncan is so courteous. He doesn’t treat me at all like Angus’s bothersome little sister. But there is something about him … Even when he’s dancing, his mouth is laughing, but his eyes are sad. I wonder if it is more than just missing his family.
Angus and Molly never took their eyes off each other.
“I see a wedding in the spring,” I heard Mrs. Livingstone say, and Mother and Aunt Norah smiled at each other.
A wolf is howling. How despairing he sounds, but tonight I do not feel lonely at all. I am just so glad to be in this warm and safe little house with my family all around me and knowing that good neighbours are close. Having a road to join us makes such a difference.
September 30th, 1784
Grannie is chipper and cheery. She is at her spinning wheel all day long. It is an even better one than the one she had in Albany, as she can sit down at it and it has a foot treadle for turning the wheel and a removable wooden bobbin. I am carding the fleeces for her so that they will be combed out, and she is spinning the wool. Jamie has been set to winding the wool onto the niddy noddy as she spins it. He’s supposed to measure 40 lengths exactly around the frame, but I can tell that he does not always count correctly.
I can use a drop spindle of course, all girls can, but Grannie is going to teach me to use the spinning wheel as well. I will have wool to knit myself a good warm pair of mittens this winter. And Mother says she will teach me to knit socks. I have not yet mastered the art of turning a heel.
Father is making Mother a new quilting frame and Grannie says it is high time that I started making quilts for my marriage. For my marriage! What a thought! Fortunately I will have several years before that happens, but all girls should have at least two or three quilts done before then. I will either have to learn to stitch more quickly or delay my marriage for a long, long time.
It is going to be a busy winter. Not like the last one. Now if I could only go back to school I would be happy.
October 1784
October 3rd, 1784
We were most surprised to see a man on horseback ride up the path to our house today. It was Mr. Murchison, our preacher, and as it was Sunday, he held services with us in our house. He will stay over the night and then go on and visit the other families as well. He brought news that the road will be through to the town next spring. There will be a sawmill and a grist mill there next spring as well, and the schoolhouse is almost finished. And … wait for it, dear journal … Father is being asked to be the schoolmaster! Mr. Murchison asked Father if he would consider it, but he hardly needed to pose the question. Father’s face lit up like one of the German families’ Christmas trees. He is bellowing out “The Golden Vanity” at the top of his voice even as I write this.
Oh, no he’s not. Not now. Mr. Murchison just came in from outside and Father has switched quickly to a hymn. It sounds just as gleeful, though.
To make things even better, in payment Father will be given a cow, a pair of geese, two lambs and a piglet. What riches!
October 4th, 1784
Grannie and I picked herbs today. We will hang them in bunches by the fire to dry.
October 6th, 1784
I just wrote down the date and then realized it is exactly one year since I started this journal. One year since that dreadful day when they burned the schoolhouse down at our old home in Albany.
What a lot has happened since then. I do not even feel like the same girl. So much has happened. So much has changed. We have endured so much. The times ahead will be just as hard, I am certain of it, but I look around me and see a home and the beginnings of gardens and fields in what was, just a few short months ago, nothing but forest. And all around us there are other homes, other cabins and gardens and fields coming into being. I cannot see them but I can feel them. We are not alone. We have survived, we Loyalists. We are a sturdy folk.
Best of all, Mother confided in me just two minutes ago that we will have our own little “born Canadian” come next spring. We are here to stay.
October 7th, 1784
Angus came round early this morning and said he wanted us to go see the shanty he has built, so Mother packed a picnic lunch and off we went. Grannie did not go, but the rest of us did, Laddie too, of course. Mittens was off about her own business which was just as well as I didn’t want her following us all that distance. She is getting quite independent and has turned into a very good mouser. Still a cuddly cat though when she feels like it. I’m glad of that because I do love to cuddle her.
When we got to Angus’s shanty, Duncan was there waiting for us. It was nice to see him again. Angus’s shanty is very small and has no windows at all. It is not much bigger than the coop Father built for our chickens and it only has a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape, instead of a proper chimney, but Angus is very proud of it. So he should be. It is snug and well-chinked and I’m sure he will be very comfortable in it this winter. Next summer, of course, he will have to build a proper cabin — especially if he is thinking of marriage. I don’t dare ask him about that, though.
Duncan wanted us to go and see his shanty as well, but Mother had the picnic lunch all spread out and declared that she couldn’t walk another step. I think she is beginning to be a bit tired because of the baby. Father was stretched out on his back, snoozing — just about the first time I’ve seen him so at ease since we settled here — and he was not about to move, so only Jamie and Laddie and I accompanied Duncan.
Duncan’s shanty is much like Angus’s, but he has put in one small window.
“I must have light,” he said. I can understand that — it is exactly how I feel.
His shanty is on the same stream that runs through Angus’s and our properties, but I think it is more prettily situated. It sits halfway up a small hill and the creek runs down behind it over a small waterfall. Duncan showed me all around with such pride. He even made Jamie and me a small lunch of freshly caught fried fish from the stream and bread that he had baked himself. I’ve never known a man to bake bread! I was much impressed. We sat outside on a bench that he had made while we ate. Jamie was determined to catch a fish so Duncan fixed up a pole and line for him and he and Laddie spent the next hour at the stream. He did not catch anything, probably because Laddie was leaping around in the water most of the time. I’m sure most of the fish high-tailed it out of there in the first five minutes. Still, Jamie had a good time.
While we were sitting there watching Jamie, Duncan began to tell me about his plans for next summer. That was when I made a big mistake.
“Do you think your family will come up here and settle?” I asked him. I knew that many of the soldiers’ families have been coming up during this past summer and I supposed his might as well.
His face got all still and he looked away from me. All the friendly and easy comradeship that had been between us was suddenly gone.
“No,” he answered, and would say no more.
Shortly after that he called Jamie back and we returned to Angus’s cabin.
I knew it. I knew there was something very wrong going on with him.
October 9th, 1784
I have the answer to my question and I am feeling terrible about it.
Duncan came by with a brace of ducks this afternoon. I was almost too shy to look him in the face, remembering what had happened the other day, and he seemed ill at ease as well. I did not know what to do. Then Mother sent me to the stream to fetch water and to my surprise Duncan offered to help me carry it back. We got to the stream and filled two buckets, but instead of turning back immediately, Duncan sat down on a log and motioned for me to sit beside him. What he told me next is burned into my memory. I am going to try to set down our conversation as closely as I can.
“I
owe you an explanation, Mary,” he said to me, his voice very low.
“No,” I answered back quickly. “Of course you don’t. I shouldn’t have asked questions of you about your family. It was rude.”
“Why in the world should you not?” he answered. “It was not rude at all. You were just being friendly.” Then he got all quiet for a couple of long moments.
I did not know what to do. I found myself peeling the bark off the log, staring at it as if I’d never in my life seen a log before.
“You see, Mary …” he said finally, then he stopped and drew a very big breath. “You see, Mary,” he repeated, “even though my mother saved Angus and me, my family are all rebels.”
I must have gasped, it was so unexpected.
“Only Angus knows,” he said. “I was afraid that if your family knew they would not want me around.”
“They would never feel that way,” I burst out. “Mother thinks of you almost as another son — I know that!”
“I would like to think so,” he answered, but he didn’t sound convinced. “But everyone here hates the rebels, and with good cause.”
“Why did —?” I began, but I bit the words back as soon as they were out of my mouth. I would not ask another personal question. Duncan must have realized what I was going to ask though, and he answered it anyway.
“My father and brothers and I had a terrible fight when this war broke out,” he said, poking at the ground with a stick. “They believed firmly in the Patriots’ cause, but I believed just as firmly in the Loyalists’ stand.”
“What happened?” The question asked itself. I could not help it.
“We went to war. My father and my two older brothers on one side, and I on the other. And that was the last I ever saw of them. It nearly broke my mother’s heart.”
“What did your mother believe?”
“My mother believed in loving her family. When we were torn apart it must near have torn her apart, too.”
“Do you suppose your father and brothers know she helped you escape?”
“I doubt it,” he answered. “They would never forgive her.”
“But you are the same family — the same blood!”
“My father disowned me when I told him I had joined the Royal Yorkers. He threw me out of the house and declared that as far as he was concerned, I was no longer a son of his.”
“But that’s terrible!” I could not even begin to disguise how shocked I was.
“True. But how much more terrible would it have been if I had met my father on the battlefield? Or one of my brothers? God spared me that, at least.”
I could not help myself. I reached out and took hold of his hand.
“I am so sorry,” I whispered.
“There’s nothing to be done about it,” he answered. Then he squeezed my hand tightly. “I am just fortunate that I found a place here with your family.”
He stood up, drew me to my feet, and we carried the buckets of water home. Soon after, he left and I have not stopped thinking about him since.
Poor Duncan. To lose your country is bad enough, but to lose your family as well! And to know that you will never see them again. How can he bear it?
October 12th, 1784
We have harvested some small bedraggled turnip roots and a fair crop of beans. Father wants to trade with the Indians for more corn.
October 14th, 1784
Angus and Duncan shot their bear! It is enormous! Angus turned up at our doorstep early this morning and we all rushed off to see it. It has been coming around Angus’s shanty for the last few nights, so finally he and Duncan laid in wait for it and when it turned up last night they shot it. They have cut it up and Mother is busy salting the meat down. We will have bear roast for dinner today and plenty of meat for the winter.
October 20th, 1784
Now that there is not so much work to do in the garden, I have been knitting and knitting and knitting. I made mittens for myself and another blanket for the new baby. Mother boiled up some dried blueberries and we soaked it in the water from them and dyed it the prettiest shade of pale blue. Then we simmered it in urine to make the colour permanent. I do not know why that works, but it does. Father says it’s the acid in the urine that does it. Needless to say, when that was all finished and done with we gave the blanket a good washing!
Now I am knitting a pair of socks. Mother showed me how to turn the heel and I have already made one. It is quite neatly done if I do say so myself. Mother has knitted socks for Father and Angus, but I am knitting these for Duncan. I have not said so, though, as I do not wish to be teased.
October 25th, 1784
Pigeon pie for supper!
The pigeons are migrating and great flocks of them are flying by every day, so Father made a trap for them. He propped up a net with sticks and when they landed it fell on them. Angus came by with yet more birds that he had just knocked out of a tree. There are so many of them! Mother is making pies at a great rate and is salting down the rest. We will have pigeon pies all winter.
October 30th, 1784
The Indians came by today with a freshly killed wild turkey. They catch them in snares. We traded for some of our precious cloth and more flour. They also brought spruce and showed us how to make tea out of it. Sweetened with maple syrup, it is quite refreshing and they gave us to understand that it is healthy to drink it in the winter when we don’t have fresh vegetables and berries.
Mother is busy making shirts for Father and the boys out of the buckskins that Father tanned. The Indians showed him how to do that by using the brains of the small animals he and the boys shoot. I wouldn’t watch. Mother is using thread made from the fibres of basswood. The Indians showed Father how to make that, too. Mother says she will make me a buckskin skirt next. I have been admiring the buckskins the Indians wear and I cannot wait to have such a skirt.
There are two men who visit us regularly. One is older than the other and I think is the father. I wish I could talk with them. Father is slowly learning their language and has taught me a few words. I do not know their names, though, as Father has not been able to understand that much yet. Probably we will give them English names. That makes it easier for us, I suppose, but somehow doesn’t seem quite right to me. They have a village not too far from here. Perhaps by next summer we will be friendly enough to visit them there. I would like to meet their wives and children. Perhaps their wives could teach me how to do the intricate beading that decorates their clothing. It is so beautiful!
November 1784
November 1st, 1784
The skies are grey and gloomy and I can smell snow in the air again. Grannie says all the signs are for an early winter.
Angus has made himself a fine hat out of a raccoon skin. He has promised Jamie one and Jamie is wild with anticipation.
November 5th, 1784
Grannie and my nose were right. It is snowing. It is going to be another hard winter, I think. But how different it is from this time last year. As I write this I can look around to see Grannie spinning away and Mother sewing and humming under her breath. Father is making a cradle for the new baby and is carving the headboard into the most intricate and delicate design of roses and leaves all twisted and twining together. Jamie is whittling kindling wood. Laddie is fast asleep but his paws are jerking and he is making little whining noises. I think he is chasing rabbits in his sleep. His tail is twitching and Mittens is staring at it. I think she is about to pounce.
There was just a knock at the door and Angus and Duncan have come in, shaking snow off their caps and jackets. They have brought three rabbits that they snared. They are going to stay the night.
Later
I managed to give Duncan his socks this evening after everyone else had gone to bed. I peeked down from the loft and saw him sitting by the fire, staring into it. I have not been able to stop thinking about what he told me. He must be so lonely here, knowing he will never see his family again.
Angus was stretched out on a blank
et in the corner, Grannie was sound asleep in her bed, and all was quiet behind Mother and Father’s curtain. I had not changed into my nightdress yet, so I gathered up my courage and crept down the ladder.
“Here,” I whispered, and thrust the socks at Duncan. I would have turned and scampered back up immediately, but he caught me by the arm before I could do so.
“Are these for me?” he asked. “Did you knit them?”
“Yes,” I managed to say. It is fortunate that the light was so dim as I knew my face was flaming with embarrassment.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve never had a better present.” Then he smiled and this time his eyes smiled too. I fairly flew back up the ladder.
I can hardly see to write, the wick I have been using is guttering and I must blow it out. I have come to the end of the pages in this journal, but my birthday is next month and I will ask Father if he could find a new one for me. This writing in a journal is a habit I find I cannot break. Nor do I want to.
The wind is howling outside, but all is safe and peaceful in this little house. We still do not have much. We will have to husband our supplies very carefully to get through this winter, but I am certain we will make it.
And tomorrow I will start on a quilt.
Epilogue
That first winter was difficult; some of the Loyalists did not survive. Mary and her family did, however, as did the Ross family. In the spring of 1785 Mary’s new “Canadian” sister, Ann, was born. She was a healthy, happy baby.
With Nothing But Our Courage Page 12