Roughing It In The Bush

by Susanna Moodie

  “Put up with it, dearest, for this once. He is not happy, and must be greatly distressed.”

  Malcolm kept aloof, ever and anon casting a furtive glance towards us; at last little Dunbar ran to him, and held up his arms to be kissed. The strange man snatched him to his bosom, and covered him with caresses. It might be love to the child that had quelled his sullen spirit, or he might really have cherished an affection for us deeper than his ugly temper would allow him to show. At all events, he joined us at tea as if nothing had happened, and we might truly say that he had obtained a new lease of his long visit.

  But what could not be effected by words or hints of ours was brought about a few days after by the silly observation of a child. He asked Katie to give him a kiss, and he would give her some raspberries he had gathered in the bush.

  “I don’t want them. Go away; I don’t like you, you little stumpy man!”

  His rage knew no bounds. He pushed the child from him, and vowed that he would leave the house that moment—that she could not have thought of such an expression herself; she must have been taught it by us. This was an entire misconception on his part; but he would not be convinced that he was wrong. Off he went, and Moodie called after him, “Malcolm, as I am sending to Peterborough to-morrow, the man shall take in your trunk.” He was too angry even to turn and bid us good-by; but we had not seen the last of him yet.

  Two months after, we were taking tea with a neighbour, who lived a mile below us on the small lake. Who should walk in but Mr. Malcolm? He greeted us with great warmth for him, and when we rose to take leave, he rose and walked home by our side. “Surely the little stumpy man is not returning to his old quarters?” I am still a babe in the affairs of men. Human nature has more strange varieties than any one menagerie can contain, and Malcolm was one of the oddest of her odd species.

  That night he slept in his old bed below the parlour window, and for three months afterwards he stuck to us like a beaver.

  He seemed to have grown more kindly, or we had got more used to his eccentricities, and let him have his own way; certainly he behaved himself much better.

  He neither scolded the children nor interfered with the maid, nor quarrelled with me. He had greatly discontinued his bad habit of swearing, and he talked of himself and his future prospects with more hope and self-respect. His father had promised to send him a fresh supply of money, and he proposed to buy of Moodie the clergy reserve, and that they should farm the two places on shares. This offer was received with great joy, as an unlooked-for means of paying our debts, and extricating ourselves from present and overwhelming difficulties, and we looked upon the little stumpy man in the light of a benefactor.

  So matters continued until Christmas-eve, when our visitor proposed walking into Peterborough, in order to give the children a treat of raisins to make a Christmas pudding.

  “We will be quite merry to-morrow,” he said. “I hope we shall eat many Christmas dinners together, and continue good friends.”

  He started after breakfast, with the promise of coming back at night; but night came, the Christmas passed away, months and years fled away, but we never saw the little stumpy man again!

  He went away that day with a stranger in a wagon from Peterborough, and never afterwards was seen in that part of Canada. We afterwards learned that he went to Texas, and it is thought that he was killed at St. Antonio; but this is mere conjecture. Whether dead or living, I feel convinced that

  “We ne’er shall look upon his like again.”

  Oh, The Days When I Was Young!

  Oh, the days when I was young,

  A playful little boy,

  When my piping treble rung

  To the notes of early joy.

  Oh, the sunny days of spring,

  When I sat beside the shore,

  And heard the small birds sing;—

  Shall I never hear them more?

  And the daisies scatter’d round,

  Half hid amid the grass,

  Lay like gems upon the ground,

  Too gay for me to pass.

  How sweet the milkmaid sung,

  As she sat beside her cow,

  How clear her wild notes rung;—

  There’s no music like it now.

  As I watch’d the ship’s white sail

  ’Mid the sunbeams on the sea,

  Spreading canvas to the gale—

  How I long’d with her to be.

  I thought not of the storm,

  Nor the wild cries on her deck,

  When writhed her graceful form

  ’Mid the hurricane and wreck.

  And I launch’d my little ship,

  With her sails and hold beneath;

  Deep laden on each trip,

  With berries from the heath.

  Ah, little did I know,

  When I long’d to be a man,

  Of the gloomy cares and woe,

  That meet in life’s brief span.

  Oh, the happy nights I lay

  With my brothers in our beds,

  Where we soundly slept till day

  Shone brightly o’er our heads.

  And the blessed dreams that came

  To fill my heart with joy.

  Oh, that I now could dream,

  As I dreamt, a little boy.

  The sun shone brighter then,

  And the moon more soft and clear;

  For the wiles of crafty men,

  I had not learn’d to fear;

  But all seem’d fair and gay

  As the fleecy clouds above;

  I spent my hours in play,

  And my heart was full of love.

  I loved the heath-clad hill,

  And I loved the silent vale,

  With its dark and purling rill

  That murmur’d in the gale.

  Of sighs I’d none to share,

  They were stored for riper years,

  When I drain’d the dregs of care

  With many bitter tears.

  My simple daily fare,

  In my little tiny mug,

  How fain was I to share

  With Cato on the rug.

  Yes, he gave his honest paw,

  And he lick’d my happy face,

  He was true to Nature’s law,

  And I thought it no disgrace.

  There’s a voice so soft and clear,

  And a step so gay and light,

  That charms my listening ear

  In the visions of the night.

  And my father* bids me haste,

  In the deep, fond tones of love,

  And leave this dreary waste,

  For brighter realms above.

  Now I am old and grey,

  My bones are rack’d with pain,

  And time speeds fast away—

  But why should I complain?

  There are joys in life’s young morn

  That dwell not with the old,

  Like the flowers the wind hath torn,

  From the stem, all bleak and cold.

  The weary heart may mourn

  O’er the wither’d hopes of youth,

  But the flowers so rudely shorn

  Still leave the seeds of truth.

  And there’s hope for hoary men

  When they’re laid beneath the sod;

  For we’ll all be young again

  When we meet around our God.

  J.W.D.M.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE FIRE

  Now, Fortune, do thy worst! For many years,

  Thou, with relentless and unsparing hand,

  Hast sternly pour’d on our devoted heads

  The poison’d phials of thy fiercest wrath.

  The early part of the winter of 1837, a year never to be forgotten in the annals of Canadian history, was very severe. During the month of February, the thermometer often ranged from eighteen to twenty-seven degrees below zero. Speaking of the coldness of one particular day, a genuine brother Jonathan remarked, with charming simplic
ity, that it was thirty degrees below zero that morning, and it would have been much colder if the thermometer had been longer.

  The morning of the seventh was so intensely cold that everything liquid froze in the house. The wood that had been drawn for the fire was green, and it ignited too slowly to satisfy the shivering impatience of women and children; I vented mine in audibly grumbling over the wretched fire, at which I in vain endeavoured to thaw frozen bread, and to dress crying children.

  It so happened that an old friend, the maiden lady before alluded to, had been staying with us for a few days. She had left us for a visit to my sister, and as some relatives of hers were about to return to Britain by the way of New York, and had offered to convey letters to friends at home, I had been busy all the day before preparing a packet for England.

  It was my intention to walk to my sister’s with this packet, directly the important affair of breakfast had been discussed; but the extreme cold of the morning had occasioned such delay that it was late before the breakfast-things were cleared away.

  After dressing, I found the air so keen that I could not venture out without some risk to my nose, and my husband kindly volunteered to go in my stead.

  I had hired a young Irish girl the day before. Her friends were only just located in our vicinity, and she had never seen a stove until she came to our house. After Moodie left, I suffered the fire to die away in the Franklin stove in the parlour, and went into the kitchen to prepare bread for the oven.

  The girl, who was a good-natured creature, had heard me complain bitterly of the cold, and the impossibility of getting the green wood to burn, and she thought that she would see if she could not make a good fire for me and the children, against my work was done. Without saying one word about her intention, she slipped out through a door that opened from the parlour into the garden, ran round to the wood-yard, filled her lap with cedar chips, and, not knowing the nature of the stove, filled it entirely with the light wood.

  Before I had the least idea of my danger I was aroused from the completion of my task by the crackling and roaring of a large fire, and a suffocating smell of burning soot. I looked up at the kitchen cooking-stove. All was right there. I knew I had left no fire in the parlour stove; but not being able to account for the smoke and smell of burning, I opened the door, and to my dismay found the stove red-hot, from the front plate to the topmost pipe that let out the smoke through the roof.

  My first impulse was to plunge a blanket, snatched from the servant’s bed, which stood in the kitchen, into cold water. This I thrust into the stove, and upon it I threw water, until all was cool below. I then ran up to the loft, and by exhausting all the water in the house, even to that contained in the boilers upon the fire, contrived to cool down the pipes which passed through the loft. I then sent the girl out of doors to look at the roof, which, as a very deep fall of snow had taken place the day before, I hoped would be completely covered, and safe from all danger of fire.

  She quickly returned, stamping and tearing her hair, and making a variety of uncouth outcries, from which I gathered that the roof was in flames.

  This was terrible news, with my husband absent, no man in the house, and a mile and a quarter from any other habitation. I ran out to ascertain the extent of the misfortune, and found a large fire burning in the roof between the two stone pipes. The heat of the fires had melted off all the snow, and a spark from the burning pipe had already ignited the shingles. A ladder, which for several months had stood against the house, had been moved two days before to the barn, which was at the top of the hill, near the road; there was no reaching the fire through that source. I got out the dining-table, and tried to throw water upon the roof by standing on a chair placed upon it, but I only expended the little water that remained in the boiler, without reaching the fire. The girl still continued weeping and lamenting.

  “You must go for help,” I said. “Run as fast as you can to my sister’s and fetch your master.”

  “And lave you, ma’arm, and the childher alone wid the burnin’ house?”

  “Yes, yes! Don’t stay one moment.”

  “I have no shoes, ma’arm, and the snow is so deep.”

  “Put on your master’s boots; make haste, or we shall be lost before help comes.”

  The girl put on the boots and started, shrieking “Fire!” the whole way. This was utterly useless, and only impeded her progress by exhausting her strength. After she had vanished from the head of the clearing into the wood, and I was left quite alone, with the house burning over my head, I paused one moment to reflect what had best be done.

  The house was built of cedar logs; in all probability it would be consumed before any help could arrive. There was a brisk breeze blowing up from the frozen lake, and the thermometer stood at eighteen degrees below zero. We were placed between the two extremes of heat and cold, and there was as much danger to be apprehended from the one as the other. In the bewilderment of the moment, the direful extent of the calamity never struck me: we wanted but this to put the finishing stroke to our misfortunes, to be thrown, naked, houseless, and penniless, upon the world. “What shall I save first?” was the thought just then uppermost in my mind. Bedding and clothing appeared the most essentially, necessary and without another moment’s pause, I set to work with a right good will to drag all that I could from my burning home.

  While little Agnes, Dunbar, and baby Donald filled the air with their cries, Katie, as if fully conscious of the importance of exertion, assisted me in carrying out sheets and blankets, and dragging trunks and boxes some way up the hill, to be out of the way of the burning brands when the roof should fall in.

  How many anxious looks I gave to the head of the clearing as the fire increased, and large pieces of burning pine began to fall through the boarded ceiling, about the lower rooms where we were at work. The children I had kept under a large dresser in the kitchen, but it now appeared absolutely necessary to remove them to a place of safety. To expose the young, tender things to the direful cold was almost as bad as leaving them to the mercy of the fire. At last I hit upon a plan to keep them from freezing. I emptied all the clothes out of a large, deep chest of drawers, and dragged the empty drawers up the hill; these I lined with blankets, and placed a child in each drawer, covering it well over with the bedding, giving to little Agnes the charge of the baby to hold between her knees, and keep well covered until help should arrive. Ah, how long it seemed coming!

  The roof was now burning like a brush-heap, and, unconsciously, the child and I were working under a shelf, upon which were deposited several pounds of gun-powder which had been procured for blasting a well, as all our water had to be brought up hill from the lake. This gun-powder was in a stone jar, secured by a paper stopper; the shelf upon which it stood was on fire, but it was utterly forgotten by me at the time; and even afterwards, when my husband was working on the burning loft over it.

  I found that I should not be able to take many more trips for goods. As I passed out of the parlour for the last time, Katie looked up at her father’s flute, which was suspended upon two brackets, and said,

  “Oh, dear mamma! do save papa’s flute; he will be so sorry to lose it.”

  God bless the dear child for the thought! the flute was saved; and, as I succeeded in dragging out a heavy chest of clothes, and looked up once more despairingly to the road,

  I saw a man running at full speed. It was my husband. Help was at hand, and my heart uttered a deep thanksgiving as another and another figure came upon the scene.

  I had not felt the intense cold, although without cap, or bonnet, or shawl; with my hands bare and exposed to the bitter, biting air. The intense excitement, the anxiety to save all I could, had so totally diverted my thoughts from myself, that I had felt nothing of the danger to which I had been exposed; but now that help was near, my knees trembled under me, I felt giddy and faint, and dark shadows seemed dancing before my eyes.

  The moment my husband and brother-in-law entered the house, the l
atter exclaimed,

  “Moodie, the house is gone; save what you can of your winter stores and furniture.”

  Moodie thought differently. Prompt and energetic in danger, and possessing admirable presence of mind and coolness when others yield to agitation and despair, he sprang upon the burning loft and called for water. Alas, there was none!

  “Snow, snow; hand me up pailfuls of snow!”

  Oh! it was bitter work filling those pails with frozen snow; but Mr. T—— and I worked at it as fast as we were able.

  The violence of the fire was greatly checked by covering the boards of the loft with this snow. More help had now arrived. Young B—— and S—— had brought the ladder down with them from the barn, and were already cutting away the burning roof, and flinging the flaming brands into the deep snow.

  “Mrs. Moodie, have you any pickled meat?”

  “We have just killed one of our cows, and salted it for winter stores.”

  “Well, then, fling the beef into the snow, and let us have the brine.”

  This was an admirable plan. Wherever the brine wetted the shingles, the fire turned from it, and concentrated into one spot.

  But I had not time to watch the brave workers on the roof. I was fast yielding to the effects of overexcitement and fatigue, when my brother’s team dashed down the clearing, bringing my excellent old friend, Miss B——, and the servant-girl.

  My brother sprang out, carried me back into the house, and wrapped me up in one of the large blankets scattered about. In a few minutes I was seated with the dear children in the sleigh, and on the way to a place of warmth and safety.

  Katie alone suffered from the intense cold. The dear little creature’s feet were severely frozen, but were fortunately restored by her uncle discovering the fact before she approached the fire, and rubbing them well with snow.

  In the meanwhile, the friends we had left so actively employed at the house succeeded in getting the fire under before it had destroyed the walls. The only accident that occurred was to a poor dog, that Moodie had called Snarleyowe. He was struck by a burning brand thrown from the house, and crept under the barn and died.

  Beyond the damage done to the building, the loss of our potatoes and two sacks of flour, we had escaped in a manner almost miraculous. This fact shows how much can be done by persons working in union, without bustle and confusion, or running in each other’s way. Here were six men, who, without the aid of water, succeeded in saving a building, which, at first sight, almost all of them had deemed past hope. In after-years, when entirely burnt out in a disastrous fire that consumed almost all we were worth in the world, some four hundred persons were present, with a fire-engine to second their endeavours, yet all was lost. Every person seemed in the way; and though the fire was discovered immediately after it took place, nothing was done beyond saving some of the furniture.