Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago | Page 3

attention. But other actors came upon the boards in more rapid succession, so that in a few years the quiver of my father was well filled, and he might have met "his enemies in the gate."
My father, when he married, bought a farm. Of course it was all woods. Such were the only farms available for young folk to commence life with in those days. Doubtless there was a good deal of romance in it. Love in a cot; the smoke gracefully curling; the wood-pecker tapping, and all that; very pretty. But alas, in this work-a-day world, particularly the new one upon which my parents then entered, these silver linings were not observed. They had too much of the prose of life.
A house was built--a log one, of the Canadian rustic style then much in vogue, containing one room, and that not very large either; and to this my father brought his young bride. Their outfit consisted, on his part, of a colt, a yoke of steers, a couple of sheep, some pigs, a gun, and an axe. My mother's dot comprised a heifer, bed and bedding, a table and chairs, a chest of linen, some dishes, and a few other necessary items with which to begin housekeeping. This will not seem a very lavish set-out for a young couple on the part of parents who were at that time more than usually well-off. But there was a large family on both sides, and the old people then thought it the better way to let the young folk try their hand at making a living before they gave them of their abundance. If they succeeded they wouldn't need much, and if they did not, it would come better after a while.
My father was one of a class of young men not uncommon in those days, who possessed energy and activity. He was bound to win. What the old people gave was cheerfully accepted, and he went to work to acquire the necessaries and comforts of life with his own hands. He chopped his way into the stubborn wood and added field to field. The battle had now been waged for seven or eight years; an addition had been made to the house; other small comforts had been added, and the nucleus of future competence fairly established.
One of my first recollections is in connection with the small log barn he had built, and which up to that date had not been enlarged. He carried me out one day in his arms, and put me in a barrel in the middle of the floor. This was covered with loosened sheaves of wheat, which he kept turning over with a wooden fork, while the oxen and horse were driven round and round me. I did not know what it all meant then, but I afterwards learned that he was threshing. This was one of the first rude scenes in the drama of the early settlers' life to which I was introduced, and in which I had to take a more practical part in after years. I took part, also, very early in life, in sugar-making. The sap- bush was not very far away from the house, and the sap-boiling was under the direction of my mother, who mustered all the pots and kettles she could command, and when they were properly suspended over the fire on wooden hooks, she watched them, and rocked me in a sap-trough. Father's work consisted in bringing in the sap with two pails, which were carried by a wooden collar about three feet long, and made to fit the shoulder, from each end of which were fastened two cords with hooks to receive the bail of the pails, leaving the arms free except to steady them. He had also to cut wood for the fire. I afterwards came to take a more active part in these duties, and used to wish I could go back to my primitive cradle. But time pushed me on whether I would or not, until I scaled the mountain top of life's activities; and now, when quietly descending into the valley, my gaze is turned affectionately towards those early days. I do not think they were always bright and joyous, and I am sure I often chafed under the burdens imposed upon me; but how inviting they seem when viewed through the golden haze of retrospection.
My next recollection is the raising of a frame barn behind the house, and of a niece of my father's holding me in her arms to see the men pushing up the heavy "bents" with long poles. The noise of the men shouting and driving in the wooden pins with great wooden beetles, away up in the beams and stringers, alarmed me a great deal, but it all