Chapter X: Letter VIII

I begin this letter with a few observations in support of my oft-repeated assertion that poor ladies and gentlemen form the worst, or at least the most unsuccessful, class for emigration to Canada. I must give you a slight sketch of the class of settlers we have here, and of the conditions they must fulfil before they can hope to be in easy circumstances, much less in affluent ones. Of course I am speaking of settlers from the “old country,” and not of Canadians born who sometimes find their way from the front to try their fortunes in the backwoods. The settlers in this neighbourhood, for a circuit of about eight miles, are all of the lower classes; weavers from Scotland, agricultural labourers from England, artisans and mechanics from all parts. Whatever small sum of money a family of this class can collect with a view to emigration, very little of it is spent in coming over. They are invariably steerage passengers, and on landing at Quebec are forwarded, free of all expense, and well provided for on the road, by the Emigration Society, to the part where they intend settling. Say that they come to the free-grant lands of Muskoka. The intending settler goes before the commissioner of crown-lands, and (if a single man) takes up a lot of a hundred acres; if married and with children, he can claim another lot as “head of a family.” He finds the conditions of his tenure specified on the paper he signs, and sees that it will be five years before he can have his patent, and then only if he has cleared fifteen acres, and has likewise built thereon a log-house of certain dimensions. He pays some one a dollar to point out his lot, and to take him over it, and then selecting the best site, and with what assistance he can get from his neighbours, he clears a small patch of ground and builds a shanty. In the meantime, if he have a wife and family they are lodged and boarded for a very small sum at some near neighbour’s. When he and his family have taken possession, he underbrushes and chops as much as he possibly can before the winter sets in; but on the first approach of the cold weather he starts for the lumber-shanties, and engages himself to work there, receiving from twenty to twenty-five dollars a month and his food. Should he be of any particular trade he goes to some large town, and is tolerably sure of employment.

It is certainly a very hard and anxious life for the wife and children, left to shift for themselves throughout the long dreary winter, too often on a very slender provision of flour and potatoes and little else.

When spring at last comes, the steady, hard-working settler returns with quite a little sum of money wherewith to commence his own farming operations. One of the most respectable and thriving settlers near us is a man who began life as a sturdy Kentish ploughboy. He is now an elderly man with a very large family and a good farm. He has thirty acres well cleared and under cultivation, has thirteen head of cattle and some fine pigs, has the best barn in the place, and has just removed his family into a large commodious plank house, with many rooms and a very fine cellar, built entirely at odd times by himself and his son, a steady, clever lad of eighteen.

This man for several years has gone at the beginning of the winter to one of the hotels in Bracebridge, where he acts as “stable-boy,” and makes a great deal of money besides his food, which, in such a place, is of the best. He could very well now remain at home, and reap the reward of his thrift and industry, but prefers going on for a year or two longer, while he still has health and strength.

Now it is obvious that ladies and gentlemen have not, and cannot have these advantages. The ladies of a family cannot be left unprotected during the long winter, and indeed are, for the most part, physically incapable of chopping fire-wood, drawing water, and doing other hard outdoor work; I speak particularly of _poor_ ladies and gentlemen. Should people of ample means _choose_ to encounter the inevitable privations of the Bush, there are of course few which cannot be at least alleviated by a judicious expenditure of money.

It may well be asked here, who is there with _ample means_ who would dream of coming to Muskoka? I answer boldly, none but those who are entirely ignorant of the miseries of Bush life, or those who have been purposely misled by designing and interested people.

Here the settlers’ wives and daughters work almost as hard as their husbands and fathers--log, burn, plant, and dig; and, in some instances, with the work adopt the habits of men, and smoke and chew tobacco to a considerable extent. This, I am happy to say, is not the case with all, nor even, I hope, with the majority; but nearly all the women, long before attaining middle age, look prematurely worn and faded, and many of the settlers themselves bear in their faces the unmistakable signs of hard work, scanty food, and a perpetual struggle for existence.

I have not yet mentioned the subject of wild beasts, but I may truly say that ever since I came out here, they have been a complete bugbear to me, and my dread of them is still unconquerable. I have been much laughed at for my fears, but as it is well-known that there _are_ wild animals in the recesses of these woods, and as they do sometimes show themselves without being sought for, I cannot consider my fears groundless.

I have been told by one settler, who has been here for many years, and has often “camped out” all night in the woods, that he has never seen anything “worse than himself;” but another settler, the trapper mentioned in a former letter, kills some wild animals every year, and two or three times he has been met going over our lots in search of some bear or lynx which had escaped him.

We are told that when the clearings are larger, and more animals kept, especially pigs, that our visits from Bruin at least will be more frequent; and since your brother Charles, some months ago, got two fine pigs, he has repeatedly found bear-tracks in his beaver meadow, and even close up to the fence of his clearing. To say the least of it, the pleasure of a solitary walk is greatly impaired by the vague terror of a stray bear confronting you on the pathway, or of a spiteful lynx dropping down upon your shoulders from the branch of a tree.

The morning before H. L. left us for Toronto, he went to the post-office, but before he got to the end of our clearing, he saw at some distance a grey animal, which at first he took to be a neighbour’s dog; long before he got up to it, it cleared the fence at one bound, and vanished into the Bush. He thought this odd, but went on; returning in the twilight he was greatly astonished to see the same animal again in the clearing, and this time he might have had a good shot at it, but unfortunately he was encumbered with a can of milk, which he had good-naturedly brought for me, and before he could bring his gun to bear upon it, the creature was again in the depths of the Bush.

Much conversation ensued about it; some thought it must have been a chance wolf, but Charles, whose opinion we all looked to, was more inclined to the idea of its being a grey fox; he hardly thought that any other wild animal would have come so fearlessly into the clearing.

H. L. went to Toronto, and in a few days your brother received a letter from him saying that he had just seen a lynx newly killed which had been brought into the town, and that in colour, shape, and size, it exactly resembled the animal he had seen in my clearing. It has since been supposed that this might be the lynx the trapper said he was tracking when he passed near here in the spring.

I have often spoken of the broad deep gully at the end of my lot near the “concession” road. We had an old negro located on the strip of land between for more than five weeks. One fearfully cold day last winter, during a heavy snow-storm, your brother Charles came upon the poor old man “camping” for the night on the road near here. He talked to him a little, gave him all the small change he happened to have about him, and coming home and telling us, we made a small collection, which with a loaf of bread, he took to the old man next morning before he went away.

Before the close of this autumn, Charles again met his old acquaintance, looking more ragged and feeble than ever. He had with him only his axe and a small bundle. He said that he was making his way to a lot which he had taken up eight miles off, where he was going to locate himself and remain. He spoke too of having friends in the front who would give him some assistance, and at least send him some flour.

Again he camped out for the night, and we held a family consultation about him. Your brothers proposed going with him to his lot, and helping him to build his shanty. They talked of taking provisions and being out for some days. They also spoke of taking him food twice a week during the winter for fear he should starve, as he complained that his neighbours were very unkind to him, and did not want him located among them.

We all loudly protested against this plan as being altogether quixotic, and reminded them that to carry out their plan they must periodically neglect their own work, leave us alone, and run the risk of being often weather-bound, thus causing injury to their own health, and much alarm to us. We suggested an expedient, to let poor Jake settle himself near my gully for the winter; your brothers to build him a shanty there, and to take him every day sufficient warm food to make him comfortable. Charles promised to join with us in giving him so much bread and potatoes every week. I paid one visit to the old negro, whom I found dirty, and with only one eye, yet not at all repulsive-looking, as he had a very pleasant countenance, and talked well and intelligently.

He agreed to our plan, and your brothers soon raised the logs of a good shanty, and till it was completed he built himself a wigwam, Indian fashion, which he made very warm and comfortable. We told him also that if he liked to make a small clearing round his shanty, we would pay him for his chopping when he left. The winter soon came, and the snow began to fall. The first very frosty night made us anxious about our old pensioner, and your brother went to him early the next morning with a can of hot tea for his breakfast. What was his astonishment when he crossed the gully to hear loud voices in Jake’s little encampment.

On reaching it he asked the old man who was with him. He significantly pointed to the wigwam, from which a woman’s voice called out:

“Yes! I’m here, and I’ve got the hagur!” (ague).

A few minutes afterwards the owner of the voice issued from the hut, in the person of a stout, bold-looking, middle-aged woman, (white), who evidently considered old Jake, his shanty, his wigwam, and all his effects, as her own undoubted property. We found that this was the “Mary” of whom Jake had spoken as being the person with whom he had boarded and lodged in the front, and who had found him out here. In the course of the day both your brothers paid the old man a visit, and signified to him that it would be as well if he and his companion took their departure, as we knew he was not married to her, and we had a wholesome dread of five children, whom Jake had incidentally mentioned, following in the wake of their mother.

We gave them leave, however, to remain till the Monday following, as we did not wish to drive any one out precipitately who was suffering from the “hagur.” Till they went, we supplied them with provisions. On the following Monday they departed. Your brothers gave poor Jake two dollars for the little bit of chopping he had done, and we gave him some bread, coffee, and potatoes, as provisions for his journey. Your brothers saw him and Mary off with all their bundles, and returned home, leaving my gully as silent and solitary as ever.

We heard afterwards that Jake did not go to his own lot, as he seemed to intend, but was seen with his companion making his way to the main road out of the Bush. A settler overtook them, and told us they were quarrelling violently for the possession of a warm quilted French counterpane, which we had lent to old Jake to keep him warm in his wigwam, and had allowed him to take away.

We were disappointed this year in not having a visit from the old colporteur of Parry’s Sound. He came last year during a heavy storm of snow, with a large pack of cheap Bibles and Testaments, and told us he was an agent for the Wesleyan Society, and had orders to distribute gratis where there was really no means of paying. In answer to some remark of mine, he said that “the Bible must always follow the axe.”

I recognised more than ever, how, by the meanest and weakest instruments, God works out His mighty designs. This poor man was verging towards the decline of life; had a hollow cough, and was in frame very feeble and fragile, yet he was full of zeal, travelled incessantly, and dispensed numbers of copies of the Word of God as he passed from settlement to settlement. I bought two New Testaments for eight cents each, well printed, and strongly bound.

I am at work occasionally at my pleasant task of recording Bush reminiscences. My labours have at least kept me from vain and fruitless regrets and repinings.

“_Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate!_” How often have I repeated these dismal words to myself since I came into the Bush, and felt them to be the knell of hope and happiness! But time flies whether in joy or sorrow. We are now in the middle of our second winter, those dreadful winters of close imprisonment, which last for nearly seven months, and which your sister and I both agree, form the severest trial of Bush life. My aspirations, in former years, were manifold; but were I asked now what were the three absolute essentials for human happiness, I should be tempted to reply, “Roads to walk upon, a church to worship in, and a doctor within reach in case of necessity!” All these are wanting in the Bush; but as we have incessant daily occupation, an extensive correspondence, and as providentially we brought out all our stock of cherished books, we manage to live on without too much complaining.

Your brother Charles is doing pretty well, and hopes to bring his few animals safely through the winter. Your brother-in-law also is making progress, and is expecting from England a partner (a young relation of his own) whose coming will probably insure him success. We remain just as we were, striving, struggling, and hoping against hope, that success may yet crown our endeavours. Our farm stock is easily counted, and easily taken care of: your brother’s dog, with three very fat puppies; my pretty cat “Tibbs,” with her little son “Hodge,” and a magnificent tom puss, whose real home is at “Pioneer Cottage,” but who, being of social habits and having a general invitation, does me the honour to eat, drink, and sleep here.

My sketches of Bush life are an occupation and an amusement to me, but I can truly say that they very faintly portray our sufferings and our privations.

LETTERS FROM AN EMIGRANT LADY.

Part II.

WRITTEN TWO YEARS AFTERWARDS.

LETTERS FROM AN EMIGRANT LADY.