Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years: An Autobiography. Samuel Thompson
all their provisions from the embryo village we had just quitted: all this with the resolute determination of "keeping tavern."
The floor was of loose split logs, hewn into some approach to evenness with an adze; the walls of logs entire, filled in the interstices with chips of pine, which, however, did not prevent an occasional glimpse of the objects visible outside, and had the advantage, moreover, of rendering a window unnecessary; the hearth was the bare soil, the ceiling slabs of pine wood, the chimney a square hole in the roof; the fire literally an entire tree, branches and all, cut into four-feet lengths, and heaped up to the height of as many feet. It was a chill evening, and the dancing flames were inspiriting, as they threw a cheerful radiance all around, and revealed to our curious eyes extraordinary pieces of furniture—a log bedstead in the darkest corner, a pair of snow-shoes, sundry spiral augers and rough tools, a bundle of dried deer-sinews, together with some articles of feminine gear, a small red framed looking-glass, a clumsy comb suspended from a nail by a string, and other similar treasures.
We were accommodated with stools of various sizes and heights, on three legs or on four, or mere pieces of log sawn short off, which latter our host justly recommended as being more steady on the uneven floor. We exchanged our wet boots for slippers, mocassins, or whatever the good-natured fellow could supply us with. The hostess was intently busy making large flat cakes; roasting them, first on one side, then on the other; and alternately boiling and frying broad slices of salt pork, when, suddenly suspending operations, she exclaimed, with a vivacity that startled us, "Oh, Root, I've cracked my spider!"
Inquiring with alarm what was the matter, we learned that the cast-iron pan on three feet, which she used for her cookery, was called a "spider," and that its fracture had occasioned the exclamation. The injured spider performed "its spiriting gently" notwithstanding, and, sooth to say, all parties did full justice to its savoury contents.
Bed-time drew near. A heap of odd-looking rugs and clean blankets was laid for our accommodation and pronounced to be ready. But how to get into it? We had heard of some rather primitive practices among the steerage passengers on board ship, it is true, but had not accustomed ourselves to "uncase" before company, and hesitated to lie down in our clothes. After waiting some little time in blank dismay, Mr. Root kindly set us an example by quietly slipping out of his nether integuments and turning into bed. There was no help for it; by one means or other we contrived to sneak under the blankets; and, after hanging up a large coloured quilt between our lair and the couch occupied by her now snoring spouse, the good wife also disappeared.
In spite of the novelty of the situation, and some occasional disturbance from gusts of wind stealing through the "chinks," and fanning into brightness the dying embers on the hearth, we slept deliciously and awoke refreshed.
CHAPTER X.
A FIRST DAY IN THE BUSH.
Before day-break breakfast was ready, and proved to be a more tempting meal than the supper of the night before. There were fine dry potatoes, roast wild pigeon, fried pork, cakes, butter, eggs, milk, "China tea," and chocolate—which last was a brown-coloured extract of cherry-tree bark, sassafras root, and wild sarsaparilla, warmly recommended by our host as "first-rate bitters." Declining this latter beverage, we made a hearty meal.
It was now day-break. As we were new comers, Root offered to convoy us "a piece of the way," a very serviceable act of kindness, for, in the dim twilight we experienced at first no little difficulty in discerning it. Pointing out some faint glimmerings of morning, which were showing themselves more and more brightly over the tall tree-tops, our friend remarked, "I guess that's where the sun's calc'lating to rise."
The day had advanced sufficiently to enable us to distinguish the road with ease. Our tavern-keeper returned to his work, and in a few minutes the forest echoed to the quick strokes of his lustily-wielded axe. We found ourselves advancing along a wide avenue, unmarked as yet by the track of wheels, and unimpeded by growing brush-wood. To the width of sixty-six feet, all the trees had been cut down to a height of between two and three feet, in a precisely straight course for miles, and burnt or drawn into the woods; while along the centre, or winding from side to side like the course of a drunken man, a waggon-track had been made by grubbing up smaller and evading the larger stumps, or by throwing a collection of small limbs and decayed wood into the deeper inequalities. Here and there, a ravine would be rendered passable by placing across it two long trunks of trees, often at a sharp angle, and crossing these transversely with shorter logs; the whole covered with brush-wood and earth, and dignified with the name of a "corduroy bridge."
At the Nottawasaga River, we found a log house recently erected, the temporary residence of Wellesley Richey, Esq., an Irish gentleman, then in charge of the new settlements thereabouts. Mr. Richey received us very courteously, and handed us over to the charge of an experienced guide, whose business it was to show lands to intending settlers—a very necessary precaution indeed, as after a mile or two the road ceased altogether.
For some miles further, the forest consisted of Norway and white pine, almost unmixed with any other timber. There is something majestic in these vast and thickly-set labyrinths of brown columnar stems averaging a hundred and fifty feet in height, perhaps, and from one to five in thickness, making a traveller feel somewhat like a Lilliputian Gulliver in a field of Brobdignagian wheat. It is singular to observe the effect of an occasional gust of wind in such situations. It may not even fan your cheek; but you hear a low surging sound, like the moaning of breakers in a calm sea, which gradually increases to a loud boisterous roar, still seemingly at a great distance; the branches remain in perfect repose, you can discover no evidence of a stirring breeze, till, looking perpendicularly upwards, you are astonished to see some patriarchal giant close at hand—six yards round and sixty high—which alone has caught the breeze, waving its huge fantastic arms wildly at a dizzy height above your head.
There are times when the hardiest woodman dares not enter the pine woods; when some unusually severe gale sweeping over them bends their strong but slender stems like willow wands, or catches the wide-spreading branches of the loftier trees with a force that fairly wrenches them out by the roots, which creeping along on the surface of the soil, present no very powerful resistance. Nothing but the close contiguity of the trees saves them from general prostration. Interlocked branches are every moment broken off and flung to a distance, and even the trunks clash, and as it were, whet themselves against each other, with a shock and uproar that startles the firmest nerves.
It were tedious to detail all the events of our morning's march: How armed with English fowling pieces and laden with ammunition, we momentarily expected to encounter some grisly she-bear, with a numerous family of cubs; or at the least a herd of deer or a flock of wild turkeys: how we saw nothing more dangerous than woodpeckers with crimson heads, hammering away at decayed trees like transmigrated carpenters; how we at last shot two partridges sitting on branches, very unlike English ones, of which we were fain to make a meal, which was utterly detestable for want of salt; how the government guide led us, helter-skelter, into the untracked woods, walking as for a wager, through thickets of ground hemlock,[2] which entangled our feet and often tripped us up; how we were obliged to follow him over and under wind-falls, to pass which it was necessary to climb sometimes twenty feet along some half-recumbent tree; how when we enquired whether clay or sand were considered the best soil, he said some preferred one, and some the other; how he showed us the front of a lot that was bad, and guessed that the rear ought to be better; how we turned back at last, thoroughly jaded, but no wiser than when we set out—all this and much more, must be left to the reader's imagination.
It was drawing towards evening. The guide strode in advance, tired and taciturn, like some evil fate. We followed in pairs, each of us provided with a small bunch of leafy twigs to flap away the mosquitoes, which rose in myriads from the thick, damp underbrush.
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