Books: Life in the Clearings versus the Bush

S >> Susanna Moodie >> Life in the Clearings versus the Bush

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

Produced by Arthur Wendover and Andrew Sly.

Life in the Clearings versus the Bush

by Mrs. Moodie

Author of "Roughing it in the Bush," &c.

"I sketch from Nature, and the draught is true.
Whate'er the picture, whether grave or gay,
Painful experience in a distant land
Made it mine own."

TO

JOHN WEDDERBURN DUNBAR MOODIE, ESQ.

SHERRIFF OF THE COUNTY OF HASTINGS,

UPPER CANADA,

THIS WORK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED,

BY HIS ATTACHED FRIEND

AND WIFE,

SUSANNA MOODIE

Contents

Introduction
I Belleville
II Local Improvements--Sketches of Society
III Free Schools--Thoughts on Education
IV Amusements
V Trials of a Travelling Musician
VI The Singing Master
VII Camp Meetings
VIII Wearing Mourning for the Dead
IX Odd Characters
X Grace Marks
XI Michael Macbride
XII Jeanie Burns
XIII Lost Children
XIV Toronto
XV Lunatic Asylum
XVI Provincial Agricultural Show
XVII Niagara
XVIII Goat Island
XIX Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

"Dear foster-mother, on whose ample breast
The hungry still find food, the weary rest;
The child of want that treads thy happy shore,
Shall feel the grasp of poverty no more;
His honest toil meet recompense can claim,
And Freedom bless him with a freeman's name!"
S.M.

In our work of "Roughing it in the Bush," I endeavoured to draw a
picture of Canadian life, as I found it twenty years ago, in the
Backwoods. My motive in giving such a melancholy narrative to the
British public, was prompted by the hope of deterring well-educated
people, about to settle in this colony, from entering upon a life for
which they were totally unfitted by their previous pursuits and habits.

To persons unaccustomed to hard labour, and used to the comforts and
luxuries deemed indispensable to those moving in the middle classes at
home, a settlement in the bush can offer few advantages. It has proved
the ruin of hundreds and thousands who have ventured their all in this
hazardous experiment; nor can I recollect a single family of the higher
class, that have come under my own personal knowledge, that ever
realised an independence, or bettered their condition, by taking up wild
lands in remote localities; while volumes might be filled with failures,
even more disastrous than our own, to prove the truth of my former
statements.

But while I have endeavoured to point out the error of gentlemen
bringing delicate women and helpless children to toil in the woods, and
by so doing excluding them from all social intercourse with persons in
their own rank, and depriving the younger branches of the family of the
advantages of education, which, in the vicinity of towns and villages,
can be enjoyed by the children of the poorest emigrant, I have never
said anything against the REAL benefits to be derived from a judicious
choice of settlement in this great and rising country.

God forbid that any representations of mine should deter one of my
countrymen from making this noble and prosperous colony his future home.
But let him leave to the hardy labourer the place assigned to him by
Providence, nor undertake, upon limited means, the task of pioneer in
the great wilderness. Men of independent fortune can live anywhere. If
such prefer a life in the woods, to the woods let them go; but they will
soon find out that they could have employed the means in their power in
a far more profitable manner than in chopping down trees in the bush.

There are a thousand more advantageous ways in which a man of property
may invest his capital, than by burying himself and his family in the
woods. There never was a period in the history of the colony that
offered greater inducements to men of moderate means to emigrate to
Canada than the present. The many plank-roads and railways in the course
of construction in the province, while they afford high and remunerative
wages to the working classes, will amply repay the speculator who
embarks a portion of his means in purchasing shares in them. And if
he is bent upon becoming a Canadian farmer, numbers of fine farms, in
healthy and eligible situations, and in the vicinity of good markets,
are to be had on moderate terms, that would amply repay the cultivator
for the money and labour expended upon them.

There are thousands of independent proprietors of this class in
Canada--men who move in the best society, and whose names have a
political weight in the country. Why gentlemen from Britain should
obstinately crowd to the Backwoods, and prefer the coarse, hard life of
an axeman, to that of a respectable landed proprietor in a civilised
part of the country, has always been to me a matter of surprise; for a
farm under cultivation can always be purchased for less money than must
necessarily be expended upon clearing and raising buildings upon a wild
lot.

Many young men are attracted to the Backwoods by the facilities they
present for hunting and fishing. The wild, free life of the hunter,
has for an ardent and romantic temperament an inexpressible charm. But
hunting and fishing, however fascinating as a wholesome relaxation from
labour, will not win bread, or clothe a wife and shivering little ones;
and those who give themselves entirely up to such pursuits, soon add to
these profitless accomplishments the bush vices of smoking and drinking,
and quickly throw off those moral restraints upon which their
respectability and future welfare mainly depend.

The bush is the most demoralizing place to which an anxious and prudent
parent could send a young lad. Freed suddenly from all parental control,
and exposed to the contaminating influence of broken-down gentlemen
loafers, who hide their pride and poverty in the woods, he joins
in their low debauchery, and falsely imagines that, by becoming a
blackguard, he will be considered an excellent backwoodsman.

How many fine young men have I seen beggared and ruined in the bush!
It is too much the custom in the woods for the idle settler, who
will not work, to live upon the new comer as long as he can give him
good fare and his horn of whisky. When these fail, farewell to your
_good-hearted_, roystering friends; they will leave you like a
swarm of musquitoes, while you fret over your festering wounds, and fly
to suck the blood of some new settler, who is fool enough to believe
their offers of friendship.

The dreadful vice of drunkenness, of which I shall have occasion to
speak hereafter, is nowhere displayed in more revolting colours, or
occurs more frequently, than in the bush; nor is it exhibited by the
lower classes in so shameless a manner as by the gentlemen settlers,
from whom a better example might be expected. It would not be difficult
to point out the causes which too often lead to these melancholy
results. Loss of property, incapacity for hard labour, yielding the mind
to low and degrading vices, which destroy self-respect and paralyse
honest exertion, and the annihilation of those extravagant hopes that
false statements, made by interested parties, had led them to entertain
of fortunes that might be realised in the woods: these are a few among
the many reasons that could be given for the number of victims that
yearly fill a drunkard's dishonourable grave.

At the period when the greatest portion of "Roughing it in the Bush"
was written, I was totally ignorant of life in Canada, as it existed in
the towns and villages. Thirteen years' residence in one of the most
thriving districts in the Upper Province has given me many opportunities
of becoming better acquainted with the manners and habits of her busy,
bustling population, than it was possible for me ever to obtain in the
green prison of the woods.

Since my residence in a settled part of the country, I have enjoyed
as much domestic peace and happiness as ever falls to the lot of poor
humanity. Canada has become almost as dear to me as my native land;
and the homesickness that constantly preyed upon me in the Backwoods,
has long ago yielded to the deepest and most heartfelt interest in
the rapidly increasing prosperity and greatness of the country of my
adoption,--the great foster-mother of that portion of the human family,
whose fatherland, however dear to them, is unable to supply them with
bread.

To the honest sons of labour Canada is, indeed, an El Dorado--a land
flowing with milk and honey; for they soon obtain that independence
which the poor gentleman struggles in vain to realise by his own labour
in the woods.

The conventional prejudices that shackle the movements of members of the
higher classes in Britain are scarcely recognised in Canada; and a man
is at liberty to choose the most profitable manner of acquiring wealth,
without the fear of ridicule and the loss of caste.

The friendly relations which now exist between us and our enterprising,
intelligent American neighbours, have doubtless done much to produce
this amalgamation of classes. The gentleman no longer looks down with
supercilious self-importance on the wealthy merchant, nor does the
latter refuse to the ingenious mechanic the respect due to him as a man.
A more healthy state pervades Canadian society than existed here a few
years ago, when party feeling ran high, and the professional men and
office holders visited exclusively among themselves, affecting airs of
aristocratic superiority, which were perfectly absurd in a new country,
and which gave great offence to those of equal wealth who were not
admitted into their clique. Though too much of this spirit exists in the
large cities, such as Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto, it would not be
tolerated in the small district towns and villages, where a gentleman
could not take a surer method of making himself unpopular than by
exhibiting this feeling to his fellow-townsmen.

I have been repeatedly asked, since the publication of "Roughing it
in the Bush," to give an account of the present state of society in
the colony, and to point out its increasing prosperity and commercial
advantages; but statistics are not my forte, nor do I feel myself
qualified for such an arduous and important task. My knowledge of the
colony is too limited to enable me to write a comprehensive work on
a subject of vital consequence, which might involve the happiness of
others. But what I do know I will endeavour to sketch with a light
pencil; and if I cannot convey much useful information, I will try to
amuse the reader; and by a mixture of prose and poetry compile a small
volume, which may help to while away an idle hour, or fill up the blanks
of a wet day.

Belleville, Canada West,
Nov. 24th, 1852.

Indian Summer.

By the purple haze that lies
On the distant rocky height,
By the deep blue of the skies,
By the smoky amber light,
Through the forest arches streaming.
Where nature on her throne sits dreaming,
And the sun is scarcely gleaming
Through the cloudlet's snowy white,
Winter's lovely herald greets us,
Ere the ice-crown'd tyrant meets us.

A mellow softness fills the air--
No breeze on wanton wing steals by,
To break the holy quiet there,
Or make the waters fret and sigh.
Or the golden alders shiver,
That bend to kiss the placid river,
Flowing on and on for ever;
But the little waves seem sleeping,
O'er the pebbles slowly creeping,
That last night were flashing, leaping,
Driven by the restless breeze,
In lines of foam beneath yon trees.

Dress'd in robes of gorgeous hue--
Brown and gold with crimson blent,
The forest to the waters blue
Its own enchanting tints has lent.
In their dark depths, life-like glowing,
We see a second forest growing,
Each pictur'd leaf and branch bestowing
A fairy grace on that twin wood,
Mirror'd within the crystal flood.

'Tis pleasant now in forest shades;--
The Indian hunter strings his bow
To track, through dark entangled glades,
The antler'd deer and bounding doe;
Or launch at night his birch canoe,
To spear the finny tribes that dwell
On sandy bank, in weedy cell,
Or pool the fisher knows right well,--
Seen by the red and livid glow
Of pine-torch at his vessel's bow.

This dreamy Indian summer-day
Attunes the soul to tender sadness:
We love, but joy not in the ray,--
It is not summer's fervid gladness,
But a melancholy glory
Hov'ring brightly round decay,
Like swan that sings her own sad story,
Ere she floats in death away.

The day declines.--What splendid dyes,
In flicker'd waves of crimson driven,
Float o'er the saffron sea, that lies
Glowing within the western heaven!
Ah, it is a peerless even!
See, the broad red sun has set,
But his rays are quivering yet
Through nature's veil of violet,
Streaming bright o'er lake and hill;
But earth and forest lie so still--
We start, and check the rising tear,
'Tis beauty sleeping on her bier.

LIFE IN THE CLEARINGS

VERSUS THE BUSH

CHAPTER I

Belleville

"The land of our adoption claims
Our highest powers,--our firmest trust--
May future ages blend our names
With hers, when we shall sleep in dust.
Land of our sons!--last-born of earth,
A mighty nation nurtures thee;
The first in moral power and worth,--
Long mayst thou boast her sovereignty!

Union is strength, while round the boughs
Of thine own lofty maple-tree;
The threefold wreath of Britain flows,
Twined with the graceful fleur-de-lis;
A chaplet wreathed mid smiles and tears,
In which all hues of glory blend;
Long may it bloom for future years,
And vigour to thy weakness lend."

Year after year, during twenty years' residence in the colony, I had
indulged the hope of one day visiting the Falls of Niagara, and year
after year, for twenty long years, I was doomed to disappointment.

For the first ten years, my residence in the woods of Douro, my infant
family, and last, not least, among the list of objections, that great
want,--the want of money,--placed insuperable difficulties in the way
of my ever accomplishing this cherished wish of my heart.

The hope, resigned for the present, was always indulged as a bright
future--a pleasant day-dream--an event which at some unknown period,
when happier days should dawn upon us, might take place; but which just
now was entirely out of the question.

When the children were very importunate for a new book or toy, and I had
not the means of gratifying them, I used to silence them by saying that
I would buy that and many other nice things for them when "our money
cart came home."

During the next ten years, this all-important and anxiously anticipated
vehicle did not arrive. The children did not get their toys, and my
journey to Niagara was still postponed to an indefinite period.

Like a true daughter of romance, I could not banish from my mind
the glorious ideal I had formed of this wonder of the world; but
still continued to speculate about the mighty cataract, that sublime
"thunder of waters," whose very name from childhood had been
music to my ears.

Ah, Hope! what would life be, stripped of thy encouraging smiles, that
teach us to look behind the dark clouds of to-day for the golden beams
that are to gild the morrow. To those who have faith in thy promises,
the most extravagant fictions are possible; and the unreal becomes
material and tangible. The artist who placed thee upon the rock with
an anchor for a leaning post, could never have experienced any of thy
vagrant propensities. He should have invested thee with the rainbow of
Iris, the winged feet of Mercury, and the upward pointing finger of
Faith; and as for thy footstool, it should be a fleecy white cloud,
changing its form with the changing breeze.

Yet this hope of mine, of one day seeing the Falls of Niagara, was,
after all, a very enduring hope; for though I began to fear that it
never would be realized, yet, for twenty years, I never gave it up
entirely; and Patience, who always sits at the feet of Hope, was at
length rewarded by her sister's consenting smile.

During the past summer I was confined, by severe indisposition, almost
entirely to the house. The obstinate nature of my disease baffled
the skill of a very clever medical attendant, and created alarm and
uneasiness in my family: and I entertained small hopes of my own
recovery.

Dr. L---, as a last resource, recommended change of air and scene; a
remedy far more to my taste than the odious drugs from which I had not
derived the least benefit. Ill and languid as I was, Niagara once more
rose before my mental vision, and I exclaimed, with a thrill of joy,
"The time is come at last--I shall yet see it before I die."

My dear husband was to be the companion of my long journey in search
of health. Our simple arrangements were soon made, and on the 7th of
September we left Belleville in the handsome new steam-boat, "The Bay of
Quinte," for Kingston.

The afternoon was cloudless, the woods just tinged with their first
autumnal glow, and the lovely bay, and its fairy isles, never appeared
more enchanting in my eyes. Often as I had gazed upon it in storm and
shine, its blue transparent waters seemed to smile upon me more lovingly
than usual. With affectionate interest I looked long and tenderly upon
the shores we were leaving. There stood my peaceful, happy home; the
haven of rest to which Providence had conducted me after the storms and
trials of many years. Within the walls of that small stone cottage,
peeping forth from its screen of young hickory trees, I had left three
dear children,--God only could tell whether we should ever meet on earth
again: I knew that their prayers would follow me on my long journey,
and the cherub Hope was still at my side, to whisper of happy hours and
restored health and spirits. I blessed God, for the love of those young
kindred hearts, and for having placed their home in such a charming
locality.

Next to the love of God, the love of nature may be regarded as the
purest and holiest feeling of the human breast. In the outward beauty of
his creation, we catch a reflection of the divine image of the Creator,
which refines the intellect, and lifts the soul upward to Him. This
innate perception of the beautiful, however, is confined to no rank or
situation, but is found in the most barren spots, and surrounded by the
most unfavourable circumstances; wherever the sun shines and warms, or
the glory of the moon and stars can be seen at night, the children of
genius will find a revelation of God in their beams. But there is not
a doubt that those born and brought up among scenes of great natural
sublimity and beauty, imbibe this feeling in a larger degree, and their
minds are more easily imbued with the glorious colouring of
romance,--the inspired visions of the poet.

Dear patient reader! whether of British or Canadian origin, as I wish
to afford you all the amusement in my power, deign to accompany me on
my long journey. Allow me a woman's privilege of talking of all sorts
of things by the way. Should I tire you with my desultory mode of
conversation, bear with me charitably, and take into account the
infirmities incidental to my gossiping sex and age. If I dwell too long
upon some subjects, do not call me a bore, or vain and trifling, if I
pass too lightly over others. The little knowledge I possess, I impart
freely, and wish that it was more profound and extensive, for your sake.

Come, and take your seat with me on the deck of the steamer; and as we
glide over the waters of this beautiful Bay of Quinte, I will make you
acquainted with every spot worthy of note along its picturesque shores.

An English lady, writing to me not long ago, expressed her weariness
of my long stories about the country of my adoption, in the following
terms:--"Don't fill your letters to me with descriptions of Canada. Who,
_in England_, thinks anything of _Canada!_"

Here the pride so common to the inhabitants of the favoured isles spoke
out. This is perhaps excusable in those who boast that they belong to a
country that possesses, in an eminent degree, the attributes bestowed
by old Jacob on his first-born,--"the excellency of dignity, and the
excellency of power." But, to my own thinking, it savoured not a little
of arrogance, and still more of ignorance, in the fair writer; who,
being a woman of talent, should have known better. A child is not a man,
but his progress is regarded with more attention on that account; and
his future greatness is very much determined by the progress he makes in
his youth.

To judge Canada by the same standard, she appears to be a giant for her
years, and well worthy the most serious contemplation. Many are the
weary, overtasked minds in that great, wealthy, and powerful England,
that turn towards this flourishing colony their anxious thoughts, and
would willingly exchange the golden prime of the mother country for
the healthy, vigorous young strength of this, her stalwart child, and
consider themselves only too happy in securing a home upon these free
and fertile shores.

Be not discouraged, brave emigrant. Let Canada still remain the bright
future in your mind, and hasten to convert your present day-dream into
reality. The time is not far distant when she shall be the theme of many
tongues, and the old nations of the world will speak of her progress
with respect and admiration. Her infancy is past, she begins to feel
her feet, to know her own strength, and see her way clearly through the
wilderness. Child as you may deem her, she has already battled bravely
for her own rights, and obtained the management of her own affairs. Her
onward progress is certain. There is no _if_ in her case. She
possesses within her own territory all the elements of future
prosperity, and _she must be great!_

The men who throng her marts, and clear her forests, are _workers_,
not _dreamers_,--who have already realized Solomon's pithy proverb,
"In all labour is profit;" and their industry has imbued them with a
spirit of independence which cannot fail to make them a free and
enlightened people.

An illustration of the truth of what I advance, can be given in the
pretty town we are leaving on the north side of the bay. I think you
will own with me that your eyes have seldom rested upon a spot more
favoured by Nature, or one that bids fairer to rise to great wealth
and political importance.

Sixty years ago, the spot that Belleville now occupies was in the
wilderness; and its rapid, sparkling river and sunny upland slopes
(which during the lapse of ages have formed a succession of banks to the
said river), were only known to the Indian hunter and the white trader.

Where you see those substantial stone wharfs, and the masts of those
vessels, unloading their valuable cargoes to replenish the stores of
the wealthy merchants in the town, a tangled cedar swamp spread its
dark, unwholesome vegetation into the bay, completely covering with
an impenetrable jungle those smooth verdant plains, now surrounded
with neat cottages and gardens.

Of a bright summer evening (and when is a Canadian summer evening
otherwise?) those plains swarm with happy, healthy children, who
assemble there to pursue their gambols beyond the heat and dust of the
town; or to watch with eager eyes the young men of the place engaged
in the manly old English game of cricket, with whom it is, in their
harmless boasting, "Belleville against Toronto-Cobourg; Kingston, the
whole world."

The editor of a Kingston paper once had the barbarity to compare these
valiant champions of the bat and ball to "singed cats--ugly to look at,
but very devils to go."

Our lads have never forgiven the insult; and should the said editor ever
show his face upon their ground, they would kick him off with as little
ceremony as they would a spent ball.

On that high sandy ridge that overlooks the town eastward--where the
tin roof of the Court House, a massy, but rather tasteless building,
and the spires of four churches catch the rays of the sun--a tangled
maze of hazel bushes, and wild plum and cherry, once screened the
Indian burying-ground, and the children of the red hunter sought for
strawberries among the long grass and wild flowers that flourish
profusely in that sandy soil.

Would that you could stand with me on that lofty eminence and look
around you! The charming prospect that spreads itself at your feet
would richly repay you for toiling up the hill.

We will suppose ourselves standing among the graves in the
burying-ground of the English church; the sunny heavens above us, the
glorious waters of the bay, clasping in their azure belt three-fourths
of the landscape, and the quiet dead sleeping at our feet.

The white man has so completely supplanted his red brother, that he has
appropriated the very spot that held his bones; and in a few years their
dust will mingle together, although no stone marks the grave where the
red man sleeps.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24