Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1869-09-01

of whom L was the eldest ana Dotn were
as kindly, careful and considerable parents
as children ever had. An old but sturdy
couple, who had left their native highlands
out of pure attachment to my father. lived
with them as servants, or rather as helpful
and trusty friends and while L was yet
very young, my mothers parents, hndlng
themselves too far advanced in years Tor
farming, left their land to a married son,
and came to live with them too.
So our family was large; but there was
plenty of room in the Lighthouse, and plenty
of bread for all. My fathers land was
considered the best in the forest. He
titled his fields and gathered in his har-
vests with our good man Robin Ross, and
some help from the men of the settlement,
saying the since Paul became a tent
maker, and Peter and John were fisher
men, a minister of the Scotch kirk might
well follow husbandry, and thereby the
better understand the meaning of the para
bles concerning the sower that went forth
to sow. and the tares that grew among the
wheat. From the oldest to the youngest
in our house, every hand found employ
ment. Far from markets and shops as we
were, almost everything had to be made
at home the clothes we wore, the candles
we burned, the sugar from the maple-tree,
and the salt from the forest spring. All
the Canadian summer we were busy in the
shade or in the sun all the rigorous winter
we were equally busy within fast-closed
doors, and by the blazing hearth, for
stoves were not yet introduced into the
St. Clair settlement and every Sunday,
summer and winter, found my fathers
flock and family assembled in the small
church which formed one end of his dwell
ing, to sing the Scottish psalms which the
men of the Covenant had suns on field and
scaffold, and near the gospel read and
preached as it had been from reformation
times in the distant land of their fathers.
You may think it was IN out-of-the-world
place, and a dull life but my happiest
years were spent in that forest home. |
see it still in my dreams as it looked in
the bright spring days, when the frosts
and storms of winter were fairly gone, and
leaf and blossom, bird and bee, were COM
ing forth to the brilliant sunshine and the
soft sweet breeze-the long low house,
covered with Towering creepers the
garden, where, among many more useful
plants, my mother cultivated the biue-bells
of Scotland, and my father a patch of
heather the green fields lying round, and
the carefully-fenced one through which a
path led to the church door, with two or
three grassy mounds and rudely-sculptured
head-stones on either side, showing, as my
father said, where the emigrants had laid
down their sleepers. 1t is all changed
long ago, and a large school has been built
over u spot especially dear to my recol-
lection. 1t was a messy bank at the foot
of a great old oak, which my father had
spared in his clearing time. on account of
its size and beauty, where our largest
meadow almost met the forest-a place of
wild flowers and birds only to be seen in
the American woods-of softened shade
and floating fragrance, where we saw the
first tokens of spring and the latest linger-
ings of summer
1t was a fayorite haunt with me, my
younger sister, and our three little
brothers. All the genial season of the
year our playtime was spent there. There
we sat to learn our lessons for my fathers
home-school, which he kept every week
day evening, and our catechism for the one
he kept on Sunday. There, too, We used
to sit when L, the oldest, and best reader,
was trusted with one of the few books in
my fathers very small library which came
within the understanding of the young
the Scotch Worthless" the " Pilgrims
Progress "SOme Account of Remark
BILE ~Providences," and, chief of all, our
family Bible, to read to my little brothers
as they sat round me on that messy bank,
when the old people were absent, or did
not want US at home. We were sitting
there one Sunday evening in the early
spring-time; the day had been bright and
warm it was a pleasure for us to be out
in the open fields after the long shutting
up winter. Our father and mother had
gone to see a family on whom the afflic-
ton of Sickness rare one in the forest
land-had fallen the old people were
within doors at their WI books or talk,
and | was reading to my brothers the
story of Moses in the ark of bulrushes,
when Colin, the youngest, who was re-
markably keen of ear and eye, whispered
to me, Look behind you, Jessie" l
turned my head as he spoke, and saw with
in a few steps of US, leaning against the old
oak, and seemingly as fixed and silent as
itself, a girl about my own age, which was
then thirteen. She appeared to be taller
and much more slender than L was; her
complexion was brown, or rather q light
bronze color her face looked strange to
us, like one of a foreign race, yet it was
~singularly handsome. Her eyes were not
wild but their glance was swift and shy,
like that of the forest bird. Her long
black hair was bound with a wreath or
fIlet of bright-colored feathers. She
wore buskins of a shape we had never
seen, ornamented with beads and buttons,
a short skirt of scarlet cloth, and a mantle
of velvet-like fur, the skin of the American
fawn aud round her neck a large neck
lace, composed of bright shells, brilliant
stones, and gold and silver coins. We
looked at her in silent establishment for a
minute or two. She looked at US as if
not sure of our intentions towards her, and
then said slowly, " Indian daughter want
to hear what the book say to you" The
tone was strange to our ears, but the words
were plain enough. Our unexpected
E4stD~wus an Indian girl. We had never
seen one of her race before baS many -
tale regarding them we had heard from
our elders. Years before the St. Glars
settlement was formed the native tribes
who then occupied the forest land on both
sides of the river had taken part in the
American war, and fought out their own
ancient feuds in their usual savage man.
ner, under cover of English and American
interests. A tribe of Hurons had held as
part of their hunting ground the district
in which our settlement was planted, and
made fierce war for the United States, by
way of avenging themselves on their hered-
itary enemies, the Iroquois, who had taken
part with the British. Both parties COM
foarfnl daads and davactat;ono b,+