Smyrna times., 1875-08-11
mise eIIU21 e Gus.
The Settlers Tragedy.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "GINX's BABY"

BY THE AUTHOR OF " "GINX's BABY"
Yes; that's queerlooRin' place. now,
amt it? It's tEe best piece of land you've
seen any where in this days drive, and
that's good deal to say, and likewise, it
WAS once the prettiest farm along this road.
Why, sir, | mind the time when that porch
wis all = glory with roses, like 'ouse in
a hopcra bouffe for all the world. An right |
hin the front there, where you see all them
ducks an mullen Il growin', that was chock |
fill o beds of Lunnun pride, an chinay |
asters, an roses, an stocks, an marigolds,
and sweet mignonette; you could smell |
the place a mile off warm summers |
night. All! She was fine girl she was
that lived up there an terrible story |
that ouse tells. 1t amt just pleasant to be
on the next lot to it,
Mr.. Wellbeloved, for l had stumbled in
my Canada ramble on a person of that
name. thus spoke of log-house and lot
which had attracted my curiosity. On one
of the best stretches of arabic land, lying
well up the gentle swell of the valley, with
Il good exposure, backed by fine woodland,
was-a singular sight in that raw, yet thriv-
ing settlement-a concession" which
seemed 10 have been swept by some spirit
of ruin and decay. The log-house stood,
but its roof was roting; its slight porch had
been shattered or displaced by snow; its
windows remained unbroken, but one could
sec from the dragging paper blinds which
had once made them gay with color, that
there was no housewife within to mend or
change things: and all over the eight or
ten acres of land which had been cleared
about the house, there grew as high as the
unremOved stumps a wealth of weed, such
as is only the crop of absolute desertion
and death.
By this place, on one side, my friend
NcIlbeloved, at whose house | had drawn
up for a midday meal, TILED thriving
farm; the evidence was visible in the roll
of ripcnine wheat, dotted with the disks of
the blackened stumps, and in cattle that
loitered from the suns heat under the cir
Gle of Young naples he had left in a corner
of one of his fields where a spring welled
up from among some boulders, and the
grunt of wellfed pigs which wandered
down the road and cooled their heated
sides in the marshy bottom, where | had
found the road like floating stage of logs
Moreover, there was Mrs. Wcllbeloved, {
little weary-looking perhaps, for number
nine in the cradle was "he most bother
some child, that was, God bless it, she haC
ever knew and two or three fine, strap
ping boys that came home to the noOntid
meal from some hOeing work at the bacl
of the concession with an appetite for tn
sork and corn that made me envious.
welIbeloved was a LondOner, and ha'
been in Canada exactly six years. lie wa
81 Just turned forty" having married a
twenty, and now possessed graduate
scale of goraciOus infantry which must /
the metropolis have severely worn h
energies and Mrs. Wellbeloved's patienc
Int which out here was his most promisin
source Of wealth. The elder boy, nearl
nineteen, had added a hundred acres
the original government concession, and
the Others grew up more would folloV
Already Mr.. Wellbel0yed's house and BARI
began to take on an air, If not of wealth
even comfort, Of sufficiency, which, as oil
looked into his bronzed face and clear eye
and listened to his cherry voice, ga
nromise that the time might come VIII
the patriarch should bless his sons al
daughters, and his sons-in-law and daug
ters-in-law looking out upon a scene
civilized beauty and fertility, and dividi
among them no mean inheritance. su
scenes have been witnessed in earlier set'
m,ants and in the antecedent district
lake Simcoe, along whose cultivated sho
hal travelled to Muskoka; and 81
scenes will be repeated over and over ag
as the tide of population laps on and i
the forest wilds of Ontario.
"Well," said, "whats the story OF
Mace? It seens odd that it should
deserted like this. Why don't goa tax
up?"
me sirI No, thankee. I'd not ow
rod o. that soil for its pawn in gold.
mol There's blood on that land, and
some stranger come an wipe it hout."
He wiped the beads from his foreh
1.-THE day was hot) and began;
sThe man that took hup that con