Towanda daily review. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1879-1921, 1881-03-15
A STRANGE STORY.

ry to tell of an experience of my own ole
fearful night in the woods. Imagination
had nothing to do with it, for | am
backwoodsmans daughter accustomed to
the wild sounds of the forest, the loneli-
ness, and all that is terrifying to nov
ice
My father was a good man, serving
God after his own simple fashion, seeing
Him and loving Him in all his works. l
have heard him hold forth on the provi-
dent ways of the beaver: "Why, the little
critter'd starye in the cold season if it
hadn't used it's little fiat tail for buildn'
its house, and then filled it with food in
time :" | have heard him tell of the car
ibou. "Look at that, too, 'he would say,
''and at the moose. Now the caribou
has to travel often Il matter of twenty
miles for his dinner, for he's a dainty un
and only eats the long gray moss that
hangs from the trees; so God gave him
snow shoes, good as an Indian could
make 'um, to skim over the ice crust,
while the big, heavy moose there sinks
right in. His dinner is close to hand.
He could live for months on an acre lot"
He would speak of the loon. and its adap-
tation in every way to its Watery home,
always ending such talk with: 'All Gods
works are pom honor; there's no half
way with him.
l was the only one left out Of ten chill
dren. My father when mourning over
and missing the others, would never
complain, but only say, "They're better
off, Why if we can trust the children,
that don't know what wrong doing is and
don't know the meaning of sin, then
there amt any chance for us men!" And
so he lived his quiet life-his heart beat
ing close to natures heart, and his soul
nnconsciously seeking and finding natures
God.
My mother must have been beautiful in
her youth. She was lOrette Cdnddienue
and her bright French spirits carried her
Saily over many a hard trial III her life of
frequent depriyations. One great over
shadOwing sorrow of her life was the un-
accountable disappearance of her little
year old daughter, her own image, whom
from the first she loved with a peculiar
tenderness.
The child had been left alone in her lit
tie birch bark crib for Il short half hour
while mother was busy at the spring, a
mile from home, in the midst of the
woods. |, a little-SiX-year- old, was off in
tho canoe with my father, as a treat for
being especially good the day before.
Father and | had q splendid time-we al
ways did when we were away together
and, our canoe full of trout, we were COM
ing gaily home, toward evening when a
cold chill fell on our happiness, and my
Child's heart felt 4 strange thrill as | read
u sudden anxiety in my fathers face,
whose every change | knew. His qnick
ear had caught the sound of mothers
voice, and after while I, too, could hear
hopeless moan, a dreadful heart-broken
sound. We found mother kneeling on
the floor, her head leaning on the empty
crib, and moaning as one who could not
be comforted. The baby was gone
How or where we could not tell-wc ney-
er knew. Weeks were spent in searching
for her and, at length to save mothers
reason, father forced her to leave the
pretty log cabin. in the woods by the lake
where this last sorrow had come upon
her, and we went to Montreal.
There we lived quietly for years during