The Irish standard., 1905-02-25
CHAPTER II.

June was half over when we came
to our new home in the town of
Madrid-then home only for the
9uxes and the fowls of the air and
their wild kin of the forest. The road
ran through little valley thick with
timber and roc!l-bound within a mile
of us, all comfortably settled in small
log houses. For temporary use we
built a rude bark shanty that had a
partition of blankets, living in this
primitive manner until my father and
Fri had felled the timber and built
log house. We brought flour from Ma
Dne-a dozen sacks or more-and
while they were building I had to
supply lAy mother with fish and game
and berries for the table-a thing easy
enough to do in that land Of plenty
When the logs were cut and hewn
vent away, horseback, to Canton for a
jug of rum. was all day and half the
night going and coming, and fording
The Grasse took me stirrups under.
Then the neiShbors came to the rails
mg-a jolly company that shouted
~Hee, oh, heel" as they lifted each
heavy log to its place and grew noisier
quafIing the odorous red rum, that had
a mighty good look to me, although
my father would not hear of my tast-
ing it. When it was all over there
vas nothing to pay but our gratitude.
While they were building hunks
vent off to sawmill with the oxen
DOR boards and shingles. Then, short
Ky, we had roof over us and floors
10 walk on and that luxury D'ri called
"pyaz," although it was not more
than mere shelf with . roof over it.
We chinked the logs With moss and
clay at first, putting up creased paper
m the window spaces. For months we
knew not the luxury of the glass pane
That summer We changed work"
With the neighhors and after we had
helped them awhile they turned to in
the clearing of our farm We felled the
trees in long, busl,y windows, heap
ing them uu with brush and small
wood when the chopping was over.
That done, we fired the rows, filling
the deep of heaven with smoke, as it
seemed to me, and lighting the night
With great pillows of flame.
By mid-autumn we had cleared to
HE stumps a strip half down the val
ny from our door. Then we turned
10 on the land OF our neighbors, my
time counting half, for l was sturdy
and could swing the AK to line and
telt a JOY in seeing the chips fly. But
my father kept an eye on me, and held
me back as with a leash.
Ny mother was often sorely tried
tr the lack of things common as dirt
these better days. Frequently our
only baking-p powder was white I've,
made by dropping ash-cinders into
water. Our cinder4 were made by
Atting the sap of green timber drip
into hot ashes. Often deers tallow,
BEARS grease, or raccoon's oil served
aor shortening, and the leaves of the
Wild raspberry for tea. Our neighbors
went to mill at Canton-a journey of
I'VE days, going and coming, with an
OK team, and beset with many Difficult
ties Then one of them followed the
top of stump for his mortar and tied
MS pestle to the bough of tree. With
arope he drew the Dough down, which.
rs it sprang back, lifted the pestle that
ground his grain.
But money was the rarest of all
ahings in our neighborhood those days.
Ptarlash, black-salts, West India pipe
ataves and RATS of timber brought
cash, but no other products of the
early settler. Late that fall my mother
gave a dance, a rude but hearty pleas
airing that followed a long conference
IN which my father had part. They
sal agreed to turn to, after snowfall, on
the overland, cut raft of timber.
and send it to Montreal in the spring.
Our things had come, including D'ri's
fiddle, 30 that We had chairs and bed
steads and other accessories of life
not common among our neighbors.
NY mother had a few jewels and some
nne old furniture that her father had
given her-really beautiful things, II
have since come to know-and she
showed them to those simple folk with
. mighty pride in her eyes.