CHAPTER VIII.
SNOW-SHOEING is one of the national sports of Canada, in which mostCanadians, big and little, are proficient. Marjorie and her cousin wereno exception to the rule, and Jackie proved a very apt pupil. He soonlearned to avoid striking one snow-shoe against the other, and fellquickly into that long, easy swing, which makes the snowy miles go by soquickly. Sometimes the three children tramped on the broad, frozenriver, but that was a cold place when there was any wind, so theygenerally chose the hill-roads or the woods. Nothing, Dora thought,could be more beautiful than those woods in winter, with the whitedrifts around the grayish tree-trunks, the firs and hemlocks rising likegreen islands out of a snowy sea, and the wonderful tracery of brownboughs against the pale blue of the sky. Once, Mr. and Mrs. Merrithewwent with them for a moonlight tramp, and that was something never to beforgotten.
It was just after a heavy snowfall, and the evergreens were weighed downwith a white covering that sparkled and glittered as with innumerablejewels. Another favourite amusement was coasting,--not tobogganing, butgood, old-fashioned coasting, generally on College Hill, but sometimesdown the steep bank of the river. Coasting parties were frequent, and itwas a pretty sight to see the hill dotted with blanket-coated and toquedor tam-o'-shantered figures, and pleasant to hear the merry voices andlaughter as the sleds skimmed swiftly down the road.
The winters in Eastern Canada, though cold, are wonderfully bright andclear, and the air is so free from dampness that one does not realizehow cold it sometimes becomes, unless one consults the thermometer.Canadians, as a rule, spend a great deal of time in the open air inwinter as well as summer, and are as hardy a race as can be foundanywhere, but when they _are_ indoors they like their houses good andwarm,--no half-measures, no chilly passages and draughty bedrooms forthem!
Mr. Merrithew did not keep horses, but occasionally he would hire a bigthree-seated sleigh and take the family for a delightful spin. Theywould all be warmly wrapped in woollens and furs, and snuggled inbuffalo-robes; the bells would jingle merrily, the snow would "skreak"under the horses' feet, and the white world slip by them like a dream.
One day, about the middle of February, Mrs. Merrithew announced, atbreakfast, that it was high time for the drive to Hemlock Point, whichMr. Merrithew had been promising them all winter. As the latter quiteagreed with this idea, they decided to go on the following morning,spend a long day with the friends they always visited there, and returnby moonlight. Hemlock Point was somewhere between ten and twenty milesup-river,--it does not always do to be too exact,--and their friendslived in a quaint old farmhouse, on high ground, well back from theriver-bank.
That evening, when they sat in the Den after lessons were done, Marjorietold Dora about the good folk who lived there,--an old bachelor farmer,the most kind-hearted and generous of men, but as bashful as a boy; histwo unmarried sisters, who managed his house and thought they managedhim, but really spoilt him to his heart's content; and an orphan niece,who had lived with them for several years, and who was the only modernelement in their lives. She graphically described the old loom, the bigand little spinning-wheels, and the egg-shell china, till Dora was asanxious as Jackie for to-morrow to come.
The three-seated sleigh and the prancing horses were at the door of theBig Brick House by eight the next morning, for the drive would be longand the load heavy, and it was well to be early on the way. The girlsand Jackie wore their blanket-suits,--Dora's and Jackie's crimson andMarjorie's bright blue,--and Mrs. Merrithew herself, snugly wrapped infurs, brought a grand supply of extra cloaks and shawls. She was alwaysprepared for any emergency. Mr. Merrithew said that he never knew herfail to produce pins, rope, a knife, and hammer and nails, if they wereneeded. But the hammer and nails she repudiated, and said it was twine,not rope, she carried! The sky was a little overcast when they started,but the prospect of a snow-storm did not daunt them in the least.
The bells, of which there were a great many on the harness, kept up amusical, silvery accompaniment to the conversation, as the horses swungat a good speed along the level. When the hills began to rise, the paceslackened, and the passengers had a better chance to enjoy the beautiesspread on both sides of the road.
"But oh, you ought to see it in summer!" Marjorie said, when Dorapraised the varied and lovely landscapes. "There are so many things yetfor you to see all around here. You will have to stay two or three yearsmore at least!"
But Dora laughed at this.
"What about all the things there are for you to see in Montreal?" shesaid. "What about the Ice Palace, and--"
"Please tell about the Ice Palace, Dora," Jack interrupted. "That mustbe a gorlious sight!"
So Dora tried to give her cousins some idea of the great palace ofglittering ice, and the hundreds of snow-shoers, in bright costumes andcarrying torches, gathered together to storm this fairylike fortress.
"It must be fine," said Marjorie, when the story was done, "but I'drather storm Hemlock Point, and get fried chicken and buttermilk as thespoils of war."
Marjorie, being a tremendous home-girl, generally tried to change thesubject if Dora made any allusions to a possible visit of Marjorie aloneto Montreal. She could not bear the thought of parting with Dora, but topart with mother and Daddy and Jack would be three times worse!
The last part of the road was decidedly hilly, and the horses took suchadvantage of Mr. Merrithew's consideration for their feelings, thatJackie, lulled by the slow motion and the sound of the bells, fellasleep against his mother's shoulder, and knew no more till he woke ona couch in Miss Grier's sitting-room. The oldest Miss Grier--whom everyone called Miss Prudence--was bustling about, helping Marjorie and Doraoff with their things, and giving advice to Miss Alma, who was hasteningto start a fire in the great old-fashioned Franklin. Miss Dean, theniece, was taking off Mrs. Merrithew's overboots, in spite of her politeprotests. Jackie's eyes were open for some moments before any onenoticed him; then he startled them by saying, in perfectly wide-awaketones:
"I think, Miss Lois Dean, you are the very littlest lady in the world!"
Miss Dean, who certainly could not well be smaller and be calledgrown-up at all, and whose small head was almost weighted down by itsmass of light hair, looked at her favourite with twinkling eyes.
"Never mind, Jackie, the best goods are often done up in small parcels;and I'm big enough to hold you on my lap while I tell you stories, whichis the main thing, isn't it?"
"Yes, indeed," Jack cried, jumping up to hug her, which resulted in thepretty hair getting loosened from its fastenings and tumbling in wildconfusion around the "littlest lady," where she sat on the floor.
"Now you are a fairy godmother! Now you are a fairy godmother!"exclaimed Jackie, dancing around her.
"Then I will put a charm upon you at once," Lois said. "No more dancing,no more noise, no more _anything_, until we get the wraps all off andput away; then you and I will go and--fry chicken--and sausages--fordinner!"
The last part of the sentence was whispered in Jack's ear, and causedhim to smile contentedly, and to submit without a murmur to the processof unwrapping.
After dinner,--which did great credit to Lois and her assistant,--theygathered around the Franklin in the sitting-room, with plates of"sops-of-wine" and golden pippins within easy reach, and Mr. Grier andMr. Merrithew talked farming and politics, while Miss Prudence recountedany episodes of interest that had taken place at or near Hemlock Pointduring the past year.
Mrs. Merrithew, who had spent her summers here as a girl, knew every onefor miles around, and loved to hear the annals of the neighbourhood,told in Miss Prudence's picturesque way, with an occasional pithycomment from Miss Alma.
Dora sat, taking in with eager eyes the view of hill and intervale,island and ice-bound river; then turning back to the cosey interior,with its home-made carpet, bright curtains, and large bookcase withglass doors.
After a little while Lois, who saw that the children were growing wearyof sitting still, proposed a stroll through the house, to whic
h theygladly consented. Katherine asked if she might go with them, and theyleft "the enchanted circle around the fire," and crossed the hall to the"best parlour,"--which Miss Prudence always wished to throw open in Mrs.Merrithew's honour, and which the latter always refused to sit in,because, as she frankly said, it gave her the shivers. This was not onaccount of any ill-taste in the furnishing, but because it was alwayskept dark and shut up, and Mrs. Merrithew said it could not be madecheery all of a sudden. The children, however, loved the long room, andthe mysterious feeling it gave them when they first went in, and had togrope their way to the windows, draw back the curtains, and put up theyellow Venetian blinds, letting the clear, wintry light into thisshadowy domain. This light brought out the rich, dark colours of thecarpet, and showed the treasures of chairs and tables that would havemade a collector's mouth water. There was a round table of polishedmahogany in the centre of the room, a tiny butternut sewing-table in onecorner, and against the wall, on opposite sides of the room, tworosewood tables, with quaint carved legs, and feet of shining brass. Onthe tables lay many curious shells, big lumps of coral, and rare,many-coloured seaweeds,--for there had been a sailor-uncle in thefamily,--annuals and beauty-books in gorgeous bindings, albums throughwhich the children looked with never-failing delight, work-boxes andportfolios inlaid with mother-of-pearl; almost all the treasures of thefamily, in fact, laid away here in state, like Jean Ingelow's dead year,"shut in a sacred gloom."
When this room had been inspected and admired, they lowered the blinds,drew the curtains, and left it again to its solitude. The rest of thehouse was much less awe-inspiring, but it was all delightful. The loom,now seldom or never used, stood in one corner of the kitchen. Not faraway was the big spinning-wheel. Miss Dean tried to teach them to spin,and when they found it was not so easy as it looked, gave them aspecimen of how it should be done that seemed almost magical. There is,indeed, something that suggests magic about spinning,--the rhythmicallystepping figure, the whirling brown wheel, the rolls of wool, changed bya perfectly measured twirl and pull into lengths of snow-white yarn, andthe soothing, drowsy hum, the most restful sound that labour canproduce.
Then there was the up-stairs to visit. The chief thing of interest therewas the tiny flax-wheel which stood in the upper hall, and whichcertainly looked, as Jack said, as if _it_ ought to belong to a fairygodmother. In the attic, great bunches of herbs hung drying from therafters, and the air was sweet with the scent of them. There were sage,summer-savoury, sweet marjoram, sweet basil, mint, and many more, withnames as fragrant as their leaves. On the floor, near one of thechimneys, was spread a good supply of butternuts, and strings of driedapples stretched from wall to wall at the coolest end of the one bigroom.
"If I lived in this house," Dora said, "I would come up here often andwrite,--try to write, I mean!"
"I come up here often and read," Miss Dean said, with a quick glance ofcomprehension at the little girl's eager face. "I love it! Andsometimes, when I feel another way and it's not too cold, I put up oneblind in the best parlour, and sit in there."
"I wish you were coming down to sit in mother's den, and read--andtalk--and everything!" said Marjorie, and the others echoed the wish.
"So I am, some time or other," Lois answered. "Mrs. Merrithew has askedme, and now it's just a question of how soon Aunt Prudence can spare me.That may be next week,--or it may be next winter!"
"It may be for years and it may be for ever," Dora quoted, laughing, andJackie added, "and then--when you do come--we will make you a Son andDaughter of Canada right away!"
The search for the egg-shell china took them back to the sitting-room,where Lois begged Miss Prudence to exhibit this most fragile of herbelongings. With natural pride, that lady unlocked a china-closet, andbrought out specimens of the beautiful delicate ware which theirgrandmother had brought over with her from Ireland, and of which, in allthese years, only three articles had been broken. It certainly wasexquisite stuff, delicately thin, of a rich cream-colour, and with giltlines and tiny wreaths of pink and crimson roses.
"I thought we would have them out for tea," Miss Alma suggested, butMrs. Merrithew, with three children, all rather hasty in theirmovements, to look after, begged her not to think of such a thing.
"Your white and gold china is pretty enough for any one;" she said,"and, my dear Prudence, if you are determined to give us tea after thatbig dinner, we will have to ask for it soon, or we will be spending mostof the night on the road."
"Dear, dear!" said Miss Prudence, putting back her treasures tenderly,"it does seem as if you'd been here about half an hour, and I do hate tohave you go! But I know how you feel about being out late with thechildren, and you won't stay all night. Come along, Alma, let's hustleup some tea, and let Lois talk to Mrs. Merrithew awhile."
And "hustle" they certainly did, spreading a board that groaned with thegood old-fashioned dainties, for the cooking of which Miss Prudence wasnoted throughout the country. Then the horses were brought to the door,tossing their heads in haste to be off, wraps were snugly adjusted,good-byes said many times, and they were off.
"I believe Grier has given these horses nothing but oats all day," Mr.Merrithew muttered, as the pretty beasts strained and tugged in theiranxiety to run down-hill; but when it came to the up-hill stretches,they soon sobered down, and were content with a reasonable pace. Warmand cosey, nestled against his mother, Jackie soon slept as before; butthe others, with rather a reckless disregard of their throats, sang songafter song, in spite of the frosty air, and dashed up to the door ofthe Big Brick House, at last, to the sound of:
"'Twas from Aunt Dinah's quilting party I was seeing Nellie home."
Our Little Canadian Cousin Page 10
