night. I much
doubt if she has as good! God bless her!

At the head and foot of the table sit the father and mother, and
Alexander, Jean, and Donald, with the missionary and myself, make up
the company. The children take their tea in silence but for a
whispered request now and then, or a reply to some low-toned direction
from the mother. They listen interested in their elders' talk, and
hugely amused at the jokes. There is no pert interjection of smart
sayings, so awful in ill-trained children of ill-bred parents. They
have learned that ancient and almost forgotten doctrine that children
should be seen. I tell my best stories and make my pet jokes just to
see them laugh. They laugh, as they do everything else, with a gentle
reserve; and occasionally Jean, a girl of fifteen, shy like the rest,
pulls herself up with a blush lest she has been unduly moved to
laughter. The mother presides over all with a quiet efficiency, taking
keen, intelligent interest in the conversation, now and then putting a
revealing question, all the while keeping a watchful eye upon the
visitors' plates lest they should come near being empty.

The talk goes back to the old times. But these people talk with
difficulty when their theme is themselves. But my interest and
questions draw their story from them.

Fifteen years ago the father and mother left the cozy Glasgow home and
the busy life of that busy city, and came over sea and land with their
little girl and baby boy to Winnipeg. There they lived for two years,
till with the land-yearning in their hearts they came out from the town
to this far-back spot away beyond the Marshes. Here they cut out of
the forest their home, and here they have lived amid the quiet, cool
woods ever since, remote from the bustle and heat of the great world.

"Why to this place instead of to any other?" I ask.

"There was the hay from the Marshes to be sold, and the wood, too,"
answered the little man. "But," he went on, "I could not make much out
of the wood, and I was too old to learn, so I gave it up, and went into
Winnipeg to work at my trade. And, indeed," he added cheerfully, "I
made very good wages of it."

I look at him and think of the day when he gave up the fight with the
wood, and came in beaten to tell his wife how he must go to the city.
I know she smiled at him, her heart going down the while, and cheered
him, though she was like to despair at the thought of the lonely
winter. Ah