ns, and fish require no fences
to keep them from the fields. His wife's skill, however, in managing the
dairy department, is, when butter rates well in the market, their chief
dependence; and he, when he chooses to work, which he would much rather
do for another than himself, can earn enough in one day, if he take
truck, to keep him three, and but that he prefers fixing cucumbers to
thrashing, and making moccasins to clearing land, he might do well
enough. Though poor, he is none the least inclined to grovel, but, with
the spirit of his land, feels quite at ease in company with any judge or
general in the country.

Having declined his invitation to enter the log erection,--which in
another country would hardly be styled a house, he having still delayed
to enclose the gigantic frame, whose skeleton form was reared hard
by--he gave his opinion of the weather at present, with some shrewd
guesses as to what it would be in future; regarding the smoke wreaths
from the fires around (there were none on his land however), he said, it
reminded him of the fire in Miramichi. "How long is it, old woman," said
he, turning to his wife, who had now joined us, "since that ere
burning?" "Well," said she, "I aint exactly availed to tell you right
off how many years it is since, but I guess our Jake was a week old when
it happened."

Now, as the burning of Miramichi was one of the most interesting
historical events in the province records, we gave him the date, which
was some twenty years since; this also gave us the sum of Jacob's
lustres--rather few considering he had planted a tater patch on shares,
and laid out to marry in the fall.

"Well," said he, "You may depend that was a fire--my hair curls yet when
I think of it--it was the same summer we got married, and Washington
Welford having been out a timber-hunting with me the fall afore, we
discovered a most elegant growth of pine--I never see'd before nor since
the equal on it--regular sixty footers, every log on 'em--the trees
stood on the banks of the river, as if growing there on purpose to be
handy for rafting, and we having got a first-rate supply from our
merchants in town, toted our things with some of the old woman's house
trumpery to the spot--we soon had up a shanty, and went to work in right
airnest. There was no mistake in Wash; he was as clever a fellow as ever
I knowed, and as handsome a one--seven feet without his shoes--eyes like
diamonds, and hair slick as silk; whe