ountry is not favourable to song,
and their melody always seemed to me "harmony not understood,"
Meanwhile, for the last half-hour, Sybel has been busily engaged in
cooking, at which the natives are most expeditious and expert. I know
not how they would be in other countries, but I know that at home they
are first-rate--no other can come up to them in using the materials and
implements they are possessed of. By the accustomed sun-mark on the
floor, which Sybel prefers to the clock, she sees 'tis now the hungry
hour of noon, and blows the horn for Lank to come to dinner. This horn
is a conk shell, bored at one end, and its sound is heard at a great
distance. At the hours of meal-time it may be heard from house to house,
and, ringing through the echoing woods from distant settlements, telling
us, amid their loneliness, of happy meetings at the household board; but
it comes, too, at times, when its sounds are heralds of trouble and
dismay. I have heard it burst upon the ear at the silent hour of
midnight, and, starting from sleep, seen the sky all crimsoned with the
flames of some far off dwelling, whose inmates thus called for
assistance; but long ere that assistance could be given, the fire would
have done its worst of destruction, perhaps of death. I have also heard
it, when twilight gathered darkly o'er the earth, floating sad and
mournfully since sun-set, from some dwelling in the forest's depths,
whose locality, but for the sounds, would not be known. Some member of
the family has been lost in the woods, and the horn is blown to guide
him homewards through the trackless wilderness. How sweet must those
sounds be to the benighted wanderer, bearing, as they do, the voice of
the heart, and telling of love and affectionate solicitude! But
Melancthon has driven his ox-team to the barn, and now, with the baby on
his lap, which, like all the blue-noses, he loves to nurse, sits down to
table, where we join him. The dinner, as is often the case in the
backwoods in summer, is "a regular pick-up one," that is, composed of
any thing and every thing. People care little for meat in the hot
weather; and, in fact, a new settler generally uses his allowance of
beef and pork during the long winter, so that the provision for summer
depends principally on fish, with which the country is amply supplied,
and the produce of the dairy. The present meal consists of fine trout
from the adjoining stream, potatoes white as snow-balls, and,
pulve