te simply from a
desire to show that "life in the Bush" is not to be entered into
without solemn and serious reflection.

Their first undertaking was to clear an acre or two of the forest, and
crop it with grain and potatoes; then to build a log-house. In all
this they were assisted by friends and neighbours as far as the
limited means of those friends and neighbours, who were all similarly
engaged, and the settlement containing not more than four or five
families, would admit of.

My young friend really set his shoulder to the wheel, and did not call
upon Hercules whiningly. He had a fondness for carpenter's work, and,
having cut down the huge pine trees on his _lot_, for so a property is
called in Canada West, he hewed them, squared them, and dovetailed
them; he quarried stone with infinite toil, burnt lime, and in the
short space of two years had a decent log-palace, consisting of two
large rooms, and a kitchen and cellar, with an excellent chimney, a
well which he dug himself, and a very large framed barn, which he
built himself, the only outlay being for nails, shingles to cover his
roofs, and boards. These he had to bring with oxen and a waggon from
the saw-mills at Percy, many miles off, and by the most hideous road I
ever saw, even in Canada. He split his own rails, made his own fences,
and cleared his own forest. This first settlement was commenced in
1840, and, when I saw it in 1845, he had nearly thirty acres cleared,
and this clearance and his really good house let to a settler just
arrived.

By one of those freaks of fortune unforeseen and unaccountable, a
connexion, who occupied the adjacent farm of two hundred acres, and
had had the command of money, died, and his property was left to the
young couple.

This gentleman, in the course of six or seven years, from the first
settlement of this portion of Canada, had built an excellent house,
had cleared a hundred acres, had a good garden, and everything which a
settler could desire, with a well-stocked farm-yard, and a
well-furnished house, into which my young friend stepped from his
log-palace and became monarch of all he surveyed.

But money, the sinews of war, was wanted; for, although the land,
house, goods, and chattels became his, the funds went to another
person, all but a trifling annual sum.

The young couple had now a family growing about them, and, as they
were very old friends of mine, they asked me to come and see "life in
the Bush."

F