_ CHAPTER XIX
The second year which I spent at Uncle Nathan's was one which I often since called to mind as the happiest of my life. The days glided by in the busy routine of school duties, and my evenings were spent in study varied by social enjoyment. I was never too busy to respond to grandma's request that I should leave my lessons or play for an hour and read to her. I had learned to regard this aged relative with much affection; even as a child I believe I was of a reflective cast of mind, and Grandma Adams was the first very old person with whom I had been intimately associated. And often as I sat by her side and watched the firelight as it shone upon her silvery hair, and lighted up her venerable and serene countenance, would I wonder mentally if I would ever grow as old and feeble and my hair become as white as her's. I remember one evening when I was indulging in these thoughts the old lady asked me what I was thinking about that caused me to look so serious? "I was wondering," replied I, "if I shall live to see as many years, and if my eyes will become as dim and my air grow white as yours." "My dear boy," she replied, "I suppose I seem to you like one who has travelled a long journey. At your age, ten or twenty years seemed to me almost an endless period of time, but now that I have seen more than eighty years of life the whole journey seems very short, when taking a backward view of the path over which I have travelled. It seems but as yesterday since I was a little mischief-loving school girl, when my only anxiety was how I could obtain the most play, and get along with the least study. I used then often to think how glad I would be when my school-days should be over; but how little did I then realize that I was then enjoying my happiest days; for, with many others, I now believe, our school days to be the happiest period of life. Time passed on, till I grew up, and married. I left my native place which was Salem, in the State of New Hampshire, and removed to Western Canada. When you look around, my boy, over this prosperous and growing country, with its well-cultivated farms, and numerous towns and villages, you can form no idea of what the place was like when I arrived here, fifty-six years ago last February. Your grandfather was born, and passed the days of his childhood and early youth, in Scotland, but when he was nearly grown to manhood his parents emigrated to the United States, where he resided for some years; but as he grew older he became prejudiced against the 'Yankee Rule,' as he styled the Republican Government of the United State, and, soon after our marriage, he resolved to remove to Canada. 'I desire,' said he, 'to seek a home where I hope to spend my life, be it long or short, and that home must be in a country subject to the British Government under which, I am proud to say, I was born, and under which I wish to die.' I was willing to make any sacrifice to please my husband, for whom I had a deep affection," and, as grandma said these words, youthful memories moistened her eyes and caused her voice to tremble, but she soon regained her composure, and continued: "I was then young and full of hope, and the trials which I knew would fall to my lot gave me no anxiety. The weather was bitter cold, during all that weary journey to our forest home in Canada. We had been married less than a year when we left our friends in New Hampshire to seek a home in this new country. The summer before my husband visited the place to purchase a lot of wild land, and build the log cabin which was to be our first shelter in the Canadian wilderness. Much as he had told me, I had formed but a very imperfect idea of the appearance of the place, till after a ten days' journey (by slow teams) through the deep snows which often impeded our way, we reached, near nightfall, the small log-hut which was to be our home. I had ever thought I possessed a good share of fortitude and resolution, but at that time it was put to a severe test. 'There Martha, is our home,' said my husband, pointing to the rude pile of logs, which stood in a cleared space, barely large enough to secure its safety from falling trees, and beyond all was a dense forest of tall trees and thick underbrush and a fast falling shower of snow (at the time) added to the gloominess of the scene. I gazed around me with sadness, almost with dismay and terror. At length I found voice to say '
can we live
here.' 'I have no doubt that we can live here, and be happy too,' replied your grandfather in a hopeful voice, 'if it pleases God to grant us health and strength to meet and, I trust, overcome, the difficulties and hardships which are the inevitable lot of the early settlers in a new country.' A man whom Mr. Adams had hired had gone before us that we might not find a fireless hearth upon our arrival; and the next day, after having become somewhat rested from the fatigues of our toilsome journey, and having arranged our small quantity of furniture with some attempt at order, I began to feel something akin to interest in our new home; but, to a person brought up as I had been, it was certainly a gloomy-looking spot; and I must own that I shed some tears for the home I had left. We were three miles from any neighbour, and in the absence of my husband I felt a childish fear of being left alone in that strange wild looking place. Time would fail me to tell you of all the hardships and privations we endured during the first years of our residence in this our new home. Lucinda there was our first child. I buried a little boy younger than Nathan. A few kind settlers gathered together and laid him in his grave without a minister to perform the rites of burial. I buried another son and daughter, and all that's left to me now are Lucinda and Nathan, and your mother, who was my youngest child; as my children grew older I learned the value of the tolerable education I had myself received. For many years such a thing as a school was out of the question, and all the leisure time I could command I spent in teaching my children. Nathan was slow at learning, but it did beat all, how smart Lucinda was at her book. I could never tell how she learned her letters; I may say she picked them up herself, and with a very little assistance was soon able to read. Other settlers came among us from time to time, and bye-and-bye we had both a school and a meeting-house. I tell you, Walter, when I now sit at the door, and look around me over the beautiful farms, with their orchards and smooth meadow-lands, and further away the gleaming spire of the village church, and hear the sharp shriek of the locomotive (I believe they call it) and call to mind the log-hut in the depth of the forest, which was, my first home on this farm, I am lost in wonder at the changes which have taken place, and I cannot help repeating the words, 'old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.' Your grandfather lived to a good old age, and, when infirmities obliged him to resign the care of the farm to our boy Nathan he enjoyed the fruits of his former industry in the comforts of a home of plenty, and the care and attention of our dutiful children. As for me I do not now look forward to a single day. I have already outlived the period of natural life and feel willing to depart whenever an all-wise Providence sees fit to remove me; but I would not be impatient and would say from my very heart: 'All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change comes.' And now, Walter, read to me, for it is past my usual time of retiring to rest." As I closed the book (after reading for half an hour) Grandma said, "I have read myself, and heard others read the Bible these many years, yet each time I listen to a chapter, I discover in it some new beauty which I had never noticed before. Truly the Bible is a wonderful book; it teaches us both how to live and how to die." _