The grown flour, frosted potatoes, and scant quantity
of animal food rendered us all weak, and the children suffered much
from the ague.
One day, just before the snow fell, Moodie had gone to Peterborough
for letters; our servant was sick in bed with the ague, and I was
nursing my little boy, Dunbar, who was shaking with the cold fit of
his miserable fever, when Jacob put his honest, round, rosy face in
at the door.
"Give me the master's gun, ma'am; there's a big buck feeding on the
rice-bed near the island."
I took down the gun, saying, "Jacob, you have no chance; there is
but one charge of buck-shot in the house."
"One chance is better nor none," said Jacob, as he commenced loading
the gun. "Who knows what may happen to oie? Mayhap oie may chance to
kill 'un; and you and the measter and the wee bairns may have zummut
zavory for zupper yet."
Away walked Jacob with Moodie's "Manton" over his shoulder. A few
minutes after, I heard the report of the gun, but never expected to
see anything of the game; when Jacob suddenly bounced into the room,
half-wild with delight.
"Thae beast iz dead az a door-nail. Zure, how the measter will
laugh when he zees the fine buck that oie a'zhot."
"And have you really shot him?"
"Come and zee! 'Tis worth your while to walk down to the landing
to look at 'un."
Jacob got a rope, and I followed him to the landing, where, sure
enough, lay a fine buck, fastened in tow of the canoe. Jacob soon
secured him by the hind legs to the rope he had brought; and, with
our united efforts, we at last succeeded in dragging our prize home.
All the time he was engaged in taking off the skin, Jacob was
anticipating the feast that we were to have; and the good fellow
chuckled with delight when he hung the carcass quite close to the
kitchen door, that his "measter" might run against it when he came
home at night. This event actually took place. When Moodie opened
the door, he struck his head against the dead deer.
"What have you got here?"
"A fine buck, zur," said Jacob, bringing forward the light, and
holding it up in such a manner that all the merits of the prize
could be seen at a glance.
"A fine one, indeed! How did we come by it?"
"It was zhot by oie," said Jacob, rubbing his hands in a sort
of ecstacy. "Thae beast iz the first oie ever zhot in my life.
He! he! he!"
"You shot that fine deer, Jacob? - and there was only one charge
in the gun! Well done; you must have taken good aim."
"Why, zur, oie took no aim at all.
