Number) regarded the kind old body, soon
endeared to her the new home which Providence had assigned to her.
Her accounts of Mrs. N - -, and her family, soon deeply interested
me in her fate; and Jenny never went to visit her friends in Dummer
without an interchange of good wishes passing between us.
The year of the Canadian rebellion came, and brought with it sorrow
into many a bush dwelling. Old Jenny and I were left alone with the
little children, in the depths of the dark forest, to help ourselves
in the best way we could. Men could not be procured in that
thinly-settled spot for love nor money, and I now fully realised the
extent of Jenny's usefulness. Daily she yoked the oxen, and brought
down from the bush fuel to maintain our fires, which she felled and
chopped up with her own hands. She fed the cattle, and kept all
things snug about the doors; not forgetting to load her master's two
guns, "in case," as she said, "the ribels should attack us in our
retrate."
The months of November and December of 1838 had been unnaturally
mild for this iron climate; but the opening of the ensuing January
brought a short but severe spell of frost and snow.
