At Half-Past Nine We Ate Supper, While A
Good Fire Crackled Cheerily In The Ingle And A Wintry Wind Blew Hard.
The Little Log Cabin Was Only Ten Feet Long, Eight Wide, And Just
High Enough Under The Roof Peak To Allow One To Stand Upright.
The
bedstead was not wide enough for two, so Le Claire spread the
blankets on the floor, and we
Gladly lay down after our long, happy
walk, our heads under the bedstead, our feet against the opposite
wall, and though comfortably tired, it was long ere we fell asleep,
for Le Claire, finding me a good listener, told many stories of his
adventurous life with Indians, bears and wolves, snow and hunger,
and of his many camps in the Canadian woods, hidden like the nests
and dens of wild animals; stories that have a singular interest to
everybody, for they awaken inherited memories of the lang, lang syne
when we were all wild. He had nine children, he told me, the youngest
eight years of age, and several of his daughters were married. His
home was in Victoria.
Next morning was cloudy and windy, snowy and cold, dreary December
weather in August, and I gladly ran out to see what I might learn. A
gray ragged-edged cloud capped the top of the divide, its snowy
fringes drawn out by the wind. The flowers, though most of them were
buried or partly so, were to some extent recognizable, the bluebells
bent over, shining like eyes through the snow, and the gentians, too,
with their corollas twisted shut; cassiope I could recognize under
any disguise; and two species of dwarf willow with their seeds
already ripe, one with comparatively small leaves, were growing in
mere cracks and crevices of rock-ledges where the dry snow could not
lie.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 81 of 316
Words from 22031 to 22334
of 85542
