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PI By JAKSS ELLIOTT Of Parry Sound %)^WB^W&\mW&&im^^m^^^ i % I I S^ Bon, Oliver, Mowat, Attorney-General of Ontario ^^ ^ One of the best friends he has yet found in the City of Toronto, this tv %. little volume is most respectfully inscribed by its Author 3 TonoNTo, MARCH iith, me \ ii ■sfiff* ,1"^ TV'' . fffi-j.y^"? , ,- V fc T .i'?t > '■: " OLD YELLOW JACK >> AND ANOTHER OLD ROGUE. Attention, kind friends^ while a picture ' draw Of an odd little man, one " Mister John Shaw," Who sometimes sojourns inMcKellar's good borough In one place to-day, in another to-morrow. As if life were a bubble — existance a dream And himself an old cork afloat on life's stream, Driven hither and thither by wind and by wave, And carried at random to a whirlpool — the ejrave. This queer little creature some call " Yellow Jiick," With a crack in his brain and a crook in his back. A small yellow midget, or mite of a^aian, 2 "Whom winter's frosts chill and summer suns tan. Does his poor father know what his boy is about ? Does liis poor mother know little Johnny is out ? And if she should not, then pity her son, With no one to show him what things he should shun. Cheer up, little sonny, I'll try, if I can, To keep you in sight, you mischievous wee man. " Paddy Whack may go trudge it with Murtoch O'Blany," But I will look out for this poor little zany. This poor little fellow, this " Mr. John Shaw," Whose picture or portrait I've promised to draw. Without it my ballad would not be complete, And I will try hard to accomplish this feat. With a pen for a pencil endeavour to sketch This " Mr. John Bhaw" (not Mr. Jack Ketch) Ji A gaping wide mouth and grayish green eyes, A nose rather large for a man of his size. A grizzly moustache and lean lantern jawa. Are features peculiarly " Mr. John Shuw'a." His tongue is too long for a man of his weight, But then Yellow Jack, like a parrot, can prate. A grinning old monkey or chattering ape, While some people grin and some people gape And stare at the man as if lost in amaze, At the wonderful wit little Johnnie displays. A watch-dog can bark and a tom-cat can mew, A nightingale sing and a ring dove can coo, A buffalo bellow with ** might and with main," As he roams at his will o'er the wide grassy plam ; A bald eagle scream as he soars in the sky, Till he seems a dim speck then is lost to the eye ; The frogs sing in chorus in a marsh at midnight. And savage wolves howl timid hunters to fright ; A ra\6n can croak and a black crow can caw. But for talking and prate give me Mr. John Shaw, For sure he can chatter whole hours gliding by. With the garrulous tongue of a noisy magpie. This prim little, grim little, old blatherskite, Who stands in his socks about five feet in height ; Perhaps an inch more, perhaps an inch less. This matter so small we can go by a guess. But with heels to his boots three inches in length, To add to his height if not to his strength, He looks half a man as he stands among men Like a pert little bantam beside a large hen. His bent figure shaped something like a baboon, With its feet on tho earth and its eyes on the moon, His shoulders too broad for the size of his frame. His chest is too shallow, but who is to blame For these faults in his structure, I really don't know Unless both his parents the reasons could show. If both are alive, but if they are dead Why let the poor creatures just rest in their bed. And leave their poor pigmy to dig and to delve. Till life's weary burden he also shall shelve, To hard work bound by fate with strong iron bandg, If you doubt it, just look at his big horny hands, 4 That to long arms appended bang down on each side, And with pendulum swing, keep time with his stride As he slouches and shuffles, and stumbles along, For his short shaky shanks are not very strong. This crotchety cute caricature on men With flat feet encased in boots number ten, But should it turn out, as it might after all, TLat the size I have named is rather too small. Pick out for him please a strong pair number twelve, And start him in them on " our railroad " to delve ; Tho' this kind of labour be not to his mind, Far less honest work more strongly inclined, For which I have got little reason to thank This cunning old coon and covetous crank. And this is one reason, deny it who can, Why Yellow Jack is a contemptible man. Our Bible is true and its precepts are right, Tho' a million Bob Ingersols splutter with spite. Bob's name should be angersoul surely enough, So prone to destroy with his infidel stuff The souls of the people whom Jesus would save. He leaves them with beasts a resurrectionless grave. But this subject so large, while mine is so small, I can but give it a glance, one glance that is all. And turn me again to old Yellow Jack, Determined to give him another good whack. That he richly deserves it I am sure you will own, When cause and occasion to you are made known. Then keep your mind free from surmising me wrong, Until you have read to the end of my song. And the facts in ibis case I can clearly explain, When perhaps you will tell me to hit him again. This old man is married and has for his wife, A nice little woman, his magnet in life. Who so tidily keeps his little log cot, That my friend, Billy Beard, might envy his lot. For he has long lived a lone bachelor life ; His neat and trim home, uncheer d by a wife ', t 5 0. \ No baby to dandle or nurse on his knee, Only Tommy and Tim for companions has he. How sad, and how lonely must time pass with him, His only companions poor Tommy and Tim. When cow-bells are tinkling on the road-side afar, And "Andy's" lamp shining a bright little star, How lonely his own little lamp he will light, To make his own bed to retire for the night. Sut o'er tl)is sad scene a^curtain I draw ; Sach a case seems at variaDoe with a wonderful law, At creation ordained as a rule and a ^uide, *y the wisdom of God for a world wild and wide. I know from experience, a good and true wife Is a boon, is a balm, is a blessing in life. Such a loving companion, and affectionate friend, So prompt needed help in life's struggles to lend. In the troubles of life and its trials severe, So hopeful, so helpful, trustworthy, sincere. For one I can pity my friend Billy Beard, Who such a companionship never has shared ; And such a dear partnership never has known ; He lives for himself, with himself all alone. His chance for true happiness surely is slim, With none to care for him but Tommy and Tim. But as o'er his sad lot it were useless to mourn ; To old Jack again my attention I turn, Who hardly deserves such an excellent wife ; He hardly deserves such good luck in life ; For does it not stand in reason and law, Such a gift is too good for " Mr. John Shaw." So prompt the bad will of a bad master to serve ; So prone from the path of duty to swerve, That I verily think a tawny old squaw Would make a good mate for " Mr. John Shaw " ; Or that an old Negress, an ebony black, Would make a nice wife for " Old Yellow Jack." With elbow to elbow, they could show themselves round Like a couple of geese just free'd from a pound. And now for my reasons for writing this song, I am sure you will own they are valid and strong ; For I am not writing from malice or spite. But to puninh gross wrong, and uphold truth and right ; To expose fraud and falsehood as against good and true, Is the aim and the end I now have in view. An old rascal who hoped his neighbor to rob, Sought Yellow Jack's aid to help with the job Who readily joined in the heathenish plot ; But very poor pay for his trouble he got ; And such luck^attend all in a business like this ; May their schemes ever fail, and their aims ever miss, Who, contrary to reason, religion and right. The commandments of God most wickedly slight. Urged on by vile greed, and covetous lust Eating into their hearts, like mildew and rust ; With Communistic creed, against common senae. Endeavor to live at another's expense. To all sense of shame and decency lost. Endeavor to live at another one's cost ; And directly transgressing the just laws of God, 8 ^» Seek mammon to get by falsehood and fraud. 'Tis such kind of people, we oftentimes see Standing in the dark shadow ,ot a black gallows tree ; And well-informed men most certainly know 'Tis from such kind of seed that gallows-trees grow. But the ir.danest of all mean people are they Who try such vile tricks on their neighbors to play, A black reptile is he who can cunningly plan To plunder and pillage a poor laboring man Of the little he owns, of his cottage or land, With greed gloating eye and felonious hand, More manly, straightforward the highwayman's act. Asking money or life as a matter of fact ; Less mean the mean thief, who shunning daylight Seeko a henroost to rob in the s'lence of night, Thau this fox with two legs, or weasel or skunk. Who in excuse for his deed could not even plead '• drunk," Though he surely could plead a strong love of self, And a consuming desire for lucre and pelf, aU other instincts almost dead, if not quite, But thope of a wolf or a ravenous kite. You may apply these "remarks" to " Mr. John Shaw," T •»9 T Oi to " another old rogue " with a vulturine claw, Whose doings and deeds I may sometime rehears* In full flowing prose or smooth running verse. A close visaged, dark featured, undersized man, Whom I will describe as well as I can, A presumptuous, assertive, self-satisfied elf Who, if all thought of him, as he thinks of himself Would stand very high among the men of our land Fill an office of honour, or a place of command, This cynical boor, and ignorant clown, Whose head a fool's cap would fittingly crown. As full of conceit as a bloated old frog Who fancies itself the king of the bog, And with a log for a throne — the summer night long. Tires even the stars, with egotist song. As vain as a gobbler, strutting proudly around, Hia tail a spread fan — wings tracking the ground, As proud as a peacock, while lacking its train He looks on his betters, with an eye of disdain. But to tell the plain truth, quite candid and frank In the brigade of fools, he will head the front rank. Should he further provoke Pat Prodpen to write To expose his mean deeds, and dark ways to the light Why can he not let his neighbours alone Nor act like a cur snarling over a bone ? If his heart was not soak'd in asp venom and gall 10 «f» And all shrivell'd up like a wither'd puff ball This little soul'd creature, narrow minded, ob- scure, Whom the vengence of God will follow for sure. A just God will certainly shorten his da}- 3, Unless he abandons his bad crooked wavs. But let us all hope this wicked old man, May forsake his mean ways as soon as he can, Get a changed heart> and lead a new life, With religion and reason no longer at strife, A life thus amended if this person shall live, Pat Prodpen will freely forget and forgive, Forgive and forget, as if wholly unkoown, The deeds ^e has done, and the will he has shown. Not for hit own, but for the sake of his wife, A good wcrthy woman — an example in life. These toasts I propose to your health Mrs. — Let all honor good women in hut as in hall, May good mothers and wives — strong props of our land, Ever firm for God's laws, and pure principles stand — Good God-fearing women and matrons for whom, When earth's roses faua. Heaven's roses will bloom, Who will find a safe haven in Heaven at last. When this life with its scenes and its sorrows is past. They are always prepared for the grave's silent night, By keeping their God and Redeemer in sight, Whose praise they will sing with their latest drawn breath As they enter the "valley of the shadow of death." That mysterious vale, illumined afar By the clear and bright light of the luminous star That sheds light o'er the graves where God's peo- ple repose. Under India's hot sands — under Labrador snows. I have written this ballad with ink that a friend With other materials most kindly did send, — Good pens, ink and paper, and all in a trice. To have found such « friend was certainly nice, m> o 11 m Who also haEi promised — (oh, estatic bliss !) To grant me a still greater favour than this. His name in this ballad I will not disclose, But let it in peace and in silence repose ; Not anxious to have it mix'd up in my brogue, "With " old Yellow Jack" and " another old rogue." Here " brogue" does not mean a batter'd old boot, That a poor man like me oft wears on his foot, But an odd manner in accent or style Peculiar to people from Erin's green isle. Peculiar to some, perhaps 1 should say. For all Erin's children don't talk in this way. And now, my dear friends, my song I conclude By wishing you all and each one every good. Very likely, with me, you naa^ before long Take another trip to the dreamland of song ; If plenty of time I had at command, I could show you scenes in that wonderful land. March, 1885. McKellab. Before proceeding to explain my reasons for not having written this book sooner, as well as my reasons for writing it at all, I would most gratefully tender my best thanks to the many kind friends and patrons who Lave so kindly and generously given me a helping hand on my rough journey of life, and which, but for their great kindness and consideration, I would find a deal more rough and rugged, and I feel proud to be able to rank among them the wealthiest, the most respectable, most in- telligent, most popular and prosperous people in every place I have yet visited. Should any cavil- ling critic feel disposed to question the truth of this assertion, I would refer him to the list of names which I have taken the liberty of publishing as a sHght expression of my gratitude. This little book will make the seventh I have written and pub- lished. My first was (except a short preface) al- together in rhyme, and was printed at the Chris- tian Guardian office more than 30 years ago. I will give one short specimen of its contents to show 12 that the satirical vein was as strongly developed in my composition then as it is now : ** WHAT FANNY 18. " Fanny is old — would be thought young ; Fanny is bold — loose at the tongue ; Fanny is proud ; Fanny is vain ; Fanny is loud — prone to complain ; Fanny is tall ; Fanny is slim ; Fanny is all frigid and prim." But my father did not approve of my writing such a love-sick doggeral ditty sort of a book, as he was a good man and a Methodist class leader, so out of deference to him I gave up this business, and threw the best years of my life away playing the ragRed role of a bush farmer in the township of King and then that of a pioneer settler in the free grant district of Parry Sound, a rough, rugged, rocky region, the centre of which ia about 200 miles north of Toronto. After a long lapse of time I again resumed the book business. The second book I got printed was not my own composition, but the product of the brain of my eldest son, only about 14 when he wrote it. Morton & Co., of Adelaide-st., were the printers. The success of this venture was sucii as to encourage me to try my hand again, and as Morton & Co. had given me so little satisfaction in the way they performed the job for me, I sought for another printer for my third venture. Messrs. Moore & Bengough, the Grip Publishing Company, printed three consecutive books for me, and to these gentlemen, and to their (then) excellent foreman or manager of their Job Printing Department, I owe my sincere thanks, not only for the kind, considerate treatment I received from them, but for the entire satisfaction they gave me in the performance of the jobs I gave them. In my h imble opinion Messrs. Moore and ^. W. Ben- gough are among the most gifted and talented men in our Dominion, and as a consequence they have met with almost phenomenal success. My sixth book I got printed in the Mail building, one of the li t \:., 13 •«H finest stractures of its kind on the North American continent. It is a credit to the noble and beauti- ful city of which it is so conspicuous an orna- ment, and of which city I am very much pleased to have the honor of being a native, and all the more so as it has so recently shown itself so much self-respect and done itself so much credit by elect- ing by an overwhelming majority as its chief mag- istrate one of the noblest men it could find within its limits, the Hon W. H. Rowland. I never felt so much interest in the result of any election as I felt in the result of this one, and I was jubilantly glad at Mr. Rowland's most triumphant victory. T saw his opponent. Manning, a few days after the election, entering a grog hole or a drunken dive on the north side of King Street, a few yards west of Toronto Street, and feeling auite curious for a closer acquaintance with this egotistical old man, I followed him into the bar-room and asked him if he would please buy one of my little books, "only ten cents." The only answer I received was a stupid stare from a pair of dull, heavy, list- less-looking eyes; my manner was very respectful, and he could not have had the least idea but that I sympathised with him to the very echo, and even to the shedding of tears in his quite recent and most thorough and humiliating defeat; yet, notwithstanding this, a big pot-bellied, bloated- faced, blubbery-eyed, spindle-shanked old fellow told me to ;o out, and I went out from the sick- ening atmosphere of this whiskey den, into the pure air of heaven, when I found standing on the door-step of this half-way house to the sulphur and brimstone regions " down south," a rather dilapidated-looking individual dressed in a seedy suit of clothes, his face as round as the face of the full moon — " comparisons are odious," and here I haidly chinn the moon will feel pleased with the reflection this one might cast upon her own fair countenance, as the poor unfortunate fellow's face was covered with blotches and pustules, as if he was suffering from the itch, or some kindred dis- 14 •r ease. I told him he was one of Manning's sign- posts. I saw Mr. Rowland a day or two after- wards, and he treated me as a large-hearted, liberal-minded gentleman always treats me ; he very kindly shook hands with me, and wrote his name in my canvassing-book for my new book, giving me 25c. Mr. Rowland is not only a re- markably handsome and prepossessing-looking gentleman, but he is also a man of remarkably fine and well developed physical proportions. I would avail myself of the opportunity of ten- dering my most heartfelt thanks to the good lady voters of my native city for the cordial and enthusiastic support they so unanimously gave Mr. Howland (God bless them), as some slight acknowleagment I will pay them the com- pliment of observing that nothing has given me such a strong, clear and well-defined idea of the transcendant beauty of the bright inhabitants of heaven as the exceedingly beautiful female faces I have sometimes met with in ihe streets of To- ronto. I do not grudge this long digression, as I sincerely desired to contribute my "Widow's mite" towards the cause of truth and good government and the upward heavenward progress of the good people of Toronto. And now I must proceed to explain the reason why I did not write this little booK in the Fall of '84, as I proposed, instead of writing it, as I am doing now, earlv in the year 1886, but the lives of the child^ren of this fluctuat- ing world, and their outgoings and incomings are in the hands of an inconceivably Almighty God, to whom the stars are but a ruby-gamed and bedia- monded stairway to His home in the highest heaven of heavens, of whose power the greatest and most enlarged mind that ever existed upon earth could only grasp the faintest resem' lance of an idea. But I leave such a theme for one be- yond all comparison more within the range of my extremely limited powers. To proceed with my "narrative": Early in the month of September, 1884, my wife fell ill with one of the most danger- •* i I 16 ^H 0U8 and protract 3d spells of sickness she has ever experienced ; and as no earthly consideration could have induced me to leave her in such a critical condition even for one day, or at the worst for one hour, all thoughts of going outside to " write another book," were for that time entirely abandoned ; her life was dearer to me than my own life ; and I did feel strong emotions of grati- tude to God when, after weary weeks of weakness and suffering, it pleased Him to gradually restore her to her usual good health. But this earth is not the abiding home of unmixed happiness and unalloyed delight; this is the peculiar prerogative of a brighter and better world than this, for scarcely had I rea- son to congratulate myself upon my wife's recovery when I met with an accident that confined me in- doors lor the balance of that winter (1884-'85), for while chopping on an underbrushed fallow during a bright, sunshiny, but intensely cold spell of weather in January, 1885, a small particle of flying frozen wood struck me in the right eye, causing me some pain and inconvenience, but had the weather not been so intensely cold, the sun so bright and unclouded and its reflection on the snow so strong and dazzling, this hurt to my eye might perhaps have not turned out so seriously as it did, as for several days after receiving the blow on my eyo I very foolishly exposed myself to these several evil influences against its recovery from a strong de- sire to keep at my work, grudging, as I did, the loss of time the quitting it would cause me ; but I soon found that I was as weak as a rotten reed in the iron grasp of fate, as the pain and inflammation in the eye grew so great from the intense cold and the dazzling glare of the unclouded sun on the white surface of the snow and affected the uninjured eye so much in the way of weakening its power \o keep open and on the alert, to enable me to properly attend to my work, that I was reluctantly obliged to give up the un- equal contest with my hard fate, and retire for sympathy and shelter to a seat by my good wife's 16 kitchen stove. But this change of scene was pro- ductive of slight benefit, as the inflammation of the eye had got such a strong hold upon it, and I suff- ered in consequence such prolonged and intense pain in the eye and the right side of my head, that had it not been for my love for my wife and our little ones, I could have wish^-d for a respite from my sufferings in the quiet shelter of the grave ; yet notwithstanding the pain I suffered, I took advant- age of the leisure time this period of enforced idle- ness gave me to write the " pome " of " Old Yellow Jack " and another old rogue, these two mean, covetous creatures taking advantage of the great trouble I was in through the long and dangerous sickness of my wife, and knowing also that I would be so preoccupied in attending on and taking care of her, that I would not have time to look after anything else, wickedly went and perjured them- selves, with the object of depriving me of property to which they could not truthfully pretend to have a more valid claim than a highwayman has to the money he forces his victim to surrender at the muzzle of a revolver, or that a burglar has to the property he obtains by blowing open a safe. I had no idea that anyone in the District of Parry Sound could be so exceedingly mean, so wickedly untruth- ful and so utterly dishonest, until I called at the Crown Land Department in Toronto, this winter, jind saw how shamelessly and wickedly they had perjured themselves in the utterly false and wick- edly lying affidavits they bad sent in. It would be a cruel wrong to the hardy and industrious settlers of the District of Parry Sound for my readers "out- side " to take it for truth that these two men are samples of the kind of people who live within its limits, and it would be cruelly wrong in me not to explain that such an assumption would bo an ex- ceedingly unfair and a harshly unjust one, and very far from the truth. It was not owing to want of efforts on the part of tbese wickedly dishonest men that their nefarious designs did not succeed, but God, who looks at the hearts of men, and who y} i 17 V m ««* takes the will for the deed, will assuredly punieh them ; they carry the seeds of a heavy harvest of punishment in their own hearts and principles. I hope my readers will excuse the most just — yes righteous indignation I feel against these wretched rascals. I abominate meanness, and op- pression, and rascality, and falsehood in every form — and the result of ''is attempt on the part these wicked men to pillage and plunder me has served to give me a very high opinion of the justice and impartiality with which the business of the Crown Land Department in Toronto is conducted, and of the uoble character of the talented gentleman who stands at its head, the Hon. T. B. Pardee. I had the honor of a personal interview with this gentle- man this winter, not however, with the slightest reference to the question I have just been explain- ing, but solely and only with the object of obtain- ing his name as a subscriber for this book I am writing, and I found him a natural born gentle- man — * one of Nature's Noblemen." There is not the ghost of a chance of Mr. Pardee ever per- mitting himself to be made a pliant tool in the hands of any designing knave for the commission of any act of oppression and wrong. To resume the main " thread " of my narrative. After many days of suffering and long nights of unquiet rest the inflammation in my eye had grown so bad that on the night of Friday, the 18th day of March, '85, after I had fallen into a restless slumber — I sud- denly sprang up on my knees and elbows in bed feeling an agonizing pain in my eye and the right side of my head as if the eye had been torn out of its socket or had burst open, (the eye had really burst open like a grain of roasting popcorn), and a warm stream of what I then thought was water came out in gushes from the ruined eye-ball, each pulsation being attended by most excruciating pain. My wife afterwards told me that what I had taken for water was blood, and she innocently asked me, " Where did all that blood come from ?" thQ loss of blood was so great .; and I was floated sq 18 far into the dark valley of the shadow of death on the sanguinary stream ihat gushed from my eye that it was with the greatest difficulty my dear wife succeeded in seizing me and slowly drawing me back from its gloomy shades. I feel quite certain that had it not been for her great presence of mind, and prompt application of such remedies as were in her power, 1 would not be living now. To tell this story of my woes With big tears trickling down my nose, (But this " in fun " it may not be, That pain should wring one tear from me.) Our little daughter Elizabeth, our eldest one at home, weeping bitterly over her poor father's misfortunes and avering that she could not live four days if he died, hurried out into the cold winter night to rouse our good neighbor John Fletcher out of his warm bed to go to McKellar Village for Dr. Caughell. This worthy doctor was a real boon to the people of McKellar and ad- joining townships, during the trying winter of 1884 and 1885. He is now a resident of Burke's Falls, on the line of the Pacific Junction Rail- way. The agonizing pain I suffered that night, and which made one minute seem as long as a summer day, served to give me a good idea of what lost souls must suffer, broiling in the blazing brimstone billows of the unfathomable ocean of perdition. God grant, kind reader, that you, and myself as well, may escape such a fearful doom — but to escape it we must leau good lives and live in accordance with the just laws of a righteous God. A-fter this night and the next day, the pain grew gradually less acute and agonizing, while the eye- ball itself grew smaller until it had diminished to about one-half its original size, but I am thankful that it is not altogetLer gone and that I do not suf- fer so badly in this respect as some other unfor- tunate people suffer, the ball of whose eyea haye 1 19 rk 1 been totally destroyed. But still they are very for- tunate in comparison with me, for with the total loss of the sight of one eye, and the almost total loss of my hearing since I was 12 or 13 years of age, I consider myself one of the most unfortunate individuals in existence. It is a sense of my grievous misfortune and a feeling of a dreary isolation, that makes me all the more grateful to those who treat me not only with common Christian courtesy, but with kindness and consideration. It is those people with good kind hearts to whom, as a consequence, God graciously grants the largest measure of intelhgence — of pros- perity — of social and domestic happiness and com- fort in this world, with the best chance of a happy life in the world to come — from whom I receive tho most favour. Please, kind reader, to look over my list of friends as I have published them, and if you find the names of any skinflints or scrub oaks among them, please send a post card with the important intel- ligence to the address " Pat Prodpen, Toronto, P.O." But though my earthly existence has not been an enviable one, it does not follow from this that I am to be debarred from the hope of a better life beyond the confines of the tomb in a happier and a brighter world than this, where loss of sight and loss of hearing and the other sad and sorrowful calamities cf earth are utterly unknown. Having thus, kind considerate reader, sufficiently explained, or rather too sufficiently explained, the reasons why I have not written this little book at a much ear- lier date, I will now proceed to explain with equal if not greater protracted prolixity of periods my reasons for writing it at all ; and why I have to leave my distant home in a wild northern land for such a purpose, for home is to me one of the hap- piest places 1 have ever found, aad the necessity for leaving it for lengthened periods of time is one of the greatest and most disquieting troubles I have to encounter in connection with the business in which I have been engaged during the winter 20 months of the past few years of my life (with the exception of the winter of '84-'85), but my home is so distant from my most profitable and produc- tive fields of labour that I cannot afford the luxury of visiting it every alternate Saturday, as my lim- ited means would not admit of the expenditure of time and money such an indulgence would entail. And here my " feelins " have found vent in song : THOUGHTS OF HOME. As lonely through the world I ramble, By my busmess called to roam ; Struggling up life's hill to scramble ; My thoughts will oft revert to home. To home, the dearest of all places ; To tiiose whose hearts and minds are right, And free from sin's dark taints and traces, That blur, and blacken, blot and blight. With love of wife and home to guard us, More safe we tread life's thorny way ; More safe to find heaven not debarr'd us Upon the last great reckoning day. A hallowed heaven-born institution Is that of home and family ; A good God plan'd its constitution. Pronounced good by His decree. And since I am so much happier at home in the bciety of my wife and children than when I am away far from it and them, very likely some of my readers might wish to know why I cannot be con- tent to stay there and give up all thoughts of writ- ing books. But this would be a hard question for me to answer and explain in a full and satisfac- tory manner without encroaching too much on the space I desire to reserve for an account of my ex- perience in the different places I visit. Under the peculiar conditions of life existing in the country 21 in which I have found a home, and always inci- dent to a new and partially settled land, and in the circumstances in which I found myself placed, I felt myself impelled, almost compelled, to engage in my present line of life, for at least a limited portion of my time, as I am only engaged in the occupation of writing and selling books in the late fall and winter seasons of each year ; at other times I am at home, busily engaged in the rough work of a bush farmer in one of the wildest and most picturesque regions of my native land. As far as bodily comfort and luxurious living is concerned, I have found, especially during the present wirter of 1885 and '86, the conditions greatly in favour of a life "outside ;" but this consideration carries very little weight with me in comparison with others of much greater importance. Yet, considered even in this light, it is not without its peculiar advan- tages, as the relaxation it gives me from the rough labours of a pioneer backwoodsman, serves to keep in repair, and in a more normal condition, a constitution that unremitting and incessant hard work would otherwise undermine and lead to pre- mature decay, and a greatlv shortened life, just as a poor toil-worn broken-down lumber-shanty horse does not live out half the term of his natural life. But I must confess that, as far as mental hap- piness is concernbd, the odds are greatly in favour of a life at home. A.nd again, my inquisitive friend, you must consider that all men are not constituted alike, nor are they all endowed with exactly the same amount of brain, and the same form and fashion of ideas, and that a greatly wider difference exists between men in these respects than exists between the forms and features and even the colour of their persons and faces ; and that while some men have scarcely a thought or an inclination be- yond the narrow routine of their merely animal existence, there are others of such a restless and adventurous spirit that it prompts them to make their home on the heaving bosom of the billowy ocean, while it incites others of a still braver and 22 more ambitious turn of mind, to brave the dangers and endure the hardships of a life in the Arctic regions, while engaged in pursuit of the mighty monarchs of the sea, while the possession of a still larger, a superlatively large share of this restless spirit of adventure and reckless daring has inspired and incited a Sir John Franklin, a Dr. Kane, and a Commander Cheyne, to encounter the perils, and suffer the rigors of a winter in the Hy- perborean regions of our globe, iu the hope of be- ing the first to reach and plant their country's standard on the summit of the north pole, and have the honour of having this coveted achieve- ment recorded to their credit in the golden annals of all time. I had the hc.iour of becoming inti- mately acquainted with this latter gentleman during the two pleaBant weeks I spent in the thriving town of Uxbridge, and considering his various visits to every quarter of our gbbe — his acquaintance with the topography and peculiar features of the polar regions ; his numerous and exciting adventures by sea and land — by shipwreck, siege and battle, and on the floating ice floes of the frigid zone — I look upor Commander Cheyne as one of the most re- markable men in our Dominion. He has a favou- rite theory that it is quite practicable and possible to reach the North Pole by means of balloons ; and if he were a younger man by twenty-five or thirty years, who knows but that he might be able to show to a wondering and admiring world the perfect truth of his theory, not by precept only, but as a realised fact ; and considering the gigantic strides that inventive bcience and scientific inventions have made since the beg'nning of the present cen- tury, it would not be absurd to suppose that in the not far distant years of coming time a method or methods may be found of navigating the air with as much certainty and with as little danger as man now travels over and navigates the more solid elements of land and water. But I must return to the more immediate object of my narrative and ask my indulgent reader to take it for granted tha! •♦ k ?s ^ it was the possession of at least some portion of this same restless and adventurous spirit that in- cited me to leave my home in the township of King one bright sunny morning, in the month of Sep- tember, in the year 1870, and hurry to the Aurora station of the Northern railway, sbout two miles distant — there to take the train for the tall, thriv- ing, stripling town of Collingwood, and from that post the steamer Wanbuno for the little bouncing boy baby hamlet of Parry Sound, in the hope and ex- pectation of winning comfortable homes for myself and wife and the different members of our increas- ing family as they should severally arrive at an age to require them. And I remember as if it was only ye:?terday, my first full view of the ill-fated steamer as she lay at the wharf at Collingwood — her brave and hardy crew busily engaged in load- ing her decks with freight, preparatory to a start for Parry Sound, a trip of about 70 miles over the broad billowy bosom of the Georgian Bay, under the command of the skillful and intrepid Captain, P. M. Campbell, who, on more than one occasion, has nobly saved a human life at the risk of losing his own. And I have also a vivid recollection of my first night on my new farm in the Township of McKellar, all alone in '^^he wild wood wilderness on the surfy-sounding, rock-bound shored of the beautiful Manitowaba Lake, miles away from any human habitation, for that no v tj^riving and well- settled township was very spf.rsely nettled then. The preceding day had been a dark and gloomy one, near the middle of October, 1870, and the melancholy autumn winds were sadly sighing and sorrowfully singing a sad funeral requieum over the grave of the dead Indian summer, while busily engaged in the sorrowful task of covering her lonely tomb with her torn garland of many-coloured leaves the tear-stained face of the of sad -eyed sky closely shrouded in a mourning veil of (?ark leaden-colored clouds, as my worthy and esteemed friend, Mr. John Fisher, one of McKellar's stout-hearted, itrong-handed, stalwart young pioneer settlers 24 (and now one of its best and most prosperous farmers, with a most preposessing and estimable young wife, and a fine family of growing sons and daughters), brought me several miles up the noble Seguin riv^ex in a log canoe, then into, and across the large and at her best lovely — and then very lonely Manitomaba Lake, over whose ruffled bosom the white-capped waves were racing with each other, looking as if they were watching for a chance to bury us beneath them, but my friend was too well used to their wild ways to give them such a chance. Eeaching my own location on the northern shore of this lake my kind friend bade me good- bye, telling me at parting that the first thing I had to do was to make some kind of a shelter before the fast approaching night would meet me with a ghostly frown upon its face, and then left me — All alone in those wild woods ; Alone with nature, and with God ; Alone in those sad solitudes, Where feet of man had seldom trod. I had as my stock, effects wherewith to start my Robinson Crusoe existence, a double-barrelled gun, a good axe, a bag of bed-clothing ; in another bag a quantity of bread and cakes I brought from home, and about eight or ten pounds of first-class mess pork I bought in Mr. Beatty's store, in Parry Sound, then the only store in the (a^ that time) embryo village of Parry Sound. I also had about a bushel ef potatoes ; as for tea I did not trouble myself about it. For cooking utensils I had one solitary frying-pan, and in the ^^'«.y of a stock of table cutlery, I had one knife and fork and a tablespoon ; and with this limited stock I was as happy and contented as if I had owned the entire stock of the largest cutlery stores in Shef- field or Birmingham. Here circumstances make it imperatively necessary that I should close this little volume with the fixed resolve of writing another with as little delay as possible, wherein I will do full justice to all my kind friends and pat- rons.