The Argosy — page 155: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

140 Under Northern Skies. were infinitely outweighed by all this freedom, these wild beauties, these forest sights and sounds, this sense of possession. ‘Then there was the possibility of filling the house with friends—by far the most real of all social happiness and enjoyment. ‘““In summer, yes,” said my hostess. ‘‘But our summers are short, our winters long. Who would stay a whole winter here? And it is worse for us ladies of the family than for the gentle- men. They may go out skating, sleighing, shooting; take long excursions ; go off bear hunting, and so relieve for days together the monotony of perpetual ice and snow. We ladies must be content with skating and sleighing within limited areas. We simply vary the monotony of our winter, do not relieve it.” We were walking through a pine avenue. On the one hand was a wood leading apparently to charming depths abounding in tangle and wild flowers and ferns ; on the other the lake opened out with broad fields beyond, ending in distant forests. Presently a labourer ap- proached, and was stopped by the ladies. His expression was sad and troubled, and he had some difficulty to speak without losing self-control. ‘Poor fellow,” said my hostess, after he had passed on, with marks of sympathy and words of consolation ; ‘‘ he has just lost his only boy, a lovely little fellow of five. He took measles and was badly treated. Generally speaking, in illness of any sort, they come up to the house, but he did not do so until it was too late. Their ideas of nursing are primitive. ‘Their manner of keeping a patient warm is to smother him in blankets, close all doors and windows, and shut out every breath of air that could possibly help to restore him. If he recovers after this, it is thanks to a vigorous constitution which will not allow him to die.” “The poor fellow seems overwhelmed with his loss,” I remarked. “He is so,” replied my hostess. ‘‘ He was very fond of his boy, and was a good father. He has only one girl left now, three years of age, and so the child’s loss will make a great gap in the household.” ‘Are parents here good to their children?” I asked. ‘‘ Are the households happy ?” “Yes, asa rule. But the people are simple, and their ideas are very elementary. They have few temptations in these out of the world districts; no public-houses to entice them from home and absorb their wages. But as mere labourers the men are sometimes troublesome. And, of course, they are frightful radicals ; not so much politically—they are hardly up to that—as socially.” Not least interesting amongst our explorations were the visits to the surrounding buildings, out of sight of the house yet within a small radius. Immense stables ; great barns filled with hay ; granaries holding corn; long cow-houses with endless stalls ; great saw mills, smelling of turpentine, where you might bury yourself in sawdust and revel in the swish-swish of the saw ; a corn-mill with immense rollers ECORNICLOOOKS. (EC) m