"I bought them from a little Indian squaw in the street; she had brought them from a wooded meadow some miles off, my lady. They are very fine; see, they are as large as those that the gardener sent in yesterday from the forcing-house; and these wild ones have grown without any pains having been bestowed upon them."

"I did not think, nurse, that wild strawberries could have been so fine as these; may I taste them?"

Mrs. Frazer said she might. "These are not so large, so red, or so sweet as some that I have gathered when I lived at home with my father," said the nurse. "I have seen acres and acres of strawberries, as large as the early scarlet that are sold so high in the market, on the Rice Lake plains. When the farmers have ploughed a fallow on the Rice Lake plains, the following summer it will be covered with a crop of the finest strawberries. I have gathered pailsful day after day, these, however, have been partly cultivated by the plough breaking up the sod, but they seem as if sown by the hand of Nature. These fruits and many sorts of flowers appear on the new soil that were never seen there before. After a fallow has been chopped, logged, and burned, if it be left for a few years, trees, shrubs, and plants, will cover it, unlike those that grew there before."

"That is curious," said the child, "Does G.o.d sow the seeds in the new ground?"

"My lady, no doubt they come from Him, for He openeth His hand, and filleth all things living with plenteousness. My father, who thought a great deal on these subjects, said that the seeds of many plants may fall upon the earth, and yet none of them take root till the soil be favourable for their growth. It may be that these seeds had lain for years, preserved in the earth till the forest was cleared away, and the sun, air, and rain caused them to spring up, or the earth may still bring forth the herb of the field, after its kind, as in the day of the creation, but whether it be so or not, we must bless the Lord for His goodness and for the blessings that He giveth us at all times."

"Are there many sorts of wild fruits fit to eat, nurse, in this country?

Please, will you tell me all that you know about them?"

"There are so many, Lady Mary, that I am afraid I shall weary you before I have told you half of them."

"Nurse, I shall not be tired, for I like to hear about fruits and flowers very much; and my dear mamma likes you to tell me all you know about the plants, trees, birds, and beasts of Canada."

"Besides many sorts of strawberries, there are wild currants, both black and red, and many kinds of wild gooseberries," said Mrs. Frazer. "Some grow on wastes by the roadside, in dry soil, others in swamps; but most gooseberries are covered with thorns, which grow not only on the wood, but on the berries themselves."

"I would not eat those disagreeable, th.o.r.n.y gooseberries; they would p.r.i.c.k my tongue," said the little girl.

"They cannot be eaten without first being scalded. The settlers' wives contrive to make good pies and preserves with them, by first scalding the fruit and then rubbing it between coa.r.s.e linen cloths. I have heard these tarts called thornberry pies, which, I think, was a good name for them.

When emigrants first come to Canada and clear the backwoods, they have little time to make nice fruit-gardens for themselves, and they are glad to gather the wild berries that grow in the woods and swamps to make tarts and preserves, so that they do not even despise the th.o.r.n.y gooseberries or the wild black currants. Some swamp gooseberries, however, are quite smooth, of a dark red colour, but small, and they are very nice when ripe.

The blossoms of the wild currants are very beautiful, of a pale yellowish green, and hang down in long graceful branches, the fruit is harsh but makes wholesome preserves. But there are th.o.r.n.y currants as well as th.o.r.n.y gooseberries, these have long, weak, trailing branches, the berries are small, covered with stiff bristles, and of a pale red colour. They are not wholesome, I have seen people made very ill by eating them, I have heard even of their dying in consequence of having done so."

"I am sure, nurse, I will not eat those wild currants," said Lady Mary, "I am glad you have told me about their being poisonous."

"This sort is not often met with, my dear, and these berries, though they are not good for man, doubtless give nourishment to some of the wild creatures that seek their food from G.o.d, and we have enough dainties and to spare without them.

"The red raspberry is one of the most common and the most useful to us of the wild fruits. It grows in abundance all over the country--by the roadside, in the half opened woods, on upturned roots, or in old neglected clearings, there is no place so wild but it will grow, wherever its roots can find a crevice. With maple sugar, the farmers' wives never need lack a tart nor a dish of fruit and cream The poor Irish emigrants' children go out and gather pailsful, which they carry to the towns and villages to sell. The birds, too, live upon the fruit, and flying away with it to distant places, help to sow the seed. A great many small animals eat the ripe raspberry, for even the rac.o.o.n and great black bear come in for their share.

"The black bears! O nurse! O Mrs. Frazer!" exclaimed Lady Mary, in great astonishment. "What! do bears eat raspberries?"

"Yes, indeed, my lady, they do. Bears are fond of all ripe fruits. The bear resembles the hog in all it's tastes very closely; both in their wild state will eat flesh, grain, fruit, and roots."

"There is a story about a beat and an Indian hunter, which will show how bears ear berries. It is from the Journal or Peter Jacobs, The Indian missionary:--

"At sunrise, next morning," he says, "we tried to land, but the water was so full of shoals, we could not without wading a great distance."

"The beach before us was of bright sand, and the sun was about, when I saw an object moving on the sh.o.r.e: it appeared to be a man, and seemed to be making signals of distress. We were all weary and hungry, but thinking it was a fellow-creature in distress, we pulled towards him. Judge of our surprise when the stranger proved to be an enormous bear!"

"He was seated on his hams, and what we thought his signals, were his raising himself on his hind legs to pull down the berries from a high bush, and with his paws full, sitting down again to eat them at his leisure.

"'Thus he continued daintily enjoying his ripe fruit in the posture some lapdogs are taught to a.s.sume while eating. On we pulled, and forgot our hunger and weariness the bear still continued breakfasting.

"'We got as close on sh.o.r.e as the shoals would permit, and John (one of the Indians), taking my double barrelled gun, leaped into the water, gun in hand, and gained the beach. Some dead brushwood hid the bear from John's sight, but from the canoe we could see both John and the bear.

"'The bear now discovered us, and advanced towards us, and John, not seeing him for the bush, ran along the beach towards him. The weariness from pulling all night, and having eaten no food, made me lose my presence of mind, for I now remembered that the gun was only loaded with duck shot, and you might as well meet a bear with a gun loaded with pease.

"'John was in danger, and we strained at our paddles to get to his a.s.sistance, but as the bear was a very large one, and as we had no other firearms we should have been but poor helps to John in the hug of a wounded bear. The bear was at the other side of the brush heap, John heard the dry branches cracking, and he dodged into a hollow under a bush. The bear pa.s.sed, and was coursing along the sand but as he pa.s.sed by where John lay, bang went the gun. The bear was struck.

"'We saw him leap through the smoke to the very spot where we had last seen John. We held our breath; but instead of the cry of agony we expected to hear from John, bang went the gun again--John is not yet caught. Our canoe rushed through the water--we might yet be in time; but my paddle fell from my hand with joy, as I saw John pop his head above the bush, and with a shout point to the side of the log on which he stood, 'There he lies, dead enough.' We were thankful indeed to our Great Preserver.'

"Though fruit and vegetables seem to be the natural food of the bear, they also devour flesh, and even fish--a fact of which the good Indian missionary a.s.sures us, and which I shall tell you, Lady Mary, in his own words:--

"'A few evenings after we left the _Rock_, while the men were before me 'tracking' (towing the canoe), by pulling her along by a rope from the sh.o.r.e, I observed behind a rock in the river what I took to be a black fox. I stole upon it as quietly as possible, hoping to get a shot; but the animal saw me, and waded to the sh.o.r.e. It turned out to be a young bear fishing. The bear is a great fisherman. His mode of fishing is very curious. He wades into a current, and seating himself upright on his hams, lets the water come about up to his shoulders; he patiently waits until the little fishes come along and rub themselves against his sides; he seizes them instantly, gives them a nip, and with his left paw tosses them over his shoulder to the sh.o.r.e. His left paw is always the one used for tossing ash.o.r.e the produce of his fishing. Feeling is the sense of which Bruin makes use here, not sight.

"'The Indians of that part say that the bear catches sturgeon when sp.a.w.ning in the shoal-water, but the only fish that I know of their catching is the sucker. Of these, in the months of April and May, the bear makes his daily breakfast and supper, devouring about thirty or forty at a meal. As soon as he has caught a sufficient number, he wades ash.o.r.e and regales himself on the best morsels, which are the thick of the neck, behind the gills. The Indians often shoot him when thus engaged.'

"There is a small red berry in the woods that is known by the name of the bear-berry, [Footnote: _Arbutus uva ursi_--"Kinnikinnick" is the Indian name.] of which they say the young bears are particularly fond."

"I should be afraid of going to gather raspberries, nurse, for fear of the bears coming to eat them too."

"The hunters know that the bears are partial to this fruit, and often seek them in large thickets where they grow. A young gentleman, Lady Mary, once went out shooting game, in the province of New Brunswick, in the month of July, when the weather was warm, and there were plenty of wild berries ripe. He had been out for many hours, and at last found himself on the banks of a creek. But the bridge he had been used to cross was gone, having been swept away by heavy rains in the spring. Pa.s.sing on a little higher up, he saw an old clearing full of bushes, and knowing that wild animals were often to be met with in such spots, he determined to cross over and try his luck for a bear, a rac.o.o.n, or a young fawn. Not far from the spot he saw a large fallen swamp elm-tree, which made a capital bridge. Just as he was preparing to cross, he heard the sound of footsteps on the dry crackling sticks, and saw a movement among the raspberry bushes. His finger was on the lock of his rifle in an instant, for he thought it must be a bear or a deer; but just as he was about to fire, he saw a small, thin, brown hand, all red and stained from the juice of the ripe berries, reaching down a branch of the fruit. His very heart leaped within him with fright, for in another moment he would have shot the poor little child that, with wan, wasted face, was looking at him from between the raspberry bushes. It was a little girl, about as old as you are, Lady Mary. She was without hat or shoes, and her clothes were all in tatters.

Her hands and neck were quite brown and sun-burned. She seemed frightened at first, and would have hid herself, had not the stranger called out gently to her to stay, and not to be afraid, and then he hurried over the log bridge, and asked her who she was, and where she lived. And she said 'she did not live anywhere, for she was lost.' She could not tell how many days, but she thought she had been seven nights out in the woods. She had been sent to take some dinner to her father, who was at work in the forest, but had missed the path, and gone on a cattle track, and did not find her mistake until it was too late, when she became frightened, and tried to get back, but only lost herself deeper in the woods. The first night she wrapped her frock about her head, and lay down beneath the shelter of a great upturned root. She had eaten but little of the food she had in the basket that day, for it lasted her nearly two. After it was gone she chewed some leaves, till she came to the raspberry clearing, and got berries of several kinds, and plenty of water to drink from the creek.

One night, she said, she was awakened by a heavy tramping near her, and looking up in the moonlight, saw two great black beasts, which she thought were her father's oxen, and so she sat up and called, 'Buck,'

'Bright,'--for these were their names, but they had no bells, and looked like two great s.h.a.ggy black dogs. They stood on their hind legs upright and looked at her, but went away. These animals were bears, but the child did not know that, and she said she felt no fear, for she said her prayers every night before she lay down to sleep, and she knew that G.o.d would take care of her, both sleeping and waking."

"And did the hunter take her home? asked Lady Mary, who was much interested in the story.

"Yes, my dear, he did. Finding that the poor little girl was very weak, the young man took her on his back. Fortunately he happened to have a little wine in a flask, and a bit of dry biscuit in his knapsack, and this greatly revived the little creature. Sometimes she ran by his side, while holding by his coat, talking to her new friend, seemingly quite happy and cheerful, bidding him not be afraid even if they had to pa.s.s another night in the wood; but just as the sun was setting, they came out of the dark forest into an open clearing.

"It was not the child's home, but a farm belonging to a miller who knew her father, and had been in search of her for several days; and he and his wife were very glad when they saw the lost child, and gladly showed her preserver the way. They rejoiced very much when the poor wanderer was restored safe and well to her sorrowing parents."

"Nurse," said Lady Mary, "I am so glad the good hunter found the little girl. I must tell my own dear mamma that nice story. How sorry my mamma and papa would be to lose me in the woods!"

The nurse smiled, and said, "My dear lady, there is no fear of such an accident happening to you. You are not exposed to the same trials and dangers as the children of poor emigrants; therefore you must be very grateful to G.o.d, and do all you can to serve and please Him; and when you are able, be kind and good to those who are not so well off as you are."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LOST CHILD AND THE BEARS]

"Are there any other wild fruits, nurse, besides raspberries and strawberries, and currants and goose berries?'

"Yes, my dear lady, a great many more. We will begin with wild plums these we often preserve, and when the trees are planted in gardens, and taken care of, the fruit is very good to eat. The wild cherries are not very nice, but the bark of the black cherry is good for agues and low fevers.

The choke cherry is very beautiful to look at, but hurts the throat, closing it up if many are eaten, and making it quite sore. The huckle berry is a sweet, dark blue berry, that grows on a very delicate low shrub, the blossoms are very pretty, pale pink or greenish white bells the fruit is very wholesome, it grows on light dry ground, on those parts of the country that are called plains in Canada. The settlers' children go out in parties, and gather great quant.i.ties, either to eat or dry for winter use. These berries are a great blessing to every one, besides forming abundant food for the broods of young quails and partridges, squirrels, too, of every kind eat them. There are blackberries also, Lady Mary, and some people call them thimble berries."

"I have heard mamma talk about blackberries."

"The Canadian blackberries are not so sweet, I am told, my lady, as those at home, though they are very rich and nice tasted, neither do they grow so high. Then there are high bush cranberries, and low bush cranberries.

The first grow on a tall bush, and the fruit has a fine appearance, hanging in large bunches of light scarlet among the dark green leaves; but they are very, very sour, and take a great deal of sugar to sweeten them.

The low-bush cranberries grow on a slender, trailing plant; the blossom is very pretty, and the fruit about the size of a common gooseberry, of a dark purplish red, very smooth and shining; the seeds are minute, and lie in the white pulp within the skin: this berry is not nice till it is cooked with sugar. There is a large cranberry marsh somewhere at the back of Kingston, where vast quant.i.ties grow. I heard a young gentleman, say that he pa.s.sed over this tract when he was hunting, while the snow was on the ground, and that the red juice of the dropped berries dyed the snow crimson beneath his feet. The Indians go every year to a small lake called Buckhorn Lake, many miles up the river Otonabee, in the Upper Province, to gather cranberries; which they sell to the settlers in the towns and villages, or trade away for pork, flour, and clothes. The cranberries, when spread out on a dry floor, will keep fresh and good for a long time.

Great quant.i.ties of cranberries are brought to England from Russia, Norway, and Lapland, in barrels, or large earthen jars, filled with spring water; but the fruit thus roughly preserved must be drained, and washed many times, and stirred with sugar, before it can be put into tarts, or it would be salt and bitter. I will boil some cranberries with sugar, that you may taste them; for they are very wholesome."

Lady Mary said she should like to have some in her own garden.

"The cranberry requires a particular kind of soil, not usually found in gardens, my dear lady, for as the cranberry marshes are often covered with water in the spring, I suppose they need a damp, cool soil, near lakes or rivers, perhaps sand, too, may be good for them. But we can plant some berries, and water them well, in a light soil they may grow, and bear fruit, but I am not sure that they will do so. Besides these fruits, there are many others, that are little used by man, but are of great service as food to the birds and small animals. There are many kinds of nuts, too--filberts, with rough p.r.i.c.kly husks, walnuts, b.u.t.ternuts, and hickory nuts, these last are large trees, the nuts of which are very nice to eat, and the wood very fine for cabinet work, and for fire wood, the bark is used for dyeing. Now, my dear, I think you must be quite tired with hearing so much about Canadian fruits."

Lady Mary said she was glad to learn that there were so many good things in Canada, for she heard a lady say to her mamma that it was an ugly country, with nothing good or pretty in it.

"There is something good and pretty to be found everywhere, my dear child, if people will but open their eyes to see it, and their hearts to enjoy the good things that G.o.d has so mercifully spread abroad for all his creatures to enjoy. But Canada is really a fine country, and is fast becoming a great one."