CHAPTER IX

PHOEBE R---, AND OUR SECOND MOVING

"She died in early womanhood, Sweet scion of a stem so rude; A child of Nature, free from art, With candid brow and open heart; The flowers she loved now gently wave Above her low and nameless grave."

It was during the month of March that Uncle Joe's eldest daughter, Phoebe, a very handsome girl, and the best of the family, fell sick.

I went over to see her. The poor girl was very depressed, and stood but a slight chance for her life, being under medical treatment of three or four old women, who all recommended different treatment and administered different nostrums. Seeing that the poor girl was dangerously ill, I took her mother aside, and begged her to lose no time in procuring proper medical advice. Mrs. Joe listened to me very sullenly, and said there was no danger; that Phoebe had caught a violent cold by going hot from the wash-tub to fetch a pail of water from the spring; that the neighbours knew the nature of her complaint, and would soon cure her.

The invalid turned upon me her fine dark eyes, in which the light of fever painfully burned, and motioned me to come near her. I sat down by her, and took her burning hand in mine.

"I am dying, Mrs. Moodie, but they won't believe me. I wish you would talk to mother to send for the doctor."

"I will. Is there anything I can do for you?--anything I can make for you, that you would like to take?"

She shook her head. "I can't eat. But I want to ask you one thing, which I wish very much to know." She grasped my hand tightly between her own. Her eyes looked darker, and her feverish cheek paled. "What becomes of people when they die?"

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed involuntarily; "can you be ignorant of a future state?"

"What is a future state?"

I endeavoured, as well as I was able, to explain to her the nature of the soul, its endless duration, and responsibility to G.o.d for the actions done in the flesh; its natural depravity and need of a Saviour; urging her, in the gentlest manner, to lose no time in obtaining forgiveness of her sins, through the atoning blood of Christ.

The poor girl looked at me with surprise and horror. These things were all new to her. She sat like one in a dream; yet the truth seemed to flash upon her at once.

"How can I speak to G.o.d, who never knew Him? How can I ask Him to forgive me?"

"You must pray to him."

"Pray! I don't know how to pray. I never said a prayer in my life.

Mother; can you teach me how to pray?"

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Joe, hurrying forward. "Why should you trouble yourself about such things? Mrs. Moodie, I desire you not to put such thoughts into my daughter's head. We don't want to know anything about Jesus Christ here."

"Oh, mother, don't speak so to the lady! Do Mrs. Moodie, tell me more about G.o.d and my soul. I never knew until now that I had a soul."

Deeply compa.s.sionating the ignorance of the poor girl, in spite of the menaces of the heathen mother--for she was no better, but rather worse, seeing that the heathen worships in ignorance a false G.o.d, while this woman lived without acknowledging a G.o.d at all, and therefore considered herself free from all moral restraint--I bid Phoebe good-bye, and promised to bring my bible, and read to her the next day.

The grat.i.tude manifested by this sick girl was such a contrast to the rudeness and brutality of the rest of the family, that I soon felt a powerful interest in her fate.

The mother did not actually forbid me the house, because she saw that my visits raised the drooping spirits of her child, whom she fiercely loved, and, to save her life, would cheerfully have sacrificed her own. But she never failed to make all the noise she could to disturb my reading and conversation with Phoebe. She could not be persuaded that her daughter was really in any danger, until the doctor told her that her case was hopeless; then the grief of the mother burst forth, and she gave way to the most frantic and impious complainings.

The rigour of the winter began to abate. The beams of the sun during the day were warm and penetrating, and a soft wind blew from the south. I watched, from day to day, the snow disappearing from the earth, with indescribable pleasure, and at length it wholly vanished; not even a solitary patch lingered under the shade of the forest trees; but Uncle Joe gave no sign of removing his family.

"Does he mean to stay all the summer?" thought I. "Perhaps he never intends going at all. I will ask him, the next time he comes to borrow whiskey."

In the afternoon he walked in to light his pipe, and, with some anxiety, I made the inquiry.

"Well, I guess we can't be moving afore the end of May. My missus expects to be confined the fore part of the month, and I shan't move till she be quite smart agin."

"You are not using us well, in keeping us out of the house so long."

"Oh, I don't care a curse about any of you. It is my house as long as I choose to remain in it, and you may put up with it the best way you can," and, humming a Yankee tune, he departed.

I had borne patiently the odious, cribbed-up place during the winter, but now the hot weather was coming, it seemed almost insupportable, as we were obliged to have a fire in the close room, in order to cook our provisions. I consoled myself as well as I could by roaming about the fields and woods, and making acquaintance with every wild flower as it blossomed, and in writing long letters to home friends, in which I abused one of the finest countries in the world as the worst that G.o.d ever called out of chaos. I can recall to memory, at this moment, the few lines of a poem which commenced in this strain; nor am I sorry that the rest of it has pa.s.sed into oblivion:--

Oh! land of waters, how my spirit tires, In the dark prison of thy boundless woods; No rural charm poetic thought inspires, No music murmurs in thy mighty floods; Though vast the features that compose thy frame, Turn where we will, the landscape's still the same.

The swampy margin of thy inland seas, The eternal forest girdling either sh.o.r.e, Its belt of dark pines sighing in the breeze, And rugged fields, with rude huts dotted o'er, Show cultivation unimproved by art, That sheds a barren chillness on the heart.

How many home-sick emigrants, during their first winter in Canada, will respond to this gloomy picture! Let them wait a few years; the sun of hope will arise and beautify the landscape, and they will proclaim the country one of the finest in the world.

The middle of May at length arrived, and, by the number of long, lean women, with handkerchiefs of all colours tied over their heads, who pa.s.sed my door, and swarmed into Mrs. Joe's house, I rightly concluded that another young one had been added to the tribe; and shortly after, Uncle Joe himself announced the important fact, by putting his jolly red face in at the door, and telling me, that "his missus had got a chopping boy; and he was right glad of it, for he was tired of so many gals, and that he should move in a fortnight, if his woman did kindly."

I had been so often disappointed that I paid very little heed to him, but this time he kept his word.

The LAST day of May, they went, bag and baggage, the poor sick Phoebe, who still lingered on, and the new-born infant; and right joyfully I sent a Scotch girl (another Bell, whom I had hired in lieu of her I had lost), and Monaghan, to clean out the Augean stable. In a few minutes John returned, panting his indignation.

"The house," he said, "was more filthy than a pig-sty." But that was not the worst of it, Uncle Joe, before he went, had undermined the brick chimney, and let all the water into the house. "Oh, but if he comes here agin," he continued, grinding his teeth and doubling his fist, "I'll thrash him for it. And thin, ma'am, he has girdled round all the best graft apple-trees, the murtherin' owld villain, as if it could spile his digestion our ating them."

"It would require a strong stomach to digest apple-trees, John; but never mind, it can't be helped, and we may be very thankful that these people are gone at last."

John and Bell scrubbed at the house all day, and in the evening they carried over the furniture, and I went to inspect our new dwelling.

It looked beautifully clean and neat. Bell had whitewashed all the black, smoky walls and boarded ceilings, and scrubbed the dirty window-frames, and polished the fly-spotted panes of gla.s.s, until they actually admitted a glimpse of the clear air and the blue sky.

Snow-white fringed curtains, and a bed, with furniture to correspond, a carpeted floor, and a large pot of green boughs on the hearthstone, gave an air of comfort and cleanliness to a room which, only a few hours before, had been a loathsome den of filth and impurity.

This change would have been very gratifying, had not a strong, disagreeable odour almost deprived me of my breath as I entered the room. It was unlike anything I had ever smelt before, and turned me so sick and faint that I had to cling to the door-post for support.

"Where does this dreadful smell come from?"

"The guidness knows, ma'am; John and I have searched the house from the loft to the cellar, but we canna find out the cause of thae stink."

"It must be in the room, Bell; and it is impossible to remain here, or live in this house, until it is removed."

Glancing my eyes all round the place, I spied what seemed to me a little cupboard, over the mantel-shelf, and I told John to see if I was right. The lad mounted upon a chair, and pulled open a small door, but almost fell to the ground with the dreadful stench which seemed to rush from the closet.

"What is it, John?" I cried from the open door.

"A skunk! ma'am, a skunk! Shure, I thought the divil had scorched his tail, and left the grizzled hair behind him. What a strong perfume it has!" he continued, holding up the beautiful but odious little creature by the tail.

"By dad! I know all about it now. I saw Ned Layton, only two days ago, crossing the field with Uncle Joe, with his gun on his shoulder, and this wee bit baste in his hand. They were both laughing like sixty. 'Well, if this does not stink the Scotchman out of the house,' said Joe, 'I'll be contint to be tarred and feathered;' and thin they both laughed until they stopped to draw breath."

I could hardly help laughing myself; but I begged Monaghan to convey the horrid creature away, and putting some salt and sulphur into a tin plate, and setting fire to it, I placed it on the floor in the middle of the room, and closed all the doors for an hour, which greatly a.s.sisted in purifying the house from the skunkification.

Bell then washed out the closet with strong ley, and in a short time no vestige remained of the malicious trick that Uncle Joe had played off upon us.