'But we have not seen a hill since we left Montreal,' remarked the
mistress. 'I dinna care,' rejoined Mrs Brodie, Bonnybraes was the name
of the farm we left and it will make the woods hamelike.' When we spied
at a distance several men standing by the roadside we gave a shout of
joy and were soon reunited. The laughing and talking might have been
heard half a mile away. Jabez now took the lead. As the wagons arrived
he had caused them to be unloaded under a clump of hemlocks, the chests
and packages being arranged to make a three-sided enclosure. In front he
had started a fire, over which, slung from a pole resting on crotched
sticks, was a pot, and soon the mistress was preparing supper. It was
dark before we had settled for the night, which was so warm that
sleeping under the trees was no hardship. Jabez covered the dying fire
with damp litter, the smoke of which kept off the mosquitos, which
pestered us dreadfully.

In the morning Jabez was the first to be stirring. Giving me two pails
he directed me to go to a house I would find a bit down Yonge-street to
get water, and, if they had it, some milk. The house I found and also
the well, but how to draw water out of it I knew not. There was nobody
stirring until my awkward attempts to work the bucket brought a man out.
I told him who I was. 'You are an emigrant and this is the first
sweep-well you have tried to work. Well, now, you have got to learn,'
and he showed me how simple it was. He was much interested when he heard
of our party and of their camping out. 'Stay a minute till I tell
mother.' Coming back to the door he cried to me to go on with the water
and he would fetch milk after a while. The porridge was ready when he
and his wife appeared with the milk. He called his wife mother, which we
thought strange. She was a smart, tidy woman and was soon deep in advice
to our housekeepers about bush ways of doing things and bush cookery.
After they had gone their children, three in number, came shyly round