A few days after this adventure, we bade adieu to my sister, and took
possession of our new dwelling and commenced "a life in the woods."

The first spring we spent in comparative ease and idleness. Our cows had
been left upon our old place during the winter. The ground had to be
cleared before it could receive a crop of any kind, and I had little to do
but to wander by the lake shore, or among the woods, and amuse myself.
These were the halcyon days of the bush. My husband had purchased a very
light cedar canoe, to which he attached a keel a sail; and most of our
leisure hours, directly the snows melted, were spent upon the water.

These fishing and shooting excursions were delightful. The pure beauty of
the Canadian water, the sombre but august grandeur of the vast forest that
hemmed us in on every side and shut us out from the rest of the world,
soon cast a magic spell upon our spirits, and we began to feel charmed
with the freedom and solitude around us. Every object was new to us. We
felt as if we were the first discoverers of every beautiful flower and
stately tree that attracted our attention, and we gave names to fantastic
rocks and fairy isles, and raised imaginary houses and bridges on every
picturesque spot which we floated past during our aquatic excursions. I
learned the use of the paddle, and became quite a proficient in the gentle
craft.

It was not long before we received visits from the Indians, a people whose
beauty, talents, and good qualities have been somewhat overrated, and
invested with a poetical interest which they scarcely deserve. Their
honesty and love of truth are the finest traits in characters otherwise
dark and unlovely. But these are two God-like attributes, and from them
spring all that is generous and ennobling about them.