with a will, stirred it well, put it into the cloth and was just I
believe dropping it into the water when the string broke and the
poor pudding tumbled into the water! Of course it was useless, and
my husband scarcely knew what to do with himself. Fancy what he did
do, though! He went to work and made another out of what he could
find without telling us. He'll tell you about it if you ask him, how
puzzled he was at first. There was some suet over, only not minced,
you know. So he took that just as it was in a lump and buried it in
bread-crumbs, luckily we had plenty of bread. Then he broke in the
eggs, but when he came to look for the fruit, that was all in the
pot of hot water, not a raisin left. He just ladled them out and put
them in the second time. I think that was delicious of him don't you?
But he forgot the flour and there was so little sugar seemingly in
the bag (he didn't know where my Xmas stores were kept) that he took
fright and wouldn't use it but broke up some maple sugar instead,
then tied it up and got it safely launched the second time. And it
was not at all bad, though _very_ shapeless and unlike a trim plum
pudding, with the holly at the top."

And many another tale did she tell me of "Henry's" ceaseless activity,
and courage and patience. He had learnt three Indian dialects, the
_patois_ of the _habitant_, and the Gaelic of two Scotch settlements,
in order to converse freely with his people and understand their
wants properly. He could doctor the body as well as the soul,
set a fractured limb, bind a wound, apply ice for sunstroke and
snow for chilblains. He could harness a horse and milk a cow;
paddle a canoe and shoot and fish like an Indian, cook and garden
and hew and build--indeed there seemed nothing he could not do and
had not done, and all this along with the care of his office, as
much a missionary one as any could be. Peril of shipwreck and peril