A MAN OF HIS HANDS.
"How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! "
[To THE Enrros OF THE "SPECTATOR."' S111,—Nine years ago I made the acquaintance of an English- man who had emigrated to Canada in 1850, and who had spent the succeeding years attacking the timber lands north of Peterborough, Ontario. His family comprised, besides himself, his wife, five daughters, and six sons. Year after year he and his sons were busy clearing farms of 133 acres each, until there were enough for each to own one, the possession of which from the parent they were to have upon their marrying or
otherwise becoming old enough. With axe and with cross-cut saw these men spent winter after winter in the woods, but the old man was, even then at seventy-three years of age, the superior of them all (save one) in powers of endurance and capacity for a hard day's work. When I made his acquaintance the sons were all settled on their farms and the old gentleman visiting among them, always doing a prodigious day's work for the one or the other of them. He could cut his five acres of grain a day with the cradle (and this is a mighty feat for even a man in the prime of his youth), and with the axe or cross- cut saw he was literally magnificent. An active, lean, and healthy man, he was with his long years of labour much hardened, impervious alike to weather and fatigue, and, as one may well imagine, he had many memories. I knew him long enough to witness numerous incidents pointing to his wonder- ful vitality and his capacity for ceaseless toil through all the seasons, and I thought, "Surely some day he will follow the fashion of his neighbours and retire to the village near by (Lakefield), and pass the rest of his days in well-earned ease." I happened to be in Lakefield recently, and made some inquiries concerning my old friend, thinking that possibly he was now dead, or if alive he would now be eighty-two and incapable of anything but an occasional smoke perhaps. I learned that he was alive and well, that he had retired and had bought a house in that village. I immediately set out to find the place, and upon arriving found that there was much vegetable garden and very little house, and the old lady was in the garden with the sole daughter remaining unmarried digging potatoes. After I had made myself known to them and had passed some bantering comment upon their coming to town to live a life of luxurious ease, I asked where "Silas" was. (I had known the old man always as Silas.) "Silas," said the little old lady, "why, Silas is working over yonder to the cement factory, and has been for some months. Says it's the best job he's had yet."—I am, Sir, &c.,
Previous page
