The next misfortune that happened, was, that the mixture of clay and lime that was to plaster the inside and outside of the house between the chinks of the logs was one night frozen to stone.  Just as the work was about half completed, the frost suddenly setting in, put a stop to our proceeding for some time, as the frozen plaster yielded neither to fire nor to hot water, the latter freezing before it had any effect on the mass, and rather making bad worse.  Then the workman that was hewing the inside walls to make them smooth, wounded himself with the broad axe, and was unable to resume his work for some time.

I state these things merely to show the difficulties that attend us in the fulfilment of our plans, and this accounts in a great measure for the humble dwellings that settlers of the most respectable description are obliged to content themselves with at first coming to this country, —­not, you may be assured, from inclination, but necessity:  I could give you such narratives of this kind as would astonish you.  After all, it serves to make us more satisfied than we should be on casting our eyes around to see few better off than we are, and many not half so comfortable, yet of equal, and, in some instances, superior pretensions as to station and fortune.

Every man in this country is his own glazier; this you will laugh at:  but if he does not wish to see and feel the discomfort of broken panes, he must learn to put them in his windows with his own hands.  Workmen are not easily to be had in the backwoods when you want them, and it would be preposterous to hire a man at high wages to make two days’ journey to and from the nearest town to mend your windows.  Boxes of glass of several different sizes are to be bought at a very cheap rate in the stores.  My husband amused himself by glazing the windows of the house preparatory to their being fixed in.

To understand the use of carpenter’s tools, I assure you, is no despicable or useless kind of knowledge here.  I would strongly recommend all young men coming to Canada to acquire a little acquaintance with this valuable art, as they will often be put to great inconvenience for the want of it.

I was once much amused with hearing the remarks made by a very fine lady, the reluctant sharer of her husband’s emigration, on seeing the son of a naval officer of some rank in the service busily employed in making an axe-handle out of a piece of rock-elm.

“I wonder that you allow George to degrade himself so,” she said, addressing his father.

The captain looked up with surprise.  “Degrade himself!  In what manner, madam?  My boy neither swears, drinks whiskey, steals, nor tells lies.”

“But you allow him to perform tasks of the most menial kind.  What is he now better than a hedge carpenter; and I suppose you allow him to chop, too?”

“Most assuredly I do.  That pile of logs in the cart there was all cut by him after he had left study yesterday,” was the reply,