The Path of Duty, and Other Stories eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 310 pages of information about The Path of Duty, and Other Stories.

The Path of Duty, and Other Stories eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 310 pages of information about The Path of Duty, and Other Stories.
her, and for some moments they could only weep together.  When Mr. Miller was able to command his voice he said, “God is good, my children, an’ overrules a’ things for our good, let us bow before Him in prayer;” and when they rose from their knees, they felt calmed and comforted, by the soothing influence of prayer.  With the two boys, Geordie and Willie, fatigue soon got the better of their joy at meeting with their friends, and they were soon enjoying the sound sleep of healthful childhood; but with the elder members of the family, so much was there to hear and to tell that the hour was very late when they separated to seek repose.  Mr. Ainslie decided upon purchasing a lot of land, lying some two miles north of the farm occupied by Mr. Miller.  Although it was covered with a dense forest, its location pleased him, and the soil was excellent, and he looked forward to the time when he might there provide a pleasant home.  They arrived at R. on the first of July.  There were beside Mr. Miller but three other families in the settlement; but they were all very kind to the newly arrived strangers, and they assisted Mr. Ainslie in various ways while he effected a small clearing upon his newly purchased farm.  They also lent him a willing hand in the erection of a small log house, to which he removed his family in the fall, Mrs. Ainslie and the children having remained with her parents during the summer; and kind as their friends had been, they were truly glad when they found themselves again settled in a home of their own, however humble.  They were people of devoted piety, and they did not neglect to erect the family altar the first night they rested beneath the lowly roof of their forest home.  I could not, were I desirous of so doing, give a detailed account of the trials and hardships they endured during the first few years of their residence in the bush; but they doubtless experienced their share of the privations and discouragements which fell to the lot of the first settlers of a new section of country.  The first winter they passed in their new home was one of unusual severity for even the rigorous climate of Eastern Canada, and poor Mrs. Ainslie often during that winter regretted the willingness with which she bade adieu to her early home, to take up her abode in the dreary wilderness.  They found the winter season very trying indeed, living as they did two miles from any neighbour; and the only road to the dwelling of a neighbour was a foot-track through the blazed trees, and the road, such as it was, was too seldom trodden during the deep snows of winter, to render the foot-marks discernible for any length of time.  Their stores had all to be purchased at the nearest village, which was distant some seven miles, and Mr. Ainslie often found it very difficult to make his way through the deep snows which blocked up the roads, and to endure the biting frost and piercing winds on his journeys to and from the village.  In after years when they had learned to feel a deep
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The Path of Duty, and Other Stories from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.