Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 71, No. 437, March 1852Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 71, No. 437, March 1852
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
kept her suffering mistress company in the depths of the dark forest.
"Men could not be procured in that thinly-settled spot for
love nor money; and I now fully realised the extent of Jenny's
usefulness. Daily she yoked the oxen, and brought down from the
bush fuel to maintain our fires, which she felled and chopped up
with her own hands. She fed the cattle, and kept all things snug
about the doors; not forgetting to load her master's two guns,
'in case,' as she said, 'the ribels should attack us in our
retrate.'"
What says the quaint old song? that--
"The poor man alone, when he hears the poor moan,
Of his morsel a morsel will give,
Well-a-day!"
It were a libel to adopt the sentiment to its full
extent, when we witness the large measure of charity which
the more prosperous classes in this country are ever ready to
dispense to the poor and suffering. But doubtless the sympathy
with distress is apt to be heartiest and warmest on the part of
those who themselves have experienced the woes they witness. It
is very touching to contemplate Mrs Moodie walking twenty miles
through a bleak forest--the ground covered with snow, and the
thermometer far below zero--to minister to the necessities of
one whose sufferings were greater even than her own. Still more
touching is the exquisite delicacy with which she and her friend
Emilia imparted the relief they brought, and strove to bestow their
charity without imposing an obligation. "The Walk to Dummer" is a
chapter of Mrs Moodie's book that alone would secure her the esteem
and admiration of her readers. Captain N. was an Irish settler in
Canada, who had encountered similar mishaps to those Captain Moodie
had experienced--but in a very different spirit. He had taken to
drinking, had deserted his family, and was supposed to have joined
Mackenzie's band of ruffians on Navy Island. For nine weeks his
wife and children had tasted no food but potatoes; for eighteen
months they had eaten no meat. Before going to Mrs Moodie, Jenny
had been their servant for five years, and, although repeatedly
beaten by her master with the iron ramrod of his gun, would still
have remained with them, would he have permitted her. She sobbed
bitterly on learning their sufferings, and that Miss Mary, "the
tinder thing," and her brother, a boy of twelve, had to fetch fuel
from the bush in that "oncommon savare weather." Mrs Moodie was
deeply affected at the recital of so much misery. She had bread for
herself and children, and that was all. It was more than had Mrs N.
But for the willing there is ever a way, and Mrs Moodie found means
of doing good, where means there seemed to be none. Some ladies in
the neighbourhood were desirous to do what they could for Mrs N.;
but they wished first to be assured that her condition really was as
represented. They would be guided by the report of Mrs Moodie and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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