Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal recollections and reminiscences of a sexagenarianHaight, Canniff
History
Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal recollections and reminiscences of a sexagenarian
Haight, Canniff
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Ontario -- Social life and customs
himself he called mother, and after tormenting poor Eliza for a while,
let her go. This cured her effectually. But the poor girl never knew
what became of her lover. He came no more, and she was left to grieve
for a time, and I suppose to forget, for she married a couple of years
after. The secret was kept at Eliza's request, after making a clean
breast of it to mother, for a long time. She married not long after
this, and was beloved by everyone. She was a devoted wife, and had
several children, none of whom are now living. Poor Eliza! I thought of
Hamlet's soliloquy on Yorick as I stood by her unkept grave, with its
headstone fallen and broken. "Those lips that I have kissed I know not
how oft--where be your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment."
All gone, years ago! And they live only in the sweet recollections of
the past.
My father used to keep a large number of bees either in wood or straw
hives, mostly of the former; and indeed most all our neighbours kept
them too, and I remember a curious custom that prevailed of blowing
horns and pounding tin pans when they were swarming, to keep them from
going away. I never knew my father to resort to this expedient, but it
was wonderful to see him work among them. He would go to the hives and
change them from one to another, or go under a swarm, and without any
protection to his face or hands, shake them into the hive, and carry it
away and put it in its place. They never stung him unless by accident.
If one of them got under his clothes and was crowded too much, he might
be reminded that there was something wrong, but the sting only troubled
him for a minute or two. With me it seemed if they got a sight of me
they made a "bee line" for my face. After father's death they soon
disappeared, as I would not have them about. We sometimes found bee
trees in the woods, and on one occasion chopped down a large elm out of
which we got a quantity of choice honey. I remember this well; for I ate
so much that it made me sick, and cured me from wanting honey ever
after.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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