The prose and poetry of pioneer life in the backwoods--The log house-- Sugar making--An omen of good luck--My Quaker grandparents--The old home--Winter evenings at the fireside--Rural hospitality--Aristocracy _versus_ Democracy--School days--Debating societies in the olden time--A rural orator clinches the nail--Cider, sweet and otherwise-- Husking in the barn--Hog killing and sausage making--Full cloth and corduroy--Winter work and winter amusements--A Canadian skating song. CHAPTER II. The round of pioneer life--Game--Night fishing--More details about sugar-making--Sugaring-off--Taking a hand at the old churn--Sheep- washing--Country girls, then and now--Substance and Shadow--"Old Gray" and his eccentricities--Harvest--My early emulation of Peter Paul Rubens--Meeting-houses--Elia on Quaker meetings--Variegated autumn landscapes--Logging and quilting bees--Evening fun--The touching lay of the young woman who sat down to sleep. CHAPTER III. Progress, material and social--Fondness of the young for dancing-- Magisterial nuptials--The charivari--Goon-hunting--Catching a tartar-- Wild pigeons--The old Dutch houses--Delights of summer and winter contrasted--Stilled voices. CHAPTER IV. The early settlers in Upper Canada--Prosperity, national and individual-- The old homes, without and within--Candle-making--Superstitions and omens--The death-watch--Old almanacs--Bees--The divining rod--The U. E. Loyalists--Their sufferings and heroism--An old and a new price list-- Primitive horologes--A jaunt in one of the conventional "carriages" of olden times--Then and now--A note of warning CHAPTER V. Jefferson's definition of "Liberty"--How it was acted upon--The Canadian renaissance--Burning political questions in Canada half a century ago-- Locomotion--Mrs. Jameson on Canadian stagecoaches--Batteaux and Durham boats CHAPTER VI. Road-making--Weller's line of stages and steamboats--My trip from Hamilton to Niagara--Schools and colleges--Pioneer Methodist Preachers-- Solemnization of matrimony--Literature and libraries--Early newspapers-- Primitive editorial articles CHAPTER VII. Banks--Insurance--Marine--Telegraph companies--Administration of Justice--Milling and manufactures--Rapid increase of population in cities and towns--Excerpts from Andrew Picken SKETCHES OF EARLY HISTORY:-- Early schools and schoolmasters--Birth of the American Republic--Love of country--Adventures of a U.E. Loyalist family ninety years ago--The wilds of Upper Canada--Hay bay--Hardships of pioneer life--Growth of population--Division of the Canadian Provinces--Fort Frontenac--The "dark days"--Celestial fireworks--Early steam navigation in Canada--The country merchant Progress--The Hare and the Tortoise RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS EARLY DAYS