And so it came to pass. The New Year beheld Flora and Allan made one with a merry-making that became a tradition in the settlement, their Glengarry friends driving over the icy bosom of the lake to it in a drove, and bringing two pipers to supply the music, and when spring came a boat, large enough to carry half a dozen bags of flour, built after the best Isle of Skye design, was launched in the creek beside the shanty of William McPhee, and served the settlement many a long year. ABNER’S DEVICE. “Abner, I want you to go a message for me after breakfast.” “Yes, mother. Is it to Four Corners?” “No; you are to go to the Blands, with a basket for old Mrs Whiting.” “Why, that’s in Canada, and they’re our enemies.” “Our governments are at war, but we old neighbors are not.” “But the Indian guard may catch me.” “If they do, they’ll not harm a boy like you.” “Yes, they would, mother. They’d scalp anything that’s Yankee, and I hate them and every Britisher. I don’t see why you want to do a good turn to those who’ve been trying these two years to cut our throats and burn our houses.” “Abner!” exclaimed Mrs Smith reproachfully. “I want to hit them every time, mother, and if I have got to go, you’ll let me take father’s rifle.” “No, Abner; you’ll go as you are, and if the Indian guard fall in with you, their captain will let you go when you tell your errand. If congress want to fight king George, that’s not to say we are to hate and hurt those we have lived beside so long and who’ve done us many a kindness.” This conversation took place in the log shanty of a first settler in northern New York in the fall of 1813. War was then in progress, and a few days before General Hampton had returned from his attempt to reach Montreal, and with his withdrawal to winter quarters the settlers along the frontier supposed hostilities were ended for the season. When war had been declared the settlers on the American side of the lines were in terror of being visited by the Indians, whom the British government had enrolled to watch the frontier, but as time proved their apprehensions groundless, they were little affected by the contest that was being waged, beyond having their intercourse with the settlers on the Canadian side restricted, and that intercourse had been close and frequent, for the difference in allegiance had not affected their friendship. In the bush distance goes for little, and though five miles apart, the Blands were Mrs Smith’s nearest neighbors to the north, and their relation had been of the warmest kind. Unable, owing to the presence of Hampton’s camp at Four Corners, to do their trading there, Mrs Smith knew that the Blands must be without groceries and even flour, and, at this, the first opportunity, she was eager to send them some little comforts to vary their coarse fare, especially for Mrs Whiting, the grandmother of the household, who was often bedridden from rheumatism.