through mud-holes. Had I not been so much concerned about the children, I could never have got through that night; helping and cheering them made me forget my own weariness. It was getting to be daylight when the cart at last stopped in front of a long stone house, in which there was not a soul stirring, though the doors were all open. The boy pointed us to where the kitchen was and turned to unyoke his horse. I found four men sleeping on the floor, who woke up as we went in. They were French and very civil, giving up the buffaloes they had been sleeping upon for the children. I sat down on a rocking-chair, and fell at once asleep. The sound of somebody stamping past woke me with a start. It was the master of the house, a lame man, whom I found out after to be very keen but honest and kind in his way. It was well on in the day, and breakfast was on the table. I was so tired and sore that I could hardly move. Braxton came in and asked if we were able to go on, for the canoes would be ready to start in an hour. I was determined he should not be hindered by me, so I woke up the children, washed and tidied them as I best could, and then we had breakfast, which did us a deal of good. There were two canoes, which were just long flat boats, with two men in each to manage them. Our baggage and ourselves were divided equally between them, and we started, everything looking most fresh and beautiful, but the mosquitoes were perfectly awful, the children’s faces swelling into lumps, and between them and the heat they grew fretful. For a long way after leaving Reeves’s there were breaks in the bush that lined the river banks--the clearances of settlers with shanties in front--but they grew fewer as we went on, until we would go a long way without seeing anything but the trees, that grew down to the water’s edge. Getting round the rapids was very tiresome, and it was late in the day when the men turned the canoes into a creek and pulled up alongside its west bank. This was our lot and where we were to stay. Placing our boxes so as to form a sort of wall, the canoemen felled some small cedars for a roof, and, lighting a fire, they left us. I watched the boats until they were out of sight and the sound of their paddles died away, and then felt, for the first time, what it is to be alone in the backwoods. There was so much to do that I had no time to think of anything, and the children were happy, everything being new to them. The kettle was put on and tea made, and we had our first meal on our farm--if you had seen it, with the underbrush around us so thick that we could not go six rods, you would have said it never could be made a farm.