You have heard of my passing a night in the bush, and want me to tell you about it. When we came to Hinchinbrook, which was in July, 1831, the shanty my husband put up did not stand where this house is, but on a ridge at the end of the lot. For the first two years we had no neighbor nearer than half a mile, for though the lots on each side of us were granted, nobody was then living upon them. From morning to dark I saw nothing but the bush that encircled our house and the little clearance of blackened stumps. Oh, but it was lonely! It was worse than a jail, for the prisoner gets a blink out of his cell window of the wide prospect without, and of houses and people, but I saw nothing for several years but trees, and trees, until our clearance so extended that it met that on the east side of our lot, and all at once we, one fine day, came in sight of a neighbor’s house. The second Spring we were on the lot, my husband left to help to take a raft down to the Basin, leaving me alone with Henry, who was then the baby. He expected to be back in four days, or by the end of the week at furthest. If it had not been that I had so much work to do I would have cried my eyes out, it was so miserable to be left alone in the woods, and William had never been away so long before. The four days passed and Sabbath came, but he did not. I got very anxious, and all day could scarcely keep my eyes off the spot at which he would come out of the bush, and where the track from the river crossed our lot, and at night I could not sleep a wink, thinking every moment I heard his footstep. Once I was sure I heard him moving outside. I got up and opened the door and called his name. There was no answer, and it was so dark I could not see a rod off. Lighting a bit of pitch pine at the fire, I held it up to look again, when there was a patter of feet and something bounded by me. It was sugar-time and there were a few trees tapped around the house. The noise I heard was a few deer drinking the sap out of the troughs. I knew not what to do. I wanted to go in search of William, but how could I leave our small stock? They might starve before I got back, and that would ruin us. It happened Monday afternoon, just when I had determined to go over to the nearest neighbor and see if I could get some one to go and enquire for my husband, though I knew it would be useless, for every man and boy old enough had gone with the rafts. I was wrapping baby in a shawl, when the door darkened and a strange voice bade me good day. It was that of a young lad from the second concession. He was on his way home, and had a message from William. In running Dumouchel’s rapids the raft had bunted on a stone, throwing her crew off their feet. In falling, William’s oar had struck his left arm and broken it. I thanked God it was no worse. He told the boy I was not to be anxious, that he felt so well he hoped to be able to leave for home in a few days.