Ontario -- Description and travel; Ontario -- History
Mr. John Henry, on that 14th day of February, was riding alone and met a
man on horseback coming at the top of his speed. Accosting Mr. Henry he
said, “Say, stranger, do you see that sign in the sky?” Mr. Henry looked
up and saw only a sun-dog, frequently seen then and now in the winter
season, and replied, “Yes, what of it?” “Well, that’s the Lord coming
to-morrow to burn the world up,” and Mr. H. replied, “Get out! that’s
only a sun-dog.” “Oh! you are an unbeliever,” was the retort, as the man
dug spurs into his horse’s sides as if to ride away from the fire he
felt so near. My father told me that on the evening before the final
great day, he took a sleigh-load of neighbors down to a meeting in a log
school-house near where Ebenezer Church now is, in Darlington. So deep
was the snow, he said, that they had no difficulty in driving over the
fences. Arriving at the log school-house, they found it densely packed,
and most of the auditors standing. Being late, they sought to push
themselves in, when someone from the middle of the room called out,
“Stand back, boys, you don’t know breeding.” But they pushed on
heedless of breeding or the want of it, and got in a few feet from the
door, where they stood and listened to some Millerite in the master’s
rostrum desk, as he told about the terrible fires to come on in a few
hours. His words riveted the attention of all, cramped and uncomfortable
as they were in the crowded room.
Tallow dips, fastened in tin reflectors, shed a mild light over all, and
the heat from the crowded room became so great as to give a taste, an
intense one, too, of the awful heat promised when the fires should
appear. The old log school-house had been used before as a rude pioneer
dwelling, and a cellar had been scooped out below the centre. Without an
instant’s warning the old floor-beams broke and the crowd, who all
expected to go up, as the Millerite preacher assured them, were let
_down_ with unexpected precipitancy. The scene, my father said, was too
ludicrous for description. Screaming, fainting, pulling, praying,
squirming, the dense mass fought to get out. Fortunately the tallow dips
were fastened to the walls and continued to light up the place. My
father dryly said he made his way out, got his load and went home (at
Port Oshawa) and to bed. The next morning he found the snow as usual
upon the ground and no signs of fire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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