122 FLOWERING SHRUBS. 



the above and of a purer white. The leaves ovate and entire, and 

 slightly pubescent. The rich berries begin to ripen in August, and are 

 the latest of the season. 



These pretty shrubs, loaded with their luscious berries, may be 

 found on all dry open places. The poor Indian squaw fills her bark 

 baskets with the fruit and brings them to the villages to trade for flour, 

 tea, and calico, while social parties of the setders used to go forth annually 

 to gather the fruit for preserving, or for the pleasure of spending a long 

 Summer's day among the romantic hills and valleys ; roaming in 

 unrestrained freedom among the wild flowers that are scattered in rich 

 profusion over those open tracts of land, where these useful berries 

 grow. 



These rural parties would sometimes muster to the extent of fifty 

 or even an hundred individuals, furnished with provisions and all the 

 appliances for an extended pic-nic. 



Many years ago, when the beautiful Rice Lake Plains lay an 

 uncultivated wilderness of wild fruits and flowers shaded by noble, wide 

 spreading Oaks, silver Birches and feathery Pines, an event occurred 

 that excited great interest in the neighbourhood, and for miles around, 

 the excitement even penetrating to distant settlements on the Otonabee, 

 then the border-land of civilization, North of the Great Lakes. 



It was in the month of July, 1837, that a large party of friends and 

 neighbours near Port Hope agreed to make a pic-nic party, to gather 

 Huckleberries and pass a pleasant Summer day on the Rice Lake Plains. 



They made a large gathering in waggons and buggies and on 

 horseback. Among the children belonging to the party was a little girl 

 about seven years of age, a bright, engaging child. By some accident 

 this little one got separated from her family among the bushes, and they, 

 supposing that she had gone forward with some of their near neighbours 

 and friends, started for home, feeling no uneasiness until it was 

 discovered that little Jane was not among the returned party, and that 

 no trace of her could be found. 4 



Then came the stunning conviction that the child was lost — left 

 alone to wander over that pathless wilderness in darkness and solitude, 

 perhaps to fall an unresisting prey to the Bear or the Wolf, both of 

 which animals at that distant period roamed the hills and ravines of 

 those plains in numbers, unchecked by the rifle of the sportsman or the 

 gun of the Indian hunter. 



A few cleared spots there were : but these were miles apart, and it 

 was not likely that the timid child would find her way to any of the 

 distant shanties, so that no reasonable hope of the child finding shelter 



