220 THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 



young fellow whom, by reason of his impracticable 

 French name, we called Joe, was secured, and after 

 a delay of twenty-four hours we were packed upon 

 a Canadian buck-board with hard-tack in one bag 

 and oats in another, and the journey began. It 

 was Sunday, and we held up our heads more confi- 

 dently when we got beyond the throng of well-dressed 

 church-goers. For ten miles we had a good stone 

 road and rattled along it at a lively pace. In about 

 half that distance we came to a large brick church, 

 where we began to see the rural population or habi- 

 tans. They came mostly in two-wheeled vehicles, 

 some of the carts quite fancy, in which the young 

 fellows rode complacently beside their girls. The 

 two-wheeler predominates in Canada, and is of all 

 styles and sizes. After we left the stone road, we 

 began to encounter the hills that are preliminary to 

 the mountains. The farms looked like the wilder and 

 poorer parts of Maine or New Hampshire. While 

 Joe was getting a supply of hay of a farmer to take 

 into the woods for his horse, I walked through a 

 field in quest of wild strawberries. The season for 

 them was past, it being the 20th of July, and I found 

 barely enough to make me think that the strawberry 

 here is far less pungent and high-flavored than with 

 us. 



The cattle in the fields and by the roadside looked 

 very small and delicate, the effect, no doubt, of the 

 severe climate. We saw many rude implements of 

 agriculture, such as wooden plows shod with iron. 



