EMIGRATION TO CANADA 21 



stead of just one and I immediately returned to the house and had 

 them thawed out properly and was not injured by the freezing. 



Another foolish thing that we did, I may mention, to show 

 that it is only by experience we learn. At Christmas time we 

 expected my uncle and his family to come with a sleigh and we 

 would all have a great sleigh ride. We lived about two hundred 

 yards from the road and, as we had no lane at the time, we got 

 shovels and shovelled over a foot of snow off the ground all the 

 way from the house to the road so that they, as we thought, could 

 come up easily. Instead of helping them we had worked for 

 nothing, because it was impossible for the horses to pull the sleigh 

 over the bare ground and of course we were laughed at as green- 

 horns. 



After Christmas and before New Year's day, Josh Archer, 

 Frederick's brother-in-law, arranged to go into the woods to cut 

 and saw logs. I agreed to go with him as measurer of the logs 

 and to keep the men's time. The first thing we did when we went 

 to the woods was to find where there was a spring and clear a 

 place and erect a shanty where the men were to live. A number 

 of dead pines were cut down and the logs brought together and 

 the shanty was put up almost in a day and roofed with boards. 

 The men began to cut the trees around where the shanty was and 

 another man and myself were inside the shanty filling the chinks 

 with mud and pieces of wood to keep out the cold. While we 

 were at work the trees were falling all round the shanty and I was 

 frightened for fear a tree would fall in our direction and I asked 

 the man what he would do if a tree fell on the shanty. He said 

 he would be so scared that he would not know what to do. I told 

 him that I would drop down just where I was and lie close to the 

 log beside me. With that, we heard a tree crack and we listened 

 and in a short time heard the first tree strike another tree and a 

 tremendous crack took place and we very soon heard the swish 

 of a tree coming our way and I did as I had said, and fell down 

 at once beside the wall and with that a tree lit fairly on the top 

 of our shanty and knocked the other man down ; but he was soon 

 on his feet again and ran out and was sure he was killed. He 

 frightened all the men with his yelling and had not been injured. 



