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country. The father is in the bush; trunk after trunk, is falling 
prostrate under the powerful strokes of the woodman’s merciless 
axe; the mother at home is preparing the frugal meal in the iron 
pot suspended by a chain over the merrily flickering chimney- 
fire. Children are playing in front of the sylvan hut, radiant 
with health, and with their cheeks flushed with the forest-breeze; 
a faithful dog, chickens and pigs are their playmates. “It is 
hard work, indeed” the industrious house-wife is perhaps chatt- 
ing with her husband on his return from the combat with those 
antiquated wood-giants , “a life full of trouble and privation ; no 
physician, no drug-store, no church in the neighbourhood; nor 
even a friend, to talk about the dear, old home; yet, what we 
see before us and all around us , is ours , we may call it ours, 
and the Giver of All, I trust, will grant us His help for the future.” 
And so it is. From year to year improvements are going on; the 
bush dwindles away; crop succeeds crop; the log-house has been 
supplanted by a pleasant, commodious country-house, surrounded 
with blooming gardens and waving fields. Herds of well-fed cattle 
are grazing in the pastures; horses are skipping and plunging in 
the meadows; friends have settled in the neighbourhood; smooth 
lanes and neat paths are winding between hedges and through the 
woods from farm to farm. And close by the wayside stands a 
church; a tavern is there, and the first trading-shop too has al- 
ready been opened. Where of late there stood but a scanty iso- 
lated log-house , there is now — it cannot be called a village , 
nor is it quite a town ; it is — a fragment of a town. Town people 
are inhabiting it with town-wants and town-fashions; they have 
mail-communications and newspapers; horses and carriages, and 
are living like the lords and ladies in the “old country.” 
Thus, in the evening of a busy life, the old ones are en- 
joying their plenty; their children have now advanced into the 
bush; father and mother have set them a good example, and 
a new vigorous generation , undaunted by obstacles , is tak- 
ing with rapid strides possession of the land , once the native 
haunts of a race of men of another complexion, called savages, 
