The Half Way House 
air of " Cape North " is alone worth going 
there for. 
Mrs. McPherson cooked eggs and salt fish 
and potatoes for our supper and spread the 
table in the sunny little sitting-room that 
opened out of the kitchen and whose floor was 
carpeted with many rugs of agreeable design. 
We persuaded her to join us, and added blue- 
berries, apples, and coffee from our stores. 
Mrs. McPherson gave us our first lesson in 
Gaelic, and from her we learned to say " good- 
night " and to ask for bread, milk, potatoes, and 
oats in that unmusical tongue. 
She also initiated us into the mysteries of rug- 
making, and told us how dogwood bark makes 
a gray colouring ; " crackle," which is, as far as 
we could make out, a kind of moss, yields 
brown ; while hemlock also makes a pretty 
shade of brown ; and a weed which we could 
not make out at all from her description yields 
a yellow dye. We were glad to know these 
things, and to examine the charming rugs on 
the floor, made from old rags dyed so pleas- 
antly by the juices of the grim forest, and to 
learn the individual history of each one. 
In the evening came a crowd of berry-pickers 
265 
