two or three seriously disposed young
men to meet him every Sunday afternoon in the cottage of Jacques Dubois,
for the purpose of reading the Bible together. Linda's plan of a
Scripture class for girls was rather slower of realization, owing partly
to a certain timidity, not unnatural in a gently nurtured girl, which
made her shrink from encountering the quick-witted half-republican, and
wholly insubordinate young ladies of the 'Corner.'

CHAPTER XXXII.

HOW THE CAPTAIN CLEARED HIS BUSH.

The next great event in our settlers' history was their first logging-bee,
preparatory to the planting of fall wheat. The ladies had been quite
apprehensive of the scene, for Robert and Arthur could give no pleasant
accounts of the roysterings and revelry which generally distinguished
these gatherings. But they hoped, by limiting the amount of liquor
furnished to sufficient for refreshment, though not sufficient for
intoxication, that they could in a measure control the evil, as at their
raising-bee four months previously.

The mass of food cooked for the important day required so much extra
labour, as sorely to discompose the Irish damsel who acted under Linda's
directions. Miss Biddy Murphy had already begun to take airs on herself,
and to value her own services extravagantly. Life in the bush was not
her ideal in coming to America, but rather high wages, and perchance a
well-to-do husband; and, knowing that it would be difficult to replace
her, she thought she might be indolent and insolent with impunity.
Linda's mother never knew of all the hard household work which her
frail fragile girl went through in these days of preparation, nor what
good reason the roses had for deserting her cheeks. Mamma should not be
vexed by hearing of Biddy's defection; and there was an invaluable and
indignant coadjutor in Andy.

Everybody was at the bee. Zack Bunting and his team, Davidson and his
team, and his tall sons; Captain Armytage and Mr. Reginald; Jacques
Dubois and another French Canadian; a couple of squatters from the other
side of the lake; altogether two dozen men were assembled, with a fair
proportion of oxen.

It was a burning summer day: perhaps a hundred degrees in the sun at
noon. What a contrast to the season which had witnessed the fall of the
great trees now logging into heaps. Robert could hardly believe his
memory, that for three months since the year began, the temperature of
this very place had been below the