rrying great baskets of butter and eggs the three or four miles that
lay between North Gore and the village, found matter for contemptuous
animadversion in the glimpses they got of their neighbours' way of life,
and spoke scornfully to each other of the useless "Yankee" wives, who
were content to bide within doors while their husbands did not only the
legitimate field-work, but the work of the garden, and even the milking
of the cows as well. The "Yankee" wives in their turn shrugged their
shoulders at the thought of what the housekeeping must be that was left
to children, or left altogether, while the women were in the hay or
harvest-field as regularly and almost as constantly as their husbands
and brothers. Of course they did not speak their minds to one another
about all this, but they knew enough about one another's opinions to
make them suspicious and shy when they met.

And they did not meet often. The mistress of a new farm found little
time for visiting. Winter had its own work, and the snow and the bitter
cold kept them within doors. When winter was over they could only think
how best to turn to account the long days of the short Canadian summer
for the subduing of the soil, out of which must come food for their
hungry little ones. Every foot reclaimed from the swamp or the forest,
every unsightly thing burned out of the rough, new land, meant store of
golden grain and wholesome bread for the future. So, with brave hearts
and willing hands, the North Gore women laboured out of doors as well as
within, content to wait for the days when only the legitimate woman's
work should fall to their share. There were some exceptions, of course,
and friendly relations were established between individuals, and between
families, in the North Gore and the village; but a friendly feeling was
for a good many years by no means general, and two distinct communities
lived side by side in the town of Gershom.

Even the good people among them--God's own people--who have so much in
common that all lesser matters may well be made nothing of between
them--even they did not come together across the wall which ignorance
and prejudice and circumstances had raised. At least they did not for a
time. The Grants and the Scotts and the Sangsters travelled Sabbath by
Sabbath the four miles between the North Gore and the village, and,
passing the house where a good man preached the Gospel in the name of
the Lord Jesus, travelled four mi