on on yer cookin', ma good woman, but so it is,
excep' for the grass that tickles yer fingers as ye walk an' the
pea-vine that up-ends ye when ye're no thinkin'. Bush! Ah've burnt
more bush from ma ten-acre clearin' than ye'll find in a dozen
counties. 'Deed, ye'll think a little more bush 'd be a guid thing
when ye have yer house to build an' a hungry stove to keep roarin'
from November to April."

"But whereby do they make their fences, if they ha' no cedar rails?"
demanded the woman, still unconvinced.

"Fences? An' why for would ye fence a farm, ye unsociable body? To
keep the gophers out? Or to keep the badgers in? Seein' ye have all
out-doors for yer cattle, an' the days of the buffalo are over,
thanks to the white man's powder an' shot, what would ye have with
fences?"

"But are ye sure it has no been all ploughed some time?" persisted
the woman, who could not bring herself to believe that Nature,
unaided, had left great areas ready for the hand of the husbandman. A
life of environment amid forests and rocks had sorely cramped her
imagination.

"Ah'm no sayin' for sure, but whoever ploughed it took a man's order.
It will be a thousand miles long, Ah'm thinkin', an' nobody knows how
wide. Pioneers like you an' me ha' been workin' our hands off in
Canada" (it was a trick of the old-timers to think only of the
Eastern Provinces as Canada), "an' in a hundred years we have no
cleared what'd be a garden patch to that farm out yonder. Ah'm
thinkin' it was a bigger Hand than yours or mine that did that
clearin'."

"Tell us about the crops," said one of the men passengers. "What like
wheat can ye grow?"

"Like corn," said the narrator, with great deliberation. "Heads like
ears o' corn. Wheat that grows so fast ye can hear it. Nothin'
uncommon to walk into wheat-fields when they's knee-high, an' have to
fight yer way out like a jungle."

"Is the Injuns werry big?" piped a little voice. "My pa's go'n'to
make me a bone-arrow so I can kill 'em all up."

"That's a brave soldier," said the man, drawing the child to his
knee. "But Ah know a better way to fight Indians than with bows an'
arrows. D'ye want me to tell ye a story?"

"'S about Moses?"

"No, Ah ain't quite up-to-date on Moses, but Ah can tell ye a story
about a better way to fight Indians than with arrows an' powder. Ah
fight 'em with flour an' blankets an' badger-meat, an' it's a long
way better."

The child climbed up on the friendly knee, and inter