rms, the very embodiment of
stolid and expressionless indifference to all earthly things--those who
loved him best included.

But this state of "goodness" did not last long. He soon began to
display what may be styled the old-Adamic part of his nature, and
induced Leif, after much long-suffering, to suggest that "that would
do," and that "he had better be taken away!"

The effervescence of the colony caused by this infusion of new elements
ere long settled down. The immigrants took part in the general labour
and duties. Timber-cutting, grape-gathering, hay-making, fishing,
hunting, exploring, eating, drinking, and sleeping, went on with
unabated vigour, and thus, gradually, autumn merged into winter.

But winter did not bring in its train the total change that these
Norsemen had been accustomed to in their more northern homes. The
season was to them comparatively mild. True, there was a good deal of
snow, and it frequently gave to the branches of the trees that silvery
coating which, in sunshine, converts the winter forest into the very
realms of fairyland; but the snow did not lie deep on the ground, or
prevent the cattle from remaining out and finding food all the winter.
There was ice, also, on the lake, thick enough to admit of walking on
it, and sledging with ponies, but not thick enough to prevent them
cutting easily through it, and fishing with lines and hooks, made of
bone and baited with bits of fat, with which they caught enormous trout,
little short of salmon in size, and quite as good for food.

Daring the winter there was plenty of occupation for every one in the
colony. For one thing, it cost a large number of the best men constant
and hard labour merely to supply the colonists with firewood and food.
Then the felling of timber for export was carried on during winter as
easily as in summer, and the trapping of wild animals for their furs was
a prolific branch of industry. Sometimes the men changed their work for
the sake of variety. The hunters occasionally took to fishing, the
fishers to timber felling and squaring, the timber-cutters to trapping;
the trappers undertook the work of the firewood-cutters, and these
latter relieved the men who performed the duties of furniture-making,
repairing, general home-work and guarding the settlement. Thus the work
went on, and circled round.

Of course all this implied a vast deal of tear and wear. Buttons had
not at that time been invented, but tags c