Chapter 6 - Page 2

the burden.
Mother and children were landed safely in their new home on
Bowman's Hill the day that David was eighteen. I have heard the
old folks of that country tell what a splendid figure of a man he
was those days - six feet one in his stockings and broad at the
shoulder. His eyes were grey and set under heavy brows. I have
never forgotten the big man that laid hold of me and the broad
clean-shaven serious face, that looked into mine the day I came to
Paradise Valley. As I write I can see plainly his dimpled chin, his
large nose, his firm mouth that was the key to his character. 'Open
or shet,' I have heard the old folks say, 'it showed he was no fool.'

After two years David took a wife and settled in Paradise Valley.
He prospered in a small way considered handsome thereabouts. In
a few years he had cleared the rich acres of his farm to the sugar
bush that was the north vestibule of the big forest; he had seen the
clearing widen until he could discern the bare summits of the
distant hills, and, far as he could see, were the neat white houses of
the settlers. Children had come, three of them - the eldest a son
who had left home and died in a far country long before we came
to Paradise Valley - the youngest a baby.

I could not have enjoyed my new home more if I had been born in
it. I had much need of a mother's tenderness, no doubt, for I
remember with what a sense of peace and comfort I lay on the lap
of Elizabeth Brower, that first evening, and heard her singing as
she rocked. The little daughter stood at her knees, looking down at
me and patting my bare toes or reaching over to feel my face.

'God sent him to us - didn't he, mother?' said she.

'Maybe,' Mrs Brower answered, 'we'll be good to him, anyway.'

Then that old query came into my mind. I asked them if it was
heaven where we were.

'No,' they answered.

"Tain't anywhere near here, is it?' I went on.

Then she told me about the gate of death, and began sowing in me
the seed of God's truth - as I know now the seed of many harvests.
I slept with Uncle Eb in the garret, that night, and for long after we
came to the Brower's. He continued to get better, and was shortly
able to give his hand to the work of the farm.

There was room for all of us in that ample wilderness of his
imagination, and the cry of the swift woke its echoes every
evening for a time. Bears and panthers prowled in the deep
thickets, but the swifts took a firmer grip on us, being bolder and
more terrible. Uncle Eb became a great favourite in the family, and
David Brower came to know soon that he was 'a good man to
work' and could be trusted 'to look after things'. We had not been
there long when I heard Elizabeth speak of