The trail of the Conestoga

Front matter

I

B MABEL DUNHAM by

Norah de Pencier

Foreword

OVER one hundred years ago the Mennonites came from Pennsylvania to Ontario, in order that they might live under British laws, and there find homes for themselves and their families. To-day, due to the enterprise of these early settlers, Waterloo County is one of the banner counties of all Ontario.

Miss Mabel Dunham, in her book "The Trail of the Conestoga," has given an exceptional picture of the early immigration of these people. They came to this country to find it a wilderness, and almost within a generation, by their unceasing labours, they changed the landscape so that well-built and substantial homes found themselves surrounded by cleared land covered with abundant harvests. It is such literature that makes us realize the background of our country's story. We know and appreciate too little the initiative, patience and self-sacrifice which characterized the struggles of our forefathers in laying not only the material but also the political foundations of our country. If we go back to early days, we shall find that the problems which perplex us are no greater than those they successfully solved. In their example we should find alike strength and inspiration.

W. L. Mackenzie King.

Kingsmere, Que.,

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

1 1

II 27

III 55

IV 75

VI Ill

VII 131

VIII 153

XII 239

XIII 261

XIV 281

XVI 307

XVII 323

Chapter I

IT was a cold northwest wind that blew over Pennsylvania that first Sunday morning of 1793, cold and blustery, driving the defenceless snow into every nook and corner, and covering the road that led from Brickerville to Lititz with a soft blanket of fleecy whiteness. Even the charred, ungainly stumps of the fences, which the day before had held up ugly, protesting arms to heaven, had been transformed over night into statuary of shimmering beauty. A marvellous sight !

Since daybreak Christian Eby had been standing at his kitchen window shivering. No thought of the wonder of the scene thrilled his stolid Pennsylvania Dutch soul. Away in the west he saw heavy clouds that betokened more snow, and down the chimney he heard the threatening howl of the wind. In his heart was discontent. Like the icy blast which seemed to penetrate even the thick walls of his ancestral home, cold dissatisfaction had blown in upon his life. His very soul shivered. Presently he turned to the wood-box for protection. Digging out the largest sticks he could find, he shoved them nonchalantly into the fire; then resumed his post at the window, and gave himself up to the cheerless contemplation of how like this winter's day his own wretched existence had come to be.

Meanwhile, Nancy, his wife, and the fountain whence all his wretchedness flowed, had entered the kitchen and was bustling about among the pots and pans of the fireplace preparing for breakfast. She was an industrious housewife, it must be confessed. Not even Christian could find fault with her on that score. She had another virtue, a rare one, they say, in women — she knew how to hold her tongue. There were volumes she wanted to say to her husband standing there at the window in utter dejection when he ought to have been out doing the chores, but she pressed her lips together and held her peace. To begin a conversation was a privilege she usually accorded her husband, whom the good St. Paul had set up in some uninspired moment as the head of the household. She was quite satisfied so long as she had the last word.

Still Christian did not speak, and Nancy began to cast impatient, reproachful glances in his direction. Just as she suspected, he was going off into one of those "fits" of his again. She knew the symptoms. A smile hovered over his features, a light sparkled in his eye. All of a sudden he seemed warm, buoyant, exhilarated. He was young again, dreaming dreams and seeing visions after the manner of men of half his years.

"Dumm!" muttered the exasperated woman, behind her teeth.

But patience was at last rewarded. Christian turned and began a little friendly conversation. "Nancy, I was chust thinkin' . . . "

He paused, but there was no answer. Nancy was pursing her lips, as though there might be something behind them that she wasn't quite ready to let out.

"I was chust thinkin'," Christian went on to say, looking about for something to increase his moral strength. He picked up the family comb and pretended to be giving his undivided attention to the care of his straggly beard, glancing furtively and apprehensively all the while in the direction of this thorn in the flesh that the Lord had sent him under the pleasing guise of wife. When he had mustered up a little strength, he completed his remarks with "mebbe till next winter we are in Canada already."

Nancy paid no attention. She did not so much as look up. She sat with, a shilling crock set deep into her lap and "schnitzed" apples as though the lives of all her household depended upon the diligence of that moment.

Christian took courage, forgetting for the time being that silence is not always an evidence of consent. "Me and Isaac Brubacher'are talkin' about goin' over till the spring when the roads get dry enough," he said. "Then we'll come back after a while mebbe and fetch her and you along over, too." He spoke as though it were not altogether a consummation devoutly to be desired.

Nancy jerked her crock around, and sharpened her knife ferociously on the edge of it.

But this visionary husband of hers did not see the storm brewing. He went stumbling blindly into it.

"Isaac says he will buy him a new yoke of oxen," he continued, "and a new wagon, and . .

"That's your dumm notion/' snapped Nancy, brandishing her knife in her good man's face like a regular shrew. "You needn't lay it to Isaac."

"But Isaac thinks . . ."

"Yes, I know. He always thinks what you tell him to. That's why you and him are so thick."

At this moment for some quite unaccountable reason Christian suddenly remembered the chores. He reached for his cap that hung on the peg behind the door, and wrapped his muffler about his neck. He lifted the latch- But Nancy caught him by the coat-tail, and dragged him like a culprit into the middle of the room. "So now you want to run away, do you?" she scolded. "Them cows can wait till I get through with you. Feel for goin' to Canada, eh, and sixty years old till April."

"It's the last of April," interjected Christian, weakly. "Might chust as well be May."

"Whether it's April or May makes nothing out," Nancy assured him. "There ain't much time lost between them. You've got one foot draggin' in the grave already, for all you want to be so young. And you know it, but you're too dumm to let on. You can thank the Lord you've got a woman that's got sense enough to stop where she's got it good. He chenerally always hunts out a smart woman for a dumm man, the Lord does."

Christian kept edging towards the door. The moment Nancy released him he was off. A cold blast met him as he opened the door, a flurry of snow blew up his coat-sleeve. The glow faded from his face, the sparkle had left his eye. Nancy was right. He was an old man, trudging through life with one foot dragging in the grave.

"He ain't right in his head, he can't be," was the conclusion Nancy reached when she soliloquized over this latest dissension with her husband. But she spoke as though, in her opinion, Christian was more to be censured than pitied for his mental condition. It was the unfortunate people who had to live with him that deserved all the pity.

Nancy Eby was one ,of those stay-at-homes who are quite content to be tethered for life to a single spot. As far as she knew, or cared, the world extended very little beyond her own horizon. To her, the Hammer Creek community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was the world, and its people the inhabitants thereof. It was on a neighbouring farm that she had first seen the light of day. Her wedding journey had been a walk hand in hand with Christian from the somewhat humble Bricker homestead to the Eby mansion on the adjoining hill farm, and when some day she should go to dwell forever in her Father's house of many mansions, her lifeless body would still remain among the scenes of her activity. So she hoped, and often as she stood at the window and gazed at the God's- Acre beyond, she had marked the spot where she and Christian would, side by side, sleep the sleep that knows no waking. This "dumm" notion of Christian's old age was directly opposed to her well-laid plans. But what of that? Everyone knew that he wasn't going to have anything at all to say about it. She would manage that — and Christian.

Christian Eby was proud of the home he shared with his wife. Little wonder that Nancy could not understand his desire to leave it. It stood on the summit of a hill overlooking the Brickerville road, and it was called, after a little stream that divided the farm, the Hammer Creek House. A lordly mansion it was for those days, two stories high, and built of clean gray sandstone that had been worn smooth with the rains of many years. Its spacious windows were all securely closed against the intrusion of any stray breath of fresh air, and behind the tiny panes of glass could be seen white linen blinds, half -drawn and adjusted with great precision, homespun without a doubt, and spotlessly clean. The front door was a heavy oaken one, and above it on a rectangular slab of red sandstone was carVed a curious inscription:

John Eby Elizabeth Eby

The Hammer Creek House had long been something more than a dwelling. Many years had passed since the Lord had set His seal upon it and marked it for a Mennonite meeting-house. In the time of old Theodorus, the American patriarch of the Eby family, and the little log shanty in the heart of the virgin forest, this home had first been chosen as the place where the people should erect their altar. When Christian's father inherited the farm and built on it the stately house with walnut and oaken panelled partitions and a huge chimney providing for open fireplaces in all the rooms of either story, the Ark of the Lord had not departed from its wonted habitation. The legend on the name-plate over the front door bore silent but incontrovertible witness to the fact that in the hearts of the Eby family there was the same inborn piety as had characterized them in less prosperous days.

Christian Eby walked in the way of his fathers. His heart was as large as his home, and his reputation for piety and hospitality grew with each successive year. No one presumed to question his judgment in matters of agricultural import or in the ecclesiastical councils of the Mennonite brotherhood. But this Canada talk! Everybody looked at everybody else when he began it. It was altogether too bad to think that at sixty and in apparent good health, the great and good man should have begun to show signs of approaching senility.

The chores were finished at last, and the object of the community's concern returned to the house, followed closely by his son, Hannes, a stalwart youth, who some years before had taken upon his shoulders the management of the farm. Several yards behind, two girls trudged through the snow, and found no end of difficulty in keeping to the beaten path, encumbered as they were with heavy milk-pails.

The younger one, who walked ahead, was still in her early teens. A woman of ideas for all that. She was calling out to her companion; "Why don't you call once, Susie, and tell Hannes he shall drag our milk in?"

Susie almost dropped her pails in astonishment.

"He's stronger than us," continued the young one, hearing no reply. "I'll tell him myself, if you give me the dare."

"Rebecca!" gasped Susie, in dire alarm, "if you do . . ."

Rebecca didn't.

During the few days her cousin had lived at the Hammer Creek House, Susie had been puzzling her brains over the child. Where had she picked up her ideas of life and conduct? Extraordinarily revolutionary they were for a girl of her age. When they had reached the shelter of the wood-shed, Susie put down her pails, closed the door and proceeded to learn what she could by that most direct of all means, interrogation.

"Wherever did you get such dumm notions, Beccy?" she demanded.

"What for dumm notions?" This, innocently.

"Why, to tell Hannes what he shall do."

"I didn't mean nothin'," Beccy made haste to assure her. "I only thought that he was stronger . .

"But Hannes is a man," interrupted Susie.

Beccy did not seem to understand, and Susie continued her investigation on another tack. "Was you ever in Lancaster yet?" she asked.

Beccy shook her head, wonderingly.

"Well, you didn't get it to home, that's sure," reflected Susie. "Us Mennonites ain't for leavin' the women rule it over the men like that. Your mam chumped every time your pop hollered, I know."

"But pop was sick."

"And now that he's went, she'll quick find another one to hop for," commented Susie. "She's set her cap for Israel Shantz already. She can have him for all I care."

What could Beccy do but sigh?

"That's what women are for,'^ explained Susie. "It says in the Bible that women must obey their men."

"But I haven't got a man," Beccy made haste to remind her.

"And if you talk like that, you'll never get one," replied Susie. "Then what will you do, Beccy? Get an old maid." She served this ultimatum with an expression of disgust in her face and voice.

At this moment, Hannes opened the kitchen door and announced that breakfast was ready.

As soon as all the family, hands clean and faces shining, had gathered about the table, Christian gave a sign, at which every head was bowed in a silence at once prolonged and profound. It was a matter for each individual conscience to decide what thoughts they would think during those hallowed moments. Who was to know, but the All-knowing One, of course, if Christian took a return trip to Canada on the wings of his imagination, or if Nancy's thoughts grovelled about in the narrow confines of her kitchen? Beccy, perhaps, reflected on the awful calamity that awaits women who speak their minds, and forgot to thank the Giver of every good and perfect gift for the food she was about to receive. Who knows? But the marvel was that without any sign of warning, the wandering thoughts of all were gathered in at precisely the same moment, the concluding amens ascended conjointly on high, and the business of breakfast was auspiciously begun.

What a meal it was ! The table fairly groaned with the weight upon it. Two heaping dishes of everything were set, one at either end of the table, so that even the children could conveniently spear everything their palates desired. Like all normal children the Eby offspring desired all they saw. If any one of them didn't, the logical conclusion was that something was wrong and Nancy was ready with a remedy.

"Fetch the sulphur, Susie," said the observant mother when her eyes, having roamed about from plate to plate, fell upon a great round crust that Little Lizzie thought she had hidden successfully under her saucer on the side most remote from; the maternal eye.

Susie brought a bowl from the mantle, and Nancy put some of the contents in a spoon and rilled it with molasses from a jug on the table.

"Here, Lizzie," commanded Nancy, "take this."

Now although Lizzie was only seven years old, she had already formed a strong aversion to the particular kind of medicine which her mother offered her. She looked first at the spoon, and then at the crust that her mother pulled out ruthlessly from its hiding-place and exposed to public view. She was in disgrace and she knew it. If she could only wiggle out of it somehow. But there she was wedged in between her mother and Beccy on a bench as immovable as the rocks of all the ages.

Now Lizzie was a little Mennonite girl, and so she wore at table, as custom compelled all womankind of that faith to do, a covering for her head. A dark handkerchief of generous proportions was folded obliquely from ear to ear and tied under her chin. The distressed little girl now used it to hide her reddened face.

"Shame!" cried Christian. "Our Lizzie must be a little boy, eh, Bench, that she sets at the table with a bare head."

Benjamin, a shaver of nine, grinned with appreciation. He sat at his fathers left hand and had an uninterrupted across-the-table view of the discomfited Lizzie, who never failed to laugh at him when he was in trouble.

Beccy was enjoined to cover once more Lizzie's rebellious head, whereupon the little one sat like a martyr, looking from the sulphur to the crust and from the crust back again to the sulphur. Her mother kept urging her to decision.

"Crusts give red cheeks, Lizzie," said Christian, encouragingly, "and strong teeth."

The kind word was all the child needed. She seized the crust, thrust it into her mouth and tried to swallow it at a single gulp. Nancy rescued it just in time and personally superintended its proper mastication.

When the last bite had disappeared, Lizzie essayed to look the world in the face once more. But to her surprise her mother's inexorable arm confronted her, and at the end of it, in close proximity to Lizzie's little pouting mouth, was the hated mixture of sulphur and molasses. She drew back, shook her head rebelliously, and began to cry.

"Ach, leave her be," urged Christian, whose kind heart was touched.

"Leave her be, did you say?" exploded Nancy. "That's the dumm way you have of spoilin' 'em. Here, Lizzie, don't make so slow."

But the little rebel made no haste to obey. War was imminent. The mother called into operation her strong right arm, and pushed Lizzie's defiant little head forward in contact with the spoon. Every eye in the room was centred on the scene of conflict.

"Take it, Lizzie," whispered Beccy, nudging her elbow. "I'll wash the dishes if you do."

At this, Nancy carried the battle into another quarter forthwith, and poured out the vials of her wrath upon the interfering Beccy. "What for did you do that?" she demanded.

"To make her do it," replied Beccy.

"And what do you think I am doin' ?" Nancy wanted to know. "Ain't I makin' her do it? I didn't ask for none of your help."

"But she'll do it easier if you coax her," suggested Beccy.

"That's another one of them notions that grow in the Eby dumm heads," said Nancy. "They've all got them one way or another."

Then Christian, who had caught a glimpse of the self-satisfied smile that was hovering about Lizzie's little sulphur-dusted mouth, committed a fatal indiscretion. He laughed.

Nancy turned upon him reproachfully and demanded to know what he found so amusing in her endeavour to teach his child the rudimentary virtue of obedience.

"It's all!" cried Christian, quite unable to restrain his mirth.

"What's all?"

"The sulphur."

Nancy looked at the child who was the chief instigator of all this tumult of words. The sulphur had disappeared, and Lizzie was revolving her little red tongue around the circumference of her mouth gathering up with it all the stray particles of the dose.

"Is it good, Lizzie?" asked Hannes from across the table. He was laughing, too.

Lizzie made a wry face. It was clear that she was not too young to know the value of the gentle art of conciliation.

But Nancy was determined that Lizzie should pay the full penalty of her folly. "For that you can wash the dishes alone," she announced with decision. "I'll learn you to be actin' up behind my back."

Protests were useless. The crust, the sulphur, and the dishwashing had all unexpectedly fallen to Lizzie's lot. She had to eat not only her crust but also the bitter fruit of her disobedience. It was a disagreeable experience, but through it she learned a very valuable lesson of life and conduct.

No sooner had the dishes been cleared from the table and replaced by the red tablecloth than Hannes took a book from his pocket, sat down at Christian's place and began to read.

Immediately Nancy was concerned. She bustled about excitedly, and looked over her son's shoulder. Just as she expected. He was reading that useless story book of his. "He's at it again," she told her husband.

"Ach, leave him be," said Christian, not in the least alarmed.

"That's always the way," replied Nancy, in an aggrieved tone of voice. "You let me with all the trainin' to do. All them lies he is readin' ! It'll ruin him body and soul!"

Christian was sufficiently interested in his son's spiritual welfare to put on his spectacles and go and look over his shoulder to see what was the nature of this pernicious literature that Hannes was imbibing with such avidity. He was surprised to find his own name printed there. "Christian in the Slough of Despond," he read.

"It's all a pack o' lies," reiterated Nancy.

But Christian was absorbed in this namesake of his who seemed to have fallen into a terrible pit. He was so anxious to know if he got out again that he could hardly wait until Hannes had turned the page.

"You're readin' them lies, too," cried Nancy, consumed with that species of temper known as righteous indignation. She swobped down upon the table, seized the contaminating thing, and threw it into the fire. "There," she said with satisfaction. "Now it can't hurt either of you. Ain't the Bible good enough for you no more ?"

Hannes was amazed, but he said nothing. It was no use, he knew.

"Where did you get it?" whispered Christian.

"From Jake Brubacher," replied Hannes. "He fetched it from Lancaster last week already."

Christian was keeping a watchful eye over Nancy's movements. At an opportune moment he drew out his purse, took out a number of coins, and said : "Tell him he can fetch you another one along over sometime when he goes again."

"It's a story-book," said Hannes, unwilling to spend his father's money for riotous literature without his knowledge and consent.

"A true story-book/' replied Christian, shoving the money into the young man's pocket. "I read enough to know that. But you must hide it, Hannes, or it will come in the fire too." He glanced knowingly in Nancy's direction.

So the secret bargain was sealed.

Meanwhile, preparations were being made for the meeting. Fires had been kindled in the large front rooms, and little Benj was running about here and there arranging the chairs in rows. The Bible and the hymn book were placed on the pulpit table, and all was in readiness a whole hour before the time set for the meeting.

"Well, Bench," said Christian, entering from the kitchen, and patting the little fellow on the back. "Do you feel good to-day?"

Benj never complained of his health, but he was not a robust child. Like Jacob of old, Christian loved this Benjamin of his above all his other sons, and watched him anxiously lest, peradventure, mischief might befall him.

"You must grow big and strong or you can't come in Canada," continued Christian. "You want to go there some day, not?"

"I'm goin' with you along."

Of course he was. Christian would not think of going without his Benj. In all his visions of journey to the delectable land of the north, he saw his little son tramping along in his footsteps.

"We must have hope," said Christian.

"And faith," added Benj.

"Yes, and charity, too," replied Christian, thinking of Nancy in the kitchen. "It looks like you've got faith, Bench." He motioned to the rows of chairs. "Do you think somebody will come to meetin' on a day like this ?"

"It's Sunday, not?" said Benj, into whose little mind had never entered the idea of the weather having any possible influence over the performance of religious duties.

"Yes, but the storm," answered Christian. "Roads will be all blocked. Nobody can get through."

A cloud of disappointment passed over Little Benj's face. He went to the window and stood there, trying to bolster up his faith with hope.

But the conversation which he heard from the kitchen did not bring him any assurance. "They won't come to-day," the mother was saying. "And if they do, who's to preach? Peter can't. He's sick."

Susie suggested a substitute, but Nancy shook her head. Not even the Bishop could preach like Peter, she said. But that was only maternal pride, for Peter was her eldest son, who years before had been married and was living happily on a farm near by. Early in life he had heard the call to preach, and although there were not being added to the church daily such as were being saved under his ministry, still he was an earnest, forceful speaker, and a very devout man. On Sundays he dug up the fallow ground in a figurative sense as diligently as he continued to do it literally on week days.

"Well, if Peter can't come," said Susie, "there'll be others that will. We can wisit anyway."

Betty tittered. "Josiah Schneider ?" she suggested, whereupon Susie turned her face to hide a suffusion of blushes.

"Who told you about Josiah Schneider?" demanded Nancy, making a mental note at the same time of Susie's confusion.

Beccy saw danger ahead and decided to hold her tongue.

"Did she tell you, too, how lazy he is?" asked Nancy, keeping her eyes glued upon the back of Susie's head. "Did she tell you that?"

"No — o," stammered Beccy.

"Well then I will. He's lazy and big-feelin' and most everything else. He won't make nobody a good man. Is it snowin' yet, Susie?"

"Yes," replied Susie, without so much as looking in the direction of the window.

"Well then nobody will come," decided Nancy. "Put the chairs back again on the wall, Benj," she called into the front room. "It won't give no wisiters to-day."

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when Christian Eby, in a loud voice that resounded through the house, made the joyful announcement that somebody was coming up the lane.

"On horseback!" cried Benj, turning from the chairs and running to the window.

"A Schimmel! Whatever!" exclaimed Hannes.

"A Schimmel!" echoed Susie, in derision. "What did he get a Schimmel for?"

"To ride on," laughed Hannes. "Looks like a good horse for all he's white. Think once, Susie, how you would feel if you was a nigger."

But Susie had not at that particular moment any time for ethnological problems. What concerned her was that Josiah Schneider had bought a Schimmel when she had in his hearing expressed a decided preference for bay horses.

"Can you make out yet who it is ?" asked Nancy, a trifle anxiously.

"Sam Bricker, I think," replied Hannes.

Susie's expectant countenance fell suddenly.

"Looks around the head like the colt that kicked Daniel the dashboard out of the buggy," remarked Christian.

"It is Sam Bricker," decided Benj, dancing about in high glee at the prospect of a romp with his favourite cousin.

"Yes, it's Sam," was the general opinion. "He must 've bought Daniel's horse at the sale."

The great event of the week had been the disposal of all the household effects and farm stock of Beccy's father, the late Jeremiah Eby. From miles around

THE TRAIL OF THE CONESTOGJ the farmers had come in the early morning, had chatted and visited and eaten together; then bought what they could at a bargain and taken it home at the close of a perfect day.

For the bereaved family it had been a day of separation and sadness. The widow had to return in poverty to her father's home; the family was scattered. Daniel alone was to remain on the old farm, but in the capacity of hired man to the new owner. The girls were to be farmed out among the relatives; and Beccy was accounted lucky indeed when it was learned that it had fallen to her lot to drive back to the Hammer Creek House, sandwiched in between her new foster parents, Christian and Nancy Eby. Beccy herself was none too elated over her great fortune. She would have much preferred to remain on the dear old farm in the backwoods with all the associations of her childhood.

It was Christian who noticed first that Beccy was. not with the others at the window. He had asked her if she recognized the colt, and she had not answered. He turned and saw her huddled in the corner behind the wood-box. He was about to go and console her; but Nancy, noticing, brushed him aside and went herself instead.

"What is it, Beccy?" she asked solicitously, drawing up a chair beside the girl and stroking her hair. It was the tenderest caress of which her undemonstrative Pennsylvania Dutch soul was capable. "Is it anything wrong?"