Ralph Connor

“ Every one evidently knows where the Great Marshes are.
But first we must drink a delicious cup of tea from a brave young Scotchwoman, who has learned the trick of making a home for her husband and babies amid the limitations of Canadian wilds, little like the Edinburgh home where she herself was a baby, and which she left not so very long ago.
Then we must take a look at the new manse of which the missionary feels he has the right to be modestly proud, for it is mostly the work of his own hand. ”

“ A dear little woman she is, bowed somewhat with the burden of her life, but though her sweet face is worn and thin, it is very bright, and now it is aglow with welcome to her friend the missionary. She welcomes me, too, but with a gentle reserve. She is ready enough to give of her heart's wealth, but only to those she has learned to trust. ”

“ The snows may pile up into the bluff and the blizzards sweep over the whistling reeds of the Marshes, but nothing can chill the love or dim the hopes that warm and brighten the hearts in the little log house Beyond the Marshes, for they have their source from that high place where love never faileth and hopes never disappoint. ”

“ And this sweet prairie idyll is surely one of those fragrant messages which lays its hold on us as we pause for a moment in the midst of our fevered lives and anxious thoughts, and step across the threshold of that chamber where we must needs put our shoes from off our feet, for the place whereon we stand is holy ground. And as we press on again to life's duties, may we bear with us something of the precious perfume diffused by plants which are divine in their origin and which must be divine in their influence. ”

“ BEYOND THE MARSHES The missionary of the Bonjour field found me standing bag in hand upon the railway platform watching my train steam away to the east. He is glad to see me. I am of his own kind, and there are so few of his kind about that his welcome is strong and warm. He is brown and spare and tough-looking. For six months he has driven along the pitching trails and corduroy roads, drenched by rains, scorched by suns, and pursued by the flies. As to the flies there is something to be said. ”

“ And every now and then a fragrance is wafted to our inner senses as we read some simple story which is to us as a breath of the clover, bringing us a message of sweetness and beauty, and going straight to our hearts with the power that belongs to the secrets which lie hidden at our lifers core. ”

“ But they are kindly eyes and full of peace, with none of that look in them that shows when the heart is anxious or sore. The face, the mouth, the eyes, tell the same tale of a soul that has left its storms behind and has made the haven, though not without sign of the rough weather without. ”

“ There they sweep for miles away, with their different grasses waving and whispering under the steady blowing breeze, first the red-top, then as the soil grows wet the blue-joint and the swamp grass, and out of the standing water the dark green reeds, and farthest in the tall, wild cane bowing its stately, tasseled head. ”

“ He, like his great Master, is a carpenter, and day and night in the pauses of his preaching and visiting and studying, he has wrought at it, getting such help as he can, till there it stands, among the trees, the little cottage manse, announcing to all that the mission has come to stay. ”

“ Through the winter the snow piled up round the shanty where lived the little fair-haired woman and her little girl of nine years and two babies now, thinking, talking, dreaming, weeping, waiting for the spring and the home-coming of the father. One of the horses died, and the other was sold. Their places were taken by oxen. "And the oxen are really very good; I like to work with the oxen," says the little man, with heroic Scotch philosophy and invincible content. He cannot have the best; he will make the best of what he can have. ”

“ One result of the deal has been an unlimited confidence on the part of the missionary in his own horse-dealing instinct. It is quite true that Golddust has not always shown his present mild and trustful disposition. Indeed, the missionary goes on to tell how, being loaned for a day to a brother missionary up west, the horse had returned in the evening much excited, but not much the worse, with a pair of shafts dangling at his heels. ”

“ The broad brow is smooth, and the mouth, though showing the lines of suffering—what control these lines suggest!—is firm and content. The dark eyes look out from under their straight black brows with a friendly searching. ”

“ I tell my best stories and make my pet jokes just to see them laugh. They laugh, as they do everything else, with a gentle reserve; and occasionally Jean, a girl of fifteen, shy like the rest, pulls herself up with a blush lest she has been unduly moved to laughter. ”

“ The mother presides over all with a quiet efficiency, taking keen, intelligent interest in the conversation, now and then putting a revealing question, all the while keeping a watchful eye upon the visitors' plates lest they should come near being empty. ”