* * * * * *

Fredericton. April 17, 1868.

* * * * * *

The Squaw has been making the blotting-case, and Peter brought it to-day, and I am very much pleased with it and hope M. will like it.  I would like to have got an envelope case and a canoe, but they are so difficult to pack, and it would be so aggravating to have them broken, so we got a few flat things.  The blotting-case and moccasins, and a cigar-case for F., and a tiny pair of snow-shoes.  The blotting-case is a good specimen, as it is made of the lovely birch bark; and they were all got direct from Indians we know.  A squaw with a sad face of rather a nigh type called to beg the other day.  She could hardly speak English.  She said, “Sister, me no ate to-day;” so I gave her some bread-and-butter, which she gave at once to the boy with her, and went away.

We have had some splendid Auroras lately.  They are not rosy here, but very beautiful otherwise, and very capricious in shape, long grand tongues of light shooting up into the sky.

* * * * *

We are beginning now to talk of “Mayflower expeditions.”  I think I shall give one to a few select friends.  I had thought of a child’s one, but a nice old school-mistress here gives one for children, and I think one raid of the united juvenile population on the poor lovely flowers is enough.  The Mayflower is a lovely wax-like ground creeper with an exquisite perfume.  It is the first flower, and is to be found before the snow has left the woods....

May 12, 1868.

...  I have a wonderful lot of gardening on my shoulders, for we have no gardener—­only get a soldier to work in the kitchen garden—­so I have had to make my plans and arrange my crops for the kitchen garden, as well as look after my own.  We have really two charming bits—­a little, hot, sunny, good soil, vegetable plot—­and quite away from this—­by the house, my flower garden.  Two round beds and four borders, with a high fence and two little gates, I have nearly got this tidy.  The last occupant had never used it.  It is a great enjoyment to me, and does me great good, I think, by keeping me out of doors.  Rexie has given me a dear little set of tools—­French ones, like children’s toys, but quite enough for me.  They form the subject of one of the little rhymes that Hector and I make together, and that I croon to the bull-doge to his great satisfaction.

    “The little Missus with the little spade
    Two little beds in the little garden has made. 
    The Bull-doge watches (for he can’t work)
    How she turns up the earth with her little fork. 
    Then she takes up the little hoe
    And into the weeds doth bravely go,
    At last with the smallest of little rakes
    Quite smooth and tidy the beds she makes.”

Another that was made in bed on the occasion of one of his raids on my invalid breakfast was—­