“Well, Mrs. J—–­, what have you got for our dinner?” said our driver, after he had seen to the accommodation of his teams.

“Pritters[1] and pork, sir.  Nothing else to be had in the woods.  Thank God, we have enough of that!”

[1] Vulgar Canadian for potatoes.

D—–­ shrugged up his shoulders, and looked at us.  “We’ve plenty of that same at home.  But hunger’s good sauce.  Come, be spry, widow, and see about it, for I am very hungry.”

I inquired for a private room for myself and the children, but there were no private rooms in the house.  The apartment we occupied was like the cobbler’s stall in the old song, and I was obliged to attend upon them in public.

“You have much to learn, ma’am, if you are going to the woods,” said Mrs. J—–.

“To unlearn, you mean,” said Mr. D—–.  “To tell you the truth, Mrs. Moodie, ladies and gentlemen have no business in the woods.  Eddication spoils man or woman for that location.  So, widow (turning to our hostess), you are not tired of living alone yet?”

“No, sir; I have no wish for a second husband.  I had enough of the first.  I like to have my own way—­to lie down mistress, and get up master.”

“You don’t like to be put out of your old way,” returned he, with a mischievous glance.

She coloured very red; but it might be the heat of the fire over which she was frying the pork for our dinner.

I was very hungry, but I felt no appetite for the dish she was preparing for us.  It proved salt, hard, and unsavoury.

D—–­ pronounced it very bad, and the whiskey still worse, with which he washed it down.

I asked for a cup of tea and a slice of bread.  But they were out of tea, and the hop-rising had failed, and there was no bread in the house.  For this disgusting meal we paid at the rate of a quarter of a dollar a-head.

I was glad when the horses being again put to, we escaped from the rank odour of the fried pork, and were once more in the fresh air.

“Well, mister; did not you grudge your money for that bad meat?” said D—–­, when we were once more seated in the sleigh.  “But in these parts, the worse the fare the higher the charge.”

“I would not have cared,” said I, “if I could have got a cup of tea.”

“Tea! it’s poor trash.  I never could drink tea in my life.  But I like coffee, when ’tis boiled till it’s quite black.  But coffee is not good without plenty of trimmings.”

“What do you mean by trimmings?”

He laughed.  “Good sugar, and sweet cream.  Coffee is not worth drinking without trimmings.”

Often in after years have I recalled the coffee trimmings, when endeavouring to drink the vile stuff which goes by the name of coffee in the houses of entertainment in the country.