One day, just before the snow fell, Moodie had gone to Peterborough for letters; our servant was sick in bed with the ague, and I was nursing my little boy, Dunbar, who was shaking with the cold fit of his miserable fever, when Jacob put his honest, round, rosy face in at the door.

“Give me the master’s gun, ma’am; there’s a big buck feeding on the rice-bed near the island.”

I took down the gun, saying, “Jacob, you have no chance; there is but one charge of buck-shot in the house.”

“One chance is better nor none,” said Jacob, as he commenced loading the gun.  “Who knows what may happen to oie?  Mayhap oie may chance to kill ’un; and you and the measter and the wee bairns may have zummut zavory for zupper yet.”

Away walked Jacob with Moodie’s “Manton” over his shoulder.  A few minutes after, I heard the report of the gun, but never expected to see anything of the game; when Jacob suddenly bounced into the room, half-wild with delight.

“Thae beast iz dead az a door-nail.  Zure, how the measter will laugh when he zees the fine buck that oie a’zhot.”

“And have you really shot him?”

“Come and zee!  ’Tis worth your while to walk down to the landing to look at ’un.”

Jacob got a rope, and I followed him to the landing, where, sure enough, lay a fine buck, fastened in tow of the canoe.  Jacob soon secured him by the hind legs to the rope he had brought; and, with our united efforts, we at last succeeded in dragging our prize home.  All the time he was engaged in taking off the skin, Jacob was anticipating the feast that we were to have; and the good fellow chuckled with delight when he hung the carcass quite close to the kitchen door, that his “measter” might run against it when he came home at night.  This event actually took place.  When Moodie opened the door, he struck his head against the dead deer.

“What have you got here?”

“A fine buck, zur,” said Jacob, bringing forward the light, and holding it up in such a manner that all the merits of the prize could be seen at a glance.

“A fine one, indeed!  How did we come by it?”

“It was zhot by oie,” said Jacob, rubbing his hands in a sort of ecstacy.  “Thae beast iz the first oie ever zhot in my life.  He! he! he!”

“You shot that fine deer, Jacob?—­and there was only one charge in the gun!  Well done; you must have taken good aim.”

“Why, zur, oie took no aim at all.  Oie just pointed the gun at the deer, and zhut my oeys an let fly at ’un.  ’Twas Providence kill’d ’un, not oie.”

“I believe you,” said Moodie; “Providence has hitherto watched over us and kept us from actual starvation.”