The next thing to be done was to set the bran rising.  By the help of Tom’s recipe, it was duly mixed in the coffee-pot, and placed within a tin pan, full of hot water, by the side of the fire.  I have often heard it said that a watched pot never boils; and there certainly was no lack of watchers in this case.  Tom sat for hours regarding it with his large heavy eyes, the maid inspected it from time to time, and scarce ten minutes were suffered to elapse without my testing the heat of the water, and the state of the emptyings; but the day slipped slowly away, and night drew on, and yet the watched pot gave no signs of vitality.  Tom sighed deeply when we sat down to tea with the old fare.

“Never mind,” said he, “we shall get some good bread in the morning; it must get up by that time.  I will wait till then.  I could almost starve before I could touch these leaden cakes.”

The tea-things were removed.  Tom took up his flute, and commenced a series of the wildest voluntary airs that ever were breathed forth by human lungs.  Mad jigs, to which the gravest of mankind might have cut eccentric capers.  We were all convulsed with laughter.  In the midst of one of these droll movements, Tom suddenly hopped like a kangaroo (which feat he performed by raising himself upon tip-toes, then flinging himself forward with a stooping jerk), towards the hearth, and squinting down into the coffee-pot in the most quizzical manner, exclaimed, “Miserable chaff!  If that does not make you rise nothing will.”

I left the bran all night by the fire.  Early in the morning I had the satisfaction of finding that it had risen high above the rim of the pot, and was surrounded by a fine crown of bubbles.

“Better late than never,” thought I, as I emptied the emptyings into my flour.  “Tom is not up yet.  I will make him so happy with a loaf of new bread, nice home-baked bread, for his breakfast.”  It was my first Canadian loaf.  I felt quite proud of it, as I placed it in the odd machine in which it was to be baked.  I did not understand the method of baking in these ovens; or that my bread should have remained in the kettle for half an hour, until it had risen the second time, before I applied the fire to it, in order that the bread should be light.  It not only required experience to know when it was in a fit state for baking, but the oven should have been brought to a proper temperature to receive the bread.  Ignorant of all this, I put my unrisen bread into a cold kettle, and heaped a large quantity of hot ashes above and below it.  The first intimation I had of the result of my experiment was the disagreeable odour of burning bread filling the house.

“What is this horrid smell?” cried Tom, issuing from his domicile, in his shirt sleeves.  “Do open the door, Bell (to the maid); I feel quite sick.”

“It is the bread,” said I, taking the lid of the oven with the tongs.  “Dear me, it is all burnt!”