| Title: | From Bridget Lacy, Upper Canada, to Mary Thompson, Ireland. |
|---|---|
| ID | 4556 |
| Collection | Authentic Letters from Upper Canada [Rev. Thomas Radcliff] |
| File | radcliff/14 |
| Year | 1832 |
| Sender | Lacy, Bridget |
| Sender Gender | female |
| Sender Occupation | servant |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Adelaide, Upper Canada |
| Destination | Ireland |
| Recipient | Thompson, Mary |
| Recipient Gender | female |
| Relationship | friends |
| Source | |
| Archive | |
| Doc. No. | |
| Date | |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | |
| Log | unknown |
| Word Count | 2771 |
| Genre | household chores, life in the colony |
| Note | |
| Transcript | Addalad, Dec. 1832. My dear Mary, We are at our journey's end at last. I hope you got my letter from York town; I have a great deal to say. and but little time to say it in, as Mr. G. is going back to York, and will carry this, and send it free too, from that, if he can. It's I that would be long sorry to put you to charges for my foolish prate;-—and send your's Mary, to the old master, and I'll get it by some one comming out. , For to go for to tell you all we had to bear since I wrote last, would take a choir, and in troth I've no great time on hand, for sure enough, dear Mary, I have changed my sitiation since I came here. Now, I know what you'll say—aye do I—as well as if I was at the inside of you:— "Oh ho! I knew what the tinder whisper and the loving pinches aboord the ship would come to—and I wish you joy, Mrs. Bridget Benson." Troth then, my dear, you're out in your guess—for it's no such thing, but who knows? Would you believe it, he's living within four miles of me at Bear's Creek, and comes over to church of a Sunday, and to see me, and to eat a bit before he goes; and now, Mary, the butter is coming out of the stirrabout, being that my change of sitialion is nothing more or less than my change from childeren's maid to cook, and a happy change too, Mar)' for instead of that poor streeleen thing I was, leaving home, I am now growing plump and fat, and well to look at—and so Benson tells me, and that I look better and better every time he comes over; and Mary, dear, there's a wide differ betune the nursery and the kitchen—and isn't it a great thing to be able to give a friend, and such a friend, a savoury toothful, when he's so oblidgeing as to go for to come so far to see you, and he a fine young lad that hasn't a nick in his horns yit, as the saying is, whatever he may live to have, and has the whole township to chose from. And Mary, dear, we're no ways stingy of our vickels in this country, and it's he that likes the Venzon. Why, my dear, they're as plenty with us as goats on the Wicklow mountains; and Mary, you'd like it greatly, and so do I: and sure enough it does'nt go into an ill skin. But what made this changification? you will ask. Why this way—the mistress thought the other life was too asy for me; and so it was; and as I dressed a dish or two that plazed the master, she said, she'd put me into the kitchen where I might show my talons. We've got a very good girl in my place — a little Yankeeish as they say—but we must give and make allowances. I'd like her very well for a fellow servant, only she's allways botherin me for sa-ce. Now what do you think she means by that?—Why every thing in the world, but meat—not that she'd be content without that too, but she must have sace besides. Now when you come for to know what this sace is, it would make you wonder. Sace is every thing you could name—potatees, vegables, butter, pickles and sweetmeats—they're all called sace— only mustard, pepper and vinegar is not. And Mary my Jewell, the people here must have sace at all their meals. Now Mary, dear, we were well fed at the school, but we never heard of such doings as these; I like a good bit as well as another, and why not? but this is too bad entirely; they are cheap enough though, indeed mostly for nothing, or who could stand it? This girl we've got (and a smart girl too,) has five pound a year, and sure that's not much after all the great talk about high wages. Where the farmers get their penny out of them in hard work, they should pay for it, but isn't it better be with a mistress that's asy and good humored and good, and won't work one to the stumps? but without any mather of doubt the servants are great plagues; they think of nothing but bettering themselves, and they that come out hardly puts their foot on the land when they get's roa ving thoughts in their sculls, as if the air of this country gave them a rambeling way with them. There was a friend of my master's brought out an old servant who had earnt £20 and had it in a purse; her master at first refused to bring her, guessing she'd leave him. Well, she bound herself for a year, and to lose the £20 put in his hands, if she left him; why then my dear, she wasn't a month here when she made herself scarce, leaving her money behind—and no more about it or her, ever since. Then there was our Sandy, was sent to the post and never came back, and who should come in his place but a Yankee, mighty fond of his gut, and always grumbling about sace—a hard working fellow for all that, and had £20 a year. Well my dear, he was sent for change of a hundred dollar note, and that same made him take to his scrapers. The master was all in a quandary when he didn't come back, and he went off to his brother, and got his man Pat Mee, to run off and try if he could overtake the blicguard, and Pat Mee nabbed him sure enough late the next day about sixty miles off, without the manes of a horse itself, and got amost all the money in his pocket and gave him, as he says, the father of a bating, and brought all home safe. Pat surely is an honest boy and so he ought, for he's well treated and has five and twenty pounds a year; it won't be long before he'll be buying a lot of land. Benson has never had the sperit to come to the point with me yet —so there's no harm in having two strings to one's bow my dear Mary. Pat and I to be sure are not of one way of thinking, but he might come round. As we were coming, on the journey, near a town where we were to come up with his master, who should we meet but Pat, without my knowing him, in a mighty quare cap and jacket, and a face as brown with the sun as a copper skillet: "Why then don't you know your old friends, Biddy Lacy," says Pat, "when you meet them in a strange place, but I suppose you took me for an Ingine and I'm like one sure enough, with this burning sun on my face, but yees had better be going on, and you'll find friends before you—and I shot a pair of ducks this morning, that you'll have for your supper"; and so there was, and glad enough we were all for to meet, for my two fellow prentices are with his mistress. While my master was building this house we lived above a month at a farmer's, and a quare place it was, but I lamed a great deal while I staid, and the woman of the house was no bad warrant to tell me how to do a But what flogged all that I had ever seen, was making sugar out of a tree, Mary—not a word of lie do 1 tell you; you take a big gimlet and make a hole in the tree, (the maypole I think they call it,) and out comes the sugar, like sweet water thick like, and you boil it, and you but where's the use of my telling you any thing about it, as you have no sugar trees at home. I remember when you and I thought a sugar stick a mighty good sort of a thing, never thinking I'd lay my eyes upon a sugar tree. I'm told there are such things as butter trees too, but seeing's believing, and they shan't take me in that way, but there's one tree I'm sure of, and that's a plumb tree, wild in the woods, for I pull'd with my own hands more than I could eat and carry away, and we boiled them with the maypole sugar, and a fine parcel of jam we had, all for nothing but our trouble, which was only a pleasure, not to say any thing of having it to the fore. When I was pulling them, it come into my head, that if there was sugar trees, and tea trees, and butter trees, and bread trees, which I read of at school, the wood would be a very nate place for a tea party, and the plumbs, and the rawsberries and currents, and strawberries would be good sace,—was'nt this a funny conseat? But I'd want something after all, and that would be you Mary alongside of me, and a pair of handsome lads to make us merry —and sure enough the woods aren't without that same, only that their pelts arc all red, with roasting themselves I suppose at them big fires in the woods at night. Some of them without any manner of doubtification, are very fine Ingines, but that's our share of them, for they say they won't mix, and may be all for the better, for I'd rather die an old maid than be called a squawl, and have a porpus tied on my back, rolled up like a salmon in a hay-rope, on the Wexford Coach; and more than that, to be made do all the druggery by land and water, in the shanty and kinnoo, gutting all the fish, and dressing all the birds and beasts, for never a hand's turn will them fine haroes do, but hunt, and shoot, and fish, and eat plenty, and drink hearty, like any gentlemen. Fond as I am of cooking, Mary, this would be beyand the beyands, (as the saying is)—but while I'm on the subject, I must tell you how much I'm coming on; and would you believe it? I bake all the bread, for there's no bakers or huxters here to send in the fresh loaves every morning; but we must have all within ourselves. But my dear, the bread's the greatest part of all; for it's made with barm, that's made with salt!—and it's very good, and I'll send you the resate that the mistress wrote out with her own hands, and it may be of use to you in the country when barm is scarce—and here it is:— CANADIAN BARM "Take a pint and half of boiling water, one quart of cold water; put this into a tin vessel; then put a teaspoon full of salt in, and mix it well, then take one pint out, and throw it away; then get your flour; stir the water and salt well with a spoon, while you are putting the flour in, which is done as if you were making stirabout; make it as thick as beer barm; mind you are to blend the flour well; set this in another vessel, with very hot water in it, and constantly renew the hot water under the barm, and very often stir it up from the bottom of the pan, so as not to let the flour settle; if it is rightly done, it will begin immediately to ferment; remember to cover it up closely, and let it stand near a fire; as soon as you perceive it rising, let it stand quite quietly; this process takes from four to five hours; you will then take eight quarts of flour; put in your salt, and butter your pans. When the yeast is risen up pretty high, then commence making your bread; first loosen the yeast from the edges of the vessel it is in, and get some one. to pour it into the middle of the flour, while you mix it up; then add either warm milk or warm water, whichever is most convenient, and work up the dough as usual; when this is done, put it into your pans, and set it in a very warm place to rise, which it will considerably; but it often takes a long time; it must be covered over with a cloth; it rises to twice the size of the piece of dough you first put in, and then it is fit to bake." Well, my dear, did you ever hear the likes of that? But you may reckon on it as sure. We use nothing else here; and I was taught it by the farmer's wife where we lived, and the mistress put it down word for word as you have it. And then, there's the bumkin pie, which they give to the workmen; but that's aisy made enough. The master doesn't like it; but it does very well on a Sunday, in the kitchen. You takes and slices it like apples, and gives it plenty of the maypole, and a pinch or two of cloves, and a glass of whiskey, which is like ditch-water here, and it's mighty good eating. Indeed the farmer's wife was very civil, and told me many a thing. But I cant give in, as yet, to eating sqirrells; for they're for all the world, all as one as rats. One day, there came two women to the farmer's to buy cabbage, for my dear, they'd sell any thing here, they're so fond of the lucre of gain; but says one of the women to my mistress, that was standing in the firhandy, "Why then ma'am," says she, "I'm sure you're the lady my daughter was telling me about, that she said she was sure was an Irish lady." "Why do you think I'm Irish?" says my mistress. "Well then, I'll tell you that—because you're fat, and you're fair, and you're comely, and you're handsome." And true for her, for she's all that, and good into the bargain. Well, Mary, that was the day but one before we came away; and it's well that ever we got to this place, with them roads, and the floods, and the cricks, and the axes going, and the wagging knocked about, and the horses tired, and the dark night coming on us, and the mistress almost destroyed, and the children as bad. But God be praised, here we are all, safe and sound. You have plenty of Whitefeet with you, Mary; but here they were a scarce article 'till we came. My master's brother's wife's were the first female whitefeet that ever stepped upon the township of Addalad. Then came on my two fellow 'prentices, and then my mistress, and then myself, that's as white as the best of them, as Benson the rogue told me yesterday. But now, lo and behold you, there's hundreds and hundreds all about us, and houses growing out of the woods every day. But after all, its an awfull thing to be living in the woods. Oh! them terrible wolves, if you were to hear them. I never got a wink of sleep the first fortennight. I'd be shockingly in dread, they'd spoil our tea party. Such yowling, and growling, and yelling, and pellmelling, as no Christian ever heard. They say it's hunting the deer they are. Set 'em up with venzon the bastes! Well isn't it surprizing with all I have to do, I could find the time to write so long a letter, by fits and starts— but do the same to me, and I tell you again and again, come out if you can, and be sure to come to Addalad, (isn't it a comical name? may be there's something in it,) and by the time you come, I'll know who's who, and what's what, and will direct you for the best. You know I told you, I had two strings to my bow. May be one of them might make a noose for you. Good night dear Mary. "Early to bed, and early to rise” Your affectionate School-fellow, BRIDGET LACY. |
