Their stores had all to
be purchased at the nearest village, which was distant some seven miles,
and Mr. Ainslie often found it very difficult to make his way through
the deep snows which blocked up the roads, and to endure the biting
frost and piercing winds on his journeys to and from the village. In
after years when they had learned to feel a deep interest in the growth
of the settlement, they often looked back with a smile to the
"home-sickness" which oppressed their hearts, while struggling with the
first hardships of life in the bush. Mr. Ainslie and his family,
notwithstanding their many privations, enjoyed uninterrupted health
through the winter, and before the arrival of spring they already felt a
growing interest in their new home. Mrs. Ainslie regarded the labours of
the workmen with much attention during the winter, while they felled the
trees which had covered nearly ten acres of their farm. As each tree
fell to the ground it opened a wider space in the forest and afforded a
broader view of the blue sky. A stream of water, which in many places
would have been termed a river, but which there only bore the name of
Hazel-Brook, flowed near their dwelling, and as the spring advanced, the
belt of forest which concealed it from view having been felled, she
gained a view of its sparkling waters when the warm showers and genial
rays of the sun loosened them from their icy fetters; and she often
afterwards remarked that the view of those clear waters was the first
thing which tended to reconcile her to a home in the forest.
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