Pearls and PebblesHow fitting to close out the 20th century with a brand new edition of Pearls & Pebbles by the noted chronicler of pioneer life, Catharine Parr Traill. Published in 1894, Pearls & Pebbles is an unusual book with a lasting charm, in which the author's broad focus ranges from the Canadian natural environment to early settlement of Upper Canada. Through Traill's eyes, we see the life of the pioneer woman, the disappearance of the forest, and the corresponding changes in the life of the Native Canadians who have inhabited that forest. Editor Elizabeth Thompson reminds us of the significance of the writings by Traill, the aged author/naturalist, who felt that the hours spent gathering the pebbles and pearls from her notebooks and journals written in the backwoods of Canada was not time wasted. |
From inside the book
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... beautiful scarlet birds ... As the woods are cleared away we lose many of our summer visitors from the other side of the lakes . Sadly , neither at the time of her writing nor today is there any indication that the gradual process of ...
... beautiful objects , denoting wealth and comfort : Fair dwellings , tasteful gardens , fruitful orchards , the village schoolhouse , the church spire , the busy factory , the iron - girdered bridge , the steamboat , the railroad , the ...
... beautiful springs to life in the soul of the babe when it stretches forth an eager hand to grasp the flowers in its nurse's bosom . It is the birth of a new and pleasurable emotion . I love to see an innocent child playing with the ...
Catharine Parr Traill Elizabeth Helen Thompson. It was on the banks of that most beautiful of Suffolk rivers , the Waveney , that the first happy years of my childhood were passed . My father's fami- ly came from the north of England ...
... beautiful . ” I wished to claim all the loveliness for Canada , the country of our adop- tion and henceforth our home . The afterglow of rose tints faded only to give place to the tremulous rays of the now risen moon , giving a yet ...
Contents
3 | |
5 | |
9 | |
14 | |
21 | |
MORE ABOUT MY FEATHERED FRIENDS | 32 |
A DEFENSE | 45 |
NOTES FROM MY OLD DIARY | 49 |
THOUGHTS ON VEGETABLE INSTINCT | 109 |
SOME CURIOUS PLANTS | 115 |
SOME VARIETIES OF POLLEN | 120 |
THE CRANBERRY MARSH | 123 |
OUR NATIVE GRASSES | 126 |
INDIAN GRASS | 132 |
MOSSES AND LICHENS | 136 |
THE INDIAN MOSS BAG | 141 |
THE SPIDER | 58 |
PROSPECTING AND WHAT I FOUND IN MY DIGGING | 62 |
THE ROBIN AND THE MIRROR | 65 |
IN THE CANADIAN WOODS | 67 |
THE FIRST DEATH IN THE CLEARING | 82 |
ALONE IN THE FOREST | 90 |
ON THE ISLAND OF MINNEWAWA | 99 |
THE CHILDREN OF THE FOREST | 103 |
SOMETHING GATHERS UP THE FRAGMENTS | 144 |
APPENDIX A | 151 |
APPENDIX B | 181 |
APPENDIX C | 183 |
ENDNOTES | 187 |
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS | 199 |
INDEX | 203 |