The fact being that a 'cradle,' in American farming, signifies a machine for cutting down corn wholesale. It is a scythe, longer and wider than that used in mowing hay, combined with an apparatus of 'standard,' 'snaith,' and 'fingers,' by means of which a single workman may level two acres and a half of wheat or oats in one day.
'Captain Armytage is of a very sociable disposition,' remarked Mr. Wynn, after a few steps. 'A man fresh from the mess table and clubs must find the bush strangely unsuitable.' He was thinking of certain petty occurrences at his own bee, which demonstrated the gallant officer's weaknesses.
'Oh, papa, did you ever see anything like these vines? Grapes will be as plentiful as blackberries are at home.' For along the concession line many trees were festooned with ripening clusters; and deeper in the woods, beyond Linda's ken, and where only the birds and wild animals could enjoy the feast, whole hundredweights hung in gleams of sunshine. Well might the Northmen, lighting upon Canadian shores in one hot summer, many centuries before Cabot or Cartier, name the country Vine-land; and the earliest French explorers up the St. Lawrence call a grape-laden rock the Isle of Bacchus.
'But is it not a wonder, papa,' pressed the young lady, 'when the cold is so terrible in winter? Do you remember all the endless trouble the gardener at Dunore had to save his vines from the frost? And Robert says that great river the Ottawa is frozen up for five months every year, yet here the grapes flourish in the open air.'
'I suppose we are pretty much in the latitude of the Garonne,' answered Mr. Wynn, casting about for some cause. 'But, indeed, Linda, if your Canadian grape does not enlarge somewhat'--
'You unreasonable papa, to expect as fine fruit as in a hothouse or sunny French vineyard. I really see no reason why we Canadians should not have regular vineyards some day, and you would see how our little grapes must improve under cultivation. Perhaps we might make wine. Now, you dear clever papa, just turn your attention to that, and earn for yourself the sobriquet of national benefactor.'
Clinging to his arm as they walked, she chattered her best to amuse the sombre mind, so lately uprooted from old habits and ways of life into a mode of existence more or less distasteful. The birds aided her effort with a variety of foreign music. Woodpigeon, bobolink, bluebird, oriole, cooed and trilled and warbled from the bush all around. The black squirrel, fat, sleek, jolly with good living of summer fruits, scampered about the boughs with erect shaggy tail, looking a very caricature upon care, as he stowed away hazel-nuts for the frosty future. Already the trees had donned their autumn coats of many colours; and the beauteous maple-leaves, matchless in outline as in hue, began to turn crimson and gold. The moody man yielded to the sweet influences of nature in a degree, and acknowledged that even this exile land could be enjoyable.