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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... once personal / autobiographical and religious / allegorical . A similar compounding of miscellany appears in the anecdote “ Alone in the Forest . ” As demonstrated here , Canada could be a hostile place , physically , socially and ...
... once , have disappeared entirely before the march of civiliza- tion . As the woods which shelter them are cleared away , they retire to the lone- ly forest haunts still left , where they may remain unmolested and unseen till again ...
... Once inside , we discover a great deal of activity : sap flows up the trees ; animals and birds move in and among the trees ; leaves flutter in the wind ; a " kindly little evergreen " is discovered " [ c ] reeping over little hillocks ...
... flowers , meet emblems at once of its own beauty and frailty ; for does not the Word say , " He cometh forth like a flower , and is cut down . " 3 It was on the banks of that most beautiful of PLEASANT DAYS OF MY CHILDHOOD.
... once a garden smiled . ” I stooped and as of old drank of the bright little stream , and gathered a nosegay of the sweet violets to carry away as a souvenir of my childhood . Often in after years have the memories of those May days ...
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 |