CHAPTER I.
Only those who have lived in a cold country like Canada can fully realize the pleasurable sensations which attend the opening of spring. The weary monotony of winter, with its unvarying aspect of white fields, and steady frost, often so intense as to make exposure painful, gives way to freedom and life, and with some such feelings as stir the heart of the prisoner, when he exchanges his darksome cell for sunshine and green fields, does the dweller of Canada hail the time when the snowbanks disappear and when he can, without wraps, move whether he will in the genial atmosphere. It was at that period of the year when the simple incidents I am going to relate took place.
Amid the unbroken forest which covered the county of Huntingdon in the year 1820, a log shanty stood on the west bank of Oak creek, at a point where the beavers had by their industry formed a small meadow. The shanty was rude as might be, of unsquared logs, with a roof of basswood split into slabs, and a stick chimney. The interior consisted of a single room, and a small one at that. The inmates were a mother and daughter. The mother, engaged in spinning, sat in the sunshine which streamed through the open door, brightening the few pieces of furniture it fell upon and whitening still more the heaps of ashes in the open fire-place, behind which smouldered a huge backlog. She had evidently passed her fiftieth year, while the pressed lips and look of patient reserve told of the endurance of a lifelong sorrow.
“Dae ye no see or hear ocht?” she asked, looking through the doorway to the woods beyond, to which she often turned her eyes.
“No, mother,” replied the girl addressed, who was sitting on the doorstep.
“What can hae come ower him!” said the woman in a low voice.
“Dinna fret; he’ll be here soon,” said Jeanie in a tone that spoke more of a desire to comfort her mother than faith in her statement.
As if not heeding her, the mother resumed, “He said he would be back last nicht, and he should hae been. I sair misdoot ill has befaen him.”
It was of her husband of whom she spoke. He had worked all winter for a party of Americans, who were cutting the best of the timber along the banks of the creek, and had gone Monday morning to aid them in driving the logs to the point on the Chateaugay where they were to be formed into rafts and thence taken to Quebec. His last words had been that he would, at the latest, be back the following evening and it was now the third day.
Jeanie strained her eyes and ears to catch the faintest sign of her father’s approach. The quaver of the grey-bird and the chirrup of the chipmunk came occasionally from the recesses of the woods, which lay sleeping in the April sunshine that glorified everything, but no rustle of branch or cracking of dried stick that would indicate an approaching footstep. The usually silent creek, now swollen by melted snow, lapped its banks in pursuing its tortuous course, murmuring a soothing lullaby to the genial day; and that great peace, to be found only in mountain recess or forest depth, brooded over the scene. But there, where all the influences of nature were so soothing, were two hearts filled with anxious care.
“Jeanie,” suddenly exclaimed the mother, after a long pause, and staying the whirr of the wheel, “you maun gang and seek your father. Gae down to Palmer’s and there you’ll find the rafts, and the men will tell you whether he left for hame or no.”
“But I dinna like to leave you, mother, and I am sure you are taking trouble without need. He will be here by dark.”
The mother understood the affectionate motive of her child in trying to make light of her fears, but well knew her anxiety was no less than her own.
“Say nae mair, my lassie, but gang while there is time for you to get back. You ken the yarn for the Yankee wife at the Fort is ready and there is no flour until he gangs there for it.”
Casting one long eager glance down the creek, along which her father should come, the girl turned in from the door and made ready for the journey. Her preparations were easily made. The slipping on of her stoutest pair of shoes and throwing a plaid over her arm, as a hap from the cold after sunset, comprised them, and bidding her mother not to fret for she would bring back good news she started. She did not follow the creek, but struck northward across the peninsula that forms the township of Elgin, her design being to reach Trout river, as being more fordable than the wider Chateaugay. The path was, probably, at first a deer run, which the few who travelled it, chiefly lumbermen, had roughly brushed. Only one accustomed to the woods could have kept the track, for, to a stranger’s eye, it differed little from the openings which ever and anon appeared among the trees. Jeanie, however, was no novice to the path or to the bush, and she stepped quickly and with confidence on her way. She had walked about an hour beneath the solemn gloom of the primeval forest when she saw an opening ahead, and knew she was approaching Trout river. On reaching it, she followed its bank, until, with one end grounded in a little bay, she found a large log. Grasping the first straight stick she saw lying about to serve as a pole, she pushed the log from its anchorage, and stepping on it as it moved guided it across the narrow river. From the liability of the log to roll, such a mode of ferrying is dangerous to those unused to it, but Jeanie knew how to place her feet and keep her balance and speedily gained the other bank and resumed her journey. On reaching the place where the two rivers unite, she could not, despite her anxiety, help pausing to admire the beautiful expanse of water, which, unruffled by a breath of wind, lay glassing itself in the sunshine, while the forest, which rose from its margin on either side, formed no unfit setting. Presently she saw a ripple upon its surface, and her keen eye perceived the black head of a muskrat, which was making its way to the opposite bank. While she followed the rapid movements of the little creature, there was the flash and smoke of a gun before her, and, while the woods were still echoing the report, a dog jumped into the water to bring in the rat, which floated dead upon the current. A few steps brought Jeanie to the marksman, a tall, wiry man, of rather prepossessing appearance. His dog had returned and laid the rat at his master’s feet, who was encouraging him with exclamations of “Good dog! good dog!” when he caught sight of her.
“Waal neow, who would a thought it? Miss Jeanie herself and nobody else. How do you do?” And stretching forth his sinewy arm, he grasped her hand in a clutch that would have made a bear shed tears.
“Oh, I’m well, thank you, Mr Palmer, and my mother, but we’re in sore trouble.”
“Don’t say the old man is sick?” and an anxious look passed over the kindly face of the honest Yankee.
“Oh, dear sir, we dinna ken whether he’s sick or well. He left home Monday morning and was to be back next night and he hasna come yet, and I’ve come to ask after him and get help to find him if nobody knows where he is?” As she spoke there was a tremor in Jeanie’s voice, and a tear glistened on her drooping eyelashes.
“Ha, do tell; this is serious,” and the hunter leant upon his rifle and gazed abstractedly upon the river, as if trying to conjecture what could have become of the lost man, until, noting Jeanie’s evident distress, he aroused himself, and, exhorting her to keep up heart, led the way to his house.
“You see,” he said, as they picked their way along the rough path by the river’s edge, “there ain’t much to shoot yet and what there is ain’t worth killing, but I kinder felt lonesome to be about doors so fine a day, and I took a stroll, tho’ all I came across was that mushrat, which, darn it skin, ain’t worth the lead that killed it.”
“If the shooting is poor, the fishing will be good,” said Jeanie, who humored the spirit of the sportsman.
“Couldn’t be better,” answered Mr Palmer, “I speared seven salmon at the foot of the rapids last night, and this morning I drew my seine full of as pretty fish as you would want to clap your eyes on.”
The sound of rushing water told of their approach to the rapids, at the head of which, on a knoll a few rods to the left, stood Mr Palmer’s house, which was a comfortable log one, overshadowed by majestic pines. On entering, they found Mrs Palmer, a rather delicate-looking woman, engaged in baking. Uttering an exclamation of surprise at the sight of Jeanie, she wiped her dusty hands and gave her a cordial welcome, as well she might, for the visits she had received from members of her own sex, since she had taken up her abode by the Chateaugay, might have been counted on her fingers without exhausting them. On learning the cause of Jeanie’s journey, she received the tidings with the same anxious look as her husband. Evidently both entertained the worst forebodings, while both had a delicacy in speaking of what they believed to be the cause of his absence. Neither had seen him, but the gang of lumbermen he had helped were now forming a raft half a mile below the house and it was arranged that Mr Palmer should go and see them while Jeanie would wait. Her hostess resumed her baking, and Jeanie, feeling the heat indoors oppressive on so fine a day, stepped out and sat on a log, near enough to keep up the conversation yet sufficiently far to enjoy the balmy atmosphere and the beauty of the scene before her. And here, before attempting to describe it, let me tell what manner of woman Jeanie was. She had that first quality of a handsome girl, stature—she was tall, with a form instinct with life—lithe and graceful, which, when matured by age, would become dignified also. She had no pretension to beauty, beyond what the liveliness of youth and a sweet temper can give to the countenance, but still her well-formed mouth, gray eyes, a forehead broad though not too high, and a wealth of light brown hair went to form a face that was pleasant to look upon. She had been a visitor at Palmer’s house before, but its surroundings were still sufficiently novel to engage her even in her present distracted frame of mind, for, as became a Scotchwoman, she had a keen relish for whatever is beautiful in nature. Above, and until directly opposite her, the Chateaugay came sweeping, with graceful curve, a wide, unruffled sheet of water, until suddenly it fell over a rocky ledge and became a mass of foaming rapids, which brattled between banks, covered by trees and overhung by hazel bushes, until lost to sight by a sharp bend a considerable distance below.[A] Being at flood height, the rapids were seen at their best, and Jeanie never wearied admiring the graceful sweep of the smooth water as it neared the ledge that preceded its fall, or the tumult of breakers into which, a moment after, it was tossed. It flashed upon her that the river was, perhaps, to prove a true type of her own and her mother’s fate,—the even tenor of their life hitherto was about to be suddenly broken by her father’s disappearance, and then the water, tossed from rock to rock, broken into spray and driven in every direction, except upward, would too truly represent their life hereafter. Raising her gaze to the south, she caught a glimpse, through a gash among the trees on the opposite bank where fire had levelled them, of a range of smooth moulded hills, which, blue and soft in the sweet spring sunshine, brought back to memory the dear old hills of her native land, and joy mingled with her sorrow.
The afternoon wore away apace and still Mr Palmer did not return. Above the noise of the rapids Jeanie heard, now and then, the shouts of the lumbermen as they heaved the logs in forming their raft, and whom Mr Palmer had gone down to see. Having finished her household duties and spread the supper on the table, Mrs Palmer sat down beside Jeanie and, with kindly craft, by talking of commonplace matters, strove to divert her mind. By-and-by the appearance of a fine spaniel, the same that had swam to the rat, indicated the approach of Mr Palmer, who, when he came up to them, leading his eldest girl, a chattering child, seemed in no hurry to answer the questioning eyes of the two women.
“Blessed if the dog don’t scent something,” said the worthy man, as he watched the animal creeping to a clump of underbrush to the right.
“Bother the dog,” exclaimed Mrs Palmer, “what did the men tell you?”
“Waal, they ain’t jest sure, you know, but they guess ’tis all right,” and as he drawled out the words slowly and reluctantly, Jeanie could see that he was far from thinking it was all right.
“Oh, sir,” she said, “you are a father yourself and you are as dear to your child as she is to you. Tell me the worst, and be done wi’ it.”
“Don’t take on, Jeanie; it may be all right yet. Your father helped to tote the logs to the foot of the rapids, and left them, well and strong, to walk home last night. I rather conjecture he lost his way, but he will be home by this time.”
This was all Mr Palmer seemed disposed to tell, and, hoping for the best, she tried to share in her host’s affected confidence as to her father’s safety, and followed him in answer to his wife’s call “That supper was ready.” A capital cook, and having a larder to draw from replenished by the gun and rod of her husband, Mrs Palmer, in honor of her guest, had spread a table that contrasted painfully with the meagre fare to which Jeanie was accustomed, and made her think of the mess of boiled corn of which her mother would then be partaking. After supper, the canoe was launched, and bidding farewell to her hostess and her little girl on the river’s bank, Jeanie stepped in, when, propelled by the paddle of Mr Palmer, it began steadily to stem the current.
Who that has undergone the agony of sorrowful apprehension has not noted how every trifling incident that may have occurred during that period has become imprinted indelibly upon the memory? The watcher by the sick-bed, over which death hovers, is puzzled how, at a time when the mind is absorbed with one thought, the perceptions should be so sharpened as to note trivial events and objects, down to the very furniture and pattern of the wallpaper, which on ordinary occasions leave no trace upon the memory. On that April evening Jeanie’s mind was laboring under this intensified acuteness, and while brooding continually over her father’s probable fate, to her dying day she remembered every feature of the scenery she was now passing. The smooth flowing river, swollen and discolored by the melted snow from the hills, hemmed in on either bank by a thick growth of trees, many of which, as if enamored with the beautiful sheet of water by which they grew, bent over it until, in their leafy prime, their branches almost kissed its surface. Now, though leafless, their tops were glorified by the setting sun, which filled the still air with the lambent blue haze which distinguishes the evenings of early spring in Canada. Keeping to the Chateaugay at its union with Trout river, the canoe stole silently beneath the shadow of the overhanging trees until the mouth of Oak creek was reached, when Jeanie stepped ashore to pursue her way on foot to her home. Before bidding her goodbye, Mr Palmer paused and said: “Now, you keep up a good heart for whatever may happen, and we’ll be up tomorrow to search the woods. Give that to your mother and—God bless you.” Without giving her time to say a word, he pushed his canoe into the stream and speedily glided out of sight, leaving Jeanie standing on the bank perplexed by what he had said and holding the basket he had thrust into her hands, which contained a loaf of bread and a string of fish. With a heavier heart than ever, she began to trace her way homeward by the creek. Once in that lonely journey she thought she saw her father walking ahead of her, and once she thought she heard his voice. She called out and paused to listen for a reply. The only sound that reached her was the dismal croakings of the frogs. Knowing that her imagination was deceiving her, she hurried on and, when she caught the first glimpse of light gleaming from her humble home, it outlined her mother’s figure seated on the doorstep waiting her return.
“You hav’na found him, Jeanie?”
“No, mother; and he hasna come hame?”
“What can hae come ower him!” exclaimed the mother, as she sank into a seat by the open fire-place.
It was remarkable that in their conversation no conjecture was hazarded by either as to the probable fate of the missing one. Both, plainly, entertained the same painful surmise, which they were alike ashamed to breathe. They sat by the glowing backlog for many hours, hoping against hope that the wanderer might return, until Jeanie overcome by fatigue sought her bed. Once she awoke during the night, thinking she heard a voice. She listened in the darkness. It was her mother wrestling with God on behalf of her father.
[A] These rapids were known to old settlers as “Palmer’s rapids.” The quarrying of them for building purposes has greatly changed their appearance.
Early next day Jeanie and her mother saw a short, stout man emerge from the woods. He was a stranger to them, but his aspect indicated he was a lumberman. He had a towsy head of reddish hair and a matted beard and whiskers of the same hue.
“A pleasant day, ma’am,” he said, in a voice so soft and insinuating, and contrasting so strikingly with the roughness of his appearance, that Mrs Morison was somewhat startled. “It is, indeed, a fine spring day,” she replied.
“And the water is high, ma’am, and the rafts are getting away finely—oh, very finely,” and the man stood complacently eyeing the mother and daughter, and rubbing his hands.
“Hae ye seen ocht o’ my husband? Ye’ll hae come about him?”
“Oh, my dear ma’am, don’t fret; take it coolly and comfortable like.”
“I see ye ken aboot him; oh, dinna play wi’ me, but tell me at once.”
Not in the least discomposed, the little man, in more oily tones than ever, replied, “Well, well, ma’am, there is no denying it, accidents will happen, you know. You shouldn’t be supposing the worst, and taking it easy, for”—
Before he could finish his sentence there was heard a heavy trampling in the woods, and soon there came from beneath their cover half a dozen men, four of them carrying a burden laid on two poles. They came in silence to the door, when Mrs Morison saw their burden was her husband. She snatched away the red handkerchief that covered his face, a glance at which showed her he was dead. She gave a shriek that resounded through the forest, and fell senseless upon the corpse.
The career of the dead man may be told in a few words. He had been the son of a small farmer in the south of Scotland, a strapping, lively fellow, who won the good graces of the daughter of a draper in the neighboring village. Her parents opposed her keeping company with him, not merely because his circumstances were indifferent but because his habits were not of the steadiest, he being fond of convivial gatherings, at which, more than once, he had got overcome by drink. Their opposition seemed only to strengthen their daughter’s affection for the free-hearted, good tempered young fellow, and the upshot was, that one morning she was not to be found, and before evening they learned she had been married. The imprudent match resulted as the parents had anticipated; the young man was unequal to the task of supporting a wife and his habits did not mend. Moving to a mining village, he got work as a laborer, and out of his scanty earnings a large percentage went into the till of the whisky shop every Saturday night, so that his wife, to eke out a living, had to exert herself to do something also. Quietly and uncomplainingly she took in sewing, washed, or spun, as opportunity offered, to earn an honest shilling, and did what lay in her power to keep things decent. Children came but none lived to maturity save Jeanie. The village was unhealthy, its fumes and murky smoke were not favorable to childhood, typhus was a regular winter visitor, and, more than all, the narrow means at her disposal afforded not the necessaries of life in the abundance children need, so, to her heart-sorrow, one after another was taken away. Time passed, and her father died, leaving her a small legacy, and with this she determined they should emigrate. She fondly thought were her husband removed from his boon companions, were all his old associations broken, and he transplanted into a new sphere, he might reform. Often had she striven with him, often had hope kindled in her bosom that he was going to keep the good resolutions he so often formed; always doomed to bitter disappointment. To emigrate was the last chance, it seemed to her, and for Canada they accordingly sailed. Deplorable to relate, on the day of their arrival at Quebec her husband got drunk with several of his fellow-passengers who went to take, as they termed it, a parting glass, and before he got over his spree the greater part of their little stock of money was gone. Instead, therefore, of being in a position to go to Upper Canada and take up land, as intended, he had to engage at Quebec with a lumberman who was getting out masts and square timber on the Chateaugay, and thus it came that, two years before the opening of our narrative, he had made a home, a poor one as we have seen, in what is now the township of Elgin. Altho their privations were great, Mrs Morison did not regret the change from the dirty, squalid, mining village in Scotland to the lonely woods of Canada. Her husband had fewer opportunities of getting drink and, on the whole, they lived happily. Possessing a superior education herself and having moved before her marriage in respectable society, she brought up her daughter very differently from what might have been expected from their circumstances, and Jeanie, despite her home-spun dress, had acquirements and manners that qualified her to move in any station of life. As already stated, on the Monday morning Morison had gone to assist in running logs out of the creek. On the evening of the succeeding day his employer settled with him for the season’s work, and, in addition to the small balance of wages that was coming to him, gave him a few pieces of pork to take home and, fatal parting gift, a bottle of rum. He left the raftsmen in high spirits, an able-bodied if not very active man, taking the track that led to his humble dwelling. What followed no human eye witnessed. He never reached his home, and the searching-party that morning had discovered his body a few yards from the creek, stretched upon the ground, with his face immersed in a pool of water—a pool only an inch or so in depth, left by the melting of the snow and gathered in a cavity formed by the roots of a tree. Had he, when he stumbled and fell, moved his head ever so little, he would have breathed and lived. The more than half empty bottle, found in his stony grasp, showed he had been too overcome to stir a hairsbreadth, and there, in a basin of water, so small that a squirrel could have leaped it; so shallow that a robin, in pruning his wings, could have stepped through without wetting a feather; this stalwart man, before whose axe the loftiest pines had fallen and whose vigorous oar had stemmed the rapids of the Chateaugay, had ignominiously met his death, within hail of the faithful wife and loving daughter who were anxiously waiting his return. Jeanie, in going home the preceding evening, had unconsciously passed within a few paces of the body which once contained her father’s spirit. On finding it, damp from the exposure of a day and two nights, the searching party had made the body as presentable as possible, and sent ahead one of their number to break, as gently as might be, the news to the wife and daughter. With what success he, who was chosen on account of his smooth tongue, acquitted himself, the reader knows.
So long did Mrs Morison remain in her swoon that once the dreadful thought darted through Jeanie’s mind that she was not going to recover, and at one fell swoop she was to be deprived of both parents. She did not cease her exertions, however, and while bathing the rigid temples she rejoiced to see the flush of returning animation. Slowly did Mrs Morison raise herself to a sitting posture, and looked in a dazed manner, as if wondering why they were there, at the rough lumbermen grouped around her, who stood in silence and with the awkwardness of people who were anxious to help but did not know how. Unconsciously she moved her glance from one to the other until it fell upon the body of her husband. Recollection returned in a flash, and drawing the inanimate form to her lap she pressed the bloated and discolored features to her lips.
“Oh, Willie,” she exclaimed, unconscious in her overwhelming passion of sorrow that there was a listening ear, “lang did we ken ane anither and braw and gallant were you ance; my pride and joy. Sair hae oor trials been and muckle hae ye been misguided, but aye faithfu and true to me. Oh, that I had been wi’ you; oh, that ye had given me your last kiss and deed in my arms! There hae been them wha despised you, wha tauld me to leave you; little did they ken o’ the love that bound me to you. Oh, that we should hae partit thus!”
Here she paused, and turning her eyes upwards she slowly and reverently said: “Merciful God, as in your wise decree you have been pleased to bring this affliction upon me, grant, in your pity, that I tarry not long behind him whom ye hae taen awa.”
The solemn petition calmed the tumult of her mind, and reverently disposing of the body, she rose to her feet and said modestly—
“You will excuse me, freens, for taking on sae sairly afore you, but I couldna help it; this misfortune has come so sudden. I thank you for what you hae dune, and, gin it be your pleasure, as you can do nae mair noo, leave us alane and come the morn to bury him wha’s gane.”
The red-whiskered man was about to make a voluble reply, when he was cut short by a tall lumberman, in whose eye there glistened a tear, with the remark, “Yes, ma’am, we are at your service and mean to do all we can for you.” Then, looking at his comrades, he said, “Let us go,” and turning abruptly he led the way, leaving the mother and daughter alone with their dead.
It is true in the moral world as in the material that after a storm comes a calm. The agony of suspense, the wild burst of passionate sorrow had swept over them, and the morning succeeding the sad discovery found mother and daughter composed and resigned. The worst was now known, a worst there was no remedying, and so they bowed, without needless fret or repining, beneath the trial. The sun had risen in an unclouded sky and his beams were warmer than on the preceding days, and as they came pouring down unstintingly on the turbid waters of the creek and the uplifted branches of the forest, it seemed as if summer was nigh and buds and leaves and green sward would speedily succeed the birds whose noisy concert ushered in the rosy dawn. Everything had been arranged in the humble shanty with all the deftness of order-loving hands; on one side of it, beneath a white cloth, was the corpse. Mrs Morison was seated on the chair at the window; Jeanie sat at her feet on the doorstep.
“Wasna father a braw man when you first foregathered?”
“He was the handsomest lad in the countryside; a very pleasure for the ee to rest on. Little dae they ken what he was like that didna see him then, and a kinder or truer heart couldna be. O, Jeanie, I just worshipped him when we were lad and lass.”
“But your father didna like him?”
“Dinna put it that way, Jeanie. He liked him but he saw a faut in him that spoiled a’. I was wilfu. I said Willie would gie up the company he keepit when he was merrit, and that it was guid-fellowship and no love o’ the drink that enticed him. I dinna say that I regret what I did, or that my lot hasna been as guid as I deserved—God forgive me that I should repine or say an unkindly word o’ him that lies there—but young folks dinna lippen to their parents in choosing partners as they ocht.”
“Hoots, mother; when a lad or lass hae found their heart’s love, what for suld father or mother interfere?”
“Easy said, Jeanie, but think ye there is ony body in the wide world loes son or dochter as a parent does? They are as the apple o’ their ee, and his or her happiness is all they seek. Dootless there are warld’s worms o’ parents who only look to the suitor’s gear and wad break off the truest love-match that ever was gin he were puir. I dinna speak o’ them, for they are out o’ the question. But take parents by ordinar, who only seek their bairns’ welfare, and the son or dochter wha disregards their advice in choosing a life-mate will hae mickle to repent o’.”
“I dinna see hoo that is,” said Jeanie, “for surely their marriage concerns only themselves?”
“True in a sense, Jeanie, that as we mak oor bed we maun lie on’t. Think ye, though, o’ a parent’s experience, that nae glamor o’ love blinds their ee, that their haill concern is for their bairn’s happiness, and they may see fauts in the would-be partner o’ their child that can only result in meesery. Young folks shouldna think their parents are obstinate or stupid when they oppose their marrying this ane or that ane. In maist cases they hae solid reason for their opposition, and the son is foolish that winna get his parents consent before he gangs too far and the dochter silly indeed who says Yes without taking counsel o’ her mother.”
“Oh, but that wadna dae always,” replied Jeanie, deprecatingly, in a tone as if such a course would rob love of its romance.
“Come, noo, Jeanie, tell me what better adviser can a dochter hae than her mother, and hasna the father a richt to hae some say in a match seeing that, if it disna turn out weel, he may hae a useless son-in-law to sorn on him or, in his auld days, hae his dochter or a tawpy of a son’s wife come wi’ a wheen bairns to seek shelter in his hame? Na, na, the first commandment wi’ promise requires obedience in this as in ither callings o’ life, and happy is the wedding whaur the true love o’ the young couple is crooned wi’ the blessings (given without a misgiving) o’ their parents, for there is, then, a reasonable prospect that the match will prove what a’ should be—a heaven upon earth.”
“Mightna the parents be mistaen, mother?”