" And the doctor looked
happy, but his face seemed to say, "Come now, Slick, no nonsense,
please, let me alone, that's a good fellow."
Peter perceived something he didn't understand. He had seen a great
deal he didn't comprehend since he left the Highlands, and heard a
great many things he didn't know the meaning of. It was enough for him
if he could guess it.
"Toctor," said he, "how many kind o' partridges are there in this
country?"
"Two," said the simple-minded naturalist, "spruce and birch."
"Which is the prettiest?"
"The birch."
"And the smartest?"
"The birch."
"Poth love to live in the woods, don't they?"
"Yes."
"Well there is a difference in colour. Ta spruce is red flesh, and ta
birch white, did you ever know them mix?"
"Often," said the doctor, who began to understand this allegorical
talk of the North-West trader, and feel uncomfortable, and therefore
didn't like to say no. "Well, then, the spruce must stay with the
pirch, or the pirch live with the spruce," continued Peter. "The peech
wood between the two are dangerous to both, for it's only fit for
cuckoos."
Peter looked chuffy and sulky. There was no minister at the remote
post he had belonged to in the nor-west. The governor there read a
sermon of a Sunday sometimes, but he oftener wrote letters. The
marriages, when contracted, were generally limited to the period of
service of the employ?s, and sometimes a wife was bought, or at
others, entrapped like a beaver.
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