The Ontario village of Hometon rested. It had been doing for so many years. There, in days gone by, pioneers with bushy beards--now long out-of-date, but threatening to sprout again--had fearlessly faced the wolf-haunted forests, relying, no doubt, upon the ferocity of their own appearance to frighten off the devourer. A few old elm trees still remained in the village, to protect it from the summer sun; and still lived also an occasional pioneer, gnarled and rugged like the old elms, to sigh and shake his head at the new civilization, and shelter whom he might from the power of its stroke
