Amy in Acadia: A Story for Girls
by Helen Leah Reed · English · Gutenberg #35985 · 485,960 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Amy in Acadia: A Story for Girls
Author: Helen Leah Reed
Illustrator: Katharine Pyle
Release date: April 28, 2011 [eBook #35985]
Most recently updated: October 19, 2026
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMY IN ACADIA: A STORY FOR GIRLS ***
Amy in Acadia
[Illustration: "From a drawer behind the counter she drew a small fan."
FRONTISPIECE. _See_ p. 25.]
Amy in Acadia
_A Story for Girls_
By
Helen Leah Reed
Author of "The Brenda Books" "Miss Theodora"
"Irma and Nap"
With Illustrations by Katharine Pyle
Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
1905
_Copyright, 1905_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published October, 1905
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S. A.
TO CONSTANCE
MY NIECE
WHO JOURNEYED WITH ME THROUGH ACADIA
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I BANISHED 1
II LOST AND FOUND 14
III TOWARD METEGHAN 29
IV YVONNE 43
V NEW PEOPLE 57
VI PIERRE AND POINT À L'ÉGLISE 71
VII DIGBY DAYS 89
VIII TWO ADVENTURES 105
IX OLD PORT ROYAL 119
X EXPLORATIONS 134
XI A TEA PARTY 147
XII IN THE FOG 163
XIII LETTERS AND SOME COMMENTS 178
XIV AN EXCURSION 191
XV WITH PREJUDICE 204
XVI EVANGELINE'S COUNTRY 219
XVII SAFE AGAIN 236
XVIII THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG OF IT 249
XIX A DISCOVERY 263
XX FIRE AND FLAME 279
XXI OLD CHEBUCTO 299
XXII FINDING COUSINS 315
XXIII GOOD-BYE TO HALIFAX 329
List of Illustrations
"From a drawer behind the counter she drew a small
fan" _Frontispiece_
"'Madame Bourque,' she cried, 'I asked him to come to
see me'" _Page_ 71
"'Hello! hello!' she shouted" " 170
"'Why, what is the matter, child?' she asked
affectionately" " 246
"After one ineffectual effort to pry open the lock, the
other one had thrown down the scissors" " 282
"Behind Lucian stalked Malachai, flourishing his cane
after the fashion of a drum-major" " 320
_Amy in Acadia_
CHAPTER I
BANISHED
"No, Fritz, I cannot--"
"You _will_ not."
"Well, then I _will_ not ask mother to invite you to go on with us."
Amy spoke decidedly, but Fritz was not ready to give up.
"Oh, Amy, do be reasonable! I cannot say anything more to your mother,
for you are in an obstinate mood, evidently determined to persuade
yourself that you do not wish us to travel with you."
"That is true; I do not wish you to go on with us."
"But you and I are _such_ friends."
"So we are, and so we shall continue to be. Because we are such friends,
I am sure that you will forgive me for being so--"
"So unreasonable."
"No--reasonable. Now just look at the whole thing sensibly. Here we
are--mamma and I and two girls."
"What do you call yourself? Aren't you a girl?"
"Don't interrupt; perhaps I should have said two _school_girls. We have
come away partly for rest and change, partly for study. So it would only
upset all our plans to have you and your friend with us. You'd be
dreadfully in the way."
"In the way! I like that. Why, you could rest, or study all day, for all
we'd care, and we'd afford you the change that you would certainly need
once in a while. Only--if you'll excuse my saying so--who ever heard of
any one's resting or studying on a pleasure-trip? Just look at the funny
side of it yourself, Amy--and smile--please."
Whereupon, quite against her will, the smile that twitched Amy's lips
extended itself into a laugh, in which Fritz Tomkins joined heartily.
"Ah, Amy, that laugh makes me think of old times. So now perhaps you'll
condescend to explain why two lonely youths may not visit the historic
Acadia in company with you and your mother, not to mention the other
members of your party."
Amy made no answer, and Fritz continued:
"Just think what we shall lose! It always benefits me to be with your
mother, and you are so full of information, Amy, and you so love to
impart what you know, that by the end of the journey I should be a
walking guidebook. To go with you would be better than attending a
summer school."
"There, Fritz," interrupted Amy, with rising color, "you are getting
back at me for what I have said. But we really mean to make this an
improving trip."
"So I should judge. Improving only to yourselves."
"Well, then I'll explain, since you find it so hard to understand. You
surely know that mamma has been overworking, and yet she does not wish
to waste the whole summer. So, after resting a little, she expects to
find good sketching-material in Nova Scotia. Then I need more strength
before the beginning of my Senior year."
"I'll be a Senior, too, in the autumn," murmured Fritz; but Amy, not
heeding the interruption, continued:
"Then there's Priscilla; she has been rather low-spirited since her
father died. She is generally in Plymouth in the summer, and this will
be a change. Besides, she is to read a little English with me for her
Radcliffe examinations."
"_Rest_--and _change_--and _study_, for three of you. Well, I do hope
that the other girl is to get some pleasure out of the trip. Didn't you
tell me that she comes from Chicago?"
"Oh, Martine finds amusement in everything--even in study. She was at a
boarding-school last year on the Hudson, and she made life there so
entertaining for herself and her classmates that she had to leave. Her
parents then decided to have her visit relatives in Boston this spring.
Next year she's to go to Miss Crawdon's. She's especially in mother's
care, and I do hope she'll enjoy the summer, for she is worried about
her mother, who is ill at some baths in Germany."
"Thus far, Amy, you haven't offered a single reason for your desire to
banish us from your side. Neither Taps nor I will stand in the way of
your mother's sketches, except to pose for her when she asks. We
certainly won't deprive the air of its invigorating qualities; and we
might even study--"
"No, Fritz, you'd simply be in the way."
"I won't admit that, Miss Amy Redmond, and if I should ask your mother,
she would probably say that you are quite wrong in your opinion. In
fact, that's why you won't let me talk with her. However, as you've
extorted a promise from me, Taps and I will go as far away from you as
we can--in Nova Scotia. We'll travel in the opposite direction from
Acadia, for Nova Scotia is large enough to contain us all without a
collision. But mark my words, many a time in the next few weeks you'll
sigh for a manly arm to pull you out of your difficulties. _Then_ you'll
remember me."
"I'm not afraid. Acadia has no dangers. Even the Micmacs are tamed. The
French and Indian wars are over."
"That reminds me,--please excuse me for interrupting,--you will find
Digby, where you are going to-morrow, very tame compared with Pubnico."
"Pubnico?"
"Yes, Pubnico, a wonderful French village, with Acadians and descendants
of the old noblesse, and with many interesting things that you'll miss
altogether in your misguided course. Then we shall go to the deserted
Loyalist town, Shelburne, which is full of history and haunted houses."
"You seem to have digested a whole guidebook, Fritz. As Shelburne is on
the opposite side of the peninsula, I suppose that you really have not
intended to travel with us."
"Oh, I had two strings to my bow, and when I heard of the French
villages, I decided that to visit them would be the next best thing to
do." Then, looking at his watch, "But now I really must say good-bye;
it's past my time for meeting Taps."
"Good-bye, Fritz." Amy held out her hand amicably. "You are not angry,
are you?"
"No, not angry, only--I may never forgive you. Certainly I shall not
forget."
Before Amy could reply, Fritz had wheeled away, and, turning a corner,
was soon lost to sight. As Amy walked a few steps along the hotel
piazza, suddenly she met her mother face to face.
"Where's Fritz?" asked Mrs. Redmond. "I expected to find him with you."
"Oh, he's gone. It's settled that the boys are not to come with us."
"But, my dear, I hope you have not sent him off. Sometimes you are too
abrupt."
"Why, mother, I thought that you did not wish them to come with us."
"I was certainly surprised to see Fritz on the boat last evening. But he
is like my own son, and if he has set his heart on going to Digby, we
must not keep him away."
"Oh, he's going around on the other coast, he and his friend."
"Did you meet his friend?"
"No, I heard Fritz call him 'Taps'--a perfectly ridiculous name. Do you
know anything about him?"
"Only what Fritz told me last evening--that he was a Freshman who had
taken a violent fancy to him. Fritz said that he had agreed to travel
with the boy this summer from a sense of duty."
"A sense of duty!"
"Yes; 'Taps,' as he calls him, has been trying to shake off some
undesirable friends. He gave up a trip to Europe that he might avoid
running across them, and Fritz, knowing the circumstances, thought that
he could do no less than agree to take some other trip with him. It was
only on the spur of the moment that they decided to come with us."
"Fritz was terribly cut up to find that we did not care to have them."
"Naturally--and indeed, Amy, if I had had a chance to talk frankly with
him, we could have had them with us part of the time. His friend was a
bright, honest-looking lad, hardly more than a schoolboy."
"Oh, mamma, I thought him so dandified!--just the kind to be a nuisance
in a party that intends to rough it."
"Do you realize, Amy, that you use much more slang than before you went
to college?"
"That's another reason for not having Fritz with us; it is not _my_
college, but _his_, that twists my vocabulary."
"Possibly, but I only hope that he is not offended. Well! well! Why,
Priscilla, why, Martine, where have you been?"
As she spoke two young girls came running up the steps, and one of them
with a bound flung herself upon Mrs. Redmond's neck.
"Oh, isn't it a perfect morning, so cool and salt-smelling! and it's
almost as good as Europe to see a foreign flag floating from the
hotel--even if it is only English. And isn't Yarmouth a dear sleepy old
town, though it's said to be so American! Some one told me that it was
the only place in Nova Scotia where they hustled. My, but I wish they
could see Chicago! Then they'd know what 'hustle' means."
"Yes, my dear," gasped Mrs. Redmond; "but would you move your arm--just
a little? You almost choke me."
"Please excuse me, but I feel so excited that I must hug somebody, and
Priscilla and Amy never let me hug them."
"Why, I'm sure--" began Amy.
"Oh, no, you haven't said a word, that's quite true, and I've never even
tried to embrace you, yet I'm perfectly sure that you would hate it, and
so Mrs. Redmond--"
"Is the victim," rejoined Amy. "Well, mamma _is_ amiable. Only, while we
are travelling, do be careful not to squeeze too tightly; it rumples her
stock. Mamma, you'll really have to put on a fresh one before we start
out."
During this conversation Priscilla had been silent. She was shorter than
Martine, and fairer, and her expression was sad, or querulous,--at first
glance it was hard to say which. Yet her half-mourning costume--the
black skirt, and the black ribbon at her throat--suggested what was
really the case--that Priscilla had had some recent sorrow.
"What have you been doing, Priscilla?" asked Mrs. Redmond, noticing the
young girl's silence.
"Doing!" interrupted Martine, before Priscilla could speak. "Only think
how silly she's been. This beautiful morning--and in a new place--she
has spent writing letters. Isn't she a goose?"
"Oh, Martine!" and Amy shook her head in reproof.
Priscilla colored deeply as she turned apologetically to Mrs. Redmond.
"I promised mamma to write as soon as I could. She will get my letter
day after to-morrow."
"You were very considerate to write promptly. Your mother will be
delighted to hear so soon. But where have _you_ been, Martine?"
"Oh, rambling a little; I just couldn't stay in the house."
"It's strange, Martine," added Amy, "but a while ago, when I took a
stroll down the road, I saw a boy and a girl wheeling down a side street
together who looked so like you."
"Which, the boy or the girl?"
Disregarding Martine's flippancy, Amy continued: "I realized that it
couldn't possibly be you, as you know no one in Yarmouth."
"And didn't bring my wheel with me," added Martine. "So please, Miss Amy
Redmond, don't see double, or else before I know it you'll have all my
faults magnified to twice their size."
While Martine was speaking, Priscilla looked at her closely. But
Martine, if she felt Priscilla's eye upon her, showed no embarrassment.
Instead, she burst into a peal of laughter that woke from his slumbers a
quiet old gentleman dozing over his newspaper in a piazza chair.
Martine's laughter quickly degenerated into a giggle, and with only an
"Excuse me, I can't help it," she rushed into the house.
"There, mother," said Amy, "I fear that Martine will be a greater care
to us than we expected. If she hadn't run off I was going to suggest
that we all go for a walk, to see what there really is to be seen in the
town. We'll have plenty of time before dinner."
"I'll get my hat and bring Martine with me;" and Mrs. Redmond left
Priscilla and Amy by themselves.
A little later the four travellers were walking up the broad street,
partially shaded with trees, through which they had many glimpses of the
blue harbor.
"Isn't it strange," said Priscilla to Amy, "to think that this time
yesterday we were half-stifled with Boston heat! They said that it was
the hottest day of the season, and it is probably as hot there to-day;
and here we are--"
"Ready to shiver," interposed Amy. "You should have brought a coat,
Priscilla, for I almost feel an east wind."
"Oh, the air is soft. There's no danger of catching cold. Do you notice
all the flowers in these little gardens? It's a pleasant air, like the
Shoals, and those hawthorn hedges make me think of England,--at least,
what I've read of it, for I've never been there. We must ask Martine."
"You are almost as eloquent as Martine herself." Amy turned toward
Priscilla with a smile. "You were so quiet at breakfast, and indeed all
the morning, until now, that I feared you were not enjoying the trip."
"Well, to be honest, I felt homesick at first. You see, I have never
been away before without any of my family, and then I hadn't got the
motion of the boat out of my head. But now I feel perfectly well, and
perhaps--" but here Priscilla's voice was not quite steady--"perhaps I
shall not be homesick."
Amy drew Priscilla's hand within her arm.
"Of course not. Naturally, you will miss your mother and the children.
But you'll go back to them with such red cheeks, and so many interesting
things to tell, that you will be glad you had courage to come away. You
mustn't be homesick."
"Oh, I won't be," said Priscilla,--"that is, if I can help it; but if I
didn't know you much better than Martine, I think that I'd have to go
home."
Whereupon Amy, perceiving that Priscilla was not yet herself, strove to
divert her by telling her little incidents of early Nova Scotian
history. Her device was successful, and by the time they had overtaken
Mrs. Redmond and Martine, Priscilla was quite cheerful again.
In their walk they had turned aside from the main street, and had
reached a point on the outskirts where elevated land gave them a good
view of the water. Mrs. Redmond and Martine had found a large flat rock,
on which they seated themselves, and Mrs. Redmond was already at work
with her sketchbook before her.
"I'm glad that you've come, Amy,--I mean Miss Redmond," began Martine.
"I've been trying to tell your mother about some kind of a queer stone
that I heard some people talking about at the breakfast-table to-day,
but I haven't it quite clear in my mind, and so I'm waiting for you to
help me out."
"Oh, the runic stone?" asked Amy. "There isn't so very much to tell
about it, except that it was found more than seventy years ago, and is
thought by some people to be a memorial of the Norsemen."
"The Norsemen in Nova Scotia? But why didn't they discover the stone
before?"
"It was found by a Dr. Fletcher in a cove on his own property. The
inscription was on the under side, and showed signs of great age. There,
I believe I have something about it here;" and pulling a small notebook
from her pocket, Amy refreshed her memory.
"Yes, it weighed about four hundred and fifty pounds, and some
antiquarians have translated the inscription, 'Harki's son addressed the
men.' It seems that there was a man named Harki among those Norsemen who
sailed along the coast of America in 1007."
"That is certainly worth knowing," said Mrs. Redmond, "and I hope that
we can see the stone before we go."
"Well, it's only fair," continued Amy, "to tell you that some learned
people do not believe in the Norse theory."
"Perhaps it's like the inscription on the Dighton rock," interposed
Priscilla, "that they now think was made by Indians."
"Yes," added Amy, "but the strange thing is that a few years ago a
second stone was found about a mile away from the other, and the
inscription on it was almost the same."
"Well," exclaimed Martine, "it doesn't matter whether the Norsemen
really were here or not, as long as we can imagine that they may have
been. I like the romantic part of history, if it gives you something
entertaining to think about. It's all the same whether or not it is
true."
After which heretical sentiment, Priscilla, Plymouth-born Priscilla,
felt herself to be farther away than ever from Martine.
When Priscilla nestled down beside Mrs. Redmond to watch the growth of
her sketch, Martine became impatient.
"Let us go back. We've seen everything there is to see in this part of
the town, and perhaps I shall have time for a letter or two before
dinner."
"I'll go with you," responded Amy. "I have some packing to do."
"Packing?"
"Oh, just to rearrange some of my things."
"Very well," said Mrs. Redmond. "Priscilla and I will wait until this
sketch is finished, and then we'll return by the electric car."
"Any one would know that you and your mother are from Boston," said
Martine, turning to Amy with a laugh. "I have heard my father say that
Bostonians are the only people in the world who take the trouble to say
'electric cars.'"
"What do others say?"
"Why, trolley, of course. They'd laugh at you if you said anything else
in Chicago."
"You're pretty rapid in Chicago."
"And you are rather--well, rather slow in Boston."
CHAPTER II
LOST AND FOUND
Amy's face was flushed, her hat slightly askew, and she felt even more
uncomfortable than she looked. It was all on account of her lost keys.
For ten minutes or more she had been bending over boxes, and poking
among all kinds of things in the shed near the wharf, in the vain hope
that she might find what she had lost. When she had discovered that the
keys were missing, Priscilla volunteered to help her find them.
As the discovery had been made at the very moment when the carriage was
at the door to take them for an afternoon drive, Amy insisted that the
others should go without her, since it was evidently her duty to search
for the missing.
"Let me go with you," Priscilla had urged. "When we find the keys we can
go sightseeing by ourselves. It will be just as good fun as driving."
Thus Amy and Priscilla made their way by themselves to the wharf, while
Mrs. Redmond and Martine were driven in the direction of Milton.
"It wouldn't be so bad if it were only my trunk key," Amy had lamented,
"but there's a key of my mother's on the chain, and several keys of
little boxes--one or two of which I have with me; the others are at
home. I am always losing keys."
"You probably lost them after your trunk had been examined this morning.
What a fuss about nothing it was! Why, the inspector didn't even lift
the tray from my trunk. But we had all the trouble of unlocking and
opening our trunks, and in that way I suppose the keys were lost."
Priscilla spoke with more energy than was usual with her. When they
reached the wharf, the dignified Custom-House official and the small
boys congregated there and in the neighborhood of the train knew nothing
about the keys. The inspector remembered seeing them.
"I noticed your party particularly, and you were swinging your keys by a
long silver chain. Well, they may have slipped through a crack
somewhere, and so the best thing for you is to get a locksmith to fit a
key before you go any farther."
Overhearing this advice, one or two of the boys lounging about offered
to guide the young ladies to a locksmith. Thus Amy and Priscilla, not in
the best of spirits, with hats askew and shirt-waists somewhat rumpled,
came face to face with Fritz Tomkins.
"Oh, ho!" he cried mischievously, as the girls drew near. "What a
procession! All you need is a drum and a flag."
Turning her head, Amy saw six little boys walking behind her in Indian
file. There wasn't much going on at the wharf, and evidently all had
thought that there would be some fun in conducting the American young
ladies to the locksmith's.
Fritz himself, seated in the shade at a shop-door, looked aggravatingly
comfortable.
"Why, Fritz!" exclaimed Amy, "I thought you were miles and miles
away,--at Pubnico."
"Don't, don't show your disappointment too plainly. We thought that we'd
better not start before the train was ready. That will not be for an
hour yet. In the meantime, is there anything that I can do for you? You
look a little like a lady in distress."
"Well, then, appearances are deceitful." Amy had recovered from her
astonishment at seeing Fritz.
"I am sure that you are hunting for something."
"Why are you so sure?" Amy was determined not to tell.
"She _is_ looking for something, isn't she, Priscilla?" Fritz had seen
more or less of Priscilla in Boston the past winter, and naturally
called her by her first name.
Priscilla shook her head,--not in dissent, but to show that she had no
intention of disclosing more than Amy herself chose to explain.
"Very well," continued Fritz, "I am a mind reader. I can tell you all
about it. You are looking for a bunch of keys."
"How did you know?" For once Amy was off guard.
"Ah! Then it's true."
"Very well, since you know so much, where are the keys?"
Fritz, thrusting his hand in his pocket, drew out a long silver chain,
which he swung around his head in a circle before laying it in Amy's
hand.
"There, little boys, you--"
"Don't call them little boys, Amy; remember how I felt when I was ten."
"Here, young men." As Fritz spoke the boys drew nearer, and Fritz,
drawing from his pocket a handful of silver, laid in each of six palms a
bright ten-cent coin with the Queen's head stamped upon it.
"But we didn't do anything," one of the six managed to say.
"No, but you _would_ have helped the young lady find a locksmith, and
besides, you brought her to the particular spot where I was sitting, and
so you found her keys for her."
This logic was so correct that the six boys, feeling that they had
earned the money, rushed off with a shout of "Thank you," to find the
quickest way of spending it.
"You might have brought the keys to the hotel," complained Amy. "Then I
needn't have had this dusty walk."
"After the summary way in which you banished me this morning I certainly
could not put myself in your way again. But I knew that when you came to
dress for the afternoon you would miss your keys, and happen _my_ way.
Surely you can't object to my being here?"
"Of course not. I am very much obliged to you."
"Besides, I found the keys only this afternoon. They had slipped under a
board, and when I saw the end of the chain I recognized it at once. May
I walk with you part way up-town? I'm sorry that I can't go all the way.
But Taps and I have an errand to do, and it's now within an hour of
train time. Remember, you have banished us."
As they walked, Fritz, abandoning frivolity, outlined his plans for the
next week. Priscilla listened with great interest. Nova Scotia was
indeed a new land to her, and as she had rather suddenly decided to
accompany Amy and her mother she had read nothing on the subject of the
province in which they were to spend a few weeks.
Fritz had known little more than Priscilla until he had stumbled on some
one crossing on the boat the preceding night who had had much to say
about the old Fort La Tour and its neighborhood.
"Fort La Tour!" Amy exclaimed. "I shouldn't care to discredit your
history, but I am sure that that was on the River St. John across the
Bay, in quite the opposite direction from where you are going."
"There, there, my dear Miss Amy Redmond, you are just like other people.
Because you know _some_ Acadian history you think that you know it all.
There certainly was a Fort La Tour at St. John, but its remains, I hear,
are altogether invisible now; whereas the first Fort La Tour can still
be seen in outline, at least. There isn't any masonry, I believe, yet
you can trace the outline in the grass. You remember, Amy, it was once
called Fort Loméron."
"I'm sorry, Fritz, but I don't remember. You must have taken a special
course in history lately."
"Yes, this very morning. You see I had time to spare after you sent me
into exile, and Taps and I were to have our dinner at a private
boarding-house, where I thought we ought to stay, since you didn't care
to have us at the hotel. Well, to make a long story short, I found a set
of Parkman there, and it seemed wise to refresh my memory before going
down to Port La Tour."
"Do tell us what you learned." Amy spoke eagerly. "I'll admit that I've
quite forgotten the first Fort La Tour."
"I haven't much time now," said Fritz, "but I'll do what I can to make
my knowledge yours,--only you mustn't expect me to be perfectly
accurate. This, however, is the way I figure it out. After that old
rascal, Argall, attacked Port Royal, in 1613, Biencourt, or
Poutrincourt, as he was known after his father's death, wandered for
years in the woods with a few followers, sleeping in the open air, and
living on roots and nuts like an Indian. In some way or other he managed
to get men enough, and material enough, to build a small fort in the
Cape Sable region, that he called Fort Loméron,--a rocky and foggy
neighborhood. But there was fine fishing and hunting, and he felt that
the Fort was a warning to any enemies who might try to take away the
rest of what his father had left him. Well, among his followers was
young Charles de Saint Étienne de La Tour, who also had come out to
Acadia as a boy. When Biencourt died La Tour claimed that Acadia had
been left to him by his friend. He tried to get Louis XIII. to help him
against the English, and against Sir William Alexander in particular, to
whom James I. had granted Acadia. Now young Charles La Tour began to
have a hard time because his father Claude had married a Maid of Honor
to Queen Henrietta Maria, and had promised Charles I. that he would
drive out the French and establish the English in Nova Scotia. But when
Claude appeared with his two ships before his son's Fort, he could not
persuade him to turn color and become a Baronet of Nova Scotia. The
father made great promises in the name of King Charles if the son would
surrender, but the son withstood the father, and the latter lost English
support because he had not been able to keep his promise; and so he was
nothing but a refugee the rest of his life."
"Served him right for deserting his country," murmured Priscilla.
"Well, it's hard to understand just who did what in those days, and why.
Some say that Charles La Tour was no better than his father, and that
he, too, accepted from the English the title 'Baronet of Nova Scotia.'
On account of the conquest of Sir David Kirke, Nova Scotia was English
for a while, and then again it was under the control of the French after
Claude de Razilly brought out an expedition in 1632. Charles de Menou
d'Aunay, by the way, La Tour's great enemy, came with Razilly. But La
Tour made haste to put himself right with the King of France, and, after
a visit to Paris, came back to Nova Scotia 'Lieutenant-General for the
King at Fort Loméron and its dependencies, and Commander at Cape Sable
for the Colony of New France.' Doesn't that strike you as quite
tremendous, when you think of the rocks and the fogs and the seals,
together with the forests, that chiefly made up his domain?"
"It's very interesting," said Priscilla. "What became of La Tour?"
"It's a long story," responded Fritz. "I'm afraid I haven't time to tell
it now."
"Oh, I know all about his quarrel with D'Aunay," interposed Amy. "It
will come in better when we are at Port Royal--or rather Annapolis. But
I had forgotten this Fort near Cape Sable."
"You shouldn't have forgotten it." Fritz's tone deepened in reproach.
"For many of La Tour's descendants live near the Fort, and the place
itself is called Port La Tour. I am astonished that you should have left
it out of your plan of travel. You can't go there now, because that is
where Taps and I are bound, and it wouldn't do for us to get in your
way--I mean for you to get in our way. Beyond the tip end of Nova Scotia
there's Sable Island, that used to be haunted by pirates and privateers.
Some of them may be there still, and if Taps and I go there, and if
anything happens to us, you may be sorry that you drove us away.
Good-bye, Amy; even a Nova Scotia train won't wait for me;" and before
the astonished girls could say a word, Fritz, with a touch of his cap,
was walking rapidly away from them.
"We haven't offended him?" asked Priscilla, timidly.
"No, indeed. His plans were already made to go among the French
villages. In fact, I thought that he had gone this morning. He started
off soon after breakfast."
Although Amy spoke thus decidedly, secretly she wished that she had been
less summary with Fritz. It was not strange, indeed, that her conscience
should prick her a little. When she and Fritz were not yet in their
teens they had become acquainted at Rockley, a summer resort on the
North Shore where Fritz spent the summers with his uncle. Rockley was
Amy's home all the year, and as not many boys or girls of her own age
lived near her, she greatly appreciated the companionship of Fritz. The
latter, for his part, knew that he was very fortunate in having the
friendship of Amy and her mother; for, like Amy, he had neither brothers
nor sisters, and although his father was living, his mother had died
when he was a baby. His father spent little time with him, as he was
fond of exploring new countries, and his travels often kept him away
from home two or three years at a time.
Before entering college Fritz had lived with his father's elder
brother,--a serious, scholarly man. The uncle made little provision for
amusement in his nephew's life, until Mrs. Redmond had shown him that
all work and no play would do Fritz more harm than good. Amy and Fritz,
on the whole, had been very congenial friends, although the latter could
rarely resist an opportunity to tease Amy. Mrs. Redmond often had to act
as peacemaker, and Fritz always took her reproofs good-naturedly. No one
knew him so well as Mrs. Redmond did. There was no one to whose words he
paid quicker attention. He called her his "adopted mother," and
naturally it seemed strange to him that she should agree with Amy that
he and his friend would be in the way on the Nova Scotia tour. Beneath
the jesting tone that he had used with Amy lay something sharper, and
Amy, as he finally turned away, realized this.
After the departure of Fritz the girls walked on in silence. Suddenly an
exclamation of Priscilla's brought them to a standstill. In the window
of a little shop were two cups and saucers of thickish china, decorated
in a high-colored rose pattern. The cups were of a quaint, flaring
shape, and Priscilla announced that she must have them. There were other
curiosities in the window,--a small cannon-ball, two reddish
short-stemmed pipes, and many things of Indian make. The shop-keeper
proved to be an elderly woman, with a pleasant, soft accent. The cups,
she explained, had belonged to an old couple who had lately died,
leaving no children. At the auction she had bought a few bits of china.
"I know they are old,--more than a hundred years,--these two cups. I'm
sorry I haven't any more, but people from the States are always looking
for old things, and there's been a good many here this summer."
Priscilla bought the cups, and Amy inquired about the cannon-ball.
"It was dug up near Fort St. Louis, as some call it, or Fort La Tour,
and the pipes too. They say there's many a strange thing buried there
under the ground, if people only had the patience to dig."
Amy decided that it was hardly wise to burden herself with the
cannon-ball, and she didn't care especially for the pipes.
"There's something else here," said the woman, "if you won't be offended
at my showing it. Some Americans--"
"How did you know that we were Americans?" interrupted Amy.
"Oh, as soon as ever a Yankee--there, I beg your pardon--any one from
the States opens her mouth--"
"She puts her foot in it," returned Amy, with a smile.
"No, no, I wouldn't say a word against the accent, but I can always tell
it. I have a sister married in the States, and her children speak like
their father. When they come to visit me I tell them that they are
regular Yankees. Not that I have anything against that; I hope I'll live
to see Boston some time."
"Have you never been there?" asked Priscilla, in surprise.
"No, Miss; I know that it isn't so far away, but I was born in the Old
Country, and when I take a trip, that's where I'd rather go;" and the
little woman sighed. "But I'll show you the curiosity I spoke of."
From a drawer behind the counter she drew a small fan, one or two of
whose sticks were broken, while the silk was faded and torn.
"I bought that from an old lady who said that her grandmother fanned an
officer who was wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill, while he lay sick
in her house after the battle. Perhaps I oughtn't to speak of it," she
concluded apologetically.
"Why not? The war's entirely over, and no one has any feeling about it
now."
"I suppose not." But the woman's voice carried a question.
"Why, to prove that I have no resentment I'll buy the fan,--even if it
did once soothe the brow of a hated Britisher." Amy smiled at Priscilla
as she spoke.
The price named came so well within Amy's means that she half doubted
the authenticity of the relic. Of her doubts, however, she gave no hint
to the talkative little Englishwoman. Instead, by what she afterwards
called a genuine inspiration, she asked some question about the French
people at Pubnico.
"Oh, they are good enough," said the woman, "and spend plenty of money
in Yarmouth; and there's many of the young people working here in our
shops and mills, although many French come from Meteghan and up that
way."
"Meteghan?" queried Amy.
"Yes, that's a pretty country up North on St Mary's Bay, and all French.
If you're going to Digby you'd better stop off."
"But we were going straight through to Digby."
"Yes, most people go straight through, and don't know what they miss.
You see, the natives up there are Acadians, and it's kind of foreign
like, for they mostly speak only French. My husband and I, we went up
there once and stayed at the hotel, for he had an order for some goods
that he had to see about himself."
While Mrs. Lufkins was talking the practical Priscilla had taken out her
notebook, in which she wrote the name of the station and other things
that would help them.
"Do you think that your mother would like to change her plans?"
"Yes, indeed; she will think this just the thing. Probably there will be
good material for sketching,--scenery, and odd people, and all that kind
of thing. I am sure that she will like it."
"Thank you, Mrs. Lufkins," said Amy, as they turned away from the
mistress of the little shop; and then in a particularly cheerful tone
she added to Priscilla, "I feel as if I had found a gold-mine. Fritz was
so very sure that he was to have a monopoly of the only French in Nova
Scotia, that it will be great fun to write him about our French people."
"Then you think you will go there?"
"Certainly; mother will enjoy it, and it will be great fun for the rest
of us. Wasn't Mrs. Lufkins entertaining? If she were Yarmouth-born,
perhaps she wouldn't speak of us as Yankees. You know the first
permanent settlement here was made about 1761, by Cape Codders. In fact,
the name's from Yarmouth on the Cape, not from the English Yarmouth
directly. I remember the names of two of the first settlers,--Sealed
Landers and Eleshama Eldredge. Don't they sound like real old Puritans?"
"But how did they come to be English? Why didn't they stay on our side
in the Revolution?" Priscilla's tone contained a whole world of reproach
for Sealed and Eleshama.
"Oh, that's a long story. I dare say they were on our side--in their
hearts; but they couldn't afford to give up all they had worked for,
after coming here as pioneers. Many of the Yarmouth people were thought
to be in sympathy with the American privateers that were always prowling
about the coast. But the English managed to hold Nova Scotia, and in the
War of 1812 the number of American vessels captured by Yarmouth was
greater than the number of Yarmouth vessels captured by the Americans."
"When I left home," said Priscilla, "I did not know that there was so
much history down here. I thought that we were just coming for change of
air."
"Oh, the place is alive with history; only you must let me know if I
bore you with too many stories."
"You could never bore me." Priscilla laid her hand affectionately on
Amy's. She was an undemonstrative girl, though her likes and dislikes
were well known to herself. But for her fondness for Amy she would
hardly have made one of this summer party.
CHAPTER III
TOWARD METEGHAN
Amy rested her hand on her bicycle, waiting to mount.
"I did not think that it would be quite so lonely; but still, you're
sure it's perfectly safe?"
"Oh, yes, Miss, and not a long way." There was a trace of accent in the
speech of the man who replied to Amy's question. He had just deposited a
pouch of mail in the vehicle in which sat Mrs. Redmond, Priscilla, and
Martine, and had turned to adjust the harness of his meek-looking horse.
"You are not afraid, are you?" Priscilla's voice was anxious. "I wish
that I had brought my bicycle, and could ride with you."
"You _do_ look like a maiden all forlorn,--spruce trees to right of you,
spruce trees to left of you. Excuse my smiling;" and Martine's smile
lengthened itself into a decided giggle.
"Don't," whispered Priscilla. "The driver will think that you are
laughing at him." It always surprised her that Martine should show so
little respect for Amy, who was several years her senior.
"Amy," interposed Mrs. Redmond, "do you object to our driving away and
leaving you? Doubtless if we tried, we could find some kind of a
conveyance to carry you and the bicycle."
"Not till after dinner, Madame." Their driver turned toward Mrs.
Redmond, lifting his hat politely,--"Every horse is away now."
"The only thing for Amy to do is to let you hold her on your lap,
Priscilla, while I take the bicycle on mine." At which absurd suggestion
even Priscilla was forced to laugh; for the vehicle sent down to
Meteghan station for her Majesty's mail was as narrow and shallow as any
carriage could well be that made even a pretence of holding four
persons. But with the deftness that comes with experience the driver had
managed to find room not only for his passengers, but for their suit
case and bags, for several packages that had come by train, and finally
for his great pouch of mail.
"There must be a perfect cavern under the seat," whispered Martine to
Mrs. Redmond. "I am sure that we could put Amy there."
But even as she spoke Amy had mounted, and was up the hill ahead before
the driver had taken his seat. Yet although Amy had taken the hill so
well, she was soon out of breath. The road was soft, and the hill
steeper than she had thought, and when a little chubby boy darted
directly toward her, she slipped from her wheel and bent down to talk to
the little fellow.
To her surprise, at first he did not respond to her "What's your name?"
but hung his head shyly. Then it occurred to her that he did not
understand, and when she repeated her question in French his "Louis,
Mademoiselle," showed that her venture had been right.
"Does every one here speak French, Monsieur?" she asked, as the carriage
approached.
"Yes, all," responded the driver, stopping beside her for a moment.
"And no English?"
"Oh, many, though some have no English."
Martine and Priscilla praised the bright eyes of little Louis. Mrs.
Redmond handed him an illustrated paper that she had brought from the
train, and the driver started up his horse.
"You follow me," he called back to Amy.
"Yes, yes," cried Amy, laughing, knowing that she could soon pass him;
but while she loitered to talk with the child, the carriage was soon so
far ahead that she could barely discern the fluttering of the long veil
that Martine held out to stream in the wind like a flag.
After leaving little Louis, Amy pedalled along leisurely. At first she
passed only one or two houses, but each of them offered her something to
think of. In front of one, two or three barefooted children were playing
hop-scotch, with the limits marked out in lines drawn by a stick on the
dusty road. "I should think they'd stub their toes," she thought, as she
watched them, "but they're so well-dressed, except their feet, that I
suppose they prefer to go without shoes."
In the doorway of a second cottage, set like the other, close to the
road, a mother was standing with a baby in her arms, and a tiny little
girl clinging to her skirts. These children, like all the others she had
seen, had the brightest of black eyes. Beside the door was a well,
boarded in, with a bucket beside it.
The woman looked so friendly that Amy stopped for a drink of water, and,
making use of her best French, she spent a few minutes talking with the
woman.
A fine team of oxen hauling an empty hay wagon, beside which walked a
strapping youth in blue jeans and a flapping straw hat, was the next
reminder to Amy that she was indeed in a foreign country. After she had
returned the cheerful _bonjour_ of two or three bareheaded women whom
she met trudging along toward a hayfield, Amy was recalled to herself.
Her mother and the others were out of sight. "The driver will think that
I am not even following;" and making good speed up a long, gradual hill,
she saw the carriage waiting for her some distance ahead.
"This way, this way," shouted Martine. The driver waved his whip toward
the left, and when Amy caught up, they had changed their direction, and
she could feel the soft fresh breeze blowing in from St. Mary's Bay.
"Did you ever see such a clear blue sky?"
"Oh, yes, Martine,"--Amy was thinking of cloudless days on the North
Shore,--"but none bluer, perhaps."
"But it seems so foreign," interposed Priscilla, in a tone that
expressed some disapproval of foreign things. "I'm not sure that I like
it."
"It seems different from other places, though I can't tell why."
"This child is part of the why. Just look at him." Martine pointed to a
little boy of about eight, dressed in black, with deep embroidered
ruffles of white falling about his wrists, and a broad ruffled collar on
his coat. He wore a hat that was something like a tam-o'-shanter, and
something like a mortar-board, and he carried a large slate under his
arm.
"He's evidently on his way home from school. See the crowd of children
behind him."
As the children drew nearer, some stood still, the better to see the
party of strangers. Thus the latter had a chance to note various
peculiarities of dress and general appearance. One or two little girls
wore sunbonnets, one or two wore hats, and several had on their heads
black _couvre-chefs_, that made them look like little old women. The
sturdy little boys in blouses were more like other boys, and they indeed
were too busy racing and tumbling over one another to pay attention to
the travellers.
"Amy," exclaimed Martine, "you should have kept beside us all the way,
we have been hearing such wonderful stories. Down there by the bridge
there are several descendants of the Baron d'Entremont, and other people
whose ancestors came from France hundreds of years ago."
"The Baron d'Entremont!" Amy felt a thrill of pleasure. Surely that was
one of the names that Fritz had mentioned in connection with Pubnico,
and if she too could come across some of his descendants, how delightful
this would be!
The houses were now nearer together than they had been. At the right
there was a glimmer of blue water. On the bridge at the foot of the
decline Amy dismounted to watch the men loading with lumber a little
schooner at the wharf near-by. The carriage drew up before the tiny
post-office, where part of the mail was left. A gray-bearded man in the
door of a small shop caught Amy's eye. With his broad-brimmed hat, loose
trousers, and slippers,--yes, slippers,--he reminded her of pictures she
had seen of old Frenchmen. She longed to snap her kodak, to catch him
just as he stood there, leaning on his cane. But she did not dare, there
was something so very venerable and dignified in his appearance.
Then her eye fell on the name d'Entremont over the shop. Martine and
Priscilla joined her. Martine was in great spirits.
"Your mother is writing a post-card in the office. So, while we are
waiting, let us go in here and try the d'Entremont brand of ginger ale.
They're sure to have some, and one doesn't often have the chance to
patronize the descendant of a French nobleman."
Within the dim little shop two or three men were lounging near the
counter, who probably said to themselves, "Oh, those foolish Americans!"
But their manner showed no disrespect as they moved aside, and the
proprietor made one or two pleasant remarks as he served the trio.
A few minutes later Amy was again on her bicycle, the others had taken
their places in the carriage, and the little village was behind them.
The large farms that they had seen near Meteghan station gave place to
small gardens. The houses were near together, and they were painted in
colors that drew many exclamations of approval from Martine. "This is
great! I never dreamed that I should see a lavender cottage with green
trimmings,--and what a shade of yellow for a house! Oh, Mrs. Redmond, I
hope that our water-colors will last the trip. I'm afraid that we'll use
them all up, painting the wonders of Meteghan. This is Meteghan, isn't
it?"
"Yes, Mees," replied the driver. "It was all Meteghan, from the station,
only that was a different name for the other post-office. But there is
our church; this is the true village."
"Star of the Sea" was an imposing building, but the journey since
leaving Yarmouth had been long, and they were too eager now to reach
their destination to give the church more than a passing glance.
Amy's quick eye had noted the swinging sign of the little inn not so
very far beyond the church, and, hastening ahead, she was the first to
be welcomed by Madame, wife of their driver, who was also proprietor of
the small hotel.
Welcomed with ceremonious politeness, they were soon made to feel
perfectly at home. When the question was pressed, they all admitted that
they were very hungry. In the pleasant rooms to which they were shown,
they had barely time to make themselves ready when a loud bell called
them to dinner. As the four entered the dining-room, they saw that there
were several other guests at the long table. One, a stout man with a
fondness for jokes, proved to be the agent for a millinery house in
Halifax. There were one or two others who said so little that even Amy
could not tell whether they were French or English; two middle-aged
ladies near Mrs. Redmond quickly let her know that they were teachers
from Connecticut, now for the first time making a tour of the provinces.
They had sailed from New York to Halifax for the sake of the sea voyage,
and had come down slowly through Windsor, Grand Pré, and Annapolis, and
were enthusiastic about all these places.
"But if you can," one of them concluded, "you must have a few days at
Little Brook,--Petit Ruisseau, as some call it. It's the centre of
everything interesting in Clare; it's really where the first Acadians
landed after the expulsion, and only a short distance from Point à
l'Église."
Amy listened eagerly. Here evidently was some one who could tell her
much that she wished to hear about this new country, and later, when
they were all outside on the little piazza at the front, she learned
what she wished to know. On consulting her mother, they decided that
after a day at Meteghan they would go on to Little Brook, and spend at
least two or three days there--if possible at the Hotel Paris, which the
teachers recommended.
Missing Priscilla and Martine, Amy found them in the little
sitting-room.
"Tell me," whispered Martine, "aren't you disappointed?"
"Disappointed with what?"
"Why, in this house--this room especially; it's so--so unforeign."
Amy glanced around her,--at the bright-flowered carpet; the
marble-topped table, on which was displayed a bouquet of wax-flowers
under a glass globe; on the two machine-made oak rockers; and then on
the pictures.
"Where do you suppose they found that picture of the Queen with such
very pink cheeks, and a mouth as small as a pin, and those wax-figure
princelings--and those saints? Do you suppose Madame and her children
know the names of them all?"
At that moment Madame herself entered the door.
"You like pretty things. Ah, you must see my rugs, if you would care
to."
"Yes, indeed," Amy replied politely.
"Then come with me. They are in my room,--the best,--and the American
ladies always admire them."
So the two girls followed their landlady upstairs, where she proudly
displayed rug after rug of wonderful design and still more wonderful
color. Martine dared not say what she thought,--that it seemed a pity
that so much time had been put into things that could only dazzle rather
than please the average beholder. Amy conscientiously praised those that
could be properly praised,--for here and there was a rug of really
artistic design,--and Priscilla gave an exclamation of delight as she
noticed on the bed a really exquisite spread.
"You like that?" asked Madame. "It is good work, all by hand; only two
or tree women can now make them. My old aunt who made that is dead,
but--"
"It is like the finest Marseilles, only I never saw so beautiful a
pattern. I did not know people could make such things by hand."
"On a loom, surely yes; there are only one or two in Meteghan, but you
can see one work, if you wish, at Alexandre Babet's."
"There, that will be something to see! Is it far?" cried Martine.
"Oh, no. You can find it quickly."
"After we are rested," responded Amy. "The sun is still hot. Your rugs
and the spread are beautiful."
As the girls sat down on the piazza, Priscilla turned to Amy. "You did
not think those rugs really beautiful?"
Amy did not resent this slight touch of reproach, even though Priscilla
was so much her junior.
"Yes, and no. Some of them were beautiful even from my point of view.
They all were from that of their owner, and since she desired to please
us by showing them, it seemed only fair to reward her with a word of
praise."
"But if every one praises her she will go on using those terrible
aniline colors. They made my head ache just to look at them."
"Oh, Priscilla, you are so precise I'll call you 'Prim' as well as
'Prissie.'"
"_No_ one else calls me 'Prissie,' Martine."
"No one else dares tease you. Probably your little brothers and sisters
are frightened to death of you, and then, because you are the oldest,
you have always been made to think that you are absolutely perfect."
"Oh, Martine!"
"There, there, I know just how it is. It's so in our family; I have an
elder brother, and he has always been held up as a model, although,
between you and me, he's far from perfect. It just keeps me busy,
showing him his faults. So, Miss Prissie, if you are too old-maidish
I'll have to show you yours."
Priscilla was helpless under Martine's rapid fire of words. In her
moments of reflection it surprised her that a girl whom six months
before she had not even heard of, should now venture to say things to
her that no one in her own family would dare to say.
A little later, Amy and Priscilla and Martine set out to see the loom
that made the fine quilts. Priscilla had desired to postpone the visit
until next morning. "It would be better to rest now."
"I'm tired resting," protested Martine. "Unless we move on, I will go
indoors, and play doleful things on the melodeon. You don't know what I
am when I'm melancholy."
Unmoved by Martine, when Amy showed that it was better not to spend the
whole afternoon listlessly, Priscilla objected no longer.
The Babet house was a ten minutes' walk up the street. After mistaking
one or two houses for the one they were seeking, their third trial
brought a tall, long-bearded man to the door who answered to the name of
Alexandre Babet.
"We hear that some one here--your wife, perhaps,--makes those beautiful
quilts."
"Oh, yes," responded Alexandre, in fair English. "They are good quilts,
and we have a loom."
Martine pinched Priscilla's arm. "I'm disappointed; I thought that he'd
speak French."
"Come in, come in;" and Alexandre showed them into the neatest of
sitting-rooms,--neat, but painfully bare. It was brightened, to be sure,
by one or two gay pictures of saints in brilliant-colored garments, and
by two or three geraniums in flower on the window. But the wooden floor
was unpainted, and on it was only one rug, and there was little
furniture besides the high dresser and a long table.
Alexandre went off to summon his wife, and soon she came in from the
kitchen, accompanied by another, whom Alexandre introduced as his
sister. The girls soon became embarrassed under the piercing gaze of
their black eyes. The women wore dark calico gowns with little shawls
over their shoulders, and their _couvre-chefs_ were bound closely to
their heads. Neither of them understood English, nor spoke it. But
Alexandre proved as talkative as any two women. Moreover, he
occasionally translated his own words into French, and in the same way
made the women understand what the young American girls said--to the
great amusement of Amy and Martine. Priscilla sat solemnly through the
conversation, as if she found something pathetic in the aspect of the
women.
During a moment of silence, when the room seemed rather close and
uncomfortable,--for the windows were shut, and the blinds were
drawn,--there came a gentle tapping on the door. Madame Babet sprang to
her feet.
"No, no, sit still; she can come in." Then turning to the others,
Alexandre added, "It is Yvonne, our little one. Come in, Yvonne," he
called in a louder tone; "here are Americans."
Upon this the door was pushed open, and a little girl wearing a pink
gingham gown and a white sunbonnet, entered slowly, holding one hand
outstretched, as if not quite sure of herself. Then, walking directly
toward Madame Babet, she slipped to the floor beside her, and laid her
head on her lap.
The girls looked from her to Alexandre to read an explanation in his
face, and he, understanding, raised his hand to his eyes.
"Blind!" exclaimed Martine, involuntarily. "Poor little thing!"
"She understands English," said the man, warningly; "she does not wish
pity."
"I see much," said Yvonne, proudly, "when the light does not glare. I
see the American ladies. This one is pretty;" and rising, she made her
way carefully to Martine, and laid her hand confidingly in hers.
Martine's color deepened; she felt a great tenderness toward the girl,
and she raised the little hand to her lips.
CHAPTER IV
YVONNE
"She is adopted," said Alexandre, "but we know no difference. She calls
us her parents. Her mother and father are dead, and she makes her home
with us since she was a baby. When I get my gold out she shall sing, oh,
so beautifully."
"Your gold out?" queried Amy.
"Ah, yes! Back here on my farm, which looks all rocks, there is much
gold underneath. I know not how to get it out, but some day I shall find
a miner who knows. See!"
From a drawer in the dresser he brought out two pieces of quartz, which
he asked the girls to look at carefully. "It is gold underneath, sans
doute, and, Mees, if you know a miner in Boston to study this, he could
have some of my gold when it is dug out, but as for me I know not how to
get it out, and poor Yvonne cannot have her music."
Gradually the girls gathered that Yvonne had a voice "sweeter than an
angel's," and that Alexandre had set his heart on giving her a musical
education. His plans soared far beyond the Western continent. He would
send her to Paris, to Italy, and she should astonish the world. The most
of this conversation or monologue took place in the little field back of
the house that Alexandre dignified as "my farm." The soil was poor and
rocky, and evidently he had hard work to raise the few patches of
vegetables needed for his family. There was a tiny orchard,--it had not
been an Acadian farm without that. The trees were knotty and scrubby,
and Amy was not surprised that the prospect of a gold-mine offered even
more than the usual attractions to the visionary Alexandre. But Amy,
though she knew nothing of mineralogy, thought it most unlikely that a
gold-mine lay hidden beneath the stony surface in which Alexandre had
dug a deep, deep hole with a vague idea that it was a shaft. Indeed, Amy
felt quite sure that even a mineralogist--for such was the meaning of
his "miner"--would give him little encouragement. Yet as she looked at
the slender figure of Yvonne walking ahead with Martine, she felt deep
sympathy with his ambition.
Evidently Yvonne, in spite of her infirmity, was the pride of the little
household. Her print gown of a delicate pink cambric was spotlessly
neat, and her white sunbonnet had been laundered with the greatest care.
Though much shorter and slighter than Martine, the latter was surprised
to find that the little Acadienne was hardly a year younger, and that it
was true, as Alexandre said, that she ought soon to have the chance to
study--if--and here was the question--if her voice was what he pictured
it.
"Miss Amy," murmured Priscilla, half impatiently, "I thought that we
came to see the loom."
"Indeed we did, but these people have been so interesting that we have
spent too much time out here." Then turning toward their host, who had
fallen back, she asked him to show them the loom.
"Ah, yes, with the greatest pleasure,--the loom, and the beautiful
quilts that my wife makes, and the lace of Yvonne. The mine did almost
make me forget, but we shall go in quick."
When they were again in the house he led them up a steep flight of
stairs to an unfinished room, with great rafters overhead and two small
windows admitting little light.
There at the loom sat his silent wife, and beside her stood the equally
silent sister. So it fell on Alexandre to explain the workings of the
great wooden frame. While he was talking, however, the attention of all
the girls flagged a little. Amy had never been interested in machinery,
and made no pretence of understanding it. Priscilla was impressed by the
quaintness of the scene, but she was weary from her two or three days of
travelling, and her mind wandered while the voluble Frenchman was
talking; and Martine, fully occupied with Yvonne, paid little heed to
any one else. Nevertheless they were all sufficiently impressed with the
skill with which the rather dull-looking wife of Alexandre managed warp
and woof, and produced, even as they were looking at her, a fragment of
pattern.
While Alexandre was in the midst of one of his speeches Priscilla
whispered to Amy, and Amy, as if at her suggestion, turned to Alexandre.
"We cannot stay much longer," she said politely, "and we are delighted
to have seen this loom, so that we can understand how these quilts are
made. It's really quite wonderful, your wife is so clever;" and she
paused for a moment to watch the busy fingers now flying in and out
among the threads. "But we came particularly to see some of the quilts."
"Oh, yes, Mees, certainly, we will show you quick;" then with an eye to
business,--"perhaps you will want to buy."
"Yes," said Amy, "perhaps we may. Come, Priscilla; come, Martine."
The two women followed the girls downstairs, and when they were again in
the little front room, from a wooden chest in the corner they brought
out a large quilt of much more beautiful design than any they had seen.
"I must have that," cried Martine in delight; "it is just what I want."
Then, when a second was shown, she was equally enthusiastic, and then a
third was laid on top of the pile.
"The money from the quilts is saved for Yvonne," Alexandre whispered to
Amy, and the latter did not protest when four of the quilts were laid
aside for Martine. Amy also chose one for herself, but Priscilla,
although she praised them, expressed no inclination to buy. Only when
some narrow hand-made lace was brought out from the chest did she become
enthusiastic, or as nearly enthusiastic as was possible for Priscilla,
and Yvonne blushed under her praise.
"It is an old art," the little blind girl explained; "it was my
grandmother taught me, and her grandmother taught her, and so on back to
the days of old France."
"But how can she do it? She is blind!" exclaimed Amy.
"Oh, not all blind, and not always! She can see a little, though
everything is dim, and the lace it is knitted,--not pillow lace, like
some,--and she can make her fingers go, oh, so quickly! Ah, she has much
talent, the little Yvonne, and you must hear her sing."
So Yvonne sang to them standing there in the middle of the room, without
notes and unaccompanied, and the plaintiveness of the tone and the
richness of the voice drew tears from the eyes of the three American
girls, while father and mother and aunt were lost in admiration as they
gazed at the slender figure in the pale pink gown.
Hardly had she finished when Martine, jumping up, impulsively threw her
arms about Yvonne's neck.
"You must go back with me to the hotel. You must sing to me again. There
is a melodeon in the parlor, and I will accompany you. Please, Mr.
Babet, can she go back with us?"
"It is an honor for Yvonne," he replied politely; "I will ask her
mother."
"Oh, let me; I will make her say 'Yes'"; and in a few words of rapid
French Martine asked that Yvonne might go to the hotel as her guest, to
stay to tea. The mother at once assented, and both of the silent women
were in a flutter of excitement as they accompanied Yvonne to her
bedroom to make some additions to her dress.
"Ah," said Alexandre, "she has never been inside the hotel; it will seem
very grand to her."
Then Yvonne, kissing them all,--the mother, the aunt, and finally the
tall father,--turned her back to the cottage, and with beaming face
leaned on Martine's arm as Amy led the way.
A little distance down the road they saw a man standing by a gate.
"Good-day, little one," he called; "where are you going?"
"To the hotel, Uncle Placide."
"How happens it?"
"These American ladies have asked me. I am to have tea."
"Ah, well, she is a dear little one, and you are good to her."
The whole party had now halted in front of the gate, and these words
seemed to be particularly addressed to Amy; for, standing directly in
front of her, Placide lifted his hat. "Won't you enter?" he asked
pleasantly.
"But, uncle," remonstrated Yvonne, "we have no time; we go to the
hotel."
"Oh, but there is much time; I have been in the States, and I like to
talk to the strangers, so enter my garden at least, ladies, to taste of
my cherries."
There was nothing to do but enter the garden. At the mention of cherries
Yvonne indeed had seemed more willing to halt on her way to the hotel,
and the others, as Placide thrust upon them liberal handfuls of his
great crimson cherries, did not regret the delay.
"You are from Boston," he said, after Amy had mentioned her home. "Ah, I
worked in Boston, that is, in Lowell, which was the same, and then I
came home when I had saved enough to buy a house. It is not so gay here
as in Lowell, but it is happier, and I can make a pleasanter living. I
never did like the mill, but the pay was good."
"What do you do now, Mr. Placide?" asked Amy.
"Oh, I fish. The sea is good to us Acadians; it is better than the
factory. One gets health here as well as fish, and fish enough to keep
the house fed. So, with my potatoes and my cherries, I am rich." Then,
with an afterthought,--"But I hope sometime that little Yvonne can go to
Boston, where there is much music. She could study and be great singer,
for the voice it needs teaching. I know that, because I have been in the
States where people study so much."
The girls found it hard to leave Placide, for he was even more fluent
than Alexandre, and his years in the States had given him a certain
amount of information about things American, and he was evidently fond
of displaying what he knew. But at last they managed to say good-bye,
and continued their way down the road.
"I am tired," sighed Priscilla, as the four stood at the door of the
little hotel.
"Then let us sit here on the piazza. Would this suit you, Yvonne?"
Yvonne turned toward Amy with a smile. "I like whatever the other ladies
like; it is all good for me."
"Oh, yes," added Martine, "it will be great fun to sit here and watch
the passers-by. Things are rushing this afternoon; two persons are
entering that shop across the way, and I can count three ox-carts and
two buggies in sight. Where do you suppose the buggies are going?"
"Perhaps half a mile up the road; perhaps to Yarmouth. You know there is
a continuous street along St. Mary's Bay, about forty miles from
Yarmouth to Weymouth."
"One street forty miles long!" Amy's statement roused Priscilla from her
lethargy.
"The young lady says true," interposed Madame, their landlady, who had
stepped out on the piazza. "Forty miles, and all Acadians! Is it not
marvellous that they have grown to be so much, when the English treated
them so cruelly, long, long ago?"
"Ah, yes, Evangeline," responded Martine, politely.
"Evangeline never came back," said the literal Priscilla.
"That is true," assented the landlady. "But there is more than
Evangeline to tell about. Little Yvonne here knows many tales."
Yvonne sighed softly. "Ah, yes, very many. But Evangeline lived not in
Meteghan. Her country was Grand Pré, far north. You will go there,
without doubt?"
"Yes, Yvonne, we shall spend a week there."
"There are not so many stories about Meteghan, for no one lived here
until after the exile."
"I remember one," interposed Amy; "the story of Aubrey, who was lost in
the woods. At least, some writers say that he was lost in the Meteghan
woods, others that it all happened near Digby."
"Tell us the story, Amy, and we can decide for ourselves where it was."
"How like Martine!" thought Priscilla, "as if a girl could decide where
to place an historic event!"
"After all," continued Amy, "it's only a little story, but it tells of
something that happened on that first expedition to St. Mary's Bay, when
De Monts brought his vessels here in 1604, and Champlain named this
stretch of water, as he named so many other places. One member of the
expedition was Aubrey, a priest, with an intelligent love of nature. A
small party went off from the vessel to look for ore along the shores of
St. Mary's Bay. The priest was one of the number, but when the boat was
ready to return he could not be found. He had left his sword in the
woods, and had gone back to look for it. For four days the others
searched for him without success, and suspicion fell on one or two
Huguenots in the party, in whose company he was last seen. With one of
them he had had some rather violent discussions on religious matters. To
the credit of all, however, no harm was done to the Huguenots in spite
of the suspicion. After sailing without Aubrey, the party went farther
north, and it was nearly three weeks before they returned to the
neighborhood where he had disappeared."
"Did they find him?" asked Martine, somewhat impatiently. Amy was to
learn that Martine's temperament led her always to desire the climax
almost before she had heard the story itself.
"Yes, they found him; for when they were some distance from shore they
saw something that looked like a flag waving. A boat was sent out, and
to the delight of those who went in it, they saw that the flag was a
handkerchief tied to a hat on a stick, that the missing Aubrey was
holding to attract their attention. Looking for his sword, the good
priest had missed his way, and for seventeen days he had wandered in the
woods, living on berries and roots."
"How delighted he must have been to see his friends!"
"Not more delighted than they to see him; for had he not been found, the
consequences for the suspected Huguenots might have been serious."
"It is Yvonne's turn to tell us a story," said Martine, "but we all need
to rest before tea, and I want to tell your mother about the quilts. If
she disapproves of my buying so many--"
"I suppose that you will send them back;" Amy's tone contradicted her
words.
"Oh, no; I will not send them back. But I do wonder what I shall do with
them."
Yvonne and Martine went indoors, and Amy and Priscilla soon followed.
Amy prepared her mother for Yvonne by telling her all that they had
learned about the little girl.
"I won't discourage Martine's altruism," said Mrs. Redmond. "Her
impulsiveness in the past has sometimes led her into trouble, but
Martine herself will be benefited by having this warm interest in
another. As to the quilts, though we cannot carry them about with us,
they can be easily expressed home, and the duty will not be large."
After tea the whole party sat in the little parlor, to listen to Yvonne.
Her first two or three songs were without accompaniment. They were
plaintive songs with French words, and unfamiliar to the Americans who
were listening. But a chance question revealed the fact that Yvonne was
also familiar with much music that Amy knew well. Thereupon Martine
suggested that if Amy would improvise some accompaniments Yvonne might
be heard to even better advantage. So Amy, seated there at the melodeon,
played, and Yvonne continued to sing, and some of the music was rendered
with a dramatic power that surprised all who listened.
"Ah, she will be great some day," said the landlady, listening
enraptured to the bird-like tones. "How it had pleased her poor mother
to know that she was to be a singer!"
While Yvonne sang, various plans were rushing through Martine's busy
brain. "Yvonne shall have a parlor organ, Yvonne shall have teachers,
Yvonne shall have her eyes examined by a good oculist. Evidently she is
not blind,--not really blind."
While she was thinking and planning, her eyes never left the face of the
little French girl, held there by the wonderfully happy expression which
lit it. Yvonne's wide, brown eyes, her half-parted lips, the little
brown tendrils curling around her forehead, all combined to make a
picture that impressed itself strongly on all in the room. Moreover, the
gentle and unassuming manner of the young singer, as she received the
praise showered on her, completely won the hearts of all. Or perhaps it
would be more nearly true to say that if Priscilla's heart was not
completely won, she at least had begun to see some reason in Martine's
infatuation.
"Is it not wonderful?" asked Martine of Mrs. Redmond.
"She certainly sings remarkably well--for a little girl."
Martine looked up quickly at Mrs. Redmond. Was the latter able to find
some flaw in what she herself considered altogether perfect? She had no
time just then to question her, for Yvonne herself might overhear the
reply, and besides, the young girl was about to sing again, and Martine
could not spare a note.
When at last the tall figure of Alexandre Babet appeared in the doorway,
they knew that the music must end, and with a protracted farewell from
Martine, Yvonne and her adopted father started for home before nine
o'clock.
"Yvonne did not seem as much overcome by the grandeur of the hotel as
Alexandre prophesied," remarked Amy, as the girls went upstairs.
"Yvonne would never be overpowered by anything," responded Martine; "I
don't believe she'd be surprised by the Auditorium."
Whereat both Amy and Priscilla laughed loudly. "To compare small things
with great," said Priscilla, "of course she wouldn't be impressed by
this hotel. Why, it's smaller than a summer boarding-house."
"I wonder what Alexandre meant?" mused Martine.
"Oh, it was only his way of trying to make you think that you were doing
Yvonne a great favor by asking her here," responded Amy.
"Yes, the French way of pretending that things are what they are not,"
added Priscilla, as if the word "French" comprised the very essence of
deceit.
"Take care," retorted Martine. "I never dared tell you before, but I had
a French great-great-grandmother."
Although Priscilla made no reply to this, her inward comment was, "That
accounts for many things that have made me wonder."
At breakfast the next morning, before Martine had come down to the
table, Amy asked her mother what she really thought of Yvonne's singing.
"I do not profess to be a judge of that kind of thing, but the child
seems to have a fine natural voice, as well as a musical nature. Yet,
like all other singers, she must have her tones properly placed, and she
is still too young to profit by expensive musical instruction. It is my
own opinion that it would be better for her to sing little for the next
few years. Some of the things that she sang last evening were beyond
her, and there is danger of her forcing her voice, and so injuring it."
"Have you said this to Martine?"
"No, for Martine is the type of girl who profits most by finding out
things for herself. She will learn gradually that everything cannot be
done at once for Yvonne."
CHAPTER V
NEW PEOPLE
"I don't like to."
"Why not?"
"It seems strange. They may not care to have us visit them."
"We can only try. If they turn us away why, that is the worst we need
expect." So, drawing Priscilla's arm within hers, Amy led her up the
narrow flagged walk toward the Convent School.
A sister wearing a glazed bonnet with a long veil was trimming
rosebushes in the garden bed close to the house.
"Yes, surely, we are glad to have visitors. The school itself is closed
now, for the girls have their holidays, but you can see all there is.
Excuse me for a moment and I will be with you."
In a short time she had joined them in the little hallway to which they
had been admitted by another sister.
"Would the ladies care to see the chapel?"
"Ladies" had a pleasant sound to Priscilla, and she put aside her
prejudice against entering churches not of her own faith.
The chapel was simply a large room suitably fitted with altar and seats.
It had no color, but everything was daintily white, with here and there
a touch of gold.
The neat dormitory, the pleasant schoolroom, and the spotless
cleanliness of the whole house appealed to Priscilla, and to her
surprise she found herself asking the sister questions about her work.
"We are Sisters of Charity, and our headquarters are in Halifax," the
good sister said gently. "The school is but a little part of our work.
We go in and out among the sick and the troubled. The Acadians are good
to their own, and no one need suffer here; but some will make mistakes,
and some suffer through the fault of others, and often the priest and
the sisters alone can set things right."
Soon they had seen all that there was to see, and when the sister,
looking at the clock, regretted that she must leave them to visit a sick
woman, both girls asked if they might not walk with her.
"With pleasure," she replied. "Indeed, I would take you to the house
where I am going, were it not that this woman is too sick to see
visitors."
"We should like to see another Acadian house," said Amy; "we have
visited only that of Alexandre Babet, and that was so plain."
"Ah, you have been at Alexandre Babet's. Then you have seen the little
Yvonne. Is she not charming?"
"Yes, charming and talented. We have heard her sing."
"Yvonne sings sweetly. We have taught her some music here, but nature
has done the most for her, and she is so patient about her eyes."
"Do you think that she will be blind?" asked Amy, anxiously.
"Oh, no, not wholly blind, though it is largely a question of doctors.
This came to her through an illness a few years ago. She did not have
the right care. They did not understand. But there is always hope, and I
think that she is no worse this year or two."
"We have a friend who has taken a great fancy to Yvonne. She preferred
to go up to Alexandre Babet's this morning rather than to come
sightseeing with us."
"Yvonne wins the heart of all so quickly, and her good father and
mother, though adopted, would do everything for her if they could. Poor
Alexandre looks for a gold-mine."
"Yes, we know," and Amy smiled; "but I am glad to know that there is
hope for Yvonne's eyes."
"Ah, yes, there is hope. Poor child! She has had a strange history."
At that moment two small girls crossed their path. They looked like
little old women, with their shawls and _couvre-chefs_. The sister laid
her hand on the shoulder of one of them.
"Where are you going?"
The girls hung their heads shamefaced, and would not meet the sister's
gaze.
"Ah, you know; go home and get your hats."
The children ran off without looking back, and the sister turned with a
smile to Amy and Priscilla.
"You see they are foolish. When they are at school I tell them they must
wear hats every day; but in holidays they will put on _couvre-chefs_. It
is an old fashion that I think not good. When they are married--ah! it
is too bad--at once they put on the _couvre-chef_, the very girls that I
took such trouble with. It takes long to get the Acadians away from the
old fashions. But they are good people."
"We should like to see more of them," said Amy. "We should like to see
another Acadian house. That of Alexandre Babet did not seem typical."
"Then I should be glad to take you to see one. Why, here we are, just
opposite the house of Madame Doucet, who speaks some English, and with
her daughter you would see two excellent Acadians. Would you care to
call there? I will introduce you, though I must go on farther."
Priscilla looked up in protest, but when Amy expressed pleasure at the
prospect of making the visit, she said nothing in opposition. The
sister, saying a word or two more in praise of Madame Doucet, and
leading them across the street, knocked briskly on the door of a small
pink cottage.
This was one of the brightest of the brightly painted dwellings that Amy
had noticed when on her wheel the day before,--a pink with pale-green
trimmings. When the sister had introduced them to the heavy-browed young
woman who came to the door, she left them, to go farther on her errand
of mercy.
The young woman, after welcoming the girls heartily, led them to the
kitchen in the rear, into which the bright morning sunshine was pouring,
while a tiny canary in its cage sang cheerfully.
In the rocking-chair near a window sat an elderly woman, whom the
daughter introduced as her mother. She was stouter and stronger looking
than Madame Babet, and although she could hardly be called of ruddy
complexion, she was far less sallow. Her face showed signs of age, but
her hair had hardly begun to turn gray, and she welcomed the two girls
so cordially that they were at once at their ease.
Amy, while the daughter exchanged a few words with her mother, glanced
around the room. Its floor was partially covered with a square of
oilcloth, and the most conspicuous article of furniture was the large,
highly polished range, on which were several bright pans and kettles of
tin. There were religious pictures on the wall, and one or two
rocking-chairs. Evidently it was sitting-room as well as kitchen. A set
of shelves in the corner laden with dishes attracted Amy's attention.
Madame Doucet, observing Amy's interest, for she had stepped toward the
shelves, said to her kindly,--
"Ah, go close, eef you please; you may touch them."
Amy gave an exclamation of delight as she took down a pitcher of copper
lustre shining like burnished gold.
"How beautiful! I wish I had one like it."
"Ah, that is not to sell; it is family what you call it?"
"Heirloom," suggested Priscilla.
"But yes, that is so, for my grandmère had it long ago. She was daughter
to an exile."
Amy handled the pitcher carefully as she set it back on the shelf. Few
of the other dishes were china, though one delicate cup and saucer Amy
pronounced older even than the pitcher.
When Priscilla complimented the two women on their English, they beamed
with pride, and explained that they had made a great effort to learn it
while living in Yarmouth, where the older woman's husband had worked in
a mill.
"But we see not many English, so we have not much chance to practise.
That how the sister send you here."
"As a language-lesson," murmured Amy; and even Priscilla smiled in spite
of herself.
The younger woman was talkative. She took them into her neat bedroom,
with its floor in two colors,--a yellow geometrical design painted on a
brown ground,--and showed them with especial pride her dressing-table,
the frame of which she had fashioned with her own hands and draped with
white muslin. From the window she pointed out her little garden, with
its vegetable patch and tiny strawberry-bed, which she worked herself.
"I sell some every year," she said. "That helps keep house. We don't
need much, we Acadians; we very lazy."
"You don't seem lazy to me," remarked Amy; "certainly you are
hard-working."
"P'raps lazy is not the word--no, it is content. We Acadians are too
content with what we have. We want not too much, and so we make not
money as the Americans."
With some difficulty Amy brought to a close the visit to the cheerful
mother and daughter. She on her part, and they on theirs, had so many
questions to ask and to answer.
On their way back to the hotel they stopped for a moment at the
graveyard in front of the great brick church.
"Let us not go in," urged Priscilla.
"It may not be open," returned Amy, "though this Stella Maris interests
me because our landlady told me that the whole parish helped build it.
All saved and saved, and gave what they could, and the men, when they
came home tired from fishing, would go some distance where the bricks
were and haul them to the building. But if you don't care to go into the
church, do spend a few minutes in the churchyard,--I have a weakness for
studying old gravestones;" and as she spoke Amy's mind went back to a
day long ago when she and Brenda and Nora and Julia had poked among the
stones in that old burying-ground overlooking Marblehead Harbor. This
thought reminded her of Fritz, who had teased her that day in his boyish
way, and strangely enough these memories took such possession of her
that she could not put her mind on this little churchyard of the
Acadians.
Moreover there was less of interest here than she had expected.
Inscriptions were few, and these were modern and practical. There was
something pathetic in the general tangle of grass and shrubbery, and in
the plain little wooden crosses that marked the majority of the graves.
As they approached the hotel a shout greeted them,--"Amy, Amy, Prissie,
Prissie! Where have you been?"
"How silly Martine is!" Priscilla had barely time to say, when Martine
herself rushed out of a little building near the house.
"Oh, do come in, Yvonne is with me; I've been buying her a hat."
"A hat!"
"Yes, do come and see. There's a man here from Halifax,--a drummer, I
suppose,--and he has the loveliest fall styles. I would get one for
myself if I knew how to carry it."
"An autumn hat in July! Will you make poor Yvonne wear it now?"
When they entered the room where the millinery was displayed, they saw
Yvonne standing in rapt admiration before the long double row of hats
that the milliner's man had taken out of his boxes. In her hand she held
a large shaggy felt, trimmed with rosettes of velvet. The little girl
was fingering it lovingly.
"I have never had a hat," she explained, "only hoods and sunbonnets, but
my new friend, she desires that I have one for the winter, and it will
indeed be a pleasure. I could never wear a _couvre-chef_ like an old
woman. I do not see these plain, but they feel so soft."
"Put it on, Yvonne, you look so sweet."
So Yvonne put it on, and after trying one or two others, Martine still
preferred the first one. Accordingly it was packed in a large box, and
Martine carried it to the hotel, where Yvonne was to stay until Mrs.
Redmond and her party should start for Little Brook.
The afternoon was warm. Mrs. Redmond went down to the edge of the Bay to
finish a sketch that she had begun in the morning. Amy and Priscilla sat
on the piazza, lazily watching the passers-by, and commiserating the men
mowing grass in the meadow across the road that lay between them and the
sea.
Martine roamed about the house with Yvonne clinging closely to her, and
at last sat down for an hour in the parlor, to hear Yvonne sing some of
her plaintive songs.
After their early tea Alexandre came to claim Yvonne, and the two girls
fell on each other's necks in a farewell embrace. Though they were less
demonstrative in their expression, Amy and Mrs. Redmond, and Priscilla
too, felt some emotion at parting with their new friend.
"It isn't a real good-bye," whispered Martine to Yvonne; "I know that
Mrs. Redmond will help me carry out those plans I spoke of. So _au
revoir_."
From Meteghan to Little Brook they were to drive eight miles,--at least,
all but Amy were to drive, while she, as before, was to wheel beside the
carriage.
"You will stay in Little Brook a week," said the two Connecticut
teachers, bidding them good-bye. "Don't forget the Hotel Paris. It's
smaller than this," they added, smiling, "but you will find it
entertaining in every way."
"We can't stay a week," Mrs. Redmond had replied; "already we need our
trunks."
"And our letters," added Priscilla.
"Yes, they are waiting for us in Digby. You see this side trip to Clare
was as unexpected as it has been pleasant."
But the farewells were at last all said, and with only one backward
glance at the landlady and her children, the teachers, and the
commercial traveller, the four turned their faces toward Petit Ruisseau,
... "'when brightly the sunset
Lighted the village street.'"
sang Amy as they rode along. "Don't you remember that in 'Evangeline,'
Priscilla?" she asked, for she was riding close to the carriage.
"It sounds familiar. We must find time to read Longfellow while we are
at Little Brook."
"Yes, indeed; but now--"
Amy did not finish the sentence, for the driver started up his horse,
and to show that she did not intend to be outridden she increased her
own speed, and soon was out of hearing of the others. It was a beautiful
evening. The gaily painted houses of Meteghan, and even those that were
dazzling white, all suggested the toy dwellings of the Christmas shops.
Amy greatly enjoyed the scene as she pedalled along. A girl standing in
one doorway, knitting busily, called out a cheerful salutation, which
Amy returned.
At one corner was a little shop, where a few men in blue jeans had
gathered to talk after their day's work. Soon Meteghan was far behind,
and Amy had passed the great white church of Saulnierville. As she was
still some distance ahead of the carriage, she dismounted to speak to a
group of children playing some kind of a dancing game, to which they
sang an accompaniment. Making an effort to understand the words that
they sang to the merry air, she discovered that their French was unlike
hers.
A little farther on she noticed a boy walking along with the help of a
crutch. Her first glance made her think of Fritz, whom a slight accident
had once obliged to limp about in this same way. Something in the boy's
face when she looked at him a second time rather startled her. He
certainly resembled Fritz.
"I wonder if he is really lame, or if this crutch means only that he has
had some slight accident." This was her thought.
Dismounting, she turned back to the little boy.
"How far is it to Little Brook?"
"Oh, not very far on a wheel."
"A mile?" again ventured Amy.
"About a mile--perhaps."
Amy looked back. The carriage was so far behind that it was hardly worth
while for her to hurry on toward the Hotel Paris. Moreover, if she knew
just where the house was, she would not care to reach it ahead of her
mother and the others; so she walked along with the boy.
Although less talkative than some of the older Acadians whom she had
met, he was not at all shy, this little Pierre, who, after telling her
his name, confidently asked her hers.
"You speak good English," Amy said in compliment.
"Yes, Mademoiselle, we are taught English in school; we must learn it,
we Acadians. One often meets the English." The last was said with a
condescending air, amusing enough in one who was born a subject of the
Queen of England. "But you," continued Pierre, "are not English. You are
American,--is it not so?"
"Yes, Americans from the United States."
"Ah! they are strange, the Americans; you are going, perhaps, to the
Hotel Paris?"
"Yes, but how did you know?"
"Because it is the only place where Americans stay. So late, you would
be going somewhere. It is a good house, but Madame who keeps it has had
a death there to-day."
This piece of news disturbed Amy.
"A death! I must tell my mother. She is behind, in the carriage."
"You need not wait for it. It will soon overtake you if you walk with
me," said Pierre, sadly, glancing down at his crutch.
When, however, the carriage did overtake the two, they were not far from
the Hotel Paris. Mrs. Redmond heard what Pierre had to say about the
death of the landlady's sister, and when she learned that it was the
result of an accident received some years before, she felt less concern
than at first about approaching the house.
"It is unlikely, however, that Madame will wish us to stay there."
"Oh, she is not so," interposed Pierre; "she will always take money when
it comes to her."
"But I do not like to stay where there is a death," interrupted Martine.
Priscilla made no comment. But Mrs. Redmond was undisturbed. It was now
almost dark, and to return to Meteghan would mean a tiresome and
probably cold ride. Pierre asserted that there was no other house where
they could stay in Little Brook, and it was doubtful if there was any
room at Church Point.
"We must at least see Madame Bourque at the hotel. A message was sent
her last night, asking her to reserve rooms for us, and perhaps she can
help us out of our difficulty," said Mrs. Redmond.
To the great surprise of all, the Hotel Paris, when they reached it,
proved to be but a small dwelling-house, larger than its neighbors, but
even smaller than the inn at Meteghan, for which "hotel" seemed a
misnomer. As the four sat in the little parlor, Madame Bourque, a
dignified and even elegant appearing woman, in her black gown and black
_couvre-chef_, tried to make them feel comfortable.
"Ah, but the death, it makes no difference," she said, after assuring
Mrs. Redmond that the rooms were in readiness. "It is my sister who has
been long sick, and was glad to go. Indeed I am sorry that you heard of
it, for the funeral will be before you wake in the morning, and had I
thought it would disturb Madame, why, we might indeed have had it
to-day."
"Business before pleasure," whispered Martine to Amy, who was trying
valiantly to keep from smiling,--a difficult task, indeed, for any of
the four.
As they seemed to have no choice in the matter, the girls agreed with
Mrs. Redmond that they could hardly do better than take possession of
the large, pleasant rooms that Madame Bourque showed them.
In the early morning, a gray morning, before the others were awake, Amy
looked from the window. A sad little procession was setting out from the
door. The plain deal coffin was in an open wagon. Behind it were a dozen
shabby carriages, with mourners, men and women. They were to drive to
the churchyard at Point à l'Église, three miles away. She did not waken
the others, but she watched the little procession until it was out of
sight.
[Illustration: "'Madame Bourque,' she cried, 'I asked him to come
to see me.'"]
Chapter VI
PIERRE AND POINT À L'ÉGLISE
"Ah, why should she wish to see you, the American young lady? You have
much conceit, Pierre."
The words were French, the voice was Madame Bourque's, and Amy, quickly
translating what she overheard, perceived that Madame Bourque was
throwing obstacles in the way of the little boy's seeing her.
"Madame Bourque," she cried, stepping out into the hall, "I asked him to
come to see me. It is as he says."
"Oh, then excuse me, Mademoiselle. I did not understand. I did not know
that you had seen Pierre."
"Ah, yes, he helped me find my way last evening. He may come in, may he
not?"
"Ah, surely, since you wish it. Pierre talks much, and I have known
those whom he tired. But enter, Pierre, since you have been invited."
Then Pierre followed Amy into the little sitting-room, where Priscilla
and Martine were already seated near an open fire; for the gray and damp
early morning had introduced a foggy day, and at present sightseeing was
out of the question. Priscilla had been writing letters, Amy had been
reading a history of the Acadians, and Martine, before Pierre's arrival,
had been looking through "Evangeline."
"Pierre," Amy asked, not knowing just what to say to the old-fashioned
boy, "do you care for 'Evangeline'?"
"Surely, yes," he replied, his face lighting up. "Your Longfellow has
sympathy for the Acadians. A lady who stayed here last summer lent me
his poems, but best I understand the 'Evangeline.'
"'Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers.
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the
wayside,
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her
tresses!'"
Pierre recited with much expression.
"Ah," he continued, "I can say much of that beautiful poem, and indeed
it makes me weep to think how they were treated, those poor Acadians, my
ancestors. The English were most cruel."
"Amy," half-whispered Martine, "my history is a little rusty, so please
tell me if the Acadians were driven out from Little Brook."
"No, my dear, Little Brook was founded by some who made their way back
from exile. Pierre," she added in a louder tone, "you are so interested
in your people, can you tell us about those who founded Little Brook?"
"Yes, Pierre can tell you all the story," interposed Madame Bourque, who
had entered the room to put wood on the fire. "He knows it all from his
grandmother, and he remembers."
Pierre, thus commended, flushed even more deeply than he had when Amy
made her request; but he remained silent until she spoke again.
"Perhaps it is not everything that you would wish to hear," he said,
"that I shall tell; but my grandmother told me that it was all forest in
Clare when the Acadians were driven from their homes by the cruel
English. There were no farms here then, and so Petit Ruisseau has no sad
memories of poor people driven from their homes. But you know that
Acadians from Annapolis and Grand Pré and other places farther north
were carried off to the English settlements that are now the States, and
were treated like beggars; for they had no money, and spoke but a
strange tongue. Fathers were separated from children, and brothers and
sisters were not often in the same ship. But all were strong in their
hearts, and determined to come back to their beautiful Acadia. Some
began to come back before the Peace, and walked all the way--hundreds
and hundreds of miles--from Boston and New York, until they reached the
coast of the Bay. When the war was over, and there was a great Peace,
many, many more came, and walked all the way around from New Brunswick
to Nova Scotia to find their homes again."
"But I thought that all their houses were burned and that they had no
homes to return to."
"That is true; but some knew not this, and even those who had seen the
fires from the ships did not believe that everything of theirs was
destroyed. So they were very sad when they could find no signs of their
old homes, and saw that everything belonged to the English settlers. It
was a great crime, sending them away, oh, so many; I am proud my
great-great-grandparents were exiles and my great-grandmother was born
in Salem; so perhaps I am half Yankee; that's why I speak some English."
At that moment Madame Bourque took part in the conversation. "Ah, it is
terrible to think of their sufferings, people of such worth,--it is the
crime of history. Just think of Belliveau; you tell about him, Pierre."
"Oh, he was very brave, and the first exile to land in Clare. He and his
wife came across the bay in a little boat, bringing their baby too, and
they landed safely on the shore that you can see from the window. They
had a terrible passage--and to think to-day that some people fear to
cross the bay to St. John, even in a steamboat! At first they did have
nothing, but they cut wood, and soon other Acadians joined them who had
walked all the way around on land."
"Pierre," interposed Amy, "you describe things very well; what do you
intend to be when you grow up?"
A shadow crossed Pierre's face. "I should like to be a sailor, and then
a great captain, but I am not strong enough, and I shall never grow big;
so I think I may be a teacher, and that is why I take trouble to speak
and write English."
"You should be here," interrupted Madame Bourque, whose mind still dwelt
on the Acadians, "on the fifteenth of August; that is the day of the
return from exile that all the people in Clare celebrate."
"We shall hardly be in this part of the country then, Madame Bourque,"
responded Amy, "but we shall try to know all we can about the early
Acadians before we leave Little Brook. But, Pierre," added Amy, "you
haven't told us all that you know, have you? Haven't you some stories
that your mother or grandmother has told you?"
"One about the cane I like much."
"Then tell it to us."
"Well, there was one of our family, a great-grand-uncle, I think, who
lived down near Cape Sable before the exile; one time he was very kind
to a shipwrecked captain and took him into his house and gave him
clothes and food; then when my relative was driven from home they took
him to Boston, and he had to wander about, begging his bread, for he
could not speak English. And then he and his three sons with him were
put in jail; then the captain whom he had been kind to heard that these
Frenchmen were in jail, and, remembering the kindness he had had, went
to visit the prisoners. How surprised he was to find his old
acquaintance who had helped him after the shipwreck! My relative was
glad to see him too. Then the captain went to the governor and told him
about the kind Frenchman who was in jail, and the governor said to bring
him before him and perhaps he would pardon him. As my relative had no
clothes fit to wear before the governor, the captain bought him a
beautiful suit and a cane with a large head. Then the governor, when he
saw my grandfather, pardoned him and his three sons, and they stayed in
Boston several years, until the Peace, when they all came back to Nova
Scotia. I know this story is true, because I have seen the cane, which
one of my cousins owns in Pubnico."
"Do you think that is true?" whispered Priscilla to Martine.
"Oh, true enough; it certainly is not very exciting. It has been handed
down so long that the point is evidently lost."
Pierre, once started, continued to tell many stories of the hardships
borne by the early Acadians, beside which the tale of Evangeline seemed
almost cheerful.
"Now, Priscilla," said Martine, when Pierre paused, "you must admit that
the English don't show themselves in a very good light compared with the
Acadians. Did you ever hear of such cruelty?"
"There must have been some cause for it," rejoined Priscilla, stoutly;
"we have heard only one side thus far. Perhaps the Acadians themselves
were a little in the wrong."
"They certainly were not perfect," interposed Amy, taking part in the
discussion, "as you will admit when you have read their history more
carefully. We have not time to go into things more fully now, and I have
thought that Grand Pré would be the best place for our study of the
causes leading to the exile. It's putting the cart before the horse to
talk too much of the effects before we know the causes."
Had Pierre exactly understood Amy he might have entered into a
discussion with her, but for the moment he had run to the front door to
admit Madame Bourque's little daughters, whom he had seen entering the
yard. When he was again in the room Madame Bourque once more joined the
group.
"How does it happen, Madame Bourque," asked Martine, mischievously,
"that your hotel is the Hotel Paris? You should have named it 'Acadia'
or 'Evangeline,' or something like that."
"Ah," responded Madame Bourque, "it is that my husband is a Frenchman,
from Paris, and I like my children not to forget that. Some day, when
they grow up, they shall go to Paris."
"Have Acadians any real love for France?" asked Amy. "It is certainly a
long, long time since their ancestors left it."
"Yes, indeed," replied Madame Bourque, "just as the Englishman always
loves England, or the Irishman Ireland; they are still strangers in a
strange land, though they must call the English Queen their queen," she
concluded sentimentally. "Some Acadians go back to France to study, and
some French boys come out to the college at Church Point, and one of
them--ah, it is so romantic!--married an Acadienne a few years ago."
"Oh, tell us about it," exclaimed Martine; "I love anything romantic."
"Well, then," said Madame Bourque, "there was such a pretty girl at
Church Point in the convent, and this youth was sent by his parents to
study at the College of St. Anne. He fell in love with the pretty girl
and would marry her, and oh, his father and mother they felt so bad, for
they thought Acadians were something like Indians; and so they hurried
out to Nova Scotia, and when they saw the girl they fell in love with
her too, and knew she was no savage, and say their son can marry her.
But the girl would not leave her people, and as the son would not give
up the girl, the parents decided to come to Acadia to live, for he was
an only son and they were rich. So they have bought much land up beyond
Weymouth, and they call it New France. They have a great mill where they
cut timber, and a railroad of their own twenty miles long, by which they
send it to the sea, and good houses and electric lights--all on account
of a pretty Acadienne."
"That's just the kind of story I like," cried Martine. "I suppose
history is just as true, but someway I have more interest in things that
are happening to-day."
Madame Bourque now left the room to make arrangements for the early
dinner. She had foretold that the fog would lift before noon, and
accordingly Priscilla, looking out the window, was not surprised to
catch a fleeting glimpse of the sun through an opening in the veil of
mist.
"We'll take your word that the sun will shine," exclaimed Amy, "and I'll
run upstairs and ask mamma if she will drive this afternoon. I imagine
that the most there is to be seen is at Church Point, and the sooner we
go there the better."
Madame Bourque, when asked, promised to have two carriages ready early
in the afternoon, for Amy had not only invited Pierre to dinner, but
intended to take him to drive with her.
"Mamma," said Amy, as she gave her mother an account of the morning,
"you will find Madame Bourque very amusing. She evidently believes the
Acadians to be the salt of the earth; but though I sympathize with their
sufferings, I do not believe they were quite the superior beings that
she paints them."
"It might be unkind," replied Mrs. Redmond, "to suggest that this is
part of her stock in trade; the more remarkable she can represent the
old Acadians to have been, the more interested will her guests be in the
places associated with them. They were a good, honest people."
"But they were peasants, were they not, mamma? You would think to hear
her talk that they were very near nobility."
"Oh, among the Acadians of to-day are doubtless many descendants of men
of good family in France. Indeed, some of them can claim for ancestors
Charles de la Tour and Baron D'Entremont; but the peasant blood is in
the ascendant, and the strain of nobility must be very slight."
At the dinner-table Pierre won Mrs. Redmond's heart by the gentleness of
his manner, and she told Martine that Amy's protégé would be a close
rival of hers.
"No, indeed," replied Martine; "no one can rival Yvonne. Just think of
her voice and her little curls and her pink cheeks."
"I'll admit that Pierre lacks these characteristics, though all in all
they would hardly enhance his value. From what Amy says, however, I
should judge that Pierre, even if he has neither curls nor pink cheeks,
has a voice that is very effective when he uses it in telling stories."
Fearing that Pierre might overhear these personalities, Mrs. Redmond
changed the conversation. "Amy," she said in a somewhat louder voice,
"where do you suppose Fritz is now?"
"Oh, if Pubnico is as fascinatingly French as he expected it to be, he
is probably there still. I doubt if he will be better entertained than
we have been."
"I almost wish he were with us," rejoined Mrs. Redmond, "for he is
always a fund of entertainment in himself; I have thought of him many
times this dull morning, and I hope that we shall find a letter from him
awaiting us at Digby."
If Amy agreed with her mother, she did not so express herself at this
moment; yet if the truth were known, it must be said that more than once
since their parting at Yarmouth she had regretted that she had not at
least given Fritz a chance to join their party.
When the carriages came to the door in the afternoon Amy recognized them
as having formed part of the funeral procession; they were shabby, with
hard seats, and the horses, as well as the vehicles, looked as if they
had seen better days. It was arranged that Amy and Pierre should go in
the small carriage, as Madame Bourque's husband assured them that the
horse was perfectly safe for a lady to drive. "Ah, he could not run
away!"
"I should think not," said Amy. "If he manages to carry us even the
three miles to Church Point I shall be surprised; he seems so dispirited
that I imagine the funeral has made more impression on him than on
Madame Bourque herself."
Mrs. Redmond, Priscilla, and Martine were in the second carriage, and
Madame Bourque was the driver.
Amy noticed in gardens and windows fewer hollyhocks, oleanders, and
other bright flowers than she had seen at Meteghan. The houses, too,
were painted in less bright colors, and the village street had a less
stirring appearance.
Pierre was a good cicerone; he pointed out near the edge of the sea the
spot where the first of the returning exiles had landed. He also showed
Amy a little one-story house on a slight elevation, said to be the
oldest in the town, and to date but little later than the landing.
"It is hard," he said in his precise way, "to imagine that it was all
forest here in those first years, since now there is hardly a tree in
sight except the fruit trees in the orchards. The first comers had large
grants of land from the government; thus the English tried to make up
for the wrong they had done."
"But the farms are very small now," ventured Amy. "The yards are so
close together."
"Ah, yes, that is it; each father had many children and divided his land
among his sons, and as every one wanted his house to be on the village
street, they have kept it up, cutting it up into long narrow strips, some
of them running back one or two miles; and away at the end of the strips
there are still forests that are worth money."
Some time before they reached Church Point, the lighthouse and the
college buildings were seen in imposing outline in the distance.
Their horse justified Amy's forebodings, and when they overtook Madame
Bourque and her party the latter were standing near a monument before
the large building that Pierre had said was the College of St. Anne.
Amy, though undisturbed by Martine's gibes at the slowness of her steed,
was glad enough to get out of the carriage. Both horses were left in
charge of a boy whom Madame Bourque knew, while the sight-seers started
to walk to the shrines of the Acadians--for by this term did Madame
Bourque describe the burying-ground and site of the early houses.
"It is not a long walk," the voluble Frenchwoman had explained, "unless
you go out to the lighthouse, for which we have not time to-day."
Priscilla lingered behind the others to copy the inscription on the
monument. It was in honor of the Abbé Sigogne, to whom the Acadians of
Clare owe more than to any other one person.
Priscilla, reading the inscription, wondered why she had never before
heard of this man, who evidently had been so much to his own people.
Acadia is not far from Massachusetts, and yet already she realized that
this was a corner of the world of which she knew far too little. Amy,
however, could tell her what she wished to know, and she hurried on to
join the others, who were now far ahead.
"Amy," she cried, overtaking her friend, "tell me something about the
Abbé Sigogne; I am ashamed to say that I never heard of him before."
Pierre glanced at the American girl with an expression of absolute
amazement at her ignorance.
"There is so much to tell," said Amy, "that it would be too long a story
for the time that we have now; yet as we walk along I can give you a
little idea of his work. He was a French priest of good family, who
barely escaped losing his head during the French Revolution. After
fleeing from France he lived a few years in England. When he heard that
the poor Acadians of Clare were without a clergyman, he decided to go to
them, and from that time he made their lot his. This was in 1799, about
thirty years after their return from exile, and though they had cleared
the forest and built houses, they had made little progress in other
ways; they were without schools and almost without religion, but the
good Abbé built them a church, established schools, and made frequent
visits to all the little settlements along St. Mary's Bay, often
travelling along the coast in a small, open boat. He taught them many
things besides religion. He made them firm in their allegiance to Great
Britain, and when he died, in 1844, he was bitterly mourned by all who
knew him, whether English or French."
When Amy and Priscilla and Pierre caught up with the others, they were
in a large field, looking at a spot of ground on which Madame Bourque
said had stood the very first house at Point à l'Église, built after the
exile. Near by was a little old graveyard, where the first generation of
returning exiles had been buried. Only a few graves were marked, and
these with rough stones without inscriptions. A rude arch of whalebone
formed the entrance to this little enclosure. It was not very far from
the point of land on which stood the lighthouse, near which, along the
edge of the sea, a file of black-coated priests was walking. Though they
were indistinctly seen in the distance, their large caps and flapping
surtouts gave them a picturesque appearance.
A strange structure like a shrine of open slats decorated with spruce
boughs attracted Martine's attention, and she insisted on making a
sketch of it.
"It is a repository," explained Pierre, politely, "where the priest
stands, as a station for the procession, on festival days."
When they returned to the College of St. Anne, Madame Bourque grew more
and more eloquent.
"Is it not wonderful," she said, "that all this great building is
restored since the fire of two years ago? You will come inside, ladies,
and see how pleasant the rooms are."
"I will stay outside," replied Priscilla, "and watch the horses," she
concluded rather lamely.
"Nonsense," began Amy, but looking at Priscilla, she saw that the young
girl was in earnest, and so insisted no further.
"Amy," whispered Priscilla, as her friend drew near her, "I was sorry
afterwards that I went into the convent yesterday, and so I would much
rather not go into a priest's house."
"I had no idea that you would be so narrow," rejoined Amy.
"I don't mean to be narrow," responded Priscilla, "but I really don't
feel like going inside."
So Priscilla sat down on the grass near the monument and all the others
went inside the main building of the College of St. Anne. Not very long
afterwards Mrs. Redmond came out again, with her sketch-book in her
hand. "I thought it a good time now to make a sketch of the church. I
have seen many other schools like this one, for, after all, it's only a
boys' boarding-school. The girls enjoy practising their French with the
Eudist Father, who is taking them about, and it will probably be some
time before they are ready to leave. I think you make a mistake,
Priscilla, in not joining them."
"It isn't a very old building," said Priscilla, implying that this was
sufficient reason for her staying away from the party.
"It is certainly not very old," rejoined Mrs. Redmond; "the college has
been established less than ten years. It is a great thing to have
founded it here in the midst of the Acadians, and it has made the boys
of Clare much more ambitious."
"What good is a college education to them?" asked Priscilla; "fishing
and farming seem to be their chief occupations."
"This is really only a preparatory school," replied Mrs. Redmond, "and
the boys who are going into the Church or into the professions enter
other colleges in Canada or in France. The Father told us with pride of
the high standing of some of the graduates in their work in other
colleges."
"If I do not care for the college," said Priscilla, "I love this church
of Abbé Sigogne's; it makes me think of a New England meeting-house,
with its white walls and steeple."
Mrs. Redmond's sketch was hardly finished when the others came out from
the college. Madame Bourque was in her most talkative mood, as she led
them across the road into the white church. This time Priscilla went
with them and looked with some interest at the paintings on the wall,
and the sacred emblems, and the tablet inscribed to the memory of Abbé
Sigogne.
Martine, it must be admitted, found something amusing even in this
church, for inside the gallery where the choir boys sat were many
pictures of little boats, and even of full-rigged ships scratched in
deeply with a penknife, presumably by the fingers of mischievous young
singers.
Pierre, who happened to be with Martine when she made this discovery,
did not laugh with her, but shaking his head solemnly, said, "Ah, those
pictures show what really fills the heart of the Acadian boy."
Madame Bourque was disappointed that her party of Americans did not care
to visit the girls' school near by, but the hour was late, and the
tired-looking horses were not likely to make speed on the way home.
"We have really seen so much," said Mrs. Redmond, "that we shall need to
think it all over before seeing more, and you have been so good a guide
that in our one visit to Church Point we have learned as much as most
persons do in two."
"We have learned a great deal," murmured Priscilla to Amy, "but I always
feel that Madame Bourque paints the Acadians as much more remarkable
than they are. But I should like to have seen Father Sigogne baptizing
Indian pappooses; they say that he used to wipe their faces with his
gown to find a spot where he could kiss them."
"Yes, and Madame Bourque says that there are people still living who can
remember great crowds of Indians filing through the woods to Church
Point that they might receive Abbé Sigogne's blessing on St Anne's Day."
CHAPTER VII
DIGBY DAYS
On the way back to Little Brook Amy had a good chance to talk with
little Pierre about his hopes and ambitions. She found that he was
extremely fond of reading, and it was almost impossible for him to get
books such as a boy loves to read. About half a mile from Madame
Bourque's, Pierre pointed out a small cottage which he said was his
home.
"My mother will be there now," he said, "and I hope you will come in
with me to see her. She does not speak so very good English," he added
apologetically, "but she can understand it."
Though Madame Robichaud greeted Amy warmly and thanked her for her
kindness to Pierre, there was something pathetic in her manner and
appearance. She was a tall, thin woman, with a delicate, pale face that
was made all the paler by her plain black gown and the _couvre-chef_
that covered her hair. Her husband, Pierre explained, was lost at sea
when Pierre was five years old, and since that time she had supported
them both wholly by her own labor.
Madame Robichaud showed Amy with great pride some drawings nailed to the
wall that Pierre himself had made,--simple drawings of ships and houses
that showed draughtsmanship rather than imagination. These suggested to
Amy that Pierre had a talent that might be cultivated to greater
advantage than his ambition for school-teaching.
She and Pierre parted reluctantly, and Madame Robichaud promised that
the little boy should be at the hotel in the morning before Amy left
Little Brook.
All the travellers slept soundly that night despite the huge
feather-beds that Madame Bourque had provided, as she thought, for their
comfort.
In the morning they wrote their names in her visitors' book, on whose
pages were inscribed the names of a number of Americans, some of them
fairly well known, who at one time or another had been guests at the
Hotel Paris. Pierre arrived very soon after breakfast with a great bunch
of hollyhocks or _passe-rose_ for Amy. He had evidently taken a great
fancy to his new friend.
"She is more beautiful even than my school-teacher," he had said to
Madame Bourque; a compliment which the latter repeated as of especial
value, because hitherto Pierre had considered his teacher the model of
womanly perfection.
"Martine," said Mrs. Redmond, before the carriage arrived, "have you
written to Yvonne?"
"Oh, no; I meant to, but now I'll wait till we reach Digby."
"I fear that Yvonne will be disappointed. She probably expected a letter
to-day."
"I know it; I am ashamed of myself."
Martine's tone was penitent, but no one who knew Martine ever expected
her to do promptly what she had promised. It was always a little easier
to put off things to another day. Priscilla looked at her scornfully, as
if to say "How fickle!"
When at last they were ready to start, all felt sad at parting with
Madame Bourque and her family, for in two days they had come to seem
almost like old friends. The two little Bourque girls, as the carriage
drove off, looked with astonishment at the dollar bill that Mrs. Redmond
had put in the hands of the elder to divide with her younger sister.
Pierre walked on a little way with Amy before she mounted her wheel, and
on saying good-bye at last he knew that the American lady would really
send him the books that she had promised.
Their train to Digby was not the famous "Flying Bluenose," but a local
that made no pretence of hurrying; it instead gave them ample
opportunity to study the scenery from the windows.
When at last they reached Digby, they were warm and dust-covered, and
glad enough, too, when they found carriages waiting for them at the
station.
"It's nothing but a summer resort, this Digby that we have heard so much
about," complained Martine, as they drove along the main street. "Just
look at those boys in golf suits, and that crowd carrying shawls and
wraps as if bound for a sailboat. Why, the town doesn't even look
English. It makes me think of Blue Harbor in Maine, where we spent one
summer."
"I noticed a great deal of Philadelphia accent while we were waiting for
our trunks at the station."
"Oh, don't mention it," replied Martine; "Philadelphians flock
everywhere, and they are so cliquey that they just spoil a place for me,
though I'll admit that they know a good thing when they see it."
"Be careful, Martine," cautioned Amy; "no more slang than you can help
on this trip."
"'On this trip!' If that isn't slang I'd like to know what is."
"No matter now; here's the hotel; mail first and rooms afterwards."
In an instant Amy had hurried to the hotel office, returning to the
others with a bundle of letters, which she gave to Priscilla to
distribute while she went ahead with her mother to look at the rooms
they had engaged. The hotel was like most small summer hotels, and in
spite of their pleasant remembrance of Clare, Mrs. Redmond and the girls
had to admit that it was more comfortable than the little French houses.
"'Pubnico!' why, of course;" here Amy stopped as she held the letter in
her hand, turning it over once or twice as people will before opening a
letter.
"Of course; don't hesitate to tell us that it's from Fritz. It would be
very strange indeed if he had not written," cried Martine,
mischievously.
"'Pubnico,'" said Priscilla, as if the word had just penetrated her
brain; "why, there were two letters with that postmark, were there not?"
"Oh, no, only one," replied Amy, promptly, "and, as Martine surmises, it
was from Fritz."
But while Amy was speaking Priscilla looked sharply at Martine, and
Martine, as if uncomfortable under her gaze, suddenly left the room.
After dinner, as they all sat on the piazza, "Amy," said Mrs. Redmond,
"you haven't told us yet how Fritz is enjoying his journey."
"Oh, he thinks he has found the only French in Nova Scotia. He describes
their dress and their houses and their great fat oxen, and speaks of the
misfortunes of the exiled Acadians as if he were an original discoverer.
How foolish he will feel when he finds that what he has seen is old news
to us, for his description reads just like a description of Clare."
"Only I'll warrant that he didn't find any Madame Bourque," and
Priscilla smiled.
"No, nor an Yvonne," added Martine.
"Not to speak of Pierre," concluded Amy.
"My letter from home," said Priscilla, "mentions that this was the
hottest week of the season. Just think, only yesterday we were half
frozen driving home in the fog from Church Point."
After breakfast, on their second morning at Digby, Mrs. Redmond and the
girls walked the whole length of the tree-lined main street. As Martine
had surmised, they had indeed arrived at a regulation summer resort. The
holiday spirit prevailed on all sides; every one was going somewhere, or
had just been somewhere, on pleasure bent.
In spite of her professed prejudice against Philadelphians, Martine
almost fell into the arms of a former schoolmate from the Quaker City,
who rushed out to greet her from the garden of a small hotel near the
top of the hill.
"Isn't the view fine, and the air just perfect? I'm so glad you're here;
there's something to do every hour of the day, and we shall be so glad
to have you join us, you and your friends." And she glanced dubiously at
Priscilla's mourning dress and serious face.
"Thank you, but I can't make plans just now. There are four in our
party; the other two have walked ahead. We arrived only on Saturday, and
yesterday was so rainy that we stayed indoors until evening, when we all
went to church. Until we really have our bearings I don't think that I
can make any plans. But you must come to see us. There, I haven't
introduced you to Priscilla; you must excuse me. Priscilla, the Rose of
Plymouth, let me introduce you to Peggy Pratt from the quiet city of
Philadelphia."
"You are the same old Martine," cried Peggy, as they turned away, while
Priscilla, reddening, added as the two walked on, "Oh, Martine, how
silly you can be!"
Amy was delighted with everything that they saw in the course of that
morning walk, from the beautiful view of the Basin, surrounded by hills
that looked mountains, to the little fish-houses, the quintessence of
neatness, in front of which quantities of cod were drying. As to the
Basin, when she said she felt as though she had seen it before, Mrs.
Redmond reminded her that it resembled closely the harbor of Santiago,
with which she was familiar through pictures.
"Ah, yes," rejoined Amy, "and that little opening into the Bay of Fundy
that they call 'The Gut' is like the passage where Hobson tried to sink
the Merrimac."
"It isn't such a very little passage; somebody told me that it is nearly
a mile wide; it was there that the ships of De Monts entered the Basin
in 1604, when they discovered Acadia," Mrs. Redmond added.
"Sixteen hundred and four!" cried Martine. "Oh, dear, we're going
backwards in our history. It was seventeen hundred and something when
the Acadians were expelled, and I shall never be able to remember
earlier dates."
"At present we may put dates aside. For a day or two we can merely enjoy
ourselves."
"I hope we are coming to some English history," said Priscilla; "I am
tired of the French. I always supposed Nova Scotia was a British
province, but this whole week we have heard very little about the
English."
"I tell you what we'll do, Priscilla," cried Amy; "while mamma and
Martine sit here to make a sketch of something or other, you and I can
set out in search of some English history. Undoubtedly there's an
historic house or two to discover. That's the kind of thing I never let
escape me."
At first it seemed as if Amy's search would be unsuccessful. One person
after another whom she asked said that there were no historic houses in
Digby.
"There's an old shop over across the way," one added, "the frame of
which, they say, was brought out from England; I'll point it out to you,
though it doesn't look very old."
This last statement was true enough, for the old house had been
reshingled and reclapboarded and repainted, so that it retained hardly a
vestige of antiquity in its appearance. To compensate Amy for her
disappointment, the obliging native made a suggestion that in the end
proved valuable.
"What you ought to do is to see Mrs. Sally Tatem; her house isn't much
to look at, but it's old enough, and she knows more about the history of
Digby than any one else here."
"Where does she live?"
"Oh, just a little way up that street and round the next corner and up
the hill and you will see a little cottage at the end of the lane; just
knock at the door, and if she's at home she'll be very obliging."
So Amy and Priscilla went "up the street and round the next corner and
up the hill," and at "the end of the lane" they saw a small white
cottage almost covered with vines. Amy's knock brought to the door a
little old lady with silvery hair and a tiny ruffled cap, wearing a gray
gown and, most important of all, a pleasant smile. The hesitation that
Amy had felt in explaining the object of their visit disappeared under
the old lady's greeting.
"Dear child, come right in; I'll tell you all the Digby history I know;
but it isn't so very much."
As Amy sat down in the little sitting-room, she could not help looking
about, and she was quick to recognize that the two chairs were
Chippendale.
"They were brought by my grandfather," said Mrs. Tatem, noting the
direction of Amy's glance. "He was a captain in the Queen's Rangers; you
know many Americans were on the King's side in the Revolution."
A look of surprise crossed Priscilla's face, but she did not venture to
raise a question.
"Yes," responded Amy, "I know about the Loyalists."
"Well, my grandfather was a farmer in Westchester County, rich and
prosperous, but he would not take arms against the King. A friend and
neighbor of his was tarred and feathered, and he was in some danger
himself. So he went into the war, and when it was over he couldn't stay
in New York. With other Loyalists he came down here. Of course it was
very hard for him to have all his property taken away, but his wife was
brave and she was willing to suffer."
"Who sent them away?" asked Priscilla, eagerly.
"Why, the Yankees,--the Americans, I mean," said Mrs. Tatem.
"The Patriots," whispered Priscilla.
"Yes, yes," interposed Amy.
"But," continued Priscilla, "I didn't know that there were two sides to
the story." And as she said this the old lady smiled.
"We have no bitterness now. I ought not to have said 'Yankees.' I have
many friends in the States, but it was hard for my mother and aunts to
have to grow up in the wilderness. I used to hear my aunt talk. She was
an older daughter."
"But how did they live here in those days?"
"Oh, the King gave a large grant of land and provisions for three years
and some building material. Many who came to settle would not stay, and
it was harder for those who did remain. There was no church even, for a
long time, until good Mr. Viets came; he did everything for the white
settlers, and even held a school for the Blacks."
"The Blacks?"
"Oh, yes; you see many people brought their slaves with them."
"Southerners?"
"No, New Yorkers. Many Northern people had slaves in those days. I know
that my grandfather had two, but when he died he left them their freedom
in his will. Out at the Joggins' there are still living many descendants
of these slaves, and of the Black Pioneers, a regiment of Blacks that
fought on the English side in the war."
"What you've told us is almost as romantic as the French Revolution,"
said Priscilla.
"Maybe so," replied the old lady, hesitatingly, "though things probably
did not seem romantic to the first settlers here; but perhaps it's just
as well that our lot was cast in this healthy climate. I hear there's a
great deal of sickness in New York, and it's a great big city where
people care only for money. I'm sorry our young people go off so much to
the States; they could all make a comfortable living if they would only
stay at home."
Amy could not refrain from admiring the china and all the daintiness of
the little house, plain and unpretending though it was. But the most
interesting thing of all was the old lady with her charming manner and
fund of history.
"I've heard my mother say," she remarked before they went, "that the
first name of Digby was Conway, and it was only after Admiral Digby had
been here that it was named in his honor."
"Why didn't the French settle Digby?" asked Priscilla; "they seem to be
everywhere else in Nova Scotia."
"Probably because there are no marshes; they were attracted by the dyke
lands at Annapolis and Grand Pré."
The girls bade good-bye to Mrs. Tatem with real regret. Before she
returned to the hotel Amy wandered by herself in a little old churchyard
where lay many of the first settlers, and as she looked at the
weather-beaten stones she saw that many of those who lay buried there
were natives of New York or its neighborhood; closing her eyes for a
moment to shut out the present, she pictured to herself what life in the
wilderness must have been to these refugees who had suffered everything
in a losing cause.
That afternoon Martine's friend, Peggy, from Philadelphia, invited them
all to join a sailing party; though at first disinclined to go, Amy at
last accepted the invitation. It was a delightful afternoon, with wind
and sea in their favor, and the charm of the surrounding scenery was
increased by a delicate mist that hovered over the North Mountain, as a
reminder of the Bay of Fundy outside.
For some reason this sail around Digby reminded Amy of some of her
excursions in Marblehead Harbor, especially of a certain day on the
"Balloon," and this in spite of the fact that the "Mary Jane" in no way
compared in equipment with Philip's yacht. No picture of Marblehead
could of course be complete unless Fritz were in it, and almost to her
annoyance Amy now found Fritz occupying a large corner of her mind.
Nevertheless, she was interested in all that was going on around her,
and once or twice lent a hand to the skipper, when a sudden change of
wind occasioned a quick shifting of the sails. Then the Bluenose skipper
complimented the Yankee girl on her skill in handling the ropes, and
Martine and Priscilla and Peggy expressed their astonishment that she
should know so much about a boat.
For almost the first time since their departure from Boston Priscilla
was now in good spirits; she had overcome her original homesickness, and
her letters from Plymouth had been so cheerful that she was almost ready
to find enjoyment in the new scenes and faces. Between her and Martine
there was less intimacy than between her and Amy. Mrs. Redmond was sorry
to see that, for some reason, Priscilla lacked confidence in Martine.
This was to be accounted for, perhaps, by the fact that the two girls
were so unlike in temperament and education. Though reserved in speech,
Priscilla was uncompromisingly accurate in statement; Martine, on the
other hand, while apparently unreserved, occasionally lacked frankness.
No one could accuse her of being untruthful, and yet her exaggerations
and her occasional concealments were a constant annoyance to the literal
Priscilla.
On the second day of their stay at Digby, Martine had written a long
letter to Yvonne, and at the same time had sent her a roll of new music,
which she had happened to find in a Digby shop.
"If I knew just how long we should be here, I really think I would send
for Yvonne to spend a week with us."
"We shall not be here a week," rejoined Mrs. Redmond, "and I am afraid
that Yvonne would rather handicap us if we tried to have her travel
farther."
On their last morning at Digby, Amy and Martine had a parting walk
around the wharf. The wharf had been a source of much amusement to
Martine, and she had sketched it at high tide when it looked just like
any other wharf, and at low tide when it rose high above the water, its
sides covered with seaweed and barnacles. Indeed the vagaries of the Bay
of Fundy tides were an endless amusement to the party, exposing, as they
did, long, long stretches of reddish mud, and apparently casting up all
kinds of craft high and dry on the land.
"Now, around by the fish-houses," cried Martine; "how I shall miss the
cod which we meet here at every turn! Fish flakes, in my mind, will
always be the emblem of Digby. Priscilla says that she has seen more on
Cape Cod, but I can hardly believe her. It's strange that no one has
given us a Digby chicken since we came here. Any one would suppose that
the Digby chicken is the only fish that grows here; yet really and truly
we haven't seen one, have we, since our arrival? For it's the cod that's
everywhere, and it's funny to think that they send so much codfish to
the West Indies. People there must be thirsty enough without having cod
sent to tantalize them."
On their way back to the hotel they did an errand in a corner shop. The
clerk addressed them in rather broken English, and in answer to Amy's
question said that he was a descendant of an Acadian exile. He told them
one or two anecdotes, and when he had to turn to other customers Amy
waited until they were served, hoping to hear more from him.
"That negro," he explained, as a tall Black went out of the shop, "is a
descendant of one of the slaves of the Revolution."
"Was that other man a negro, too, who went out with him?"
"Oh, no, he's an Indian from the Bear River Reservation. If you go that
way, you must be sure to visit it."
"I hope that we are going there, for I hear that Bear River is a
beautiful place. Though I am not particularly anxious to see the Micmac
on his native heath, it certainly is interesting to have met
representatives of the four race elements in this little shop," said
Amy, as they turned away.
"Four race elements?" asked Martine, not quite understanding her.
"Yes, of Nova Scotia Loyalists, Acadians, Indians, and negroes. To be
sure Pre-Loyalists would be more representative than negroes--but the
former did not settle Digby."
"Let's go up on Cannon Hill for a last look. Your mother just loves it.
We have made some fine sketches of those crooked apple-trees and that
old house."
"And the cannon? They are certainly unlike any others you will come
across."
"I have photographed the cannon," replied Martine, with dignity, "and if
I had time, I might sketch them."
"I love it here," cried Martine, as they stood on the hill. "One gets
such a splendid view of the entrance to the Basin,--I can't bring myself
to say Gut. When I stand here, I just close my eyes, and then fancy how
these steep shores must have looked to the Frenchmen, Champlain and the
others, who came sailing in through the passage that June morning so
long ago. Then when I open my eyes I can actually see them out
there--and if I were a poet, like you, Amy, I would write something
worth while."
"I a poet! what nonsense! What put that into your head?"
"As if I didn't know all about you, Miss Amy Redmond," and Martine
quoted a line or two of verse that brought the color to Amy's cheeks.
"That isn't poetry," she said with a smile. "But you are in a mood that
shows me we ought to go home."
CHAPTER VIII
TWO ADVENTURES
"Oh dear," sighed Priscilla three hours later, as she strapped her
valise, "I believe I'd rather stay in one place all summer than move so
often. I shall miss the pier and the barnacles. When we came in from the
boat at low tide the other day, it seemed like one of the caverns of
fairyland--so dark and mysterious."
"Yes, and you'll miss the codfish, too. Amy and I have been going
through the missing agony this morning. But I have a fish story that
will please you, Puritan Prissie. Though curing codfish is a leading
occupation here six days of the week, on Sunday that man is fined who
even sticks a pitchfork into a helpless cod--except,--and here I am
afraid that this covers a quantity,--that if there has been a week of
wet weather, if Sunday is sunny, then the gentle codfish may be turned
over. This is merely a humane provision for the comfort of the cod, who
otherwise would become unduly weary lying so long on one side."
"We shall become unduly weary waiting for you," cried Amy, who had
entered the room during the latter part of Martine's speech. "I hope
that you are both ready, for it is almost train time."
"All aboard then," cried Martine. "If my hat is on straight, nothing
need delay us. Let me help you with your valise, Priscilla. My luggage
has gone on."
When they reached the station Mrs. Redmond and her party found that
after all they had some time to spare. At five minutes past the hour
they took their seats. "Standard time, Halifax time, hotel time, local
time," hummed Martine. "I wonder which we're starting by."
Presently the conductor walked along the station platform to the little
waiting-room, and from the open window they heard him speak to some one
inside.
"Have you made up your minds yet, ladies, about going?" he asked in a
polite tone.
"Oh, gracious, yes," exclaimed a shrill voice. "We were waiting for the
bell;" and two elderly women hurried toward the train with their
knitting in their hands. Amy had noticed them busily knitting there, in
a corner, when she passed. It seemed, by the conductor's subsequent
explanation, that knowing they were uncertain whether to go by that
train or the next, he had patiently waited for them to decide.
Bear River was one of the places where Mrs. Redmond had planned to stay.
After a short railroad journey that included a passage over some
wonderful bridges, beyond which was a great extent of water, and after a
drive of five or six miles, they found themselves gazing down at
picturesque Bear River. The beautiful town sloped to a broad stream, its
white houses and spires half hidden by trees.
"It reminds me of Switzerland," cried Martine.
"It's a dream," exclaimed Priscilla.
"I don't believe Fritz has seen anything more beautiful," added Amy.
"It deserves a more beautiful name," said Mrs. Redmond.
"But, really, mamma, it's named for Imbert, the explorer, and the name
doesn't seem so bad when we think of that."
Their day in Bear River proved to be a gala day of the town. They had
arrived at the height of the Cherry Carnival, and games and boat-races
and other festivities had been arranged as part of the celebration. The
girls were up very early that first morning, and soon after breakfast
Martine was out with her camera, taking snapshots in every direction. A
fat old squaw in a red jersey pretended to be afraid of the kodak, and
turned her head; but there was a grin on her face as she looked around,
which Martine quickly caught. Another squaw, also fat, with a little
pappoose in her arms and another clinging to her skirts, begged Martine
to take her.
"Where you live?" asked Martine, as if talking to a child.
"Up there," pointing vaguely in the distance.
"Where?"
"Reservation; you come see."
Martine was interested.
"Is it far?"
"Oh, no."
"What's your name?" asked Martine.
"Marie Brown. You find my house."
Though the name didn't seem to fit the Indian, Martine was glad that it
was one that she could remember; for all in a moment she had made up her
mind to visit the Reservation.
During the morning, while she watched the sports and chatted with the
bystanders and ate dozens and dozens of the famous Bear River cherries,
Martine said nothing to the others of her intention of visiting the
Reservation. It would be easy enough to borrow Amy's bicycle and say
that she did not care to drive with the others.
Everything happened as she planned.
"Bear River is so hilly," said Mrs. Redmond, "that you will hardly wheel
very far. But yet it's a quiet little place, and there is no risk in
your doing some sight-seeing by yourself."
Martine soon found herself on a road leading toward the Micmac
Reservation; she had asked her way once or twice, and felt lonely as
houses and shops were left behind; but though she was going in the
direction of the Reservation, she saw nothing to remind her of Indians.
"Where are the wigwams? Surely with so many Indians around there must be
wigwams somewhere."
Martine looked about anxiously at trees, bushes, and at one or two small
wooden houses. She had been riding for half an hour, and she felt that
she had not taken the wrong way. There was nothing to do but to inquire
at one of the little houses. As she approached it, she realized that it
was an Indian dwelling; three pappooses were playing in front of it, and
a tall, thin squaw, in a purple calico gown, came out to the door as she
entered the gate.
"Marie Brown," said the woman; "oh, that far away. Too far for you; you
better go home; it's late."
Martine knew that this was intended as advice, not as discourtesy, but
Martine was not fond of advice, and she decided that if she could not
see Marie Brown she would visit the chapel, of which she had heard some
one speak at dinner that day.
When she asked the way, the woman drew her one side to an open space
behind the house, where, on a hill that did not look too remote, she saw
a small, square building with a cross on top for a steeple; so after a
little conversation with the squaw about her people and their way of
living, Martine pushed on toward the hill. She soon found that she must
leave her bicycle behind, as there was no good road and the path was
steep, and finding a spot that was screened by bushes, she left her
wheel there; so on she went on foot until she had come to the enclosure,
in the centre of which stood the Micmac Chapel.
Seen at close range, it looked like a toy church, built plainly of wood,
absolutely simple and bare on the outside. Martine raised herself on a
ledge of wood so that she could look in through the windows. There was
something almost pathetic in the tawdry attempts at decoration--the
little altar draped with old lace curtains and gold lace and some faded
flowers. On top there was a silver cross within a white canopy, and a
small altar with a canopy in the corner. Walking around the graveyard,
Martine noticed that there were French names on almost all the stones.
Suddenly she was disturbed by the barking of a dog, and, following the
direction of the sound, she saw a house on a hill high above the chapel.
The dog was running up and down in front of the house, and barking
loudly, as if he detected the presence of a stranger near the church.
Martine remembered that the Indian woman in the cabin below had spoken
of the chief's house near the church, but this did not reassure her.
Perhaps the chief, himself, would object to the presence of a young
American girl, and she began to wonder how she should make her peace
with him if he should interfere; she was less afraid of the possible
chief, however, than of the very real dog, whose barking still
continued. To leave the enclosure by the way she had come would bring
her out in full view of the creature. To avoid this, therefore, with
some difficulty she climbed a fence at the other side, believing that
she was going straight in the direction of the bicycle. But alas for her
miscalculations! She was in a tangled thicket of shrubbery; she tore her
dress and scratched her ankles, and she could not get back to the
bicycle nor even find the cabin from which she had been directed to the
chapel.
When at last she reached the broad road, she sat down disconsolately by
the side of a fence.
"Why was I so foolish as to borrow Amy's bicycle?" Had it been her own
wheel, so reckless was Martine's disposition, she would have left it
behind without a qualm. Yet though it was quite possible for her to buy
a new one for Amy, it did not seem quite right to return to the hotel
without it. While she was pondering, without seeing any way out of the
difficulty, she heard a shrill voice crying,--
"Hi, lady, hi!"
Turning about, she saw the tall, thin Indian woman in the purple gown
walking down the hill and guiding the bicycle beside her.
"Why, how did you know I was here?" asked Martine, after she had thanked
her profusely.
"Oh, I could see the way you start from the chapel, and I thought you
not find your wheel, so I thought I bring him."
Martine, thanking the woman warmly, gave her all the silver that she
happened to have in her purse,--not a very large sum from her point of
view, but magnificent from that of the Indian.
The squaw then walked with her down the hill and into the village,
saying that young ladies should not go so far alone. As they walked,
Martine asked several questions about Indian life, and was told that, in
the summer, many were away selling baskets or fishing; they would be
coming back soon, she said, and even as she spoke Martine looked toward
the river on which two canoes were gliding, each containing two or three
Indians and their numerous belongings.
"They are coming back for St. Anne's Day," said the woman; "great time
then at the chapel."
They had not gone very far together when, turning a corner, the two came
suddenly on Priscilla and Amy.
"Oh, Martine," cried the latter, "where have you been? We have had our
tea, and mother is so worried about you."
"I hope it was a good tea and that you saved me some," rejoined Martine;
"for now that you mention it, though I hadn't thought of it before, I
realize that I'm half starved."
"But where have you been?"
"Oh, I've been a kind of babe in the woods, only there weren't any
berries for me to feed on, and all that I have to show for my adventure
are these tears in my gown."
"Good-bye, ladies," said the Indian woman, while Martine was talking,
"and I thank you much," she concluded, holding out her hand to Martine.
In a moment she had disappeared.
"Is that another protégée?" asked Priscilla, a little sharply.
Martine did not answer. She had already plunged into a lively account of
her afternoon, omitting nothing, not even her own carelessness in
relation to the bicycle.
At the hotel Mrs. Redmond spoke to Martine more seriously about the
danger in expeditions by herself. "I had no idea that you thought of
doing anything beyond wheeling around the town," she said; "and if you
had met any real mishap, it would have been very hard for Amy and me, in
whose care your father and mother put you."
So Martine promised that in the future she would be less thoughtless.
"Although to be honest," she added, "my thoughts are so apt to come
afterwards that it is almost dangerous to promise anything."
That evening, in the little hotel parlor, when Martine narrated her
adventure, an old gentleman who was a permanent boarder there told her
many anecdotes of the Micmacs.
"In the early days, as you know, they were very friendly to the French.
They were early baptized and became Roman Catholics, and as they began
to be civilized, they liked to be known by French names, and many
married with the French. The Canadian Government is very good to them,
and provides for them on reservations or encourages them to own land for
themselves. The children all go to school, some in reservation schools,
and some attend the ordinary day schools with white children. While some
of them still prefer to live by hunting, fishing, and Indian
handicrafts, others work in mills and on railroads; and, on the whole,
they compare well with the lower class of white citizens, for they _are_
citizens with certain voting rights."
"I thought they'd be more picturesque and like real savages," said
Martine. "I was so disappointed. There's something attractive in the
name 'Micmac,' and I supposed that at least they'd live in wigwams."
"Considering the way in which you rushed in among them," interposed Mrs.
Redmond, "I should think you would be glad that you met only tame
Indians to-day."
"Very tame," rejoined Martine. "Only a tall, thin Indian woman in a
purple calico gown."
"There are certainly not many of the original red men left in Nova
Scotia," said Mr. Dolph, the gentleman who had been talking to them.
"There are some collections of their legends that are interesting to
read, and the names of many Nova Scotia places are of Indian origin."
"Oh, yes," said Amy; "I came across some lines to-day that I copied,"
and she began to recite:
"'The memory of the Red Man,
How can it pass away?
While their names of music linger,
On each mount and stream and bay?
While Musquodoboit's waters
Roll sparkling to the main,
While falls the laughing sunbeam
On Chegoggin's fields of grain?'"
The next morning, when they were ready to leave Bear River, Amy decided
to wheel rather than drive to the station. It was hardly five miles,
over a main road, and she felt that she needed exercise.
"Keep us in sight, Amy."
"Oh, yes, if I don't pass you," she replied.
But Amy at first lagged behind,--there were so many lovely points of
view, and she stopped several times to enjoy them to the utmost. What a
curious effect, to look down on the river, or rather to look down from a
hill, and see a ship apparently moored among trees! Of course the
explanation was that the beautiful Bear River lay in a narrow valley,
surrounded by hills that descended sharply to its very margin, with
trees so close together on its banks as to produce the strange effect
that Amy had noted.
The carriage was out of sight when Amy finally pushed on. Shortly she
realized that pedalling required great effort. At first she ascribed her
difficulty to the hills, but a slight grating of the wheel made her look
at her tires, and, to her dismay, she found a small puncture. What
should she do? She glanced at her watch, and was surprised to see how
much time she had lost. One or two wagons had already passed her on
their way to the train, and she regretted that she had not called for
help. It might have been ignominious--it certainly would have been more
discreet--to make her appearance at the station carried in a wagon
rather than to lose her train altogether, as now appeared probable. She
stopped a boy whom she met walking toward her.
"How far is it to the station?" she asked.
"Only a little way," he replied, after the fashion of boys, and she
pushed on hopefully. She heard wheels in the distance, and made up her
mind to humiliate herself to the extent of asking the new-comer to
assist her; but when the vehicle came in sight it proved to be a narrow,
one-seated buggy, and its three passengers seemed more than enough for
it. A little farther on she heard an ominous whistle. The train was
nearing the station. She felt indignant.
"Why should this particular train be on time on this particular day?
Nova Scotia trains are not noted for hurrying."
Now she was walking and dragging her bicycle along. She met a number of
persons who evidently had left the train at the Bear River station and
were walking up to their homes. Then she heard the engine whistle again
as the signal for starting on, and she knew that it was useless to go
down to the station itself. She stood still for a moment, half
paralyzed. Of course there was no special danger; her mother and the
others might go on to Annapolis without her, and she could return to
Bear River for the night; but it was all very mortifying. Then a sudden
thought came to her; in fact, it had occurred to her when she first
discovered the punctured wheel.
"If Fritz were with me, he would have found some way of mending the
puncture; in fact, one man is almost necessary on an excursion." That
was what Fritz himself had said to her.
She recalled his very words, and the remark with which he had
ended,--"Then you'll remember me."
But there was no time for reflection now. The train was coming slowly
along the bridges; Amy could see the smoke from the engine. Between her
and the track lay an open space--a slight decline from the point where
she stood on the road--covered with long grass and bushes. A quick
impulse urged her on; at the worst she could only fail; Nova Scotia
conductors were very obliging, and there was more than half a chance
that she might succeed. She lifted her bicycle across her arm, managed
to climb over the low fence, and was pushing her way down the hill as
the train drew near. A man, probably the conductor, was standing on the
platform of a car; she waved her hand violently. The train seemed to
move more slowly; a man thrust his head out of the engine cab; he, too,
had seen her. She was now not far from the track; the train stood still;
the conductor leaped down from his post, plunged into the shrubbery,
relieved her of her wheel, and she followed him without a word; then one
or two passengers pulled her on board the train, the signal was given,
and the engine started on.
"Lucky it wasn't a flying express," said one of the passengers.
"I guess they wouldn't do that in the States," said another.
Red-faced and crestfallen, Amy found herself a moment later in the bosom
of her family.
"A punctured tire," she began.
"Yes, yes; don't try to talk."
Amy sat still.
Martine fanned her.
Priscilla brought her a glass of water.
Her mother asked for no explanation.
The passengers stared at her; the majority as if amused, though. One or
two talked as if they thought their rights had been infringed.
"We were sorry," Mrs. Redmond said later, "to go without you, but it was
better for you to be left than for the rest of us to lose the train; we
knew you could go back to Bear River, and we could have telegraphed you
what to do; we knew you would be equal to the occasion."
"So I was."
"Well, we hardly expected you to stop a train."
"Oh, the train stopped me."
"'All's well that ends well'"
Later in the day Martine came over to sit beside Amy.
"I'm afraid, Amy, that I may have punctured your tire yesterday; the
road to the chapel was so very stony."
"Tires are bound to be punctured," replied Amy, "and if this hadn't
happened when it did, I shouldn't have had the fun of stopping a train."
CHAPTER IX
OLD PORT ROYAL
At Annapolis, the old Port Royal, Amy and her party were to stay longer
than at any other place. They had engaged rooms at a pleasant house
where there were no other boarders, and when they had unpacked their
trunks, began to feel as if they were really away for the summer.
"We have a fine view of the river," said Mrs. Redmond to Martine the
morning after their arrival, as they looked from the windows of her
room, which was at the rear of the house.
"River!" sniffed Martine; "I see nothing but red mud and green marshes;
I wonder where the water is."
"You won't ask that question at high tide; you'll find water enough to
float a small vessel," she replied, "and if you look a little beyond our
immediate neighborhood, you can see the whole Basin, and far, far away
there in the distance, I suppose, that land is Digby. I am going out to
sketch immediately after breakfast; I've seen several photographs of the
old fort, and I have special reasons for wishing to make a sketch of it;
and you, Martine, will get plenty of inspiration for your water-colors."
Amy was in her element at Annapolis. She had already given some time to
the history of the old town, and anticipated great pleasure in retracing
the steps of the brave Frenchmen who had made it famous.
"More French history!" Priscilla exclaimed, when Amy began to talk about
De Monts and Poutrincourt; "when shall we hear about the English?" and
Priscilla, with a wry face, continued, "I'm so tired of the French."
"All in good time," responded Amy; "but now we must take things in due
order and not skip about as we did. Let us go with the others into the
port to-day, and while they are sketching I'll talk a little about its
history."
So it was that, while Mrs. Redmond and Martine were making sketches of
the sally-port and old officers' quarters, Amy, seated near them, played
the part of historian and guide.
"This fort, you know, is from Vauban's plans, with four bastions and
connecting curtains."
"Do you suppose there's a moat?" interrupted Priscilla; "it looks as if
there should be one here."
"There used to be a wet ditch in the eighteenth century, and I suppose
that was much the same thing, though it's dry now."
"Oh, I can tell you something more entertaining than that," interposed
Martine. "They used to have logs on the top of the parapet ready to roll
down on the heads of assailants. But tell me, Amy, I've forgotten; did
Champlain build this fort?"
"My dear Martine, where is your history? Vauban and Champlain; oh, no.
Champlain's fort is six miles down the river, opposite Goat Island."
"Then who first built this fort?"
"Probably D'Aunay first planned it, and it was improved by Brouillan and
Subercase. You must remember that it has suffered twenty attacks and ten
regular sieges. There's little good in talking about it until you know
the history of the times better."
"Oh, dear," murmured Martine, "of course I knew this was to be an
improving trip, and yet I do think it's hard to have to learn history in
the summer."
"I'm afraid there's no escape for it," said Amy; "the fog is rolling in,
and this afternoon I will tell you once for all certain things that will
give you great interest in Annapolis during your stay here."
So, undisturbed by further historical information during the morning,
Martine, under Mrs. Redmond's direction, completed her sketch of the
officers' quarters within the fort,--a quaint old building, with its
thirty-six chimneys and thirty-six fireplaces, every one of which had
probably been needed in the long and cold winters of old Acadia.
As Amy had prophesied, the afternoon was foggy, and she felt little
compunction in insisting that Martine as well as Priscilla should join
her before her open fire while she talked to them of Port Royal history.
"Although some French," she said, "may have visited Acadia as early as
1504, our starting point is 1604, when De Monts, who was a nobleman of
the Court of Henry Fourth, and Champlain, and Poutrincourt, and
Pontgravé came out on a voyage of exploration. Poutrincourt seems to
have been the one most anxious to make a permanent settlement here.
Champlain was the geographer and map-maker of the expedition, and was
also on the search for ores. The grant of the land known as Acadia had
been given by Henry Fourth to De Monts. He, as well as Pontgravé had
been on a previous expedition to the New World. At first they were
delighted with Acadia. They saw fine opportunities for fur-trading as
well as for a permanent settlement. But after visiting the shores of the
Annapolis Basin, they made a mistake by going farther south to the St.
Croix River, and they spent their first winter on an island some
distance from its mouth. This proved a bad thing, for the climate was
severe and many of the colonists died; so when the weather permitted
they went back to the neighborhood of Port Royal and set up their houses
and built a small fort on Goat Island.
"They found the Indians everywhere very friendly, especially the old
chief, Membertou, who was said to be nearly one hundred years old.
"When their buildings were finished, De Monts sailed back for France,
knowing that he could be spared until after the harvests were gathered.
Pontgravé was left in charge of the colony in his absence, assisted by
Champlain and Champdore. When the spring of 1606 came and De Monts had
not returned, the colonists were alarmed. They needed the supplies that
he had promised to bring them, and they were afraid that something had
happened to him. So, late in July, Pontgravé started off to see if he
could not find some fishing-vessel to take them all back to France.
"In the meantime, De Monts in France had had trouble in getting people
to interest themselves in the Port Royal Colony. But Poutrincourt, who
had returned with him, proved his best friend, and helped in fitting out
a vessel called the 'Jonas,' and promised to return to Acadia with De
Monts, and take his family with him, to establish a permanent colony.
"With them came Lescarbot, an advocate of Paris, who afterwards wrote a
full account of his residence in Acadia, from which we learn many
interesting details that, but for him, we would not know. Pontgravé fell
in with a shallop from De Monts' vessel and all returned to Port Royal.
De Monts wasn't perfectly satisfied with Port Royal for a permanent
settlement, and he persuaded Poutrincourt to make a journey farther
south to find a better place; but this expedition ended badly, and
Poutrincourt returned, convinced that he could be better off at Port
Royal than anywhere else in the New World.
"Unluckily, the merchants in France who had supplied money for this
trading colony sent word that they had decided to give it up. Without
money with which to trade, the colony could not prosper, and so the
majority of the colonists decided to go back to France. Poutrincourt,
however, was determined to come back, and he took home with him
specimens of grain grown in Acadia, and various animal, vegetable, and
mineral products, to show the King what could be raised in Acadia. The
King encouraged him to go back, and ratified the grant of land that De
Monts had given him.
"So Poutrincourt returned to Acadia, and it is greatly to the credit of
the Indians he had left in charge that all the buildings were unharmed.
A new crop of grain, planted by the Indians, was growing finely, and
Membertou and savages welcomed him very cordially.
"The King had given him a grant of money to be used for the Church and
he brought with him a Jesuit priest, who baptized the savages by
wholesale.
"In the summer of 1610, Poutrincourt sent his son, Biencourt, back to
France to report the conversion of the savages and the general
prosperity of the colony. Things in France were not going to be very
favorable now for Poutrincourt. When Biencourt arrived in Paris, it was
not long after the assassination of Henry Fourth. The Jesuits were now
anxious to get control of Acadia, and, to make a long story short,
Madame De Guercheville obtained a grant from the King of the very land
that De Monts had granted to Poutrincourt; Biencourt had to take certain
Jesuits back with him to Acadia; and there was much dissension in the
little colony. But what really proved its downfall was an attack made in
1613 by the Virginian Argall, who killed and captured many of the
inhabitants and burnt all the buildings to the ground. Poutrincourt made
no effort to re-establish Port Royal, but Biencourt, his son, remained
in the woods, living, with a few companions, the life of an Indian."
"Oh, yes, it was he, was it not," said Priscilla, "who was the friend of
Charles La Tour down at Fort St. Louis?"
"The very man," replied Amy. "I often think that if Biencourt had left a
record of his wanderings we should have something very interesting. He
and his father made a good fight for New France, but circumstances were
too strong for them."
"Thank you," said Priscilla. "I understand better than I did before how
the French happened to settle Port Royal."
"Why," asked Martine, "did that Virginian--Argall, I think you called
him--wish to interfere with the French? Jamestown had been settled only
six years when he came up here and attacked Port Royal, and there wasn't
any Plymouth, then, Priscilla."
"He had no real right to interfere, but the English, even then, claimed
the whole coast of North America, basing their claims on the discoveries
of the Cabots; Argall himself, however, is considered little more than a
pirate, and no Englishman justifies his destruction of the prosperous
and peaceful colony at Port Royal.
"The next settlement here was under the auspices of Sir William
Alexander, a friend of James the First. You remember that he made La
Tour a Baronet of Nova Scotia. He had great plans, and his colony was
near Goat Island. I am told that some people here in Annapolis still
speak about the Scotch fort, some trace of which is yet to be seen.
"War between France and England finally put an end to Sir William
Alexander's colony, and it was Charles La Tour who did more than any one
else to make Acadia of some importance to France. He claimed that
Biencourt, Poutrincourt's son, when he died in 1623, had left all his
claims to Acadia to him, including the position of Governor."
"Amy," said Martine, yawning slightly, "this is all very interesting,
but unless I have time to digest it I shall forget it entirely. Let us
put history aside until another day and see if we cannot find something
more amusing."
"I'm going downstairs for a moment," said Priscilla; "I have an idea the
mail has come."
In a moment she returned with a handful of letters.
"Boston, Plymouth, two from Shelburne--where's that? I suppose that I
may look at the postmarks?"
"Give, give," cried Martine, and Priscilla put a couple in her hand.
"Only one for me," said Amy, "and it's from Fritz; he's at Shelburne.
Did you have one too, mamma?"
"No," replied Mrs. Redmond, who had just entered the room.
"Oh, I thought there were two Shelburne postmarks."
Priscilla noticed Martine's heightened color, and an idea that had come
to her at Yarmouth now returned. As it was a matter in which she had no
real right to meddle, she said nothing.
"What does Fritz say?" asked Mrs. Redmond, turning to Amy.
"That he's having the time of his life, that he and Taps have found the
best fishing in the world, and like Nova Scotia so much that they may
bring a party of their own here next summer. What he writes about the
French of Pubnico sounds exactly like Meteghan and Church Point, so I'll
skip all that; Shelburne seems more romantic, and I almost wish it had
lain in our path. He says it has one of the finest harbors he ever saw,
but I will read you a little in his own words.
"'Shelburne, my dear Amy, is like the ghost of a city, to one who has
imagination. It was planned to be the chief city of Nova Scotia, and
there is something rather tragic in looking at the broad streets that
were meant for a larger city. Hardly one of the fine old houses remains.
They say that twelve thousand Loyalists came here just after the
Revolution, and most of them were rich and influential. The frames of
large houses were brought and set up here; people tried to live as they
would in a great city, with servants and every luxury. With such a great
harbor they expected to have a great seaport; but the trouble was, there
was nothing in the country back of them. There was no farming land, and
no farmers to supply produce for the ships in the harbor to carry away
in exchange for other goods. After a while people found they had used up
the money they had brought with them from New York and other places.
Then those who could left Shelburne. Some went away leaving their houses
fully furnished, and they never came back. They went to Halifax, to
Annapolis, or even back to New York and Boston after the bitter feeling
over the war had gone down.
"'If you were here, Amy, you'd find plenty of material for poems in
Shelburne, especially on moonlight nights like last night, when Taps and
I wandered up and down the broad streets, trying to imagine what
Shelburne must have been in the days of its greatness. I hope that you
and the others are enjoying yourselves as much as you expected to,
without me or any other masculine disturber of the peace. I haven't a
doubt that your mother thinks we've been pretty badly treated. She
always was an unusually sensible woman, and we'd have been useful to
carry your bags, if nothing more; however, mark my words, before your
journey is over you will sigh for me more than once, and the day will
come when you'll really need me.'"
"He thinks enough of himself, doesn't he?" said Martine.
"Oh, he's not really conceited," replied Amy, "and I dare say that he
would liven us up a little; but on the whole things are best as they
are."
"Aren't you quieter than usual, Martine?" asked Amy that evening.
"Well, I had a letter from papa to-day," she said, "and he says that
mamma is really very ill, and that they may have to stay abroad all
summer. I have just written him about Yvonne; but of course it will be
some time before I can get an answer."
"What do you want him to do?" asked Amy,--"to let you adopt her? She's
almost as tall as you are."
"Well, I'm not sure what I want, but I know that if Yvonne should have
her voice cultivated she'd be a great prima donna, and what a feather in
my cap to have been her discoverer!"
"I fear that your father would need more than your opinion to enable him
to decide a matter like that. In fact, only an expert musician could
make a safe prophecy about Yvonne."
"Well, at least, I hope that he will consent to letting her go to Boston
to study next winter. We could find a doctor to help her eyesight."
"Why not ask your father to invest in Alexander's gold mine?" asked Amy,
with a smile; "then he could do everything for Yvonne himself."
"That isn't the point. I've really taken a great fancy to Yvonne, and I
want to have her near me. Have you written to Pierre yet?"
"Oh, yes; I went out this morning and bought him a copy of Longfellow.
He had never owned one himself, and was anxious to have it. I have asked
him to write us so that we shall get the letter at Grand Pré."
"It's time Priscilla had a protégée," said Martine, "though she doesn't
seem the kind of person to adopt anything very warmly except her own
opinions."
This was a rather sharp remark for Martine to make, and it convinced Amy
of something that she had tried to doubt--that the two girls were really
rather far apart, "and both such charming girls," she said to herself.
Martine's letters with the Pubnico and Shelburne postmarks had given
Priscilla considerable concern. Though not a meddler, she yet saw
Martine's lack of frankness about those letters. Priscilla knew that
neither was in the handwriting of Fritz Tomkins, and she was sure that
they were written by the Freshman with him whom she knew only by the
name of "Taps." She was now quite convinced, also, that it really was
Martine whom Amy had seen wheeling through the streets of Yarmouth with
this same youth. That it was no concern of hers she realized perfectly;
and yet, she wondered if it might not be her duty to tell Mrs. Redmond
what she knew. Priscilla was over-conscientious; she was always more
ready to disclose her own faults than to conceal them,--to disclose, at
least, faults that she herself recognized. She did not altogether
realize that a certain form of censoriousness was growing upon her; that
she was too much inclined to measure all people by her own standard.
Thus many little things that Martine did quite innocently and naturally
seemed to Priscilla bits of affectation. Martine's hand was ever in her
pocket. When it was a question of buying books or fruit or some other
little thing for the traveller, Martine always managed to pay for it,
and Priscilla thought that her readiness to do this came from a desire
to display the size of her allowance. Priscilla herself, on the other
hand, had to be careful about little expenses, and while their present
trip called for no great expenditure, she hated to be obliged so often
to thank Martine for small luxuries. Then, too, Martine had an
extravagant way of talking that disturbed the serious Priscilla. She
could not say that she had ever found Martine in a real untruth. Still,
Martine's way was not her way, and instead of drawing nearer together as
the journey progressed, the two girls were farther apart.
Martine, on her part, thought Priscilla rather old-fashioned, but
accounted for the seriousness of her dress and her manner by the fact
that she was still in mourning for her father, who had died of fever
contracted in Cuba at the beginning of the late war.
Perhaps it was because she realized that her prejudices were a little
unreasonable, that Priscilla hesitated about speaking to Amy or Mrs.
Redmond regarding the suspicious postmarks.
The long "historical disquisition," as Martine called it, that Amy had
given them on their first day at Annapolis, was not immediately followed
by another. Their mornings were spent in sketching in the neighborhood,
and their afternoons in driving. One day they crossed the Grandville
Ferry and went down to the old fort near Goat Island. But though they
all professed to see slight traces of the earthworks, it required
imagination rather than eyesight to discern even a slight trace of
Poutrincourt's fort.
"It's one of the ironies of history," said Amy, "that tradition should
speak of this as a Scotch fort, for the Scotch were here so short a time
before the French were again in power."
"What became of the Scotch?" asked Priscilla.
"It is supposed that most of them went back home, and that the few who
stayed intermarried with the conquering French. Sir William Alexander
and his Baronets of Nova Scotia made little impression on Acadia."
"Amy," said Martine, "of all the people you've told us about the most
interesting to me is young Biencourt, wandering about in the woods and
living like an Indian; I even dreamt about him the other night. How did
he happen to escape when Argall destroyed the fort?"
"Oh, he and some of his companions were up there where Annapolis now is,
working in their grain fields; you know they had a mill up there, and
rich fields of grain. The fort itself was not in a good location,--at
least for farming. It is said that Argall and the other Virginians were
not aware of the existence of the mill and the fields, and when they had
destroyed the fort, thought that there was nothing left for the French."
"You may be pretty sure," said Martine, "they wouldn't have let anything
escape if they'd known; the English are always greedy."
"They are not a bit worse than the French," retorted Priscilla. "Just
think how cruel the French were during the Reign of Terror."
"Oh, that's an entirely different kind of thing; the French are never
half as anxious to grab other people's land as the English are."
"There, there," interposed Amy, "I'll have to be a Board of
International Arbitration; in other words, let us have peace. There's
one thing," she continued, "I feel as if young Biencourt kept alive the
love of the French for Port Royal. Charles La Tour was himself only a
boy like Biencourt when he first came to the New World. The King had
certainly given Poutrincourt rights in Acadia, and he had passed them on
to his son. Poutrincourt was killed at the Siege of Marye in 1610,
scarcely three years before Argall's destruction of Port Royal."
CHAPTER X
EXPLORATIONS
"How very gay your attire, Martine! Do you think of paying afternoon
visits?"
"No, my dear Amy, I do not, because I know no one to visit; but I'm
tired of cloth skirts and a shirt-waist, and I thought I would like to
see how it would feel to wear something decent."
Martine's gown was a pale blue voile, made up over a bright blue lining,
with a delicate white insertion on the waist; her hat, a blue chip,
trimmed with white flowers, and she carried a parasol to match.
"Is your gown quite suitable for a walk on a dusty road?"
"Perhaps it isn't," responded Martine, "but sometimes one must live up
to her feelings, and this is how I feel to-day,--like wearing my very
best; besides, this is nothing remarkable, this dress, but it happens to
be the best I have with me."
"Very well," and Amy sighed; "it's no use to argue with you, and as soon
as Priscilla comes downstairs we'll set off."
When Priscilla appeared, she, like Amy, had a short cloth skirt and
shirt-waist, but she made no comment on the elegance of Martine's
appearance.
There was one thing rather incongruous in Martine's aspect,--she carried
a small shovel, which looked as if it had never been used; such, indeed,
was the case, and as she brandished it she said cheerfully, "I hope we
shall go somewhere where we can dig. I hear there's any amount of hidden
treasure around Annapolis, and I am anxious to get some of it for
myself."
The girls walked a good while before they saw anything likely to reward
an amateur antiquarian. Then, in a field quite outside the town,
Martine's sharp eyes saw something that interested her. In a moment she
was over the fence, with the others following.
"There," she said excitedly, "you see these very old, gnarled
apple-trees and this clump of willows; I'm perfectly sure that this used
to be an Acadian farm."
"That's a safe guess," rejoined Amy, "for all the land about here was
once in the hands of the Acadians."
"Yes, but I think from this little mound and that hollow beside it that
there was a house on this very spot. I noticed what Dr. Gray said when
he was talking to your mother last evening, and that was what decided me
to do some digging for myself."
"In a blue voile dress," responded Amy, in a tone of disapproval. "Ah,
Martine, you are so absurd!"
Even while Amy was speaking Martine had begun to dig,--aimlessly, of
course, although in a few minutes she had made a fairly large hole. When
her shovel struck something hard she was delighted, but, digging deeper,
she brought up only a piece of broken brick. Undiscouraged, she dug one
side of the first hole, and presently she held out to Amy what at first
puzzled them both. It looked like a mere bit of rusty iron, but later
they decided that it was probably part of an old lock.
"Which I shall label 'Exhibit No. 1' in my museum of curiosities," said
Martine.
"Let me see what I can do," cried Amy; "you must be tired."
So Martine surrendered her shovel, and in a quarter of an hour Amy
brought up an old bottle, not at all remarkable in shape, but very
valuable from Martine's point of view, because it was undoubtedly an
Acadian trophy.
Priscilla contented herself with some slips from an ancient willow-tree.
"It is not the best time of year for making cuttings," she said, "but
these French willows cling to life as closely as the proverbial cat. I
heard of a man who had a walking-stick cut from a willow-tree. It looked
as hard and dry as a bone, but one day he happened to stick it in the
ground near a spring and forgot all about it. Some time afterwards, when
he passed, the walking-stick was sending out little shoots, and in time
it became a full-fledged willow-tree."
"That's a very good story," commented Martine, "and as we know you never
tell anything but the exact truth, Priscilla, neither Amy nor I would
think of doubting it."
As the trio were walking back toward town they met Mrs. Redmond,
driving.
"Come," she cried, "which two of you will drive with me? You slipped off
this afternoon without my realizing that you were going away, and now I
want company."
"I would rather stroll along," replied Amy, "but I am sure that Martine
and Priscilla would enjoy the drive. Martine is turning antiquarian, and
if your driver can take you to some old grave or Indian mound, she will
be delighted to use her shovel."
"I don't know what I can promise in the way of graves and mounds, but if
Martine comes with me I can offer her a lovely view."
"If you please, Mrs. Redmond," said Priscilla, "I would rather walk back
home than drive."
Although Amy tried to make her change her mind, Priscilla was firm, and
the discussion ended by Amy's getting into the carriage with Martine and
Mrs. Redmond.
As she walked along the main street, where the houses were still rather
far apart, Priscilla noticed a little graveyard in a corner of a garden.
As the gate was open, she felt at liberty to walk inside. The stones at
which she glanced were of marble, and the inscriptions were well cut.
The names on two or three of them were French, and the men who bore them
had evidently been officers in the English army. This interested her,
and when she saw a girl of about her own age standing at the door of a
cottage near by, she felt emboldened to speak to her.
"They were not really French," said the girl, in answer to her question,
"but of Huguenot family, who fought for the King in the Revolution. I've
heard my mother say that one of them was a cousin of her grandmother's,
and they all came here together at the close of the war."
Priscilla was delighted. Here, perhaps, was a person who would tell her
something about the Loyalists of the Revolution.
"Were your people Loyalists?" she asked.
"Why, of course," was the reply, as if anything else were unsupposable.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" responded Priscilla. "I've been waiting to hear more
about the Loyalists."
"You are an American?" questioned the girl. "Americans are not apt to
care about Loyalists; they seem to think only about the Acadians; but my
ancestors were all Loyalists, and if you will just come into the house
my mother would love to talk to you."
So Priscilla followed her new acquaintance indoors. Outside, the house
looked small, but within she found many rooms opening one into another,
none of them very large, and all of them with low ceilings.
"My mother's great-grandfather built this house when he first came from
New York. He was an officer in the Loyal American Regiment. There is his
commission; we framed it to hang on the wall."
"By His Excellency Sir Henry Clinton, K. B., General and
Commander-in-Chief of all His Majesty's Forces within the Colonies lying
on the Atlantic Ocean, from Nova Scotia to West Florida inclusive, etc.,
etc., etc.
"By Virtue of the Power and Authority in Me vested, I DO hereby
constitute and appoint You to be Captain of a Company in the Loyal
American Regiment commanded by Colonel Beverly Robinson."
Priscilla read the whole commission in which the duties of the newly
made captain were defined, to the very end where the signature of Sir
Henry Clinton still stood out clearly.
While the new acquaintance went to call her mother, Priscilla looked
around the pleasant sitting-room. There was a high, old-fashioned
bookcase filled with books, many of them in dingy calf bindings. The
young girl returned while she was looking at them, expressing her regret
that her mother was not at home.
"My grandfather brought many of these books from New York," she said;
"he was a nephew of the rector of Trinity Church, and was himself a
graduate of King's College, New York."
"I don't see how they had the courage to give up everything and come
down here so far away. Even if they did not like the new government, I
should think they would rather have stayed where most of their friends
and relatives were."
"Oh, it wasn't always a matter of choice," rejoined Eunice, for this,
Priscilla discovered, was her new friend's name; "some had to come,
because they had been too active in the King's cause and the other side
would not forgive them. Even after the Peace many were in danger of
imprisonment; and then a great many had had all their property
confiscated, and thought it would be easier to start over again down
here than to live in poverty among their old friends and neighbors."
Priscilla looked in amazement at Eunice. She expressed herself so much
more carefully than most girls of her age.
"Martine would call her quaint," thought Priscilla, looking at her, "and
if she knows as much about other things as she does about history, she
must be a wonder."
"I wish my mother were here," said Eunice, politely. "She gets quite
worked up when she talks about the Loyalists."
"I should think she would," responded Priscilla. "They certainly had a
hard time."
"She thinks that we have been cut off from things that really are our
own, and now, when we have so little money that I can't even afford to
go away to college, she feels more and more indignant at the injustice
of it all."
Priscilla did not know exactly what to say. In her mind there was a
struggle between her feeling of patriotism and her sense of justice. As
Eunice had put it, it did not seem fair that the Loyalists should have
lost everything, simply because they had had the courage to hold out for
the King. But a phrase came into her mind that she had often heard, and
for the moment it seemed the only sentiment that she could express.
"After all," she said gently, "I suppose it was the 'fortune of war'
that your people suffered so much."
"Oh, yes," responded Eunice, "that is what I often say to my mother; and
then I tell her too, that in one hundred and twenty-five years the
family probably would have lost all the property they had before the
Revolution."
Finding that the subject was getting a little beyond her, Priscilla
ventured a more general remark.
"There must be many interesting historical incidents connected with
Annapolis; I mean, incidents that are not French," she concluded
hastily. "I am just a little tired, myself, of the Acadians."
"I don't know of many very entertaining things," responded Eunice, "but
I remember one story that might amuse you. During the Revolution, the
people of Annapolis were awfully afraid of attacks from Privateers. You
see, after the Acadians were driven out a large colony from New England
came down here. They received grants of land from the government, and
were very prosperous when the war began. Many were on the side of the
Yankees, but in the end England was able to hold Nova Scotia. However,
the small privateering vessels were constantly coming into Nova Scotia
ports, and even Annapolis wasn't perfectly safe. One night two rebel
schooners came up to the mouth of the river; they had about eighty men,
and landed them safely, because the sentry at the fort was asleep. They
entered the houses and stirred people up immensely; they seemed more
bent on making mischief than in doing any real violence. There were not
many citizens here in the town then, but one of them, looking from the
window when he heard a noise in the street, saw two of the rebels
disputing over something they had stolen; when they saw him at the
window, they dashed into his house, and a minute or two afterwards
another Annapolis man, only half dressed, rushed excitedly into the room
to tell his friend that the Yankees were plundering the town; this was
unnecessary information, because, as I have said, two rebels were
already in the house. He discovered them with their bayonets pointed at
him just as he had finished telling his story, and he was so surprised
that he fell backward over a cradle, with his feet in the air. His
comical appearance made the rebels laugh so, that he afterwards said
that this saved his life, for before they had recovered he had jumped to
his feet and run away. But later he and all the other able-bodied
citizens were shut up in the fort, while the men from the schooners went
through the houses and carried away everything movable. They allowed the
ladies to keep their shoes, though they first removed the silver
buckles. The schooners disappeared in the morning, when the report was
spread around that the militia of the county were gathering and coming
to Annapolis. That, I believe, was the only attack on Annapolis during
the Revolution. It happened two or three years before the arrival of the
refugees, and the accounts of it that have been handed down always
represented it as a very comical affair."
"Did you say 'Yankees'?" asked Priscilla. "Did you mean--"
"Oh, I meant schooners from New England; I've heard they were from Cape
Cod," replied Eunice.
"It was pretty small business," said Priscilla, almost apologetically.
"I don't believe that the men on the schooners were either soldiers or
sailors. I am sure that Washington wouldn't have approved if he had
known."
"You don't think that all on your side were good, do you," asked Eunice,
"and that all on ours were bad?"
Priscilla hardly knew what to reply. She was getting again into deep
water, for she saw that although the war was long over, Eunice was still
a strong partisan. So, as a kind of peace-offering, she asked Eunice if
she would not walk back home with her.
"I should like to have you meet my friends whom I am travelling with,"
she said. "We are going to stay in Annapolis a week or more. Mrs.
Redmond is making some beautiful sketches, and her daughter Amy is just
dear; she is older than Martine and I, but she never makes us feel the
difference in our ages, and she knows more than almost anybody I ever
saw."
"I should love to walk back with you," said Eunice, "though I cannot
stay very long. What is Martine like?" she asked abruptly.
"Oh, Martine,--well, Martine is different. She always sees the funny
side of things, and she doesn't care what anything costs if she happens
to want it. She's perfectly devoted to the French, and I'm so terribly
tired of her Acadians that I want to find out what the English did in
Annapolis."
"I will be glad to do what I can to help you," responded Eunice, "only
you mustn't be too touchy about things; for you see we're still all
English down here."
As Priscilla walked back to the boarding-house she congratulated herself
on her new friend; for although she had known Eunice so short a time,
she already regarded her as much more than an ordinary acquaintance.
"I can always tell," she said to herself, "whether any one is going to
wear well. Mother says that that is the only test for real friends, and
I can see that Eunice and I are likely to be more than acquaintances. I
feel as if I had known her a long time. Now it wasn't so with Martine,
and even though we have been together so much this summer, some way I
don't feel perfectly comfortable with her. I'd like to be fair, but
still--"
Yes, Priscilla meant to be fair, but still--what was the trouble? It is
to be feared that she had not yet learned the real meaning of tolerance.
Martine's point of view was often so unlike hers that Priscilla did not
make enough effort to put herself in her friend's place. While believing
herself just, she certainly permitted herself to be biassed little in
her judgments. Nor did she realize that Martine herself often spoke in
an exaggerated tone, chiefly for the purpose of seeing to what extent
she could impose on Priscilla; for Martine, discovering Priscilla's
attitude toward her, liked to say things to surprise her,--"Puritan
Prissie," as she called her at these times.
It would not be quite true, perhaps, to say that Priscilla distrusted
Martine's interest in Yvonne, although she had a strong conviction that
it was merely impulse that had led her to promise so much.
"For the day that we spent at Meteghan, Yvonne was like a new plaything
to her. Had Martine been with Yvonne a week, it would have been the
same; she would have lavished things on her, and would have been ready
to promise her anything. But 'out of sight, out of mind;' I believe that
that is always the way with her. I am not even sure that she is as fond
of Mrs. Redmond and Amy as she seems to be."
Poor Priscilla! she was really borrowing trouble needlessly, and yet in
more senses than one it was real trouble to her, because she was never
sure just how she ought to respond to the more flippant remarks made by
Martine. They were often so witty that she could not help laughing, even
when she felt the greatest need of preserving her own dignity.
Another grievance was Martine's way of addressing Amy. Priscilla herself
had begun by trying to say "Miss Redmond;" occasionally she slipped into
"Amy," but more usually "Miss Amy" was her form of address. Martine had
laughed loudly at this, and one day she said, "It is what I call too
servile. Amy is not greatly our superior, but still I'd rather call her
Miss Redmond. I notice that Fritz Tomkins in some of his letters says
'Miss Amy Redmond.' I wonder if that would do for us?"
"Oh, Amy--that is, Miss Redmond--explained that it was just his way of
making fun of her when he says 'Miss Amy Redmond.'"
"Probably, but when I can't think of anything else I will say that,
though generally Amy is good enough for me, and here she is, looking as
sweet as a rose." Whereupon, without the slightest regard for the
dignity with which Priscilla would have liked to hedge Amy, Martine had
thrown herself upon the older girl's neck, to the destruction of
something less ideal than her dignity; to wit, the freshness of her
muslin stock.
Thinking of this scene, Priscilla sighed. "Eunice would never do or say
anything silly." This goes to show that she did indeed regard Eunice as
a kindred spirit.
CHAPTER XI
A TEA PARTY
"Prissie, Prissie," said Martine, in a teasing tone, "you are altogether
too enthusiastic; I don't believe in these perfect people, and your
little Tory must be rather a prig, from what you say."
When Martine called her "Prissie," Priscilla knew that she meant
mischief, and though in her inmost heart she admitted that Martine's
teasing carried no real sting, she never stood this teasing with very
good grace.
"She isn't a Tory," she replied rather sharply; "there are no Tories in
these days, and Eunice Airton is not a prig."
But Martine only laughed; perhaps she retained too firmly in her mind
the remembrance of Priscilla's indifference to Yvonne and was now trying
to pay her back. Priscilla had just given an enthusiastic account of her
new acquaintance, and Mrs. Redmond and Amy had listened with great
attention. Mrs. Redmond, indeed, was pleased that Priscilla had found
something really to interest her. Although away from home not quite two
weeks, Priscilla had begun to show the good effects of the trip in round
and rosier cheeks, and in a slightly more animated manner. Yet it had
seemed to Mrs. Redmond that she was not quite as pleased with things in
general as the other two girls. She was sorry too to note the growing
antagonism between Martine and Priscilla, though its cause was hard to
discover. At first Martine's teasing had proceeded from the merest love
of fun, and she thought that Priscilla took it all too seriously. Amy
had already cautioned her that she could soon disarm Martine, by
receiving everything she said as if said in pure fun. But Priscilla was
sensitive, and she was just conscious enough of certain little foibles
of her own to realize that sometimes Martine was laughing at her.
"Even if Eunice were a Tory, I shouldn't care," she continued. "I never
heard any one talk as well as she does."
"Ah, that's just it, my dear Miss Prissie Prunes," retorted Martine;
"I'll warrant that she's just as prim and precise as--"
Martine did not finish the sentence, but Priscilla realized well that
she meant to say "as prim and precise as you are."
The day after this conversation Mrs. Airton called on Mrs. Redmond and
the girls. Martine was not at home, but the others were pleased with the
delicate little woman, in rather faded black, who was particularly
cordial and anxious to have them see Annapolis at its best.
As she talked, it was easy to understand how Eunice came by her precise
manner and language, for there was a certain bookishness in her choice
of words, and correctness of expression, that, although not really
subject to criticism, might become tiresome. Mrs. Airton had heard more
or less about Mrs. Redmond and her party from Dr. Gray, to whose family
Mrs. Redmond had brought an introduction.
"Now I hope," she said, toward the end of her visit, "that you will give
us the pleasure of spending to-morrow afternoon with us and staying to
tea. I suppose 'tea' has gone out of fashion in the States, but it's
just the height of the strawberry season now, and perhaps you'll accept
high tea in place of a late dinner."
"We shall be delighted to accept your invitation," Mrs. Redmond replied,
"and as for tea, why, we never have late dinner at home in summer. We
shall enjoy your hospitality."
Now it happened, unfortunately, that on the morning of Wednesday, the
day for which Mrs. Airton had invited them, Mar
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