Acadians -- History -- Juvenile fiction; Nova Scotia -- Description and travel -- Juvenile fiction; Vacations -- Juvenile fiction
"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!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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