Amy in Acadia Part 33

But for the Nova Scotia trip Amy would have been one of Julia's a.s.sistants this very summer at Happy Hill. Often, indeed, in the course of her travels she had thought of the work going on there, and had indulged in a little self-reproach that she should be spending her own holidays in idleness. Most persons, even those inclined to be critical, would have said that Amy had really enough work on her hands in the five or six hours of tutoring that she tried to give Priscilla every week.

Yet even granting that her time was not sufficiently occupied, there is a kind of idleness that in the end is more beneficial to the individual than any amount of work. Although Amy had not been in danger, perhaps, of breaking down during the past season, still, Mrs. Redmond realized that she had been working up to the limit of her strength, and she had planned the Nova Scotia trip in such a way that Amy should be unable to withstand going. That Amy would need all her strength for her senior year at Wellesley had been Mrs. Redmond's strongest plea. Every day of this summer had been a proof to Amy of her mother's wisdom.

"Of course we miss you [wrote Julia], and I am glad to say that no one else can exactly take your place. But I honestly believe that in a certain way you can do almost as much good in Acadia as here; for it will be a great thing to inspire Priscilla with more confidence in herself, and tone down Martine a little.

"Here at Happy Hill we have two or three of the girls who were at the Mansion its first year. We have been able, I am glad to say, to imbue them with some sense of responsibility. Each of them in turn is called housekeeper for a week, and although things are not really altogether in her hands, the effect on her is really the same, and we older people merely act as a check to prevent matters from going too far out of line.

"It is very amusing to see these older girls take charge of the younger, and instruct them in all the details of country life. They have some gardening to do, and they make b.u.t.ter and cheese, and each one is shown how to drive, and is permitted at intervals to drive down to the village. Then they have open-air gymnastics in addition to the very considerable amount of exercise that goes with their housework, and they have just enough study from books every day to prevent their growing altogether rusty.

"Mr. and Mrs. Elton--it doesn't seem quite natural yet to speak of Miss South as Mrs. Elton--are now, I suppose, in Norway. They sent the girls a box of unmounted photographs last week, showing the most picturesque scenery in Greece and Italy, where they were in the early spring. Nora is to be with me part of the summer, and Anstiss Rowe, as perhaps you know, is giving all her time to Happy Hill. Brenda undoubtedly keeps you informed about affairs at Rockley. She is perfectly happy, and altogether different from the Brenda of a year ago.

"When your Acadia days are over, I hope that you will have a week to spare for Happy Hill before Wellesley opens again.

With my best regards to your mother and the girls,

"JULIA."

When Amy had finished this letter Mrs. Redmond glanced through it.

"I should like to go up to Happy Hill for at least a week," said Amy.

"It is altogether probable that you can. We shall be at home by the first of September. Why, what has become of Martine?"

Amy looked toward the chair where Martine had been sitting a few minutes before. It was certainly empty.

"I'll run up to her room;" and, suiting her action to her word, in a moment Amy was knocking at Martine's door.

In answer to a feeble "Come in" she entered, only to find Martine lying face downward on the bed.

"Why, what is the matter, child?" she asked, affectionately stroking Martine's hair.

"Oh, nothing," came in m.u.f.fled tones from the prostrate Martine, "only this has been such a long day."

"You are tired," responded Amy, "and probably you were more excited than you realized when you and Priscilla were lost."

"We weren't lost"--Martine threw considerable spirit into her voice,--"I knew just where we were."

"But we did not--" Amy, though amused, tried not to show her amus.e.m.e.nt--"we were rather alarmed, so really my mother and I ought to be the persons to collapse. Come, Martine, even if you are tired, you must cheer up, and go to bed."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Why, what is the matter, child?' she asked affectionately."]

"It isn't because I'm tired," and Martine's tears flowed afresh, "but I thought that to-night there would be a letter from my mother. There must be a mail in, and I have counted up the time from New York. There ought to be a letter to-night. I am sure that she's worse."

"Nonsense, child. Probably she does not feel quite well enough to write, and your father has overlooked the mail. You know how apt men are to forget."

So Amy tried to pacify Martine, and at last succeeded in getting her to look at things more cheerfully. She had never before seen Martine in low spirits, and she felt quite sure that fatigue, even more than disappointment, had caused the tears.

"I will admit," she said, "that this has been a trying day, beginning with--"

"Beginning with Mr. Knight,"--and now Martine was smiling. "Wasn't he funny, with his 'you Americans,' as if we were some strange species?"

"But in the end don't you think that Mr. Knight did pretty well? I think that he more than redeemed himself by his kindness."

"Well, as he is a friend of Balfour Airton's I suppose that I ought not to criticise him. There, don't shake your head, Amy. Yes, I do think that he was very kind--in the end. But the day has been fearfully long.

We ought not to have taken that walk this morning."

When at last Martine went to bed Amy sat beside her until she fell asleep. There was a strange mingling of childishness and womanliness in this little Chicagoan to which Amy could not accustom herself. Her worldly wisdom and grown-up air of womanliness were quite as hard to understand as the extreme childishness in which she sometimes indulged.

The more equable Priscilla was much easier to comprehend, and yet Amy was not altogether sure that Priscilla, under stress of circ.u.mstances, would be the easier to manage.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG OF IT

"For my own part," said Martine, "I am just as firmly on the side of the Acadians as ever. They may have been stupid about the oath, and probably they were too easily influenced by Le Loutre, but they had been handed from England to France and from France to England so often that I don't see how they could consider themselves English when really they were French."

"You must have had Irish ancestors as well as French," said Amy, with a laugh. "Your remark sounds almost like a bull."

"Well, I mean to take the bull by the horns," replied Martine; "you can blame any one else for the deportation, but not the poor Acadians. They certainly did not in the least know who they were. But I am glad," she concluded, "that you have taken so much trouble to explain it all to me, Miss Amy Redmond, for I have never before understood why the English were so cruel."

"It is surely a fact"--Amy spoke decidedly--"that the English Government would have preferred to keep the Acadians their subjects. They needed them to supply provisions, and to man their garrisons. With their knowledge of woodcraft, and of the Indians, the Acadians would have been invaluable on the English side."

"But you couldn't expect them to fight against the French, who were their own flesh and blood!" and Martine cast a glance of reproach at her friend.

"That, of course, was the chief point in the dispute. The Acadians claimed to be neutrals, when really they were sending their produce to Louisbourg, or to the French in other places, to help them continue their war with the English. Yet they expected the protection of the English when in trouble, and they always had it, although their only tax was the t.i.the that they spent for the support of their own church."

Amy and Martine were sitting on the broad sands of Evangeline's beach, looking toward Blomidon, and waiting for Priscilla, who had strolled some distance away. They had driven over from Wolfville in the omnibus, and were to have an hour or two at the edge of the Basin before they need return. In the midst of the discussion Priscilla rejoined them.

"More Acadians!" she cried with a smile. "Let me ask you a favor--"

"To say no more about them?"

"No, not that. When we leave the neighborhood of Wolfville we shall think of other things; so, once for all I, for one, should be glad to have the whole story straightened out. We know what happened after the expulsion, for we've been at Clare, and we know about the earliest French; we heard all that at Annapolis. But now, my dear Miss Amy Redmond, you have been looking into this thing thoroughly, and if--"

"Yes," urged Martine, "if you'll please tell us what happened in the years between, it will save our reading, and you will make it much clearer to us than any book."

"Down with your flattery," rejoined Amy; "yet as there's no time like the present, I will tell the story briefly. We might as well pa.s.s over the various transfers of Acadia from France to England, and from England to France, before 1710. But the conquest of Annapolis by General Nicholson in that year gave Acadia finally to England. The change of Government was confirmed by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and all Acadians who did not wish to be subject to England were given time to leave. Those who remained were required to take an oath of fidelity to King George, and England on her part agreed to let them exercise their own religion under their own priests. In spite of these arrangements many of these simple-minded Acadians still considered themselves subjects of the King of France, even up to the time of the expulsion.

Perhaps the priests encouraged them in this and delayed their taking the oath of allegiance. By 1730, however, nearly all had signed the oath, and if war had not broken out later between France and England there might have been no further trouble. But when it was found that many of the Acadians, instead of remaining neutral, were joining with French and Indians in attacks on the English, Lord Cornwallis, the Governor at Halifax, required them to take the oath again. This was necessary because a new generation had grown up who had been encouraged by the priests and politicians in enmity to England. Most of them would not take the new oath, because it required them to defend Acadia against the enemies of England, and this, they said, would oblige them to fight against the French, their kinsmen. In 1751 there was a large immigration of Acadians to ile St. Jean, then in the hands of the French. These exiles suffered much, but they were encouraged to hope that when France reconquered Acadia they could go back to their deserted homes.

"Cornwallis continued firm, and at last the Acadians were informed that all who would not take the oath must leave Nova Scotia. In the very beginning deputies from the Acadian villages had gone to Halifax to say that it would be impossible to take the oath and ask permission to dispose of their farms and leave the country."

"Why didn't they go? It would have been so much better in the end."

"It is hard to say, Martine. Friends of the Acadians claim that the English put all kinds of obstacles in their way, first refusing them transportation in English vessels, then preventing their buying rigging at Louisbourg for vessels of their own. But, as I have said, more than a thousand did eventually pa.s.s over to the ile St. Jean, and some of these took part in the defence of Beausejour."

"Well, they were surely very conscientious," said Martine, "for they knew that by taking the oath and becoming British subjects they could live in comfort on their farms. It was very brave in them to choose poverty and exile."