Amy in Acadia Part 9

"Ah, that is not to sell; it is family what you call it?"

"Heirloom," suggested Priscilla.

"But yes, that is so, for my grandmere 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 fas.h.i.+oned 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 fis.h.i.+ng, 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 gra.s.s 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 s.h.a.ggy 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 pa.s.sers-by, and commiserating the men mowing gra.s.s 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 Pet.i.t 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 pa.s.sed 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."