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 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 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 a l'Eglise, three miles away. She did not waken the others, but she watched the little procession until it was out of sight.