After the affair at Kenneticook Le Loutre found that Cobequid was no
longer the place for him. He needed the shelter of Beausejour. There,
by force of his fanatic zeal, his ability, and his power over the
Acadians, he divided the authority of the fort with its corrupt
commandant. He never dreamed of the part Pierre had played that dreadful
night on the Kenneticook. He knew Lecorbeau had somewhere picked up
an English child. But a child was in his eyes quite too trivial
a matter to call for any comment.
As time went on Pierre's little one, as she was generally called--"la
p'tite de Pierre"--picked up the French of her new Acadian home, and
went far to forgetting her English. In the eyes of Lecorbeau and his
wife she came to seem like one of their own and she was a favorite with
the whole family; but to Pierre she clung as if he were her father and
mother in one. As soon as she had learned a little French she was
questioned minutely as to her parents and her home. Her name, Edie Howe,
had at once been associated with that of the lamented captain.
"Edie," good wife Lecorbeau would say to her, "where is your mother?"
At this the child would shake her head sorrowfully for a moment, and
pointing over the hills, would answer:
"Away off there!"--and sometimes she would add, "Poor mamma's sick!"
At last one day she seemed suddenly to remember, and cried as if she
were announcing a great discovery, "Why, mamma's in Halifax."
Mother Lecorbeau was not a little triumphant at having elicited this
definite information.
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