On the subject of her father the little one had not much to say. When
questioned about him she merely said that she was his little girl, and
that he had gone away somewhere, and some bad people wouldn't let him
come back again. She said her mamma had cried a great deal while telling
her that papa would never come back--and from this it was clear at once
that the father was dead. To get any definite idea from the child as to
the time of his death proved a vain endeavor; she was not very clear
in her ideas of time. But she said he was a tall man and a soldier.
She further declared that he hadn't a lot of hair on his face, like
father Lecorbeau, but was nice and smooth, like her Pierre, only with
a mustache. All this tallied with a description of Captain Howe, so
Lecorbeau concluded that she was Howe's child. As for the people with
whom she had been visiting in the hapless village of Kenneticook, they
were evidently old servants of her father's family.
"I was staying at nurse's," she used to say. "Uncle Willie sent me
there because my mamma was sick." Of this Uncle Willie she talked
so much and so often that Pierre said he was jealous.
While several years rolled by, bringing no great event to the cabin
in the willows at the foot of Beausejour, a cloud was slowly gathering
over the fortressed hill. The relations between France and England
in Acadie were growing more and more strained. It was plain that a
rupture must soon come. In the cabin, by the light of fire or candle,
after the day's work was done, Pierre and his father, with sometimes
the old sergeant from the fort, used to talk over the condition of
affairs.
Pages:
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75