Nature and Human Nature Part 41

"I believe, Doctor," sais I, "we have seen all that is worth notice here, let us go into one of their houses and ascertain if there is anything for Sorrow's larder; but, Doctor," sais I, "let us first find out if they speak English, for if they do we must be careful what we say before them. Very few of the old people I guess know anything but French, but the younger ones who frequent the Halifax market know more than they pretend to if they are like some other habitans I saw at New Orleans. They are as cunning as foxes."

Proceeding to one of the largest cottages, we immediately gained admission. The door, unlike those of Nova Scotian houses, opened outwards, the fastening being a simple wooden latch. The room into which we entered was a large, dark, dingy, dirty apartment. In the centre of it was a tub containing some goslins, resembling yellow b.a.l.l.s of corn-meal, rather than birds. Two females were all that were at home, one a little wrinkled woman, whose age it would puzzle a physiognomist to p.r.o.nounce on, the other a girl about twenty-five years old. They sat on opposite sides of the fire-place, and both were clothed alike, in blue striped homespun, as previously described.

"Look at their moccasins," said the doctor. "They know much more about deer-skins than half the English settlers do. Do you observe, they are made of carriboo, and not moose hide. The former contracts with wet and the other distends and gets out of shape. Simple as that little thing is, few people have ever noticed it."

The girl, had she been differently trained and dressed, would have been handsome, but spare diet, exposure to the sun and wind, and field-labour, had bronzed her face, so that it was difficult to say what her real complexion was. Her hair was jet black and very luxuriant, but the handkerchief which served for bonnet and head-dress by day, and for a cap by night, hid all but the ample folds in front.

Her teeth were as white as ivory, and contrasted strangely with the gipsy colour of her cheeks. Her eyes were black, soft, and liquid, and the lashes remarkably long, but the expression of her face, which was naturally good, indicated, though not very accurately, the absence of either thought or curiosity.

After a while objects became more distinct in the room, as we gradually became accustomed to the dim light of the small windows. The walls were hung round with large hanks of yarn, princ.i.p.ally blue and white. An open cupboard displayed some plain coa.r.s.e cups and saucers, and the furniture consisted of two rough tables, a large bunk,1 one or two sea-chests, and a few chairs of simple workmans.h.i.+p. A large old-fas.h.i.+oned spinning-wheel and a barrel-churn stood in one corner, and in the other a shoemaker's bench, while carpenter's tools were suspended on nails in such places as were not occupied by yarn. There was no ceiling or plastering visible anywhere, the floor of the attic alone separated that portion of the house from the lower room, and the joice on which it was laid were thus exposed to view, and supported on wooden cleets, leather, oars, rudders, together with some half-dressed pieces of ash, snow-shoes, and such other things as necessity might require. The wood-work, wherever visible, was begrimed with smoke, and the floor, though doubtless sometimes swept, appeared as if it had the hydrophobia hidden in its cracks, so carefully were soap and water kept from it. Hams and bacon were nowhere visible. It is probable, if they had any, they were kept elsewhere, but still more probable that they had found their way to market, and been trans.m.u.ted into money, for these people are remarkably frugal and abstemious, and there can be no doubt, the doctor says, that there is not a house in the settlement in which there is not a supply of ready money, though the appearance of the buildings and their inmates would by no means justify a stranger in supposing so. They are neither poor nor dest.i.tute, but far better off than those who live more comfortably and inhabit better houses.

1 Bunk is a word in common use, and means a box that makes a seat by day and serves for a bedstead by night.

The only article of food that I saw was a barrel of eggs, most probably acc.u.mulated for the Halifax market, and a few small fish on rods, undergoing the process of smoking in the chimney corner.

The old woman was knitting and enjoying her pipe, and the girl was dressing wool, and handling a pair of cards with a rapidity and ease that would have surprised a Lancas.h.i.+re weaver. The moment she rose to sweep up the hearth I saw she was an heiress. When an Acadian girl has but her outer and under garment on, it is a clear sign, if she marries, there will be a heavy demand on the fleeces of her husband's sheep; but if she wears four or more thick woollen petticoats, it is equally certain her portion of worldly goods is not very small.

"Doctor," sais I, "it tante every darnin' needle would reach her through them petticoats, is it?"

"Oh!" said he, "Mr Slick--oh!" and he rose as usual, stooped forward, pressed his hands on his ribs, and ran round the room, if not at the imminent risk of his life, certainly to the great danger of the spinning wheel and the goslings. Both the females regarded him with great surprise, and not without some alarm.

"He has the stomach-ache," sais I, in French, "he is subject to it."

"Oh! oh!" said he, when he heard that, "oh, Mr Slick, you will be the death of me."

"Have you got any peppermint?" sais I.

"No," said she, talking in her own patois; and she sc.r.a.ped a spoonful of soot from the chimney, and putting it into a cup, was about pouring hot water on it for an emetic, when he could stand it no longer, but rus.h.i.+ng out of the door, put to flight a flock of geese that were awaiting their usual meal, and stumbling over a pig, fell at full length on the ground, nearly crus.h.i.+ng the dog, who went off yelling as if another such blow would be the death of him, and hid himself under the barn. The idea of the soot-emetic relieved the old lady, though it nearly fixed the doctor's flint for him. She extolled its virtues to the skies; she saved her daughter's life, she said, with it once, who had been to Halifax, and was taken by an officer into a pastrycook's shop and treated. He told her if she would eat as much as she could at once, he would pay for it all.

Well, she did her best. She eat one loaf of plumcake, three trays of jellies, a whole counter of little tarts, figs, raisins, and oranges, and all sorts of things without number. Oh! it was a grand chance, she said, and the way she eat was a caution to a cormorant; but at last she gave out she couldn't do no more. The foolish officer, the old lady observed, if he had let her fetch all them things home, you know we could have helped her to eat them, and if we couldn't have eat 'em all in one day, surely we could in one week; but he didn't think of that I suppose. But her daughter liked to have died; too much of a good thing is good for nothing. Well, the soot-emetic cured her, and then she told me all its effects; and it's very surprising, it didn't sound bad in French, but it don't do to write it in English at all; it's the same thing, but it tells better in French. It must be a very nice language that for a doctor, when it makes emetics sound so pretty; you might hear of 'em while you was at dinner and not disturb you.

You may depend it made the old lady wake snakes and walk chalks talking of physic. She told me if a man was dying or a child was born in all that settlement, she was always sent for, and related to me some capital stories; but somehow no English or Yankee woman could tell them to a man, and a man can't tell them in English. How is this, Squire, do you know? Ah! here is the doctor, I will ask him by and by.

Women, I believe, are born with certain natural tastes. Sally was death on lace, and old Aunt Thankful goes the whole figure for furs; either on 'em could tell real thread or genuine sable clear across the church. Mother was born with a tidy devil, and had an eye for cobwebs and blue-bottle flies. She waged eternal war on 'em; while Phoebe Hopewell beat all natur for bigotry and virtue as she called them (bijouterie and virtu). But most Yankee women when they grow old, specially if they are spinsters, are grand at compoundin' medicines and presarves. They begin by nursin' babies and end by nursin'

broughten up folks. Old Mother Boudrot, now, was great on herbs, most of which were as simple and as harmless as herself. Some of them was new to me, though I think I know better ones than she has; but what made her onfallible was she had faith. She took a key out of her pocket, big enough for a jail-door, and unlocking a huge sailor's chest, selected a box made by the Indians of birch bark, worked with porcupine quills, which enclosed another a size smaller, and that a littler one that would just fit into it, and so on till she came to one about the size of an old-fas.h.i.+oned coffee-cup. They are called a nest of boxes. The inner one contained a little horn thing that looked like a pill-box, and that had a charm in it.

It was a portion of the nail of St Francis's big toe, which never failed to work a cure on them who believed in it. She said she bought it from a French prisoner, who had deserted from Melville Island, at Halifax, during the last war. She gave him a suit of clothes, two s.h.i.+rts, six pair of stockings, and eight dollars for it. The box was only a bit of bone, and not worthy of the sacred relic, but she couldn't afford to get a gold one for it.

"Poor St Croix," she said, "I shall never see him again. He had great larning; he could both read and write. When he sold me that holy thing, he said:

"'Madam, I am afraid something dreadful will happen to me before long for selling that relic. When danger and trouble come, where will be my charm then?'

"Well, sure enough, two nights after (it was a very dark night) the dogs barked dreadful, and in the morning Peter La Roue, when he got up, saw his father's head on the gate-post, grinnin' at him, and his daughter Annie's handkerchief tied over his crown and down under his chin. And St Croix was gone, and Annie was in a trance, and the priest's desk was gone, with two hundred pounds of money in it; and old Jodrie's ram had a saddle and bridle on, and was tied to a gate of the widow of Justine Robisheau, that was drowned in a well at Halifax; and Simon Como's boat put off to sea of itself, and was no more heard of. Oh, it was a terrible night, and poor St Croix, people felt very sorry for him, and for Annie La Roue, who slept two whole days and nights before she woke up. She had all her father's money in her room that night; but they searched day after day and never found it."

Well, I didn't undeceive her. What's the use? Master St Croix was an old privateers-man. He had drugged La Roue's daughter to rob her of her money; had stolen two hundred pounds from the priest, and Como's boat, and sold the old lady a piece of his toe-nail for eight or ten pounds' worth in all. I never shake the faith of an ignorant person.

Suppose they do believe too much, it is safer than believing too little. You may make them give up their creed, but they ain't always quite so willing to take your's. It is easier to make an infidel than a convert. So I just let folks be, and suffer them to skin their own eels.

After that she took to paying me compliments on my French, and I complimented her on her good looks, and she confessed she was very handsome when she was young, and all the men were in love with her, and so on. Well, when I was about startin', I inquired what she had to sell in the eatin' line.

"Eggs and fish," she said, "were all she had in the house."

On examining the barrel containing the former, I found a white-lookin', tasteless powder among them.

"What's that?" said I.

Well, she told me what it was (pulverised gypsum), and said, "It would keep them sweet and fresh for three months at least, and she didn't know but more."

So I put my hand away down into the barrel and pulled out two, and that layer she said was three months old. I held them to the light, and they were as clear as if laid yesterday.

"Boil them," sais I, and she did so; and I must say it was a wrinkle I didn't expect to pick up at such a place as that, for nothing could be fresher.

"Here is a dollar," said I, "for that receipt, for it's worth knowing, I can tell you."

"Now," thinks I, as I took my seat again, "I will try and see if this French gall can talk English." I asked her, but she shook her head.

So to prove her, sais I, "Doctor, ain't she a beauty, that? See what lovely eyes she has, and magnificent hair! Oh, if she was well got up, and fas.h.i.+onably dressed, wouldn't she be a sneezer? What beautiful little hands and feet she has! I wonder if she would marry me, seein'

I am an orthodox man."

Well, she never moved a muscle; she kept her eyes fixed on her work, and there wasn't the leastest mite of a smile on her face. I kinder sorter thought her head was rather more stationary, if anything, as if she was listening, and her eyes more fixed, as if she was all attention; but she had dropped a st.i.tch in her knitting, and was taking of it up, so perhaps I might be mistaken. Thinks I, I will try you on t'other tack.

"Doctor, how would you like to kiss her, eh? Ripe-looking lips them, ain't they? Well, I wouldn't kiss her for the world," said I; "I would just as soon think of kissing a ham that is covered with creosote.

There is so much ile and smoke on 'em, I should have the taste in my mouth for a week. Phew! I think I taste it now!"

She coloured a little at that, and pretty soon got up and went out of the room; and presently I heard her was.h.i.+ng her hands and face like anything,

Thinks I, "You sly fox! you know English well enough to kiss in it anyhow, if you can't talk in it easy. I thought I'de find you out; for a gall that won't laugh when you tickle her, can't help screamin' a little when you pinch her; that's a fact." She returned in a few minutes quite a different lookin' person, and resumed her usual employment, but still persisted that she did not know English. In the midst of our conversation, the master of the house, Jerome Boudrot, came in. Like most of the natives of Chesencook, he was short in stature, but very active, and like all the rest a great talker.

"Ah, gentlemen," he said, "you follow de sea, eh?"

"No," sais I, "the sea often follows us, especially when the wind is fair."

"True, true," he said; "I forget dat. It followed me one time. Oh, I was wunst lost at sea; and it's an awful feelin'. I was out of sight of land one whole day, all night, and eetle piece of next day. Oh, I was proper frightened. It was all sea and sky, and big wave, and no land, and none of us knew our way back." And he opened his eyes as if the very recollection of his danger alarmed him. "At last big s.h.i.+p came by, and hailed her, and ask:

"'My name is Jerry Boudrot; where am I?'

"'Aboard of your own vessel,' said they; and they laughed like anything, and left us.

"Well, towards night we were overtaken by Yankee vessel, and I say, 'My name is Jerry Boudrot; where am I?'

"'Thar,' said the sarcy Yankee captain, 'and if you get this far, you will be here;' and they laughed at me, and I swore at them, and called 'em all manner of names.

"Well, then I was proper frightened, and I gave myself up for lost, and I was so sorry I hadn't put my deed of my land on recor, and that I never got pay for half a cord of wood I sold a woman, who nevare return agin, last time I was to Halifax; and Esadore Terrio owe me two s.h.i.+llings and sixpence, and I got no note of hand for it, and I lend my ox-cart for one day to Martell Baban, and he will keep it for a week, and wear it out, and my wife marry again as sure as de world.

Oh, I was very scare and propare sorry, you may depend, when presently great big English s.h.i.+p come by, and I hail her.

"'My name is Jerry Boudrot,' sais I, 'when did you see land last?'

"'Thirty days ago,' said the captain.