Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/270

220 Maillet, Boudrot. Marcelin Desveaux' grandfather was the first child born in the District. He and his wife Denatile live in a cot near the highroad. The living-room is low, well-scrubbed, and carpeted with red-scrolled and gorgeously bouqueted hooked rugs. A cabinet in the corner guards a shelf of china treasures. Old chests hold home-spun cloth, blankets and woven bedspreads. In the winter, bustling Madame Desveaux and her married daughter spin, weave, hook and knit from dawn to candle-light. Summer evenings they sit through the long dusk within the doorway while the old habitants,—their golden wedding is not far off,—puff at their pipes and watch their darkly handsome son-in-law chisel tombstones in the yard, and letter them with white paint. This is André Poirier's profession only when there are no fox or mink to be trapped. One of the sons of sober Marcelin and robust Denatile was lost at Gloucester when a big vessel cut down his schooner, and they have daughters married in Bangor. In their patois chatter one gets a word now and then, as they receive the visit of the young man from Robin's and his stranger-guests. At the moment of departure a flowered vase is abstracted from the cabinet and the best mat thrust hastily into paper. One has no need to understand words then to perceive that this, in the Cheticamp way, is to say "Good-bye."

The return from Eastern Harbour, Cheticamp, may be