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As we know August at Tatamagouche, it would be too the time of the golden rod and the thistle; of the clovers, the August flowers and the Fall daisies; of the morning glory with its brief hour of passing beauty; of the wild brier with its sweet scent and pink flower. The time when in the orchards the apples are colouring and in the fields the grains are bending and waving in the breeze; the time when in the potato patch, their blossoms gone, beneath the weight of green ball, their vines sag and spread and split; the time when in pasture and field the song of the cricket is in every ear, and the grasshoppers, if not a burden, are at least a nuisance. And thus while on every side nature was warning that its summer zenith had run its full circle and the season of cold and of decay was at hand, yet over, around and above all, was the sunny wind of middle or late August, which since the beginning of time, has come in its warmth and with a tang of tide and a taint of marsh in clean, invigorating freshness to Tatamagouche. And so it still comes. Of that last summer of the Acadians at Tatamagouche we know little. It seems the season had been a usual one and that the Acadians had already made and stored their hay in their barns, and now, were preparing to reap and harvest their peas and grain. On the dykes and in the clearings, pastured herds of black cattle and flocks of sheep, and near their homes protected from the attacks of the wild animals were their hens and other poultry. Around on every side were the ceaseless sea and the age old forest. Their solitude was all but absolute. But at night, now and then, a light would flicker through a clink or an open door of a cabin; while near the shore, the fires of the Micmac encampments shielding them from the pestilence of the black fly and the mosquito, lit up in grotesque shapes and with lurid colors the forms of savage, bank and tide. Back |
