The Boys of Grand Pré School / Illustrated

by James De Mille

This was too much.

Then the doctor burst forth.

But not in fierce and furious indignation, and vehement and violent denunciation. It struck him in another way. It was his sense of the ridiculous that was affected. He forgot the ruin done to his precious editions of the classics, and his mind could only grasp the innocent, smiling faces of these five young rascals who had come into the awful seclusion of his own study to pile up his inviolable study table with old iron and old bones.

And so it was that the doctor burst forth into an uncontrollable fit of laughter,—not a common laugh, but one which was sent forth from the very depths of his nature,—all absorbing, overwhelming. Peal after peal, irrepressible. It was contagious, too. The boys caught it. They tried to restrain themselves at first. They tittered. They began to see themselves the absurdity of their act. The thought overcame them, and they all burst forth, too. The whole company thus went off into fearful explosions—cataclysms, in fact, of laughter.

It roused the house.

The family came running up to see the cause.

The doctor could not utter a word. Tears were running from his eyes; he could only point in silence to the old iron and old bone. The contagion seized upon the family also, and they all went off into the general laughter.

At length the boys took the things off the table, and put them on the floor. Gradually the doctor recovered his self-control, and asked the boys what it all meant. They told him all about it. He listened to them with a serious face, which, however, was occasionally disturbed by a tendency to another outburst, as again and again the thought of the past scene forced itself back. Finally, he managed to get the whole story, and by that time his laughter passed, and was succeeded by a new sensation.

It was one of intense delight at such discoveries. Now they appeared before him, not as old iron and old bone, but in their true character. He was an enthusiastic antiquarian, and all connected with the Acadian French excited his passionate interest. He looked affectionately at the ploughshare. He handled the colter tenderly. He examined one by one, with minute inspection, the spikes and the bolt. He scanned narrowly and admiringly the iron pot. He passed every link of the rusty chain through his fingers. He lingered long and lovingly over the coins, closely examining every one of them. He looked at the bone with an intense curiosity, mingled with deep sympathy for the unfortunate race of which it was the reminder.

He threw himself into his admiration over these with the same abandonment of feeling that had characterized his laughing fit. It was a proud and a delightful moment for the boys when they found that their discoveries were so highly prized. The doctor declared that there was nothing in the Museum to be compared with them, and finally sent for Messrs. Simmons and Long. These gentlemen soon appeared, and exhibited an interest in these Acadian relics which was fully equal to that of the doctor.