The bus rolled up the hill to the Park, which is on the site of the old ramparts of Fort Anne; and stopped before a long, quaint building, with three great chimneys.
“This was the officers’ quarters, built in 1798,” explained Jim; “and over on the other side of the Park you can see the remains of the powder magazine, and some of the fortifications, half buried in the embankment. There are thirty fireplaces in this building, and many rooms filled with curios well worth inspecting.”
A little, white-haired old man of military bearing took them through the building, and explained the exhibits. He marshaled and directed the sight-seers like a crowd of children, and insisted upon absolute quiet while he talked. Not a finger did they dare lay upon any article, and not a move could they make in any direction until he gave the signal.
Martha leaned over and whispered some comment to Nancy, and immediately the guide fixed his piercing eyes upon her severely, and said, “I shall have to ask you to refrain from talking during my lecture. I cannot tell about these things when anyone else is talking.”
Martha shrank back, filled with confusion; and after that episode no one of the whole party ventured even the briefest remark.
In the narrow hall is displayed a collection of cuts of coats of arms, a treasure to anyone interested in the development of heraldry. In one of the rooms there is a collection of coins, covering all types used in Nova Scotia since the first settlement. Another is given over mostly to souvenirs of the World War, seeming a bit out of place amidst the relative antiques of the other rooms. Still another contains various pieces of firearms during the different sieges of the Fort. The guide displayed also, as one of his choicest bits, the immense key to the fort, handed over to the English general by the French commander in the last siege, and until recently in the hands of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
But the girls found most interesting of all, the Acadian room, taken intact from an Acadian house, and rebuilt into its present setting. It is simplicity itself, and takes one back in spirit to those delightfully simple people whom Longfellow has made so well known. The floor is bare, and the woodwork painted Acadian blue; and on the walls are a few holy pictures, and a couple of rifles. At one side of the fireplace with its andirons and swinging crane, stands a wooden cradle with a hood at one end; and on the other side is the spinning wheel. The chairs have seats made of strips of deerskin, woven in and out. “Just like the mats we made out of paper in the kindergarten,” said Nancy. One of the oddest articles in the room is a table which one can transform into a chair or a cupboard by the proper manipulation of the leaves. On the door is the old wooden latch, and the guide explained that if this were an outside door, the latchstring would be drawn in at night, after which no one could open the door from the outside.
“So that,” exclaimed Nancy in delightful enthusiasm, forgetting the rule of silence, “is where we get our expression ‘our latchstring is always out for you.’ I’ve wondered about that ever since I first heard it.”
“Don’t you feel just as if you had been let out from school?” asked Martha, as they left the building and walked across the Park to take a look at the powder magazine.
“Yes; wasn’t he strict?” answered Jeanette. “But he certainly knows his exhibits. And how he loves them, and everything connected with Nova Scotia!”