About every farmhouse, men and women were engaged in driving in cows, tying up horses, shutting up poultry, feeding pigs, and performing the hundred and one duties that fall to the lot of a farmer's family. Everywhere were children. Each farmer seemed to have a quiver full of these quiet, well-behaved little creatures, who gazed shyly and curiously at the dog-cart as it went driving by.
When they came to a brawling, noisy river, having on its banks a saw-mill deserted for the night, Agapit exclaimed, "We are at last arrived!"
Close to the mill was a low, old-fashioned house, situated in the midst of an extensive apple orchard in which the fruit was already taking on size and color.
"They picked four hundred barrels from it last year," said Agapit, "our cousins, the Kessys, who live here. They are rich, but very simple," and springing out, he tied Toochune's head to the gatepost. "Now let us enter," he said, and he ushered Vesper into a small, dull room where an old woman of gigantic stature sat smoking by an open fireplace.
Another tall woman, with soft black eyes, and wearing on her breast a medal of the congregation of St. Anne, took Rose away to the sick-room, while Agapit led Vesper and Narcisse to the fireplace. "Cousin grandmother, will you not tell this gentleman of the commencement of the Bay?"
The old woman, who was nearly sightless, took her pipe from her mouth, and turned her white head. "Does he speak French?"
"Yes, yes," said Agapit, joyfully.
A light came into her face,—a light that Vesper noticed always came into the faces of Acadiens, no matter how fluent their English, if he addressed them in their mother tongue.
"I was born en haut de la Baie" (up the Bay), she began, softly.
"Further than Sleeping Water,—towards Digby," said Agapit, in an undertone.