Between the Government pier and the renowned Percé Rock, after a heavy bit of weather from the North, the beach is strewn with a carpet of algae rich in the chemicals “good for the garden”. Truly there are “subjects” galore awaiting the artist in Canada!
All these carts mentioned are big and are found anywhere on the coast. The dog-cart is tiny and is especially of Quebec. For three hundred years the dog-cart has been reigning in Quebec. When one hears the habitant talk of “le chien”, one may be quite sure the subject is the dog which draws a cart. There is no other dog known thus generally to the whole countryside. Most of these little carts are homemade affairs, and, strange to say, unlike the larger carts, usually have springs. Many of the seats in these tiny carts are built up, so that the driver sits above his “horse”. Many of the carts are fitted with iron foot-rests which fall below the body of the cart. This arrangement is handy when the driver happens to be a tall man. The driver and rider in a dogcart is not always a child as might be supposed. In Quebec labourers ride to their work of a morning in a dog-cart. Sometimes the load is as much as the dog can navigate, but having deposited his master at mill or factory he is free to roam all day until closing time, when he must be on hand to carry his master home again. For many miles they come, these little carts and but for the dog how would the workman get to his work? The dogcart is by no means a toy. It serves a phase of Canadian life and helps along Canadian business.
Another phase of the dogcart life is seen at noon when from all around the countryside dogcarts foregather bringing to the workmen hot dinners the wives have cooked. It is a sight to behold when thirty or forty of these little wagons dash along the Saint Gregoire highway at noon bound for the cotton mill at Montmorenci Falls. The driver in each cart is now a small boy and, dinner or no dinner, there is sure to be a race as to who gets there first. The dogs look as if they enjoyed the sport as much as the boys. Coming back, the children take their time, there being no hurry to get back to home and play with the empty pail.
In many parts of Quebec the dogcart is often enough the perambulator of the smallest member of the “grande famille”. Older children, in these cases, usually go ahead of the dog which follows drawing in his tiny cart the little monarch of the household and the road. On all boyish adventures the dog comes in, with the cart. Of course, there are dogs and dogs, even here. Some are finer and sturdier than others and none are thoroughbred but all are suitable for their work in the little cart. And it is surprising what loads they can pull. All the carts are constructed so that little weight comes on the dog.
Such scenes along the Quebec highway where dogcarts may even be seen taking a bag of mail from train to post office, carry one back to similar scenes in old France and Belgium. But in the outlying districts the dogcart’s chief use is for bringing in firewood, in some instances from the handy pile in the yard, but usually in the form of boughs from the scrub of the sea-coast, or the distant hills.
The highest form of the two-wheeler, however, though perhaps not any more picturesque than its humbler brethren, is of course the caleche. The caleche was the earliest voiture of seigneury times. It had a period of great popularity. Jaunty in line, it swayed with every rut, in the day of the bad road. Then the more elaborate four-wheeler was brought in from both England and France and the caleche fell into disuse, soon almost entirely disappearing from the Quebec highway. A few lone remnants of former glory now appear daily before the Hotel Frontenac, picking up an occasional “fare”. Someone with enough of the romantic spirit left will wish to see Quebec, city of the Intendents, revert to the vehicle used in that day. Nevertheless, though the caleche has practically died out, even at this moment, darkest in its history, there comes word that it is to have its renaissance; one more proof that Romance still lives in the hearts of modern life; one more proof that the two-wheel cart of Romance is still a prime favourite with this old world, which is more than ever a-wheel.
CHAPTER XVII.
BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE.
ROM early spring until late in the fall, by every highway and by-path of rural Quebec, and almost as generally in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, the visitor happens upon many a housewife turning into multitudinous service a great iron pot or cauldron, neatly suspended from a log, or perched skilfully between two heaps of field-stones.