FAMILY GRAVES.
THE SNOWSHOE.
To the left of the little “international” church lies the old burying ground where at dusk one parching summer evening we came upon the graceful figure of little Marie watering the precious flowers growing on her “family” graves—graves with the curious “wooden” head-stones—so popular all through rural Quebec—made by the local carpenter or some member of the family who is also something in the way of a woodcarver.
As all Lorette roads lead to l’eglise, so they ramble their lane-like ways away from it, wandering first by the little village grocery occupying a cottage—once an old homestead and neat as a new pin—picking a tree-lined way between little whitewashed maisons in yards, flower-filled, up to a grande maison with steep pretentious French roof, vine-covered porch and dormer windows—a house that was once an H. B. C. Post, according to village tradition. One can readily believe it. To speak briefly, it shows the “hall-mark”. Nevertheless its pretentious dimensions are as much of a surprise here in Indian Lorette as the exquisite embroideries of l’eglise, to which all that this house suggests of frontier life, when this was the frontier, appears so entirely opposed, and yet, of course, was not.
For in the “olde days” a strange unity often existed between phases of life apparently wide apart, giving zest and ambition to adventure and investing commerce and the early church with the halo of a dramatic interest that still clings.
All over the British Empire are nooks with these touches—the union of the truly great of time and circumstance with little places. Canada appears especially rich and happy in the possession of innumerable villages and towns of this description. One has but to follow “the trail” to discover them everywhere.
The atmosphere of Indian Lorette is not all of the dead and gone variety. “Non, m’sieu, Lorette is still—a stage in the limelight.”