Cape Breton Tales

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ... la rose witnesseth Of The Bucherons Of La Belle Melanie Of Simeon's Son la rose witnesseth Of How the Bucherons Were Punished for Their Hard Hearts T was a boy of ten who listened to La Rose, and while he listened, the sun stood still in the sky, there was an enchantment on all the world. Whatever La Rose said you had to believe, somehow. Oh, I assure you, no one could be more exacting than she in the matter of proofs. For persons who would give an ear to any absurd story tattled abroad she had nothing but contempt. "Before you believe a thing," said La Rose, sagely, "you must know whether it is true or not. That is the most important part of a story." She would give a decisive nod to her small head and shut her lips together almost defiantly. Yet always, somewhere in the corner of her alert gray eye, there seemed to be lurking the ghost of a twinkle. La Rose had no age. She was both very young and very old. For all she had never traveled more than ten miles from the little Cape Breton town of Port l'Eveque, you had the feeling that she had seen a good deal of the world, and it is certain that her life had not been easy; yet she would laugh as quickly and abundantly as a young girl just home from the convent. These two were the best of comrades. La Rose had been the boy's nurse when he was little, and as he had no mother she had kept a feeling of special affection and responsibility for him. Thus it happened that whenever she was making some little expedition out across the harbor--say for blueberries on the barrens, or white moorberries, or ginseng--she would get permission from the captain for Michel to go with her; and this was the happiest privilege in the boy's life. Most of all because of the stories La Rose would tell him. La Rose...