Part 4 (2/2)
petiots, how can I describe our joy and rapture, when we recognized countenances familiar to us. Grasping their hands, with hearts too full for utterance, we wept like children. Many a sorrowing heart revived to love and happiness on that day. Many a wife pressed to her bosom a long lost husband. Many a fond parent clasped in rapturous embrace a loving child. Ah! such a moment repaid us a thousandfold for all our sufferings and privations, and we spent the day in rejoicing, conviviality and merriment.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Interior, Catholic Church, St. Martinsville, La._]
”The sequel of my story will be quickly told, petiots. Shortly afterwards, we left for the Teche region, where lands had been granted to us by the government. We wended our way, to our destined homes, through dismal swamps, through bayous without number and across lakes until we reached Portage Sauvage, at Fausse Pointe. The next day, we were at the Poste des Attakapas, a small hamlet having two or three houses, one store and a small wooden church, situated on Bayou Teche which we crossed in a boat.
”There, the several Acadians separated to settle on the lands granted to them.
”You must not imagine, petiots, that the Teche region was, at that time, dotted all over like nowadays with thriving farms, elegant houses and handsome villages. No, petiots, it required the nerve and perseverance of your Acadian fathers to settle there. Although beautiful and picturesque, it was a wild region inhabited, mostly, by Indians and by a few white men, trappers and hunters by occupation.
Its immense prairies, covered with weeds as tall as you, were the commons where herds of cattle and of deer roamed unmolested, save by the hunter and the panther. Such was the region your ancestors settled, and which, by their energy, they have transformed into a garden teeming with wealth.
”The Acadians enriched themselves in a country where no one will starve if he is industrious, and where one may easily become rich if he fears G.o.d, and if he is economical and orderly in his affairs.
”Petiots, I have kept my promise, and my tale is told. Your Acadian fathers were martyrs in a n.o.ble cause, and you should always be proud to be the sons of martyrs and of men of principle.”
”Grandmother,” we said, as we kissed her fondly, ”your words have fallen in willing and loving hearts, and they will bear fruit. We are proud now of being called Acadians, for there never was any people more n.o.ble, more devoted to duty and more patriotic than the Acadians who became exiles, and who braved death itself, rather than renounce their faith, their king and their country.”
[FINIS]
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