Chapter 2: The Great Bear Hunt

There were many tribes of Indians scattered over Acadia—Abenakes, Etechemins, Micmacs, Openagos, and so forth, in whom Constance de la Tour took a very deep interest. She was full of zeal to teach them the Christian religion, and how to improve their way of living; and she went about from village to village, and from wigwam to wigwam, with wonderful patience striving to reach the hearts of the pagans, and help them to better things; so winning their love that she came to be esteemed as the guardian angel of their children.

Raoul usually accompanied her on these journeys, and strange enough were many of the places they visited. Now it would be a mere huddle of huts that looked like inverted wash-tubs, or again what seemed a cluster of large-sized hen-coops, or perhaps a big shed a hundred feet long with sleeping stalls below, and a loft above for the children, having neither windows nor chimney, and inclosed by a heavy oak stockade.

Whether big or little, these odd dwellings swarmed with squaws and children, and while his aunt was speaking to the elder folk, Raoul would always find amusement with the youngsters.

Many useful things did Madame de la Tour teach her dusky pupils—the way to bake bread, how to raise corn, pumpkins, and melons, the mode of preserving the fruit that was so plentiful in the autumn, and the art of making maple-sugar, all of which helped to benefit them, no less than the Gospel message she never failed to give also. She was the first missionary to these wild children of the forest in Acadia, and her memory is still enduring and fragrant because of the good she wrought amongst them. Raoul, vastly as he admired his aunt’s devotion, could not of course be expected to share in it to any great extent, but since his idea of life was to have as good a time as possible—and he much preferred going on these expeditions to being cooped up in the fort—it suited him all right that she should be so zealous as she was.