Cape Breton Tales

Cape Breton Tales by Harry James Smith. Summer comes late along the Cape Breton shore; and even while it stays there is something a little diffident and ticklish about it as if each clear warm day might perhaps be the last. Though by early June the fields are in their first emerald there are no flowers yet. The little convent girls who carry the banners at the head of the Corpus Christi procession at Arichat wear wreaths of artificial lilies of the valley and marguerites over their white veils and often enough their teeth chatter with cold before the completion of the long march—out from the church portals westward by the populous street then up through the steep open fields to the old Calvary on top of the hill then back to the church along the grass-grown upper road far above the roofs in full view of the wide bay.. Despite some discomforts the procession is a very great event; every house along the route is decked out with bunting or flags or a bright home-made carpet hung from a window. Pots of tall geraniums in scarlet bloom have been set out on the steps; and numbers of little evergreen trees or birches newly in leaf have been brought in from the country and bound to the fences. Along the roadside are gathered all the Acadians from the neighboring parishes devoutly gay enchanted with the pious spectacle. The choir following after the richly canopied Sacrament and swinging censers are chanting psalms of benediction and thanksgiving; banners and flags and veils flutter in the wind; the harbor ice-bound so many months is flecked with dancing white-caps and purple shadows: surely summer cannot be far off.. When once the ice has done passing down there they say—which may happen any time now—you will see! Perhaps all in a day the change will come. The fog that creeps in so cold at night—it will all be sucked up; the sky will be clear as glass down to the very edge of the water. Ah the fine season it will be!. That is the way summer arrives on the Acadian shore: everything bursting pell-mell into bloom; daisies and buttercups and August flowers rioting in the fields lilacs and roses shedding their fragrance in sheltered gardens; and over all the world a drench of unspeakable sunlight.. You could never forget your first sight of Arichat if you entered its narrow harbor at this divine moment. Steep low hills destitute of trees set a singularly definite sky-line just behind; and the town runs—dawdles rather—in a thin wavering band for some miles sheer on the edge of the water. Eight or ten wharves some of them fallen into dilapidation jut out at intervals from clumps of weatherbeaten storehouses; and a few small vessels it may be are lying up alongside or anchored idly off shore. Only the occasional sound of a creaking block or of a wagon rattling by on the hard roadway breaks the silence.