Acadian Reminiscences : The True Story of Evangeline

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Felix Voorhies. Acadian Reminiscences : The True Story of Evangeline

Introduction

Chapter One. Acadian Reminiscences

Chapter Two. My Grandmother’s Narrative

Chapter Three. Rumors of War Disturb the Peace and Quiet

Chapter Four. Threatening Clouds Overcast the Acadian Sky

Chapter Five. The Acadians Resolve to Leave Acadia as Exiles

Chapter Six. A Night of Terror and of Misery. The Exiles are Captured by the English Soldiery

Chapter Seven. Assisted by Their Generous Friends

Chapter Eight. The True Story of Evangeline

Chapter Nine. The Acadians leave Maryland to go to Louisiana

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It seems but yesterday, and yet sixty years have passed away since my boyhood. How fleeting is time, how swiftly does old age creep upon us with its infirmities. The curling smoke, dispelled by the passing wind, the water that glides with a babbling murmur in the gentle stream, leave as deep a mark of their passage as do the fleeting days of man.

I was twelve years old, and yet I can picture in my mind the noble simplicity of my father’s house. The homes of our fathers were not showy, but their appearance was smiling and inviting; they had neither quaintness nor gaudiness, but were as grand in their simplicity as the boundless hospitality of their owners, for no people were more generous or hospitable than the Acadians who settled in the magnificent and poetical wilds of the Teche country.

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In the cold winter days the family assembled in the hall, where a goodly fire blazed on the hearth, and while the wind whistled outside, our grandmother, an exile from Acadia, would relate to us the stirring scenes she had witnessed when her people were driven from their homes by the British, their sufferings during their long pilgrimage overland from Maryland to the wilds of Louisiana, the dangers that beset them on their long journey through endless forests, along the precipitous banks of rivers too deep to be forded, among hostile Indians, that followed them stealthily, like wolves, day and night, ever ready to pounce upon them and massacre them.

And as she spoke, we drew closer to her, and grouped around her and stirred not, lest we lose one of her words.

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