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When I began, in the summer of 1882, to collect among the Passamaquoddy Indians at Campobello, New Brunswick, their traditions and folk-lore, I expected to find very little indeed. These Indians, few in number, surrounded by white people, and thoroughly converted to Roman Catholicism, promised but scanty remains of heathenism.
"Miss Anderson's been showing me the whole of Washington society. Have you been here long?" "Since morning," said Mrs. Brinkley. And she added, "Miss Anderson?" "Yes Campobello, don't you know?" "Oh yes. Is she here to-night?" "I came with her and her aunt." "Oh yes." "How is all Boston?" asked Dan boldly. "I don't know; I'm just going down to Old Point Comfort to ask.
The only place I knew in Canada was Campobello Island, a place where we camped one summer, and I gave that. I don't think that anything but rabbits was ever born on Campobello, but it went. For that matter anything went. The physical examination upstairs was elaborate. They told me to strip, weighed me, and said I was fit.
Hazen and White arranged with John Curry of Campobello to give them warning whenever possible of any danger that might threaten from the direction of Machias. John Curry was a native of Ireland. He came to Passamaquoddy about 1770, settled there and was appointed a justice of the peace in 1774.
But she seemed honestly ignorant of everything since Campobello; she was not just the kind of New York girl who would visit in Boston, or have friends living there; probably she had never heard of his engagement. Somehow this seemed to simplify matters for Dan.
The principal situation was to be a passage between Jupiter, represented by Mavering, and Juno, whom Miss Anderson personated; it was to be a scene of conjugal reproaches and reprisals, and to end in reconciliation, in which the father of the gods sacrificed himself on the altar of domestic peace by promising to bring his family to Campobello every year.
It is a power, but opinions differ as to how it is acquired. It is certain, as I was told by an old Passamaquoddy Indian, of Sebayk, near Campobello, that some children are born m'teoulin. They manifest it, even while babes, by being capricious, eccentric, and malicious. Others acquire the art as they grow older.
"It had, mother," said Dan. "She refused me at Campobello. But it was a misunderstanding, and as soon as we met " "I knew you had met again, and what you had come home for, and I told your father so, when he came to say you were here." "Did you, mother?" he asked, charmed at her having guessed that. "Yes. She must be a good girl to send you straight home to tell us."
Just for that summer, too, some ships of the royal fleet anchored there off Campobello, and the Honorable Charles Seavern, third son of an Earl, and professional at his cups, swung them at his will, and made holiday meanwhile among the gay and willing folk of all the little towns around. There was another yet, a youth growing up to fine estates away off beyond Halifax.
The tourist, who went ashore with a view to breakfast, said that it would be a good place to stay in and go a-fishing and picnicking on Campobello Island. It has another advantage for the wicked over other Maine towns. Owing to the contiguity of British territory, the Maine Law is constantly evaded, in spirit.
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