10. Léon and Marie Arsenault

Roubi the dog said: “T know where I can get lots of bacon. I will go and get some.”

He left and returned to the farm for bacon. In the meantime, the farmer had noticed that someone had stolen his eggs and he had the feeling that the thief was Roubi the dog. He had big wicked dogs in the cellar. The farmer said:

“He stole our eggs, he will come back for bacon.”

Roubi the dog went down in the cellar and when he got there, the two big dogs caught him. The farmer went down and said:

“You're the one who stole our eggs and now you are bold enough to come back for bacon? Now, we are going to kill you!

They brought him out, they hitched big bulls to his four legs and he was all torn apart!

As for Mother Blackbird, she lived happily ever after. The other day when I passed by her place, she was sitting on her nest and singing:

“Chirlip, chirlap, chirlip, chirlap, chirlip, chirlap.”

In the fall of 1952, when they were 72 years old, Léon and Marie left their home in Maximeville and moved into a small house in the neighbouring community of Abram's Village. With all their children married and gone, they felt a bit isolated, especially Marie who wanted to move closer to the church and be surrounded by more neighbours and grandchildren. Three years later she was admitted to the Prince County Hospital in Summerside and was operated on for gall-stones. Nine days after the operation, suffering from high blood-pressure, she had a stroke and died on 19 November 1955. She was waked in Maximeville at the home of her daughter, Lena Barriault. The funeral service was held at the St. Philippe and St. Jacques Roman Catholic Church with the burial in the parish cemetery.

Thus came to an end the very full life of an unpretentious Acadian woman, wife and mother of a large family. During her lifetime, she had never sought any honours or special recognition but she won the admiration and esteem of all those who had the opportunity to know her. To this day, very fond memories remain of this lovely woman.

After his wife passed away, Léon lived alone in his Abram's Village home. Only during the last years of his life did he spend the winter months with his son John and his family in Abram's Village, while the very last winter of his life he lived in Wellington with his son Edmond and his wife Virginie.

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