A LABRADOR SPRING 
which the Acadians came, and the French lan- 
guage of the sixteenth century. The little 
children shrugged their shoulders delightfully, 
and said s’ paw as cleverly as their elders. Now 
s’paw is merely a contraction of je ne sais pas, 
and corresponds to ‘‘I dunno,” or to the more 
forcible ‘‘ search me’’ used by our friend the 
Yankee painter. Only the doctor and the store- 
keeper as far as I could discover spoke English 
in this place. 
The continued use of the French tongue by a 
people living under the English flag, extending 
through so many generations, is interesting 
and is found not only in out of the way places 
like this little village, but also in a city of the 
size of Quebec, where one sees the words ‘‘ 
son a loué’’ placed above “ house to let.’”’ The 
French and English appear as difficult to mix as 
oil and water. That a certain amount of as- 
similation, however, has taken place is shown in 
the use of the word potdtes instead of pomme 
de terre, and in the incorporation of various 
terms used in connection with navigation. For 
example, ‘‘ heave tranquilement’’ and ‘‘ heave 
le slack away,”’ and “ go ahead un peu”’ were 
orders which arrested my attention on the 
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