And it was not long before the frugal
and industrious exiles were able to construct small but
comfortable houses of their own on South Charles Street,
giving to that quarter of the city the name of French
Town. Many of them found employment on the waterside and
in navigation. The old and infirm picked oakum.
Massachusetts at one time counted in the colony a thousand
and forty of the exiles, but all these had not come direct
on the ships from Nova Scotia. Many of them had wandered
in from other colonies. The people of Massachusetts loved
not Catholics and Frenchmen; nevertheless, in some
instances they received the refugees with especial
kindness. At Worcester a small tract of land was set
aside for the Acadians to cultivate, with permission to
hunt deer at all seasons. The able-bodied men and women
toiled in the fields as reapers, and added to their income
in the evening by making wooden implements. The Acadians
were truly primitive in their methods. 'Although,' says
a writer of the time, 'they tilled the soil they kept no
animals for labour.
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