Candyman.

• Author: Mujica, Barbara

Early in the seventeenth century, France applied the name Acadie, of Micmac origin, to the area between the Atlantic Ocean and the lower river and gulf of the St. Lawrence. During the following 150 years the territory passed back and forth between French and British hands. During the mid-eighteenth century the British were in control, and upon founding Halifax, they demanded an oath of allegiance from the Acadians; those who declined to take it were to withdraw into French territory. The Acadians refused either to swear loyalty to Britain or to leave, and in 1755 the British expelled them, causing great hardship. Many of those who departed eventually settled in Louisiana, but about two thousand later returned and assimilated into the population of Nova Scotia. Their descendants - the present-day Acadians - are the subject of Candyman.

Charles LeBlanc has a B.S. in economics and has been an engineer, manager, newspaper columnist, farmer, and interpreter. Yet, when he loses his job, no one will hire him, and so he starts a business selling penny candy. Known in the neighborhood as the Candyman, he delivers goods to small stores all over the area. At first, the enterprise thrives, but when Charles is hurt in an accident and forced to slow down, keeping the family afloat becomes a struggle.

His wife, Claire, had been a teacher but was required to stop working by regulations that forbid schools from hiring married women. Beautiful, energetic, and twenty years her husband's junior, Claire embodies the Acadian will to survive. She contrives to buy their little pre-fab house, one of many that the government constructed as temporary dwellings during the war, and she embellishes it with money she earns selling Charles's damaged or out-of-season goods half price. When local grocers realize she is undercutting them, they denounce her to the zoning authorities, and she is forced to close her business. But over the centuries Acadians have learned to cope with hostility and adversity, and Claire is not about to give up. She gets a job as a substitute teacher, and then, when the rules change, she starts teaching full-time.

Of the couple's four children, Nicole is closest to Charles. She goes with him on his rounds, helps him with the heavy boxes, and watches the...