inside bore his name and pay number on Navy Department stationery. It read, You are ordered to report to Commissioning Board 17 at 0800 hours on Wednesday, 6 February 1924, for the purpose of determining your fitness to hold a commission in the United States Navy and…
Sam had to read it twice before he realized what it meant. 'Jesus!' he whispered. 'Sweet suffering Jesus! I passed!'
He had to remind himself that he wasn't home free yet. Everybody said commissioning boards did strange things. In this particular case, what everybody said was likely to be true. Standing there in the cramped corridor, he refused to let what everybody said worry him in the least. The worst had to be over, for the simple reason that nothing could have been worse than that examination. The worst was over, and he'd come through it. He was on his way.
These days, Lucien Galtier thought of himself as an accomplished driver. He didn't say he was an accomplished driver, though. The one time he'd done that, Georges had responded, 'And what have you accomplished? Not killing anyone? Bravo, monperer
No matter how accomplished he reckoned himself (Georges to the contrary notwithstanding), he wasn't planning on going anywhere today. That he had a fine Chevrolet mattered not at all. He wouldn't have gone out on the fine paved road up to Riviere-du-Loup even in one of the U.S. Army's traveling forts-why the Americans called the infernal machines barrels he'd never figured out. The snowstorm howling down from the northwest made the trip from the farmhouse to the barn cold and hard, let alone any longer journey.
When he got inside, the livestock set up the usual infernal racket that meant, Where have you been? We're starving to death. He ignored all the animals but the horse. To it, he said, 'This is ingratitude. Would you sooner be out on the highway in such weather?'
Only another indignant snort answered him as he gave the beast oats for the day. When it came to food, the horse could be-was-eloquent. On any other subject, Galtier might as well have been talking to himself whenever he went traveling in the wagon. He knew that. He'd known it all along. It hadn't stopped him from having innumerable conversations with the horse over the years.
'I cannot talk with the automobile,' he said. 'Truly, I saw this from the moment I began to drive it. It is only a machine- although this, I have seen, does not keep Marie from talking with her sewing machine from time to time.'
The horse let drop a pile of green-brown dung. It was warmer in the barn than outside, but the dung still steamed. Lucien wondered whether the horse was offering its opinion of driving a motorcar or of conversing with a sewing machine.
'Do you want to work, old fool?' he asked the horse. The only reply it gave was to gobble the oats. He laughed. 'No, all you want to do is eat. I cannot even get you a mare for your amusement. Oh, I could, but you would not be amused. A gelding is not to be amused in that way, n 'est-cepas?'
He'd had the vet geld the horse when it was a yearling. It had never known the joys not being gelded could bring. It never would. Still, he fancied it flicked its ear at him in a resentful way. He nodded to himself. Had anyone done such a thing to him, he would have been more than merely resentful.
'Life is hard,' he said. 'Even for an animal like yourself, one that does little work these days, life is hard. Believe me, it is no easier for men and women. Most of them, most of the time, have very little, and no hope for more than very little. I get down on my knees and thank the Lord for the bounty He has given me'
Another ear flick might have said, Careful how you speak, there-lam apart of your bounty, after all Maybe the horse was exceptionally expressive today. Maybe Galtier's imagination was working harder than usual.
'Truly, I could have been unfortunate as easily as I have been fortunate,' Galtier said. The horse did not deny it. Galtier went on, 'Had I been unfortunate, you would not be eating so well as you are now. Believe me, you would not.'
Maybe the horse believed him. Maybe it didn't. Whether it did or not, it knew it was eating well now. That was what mattered. How could a man reasonably expect a horse to care about might-have-beens?
But Lucien Galtier cared. 'Consider,' he said. 'I might have been driven to try to blow up an American general, as was that anglophone farmer who blew himself up instead, poor fool. For I will not lie: I had no love for the Americans. Yes, that could have been me, had chance driven me in the other direction. But I am here, and I am as I am, and so you have the chance to stand in your stall and get fat and lazy. I wonder if that other farmer had a horse, and how the unlucky animal is doing.'
His own horse ate all he had given it and looked around for more, which was not forthcoming. It sent him a hopeful look, rather like that of a beggar who sat in the street with a tin cup beside him. Galtier rarely gave beggars money; as far as he was concerned, men who could work should. He did not insist that the horse work, not any more, but he knew better than to overfeed it.
After finishing in the barn, he walked through the snow to the farmhouse. The heat of the stove in the kitchen seemed a greater blessing than any Bishop Pascal could give. As Galtier stood close by it, Marie poured him a cup of steaming hot coffee. She added a hefty dollop of cream and, for good measure, a slug of applejack, too.
'Drink it before it gets cold,' she said in a tone that brooked no argument. 'You should be warmed inside and out.' And, before he could answer, almost-but not quite-before he could even think, she added, 'And do not say what is in your mind, you dreadful brute of a man.'
'I?' After sipping the coffee, which was delicious, Galtier said, 'I declare to the world that you have wronged me.'
'So you do,' his wife replied. 'You should remember, though, that declaring a thing does not make it true.'
She was laughing at him. He could hear it in her voice. She was also laughing because of him, a very different business. He waggled a forefinger at her. 'You are a very troublesome woman.' he said severely.
'No doubt you have reason,' Marie said. 'And no doubt I have my reasons for being troublesome. One of those reasons that comes straight to my mind is that I have a very troublesome husband.'
'Me?' Lucien shook his head. 'By no means. Not at all.' He took another sip of fortified coffee. 'How could I possibly be troublesome when I am holding here a cup of the elixir of life?' He put down the elixir of life so he could shrug out of his wool plaid coat. It was not quite warm enough in the bitter cold outside, but much too warm for standing by the stove for very long. As Lucien picked up the coffee cup again, Georges came into the kitchen. Lucien nodded to himself. 'If I am troublesome, it could be that I understand why.'
'How strange,' Marie said. 'I just now had this same thought at the same time. Men and women who have been married a long while do this, they say.'
'How strange,' Georges said, 'I just now had the thought that I have been insulted, and for once I do not even know why.'
'Never fear, son,' Galtier said. 'There are always reasons, and they are usually good ones.'
'Here, then-I will give you a reason,' Georges said. He left the kitchen, and flicked the light switch on the way out. The electric bulb in the lamp hanging from the ceiling went dark, plunging the room into gloom.
'Scamp!' Galtier called after him. Georges laughed-he was being troublesome, all right. Muttering, Galtier went over and turned on the lamp again. The kitchen shone as if he'd brought the sun indoors. 'Truly electricity is a great marvel,' he said. 'I wonder how we ever got along without it.'
'I cannot imagine,' Marie said. 'It makes everything so much easier-and you were clever enough to squeeze it out of the government.'
'And the Americans,' Galtier said. 'You must not forget the Americans'
'I am not likely to forget the Americans.' His wife's voice was tart. 'Without the Americans, we would not have the son-in-law we now have, nor the grandson, either. Believe me, I remember all this very well.'
'Without the Americans, we would not be living in the Republic of Quebec,' Galtier said, looking at the large picture as well as the small one. 'We would still be paying our taxes to Ottawa and getting nothing for them, instead of paying them to the city of Quebec… and getting nothing for them.' Neither independence nor wealth reconciled him to paying taxes. Wealth, indeed, left him even less enthusiastic than he had been before, for it meant he had to pay more than he had when he was not doing so well.
'When the Americans came, we thought it was the end of the world,' Marie said.
'And we were right,' Lucien answered. 'It was the end of the world we had always known. We have changed.' From a Quebe-cois farmer, that was blasphemy to rank alongside tabernac and calisse. 'We have changed, and we are better for it.' From a Que-becois farmer, that was blasphemy viler than any for which the local French dialect
