Little Alma Rose heard praises in the air and hastened to demand her portion. “I have been a good girl too, haven’t I, father?”
“Certainly … Certainly. A black sin indeed if one were naughty on the day when the little Jesus was born.”
To the children, Jesus of Nazareth was ever “the little Jesus,” the curly-headed babe of the sacred picture; and in truth, for the parents as well, such was the image oftenest brought to mind by the Name. Not the sad enigmatic Christ of the Protestant, but a being more familiar and less august, a newborn infant in his mother’s arms, or at least a tiny child who might be loved without great effort of the mind or any thought of the coming sacrifice.
“Would you like me to rock you?”
“Yes.”
He took the little girl on his knees and began to swing her back and forth.
“And are we going to sing too?”
“Yes.”
“Very well; now sing with me:”
Dans son étable,
Que Jésus est charmant!
Qu’il est aimable
Dans son abaissement
He began in quiet tones that he might not drown the other slender voice; but soon emotion carried him away and he sang with all his might, his gaze dreamy and remote. Telesphore drew near and looked at him with worshipping eyes. To these children brought up in a lonely house, with only their parents for companions, Samuel Chapdelaine embodied all there was in the world of wisdom and might. As he was ever gentle and patient, always ready to take the children on his knee and sing them hymns, or those endless old songs he taught them one by one, they loved him with a rare affection.
… Tous les palais des rois
N’ont rien de comparable
Aux beautés que je vois
Dans cette étable.
“Once more? Very well.”
This time the mother and Tit’Bé joined in. Maria could not resist staying her prayers for a few moments that she might look and hearken; but the words of the hymn renewed her ardour, and she soon took up the task again with a livelier faith … “Hail Mary, full of grace …”
Trois gros navires sont arrivés,
Charges d’avoine, charges de blé.
Nous irons sur l’eau nous y prom-promener,
Nous irons jouer dans l’ile …
“And now? Another song: which?” Without waiting for a reply he struck in … “No? not that one … ‘Claire Fontaine’? Ah! That’s a beautiful one, that is! We shall all sing it together.”
He glanced at Maria, but seeing the beads ever slipping through her fingers he would not intrude.
A la claire fontaine
M’en allant promener,
J’ai trouvé l’eau si belle
Que je m’y suis baigné …
Il y a longtemps que je t’aime,
Jamais je ne t’oublierai …
Words and tune alike haunting; the unaffected sadness of the refrain lingering in the ear, a song that well may find its way to any heart.
… Sur la plus haute branche,
Le rossignol chantait.
Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui a le cœur gai …
Il y a longtemps que je t’aime
Jamais je ne t’oublierai …
The rosary lay still in the long fingers. Maria did not sing with the others; but she was listening, and this lament of a love that was unhappy fell very sweetly and movingly on her spirit a little weary with prayer.
… Tu as le coeur à rire,
Moi je l’ai à pleurer,
J’ai perdu ma maitresse
Sans pouvoir la r’trouver,
Pour un bouquet de roses
Que je lui refusai
Il y a longtemps que je t’aime,
Jamais je ne t’oublierai.
Maria looked through the window at the white fields circled by mysterious forest; the passion of religious feeling, the tide of young love rising within her, the sound of the familiar voices, fused in her heart to a single emotion. Truly the world was filled with love that evening, with love human and divine, simple in nature and mighty in strength, one and the other most natural and right; so intermingled that the beseeching of heavenly favour upon dear ones was scarcely more than the expression of an earthly affection, while the artless love songs were chanted with solemnity of voice and exaltation of spirit fit for addresses to another world.
… Je voudrais que la rose
Fut encore au rosier,
Et que le rosier meme
A la mer fût jeté.
Il y a longtemps, que je t’aime,
Jamais je ne t’oublierai …
“Hail Mary, full of grace …”
The song ended, Maria forthwith resumed her prayers with zeal refreshed, and once again the tale of the Aves mounted.
Little Alma Rose, asleep on her father’s knee, was undressed and put to bed; Telesphore followed; Tit’Bé arose in turn, stretched himself, and filled the stove with green birch logs; the father made a last trip to the stable and came back running, saying that the cold was increasing. Soon all had retired, save Maria.
“You won’t forget to put out the lamp?”
“No, father.”
Forthwith she quenched the light, preferring it so, and seated herself again by the window to repeat the last Aves. When she had finished, a scruple assailed her, and a fear lest she had erred in the reckoning, because it had not always been possible to count the beads of her rosary. Out of prudence she recited yet another fifty and then was silent—jaded, weary, but full of happy confidence, as though the moment had brought her a promise inviolable.
The world outside was lit; wrapped in that frore splendour which the night unrolls over lands of snow when the
