“François Paradis! … Why surely, father, I remember François Paradis.” And François, content, gave answer to the questions of a moment ago.
“No, Mr. Chapdelaine, I have not kept the farm. When the good man died I sold everything, and since then I have been nearly all the time in the woods, trapping or bartering with the Indians of Lake Mistassini and the Riviere aux Foins. I also spent a couple of years in the Labrador.” His look passed once more from Samuel Chapdelaine to Maria, and her eyes fell.
“Are you going home today?” he asked.
“Yes; right after dinner.”
“I am glad that I saw you, for I shall be passing up the river near your place in two or three weeks, when the ice goes out. I am here with some Belgians who are going to buy furs from the Indians; we shall push up so soon as the river is clear, and if we pitch a tent above the falls close to your farm I will spend the evening with you.”
“That is good, François, we will expect you.”
The alders formed a thick and unbroken hedge along the river Peribonka; but the leafless stems did not shut away the steeply sloping bank, the levels of the frozen river, the dark hem of the woods crowding to the farther edge-leaving between the solitude of the great trees, thickset and erect, and the bare desolateness of the ice only room for a few narrow fields, still for the most part uncouth with stumps, so narrow indeed that they seemed to be constrained in the grasp of an unkindly land.
To Maria Chapdelaine, glancing inattentively here and there, there was nothing in all this to make one feel lonely or afraid. Never had she known other prospect from October to May, save those still more depressing and sad, farther yet from the dwellings of man and the marks of his labour; and moreover all about her that morning had taken on a softer outline, was brighter with a new promise, by virtue of something sweet and gracious that the future had in its keeping. Perhaps the coming springtime … perhaps another happiness that was stealing toward her, nameless and unrecognized.
Samuel Chapdelaine and Maria were to dine with their relative Azalma Larouche, at whose house they had spent the night. No one was there but the hostess, for many years a widow, and old Nazaire Larouche, her brother-in-law. Azalma was a tall, flat-chested woman with the undeveloped features of a child, who talked very quickly and almost without taking breath while she made ready the meal in the kitchen. From time to time she halted her preparations and sat down opposite her visitors, less for the moments repose than to give some special emphasis to what she was about to say; but the washing of a dish or the setting of the table speedily claimed her attention again, and the monologue went on amid the clatter of dishes and frying-pans.
The pea-soup was soon ready and on the table. While eating, the two men talked about the condition of their farms and the state of the spring ice.
“You should be safe enough for crossing this evening,” said Nazaire Larouche, “but it will be touch-and-go, and I think you will be about the last. The current is strong below the fall and already we have had three days of rain.’ ”
“Everybody says that the ice will hold for a long time yet,” replied his sister-in-law. “Better sleep here again tonight, and after supper the young folks from the village will drop in and spend the evening. It is only fair that Maria should have a little more amusement before you drag her off into your woods up there.”
“She has had plenty of gaiety at St. Prime; singing and games almost every night. We are greatly obliged to you, but I am going to put the horse in immediately after dinner so as to get home in good time.”
Old Nazaire Larouche spoke of the morning’s sermon which had struck him as well reasoned and fine; then after a spell of silence he exclaimed abruptly—“Have you baked?”
His amazed sister-in-law gaped at him for a moment before it stole upon her that this was his way of asking for bread. A little later he attacked her with another question:—“Is your pump working well?”
Which signified that there was no water on the table. Azalma rose to get it, and behind her back the old fellow sent a sly wink in the direction of Maria. “I assault her with parables,” chuckled he. “It’s politer.”
On the plank walls of the house were pasted old newspapers, and calendars hung there such as the manufacturers of farm implements or grain merchants scatter abroad, and also prints of a religious character; a representation in crudest colour and almost innocent of perspective of the basilica at Ste. Anne de Beaupre—, a likeness of Pope Pius X; a chromo where the palely-smiling Virgin Mary disclosed her bleeding heart encircled with a golden nimbus.
“This is nicer than our house,” thought Maria to herself. Nazaire Larouche kept directing attention to his wants with dark sayings:—“Was your pig very lean?” he demanded; or perhaps:—“Fond of maple sugar, are you? I never get enough of it …”
And then Azalma would help him to a second slice of pork or fetch the cake of maple sugar from the cupboard. When she wearied of these strange table-manners and bade him help himself in the usual fashion, he smoothed her ruffled temper with good-humoured excuses, “Quite right. Quite right. I won’t do it again; but you always loved a joke, Azalma. When you have youngsters like me at dinner you must look for a little nonsense.”
Maria smiled to think how like he was to her father; both tall
