CHAPTER III
FRANCOIS PASSES BY
One morning three days later, on opening the door, Maria's earcaught a sound that made her stand motionless and listening. Thedistant and continuous thunder was the voice of wild waters,silenced all winter by the frost.
"The ice is going out," she announced to those within. "You can hearthe falls."
This set them all talking once again of the opening season, and ofthe work soon to be commenced. The month of May came in withalternate warm rains and fine sunny days which gradually conqueredthe accumulated ice and snow of the long winter. Low stumps androots were beginning to appear, although the shade of close-setcypress and fir prolonged the death-struggle of the perishingsnowdrifts; the roads became quagmires; wherever the brown mosseswere uncovered they were full of water as a sponge. In other landsit was already spring; vigorously the sap was running, buds werebursting and presently leaves would unfold; but the soil of farnorthern Canada must be rid of one chill and heavy mantle beforeclothing itself afresh in green.
A dozen times in the course of the day Maria and her mother openedthe window to feel the softness of the air, listen to the tinkle ofwater running from the last drifts on higher slopes, or hearken tothe mighty roar telling that the exulting Peribonka was free, andhurrying to the lake a freight of ice-floes from the remote north.
Chapdelaine seated himself that evening on the door-step for hissmoke; a stirring of memory brought the remark--"Fran?ois will soonbe passing. He said that perhaps he would come to see us." Mariareplied with a scarce audible "Yes," and blessed the shadow hidingher face.
Ten days later he came, long after nightfall. The women were alonein the house with Tit'B? and the children, the father having gonefor seed-grain to Honfleur whence he would only return on themorrow. Telesphore and Alma Rose were asleep, Tit'B? was having alast pipe before the family prayer, when Chien barked several timesand got up to sniff at the closed door. Then two light taps wereheard. The visitor waited for the invitation before he entered andstood before them.
His excuses for so late a call were made without touch ofawkwardness. "We are camped at the end of the portage above therapids. The tent had to be pitched and things put in order to makethe Belgians comfortable for the night. When I set out I knew it washardly the hour for a call and that the paths through the woods mustbe pretty bad. But I started all the same, and when I saw your light..."
His high Indian boots were caked with mud to the knee; he breathed alittle deeply between words, like a man who has been running; buthis keen eyes were quietly confident.
"Only Tit'B? has changed," said he. "When you left Mistassini he wasbut so high..." With a hand he indicated the stature of a child.Mother Chapdelaine's face was bright with interest; doubly pleasedto receive a visitor and at the chance of talking about old times.
"Nor have you altered in these seven years; not a bit; as for Maria... surely you find a difference!"
He gazed at Maria with something of wonder in his eyes. "You seethat ... that I saw her the other day at Peribonka." Tone andmanner showed that the meeting of a fortnight ago had been allowedto blot the remoter days from his recollection. But since the talkwas of her he ventured an appraising glance.
Her young vigour and health, the beautiful heavy hair and sunburntneck of a country girl, the frank honesty of eye and gesture, allthese things, thought he, were possessions of the child of sevenyears ago; and twice or thrice he shook his head as though to saythat, in truth, she had not changed. But the consciousness too wasthere that he, if not she, had changed, for the sight of her beforehim took strange hold upon his heart.
Maria's smile was a little timid, but soon she dared to raise hereyes and look at him in turn. Assuredly a handsome fellow; comely ofbody, revealing so much of supple strength; comely of face inwell-cut feature and fearless eye ... To herself she said withsome surprise that she had not thought him thus--more forwardperhaps, talking freely and rather positively-but now he scarcelyspoke at all and everything about him had an air of perfectsimplicity. Doubtless it was his expression that had given her thisidea, and his bold straightforward manner.
Mother Chapdelaine took up her questioning:--"And so you sold thefarm when your father died?"
"Yes, I sold everything. I was never a very good hand at farming,you know. Working in the shanties, trapping, making a little moneyfrom time to time as a guide or in trade with the Indians, that isthe life for me; but to scratch away at the same fields from oneyear's end to another, and stay there forever, I would not have beenable to stick to that all my life; I would have felt like a cowtethered to a stake."
"That is so, some men are made that way. Samuel, for example, andyou, and many another. It seems as if the woods had some magic foryou ..." She shook her head and looked at him in wonderment."Frozen in winter, devoured by flies in summer; living in a tent onthe snow, or in a log cabin full of chinks that the wind blowsthrough, you like that better than spending your life on a goodfarm, near shops and houses. Just think of it; a nice bit of levelland without a stump or a hollow, a good warm house all paperedinside, fat cattle pasturing or in the stable; for people wellstocked with implements and who keep their health, could there beanything better or happier?"
Paradis, looked at the floor without making answer, perhaps a trifleashamed of these wrong-headed tastes of his. "A fine life for thosewho are fond of the land," he said at last, "but I should never havebeen content."
It was the everlasting conflict between the types: pioneer andfarmer, the peasant from France who brought to new lands his idealsof ordered life and contented immobility, and that other in whom thevast wilderness awakened distant atavistic instincts for wanderingand adventure.
Accustomed for fifteen years to hear her mother vaunting the idyllichappiness of the farmer in the older settlements, Maria had verynaturally come to believe that she was of the same mind; now she wasno longer certain about it. But whoever was right she well knew thatnot one of the well-to-do young fellows at St. Prime, with hisSunday coat of fine cloth and his fur collar, was the equal ofParadis in muddy boots and faded woollen jersey.
Replying to further questions he spoke of his journeys on the NorthShore and to the head-waters of the rivers--of it all very naturallyand with a shade of hesitation, scarcely knowing what to tell andwhat to leave out, for the people he was speaking to lived in muchthe same kind of country and their manner of life was littledifferent.
"Up there the winters are harder yet than here, and still longer. Wehave only dogs to draw our sleds, fine strong dogs, but bad-temperedand often half wild, and we feed them but once a day, in theevening, on frozen fish.... Yes, there are settlements, butalmost no farming; the men live by trapping and fishing ... No, Inever had any difficulty with the Indians; I always got on very wellwith them. I know nearly all those on the Mistassini and this river,for they used to come to our place before my father died. You see heoften went trapping in winter when he was not in the shanties, andone season when he was at the head of the Riviere aux Foins, quitealone, a tree that he was cutting for firewood slipped in falling,and it was the Indians who found him by chance next day, crushed andhalf-frozen though the weather was mild. He was in their gamepreserve, and they might very well have pretended not to see him andhave left him to die there; but they put him on their toboggan,brought him to their camp, and looked after him. You knew myfather: a rough man who often took a glass, but just in hisdealings, and with a good name for doing that sort of thing himself.So when he parted with these Indians he told them to stop and seehim in the spring when they would be coming down to Pointe Bleuewith their furs-Fran?ois Paradis of Mistassini,' said he to them,will not forget what you have done ... Fran?ois Paradis.' And whenthey came in spring while running the river he looked after themwell and every one carried away a new ax, a fine woollen blanket andtobacco for six months. Always after that they used to pay us avisit in the spring, and father had the pick of their best skins forless than the companies' buyers had to pay. When he died they t
reatedme in the same way be cause I was his son and bore the same name,Fran?ois Paradis. With more capital I could have made a good bit ofmoney in this trade-a good bit of money."
He seemed a little uncomfortable at having talked so much, and aroseto go. "We shall be coming down in a few weeks and I will try tostay a little longer," he said as he departed. "It is good to seeyou again."
On the door-step his keen eyes sought in Maria's for something thathe might carry into the depth of the green woods whither he wasbent; but they found no message. In her maidenly simplicity shefeared to show herself too bold, and very resolutely she kept herglance lowered, like the young girls with richer parents who returnfrom the convents in Chicoutimi trained to look on the world with asuperhuman demureness.
Scarcely was Fran?ois gone when the two women and Tit'B? knelt for theevening prayer. The mother led in a high voice, speaking veryrapidly, the others answering in a low murmur. Five Paters, fiveAves, the Acts, and then a long responsive Litany.
"Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of ourdeath..."
"Immaculate heart of Jesus, have pity on us..."
The window was open and through it came the distant roaring of thefalls. The first mosquitos, of the spring, attracted by the light,entered likewise and the slender music of their wings filled thehouse. Tit'B? went and closed the window, then fell on his kneesagain beside the others.
"Great St. Joseph, pray for us..."
"St. Isidore, pray for us..."
The prayers over, mother Chapdelaine sighed out contentedly:--"Howpleasant it is to have a caller, when we see hardly anyone butEutrope Gagnon from year's end to year's end. But that is what comesof living so far away in the woods ... Now, when I was a girl atSt. Gedeon, the house was full of visitors nearly every Saturdayevening and all Sunday: Adelard Saint-Onge who courted me for such along time; Wilfrid Tremblay, the merchant, who had nice manners andwas always trying to speak as the French do; many others as well--notcounting your father who came to see us almost every night for threeyears, while I was making up my mind..."
Three years! Maria thought to herself that she had only seenFran?ois Paradis twice since she was a child, and she felt ashamedat the beating of her heart.