Maria Chapdelaine

eep shade of the woods; the Peribonka rose and rose between its rocky banks until the alders and the roots of the nearer spruces were drowned; in the roads the mud

and prominent chin gave him a Neronian profile, domineering, not without a suggestion of brutality; but he spoke softly, measuring his words, and was endlessly patient. In face alone had he anything of

vily built and more lively and

rd their real names pronounced; always had they been called by the affectionate diminutives of childhood, Da'Be and Tit'Bé. With the last pair, however, there had been a return to the earlier cer

ring nothing about their appearance when written or the sex to which they pertain. Pronunciation has naturally varied in one mouth or another, in this family or that, and when a formal occasion calls for writing, each takes leave to spell his baptismal name in his own way, wit

energy, in a series of berserk rages. Short and broad, his eyes were the brightest blue-a thing rare in Quebec-at once piercing and guileless, set in a visage the colour of clay that always showed cruel traces of the razor, topped by hair of nearly the same shade. With a pride in his appearance that was hard to justify he shaved himself two or three times a week, always in the evening, before the

f blackened logs and chinked with rags and earth. Between the scanty fields of their clearing and the darkly encircling woods lay a broad stretch which the ax had but half-heartedly attacked. A few living trees had been cut for timber

g and set to work at once, without a word, for

wiftly and fell obliquely on the trunk a foot higher up; at every stroke a great chip flew, thick as the hand, splitting away with the grain. When the cuts were nearly meeting, one stopped and the other slowed down, leaving his ax in the wood

d carried it to the nearest heap with short unsteady steps, getting over the fallen timber with stumbling effort. When the burden seemed too heavy, TAW came forward leading Charles Eugene dragging a tug-bar with a strong cha

as ready. Slowly they straightened up among the stumps, wiping away with the backs of t

two women waited upon them, filling the empty plates, carrying about the great dish of pork and boiled potatoes, pouring out the hot tea. When the meat had vanished the diners filled their saucers with molasses in which they soaked large pieces of bread;

rs an impartial decision; after which he leaned against the post and let the smoke of his pipe and the gaze of his small light-coloured eyes pursue the same p

and stumps and roots, which one beholds in a fortnight as bare as the back of your hand, ready for the plough; surely nothing in the world can be more pleasing or better worth doing." The

ting and uprooting the alders, gathering a sheaf of branches in the hand and severing them with the ax, or sometimes diggin

, and, chests against the bar, threw all their weight upon it. When their efforts could not break the hundred ties binding the tree to the soil Legare continued to bear heavily th

the traces and showering earth with his hoofs. A short and desperate charge, a mad leap often arrested after a few feet as by the stroke of a giant fist; then the heavy steel blades a giant would swing up anew, gleaming in the sun, and fall with a dull sound upon the stubborn wood, while the horse took breath for a moment, a

on softer hues above the forest's dark edge, and the hour of

and when the vision arose before her of this patch of land they had cleared, superbly bare,

d, which the townsman makes such an ado about with his unreal ecstasies.-mountains, lofty and bare, wild seas-but the quiet unaffected loveliness of the level champaign

eir triumph of the day. She awarded praises and displayed her own proper pride, albeit the five men smoked their woode

ot rotted in the earth so much as I should have imagined. I calculate that we shall not b

, confound it! That

atient and determined, li

bring it again into accord with more favoured lands to the south. For torrid heat fell suddenly upon them, heat well-nigh as unmeasured as was the winter's cold. The tops of the spruces and cypresses, for

ay the clearing extended its borders by a little; deep

in a struggle, and he was fighting the combined forces of wood and earth like a man furious at the resistance of an enemy. Suddenly the stump yielded and lay upon the ground; he passed a hand over his forehead and sat down upon a root, running with sweat, overcome by the exertion. When Ma

is head and neck; still dripping, he threw himself afresh upon the vanqu

erself alive and well under the bright sun, dreaming of all the joys that were to be hers, nor could be long delayed if only she were earnest and patient enough in her prayers. Even at a dist

g breath for a second he rushed once more into the fray, arms straining, wrenching with his great back. And yet again his voice was raised in oaths and lamentations:-"I tell you th

ll cheerful as he answered: "Tough! Edwig

ore on the door-step, shaping her hands to carry

cious coolness fell upon the earth like

her Chapdelaine, "the blueberries wil