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Edwige Legare was attacking a stump by himself; a hand against the trunk, he had grasped a root with the other as one seizes the leg of some gigantic adversary in a struggle, and he was fighting the combined forces of wood and earth like a man furious at the resistance of an enemy.
She sang the great deeds of the four Chapdelaines and Edwige Legare, their struggle against the savagery of nature, their triumph of the day. She awarded praises and displayed her own proper pride, albeit the five men smoked their wooden or clay pipes in silence, motionless as images after their long task; images of earthy hue, hollow-eyed with fatigue.
Individuals sign indifferently, Denise, Denije or Deneije; Conrad or Courade; men bear such names as Hermenegilde, Aglae, Edwige. Edwige Legare had worked for the Chapdelaines these eleven summers.
Every morning the men scanned the heavens and took counsel together. "The wind is backing to the sou'east. Bad luck! Beyond question it will rain again," said Edwige Legare with a gloomy face. Or it was old Chapdelaine who followed the movement of the white clouds that rose above the tree-tops, sailed in glad procession across the clearing, and disappeared behind the dark spires on the other side.
It was then the turn of Edwige Legare and Esdras; when the tree was not too heavy each took an end, clasping their strong hands beneath the trunk, and then raised themselves-backs straining, arms cracking under the stress-and carried it to the nearest heap with short unsteady steps, getting over the fallen timber with stumbling effort.
With the last pair, however, there had been a return to the earlier ceremonious manner-Telesphore ... Alma Rose. "When the boys get back we are going to make land," the father had promised. And, with the help of Edwige Legare, their hired man, they set about the task. In the Province of Quebec there is much uncertainty in the spelling and the use of names.
In November Esdras, Da'Be and Edwige Legare went off again to the shanties.
Old Chapdelaine's voice was husky but still cheerful as he answered: "Tough! Edwige, tough! The pea-soup will soon be ready." And in truth it was not long before Maria, once more on the door-step, shaping her hands to carry the sound, sent forth the ringing call to dinner. Toward evening a breeze arose and a delicious coolness fell upon the earth like a pardon. But the sky remained cloudless.
Edwige Legare, seating himself on the door-step, proclaimed two or three times: "I have dined well ... I have dined well ... with the air of a judge who renders an impartial decision; after which he leaned against the post and let the smoke of his pipe and the gaze of his small fight-coloured eyes pursue the same purposeless wanderings.
ONE October morning Maria's first vision on arising was of countless snow-flakes sifting lazily from the skies. The ground was covered, the trees white; verily it seemed that autumn was over, when in other lands it had scarce begun. But Edwige Legare thus pronounced sentence: "After the first snowfall there is yet a month before winter sets in.
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