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Telesphore had dozed off with the catechism open on his knees, and the little Alma Rose, not yet in bed, was hovering in doubt between the wish to draw attention to her brother's indolence, and a sense of shame at thus betraying him. Maria looked down again, took her work in hand, and her simple mind pursued a little further its puzzling train of thought.
Whenever the heat failed, mother Chapdelaine might be heard saying anxiously. "Don't let the fire out, children." Whereupon Maria, Tit'Be or Telesphore would open the little door, glance in and hasten to the pile of wood.
The pedestrians are already stringing off along the road and each jaunty Telesphore and Jacques, the driver of a horse, leaps jovially into his cart; but all the carts are halting a moment by some curious common accord. Why is this? Suddenly a loud voice shouts: "MALBROUCK IS DEAD!" A pause follows. "It is not true" one forcibly contradicts. "Yes, he is dead!" reiterates the first.
Tit'Be, seated facing his sister, smoked pipe after pipe without taking his eyes off her for a single moment, fearful of missing some highly important disclosure that she had hitherto held back. Little Alma Rose stood with an arm about her neck; Telesphore was listening too, as he mended his dog's harness with bits of string.
Little Alma Rose, asleep on her father's knee, was undressed and put to bed; Telesphore followed; Tit'Be arose in turn, stretched himself, and fined 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."
He must not be allowed to come back, this bad spirit. I will take father's gun and I will shoot him ..." "You cannot shoot devils with a gun," objected his mother. "But when you feel the temptation coming, seize your rosary and say your prayers." Telesphore did not dare to gainsay this; but he shook his head doubtfully.
On the eve of a baking Telesphore was sent to hunt up the bread-pans which habitually found their way into all comers of the house and shed-being in daily use to measure oats for the horse or Indian corn for the fowls, not to mention twenty other casual purposes they were continually serving.
Framed in the open door-way the last crimson of the sky, fading to Paler tints, rose above the vague masses of the forest,-a column resting upon its base. The Mosquitos began to arrive in their legions, and the humming of innumerable wings filled the low clearing with continuous sound. "Telesphore," directed the father, "make us a smudge. Take the old tin pail."
The noise of footsteps on dry twigs, of rustling in the alder bushes, the calls of Telesphore and Alma Rose to one another, all faded slowly into the distance, and about each gatherer was only the buzzing of flies drunk with sunshine, and the voice of the wind in the young birches and aspens. "There is a fine clump over here," said a voice.
I'm calling here to leave an order for Gagnon about a coffin for old Telesphore Tremblay who died yesterday, and I have promised to see his poor wife to-night." "Then I shall take my own buggy and Mr. Ringfield can go with me. The curé can go with you, sir." "Well, if the whole village wishes to pay its respects to a crazy man all at the same time, let them come!" roared the irascible doctor.
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