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Updated: June 24, 2025
The month allowed by the notice expired, and Madame Bonaventure's day of reckoning arrived. No arrangement had been attempted in the interim, though abundant opportunities of doing so were afforded her, as Sir Francis Mitchell visited the Three Cranes almost daily.
He paused for them as many as could to take in the meaning of his English speech, and, it may be, expecting some demonstration of approval; but dead silence reigned, all eyes on him save Bonaventure's and Sidonie's. He began again: "A bargain's a bargain!" And Chat-oué nodded approvingly and began to say audibly, "Yass;" but 'Mian thundered out: "Taise toi, Chat-oué! Shot op!"
She appeared to treat the matter very lightly, always putting it off when mentioned; and even towards the last seemed quite unconcerned, as if entertaining no fear of the result. Apparently, everything went on just as usual, and no one would have supposed, from Madame Bonaventure's manner, that she was aware of the possibility of a mine being sprung beneath her feet.
Bonaventure's hand rested a moment tenderly on her head as he looked first toward the audience and then toward the stranger. Then he drew off for the third word. He looked at it twice before he called it. Then "Sidonie! ah! Sidonie, be ready! be prepared! fail not yo' humble school-teacher! In-com" He looked at the word a third time, and then swept down upon her: "In-com-pre-hen-si-ca-bility!"
Then Madame Sosthène saw two things at once: that the guess was a good one, and that Zoséphine had bidden childhood a final "adjieu." The daughter felt Bonaventure's eyes upon her. He was standing only a step or two away. She gave him a quick, tender look that thrilled him from head to foot, then lifted her brows and made a grimace of pretended weariness.
For an instant they hung; then with another peal the bell turned back and they came blushing to the floor. A swarm of hands darted to the rope, but Bonaventure's was on it first. "'Tis sufficient!" he said, his face all triumph. The bell gave a lingering clang or two and ceased, and presently the happy company walked across the green.
"Yass, wat' in bucket, yass. Den no man dawn't keep nut'n'. Dawn't own nut'n' he got." "Ah! sir, there is a better owning than to own. 'Tis giving, dear friend; 'tis giving. To get? To have? That is not to own. The giver, not the getter; the giver! he is the true owner. Live thou not to get, but to give." Bonaventure's voice trembled; his eyes were full of tears.
Another boy under the same circumstances might turn out entirely different; and yet it will make an immense difference how his experiences are allowed to combine with his nature." The speaker paused a moment, while Bonaventure's other friend stood smiling with interest; then the priest added, "He is just now struggling with his first great experience." "What is that?"
And so, the same day on which Claude in Vermilionville left the Beausoleils' tavern, the cabin on Bayou des Acadiens, ever in his mind's eye, was empty, and in Grande Pointe his father stood on the one low step at the closed door of Bonaventure's little frame schoolhouse. He had been there a full minute and had not knocked. Every movement, to-day, came only after an inward struggle.
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