s moustache,
slowly draw off his sheepskin-lined coat and settle himself by the
stove with a satisfied sigh. "The pump is not frozen?" he asks.
"Is there plenty of wood in the house?"

Assured that the frail wooden fortress is provided with water, wood
and food, he gives himself up to the indolences of winter quarters,
smoking pipes innumerable while the women-folk are busy with the
evening meal. The cold snaps the nails in the plank walls with
reports like pistol-shots; the stove crammed with birch roars
lustily; the howling of the wind without is like the cries of a
besieging host.

"It must be a bad day in the woods!" thinks Maria to herself; and
then perceives that she has spoken aloud.

"In the woods they are better off than we are here," answers her
father. "Up there where the trees stand close together one does not
feel the wind. You can be sure that Esdras and Da'Be are all right."

"Yes?"

But it was not of Esdras and Da'Be that she had just been thinking.

CHAPTER IX

ONE THOUSAND AVES

SINCE the coming of winter they had often talked at the Chapdelaines
about the holidays, and now these were drawing near.

"I am wondering whether we shall have any callers on New Year's
Day," said Madame Chapdelaine one evening. She went over the list of
all relatives and friends able to make the venture. "Azalma Larouche
does not live so far away, but she--she is not very energetic. The
people at St. Prime would not me to take the journey. Possibly
Wilfrid or Ferdinand might drive from St. Gedeon if the ice on the
lake were in good condition." A sigh disclosed that she still was
dreaming of the coming and going in the old parishes at the time of
the New Year, the family dinners, the unlooked-for visits of kindred
arriving by sleigh from the next village, buried under rugs and
furs, behind a horse whom coat was white with frost.

Maria's thoughts were turning in another direction. "If the roads
are as bad as they were last year," said she, "we shall not be able
to attend the midnight mass. And yet I should so much have liked it
this time, and father promised ..."

Through the little window they looked on the gray sky, and found
little to cheer them. To go to midnight mass is the natural and
strong desire of every French-Canadian peasant, even of those living
farthest from the settlements. What do they not face to accomplish
it I Arctic cold, the woods at night, obliterated roads, great
distances do but add