make jam or the famous pies national to French
Canada.

Two or three times in the very beginning of July Maria, with
Telesphore and Alma Rose, went to pick blueberries; but their day
had not come, and the gleanings barely sufficed for a few tarts of
proportions to excite a smile.

"On the feast of Ste. Anne," said their mother by way of
consolation, "we shall all go a-gathering; the men as well, and
whoever fails to bring back a full pail is not to have any."

But Saturday, the eve of Ste. Anne's day, was memorable to the
Chapdelaines; an evening of company such as their house in the
forest had never seen.

When the men returned from work Eutrope Gagnon was already there. He
had supped, he said, and while the others were at their meal he sat
by the door in the cooler air that entered, balancing his chair on
two legs. The pipes going, talk naturally turned toward the labours
of the soil, and the care of stock.

"With five men," said Eutrope, "you have a good bit of land to show
in a short while. But working alone, as I do, without a horse to
draw the heavy logs, one makes poor headway and has a hard time of
it. However you are always getting on, getting on."

Madame Chapdelaine, liking him, and feeling a great sympathy for his
solitary labour in this worthy cause, gave him a few words of
encouragement. "You don't make very quick progress by yourself, that
is true enough, but a man lives on very little when he is alone, and
then your brother Egide will be coming back from the drive with two
or three hundred dollars at least, in time for the hay-making and
the harvest, and, if you both stay here next winter, in less than
two years you will have a good farm."

Assenting with a nod, his glance found Maria, as though drawn
thither by the thought that in two years, fortune favouring, he
might hope.

"How does the drive go?" asked Esdras. "Is there any news from that
quarter?"

"I had word through Ferdina Larouche, a son of Thadee Larouche of
Honfleur, who got back from La Tuque last month. He said that things
were going well; the men were not having too bad a time."

The shanties, the drive, these are the two chief heads of the great
lumbering industry, even of greater importance for the Province of
Quebec than is farming. From October till April the axes never cease
falling, while sturdy horses draw the logs over the snow to the
banks of the frozen rivers; and, when spring comes, the piles melt
one after anoth