Chapter VI The Habitant
After what had happened Jean could not ask Monsieur Taché for help in his great enterprise. He therefore applied to Monsieur Laroche, the only other rich man in the parish, and was received with scorn.
“So,” said Bonhomme Laroche, “you wish to build a dam across the St. Ange, to inundate the best land on your mother’s farm, to make a pond for ducks. A great work, truly! And I am to lend you a small sum of money—ten thousand dollars, only. Why not ask for a hundred thousand? That would be nothing at all for me—a mere bagatelle. We are rich, we habitants of St. Placide, men of high finance, millionaires, and we love to encourage hare-brained enthusiasts by small loans. And on what security? A dam of logs that the first spring flood will take away. You are a fool, a dam fool. Ha! Ha! Yes, a dam fool. My little joke, you see.
“But, Jean, do not go, do not be angry at my little pleasantry. I have yet a piece of advice which I will give you for nothing, although it will be worth much to you if you have the sense to take it. Listen! You have a good farm; that is to say, your mother has it, which is the same thing, since all your brothers and sisters, the whole tribe, have gone away. Go home, Jean, to the farm; raise hay, potatoes, cattle, pigs, chickens—all that. Be an honest cultivator, like your fathers for many generations. It was good enough for them; it will be good enough for you. You will wish to make some improvements, no doubt—a new barn, a stable, a house, possibly. Good! I might be able to lend you a small sum, a thousand dollars, perhaps, or even two thousand, if necessary. The rate of interest? What is that between friends? We will arrange all that.
“Now, Jean,” and here the old man assumed a confidential air, “to be a good habitant one must have a good wife. Do not blush, my lad, it is only a matter of business. Without that no habitant can succeed. One’s marriage should help one along, should it not? Assuredly. That goes without saying. Well, there is my daughter Blanchette, for example. I do not say that she is very young, nor more beautiful than others, but how capable, how accomplished! And she will have a dowry, of course, something generous, you may be sure. All the other children are well provided for, and I am not yet a pauper, no indeed. There. I have said it. Consider it well, at your leisure. There is no haste to decide. I will see your mother and all can be arranged without embarrassment. Au revoir, Jean. Come to see us when you can.”
Jean did not like the advice of Bonhomme Laroche, but part of it, at least, he was obliged to take, for there was no alternative, and at sunrise on the following day he was in the fields with the hired man, dexterously swinging a long scythe and laying low great swathes of timothy and red clover. He was in perfect physical condition, with every nerve and muscle surging with energy, so that the work did not tire him, but only served to release the pent-up emotion of his soul. For the soul of Jean Baptiste was full of wrath, and as he gripped the handles of the scythe and swung the keen blade through the grass with a venomous hiss, he seemed to be cutting down an army of enemies and mercilessly trampling them underfoot.
The neighbours, those ignorant, spiteful people with their vicious gossip—how he despised them all! They hated to see a person rise above them in the slightest degree, and were always reaching out envious hands to pull him down. They wanted to make a habitant of him? Well, a habitant he would be, and beat them at their own game. Of what good was all his education if he could not use it in the growing of potatoes and the raising of pigs? Yes, pigs. The neighbours were well satisfied with a yearling hog that weighed a hundred and fifty pounds, when it might as well be two hundred pounds or three hundred even. It was a question of breed and care, as it was with cattle, horses, sheep, fowl, and every other animal on the farm. As to chickens, for example, they laid eggs in plenty all summer, at fifteen cents a dozen, but laid none at all in winter when the price rose to sixty cents and more. Why such stupidity? A question of management, merely, of knowledge and attention to business. In fact, the more Jean thought of habitant life the greater seemed the possibilities of improvement in every direction. Besides, it was a life not to be despised, that of a successful cultivator, the happiest, most independent man on earth.
Certainly the advice of Bonhomme Laroche was not to be despised. But borrow money from the old miser he would not, nor marry his daughter Blanchette if she were as beautiful as an angel from Heaven. The dowry? Did the old miser think that he could buy the hearts, the souls of men? Who would barter love for gold? Who would give that which was beyond all price for all the land, the barns, the cattle of the parish—of the world? Yet there were those who would gladly make such an exchange, the poor, deluded fools.
As to Gabrielle, that was different. There was a girl of a beauty most rare, with her tall, lithe figure, her springing step, her dainty little head with its wealth of golden hair, those laughing eyes like the depths of the sky, that tantalizing, alluring smile. It was as though an angel had descended to earth to show to mortal man the perfection of beauty of the heavenly world. But what pride, what scorn, what contempt! And how unfair, how cruel! Not a thought of justice, not a word of excuse, no chance to explain. Mademoiselle Taché was too far above Jean Baptiste Giroux. In what way? In intellect? By no means. In education? Not at all. In manners? Far from it. In wealth? Ah, that was it, the pride of purse, the base contempt for all merit that had not the stamp of gold. “Good-for-nothing! Sacrée petite vierge!”
But wait—a year, two years, three at most—and he would show the little vixen whom it was that she had attacked with an insult so contemptible, so injurious. Then, when she would be only too glad to receive the attentions of the chief man in the parish, he would turn away and devote himself to another. But what other? Blanchette Laroche? Not for a thousand dowries. Who then? Well, there would be time enough to arrange that little detail. There were still good fish in the sea, though scarce and very wary. But in any case it would be necessary to humble the pride of that scornful beauty. “Good-for-nothing! Sacrés milles tonnerres!”
Jean was certainly in an unhappy state of mind. Of all the neighbours he could not think of one who was his friend. Not Mère Tabeau, certainly; that old witch with the bleared eyes and the yellow teeth. She liked to talk with him now and then, but only to spit out venom. Not Michel Gamache, who was not to be trusted, a sorcerer, and no friend of man. Not Father Paradis, even; that good old priest who had been for so many years his teacher, his Mentor. Not even he, for he was disappointed in Jean because he had not taken up some useful work. Even his mother had lost faith in him. Had he not seen her looking at him with wistful, sorrowful eyes, because he was not fulfilling the promise of his early years? She also was against him, and he would have to fight the battle alone. Give it up? No, with the help of God and Saint Jean he would do battle to the very end, and would show them all what it was to fight and to win.
Thus Jean, as he toiled in the field, under the hot sun, poured forth all the bitterness of his soul, until the bitterness was gone, the wrath evaporated, and the strong man began to rejoice once more in the work of his hands. At high noon he sat down in the shade of a moss-covered rock, beside a bubbling spring, and ate the dinner that his mother had provided with gladness of heart. Never had bread and butter tasted so sweet, with fresh eggs, tasty sausage, and the jam of wild strawberries that the good mother had made with her own hands. It was an excellent meal, nourishing to body and soul; and when, after an hour’s rest in the cool shade, Jean resumed his work, refreshed and strengthened, the troubles that had come into his life took their proper place in the order and scheme of things, not as incurable evils but as obstacles to be overcome by unswerving determination and persistent effort.
So Jean wrought hard all through the long day, doing the work of two men; and when, after sunset, he hung his scythe in the crook of a tree and began to climb the long hill toward home, he had put his troubles behind his back, and set his face toward the future with strong courage and a spirit of charity toward all mankind.
The life of a habitant, he thought, was not all hardship. There was work, to be sure, plenty of it; but what was that to a strong man? There was little money to be had, but one had all the necessaries of life and some of the luxuries as well. At night, how one could sleep, and in the morning how one arose with a rested body and a cheerful heart!
The neighbours? They were true friends, after all, kind-hearted, well-meaning, with all their little gossip, and their advice was good, excellent. One must have a footing in the world, else how could one accomplish anything? One must take the first step before one takes the second. One must humble oneself in the day of small things, and bide one’s time, if one was to be ready when the great opportunity came which only a man of experience could seize and control. Sooner or later he would win, for the dice were loaded in his favour; but win or lose it was a great thing to live and to bear a part in the interesting and wonderful world, where every morning was a new day and every evening a new surprise.