I
A dream would seem more real to me than the experience of that night.
I listened, half sleeping, half waking, to hear only the ripple of
water under the bow. Towards morning the wind freshened. I heard
great commotion overhead. Evidently Jean and Madame Jean were taking
in sail. I knew we must be near Sorel. I went up on deck to ask if I
could be of any help.
"Not now," said Madame Jean who was busy with the gaskets; "but when we
come in to Sorel there will be some merchants on the wharf to get the
rest of our apples. If you will mind the baby then, I shall not have
him on my hands if he wakes up."
"To be sure I will. May I stay here on deck for a little air?"
"But, yes; you cannot sleep in this noise."
The morning stars paled. The light crept out of the east along the
pathway of the great river. The sun rose, turning its waters to gold.
We were late in getting into Sorel. While there I remained in the
cabin with the baby who was still asleep. By seven o'clock we were off
again--the merchants had been willing to lend a hand in unloading. We
had a fair brisk wind for our sail up the Richelieu, or Sorel River.
Madame Jean made us coffee, gave us doughnuts, cheese, and thickly
buttered bread. The fresh milk for the baby was taken on at Sorel, and
the little fellow, who could creep but not walk, gave me plenty to do.
Madame Jean laughed at my attempts to confine him in one place; he
seemed to be all over the deck at once. She called out merrily from
the tiller:
"Eh, mademoiselle, you have never had one, I can see! You have much to
learn. Here, take the tiller for a moment, I will show you."
She took a small-sized rope that had a hook at one end and a snap-catch
at the other. She caught up the baby and, turning him over flat on her
lap, showed me a stout steel ring sewed into the band of his blue denim
creeper. Into this she fastened the snap and, hooking the other end
into the belt of my skirt, set him down on the deck.
"Voila!" she said triumphantly. I found the arrangement worked
perfectly and relieved me from all anxiety. He was tethered; but he
could roam at large, so he thought.
All day we voyaged up the Richelieu between the rich Canadian
farm-lands, the mountains, faintly blue on the horizon, rising more and
more boldly in the south, as we approached the Champlain country. Just
before sunset we glided up to an old wharf at Iberville.
There followed a series of shouts and whistles from the head of it.
There was a frantic waving of aprons. A rough farm wagon, drawn by an
old pepper-and-salt horse and loaded with children, bore down upon us,
rattling over the loose planks like a gun carriage. The old horse was
spurred on by flaps and jerks of the reins which were handled by a
fine-looking bareheaded girl on the board that served for a seat.
There were answering shouts from Jean and Madame Jean; answering
wavings of towels and shirts which had been drying on the rail--all
equally frantic. Then the whole cartful tumbled out on the wharf,
almost before the horse came to a halt, and, literally, stormed the
sloop.
Jean and his wife were lost to my sight in the children's embrace;
fourteen arms were trying to smother both at the same time. I was
holding the baby when the horde descended on him, and only the fact
that I was a stranger prevented me from sharing the fate of their
mother.
"They are good children, eh?" said Madame Jean proudly, with a blissful
smile. She smoothed her tumbled hair and twisted her apron again to
the front of her plump person.
I was properly introduced by my own name which I gave to madame and her
husband. The whole family fairly pounced upon the few belongings in
the boat and carried them to the great wagon. Madame Jean, holding the
baby, sat in the middle enthroned on the pile of bunk cushions; the
children crowded in around her. I was asked, as a compliment, to sit
beside Monsieur Jean on the board seat which he covered with an old
moth-eaten buffalo robe. He took the reins, and amid great rejoicings
we jolted up the wharf into the main street of Iberville, the whole
family exchanging greetings with every passer by, it seemed to me, just
as fervently as if they had but recently returned from an ocean voyage.
Our wagon--a chariot of triumph--rattled on through the town and out
into the open country. They chatted all together and all at once. I
failed to understand what it was about, for several of the children
were very young and their French still far from perfect. Their voices
were pitched on A sharp, and the effect was astonishing as well as
ear-splitting.
They paid no attention to me. I was grateful. I felt myself again a
stranger in the midst of this alien family life.
Two miles out from the town, we came to the roof-tree of the
Duchenes,--this was their name,--and within half an hour we sat, eleven
of us, around the kitchen table at supper. From beneath it, an old
hound protruded his long nose, and caught with a snap the tidbits that
were thrown to him. A huge Maltese cat settled herself across my feet.
A canary shrilled over all the noise. In the midst of the merry
meal--blackberries and milk, hot fried raised bread with maple
syrup--the whole family was apparently thrown into convulsions by the
appearance in the room of a pet goat and, behind him, the old
pepper-and-salt horse that Monsieur Duchene had turned out in the yard
to graze!
There was a general uprising; charge and counter charge, shrieks,
laughter. The baby and I were the only ones left at the table. Then,
humiliating exodus of the beasts and triumphant entry of the family.
The supper proceeded.
And afterwards--never shall I forget that little scene!--after the
dishes were washed, the goat fed, the horse bedded and the baby asleep,
the seven children placed themselves in a row, the oldest girl of
fifteen at the head, and waited for a signal from their father: a long
drawn chord on a mouth harmonicum. Together parents and children sang
the _Angelus_, sang till the room was filled with melody and, it seemed
to me, the soft September night without the open door.
This was my introduction to the family Duchene. I slept in an
unfinished chamber. A sheet was tacked to the rafters over the bed.
The window beside it looked into a mass of trees.
Oh, those orchard slopes of Iberville! I made intimate acquaintance
with them for the next four weeks. I worked hard. I was up at five to
help Madame Jean with the breakfast and the housework, what there was
of it; then we were all off to the orchards to pick the wholesome,
beautiful fruit--Northern Spies, Greenings, Baldwins and Russets. To
use Jamie's expression, their "fragrance is in my nostrils" as I write
of them.
At noon we had lunch--bread and butter, with jerked beef, cheese,
apples, washed down with the sweetest of sweet cider from the mill.
There was no stint of the simple fare. Then at work again--all the
children joining, except the baby who roamed at will among the orchard
grass with two small pigs that scampered wildly to and fro.
It was work, work--picking, sorting, packing, till the shadows were
long on the grass and the apple-cart was piled high with windfalls.
The barrels were filled with picked fruit of the choicest. And after
supper, regularly every evening, we sang the _Angelus_.
This life was beneficial to me. I made no plans. I was glad to work
hard in order to drown thought, to keep my body, as it were, numb. I
really dared not think of _what was_, for then I could not sleep; could
not be ready for the next day's work. To forget myself; this was my
sole desire. Madame Duchene watched my work with ever increasing
admiration. Monsieur Duchene wanted to engage me for another season.
"But you must not leave us this winter, mademoiselle. We need you," he
said one day, after nearly four weeks had passed. He was preparing to
set out on his return voyage down the Sorel to Richelieu-en-Bas.
"Others may need me, Monsieur Duchene. I have been so content in your
home; it has done me good."
"Mademoiselle has some sorrow? Can we help, my wife and I?"
"You have helped me by trusting me, by letting me make one of your
family all these weeks."
"But you will keep the house till we return?"
"I should like to do this for you, but I cannot stay so late here in
the country. I must find employment for the winter."
"We cannot afford to pay you, mademoiselle, but you shall have your
keep, if you will, for your help and your company, while you stay."
Madame Duchene spoke earnestly.
"I cannot, dear Madame Duchene; it is time for me to go."
"May I ask where, Mademoiselle Farrell?" she asked, with such gentle
pity audible in her voice, such kindly thoughts visible in her bright
blue eyes, that, for a moment, I wavered. This was, at least, a
shelter, a "retreat" for both my soul and my body.
"I do not know as yet."
"What can we do for you?" she urged.
"But one thing: say nothing to any one in Richelieu-en-Bas that you
have seen me, that I have been with you--that you know me, even."
"As you will."
I remained with the children who declared they should be desolate if I
went on the same day that father and mother left them. Together the
children and I watched the apple-boat, loaded to the gunwale, sail away
from Iberville wharf.
Two days after that, the children drove me to the station. I took the
day express to New York.