If you love a certain country, for its natural beauty, or for the
friends you have made there, or for the happy days you have passed
within its borders, you are troubled and distressed when that
country comes under criticism, suspicion, and reproach.
It is just as it would be if a woman who had been very kind
to you and had done you a great deal of good were accused of some
unworthiness. You would refuse to believe it. You would insist on
understanding before you pronounced judgment. Memories would ask
to be heard.
That is what I feel in regard to French Canada, the province of
Quebec, where I have had so many joyful times, and found so many
true comrades among the _voyageurs_, the _habitants_, and
the _coureurs de bois._
People are saying now that Quebec is not loyal, not brave, not
patriotic in this war for freedom and humanity.
Even if the accusation were true, of course it would not spoil the
big woods, the rushing rivers, the sparkling lakes, the friendly
mountains of French Canada. But all the same, it hurts me to hear
such a charge against my friends of the forest.
Do you mean to tell me that Francois and Ferdinand and Louis and
Jean and Eugene and Iside are not true men? Do you mean to tell me
that these lumbermen who steer big logs down steep places, these
trappers who brave the death-cold grip of Winter, these canoe-men
who shout for joy as they run the foaming rapids,--do you mean to
tell me that they have no courage?
I am not ready to credit that. I want to hear what they have to say
for themselves. And in listening for that testimony certain little
remembrances come to me--not an argument--only a few sketches on
the wall. Here they are. Take them for what they are worth.
I