old, but they already understood the glory of God quite as well
there as at Quebec, without doubt. They could build their own
tower, perfectly, and they would. Besides, it would cost less.

Vaillantcoeur was the chief carpenter. He attended to the affair of
beams and timbers. Leclere was the chief mason. He directed the
affair of dressing the stones and laying them. That required a very
careful head, you understand, for the tower must be straight. In
the floor a little crookedness did not matter; but in the wall--that
might be serious. People have been killed by a falling tower. Of
course, if they were going into church, they would be sure of
heaven. But then think--what a disgrace for Abbeville!

Every one was glad that Leclere bossed the raising of the tower.
They admitted that he might not be brave, but he was assuredly
careful. Vaillantcoeur alone grumbled, and said the work went too
slowly, and even swore that the sockets for the beams were too
shallow, or else too deep, it made no difference which. That BETE
Prosper made trouble always by his poor work. But the friction
never came to a blaze; for the cure was pottering about the tower
every day and all day long, and a few words from him would make a
quarrel go off in smoke.

"Softly, my boys!" he would say; "work smooth and you work fast. The
logs in the river run well when they run all the same way. But when
two logs cross each other, on the same rock--psst! a jam! The whole
drive is hung up! Do not run crossways, my children."

The walls rose steadily, straight as a steamboat pipe--ten, twenty,
thirty, forty feet; it was time to put in the two cross-girders, lay