"Piano-tuner," Samuel Chapdelaine echoed in turn, slowly grasping
the meaning of the words. "And is that a good trade? Do you earn
handsome wages? Not too handsome, eh! ... At any rate you are well
educated, you and your sons; you can read and write and cipher? And
here am I, not able even to read!"

"Nor I!" struck in Ephrem Surprenant, and Conrad Neron and Egide
Racicot added: "Nor I!" "Nor I!" in chorus, whereupon the whole of
them broke out laughing.

A motion of the Frenchman's hand told them indulgently that they
could very well dispense with these accomplishments; to himself of
little enough use at the moment.

"You were not able to make a decent living out of your trades over
there. That is so, is it not? And therefore you came here?"

The question was put simply, without thought of offence, for he was
amazed that anyone should abandon callings that seemed so easy and
so pleasant for this arduous life on the land.

Why indeed had they come? ... A few months earlier they would have
discovered a thousand reasons and clothed them in words straight
from the heart: weariness of the footway and the pavement, of the
town's sullied air; revolt against the prospect of lifelong slavery;
some chance stirring word of an irresponsible speaker preaching the
gospel of vigour and enterprise, of a free and healthy life upon a
fruitful soil. But a few months ago they could have found glowing
sentences to tell it all ... Now their best was a sorry effort to