own, paid for out and out, and you know the soil is good. I shall
work on it all spring, take the stumps out of the large field below
the ridge of rock, put up some fences, and by May there will be a
fine big field ready for seeding. I shall sow a hundred and thirty
bushels, Maria,--a hundred and thirty bushels of wheat, barley and
oats, without reckoning an acre of mixed grain for the cattle. All
the seed, the best seed-grain, I am going to buy at Roberval,
settling for it on the spot ... I have the money put aside; I
shall pay cash, without running into debt to a soul, and if only we
have an average season there will be a fine crop to harvest. Just
think of it, Maria, a hundred and thirty bushels of good seed in
first-rate land! And in the summer before the hay-making, and then
again before the harvest, will be the best chance for building a
nice tight warm little house, all of tamarack. I have the wood
ready, cut and piled behind my barn; my brother will help me,
perhaps Esdras and Da'Be as well, when they get home. Next winter I
shall go to the shanties, taking a horse with me, and in the spring
I shall bring back not less than two hundred dollars in my pocket.
Then, should you be willing to wait so long for me, would be the
time ..."

Maria was leaning against the door, a hand still upon the latch, her
eyes turned away. Eutrope Gagnon had just this and no more to offer
her: after a year of waiting that she should become his wife, and
live as now she was doing in another wooden house on another
half-cleared farm ... Should do the household work and the
cooking, milk the cows, clean the stable when her man was
away--labour in the fields perhaps, since she was strong and there
would be but two of them ... Should spend her evenings at the
spinning-wheel or in patching old clothes ... Now arid then in