Cleophas Pesant, son of Thadee Pesant the blacksmith, was already in
light-coloured summer garments, and sported an American coat with
broad padded shoulders; though on this cold Sunday he had not
ventured to discard his winter cap of black cloth with harelined
ear-laps for the hard felt hat he would have preferred to wear.
Beside him Egide Simard, and others who had come a long road by
sleigh, fastened their long fur coats as they left the church,
drawing them in at the waist with scarlet sashes. The young folk of
the village, very smart in coats with otter collars, gave
deferential greeting to old Nazaire Larouche; a tall man with gray
hair and huge bony shoulders who had in no wise altered for the mass
his everyday garb: short jacket of brown cloth lined with sheepskin,
patched trousers, and thick woollen socks under moose-hide
moccasins.

"Well, Mr. Larouche, do things go pretty well across the water?"

"Not badly, my lads, not so badly."

Everyone drew his pipe from his pocket, and the pig's bladder filled
with tobacco leaves cut by hand, and, after the hour and a half of
restraint, began to smoke with evident satisfaction. The first puffs
brought talk of the weather, the coming spring, the state of the ice
on Lake St. John and the rivers, of their several doings and the
parish gossip; after the manner of men who, living far apart on the
worst of roads, see one another but once a week.

"The lake is solid yet," said Cleophas Pesant, "but the rivers are
no longer safe. The ice went this week beside the sand-bank opposite