death of Elzear, and to try to sell the farm."

"He has no wish to hold on to the land and cultivate it?" questioned
the elder Chapdelaine.

Lorenzo Surprenant's smile broadened and he shook his head. "No, the
idea of settling down on the farm does not tempt me, not in
theleast. I earn good wages where I am and like the place very well;
I am used to the work."

He checked himself, but it was plain that after the kind of life he
had been living and what he had seen of the world, existence on a
farm between a humble little village and the forest seemed a thing
insupportable.

"When I was a girl," said mother Chapdelaine, "pretty nearly
everyone went off to the States. Farming did not pay as well as it
does now, prices were low, we were always hearing of the big wages
earned over there in the factories, and every year one family after
another sold out for next to nothing and left Canada. Some made a
lot of money, no doubt of that, especially those families with
plenty of daughters; but now it is different and they are not going
as once they did ... So you are selling the farm?"

"Yes, there has been some talk with three Frenchmen who came to
Mistook last month. I expect we shall make a bargain."

And are there many Canadians where you are living? Do the people
speak French?"