Old Man Savarin and Other Stories

E >> Edward William Thomson >> Old Man Savarin and Other Stories

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Mini believed it a token to him. That Angelique had been there by the
cross the little dreamer doubted not, and the transfiguration to that
arch of glory had some meaning that his soul yearned to apprehend. The
cross drew his thoughts miraculously; for days thereafter he dwelt
with its shining; more and more it was borne in on him that he could
always see dimly the outline of little Angelique's face there;
sometimes, staring very steadily for minutes together, he could even
believe that she beckoned and smiled.

"Is Angelique really there, father?" he asked one day, looking toward
the hill-top.

"Yes, there," answered his father, thinking the boy meant heaven.

"I will go to her, then," said Mini to his heart.

* * * * *

Birds were not stirring when Mini stepped from the dark cabin into
gray dawn, with firm resolve to join Angelique on the summit. The
Ottawa, with whose flow he went toward Rigaud, was solemnly shrouded
in motionless mist, which began to roll slowly during the first hour
of his journey. Lifting, drifting, clinging, ever thinner and more
pervaded by sunlight, it was drawn away so that the unruffled flood
reflected a sky all blue when he had been two hours on the road. But
Mini took no note of the river's beauty. His eyes were fixed on the
cloudy hill-top, beyond which the sun was climbing. As yet he could
see nothing of the cross, nor of his vision; yet the world had never
seemed so glad, nor his heart so light with joy. _Habitants_, in
their rattling _caleches_, were amazed by the glow in the face of a
boy so ragged and forlorn. Some told afterward how they had half
doubted the reality of his rags; for might not one, if very pure at
heart, have been privileged to see such garments of apparent meanness
change to raiment of angelic texture? Such things had been, it was
said, and certainly the boy's face was a marvel.

His look was ever upward to where fibrous clouds shifted slowly, or
packed to level bands of mist half concealing Rigaud Hill, as the sun
wheeled higher, till at last, in mid-sky, it flung rays that trembled
on the cross, and gradually revealed the holy sign outlined in upright
and arms. Mini shivered with an awe of expectation; but no nimbus was
disclosed which his imagination could shape to glorious significance.
Yet he went rapturously onward, firm in the belief that up there he
must see Angelique face to face.

As he journeyed the cross gradually lessened in height by
disappearance behind the nearer trees, till only a spot of light was
left, which suddenly was blotted out too. Mini drew a deep breath, and
became conscious of the greatness of the hill,--a towering mass of
brown rock, half hidden by sombre pines and the delicate greenery of
birch and poplar. But soon, because the cross _was_ hidden, he could
figure it all the more gloriously, and entertain all the more
luminously the belief that there were heavenly presences awaiting him.
He pressed on with all his speed, and began to ascend the mountain
early in the afternoon.

"Higher," said the women gathering pearly-bloomed blueberries on the
steep hillside. "Higher," said the path, ever leading the tired boy
upward from plateau to plateau,--"higher, to the vision and the
radiant space about the shining cross!"

Faint with hunger, worn with fatigue, in the half-trance of physical
exhaustion, Mini still dragged himself upward through the afternoon.
At last he knew he stood on the summit level very near the cross.
There the child, awed by the imminence of what he had sought, halted
to control the rapturous, fearful trembling of his heart. Would not
the heavens surely open? What words would Angelique first say? Then
again he went swiftly forward through the trees to the edge of the
little cleared space. There he stood dazed.

The cross was revealed to him at a few yards' distance. With woful
disillusionment Mini threw himself face downward on the rock, and wept
hopelessly, sorely; wept and wept, till his sobs became fainter than
the up-borne long notes of a hermit-thrush far below on the edge of
the plain.

A tall mast, with a shorter at right angles, both covered by tin
roofing-plates, held on by nails whence rust had run in streaks,--that
was the shining Cross of Rigaud! Fragments of newspaper, crusts of
bread, empty tin cans, broken bottles, the relics of many picnics
scattered widely about the foot of the cross; rude initial letters cut
deeply into its butt where the tin had been torn away;--these had Mini
seen.

The boy ceased to move. Shadows stole slowly lengthening over the
Vaudreuil champaign; the sun swooned down in a glamour of painted
clouds; dusk covered from sight the yellows and browns and greens of
the August fields; birds stilled with the deepening night; Rigaud
Mountain loomed from the plain, a dark long mass under a flying and
waning moon; stars came out from the deep spaces overhead, and still
Mini lay where he had wept.

LITTLE BAPTISTE.

A STORY OF THE OTTAWA RIVER.

Ma'ame Baptiste Larocque peered again into her cupboard and her flour
barrel, as though she might have been mistaken in her inspection
twenty minutes earlier.

"No, there is nothing, nothing at all!" said she to her old
mother-in-law. "And no more trust at the store. Monsieur Conolly was
too cross when I went for corn-meal yesterday. For sure, Baptiste
stays very long at the shanty this year."

"Fear nothing, Delima," answered the bright-eyed old woman. "The good
God will send a breakfast for the little ones, and for us. In seventy
years I do not know Him to fail once, my daughter. Baptiste may be
back to-morrow, and with more money for staying so long. No, no; fear
not, Delima! _Le bon Dieu_ manages all for the best."

"That is true; for so I have heard always," answered Delima, with
conviction; "but sometimes _le bon Dieu_ requires one's inside to pray
very loud. Certainly I trust, like you, _Memere_; but it would be
pleasant if He would send the food the day before."

"Ah, you are too anxious, like little Baptiste here," and the old
woman glanced at the boy sitting by the cradle. "Young folks did not
talk so when I was little. Then we did not think there was danger in
trusting _Monsieur le Cure_ when he told us to take no heed of the
morrow. But now! to hear them talk, one might think they had never
heard of _le bon Dieu_. The young people think too much, for sure.
Trust in the good God, I say. Breakfast and dinner and supper too we
shall all have to-morrow."

"Yes, _Memere_," replied the boy, who was called little Baptiste to
distinguish him from his father. "_Le bon Dieu_ will send an excellent
breakfast, sure enough, if I get up very early, and find some good
_dore_ (pickerel) and catfish on the night-line. But if I did not bait
the hooks, what then? Well, I hope there will be more to-morrow than
this morning, anyway."

"There were enough," said the old woman, severely. "Have we not had
plenty all day, Delima?"

Delima made no answer. She was in doubt about the plenty which her
mother-in-law spoke of. She wondered whether small Andre and Odillon
and 'Toinette, whose heavy breathing she could hear through the thin
partition, would have been sleeping so peacefully had little Baptiste
not divided his share among them at supper-time, with the excuse that
he did not feel very well?

Delima was young yet,--though little Baptiste was such a big boy,--and
would have rested fully on the positively expressed trust of her
mother-in-law, in spite of the empty flour barrel, if she had not
suspected little Baptiste of sitting there hungry.

However, he was such a strange boy, she soon reflected, that perhaps
going empty did not make him feel bad! Little Baptiste was so decided
in his ways, made what in others would have been sacrifices so much as
a matter of course, and was so much disgusted on being offered credit
or sympathy in consequence, that his mother, not being able to
understand him, was not a little afraid of him.

He was not very formidable in appearance, however, that clumsy boy of
fourteen or so, whose big freckled, good face was now bent over the
cradle where _la petite_ Seraphine lay smiling in her sleep, with soft
little fingers clutched round his rough one.

"For sure," said Delima, observing the baby's smile, "the good angels
are very near. I wonder what they are telling her?"

"Something about her father, of course; for so I have always heard it
is when the infants smile in sleep," answered the old woman.

Little Baptiste rose impatiently and went into the sleeping-room.
Often the simplicity and sentimentality of his mother and grandmother
gave him strange pangs at heart; they seemed to be the children, while
he felt very old. They were always looking for wonderful things to
happen, and expecting the saints and _le bon Dieu_ to help the family
out of difficulties that little Baptiste saw no way of overcoming
without the work which was then so hard to get. His mother's remark
about the angels talking to little Seraphine pained him so much that
he would have cried had he not felt compelled to be very much of a man
during his father's absence.

If he had been asked to name the spirit hovering about, he would have
mentioned a very wicked one as personified in John Conolly, the
village storekeeper, the vampire of the little hamlet a quarter of a
mile distant. Conolly owned the tavern too, and a sawmill up river,
and altogether was a very rich, powerful, and dreadful person in
little Baptiste's view. Worst of all, he practically owned the cabin
and lot of the Larocques, for he had made big Baptiste give him a bill
of sale of the place as security for groceries to be advanced to the
family while its head was away in the shanty; and that afternoon
Conolly had said to little Baptiste that the credit had been
exhausted, and more.

"No; you can't get any pork," said the storekeeper. "Don't your mother
know that, after me sending her away when she wanted corn-meal
yesterday? Tell her she don't get another cent's worth here."

"For why not? My fader always he pay," said the indignant boy, trying
to talk English.

"Yes, indeed! Well, he ain't paid this time. How do I know what's
happened to him, as he ain't back from the shanty? Tell you what: I'm
going to turn you all out if your mother don't pay rent in advance for
the shanty to-morrow,--four dollars a month."

"What you talkin' so for? We doan' goin pay no rent for our own
house!"

"You doan' goin' to own no house," answered Conolly, mimicking the
boy. "The house is mine any time I like to say so. If the store bill
ain't paid to-night, out you go to-morrow, or else pay rent. Tell your
mother that for me. Mosey off now. '_Marche, donc!_' There's no other
way."

Little Baptiste had not told his mother of this terrible threat, for
what was the use? She had no money. He knew that she would begin
weeping and wailing, with small Andre and Odillon as a puzzled,
excited chorus, with 'Toinette and Seraphine adding those baby cries
that made little Baptiste want to cry himself; with his grandmother
steadily advising, in the din, that patient trust in _le bon Dieu_
which he could not always entertain, though he felt very wretched that
he could not.

Moreover, he desired to spare his mother and grandmother as long as
possible. "Let them have their good night's sleep," said he to
himself, with such thoughtfulness and pity as a merchant might feel in
concealing imminent bankruptcy from his family. He knew there was but
one chance remaining,--that his father might come home during the
night or next morning, with his winter's wages.

Big Baptiste had "gone up" for Rewbell the jobber; had gone in
November, to make logs in the distant Petawawa woods, and now the
month was May. The "very magnificent" pig he had salted down before
going away had been eaten long ago. My! what a time it seemed now to
little Baptiste since that pig-killing! How good the _boudin_ (the
blood-puddings) had been, and the liver and tender bits, and what a
joyful time they had had! The barrelful of salted pike and catfish was
all gone too,--which made the fact that fish were not biting well this
year very sad indeed.

Now on top of all these troubles this new danger of being turned out
on the roadside! For where are they to get four dollars, or two, or
one even, to stave Conolly off? Certainly his father was away too
long; but surely, surely, thought the boy, he would get back in time
to save his home! Then he remembered with horror, and a feeling of
being disloyal to his father for remembering, that terrible day, three
years before, when big Baptiste had come back from his winter's work
drunk, and without a dollar, having been robbed while on a spree in
Ottawa. If that were the reason of his father's delay now, ah, then
there would be no hope, unless _le bon Dieu_ should indeed work a
miracle for them!

While the boy thought over the situation with fear, his grandmother
went to her bed, and soon afterward Delima took the little Seraphine's
cradle into the sleeping-room. That left little Baptiste so lonely
that he could not sit still; nor did he see any use of going to lie
awake in bed by Andre and Odillon.

So he left the cabin softly, and reaching the river with a few steps,
pushed off his flat-bottomed boat, and was carried smartly up stream
by the shore eddy. It soon gave him to the current, and then he
drifted idly down under the bright moon, listening to the roar of the
long rapid, near the foot of which their cabin stood. Then he took to
his oars, and rowed to the end of his night-line, tied to the wharf.
He had an unusual fear that it might be gone, but found it all right,
stretched taut; a slender rope, four hundred feet long, floated here
and there far away in the darkness by flat cedar sticks,--a rope
carrying short bits of line, and forty hooks, all loaded with
excellent fat, wriggling worms.

That day little Baptiste had taken much trouble with his night-line;
he was proud of the plentiful bait, and now, as he felt the tightened
rope with his fingers, he told himself that his well-filled hooks
_must_ attract plenty of fish,--perhaps a sturgeon! Wouldn't that be
grand? A big sturgeon of seventy-five pounds!

He pondered the Ottawa statement that "there are seven kinds of meat
on the head of a sturgeon," and, enumerating the kinds, fell into a
conviction that one sturgeon at least would surely come to his line.
Had not three been caught in one night by Pierre Mallette, who had no
sort of claim, who was too lazy to bait more than half his hooks,
altogether too wicked to receive any special favors from _le bon
Dieu_?

Little Baptiste rowed home, entered the cabin softly, and stripped for
bed, almost happy in guessing what the big fish would probably weigh.

Putting his arms around little Andre, he tried to go to sleep; but the
threats of Conolly came to him with new force, and he lay awake, with
a heavy dread in his heart.

How long he had been lying thus he did not know, when a heavy step
came upon the plank outside the door.

"Father's home!" cried little Baptiste, springing to the floor as the
door opened.

"Baptiste! my own Baptiste!" cried Delima, putting her arms around her
husband as he stood over her.

"Did I not say," said the old woman, seizing her son's hand, "that the
good God would send help in time?"

Little Baptiste lit the lamp. Then they saw something in the father's
face that startled them all. He had not spoken, and now they perceived
that he was haggard, pale, wild-eyed.

"The good God!" cried big Baptiste, and knelt by the bed, and bowed
his head on his arms, and wept so loudly that little Andre and
Odillon, wakening, joined his cry. "_Le bon Dieu_ has forgotten us!
For all my winter's work I have not one dollar! The concern is failed.
Rewbell paid not one cent of wages, but ran away, and the timber has
been seized."

Oh, the heartbreak! Oh, poor Delima! poor children! and poor little
Baptiste, with the threats of Conolly rending his heart!

"I have walked all day," said the father, "and eaten not a thing.
Give me something, Delima."

"O holy angels!" cried the poor woman, breaking into a wild weeping.
"O Baptiste, Baptiste, my poor man! There is nothing; not a scrap; not
any flour, not meal, not grease even; not a pinch of tea!" but still
she searched frantically about the rooms.

"Never mind," said big Baptiste then, holding her in his strong arms.
"I am not so hungry as tired, Delima, and I can sleep."

The old woman, who had been swaying to and fro in her chair of rushes,
rose now, and laid her aged hands on the broad shoulders of the man.

"My son Baptiste," she said, "you must not say that God has forgotten
us, for He has not forgotten us. The hunger is hard to bear, I
know,--hard, hard to bear; but great plenty will be sent in answer to
our prayers. And it is hard, hard to lose thy long winter's work; but
be patient, my son, and thankful, yes, thankful for all thou hast."

"Behold, Delima is well and strong. See the little Baptiste, how much
a man! Yes, that is right; kiss the little Andre and Odillon; and see!
how sweetly 'Toinette sleeps! All strong and well, son Baptiste! Were
one gone, think what thou wouldst have lost! But instead, be thankful,
for behold, another has been given,--the little Seraphine here, that
thou hast not before seen!"

Big, rough, soft-hearted Baptiste knelt by the cradle, and kissed the
babe gently.

"It is true, _Memere_," he answered, "and I thank _le bon Dieu_ for
his goodness to me."

But little Baptiste, lying wide awake for hours afterwards, was not
thankful. He could not see that matters could be much worse. A big
hard lump was in his throat as he thought of his father's hunger, and
the home-coming so different from what they had fondly counted on.
Great slow tears came into the boy's eyes, and he wiped them away,
ashamed even in the dark to have been guilty of such weakness.

In the gray dawn little Baptiste suddenly awoke, with the sensation of
having slept on his post. How heavy his heart was! Why? He sat dazed
with indefinite sorrow. Ah, now he remembered! Conolly threatening to
turn them out! and his father back penniless! No breakfast! Well, we
must see about that.

Very quietly he rose, put on his patched clothes, and went out. Heavy
mist covered the face of the river, and somehow the rapid seemed
stilled to a deep, pervasive murmur. As he pushed his boat off, the
morning fog was chillier than frost about him; but his heart got
lighter as he rowed toward his night-line, and he became even eager
for the pleasure of handling his fish. He made up his mind not to be
much disappointed if there were no sturgeon, but could not quite
believe there would be none; surely it was reasonable to expect _one_,
perhaps two--why not three?--among the catfish and _dore_.

How very taut and heavy the rope felt as he raised it over his
gunwales, and letting the bow swing up stream, began pulling in the
line hand over hand! He had heard of cases where every hook had its
fish; such a thing might happen again surely! Yard after yard of rope
he passed slowly over the boat, and down into the water it sank on his
track.

Now a knot on the line told him he was nearing the first hook; he
watched for the quiver and struggle of the fish,--probably a big one,
for there he had put a tremendous bait on and spat on it for luck,
moreover. What? the short line hung down from the rope, and the baited
hook rose clear of the water!

Baptiste instantly made up his mind that that hook had been placed a
little too far in-shore; he remembered thinking so before; the next
hook was in about the right place!

Hand over hand, ah! the second hook, too! Still baited, the big worm
very livid! It must be thus because that worm was pushed up the shank
of the hook in such a queer way: he had been rather pleased when he
gave the bait that particular twist, and now was surprised at himself;
why, any one could see it was a thing to scare fish!

Hand over hand to the third,--the hook was naked of bait! Well, that
was more satisfactory; it showed they had been biting, and, after all,
this was just about the beginning of the right place.

Hand over hand; _now_ the splashing will begin, thought little
Baptiste, and out came the fourth hook with its livid worm! He held
the rope in his hand without drawing it in for a few moments, but
could see no reasonable objection to that last worm. His heart sank a
little, but pshaw! only four hooks out of forty were up yet! wait till
the eddy behind the shoal was reached, then great things would be
seen. Maybe the fish had not been lying in that first bit of current.

Hand over hand again, now! yes, certainly, _there_ is the right swirl!
What? a _losch_, that unclean semi-lizard! The boy tore it off and
flung it indignantly into the river. However, there was good luck in a
_losch_; that was well known.

But the next hook, and the next, and next, and next came up baited and
fishless. He pulled hand over hand quickly--not a fish! and he must
have gone over half the line! Little Baptiste stopped, with his heart
like lead and his arms trembling. It was terrible! Not a fish, and his
father had no supper, and there was no credit at the store. Poor
little Baptiste!

Again he hauled hand over hand--one hook, two, three--oh! ho!
Glorious! What a delightful sheer downward the rope took! Surely the
big sturgeon at last, trying to stay down on the bottom with the hook!
But Baptiste would show that fish his mistake. He pulled, pulled,
stood up to pull; there was a sort of shake, a sudden give of the
rope, and little Baptiste tumbled over backward as he jerked his line
up from under the big stone!

Then he heard the shutters clattering as Conolly's clerk took them off
the store window; at half-past five to the minute that was always
done. Soon big Baptiste would be up, that was certain. Again the boy
began hauling in line: baited hook! baited hook! naked hook! baited
hook!--such was still the tale.

"Surely, surely," implored little Baptiste, silently, "I shall find
some fish!" Up! up! only four remained! The boy broke down. Could it
be? Had he not somehow skipped many hooks? Could it be that there was
to be no breakfast for the children? Naked hook again! Oh, for some
fish! anything! three, two!

"Oh, send just one for my father!--my poor, hungry father!" cried
little Baptiste, and drew up his last hook. It came full baited, and
the line was out of the water clear away to his outer buoy!

He let go the rope and drifted down the river, crying as though his
heart would break. All the good hooks useless! all the labor thrown
away! all his self-confidence come to naught!

Up rose the great sun; from around the kneeling boy drifted the last
of the morning mists; bright beams touched his bowed head tenderly. He
lifted his face and looked up the rapid. Then he jumped to his feet
with sudden wonder; a great joy lit up his countenance.

Far up the river a low, broad, white patch appeared on the sharp
sky-line made by the level dark summit of the long slope of tumbling
water. On this white patch stood many figures of swaying men black
against the clear morning sky, and little Baptiste saw instantly that
an attempt was being made to "run" a "band" of deals, or many cribs
lashed together, instead of single cribs as had been done the day
before.

The broad strip of white changed its form slowly, dipped over the
slope, drew out like a wide ribbon, and soon showed a distinct slant
across the mighty volume of the deep raft-channel. When little
Baptiste, acquainted as he was with every current, eddy, and shoal in
the rapid, saw that slant, he knew that his first impression of what
was about to happen had been correct. The pilot of the band _had_
allowed it to drift too far north before reaching the rapid's head.

Now the front cribs, instead of following the curve of the channel,
had taken slower water, while the rear cribs, impelled by the rush
under them, swung the band slowly across the current. All along the
front the standing men swayed back and forth, plying sweeps full forty
feet long, attempting to swing into channel again, with their strokes
dashing the dark rollers before the band into wide splashes of white.
On the rear cribs another crew pulled in the contrary direction; about
the middle of the band stood the pilot, urging his gangs with gestures
to greater efforts.

Suddenly he made a new motion; the gang behind drew in their oars and
ran hastily forward to double the force in front. But they came too
late! Hardly had the doubled bow crew taken a stroke when all drew in
their oars and ran back to be out of danger. Next moment the front
cribs struck the "hog's-back" shoal.

Then the long broad band curved downward in the centre, the rear cribs
swung into the shallows on the opposite side of the raft-channel,
there was a great straining and crashing, the men in front huddled
together, watching the wreck anxiously, and the band went speedily to
pieces. Soon a fringe of single planks came down stream, then cribs
and pieces of cribs; half the band was drifting with the currents, and
half was "hung up" on the rocks among the breakers.

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