A Cry in the Wilderness Part 63

"You say you can work?"

"Try me."

"We are going back for the second harvest. We live near Iberville. We have orchards there, and help is always scarce at this time. Will you help?"

"Oh, yes; anything. I can do the housework for you, if necessary."

"You don't look tough enough for that."

"Try me."

"I 'll speak to my husband when he comes in."

"All I ask of you is, that you will not let him tell anyone here that I am on the boat."

"He has a tight mouth--a good head; he will do as I say."

"That settles it," I thought.

"If you will stay here with my baby, I 'll just step over to the cabaret and call him out. We can talk better in the road."

"Yes."

She climbed the steps, and I heard her heavy tread on the deck--her steps on the trestle-boards. After that, nothing for a quarter of an hour, except the soft lap of the river running past the boat.

They came back together, the man with a lantern which he hung at the stern.

"He says, my Jean, that you can come with us, if you will hire out for a month."

"Tell him I will hire out to you for that time. And how much shall I pay you for the pa.s.sage?"

"Jean says that's all right,--you can't leave us unless you can swim,--and we 're more than glad to get the help."

"I can sleep on the deck; I have a warm coat."

"Oh, no; my husband often sleeps on deck when we are at anchor; but to-night he will not sleep at all. We go to Sorel; we must be there by three in the morning. You can sleep in his bunk."

She parted some curtains and showed me a two-and-a-half feet wide bunk beneath the sloping deck. I thanked her.

"If the wind should come up heavy, I shall do the steering," she said.

"I will be down after we get under way. I help Jean."

She went up the tiny companionway, and I heard her talking in a low voice to "Jean". Soon there was a noise of trailing ropes, of a sail being hoisted; a sound of pushing and hauling--a soft swaying motion to the boat, then the ripple of the water under her bow.

I lay down in the bunk; the sound of the ever-flowing river soothed me.

I was worn out.

BOOK THREE

FINDING THE TRAIL

I

A dream would seem more real to me than the experience of that night.

I listened, half sleeping, half waking, to hear only the ripple of water under the bow. Towards morning the wind freshened. I heard great commotion overhead. Evidently Jean and Madame Jean were taking in sail. I knew we must be near Sorel. I went up on deck to ask if I could be of any help.

"Not now," said Madame Jean who was busy with the gaskets; "but when we come in to Sorel there will be some merchants on the wharf to get the rest of our apples. If you will mind the baby then, I shall not have him on my hands if he wakes up."

"To be sure I will. May I stay here on deck for a little air?"

"But, yes; you cannot sleep in this noise."

The morning stars paled. The light crept out of the east along the pathway of the great river. The sun rose, turning its waters to gold.

We were late in getting into Sorel. While there I remained in the cabin with the baby who was still asleep. By seven o'clock we were off again--the merchants had been willing to lend a hand in unloading. We had a fair brisk wind for our sail up the Richelieu, or Sorel River.

Madame Jean made us coffee, gave us doughnuts, cheese, and thickly b.u.t.tered bread. The fresh milk for the baby was taken on at Sorel, and the little fellow, who could creep but not walk, gave me plenty to do.

Madame Jean laughed at my attempts to confine him in one place; he seemed to be all over the deck at once. She called out merrily from the tiller:

"Eh, mademoiselle, you have never had one, I can see! You have much to learn. Here, take the tiller for a moment, I will show you."

She took a small-sized rope that had a hook at one end and a snap-catch at the other. She caught up the baby and, turning him over flat on her lap, showed me a stout steel ring sewed into the band of his blue denim creeper. Into this she fastened the snap and, hooking the other end into the belt of my skirt, set him down on the deck.

"Voila!" she said triumphantly. I found the arrangement worked perfectly and relieved me from all anxiety. He was tethered; but he could roam at large, so he thought.

All day we voyaged up the Richelieu between the rich Canadian farm-lands, the mountains, faintly blue on the horizon, rising more and more boldly in the south, as we approached the Champlain country. Just before sunset we glided up to an old wharf at Iberville.

There followed a series of shouts and whistles from the head of it.

There was a frantic waving of ap.r.o.ns. A rough farm wagon, drawn by an old pepper-and-salt horse and loaded with children, bore down upon us, rattling over the loose planks like a gun carriage. The old horse was spurred on by flaps and jerks of the reins which were handled by a fine-looking bareheaded girl on the board that served for a seat.

There were answering shouts from Jean and Madame Jean; answering wavings of towels and shirts which had been drying on the rail--all equally frantic. Then the whole cartful tumbled out on the wharf, almost before the horse came to a halt, and, literally, stormed the sloop.

Jean and his wife were lost to my sight in the children's embrace; fourteen arms were trying to smother both at the same time. I was holding the baby when the horde descended on him, and only the fact that I was a stranger prevented me from sharing the fate of their mother.

"They are good children, eh?" said Madame Jean proudly, with a blissful smile. She smoothed her tumbled hair and twisted her ap.r.o.n again to the front of her plump person.

I was properly introduced by my own name which I gave to madame and her husband. The whole family fairly pounced upon the few belongings in the boat and carried them to the great wagon. Madame Jean, holding the baby, sat in the middle enthroned on the pile of bunk cushions; the children crowded in around her. I was asked, as a compliment, to sit beside Monsieur Jean on the board seat which he covered with an old moth-eaten buffalo robe. He took the reins, and amid great rejoicings we jolted up the wharf into the main street of Iberville, the whole family exchanging greetings with every pa.s.ser by, it seemed to me, just as fervently as if they had but recently returned from an ocean voyage.

Our wagon--a chariot of triumph--rattled on through the town and out into the open country. They chatted all together and all at once. I failed to understand what it was about, for several of the children were very young and their French still far from perfect. Their voices were pitched on A sharp, and the effect was astonishing as well as ear-splitting.

They paid no attention to me. I was grateful. I felt myself again a stranger in the midst of this alien family life.

Two miles out from the town, we came to the roof-tree of the d.u.c.h.enes,--this was their name,--and within half an hour we sat, eleven of us, around the kitchen table at supper. From beneath it, an old hound protruded his long nose, and caught with a snap the tidbits that were thrown to him. A huge Maltese cat settled herself across my feet.