PÈRE MAURICE


"Germain," his father-in-law said to him one day, "you must make up your
mind to marry again. It's almost two years since you lost my daughter,
and your oldest boy is seven years old. You're getting on toward thirty,
my boy, and when a man passes that age, you know, in our province, he's
considered too old to begin housekeeping again. You have three fine
children, and thus far they haven't been a trouble to us. My wife and
daughter-in-law have looked after them as well as they could, and loved
them as they ought. There's Petit-Pierre, he's what you might call
educated; he can drive oxen very handily already; he knows enough to
keep the cattle in the meadow, and he's strong enough to drive the
horses to water. So he isn't the one to be a burden to us; but the other
two--we love them, God knows! poor innocent creatures!--cause us much
anxiety this year. My daughter-in-law is about lying-in, and she still
has a little one in her arms. When the one we expect has come, she won't
be able to look after your little Solange, and especially your little
Sylvain, who isn't four years old and hardly keeps still a minute day or
night. His blood is hot, like yours: he'll make a good workman, but he's
a terrible child, and my old woman can't run fast enough now to catch
him when he runs off toward the ditch or in among the feet of the
cattle. And then, when my daughter-in-law brings this other one into the
world, her last but one will be thrown on my wife's hands for a month,
at least. So your children worry us and overburden us. We don't like to
see children neglected; and when you think of the accidents that may
happen to them for lack of watching, your mind's never at rest. So you
must have another wife, and I another daughter-in-law. Think it over, my
boy. I've already warned you more than once; time flies, and the years