he idle, long-haired
horses grew as spirited in the keen air as in summer they were sluggish
with hard work; and the farm-hands were abroad in the dark of the early
mornings with lanterns, to feed the stock and take them out to water,
singing cheerfully. All morning spread the clamour of the flail and the
fanning-mill, the swish of the knife through the turnips and the beets,
and the sound of the saw and the axe, as the youngest man of the family,
muffled to the nose, sawed the wood into lengths or split the knots.

Night brought the cutting and stringing of apples, the shelling of the
Indian corn, the making of rag carpets. On Saturday came the going to
market with grain, or pork, or beef, or fowls frozen like stones; the
gossip in the market-place. Then again sounded jingling sleigh-bells as,
on the return road, the habitant made for home, a glass of white whiskey
inside him, and black-eyed children in the doorway, swarming like bees
at the mouth of a hive.

This particular winter in Chaudiere had been full of excitement and
expectation. At Easter-time there was to be the great Passion Play,
after the manner of that known as The Passion Play of Ober-Ammergau. Not
one in a hundred habitants had ever heard of Ober-Ammergau, but they had
all shared in picturesque processions of the Stations of the Cross to
some calvaire; and many had taken part in dramatic scenes arranged from
the life of Christ. Drama of a crude kind was deep in them; it showed in
gesture, speech, and temperament.

In all the preparations Maximilian Cour was a conspicuous and useful
official. Gifted with the dramatic temperament to a degree rare in so
humble a man, he it was who really educated the people of Chaudiere in
the details of the Passion Play to be produced by the good Catholics of
the parish and the Indians of the reservation. He had gone to the Cure
every day, and the Cure had talked with him, and then had sent him to
the tailor, who had, during the past six months, withdrawn more and
more from the life about him, practically living with shut door. No one
ventured in unless on business, or were in need, or wished advice. These
he never turned empty away.

Besides Portugais, Maximilian Cour was the one man received constantly
by the tailor. With patience and insight Charley taught the baker, by
drawings and careful explanations, the outlines of the representation,
and the baker grew proud of the association, though Charley's face used
to