ough in her prayers. Even at a distance the voices of
the men came to her across the surface of the ground baked by the
heat; Esdras, his hands beneath a young jack pine, was saying in his
quiet tones:--"Gently ... together now!"

Legare was wrestling with some new inert foe, and swearing in his
half-stifled way:--"Perdition! I'll make you stir, so I will." His
gasps were nearly as audible as the words. Taking breath for a
second he rushed once more into the fray, arms straining, wrenching
with his great back. And yet again his voice was raised in oaths and
lamentations:-"I tell you that I'll have you ... Oh you rascal!
Isn't it hot? . . I'm pretty nearly finished ..." His complaints
ripened into one mighty cry:--"Boss! We are going to kill
ourselves making land."

Old Chapdelaine's voice was husky but still cheerful as he answered:
"Tough! Edwige, tough! The pea-soup will soon be ready."

And in truth it was not long before Maria, once more on the
door-step, shaping her hands to carry the sound, sent forth the
ringing call to dinner.

Toward evening a breeze arose and a delicious coolness fell upon the
earth like a pardon. But the sky remained cloudless.

"If the fine weather lasts," said mother Chapdelaine, "the
blueberries will be ripe for the feast of Ste. Anne."

CHAPTER V

THE VOWS

THE fine weather continued, and early in July the blueberries were
ripe.

Where the fire had passed, on rocky slopes, wherever the woods were
thin and the sun could penetrate, the ground had been clad in almost
unbroken pink by the laurel's myriad tufts of bloom; at first the
reddening blueberries contended with them in glowing colour, but
under the constant sun these slowly turned to pale blue, to royal
blue, to deepest purple, and when July brought the feast of Ste.
Anne the bushes laden with fruit were broad patches of violet amid
the rosy masses now beginning to fade.

The forests of Quebec are rich in wild berries; cranberries, Indian
pears, black currants, sarsaparilla spring up freely in the wake of
the great fires, but the blueberry, the bilberry or whortleberry of
France, is of all the most abundant and delicious. The gathering of
them, from July to September, is an industry for many families who
spend the whole day in the woods; strings of children down to the
tiniest go swinging their tin pails, empty in the morning, full and
heavy by evening. Others only gather the blueberries for their own
use, either to