LU THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Joe was very proud, occupied a sty near the house; and a few fowls 

 scratched near a small stack in the barnyard. In their season the 

 fields yielded hay mixed with many marguerites and there were some 

 patches of wheat and barley and oats, brilliant with yellow mustard 

 iîowers, and also a half-acre of potatoes. A little fishing in the proper 

 month supplied dried cod for Fridays and fast days, and a trap net 

 projecting from the shore secured for him excellent salmon and sea 

 trout on their way to spawn in the river. When the winter snows 

 arrived, Joe betook himself a la montagne and, tramping on his ra- 

 quettes to a little cabane twenty miles in the woods, generally managed 

 to secure a moose, which when frozen provided fresh meat for the 

 family during the winter with the help of the fat pig slaughtered 

 some time before. 



The house was poorly built and the wind entered it in places, 

 but wood for the stove cost nothing more than cutting on the forest- 

 covered mountains in the rear. In spring Joe tapped a few maple 

 trees up the river valley, supplying the family with sweets. A braid 

 or two of tabac Canadien, raised in a sheltered corner of a neighbour's 

 garden, soothed his leisure moments both summer and winter. Joe 

 needed a little money, of course, which could be earned either by 

 trapping a few furs or by working in the lumber camp in the moun- 

 tains which supplied the logs for the small mill at the river mouth. 



In the house the women did all needful work, besides carding and 

 spinning wool, mixed of white and black, to be knitted into warm 

 grey socks and mitts. There was a loom, also, on which homespun 

 was woven. 



In summer the women and children gathered buckets of splendid 

 red strawberries in the meadows, the most delicious of fruits, and wild 

 cherries and des poires (service berries) could be had in sheltered spots 

 in the valley. 



It will be seen that Joe and his family lived in rude comfort with 

 hardly any money on the bounties of the sea and the land and the 

 mountains. Reading matter Joe did not require, since his education 

 had been practical, at sea and in the fields and in the mountains. 

 He had never learned to read or write. He was, however, a fluent 

 and attractive speaker. One night in the men's house at the fishing 

 camp up the river a dozen husky river men were sitting on a bench 

 or on the edges of bunks telling tales and spitting conspicuously on 

 the planks of the floor near the hot stove. Joe's yarns roused much 

 more laughter and enthusiasm than those of any of the others. What 

 they were about my imperfect acquaintance with habitant French 



