Louis Hémon

“ The sick woman had relapsed into stupor, and was moaning feebly with her eyes closed.
"I will go and get him if you like," suggested Eutrope.
"But what will you do for a horse?" asked Maria. "The doctor has Charles Eugene at Honfleur."
Chapdelaine clenched his fist in wrath and swore through his teeth:-- "The old rascal!"
Eutrope thought a moment before speaking. "It makes no difference. I will go just the same. If I walk to Honfleur, I shall easily find someone there who will lend me a horse and sleigh--Racicot, or perhaps old Neron." ”

“ Now if we had only thought of fetching a bone-setter--such a man as Tit'Sebe of St. Felicien ..." Every face was turned to him and the tears ceased flowing.
"Tit'Sebe!" exclaimed Maria. "And you think he could help in a case like this?" Both Eutrope and Chapdelaine hastened to avow their trust in him.
"There is no doubt whatever that Tit'Sebe can make people well. He was never through the schools, but he knows how to cure. You heard of Nazaire Gaudreau who fell from the top of a barn and broke his back. ”

“ Maria rose and sat by the bed, thinking of the long day just beginning in which she would have neither help nor counsel.
All the dragging hours were burdened with lamentable sound; the groaning from the bed where the sick woman lay never ceased, and haunted the narrow wooden dwelling. Now and then some household noise broke in upon it: the clashing of plates, the clang of the opened stove door, the sound of feet on the planking, Tit'Be stealing into the house, clumsy and anxious, to ask for news.
"Is she no better?" ”

“ But the fall of night brought no one, and it was only about seven o'clock that the sound of sleigh-bells was heard, and her father and the doctor arrived. The latter came into the house alone, put his bag on the table and began to pull off his overcoat, grumbling all the while.
"With the roads in this condition," said he, "it is no small affair to get about and visit the sick. And as for you folk, you seem to have hidden yourselves as far in the woods as you could. Great Heavens! You might very well all die without a soul coming to help you." ”

“ The bone-setter, this sentence given, bowed his head and held his pitiful eyes for long upon the sick woman. The browned hands that now availed him not lay upon his knees; leaning forward a little, his back bent, the gentle sad spirit seemed in silent communion with its maker--" Thou hast bestowed upon me the gift of healing bones that are broken, and I have healed them; but Thou hast denied me power over such ills as these; so must I let this poor woman die." ”

“ Those living sheltered lives take quick alarm when the mechanism of one of their number goes wrong, but people who wrestle with the earth for a living feel little surprise if their labours are too much for them now and then, and the body gives way in some fibre.
While father and children supped, Madame Chapdelaine sat very still in her chair beside the stove. She drew her breath hard, and her broad face was working.
"I am going to bed," she said presently. "A good night's sleep, and to-morrow morning I shall be all right again; have no doubt of that. You will see to the baking, Maria." ”

“ Maria looked toward the window and sighed. "Only two days ago snow fell, and now it will be raised and drift. The roads were heavy enough before; father and the cure are going to have trouble getting through."
But the bone-setter shook his head. "They may have a little difficulty on the road, but they will get here all the same. A priest who brings the Blessed Sacrament has more than the strength of a man." His mild eyes shone with the faith that knows no bounds. ”

“ All day long Maria strove to stay the hidden advances of the disorder with her prayers, and every time that she returned to the bedside it was with a half hope that a miracle had been wrought, that the sick woman would cease from her groaning, sleep for a few hours and awake restored to health. ”

“ This is going to cure you, Madame Chapdelaine, as surely as the good God is above us. It is a medicine of the very first class; my brother had it sent expressly from the States. You may be sure that you would never find a medicine like this in the store at La Pipe."
"It cannot make her worse?" Maria asked, some doubt lingering. "It is not a poison, or anything of that sort?"
With one voice, in an indignant tone, the three men protested: "Do harm? Tiny pills no bigger than that!" ”

“ The house trembled from base to chimneytop, and swayed on its foundation in such a fashion that the inmates, feeling the onslaught, hearing the roar and shriek of the foe, were almost as sensible of the terrors of the storm as though they were exposed to it; lacking the consciousness of safe retreat that belongs to those who are sheltered by strong walls of stone. ”

“ There is hardly anything to be done in the house beyond the cooking, and Maria is quite fit to look after that--everything else too, by thunder! She is not a little child any longer, and is as capable as yourself. ”

“ Then there was apparently nothing more to be done; the men fit their pipes, and the doctor, with his feet against the stove, held forth as to his professional labours and the cures he had wrought.
"Illnesses like these," said he, "where one cannot discover precisely what is the matter, are more baffling to a doctor than the gravest disorders--like pneumonia now, or even typhoid fever which carry off three-quarters of the people hereabouts who do not die of old age. Well, typhoid and pneumonia, I cure these every month in the year. ”

“ When Maria had put the house in order she took up her patient watching, and the sick woman's agonizing wails seemed to reproach her.
From hour to hour she kept reckoning the times and the distances. "My father should not be far from St. Coeur de Marie ... If the doctor is there they will rest the horse for a couple of hours and come back together. But the roads must be very bad; at this time, in the spring, they are sometimes hardly passable."
And then a little later:--" They should have left; perhaps in going through La Pipe they will stop to speak to the cure ”

“ Had she ever before suffered from the same trouble ... The answers did not seem to enlighten him very much; then he turned to the sick woman herself, only to receive confused statements and complaints.
"If it is just a wrench that she has given herself," at length he announced, "she will get well without any meddling; there is nothing for her to do but to stay quietly in bed. But if there is some injury within, to the kidneys or another organ, it may be a grave affair." ”

“ You are going to die when the good God wills it, and according to my way of thinking that will not be for a while yet. What would He be doing with you? Heaven is all cluttered with old women, and down here we have only the one, and she is able to make herself a bit useful, every now and then ... ”

“ Or I could give her a draught made from beaver kidneys; it is useful when the kidneys are affected, as is well known. But I think that neither the blister nor the draught would work a cure."
His speech was so honest and straightforward that he made them one and all feel what manner of thing was a disorder of the human frame--the strangeness and the terror of what is passing behind the closed door, which those without can only fight clumsily as they grope in dark uncertainty.
"She will die if that be God's pleasure."
Maria broke into quiet tears ”

“ He, departed forthwith, thinking as he went at a jog-trot over the snow of the grateful look that Maria had given him. The family made ready for the night, computing meanwhile these new distances ... Seventy miles there and back ... Roads deep in snow. The lamp was left burning, and till morning the voice from the bed was never hushed. Sometimes it was sharp with pain; sometimes it weakly strove for breath. Two hours after daylight the doctor and the cure of St. ”