Raymond S. Spears

“ Those two boys were bringing in as many fish as old-timers, to the delight of French Louie, who liked to see youth prosper, because a young man with money knows how to spend it and get the good out of it. ”

“ The men could bear him no ill-will, because they knew that French Louie knew he was old, and because he helped to keep the women good-natured to their own men.
In that sparsely settled land it behooved the women to be good-natured, for sometimes a man would just melt away into the green timber and never return. It is unpleasant to have one's man disappear! ”

“ A man learn to enj'y work, if he haf a woman to keep it hot to home, by gar!"
French Louie had laughed his way through sixty years of life. Ever mad? Oh, yes—for two minutes! By that time he had won peace with any man.
With women he never was angry—for of what use would that be? You cannot cut a woman's throat, nor hit her on the head with a club, nor even strike her with a small, sharp-knuckled fist. Such procedure would be exceedingly impolite. Instead of being angry with a woman, the best way would be to go over the trap-line, or out to the points, to haul the gill-nets. ”

“ He carried his trapping-ax, and bounded through the woods, looking at the brooks, at the bars of sand and mud along the rivers and around the shores of the ponds. He studied the tops of the ridges and the hills of unusual height. ”

“ He was very proud of the old marks and scars and furrows made by the recurring toil of his trapping life.
Not that he had always been a mere trapper. In the old days, when he had had a wife, he had trapped in the winters and fished in the summers.
"By gar, a woman keep a man workin'! ”