The Devils Pool | Page 8

so long?"
"Certainly. He watched you selling your cattle and saw that you drove a
shrewd bargain, and that you were a good-looking fellow and appeared
active and intelligent; and when I told him what a good fellow you
were and how well you have behaved toward us, without one word of
vexation or anger during the eight years we have been living and
working together, he took it into his head to marry you to his daughter.
This suits me, too, I admit, when I think of her good reputation and the

honesty of her family and the prosperous condition I know her affairs
are in."
"I see, Father Maurice, that you have an eye to money."
"Of course I do; you have, too, have you not?"
"I do look toward it, if you wish, for your sake; but you know that, for
my own part, I don't worry whether I gain or not in what we make. I
don't understand about profit-sharing; I have no head for that sort of
thing. I understand the ground; I understand cattle, horses, carts,
sowing, threshing, and provender. As for sheep, and vineyards, and
vegetables, petty profits, and fine gardening, you know that is your
son's business. I don't have much to do with it. As to money, my
memory is short, and I should rather give up everything than fight
about what is yours and what is mine. I should be afraid of making
some mistake and claiming what does not belong to me, and if business
were not so clear and simple I should never find my way in it."
"So much the worse, my son; and this is the reason I wish you to have a
wife with a clear head to fill my place when I am gone. You never
wished to understand our accounts, and this might lead you into a
quarrel with my son, when you don't have me any longer to keep you in
harmony and decide what is each one's share."
"May you live long, Father Maurice. But do not worry about what will
happen when you die. I shall never quarrel with your son. I trust
Jacques as I do you; and as I have no property of my own, and all that
might accrue to me comes from your daughter and belongs to our
children, I can rest easy, and you, too. Jacques would never rob his
sister's children for the sake of his own, for he loves them all equally."
"You are right, Germain. Jacques is a good son, a good brother, and a
man who loves the truth. But Jacques may die before you, before your
children grow up; and in a family we must always remember never to
leave children without a head to look after them and govern their
disagreements; otherwise, the lawyer-people mix themselves up in it,
stir them up to fight, and make them eat up everything in law-suits. So

we ought not to think of bringing home another person, man or woman,
without remembering that some day or other that person may have to
control the behavior and business of twenty or thirty children and
grandchildren, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law. We never know how
big a family can grow, and when a hive is so full that the bees must
form new swarms, each one wishes to carry off her share of the honey.
When I took you for my son, although my daughter was rich and you
were poor, I never reproached her for choosing you. I saw that you
were a hard worker, and I knew very well that the best fortune for
people in such a country as ours is a pair of arms and a heart like yours.
When a man brings these into a family, he brings enough. But with a
woman it is different. Her work indoors saves, but it does not gain.
Besides, now that you are a father, looking for a second wife, you must
remember that your new children will have no claim on the property of
your children by another wife; and if you should happen to die they
might suffer very much--at least, if your wife had no money in her own
right. And then the children which you will add to our colony will cost
something to bring up. If that fell on us alone, we should surely take
care of them without a word of complaint; but the comfort of
everybody would suffer, and your eldest children would bear their
share of hardship. When families grow too large, if money does not
keep pace, misery comes, no matter how bravely you bear up. This is
what I wished to say, Germain; think it over, and try to make the
widow Guérin like you; for her