The Devils Pool | Page 7

he can drive oxen very handily already; he knows
enough to keep the cattle in the meadow, and he's strong enough to
drive the horses to water. So he isn't the one to be a burden to us; but
the other two--we love them, God knows! poor innocent
creatures!--cause us much anxiety this year. My daughter-in-law is
about lying-in, and she still has a little one in her arms. When the one
we expect has come, she won't be able to look after your little Solange,
and especially your little Sylvain, who isn't four years old and hardly
keeps still a minute day or night. His blood is hot, like yours: he'll make
a good workman, but he's a terrible child, and my old woman can't run
fast enough now to catch him when he runs off toward the ditch or in
among the feet of the cattle. And then, when my daughter-in-law brings
this other one into the world, her last but one will be thrown on my
wife's hands for a month, at least. So your children worry us and
overburden us. We don't like to see children neglected; and when you
think of the accidents that may happen to them for lack of watching,
your mind's never at rest. So you must have another wife, and I another

daughter-in-law. Think it over, my boy. I've already warned you more
than once; time flies, and the years won't wait for you. You owe it to
your children and to us, who want to have everything go right in the
house, to marry as soon as possible."
"Well, father," the son-in-law replied, "if you really want me to do it, I
must gratify you. But I don't propose to conceal from you that it will
cause me a great deal of annoyance, and that I'd about as lief drown
myself. You know what you've lost, and you don't know what you may
find. I had an excellent wife, a good-looking wife, sweet and brave,
good to her father and mother, good to her husband, good to her
children, a good worker, in the fields or in the house, clever about her
work, good at everything, in fact; and when you gave her to me, when I
took her, it wasn't one of the conditions that I should forget her if I had
the bad luck to lose her."
"What you say shows a good heart, Germain," rejoined Père Maurice;
"I know you loved my daughter, that you made her happy, and that if
you could have satisfied Death by going in her place, Catherine would
be alive at this moment and you in the cemetery. She well deserved to
have you love her like that, and if you don't get over her loss, no more
do we. But I'm not talking about forgetting her. The good God willed
that she should leave us, and we don't let a day pass without showing
Him, by our prayers, our thoughts, our words, our acts, that we respect
her memory and are grieved at her departure. But if she could speak to
you from the other world and tell you her will, she would bid you seek
a mother for her little orphans. The question, then, is to find a woman
worthy to take her place. It won't be very easy; but it isn't impossible;
and when we have found her for you, you will love her as you loved
my daughter, because you are an honest man and because you will be
grateful to her for doing us a service and loving your children."
"Very good, Père Maurice," said Germain, "I will do what you wish, as
I always have done."
"I must do you the justice to say, my son, that you have always listened
to the friendship and sound arguments of the head of your family. So
let us talk over the matter of your choice of a new wife. In the first

place, I don't advise you to take a young woman. That isn't what you
need. Youth is fickle; and as it's a burden to bring up three children,
especially when they're the children of another marriage, what you
must have is a kind-hearted soul, wise and gentle, and used to hard
work. If your wife isn't about as old as yourself, she won't have sense
enough to accept such a duty. She will think you too old and your
children too young. She will complain, and your children will suffer."
"That is just what disturbs me," said Germain. "Suppose she should
hate the poor little ones, and they should be maltreated and beaten?"
"God forbid!" said the old man. "But evil-minded women are rarer in
these parts than good ones, and a man must be a fool not