"How is the baby boy, and how is madame, Monsieur Grandois?"
It came at the right moment, for only two days before had Madame Grandois
given her husband the boy for which he had longed. Junia had come to know
of it through a neighbour and had sent jellies to the sick woman. As she
came forward now, Grandois, taken aback, said:
"Alors, they're all right, ma'm'selle, thank you. It was you sent the
jellies, eh?"
She nodded with a smile. "Yes, I sent them, Grandois. May I come and see
madame and the boy to-morrow?"
The incident had taken a favourable turn.
"It's about even-things between us, Grandois?" asked Carnac, and held out
his hand. "My father hit you, but you hit him harder by forgetting about
the smallpox and the rent, and also by drinking up the cash that ought to
have paid the rent. It doesn't matter now that the rent was never paid,
but it does that you recall the smallpox debt. Can't you say a word for
me, Grandois? You're a big man here among all the workers. I'm a better
Frenchman than the man I'm trying to turn out. Just a word for a good
cause.
"They're waiting for you, and your hand on it! Here's a place for you on
the roost. Come up."
The "roost" was an upturned tub lying face down on the ground, and in the
passion of the moment, the little man gripped Carnac's hand and stood on
the tub to great cheering; for if there was one thing the
French-Canadians love, it is sensation, and they were having it.
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