"Ten cents for each!" cried the boy. "The foreman told me."
"Ten cents!" shouted his father. "Baptême! it's my winter's wages!"
And the old grandmother! And Delima? Why, they just put their arms round each other and cried for joy.
"And yet there's no breakfast," said Delima, starting up. "And they will work hard, hard."
At that instant who should reach the door but Monsieur Conolly! He was a man who respected cash wherever he found it, and already the two Baptistes had a fine show ashore.
"Ma'ame Larocque," said Conolly, politely, putting in his head, "of course you know I was only joking yesterday. You can get anything you want at the store."
What a breakfast they did have, to be sure! the Baptistes eating while they worked. Back and forward they dashed till late afternoon, driving ringed spikes into the deals, running light ropes through the rings, and, when a good string had thus been made, going ashore to haul in. At that hauling Delima and Memere, even little André and Odillon gave a hand.
Everybody in the little hamlet made money that day, but the Larocques twice as much as any other family, because they had an eddy and a low shore. With the help of the people "the big Bourgeois" who owned the broken raft got it away that evening, and saved his fat contract after all.
"Did I not say so?" said "Memere," at night, for the hundredth time. "Did I not say so? Yes, indeed, le bon Dieu watches over us all."