VI
NOËL
It was the day before Christmas. Jules was sitting in his home camp, sixty miles from the post; he was lonely and sad. “Las’ Noël Ah have ma femme, la petite, touts; an’ maintenant—” he looked about the bare little room, “bon Dieu, ’Ow lonelee eet ees!”
It was a cheerless scene. Walls of bare logs, with moss plugged between them to keep out the cold; a rude table; two misshapen stools; a bed of boughs in one corner, with some blankets heaped on it; a little chimney of small timber sticking out diagonally in another corner; and a few old clothes hanging on wooden pegs near the door.
“Ah, b’en,” Jules said to himself, “eet ees de will of le bon Dieu. Ah mus’ mak’ t’ink dat de wife an’ de leetle vone aire veet’ me for to-mor’ jus’ same.” He became full of life with the thought, and bustled about the little hut, sweeping the hard ground with a spruce bough broom; he carried out the old bed, and filled its place with fresh aromatic boughs; then he brought streamers of moss from the woods, and festooned them around the walls. In the corners he built little canopies of dark green branches, and hung bunches of scarlet berries over the gray logs. The old clothes were neatly wrapped up and stowed away under the boughs; on their pegs he hung a big caribou-skin, its gray-brown colour mingling with the green of the interior. He cleaned out the little fireplace, and filled it with bright pine chips and dry wood.
“Dere!” he said, surveying his work, “dat mor’ good; de leet’ vone she lak’ dees comme ça!” and tears came to the gray eyes. He brushed them away hurriedly, and went out to a tiny shed behind the hut. There he dug a quarter of caribou-meat from the snow, and carrying it back, he cut thick, juicy steaks; these he placed in a rough frying-pan, and set it on the table. From a hewn box he brought out a little bag of tea, some salt, and some hard bread. Then he drew the two stools up to the board. “Dere ees onlee two place’; la petite she vant place too!” Taking the axe, he went out, and in a few minutes had made a high stool; this he also put beside the table.
“Maintenant, Jules, go fin’ somme present for dose two for Noël.”
Outside it was snowing a little; the crisp flakes dropped gently through the trees, and the tops of the spruce bowed gracefully, swayed by the light north wind; they sighed, and murmured softly to one another. Jules put on his snow-shoes, drew the fur cap well down over his ears, and went off into the dull forest.
The skies turned a darker lead-colour; they seemed to threaten something, and Jules said to himself as he travelled along, “De snow she comme ver’ queeck!” and hastened on. Over hill and through valley he went till he came to his traps; luck was against him: trap after trap was empty and unsprung. He went all the way down this line, and not a skin! He looked up at the heavens: it was snowing as ever; the crystalline bits floated from their home in the clouds softly and noiselessly. There was no wind at all now, and Jules listened for something, he knew not what. Everything was silent; the spruce and pine stood like martyrs, bravely holding up the heavy masses of snow that the skies had poured on them. Sometimes a branch would rebel and drop its load with a swish; as it flew back, relieved, it seemed to jar on the stillness of everything, until it ceased its swaying and became quiet as the rest.
“Ah go to ligne five,” he decided, and changed his course to northeast. His way lay across wild barrens, and he stopped again to listen: the solitude was wonderful; only the unceasing, silent fall of snow. It came faster now, and the frost morsels covered Jules’s caribou jacket with a dainty white coat that rested lightly on the hairs, their prismatic forms plainly visible. He went on and on. “At las’!” he said as he came to the first trap on ligne five. A fine marten lay under the deadfall, its sleek hair smoothed close to the little frozen body; the eyes were open and stared glassily on Jules as he lifted the heavy stick and put the stiff form in his bag. “Merci, bon Dieu!” whispered Jules, as he found almost every trap with its little victim dead and frozen. The line led through a deep ravine, and Jules’s eyes gleamed when he came on a heavy trap. A big black fox lay dead in it; the massive log had crushed out the life God had given. On the crust were pitiful scratches where the poor beast had tried frantically to pull away from the awful weight that tortured it. “Ah-ha! Dat magnifique!” said Jules aloud, as he lifted the fall and drew out the long, sinuous body. The heavy black coat was glossy and thick; the under hair seemed to reflect darkly the faint light that came from the leaden skies. “La petite up dere”—Jules looked at the heavens as he spoke—“she ver’ content wid dees.” He turned, and started for home.
It was snowing harder, and his down tracks were only dimly discernible through the opaque cover over them. The wind was coming slowly; a murmur rose and fell weirdly in the forest; the trees moved, bowed to one another, and shook off their white dress. Out on the barrens the drift was whirling along, mingled with the fresh fall, and Jules’s snow-shoes clicked with a deadened sound as he hastened on. A herd of caribou crossed before him, their hoofs rattling faintly as they raced on with the wind. They came, and were gone in a few moments, wrapped in the clouds of snow-dust which their fast-moving feet stirred from its resting-place on the crust. Jules stopped at the edge of a timber patch, and examined marks at his feet, not long made. “Vone, deux, t’ree, five snow-shoe!” he said grimly, and swung off to the left. He went on carefully, listening every now and then; nothing but the whispering of the wind in the tree-tops answered his quest for sound. The hut was close by now; the tracks he had seen five miles back had disappeared, so Jules approached with a pathetic gladness in his heart. “Jules goin’ have Noël jus’ sam’!” he said, and then he sang a French Christmas song as he saw the clearing in the distance.