Everywhere there is the universal, homemade, wooden Cross and the handcarved symbol of the Crucifixion standing by all roads.
Every graveyard in Quebec, whether it be in the Laurentides section, clear against the sky with the Saint Lawrence a panorama at its feet, or whether it be some Indian graveyard, boasts its handcarved wooden head-and-foot pieces and, of course, the big central wooden cross.
These wooden memorials of the graveyard are frequently very artistic. The figure of an Angel in silhouette and life-size, with shoes and stockings, encountered in one cemetery, appears especially adapted to the Paradis it would have the passing world remember. Somewhere in that district there lives a man with the instinct of the sculptor; yet he works in wood. And the pity of wood is that it is so very perishable. In a year or two at most, the elements take these wooden memorials in hand to their destruction, and that is the reason stone is now almost universally taking the place of these old-timers.
But to return to the houses! Much of the furniture of the farmhouse is handmade. Tables, with sliding tops, which allow the table to be converted into a comfortable chair, are the pride of many a habitant housewife. And, of course, there are the loom and the spinning-wheel, with its accompanying shuttles and bobbins, all handmade.
But this woodcarving is an art that, though so common in Quebec, recognizes no Provincial limitations; and so for the climax of profane carving as against the religious subjects, say, of Monsieur Jobin, we must go down into New Brunswick and interview Rogerson the master Figure-head carver of Saint John.
Rogerson is a Scotchman. As you look into his keen blue eyes it is difficult to realize that eighty-three years have intervened since
CALL OF THE SEA.
THE FIGURE ON THE BOW.