Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ... HE good Pere Leclair was on his knees. He was not at his devotions. In overalls and jumper he was crawling about on the moist and odorous soil of his kitchen garden. He always weeded his vegetables as scrupulously as he kept the tares from his daily life. The warm sun caressed his bent back--the frisky June breeze played with the long locks of his white hair. An old hound, to whom the garden's neat expanse was ground forbidden, sat on the edging turf as near as he dared and beamed on his master with adoring eyes. The garden was on a fair and fertile slope which stretched from the little stone house to the river whose broad breast was flashing that June day with sunlight from a myriad of facets. Father Leclair's great barn towered over the little stone house. The parish of Attegat paid in tithes to the priest--with potatoes, with beans, with corn, with hay and oats for his two cows and his chunky horse. So the barn was big--and the priest's purse was tiny, and money seldom chinked in it. The poorer folks of Attegat parish understood the secrets of the big barn. What the prosperous farmers tugged with good-will in through the broad front doors, Father Leclair slyed out the little back door to the needy or the sick. For thirty years his big barn had been the clearing-house where thrift and good-fortune discounted the bitter present of the unfortunate through the hands of Father Leclair. Thrift understood, and did not complain. After thirty years the good priest who has welcomed the infants, joined the hands of lovers and stroked the wrinkled lids shut over dead eyes, may exact a bit tyrannically when it is for a good cause. The prosperous smiled when Father Leclair exacted--and loved his ways. Norman Aldrich, riding up from the south, knew...
