Chapter 4

Perhaps the dreariest environment imaginable is a stone-cutters' shed on a bleak day in the first week in March. The large ones stretching along the north shore of Lake Mesantic are no exception to this statement. A high wind from the northeast was driving before it particles of ice, and now and then a snow flurry. It penetrated every crack and crevice of the huge buildings, the second and largest of which covered a ground space of more than an acre. Every gust made itself both felt and heard among the rafters. Near the great doors the granite dust whirled in eddies.

At this hour in the afternoon Shed Number Two was a study in black and gray and white. Gray dust several inches thick spread underfoot; all about were gray walls, gray and white granite piles, gray columns, arches, uncut blocks, heaps of granite waste, gray workmen in gray blouses and canvas aprons covered with gray dust. In one corner towered the huge gray-black McDonald machine in mighty strength, its multiple revolving arms furnished with gigantic iron fists which manipulate the unyielding granite with Herculean automatonism—an invention of the film-like brain of man to conquer in a few minutes the work of nature's aeons! Gray-black overhead stretched the running rails for the monster electric travelling crane; some men crawling out on them looked like monkeys. Here and there might be seen the small insignificant "Lewis Key"—a thing that may be held on a woman's palm—sustaining a granite weight of many tons.

There were three hundred men at work in this shed, and the ringing chip-chip-chipping monotone from the hundreds of hammers and chisels, filled the great space with industry's wordless song that has its perfect harmony for him who listens with open ears and expansive mind.

Jim McCann was at work near the shed doors which had been opened several times since one o'clock to admit the flat cars with the granite. He was alternately blowing on his benumbed fingers and cursing the doors and the draught that was chilling him to the marrow. The granite dust was swirling about his legs and rising into his nostrils. It lacked a half-hour to four.

Two cars rolled in silently.

"Shut thim damned doors, man!" he shouted across to the door-tender; "God kape us but we' it's our last death we'll be ketchin' before we can clane out our lungs o' the dust we've swallowed the day. It's after bein' wan damned slitherin' whorl of grit in the nose of me since eight the morn."

He struck hard on his chisel and a spark flew. A workman, an Italian, laughed.

"That's arll-rright, Jim—fire up!"

"You kape shet," growled McCann. He was unfriendly as a rule to the Dagos. "It's in me blood," was his only excuse.

"An' if it's a firin' ye be after," he continued, "ye'll get it shurre if ye lave off workin' to warm up yer tongue wid such sass.—Shut thim doors!" he shouted again; but a gust of wind failed to carry his voice in the desired direction.

In the swirling roar and the small dust-spout that followed in its wake, Jim and the workmen in his cold section were aware of a man who had been half-blown in with the whirling dust. He took shelter for a moment by the inner wall. The foreman saw him and recognized him for the man who, the manager had just telephoned, was coming over from the office. He came forward to meet him.

"You're the man who has just taken on a job in Shed Number Two?"

"Yes."

The foreman signed to one of the men and told him to bring an extra set of tools.

"Here's your section," he said indicating McCann's; "you can begin on this block—just squaring it for to-night."

The man took his tools with a "Thank you," and went to work. The others watched him furtively, as Jim told Maggie afterwards "from the tail of me eye."

He knew his work. They soon saw that. Every stroke told. The doors were shut at last and the electric lights turned on. Up to the stroke of four the men worked like automatons—chip-chip-chipping. Now and then there was some chaffing, good-natured if rough.

The little Canuck, who by dint of running had caught the car, was working nearby. McCann called out to him:

"I say, Antwine, where you'd be after gettin' that cap with the monkey ears?"

"Bah gosh, Ah have get dis a Mo'real—at good marche—sheep." He stroked the small skin earlaps caressingly with one hand, then spat upon his palm and fell to work again.

"Montreal is it? When did you go?"

"Ah was went tree day—le Pere Honore tol' mah Ah better was go to mon maitre; he was dead las' week."

"Wot yer givin' us, Antwine? Three days to see yer dead mater an' lavin' yer stiddy job for the likes of him, an' good luck yer come back this afternoon or the new man 'ud 'a' had it."

"Ah, non—ah, non! De boss haf tol' mah, Ah was keep mah shob. Ah, non—ah, non. Ah was went pour l'amour de Pere Honore."

"Damn yer lingo—shpake English, I tell you."

Antoine grinned and shook his head.

"Wot yer givin' us about his Riverince, eh?"

"Le Pere Honore, hein? Ah-h-h-rr, le bon Pere Honore! Attendez—he tol' mah Ah was best non raconter—mais, Ah raconte you, Shim—"

"Go ahead, Johnny Frog; let's hear."

"Ah was been lee'l garcon—lee'l bebe, no pere; ma mere was been—how you say?—gypsee a cheval, hein?" he appealed to McCann.

"You mane a gypsy that rides round the counthry?"

Antoine nodded emphatically. "Yah—oui, gypsee a cheval, an' bars—"

"Bears?"

"Mais oui, bruins—bars; pour les faire dancer—"

"You mane your mother was a gypsy that went round the counthry showin' off dancin' bears?"

"Yah-oui. Ah mane so. She haf been seek—malade—how you say, petite verole—so like de Pere Honore?" He made with his forefinger dents in his face and forehead.

"An' is it the shmall pox yer mane?"

"Yah-oui, shmall pookes. She was haf it, an' tout le monde—how you say?—efferybodyee was haf fear. She was haf nottin' to eat—nottin' to drrink; le Pere Honore was fin' her in de bois—foret, an' was been tak' ma pauvre mere in hees ahrms, an' he place her in de sugair-house, an' il l'a soignee—how you say?" He appealed to the Italian whose interest was on the increase.

"Nurrsed?"

"Yah—oui, nurrsed her, an' moi aussi—lee'l bebe'—"

"D' yer mane his Riverince nursed you and yer mother through the shmall pox?" demanded McCann. Several of the workmen stopped short with hammers uplifted to hear Antoine's answer.

"Mais oui, il l'a soignee jusqu'a ce qu'elle was been dead; he l'a enterree—place in de terre—airth, an' moi he haf place chez un farmyer a Mo'real. An' le Pere Honore was tak' la petite verole—shmall pookes in de sugair-house, an' de farmyer was gif him to eat an' to drrink par la porte—de door; de farmyer haf non passe par de door. Le Pere Honore m'a sauve—haf safe, hein? An' Ah was been work ten, twenty, dirty year, Ah tink. Ah gagne—gain, hein?—two hundert pieces. Ah been come to de quairries, pour l'amour de bon Pere Honore qui m'a safe, hein? Ah be tres content; Ah gagne, gain two, tree pieces—dollaires—par jour."

He nodded at one and all, his gold half-moon earrings twinkling in his evident satisfaction with himself and "le bon Pere Honore."

The men were silent. Jim McCann's eyes were blurred with tears. The thought of his own six-months boy presented itself in contrast to the small waif in the Canada woods and the dying gypsy mother, nursed by the priest who had christened his own little Billy.

"It's a bad night for the lecture," said a Scotchman, and broke therewith the emotional spell that was holding the men who had made out the principal points of Antoine's story.

"Yes, but Father Honore says it's all about the cathedrals, an' not many will want to miss it," said another. "They say there's a crowd coming down from the quarries to-night to hear it."

"Faith, an' it's Mr. Van Ostend will be after havin' to put on an a trailer to his new hall," said McCann; "the b'ys know a good thing whin they see it, an' we was like to smother, the whole kit of us, whin they had the last pitchers of them mountins in Alasky on the sheet. It's the stairioptican that takes best wid the b'ys."

The four o'clock whistle began to sound. Three hundred chisels and hammers were dropped on the instant. The men hurried to the doors that were opened their full width to give egress to the hastening throngs. They streamed out; there was laughing and chaffing; now and then, among the younger ones, some good-natured fisticuffs were exchanged. Many sought the electrics to The Gore; others took the car to The Corners. From the three sheds, the power-house, the engine-house, the office, the dark files streamed forth from their toil. Within fifteen minutes the lights were turned out, the watchman was making his first round. Instead of the sounds of a vast industry, nothing was heard but the sz-szz-szzz of the vanishing trams, the sputter of an arc-light, the barking of a dog. The gray twilight of a bleak March day shut down rapidly over frozen field and ice-rimmed lake.