Between the wet days there was still fine bright weather, hot toward noon, when one might fancy that all was as it had been:  the harvest still unreaped, the changeless setting of spruces and firs, and ever the same sunsets of gray and opal, opal and gold, and skies of misty blue above the same dark woodland.  But in the mornings the grass was sometimes white with rime, and swiftly followed the earliest dry frosts which killed and blackened the tops of the potatoes.

Then, for the first time, a film of ice appeared upon the drinking-trough; melted by the afternoon sun it was there a few days later, and yet a third time in the same week.  Frequent changes of wind brought an alternation of mild rainy days and frosty mornings; but every time the wind came afresh from the north-west it was a little colder, a little more remindful of the icy winter blasts.  Everywhere is autumn a melancholy season, charged with regrets for that which is departing, with shrinking from what is to come; but under the Canadian skies it is sadder and more moving than elsewhere, as though one were bewailing the death of a mortal summoned untimely by the gods before he has lived out his span.

Through the increasing cold, the early frosts, the threats of snow, they held back their hands and put off the reaping from day to day, encouraging the meager grain to steal a little nourishment from the earth’s failing veins and the spiritless sun.  At length, harvest they must, for October approached.  About the time when the leaves of birches and aspens were turning, the oats and the wheat were cut and carried to the barn under a cloudless sky, but without rejoicing.

The yield of grain was poor enough, yet the hay-crop had been excellent, so that the year as a whole gave occasion neither for excess of joy nor sorrow.  However, it was long before the Chapdelaines, in evening talk, ceased deploring the unheard-of August droughts, the unprecedented September frosts, which betrayed their hopes.  Against the miserly shortness of the summer and the harshness of a climate that shows no mercy they did not rebel, were even without a touch of bitterness; but they did not give up contrasting the season with that other year of wonders which fond imagination made the standard of their comparisons; and thus was ever on their lips the countryman’s perpetual lament, so reasonable to the ear, but which recurs unfailingly:  “Had it only been an ordinary year!”

CHAPTER VIII

ENTRENCHED AGAINST WINTER

One October morning Maria’s first vision on arising was of countless snow-flakes sifting lazily from the skies.  The ground was covered, the trees white; verily it seemed that autumn was over, when in other lands it had scarce begun.

But Edwige Legare thus pronounced sentence:  “After the first snowfall there is yet a month before winter sets in.  The old folks always so declared, and I believe it myself.”  He was right; for in two days a rain carried off the snow and the dark soil again lay bare.  Still the warning was heeded, and they set about preparations; the yearly defences against the snow that may not be trifled with, and the piercing cold.