My backwoods eyes can see your thought. What has all
this to do with Joseph Brecht? What has it to do with Andre Beauvais? Why
does this little forest priest take up so much time in telling so little?
you ask. And because it has its place--because it has its meaning--I ask
you for permission to tell my story in my own way. For these sufferings,
this hunger and pestilence and death, had a strange and terrible effect
on many human creatures that were left alive when spring came. It was
like a great storm that had swept through a forest of tall trees. A storm
of suffering that left heads bowed, shoulders bent, and minds gone. Yes,
GONE!
Since that winter of Le Mort Rouge I know of eyes into which the life of
laughter will never come again; I know of strong men who became as little
children; I have seen faces that were fair with youth shrivel into
age--and my people call it noot' akutawin keskwawin--the cold and hungry
madness. May God help Andre Beauvais!
I will tell the story now.
It was in June. The last of the mush-snows had gone early, nearly a
fortnight before, and the waters were free from ice, when word was
brought to me that Father Boget was dying at Old Fort Reliance. Father
Boget was twenty years older than I, and I called him mon pere. He was a
father to me in our earlier years. I made haste to reach him that I might
hold his hand before he died, if that was possible.
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