A sharp-faced little fellow took his place.
"Who wants to buy a fine young pig of my breeding ?" he asked, indicating with his finger something shapeless that struggled in a bag at his feet.

A great burst of laughter greeted him.

They knew them well, these pigs of Hormidas' raising.

No bigger than rats, and quick as squirrels to jump the fences.
"Twenty-five cents!" one young man bid chaffingly.
"Fifty cents!" "A dollar!" "Don't play the fool, Jean.

Your wife will never let you pay a dollar for such a pig as that." Jean stood his ground:--"A dollar, I won't go back on it." Hormidas Berube with a disgusted look on his face awaited another bid, but only got jokes and laughter.
Meantime the women in their turn had begun to leave the church.
Young or old, pretty or ugly, nearly all were well clad in fur cloaks, or in coats of heavy cloth; for, honouring the Sunday mass, sole festival of their lives, they had doffed coarse blouses and homespun petticoats, and a stranger might well have stood amazed to find them habited almost with elegance in this remote spot; still French to their finger-tips in the midst of the vast lonely forest and the snow, and as tastefully dressed, these peasant women, as most of the middle-class folk in provincial France.
Cleophas Pesant waited for Louisa Tremblay who was alone, and they went off together along the wooden sidewalk in the direction of the house.