In the summer-time there are many flies, and the winters are trying; but I suppose that one gets used to these things in time." The father it was who made reply, his sons only nodding their heads in assent with eyes glued to the floor.

Their appearance alone would have served to distinguish them from the other dwellers in the village, but as they spoke the gap widened, and the words that fell from their lips had a foreign ring.

There was none of the slowness of the Canadian speech, nor of that indefinable accent found in no comer of France, which is only a peasant blend of the different pronunciations of former emigrants.

They used words and turns of phrase one never hears in Quebec, even in the towns, and which to these simple men seemed fastidious and wonderfully refined.
"Before coming to these parts were you farmers in your own country ?" "No." "What trade then did you follow ?" The Frenchman hesitated a moment before replying; possibly thinking that what he was about to say would be novel, and hard for them to understand.

"I was a tuner myself, a piano-tuner; my two sons here were clerks, Edmond in an office, Pierre in a shop." Clerks--that was plain enough for anyone; but their minds were a little hazy as to the father's business.
However Ephrem Surprenant chimed in with.--"Piano-tuner; that was it, just so!" And his glance at Conrad Neron his neighbour was a trifle superior and challenging, as though intimating.--"You would not believe me, and maybe you don't know what it means, but now you see ..." "Piano-tuner," Samuel Chapdelaine echoed in turn, slowly grasping the meaning of the words.