"And is that a good trade?
Do you earn handsome wages?
Not too handsome, eh! ...

At any rate you are well educated, you and your sons; you can read and write and cipher?
And here am I, not able even to read!" "Nor I!" struck in Ephrem Surprenant, and Conrad Neron and Egide Racicot added: "Nor I!" "Nor I!" in chorus, whereupon the whole of them broke out laughing.
A motion of the Frenchman's hand told them indulgently that they could very well dispense with these accomplishments; to himself of little enough use at the moment.
"You were not able to make a decent living out of your trades over there.

That is so, is it not?
And therefore you came here ?" The question was put simply, without thought of offence, for he was amazed that anyone should abandon callings that seemed so easy and so pleasant for this arduous life on the land.
Why indeed had they come?
...

A few months earlier they would have discovered a thousand reasons and clothed them in words straight from the heart: weariness of the footway and the pavement, of the town's sullied air; revolt against the prospect of lifelong slavery; some chance stirring word of an irresponsible speaker preaching the gospel of vigour and enterprise, of a free and healthy life upon a fruitful soil.

But a few months ago they could have found glowing sentences to tell it all ...