"Pounds! Ah!" ejaculated French.
"I would find myself immersed in dreamy seas of vaporous and idle bliss--do you catch that combination?--and fancy myself, mark you, busy all the time. It is the smoker's dementia accentuated by such a mixture as this, that while he is blowing rings he imagines he is doing something--"
"The deuce he does! And he is jolly well right."
"So, having something other to do than blow rings, I have abjured the pipe. There are other reasons, but that will suffice."
"Abundantly," said French with emphasis, "and permit me to remark that you have been talking rot."
Brown shook his head with a smile.
"Now tell me," continued French, "what is your idea? What have you in view in planting yourself down here? In short, to put it bluntly, what are you doing?"
"Doing nothing, as yet," said Brown cheerfully, "but I want to do a lot. I have got this Galician colony in my eye."
"I beg your pardon," said French, "are you by any chance a preacher?"
"Well, I may be, though I can't preach much. But my main line is the kiddies. I can teach them English, and then I am going to doctor them, and, if they'll let me, teach them some of the elements of domestic science; in short, do anything to make them good Christians and good Canadians, which is the same thing."
"That is a pretty large order. Look here, now," said French, sitting up, "you look like a sensible fellow, and open to advice.
Don't be an ass and throw yourself away. I know these people well.
In a generation or two something may be done with them. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, you know. Give it up. Take up a ranch and go cattle raising. That is my advice. I know them.
You can't undo in your lifetime the results of three centuries.
It's a hopeless business. I tried myself to give them some pointers when they came in first, and worried a good deal about it.
I got myself disliked for my pains and suffered considerable annoyance. Now I leave them beautifully alone. Their suspicions have vanished and they no longer look at me as if I were a thief."
Brown's face grew serious. "It's a fact, they are suspicious, frightfully. I have been talking school to them, but they won't have a school as a gift. My Church, the Presbyterian, you know, offers to put up a school for them, since the Government won't do anything, but they are mightily afraid that this is some subtle scheme for extracting money from them. But what can you expect?
The only church they know has bled them dry, and they fear and hate the very name of church."
"By Jove! I don't wonder," said French.
"Nor do I."
"But look here, Brown," said French, "you don't mean to tell me,--I assure you I don't wish to be rude,--but you don't mean to tell me that you have come here, a man of your education and snap--"
"Thank you," said Brown.
"To teach a lot of Galician children."
"Well," said Brown, "I admit I have come partially for my health.
You see, I am constitutionally inclined--"
"Oh, come now," said French, "as my friend Kalman would remark, cut it out."
"Partially for my health, and partially for the good of the country. These people here exist as an undigested foreign mass.
They must be digested and absorbed into the body politic. They must be taught our ways of thinking and living, or it will be a mighty bad thing for us in Western Canada. Do you know, there are over twenty-five thousand of them already in this country?"
"Oh, that's all right," said French, "but they'll learn our ways fast enough. And as for teaching their children, pardon me, but it seems to me you are too good a man to waste in that sort of thing.
Why, bless my soul, you can get a girl for fifty dollars a month who would teach them fast enough. But you--now you could do big things in this country, and there are going to be big things doing here in a year or two."
"What things?" said Brown with evident interest.
"Oh, well, ranching, farming on a big scale, building railroads, lumber up on the hills, then, later, public life. We will be a province, you know, one of these days, and the men who are in at the foundation making will stand at the top later on."
"You're all right," cried Brown, his eyes alight with enthusiasm.
"There will be big things doing, and, believe me, this is one of them."
"What? Teaching a score of dirty little Galicians? The chances are you'll spoil them. They are good workers as they are. None better. They are easy to handle. You go in and give them some of our Canadian ideas of living and all that, and before you know they are striking for higher wages and giving no end of trouble."
"You would suppress the school, then, in Western Canada?" said Brown.
"No, not exactly. But if you educate these fellows, you hear me, they'll run your country, by Jove! in half a dozen years, and you wouldn't like that much."
"That's exactly it," replied Brown; "they'll run your country anyhow you put it, school or no school, and, therefore, you had better fit them for the job. You have got to make them Canadian."
"A big business that," said French.
"Yes," replied Brown, "there are two agencies that will do it."
"Namely."
"The school and the Church."
"Oh, yes, that's all right, I guess," losing interest in the discussion.
"That's my game too," said Brown with increasing eagerness.
"That's my idea,--the school and the Church. You say the big things are ranches, railroads, and mills. So they are. But the really big things are the things that give us our ideas and our ideals, and those are the school and the Church. But, I say, you will be wanting to turn in. You wait a minute and I'll make your bed."
"Bed? Nonsense!" said French. "Your tent floor is all right.
I've been twenty years in this country, and Kalman is already an old timer, so don't you start anything."
"Might as well be comfortable," said Brown cheerfully. "I have a great weakness for comfort. In fact, I can't bear to be uncomfortable. I live luxuriously. I'll be back in a few minutes."
He disappeared behind a bluff and came back in a short time with a large bundle of swamp-grass, which he speedily made into a very comfortable bed.
