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“Perhaps he wants some kek,” Fontan said.

“I should have gotten some kek for him,” Madame Fontan said. “Mangez du fromage. Mangez du crimcheez. Vous n’avez rien mangé. I ought have gotten kek. Americans always eat kek.”

“Mais j’ai rudement bien mangé.”

“Mangez! Vous n’avez rien mangé. Eat it all. We don’t save anything. Eat it all up.”

“Eat some more salad,” Fontan said.

“I’ll get some more beer,” Madame Fontan said. “If you work all day in a book-factory you get hungry.”

“Elle ne comprend pas que vous êtes écrivain,” Fontan said. He was a delicate old man who used the slang and knew the popular songs of his period of military service in the end of the 1890’s. “He writes the books himself,” he explained to Madame.

“You write the books yourself?” Madame asked.

“Sometimes.”

“Oh!” she said. “Oh! You write them yourself. Oh! Well, you get hungry if you do that too. Mangez! Je vais chercher de la bière.”

We heard her walking on the stairs to the cellar. Fontan smiled at me. He was very tolerant of people who had not his experience and worldly knowledge.

When André came home from the show we were still sitting in the kitchen and were talking about hunting.

“Labor day we all went to Clear Creek,” Madame said. “Oh, my God, you ought to have been there all right. We all went in the truck. Tout le monde est allé dans le truck. Nous sommes partis le dimanche. C’est le truck de Charley.”

“On a mangé, on a bu du vin, de la bière, et il y avait aussi un français qui a apporté de l’absinthe,” Fontan said. “Un français de la Californie!”

“My God, nous avons chanté. There’s a farmer comes to see what’s the matter, and we give him something to drink, and he stayed with us awhile. There was some Italians come too, and they want to stay with us too. We sung a song about the Italians and they don’t understand it. They didn’t know we didn’t want them, but we didn’t have nothing to do with them, and after a while they went away.”

“How many fish did you catch?”

“Très peu. We went to fish a little while, but then we came back to sing again. Nous avons chanté, vous savez.”

“In the night,” said Madame, “toutes les femmes ont dormi dans le truck. Les hommes à côté du feu. In the night I hear Fontan come to get some more wine, and I tell him, Fontan, my God, leave some for tomorrow. Tomorrow they won’ have anything to drink, and then they’ll be sorry.”

“Mais nous avons tout bu,” Fontan said. “Et le lendemain il ne reste rien.”

“What did you do?”

“Nous avons pêché sérieusement.”

“Good trout, all right, too. My God, yes. All the same; half-pound one ounce.”

“How big?”

“Half-pound one ounce. Just right to eat. All the same size; half-pound one ounce.”

“How do you like America?” Fontan asked me.

“It’s my country, you see. So I like it, because it’s my country. Mais on ne mange pas très bien. D’antan, oui. Mais maintenant, no.”

“No,” said Madame. “On ne mange pas bien.” She shook her head. “Et aussi, il y a trop de Polack. Quand jétais petite ma mère m’a dit, ‘vous mangez comme les Polacks.’ Je n’ai jamais compris ce que c’est qu’un Polack. Mais maintenant en Amérique je comprends. Il y a trop de Polack. Et, my God, ils sont sales, les Polacks.”

“It is fine for hunting and fishing,” I said.

“Oui. Ça, c’est le meilleur. La chasse et la pêche,” Fontan said. “Qu’estce que vous avez comme fusil?”

“A twelve-gauge pump.”

“Il est bon, le pump,” Fontan nodded his head.

“Je veux aller à la chasse moi-même,” André said in his high, little boy’s voice.

“Tu ne peux pas,” Fontan said. He turned to me.

“Ils sont des sauvages, les boys, vous savez. Ils sont des sauvages. Ils veulent shooter les uns les autres.”

“Je veux aller tout seul,” André said, very shrill and excited.

“You can’t go,” Madame Fontan said. “You are too young.”

“Je veux aller tout seul,” André said shrilly. “Je veux shooter les rats d’eau.”

“What are rats d’eau?” I asked.

“You don’t know them? Sure you know them. What they call the muskrats.”

André had brought the twenty-two-calibre rifle out