Chapter 55 Visitors - 3

He was a skilful woodsman, reveling in the skill of the art, and felling trees level with the ground, from which the shoots which sprouted from the roots were extraordinarily strong in the future, and the sledges slid on the flat roots. moreover, he didn't use a rope to pull down the big tree that had been cut halfway through the root, he cut the tree into a thin stick or a thin piece, and finally, you only need to push it lightly with your hand, Just pushed it down. He interested me because he was so quiet, so lonely, and so happy inside; his eyes overflowed with joy and contentment.His joy was not mixed with other ingredients.Sometimes, when I saw him working in the woods, felling trees, he greeted me with a laugh of indescribable satisfaction, and greeted me in French with a Canadian accent, although he also spoke good English.As soon as I approached him, he stopped working, and, half-restraining his joy, lay down beside a pine tree he had felled, peeled off the inner bark of the branch, and rolled it into a ball, Laughing and talking while chewing it.He was so full of energy that sometimes anything that made him use his mind hit an itch and he would fall to the ground laughing and roll over.Looking at the trees around him, he would exclaim,--"Really! It's good enough logging here; I want no better amusement." Sometimes, at his leisure, he would walk in the woods with a little pistol Enjoy yourself all day, firing a gun to yourself on time as you go.In winter he built a fire and made coffee in a pot at noon, and when he ate his meal sitting on a log a bird would occasionally come and sit on his arm and peck at a potato in his hand; He just said that he "likes to have some tricks on the side".

In him the main thing is freshness.Physically tough and content, he was a cousin to pines and rocks.I was asked once whether he was tired after working all day and at night; he replied with a sincere and serious look, "God knows, I have never been tired in my life." But in him the intellect, what is commonly called the spiritual, was still asleep. Yes, like the spirit of a baby.He was educated only in the naive, useless manner in which the Catholic priests educate the natives, and in this manner the pupil never attains to consciousness, but only to trust and reverence. To the extent that a child is not educated, he is still a child.When nature created him, she gave him a strong body, and made him content with his lot, supporting him with respect and trust all around him, so that he could never be like a child. It seems that he lived until he was seventy years old.He was so simple and unpretentious that he needed no more introductions than you need to introduce a groundhog to your neighbor.He is a person who has to get to know himself slowly, just like you have to get to know him slowly.He does nothing.People gave him money for his work; it helped him get food and clothing; but he never exchanged opinions with people.He was so simple and naturally humble—if a person who has no extravagant expectations can be called humble—this humbleness was not obvious in him, and he didn't feel it himself.For him, a smarter person is like a god. If you tell him that such a person is coming, he seems to think that such a grand event must have nothing to do with him, and things will be done naturally by themselves. Let him be forgotten.He never heard words of praise for him.He especially respected writers and missionaries.He thought their work was miraculous.When I told him that I also wrote a lot, he thought for a while and thought I was talking about writing, and he also wrote well.I sometimes see the name of the parish of his hometown written beautifully on the snow beside the road, marked with the French accent, and I know that he has passed here.I asked him if he ever thought about writing his own thoughts.He said he had read and written some letters to illiterate people, but never tried to write his thoughts—no, he couldn't, he wouldn't know what to write first, and it would kill him, What's more, pay attention to pinyin when writing!

I once heard a famous wise man and reformer ask him if he would like the world to change: he laughed in amazement, having never thought of the question, and replied in his Canadian accent, "No, I like it very much Well," a philosopher can get a lot out of talking to him.To strangers he seemed ignorant of general matters; but I sometimes saw in him a man I had never seen before, and I wondered whether he was as wise as Shakespeare, or as naïve as ever. Chisel, like a child; I don't know if he is poetic or a fool.A townsman told me that when he met him, wearing his buttoned-up cap, idling through the village, whistling to himself, he reminded him of a prince in disguise.