"Let him alone, Nicholas," said the mother. "He does not wish to be a priest? Very well. That is his affair. But if he wants to have an education, he shall have it. Why not? It will cost nothing, and he will not need to spend ten years at Quebec. It may be well worth while--who knows? Perhaps he may become an advocate or a notary, but even if he remains a cultivator why should he not know something? I don’t know much, myself, but I say that the habitants are too ignorant. Only the priests have knowledge. Jean, my lad, you shall read as much as you please, and if your brothers will not study they shall work. There!" Yet Jean sometimes made notable contributions to the support of the family, for he was both hunter and fisherman, and when he brought in a bag of hares and grouse or a basket of trout his brothers had no complaint to make. He shot wild ducks and geese in the autumn, red deer and caribou in the winter; often he would trap a fox or a sable, and now and then he secured a wolf or a bear. The skins of these animals brought good prices at Quebec, and the meat was highly appreciated by the family and the neighbours as a pleasant change from the regular diet of fat pork. Certainly, Jean earned his living, and more, but got little credit because he did not do it in the usual way. Thus six or seven years slipped away, while Jean led an existence free from care, like the grasshopper of the fable that sang all summer and thought not at all of the evil days that were to come. From the library of Father Paradis he got a knowledge of books such as few students obtain in all their years at college and seminary. From his work on the farm he acquired an extraordinary facility in the use of all the implements, especially the axe, the best friend of the backwoodsman. From his hunting and fishing expeditions he obtained a knowledge of woodcraft equal to that of an Indian, while he learned to know the beasts and the birds of the forest, the rocks, trees, wild flowers, and all the objects of Nature, as they are known to few naturalists. The growth of his body, too, kept pace with the development of his mind, until he was as fine a specimen of young manhood as one could wish to see, the like of whom could not be found in ten parishes. Truly, if education is the development of all the faculties, Jean Baptiste Giroux was a well-educated young man.