Quebec City, Que.
Tues., Oct. 19, 1926
Arriving back in Quebec on the sleeper this morning, we were glad to find letters from home awaiting us. At the Price Paper Co. Colony at River Bend, we met the fiery-tempered housekeeper in the King Edward boarding house where we had lunch. A more British Britisher never lived. After all the other boarders had left, she came to our table and simply railed against the French-Canadians, or rather French-Indians, as she called them, and particularly against the priests, although she was a Catholic herself, citing incident after gory incident.
This morning we had taken the train from Chicoutimi to Isle Maligne, where there is a huge power plant. Bill had a letter to one of the men in charge, but thought we’d see the plant before contacting him. It was lucky we did, for the man turned out to be a prude and a clam and Bill never would have learned the things he did if we had relied on his taking us through the outfit.
Then, after walking the three miles to River Bend, we went through the Price Paper Mill which, barely a year old, is the last word in modernity. It was only 2 o’clock after all this and our train wasn’t to leave the junction nine miles away until 9:24 P.M., so there was heaps of time to get some real exercise. We walked the whole nine miles, arriving before 6, hungry and no place to eat in sight. When a freight train hove in view, the station agent said we could ride on that to Herbertsville where there was a hotel. So into the caboose we climbed, having a novel, though unsociable, five-mile ride, for the trainmen could not speak English or understand Bill’s overseas French. Bill gets on easily with the city Frenchmen, but not so with those in the wilds.
Herbertsville is a little prairie village of shacks, like Bret Harte’s “Mud Flats” I imagine. Anyway, we managed to get a good meal in its one hotel. In the narrow dining room, red ribbons held back the long lace window curtains; bright chromes of fruits and flowers hung on the walls; and a statue of a nymph bathing in a pool stood on the mantel. There was no bill-of-fare, and not being able to understand one single word the little French waitress said, the neighbors kindly helped us out. During the meal there was charming singing in the kitchen--a mother humming a lullaby to her baby. We noticed the son stopped at the appearance of our waitress. Sometimes one or two other voices chimed in and once someone struck up a gay tune on an accordion, so the baby, no doubt, had to be rocked to sleep again.