nine at night
Borrowings from other languages have added to the uncertainties of orthography and gender . Individuals sign indifferently , Denise , Denije or Deneije ; Conrad or Courade ; men bear such names as Hermenegilde , Aglae , Edwige . Edwige Legare had worked for the Chapdelaines these eleven summers . That is to say , for wages of twenty dollars a month he was in harness each day from four in the morning till nine at night at any and every job that called for doing , bringing to it a sort of frenzied and inexhaustible enthusiasm ; for he was one of those men incapable by his nature of working save at the full pitch of strength and energy , in a series of berserk rages . Short and broad , his eyes were the brightest blue -- a thing rare in Quebec-at once piercing and guileless , set in a visage the colour of clay that always showed cruel traces of the razor , topped by hair of nearly the same shade . With a pride in his appearance that was hard to justify he shaved himself two or three times a week , always in the evening , before the bit of looking-glass that hung over the pump and by the feeble light of the little lamp-driving the steel through his stiff beard with groans that showed what it cost him in labour and anguish . Clad in shirt and trousers of brownish homespun , wearing huge dusty boots , he was from head to heel of a piece with the soil , nor was there aught in his face to redeem the impression of rustic uncouthness .