The Cabin Part 6

It rained but little, the crops were bad for four consecutive years, and at last Batiste did not know what to do nor where to turn. Then, in a trip to Valencia, he made the acquaintance of the sons of Don Salvador, excellent gentlemen (the Lord bless them), who offered to let him use these beautiful fields rent-free for two years, until they could be brought back completely to their old condition.

He had heard rumours of what had happened at the farm-house; of the causes which had compelled the owner to keep these beautiful lands unproductive; but such a long time had elapsed! Furthermore, poverty has no ears; the fields suited him, and in them he would remain. What did he care for the story of don Salvador and old Barret?

All of which was scorned and forgotten as he looked over the land. And Batiste felt himself filled with sweet ecstasy at finding himself the cultivator of the fertile _huerta_, which he had envied so many times as he pa.s.sed along the high-road of Valencia to Sagunto.

This was fine land; always green; of inexhaustible fertility, producing one harvest after another; the red water circulating at all hours like life-giving blood through the innumerable ca.n.a.ls and irrigation trenches which furrowed its surface like a complicated network of veins and arteries; so fertile that entire families were supported by patches so small that they looked like green handkerchiefs. The dry fields off there near Sagunto reminded him of an inferno of drought, from which he fortunately had liberated himself.

Now he was sure that he was on the right road. To work! The fields were ruined; there was much work to be done; but when one is so willing! And this big, robust, muscular fellow, with the shoulders of a giant, closely cropped round head, and good-natured countenance supported by the heavy neck of a monk, extended his powerful arms, accustomed to raising sacks of flour and the heavy skin sacks of the teamster's trade, aloft in the air, and stretched himself.

He was so absorbed in his lands that he scarcely noticed the curiosity of his neighbours.

Restless heads appeared between the cane-brake; men, stretched out at full-length on the sloping banks, were watching him; even the women and the children of the adjoining _huertas_ followed his movements.

Batiste did not mind them. It was curiosity, the hostile expectation which recent arrivals always inspire. Well did he know what that was; they would get accustomed to it. Furthermore, perhaps they were interested in seeing how that desolate growth burned, which ten years of abandonment had heaped upon the fields of Barret.

And aided by his wife and children, he went about on the day after his arrival, burning up all the parasitic vegetation.

The shrubs writhed in the flames; they fell like live coals from whose ashes the loathsome vermin escaped all singed, and the farm-house seemed lost amid the clouds of smoke from these fires, which awakened silent anger in all the _huerta_.

The fields once cleared, Batiste without losing time proceeded to cultivate them. They were somewhat hard; but like an expert farmer, he planned to work them little by little, in sections, and marking out a plot near his farm-house, he began to break up the earth, aided by all his family.

The neighbours made sport of them with an irony which betrayed their irritation. A pretty family! They were gipsies, like those who sleep under the bridges. They lived in that old farm-house like shipwrecked sailors who are holding out in a ruined boat; plugging a hole here, shoring there, doing real wonders to sustain the straw roof, and distributing their poor furniture, carefully polished, in all the rooms which had been before the burrowing place of rats and vermin.

In their industry, they were like a nest of squirrels, unable to keep idle while the father was working. Teresa, the wife, and Roseta, the eldest daughter, with their skirts tucked in between their legs, and hoe in hand, dug with more zeal than day-labourers, resting only to throw back the locks of hair which kept straggling over their red, perspiring foreheads. The eldest son made continuous trips to Valencia with the rush-basket on his shoulder, carrying manure and rubbish which he piled up in two heaps like columns of honour at the entrance to the farm-house; and the three little tots, grave and laborious, as if they understood the situation of the family, went down on all fours behind the diggers, tearing up the hard roots of the burned shrubs from the earth.

This preparatory work lasted more than a week, the family sweating and panting from dawn till night.

Half of the land having been broken up, Batiste fenced in the plot and tilled it with the aid of the willing nag, which was like one of the family.

He had only to proceed to cultivate. They were then in Saint Martin's summer, the time of sowing, and the labourer divided the broken-up earth into three parts. The greater part was for wheat, a smaller patch for beans, and another part for fodder, for it would not do to forget Morrut, the dear old horse: well had he earned it.

And with the joy of those who discover a port after a hard voyage, the family proceeded to the sowing. The future was a.s.sured. The fields of the _huerta_ never failed; here bread for all the year would be forthcoming.

On the afternoon which completed the sowing, they saw coming over the adjoining road some sheep with dirty wool, which stopped timidly at the end of the field.

Behind them walked an old man, like dried up parchment, yellowish, with deep sunken eyes and a mouth surrounded by a circle of wrinkles. He was walking with firm steps, but with his shepherd's crook ahead of him, as though feeling his way along the road.

The family looked at him with attention; he was the only person who had ventured to approach the land within the two weeks they were here. On noticing the hesitation of the sheep, he shouted to them to go on.

Batiste went out to meet the old man; he could not pa.s.s through; the fields were now under cultivation. Did he not know?

Old Tomba had heard something, but during the two preceding weeks, he had taken out his flock to graze upon the rank gra.s.s in the ravine of Carraixet, without concerning himself about the fields. So indeed they now were cultivated?

And the old shepherd raised his head, and with his almost sightless eyes made an effort to see the bold man who dared to do that which was held to be impossible in all the _huerta_.

He was silent for a long while. Then at last he began to mutter sadly: Too bad. He had also been daring in his youth; he had liked to go counter to everything. But when the enemies are so many! Very bad! He had put himself into an awkward position. These lands, since the time of old Barret, had been accursed. He could take his, Tomba's, word for it; he was old and experienced; they would bring him misfortune.

And the shepherd called his flock and made them start out again along the road, but before departing, he threw back his cloak, raised his emaciated arms, and with a certain intonation characteristic of a seer who forecasts the future, or of a prophet who scents disaster, he cried to Batiste:

"Believe me, my son, they will bring you misfortune!"

This encounter gave the _huerta_ another cause for anger.

Old Tomba could not bring his sheep back into those lands, after enjoying the peaceful use of their fodder for ten years!

Not a word was said as to the legitimacy of the refusal, inasmuch as the land was now under cultivation; they spoke only of the respect which the old shepherd deserved, a man who in his youth had "eaten up" the French alive, who had seen much of the world, and whose wisdom, demonstrated by half-spoken words and incoherent advice, inspired a superst.i.tious respect among the people of the _huerta_.

After Batiste and his family saw the bosom of the earth well-filled with fertile seed, they began, for lack of work more pressing, to think of the house. The fields would do their duty; now the time had arrived to think about themselves.

And for the first time since his coming to the _huerta_, Batiste left his land for Valencia to load into his cart all the rubbish of the city which might be useful to him.

This man was like a lucky ant. The mounds started by Batiste increased considerably with the expeditions of the father. The heap of manure which formed a defensive screen before the farm-house, grew rapidly, and beyond, there was piling up a mound of hundreds of broken bricks, worm-eaten wood, broken-down doors, windows reduced to splinters, all the refuse of the demolished buildings of the city.

The people of the _huerta_ looked with astonishment at the dispatch and clever skill of these laborious ants as they worked to prepare their home.

The straw roof of the house stood erect again; some of the rafters of the roof, corroded by the rains, were reinforced, others subst.i.tuted. A new layer of straw now covered the two hanging planes of the exterior; even the little crosses at the ends were supplanted by others which Batiste had daintily made with his clasp knife, decorating their corners with notched grooves: and in all the neighbourhood, there was not a roof which rose more trimly.

The neighbours, on noticing how Barret's house was improved when the roof was placed erect, saw in it something to mock and to challenge.

Then the work below was started. What ways and means of utilizing the rubbish of Valencia! The c.h.i.n.ks disappeared, and the plastering of the walls being finished, the wife and daughters white-washed them a dazzling white. The door, new and painted blue, seemed to be the mother of all the little windows, which showed their four square faces of the same colour through the openings of the walls; under the vine-arbour, Batiste made a little enclosure paved with red bricks, so the women might sew there during the afternoon. The well, after a week of descents and laborious carryings, was cleared of all the rocks and the refuse with which the rascals of the _huerta_ had filled it for the last ten years, and its water, fresh and clear, began to rise once more in the mossy bucket, with joyful creakings of the pulley, which seemed to laugh at the district with the strident peals of laughter of a malicious old woman.

The neighbours chocked down their fury in silence. Thief! More than thief! A fine way to work! This man, in his robust arms, seemed to possess two magic wands that transformed all that he touched!

Two months had pa.s.sed since his arrival, yet he had not left his land a half-dozen times; he was always there, his head between his shoulders, intoxicated with work. And the house of Barret began to present a smiling and coquettish aspect, such as it had never possessed in the days of its former master.

The corral, previously enclosed with rotting cane-brake, now had sides of pickets and clay painted white, along whose edges strutted the ruddy hens, and the c.o.c.k, excited, shook his red comb. In the little square in front of the house, beds of morning-glories and climbing plants blossomed; a row of chipped jars painted blue served as flower-pots on the bench of red bricks; and through the half-open door, oh vain fellow!

the new pitcher-shelf might be seen, with its enamelled tiling, and its glazed green pitchers, casting insolent reflections which blinded the eyes of the pa.s.serby who went along the adjoining road.

All the _huerta_ with increasing fury ran to Pimento. "Could it possibly be permitted? What did the terrible husband of Pepeta think of doing?"

And Pimento, scratching his forehead, listened to them with a certain confusion.

What was he going to do? He would say just two little words to this stranger who had set himself to cultivate that which was not his; he would give him a hint, a very serious hint, not to be a fool, but to let the land go, as he had no business there. But that accursed man would not come forth from his fields, and it would never do to go to him and threaten him in his own house. It would mean the giving of a foundation for that which must follow. He had to be cautious and watch till he came out. In short, a little patience. He was able to a.s.sure them that the man in question would not reap the wheat, nor gather the beans, nor anything which had been planted in the fields of Barret. That should be for the devil.

Pimento's words calmed the neighbours, who followed the progress of the accursed family with attentive glances, wishing silently that the hour of their ruin would soon arrive.

One afternoon, Batiste returned from Valencia very well pleased with the result of his trip. He wanted no idle hands in his house. Batiste, when the work in the field did not take his time, was occupied in going to the city for manure. The little girl, a willing youngster, who once they were settled was of small use at home, had, thanks to the patronage of the sons of Don Salvador, who seemed very well satisfied with his new tenant, just succeeded in getting taken into a silk factory.

On the following day, Roseta would be one of the string of girls who, awakening with the dawn, marched with waving skirts and their little baskets on their arm, over all the paths, on their way to the city to spin the silky coc.o.o.n with the thick fingers of the daughters of the _huerta_.

When Batiste arrived near the tavern of Copa, a man appeared in the road, emerging from an adjoining path, and walked slowly toward him, giving him to understand that he desired to speak to him.

Batiste stopped, regretting inwardly that he did not have with him so much as a clasp knife or a hoe; but calm and quiet, he raised his round head with the imperious expression so much feared by his family and crossed his muscular arms, the arms of a former millhand, on his breast.

He knew this man, although he had never spoken with him; it was Pimento.

The meeting which he had dreaded so much finally occurred.

The bully measured this odious intruder with a glance, and spoke to him in a bland voice, striving to give an accent of good-natured counsel to his ferocity and evil intention.