The Milkmaid of Montfermeil Part 5

"You don't seem to be lucky with bowls. But the idea of whipping such a little fellow! These peasants must be very hardhearted. Poor boy! he is still sobbing; and he isn't seven years old! So there's no age at which we haven't our troubles."

The boy led Auguste across several fields, through the middle of which ran narrow paths. It took Auguste still farther from Monsieur Destival's; but he did not choose to leave the child until he saw that he was happy. At last they reached a field of potatoes, and Coco stopped and grasped his companion's arm with a trembling hand.

"There's papa," he said.

Some forty yards away Auguste saw a peasant plying the spade. He dropped the child's hand and walked toward the peasant, who kept at his work, bent double over the ground.

"Pere Calleux, I have come to make amends for a slight accident," said Auguste, raising his voice.

The peasant raised his head and displayed a face covered with blotches, a huge nose, great eyes level with the face, a half-open mouth, and teeth that recalled those of Little Red Riding Hood's enemy. That extraordinary countenance expressed profound amazement at hearing a fashionably-dressed gentleman call him by name.

"I imagine that Pere Calleux is as fond of wine as of cabbage soup,"

said Auguste to himself as he scrutinized the peasant.

"What can I do for you, monsieur?" asked the latter.

"I met your son Coco on the road----"

"Ah! where is he, I'd like to know? He was going to bring me my dinner.--Coco! what are you doing there?"

"Wait until I tell you the whole story; as I was looking at a fine view, I ran into the child, and I knocked the bowl he was carrying out of his hands; it broke, and----"

"You'll pay for it, that's all; for you're to blame for my having no dinner."

"Oh! that's but fair; that's why I came to speak to you. How much do I owe you? Name the price."

"Well, monsieur, it was a good soup-bowl; it was worth all of thirty sous; and there was twelve sous' worth of soup in it; for pork's dear round here----"

"See, here's five francs; are you satisfied?"

"Oh, yes! monsieur; that's fair enough; I haven't got anything to say."

"Then I hope that you won't scold your son; and, if you take my advice you won't make a child of that age carry such heavy loads any more."

"Oh! monsieur, it gets them used to being strong. We poor folks can't bring children up on lollipops.--Well, Coco, come here."

The child approached timidly, and, when he reached his father's side, began to whimper again, saying:

"I broke the bowl."

"Yes, yes, I know what happened; monsieur told me all about it. Go back to the house now, and tell Mere Madeleine to get me some dinner, and to be sure to have some wine. But no, I'd rather go to dinner at Claude's cabaret. Go home, Coco, and don't wait supper for me; I've got business in the town."

Auguste guessed that Pere Calleux's business consisted in drinking up the five-franc piece to the last sou; but, satisfied to see that his young protege was in high spirits, he bade the peasant adieu, and followed the child, who retraced the steps they had just taken; but this time he leaped and gambolled about his companion. His great grief was forgotten already! And they say that we are great children: it is true as concerns our foibles, but not as concerns happiness.

Auguste, happy in the little fellow's joy, took pleasure in watching him. Laughter sits so well upon a little face of six years! A person who is fond of children cannot conceive how anyone can look with indifference on their tears. And yet there are people for whom a dog's yelping has more charm than the laughter of a child! It speaks well for their depth of feeling!

As they went along, Coco sang and ran and played about Auguste, playing little tricks on him, for they were great friends already; at six years and a half one gives one's friendship as quickly as at twenty one gives one's heart. Auguste ran and played with the child; he chased him, caught him, and rolled with him on the gra.s.s, heedless of the fact that it stained his clothes, because the boy's laughter was so frank and true that it was often shared by his elegant companion.

What! you will say, a dandy, a lady-killer, a b.u.t.terfly of fashion, amuse himself playing in the fields with a little peasant boy? Why not, pray? Happy the man who, as he grows old, retains his taste for the simple pleasures of his youth! Henri IV walked about his room on all fours, carrying his children on his back. When surprised in that position by the amba.s.sador of a foreign power, he asked him, without rising, if he were a father, and, upon his answer in the affirmative, rejoined: "In that case, I'll just trot round the room."

When they reached the place where he had first met the child, Auguste would have bade him adieu and have gone his way; but Coco held his hand and refused to release it.

"Come home with me," he said, "please come; Mamma Madeleine will give you some nice b.u.t.ter. Come and you can see Jacqueleine; she's awful pretty, I tell you."

"Who is Jacqueleine, my boy?"

"She's our goat; she sleeps by me."

"And is your home far away?"

"No, it's right over there."

Auguste submitted to be led away. Coco repeating: "It's right over there," gave his companion another half-hour's walk. At last they came in sight of a wretched hovel, the thatched roof of which had fallen in in several places, standing on a crossroad, and Coco shouted: "Here we are; do you see our house?" Then he pulled his companion's sleeve, to make him run with him.

An old woman sat in front of the hovel; she was thin and bent, and her complexion reminded one of an Egyptian mummy. But a strong, shrill voice emerged from her fragile body.

"So here you are at last, lazybones!" she said to the child; "what have you been doing so long? Where's the bowl?"

Coco looked at Auguste, whom he was already accustomed to look upon as his protector; Auguste told Mere Madeleine the same fable that he had told Pere Calleux, reinforced once more by the five-franc piece, which was the irresistible argument. At that the old woman tried to soften her voice, and urged Auguste to come in for a drink of goat's milk and some fresh b.u.t.ter, which were all that she could offer him. The young dandy entered the cabin. His heart sickened at the sight of that wretched habitation. The home of the Calleux family consisted of a single room.

It was a large room, but the daylight lighted only a small part of it.

The bare earth formed the floor; the walls, half whitewashed, had nothing upon them to conceal their nakedness; the thatched roof threatened disaster. Two cot beds, in the darkest corner, had no curtains to shelter them from the wind which entered on all sides. An old buffet, a chest, a table and a few chairs were the only other furniture.

"Where on earth do you sleep?" Auguste asked the child. He led him to a corner of the room, where it was almost impossible to see anything, and pointed out a small straw bed on the floor, with a dilapidated woolen coverlet thrown over it. Close beside it was a goat, lying in some straw that was spread on the ground.

"There's my bed," said Coco. "Oh! I'm all right, you see; Jacqueleine keeps me warm in winter. Jacqueleine loves me, she does!"

And the child threw his arms round the goat's neck, and patted her, rolling over and over on the straw with her. But he was obliged to leave his faithful companion, for his grandmother called him.

"Come, come, good-for-nothing! You can play by-and-by. Come and put the bread on the table and give me a cup. The little scamp ain't good for nothing."

"You treat your grandson very harshly," said Auguste, taking his place at the table and tasting the rye bread and the milk.

"If I'd let him have his way, monsieur, he'd play all day long."

"But you must love the child dearly, as he's the only one your daughter left you."

"Oh! yes, I love him enough! But when a body's poor, it's just as well not to have none at all."

Auguste looked once more at the old peasant woman, and her extreme ugliness no longer surprised him so much. He took Coco on his knee, gave him milk to drink, and bread and b.u.t.ter to eat, and enjoyed looking at his pretty face and lovely fair hair. The old woman seemed astounded by the endearments which the fine gentleman lavished on the child, and muttered between her teeth:

"Oh! you'll spoil him! 'taint no use in doing that!"

"Is he learning to read and write?"

"Oh, of course! where's the money coming from, I'd like to know?

Besides, we don't want to make a scholar of him. Is that wanted for driving the plough?"

"But you might at least give him a better place to sleep than he has."