Suddenly she felt the loss of her mother. She belonged to no one in the world.
"Poor petite." She made a sudden snatch at her own baby and hugged it so tightly that it shrieked, at which she laughed.
"Some day a man will hug thee and thou wilt not scream," she said in good humor.
Pani came from round the corner and then darted back. The boy left his work and came forward.
"Who was that?" he asked. "My father said 'get an Indian boy to work in the garden.' I am making a chair for the little one. And I can't tell which are weeds. Yesterday I pulled up some onions and father was angry, but he could set them out again."
Rose laughed at that, and thought it remarkable that his father did not beat him.
"Pani might show you a little. He belongs to me now. We both used to work in the garden. Mère Dubray was always knitting and cooking."
Pani emerged again. "Yes, let us go," and Rose led the way, but she would have liked to throw herself down among the babies, who seemed all arms and legs.
"Can you read?" the boy said suddenly. "We have a book and I can read quite well. My father knows how. And I want to be a great man like the Sieur, and some of the soldiers. I want to know how to keep accounts, and to go to France some time in the big ships."
Rose colored. "I am going to learn to read this winter, when we have to stay in. But it is very difficult—tiresome. I'd rather climb the rocks and watch the birds. I had some once that would come for grains and bits of corn cake. And the geese were so tame down there by the end of the garden."