Lise could get nothing more definite out of them. She left them, shutting the door upon the room, which relapsed into its benumbed condition; and the house seemed empty once more.
In the meadows on the banks of the Aigre, Jean and his two haymakers had begun the first stack. It was Françoise who built it up. Placed on a heap in the centre, she disposed circularly around her the forkfuls of hay which the young man and Palmyre brought her. Little by little the stack grew bigger and higher, she being always in the midst, and filling up the hollow in which she stood with bundles of hay as soon as the wall around her rose up to her knees. The rick was now beginning to take shape. It was already more than two yards high, and Palmyre and Jean had to raise their forks on high. The work did not proceed without the accompaniment of loud laughter, inspired by the exhilaration of the open air, and by the jests bandied to and fro amid the sweet-scented hay. Françoise, whose handkerchief had slipped down off the back of her head, which was bare to the sun, and whose hair was in disarray and entangled with grass and withered flowers—was in the happiest of moods amid that growing pile in which she was plunged up to her thighs. She buried her bare arms in the mass; every bundle tossed up from below covered her with a shower of stalks; and at times she vanished from sight and pretended to come to grief among the eddies.
"Oh, good gracious! There's something pricking me!"
"Whereabouts?"
"Under my petticoats; up here."
"It's a spider. Hold hard! keep your legs together."
And the laughter grew louder, at improper jests that made them split their sides.
Delhomme, in the distance, was disturbed, and turned his head for an instant but without ceasing to ply his scythe. Oh, yes! a lot of work that little chit must be doing, playing like that! Now-a-days girls were spoiled, and only worked to amuse themselves. He went on, laying the swath low with hurried strokes, and leaving a clear wake behind him. The sun sank in the heavens, the mowers broadened the gaps they had made. Victor, although he had left off hammering his blade, evinced no particular haste; and as La Trouille went by with her geese, he slily slipped off, and ran to meet her under shelter of a thick line of willows that edged the stream.
"Aha!" cried Jean; "he prefers something else to mowing."
Françoise burst into a fresh guffaw.