“There, there,” said the Misè, “never thou mind about Jean’s lamb, but run along now and finish thy crèche.”
Now, in Provence, at the time when Félix lived, no one had ever heard of such a thing as a Christmas tree; but in its stead every cottage had a “crèche”; that is, in one corner of the great living-room, the room of the fireplace, the peasant children and their fathers and mothers built upon a table a mimic village of Bethlehem, with houses and people and animals, and, above all, with the manger, where the Christ Child lay. Every one took the greatest pains to make the crèche as perfect as possible, and some even went so far as to fasten tiny angels to the rafters, so that they hovered over the toy houses like a flock of white butterflies; and sometimes a gold star, hung on a golden thread, quivered over the little manger, in memory of the wonderful star of the Magi.
In the Michaud cottage the crèche was already well under way. In the corner across from the fireplace the Père had built up a mound, and this Félix had covered with bits of rock and tufts of grass, and little green boughs for trees, to represent the rocky hillside of Judea; then, half-way up, he began to place the tiny houses. These he had cut out of wood and adorned with wonderful carving, in which he was very skilful. And then, such figures as he had made, such quaint little men and women, such marvelous animals, camels and oxen and sheep and horses, were never before seen in Sur Varne. But the figure on which he had lavished his utmost skill was that of the little Christ Child, which was not to be placed in the manger until the Holy Night itself.
Félix kept this figure in his blouse pocket, carefully wrapped up in a bit of wool, and he spent all his spare moments striving to give it some fresh beauty; for I will tell you a secret: poor little Félix had a great passion for carving, and the one thing for which he longed above all others was to be allowed to apprentice himself in the workshop of Père Videau, who was the master carver of the village, and whose beautiful work on the portals of the great church was the admiration of Félix’s heart. He longed, too, for better tools than the rude little knife he had, and for days and years in which to learn to use them.
But the Père Michaud had scant patience with these notions of the little son’s. Once, when Félix had ventured to speak to him about it, he had insisted rather sharply that he was to stick to his sheep-tending, so that when the Père himself grew old he could take charge of the flocks and keep the family in bread; for the Père had small faith in the art of the carver as being able to supply the big brown loaves that the Misè baked every week in the great stone oven. So Félix was obliged to go on minding the flocks; but whenever he had a moment of his own, he employed it in carving a bit of wood or chipping at a fragment of soft stone.
But while I have stopped to tell you all this, he had almost finished the crèche; the little houses were all in place, and the animals grouped about the holy stable, or else seeming to crop the tufts of moss on the mimic rocky hillside. Over the manger with its tiny wisp of hay, twinkled a wonderful star that Félix had made from some golden beads that the Misè had treasured for years as part of her peasant bridal finery.
Altogether, the crèche was really very prettily arranged, and after giving several final touches, Félix stood back and surveyed it with much satisfaction.
“Well, well!” said the Père Michaud, who had just entered the cottage, “’tis a fine bit of work thou hast there, my son! Truly ’tis a brave crèche! But,” he added, “I trow thou hast not forgotten the live sheep in the fold whilst thou hast been busy with these little wooden images here?”