“He is writing.”
And at once the stern voice of the good man would soften as he said:
“Then do not disturb him.”
For, having himself read nothing but the Scriptures and “Don Quixote,” writing in his eyes appeared a sort of religious exercise.
This respect of the unlettered for the mystery of the pen is very well shown in the opening of one of our popular legends:
Monseigneur Saint-Anselme was learned and wise,
One day, by his writing, he rose to the skies, &c.
Another person who, without knowing it, influenced my epic muse was our old cousin Tourette, from the village of Mouriès; a sort of colossus, strong of limb but lame, with great leather gaiters over his boots; he was known in all that part as “The Major,” having, in 1815, served as drum-major in the National Guards, under the command of the Duc d’Angoulême, he who wished to arrest Napoleon on his return from the Isle of Elba. “The Major” had, in his youth, dissipated his fortune by gambling, and in his old age, reduced to poverty, he came, every winter, to pass some time with us at the farm. On his departure, my father always saw that he took with him some bushels of corn. During the summer time he travelled over the Crau and the Camargue, now helping the shepherds to shear the sheep, now the mowers of the marshes to bind the rushes, or the salters to collect and heap up the salt. Certainly no one could equal him in knowledge of the country of Arles and its work. He knew the names of every farm, and every pasture, of the head shepherds, and of each stud of horses or of wild bulls. And he talked of it all with an eloquence, a picturesqueness, a richness of Provençal expression which it was a pleasure to hear. Describing, for instance, the Comte de Mailly as very rich in house property, he would say: “He possesses seven acres of roofing.”
The girls who were engaged for the olive gathering at Mouriès would hire him to tell them stories in the evenings. They gave him, I think, each one, a halfpenny for the evening. He kept them in fits of laughter, for he knew all the stories, more or less humorous, that from one to another were transmitted among the people, such as “Jean de la Vache,” “Jean de la Mule,” “Jean de l’Ours,” “Le Doreur,” &c.
Directly the snow began to fall we knew “The Major” would soon make his appearance. And he never failed.
“Good-day, cousin.”