"Which of them do you mean?" he said, laughing at my sleepy way. "We have met more than five hundred since morning."
"Those with the cart and donkey," I replied.
"Oh!" said he, "well, faith, I don't know; I never thought to ask. Probably they come from either La Marche or Champagne, for they speak with a foreign accent; but I was so busy watching to see if the mare was good at the collar that I didn't take notice of much else. She does pull very well, and didn't hang back at all; I think she will prove serviceable, and that I have not paid too dear for her."
From that time on (the trip having certainly done me good) I got better and better, and took a liking for work. My father gave me first the care of the mare, then that of the garden, and finally that of the field; and, little by little, I came to take pleasure in digging, planting, and harvesting.
By that time my father was a widower, and seemed anxious to let me benefit by the property my mother had left me. So he gave me a share in all our little profits, and wished for nothing so much as to see me turn out a good farmer. It was not long before he found I had a relish for the life; for if youth needs courage to deprive itself of pleasure in the service of others, it needs none at all to work for its own interests, above all when they are in common with those of a worthy family, honest in the division of profits, and agreeing well as to the work.
I still continued rather fond of gossiping and amusing myself on Sundays. But no one blamed me for that at home, because I was a good worker during the week. Such a life brought me health of body and good-humor, and a little more sense in my head than I gave promise of at first. I forgot all the vaporings of love, for nothing keeps you so quiet as to sweat with a spade from sunrise to sunset; and when night comes, those who have had to do with the heavy, rich soil of our parts (the hardest mistress there is), amuse themselves best by going to sleep, to be ready for the morrow.
That is how I peacefully reached the age when it is allowable to think, not of little girls, but of grown-up ones; and at the very first stirring of such ideas, I found my cousin Brulette still fixed, above all others, in my inclinations.
Living alone with her grandfather, Brulette had done her best to be older than her years in sense and courage. But some children are born with the gift or the fate of being always petted and cared for. Mariton's former lodging was let to Mère Lamouche, of Vieilleville, who was poor, and was therefore ready to serve the Brulets as though they paid her wages, hoping thereby to get a hearing when she declared herself unable to pay the rent. It so turned out; and Brulette, finding that the new neighbor helped her, forestalled her, and made things comfortable for her, had time and ease to grow in mind and beauty without much effort of soul or body.