Zut, and Other Parisians

by Guy Wetmore Carryl

Little Tapin

HIS name was Jean-Marie-Michel Jumière, and the first eighteen years of his life were spent near the little Breton village of Plougastel. They were years of which each was, in every respect, like that which went before, and, in every respect, like that which followed after: years, that is to say, devoid of incident, beyond the annual pardon, when the peasants came from far and near to the quaint little church, to offer their prayers at the cemetery Calvary, and display their holiday costumes, and make love, and exchange gossip on the turf round about. It is a land of wide and wind-swept hillsides, this, imbued with the strange melancholy of a wild and merciless sea, and wherein there are no barriers of convention or artificiality between earth and sky, man and his Maker; but Jean-Marie loved it for its very bleakness. From the doorway of his mother's cottage, standing, primly white, in the midst of great rocks and strawberry fields, with its thatched roof drawn down, like a hood, about its ears, as if in protection against the western gales, he could look out across the broad harbor of Brest to the Goulet, the gateway to that great Atlantic whose mighty voice came to his ears in stormy weather, muttering against the barrier of the shore. And this voice of the sea spoke to Jean-Marie of many things, but, most of all, of the navies of France, of the mighty battleships which went out from Brest to unimagined lands, far distant, China, America, and the southern islands, whence comrades, older than himself, brought back curious treasures, coral, and shells, and coins, and even parrots, to surprise the good people of Plougastel. He looked at them enviously, as they gathered about the door of Père Yvetot's wine-shop, when they were home on leave, and spun sailor yarns for his delighted ears. How wonderful they were, these men who had seen the world,—Toulon, and Marseille, and Tonkin,—how wonderful, with their wide, flapping trousers, and their jaunty caps, with a white strap and a red pompon, and their throats and breasts, showing ruddy bronze at the necks of their shirts!

At such times Jean-Marie would join timidly in the talk, and, perhaps, speak of the time when he, too, should be marin français, and see the world. And the big Breton sailors would laugh good-naturedly, and slap him on the shoulder, and say: "Tiens! And how then shall the cruisers find their way into Brest harbor, when the little phare is gone?" For it was a famous joke in Plougastel to pretend that Jean-Marie, with his flaming red hair, was a lighthouse, which could be seen through the Goulet, far, far out at sea.

But Jean-Marie only smiled quietly in reply, for he knew that his day would come. At night, the west wind, sweeping in from the Atlantic, and rattling his little casement, seemed to be calling him, and it was a fancy of his to answer its summons in a whisper, turning his face toward the window.

"All in good time, my friend. All in good time!"

Again, when he was working in the strawberry fields, he would strain his eyes to catch the outline of some big green battleship, anchored off Brest, or, during one of his rare visits to the town, lean upon the railing of the pont tournant, to watch the sailors and marines moving about the barracks and magazines on the quais of the porte militaire. All in good time, my friends; all in good time!

Only, there were two to whom one did not speak of these things,—the Little Mother, and Rosalie Vivieu. Already the sea had taken three from Madame Jumière—Baptiste, her husband, and Philippe and Yves, the older boys, who went out together, with the fishing fleet, seven years before, in the staunch little smack La Belle Fortune. She had been cheerful, even merry, during the long weeks of waiting for the fleet's return, and, when it came in one evening, with news of La Belle Fortune cut down in the fog by a North Cape German Lloyd, and all hands lost, she had taken the news as only a Breton woman can. Jean-Marie was but twelve at the time, but there is an intuition, beyond all reckoning in years, in the heart of a fisher's son, and never should he forget how the Little Mother had caught him to her heart that night, at the doorway of their cottage, crying, "Holy Saviour! Holy Saviour!" with her patient blue eyes upturned to the cold, grey sky of Finistère! As for Rosalie, Jean-Marie could not remember when they two had not been sweethearts, since the day when, as a round-eyed boy of six, he had watched Madame Vivieu crowding morsels of blessed bread into her baby mouth at the pardon of Plougastel, since all the world knows that in such manner only can backwardness of speech be cured. Rosalie was sixteen now, as round, and pink, and sweet as one of her own late peaches, and she had promised to marry Jean-Marie some day. For the time being, he was allowed to kiss her only on the great occasion of the pardon, but that was once more each year than any other gars in Plougastel could do, so Jean-Marie was content. No, evidently, to these two there must be no mention of his dreamings of the wide and wonderful sea, of the summons of the impatient western wind, of those long reveries upon the pont tournant.

So Jean-Marie hugged his visions to his heart for another year, working in the strawberry fields, gazing out with longing eyes toward the warships in the harbor, and whispering, when the fingers of the wind tapped upon his little casement: "All in good time, my friend. All in good time!"

And his day came at last, as he had known it would. But with what a difference! For there were many for the navy that spring. Plougastel had nine, and Daoulas fifteen ready, and Hanvec seven, and Crozon twenty-one, and from Landerneau, and Châteaulin, and Lambezellec, and le Folgoet came fifty more, and from Brest itself, a hundred; and all of these, with few exceptions, were great, broad-shouldered lads, strong of arm and deep of chest, and so the few who were slender and fragile, like Jean-Marie, were assigned to the infantry, and sent, as is the custom, far from Finistère, because, says the code, change of scene prevents homesickness, and what the code says must, of course, be true.