Jean was impressed by his mother’s tones, and followed her over to the table.
“What did he say, Petite Mère?” he asked.
“Many things which you must not hear, or you will be having bad dreams as you did after eating so much of the cherry tart that the kind Nannette at the big house made for me on my birthday. Run now with this bread to your cousins.” Mother Barbette sighed as she handed the bundle to Jean, who put out his under lip sulkily.
“They had bread on Monday. Grigge is a horrid boy. I do not like any of them,” he objected. Nevertheless he took the bundle and started slowly toward the door. He knew that it would not do to trifle with his mother that day, but there was nothing he disliked more than a visit to his cousins, who lived in a straggling settlement of poor hovels near the entrance to Les Vignes.
“Do not grumble or complain or you will have a good taste of the pear-tree switch. Your cousins, have nothing, and never have had anything. You should not be selfish just because you have food every day, and goat’s milk too. It is only because of the kindness of the old Comte Saint Frère, who left in his will the word that you and I were to have our maintenance here in the cottage, that we are not begging for our food in the town squares. You know that well. It is not Madame la Comtesse who cares where we are or what we do. Run now, and take shame to yourself for your greediness!”
Mother Barbette was very uneasy and this made her tongue sharper than usual. She stood at the door watching Jean. He was all she had in the world, and when he looked at her with his merry, naughty, black eyes she seemed to see the young Jean Barbette who had wooed and married her, and who had died some few years back defending the old Comte Saint Frère from an attack by a stag when on a hunt. The fine old comte had never starved the peasants working for him, or laughed at their misery. The young Comte Lisle, too, had something gallant and lovable about him, in spite of the proud way he held his head. Mother Barbette sighed again, but soon she remembered that she had no time to stand and dream, and immediately began to busy herself about the cottage, humming the while. After giving a stir to the soup in the iron stock pot which hung over a low fire in her wide, stone fireplace, she went out, not even closing the cottage door after her. A loud caw greeted her as she stood for a moment drinking in the clear air. It was sunset time, and the sky showed salmon pink through the waving greenness of the trees. Mother Barbette turned and saw a black crow sitting on the stone window ledge.
“You need not caw to me, Pince Nez. You need not say you are sorry because you stole my thimble and tape last night and went off and hid them somewhere. Pince Nez! What a silly name even if Little Mademoiselle did give it to you!” Madame Barbette smiled as she hurried down the path and then, to her right, up the driveway to the great house, which loomed grimly against the sunset-tinted sky. The gamekeeper’s lodge was near the house, and so it was only a walk of a few minutes. There had not been another gamekeeper since her Jean had been killed, for the old comte had died and the young Comte Lisle was too young for hunting. Louise Barbette, with her boy, lived on at the lodge, making a scanty living for both of them by sewing when she could get any to do, and by weeding her tiny garden, which furnished all the food they had, except for the poor flour which made the thin, dark loaves of bread which she had sent by Jean to their poorer relatives.
Jean ran across the field and into the wood beyond. Every now and then he would give a clear, high call and then he would stop and listen. Once there was an answering call and then he laughed and his thin little face with its funny dimple wrinkled with delight.
“I’m happy and that’s why the lark answered. They never do if I’m cross,” he thought, and began to sing: “Tra la la, tra la la! They’ll be here the day after to-morrow. I shall hide behind the poplar trees by the gate and see them drive in!”
The way was long through the wood, which was part of the Saint Frère demesne, but it was beautiful and the air was cool and fragrant. After a while Jean began to run. It was fun to run in and out of the sweet greenness, always following the path which ended finally at a low stone paling. Jean could see, not far off, the towering arch of the great entrance way to the vast estate. He was never allowed to go in and out that way. He climbed the paling and ran across a field until he came to a dusty highway. He shuffled along the road, enjoying the thick clouds of dust that he raised about him. Little Mademoiselle would be coming in two days! He was on his way to his cousins—that was the only bit of blackness on his horizon. His cousins lived in one of a row of poor hovels situated some little way back from the roadside. Women sat in the rude doorways, glad of a breath of the fresh air. They were gaunt, sad-looking women, old long before their time because of years of heavy work in the fields, little food, and no rest at all. Children swarmed about the doorways and in the rough-looking stubble field beyond.