“You cannot have any more bread to-day. You have had enough. Perhaps when the Little Mademoiselle comes she will give you a piece of white bread and fig jam,” returned his mother.
Jean’s face brightened and he leaned against his mother’s shoulder.
“You will make the jam for the big house again this year. Little Mademoiselle and I will watch and taste and then take some bread and jam to the woods for a picnic. We shall go to our favorite spot near the sundial. I love it best of all, Petite Mère. It is all dark and woodsy and then there is suddenly the open clearing and the sundial!” Jean began to hop about the low-ceilinged room, from one end to the other. He would have liked to have jumped up on Mother Barbette’s treasure, her four-poster bed, but he did not dare to do so.
“You are so young, Jean. Will you ever grow up? Ah, I cannot credit what Jacques told us, but it must be true. Those brave fellows from Provence marched all the way to Paris! Jacques left while they were storming the king’s palace! What times! What days!” Mother Barbette shook her head over her knitting. Then she remarked to Jean, “Your cousins were thankful for the bread, I’ll wager!”
Jean nodded vigorously.
“They were as hungry as Wolf, the lodgekeeper’s dog, after he was lost for four days. They tore the bread to bits and all the other children came. They were fighting over one loaf when I came away.”
Mother Barbette dropped her knitting in her lap and bowed her head.
“Grigge was the worst of them all, Petite Mère. He snatched a whole loaf for himself and he taunted me again. Grigge is not my friend.”
“He is always hungry, poor Grigge. He works all day at the olive mill for so little a pittance; it is no wonder that they starve.” Mother Barbette sighed as she spoke and Jean patted her cheek.
“You are not to do that again, Petite Mère. You should smile because Little Mademoiselle is coming! I am going to find Dian and tell him the good news!” Jean made a dash at Pince Nez who had alighted on the back of Mother Barbette’s chair. Then he ran with a whoop down the little box-bordered path, through a hedgelike opening into the forest, on through piney sweetness, through deep, dark arches of mingling boughs, on and on, until he came to a great sweep of sloping meadows.