“You are a dear, funny boy, Jean, my little brother. Come, let’s run!” As she spoke Marie Josephine caught hold of Jean’s hand and they fairly flew along the path, out into the great, wide, sweeping meadows. They ran on down a long lane, past the great barns, pausing at the last one to gaze inside where the sun sifting in on the grain made a glowing picture of grey and gold. They watched the great sieves, hung between poles, bending backward and forward, winnowing the grain from the chaff. Then they went on more slowly down the lane and, turning to the right, they saw suddenly the vast countryside and in the distance a slowly moving grey mass which was really the sheep coming home from pasture. They waved their hands at a tall figure walking with the sheep and ran toward it, through the fields. The air was luminous. There were flecks of gold in the sky. It was like flying through space, this running across the meadows to meet Dian and his sheep.
“Isn’t it good, Dian! Isn’t this a fairy evening?” Marie Josephine called happily as they came up to the shepherd. Dian answered with a slow smile:
“It is good indeed, Little Mademoiselle. There is nothing in the wide world so good as a meadow at sunset.” Indeed, as he walked through the tufted meadow grass in his grey smock, his tall figure outlined against the gleaming stacks of wheat, he himself seemed a part of the radiant evening.
Flambeau walked gingerly over the uneven ground, his eyes and ears alert for field rabbits. Jean and Marie Josephine walked one on each side of the shepherd.
“Jean and I had our goûter by the sundial. I’ve been talking to him about growing up. He is so young! He thinks of nothing but the woods and birds. He knows nothing of all that is happening in the world!” As Marie Josephine spoke, Dian turned toward her, smiling his slow, sweet smile.
“It is well that he does not know too much. This is good for him to know, just this,” the shepherd said, as he looked about him at the pasture lands with the grey sheepfold beyond, the deepening rose of the sky, and the zigzagging grey mass of sheep before them.
“It is good, Dian,” Marie Josephine laughed up at him. “I am so happy now, and this afternoon I was so sad.”
They had come to the sheepfold paling and Jean ran forward to help Dian open the great door. Vif, the sheep dog, ran around and around barking his orders vigorously and scolding the lagging ones who wanted just one more nibble of the sweet grass before being closed in for the night.
“The cigales have stopped buzzing, so that means summer is gone, doesn’t it, Dian?” asked Jean as they pushed back the gate together.
“Yes, and it means that the green crickets will be here soon, harvest will be over, and winter will come.” As he spoke the shepherd looked off at the horizon, and a look not so much of sadness as of great seriousness came into his face.