"Play we went, too!" cried I. "Play the stone was a boat, Mère Marie." (I said it as one word, Melody; it makes a pretty name, "Mère-Marie," when the pronunciation is good. To hear our people say "M'ree" or "Marry," breaks the heart, as my mother used to say.)
She nodded, pleased enough to play,—for she was a child, as I have told you, in many, many ways, though with a woman's heart and understanding,—and clapped our hands softly together, as she held them in hers.
"We, then, yes! we three, Mère-Marie, p'tit Jacques, and Petie, we go up from the beach, up the street that goes tic tac, zic zac, here and there, up the hill; very steep in zose parts. We come to one place, it is steps—"
"Steps in the street?"
"Steps that make the street, but yes! and on them (white steps, clean! ah! of a cleanness!), in the sun, sit the old women, and spin, and sing, and tell stories. Ah! the fine steps. They, too, have caps, but they are brown in the faces, and striped—"
"Striped, Mère-Marie? painted, do you mean?"
"She said the steps had caps!" whispered Petie, incredulous, but too eager for the story to interrupt the teller.
"Painted? wat you mean of foolishness, p'tit Jacques? Ah! I was wrong! not striped; wreenkled, you say? all up togezzer like a brown apple when he is dry up,—like zis way!" and Mother Marie drew her pretty face all together in a knot, and looked so comical that we went into fits of laughter.
"So! zey sit, ze old women, and talk, talk, wiz ze heads together; but one sit alone, away from those others, and she sing. Her voice go up, thin, thin, like a little cold wind in ze boat-ropes.
"'Il était trois mat'lots de Groix,
Il était trois mat'lots de Groix,
Embarqués sur le Saint François,
Tra la derira, la la la,
Tra la derira la laire!'[1]