"I should say so! she knows lots of things! In the first place she knows how to read printed books, and they say as how she reads ’em right off, too! And yet André Sarpiotte wasn’t very smart at that! How is it that she knows more’n her master?"
"That happens every day, my good man; but what else?"
"Why, she sings lots of songs that we don’t know and that don’t belong to this part of the country.—I ask you who can have taught her them? And then, when she talks to you, she smiles and curtsies just like a fine city young lady!"
"And you don’t tell it all, father," said Claudine, who thus far had maintained a respectful silence and allowed the old man to talk; "Isaure knows a lot too about planting trees and raising flowers and sowing grain; she knows an amazing deal about that! You ought to see the garden at her farm-house; everything grows there, and it’s wonderful to look at! And she has medicines for doctoring animals."
"She has medicines for animals?" exclaimed Robineau with a stupefied air.
"Yes, monsieur; it ain’t long ago that she cured her cow that looked like she was going to die, with some herb or other she give her to eat; and Jeannette’s goat, as had a swelling under her stomach—why, Isaure went an’ cured her too, with some drug or other she made her take."
"What’s that? she cured Jeannette’s she-goat?" cried the shepherd. "Well! I tell you, all my goats could just die before I’d let little Isaure touch ’em.—Seems to me, messieurs, we’ve told you things enough to prove that the girl has dealings with Satan."
"If she cures cows and goats," muttered Robineau, "she must certainly know a lot."
"In fact, messieurs, for a girl brought up among these mountains—why, she ain’t our sort, not a bit; she talks to us sometimes in words we can’t understand; in short, she has a kind of a silver-gilt, honey-sweet language that ain’t like what our goatherds use."
"Parbleu! I am very curious to see this girl," said Alfred.