“Do not mind them, Mademoiselle,” said Menard, quietly. “They will not harm you.”
She hesitated by his side, half in mind to speak to him, to tell him that she knew his trouble, and had faith in him, but his bowed head was forbidding in its solitude. All about the hut, under the spreading trees, was a stretch of coarse green sod, dotted with tiny yellow flowers and black-centred daisies. She wandered over the grass, gathering them until her hands were full. Two red boys came by, and paused to cry at her, taunting her as if she, too, were to meet the fate of a war captive. The thought made her shudder, but then, on an impulse, she called to them in their own language. They looked at each other in surprise. She walked toward them, laying down the flowers, and holding out her hand. A little later, when Menard looked up, he saw her 160 sitting beneath a gnarled oak, a boy on either side eagerly watching her. She was talking and laughing with them, and teaching them to make a screeching pipe with grass-blades held between the thumbs. He envied her her elastic spirits.
“You have made two friends,” he called in French.
She looked up and nodded, laughing. “They are learning to make the music of the white brothers.”
The boys’ faces had sobered at the sound of his voice. They looked at him doubtfully, and then at each other. He got up and walked slowly toward them.
“I will make friends, too, Mademoiselle,” he said, smiling. “We have none too many here.”
Before he had taken a dozen steps, the boys arose. He held out his hands, saying, “Your father would be friends with his children.” But they began to retreat, a step at a time.
“Come, my children,” said the maid, smiling at the words as she uttered them. “The white father is good. He will not hurt you.”
They kept stepping backward until he had reached the maid’s side; then, with a shout of defiance, they scampered away. In the distance 161 they stopped, and soon were the centre of a group of children whom they taught to blow on the grass-blades, with many a half-frightened glance toward Menard and the maid.
“There,” he said, at length, “you may see the advantage of a reputation.”