"STRAIGHT AND CLEAN IS THE ONLY WAY."
Courbevoie (Seine), Paris.
I am a little girl five years old, named Emma. I have lived over a year in France with papa and mamma and my little sister, although we were all born in America. Our home is on the beautiful river Seine, near Paris.
I have already crossed the great Atlantic Ocean three times. My grandpa in America has taken Harper's Young People for me since the first number, and my mamma reads many of the stories to us. I have asked mamma to write and tell you some of the sights of every-day life in France. I can neither read nor write myself, but I will tell mamma what to write about, and she will express it better than I could. The French people enjoy living out-of-doors. If they have only a tiny garden no larger than some of our grass-plots in America, they buy an iron table, chairs enough for the family, and perhaps two or three others for relatives or friends who may come to take a meal with them, and then they eat out-of-doors, enjoying themselves around these little tables in the garden more than they would staying in the house.
They are easily pleased, these French people, in the country. In the summer they have many charming fêtes. Every little town or village in France has, at some time during the warm weather, a fête. A convenient piece of land is taken possession of or else rented by the authorities in charge of the fête. They sub-let small portions of the land just large enough for each merchant to erect a table upon, like our tables at fairs in America. The merchants bring their families with them, for the fête lasts several days. They sleep in the large wagons in which they bring their articles for sale, and they set up little stoves, each with a long pipe attached, and there the women cook their meals. The "draught" out-doors is sometimes very troublesome, and the poor women have hard times to prepare their dinners. Each merchant spreads out his array of goods on his table in as tempting a manner as possible, and over each table is arranged a little shed to protect the goods in case of rain.
At these fêtes in the country one meets all the world. There are the doctors, the lawyers, and all the grand people, as much amused and pleased as the laborer in his blue blouse. Besides the tables of goods, there are many funny things to make people laugh. There are balloons sent up in the air—not great balls shaped like immense pears, but made to represent men, women, and little boys and girls. These are colored to show their faces and hair, their bright waists, skirts, or trousers, and then they are inflated with gas and sent off in the air. They look very funny as they float away higher than the houses and trees, like great fat men, women, and children. I have been at fêtes with my mamma, and have seen gentlemen and ladies laughing as merrily as the peasants at these droll balloons. Sometimes, when not properly inflated, they come tumbling down, and then the spectators fairly scream with delight.
At the fêtes, too, they have odd-looking circus tents, where for fifty centimes (ten cents of American money) one can see the poorest circus shows imaginable. There are queer views of all kinds—fires, murders, and earthquakes. These exhibitions may be seen for about three cents.
The other day we saw at a fête a sort of panoramic view of what goes on in a person's stomach after eating salt pork sent from America. The French government is opposed to receiving salt or smoked pork from America, because it is said that trichinæ have been discovered in it. In this exhibition we were shown the stomach as it should be, and the stomach after its owner had eaten American pork. The effect was very startling, the various organs and intestines twisting about in the most bewildering manner possible.
They have wooden horses with women's heads of different nationalities, French, German, African, and Russian. These wooden horses go round very rapidly, a real horse turning the machinery which sets them in motion. You can have a nice ride for two cents, to the music of a hand-organ.
But I shall weary you if I tell you any more. Perhaps I will write again, and describe more of the life of the people who dwell in sunny France.
A. F. H.
Fresno City, California.