While all the neighborhood was preparing for the festivities, one family of poor people who lived as tenants of a miserable dwelling in the Rue des Petits-Fossés, had not even enough wood to cook their scanty dinner. The father, still a young man, was by trade a miller, and had for some time endeavored to run a little mill which he had leased on one of the streamlets that go to make up the Gave. But his business exacted advances, the people being accustomed to have their wheat ground on credit; and the poor miller had been forced to give the mill back to the firm, and his labor, instead of putting him in better circumstances, had only helped to throw him into utter poverty. Waiting for brighter days, he labored—not at his own place, for he had no property, not even a small garden—but at various places belonging to his neighbors, who employed him occasionally as a day laborer. His name was François Soubirous, and he was married to a faithful wife, Louise Castérot, who was a good Christian, and kept up his courage by loving sympathy. They had four children: two daughters, the elder of whom was fourteen years of age; and two boys, still quite young, the smaller being scarcely four years old.
For fifteen days only, had their older daughter, a puny child from infancy, lived with them. This is the little girl who is to play an important part in this narrative, and we have carefully studied all the details and particulars of her life. At the time of her birth, her mother, being ill, was unable to nurse the child, and she was consequently sent to the neighboring village of Bartrès. Here the infant remained after being weaned. Louise Soubirous, having become a mother for the second time, would have been kept at home by the care of two children and hindered from going out to daily service or to the fields, which, however, would not be the case if her care were limited to one. Accordingly the parents left their first-born at Bartrès. They paid for her support, sometimes in money, more often in kind, five francs a month.
When the little girl grew old enough to be useful, and the question arose as to bringing her home, the good peasants who had reared her found themselves attached to her, and, considering her as one of their own, no longer charged her parents any thing, and employed her to tend their sheep. Thus she grew up in her adopted family, passing her days in solitude on the lonely hill-tops, where her humble flock grazed.
Of prayers she knew none except the rosary. Whether her foster-mother had recommended it to her, or whether it was the dictate of her pure and innocent heart, she kept up the hourly practice of reciting this prayer of the simple. Then she amused herself with those natural playthings which kind providence furnishes for the children of the poor, and with which they are more content than their richer cousins with costly toys. She played with the pebbles, piling up miniature castles, with the flowers which she culled on every side, with the water of the brooklet, where she launched and followed great fleets of leaf-boats; besides, she had her pets among the flock. "Of all my lambs," she said, "there is one that I prefer to all the rest." "And which is it?" asked somebody. "The one that I most love is the smallest one." And she delighted in fondling and caressing it. She herself was among children like her own darling in the flock. Although she was already fourteen years old, she seemed no more than eleven or twelve. Without being rendered infirm, she was subject to asthmatic affections, which at times caused her great pain. She bore her ills patiently and accepted her physical sufferings with that resignation which seems so difficult to the rich, but to the needy so very natural.
In this innocent and silent school the poor shepherdess learned that which the world knows not; the simplicity of soul which pleases the heart of God. Far from every impure influence, conversing with the Blessed Virgin Mary, passing her time in crowning her with prayers and telling her chaplet, this little maid preserved that absolute purity and baptismal innocence which the breath of the world so easily tarnishes, even in the best. Such was this childish soul, bright and calm as the unknown lakes which lie hidden among lofty mountains and silently reflect the splendors of heaven. "Blessed are the clean of heart," says the Gospel; "for they shall see God."
These great gifts are concealed treasures, and the humility which possesses them is often unconscious of their presence. The little girl of fourteen years charmed all who happened to approach her, and yet she was entirely unaware of it. She considered herself as the least and most backward of her age. Indeed, she did not know how to read or write. Moreover, she was an entire stranger to the French tongue, and knew only her own poor patois of the Pyrenees. She had never learned the catechism, and in this respect her ignorance was extraordinary. The Our Father, Hail Mary, Apostles' Creed, and Glory be to the Father, which make up the chaplet, constituted the sum of her religious knowledge. Hence it is unnecessary to add that she had not yet made her first communion. It was to prepare her for this, that the Soubirous determined to bring her home, in spite of their poverty, and send her to the catechetical instructions at Lourdes.
She had now been for two weeks under her father's roof. Alarmed by her asthma and her frail appearance, her mother watched over her with particular care. While the other children went barefoot in their sabots, (wooden shoes,) she was provided with stockings; and while her sister and brothers went freely out of doors, she was constantly employed in the house. The child, accustomed to the open air, would very gladly have gone out into it.
The day, then, was Jeudi-Gras, eleven o'clock had struck, and these poor people had no wood to cook their dinner.
"Go, and gather some sticks by the Gave or on the common," said the mother to Marie, her second daughter.