II
Pierrot’s first trip to Brussels was filled with wonderful experiences. Mère Marie, very brisk and fresh-looking, routed him out before daybreak. The polished copper cans, filled with last night’s creamy milk, she took from the cool water in which they stood and wiped them carefully. Then she brought up the low cart, with its two stout wheels and the framework slanting out from the sides, and set the cans in neatly with a round cheese and a firkin of butter. Luppe came up quietly, and Mère Marie fastened on his girth and collar, to which the reins were attached, and placing him between the shafts snapped on the traces.
All this, of course, Pierrot had observed many times before, but he was somewhat astonished when Mère Marie took down his own harness from its peg and buckled it on him. Then she led him over beside Luppe and hitched him outside the left-hand shaft, snapping the traces into a ring Gran’père had bolted to the front of the cart. It suddenly dawned upon Pierrot that he was to be taken out into the world, and he began to prance and wriggle in his excitement. Luppe turned about and nipped his ear and told him not to be silly. Then Mère Marie felt of all the cans to see if they were securely placed, pinned her little shawl across her breast, and gathered up the reins.
“Eui, Luppe! Eui, Pierrot!” she cried, and the dogs trotted out into the cool morning, Mère Marie walking rapidly beside the cart.
After a little while they met another woman with a milk-cart like Mère Marie’s coming out of a lane, and they all went along together, Mère Marie and the woman talking and laughing. Pierrot tried to pick an acquaintance with the other dog, but he appeared to be a surly fellow, and Pierrot was forced to give it up.
As dawn broke there appeared on the road other people with dogs and carts—women with milk and both men and women with fresh vegetables and fruit. Some of the market gardeners had larger carts with two or even three dogs, and a few of the lazy ones rode and nodded on their carts.
The Waterloo Road runs straight into the centre of Brussels, but Mère Marie and the other milkwomen did not take that route. They turned off into a cross-road to the right after a while and at length came to the broad, paved thoroughfare known as the Avenue Louise. The houses began to appear closer together and there was much stir and bustle on the road. Pierrot had never seen so many people before, and he found it all so interesting and exciting that it required the combined efforts of Luppe and Mère Marie to keep him going straight ahead.