Père Louchet lived alone in a little cottage that was always as neat and well-kept as if some feminine hand held sway there. Indeed, if he fell sick, or was too busy with the crops on his small farm to pay proper attention to his household duties, there were plenty of women from the neighboring cottages who were glad to come in and make his gruel or sweep up his hearth, so it was not on account of any unpopularity with the gentler sex that he lived on in a state of celibacy.
In a society where marriage was almost universal, such an eccentricity as that exhibited by Pierre Louchet in remaining single did not escape comment. Indeed at the age of fifty he was as often bantered on the subject as he had been at thirty. But neither the raillery and innuendoes of the neighbors nor the entreaties, threats, and cajoleries of his sister, Jeanne Maillot, had ever moved him to take a wife.
"It's a family disgrace," said Jeanne, putting her red hands on her hips, and regarding her elder brother with a look of scorn. "Here am I ten years younger than you, and with five children. And Marie who lives at Fulgent has eight. And you, the only man in our family, sit there by the chimney and smoke your pipe contentedly, and let the young girls of La Haye grow up around you one after another, marry, settle down, and have daughters who are old enough to be married by this time; and you do nothing to keep up the name of Louchet."
"'T is not much of a name," replied Pierre.
"It is one your father had, and was quite good enough for me, until I took Maillot."
"If I should marry, there would be less for your own children when I am gone."
"I'm sure it was your happiness I was thinking of before all," replied Jeanne, mollified at this presentation of the case.
"If it's my happiness you are thinking about, let me stay as I am. I and my pipe are quite company enough, and if I want more I only have to step across a field and I can find you and your good husband Maillot." And Père Louchet's eyes would twinkle kindly while his pipe sent up a thicker wreath of smoke.
One young woman once declared maliciously that Père Louchet squinted. But those who heard the remark declared that it was because he was always endeavoring to look in any direction except towards her who sought to attract his attention, and after that the slander was never repeated.
One morning in December the neighborhood of La Haye was set all in a flutter of curiosity by a sudden increase in the family in Père Louchet's cottage.