Marie Claire | Page 3

days afterwards we were given new dresses with big black and white
checks.
La mère Colas used to give us our meals and send us out to play in the

fields. My sister, who was a big girl, scrambled into the hedges,
climbed the trees, messed about in the ponds, and used to come home
at night with her pockets full of creatures of all kinds, which frightened
me and made la mère Colas furiously angry.
What I hated most were the earthworms. The red elastic things made
me shiver with horror, and if I happened to step on one it made me
quite ill. When I had a pain in my side la mère Colas used to forbid my
sister to go out. But my sister got tired of remaining indoors and
wanted to go out and take me with her. So she used to go and collect
earthworms, and hold them up close to my face. Then I said that I
wasn't in pain any more, and la mère Colas used to send us both out of
doors. One day my sister threw a handful of earthworms on to my dress.
I jumped back so quickly that I fell into a tub of hot water. La mère
Colas was very angry while she undressed me. I was not very much
hurt. She promised my sister a good slapping, and called to the sweeps,
who were passing, to come in and take her away. All three of them
came in, with their black bags and their ropes. My sister howled and
cried for mercy. I was very much ashamed at being all undressed.

My father often took us to a place where there were men who drank
wine. He used to put me on a table among the glasses, and make me
sing. The men would laugh and kiss me, and try and make me drink
wine. It was always dark when we went home. My father took long
steps, and rocked himself as he walked. He nearly tumbled down lots of
times. Sometimes he would begin to cry and say that his house had
been stolen. Then my sister used to scream. It was always she who used
to find the house. One morning la mère Colas got angry with us and
told us that we were children of misfortune, and that she would not feed
us any longer. She said we could go and look for our father, who had
gone away nobody knew where. When her anger had passed she gave
us our breakfasts as usual, but a few days afterwards we were put into
père Chicon's cart. The cart was full of straw and bags of corn. I was
tucked away behind in a little hollow between the sacks. The cart
tipped down at the back, and every jolt made me slip on the straw.

I was very frightened all the way along. Every time I slipped I thought I
was going to fall out of the cart, or that the sacks were going to fall on
me. We stopped at an inn. A woman lifted us down, shook the straw on
our dresses, and gave us some milk to drink. I heard her say to père
Chicon, "You really think their father will take care of them, then?"
Père Chicon shook his head, and knocked his pipe against the table.
Then he made a funny face and said, "He may be anywhere. Young
Girard told me he had met him on the Paris road." After a while père
Chicon took us to a big house with a lot of steps leading up to the door.
He had a long talk with a gentleman who waved his arms about and
talked about the dignity of labour. I wondered what that was. The
gentleman put his hand on my head and patted it, and I heard him say
several times, "He did not tell me that he had any children." I
understood that he was talking of my father, and I asked if I could not
see him. The gentleman looked at me without answering, and then
asked père Chicon, "How old is she?" "About five," said père Chicon.
All this time my sister was playing up and down the steps with a kitten.
We went back into the cart and to mère Colas again. She was cross with
us and pushed us about. A few days afterwards she took us to the
railway station, and that evening we went to a big house, where there
were a lot of little girls.
Sister Gabrielle separated us at once. She said that my sister was big
enough to be with the middle-sized girls, while I was to stay with the
little ones. Sister Gabrielle was quite small, quite