The Christmas Kalends of Provence | Page 6

Farm!"
The Vidame gave this last piece of information in a tone of severity;
but there was a twinkle in his kind old eyes as he spoke which led me
to infer that Master Esperit's chances for the stewardship of the Lower

Farm were anything but desperate, and I noticed that from time to time
he cast very friendly glances toward these young lovers--as our little
procession, mounting the successive terraces, went through the
olive-orchards along the hill-side upward.
Presently we were grouped around the devoted almond-tree: a gnarled
old personage, of a great age and girth, having that pathetic look of
sorrowful dignity which I find always in superannuated trees--and now
and then in humans of gentle natures who are conscious that their days
of usefulness are gone. Esperit, who was beside me, felt called upon to
explain that the old tree was almost past bearing and so was worthless.
His explanation seemed to me a bit of needless cruelty; and I was glad
when Magali, evidently moved by the same feeling, intervened softly
with: "Hush, the poor tree may understand!" And then added, aloud:
"The old almond must know that it is a very great honour for any tree
to be chosen for the Christmas fire!"
This little touch of pure poetry charmed me. But I was not surprised by
it--for pure poetry, both in thought and in expression, is found often
among the peasants of Provence.
Even the children were quiet as old Jan took his place beside the tree,
and there was a touch of solemnity in his manner as he swung his
heavy axe and gave the first strong blow--that sent a shiver through all
the branches, as though the tree realized that death had overtaken it at
last. When he had slashed a dozen times into the trunk, making a deep
gash in the pale red wood beneath the brown bark, he handed the axe to
Marius; and stood watching silently with the rest of us while his son
finished the work that he had begun. In a few minutes the tree tottered;
and then fell with a growling death-cry, as its brittle old branches
crashed upon the ground.
Whatever there had been of unconscious reverence in the silence that
attended the felling was at an end. As the tree came down everybody
shouted. Instantly the children were swarming all over it. In a moment
our little company burst into the flood of loud and lively talk that is
inseparable in Provence from gay occasions--and that is ill held in
check even at funerals and in church. They are the merriest people in

the world, the Provençaux.
IV
Marius completed his work by cutting through the trunk again, making
a noble cacho-fiò near five feet long--big enough to burn, according to
the Provençal rule, from Christmas Eve until the evening of New Year's
Day.
It is not expected, of course, that the log shall burn continuously. Each
night it is smothered in ashes and is not set a-blazing again until the
following evening. But even when thus husbanded the log must be a
big one to last the week out, and it is only in rich households that the
rule can be observed. Persons of modest means are satisfied if they can
keep burning the sacred fire over Christmas Day; and as to the very
poor, their cacho-fiò is no more than a bit of a fruit-tree's branch--that
barely, by cautious guarding, will burn until the midnight of Christmas
Eve. Yet this suffices: and it seems to me that there is something very
tenderly touching about these thin yule-twigs which make, with all the
loving ceremonial and rejoicing that might go with a whole tree-trunk,
the poor man's Christmas fire. In the country, the poorest man is sure of
his cacho-fiò. The Provençaux are a kindly race, and the well-to-do
farmers are not forgetful of their poorer neighbors at Christmas time.
An almond-branch always may be had for the asking; and often, along
with other friendly gifts toward the feast, without any asking at all.
Indeed, as I understood from the Vidame's orders, the remainder of our
old almond was to be cut up and distributed over the estate and about
the neighborhood--and so the life went out from it finally in a
Christmas blaze that brightened many homes. In the cities, of course,
the case is different; and, no doubt, on many a chill hearth no yule-fire
burns. But even in the cities this kindly usage is not unknown. Among
the boat-builders and ship-wrights of the coast towns the custom long
has obtained--being in force even in the Government dock-yard at
Toulon--of permitting each workman to carry away a cacho-fiò from
the refuse oak timber; and an equivalent present frequently is given at
Christmas time