The Country Doctor | Page 7

said, disturb the cream on the pans full of milk from
which butter was to be made. The officer overcame this objection by
undertaking to repay her amply for the wasted cream, and then tied up
his horse at the door, and went inside the cottage.
The four children belonging to the woman all appeared to be of the
same age--an odd circumstance which struck the commandant. A fifth
clung about her skirts; a weak, pale, sickly-looking child, who
doubtless needed more care than the others, and who on that account
was the best beloved, the Benjamin of the family.
Genestas seated himself in a corner by the fireless hearth. A sublime
symbol met his eyes on the high mantel-shelf above him--a colored
plaster cast of the Virgin with the Child Jesus in her arms. Bare earth
made the flooring of the cottage. It had been beaten level in the first

instance, but in course of time it had grown rough and uneven, so that
though it was clean, its ruggedness was not unlike that of the magnified
rind of an orange. A sabot filled with salt, a frying-pan, and a large
kettle hung inside the chimney. The farther end of the room was
completely filled by a four-post bedstead, with a scalloped valance for
decoration. The walls were black; there was an opening to admit the
light above the worm-eaten door; and here and there were a few stools
consisting of rough blocks of beech-wood, each set upon three wooden
legs; a hutch for bread, a large wooden dipper, a bucket and some
earthen milk-pans, a spinning-wheel on the top of the bread-hutch, and
a few wicker mats for draining cheeses. Such were the ornaments and
household furniture of the wretched dwelling.
The officer, who had been absorbed in flicking his riding-whip against
the floor, presently became a witness to a piece of by-play, all
unsuspicious though he was that any drama was about to unfold itself.
No sooner had the old woman, followed by her scald-headed Benjamin,
disappeared through a door that led into her dairy, than the four
children, after having stared at the soldier as long as they wished, drove
away the pig by way of a beginning. This animal, their accustomed
playmate, having come as far as the threshold, the little brats made such
an energetic attack upon him, that he was forced to beat a hasty retreat.
When the enemy had been driven without, the children besieged the
latch of a door that gave way before their united efforts, and slipped out
of the worn staple that held it; and finally they bolted into a kind of
fruit-loft, where they very soon fell to munching the dried plums, to the
amusement of the commandant, who watched this spectacle. The old
woman, with the face like parchment and the dirty ragged clothing,
came back at this moment, with a jug of milk for her visitor in her
hand.
"Oh! you good-for-nothings!" cried she.
She ran to the children, clutched an arm of each child, bundled them
into the room, and carefully closed the door of her storeroom of plenty.
But she did not take their prunes away from them.
"Now, then, be good, my pets! If one did not look after them," she went

on, looking at Genestas, "they would eat up the whole lot of prunes, the
madcaps!"
Then she seated herself on a three-legged stool, drew the little weakling
between her knees, and began to comb and wash his head with a
woman's skill and with motherly assiduity. The four small thieves hung
about. Some of them stood, others leant against the bed or the bread-
hutch. They gnawed their prunes without saying a word, but they kept
their sly and mischievous eyes fixed upon the stranger. In spite of
grimy countenances and noses that stood in need of wiping, they all
looked strong and healthy.
"Are they your children?" the soldier asked the old woman.
"Asking your pardon, sir, they are charity children. They give me three
francs a month and a pound's weight of soap for each of them."
"But it must cost you twice as much as that to keep them, good
woman?"
"That is just what M. Benassis tells me, sir; but if other folk will board
the children for the same money, one has to make it do. Nobody wants
the children, but for all that there is a good deal of performance to go
through before they will let us have them. When the milk we give them
comes to nothing, they cost us scarcely anything. Besides that, three
francs is a great deal, sir; there are fifteen francs coming in, to say
nothing of the five pounds' weight of soap. In our part of the world you
would