The Curly-Haired Hen | Page 3

vain they dried her and rubbed her,--nothing did any good.
"She's quite dead, alas," said Mother Etienne with tears in her eyes, "but it was my own fault. I ought to have closed down the lattice and this misfortune would not have happened. It really is a great pity--such a fine hen. She weighs at least eight pounds. There, Germaine, take her and weigh her."
Germaine was the maid and also the cousin of Petit-Jacques--of whom she was very fond. She was a fine buxom girl of eighteen, strong and well-grown. She loved animals, too, but her feeling for them could not be compared to Mother Etienne's.
"Germaine, take away poor Yollande, I am quite upset by this trouble. You will bury her this evening, in a corner of the kitchen-garden--deep enough to prevent any animal digging her up. I leave it to you--do it carefully."
The girl bore away the fine hen in her apron. "How heavy she is--it is a shame," and blowing apart the feathers, she saw the skin underneath as yellow and plump as you could wish. Mechanically she plucked a few feathers.
"After all," she said, "it isn't as though she had died--she was drowned, quite a clean death; she's firm and healthy, only an hour ago she was as strong and well as could be. Why shouldn't we eat her?--We'll stew her because, though she is not old, she is not exactly in her first youth--but there's a lot on her--with a dressing of carrots and nutmeg, a bunch of herbs and a tomato, with a calf's foot to make a good jelly, I believe she'd make a lovely dinner."
Saying this she went on plucking Yollande. All the feathers, large and small, gone, a little down was left, so to get rid of this she lit an old newspaper and held her over it.
"Madame won't know anything and will enjoy her as much as we shall. There's enough on her for two good meals."
Quite decided, instead of burying her, she wrapped the future stew carefully in a perfectly clean cloth and put it on a shelf in the kitchen out of the way of flies or accident.
During this time Mother Etienne was busy making as warm a home as she could for the fifteen little orphans. Poor darlings. In a wicker-basket she covered a layer of straw with another of wadding and fine down. Upon this she put the ducklings one by one, and covered the whole with feathers; then closing the lid, she carried the basket to the stable where the air was always nice and warm. All this took time; it was about six o'clock in the evening, the sun was going down, throwing a last oblique smile into the kitchen, gleaming here and there on the shining copper which hung on the walls.
CHAPTER III
YOLLANDE'S TROUSSEAU
As for Germaine, she, with Petit-Jacques to help her, had gone to milk the cows. Mother Etienne soon joined them, and the two women came back to the house together.
Horror of horrors! What a terrible sight. Pale with fear they stood on the threshold of the kitchen not daring to move--to enter. Their hearts were in their mouths. A ghost stood there in front of them--Yollande--and Germaine fell at Mother Etienne's feet in utter consternation. Yollande? Yes, Yollande, but what a Yollande! Heavens! Yollande plucked, literally plucked! Yollande emerging from her shroud like Lazarus from his tomb! Yollande risen from the dead! A cry of anguish burst from the heart of kind Mother Etienne.
"Yollande, oh, Yollande!"
The Cochin-China replied by a long shudder.
This is what had happened.
On falling into the water, Yollande after struggling fiercely succumbed to syncope, and her lungs ceasing to act she had ceased to breathe, so the water had not entered her lungs. That is why she was not drowned. Life was, so to speak, suspended. The syncope lasted some time. The considerable heat to which she was subjected when Germaine held her above the flaming newspaper had brought about a healthy reaction and in the solitude of the kitchen she had recovered consciousness.
After the first moment of terror was over, Germaine confessed her plan to Mother Etienne, who, glad to find Yollande still alive, forgave Germaine the disobedience which had saved her.
But the hen was still shivering, shaking in every limb, her skin all goose-flesh. Dragging after her her travesty of a tail, she jumped onto the kitchen-table which she shook with her shivering.
"We can't leave her like that any longer," said Mother Etienne, "we must cover her up somehow," and straightway she wrapped her up in all the cloths she could lay her hands on. Germaine prepared some hot wine with sugar in it, and the two women fed her with it in spoonfuls,--then they took a good drink of it themselves. All three at once felt