would measure the heap of corn, tracing upon it a cross with the handle of the spade and uttering the words: “God give thee increase.”

I must have been scarcely four years old and still wearing petticoats, when one lovely afternoon during this threshing season, after rolling as children love to do in the new straw, I directed my steps towards the draw-well moat.

For some days past the fair water-iris had commenced to open, and my hands tingled to pluck some of the lovely golden buds.

Arrived at the stream, gently I slipped down to the edge of the water and thrust out my hand to grab the flower, but it was too far off; I stretched, and behold me in an instant up to the neck in water.

I cried out. My mother hurried to the rescue, hauled me out, bestowing a slap or two, and drove me like a dripping duck before her to the house.

“Let me catch you again, little good-for-nothing, at that moat!”

“I wanted to pick the water-iris,” I pleaded.

“Oh yes, go there again to pick iris! Don’t you know, then, little rascal, there is a snake hidden in the grass, a big snake who swallows whole, both birds and children.”

She undressed me, taking off my small shoes, socks, and shirt, and while my clothes dried put me on my Sunday sabots and suit, with the warning:

“Take care now to keep yourself clean.”

Behold me again out of doors; on the new straw I executed a happy caper, then catching sight of a white butterfly hovering over the stubble, off I went, my blonde curls flying in the wind and—all at once there I was again at the moat!

Oh, my beautiful yellow flowers! They were still there, proudly rising out of the water, showing themselves off in a manner it was impossible to withstand. Very cautiously I descend the bank planting my feet squarely; I thrust out my hand, I lean forward, stretching as far as I can ... and splash ... I am in the water again.

Woe is me! While about me the bubbles gurgled and among the rushes I thought I spied the great snake, a loud voice cried out:

“Mistress, run quick, that child is in the water again.”

My mother came running. She seized me and dragged me all black from the muddy bank, and the first thing I received was a resounding smack.

“You will go back to those flowers? You will try to drown yourself? A new suit ruined, little rascal—little monster! nearly killing me with fright!”

Bedraggled and crying, I returned to the farm-house, head hanging. Again I was undressed, and this time arrayed in my festal suit. Oh, that fine suit! I can still see it with the bands of black velvet, and gold dots on a blue ground.

Surveying myself in my bravery, I asked my mother: “But what am I to do now?”

“Go take care of the chickens,” she said; “don’t let them stray—and you stay in the shade.”

Full of zeal I ran off to the chickens, who were pecking about for ears of corn in the stubble. While at my post, curiously enough I perceive all at once a crested pullet giving chase to—what do you think? Why, a grasshopper, the kind with red and blue wings. Both, with me after them, for I wished to examine those wings, were soon dancing over the fields and, as luck would have it, we found ourselves before long at the draw-well moat.

And there were those golden flowers again mirrored in the water and exciting my desire; but a desire so passionate, delirious, excessive, as to make me entirely forget my two previous disasters.

“This time,” I said to myself, “I will certainly succeed.”

So descending the bank I twisted around my hand a reed that grew there, and leaning over the water very prudently, tried once again to reach the iris blooms with the other hand. But misery! the reed broke and played me false—into the middle of the stream I plunged head foremost.

I righted myself as best I could and shrieked like a lost one. Every one came running.

“There’s the little imp, in the water again! This time, you incorrigible youngster, your mother will give you the whipping you deserve.”

But she did not. Down the pathway I saw her coming, the poor mother, and tears were in her eyes.

“O Lord,” she cried, “but I won’t whip him; he might have a fit—this boy is not like others. By all the saints he does nothing but run after flowers; he loses all his toys scrambling in the cornfields after nosegays. Now, as a climax, he has thrown himself three times within an hour into this moat! I can only clean him up, and thank heaven he is not drowned.”

We mingled our tears together as we went home, then once indoors, saint that she was, my mother again unclothed and dried me, and to ward off all evil consequences administered a dose of vermifuge before putting me to bed, where worn out with emotion I soon fell asleep.

Can any one guess of what I dreamt? Why, of my iris flowers!... In a lovely stream of water which wound all round the farm-house, a limpid, transparent, azure stream like the waters of the fountain at Vaucluse, I beheld the most beautiful clumps of iris covered with a perfect wonder of golden blossoms! Little dragon-flies with blue silk wings came and settled on the flowers, while I swam about naked in the laughing rivulet and plucked by handfuls and armfuls those enchanting yellow blooms. And the more I picked the more sprang up.

All at once I heard a voice calling to me, “Frédéric!” I awoke, and to my joy I saw—a great bunch of golden iris all shining by my side.

The Master himself, my worshipful sire, had actually gone to pick those flowers I so longed for; and the Mistress, my dear sweet mother, had placed them on my bed.

CHAPTER II

MY FATHER

I remarked also that when we received visitors, such, for instance, as the Marquis de Barbentane, our neighbour, my father, who when speaking of my mother before the servants called her “the mistress,” to the Marquis merely referred to her as “my wife.” The grand Marquis and his lady, the Marquise, a sister of the great Général de Gallifet, whenever they came used to bring me cakes and sweets, but in spite of this, no sooner did I see them driving up in their carriage than, like the young savage that I was, off I ran and hid in the hay-loft. In vain my poor mother would call “Frédéric.” Crouching in the hay and holding my breath, I waited until I heard the departing carriage wheels of our guests, and my mother declaiming for the benefit of all: “It is insufferable; here are Monsieur de Barbentane and Madame de Barbentane, who come on purpose to see that child, and he goes off and hides himself!”

And when I crept out of my hiding-place, instead of the sweets, I received a good spanking.

What I really loved, however, was to go off with Papoty, our head-man, when he set out with the plough behind the two mules.

“Come on, youngster, and I’ll teach you to plough,” he would call enticingly.

Then and there off I would go, bareheaded and barefooted, briskly following in the furrow, and as I ran, picking the flowers, primroses and blue musk, turned up by the blade.

How joyous it was, this atmosphere of rustic life. Each season in turn brought its round of labour. Ploughing, sowing, shearing, reaping, the silk-worms, the harvests, the threshing, the vintage and the olive gathering, unrolled before my eyes the majestic acts of the agricultural life, always a stern, hard life, yet always one of calm and freedom.

A numerous company of labourers came and went at the farm, weeders, haymakers, men hired by the day or the month, who with the goad, the rake, or the fork a-shoulder toiled with the free noble gestures of the peasants so well depicted in Léopold Robert’s pictures.

At the dinner or supper hour, the men, one after the other, trooped into the farm-house, seating themselves according to their station around the big table. Then the master, my father, at the head, would question them gravely on the work of the day, the state of the flocks, of the ground or the weather. The repast ended, the chief carter shut to the blade of his big clasp-knife, the signal for all to rise.

In stature, in mind, as well as in character, my father towered above these country folk, a grand old patriarch, dignified in speech, just in his rule, beneficent to the poor, severe only to himself.

He loved to recall the early days when as a volunteer he served in the army during the revolution, and to recount tales of the war as we sat round the hearth in the evening.

Once during the Reign of Terror he had been requisitioned to carry corn to Paris, where famine was then raging. It was just after they had killed the king, and France was paralysed with consternation and horror. One winter’s day, returning across Bourgogne, with a cold sleet beating in his face and his cart-wheels half buried in the muddy road, he met a carrier of his own village. The two compatriots shook hands, and my father inquired whither the other was bound in this villainous weather:

“I am for Paris, citizen,” replied the man, “taking there our church bells and altar saints.”

“Accursed fellow,” cried my father, trembling with wrath and indignation, and taking off his hat as he looked at the church relics. “I suppose you think on your return they will make you a Deputy for this devil’s work?”

The iconoclast skulked off with an oath and went on his way.

My father, I should observe, was profoundly religious. In the evening, summer and winter, it was his custom to gather round him the household, and kneeling on his chair, head uncovered and hands crossed, his white hair in a queue tied with a black ribbon, he would pray and read the gospels aloud to us.

My father read but three books in his life: the New Testament, the “Imitation,” and “Don Quixote”; the latter he loved because it recalled his campaign in Spain, and helped to pass the time when a rainy season forced him indoors. In his youth schools were rare, and it was from a poor pedlar, who made his rounds of the farms once a week, that my father learnt his alphabet.

On Sunday after vespers, according to the old-time usage as head of the house, he did the weekly accounts, debit and credit with annotations, in a great volume called “Cartabèou.”

Whatever the weather, he was always content. When he heard grumbling, either at tempestuous winds or torrential rains, “Good people,” he would say, “the One above knows very well what He is about and also what we need.... Supposing these great winds which revivify our Provence and clear off the fogs and vapours of our marshes never blew? And if, equally, we were never visited by the heavy rains which supply the wells and springs and rivers? We need all sorts, my children.”

Though he would not scorn to pick up a faggot on the road and carry it to the hearth, and though he was content with vegetables and brown bread for his daily fare, and was so abstemious always as to mix water with his wine, yet at his table the stranger never failed to find a welcome, and his hand and purse were ever open to the poor.

Faithful to the old customs, the great festival of the year on our farm was Christmas Eve. That day the labourers knocked off work early, and my mother presented to each one, wrapped up in a cloth, a fine oil-cake, a stick of nougat, a bunch of dried figs, a cream cheese, a salad of celery, and a bottle of wine.

Then every man returned to his own village and home to burn the Yule log. Only some poor fellow who had no home would remain at the farm, and occasionally a poor relation, an old bachelor for example, would arrive at night saying:

“A merry Christmas, cousin. I have come to help you burn the Yule log.”

Then, a merry company, we all sallied forth to fetch the log, which according to tradition must be cut from a fruit-tree. Walking in line we bore it home, headed by the oldest at one end, and I, the last born, bringing up the rear. Three times we made the tour of the kitchen, then, arrived at the flagstones of the hearth, my father solemnly poured over the log a glass of wine, with the dedicatory words:

“Joy, joy. May God shower joy upon us, my dear children. Christmas brings us all good things. God give us grace to see the New Year, and if we do not increase in numbers may we at all events not decrease.”

In chorus, we responded:

“Joy, joy, joy!” and lifted the log on the fire-dogs. Then as the first flame leapt up my father would cross himself, saying, “Burn the log, O fire,” and with that we all sat down to the table.

Oh, that happy table, blessed in the truest sense, peace and joy in every heart of the united family assembled round it. In the place of the ordinary lamp suspended from the ceiling, on this occasion we lit the three traditional candles, regarded by the company not without anxiety, lest the wick should turn towards any one—always a bad augury. At each end of the table sprouted some corn in a plate of water, set to germinate on St. Barbara’s Day, and on the triple linen tablecloths[3] were placed the customary dishes, snails in their shells, fried slices of cod and grey mullet garnished with olives, cardoon, scholium, peppered celery, besides a variety of sweetmeats reserved for this feast, such as hearth-cakes, dried raisins, almond nougat, tomatoes, and then, most important of all, the big Christmas loaf, which is never partaken of until one-quarter has been bestowed on the first passing beggar.

During the long evening which followed before starting out for the midnight Mass, gathered round the log fire we told tales of past days and recalled the grand old folks who were gone, and little by little my worthy father never failed to come back to his favourite Spanish wars and the famous siege of Figuières.

On New Year’s Day, again, our home was the centre of hospitality, and we were greeted at early dawn by a crowd of our poorer neighbours, old people, women and children, who came round the farm-house singing their good wishes for the coming year. My father and mother, with kindly response, presented to each one a gift of two long loaves and two round ones. To all the poor of the village we also gave, in accordance with the tradition of our house, two batches of bread.

Every evening my father included this formula in his evening prayer:

At his funeral the poor who mourned him said with fervour: “May he have as many angels to bear him to Paradise as he gave us loaves of bread.”

This is a picture of the simple and noble patriarchal life of Provence in my youth.

CHAPTER III

THE MAGI KINGS

The east wind blew, which means it was cold. The sun sank, lurid, into the Rhône. The streams were frozen, and the grass at the water’s edge dried up. The bark of the leafless trees showed ruddy tints, and the robin and wren hopped shivering from branch to branch. Not a soul was to be seen in the fields, save perhaps some poor widow picking up sticks or a ragged beggar seeking snails beneath the dead hedges.

“Where go you so late, children?” inquired some passer-by.

“We go to meet the kings,” we answered confidently.

And like young cocks, our heads in the air, along the white, wind-swept road we continued our way, singing and laughing, sliding and hopping.

The daylight waned. The bell-tower of Maillane disappeared behind the trees, the tall dark pointed cypresses and the wide barren plain stretched away into the dim distance. We strained our eyes as far as they could see, but in vain. Nothing was in sight save some branch broken by the wind laying on the stubbly field. Oh, the sadness of those mid-winter evenings when all nature seemed dumb and suffering.

Then we met a shepherd, his cloak wrapped tightly round him, returning from tending his sheep. He asked whither we were bound so late in the day. We inquired anxiously had he seen the kings, and were they still a long way off. Oh, the joy when he replied that he had passed the kings not so very long since—soon we should see them. Off we set running with all speed, running to meet the kings and present our cakes and handfuls of hay.

Then, just as the sun disappeared behind a great dark cloud and the bravest among us began to flag—suddenly, behold them in sight.

A joyful shout rang from every throat as the magnificence of the royal pageant dazzled our sight.

A flash of splendour and gorgeous colour shone in the rays of the setting sun, while the blazing torches showed the gleams of gold on crowns set with rubies and precious stones.

The kings! The kings! See their crowns! See their mantles—their flags, and the procession of camels and horses which are coming.

We stood there entranced. But instead of approaching us little by little the glory and splendour of the vision seemed to melt away before our eyes with the sinking sun, extinguished in the shadows. Crestfallen we stood there, gaping to find ourselves alone on the darkening highway.

Which way did the kings go?

They passed behind the mountain.

The white owl hooted. Fear seized us, and huddling together we turned homewards, munching the cakes and figs we had brought for the kings.

Our mothers greeted us with, “Well, did you see them?”

Sadly we answered, “Only afar—they passed behind the mountain.”

“But which road did you take?”

“The road to Arles.”

“Oh, poor lambs—but the kings never come by that road. They come from the East—you should have taken the Roman road. Ah dear, what a pity, you should have seen them enter Maillane. It was a beautiful sight, with their tambours and trumpets, the pages and the camels—it was a show! Now they are gone to the church to offer their adoration. After supper you shall go and see them!”

We supped with speed, I at my grandmother’s, and then we ran to the church. It was crowded, and, as we entered, the voices of all the people, accompanied by the organ, burst forth into the superbly majestic Christmas hymn:

We children, fascinated, threaded our way between the women, till we reached the Chapel of the Nativity. There, suspended above the altar, was the beautiful star, and bowing the knee in adoration before the Holy Child we beheld at last the three kings. Gaspard, with his crimson mantle, offering a casket of gold; Melchior, arrayed in yellow, bearing in his hands a gift of incense; and Balthazar, with his cloak of blue, presenting a vase of the sadly prophetic myrrh. How we admired the finely dressed pages who upheld the kings’ flowing mantles, and the great humped camels whose heads rose high above the sacred ass and ox; also the Holy Virgin and Saint Joseph, besides all the wonderful background, a little mountain in painted paper with shepherds and shepherdesses bringing hearth-cakes, baskets of eggs, swaddling clothes, the miller with a sack of corn, the old woman spinning, the knife-grinder at his wheel, the astonished innkeeper at his window, in short, all the traditional crowd who figure in the Nativity, and, above and beyond all, the Moorish king.

Many a time since those early days it has chanced that I have found myself upon the road to Arles at this same Epiphany season about dusk. Still the robin and the wren haunt the long hawthorn hedge. Still some poor old beggar may be seen searching for snails in the ditch, and still the hoot of the owl breaks the stillness of the winter evening. But in the rays of the setting sun I see no more the glory and crowns of the old kings.

Which way have they passed, the kings?

Behind the mountain.

Alas this melancholy and sadness clings always around the things seen with the eyes of our youth. However grand, however beautiful the landscape we have known in early days, when we return, eager to see it once more, something is ever lacking, something or some one!

Who can give me back the ideal joy and delight of my child-heart as I sat at my mother’s knee drinking in the wonder-tales and fables, the old songs and rhymes, as she sang and spoke them in the soft sweet language of Provence.

There was the “Pater des Calandes,” Marie-Madeleine the poor fisher-girl, The Cabin-boy of Marseilles, the Swineherd, the Miser, and how many other tales and legends of Provence to which the cradle of my early years was rocked, filling my dreams with poetic visions. Thus from my mother I drew not only nourishment for my body but for my mind and soul, the sweet honey of noble tradition and faith in God.

In the present day, the narrow materialistic system refuses to reckon with the wings of childhood, the divine instincts of the budding imagination and its necessity to wonder, that faculty which formerly gave us our saints and heroes, poets and artists. The child of to-day no sooner opens his eyes than his elders try to wither up both heart and soul. Poor lunatics! Life and the day-school, above all the school of experience, will teach him but too soon the mean realities of life, and the disillusions, analectic and scientific, of all that so enchanted our youth.

If some tiresome anatomist told the young lover that the fair maiden of his heart, in the bloom of her youth and beauty, was but a grim skeleton when robbed of her outer covering, would he not be justified in shooting him out of hand?

In connection with those traditions and wonder-tales of Provence, familiar to my childhood, I cannot do better than quote old Dame Renaude, a gossip of our village when I was a boy.

Still I can picture her seated on a log and sunning herself at her door. She is withered, shrivelled and lined, the poor old soul, like a dried fig. Brushing away the teasing flies, she drinks in the sunshine, dozes and sleeps the hours away.

“Taking a little nap in the sun, Tante Renaude?”

“Well, see you, I was neither exactly waking nor sleeping—I said my paternosters and I dreamt a bit—and praying, you know, one is apt to doze. Aye, but it is a bad thing when one is past work—the time hangs heavy on hand.”

“Won’t you catch cold sitting out of doors?”

“Me, catch cold? Why I am dry as matchwood. If I was boiled I shouldn’t furnish a drop of oil.”

“If I were you I would stroll round quietly and have a chat with some old crony—it would help pass the time.”

“The old gossips of my time are nearly all gone, soon there won’t be one left. True, there is still the old Geneviève, deaf as a plough, and old Patantane in her dotage, and Catherine de Four who does nothing but groan—I’ve enough of my own ailments. Oh no, it is better to be alone.”

“Why not go and have a chat with the washer-women down there at the wash-house?”

“What, those hussies? who backbite and pull each other to pieces, first one and then the other, the livelong day. They abuse every one and then laugh like idiots. The good God will send a judgment on them one of these days. Aye, but it was not so in our time.”

“What did you talk about in your time?”

“In our time? Why, we told old histories and tales which it was a pleasure to listen to, such as ‘The Beast with Seven Heads,’ ‘Fearless John,’ and ‘The Great Body without a Soul.’ Why one of those tales would last us three or four evenings. At that time we spun our own wool and hemp. Winter time after supper we used to take our distaffs and meet together in some big sheep-barn, and while the men fed and folded the beasts and outside the north wind blew and the dogs howled at the prowling wolves, we women huddled together with the young lambs and their mothers, and as our spinning-wheels hummed busily, told each other tales.

“We believed in those days in things which they laugh at now, but which all the same were seen by people I myself know, people whose word was to be trusted. There was my Aunt Mïan, wife of the basket-maker whose grandsons live at the Clos de Pain-Perdu; one day when she was picking up sticks, she saw all at once a fine white hen. It seemed quite tame, but when my Aunt put out her hand gently the hen eluded her, and commenced pecking in the grass a little way off. Very cautiously again Aunt Mïan approached the hen, who seemed to desire to be caught. But directly my aunt thought she had got her, off she was—the aunt following, more and more determined to catch her. More than an hour she led her a dance, then as the sun went down Mïan took fright and turned home. Lucky for her she did, for had she gone after that white hen all night, the Holy Virgin only knows where the creature would have landed the poor woman!

“Folks told, too, of a black horse or mule, some said it was a huge sow, which appeared to the young rakes as they came out of the public-house. One night at Avignon a lot of good-for-nothings on the spree saw a black horse suddenly come out of the Camband Sewer.

“‘Oh, look!’ says one of them, ‘here’s a fine horse, blest if I don’t mount him,’ and the horse let him get on quietly enough.

“‘Why there’s room for me, too,’ says another, and up he got.

“‘And me, too,’ says a third. He jumped up also, and as one by one they mounted, that horse’s back became longer and longer, till, if you’ll believe it, there were a dozen of those young fools on this same horse! Then a thirteenth cries out:

“‘Lord—Holy Virgin and sainted Joseph, I believe there’s room for another’! But at these words the beast vanished, and our twelve riders found themselves on their feet looking sheepish enough, I can tell you. Lucky for them that the last one had pronounced the names of the saints, for otherwise that evil beast would have carried them straight to the devil.

“And then, O Lord, there were the witch-cats. Why yes, those black cats they called the ‘Mascots,’ for they were said to make money come to the house where they lived. You knew the old Tarlavelle, eh?—she who left such a pile of crowns when she died—well, she had a black cat, and she took care to give it the first helping at every meal. And there was my poor uncle, going to bed one night by the light of the moon, what does he see but a black cat crossing the road. He, thinking no harm, threw a stone at the cat—when, lo and behold, the beast turned round, gave him an evil look, and hissed out, ‘Thou hast hit Robert!’ Strange things! To-day they seem like dreams, nobody ever mentions them—yet there must have been something in it all, or why should every one have been so afraid. Eh, and there were many others,” continued Renaude, “awful strange creatures like the Night-witch, who seated herself on your chest and squeezed the breath out of you. And the Wier-wolf, and the Jack o’ Lantern, and the Fantastic Sprite. Why, just fancy, one day—I might have been eleven years old—I was returning from the catechism class when, passing near a poplar, I heard a laugh coming from the very top of the tree. I looked up, and there was the Fantastic Sprite grinning between the leaves and making me signs to climb up. Why, I wouldn’t have gone up that tree for a hundred onions—I took to my heels and ran as if I’d gone crazy. Oh, I can tell you, when we talked of these things round the hearth at nights not one of us would have gone outside. Poor children, what a fright we were in. But we soon grew up, and then came the time for lovers, and the lads would call to us to come out and walk or dance by the moonlight. At first we refused for fear we might meet the White Hen or the Fantastic Sprite, but when they called us ‘sillies’ to believe such blind grandmother’s tales, and said they’d scare away the hobgoblins—boys of that age have got no sense, and make you laugh with their nonsense even against your will—why, gradually we ceased to think so much of it. For one thing we soon had too much to do. Why, I had eleven children, who all turned out well, thank God, besides others I looked after. When one is not rich and has all those brats to do for, one’s hands are pretty full, I can tell you.”

“Well, Tante Renaude, may the good God protect you.”

“Oh, now I am well ripened—let Him pluck me as soon as He will.” And with her big handkerchief the old body flicks at the flies, and nodding her head, quietly leans back and continues to drink in the sunshine.

CHAPTER IV

NATURE’S SCHOOL

In Provence it is the custom for such an exploit to be carried out by running away to a far and unknown country, being careful to confide the project to no one. The time chosen by the young Provençal for this adventure is when he has, by some fault, or the sad error of disobedience, good cause to fear that on his return home he will be welcomed rather too warmly!

When, therefore, this fate looms over some unlucky fellow, he just gives school and parents the slip, and defying consequences, off he goes on his travels with a “Long live liberty!”

Oh, the delight, the joy, at that age to feel complete master of oneself, and the bridle hanging loose, to roam where fancy beckons, away into the blue distance, down into the swamp, or may be up to the mountain heights!

But—after a while comes hunger. Playing truant in the summer time, that evil is not so serious. There are fields of broad beans, fair orchards with their crops of apples, pears, and peaches, cherry-trees delighting the eye, fig-trees offering their ripe fruit, and bulging melons that cry out “Eat me.” And then those lovely vines, the stock of the golden grape. Ah!—I fancy I can see them yet!

Of course if the game was played in winter, things were not quite so smiling. Some young scamps would boldly visit farms where they were unknown and ask for food, and some again, more unscrupulous rascals, would steal the eggs and even take the stale nest-egg, drinking and gulping it down with relish. Others, however, were of prouder stuff; they had not run away from home and school for any misdemeanour, but either from pure thirst of independence or because of some injustice which, having deeply wounded the heart, made the victim flee man and his habitation. These would pass the nights sleeping amidst the corn, in the fields of millet, sometimes under a bridge or in some shed or straw-stack. When hungry they gathered from the hedges and the fields mulberries, sloes, almonds left on the trees, or little bunches of grapes from the wild vine. They did not even object to the fruit of the wych-elm, which they called white bread, nor unearthed onions, choke-pears, beech-nuts, nor at a pinch to acorns. For to all these truants each day was a glorious game, and every step a bound of delight. What need of companions when all the beasts and insects were your playfellows? You could understand what they were after, what they said, what they thought, and they appeared to understand you quite as well.

You caught a grasshopper and examined her little shining wings. Very gently you stroked her with your hand to make her sing, then sent her away with a straw in her mouth. Or, resting full length on a bank, you find a lady-bird climbing up your finger, and at once you sing to her:

and as the lady-bird stretches her wings she replies:

“Go home yourself—I am quite happy where I am.”

Then a praying-mantis kneels before you and you ask:

The mantis raises a long thin arm and points to the mountains.

A lizard sits warming himself in the sun and you address him with the correct formula:

“Your house! And when will you be back there?” the lizard says as plainly as you could yourself, and, with a whisk, disappears in his hole.

Should you meet a snail, you greet him in this fashion:

It was home, always home, to which every one harked back; till at last, after having destroyed sufficient nests—and made sufficient holes in nether garments—being weary of pipes made from barley-straws and of whistles made of willow twigs, besides having set one’s teeth on edge with green apples and other sour fruit, suddenly the truant is seized with home-sickness, a great longing at the heart turns the feet homewards and lowers the once proud head.

Being of true Provençal stock, I also must needs make my escapade before I had been three months at school. It happened thus.

Three or four young rascals, who, under pretext of cutting grass or collecting wood, idled away the livelong day, came to meet me one morning as I set out for school at Maillane.

“You little simpleton, what do you want to go to school for?” said they. “Boxed in all day between four walls, punished for this or that, your fingers rapped with a ruler! Bah! come and play with us——!”

Ah me! how crystal clear the water ran in the brook; how the larks sang up there in the blue; the cornflowers, the iris, the poppies, the rose-campions, how fair they bloomed in the sunshine which played on the green meadows. So I said to myself:

“School! Well, that can wait till to-morrow.” And then, with trousers turned up, off we went to the water. We paddled, we splashed, we fished for tadpoles, we made mud pies, and then smeared our bare little legs with black slime to make ourselves boots! Afterwards, in the dust of some hollow by the wayside, we played at soldiers:

What fun it was! no king’s children were our equals. And then with the bread and provisions in my satchel, we had a fine picnic on the grass.

But all such joys must end. The schoolmaster informed against me, and behold me arraigned before my sire’s judgment-seat:

“Now hear me, Frédéric, the next time you miss school to go off paddling in the brook, I will break a stick over your back—do not forget.”

In spite of this, three days after, through sheer thoughtlessness, I again cut school and went off to the brook.

Did he spy on me, or was it mere chance that brought him that way? Just as I and my boon companions were splashing about with naked legs, at a few paces from us suddenly I behold my sire. My heart gave one bound.

He stood still and called to me:

“So that is it!.... You know what I promised you? Very well, I shall be ready for you this evening.”

Nothing more, and he went on his way.

My good father, good as the Blessed Bread, had never given me even a slap, but he had a loud voice and a rough way of speaking, and I feared him as I did fire.

“Ha!” I said to myself, “this time, but this time, he will kill you. Assuredly he has gone to prepare the rod.”

My companions, little scamps, snapped their fingers with glee, and cried:

“Aha! aha! what a drubbing you’ll get! Aha! aha! on your bare back too!”

“All is up,” I said to myself. “I must be off—I must run away.”

So I went. As well as I remember I took a road that led right up to the Crau d’Eyragues. But at that time, poor little wretch, I hardly knew where I was going, and after walking for an hour or so, it seemed to me that I had gone far enough to have arrived in America.

The sun began to go down. I was tired, and frightened too. “It is getting late,” I thought, “and where shall I find my supper? I must go and beg at some farm.”

So, turning out of the road, I discreetly approached a little white farm-house. It had almost a welcoming air, with its pig-sties, manure-heap, well, and vine arbour, all protected from the east wind by a cypress hedge.

Very timidly I approached the doorstep, and, looking in, saw an old body stirring some soup. She was dirty and dishevelled; to eat what she cooked one required indeed the sauce of hunger. Unhooking the pot from the chain on which it swung, the old woman placed it on the kitchen floor, and with a long spoon she poured the soup over some slices of bread.

“I see, granny, you are making some soup,” I remarked pleasantly.

“Yes,” she answered curtly; “and where do you come from, young one?”

“I come from Maillane. I have run away, and—I should be much obliged if you would give me something to eat.”

“Oh, indeed,” replied the ugly old dame in growling tones. “Then just sit you down on the doorstep and not on my chairs!”

I obeyed by winding myself up into a ball on the lowest step.

“If you please, what is this place called?” I asked meekly.

“Papeligosse.”

“Papeligosse?” I repeated in dismay.

For in Provence when they wish, in joke, to convey to children the idea of a far distant land, they call it Papeligosse. At that age I believed in Papeligosse, in Zibe-Zoube, in Gafe-l’Ase, and other visionary regions as firmly as in my Paternoster. So when the old woman uttered that magic word, a cold shiver went down my back, realising myself so far from home.

“Ah yes,” she continued as she finished her cooking, “and you must know that in this country the lazy ones get nothing to eat—so if you want any soup, my boy, you must work for it.”

“Oh, I will—what shall I do?” I inquired eagerly.

“This is what we will do, you and I, both of us. We will stand at the foot of the stairs and have a jumping match. The one who jumps farthest shall have a good bowl of soup—the other shall eat with his eyes only—understand, eh?”

I agreed readily, not only proud that I should earn my supper and amuse myself into the bargain, but also feeling no doubts as to the result of the match; it was a pity indeed if I could not jump farther than a rickety old body.

So, feet together, we placed ourselves at the foot of the staircase, which in all farm-houses stands opposite the front door, close to the threshold.

“Now,” cried the old woman, “one,” and she swung her arms as though to get a good start.

“Two—three,” I added, and then sprang with all my might, triumphantly clearing the threshold. But that cunning old body had only pretended to spring; quick as light she shut the door, and drawing the bolt cried out to me:

“Little rascal—go back to your parents—they will be getting anxious—come, off with you!”

There I stood, unlucky urchin, feeling like a basket with the bottom knocked out. What was I to do? Go home? Not for a kingdom. I could picture my father ready to receive me, the menacing rod in his hand. To add to my trouble, it was getting dark, and I no longer knew the road by which I had come. I resolved to trust in God.

Behind the farm, a path led up the hill between two high banks. I started off, regardless of risks. “Onward, Frédéric,” said I.

After clambering up the steep path, then down and up again, I felt tired out. It was hardly surprising at eight years old, and with an empty stomach since midday. At last I came on a broken-down cottage in a neglected vineyard. They must have set it on fire at one time, for the cracked walls were black with smoke. There were no doors or windows, and the beams only held up half the roof, which had fallen in on one side. It might have been the abode of a nightmare!

But—“needs must” as they say when there is no choice. So, worn out, and half dead with sleep, I climbed on to one of the beams, laid down, and in a twinkling fell sound asleep.

I don’t know how long I lay there, but in the middle of a leaden slumber I became aware of three men sitting round a charcoal fire, laughing and talking.

“Am I dreaming?” I asked myself in my sleep. “Am I dreaming, or is this real?”

But the heavy sense of well-being, into which drowsiness plunges one, prevented any feeling of fear, and I continued to sleep placidly.

I suppose that at last the smoke began to suffocate me, and on a sudden I started up with a cry of fright. Since I did not die then and there of sheer horror, I am convinced I shall never die.

Imagine three wild gypsy faces, all turned on you at the same moment—and with oh, such eyes! such awful eyes!

“Don’t kill me! don’t kill me!” I shrieked.

The gypsies, who had been almost as startled as I, burst out laughing, and one of them said:

“You young scamp, you can boast that you gave us a nice scare!”

When I found they could laugh and talk like myself, I took courage, and noticed at the same time what a good smell came from their pot.

They made me get down from my perch and demanded where I came from, to whom I belonged, why I was there, and a string of other questions.

Satisfied at length of my identity, one of the robbers—for they were robbers—said to me:

“Since you are playing truant, I suppose you are hungry. Here, eat this.”

And he threw me a shoulder of lamb, half cooked, as though I were a dog. I then noticed they had just been roasting a young lamb, stolen probably from some fold.

After we had, in this primitive fashion, all made a good meal, the three men rose, collected their traps and in low tones took counsel together; then one of them turned to me:

“Look here, youngster, since you are a bit of a brick we don’t want to harm you, but all the same, we can’t have you spying which way we go, so we are going to pop you into that barrel there. When the day comes you can call out and the first passer-by can release you—if he likes!”

“All right,” I said submissively. “Put me into the barrel.” To tell the truth I was very glad to get off so cheaply.

In the corner of the hovel stood a battered cask, used, doubtless, at the time of the vintage for fermenting the grape.

They caught hold of me by the seat of my trousers, and pop! into the cask I went. So there I found myself, in the middle of the night, in a cask, on the floor of a cottage in ruins.

I crouched down, poor little wretch, rolling myself up like a ball, and while waiting for the dawn I said my prayers in low tones to scare the evil spirits.

But—imagine my dismay when suddenly I heard, in the dark, something prowling and snorting, round my cask! I held my breath as though I were dead, and committed myself to God and the sainted Virgin. Still I heard it, that dread something going round and round me, sniffing and pushing—what the devil was it? My heart thumped and knocked like a hammer.

But to finish my tale: at last the day commenced to dawn, and the pattering that caused me such fear seemed to me to be growing a little more distant. Very cautiously I peeped out by means of the bunghole, and there, not far off, I beheld—a wolf, my good friends—nothing short of a wolf the size of a donkey! An enormous wolf with eyes that glared like two lamps.

Attracted by the odour of the cooked lamb he had come there, and finding nothing but bones, the close proximity of a Christian child’s tender flesh filled him with hungry longing. But the curious thing was that, far from feeling fear at the sight of this beast, I experienced a great relief. The fact was, I had so dreaded some nocturnal apparition that the sight of even such a wolf gave me courage.

“All very fine,” I thought, “but I’ve not done with him yet. If that beast finds out that the cask is open at the top, he will jump in also and crunch me up with one bite of those teeth. I must think of a plan to outwit him!”

Some movement I made caught the sharp ear of the wolf, and with one bound he was back at the cask, prowling round and lashing the sides with his long tail. Promptly I passed my small hand through the bunghole, seized hold of that tail, and pulling it inside, grasped it tightly with both hands. The wolf, as though he had five hundred devils after him, started off, dragging the cask over rocks and stones, through fields and vineyards. We must have rolled together over all the ups and downs of Eyragues, of Lagoy, and of Bourbourel.

“Oh mercy! pity! dear Virgin, dear Saint Joseph,” I cried out. “Where is this wolf taking me? And if the cask breaks he will gobble me up in a moment.”

Then all of a sudden, crash went the cask—the tail escaped from my hands, and—far off, quite in the distance, I saw my wolf escaping at a gallop. On looking round, what was my astonishment to find myself close to the New Bridge, on the road that leads to Maillane from Saint-Rémy, not more than a quarter of an hour from our farm. The barrel must have knocked up against the parapet of the bridge and come to pieces in that way.

It is hardly necessary to say that after such adventures the thought of the rod in my father’s hand no longer possessed any terrors for me, and running as though the wolf were after me I soon found myself at home.

At the back of the farm-house I saw in the field my father ploughing a long furrow. He leant against the handle and called to me laughing: “Ha, ha, my fine fellow, run in quick to your mother—she has not slept a wink all night!”

And I ran in to my mother.

Omitting nothing, I related to my parents all my thrilling adventures, but when I came to the story of the robbers and the cask and the enormous wolf:

“Ah, little simpleton,” they cried, “why it was fright made you dream all that!”

It was useless my assuring them again and again that it was true as the Gospel; I could never get any one to believe me.