and Madame and the little boy, Andre.
“What did you do today?” Fontan asked. He was an old man with small mine-tired body, a drooping gray mustache, and bright eyes, and was from the Centre near Saint-Etienne.
“I worked on my book.”
“Were your books all right?” asked Madame.
“He means he writes a book like a writer. Un roman,” Fontan explained.
“Pa, can I go to the show?” Andre asked.
“Sure,” said Fontan. Andre turned to me.
“How old do you think I am? Do you think I look fourteen years old?” He was a thin little boy, but his face looked sixteen.
“Yes. You look fourteen.”
“When I go to the show I crouch down like this and try to look small.” His voice was very high and breaking. “If I give them a quarter they keep it all but if I give them only fifteen cents they let me in all right.”
“I only give you fifteen cents, then,” said Fontan.
“No. Give me the whole quarter. I’ll get it changed on the way.”
“Il faut revenir tout de suite apres le show,” Madame Fontan said.
“I come right back.” Andre went out the door. The night was cooling outside. He left the door open and a cool breeze came in.
“Mangez!” said Madame Fontan. “You haven’t eaten anything.” I had eaten two helpings of chicken and French fried potatoes, three ears of sweet com, some sliced cucumbers, and two helpings of salad.
“Perhaps he wants some kek,” Fontan said.
“I should have gotten some kek for him,” Madame Fontan said. “Mangez du fromage. Mangez du crimcheez. Vous n’avez rien mange. I ought have gotten kek. Americans always eat kek.”
“Mais j’ai rudement bien mange.”
“Mangez! Vous n’avez rien mange. Eat it all. We don’t save anything. Eat it all up.”
“Eat some more salad,” Fontan said.
“I’ll get some more beer,” Madame Fontan said. “If you work all day in a book-factory you get hungry.”
“Elle ne comprend pas que vous etes ecrivain,” Fontan said. He was a delicate old man who used the slang and knew the popular songs of his period of military service in the end of the 1890’s. “He writes the books himself,” he explained to Madame.
“You write the books yourself?” Madame asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Oh!” she said. “Oh! You write them yourself. Oh! Well, you get hungry if you do that too. Mangez! Je vais chercher de la biere.”
We heard her walking on the stairs to the cellar. Fontan smiled at me. He was very tolerant of people who had not his experience and worldly knowledge.
When Andre came home from the show we were still sitting in the kitchen and were talking about hunting.
“Labor
“On a mange, on a bu du vin, de la biere, et il y avait aussi un francais qui a apporte de l’absinthe,” Fontan said. “Un francais de la Californie!”
“My God, nous avons chante. There’s a farmer comes to see what’s the matter, and we give him something to drink, and he stayed with us awhile. There was some Italians come too, and they want to stay with us too. We sung a song about the Italians and they don’t understand it. They didn’t know we didn’t want them, but we didn’t have nothing to do with them, and after a while they went away.”
“How many fish did you catch?”
“Tres peu. We went to fish a little while, but then we came back to sing again. Nous avons chante, vous savez.”
“In the night,” said Madame, “toutes les femmes ont dormi dans le truck. Les hommes a cote du feu. In the night I hear Fontan come to get some more wine, and I tell him, Fontan, my God, leave some for tomorrow. Tomorrow they won’ have anything to drink, and then they’ll be sorry.”
“Mais nous avons tout bu,” Fontan said. “Et le lendemain il ne reste rien.”
“What did you do?”
“Nous avons peche serieusement.”
“Good trout, all right, too. My God, yes. All the same; half-pound one ounce.”
“How big?”
“Half-pound one ounce. Just right to eat. All the same size; half-pound one ounce.”
“How do you like America?” Fontan asked me.
“It’s my country, you see. So I like it, because it’s my country. Mais on ne mange pas tres bien. D’antan, oui. Mais maintenant, no.”
“No,” said Madame. “On ne mange pas bien.” She shook her head. “Et aussi, il y a trop de Polack. Quand jetais petite ma mere m’a dit, ‘vous mangez comme les Polacks.’ Je n’ai jamais compris ce que c’est qu’un Polack. Mais maintenant en Amerique je comprends. Il y a trop de Polack. Et, my God, ils sont sales, les Polacks.”
“It is fine for hunting and fishing,” I said.
“Oui. Ca, c’est le meilleur. La chasse et la peche,” Fontan said. “Qu’estce que vous avez comme fusil?”
“A twelve-gauge pump.”
“Il est bon, le pump,” Fontan nodded his head.
“Je veux aller a la chasse moi-meme,” Andre said in his high, little boy’s voice.
“Tu ne peux pas,” Fontan said. He turned to me.
“Ils sont des sauvages, les boys, vous savez. Ils sont des sauvages. Ils veulent shooter les uns les autres.”
“Je veux aller tout seul,” Andre said, very shrill and excited.
“You can’t go,” Madame Fontan said. “You are too young.”
“Je veux aller tout seul,” Andre said shrilly. “Je veux shooter les rats d’eau.”
“What are rats d’eau?” I asked.
“You don’t know them? Sure you know them. What they call the muskrats.”
Andre had brought the twenty-two-calibre rifle out from the cupboard and was holding it in his hands under the light.
“Ils sont des sauvages,” Fontan explained. “Ils veulent shooter les uns les autres.”
“Je veux aller tout seul,” Andre shrilled. He looked desperately along the barrel of the gun. “Je veux shooter les rats d’eau. Je connais beaucoup de rats d’eau.”
“Give me the gun,” Fontan said. He explained again to me. “They’re savages. They would shoot one another.”
Andre held tight on to the gun.
“On peut looker. On ne fait pas de mal. On peut looker.”
“Il est crazy pour le shooting,” Madame Fontan said. “Mais il est trop jeune.”
Andre put the twenty-two-calibre rifle back in the cupboard.
“When I’m bigger I’ll shoot the muskrats and the jack-rabbits too,” he said in English. “One time I went out with Papa and he shot a jack-rabbit just a little bit and I shot it and hit it.”
“C’est vrai,” Fontan nodded. “Il a tue un jack.”
“But he hit it first,” Andre said. “I want to go all by myself and shoot all by myself. Next year I can do it.” He went over in a corner and sat down to read a book. I had picked it up when we came into the kitchen to sit after supper. It was a library book—
“Il aime les books,” Madame Fontan said. “But it’s better than to run around at night with the other boys and steal things.”
“Books are all right,” Fontan said. “Monsieur il fait les books.”
“Yes, that’s so, all right. But too many books are bad,” Madame Fontan said. “Ici, c’est une maladie, les
