“I was waiting for my little father to go by. I was watching the road, and I watched so hard that I fell asleep.”
“And if I had passed by without seeing you, you would have been out of doors all night, and a wolf would have eaten you up.”
“Oh, I knew very well that you would see me,” answered Petit-Pierre, confidently.
“Well, kiss me now, bid me goodbye, and run back quickly to the house, unless you wish them to have supper without you.”
“Are you not going to take me, then?” cried the little boy, beginning to rub his eyes to show that he was thinking of tears.
“You know very well that grandpapa and grandmama do not wish it,” said Germain, fortifying himself behind the authority of his elders, like a man who distrusts his own.
The child would not listen. He began to cry with all his might, saying that as long as his father was taking little Marie, he might just as well take him too. They replied that they must pass through great woods filled with wicked beasts who eat up little children. The gray would not carry three people; she had said so when they were starting, and in the country where they were going there was no bed and no supper for little boys. All these good reasons could not persuade Petit-Pierre; he threw himself on the ground, and rolled about, shrieking that his little father did not love him any more, and that if he did not take him he would never go back to the house at all, day or night.
Germain had a father’s heart, as soft and weak as a woman’s. His wife’s death, and the care which he had been obliged to bestow all alone on his little ones, as well as the thought that these poor motherless children needed a great deal of love, combined to make him thus. So such a sharp struggle went on within him, all the more because he was ashamed of his weakness and tried to hide his confusion from little Marie, that the sweat started out on his forehead, and his eyes grew red and almost ready to weep. At last he tried to get angry, but as he turned toward little Marie in order to let her witness his strength of mind, he saw that the good girl’s face was wet with tears; all his courage forsook him and he could not keep back his own, scold and threaten as he would.
“Truly your heart is too hard,” said little Marie at last, “and for myself I know that I never could refuse a child who felt so badly. Come, Germain, let’s take him. Your mare is well used to carrying two people and a child, for you know that your brother-in-law and his wife, who is much heavier than I, go to market every Saturday with their boy on this good beast’s back. Take him on the horse in front of you. Besides, I should rather walk on foot all alone than give this little boy so much pain.”
“Never mind,” answered Germain, who was dying to allow himself to give way. “The gray is strong, and could carry two more if there were room on her back. But what can we do with this child on the way? He will be cold and hungry, and who will take care of him tonight and tomorrow, put him to bed, wash him, and dress him? I don’t dare give this trouble to a woman I don’t know, who will think, doubtless, that I am exceedingly free and easy with her to begin with.”
“Trust me, Germain, you will know her at once by the kindness or the impatience that she shows. If she does not care to receive your Pierre, I will take charge of him myself. I will go to her house and dress him, and I will take him to the fields with me tomorrow. I will amuse him all day long, and take good care that he does not want for anything.”
“He will tire you, my poor girl, and give you trouble. A whole day is a long time.”
“Not at all; it will give me pleasure; he will keep me company, and that will make me less sad the first day that I must pass in a new place. I shall fancy that I am still at home.”
Seeing that little Marie was pleading for her, the child seized upon her skirt and held it so tight that they must have hurt him in order to tear it away. When he perceived that his father was weakening, he took Marie’s hand in both his tiny sunburned fists and kissed her, leaping for joy, and pulling her toward the mare with the burning impatience children feel in their desires.
“Come along,” said the young girl, lifting him in her arms; “let us try to quiet his poor little heart. It is fluttering like a little bird; and if you feel the cold when night comes on, tell me, my Pierre, and I will wrap you in my cape. Kiss your little father, and beg his pardon for being naughty. Tell him that you will never, never be so again. Do you hear?”
“Yes, yes, provided that I always do just as he wishes. Isn’t it so?” said Germain, drying the little boy’s eyes with his handkerchief. “Marie, you are spoiling the little rascal. But really and truly, you are too good, little Marie. I don’t know why you did not come to us as shepherdess last Saint John’s Day. You would have taken care of my children, and I should much rather pay a good price for their sake than try to find a woman who will think, perhaps, she is doing me a great kindness if she does not detest them.”
“You must not look on the dark side of things,” answered little Marie, holding the horse’s bridle while Germain placed his
