Nurse has told her: "Marie, you must not put that flower in your mouth.
If you do it when I tell you not, your little dog Toto will come and eat up your ears." And with these terrible words she walks away.
The young culprit, sitting quite still under her brilliant canopy, looks about her and gazes at earth and sky. It is a big world she sees, big enough and beautiful enough to amuse a little girl for some while.
But her hydrangea blossom is more interesting than all the rest put together. She thinks to herself: "It is a flower; it must smell good?"
And she puts her nose to the pretty pink and blue ball; she sniffs, but she cannot smell anything. She is not very good at scenting perfume; it is only a short while since she always used to blow at a rose instead of inhaling its odour. You must not laugh at her for that; one cannot learn everything at once.
Besides, if she had as keen a sense of smell as her mother, she would be no better off in this case. A hydrangea _has_ no scent; that is why we get tired of it, for all its loveliness. But now Mademoiselle Marie begins to think: "Perhaps it"s made of sugar, this flower." Then she opens her mouth very wide and is just going to lift the flower to her lips.
But suddenly, _yap!_ goes her little dog. It is Toto, who comes bounding over a geranium bed and comes to a stand right in front of Mademoiselle Marie, with his ears c.o.c.ked straight up, and stares hard at her out of his sharp little round eyes.
THE PANDEAN PIPES
[Ill.u.s.tration: 182]
THREE children of the same village, Pierre, Jacques, and Jean, stand staring, side by side in a row, where they look for all the world like a mouth-organ or Pandean Pipes, only with three pipes instead of seven.
Pierre, to the left, is a tall lad; Jean, to the right, is a short child; Jacques, who is betwixt the two, may call himself tall _or_ short, according as he looks at his left-hand or his right-hand neighbour. It is a situation I would beg you to ponder, for it is your own, and mine, and everybody else"s. Each one of us is just like Jacques, and deems himself great or small according as his neighbours"
inches are many or few.
That is the reason why it is true to say that Jacques is neither tall nor short, and why it is also true to say he is tall _and_ he is short.
He is what G.o.d chooses him to be. For us, he is the middle reed of our living Pandean Pipes.
But what is he doing, and what are his two comrades doing? They are staring, staring hard, all three. What at? At something that has disappeared in the distance, something that has vanished out of sight; yet they can see it still, and their eyes are dazzled with its splendours. It makes little Jean clean forget his eel-skin whiplash and the peg-top he has always been so fond of keeping for ever spinning with it in the dusty roads. Pierre and Jacques stand stolidly, their hands behind their backs.
What is the wonderful sight that has bewildered all three? A pedlar"s cart, a handcart; they had seen it stop in the village street.
Then the pedlar drew back his oil-cloth covering, and all, men, women, and children, feasted their eyes on knives, scissors, popguns, jumping Jacks, wooden soldiers and lead soldiers, bottles of scent, cakes of soap, coloured pictures, and a thousand other splendid objects. The servant-wenches from the farm and the mill turned pale with longing; Pierre and Jacques flushed red with delight. Little Jean put out his tongue at it all. Everything the barrow held seemed to them rich and rare. But what they coveted most of all were those mysterious articles whose meaning and use they could make nothing of. For instance, there were polished globes like mirrors that reflected their feces with the features ludicrously distorted. There were Epinal wares with figures in impossibly vivid colours; there were little cases and boxes with n.o.body knows what inside.
The women made purchases of muslins and laces by the yard, and the pedlar rolled the black oil-cloth cover back again over the treasures of his barrow. Then, pulling at the collar, he hauled off his load after him along the highroad. And now barrow and barrow-man have disappeared below the horizon.
ROGER"S STUD
[Ill.u.s.tration: 190]
IT is a great anxiety keeping a stud. The horse is a delicate animal and needs a lot of looking after. Just ask Roger if it does n"t!
He is busy now grooming his n.o.ble chestnut, which would be the pearl of wooden horses, the flower of the Black Forest stud-farms, if only he had not lost half his tail in battle. Roger would so like to know whether wooden horses" tails grow again.
After rubbing them down in fancy, Roger gives his horses an imaginary feed of oats. That is the proper way to feed these elfin creatures of wood on whose backs little boys gallop through the land of dreams.
Now Roger is off for his ride, mounted on his mettled charger. The poor beast has no ears left and his mane is all notched like an old broken comb; but Roger loves him. Why it would be hard to say! This bay was the gift of a poor man; and the presents of the poor are somehow sweeter perhaps than any others.
Roger is off. He has ridden far. The flowers of the carpet are the blossoms of the tropical forest. Good luck to you, little Roger! May your hobby-horse carry you happily through the world! May you never have a more dangerous mount! Small and great, we all ride ours! Which of us has not his hobby?
Men"s hobbies gallop like mad things along the roads of life; one is chasing glory, another pleasure; many leap over precipices and break their rider"s neck. I wish you luck, little Roger, and I hope, when you are a man, you will bestride two hobbies that will always carry you along the right road; one is spirited, the other gentle-tempered; they are both n.o.ble steeds; one is called Courage and the other Kindness.
COURAGE
[Ill.u.s.tration: 192]
LOUISON and Frederic are off to school along the village street. The sun shines gaily and the two children are singing. They sing like the nightingale, because their hearts are light like his. They sing an old song their grandmothers sang when they were little girls, a song their children"s children will sing one day; for songs are tender flowers that never die, they fly from lip to lip down the ages. The lips fade and fall silent one after the other, but the song lives on for ever. There are songs come down to us from the days when the men were shepherds and all the women shepherdesses. That is the reason why they speak of nothing but sheep and wolves.
Louison and Frederic sing; their mouths are as round as a flower and the song rises shrill and thin and clear in the morning air.
But listen! suddenly the notes stick in Frederic"s throat.
What unseen power is it has strangled the music on the boy"s lips? It is fear. Every day, as sure as fate, he comes upon the butcher"s dog at the end of the village street, and every day his heart seems to stop and his legs begin to shake at the sight. Yet the butcher"s dog does not fly at him, or even threaten to. He sits peaceably at his master"s shop-door.
But he is black, and he has a staring bloodshot eye and shows a row of sharp white teeth. He looks frightful. And then he squats there in the middle of bits of meat and offal and all sorts of horrors--which makes him more terrifying still. Of course it is n"t his fault, but he is the presiding genius. Yes, a savage brute, the butcher"s dog! So, the instant Frederic catches sight of the beast before the shop, he picks up a big stone, as he sees grown-up men do to keep off bad-tempered curs, and he slinks past close, close under the opposite wall.
That is how he behaved this time; and Louison laughed at him.
She did not make any of those daredevil speeches one generally caps with others more reckless still. No, she never said a word; she never stopped singing. But she altered her voice and began singing on such a mocking note that Frederic reddened to his very ears. Then his little head began to buzz with many thoughts. He learned that we must dread shame even more than danger. And he was afraid of being afraid.
So, when school was over and he saw the butcher"s dog, he marched undauntedly past the astonished animal.
History adds that he kept a corner of his eye on Louison to see if she was looking. It is a true saying that, if there were no dames nor damsels in the world, men would be less courageous.
CATHERINE"S "AT HOME"
[Ill.u.s.tration: 195]
IT is five o"clock. Mademoiselle Catherine is "at home" to her dolls.
It is her "day." The dolls do not talk; the little Genie that gave them their smile did not vouchsafe the gift of speech. He refused it for the general good; if dolls could talk, we should hear n.o.body but them. Still there is no lack of conversation. Mademoiselle Catherine talks for her guests as well as for herself; she asks questions and gives the answers.
"How do you do?--Very well, thank you. I broke my arm yesterday morning going to buy cakes. But it"s quite well now.--Ah! so much the better.--And how is your little girl?--She has the whooping-cough.--Ah!
what a pity! Does she cough much?--Oh! no, it "s a whooping-cough where there"s no cough. You know I had two more children last week.--Really?
that makes four doesn"t it?--Four or five, I"ve forgotten which. When you have so many, you get confused.--What a pretty frock you have.--Oh! I "ve got far prettier ones still at home.--Do you go to the theatre?--Yes, every evening. I was at the Opera yesterday; but Polichinelle wasn"t playing, because the wolf had eaten him.--I go to dances every day, my dear.--It is so amusing.--Yes, I wear a blue gown and dance with the young men, Generals, Princes, Confectioners, all the most distinguished people.--You look as pretty as an angel to-day, my dear.--Oh! it"s the spring.--Yes, but what a pity it"s snowing.--_I_ love the snow, because it"s white.--Oh! there"s black snow, you know.--Yes, but that"s the bad snow." There"s fine conversation for you; Mademoiselle Catherine"s tongue goes nineteen to the dozen. Still I have one fault to find with her; she talks all the time to the same visitor, who is pretty and wears a fine frock.
There she is wrong. A good hostess is equally gracious to all her guests. She treats them all with affability, and if she shows any particular preference, it is to the more retiring and the less prosperous. We should flatter the unhappy; it is the only flattery allowable. But Catherine has discovered this for herself. She has guessed the secret of true politeness: a kind heart is everything. She pours out tea for the company, and forgets n.o.body. On the contrary, she presses the dolls that are poor and unhappy and shy to help themselves to invisible cakes and sandwiches made of dominoes.
Some day Catherine will hold a salon where the old French courtesy will live again.
LITTLE SEA-DOGS
[Ill.u.s.tration: 198]