"Oh! I"m always well and healthy."
"And you, Maitre Poiret?" asked the abbe.
"Oh! I"d be all right only the colzas ain"t a-goin" to give much this year, and times are so hard that they are the only things worth while raisin"."
"Well, what can you expect? Times are hard."
"Hub! I should say they were hard," sounded the rather virile voice of Rabot"s big consort.
As she was from a neighboring village, the priest only knew her by name.
"Is that you, Blondel?" he said.
"Yes, I"m the one that married Rabot."
Rabot, slender, timid, and self-satisfied, bowed smilingly, bending his head forward as though to say: "Yes, I"m the Rabot whom Blondel married."
Suddenly Maitre Belhomme, still holding his handkerchief to his ear, began groaning in a pitiful fashion. He was going "Oh-oh-oh!" and stamping his foot in order to show his terrible suffering.
"You must have an awful toothache," said the priest.
The peasant stopped moaning for a minute and answered:
"No, Monsieur le cure, it is not the teeth. It"s my ear-away down at the bottom of my ear."
"Well, what have you got in your ear? A lump of wax?"
"I don"t know whether it"s wax; but I know that it is a bug, a big bug, that crawled in while I was asleep in the haystack."
"A bug! Are you sure?"
"Am I sure? As sure as I am of heaven, Monsieur le cure! I can feel it gnawing at the bottom of my ear! It"s eating my head for sure! It"s eating my head! Oh-oh-oh!" And he began to stamp his foot again.
Great interest had been aroused among the spectators. Each one gave his bit of advice. Poiret claimed that it was a spider, the teacher, thought it might be a caterpillar. He had already seen such a thing once, at Campemuret, in Orne, where he had been for six years. In this case the caterpillar had gone through the head and out at the nose. But the man remained deaf in that ear ever after, the drum having been pierced.
"It"s more likely to be a worm," said the priest.
Maitre Belhomme, his head resting against the door, for he had been the last one to enter, was still moaning.
"Oh-oh-oh! I think it must be an ant, a big ant-there it is biting again. Oh, Monsieur le cure, how it hurts! how it hurts!"
"Have you seen the doctor?" asked Caniveau.
"I should say not!"
"Why?"
The fear of the doctor seemed to cure Belhomme. He straightened up without, however, dropping his handkerchief.
"What! You have money for them, for those loafers? He would have come once, twice, three times, four times, five times! That means two five-franc pieces, two five-franc pieces, for sure. And what would he have done, the loafer, tell me, what would he have done? Can you tell me?"
Caniveau was laughing.
"No, I don"t know. Where are you going?"
"I am going to Havre, to see Chambrelan."
"Who is Chambrelan?"
"The healer, of course."
"What healer?"
"The healer who cured my father."
"Your father?"
"Yes, the healer who cured my father years ago."
"What was the matter with your father?"
"A draught caught him in the back, so that he couldn"t move hand or foot."
"Well, what did your friend Chambrelan do to him?"
"He kneaded his back with both hands as though he were making bread! And he was all right in a couple of hours!"
Belhomme thought that Chambrelan must also have used some charm, but he did not dare say so before the priest. Caniveau replied, laughing:
"Are you sure it isn"t a rabbit that you have in your ear? He might have taken that hole for his home. Wait, I"ll make him run away."
Whereupon Caniveau, making a megaphone of his hands, began to mimic the barking of hounds. He snapped, howled, growled, barked. And everybody in the carriage began to roar, even the schoolmaster, who, as a rule, never ever smiled.
However, as Belhomme seemed angry at their making fun of him, the priest changed the conversation and turning to Rabot"s big wife, said:
"You have a large family, haven"t you?"
"Oh, yes, Monsieur le cure-and it"s a pretty hard matter to bring them up!"
Rabot agreed, nodding his head as though to say: "Oh, yes, it"s a hard thing to bring up!"
"How many children?"
She replied authoritatively in a strong, clear voice:
"Sixteen children, Monsieur le cure, fifteen of them by my husband!"
And Rabot smiled broadly, nodding his head. He was responsible for fifteen, he alone, Rabot! His wife said so! Therefore there could be no doubt about it. And he was proud!