A woman appeared and the workman instantly left off smiling, for he at once perceived that there was no more fooling to be done with the tall pale girl who stood austerely at her door as though to defend from one man the threshold of that house where she had already been betrayed by another. Intimidated, his cap in his hand, he stammered out:
"See, madam, I have brought back your little boy who had lost himself near the river."
But Simon flung his arms about his mother"s neck and told her, as he again began to cry:
"No, mamma, I wished to drown myself, because the others had beaten me ... had beaten me ... because I have no Papa."
A burning redness covered the young woman"s cheeks, and, hurt to the quick, she embraced her child pa.s.sionately, while the tears coursed down her face. The man, much moved, stood there, not knowing how to get away.
But Simon suddenly ran to him and said:
"Will you be my Papa?"
A deep silence ensued. La Blanchotte, dumb and tortured with shame, leaned herself against the wall, both her hands upon her heart. The child seeing that no answer was made him, replied:
"If you do not wish it, I shall return to drown myself."
The workman took the matter as a jest and answered laughing:
"Why, yes, I wish it certainly."
"What is your name, then?" went on the child, "so that I may tell the others when they wish to know your name?"
"Phillip," answered the man.
Simon was silent a moment so that he might get the name well into his head; then he stretched out his arms quite consoled as he said:
"Well, then, Phillip, you are my Papa."
The workman, lifting him from the ground kissed him hastily on both cheeks, and then made off very quickly with great strides.
When the child returned to school next day he was received with a spiteful laugh, and at the end of school when the lads were on the point of recommencing, Simon threw these words at their heads as he would have done a stone: "He is named Phillip, my Papa."
Yells of delight burst out from all sides.
"Phillip who? ... Phillip what? What on earth is Phillip? Where did you pick up your Phillip?"
Simon answered nothing; and immovable in faith he defied them with his eye, ready to be martyred rather than fly before them. The school-master came to his rescue and he returned home to his mother.
During three months, the tall workman, Phillip, frequently pa.s.sed by the Blanchotte"s house, and sometimes he made bold to speak to her when he saw her sewing near the window. She answered him civilly, always sedately, never joking with him, nor permitting him to enter her house.
Notwithstanding which, being, like all men, a bit of a c.o.xcomb, he imagined that she was often rosier than usual when she chatted with him.
But a fallen reputation is so difficult to recover and always remains so fragile that, in spite of the shy reserve, La Blanchotte maintained they already gossiped in the neighborhood.
As for Simon, he loved his new Papa much, and walked with him nearly every evening when the day"s work was done. He went regularly to school and mixed with great dignity with his school-fellows without ever answering them back.
One day, however, the lad who had first attacked him said to him:
"You have lied. You have not a Papa named Phillip."
"Why do you say that?" demanded Simon, much disturbed.
The youth rubbed his hands. He replied:
"Because if you had one he would be your mamma"s husband."
Simon was confused by the truth of this reasoning, nevertheless he retorted:
"He is my Papa all the same."
"That can very well be," exclaimed the urchin with a sneer, "but that is not being your Papa altogether."
La Blanchotte"s little one bowed his head and went off dreaming in the direction of the forge belonging to old Loizon, where Phillip worked.
This forge was as though entombed in trees. It was very dark there, the red glare of a formidable furnace alone lit up with great flashes five blacksmiths, who hammered upon their anvils with a terrible din. They were standing enveloped in flame, like demons, their eyes fixed on the red-hot iron they were pounding; and their dull ideas rose and fell with their hammers.
Simon entered without being noticed and went quietly to pluck his friend by the sleeve. He turned himself round. All at once the work came to a standstill and all the men looked on very attentive. Then, in the midst of this unaccustomed silence, rose the little slender pipe of Simon:
"Phillip, explain to me what the lad at La Michande has just told me, that you are not altogether my Papa."
"And why that?" asked the smith.
The child replied with all its innocence:
"Because you are not my mamma"s husband."
No one laughed. Philip remained standing, leaning his forehead upon the back of his great hands, which supported the handle of his hammer standing upright upon the anvil. He mused. His four companions watched him, and, quite a tiny mite among these giants, Simon anxiously waited.
Suddenly, one of the smiths, answering to the sentiment of all, said to Phillip:
"La Blanchotte is all the same a good and honest girl, and stalwart and steady in spite of her misfortune, and one who would make a worthy wife for a honest man."
"That is true," remarked the three others.
The smith continued:
"Is it this girl"s fault if she has fallen? She had been promised marriage and I know more than one who is much respected to-day, and who sinned every bit as much."
"That is true," responded the three men in chorus.
He resumed:
"How hard she has toiled, poor thing, to educate her lad all alone, and how much she has wept since she no longer goes out, save to go to church, G.o.d only knows."
"This also is true," said the others.
Then no more was heard than the bellows which fanned the fire of the furnace. Phillip hastily bent himself down to Simon:
"Go and tell your mamma that I shall come to speak to her."
Then he pushed the child out by the shoulders. He returned to his work and with a single blow the five hammers again fell upon their anvils.