Nobody’s Boy

Chapter I My Village Home

I was a foundling. But until I was eight years of age I thought I had a mother like other children, for when I cried a woman held me tightly in her arms and rocked me gently until my tears stopped falling. I never got into bed without her coming to kiss me, and when the December winds blew the icy snow against the window panes, she would take my feet between her hands and warm them, while she sang to me. Even now I can remember the song she used to sing. If a storm came on while I was out minding our cow, she would run down the lane to meet me, and cover my head and shoulders with her cotton skirt so that I should not get wet.

When I had a quarrel with one of the village boys she made me tell her all about it, and she would talk kindly to me when I was wrong and praise me when I was in the right. By these and many other things, by the way she spoke to me and looked at me, and the gentle way she scolded me, I believed that she was my mother.

My village, or, to be more exact, the village where I was brought up, for I did not have a village of my own, no birthplace, any more than I had a father or mother—the village where I spent my childhood was called Chavanon; it is one of the poorest in France. Only sections of the land could be cultivated, for the great stretch of moors was covered with heather and broom. We lived in a little house down by the brook.

Until I was eight years of age I had never seen a man in our house; yet my adopted mother was not a widow, but her husband, who was a stone-cutter, worked in Paris, and he had not been back to the village since I was of an age to notice what was going on around me. Occasionally he sent news by some companion who returned to the village, for there were many of the peasants who were employed as stone-cutters in the city.

“Mother Barberin,” the man would say, “your husband is quite well, and he told me to tell you that he’s still working, and to give you this money. Will you count it?”

That was all. Mother Barberin was satisfied, her husband was well and he had work.

Because Barberin was away from home it must not be thought that he was not on good terms with his wife. He stayed in Paris because his work kept him there. When he was old he would come back and live with his wife on the money that he had saved.

One November evening a man stopped at our gate. I was standing on the doorstep breaking sticks. He looked over the top bar of the gate and called to me to know if Mother Barberin lived there. I shouted yes and told him to come in. He pushed open the old gate and came slowly up to the house. I had never seen such a dirty man. He was covered with mud from head to foot. It was easy to see that he had come a distance on bad roads. Upon hearing our voices Mother Barberin ran out.

“I’ve brought some news from Paris,” said the man.

Something in the man’s tone alarmed Mother Barberin.

“Oh, dear,” she cried, wringing her hands, “something has happened to Jerome!”

“Yes, there is, but don’t get scared. He’s been hurt, but he ain’t dead, but maybe he’ll be deformed. I used to share a room with him, and as I was coming back home he asked me to give you the message. I can’t stop as I’ve got several miles to go, and it’s getting late.”

But Mother Barberin wanted to know more; she begged him to stay to supper. The roads were so bad! and they did say that wolves had been seen on the outskirts of the wood. He could go early in the morning. Wouldn’t he stay?

Yes, he would. He sat down by the corner of the fire and while eating his supper told us how the accident had occurred. Barberin had been terribly hurt by a falling scaffold, and as he had had no business to be in that particular spot, the builder had refused to pay an indemnity.

“Poor Barberin,” said the man as he dried the legs of his trousers, which were now quite stiff under the coating of mud, “he’s got no luck, no luck! Some chaps would get a mint o’ money out of an affair like this, but your man won’t get nothing!”

“No luck!” he said again in such a sympathetic tone, which showed plainly that he for one would willingly have the life half crushed out of his body if he could get a pension. “As I tell him, he ought to sue that builder.”

“A lawsuit,” exclaimed Mother Barberin, “that costs a lot of money.”

“Yes, but if you win!”

Mother Barberin wanted to start off to Paris, only it was such a terrible affair… the journey was so long, and cost so much!

The next morning we went into the village and consulted the priest. He advised her not to go without first finding out if she could be of any use. He wrote to the hospital where they had taken Barberin, and a few days later received a reply saying that Barberin’s wife was not to go, but that she could send a certain sum of money to her husband, because he was going to sue the builder upon whose works he had met with the accident.

Days and weeks passed, and from time to time letters came asking for more money. The last, more insistent than the previous ones, said that if there was no more money the cow must be sold to procure the sum.

Only those who have lived in the country with the peasants know what distress there is in these three words, “Sell the cow.” As long as they have their cow in the shed they know that they will not suffer from hunger. We got butter from ours to put in the soup, and milk to moisten the potatoes. We lived so well from ours that until the time of which I write I had hardly ever tasted meat. But our cow not only gave us nourishment, she was our friend. Some people imagine that a cow is a stupid animal. It is not so, a cow is most intelligent. When we spoke to ours and stroked her and kissed her, she understood us, and with her big round eyes which looked so soft, she knew well enough how to make us know what she wanted and what she did not want. In fact, she loved us and we loved her, and that is all there is to say. However, we had to part with her, for it was only by the sale of the cow that Barberin’s husband would be satisfied.

A cattle dealer came to our house, and after thoroughly examining Rousette,—all the time shaking his head and saying that she would not suit him at all, he could never sell her again, she had no milk, she made bad butter,—he ended by saying that he would take her, but only out of kindness because Mother Barberin was an honest good woman.

Poor Rousette, as though she knew what was happening, refused to come out of the barn and began to bellow.

“Go in at the back of her and chase her out,” the man said to me, holding out a whip which he had carried hanging round his neck.

“No, that he won’t,” cried mother. Taking poor Rousette by the loins, she spoke to her softly: “There, my beauty, come… come along then.”

Rousette could not resist her, and then, when she got to the road, the man tied her up behind his cart and his horse trotted off and she had to follow.

We went back to the house, but for a long time we could hear her bellowing. No more milk, no butter! In the morning a piece of bread, at night some potatoes with salt.

Shrove Tuesday happened to be a few days after we had sold the cow. The year before Mother Barberin had made a feast for me with pancakes and apple fritters, and I had eaten so many that she had beamed and laughed with pleasure. But now we had no Rousette to give us milk or butter, so there would be no Shrove Tuesday, I said to myself sadly.

But Mother Barberin had a surprise for me. Although she was not in the habit of borrowing, she had asked for a cup of milk from one of the neighbors, a piece of butter from another, and when I got home about midday she was emptying the flour into a big earthenware bowl.

“Oh,” I said, going up to her, “flour?”

“Why, yes,” she said, smiling, “it’s flour, my little Remi, beautiful flour. See what lovely flakes it makes.”

Just because I was so anxious to know what the flour was for I did not dare ask. And besides I did not want her to know that I remembered that it was Shrove Tuesday for fear she might feel unhappy.

“What does one make with flour?” she asked, smiling at me.

“Bread.”

“What else?”

“Pap.”

“And what else?”

“Why, I don’t know.”

“Yes, you know, only as you are a good little boy, you don’t dare say. You know that to-day is Pancake day, and because you think we haven’t any butter and milk you don’t dare speak. Isn’t that so, eh?

“Oh, Mother.”

“I didn’t mean that Pancake day should be so bad after all for my little Remi. Look in that bin.”

I lifted up the lid quickly and saw some milk, butter, eggs, and three apples.

“Give me the eggs,” she said; “while I break them, you peel the apples.”

While I cut the apples into slices, she broke the eggs into the flour and began to beat the mixture, adding a little milk from time to time. When the paste was well beaten she placed the big earthenware bowl on the warm cinders, for it was not until supper time that we were to have the pancakes and fritters. I must say frankly that it was a very long day, and more than once I lifted up the cloth that she had thrown over the bowl.

“You’ll make the paste cold,” she cried; “and it won’t rise well.”

But it was rising well, little bubbles were coming up on the top. And the eggs and milk were beginning to smell good.

“Go and chop some wood,” Mother Barberin said; “we need a good clear fire.”

At last the candle was lit.

“Put the wood on the fire!”

She did not have to say this twice; I had been waiting impatiently to hear these words. Soon a bright flame leaped up the chimney and the light from the fire lit up all the kitchen. Then Mother Barberin took down the frying pan from its hook and placed it on the fire.

“Give me the butter!”

With the end of her knife she slipped a piece as large as a nut into the pan, where it melted and spluttered. It was a long time since we had smelled that odor. How good that butter smelled! I was listening to it fizzing when I heard footsteps out in our yard.

Whoever could be coming to disturb us at this hour? A neighbor perhaps to ask for some firewood. I couldn’t think, for just at that moment Mother Barberin put her big wooden spoon into the bowl and was pouring a spoonful of the paste into the pan, and it was not the moment to let one’s thoughts wander. Somebody knocked on the door with a stick, then it was flung open.

“Who’s there?” asked Mother Barberin, without turning round.

A man had come in. By the bright flame which lit him up I could see that he carried a big stick in his hand.

“So, you’re having a feast here, don’t disturb yourselves,” he said roughly.

“Oh, Lord!” cried Mother Barberin, putting the frying pan quickly on the floor, “is it you, Jerome.”

Then, taking me by the arm she dragged me towards the man who had stopped in the doorway.

“Here’s your father.”