When Marianne was eighteen, they tell me, she was the prettiest girl in Pont du Sable, that is to say, she was prettier than Emilienne Daget at Bar la Rose, or than Berthe Pavoisier, the daughter of the miller at Tocqueville, who is now in Paris. At eighteen, Marianne was slim and blonde; moreover, she was as bold as a hawk, and smiled as easily as she lied. At twenty, she was rated as a valuable member of any fis.h.i.+ng crew that put out from the coast, for they found her capable during a catch, and steady in danger, always doing her share and a little more for those who could not help themselves. She is still doing it, for in her stone hut on the edge of the marsh that serves as shelter for her children and her rough old self, she has been charitable and given a winter's lodging to three old wrecks of the sea. There are no beds, but there are bunks filled with marsh-hay; there is no furniture, but there are a few pots and pans, and in one corner of the dirt floor, a crackling fire of drift wood, and nearly always enough applejack for all, and now and then hot soup. Marianne wrenches these luxuries, so to speak, out of the sea, often alone and single-handed, working as hard as a gull to feed her young.

The cure was right; Marianne had her good qualities--I was almost beginning to wonder to myself as I pulled drowsily at the black pipe if her good qualities did not outweigh her bad ones, when the Essence of Selfishness awakened and yawned. And so it was high time to send this spoiled child of mine to bed.

Marianne called her "_ma belle pet.i.te_," though her real name was Yvonne--Yvonne Louise Tourneveau.

Yvonne kept her black eyes from early dawn until dark upon a dozen of the Pere Bourron's cows in her charge, who grazed on a long point of the marsh, lush with salt gra.s.s, that lay sheltered back of the dunes fronting the open sea.

Now and then, when a cow strayed over the dunes on to the hard beach beyond to gaze stupidly at the breakers, the little girl's voice would become as authoritative as a boy's. "_Eh ben, tu sais!_" she would shout as she ran to head the straggler off, adding some sound whacks with a stick until the cow decided to lumber back to the rest. "_Ah mais!_"

Yvonne would sigh as she seated herself again in the wire-gra.s.s, tucking her firm bronzed legs under a patched skirt that had once served as a winter petticoat for the Mere Bourron.

Occasionally a trudging coast guard or a lone hunter in pa.s.sing would call "_Bonjour!_" to her, and since she was pretty, this child of fifteen, they would sometimes hail her with "_ca va, ma pet.i.te!_" and Yvonne would flush and reply bravely, "_Mais oui, M'sieur, merci._"

Since she was only a little girl with hair as black as a gipsy's, a ruddy olive skin, fresh young lips and a well-knit, compact body, hardened by constant exposure to the sea air and sun, no one bothered their heads much about her name. She was only a child who smiled when the pa.s.serby would give her a chance, which was seldom, and when she did, she disclosed teeth as white as the tiny sh.e.l.ls on the beach. There were whole days on the marsh when she saw no one.

At noon, when the cracked bell in the distant belfry of the gray church of Pont du Sable sent its discordant note quavering across the marsh, Yvonne drew forth a sailor's knife from where it lay tucked safe within the breast of her coa.r.s.e chemise, and untying a square of blue cotton cloth, cut in two her portion of peasant bread, saving half the bread and half a bottle of Pere Bourron's thinnest cider for the late afternoon.

There were days, too, when Marianne coming up from the sea with her nets, stopped to rest beside the child and talk. Yvonne having no mother which she could remember, Marianne had become a sort of transient mother to her, whom the incoming tide sometimes brought her and whom she would wait for with uncertain expectancy, often for days.

One afternoon, early in the spring, when the cows were feeding in the scant slanting shade of the dunes, Yvonne fell asleep. She lay out straight upon her back, her brown legs crossed, one wrist over her eyes.

She slept so soundly that neither the breeze that had sprung up from the northeast, stirring with every fresh puff the stray locks about her small ears, or the sharp barking of a dog hunting rabbits for himself over the dunes, awakened her. Suddenly she became conscious of being grasped in a pair of strong arms, and, awakening with a little scream, looked up into the grinning face of Marianne, who straightway gave her a big, motherly hug until she was quite awake and then kissed her soundly on both cheeks, until Yvonne laughed over her fright.

"_Oh, mon Dieu!_ but I was frightened," sighed the child, and sat up straight, smoothing back her tumbled hair. "Oh! la! la!" she gasped.

"They are beauties, _hein!_" exclaimed Marianne, nodding to an oozing basketful of mackerel; then, kneeling by the basket, she plunged her red hands under the slimy, glittering ma.s.s of fish, lifting and dropping them that the child might see the average size in the catch.

"_Eh ben!_" declared Marianne, "some day when thou art bigger, _ma pet.i.te_, I'll take thee where thou canst make some silver. There's half a louis' worth there if there's a sou!" There was a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes, as she bent over her basket again, dressed as she was in a pair of fisherman's trousers cut off at the knees.

"One can play the lady on half a louis," she continued, covering her fish from the sun with her bundle of nets. "My man shall have a full bottle of the best to-night," she added, wiping her wet hands across her strong bare knees.

"How much 'cake' does that old crab of a Bourron pay thee?" she inquired, turning again to the child.

"Six sous a day, and then my food and lodging," confessed Yvonne.

"He won't ruin himself," muttered Marianne.

"They say the girl at the Three Wolves gets ten," added the child with awe, "but thou knowest how--she must do the was.h.i.+ng besides."

Marianne's square jaw shut hard. She glanced at Yvonne's patched skirt, the one that had been the Mere Bourron's winter petticoat, feeling its quality as critically as a fas.h.i.+onable dressmaker.

"_Sacristi!_" she exclaimed, examining a rent, "there's one door that the little north wind won't knock twice at before he enters. Keep still, _ma pet.i.te_, I've got thread and a needle."

She drew from her trousers' pocket a leather wallet in which lay four two-sous pieces, an iron key and a sail needle driven through a ball of linen thread. "It is easily seen thou art not in love," laughed Marianne, as she cross-st.i.tched the tear. "Thou wilt pay ten sous for a ribbon gladly some day when thou art in love."

The child was silent while she sewed. Presently she asked timidly, "One eats well there?"

"Where?"

"But thou knowest--_there_."

"In the prison?"

"_Mais oui_," whispered Yvonne.

"Of course," growled Marianne, "one eats well; it is perfect. _Tiens!_ we have the good soup, that is well understood; and now and then meat and rice."

"Oh!" exclaimed the child in awe.

"_Mais oui_," a.s.sured Marianne with a nod, "and prunes."

"Where is that, the prison?" ventured the child.

"It is very far," returned Marianne, biting off the thread, "and it is not for every one either," she added with a touch of pride--"only I happen to be an old friend and know the judge."

"And how much does it cost a day, the prison?" asked Yvonne.

"Not _that_," replied Marianne, snipping her single front tooth knowingly with the tip of her nail.

"_Mon Dieu!_ and they give you all that for nothing?" exclaimed the child in astonishment. "It is _chic_, that, _hein!_" and she nodded her pretty head with decision, "_Ah mais oui, alors!_" she laughed.

"I must be going," said Marianne, abruptly. "My young ones will be wanting their soup." She flattened her back against her heavy basket, slipped the straps under her armpits and rose to her feet, the child pa.s.sing the bundle of nets to her and helping her shoulder them to the proper balance.

"_Au revoir, ma belle pet.i.te_," she said, bending to kiss the girl's cheek; then with her free hand she dove into her trousers' pocket and drew out a two-sous piece. "_Tiens_," she exclaimed, pressing the copper into the child's hand.

Yvonne gave a little sigh of delight. It was not often she had two sous all to herself to do what she pleased with, which doubles the delight of possession. Besides, the Mere Bourron kept her wages--or rather, count of them, which was cheaper--on the back page of a greasy book wherein were registered the births of calves.

"_Au revoir_," reiterated Marianne, and turned on her way to the village down the trail that wound through the salt gra.s.s out to the road skirting the bay. Yvonne watched her until she finally disappeared through a cut in the dunes that led to the main road.

The marsh lay in the twilight, the curlews were pa.s.sing overhead bound for a distant mud flat for the night. "_Courli! Courli!_" they called, the old birds with a rasp, the young ones cheerfully; as one says "_bonsoir_." The cows, conscious of the fast-approaching dark, were moving toward the child. She stood still until they had pa.s.sed her, then drove them slowly back to the Pere Bourron's, her two-sous piece clutched safe in her hand.

It was dark when she let down the bars of the orchard, leading into the farm-yard. Here the air was moist and heavy with the pungent odour of manure; a turkey gobbler and four timid hens roosting in a low apple tree, stirred uneasily as the cows pa.s.sed beneath them to their stable next to the kitchen--a stable with a long stone manger and walls two feet thick. Above the stable was a loft covered by a thatched roof; it was in a corner of this loft, in a large box filled with straw and provided with a patchwork-quilt, that Yvonne slept.

A light from the kitchen window streamed across the muddy court. The Pere and Mere Bourron were already at supper. The child bolted the stable door upon her herd and slipped into her place at table with a timid "_Bonsoir, m'sieur, madame_," to her masters, which was acknowledged by a grunt from the Pere Bourron and a spasm of coughing from his spouse.

The Mere Bourron, who had the dullish round eye of a pig that gleamed suspiciously when she became inquisitive, had supped well. Now and then she squinted over her fat jowls veined with purple, plying her mate with short, savage questions, for he had sold cattle that day at the market at Bonville. Such evenings as these were always quarrelsome between the two, and as the little girl did not count any more than the chair she sat in, they argued openly over the day's sale. The best steer had brought less than the Mere Bourron had believed, a shrewd possibility, even after a month's bargaining. When both had wiped their plates clean with bread--for nothing went to waste there--the child got up and brought the black coffee and the decanter of applejack. They at last ceased to argue, since the Mere Bourron had had the final word. Pere Bourron sat with closed fists, opening one now and then to strengthen his coffee with applejack. Being a short, thickset man, he generally sat in his blouse after he had eaten, with his elbows on the table and his rough bullet-like head, with its crop of unkempt hair, buried in his hands.

When Yvonne had finished her soup, and eaten all her bread, she rose and with another timid "_Bonsoir_" slipped away to bed.

"Leave the brindle heifer tied!" shrilled madame as the child reached the courtyard.

"_Mais, oui madame_, it is done," answered Yvonne, and crept into her box beneath the thatch.

At sixteen Yvonne was still guarding the cows for the Bourrons. At seventeen she fell in love.

He was a slick, slim youth named Jean, with a soapy blond lock plastered under the visor of his leather cap pulled down to his red ears. On fete days, he wore in addition a scarlet neck-tie girdling his scrawny throat. He had watched Yvonne for a long time, very much as the snake in the fable saved the young dove until it was grown.