CHAPTER V.
THE YANKEE BOYS' HOLIDAY IN PROVENCE.
The peasants now began to return to the village, while the boysprepared to camp out. Walter, at a hasty glance along the side of themountain, perceiving many trees, took it for granted, without furtherexamination, that they were forest trees, and would furnish materialfor a fire; but as they approached, to his great chagrin, he noticedthat they were mulberry, olive, and figs, and that there was not evena bush or a bramble that could be taken to feed a fire. This at oncereversed the whole train of his ideas, and threw him into a state ofmind entirely foreign to his usual cheerful, buoyant frame, and a moodnot to be pleased with anything, which communicated itself, thoughwith less intensity, to Ned, who, never having experienced thosepeculiar emotions begotten of the free wild life in the woods, was notpeculiarly touched by the disappointment.
"I think it is a great way for people who live by their labor to be sofar from their work. I should think it would take half of their time togo and come."
"They don't know how to put things ahead with a rush, as we do," saidWalter.
"How can a man think much of his time when it's worth only twenty centsa day?"
"It ain't worth that, for a sou ain't quite a cent. They will work allday in a half bushel, and don't know how to take advantage of work.I've heard the captain say that they were once little better thanslaves to the aristocracy, and have been so long used to working at aslave jog that they keep it up, and always want to huddle together likea nest of rats."
While talking they had gained the declivity of the hill, and sat down.
"Only look at that troop, Wal."
It was, indeed, a curious spectacle, that peasant train,--somedriving asses, others mules, and still others oxen attached to theirqueer-looking carts heaped with olives, and all making for the gapbetween the hills, through which the boys had seen the church spire.
Spreading their blankets beneath a shelving rock, they rolledthemselves in them, and began to converse.
"How sweet this air smells!" said Ned, snuffing the odor of the wildthyme, lavender, marjoram, absinthe, and other fragrant plants amongwhich they lay.
"I don't think much of it," said Walter, who was not in a humor to bepleased with anything. "I call it a God-forsaken country, all dried up,no water to drink without travelling ten miles, and then sucking it outof the rocks. Here we've passed two or three beds of brooks all driedup; plenty of water when you don't want it, none when you do; and not astick of wood to build a camp fire. This smell is not to be mentionedin the same day with the fragrance of good pine woods, and I know itisn't half so wholesome. Give me a good apple orchard in bloom, and youmay have all these miserable herbs."
"I'm sure," said Ned, "I'd rather have a tumbler of cider than alltheir sour wine; and what is an olive to an apple?"
"Yes, Ned, to the cat-heads that grow down behind our pig-sty. They maytalk about the juice of the grape; give me the good maple sirup, andsap, and a country where a man can earn enough to afford to eat meat."
"I know it, Walter; and where the women don't have to shovel dirt, hoe,reap, and work just like an Indian squaw. I twigged that. And then bragabout their politeness!"
"I never heard there was any politeness among the Griffins; but Iwonder what my father would say to see mother shovelling sand, orlugging manure on her back up the side of a mountain. Guess he'd roarsome; guess she'd have to scud into the house quicker."
"Did you ever see such pigs?" said Ned, who was now thoroughly imbuedwith the fault-finding humor of his companion. "Guess they have to boiltheir pork; for I don't believe there's grease enough in it to fryitself."
"Did you ever see such oxen? They ain't bigger than rats--nasty,scraggly-looking things, cow-horned and cat-hammed, no necks orquarters, every hair sticking up straight. Don't believe they couldtwitch a spruce bush. I'll bet our old Star and Golding (just letfather speak to 'em) would drag six such, tail foremost. They'rewelcome to their silks; I'd rather have mother's fulled cloth than alltheir spider's web. They're welcome to their warm weather, vines, figs,cockroaches, garlic, and all their herbs; give me three feet of snow, agood log camp, a roaring fire, and game in plenty, and they are welcometo the almond trees and pot herbs. Goodness! to call three olive trees,on a bit of ground that I could straddle, a farm. One good fat bearwould make more and better grease than an acre of 'em."
"What do you suppose they would say, Walter, to see Lion Ben's acres?and what to the Lion himself?"
"Jerusalem!" said Walter, borrowing one of his brother Joe's by-words;"only let him get into one of his rages, and he would slay the wholecountry with the jaw-bone of an ass."
"Well," said Ned, who felt that a good part of Walter's spleen arosefrom the lack of the camp fire he had anticipated. "They all seemedvery kind, you know; and Gabriel asked and urged us to go to his house."
"Yes; to be eaten up with fleas and ten thousand bugs and stingingconcerns they have here."
Thus growling and grumbling, Walter fell asleep. The last wordsdistinguishable were, "God-forsaken country; no wood for a camp fire."
In the morning, as the result of a consultation held while eating, theydetermined first to ascend the hill, and afterwards to explore thecountry. Here they found a long moss on the rocks, which they concludedwould be just the thing with which to fill their beds, and resolved totake some of it with them when they returned.
"O, Wal, we'll dry some of these fragrant plants, and mix with themoss."
"Yes; that will be nice."
Following a cart track through a gap in the hills, they came upon ahighway in most excellent order, and bordered with trees, and saw, alittle upon their left, the village of the peasants, consisting ofhouses built of mud and stone huddled together, many without glass, andno entrance for light except the door, the roofs covered with tiles,and not a tree near them.
Their attention was attracted by the towers of a large castle,evidently in ruins, upon the summit of an eminence that commanded thevillage. With curiosity greatly excited, they were about to climb thehill to view it more closely, when Ned said, "Let us go ahead, see thecountry, come back here to-night, and camp in the ruins."
Skirting the base of the hill upon which the castle stood, they cameagain upon the stream that watered the vale,--now increased in volumeby affluents from the mountains,--falling over a cliff upon whichwere the remnants of a dam, and just below it a mass of half-burnedtimber and large stones, that Walter, more familiar than Ned with suchmatters, declared to be the ruins of some kind of a mill. These largecircular stones lay embedded in a mass of coals and brands, the shaftsburned out of them, white from the action of fire, and every one splitin two. It seemed probable this had been accomplished by flinging waterupon them while red hot.
There was no water, at this time, within several rods of the stones;but, from the appearance of the banks, it was evident that the stream,since the destruction of the dam, had changed its channel, and had onceflowed near to the stones, to which it had been brought in a flume, theremains being still visible. After inspecting these stones with thegreatest curiosity, Walter said,--
"I don't see what they could grind with such stones as these; theycertainly couldn't grind grain; they couldn't _grind_ anything; theyare not 'picked,' like a millstone, but as smooth as my hand; theycould only squat. If they raised apples here, I should think they weremade to squat them."
Our young readers will bear in mind that mill-stones are "picked," orcut in sweeping furrows, which leave sharp edges to catch and grind thegrain.
Still farther from the bank of the stream, on some high and levelground, were two more pairs of stones. These, it was evident, had notbeen enclosed in any building, as the only cinders lying around werethose resulting from the burning of the shafts that had once been usedto operate them. The lower stones were raised about two feet from theground, and dishing nearly ten feet in diameter, with holes drilledthrough them, around a central one. Upon these lay two smaller stones,with square holes in their
centres, in one of which was a half-burnedshaft. These were all, save one upper stone, split in halves.
"How did they split these?" asked Ned. "They have not been heated."
"With powder," said Walter, pointing to holes drilled in the stones.
"Then why didn't they split this one?"
"They tried to, but the charge blew out; there are the holes."
"Perhaps their powder gave out."
"I guess I know how this went."
"How?"
"This stone ran on its edge round the other; there was an uprightshaft in the middle; and that hole in the centre was made to receivea pintle, to hold the foot of it, and it was turned by a horse, or byhand, just like a cider mill."
Walter began to hunt in the long grass around the stone, and soonexclaimed,--
"Here it is! here is the track worn into the ground, where somebody orsomething travelled."
"It was a horse or mule," said Ned, holding up a rusty shoe.
"That is too big for the foot of an ass."
"What is the stone trough underneath for, Wal?"
"To catch whatever ran from the mill. It must have been liquid, fornothing else could go through these holes."
"It is very strange," said Ned, "that these people should set to workand plant trees along the highways, and not put so much as one tree,rosebush, or even a lilac, around their own houses."
Although not aware of it, they were now among a people to whom thosepeculiar feelings which in the mind of the Anglo-Saxon are connectedwith home and the domestic hearth, are unknown. Had they been awarethat these splendid roads, ornamented with magnificent trees, and soskilfully laid out as to present the most picturesque and imposingscenery to the eye of the traveller, were all constructed and kept inorder by means of the dreaded "_corv?e_,"--compulsory labor, whichsignified that the poor peasant might be taken from his work to laboron the public roads, and, should he chance to offend a capriciousmaster, even in time of harvest, to leave the bread of his household towaste in the field,--they would have ceased to wonder that the wretchedpeasant, burdened with a thousand exactions and goaded to despair,should be rather disposed to brood over his wrongs, and nurse the hopeof vengeance, than to embellish a dwelling which, in the great majorityof instances, was not his own.
Determining to follow the course of the stream, rather than thehighway, they had proceeded but a short distance, when they reached aspot, where, divided by a mass of rock, it encircled a level island ofabout three acres, entirely covered with a growth of rods as smoothand pointed as a bulrush. They were planted in regular rows, withgreat care, were eight or ten feet in height, perfectly straight, andentirely destitute of leaves or limbs, except that in some instancesthere was a fork at the top.
"What can these be?" asked Ned.
"I don't know; let's see if we can't find a place where we can wadeacross."
Following the stream till abreast the middle of the island, theyespied a row of stepping-stones, upon which they crossed, and, findinga peasant at work, he informed them that they were "osiers," anglicesallows, and were used to make hampers for wine, cover bottles anddemijohns, and tie vines to the stakes, were made into chairs andplaythings for children, and that a great many, after being divested oftheir bark, were exported to New York.
"Why, Walter," said Ned, "these are the very things Mr. Bell madebaskets of, that he and Charlie called sallies. I heard him ask thecaptain to get him some rods, and tell him that if he put them inearth or wet moss in the vessel's hold, they would grow by being stuckdown, when the vessel got home."
"Then we will get a lot for him."
They asked the peasant, who told them the rods must be cut intopieces, seven or eight inches long, that in two years they would yieldsomething, and in three a good crop of rods.
"Charlie has a splendid place to plant them on," said Ned, "right on alittle flat by the mouth of the brook."
"Yes," said Walter, "but here are willows ten feet high. Mr. Bellcarried no willows like these."
The peasant told him the reason that these grew so remarkably, was,that in the spring and fall the stream overflowed its banks, leaving arich slime, which fertilized the soil, and the island, being surroundedby water, was moist throughout the year, and that the largest he wasthen cutting were used to hoop wine casks.
On the other side of the little isle was a rude bridge, upon whichthey crossed to the opposite shore. Following the course of the streamover heaps of gravel mixed with stones, brought down by streams fromthe mountains in the spring floods, they proceeded for miles throughthe most monotonous, dreary scenery imaginable; not a tree, bush, orscarcely a blade of grass to relieve the eye, Walter often repeatinghis favorite expression, "a God-forsaken country."
At length, as the sun attained its meridian, the face of the countrybecame more diversified, breaking into gentle swells, and even hillsof moderate elevation. Here they met with a little brook, which woundamong the hills, and fell into the stream with a grateful murmur. Itsbanks were margined with a broad belt of green grass, and fringed withbushes and small trees, many of them evergreens.
"This is excellent water," said Ned, as he stooped and drank. "Supposewe eat here."
"I wouldn't; let us follow the stream into the valley I see yonder,eat, and rest there, and then go back."
They were led to a glen, the banks of which, broken into irregular,gentle slopes, were clothed with groves of large trees entirely clearof underbrush. Flinging themselves at the roots of a massive treestanding by itself at the extremity of a slight elevation, around whichthe brook wound, and where the sun shone warm and pleasantly, theybegan leisurely to eat, till, the demands of appetite appeased, theystretched themselves upon the grass.
"Wonder what kind of trees these are," said Ned; "guess they arewalnuts."
"They look more like oaks," said Walter.
"Well, so they are," said Ned, who, lying on his back, was looking upthrough the branches, "for I see an acorn."
"Here is another I've found on the ground. What a funny acorn! The cupcomes half way over it."
Near by them was a rude building open at the sides, and with thatchedroof.
"I'm going to see what is in that building, Wal." And going to it, hecried out, "Come here; it is half full of great sheets of cork."
"So it is, Ned; and these are cork trees, you may depend." Trying thebark with their knives, they found it to be the fact.
"O, my! I'm so glad we came! Only think how much we have learnedto-day; and we've got the old castle to see when we go back."
"I never thought before," said Walter, "that a cork tree was an oak,and bore acorns."
Returning, they re-crossed the island.
"How old," asked Walter of the peasant, "must a cork tree be, beforethey can take off the cork?"
"Twenty years; after that, they take it every ten years, but the corkis not of the best quality till the third stripping."
"Don't it injure the tree?"
"No more than it does you to peel the dead skin from your hands; onlythe live bark beneath must not be injured."
"What time of year do they peel it?"
"July and August."
"How do they get it off?"
"They first pound the tree to loosen the dead bark from the live, thenmake two up and down cuts the whole length of the body of the tree,then cross-cuts about three feet apart, and remove the bark with awedge."
"That," said Walter, "is the way we peel hemlock bark in America; onlywe cut the trees down, and don't beat the bark."
"What else do they do to it?" asked Ned.
"They scorch it to close the grain, and warp it straight, then put onrocks to keep it so till it gets set (like that you saw in the hovel),when it is ready to sell."
As they went on, Walter said, "I shouldn't think a man in this countrywould ever have courage enough to commence farming."
"Why not?"
"Because you must wait twelve years for an olive tree, twenty for acork, and forty before the bark is f
irst rate. Give me New England,where, with nothing under heavens but his rifle and narrow axe, a mancan raise his bread on a burn the first year, knock up a log hut, andhave his meat for the killing."
"And wood enough for a camp fire," said Ned, laughing.