CHAPTER VIII.
THE LAST DAY WITH THE PEASANTS.
That night, as the boys sat around their fire, Ned observed, "Walter,it appears to me that you have done the very thing you have beentalking about so long."
"I don't understand you, Ned."
"In making that mill and press for the peasants, you have certainlydone some good."
"If so, I am surely glad of it; but I thought it was a shame for peopleto work after such a fashion as they were doing, and, since I haveheard Gabriel, I wish I could do more."
"Do you know what was running in my head all the time he was talking?"
"What?"
"That it was a blessed thing to live in a free country. If CaptainRhines asks me if I've seen any better place than home, I think I shallknow what to say."
"Ned, I'm glad," glancing at the new-made grave on which the moon wasshining, "that we buried those people before we heard Gabriel talk; forI am afraid we shouldn't have done it afterwards."
"Perhaps not."
"We ought to be thinking about going back."
"The captain told us we might stay as long as we liked, except itlooked like a gale of wind."
"We don't want to be like old sailors--stay till the last minute;besides, our provision is almost gone."
"Then we _must_ go; for I can't live as these people do."
"Nor I, either. I was thinking how different they live from us--no teaor coffee; a little thin wine, about as strong as cider: a few olives;and soup made of bread, garlic, and potatoes; not a bit of meat; andoil instead of butter."
"Then their bread," said Ned, "as black as your hat--what do yousuppose it is made of?"
"Rye and barley, I guess, or rye and buckwheat."
"But they have some nice things--fruits and preserves."
"I should think, now they've got clear of the seigniors, they mighthave everything if they would only put in and work--might raise twocrops a year. Leroux said those potatoes he gave me were planted afterthe wheat came off. Now, we don't have any niceties at our house. Weare plain, rough people; but, _heavens_! there's _enough_. I couldn'thelp thinking of the difference between their dinner and ours. We havea great pewter platter as big over as half a bushel on the table,with great junks of pork and beef on it. Father will stick the greatknife up to the handle into five or six inches of clear pork or a junkof beef all yellow with fat. For vegetables, we had about a peck ofpotatoes, cabbages, onions, beets, and carrots; hot biscuit, tea andcoffee, a great loaf of rye and Indian bread--as much better than theirblack stuff as white is better than Indian; and then mother will comewalking along just as careful with a brimming pan of milk, and say,'Now, boys, help yourselves.'"
"And butter," said Ned, "good, yellow butter, instead of oil."
"And then, in the fall, when we kill an ox, such soups as are soups;ain't made of bread, water, and garlics. Father'll take a great shin,crack it up with the axe, and great junks of marrow will drop out ofit. That's the stuff in a cold day, I tell you. Give a boy plenty ofthat, and it will make him stretch out and grow; give him strength toput the axe in. We waste more in our family than they eat. I've lookedin all their houses; they don't have any swill-pail at the door; eatthe swill themselves."
"I'll tell you what I'd like, Wal, and, if I ever get home, I mean tohave mother make it--a chicken pie, with real flaky crust, rings allround it, and apple dumplings, with lots of sauce."
"But about going back, Ned--shall we start in the morning?"
"We _can't_, Wal. We want to get the moss to fill our beds, and thewillow sets for Mr. Bell; then, you know, we want to go over to FelixBertault's, and see the silkworms."
"Well, get ready to-morrow, and start bright and early in the morning."
The next day they went over to the house of Felix. He told the boys hecould not show them the silkworms, as it was not the time of year atwhich they were hatched. However, he showed them the eggs, which wereabout as large as a mustard seed, and gray. He informed them that theworm was like a common caterpillar, three or four inches long, livedupon mulberry leaves, could not bear the cold, and, when spring came,and it was most time for the mulberry to leaf, they put the eggs in awarm room, in the kitchen, or wore them on their bodies, and the heathatched them. As soon as they were hatched, they put them on mulberryleaves, which must be dry and tender. This made them grow so fast, thatin six days they were too large for their skin, when it cracked, andthey shed it, coming out with a new one; in six days more, shed that,till they passed through five changes, and had four new skins.
"What do they do then?" asked Ned.
"After shedding their last skin, they seem kind of miserable for a weekor more, and then they begin to eat very greedily, grow, and fill upwith the stuff they make the silk of."
"What kind of stuff is it?" asked Walter. "I've torn open the bag, andit looks like gum."
"But they do something to it that makes it silk."
"What next?"
"We know now that they want to spin; so we fasten upon the shelveswhere we keep them little twigs, willow, bulrushes, and sprigs oflavender, which they crawl upon, and begin to spin."
"I should think they would crawl all over the room, and get trod on."
"They won't go from the leaves."
"How do they spin?" asked Ned.
"They throw out little threads of silk, the same as a spider, fromtwo little holes in their noses, fasten them to the twigs, and make arough kind of covering to keep off the weather; then they spin a finerthread, till they make a ball around themselves as large as a pigeon'segg; gum the inside all but one end: then they have a real warm,water-proof house, that will keep out the weather."
"Is that the end of it?" asked Walter.
"No. In this house the caterpillar turns into a moth."
"_Into a moth!_"
"Yes, and eats its way out of the end that was not gummed, leavingits old skin behind, just as a chicken does its shell. The female nowbegins to lay eggs just such as I showed you."
"What do they do then?"
"They die, the males in eight days, the females in four; and we havethe eggs to begin again. There is one of their nests," showing him acocoon.
"There's a hole in one end."
"Yes; that is where the moth gnawed out."
"What do you do with the eggs?"
"We wrap them in a cloth, and put them in a cool, dry place; but wekill all the worms that we do not want to become moths, and lay eggs,as soon as they are done spinning, by baking them in a hot oven."
"What for?"
"If we didn't, they would become moths, eat out, cut the silk off, andbreak the thread so that it could not be reeled."
"What is done with this rough silk that is on the outside?"
"It is carded and spun like wool; so are those cocoons that the mothshatch in."
"I don't understand how the worm makes the silk all in one thread. Doeshe roll over and over like a shaft, and wind it round him?"
"No; he puts it on, back and forth, moving his head from side to sidein crooked patches, but all one thread, because he keeps the end of itin his mouth, and never breaks it."
"But if they don't wind it round them, what keeps it in place?"
"The gum."
"How do you get it off the cocoon?"
Felix called his wife, who took ten of the cocoons, and put them intowarm water to loosen the gum; then she stirred them with a little broomof straw; the threads of the silk stuck to the broom so she was ableto take hold of them with her fingers; she then joined five of thethreads together, making two compound threads of the ten, and put thosetwo through holes in a thin piece of iron that lay across the kettle,brought them together, wound them on a hand reel, and made a skeinof silk, which she divided, giving one half to Ned, and the other toWalter.
Felix told the boys that they sold the cocoons at the mills where theyreeled it, as it required machinery to do it properly, and his wife hadonly reeled that just to let them see how it could be done.
"Suppose the thread should break," said Ned.
"Then all you have to do is to lay the end on to the main thread, andthe gum will stick it."
He said the reason his wife stood so far from the kettle was, that thegum might cool and the threads not stick together. He then gave themsome eggs and cocoons to take home with them.
"Gabriel," said Walter, when they met again, "I've changed my mindsince I came here. I thought at first it was the last place for a manto live by farming; but if ever you get a good government, under whicha man can receive the fruits of his labor, and not be beggared byimposition, I will engage to come here and get rich in ten years."
"How could you do that, citizen?"
"In the first place I would make every day of the year tell. I'd raisetwo crops in a year, where you raise one. I would build a mill to grindand press these olives in a quarter of the time it takes you, and geta third more oil than you can get from the press I made you. I wouldbuild my house in the midst of my land, and not lose a great part ofmy time walking back and forth, carting stuff, and wearing out bothcattle and carts. I would make a cart that would run so much easierthan yours, that one mule would haul as much as two do in yours. Then,in the winter, when there was leisure, I would make a good road; thatwould make half as much difference more. Then, instead of makingwhat you call a fallow (which is letting the ground, after a crop istaken off, grow up to weeds, then ploughing them in, putting back nomore than you have taken out), I would keep cattle, raise corn, andhave manure. It takes, according to your statement, about thirty-fivedays to raise a crop of silkworms; that pays first rate, and yourchildren could do nearly all that is to be done; it also comes at atime when there's not much else to do. Now only see how much can beraised. Here's a crop of wheat, potatoes, and buckwheat; after them (atany rate every other year), vines and olives, that will grow on themountains where nothing else will, and come off late, after the othercrops are out of the way; then silk in the latter part of winter andthe early spring, before work is driving."
Gabriel scratched his head, and replied, "Citizen, so much work wouldmake a man a slave."
"You are a slave now, and get nothing for it, either. I'd rather putthings through, and get something, then, when I'm old, lay back andtake the good of it, than to be forever a mulling, and eat up as fastas I get. If you would only raise corn instead of this miserable rye,you could have bread, pork, beef, fodder for your cattle, and dressingfor your land."
The boys now began to prepare for departure, collecting moss, lavender,and other herbs for their beds, getting willow sets from the island forMr. Bell, and some pieces of carved panel and broken china, on whichwere beautiful designs, from the old castle.
When they returned, Gabriel said, "Don't take these broken thingsto America;" and he gave them a bowl and goblet most elaboratelyornamented, while Raffard gave them a panel that had never beeninjured, on which was the figure of a deer with an arrow in its flank.Leroux gave Walter a pistol inlaid with silver, Tonnelot presentedNed with a rapier richly ornamented; indeed, all were sorry to partwith them, and anxious to give them something as a token of affectionand remembrance. Julien, Fran?ois, and Beaupr? (sons of Bernard andBertault), brought from their houses pears preserved in honey, almonds,figs, pickled olives, and preserved quinces.
Early the next morning they took leave of the peasants, and set outwith Gabriel for the vessel, having with them, in the cart, theirpresents and the wine and oil contributed by the peasants for thepurchase of the tackle from the captain.
They arrived just before dinner, and the captain not only sold Gabrielthe tackle, but offered to buy all the oil he and his neighbors hadto dispose of at a much higher price than they could sell it for atMarseilles, and also their honey.
After feeding his mules and eating a hearty dinner himself, Gabrielwent home in high spirits to carry the news to his neighbors.