e chairs at the back, Raphaele, _Madame_ and
her brother on the three chairs in front, and Rosa, who had no seat,
settled herself as comfortably as she could on tall Fernande's knees,
and then they set off.

But the horse's jerky trot shook the cart so terribly that the chairs
began to dance, and threw the travelers into the air, to the right and
to the left, as if they had been dancing puppets, which made them make
horrible grimaces and screams, which, however, were cut short by another
jolt of the cart.

They clung onto the sides of the vehicle, their bonnets fell onto their
backs, their noses on their shoulders, and the white horse went on
stretching out his head, and holding out his tail quite straight, a
little, hairless rat's tail, with which he whisked his buttocks from
time to time.

Joseph Rivet, with one leg on the shafts and the other bent under him,
held out the reins with his elbows very high, and he kept uttering a
kind of chuckling sound, which made the horse prick up its ears and go
faster.

The green country extended on either side of the road, and here and
there the colza in flower presented a waving expanse of yellow, from
which there arose a strong, wholesome, sweet and penetrating smell,
which the wind carried to some distance.

The cornflowers showed their little blue heads among the rye, and the
women wanted to pick them, but Monsieur Rivet refused to stop.

Then sometimes a whole field appeared to be covered with blood, so
thickly were the poppies growing, and the cart, which looked as if it
were filled with flowers of more brilliant hue, drove on through the
fields colored with wild flowers, and disappeared behind the trees of a
farm, only to reappear and to go on again through the yellow or green
standing crops, which were studded with red or blue.

One o'clock struck as they drove up to the carpenter's door. They were
tired out, and pale with hunger, as they had eaten nothing since they
left home, and Madame Rivet ran out, and made them alight, one after
another, and kissed them as soon as they were on the ground, and she
seemed as if she would never tire of kissing her sister-in-law, whom she
apparently wanted to monopolize. They had lunch in the workshop, which
had been cleared out for the next day's dinner.

A capital omelette, followed by boiled chitterlings, and washed down by
good, sharp cider, made them all feel comfortable.

Rivet had taken a glass so that he might hob-nob w