were sporting
briskly in the clear stream and occasionally made a little bound and
caught the flies flying on the surface. He stopped crying in order to
watch them, for their maneuvers interested him greatly. But, at
intervals, as in a tempest intervals of calm alternate suddenly with
tremendous gusts of wind, which snap off the trees and then lose
themselves in the horizon, this thought would return to him with intense
pain:

"I am going to drown myself because I have no papa."

It was very warm, fine weather. The pleasant sunshine warmed the grass.
The water shone like a mirror. And Simon enjoyed some minutes of
happiness, of that languor which follows weeping, and felt inclined to
fall asleep there upon the grass in the warm sunshine.

A little green frog leaped from under his feet. He endeavored to catch
it. It escaped him. He followed it and lost it three times in succession.
At last he caught it by one of its hind legs and began to laugh as he saw
the efforts the creature made to escape. It gathered itself up on its
hind legs and then with a violent spring suddenly stretched them out as
stiff as two bars; while it beat the air with its front legs as though
they were hands, its round eyes staring in their circle of yellow. It
reminded him of a toy made of straight slips of wood nailed zigzag one on
the other; which by a similar movement regulated the movements of the
little soldiers fastened thereon. Then he thought of his home, and then
of his mother, and, overcome by sorrow, he again began to weep. A shiver
passed over him. He knelt down and said his prayers as before going to
bed. But he was unable to finish them, for tumultuous, violent sobs shook
his whole frame. He no longer thought, he no longer saw anything around
him, and was wholly absorbed in crying.

Suddenly a heavy hand was placed upon his shoulder, and a rough voice
asked him:

"What is it that causes you so much grief, my little man?"

Simon turned round. A tall workman with a beard and black curly hair was
staring at him good-naturedly. He answered with his eyes and throat full
of tears:

"They beat me--because--I--I have no--papa--no
papa."

"What!" said the man, smiling; "why, everybody has one."

The child answered painfully amid his spasms of grief:

"But I--I--I have none."

Then the workman became serious. He had recognized La Blanchotte's son,
and, although himself a new arrival in the neighborhood, he had a vague
idea of her