e distance, something that has vanished out of
sight; yet they can see it still, and their eyes are dazzled with its
splendours. It makes little Jean clean forget his eel-skin whiplash and
the peg-top he has always been so fond of keeping for ever spinning with
it in the dusty roads. Pierre and Jacques stand stolidly, their hands
behind their backs.

What is the wonderful sight that has bewildered all three? A pedlar's
cart, a handcart; they had seen it stop in the village street.

Then the pedlar drew back his oil-cloth covering, and all, men, women,
and children, feasted their eyes on knives, scissors, popguns, jumping
Jacks, wooden soldiers and lead soldiers, bottles of scent, cakes of
soap, coloured pictures, and a thousand other splendid objects. The
servant-wenches from the farm and the mill turned pale with longing;
Pierre and Jacques flushed red with delight. Little Jean put out his
tongue at it all. Everything the barrow held seemed to them rich and
rare. But what they coveted most of all were those mysterious articles
whose meaning and use they could make nothing of. For instance, there
were polished globes like mirrors that reflected their feces with the
features ludicrously distorted. There were Epinal wares with figures in
impossibly vivid colours; there were little cases and boxes with nobody
knows what inside.

The women made purchases of muslins and laces by the yard, and the
pedlar rolled the black oil-cloth cover back again over the treasures
of his barrow. Then, pulling at the collar, he hauled off his load after
him along the highroad. And now barrow and barrow-man have disappeared
below the horizon.

ROGER'S STUD

[Illustration: 190]

IT is a great anxiety keeping a stud. The horse is a delicate animal and
needs a lot of looking after. Just ask Roger if it does n't!

He is busy now grooming his noble chestnut, which would be the pearl of
wooden horses, the flower of the Black Forest stud-farms, if only he had
not lost half his tail in battle. Roger would so like to know whether
wooden horses' tails grow again.

After rubbing them down in fancy, Roger gives his horses an imaginary
feed of oats. That is the proper way to feed these elfin creatures of
wood on whose backs little boys gallop through the land of dreams.

Now Roger is off for his ride, mounted on his mettled charger. The poor
beast has no ears left and his mane is all notched like an old broken
comb; but Roger loves him. W