oment's purchase."

X

THE ADOPTED SON

A Tale of Peasant Life

From the French of GUY de MAUPASSANT

THE two cottages stood side by side at the foot of a hill near a little
seaside resort. The two peasants labored hard on the unproductive soil
to rear their little ones, of which each family had four.

In front of the adjoining doors the whole troop of urchins sprang and
tumbled about from morning till night. The two eldest were six years
old, and the two youngest were about fifteen months; the marriages, and
afterward the births, having taken place nearly simultaneously in both
families.

The two mothers could hardly distinguish their own offspring among the
lot, and as for the fathers, they were altogether at sea. The eight
names danced in their heads; they were always getting them mixed up; and
when they wished to call one child, the men often called three names
before getting the right one.

The first of the two dwellings, coming from the direction of the
sea-bath, Belleport, was occupied by the Tuvaches, who had three girls
and one boy; the other house sheltered the Vallins, who had one girl and
three boys.

They all subsisted with difficulty on soup, potatoes, and the open air.
At seven o'clock in the morning, then at noon, then at six o'clock in
the evening, the housewives got their nestlings together to give them
their food, as the goose-herds collect their charges. The children were
seated, according to age, before the wooden table, varnished by fifty
years of use; the mouths of the youngest hardly reaching the level of
the table. Before them was placed a deep dish filled with bread, soaked
in the water in which the potatoes had been boiled, half a cabbage, and
three onions; and the whole line ate until their hunger was appeased.
The mother herself fed the smallest.

A little meat, boiled in a soup, on Sunday, was a feast for all; and the
father on this day sat longer over the repast, repeating: "I should like
this every day."

One afternoon, in the month of August, a light carriage stopped suddenly
in front of the cottages, and a young woman, who was driving the horses,
said to the gentleman sitting at her side:

"Oh, look, Henri, at all those children! How pretty they are, tumbling
about in the dust, like that!"

The man did not answer, being accustomed to these outbursts of
admiration, which were a pain and almost a reproach to him. The young
woman continued:

"I must hug them! Oh