e message. I can't stop
as I've got several miles to go, and it's getting late."

But Mother Barberin wanted to know more; she begged him to stay to
supper. The roads were so bad! and they did say that wolves had been
seen on the outskirts of the wood. He could go early in the morning.
Wouldn't he stay?

Yes, he would. He sat down by the corner of the fire and while eating
his supper told us how the accident had occurred. Barberin had been
terribly hurt by a falling scaffold, and as he had had no business to
be in that particular spot, the builder had refused to pay an indemnity.

"Poor Barberin," said the man as he dried the legs of his trousers,
which were now quite stiff under the coating of mud, "he's got no luck,
no luck! Some chaps would get a mint o' money out of an affair like
this, but your man won't get nothing!"

"No luck!" he said again in such a sympathetic tone, which showed
plainly that he for one would willingly have the life half crushed out
of his body if he could get a pension. "As I tell him, he ought to sue
that builder."

"A lawsuit," exclaimed Mother Barberin, "that costs a lot of money."

"Yes, but if you win!"

Mother Barberin wanted to start off to Paris, only it was such a
terrible affair ... the journey was so long, and cost so much!

The next morning we went into the village and consulted the priest. He
advised her not to go without first finding out if she could be of any
use. He wrote to the hospital where they had taken Barberin, and a few
days later received a reply saying that Barberin's wife was not to go,
but that she could send a certain sum of money to her husband, because
he was going to sue the builder upon whose works he had met with the
accident.

Days and weeks passed, and from time to time letters came asking for
more money. The last, more insistent than the previous ones, said that
if there was no more money the cow must be sold to procure the sum.

Only those who have lived in the country with the peasants know what
distress there is in these three words, "Sell the cow." As long as they
have their cow in the shed they know that they will not suffer from
hunger. We got butter from ours to put in the soup, and milk to moisten
the potatoes. We lived so well from ours that until the time of which I
write I had hardly ever tasted meat. But our cow not only gave us
nourishment, she was our friend. Some people imagine that a cow is a
stupid animal. It is not so, a cow i