ore youth and more
health at each return of springtide.

Four months later, when Mathieu and his men had finished the autumn
ploughing, there came the sowing on the same spot. Marianne was there
again, and it was such a very mild gray day that she was still able to
sit down, and once more gayly give the breast to little Gervais. He was
already eight months old and had become quite a personage. He grew a
little more every day, always in his mother's arms, on that warm breast
whence he sucked life. He was like the seed which clings to the seed-pod
so long as it is not ripe. And at that first quiver of November, that
approach of winter through which the germs would slumber in the furrows,
he pressed his chilly little face close to his mother's warm bosom,
and nursed on in silence as if the river of life were lost, buried deep
beneath the soil.

"Ah!" said Marianne, laughing, "you are not warm, young gentleman, are
you? It is time for you to take up your winter quarters."

Just then Mathieu, with his sower's bag at his waist, was returning
towards them, scattering the seed with broad rhythmical gestures. He had
heard his wife, and he paused to say to her: "Let him nurse and sleep
till the sun comes back. He will be a man by harvest time." And,
pointing to the great field which he was sowing with his assistants, he
added: "All this will grow and ripen when our Gervais has begun to walk
and talk--just look, see our conquest!"

He was proud of it. From ten to fifteen acres of the plateau were now
rid of the stagnant pools, cleared and levelled; and they spread out
in a brown expanse, rich with humus, while the water-furrows which
intersected them carried the streams to the neighboring slopes. Before
cultivating those dry lands one must yet wait until the moisture should
have penetrated and fertilized them. That would be the work of the
future, and thus, by degrees, life would be diffused through the whole
estate.

"Evening is coming on," resumed Mathieu, "I must make haste."

Then he set off again, throwing the seed with his broad rhythmical
gesture. And while Marianne, gravely smiling, watched him go, it
occurred to little Rose to follow in his track, and take up handfuls of
earth, which she scattered to the wind. The three boys perceived
her, and Blaise and Denis then hastened up, followed by Ambroise, all
gleefully imitating their father's gesture, and darting hither and
thither around him. And for a moment it was al