It was true, Melody, my dear, that Petie and I did not care so much about the descriptions of dress as if we had been little girls; my mother was never weary of telling about the caps and earrings; I think she often longed for them, poor little Mother Marie! But now Petie and I clung about her, and begged her to go on, and she never could keep her vexation for two minutes.
"Tell how they go up the street!" said Petie.
"Play we went, too!" cried I. "Play the stone was a boat, Mère Marie." (I said it as one word, Melody; it makes a pretty name, "Mère-Marie," when the pronunciation is good. To hear our people say "M'ree" or "Marry," breaks the heart, as my mother used to say.)
She nodded, pleased enough to play,--for she was a child, as I have told you, in many, many ways, though with a woman's heart and understanding,--and clapped our hands softly together, as she held them in hers.
"We, then, yes! we three, Mère-Marie, _p'tit Jacques_, and Petie, we go up from the beach, up the street that goes tic tac, zic zac, here and there, up the hill; very steep in zose parts. We come to one place, it is steps--"
"Steps that make the street, but yes! and on them (white steps, clean! ah! of a cleanness!), in the sun, sit the old women, and spin, and sing, and tell stories. Ah! the fine steps. They, too, have caps, but they are brown in the faces, and striped--"
"Striped, Mère-Marie? painted, do you mean?"
"She said the steps had caps!" whispered Petie, incredulous, but too eager for the story to interrupt the teller.
"Painted? wat you mean of foolishness, _p'tit Jacques_? Ah! I was wrong! not striped; wreenkled, you say? all up togezzer like a brown apple when he is dry up,--like zis way!" and Mother Marie drew her pretty face all together in a knot, and looked so comical that we went into fits of laughter.
"So! zey sit, ze old women, and talk, talk, wiz ze heads together; but one sit alone, away from those others, and she sing. Her voice go up, thin, thin, like a little cold wind in ze boat-ropes.
"'Il était trois mat'lots de Groix, Il était trois mat'lots de Groix, Embarqués sur le Saint François, Tra la derira, la la la, Tra la derira la laire!'[1]
"I make learn you that song, _petit Jacques_, one time! So we come,--now, _mes enfants_, we come! and all the old women point the nose, and say, 'Who is it comes there?' But that one old--but Mère Jeanne, she cry out loud, loud. 'Marie! _petite Marie_, where hast thou been so long, so long?' She opens the arms--I fall into zem, on my knees; I cry--but hush, _p'tit Jacques_! I cry now only in ze story, only--to--to show thee how it would be! I say, 'It is me, Marie, Mère Jeanne! I come to show thee my little son, to take thy blessing. And my little friend, too!'" She turned to pat Petie's head; she would not let the motherless boy feel left out, even from a world in which he had no part.