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Updated: June 20, 2025
Yesterday they had been children with little to do but play; to-day work was ahead of them, much hard work, which seemed to have aged them in a single night and turned them from boy and girl into responsible grown up persons. What a different village Bellerivre was with so many of its men away!
But his mother ! To think of his mother, at her age, becoming a mill operative! If the step was as repugnant to Madame Bretton as to Pierre she at least made light of it. They must all live, she cheerily explained, and living in America was a far different problem from what it had been in the green valley of Bellerivre.
The buyer who came to Bellerivre from the Gaspard silk mills was a lively little Frenchman whom Pierre had often seen before. "So it is you, my young friend, who this year raises the cocoons!" cried the merchant cordially. "Who would have thought it possible? But yesterday you were a baby in your father's arms. And now " the little man shrugged his shoulders. "Eh bien, le bon chien chasse de race!
In every home in Bellerivre his coming was hailed with delight, and his departure followed with regret. He possessed the rare attributes of sympathy and simplicity sometimes blended in great natures. None of his flock experienced a happiness too trivial for him to exult in, or a grief too personal for him to share.
How break in upon the dream she was cherishing, and rudely force upon her the need for action? How would she receive the plan for selling the home? To leave the spot she loved so much would be an overpowering blow to her, for had she not come as a bride to her present dwelling? Nay, more; she had been born in Bellerivre and had never ventured beyond its confines.
But none of these things, vital as they appeared, were of first importance in the community. It was from quite a different source that the peasants of Bellerivre derived their livelihood a source peculiar if one was unfamiliar with it, but which had been the primary interest of the valley ever since its people could remember. They raised silkworms!
Soon she might send money for the journey, and the kind priest himself would see the wounded Frenchman aboard a ship that would carry him to America. It was the wisest plan. Both he and Monsieur Bretton thought so. Then when peace was restored to the weary world, and the family had sufficient money they might all come back together to Bellerivre, never again to leave its sunny valley.
"There!" she said. "Nothing can reach them now. They will be well up out of the way of both mice and chickens, and in a month or two should hatch out all right." The weather in the meantime had become very hot. The southern sun beat down on Bellerivre, parching its hillsides, and tanning its people to a dusky brown.
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