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Amongst the superstitions denounced by the same writer is "the belief that a log called the trefoir or Christmas brand, which you put on the fire for the first time on Christmas Eve and continue to put on the fire for a little while every day till Twelfth Night, can, if kept under the bed, protect the house for a whole year from fire and thunder; that it can prevent the inmates from having chilblains on their heels in winter; that it can cure the cattle of many maladies; that if a piece of it be steeped in the water which cows drink it helps them to calve; and lastly that if the ashes of the log be strewn on the fields it can save the wheat from mildew."
No one escaped her inimitable mimicry, not even the “divine Sarah,” Calvé giving us an unpayable impersonation of the elderly tragédienne as Lorenzaccio, the boy hero of Alfred de Musset’s drama. Burlesquing led to her dancing some Spanish steps with an abandon never attempted on the stage!
His affair. In the old days a peasant kept such matters in his head, and the womenfolk knew to a day when each of their twenty or fifty cow was due to calve. But he is a smart young fellow, nevertheless, and not afraid of work, only a little soured and spoiled of late by having more on his hands than a man could do.
A late dinner brought us together again in a small dining room, the convalescents having eaten their simple meal and disappeared an hour before. During this time, another transformation had taken place in our mercurial hostess! It was the Calvé of Paris, Calvé the witch, Calvé the capiteuse, who presided at the dainty, flower-decked table and led the laughing conversation.
"But I can't see there's any living sense in you working yourself to death like you do." "Ho! You just pick up that coat of mine there and put it on you." "Put on your coat? Likely, indeed. I've no time to sit here now, with Goldenhorns ready to calve and all." "H'm, Calving, you say?" "As if you didn't know! But what do you think now about that same calf. Let it stay and be weaned, maybe?"
Armand Sylvestre presided at the repast; his verses alternated with the singings of Emma Calvé, who had come from her neighboring château to greet her old friends and compatriots, the “Cadets.”
"Read it." And Upton read as follows: "SATURDAY MORNING, January , 189-. "MY DEAR MRS. UPTON, I am sorry to hear that Henry is called away, but there are compensations. If I cannot take luncheon with him, it will give me the greatest pleasure to listen to Calvé in your company. I may be a trifle late, but I shall most certainly avail myself of your kind thought of me.
Through the sonorous clamour of the pipes Gretry could hear him speaking, but he caught only a word or two. "Toreador ... horse power ... Madame Calve ... electric motor ... fine song ... storage battery."
I wish to God I could get a cup of tea.... Me sitting down in my own little house, with the white tablecloth on the table, and the butter in the dish, and the strong, red tea in the tea-cup; and me pouring cream into it, and, maybe, telling the children not to be wasting the sugar, the things! and himself saying he'd got to mow the big field to-day, or that the red cow was going to calve, the poor thing, and that if the boys went to school, who was going to weed the turnips and me sitting drinking my strong cup of tea, and telling him where that old trapesing hen was laying.... Ah, God be with me! an old creature hobbling along the roads on a stick.
'Beats Zelie de Lussan and runs Calve hard, said the Premier who had made more than one trip to England and considered himself an authority in the matter.
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