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Updated: May 6, 2025
He had not dared ask his people to take her on at the farm during the winter, and yet he was well aware that she must be suffering from poverty. But she was not suffering, and Mère Guillette could never understand why her little store of wood never grew less, and how her shed was always filled in the morning when she had left it almost empty the night before.
"Mère Guillette," said the old ploughman, "if fifty francs was all that was needed to put an end to your troubles and make it unnecessary for you to send your daughter away, why, I would help you to find them, although fifty francs begins to mean something to people like us. But we must consult good sense as well as friendship in everything.
Mère Guillette lived in a wretched hovel within two gunshots of the farm. But she was a decent woman and a woman of strong will. Her poor house was neat and clean, and her carefully patched clothes denoted proper self-respect with all her poverty. "You came to get some fire for the night, eh, Mère Guillette?" said the old man. "Is there anything else you would like?"
He went to the cabin for his fiancée, accompanied by his brother-in-law Jacques, who was mounted on old Grise and took Mère Guillette en croupe, while Germain returned triumphantly to the farm-yard with his dear little wife. Then the merry cavalcade set forth, escorted by children on foot, who fired pistols as they ran and made the horses jump.
That ceremony was performed at the home of the fiancée, La Guillette's cabin. La Guillette took with her her daughter, a dozen or more young and pretty shepherdesses, her daughter's friends or relations, two or three respectable matrons, neighbors with well-oiled tongues, quick at retort, and unyielding observers of the ancient customs.
"You're no gossip," replied Père Maurice, "and one can speak before you without fear of people talking; so I will tell my wife and you that Germain has really made up his mind; he starts to-morrow for Fourche." "Bless me!" exclaimed Mère Maurice; "the poor fellow! God grant that he may find a wife as good and honest as himself!" "Ah! he is going to Fourche?" observed La Guillette.
If you were saved from want for this winter, you wouldn't be safe from future want, and the longer your daughter postpones taking the step, the harder it will be for you and for her to part. Little Marie is getting to be tall and strong, and she has nothing to do at home. She might fall into lazy habits " "Oh! as far as that goes, I'm not afraid," said Mère Guillette.
She's a child that's worth her weight in gold, and I'd have liked it much better to have her come to you as a shepherdess instead of going so far away among people I don't know. You'd have taken her at midsummer if we could have made up our minds; but now you've hired all your help, and we can't think of it again until midsummer next year." "Oh! I agree with all my heart, Guillette!
Père Maurice was in no way disturbed, therefore, to see him take the pretty girl en croupe; La Guillette would have considered that she was insulting him if she had requested him to respect her as his sister. Marie mounted the mare, weeping bitterly, after she had kissed her mother and her young friends twenty times over.
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