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Updated: May 6, 2025
I was not quite sure, but I did not worry over such a small detail; then when she returned to supper I would serve her a dish of Jerusalem artichokes! It would be something fresh to replace those everlasting potatoes, and Mother Barberin would not suffer too much from the sale of poor Rousette. And the inventor of this new dish of vegetables was I, Remi, I was the one!
Poor Rousette, as though she knew what was happening, refused to come out of the barn and began to bellow. "Go in at the back of her and chase her out," the man said to me, holding out a whip which he had carried hanging round his neck. "No, that he won't," cried mother. Taking poor Rousette by the loins, she spoke to her softly: "There, my beauty, come ... come along then."
The year before Mother Barberin had made a feast for me with pancakes and apple fritters, and I had eaten so many that she had beamed and laughed with pleasure. But now we had no Rousette to give us milk or butter, so there would be no Shrove Tuesday, I said to myself sadly. But Mother Barberin had a surprise for me.
A cattle dealer came to our house, and after thoroughly examining Rousette, all the time shaking his head and saying that she would not suit him at all, he could never sell her again, she had no milk, she made bad butter, he ended by saying that he would take her, but only out of kindness because Mother Barberin was an honest good woman.
We played in every town and village on the road, and by the time we had reached Ussel we had collected two hundred and forty francs. We had to economize in every possible manner to save this sum, but Mattia was just as interested and eager to buy the animal as I. He wanted it to be white; I wanted brown in memory of poor Rousette.
Rousette could not resist her, and then, when she got to the road, the man tied her up behind his cart and his horse trotted off and she had to follow. We went back to the house, but for a long time we could hear her bellowing. No more milk, no butter! In the morning a piece of bread, at night some potatoes with salt. Shrove Tuesday happened to be a few days after we had sold the cow.
"A boss like you, who doesn't beat one, is too good," said Mattia, laughing happily from time to time. Our prosperous state of affairs made me decide to set out for Mother Barberin's as soon as possible. I could take her a present. I was rich now. There was something that, more than anything else, would make her happy, not only now, but in her old age a cow that would replace poor Rousette.
A cow in my cowshed!" cried Mother Barberin. Mattia and I burst out laughing. "It's a surprise," I cried, "and a better one than the Jerusalem artichokes." She looked at me in a dazed, astonished manner. "Yes, it's a present for you. I did not come back with empty hands to the mamma who was so good to the little lost boy. This is to replace Rousette.
"Did you get my Jerusalem artichokes?" "Ah, you planted them to surprise me! You always liked to give surprises, my boy." The moment had come. "Is the cowshed just the same since poor Rousette went?" I asked. "Oh, no; I keep my wood there now." We had reached the shed by this time. I pushed open the door and at once our cow, who was hungry, began to bellow. "A cow!
Kerivoula picta, Pallas. But of all the bats, the most conspicuous from its size and numbers, and the most interesting from its habits, is the rousette of Ceylon ; the "flying fox," as it is called by Europeans, from the similarity to that animal in its head and ears, its bright eyes, and intelligent little face.
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