ey all took their little
baskets, which were hanging on the wall with their lunches in them. They
went out into the garden and scattered, drawing forth their provisions
as they did so,--bread, stewed plums, a tiny bit of cheese, a
hard-boiled egg, little apples, a handful of boiled vetches, or a wing
of chicken. In an instant the whole garden was strewn with crumbs, as
though they had been scattered from their feed by a flock of birds. They
ate in all the queerest ways,--like rabbits, like rats, like cats,
nibbling, licking, sucking. There was one child who held a bit of rye
bread hugged closely to his breast, and was rubbing it with a medlar, as
though he were polishing a sword. Some of the little ones crushed in
their fists small cheeses, which trickled between their fingers like
milk, and ran down inside their sleeves, and they were utterly
unconscious of it. They ran and chased each other with apples and rolls
in their teeth, like dogs. I saw three of them excavating a hard-boiled
egg with a straw, thinking to discover treasures, and they spilled half
of it on the ground, and then picked the crumbs up again one by one with
great patience, as though they had been pearls. And those who had
anything extraordinary were surrounded by eight or ten, who stood
staring at the baskets with bent heads, as though they were looking at
the moon in a well. There were twenty congregated round a mite of a
fellow who had a paper horn of sugar, and they were going through all
sorts of ceremonies with him for the privilege of dipping their bread in
it, and he accorded it to some, while to others, after many prayers, he
only granted his finger to suck.

[Illustration: "THE BOYS HAD DAUBED THEIR HANDS WITH
RESIN."--Page 202.]

In the meantime, my mother had come into the garden and was caressing
now one and now another. Many hung about her, and even on her back,
begging for a kiss, with faces upturned as though to a third story, and
with mouths that opened and shut as though asking for the breast. One
offered her the quarter of an orange which had been bitten, another a
small crust of bread; one little girl gave her a leaf; another showed
her, with all seriousness, the tip of her forefinger, a minute
examination of which revealed a microscopic swelling, which had been
caused by touching the flame of a candle on the preceding day. They
placed before her eyes, as great marvels, very tiny insects, which I
cannot understand their b