ay we found him in a ditch, struck down by his
malady at nightfall. We carried him home with us, in a wheelbarrow, and
we spent all night in caring for him. Three days afterward, he was at a
wedding, singing like a thrush, jumping like a kid, and bustling about
after his old fashion. When he left a marriage, he would go to dig a
grave, and nail up a coffin. Then he would become very grave, and
though nothing of this appeared in his gay humor, it left a melancholy
impression which hastened the return of his attacks. His wife was
paralyzed, and had not stirred from her chair for twenty years. His
mother is living yet, at a hundred and forty, but he, poor man, so happy
and good and amusing, was killed last year by falling from his loft
to the sidewalk. Doubtless he died a victim to a fatal attack of his
disease, and, as was his habit, had hidden in the hay, so as not to
frighten and distress his family. In this tragic manner he ended a life
strange as his disposition--a medley of things sad and mad, awful and
gay; and, in the midst of all, his heart was ever good and his nature
kind.

Now we come to the third day of the wedding, the most curious of all,
which is kept to-day in all its vigor. We shall not speak of the roast
which they carry to the bridal bed; it is a very silly custom, and hurts
the self-respect of the bride, while it tends to ruin the modesty of
the attendant girls. Besides, I believe that it is practised in all the
provinces, and does not belong peculiarly to our own.

Just as the ceremony of the wedding favors is a symbol that the heart
and home of the bride are won, that of the cabbage is a symbol of the
fruit-fulness of marriage. When breakfast is over on the day after the
wedding, this fantastic representation begins. Originally of Gallic
derivation, it has passed through primitive Christianity, and little by
little it has become a kind of mystery, or droll morality-play of the
Middle Ages.

Two boys, the merriest and most intelligent of the company, disappear
from breakfast, and after costuming themselves, return escorted by dogs,
children, and pistol-shots. They represent a pair of beggars--husband
and wife--dressed in rags. The husband is the filthier of the two; it is
vice which has brought him so low; the wife is unhappy and degraded only
through the misdeeds of her husband.

They are called the gardener and the gardener's wife, and they pretend
it is their duty to guard and care for the sacr