ith straight slips of wood nailed zigzag
one on the other, which by a similar movement regulated the exercise of
the little soldiers stuck thereon. Then he thought of his home and next
of his mother, and overcome by a great sorrow he again began to weep. His
limbs trembled; and he placed himself on his knees and said his prayers
as before going to bed. But he was unable to finish them, for such
hurried and violent sobs overtook him that he was completely overwhelmed.
He thought no more, he no longer saw anything around him and was wholly
taken up in crying.

Suddenly a heavy hand was placed upon his shoulder, and a rough voice
asked him:

"What is it that causes you so much grief, my fine fellow?"

Simon turned round. A tall workman with a black beard and hair all
curled, was staring at him good naturedly. He answered with his eyes
and throat full of tears:

"They have beaten me ... because ... I ... have no ... Papa ... no
Papa."

"What!" said the man smiling, "why everybody has one."

The child answered painfully amidst his spasms of grief:

"But I ... I ... I have none."

Then the workman became serious. He had recognized La Blanchotte's son,
and although but recently come to the neighborhood he had a vague idea of
her history.

"Well," said he, "console yourself my boy, and come with me home to your
mother. They will give you ... a Papa."

And so they started on the way, the big one holding the little one by the
hand, and the man smiled afresh, for he was not sorry to see this
Blanchotte, who was, it was said, one of the prettiest girls of the
country-side, and, perhaps, he said to himself, at the bottom of his
heart, that a lass who had erred might very well err again.

They arrived in front of a little and very neat white house.

"There it is," exclaimed the child, and he cried "Mamma."

A woman appeared and the workman instantly left off smiling, for he at
once perceived that there was no more fooling to be done with the tall
pale girl who stood austerely at her door as though to defend from one
man the threshold of that house where she had already been betrayed by
another. Intimidated, his cap in his hand, he stammered out:

"See, madam, I have brought back your little boy who had lost himself
near the river."

But Simon flung his arms about his mother's neck and told her, as he
again began to cry:

"No, mamma, I wished to drown myself, because the others had beaten
me ... had beaten me ...