the howling brat, as one carries away a wished-for
knick-knack from a shop.

The Tuvaches, from their door, watched her departure; mute, severe,
perhaps regretting their refusal.

Nothing more was heard of little Jean Vallin. The parents went to the
notary every month to collect their hundred and twenty francs, and they
were angry with their neighbors, because Mother Tuvache grossly insulted
them, repeating without ceasing from door to door, that one must be
unnatural to sell one's child; that it was horrible, nasty, and many
other vile expressions. Sometimes she would take her Chariot in her arms
with ostentation, exclaiming, as if he understood:

"I didn't sell _you_, I didn't! I didn't sell _you_, my little one! I'm
not rich, but I don't sell my children!"

The Vallins lived at their ease, thanks to the pension. That was the
cause of the inappeasable fury of the Tuvaches, who had remained
miserably poor. Their eldest son went away into service; Charlot alone
remained to labor with his old father, to support the mother and two
younger sisters which he had.

He had reached twenty-one years, when, one morning, a brilliant carriage
stopped before the two cottages. A young gentleman, with a gold watch
chain, got out, giving his hand to an aged, white-haired lady. The old
lady said to him: "It is there, my child, at the second house." And he
entered the house of the Vallins, as if he were at home.

The old mother was washing her aprons; the infirm father slumbered at
the chimney-corner. Both raised their heads, and the young man said:

"Good morning, papa; good morning, mamma!"

They both stood up, frightened. In a flutter, the peasant woman dropped
her soap into the water, and stammered:

"Is it you, my child? Is it you, my child?"

He took her in his arms and hugged her, repeating: "Good morning,
mamma," while the old man, all in a tremble, said, in his calm tone
which he never lost: "Here you are, back again, Jean," as if he had seen
him a month before.

When they had got to know one another again the parents wished to take
their boy out through the neighborhood, and show him. They took him to
the mayor, to the deputy, to the cure, and to the schoolmaster.

Charlot, standing on the threshold of his cottage, watched him pass.

In the evening, at supper, he said to the old people: "You must have
been stupid to let the Vallins's boy be taken."

The mother answered, obstinately: "I wouldn't sell _my_ child."