blic while
gesticulating so frantically that her _sabots_ clattered on the stones.

The horses had a free fight, and the men swore and shouted in vain, till
the lady with the baby suddenly went to the rescue. Planting the naked
cherub on the door-step, this energetic matron charged in among the
rampant animals, and by some magic touch untangled the teams, quieted
the most fractious, a big grey brute, prancing like a mad elephant; then
returned to her baby, who was placidly eating dirt, and with a polite
'_Voila, messieurs!_' she whipped little Jean into his shirt, while the
men sat down to smoke.

It took two deliberate men nearly a week to split the gnarled logs, and
one brisk woman carried them into the cellar and piled them neatly. The
men stopped about once an hour to smoke, drink cider, or rest. The
woman worked steadily from morning till night, only pausing at noon for
a bit of bread and the soup good Coste sent out to her. The men got two
francs a day, the woman half a franc; and as nothing was taken out of it
for wine or tobacco, her ten cents probably went further than their
forty.

This same capable lady used to come to market with a baby on one arm, a
basket of fruit on the other, leading a pig, driving a donkey, and
surrounded by sheep, while her head bore a pannier of vegetables, and
her hands spun busily with a distaff. How she ever got on with these
trifling incumbrances was a mystery; but there she was, busy, placid,
and smiling, in the midst of the crowd, and at night went home with her
shopping well content.

The washerwomen were among the happiest of these happy souls, and
nowhere were seen prettier pictures than they made, clustered round the
fountains or tanks by the way, scrubbing, slapping, singing, and
gossiping, as they washed or spread their linen on the green hedges and
daisied grass in the bright spring weather. One envied the cheery faces
under the queer caps, the stout arms that scrubbed all day, and were not
too tired to carry home some chubby Jean or little Marie when night
came; and, most of all, the contented hearts in the broad bosoms under
the white kerchiefs, for no complaint did one hear from these
hard-working, happy women. The same brave spirit seems to possess them
now as that which carried them heroically to their fate in the
Revolution, when hundreds of mothers and children were shot at Nantes
and died without a murmur.

But of all the friends the strangers made among the