“Are they your children?” the soldier asked the old woman.

“Asking your pardon, sir, they are charity children.  They give me three francs a month and a pound’s weight of soap for each of them.”

“But it must cost you twice as much as that to keep them, good woman?”

“That is just what M. Benassis tells me, sir; but if other folk will board the children for the same money, one has to make it do.  Nobody wants the children, but for all that there is a good deal of performance to go through before they will let us have them.  When the milk we give them comes to nothing, they cost us scarcely anything.  Besides that, three francs is a great deal, sir; there are fifteen francs coming in, to say nothing of the five pounds’ weight of soap.  In our part of the world you would simply have to wear your life out before you would make ten sous a day.”

“Then you have some land of your own?” asked the commandant.

“No, sir.  I had some land once when my husband was alive; since he died I have done so badly that I had to sell it”

“Why, how do you reach the year’s end without debts?” Genestas went on, “when you bring up children for a livelihood and wash and feed them on two sous a day?”

“Well, we never go to St. Sylvester’s Day without debt, sir,” she went on without ceasing to comb the child’s hair.  “But so it is—­Providence helps us out.  I have a couple of cows.  Then my daughter and I do some gleaning at harvest-time, and in winter we pick up firewood.  Then at night we spin.  Ah! we never want to see another winter like this last one, that is certain!  I owe the miller seventy-five francs for flour.  Luckily he is M. Benassis’ miller.  M. Benassis, ah! he is a friend to poor people.  He has never asked for his due from anybody, and he will not begin with us.  Besides, our cow has a calf, and that will set us a bit straighter.”

The four orphans for whom the old woman’s affection represented all human guardianship had come to an end of their prunes.  As their foster-mother’s attention was taken up by the officer with whom she was chatting, they seized the opportunity, and banded themselves together in a compact file, so as to make yet another assault upon the latch of the door that stood between them and the tempting heap of dried plums.  They advanced to the attack, not like French soldiers, but as stealthily as Germans, impelled by frank animal greediness.

“Oh! you little rogues!  Do you want to finish them up?”

The old woman rose, caught the strongest of the four, administered a gentle slap on the back, and flung him out of the house.  Not a tear did he shed, but the others remained breathless with astonishment.

“They give you a lot of trouble——­”

“Oh! no, sir, but they can smell the prunes, the little dears.  If I were to leave them alone here for a moment, they would stuff themselves with them.”

“You are very fond of them?”