‘Oh! you thieves!’ cried Desiree.  ’But this is for the rabbits, not for you!  Leave me alone, won’t you!  You, there, will get your ears boxed, if you don’t go away!  And you too will have your tail pulled if I catch you at it again.  The wretches! they will be eating my hands soon!’

She drove the goat off, dispersed the fowls with her feet, and tapped the cow’s nose with her fists.  But the creatures just shook themselves, and then came back more greedily than ever, surrounding her, jumping on her, and tearing open her apron.  At this she whispered to Albine, as though she were afraid the animals might hear her.

‘Aren’t they amusing, the dears?  Watch them eat.’

Albine looked on with a grave expression.

‘Now, now, be good,’ resumed Desiree; ’you shall all have some, but you must wait your turns.  Now, big Lisa, you first.  Eh! how fond you are of plantain, aren’t you?’

Big Lisa was the cow.  She slowly munched a handful of the juicy leaves which had grown beside Abbe Caffin’s tomb.  A thread of saliva hung down from her mouth, and her great brown eyes shone with quiet enjoyment.

‘There! now it’s your turn,’ continued Desiree, turning towards the goat.  ’You are fond of poppies, I know; and you like the flowers best, don’t you?  The buds that shine in your teeth like red-hot butterflies!  See, here are some splendid ones; they came from the left-hand corner, where there was a burial last year.’

As she spoke, she gave the goat a bunch of scarlet flowers, which the animal ate from her hand.  When there was nothing left in her grasp but the stalks, she pushed these between its teeth.  Behind her, in the meanwhile, the fowls were desperately pecking away at her petticoats.  She threw them some wild chicory and dandelions which she had gathered amongst the old slabs that were ranged alongside the church walls.  It was particularly over the dandelions that the fowls quarrelled, so voraciously indeed, with such scratchings and flapping of wings, that the other fowls in the yard heard them.  And then came a general invasion.  The big yellow cock, Alexander, was the first to appear; having seized a dandelion and torn it in halves, without attempting to eat it, he called to the hens who were still outside to come and peck.  Then a white hen strutted in, then a black one, and then a whole crowd of hens, who hustled one another, and trod on one another’s tails, and ended by forming a wild flood of feathers.  Behind the fowls came the pigeons, and the ducks, and the geese, and, last of all, the turkeys.  Desiree laughed at seeing herself thus surrounded by this noisy, squabbling mob.

‘This is what always happens,’ said she, ’every time that I bring any green stuff from the graveyard.  They nearly kill each other to get at it; they must find it very nice.’