MOTHER ETIENNE’S FARM

“Oh Grandfather, tell us a story, do. You know, the one you began the other evening about Mother Etienne’s big farm. You remember. The weather is so bad and we can’t go out. Go on, Grandfather, please.”

Coaxingly the three children clung round their grandfather, looking at him beseechingly. He adoring the children as he did, loved to hear them plead.

At last he began:

Since you have been very good, and you want it so much, I will tell you the wonderful story of Mother Etienne’s farm and the still more wonderful story of what happened to one of its occupants.

Love animals, my children, be kind to them, care for them, and you will surely have your reward.

Mother Etienne was a good stout woman with a very kind heart. While still young she was so unfortunate as to lose her husband and her son of whom she was very fond. This made her, as you can imagine, very, very sad. She wouldn’t listen to any new offers of marriage though she had plenty of them. Instead, she devoted her life, her whole existence, to the attentive, nay I ought to say, the maternal care, of the animals on her farm, making them as comfortable as could be.

She had, as I said before, a most excellent heart, the good Mother Etienne. You shall see that presently.

This good woman then lived on her big farm, very spacious and admirably situated. A slate roof covered the large house; the granaries, stables and outhouses were sheltered by old thatching upon which grew moss and lichen.

Let me tell you now, dear children, who were the chief occupants of the farm. First there was big “Coco” a fine Normandy horse bay-coloured and very fat, whose silky coat had a purple sheen; he had a star on his forehead and a pink mark between his eyes. He was very gentle and answered to the voice of his mistress. If Mother Etienne passed by his stable he never failed to scent her and whinnied at once. That was his way of showing his friendliness and saying,

“Good morning.”

His good mistress spoiled him with all sorts of dainties. Sometimes a crust of bread, sometimes a handful of carrots, but what he loved best of all was sugar. If you had given him a whole loaf he would soon have eaten it up.

Coco had for stable companions three fine Swiss cows. Their names were La Blonde, Blanchotte, and Nera. You know what the colours were for the names, don’t you?

Petit-Jacques, the stable boy, took care of them. On fine days he led them to pasture into a bog paddock near the farm up against a pretty wood of silver beeches. A large pond of clear water covered one corner of the meadow and lost itself in the reeds and iris. There the fine big cows went to quench their thirst; quantities of frogs went there, too, to play leap-frog. It was a veritable earthly Paradise.

From the farm Mother Etienne caught the sound of the large bronze bells each with its different low note, which hung round the necks of the cows; thus she could superintend their comings and goings without interrupting her various occupations. For the farm was very big, as I told you, and had many animals on it.

After the stables and coachhouses came the piggery, the rabbit hutches, and finally an immense poultry-yard divided into a thousand compartments, and sheltering a whole horde of poultry of all sorts; fowls of all kinds and of all breeds, geese, guineafowl, pigeons, ducks, and what all besides. What wasn’t there in that prodigious poultry-yard?

Mother Etienne spent most of her time there, for the smaller and more delicate the creatures the more interest and care she gave them.

“The weak need so much protection,” this excellent woman would say, and she was right.

So for the baby ducks her tenderness was limitless. What dangers had to be avoided to raise successfully all these tiny folks!

Did a pig escape? Immediately danger threatened the poultry-yard. For a pig has terrible teeth and he doesn’t care what he eats he would as soon crunch a little duckling as a carrot. So she had to watch every minute, every second even. For besides, in spite of the vigilance of “Labrie,” the faithful watchdog, sometimes rats would suck the blood of the young pigeons. Once even a whole litter of rabbits was destroyed that way.

To dispose of the products of her farm, Mother Etienne drove twice a week to market in her market-cart drawn by Coco.

She was famed for the best vegetables, the purest and creamiest milk; in short, the eggs she sold were the freshest, the poultry and rabbits the tenderest and most juicy to be had. As soon as she and Coco came trotting into the market there was a rush to get to her first.

There, as everywhere, everyone loved Mother Etienne.