A MOTHER’S DEVOTION

Thus time passed peacefully at the big farm.

One day, however, the quiet was disturbed by a little drama which convulsed the calm but busy spot.

Mother Etienne had given to a Cochin-China hen, which she had christened Yollande, some white duck’s eggs to sit on. The batch of fifteen eggs had all come out. It was really wonderful to see these fifteen baby ducks, yellow as canaries, beaks and webbed feet pink, swarming around the big patient sitting mother, ducking under her wings, to come out presently and clamber helter-skelter onto her broad back. As often happens with nurses, Yollande loved the ducklings as her own children, and without worrying about their shape or plumage, so different from her own, she showered upon them proofs of the tenderest affection. Did a fly pass within their reach, all these little ones jumped at it tumbling in their efforts to catch it. The little yellow balls with their wide-awake air never took a second’s rest.

Well cared for and well fed, they grew so rapidly that soon they had to have more space. Mother Etienne housed them then on the edge of the pond in a latticed coop opening onto a sloping board which led down to the water. It was, as it were, a big swimming bath, which grew gradually deeper and deeper. The ducks and geese loved to plunge in and hardly left the water except to take their meals.

Yollande felt very out of place in this new dwelling. The ducklings on the contrary, urged on by their instinct, madly enjoyed it and rushed pell-mell into the water.

This inexplicable impulse terrified their mama. She was, in fact, “as mad as a wet hen.”

She ran up and down, her feathers on end, her face swollen, her crest red, clucking away, trying to persuade her babies not to venture into the water. For hens, like cats, hate the water. It was unspeakable torture to her. The children would not listen; deaf to her prayers, her cries, these rascally babies ventured farther and farther out. They were at last and for the first time in their favourite element, lighter than little corks, they floated, dived, plunged, raced, fought, playing all sorts of tricks.

Meanwhile, Yollande was eating her heart out. She rushed to and fro, keeping her eyes glued on the disobedient ones. Suddenly she saw a mother-duck chasing her darlings. This was more than she could bear, driven by her maternal instinct she leapt like a fury to the aid of her family.

A flap or two of her wings and she was above the water into which she fell at the deepest part.

Splashing, struggling madly in the midst of her frightened brood, she was soon exhausted and succumbing to syncope, she sank to the bottom.

The surface of the water closed above her. The little ones did not realize what had happened very quickly recovering from their momentary fright, they went on with their games splashing the water with their beaks and amusing themselves as though nothing were the matter.

Mother Etienne, busy giving green apples to the pigs, bran to the rabbits, and corn to the pigeons, came back presently, and could not see the big Yollande beside the pond, only her children floating far, far away on the water. Surprised she drew nearer, called, but in vain. The mother-hen had disappeared. Then only did she understand the tragedy that had occurred. She called for help. Petit-Jacques immediately opened the big sluice and the water ran out, but much too slowly for their impatience. At last they began to see the bottom, and soon the body of poor Yollande was discovered stiff and motionless.

There was general consternation at the farm. Petit-Jacques, by means of a long pole, seized her and drew her to land at Mother Etienne’s feet. Labrie came up and sniffed sadly at the body of the unhappy hen. In vain they dried her and rubbed her, nothing did any good.

“She’s quite dead, alas,” said Mother Etienne with tears in her eyes, “but it was my own fault. I ought to have closed down the lattice and this misfortune would not have happened. It really is a great pity such a fine hen. She weighs at least eight pounds. There, Germaine, take her and weigh her.”

Germaine was the maid and also the cousin of Petit-Jacques of whom she was very fond. She was a fine buxom girl of eighteen, strong and well-grown. She loved animals, too, but her feeling for them could not be compared to Mother Etienne’s.

“Germaine, take away poor Yollande, I am quite upset by this trouble. You will bury her this evening, in a corner of the kitchen-garden deep enough to prevent any animal digging her up. I leave it to you do it carefully.”

The girl bore away the fine hen in her apron. “How heavy she is it is a shame,” and blowing apart the feathers, she saw the skin underneath as yellow and plump as you could wish. Mechanically she plucked a few feathers.

“After all,” she said, “it isn’t as though she had died she was drowned, quite a clean death; she’s firm and healthy, only an hour ago she was as strong and well as could be. Why shouldn’t we eat her? We’ll stew her because, though she is not old, she is not exactly in her first youth but there’s a lot on her with a dressing of carrots and nutmeg, a bunch of herbs and a tomato, with a calf’s foot to make a good jelly, I believe she’d make a lovely dinner.”

Saying this she went on plucking Yollande. All the feathers, large and small, gone, a little down was left, so to get rid of this she lit an old newspaper and held her over it.

“Madame won’t know anything and will enjoy her as much as we shall. There’s enough on her for two good meals.”

Quite decided, instead of burying her, she wrapped the future stew carefully in a perfectly clean cloth and put it on a shelf in the kitchen out of the way of flies or accident.

During this time Mother Etienne was busy making as warm a home as she could for the fifteen little orphans. Poor darlings. In a wicker-basket she covered a layer of straw with another of wadding and fine down. Upon this she put the ducklings one by one, and covered the whole with feathers; then closing the lid, she carried the basket to the stable where the air was always nice and warm. All this took time; it was about six o’clock in the evening, the sun was going down, throwing a last oblique smile into the kitchen, gleaming here and there on the shining copper which hung on the walls.