PIERRE TAKES THE HELM
Silently Pierre received the news. He neither trembled nor cried out. In
a vague way he realized that ever since that day long ago when Henri St.
Amant had first presented this possibility to his mind he had
unconsciously been bracing himself to meet with courage some such
emergency. And now the blow had fallen, and it was he who must break the
news to his mother, and be the strong prop on which she might lean. So
busy was he with these thoughts that he scarcely sensed the presence of
the faithful old priest who walked beside him. A score of confused
reveries were surging over the boy, and out of the chaos of grief,
reminiscence, and wonder, clearer ideas began to form themselves.
"We must sell the place," he declared, thinking aloud. "That will give
us some ready money to start on."
"I, too, think that might be well."
It was the quiet voice of Monsieur le Cure.
"Forgive me, Father," said the lad. "I had forgotten----"
"Do not reproach yourself, my son," replied the priest gently. "I did
not accompany you to be a burden in your sorrow--only that I might help
if I could."
He laid his hand on the boy's shoulder.
Pierre glanced into his eyes gratefully.
"About the selling of the home--you think it would be wise?" he asked.
"It seems to me now to be the best plan; but I should wish to consider
the matter more carefully before I gave a final decision. Advice must
not be given too hastily."
"You see," continued Pierre, still formulating his ideas, "the constant
care of a large crop of silkworms is too hard for my mother and Marie.
We have been able to manage it one season, and we might even do it two;
but to feel we must work as hard as that forever--it is not to be
thought of. If we are to take up sericulture permanently we must have
more help, and with the comparatively small margin of profit we are able
to make we are not in a position to do that. When my father and uncle
were at home it was a very different thing. Of course I have Josef, but
he can do only the lightest part of the work. I am glad to do my share,
more than my share; but I am only a boy, Father, and not so wise nor so
strong as my father was. Nor have I his knowledge. If our crop of
cocoons should fail some season either through my lack of skill or
because of some unavoidable calamity, we should be without money on
which to live. It would be terrible. The thought fills me with fear.
Help me, Father. You are older than I. Give me your counsel. Do you
think I am right, or only a coward?"
"To face the truth is never cowardly, Pierre," answered the priest. "You
reason well, my son. To take upon yourself in future the care you have
borne this year is far too much for a lad. It is a work for several
able-bodied men. That you and your mother and Marie have been able to do
it even this once is little short of a miracle. Of course you have each
thrown your entire heart and strength into it. Then, too, the season has
been ideal. No calamities have befallen your crop. Nevertheless
misfortunes do come. There are distempers that ravage the silkworms; bad
weather that wrecks the mulberry foliage; a thousand possible accidents
which at any moment may sweep away your income. Such a reverse would be
a dire catastrophe to you and your family." The cure paused
thoughtfully. "But if you were to sell the place," he went on a second
later, "what would you do? Surely the sum you would receive for it, even
if it was a generous one--a thing we can hardly expect in war
time--would not be sufficient for you all to live upon."
"I should not try to live here," answered Pierre promptly. "Long ago I
made up my mind that if anything befell my father and my uncle I would
persuade my mother and Marie to go with me to America."
"America!"
"It is not so far away."
"It is at the other side of the world!" asserted the simple priest.
Pierre laughed.
"No, indeed, Father. America is but a ship's journey away. Besides we
have relatives there. My mother's people are all at Paterson, New
Jersey. My plan would be to take part of the money we get for our home
and with it pay our passage to America. There I could find work at good
wages, and take care of my mother and sister."
Monsieur nodded silently.
"All this," continued Pierre, "is in case my father is not found. You
tell me he is missing. What does that mean, Father?"
"It may mean any one of several things," returned the cure. "Your father
may have been wounded and carried to some enemy's hospital; he may be a
prisoner in some war camp; or----"
The old man faltered.
"Or----" persisted Pierre. "Speak, Father. Do not be afraid."
"Or he may have fallen, and be lying unclaimed on some distant
battle-field."
"And what do you think is the chance of his being heard from?"
Unflinchingly the boy put the question.
"We cannot tell. He is in God's hands. I should wait for a time, my son.
Then if no message comes we must----"
Again the kindly voice wavered.
"We shall know he has been lost," put in Pierre in a whisper.
"I fear so."
Stillness fell between the two. Each was thinking.
"Then for the present I will not speak yet to my mother of selling the
home," said Pierre at last. "We will wait and hope for good news. It is
cruel to distress her unless we must. All may yet be well. Surely she
has grief enough as it is, for she was very fond of my uncle."
"You are a wise lad, Pierre," exclaimed the cure. "Do as you have said.
Console your mother with the hope of good tidings from the front. They
may come--who knows? And if not, her sorrows will at least come singly
and not all at once."
And thus it came about that through the great grief that overwhelmed the
Bretton home it was Pierre who was his mother's stay and comfort. He it
was who counseled hope and patience; he who took up the burden of acting
both as father and son.
But despite his courage the message so eagerly longed for did not come.
Days, weeks, months dragged on. The winter passed and faint hints of
spring began to steal into the landscape. The river, foaming with the
melted snows from far up the Pyrenees, dashed with deafening roar
through the mountain gorges. There was a new brilliancy in the noonday
sunshine.
To Pierre the worst had now become a certainty. His father would never
again be heard from. Somewhere in a camp or battle-field far from home
like a true son of France he had given up his life for his beloved
country. With sinking heart the boy faced this reality. He had not
sensed until now how subtly a secret anticipation that the facts might
prove otherwise had buoyed him up. But now hope was gone. How should he
tell his mother? How break in upon the dream she was cherishing, and
rudely force upon her the need for action?
How would she receive the plan for selling the home? To leave the spot
she loved so much would be an overpowering blow to her, for had she not
come as a bride to her present dwelling? Nay, more; she had been born in
Bellerivre and had never ventured beyond its confines. What would she
say to breaking every tie of her old life and setting forth from the
valley she loved to end her days in a strange and unknown country? For
Marie and himself it was well enough; they were young and their days
stretched far before them. But for his mother it would mean only the
severing of every familiar association.
Poor Pierre! Many an anxious hour did he spend wondering how he was to
present his plan so that it would not seem cruel.
Then one day he suddenly saw how useless had been his worry. It was his
mother herself who spoke and made the very suggestion he had been
hesitating to voice. How calmly and with what courage she did it! Ah,
Pierre need not have feared that she would fail to meet the great issue
when it came! Madame Bretton was too much of a woman for that. Instead
she had a long talk with her children and afterward a letter was
dispatched to the relatives in that mystic land, America. Soon a reply
came back. Madame Bretton had come of fine peasant stock, and her
brother had carried with him into the new land of which he had become a
citizen his native loyalty and bigness of heart. He now wrote urging his
sister and her fatherless children to come to Paterson and share his
home until such time as they could find work and settle themselves in
some convenient community.
And when this was agreed upon who should come forward to Pierre's aid
but Henri St. Amant! He it was who found at Pont-de-Saint-Michel a
customer ready to purchase for a good price the Bretton homestead, with
its well-equipped silk-house, and its grove of thriving mulberry trees.
Together with Pierre and the cure he worked out every detail of the
Brettons' departure, acting with a wisdom that was amazing in so young a
lad. The faithful Josef was to have a home with the old priest; nothing
was forgotten. Certainly Henri was a friend in need!
Therefore one sunny morning the Brettons started south across France for
the seaport from which, a week later, they were to set sail for that
untried world toward which many another hapless exile had journeyed, and
within whose borders the refuge of a home was offered.
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