GABRIEL QUESNARD.
As they lay with heads pillowed on their packs, "Ned," said Walter, "I
wish we could imitate Charlie Bell, John Rhines, and Fred Williams in
something besides building a platform in a tree-top, or getting coral
and sponge to take home with us, or even obtaining information about
the people and country we are in."
"I think this is first rate," said Ned, sticking his legs, which were
stiff and swollen with walking, up in the air. "What would you have,
Wal? I think we've both done pretty well. I made a hundred dollars a
month clear, last voyage; you, twice that; which is more than they all
did when they started."
"But we have been hired, and have only done what other people laid out
for us; whereas they struck out for themselves, planned, worked, and
built a vessel, as you may say, out of nothing, owned and loaded her to
boot."
"There were four of them, and they had good advisers; but, when left on
that rock alone, didn't you get hold of Jacques, and wasn't it due to
your resolution and contrivance that the vessel got into Marseilles,
and made all she did make?"
"Ned, do you think getting money or being smart is to be put before
everything else?"
"I guess I don't," said Ned, rolling over, and putting his arm round
Walter. "I think having friends to love who love you, and to do what is
right, is to be put ever so much before that."
"Is there nothing else?"
"You mean," said Ned, in a subdued tone, "being what my mother calls
pious."
"No. I never talk of that; I know nothing about it; wish I did."
"What _do_ you mean, then?"
"I'll tell you. I don't suppose it is boasting to say that we have been
smart, trusty, and filled the places we were put in, perhaps, as well,
in our way, as they in theirs; but they have done other things that we
have not."
"What are they?"
"They have done good. Isaac Murch persuaded Peterson to leave liquor
alone, and taught him to read. How Charlie, John, and Fred helped old
Mrs. Yelf after her husband died! and she, with her old fingers, wove
the royal of the Hard-scrabble, and luck has followed that vessel from
the day she was launched. Isaac Murch said he left his luck behind him
when he left the Hard-scrabble; for Seth Warren has made double, in
proportion to the cost of the two vessels, in her to what he has in the
great ship. She has never lost a spar or a man; and it's my belief she
never will be cast away, but die a natural death in the head of Captain
Rhines's Cove, where the squirrels will make nests in her cabin, and
hoard their acorns, the robins will build on her spars, the little
children have her for a play-house, and the big boys to dive from.
Uncle Isaac said he knew just as well before she sailed that she would
be lucky as he did afterwards."
"Why?"
"Because a robin built her nest on the gammon-knee, under the bowsprit;
and Captain Rhines put off rigging her a week, that the nest might not
be disturbed."
"I never heard of that before, Walter; but Charlie Bell told me how
much Captain Rhines and Uncle Isaac did for the widow Hadlock."
"There's one thing he never told you, I'll warrant: that Fred Williams
was once one of the worst boys in town; and he and John reformed him,
took all the money they had earned, and set him up in business."
"No, he never told me that. At home they praise us, and call us smart.
We risked our lives last voyage, and are ready to risk them again, to
make money."
"But Captain Rhines, Uncle Isaac, Lion Ben, our Joe, and Charlie Bell
risked their lives to save yours and the captain's."
"Yes; and see what Captain Rhines has done since for our captain and
his mother's family."
"You know what Uncle Isaac's last words were, Ned. I shall never forget
them; they keep coming up. 'What I now like most to think about, boys,
ain't what I've done for _myself_, but to help others.'"
"I'm sure, Walter, I feel just so; but I don't know what we can do like
them. If Uncle Isaac was alive, he could tell us."
"Nor I, either; but I don't mean to wait to do some great thing to make
a sound, but take hold of the first thing that comes up."
"I'm bound to do what you do, Wal. But come, I'm rested; let's go on."
Descending the hill to the valley, they beheld a most lively scene.
Men, women, and children were busily employed gathering olives, which
were now ripe, and looked similar to a ripe damson. Some were in the
trees, shaking them from the branches, others beating them off with
poles, and still others picking up and loading upon mules and asses,
which stood near, with wicker panniers across their backs. They were
also loading into the queerest-looking carts imaginable--the wheels
solid, made of two layers of planks, with a short piece on each side to
increase the thickness and the bearing, and take the place of a hub. To
some of these carts oxen were attached, yoked by the horns; and every
time these wheels turned they made a doleful screeching.
"I should think," said Ned, "if they are making oil, they might afford
enough to grease their wheels."
"So should I. Look at those women, Ned," pointing to three who were
bearing off sacks on their shoulders, filled with olives. "What a way
that is, lading women, and letting asses and mules stand still!"
Great were the surprise and delight of the boys, upon approaching,
to recognize in the peasant who had first attracted their attention
Gabriel Quesnard, with whom they had become quite familiar, as he had
often been to the vessel with eggs, poultry, and vegetables, and the
captain had always invited him to eat with him. It was also from him
they had bought the honey a few days before.
Gabriel welcomed them most warmly. He could speak English fluently,
having had constant intercourse with English and American captains
for many years of his youth, when he was a porter at Marseilles;
nevertheless, he seemed highly gratified when Ned addressed him in the
peculiar dialect of Provence.
"I am most happy to see you, citizens," said he. Quesnard was a
thorough radical, a believer in fraternity and equality, and an ardent
member of the very party that had pulled down convents, levelled
distinctions, destroyed the Bastile, executed the king, guillotined
nobles, and turned France upside down. But, for all that, he possessed
a kind and generous nature, and was a most excellent husband and
father. Though without education, he was a shrewd, discerning man,
thoroughly versed in all the local politics and traditions of his
country. If he could neither read nor write, he had nevertheless
thought much, listened well, and observed closely, been a constant
attendant at the assemblies of the people, and an actor in all the
terrible scenes of the first years of the revolution. Like many others
of the more reflective and intelligent portion of the inhabitants
of the southern provinces, he was satisfied when those abominable
extortions, levied upon the peasantry both by clergy and nobles under
the name of "seignioral rights," or, as it was sometimes called, "the
servitude of the soil," were swept away, joined the more moderate
party, who thought blood enough had been shed, and were opposed to the
savage fanatics, who, in the name of liberty, slew all whom they either
hated or feared.
"You find us busy, citizens," he said; "for it is the olive-harvest,
and we are later about it than common; but it is now nearly time to
leave work. You will go with me to my poor house, and pass the night."
"We thank you kindly," said Ned; "but we are sailors, accustomed to
being out of doors, and all kinds of exposure. After being so long
penned up on shipboard, we wish to stretch our limbs, see the country,
and crops, how the people live, and have made up our minds to sleep on
the side of yonder hill, in this sweet air."
"It is winter-time, and the nights are long and cool."
"This weather is summer to us. We came from a country where the winters
are severe. We have blankets, and are used to sleeping on the soft side
of a plank."
"But your food, citizens."
"We have plenty of provision in our packs."
Gabriel not seeming at all reconciled to this, and still urging the
claims of hospitality, Walter told him they wished to go farther to see
the face of the country, productions, and manner in which the people
lived.
"And how can you see in what fashion the people live if you don't go
into their homes, and eat and drink with them?"
"We couldn't see the country in the house," replied Walter. "We will
sleep on the hill-side to-night, to-morrow travel farther to please
ourselves, and, on our return, stop at your house to gratify you."
"By that time," said Gabriel, "we hope to be more at leisure for
sociability and a good time."
"I've seen olives before," said Walter, "in Spain, and eaten them; but
they were green. These are violet."
"That was because they were unripe. These are ripe. I used to sell the
greater part of mine green before the blockade."
"What do you do to them when you sell them in that way?"
"Soak them ten hours in lye, afterwards a week in cold water, then put
them in brine, with some sweet herbs. That is all. Some only put them
in brine."
"What are you going to do with these?"
"Press them for oil."
"What a great tree this is that you are gathering now!" said Ned.
"Let's see if we can clasp it, Walter."
Putting their arms around the tree, they were barely able to touch the
tips of their fingers.
"I didn't know olive trees grew so large," said Walter. "None of the
others here are half as large as this. How brown the bark looks! and
great furrows in it, just like an old willow, and the leaves look like
willow leaves. It is hollow, too, and covered with warts."
"Yes, because it is so old."
"How old is it?"
"God only knows; perhaps as old as the world."
"As old as the world?"
"Yes, citizens, it might have been the first one made."
"The first one made!"
"Well, nobody ever knew one to die, except it was burnt, cut down, or
killed by the frost. They can't bear the frost. A few years ago, most
of the trees in the low ground were hurt by the frost, but this, being
on higher ground, escaped. I don't believe they ever die of their own
accord."
"How long is it," asked Walter, "after they are planted, before they
bear?"
"They bear a few olives in ten or twelve years, but not much of a crop
till they are twenty-five or thirty."
"Don't they lose their leaves?"
"A part of the leaves turn yellow, as you see, in the fall, but they
are never bare; and in the spring the new ones push off the old ones."
"Do they bear every year?"
"No, every other: they work one year for themselves, and one for the
owner."
"Do they yield much oil?"
"A hundred weight of clean olives makes about thirty or thirty-two
pounds of oil."
"How much oil will a big tree, like that we have clasped, make?"
"This year that tree has about one hundred and forty livres (pounds)."
"How much oil will they make?"
"About a barrel--twenty of your gallons."
"What is it worth?"
"Three francs (sixty cents) a gallon; but then we raise other crops
among the olives."
"But I suppose they are like our crops that we raise in the
orchards--rather light?"
"Yes; but the olive will grow on poor land, endure the drought, and
don't require much care."
"What do you dress them with?"
"The skins and stones that are left after pressing, are as good as
anything."
"How much do the other trees average? There are no others near as large
as this."
"About two gallons, take one year with another. The olives, however,
come off after the grain harvest and the vintage are over, when there
is not much else to do."
"Taking out the big tree, that wouldn't be more than fifteen dollars
to an acre every other year, according to the number of trees you've
got here, making no allowance for blight and bad years. Then you've no
straw, nothing left but the oil, and that won't keep a great while;
if you don't sell it, cattle can't eat it. I'd rather raise corn on a
burn, where I can get a crop worth five times as much, that I can eat,
sell, or that my cattle will fat on, will keep, and then have a crop
of fodder left after all is done. Do they ever fail of a crop in the
bearing years?"
"Yes, they sometimes blight and cast their fruit."
"I should call it rather small business to wait twelve years for a tree
to bear at all, then twenty-five or thirty more for it to bear full;
after all, to bear only every other year; sometimes blight, and then
get only six dollars from the very largest trees. I shouldn't think
they'd be worth the picking up."
"Not worth the picking up!" cried Gabriel in astonishment; "_olives not
worth picking up_? They bring much money to the poor man."
"How much are a man's wages here?"
"Twenty sous (cents) a day, a woman's, ten, to work in the field."
"Why, in America a man working on the land in harvest gets six or nine
francs, and found."
"Mon Dieu!" screamed Gabriel; "my wife, my children, hear that. Felix
Bertault, my neighbor," he shouted to a peasant, who was a short
distance away pruning vines, but, having heard the loud talking and
witnessed the excited gestures caused by Walter's words, stood gaping
with open mouth, and pruning-hook in hand.
"Step this way," said Gabriel, "and listen to what this young citizen
is saying--that in America a laboring man gets nine francs, and his
victuals besides."
The new comer expressing equal surprise, they talked and gesticulated
with such fury, that Ned whispered to Walter,--
"Do you believe, Wal, that a Frenchman could talk if you tied his
hands?"
"I guess not; Captain Rhines says they couldn't."
"What kind of trees are those with such crooked limbs?" asked Ned.
"Mulberries."
"The bark and body look some like a maple; what are they good for?"
"We use the leaves to feed silkworms."
"Silkworms," said Walter,--"the worms that make silk?"
"Yes; they can't live on anything but mulberry leaves."
"I want to see them make silk cloth and ribbons."
Gabriel replied by explaining to Walter that the silk-worm only spun
the threads of silk (which were almost as fine as a spider's thread)
to form a nest or cocoon (as they were called) for itself, and that a
number of these minute threads must be put together to make what is
called a thread of silk, which was then woven in looms, like any other
yarn. As it came from the worm the silk was of two colors,--white and
yellow; the other colors being given by dyeing.
"We have spiders," said Ned, "that make nests. I have found them on
trees; they look like an egg, but more peaked; they were not silk,
though."
"If," said Walter, "it is the nature of these caterpillars to live in
trees and make houses for themselves, what is the need of bringing them
into the house, as you spoke of, and picking leaves for them? Why
can't you leave them on the trees to take care of themselves, and, when
they have made their houses, go and pick them off?"
Gabriel then explained to the boys that the silk-worm and the mulberry
tree were both natives of a warmer climate than France, where the worm
could live and hatch out of doors, like other worms; and that, although
the mulberry tree had become acclimated, and could live and grow out
of doors, and even sustain a severe winter, the worm couldn't, and
therefore they kept them in the house, and brought the leaves to them;
and when they came to see him, he would take them over to the house of
Felix Bertault, who raised them, show them the cocoons and silk, and
tell them all about it.
Our young readers must not be surprised that Walter thought the worms
made silk ready for use. How should he know anything about it? A good
many boys who read these books may not know any more; those who do,
have obtained their knowledge by reading, and perhaps never saw a
silk-worm in all their lives, although they are raised in Connecticut,
and a few in Massachusetts; but Walter had not access to books that
treated of such matters. Walter now asked the peasant to what the
fragrance of the air was owing; to which he replied that, on the
hills from which the wind then blew, a great many fragrant plants
were growing wild, and also in the fields of his neighbors; they were
cultivated for the purpose of the perfumer; but there was not so much
of that business here as at Nismes, Nice, and Cannes; but still a good
many plants were cultivated and sent to those and other places to be
sold.
"Does anybody own land here, except the nobility? or are the laboring
people all tenants?"
"We have been delivered from all that trash by the revolution; cut off
their heads, or they have fled; we're all nobles now. To answer your
question, citizens, it used to be so in a good measure here. Although
the people owned land, more or less, all over France, yet the most of
it was in the hands of the grand seigniors; and that which the common
people held was so burdened with taxes to be paid the aristocracy,
clergy, and government, that it was better to be without it; but since
the revolution, in consequence of the confiscation of the estates of
the seigniors and priests who were guillotined or emigrated, all that
land was thrown into the market by the National Assembly, divided into
lots, from one to ten acres, sold to the citizens, and five years
allowed to pay for it in."
"Do you own this land?" asked Walter.
"What, all this valley?"
"Yes."
"Citizens, are you mad? No peasant owns so much as that."
"Why not? A great many persons in my country own more than this whole
valley."
"A great part of this land," said Gabriel, "belonged to a grand
seignior, some small portions being owned by citizens; but he was
guillotined, his property confiscated, the land parcelled out and
sold, so that it has passed into the hands of the people. Before the
revolution," said he, "the land, at the death of the parent, went
to the oldest son; but that law is abolished, and it is now equally
divided; for which reason, in respect to some small properties, the
children possess only a few rods; sometimes an olive tree, or mulberry,
standing in ten rods of land; and this is the homestead of a whole
family--their farm."