THE EASY-CHAIR.
Pitou would have pondered more deeply on what the doctor told him, only
he spied Catherine running up, with her boy in her arms.
Since there was no doubt that Aunt Angelique had died of privation,
the eagerness of the neighbors to help her nephew had lessened. So
Catherine arrived most timely. As she might be considered the wife of
Pitou, it was her place to attend to his aunt, which the good creature
set about doing with the same tenderness she had shown awhile before to
her own mother.
Meanwhile, Pitou ran out to arrange for the funeral, which would be at
two days' time, as the suddenness of the death compelled retention of
the remains forty-eight hours. Religious ceremonies being suppressed
for funerals as for marriages, he had only to do business with the
sexton and the grave digger, after the mayor.
Before he departed, Catherine suggested that the marriage should be
deferred for a day or two, as it would look strange for an act so
important and joyous as a wedding to be performed on the same day as he
conducted his aunt's remains to the cemetery.
"Besides, my dear, it is bad luck to have a wedding while a grave is
open."
"Stuff," said Pitou; "from the moment I am your husband, I defy
misfortune to get a grip on me."
"Dear Pitou, let us put it off till Monday," said the bride, holding
up her hand to him; "you see that I am trying to make your wishes suit
proprieties."
"But two days is a deuce of a long time, Catherine."
"Not when you have been waiting five years."
"A lot of things may happen in forty-eight hours," moaned Pitou.
"My falling off in love can not happen, Ange; and as you pretend that
is the only thing in the world which concerns you--"
"Lord, yes, Catherine; the only--only thing!"
"Why, then, look here, Isidore, say to Papa Pitou: 'Do not be afraid,
Papa Pitou; mamma loves you dearly, and will always love you.'"
The child repeated this in his pretty voice.
On this assurance, Pitou made no difficulty about going to the mayor's.
He returned in about an hour, with all settled and paid for. With what
money he had left he laid in a stock of wood and food for a couple of
days.
It was high time that the firing had come into the old, weather-worn
house, where the wind poured in at many a chink, and they might perish
of cold. Pitou had found Catherine half frozen when he got back.
According to Catherine's wish, the marriage was postponed until Monday.
The intermediate time passed with the pair mourning by the death-bed.
Despite the huge fire Pitou kept roaring, the wind came in so sharp and
chill that Pitou acknowledged that if his aunt had not died of hunger
she must have been carried off by cold.
The time came for the removal of the corpse, the transit not taking
long, as Aunt Angelique's dwelling adjoined the burial-ground.
All of that quarter and other representatives of the town went to the
funeral, which Pitou and Catherine led as the chief mourners.
When the ceremony terminated, Pitou thanked those attending in his name
and that of the dead, and they all filed before him, throwing holy
water into the old maid's grave.
When left alone, Pitou looked round for Catherine, and saw her and
Isidore kneeling on another grave where cypresses were planted. It
was Mother Billet's. Pitou had dug those four cypresses in the woods
and transplanted them. He did not care to disturb them in this pious
occupation, but thinking that Catherine would be very cold at the end
of her devotions, he determined to run on before and have a good fire
blazing at her return.
Unfortunately, one thing opposed the realization of this good
intention--they were out of wood. Pitou was in a pinch, for he was out
of money, too.
He looked around him to see if there was nothing good to burn. There
was Aunt Angelique's bread-safe, bed, and easy-chair. The bed and
cupboard were not unworn, but they were still good; while the arm-chair
was so rickety that nobody but the owner had ever risked themselves in
it. It was therefore condemned.
Like the Revolutionary Tribunal, Pitou had no sooner condemned a thing
than he proceeded to execute it.
Pitou set his knee to the seat, and seizing one of the sides, gave
a pull. At the third of such tugs, it gave way at the joints. It
uttered a kind of squeak, as if an animal capable of feeling pain and
expressing emotion. If Pitou had been superstitious, he might have
imagined that the aunt's spirit had located itself in her old arm-chair.
But Pitou had no superstition except his love for Catherine. This
article of furniture was doomed to warm her, and though it had bled in
each limb like an enchanted tree, it would have been rent to pieces.
He grasped the other arm with the same fierceness, and tore that from
the carcass, which began to look dismantled.
Again the chair sent forth a sound strange and metallic.
Pitou remained insensible. He took up the chair by one leg, and
swinging the whole round his head, he brought it down on the floor.
This split the seat in half, and to the great astonishment of the
destroyer, out of the yawning chasm spouted torrents of gold.
Our readers will remember that it was Angelique's habit to change all
her coppers into silver, and them into gold pieces, which she stowed
away inside her chair.
When Pitou recovered from his surprise and dismay, his first impulse
was to run out to Catherine and little Isidore and bring them in to
view the riches he had discovered.
But the dreadful terror seized him that Catherine would not marry him
if he were a rich man, and he shook his head.
"No," he said, "she would refuse me."
After reflecting for an instant, careworn and motionless, a smile
passed over his face. No doubt he had hit on a means of surmounting the
obstacle which this sudden wealth had raised. He gathered up the coin
scattered on the floor and poked about in the cushion with his knife
for still more of the golden eggs. They were literally crammed into the
lining.
He reckoned, and there were fifteen hundred and fifty louis, otherwise,
thirty-seven thousand and two hundred livres or francs, and at the
discount in the favor of gold, he was the master of one million three
hundred and twenty-six thousand livres!
And at what a moment had this slice of good luck befallen him! When he
was obliged to smash up the furniture from having no means to buy fuel
for his wife.
What a lucky thing that Pitou was so poor, the weather was so cold, and
the old chair so rotten!
Who knows what would have happened but for this happy conjunction of
circumstances?
He stuffed the coin away in all his pockets, and scraping the splinters
together he built a fire, which he managed to kindle with the unused
flint and steel.
He was no more than in time, for in came Catherine and little Isidore,
shivering with cold.
Pitou gave the boy a hug, kissed the woman's icy hands, and dashed out,
crying:
"Get warm. I have a piece of business to go through."
"Where does Papa Pitou go?" asked the boy.
"I do not know, but judging by the gait he is going at, it is for you
or me."
She might have said, "For you _and_ me."