+The Younger Washerwoman.+
Well, I do!
[_She goes over to the_ +Mother+.]
As for you with your prince of a dung-heap....
+The Mother.+
Hold your tongue! Jealous cat, you!
+The Younger Washerwoman.+
Me jealous! Of you!
[_Laughing scornfully._]
+The Husband.+
[_Interposing, pacifically._]
Come, now, lasses! Don’t quarrel!
+The Younger Washerwoman.+
[_Snapping her fingers at him._]
Potato-face!
+The Others.+
[_Some shocked, the rest amused._]
Oh!
+The Wife.+
[_Infuriated._]
Don’t you dare call my man such a name!
+The Younger Washerwoman.+
[_With sudden tenderness, strokes the_ +Wife’s+ _cheek._]
Poor Adèle!
Scarce nineteen, and all furrowed and brown, like the earth!
But you never rebel!
+The Wife.+
[_Mollified._]
I rebel? There are times
When life’s hard--
+The Younger Washerwoman.+
Is there ever a time when it’s not?
+The Wife.+
But I always have Jean!
+The Husband.+
[_Indicating the_ +Wife+.]
Jean has her!
+The Man.+
Aye, that’s true!
+The Voice of Millet.+
[_Singing, on the right._]
Oh, Normandy! My Normandy! Again to see my Normandy!
[_All turn enquiringly._]
+The Youth.+
[_Shading his eyes, the better to see._]
’Tis our neighbor, the artist, Millet. He’s been off
Selling pictures in Paris. He must have come back
By the Fontainebleau stage!
[_The snatch of song again is heard, receding._]
From his song he’s had luck
With his market!
+The Older Washerwoman.+
It’s time. Months behind with his rent!
And their bills...! Butcher, baker, unpaid for--how long?
Not a shop in Chailly gives them credit!
+The Wife.+
Poor souls!
With nine children to feed!
+The Mother.+
And his wife--she’s not strong.
+The Older Washerwoman.+
Bailiffs soon will be put in possession, they say,
Of the house, unless money’s forthcoming!
+The Wife.+
Poor souls!
With nine children!
+The Older Washerwoman.+
You can’t blame the tradesmen! Monsieur
Is an artist, you see!
+The Wife.+
He means well, all the same.
+The Husband.+
[_Nods assent, while continuing his work._]
A good fellow!
+The Older Washerwoman.+
He’s lazy. I’ve seen him, myself,
By the hour, lying back on the heather!
+The Man.+
Well, well!
+The Mother.+
On the heather? His wife is too patient! If I
Caught my man...!
+The Youth.+
He has told me--he’s watching the sky!
[_All exclaim, derisively._]
+The Man.+
[_Rather apologetically for himself as well as for_ +Millet+.]
Well, I do that myself, now and then, just to see
If ’twill rain.
+The Older Washerwoman.+
He’s no farmer, or peasant, like us!
What’s the weather to him!
+The Youth.+
It’s the forms of the clouds
That he studies. He’s told me! the colors that change
With the day. Oh, it’s just like a poem, the way
That he tells it!... The trees of the forest, he says,
Speak a language their own! And the birds, and the wind--!
+The Older Washerwoman.+
He’s a lazybones!
+The Man.+
Hm! Now I doubt if he’s right!
[_Taps forehead significantly._]
+The Husband.+
All the same, a good neighbor, kind heart, at a time
When there’s trouble!
+The Wife.+
But--nine! And he looks at the sky!
+The Youth.+
But he works! Oh, I don’t mean just painting! He digs
In his garden of mornings! His roses are fine,
And his cabbages ... well, you can’t beat them!
+The Wife.+
Poor soul!
He has need, with nine children!
[_The voice of_ +Millet+ _again is heard in a snatch of song._]
+The Youth.+
Just hark how he sings!
He’s so glad to be home!
+The Younger Washerwoman.+
Fancy. Glad to be here!
Fancy! Glad to leave Paris! An artist at that!
+The Older Washerwoman.+
[_Helping the other to fold a sheet._]
Oh, not really an artist! Why, look what he paints!
Nothing nice: parks with fountains and ladies with fans,
And guitar-playing lovers! Such ev’ryday things.
Just a field, such as this. Why, you almost can smell
The potatoes, the newly-turned earth, or the wheat
As the harvesters bind it, the linen we wash,
In those pictures of his!
+The Man.+
Aye! There is something in that!
+The Older Washerwoman.+
And his people, just peasants like us!
+The Man.+
Aye; that’s true.
And so ugly!
[_Naïvely._]
Why, he’s painted me!
[_Unconsciously falling again into the picture-position. The
others laugh at him._]
+The Husband.+
[_With a slight, reminiscent grievance._]
Aye. Myself and the wife here have stood for him. Decked
In our Sundayfied best, for the Barbizon fête,
There are worse-looking couples! But Monsieur Millet
Is for painting us just as you see!
+The Wife.+
But, poor soul!
He means well!
+The Youth.+
But that’s beauty! He told me. Ourselves
As God meant, tillers, toilers of earth, with God’s sky
Overhead! And I feel, when, in sowing the seed,
With a prayer the first handful I toss in the form
Of a cross--
[_Instinctively acting it out he falls naturally into the
position of “The Sower.”_]