Volume II Part 61 (1/2)
Francois had perfectly understood the gesture of his mother; he jumped up quickly, and with one bound was out of his mother's reach.
”You want mother to beat you soundly?” cried Calabash, ”do you?”
The widow, holding the rod in her hand, bit her lips, and looked at Francois with a steady eye, without p.r.o.nouncing a word. From the slight agitation of Amandine's hands, who sat with her head down, while her neck was suffused with red, it could be seen that the child, although accustomed to such scenes, was alarmed at the fate which awaited her brother, who, having taken refuge in a corner of the kitchen, seemed alarmed and yet rebellious.
”Take care of yourself; mother will get up, and then it will be too late,” said Calabash.
”All the same to me,” answered Francois, turning pale. ”I prefer to be beaten, as I was yesterday, to going to the wood-pile at night.”
”And why?” said Calabash, impatiently.
”I am afraid of the wood-pile!” answered Francois, shuddering in spite of himself.
”You are afraid, fool! of what?”
Francois hung his head without answering.
”Will you speak? What are you afraid of?”
”I don't know; but I'm afraid.”
”You have been there a hundred times, and even last night?”
”I don't want to go there any more.”
”There's mother; she's getting up.”
”So much the worse for me,” cried the child. ”Let her beat me; let her kill me; but I will not go to the wood-pile--at night, above all.”
”But, once more, I ask you, why not?” said Calabash.
”Well, because there's some one--”
”Some one?”
”Buried there,” murmured the trembling boy.
The widow, notwithstanding her impa.s.sibility, could not repress a slight shudder; her daughter imitated her; one would have said that the two had received an electric shock.
”Some one buried in the wood-house!” said Calabash, shrugging her shoulders.
”Yes,” said Francois, in a voice so low that he could hardly be heard.
”Liar!” cried Calabash.
”I tell you that not long ago, while piling the wood, I saw, in a dark corner of the wood-house, a dead man's bone; it stuck out of the ground, which was damp round about,” replied Francois.
”Do you hear him, mother? Is he not a fool?” said Calabash, making a significant sign to the widow. ”They are some mutton bones I threw there.”