They rushed off. Etiennette and I followed more slowly with Lise. No one laughed now. The sky grew darker. The storm was coming quickly. Clouds of dust swirled around us; we had to turn our backs and cover our eyes with our hands, for the dust blinded us. There was a streak of lightning across the sky, then came a heavy clap of thunder.

Etiennette and I had taken Lise by the hands; we were trying to drag her along faster, but she could scarcely keep up with us. Would the father, Benny and Alexix get home before the storm broke? If they were only in time to close the gla.s.s cases so that the wind could not get under them and upset them! The thunder increased; the clouds were so heavy that it seemed almost night. Then suddenly there was a downpour of hail, the stones struck us in the face, and we had to race to take shelter under a big gateway.

In a minute the road was covered with white, like in winter. The hailstones were as large as pigeon eggs; as they fell they made a deafening sound, and every now and again we could hear the crash of broken gla.s.s. With the hailstones, as they slid from the roofs to the street, fell all sorts of things, pieces of slate, chimney pots, tiles, etc.

"Oh, the gla.s.s frames!" cried Etiennette.

I had the same thought.

"Even if they get there before the hail, they will never have time to cover the gla.s.ses with straw. Everything will be ruined."

"They say that hail only falls in places," I said, trying to hope still.

"Oh, this is too near home for us to escape. If it falls on the garden the same as here, poor father will be ruined. And he counted so much on those flowers, he needs the money so badly."

I had heard that the gla.s.s frames cost as much as 1800 francs a hundred, and I knew what a disaster it would be if the hail broke our five or six hundred, without counting the plants and the conservatories. I would liked to have questioned Etiennette, but we could scarcely hear each other speak, and she did not seem disposed to talk. She looked at the hail falling with a hopeless expression, like a person would look upon his house burning.

The hurricane lasted but a short while; it stopped as suddenly as it had commenced. It lasted perhaps six minutes. The clouds swept over Paris and we were able to leave our shelter. The hailstones were thick on the ground. Lise could not walk in them in her thin shoes, so I took her on my back and carried her. Her pretty face, which was so bright when going to the party, was now grief-stricken and the tears rolled down her cheeks.

Before long we reached the house. The big gates were open and we went quickly into the garden. What a sight met our eyes! All the gla.s.s frames were smashed to atoms. Flowers, pieces of gla.s.s and hailstones were all heaped together in our once beautiful garden. Everything was shattered!

Where was the father?

We searched for him. Last of all we found him in the big conservatory, of which every pane of gla.s.s was broken. He was seated on a wheelbarrow in the midst of the debris which covered the ground. Alexix and Benjamin stood beside him silently.

"My children, my poor little ones!" he cried, when we all were there.

He took Lise in his arms and began to sob. He said nothing more. What could he have said? It was a terrible catastrophe, but the consequences were still more terrible. I soon learned this from Etiennette.

Ten years ago their father had bought the garden and had built the house himself. The man who had sold him the ground had also lent him the money to buy the necessary materials required by a florist. The amount was payable in yearly payments for fifteen years. The man was only waiting for an occasion when the florist would be late in payment to take back the ground, house, material; keeping, of course, the ten-year payments that he had already received.

This was a speculation on the man's part, for he had hoped that before the fifteen years expired there would come a day when the florist would be unable to meet his notes. This day had come at last! Now what was going to happen?

We were not left long in doubt. The day after the notes fell due--this sum which was to have been paid from the sale of his season's flowers--a gentleman dressed all in black came to the house and handed us a stamped paper. It was the process server. He came often; so many times that he soon began to know us by name.

"How do you do, Mlle. Etiennette? h.e.l.lo, Remi; h.e.l.lo, Alexix!"

And he handed us his stamped paper smilingly, as though we were friends.

The father did not stay in the house. He was always out. He never told us where he went. Probably he went to call on business men, or he might have been at court.

What would the result be? A part of the winter pa.s.sed. As we were unable to repair the conservatories and renew the gla.s.s frames, we cultivated vegetables and hardier flowers that did not demand shelter. They were not very productive, but at least it was something, and it was work for us. One evening the father returned home more depressed than usual.

"Children," he said, "it is all over."

I was about to leave the room, for I felt that he had something serious to say to his children. He signed to me to stop.

"You are one of the family, Remi," he said sadly, "and although you are not very old, you know what trouble is. Children, I am going to leave you."

There was a cry on all sides.

Lise flung her arms round her father's neck. He held her very tight.

"Ah, it's hard to leave you, dear children," he said, "but the courts have ordered me to pay, and as I have no money, everything here has to be sold, and as that is not enough, I have to go to prison for five years. As I am not able to pay with my money, I have to pay with my liberty."

We all began to cry.

"Yes, it's sad," he continued brokenly, "but a man can't do anything against the law. My attorney says that it used to be worse than it is."

There was a tearful silence.

"This is what I have decided is the best thing to do," continued the father. "Remi, who is the best scholar, will write to my sister Catherine and explain the matter to her and ask her to come to us. Aunt Catherine has plenty of common sense and she will be able to decide what should be done for the best."

It was the first time that I had written a letter, and this was a very painful one, but we still had a ray of hope. We were very ignorant children and the fact that Aunt Catherine was coming, and that she was practical, made us hope that everything could be made right. But she did not come as soon as we had hoped. A few days later the father had just left the house to call on one of his friends, when he met the police face to face coming for him. He returned to the house with them; he was very pale; he had come to say good-by to his children.

"Don't be so downcast, man," said one of them who had come to take him; "to be in prison for debt is not so dreadful as you seem to think.

You'll find some very good fellows there."

I went to fetch the two boys, who were in the garden. Little Lise was sobbing; one of the men stooped down and whispered something in her ear, but I did not hear what he said.

The parting was over very quickly. M. Acquin caught Lise up in his arms and kissed her again and again, then he put her down, but she clung to his hand. Then he kissed Etiennette, Alexix and Benny and gave Lise into her sister's care. I stood a little apart, but he came to me and kissed me affectionately, just like the others, and then they took him away. We all stood in the middle of the kitchen crying; not one of us had a word to say.

Aunt Catherine arrived an hour later. We were still crying bitterly. For a country woman who had no education or money, the responsibility that had fallen upon her was heavy. A family of dest.i.tute children, the eldest not yet sixteen, the youngest a dumb girl. Aunt Catherine had been a nurse in a lawyer's family; she at once called upon this man to ask his advice, and it was he who decided our fate. When she returned from the lawyer's, she told us what had been arranged. Lise was to go and live with her. Alexix was to go to an uncle at Va.r.s.es, Benny to another uncle, who was a florist at Saint-Quentin, and Etiennette to an aunt who lived at the seash.o.r.e.

I listened to these plans, waiting until they came to me. When Aunt Catherine ceased speaking, and I had not been mentioned, I said, "And me?..."

"Why, you don't belong to the family."

"I'll work for you."

"You're not one of the family."

"Ask Alexix and Benny if I can't work, and I like work."

"And soup, also, eh?"

"But he's one of the family; yes, aunt, he's one of the family," came from all sides.

Lise came forwards and clasped her hands before her aunt with an expression that said more than words.

"Poor mite," said Aunt Catherine, "I know you'd like him to come and live with us, but we can't always get what we want. You're my niece, and if my man makes a face when I take you home, all I've to tell him is that you're a relation, and I'm going to have you with me. It will be like that with your other uncles and aunts. They will take a relation, but not strangers."

I felt there was nothing to say. What she said was only too true. I was not one of the family. I could claim nothing, ask nothing; that would be begging. And yet I loved them all and they all loved me. Aunt Catherine sent us to bed, after telling us that we were to be parted the next day.

Scarcely had we got upstairs than they all crowded round me. Lise clung to me, crying. Then I knew, that in spite of their grief at parting from one another, it was of me that they thought; they pitied me because I was alone. I felt, indeed, then that I was their brother. Suddenly an idea came to me.

"Listen," I said; "even if your aunts and uncles don't want me, I can see that you consider me one of the family."

"Yes, yes," they all cried.