CHAPTER XIII

PIERRE TAKES THE HELM

Silently Pierre received the news. He neither trembled nor cried out. In a vague way he realized that ever since that day long ago when Henri St.

Amant had first presented this possibility to his mind he had unconsciously been bracing himself to meet with courage some such emergency. And now the blow had fallen, and it was he who must break the news to his mother, and be the strong prop on which she might lean. So busy was he with these thoughts that he scarcely sensed the presence of the faithful old priest who walked beside him. A score of confused reveries were surging over the boy, and out of the chaos of grief, reminiscence, and wonder, clearer ideas began to form themselves.

"We must sell the place," he declared, thinking aloud. "That will give us some ready money to start on."

"I, too, think that might be well."

It was the quiet voice of Monsieur le Cure.

"Forgive me, Father," said the lad. "I had forgotten----"

"Do not reproach yourself, my son," replied the priest gently. "I did not accompany you to be a burden in your sorrow--only that I might help if I could."

He laid his hand on the boy's shoulder.

Pierre glanced into his eyes gratefully.

"About the selling of the home--you think it would be wise?" he asked.

"It seems to me now to be the best plan; but I should wish to consider the matter more carefully before I gave a final decision. Advice must not be given too hastily."

"You see," continued Pierre, still formulating his ideas, "the constant care of a large crop of silkworms is too hard for my mother and Marie.

We have been able to manage it one season, and we might even do it two; but to feel we must work as hard as that forever--it is not to be thought of. If we are to take up sericulture permanently we must have more help, and with the comparatively small margin of profit we are able to make we are not in a position to do that. When my father and uncle were at home it was a very different thing. Of course I have Josef, but he can do only the lightest part of the work. I am glad to do my share, more than my share; but I am only a boy, Father, and not so wise nor so strong as my father was. Nor have I his knowledge. If our crop of coc.o.o.ns should fail some season either through my lack of skill or because of some unavoidable calamity, we should be without money on which to live. It would be terrible. The thought fills me with fear.

Help me, Father. You are older than I. Give me your counsel. Do you think I am right, or only a coward?"

"To face the truth is never cowardly, Pierre," answered the priest. "You reason well, my son. To take upon yourself in future the care you have borne this year is far too much for a lad. It is a work for several able-bodied men. That you and your mother and Marie have been able to do it even this once is little short of a miracle. Of course you have each thrown your entire heart and strength into it. Then, too, the season has been ideal. No calamities have befallen your crop. Nevertheless misfortunes do come. There are distempers that ravage the silkworms; bad weather that wrecks the mulberry foliage; a thousand possible accidents which at any moment may sweep away your income. Such a reverse would be a dire catastrophe to you and your family." The cure paused thoughtfully. "But if you were to sell the place," he went on a second later, "what would you do? Surely the sum you would receive for it, even if it was a generous one--a thing we can hardly expect in war time--would not be sufficient for you all to live upon."

"I should not try to live here," answered Pierre promptly. "Long ago I made up my mind that if anything befell my father and my uncle I would persuade my mother and Marie to go with me to America."

"America!"

"It is not so far away."

"It is at the other side of the world!" a.s.serted the simple priest.

Pierre laughed.

"No, indeed, Father. America is but a ship's journey away. Besides we have relatives there. My mother's people are all at Paterson, New Jersey. My plan would be to take part of the money we get for our home and with it pay our pa.s.sage to America. There I could find work at good wages, and take care of my mother and sister."

Monsieur nodded silently.

"All this," continued Pierre, "is in case my father is not found. You tell me he is missing. What does that mean, Father?"

"It may mean any one of several things," returned the cure. "Your father may have been wounded and carried to some enemy's hospital; he may be a prisoner in some war camp; or----"

The old man faltered.

"Or----" persisted Pierre. "Speak, Father. Do not be afraid."

"Or he may have fallen, and be lying unclaimed on some distant battle-field."

"And what do you think is the chance of his being heard from?"

Unflinchingly the boy put the question.

"We cannot tell. He is in G.o.d's hands. I should wait for a time, my son.

Then if no message comes we must----"

Again the kindly voice wavered.

"We shall know he has been lost," put in Pierre in a whisper.

"I fear so."

Stillness fell between the two. Each was thinking.

"Then for the present I will not speak yet to my mother of selling the home," said Pierre at last. "We will wait and hope for good news. It is cruel to distress her unless we must. All may yet be well. Surely she has grief enough as it is, for she was very fond of my uncle."

"You are a wise lad, Pierre," exclaimed the cure. "Do as you have said.

Console your mother with the hope of good tidings from the front. They may come--who knows? And if not, her sorrows will at least come singly and not all at once."

And thus it came about that through the great grief that overwhelmed the Bretton home it was Pierre who was his mother's stay and comfort. He it was who counseled hope and patience; he who took up the burden of acting both as father and son.

But despite his courage the message so eagerly longed for did not come.

Days, weeks, months dragged on. The winter pa.s.sed and faint hints of spring began to steal into the landscape. The river, foaming with the melted snows from far up the Pyrenees, dashed with deafening roar through the mountain gorges. There was a new brilliancy in the noonday sunshine.

To Pierre the worst had now become a certainty. His father would never again be heard from. Somewhere in a camp or battle-field far from home like a true son of France he had given up his life for his beloved country. With sinking heart the boy faced this reality. He had not sensed until now how subtly a secret antic.i.p.ation that the facts might prove otherwise had buoyed him up. But now hope was gone. How should he tell his mother? How break in upon the dream she was cherishing, and rudely force upon her the need for action?

How would she receive the plan for selling the home? To leave the spot she loved so much would be an overpowering blow to her, for had she not come as a bride to her present dwelling? Nay, more; she had been born in Bellerivre and had never ventured beyond its confines. What would she say to breaking every tie of her old life and setting forth from the valley she loved to end her days in a strange and unknown country? For Marie and himself it was well enough; they were young and their days stretched far before them. But for his mother it would mean only the severing of every familiar a.s.sociation.

Poor Pierre! Many an anxious hour did he spend wondering how he was to present his plan so that it would not seem cruel.

Then one day he suddenly saw how useless had been his worry. It was his mother herself who spoke and made the very suggestion he had been hesitating to voice. How calmly and with what courage she did it! Ah, Pierre need not have feared that she would fail to meet the great issue when it came! Madame Bretton was too much of a woman for that. Instead she had a long talk with her children and afterward a letter was dispatched to the relatives in that mystic land, America. Soon a reply came back. Madame Bretton had come of fine peasant stock, and her brother had carried with him into the new land of which he had become a citizen his native loyalty and bigness of heart. He now wrote urging his sister and her fatherless children to come to Paterson and share his home until such time as they could find work and settle themselves in some convenient community.

And when this was agreed upon who should come forward to Pierre's aid but Henri St. Amant! He it was who found at Pont-de-Saint-Michel a customer ready to purchase for a good price the Bretton homestead, with its well-equipped silk-house, and its grove of thriving mulberry trees.

Together with Pierre and the cure he worked out every detail of the Brettons' departure, acting with a wisdom that was amazing in so young a lad. The faithful Josef was to have a home with the old priest; nothing was forgotten. Certainly Henri was a friend in need!

Therefore one sunny morning the Brettons started south across France for the seaport from which, a week later, they were to set sail for that untried world toward which many another hapless exile had journeyed, and within whose borders the refuge of a home was offered.

[Ill.u.s.tration]