It was Saturday afternoon, when the fields were deserted. The men had
flocked to a neighboring village to do their week's trading, and the
women were occupied with household affairs,--La Folle as well as the
others. It was then she mended and washed her handful of clothes,
scoured her house, and did her baking.
In this last employment she never forgot Cheri. To-day she had fashioned
croquignoles of the most fantastic and alluring shapes for him. So when
she saw the boy come trudging across the old field with his gleaming
little new rifle on his shoulder, she called out gayly to him, "Cheri!
Cheri!"
But Cheri did not need the summons, for he was coming straight to her.
His pockets all bulged out with almonds and raisins and an orange that
he had secured for her from the very fine dinner which had been given
that day up at his father's house.
He was a sunny-faced youngster of ten. When he had emptied his pockets,
La Folle patted his round red cheek, wiped his soiled hands on her
apron, and smoothed his hair. Then she watched him as, with his cakes
in his hand, he crossed her strip of cotton back of the cabin, and
disappeared into the wood.
He had boasted of the things he was going to do with his gun out there.
"You think they got plenty deer in the wood, La Folle?" he had inquired,
with the calculating air of an experienced hunter.
"Non, non!" the woman laughed. "Don't you look fo' no deer, Cheri. Dat's
too big. But you bring La Folle one good fat squirrel fo' her dinner
to-morrow, an' she goin' be satisfi'."
"One squirrel ain't a bite. I'll bring you mo' 'an one, La Folle," he
had boasted pompously as he went away.
When the woman, an hour later, heard the report of the boy's rifle close
to the wood's edge, she would have thought nothing of it if a sharp cry
of distress had not followed the sound.
She withdrew her arms from the tub of suds in which they had been
plunged, dried them upon her apron, and as quickly as her trembling
limbs would bear her, hurried to the spot whence the ominous report had
come.
It was as she feared. There she found Cheri stretched upon the ground,
with his rifle beside him. He moaned piteously:--
"I'm dead, La Folle! I'm dead! I'm gone!"
"Non, non!" she exclaimed resolutely, as she knelt beside him. "Put you'
arm 'roun' La Folle's nake, Cheri. Dat's nuttin'; dat goin' be nuttin'."
She lifted him in her powerful arms.