Molly Brown of Kentucky Page 8

  CHAPTER VIII.

  DES HALLES.

  Mere Tricot called Judy just at dawn. The kindly old grenadier stoodover her, and this was no dream--she held a real cup of coffee.

  "The good man is ready. I hate to wake you, but if you want to go tomarket with him, it is time."

  "Oh, yes! It won't take me a minute."

  Judy gulped the coffee and dived into her clothes. There seemed tobe no question of baths with the good Tricots, and Judy made a mentalnote that she would go every day to the Bents' studio for her coldplunge. A bathroom is the exception and not the rule in the poorerclass of apartments in Paris. In New York, any apartment worthy of thename boasts a bathroom, but not so in the French city.

  Pere Tricot was waiting for her with his little green push cart tobring home the purchases to be made in market. He was dressed in astiff, clean, blue blouse and his kindly, lank old face was freshlyshaven.

  "Ah, Mam'selle! So you will go with the old man?"

  "Go with you! Of course I will! I love the early morning, and the marketwill be beautiful."

  The streets were very quiet and misty. Paris never gets up very early,and as the cold weather comes, she lies abed later and later. TheGardens of the Luxembourg were showing signs of frost, or was it heavydew? The leaves had begun to drop and some of them had turned.

  There was a delightful nip in the air and as Judy and the old mantrudged along, the girl felt really happy, happier than she had for manya day. "It must be having a home that is doing it," she thought. "MaybeI am a domestic person, after all.

  "Pere Tricot, don't you love your home?"

  "My home! You don't think that that shop in Boulevard Montparnasse is myhome, eh?"

  "But where is your home then?"

  "Ah, in Normandy, near Roche Craie! That is where I was born and hope todie. We are saving for our old age now and will go back home some day,the good wife and I. Jean and Marie can run the shop, that is, if----"

  Judy knew he meant if Jean came through the war alive.

  "The city is not for me, but it seemed best to bring Jean here when hewas little. There seemed no chance to do more than exist in the country,and here we have prospered."

  "I have visited at Roche Craie. I think it is beautiful country. Nowonder you want to go back. The d'Ochtes were my friends there."

  "The Marquis d'Ochte! Oh, Mam'selle, and to think of your being theirguest and then mine!" Judy could have bitten out her tongue for sayingshe had visited those great folk. She could see now that the dear oldman had lost his ease in her presence. "They are the greatestlandowners of the whole department."

  "Yes, but they are quite simple and very kind. I got to know themthrough some friends of mine who were related to the Marquise. She, youknow, was an American."

  "Yes, and a kind, great lady she is. Why, it was only day beforeyesterday she was in our shop. She makes a rule to get what she can fromus for her household. She has a chef who can make every known sauce, buthe cannot make a tart like my good wife's. We furnish all the tarts ofthe d'Ochtes when they are in Paris. Madame, the Marquise, is alsopleased to say that my _pouree d'epinard_ is smoother and better thanGaston's, and only yesterday she bought a tray of it for their _dejeunera la fourchette_. Her son Philippe is flying. The Marquis, too, is withhis regiment."

  "How I wish I could have seen her!"

  "Ah, then, Mam'selle would not be ashamed for the Marquise to see herwaiting in the shop of poor Tricot?"

  "Ashamed! Why, Pere Tricot, what do you take me for? I am only too gladto help some and to feel that I can do something besides look on," andJudy, who had been walking on the sidewalk while her companion pushedhis _petite voiture_ along the street, stepped down into the gutter andwith her hand on the shaft went the rest of the way, helping to push thecart.

  As they approached the market, they were joined by more and morepedestrians, many of them with little carts, similar to Pere Tricot'sand many of them with huge baskets. War seemed to be forgotten for thetime being, so bent were all of them on the business of feeding andbeing fed.

  "One must eat!" declared a pleasant fat woman in a high stiff white cap."If Paris is to be entered to-morrow by the Prussians, I say we must befed and full. There is no more pleasure in dying for your country emptythan full."

  "Listen to the voice of the Halles, Mam'selle. Can't you hear itroaring? Ah! and there is the bell of St. Eustache."

  The peal of bells rose above the hum of the market.

  "St. Eustache! Can't we go into the church a little while first?"

  And so, hand in hand with the old Normandy peasant, Judy Kean walkedinto the great old church, and together they knelt on the flagged floorand prayed. Judy never did anything by halves, not even praying. Whenshe prayed, she did it with a fervor and earnestness St. Anthony himselfwould have envied. When they rose from their knees, they both lookedhappier. Old Tricot had prayed for his boy, so soon to be in thetrenches, and Judy offered an impassioned petition for the safety of herbeloved parents.

  When they emerged from the church, the sun was up and the market wasalmost like a carnival, except for the fact that the color was subduedsomewhat by the mourning that many of the women wore.

  "Already so many in mourning!" thought the girl. "What will it belater?"

  "First the butter and eggs and cheese! This way, Mam'selle!"

  They wormed their way between the great yellow wagons unloading hugecrates of eggs and giant cheeses. The smell of butter made Judy thinkof Chatsworth and the dairy where she had helped Caroline churn on hermemorable visit to the Browns. Ah me! How glad she would be to see themagain. And Kent! She had not let herself think of Kent lately. He mustbe angry with her for not taking his advice and listening to hisentreaties to go back to the United States with him. He had not writtenat all and he must have been home several weeks. Maybe the letter hadmiscarried, but other letters had come lately; and he might even havecabled her. He certainly seemed indifferent to her welfare, as now thatthe war had broken out, he had not even inquired as to her safety or herwhereabouts; not even let her know whether or not the job in New Yorkhad materialized.

  She was awakened from her musings by her old friend, who had completedhis bargaining for cheese, butter and eggs and now was proceeding tothe fish market.

  "I must buy much fish. It is Friday, you remember, and since the warstarted, religion has become the style again in France, and now fish,and only fish, must be eaten on Friday. There are those that say thatthe war will help the country by making us good again."

  And so, in a far corner of the cart, well away from the susceptiblebutter and cheese, many fish were piled up, fenced off from the rest ofthe produce by a wall of huge black mussels in a tangle of sea weed.

  "Well, there are fish enough in this market to regenerate the wholeworld, I should think," laughed Judy.

  The stalls were laden with them and row after row of scaly monsters hungfrom huge hooks in the walls. Men, women and boys were scaling andcleaning fish all along the curbings.

  "Soon there will be only women and boys for the work," thought Judysadly, "and maybe it will not be so very long before there will be onlywomen."

  Cabbages and cauliflowers were bought next (cauliflowers that PuddenheadWilson says are only cabbages been to college); Brussels sprouts, too;and spinach enough to furnish red blood for the whole army, Judythought; then chickens, turkeys and grouse; a great smoked beef tongue,and a hog head for souse. The little green wagon was running over nowand its rather rickety wheels creaked complainingly.

  Old Tricot and Judy started homeward at as rapid a rate as the loadwould allow. Judy insisted upon helping push, and indeed her serviceswere quite necessary over the rough cobbles. When they reached thesmooth asphalt, she told Pere Tricot she would leave him for a momentand stop at the American Club in the hope of letters awaiting there forher.

  How sweet and fresh she looked as she waved her hand at the old man! Hercheeks were rosy, her eyes shining, and her expression so naive andhappy that she l
ooked like a little child.

  "Ah, gentile, gentile!" he murmured. His old heart had gone out to thisbrave, charming American girl. "And to think of her being friends withMadame the Marquise!" he thought. "That will be a nut for the good wifeand Marie to crack."

  He pushed his cart slowly along the asphalt, rather missing the sturdystrength that Judy had put into the work. Then he sat on a bench to restawhile, one of those nice benches that Paris dots her thoroughfares withand one misses so on coming back to United States.

  Paris was well awake now and bustling. The streets were full ofsoldiers. Old women with their carts laden with chrysanthemums weretrudging along to take their stands at the corners. The air was filledwith the pungent odors of their wares. Old Tricot stretched himself:

  "I must be moving! There is much food to be cooked to-day. It is time myMam'selle was coming along. Ah, there she is!" He recognized the jauntyblue serge jacket and pretty little velour sport hat that Judy alwaysknew at which angle to place on her fluffy brown hair. "But how slowlyshe is walking! And where are her roses? Her head is bent down like somepoor French woman who has bad news from the trenches."