Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1881-03-09
A RACE FOR A WIFE.
BY JULES CLARETIE.

have this story from a friend who
was dear to me. He related it to me one
day when we were talking of the hazards
of life, more astonishing and more ro-
mantle hundred times than the inven-
tions of fiction. He had seen this little
drama develop itself; he still knew the
actors in it. 81 will present you," he
said to me, ''a and we will 90 together to
Mezieres, where we shall find one of the
heroes Of this narrative still living. All
the romances have not yet been written;
the most marvellous have still to be pub
hshed. And who knows how many ro-
maLces each one of as takes away with
him profoundly buried in the secrecy of
his conscience, painfully smothered I'M
der the tombstone?" Eugene Decary
did lot know how true his words were,
and the story of Jean Chevaucheux was
the last that he .old me. 1t is he who
will tell you the story.
My father used to live at Rethel, in
the high street, in a house [ can still see
before my eyes with it's slate roof and
projecting beams, hospitable house if
ever there was one. Poor folks knew
the way to it. They entered with their
wallet empty and went away with it full.
We were all seated one night at the fire
side; my father was smoking his pipe
and watching the fire burn, my mother
was ironing, and / was reading, when
we heard noise at the door, and saw
enter boy with frightened looks.
"What is the matter ?"
1t is soldier very tired who has just
fallen before the door"
MY father loved soldiers. He rose
brusquely, ran out, and there he was,
before [ had taken a step, coming in
again with young soldier leaning upon
him. or, rather, my father had taken him
up and was carrying him like a sack of
corn.
My mother fastened to draw the big
arm chair up to the fire. The soldier
was made to sit or rather recline in it.
and father said, looking at the poor fell
low:
lis it possible walking in that
state?"
The fact is that the soldier was very
shin and pale, his hair hattened on his
forehead, the veins of his temples big as
your little finger, his face black with
dust. We were then in the month of
October, and the weather was beginning
TO grow fresh, but the poor fellow was
nevertheless sweating big drops as if it
had been dog days. He must have had
long tramp. His shoes were in shreds;
you could see where the stones had torn
the leather; the left foot was bleeding.
The soldier did not move, but remained
in the arm chair with his head thrown
back, his eyes half open and white as
sheet.
My mother had already put some soup
on the fire anda pan full of vine.
"Bah," said my father, s'the first
thing to be Looked after is the feet.'
Aud, kneeling down, he began to tear
and cut away the shreds of leather. The
soldiers feet, all swollen and full of bis
ters, looked like the feet of the martyrs,
swollen with pain and wealed by hard
cords, which we see in the pictures of the
Spanish painters.
My father dipped his handkerchief in
vinegar and washed the wounds.
''You," said he to me, make some
lint"
And began to tear up some old linen
that my mother had taken out of the big
cupboard
Meanwhile the soldier had come to
himself. He looked at US, at my father,
my mother, and myself, and the two or
three neighbors who had come in one af-
ter the other His wandering eyes seem
to interrogate everything. It was no
longer the road, the stones, the great de-
serted woods that he saw before him, but
a gay room, with ceiling of shining
oak, cloth on the table, a knife and
fork laid, and brown earthenware soup
bowl emitting savory smell of cabbage
soup.
Then he raised himself up, leaning on
the arm of the chair, and said to my
father with confused emotion:
fAh! monsieur. Butyou donot know
me-"
"Ah! well, that does not matter; we
will become acquainted at table"
We had already dined, but my father
wished TO bear the soldier company. He
sat down to table opposite him, as it were
brooding over him, and looking at the