Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1902-09-10
| CLOCHETTE1
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1n1S one IS so old, so old, That
l cannot comprehend why it has re-
NAMED, living and tenacious, in my
mind. Since that time have met with SO
many things, sinister, affecting or
terrible, that it surprises me to find
that single day cannot pass with
out the face of Mother Clochette re-
tracing itself before my eyes, just
as l knew her, so long ago, when I
was only 10 or IL years old.
She was an old seamstress, who
came each week, on Tuesday, to mend
the family linen. Ny parents in
habited one of those country dwell
ings called chateaux, which are sim
ply old houses with peaked roofs,
with four or five farms grouped
around.
The village, a large one, almost a
town, was visible some hundred feet
distant, closely surrounding the
church, an edifice of red brick, black
ened by time.
Every Tuesday, then, Mother Clo-
Ghetto arrived, between half-past six
and seven in the morning, and going
up to the linen press, commenced
her work
She was tall, thin woman, beard
ed, or rather hairy, for unexpected
and surprising tufts of hair appeared
all over her face.
She limped, not like ordinary Grip
pies, but like vessel at anchor
When she rested her large body,
bony and bent, on her one good leg,
she seemed as if about to take
leap, in order to ride huge wave;
then suddenly she would plunge, as
If to disappear in an abyss, or tc
sink into the ground. Her gait gave
the impression of tempest, as she
seemed to swing and balance herself
at the same time; and her head, al
ways covered with an enormous
white bonnet, the ribbons of which
doated down her back, appeared to
traverse the horizon from the
north to south, and from south to
north, with each movement that she
made.
1 adored Mother Clochette. AS
soon as I was out of bed / ascend
ed to the linen press, where I found
her installed with her sewing, "a foot
warmer at her feet. When 1 ap-
peared she insisted on my taking the
Foot warmer and seating herself
dpon it, in order that 1 should not
take cold in the chilly room, which
vas directly under the roof.
"That draws the blood from the
throat" she would saw.
While she darned the linen with
her long, crooked active fingers, she
told me stories. Her eyes, behind her
ipectacles with their strangely mag
1ifying glasses (for age had weak
ened her sight), appeared to me
enormous, strangely deep, and double.
She had. as far as l car recall
from the things which she told me,
md by which my childish heart was
moved, a magnanimous soul. She
saw everything great and small. She
related to me events of the town;
;he story of a cow which had es-
.aped from the barn, and had been
found one morning in front of Pros
.r Malet's mill, watching the turning
IF the wooden wings; or the story
Of hens egg discovered in the
church turret. where no one could
ever imagine what creature had
come to lay it there; or the ac-
count of the dog of Jean-Jean Pilas,
| hat had recovered at ten leagues
distance from the village his mas
| ;er's trousers, which had been stolen
~ passer by as they were drying
| before the door, after a shower She
related these simple events in such a
manner that they assumed, in my
mind, the proportions of never-to-be-
forgotten dramas, of grand and mys-
;erious poems; and the ingenious
ales invented by poets and narrated
20 me, in the evening, by my moth
IT, had not that SAVIOR, that fullness.
hat power, which the recitals of the
peasant possessed.
One Tuesday, after having passed
he entire morning in listening to
dother Clochette. I went, with
servant, to gather nuts in the Hallet
woods, back of the Noirpre farm.
On my return / went up to reioin
he old woman. / recall all this as
distinctly as the events of yester-
| lay.
On opening the door of the linen
Dom, 1 perceived the old seamstress
| ying on the floor beside her chair,
ter face on the ground, her arms ex-
ended, still holding her needle in one
nd nd {bo<1 h. e L 49,