Los Angeles herald., 1910-09-04

-VERY year since he had been old enough
~ Pierre Pomerio, young farmer of Perin,
J St. Brieuc, went to the Isle OF Jersey
to help with the harvesting and to CLEAN the
shllings of these Anglo Normans who need the aid
of foreign arms to cut their grain and stack It,
He earned more there in two weeks than he did at
home in three months, and his mother slipped the
pieces of money into an old stocking and hd 1t be-
hind pile of linen in the drawer of the great fold
ing bed. Pierre now just twenty-one, strongly
built as professional wrestler, with fists fit to knock
down OK, and blue eyes soft as a girl S. Ills
mother was widow, and he was her only child
queer fellow, for Pierre, with his Hercuean chest,
was withal timid soul. Fond of romance and pass
ing many a long night the plains with an old
shepherd who related Breton legends, he sometimes
felt nervous and started at the Wrthng of the willow
branches the dancing light of the Wllo the Wlsp
Afris?-no; Pierre was no coward. only he nlled
his head with impossbiities, with fantasies about
golden haired fairies smiling from the depths of the
clear springs the clefts of the rocky coast, and
with stories about penniless young men encounerng
tattered princesses in the yellow genesta bloom or
crouched amid the rushes, who were fleeing from
wicked enchanters ferocious chevallers, and who
always married the peasant lad after he had van
quished the prosecutors Such incidents were OF ire
quent in real lfe at least in his part OF
the country though to be sure, he had heard sur
prising of very ordinary Breton girl who had
married a Russian prince at Paris. Perhaps she was
a fairy One can tell.
Just at present, however, he WASH t thinking about
faries nor about the old shepherd and his nonsense
Pierre was leaving Jersey with two hundred and
twelve francs IN MS pocket, DeSlueS IL me EnSioh
knife of Sheffield steel, with four blades, which he
had bought from a cutler King street-a superb
knife, equal to cutting down a sapling or killing an
animal. He had also English needles for his
mother, and heart of and black Jersey granite
ornamented with silver, which he meant to give to
some pretty GIRL for he intended to marry, just for
the sake of being married. without having fallen In
love or chosen among the charming maids of st.
Brieuc And while the sailors hoisted the sails which
tapped against the wind he lay dreaming on the
deck. To kill time he wondered on whom he should
bestow this trinket. How pretty it would look all
gterng with its six silver letters Jersey as it rose
and fell over the white bosom of some lovely girl.
He passed them in review before his mind Anne
Plouharn of Plerin, with her small white teeth and
rosy dimpled cheeks, who laughed so merrily; Marie
Bercen, who sated the Goldfish at Binic with her
sleeves rolled up, her white as the milk of
her cows; the big Gicquel girl who amused herself
by letting her long hair down and dipping the ends
in the sea by bending backward ever so little
coquette! and little Jeanne so tiny and fran he
could snap her like toy between his hands, but who
teascd him and made fun of him until he longed to
plunge his fists into her yellow hair and imprint
hearty kiss her merry lips All pretty these girls,
every one of them; it really difficult to decide
his mother must choose her daughterinaw for, after
all, if it left to him, he would sigh for one of
those fairy princesses of the shepherd tales. And
nrincesses were NOT for common mortalS