until nightfall; but she comes down when we do. Pierre talks patois with her. She belongs to a family of their good neighbors. I cannot persuade her to sing again, but she joins us and helps Pierre to pick huckleberries for me. They are growing thickly here, but are very low, and are more acid than ours. She also helps to pick flowers, and when she puts them into my bag cries out, and wants to throw away the caterpillars-les chenilles, as she calls the insects-that I am preserving, and that are eating a plant. She gives me a little flower that she calls Polygale, and Pierre calls the foxglove, Digitale. Somehow we get to talking about the dancing on Sunday, and one or both of them say that it would be no use for their curé, or parish priest, to talk to them about not dancing on Sunday, for they would not mind him. I speak to them of a strict sect that we have at home, opposed to music and dancing, and we speak of the Sabbath of the Jews. One or both of them think that the Catholic is the least severe religion. Speaking of Jews, Pierre says that at Besançon there is a very elegant synagogue; and again I have the feeling of our being put upon a level with Jews, or below them. Coming down the hill, I say to Pierre that it seems best not to discuss religious differences. He tells me that his young brother Henri took the prize at the examination, of which I have before noticed the certificate. He adds that there were eleven applicants from their township, and only four passed. There was no girl among the applicants. However, from the next township a girl passed,--the daughter of the teacher. He can take me to visit their own school, which is congreganist, not laic,-that is, it is taught by the clergy. He tells me that these school examinations began two or three years after the fall of the Empire, but not immediately, because for a while every

thing was in confusion at that time. They are not held in every town, but picked scholars go up for examination.

Coming down we pass the house of the shepherdess, and see where vines have been planted with much labor. The ground has been deeply turned, and stone has come to the surface, which has been broken rather coarser, I judge, than for macadamizing. Farther down this stony bit ceases, and the ground looks better; but Pierre tells me that stony ground suits the vine. Cabbages, beans, and pumpkins are planted in the same ground, the vines being as yet very small. As we go home, Pierre points out to me the cattle belonging to their farm, which are pasturing at a distance; while near the house the little cousin is tending our own cow, goat, and sheep. I ask him whether the farmer can put by something every year. Yes, he can; and he can lend it in the neighborhood at five per cent., or he can buy government securities at about four and a half.

When we get home supper is ready, and I find myself very happy among these people. Among other things at supper I have a bowl of vermicelli, boiled in water, and milk and butter added; also some of those fine cherries, gathered apparently on my account. When I am requested to say what I would like, I speak about our eating butter on bread, but madame says that she has only one cow now, and churns about once a fortnight. They have for their supper a soup made of some peas and bits of bread, and, I believe, butter. When they have not meat in their soup they put in butter or lard,-graisse. Here let me add that before I leave, Mrs. L. gives me butter for my bread. At supper I drink piquette, which is a slightly acid and not a disagreeable drink. A difficulty arises in the mind of Henri, the youngest son, as to how they are going to sell wine if every one gives up drinking it.

Friday, July 5th.-Madame asks me this morning whether I am willing to take a meagre or lenten dinner, as they are Catholics. I say, "Oh, yes!" and Pierre afterwards invites me to go and see him take carp. He has let the water out of the pool where they keep the largest, but he still has some difficulty in getting them out of the mud and the little water that remains. Our dinner is very far from being a slender one. Pierre and I again take it together in the dining-room, but other meals we eat in the kitchen. We dine first upon an excellent omelet, much larger than some I saw at Paris, and dressed with a quantity of butter; then come carp,—one for me and one for him,—fresh from the water, sweet, fried in oil; and we have quite a variety at dessert. Here we have small plates with pictures on them. One is of a woman in a fancy dress, putting her arms around the neck of an astonished individual; while another man, in a harlequin dress and with a half mask, stands by. We also see the backs of two sober individuals, a man and a woman, who are walking away. Beneath is printed, "Sir, you inspire me with confidence; save me from the dangers that threaten my virtue at the masked ball; take me away quickly." "To your parents?" "No; to the restaurant." I tell Pierre, who is at the table with me, that we can let young ladies ride with young gentlemen, but that we do not have such things as these in decent houses. He says that they have some that are worse, and hastens to bring them. He adds that they use them, unless the curé is there, and that the people laugh at them. But when madame comes in she says that she would not have bought them if she had seen what they were.

To-day Pierre and I have a great deal of conversation, he being assigned to me as a companion or guide. Their farm is divided in this manner: in vines, ten acres; in

meadow, twenty; in rye, twenty, in wheat, five; in potatoes, five; in oats, two and a half; in colza, sometimes two and a half, but this year none. Colza or cole ought to be next in value to the vines, but it does not always succeed, on account of dry weather in the fall and the frosts of spring. There is, too, a black insect that eats the flowers, and only about one year in ten is it a good crop. It does much better in the north. The lamps which the family carry about are filled with colza oil, but there is a handsome one in which they have petroleum, which burns clearer and is cheaper.

Maize, or Indian corn, is also planted here, but only to feed green to cows and other cattle. It is generally cut at the height of about two and one-quarter feet, and fed to the animals in their stables. It is rarely dried. Grassseed is never sown; but after having cultivated a field and gathered a harvest, whether of wheat, rye, or oats, then they do not fatigue the ground, even in the plains, the next year, but permit the natural grasses to grow, of which there are different kinds, and here animals are pastured by a shepherd or shepherdess, and usually a shepherd dog,— pastured from five to ten in the morning, and three to eight in the evening.

The meadows here are never tilled, They endeavor to water them; and if there be no stream and they can discover a spring, they make there a deep pool, and conduct the water by means of a ditch. Pierre adds, "You can see the meadows upon the hillsides crossed lengthwise by ditches, which are to conduct the water. There are meadows in France which have not been cultivated for perhaps one thousand years. I suppose that ours has not been for three hundred." The meadows are rarely manured, because almost all the manure is used for the vines, which pay

better. The owner takes, yearly, one-third of the manure for the wheat and two-thirds for the vines. He does not try so much to put money at interest as to plant more vines and buy more land. There are proprietors who are ruined in various ways, and often these are persons who have inherited lands or money; they ruin themselves by idleness, drunkenness, gaming, and running about.

But to return to the meadows. Twice a year the grass upon them is cut, the latter time in September or October, and after that, animals are allowed to graze upon them until snow falls. Sometimes, but not often, if the grass has not grown well in certain spots, it will not be cut the second time, but left for the cattle. There are dry places where the grass cannot be cut twice. Generally, by the beginning of June the water ceases to run in the ditches.

This farm is upon a hill. Vines are as profitable here as in the plain, but not grass and grain. The average production of the vines is about four hundred and twenty-four gallons to the acre, worth, when newly fermented, about four hundred and fifty francs. The annual expense per acre, including food and vintage, is eighty francs; but I suppose that this makes no allowance for the value of the land. The average production of wheat is about thirteen and one-half bushels per acre.

Pierre says that their shepherd dog is worth one hundred francs; but his mother tells me that he is worth fifty; that her son values him so high because he loves him, but that he is getting old now; once, indeed, he was worth that sum. The farmer's mother tells me that a first-rate hired man now earns about eighty dollars a year. The farmer's brother, her other son, has to go for a soldier, but the lot has been favorable, he is only obliged to stay away a year. Neither the farmer nor his brother knows how to write. Their