There is a piece of butter, and some bits of nice sugar upon a piece of paper before me. I do not see the others take any butter. My coffee is good, with plenty of good milk in it. Mrs. S. also offers me cheese, and gives me currant jelly, but the family confine themselves to the bread and coffee. Beer is the usual drink here, as wine was in the south; but I like beer so little as a supper drink that Mr. Salmier gave me, last evening, wine (which he has in the cellar), and which I drank with

water.

Mr. Salmier taught the village school forty years, and receives a pension of about one hundred dollars. To have taught thirty years entitles a man to this pension. He and his wife were both born in this village. This department joins Belgium, and Mr. and Mrs. S. have both been away from home as far as that country. He never had during his forty years' teaching any maps to hang around his school-room,-the commune did not furnish them. He made a black-board himself; and when the Prussian soldiers visited them, not very long since, it was broken. Mr. Salmier holds the office of greffier, or mayor's clerk, in this commune of about seven hundred inhabitants. He has held the office over forty years, and it is worth two hundred francs yearly. They also Own over twelve acres of land, besides the lot upon which their house stands; the house, like almost all the rest in the township or commune, being in the village; this is called an agglomerate population. Mr. Salmier seems to be an upright, worthy man, and kindly answers my many inquiries. Besides his dignity of clerk and ex-teacher, he is also a member of "the fabric of the church," or is a vestryman. He did not, however, receive this appointment through the curé, or parish priest, but

through the mayor, who never goes to church, except at funerals (and the vice-mayor never goes at all).

When Mrs. Salmier is much pressed with work her husband will not refuse to assist her by washing dishes, he being the second or third Frenchman whom I have seen perform that useful, if not agreeable, household task. Once when he sees me take water, he says, "You drink water?” I laugh, and he adds, "I never drink it: I could not; I believe I should die first." One evening he expresses the opinion that it was a Frenchman who discovered America.

Mrs. Salmier tells me that for some time since the war they have not made money, everything being so augmented in price. However, they have lately bought another house; and I tell her that I find they have made money. She admits it, and says, "I have never spent improperly; I have always been industrious. When we did not cultivate land, I sewed for other people. When I had little ones, I held them on my lap and sewed, and that is the reason I have made money." Although by industry and economy she and her husband seem to have acquired some valuable property, yet it grieves her to think how little there will be to divide among their six children. When I tell her of one of my acquaintances who has only one child, I understand her to say, "What good fortune!" Her own family, brothers and sisters, amounted to fourteen, of whom eleven are living; seven live in this commune, and the rest at no greater distance than about a two hours' walk.* She asks me whether we have neighbors, and when I mention Mexico and

* By the French census of 1872 it was found that out of every hundred individuals but fifteen had quitted their native commune or township, so that eighty-five lived where they were born. Almost the whole of the existing migration is that from the rural districts into the towns of France.-Statesman's Year-Book, 1879.

Canada, she wants to know whether Peru is also. Coming home once with herself and two other old ladies, I am asked the interesting questions, "Have you frogs in your country? rats and mice? Does it thunder in your country?" She inquires whether we have fleas in America; for they are to be found here as well as in Paris and the south. She does not know the distance to the North Sea, nor what countries bound France on the east. Soon after my arrival we go into the stable to look at the new cow, for which they gave about eighty dollars when within a month of calving. "Do you know," she says, "how to tell the age of a cow? There is a ridge in her horns for every calf. Since I have had animals I have tried to learn their ways. I always feed them before I myself eat, and always at a set time; for if you do not give them food when they are hungry, they will not get fat. Do you know how to fatten calves? When we begin we give them milk; you understand it takes two cows that give milk." "How did you learn these things?" I ask. "By talking about them with others; did you not hear me yesterday? If a stranger comes, I say, 'Do you do this? do you do that?' and so I learn. If you want the calf to grow long and not fatten too fast, you must give the morning's milk warmed, having taken off a little cream; and when calves are four or five weeks old, give them the new milk entire, with about one litre of water in four of milk. We sell them at from six weeks to two and a half months. One I sold lately was the finest in the market: he had such a shining skin! If the calf has diarrhoea, we boil rice; and if the calf is young, we give it the water, and if older we can give the rice too. Then when that is corrected you can give it well-boiled potatoes, well mashed, if you want to save a little cream to make butter. At the end, to fatten the calf

it takes the milk of two cows; but then the calf is strong, you know, he is strong. The calf I sold was nine weeks old, and I sold him to a butcher at Cambray, who gets all the medals; he sells the best meat at Cambray; all those medals are hanging in his butchery. He buys the best meat; he gave me one hundred and thirty-five francs." "That was a great price," I reply. "My brother-in-law, at whose house you were, sold a calf at nine weeks (it was stronger in coming into the world than mine) at one hundred and ninety francs." "That was as much as we sell a cow for." "And he who bought it sold it at St. Quentin, and gained money, so fine a calf he was! Ah, how dear things are sold in France! What beautiful veal he must have made! so fat! And there are some who even give eggs in the milk. That is good, that."

I speak to her about poultry and our feeding cracked Indian corn, but I cannot now recall what caused her to say, "Oh, madame, those poor little beasts,-you give them too much. They cannot support so much. I had twentytwo little ones, and I have only lost one." Here she lowers her voice: "I have a neighbor who makes the wedding; she drinks brandy, she vomits; I think if she could get hold of a chicken she would eat it." (To make the wedding is to spend the day drinking.) "And you never harvest poppies with you?" she adds. "For your little chickens that would be so good! First I give my little chickens crumbs of bread,-the same that we eat,-wet with good milk or beer." "Don't you take the cream off of the milk?" I ask. "No; that would give them diarrhoea. If you want them to have good stomachs, give them eggs boiled hard. When they are three or four weeks old you may give them wheat, but not younger." "Not oats nor barley?" "Oh, they could not digest it; but when they

are half-grown you may give them oats or barley. Once, when mine were about fifteen days old, I gave them new rye, and they died; and then I said, But how does this happen? Madame Jardet, the mayor's wife, said it was because of the rye; that that formed a paste on the stomach. You must cook their meal when they are young. I had two hens to hatch this year, and I had twenty-one chickens. I did not lose one." 66 But you did lose one, as you said." "It did not die; they are too well cared for. Sometimes I have given them wine, knowing that wine is good. I have nineteen hens, and I get ten or twelve eggs a day; and it is not now the best moment to lay, you know." "And how much do you have to feed them?" I ask. "When they are little they are always eating, always,-between the bread poppy-seeds, and the seeds are fat, you know, that makes them digest. How content they are! they go ‘Tickety, tickety, tickety!" "But the old ones?" I ask. "We had to sell our wheat on account of the rats; we always kept wheat until after harvest, so as not to have to eat new. But it is very disgusting to have rats in the wheat; and some one said to me, 'That costs you two sous a day, every rat.' Now I give my hens winter barley." "And you have only one cock?" "Only one; and the eggs never fail: there are chickens in all." "But don't you change your stock? Don't you get a new cock sometimes ?" "I have had the same stock-our French hens-for three years. Cochin China don't lay enough eggs, and the chickens are always naked." Her fowls resemble our common-sized, plain-colored poultry. She tells me about her eldest son,—how he thought she was too careful, and dressed like a beggar. "And do you know what he did?" she adds. "I only gave him three thousand francs, and he married a young woman who had twenty thousand francs the day that she was mar