At That There Came
Running A Fat, Kindly Looking Old Priest In A Long Gown And A
Shovel Hat; And
A market woman came, who had arms like a wrestler
and skirts that stuck out like a ballet dancer's; and
A soldier
in baggy red pants came; and thirty or forty others of all ages
and sizes came - and they gathered about that small boy and gave
him advice at the top of their voices. And when he yanked out
the shining little silver fish there could not have been more
animation and enthusiasm and excitement if he had landed a full-grown
Presbyterian.
They were still congratulating him when we pulled out and went
tearing along on our way to Paris, scooting through quaint,
stone-walled cities, each one dominated by its crumbly old cathedral;
sliding through open country where the fields were all diked and
ditched with small canals and bordered with poplars trimmed so
that each tree looked like a set of undertaker's whiskers pointing
the wrong way.
And in these fields were peasants in sabots at work, looking as
though they had just stepped out of one of Millet's pictures.
Even the haystacks and the scarecrows were different. In England
the haystacks had been geometrically correct in their dimensions
- so square and firm and exact that sections might be sliced off
them like cheese, and doors and windows might be carved in them;
but these French haystacks were devil-may-care haystacks wearing
tufts on their polls like headdresses.
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