FullReads

Close up about the house there was an irregular stone wall and an ornamental iron gate with a pull-out Brugglesmith bell at one side. We pulled the bell and were answered by a big shaggy Saint Bernard that came barking and bouncing around the corner. I thought at first our time had come. But this giant of a dog only approached within about ten feet, then lay down on the grass and rolled over three times to show his goodwill. He got up with a fine, cheery smile shown in the wag of his tail, just as a little maid unlocked the gate.

“Don’t you know that dog?” asked White Pigeon.

“Certainement–he is on the wall of your room.”

We were shown into a little reception-parlor, where we were welcomed by a tall, handsome woman, about White Pigeon’s age.

The woman kissed White Pigeon on one cheek, and I afterwards asked White Pigeon why she didn’t turn to me the other, and she said I was a fool.

Then the tall woman went to the door and called up the stairway: “Antoine, Antoine, guess who it is? It’s White Pigeon!”

A man came down the stairs three steps at a time, and took both of White Pigeon’s hands in his, after the hearty manner of a gentleman of France. Then I was introduced.

Antoine looked at our lunch-basket with the funniest look I ever saw, and asked what it was.

“Lunch,” said White Pigeon; “I can not tell a lie!”

Antoine made wild gesticulations of displeasure, denouncing us in pantomime.

But White Pigeon explained that we only came on a quiet picnic in search of ozone and had dropped in to make a little call before we went on up to the forest. But could we see the horses?

Antoine would be most delighted to show Monsieur Littlejourneys anything that was within his power. In fact, everything hereabouts was the absolute property of Monsieur Littlejourneys to do with as he pleased.

He disappeared up the stairway to exchange his slippers for shoes, and the tall woman went in another direction for her hat. I whispered to White Pigeon, “Can’t we see the studio?”

“Are we from Chicago, that we should seek to prowl through a private house, when the mistress is away? No; there are partly finished canvases up there that are sacred.”

“Come this way,” said Antoine. He led us out through the library, then the dining-room and through the kitchen.

It is a very comfortable old place, with no extra furniture–the French know better than to burden themselves with things.

The long line of brick stables seemed made up of a beggarly array of empty stalls. We stopped at a paddock, and Antoine opened the gate and said, “There they are!”

“What?”

“The horses.”

“But these are broncos.”

“Yes; I believe that is what you call them. Monsieur Bill of Buffalo, New York, sent them as a present to Madame Rosalie when he was in Paris.”

There they were–two ewe-necked cayuses–one a pinto with a wall-eye; the other a dun with a black line down the back.

I challenged Antoine to saddle them and we would ride. The tall lady took it in dead earnest, and throwing her arms around Antoine’s neck begged him not to commit suicide.

“And the Percherons–where are they?”

“Goodness! we have no Perches.”

“Those that served as models for the ‘Horse Fair,’ I mean.”

White Pigeon took me gently by the sleeve, and turning to the others apologized for my ignorance, explaining that I did not know the “Marche aux Chevaux” was painted over forty years ago, and that the models were all Paris cart-horses.

Antoine called up a little old man, who led out two shaggy little cobs, and I was told that these were the horses that Madame drove. A roomy, old-fashioned basket phaeton was backed out; White Pigeon and I stepped in to try it, and Antoine drew us once around the stable-yard. This is the only carriage Madame uses. There were doves, and chickens, and turkeys, and rabbits; and these horses we had seen, with the cows on the lawn, make up all the animals owned by the greatest of living animal-painters.