"
"Why have you come here from Vatan?" continued the doctor, paying no
heed to the interruption.
"I am catching crabs for my uncle Brazier here."
"Rabouiller" is a Berrichon word which admirably describes the thing
it is intended to express; namely, the action of troubling the water
of a brook, making it boil and bubble with a branch whose end-shoots
spread out like a racket. The crabs, frightened by this operation,
which they do not understand, come hastily to the surface, and in
their flurry rush into the net the fisher has laid for them at a
little distance. Flore Brazier held her "rabouilloir" in her hand with
the natural grace of childlike innocence.
"Has your uncle got permission to hunt crabs?"
"Hey! are not we all under a Republic that is one and indivisible?"
cried the uncle from his station.
"We are under a Directory," said the doctor, "and I know of no law
which allows a man to come from Vatan and fish in the territory of
Issoudun"; then he said to Flore, "Have you got a mother, little one!"
"No, monsieur; and my father is in the asylum at Bourges. He went mad
from a sun-stroke he got in the fields."
"How much do you earn?"
"Five sous a day while the season lasts; I catch 'em as far as the
Braisne. In harvest time, I glean; in winter, I spin."
"You are about twelve years old?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"Do you want to come with me? You shall be well fed and well dressed,
and have some pretty shoes.
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