Flower of the Gorse

O là là! See then the best of good luck for each one of us this year!. Although Mère Pitou's rotund body like Falstaff's was fat and scant o' breath and the Pilgrims' Way was steep and rocky some reserve of energy enabled her to clap her hands and scream the tidings of high fortune when the notes of a deep-toned bell pealed from an alp still hidden among the trees.. Three girls fifty paces higher up the path halted when they heard that glad cry—and indeed who would not give ear to such augury?. Why should the clang of a bell foretell good luck Mother? cried Barbe the youngest seventeen that September day and a true Breton maid with eyes like sloes and cheeks the tint of ripe russet apples and full red lips ever ready to smile shyly revealing the big white even teeth of a peasant.. Mother signaled that explanations must await a more opportune moment.. Madame Pitou can't utter another word laughed Yvonne the tallest girl of the trio.. She has had some secret on the tip of her tongue all day said Madeleine who was so like Barbe that she might have been an elder sister; though the sole tie between the two was residence in the same village. Don't you remember how she kept saying in the train?—'Now little ones ask Sainte Barbe to be kind to you. She'll hear your prayers a kilometer away even though you whisper them.'. Yes and Mama would have liked us to begin singing a hymn when we started from the foot of the hill but she thought Monsieur Ingersoll and Monsieur Tollemache would only be amused put in Barbe.. They would certainly have been amused before Madame Pitou reached the top singing! tittered Yvonne.. Is it possible that I shall ever be as stout as Mama? murmured Barbe and the mere notion of such a catastrophe evoked a poignant anxiety that was mirrored in her eyes.. Ah Mignonne now you know the form your petition to Sainte Barbe must take smiled Yvonne.. It's all very well for you Yvonne to chaff us smaller ones pouted Madeleine. You're tall and slim and fair and you carry yourself like the pretty American ladies who come to Pont Aven in the season the ladies who wear such simple clothes and hardly look a year older than their daughters and walk leagues in men's boots and play tennis before déjeuner. Of course you can't help being elegant. You're American yourself.. The recipient of this tribute turned it aside deftly. Sometimes I think I am more Breton than American she said.. Yes everyone says that agreed Barbe loyally. Next year Yvonne they'll make you Queen of the Gorse.. With the innocence of youth or perhaps with its carelessness Barbe had raised a topic as prickly as the gorse itself because Madeleine had been a maid of honor that year and might reasonably expect the regal place in the succeeding Fête of the Fleurs d'Ajonc. Happily Yvonne if endowed with a sense of humor was eminently good-natured and tactful.