Chapter 5

Wheatstacks

“Oh, Jean, you are so excited!” said his little sister crossly. “You chatter like a parrot! You fly about like a setting hen! I’ve never seen you in such a frenzy!”

“You are the setting hen!” said Jean indignantly, looking at his young sister as she sat quietly on her ladder-backed chair in the hall. Her hair was brushed and curled. Her white muslin was spotless. Her little feet in their black slippers were primly crossed in front of her, and her tiny clean hands rested in her lap in a ladylike way.

But Jean kept rushing up and down the stairs to see if he had forgotten anything. He had his pencils and crayons and paper. He had the book of bird pictures which his father had given him last Christmas. He even had the two stuffed thrushes, which he had nearly forgotten. He couldn’t leave them behind.

The family was getting ready to leave their town house to spend the summer in the country, at Wheatstacks.

Jean could hardly wait. He stood at the window, impatiently watching for the carriage to rattle up the cobbled streets. At last it came.

“I thought you would never get here!” Jean called angrily to the coachman. He remembered his manners enough, however, to hold the door open for Madame Audubon and his sister. He waited for them to rustle down the steps and climb into the carriage.

Then, with his two stuffed thrushes in his hand, he jumped down two steps at a time and climbed up by the coachman. Captain Audubon would join them later, when he returned from a sea voyage.

The whip cracked, and they were off, rattling down the streets of old Nantes, and around corners where jackdaws peeked at them from their dark hiding places in walls and roofs.

“Goodbye, you thieves!” called Jean happily, waving at them.

Swallows sang in the courtyards of the old houses and swept about in their strange, swift flight. Jean looked at their shining blue-gray wings and forked tails. “How could such small pinions have carried the birds so far?” he wondered. “It doesn’t seem possible.”

On the carriage rolled until it reached the end of the cobbled streets and came to the country road. Black ravens and carrion crows fluttered up from the fields like a cloud of smoke. Black and white magpies hopped over the soil, chattering in their rough, cheerful voices. The carriage drove on, past a heavy stone church with a tall spire about which the swallows fluttered.

Then at last the Audubons came to the village of Couëron, nine miles from Nantes. Couëron was a sleepy, dusty little farm village, and in the midsummer sunlight it looked unusually drowsy.

“Please go very slowly past the old windmill,” Jean begged the driver as they came to an old mill with a tall tower.

This very old mill near the farm was called the Tower Mill, because it had a high tower built on it. Once the Tower Mill had been the biggest and busiest in the town of Saint Nazaire, but now it was tumbledown and empty. The miller had died long ago, and people of the village said the tower had been haunted since his death.

“I want to see if I can see the ghost in the tower,” said Jean. “I have heard the villagers say that it looks out of the top window and says, ‘Hoo-hoo!’ at people.”

But nothing looked out of the tower window as the carriage passed by, and no ghostly voice said, “Hoohoo!”

“The ghost is asleep this morning, as it ought to be,” said the driver. He winked at Jean. “All good ghosts sleep in the daytime.” (Figure 5.1)

Figure 5.1: “I want to see if I can see the ghost in the tower,” said Jean.

“Some day this summer I am going to climb into the old tower and look at the ghost,” planned Jean. “I will see what a ghost looks like in its sleep.”

Jean was now ten years old, and not afraid of ghosts that lived in old mill towers and said, “Hoohoo!” at people.

Soon they were out of the village and passing old farmhouses, built of rough gray stone and covered with moss and vines. Great ricks of straw stood in the fields, and birds busily hunting dropped grain filled the brown stubble of summer.

Now the family came in sight of Wheatstacks—which in French was called La Gerbetière—a tall, handsome house of cream-colored limestone. To Jean, this country place of his father’s looked like a mansion with its swelled, slated roof, tall cupola, and balcony.

The house was built on a hill which overlooked the river and the wheatfields which gave it its name of Wheatstacks. From the very top of the hill, one could see Nantes, nine miles away.

Into the house went the family, glad of the cool shade after the long ride in the sun. Maman Anne opened windows and looked for dust and mildew. Rose ran upstairs to her room to see if the dolls which she had left asleep last fall were still sleeping.

Jean dumped his possessions in a heap on his floor and carefully put the two stuffed thrushes on the bed. Then he looked to see if his treasures from last year were safe. He found his glass box of birds’ eggs, the tortoise shell, and his mud swallows’ nest—all just as he had left them. The snake skin, for which he had traded his silver shoe buckles last summer, had not fared so well. It had been badly eaten by mice.

“Perhaps I can find another one, a real green viper,” he thought, looking at the ruined snake skin with regret.

He could look through the window and see the orange trees with the blackbirds singing in them, and beyond the orangery was the barnyard, with geese waddling about. Still farther he saw the grassy, flowery riverbank, shaded with walnut trees. Jean knew white and yellow water lilies would be floating on the water, and that blue dragonflies would be hovering above the flowers.

And farther down, where the ocean tide met the river and the red fishing boats lay drowsily in the sunlight, he might see stilt birds. Stilt birds were funny creatures, no bigger than pigeons, which stood on bright red legs 15 inches high. He knew he would find long-billed curlews hunting for beetles and hidden treasures in the mud of the river bank.

“Jean, please come and find a ripe orange for me!” called his sister. But Jean was already gone, running through the orangery and down to the meadow where the redshanks and curlews were waiting for him and the river was coaxing him to join in their treasure hunt.

“We are in time for the blessing of the fields this year,” Maman Anne said later.

The blessing of the fields and orchards was a beautiful ceremony which was held each year by the priests and the people of the village. It was always held very early in the morning between dawn and sunrise. Usually it took place in the early springtime, but this spring the priest had been sick and unable to go out.

Now he was well again, and even though it was early summer, the people of Saint Nazaire still wished to have their fields and orchards blessed by the priest.

“May we all walk in the procession, Maman?” asked Jean eagerly.

Little Rose added, “May I wear my best white dress with the blue ribbons, Maman?”

“Yes, of course, children,” Maman Anne answered gently.

Jean was awake next morning when the servant came to call him, though it was very early. Out in the yard the early birds were just stirring, making sleepy little sounds as the pale light of dawn came into their nests.

Down in the kitchen Maman Anne, Jean, and Rose quickly ate crisp croissants and drank hot chocolate. Then they started out for the village church.

The light was blue and shadowy at this hour before sunrise. Dew lay on the grass like a silver veil. Jean liked the feel of the cool dampness against his bare legs.

More people joined Madame Audubon and the children as they came out into the road. By the time they reached the church at the edge of Couëron, it looked as if everybody was going to join in the procession.

Soon Father Jacques and a visiting priest came out of the church. They looked very handsome and dignified in dark robes and white linen surplices. They held great jugs of holy water in their hands.

The two priests walked ahead, and in a double line behind them came all the people. The priests sang a very solemn hymn as they walked. The words to the hymn were in Latin, and Jean did not understand them.

The priests and the long double line of people walked through the rich farm lands, past shining brooks, past great fields of late violets, along narrow green paths, and across brown plowed fields.

They went through the orchards, and the birds joined in the song. Then the children sang a little song to the birds.

The priests scattered holy water from their jugs and called out a blessing.

“Bless the earth and all its produce!

“Bless the wheat, the wine, the fruit, and the flowers.

“Bless the water we drink, and the grass we tread on!”

The sun rose higher. It warmed the morning breeze and made a happy light on the faces of the people. The birds sang louder.

Last of all the priests blessed the people, and the ceremony was over for another year.

“It will be a good year,” said an old lady to Madame Audubon. “Did you see how many swallows were here? Swallows bring good luck!”