of caring for his natural grandson’s education, kept him to himself; while Marie and Catherine made hay in the woods.  These girls knew the exact spots where the fine forest-grass abounded, and there they cut and spread and cocked and garnered it, supplying two thirds, at least, of the winter fodder, and leading the cows on all fine days to sheltered nooks where they could still find pasture.  In certain parts of the valley of Les Aigues, as in all places protected by a chain of mountains, in Piedmont and in Lombardy for instance, there are spots where the grass keeps green all the year.  Such fields, called in Italy “marciti,” are of great value; though in France they are often in danger of being injured by snow and ice.  This phenomenon is due, no doubt, to some favorable exposure, and to the infiltration of water which keeps the ground at a warmer temperature.

The calves were sold for about eighty francs.  The milk, deducting the time when the cows calved or went dry, brought in about one hundred and sixty francs a year besides supplying the wants of the family.  Tonsard himself managed to earn another hundred and sixty by doing odd jobs of one kind or another.

The sale of food and wine in the tavern, after all costs were paid, returned a profit of about three hundred francs, for the great drinking-bouts happened only at certain times and in certain seasons; and as the topers who indulged in them gave Tonsard and his wife due notice, the latter bought in the neighboring town the exact quantity of provisions needed and no more.  The wine produced by Tonsard’s vineyard was sold in ordinary years for twenty francs a cask to a wine-dealer at Soulanges with whom Tonsard was intimate.  In very prolific years he got as much as twelve casks from his vines; but eight was the average; and Tonsard kept half for his own traffic.  In all wine-growing districts the gleaning of the large vineyards gives a good perquisite, and out of it the Tonsard family usually managed to obtain three casks more.  But being, as we have seen, sheltered and protected by the keepers, they showed no conscience in their proceedings,—­entering vineyards before the harvesters were out of them, just as they swarmed into the wheat-fields before the sheaves were made.  So, the seven or eight casks of wine, as much gleaned as harvested, were sold for a good price.  However, out of these various proceeds the Grand-I-Vert was mulcted in a good sum for the personal consumption of Tonsard and his wife, who wanted the best of everything to eat, and better wine than they sold,—­which they obtained from their friend at Soulanges in payment for their own.  In short, the money scraped together by this family amounted to about nine hundred francs, for they fattened two pigs a year, one for themselves and the other to sell.