“By what?”
“By the birdlime.”
“Ah! ah!” exclaimed Aunt Angélique, “I understand; but who gave you the money?”
“Money!” cried Pitou, astonished that any one could have believed that he had ever possessed a sou; “money, Aunt Angélique?”
“Yes.”
“No one.”
“But where did you buy the birdlime, then?”
“I made it myself.”
“And the lime-twigs?”
“I made them also, to be sure.”
“Therefore, these birds—”
“Well, Aunt?”
“Cost you nothing?”
“The trouble of stooping to pick them up.”
“And can you go often to these pools?”
“One might go every day.”
“Good!”
“Only, it would not do.”
“What would not do?”
“To go there every day.”
“And for what reason?”
“Why, because it would ruin it.”
“Ruin what?”
“The lime-twigging. You understand, Aunt Angélique, that the birds which are caught—”
“Well?”
“Well, they can’t return to the pool.”
“That is true,” said the aunt.
This was the first time, since Pitou had lived with her, that Aunt Angélique had allowed her nephew was in the right, and this unaccustomed approbation perfectly delighted him.
“But,” said he, “the days that one does not go to the pools one goes somewhere else. The days we do not catch birds, we catch something else.”
“And what do you catch?”
“Why, we catch rabbits.”
“Rabbits?”
“Yes; we eat the rabbits and sell their skins. A rabbitskin is worth two sous.”
Aunt Angélique gazed at her nephew with astonished eyes; she had never considered him so great an economist. Pitou had suddenly revealed himself.
“But will it not be my business to sell the skins?”
“Undoubtedly,” replied Pitou; “as Mamma Madeleine used to do.”
It had never entered the mind of the boy that he could claim any part of the produce of his sport excepting that which he consumed.
“And when will you go out to catch rabbits?”
“Ah! that’s another matter; when I can get the wires,” replied Pitou.
“Well, then, make the wires.”
Pitou shook his head.
“Why, you made the birdlime and the twigs.”
“Oh, yes, I can make birdlime and I can set the twigs, but I cannot make brass wire; that is bought ready made at the grocer’s.”
“And how much does it cost?”
“Oh, for four sous,” replied Pitou, calculating upon his fingers, “I could make at least two dozen.”
“And with two dozen how many rabbits could you catch?”
“That is as it may happen,—four, five, six perhaps,—and they can be used over and over again if the gamekeeper does not find them.”
“See, now, here are four sous,” said Aunt Angélique; “go and buy some brass wire at Monsieur Dambrun’s, and go to-morrow and catch rabbits.”
“I will lay them to-morrow,” said Pitou, “but it will only be the next morning that I shall know whether I have caught any.”
“Well, be it so; but go and buy the wire.”
Brass wire was cheaper at Villers-Cotterets than in the country, seeing that the grocers at Haramont purchased their supplies in the town; Pitou, therefore, bought wire enough for twenty-four snares for three sous. He took the remaining sou back to his aunt.
This unexpected probity in her nephew almost touched the heart of the old maid. For a moment she had the idea, the intention, of bestowing upon her nephew the sou which he had not expended; unfortunately for Pitou, it was one that had been beaten out with a hammer, and which, in the dusk, might be passed for a twosous piece. Mademoiselle Angélique thought it would never do to dispossess herself of a coin by which she could make cent per cent, and she let it drop again into her pocket.
Pitou had remarked this hesitation, but had not analyzed it; he never could have imagined that his aunt would give him a sou.
He at once set to work to make his wires. The next day he asked his aunt for a bag.
“What for?” inquired the old maid.
“Because I want it,” replied Pitou.—Pitou was full of mystery.
Mademoiselle Angélique gave him the required bag, put into it the provision of bread and cheese which was to serve for breakfast and dinner to her nephew, who set out very early for Wolf’s Heath.