Page:A book of the Cevennes (-1907-).djvu/121

Rh Pierre grew up in rough surroundings. His foster-parents, Antoine and Véronique Vidil, had three children, two boys and a girl, but lost their sons in one day by typhoid fever. Only the little Geneviève remained to them, and the orphan, Pierre, whom thenceforth the Vidils regarded as their own. But among these rude peasants affection displayed itself uncouthly. Antoine Vidil was a man who rarely spoke, and expressed himself in monosyllables only, and when he corrected the children it was without discretion and with a heavy hand. The woman Vidil, stout and florid, was the reverse of her husband. She was effusive, noisy, variable in temper. Sometimes she treated the little Pierre with plenty of food and smothered him with caresses, at another time she stinted him in his diet and scolded him for nothing at all.

Pierre's sensitive soul was wounded by the injustice wherewith he was treated, and he found his only happiness in the society of Geneviève.

The Vidils, without consulting the "Captain," brought up Pierre in the Catholic faith, and sent him to the village school. There from the first he became the butt of the children. Pale, delicate, taciturn, and a dreamer, he consorted with none, and he obtained the nickname of lou mou, the Dumb One. Endowed with exceptional intelligence, he rapidly made his way, and in three months had learned to read. Then he begged to be sent to college. The case was embarrassing. It was necessary to consult the Captain. Vidil wrote in two lines to the père Noirot: "The child desires to go to college. Where shall he be put?" The Captain replied even more laconically, "Where you will." The Vidils, at their own cost, sent him to the college at Aubenas;