Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/456

 444 THE TRIAL OF JEANNE DARC. know, however, that he was an agricultural laborer, who " went to the plow," which plow this daughter may have assisted to draw. As I propose, however, to give those portions of her testimony in which she relates her own story, I will merely recall a few of the circumstances of her lot needful to the elucidation of her words. These were mostly gathered from the lips of her companions, years after her death, when the mother of the Maid of Orleans, from whom she probably derived her cast of character, cried to France, and cried not in vain, to do justice to her daughter's memory. The Dare cottage was so near the village church that a religious girl residing in it would always feel herself in the shadow of the altar. She could look from her home into the church's open door. She was familiar with the sexton from her childhood, and used to remind him of his duty when he forgot to ring the bell for prayers, even bribing him to be punctual by gifts of wool and yarn. Of knowledge derived from books she possessed none, unless we except her Paternoster, her creed, and a few short prayers and invocations, she not differing in this par- ticular from nine-tenths of the people of the kingdom. Probably not one of her race had ever been able to read. She was, nevertheless, a person of native superiority of mind and character, capable of public spirit, yearning for the deliverance of her country, fervid, energetic, of dex- terous hand, well skilled in all the arts and industries appertaining to her lot, and proud to excel in them. It is not true that she was an inn servant, who rode the horses to water, and saddled them for travelers. She lived honorably in her father's house, earning her share of the family's subsistence by honest toil, spinning, Aveav- ing, bread-making, gardening, and field-work, " taking her spinning-wheel with her to the fields when it was her father's turn to tend the village herd" — a faithful helper