MOTHER ETIENNE'S FARM


"Oh Grandfather, tell us a story, do. You know, the one you began
the other evening about Mother Etienne's big farm. You remember.
The weather is so bad and we can't go out. Go on, Grandfather,
please."

Coaxingly the three children clung round their grandfather,
looking at him beseechingly. He adoring the children as he did,
loved to hear them plead.

At last he began:

Since you have been very good, and you want it so much, I will
tell you the wonderful story of Mother Etienne's farm and the
still more wonderful story of what happened to one of its
occupants.

Love animals, my children, be kind to them, care for them, and you
will surely have your reward.

Mother Etienne was a good stout woman with a very kind heart.
While still young she was so unfortunate as to lose her husband
and her son of whom she was very fond. This made her, as you can
imagine, very, very sad. She wouldn't listen to any new offers of
marriage though she had plenty of them. Instead, she devoted her
life, her whole existence, to the attentive, nay I ought to say,
the maternal care, of the animals on her farm, making them as