It sounded
like a song, and the words were not like any that he had ever heard
since he came to live with Henri and Brossard. He could not forget them,
though, for had they not sung themselves through that beautiful dream
every time he had it?
"Little Boy Blue, oh, where are you?
O, where are you-u-u-u?"
He only laughed in the dream picture and ran on after the firefly. Then
a man came running after him, and, catching him, tossed him up
laughingly, and carried him to the house on his shoulder.
Somebody held a glass of cool, creamy milk for him to drink, and by and
by he was in a little white night-gown in the woman's lap. His head was
nestled against her shoulder, and he could feel her soft lips touching
him on cheeks and eyelids and mouth, before she began to sing:
"Oh, little Boy Blue, lay by your horn,
And mother will sing of the cows and the corn,
Till the stars and the angels come to keep
Their watch, where my baby lies fast asleep."
Now all of a sudden Jules knew that there was another kind of hunger
worse than the longing for bread. He wanted the soft touch of those lips
again on his mouth and eyelids, the loving pressure of those restful
arms, a thousand times more than he had wished for the loaf that he had
just brought home. Two hot tears, that made his eyes ache in their slow
gathering, splashed down on the window-sill.
Pages:
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44