like the sensation one must get when he starts to skate for the first
time in a dozen years or so. The street met two others in a moment, and
here was a very nourishing sumach bush (as I guess) whose berries shocked
the stunned eye with a savage splash of vermilion. Under this colour one
discovered the Mecca of water-catchers in the form of an iron contrivance
operating by means of a stubby lever which, when pressed down, yielded
grudgingly a spout of whiteness. The contrivance was placed in
sufficiently close proximity to a low wall so that one of the catchers
might conveniently sit on the wall and keep the water spouting with a
continuous pressure of his foot, while the other catcher manipulated a
tin pail with telling effect. Having filled the barrel which rode on the
two wagon wheels, we turned it with some difficulty and started it down
the street with the tin pail on top; the man in the shafts leaning back
with all his might to offset a certain velocity promoted by the down
grade, while the man behind tugged helpingly at the barrel itself. On
reaching the door we skewed the machine skillfully to the left, thereby
bringing it to a complete standstill, and waited for the planton to
unlock the locks; which done, we rushed it violently over the threshold,
turned left, still running, and came to a final stop in front of the
kitchen. Here stood three enormous wooden tubs. We backed the wagon
around; then one man opened a spigot in the rear of the barrel, and at
the same time the other elevated the shafts in a clever manner, inducting
the jet d'eau to hit one of the tubs. One tub filled, we switched the
stream wittily to the next. To fill the three tubs (they were not always
all of them empty) required as many as six or eight delightful trips.
After which one entered the cuisine and got his well-earned
reward—coffee with sugar.
I have remarked that catching water was a mixed pleasure. The mixedness of the pleasure came from certain highly respectable citizens, and more often citizenesses, of la ville de La Ferté Macé; who had a habit of endowing the poor water-catchers with looks which I should not like to remember too well, at the same moment clutching whatever infants they car-
