In the winter she and her father had lived in
the stable in the midst of the cows, goats, sheep, rabbits, etc. It was the
heat from the bodies of these animals that kept them quite warm; and at the
same time saved the price of the fuel which would otherwise have been
necessary if they had stayed during the day in the dwelling-house.
Sometimes, she told us, the poor from the village would come to their
stable, bringing their children with them for this same purpose of getting
warm without any expenditure for fuel. Then, what happiness and what games
they had together, in that little space in the stable between the animals!
Oh, yes, she went to the school, she said--the little school whose teacher
was her own father who every afternoon gathered the children together in
that self-same stable. In the evening, the neighbors would bring each one
his own little stool, crowding into every unoccupied space that could be
found in the stable; the women spinning, the men reading in turn from the
Bible by the light of a tallow candle. Meanwhile the babies were put to
sleep in the straw above the sheep-fold, until the time came to disperse
for the night Paula, being a great girl of ten years old, always tried
desperately to keep awake along with the older folks.
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