"Ah!" said Marianne, laughing, "you are not warm, young gentleman, are you? It is time for you to take up your winter quarters." Just then Mathieu, with his sower's bag at his waist, was returning towards them, scattering the seed with broad rhythmical gestures. He had heard his wife, and he paused to say to her: "Let him nurse and sleep till the sun comes back. He will be a man by harvest time." And, pointing to the great field which he was sowing with his assistants, he added: "All this will grow and ripen when our Gervais has begun to walk and talk--just look, see our conquest!" He was proud of it. From ten to fifteen acres of the plateau were now rid of the stagnant pools, cleared and levelled; and they spread out in a brown expanse, rich with humus, while the water-furrows which intersected them carried the streams to the neighboring slopes. Before cultivating those dry lands one must yet wait until the moisture should have penetrated and fertilized them. That would be the work of the future, and thus, by degrees, life would be diffused through the whole estate. "Evening is coming on," resumed Mathieu, "I must make haste." Then he set off again, throwing the seed with his broad rhythmical gesture. And while Marianne, gravely smiling, watched him go, it occurred to little Rose to follow in his track, and take up handfuls of earth, which she scattered to the wind. The three boys perceived her, and Blaise and Denis then hastened up, followed by Ambroise, all gleefully imitating their father's gesture, and darting hither and thither around him. And for a moment it was almost as if Mathieu with the sweep of his arm not only cast the seed of expected corn into the furrows, but also sowed those dear children, casting them here and there without cessation, so that a whole nation of little sowers should spring up and finish populating the world. Two months more went by, and January had arrived with a hard frost, when one day the Froments unexpectedly received a visit from Séguin and Beauchêne, who had come to try their luck at wild-duck shooting, among such of the ponds on the plateau as had not yet been drained. It was a Sunday, and the whole family was gathered in the roomy kitchen, cheered by a big fire. Through the clear windows one could see the far-spreading countryside, white with rime, and stiffly slumbering under that crystal casing, like some venerated saint awaiting April's resurrection. And, that day, when the visitors presented themselves, Gervais also was slumbering in his white cradle, rendered somnolent by the season, but plump even as larks are in the cold weather, and waiting, he also, simply for life's revival, in order to reappear in all the triumph of his acquired strength.