"You know grandpa and grandma don't approve of it," said Germain, taking
refuge behind the authority of the old people, like one who places but
slight reliance on his own.
But the child heard nothing. He began to cry in good earnest, saying
that as long as his father took little Marie, he could take him too. He
was told that they would have to go through great forests, that there
were many wicked animals there that ate little children, that Grise
would not carry three, that she said so when they started, and that in
the country they were going to there was no bed or supper for little
monkeys. All these excellent reasons did not convince Petit-Pierre; he
threw himself on the grass and rolled about, crying that his father did
not love him, and that, if he refused to take him with him, he would not
go back to the house day or night.
Germain's fatherly heart was as soft and weak as a woman's. His wife's
death, the care he had been compelled to bestow upon his little ones,
together with the thought that the poor motherless children needed to be
dearly loved, had combined to make it so, and such a hard struggle took
place within him, especially as he was ashamed of his weakness, and
tried to conceal his distress from little Marie, that the perspiration
stood out on his forehead and his eyes were bordered with red as if
they, too, were all ready to shed tears.
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