Petit-Pierre had a
full coat of blue-bottle colored cloth, and a cunning little red
waistcoat so short that it hardly came below his chin. The village
tailor had made the sleeves so tight that he could not put his little
arms together. And how proud he was! He had a round hat with a black and
gold buckle and a peacock's feather protruding jauntily from a tuft of
Guinea-hen's feathers. A bunch of flowers larger than his head covered
his shoulder, and ribbons floated down to his feet. The hemp-beater, who
was also the village barber and wig-maker, had cut his hair in a circle,
covering his head with a bowl and cutting off all that protruded, an
infallible method of guiding the scissors accurately. Thus accoutred, he
was less picturesque, surely, than with his long hair flying in the wind
and his lamb's fleece _a la_ Saint John the Baptist; but he had no such
idea, and everybody admired him, saying that he looked like a little
man. His beauty triumphed over everything, and, in sooth, over what
would not the incomparable beauty of childhood triumph?
His little sister Solange had, for the first time in her life, a real
cap instead of the little child's cap of Indian muslin that little girls
wear up to the age of two or three years. And such a cap! higher and
broader than the poor little creature's whole body.
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