Without him, what should I have
been?" And these dreams, beautiful, impossible, innocent, free of all
selfishness, full of heroical worship, were so closely about him as he
went that he was happy,--happy even on this sad anniversary of Alois's
saint's day, when he and Patrasche went home by themselves to the little
dark hut and the meal of black bread, whilst in the mill-house all the
children of the village sang and laughed, and ate the big round cakes of
Dijon and the almond gingerbread of Brabant, and danced in the great
barn to the light of the stars and the music of flute and fiddle.
"Never mind, Patrasche," he said, with his arms round the dog's neck as
they both sat in the door of the hut, where the sounds of the mirth at
the mill came down to them on the night-air,--"never mind. It shall all
be changed by and by."
He believed in the future: Patrasche, of more experience and of more
philosophy, thought that the loss of the mill-supper in the present was
ill compensated by dreams of milk and honey in some vague hereafter. And
Patrasche growled whenever he passed by Baas Cogez.
"This is Alois's name-day, is it not?" said the old man Daas that night
from the corner where he was stretched upon his bed of sacking.
The boy gave a gesture of assent: he wished that the old man's memory
had erred a little, instead of keeping such sure account.
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