Blue Boy

BLUE BOY by JEAN GIONO. CHAPTER I. Mof my age here remember the time when he road to Sainte-Tulle was bordered by a erried row of poplars. It is a Lombard cus om to plant poplars along the wayside. This road came, with its procession of trees, from the very heart of Piedmont. It straddled Mont Genevre, it flowed along the Alps, it caine all the way with its burden of long creaking carts and its knots of curly-haired countrymen who strode along with their songs and their hussar pantaloons flutter ing in the breeze. It came this far but no farther. It came with all its trees, its two-wheeled carts, and its Pied monteses, as far as the little hill called Toutes-Aures. Here, it looked back. From this point it saw in the hazy distance the misty peak of the Vaucluse, hot and muddy, steaming like cabbage soup. Here it was assailed by the odors of coarse vegetables, fertile land, and the plain. From here, on fine days, could be seen the still pallor of the whitewashed farmhouses and the slow