Chapter One

Jean-Marie

Jean-Marie Vianney walked up from the valley where he had settled his sheep for the night. It was beginning to rain. Within the walled-in farmyard on the hilltop the first patters made a sharp, jarring sound.

Jean-Marie ran. He skirted the pond in front of the house, pulling up short on the stoop to kick off his wooden shoes.

The door was open. In the yellow-lit kitchen he could see his mother going about her work. He watched her take some onions from under the cupboard and carry them to the big center table. Her shadow, cast by the fireplace, flickered over the opposite wall--over the dressed sheep hanging there, over a row of fish strung up to dry near the open stairway door.

"You are alone, Mama?" He stepped in.

Madame Vianney turned with a start, fixing him with eyes as soft as the rest of her was rough and ungainly. "So it's you, Jean-Marie." She fairly barked the words. "Yes, I am alone." She seated herself at the table and tackled the onions with a long knife. "Only alone is not the word. I have been deserted."

"Deserted, Mama? How could that be?" Jean-Marie stood by the hinged shelf under the window. The shelf was high. He had to stand on tiptoe to reac the soap lying alongside the washbowl. "When I left this morning, Papa said..."

He got no further. "Papa said!" His mother picked up his words in a mocking shout. "Ah, yes! This was the day your brother and your sisters were to stay home and help with the spring cleaning. That's what your papa told them this morning. But then what happened? Perhaps you can guess."

"No, Mama. What did happen?"

"Our neighbor dropped in, our Monsieur Vincent from down the road. He was on his way to Ecully. And why to Ecully?"

"Why, indeed, Mama?"

"Because there was a herd of cows for sale in Ecully today. That's why. And what kind of cows, Little One? Cows made of gold, to hear M'sieur Vincent tell it." Madame Vianney's shoulders shook, for she was always the first to chuckle at her own wit.

Jean-Marie chuckled too. Cows made of gold indeed! Only Mama could think of anything as delicious as that.

"Ah, yes, of gold!" Madame was still laughing. "And when your father heard about the cows, what did he do?"

"I suppose he wanted to see them too."

"Exactly, Little One. He, too, must go to Ecully. But is he content to go along with M'sieur Vincent? Ah, no. Never! Your brother and your little sisters must go with him. and so...!"

Madame Vianney's tone changed abruptly. Her voice sank to a whisper. Rather it sank to what she thought was a whisper, for no one ever had been able to convince Madame that hers was an unusually loud voice. Even her whisper filled every crack and corner of the big kitchen.

"Ma foi!" She clapped a hand to her mouth. "The racket I make. It is enough to wake the dead."

She leaped to her feet and hurried across the room. Softly, very softly, she closed the stairway door.

Jean-Marie stared at her with suddenly widened eyes. "Mama!" he pointed ceilingward. "We have a guest in the best bedroom?"

Madame Vianney nodded vigorously. "He came before your father left this morning. A little breakfast, then right to bed. He's sleeping still, I daresay. Unless of course, my racket has awakened him, thoughtless creature that I am!"

"Is it another priest, Mama?"

"Yes, Little One."

"I'm glad!"

"Glad!" Madame Vianney sped to the cupboard and grabbed a plate. At the fireplace she fished hunks of bacon out of a blackened pot and ladled them onto the platter. "Glad!" You will not feel glad when you see this one. The man is so tired. Ah, how worn and tired his poor face is!"

She placed the platter, generously filled now, on the center table. "No doubt the poor man is hungry. You will take him his supper."

"Yes, Mama. I shall be happy to."

Taking a yard-long loaf of bread from the cupboard, Madame Vianney laid it on the priest's platter. Then she got a bottle of wine.

"There now!" She turned, facing her son who was still standing at the far side of the table. "Jean-Marie!" Her manner was suddenly stern, almost sad. "Come here."

Hurrying around the table, Jean-Marie stumbled over a low stool. Madame Vianney's hands went to her hips. She leaned back, shaking with silent laughter.

"Jean-Marie!" she cried. "You are the clumsy one. If you were in the biggest field in the world and if there was only one object in the whole field, you would stumble over it. Would you not, my Little One?"

And, Jean-Marie having reached her, she lifted him with her strong hands, kissed him, and planted him on the stone floor again. Then she seated herself on the table bench and motioned to him to sit beside her. "One second before you go," she said. "I have a question to ask you."

"Yes, Mama." He sat down on the bench. Mama's face, he could see, was solemn again. "Jean-Marie!" She spoke softly now. "Whenever a priest stays with us I see you following him around. I see you looking at him with your heart in your eyes."

Madame Vianney paused. She uttered a sigh as sharp and loud as one of her whispers. "Tell me, Little One," she went on, "would you like to be a priest yourself when you grow up?"

Jean-Marie hung his head. For a second he had trouble finding his voice. It seemed to have got lost. "Oh, Mama," he said finally. "I... I... Is it wrong of me, Mama? To have such dreams, I mean?"

Madame Vianney smiled. "My question, Jean-Marie? What do you say to my question? Is it yourwish to become a priest?"

"Yes, Mama."

"Ah!" Madame Vianney looked away, far away. Her next words were directed to herself. "Only eight years old and laready he dreams of becoming a man of God!"

Jean-Marie tugged at her dress. "You have not answered my question, Mama. Is it bad of me - what I wish?"

"No, Jean-Marie." Madame Vianney sighed again. "It is not abd. Only..."

"Only what?"

"Only it is not easy being a priest in France now. You know how it is with our beloved country. Surely Papa has told you."

Jean-Marie nodded. Yes, Papa had told him. He had told him how, shortly before his own birth, bloody strife had torn France in two. The Revolution of 1789, Papa called it, because that's when it had all started. The French people had revolted - some of them, anyhow. They had cut off the head of King Louis the Sixteenth, and of his queen, too.

The new rulers of France, Papa said, were godless men. In Paris they had chased the priests out of Notre Dame Cathedral. They had set up an idol there, an idol they called the Goddess of Reason. Now here in Dardilly, and in all the other towns of France, the churches were closed. Mass was said in remote barns. Priests lived in hiding like that poor, tired man in the best bedroom upstairs. The priests had to go about disguised as carpenters or cooks. If they were caught, they were sent off to be galley slaves on French ships. Sometimes they were sent to a prison camp in a faraway country called Guiana.

"Yes, Mama," he said. "I know how it is."

"Well, then!" Madame Vianney leaped to her feet. "You must think hard before making a decision. You must think hard and pray. Now, off with you. Our holy guest will be starved. But wait..." Madame Vianney snatched an iron oil lamp from the table. She lighted it at the fire and handed it to her son. "There! Can you manage everything?"
"Of course."
Jean-Marie tucked the wine bottle under his arm. He held the platter in one hand, the oil lamp in the other. His mother held the door for him. He could hear it closing softly behind him as he climbed the steep stone stairs.