Norine was still
weeping, while Mathieu listened, mute with horror, and with his eyes
fixed upon the sleeping child.
"No doubt folks say less about Rougemont nowadays than they used to," the
girl resumed; "but there's still enough to disgust one. We know three or
four baby-farmers who are not worth their salt. The rule is to bring the
little ones up with the bottle, you know; and you'd be horrified if you
saw what bottles they are--never cleaned, always filthy, with the milk
inside them icy cold in the winter and sour in the summer. La Vimeux, for
her part, thinks that the bottle system costs too much, and so she feeds
her children on soup. That clears them off all the quicker. At La
Loiseau's you have to hold your nose when you go near the corner where
the little ones sleep--their rags are so filthy. As for La Gavette, she's
always working in the fields with her man, so that the three or four
nurslings that she generally has are left in charge of the grandfather,
an old cripple of seventy, who can't even prevent the fowls from coming
to peck at the little ones.* And things are worse even at La Cauchois',
for, as she has nobody at all to mind the children when she goes out
working, she leaves them tied in their cradles, for fear lest they should
tumble out and crack their skulls.
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