Mr. and Mrs. Campo did not exchange money; they survived from the farming and made all tools and repairs that were needed.  They only bought lye soap, bleach, sugar, fishing line and hooks for fishing. The rest was provided from labor of the land.

Once I had the honor of riding into town with Mr. Campo; our strongest most powerful black male Percheron needed some new shoes.  After grooming the beautiful beast and polishing his leather we hitched him to the big carriage and we went to the town blacksmith.  I held the reins for most of the way until we got near town.  My parents had a bakery only a couple of blocks away but watching the blacksmith at the forge making the horseshoes had all my attention.

The Campo’s must have purchased clothes at some point but not while I was there.  Mr. Campo wore some blue pants with suspenders and rubber boots during the day and would change to house shoes in the evening.

Mrs. Campo only wore long black dresses almost touching her ankles with buttons on the front.  I do not think she wore any underwear as I have seen her many times, while talking to another farmer in the middle of the road, just squat down and pee. 

The farms around us had tractors, we had Percheron horses. There were also cows for milk, chickens for eggs and food, pigs, geese, ducks and rabbits. 

Other kids were always  there, at least three or four others at any given time; everyone was at least 10 years older than I; all of them, except for me, had been abandoned by their parents and, in most cases, were hard core children that could not be placed in any other foster home.   

Every year in December each child received a new set of clothes from the French Government, according to sex and age.  They each would receive a large cardboard box containing one dress suit, two or three pairs of shoes and many everyday clothes; I remember feeling a bit envious of the other children as they opened their boxes. It was more than I would get as my parents did not send me a package. 

I walked everyday through dirt roads and woods to get to school at “Chasseneuil”.  In a typical day I would get up early in the morning, help clean the stable, perform an assortment of chores, and walk to school carrying my lunch.  After school I made the return walk then helped with the evening chores.  There were eggs to gather, cows to milk, well water to be drawn for the horses and fresh straw to be laid in each stall for the barn animals.  

All animals were kept in the stables during the night.

Sunday was rest day.  You could sleep, lie around or go fishing after the farm animals had been taken care of.  For an unknown reason to me to this very day the pigs were well treated on that day; each one actually received a hot meal; we would light a wood fire under a huge kettle and cook a mixture of wheat bran, corn, potatoes and “courgettes and bettraves” that most would know as zucchinis and sugar beets. I would string new potatoes with bailing wire and bury them in the ashes to cook for myself.  After a couple of hours you had the best baked potato ever. Jacqueline taught me how after I caught her eating some while she was tending the fire.  We were not allowed to eat between meals but I would have never snitched on her; she must have been 16 years old or so and she was very grateful that I kept our secret and she taught me many other things but I will not get into that now.

She was one of the happiest orphan girls there; she always sang aloud while feeding the animals.    

I was supposed to stay there for a year and one summer vacation.  I could not wait for that time to come; I would silently cry myself to sleep about every night.  

My father left my sister Genevieve one day and took her back the next; this was the highlight of my stay as I was finally seeing someone that was not a stranger to me.  She was horrified at the living conditions there and was glad to get out. 

I learned many things there; most were not taught with words but by observation as very few words were ever exchanged.  They mostly spoke “patois”, a slang language that only farmers spoke among themselves, which I learned to speak fluently while there.

I learned to cry in silence, I learned to conceal my emotions, my weaknesses to survive, to fish, hunt, and work and be independent and, finally, after a few months I learned not to cry anymore. 

It is hard for me to bring back and recall many of those past memories as many were buried deep in my mind, never to be brought back to consciousness, but I know it is alright now as I have made peace within myself and some understanding of it.  I will bypass much of it, but one segment that is memorable in my mind I will describe now.

Late November of that year was particularly harsh as it had been snowing a lot; the snow drifts inside the fortification walls were several feet high and all hands were busy everyday shoveling snow to make a pathway between the different stables.

When I came out of school on one particular evening the snow was really deep, probably knee high for me on the road, I had difficulty finding my way home that evening because most trails had been covered by snow.  I normally got to the Logis around 6:00 PM but that evening I was not close to home by that time, somehow an alert had been sent that I was lost and men riding horses went looking for me in the forest.  It was almost total darkness when I heard a man riding a horse coming down the trail toward me; I hid behind a tree in the forest and watched him ride by. He had a rifle and a long sword on the side of his horse, his shoulders and hat were covered with snow, I knew that he was looking for me to kill.  I got home sometimes before midnight that night, cold, frozen and scared.  Everyone rejoiced in seeing me when I made it to the Logis but my parents were not there as I had hoped. 

While I was still warming myself in front of the fireplace two men came in, I had heard the sound of horses outside; they wore heavy clothes and had shotguns strapped on their shoulders.  After removing their coats they joined me at the fireplace.  I soon found out that they were Game Wardens making sure that I had returned home safely. 

One of my duties every evening was to bring up a shotgun and a bandolier of shells up to the bedroom when I went to bed and bring it back downstairs in the morning.

Five side- by- side 12- gauge shotguns hung by their shoulder straps to a coat rack on the farthest side of the main room, each with their own bandolier of shells; only a particular one was selected to go up and down from the bedroom. 

My bed was in an alcove in the Campo’s bedroom separated with a heavy curtain. Wolves were still prevalent in those days so I was told, but I later learned that it was mostly to protect themselves from vagrants trying to steal poultries and other goods.  A few times in the middle of the night the dogs would start barking and Mr. Campo would get up and open the window that overlooked the fortification walls and fire a warning shot. 

Later that year right before Christmas I woke up with the sound of the dogs barking and of Mr. Campo getting up to see what was happening. It was a car going down our dirt road in the middle of the night; he later closed back the window and put the shotgun back next to his bed and went downstairs.

Mrs. Campo had not wakened so I quietly got up and looked out the window overlooking the fortification.  I saw my father’s truck standing outside the walls.  The main entrance to the courtyard was closed with heavy wooden doors every evenings, another small gated door allowed you to walk outside,  He was handing Mr. Campo some boxes, and soon the truck was going back in the other direction.  It was a very cold night, the moon was shining directly thru the window and into the night pan which was partially filled with bleach water and pee; I noticed that it was solid ice. 

The next day was Christmas, so much for the Santa story!  That morning I opened my gift which was a school bag and some paper and pencils.  My father had also brought some fruits that I had never seen before and which were for everyone to share; it was a rare bounty which included oranges and bananas!  Tropical fruit was almost nonexistent in France at that time and very expensive!  This must have been when France first started to import fruits from Algeria or other countries with a warmer climate.   

Each person was allowed to choose one item; I selected an orange.   I had never seen one before that day and chose it believing it to be an ordinary ball.  I quickly ran outside to play with it and promptly dropped it onto the ground giving it a vigorous kick!  Can you imagine my surprise when it burst into pieces?  I’m sure the look on my face must have been hilarious!  

Finally the school year was over and summer was coming to an end. The only thing I could think of was that I was going to be reunited with my parents, brothers and sister.  Toward the end I remember counting the days and hours to when this ordeal of hell would finally end for me.  The day finally arrived; my Father and Mother were coming to get me and take me home in the morning; I do not think that I slept much that night. 

It was a Sunday morning at the end of the summer, and I sat at the entrance of the old castle for hours listening for the sound of a car.  I had opened the main entrance door early that morning, It was a little before noon when  I heard the rumble of a truck coming down the old dirt road; I knew the time because on Sunday’s the city church would ring the bells at noon time and we could hear them, it would ring 12 times and Mr. Campo would adjust his pocket watch and it was before the bells had rung;  Cars  came down once or twice a month but rarely on Sunday’s so I knew that it had to be the sound of my Father’s truck approaching.

The moment I had prayed for every night had arrived. 

As I looked down the road I recognized the black delivery truck that my Father used to bring bread to the country farmers. 

When a car came around it was the most exciting thing for everyone but this one was special to me, it was going to take me away to my Mama’s and my Papa’s home. 

When the truck veered into the courtyard I was ready to jump in and go. The Campo’s came out and my Mother and Father started talking to them.  I remember being impatient and wanting to put some distance between that place and myself, but as a good polite boy I listened to the conversation going on.  After all, my parents had become strangers to me just as much or more as the Campo’s were so I was shy to any adults. 

The dialog went something like this:

The Campo’s: “Jean-Louis is a very good boy and he likes it very much here”, they said. “We will miss him terribly if he left!  If he wants to stay longer it is all right with us”! 

My Mother to me:  “Do you like it here? It is alright for you stay here another year”?

The Campos: “You like us do you not? You like it here”? 

Even as a child I already knew what answer they wanted to hear from me. 

My response: “Yes”. 

I then took off running into the woods until I could no longer breathe.  A few minutes later I heard the sound of the old truck going away down the road. 

The foster children there always liked me because I felt a lot of compassion for them.  They had nowhere to go and I had parents to go to; but on that day I am sure I felt worse than any of them, I had parents that did not want me.  My parents had become part of my imagination, it was just a dream and I was just another orphan. Knowing my disappointment, the orphan girls tried to console me but I was not ready to be pitied.  

I believe that on that day my family bond was severed forever.  I had nothing to cry for and nothing to pray for anymore each night.

A few days later I learned that my parents had left the Campo’s a few francs for me to spend at the town’s fair and that they would see me there. (In those days three francs was quite a handsome amount of money for a kid to spend at a fair). 

A couple of weeks later on a Saturday evening the Campos and I walked to town to go to the fair.  Again I was the envy of the other foster children as they were not allowed to join us but none were resentful toward me, just happy that I would get to see my parents.  My excitement was very high, I was going to see my parents.  In my young little mind I almost felt ashamed about the way I had felt about them after they left me behind feeling no different than any of the other orphans at the Campo’s. 

We walked thru crowds of people until we finally joined with my parents.  The Campo’s had probably spent about one half a franc on me and they told me that I had spent all the money that my parents had given them.

I do not remember having any contacts with my Father but I do remember my Mother giving me a hug and it felt no different than the one I would get from the nearby farmers, I know that I was only about five years old but I knew that my survival depended from now on between myself and the rest of the world around me.  So from that day I instinctively formed a stronger bond with the foster children at the Logis and relied more on them for the comfort that I needed.  I was the youngest of all of them and was loved and treated by them as a favorite little brother.

Eating etiquette at the Logis de St Vincent:

There were no spoken or written rules but they were there all the same at the Logis, but break one you would most likely never do it again.

The dining area was a huge room with vaulted ceilings, Roman style. The floor was made of little white rocks fitted together and probably embedded in clay.  One door with glass panes let you in from outside thru two or three feet of a stone wall.  There was a small window in one corner of the room where a bucket of well water sat in a dry sink with a kettle and a bar of lye soap to wash your hands.  Forget to wash your hands and you were not going to eat that day.  It was not out of hygiene but because you were going to touch your piece of bread and that was being disrespectful to something sacred to them. 

The large wooden table was probably fifteen feet long and almost half as wide.  It was positioned between a walk-in fireplace and a wood burning cooking stove.

Two long benches were on each side of the table.  Mr. and Mrs. Campo always sat on one end of the bench facing each other.  No one ever sat at those places even off meal time; try it and you would pick yourself off the floor.

The ends of the table were reserved for honored guests, and chairs with armrests would be set there for those rare occasions.

A large sugar bowl sat in the middle of the table with the salt and pepper; one small sugar cube per person was allocated each day at breakfast, they knew exactly how many cubes of sugar there were.  Sometimes if they were going to be away for an extended period of time they would catch a fly and put it in the sugar bowl and when they would return, release the fly; I saw Mrs. Campo once releasing a fly when she was not aware of my presence in the room.  If there were not a fly in it, someone was going to get three or four lashes of the dreaded belt.

Physical punishment was never done at the time of the offense; it was always at the end of the day after you took your clothes off before going to bed. That gave you the rest of the day to think about it and also you might break another rule before day’s end.

No one but the Campos was allowed to talk at the table; they carried on a conversation about their daily routine like you did not exist; you only spoke when you were asked a direct question.

The big round wheel of country bread always sat at the end of the table near Mr. Campo.  Only he was allowed to cut it; he would cut a slice for you according to your size for that meal; you were not allowed to ask for seconds.  Whenever a new loaf was first started he would turn it over and make the sign of the cross with his large pocket knife before ever starting to cut it; afterward the bread was never allowed to be turned over, it always rested crust side up.

After supper each evening each of the three dogs they owned, which were chained around different corners of the fortification walls, were also allowed one slice of bread each, this was my duty every evening to feed them as I was trusted not to eat the bread for myself.

Twice a year at a set date the Marquis of St Vincent would arrive chauffeured in a long black limousine, once before harvest and again a few months after.  He probably owned all the farms around that area and was addressed as Monsieur Le Marquis.

The special vinyl table cloth would be laid on the table; the armrest chair put at the end of the table, the dishes would be rewashed just before dinner.  He would always come in late afternoon and stay for dinner.

I wished he would have come more often as aside of harvest days when all the surrounding farmers joined in to thrash the wheat crop.  It was the best meals of the year.  Chickens, ducks, and a goose would have been killed and readied the day before; thick slices of salt-cured ham smoked in the fireplace would also be served with a multitude of vegetables.

We would stand outside the house in a line when Monsieur Le Marquis would arrive; the chauffeur would let him out of the car and he would walk past us with the aid of a silver engraved cane.  Each one of us would say our name and say “bonsoir Monsieur Le Marquis”and he would just slightly bow his head as a reply.  The first time I encountered the old geezer after I said my name, as I had been advised to do, he stopped and said: “Ha! Jean-Louis, your Father he is the baker.”  I guess a baker held a lot of respect in those days. (I hope my father washed his hand before making the bread.)

We would be called in right before dinner was to be served, leaving the chauffeur behind at attention to the side of the limo.  No one ever broke a rule during those meals.  I have often wondered what the punishment would have been.

At every meal you ate in silence and when finished you remained seated until Mr. and Mrs. Campo finished eating and conversing, and they got up from their seats. 

The next year was a lot easier for me, I no longer missed my parents, I would no longer try to catch a glance of my Father when he would come to deliver bread.  I actually preferred to see the other bimonthly travelling groceries man. He would open doors all around his truck and expose his goods; I could look and see colorful things in there and many boxes of candies and a few toys mixed with the normal grocery supplies.

Later during that year, my Father stopped coming to deliver bread. They would send one of the older orphans to town to bring back the bread, I never wondered why and it never entered my mind to ask why he did not come any more.

Once a week on Saturday the drunken postal man would come to deliver the mail riding a bicycle.  He would stop at the Logis if he had mail or not, which was most often the case.  He normally would arrive there around 10 AM and would stay for about an hour; he would eat breakfast and have a few glasses of wine.

I got to like him; he would tell me stories of the townspeople and even promise to let me ride his bicycle when I got older.  It was through him that I learned that my parents had moved away to another town.  They now had a bakery and a pastry store at “La Rochefoucauld”, a town further away from me.  He would playfully tease me telling how lucky I was to have parents that had a pastry store that I would be able to eat all the pastries I would want someday.  I had heard of pastries but did not know what they were but it sounded like something that I would want.

Life was good there, I had adapted fully to my new life.  I went to school, did my chores and never caused any problems; I was always shown as a model for the other orphans.  Once a month I got a small allowance; I always spent it on fishing hooks and fishing supplies. We grew our own cane poles.

Then one day late that summer, I heard the rumbling of a car down the road.

It was my Father coming to take me home.  I had not been told about it.  I said bye to the Campos and we drove away.  Later I found out the Campos were retiring and moving to a small village.  Maybe I was lucky, maybe I was not!

The next thing I remember is sitting at a table and a lady that was my Mother asking me what I most wanted.

I replied, “I want some pastries”!

Later she came back with a full tray of French pastries. I just sat there looking at them.  All that time my Mother was staring at me.  She finally asked me: “Well, are you going to eat them?” I just stared a while longer.  No, I did not want to eat them.  I burst out crying, as orphans often do. Now I had to adjust to a new foster home!

John.