When Rémi wakes up, he learns that Vitalis had frozen to death. He himself remains alive only because Capi shared his warmth with him. He finds himself in the house of Pierre Acquin, a florist, and his family: two boys, Alexis and Benjamin, and two girls, Étienette and Lise, who is mute. The family takes Rémi and Capi in and they live there happily for two years. Then a hailstorm ruins the glass in the greenhouse, and Acquin is in debt to the man he borrowed from to establish his business. He cannot pay and has to enter a debtor's jail. The children go to their uncles and aunts, but none of them is willing or able to take in  Rémi, for he is “not family.” With his harp and Capi, he takes to the road again.