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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st
edition, 1998
BY
Copyright, 1894,
by KATE CHOPIN.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
ONE agreeable afternoon in late autumn two young men stood together on Canal Street, closing a conversation that had evidently begun within the club-house which they had just quitted.
"There 's big money in it, Offdean," said the elder of the two. "I would n't have you touch it if there was n't. Why, they tell me Patchly 's pulled a hundred thousand out of the concern a'ready."
"That may be," replied Offdean, who had been politely attentive to the words addressed to him, but whose face bore a look indicating that he was closed to conviction. He leaned back upon the clumsy stick which he carried, and continued: "It 's all true, I dare say, Fitch; but a decision of that sort would mean more to me than you 'd believe
if I were to tell you. The beggarly twenty-five thousand 's all I have, and I want to sleep with it under my pillow a couple of months at least before I drop it into a slot."
"You 'll drop it into Harding & Offdean's mill to grind out the pitiful two and a half per cent commission racket; that 's what you 'll do in the end, old fellow - see if you don't."
"Perhaps I shall; but it 's more than likely I shan't. We 'll talk about it when I get back. You know I 'm off to north Louisiana in the morning" -
"No! What the deuce" -
"Oh, business of the firm."
"Write me from Shreveport, then; or wherever it is."
"Not so far as that. But don't expect to hear from me till you see me. I can't say when that will be."
Then they shook hands and parted. The rather portly Fitch boarded a Prytania Street car, and Mr. Wallace Offdean hurried to the bank in order to replenish his portemonnaie, which had been materially lightened at the club through the medium of unpropitious jack-pots and bobtail flushes.
He was a sure-footed fellow, this young
Offdean, despite an occasional fall in slippery places. What he wanted, now that he had reached his twenty-sixth year and his inheritance, was to get his feet well planted on solid ground, and to keep his head cool and clear.
With his early youth he had had certain shadowy intentions of shaping his life on intellectual lines. That is, he wanted to; and he meant to use his faculties intelligently, which means more than is at once apparent. Above all, he would keep clear of the maelstroms of sordid work and senseless pleasure in which the average American business man may be said alternately to exist, and which reduce him, naturally, to a rather ragged condition of soul.
Offdean had done, in a temperate way, the usual things which young men do who happen to belong to good society, and are possessed of moderate means and healthy instincts. He had gone to college, had traveled a little at home and abroad, had frequented society and the clubs, and had worked in his uncle's commission-house; in all of which employments he had expended much time and a modicum of energy.
But he felt all through that he was simply
in a preliminary stage of being, one that would develop later into something tangible and intelligent, as he liked to tell himself. With his patrimony of twenty-five thousand dollars came what he felt to be the turning-point in his life, - the time when it behooved him to choose a course, and to get himself into proper trim to follow it manfully and consistently.
When Messrs. Harding & Offdean determined to have some one look after what they called "a troublesome piece of land on Red River," Wallace Offdean requested to be intrusted with that special commission of land-inspector.
A shadowy, ill-defined piece of land in an unfamiliar part of his native State, might, he hoped, prove a sort of closet into which he could retire and take counsel with his inner and better self.
What Harding &
Offdean had called a
piece of land on Red River was better
known to the people of Natchitoches 1 parish
as "the old Santien place."
In the days of Lucien
Santien and his
hundred slaves, it had been very splendid in
the wealth of its thousand acres. But the
war did its work, of course. Then Jules
Santien was not the man to mend such damage
as the war had left. His three sons were
even less able than he had been to bear the
weighty inheritance of debt that came to
them with the dismantled plantation; so it
was a deliverance to all when Harding &
Offdean, the New Orleans creditors, relieved
them of the place with the responsibility
and indebtedness which its ownership had
entailed.
Hector, the eldest, and Grégoire, the
youngest of these Santien boys, had gone
each his way. Placide alone tried to keep a
desultory foothold upon the land which had
been his and his forefathers'. But he too
was given to wandering - within a radius,
however, which rarely took him so far that
he could not reach the old place in an
afternoon of travel, when he felt so inclined.
There were acres of open land cultivated
in a slovenly fashion, but so rich that cotton
and corn and weed and "cocoa-grass" grew
rampant if they had only the semblance of a
chance. The negro quarters were at the far
end of this open stretch, and consisted of a
long row of old and very crippled cabins.
Directly back of these a dense wood grew,
and held much mystery, and witchery of
sound and shadow, and strange lights when
the sun shone. Of a gin-house there was
left scarcely a trace; only so much as could
serve as inadequate shelter to the miserable
dozen cattle that huddled within it in
wintertime.
A dozen rods or more from the Red
River bank stood the dwelling-house, and
nowhere upon the plantation had time touched
so sadly as here. The steep, black, moss-covered
roof sat like an extinguisher above
the eight large rooms that it covered, and
had come to do its office so poorly that
not more than half of these were habitable
when the rain fell. Perhaps the live-oaks
made too thick and close a shelter about it.
The verandas were long and broad and
inviting; but it was well to know that the
brick pillar was crumbling away under one
corner, that the railing was insecure at
another, and that still another had long ago
been condemned as unsafe. But that, of
course, was not the corner in which Wallace
Offdean sat the day following his arrival
at the Santien place. This one was
comparatively secure. A gloire-de-Dijon,
thick-leaved and charged with huge creamy
blossoms, grew and spread here like a hardy
vine upon the wires that stretched from post
to post. The scent of the blossoms was
delicious; and the stillness that surrounded
Offdean agreeably fitted his humor that
asked for rest. His old host, Pierre Manton,
the manager of the place, sat talking to
him in a soft, rhythmic monotone; but his
speech was hardly more of an interruption
than the hum of the bees among the roses.
He was saying: -
"If it would been me myse'f, I would
nevair grumb'. W'en a chimbly breck, I
take one, two de boys; we patch 'im up bes'
we know how. We keep on men' de fence',
firs' one place, anudder; an' if it would n'
be fer dem mule' of Lacroix -
tonnerre!
I don' wan' to talk 'bout dem mule'. But
me, I would n' grumb'. It 's Euphrasie,
hair. She say dat 's all fool nonsense fer
rich man lack Hardin'-Offde'n to let a piece
o' lan' goin' lack dat."
"Euphrasie?" questioned Offdean, in
some surprise; for he had not yet heard of
any such person.
"Euphrasie, my li'le chile. Escuse me
one minute," Pierre added, remembering
that he was in his shirt-sleeves, and rising
to reach for his coat, which hung upon a peg
near by. He was a small, square man, with
mild, kindly face, brown and roughened
from healthy exposure. His hair hung gray
and long beneath the soft felt hat that he
wore. When he had seated himself,
Offdean asked: -
"Where is your little child? I haven't
seen her," inwardly marveling that a little
child should have uttered such words of
wisdom as those recorded of her.
"She yonder to Mme. Duplan on Cane
River. I been kine espectin' hair sence
yistiday - hair an' Placide," casting an
unconscious glance down the long plantation
road. "But Mme. Duplan she nevair want to
let Euphrasie go. You know it 's hair raise'
Euphrasie sence hair po' ma die', Mr. Offde'n.
She teck dat li'le chile, an' raise it,
sem lack she raisin' Ninette. But it 's mo'
'an a year now Euphrasie say dat 's all fool
nonsense to leave me livin' 'lone lack dat,
wid nuttin' 'cep' dem nigger' - an' Placide
once a w'ile. An' she came yair bossin'!
My goodness!" The old man chuckled,
"Dat 's hair been writin' all dem letter' to
Hardin'-Offde'n. If it would been me
myse'f" -
Placide seemed to have
had a foreboding
of ill from the start when he found that
Euphrasie began to interest herself in the
condition of the plantation. This ill feeling
voiced itself partly when he told her it was
none of her lookout if the place went to the
dogs. "It 's good enough for Joe Duplan
to run things en
grand seigneur, Euphrasie;
that 's w'at 's spoiled you."
Placide might have done much single-handed
to keep the old place in better trim, if
he had wished. For there was no one more
clever than he to do a hand's turn at any
and every thing. He could mend a saddle or
bridle while he stood whistling a tune. If a
wagon required a brace or a bolt, it was
nothing for him to step into a shop and turn
out one as deftly as the most skilled blacksmith.
Any one seeing him at work with
plane and rule and chisel would have declared
him a born carpenter. And as for
mixing paints, and giving a fine and lasting
coat to the side of a house or barn, he had
not his equal in the country.
This last talent he exercised little in his
native parish. It was in a neighboring one,
where he spent the greater part of his time,
that his fame as a painter was established.
There, in the village of Orville, he owned a
little shell of a house, and during odd times
it was Placide's great delight to tinker at
this small home, inventing daily new beauties
and conveniences to add to it. Lately it had
become a precious possession to him, for in
the spring he was to bring Euphrasie there
as his wife.
Maybe it was because of his talent, and his
indifference in turning it to good, that he was
often called "a no-account creole " by thriftier
souls than himself. But no-account creole
or not, painter, carpenter, blacksmith,
and whatever else he might be at times, he
was a Santien always, with the best blood in
the country running in his veins. And many
thought his choice had fallen in very low
places when he engaged himself to marry
little Euphrasie, the daughter of old Pierre
Manton and a problematic mother a good
deal less than nobody.
Placide might have married almost any
one, too; for it was the easiest thing in the
world for a girl to fall in love with him, -
sometimes the hardest thing in the world not
to, he was such a splendid fellow, such a
careless, happy, handsome fellow. And he
did not seem to mind in the least that young
men who had grown up with him were
lawyers now, and planters, and members of
Shakespeare clubs in town. No one ever
expected anything quite so humdrum as that
of the Santien boys. As youngsters, all three
had been the despair of the country schoolmaster;
then of the private tutor who had come to
shackle them, and had failed in his
design. And the state of mutiny and revolt
that they had brought about at the college of
Grand Coteau when their father, in a moment
of weak concession to prejudice, had
sent them there, is a thing yet remembered
in Natchitoches.
And now Placide was going to marry
Euphrasie. He could not recall the time when
he had not loved her. Somehow he felt that
it began the day when he was six years old,
and Pierre, his father's overseer, had called
him from play to come and make her
acquaintance. He was permitted to hold her
in his arms a moment, and it was with silent
awe that he did so. She was the first white-faced
baby he remembered having seen, and
he straightway believed she had been sent
to him as a birthday gift to be his little
playmate and friend. If he loved her, there was
no great wonder; every one did, from the
time she took her first dainty step, which
was a brave one, too.
She was the gentlest little lady ever born
in old Natchitoches parish, and the happiest
and merriest. She never cried or whimpered
for a hurt. Placide never did, why should
she? When she wept, it was when she did
what was wrong, or when he did; for that
was to be a coward, she felt. When she
was ten, and her mother was dead, Mme.
Duplan, the Lady Bountiful of the parish,
had driven across from her plantation, Les
Chêniers, to old Pierre's very door, and
there had gathered up this precious little
maid, and carried her away, to do with as
she would.
And she did with the child much as she
herself had been done by. Euphrasie went
to the convent soon, and was taught all gentle
things, the pretty arts of manner and speech
that the ladies of the "Sacred Heart" can
teach so well. When she quitted them, she
left a trail of love behind her; she always
did.
Placide continued to see her at intervals,
and to love her always. One day he told
her so; he could not help it. She stood
under one of the big oaks at Les
Chêniers.
It was midsummer time, and the tangled
sunbeams had enmeshed her in a golden
fretwork. When he saw her standing there in
the sun's glamour, which was like a glory
upon her, he trembled. He seemed to see
her for the first time. He could only look
at her, and wonder why her hair gleamed so,
as it fell in those thick chestnut waves about
her ears and neck. He had looked a thousand
times into her eyes before; was it only
to-day they held that sleepy, wistful light in
them that invites love? How had he not
seen it before? Why had he not known
before that her lips were red, and cut in
fine, strong curves? that her flesh was like
cream? How had he not seen that she was
beautiful? "Euphrasie," he said, taking
her hands, - "Euphrasie, I love you!"
She looked at him with a little astonishment.
"Yes; I know, Placide." She spoke
with the soft intonation of the creole.
"No, you don't, Euphrasie. I did n' know
myse'f how much tell jus' now."
Perhaps he did only what was natural
when he asked her next if she loved him.
He still held her hands. She looked
thoughtfully away, unready to answer.
"Do you love anybody better?" he asked
jealously. "Any one jus' as well as me?"
"You know I love papa better, Placide,
an' Maman Duplan jus' as well."
Yet she saw no reason why she should not
be his wife when he asked her to.
Only a few months before this, Euphrasie
had returned to live with her father. The
step had cut her off from everything that
girls of eighteen call pleasure. If it cost
her one regret, no one could have guessed it.
She went often to visit the Duplans,
however; and Placide had gone to bring her
home from Les Chêniers
the very day of
Offdean's arrival at the plantation.
They had traveled by rail to Natchitoches,
where they found Pierre's no-top buggy
awaiting them, for there was a drive of five
miles to be made through the pine woods
before the plantation was reached. When
they were at their journey's end, and had
driven some distance up the long plantation
road that led to the house in the rear,
Euphrasie exclaimed: -
"W'y, there 's some one on the gall'ry
with papa, Placide!"
"Yes; I see."
"It looks like some one f'om town. It
mus' be Mr. Gus Adams; but I don' see his
horse."
" 'T ain't no one f'om town that I know.
It 's boun' to be some one f'om the city."
"Oh, Placide, I should n' wonder if Harding
& Offdean have sent some one to look
after the place at las'," she exclaimed a little
excitedly.
They were near enough to see that the
stranger was a young man of very pleasing
appearance. Without apparent reason, a
chilly depression took hold of Placide.
"I tole you it was n' yo' lookout f'om
the firs', Euphrasie," he said to her.
Wallace Offdean
remembered Euphrasie
at once as a young person whom he had
assisted to a very high perch on his club
house balcony the previous Mardi Gras
night. He had thought her pretty and
attractive then, and for the space of a day or
two wondered who she might be. But he
had not made even so fleeting an impression
upon her; seeing which, he did not refer to
any former meeting when Pierre introduced
them.
She took the chair which he offered her,
and asked him very simply when he had
come, if his journey had been pleasant, and
if he had not found the road from
Natchitoches in very good condition.
"Mr. Offde'n only come sence yistiday,
Euphrasie," interposed Pierre. "We been
talk' plenty 'bout de place, him an' me. I
been tole 'im all 'bout it - va! An' if Mr.
Offde'n want to escuse me now, I b'lieve I go
he'p Placide wid dat hoss an' buggy;" and
he descended the steps slowly, and walked
lazily with his bent figure in the direction of
the shed beneath which Placide had driven,
after depositing Euphrasie at the door.
"I dare say you find it strange," began
Offdean, "that the owners of this place have
neglected it so long and shamefully. But
you see," he added, smiling, "the management
of a plantation does n't enter into the
routine of a commission merchant's business.
The place has already cost them more than
they hope to get from it, and naturally they
have n't the wish to sink further money in
it." He did not know why he was saying
these things to a mere girl, but he went on:
"I 'm authorized to sell the plantation if I
can get anything like a reasonable price for
it." Euphrasie laughed in a way that made
him uncomfortable, and he thought he would
say no more at present, - not till he knew
her better, anyhow.
"Well," she said in a very decided
fashion, "I know you 'll fin' one or two persons
in town who 'll begin by running down
the lan' till you would n' want it as a gif',
Mr. Offdean; and who will en' by offering
to take it off yo' han's for the promise of a
song, with the lan' as security again."
They both laughed, and Placide, who was
approaching, scowled. But before he reached
the steps his instinctive sense of the courtesy
due to a stranger had banished the look of
ill humor. His bearing was so frank and
graceful, and his face such a marvel of
beauty, with its dark, rich coloring and soft
lines, that the well-clipped and groomed Offdean
felt his astonishment to be more than
half admiration when they shook hands. He
knew that the Santiens had been the former
owners of this plantation which he had come
to look after, and naturally he expected some
sort of coöperation or direct assistance from
Placide in his efforts at reconstruction. But
Placide proved non-committal, and exhibited
an indifference and ignorance concerning the
condition of affairs that savored surprisingly
of affectation.
He had positively nothing to say so long
as the talk touched upon matters concerning
Offdean's business there. He was only
a little less taciturn when more general
topics were approached, and directly after
supper he saddled his horse and went away.
He would not wait until morning, for the
moon would be rising about midnight, and
he knew the road as well by night as by
day. He knew just where the best fords
were across the bayous, and the safest paths
across the hills. He knew for a certainty
whose plantations he might traverse, and
whose fences he might derail. But, for that
matter, he would derail what he liked, and
cross where he pleased.
Euphrasie walked with him to the shed
when he went for his horse. She was
bewildered at his sudden determination, and
wanted it explained.
"I don' like that man," he admitted
frankly; "I can't stan' him. Sen' me word
w'en he 's gone, Euphrasie."
She was patting and rubbing the pony,
which knew her well. Only their dim outlines
were discernible in the thick darkness.
"You are foolish, Placide," she replied
in French. "You would do better to stay
and help him. No one knows the place so
well as you" -
"The place is n't mine, and it 's nothing
to me," he answered bitterly. He took her
hands and kissed them passionately, but
stooping, she pressed her lips upon his
forehead.
"Oh!" he exclaimed rapturously, "you
do love me, Euphrasie?" His arms were
holding her, and his lips brushing her hair
and cheeks as they eagerly but ineffectually
sought hers.
"Of co'se I love you, Placide. Ain't I
going to marry you nex' spring? You foolish
boy!" she replied, disengaging herself
from his clasp.
When he was mounted, he stooped to say,
"See yere, Euphrasie, don't have too much
to do with that d - Yankee."
"But, Placide, he isn't a - a - 'd -
Yankee; ' he 's a Southerner, like you, - a
New Orleans man."
"Oh, well, he looks like a Yankee." But
Placide laughed, for he was happy since
Euphrasie had kissed him, and he whistled
softly as he urged his horse to a canter and
disappeared in the darkness.
The girl stood awhile with clasped hands,
trying to understand a little sigh that rose
in her throat, and that was not one of regret.
When she regained the house, she went directly
to her room, and left her father talking
to Offdean in the quiet and perfumed night.
When two weeks had
passed, Offdean
felt very much at home with old Pierre and
his daughter, and found the business that
had called him to the country so engrossing
that he had given no thought to those personal
questions he had hoped to solve in going
there.
The old man had driven him around in the
no-top buggy to show him how dismantled
the fences and barns were. He could see
for himself that the house was a constant
menace to human life. In the evenings the
three would sit out on the gallery and talk
of the land and its strong points and its
weak ones, till he came to know it as if it
had been his own.
Of the rickety condition of the cabins he
got a fair notion, for he and Euphrasie
passed them almost daily on horseback, on
their way to the woods. It was seldom that
their appearance together did not rouse
comment among the darkies who happened
to be loitering about.
La Chatte, a broad black woman with
ends of white wool sticking out from under
her tignon, stood with arms akimbo watching
them as they disappeared one day. Then
she turned and said to a young woman who
sat in the cabin door: -
"Dat young man, ef he want to listen to
me, he gwine quit dat ar caperin' roun' Miss
'Phrasie."
The young woman in the doorway laughed,
and showed her white teeth, and tossed her
head, and fingered the blue beads at her
throat, in a way to indicate that she was in
hearty sympathy with any question that
touched upon gallantry.
"Law! La Chatte, you ain' gwine hinder
a gemman f'om payin' intentions to a young
lady w'en he a mine to."
"Dat all I got to say," returned La
Chatte, seating herself lazily and heavily on
the doorstep. "Nobody don' know dem
Sanchun boys bettah 'an I does. Did n' I
done part raise 'em? W'at you reckon my
ha'r all tu'n plumb w'ite dat-a-way ef it
warn't dat Placide w'at done it?"
"How come he make yo' ha'r tu'n w'ite,
La Chatte?"
"Dev'ment, pu' dev'ment, Rose. Did n'
he come in dat same cabin one day, w'en he
warn't no bigga 'an dat Pres'dent Hayes
w'at you sees gwine 'long de road wid dat
cotton sack 'crost 'im? He come an' sets
down by de do', on dat same t'ree-laigged
stool w'at you 's a-settin' on now, wid his
gun in his han', an' he say: 'La Chatte, I
wants some croquignoles, an' I wants 'em
quick, too.' I 'low: 'G' 'way f'om dah, boy.
Don' you see I 's flutin' yo' ma's petticoat?'
He say: 'La Chatte, put 'side dat ar flutin'-i'on
an' dat ar petticoat;' an' he cock dat
gun an' p'int it to my head. 'Dar de ba'el,'
he say; 'git out dat flour, git out dat butta
an' dat aigs; step roun' dah, ole 'oman.
Dis heah gun don' quit yo' head tell dem
croquignoles is on de table, wid a w'ite tableclof
an' a cup o' coffee.' Ef I goes to de
ba'el, de gun 's a-p'intin'. Ef I goes to de
fiah, de gun 's a-p'intin'. W'en I rolls out
de dough, de gun 's a-p'intin'; an' him neva
say nuttin', an' me a-trim'lin' like ole Uncle
Noah w'en de mistry strike 'im."
"Lordy! w'at you reckon he do ef he
tu'n roun' an' git mad wid dat young gemman
f'om de city?"
"I don' reckon nuttin'; I knows w'at he
gwine do, - same w'at his pa done."
"W'at his pa done, La Chatte?"
"G' 'long 'bout yo' business; you 's axin'
too many questions." And La Chatte arose
slowly and went to gather her party-colored
wash that hung drying on the jagged and
irregular points of a dilapidated picket-fence.
But the darkies were mistaken in supposing
that Offdean was paying attention to
Euphrasie. Those little jaunts in the wood
were purely of a business character. Offdean
had made a contract with a neighboring
mill for fencing, in exchange for a certain
amount of uncut timber. He had made it
his work - with the assistance of Euphrasie -
to decide upon what trees he wanted felled,
and to mark such for the woodman's axe.
If they sometimes forgot what they had
gone into the woods for, it was because there
was so much to talk about and to laugh
about. Often, when Offdean had blazed a
tree with the sharp hatchet which he carried
at his pommel, and had further discharged
his duty by calling it "a fine piece of timber,"
they would sit upon some fallen and
decaying trunk, maybe to listen to a chorus
of mocking-birds above their heads, or to
exchange confidences, as young people will.
Euphrasie thought she had never heard
any one talk quite so pleasantly as Offdean
did. She could not decide whether it was
his manner or the tone of his voice, or the
earnest glance of his dark and deep-set blue
eyes, that gave such meaning to everything
he said; for she found herself afterward
thinking of his every word.
One afternoon it rained in torrents, and
Rose was forced to drag buckets and tubs
into Offdean's room to catch the streams
that threatened to flood it. Euphrasie said
she was glad of it; now he could see for
himself.
And when he had seen for himself, he
went to join her out on a corner of the gallery,
where she stood with a cloak around
her, close up against the house. He leaned
against the house, too, and they stood thus
together, gazing upon as desolate a scene as
it is easy to imagine.
The whole landscape was gray, seen
through the driving rain. Far away the
dreary cabins seemed to sink and sink to
earth in abject misery. Above their heads
the live-oak branches were beating with sad
monotony against the blackened roof. Great
pools of water had formed in the yard, which was
deserted by every living thing; for the little
darkies had scampered away to their cabins, the
dogs had run to their kennels, and the hens were
puffing big with wretchedness under the scanty
shelter of a fallen wagon-body.
Certainly a situation to make a young man
groan with ennui, if he is used to his daily
stroll on Canal Street, and pleasant afternoons
at the club. But Offdean thought it delightful.
He only wondered that he had never known,
or some one had never told him, how charming
a place an old, dismantled plantation can
be - when it rains. But as well as he liked
it, he could not linger there forever.
Business called him back to New
Orleans, and after a few days he went away.
The interest which he felt in the improvement
of this plantation was of so deep a nature,
however, that he found himself thinking of it
constantly. He wondered if the timber had all
been felled, and how the fencing was coming on.
So great was his desire to know such things that
much correspondence was required between himself
and Euphrasie, and he watched for
those letters that told him of her trials and
vexations with carpenters, bricklayers, and
shingle-bearers. But in the midst of it,
Offdean suddenly lost interest in the progress
of work on the plantation. Singularly
enough, it happened simultaneously with the
arrival of a letter from Euphrasie which
announced in a modest postscript that she was
going down to the city with the Duplans for
Mardi Gras.
When Offdean learned
that Euphrasie
was coming to New Orleans, he was
delighted to think he would have an
opportunity to make some return for the
hospitality which he had received from
her father. He decided at once that she must
see everything: day processions and night
parades, balls and tableaux, operas and plays.
He would arrange for it all, and he went to the
length of begging to be relieved of certain
duties that had been assigned him at the
club, in order that he might feel himself
perfectly free to do so.
The evening following Euphrasie's arrival,
Offdean hastened to call upon her, away
to down on Esplanade Street. She and the
Duplans were staying there with old Mme.
Carantelle, Mrs. Duplan's mother, a delightfully
conservative old lady who had not
"crossed Canal Street" for many years.
He found a number of people gathered in
the long high-ceiled drawing-room, - young
people and old people, all talking French,
and some talking louder than they would
have done if Madame Carantelle had not
been so very deaf.
When Offdean entered, the old lady was
greeting some one who had come in just
before him. It was Placide, and she was
calling him Grégoire, and wanting to know
how the crops were up on Red River. She met
every one from the country with this
stereotyped inquiry, which placed her at once on
the agreeable and easy footing she liked.
Somehow Offdean had not counted on
finding Euphrasie so well provided with
entertainment, and he spent much of the
evening in trying to persuade himself that the
fact was a pleasing one in itself. But he
wondered why Placide was with her, and sat
so, persistently beside her, and danced so
repeatedly with her when Mrs. Duplan played
upon the piano. Then he could not see by
what right these young creoles had already
arranged for the Proteus ball, and every other
entertainment that he had meant to provide
for her.
He went away without having had a word
alone with the girl whom he had gone to see.
The evening had proved a failure. He did
not go to the club as usual, but went to his
rooms in a mood which inclined him to read
a few pages from a stoic philosopher whom
he sometimes affected. But the words of
wisdom that had often before helped him
over disagreeable places left no impress
to-night. They were powerless to banish from
his thoughts the look of a pair of brown
eyes, or to drown the tones of a girl's voice
that kept singing in his soul.
Placide was not very well acquainted with
the city; but that made no difference to him
so long as he was at Euphrasie's side. His
brother Hector, who lived in some obscure
corner of the town, would willingly have
made his knowledge a more intimate one,
but Placide did not choose to learn the
lessons that Hector was ready to teach. He
asked nothing better than to walk with
Euphrasie along the streets, holding her parasol
at an agreeable angle over her pretty head,
or to sit beside her in the evening at the
play, sharing her frank delight.
When the night of the Mardi Gras ball
came, he felt like a lost spirit during the
hours he was forced to remain away from
her. He stood in the dense crowd on the
street gazing up at her, where she sat on the
club-house balcony amid a bevy of gayly
dressed women. It was not easy to
distinguish her, but he could think of no more
agreeable occupation than to stand down
there on the street trying to do so.
She seemed during all this pleasant time
to be entirely his own, too. It made him
very fierce to think of the possibility of her
not being entirely his own. But he had
no cause whatever to think this. She had
grown conscious and thoughtful of late about
him and their relationship. She often
communed with herself, and as a result tried to
act toward him as an engaged girl would
toward her fiancé. Yet a wistful look came
sometimes into the brown eyes when she
walked the streets with Placide, and eagerly
scanned the faces of passers-by.
Offdean had written her a note, very studied,
very formal, asking to see her a certain
day and hour, to consult about matters on
the plantation, saying he had found it so
difficult to obtain a word with her, that he
was forced to adopt this means, which he
trusted would not be offensive.
This seemed perfectly right to Euphrasie.
She agreed to see him one afternoon -
the day before leaving town - in the long,
stately drawing-room, quite alone.
It was a sleepy day, too warm for the
season. Gusts of moist air were sweeping
lazily through the long corridors, rattling
the slats of the half-closed green shutters,
and bringing a delicious perfume from the
courtyard where old Charlot was watering
the spreading palms and brilliant parterres.
A group of little children had stood awhile
quarreling noisily under the windows, but
had moved on down the street and left
quietness reigning.
Offdean had not long to wait before
Euphrasie came to him. She had lost some of
that ease which had marked her manner
during their first acquaintance. Now, when
she seated herself before him, she showed a
disposition to plunge at once into the
subject that had brought him there. He was
willing enough that it should play some rôle,
since it had been his pretext for coming;
but he soon dismissed it, and with it much
restraint that had held him till now. He
simply looked into her eyes, with a gaze that
made her shiver a little, and began to complain
because she was going away next day
and he had seen nothing of her; because he
had wanted to do so many things when she
came - why had she not let him?
"You fo'get I 'm no stranger here," she
told him. "I know many people. I 've
been coming so often with Mme. Duplan.
I wanted to see mo' of you, Mr. Offdean" -
"Then you ought to have managed it;
you could have done so. It 's - it 's
aggravating" he said, far more bitterly
than the subject warranted, "when a man has
so set his heart upon something."
"But it was n' anything ver' important,"
she interposed; and they both laughed, and
got safely over a situation that would soon
have been strained, if not critical.
Waves of happiness were sweeping through
the soul and body of the girl as she sat there
in the drowsy afternoon near the man whom
she loved. It mattered not what they talked
about, or whether they talked at all. They
were both scintillant with feeling. If
Offdean had taken Euphrasie's hands in his
and leaned forward and kissed her lips, it
would have seemed to both only the rational
outcome of things that stirred them. But
he did not do this. He knew now that
overwhelming passion was taking possession
of him. He had not to heap more coals upon
the fire; on the contrary, it was a moment
to put on the brakes, and he was a young
gentleman able to do this when
circumstances required.
However, he held her hand longer than he
needed to when he bade her good-by. For
he got entangled in explaining why he should
have to go back to the plantation to see how
matters stood there, and he dropped her hand
only when the rambling speech was ended.
He left her sitting by the window in a big
brocaded armchair. She drew the lace
curtain aside to watch him pass in the street.
He lifted his hat and smiled when he saw
her. Any other man she knew would have
done the same thing, but this simple act
caused the blood to surge to her cheeks. She
let the curtain drop, and sat there like one
dreaming. Her eyes, intense with the
unnatural light that glowed in them, looked
steadily into vacancy, and her lips stayed
parted in the half-smile that did not want to
leave them.
Placide found her thus, a good while
afterward, when he came in, full of bustle,
with theatre tickets in his pocket for the last
night. She started up, and went eagerly to
meet him.
"W'ere have you been, Placide?" she
asked with unsteady voice, placing her hands
on his shoulders with a freedom that was
new and strange to him.
He appeared to her suddenly as a refuge
from something, she did not know what, and
she rested her hot cheek against his breast.
This made him mad, and he lifted her face
and kissed her passionately upon the lips.
She crept from his arms after that, and
went away to her room, and locked herself
in. Her poor little inexperienced soul was
torn and sore. She knelt down beside her
bed, and sobbed a little and prayed a little.
She felt that she had sinned, she did not
know exactly in what; but a fine nature
warned her that it was in Placide's kiss.
The spring came early
in Orville, and so
subtly that no one could tell exactly when
it began. But one morning the roses were
so luscious in Placide's sunny parterres, the
peas and bean-vines and borders of
strawberries so rank in his trim vegetable patches,
that he called out lustily, "No mo' winta,
Judge!" to the staid Judge Blount, who
went ambling by on his gray pony.
"There 's right smart o' folks don't know
it, Santien," responded the judge, with occult
meaning that might be applied to certain
indebted clients back on the bayou who had
not broken land yet. Ten minutes later the
judge observed sententiously, and apropos of
nothing, to a group that stood waiting for
the post-office to open: -
"I see Santien's got that noo fence o' his
painted. And a pretty piece o' work it is,"
he added reflectively.
"Look lack Placide goin' pent mo' 'an de
fence," sagaciously snickered 'Tit-Edouard,
a strolling maigre-échine of indefinite
occupation. "I seen 'im, me, pesterin' wid all
kine o' pent on a piece o' bo'd yistiday."
"I knows he gwine paint mo' 'an de
fence," emphatically announced Uncle
Abner, in a tone that carried conviction.
"He gwine paint de house; dat what he
gwine do. Didn' Marse Luke Williams
orda de paints? An' didn' I done kyar'
'em up dah myse'f?"
Seeing the deference with which this
positive piece of knowledge was received, the
judge coolly changed the subject by announcing
that Luke Williams's Durham bull
had broken a leg the night before in Luke's
new pasture ditch, - a piece of news that fell
among his hearers with telling, if paralytic
effect.
But most people wanted to see for themselves
these astonishing things that Placide
was doing. And the young ladies of the
village strolled slowly by of afternoons in
couples and arm in arm. If Placide happened
to see them, he would leave his work
to hand them a fine rose or a bunch of
geraniums over the dazzling white fence. But
if it chanced to be 'Tit-Edouard or Luke
Williams, or any of the young men of
Orville, he pretended not to see them, or to
hear the ingratiating cough that accompanied
their lingering footsteps.
In his eagerness to have his home sweet
and attractive for Euphrasie's coming,
Placide had gone less frequently than ever
before up to Natchitoches. He worked and
whistled and sang until the yearning for the
girl's presence became a driving need; then
he would put away his tools and mount his
horse as the day was closing, and away he
would go across bayous and hills and fields
until he was with her again. She had never
seemed to Placide so lovable as she was then.
She had grown more womanly and thoughtful.
Her cheek had lost much of its color,
and the light in her eyes flashed less often.
But her manner had gained a something of
pathetic tenderness toward her lover that
moved him with an intoxicating happiness.
He could hardly wait with patience for that
day in early April which would see the
fulfillment of his lifelong hopes.
After Euphrasie's departure from New
Orleans, Offdean told himself honestly that
he loved the girl. But being yet unsettled in
life, he felt it was no time to think of
marrying, and, like the worldly-wise young
gentleman that he was, resolved to forget the
little Natchitoches girl. He knew it would
be an affair of some difficulty, but not an
impossible thing, so he set about forgetting her.
The effort made him singularly irascible.
At the office he was gloomy and taciturn;
at the club he was a bear. A few young
ladies whom he called upon were astonished
and distressed at the cynical views of life
which he had so suddenly adopted.
When he had endured a week or more of
such humor, and inflicted it upon others, he
abruptly changed his tactics. He decided
not to fight against his love for Euphrasie.
He would not marry her, - certainly not;
but he would let himself love her to his
heart's bent, until that love should die a
natural death, and not a violent one as he
had designed. He abandoned himself
completely to his passion, and dreamed of the
girl by day and thought of her by night.
How delicious had been the scent of her
hair, the warmth of her breath, the nearness
of her body, that rainy day when they stood
close together upon the veranda! He
recalled the glance of her honest, beautiful
eyes, that told him things which made his
heart beat fast now when he thought of
them. And then her voice! Was there
another like it when she laughed or when
she talked! Was there another woman in
the world possessed of so alluring a charm
as this one he loved!
He was not bearish now, with these sweet
thoughts crowding his brain and thrilling
his blood; but he sighed deeply, and worked
languidly, and enjoyed himself listlessly.
One day he sat in his room puffing the
air thick with sighs and smoke, when a
thought came suddenly to him - an
inspiration, a very message from heaven, to
judge from the cry of joy with which he greeted
it. He sent his cigar whirling through the
window, over the stone paving of the street,
and he let his head fall down upon his arms,
folded upon the table.
It had happened to him, as it does to
many, that the solution of a vexed question
flashed upon him when he was hoping least
for it. He positively laughed aloud, and
somewhat hysterically. In the space of a
moment he saw the whole delicious future
which a kind fate had mapped out for him:
those rich acres upon the Red River his own,
bought and embellished with his inheritance;
and Euphrasie, whom he loved, his wife and
companion throughout a life such as he
knew now he had craved for, - a life that,
imposing bodily activity, admits the
intellectual repose in which thought unfolds.
Wallace Offdean was like one to whom a
divinity had revealed his vocation in life, -
no less a divinity because it was love. If
doubts assailed him of Euphrasie's consent,
they were soon stilled. For had they not
spoken over and over to each other the mute
and subtile language of reciprocal love - out
under the forest trees, and in the quiet night-time
on the plantation when the stars shone?
And never so plainly as in the stately old
drawing-room down on Esplanade Street.
Surely no other speech was needed then,
save such as their eyes told. Oh, he knew
that she loved him; he was sure of it! The
knowledge made him all the more eager now
to hasten to her, to tell her that he wanted
her for his very own.
If Offdean had stopped
in Natchitoches
on his way to the plantation, he would have
heard something there to astonish him, to
say the very least; for the whole town was
talking of Euphrasie's wedding, which was
to take place in a few days. But he did not
linger. After securing a horse at the stable,
he pushed on with all the speed of which
the animal was capable, and only in such
company as his eager thoughts afforded him.
The plantation was very quiet, with that
stillness which broods over broad, clean
acres that furnish no refuge for so much as
a bird that sings. The negroes were scattered
about the fields at work, with hoe and
plow, under the sun, and old Pierre, on his
horse, was far off in the midst of them.
Placide had arrived in the morning, after
traveling all night, and had gone to his room
for an hour or two of rest. He had drawn
the lounge close up to the window to get
what air he might through the closed shutters.
He was just beginning to doze when
he heard Euphrasie's light footsteps
approaching. She stopped and seated herself
so near that he could have touched her if he
had but reached out his hand. Her nearness
banished all desire to sleep, and he lay there
content to rest his limbs and think of her.
The portion of the gallery on which
Euphrasie sat was facing the river, and away
from the road by which Offdean had reached
the house. After fastening his horse, he
mounted the steps, and traversed the broad
hall that intersected the house from end to
end, and that was open wide. He found
Euphrasie engaged upon a piece of sewing.
She was hardly aware of his presence before
he had seated himself beside her.
She could not speak. She only looked at
him with frightened eyes, as if his presence
were that of some disembodied spirit.
"Are you not glad that I have come?"
he asked her. "Have I made a mistake in
coming?" He was gazing into her eyes,
seeking to read the meaning of their new
and strange expression.
"Am I glad?" she faltered. "I don'
know. W'at has that to do? You 've
come to see the work, of co'se. It 's - it 's
only half done, Mr. Offdean. They would n'
listen to me or to papa, an' you didn' seem
to care."
"I have n't come to see the work," he
said, with a smile of love and confidence.
"I am here only to see you, - to say how
much I want you, and need you - to tell you
how I love you."
She rose, half choking with words she
could not utter. But he seized her hands
and held her there.
"The plantation is mine, Euphrasie, - or
it will be when you say that you will be my
wife," he went on excitedly. "I know that
you love me" -
"I do not!" she exclaimed wildly. "W'at
do you mean? How do you dare," she
gasped, "to say such things w'en you know
that in two days I shall be married to
Placide?" The last was said in a whisper; it
was like a wail.
"Married to Placide!" he echoed, as if
striving to understand, - to grasp some part
of his own stupendous folly and blindness.
"I knew nothing of it," he said hoarsely.
"Married to Placide! I would never have
spoken to you as I did, if I had known.
You believe me, I hope? Please say that
you forgive me."
He spoke with long silences between his
utterances.
"Oh, there is n' anything to forgive.
You 've only made a mistake. Please leave
me, Mr. Offdean. Papa is out in the fiel',
I think, if you would like to speak with him.
Placide is somew'ere on the place."
"I shall mount my horse and go see what
work has been done," said Offdean, rising.
An unusual pallor had overspread his face,
and his mouth was drawn with suppressed
pain. "I must turn my fool's errand to
some practical good," he added, with a sad
attempt at playfulness; and with no further
word he walked quickly away.
She listened to his going. Then all the
wretchedness of the past months, together
with the sharp distress of the moment,
voiced itself in a sob: "O God - O my
God, he'p me!"
But she could not stay out there in the
broad day for any chance comer to look upon
her uncovered sorrow.
Placide heard her rise and go to her room.
When he had heard the key turn in the lock,
he got up, and with quiet deliberation
prepared to go out. He drew on his boots, then
his coat. He took his pistol from the
dressing-bureau, where he had placed it a
while before, and after examining its chambers
carefully, thrust it into his pocket. He had
certain work to do with the weapon before
night. But for Euphrasie's presence he
might have accomplished it very surely a
moment ago, when the hound - as he called
him - stood outside his window. He did
not wish her to know anything of his
movements, and he left his room as quietly as
possible, and mounted his horse, as Offdean
had done.
"La Chatte," called Placide to the old
woman, who stood in her yard at the
washtub, "w'ich way did that man go?"
"W'at man dat? I is n' studyin' 'bout
no mans; I got 'nough to do wid dis heah
washin'. 'Fo' God, I don' know w'at man
you 's talkin' 'bout " -
"La Chatte, w'ich way did that man go?
Quick, now!" with the deliberate tone and
glance that had always quelled her.
"Ef you 's talkin' 'bout dat Noo Orleans
man, I could 'a' tole you dat. He done tuck
de road to de cocoa-patch," plunging her
black arms into the tub with unnecessary
energy and disturbance.
"That 's enough. I know now he 's gone
into the woods. You always was a liar, La
Chatte."
"Dat his own lookout, de smoove-tongue'
raskil," soliloquized the woman a moment
later. "I done said he didn' have no call
to come heah, caperin' roun' Miss 'Phrasie."
Placide was possessed by only one thought,
which was a want as well, - to put an end
to this man who had come between him and
his love. It was the same brute passion that
drives the beast to slay when he sees the
object of his own desire laid hold of by
another.
He had heard Euphrasie tell the man she
did not love him, but what of that? Had
he not heard her sobs, and guessed what her
distress was? It needed no very flexible
mind to guess as much, when a hundred
signs besides, unheeded before, came surging
to his memory. Jealousy held him, and rage
and despair.
Offdean, as he rode along under the trees
in apathetic despondency, heard some one
approaching him on horseback, and turned
aside to make room in the narrow pathway.
It was not a moment for punctilious
scruples, and Placide had not been hindered
by such from sending a bullet into the back
of his rival. The only thing that stayed him
was that Offdean must know why he had to
die.
"Mr. Offdean," Placide said, reining his
horse with one hand, while he held his pistol
openly in the other, "I was in my room
'w'ile ago, and yeared w'at you said to
Euphrasie. I would 'a' killed you then if
she had n' been 'longside o' you. I could
'a' killed you jus' now w'en I come up behine
you."
"Well, why did n't you?" asked Offdean,
meanwhile gathering his faculties to
think how he had best deal with this
madman.
"Because I wanted you to know who done
it, an' w'at he done it for."
"Mr. Santien, I suppose to a person in
your frame of mind it will make no
difference to know that I 'm unarmed. But if
you make any attempt upon my life, I shall
certainly defend myself as best I can."
"Defen' yo'se'f, then."
"You must be mad," said Offdean,
quickly, and looking straight into Placide's
eyes, "to want to soil your happiness with
murder. I thought a creole knew better
than that how to love a woman."
"By - ! are you goin' to learn me how
to love a woman?"
"No, Placide," said Offdean eagerly, as
they rode slowly along; "your own honor is
going to tell you that. The way to love a
woman is to think first of her happiness. If
you love Euphrasie, you must go to her
clean. I love her myself enough to want
you to do that. I shall leave this place
tomorrow; you will never see me again if I
can help it. Is n't that enough for you?
I 'm going to turn here and leave you.
Shoot me in the back if you like; but I
know you won't." And Offdean held out
his hand.
"I don' want to shake han's with you,"
said Placide sulkily. "Go 'way f'om me."
He stayed motionless watching Offdean
ride away. He looked at the pistol in his
hand, and replaced it slowly in his pocket;
then he removed the broad felt hat which he
wore, and wiped away the moisture that had
gathered upon his forehead.
Offdean's words had touched some chord
within him and made it vibrant; but they
made him hate the man no less.
"The way to love a woman is to think
firs' of her happiness," he muttered
reflectively. "He thought a creole knew how
to love. Does he reckon he 's goin' to learn a
creole how to love?"
His face was white and set with despair
now. The rage had all left it as he rode
deeper on into the wood.
Offdean rose early,
wishing to take the
morning train to the city. But he was not
before Euphrasie, whom he found in the
large hall arranging the breakfast-table.
Old Pierre was there too, walking slowly
about with hands folded behind him, and
with bowed head.
A restraint hung upon all of them, and
the girl turned to her father and asked him
if Placide were up, seemingly for want of
something to say. The old man fell heavily
into a chair, and gazed upon her in the
deepest distress.
"Oh, my po' li'le Euphrasie! my po' li'le
chile! Mr. Offde'n, you ain't no stranger."
"Bon Dieu! Papa!" cried the girl
sharply, seized with a vague terror. She
quitted her occupation at the table, and
stood in nervous apprehension of what might
follow.
"I yaired people say Placide was one
no-'count creole. I nevair want to believe
dat, me. Now I know dat 's true. Mr. Offde'n,
you ain't no stranger, you."
Offdean was gazing upon the old man in
amazement.
"In de night," Pierre continued, "I
yaired some noise on de winder. I go open,
an' dere Placide standin' wid his big boot'
on, an' his w'ip w'at he knocked wid on de
winder, an' his hoss all saddle'. Oh, my po'
li'le chile! He say, 'Pierre, I yaired say
Mr. Luke William' want his house pent
down in Orville. I reckon I go git de job
befo' somebody else teck it.' I say, 'You
come straight back, Placide?' He say,
'Don' look fer me.' An' w'en I ax 'im w'at
I goin' tell to my li'le chile, he say, 'Tell
Euphrasie Placide know better 'an anybody
livin' w'at goin' make her happy.' An' he
start 'way; den he come back an' say, 'Tell
dat man' - I don' know who he was talk'
'bout - 'tell 'im he ain't goin' learn nuttin'
to a creole.' Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! I
don' know w'at all dat mean."
He was holding the half-fainting
Euphrasie in his arms, and stroking her hair.
"I always yaired say he was one no-'count
creole. I nevair want to believe dat."
"Don't - don't say that again, papa," she
whisperingly entreated, speaking in French.
"Placide has saved me!"
"He has save' you f'om w'at, Euphrasie?"
asked her father, in dazed astonishment.
"From sin," she replied to him under her
breath.
"I don' know w'at all dat mean," the old
man muttered, bewildered, as he arose and
walked out on the gallery.
Offdean had taken coffee in his room, and
would not wait for breakfast. When he
went to bid Euphrasie good-by, she sat
beside the table with her head bowed upon
her arm.
He took her hand and said good-by to her,
but she did not look up.
"Euphrasie," he asked eagerly, "I may
come back? Say that I may - after a
while."
She gave him no answer, and he leaned
down and pressed his cheek caressingly and
entreatingly against her soft thick hair.
"May I, Euphrasie?" he begged. "So
long as you do not tell me no, I shall come
back, dearest one."
She still made him no reply, but she did
not tell him no.
So he kissed her hand and her cheek, -
what he could touch of it, that peeped out
from her folded arm, - and went away.
An hour later, when Offdean passed
through Natchitoches, the old town was
already ringing with the startling news that
Placide had been dismissed by his fiancée,
and the wedding was off, information which
the young creole was taking the trouble to
scatter broadcast as he went.
PRECISELY at eight
o'clock every morning
except Saturdays and Sundays, Mademoiselle
Suzanne St. Denys Godolph would
cross the railroad trestle that spanned Bayou
Boispourri. She might have crossed in the
flat which Mr. Alphonse Laballière kept
for his own convenience; but the method
was slow and unreliable; so, every morning
at eight, Mademoiselle St. Denys Godolph
crossed the trestle.
She taught public school in a picturesque
little white frame structure that stood upon
Mr. Laballière's land, and hung upon the
very brink of the bayou.
Laballière himself was comparatively a
new-comer in the parish. It was barely six
months since he decided one day to leave
the sugar and rice to his brother Alcée, who
had a talent for their cultivation, and to try
his hand at cotton-planting. That was why
he was up in Natchitoches parish on a piece
of rich, high, Cane River land, knocking
into shape a tumbled-down plantation that
he had bought for next to nothing.
He had often during his perambulations
observed the trim, graceful figure stepping
cautiously over the ties, and had sometimes
shivered for its safety. He always exchanged
a greeting with the girl, and once
threw a plank over a muddy pool for her to
step upon. He caught but glimpses of her
features, for she wore an enormous sun-bonnet
to shield her complexion, that seemed
marvelously fair; while loosely-fitting
leather gloves protected her hands. He
knew she was the school-teacher, and also
that she was the daughter of that very
pig-headed old Madame St. Denys Godolph
who was hoarding her barren acres across
the bayou as a miser hoards gold. Starving
over them, some people said. But that was
nonsense; nobody starves on a Louisiana
plantation, unless it be with suicidal intent.
These things he knew, but he did not
know why Mademoiselle St. Denys Godolph
always answered his salutation with an air
of chilling hauteur that would easily have
paralyzed a less sanguine man.
The reason was that Suzanne, like every
one else, had heard the stories that were
going the rounds about him. People said
he was entirely too much at home with the
free mulattoes. 1 It
seems a dreadful thing
to say, and it would be a shocking thing to
think of a Laballière; but it was n't true.
When Laballière
took possession of his
land, he found the plantation-house occupied
by one Giestin and his swarming family.
It was past reckoning how long the free
mulatto and his people had been there. The
house was a six-room, long, shambling affair,
shrinking together from decrepitude. There
was not an entire pane of glass in the structure;
and the Turkey-red curtains flapped in
and out of the broken apertures. But there
is no need to dwell upon details; it was
wholly unfit to serve as a civilized human
habitation; and Alphonse Laballière would
no sooner have disturbed its contented
occupants than he would have scattered a
family of partridges nesting in a corner of
his field. He established himself with a
few belongings in the best cabin he could
find on the place, and, without further ado,
proceeded to supervise the building of house,
of gin, of this, that, and the other, and to
look into the hundred details that go to
set a neglected plantation in good working
order. He took his meals at the free
mulatto's, quite apart from the family, of
course; and they attended, not too skillfully,
to his few domestic wants.
Some loafer whom he had snubbed remarked
one day in town that Laballière had
more use for a free mulatto than he had
for a white man. It was a sort of catching
thing to say, and suggestive, and was repeated
with the inevitable embellishments.
One morning when Laballière sat eating his
solitary breakfast, and being waited
upon by the queenly Madame Giestin and a
brace of her weazened boys, Giestin himself
came into the room. He was about half the
size of his wife, puny and timid. He stood
beside the table, twirling his felt hat aimlessly
and balancing himself insecurely on his
high-pointed boot-heels.
"Mr. Laballière," he said, "I reckon I
tell you; it 's betta you git shed o' me en'
my fambly. Jis like you want, yas."
"What in the name of common sense are you
talking about?" asked Laballière, looking up
abstractedly from his New Orleans paper.
Giestin wriggled uncomfortably.
"It 's heap o' story goin' roun' 'bout
you, if you want b'lieve me." And he
snickered and looked at his wife, who thrust
the end of her shawl into her mouth and
walked from the room with a tread like the
Empress Eugenie's, in that elegant woman's
palmiest days.
"Stories!" echoed Laballière, his face the
picture of astonishment. "Who -
where - what stories?"
"Yon'a in town en' all about. It 's heap
o' tale goin' roun', yas. They say how come
you mighty fon' o' mulatta. You done shoshiate
wid de mulatta down yon'a on de suga
plantation, tell you can't res' lessen it 's
mulatta roun' you."
Laballière had a distressingly quick temper.
His fist, which was a strong one, came down
upon the wobbling table with a crash that sent
half of Madame Giestin's crockery bouncing and
crashing to the floor. He swore an oath that sent
Madame Giestin and her father and
grandmother, who were all listening in the next
room, into suppressed convulsions of mirth.
"Oh, ho! so I 'm not to associate with whom I
please in Natchitoches parish. We 'll see about
that. Draw up your chair, Giestin.
Call your wife and your grandmother
and the rest of the tribe, and we 'll breakfast
together. By thunder! if I want to
hobnob with mulattoes, or negroes or Choctaw
Indians or South Sea savages, whose
business is it but my own?"
"I don' know, me. It 's jis like I tell
you, Mr. Laballière," and Giestin selected
a huge key from an assortment that hung
against the wall, and left the room.
A half hour later, Laballière had not yet
recovered his senses. He appeared suddenly
at the door of the schoolhouse, holding by
the shoulder one of Giestin's boys.
Mademoiselle St. Denys Godolph stood at
the opposite extremity of the room. Her
sunbonnet hung upon the wall, now, so
Laballière could have seen how charming she was,
had he not at the moment been blinded by
stupidity. Her blue eyes that were fringed
with dark lashes reflected astonishment at
seeing him there. Her hair was dark like
her lashes, and waved softly about her
smooth, white forehead.
"Mademoiselle," began Laballière at once,
"I have taken the liberty of bringing a new
pupil to you."
Mademoiselle St. Denys Godolph paled
suddenly and her voice was unsteady when
she replied: -
"You are too considerate, Monsieur. Will
you be so kine to give me the name of the
scholar whom you desire to int'oduce into
this school?" She knew it as well as he.
"What 's your name, youngster? Out
with it!" cried Laballière, striving to shake
the little free mulatto into speech; but he
stayed as dumb as a mummy.
"His name is André Giestin. You know
him. He is the son" -
"Then, Monsieur," she interrupted, "permit
me to remine you that you have made a
se'ious mistake. This is not a school conducted
fo' the education of the colored population.
You will have to go elsew'ere with yo'
protégé."
"I shall leave my protégé right here,
Mademoiselle, and I trust you 'll give him
the same kind attention you seem to accord
to the others;" saying which Laballiere
bowed himself out of her presence. The little
Giestin, left to his own devices, took only
the time to give a quick, wary glance round
the room, and the next instant he bounded
through the open door, as the nimblest of
four-footed creatures might have done.
Mademoiselle St. Denys Godolph conducted
school during the hours that remained,
with a deliberate calmness that would have
seemed ominous to her pupils, had they been
better versed in the ways of young women.
When the hour for dismissal came, she
rapped upon the table to demand attention.
"Chil'ren," she began, assuming a resigned
and dignified mien, "you all have
been witness to-day of the insult that has
been offered to yo' teacher by the person
upon whose lan' this schoolhouse stan's. I
have nothing further to say on that subjec'.
I only shall add that to-morrow yo' teacher
shall sen' the key of this schoolhouse,
together with her resignation, to the gentlemen
who compose the school-boa'd." There
followed visible disturbance among the
young people.
"I ketch that li'le m'latta, I make 'im see
sight', yas," screamed one.
"Nothing of the kine, Mathurin, you mus'
take no such step, if only out of consideration
fo' my wishes. The person who has
offered the affront I consider beneath my
notice. André, on the other han', is a chile
of good impulse, an' by no means to blame.
As you all perceive, he has shown mo' taste
and judgment than those above him, f'om
whom we might have expected good
breeding, at least."
She kissed them all, the little boys and
the little girls, and had a kind word for
each. "Et toi, mon petit Numa, j'espère
qu'un autre" - She could not finish the
sentence, for little Numa, her favorite, to
whom she had never been able to impart
the first word of English, was blubbering at
a turn of affairs which he had only
miserably guessed at.
She locked the schoolhouse door and
walked away towards the bridge. By the
time she reached it, the little 'Cadians had
already disappeared like rabbits, down the
road and through and over the fences.
Mademoiselle St. Denys Godolph did not
cross the trestle the following day, nor the
next nor the next. Laballière watched for
her; for his big heart was already sore and
filled with shame. But more, it stung him
with remorse to realize that he had been the
stupid instrument in taking the bread, as it
were, from the mouth of Mademoiselle St.
Denys Godolph.
He recalled how unflinchingly and haughtily
her blue eyes had challenged his own.
Her sweetness and charm came back to him
and he dwelt upon them and exaggerated
them, till no Venus, so far unearthed, could
in any way approach Mademoiselle St. Denys
Godolph. He would have liked to
exterminate the Giestin family, from the
great-grandmother down to the babe unborn.
Perhaps Giesten suspected this unfavorable
attitude, for one morning he piled his
whole family and all his effects into wagons,
and went away; over into that part of the
parish known as l'Isle des Mulâtres.
Laballière's really chivalrous nature told
him, beside, that he owed an apology, at
least, to the young lady who had taken his
whim so seriously. So he crossed the bayou
one day and penetrated into the wilds where
Madame St. Denys Godolph ruled.
An alluring little romance formed in his
mind as he went; he fancied how easily it
might follow the apology. He was almost
in love with Mademoiselle St. Denys
Godolph when he quitted his plantation. By
the time he had reached hers, he was wholly
so.
He was met by Madame mère, a sweet-eyed,
faded woman, upon whom old age had
fallen too hurriedly to completely efface all
traces of youth. But the house was old
beyond question; decay had eaten slowly to
the heart of it during the hours, the days,
and years that it had been standing.
"I have come to see your daughter,
madame," began Laballière, all too bluntly;
for there is no denying he was blunt.
"Mademoiselle St. Denys Godolph is not
presently at home, sir," madame replied.
"She is at the time in New Orleans. She
fills there a place of high trus' an'
employment, Monsieur Laballière."
When Suzanne had ever thought of New
Orleans, it was always in connection with
Hector Santien, because he was the only
soul she knew who dwelt there. He had
had no share in obtaining for her the
position she had secured with one of the leading
dry-goods firms; yet it was to him she
addressed herself when her arrangements to
leave home were completed.
He did not wait for her train to reach the
city, but crossed the river and met her at
Gretna. The first thing he did was to kiss
her, as he had done eight years before when
he left Natchitoches parish. An hour later
he would no more have thought of kissing
Suzanne than he would have tendered an
embrace to the Empress of China. For by
that time he had realized that she was no
longer twelve nor he twenty-four.
She could hardly believe the man who
met her to be the Hector of old. His black
hair was dashed with gray on the temples;
he wore a short, parted beard and a small
moustache that curled. From the crown of
his glossy silk hat down to his trimly-gaitered
feet, his attire was faultless. Suzanne
knew her Natchitoches, and she had been to
Shreveport and even penetrated as far as
Marshall, Texas, but in all her travels she
had never met a man to equal Hector in the
elegance of his mien.
They entered a cab, and seemed to drive
for an interminable time through the streets,
mostly over cobble-stones that rendered
conversation difficult. Nevertheless he talked
incessantly, while she peered from the
windows to catch what glimpses she could,
through the night, of that New Orleans of
which she had heard so much. The sounds
were bewildering; so were the lights, that
were uneven, too, serving to make the patches
of alternating gloom more mysterious.
She had not thought of asking him where
he was taking her. And it was only after
they crossed Canal and had penetrated some
distance into Royal Street, that he told her.
He was taking her to a friend of his, the
dearest little woman in town. That was
Maman Chavan, who was going to board
and lodge her for a ridiculously small
consideration.
Maman Chavan lived within comfortable
walking distance of Canal Street, on one of
those narrow, intersecting streets between
Royal and Chartres. Her house was a tiny,
single-story one, with overhanging gable,
heavily shuttered door and windows and
three wooden steps leading down to the
banquette. A small garden flanked it on one
side, quite screened from outside view by a
high fence, over which appeared the tops of
orange trees and other luxuriant shrubbery.
She was waiting for them - a lovable,
fresh-looking, white-haired, black-eyed, small,
fat little body, dressed all in black. She
understood no English; which made no
difference. Suzanne and Hector spoke but
French to each other.
Hector did not tarry a moment longer
than was needed to place his young friend
and charge in the older woman's care. He
would not even stay to take a bite of supper
with them. Maman Chavan watched him as
he hurried down the steps and out into the
gloom. Then she said to Suzanne: "That
man is an angel, Mademoiselle, un ange du
bon Dieu."
"Women, my dear Maman Chavan, you
know how it is with me in regard to women.
I have drawn a circle round my heart, so -
at pretty long range, mind you - and there
is not one who gets through it, or over it or
under it."
"Blagueur, va!" laughed Maman Chavan,
replenishing her glass from the bottle
of sauterne.
It was Sunday morning. They were
breakfasting together on the pleasant side
gallery that led by a single step down to
the garden. Hector came every Sunday
morning, an hour or so before noon, to
breakfast with them. He always brought a
bottle of sauterne, a paté, or a mess of
artichokes or some tempting bit of charcuterie.
Sometimes he had to wait till the two women
returned from hearing mass at the cathedral.
He did not go to mass himself. They
were both making a Novena on that account,
and had even gone to the expense of
burning a round dozen of candles before the
good St. Joseph, for his conversion. When
Hector accidentally discovered the fact, he
offered to pay for the candles, and was
distressed at not being permitted to do so.
Suzanne had been in the city more than a
month. It was already the close of February,
and the air was flower-scented, moist,
and deliciously mild.
"As I said: women, my dear Maman
Chavan " -
"Let us hear no more about women!"
cried Suzanne, impatiently. "Cher Maître!
but Hector can be tiresome when he wants.
Talk, talk; to say what in the end?"
"Quite right, my cousin; when I might
have been saying how charming you are this
morning. But don't think that I have n't
noticed it," and he looked at her with a
deliberation that quite unsettled her. She took a
letter from her pocket and handed it to him.
"Here, read all the nice things mamma
has to say of you, and the love messages she
sends to you." He accepted the several
closely written sheets from her and began to
look over them.
"Ah, la bonne tante," he laughed, when
he came to the tender passages that referred
to himself. He had pushed aside the glass
of wine that he had only partly filled at
the beginning of breakfast and that he had
scarcely touched. Maman Chavan again
replenished her own. She also lighted a
cigarette. So did Suzanne, who was learning to
smoke. Hector did not smoke; he did not
use tobacco in any form, he always said to
those who offered him cigars.
Suzanne rested her elbows on the table,
adjusted the ruffles about her wrists, puffed
awkwardly at her cigarette that kept going
out, and hummed the Kyrie Eleison that she
had heard so beautifully rendered an hour
before at the Cathedral, while she gazed off
into the green depths of the garden. Maman
Chavan slipped a little silver medal
toward her, accompanying the action with a
pantomime that Suzanne readily understood.
She, in turn, secretly and adroitly transferred
the medal to Hector's coat-pocket.
He noticed the action plainly enough, but
pretended not to.
"Natchitoches has n't changed," he
commented. "The everlasting can-cans!
when will they have done with them? This
is n't little Athénaîse Miché, getting married!
Sapristi! but it makes one old! And old
Papa Jean-Pierre only dead now? I thought
he was out of purgatory five years ago. And
who is this Laballière? One of the
Laballières of St. James?"
"St. James, mon cher. Monsieur
Alphonse Laballière; an aristocrat from the
'golden coast.' But it is a history, if you
will believe me. Figurez vous, Maman
Chavan, - pensez donc, mon ami" - And
with much dramatic fire, during which the
cigarette went irrevocably out, she proceeded
to narrate her experiences with Laballière.
"Impossible!" exclaimed Hector when
the climax was reached; but his indignation
was not so patent as she would have liked it
to be.
"And to think of an affront like that
going unpunished!" was Maman Chavan's
more sympathetic comment.
"Oh, the scholars were only too ready to
offer violence to poor little André, but that,
you can understand, I would not permit.
And now, here is mamma gone completely
over to him; entrapped, God only knows
how!"
"Yes," agreed Hector, "I see he has been
sending her tamales and boudin blanc."
"Boudin blanc, my friend! If it were
only that! But I have a stack of letters, so
high, - I could show them to you, - singing
of Laballière, Laballière, enough to
drive one distracted. He visits her
constantly. He is a man of attainment, she
says, a man of courage, a man of heart; and
the best of company. He has sent her a
bunch of fat robins as big as a tub" -
"There is something in that - a good
deal in that, mignonne," piped Maman
Chavan, approvingly.
"And now boudin blanc! and she tells
me it is the duty of a Christian to forgive.
Ah, no; it 's no use; mamma's ways are past
finding out."
Suzanne was never in Hector's company
elsewhere than at Maman Chavan's. Beside
the Sunday visit, he looked in upon them
sometimes at dusk, to chat for a moment or
two. He often treated them to theatre tickets,
and even to the opera, when business
was brisk. Business meant a little notebook
that he carried in his pocket, in which
he sometimes dotted down orders from the
country people for wine, that he sold on
commission. The women always went
together, unaccompanied by any male escort;
trotting along, arm in arm, and brimming
with enjoyment.
That same Sunday afternoon Hector
walked with them a short distance when
they were on their way to vespers. The three
walking abreast almost occupied the narrow
width of the banquette. A gentleman who
had just stepped out of the Hotel Royal
stood aside to better enable them to pass.
He lifted his hat to Suzanne, and cast a quick
glance, that pictured stupefaction and wrath,
upon Hector.
"It 's he!" exclaimed the girl, melodramatically
seizing Maman Chavan's arm.
"Who, he?"
"Laballière!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"A handsome fellow, all the same," nodded
the little lady, approvingly. Hector
thought so too. The conversation again
turned upon Laballière, and so continued
till they reached the side door of the cathedral,
where the young man left his two
companions.
In the evening Laballière called upon
Suzanne. Maman Chavan closed the front
door carefully after he entered the small
parlor, and opened the side one that looked
into the privacy of the garden. Then she
lighted the lamp and retired, just as Suzanne
entered.
The girl bowed a little stiffly, if it may be
said that she did anything stiffly.
"Monsieur Laballière." That was all she said.
"Mademoiselle St. Denys Godolph," and
that was all he said. But ceremony did not
sit easily upon him.
"Mademoiselle," he began, as soon as
seated, "I am here as the bearer of a
message from your mother. You must
understand that otherwise I would not be here."
"I do understan', sir, that you an' maman
have become very warm frien's during my
absence," she returned, in measured,
conventional tones.
"It pleases me immensely to hear that
from you," he responded, warmly; "to
believe that Madame St. Denys Godolph is
my friend."
Suzanne coughed more affectedly than
was quite nice, and patted her glossy braids.
"The message, if you please, Mr.
Laballière."
"To be sure," pulling himself together
from the momentary abstraction into which
he had fallen in contemplating her. "Well,
it 's just this; your mother, you must know,
has been good enough to sell me a fine bit
of land - a deep strip along the bayou" -
"Impossible! Mais w'at sorcery did you
use to obtain such a thing of my mother,
Mr. Laballiere? Lan' that has been in the
St. Denys Godolph family since time
untole!"
"No sorcery whatever, Mademoiselle, only
an appeal to your mother's intelligence and
common sense; and she is well supplied with
both. She wishes me to say, further, that
she desires your presence very urgently and
your immediate return home."
"My mother is unduly impatient, surely,"
replied Suzanne, with chilling politeness.
"May I ask, mademoiselle," he broke in,
with an abruptness that was startling, "the
name of the man with whom you were
walking this afternoon?"
She looked at him with unaffected
astonishment, and told him: "I hardly
understan' yo' question. That gentleman is Mr.
Hector Santien, of one of the firs' families
of Natchitoches; a warm ole frien' an' far
distant relative of mine."
"Oh, that 's his name, is it, Hector Santien?
Well, please don't walk on the New
Orleans streets again with Mr. Hector
Santien."
"Yo' remarks would be insulting if they
were not so highly amusing, Mr.
Laballiere."
"I beg your pardon if I am insulting;
and I have no desire to be amusing," and
then Laballière lost his head. "You are at
liberty to walk the streets with whom you
please, of course," he blurted, with
ill-suppressed passion, "but if I encounter
Mr. Hector Santien in your company again,
in public, I shall wring his neck, then and
there, as I would a chicken; I shall break
every bone in his body" - Suzanne had
arisen.
"You have said enough, sir. I even
desire no explanation of yo' words."
"I did n't intend to explain them," he
retorted, stung by the insinuation.
"You will escuse me further," she
requested icily, motioning to retire.
"Not till - oh, not till you have forgiven
me," he cried impulsively, barring her exit;
for repentance had come swiftly this time.
But she did not forgive him. "I can
wait," she said. Then he stepped aside and
she passed by him without a second glance.
She sent word to Hector the following
day to come to her. And when he was
there, in the late afternoon, they walked
together to the end of the vine-sheltered
gallery, - where the air was redolent with the
odor of spring blossoms.
"Hector," she began, after a while, "some
one has told me I should not be seen upon
the streets of New Orleans with you."
He was trimming a long rose-stem with
his sharp penknife. He did not stop nor
start, nor look embarrassed, nor anything of
the sort.
"Indeed!" he said.
"But, you know," she went on, "if the
saints came down from heaven to tell me
there was a reason for it, I could n't believe
them."
"You would n't believe them, ma petite
Suzanne?" He was getting all the thorns
off nicely, and stripping away the heavy
lower leaves.
"I want you to look me in the face,
Hector, and tell me if there is any reason."
He snapped the knife-blade and replaced
the knife in his pocket; then he looked in
her eyes, so unflinchingly, that she hoped
and believed it presaged a confession of
innocence that she would gladly have accepted.
But he said indifferently: "Yes, there are
reasons."
"Then I say there are not," she exclaimed
excitedly; "you are amusing yourself -
laughing at me, as you always do.
There are no reasons that I will hear or
believe. You will walk the streets with me,
will you not, Hector?" she entreated, "and
go to church with me on Sunday; and, and
- oh, it 's nonsense, nonsense for you to
say things like that!"
He held the rose by its long, hardy stem,
and swept it lightly and caressingly across
her forehead, along her cheek, and over her
pretty mouth and chin, as a lover might
have done with his lips. He noticed how
the red rose left a crimson stain behind it.
She had been standing, but now she sank
upon the bench that was there, and buried
her face in her palms. A slight convulsive
movement of the muscles indicated a
suppressed sob.
"Ah, Suzanne, Suzanne, you are not
going to make yourself unhappy about a bon
à rien like me. Come, look at me; tell me
that you are not." He drew her hands
down from her face and held them a while,
bidding her good-by. His own face wore
the quizzical look it often did, as if he were
laughing at her.
"That work at the store is telling on
your nerves, mignonne. Promise me that
you will go back to the country. That will
be best."
"Oh, yes; I am going back home,
Hector."
"That is right, little cousin," and he patted
her hands kindly, and laid them both
down gently into her lap.
He did not return; neither during the
week nor the following Sunday. Then
Suzanne told Maman Chavan she was going
home. The girl was not too deeply in love
with Hector; but imagination counts for
something, and so does youth.
Laballière was on the train with her. She
felt, somehow, that he would be. And yet
she did not dream that he had watched and
waited for her each morning since he parted
from her.
He went to her without preliminary of
manner or speech, and held out his hand;
she extended her own unhesitatingly. She
could not understand why, and she was a
little too weary to strive to do so. It
seemed as though the sheer force of his will
would carry him to the goal of his wishes.
He did not weary her with attentions during
the time they were together. He sat
apart from her, conversing for the most time
with friends and acquaintances who belonged
in the sugar district through which
they traveled in the early part of the day.
She wondered why he had ever left that
section to go up into Natchitoches. Then
she wondered if he did not mean to speak
to her at all. As if he had read the thought,
he went and sat down beside her.
He showed her, away off across the country,
where his mother lived, and his brother
Alcée, and his cousin Clarisse.
On Sunday morning, when Maman Chavan
strove to sound the depth of Hector's
feeling for Suzanne, he told her again:
"Women, my dear Maman Chavan, you
know how it is with me in regard to women,"
- and he refilled her glass from the bottle
of sauterne.
"Farceur va!" and Maman Chavan
laughed, and her fat shoulders quivered
under the white volante she wore.
A day or two later, Hector was walking
down Canal Street at four in the afternoon.
He might have posed, as he was, for a
fashion-plate. He looked not to the right
nor to the left; not even at the women who
passed by. Some of them turned to look
at him.
When he approached the corner of Royal,
a young man who stood there nudged his
companion.
"You know who that is?" he said,
indicating Hector.
"No; who?"
"Well, you are an innocent. Why, that 's
Deroustan, the most notorious gambler in
New Orleans."
THE sight of a human
habitation, even if
it was a rude log cabin with a mud chimney
at one end, was a very gratifying one to
Grégoire.
He had come out of Natchitoches parish,
and had been riding a great part of the day
through the big lonesome parish of Sabine.
He was not following the regular Texas
road, but, led by his erratic fancy, was pushing
toward the Sabine River by circuitous
paths through the rolling pine forests.
As he approached the cabin in the clearing,
he discerned behind a palisade of pine
saplings an old negro man chopping wood.
"Howdy, Uncle," called out the young
fellow, reining his horse. The negro looked
up in blank amazement at so unexpected
an apparition, but he only answered: "How
you do, suh," accompanying his speech by
a series of polite nods.
"Who lives yere?"
"Hit 's Mas' Bud Aiken w'at live' heah,
suh."
"Well, if Mr. Bud Aiken c'n affo'd to
hire a man to chop his wood, I reckon he
won't grudge me a bite o' suppa an' a
couple hours' res' on his gall'ry. W'at you
say, ole man?"
"I say dit Mas' Bud Aiken don't hires
me to chop 'ood. Ef I don't chop dis heah,
his wife got it to do. Dat w'y I chops
'ood, suh. Go right 'long in, suh; you
g'ine fine Mas' Bud some'eres roun', ef he
ain't drunk an' gone to bed."
Grégoire, glad to
stretch his legs,
dismounted, and led his horse into the small
inclosure which surrounded the cabin. An
unkempt, vicious-looking little Texas pony
stopped nibbling the stubble there to look
maliciously at him and his fine sleek horse,
as they passed by. Back of the hut, and
running plumb up against the pine wood,
was a small, ragged specimen of a
cotton-field.
Grégoire was rather undersized, with a
square, well-knit figure, upon which his
clothes sat well and easily. His corduroy
trousers were thrust into the legs of his
boots; he wore a blue flannel shirt; his coat
was thrown across the saddle. In his keen
black eyes had come a puzzled expression,
and he tugged thoughtfully at the brown
moustache that lightly shaded his upper
lip.
He was trying to recall when and under
what circumstances he had before heard the
name of Bud Aiken. But Bud Aiken himself
saved Grégoire the trouble of further
speculation on the subject. He appeared
suddenly in the small doorway, which his big
body quite filled; and then Grégoire
remembered. This was the disreputable so-called
"Texan" who a year ago had run away with
and married Baptiste Choupic's pretty daughter,
'Tite Reine, yonder on Bayou Pierre, in
Natchitoches parish. A vivid picture of
the girl as he remembered her appeared to
him: her trim rounded figure; her piquant
face with its saucy black coquettish eyes,
her little exacting, imperious ways that had
obtained for her the nickname of 'Tite
Reine, little queen. Grégoire had known
her at the 'Cadian balls that he sometimes
had the hardihood to attend.
These pleasing recollections of 'Tite
Reine lent a warmth that might otherwise
have been lacking to Grégoire's manner,
when he greeted her husband.
"I hope I fine you well, Mr. Aiken," he
exclaimed cordially, as he approached and
extended his hand.
"You find me damn' porely, suh; but
you 've got the better o' me, ef I may so say."
He was a big good-looking brute, with a
straw-colored "horse-shoe" moustache quite
concealing his mouth, and a several days'
growth of stubble on his rugged face. He
was fond of reiterating that women's
admiration had wrecked his life, quite forgetting
to mention the early and sustained influence
of "Pike's Magnolia" and other brands,
and wholly ignoring certain inborn propensities
capable of wrecking unaided any ordinary
existence. He had been lying down,
and looked frouzy and half asleep.
"Ef I may so say, you 've got the better
o' me, Mr. - er" -
"Santien, Grégoire Santien. I have the
pleasure o' knowin' the lady you married,
suh; an' I think I met you befo', - somew'ere
o' 'nother," Grégoire added vaguely.
"Oh," drawled Aiken, waking up, "one
o' them Red River Sanchuns!" and his face
brightened at the prospect before him of
enjoying the society of one of the Santien
boys. "Mortimer!" he called in ringing
chest tones worthy a commander at the head
of his troop. The negro had rested his
axe and appeared to be listening to their
talk, though he was too far to hear what
they said.
"Mortimer, come along here an' take my
frien' Mr. Sanchun's hoss. Git a move
thar, git a move!" Then turning toward
the entrance of the cabin he called back
through the open door: "Rain!" it was
his way of pronouncing 'Tite Reine's name.
"Rain!" he cried again peremptorily; and
turning to Grégoire: "she 's 'tendin' to
some or other housekeepin' truck." 'Tite
Reine was back in the yard feeding the
solitary pig which they owned, and which
Aiken had mysteriously driven up a few days
before, saying he had bought it at Many.
Grégoire could hear her calling out as
she approached: "I 'm comin', Bud. Yere
I come. W'at you want, Bud?" breathlessly,
as she appeared in the door frame
and looked out upon the narrow sloping
gallery where stood the two men. She seemed
to Grégoire to have changed a good deal.
She was thinner, and her eyes were larger,
with an alert, uneasy look in them; he
fancied the startled expression came from
seeing him there unexpectedly. She wore
cleanly homespun garments, the same she
had brought with her from Bayou Pierre;
but her shoes were in shreds. She uttered
only a low, smothered exclamation when she
saw Grégoire.
"Well, is that all you got to say to my
frien' Mr. Sanchun? That 's the way with
them Cajuns," Aiken offered apologetically
to his guest; "ain't got sense enough to
know a white man when they see one."
Grégoire took her hand.
"I 'm mighty glad to see you, 'Tite
Reine," he said from his heart. She had
for some reason been unable to speak; now
she panted somewhat hysterically: -
"You mus' escuse me, Mista Grégoire.
It 's the truth I did n' know you firs', stan'in'
up there." A deep flush had supplanted the
former pallor of her face, and her eyes shone
with tears and ill-concealed excitement.
"I thought you all lived yonda in
Grant," remarked Grégoire carelessly, making
talk for the purpose of diverting Aiken's
attention away from his wife's evident
embarrassment, which he himself was at a
loss to understand.
"Why, we did live a right smart while
in Grant; but Grant ain't no parish to
make a livin' in. Then I tried Winn and
Caddo a spell; they was n't no better. But I
tell you, suh, Sabine 's a damn' sight worse
than any of 'em. Why, a man can't git a
drink o' whiskey here without going out of
the parish fer it, or across into Texas. I 'm
fixin' to sell out an' try Vernon."
Bud Aiken's household belongings surely
would not count for much in the
contemplated "selling out." The one room
that constituted his home was extremely
bare of furnishing, - a cheap bed, a pine
table, and a few chairs, that was all. On a
rough shelf were some paper parcels
representing the larder. The mud daubing
had fallen out here and there from between
the logs of the cabin; and into the largest of
these apertures had been thrust pieces of
ragged bagging and wisps of cotton. A tin
basin outside on the gallery offered the only
bathing facilities to be seen. Notwithstanding
these drawbacks, Grégoire announced his
intention of passing the night with Aiken.
"I 'm jus' goin' to ask the privilege o' layin'
down yere on yo' gall'ry to-night, Mr. Aiken.
My hoss ain't in firs'-class trim; an' a night's
res' ain't goin' to hurt him o' me either." He
had begun by declaring
his intention of pushing on across
the Sabine, but an imploring look from
'Tite Reine's eyes had stayed the words
upon his lips. Never had he seen in a
woman's eyes a look of such heartbroken
entreaty. He resolved on the instant to
know the meaning of it before setting foot
on Texas soil. Grégoire had never learned
to steel his heart against a woman's eyes,
no matter what language they spoke.
An old patchwork quilt folded double
and a moss pillow which 'Tite Reine gave
him out on the gallery made a bed that was,
after all, not too uncomfortable for a young
fellow of rugged habits.
Grégoire slept quite soundly after he
laid down upon his improvised bed at nine
o'clock. He was awakened toward the
middle of the night by some one gently
shaking him. It was 'Tite Reine stooping
over him; he could see her plainly, for the
moon was shining. She had not removed the
clothing she had worn during the day; but
her feet were bare and looked wonderfully
small and white. He arose on his elbow,
wide awake at once. "W'y, 'Tite Reine!
w'at the devil you mean? w'ere 's yo'
husban'?"
"The house kin fall on 'im, 't en goin'
wake up Bud w'en he 's sleepin'; he drink'
too much." Now that she had aroused
Grégoire, she stood up, and sinking her face
in her bended arm like a child, began to cry
softly. In an instant he was on his feet.
"My God, 'Tite Reine! w'at 's the
matta? you got to tell me w'at 's the
matta." He could no longer recognize
the imperious 'Tite Reine, whose will had
been the law in her father's household. He
led her to the edge of the low gallery and
there they sat down.
Grégoire loved women. He liked their
nearness, their atmosphere; the tones of
their voices and the things they said; their
ways of moving and turning about; the
brushing of their garments when they
passed him by pleased him. He was fleeing
now from the pain that a woman had
inflicted upon him. When any overpowering
sorrow came to Grégoire he felt a singular
longing to cross the Sabine River and
lose himself in Texas. He had done this
once before when his home, the old Santien
place, had gone into the hands of creditors.
The sight of 'Tite Reine's distress now
moved him painfully.
"W'at is it, 'Tite Reine? tell me w'at it
is," he kept asking her. She was attempting
to dry her eyes on her coarse sleeve.
He drew a handkerchief from his back
pocket and dried them for her.
"They all well, yonda?" she asked, haltingly,
"my popa? my moma? the chil'en?"
Grégoire knew no more of the Baptiste
Choupic family than the post beside him.
Nevertheless he answered: "They all right
well, 'Tite Reine, but they mighty lonesome
of you."
"My popa, he got a putty good crop this
yea'?"
"He made right smart o' cotton fo' Bayou
Pierre."
"He done haul it to the relroad?"
"No, he ain't quite finish pickin'."
"I hope they all ent sole 'Putty Girl'?"
she inquired solicitously.
"Well, I should say not! Yo' pa says
they ain't anotha piece o' hossflesh in the
pa'ish he 'd want to swap fo' 'Putty Girl.' "
She turned to him with vague but fleeting
amazement, - "Putty Girl" was a cow!
The autumn night was heavy about them.
The black forest seemed to have drawn
nearer; its shadowy depths were filled with
the gruesome noises that inhabit a southern
forest at night time.
"Ain't you 'fraid sometimes yere, 'Tite
Reine?" Grégoire asked, as he felt a light
shiver run through him at the weirdness of
the scene.
"No," she answered promptly, "I ent
'fred o' nothin' 'cep' Bud."
"Then he treats you mean? I thought
so!"
"Mista Grégoire," drawing close to him
and whispering in his face, "Bud 's killin'
me." He clasped her arm, holding her near
him, while an expression of profound pity
escaped him. "Nobody don' know, 'cep'
Unc' Mort'mer," she went on. "I tell you,
he beats me; my back an' arms - you ought
to see - it 's all blue. He would 'a' choke'
me to death one day w'en he was drunk, if
Unc' Mort'mer had n' make 'im lef go - with
his axe ov' his head." Grégoire glanced
back over his shoulder toward the room
where the man lay sleeping. He was
wondering if it would really be a criminal act to
go then and there and shoot the top of Bud
Aiken's head off. He himself would hardly
have considered it a crime, but he was not
sure of how others might regard the act.
"That 's w'y I wake you up, to tell you,"
she continued. "Then sometime' he plague
me mos' crazy; he tell me 't ent no preacher,
it 's a Texas drummer w'at marry him an'
me; an' w'en I don' know w'at way to turn
no mo', he say no, it 's a Meth'dis' archbishop,
an' keep on laughin' 'bout me, an' I don'
know w'at the truth!"
Then again, she told how Bud had
induced her to mount the vicious little
mustang "Buckeye," knowing that the little
brute would n't carry a woman; and how it
had amused him to witness her distress and
terror when she was thrown to the ground.
"If I would know how to read an' write,
an' had some pencil an' paper, it 's long 'go
I would wrote to my popa. But it 's no
pos'-office, it 's no relroad, - nothin' in Sabine.
An' you know, Mista Grégoire, Bud say he 's
goin' carry me yonda to Vernon, an' fu'ther
off yet, - 'way yonda, an' he 's goin' turn
me loose. Oh, don' leave me yere, Mista
Grégoire! don' leave me behine you!" she
entreated, breaking once more into sobs.
" 'Tite Reine," he answered, "do you
think I 'm such a low-down scound'el as to
leave you yere with that" - He finished
the sentence mentally, not wishing to offend
the ears of 'Tite Reine.
They talked on a good while after that.
She would not return to the room where her
husband lay; the nearness of a friend had
already emboldened her to inward revolt.
Grégoire induced her to lie down and rest
upon the quilt that she had given to him for
a bed. She did so, and broken down by
fatigue was soon fast asleep.
He stayed seated on the edge of the gallery
and began to smoke cigarettes which he
rolled himself of périque tobacco. He might
have gone in and shared Bud Aiken's bed,
but preferred to stay there near 'Tite Reine.
He watched the two horses, tramping slowly
about the lot, cropping the dewy wet tufts
of grass.
Grégoire smoked on. He only stopped
when the moon sank down behind the
pine-trees, and the long deep shadow reached
out and enveloped him. Then he could no
longer see and follow the filmy smoke from
his cigarette, and he threw it away. Sleep
was pressing heavily upon him. He stretched
himself full length upon the rough bare
boards of the gallery and slept until
day-break.
Bud Aiken's satisfaction was very genuine
when he learned that Grégoire proposed
spending the day and another night with
him. He had already recognized in the
young creole a spirit not altogether
uncongenial to his own.
'Tite Reine cooked breakfast for them.
She made coffee; of course there was no
milk to add to it, but there was sugar.
From a meal bag that stood in the corner
of the room she took a measure of meal,
and with it made a pone of corn bread. She
fried slices of salt pork. Then Bud sent
her into the field to pick cotton with old
Uncle Mortimer. The negro's cabin was the
counterpart of their own, but stood quite
a distance away hidden in the woods. He
and Aiken worked the crop on shares.
Early in the day Bud produced a grimy
pack of cards from behind a parcel of sugar
on the shelf. Grégoire threw the cards into
the fire and replaced them with a spic and
span new "deck" that he took from his
saddlebags. He also brought forth from the
same receptacle a bottle of whiskey, which he
presented to his host, saying that he himself
had no further use for it, as he had "sworn
off" since day before yesterday, when he
had made a fool of himself in Cloutierville.
They sat at the pine table smoking and
playing cards all the morning, only desisting
when 'Tite Reine came to serve them
with the gumbo-filé that she had come out of
the field to cook at noon. She could afford
to treat a guest to chicken gumbo, for she
owned a half dozen chickens that Uncle
Mortimer had presented to her at various
times. There were only two spoons, and
'Tite Reine had to wait till the men had
finished before eating her soup. She waited
for Grégoire's spoon, though her husband
was the first to get through. It was a very
childish whim.
In the afternoon she picked cotton again;
and the men played cards, smoked, and Bud
drank.
It was a very long time since Bud Aiken
had enjoyed himself so well, and since he
had encountered so sympathetic and
appreciative a listener to the story of his
eventful career. The story of 'Tite Reine's fall
from the horse he told with much spirit,
mimicking quite skillfully the way in which
she had complained of never being permitted
"to teck a li'le pleasure," whereupon
he had kindly suggested horseback riding.
Grégoire enjoyed the story amazingly, which
encouraged Aiken to relate many more of a
similar character. As the afternoon wore
on, all formality of address between the two
had disappeared: they were "Bud" and
"Grégoire" to each other, and Grégoire
had delighted Aiken's soul by promising to
spend a week with him. 'Tite Reine was
also touched by the spirit of recklessness in
the air; it moved her to fry two chickens
for supper. She fried them deliciously in
bacon fat. After supper she again arranged
Grégoire's bed out on the gallery.
The night fell calm and beautiful, with
the delicious odor of the pines floating upon
the air. But the three did not sit up to enjoy
it. Before the stroke of nine, Aiken had
already fallen upon his bed unconscious of
everything about him in the heavy drunken
sleep that would hold him fast through the
night. It even clutched him more relentlessly
than usual, thanks to Grégoire's free
gift of whiskey.
The sun was high when he awoke. He
lifted his voice and called imperiously for
'Tite Reine, wondering that the coffee-pot
was not on the hearth, and marveling still
more that he did not hear her voice in
quick response with its, "I 'm comin', Bud.
Yere I come." He called again and again.
Then he arose and looked out through the
back door to see if she were picking cotton
in the field, but she was not there. He
dragged himself to the front entrance.
Grégoire's bed was still on the gallery, but the
young fellow was nowhere to be seen.
Uncle Mortimer had come into the yard,
not to cut wood this time, but to pick up
the axe which was his own property, and
lift it to his shoulder.
"Mortimer," called out Aiken, "whur 's
my wife?" at the same time advancing
toward the negro. Mortimer stood still,
waiting for him. " Whur 's my wife an'
that Frenchman? Speak out, I say, before
I send you to h - l."
Uncle Mortimer never had feared Bud
Aiken; and with the trusty axe upon his
shoulder, he felt a double hardihood in the
man's presence. The old fellow passed the
back of his black, knotty hand unctuously
over his lips, as though he relished in
advance the words that were about to pass
them. He spoke carefully and deliberately:
"Miss Reine," he said, "I reckon she
mus' of done struck Natchitoches pa'ish
sometime to'ard de middle o' de night, on
dat 'ar swif' hoss o' Mr. Sanchun's."
Aiken uttered a terrific oath. "Saddle
up Buckeye," he yelled, "before I count
twenty, or I 'll rip the black hide off yer.
Quick, thar! Thur ain't nothin' fourfooted
top o' this earth that Buckeye can't run
down." Uncle Mortimer scratched his head
dubiously, as he answered: -
"Yas, Mas' Bud, but you see, Mr. Sanchun,
he done cross de Sabine befo' sun-up
on Buckeye."
WHEN the half dozen
little ones were
hungry, old Cléophas would take the fiddle
from its flannel bag and play a tune upon it.
Perhaps it was to drown their cries, or their
hunger, or his conscience, or all three. One
day Fifine, in a rage, stamped her small foot
and clinched her little hands, and declared:
"It 's no two way'! I 'm goin' smash
it, dat fiddle, some day in a t'ousan' piece'!"
"You mus' n' do dat, Fifine," expostulated
her father. "Dat fiddle been ol'er
'an you an' me t'ree time' put togedder.
You done yaird me tell often 'nough 'bout
dat Italien w'at give it to me w'en he die,
'long yonder befo' de war. An' he say,
'Cléophas, dat fiddle - dat one part my life
- w'at goin' live w'en I be dead - Dieu
merci!' You talkin' too fas', Fifine."
"Well, I 'm goin' do some'in' wid dat fiddle,va!" returned the daughter, only half
mollified. "Mine w'at I say."
So once when there were great carryings-on
up at the big plantation - no end of
ladies and gentlemen from the city, riding,
driving, dancing, and making music upon
all manner of instruments - Fifine, with the
fiddle in its flannel bag, stole away and up
to the big house where these festivities were
in progress.
No one noticed at first the little barefoot
girl seated upon a step of the veranda and
watching, lynx-eyed, for her opportunity.
"It 's one fiddle I got for sell," she
announced, resolutely, to the first who
questioned her.
It was very funny to have a shabby little
girl sitting there wanting to sell a fiddle, and
the child was soon surrounded.
The lustreless instrument was brought
forth and examined, first with amusement,
but soon very seriously, especially by three
gentlelemen: one with very long hair that
hung down, another with equally long hair
that stood up, the third with no hair worth
mentioning.
These three turned the fiddle upside down
and almost inside out. They thumped upon
it, and listened. They scraped upon it, and
listened. They walked into the house with
it, and out of the house with it, and into
remote corners with it. All this with much
putting of heads together, and talking
together in familiar and unfamiliar languages.
And, finally, they sent Fifine away with a
fiddle twice as beautiful as the one she had
brought, and a roll of money besides!
The child was dumb with astonishment,
and away she flew. But when she stopped
beneath a big chinaberry-tree, to further
scan the roll of money, her wonder was
redoubled. There was far more than she could
count, more than she had ever dreamed of
possessing. Certainly enough to top the old
cabin with new shingles; to put shoes on all
the little bare feet and food into the hungry
mouths. Maybe enough - and Fifine's heart
fairly jumped into her throat at the vision
- maybe enough to buy Blanchette and her
tiny calf that Unc' Siméon wanted to sell!
"It 's jis like you say, Fifine," murmured
old Cléophas, huskily, when he had played
upon the new fiddle that night. "It 's one
fine fiddle; an' like you say, it shine' like
satin. But some way or udder, 't ain' de same.
Yair, Fifine, take it - put it 'side. I
b'lieve, me, I ain' goin' play de fiddle no
mo'."
THE bayou curved like a
crescent around
the point of land on which La Folle's cabin
stood. Between the stream and the hut lay
a big abandoned field, where cattle were
pastured when the bayou supplied them with
water enough. Through the woods that
spread back into unknown regions the woman
had drawn an imaginary line, and past this
circle she never stepped. This was the form
of her only mania.
She was now a large, gaunt black woman,
past thirty-five. Her real name was Jacqueline,
but every one on the plantation called
her La Folle, because in childhood she had
been frightened literally "out of her senses,"
and had never wholly regained them.
It was when there had been skirmishing
and sharpshooting all day in the woods.
Evening was near when P'tit Maître, black
with powder and crimson with blood, had
staggered into the cabin of Jacqueline's
mother, his pursuers close at his heels. The
sight had stunned her childish reason.
She dwelt alone in her solitary cabin, for
the rest of the quarters had long since been
removed beyond her sight and knowledge.
She had more physical strength than most
men, and made her patch of cotton and corn
and tobacco like the best of them. But of
the world beyond the bayou she had long
known nothing, save what her morbid fancy
conceived.
People at Bellissime had grown used to
her and her way, and they thought nothing
of it. Even when "Old Mis' " died, they
did not wonder that La Folle had not crossed
the bayou, but had stood upon her side of
it, wailing and lamenting.
P'tit Maître was now the owner of
Bellissime. He was a middle-aged man, with
a family of beautiful daughters about him,
and a little son whom La Folle loved as if
he had been her own. She called him Chéri,
and so did every one else because she did.
None of the girls had ever been to her,
what Chéri was. They had each and all
loved to be with her, and to listen to her
wondrous stories of things that always
happened "yonda, beyon' de bayou."
But none of them had stroked her black
hand quite as Chéri did, nor rested their
heads against her knee so confidingly, nor
fallen asleep in her arms as he used to do.
For Chéri hardly did such things now,
since he had become the proud possessor of
a gun, and had had his black curls cut off.
That summer - the summer Chéri gave
La Folle two black curls tied with a knot
of red ribbon - the water ran so low in the
bayou that even the little children at
Bellissime were able to cross it on foot, and
the cattle were sent to pasture down by the
river. La Folle was sorry when they were
gone, for she loved these dumb companions
well, and liked to feel that they were there,
and to hear them browsing by night up to
her own inclosure.
It was Saturday afternoon, when the fields
were deserted. The men had flocked to a
neighboring village to do their week's trading,
and the women were occupied with
household affairs, - La Folle as well as the
others. It was then she mended and washed
her handful of clothes, scoured her house,
and did her baking.
In this last employment she never forgot
Chéri. To-day she had fashioned
croquignoles of the most fantastic and alluring
shapes for him. So when she saw the boy
come trudging across the old field with his
gleaming little new rifle on his shoulder, she
called out gayly to him, " Chéri! Chéri!"
But Chéri did not need the summons, for
he was coming straight to her. His pockets
all bulged out with almonds and raisins and
an orange that he had secured for her from
the very fine dinner which had been given
that day up at his father's house.
He was a sunny-faced youngster of ten.
When he had emptied his pockets, La Folle
patted his round red cheek, wiped his soiled
hands on her apron, and smoothed his hair.
Then she watched him as, with his cakes
in his hand, he crossed her strip of cotton
back of the cabin, and disappeared into the
wood.
He had boasted of the things he was
going to do with his gun out there.
"You think they got plenty deer in the
wood, La Folle?" he had inquired, with the
calculating air of an experienced hunter.
"Non, non!" the woman laughed. " Don't
you look fo' no deer, Chéri. Dat 's too big.
But you bring La Folle one good fat squirrel
fo' her dinner to-morrow, an' she goin'
be satisfi'."
"One squirrel ain't a bite. I 'll bring you
mo' 'an one, La Folle," he had boasted
pompously as he went away.
When the woman, an hour later, heard
the report of the boy's rifle close to the
wood's edge, she would have thought
nothing of it if a sharp cry of distress had not
followed the sound.
She withdrew her arms from the tub of
suds in which they had been plunged, dried
them upon her apron, and as quickly as
her trembling limbs would bear her, hurried
to the spot whence the ominous report had
come.
It was as she feared. There she found
Chéri stretched upon the ground, with his
rifle beside him. He moaned piteously: -
"I 'm dead, La Folle! I 'm dead! I 'm
gone!"
"Non, non!" she exclaimed resolutely,
as she knelt beside him. "Put you' arm
'roun La Folle's nake, Chéri. Dat 's nuttin';
dat goin' be nuttin'." She lifted him in her
powerful arms.
Chéri had carried his gun muzzle-downward.
He had stumbled, - he did not know
how. He only knew that he had a ball
lodged somewhere in his leg, and he thought
that his end was at hand. Now, with his
head upon the woman's shoulder, he moaned
and wept with pain and fright.
"Oh, La Folle! La Folle! it hurt so
bad! I can' stan' it, La Folle!"
"Don't cry, mon bébé, mon bébé, mon
Chéri!" the woman spoke soothingly as
she covered the ground with long strides.
"La Folle goin' mine you; Doctor Bonfils
goin' come make mon Chéri well agin."
She had reached the abandoned field. As
she crossed it with her precious burden, she
looked constantly and restlessly from side
to side. A terrible fear was upon her, -
the fear of the world beyond the bayou,
the morbid and insane dread she had been
under since childhood.
When she was at the bayou's edge she
stood there, and shouted for help as if a life
depended upon it: -
"Oh, P'tit Maître! P'tit Maître! Venez
donc! Au secours! Au secours!"
No voice responded. Chéri's hot tears
were scalding her neck. She called for
each and every one upon the place, and still
no answer came.
She shouted, she wailed; but whether her
voice remained unheard or unheeded, no
reply came to her frenzied cries. And all
the while Chéri moaned and wept and
entreated to be taken home to his mother.
La Folle gave a last despairing look
around her. Extreme terror was upon her.
She clasped the child close against her
breast, where he could feel her heart beat
like a muffled hammer. Then shutting her
eyes, she ran suddenly down the shallow
bank of the bayou, and never stopped till
she had climbed the opposite shore.
She stood there quivering an instant as she
opened her eyes. Then she plunged into
the footpath through the trees.
She spoke no more to Chéri, but
muttered constantly, "Bon Dieu, ayez pitié
La Folle! Bon Dieu, ayez pitié moi!"
Instinct seemed to guide her. When the
pathway spread clear and smooth enough
before her, she again closed her eyes tightly
against the sight of that unknown and
terrifying world.
A child, playing in some weeds, caught
sight of her as she neared the quarters.
The little one uttered a cry of dismay.
"La Folle!" she screamed, in her
piercing treble. "La Folle done cross de bayer!"
Quickly the cry passed down the line of
cabins.
"Yonda, La Folle done cross de bayou!"
Children, old men, old women, young ones
with infants in their arms, flocked to doors
and windows to see this awe-inspiring
spectacle. Most of them shuddered with
superstitious dread of what it might portend.
"She totin' Chéri!" some of them shouted.
Some of the more daring gathered about
her, and followed at her heels, only to fall
back with new terror when she turned her
distorted face upon them. Her eyes were
bloodshot and the saliva had gathered in a
white foam on her black lips.
Some one had run ahead of her to where
P'tit Maître sat with his family and guests
upon the gallery.
"P'tit Maître! La Folle done cross de
bayou! Look her! Look her yonda totin'
Chéri!" This startling intimation was the
first which they had of the woman's
approach.
She was now near at hand. She walked
with long strides. Her eyes were fixed
desperately before her, and she breathed
heavily, as a tired ox.
At the foot of the stairway, which she
could not have mounted, she laid the boy in
his father's arms. Then the world that had
looked red to La Folle suddenly turned
black, - like that day she had seen powder
and blood.
She reeled for an instant. Before a
sustaining arm could reach her, she fell heavily
to the ground.
When La Folle regained consciousness,
she was at home again, in her own cabin
and upon her own bed. The moon rays,
streaming in through the open door and
windows, gave what light was needed to the
old black mammy who stood at the table
concocting a tisane of fragrant herbs. It
was very late.
Others who had come, and found that the
stupor clung to her, had gone again. P'tit
Maître had been there, and with him Doctor
Bonfils, who said that La Folle might die.
But death had passed her by. The voice
was very clear and steady with which she
spoke to Tante Lizette, brewing her tisane
there in a corner.
"Ef you will give me one good drink
tisane, Tante Lizette, I b'lieve I 'm goin'
sleep, me."
And she did sleep; so soundly, so healthfully,
that old Lizette without compunction
stole softly away, to creep back through the
moonlit fields to her own cabin in the new
quarters.
The first touch of the cool gray morning
awoke La Folle. She arose, calmly, as if no
tempest had shaken and threatened her
existence but yesterday.
She donned her new blue cottonade and
white apron, for she remembered that this
was Sunday. When she had made for
herself a cup of strong black coffee, and drunk
it with relish, she quitted the cabin and
walked across the old familiar field to the
bayou's edge again.
She did not stop there as she had always
done before, but crossed with a long, steady
stride as if she had done this all her life.
When she had made her way through
the brush and scrub cottonwood-trees that
lined the opposite bank, she found herself
upon the border of a field where the white,
bursting cotton, with the dew upon it,
gleamed for acres and acres like frosted
silver in the early dawn.
La Folle drew a long, deep breath as she
gazed across the country. She walked slowly
and uncertainly, like one who hardly knows
how, looking about her as she went.
The cabins, that yesterday had sent a
clamor of voices to pursue her, were quiet
now. No one was yet astir at Bellissime.
Only the birds that darted here and there
from hedges were awake, and singing their
matins.
When La Folle came to the broad stretch
of velvety lawn that surrounded the house,
she moved slowly and with delight over the
springy turf, that was delicious beneath her
tread.
She stopped to find whence came those
perfumes that were assailing her senses with
memories from a time far gone.
There they were, stealing up to her from
the thousand blue violets that peeped out
from green, luxuriant beds. There they
were, showering down from the big waxen
bells of the magnolias far above her head,
and from the jessamine clumps around her.
There were roses, too, without number.
To right and left palms spread in broad and
graceful curves. It all looked like enchantment
beneath the sparkling sheen of dew.
When La Folle had slowly and cautiously
mounted the many steps that led up to the
veranda, she turned to look back at the
perilous ascent she had made. Then she caught
sight of the river, bending like a silver bow
at the foot of Bellissime. Exultation
possessed her soul.
La Folle rapped softly upon a door near
at hand. Chéri's mother soon cautiously
opened it. Quickly and cleverly she
dissembled the astonishment she felt at seeing
La Folle.
"Ah, La Folle! Is it you, so early?"
"Oui, madame. I come ax how my po'
li'le Chéri to, 's mo'nin'."
"He is feeling easier, thank you, La
Folle. Dr. Bonfils says it will be nothing
serious. He 's sleeping now. Will you
come back when he awakes?"
"Non, madame. I 'm goin' wait yair tell
Chéri wake up." La Folle seated herself
upon the topmost step of the veranda.
A look of wonder and deep content crept
into her face as she watched for the first
time the sun rise upon the new, the
beautiful world beyond the bayou.
WHEN the war was over,
old Aunt Peggy
went to Monsieur, and said: -
"Massa, I ain't never gwine to quit yer.
I 'm gittin' ole an' feeble, an' my days is few
in dis heah lan' o' sorrow an' sin. All I
axes is a li'le co'ner whar I kin set down an'
wait peaceful fu de en'."
Monsieur and Madame were very much
touched at this mark of affection and fidelity
from Aunt Peggy. So, in the general
reconstruction of the plantation which
immediately followed the surrender, a nice
cabin, pleasantly appointed, was set apart
for the old woman. Madame did not even
forget the very comfortable rocking-chair
in which Aunt Peggy might "set down," as
she herself feelingly expressed it, "an' wait
fu de en'."
She has been rocking ever since.
At intervals of about two years Aunt
Peggy hobbles up to the house, and delivers
the stereotyped address which has become
more than familiar: -
"Mist'ess, I 's come to take a las' look at
you all. Le' me look at you good. Le' me
look at de chillun, - de big chillun an' de
li'le chillun. Le' me look at de picters an'
de photygraphts an' de pianny, an' eve'ything
'fo' it 's too late. One eye is done gone, an'
de udder' s a-gwine fas'. Any mo'nin' yo'
po' ole Aunt Peggy gwine wake up an' fin'
herse'f stone-bline."
After such a visit Aunt Peggy invariably
returns to her cabin with a generously filled
apron.
The scruple which Monsieur one time felt
in supporting a woman for so many years in
idleness has entirely disappeared. Of late
his attitude towards Aunt Peggy is simply
one of profound astonishment, - wonder at
the surprising age which an old black woman
may attain when she sets her mind to it, for
Aunt Peggy is a hundred and twenty-five, so
she says.
It may not be true, however. Possibly
she is older.
MR. FRED BARTNER was
sorely perplexed
and annoyed to find that a wheel and tire of
his buggy threatened to part company.
"Ef you want," said the negro boy who
drove him, "we kin stop yonda at ole M'sié
Jean Ba's an' fix it; he got de bes' blacksmif
shop in de pa'ish on his place."
"Who in the world is old Monsieur Jean
Ba," the young man inquired.
"How come, suh, you don' know old M'sié
Jean Baptiste Plochel? He ole, ole. He
sorter quare in he head ev' sence his son
M'sié Alcibiade got kill' in de wah. Yonda
he live'; whar you sees dat che'okee hedge
takin' up half de road."
Little more than twelve years ago, before
the "Texas and Pacific" had joined the cities
of New Orleans and Shreveport with its
steel bands, it was a common thing to travel
through miles of central Louisiana in a
buggy. Fred Bartner, a young commission
merchant of New Orleans, on business bent,
had made the trip in this way by easy stages
from his home to a point on Cane River,
within a half day's journey of Natchitoches.
From the mouth of Cane River he had
passed one plantation after another, - large
ones and small ones. There was nowhere
sight of anything like a town, except the
little hamlet of Cloutierville, through which
they had sped in the gray dawn. "Dat
town, hit 's ole, ole; mos' a hund'ed year'
ole, dey say. Uh, uh, look to me like it
heap ol'r an' dat," the darkey had commented.
Now they were within sight of Monsieur
Jean Ba's towering Cherokee hedge.
It was Christmas morning, but the sun
was warm and the air so soft and mild that
Bartner found the most comfortable way to
wear his light overcoat was across his
knees. At the entrance to the plantation he
dismounted and the negro drove away
toward the smithy which stood on the edge
of the field.
From the end of the long avenue of
magnolias that led to it, the house which
confronted Bartner looked grotesquely long
in comparison with its height. It was one
story, of pale, yellow stucco; its massive
wooden shutters were a faded green. A
wide gallery, topped by the overhanging
roof, encircled it.
At the head of the stairs a very old man
stood. His figure was small and shrunken,
his hair long and snow-white. He wore a
broad, soft felt hat, and a brown plaid shawl
across his bent shoulders. A tall, graceful
girl stood beside him; she was clad in a
warm-colored blue stuff gown. She seemed
to be expostulating with the old gentleman,
who evidently wanted to descend the stairs
to meet the approaching visitor. Before
Bartner had had time to do more than lift his
hat, Monsieur Jean Ba had thrown his
trembling arms about the young man and
was exclaiming in his quavering old tones:
"Á la fin! mon fils! à la fin!" Tears
started to the girl's eyes and she was rosy
with confusion. "Oh, escuse him, sir;
please escuse him," she whisperingly
entreated, gently striving to disengage the
old gentleman's arms from around the
astonished Bartner. But a new line of
thought seemed fortunately to take
possession of Monsieur Jean Ba, for
he moved away and went quickly,
pattering like a baby, down the gallery.
His fleecy white hair streamed out
on the soft breeze, and his brown shawl
flapped as he turned the corner.
Bartner, left alone with the girl, proceeded
to introduce himself and to explain
his presence there.
"Oh! Mr. Fred Bartna of New Orleans?
The commission merchant! " she exclaimed,
cordially extending her hand. "So well
known in Natchitoches parish. Not our
merchant, Mr. Bartna," she added, naîvely,
"but jus' as welcome, all the same, at my
gran'father's."
Bartner felt like kissing her, but he only
bowed and seated himself in the big chair
which she offered him. He wondered what
was the longest time it could take to mend a
buggy tire.
She sat before him with her hands pressed
down into her lap, and with an eagerness and
pretty air of being confidential that were
extremely engaging, explained the reasons
for her grandfather's singular behavior.
Years ago, her uncle Alcibiade, in going
away to the war, with the cheerful assurance
of youth, had promised his father that he
would return to eat Christmas dinner with
him. He never returned. And now, of late
years, since Monsieur Jean Ba had begun
to fail in body and mind, that old, unspoken
hope of long ago had come back to live anew
in his heart. Every Christmas Day he
watched for the coming of Alcibiade.
"Ah! if you knew, Mr. Bartna, how I
have endeavor' to distrac' his mine from
that thought! Weeks ago, I tole to all the
negroes, big and li'le, 'If one of you dare to
say the word, Christmas gif', in the hearing
of Monsieur Jean Baptiste, you will have to
answer it to me.' "
Bartner could not recall when he had been
so deeply interested in a narration.
"So las' night, Mr. Bartna, I said to
grandpère, 'Pépère, you know to-morrow
will be the great feas' of la Trinité; we will
read our litany together in the morning and
say a chapelet.' He did not answer a word;
il est malin, oui. But this morning at
daylight he was rapping his cane on the back
gallery, calling together the negroes. Did
they not know it was Christmas Day, an' a
great dinner mus' be prepare' for his son
Alcibiade, whom he was expecting!"
"And so he has mistaken me for his son
Alcibiade. It is very unfortunate," said
Bartner, sympathetically. He was a
good-looking, honest-faced young fellow.
The girl arose, quivering with an inspiration.
She approached Bartner, and in her
eagerness laid her hand upon his arm.
"Oh, Mr. Bartna, if you will do me a
favor! The greates' favor of my life!"
He expressed his absolute readiness.
"Let him believe, jus' for this one Christmas
day, that you are his son. Let him have
that Christmas dinner with Alcibiade, that
he has been longing for so many year'."
Bartner's was not a puritanical conscience,
but truthfulness was a habit as well as
a principle with him, and he winced. "It
seems to me it would be cruel to deceive him;
it would not be" - he did not like to say
"right," but she guessed that he meant it.
"Oh, for that," she laughed, "you may
stay as w'ite as snow, Mr. Bartna. I will
take all the sin on my conscience. I assume
all the responsibility on my shoulder'."
"Esmée!" the old man was calling as he
came trotting back, " Esmée, my child," in
his quavering French, "I have ordered the
dinner. Go see to the arrangements of the
table, and have everything faultless."
The dining-room was at the end of the
house, with windows opening upon the side
and back galleries. There was a high,
simply carved wooden mantelpiece, bearing a
wide, slanting, old-fashioned mirror that
reflected the table and its occupants. The
table was laden with an overabundance.
Monsieur Jean Ba sat at one end, Esmée at
the other, and Bartner at the side.
Two "grif" boys, a big black woman and
a little mulatto girl waited upon them; there
was a reserve force outside within easy call,
and the little black and yellow faces kept
bobbing up constantly above the windowsills.
Windows and doors were open, and
a fire of hickory branches blazed on the
hearth.
Monsieur Jean Ba ate little, but that little
greedily and rapidly; then he stayed in
rapt contemplation of his guest.
"You will notice, Alcibiade, the flavor of
the turkey," he said. "It is dressed with
pecans; those big ones from the tree down
on the bayou. I had them gathered
expressly." The delicate and rich flavor of
the nut was indeed very perceptible.
Bartner had a stupid impression of acting
on the stage, and had to pull himself
together every now and then to throw off the
stiffness of the amateur actor. But this
discomposure amounted almost to paralysis
when he found Mademoiselle Esmée taking
the situation as seriously as her grandfather.
"Mon Dieu! uncle Alcibiade, you are
not eating! Mais w'ere have you lef' your
appetite? Corbeau, fill your young
master's glass. Doralise, you are neglecting
Monsieur Alcibiade; he is without bread."
Monsieur Jean Ba's feeble intelligence
reached out very dimly; it was like a
dream which clothes the grotesque and
unnatural with the semblance of reality. He
shook his head up and down with pleased
approbation of Esmée's "Uncle Alcibiade,"
that tripped so glibly on her lips.
When she arranged his after-dinner brûlot,
- a lump of sugar in a flaming teaspoonful
of brandy, dropped into a tiny cup of
black coffee, - he reminded her, "Your
Uncle Alcibiade takes two lumps, Esmée.
The scamp! he is fond of sweets. Two
or three lumps, Esmée." Bartner would
have relished his brûlot greatly, prepared so
gracefully as it was by Esmée's deft hands,
had it not been for that superfluous lump.
After dinner the girl arranged her grandfather
comfortably in his big armchair on
the gallery, where he loved to sit when the
weather permitted. She fastened his shawl
about him and laid a second one across his
knees. She shook up the pillow for his
head, patted his sunken cheek and kissed
his forehead under the soft-brimmed hat.
She left him there with the sun warming
his feet and old shrunken knees.
Esmée and Bartner walked together
under the magnolias. In walking they trod
upon the violet borders that grew rank and
sprawling, and the subtle perfume of the
crushed flowers scented the air deliciously.
They stooped and plucked handfuls of them.
They gathered roses, too, that were blooming
yet against the warm south end of the
house; and they chattered and laughed like
children. When they sat in the sunlight
upon the low steps to arrange the flowers
they had broken, Bartner's conscience began
to prick him anew.
"You know," he said, "I can't stay here
always, as well as I should like to. I shall
have to leave presently; then your grandfather
will discover that we have been deceiving him,
- and you can see how cruel that will be."
"Mr. Bartna," answered Esmée, daintily
holding a rosebud up to her pretty nose,
"W'en I awoke this morning an' said my
prayers, I prayed to the good God that He
would give one happy Christmas day to my
gran'father. He has answered my prayer;
an' He does not sen' his gif's incomplete.
He will provide.
"Mr. Bartna, this morning I agreed to
take all responsibility on my shoulder', you
remember? Now, I place all that responsibility
on the shoulder' of the blessed Virgin."
Bartner was distracted with admiration;
whether for this beautiful and consoling
faith, or its charming votary, was not quite
clear to him.
Every now and then Monsieur Jean Ba
would call out, "Alcibiade, mon fils !"
and Bartner would hasten to his side.
Sometimes the old man had forgotten what
he wanted to say. Once it was to ask if
the salad had been to his liking, or if he
would, perhaps, not have preferred the
turkey aux truffes.
"Alcibiade, mon fils!" Again Bartner
amiably answered the summons. Monsieur
Jean Ba took the young man's hand
affectionately in his, but limply, as children
hold hands. Bartner's closed firmly around it.
"Alcibiade, I am going to take a little
nap now. If Robert McFarlane comes while
I am sleeping, with more talk of wanting to
buy Nég Sévérin, tell him I will sell none
of my slaves; not the least little négrillon.
Drive him from the place with the shotgun.
Don't be afraid to use the shot-gun,
Alcibiade, - when I am asleep, - if he
comes."
Esmée and Bartner forgot that there was
such a thing as time, and that it was passing.
There were no more calls of " Alcibiade,
mon fils!" As the sun dipped lower and
lower in the west, its light was
creeping, creeping up and illuming the still
body of Monsieur Jean Ba. It lighted his
waxen hands, folded so placidly in his lap;
it touched his shrunken bosom. When it
reached his face, another brightness had
come there before it, - the glory of a quiet
and peaceful death.
Bartner remained over night, of course,
to add what assistance he could to that
which kindly neighbors offered.
In the early morning, before taking his
departure, he was permitted to see Esmée.
She was overcome with sorrow, which he
could hardly hope to assuage, even with the
keen sympathy which he felt.
"And may I be permitted to ask,
Mademoiselle, what will be your plans for the
future?"
"Oh," she moaned, "I cannot any longer
remain upon the ole plantation, which would
not be home without grandpère. I suppose
I shall go to live in New Orleans with my
tante Clémentine." The last was spoken
in the depths of her handkerchief.
Bartner's heart bounded at this intelligence
in a manner which he could not but
feel was one of unbecoming levity. He
pressed her disengaged hand warmly, and
went away.
The sun was again shining brightly, but
the morning was crisp and cool; a thin
wafer of ice covered what had yesterday
been pools of water in the road. Bartner
buttoned his coat about him closely. The
shrill whistles of steam cotton-gins sounded
here and there. One or two shivering
negroes were in the field gathering what
shreds of cotton were left on the dry, naked
stalks. The horses snorted with satisfaction,
and their strong hoof-beats rang out
against the hard ground.
"Urge the horses," Bartner said;
"they 've
had a good rest and we want to push on
to Natchitoches."
"You right, suh. We done los' a whole
blesse day, - a plumb day."
"Why, so we have," said Bartner,
"I
had n't thought of it."
"TAKE de do' an'
go! You year me?
Take de do'!"
Lolotte's brown eyes flamed. Her small
frame quivered. She stood with her back
turned to a meagre supper-table, as if to
guard it from the man who had just
entered the cabin. She pointed toward the
door, to order him from the house.
"You mighty cross to-night, Lolotte.
You mus' got up wid de wrong foot to 's
mo'nin'. Hein, Veveste? hein, Jacques,
w'at you say?"
The two small urchins who sat at table
giggled in sympathy with their father's
evident good humor.
"I 'm wo' out, me!" the girl exclaimed,
desperately, as she let her arms fall limp at
her side. "Work, work! Fu w'at? Fu
feed de lazies' man in Natchitoches pa'ish."
"Now, Lolotte, you think w'at you sayin',"
expostulated her father. "Sylveste Bordon
don' ax nobody to feed 'im."
"W'en you brought a poun' of suga in
de house?" his daughter retorted hotly, "or
a poun' of coffee? W'en did you brought
a piece o' meat home, you? An' Nonomme
all de time sick. Co'n bread an' po'k, dat 's
good fu Veveste an' me an' Jacques; but
Nonomme? no!"
She turned as if choking, and cut into
the round, soggy "pone" of corn bread
which was the main feature of the scanty
supper.
"Po' li'le Nonomme; we mus' fine some'in'
to break dat fevah. You want to kill a
chicken once a w'ile fu Nonomme, Lolotte."
He calmly seated himself at the table.
"Didn' I done put de las' roostah in de
pot?" she cried with exasperation. "Now
you come axen me fu kill de hen'! W'ere
I goen to fine aigg' to trade wid, w'en de
hen' be gone? Is I got one picayune in de
house fu trade wid, me?"
"Papa," piped the young Jacques, "w'at
dat I yeard you drive in de yard, w'ile go?"
"Dat 's it! W'en Lolotte would n' been
talken' so fas', I could tole you 'bout dat job
I got fu to-morrow. Dat was Joe Duplan's
team of mule' an' wagon, wid t'ree bale' of
cotton, w'at you yaird. I got to go soon in
de mo'nin' wid dat load to de landin'. An'
a man mus' eat w'at got to work; dat 's
sho."
Lolotte's bare brown feet made no sound
upon the rough boards as she entered the
room where Nonomme lay sick and sleeping.
She lifted the coarse mosquito net from
about him, sat down in the clumsy chair by
the bedside, and began gently to fan the
slumbering child.
Dusk was falling rapidly, as it does in
the South. Lolotte's eyes grew round and
big, as she watched the moon creep up from
branch to branch of the moss-draped live-oak
just outside her window. Presently the
weary girl slept as profoundly as Nonomme.
A little dog sneaked into the room, and
socially licked her bare feet. The touch, moist
and warm, awakened Lolotte.
The cabin was dark and quiet. Nonomme
was crying softly, because the mosquitoes
were biting him. In the room beyond, old
Sylveste and the others slept. When
Lolotte had quieted the child, she went
outside to get a pail of cool, fresh water at the
cistern. Then she crept into bed beside
Nonomme, who slept again.
Lolotte's dreams that night pictured her
father returning from work, and bringing
luscious oranges home in his pocket for the
sick child.
When at the very break of day she heard
him astir in his room, a certain comfort
stole into her heart. She lay and listened
to the faint noises of his preparations to go
out. When he had quitted the house, she
waited to hear him drive the wagon from
the yard.
She waited long, but heard no sound of
horse's tread or wagon-wheel. Anxious, she
went to the cabin door and looked out. The
big mules were still where they had been
fastened the night before. The wagon was
there, too.
Her heart sank. She looked quickly
along the low rafters supporting the roof of
the narrow porch to where her father's
fishing pole and pail always hung. Both were
gone.
" 'T ain' no use, 't ain' no use," she said,
as she turned into the house with a look of
something like anguish in her eyes.
When the spare breakfast was eaten and
the dishes cleared away, Lolotte turned with
resolute mien to the two little brothers.
"Veveste," she said to the older, "go see
if dey got co'n in dat wagon fu feed dem
mule'."
"Yes, dey got co'n. Papa done feed 'em,
fur I see de co'n-cob in de trough, me."
"Den you goen he'p me hitch dem mule,
to de wagon. Jacques, go down de lane
an' ax Aunt Minty if she come set wid
Nonomme w'ile I go drive dem mule' to de
landin'."
Lolotte had evidently determined to
undertake her father's work. Nothing could
dissuade her; neither the children's
astonishment nor Aunt Minty's scathing
disapproval. The fat black negress came laboring
into the yard just as Lolotte mounted upon
the wagon.
"Git down f'om dah, chile! Is you plumb
crazy?" she exclaimed.
"No, I ain't crazy; I 'm hungry, Aunt
Minty. We all hungry. Somebody got
fur work in dis fam'ly."
"Dat ain't no work fur a gal w'at ain't
bar' seventeen year ole; drivin' Marse
Duplan's mules! W'at I gwine tell yo' pa?"
"Fu me, you kin tell 'im w'at you want.
But you watch Nonomme. I done cook his
rice an' set it 'side."
"Don't you bodda," replied Aunt Minty;
"I got somepin heah fur my boy. I gwine
'ten' to him."
Lolotte had seen Aunt Minty put
something out of sight when she came up, and
made her produce it. It was a heavy fowl.
"Sence w'en you start raisin' Brahma
chicken', you?" Lolotte asked mistrustfully.
"My, but you is a cu'ious somebody!
Ev'ything w'at got fedders on its laigs is
Brahma chicken wid you. Dis heah ole
hen" -
"All de same, you don't got fur give dat
chicken to eat to Nonomme. You don't got
fur cook 'im in my house."
Aunt Minty, unheeding, turned to the
house with blustering inquiry for her boy,
while Lolotte drove away with great clatter.
She knew, notwithstanding her injunction,
that the chicken would be cooked and eaten.
Maybe she herself would partake of it when
she came back, if hunger drove her too
sharply.
"Nax' thing I 'm goen be one rogue,"
she muttered; and the tears gathered and
fell one by one upon her cheeks.
"It do look like one Brahma, Aunt
Mint," remarked the small and weazened
Jacques, as he watched the woman picking
the lusty fowl.
"How ole is you?" was her quiet retort.
"I don' know, me."
"Den if you don't know dat much, you
betta keep yo' mouf shet, boy."
Then silence fell, but for a monotonous
chant which the woman droned as she
worked. Jacques opened his lips once more.
"It do look like one o' Ma'me Duplan'
Brahma, Aunt Mint."
"Yonda, whar I come f'om, befo' de
wah" -
"Ole Kaintuck, Aunt Mint?"
"Ole Kaintuck."
"Dat ain't one country like dis yere,
Aunt Mint?"
"You mighty right, chile, dat ain't no
sech kentry as dis heah. Yonda, in Kaintuck,
w'en boys says de word 'Brahma chicken,'
we takes an' gags 'em, an' ties dar
han's behines 'em, an' fo'ces 'em ter stan' up
watchin' folks settin' down eatin' chicken
soup."
Jacques passed the back of his hand across
his mouth; but lest the act should not place
sufficient seal upon it, he prudently stole
away to go and sit beside Nonomme, and
wait there as patiently as he could the
coming feast.
And what a treat it was! The luscious
soup, - a great pot of it, - golden yellow,
thickened with the flaky rice that Lolotte
had set carefully on the shelf. Each mouthful
of it seemed to carry fresh blood into
the veins and a new brightness into the eyes
of the hungry children who ate of it.
And that was not all. The day brought
abundance with it. Their father came home
with glistening perch and trout that Aunt
Minty broiled deliciously over glowing
embers, and basted with the rich chicken fat.
"You see," explained old Sylveste, "w'en
I git up to 's mo'nin' an' see it was cloudy,
I say to me, 'Sylveste, w'en you go wid
dat cotton, rememba you got no tarpaulin.
Maybe it rain, an' de cotton was spoil. Betta
you go yonda to Lafirme Lake, w'ere de
trout was bitin' fas'er 'an mosquito, an' so
you git a good mess fur de chil'en.' Lolotte
- w'at she goen do yonda? You ought
stop Lolotte, Aunt Minty, w'en you see w'at
she was want to do."
"Didn' I try to stop 'er? Didn' I ax 'er,
'W'at I gwine tell yo' pa?' An' she 'low,
'Tell 'im to go hang hisse'f, de trifling ole
rapscallion! I 's de one w'at 's runnin' dis
heah fambly!' "
"Dat don' soun' like Lolotte, Aunt Minty;
you mus' yaird 'er crooked; hein,
Nonomme?"
The quizzical look in his good-natured
features was irresistible. Nonomme fairly
shook with merriment.
"My head feel so good," he declared. "I
wish Lolotte would come, so I could tole
'er." And he turned in his bed to look
down the long, dusty lane, with the hope of
seeing her appear as he had watched her go,
sitting on one of the cotton bales and
guiding the mules.
But no one came all through the hot
morning. Only at noon a broad-shouldered
young negro appeared in view riding through
the dust. When he had dismounted at the
cabin door, he stood leaning a shoulder lazily
against the jamb.
"Well, heah you is," he grumbled,
addressing Sylveste with no mark of respect.
"Heah you is, settin' down like comp'ny,
an' Marse Joe yonda sont me see if you was
dead."
"Joe Duplan boun' to have his joke,
him," said Sylveste, smiling uneasily.
"Maybe it look like a joke to you, but
't aint no joke to him, man, to have one o'
his wagons smoshed to kindlin', an' his bes'
team tearin' t'rough de country. You don't
want to let 'im lay han's on you, joke o' no
joke."
"Malédiction!" howled Sylveste, as he
staggered to his feet. He stood for one
instant irresolute; then he lurched past the
man and ran wildly down the lane. He
might have taken the horse that was there,
but he went tottering on afoot, a frightened
look in his eyes, as if his soul gazed upon
an inward picture that was horrible.
The road to the landing was little used.
As Sylveste went he could readily trace the
marks of Lolotte's wagon-wheels. For some
distance they went straight along the road.
Then they made a track as if a madman
had directed their course, over stump and
hillock, tearing the bushes and barking the
trees on either side.
At each new turn Sylveste expected to find
Lolotte stretched senseless upon the ground,
but there was never a sign of her.
At last he reached the landing, which was
a dreary spot, slanting down to the river
and partly cleared to afford room for what
desultory freight might be left there from
time to time. There were the wagon-tracks,
clean down to the river's edge and partly in
the water, where they made a sharp and
senseless turn. But Sylveste found no trace
of his girl.
"Lolotte! " the old man cried out into
the stillness. "Lolotte, ma fille, Lolotte!"
But no answer came; no sound but the echo
of his own voice, and the soft splash of the
red water that lapped his feet.
He looked down at it, sick with anguish
and apprehension.
Lolotte had disappeared as completely as
if the earth had opened and swallowed her.
After a few days it became the common
belief that the girl had been drowned. It was
thought that she must have been hurled
from the wagon into the water during the
sharp turn that the wheel-tracks indicated,
and carried away by the rapid current.
During the days of search, old Sylveste's
excitement kept him up. When it was over,
an apathetic despair seemed to settle upon
him.
Madame Duplan, moved by sympathy,
had taken the little four-year-old Nonomme
to the plantation Les Chêniers, where the
child was awed by the beauty and comfort
of things that surrounded him there. He
thought always that Lolotte would come
back, and watched for her every day; for
they did not tell him the sad tidings of her
loss.
The other two boys were placed in the
temporary care of Aunt Minty; and old
Sylveste roamed like a persecuted being through
the country. He who had been a type of
indolent content and repose had changed to
a restless spirit.
When he thought to eat, it was in some
humble negro cabin that he stopped to ask
for food, which was never denied him. His
grief had clothed him with a dignity that
imposed respect.
One morning very early he appeared
before the planter with a disheveled and hunted
look.
"M'sieur Duplan," he said, holding his
hat in his hand and looking away into
vacancy, "I been try ev'thing. I been try
settin' down still on de sto' gall'ry. I been
walk, I been run; 't ain' no use. Dey got
al'ays some'in' w'at push me. I go fishin',
an' it 's some'in' w'at push me worser 'an
ever. By gracious! M'sieur Duplan, gi' me
some work!"
The planter gave him at once a plow in
hand, and no plow on the whole plantation
dug so deep as that one, nor so fast.
Sylveste was the first in the field, as he was
the last one there. From dawn to nightfall he
worked, and after, till his limbs refused to
do his bidding.
People came to wonder, and the negroes
began to whisper hints of demoniacal
possession.
When Mr. Duplan gave careful thought
to the subject of Lolotte's mysterious
disappearance, an idea came to him. But so
fearful was he to arouse false hopes in the
breasts of those who grieved for the girl that
to no one did he impart his suspicions save
to his wife. It was on the eve of a business
trip to New Orleans that he told her what
he thought, or what he hoped rather.
Upon his return, which happened not
many days later, he went out to where old
Sylveste was toiling in the field with
frenzied energy.
"Sylveste," said the planter, quietly, when
he had stood a moment watching the man at
work, "have you given up all hope of
hearing from your daughter?"
"I don' know, me; I don' know. Le' me
work, M'sieur Duplan."
"For my part, I believe the child is
alive."
"You b'lieve dat, you?" His rugged
face was pitiful in its imploring lines.
"I know it," Mr. Duplan muttered, as
calmly as he could. "Hold up! Steady
yourself, man! Come; come with me to the
house. There is some one there who knows
it, too; some one who has seen her."
The room into which the planter led the
old man was big, cool, beautiful, and sweet
with the delicate odor of flowers. It was
shady, too, for the shutters were half closed;
but not so darkened but Sylveste could at
once see Lolotte, seated in a big wicker
chair.
She was almost as white as the gown she
wore. Her neatly shod feet rested upon a
cushion, and her black hair, that had been
closely cut, was beginning to make little
rings about her temples.
"Aie!" he cried sharply, at sight of her,
grasping his seamed throat as he did so.
Then he laughed like a madman, and then
he sobbed.
He only sobbed, kneeling upon the floor
beside her, kissing her knees and her hands,
that sought his. Little Nonomme was close
to her, with a health flush creeping into his
cheek. Veveste and Jacques were there, and
rather awed by the mystery and grandeur of
everything.
"W'ere'bouts you find her, M'sieur
Duplan?" Sylveste asked, when the first flush
of his joy had spent itself, and he was wiping
his eyes with his rough cotton shirt sleeve.
"M'sieur Duplan find me 'way yonda to
de city, papa, in de hospital," spoke Lolotte,
before the planter could steady his voice to
reply. "I did n' know who ev'ybody was,
me. I did n' know me, myse'f, tell I tu'n
roun' one day an' see M'sieur Duplan, w'at
stan'en dere."
"You was boun' to know M'sieur Duplan,
Lolotte," laughed Sylveste, like a child.
"Yes, an' I know right 'way how dem
mule was git frighten' w'en de boat w'istle
fu stop, an' pitch me plumb on de groun'.
An' I rememba it was one mulûtresse w'at
call herse'f one chembamed, all de time aside
me."
"You must not talk too much, Lolotte,"
interposed Madame Duplan, coming to place
her hand with gentle solicitude upon the
girl's forehead, and to feel how her pulse
beat.
Then to save the child further effort of
speech, she herself related how the boat had
stopped at this lonely landing to take on a
load of cotton-seed. Lolotte had been found
stretched insensible by the river, fallen
apparently from the clouds, and had been taken
on board.
The boat had changed its course into
other waters after that trip, and had not
returned to Duplan's Landing. Those who
had tended Lolotte and left her at the
hospital supposed, no doubt, that she would
make known her identity in time, and they
had troubled themselves no further about
her.
"An' dah you is!" almost shouted aunt
Minty, whose black face gleamed in the
doorway; "dah you is, settin' down, lookin'
jis' like w'ite folks!"
"Ain't I always was w'ite folks, Aunt
Mint?" smiled Lolotte, feebly.
"G'long, chile. You knows me. I don'
mean no harm."
"And now, Sylveste," said Mr. Duplan,
as he rose and started to walk the floor, with
hands in his pockets, "listen to me. It will
be a long time before Lolotte is strong again.
Aunt Minty is going to look after things for
you till the child is fully recovered. But
what I want to say is this: I shall trust
these children into your hands once more,
and I want you never to forget again that
you are their father - do you hear? - that
you are a man!"
Old Sylveste stood with his hand in
Lolotte's, who rubbed it lovingly against her
cheek.
"By gracious! M'sieur Duplan," he
answered, "w'en God want to he'p me, I 'm
goen try my bes'!"
OLD Uncle Oswald
believed he belonged
to the Bênitous, and there was no getting
the notion out of his head. Monsieur tried
every way, for there was no sense in it.
Why, it must have been fifty years since
the Bênitous owned him. He had belonged
to others since, and had later been freed.
Beside, there was not a Bênitou left in the
parish now, except one rather delicate
woman, who lived with her little daughter in
a corner of Natchitoches town, and
constructed "fashionable millinery." The
family had dispersed, and almost vanished,
and the plantation as well had lost its
identity.
But that made no difference to Uncle
Oswald. He was always running away from
Monsieur - who kept him out of pure
kindness - and trying to get back to those
Bênitous.
More than that, he was constantly getting
injured in such attempts. Once he fell into
the bayou and was nearly drowned. Again
he barely escaped being run down by an
engine. But another time, when he had been
lost two days, and finally discovered in an
unconscious and half-dead condition in the
woods, Monsieur and Doctor Bonfils reluctantly
decided that it was time to "do something"
with the old man.
So, one sunny spring morning, Monsieur
took Uncle Oswald in the buggy, and drove
over to Natchitoches with him, intending to
take the evening train for the institution in
which the poor creature was to be cared for.
It was quite early in the afternoon when
they reached town, and Monsieur found himself
with several hours to dispose of before
train-time. He tied his horses in front of
the hotel - the quaintest old stuccoed house,
too absurdly unlike a "hotel" for anything
- and entered. But he left Uncle Oswald
seated upon a shaded bench just within the yard.
There were people occasionally coming in
and going out; but no one took the smallest
notice of the old negro drowsing over the
cane that he held between his knees. The
sight was common in Natchitoches.
One who passed in was a little girl about
twelve, with dark, kind eyes, and daintily
carrying a parcel. She was dressed in blue
calico, and wore a stiff white sun-bonnet,
extinguisher fashion, over her brown curls.
Just as she passed Uncle Oswald again,
on her way out, the old man, half asleep, let
fall his cane. She picked it up and handed
it back to him, as any nice child would have
done.
"Oh, thankee, thankee, missy," stammered
Uncle Oswald, all confused at being
waited upon by this little lady. "You is a
putty li'le gal. W'at 's yo' name, honey?"
"My name 's Susanne; Susanne Bênitou,"
replied the girl.
Instantly the old negro stumbled to his feet.
Without a moment's hesitancy he followed the
little one out through the gate, down the street,
and around the corner.
It was an hour later that Monsieur, after a
distracted search, found him standing upon the
gallery of the tiny house in which Madame
Bênitou kept "fashionable millinery."
Mother and daughter were sorely perplexed
to comprehend the intentions of the
venerable servitor, who stood, hat in hand,
persistently awaiting their orders.
Monsieur understood and appreciated the
situation at once, and he has prevailed upon
Madame Bênitou to accept the gratuitous
services of Uncle Oswald for the sake of the
old darky's own safety and happiness.
Uncle Oswald never tries to run away
now. He chops wood and hauls water. He
cheerfully and faithfully bears the parcels
that Susanne used to carry; and makes an
excellent cup of black coffee.
I met the old man the other day in
Natchitoches, contentedly stumbling down
St. Denis street with a basket of figs that some
one was sending to his mistress. I asked
him his name.
"My name 's Oswal', Madam; Oswal' -
dat 's my name. I b'longs to de Bênitous,"
and some one told me his story then.
As the day was
pleasant, Madame Valmondé
drove over to L'Abri to see Désirée
and the baby.
It made her laugh to think of Désirée
with a baby. Why, it seemed but yesterday
that Désirée was little more than a baby
herself; when Monsieur in riding through
the gateway of Valmondé had found her
lying asleep in the shadow of the big stone
pillar.
The little one awoke in his arms and
began to cry for "Dada." That was as
much as she could do or say. Some people
thought she might have strayed there of her
own accord, for she was of the toddling age.
The prevailing belief was that she had been
purposely left by a party of Texans, whose
canvas-covered wagon, late in the day, had
crossed the ferry that Coton Maîs kept, just
below the plantation. In time Madame
Valmondé abandoned every speculation but
the one that Désirée had been sent to her by
a beneficent Providence to be the child of
her affection, seeing that she was without
child of the flesh. For the girl grew to be
beautiful and gentle, affectionate and
sincere, - the idol of Valmondé.
It was no wonder, when she stood one day
against the stone pillar in whose shadow she
had lain asleep, eighteen years before, that
Armand Aubigny riding by and seeing her
there, had fallen in love with her. That was
the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if
struck by a pistol shot. The wonder was
that he had not loved her before; for he had
known her since his father brought him
home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his
mother died there. The passion that awoke
in him that day, when he saw her at the
gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like
a prairie fire, or like anything that drives
headlong over all obstacles.
Monsieur Valmondé grew practical and
wanted things well considered: that is, the
girl's obscure origin. Armand looked into
her eyes and did not care. He was reminded
that she was nameless. What did it matter
about a name when he could give her one of
the oldest and proudest in Louisiana? He
ordered the corbeille from Paris, and
contained himself with what patience he could
until it arrived; then they were married.
Madame Valmondé had not seen Désirée
and the baby for four weeks. When she
reached L'Abri she shuddered at the first
sight of it, as she always did. It was a sad
looking place, which for many years had not
known the gentle presence of a mistress, old
Monsieur Aubigny having married and buried
his wife in France, and she having loved her
own land too well ever to leave it. The
roof came down steep and black like a cowl,
reaching out beyond the wide galleries that
encircled the yellow stuccoed house. Big,
solemn oaks grew close to it, and their
thick-leaved, far-reaching branches shadowed it
like a pall. Young Aubigny's rule was a
strict one, too, and under it his negroes had
forgotten how to be gay, as they had been
during the old master's easy-going and
indulgent lifetime.
The young mother was recovering slowly,
and lay full length, in her soft white muslins
and laces, upon a couch. The baby was
beside her, upon her arm, where he had
fallen asleep, at her breast. The yellow
nurse woman sat beside a window fanning
herself.
Madame Valmondé bent her portly figure
over Désirée and kissed her, holding her an
instant tenderly in her arms. Then she
turned to the child.
"This is not the baby!" she exclaimed,
in startled tones. French was the language
spoken at Valmondé in those days.
"I knew you would be astonished,"
laughed Désirée, "at the way he has grown.
The little cochon de lait! Look at his
legs, mamma, and his hands and fingernails,
- real finger-nails. Zandrine had to
cut them this morning. Is n't it true,
Zandrine?"
The woman bowed her turbaned head
majestically, "Mais si, Madame."
"And the way he cries," went on Désirée,
"is deafening. Armand heard him the other
day as far away as La Blanche's cabin."
Madame Valmondé had never removed
her eyes from the child. She lifted it and
walked with it over to the window that
was lightest. She scanned the baby
narrowly, then looked as searchingly at
Zandrine, whose face was turned to gaze
across the fields.
"Yes, the child has grown, has changed;"
said Madame Valmondé, slowly, as she
replaced it beside its mother. "What does
Armand say?"
Désirée's face became suffused with a glow
that was happiness itself.
"Oh, Armand is the proudest father in
the parish, I believe, chiefly because it is
a boy, to bear his name; though he says
not, - that he would have loved a girl as
well. But I know it is n't true. I know he
says that to please me. And mamma," she
added, drawing Madame Valmondé's head
down to her, and speaking in a whisper,
"he has n't punished one of them - not one
of them - since baby is born. Even
Négrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg
that he might rest from work - he only
laughed, and said Négrillon was a great
scamp. Oh, mamma, I 'm so happy; it
frightens me."
What Désirée said was true. Marriage,
and later the birth of his son, had softened
Armand Aubigny's imperious and exacting
nature greatly. This was what made the
gentle Désirée so happy, for she loved him
desperately. When he frowned she trembled,
but loved him. When he smiled, she asked
no greater blessing of God. But Armand's
dark, handsome face had not often been
disfigured by frowns since the day he fell in
love with her.
When the baby was about three months
old, Désirée awoke one day to the conviction
that there was something in the air menacing
her peace. It was at first too subtle to
grasp. It had only been a disquieting
suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks;
unexpected visits from far-off neighbors who
could hardly account for their coming. Then
a strange, an awful change in her husband's
manner, which she dared not ask him to
explain. When he spoke to her, it was with
averted eyes, from which the old love-light
seemed to have gone out. He absented
himself from home; and when there, avoided
her presence and that of her child, without
excuse. And the very spirit of Satan
seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his
dealings with the slaves. Désirée was
miserable enough to die.
She sat in her room, one hot afternoon, in
her peignoir, listlessly drawing through her
fingers the strands of her long, silky brown
hair that hung about her shoulders. The
baby, half naked, lay asleep upon her own
great mahogany bed, that was like a sumptuous
throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy.
One of La Blanche's little quadroon boys -
half naked too - stood fanning the child
slowly with a fan of peacock feathers.
Désirée's eyes had been fixed absently and sadly
upon the baby, while she was striving to
penetrate the threatening mist that she felt
closing about her. She looked from her
child to the boy who stood beside him, and
back again; over and over. "Ah!" It
was a cry that she could not help; which
she was not conscious of having uttered.
The blood turned like ice in her veins,
and a clammy moisture gathered upon her
face.
She tried to speak to the little quadroon
boy; but no sound would come, at first.
When he heard his name uttered, he looked
up, and his mistress was pointing to the door.
He laid aside the great, soft fan, and
obediently stole away, over the polished floor,
on his bare tiptoes.
She stayed motionless, with gaze riveted
upon her child, and her face the picture of
fright.
Presently her husband entered the room,
and without noticing her, went to a table
and began to search among some papers
which covered it.
"Armand," she called to him, in a voice
which must have stabbed him, if he was
human. But he did not notice. "Armand,"
she said again. Then she rose and
tottered towards him. "Armand," she
panted once more, clutching his arm, "look
at our child. What does it mean? tell
me."
He coldly but gently loosened her fingers
from about his arm and thrust the hand
away from him. "Tell me what it means!"
she cried despairingly.
"It means," he answered lightly, "that
the child is not white; it means that you are
not white."
A quick conception of all that this
accusation meant for her nerved her with
unwonted courage to deny it. "It is a lie; it
is not true, I am white! Look at my hair,
it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand,
you know they are gray. And my skin is
fair," seizing his wrist. "Look at my hand;
whiter than yours, Armand," she laughed
hysterically.
"As white as La Blanche's," he returned
cruelly; and went away leaving her alone
with their child.
When she could hold a pen in her hand,
she sent a despairing letter to Madame
Valmondé.
"My mother, they tell me I am not white.
Armand has told me I am not white. For
God's sake tell them it is not true. You
must know it is not true. I shall die. I
I must die. I cannot be so unhappy, and
live."
The answer that came was as brief:
"My own Désirée: Come home to Valmondé;
back to your mother who loves you
Come with your child."
When the letter reached Désirée she went
with it to her husband's study, and laid it
open upon the desk before which he sat.
She was like a stone image: silent, white,
motionless after she placed it there.
In silence he ran his cold eyes over the
words. He said nothing. "Shall I go, Armand?"
she asked in tones sharp with agonized
suspense.
"Yes, go."
"Do you want me to go?"
"Yes, I want you to go."
He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly
and unjustly with him; and felt, somehow,
that he was paying Him back in kind when
he stabbed thus into his wife's soul. Moreover
he no longer loved her, because of the
unconscious injury she had brought upon his
home and his name.
She turned away like one stunned by a
blow, and walked slowly towards the door,
hoping he would call her back.
"Good-by, Armand," she moaned.
He did not answer her. That was his last
blow at fate.
Désirée went in search of her child. Zandrine
was pacing the sombre gallery with it.
She took the little one from the nurse's arms
with no word of explanation, and descending
the steps, walked away, under the live-oak
branches.
It was an October afternoon; the sun
was just sinking. Out in the still fields the
negroes were picking cotton.
Désirée had not changed the thin white
garment nor the slippers which she wore.
Her hair was uncovered and the sun's rays
brought a golden gleam from its brown
meshes. She did not take the broad, beaten
road which led to the far-off plantation of
Valmondé. She walked across a deserted
field, where the stubble bruised her tender
feet, so delicately shod, and tore her thin
gown to shreds.
She disappeared among the reeds and willows
that grew thick along the banks of the
deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come
back again.
Some weeks later there was a curious scene
enacted at L'Abri. In the centre of the
smoothly swept back yard was a great
bonfire. Armand Aubigny sat in the wide
hallway that commanded a view of the
spectacle; and it was he who dealt out to a
half dozen negroes the material which kept this
fire ablaze.
A graceful cradle of willow, with all its
dainty furbishings, was laid upon the pyre,
which had already been fed with the richness
of a priceless layette. Then there were
silk gowns, and velvet and satin ones added
to these; laces, too, and embroideries;
bonnets and gloves; for the corbeille had been
of rare quality.
The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of
letters; innocent little scribblings that
Désirée had sent to him during the days of
their espousal. There was the remnant of
one back in the drawer from which he took
them. But it was not Désirée's; it was
part of an old letter from his mother to his
father. He read it. She was thanking God
for the blessing of her husband's love: -
"But, above all," she wrote,
"night and
day, I thank the good God for having so
arranged our lives that our dear Armand
will never know that his mother, who adores
him, belongs to the race that is cursed with
the brand of slavery."
THREE of Madame's
finest bronze turkeys
were missing from the brood. It was
nearing Christmas, and that was the reason,
perhaps, that even Monsieur grew agitated
when the discovery was made. The news
was brought to the house by Sévérin's boy,
who had seen the troop at noon a half mile
up the bayou three short. Others reported
the deficiency as even greater. So, at about
two in the afternoon, though a cold drizzle
had begun to fall, popular feeling in the
matter was so strong that all the household
forces turned out to search for the missing
gobblers.
Alice, the housemaid, went down the river,
and Polisson, the yard-boy, went up the
bayou. Others crossed the fields, and Artemise
was rather vaguely instructed to "go
look too."
Artemise is in some respects an extraordinary
person. In age she is anywhere between
ten and fifteen, with a head not unlike in
shape and appearance to a dark
chocolate-colored Easter-egg. She talks
almost wholly in monosyllables, and has big
round glassy eyes, which she fixes upon one
with the placid gaze of an Egyptian sphinx.
The morning after my arrival at the
plantation, I was awakened by the rattling
of cups at my bedside. It was Artemise with
the early coffee.
"Is it cold out?" I asked, by way of
conversation, as I sipped the tiny cup of
ink-black coffee.
"Ya, 'm."
"Where do you sleep, Artemise?" I
further inquired, with the same intention as
before.
"In uh hole," was precisely what she said,
with a pump-like motion of the arm that she
habitually uses to indicate a locality. What
she meant was that she slept in the hall.
Again, another time, she came with an
armful of wood, and having deposited it
upon the hearth, turned to stare fixedly at
me, with folded hands.
"Did Madame send you to build a fire,
Artemise?" I hastened to ask, feeling
uncomfortable under the look.
"Ya, 'm."
"Very well; make it."
"Matches!" was all she said.
There happened to be no matches in my
room, and she evidently considered that all
personal responsibility ceased in face of this
first and not very serious obstacle. Pages
might be told of her unfathomable ways;
but to the turkey hunt.
All afternoon the searching party kept
returning, singly and in couples, and in a
more or less bedraggled condition. All
brought unfavorable reports. Nothing could
be seen of the missing fowls. Artemise had
been absent probably an hour when she
glided into the hall where the family was
assembled, and stood with crossed hands and
contemplative air beside the fire. We could
see by the benign expression of her countenance
that she possibly had information to
give, if any inducement were offered her in
the shape of a question.
"Have you found the turkeys, Artemise?"
Madame hastened to ask.
"Ya, 'm."
"You Artemise!" shouted Aunt Florindy,
the cook, who was passing through
the hall with a batch of newly baked light
bread. "She 's a-lyin', mist'ess, if dey ever
was! You foun' dem turkeys?" turning
upon the child. "Whar was you at, de
whole blesse' time? Warn't you stan'in'
plank up agin de back o' de hen-'ous'?
Never budged a inch? Don't jaw me down,
gal; don't jaw me!" Artemise was only
gazing at Aunt Florindy with unruffled calm.
"I warn't gwine tell on 'er, but arter dat
untroof, I boun' to."
"Let her alone, Aunt Florindy," Madame
interfered. "Where are the turkeys,
Artemise?"
"Yon'a," she simply articulated, bringing
the pump-handle motion of her arm into
play.
"Where 'yonder'?" Madame demanded,
a little impatiently.
"In uh hen-'ous'!"
Sure enough! The three missing turkeys
had been accidentally locked up in the
morning when the chickens were fed.
Artemise, for some unknown reason, had
hidden herself during the search behind the
hen-house, and had heard their muffled
gobble.
MADAME CÉLESTIN
always wore a neat
and snugly fitting calico wrapper when she
went out in the morning to sweep her small
gallery. Lawyer Paxton thought she looked
very pretty in the gray one that was made
with a graceful Watteau fold at the back:
and with which she invariably wore a bow of
pink ribbon at the throat. She was always
sweeping her gallery when lawyer Paxton
passed by in the morning on his way to his
office in St. Denis Street.
Sometimes he stopped and leaned over
the fence to say good-morning at his ease;
to criticise or admire her rosebushes; or,
when he had time enough, to hear what she
had to say. Madame Célestin usually had
a good deal to say. She would gather up
the train of her calico wrapper in one hand,
and balancing the broom gracefully in the
other, would go tripping down to where the
lawyer leaned, as comfortably as he could,
over her picket fence.
Of course she had talked to him of her
troubles. Every one knew Madame
Célestin's troubles.
"Really, madame," he told her once, in his
deliberate, calculating, lawyer-tone, "it 's
more than human nature - woman's nature
- should be called upon to endure. Here
you are, working your fingers off" - she
glanced down at two rosy finger-tips that
showed through the rents in her baggy
doeskin gloves - "taking in sewing; giving
music lessons; doing God knows what in
the way of manual labor to support yourself
and those two little ones" - Madame
Célestin's pretty face beamed with satisfaction
at this enumeration of her trials.
"You right, Judge. Not a picayune, not
one, not one, have I lay my eyes on in the
pas' fo' months that I can say Célestin give
it to me or sen' it to me."
"The scoundrel!" muttered lawyer
Paxton in his beard.
"An' pourtant," she resumed, "they say
he 's making money down roun' Alexandria
w'en he wants to work."
"I dare say you have n't seen him for
months?" suggested the lawyer.
"It 's good six month' since I see a sight
of Célestin," she admitted.
"That 's it, that 's what I say; he has
practically deserted you; fails to support
you. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn
that he has ill treated you."
"Well, you know, Judge," with an
evasive cough, "a man that drinks - w'at can
you expec'? An' if you would know the
promises he has made me! Ah, if I had as
many dolla' as I had promise from Célestin,
I would n' have to work, je vous garantis."
"And in my opinion, madame, you would
be a foolish woman to endure it longer,
when the divorce court is there to offer you
redress."
"You spoke about that befo', Judge; I 'm
goin' think about that divo'ce. I believe
you right."
Madame Célestin thought about the
divorce and talked about it, too; and lawyer
Paxton grew deeply interested in the theme.
"You know, about that divo'ce, Judge,"
Madame Célestin was waiting for him that
morning, "I been talking to my family an'
my frien's, an' it 's me that tells you, they all
plumb agains' that divo'ce."
"Certainly to be sure; that 's to be
expected, madame, in this community of
Creoles. I warned you that you would
meet with opposition, and would have to
face it and brave it."
"Oh, don't fear, I 'm going to face it!
Maman says it 's a disgrace like it 's neva
been in the family. But it 's good for
Maman to talk, her. W'at trouble she ever
had? She says I mus' go by all means
consult with Père Duchéron - it 's my confessor,
you undastan' - Well, I 'll go, Judge,
to please Maman. But all the confessor' in
the worl' ent goin' make me put up with
that conduc' of Célestin any longa."
A day or two later, she was there waiting
for him again. "You know, Judge, about
that divo'ce."
"Yes, yes," responded the lawyer, well
pleased to trace a new determination in her
brown eyes and in the curves of her pretty
mouth. "I suppose you saw Père Duchéron
and had to brave it out with him, too."
"Oh, fo' that, a perfec' sermon, I assho
you. A talk of giving scandal an' bad
example that I thought would neva en'! He
says, fo' him, he wash' his hands; I mus'
go see the bishop."
"You won't let the bishop dissuade you,
I trust," stammered the lawyer more
anxiously than he could well understand.
"You don't know me yet, Judge,"
laughed Madame Célestin with a turn of
the head and a flirt of the broom which
indicated that the interview was at an end.
"Well, Madame Célestin! And the
bishop!" Lawyer Paxton was standing
there holding to a couple of the shaky
pickets. She had not seen him. "Oh, it 's
you, Judge?" and she hastened towards
him with an empressement that could not
but have been flattering.
"Yes, I saw Monseigneur," she began.
The lawyer had already gathered from her
expressive countenance that she had not
wavered in her determination. "Ah, he 's
a eloquent man. It 's not a mo' eloquent
man in Natchitoches parish. I was fo'ced
to cry, the way he talked to me about my
troubles; how he undastan's them, an' feels
for me. It would move even you, Judge,
to hear how he talk' about that step I want
to take; its danga, its temptation. How
it is the duty of a Catholic to stan' everything
till the las' extreme. An' that life of
retirement an' self-denial I would have to
lead, - he tole me all that."
"But he has n't turned you from your
resolve, I see," laughed the lawyer
complacently.
"For that, no," she returned emphatically.
"The bishop don't know w'at it is
to be married to a man like Célestin, an'
have to endu' that conduc' like I have to
endu' it. The Pope himse'f can't make me
stan' that any longer, if you say I got the
right in the law to sen' Célestin sailing."
A noticeable change had come over lawyer
Paxton. He discarded his work-day coat
and began to wear his Sunday one to the
office. He grew solicitous as to the shine
of his boots, his collar, and the set of his
tie. He brushed and trimmed his whiskers
with a care that had not before been apparent.
Then he fell into a stupid habit of
dreaming as he walked the streets of the
old town. It would be very good to take
unto himself a wife, he dreamed. And he
could dream of no other than pretty Madame
Célestin filling that sweet and sacred
office as she filled his thoughts, now. Old
Natchitoches would not hold them comfortably,
perhaps; but the world was surely wide
enough to live in, outside of
Natchitoches town.
His heart beat in a strangely irregular
manner as he neared Madame Célestin's
house one morning, and discovered her
behind the rosebushes, as usual plying her
broom. She had finished the gallery and
steps and was sweeping the little brick walk
along the edge of the violet border.
"Good-morning, Madame Célestin."
"Ah, it 's you, Judge? Good-morning."
He waited. She seemed to be doing the
same. Then she ventured, with some
hesitancy, "You know, Judge, about that
divo'ce. I been thinking, - I reckon you
betta neva mine about that divo'ce." She
was making deep rings in the palm of her
gloved hand with the end of the broom-handle,
and looking at them critically. Her face
seemed to the lawyer to be unusually
rosy; but maybe it was only the reflection
of the pink bow at the throat. "Yes, I
reckon you need n' mine. You see, Judge,
Célestin came home las' night. An' he 's
promise me on his word an' honor he 's going
to turn ova a new leaf."
UPON the pleasant
veranda of Père
Antoine's cottage, that adjoined the church, a
young girl had long been seated, awaiting
his return. It was the eve of Easter Sunday,
and since early afternoon the priest had
been engaged in hearing the confessions of
those who wished to make their Easters
the following day. The girl did not seem
impatient at his delay; on the contrary, it
was very restful to her to lie back in the
big chair she had found there, and peep
through the thick curtain of vines at the
people who occasionally passed along the
village street.
She was slender, with a frailness that
indicated lack of wholesome and plentiful
nourishment. A pathetic, uneasy look was
in her gray eyes, and even faintly stamped
her features, which were fine and delicate.
In lieu of a hat, a barège veil covered her
light brown and abundant hair. She wore
a coarse white cotton "josie," and a blue
calico skirt that only half concealed her
tattered shoes.
As she sat there, she held carefully in
her lap a parcel of eggs securely fastened
in a red bandana handkerchief.
Twice already a handsome, stalwart young
man in quest of the priest had entered the
yard, and penetrated to where she sat. At
first they had exchanged the uncompromising
"howdy" of strangers, and nothing
more. The second time, finding the priest
still absent, he hesitated to go at once.
Instead, he stood upon the step, and
narrowing his brown eyes, gazed beyond the
river, off towards the west, where a murky
streak of mist was spreading across the sun.
"It look like mo' rain," he remarked,
slowly and carelessly.
"We done had 'bout 'nough," she
replied, in much the same tone.
"It 's no chance to thin out the cotton,"
he went on.
"An' the Bon-Dieu," she resumed, "it 's
on'y to-day you can cross him on foot."
"You live yonda on the Bon-Dieu, donc?"
he asked, looking at her for the first time
since he had spoken.
"Yas, by Nid d'Hibout, m'sieur."
Instinctive courtesy held him from
questioning her further. But he seated himself
on the step, evidently determined to wait
there for the priest. He said no more, but
sat scanning critically the steps, the porch,
and pillar beside him, from which he
occasionally tore away little pieces of detached
wood, where it was beginning to rot at its
base.
A click at the side gate that communicated
with the churchyard soon announced
Père Antoine's return. He came hurriedly
across the garden-path, between the tall,
lusty rosebushes that lined either side of
it, which were now fragrant with blossoms.
His long, flapping cassock added something
of height to his undersized, middle-aged
figure, as did the skullcap which rested
securely back on his head. He saw only
the young man at first, who rose at his
approach.
"Well, Azenor," he called cheerily in
French, extending his hand. "How is this?
I expected you all the week."
"Yes, monsieur; but I knew well what
you wanted with me, and I was finishing the
doors for Gros-Léon's new house;" saying
which, he drew back, and indicated by a
motion and look that some one was present
who had a prior claim upon Père Antoine's
attention.
"Ah, Lalie!" the priest exclaimed, when
he had mounted to the porch, and saw her
there behind the vines. "Have you been
waiting here since you confessed? Surely
an hour ago!"
"Yes, monsieur."
"You should rather have made some
visits in the village, child."
"I am not acquainted with any one in
the village," she returned.
The priest, as he spoke, had drawn a
chair, and seated himself beside her, with
his hands comfortably clasping his knees.
He wanted to know how things were out on
the bayou.
"And how is the grandmother?" he
asked. "As cross and crabbed as ever?
And with that" - he added reflectively -
"good for ten years yet! I said only
yesterday to Butrand - you know Butrand, he
works on Le Blôt's Bon-Dieu place - 'And
that Madame Zidore: how is it with her,
Butrand? I believe God has forgotten her
here on earth.' 'It is n't that, your reverence,'
said Butrand, 'but it 's neither God
nor the Devil that wants her!' " And Père
Antoine laughed with a jovial frankness that
took all sting of ill-nature from his very pointed
remarks.
Lalie did not reply when he spoke of
her grandmother; she only pressed her lips
firmly together, and picked nervously at the
red bandana.
"I have come to ask, Monsieur Antoine,"
she began, lower than she needed to speak
- for Azenor had withdrawn at once to the
far end of the porch - "to ask if you will
give me a little scrap of paper - a piece of
writing for Monsieur Chartrand at the store
over there. I want new shoes and stockings
for Easter, and I have brought eggs to
trade for them. He says he is willing, yes,
if he was sure I would bring more every
week till the shoes are paid for."
With good-natured indifference, Père
Antoine wrote the order that the girl desired.
He was too familiar with distress to feel
keenly for a girl who was able to buy Easter
shoes and pay for them with eggs.
She went immediately away then, after
shaking hands with the priest, and sending
a quick glance of her pathetic eyes towards
Azenor, who had turned when he heard her
rise, and nodded when he caught the look.
Through the vines he watched her cross the
village street.
"How is it that you do not know Lalie
Azenor? You surely must have seen her
pass your house often. It lies on her way
to the Bon-Dieu."
"No, I don't know her; I have never
seen her," the young man replied, as he
seated himself - after the priest - and kept
his eyes absently fixed on the store across
the road, where he had seen her enter.
"She is the granddaughter of that Madame
Izidore" -
"What! Ma'ame Zidore whom they drove
off the island last winter?"
"Yes, yes. Well, you know, they say the
old woman stole wood and things, - I don't
know how true it is, - and destroyed people's
property out of pure malice."
"And she lives now on the Bon-Dieu?"
"Yes, on Le Blôt's place, in a perfect
wreck of a cabin. You see, she gets it for
nothing; not a negro on the place but has
refused to live in it."
"Surely, it can't be that old abandoned
hovel near the swamp, that Michon
occupied ages ago?"
"That is the one, the very one."
"And the girl lives there with that old
wretch?" the young man marveled.
"Old wretch to be sure, Azenor. But
what can you expect from a woman who
never crosses the threshold of God's house
- who even tried to hinder the child doing
so as well? But I went to her. I said:
'See here, Madame Zidore,' - you know
it 's my way to handle such people without
gloves, - 'you may damn your soul if you
choose,' I told her, 'that is a privilege which
we all have; but none of us has a right to
imperil the salvation of another. I want
to see Lalie at mass hereafter on Sundays,
or you will hear from me;' and I shook my
stick under her nose. Since then the child
has never missed a Sunday. But she is
half starved, you can see that. You saw
how shabby she is - how broken her shoes
are? She is at Chartrand's now, trading
for new ones with those eggs she brought,
poor thing! There is no doubt of her being
ill-treated. Butraud says he thinks Madame
Zidore even beats the child. I don't know
how true it is, for no power can make her
utter a word against her grandmother."
Azenor, whose face was a kind and sensitive
one, had paled with distress as the
priest spoke; and now at these final words
he quivered as though he felt the sting of a
cruel blow upon his own flesh.
But no more was said of Lalie, for Père
Antoine drew the young man's attention to
the carpenter-work which he wished to
intrust to him. When they had talked the
matter over in all its lengthy details,
Azenor mounted his horse and rode away.
A moment's gallop carried him outside the
village. Then came a half-mile strip along
the river to cover. Then the lane to enter,
in which stood his dwelling midway, upon a
low, pleasant knoll.
As Azenor turned into the lane, he saw
the figure of Lalie far ahead of him.
Somehow he had expected to find her there,
and he watched her again as he had done
through Père Antoine's vines. When she
passed his house, he wondered if she would
turn to look at it. But she did not. How
could she know it was his? Upon reaching
it himself, he did not enter the yard, but
stood there motionless, his eyes always
fastened upon the girl's figure. He could not
see, away off there, how coarse her garments
were. She seemed, through the distance
that divided them, as slim and delicate as
a flower-stalk. He stayed till she reached
the turn of the lane and disappeared into
the woods.
Mass had not yet begun when Azenor tiptoed
into church on Easter morning. He
did not take his place with the congregation,
but stood close to the holy-water font, and
watched the people who entered.
Almost every girl who passed him wore a
white mull, a dotted swiss, or a fresh-starched
muslin at least. They were bright with ribbons
that hung from their persons, and flowers
that bedecked their hats. Some carried
fans and cambric handkerchiefs. Most
of them wore gloves, and were odorant of
poudre de riz and nice toilet-waters; while
all carried gay little baskets filled with
Easter-eggs.
But there was one who came empty-handed,
save for the worn prayer-book which she
bore. It was Lalie, the veil upon her head,
and wearing the blue print and cotton bodice
which she had worn the day before.
He dipped his hand into the holy water
when she came, and held it out to her,
though he had not thought of doing this for
the others. She touched his fingers with
the tips of her own, making a slight inclination
as she did so; and after a deep genuflection
before the Blessed Sacrament, passed
on to the side. He was not sure if she had
known him. He knew she had not looked
into his eyes, for he would have felt it.
He was angered against other young
women who passed him, because of their
flowers and ribbons, when she wore none.
He himself did not care, but he feared she
might, and watched her narrowly to see if
she did.
But it was plain that Lalie did not care.
Her face, as she seated herself, settled into
the same restful lines it had worn yesterday,
when she sat in Père Antoine's big chair. It
seemed good to her to be there. Sometimes
she looked up at the little colored panes
through which the Easter sun was streaming;
then at the flaming candles, like stars;
or at the embowered figures of Joseph and
Mary, flanking the central tabernacle which
shrouded the risen Christ. Yet she liked
just as well to watch the young girls in their
spring freshness, or to sensuously inhale the
mingled odor of flowers and incense that
filled the temple.
Lalie was among the last to quit the
church. When she walked down the clean
pathway that led from it to the road, she
looked with pleased curiosity towards the
groups of men and maidens who were gayly
matching their Easter-eggs under the shade
of the China-berry trees.
Azenor was among them, and when he
saw her coming solitary down the path, he
approached her and, with a smile, extended
his hat, whose crown was quite lined with
the pretty colored eggs.
"You mus' of forgot to bring aiggs," he
said. "Take some o' mine."
"Non, merci," she replied, flushing and
drawing back.
But he urged them anew upon her. Much
pleased, then, she bent her pretty head over
the hat, and was evidently puzzled to make
a selection among so many that were
beautiful.
He picked out one for her, - a pink one,
dotted with white clover-leaves.
"Yere," he said, handing it to her, "I
think this is the pretties'; an' it look' strong
too. I 'm sho' it will break all of the res'."
And he playfully held out another, half-hidden
in his fist, for her to try its strength
upon. But she refused to. She would not
risk the ruin of her pretty egg. Then she
walked away, without once having noticed
that the girls, whom Azenor had left, were
looking curiously at her.
When he rejoined them, he was hardly
prepared for their greeting; it startled him.
"How come you talk to that girl? She 's
real canaille, her," was what one of them
said to him.
"Who say' so? Who say she 's canaille?
If it 's a man, I 'll smash 'is head!" he
exclaimed, livid. They all laughed merrily
at this.
"An' if it 's a lady, Azenor? W'at you
goin' to do 'bout it?" asked another,
quizzingly.
"T ain' no lady. No lady would say that
'bout a po' girl, w'at she don't even know."
He turned away, and emptying all his
eggs into the hat of a little urchin who stood
near, walked out of the churchyard. He
did not stop to exchange another word with
any one; neither with the men who stood
all endimanchés before the stores, nor the
women who were mounting upon horses and
into vehicles, or walking in groups to their
homes.
He took a short cut across the cotton-field
that extended back of the town, and walking
rapidly, soon reached his home. It was
a pleasant house of few rooms and many
windows, with fresh air blowing through
from every side; his workshop was beside it.
A broad strip of greensward, studded here
and there with trees, sloped down to the
road.
Azenor entered the kitchen, where an
amiable old black woman was chopping
onion and sage at a table.
"Tranquiline," he said abruptly, "they 's
a young girl goin' to pass yere afta a w'ile.
She 's got a blue dress an' w'ite josie on, an'
a veil on her head. W'en you see her, I
want you to go to the road an' make her res'
there on the bench, an' ask her if she don't
want a cup o' coffee. I saw her go to
communion, me; so she did n't eat any breakfas'.
Eve'ybody else f'om out o' town, that
went to communion, got invited somew'ere
another. It 's enough to make a person sick
to see such meanness."
"An' you want me ter go down to de
gate, jis' so, an' ax 'er pineblank ef she
wants some coffee?" asked the bewildered
Tranquiline.
"I don't care if you ask her poin' blank
o' not; but you do like I say." Tranquiline
was leaning over the gate when Lalie
came along.
"Howdy," offered the woman.
"Howdy," the girl returned.
"Did you see a yalla calf wid black spots
a t'arin' down de lane, missy?"
"Non; not yalla, an' not with black spot'.
Mais I see one li'le w'ite calf tie by a rope,
yonda 'roun' the ben'."
"Dat warn't hit. Dis heah one was yalla.
I hope he done flung hisse'f down de bank
an' broke his nake. Sarve 'im right! But
whar you come f'om, chile? You look plum
wo' out. Set down dah on dat bench, an' le'
me fotch you a cup o' coffee."
Azenor had already in his eagerness
arranged a tray, upon which was a smoking
cup of café au lait. He had buttered and
jellied generous slices of bread, and was
searching wildly for something when
Tranquiline reëntered.
"W'at become o' that half of chicken-pie,
Tranquiline, that was yere in the garde
manger yesterday?"
"W'at chicken-pie? W'at garde
manger?" blustered the woman.
"Like we got mo' 'en one garde manger
in the house, Tranquiline!"
"You jis' like ole Ma'ame Azenor use' to
be, you is! You 'spec' chicken-pie gwine las'
etarnal? W'en some'pin done sp'ilt, I flings
it' way. Dat 's me - dat 's Tranquiline!"
So Azenor resigned himself, - what else
could he do? - and sent the tray,
incomplete, as he fancied it, out to Lalie.
He trembled at thought of what he did;
he, whose nerves were usually as steady as
some piece of steel mechanism.
Would it anger her if she suspected?
Would it please her if she knew? Would
she say this or that to Tranquiline? And
would Tranquiline tell him truly what she
said - how she looked?
As it was Sunday, Azenor did not work
that afternoon. Instead, he took a book
out under the trees, as he often did, and sat
reading it, from the first sound of the
Vesper bell, that came faintly across the
fields, till the Angelus. All that time! He
turned many a page, yet in the end did not
know what he had read. With his pencil
he had traced "Lalie" upon every margin,
and was saying it softly to himself.
Another Sunday Azenor saw Lalie at
Mass - and again. Once he walked with
her and showed her the short cut across
the cotton-field. She was very glad that
day, and told him she was going to work -
her grandmother said she might. She was
going to hoe, up in the fields with Monsieur
Le Blôt's hands. He entreated her not to;
and when she asked his reason, he could not
tell her, but turned and tore shyly and savagely
at the elder-blossoms that grew along
the fence.
Then they stopped where she was going
to cross the fence from the field into the
lane. He wanted to tell her that was his
house which they could see not far away;
but he did not dare to, since he had fed her
there on the morning she was hungry.
"An' you say yo' gran'ma's goin' to let
you work? She keeps you f'om workin',
donc?" He wanted to question her about
her grandmother, and could think of no
other way to begin.
"Po' ole grand'mère!" she answered. "I
don' b'lieve she know mos' time w'at she 's
doin'. Sometime she say' I aint no betta
an' one nigga, an' she fo'ce me to work.
Then she say she know I 'm goin' be one
canaille like maman, an' she make me set
down still, like she would want to kill me if
I would move. Her, she on'y want' to be
out in the wood', day an' night, day an' night.
She ain' got her right head, po' grand'mère.
I know she ain't."
Lalie had spoken low and in jerks, as if
every word gave her pain. Azenor could
feel her distress as plainly as he saw it. He
wanted to say something to her - to do
something for her. But her mere presence
paralyzed him into inactivity - except his
pulses, that beat like hammers when he was
with her. Such a poor, shabby little thing
as she was, too!
"I 'm goin' to wait yere nex' Sunday fo'
you, Lalie," he said, when the fence was
between them. And he thought he had said
something very daring.
But the next Sunday she did not come.
She was neither at the appointed place of
meeting in the lane, nor was she at mass.
Her absence - so unexpected - affected
Azenor like a calamity. Late in the afternoon,
when he could stand the trouble and
bewilderment of it no longer, he went and
leaned over Père Antoine's fence. The
priest was picking the slugs from his roses
on the other side.
"That young girl from the Bon-Dieu,"
said Azenor - "she was not at mass to-day.
I suppose her grandmother has forgotten
your warning."
"No," answered the priest. "The child
is ill, I hear. Butrand tells me she has been
ill for several days from overwork in the
fields. I shall go out to-morrow to see about
her. I would go to-day, if I could."
"The child is ill," was all Azenor heard
or understood of Père Antoine's words. He
turned and walked resolutely away, like one
who determines suddenly upon action after
meaningless hesitation.
He walked towards his home and past it,
as if it were a spot that did not concern
him. He went on down the lane and into
the wood where he had seen Lalie disappear
that day.
Here all was shadow, for the sun had
dipped too low in the west to send a single
ray through the dense foliage of the forest.
Now that he found himself on the way
to Lalie's home, he strove to understand
why he had not gone there before. He
often visited other girls in the village and
neighborhood, - why not have gone to her,
as well? The answer lay too deep in his
heart for him to be more than half-conscious
of it. Fear had kept him, - dread
to see her desolate life face to face. He
did not know how he could bear it.
But now he was going to her at last.
She was ill. He would stand upon that
dismantled porch that he could just remember.
Doubtless Ma'ame Zidore would come
out to know his will, and he would tell her
that Père Antoine had sent to inquire how
Mamzelle Lalie was. No! Why drag in
Père Antoine? He would simply stand
boldly and say, "Ma'ame Zidore, I learn
that Lalie is ill. I have come to know if
it is true, and to see her, if I may."
When Azenor reached the cabin where
Lalie dwelt, all sign of day had vanished.
Dusk had fallen swiftly after the sunset.
The moss that hung heavy from great
live-oak branches was making fantastic
silhouettes against the eastern sky that the big,
round moon was beginning to light. Off in
the swamp beyond the bayou, hundreds of
dismal voices were droning a lullaby. Upon
the hovel itself, a stillness like death rested.
Oftener than once Azenor tapped upon
the door, which was closed as well as it
could be, without obtaining a reply. He
finally approached one of the small
unglazed windows, in which coarse
mosquito-netting had been fastened, and
looked into the room.
By the moonlight slanting in he could see
Lalie stretched upon a bed; but of Ma'ame
Zidore there was no sign. "Lalie!" he
called softly. "Lalie!"
The girl slightly moved her head upon
the pillow. Then he boldly opened the
door and entered.
Upon a wretched bed, over which was
spread a cover of patched calico, Lalie lay,
her frail body only half concealed by the
single garment that was upon it. One
hand was plunged beneath her pillow; the
other, which was free, he touched. It was
as hot as flame; so was her head. He
knelt sobbing upon the floor beside her,
and called her his love and his soul. He
begged her to speak a word to him, - to
look at him. But she only muttered
disjointedly that the cotton was all turning to
ashes in the fields, and the blades of the
corn were in flames.
If he was choked with love and grief to
see her so, he was moved by anger as well;
rage against himself, against Père Antoine,
against the people upon the plantation and
in the village, who had so abandoned a
helpless creature to misery and maybe
death. Because she had been silent - had
not lifted her voice in complaint - they
believed she suffered no more than she could
bear.
But surely the people could not be utterly
without heart. There must be one somewhere
with the spirit of Christ. Père Antoine
would tell him of such a one, and he
would carry Lalie to her, - out of this
atmosphere of death. He was in haste to be
gone with her. He fancied every moment
of delay was a fresh danger threatening her
life.
He folded the rude bed-cover over Lalie's
naked limbs, and lifted her in his arms.
She made no resistance. She seemed only
loath to withdraw her hand from beneath
the pillow. When she did, he saw that she
held lightly but firmly clasped in her
encircling fingers the pretty Easter-egg he had
given her! He uttered a low cry of exultation
as the full significance of this came
over him. If she had hung for hours upon
his neck telling him that she loved him, he
could not have known it more surely than
by this sign. Azenor felt as if some
mysterious bond had all at once drawn them
heart to heart and made them one.
No need now to go from door to door
begging admittance for her. She was his.
She belonged to him. He knew now where
her place was, whose roof must shelter her,
and whose arms protect her.
So Azenor, with his loved one in his
arms, walked through the forest, sure-footed
as a panther. Once, as he walked,
he could hear in the distance the weird
chant which Ma'ame Zidore was crooning -
to the moon, maybe - as she gathered her
wood.
Once, where the water was trickling cool
through rocks, he stopped to lave Lalie's
hot cheeks and hands and forehead. He
had not once touched his lips to her. But
now, when a sudden great fear came upon
him because she did not know him,
instinctively he pressed his lips upon hers
that were parched and burning. He held them
there till hers were soft and pliant from
the healthy moisture of his own.
Then she knew him. She did not tell
him so, but her stiffened fingers relaxed
their tense hold upon the Easter bauble.
It fell to the ground as she twined her arm
around his neck; and he understood.
"Stay close by her, Tranquiline," said
Azenor, when he had laid Lalie upon his
own couch at home. "I 'm goin' for the
doctor en' for Père Antoine. Not because
she is goin' to die," he added hastily, seeing
the awe that crept into the woman's face
at mention of the priest. "She is goin' to
live! Do you think I would let my wife
die, Tranquiline?"
SHE was a half-breed
Indian girl, with
hardly a rag to her back. To the ladies of
the Band of United Endeavor who questioned
her, she said her name was Loka, and
she did not know where she belonged, unless
it was on Bayou Choctaw.
She had appeared one day at the side
door of Frobissaint's "oyster saloon" in
Natchitoches, asking for food. Frobissaint,
a practical philanthropist, engaged her on
the spot as tumbler-washer.
She was not successful at that; she broke
too many tumblers. But, as Frobissaint
charged her with the broken glasses, he did
not mind, until she began to break them over
the heads of his customers. Then he seized
her by the wrist and dragged her before the
Band of United Endeavor, then in session
around the corner. This was considerate on
Frobissaint's part, for he could have dragged
her just as well to the police station.
Loka was not beautiful, as she stood in
her red calico rags before the scrutinizing
band. Her coarse, black, unkempt hair
framed a broad, swarthy face without a
redeeming feature, except eyes that were not
bad; slow in their movements, but frank
eyes enough. She was big-boned and
clumsy.
She did not know how old she was. The
minister's wife reckoned she might be
sixteen. The judge's wife thought that it made
no difference. The doctor's wife suggested
that the girl have a bath and change before
she be handled, even in discussion. The
motion was not seconded. Loka's ultimate
disposal was an urgent and difficult
consideration.
Some one mentioned a reformatory.
Every one else objected.
Madame Laballière, the planter's wife,
knew a respectable family of 'Cadians living
some miles below, who, she thought, would
give the girl a home, with benefit to all
concerned. The 'Cadian woman was a deserving
one, with a large family of small children,
who had all her own work to do. The
husband cropped in a modest way. Loka would
not only be taught to work at the Padues',
but would receive a good moral training
beside.
That settled it. Every one agreed with
the planter's wife that it was a chance in a
thousand; and Loka was sent to sit on the
steps outside, while the band proceeded to
the business next in order.
Loka was afraid of treading upon the
little Padues when she first got amongst them,
- there were so many of them, - and her
feet were like leaden weights, encased in the
strong brogans with which the band had
equipped her.
Madame Padue, a small, black-eyed,
aggressive woman, questioned her in a sharp,
direct fashion peculiar to herself.
"How come you don't talk French, you?"
Loka shrugged her shoulders.
"I kin talk English good 's anybody; an'
lit' bit Choctaw, too," she offered,
apologetically.
"Ma foi, you kin fo'git yo' Choctaw.
Soona the betta for me. Now if you willin',
an' ent too lazy an' sassy, we 'll git 'long
somehow. Vrai sauvage ça," she muttered
under her breath, as she turned to initiate
Loka into some of her new duties.
She herself was a worker. A good deal
more fussy one than her easy-going husband
and children thought necessary or agreeable.
Loka's slow ways and heavy motions
aggravated her. It was in vain Monsieur Padue
expostulated: -
"She 's only a chile, rememba, Tontine."
"She 's vrai savage, that 's w'at. It 's
got to be work out of her," was Tontine's
only reply to such remonstrance.
The girl was indeed so deliberate about
her tasks that she had to be urged constantly
to accomplish the amount of labor that
Tontine required of her. Moreover, she carried
to her work a stolid indifference that was
exasperating. Whether at the wash-tub,
scrubbing the floors, weeding the garden, or
learning her lessons and catechism with the
children on Sundays, it was the same.
It was only when
intrusted with the care
of little Bibine, the baby, that Loka crept
somewhat out of her apathy. She grew very
fond of him. No wonder; such a baby as
he was! So good, so fat, and complaisant!
He had such a way of clasping Loka's broad
face between his pudgy fists and savagely
biting her chin with his hard, toothless
gums! Such a way of bouncing in her arms
as if he were mounted upon springs! At
his antics the girl would laugh a wholesome,
ringing laugh that was good to hear.
She was left alone to watch and nurse him
one day. An accommodating neighbor who
had become the possessor of a fine new spring
wagon passed by just after the noon-hour
meal, and offered to take the whole family
on a jaunt to town. The offer was all the
more tempting as Tontine had some
long-delayed shopping to do; and the
opportunity to equip the children with shoes
and summer hats could not be slighted. So
away they all went. All but Bibine, who
was left swinging in his branle with only
Loka for company.
This branle consisted of a strong circular
piece of cotton cloth, securely but slackly
fastened to a large, stout hoop suspended by
three light cords to a hook in a rafter of
the gallery. The baby who has not swung
in a branle does not know the quintessence
of baby luxury. In each of the four rooms
of the house was a hook from which to hang
this swing.
Often it was taken out under the trees.
But to-day it swung in the shade of the open
gallery; and Loka sat beside it, giving it
now and then a slight impetus that sent it
circling in slow, sleep-inspiring undulations.
Bibine kicked and cooed as long as he
was able. But Loka was humming a
monotonous lullaby; the branle was swaying
to and fro, the warm air fanning him
deliciously; and Bibine was soon fast asleep.
Seeing this, Loka quietly let down the
mosquito net, to protect the child's slumber
from the intrusion of the many insects that
were swarming in the summer air.
Singularly enough, there was no work
for her to do; and Tontine, in her hurried
departure, had failed to provide for the
emergency. The washing and ironing were
over; the floors had been scrubbed, and the
rooms righted; the yard swept; the chickens
fed; vegetables picked and washed.
There was absolutely nothing to do, and
Loka gave herself up to the dreams of
idleness.
As she sat comfortably back in the roomy
rocker, she let her eyes sweep lazily across
the country. Away off to the right peeped
up, from amid densely clustered trees, the
pointed roofs and long pipe of the steam-gin
of Laballière 's. No other habitation was
visible except a few low, flat dwellings far
over the river, that could hardly be seen.
The immense plantation took up all the
land in sight. The few acres that Baptiste
Padue cultivated were his own, that
Laballière, out of friendly consideration, had sold
to him. Baptiste's fine crop of cotton and
corn was "laid by" just now, waiting for
rain; and Baptiste had gone with the rest
of the family to town. Beyond the river
and the field and everywhere about were
dense woods.
Loka's gaze, that had been slowly traveling
along the edge of the horizon, finally
fastened upon the woods, and stayed there.
Into her eyes came the absent look of one
whose thought is projected into the future
or the past, leaving the present blank. She
was seeing a vision. It had come with a
whiff that the strong south breeze had blown
to her from the woods.
She was seeing old Marot, the squaw who
drank whiskey and plaited baskets and beat
her. There was something, after all, in being
beaten, if only to scream out and fight back,
as at that time in Natchitoches, when she
broke a glass on the head of a man who
laughed at her and pulled her hair, and
called her "fool names."
Old Marot wanted her to steal and cheat,
to beg and lie, when they went out with the
baskets to sell. Loka did not want to. She
did not like to. That was why she had run
away - and because she was beaten. But
- but ah! the scent of the sassafras leaves
hanging to dry in the shade! The pungent
camomile! The sound of the bayou tumbling
over that old slimy log! Only to lie
there for hours and watch the glistening
lizards glide in and out was worth a beating.
She knew the birds must be singing in
chorus out there in the woods where the
gray moss was hanging, and the trumpet-vine
trailing from the trees, spangled with
blossoms. In spirit she heard the
songsters.
She wondered if Choctaw Joe and Sambite
played dice every night by the campfire,
as they used to do; and if they still
fought and slashed each other when wild
with drink. How good it felt to walk with
moccasined feet over the springy turf, under
the trees! What fun to trap the squirrels,
to skin the otter; to take those swift flights
on the pony that Choctaw Joe had stolen
from the Texans!
Loka sat motionless; only her breast
heaved tumultuously. Her heart was aching
with savage homesickness. She could not
feel just then that the sin and pain of that
life were anything beside the joy of its
freedom.
Loka was sick for the woods. She felt
she must die if she could not get back to
them, and to her vagabond life. Was there
anything to hinder her? She stooped and
unlaced the brogans that were chafing her
feet, removed them and her stockings, and
threw the things away from her. She stood
up all a-quiver, panting, ready for flight.
But there was a sound that stopped her.
It was little Bibine, cooing, sputtering,
battling hands and feet with the mosquito net
that he had dragged over his face. The girl
uttered a sob as she reached down for the
baby she had grown to love so, and clasped
him in her arms. She could not go and
leave Bibine behind.
Tontine began to grumble at once when
she discovered that Loka was not at hand to
receive them on their return.
"Bon!" she exclaimed. "Now w'ere is
that Loka? Ah, that girl, she aggravates
me too much. Firs' thing she knows I 'm
goin' sen' her straight back to them ban' of
lady w'ere she come frum."
"Loka!" she called, in short, sharp tones,
as she traversed the house and peered into
each room. "Lo - ka!" She cried loudly
enough to be heard half a mile away when
she got out upon the back gallery. Again
and again she called.
Baptiste was exchanging the discomfort
of his Sunday coat for the accustomed ease
of shirt sleeves.
"Mais don't git so excite, Tontine," he
implored. "I 'm sho she 's yonda to the crib
shellin' co'n, or somew'ere like that."
"Run, François, you, an' see to the crib,"
the mother commanded. "Bibine mus' be
starve! Run to the hen-house an' look, Juliette.
Maybe she 's fall asleep in some corna.
That 'll learn me 'notha time to go trus'
une pareille sauvage with my baby, va!"
When it was discovered that Loka was
nowhere in the immediate vicinity, Tontine
was furious.
"Pas possible she 's walk to Laballière,
with Bibine!" she exclaimed.
"I 'll saddle the hoss an' go see, Tontine,"
interposed Baptiste, who was beginning to
share his wife's uneasiness.
"Go, go, Baptiste," she urged. "An' you,
boys, run yonda down the road to ole Aunt
Judy's cabin an' see."
It was found that Loka had not been seen
at Laballière's, nor at Aunt Judy's cabin;
that she had not taken the boat, that was
still fastened to its moorings down the bank.
Then Tontine's excitement left her. She
turned pale and sat quietly down in her
room, with an unnatural calm that
frightened the children.
Some of them began to cry. Baptiste
walked restlessly about, anxiously scanning
the country in all directions. A wretched
hour dragged by. The sun had set, leaving
hardly an afterglow, and in a little while
the twilight that falls so swiftly would be
there.
Baptiste was preparing to mount his horse,
to start out again on the round he had
already been over. Tontine sat in the same
state of intense abstraction when François,
who had perched himself among the lofty
branches of a chinaberry tree, called out:
"Ent that Loka 'way yon'a, jis' come out
de wood? climbin' de fence down by de
melon patch?"
It was difficult to distinguish in the
gathering dusk if the figure were that of man
or beast. But the family was not left long in
suspense. Baptiste sped his horse away in
the direction indicated by François, and in
a little while he was galloping back with
Bibine in his arms; as fretful, sleepy and
hungry a baby as ever was.
Loka came trudging on behind Baptiste.
He did not wait for explanations; he was
too eager to place the child in the arms of
its mother. The suspense over, Tontine
began to cry; that followed naturally, of
course. Through her tears she managed to
address Loka, who stood all tattered and
disheveled in the doorway: "W'ere you
been? Tell me that."
"Bibine an' me," answered Loka, slowly
and awkwardly, "we was lonesome - we
been take lit' 'broad in de wood."
"You didn' know no betta 'an to take
'way Bibine like that? W'at Ma'ame
Laballière mean, anyhow, to sen' me such a
objec' like you, I want to know?"
"You go'n' sen' me 'way?" asked Loka,
passing her hand in a hopeless fashion over her
frowzy hair.
"Par exemple! straight you march back to
that ban' w'ere you come from. To give
me such a fright like that! pas possible."
"Go slow, Tontine; go slow," interposed
Baptiste.
"Don' sen' me 'way frum Bibine," entreated
the girl, with a note in her voice like
a lament.
"To-day," she went on, in her dragging
manner, "I want to run 'way bad, an' take
to de wood; an' go yonda back to Bayou
Choctaw to steal an' lie agin. It 's on'y
Bibine w'at hole me back. I could n' lef'
'im. I could n' do dat. An' we jis' go take
lit' 'broad in de wood, das all, him an' me.
Don' sen' me 'way like dat!"
Baptiste led the girl gently away to the
far end of the gallery, and spoke soothingly
to her. He told her to be good and brave,
and he would right the trouble for her. He
left her standing there and went back to his
wife.
"Tontine," he began, with unusual energy,
"you got to listen to the truth - once fo'
all." He had evidently determined to profit
by his wife's lachrymose and wilted condition
to assert his authority.
"I want to say who 's masta in this house
- it 's me," he went on. Tontine did not
protest; only clasped the baby a little closer,
which encouraged him to proceed.
"You been grind that girl too much. She
ent a bad girl - I been watch her close,
'count of the chil'ren; she ent bad. All
she want, it 's li'le mo' rope. You can't
drive a ox with the same gearin' you drive
a mule. You got to learn that, Tontine."
He approached his wife's chair and stood
beside her.
"That girl, she done tole us how she was
temp' to-day to turn canaille - like we all
temp' sometime'. W'at was it save her?
That li'le chile w'at you hole in yo' arm.
An' now you want to take her guarjun angel
'way f'om her? Non, non, ma, femme," he
said, resting his hand gently upon his wife's
head. "We got to rememba she ent like
you an' me, po' thing; she 's one Injun,
her."
WHEN Boulôt and
Boulotte, the little
piny-wood twins, had reached the dignified
age of twelve, it was decided in family council
that the time had come for them to put
their little naked feet into shoes. They were
two brown-skinned, black-eyed 'Cadian
roly-polies, who lived with father and mother
and a troop of brothers and sisters halfway
up the hill, in a neat log cabin that had a
substantial mud chimney at one end. They
could well afford shoes now, for they had
saved many a picayune through their industry
of selling wild grapes, blackberries, and
"socoes" to ladies in the village who "put
up" such things.
Boulôt and Boulotte were to buy the shoes
themselves, and they selected a Saturday
afternoon for the important transaction, for
that is the great shopping time in
Natchitoches Parish. So upon a bright Saturday
afternoon Boulôt and Boulotte, hand in hand,
with their quarters, their dimes, and their
picayunes tied carefully in a Sunday
handkerchief, descended the hill, and
disappeared from the gaze of the eager group
that had assembled to see them go.
Long before it was time for their return,
this same small band, with ten year old
Seraphine at their head, holding a tiny Seraphin
in her arms, had stationed themselves in a
row before the cabin at a convenient point
from which to make quick and careful
observation.
Even before the two could be caught sight
of, their chattering voices were heard down
by the spring, where they had doubtless
stopped to drink. The voices grew more
and more audible. Then, through the
branches of the young pines, Boulotte's blue
sun-bonnet appeared, and Boulôt's straw hat.
Finally the twins, hand in hand, stepped
into the clearing in full view.
Consternation seized the band.
"You bof crazy donc, Boulôt an' Boulotte,"
screamed Seraphine. "You go buy shoes,
an' come home barefeet like you was
go!"
Boulôt flushed crimson. He silently hung
his head, and looked sheepishly down at his
bare feet, then at the fine stout brogans that
he carried in his hand. He had not thought
of it.
Boulotte also carried shoes, but of the
glossiest, with the highest of heels and
brightest of buttons. But she was not one
to be disconcerted or to look sheepish; far
from it.
"You 'spec' Boulôt an' me we got money
fur was'e - us?" she retorted, with withering
condescension. "You think we go buy
shoes fur ruin it in de dus'? Comment!"
And they all walked into the house
crestfallen; all but Boulotte, who was mistress
of the situation, and Seraphin, who did not
care one way or the other.
"AN' now, young
man, w'at you want to
remember is this - an' take it fer yo' motto:
'No monkey-shines with Uncle Sam.' You
undastan'? You aware now o' the penalties
attached to monkey-shinin' with Uncle Sam.
I reckon that 's 'bout all I got to say; so
you be on han' promp' to-morrow mornin'
at seven o'clock, to take charge o' the United
States mail-bag."
This formed the close of a very pompous
address delivered by the postmaster of
Cloutierville to young Armand Verchette, who
had been appointed to carry the mails from
the village to the railway station three miles
away.
Armand - or Chouchoute, as every one
chose to call him, following the habit of the
Creoles in giving nicknames - had heard
the man a little impatiently.
Not so the negro boy who accompanied
him. The child had listened with the deepest
respect and awe to every word of the
rambling admonition.
"How much you gwine git, Marse
Chouchoute?" he asked, as they walked down
the village street together, the black boy a little
behind. He was very black, and slightly
deformed; a small boy, scarcely reaching to
the shoulder of his companion, whose castoff
garments he wore. But Chouchoute was
tall for his sixteen years, and carried
himself well.
"W'y, I 'm goin' to git thirty dolla' a
month, Wash; w'at you say to that? Betta
'an hoein' cotton, ain't it?" He laughed
with a triumphant ring in his voice.
But Wash did not laugh; he was too
much impressed by the importance of this
new function, too much bewildered by the
vision of sudden wealth which thirty dollars
a month meant to his understanding.
He felt, too, deeply conscious of the great
weight of responsibility which this new
office brought with it. The imposing salary
had confirmed the impression left by the
postmaster's words.
"You gwine git all dat money? Sakes!
W'at you reckon Ma'ame Verchette say? I
know she gwine mos' take a fit w'en she heah
dat."
But Chonchoute's mother did not "mos'
take a fit" when she heard of her son's good
fortune. The white and wasted hand which
she rested upon the boy's black curls trembled
a little, it is true, and tears of emotion
came into her tired eyes. This step seemed
to her the beginning of better things for her
fatherless boy.
They lived quite at the end of this little
French village, which was simply two long
rows of very old frame houses, facing each
other closely across a dusty roadway.
Their home was a cottage, so small and
so humble that it just escaped the reproach
of being a cabin.
Every one was kind to Madame Verchette.
Neighbors ran in of mornings to help her
with her work - she could do so little for
herself. And often the good priest, Père
Antoine, came to sit with her and talk
innocent gossip.
To say that Wash was fond of Madame
Verchette and her son is to be poor in
language to express devotion. He worshiped
her as if she were already an angel in
Paradise.
Chouchoute was a delightful young
fellow; no one could help loving him. His
heart was as warm and cheery as his own
southern sunbeams. If he was born with
an unlucky trick of forgetfulness - or better,
thoughtlessness - no one ever felt much
like blaming him for it, so much did it seem
a part of his happy, careless nature. And
why was that faithful watch-dog, Wash,
always at Marse Chouchoute's heels, if it were
not to be hands and ears and eyes to him,
more than half the time?
One beautiful spring night, Chouchoute,
on his way to the station, was riding along
the road that skirted the river. The clumsy
mail-bag that lay before him across the pony
was almost empty; for the Cloutierville mail
was a meagre and unimportant one at best.
But he did not know this. He was not
thinking of the mail, in fact; he was only
feeling that life was very agreeable this
delicious spring night.
There were cabins at intervals upon the
road - most of them darkened, for the hour
was late. As he approached one of these,
which was more pretentious than the others,
he heard the sound of a fiddle, and saw lights
through the openings of the house.
It was so far from the road that when he
stopped his horse and peered through the
darkness he could not recognize the dancers
who passed before the open doors and
windows. But he knew this was Gros-Léon's
ball, which he had heard the boys talking
about all the week.
Why should he not go and stand in the
doorway an instant and exchange a word
with the dancers?
Chouchoute dismounted, fastened his horse
to the fence-post, and proceeded towards the
house.
The room, crowded with people young and
old, was long and low, with rough beams
across the ceiling, blackened by smoke and
time. Upon the high mantelpiece a single
coal-oil lamp burned, and none too brightly.
In a far corner, upon a platform of boards
laid across two flour barrels, sat Uncle Ben,
playing upon a squeaky fiddle, and shouting
the "figures."
"Ah! v'là Chouchoute!" some one called.
"Eh! Chouchoute!"
"Jus' in time, Chouchoute; yere 's Miss
Léontine waitin' fer a partna."
"S'lute yo' partnas!" Uncle Ben was
thundering forth; and Chouchoute, with one
hand gracefully behind him, made a
profound bow to Miss Léontine, as he
offered her the other.
Now Chouchoute was noted far and wide
for his skill as a dancer. The moment he
stood upon the floor, a fresh spirit seemed
to enter into all present. It was with
renewed vigor that Uncle Ben intoned his
"Balancy all! Fus' fo' fo'ard an' back!"
The spectators drew close about the couples
to watch Chouchoute's wonderful performance;
his pointing of toes; his pigeon-wings in
which his feet seemed hardly to touch
the floor.
"It take Chouchoute to show 'em de step,
va!" proclaimed Gros-Léon, with a fat
satisfaction, to the audience at large.
"Look 'im! look 'im yonda! Ole Ben
got to work hard' 'an dat, if he want to
keep up wid Chouchoute, I tell you!"
So it was; encouragement and adulation
on all sides, till, from the praise that was
showered on him, Chouchoute's head was
soon as light as his feet.
At the windows appeared the dusky faces
of negroes, their bright eyes gleaming as
they viewed the scene within and mingled
their loud guffaws with the medley of sound
that was already deafening.
The time was speeding. The air was
heavy in the room, but no one seemed to
mind this. Uncle Ben was calling the
figures now with a rhythmic sing-song: -
"Right an' lef' all 'roun'! Swing co'-nas!"
Chouchoute turned with a smile to Miss
Félicie on his left, his hand extended, when
what should break upon his ear but the
long, harrowing wail of a locomotive!
Before the sound ceased he had vanished
from the room. Miss Félicie stood as he
left her, with hand uplifted, rooted to the
spot with astonishment.
It was the train whistling for his station,
and he a mile and more away! He knew
he was too late, and that he could not make
the distance; but the sound had been a rude
reminder that he was not at his post of
duty.
However, he would do what he could now.
He ran swiftly to the outer road, and to the
spot where he had left his pony.
The horse was gone, and with it the United
States mail-bag!
For an instant Chouchoute stood half-stunned
with terror. Then, in one quick flash,
came to his mind a vision of possibilities
that sickened him. Disgrace overtaking
him in this position of trust; poverty
his portion again; and his dear mother
forced to share both with him.
He turned desperately to some negroes
who had followed him, seeing his wild rush
from the house: -
"Who saw my hoss? W'at you all did
with my hoss, say?"
"Who you reckon tech yo' hoss, boy?"
grumbled Gustave, a sullen-looking mulatto.
"You didn' have no call to lef' 'im in de
road, fus' place."
" 'Pear to me like I heahed a hoss a-lopin'
down de road jis' now; didn' you, Uncle
Jake?" ventured a second.
"Neva heahed nuttin' - nuttin' 't all,
'cep' dat big-mouf Ben yonda makin' mo'
fuss 'an a t'unda-sto'm."
"Boys!" cried Chouchoute, excitedly,
"bring me a hoss, quick, one of you. I 'm
boun' to have one! I 'm boun' to! I 'll give
two dolla' to the firs' man brings me a hoss."
Near at hand, in the "lot" that adjoined
Uncle Jake's cabin, was his little creole
pony, nibbling the cool, wet grass that he
found, along the edges and in the corners of
the fence.
The negro led the pony forth. With no
further word, and with one bound,
Chouchoute was upon the animal's back. He
wanted neither saddle nor bridle, for there
were few horses in the neighborhood that
had not been trained to be guided by the
simple motions of a rider's body.
Once mounted, he threw himself forward
with a certain violent impulse, leaning till
his cheek touched the animal's mane.
He uttered a sharp "Hei!" and at once,
as if possessed by sudden frenzy, the horse
dashed forward, leaving the bewildered black
men in a cloud of dust.
What a mad ride it was! On one side
was the river bank, steep in places and
crumbling away; on the other an unbroken
line of fencing; now in straight lines
of neat planking, now treacherous barbed
wire, sometimes the zigzag rail.
The night was black, with only such faint
light as the stars were shedding. No sound
was to be heard save the quick thud of the
horse's hoofs upon the hard dirt road, the
animal's heavy breathing, and the boy's
feverish "hei-hei!" when he fancied the
speed slackened.
Occasionally a marauding dog started
from the obscurity to bark and give useless
chase.
"To the road, to the road, Bon-à-rien!"
panted Chouchoute, for the horse in his wild
race had approached so closely to the river's
edge that the bank crumbled beneath his
flying feet. It was only by a desperate
lunge and bound that he saved himself and
rider from plunging into the water below.
Chouchoute hardly knew what he was
pursuing so madly. It was rather something
that drove him; fear, hope, desperation.
He was rushing to the station, because it
seemed to him, naturally, the first thing to
do. There was the faint hope that his own
horse had broken rein and gone there of his
own accord; but such hope was almost lost
in a wretched conviction that had seized
him the instant he saw "Gustave the thief "
among the men gathered at Gros-Léon's.
"Hei! hei, Bon-à-rien!"
The lights of the railway station were
gleaming ahead, and Chouchoute's hot ride
was almost at an end.
With sudden and strange perversity of
purpose, Chouchoute, as he drew closer upon
the station, slackened his horse's speed. A
low fence was in his way. Not long before,
he would have cleared it at a bound, for
Bon-à-rien could do such things. Now
he cantered easily to the end of it, to go
through the gate which was there.
His courage was growing faint, and his
heart sinking within him as he drew nearer
and nearer.
He dismounted, and holding the pony by
the mane, approached with some trepidation
the young station-master, who was taking
note of some freight that had been deposited
near the tracks.
"Mr. Hudson," faltered Chouchoute, "did
you see my pony 'roun' yere anywhere? an'
- an' the mail-sack?"
"Your pony 's safe in the woods, Chou'te.
The mail-bag 's on its way to New Orleans" -
"Thank God!" breathed the boy.
"But that poor little fool darkey of yours
has about done it for himself, I guess."
"Wash? Oh, Mr. Hudson! w'at 's -
w'at 's happen' to Wash?"
"He 's inside there, on my mattress. He 's
hurt, and he 's hurt bad; that 's what 's the
matter. You see the ten forty-five had come
in, and she did n't make much of a stop; she
was just pushing out, when bless me if that
little chap of yours did n't come tearing
along on Spunky as if Old Harry was
behind him.
"You know how No. 22 can pull at the
start; and there was that little imp keeping
abreast of her 'most under the thing's wheels.
"I shouted at him. I could n't make out
what he was up to, when blamed if he
did n't pitch the mail-bag clean into the car!
Buffalo Bill could n't have done it neater.
"Then Spunky, she shied; and Wash he
bounced against the side of that car and
back, like a rubber ball, and laid in the
ditch till we carried him inside.
"I 've wired down the road for Doctor
Campbell to come up on 14 and do what he
can for him."
Hudson had related these events to the
distracted boy while they made their way
toward the house.
Inside, upon a low pallet, lay the little
negro, breathing heavily, his black face
pinched and ashen with approaching death.
He had wanted no one to touch him further
than to lay him upon the bed.
The few men and colored women gathered
in the room were looking upon him with pity
mingled with curiosity.
When he saw Chouchoute he closed his
eyes and a shiver passed through his small
frame. Those about him thought he was
dead. Chouchoute knelt, choking, at his
side and held his hand.
"O Wash, Wash! W'at you did that
for? W'at made you, Wash?"
"Marse Chouchoute," the boy whispered,
so low that no one could hear him but his
friend, "I was gwine 'long de big road, pas'
Marse Gros-Léon's, an' I seed Spunky tied
dah wid de mail. Dar warn't a minute -
I 'clar', Marse Chouchoute, dar warn't a
minute - to fotch you. W'at makes my
head tu'n 'roun' dat away?"
"Neva mine, Wash; keep still; don't
you try to talk," entreated Chouchoute.
"You ain't mad, Marse Chouchoute?"
The lad could only answer with a hand
pressure.
"Dar warn't a minute, so I gits top o'
Spunky - I neva seed nuttin' cl'ar de road
like dat. I come 'long side - de train - an'
fling de sack. I seed 'im kotch it, and I
don' know nuttin' mo' 'cep' mis'ry, tell I
see you - a-comin' frough de do'. Mebby
Ma'ame Armand know some'pin," he
murmured faintly, "w'at gwine make my -
head quit tu'nin' 'round dat away. I boun'
to git well, 'ca'se who - gwine - watch
Marse - Chouchoute?"
EVERY one who came up
from Avoyelles
had the same story to tell of Mentine. Cher
Maître! but she was changed. And there
were babies, more than she could well
manage; as good as four already. Jules was
not kind except to himself. They seldom went
to church, and never anywhere upon a visit.
They lived as poorly as pine-woods people.
Doudouce had heard the story often, the
last time no later than that morning.
"Ho-a!" he shouted to his mule plumb
in the middle of the cotton row. He had
staggered along behind the plow since early
morning, and of a sudden he felt he had
had enough of it. He mounted the mule
and rode away to the stable, leaving the
plow with its polished blade thrust deep in
the red Cane River soil. His head felt like
a windmill with the recollections and sudden
intentions that had crowded it and were
whirling through his brain since he had
heard the last story about Mentine.
He knew well enough Mentine would have
married him seven years ago had not Jules
Trodon come up from Avoyelles and
captivated her with his handsome eyes and
pleasant speech. Doudouce was resigned then,
for he held Mentine's happiness above his
own. But now she was suffering in a
hopeless, common, exasperating way for the
small comforts of life. People had told
him so. And somehow, to-day, he could
not stand the knowledge passively. He
felt he must see those things they spoke of
with his own eyes. He must strive to help
her and her children if it were possible.
Doudouce could not sleep that night. He
lay with wakeful eyes watching the moonlight
creep across the bare floor of his room;
listening to sounds that seemed unfamiliar
and weird down among the rushes along the
bayou. But towards morning he saw Mentine
as he had seen her last in her white
wedding gown and veil. She looked at him
with appealing eyes and held out her arms
for protection, - for rescue, it seemed to
him. That dream determined him. The
following day Doudouce started for Avoyelles.
Jules Trodon's home lay a mile or two
from Marksville. It consisted of three rooms
strung in a row and opening upon a narrow
gallery. The whole wore an aspect of poverty
and dilapidation that summer day, towards
noon, when Doudouce approached it.
His presence outside the gate aroused the
frantic barking of dogs that dashed down
the steps as if to attack him. Two little
brown barefooted children, a boy and girl,
stood upon the gallery staring stupidly at
him. "Call off you' dogs," he requested;
but they only continued to stare.
"Down, Pluto! down, Achille!" cried the
shrill voice of a woman who emerged from
the house, holding upon her arm a delicate
baby of a year or two. There was only an
instant of unrecognition.
"Mais Doudouce, that ent you, comment!
Well, if any one would tole me this mornin'!
Git a chair, 'Tit Jules. That 's Mista Doudouce,
f'om 'way yonda Natchitoches w'ere
yo' maman use' to live. Mais, you ent
change'; you' lookin' well, Doudouce."
He shook hands in a slow, undemonstrative
way, and seated himself clumsily upon
the hide-bottomed chair, laying his
broad-rimmed felt hat upon the floor beside him.
He was very uncomfortable in the cloth
Sunday coat which he wore.
"I had business that call' me to
Marksville," he began, "an' I say to myse'f,
'Tiens, you can't pass by without tell' 'em
all howdy.' "
"Par example! w'at Jules would said
to that! Mais, you' lookin' well; you ent
change', Doudouce."
"An' you' lookin' well, Mentine, Jis' the
same Mentine." He regretted that he lacked
talent to make the lie bolder.
She moved a little uneasily, and felt upon
her shoulder for a pin with which to fasten
the front of her old gown where it lacked a
button. She had kept the baby in her lap.
Doudouce was wondering miserably if he
would have known her outside her home.
He would have known her sweet, cheerful
brown eyes, that were not changed; but her
figure, that had looked so trim in the
wedding gown, was sadly misshapen. She was
brown, with skin like parchment, and piteously
thin. There were lines, some deep as
if old age had cut them, about the eyes and
mouth.
"An' how you lef' 'em all, yonda?" she
asked, in a high voice that had grown shrill
from screaming at children and dogs.
"They all well. It 's mighty li'le sickness
in the country this yea'. But they been
lookin' fo' you up yonda, straight along,
Mentine."
"Don't talk, Doudouce, it 's no chance;
with that po' wo' out piece o' lan' w'at Jules
got. He say, anotha yea' like that, he 's goin'
sell out, him."
The children were clutching her on either
side, their persistent gaze always fastened
upon Doudouce. He tried without avail to
make friends with them. Then Jules came
home from the field, riding the mule with
which he had worked, and which he
fastened outside the gate.
"Yere 's Doudouce f'om Natchitoches,
Jules," called out Mentine, "he stop' to
tell us howdy, en passant." The husband
mounted to the gallery and the two men
shook hands; Doudouce listlessly, as he
had done with Mentine; Jules with some
bluster and show of cordiality.
"Well, you' a lucky man, you," he
exclaimed with his swagger air, "able to broad
like that, encore! You could n't do that if
you had half a dozen mouth' to feed, allez!"
"Non, j'te garantis!" agreed Mentine,
with a loud laugh. Doudouce winced, as he
had done the instant before at Jules's heartless
implication. This husband of Mentine
surely had not changed during the seven
years, except to grow broader, stronger,
handsomer. But Doudouce did not tell him so.
After the mid-day dinner of boiled salt
pork, corn bread and molasses, there was
nothing for Doudouce but to take his leave
when Jules did.
At the gate, the little boy was discovered
in dangerous proximity to the mule's heels,
and was properly screamed at and rebuked.
"I reckon he likes hosses," Doudouce
remarked. "He take' afta you, Mentine. I
got a li'le pony yonda home," he said,
addressing the child, "w'at ent ne use to me.
I 'm goin' sen' 'im down to you. He 's a
good, tough li'le mustang. You jis can let
'im eat grass an' feed 'im a handful 'o co'n,
once a w'ile. An' he 's gentle, yes. You an'
yo' ma can ride 'im to church, Sundays.
Hein! you want?"
"W'at you say, Jules?" demanded the
father. "W'at you say?" echoed Mentine,
who was balancing the baby across the gate.
" 'Tit sauvage, va!"
Doudouce shook hands all around, even
with the baby, and walked off in the
opposite direction to Jules, who had mounted the
mule. He was bewildered. He stumbled
over the rough ground because of tears that
were blinding him, and that he had held in
check for the past hour.
He had loved Mentine long ago, when she
was young and attractive, and he found that
he loved her still. He had tried to put all
disturbing thought of her away, on that
wedding-day, and he supposed he had
succeeded. But he loved her now as he never
had. Because she was no longer beautiful,
he loved her. Because the delicate bloom
of her existence had been rudely brushed
away; because she was in a manner fallen;
because she was Mentine, he loved her;
fiercely, as a mother loves an addicted child.
He would have liked to thrust that man
aside, and gather up her and her children,
and hold them and keep them as long as
life lasted.
After a moment or two Doudouce looked
back at Mentine, standing at the gate
with her baby. But her face was turned
away from him. She was gazing after her
husband, who went in the direction of the
field.
It was one afternoon in
April, not long
ago, only the other day, and the shadows
had already begun to lengthen.
Bertrand Delmandé, a fine, bright-looking
boy of fourteen years, - fifteen, perhaps, -
was mounted, and riding along a pleasant
country road, upon a little Creole pony,
such as boys in Louisiana usually ride when
they have nothing better at hand. He had
hunted, and carried his gun before him.
It is unpleasant to state that Bertrand
was not so depressed as he should have
been, in view of recent events that had come
about. Within the past week he had been
recalled from the college of Grand Coteau
to his home, the Bon-Accueil plantation.
He had found his father and his grandmother
depressed over money matters, awaiting
certain legal developments that might
result in his permanent withdrawal from
school. That very day, directly after the
early dinner, the two had driven to town,
on this very business, to be absent till the
late afternoon. Bertrand, then, had saddled
Picayune and gone for a long jaunt,
such as his heart delighted in.
He was returning now, and had approached
the beginning of the great tangled
Cherokee hedge that marked the
boundary line of Bon-Accueil, and that
twinkled with multiple white roses.
The pony started suddenly and violently
at something there in the turn of the road,
and just under the hedge. It looked like
a bundle of rags at first. But it was a
tramp, seated upon a broad, flat stone.
Bertrand had no maudlin consideration
for tramps as a species; he had only that
morning driven from the place one who was
making himself unpleasant at the kitchen
window.
But this tramp was old and feeble. His
beard was long, and as white as new-ginned
cotton, and when Bertrand saw him he was
engaged in stanching a wound in his bare
heel with a fistful of matted grass.
"What 's wrong, old man?" asked the
boy, kindly.
The tramp looked up at him with a
bewildered glance, but did not answer.
"Well," thought Bertrand, "since it 's
decided that I 'm to be a physician some day,
I can't begin to practice too early."
He dismounted, and examined the injured
foot. It had an ugly gash. Bertrand acted
mostly from impulse. Fortunately his
impulses were not bad ones. So, nimbly, and
as quickly as he could manage it, he had
the old man astride Picayune, whilst he
himself was leading the pony down the
narrow lane.
The dark green hedge towered like a high
and solid wall on one side. On the other
was a broad, open field, where here and
there appeared the flash and gleam of
uplifted, polished hoes, that negroes were
plying between the even rows of cotton and
tender corn.
"This is the State of Louisiana," uttered
the tramp, quaveringly.
"Yes, this is Louisiana," returned
Bertrand cheerily.
"Yes, I know it is. I 've been in all of
them since Gettysburg. Sometimes it was
too hot, and sometimes it was too cold; and
with that bullet in my head - you don't
remember? No, you don't remember
Gettysburg."
"Well, no, not vividly," laughed
Bertrand.
"Is it a hospital? It is n't a factory,
is it?" the man questioned.
"Where we 're going? Why, no, it 's the
Delmandé plantation - Bon-Accueil. Here
we are. Wait, I 'll open the gate."
This singular group entered the yard from
the rear, and not far from the house. A
big black woman, who sat just without a
cabin door, picking a pile of rusty-looking
moss, called out at sight of them: -
"W'at 's dat you 's bringin' in dis yard,
boy? top dat hoss?"
She received no reply. Bertrand, indeed,
took no notice of her inquiry.
"Fu' a boy w'at goes to school like you
does - whar 's yo' sense?" she went on,
with a fine show of indignation; then,
muttering to herself, "Ma'ame Bertrand
an' Marse St. Ange ain't gwine stan' dat, I
knows dey ain't. Dah! ef he ain't done
sot 'im on de gall'ry, plumb down in his
pa's rockin'-cheer!"
Which the boy had done; seated the
tramp in a pleasant corner of the veranda,
while he went in search of bandages for his
wound.
The servants showed high disapproval,
the housemaid following Bertrand into his
grandmother's room, whither he had carried
his investigations.
"W'at you tearin' yo' gra'ma's closit to
pieces dat away, boy?" she complained in
her high soprano.
"I 'm looking for bandages."
"Den w'y you don't ax fu' ban'ges, an'
lef yo' gra'ma's closit 'lone? You want
to listen to me; you gwine git shed o' dat
tramp settin' dah naxt to de dinin'-room!
W'en de silva be missin', 'tain' you w'at
gwine git blame, it 's me."
"The silver? Nonsense, 'Cindy; the
man 's wounded, and can't you see he 's out
of his head?"
"No mo' outen his head 'an I is. 'T ain'
me w'at want to tres' [trust] 'im wid de
sto'-room key, ef he is outen his head," she
concluded with a disdainful shrug.
But Bertrand's protégé proved so
unapproachable in his long-worn rags, that
the boy concluded to leave him unmolested
till his father's return, and then ask permission
to turn the forlorn creature into the bathhouse,
and array him afterward in clean,
fresh garments.
So there the old tramp sat in the veranda
corner, stolidly content, when St. Ange
Delmandé and his mother returned from town.
St. Ange was a dark, slender man of middle
age, with a sensitive face, and a plentiful
sprinkle of gray in his thick black
hair; his mother, a portly woman, and an
active one for her sixty-five years.
They were evidently in a despondent
mood. Perhaps it was for the cheer of her
sweet presence that they had brought with
them from town a little girl, the child of
Madame Delmandé's only daughter, who
was married, and lived there.
Madame Delmandé and her son were
astonished to find so uninviting an intruder in
possession. But a few earnest words from
Bertrand reassured them, and partly reconciled
them to the man's presence; and it was
with wholly indifferent though not unkindly
glances that they passed him by when they
entered. On any large plantation there are
always nooks and corners where, for a night
or more, even such a man as this tramp
may be tolerated and given shelter.
When Bertrand went to bed that night,
he lay long awake thinking of the man, and
of what he had heard from his lips in the
hushed starlight. The boy had heard of
the awfulness of Gettysburg, till it was like
something he could feel and quiver at.
On that field of battle this man had
received a new and tragic birth. For all his
existence that went before was a blank to
him. There, in the black desolation of war,
he was born again, without friends or
kindred; without even a name he could know
was his own. Then he had gone forth a
wanderer; living more than half the time
in hospitals; toiling when he could, starving
when he had to.
Strangely enough, he had addressed
Bertrand as "St. Ange," not once, but every
time he had spoken to him. The boy
wondered at this. Was it because he had heard
Madame Delmandé address her son by that
name, and fancied it?
So this nameless wanderer had drifted far
down to the plantation of Bon-Accueil, and
at last had found a human hand stretched
out to him in kindness.
When the family assembled at breakfast
on the following morning, the tramp was
already settled in the chair, and in the
corner which Bertrand's indulgence had
made familiar to him.
If he had turned partly around, he would
have faced the flower garden, with its
graveled walks and trim parterres, where a
tangle of color and perfume were holding high
revelry this April morning; but he liked
better to gaze into the back yard, where
there was always movement: men and women
coming and going, bearing implements
of work; little negroes in scanty garments,
darting here and there, and kicking up the
dust in their exuberance.
Madame Delmandé could just catch a
glimpse of him through the long window
that opened to the floor, and near which he
sat.
Mr. Delmandéhad spoken to the man
pleasantly, but he and his mother were
wholly absorbed by their trouble, and talked
constantly of that, while Bertrand went back
and forth ministering to the old man's
wants. The boy knew that the servants
would have done the office with ill grace,
and he chose to be cup-bearer himself to the
unfortunate creature for whose presence he
alone was responsible.
Once, when Bertrand went out to him
with a second cup of coffee, steaming and
fragrant, the old man whispered: -
"What are they saying in there?" pointing
over his shoulder to the dining-room.
"Oh, money troubles that will force us to
economize for a while," answered the boy.
"What father and mé-mère feel worst about
is that I shall have to leave college now."
"No, no! St. Ange must go to school.
The war 's over, the war 's over! St. Ange
and Florentine must go to school."
"But if there 's no money," the boy insisted,
smiling like one who humors the vagaries
of a child.
"Money! money!" murmured the tramp.
"The war 's over - money! money!"
His sleepy gaze had swept across the yard
into the thick of the orchard beyond, and
rested there.
Suddenly he pushed aside the light table
that had been set before him, and rose,
clutching Bertrand's arm.
"St. Ange, you must go to school!" he
whispered. "The war 's over," looking
furtively around. "Come. Don't let them
hear you. Don't let the negroes see us.
Get a spade - the little spade that Buck
Williams was digging his cistern with."
Still clutching the boy, he dragged him
down the steps as he said this, and traversed
the yard with long, limping strides, himself
leading the way.
From under a shed where such things
were to be found, Bertrand selected a spade,
since the tramp's whim demanded that he
should, and together they entered the
orchard.
The grass was thick and tufted here, and
wet with the morning dew. In long lines,
forming pleasant avenues between, were
peach-trees growing, and pear and apple and
plum. Close against the fence was the
pomegranate hedge, with its waxen blossoms,
brick-red. Far down in the centre of the
orchard stood a huge pecan-tree, twice the
size of any other that was there, seeming to
rule like an old-time king.
Here Bertrand and his guide stopped.
The tramp had not once hesitated in his
movements since grasping the arm of his
young companion on the veranda. Now he
went and leaned his back against the pecan-tree,
where there was a deep knot, and looking
steadily before him he took ten -paces
forward. Turning sharply to the right, he
made five additional paces. Then pointing
his finger downward, and looking at
Bertrand, he commanded: -
"There, dig. I would do it myself, but
for my wounded foot. For I 've turned
many a spade of earth since Gettysburg.
Dig, St. Ange, dig! The war 's over; you
must go to school."
Is there a boy of fifteen under the sun
who would not have dug, even knowing he
was following the insane dictates of a
demented man? Bertrand entered with all
the zest of his years and his spirit into the
curious adventure; and he dug and dug,
throwing great spadefuls of the rich,
fragrant earth from side to side.
The tramp, with body bent, and fingers
like claws clasping his bony knees, stood
watching with eager eyes, that never
unfastened their steady gaze from the boy's
rhythmic motions.
"That 's it!" he muttered at intervals.
"Dig, dig! The war 's over. You must go
to school, St. Ange."
Deep down in the earth, too deep for any
ordinary turning of the soil with spade or
plow to have reached it, was a box. It was
of tin, apparently, something larger than a
cigar box, and bound round and round with
twine, rotted now and eaten away in places.
The tramp showed no surprise at seeing
it there; he simply knelt upon the ground
and lifted it from its long resting place.
Bertrand had let the spade fall from his
hands, and was quivering with the awe of
the thing he saw. Who could this wizard
be that had come to him in the guise of a
tramp, that walked in cabalistic paces upon
his own father's ground, and pointed his
finger like a divining-rod to the spot where
boxes - may be treasures - lay? It was like
a page from a wonder-book.
And walking behind this white-haired old
man, who was again leading the way,
something of childish superstition crept back
into Bertrand's heart. It was the same feeling
with which he had often sat, long ago, in the
weird firelight of some negro's cabin, listening
to tales of witches who came in the night
to work uncanny spells at their will.
Madame Delmandé had never abandoned
the custom of washing her own silver and
dainty china. She sat, when the breakfast
was over, with a pail of warm suds before
her that 'Cindy had brought to her, with an
abundance of soft linen cloths. Her little
granddaughter stood beside her playing, as
babies will, with the bright spoons and forks,
and ranging them in rows on the polished
mahogany. St. Ange was at the window
making entries in a note-book, and frowning
gloomily as he did so.
The group in the dining-room were so
employed when the old tramp came staggering
in, Bertrand close behind him.
He went and stood at the foot of the table,
opposite to where Madame Delmandésat,
and let fall the box upon it.
The thing in falling shattered, and from
its bursting sides gold came, clicking,
spinning, gliding, some of it like oil; rolling
along the table and off it to the floor, but
heaped up, the bulk of it, before the tramp.
"Here 's money!" he called out, plunging
his old hand in the thick of it. "Who
says St. Ange shall not go to school? The
war 's over - here 's money! St. Ange, my
boy," turning to Bertrand and speaking with
quick authority, "tell Buck Williams to
hitch Black Bess to the buggy, and go bring
Judge Parkerson here."
Judge Parkerson, indeed, who had been
dead for twenty years and more!
"Tell him that - that" - and the hand
that was not in the gold went up to the
withered forehead, "that - Bertrand Delmandé
needs him!"
Madame Delmandé, at sight of the man
with his box and his gold, had given a sharp
cry, such as might follow the plunge of a
knife. She lay now in her son's arms,
panting hoarsely.
"Your father, St. Ange, - come back
from the dead - your father!"
"Be calm, mother!" the man implored.
"You had such sure proof of his death in
that terrible battle, this may not be he."
"I know him! I know your father, my
son!" and disengaging herself from the arms
that held her, she dragged herself as a
wounded serpent might to where the old
man stood.
His hand was still in the gold, and on his
face was yet the flush which had come there
when he shouted out the name Bertrand
Delmandé.
"Husband," she gasped, "do you know
me - your wife?"
The little girl was playing gleefully with
the yellow coin.
Bertrand stood, pulseless almost, like a
young Actæon cut in marble. .
When the old man had looked long into
the woman's imploring face, he made a
courtly bow.
"Madame," he said,
"an old soldier,
wounded on the field of Gettysburg, craves
for himself and his two little children your
kind hospitality."
WHEN the war began,
there stood on
Côte Joyeuse an imposing mansion of red
brick, shaped like the Pantheon. A grove
of majestic live-oaks surrounded it.
Thirty years later, only the thick walls
were standing, with the dull red brick
showing here and there through a matted
growth of clinging vines. The huge round
pillars were intact; so to some extent was the
stone flagging of hall and portico. There
had been no home so stately along the whole
stretch of Côte Joyeuse. Every one knew
that, as they knew it had cost Philippe
Valmêt sixty thousand dollars to build, away
back in 1840. No one was in danger of
forgetting that fact, so long as his daughter
Pélagie survived. She was a queenly,
white-haired woman of fifty. "Ma'ame Pélagie,"
they called her, though she was unmarried,
as was her sister Pauline, a child in Ma'ame
Pélagie's eyes; a child of thirty-five.
The two lived alone in a three-roomed
cabin, almost within the shadow of the ruin.
They lived for a dream, for Ma'ame Pélagie's
dream, which was to rebuild the old
home.
It would be pitiful to tell how their days
were spent to accomplish this end; how the
dollars had been saved for thirty years and
the picayunes hoarded; and yet, not half
enough gathered! But Ma'ame Pélagie
felt sure of twenty years of life before her,
and counted upon as many more for her
sister. And what could not come to pass
in twenty - in forty - years?
Often, of pleasant afternoons, the two
would drink their black coffee, seated upon
the stone-flagged portico whose canopy was
the blue sky of Louisiana. They loved to
sit there in the silence, with only each other
and the sheeny, prying lizards for company,
talking of the old times and planning for
the new; while light breezes stirred the
tattered vines high up among the columns,
where owls nested.
"We can never hope to have all just as
it was, Pauline," Ma'ame Pélagie would
say; "perhaps the marble pillars of the
salon will have to be replaced by wooden
ones, and the crystal candelabra left out.
Should you be willing, Pauline?"
"Oh, yes, Sesoeur, I shall be willing." It
was always, "Yes, Sesoeur," or "No, Sesoeur,"
"Just as you please, Sesoeur," with
poor little Mam'selle Pauline. For what
did she remember of that old life and that
old splendor? Only a faint gleam here and
there; the half-consciousness of a young,
uneventful existence; and then a great
crash. That meant the nearness of war;
the revolt of slaves; confusion ending in
fire and flame through which she was borne
safely in the strong arms of Pélagie, and
carried to the log cabin which was still their
home. Their brother, Léandre, had known
more of it all than Pauline, and not so
much as Pélagie. He had left the management
of the big plantation with all its memories
and traditions to his older sister, and
had gone away to dwell in cities. That was
many years ago. Now, Léandre's business
called him frequently and upon long journeys
from home, and his motherless daughter
was coming to stay with her aunts at
Côte Joyeuse.
They talked about it, sipping their coffee
on the ruined portico. Mam'selle Pauline
was terribly excited; the flush that throbbed
into her pale, nervous face showed it; and
she locked her thin fingers in and out
incessantly.
"But what shall we do with La Petite,
Sesoeur? Where shall we put her? How
shall we amuse her? Ah, Seigneur!"
"She will sleep upon a cot in the room
next to ours," responded Ma'ame Pélagie,
"and live as we do. She knows how we
live, and why we live; her father has told
her. She knows we have money and could
squander it if we chose. Do not fret,
Pauline; let us hope La Petite is a true
Valmêt."
Then Ma'ame Pélagie rose with stately
deliberation and went to saddle her horse,
for she had yet to make her last daily round
through the fields, and Mam'selle Pauline
threaded her way slowly among the tangled
grasses toward the cabin.
The coming of La Petite, bringing with
her as she did the pungent atmosphere of
an outside and dimly known world, was a
shock to these two, living their dream-life.
The girl was quite as tall as her aunt
Pélagie, with dark eyes that reflected joy as a
still pool reflects the light of stars; and her
rounded cheek was tinged like the pink
crèpe myrtle. Mam'selle Pauline kissed
her and trembled. Ma'ame Pélagie looked
into her eyes with a searching gaze, which
seemed to seek a likeness of the past in the
living present.
And they made room between them for
this young life.
La Petite had
determined upon trying to
fit herself to the strange, narrow existence
which she knew awaited her at Côte Joyeuse.
It went well enough at first. Sometimes
she followed Ma'ame Pélagie into the
fields to note how the cotton was opening,
ripe and white; or to count the ears of corn
upon the hardy stalks. But oftener she was
with her aunt Pauline, assisting in household
offices, chattering of her brief past, or
walking with the older woman arm-in-arm
under the trailing moss of the giant oaks.
Mam'selle Pauline's steps grew very buoyant
that summer, and her eyes were sometimes
as bright as a bird's, unless La Petite
were away from her side, when they would
lose all other light but one of uneasy
expectancy. The girl seemed to love her well
in return, and called her endearingly
Tan'tante. But as the time went by, La
Petite became very quiet, - not listless, but
thoughtful, and slow in her movements.
Then her cheeks began to pale, till they
were tinged like the creamy plumes of the
white crèpe myrtle that grew in the ruin.
One day when she sat within its shadow,
between her aunts, holding a hand of each,
she said: "Tante Pélagie, I must tell you
something, you and Tan'tante." She spoke
low, but clearly and firmly. "I love you
both, - please remember that I love you
both. But I must go away from you. I
can't live any longer here at Côte Joyeuse."
A spasm passed through Mam'selle
Pauline's delicate frame. La Petite could feel
the twitch of it in the wiry fingers that were
intertwined with her own. Ma'ame Pélagie
remained unchanged and motionless. No
human eye could penetrate so deep as to see
the satisfaction which her soul felt. She
said: "What do you mean, Petite? Your
father has sent you to us, and I am sure it
is his wish that you remain."
"My father loves me, tante Pélagie, and
such will not be his wish when he knows.
Oh!" she continued with a restless movement,
"it is as though a weight were pressing
me backward here. I must live another
life, the life I lived before. I want to know
things that are happening from day to day
over the world, and hear them talked about.
I want my music, my books, my companions.
If I had known no other life but this one of
privation, I suppose it would be different.
If I had to live this life, I should make the
best of it. But I do not have to; and you
know, tante Pélagie, you do not need to. It
seems to me," she added in a whisper, "that
it is a sin against myself. Ah, Tan'tante!
- what is the matter with Tan'tante?"
It was nothing; only a slight feeling of
faintness, that would soon pass. She
entreated them to take no notice; but they
brought her some water and fanned her with
a palmetto leaf.
But that night, in the stillness of the
room, Mam'selle Pauline sobbed and would
not be comforted. Ma'ame Pélagie took
her in her arms.
"Pauline, my little sister Pauline," she
entreated, "I never have seen you like this
before. Do you no longer love me? Have
we not been happy together, you and I?"
"Oh, yes, Sesoeur."
"Is it because La Petite is going away?"
"Yes, Sesoeur."
"Then she is dearer to you than I!"
spoke Ma'ame Pélagie with sharp resentment.
"Than I, who held you and warmed
you in my arms the day you were born;
than I, your mother, father, sister, everything
that could cherish you. Pauline, don't
tell me that."
Mam'selle Pauline tried to talk through
her sobs.
"I can't explain it to you, Sesoeur. I
don't understand it myself. I love you as I
have always loved you; next to God. But
if La Petite goes away I shall die. I can't
understand, - help me, Sesoeur. She seems
- she seems like a saviour; like one who
had come and taken me by the hand and
was leading me somewhere - somewhere I
want to go."
Ma'ame Pélagie had been sitting beside
the bed in her peignoir and slippers. She
held the hand of her sister who lay there,
and smoothed down the woman's soft brown
hair. She said not a word, and the silence
was broken only by Ma'mselle Pauline's
continued sobs. Once Ma'ame Pélagie arose
to drink of orange-flower water, which she
gave to her sister, as she would have offered
it to a nervous, fretful child. Almost an
hour passed before Ma'ame Pélagie spoke
again. Then she said: -
"Pauline, you must cease that sobbing,
now, and sleep. You will make yourself ill.
La Petite will not go away. Do you hear
me? Do you understand? She will stay,
I promise you."
Mam'selle Pauline could not clearly
comprehend, but she had great faith in the
word of her sister, and soothed by the promise
and the touch of Ma'ame Pélagie's strong,
gentle hand, she fell asleep.
The night was not a dark one, for the sky
was clear and the moon resplendent. But
light or dark would have made no difference
to Ma'ame Pélagie. It was not the first
time she had stolen away to the ruin at
night-time, when the whole plantation slept;
but she never before had been there with a
heart so nearly broken. She was going there
for the last time to dream her dreams; to
see the visions that hitherto had crowded
her days and nights, and to bid them
farewell.
There was the first of them, awaiting her
upon the very portal; a robust old
white-haired man, chiding her for returning
home so late. There are guests to be entertained.
Does she not know it? Guests from the
city and from the near plantations. Yes,
she knows it is late. She had been abroad
with Félix, and they did not notice how the
time was speeding. Félix is there; he will
explain it all. He is there beside her, but
she does not want to hear what he will tell
her father.
Ma'ame Pélagie had sunk upon the bench
where she and her sister so often came to
sit. Turning, she gazed in through the gaping
chasm of the window at her side. The
interior of the ruin is ablaze. Not with the
moonlight, for that is faint beside the other
one - the sparkle from the crystal candelabra,
which negroes, moving noiselessly and
respectfully about, are lighting, one after
the other. How the gleam of them reflects
and glances from the polished marble
pillars!
The room holds a number of guests.
There is old Monsieur Lucien Santien, leaning
against one of the pillars, and laughing
at something which Monsieur Lafirme
is telling him, till his fat shoulders shake.
His son Jules is with him - Jules, who
wants to marry her. She laughs. She
wonders if Félix has told her father yet.
There is young Jerome Lafirme playing at
checkers upon the sofa with Léandre. Little
Pauline stands annoying them and disturbing
the game. Léandre reproves her. She
begins to cry, and old black Clémentine, her
nurse, who is not far off, limps across the
room to pick her up and carry her away.
How sensitive the little one is! But she
trots about and takes care of herself better
than she did a year or two ago, when she
fell upon the stone hall floor and raised a
great "bo-bo" on her forehead. Pélagie
was hurt and angry enough about it; and
she ordered rugs and buffalo robes to be
brought and laid thick upon the tiles, till
the little one's steps were surer.
"Il ne faut pas faire mal à Pauline."
She was saying it aloud - "faire mal à
Pauline."
But she gazes beyond the salon, back into
the big dining hall, where the white crèpe
myrtle grows. Ha! how low that bat has
circled. It has struck Ma'ame Pélagie full
on the breast. She does not know it. She
is beyond there in the dining hall, where
her father sits with a group of friends over
their wine. As usual they are talking politics.
How tiresome! She has heard them
say "la guerre" oftener than once. La
guerre. Bah! She and Félix have something
pleasanter to talk about, out under
the oaks, or back in the shadow of the
oleanders.
But they were right! The sound of a
cannon, shot at Sumter, has rolled across
the Southern States, and its echo is heard
along the whole stretch of Côte Joyeuse.
Yet Pélagie does not believe it. Not till
La Ricaneuse stands before her with bare,
black arms akimbo, uttering a volley of vile
abuse and of brazen impudence. Pélagie
wants to kill her. But yet she will not
believe. Not till Félix comes to her in the
chamber above the dining hall - there where that
trumpet vine hangs - comes to say good-by
to her. The hurt which the big brass buttons
of his new gray uniform pressed into
the tender flesh of her bosom has never left
it. She sits upon the sofa, and he beside
her, both speechless with pain. That room
would not have been altered. Even the
sofa would have been there in the same
spot, and Ma'ame Pélagie had meant all
along, for thirty years, all along, to lie there
upon it some day when the time came to
die.
But there is no time to weep, with the
enemy at the door. The door has been no
barrier. They are clattering through the
halls now, drinking the wines, shattering the
crystal and glass, slashing the portraits.
One of them stands before her and tells
her to leave the house. She slaps his face.
How the stigma stands out red as blood
upon his blanched cheek!
Now there is a roar of fire and the flames
are bearing down upon her motionless
figure. She wants to show them how a daughter
of Louisiana can perish before her conquerors.
But little Pauline clings to her
knees in an agony of terror. Little Pauline
must be saved.
"Il ne faut pas faire mal à Pauline."
Again she is saying it aloud - "faire mal
à Pauline."
The night was nearly spent; Ma'ame
Pélagie had glided from the bench upon which
she had rested, and for hours lay prone upon
the stone flagging, motionless. When she
dragged herself to her feet it was to walk
like one in a dream. About the great, solemn
pillars, one after the other, she reached
her arms, and pressed her cheek and her lips
upon the senseless brick.
"Adieu, adieu! " whispered Ma'ame
Pélagie.
There was no longer the moon to guide
her steps across the familiar pathway to the
cabin. The brightest light in the sky was
Venus, that swung low in the east. The
bats had ceased to beat their wings about
the ruin. Even the mocking-bird that had
warbled for hours in the old mulberry-tree
had sung himself asleep. That darkest
hour before the day was mantling the earth.
Ma'ame Pélagie hurried through the wet,
clinging grass, beating aside the heavy moss
that swept across her face, walking on
toward the cabin - toward Pauline. Not
once did she look back upon the ruin that
brooded like a huge monster - a black spot
in the darkness that enveloped it.
Little more than a year
later the
transformation which the old Valmêt place
had undergone was the talk and wonder of
Côte Joyeuse. One would have looked in vain
for the ruin; it was no longer there; neither
was the log cabin. But out in the open,
where the sun shone upon it, and the breezes
blew about it, was a shapely structure
fashioned from woods that the forests of the
State had furnished. It rested upon a solid
foundation of brick.
Upon a corner of the pleasant gallery sat
Léandre smoking his afternoon cigar, and
chatting with neighbors who had called.
This was to be his pied à terre now; the
home where his sisters and his daughter
dwelt. The laughter of young people was
heard out under the trees, and within the
house where La Petite was playing upon
the piano. With the enthusiasm of a young
artist she drew from the keys strains that
seemed marvelously beautiful to Mam'selle
Pauline, who stood enraptured near her.
Mam'selle Pauline had been touched by the
re-creation of Valmêt. Her cheek was as
full and almost as flushed as La Petite's.
The years were falling away from her.
Ma'ame Pélagie had been conversing with
her brother and his friends. Then she
turned and walked away; stopping to listen
awhile to the music which La Petite was
making. But it was only for a moment.
She went on around the curve of the
veranda, where she found herself alone. She
stayed there, erect, holding to the banister
rail and looking out calmly in the distance
across the fields.
She was dressed in black, with the white
kerchief she always wore folded across her
bosom. Her thick, glossy hair rose like a
silver diadem from her brow. In her deep,
dark eyes smouldered the light of fires that
would never flame. She had grown very
old. Years instead of months seemed to
have passed over her since the night she bade
farewell to her visions.
Poor Ma'ame Pélagie! How could it be
different! While the outward pressure of
a young and joyous existence had forced her
footsteps into the light, her soul had stayed
in the shadow of the ruin.
BOBINÔT, that
big, brown, good-natured
Bobinôt, had no intention of going to the
ball, even though he knew Calixta would
be there. For what came of those balls
but heartache, and a sickening disinclination
for work the whole week through, till
Saturday night came again and his tortures
began afresh? Why could he not love
Ozéina, who would marry him to-morrow;
or Fronie, or any one of a dozen others,
rather than that little Spanish vixen?
Calixta's slender foot had never touched Cuban
soil; but her mother's had, and the Spanish
was in her blood all the same. For that
reason the prairie people forgave her much
that they would not have overlooked in
their own daughters or sisters.
Her eyes, - Bobinôt thought of her eyes,
and weakened, - the bluest, the drowsiest,
most tantalizing that ever looked into a
man's, he thought of her flaxen hair that
kinked worse than a mulatto's close to her
head; that broad, smiling mouth and tip-tilted
nose, that full figure; that voice like
a rich contralto song, with cadences in it
that must have been taught by Satan, for
there was no one else to teach her tricks on
that 'Cadian prairie. Bobinôt thought of
them all as he plowed his rows of cane.
There had even been a breath of scandal
whispered about her a year ago, when
she went to Assumption, - but why talk of
it? No one did now. "C'est Espagnol,
ça," most of them said with lenient
shoulder-shrugs. "Bon chien tient de race,"
the old men mumbled over their pipes,
stirred by recollections. Nothing was made
of it, except that Fronie threw it up to
Calixta when the two quarreled and fought
on the church steps after mass one Sunday,
about a lover. Calixta swore roundly in
fine 'Cadian French and with true Spanish
spirit, and slapped Fronie's face. Fronie
had slapped her back; "Tiens, bocotte, va!"
"Espèce de lionèse; prends ça, et ça!"
till the curé himself was obliged to hasten
and make peace between them. Bobinôt
thought of it all, and would not go to the
ball.
But in the afternoon, over at Friedheimer's
store, where he was buying a trace-chain,
he heard some one say that Alcée
Laballière would be there. Then wild
horses could not have kept him away. He
knew how it would be - or rather he did
not know how it would be - if the handsome
young planter came over to the ball
as he sometimes did. If Alcée happened to
be in a serious mood, he might only go to
the card-room and play a round or two;
or he might stand out on the galleries talking
crops and politics with the old people.
But there was no telling. A drink or two
could put the devil in his head, - that was
what Bobinôt said to himself, as he wiped
the sweat from his brow with his red bandanna;
a gleam from Calixta's eyes, a flash
of her ankle, a twirl of her skirts could do
the same. Yes, Bobinôt would go to the
ball.
That was the year Alcée Laballière put
nine hundred acres in rice. It was putting
a good deal of money into the ground, but
the returns promised to be glorious. Old
Madame Laballière, sailing about the
spacious galleries in her white volante, figured
it all out in her head. Clarisse, her goddaughter
helped her a little, and together
they built more air-castles than enough.
Alcée worked like a mule that time; and if he
did not kill himself, it was because his
constitution was an iron one. It was an
every-day affair for him to come in from
the field well-nigh exhausted, and wet to the
waist. He did not mind if there were visitors;
he left them to his mother and Clarisse.
There were often guests: young men
and women who came up from the city,
which was but a few hours away, to visit
his beautiful kinswoman. She was worth
going a good deal farther than that to see.
Dainty as a lily; hardy as a sunflower;
slim, tall, graceful, like one of the reeds
that grew in the marsh. Cold and kind
and cruel by turn, and everything that was
aggravating to Alcée.
He would have liked to sweep the place
of those visitors, often. Of the men, above
all, with their ways and their manners;
their swaying of fans like women, and dandling
about hammocks. He could have pitched
them over the levee into the river, if it
hadn't meant murder. That was Alcée.
But he must have been crazy the day he
came in from the rice-field, and, toil-stained
as he was, clasped Clarisse by the arms and
panted a volley of hot, blistering love-words
into her face. No man had ever spoken love
to her like that.
"Monsieur!" she exclaimed, looking him
full in the eyes, without a quiver. Alcée's
hands dropped and his glance wavered
before the chill of her calm, clear eyes.
"Par exemple!" she muttered disdainfully,
as she turned from him, deftly adjusting
the careful toilet that he had so brutally
disarranged.
That happened a day or two before the
cyclone came that cut into the rice like fine
steel. It was an awful thing, coming so
swiftly, without a moment's warning in
which to light a holy candle or set a piece of
blessed palm burning. Old madame wept
openly and said her beads, just as her son
Didier, the New Orleans one, would have
done. If such a thing had happened to
Alphonse, the Laballière planting cotton up
in Natchitoches, he would have raved and
stormed like a second cyclone, and made his
surroundings unbearable for a day or two.
But Alcée took the misfortune differently.
He looked ill and gray after it, and said
nothing. His speechlessness was frightful.
Clarisse's heart melted with tenderness; but
when she offered her soft, purring words
of condolence, he accepted them with mute
indifference. Then she and her nénaine
wept afresh in each other's arms.
A night or two later, when Clarisse went
to her window to kneel there in the
moonlight and say her prayers before retiring,
she saw that Bruce, Alcée's negro servant,
had led his master's saddle-horse noiselessly
along the edge of the sward that bordered
the gravel-path, and stood holding him near
by. Presently, she heard Alcée quit his
room, which was beneath her own, and
traverse the lower portico. As he emerged
from the shadow and crossed the strip of
moonlight, she perceived that he carried a
pair of well-filled saddle-bags which he at
once flung across the animal's back. He
then lost no time in mounting, and after a
brief exchange of words with Bruce, went
cantering away, taking no precaution to
avoid the noisy gravel as the negro had
done.
Clarisse had never suspected that it might
be Alcée's custom to sally forth from the
plantation secretly, and at such an hour;
for it was nearly midnight. And had it not
been for the telltale saddle-bags, she would
only have crept to bed, to wonder, to fret
and dream unpleasant dreams. But her
impatience and anxiety would not be held
in check. Hastily unbolting the shutters of
her door that opened upon the gallery, she
stepped outside and called softly to the old
negro.
"Gre't Peter! Miss Clarisse. I was n'
sho it was a ghos' o' w'at, stan'in' up dah,
plumb in de night, dataway."
He mounted halfway up the long, broad
flight of stairs. She was standing at the top.
"Bruce, w'ere has Monsieur Alcée gone?"
she asked.
"W'y, he gone 'bout he business, I
reckin," replied Bruce, striving to be
noncommittal at the outset.
"W'ere has Monsieur Alcée gone?" she
reiterated, stamping her bare foot. "I
won't stan' any nonsense or any lies; mine,
Bruce."
"I don' ric'lic ez I eva tole you lie yit,
Miss Clarisse. Mista Alcée, he all broke
up, sho."
"W'ere - has - he gone? Ah, Sainte
Vierge! faut de la patience! butor, va!"
"W'en I was in he room, a-breshin' off he
clo'es to-day," the darkey began, settling
himself against the stair-rail, "he look dat
speechless an' down, I say, 'You 'pear tu
me like some pussun w'at gwine have a spell
o' sickness, Mista Alcée.' He say, 'You
reckin?' 'I dat he git up, go look hisse'f
stiddy in de glass. Den he go to de chimbly
an' jerk up de quinine bottle an po' a gre't
hoss-dose on to he han'. An' he swalla dat
mess in a wink, an' wash hit down wid a big
dram o' w'iskey w'at he keep in he room,
aginst he come all soppin' wet outen de fiel'.
"He 'lows, 'No, I ain' gwine be sick,
Bruce.' Den he square off. He say, 'I kin
mak out to stan' up an' gi' an' take wid any
man I knows, lessen hit 's John L. Sulvun.
But w'en God A'mighty an' a 'omen jines
fo'ces agin me, dat 's one too many fur me.'
I tell 'im, 'Jis so,' while' I 'se makin' out to
bresh a spot off w'at ain' dah, on he coat
colla. I tell 'im, 'You wants li'le res', suh.'
He say, 'No, I wants li'le fling; dat w'at I
wants; an I gwine git it. Pitch me a fis'ful
o' clo'es in dem 'ar saddle-bags.' Dat w'at
he say. Don't you bodda, missy. He jis'
gone a-caperin' yonda to de Cajun ball. Uh
- uh - de skeeters is fair' a-swarmin' like
bees roun' yo' foots!"
The mosquitoes were indeed attacking
Clarisse's white feet savagely. She had
unconsciously been alternately rubbing one foot
over the other during the darkey's recital.
"The 'Cadian ball," she repeated
contemptously. "Humph! Par exemple!
Nice conduc' for a Laballière. An' he
needs a saddle-bag, fill' with clothes, to go
to the 'Cadian ball!"
"Oh, Miss Clarisse; you go on to bed,
chile; git yo' soun' sleep. He 'low he come
back in couple weeks o' so. I kiarn be
repeatin' lot o' truck w'at young mans say,
out heah face o' a young gal."
Clarisse said no more, but turned and
abruptly reentered the house.
"You done talk too much wid yo' mouf
already, you ole fool nigga, you," muttered
Bruce to himself as he walked away.
Alcée reached the ball very late, of course
- too late for the chicken gumbo which had
been served at midnight.
The big, low-ceiled room - they called it
a hall - was packed with men and women
dancing to the music of three fiddles. There
were broad galleries all around it. There
was a room at one side where sober-faced
men were playing cards. Another, in which
babies were sleeping, was called le parc aux
petits. Any one who is white may go to a
'Cadian ball, but he must pay for his lemonade,
his coffee and chicken gumbo. And he
must behave himself like a 'Cadian. Grosboeuf
was giving this ball. He had been giving
them since he was a young man, and he
was a middle-aged one, now. In that time
he could recall but one disturbance, and that
was caused by American railroaders, who
were not in touch with their surroundings
and had no business there. "Ces maudits
gens du raiderode," Grosboeuf called them.
Alcée Laballière's presence at the ball
caused a flutter even among the men, who
could not but admire his "nerve" after such
misfortune befalling him. To be sure, they
knew the Laballières were rich - that there
were resources East, and more again in the
city. But they felt it took a brave homme
to stand a blow like that philosophically.
One old gentleman, who was in the habit of
reading a Paris newspaper and knew things,
chuckled gleefully to everybody that Alcée's
conduct was altogether chic, mais chic.
That he had more panache than Boulanger.
Well, perhaps he had.
But what he did not show outwardly
was that he was in a mood for ugly things
to-night. Poor Bobinôt alone felt it vaguely.
He discerned a gleam of it in Alcée's handsome
eyes, as the young planter stood in
the doorway, looking with rather feverish
glance upon the assembly, while he laughed
and talked with a 'Cadian farmer who was
beside him.
Bobinôt himself was dull-looking and
clumsy. Most of the men were. But the
young women were very beautiful. The
eyes that glanced into Alcée's as they
passed him were big, dark, soft as those of
the young heifers standing out in the cool
prairie grass.
But the belle was Calixta. Her white
dress was not nearly so handsome or well
made as Fronie's (she and Fronie had quite
forgotten the battle on the church steps,
and were friends again), nor were her slippers
so stylish as those of Ozéina; and she
fanned herself with a handkerchief, since
she had broken her red fan at the last ball,
and her aunts and uncles were not willing
to give her another. But all the men agreed
she was at her best to-night. Such animation!
and abandon! such flashes of wit!
"Hé, Bobinôt! Mais w'at's the matta?
W'at you standin' planté là like ole Ma'ame
Tina's cow in the bog, you?"
That was good. That was an excellent
thrust at Bobinôt, who had forgotten the
figure of the dance with his mind bent on
other things, and it started a clamor of
laughter at his expense. He joined
good-naturedly. It was better to receive even
such notice as that from Calixta than none
at all. But Madame Suzonne, sitting in
a corner, whispered to her neighbor that if
Ozéina were to conduct herself in a like
manner, she should immediately be taken out to
the mule-cart and driven home. The women
did not always approve of Calixta.
Now and then were short lulls in the
dance, when couples flocked out upon the
galleries for a brief respite and fresh air.
The moon had gone down pale in the west,
and in the east was yet no promise of day.
After such an interval, when the dancers
again assembled to resume the interrupted
quadrille, Calixta was not among them.
She was sitting upon a bench out in the
shadow, with Alcée beside her. They were
acting like fools. He had attempted to take
a little gold ring from her finger; just for
the fun of it, for there was nothing he could
have done with the ring but replace it again.
But she clinched her hand tight. He pretended
that it was a very difficult matter to
open it. Then he kept the hand in his.
They seemed to forget about it. He played
with her ear-ring, a thin crescent of gold
hanging from her small brown ear. He
caught a wisp of the kinky hair that had
escaped its fastening, and rubbed the ends
of it against his shaven cheek.
"You know, last year in Assumption,
Calixta?" They belonged to the younger
generation, so preferred to speak English.
"Don't come say Assumption to me,
M'sieur Alcée. I done yeard Assumption
till I 'm plumb sick."
"Yes, I know. The idiots! Because you
were in Assumption, and I happened to go
to Assumption, they must have it that we
went together. But it was nice - hein,
Calixta? - in Assumption?"
They saw Bobinôt emerge from the hall
and stand a moment outside the lighted
doorway, peering uneasily and searchingly
into the darkness. He did not see them,
and went slowly back.
"There is Bobinôt looking for you. You
are going to set poor Bobinôt crazy. You 'll
marry him some day; hein, Calixta?"
"I don't say no, me," she replied, striving
to withdraw her hand, which he held more
firmly for the attempt.
"But come, Calixta; you know you said
you would go back to Assumption, just to
spite them."
"No, I neva said that, me. You mus'
dreamt that."
"Oh, I thought you did. You know I 'm
going down to the city."
"W'en?"
"To-night."
"Betta make has'e, then; it 's mos' day."
"Well, to-morrow 'll do."
"W'at you goin' do, yonda?"
"I don't know. Drown myself in the
lake, maybe; unless you go down there to
visit your uncle."
Calixta's senses were reeling; and they
well-nigh left her when she felt Alcée's lips
brush her ear like the touch of a rose.
"Mista Alcée! Is dat Mista Alcée?"
the thick voice of a negro was asking; he
stood on the ground, holding to the
banister-rails near which the couple sat.
"W'at do you want now?" cried Alcée
impatiently. "Can't I have a moment of
peace?"
"I ben huntin' you high an' low, suh,"
answered the man. "Dey - dey some one
in de road, onda de mulbare-tree, want see
you a minute."
"I would n't go out to the road to see the
Angel Gabriel. And if you come back here
with any more talk, I 'll have to break your
neck." The negro turned mumbling away.
Alcée and Calixta laughed softly about it.
Her boisterousness was all gone. They
talked low, and laughed softly, as lovers do.
"Alcée! Alcée Laballière!"
It was not the negro's voice this time; but
one that went through Alcée's body like an
electric shock, bringing him to his feet.
Clarisse was standing there in her riding-habit,
where the negro had stood. For an instant
confusion reigned in Alcée's thoughts,
as with one who awakes suddenly from a
dream. But he felt that something of
serious import had brought his cousin to the
ball in the dead of night.
"W'at does this mean, Clarisse?" he
asked.
"It means something has happen' at
home. You mus' come."
"Happened to maman?" he questioned,
in alarm.
"No; nénaine is well, and asleep. It is
something else. Not to frighten you. But
you mus' come. Come with me, Alcée."
There was no need for the imploring note.
He would have followed the voice anywhere.
She had now recognized the girl sitting
back on the bench.
"Ah, c'est vous, Calixta? Comment ça
va, mon enfant?"
"Tcha va b'en; et vous, mam'zélle?"
Alcée swung himself over the low rail and
started to follow Clarisse, without a word,
without a glance back at the girl. He had
forgotten he was leaving her there. But
Clarisse whispered something to him, and
he turned back to say "Good-night, Calixta,"
and offer his hand to press through the
railing. She pretended not to see it.
"How come that? You settin' yere by
yo'se'f, Calixta?" It was Bobinôt who had
found her there alone. The dancers had not
yet come out. She looked ghastly in the
faint, gray light struggling out of the east.
"Yes, that 's me. Go yonda in the parc
aux petits an' ask Aunt Olisse fu' my hat.
She knows w'ere 't is. I want to go home,
me."
"How you came?"
"I come afoot, with the Cateaus. But
I 'm goin' now. I ent goin' wait fu' 'em.
I 'm plumb wo' out, me."
"Kin I go with you, Calixta?"
"I don' care."
They went together across the open prairie
and along the edge of the fields, stumbling
in the uncertain light. He told her to lift
her dress that was getting wet and bedraggled;
for she was pulling at the weeds and
grasses with her hands.
"I don' care; it 's got to go in the tub,
anyway. You been sayin' all along you
want to marry me, Bobinôt. Well, if you
want, yet, I don' care, me."
The glow of a sudden and overwhelming
happiness shone out in the brown, rugged
face of the young Acadian. He could not
speak, for very joy. It choked him.
"Oh well, if you don' want," snapped
Calixta, flippantly, pretending to be piqued
at his silence.
"Bon Dieu! You know that makes me
crazy, w'at you sayin'. You mean that,
Calixta? You ent goin' turn roun' agin?"
"I neva tole you that much yet, Bobinôt.
I mean that. Tiens," and she held out her
hand in the business-like manner of a man
who clinches a bargain with a hand-clasp.
Bobinôt grew bold with happiness and asked
Calixta to kiss him. She turned her face,
that was almost ugly after the night's
dissipation, and looked steadily into his.
"I don' want to kiss you, Bobinôt," she
said, turning away again, "not to-day. Some
other time. Bonté divine! ent you satisfy,
yet!"
"Oh, I 'm satisfy, Calixta," he said.
Riding through a patch of wood, Clarisse's
saddle became ungirted, and she and Alcée
dismounted to readjust it.
For the twentieth time he asked her what
had happened at home.
"But, Clarisse, w'at is it? Is it a
misfortune?"
"Ah Dieu sait!" It 's only something
that happen' to me."
"To you!"
"I saw you go away las night, Alcée,
with those saddle-bags," she said, haltingly,
striving to arrange something about the
saddle, "an' I made Bruce tell me. He said
you had gone to the ball, an' wouldn' be
home for weeks an' weeks. I thought,
Alcée - maybe you were going to - to
Assumption. I got wild. An' then I knew
if you didn't come back, now, to-night, I
could n't stan' it, - again."
She had her face hidden in her arm that
she was resting against the saddle when she
said that.
He began to wonder if this meant love.
But she had to tell him so, before he
believed it. And when she told him, he
thought the face of the Universe was changed
- just like Bobinôt. Was it last week the
cyclone had well-nigh ruined him? The
cyclone seemed a huge joke, now. It was
he, then, who, an hour ago was kissing little
Calixta's ear and whispering nonsense into
it. Calixta was like a myth, now. The
one, only, great reality in the world was
Clarisse standing before him, telling him
that she loved him.
In the distance they heard the rapid
discharge of pistol-shots; but it did not
disturb them. They knew it was only the
negro musicians who had gone into the yard
to fire their pistols into the air, as the custom is,
and to announce "le bal est fini."
THE summer night was
hot and still; not
a ripple of air swept over the marais. Yonder,
across Bayou St. John, lights twinkled
here and there in the darkness, and in the
dark sky above a few stars were blinking.
A lugger that had come out of the lake was
moving with slow, lazy motion down the
bayou. A man in the boat was singing a
song.
The notes of the song came faintly to the
ears of old Manna Loulou, herself as black
as the night, who had gone out upon the
gallery to open the shutters wide.
Something in the refrain reminded the
woman of an old, half-forgotten Creole
romance, and she began to sing it low to
herself while she threw the shutters open: -
And then this old song,
a lover's lament
for the loss of his mistress, floating into
her memory, brought with it the story she
would tell to Madame, who lay in her
sumptuous mahogany bed, waiting to be fanned
and put to sleep to the sound of one of
Manna Loulou's stories. The old negress
had already bathed her mistress's pretty
white feet and kissed them lovingly, one, then
the other. She had brushed her mistress's
beautiful hair, that was as soft and shining
as satin, and was the color of Madame's
wedding-ring. Now, when she reëntered the
room, she moved softly toward the bed, and
seating herself there began gently to fan
Madame Delisle.
Manna Loulou was not always ready with
her story, for Madame would hear none but
those which were true. But to-night the
story was all there in Manna Loulou's head
- the story of la belle Zoraïde - and she
told it to her mistress in the soft Creole
patois, whose music and charm no English
words can convey.
"La belle Zoraïde had eyes that were so
dusky, so beautiful, that any man who gazed
too long into their depths was sure to lose
his head, and even his heart sometimes.
Her soft, smooth skin was the color of
café-au-lait. As for her elegant manners, her
svelte and graceful figure, they were the
envy of half the ladies who visited her
mistress, Madame Delarivière.
"No wonder Zoraïde was as charming
and as dainty as the finest lady of la rue
Royale: from a toddling thing she had been
brought up at her mistress's side; her fingers
had never done rougher work than sewing
a fine muslin seam; and she even had her
own little black servant to wait upon her.
Madame, who was her godmother as well as
her mistress, would often say to her: -
" 'Remember, Zoraïde, when you are ready
to marry, it must be in a way to do honor to
your bringing up. It will be at the Cathedral.
Your wedding gown, your corbeille,
all will be of the best; I shall see to that
myself. You know, M'sieur Ambroise is
ready whenever you say the word; and his
master is willing to do as much for him as
I shall do for you. It is a union that will
please me in every way.'
M'sieur Ambroise was then the body
servant of Doctor Langlé. La belle Zoraïde
detested the little mulatto, with his shining
whiskers like a white man's, and his small
eyes, that were cruel and false as a snake's.
She would cast down her own mischievous
eyes, and say: -
" 'Ah, nénaine, I am so happy, so
contented here at your side just as I am. I
don't want to marry now; next year,
perhaps, or the next.' And Madame would
smile indulgently and remind Zoraïde that
a woman's charms are not everlasting.
"But the truth of the matter was, Zoraïde
had seen le beau Mézor dance the Bamboula
in Congo Square. That was a sight to hold
one rooted to the ground. Mézor was as
straight as a cypress-tree and as proud looking
as a king. His body, bare to the waist,
was like a column of ebony and it glistened
like oil.
"Poor Zoraïde's heart grew sick in her
bosom with love for le beau Mézor from the
moment she saw the fierce gleam of his eye,
lighted by the inspiring strains of the Bamboula,
and beheld the stately movements of
his splendid body swaying and quivering
through the figures of the dance.
"But when she knew him later, and he
came near her to speak with her, all the
fierceness was gone out of his eyes, and she
saw only kindness in them and heard only
gentleness in his voice; for love had taken
possession of him also, and Zoraïde was
more distracted than ever. When Mézor
was not dancing Bamboula in Congo Square,
he was hoeing sugar-cane, barefooted and
half naked, in his master's field outside of
the city. Doctor Langlé was his master as
well as M'sieur Ambroise's.
"One day, when Zoraïde kneeled before
her mistress, drawing on Madame's silken
stockings, that were of the finest, she said:
" 'Nénaine, you have spoken to me often
of marrying. Now, at last, I have chosen a
husband, but it is not M'sieur Ambroise; it
is le beau Mézor that I want and no other.'
And Zoraïde hid her face in her hands when
she had said that, for she guessed, rightly
enough, that her mistress would be very
angry. And, indeed, Madame Delarivière
was at first speechless with rage. When
she finally spoke it was only to gasp out,
exasperated: -
" 'That negro! that negro! Bon Dieu
Seigneur, but this is too much!'
" 'Am I white, nénaine?' pleaded Zoraïde.
" 'You white! Malheureuse! You
deserve to have the lash laid upon you like
any other slave, you have proven yourself
no better than the worst.'
" 'I am not white,' persisted Zoraïde,
respectfully and gently. 'Doctor Langlé
gives me his slave to marry, but he would
not give me his son. Then, since I am
not white, let me have from out of my own
race the one whom my heart has chosen.'
"However, you may well believe that
Madame would not hear to that. Zoraïde
was forbidden to speak to Mézor, and Mézor
was cautioned against seeing Zoraïde again.
But you know how the negroes are, Ma'zélle
Titite," added Manna Loulou, smiling a
little sadly. "There is no mistress, no master,
no king nor priest who can hinder them
from loving when they will. And these two
found ways and means.
"When months had passed by, Zoraïde,
who had grown unlike herself, - sober and
preoccupied, - said again to her mistress: -
"'Nénaine, you would not let me have
Mézor for my husband; but I have disobeyed
you, I have sinned. Kill me if you
wish, nénaine: forgive me if you will; but
when I heard le beau Mézor say to me,
"Zoraïde, mo l'aime toi," I could have died,
but I could not have helped loving him.'
"This time Madame Delarivière was
so actually pained, so wounded at hearing
Zoraïde's confession, that there was no place
left in her heart for anger. She could utter
only confused reproaches. But she was a
woman of action rather than of words, and
she acted promptly. Her first step was to
induce Doctor Langléto sell Mézor. Doctor
Langlé, who was a widower, had long wanted
to marry Madame Delarivière, and he would
willingly have walked on all fours at noon
through the Place d'Armes if she wanted
him to. Naturally he lost no time in
disposing of le beau Mézor, who was sold away
into Georgia, or the Carolinas, or one of
those distant countries far away, where he
would no longer hear his Creole tongue
spoken, nor dance Calinda, nor hold la belle
Zoraïde in his arms.
"The poor thing was heartbroken when
Mézor was sent away from her, but she took
comfort and hope in the thought of her
baby that she would soon be able to clasp to
her breast.
"La belle Zoraïde's sorrows had now begun
in earnest. Not only sorrows but sufferings,
and with the anguish of maternity
came the shadow of death. But there is no
agony that a mother will not forget when
she holds her first-born to her heart, and
presses her lips upon the baby flesh that is
her own, yet far more precious than her own.
"So, instinctively, when Zoraïde came
out of the awful shadow she gazed
questioningly about her and felt with her
trembling hands upon either side of her. 'Où
li, mo piti a moin? where is my little one?' she
asked imploringly. Madame who was there
and the nurse who was there both told her
in turn, 'To piti á toi, li mouri' ('Your
little one is dead'), which was a wicked
falsehood that must have caused the angels in
heaven to weep. For the baby was living
and well and strong. It had at once been
removed from its mother's side, to be sent
away to Madame's plantation, far up the
coast. Zoraïde could only moan in reply,
'Li mouri, li mouri,' and she turned her
face to the wall.
"Madame had hoped, in thus depriving
Zoraïde of her child, to have her young
waiting-maid again at her side free, happy,
and beautiful as of old. But there was a
more powerful will than Madame's at work
- the will of the good God, who had
already designed that Zoraïde should grieve
with a sorrow that was never more to be
lifted in this world. La belle Zoraïde was
no more. In her stead was a sad-eyed woman
who mourned night and day for her
baby. 'Li mouri, li mouri,' she would sigh
over and over again to those about her, and
to herself when others grew weary of her
complaint.
"Yet, in spite of all, M'sieur Ambroise
was still in the notion to marry her. A sad
wife or a merry one was all the same to him
so long as that wife was Zoraïde. And she
seemed to consent, or rather submit, to the
approaching marriage as though nothing
mattered any longer in this world.
"One day, a black servant entered a little
noisily the room in which Zoraïde sat sewing.
With a look of strange and vacuous happiness
upon her face, Zoraïde arose hastily.
'Hush, hush,' she whispered, lifting a warning
finger, 'my little one is asleep; you
must not awaken her.'
"Upon the bed was a senseless bundle of
rags shaped like an infant in swaddling
clothes. Over this dummy the woman had
drawn the mosquito bar, and she was sitting
contentedly beside it. It short, from that
day Zoraïe was demented. Night nor day
did she lose sight of the doll that lay in her
bed or in her arms.
"And now was Madame stung with
sorrow and remorse at seeing this terrible
affliction that had befallen her dear Zoraïde.
Consulting with Doctor Langlé, they decided
to bring back to the mother the real
baby of flesh and blood that was now
toddling about, and kicking its heels in the
dust yonder upon the plantation.
"It was Madame herself who led the
pretty, tiny little "griffe" girl to her mother.
Zoraïde was sitting upon a stone bench in
the courtyard, listening to the soft splashing
of the fountain, and watching the fitful
shadows of the palm leaves upon the broad,
white flagging.
" 'Here,' said Madame, approaching,
'here, my poor dear Zoraïde, is your own
little child. Keep her; she is yours. No
one will ever take her from you again.'
"Zoraïde looked with sullen suspicion
upon her mistress and the child before her.
Reaching out a hand she thrust the little
one mistrustfully away from her. With the
other hand she clasped the rag bundle
fiercely to her breast; for she suspected a
plot to deprive her of it.
"Nor could she ever be induced to let her
own child approach her; and finally the
little one was sent back to the plantation,
where she was never to know the love of
mother or father.
"And now this is the end of Zoraïde's
story. She was never known again as la
belle Zoraïde, but ever after as Zoraïde la
folle, whom no one ever wanted to marry -
not even M'sieur Ambroise. She lived to
be an old woman, whom some people pitied
and others laughed at - always clasping her
bundle of rags - her 'piti.'
"Are you asleep, Ma'zélle Titite?"
"No, I am not asleep; I was thinking.
Ah, the poor little one, Man Loulou, the
poor little one! better had she died!"
But this is the way Madame Delisle and
Manna Loulou really talked to each
other: -
"Vou pré droumi, Ma'zélle Titite?"
"Non, pa pré droumi; mo yapré zongler.
Ah, la pauv' piti, Man Loulou. La pauv'
piti! Mieux li mouri!"
IT was no wonder Mr.
Sublet, who was
staying at the Hallet plantation, wanted to
make a picture of Evariste. The 'Cadian
was rather a picturesque subject in his way,
and a tempting one to an artist looking for
bits of "local color" along the Têche.
Mr. Sublet had seen the man on the back
gallery just as he came out of the swamp,
trying to sell a wild turkey to the
housekeeper. He spoke to him at once, and
in the course of conversation engaged him to
return to the house the following morning
and have his picture drawn. He handed
Evariste a couple of silver dollars to show
that his intentions were fair, and that he
expected the 'Cadian to keep faith with him.
"He tell' me he want' put my picture in
one fine 'Mag'zine,' " said Evariste to his
daughter, Martinette, when the two were
talking the matter over in the afternoon.
"W'at fo' you reckon he want' do dat?"
They sat within the low, homely cabin of
two rooms, that was not quite so
comfortable as Mr. Hallet's negro quarters.
Martinette pursed her red lips that had
little sensitive curves to them, and her black
eyes took on a reflective expression.
"Mebbe he yeard 'bout that big fish w'at
you ketch las' winta in Carancro lake. You
know it was all wrote about in the 'Suga
Bowl.' " Her father set aside the suggestion
with a deprecatory wave of the hand.
"Well, anyway, you got to fix yo'se'f
up," declared Martinette, dismissing further
speculation; "put on yo' otha pant'loon' an'
yo' good coat; an' you betta ax Mr. Léonce
to cut yo' hair, an' yo' w'sker' a li'le bit."
"It 's w'at I say," chimed in Evariste.
"I tell dat gent'man I 'm goin' make myse'f
fine. He say', 'No, no,' like he ent
please'. He want' me like I come out de
swamp. So much betta if my pant'loon'
an' coat is tore, he say, an' color' like de
mud" They could not understand these
eccentric wishes on the part of the strange
gentleman, and made no effort to do so.
An hour later Martinette, who was quite
puffed up over the affair, trotted across to
Aunt Dicey's cabin to communicate the
news to her. The negress was ironing; her
irons stood in a long row before the fire of
logs that burned on the hearth. Martinette
seated herself in the chimney corner and
held her feet up to the blaze; it was damp
and a little chilly out of doors. The girl's
shoes were considerably worn and her
garments were a little too thin and scant for the
winter season. Her father had given her the
two dollars he had received from the artist,
and Martinette was on her way to the store
to invest them as judiciously as she knew
how.
"You know, Aunt Dicey," she began a
little complacently after listening awhile to
Aunt Dicey's unqualified abuse of her own
son, Wilkins, who was dining-room boy at
Mr. Hallet's, "you know that stranger
gentleman up to Mr. Hallet's? he want' to
make my popa's picture; an' he say' he
goin' put it in one fine Mag'zine yonda."
Aunt Dicey spat upon her iron to test its
heat. Then she began to snicker. She kept
on laughing inwardly, making her whole fat
body shake, and saying nothing.
"W'at you laughin' 'bout, Aunt Dice?"
inquired Martinette mistrustfully.
"I is n' laughin', chile!"
"Yas, you' laughin'."
"Oh, don't pay no 'tention to me. I jis
studyin' how simple you an' yo' pa is. You
is bof de simplest somebody I eva come
'crost."
"You got to say plumb out w'at you mean,
Aunt Dice," insisted the girl doggedly,
suspicious and alert now.
"Well, dat w'y I say you is simple," proclaimed
the woman, slamming down her iron
on an inverted, battered pie pan, "jis like
you says, dey gwine put yo' pa's picture
yonda in de picture paper. An' you know
w'at readin' dey gwine sot down on'neaf dat
picture?" Martinette was intensely attentive.
"Dey gwine sot down on'neaf: 'Dis
heah is one dem low-down 'Cajuns o' Bayeh
Têche!' "
The blood flowed from Martinette's face,
leaving it deathly pale; in another instant
it came beating back in a quick flood, and
her eyes smarted with pain as if the tears
that filled them had been fiery hot.
"I knows dem kine o' folks," continued
Aunt Dicey, resuming her interrupted
ironing. " Dat stranger he got a li'le boy w'at
ain't none too big to spank. Dat li'le imp
he come a hoppin' in heah yistiddy wid a
kine o' box on'neaf his arm. He say' 'Good
mo'nin', madam. Will you be so kine an'
stan' jis like you is dah at yo' i'onin', an' lef
me take yo' picture?' I 'lowed I gwine
make a picture outen him wid dis heah flati'on,
ef he don' cl'ar hisse'f quick. An'
he say he baig my pardon fo' his intrudement.
All dat kine o' talk to a ole nigga
'oman! Dat plainly sho' he don' know his
place."
"W'at you want 'im to say, Aunt Dice?"
asked Martinette, with an effort to conceal
her distress.
"I wants 'im to come in heah an' say:
'Howdy, Aunt Dicey! will you be so kine
and go put on yo' noo calker dress an' yo'
bonnit w'at you w'ars to meetin', an' stan'
'side f'om dat i'onin'-boa'd w'ilse I gwine
take yo' photygraph.' Dat de way fo' a boy
to talk w'at had good raisin'."
Martinette had arisen, and began to take
slow leave of the woman. She turned at the
cabin door to observe tentatively: "I reckon
it 's Wilkins tells you how the folks they
talk, yonda up to Mr. Hallet's."
She did not go to the store as she had
intended, but walked with a dragging step
back to her home. The silver dollars clicked
in her pocket as she walked. She felt like
flinging them across the field; they seemed
to her somehow the price of shame.
The sun had sunk, and twilight was settling
like a silver beam upon the bayou and
enveloping the fields in a gray mist. Evariste,
slim and slouchy, was waiting for his
daughter in the cabin door. He had lighted
a fire of sticks and branches, and placed the
kettle before it to boil. He met the girl
with his slow, serious, questioning eyes,
astonished to see her empty-handed.
"How come you didn' bring nuttin' f'om
de sto', Martinette?"
She entered and flung her gingham
sunbonnet upon a chair. "No, I did n' go
yonda;" and with sudden exasperation:
"You got to go take back that money; you
mus' n' git no picture took."
"But, Martinette," her father mildly
interposed, "I promise' 'im; an' he 's goin'
give me some mo' money w'en he finish."
"If he give you a ba'el o' money, you
mus'n' git no picture took. You know w'at
he want to put un'neath that picture, fo'
ev'body to read?" She could not tell him
the whole hideous truth as she had heard it
distorted from Aunt Dicey's lips; she would
not hurt him that much. "He 's goin' to
write: 'This is one 'Cajun o' the Bayou
Têche.' " Evariste winced.
"How you know?" he asked.
"I yeard so. I know it 's true."
The water in the kettle was boiling. He
went and poured a small quantity upon the
coffee which he had set there to drip. Then
he said to her: "I reckon you jus' as well
go care dat two dolla' back, tomo' mo'nin';
me, I 'll go yonda ketch a mess o' fish in
Carancro lake."
Mr. Hallet and a few masculine
companions were assembled at a rather late
breakfast the following morning. The
dining-room was a big, bare one, enlivened by
a cheerful fire of logs that blazed in the wide
chimney on massive andirons. There were
guns, fishing tackle, and other implements of
sport lying about. A couple of fine dogs
strayed unceremoniously in and out behind
Wilkins, the negro boy who waited upon the
table. The chair beside Mr. Sublet, usually
occupied by his little son, was vacant,
as the child had gone for an early morning
outing and had not yet returned.
When breakfast was about half over,
Mr. Hallet noticed Martinette standing
outside upon the gallery. The dining-room
door had stood open more than half the
time.
"Is n't that Martinette out there, Wilkins?"
inquired the jovial-faced young
planter.
"Dat 's who, suh," returned Wilkins.
"She ben standin' dah sence mos' sun-up;
look like she studyin' to take root to de
gall'ry."
"What in the name of goodness does she
want? Ask her what she wants. Tell her
to come in to the fire."
Martinette walked into the room with
much hesitancy. Her small, brown face
could hardly be seen in the depths of the
gingham sun-bonnet. Her blue cottonade
skirt scarcely reached the thin ankles that
it should have covered.
"Bonjou'," she murmured, with a little
comprehensive nod that took in the entire
company. Her eyes searched the table for
the "stranger gentleman," and she knew
him at once, because his hair was parted in
the middle and he wore a pointed beard.
She went and laid the two silver dollars
beside his plate and motioned to retire
without a word of explanation.
"Hold on, Martinette!" called out the
planter, "what 's all this pantomime
business? Speak out, little one."
"My popa don't want any picture took,"
she offered, a little timorously. On her way
to the door she had looked back to say this.
In that fleeting glance she detected a smile
of intelligence pass from one to the other
of the group. She turned quickly, facing
them all, and spoke out, excitement making
her voice bold and shrill: "My popa ent
one low-down 'Cajun. He ent goin' to
stan' to have that kine o' writin' put down
un'neath his picture!"
She almost ran from the room, half
blinded by the emotion that had helped her
to make so daring a speech.
Descending the gallery steps she ran full
against her father who was ascending, bearing
in his arms the little boy, Archie Sublet.
The child was most grotesquely attired in
garments far too large for his diminutive
person - the rough jeans clothing of some
negro boy. Evariste himself had evidently
been taking a bath without the preliminary
ceremony of removing his clothes, that were
now half dried upon his person by the wind
and sun.
"Yere you' li'le boy," he announced,
stumbling into the room. "You ought not
lef dat li'le chile go by hissed comme ça in
de pirogue." Mr. Sublet darted from his
chair; the others following suit almost as
hastily. In an instant, quivering with
apprehension, he had his little son in his arms.
The child was quite unharmed, only
somewhat pale and nervous, as the consequence
of a recent very serious ducking.
Evariste related in his uncertain, broken
English how he had been fishing for an
hour or more in Carancro lake, when he
noticed the boy paddling over the deep, black
water in a shell-like pirogue. Nearing a
clump of cypress-trees that rose from the
lake, the pirogue became entangled in the
heavy moss that hung from the tree limbs
and trailed upon the water. The next thing
he knew, the boat had overturned, he heard
the child scream, and saw him disappear
beneath the still, black surface of the lake.
"W'en I done swim to de sho' wid 'im,"
continued Evariste, "I hurry yonda to Jake
Baptiste's cabin, an' we rub 'im an' warm
'im up, an' dress 'im up dry like you see.
He all right now, M'sieur; but you mus'n
lef 'im go no mo' by hisse'f in one pirogue."
Martinette had followed into the room
behind her father. She was feeling and
tapping his wet garments solicitously, and
begging him in French to come home. Mr.
Hallet at once ordered hot coffee and a
warm breakfast for the two; and they sat
down at the corner of the table, making no
manner of objection in their perfect simplicity.
It was with visible reluctance and
ill-disguised contempt that Wilkins served
them.
When Mr. Sublet had arranged his son
comfortably, with tender care, upon the sofa,
and had satisfied himself that the child was
quite uninjured, he attempted to find words
with which to thank Evariste for this service
which no treasure of words or gold could
pay for. These warm and heartfelt expressions
seemed to Evariste to exaggerate the
importance of his action, and they intimidated
him. He attempted shyly to hide his
face as well as he could in the depths of his
bowl of coffee.
"You will let me make your picture now,
I hope, Evariste," begged Mr. Sublet, laying
his hand upon the 'Cadian's shoulder. "I
want to place it among things I hold most
dear, and shall call it 'A hero of Bayou
Têche.' " This assurance seemed to distress
Evariste greatly.
"No, no," he protested, "it 's nuttin' hero'
to take a li'le boy out de water. I jus' as
easy do dat like I stoop down an' pick up a
li'le chile w'at fall down in de road. I ent
goin' to 'low dat, me. I don't git no picture
took, va!"
Mr. Hallet, who now discerned his friend's
eagerness in the matter, came to his aid.
"I tell you, Evariste, let Mr. Sublet draw
your picture, and you yourself may call it
whatever you want. I 'm sure he 'll let
you."
"Most willingly," agreed the artist.
Evariste glanced up at him with shy and
child-like pleasure. "It 's a bargain?" he
asked.
"A bargain," affirmed Mr. Sublet.
"Popa," whispered Martinette, "you betta
come home an' put on yo' otha pant'loon'
an' yo' good coat."
"And now, what shall we call the much
talked-of picture?" cheerily inquired the
planter, standing with his back to the blaze.
Evariste in a business-like manner began
carefully to trace on the tablecloth imaginary
characters with an imaginary pen; he
could not have written the real characters
with a real pen - he did not know how.
"You will put on'neat' de picture," he
said, deliberately, " 'Dis is
one picture of
Mista Evariste Anatole Bonamour, a
gent'-man of de Bayou Têche.' "
THE days and the nights
were very lonely
for Madame Delisle. Gustave, her husband,
was away yonder in Virginia somewhere,
with Beauregard, and she was here in the
old house on Bayou St. John, alone with her
slaves.
Madame was very beautiful. So beautiful,
that she found much diversion in sitting
for hours before the mirror, contemplating
her own loveliness; admiring the brilliancy
of her golden hair, the sweet languor of her
blue eyes, the graceful contours of her figure,
and the peach-like bloom of her flesh.
She was very young. So young that she
romped with the dogs, teased the parrot, and
could not fall asleep at night unless old
black Manna-Loulou sat beside her bed and
told her stories.
In short, she was a child, not able to realize
the significance of the tragedy whose
unfolding kept the civilized world in suspense.
It was only the immediate effect of the awful
drama that moved her: the gloom that,
spreading on all sides, penetrated her own
existence and deprived it of joyousness.
Sépincourt found her looking very lonely
and disconsolate one day when he stopped
to talk with her. She was pale, and her blue
eyes were dim with unwept tears. He was
a Frenchman who lived near by. He
shrugged his shoulders over this strife
between brothers, this quarrel which was none
of his; and he resented it chiefly upon the
ground that it made life uncomfortable; yet
he was young enough to have had quicker
and hotter blood in his veins.
When he left Madame Delisle that day,
her eyes were no longer dim, and a something
of the dreariness that weighted her
had been lifted away That mysterious, that
treacherous bond called sympathy, had
revealed them to each other.
He came to her very often that summer,
clad always in cool, white duck, with a flower
in his buttonhole. His pleasant brown eyes
sought hers with warm, friendly glances that
comforted her as a caress might comfort a
disconsolate child. She took to watching
for his slim figure, a little bent, walking lazily
up the avenue between the double line of
magnolias.
They would sit sometimes during whole
afternoons in the vine-sheltered corner of
the gallery, sipping the black coffee that
Manna-Loulou brought to them at intervals;
and talking, talking incessantly during the
first days when they were unconsciously
unfolding themselves to each other. Then a
time came - it came very quickly - when
they seemed to have nothing more to say to
one another.
He brought her news of the war; and
they talked about it listlessly, between long
intervals of silence, of which neither took
account. An occasional letter came by
roundabout ways from Gustave - guarded and
saddening in its tone. They would read it
and sigh over it together.
Once they stood before his portrait that
hung in the drawing-room and that looked
out at them with kind, indulgent eyes.
Madame wiped the picture with her gossamer
handkerchief and impulsively pressed a
tender kiss upon the painted canvas. For
months past the living image of her husband
had been receding further and further into
a mist which she could penetrate with no
faculty or power that she possessed.
One day at sunset, when she and Sépincourt
stood silently side by side, looking
across the marais, aflame with the western
light, he said to her: "M'amie, let us go
away from this country that is so triste. Let
us go to Paris, you and me."
She thought that he was jesting, and she
laughed nervously. "Yes, Paris would
surely be gayer than Bayou St. John," she
answered. But he was not jesting. She saw
it at once in the glance that penetrated her
own; in the quiver of his sensitive lip and
the quick beating of a swollen vein in his
brown throat.
"Paris, or anywhere - with you - ah,
bon Dieu!" he whispered, seizing her hands.
But she withdrew from him, frightened, and
hurried away into the house, leaving him
alone.
That night, for the first time, Madame
did not want to hear Manna-Loulou's stories,
and she blew out the wax candle that till
now had burned nightly in her sleeping-room,
under its tall, crystal globe. She had
suddenly become a woman capable of love
or sacrifice. She would not hear Manna-Loulou's
stories. She wanted to be alone,
to tremble and to weep.
In the morning her eyes were dry, but she
would not see Sépincourt when he came.
Then he wrote her a letter.
"I have offended you and I would rather
die!" it ran. "Do not banish me from
your presence that is life to me. Let me lie
at your feet, if only for a moment, in which
to hear you say that you forgive me."
Men have written just such letters before,
but Madame did not know it. To her it was
a voice from the unknown, like music, awaking
in her a delicious tumult that seized and
held possession of her whole being.
When they met, he had but to look into
her face to know that he need not lie at her
feet craving forgiveness. She was waiting
for him beneath the spreading branches of a
live oak that guarded the gate of her home
like a sentinel.
For a brief moment he held her hands,
which trembled. Then he folded her in
his arms and kissed her many times. "You
will go with me, m'amie? I love you - oh,
I love you! Will you not go with me,
m'amie?"
"Anywhere, anywhere," she told him in
a fainting voice that he could scarcely hear.
But she did not go with him. Chance
willed it otherwise. That night a courier
brought her a message from Beauregard,
telling her that Gustave, her husband, was
dead.
When the new year was still young,
Sépincourt decided that, all things considered,
he might, without any appearance of indecent
haste, speak again of his love to Madame
Delisle. That love was quite as acute as
ever; perhaps a little sharper, from the lone
period of silence and waiting to which he
had subjected it. He found her, as he had
expected, clad in deepest mourning. She
greeted him precisely as she had welcomed
the curé, when the kind old priest had
brought to her the consolations of religion
- clasping his two hands warmly, and
calling him "cher ami." Her whole attitude
and bearing brought to Sépincourt the
poignant, the bewildering conviction that
he held no place in her thoughts.
They sat in the drawing-room before the
portrait of Gustave, which was draped with
his scarf. Above the picture hung his
sword, and beneath it was an embankment
of flowers. Sépincourt felt an almost
irresistible impulse to bend his knee before this
altar, upon which he saw foreshadowed the
immolation of his hopes.
There was a soft air blowing gently over
the marais. It came to them through the
open window, laden with a hundred subtle
sounds and scents of the springtime. It
seemed to remind Madame of something
far, far away, for she gazed dreamily out
into the blue firmament. It fretted Sépincourt
with impulses to speech and action
which he found it impossible to control.
"You must know what has brought me,"
he began impulsively, drawing his chair
nearer to hers. "Through all these months
I have never ceased to love you and to long
for you. Night and day the sound of your
dear voice has been with me; your eyes" -
She held out her hand deprecatingly. He
took it and held it. She let it lie unresponsive
in his.
"You cannot have forgotten that you
loved me not long ago," he went on eagerly,
"that you were ready to follow me anywhere
- anywhere; do you remember? I
have come now to ask you to fulfill that
promise; to ask you to be my wife, my
companion, the dear treasure of my life."
She heard his warm and pleading tones
as though listening to a strange language,
imperfectly understood.
She withdrew her hand from his, and
leaned her brow thoughtfully upon it.
"Can you not feel - can you not
understand, mon ami," she said calmly, "that
now such a thing - such a thought, is
impossible to me?"
"Impossible?"
"Yes, impossible. Can you not see that
now my heart, my soul, my thought - my
very life, must belong to another? It could
not be different."
"Would you have me believe that you
can wed your young existence to the dead?"
he exclaimed with something like horror.
Her glance was sunk deep in the
embankment of flowers before her.
"My husband has never been so living
to me as he is now," she replied with a
faint smile of commiseration for
Sépincourt's fatuity. "Every object that
surrounds me speaks to me of him. I look
yonder across the marais, and I see him
coming toward me, tired and toil-stained
from the hunt. I see him again sitting in
this chair or in that one. I hear his familiar
voice, his footsteps upon the galleries. We
walk once more together beneath the
magnolias; and at night in dreams I feel that
he is there, there, near me. How could it
be different! Ah! I have memories,
memories to crowd and fill my life, if I live a
hundred years!"
Sépincourt was wondering why she did
not take the sword down from her altar and
thrust it through his body here and there.
The effect would have been infinitely more
agreeable than her words, penetrating his
soul like fire. He arose confused, enraged
with pain.
"Then, Madame," he stammered, "there
is nothing left for me but to take my leave.
I bid you adieu."
"Do not be offended, mon ami," she said
kindly, holding out her hand. "You are
going to Paris, I suppose?"
"What does it matter," he exclaimed
desperately, "where I go?"
"Oh, I only wanted to wish you bon
voyage," she assured him amiably.
Many days after that Sépincourt spent in
the fruitless mental effort of trying to
comprehend that psychological enigma, a
woman's heart.
Madame still lives on Bayou St. John.
She is rather an old lady now, a very pretty
old lady, against whose long years of widowhood
there has never been a breath of reproach.
The memory of Gustave still fills
and satisfies her days. She has never failed,
once a year, to have a solemn high mass
said for the repose of his soul. Return to Menu Page for Bayou Folk by Kate Chopin Return to A Digitized Library of Southern Literature, Beginnings to 1920 Home Page Return to Documenting the American South Home PageII.
1. Pronounced Nack-e-tosh.
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Page 9III.
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Page 15IV.
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Page 26VI.
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Page 33VII.
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Page 39VIII.
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Page 47IX.
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Page 51IN AND OUT OF OLD NATCHITOCHES.
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1. A term still applied in
Louisiana to mulattoes who
were never in slavery, and whose families in most
instances were themselves slave owners.
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Page 78IN SABINE
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Page 96A VERY FINE FIDDLE.
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Page 99BEYOND THE BAYOU.
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Page 111OLD AUNT PEGGY.
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Page 113THE RETURN OF ALCIBIADE.
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Page 126A RUDE AWAKENING.
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Page 143THE BÊNITOUS' SLAVE.
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Page 147DÉSIRÉE'S BABY.
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Page 159A TURKEY HUNT.
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Page 163MADAME CÉLESTIN'S
DIVORCE.
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Page 170LOVE ON THE BON-DIEU.
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Page 193LOKA.
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Page 207BOULÔT AND BOULOTTE.
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Page 210FOR MARSE CHOUCHOUTE.
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Page 223A VISIT TO AVOYELLES.
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Page 230A WIZARD FROM GETTYSBURG.
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Page 245MA'AME PÉLAGIE.
I.
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Page 261AT THE 'CADIAN BALL.
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Page 280LA BELLE ZORAÏDE.
"Lisett'
to kité la plaine,
Mo
perdi bonhair à moué;
Ziés
à mouésemblé fontaine,
Dépi
mo pa miré toué."
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Page 291A GENTLEMAN OF
BAYOU TÊCHE.
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Page 304A LADY OF BAYOU ST. JOHN.
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