The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories, by
Alice Dunbar
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Title: The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories
Author: Alice Dunbar
Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #688]
Release Date: October, 1996
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOODNESS OF ST. ROCQUE ***
Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines.
THE GOODNESS OF ST. ROCQUE AND OTHER STORIES
By
ALICE DUNBAR
To
My best Comrade
My Husband
CONTENTS
THE GOODNESS OF SAINT ROCQUE
TONY'S WIFE
THE FISHERMAN OF PASS CHRISTIAN
M'SIEU FORTIER'S VIOLIN
BY THE BAYOU ST. JOHN
WHEN THE BAYOU OVERFLOWS
MR. BAPTISTE
A CARNIVAL JANGLE
LITTLE MISS SOPHIE
SISTER JOSEPHA
THE PRALINE WOMAN
ODALIE
LA JUANITA
TITEE
THE GOODNESS OF SAINT ROCQUE
Manuela was tall and slender and graceful, and once you knew her the
lithe form could never be mistaken. She walked with the easy spring
that comes from a perfectly arched foot. To-day she swept swiftly down
Marais Street, casting a quick glance here and there from under her
heavy veil as if she feared she was being followed. If you had peered
under the veil, you would have seen that Manuela's dark eyes were
swollen and discoloured about the lids, as though they had known a
sleepless, tearful night. There had been a picnic the day before, and
as merry a crowd of giddy, chattering Creole girls and boys as ever you
could see boarded the ramshackle dummy-train that puffed its way
wheezily out wide Elysian Fields Street, around the lily-covered
bayous, to Milneburg-on-the-Lake. Now, a picnic at Milneburg is a
thing to be remembered for ever. One charters a rickety-looking,
weather-beaten dancing-pavilion, built over the water, and after
storing the children--for your true Creole never leaves the small folks
at home--and the baskets and mothers downstairs, the young folks go
up-stairs and dance to the tune of the best band you ever heard. For
what can equal the music of a violin, a guitar, a cornet, and a bass
viol to trip the quadrille to at a picnic?
Then one can fish in the lake and go bathing under the prim
bath-houses, so severely separated sexually, and go rowing on the lake
in a trim boat, followed by the shrill warnings of anxious mamans. And
in the evening one comes home, hat crowned with cool gray Spanish moss,
hands burdened with fantastic latanier baskets woven by the brown bayou
boys, hand in hand with your dearest one, tired but happy.
At this particular picnic, however, there had been bitterness of
spirit. Theophile was Manuela's own especial property, and Theophile
had proven false. He had not danced a single waltz or quadrille with
Manuela, but had deserted her for Claralie, blonde and petite. It was
Claralie whom Theophile had rowed out on the lake; it was Claralie whom
Theophile had gallantly led to dinner; it was Claralie's hat that he
wreathed with Spanish moss, and Claralie whom he escorted home after
the jolly singing ride in town on the little dummy-train.
Not that Manuela lacked partners or admirers. Dear no! she was too
graceful and beautiful for that. There had been more than enough for
her. But Manuela loved Theophile, you see, and no one could take his
place. Still, she had tossed her head and let her silvery laughter
ring out in the dance, as though she were the happiest of mortals, and
had tripped home with Henri, leaning on his arm, and looking up into
his eyes as though she adored him.
This morning she showed the traces of a sleepless night and an aching
heart as she walked down Marais Street. Across wide St. Rocque Avenue
she hastened. "Two blocks to the river and one below--" she repeated
to herself breathlessly. Then she stood on the corner gazing about
her, until with a final summoning of a desperate courage she dived
through a small wicket gate into a garden of weed-choked flowers.
There was a hoarse, rusty little bell on the gate that gave querulous
tongue as she pushed it open. The house that sat back in the yard was
little and old and weather-beaten. Its one-story frame had once been
painted, but that was a memory remote and traditional. A straggling
morning-glory strove to conceal its time-ravaged face. The little walk
of broken bits of brick was reddened carefully, and the one little step
was scrupulously yellow-washed, which denoted that the occupants were
cleanly as well as religious.
Manuela's timid knock was answered by a harsh "Entrez."
It was a small sombre room within, with a bare yellow-washed floor and
ragged curtains at the little window. In a corner was a diminutive
altar draped with threadbare lace. The red glow of the taper lighted a
cheap print of St. Joseph and a brazen crucifix. The human element in
the room was furnished by a little, wizened yellow woman, who,
black-robed, turbaned, and stern, sat before an uncertain table whereon
were greasy cards.
Manuela paused, her eyes blinking at the semi-obscurity within. The
Wizened One called in croaking tones:
"An' fo' w'y you come here? Assiez-la, ma'amzelle."
Timidly Manuela sat at the table facing the owner of the voice.
"I want," she began faintly; but the Mistress of the Cards understood:
she had had much experience. The cards were shuffled in her long grimy
talons and stacked before Manuela.
"Now you cut dem in t'ree part, so--un, deux, trois, bien! You mek'
you' weesh wid all you' heart, bien! Yaas, I see, I see!"
Breathlessly did Manuela learn that her lover was true, but "dat light
gal, yaas, she mek' nouvena in St. Rocque fo' hees love."
"I give you one lil' charm, yaas," said the Wizened One when the seance
was over, and Manuela, all white and nervous, leaned back in the
rickety chair. "I give you one lil' charm fo' to ween him back, yaas.
You wear h'it 'roun' you' wais', an' he come back. Den you mek prayer
at St. Rocque an' burn can'le. Den you come back an' tell me, yaas.
Cinquante sous, ma'amzelle. Merci. Good luck go wid you."
Readjusting her veil, Manuela passed out the little wicket gate,
treading on air. Again the sun shone, and the breath of the swamps
came as healthful sea-breeze unto her nostrils. She fairly flew in the
direction of St. Rocque.
There were quite a number of persons entering the white gates of the
cemetery, for this was Friday, when all those who wish good luck pray
to the saint, and wash their steps promptly at twelve o'clock with a
wondrous mixture to guard the house. Manuela bought a candle from the
keeper of the little lodge at the entrance, and pausing one instant by
the great sun-dial to see if the heavens and the hour were propitious,
glided into the tiny chapel, dim and stifling with heavy air from
myriad wish-candles blazing on the wide table before the altar-rail.
She said her prayer and lighting her candle placed it with the others.
Mon Dieu! how brightly the sun seemed to shine now, she thought,
pausing at the door on her way out. Her small finger-tips, still
bedewed with holy water, rested caressingly on a gamin's head. The ivy
which enfolds the quaint chapel never seemed so green; the shrines
which serve as the Way of the Cross never seemed so artistic; the baby
graves, even, seemed cheerful.
Theophile called Sunday. Manuela's heart leaped. He had been spending
his Sundays with Claralie. His stay was short and he was plainly
bored. But Manuela knelt to thank the good St. Rocque that night, and
fondled the charm about her slim waist. There came a box of bonbons
during the week, with a decorative card all roses and fringe, from
Theophile; but being a Creole, and therefore superstitiously careful,
and having been reared by a wise and experienced maman to mistrust the
gifts of a recreant lover, Manuela quietly thrust bonbons, box, and
card into the kitchen fire, and the Friday following placed the second
candle of her nouvena in St. Rocque.
Those of Manuela's friends who had watched with indignation Theophile
gallantly leading Claralie home from High Mass on Sundays, gasped with
astonishment when the next Sunday, with his usual bow, the young man
offered Manuela his arm as the worshippers filed out in step to the
organ's march. Claralie tossed her head as she crossed herself with
holy water, and the pink in her cheeks was brighter than usual.
Manuela smiled a bright good-morning when she met Claralie in St.
Rocque the next Friday. The little blonde blushed furiously, and
Manuela rushed post-haste to the Wizened One to confer upon this new
issue.
"H'it ees good," said the dame, shaking her turbaned head. "She ees
'fraid, she will work, mais you' charm, h'it weel beat her."
And Manuela departed with radiant eyes.
Theophile was not at Mass Sunday morning, and murderous glances flashed
from Claralie to Manuela before the tinkling of the Host-Bell. Nor did
Theophile call at either house. Two hearts beat furiously at the sound
of every passing footstep, and two minds wondered if the other were
enjoying the beloved one's smiles. Two pair of eyes, however, blue and
black, smiled on others, and their owners laughed and seemed none the
less happy. For your Creole girls are proud, and would die rather than
let the world see their sorrows.
Monday evening Theophile, the missing, showed his rather sheepish
countenance in Manuela's parlour, and explained that he, with some
chosen spirits, had gone for a trip--"over the Lake."
"I did not ask you where you were yesterday," replied the girl, saucily.
Theophile shrugged his shoulders and changed the conversation.
The next week there was a birthday fete in honour of Louise,
Theophile's young sister. Everyone was bidden, and no one thought of
refusing, for Louise was young, and this would be her first party. So,
though the night was hot, the dancing went on as merrily as light young
feet could make it go. Claralie fluffed her dainty white skirts, and
cast mischievous sparkles in the direction of Theophile, who with the
maman and Louise was bravely trying not to look self-conscious.
Manuela, tall and calm and proud-looking, in a cool, pale yellow gown
was apparently enjoying herself without paying the slightest attention
to her young host.
"Have I the pleasure of this dance?" he asked her finally, in a lull of
the music.
She bowed assent, and as if moved by a common impulse they strolled out
of the dancing-room into the cool, quaint garden, where jessamines gave
out an overpowering perfume, and a caged mocking-bird complained
melodiously to the full moon in the sky.
It must have been an engrossing tete-a-tete, for the call to supper had
sounded twice before they heard and hurried into the house. The march
had formed with Louise radiantly leading on the arm of papa. Claralie
tripped by with Leon. Of course, nothing remained for Theophile and
Manuela to do but to bring up the rear, for which they received much
good-natured chaffing.
But when the party reached the dining-room, Theophile proudly led his
partner to the head of the table, at the right hand of maman, and
smiled benignly about at the delighted assemblage. Now you know, when
a Creole young man places a girl at his mother's right hand at his own
table, there is but one conclusion to be deduced therefrom.
If you had asked Manuela, after the wedding was over, how it happened,
she would have said nothing, but looked wise.
If you had asked Claralie, she would have laughed and said she always
preferred Leon.
If you had asked Theophile, he would have wondered that you thought he
had ever meant more than to tease Manuela.
If you had asked the Wizened One, she would have offered you a charm.
But St. Rocque knows, for he is a good saint, and if you believe in him
and are true and good, and make your nouvenas with a clean heart, he
will grant your wish.
TONY'S WIFE
"Gimme fi' cents worth o' candy, please." It was the little Jew girl
who spoke, and Tony's wife roused herself from her knitting to rise and
count out the multi-hued candy which should go in exchange for the
dingy nickel grasped in warm, damp fingers. Three long sticks,
carefully wrapped in crispest brown paper, and a half dozen or more of
pink candy fish for lagniappe, and the little Jew girl sped away in
blissful contentment. Tony's wife resumed her knitting with a stifled
sigh until the next customer should come.
A low growl caused her to look up apprehensively. Tony himself stood
beetle-browed and huge in the small doorway.
"Get up from there," he muttered, "and open two dozen oysters right
away; the Eliots want 'em." His English was unaccented. It was long
since he had seen Italy.
She moved meekly behind the counter, and began work on the thick
shells. Tony stretched his long neck up the street.
"Mr. Tony, mama wants some charcoal." The very small voice at his feet
must have pleased him, for his black brows relaxed into a smile, and he
poked the little one's chin with a hard, dirty finger, as he emptied
the ridiculously small bucket of charcoal into the child's bucket, and
gave a banana for lagniappe.
The crackling of shells went on behind, and a stifled sob arose as a
bit of sharp edge cut into the thin, worn fingers that clasped the
knife.
"Hurry up there, will you?" growled the black brows; "the Eliots are
sending for the oysters."
She deftly strained and counted them, and, after wiping her fingers,
resumed her seat, and took up the endless crochet work, with her usual
stifled sigh.
Tony and his wife had always been in this same little queer old shop on
Prytania Street, at least to the memory of the oldest inhabitant in the
neighbourhood. When or how they came, or how they stayed, no one knew;
it was enough that they were there, like a sort of ancestral fixture to
the street. The neighbourhood was fine enough to look down upon these
two tumble-down shops at the corner, kept by Tony and Mrs. Murphy, the
grocer. It was a semi-fashionable locality, far up-town, away from the
old-time French quarter. It was the sort of neighbourhood where
millionaires live before their fortunes are made and fashionable,
high-priced private schools flourish, where the small cottages are
occupied by aspiring school-teachers and choir-singers. Such was this
locality, and you must admit that it was indeed a condescension to
tolerate Tony and Mrs. Murphy.
He was a great, black-bearded, hoarse-voiced, six-foot specimen of
Italian humanity, who looked in his little shop and on the prosaic
pavement of Prytania Street somewhat as Hercules might seem in a modern
drawing-room. You instinctively thought of wild mountain-passes, and
the gleaming dirks of bandit contadini in looking at him. What his
last name was, no one knew. Someone had maintained once that he had
been christened Antonio Malatesta, but that was unauthentic, and as
little to be believed as that other wild theory that her name was Mary.
She was meek, pale, little, ugly, and German. Altogether part of his
arms and legs would have very decently made another larger than she.
Her hair was pale and drawn in sleek, thin tightness away from a
pinched, pitiful face, whose dull cold eyes hurt you, because you knew
they were trying to mirror sorrow, and could not because of their
expressionless quality. No matter what the weather or what her other
toilet, she always wore a thin little shawl of dingy brick-dust hue
about her shoulders. No matter what the occasion or what the day, she
always carried her knitting with her, and seldom ceased the incessant
twist, twist of the shining steel among the white cotton meshes. She
might put down the needles and lace into the spool-box long enough to
open oysters, or wrap up fruit and candy, or count out wood and coal
into infinitesimal portions, or do her housework; but the knitting was
snatched with avidity at the first spare moment, and the worn, white,
blue-marked fingers, half enclosed in kid-glove stalls for protection,
would writhe and twist in and out again. Little girls just learning to
crochet borrowed their patterns from Tony's wife, and it was considered
quite a mark of advancement to have her inspect a bit of lace done by
eager, chubby fingers. The ladies in larger houses, whose husbands
would be millionaires some day, bought her lace, and gave it to their
servants for Christmas presents.
As for Tony, when she was slow in opening his oysters or in cooking his
red beans and spaghetti, he roared at her, and prefixed picturesque
adjectives to her lace, which made her hide it under her apron with a
fearsome look in her dull eyes.
He hated her in a lusty, roaring fashion, as a healthy beefy boy hates
a sick cat and torments it to madness. When she displeased him, he
beat her, and knocked her frail form on the floor. The children could
tell when this had happened. Her eyes would be red, and there would be
blue marks on her face and neck. "Poor Mrs. Tony," they would say, and
nestle close to her. Tony did not roar at her for petting them,
perhaps, because they spent money on the multi-hued candy in glass jars
on the shelves.
Her mother appeared upon the scene once, and stayed a short time; but
Tony got drunk one day and beat her because she ate too much, and she
disappeared soon after. Whence she came and where she departed, no one
could tell, not even Mrs. Murphy, the Pauline Pry and Gazette of the
block.
Tony had gout, and suffered for many days in roaring helplessness, the
while his foot, bound and swathed in many folds of red flannel, lay on
the chair before him. In proportion as his gout increased and he
bawled from pure physical discomfort, she became light-hearted, and
moved about the shop with real, brisk cheeriness. He could not hit her
then without such pain that after one or two trials he gave up in
disgust.
So the dull years had passed, and life had gone on pretty much the same
for Tony and the German wife and the shop. The children came on Sunday
evenings to buy the stick candy, and on week-days for coal and wood.
The servants came to buy oysters for the larger houses, and to gossip
over the counter about their employers. The little dry woman knitted,
and the big man moved lazily in and out in his red flannel shirt,
exchanged politics with the tailor next door through the window, or
lounged into Mrs. Murphy's bar and drank fiercely. Some of the
children grew up and moved away, and other little girls came to buy
candy and eat pink lagniappe fishes, and the shop still thrived.
One day Tony was ill, more than the mummied foot of gout, or the wheeze
of asthma; he must keep his bed and send for the doctor.
She clutched his arm when he came, and pulled him into the tiny room.
"Is it--is it anything much, doctor?" she gasped.
AEsculapius shook his head as wisely as the occasion would permit. She
followed him out of the room into the shop.
"Do you--will he get well, doctor?"
AEsculapius buttoned up his frock coat, smoothed his shining hat,
cleared his throat, then replied oracularly,
"Madam, he is completely burned out inside. Empty as a shell, madam,
empty as a shell. He cannot live, for he has nothing to live on."
As the cobblestones rattled under the doctor's equipage rolling
leisurely up Prytania Street, Tony's wife sat in her chair and
laughed,--laughed with a hearty joyousness that lifted the film from
the dull eyes and disclosed a sparkle beneath.
The drear days went by, and Tony lay like a veritable Samson shorn of
his strength, for his voice was sunken to a hoarse, sibilant whisper,
and his black eyes gazed fiercely from the shock of hair and beard
about a white face. Life went on pretty much as before in the shop;
the children paused to ask how Mr. Tony was, and even hushed the
jingles on their bell hoops as they passed the door. Red-headed
Jimmie, Mrs. Murphy's nephew, did the hard jobs, such as splitting wood
and lifting coal from the bin; and in the intervals between tending the
fallen giant and waiting on the customers, Tony's wife sat in her
accustomed chair, knitting fiercely, with an inscrutable smile about
her purple compressed mouth.
Then John came, introducing himself, serpent-wise, into the Eden of her
bosom.
John was Tony's brother, huge and bluff too, but fair and blond, with
the beauty of Northern Italy. With the same lack of race pride which
Tony had displayed in selecting his German spouse, John had taken unto
himself Betty, a daughter of Erin, aggressive, powerful, and
cross-eyed. He turned up now, having heard of this illness, and
assumed an air of remarkable authority at once.
A hunted look stole into the dull eyes, and after John had departed
with blustering directions as to Tony's welfare, she crept to his
bedside timidly.
"Tony," she said,--"Tony, you are very sick."
An inarticulate growl was the only response.
"Tony, you ought to see the priest; you mustn't go any longer without
taking the sacrament."
The growl deepened into words.
"Don't want any priest; you 're always after some snivelling old
woman's fuss. You and Mrs. Murphy go on with your church; it won't
make YOU any better."
She shivered under this parting shot, and crept back into the shop.
Still the priest came next day.
She followed him in to the bedside and knelt timidly.
"Tony," she whispered, "here's Father Leblanc."
Tony was too languid to curse out loud; he only expressed his hate in a
toss of the black beard and shaggy mane.
"Tony," she said nervously, "won't you do it now? It won't take long,
and it will be better for you when you go--Oh, Tony, don't--don't
laugh. Please, Tony, here's the priest."
But the Titan roared aloud: "No; get out. Think I'm a-going to give
you a chance to grab my money now? Let me die and go to hell in peace."
Father Leblanc knelt meekly and prayed, and the woman's weak pleadings
continued,--
"Tony, I've been true and good and faithful to you. Don't die and
leave me no better than before. Tony, I do want to be a good woman
once, a real-for-true married woman. Tony, here's the priest; say
yes." And she wrung her ringless hands.
"You want my money," said Tony, slowly, "and you sha'n't have it, not a
cent; John shall have it."
Father Leblanc shrank away like a fading spectre. He came next day and
next day, only to see re-enacted the same piteous scene,--the woman
pleading to be made a wife ere death hushed Tony's blasphemies, the man
chuckling in pain-racked glee at the prospect of her bereaved misery.
Not all the prayers of Father Leblanc nor the wailings of Mrs. Murphy
could alter the determination of the will beneath the shock of hair; he
gloated in his physical weakness at the tenacious grasp on his
mentality.
"Tony," she wailed on the last day, her voice rising to a shriek in its
eagerness, "tell them I'm your wife; it'll be the same. Only say it,
Tony, before you die!"
He raised his head, and turned stiff eyes and gibbering mouth on her;
then, with one chill finger pointing at John, fell back dully and
heavily.
They buried him with many honours by the Society of Italia's Sons.
John took possession of the shop when they returned home, and found the
money hidden in the chimney corner.
As for Tony's wife, since she was not his wife after all, they sent her
forth in the world penniless, her worn fingers clutching her bundle of
clothes in nervous agitation, as though they regretted the time lost
from knitting.
THE FISHERMAN OF PASS CHRISTIAN
The swift breezes on the beach at Pass Christian meet and conflict as
though each strove for the mastery of the air. The land-breeze blows
down through the pines, resinous, fragrant, cold, bringing breath-like
memories of dim, dark woods shaded by myriad pine-needles. The breeze
from the Gulf is warm and soft and languorous, blowing up from the
south with its suggestion of tropical warmth and passion. It is strong
and masterful, and tossed Annette's hair and whipped her skirts about
her in bold disregard for the proprieties.
Arm in arm with Philip, she was strolling slowly down the great pier
which extends from the Mexican Gulf Hotel into the waters of the Sound.
There was no moon to-night, but the sky glittered and scintillated with
myriad stars, brighter than you can ever see farther North, and the
great waves that the Gulf breeze tossed up in restless profusion
gleamed with the white fire of phosphorescent flame. The wet sands on
the beach glowed white fire; the posts of the pier where the waves had
leapt and left a laughing kiss, the sides of the little boats and
fish-cars tugging at their ropes, alike showed white and flaming, as
though the sea and all it touched were afire.
Annette and Philip paused midway the pier to watch two fishermen
casting their nets. With heads bared to the breeze, they stood in
clear silhouette against the white background of sea.
"See how he uses his teeth," almost whispered Annette.
Drawing himself up to his full height, with one end of the huge seine
between his teeth, and the cord in his left hand, the taller fisherman
of the two paused a half instant, his right arm extended, grasping the
folds of the net. There was a swishing rush through the air, and it
settled with a sort of sob as it cut the waters and struck a million
sparkles of fire from the waves. Then, with backs bending under the
strain, the two men swung on the cord, drawing in the net, laden with
glittering restless fish, which were unceremoniously dumped on the
boards to be put into the fish-car awaiting them.
Philip laughingly picked up a soft, gleaming jelly-fish, and threatened
to put it on Annette's neck. She screamed, ran, slipped on the wet
boards, and in another instant would have fallen over into the water
below. The tall fisherman caught her in his arms and set her on her
feet.
"Mademoiselle must be very careful," he said in the softest and most
correct French. "The tide is in and the water very rough. It would be
very difficult to swim out there to-night."
Annette murmured confused thanks, which were supplemented by Philip's
hearty tones. She was silent until they reached the pavilion at the
end of the pier. The semi-darkness was unrelieved by lantern or light.
The strong wind wafted the strains from a couple of mandolins, a
guitar, and a tenor voice stationed in one corner to sundry engrossed
couples in sundry other corners. Philip found an untenanted nook and
they ensconced themselves therein.
"Do you know there's something mysterious about that fisherman?" said
Annette, during a lull in the wind.
"Because he did not let you go over?" inquired Philip.
"No; he spoke correctly, and with the accent that goes only with an
excellent education."
Philip shrugged his shoulders. "That's nothing remarkable. If you
stay about Pass Christian for any length of time, you'll find more
things than perfect French and courtly grace among fishermen to
surprise you. These are a wonderful people who live across the Lake."
Annette was lolling in the hammock under the big catalpa-tree some days
later, when the gate opened, and Natalie's big sun-bonnet appeared.
Natalie herself was discovered blushing in its dainty depths. She was
only a little Creole seaside girl, you must know, and very shy of the
city demoiselles. Natalie's patois was quite as different from
Annette's French as it was from the postmaster's English.
"Mees Annette," she began, peony-hued all over at her own boldness, "we
will have one lil' hay-ride this night, and a fish-fry at the end.
Will you come?"
Annette sprang to her feet in delight. "Will I come? Certainly. How
delightful! You are so good to ask me. What shall--what time--" But
Natalie's pink bonnet had fled precipitately down the shaded walk.
Annette laughed joyously as Philip lounged down the gallery.
"I frightened the child away," she told him.
You've never been for a hay-ride and fish-fry on the shores of the
Mississippi Sound, have you? When the summer boarders and the Northern
visitors undertake to give one, it is a comparatively staid affair,
where due regard is had for one's wearing apparel, and where there are
servants to do the hardest work. Then it isn't enjoyable at all. But
when the natives, the boys and girls who live there, make up their
minds to have fun, you may depend upon its being just the best kind.
This time there were twenty boys and girls, a mamma or so, several
papas, and a grizzled fisherman to restrain the ardor of the amateurs.
The cart was vast and solid, and two comfortable, sleepy-looking mules
constituted the drawing power. There were also tin horns, some
guitars, an accordion, and a quartet of much praised voices. The hay
in the bottom of the wagon was freely mixed with pine needles, whose
prickiness through your hose was amply compensated for by its delicious
fragrance.
After a triumphantly noisy passage down the beach one comes to the
stretch of heavy sand that lies between Pass Christian proper and
Henderson's Point. This is a hard pull for the mules, and the more
ambitious riders get out and walk. Then, after a final strain through
the shifting sands, bravo! the shell road is reached, and one goes
cheering through the pine-trees to Henderson's Point.
If ever you go to Pass Christian, you must have a fish-fry at
Henderson's Point. It is the pine-thicketed, white-beached peninsula
jutting out from the land, with one side caressed by the waters of the
Sound and the other purred over by the blue waves of the Bay of St.
Louis. Here is the beginning of the great three-mile trestle bridge to
the town of Bay St. Louis, and to-night from the beach could be seen
the lights of the villas glittering across the Bay like myriads of
unsleeping eyes.
Here upon a firm stretch of white sand camped the merry-makers. Soon a
great fire of driftwood and pine cones tossed its flames defiantly at a
radiant moon in the sky, and the fishers were casting their nets in the
sea. The more daring of the girls waded bare-legged in the water,
holding pine-torches, spearing flounders and peering for soft-shell
crabs.
Annette had wandered farther in the shallow water than the rest.
Suddenly she stumbled against a stone, the torch dropped and spluttered
at her feet. With a little helpless cry she looked at the stretch of
unfamiliar beach and water to find herself all alone.
"Pardon me, mademoiselle," said a voice at her elbow; "you are in
distress?"
It was her fisherman, and with a scarce conscious sigh of relief,
Annette put her hand into the outstretched one at her side.
"I was looking for soft shells," she explained, "and lost the crowd,
and now my torch is out."
"Where is the crowd?" There was some amusement in the tone, and
Annette glanced up quickly, prepared to be thoroughly indignant at this
fisherman who dared make fun at her; but there was such a kindly look
about his mouth that she was reassured and said meekly,--
"At Henderson's Point."
"You have wandered a half-mile away," he mused, "and have nothing to
show for your pains but very wet skirts. If mademoiselle will permit
me, I will take her to her friends, but allow me to suggest that
mademoiselle will leave the water and walk on the sands."
"But I am barefoot," wailed Annette, "and I am afraid of the fiddlers."
Fiddler crabs, you know, aren't pleasant things to be dangling around
one's bare feet, and they are more numerous than sand fleas down at
Henderson's Point.
"True," assented the fisherman; "then we shall have to wade back."
The fishing was over when they rounded the point and came in sight of
the cheery bonfire with its Rembrandt-like group, and the air was
savoury with the smell of frying fish and crabs. The fisherman was not
to be tempted by appeals to stay, but smilingly disappeared down the
sands, the red glare of his torch making a glowing track in the water.
"Ah, Mees Annette," whispered Natalie, between mouthfuls of a rich
croaker, "you have found a beau in the water."
"And the fisherman of the Pass, too," laughed her cousin Ida.
Annette tossed her head, for Philip had growled audibly.
"Do you know, Philip," cried Annette a few days after, rudely shaking
him from his siesta on the gallery,--"do you know that I have found my
fisherman's hut?"
"Hum," was the only response.
"Yes, and it's the quaintest, most delightful spot imaginable. Philip,
do come with me and see it."
"Hum."
"Oh, Philip, you are so lazy; do come with me."
"Yes, but, my dear Annette," protested Philip, "this is a warm day, and
I am tired."
Still, his curiosity being aroused, he went grumbling. It was not a
very long drive, back from the beach across the railroad and through
the pine forest to the bank of a dark, slow-flowing bayou. The
fisherman's hut was small, two-roomed, whitewashed, pine-boarded, with
the traditional mud chimney acting as a sort of support to one of its
uneven sides. Within was a weird assortment of curios from every
uncivilized part of the globe. Also were there fishing-tackle and guns
in reckless profusion. The fisherman, in the kitchen of the
mud-chimney, was sardonically waging war with a basket of little bayou
crabs.
"Entrez, mademoiselle et monsieur," he said pleasantly, grabbing a
vicious crab by its flippers, and smiling at its wild attempts to bite.
"You see I am busy, but make yourself at home."
"Well, how on earth--" began Philip.
"Sh--sh--" whispered Annette. "I was driving out in the woods this
morning, and stumbled on the hut. He asked me in, but I came right over
after you."
The fisherman, having succeeded in getting the last crab in the kettle
of boiling water, came forward smiling and began to explain the curios.
"Then you have not always lived at Pass Christian," said Philip.
"Mais non, monsieur, I am spending a summer here."
"And he spends his winters, doubtless, selling fish in the French
market," spitefully soliloquised Philip.
The fisherman was looking unutterable things into Annette's eyes, and,
it seemed to Philip, taking an unconscionably long time explaining the
use of an East Indian stiletto.
"Oh, wouldn't it be delightful!" came from Annette at last.
"What?" asked Philip.
"Why, Monsieur LeConte says he'll take six of us out in his catboat
tomorrow for a fishing-trip on the Gulf."
"Hum," drily.
"And I'll get Natalie and her cousins."
"Yes," still more drily.
Annette chattered on, entirely oblivious of the strainedness of the
men's adieux, and still chattered as they drove through the pines.
"I did not know that you were going to take fishermen and marchands
into the bosom of your social set when you came here," growled Philip,
at last.
"But, Cousin Phil, can't you see he is a gentleman? The fact that he
makes no excuses or protestations is a proof."
"You are a fool," was the polite response.
Still, at six o'clock next morning, there was a little crowd of seven
upon the pier, laughing and chatting at the little "Virginie" dipping
her bows in the water and flapping her sails in the brisk wind.
Natalie's pink bonnet blushed in the early sunshine, and Natalie's
mamma, comely and portly, did chaperonage duty. It was not long before
the sails gave swell into the breeze and the little boat scurried to
the Sound. Past the lighthouse on its gawky iron stalls, she flew, and
now rounded the white sands of Cat Island.
"Bravo, the Gulf!" sang a voice on the lookout. The little boat
dipped, halted an instant, then rushed fast into the blue Gulf waters.
"We will anchor here," said the host, "have luncheon, and fish."
Philip could not exactly understand why the fisherman should sit so
close to Annette and whisper so much into her ears. He chafed at her
acting the part of hostess, and was possessed of a murderous desire to
throw the pink sun-bonnet and its owner into the sea, when Natalie
whispered audibly to one of her cousins that "Mees Annette act nice
wit' her lovare."
The sun was banking up flaming pillars of rose and gold in the west
when the little "Virginie" rounded Cat Island on her way home, and the
quick Southern twilight was fast dying into darkness when she was tied
up to the pier and the merry-makers sprang off with baskets of fish.
Annette had distinguished herself by catching one small shark, and had
immediately ceased to fish and devoted her attention to her fisherman
and his line. Philip had angled fiercely, landing trout, croakers,
sheepshead, snappers in bewildering luck. He had broken each hopeless
captive's neck savagely, as though they were personal enemies. He did
not look happy as they landed, though paeans of praise were being sung
in his honour.
As the days passed on, "the fisherman of the Pass" began to dance
attendance on Annette. What had seemed a joke became serious. Aunt
Nina, urged by Philip, remonstrated, and even the mamma of the pink
sunbonnet began to look grave. It was all very well for a city
demoiselle to talk with a fisherman and accept favours at his hands,
provided that the city demoiselle understood that a vast and bridgeless
gulf stretched between her and the fisherman.
But when the demoiselle forgot the gulf and the fisherman refused to
recognise it, why, it was time to take matters in hand.
To all of Aunt Nina's remonstrances, Philip's growlings, and the
averted glances of her companions, Annette was deaf. "You are
narrow-minded," she said laughingly. "I am interested in Monsieur
LeConte simply as a study. He is entertaining; he talks well of his
travels, and as for refusing to recognise the difference between us,
why, he never dreamed of such a thing."
Suddenly a peremptory summons home from Annette's father put an end to
the fears of Philip. Annette pouted, but papa must be obeyed. She
blamed Philip and Aunt Nina for telling tales, but Aunt Nina was
uncommunicative, and Philip too obviously cheerful to derive much
satisfaction from.
That night she walked with the fisherman hand in hand on the sands. The
wind from the pines bore the scarcely recognisable, subtle freshness of
early autumn, and the waters had a hint of dying summer in their sob on
the beach.
"You will remember," said the fisherman, "that I have told you nothing
about myself."
"Yes," murmured Annette.
"And you will keep your promises to me?"
"Yes."
"Let me hear you repeat them again."
"I promise you that I will not forget you. I promise you that I will
never speak of you to anyone until I see you again. I promise that I
will then clasp your hand wherever you may be."
"And mademoiselle will not be discouraged, but will continue her
studies?"
"Yes."
It was all very romantic, by the waves of the Sound, under a harvest
moon, that seemed all sympathy for these two, despite the fact that it
was probably looking down upon hundreds of other equally romantic
couples. Annette went to bed with glowing cheeks, and a heart whose
pulsations would have caused a physician to prescribe unlimited
digitalis.
It was still hot in New Orleans when she returned home, and it seemed
hard to go immediately to work. But if one is going to be an
opera-singer some day and capture the world with one's voice, there is
nothing to do but to study, study, sing, practise, even though one's
throat be parched, one's head a great ache, and one's heart a nest of
discouragement and sadness at what seems the uselessness of it all.
Annette had now a new incentive to work; the fisherman had once praised
her voice when she hummed a barcarole on the sands, and he had insisted
that there was power in its rich notes. Though the fisherman had
showed no cause why he should be accepted as a musical critic, Annette
had somehow respected his judgment and been accordingly elated.
It was the night of the opening of the opera. There was the usual
crush, the glitter and confusing radiance of the brilliant audience.
Annette, with papa, Aunt Nina, and Philip, was late reaching her box.
The curtain was up, and "La Juive" was pouring forth defiance at her
angry persecutors. Annette listened breathlessly. In fancy, she too
was ringing her voice out to an applauding house. Her head
unconsciously beat time to the music, and one hand half held her cloak
from her bare shoulders.
Then Eleazar appeared, and the house rose at the end of his song.
Encores it gave, and bravos and cheers. He bowed calmly, swept his
eyes over the tiers until they found Annette, where they rested in a
half-smile of recognition.
"Philip," gasped Annette, nervously raising her glasses, "my fisherman!"
"Yes, an opera-singer is better than a marchand," drawled Philip.
The curtain fell on the first act. The house was won by the new tenor;
it called and recalled him before the curtain. Clearly he had sung his
way into the hearts of his audience at once.
"Papa, Aunt Nina," said Annette, "you must come behind the scenes with
me. I want you to meet him. He is delightful. You must come."
Philip was bending ostentatiously over the girl in the next box. Papa
and Aunt Nina consented to be dragged behind the scenes. Annette was
well known, for, in hopes of some day being an occupant of one of the
dressing-rooms, she had made friends with everyone connected with the
opera.
Eleazar received them, still wearing his brown garb and patriarchal
beard.
"How you deceived me!" she laughed, when the greetings and
introductions were over.
"I came to America early," he smiled back at her, "and thought I'd try
a little incognito at the Pass. I was not well, you see. It has been
of great benefit to me."
"I kept my promise," she said in a lower tone.
"Thank you; that also has helped me."
Annette's teacher began to note a wonderful improvement in his pupil's
voice. Never did a girl study so hard or practise so faithfully. It
was truly wonderful. Now and then Annette would say to papa as if to
reassure herself,--
"And when Monsieur Cherbart says I am ready to go to Paris, I may go,
papa?"
And papa would say a "Certainly" that would send her back to the piano
with renewed ardour.
As for Monsieur LeConte, he was the idol of New Orleans. Seldom had
there been a tenor who had sung himself so completely into the very
hearts of a populace. When he was billed, the opera displayed
"Standing Room" signs, no matter what the other attractions in the city
might be. Sometimes Monsieur LeConte delighted small audiences in
Annette's parlour, when the hostess was in a perfect flutter of
happiness. Not often, you know, for the leading tenor was in great
demand at the homes of society queens.
"Do you know," said Annette, petulantly, one evening, "I wish for the
old days at Pass Christian."
"So do I," he answered tenderly; "will you repeat them with me next
summer?"
"If I only could!" she gasped.
Still she might have been happy, had it not been for Madame
Dubeau,--Madame Dubeau, the flute-voiced leading soprano, who wore the
single dainty curl on her forehead, and thrilled her audiences
oftentimes more completely than the fisherman. Madame Dubeau was La
Juive to his Eleazar, Leonore to his Manfred, Elsa to his Lohengrin,
Aida to his Rhadames, Marguerite to his Faust; in brief, Madame Dubeau
was his opposite. She caressed him as Mignon, pleaded with him as
Michaela, died for him in "Les Huguenots," broke her heart for love of
him in "La Favorite." How could he help but love her, Annette asked
herself, how could he? Madame Dubeau was beautiful and gifted and
charming.
Once she whispered her fears to him when there was the meagrest bit of
an opportunity. He laughed. "You don't understand, little one," he
said tenderly; "the relations of professional people to each other are
peculiar. After you go to Paris, you will know."
Still, New Orleans had built up its romance, and gossiped accordingly.
"Have you heard the news?" whispered Lola to Annette, leaning from her
box at the opera one night. The curtain had just gone up on
"Herodias," and for some reason or other, the audience applauded with
more warmth than usual. There was a noticeable number of
good-humoured, benignant smiles on the faces of the applauders.
"No," answered Annette, breathlessly,--"no, indeed, Lola; I am going to
Paris next week. I am so delighted I can't stop to think."
"Yes, that is excellent," said Lola, "but all New Orleans is smiling at
the romance. Monsieur LeConte and Madame Dubeau were quietly married
last night, but it leaked out this afternoon. See all the applause
she's receiving!"
Annette leaned back in her chair, very white and still. Her box was
empty after the first act, and a quiet little tired voice that was
almost too faint to be heard in the carriage on the way home, said--
"Papa, I don't think I care to go to Paris, after all."
M'SIEU FORTIER'S VIOLIN
Slowly, one by one, the lights in the French Opera go out, until there
is but a single glimmer of pale yellow flickering in the great dark
space, a few moments ago all a-glitter with jewels and the radiance of
womanhood and a-clash with music. Darkness now, and silence, and a
great haunted hush over all, save for the distant cheery voice of a
stage hand humming a bar of the opera.
The glimmer of gas makes a halo about the bowed white head of a little
old man putting his violin carefully away in its case with aged,
trembling, nervous fingers. Old M'sieu Fortier was the last one out
every night.
Outside the air was murky, foggy. Gas and electricity were but faint
splotches of light on the thick curtain of fog and mist. Around the
opera was a mighty bustle of carriages and drivers and footmen, with a
car gaining headway in the street now and then, a howling of names and
numbers, the laughter and small talk of cloaked society stepping slowly
to its carriages, and the more bourgeoisie vocalisation of the foot
passengers who streamed along and hummed little bits of music. The
fog's denseness was confusing, too, and at one moment it seemed that
the little narrow street would become inextricably choked and remain so
until some mighty engine would blow the crowd into atoms. It had been
a crowded night. From around Toulouse Street, where led the entrance
to the troisiemes, from the grand stairway, from the entrance to the
quatriemes, the human stream poured into the street, nearly all with a
song on their lips.
M'sieu Fortier stood at the corner, blinking at the beautiful ladies in
their carriages. He exchanged a hearty salutation with the
saloon-keeper at the corner, then, tenderly carrying his violin case,
he trudged down Bourbon Street, a little old, bent, withered figure,
with shoulders shrugged up to keep warm, as though the faded brown
overcoat were not thick enough.
Down on Bayou Road, not so far from Claiborne Street, was a house,
little and old and queer, but quite large enough to hold M'sieu
Fortier, a wrinkled dame, and a white cat. He was home but little, for
on nearly every day there were rehearsals; then on Tuesday, Thursday,
and Saturday nights, and twice Sundays there were performances, so
Ma'am Jeanne and the white cat kept house almost always alone. Then,
when M'sieu Fortier was at home, why, it was practice, practice all the
day, and smoke, snore, sleep at night. Altogether it was not very
exhilarating.
M'sieu Fortier had played first violin in the orchestra ever
since--well, no one remembered his not playing there. Sometimes there
would come breaks in the seasons, and for a year the great building
would be dark and silent. Then M'sieu Fortier would do jobs of playing
here and there, one night for this ball, another night for that soiree
dansante, and in the day, work at his trade,--that of a cigar-maker.
But now for seven years there had been no break in the season, and the
little old violinist was happy. There is nothing sweeter than a
regular job and good music to play, music into which one can put some
soul, some expression, and which one must study to understand. Dance
music, of the frivolous, frothy kind deemed essential to soirees, is
trivial, easy, uninteresting.
So M'sieu Fortier, Ma'am Jeanne, and the white cat lived a peaceful,
uneventful existence out on Bayou Road. When the opera season was over
in February, M'sieu went back to cigar-making, and the white cat purred
none the less contentedly.
It had been a benefit to-night for the leading tenor, and he had chosen
"Roland a Ronceveaux," a favourite this season, for his farewell. And,
mon Dieu, mused the little M'sieu, but how his voice had rung out
bell-like, piercing above the chorus of the first act! Encore after
encore was given, and the bravos of the troisiemes were enough to stir
the most sluggish of pulses.
"Superbes Pyrenees
Qui dressez dans le ciel,
Vos cimes couronnees
D'un hiver eternelle,
Pour nous livrer passage
Ouvrez vos larges flancs,
Faites faire l'orage,
Voici, venir les Francs!"
M'sieu quickened his pace down Bourbon Street as he sang the chorus to
himself in a thin old voice, and then, before he could see in the thick
fog, he had run into two young men.
"I--I--beg your pardon,--messieurs," he stammered.
"Most certainly," was the careless response; then the speaker, taking a
second glance at the object of the rencontre, cried joyfully:
"Oh, M'sieu Fortier, is it you? Why, you are so happy, singing your
love sonnet to your lady's eyebrow, that you didn't see a thing but the
moon, did you? And who is the fair one who should clog your senses so?"
There was a deprecating shrug from the little man.
"Ma foi, but monsieur must know fo' sho', dat I am too old for love
songs!"
"I know nothing save that I want that violin of yours. When is it to
be mine, M'sieu Fortier?"
"Nevare, nevare!" exclaimed M'sieu, gripping on as tightly to the case
as if he feared it might be wrenched from him. "Me a lovere, and to
sell mon violon! Ah, so ver' foolish!"
"Martel," said the first speaker to his companion as they moved on up
town, "I wish you knew that little Frenchman. He's a unique specimen.
He has the most exquisite violin I've seen in years; beautiful and
mellow as a genuine Cremona, and he can make the music leap, sing,
laugh, sob, skip, wail, anything you like from under his bow when he
wishes. It's something wonderful. We are good friends. Picked him up
in my French-town rambles. I've been trying to buy that instrument
since--"
"To throw it aside a week later?" lazily inquired Martel. "You are
like the rest of these nineteenth-century vandals, you can see nothing
picturesque that you do not wish to deface for a souvenir; you cannot
even let simple happiness alone, but must needs destroy it in a vain
attempt to make it your own or parade it as an advertisement."
As for M'sieu Fortier, he went right on with his song and turned into
Bayou Road, his shoulders still shrugged high as though he were cold,
and into the quaint little house, where Ma'am Jeanne and the white cat,
who always waited up for him at nights, were both nodding over the fire.
It was not long after this that the opera closed, and M'sieu went back
to his old out-of-season job. But somehow he did not do as well this
spring and summer as always. There is a certain amount of cunning and
finesse required to roll a cigar just so, that M'sieu seemed to be
losing, whether from age or deterioration it was hard to tell.
Nevertheless, there was just about half as much money coming in as
formerly, and the quaint little pucker between M'sieu's eyebrows which
served for a frown came oftener and stayed longer than ever before.
"Minesse," he said one day to the white cat,--he told all his troubles
to her; it was of no use to talk to Ma'am Jeanne, she was too deaf to
understand,--"Minesse, we are gettin' po'. You' pere git h'old, an'
hees han's dey go no mo' rapidement, an' dere be no mo' soirees dese
day. Minesse, eef la saison don' hurry up, we shall eat ver' lil'
meat."
And Minesse curled her tail and purred.
Before the summer had fairly begun, strange rumours began to float
about in musical circles. M. Mauge would no longer manage the opera,
but it would be turned into the hands of Americans, a syndicate. Bah!
These English-speaking people could do nothing unless there was a
trust, a syndicate, a company immense and dishonest. It was going to
be a guarantee business, with a strictly financial basis. But worse
than all this, the new manager, who was now in France, would not only
procure the artists, but a new orchestra, a new leader. M'sieu Fortier
grew apprehensive at this, for he knew what the loss of his place would
mean to him.
September and October came, and the papers were filled with accounts of
the new artists from France and of the new orchestra leader too. He
was described as a most talented, progressive, energetic young man.
M'sieu Fortier's heart sank at the word "progressive." He was anything
but that. The New Orleans Creole blood flowed too sluggishly in his
old veins.
November came; the opera reopened. M'sieu Fortier was not re-engaged.
"Minesse," he said with a catch in his voice that strongly resembled a
sob, "Minesse, we mus' go hongry sometime. Ah, mon pauvre violon! Ah,
mon Dieu, dey put us h'out, an' dey will not have us. Nev' min', we
will sing anyhow." And drawing his bow across the strings, he sang in
his thin, quavering voice, "Salut demeure, chaste et pure."
It is strange what a peculiar power of fascination former haunts have
for the human mind. The criminal, after he has fled from justice,
steals back and skulks about the scene of his crime; the employee
thrown from work hangs about the place of his former industry; the
schoolboy, truant or expelled, peeps in at the school-gate and taunts
the good boys within. M'sieu Fortier was no exception. Night after
night of the performances he climbed the stairs of the opera and sat,
an attentive listener to the orchestra, with one ear inclined to the
stage, and a quizzical expression on his wrinkled face. Then he would
go home, and pat Minesse, and fondle the violin.
"Ah, Minesse, dose new player! Not one bit can dey play. Such tones,
Minesse, such tones! All the time portemento, oh, so ver' bad! Ah,
mon chere violon, we can play." And he would play and sing a romance,
and smile tenderly to himself.
At first it used to be into the deuxiemes that M'sieu Fortier went,
into the front seats. But soon they were too expensive, and after all,
one could hear just as well in the fourth row as in the first. After a
while even the rear row of the deuxiemes was too costly, and the little
musician wended his way with the plebeians around on Toulouse Street,
and climbed the long, tedious flight of stairs into the troisiemes. It
makes no difference to be one row higher. It was more to the liking,
after all. One felt more at home up here among the people. If one was
thirsty, one could drink a glass of wine or beer being passed about by
the libretto boys, and the music sounded just as well.
But it happened one night that M'sieu could not even afford to climb
the Toulouse Street stairs. To be sure, there was yet another gallery,
the quatriemes, where the peanut boys went for a dime, but M'sieu could
not get down to that yet. So he stayed outside until all the beautiful
women in their warm wraps, a bright-hued chattering throng, came down
the grand staircase to their carriages.
It was on one of these nights that Courcey and Martel found him
shivering at the corner.
"Hello, M'sieu Fortier," cried Courcey, "are you ready to let me have
that violin yet?"
"For shame!" interrupted Martel.
"Fifty dollars, you know," continued Courcey, taking no heed of his
friend's interpolation.
M'sieu Fortier made a courtly bow. "Eef Monsieur will call at my 'ouse
on de morrow, he may have mon violon," he said huskily; then turned
abruptly on his heel, and went down Bourbon Street, his shoulders drawn
high as though he were cold.
When Courcey and Martel entered the gate of the little house on Bayou
Road the next day, there floated out to their ears a wordless song
thrilling from the violin, a song that told more than speech or tears
or gestures could have done of the utter sorrow and desolation of the
little old man. They walked softly up the short red brick walk and
tapped at the door. Within, M'sieu Fortier was caressing the violin,
with silent tears streaming down his wrinkled gray face.
There was not much said on either side. Courcey came away with the
instrument, leaving the money behind, while Martel grumbled at the
essentially sordid, mercenary spirit of the world. M'sieu Fortier
turned back into the room, after bowing his visitors out with old-time
French courtliness, and turning to the sleepy white cat, said with a
dry sob:
"Minesse, dere's only me an' you now."
About six days later, Courcey's morning dreams were disturbed by the
announcement of a visitor. Hastily doing a toilet, he descended the
stairs to find M'sieu Fortier nervously pacing the hall floor.
"I come fo' bring back you' money, yaas. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat,
I only cry, and t'ink, and weesh fo' mon violon; and Minesse, an' de
ol' woman too, dey mope an' look bad too, all for mon violon. I try
fo' to use dat money, but eet burn an' sting lak blood money. I feel
lak' I done sol' my child. I cannot go at l'opera no mo', I t'ink of
mon violon. I starve befo' I live widout. My heart, he is broke, I
die for mon violon."
Courcey left the room and returned with the instrument.
"M'sieu Fortier," he said, bowing low, as he handed the case to the
little man, "take your violin; it was a whim with me, a passion with
you. And as for the money, why, keep that too; it was worth a hundred
dollars to have possessed such an instrument even for six days."
BY THE BAYOU ST. JOHN
The Bayou St. John slowly makes its dark-hued way through reeds and
rushes, high banks and flat slopes, until it casts itself into the
turbulent bosom of Lake Pontchartrain. It is dark, like the passionate
women of Egypt; placid, like their broad brows; deep, silent, like
their souls. Within its bosom are hidden romances and stories, such as
were sung by minstrels of old. From the source to the mouth is not far
distant, visibly speaking, but in the life of the bayou a hundred
heart-miles could scarce measure it. Just where it winds about the
northwest of the city are some of its most beautiful bits, orange
groves on one side, and quaint old Spanish gardens on the other. Who
cares that the bridges are modern, and that here and there pert
boat-houses rear their prim heads? It is the bayou, even though it be
invaded with the ruthless vandalism of the improving idea, and can a
boat-house kill the beauty of a moss-grown centurion of an oak with a
history as old as the city? Can an iron bridge with tarantula piers
detract from the song of a mocking-bird in a fragrant orange grove? We
know that farther out, past the Confederate Soldiers' Home,--that
rose-embowered, rambling place of gray-coated, white-haired old men
with broken hearts for a lost cause,--it flows, unimpeded by the
faintest conception of man, and we love it all the more that, like the
Priestess of Isis, it is calm-browed, even in indignity.
To its banks at the end of Moss Street, one day there came a man and a
maiden. They were both tall and lithe and slender, with the agility of
youth and fire. He was the final concentration of the essence of
Spanish passion filtered into an American frame; she, a repressed
Southern exotic, trying to fit itself into the niches of a modern
civilisation. Truly, a fitting couple to seek the bayou banks.
They climbed the levee that stretched a feeble check to waters that
seldom rise, and on the other side of the embankment, at the brink of
the river, she sat on a log, and impatiently pulled off the little cap
she wore. The skies were gray, heavy, overcast, with an occasional
wind-rift in the clouds that only revealed new depths of grayness
behind; the tideless waters murmured a faint ripple against the logs
and jutting beams of the breakwater, and were answered by the crescendo
wail of the dried reeds on the other bank,--reeds that rustled and
moaned among themselves for the golden days of summer sunshine.
He stood up, his dark form a slender silhouette against the sky; she
looked upward from her log, and their eyes met with an exquisite shock
of recognising understanding; dark eyes into dark eyes, Iberian fire
into Iberian fire, soul unto soul: it was enough. He sat down and took
her into his arms, and in the eerie murmur of the storm coming they
talked of the future.
"And then I hope to go to Italy or France. It is only there, beneath
those far Southern skies, that I could ever hope to attain to anything
that the soul within me says I can. I have wasted so much time in the
mere struggle for bread, while the powers of a higher calling have
clamoured for recognition and expression. I will go some day and
redeem myself."
She was silent a moment, watching with half-closed lids a
dejected-looking hunter on the other bank, and a lean dog who trailed
through the reeds behind him with drooping tail. Then she asked:
"And I--what will become of me?"
"You, Athanasia? There is a great future before you, little woman, and
I and my love can only mar it. Try to forget me and go your way. I am
only the epitome of unhappiness and ill-success."
But she laughed and would have none of it.
Will you ever forget that day, Athanasia? How the little gamins,
Creole throughout, came half shyly near the log, fishing, and
exchanging furtive whispers and half-concealed glances at the silent
couple. Their angling was rewarded only by a little black
water-moccasin that wriggled and forked its venomous red tongue in an
attempt to exercise its death-dealing prerogative. This Athanasia
insisted must go back into its native black waters, and paid the price
the boys asked that it might enjoy its freedom. The gamins laughed and
chattered in their soft patois; the Don smiled tenderly upon Athanasia,
and she durst not look at the reeds as she talked, lest their crescendo
sadness yield a foreboding. Just then a wee girl appeared, clad in a
multi-hued garment, evidently a sister to the small fishermen. Her
keen black eyes set in a dusky face glanced sharply and suspiciously at
the group as she clambered over the wet embankment, and it seemed the
drizzling mist grew colder, the sobbing wind more pronounced in its
prophetic wail. Athanasia rose suddenly. "Let us go," she said; "the
eternal feminine has spoiled it all."
The bayou flows as calmly, as darkly, as full of hidden passions as
ever. On a night years after, the moon was shining upon it with a
silvery tenderness that seemed brighter, more caressingly lingering
than anywhere within the old city. Behind, there rose the spires and
towers; before, only the reeds, green now, and soft in their rustlings
and whisperings for the future. False reeds! They tell themselves of
their happiness to be, and it all ends in dry stalks and drizzling
skies. The mocking-bird in the fragrant orange grove sends out his
night song, and blends it with the cricket's chirp, as the blossoms of
orange and magnolia mingle their perfume with the earthy smell of a
summer rain just blown over. Perfect in its stillness, absolute in its
beauty, tenderly healing in its suggestion of peace, the night in its
clear-lighted, cloudless sweetness enfolds Athanasia, as she stands on
the levee and gazes down at the old log, now almost hidden in the
luxuriant grass.
"It was the eternal feminine that spoiled our dream that day as it
spoiled the after life, was it not?"
But the Bayou St. John did not answer. It merely gathered into its
silent bosom another broken-hearted romance, and flowed dispassionately
on its way.
WHEN THE BAYOU OVERFLOWS
When the sun goes down behind the great oaks along the Bayou Teche near
Franklin, it throws red needles of light into the dark woods, and
leaves a great glow on the still bayou. Ma'am Mouton paused at her
gate and cast a contemplative look at the red sky.
"Hit will rain to-morrow, sho'. I mus' git in my t'ings."
Ma'am Mouton's remark must have been addressed to herself or to the
lean dog, for no one else was visible. She moved briskly about the
yard, taking things from the line, when Louisette's voice called
cheerily:
"Ah, Ma'am Mouton, can I help?"
Louisette was petite and plump and black-haired. Louisette's eyes
danced, and her lips were red and tempting. Ma'am Mouton's face
relaxed as the small brown hands relieved hers of their burden.
"Sylves', has he come yet?" asked the red mouth.
"Mais non, ma chere," said Ma'am Mouton, sadly, "I can' tell fo' w'y he
no come home soon dese day. Ah me, I feel lak' somet'ing goin' happen.
He so strange."
Even as she spoke a quick nervous step was heard crunching up the brick
walk. Sylves' paused an instant without the kitchen door, his face
turned to the setting sun. He was tall and slim and agile; a true
'cajan.
"Bon jour, Louisette," he laughed. "Eh, maman!"
"Ah, my son, you are ver' late."
Sylves' frowned, but said nothing. It was a silent supper that
followed. Louisette was sad, Ma'am Mouton sighed now and then, Sylves'
was constrained.
"Maman," he said at length, "I am goin' away."
Ma'am Mouton dropped her fork and stared at him with unseeing eyes;
then, as she comprehended his remark, she put her hand out to him with
a pitiful gesture.
"Sylves'!" cried Louisette, springing to her feet.
"Maman, don't, don't!" he said weakly; then gathering strength from the
silence, he burst forth:
"Yaas, I 'm goin' away to work. I 'm tired of dis, jus' dig, dig, work
in de fiel', nothin' to see but de cloud, de tree, de bayou. I don't
lak' New Orleans; it too near here, dere no mo' money dere. I go up
fo' Mardi Gras, an' de same people, de same strit'. I'm goin' to
Chicago!"
"Sylves'!" screamed both women at once.
Chicago! That vast, far-off city that seemed in another world.
Chicago! A name to conjure with for wickedness.
"W'y, yaas," continued Sylves', "lots of boys I know dere. Henri an'
Joseph Lascaud an' Arthur, dey write me what money dey mek' in cigar.
I can mek' a livin' too. I can mek' fine cigar. See how I do in New
Orleans in de winter."
"Oh, Sylves'," wailed Louisette, "den you'll forget me!"
"Non, non, ma chere," he answered tenderly. "I will come back when the
bayou overflows again, an' maman an' Louisette will have fine present."
Ma'am Mouton had bowed her head on her hands, and was rocking to and
fro in an agony of dry-eyed misery.
Sylves' went to her side and knelt. "Maman," he said softly, "maman,
you mus' not cry. All de boys go 'way, an' I will come back reech, an'
you won't have fo' to work no mo'."
But Ma'am Mouton was inconsolable.
It was even as Sylves' had said. In the summer-time the boys of the
Bayou Teche would work in the field or in the town of Franklin,
hack-driving and doing odd jobs. When winter came, there was a general
exodus to New Orleans, a hundred miles away, where work was to be had
as cigar-makers. There is money, plenty of it, in cigar-making, if one
can get in the right place. Of late, however, there had been a general
slackness of the trade. Last winter oftentimes Sylves' had walked the
streets out of work. Many were the Creole boys who had gone to Chicago
to earn a living, for the cigar-making trade flourishes there
wonderfully. Friends of Sylves' had gone, and written home glowing
accounts of the money to be had almost for the asking. When one's
blood leaps for new scenes, new adventures, and one needs money, what
is the use of frittering away time alternately between the Bayou Teche
and New Orleans? Sylves' had brooded all summer, and now that
September had come, he was determined to go.
Louisette, the orphan, the girl-lover, whom everyone in Franklin knew
would some day be Ma'am Mouton's daughter-in-law, wept and pleaded in
vain. Sylves' kissed her quivering lips.
"Ma chere," he would say, "t'ink, I will bring you one fine diamon'
ring, nex' spring, when de bayou overflows again."
Louisette would fain be content with this promise. As for Ma'am
Mouton, she seemed to have grown ages older. Her Sylves' was going
from her; Sylves', whose trips to New Orleans had been a yearly source
of heart-break, was going far away for months to that mistily wicked
city, a thousand miles away.
October came, and Sylves' had gone. Ma'am Mouton had kept up bravely
until the last, when with one final cry she extended her arms to the
pitiless train bearing him northward. Then she and Louisette went home
drearily, the one leaning upon the other.
Ah, that was a great day when the first letter came from Chicago!
Louisette came running in breathlessly from the post-office, and
together they read it again and again. Chicago was such a wonderful
city, said Sylves'. Why, it was always like New Orleans at Mardi Gras
with the people. He had seen Joseph Lascaud, and he had a place to
work promised him. He was well, but he wanted, oh, so much, to see
maman and Louisette. But then, he could wait.
Was ever such a wonderful letter? Louisette sat for an hour afterwards
building gorgeous air-castles, while Ma'am Mouton fingered the paper
and murmured prayers to the Virgin for Sylves'. When the bayou
overflowed again? That would be in April. Then Louisette caught
herself looking critically at her slender brown fingers, and blushed
furiously, though Ma'am Mouton could not see her in the gathering
twilight.
Next week there was another letter, even more wonderful than the first.
Sylves' had found work. He was making cigars, and was earning two
dollars a day. Such wages! Ma'am Mouton and Louisette began to plan
pretty things for the brown cottage on the Teche.
That was a pleasant winter, after all. True, there was no Sylves', but
then he was always in New Orleans for a few months any way. There were
his letters, full of wondrous tales of the great queer city, where cars
went by ropes underground, and where there was no Mardi Gras and the
people did not mind Lent. Now and then there would be a present, a
keepsake for Louisette, and some money for maman. They would plan
improvements for the cottage, and Louisette began to do sewing and
dainty crochet, which she would hide with a blush if anyone hinted at a
trousseau.
It was March now, and Spring-time. The bayou began to sweep down
between its banks less sluggishly than before; it was rising, and soon
would spread over its tiny levees. The doors could be left open now,
though the trees were not yet green; but then down here the trees do
not swell and bud slowly and tease you for weeks with promises of
greenness. Dear no, they simply look mysterious, and their twigs shake
against each other and tell secrets of the leaves that will soon be
born. Then one morning you awake, and lo, it is a green world! The
boughs have suddenly clothed themselves all in a wondrous garment, and
you feel the blood run riot in your veins out of pure sympathy.
One day in March, it was warm and sweet. Underfoot were violets, and
wee white star flowers peering through the baby-grass. The sky was
blue, with flecks of white clouds reflecting themselves in the brown
bayou. Louisette tripped up the red brick walk with the Chicago letter
in her hand, and paused a minute at the door to look upon the leaping
waters, her eyes dancing.
"I know the bayou must be ready to overflow," went the letter in the
carefully phrased French that the brothers taught at the parochial
school, "and I am glad, for I want to see the dear maman and my
Louisette. I am not so well, and Monsieur le docteur says it is well
for me to go to the South again."
Monsieur le docteur! Sylves' not well! The thought struck a chill to
the hearts of Ma'am Mouton and Louisette, but not for long. Of course,
Sylves' was not well, he needed some of maman's tisanes. Then he was
homesick; it was to be expected.
At last the great day came, Sylves' would be home. The brown waters of
the bayou had spread until they were seemingly trying to rival the
Mississippi in width. The little house was scrubbed and cleaned until
it shone again. Louisette had looked her dainty little dress over and
over to be sure that there was not a flaw to be found wherein Sylves'
could compare her unfavourably to the stylish Chicago girls.
The train rumbled in on the platform, and two pair of eyes opened wide
for the first glimpse of Sylves'. The porter, all officiousness and
brass buttons, bustled up to Ma'am Mouton.
"This is Mrs. Mouton?" he inquired deferentially.
Ma'am Mouton nodded, her heart sinking. "Where is Sylves'?"
"He is here, madam."
There appeared Joseph Lascaud, then some men bearing Something.
Louisette put her hands up to her eyes to hide the sight, but Ma'am
Mouton was rigid.
"It was too cold for him," Joseph was saying to almost deaf ears, "and
he took the consumption. He thought he could get well when he come
home. He talk all the way down about the bayou, and about you and
Louisette. Just three hours ago he had a bad hemorrhage, and he died
from weakness. Just three hours ago. He said he wanted to get home
and give Louisette her diamond ring, when the bayou overflowed."
MR. BAPTISTE
He might have had another name; we never knew. Some one had christened
him Mr. Baptiste long ago in the dim past, and it sufficed. No one had
ever been known who had the temerity to ask him for another cognomen,
for though he was a mild-mannered little man, he had an uncomfortable
way of shutting up oyster-wise and looking disagreeable when approached
concerning his personal history.
He was small: most Creole men are small when they are old. It is
strange, but a fact. It must be that age withers them sooner and more
effectually than those of un-Latinised extraction. Mr. Baptiste was,
furthermore, very much wrinkled and lame. Like the Son of Man, he had
nowhere to lay his head, save when some kindly family made room for him
in a garret or a barn. He subsisted by doing odd jobs, white-washing,
cleaning yards, doing errands, and the like.
The little old man was a frequenter of the levee. Never a day passed
that his quaint little figure was not seen moving up and down about the
ships. Chiefly did he haunt the Texas and Pacific warehouses and the
landing-place of the Morgan-line steamships. This seemed like madness,
for these spots are almost the busiest on the levee, and the rough
seamen and 'longshoremen have least time to be bothered with small weak
folks. Still there was method in the madness of Mr. Baptiste. The
Morgan steamships, as every one knows, ply between New Orleans and
Central and South American ports, doing the major part of the fruit
trade; and many were the baskets of forgotten fruit that Mr. Baptiste
took away with him unmolested. Sometimes, you know, bananas and
mangoes and oranges and citrons will half spoil, particularly if it has
been a bad voyage over the stormy Gulf, and the officers of the ships
will give away stacks of fruit, too good to go into the river, too bad
to sell to the fruit-dealers.
You could see Mr. Baptiste trudging up the street with his quaint
one-sided walk, bearing his dilapidated basket on one shoulder, a
nondescript head-cover pulled over his eyes, whistling cheerily. Then
he would slip in at the back door of one of his clients with a brisk,--
"Ah, bonjour, madame. Now here ees jus' a lil' bit fruit, some
bananas. Perhaps madame would cook some for Mr. Baptiste?"
And madame, who understood and knew his ways, would fry him some of the
bananas, and set it before him, a tempting dish, with a bit of madame's
bread and meat and coffee thrown in for lagniappe; and Mr. Baptiste
would depart, filled and contented, leaving the load of fruit behind as
madame's pay. Thus did he eat, and his clients were many, and never
too tired or too cross to cook his meals and get their pay in baskets
of fruit.
One day he slipped in at Madame Garcia's kitchen door with such a
woe-begone air, and slid a small sack of nearly ripe plantains on the
table with such a misery-laden sigh, that madame, who was fat and
excitable, threw up both hands and cried out:
"Mon Dieu, Mistare Baptiste, fo' w'y you look lak dat? What ees de
mattare?"
For answer, Mr. Baptiste shook his head gloomily and sighed again.
Madame Garcia moved heavily about the kitchen, putting the plantains in
a cool spot and punctuating her foot-steps with sundry "Mon Dieux" and
"Miseres."
"Dose cotton!" ejaculated Mr. Baptiste, at last.
"Ah, mon Dieu!" groaned Madame Garcia, rolling her eyes heavenwards.
"Hit will drive de fruit away!" he continued.
"Misere!" said Madame Garcia
"Hit will."
"Oui, out," said Madame Garcia. She had carefully inspected the
plantains, and seeing that they were good and wholesome, was inclined
to agree with anything Mr. Baptiste said.
He grew excited. "Yaas, dose cotton-yardmans, dose 'longsho'mans, dey
go out on one strik'. Dey t'row down dey tool an' say dey work no mo'
wid niggers. Les veseaux, dey lay in de river, no work, no cargo,
yaas. Den de fruit ship, dey can' mak' lan', de mans, dey t'reaten an'
say t'ings. Dey mak' big fight, yaas. Dere no mo' work on de levee,
lak dat. Ever'body jus' walk roun' an' say cuss word, yaas!"
"Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" groaned Madame Garcia, rocking her
guinea-blue-clad self to and fro.
Mr. Baptiste picked up his nondescript head-cover and walked out
through the brick-reddened alley, talking excitedly to himself. Madame
Garcia called after him to know if he did not want his luncheon, but he
shook his head and passed on.
Down on the levee it was even as Mr. Baptiste had said. The
'long-shoremen, the cotton-yardmen, and the stevedores had gone out on
a strike. The levee lay hot and unsheltered under the glare of a
noonday sun. The turgid Mississippi scarce seemed to flow, but gave
forth a brazen gleam from its yellow bosom. Great vessels lay against
the wharf, silent and unpopulated. Excited groups of men clustered
here and there among bales of uncompressed cotton, lying about in
disorderly profusion. Cargoes of molasses and sugar gave out a sticky
sweet smell, and now and then the fierce rays of the sun would kindle
tiny blazes in the cotton and splinter-mixed dust underfoot.
Mr. Baptiste wandered in and out among the groups of men, exchanging a
friendly salutation here and there. He looked the picture of
woe-begone misery.
"Hello, Mr. Baptiste," cried a big, brawny Irishman, "sure an' you
look, as if you was about to be hanged."
"Ah, mon Dieu," said Mr. Baptiste, "dose fruit ship be ruined fo' dees
strik'."
"Damn the fruit!" cheerily replied the Irishman, artistically disposing
of a mouthful of tobacco juice. "It ain't the fruit we care about,
it's the cotton."
"Hear! hear!" cried a dozen lusty comrades.
Mr. Baptiste shook his head and moved sorrowfully away.
"Hey, by howly St. Patrick, here's that little fruit-eater!" called the
centre of another group of strikers perched on cotton-bales.
"Hello! Where--" began a second; but the leader suddenly held up his
hand for silence, and the men listened eagerly.
It might not have been a sound, for the levee lay quiet and the mules
on the cotton-drays dozed languidly, their ears pitched at varying
acute angles. But the practiced ears of the men heard a familiar sound
stealing up over the heated stillness.
"Oh--ho--ho--humph--humph--humph--ho--ho--ho--oh--o--o--humph!"
Then the faint rattle of chains, and the steady thump of a machine
pounding.
If ever you go on the levee you'll know that sound, the rhythmic song
of the stevedores heaving cotton-bales, and the steady thump, thump, of
the machine compressing them within the hold of the ship.
Finnegan, the leader, who had held up his hand for silence, uttered an
oath.
"Scabs! Men, come on!"
There was no need for a further invitation. The men rose in sullen
wrath and went down the levee, the crowd gathering in numbers as it
passed along. Mr. Baptiste followed in its wake, now and then sighing
a mournful protest which was lost in the roar of the men.
"Scabs!" Finnegan had said; and the word was passed along, until it
seemed that the half of the second District knew and had risen to
investigate.
"Oh--ho--ho--humph--humph--humph--oh--ho--ho--oh--o--o--humph!"
The rhythmic chorus sounded nearer, and the cause manifested itself
when the curve of the levee above the French Market was passed. There
rose a White Star steamer, insolently settling itself to the water as
each consignment of cotton bales was compressed into her hold.
"Niggers!" roared Finnegan wrathily.
"Niggers! niggers! Kill 'em, scabs!" chorused the crowd.
With muscles standing out like cables through their blue cotton shirts,
and sweat rolling from glossy black skins, the Negro stevedores were at
work steadily labouring at the cotton, with the rhythmic song swinging
its cadence in the hot air. The roar of the crowd caused the men to
look up with momentary apprehension, but at the over-seer's reassuring
word they bent back to work.
Finnegan was a Titan. With livid face and bursting veins he ran into
the street facing the French Market, and uprooted a huge block of
paving stone. Staggering under its weight, he rushed back to the ship,
and with one mighty effort hurled it into the hold.
The delicate poles of the costly machine tottered in the air, then fell
forward with a crash as the whole iron framework in the hold collapsed.
"Damn ye," shouted Finnegan, "now yez can pack yer cotton!"
The crowd's cheers at this changed to howls, as the Negroes, infuriated
at their loss, for those costly machines belong to the labourers and
not to the ship-owners, turned upon the mob and began to throw
brickbats, pieces of iron, chunks of wood, anything that came to hand.
It was pandemonium turned loose over a turgid stream, with a malarial
sun to heat the passions to fever point.
Mr. Baptiste had taken refuge behind a bread-stall on the outside of
the market. He had taken off his cap, and was weakly cheering the
Negroes on.
"Bravo!" cheered Mr. Baptiste.
"Will yez look at that damned fruit-eatin' Frinchman!" howled McMahon.
"Cheerin' the niggers, are you?" and he let fly a brickbat in the
direction of the bread-stall.
"Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" wailed the bread-woman.
Mr. Baptiste lay very still, with a great ugly gash in his wrinkled
brown temple. Fishmen and vegetable marchands gathered around him in a
quick, sympathetic mass. The individual, the concrete bit of helpless
humanity, had more interest for them than the vast, vague fighting mob
beyond.
The noon-hour pealed from the brazen throats of many bells, and the
numerous hoarse whistles of the steam-boats called the unheeded
luncheon-time to the levee workers. The war waged furiously, and
groans of the wounded mingled with curses and roars from the combatants.
"Killed instantly," said the surgeon, carefully lifting Mr. Baptiste
into the ambulance.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, sounded the militia steadily marching down Decatur
Street.
"Whist! do yez hear!" shouted Finnegan; and the conflict had ceased ere
the yellow river could reflect the sun from the polished bayonets.
You remember, of course, how long the strike lasted, and how many
battles were fought and lives lost before the final adjustment of
affairs. It was a fearsome war, and many forgot afterwards whose was
the first life lost in the struggle,--poor little Mr. Baptiste's, whose
body lay at the Morgue unclaimed for days before it was finally dropped
unnamed into Potter's Field.
A CARNIVAL JANGLE
There is a merry jangle of bells in the air, an all-pervading sense of
jester's noise, and the flaunting vividness of royal colours. The
streets swarm with humanity,--humanity in all shapes, manners, forms,
laughing, pushing, jostling, crowding, a mass of men and women and
children, as varied and assorted in their several individual
peculiarities as ever a crowd that gathered in one locality since the
days of Babel.
It is Carnival in New Orleans; a brilliant Tuesday in February, when
the very air gives forth an ozone intensely exhilarating, making one
long to cut capers. The buildings are a blazing mass of royal purple
and golden yellow, national flags, bunting, and decorations that laugh
in the glint of the Midas sun. The streets are a crush of jesters and
maskers, Jim Crows and clowns, ballet girls and Mephistos, Indians and
monkeys; of wild and sudden flashes of music, of glittering pageants
and comic ones, of befeathered and belled horses; a dream of colour and
melody and fantasy gone wild in an effervescent bubble of beauty that
shifts and changes and passes kaleidoscope-like before the bewildered
eye.
A bevy of bright-eyed girls and boys of that uncertain age that hovers
between childhood and maturity, were moving down Canal Street when
there was a sudden jostle with another crowd meeting them. For a
minute there was a deafening clamour of shouts and laughter, cracking
of the whips, which all maskers carry, a jingle and clatter of carnival
bells, and the masked and unmasked extricated themselves and moved from
each other's paths. But in the confusion a tall Prince of Darkness had
whispered to one of the girls in the unmasked crowd: "You'd better come
with us, Flo; you're wasting time in that tame gang. Slip off, they'll
never miss you; we'll get you a rig, and show you what life is."
And so it happened, when a half-hour passed, and the bright-eyed bevy
missed Flo and couldn't find her, wisely giving up the search at last,
she, the quietest and most bashful of the lot, was being initiated into
the mysteries of "what life is."
Down Bourbon Street and on Toulouse and St. Peter Streets there are
quaint little old-world places where one may be disguised effectually
for a tiny consideration. Thither, guided by the shapely Mephisto and
guarded by the team of jockeys and ballet girls, tripped Flo. Into one
of the lowest-ceiled, dingiest, and most ancient-looking of these shops
they stepped.
"A disguise for the demoiselle," announced Mephisto to the woman who
met them. She was small and wizened and old, with yellow, flabby jaws,
a neck like the throat of an alligator, and straight, white hair that
stood from her head uncannily stiff.
"But the demoiselle wishes to appear a boy, un petit garcon?" she
inquired, gazing eagerly at Flo's long, slender frame. Her voice was
old and thin, like the high quavering of an imperfect tuning-fork, and
her eyes were sharp as talons in their grasping glance.
"Mademoiselle does not wish such a costume," gruffly responded Mephisto.
"Ma foi, there is no other," said the ancient, shrugging her shoulders.
"But one is left now; mademoiselle would make a fine troubadour."
"Flo," said Mephisto, "it's a dare-devil scheme, try it; no one will
ever know it but us, and we'll die before we tell. Besides, we must;
it's late, and you couldn't find your crowd."
And that was why you might have seen a Mephisto and a slender
troubadour of lovely form, with mandolin flung across his shoulder,
followed by a bevy of jockeys and ballet girls, laughing and singing as
they swept down Rampart Street.
When the flash and glare and brilliancy of Canal Street have palled
upon the tired eye, when it is yet too soon to go home to such a
prosaic thing as dinner, and one still wishes for novelty, then it is
wise to go into the lower districts. There is fantasy and fancy and
grotesqueness run wild in the costuming and the behaviour of the
maskers. Such dances and whoops and leaps as these hideous Indians and
devils do indulge in; such wild curvetings and long walks! In the open
squares, where whole groups do congregate, it is wonderfully amusing.
Then, too, there is a ball in every available hall, a delirious ball,
where one may dance all day for ten cents; dance and grow mad for joy,
and never know who were your companions, and be yourself unknown. And
in the exhilaration of the day, one walks miles and miles, and dances
and skips, and the fatigue is never felt.
In Washington Square, away down where Royal Street empties its stream
of children great and small into the broad channel of Elysian Fields
Avenue, there was a perfect Indian pow-wow. With a little imagination
one might have willed away the vision of the surrounding houses, and
fancied one's self again in the forest, where the natives were holding
a sacred riot. The square was filled with spectators, masked and
un-masked. It was amusing to watch these mimic Red-men, they seemed so
fierce and earnest.
Suddenly one chief touched another on the elbow. "See that Mephisto
and troubadour over there?" he whispered huskily.
"Yes; who are they?"
"I don't know the devil," responded the other, quietly, "but I'd know
that other form anywhere. It's Leon, see? I know those white hands
like a woman's and that restless head. Ha!"
"But there may be a mistake."
"No. I'd know that one anywhere; I feel it is he. I'll pay him now.
Ah, sweetheart, you've waited long, but you shall feast now!" He was
caressing something long and lithe and glittering beneath his blanket.
In a masked dance it is easy to give a death-blow between the
shoulders. Two crowds meet and laugh and shout and mingle almost
inextricably, and if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not noticed
in the din, and when they part, if one should stagger and fall bleeding
to the ground, can any one tell who has given the blow? There is
nothing but an unknown stiletto on the ground, the crowd has dispersed,
and masks tell no tales anyway. There is murder, but by whom? for
what? Quien sabe?
And that is how it happened on Carnival night, in the last mad moments
of Rex's reign, a broken-hearted mother sat gazing wide-eyed and mute
at a horrible something that lay across the bed. Outside the long
sweet march music of many bands floated in as if in mockery, and the
flash of rockets and Bengal lights illumined the dead, white face of
the girl troubadour.
LITTLE MISS SOPHIE
When Miss Sophie knew consciousness again, the long, faint, swelling
notes of the organ were dying away in distant echoes through the great
arches of the silent church, and she was alone, crouching in a little,
forsaken black heap at the altar of the Virgin. The twinkling tapers
shone pityingly upon her, the beneficent smile of the white-robed
Madonna seemed to whisper comfort. A long gust of chill air swept up
the aisles, and Miss Sophie shivered not from cold, but from
nervousness.
But darkness was falling, and soon the lights would be lowered, and the
great massive doors would be closed; so, gathering her thin little cape
about her frail shoulders, Miss Sophie hurried out, and along the
brilliant noisy streets home.
It was a wretched, lonely little room, where the cracks let the
boisterous wind whistle through, and the smoky, grimy walls looked
cheerless and unhomelike. A miserable little room in a miserable
little cottage in one of the squalid streets of the Third District that
nature and the city fathers seemed to have forgotten.
As bare and comfortless as the room was Miss Sophie's life. She rented
these four walls from an unkempt little Creole woman, whose progeny
seemed like the promised offspring of Abraham. She scarcely kept the
flickering life in her pale little body by the unceasing toil of a pair
of bony hands, stitching, stitching, ceaselessly, wearingly, on the
bands and pockets of trousers. It was her bread, this monotonous,
unending work; and though whole days and nights constant labour brought
but the most meagre recompense, it was her only hope of life.
She sat before the little charcoal brazier and warmed her transparent,
needle-pricked fingers, thinking meanwhile of the strange events of the
day. She had been up town to carry the great, black bundle of coarse
pants and vests to the factory and to receive her small pittance, and
on the way home stopped in at the Jesuit Church to say her little
prayer at the altar of the calm white Virgin. There had been a
wondrous burst of music from the great organ as she knelt there, an
overpowering perfume of many flowers, the glittering dazzle of many
lights, and the dainty frou-frou made by the silken skirts of wedding
guests. So Miss Sophie stayed to the wedding; for what feminine heart,
be it ever so old and seared, does not delight in one? And why should
not a poor little Creole old maid be interested too?
Then the wedding party had filed in solemnly, to the rolling, swelling
tones of the organ. Important-looking groomsmen; dainty, fluffy,
white-robed maids; stately, satin-robed, illusion-veiled bride, and
happy groom. She leaned forward to catch a better glimpse of their
faces. "Ah!"--
Those near the Virgin's altar who heard a faint sigh and rustle on the
steps glanced curiously as they saw a slight black-robed figure clutch
the railing and lean her head against it. Miss Sophie had fainted.
"I must have been hungry," she mused over the charcoal fire in her
little room, "I must have been hungry;" and she smiled a wan smile, and
busied herself getting her evening meal of coffee and bread and ham.
If one were given to pity, the first thought that would rush to one's
lips at sight of Miss Sophie would have been, "Poor little woman!" She
had come among the bareness and sordidness of this neighbourhood five
years ago, robed in crape, and crying with great sobs that seemed to
shake the vitality out of her. Perfectly silent, too, she was about
her former life; but for all that, Michel, the quartee grocer at the
corner, and Madame Laurent, who kept the rabbe shop opposite, had fixed
it all up between them, of her sad history and past glories. Not that
they knew; but then Michel must invent something when the neighbours
came to him as their fountain-head of wisdom.
One morning little Miss Sophie opened wide her dingy windows to catch
the early freshness of the autumn wind as it whistled through the
yellow-leafed trees. It was one of those calm, blue-misted, balmy,
November days that New Orleans can have when all the rest of the
country is fur-wrapped. Miss Sophie pulled her machine to the window,
where the sweet, damp wind could whisk among her black locks.
Whirr, whirr, went the machine, ticking fast and lightly over the belts
of the rough jeans pants. Whirr, whirr, yes, and Miss Sophie was
actually humming a tune! She felt strangely light to-day.
"Ma foi," muttered Michel, strolling across the street to where Madame
Laurent sat sewing behind the counter on blue and brown-checked aprons,
"but the little ma'amselle sings. Perhaps she recollects."
"Perhaps," muttered the rabbe woman.
But little Miss Sophie felt restless. A strange impulse seemed drawing
her up town, and the machine seemed to run slow, slow, before it would
stitch all of the endless number of jeans belts. Her fingers trembled
with nervous haste as she pinned up the unwieldy black bundle of
finished work, and her feet fairly tripped over each other in their
eagerness to get to Claiborne Street, where she could board the up-town
car. There was a feverish desire to go somewhere, a sense of elation,
a foolish happiness that brought a faint echo of colour into her
pinched cheeks. She wondered why.
No one noticed her in the car. Passengers on the Claiborne line are
too much accustomed to frail little black-robed women with big, black
bundles; it is one of the city's most pitiful sights. She leaned her
head out of the window to catch a glimpse of the oleanders on Bayou
Road, when her attention was caught by a conversation in the car.
"Yes, it's too bad for Neale, and lately married too," said the elder
man. "I can't see what he is to do."
Neale! She pricked up her ears. That was the name of the groom in the
Jesuit Church.
"How did it happen?" languidly inquired the younger. He was a
stranger, evidently; a stranger with a high regard for the
faultlessness of male attire.
"Well, the firm failed first; he didn't mind that much, he was so sure
of his uncle's inheritance repairing his lost fortunes; but suddenly
this difficulty of identification springs up, and he is literally on
the verge of ruin."
"Won't some of you fellows who've known him all your lives do to
identify him?"
"Gracious man, we've tried; but the absurd old will expressly
stipulates that he shall be known only by a certain quaint Roman ring,
and unless he has it, no identification, no fortune. He has given the
ring away, and that settles it."
"Well, you 're all chumps. Why doesn't he get the ring from the owner?"
"Easily said; but--it seems that Neale had some little Creole
love-affair some years ago, and gave this ring to his dusky-eyed
fiancee. You know how Neale is with his love-affairs, went off and
forgot the girl in a month. It seems, however, she took it to
heart,--so much so that he's ashamed to try to find her or the ring."
Miss Sophie heard no more as she gazed out into the dusty grass. There
were tears in her eyes, hot blinding ones that wouldn't drop for pride,
but stayed and scalded. She knew the story, with all its embellishment
of heartaches. She knew the ring, too. She remembered the day she had
kissed and wept and fondled it, until it seemed her heart must burst
under its load of grief before she took it to the pawn-broker's that
another might be eased before the end came,--that other her father.
The little "Creole love affair" of Neale's had not always been poor and
old and jaded-looking; but reverses must come, even Neale knew that, so
the ring was at the Mont de Piete. Still he must have it, it was his;
it would save him from disgrace and suffering and from bringing the
white-gowned bride into sorrow. He must have it; but how?
There it was still at the pawn-broker's; no one would have such an odd
jewel, and the ticket was home in the bureau drawer. Well, he must
have it; she might starve in the attempt. Such a thing as going to him
and telling him that he might redeem it was an impossibility. That
good, straight-backed, stiff-necked Creole blood would have risen in
all its strength and choked her. No; as a present had the quaint Roman
circlet been placed upon her finger, as a present should it be returned.
The bumping car rode slowly, and the hot thoughts beat heavily in her
poor little head. He must have the ring; but how--the ring--the Roman
ring--the white-robed bride starving--she was going mad--ah yes--the
church.
There it was, right in the busiest, most bustling part of the town, its
fresco and bronze and iron quaintly suggestive of mediaeval times.
Within, all was cool and dim and restful, with the faintest whiff of
lingering incense rising and pervading the gray arches. Yes, the
Virgin would know and have pity; the sweet, white-robed Virgin at the
pretty flower-decked altar, or the one away up in the niche, far above
the golden dome where the Host was. Titiche, the busybody of the
house, noticed that Miss Sophie's bundle was larger than usual that
afternoon. "Ah, poor woman!" sighed Titiche's mother, "she would be
rich for Christmas."
The bundle grew larger each day, and Miss Sophie grew smaller. The
damp, cold rain and mist closed the white-curtained window, but always
there behind the sewing-machine drooped and bobbed the little
black-robed figure. Whirr, whirr went the wheels, and the coarse jeans
pants piled in great heaps at her side. The Claiborne Street car saw
her oftener than before, and the sweet white Virgin in the flowered
niche above the gold-domed altar smiled at the little supplicant almost
every day.
"Ma foi," said the slatternly landlady to Madame Laurent and Michel one
day, "I no see how she live! Eat? Nothin', nothin', almos', and las'
night when it was so cold and foggy, eh? I hav' to mek him build fire.
She mos' freeze."
Whereupon the rumour spread that Miss Sophie was starving herself to
death to get some luckless relative out of jail for Christmas; a rumour
which enveloped her scraggy little figure with a kind of halo to the
neighbours when she appeared on the streets.
November had merged into December, and the little pile of coins was yet
far from the sum needed. Dear God! how the money did have to go! The
rent and the groceries and the coal, though, to be sure, she used a
precious bit of that. Would all the work and saving and skimping do
good? Maybe, yes, maybe by Christmas.
Christmas Eve on Royal Street is no place for a weakling, for the
shouts and carousels of the roisterers will strike fear into the
bravest ones. Yet amid the cries and yells, the deafening blow of
horns and tin whistles, and the really dangerous fusillade of
fireworks, a little figure hurried along, one hand clutching tightly
the battered hat that the rude merry-makers had torn off, the other
grasping under the thin black cape a worn little pocketbook.
Into the Mont de Piete she ran breathless, eager. The ticket? Here,
worn, crumpled. The ring? It was not gone? No, thank Heaven! It was
a joy well worth her toil, she thought, to have it again.
Had Titiche not been shooting crackers on the banquette instead of
peering into the crack, as was his wont, his big, round black eyes
would have grown saucer-wide to see little Miss Sophie kiss and fondle
a ring, an ugly clumsy band of gold.
"Ah, dear ring," she murmured, "once you were his, and you shall be his
again. You shall be on his finger, and perhaps touch his heart. Dear
ring, ma chere petite de ma coeur, cherie de ma coeur. Je t'aime, je
t'aime, oui, oui. You are his; you were mine once too. To-night, just
one night, I'll keep you--then--to-morrow, you shall go where you can
save him."
The loud whistles and horns of the little ones rose on the balmy air
next morning. No one would doubt it was Christmas Day, even if doors
and windows were open wide to let in cool air. Why, there was
Christmas even in the very look of the mules on the poky cars; there
was Christmas noise in the streets, and Christmas toys and Christmas
odours, savoury ones that made the nose wrinkle approvingly, issuing
from the kitchen. Michel and Madame Laurent smiled greetings across
the street at each other, and the salutation from a passer-by recalled
the many-progenied landlady to herself.
"Miss Sophie, well, po' soul, not ver' much Chris'mas for her. Mais,
I'll jus' call him in fo' to spen' the day with me. Eet'll cheer her a
bit."
It was so clean and orderly within the poor little room. Not a speck
of dust or a litter of any kind on the quaint little old-time high
bureau, unless you might except a sheet of paper lying loose with
something written on it. Titiche had evidently inherited his prying
propensities, for the landlady turned it over and read,--
LOUIS,--Here is the ring. I return it to you. I heard you needed it.
I hope it comes not too late. SOPHIE.
"The ring, where?" muttered the landlady. There it was, clasped
between her fingers on her bosom,--a bosom white and cold, under a cold
happy face. Christmas had indeed dawned for Miss Sophie.
SISTER JOSEPHA
Sister Josepha told her beads mechanically, her fingers numb with the
accustomed exercise. The little organ creaked a dismal "O Salutaris,"
and she still knelt on the floor, her white-bonneted head nodding
suspiciously. The Mother Superior gave a sharp glance at the tired
figure; then, as a sudden lurch forward brought the little sister back
to consciousness, Mother's eyes relaxed into a genuine smile.
The bell tolled the end of vespers, and the sombre-robed nuns filed out
of the chapel to go about their evening duties. Little Sister Josepha's
work was to attend to the household lamps, but there must have been as
much oil spilled upon the table to-night as was put in the vessels.
The small brown hands trembled so that most of the wicks were trimmed
with points at one corner which caused them to smoke that night.
"Oh, cher Seigneur," she sighed, giving an impatient polish to a
refractory chimney, "it is wicked and sinful, I know, but I am so
tired. I can't be happy and sing any more. It doesn't seem right for
le bon Dieu to have me all cooped up here with nothing to see but stray
visitors, and always the same old work, teaching those mean little
girls to sew, and washing and filling the same old lamps. Pah!" And
she polished the chimney with a sudden vigorous jerk which threatened
destruction.
They were rebellious prayers that the red mouth murmured that night,
and a restless figure that tossed on the hard dormitory bed. Sister
Dominica called from her couch to know if Sister Josepha were ill.
"No," was the somewhat short response; then a muttered, "Why can't they
let me alone for a minute? That pale-eyed Sister Dominica never
sleeps; that's why she is so ugly."
About fifteen years before this night some one had brought to the
orphan asylum connected with this convent, du Sacre Coeur, a round,
dimpled bit of three-year-old humanity, who regarded the world from a
pair of gravely twinkling black eyes, and only took a chubby thumb out
of a rosy mouth long enough to answer in monosyllabic French. It was a
child without an identity; there was but one name that any one seemed
to know, and that, too, was vague,--Camille.
She grew up with the rest of the waifs; scraps of French and American
civilization thrown together to develop a seemingly inconsistent
miniature world. Mademoiselle Camille was a queen among them, a pretty
little tyrant who ruled the children and dominated the more timid
sisters in charge.
One day an awakening came. When she was fifteen, and almost fully
ripened into a glorious tropical beauty of the type that matures early,
some visitors to the convent were fascinated by her and asked the
Mother Superior to give the girl into their keeping.
Camille fled like a frightened fawn into the yard, and was only
unearthed with some difficulty from behind a group of palms. Sulky and
pouting, she was led into the parlour, picking at her blue pinafore
like a spoiled infant.
"The lady and gentleman wish you to go home with them, Camille," said
the Mother Superior, in the language of the convent. Her voice was
kind and gentle apparently; but the child, accustomed to its various
inflections, detected a steely ring behind its softness, like the
proverbial iron hand in the velvet glove.
"You must understand, madame," continued Mother, in stilted English,
"that we never force children from us. We are ever glad to place them
in comfortable--how you say that?--quarters--maisons--homes--bien! But
we will not make them go if they do not wish."
Camille stole a glance at her would-be guardians, and decided
instantly, impulsively, finally. The woman suited her; but the man!
It was doubtless intuition of the quick, vivacious sort which belonged
to her blood that served her. Untutored in worldly knowledge, she
could not divine the meaning of the pronounced leers and admiration of
her physical charms which gleamed in the man's face, but she knew it
made her feel creepy, and stoutly refused to go. Next day Camille was
summoned from a task to the Mother Superior's parlour. The other girls
gazed with envy upon her as she dashed down the courtyard with
impetuous movement. Camille, they decided crossly, received too much
notice. It was Camille this, Camille that; she was pretty, it was to
be expected. Even Father Ray lingered longer in his blessing when his
hands pressed her silky black hair.
As she entered the parlour, a strange chill swept over the girl. The
room was not an unaccustomed one, for she had swept it many times, but
to-day the stiff black chairs, the dismal crucifixes, the gleaming
whiteness of the walls, even the cheap lithograph of the Madonna which
Camille had always regarded as a perfect specimen of art, seemed cold
and mean.
"Camille, ma chere," said Mother, "I am extremely displeased with you.
Why did you not wish to go with Monsieur and Madame Lafaye yesterday?"
The girl uncrossed her hands from her bosom, and spread them out in a
deprecating gesture.
"Mais, ma mere, I was afraid."
Mother's face grew stern. "No foolishness now," she exclaimed.
"It is not foolishness, ma mere; I could not help it, but that man
looked at me so funny, I felt all cold chills down my back. Oh, dear
Mother, I love the convent and the sisters so, I just want to stay and
be a sister too, may I?"
And thus it was that Camille took the white veil at sixteen years. Now
that the period of novitiate was over, it was just beginning to dawn
upon her that she had made a mistake.
"Maybe it would have been better had I gone with the funny-looking lady
and gentleman," she mused bitterly one night. "Oh, Seigneur, I 'm so
tired and impatient; it's so dull here, and, dear God, I'm so young."
There was no help for it. One must arise in the morning, and help in
the refectory with the stupid Sister Francesca, and go about one's
duties with a prayerful mien, and not even let a sigh escape when one's
head ached with the eternal telling of beads.
A great fete day was coming, and an atmosphere of preparation and mild
excitement pervaded the brown walls of the convent like a delicate
aroma. The old Cathedral around the corner had stood a hundred years,
and all the city was rising to do honour to its age and time-softened
beauty. There would be a service, oh, but such a one! with two
Cardinals, and Archbishops and Bishops, and all the accompanying
glitter of soldiers and orchestras. The little sisters of the Convent
du Sacre Coeur clasped their hands in anticipation of the holy joy.
Sister Josepha curled her lip, she was so tired of churchly pleasures.
The day came, a gold and blue spring day, when the air hung heavy with
the scent of roses and magnolias, and the sunbeams fairly laughed as
they kissed the houses. The old Cathedral stood gray and solemn, and
the flowers in Jackson Square smiled cheery birthday greetings across
the way. The crowd around the door surged and pressed and pushed in
its eagerness to get within. Ribbons stretched across the banquette
were of no avail to repress it, and important ushers with cardinal
colours could do little more.
The Sacred Heart sisters filed slowly in at the side door, creating a
momentary flutter as they paced reverently to their seats, guarding the
blue-bonneted orphans. Sister Josepha, determined to see as much of
the world as she could, kept her big black eyes opened wide, as the
church rapidly filled with the fashionably dressed, perfumed, rustling,
and self-conscious throng.
Her heart beat quickly. The rebellious thoughts that will arise in the
most philosophical of us surged in her small heavily gowned bosom. For
her were the gray things, the neutral tinted skies, the ugly garb, the
coarse meats; for them the rainbow, the ethereal airiness of earthly
joys, the bonbons and glaces of the world. Sister Josepha did not know
that the rainbow is elusive, and its colours but the illumination of
tears; she had never been told that earthly ethereality is necessarily
ephemeral, nor that bonbons and glaces, whether of the palate or of the
soul, nauseate and pall upon the taste. Dear God, forgive her, for she
bent with contrite tears over her worn rosary, and glanced no more at
the worldly glitter of femininity.
The sunbeams streamed through the high windows in purple and crimson
lights upon a veritable fugue of colour. Within the seats, crush upon
crush of spring millinery; within the aisles erect lines of
gold-braided, gold-buttoned military. Upon the altar, broad sweeps of
golden robes, great dashes of crimson skirts, mitres and gleaming
crosses, the soft neutral hue of rich lace vestments; the tender heads
of childhood in picturesque attire; the proud, golden magnificence of
the domed altar with its weighting mass of lilies and wide-eyed roses,
and the long candles that sparkled their yellow star points above the
reverent throng within the altar rails.
The soft baritone of the Cardinal intoned a single phrase in the
suspended silence. The censer took up the note in its delicate clink
clink, as it swung to and fro in the hands of a fair-haired child.
Then the organ, pausing an instant in a deep, mellow, long-drawn note,
burst suddenly into a magnificent strain, and the choir sang forth,
"Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison." One voice, flute-like, piercing,
sweet, rang high over the rest. Sister Josepha heard and trembled, as
she buried her face in her hands, and let her tears fall, like other
beads, through her rosary.
It was when the final word of the service had been intoned, the last
peal of the exit march had died away, that she looked up meekly, to
encounter a pair of youthful brown eyes gazing pityingly upon her.
That was all she remembered for a moment, that the eyes were youthful
and handsome and tender. Later, she saw that they were placed in a
rather beautiful boyish face, surmounted by waves of brown hair,
curling and soft, and that the head was set on a pair of shoulders
decked in military uniform. Then the brown eyes marched away with the
rest of the rear guard, and the white-bonneted sisters filed out the
side door, through the narrow court, back into the brown convent.
That night Sister Josepha tossed more than usual on her hard bed, and
clasped her fingers often in prayer to quell the wickedness in her
heart. Turn where she would, pray as she might, there was ever a pair
of tender, pitying brown eyes, haunting her persistently. The squeaky
organ at vespers intoned the clank of military accoutrements to her
ears, the white bonnets of the sisters about her faded into mists of
curling brown hair. Briefly, Sister Josepha was in love.
The days went on pretty much as before, save for the one little heart
that beat rebelliously now and then, though it tried so hard to be
submissive. There was the morning work in the refectory, the stupid
little girls to teach sewing, and the insatiable lamps that were so
greedy for oil. And always the tender, boyish brown eyes, that looked
so sorrowfully at the fragile, beautiful little sister, haunting,
following, pleading.
Perchance, had Sister Josepha been in the world, the eyes would have
been an incident. But in this home of self-repression and
retrospection, it was a life-story. The eyes had gone their way,
doubtless forgetting the little sister they pitied; but the little
sister?
The days glided into weeks, the weeks into months. Thoughts of escape
had come to Sister Josepha, to flee into the world, to merge in the
great city where recognition was impossible, and, working her way like
the rest of humanity, perchance encounter the eyes again.
It was all planned and ready. She would wait until some morning when
the little band of black-robed sisters wended their way to mass at the
Cathedral. When it was time to file out the side-door into the
courtway, she would linger at prayers, then slip out another door, and
unseen glide up Chartres Street to Canal, and once there, mingle in the
throng that filled the wide thoroughfare. Beyond this first plan she
could think no further.
Penniless, garbed, and shaven though she would be, other difficulties
never presented themselves to her. She would rely on the mercies of
the world to help her escape from this torturing life of inertia. It
seemed easy now that the first step of decision had been taken.
The Saturday night before the final day had come, and she lay
feverishly nervous in her narrow little bed, wondering with wide-eyed
fear at the morrow. Pale-eyed Sister Dominica and Sister Francesca
were whispering together in the dark silence, and Sister Josepha's ears
pricked up as she heard her name.
"She is not well, poor child," said Francesca. "I fear the life is too
confining."
"It is best for her," was the reply. "You know, sister, how hard it
would be for her in the world, with no name but Camille, no friends,
and her beauty; and then--"
Sister Josepha heard no more, for her heart beating tumultuously in her
bosom drowned the rest. Like the rush of the bitter salt tide over a
drowning man clinging to a spar, came the complete submerging of her
hopes of another life. No name but Camille, that was true; no
nationality, for she could never tell from whom or whence she came; no
friends, and a beauty that not even an ungainly bonnet and shaven head
could hide. In a flash she realised the deception of the life she
would lead, and the cruel self-torture of wonder at her own identity.
Already, as if in anticipation of the world's questionings, she was
asking herself, "Who am I? What am I?"
The next morning the sisters du Sacre Coeur filed into the Cathedral at
High Mass, and bent devout knees at the general confession. "Confiteor
Deo omnipotenti," murmured the priest; and tremblingly one little
sister followed the words, "Je confesse a Dieu, tout puissant--que j'ai
beaucoup peche par pensees--c'est ma faute--c'est ma faute--c'est ma
tres grande faute."
The organ pealed forth as mass ended, the throng slowly filed out, and
the sisters paced through the courtway back into the brown convent
walls. One paused at the entrance, and gazed with swift longing eyes
in the direction of narrow, squalid Chartres Street, then, with a
gulping sob, followed the rest, and vanished behind the heavy door.
THE PRALINE WOMAN
The praline woman sits by the side of the Archbishop's quaint little
old chapel on Royal Street, and slowly waves her latanier fan over the
pink and brown wares.
"Pralines, pralines. Ah, ma'amzelle, you buy? S'il vous plait,
ma'amzelle, ces pralines, dey be fine, ver' fresh.
"Mais non, maman, you are not sure?
"Sho', chile, ma bebe, ma petite, she put dese up hissef. He's hans'
so small, ma'amzelle, lak you's, mais brune. She put dese up dis
morn'. You tak' none? No husban' fo' you den!
"Ah, ma petite, you tak'? Cinq sous, bebe, may le bon Dieu keep you
good!
"Mais oui, madame, I know you etranger. You don' look lak dese New
Orleans peop'. You lak' dose Yankee dat come down 'fo' de war."
Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, chimes the Cathedral bell across
Jackson Square, and the praline woman crosses herself.
"Hail, Mary, full of grace--
"Pralines, madame? You buy lak' dat? Dix sous, madame, an' one lil'
piece fo' lagniappe fo' madame's lil' bebe. Ah, c'est bon!
"Pralines, pralines, so fresh, so fine! M'sieu would lak' some fo'
he's lil' gal' at home? Mais non, what's dat you say? She's daid!
Ah, m'sieu, 'tis my lil' gal what died long year ago. Misere, misere!
"Here come dat lazy Indien squaw. What she good fo', anyhow? She jes'
sit lak dat in de French Market an' sell her file, an' sleep, sleep,
sleep, lak' so in he's blanket. Hey, dere, you, Tonita, how goes you'
beezness?
"Pralines, pralines! Holy Father, you give me dat blessin' sho'? Tak'
one, I know you lak dat w'ite one. It tas' good, I know, bien.
"Pralines, madame? I lak' you' face. What fo' you wear black? You'
lil' boy daid? You tak' one, jes' see how it tas'. I had one lil' boy
once, he jes' grow 'twell he's big lak' dis, den one day he tak' sick
an' die. Oh, madame, it mos' brek my po' heart. I burn candle in St.
Rocque, I say my beads, I sprinkle holy water roun' he's bed; he jes'
lay so, he's eyes turn up, he say 'Maman, maman,' den he die! Madame,
you tak' one. Non, non, no l'argent, you tak' one fo' my lil' boy's
sake.
"Pralines, pralines, m'sieu? Who mak' dese? My lil' gal, Didele, of
co'se. Non, non, I don't mak' no mo'. Po' Tante Marie get too ol'.
Didele? She's one lil' gal I 'dopt. I see her one day in de strit.
He walk so; hit col' she shiver, an' I say, 'Where you gone, lil' gal?'
and he can' tell. He jes' crip close to me, an' cry so! Den I tak'
her home wid me, and she say he's name Didele. You see dey wa'nt
nobody dere. My lil' gal, she's daid of de yellow fever; my lil' boy,
he's daid, po' Tante Marie all alone. Didele, she grow fine, she keep
house an' mek' pralines. Den, when night come, she sit wid he's guitar
an' sing,
"'Tu l'aime ces trois jours,
Tu l'aime ces trois jours,
Ma coeur a toi,
Ma coeur a toi,
Tu l'aime ces trois jours!'
"Ah, he's fine gal, is Didele!
"Pralines, pralines! Dat lil' cloud, h'it look lak' rain, I hope no.
"Here come dat lazy I'ishman down de strit. I don't lak' I'ishman, me,
non, dey so funny. One day one I'ishman, he say to me, 'Auntie, what
fo' you talk so?' and I jes' say back, 'What fo' you say "Faith an' be
jabers"?' Non, I don' lak I'ishman, me!
"Here come de rain! Now I got fo' to go. Didele, she be wait fo' me.
Down h'it come! H'it fall in de Meesseesip, an' fill up--up--so, clean
to de levee, den we have big crivasse, an' po' Tante Marie float away.
Bon jour, madame, you come again? Pralines! Pralines!"
ODALIE
Now and then Carnival time comes at the time of the good Saint
Valentine, and then sometimes it comes as late as the warm days in
March, when spring is indeed upon us, and the greenness of the grass
outvies the green in the royal standards.
Days and days before the Carnival proper, New Orleans begins to take on
a festive appearance. Here and there the royal flags with their
glowing greens and violets and yellows appear, and then, as if by
magic, the streets and buildings flame and burst like poppies out of
bud, into a glorious refulgence of colour that steeps the senses into a
languorous acceptance of warmth and beauty.
On Mardi Gras day, as you know, it is a town gone mad with folly. A
huge masked ball emptied into the streets at daylight; a meeting of all
nations on common ground, a pot-pourri of every conceivable human
ingredient, but faintly describes it all. There are music and flowers,
cries and laughter and song and joyousness, and never an aching heart
to show its sorrow or dim the happiness of the streets. A wondrous
thing, this Carnival!
But the old cronies down in Frenchtown, who know everything, and can
recite you many a story, tell of one sad heart on Mardi Gras years ago.
It was a woman's, of course; for "Il est toujours les femmes qui sont
malheureuses," says an old proverb, and perhaps it is right. This
woman--a child, she would be called elsewhere, save in this land of
tropical growth and precocity--lost her heart to one who never knew, a
very common story, by the way, but one which would have been quite
distasteful to the haughty judge, her father, had he known.
Odalie was beautiful. Odalie was haughty too, but gracious enough to
those who pleased her dainty fancy. In the old French house on Royal
Street, with its quaint windows and Spanish courtyard green and cool,
and made musical by the plashing of the fountain and the trill of caged
birds, lived Odalie in convent-like seclusion. Monsieur le Juge was
determined no hawk should break through the cage and steal his dove;
and so, though there was no mother, a stern duenna aunt kept faithful
watch.
Alas for the precautions of la Tante! Bright eyes that search for other
bright eyes in which lurks the spirit of youth and mischief are ever on
the look-out, even in church. Dutifully was Odalie marched to the
Cathedral every Sunday to mass, and Tante Louise, nodding devoutly over
her beads, could not see the blushes and glances full of meaning, a
whole code of signals as it were, that passed between Odalie and
Pierre, the impecunious young clerk in the courtroom.
Odalie loved, perhaps, because there was not much else to do. When one
is shut up in a great French house with a grim sleepy tante and no
companions of one's own age, life becomes a dull thing, and one is
ready for any new sensation, particularly if in the veins there bounds
the tempestuous Spanish-French blood that Monsieur le Juge boasted of.
So Odalie hugged the image of her Pierre during the week days, and
played tremulous little love-songs to it in the twilight when la Tante
dozed over her devotion book, and on Sundays at mass there were glances
and blushes, and mayhap, at some especially remembered time, the touch
of finger-tips at the holy-water font, while la Tante dropped her last
genuflexion.
Then came the Carnival time, and one little heart beat faster, as the
gray house on Royal Street hung out its many-hued flags, and draped its
grim front with glowing colours. It was to be a time of joy and
relaxation, when every one could go abroad, and in the crowds one could
speak to whom one chose. Unconscious plans formulated, and the petite
Odalie was quite happy as the time drew near.
"Only think, Tante Louise," she would cry, "what a happy time it is to
be!"
But Tante Louise only grumbled, as was her wont.
It was Mardi Gras day at last, and early through her window Odalie
could hear the jingle of folly bells on the maskers' costumes, the
tinkle of music, and the echoing strains of songs. Up to her ears
there floated the laughter of the older maskers, and the screams of the
little children frightened at their own images under the mask and
domino. What a hurry to be out and in the motley merry throng, to be
pacing Royal Street to Canal Street, where was life and the world!
They were tired eyes with which Odalie looked at the gay pageant at
last, tired with watching throng after throng of maskers, of the
unmasked, of peering into the cartsful of singing minstrels, into
carriages of revellers, hoping for a glimpse of Pierre the devout. The
allegorical carts rumbling by with their important red-clothed horses
were beginning to lose charm, the disguises showed tawdry, even the
gay-hued flags fluttered sadly to Odalie.
Mardi Gras was a tiresome day, after all, she sighed, and Tante Louise
agreed with her for once.
Six o'clock had come, the hour when all masks must be removed. The
long red rays of the setting sun glinted athwart the many-hued costumes
of the revellers trooping unmasked homeward to rest for the night's
last mad frolic.
Down Toulouse Street there came the merriest throng of all. Young men
and women in dainty, fairy-like garb, dancers, and dresses of the
picturesque Empire, a butterfly or two and a dame here and there with
powdered hair and graces of olden time. Singing with unmasked faces,
they danced toward Tante Louise and Odalie. She stood with eyes
lustrous and tear-heavy, for there in the front was Pierre, Pierre the
faithless, his arms about the slender waist of a butterfly, whose
tinselled powdered hair floated across the lace ruffles of his Empire
coat.
"Pierre!" cried Odalie, softly. No one heard, for it was a mere faint
breath and fell unheeded. Instead the laughing throng pelted her with
flowers and candy and went their way, and even Pierre did not see.
You see, when one is shut up in the grim walls of a Royal Street house,
with no one but a Tante Louise and a grim judge, how is one to learn
that in this world there are faithless ones who may glance tenderly
into one's eyes at mass and pass the holy water on caressing fingers
without being madly in love? There was no one to tell Odalie, so she
sat at home in the dull first days of Lent, and nursed her dear dead
love, and mourned as women have done from time immemorial over the
faithlessness of man. And when one day she asked that she might go
back to the Ursulines' convent where her childish days were spent, only
to go this time as a nun, Monsieur le Juge and Tante Louise thought it
quite the proper and convenient thing to do; for how were they to know
the secret of that Mardi Gras day?
LA JUANITA
If you never lived in Mandeville, you cannot appreciate the thrill of
wholesome, satisfied joy which sweeps over its inhabitants every
evening at five o'clock. It is the hour for the arrival of the "New
Camelia," the happening of the day. As early as four o'clock the
trailing smoke across the horizon of the treacherous Lake Pontchartrain
appears, and Mandeville knows then that the hour for its siesta has
passed, and that it must array itself in its coolest and fluffiest
garments, and go down to the pier to meet this sole connection between
itself and the outside world; the little, puffy, side-wheel steamer
that comes daily from New Orleans and brings the mail and the news.
On this particular day there was an air of suppressed excitement about
the little knot of people which gathered on the pier. To be sure,
there were no outward signs to show that anything unusual had occurred.
The small folks danced with the same glee over the worn boards, and
peered down with daring excitement into the perilous depths of the
water below. The sun, fast sinking in a gorgeous glow behind the pines
of the Tchefuncta region far away, danced his mischievous rays in much
the same manner that he did every other day. But there was a something
in the air, a something not tangible, but mysterious, subtle. You
could catch an indescribable whiff of it in your inner senses, by the
half-eager, furtive glances that the small crowd cast at La Juanita.
"Gar, gar, le bateau!" said one dark-tressed mother to the wide-eyed
baby. "Et, oui," she added, in an undertone to her companion. "Voila,
La Juanita!"
La Juanita, you must know, was the pride of Mandeville, the adored, the
admired of all, with her petite, half-Spanish, half-French beauty.
Whether rocking in the shade of the Cherokee-rose-covered gallery of
Grandpere Colomes' big house, her fair face bonnet-shaded, her dainty
hands gloved to keep the sun from too close an acquaintance, or
splashing the spray from the bow of her little pirogue, or fluffing her
skirts about her tiny feet on the pier, she was the pet and ward of
Mandeville, as it were, La Juanita Alvarez, since Madame Alvarez was a
widow, and Grandpere Colomes was strict and stern.
And now La Juanita had set her small foot down with a passionate stamp
before Grandpere Colomes' very face, and tossed her black curls about
her wilful head, and said she would go to the pier this evening to meet
her Mercer. All Mandeville knew this, and cast its furtive glances
alternately at La Juanita with two big pink spots in her cheeks, and at
the entrance to the pier, expecting Grandpere Colomes and a scene.
The sun cast red glows and violet shadows over the pier, and the pines
murmured a soft little vesper hymn among themselves up on the beach, as
the "New Camelia" swung herself in, crabby, sidewise, like a fat old
gentleman going into a small door. There was the clang of an important
bell, the scream of a hoarse little whistle, and Mandeville rushed to
the gang-plank to welcome the outside world. Juanita put her hand
through a waiting arm, and tripped away with her Mercer, big and blond
and brawny. "Un Americain, pah!" said the little mother of the black
eyes. And Mandeville sighed sadly, and shook its head, and was sorry
for Grandpere Colomes.
This was Saturday, and the big regatta would be Monday. Ah, that
regatta, such a one as Mandeville had never seen! There were to be
boats from Madisonville and Amite, from Lewisburg and Covington, and
even far-away Nott's Point. There was to be a Class A and Class B and
Class C, and the little French girls of the town flaunted their ribbons
down the one oak-shaded, lake-kissed street, and dared anyone to say
theirs were not the favourite colours.
In Class A was entered, "La Juanita,' captain Mercer Grangeman, colours
pink and gold." Her name, her colours; what impudence!
Of course, not being a Mandevillian, you could not understand the shame
of Grandpere Colomes at this. Was it not bad enough for his petite
Juanita, his Spanish blossom, his hope of a family that had held itself
proudly aloof from "dose Americain" from time immemorial, to have
smiled upon this Mercer, this pale-eyed youth? Was it not bad enough
for her to demean herself by walking upon the pier with him? But for a
boat, his boat, "un bateau Americain," to be named La Juanita! Oh, the
shame of it! Grandpere Colomes prayed a devout prayer to the Virgin
that "La Juanita" should be capsized.
Monday came, clear and blue and stifling. The waves of hot air danced
on the sands and adown the one street merrily. Glassily calm lay the
Pontchartrain, heavily still hung the atmosphere. Madame Alvarez cast
an inquiring glance toward the sky. Grandpere Colomes chuckled. He
had not lived on the shores of the treacherous Lake Pontchartrain for
nothing. He knew its every mood, its petulances and passions; he knew
this glassy warmth and what it meant. Chuckling again and again, he
stepped to the gallery and looked out over the lake, and at the pier,
where lay the boats rocking and idly tugging at their moorings. La
Juanita in her rose-scented room tied the pink ribbons on her dainty
frock, and fastened cloth of gold roses at her lithe waist.
It was said that just before the crack of the pistol La Juanita's tiny
hand lay in Mercer's, and that he bent his head, and whispered softly,
so that the surrounding crowd could not hear,--
"Juanita mine, if I win, you will?"
"Oui, mon Mercere, eef you win."
In another instant the white wings were off scudding before the rising
breeze, dipping their glossy boat-sides into the clear water, straining
their cordage in their tense efforts to reach the stake boats.
Mandeville indiscriminately distributed itself on piers, large and
small, bath-house tops, trees, and craft of all kinds, from pirogue,
dory, and pine-raft to pretentious cat-boat and shell-schooner.
Mandeville cheered and strained its eyes after all the boats, but
chiefly was its attention directed to "La Juanita."
"Ah, voila, eet is ahead!"
"Mais non, c'est un autre!"
"La Juanita! La Juanita!"
"Regardez Grandpere Colomes!"
Old Colomes on the big pier with Madame Alvarez and his granddaughter
was intently straining his weather-beaten face in the direction of
Nott's Point, his back resolutely turned upon the scudding white wings.
A sudden chuckle of grim satisfaction caused La Petite's head to toss
petulantly.
But only for a minute, for Grandpere Colomes' chuckle was followed by a
shout of dismay from those whose glance had followed his. You must
know that it is around Nott's Point that the storm king shows his wings
first, for the little peninsula guards the entrance which leads into
the southeast waters of the stormy Rigolets and the blustering Gulf.
You would know, if you lived in Mandeville, that when the pines on
Nott's Point darken and when the water shows white beyond like the
teeth of a hungry wolf, it is time to steer your boat into the mouth of
some one of the many calm bayous which flow silently throughout St.
Tammany parish into the lake. Small wonder that the cry of dismay went
up now, for Nott's Point was black, with a lurid light overhead, and
the roar of the grim southeast wind came ominously over the water.
La Juanita clasped her hands and strained her eyes for her namesake.
The racers had rounded the second stake-boat, and the course of the
triangle headed them directly for the lurid cloud.
You should have seen Grandpere Colomes then. He danced up and down the
pier in a perfect frenzy. The thin pale lips of Madame Alvarez moved
in a silent prayer; La Juanita stood coldly silent.
And now you could see that the advance guard of the southeast force had
struck the little fleet. They dipped and scurried and rocked, and you
could see the sails being reefed hurriedly, and almost hear the rigging
creak and moan under the strain. Then the wind came up the lake, and
struck the town with a tumultuous force. The waters rose and heaved in
the long, sullen ground-swell, which betokened serious trouble. There
was a rush of lake-craft to shelter. Heavy gray waves boomed against
the breakwaters and piers, dashing their brackish spray upon the
strained watchers; then with a shriek and a howl the storm burst full,
with blinding sheets of rain, and a great hurricane of Gulf wind that
threatened to blow the little town away.
La Juanita was proud. When Grandpere and Madame led her away in the
storm, though her face was white, and the rose mouth pressed close, not
a word did she say, and her eyes were as bright as ever before. It was
foolish to hope that the frail boats could survive such a storm. There
was not even the merest excuse for shelter out in the waters, and when
Lake Pontchartrain grows angry, it devours without pity.
Your tropical storm is soon over, however, and in an hour the sun
struggled through a gray and misty sky, over which the wind was
sweeping great clouds. The rain-drops hung diamond-like on the thick
foliage, but the long ground-swell still boomed against the breakwaters
and showed white teeth, far to the south.
As chickens creep from under shelter after a rain, so the people of
Mandeville crept out again on the piers, on the bath-houses, on the
breakwater edge, and watched eagerly for the boats. Slowly upon the
horizon appeared white sails, and the little craft swung into sight.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, counted
Mandeville. Every one coming in! Bravo! And a great cheer that swept
the whole length of the town from the post-office to Black Bayou went
up. Bravo! Every boat was coming in. But--was every man?
This was a sobering thought, and in the hush which followed it you
could hear the Q. and C. train thundering over the great lake-bridge,
miles away.
Well, they came into the pier at last, "La Juanita" in the lead; and as
Captain Mercer landed, he was surrounded by a voluble, chattering,
anxious throng that loaded him with questions in patois, in broken
English, and in French. He was no longer "un Americain" now, he was a
hero.
When the other eight boats came in, and Mandeville saw that no one was
lost, there was another ringing bravo, and more chattering of questions.
We heard the truth finally. When the storm burst, Captain Mercer
suddenly promoted himself to an admiralship and assumed command of his
little fleet. He had led them through the teeth of the gale to a small
inlet on the coast between Bayou Lacombe and Nott's Point, and there
they had waited until the storm passed. Loud were the praises of the
other captains for Admiral Mercer, profuse were the thanks of the
sisters and sweethearts, as he was carried triumphantly on the
shoulders of the sailors adown the wharf to the Maison Colomes.
The crispness had gone from Juanita's pink frock, and the cloth of gold
roses were wellnigh petalless, but the hand that she slipped into his
was warm and soft, and the eyes that were upturned to Mercer's blue
ones were shining with admiring tears. And even Grandpere Colomes, as
he brewed on the Cherokee-rose-covered gallery, a fiery punch for the
heroes, was heard to admit that "some time dose Americain can mos' be
lak one Frenchman."
And we danced at the betrothal supper the next week.
TITEE
It was cold that day. The great sharp north-wind swept out Elysian
Fields Street in blasts that made men shiver, and bent everything in
their track. The skies hung lowering and gloomy; the usually quiet
street was more than deserted, it was dismal.
Titee leaned against one of the brown freight cars for protection
against the shrill norther, and warmed his little chapped hands at a
blaze of chips and dry grass. "Maybe it'll snow," he muttered, casting
a glance at the sky that would have done credit to a practised seaman.
"Then won't I have fun! Ugh, but the wind blows!"
It was Saturday, or Titee would have been in school, the big yellow
school on Marigny Street, where he went every day when its bell boomed
nine o'clock, went with a run and a joyous whoop, ostensibly to imbibe
knowledge, really to make his teacher's life a burden.
Idle, lazy, dirty, troublesome boy, she called him to herself, as day
by day wore on, and Titee improved not, but let his whole class pass
him on its way to a higher grade. A practical joke he relished
infinitely more than a practical problem, and a good game at
pin-sticking was far more entertaining than a language lesson.
Moreover, he was always hungry, and would eat in school before the
half-past ten recess, thereby losing much good playtime for his
voracious appetite.
But there was nothing in natural history that Titee did not know.
He could dissect a butterfly or a mosquito hawk, and describe their
parts as accurately as a spectacled student with a scalpel and
microscope could talk about a cadaver. The entire Third District, with
its swamps and canals and commons and railroad sections, and its
wondrous, crooked, tortuous streets, was an open book to Titee. There
was not a nook or corner that he did not know or could not tell of.
There was not a bit of gossip among the gamins, little Creole and
Spanish fellows, with dark skins and lovely eyes, like spaniels, that
Titee could not tell of. He knew just exactly when it was time for
crawfish to be plentiful down in the Claiborne and Marigny canals; just
when a poor, breadless fellow might get a job in the big bone-yard and
fertilising factory, out on the railroad track; and as for the levee,
with its ships and schooners and sailors, how he could revel in them!
The wondrous ships, the pretty little schooners, where the
foreign-looking sailors lay on long moonlight nights, singing to their
guitars and telling great stories,--all these things and more could
Titee tell of. He had been down to the Gulf, and out on its
treacherous waters through the Eads jetties on a fishing-smack with
some jolly brown sailors, and could interest the whole school-room in
the talk-lessons, if he chose.
Titee shivered as the wind swept round the freight-cars. There isn't
much warmth in a bit of a jersey coat.
"Wish 'twas summer," he murmured, casting another sailor's glance at
the sky. "Don't believe I like snow; it's too wet and cold." And with
a last parting caress at the little fire he had builded for a minute's
warmth, he plunged his hands in his pockets, shut his teeth, and
started manfully on his mission out the railroad track toward the
swamps.
It was late when Titee came home, to such a home as it was, and he had
but illy performed his errand; so his mother beat him and sent him to
bed supperless. A sharp strap stings in cold weather, and a long walk
in the teeth of a biting wind creates a keen appetite. But if Titee
cried himself to sleep that night, he was up bright and early next
morning, had been to mass, devoutly kneeling on the cold floor, blowing
his fingers to keep them warm, and was home almost before the rest of
the family were awake.
There was evidently some great matter of business on the young man's
mind, for he scarcely ate his breakfast, and left the table soon,
eagerly cramming the remainder of his meal in his pockets.
"Ma foi, but what now?" mused his mother, as she watched his little
form sturdily trudging the track in the face of the wind; his head,
with the rimless cap thrust close on the shock of black hair, bent low;
his hands thrust deep in the bulging pockets.
"A new live play-toy h'it may be," ventured the father; "he is one
funny chil."
The next day Titee was late for school. It was something unusual, for
he was always the first on hand to fix some plan of mechanism to make
the teacher miserable. She looked reprovingly at him this morning,
when he came in during arithmetic class, his hair all wind-blown, his
cheeks rosy from a hard fight with the sharp blasts. But he made up
for his tardiness by his extreme goodness all day; just think, Titee
did not even eat once before noon, a something unparalleled in the
entire previous history of his school life.
When the lunch-hour came, and all the yard was a scene of feast and
fun, one of the boys found him standing by a post, disconsolately
watching a ham sandwich as it rapidly disappeared down the throat of a
sturdy, square-headed little fellow.
"Hello, Edgar," he said, "what you got fer lunch?"
"Nothin'," was the mournful reply.
"Ah, why don't you stop eatin' in school, fer a change? You don't ever
have nothin' to eat."
"I didn't eat to-day," said Titee, blazing up.
"You did!"
"I tell you I didn't!" and Titee's hard little fist planted a
punctuation mark on his comrade's eye.
A fight in the schoolyard! Poor Titee was in disgrace again. Still,
in spite of his battered appearance, a severe scolding from the
principal, lines to write, and a further punishment from his mother,
Titee scarcely remained for his dinner, but was off down the railroad
track with his pockets partly stuffed with the remnants of the scanty
meal.
And the next day Titee was tardy again, and lunchless too, and the
next, until the teacher, in despair, sent a nicely printed note to his
mother about him, which might have done some good, had not Titee taken
great pains to tear it up on the way home.
One day it rained, whole bucketsful of water, that poured in torrents
from a miserable, angry sky. Too wet a day for bits of boys to be
trudging to school, so Titee's mother thought; so she kept him at home
to watch the weather through the window, fretting and fuming like a
regular storm in miniature. As the day wore on, and the rain did not
abate, his mother kept a strong watch upon him, for he tried many times
to slip away.
Dinner came and went, and the gray soddenness of the skies deepened
into the blackness of coming night. Someone called Titee to go to bed,
and Titee was nowhere to be found.
Under the beds, in closets and corners, in such impossible places as
the soap-dish and water-pitcher even, they searched, but he had gone as
completely as if he had been spirited away. It was of no use to call
up the neighbors, he had never been near their houses, they affirmed,
so there was nothing to do but to go to the railroad track where Titee
had been seen so often trudging in the shrill north-wind.
With lanterns and sticks, and his little yellow dog, the rescuing party
started down the track. The rain had ceased falling, but the wind blew
a gale, scurrying great gray clouds over a fierce sky. It was not
exactly dark, though in this part of the city there is neither gas nor
electricity, and on such a night as this neither moon nor stars dared
show their faces in so gray a sky; but a sort of all-diffused
luminosity was in the air, as though the sea of atmosphere was charged
with an ethereal phosphorescence.
Search as they did, there were no signs of Titee. The soft earth
between the railroad ties crumbled between their feet without showing
any small tracks or footprints.
"Mais, we may as well return," said the big brother; "he is not here."
"Oh, mon Dieu," urged the mother, "he is, he is; I know it."
So on they went, slipping on the wet earth, stumbling over the loose
rocks, until a sudden wild yelp from Tiger brought them to a
standstill. He had rushed ahead of them, and his voice could be heard
in the distance, howling piteously.
With a fresh impetus the little muddy party hurried forward. Tiger's
yelps could be heard plainer and plainer, mingled now with a muffled,
plaintive little wail.
After a while they found a pitiful little heap of sodden rags, lying at
the foot of a mound of earth and stones thrown upon the side of the
track. It was Titee with a broken leg, all wet and miserable and
moaning.
They picked him up tenderly, and started to carry him home. But he
cried and clung to the mother, and begged not to go.
"Ah, mon pauvre enfant, he has the fever!" wailed the mother.
"No, no, it's my old man. He's hungry," sobbed Titee, holding out a
little package. It was the remnants of his dinner, all wet and
rain-washed.
"What old man?" asked the big brother.
"My old man. Oh, please, please don't go home till I see him. I'm not
hurting much, I can go."
So, yielding to his whim, they carried him farther away, down the sides
of the track up to an embankment or levee by the sides of the Marigny
Canal. Then the big brother, suddenly stopping, exclaimed:
"Why, here's a cave. Is it Robinson Crusoe?"
"It's my old man's cave," cried Titee. "Oh, please go in; maybe he's
dead."
There cannot be much ceremony in entering a cave. There is but one
thing to do,--walk in. This they did, and holding up the lantern,
beheld a weird sight. On a bed of straw and paper in one corner lay a
withered, wizened, white-bearded old man with wide eyes staring at the
unaccustomed light. In the other corner was an equally dilapidated cow.
"It's my old man!" cried Titee, joyfully. "Oh, please, grandpa, I
couldn't get here to-day, it rained all mornin' an' when I ran away, I
fell down an' broke something, an', oh, grandpa, I'm all tired an'
hurty, an' I'm so 'fraid you're hungry."
So the secret of Titee's jaunts down the railroad was out. In one of
his trips around the swamp-land, he had discovered the old man
exhausted from cold and hunger in the fields. Together they had found
this cave, and Titee had gathered the straw and paper that made the
bed. Then a tramp cow, old and turned adrift, too, had crept in and
shared the damp dwelling. And thither Titee had trudged twice a day,
carrying his luncheon in the morning and his dinner in the afternoon.
"There's a crown in heaven for that child," said the officer of charity
to whom the case was referred.
But as for Titee, when the leg was well, he went his way as before.
[Transcriber's Note: I have closed contractions, e.g. "was n't" has
become "wasn't".
I have also made the following changes to the text:
PAGE LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO
43 13 accordeon accordion
56 22 work But work. But
78 14 chere chere
122 12 "Bravo! "Bravo!"
170 17 tumultously tumultuously
216 5 be,' be,"]
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