Bayou Folk and a Night in Acadie

  “Have you found the turkeys, Artemise?” Madame hastened to ask.

  “Ya, ’m.”

  “You Artemise!” shouted Aunt Florindy, the cook, who was passing through the hall with a batch of newly baked light bread. “She ’s a-lyin’, mist’ess, if dey ever was! You foun’ dem turkeys?” turning upon the child. “Whar was you at, de whole blesse’ time? Warn’t you stan’in’ plank up agin de back o’ de hen-’ous’? Never budged a inch? Don’t jaw me down, gal; don’t jaw me!” Artemise was only gazing at Aunt Florindy with unruffled calm. “I warn’t gwine tell on ’er, but arter dat untroof, I boun’ to.”

  “Let her alone, Aunt Florindy,” Madame interfered. “Where are the turkeys, Artemise?”

  “Yon’a,” she simply articulated, bringing the pump-handle motion of her arm into play.

  “Where ‘yonder’?” Madame demanded, a little impatiently.

  “In uh hen-’ous’!”

  Sure enough! The three missing turkeys had been accidentally locked up in the morning when the chickens were fed.

  Artemise, for some unknown reason, had hidden herself during the search behind the hen-house, and had heard their muffled gobble.

  Madame Célestin’s Divorce

  MADAME CÉLESTIN always wore a neat and snugly fitting calico wrapper when she went out in the morning to sweep her small gallery. Lawyer Paxton thought she looked very pretty in the gray one that was made with a graceful Watteau fold1 at the back: and with which she invariably wore a bow of pink ribbon at the throat. She was always sweeping her gallery when lawyer Paxton passed by in the morning on his way to his office in St. Denis Street.

  Sometimes he stopped and leaned over the fence to say good-morning at his ease; to criticise or admire her rosebushes; or, when he had time enough, to hear what she had to say. Madame Célestin usually had a good deal to say. She would gather up the train of her calico wrapper in one hand, and balancing the broom gracefully in the other, would go tripping down to where the lawyer leaned, as comfortably as he could, over her picket fence.

  Of course she had talked to him of her troubles. Every one knew Madame Célestin’s troubles.

  “Really, madame,” he told her once, in his deliberate, calculating, lawyer-tone, “it ’s more than human nature—woman’s nature—should be called upon to endure. Here you are, working your fingers off”—she glanced down at two rosy finger-tips that showed through the rents in her baggy doeskin gloves—“taking in sewing; giving music lessons; doing God knows what in the way of manual labor to support yourself and those two little ones”—Madame Célestin’s pretty face beamed with satisfaction at this enumeration of her trials.

  “You right, Judge. Not a picayune, not one, not one, have I lay my eyes on in the pas’ fo’ months that I can say Célestin give it to me or sen’ it to me.”

  “The scoundrel!” muttered lawyer Paxton in his beard.

  “An’ pourtant,”2 she resumed, “they say he ’s making money down roun’ Alexandria w’en he wants to work.”

  “I dare say you have n’t seen him for months?” suggested the lawyer.

  “It ’s good six month’ since I see a sight of Célestin,” she admitted.

  “That ’s it, that ’s what I say; he has practically deserted you; fails to support you. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit to learn that he has ill treated you.”

  “Well, you know, Judge,” with an evasive cough, “a man that drinks—w’at can you expec’? An’ if you would know the promises he has made me! Ah, If I had as many dolla’ as I had promise from Célestin, I would n’ have to work, je vous garantis.”3

  “And in my opinion, Madame, you would be a foolish woman to endure it longer, when the divorce court is there to offer you redress.”

  “You spoke about that befo’, Judge; I ’m goin’ think about that divo’ce. I believe you right.”

  Madame Célestin thought about the divorce and talked about it, too; and lawyer Paxton grew deeply interested in the theme.

  “You know, about that divo’ce, Judge,” Madame Célestin was waiting for him that morning, “I been talking to my family an’ my frien’s, an’ it ’s me that tells you, they all plumb agains’ that divo’ce.”

  “Certainly, to be sure; that ’s to be expected, Madame, in this community of Creoles. I warned you that you would meet with opposition, and would have to face it and brave it.”

  “Oh, don’t fear, I ’m going to face it! Maman says it ’s a disgrace like it ’s neva been in the family. But it ’s good for Maman to talk, her. W’at trouble she ever had? She says I mus’ go by all means consult with Père Duchéron—it ’s my confessor, you undastan’—Well, I ’ll go, Judge, to please Maman. But all the confessor’ in the worl’ ent goin’ make me put up with that conduc’ of Célestin any longa.”

  A day or two later, she was there waiting for him again. “You know, Judge, about that divo’ce.”

  “Yes, yes,” responded the lawyer, well pleased to trace a new determination in her brown eyes and in the curves of her pretty mouth. “I suppose you saw Père Duchéron and had to brave it out with him, too.”

  “Oh, fo’ that, a perfec’ sermon, I assho you. A talk of giving scandal an’ bad example that I thought would neva en’! He says, fo’ him, he wash’ his hands; I mus’ go see the bishop.”

  “You won’t let the bishop dissuade you, I trust,” stammered the lawyer more anxiously than he could well understand.

  “You don’t know me yet, Judge,” laughed Madame Célestin with a turn of the head and a flirt of the broom which indicated that the interview was at an end.

  “Well, Madame Célestin! And the bishop!” Lawyer Paxton was standing there holding to a couple of the shaky pickets. She had not seen him. “Oh, it ’s you, Judge?” and she hastened towards him with an empressement4 that could not but have been flattering.

  “Yes, I saw Monseigneur,” she began. The lawyer had already gathered from her expressive countenance that she had not wavered in her determination. “Ah, he ’s a eloquent man. It ’s not a mo’ eloquent man in Natchitoches parish. I was fo’ced to cry, the way he talked to me about my troubles; how he undastan’s them, an’ feels for me. It would move even you, Judge, to hear how he talk’ about that step I want to take; its danga, its temptation. How it is the duty of a Catholic to stan’ everything till the las’ extreme. An’ that life of retirement an’ self-denial I would have to lead,—he tole me all that.”

  “But he has n’t turned you from your resolve, I see,” laughed the lawyer complacently.

  “For that, no,” she returned emphatically. “The bishop don’t know w’at it is to be married to a man like Célestin, an’ have to endu’ that conduc’ like I have to endu’ it. The Pope himse’f can’t make me stan’ that any longer, if you say I got the right in the law to sen’ Célestin sailing.”

  A noticeable change had come over lawyer Paxton. He discarded his work-day coat and began to wear his Sunday one to the office. He grew solicitous as to the shine of his boots, his collar, and the set of his tie. He brushed and trimmed his whiskers with a care that had not before been apparent. Then he fell into a stupid habit of dreaming as he walked the streets of the old town. It would be very good to take unto himself a wife, he dreamed. And he could dream of no other than pretty Madame Célestin filling that sweet and sacred office as she filled his thoughts, now. Old Natchitoches would not hold them comfortably, perhaps; but the world was surely wide enough to live in, outside of Natchitoches town.

  His heart beat in a strangely irregular manner as he neared Madame Célestin’s house one morning, and discovered her behind the rosebushes, as usual plying her broom. She had finished the gallery and steps and was sweeping the little brick walk along the edge of the violet border.

  “Good-morning, Madame Célestin.”

  “Ah, it ’s you, Judge? Good-morning.” He waited. She seemed to be doing the same. Then she ventured, with some hesitancy, “You know, Judge, about that divo’ce. I been thinking,—I reckon you bet
ta neva mine about that divo’ce.” She was making deep rings in the palm of her gloved hand with the end of the broomhandle, and looking at them critically. Her face seemed to the lawyer to be unusually rosy; but maybe it was only the reflection of the pink bow at the throat. “Yes, I reckon you need n’ mine. You see, Judge, Célestin came home las’ night. An’ he ’s promise me on his word an’ honor he ’s going to turn ova a new leaf.”

  Love on the Bon-Dieu

  UPON the pleasant veranda of Père Antoine’s cottage, that adjoined the church, a young girl had long been seated, awaiting his return. It was the eve of Easter Sunday, and since early afternoon the priest had been engaged in hearing the confessions of those who wished to make their Easters the following day. The girl did not seem impatient at his delay; on the contrary, it was very restful to her to lie back in the big chair she had found there, and peep through the thick curtain of vines at the people who occasionally passed along the village street.

  She was slender, with a frailness that indicated lack of wholesome and plentiful nourishment. A pathetic, uneasy look was in her gray eyes, and even faintly stamped her features, which were fine and delicate. In lieu of a hat, a barège veil covered her light brown and abundant hair. She wore a coarse white cotton “josie,”1 and a blue calico skirt that only half concealed her tattered shoes.

  As she sat there, she held carefully in her lap a parcel of eggs securely fastened in a red bandana handkerchief.

  Twice already a handsome, stalwart young man in quest of the priest had entered the yard, and penetrated to where she sat. At first they had exchanged the uncompromising “howdy” of strangers, and nothing more. The second time, finding the priest still absent, he hesitated to go at once. Instead, he stood upon the step, and narrowing his brown eyes, gazed beyond the river, off towards the west, where a murky streak of mist was spreading across the sun.

  “It look like mo’ rain,” he remarked, slowly and carelessly.

  “We done had ’bout ’nough,” she replied, in much the same tone.

  “It’s no chance to thin out the cotton,” he went on.

  “An’ the Bon-Dieu,” she resumed, “it ’s on’y to-day you can cross him on foot.”

  “You live yonda on the Bon-Dieu, donc?” he asked, looking at her for the first time since he had spoken.

  “Yas, by Nid d’Hibout,2 m’sieur.”

  Instinctive courtesy held him from questioning her further. But he seated himself on the step, evidently determined to wait there for the priest. He said no more, but sat scanning critically the steps, the porch, and pillar beside him, from which he occasionally tore away little pieces of detached wood, where it was beginning to rot at its base.

  A click at the side gate that communicated with the churchyard soon announced Père Antoine’s return. He came hurriedly across the garden-path, between the tall, lusty rosebushes that lined either side of it, which were now fragrant with blossoms. His long, flapping cassock added something of height to his undersized, middle-aged figure, as did the skullcap which rested securely back on his head. He saw only the young man at first, who rose at his approach.

  “Well, Azenor,” he called cheerily in French, extending his hand. “How is this? I expected you all the week.”

  “Yes, monsieur; but I knew well what you wanted with me, and I was finishing the doors for Gros-Léon’s new house;” saying which, he drew back, and indicated by a motion and look that some one was present who had a prior claim upon Père Antoine’s attention.

  “Ah, Lalie!” the priest exclaimed, when he had mounted to the porch, and saw her there behind the vines. “Have you been waiting here since you confessed? Surely an hour ago!”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “You should rather have made some visits in the village, child.”

  “I am not acquainted with any one in the village,” she returned.

  The priest, as he spoke, had drawn a chair, and seated himself beside her, with his hands comfortably clasping his knees. He wanted to know how things were out on the bayou.

  “And how is the grandmother?” he asked. “As cross and crabbed as ever? And with that”—he added reflectively—“good for ten years yet! I said only yesterday to Butrand—you know Butrand, he works on Le Blôt’s Bon-Dieu place—‘And that Madame Zidore: how is it with her, Butrand? I believe God has forgotten her here on earth.’ ‘It is n’t that, your reverence,’ said Butrand, ‘but it’s neither God nor the Devil that wants her!’ ” And Père Antoine laughed with a jovial frankness that took all sting of ill-nature from his very pointed remarks.

  Lalie did not reply when he spoke of her grandmother; she only pressed her lips firmly together, and picked nervously at the red bandana.

  “I have come to ask, Monsieur Antoine,” she began, lower than she needed to speak—for Azenor had withdrawn at once to the far end of the porch—“to ask if you will give me a little scrap of paper—a piece of writing for Monsieur Chartrand at the store over there. I want new shoes and stockings for Easter, and I have brought eggs to trade for them. He says he is willing, yes, if he was sure I would bring more every week till the shoes are paid for.”

  With good-natured indifference, Père Antoine wrote the order that the girl desired. He was too familiar with distress to feel keenly for a girl who was able to buy Easter shoes and pay for them with eggs.

  She went immediately away then, after shaking hands with the priest, and sending a quick glance of her pathetic eyes towards Azenor, who had turned when he heard her rise, and nodded when he caught the look. Through the vines he watched her cross the village street.

  “How is it that you do not know Lalie, Azenor? You surely must have seen her pass your house often. It lies on her way to the Bon-Dieu.”

  “No, I don’t know her; I have never seen her,” the young man replied, as he seated himself—after the priest—and kept his eyes absently fixed on the store across the road, where he had seen her enter.

  “She is the granddaughter of that Madame Izidore”—

  “What! Ma’ame Zidore whom they drove off the island last winter?”

  “Yes, yes. Well, you know, they say the old woman stole wood and things,—I don’t know how true it is,—and destroyed people’s property out of pure malice.”

  “And she lives now on the Bon-Dieu?”

  “Yes, on Le Blôt’s place, in a perfect wreck of a cabin. You see, she gets it for nothing; not a negro on the place but has refused to live in it.”

  “Surely, it can’t be that old abandoned hovel near the swamp, that Michon occupied ages ago?”

  “That is the one, the very one.”

  “And the girl lives there with that old wretch?” the young man marveled.

  “Old wretch to be sure, Azenor. But what can you expect from a woman who never crosses the threshold of God’s house—who even tried to hinder the child doing so as well? But I went to her. I said: ‘See here, Madame Zidore,’—you know it ’s my way to handle such people without gloves,—‘you may damn your soul if you choose,’ I told her, ‘that is a privilege which we all have; but none of us has a right to imperil the salvation of another. I want to see Lalie at mass hereafter on Sundays, or you will hear from me;’ and I shook my stick under her nose. Since then the child has never missed a Sunday. But she is half starved, you can see that. You saw how shabby she is—how broken her shoes are? She is at Chartrand’s now, trading for new ones with those eggs she brought, poor thing! There is no doubt of her being ill-treated. Butrand says he thinks Madame Zidore even beats the child. I don’t know how true it is, for no power can make her utter a word against her grandmother.”

  Azenor, whose face was a kind and sensitive one, had paled with distress as the priest spoke; and now at these final words he quivered as though he felt the sting of a cruel blow upon his own flesh.

  But no more was said of Lalie, for Père Antoine drew the young man’s attention to the carpenter-work which he wished to intrust to him. When they had talked the matter over in all i
ts lengthy details, Azenor mounted his horse and rode away.

  A moment’s gallop carried him outside the village. Then came a half-mile strip along the river to cover. Then the lane to enter, in which stood his dwelling midway, upon a low, pleasant knoll.

  As Azenor turned into the lane, he saw the figure of Lalie far ahead of him. Somehow he had expected to find her there, and he watched her again as he had done through Père Antoine’s vines. When she passed his house, he wondered if she would turn to look at it. But she did not. How could she know it was his? Upon reaching it himself, he did not enter the yard, but stood there motionless, his eyes always fastened upon the girl’s figure. He could not see, away off there, how coarse her garments were. She seemed, through the distance that divided them, as slim and delicate as a flower-stalk. He stayed till she reached the turn of the lane and disappeared into the woods.

  Mass had not yet begun when Azenor tiptoed into church on Easter morning. He did not take his place with the congregation, but stood close to the holy-water font, and watched the people who entered.

  Almost every girl who passed him wore a white mull, a dotted swiss, or a fresh-starched muslin at least. They were bright with ribbons that hung from their persons, and flowers that bedecked their hats. Some carried fans and cambric handkerchiefs. Most of them wore gloves, and were odorant of poudre de riz3 and nice toilet-waters; while all carried gay little baskets filled with Easter-eggs.

  But there was one who came empty-handed, save for the worn prayer-book which she bore. It was Lalie, the veil upon her head, and wearing the blue print and cotton bodice which she had worn the day before.

  He dipped his hand into the holy water when she came, and held it out to her, though he had not thought of doing this for the others. She touched his fingers with the tips of her own, making a slight inclination as she did so; and after a deep genuflection before the Blessed Sacrament, passed on to the side. He was not sure if she had known him. He knew she had not looked into his eyes, for he would have felt it.