She was left alone to watch and nurse him one day. An accommodating neighbor who had become the possessor of a fine new spring wagon passed by just after the noon-hour meal, and offered to take the whole family on a jaunt to town. The offer was all the more tempting as Tontine had some long-delayed shopping to do; and the opportunity to equip the children with shoes and summer hats could not be slighted. So away they all went. All but Bibine, who was left swinging in his branle with only Loka for company.
This branle consisted of a strong circular piece of cotton cloth, securely but slackly fastened to a large, stout hoop suspended by three light cords to a hook in a rafter of the gallery. The baby who has not swung in a branle does not know the quintessence of baby luxury. In each of the four rooms of the house was a hook from which to hang this swing.
Often it was taken out under the trees. But to-day it swung in the shade of the open gallery; and Loka sat beside it, giving it now and then a slight impetus that sent it circling in slow, sleep-inspiring undulations.
Bibine kicked and cooed as long as he was able. But Loka was humming a monotonous lullaby; the branle was swaying to and fro, the warm air fanning him deliciously; and Bibine was soon fast asleep.
Seeing this, Loka quietly let down the mosquito net, to protect the child’s slumber from the intrusion of the many insects that were swarming in the summer air.
Singularly enough, there was no work for her to do; and Tontine, in her hurried departure, had failed to provide for the emergency. The washing and ironing were over; the floors had been scrubbed, and the rooms righted; the yard swept; the chickens fed; vegetables picked and washed. There was absolutely nothing to do, and Loka gave herself up to the dreams of idleness.
As she sat comfortably back in the roomy rocker, she let her eyes sweep lazily across the country. Away off to the right peeped up, from amid densely clustered trees, the pointed roofs and long pipe of the steam-gin of Laballière’s. No other habitation was visible except a few low, flat dwellings far over the river, that could hardly be seen.
The immense plantation took up all the land in sight. The few acres that Baptiste Padue cultivated were his own, that Laballière, out of friendly consideration, had sold to him. Baptiste’s fine crop of cotton and corn was “laid by” just now, waiting for rain; and Baptiste had gone with the rest of the family to town. Beyond the river and the field and everywhere about were dense woods.
Loka’s gaze, that had been slowly traveling along the edge of the horizon, finally fastened upon the woods, and stayed there. Into her eyes came the absent look of one whose thought is projected into the future or the past, leaving the present blank. She was seeing a vision. It had come with a whiff that the strong south breeze had blown to her from the woods.
She was seeing old Marot, the squaw who drank whiskey and plaited baskets and beat her. There was something, after all, in being beaten, if only to scream out and fight back, as at that time in Natchitoches, when she broke a glass on the head of a man who laughed at her and pulled her hair, and called her “fool names.”
Old Marot wanted her to steal and cheat, to beg and lie, when they went out with the baskets to sell. Loka did not want to. She did not like to. That was why she had run away—and because she was beaten. But—but ah! the scent of the sassafras leaves hanging to dry in the shade! The pungent camomile! The sound of the bayou tumbling over that old slimy log! Only to lie there for hours and watch the glistening lizards glide in and out was worth a beating.
She knew the birds must be singing in chorus out there in the woods where the gray moss was hanging, and the trumpetvine trailing from the trees, spangled with blossoms. In spirit she heard the songsters.
She wondered if Choctaw Joe and Sambite played dice every night by the campfire, as they used to do; and if they still fought and slashed each other when wild with drink. How good it felt to walk with moccasined feet over the springy turf, under the trees! What fun to trap the squirrels, to skin the otter; to take those swift flights on the pony that Choctaw Joe had stolen from the Texans!
Loka sat motionless; only her breast heaved tumultuously. Her heart was aching with savage homesickness. She could not feel just then that the sin and pain of that life were anything beside the joy of its freedom.
Loka was sick for the woods. She felt she must die if she could not get back to them, and to her vagabond life. Was there anything to hinder her? She stooped and unlaced the brogans that were chafing her feet, removed them and her stockings, and threw the things away from her. She stood up all a-quiver, panting, ready for flight.
But there was a sound that stopped her. It was little Bibine, cooing, sputtering, battling hands and feet with the mosquito net that he had dragged over his face. The girl uttered a sob as she reached down for the baby she had grown to love so, and clasped him in her arms. She could not go and leave Bibine behind.
Tontine began to grumble at once when she discovered that Loka was not at hand to receive them on their return.
“Bon!” she exclaimed. “Now w’ere is that Loka? Ah, that girl, she aggravates me too much. Firs’ thing she knows I ’m goin’ sen’ her straight back to them ban’ of lady w’ere she come frum.”
“Loka!” she called, in short, sharp tones, as she traversed the house and peered into each room. “Lo—ka!” She cried loudly enough to be heard half a mile away when she got out upon the back gallery. Again and again she called.
Baptiste was exchanging the discomfort of his Sunday coat for the accustomed ease of shirt sleeves.
“Mais don’t git so excite, Tontine,” he implored. “I ’m sho she ’s yonda to the crib shellin’ co’n, or somew’ere like that.”
“Run, François, you, an’ see to the crib,” the mother commanded. “Bibine mus’ be starve! Run to the hen-house an’ look, Juliette. Maybe she ’s fall asleep in some corna. That ’ll learn me ’notha time to go trus’ une pareille sauvage3 with my baby, va!”
When it was discovered that Loka was nowhere in the immediate vicinity, Tontine was furious.
“Pas possible4 she ’s walk to Laballière, with Bibine!” she exclaimed.
“I ’ll saddle the hoss an’ go see, Tontine,” interposed Baptiste, who was beginning to share his wife’s uneasiness.
“Go, go, Baptiste,” she urged. “An’ you, boys, run yonda down the road to ole Aunt Judy’s cabin an’ see.”
It was found that Loka had not been seen at Laballière’s, nor at Aunt Judy’s cabin; that she had not taken the boat, that was still fastened to its moorings down the bank. Then Tontine’s excitement left her. She turned pale and sat quietly down in her room, with an unnatural calm that frightened the children.
Some of them began to cry. Baptiste walked restlessly about, anxiously scanning the country in all directions. A wretched hour dragged by. The sun had set, leaving hardly an afterglow, and in a little while the twilight that falls so swiftly would be there.
Baptiste was preparing to mount his horse, to start out again on the round he had already been over. Tontine sat in the same state of intense abstraction when François, who had perched himself among the lofty branches of a chinaberry-tree, called out: “Ent that Loka ’way yon’a, jis’ come out de wood? climbin’ de fence down by de melon patch?”
It was difficult to distinguish in the gathering dusk if the figure were that of man or beast. But the family was not left long in suspense. Baptiste sped his horse away in the direction indicated by François, and in a little while he was galloping back with Bibine in his arms; as fretful, sleepy and hungry a baby as ever was.
Loka came trudging on behind Baptiste. He did not wait for explanations; he was too eager to place the child in the arms of its mother. The suspense over, Tontine began to cry; that followed naturally, of course. Through her tears she managed to address Loka, who stood all tattered and disheveled in the doorway; “W’ere you been? Tell me that.”
“Bibine an’ me,” answered Loka, slowly and awkwardly, “we was lonesome—we been take lit’ ’bro
ad in de wood.”
“You did n’ know no betta ’an to take ’way Bibine like that? W’at Ma’ame Laballière mean, anyhow, to sen’ me such a objec’ like you, I want to know?”
“You go’n’ sen’ me ’way?” asked Loka, passing her hand in a hopeless fashion over her frowzy hair.
“Par exemple! straight you march back to that ban’ w’ere you come from. To give me such a fright like that! pas possible.”
“Go slow, Tontine; go slow,” interposed Baptiste.
“Don’ sen’ me ’way frum Bibine,” entreated the girl, with a note in her voice like a lament.
“To-day,” she went on, in her dragging manner, “I want to run ’way bad, an’ take to de wood; an’ go yonda back to Bayou Choctaw to steal an’ lie agin. It ’s on’y Bibine w’at hole me back. I could n’ lef’ ’im. I could n’ do dat. An’ we jis’ go take lit’ ’broad in de wood, das all, him an’ me. Don’ sen’ me ’way like dat!”
Baptiste led the girl gently away to the far end of the gallery, and spoke soothingly to her. He told her to be good and brave, and he would right the trouble for her. He left her standing there and went back to his wife.
“Tontine,” he began, with unusual energy, “you got to listen to the truth—once fo’ all.” He had evidently determined to profit by his wife’s lachrymose and wilted condition to assert his authority.
“I want to say who ’s masta in this house—it ’s me,” he went on. Tontine did not protest; only clasped the baby a little closer, which encouraged him to proceed.
“You been grind that girl too much. She ent a bad girl—I been watch her close, ’count of the chil’ren; she ent bad. All she want, it ’s li’le mo’ rope. You can’t drive a ox with the same gearin’ you drive a mule. You got to learn that, Tontine.”
He approached his wife’s chair and stood beside her.
“That girl, she done tole us how she was temp’ to-day to turn canaille—5 like we all temp’ sometime’. W’at was it save her? That li’le chile w’at you hole in yo’ arm. An’ now you want to take her guarjun angel ’way f’om her? Non, non, ma femme,”6 he said, resting his hand gently upon his wife’s head. “We got to rememba she ent like you an’ me, po’ thing; she ’s one Injun, her.”
Boulôt and Boulotte
WHEN Boulôt and Boulotte,1 the little piny-wood twins, had reached the dignified age of twelve, it was decided in family council that the time had come for them to put their little naked feet into shoes. They were two brown-skinned, black-eyed ’Cadian roly-polies, who lived with father and mother and a troop of brothers and sisters halfway up the hill, in a neat log cabin that had a substantial mud chimney at one end. They could well afford shoes now, for they had saved many a picayune through their industry of selling wild grapes, blackberries, and “socoes” to ladies in the village who “put up” such things.
Boulôt and Boulotte were to buy the shoes themselves, and they selected a Saturday afternoon for the important transaction, for that is the great shopping time in Natchitoches Parish. So upon a bright Saturday afternoon Boulôt and Boulotte, hand in hand, with their quarters, their dimes, and their picayunes tied carefully in a Sunday handkerchief, descended the hill, and disappeared from the gaze of the eager group that had assembled to see them go.
Long before it was time for their return, this same small band, with ten year old Seraphine at their head, holding a tiny Seraphin in her arms, had stationed themselves in a row before the cabin at a convenient point from which to make quick and careful observation.
Even before the two could be caught sight of, their chattering voices were heard down by the spring, where they had doubtless stopped to drink. The voices grew more and more audible. Then, through the branches of the young pines, Boulotte’s blue sun-bonnet appeared, and Boulôt’s straw hat. Finally the twins, hand in hand, stepped into the clearing in full view.
Consternation seized the band.
“You bof crazy donc, Boulôt an’ Boulotte,” screamed Seraphine. “You go buy shoes, an’ come home barefeet like you was go!”
Boulôt flushed crimson. He silently hung his head, and looked sheepishly down at his bare feet, then at the fine stout brogans that he carried in his hand. He had not thought of it.
Boulotte also carried shoes, but of the glossiest, with the highest of heels and brightest of buttons. But she was not one to be disconcerted or to look sheepish; far from it.
“You ’spec’ Boulôt an’ me we got money fur was’e—us?” she retorted, with withering condescension. “You think we go buy shoes fur ruin it in de dus’? Comment!”
And they all walked into the house crestfallen; all but Boulotte, who was mistress of the situation, and Seraphin, who did not care one way or the other.
For Marse Chouchoute
“AN’ NOW, young man, w’at you want to remember is this—an’ take it fer yo’ motto: ‘No monkey-shines with Uncle Sam.’ You undastan’? You aware now o’ the penalties attached to monkey-shinin’ with Uncle Sam. I reckon that’s ’bout all I got to say; so you be on han’ promp’ to-morrow mornin’ at seven o’clock, to take charge o’ the United States mail-bag.”
This formed the close of a very pompous address delivered by the postmaster of Cloutierville to young Armand Verchette, who had been appointed to carry the mails from the village to the railway station three miles away.
Armand—or Chouchoute,1 as every one chose to call him, following the habit of the Creoles in giving nicknames—had heard the man a little impatiently.
Not so the negro boy who accompanied him. The child had listened with the deepest respect and awe to every word of the rambling admonition.
“How much you gwine git, Marse Chouchoute?” he asked, as they walked down the village street together, the black boy a little behind. He was very black, and slightly deformed; a small boy, scarcely reaching to the shoulder of his companion, whose castoff garments he wore. But Chouchoute was tall for his sixteen years, and carried himself well.
“W’y, I’m goin’ to git thirty dolla’ a month, Wash; w’at you say to that? Betta ’an hoein’ cotton, ain’t it?” He laughed with a triumphant ring in his voice.
But Wash did not laugh; he was too much impressed by the importance of this new function, too much bewildered by the vision of sudden wealth which thirty dollars a month meant to his understanding.
He felt, too, deeply conscious of the great weight of responsibility which this new office brought with it. The imposing salary had confirmed the impression left by the postmaster’s words.
“You gwine git all dat money? Sakes! W’at you reckon Ma’ame Verchette say? I know she gwine mos’ take a fit w’en she heah dat.”
But Chouchoute’s mother did not “mos’ take a fit” when she heard of her son’s good fortune. The white and wasted hand which she rested upon the boy’s black curls trembled a little, it is true, and tears of emotion came into her tired eyes. This step seemed to her the beginning of better things for her fatherless boy.
They lived quite at the end of this little French village, which was simply two long rows of very old frame houses, facing each other closely across a dusty roadway.
Their home was a cottage, so small and so humble that it just escaped the reproach of being a cabin.
Every one was kind to Madame Verchette. Neighbors ran in of mornings to help her with her work—she could do so little for herself. And often the good priest, Père Antoine, came to sit with her and talk innocent gossip.
To say that Wash was fond of Madame Verchette and her son is to be poor in language to express devotion. He worshiped her as if she were already an angel in Paradise.
Chouchoute was a delightful young fellow; no one could help loving him. His heart was as warm and cheery as his own southern sunbeams. If he was born with an unlucky trick of forgetfulness—or better, thoughtlessness—no one ever felt much like blaming him for it, so much did it seem a part of his happy, careless nature. And why was that faithful watch-dog, Wash, always at Marse Chou
choute’s heels, if it were not to be hands and ears and eyes to him, more than half the time?
One beautiful spring night, Chouchoute, on his way to the station, was riding along the road that skirted the river. The clumsy mail-bag that lay before him across the pony was almost empty; for the Cloutierville mail was a meagre and unimportant one at best.
But he did not know this. He was not thinking of the mail, in fact; he was only feeling that life was very agreeable this delicious spring night.
There were cabins at intervals upon the road—most of them darkened, for the hour was late. As he approached one of these, which was more pretentious than the others, he heard the sound of a fiddle, and saw lights through the openings of the house.
It was so far from the road that when he stopped his horse and peered through the darkness he could not recognize the dancers who passed before the open doors and windows. But he knew this was Gros-Léon’s ball, which he had heard the boys talking about all the week.
Why should he not go and stand in the doorway an instant and exchange a word with the dancers?
Chouchoute dismounted, fastened his horse to the fence-post, and proceeded towards the house.
The room, crowded with people young and old, was long and low, with rough beams across the ceiling, blackened by smoke and time. Upon the high mantelpiece a single coal-oil lamp burned, and none too brightly.
In a far corner, upon a platform of boards laid across two flour barrels, sat Uncle Ben, playing upon a squeaky fiddle, and shouting the “figures.”