CONVERGING LINES.
On the prairies of Vermilion and Lafayette, winter is virtually over
by the first week in February. From sky to sky, each tree and field,
each plain and plantation grove, are putting on the greenery of a
Northern May. Even on Côte Gelée the housewife has persuaded _le
vieux_ to lay aside his gun, and the early potatoes are already
planted. If the moon be at the full, much ground is ready for the
sower; and those ploughmen and pony teams and men working along behind
them with big, clumsy hoes, over in yonder field, are planting corn.
Those silent, tremulous strands of black that in the morning sky come
gliding, high overhead, from the direction of the great sea-marshes
and fade into the northern blue, are flocks that have escaped the
murderous gun of the pot-hunter. Spring and Summer are driving these
before them as the younger and older sister, almost abreast, come
laughing, and striving to outrun each other across the Mexican Gulf.
Those two travellers on horseback, so dwarfed by distance, whom you
see approaching out of the north-west, you shall presently find have
made, in their dress, no provision against cold. At Carancro, some
miles away to the north-east, there is a thermometer; and somewhere in
Vermilionville, a like distance to the south-east, there might
possibly be found a barometer; but there is no need of either to tell
that the air to-day is threescore and ten and will be more before it
is less. Before the riders draw near you have noticed that only one is
a man and the other a woman. And now you may see that he is sleek and
alert, blonde and bland, and the savage within us wants to knock off
his silk hat. All the more so for that she is singularly pretty to be
met in his sole care. The years count on her brows, it is true, but
the way in which they tell of matronhood--and somehow of widowhood
too--is a very fair and gentle way. Her dress is plain, but its lines
have a grace that is also dignity; and the lines of her face--lines is
too hard a word for them--are not those of time, but of will and of
care, that have chastened and refined one another. She speaks only now
and then. Her companion's speech fills the wide intervals.
"Yesterday morning," he says, "as I came along here a little after
sunrise, there was a thin fog lying only two or three feet deep, close
to the level ground as far as you could see, hiding the whole prairie,
and making it look for all the world like a beautiful lake, with every
here and there a green grove standing out of it like a real little
island."
She replies that she used to see it so in her younger days. The
Acadian accent is in her words. She lifts her black eyes, looks toward
Carancro, and is silent.
"You're thinking of the changes," says her escort.
"Yass; _'tis_ so. Dey got twenty time' many field' like had befo'.
Peop' don't raise cattl' no more; raise crop'. Dey say even dat land
changin'."
"How changing?"
"I dunno. I dunno if _'tis_ so. Dey say prairie risin' mo' higher
every year. I dunno if _'tis_ so. I t'ink dat land don't change much;
but de peop', yass."
"Still, the changes are mostly good changes," responds the male rider.
"'Tisn't the prairie, but the people that are rising. They've got the
schoolhouse, and the English language, and a free paid labor system,
and the railroads, and painted wagons, and Cincinnati furniture, and
sewing-machines, and melodeons, and Horsford's Acid Phosphate; and
they've caught the spirit of progress!"
"Yass, _'tis_ so. Dawn't see nobody seem satisfied--since de
army--since de railroad."
"Well, that's right enough; they oughtn't to be satisfied. You're not
satisfied, are you? And yet you've never done so well before as you
have this season. I wish I could say the same for the 'Album of
Universal Information;' but I can't. I tell you that, Madame
Beausoleil; I wouldn't tell anybody else."
Zoséphine responds with a dignified bow. She has years ago noticed in
herself, that, though she has strength of will, she lacks clearness
and promptness of decision. She is at a loss, now, to know what to do
with Mr. Tarbox. Here he is for the seventh time. But there is always
a plausible explanation of his presence, and a person of more tactful
propriety, it seems to her, never put his name upon her tavern
register or himself into her company. She sees nothing shallow or
specious in his dazzling attainments; they rekindle the old ambitions
in her that Bonaventure lighted; and although Mr. Tarbox's modest
loveliness is not visible, yet a certain fundamental rectitude,
discernible behind all his nebulous gaudiness, confirms her liking.
Then, too, he has earned her gratitude. She has inherited not only her
father's small fortune, but his thrift as well. She can see the
sagacity of Mr. Tarbox's advice in pecuniary matters, and once and
once again, when he has told her quietly of some little operation into
which he and the ex-governor--who "thinks the world of me," he
says--were going to dip, and she has accepted his invitation to
venture in also, to the extent of a single thousand dollars, the money
has come back handsomely increased. Even now, the sale of all her
prairie lands to her former kinsmen-in-law, which brought her out here
yesterday and lets her return this morning, is made upon his
suggestion, and is so advantageous that somehow, she doesn't know
why, she almost fears it isn't fair to the other side. The fact is,
the country is passing from the pastoral to the agricultural life, the
prairies are being turned into countless farms, and the people are
getting wealth. So explains Mr. Tarbox, whose happening to come along
this morning bound in her direction is pure accident--pure accident.
"No, the 'A. of U. I.' hasn't done its best," he says again. "For one
thing, I've had other fish to fry. You know that." He ventures a
glance at her eyes, but they ignore it, and he adds, "I mean other
financial matters."
"_'Tis_ so," says Zoséphine; and Mr. Tarbox hopes the reason for this
faint repulse is only the nearness of this farmhouse peeping at them
through its pink veil of blossoming peach-trees, as they leisurely
trot by.
"Yes," he says; "and, besides, 'Universal Information' isn't what this
people want. The book's too catholic for them."
"Too Cat'oleek!" Zoséphine raises her pretty eyebrows in grave
astonishment--"'Cadian' is all Cat'oleek."
"Yes, yes, ecclesiastically speaking, I know. That wasn't my meaning.
Your smaller meaning puts my larger one out of sight; yes, just as
this Cherokee hedge puts out of sight the miles of prairie fields, and
even that house we just passed. No, the 'A. of U. I.,'--I love to call
it that; can you guess why?" There is a venturesome twinkle in his
smile, and even a playful permission in her own as she shakes her
head.
"Well, I'll tell you; it's because it brings U and I so near
together."
"Hah!" exclaims Madame Beausoleil, warningly, yet with sunshine and
cloud on her brow at once. She likes her companion's wit, always so
deep, and yet always so delicately pointed! His hearty laugh just now
disturbs her somewhat, but they are out on the wide plain again,
without a spot in all the sweep of her glance where an eye or an ear
may ambush them or their walking horses.
"No," insists her fellow-traveller; "I say again, as I said before,
the 'A. of U. I.'"--he pauses at the initials, and Zoséphine's faint
smile gives him ecstasy--"hasn't done its best. And yet it has done
beautifully! Why, when did you ever see such a list as this?" He
dexterously draws from an extensive inner breast-pocket, such as no
coat but a book-agent's or a shoplifter's would be guilty of, a wide,
limp, morocco-bound subscription-book. "Here!" He throws it open upon
the broad Texas pommel. "Now, just for curiosity, look at it--oh! you
can't see it from away off there, looking at it sideways!" He gives
her a half-reproachful, half-beseeching smile and glance, and gathers
up his dropped bridle. They come closer. Their two near shoulders
approach each other, the two elbows touch, and two dissimilar hands
hold down the leaves. The two horses playfully bite at each other; it
is their way of winking one eye.
"Now, first, here's the governor's name; and then his son's, and his
nephew's, and his other son's, and his cousin's. And here's Pierre
Cormeaux, and Baptiste Clément, you know, at Carancro; and here's
Basilide Sexnailder, and Joseph Cantrelle, and Jacques Hébert; see?
And Gaudin, and Laprade, Blouin, and Roussel,--old Christofle Roussel
of Beau Bassin,--Duhon, Roman and Simonette Le Blanc, and Judge
Landry, and Thériot,--Colonel Thériot,--Martin, Hébert again,
Robichaux, Mouton, Mouton again, Robichaux again, Mouton--oh, I've got
'em all!--Castille, Beausoleil--cousin of yours? Yes, he said so; good
fellow, thinks you're the greatest woman alive." The two dissimilar
hands, in turning a leaf, touch, and the smaller one leaves the book.
"And here's Guilbeau, and Latiolais, and Thibodeaux, and Soudrie, and
Arcenaux--flowers of the community--'I gather them in,'--and here's a
page of Côte Gelée people, and--Joe Jefferson hadn't got back to the
Island yet, but I've got his son; see? And here's--can you make out
this signature? It's written so small"--
Both heads,--with only the heavens and the dear old earth-mother to
see them,--both heads bend over the book; the hand that had retreated
returns, but bethinks itself and withdraws again; the eyes of Mr.
Tarbox look across their corners at the sedate brow so much nearer his
than ever it has been before, until that brow feels the look, and
slowly draws away. Look to your mother, Marguerite; look to her! But
Marguerite is not there, not even in Vermilionville; nor yet in
Lafayette parish; nor anywhere throughout the wide prairies of
Opelousas or Attakapas. Triumph fills Mr. Tarbox's breast.
"Well," he says, restoring the book to its hiding-place, "seems like
I ought to be satisfied with that; doesn't it to you?"
It does; Zoséphine says so. She sees the double meaning, and Mr.
Tarbox sees that she sees it, but must still move cautiously. So he
says:
"Well, I'm not satisfied. It's perfect as far as it goes, but don't
expect me to be satisfied with it. If I've seemed satisfied, shall I
tell you why it was, my dear--friend?"
Zoséphine makes no reply; but her dark eyes meeting his for a moment,
and then falling to her horse's feet, seem to beg for mercy.
"It's because," says Mr. Tarbox, while her heart stands still, "it's
because I've made"--there is an awful pause--"more money without the
'A. of U. I.' this season than I've made with it."
Madame Beausoleil catches her breath, shows relief in every feature,
lifts her eyes with sudden brightness, and exclaims:
"Dass good! Dass mighty good, yass! _'Tis_ so."
"Yes, it is; and I tell you, and you only, because I'm proud to
believe you're my sincere friend. Am I right?"
Zoséphine busies herself with her riding-skirt, shifts her seat a
little, and with studied carelessness assents.
"Yes," her companion repeats; "and so I tell you. The true business
man is candid to all, communicative to none. And yet I open my heart
to you. I can't help it; it won't stay shut. And you must see, I'm
sure you must, that there's something more in there besides money;
don't you?" His tone grows tender.
Madame Beausoleil steals a glance toward him,--a grave, timid glance.
She knows there is safety in the present moment. Three horsemen,
strangers, far across the field in their front, are coming toward
them, and she feels an almost proprietary complacence in a suitor whom
she can safely trust to be saying just the right nothings when those
shall meet them and ride by. She does not speak; but he says:
"You know there is, dear Jos----friend!" He smiles with modest
sweetness. "G. W. Tarbox doesn't run after money, and consequently he
never runs past much without picking it up." They both laugh in
decorous moderation. The horsemen are drawing near; they are Acadians.
"I admit I love to make money. But that's not my chief pleasure. My
chief pleasure is the study of human nature.
'The proper study of mankind is man.
* * * * *
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.'
"This season I've been studying these Acadian people. And I like them!
They don't like to be reminded that they're Acadians. Well, that's
natural; the Creoles used to lord it over them so when the Creoles
were slave-holding planters and they were small farmers. That's about
past now. The Acadians are descended from peasants, that's true, while
some Creoles are from the French nobility. But, hooh! wouldn't any
fair-minded person"--the horsemen are within earshot; they are
staring at the silk hat--"Adjieu."
"Adjieu." They pass.
"--Wouldn't any fair-minded person that knows what France was two or
three hundred years ago--show you some day in the 'Album'--about as
lief be descended from a good deal of that peasantry as from a good
deal of that nobility? I should smile! Why, my dear--friend, the day's
coming when the Acadians will be counted as good French blood as there
is in Louisiana! They're the only white people that ever trod this
continent--island or mainland--who never on their own account
oppressed anybody. Some little depredation on their British neighbors,
out of dogged faithfulness to their king and church,--that's the worst
charge you can make. Look at their history! all poetry and pathos!
Look at their character! brave, peaceable, loyal, industrious,
home-loving"--
But Zoséphine was looking at the speaker. Her face is kindled with the
inspiration of his praise. His own eyes grow ardent.
"Look at their women! Ah, Josephine, I'm looking at one! Don't turn
away.
--'One made up
Of loveliness alone;
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon.'
'The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command.'
"You can't stop me, Josephine; it's got to come, and come right now.
I'm a homeless man, Josephine, tired of wandering, with a heart bigger
and weaker than I ever thought I had. I want you! I love you! I've
never loved anybody before in my life except myself, and I don't find
myself as lovely as I used. Oh, take me, Josephine! I don't ask you to
love as if you'd never loved another. I'll take what's left, and be
perfectly satisfied! I know you're ambitious, and I love you for that!
But I do think I can give you a larger life. With you for a wife, I
believe I could be a man you needn't be ashamed of. I'm already at the
head of my line. Best record in the United States, Josephine, whether
by the day, week, month, year, or locality. But if you don't like the
line, I'll throw up the 'A. of U. I.' and go into any thing you say;
for I want to lift you higher, Josephine. You're above me already, by
nature and by rights, but I can lift you, I know I can. You've got no
business keeping tavern; you're one of Nature's aristocrats. Yes, you
are! and you're too young and lovely to stay a widow--in a State where
there's more men than there's women. There's a good deal of the hill
yet to climb before you start down. Oh, let's climb it together,
Josephine! I'll make you happier than you are, Josephine; I haven't
got a bad habit left; such as I had, I've quit; it don't pay. I don't
drink, chew, smoke, tell lies, swear, quarrel, play cards, make debts,
nor belong to a club--be my wife! Your daughter 'll soon be leaving
you. You can't be happy alone. Take me! take me!" He urges his horse
close--her face is averted--and lays his hand softly but firmly on
her two, resting folded on the saddle-horn. They struggle faintly and
are still; but she slowly shakes her hanging head.
"O Josephine! you don't mean no, do you? Look this way! you don't mean
no?" He presses his hand passionately down upon hers. Her eyes do not
turn to his; but they are lifted tearfully to the vast, unanswering
sky, and as she mournfully shakes her head again, she cries,--
"I dunno! I dunno! I can't tell! I got to see Marguerite."
"Well, you'll see her in an hour, and if she"--
"Naw, naw! 'tis not so; Marguerite is in New Orleans since Christmas."
Very late in the evening of that day Mr. Tarbox entered the principal
inn of St. Martinville, on the Teche. He wore an air of blitheness
which, though silent, was overdone. As he pushed his silk hat back on
his head, and registered his name with a more than usual largeness of
hand, he remarked:
"'Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.'
"Give me a short piece of candle and a stumpy candlestick--and
'Take me up, and bear me hence
Into some other chamber'"--
"Glad to see you back, Mr. Tarbox," responded the host; and as his
guest received the candle and heard the number of his room,--"books
must 'a' went well this fine day."
Mr. Tarbox fixed him with his eye, drew a soft step closer, said in a
low tone:
"'My only books
Were woman's looks,
And folly's all they've taught me.'"
The landlord raised his eyebrows, rounded his mouth, and darted out
his tongue. The guest shifted the candle to his left hand, laid his
right softly upon the host's arm, and murmured:
"List! Are we alone? If I tell thee something, wilt thou tell it
never?"
The landlord smiled eagerly, shook his head, and bent toward his
speaker.
"Friend Perkins," said Mr. Tarbox, in muffled voice--
"'So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave, at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.'
"Don't let the newspapers get hold of it--good-night."
But it was only at daybreak that Mr. Tarbox disordered the drapery of
his couch to make believe he had slept there, and at sunrise he was
gone to find Claude.