up stories to supply the growing demand, it would not be fair to blame
her too severely. Indeed, it is not at all certain that, as the years
passed, she herself knew which of the marvellous tales she related were
true and which made to order.
"Yas, sir," she would say, "I ricollec' when all dis heah town wasn't
nothin' but a alligator swamp--no houses--no fences--no streets--no
gas-postes--no 'lection lights--no--_no river_--_no nothin'_!"
If she had only stopped before she got to the river, she would have kept
the faith of her hearers better, but it wouldn't have been half so
funny.
"There wasn't anything here then but you and the snakes, I suppose?" So
a boy answered her one day, thinking to tease her a little.
"Yas, me an' de snakes an' alligators an' Gineral Jackson an' my ole
marster's gran'daddy an'--"
"And Adam?" added the mischievous fellow, still determined to worry her
if possible.
"Yas, Marse Adam an' ole Mistus, Mis' Eve, an' de great big p'isonous
fork-tailed snake wha' snatch de apple dat Marse Adam an' Mis' Eve was
squabblin' over--an' et it up!"
When she had gotten this far, while the children chuckled, she began
reaching for her basket, that she had set down upon the _banquette_.
Lifting it to her head, now, she walled her eyes around mysteriously as
she added:
"Yas, an' you better look out fur dat p'isonous fork-tailed snake, caze
he's agoin' roun' hear right now; an' de favoristest dinner dat he
craves ter eat is des sech no-'count, sassy, questionin' street-boys
like you is."
And with a toss of her head that set her candy-basket swaying and a peal
of saw-teeth laughter, she started off, while her would-be teaser found
that the laugh was turned on himself.
It was sometimes hard to know when Easter was serious or when she was
amusing herself--when she was sensible or when she wandered in her mind.
And to the thoughtless it was always hard to take her seriously.
Only those who, through all her miserable rags and absurdities, saw the
very poor and pitiful old, old woman, who seemed always to be
companionless and alone, would sometimes wonder about her, and, saying a
kind and encouraging word, drop a few coins in her slim, black hand
without making her lower her basket. Or they would invite her to "call
at the house" for some old worn flannels or odds and ends of cold
victuals.
And there were a few who never forgot her in their Easter offerings, for
which, as for all other gifts, she was requested to "call at the back
gate." This seemed, indeed, the only way of reaching the weird old
creature, who had for so many years appeared daily upon the streets,
nobody seemed to know from where, disappearing with the going down of
the sun as mysteriously as the golden disk itself. Of course, if any one
had cared to insist upon knowing how she lived or where she stayed at
nights, he might have followed her at a distance. But it is sometimes
very easy for a very insignificant and needy person to rebuff those who
honestly believe themselves eager to help. And so, when Old Easter, the
candy-woman, would say, in answer to inquiries about her life, "I sleeps
at night 'way out by de Metarie Ridge Cemetery, an' gets up in de
mornin' up at de Red Church. I combs my ha'r wid de _latanier_, an'
washes my face in de Ole Basin," it was so easy for those who wanted to
help her to say to their consciences, "She doesn't want us to know where
she lives," and, after a few simple kindnesses, to let the matter drop.
The above ready reply to what she would have called their "searchin'
question" proved her a woman of quick wit and fine imagination. Anybody
who knows New Orleans at all well knows that Metarie Ridge Cemetery,
situated out of town in the direction of the lake shore, and the old Red
Church, by the riverside above Carrollton, are several miles apart.
People know this as well as they know that the _latanier_ is the
palmetto palm of the Southern wood, with its comb-like, many-toothed
leaves, and that the Old Basin is a great pool of scum-covered, murky
water, lying in a thickly-settled part of the French town, where numbers
of small sailboats, coming in through the bayou with their cargoes of
lumber from the coast of the Sound, lie against one another as they
discharge and receive their freight.
If all the good people who knew her in her grotesque and pitiful street
character had been asked suddenly to name the very poorest and most
miserable person in New Orleans, they would almost without doubt have
immediately replied, "Why, old Aunt Easter, the candy-woman. Who could
be poorer than she?"
To be old and black and withered and a beggar, with nothing to recommend
her but herself--her poor, insignificant, ragged self--who knew nobody
and whom nobody knew--that was to be poor, indeed.
Of course, Old Easter was not a professional beggar, but it was well
known that before she disappeared from the streets every evening one end
of her long candy-basket was generally pretty well filled with loose
paper parcels of cold victuals, which she was always sure to get at
certain kitchen doors from kindly people who didn't care for her poor
brown twists. There had been days in the past when Easter peddled light,
porous sticks of snow-white taffy, cakes of toothsome sugar-candy filled
with fresh orange-blossoms, and pralines of pecans or cocoa-nut. But one
cannot do everything.
One cannot be expected to remember General Jackson, spin long,
imaginative yarns of forgotten days, and make up-to-date pralines at the
same time. If the people who had ears to listen had known the thing to
value, this old, old woman could have sold her memories, her wit, and
even her imagination better than she had ever sold her old-fashioned
sweets.
But the world likes molasses candy. And so Old Easter, whose meagre
confections grew poorer as her stories waxed in richness, walked the
streets in rags and dirt and absolute obscurity.
An old lame dog, seeming instinctively to know her as his companion in
misery, one day was observed to crouch beside her, and, seeing him, she
took down her basket and entertained him from her loose paper parcels.
And once--but this was many years ago, and the incident was quite
forgotten now--when a crowd of street fellows began pelting Crazy Jake,
a foolish, half-paralyzed black boy, who begged along the streets,
Easter had stepped before him, and, after receiving a few of their clods
in her face, had struck out into the gang of his tormenters, grabbed two
of its principal leaders by the seats of their trousers, spanked them
until they begged for mercy, and let them go.
Nobody knew what had become of Crazy Jake after that. Nobody cared. The
poor human creature who is not due at any particular place at any
particular time can hardly be missed, even when the time comes when he
himself misses the _here_ and the _there_ where he has been wont to
spend his miserable days, even when he, perhaps having no one else, it
is possible that he misses his tormenters.
It was a little school-girl who saw the old woman lower her basket to
share her scraps with the street dog. It seemed to her a pretty act,
and so she told it when she went home. And she told it again at the next
meeting of the particular "ten" of the King's Daughters of which she was
a member.
And this was how the name of Easter, the old black candy-woman, came to
be written upon their little book as their chosen object of charity for
the coming year.
The name was not written, however, without some opposition, some
discussion, and considerable argument. There were several of the ten who
could not easily consent to give up the idea of sending their little
moneys to an Indian or a Chinaman--or to a naked black fellow in his
native Africa.
There is something attractive in the savage who sticks bright feathers
in his hair, carries a tomahawk, and wears moccasins upon his nimble
feet. Most young people take readily to the idea of educating a
picturesque savage and teaching him that the cast-off clothes they send
him are better than his beads and feathers. The picturesque quality is
very winning, find it where we may.
People at a distance may see how very much more interesting and
picturesque the old black woman, Easter, was than any of these, but she
did not seem so to the ten good little maidens who finally agreed to
adopt her for their own--to find her out in her home life, and to help
her.
With them it was an act of simple pity--an act so pure in its motive
that it became in itself beautiful.
Perhaps the idea gained a little following from the fact that Easter
Sunday was approaching, and there was a pleasing fitness in the old
woman's name when it was proposed as an object for their Easter
offerings. But this is a slight consideration.
Certainly when three certain very pious little maidens started out on
the following Saturday morning to find the old woman, Easter, they were
full of interest in their new object, and chattered like magpies, all
three together, about the beautiful things they were going to do for
her.
Somehow, it never occurred to them that they might not find her either
at the Jackson Street and St. Charles Avenue corner, or down near Lee
Circle, or at the door of the Southern Athletic Club, at the corner of
Washington and Prytania streets.
But they found her at none of the familiar haunts; they did not discover
any trace of her all that day, or for quite a week afterward. They had
inquired of the grocery-man at the corner where she often rested--of the
portresses of several schools where she sometimes peddled her candy at
recess-time, and at the bakery where she occasionally bought a loaf of
yesterday's bread. But nobody remembered having seen her recently.
Several people knew and were pleased to tell how she always started out
in the direction of the swamp every evening when the gas was lit in the
city, and that she turned out over the bridge along Melpomene Street,
stopping to collect stray bits of cabbage leaves and refuse vegetables
where the bridgeway leads through Dryades Market. Some said that she had
a friend there, who hid such things for her to find, under one of the
stalls, but this may not have been true.
It was on the Saturday morning after their first search that three
little "Daughters of the King" started out a second time, determined if
possible to trace Old Easter to her hiding-place.
It was a shabby, ugly, and crowded part of town in which, following the
bridged road, and inquiring as they went, they soon found themselves.
For a long time it seemed a fruitless search, and they were almost
discouraged when across a field, limping along before a half-shabby,
fallen gate, they saw an old, lame, yellow dog.
It was the story of her sharing her dinner with the dog on the street
that had won these eager friends for the old woman, and so, perhaps,
from an association of ideas, they crossed the field, timidly, half
afraid of the poor miserable beast that at once attracted and repelled
them.
But they need not have feared. As soon as he knew they were visitors,
the social fellow began wagging his little stump of a tail, and with a
sort of coaxing half-bark asked them to come in and make themselves at
home.
Not so cordial, however, was the shy and reluctant greeting of the old
woman, Easter, who, after trying in vain to rise from her chair as they
entered her little room, motioned to them to be seated on her bed. There
was no other seat vacant, the second chair of the house being in use by
a crippled black man, who sat out upon the back porch, nodding.
As they took their seats, the yellow dog, who had acted as usher,
squatted serenely in their midst, with what seemed a broad grin upon his
face, and then it was that the little maid who had seen the incident
recognized him as the poor old street dog who had shared old Easter's
dinner.
Two other dogs, poor, ugly, common fellows, had strolled out as they
came in, and there were several cats lying huddled together in the sun
beside the chair of the sleeping figure on the back porch.
It was a poor little home--as poor as any imagination could picture it.
There were holes in the floor--holes in the roof--cracks everywhere. It
was, indeed, not considered, to use a technical word, "tenable," and
there was no rent to pay for living in it.
But, considering things, it was pretty clean. And when its mistress
presently recovered from her surprise at her unexpected visitors, she
began to explain that "ef she'd 'a' knowed dey was comin' to call, she
would 'a' scoured up a little."
Her chief apologies, however, were for the house itself and its
location, "away outside o' quality neighborhoods in de swampy fields."
"I des camps out here, missy," she finally explained, "bec'ase dey's mo'
room an' space fur my family." And here she laughed--a high, cracked
peal of laughter--as she waved her hand in the direction of the back
porch.
"Dey ain't nobody ter pleg Crazy Jake out here, an' him an' me, wid deze
here lame an' crippled cats an' dogs--why, we sets out yonder an' talks
together in de evenin's after de 'lection lights is lit in de tower
market and de moon is lit in de sky. An' Crazy Jake--why, when de
moon's on de full, Crazy Jake he can talk knowledge good ez you kin. I
fetched him out here about a million years ago, time dey was puttin' him
in de streets, caze dey was gwine hurt him. An' he knows mighty smart,
git him ter talkin' right time o' de moon! But mos' gin'ally he forgits.
"Ef I hadn't 'a' fell an' sprained my leg las' week, de bread it
wouldn't 'a' 'mos' give out, like it is, but I done melt down de insides
o' some ole condense'-milk cans, an' soak de dry bread in it for him,
an' to-morrer I'm gwine out ag'in. Yas, to-morrer I'm bleeged to go,
caze you know to-morrer dats my birfday, an' all my family dey looks for
a party on my birfday--don't you, you yaller, stub-tail feller you! Ef e
warn't sort o' hongry, I'd make him talk fur yer; but I 'ain't learnt
him much yit. He's my new-comer!"
This last was addressed to the yellow dog.
[Illustration: "'DE CATS? WHY, HONEY, DEY WELCOME TO COME AN' GO'"]
"I had blin' Pete out here till 'istiddy. I done 'dopted him las' year,
but he struck out ag'in beggin', 'caze he say he can't stand dis heah
soaked victuals. But Pete, he ain't rale blin', nohow. He's des got a
sinkin' sperit, an' he can't work, an' I keeps him caze a sinkin' sperit
what ain't got no git-up to it hit's a heap wuss 'n blin'ness. He's got
deze heah yaller-whited eyes, an' when he draps his leds over 'em an'
trimbles 'em, you'd swear he was stone-blin', an' dat stuff wha' he
rubs on 'em it's inju'ious to de sight, so I keeps him and takes keer of
him now so I won't have a blin' man on my hands--an' to save him f'om
sin, too.
"Ma'am? What you say, missy? De cats? Why, honey, dey welcome to come
an' go. I des picked 'em up here an' dar 'caze dey was whinin'. Any
breathin' thing dat I sees dat's poorer 'n what I is, why, I fetches 'em
out once-t, an' dey mos' gin'ally stays.
"But if you yo'ng ladies 'll come out d'reckly after Easter Sunday, when
I got my pervisions in, why I'll show you how de ladies intertain dey
company in de old days when Gin'ral Jackson used ter po' de wine."
Needless to say, there was such a birthday party as had never before
been known in the little shanty on the Easter following the visit of the
three little maids of the King's Daughters.
When Old Easter had finished her duties as hostess, sharing her good
things equally with those who sat at her little table and those who
squatted in an outer circle on the floor, she remarked that it carried
her away back to old times when she stood behind the governor's chair
"while he h'isted his wineglass an' drink ter de ladies' side curls."
And Crazy Jake said yes, he remembered, too. And then he began to nod,
while blind Pete remarked, "To my eyes de purtiest thing about de whole
birfday party is de bo'quet o' Easter lilies in de middle o' de table."
SAINT IDYL'S LIGHT
SAINT IDYL'S LIGHT
You would never have guessed that her name was Idyl--the slender,
angular little girl of thirteen years who stood in her faded gown of
checkered homespun on the brow of the Mississippi River. And fancy a
saint balancing a bucket of water on top of her head!
Yet, as she puts the pail down beside her, the evening sun gleaming
through her fair hair seems to transform it into a halo, as some one
speaks her name, "Saint Idyl."
Her thin, little ears, sun-filled as she stands, are crimson disks; and
the outlines of her upper arms, dimly seen through the flimsy sleeves,
are as meagre as are the ankles above her bare, slim feet.
The appellation "Saint Idyl," given first in playful derision, might
have been long ago forgotten but for the incident which this story
records.
It was three years before, when the plantation children, colored and
white together, had been saying, as is a fashion with them, what they
would like to be.
One had chosen a "blue-eyed lady wid flounces and a pink fan," another a
"fine white 'oman wid long black curls an' ear-rings," and a third would
have been "a hoop-skirted lady wid a tall hat."
It was then that Idyl, the only white child of the group--the adopted
orphan of the overseer's family--had said:
"I'd choose to be a saint, like the one in the glass winder in the
church, with light shinin' from my head. I'd walk all night up and down
the 'road bend,' so travellers could see the way and wagons wouldn't get
stallded."
The children had shuddered and felt half afraid at this.
"But you'd git stallded yo'se'f in dat black mud--"
"An' de runaways in de canebrake 'd ketch yer--"
"An' de paterole'd shoot yer--"
"An' eve'body'd think you was a walkin' sperit, an' run away f'om yer."
So the protests had come in, though the gleaming eyes of the little
negroes had shown their delight in the fantastic idea.
"But I'd walk on a cloud, like the saint in the picture," Idyl had
insisted. "And my feet wouldn't touch the mud, and when the runaways
looked into my face, they'd try to be good and go back to their masters.
Nobody would hurt me. Tired horses would be glad to see my light, and
everybody would love me."
So, first laughingly, and then as a matter of habit, she had come to be
known as "Saint Idyl."
As she stands quite still, with face uplifted, out on the levee this
evening, one is reminded in looking at her of the "Maid of Domremi"
listening to the voices.
Idyl was in truth listening to voices--voices new, strange, and
solemn--voices of heavy, distant cannon.
It was the 23d of April, 1862. A few miles below Bijou Plantation
Farragut's fleet was storming the blockade at Fort Jackson. All along
the lower Mississippi it was a time of dread and terror.
The negroes, for the most part awed and terror-stricken, muttered
prayers as they went about, and all night long sang mournfully and
shouted and prayed in the churches or in groups in their cabins, or even
in the road.
The war had come at last. Its glare was upon the sky at night, and all
day long reiterated its persistent staccato menace:
"Boom-m-m! Gloom-m-m! Tomb-b-b! Doom-m-m!"
The air had never seemed to lose the vibratory tremor, "M-m-m!" since
the first gun, nearly six days ago.
It was as if the lips of the land were trembling. And the trembling lips
of the black mothers, as they pressed their babes to their bosoms,
echoed the wordless terror.
Death was in the air. Had they doubted it? In a field near by a shell
had fallen, burying itself in the earth, and, exploding, had sent two
men into the air, killing one and returning the other unhurt.
Now the survivor, saved as by a miracle, was preaching "The Wrath to
Come."
To quote from himself, he had "been up to heaven long enough to get
'ligion." He had "gone up a lost sinner and come down a saved soul.
Bless Gord!"
Regarding his life as charmed, the blacks followed him in crowds, while
he descanted upon the text: "Then two shall be in the field. One shall
be taken and the other left."
A great revival was in progress.
But this afternoon the levee at Bijou had been the scene of a new panic.
Rumor said that the blockade chain had been cut. Farragut's war monsters
might any moment come snorting up the river. Nor was this all. The only
local defence here was a volunteer artillery company of "Exempts." Old
"Captain Doc," their leader, also local druggist and postmaster (doctor
and minister only in emergency), was a unique and picturesque figure.
Full of bombast as of ultimate kindness of feeling, he was equally happy
in all of his four offices.
The "Rev. Capt. Doc, M.D.," as he was wont, on occasion, to call
himself--why drag in a personal name among titles in themselves
sufficiently distinguishing?--was by common consent the leading man with
a certain under-population along the coast. And when, three months
before, he had harangued them as to the patriot's duty of home defence,
there was not a worthy incapable present but enthusiastically enlisted.
The tension of the times forbade perception of the ludicrous. For three
months the "Riffraffs"--so they proudly called themselves--rheumatic,
deaf, palsied, halt, lame, and one or two nearly blind, had represented
"the cause," "the standing army," "le grand militaire," to the
inflammable imaginations of this handful of simple rural people of the
lower coast.
Of the nine "odds and ends of old cannon" which Captain Doc had been
able to collect, it was said that but one would carry a ball. Certainly,
of the remaining seven, one was of wood, an ancient gunsmith's sign, and
another a gilded papier-mache affair of a former Mystick Krewe.
Still, these answered for drill purposes, and would be replaced by
genuine guns when possible. They were quite as good for everything
excepting a battle, and in that case, of course, it would be a simple
thing "to seize the enemy's guns" and use them.
When the Riffraffs had paraded up and down the river road no one had
smiled, and if anybody realized that their captain wore the gorgeous
pompon of a drum-major, its fitness was not questioned.
It was becoming to him. It corresponded to his lordly strut, and was in
keeping with the stentorian tones that shouted "Halt!" or "Avance!"
Captain Doc appealed to Americans and creoles alike, and the Riffraffs
marched quite as often to the stirring measures of "La Marseillaise" as
to "The Bonny Blue Flag."
Ever since the first guns at the forts, the good captain had been
disporting himself in full feather. He was "ready for the enemy."
His was a pleasing figure, and even inspiring as a picturesque
embodiment of patriotic zeal; but when this afternoon the Riffraffs had
planted their artillery along the levee front, while the little captain
rallied them to "prepare to die by their guns," it was a different
matter.
The company, loyal to a man, had responded with a shout, the blacksmith,
to whose deaf ears his anvil had been silent for twenty years, throwing
up his hat with the rest, while the epileptic who manned the
papier-mache gun was observed to scream the loudest.
Suddenly a woman, catching the peril of the situation, shrieked:
"They're going to fire on the gunboats! We'll all be killed."
Another caught the cry, and another. A mad panic ensued; women with
babies in their arms gathered about Captain Doc, entreating him, with
tears and cries, to desist.
But for once the tender old man, whose old boast had been that one tear
from a woman's eyes "tore his heart open," was deaf to all entreaty.
The Riffraffs represented an injured faction. They had not been asked to
enlist with the "Coast Defenders"--since gone into active service--and
they seemed intoxicated by the present opportunity to "show the stuff
they were made of."
At nearly nightfall the women, despairing and wailing, had gone home.
Amid all the excitement the little girl Idyl had stood apart, silent. No
one had noticed her, nor that, when all the others had gone, she still
lingered.
Even Mrs. Magwire, the overseer's wife, with whom she lived, had
forgotten to hurry or to scold her. What emotions were surging in her
young bosom no one could know.
There was something in the cannon's roar that charmed her ear--something
suggestive of strength and courage. Within her memory she had known only
weakness and fear.
After the yellow scourge of '53, when she was but four years old, she
had realized vaguely that strange people with loud voices and red faces
had come to be to her in the place of father and mother, that the
Magwire babies were heavy to carry, and that their mother had but a poor
opinion of a "lazy hulk av a girrl that could not heft a washtub without
panting."