Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
THE RIVER'S CHILDREN
AN IDYL OF THE MISSISSIPPI
By RUTH McENERY STUART
AUTHOR OF "SONNY," "HOLLY AND PIZEN," "MORIAH'S MOURNING," "NAPOLEON
JACKSON," ETC.
With Pictures by
Barry C. Edwards
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1904
Copyright, 1904, by
THE CENTURY CO.
Copyright, 1903, by
PHELPS PUBLISHING CO.
_Published October, 1904_
THE DE VINNE PRESS
[Illustration: "Upon the brow of the levee"]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Upon the brow of the levee
Gangs of men, reinforcing suspicious danger points with pickax and spade
Sipped iced orange syrup or claret sangaree
The brave, unthinking fellow, after embracing his beloved, dashed to the
front
Her arms were about his knees
THE RIVER'S CHILDREN
AN IDYL OF THE MISSISSIPPI
PART FIRST
The Mississippi was flaunting itself in the face of opposition along its
southern banks. It had carried much before it in its downward path ere
it reached New Orleans. A plantation here, a low-lying settlement there,
a cotton-field in bloom under its brim, had challenged its waters and
been taken in, and there was desolation in its wake.
In certain weak places above and below the city, gangs of men--negroes
mostly--worked day and night, reinforcing suspicious danger-points with
pickax and spade. At one place an imminent crevasse threatened life and
property to such a degree that the workers were conscripted and held to
their posts by promises of high wages, abetted by periodical passage
along the line of a bucket and gourd dipper.
[Illustration: "Gangs of men, reinforcing suspicious danger points with
pickax and spade"]
There was apparently nothing worse than mirth and song in the bucket.
Concocted to appeal to the festive instinct of the dark laborers as much
as to steady their hands and sustain courage, it was colored a fine pink
and floated ice lumps and bits of lemon when served. Yet there was a
quality in it which warmed as it went, and spurred pickax and spade to
do their best--spurred their wielders often to jest and song, too, for
there was scarcely a secure place even along the brimming bank where one
might not, by listening, catch the sound of laughter or of rhythmic
voices:
"Sing, nigger, sing! Sing yo' hymn!
De river, she's a-boomin'--she's a-comin _che-bim_!
Swim, nigger, swim!
"Sing, nigger, sing! Sing yo' rhyme!
De waters is a-floodin'--dey's a-roarin' on time!
Climb, squirrel, climb!"
At this particular danger-spot just below the city, a number of
cotton-bales, contributed by planters whose fortunes were at stake, were
placed in line against a threatening break as primary support, staked
securely down and chained together.
Over these were cast everything available, to raise their height. It was
said that even barrels of sugar and molasses were used, and shiploads of
pig-iron, with sections of street railways ripped from their ties. Then
barrels of boiling tar, tarpaulins, and more chains. And then--
And then there were prayers--and messages to the priests up at the old
St. Louis Cathedral, where many of the wives were kneeling--and reckless
gifts of money to the poor.
A few of the men who had not entered church for years were seen to cross
themselves covertly; and one, a convivial creole of a rather racy
reputation, was even observed, through the sudden turn of a lantern one
night, to take from his pocket a miniature statue of St. Joseph, and to
hold it between his eyes and the sky while he, too, crossed himself. And
the boon companion who smiled at the sight did himself make upon his own
breast a tiny sign of the cross in the dark, even as he moved toward his
friend to chaff him. And when, in turning, he dimly descried the outline
of a distant spire surmounted by a cross against the stars, he did
reverently lift his hat.
"It can't do any harm, anyhow," he apologized to himself; but when he
had reached his friend, he remarked dryly:
"You don't mean to tell me, Felix, dat you pray to St. Joseph yet, you
old sinner! Excuse me, but dose passing lantern, dey give you away."
"Pray to St. Joseph? I would pray to de devil to-night, me, Adolphe, if
I believed he would drive de river down."
"Sh! Don't make comparison between St. Joseph an' de devil, Felix. Not
to-night, anyhow."
"I di'n' done dat, Adolphe. No! _Pas du tout_. Not at all. H'only, I
say, me, I _would_ pray to de devil _if_ he could help us out."
He laughed and shrugged his shoulders as he added recklessly:
"Yas, I would be one mud-catfish caught on his forked tail--just for
to-night--an' let him drag me behind him in de river, if--"
"But you mus' ricollec', de devil he don't play wid water, Felix. Fire
is his--fire an' brimstone--"
"Ah-h-h! Bah, Adolphe! Who is trying to talk sense to-night? Dose row of
warehouse yonder, dey are _all full_, an' on my one pair shoulder. _My_
li'l' crop is not'ing. I got in doze warehouse, waiting for a _sure_
rise in de market--all on my ob_stin_ate judgment--everyt'ing of _my
brudder_, _my t'ree cousin_, _my wife_, _my mud'-in-law_,--just
t'ink!--not to speak about t'irty-five or forty small consignment. Sure!
I would pray to _anyt'ing_ to-night--to save dem. I would pray to one
_crawfish_ not to work dis way. Dem crawfish hole is de devil.
"But dat St. Joseph in my pocket! My mudder, I am sure she put it dere.
She an' my sisters, dey will all kneel many hours at deir _prie-dieux_
to-night--po' t'ings!"
"An' yo' wife--she also, of co'se--"
"My wife?" The man chuckled. "Pff! Ah, no! She is at de opera. She knows
I am watching de river. She believe it cannot run over so long I watch
it. I married her yo'ng. Dat's de bes' way.
"_Mais_, tell de trut', Adolphe, I am going to church, me, after dis.
Dere's not'ing, after all, like God to stand in wid you! You hear me, I
tell you to-night de rizzen our women keep good an' happy--_it is
faith_. You know da's true."
"Yas, I believe you, Felix. An' me, I t'ink I will go, too. _Any_'ow,
I'll show up at Easter communion. An' dat's a soon promise, too. T'ree
week las' Sunday it will be here.
"All my yard is w'ite wid dem Easter lilies already. Dis soon spring
compel dem. Wen you smell doze Bermudas above de roses in your garden
in de middle of Lent, look out for Old Lady Mississippi. She is getting
ready to spread her flounces over yo' fields--"
"Yas, an' to dance on yo' family graves. You may say w'at you like,
Adolphe--de ruling lady of dis low valley country, it is not de Carnival
Queen; it is not de first lady at de Governor's Mansion. It is--let us
raise our hats--it is Old Lady Mississippi! _She is_ de ruling lady of
de Gulf country--old _mais_ forever yo'ng.
"In my _ril_igion I have no superstition. I swallow it whole--even w'en
I mus' shut my nose--I mean hol' my eyes. W'at is de matter wid me? I
cannot talk straight to-night. _Mais_ to speak of de river, I mus'
confess to you dat even w'en it is midsummer an' she masquerade like
common dirty waters, I _pro_pitiate her.
"Once, I can tell you, I was rowing one skiff across by de red church,
an' suddenly--for w'y I di' n' see immediately--_mais_ out of de still
water, mixed into bubbles only by my oars, over my hand came one _big
wave_. I looked quick, but I could see only de sun to blind my eyes.
_Mais_ you know w'at I did?
"Dat bright sun, it _re_flect a small stone in my ring, one diamond, an'
quick I slip it off an' drop it. It was de river's _pet_ition, an' w'at
is a sixty-five-dollar diamond to a man w'en--"
"Dey ain' got no _in_sanity in yo' family, I don't t'ink, Felix?
Otherwise--excuse me--I would be oneasy for you."
Adolphe was smiling, and he mischievously lifted one brow and drew up
his lips as if to whistle.
Felix smiled, too, as he replied:
"You needn't fear for me, Adolphe. _Mais_ strong-headed ancestors, dey
are not'ing. Me, I could _start_ a crazy line just as well as my
great-gran'fodder. Everyt'ing mus' _begin somewhere_."
But he added more seriously:
"_Non_, I would do it again--_if_ I was on _such a trip_. I tell you
w'at time it was; it was--"
He dropped his voice and looked over his shoulder.
"You want to know w'at, precisely, I was doing at de moment de river
demand my ring? _I was praying to her! Sure!_" (This last in a whisper.)
"Oh-h-h!" Adolphe's face lit. "Yas, I understand. I ricollec'. You mean
about five year pas'--dat time yo' sister los' 'er firs' 'usband,
w'en--?"
"Yas, _ex_ac'ly. So you see dat _pred_icament in w'ich I was placed wid
de river. I never liked po' Jacques Renault--" He shrugged his
shoulders. "I never _prof_ess to like him, _mais_ he was my
brud'-in-law; an' my po' sister--you know Felicite--she is my _twin_.
She done not'ing but cry, cry, cry for fo' days an' nights, an' pay all
'er money in de poor-box _to find him_. An' dey tried every way to bring
him up. So me, I say not'ing, _mais_ w'en de fif day is come I loan from
my cousin Achilles his wide skiff, an' I start out, an' I row two mile
below w'ere dey foun' 'is clo'es an' hat, an' den I pull up again--an'
wid every stroke I pray to de river to grant me dat satisfaction to find
po' Jacques an' to lay him in his grave.
"Tell you de trut', maybe I am a sinner to say it, _mais_ I was half
afraid in my heart dat may_be_ Jacques was playing 'possum an' some day
he would come back; an' w'en somebody is dead--dat's one terrible dread,
_yas_--to get such a surprise, _es_pecially for one widow, you
understand. It is a _re_striction, more or less, according to--Well,
never mind.
"You may b'lief me or not, _mais_ w'en de river she _re_quire of me dat
ring, laying her wet hand over my hand like to take it, at de same time
she turn it to de sun--well, I am not stupid. I dropped it _quick_ to
her, an' den I looked _close_, yas, on de water, an' _im_mediately I see
one--"
"You said jus' now you saw only de glare of de sun--"
"_Ex_ac'ly--an' den, naturally, one black spot befo' my eye, an' I t'ink
it is de sun; _mais_--
"Well, 't is a _dis_agreeable picture. Never mind! De river she _give
me de swap_, an' we had one fine funeral de nex' day; an' my po' sister
Felicite had her consolation.
"So, like I say, w'at consideration was one small diamond ring for such
a pleasure?
"A widow widout a grave is like a wind in Feb'uary--crying always
forever aroun' de house, wid nowhere to go, an' in her eyes are all
kinds of weather. Bff!
"It is great consolation, a grave. It is a half-way station between de
home an' de church; an' a widow she need dat--for a w'ile.
"Tell you de trut', w'en I take time to t'ink, Adolphe, sometimes I am
ashame'. So long I am prosperous I am all for dis worl'; den, w'en
somet'ing come, like now, an' t'row me on my knees, I feel cheap befo'
God, yas. _Mais_, wid de river _so_, w'at can a man _do_ if he cannot
_pray_? So, after to-night's _ex_perience, I am at home wid my li'l'
family by eleven o'clock every night, _sure_."
"'Ow much chillen you got now, Felix? You go too fas' for my
'rit'metic."
"Oh, no, not too fas'--just fas' enough. Only nine in over ten
year--mos' eleven year. Only _six_, by _right_. I _engage_ for six;
_mais_ w'at can a man do w'en his lady present him wid one _extra_, once
in a w'ile! I am de las' one to make remark on her for dat, too,
biccause I come dat way myself--following behind Felicite. Twins, dey
run in some families; an' you know now I am coming to like dem. Dey are
so sociable, twins."
"Ah, my friend, you have plenty occasion to be one good man."
"_Occasion!_ I am blessed. T'ink all I have got to be t'ankful! I got my
mudder, my mud'-in-law, my fad'-in-law--all _ril_igious people an'
good--an' _nine li'tl' one_, like six stair-steps wid t'ree landings for
de _ac_commodation of de twins." He chuckled. "Yas, an' I am going to be
good. No more dem soubrette supper for me. An' dem _danse de_--
"_Mais wait! W'at is dat?_"
A bell had rung, and a voice was calling out the depth of the water as
shown upon a graduated scale marked low down against the pier. The
announcement was half-hourly now.
"W'at he say? T'irteen inches an' a--Dat's a half-inch fall. T'ank God!
Maybe St. Joseph an' our women dey save us yet, Adolphe."
"Yas, may_be_. _Mais_ I t'ink de winter is full broke in Minnesota, too.
No more dat confoun' ice to melt. I looked _sure_ for de water to fall
down yesterday. Any'ow, one half-inch is hope. Here, take one cigar. I
can smoke, me, on dat half-inch. You got any matches, Felix?"
In finding his match-box Felix's fingers came in contact with the tiny
statue of St. Joseph in his pocket, but he was only half sensible of the
fact in his nervous joy over the slight decline in the river.
"Hello! Here is Harold Le Duc!" he exclaimed, as, by the light of his
match, he chanced to catch the presentment of a distant face in the
darkness.
"Hello! Come along, Harry, an' smoke one cigar. We mus' celebrate dat
insinuation dat de river is falling. Less dan one inch, it does not
count, except to prove she is hesitating; an' you know de ol' saying,
'She who hesitate'--'Hello, young man! You are good for sore eyes!"
The person addressed had come forward with extended hand.
When another match, lighting Adolphe's cigar, revealed the young man's
face again, there was something so startling in its wonderful solemnity
and beauty that both men were impressed.
"You won't smoke? An'w'y? Come! It is one great comfort, a li'l' smoke.
Here, let me--"
He presented the cigars again.
"Well, I thank you, but excuse me now." Young Le Duc took a cigar with a
smile. "I'll enjoy it later, maybe; but not until we see a little
further. As you say, a half-inch is only a hint, but it is a good one.
I am going now up the coast, where trouble waits, and I may need a
steady hand before morning. But I think the worst is over. Good
night--and thank you. The folks--they are all well?"
"Fine, all fine, and asking always for w'y you don't come to see dem."
But he had gone.
The eyes of both men followed the retreating figure in silence.
It was Adolphe who spoke at last.
"Ah-h-h!" he sighed. "An' yet we complain sometimes, you an' me, eh? I
am t'irty-seven years old an' I got t'irteen healt'y chillen an' two
gran'chillen, an' my wife--look at her, yo'nger an' happier wid every
one--
"Oh, I wonder, me, sometimes, dat God don't just snatch everyt'ing away
jus' for spite, w'en we always complain so.
"Did you take occasion to notice dat w'ite hair against dat yo'ng face?
An' dey say he never mention his trouble."
"I tell you, like we said, Adolphe, dat river she is--she is--"
He threw up his right palm, as if in despair of adequate language.
"_T'ink_ of coming home from de war, already robbed, to find _all_
gone--home, wife, child, family, servants, _all_ obliterate', an' only
de river's mark, green mold an' mildew, on de walls above de mantel in
de house; an' outside her still face under de sky to answer, an' she
heed no questions. She is called de father of waters? In a sense, yas,
may_be_. _Mais_, no. She is, I tell you, de mother of trouble--_an'_
pleasure, too.
"She is, after all, de queen of dis valley, an' no mistake--dat river.
When she need fresh ermine for her robe, she throw it over our cotton
fields--"
"Yas, an' de black spots, dey are our sorrows. Dat's not a bad
resemblance, no."
The speaker looked at his watch.
"Pas' eleven," he said. "Da' 's good luck w'en she start to fall befo'
midnight. Oh-h-h! _Mais_ she is one great coquette, yas. She keep you
crazy until she get tired wid you, an' den she slip away an' steal her
beauty-sleep befo' de clock strike twelve."
"You t'ink she is going to sleep now? May_be_ she fool us yet, Adolphe."
"Well, may_be_. _Mais_ I have great hope. She _beg_in to nod, and w'en
dat happen to a woman or a riv--"
Conversation was suddenly interrupted here by a great crash. The two men
started, and, turning, saw an entire section of the improvised
embankment fall landward.
Had the stress of the moment been less, they would involuntarily have
hastened to the spot, but terror fixed them where they stood. There was
but a moment of suspense,--of almost despair,--but it seemed an
eternity, before relief came in a great shout which sent vibrations of
joy far along the bank, even to those who watched and worked on the
right bank of the stream.
It had been only a "dry break." The weights thrown in upon the cotton
had been out of plumb, and had pitched the whole structure inward.
The uproar following this accident was long and loud, and had not
subsided when the bell rang again, and, with tense nerves strained to
listen, the line of men dropped speech. Instead of calling out the
decreasing depth, as usual, the crier this time shouted:
"_Two inches down, thank God!_"
Screams of joy, not unmixed with tears, greeted this announcement. The
strain was virtually over.
The two rich men who had stood and talked together mopped their
foreheads and shook hands in silence.
Finally it was the older, whom we have called Adolphe,--which was not
his name any more than was his companion's Felix,--finally, then,
Adolphe remarked quite calmly, as he looked at his watch:
"I am glad dat cotton in de pile is saved, yas. 'T is not de first time
de ol' city has fought a battle wid cotton-bales to help, eh, Felix? All
doze foundation bales dey belong to Harold Le Duc. He _con_tribute dem,
an' make no condition. All dat trash on top de cotton, it catch de tar;
so to-morrow we dig it out clean an' give it to him again--an'--an'--
"Well--"
He looked at his watch again, keeping his eyes upon it for a moment
before he ventured, in a lower tone:
"Well, I say, Felix, my boy, w'at _you_ say?"
"I di'n' spoke. W'at you say yourself, Adolphe?"
"'Well,'--dat's all I said; jus' 'well.' _Mais_ I di'n' finish. I
_beg_in to say, I--Well, I was just t'inking. You know to-night it is de
_las'_ opera--don't you forget. No danger to make a _habit_ on a _las'
night_; ain't dat true? For w'y you don't say somet'ing?"
"Ah-h-h! Talk, ol' man! I am listening." Felix looked at his watch now.
"An' may_be_ I am t'inking a li'l' bit, too. _Mais_ go on."
"Well, I am t'inking of doze strange ladies. I am _sure_ dey
had many vacant box to-night. Don't you t'ink dey need a little
encouragement--not to leave New Orleans wid dat _im_pression of neglect?
We don't want to place a stigma upon de gay ol' town. My carriage is
here, an' it is yet time. One hour, an' we will forget all dis trouble.
I need me some champagne myself."
Felix chuckled and shrugged his shoulders.
"Ah-h-h! Yi! An' me, too, Adolphe. I tol' you I was t'inking also.
_Mais_ let us sen' de good news home, an' let doze women off deir knees
an' go to bed. My mud'-in-law she is de devil for prayin', an' she is
poody stout, po' t'ing!
"We telegram it. Tell dem deir prayers are answered--de water is down--"
"An' our spirits are up, eh? An' we will be home in de morning, _w'en de
valuable debris is removed_."
Felix laughed and touched his friend in the ribs.
"You are one devil, Adolphe. _Mais_ we mus' be good to our women."
"Sure! I am going to return dat compliment you paid me jus' now. You say
I am one devil, eh? _Bien!_ An' in response, I say, Felix, you are one
_saint_. You hear me! I say, one _saint_--_un_canonized! Any man dat
will telegram a message to save his rich mud'-in-law from maybe sudden
apoplexy, he is one saint, _sure_! _Mais_ you are right. We mus' be good
to our women. A happy wife is a joy forever!"
He laughed again as he added:
"_Mais_ de debris! Yi, yi! Dat make me smile. You ricollec' de las'
debris, w'en Ma'm'selle Koko--"
"Ah, yes, Felix! Sure, I remember. I paid, me, I know, one good round
sum for my share. Dat was one terrible smash-up. Two dozen
champagne-glass; one crystal decanter; one chandelier, also crystal,
every light on it broke, so we had to put off de gas; an'--well, de
devil knows w'at else.
"Tell de trut', I don't like dat dancing on de supper-table, Felix. 'T
is super_flu_ous. De floor is good enough. An' you know, w'en a lady is
dancing on a table, after a good supper, of co'se every glass is a
temptation to her slipper. An' slippers an' wine-glasses--well, to say
de least, de combination it is disastrous.
"So, I say, de floor it is good enough for me. It seem more _comme il
faut_.
"_Mais_ come along. We will be late."
PART SECOND
I
"Sing, nigger, sing! Sing yo' rhyme!
De waters is a-floodin'--dey 's a-roarin' on time!
Climb, squirrel, climb!"
For several miles, when the night was still or the wind favorable, one
could follow the song, accented by simultaneous blows of implements of
defense marking the measure.
"Sing, nigger, sing! Sing an' pray!
Ol' Death is on de water--he's a-ridin' dis way!
Pray, nigger, pray!"
Some of the words might have been elusive had they been unfamiliar, but
the annual agitation kept the songs of the river in mind; and even in
safe sections, where many sat in peace beside the rising waters, they
would take their pipes from their lips to catch up the danger-songs and
sympathetically pass them along. Many a prayer went with them, too, from
humble petitioners who knew whereof they prayed.
Such were an old black couple who sat one night upon the brow of the
outer levee at Carrollton, since become an upper district of
far-reaching New Orleans.
In strong contrast to the stirring scenes enacting below the city, all
was peace and tranquillity here. A strong, new embankment, securely
built several hundred feet inland, had some years before supplanted the
outer levee, condemned as insecure, so that the white inhabitants of the
suburb slept, intelligently safe behind a double barrier, for the
condemned bank had stood the stress of so many seasons that much of the
low land lying between the two levees was finally occupied by squatters,
mostly negroes, this being free space, taking no rent of such as did not
fear the ever-impending mortgage which the river held.
Of this class, quite apart from others, might have been seen almost any
evening the old couple, Hannah and Israel, sitting upon the brow of the
levee near the door of their low cabin, while, always within call, there
played about them a fair-haired little girl and a dog.
When the beautiful child, followed by the dog, a fine Irish setter,
would suddenly emerge in a chase from among the woodpiles about the
cabin, there was a certain high-bred distinction in them both which set
them apart from the rest of the picture.
Sometimes they would "play too hearty," as Mammy expressed it, and she
would call: "Dat 'll do now, Blossom! Come lay down, Blucher!" and,
followed closely by the dog, the child would coddle at the knees of the
woman, who "made the time pass" with stories. Sometimes these would be
folk-tales brought over from Africa, or reminiscences of plantation
life, but more often, feeling her religious responsibility to the
little one, old Hannah would repeat such Bible stories as "befitted a
child's mind," such as "Ab'um an' Isaac," "Eden's Gyarden," or "De
Prodigum Son."
Of them all, the Eden story was easily favorite, its salient mystery
features affording fine scope for the narrator's power, while they held
the imaginative child with the spell of all good wonder-tales. We get
these stories so young and grow up with them so familiarly that when we
finally come into a realization of them they hold no possible surprise
and so their first charm is lost. Think of one story with such elements
as a wonder-woman rising from a man's side while he slept--a talking
serpent, persuasive in temptation as insidious in easy approaches--a
flaming sword of wrath--a tree of knowledge--and the sounding voice of
God as he walked through the garden "in the cool of the day"! Is not a
single colloquialism of so venerable ancestry sufficient to dignify a
language?
Herself a classic in that she expressed the eternal quality of maternal
love incarnate, the old woman thus unconsciously passed along to the
object of her devotion the best classic lore of the ages. And sunrise
and sunset, star- and moon-land, and their reflection in the great
water-mirror, were hers and the child's, without the asking. Nor were
they lost, although to both child and woman they were only common
elements in life's great benediction.
During the story-telling, which generally lasted until the sun sank
across the river, but while its last rays still made "pictures of glory
in the heavens" with the water's reflection,--pictures which served to
illustrate many a narration, to inspire the speaker and impress a
sensitive child,--the dog would stretch himself facing the two, and his
intelligent and quizzical expression would sometimes make Mammy laugh in
a serious place or change the drift of her story. Often, indeed, this
had happened in the telling of certain animal tales which Mammy
declared Blucher knew better than she and she even insisted that he
occasionally winked at her and set her right when she went wrong.
In the early dusk, the old man Israel would come trudging in from the
water and sometimes he would light his pipe and join Mammy's audience.
Occasionally Mammy would cook the supper in the open, upon a small
charcoal furnace, and the "little Miss" would sup from a tiny low table
brought from the cabin. Here she was served by the old people in turn,
for they never ate until she had finished. Then the little girl was
carefully undressed and sung to sleep with one of Mammy's velvet
lullabies, in a dainty bed all her own, a berth which hung, shelf-like,
against the wall; for the home of this incongruous family was quite as
novel as the family itself.
Part of the ladies' cabin of an old Mississippi steamboat, still
shabbily fine in white paint and dingy gilding, which Israel had
reclaimed from an abandoned wreck, formed a wing of the building. This,
which, with its furnishings, Mammy called "Blossom's lay-out,"
communicated by a door with a "lean-to" of weather-stained boards, whose
mud chimney and homely front formed a strong contrast to the river
entrance of white and gold. This grotesque architectural composite would
have attracted attention at another time or place, but as one of a
class, made to its need of any available material, it passed unnoticed
beyond an occasional casual smile of amusement and sympathy.
It was like the composite toilets of the poor blacks during the hard
times suggestively called the "reconstruction period," when old women in
soldier coats and boots, topped by third-hand feathered finery, waited
at the distributing-station for free rations. No one ever thought of
laughing at these pathetic grotesques, technically freed but newly
enslaved by bitter circumstance.
On the night with which this tale begins, when Mammy had put Blossom to
sleep and tucked the mosquito-bar snugly around her, she went back to
her place beside her husband, and, lighting her pipe, sat for a long
time silent. This was so unusual that presently Israel said:
"What de matter wid you dis evenin', Hannah? Huccome you ain't
a-talkin'?"
Hannah did not answer immediately. But after a time she said slowly:
"I 's jes a-speculatin', Isrul--jes speculatin'." And, after another
pause, she added, quite irrelevantly:
"Is you got yo' swimp-sacks all set?"
"In co'se I is." Israel's words came through a cloud of smoke.
"An' yo' oars brung in?"
"In co'se I is!"
"An' de skift locked?"
"In co'se I is!"
"An' Blucher fed?"
"What's de matter wid you, Hannah? You reckon I gwine forgit my reg'lar
business?"
The old woman smoked in silence for some minutes. Then she said:
"Isrul!"
"What you want, Hannah?"
"I say, Isrul, I got some'h'n' on my mind. Hit 's been on my mind more
'n a yeah, an' hit 's a-gittin' wuss."
"What is it, Hannah?"
"You an' me we 's growin' ole, Isrul--ain't dat so?"
"Yas, Hannah."
"An' we ain't got long to stay heah, hey, Isrul?"
"Yas, ol' 'oman--can't dispute dat."
"An'"--hesitatingly. "_You_ knows what 's on my mind, Isrul!"
"Hit 's on my mind, too, Hannah. You don't need to 'spress yo'se'f. Hit
's on my mind, day an' night."
"_What_'s on yo' mind, Isrul?"
The old man began stirring the bowl of his pipe absently.
"'Bout we gittin' ol', Hannah, an' maybe some day we'll drap off an'
leave Marse Harol's chile all by she se'f, like de chillen in de
wilderness.
"What mek you mek me say it, Hannah? _You_ knows what 'sponsibility
Gord done laid on we two. Ain't we done talked it over a hond'ed times
'fo' now?"
"Dat ain't _all_ what 's on my mind, Isrul."
"What else is you got to fret yo'se'f about, Hannah? Ain't I mekin' you
a good livin'? Ain't you had de money to put a new little silk frock
away every yeah for de Blossom, and ain't dey all folded away, one a-top
de yether, 'g'inst de answer to our prayers, so her daddy'll see her
dressed to her station when he comes sudden? Ain't you got a
one-way-silk alapaca frock an' a good bonnet for yo'se'f to tek de chile
by de han' wid--when Gord see fitten to answer us? You ain't
_hongry_--or _col'_, is yer?"
"G' way, Isrul! Who's studyin' about victuals or clo'es! I 's ponderin'
about de chile, dat 's all. 'T ain't on'y 'bout we gittin' ol'. _She_ 's
gittin' _tall_. An' you know, Isrul, you an' me we ain't fitten to raise
Marse Harol's chile. She's big enough to study quality manners an' white
behavior. All Marse Harol's fam'ly's chillen knowed all de fancy high
steps an' played scales on de pianner wid bofe hands at once-t, time dey
was tall as Blossom is--an' dey made dancin'-school curtsies, too. I
taken notice, Blossom is sort o' shy, an' she gittin' so she'll stand
off when anybody speaks to her. Dis heah cabin on de river-bank ain't no
place for my white folks. I sho' is pestered to see her gittin' shy an'
shamefaced--like po' folks. Modest manners and upright behavior is her
portion. I _know_ it by heart, but I can't _show_ it to her--I know it
by knowledge, but of co'se I can't perform it; an' it frets me."
"Hannah!"
"What is it, Isrul?"
"Who gi'n us dis 'sponsibility? Is we axed for it?"
"No, Isrul, we ain't axed for it."
"Ain't you an' me promised Mis' Agnes, de day she died, to keep his
chile, safe-t an' sound, tell Marse Harol' come?"
"Dat 's six yeahs past, dis comin' Christmus, Isrul. I b'lieve Marse
Harol' done dead an' gone."
"Huccome you believe he dead? Is he come to you in de sperit?"
"No, he ain't come, an' dat 's huccome hope stays wid me. If he was free
in de sperit lan' he sho' would come an' gimme a sign. But reason is
reason, an' ef he _ain't_ dead, huccome he don't come an' look arter his
chile? My white folks warn't nuver shirkers--nor deserters. So, when I
stays off my knees awhile an' casts away faith in de unseen, seem dat my
horse-sense hit gives me trouble. An' den, like to-night, somehow my
courage sinks, an' look like I kin see him dead an' forgot in some ol'
ditch on de battle-field.
"Jes _s'posin'_ dat 's de trufe, Isrul, what we boun' to do wid
Blossom?"
"Hannah!"
"Yas, Isrul."
"You done heared a plenty o' preachin', ain't yer?"
"Yas, Isrul."
"Is you ever heared a preacher preach 'bout _s'posin'_?"
"No, Isrul."
"But I tell you what you _is_ hearn 'em preach about. You hearn 'em
preach about _watchin'_ an' _prayin'_."
"Dat 's so, Isrul, but yit'n still, you know de scripture say 'Hope
referred meketh de heart sick.' You ricollec' dat, don't you?"
"Yas, but dat 's a side-track. Dat ain't got nothin' to do wid answer to
prayer. Dat 's jes to give comfort to weary souls, when de waitin'-time
is long; dat 's all. Dey may git sick at heart--jes' waitin'."
"You right, Isrul."
"Well, an' arter watchin' an' prayin', dey 's one mo' thing needful. An'
dat 's _faith_.
"Ef we _watches_ for Marse Harol' to come, an' _prays_ for 'im to come,
an' don't _trus'_, you reckon Gord gwine to bother wid us?"
"I _tries_ to trus', Isrul, an' mos' days I does look for Marse Harol'.
Many 's de time I done taken Blossom by de hand an' walked along de
levee an' looked down in de Ca'ollton gyarden while de ban' played, an'
jes fairly scroochinized my ol' eyes out, hopin' to reconnize 'im in de
dance. I'm dat big a fool in faith--I sho' is. An' I tries de best I kin
to keep my faith warm, so de good Lord 'll see it glowin' like a live
coal in my heart an' he 'll 'member hisse'f about de chile an' sen' 'er
daddy home, _sen' 'er daddy home_! My Gord, I say, SEN' 'ER DADDY HOME!
I tries continu'sly, Isrul."
"You must n't talk about tryin', Hannah. You mus' jes b'lieve it, same
as a little chile--same like you see it; an' den you does see it. An'
when you git along so fur dat you _sees_ wid de neye o' faith, Gord 'll
sho' mek yo' faith good. Ef faith kin h'ist a mountain an' shove it
along, hit can fetch a man home whar he b'longs; an' hit 'll do it,
too."
"Isrul!"
"What is it, Hannah?"
"Gord ain't nuver _promised_ to sen' Marse Harol' home, as I knows on."
"He's promised to answer de prayer o' faith, ain't He?"
"Yas, Isrul, dat 's so. Pray Him to strenken my faith, ol' man. You
stays so much on de water wid de sky in yo' eyes, whilst I works 'mongst
de woodpiles, so close to de yearth--seem like maybe you mought git
nigher to Gord 'n what I'm enabled to do. Pickin' up chips, hit 's lowly
work an' hit keeps yo' face down, an'--"
"Don't say dat, ol' 'oman! Use yo' fo'sight an' 'stid o' you seein'
_chips_ you'll see _kindlin'-wood_. Dat what dey _is_. Dey 'll lead yo'
heart upward dat-a-way. Heap o' folks don't see nothin' but money in de
river--money an' mud; an' dey don't know it's a merror sometimes, full
o' stars an' glory. I done read Gord's rainbow promises on de face o'
dat muddy river more 'n once-t, when I lifted out my swimp-nets on a
still mornin' whilst de sun an' de mist consulted together to show a
mericle to a ol' dim-eyed nigger."
"You sho' does help me when you 'splains it all out dat-a-way, Isrul.
Pray like a gordly man, ol' pardner, an' yo' ol' 'oman she gwine talk
faith strong as she kin--widout turnin' hycoprite."
"Dat's right, honey--ol' 'oman--dat's right. _You_ pray an' _I'll_
pray--an' we'll _watch_ wid _faith_. An' ef Gord don't sen' Marse
Harol', He'll git a message to us some way, so we'll be guided."
The sound of a horn from across the river put an end to the
conversation. Some one was blowing for the ferryman.
"PITY you tied _Wood-duck_ up so soon to-night," said the old wife,
following Israel with her eyes as she spoke, while he rose slowly and
taking the oars down from the rafters started to the river.
In a moment the old man's answering horn sounded clear and loud in
response, and the clank of the chain as it dropped in the bow of the
skiff, followed by the rhythmic sound of the oar-locks, told his
listening mate that the ferryman was on his way.
II
Besides plying the ferry-skiff at which Israel earned odd dimes--every
day a few--he turned many an honest penny with his shrimp-nets.
The rafts of logs chained together at the landing were his, and
constituted the initial station of a driftwood industry which was
finally expressed in the long piles of wood which lay stacked in cord
measures on either side of the cabin.
The low and prolonged talk of the old people to-night had been
exceptional only in its intensity. The woman's reluctant almost despair
of a forlorn hope was pathetic indeed. Still it was but momentary. They
had gone over the same ground many times before, and fear and even
foreboding had occasionally clouded their vision in reviewing the
situation.
The woman's observation in regard to the child's growing tall was the
first suggestion to Israel's mind of the urgency of immediate relief. In
the stress of material provision, men may be forgiven if they sometimes
overlook life's abstract values.
Israel was so startled by this new thought that when he had rowed his
boat out into the clearing which the broad river afforded, he
involuntarily pressed the handles of his oars, lifting their blades from
the water, while he turned his eyes in one direction and another and
then upward. He had a hard problem to solve. Here was a great thinking
space, and yet, although he stopped for the length of several strokes,
and the night was mild and still,--although every condition was
favorable for clear thought,--his mind seemed lost in a sort of maze,
and it was only when he discovered by a familiar landmark that he was
drifting fast down-stream, only with this obtrusion of the actual, that
he rallied quickly, and with a deft stroke or two recovered his course.
And as the oar-locks measured time again he chuckled:
"I got my lesson, yas, I got my lesson. _Work!_ Dat 's my po'tion. Quick
as I gits biggoty and tries to read above my head, I goes de downward
way."
He said it aloud, to himself, and the words gave him renewed energy,
for, even as he spoke, the _Duck_, with oars for wings, plunged lightly
forward over the water to a quickened measure.
* * * * *
The old wife, sitting alone, sleepless always when her man was making a
night trip, was even before his summons to-night painfully awake. It was
as if the outcry which had burst the door of patience had set her old
mind free to wander. She seemed to have a broader vision, a new
perspective upon a situation in which she was herself the chief
conserving factor. While she kept the child within her door well in her
subconscious care, and knew by her regular breathing that she slept:
while she felt the near presence of the dog on guard at her skirts'
hem, her conscious thoughts were far away.
Quickly even as lightning darts, zigzagging a path of light from one
remote point to another in its eccentric course--her dim eyes actually
resting upon the night skies where the lightnings play--she traveled
again in her musings the arbitrary paths of fate from one crisis to
another in the eventful latter years of her life. Then she would seem to
see clear spaces, and again the bolts of misfortune which presaged the
storm of sorrow out of which had come her present life.
First in the anxious retrospect there was the early break in the family
when the boys began going away to college; then the sudden marriage of
the youngest of the three; the declaration of war; the enlistment of the
two elder students in the voluntary service which had transferred their
names from the university roster to the list of martyrs.
Another dart as of lightning, and she saw this youngest come home with
his fair New England bride, to depart with her and Israel for an island
home beyond the canebrakes, and on the heel of this divided joy came his
passionate enlisting "to avenge the death of his brothers." And
then--ah! and then--how fast the zigzags dart! Rapid changes everywhere
traced in fire, and, as memory recalled them, throughout the whole was
ever the rolling thunder of artillery, completing the figure.
The story is one of thousands, individualized, of course, each, by
special incidents and personalities, but the same, every one, in its
history of faithfulness of the slave people during the crucial period
when the masters had gone to battle, leaving their wives and babies in
the care of those whose single chance of freedom depended on the defeat
of the absent.
Hannah and Israel had been loved and trusted servants in the family of
old Colonel Le Duc. The woman had nursed all the babies in turn, Harold
being the last, and hence her own particular "baby" for all time.
* * * * *
Brake Island, so called because of its situation in a dense cane-brake,
which was at once a menace and a guard, was the most unpopular part of
the colonel's large estate, albeit there was no land so rich as its
fields, no wood better stocked with game than the narrow forest lying
close along its northern limit, no streams more picturesque in their
windings or better equipped for the angler's art than that of the Bayou
d'Iris, whose purple banks declared the spring while the robins were
calling, and before the young mocking-birds in the crape myrtles opened
their great red mouths for the wriggling song-food of the bayou's brim.
All the Le Duc sons had loved to go to the island to shoot and to fish
while they were lads, but upon attaining the social age they had grown
to despise it for its loneliness. The brake which fringed its borders
had long been a refuge for runaway negroes, who were often forced to
poach upon its preserves for food, even to the extent of an occasional
raid upon its smoke-houses and barns, so that women and children were
wont to shudder at the very idea of living there. Still it had always
been the declared "favorite spot on earth" to the colonel, who had often
vowed that no son of his should own it and spurn it.
He lived like a lord himself, it is true, on a broader place of less
beauty on the bank of the great river,--"keeping one foot in New Orleans
and one on the plantation," as he expressed it,--and it is not
surprising that his children had laughingly protested against being
brought up on house-parties and the opera as preparation for a hermit's
life, even in "Paradise."
All excepting Harold. While the brothers had protested against the
island home, he had said little, but when he had brought his bride home,
and realized the scant affection that stirred the hearts of his family
at sight of her placid New England face, even while he himself suffered
much, knowing that her brothers were enlisting in the opposing armies
and that her family felt her marriage at this time to a slaveholder as a
poignant sorrow--while the father seemed hesitating as to just what
paternal provision he should make for his impulsive boy, the boy
himself, in a sudden towering declaration of his manhood and of
resentment and pride, turned upon him:
"Give us Brake Island and Mammy and Israel, and cut us loose! And I'll
show my people a new variety of hermit life!"
The thing was quickly done. A deed of gift made on the spot conveyed
this Eden of modern times, with its improvements, full working force and
equipment, to Harold Guyoso Le Duc, who in accepting it assumed the one
condition of making it his home.
III
Harold was a brilliant fellow, impulsive and extravagant as he was
handsome and loving, and he had no sooner taken possession of his Eden
than he began to plan, by means of a system of engineering, to open it
up by a canal which should "span the brake and tap the bayou," so that
boats of size and circumstance might enter. Here he would have a launch
and a barge, and the great world of culture, of wit, of pleasure, and of
affluence should come in splendor "to watch a hermit herm," or, as he as
often put it, "to help a hummit hum."
A great house-party was quickly arranged--a party of gay friends,
engineers chiefly, bidden for a freely declared purpose--a party which
is still cherished in the annals of local social history as a typical
example of affluent ante-bellum hospitality, and is even yet personally
recalled by a few old men who sit and seem to wait, mostly, in shabby
clothing incongruously ill fitting their gilded reminiscence, at certain
dozing business resorts in old New Orleans.
Most of these venerables still live in their shabby ancestral homes,
although it may be their women take boarders or their best rooms are let
for business purposes--cleared of their cumbersome furnishings of
mahogany and rosewood by the rising waters of misfortune which have
gradually carried them into the "antique-shops" of the vicinity.
A place of honor on the tax-lists and a waiting palace of white marble
in the cemetery--these querulous witnesses to distinction and of
permanency are in some cases the sole survivors of the many changes
incident upon a reconstruction.
To these gentle reminiscers the "Brake Island house-party of Harold Le
Duc" is even yet the Procrustean bed against which they measure all the
ostentatious pageantry of a new and despised social order.
For the possible preservation of a bit of local color--gone out in the
changed light of a new dispensation--behold a hasty sketch of this
long-ago playtime. The invitations which were sent out, naming a single
date only, with the flattering implication that the visit so urgently
desired might never come to an end,--one of the easy fashions of the old
regime,--promptly brought a dozen men, with as many women, wives and
sweethearts, to the "big house" beyond the swamp.
This Southern home, which was broadly typical of its class, simple
enough in its architecture in that its available space, barring the
watch-tower in the center of its roof, was all upon a single floor and
its material the indigenous woods of the forest, yet suffered no
diminution in being called the "big house"--a name which has been made
to serve many a lesser structure for purposes of distinction.
Set high upon brick pillars,--there are no cellars possible in the
Mississippi valley country,--its low, spreading form graced the easy
eminence upon which it stood, dominating its wide demesne with a quiet
dignity superior to that of many a statelier home.
In design it was a Greek cross. Surrounded on all sides by deep
balconies, ornate with cornice and Corinthian columns, its four arms
afforded as many entrances, of which the southern portal was formal
front, from which an avenue of arbor-vitaes led down to the canopied
landing at the bayou's bank at the foot of the decline.
The house had been designed and built by Harold's father, in an
exuberance of youthful enthusiasm, upon his early marriage. He it was
who had planted the trailing roses and wistaria-vines, whose gnarled
trunks, now woody and strong as trees, topped the balconies, throwing
profusions of bloom adown their pillars and along their balustrades.
Here Lamarque, Solfaterre, Cloth-of-gold, Musk-cluster, Lady-bank,
Multi-flora--all the cherished climbing roses of an earlier
period--mingled in harmonious relations with honeysuckle, woodbine, and
clematis.
The most beautiful of them all, the single yellow-centered Cherokee rose
of the soil,--good enough in itself for anywhere, but ostracized through
caste exclusion from distinction of place about the home,--lay in heavy
tangles in the tall, impenetrable hedges which bounded the garden on
three sides meeting the bayou at the base of the knoll.
Within its inclosure a resident colony of choice flowers--exotics
mainly, but domiciled and grown hardy in this protected spot--had waxed
riotous in the license of years of neglect, and throwing off traditions,
as many another aristocrat in like circumstances has done before,
appeared now in novel forms developed in life's open race with children
of the soil.
Here in season were great trees of camellia, white and red, with each a
thousand waxen blooms, stalwart woody growths of lemon-verbena, topping
sweet olives and answering the challenge of the stately oleanders,
which, in turn, measured heads against the magnolias' shoulders.
Appropriating any available support, great scarlet geraniums ten feet
high, knowing no winters, laid hands upon the trellises and matched
pennies with the locust blooms, red petal against white, affiliating,
weak-spined as they were, with scrub-trees which counted real trees at
least in their Louisiana pedigrees.
"Cape jasmine borders" had risen into hedges, fencing in certain beds,
while the violets, which originally guarded fantastic forms in outline,
had gregariously spread into perennial patches of green and purple.
And everywhere there were orange-trees--not a grove here, but always one
or more in the range of vision. Their breath was over the garden, and
even the bees in the locust-trees, with all their fuss and scattering
of honey sweets, could not dispel their all-pervading suggestion of
romance--the romance of life incarnate ever expressed in their peerless
exhibits of flower, fresh fruit and yellow, all growing together upon a
maternal tree rich in life and tone.
Too many words about an old garden? Perhaps so, and yet--
The spirit of a venerable garden as it rises and shows itself to memory
is such a benediction that one seeing the vision may sometimes wonder
if, if _life_, _per se_, be eternal, and the resurrection of _certain_
so-called "dead" a _fact_, we may not some day wander again in the risen
gardens of our childhood, recognizing them by verification of certain
familiar faces of flowers who may know us in turn and bloom
again--taking up life, which ever includes love and immortality, at the
point of suspension, as a mother, waking from a nap, goes back to her
window, and catching up her broken song held in the cobwebs of sleep,
sings it through, while she finishes a little sleeve, her foot again
upon the cradle at her side.
Life is the great serial--one chapter printed here, another there--a
seemingly finished comedy crowding a tragedy unrelated, yonder.