up in a handkerchief. Her sole complaint that day was, “Aïe—aïe—aïe!
Aïe—aïe—aïe!” uttered with every breath. He had seen her so before,
especially when the weather was damp.
“Vous pas bézouin tisane, Mamzelle Aglaé? Vous pas veux mo cri gagni
docteur?”
She desired nothing. “Aïe—aïe—aïe!”
He emptied his bag very quietly, so as not to disturb her; and he wanted
to stay there with her and lie down on the floor in case she needed him,
but the woman from below had come up. She was an Irishwoman with rolled
sleeves.
“It’s a shtout shtick I’m afther giving her, Nég, and she do but knock
on the flure it’s me or Janie or wan of us that’ll be hearing her.”
“You too good, Brigitte. Aïe—aïe—aïe! Une goutte d’eau sucré, Nég! That
Purg’tory Marie,—you see hair, ma bonne Brigitte, you tell hair go say
li’le prayer là-bas au Cathédral. Aïe—aïe—aïe!”
Nég could hear her lamentation as he descended the stairs. It followed
him as he limped his way through the city streets, and seemed part of
the city’s noise; he could hear it in the rumble of wheels and jangle of
car-*bells, and in the voices of those passing by.
He stopped at Mimotte the Voudou’s shanty and bought a _grigri_—a cheap
one for fifteen cents. Mimotte held her charms at all prices. This he
intended to introduce next day into Mamzelle Anglaé’s room,—somewhere
about the altar,—to the confusion and discomfort of “Michié bon Dieu,”
who persistently declined to concern himself with the welfare of a
Boisduré.
At night, among the reeds on the bayou, Chicot could still hear the
woman’s wail, mingled now with the croaking of the frogs. If he could
have been convinced that giving up his life down there in the water
would in any way have bettered her condition, he would not have
hesitated to sacrifice the remnant of his existence that was wholly
devoted to her. He lived but to serve her. He did not know it himself;
but Chicot knew so little, and that little in such a distorted way! He
could scarcely have been expected, even in his most lucid moments, to
give himself over to self-analysis.
Chicot gathered an uncommon amount of dainties at market the following
day. He had to work hard, and scheme and whine a little; but he got hold
of an orange and a lump of ice and a _chou-fleur_. He did not drink his
cup of _café au lait_, but asked Mimi Lambeau to put it in the little
new tin pail that the Hebrew notion-vender had just given him in
exchange for a mess of shrimps. This time, however, Chicot had his
trouble for nothing. When he reached the upper room of _la maison
grise_, it was to find that Mamzelle Aglaé had died during the night. He
set his bag down in the middle of the floor, and stood shaking, and
whined low like a dog in pain.
Everything had been done. The Irishwoman had gone for the doctor, and
Purgatory Mary had summoned a priest. Furthermore, the woman had
arranged Mamzelle Aglaé decently. She had covered the table with a white
cloth, and had placed it at the head of the bed, with the crucifix and
two lighted candles in silver candlesticks upon it; the little bit of
ornamentation brightened and embellished the poor room. Purgatory Mary,
dressed in shabby black, fat and breathing hard, sat reading half
audibly from a prayer-book. She was watching the dead and the silver
candlesticks, which she had borrowed from a benevolent society, and for
which she held herself responsible. A young man was just leaving,—a
reporter snuffing the air for items, who had scented one up there in the
top room of _la maison grise_.
All the morning Janie had been escorting a procession of street Arabs up
and down the stairs to view the remains. One of them—a little girl, who
had had her face washed and had made a species of toilet for the
occasion—refused to be dragged away. She stayed seated as if at an
entertainment, fascinated alternately by the long, still figure of
Mamzelle Aglaé, the mumbling lips of Purgatory Mary, and the silver
candlesticks.
“Will ye get down on yer knees, man, and say a prayer for the dead!”
commanded the woman.
But Chicot only shook his head, and refused to obey. He approached the
bed, and laid a little black paw for a moment on the stiffened body of
Mamzelle Aglaé. There was nothing for him to do here. He picked up his
old ragged hat and his bag and went away.
“The black h’athen!” the woman muttered. “Shut the dure, child.”
The little girl slid down from her chair, and went on tiptoe to shut the
door which Chicot had left open. Having resumed her seat, she fastened
her eyes upon Purgatory Mary’s heaving chest.
“You, Chicot!” cried Matteo’s wife the next morning. “My man, he read in
paper ’bout woman name’ Boisduré, use’ b’long to big-a famny. She die
roun’ on St. Philip—po’, same-a like church rat. It’s any them Boisdurés
you alla talk ’bout?”
Chicot shook his head in slow but emphatic denial. No, indeed, the woman
was not of kin to his Boisdurés. He surely had told Matteo’s wife often
enough—how many times did he have to repeat it!—of their wealth, their
social standing. It was doubtless some Boisduré of _les Attakapas_; it
was none of his.
The next day there was a small funeral procession passing a little
distance away,—a hearse and a carriage or two. There was the priest who
had attended Mamzelle Aglaé, and a benevolent Creole gentleman whose
father had known the Boisdurés in his youth. There was a couple of
player-folk, who, having got wind of the story, had thrust their hands
into their pockets.
“Look, Chicot!” cried Matteo’s wife. “Yonda go the fune’al. Mus-a be
that-a Boisduré woman we talken ’bout yesaday.”
But Chicot paid no heed. What was to him the funeral of a woman who had
died in St. Philip street? He did not even turn his head in the
direction of the moving procession. He went on scaling his red-snapper.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Lilies
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Lilies
[Illustration]
That little vagabond Mamouche amused himself one afternoon by letting
down the fence rails that protected Mr. Billy’s young crop of cotton and
corn. He had first looked carefully about him to make sure there was no
witness to this piece of rascality. Then he crossed the lane and did the
same with the Widow Angèle’s fence, thereby liberating Toto, the white
calf who stood disconsolately penned up on the other side.
It was not ten seconds before Toto was frolicking madly in Mr. Billy’s
crop, and Mamouche—the young scamp—was running swiftly down the lane,
laughing fiendishly to himself as he went.
He could not at first decide whether there could be more fun in letting
Toto demolish things at his pleasure, or in warning Mr. Billy of the
calf’s presence in the field. But the latter course commended itself as
possessing a certain refinement of perfidy.
“Ho, the’a, you!” called out Mamouche to one of Mr. Billy’s hands, when
he got around to where the men were at work; “you betta go yon’a an’ see
’bout that calf o’ Ma’me Angèle; he done broke in the fiel’ an’ ’bout to
finish the crop, him.” Then Mamouche went and sat behind a big tree,
where, unobserved, he could laugh to his heart’s content.
Mr. Billy’s fury was unbounded when he learned that Madame Angèle’s calf
was eating up and trampling down his corn. At once he sent a detachment
of men and boys to expel the animal from the field. Others were required
to repair the damaged fence; while he himself, boiling with wrath, rode
up the lane on his wicked black charger.
But merely to look upon the devastation was not enough for Mr. Billy. He
dismounted from his horse, and strode belligerently up to Madame
Angèle’s door, upon which he gave, with his riding-whip, a couple of
sharp raps that plainly indicated the condition of his mind.
Mr. Billy looked taller and broader than ever as he squared himself on
the gallery of Madame Angèle’s small and modest house. She herself
half-opened the door, a pale, sweet-looking woman, somewhat bewildered,
and holding a piece of sewing in her hands. Little Marie Louise was
beside her, with big, inquiring, frightened eyes.
“Well, Madam!” blustered Mr. Billy, “this is a pretty piece of work!
That young beast of yours is a fence-breaker, Madam, and ought to be
shot.”
“Oh, non, non, M’sieur. Toto’s too li’le; I’m sho he can’t break any
fence, him.”
“Don’t contradict me, Madam. I say he’s a fence-breaker. There’s the
proof before your eyes. He ought to be shot, I say, and—don’t let it
occur again, Madam.” And Mr. Billy turned and stamped down the steps
with a great clatter of spurs as he went.
Madame Angèle was at the time in desperate haste to finish a young
lady’s Easter dress, and she could not afford to let Toto’s escapade
occupy her to any extent, much as she regretted it. But little Marie
Louise was greatly impressed by the affair. She went out in the yard to
Toto, who was under the fig-tree, looking not half so shamefaced as he
ought. The child, with arms clasped around the little fellow’s white
shaggy neck, scolded him roundly.
“Ain’t you shame’, Toto, to go eat up Mr. Billy’s cotton an’ co’n? W’at
Mr. Billy ev’a done to you, to go do him that way? If you been hungry,
Toto, w’y you did’n’ come like always an’ put yo’ head in the winda? I’m
goin’ tell yo’ maman w’en she come back f’om the woods to ’s’evenin’,
M’sieur.
Marie Louise only ceased her mild rebuke when she fancied she saw a
penitential look in Toto’s big soft eyes.
She had a keen instinct of right and justice for so young a little maid.
And all the afternoon, and long into the night, she was disturbed by the
thought of the unfortunate accident. Of course, there could be no
question of repaying Mr. Billy with money; she and her mother had none.
Neither had they cotton and corn with which to make good the loss he had
sustained through them.
But had they not something far more beautiful and precious than cotton
and corn? Marie Louise thought with delight of that row of Easter lilies
on their tall green stems, ranged thick along the sunny side of the
house.
The assurance that she would, after all, be able to satisfy Mr. Billy’s
just anger, was a very sweet one. And soothed by it, Marie Louise soon
fell asleep and dreamt a grotesque dream: that the lilies were having a
stately dance on the green in the moonlight, and were inviting Mr. Billy
to join them.
The following day, when it was nearing noon, Marie Louise said to her
mamma: “Maman, can I have some of the Easter lily, to do with like I
want?”
Madame Angèle was just then testing the heat of an iron with which to
press out the seams in the young lady’s Easter dress, and she answered a
shade impatiently:
“Yes, yes; va t’en, chérie,” thinking that her little girl wanted to
pluck a lily or two.
So the child took a pair of old shears from her mother’s basket, and out
she went to where the tall, perfumed lilies were nodding, and shaking
off from their glistening petals the rain-drops with which a passing
cloud had just laughingly pelted them.
Snip, snap, went the shears here and there, and never did Marie Louise
stop plying them till scores of those long-stemmed lilies lay upon the
ground. There were far more than she could hold in her small hands, so
she literally clasped the great bunch in her arms, and staggered to her
feet with it.
Marie Louise was intent upon her purpose, and lost no time in its
accomplishment. She was soon trudging earnestly down the lane with her
sweet burden, never stopping, and only once glancing aside to cast a
reproachful look at Toto, whom she had not wholly forgiven.
She did not in the least mind that the dogs barked, or that the darkies
laughed at her. She went straight on to Mr. Billy’s big house, and right
into the dining-room, where Mr. Billy sat eating his dinner all alone.
It was a finely-furnished room, but disorderly—very disorderly, as an
old bachelor’s personal surroundings sometimes are. A black boy stood
waiting upon the table. When little Marie Louise suddenly appeared, with
that armful of lilies, Mr. Billy seemed for a moment transfixed at the
sight.
“Well—bless—my soul! what’s all this? What’s all this?” he questioned,
with staring eyes.
Marie Louise had already made a little courtesy. Her sunbonnet had
fallen back, leaving exposed her pretty round head; and her sweet brown
eyes were full of confidence as they looked into Mr. Billy’s.
“I’m bring some lilies to pay back fo’ yo’ cotton an’ co’n w’at Toto eat
all up, M’sieur.”
Mr. Billy turned savagely upon Pompey. “What are you laughing at, you
black rascal? Leave the room!”
Pompey, who out of mistaken zeal had doubled himself with merriment, was
too accustomed to the admonition to heed it literally, and he only made
a pretense of withdrawing from Mr. Billy’s elbow.
“Lilies! well, upon my—isn’t it the little one from across the lane?”
“Dat’s who,” affirmed Pompey, cautiously insinuating himself again into
favor.
“Lilies! who ever heard the like? Why, the baby’s buried under ’em. Set
’em down somewhere, little one; anywhere.” And Marie Louise, glad to be
relieved from the weight of the great cluster, dumped them all on the
table close to Mr. Billy.
The perfume that came from the damp, massed flowers was heavy and almost
sickening in its pungency. Mr. Billy quivered a little, and drew
involuntarily back, as if from an unexpected assailant, when the odor
reached him. He had been making cotton and corn for so many years, he
had forgotten there were such things as lilies in the world.
“Kiar ’em out? fling ’em ’way?” questioned Pompey, who had observed his
master cunningly.
“Let ’em alone! Keep your hands off them! Leave the room, you outlandish
black scamp! What are you standing there for? Can’t you set the Mamzelle
a place at table, and draw up a chair?”
So Marie Louise—perched upon a fine old-fashioned chair, supplemented by
a Webster’s Unabridged—sat down to dine with Mr. Billy.
She had never eaten in company with so peculiar a gentleman before; so
irascible toward the inoffensive Pompey, and so courteous to herself.
But she was not ill at ease, and conducted herself properly as her mamma
had taught her how.
Mr. Billy was anxious that she should enjoy her dinner, and began by
helping her generously to Jambalaya. When she had tasted it she made no
remark, only laid down her fork, and looked composedly before her.
“Why, bless me! what ails the little one? You don’t eat your rice.”
“It ain’t cook’, M’sieur,” replied Marie Louise politely.
Pompey nearly strangled in his attempt to smother an explosion.
“Of course it isn’t cooked,” echoed Mr. Billy, excitedly, pushing away
his plate. “What do you mean, setting a mess of that sort before human
beings? Do you take us for a couple of—of rice-birds? What are you
standing there for; can’t you look up some jam or something to keep the
young one from starving? Where’s all that jam I saw stewing a while
back, here?”
Pompey withdrew, and soon returned with a platter of black-looking jam.
Mr. Billy ordered cream for it. Pompey reported there was none.
“No cream, with twenty-five cows on the plantation if there’s one!”
cried Mr. Billy, almost springing from his chair with indignation.
“Aunt Printy ’low she sot de pan o’ cream on de winda-sell, suh, an’
Unc’ Jonah come ’long an’ tu’n it cl’ar ova; neva lef’ a drap in de
pan.”
But evidently the jam, with or without cream, was as distasteful to
Marie Louise as the rice was; for after tasting it gingerly she laid
away her spoon as she had done before.
“O, no! little one; you don’t tell me it isn’t cooked this time,”
laughed Mr. Billy. “I saw the thing boiling a day and a half. Wasn’t it
a day and a half, Pompey? if you know how to tell the truth.”
“Aunt Printy alluz do cooks her p’esarves tell dey plumb done, sho,”
agreed Pompey.
“It’s burn’, M’sieur,” said Marie Louise, politely, but decidedly, to
the utter confusion of Mr. Billy, who was as mortified as could be at
the failure of his dinner to please his fastidious little visitor.
Well, Mr. Billy thought of Marie Louise a good deal after that; as long
as the lilies lasted. And they lasted long, for he had the whole
household employed in taking care of them. Often he would chuckle to
himself: “The little rogue, with her black eyes and her lilies! And the
rice wasn’t cooked, if you please; and the jam was burnt. And the best
of it is, she was right.”
But when the lilies withered finally, and had to be thrown away, Mr.
Billy donned his best suit, a starched shirt and fine silk necktie. Thus
attired, he crossed the lane to carry his somewhat tardy apologies to
Madame Angèle and Mamzelle Marie Louise, and to pay them a first visit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Azélie
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Azélie
[Illustration]
Azélie crossed the yard with slow, hesitating steps. She wore a pink
sunbonnet and a faded calico dress that had been made the summer before,
and was now too small for her in every way. She carried a large tin pail
on her arm. When within a few yards of the house she stopped under a
chinaberry-tree, quite still, except for the occasional slow turning of
her head from side to side.
Mr. Mathurin, from his elevation upon the upper gallery, laughed when he
saw her; for he knew she would stay there, motionless, till some one
noticed and questioned her.
The planter was just home from the city, and was therefore in an
excellent humor, as he always was, on getting back to what he called _le
grand air_, the space and stillness of the country, and the scent of the
fields. He was in shirtsleeves, walking around the gallery that
encircled the big square white house. Beneath was a brick-paved portico
upon which the lower rooms opened. At wide intervals were large
whitewashed pillars that supported the upper gallery.
In one corner of the lower house was the store, which was in no sense a
store for the general public, but maintained only to supply the needs of
Mr. Mathurin’s “hands.”
“Eh bien! what do you want, Azélie?” the planter finally called out to
the girl in French. She advanced a few paces, and, pushing back her
sunbonnet, looked up at him with a gentle, inoffensive face—“to which
you would give the good God without confession,” he once described it.
“Bon jou’, M’si’ Mathurin,” she replied; and continued in English: “I
come git a li’le piece o’ meat. We plumb out o’ meat home.”
“Well, well, the meat is n’ going to walk to you, my chile: it has n’
got feet. Go fine Mr. ’Polyte. He’s yonda mending his buggy unda the
shed.” She turned away with an alert little step, and went in search of
Mr. ’Polyte.
“That’s you again!” the young man exclaimed, with a pretended air of
annoyance, when he saw her. He straightened himself, and looked down at
her and her pail with a comprehending glance. The sweat was standing in
shining beads on his brown, good-looking face. He was in his
shirt-sleeves, and the legs of his trousers were thrust into the tops of
his fine, high-heeled boots. He wore his straw hat very much on one
side, and had an air that was altogether _fanfaron_. He reached to a
back pocket for the store key, which was as large as the pistol that he
sometimes carried in the same place. She followed him across the thick,
tufted grass of the yard with quick, short steps that strove to keep
pace with his longer, swinging ones.
When he had unlocked and opened the heavy door of the store, there
escaped from the close room the strong, pungent odor of the varied wares
and provisions massed within. Azélie seemed to like the odor, and,
lifting her head, snuffed the air as people sometimes do upon entering a
conservatory filled with fragrant flowers.
A broad ray of light streamed in through the open door, illumining the
dingy interior. The double wooden shutters of the windows were all
closed, and secured on the inside by iron hooks.
“Well, w’at you want, Azélie?” asked ’Polyte, going behind the counter
with an air of hurry and importance. “I ain’t got time to fool. Make
has’e; say w’at you want.”
Her reply was precisely the same that she had made to Mr. Mathurin.
“I come git a li’le piece o’ meat. We plumb out o’ meat home.”
He seemed exasperated.
“Bonté! w’at you all do with meat yonda? You don’t reflec’ you about to
eat up yo’ crop befo’ it’s good out o’ the groun’, you all. I like to
know w’y yo’ pa don’t go he’p with the killin’ once aw’ile, an’ git some
fresh meat fo’ a change.”
She answered in an unshaded, unmodulated voice that was penetrating,
like a child’s: “Popa he do go he’p wid the killin’; but he say he can’t
work ’less he got salt meat. He got plenty to feed—him. He’s got to hire
he’p wid his crop, an’ he’s boun’ to feed ’em; they won’t year no
diffe’nt. An’ he’s got gra’ma to feed, an’ Sauterelle, an’ me—”
“An’ all the lazy-bone ’Cadians in the country that know w’ere they
goin’ to fine the coffee-pot always in the corna of the fire,” grumbled
’Polyte.
With an iron hook he lifted a small piece of salt meat from the pork
barrel, weighed it, and placed it in her pail. Then she wanted a little
coffee. He gave it to her reluctantly. He was still more loath to let
her have sugar; and when she asked for lard, he refused flatly.
She had taken off her sunbonnet, and was fanning herself with it, as she
leaned with her elbows upon the counter, and let her eyes travel
lingeringly along the well-lined shelves. ’Polyte stood staring into her
face with a sense of aggravation that her presence, her manner, always
stirred up in him.
The face was colorless but for the red, curved line of the lips. Her
eyes were dark, wide, innocent, questioning eyes, and her black hair was
plastered smooth back from the forehead and temples. There was no trace
of any intention of coquetry in her manner. He resented this as a token
of indifference toward his sex, and thought it inexcusable.
“Well, Azélie, if it’s anything you don’t see, ask fo’ it,” he
suggested, with what he flattered himself was humor. But there was no
responsive humor in Azélie’s composition. She seriously drew a small
flask from her pocket.
“Popa say, if you want to let him have a li’le dram, ’count o’ his pains
that’s ’bout to cripple him.”
“Yo’ pa knows as well as I do we don’t sell w’isky. Mr. Mathurin don’t
carry no license.”
“I know. He say if you want to give ’im a li’le dram, he’s willin’ to do
some work fo’ you.”
“No! Once fo’ all, no!” And ’Polyte reached for the day-book, in which
to enter the articles he had given to her.
But Azélie’s needs were not yet satisfied. She wanted tobacco; he would
not give it to her. A spool of thread; he rolled one up, together with
two sticks of peppermint candy, and placed it in her pail. When she
asked for a bottle of coal-oil, he grudgingly consented, but assured her
it would be useless to cudgel her brain further, for he would positively
let her have nothing more. He disappeared toward the coal-oil tank,
which was hidden from view behind the piled-up boxes on the counter.
When she heard him searching for an empty quart bottle, and making a
clatter with the tin funnels, she herself withdrew from the counter
against which she had been leaning.
After they quitted the store, ’Polyte, with a perplexed expression upon
his face, leaned for a moment against one of the whitewashed pillars,
watching the girl cross the yard. She had folded her sunbonnet into a
pad, which she placed beneath the heavy pail that she balanced upon her
head. She walked upright, with a slow, careful tread. Two of the yard
dogs that had stood a moment before upon the threshold of the store
door, quivering and wagging their tails, were following her now, with a
little businesslike trot. ’Polyte called them back.
The cabin which the girl occupied with her father, her grandmother, and
her little brother Sauterelle, was removed some distance from the
plantation house, and only its pointed roof could be discerned like a
speck far away across the field of cotton, which was all in bloom. Her
figure soon disappeared from view, and ’Polyte emerged from the shelter
of the gallery, and started again toward his interrupted task. He turned
to say to the planter, who was keeping up his measured tramp above:
“Mr. Mathurin, ain’t it ’mos’ time to stop givin’ credit to Arsène
Pauché. Look like that crop o’ his ain’t goin’ to start to pay his
account. I don’t see, me, anyway, how you come to take that triflin’
Li’le river gang on the place.”