returned, with a good-natured shrug. “Now they are yere, we can’t let
them starve, my frien’. Push them to work all you can. Hole back all
supplies that are not necessary, an’ nex’ year we will let some one else
enjoy the privilege of feeding them,” he ended, with a laugh.
“I wish they was all back on Li’le river,” ’Polyte muttered under his
breath as he turned and walked slowly away.
Directly back of the store was the young man’s sleeping-room. He had
made himself quite comfortable there in his corner. He had screened his
windows and doors; planted Madeira vines, which now formed a thick green
curtain between the two pillars that faced his room; and had swung a
hammock out there, in which he liked well to repose himself after the
fatigues of the day.
He lay long in the hammock that evening, thinking over the day’s
happenings and the morrow’s work, half dozing, half dreaming, and wholly
possessed by the charm of the night, the warm, sweeping air that blew
through the long corridor, and the almost unbroken stillness that
enveloped him.
At times his random thoughts formed themselves into an almost inaudible
speech: “I wish she would go ’way f’om yere.”
One of the dogs came and thrust his cool, moist muzzle against ’Polyte’s
cheek. He caressed the fellow’s shaggy head. “I don’t know w’at’s the
matta with her,” he sighed; “I don’ b’lieve she’s got good sense.”
It was a long time afterward that he murmured again: “I wish to God
she’d go ’way f’om yere!”
The edge of the moon crept up—a keen, curved blade of light above the
dark line of the cotton-field. ’Polyte roused himself when he saw it. “I
didn’ know it was so late,” he said to himself—or to his dog. He entered
his room at once, and was soon in bed, sleeping soundly.
It was some hours later that ’Polyte was roused from his sleep by—he did
not know what; his senses were too scattered and confused to determine
at once. There was at first no sound; then so faint a one that he
wondered how he could have heard it. A door of his room communicated
with the store, but this door was never used, and was almost completely
blocked by wares piled up on the other side. The faint noise that
’Polyte heard, and which came from within the store, was followed by a
flare of light that he could discern through the chinks, and that lasted
as long as a match might burn.
He was now fully aware that some one was in the store. How the intruder
had entered he could not guess, for the key was under his pillow with
his watch and his pistol.
As cautiously as he could he donned an extra garment, thrust his bare
feet into slippers, and crept out into the portico, pistol in hand.
The shutters of one of the store windows were open. He stood close to
it, and waited, which he considered surer and safer than to enter the
dark and crowded confines of the store to engage in what might prove a
bootless struggle with the intruder.
He had not long to wait. In a few moments some one darted through the
open window as nimbly as a cat. ’Polyte staggered back as if a heavy
blow had stunned him. His first thought and his first exclamation were:
“My God! how close I come to killin’ you!”
It was Azélie. She uttered no cry, but made one quick effort to run when
she saw him. He seized her arm and held her with a brutal grip. He put
the pistol back into his pocket. He was shaking like a man with the
palsy. One by one he took from her the parcels she was carrying, and
flung them back into the store. There were not many: some packages of
tobacco, a cheap pipe, some fishing-tackle, and the flask which she had
brought with her in the afternoon. This he threw into the yard. It was
still empty, for she had not been able to find the “key” to the
whisky-barrel.
“So—so, you a thief!” he muttered savagely under his breath.
“You hurtin’ me, Mr. ’Polyte,” she complained, squirming. He somewhat
relaxed, but did not relinquish, his hold upon her.
“I ain’t no thief,” she blurted.
“You was stealin’,” he contradicted her sharply.
“I wasn’ stealin’. I was jus’ takin’ a few li’le things you all too mean
to gi’ me. You all treat my popa like he was a dog. It’s on’y las’ week
Mr. Mathurin sen’ ’way to the city to fetch a fine buckboa’d fo’ Son
Ambroise, an’ he’s on’y a nigga, après tout. An’ my popa he want a
picayune tobacca? It’s ‘No’—” She spoke loud in her monotonous, shrill
voice. ’Polyte kept saying: “Hush, I tell you! Hush! Somebody’ll year
you. Hush! It’s enough you broke in the sto’—how you got in the sto’?”
he added, looking from her to the open window.
“It was w’en you was behine the boxes to the coal-oil tank—I unhook’
it,” she explained sullenly.
“An’ you don’ know I could sen’ you to Baton Rouge fo’ that?” He shook
her as though trying to rouse her to a comprehension of her grievous
fault.
“Jus’ fo’ a li’le picayune o’ tobacca!” she whimpered.
He suddenly abandoned his hold upon her, and left her free. She
mechanically rubbed the arm that he had grasped so violently.
Between the long row of pillars the moon was sending pale beams of
light. In one of these they were standing.
“Azélie,” he said, “go ’way f’om yere quick; some one might fine you
yere. W’en you want something in the sto’, fo’ yo’se’f or fo’ yo’ pa—I
don’ care—ask me fo’ it. But you—but you can’t neva set yo’ foot inside
that sto’ again. Co ’way f’on yere quick as you can, I tell you!”
She tried in no way to conciliate him. She turned and walked away over
the same ground she had crossed before. One of the big dogs started to
follow her. ’Polyte did not call him back this time. He knew no harm
could come to her, going through those lonely fields, while the animal
was at her side.
He went at once to his room for the store key that was beneath his
pillow. He entered the store, and refastened the window. When he had
made everything once more secure, he sat dejectedly down upon a bench
that was in the portico. He sat for a long time motionless. Then,
overcome by some powerful feeling that was at work within him, he buried
his face in his hands and wept, his whole body shaken by the violence of
his sobs.
After that night ’Polyte loved Azélie desperately. The very action which
should have revolted him had seemed, on the contrary, to inflame him
with love. He felt that love to be a degradation—something that he was
almost ashamed to acknowledge to himself; and he knew that he was
hopelessly unable to stifle it.
He watched now in a tremor for her coming. She came very often, for she
remembered every word he had said; and she did not hesitate to ask him
for those luxuries which she considered necessities to her “popa’s”
existence. She never attempted to enter the store, but always waited
outside, of her own accord, laughing, and playing with the dogs. She
seemed to have no shame or regret for what she had done, and plainly did
not realize that it was a disgraceful act. ’Polyte often shuddered with
disgust to discern in her a being so wholly devoid of moral sense.
He had always been an industrious, bustling fellow, never idle. Now
there were hours and hours in which he did nothing but long for the
sight of Azélie. Even when at work there was that gnawing want at his
heart to see her, often so urgent that he would leave everything to
wander down by her cabin with the hope of seeing her. It was even
something if he could catch a glimpse of Sauterelle playing in the
weeds, or of Arsène lazily dragging himself about, and smoking the pipe
which rarely left his lips now that he was kept so well supplied with
tobacco.
Once, down the bank of the bayou, when ’Polyte came upon Azélie
unexpectedly, and was therefore unprepared to resist the shock of her
sudden appearance, he seized her in his arms, and covered her face with
kisses. She was not indignant; she was not flustered or agitated, as
might have been a susceptible, coquettish girl; she was only astonished,
and annoyed.
“W’at you doin’, Mr. ’Polyte?” she cried, struggling. “Leave me ’lone, I
say! Leave me go!”
“I love you, I love you, I love you!” he stammered helplessly over and
over in her face.
“You mus’ los’ yo’ head,” she told him, red from the effort of the
struggle, when he released her.
“You right, Azélie; I b’lieve I los’ my head,” and he climbed up the
bank of the bayou as fast as he could.
After that his behavior was shameful, and he knew it, and he did not
care. He invented pretexts that would enable him to touch her hand with
his. He wanted to kiss her again, and told her she might come into the
store as she used to do. There was no need for her to unhook a window
now; he gave her whatever she asked for, charging it always to his own
account on the books. She permitted his caresses without returning them,
and yet that was all he seemed to live for now. He gave her a little
gold ring.
He was looking eagerly forward to the close of the season, when Arsène
would go back to Little River. He had arranged to ask Azélie to marry
him. He would keep her with him when the others went away. He longed to
rescue her from what he felt to be the demoralizing influences of her
family and her surroundings. ’Polyte believed he would be able to awaken
Azélie to finer, better impulses when he should have her apart to
himself.
But when the time came to propose it, Azélie looked at him in amazement.
“Ah, b’en, no. I ain’t goin’ to stay yere wid you, Mr. ’Polyte; I’m
goin’ yonda on Li’le river wid my popa.”
This resolve frightened him, but he pretended not to believe it.
“You jokin’, Azélie; you mus’ care a li’le about me. It looked to me all
along like you cared some about me.”
“An’ my popa, donc? Ah, b’en, no.”
“You don’ rememba how lonesome it is on Li’le river, Azélie,” he
pleaded. “W’enever I think ’bout Li’le river it always make me sad—like
I think about a graveyard. To me it’s like a person mus’ die, one way or
otha, w’en they go on Li’le river. Oh, I hate it! Stay with me, Azélie;
don’ go ’way f’om me.”
She said little, one way or the other, after that, when she had fully
understood his wishes, and her reserve led him to believe, since he
hoped it, that he had prevailed with her and that she had determined to
stay with him and be his wife.
It was a cool, crisp morning in December that they went away. In a
ramshackle wagon, drawn by an ill-mated team, Arsène Pauché and his
family left Mr. Mathurin’s plantation for their old familiar haunts on
Little river. The grandmother, looking like a witch, with a black shawl
tied over her head, sat upon a roll of bedding in the bottom of the
wagon. Sauterelle’s bead-like eyes glittered with mischief as he peeped
over the side. Azélie, with the pink sunbonnet completely hiding her
round young face, sat beside her father, who drove.
’Polyte caught one glimpse of the group as they passed in the road.
Turning, he hurried into his room, and locked himself in.
It soon became evident that ’Polyte’s services were going to count for
little. He himself was the first to realize this. One day he approached
the planter, and said: “Mr. Mathurin, befo’ we start anotha year
togetha, I betta tell you I’m goin’ to quit.” ’Polyte stood upon the
steps, and leaned back against the railing. The planter was a little
above on the gallery.
“W’at in the name o’ sense are you talking about, ’Polyte!” he exclaimed
in astonishment.
“It’s jus’ that; I’m boun’ to quit.”
“You had a better offer?”
“No; I ain’t had no offa.”
“Then explain yo’se’f, my frien’—explain yo’se’f,” requested Mr.
Mathurin, with something of offended dignity. “If you leave me, w’ere
are you going?”
’Polyte was beating his leg with his limp felt hat. “I reckon I jus’ as
well go yonda on Li’le river—w’ere Azélie,” he said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mamouche
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mamouche
[Illustration]
Mamouche stood within the open doorway, which he had just entered. It
was night; the rain was falling in torrents, and the water trickled from
him as it would have done from an umbrella, if he had carried one.
Old Doctor John-Luis, who was toasting his feet before a blazing
hickory-wood fire, turned to gaze at the youngster through his
spectacles. Marshall, the old negro who had opened the door at the boy’s
knock, also looked down at him, and indignantly said:
“G’long back on de gall’ry an’ drip yo’se’f! W’at Cynthy gwine say
tomorrow w’en she see dat flo’ mess’ up dat away?”
“Come to the fire and sit down,” said Doctor John-Luis.
Doctor John-Luis was a bachelor. He was small and thin; he wore
snuff-colored clothes that were a little too large for him, and
spectacles. Time had not deprived him of an abundant crop of hair that
had once been red, and was not now more than half-bleached.
The boy looked irresolutely from master to man; then went and sat down
beside the fire on a splint-bottom chair. He sat so close to the blaze
that had he been an apple he would have roasted. As he was but a small
boy, clothed in wet rags, he only steamed.
Marshall grumbled audibly, and Doctor John-Luis continued to inspect the
boy through his glasses.
“Marsh, bring him something to eat,” he commanded, tentatively.
Marshall hesitated, and challenged the child with a speculating look.
“Is you w’ite o’ is you black?” he asked. “Dat w’at I wants ter know
’fo’ I kiar’ victuals to yo in de settin’-room.”
“I’m w’ite, me,” the boy responded, promptly.
“I ain’t disputin’; go ahead. All right fer dem w’at wants ter take yo’
wud fer it.” Doctor John-Luis coughed behind his hand and said nothing.
Marshall brought a platter of cold food to the boy, who rested the dish
upon his knees and ate from it with keen appetite.
“Where do you come from?” asked Doctor John-Luis, when his caller
stopped for breath. Mamouche turned a pair of big, soft, dark eyes upon
his questioner.
“I come frum Cloutierville this mo’nin’. I been try to git to the
twenty-fo’-mile ferry w’en de rain ketch me.”
“What were you going to do at the twenty-four-mile ferry?”
The boy gazed absently into the fire. “I don’ know w’at I was goin’ to
do yonda to the twenty-fo’-mile ferry,” he said.
“Then you must be a tramp, to be wandering aimlessly about the country
in that way!” exclaimed the doctor.
“No; I don’ b’lieve I’m a tramp, me.” Mamouche was wriggling his toes
with enjoyment of the warmth and palatable food.
“Well, what’s your name?” continued Doctor John-Luis.
“My name it’s Mamouche.”
“‘Mamouche.’ Fiddlesticks! That’s no name.”
The boy looked as if he regretted the fact, while not being able to help
it.
“But my pa, his name it was Mathurin Peloté,” he offered in some
palliation.
“Peloté! Peloté!” mused Doctor John-Luis. “Any kin to Théodule Peloté
who lived formerly in Avoyelles parish?”
“W’y, yas!” laughed Mamouche. “Théodule Peloté, it was my gran’pa.”
“Your grandfather? Well, upon my word!” He looked again, critically, at
the youngster’s rags. “Then Stéphanie Galopin must have been your
grandmother!”
“Yas,” responded Mamouche, complacently; “that who was my gran’ma. She
die two year ago down by Alexandria.”
“Marsh,” called Doctor John-Luis, turning in his chair, “bring him a mug
of milk and another piece of pie!”
When Mamouche had eaten all the good things that were set before him, he
found that one side of him was quite dry, and he transferred himself
over to the other corner of the fire so as to turn to the blaze the side
which was still wet.
The action seemed to amuse Doctor John-Luis, whose old head began to
fill with recollections.
“That reminds me of Théodule,” he laughed. “Ah, he was a great fellow,
your father, Théodule!”
“My gran’pa,” corrected Mamouche.
“Yes, yes, your grandfather. He was handsome; I tell you, he was
good-looking. And the way he could dance and play the fiddle and sing!
Let me see, how did that song go that he used to sing when we went out
serenading: ‘A ta—à ta—’
‘A ta fenêtre
Daignes paraître—tra la la la!’”
Doctor John-Luis’s voice, even in his youth, could not have been
agreeable; and now it bore no resemblance to any sound that Mamouche had
ever heard issue from a human throat. The boy kicked his heels and
rolled sideward on his chair with enjoyment. Doctor John-Luis laughed
even more heartily, finished the stanza, and sang another one through.
“That’s what turned the girls’ heads, I tell you, my boy,” said he, when
he had recovered his breath; “that fiddling and dancing and tra la la.”
During the next hour the old man lived again through his youth; through
any number of alluring experiences with his friend Théodule, that merry
fellow who had never done a steady week’s work in his life; and
Stéphanie, the pretty Acadian girl, whom he had never wholly understood,
even to this day.
It was quite late when Doctor John-Luis climbed the stairs that led from
the sitting-room up to his bedchamber. As he went, followed by the ever
attentive Marshall, he was singing:
“A ta fenêtre
Daignes paraître,”
but very low, so as not to awaken Mamouche, whom he left sleeping upon a
bed that Marshall at his order had prepared for the boy beside the
sitting-room fire.
At a very early hour next morning Marshall appeared at his master’s
bedside with the accustomed morning coffee.
“What is he doing?” asked Doctor John-Luis, as he sugared and stirred
the tiny cup of black coffee.
“Who dat, sah?”
“Why, the boy, Mamouche. What is he doing?”
“He gone, sah. He done gone.”
“Gone!”
“Yas, sah. He roll his bed up in de corner; he onlock de do’; he gone.
But de silver an’ ev’thing dah; he ain’t kiar’ nuttin’ off.”
“Marshall,” snapped Doctor John-Luis, ill-humoredly, “there are times
when you don’t seem to have sense and penetration enough to talk about!
I think I’ll take another nap,” he grumbled, as he turned his back upon
Marshall. “Wake me at seven.”
It was no ordinary thing for Doctor John-Luis to be in a bad humor, and
perhaps it is not strictly true to say that he was now. He was only in a
little less amiable mood than usual when he pulled on his high rubber
boots and went splashing out in the wet to see what his people were
doing.
He might have owned a large plantation had he wished to own one, for a
long life of persistent, intelligent work had left him with a
comfortable fortune in his old age; but he preferred the farm on which
he lived contentedly and raised an abundance to meet his modest wants.
He went down to the orchard, where a couple of men were busying
themselves in setting out a line of young fruit-trees.
“Tut, tut, tut!” They were doing it all wrong; the line was not
straight; the holes were not deep. It was strange that he had to come
down there and discover such things with his old eyes!
He poked his head into the kitchen to complain to Prudence about the
ducks that she had not seasoned properly the day before, and to hope
that the accident would never occur again.
He tramped over to where a carpenter was working on a gate; securing
it—as he meant to secure all the gates upon his place—with great patent
clamps and ingenious hinges, intended to baffle utterly the designs of
the evil-disposed persons who had lately been tampering with them. For
there had been a malicious spirit abroad, who played tricks, it seemed,
for pure wantonness upon the farmers and planters, and caused them
infinite annoyance.
As Dr. John-Luis contemplated the carpenter at work, and remembered how
his gates had recently all been lifted from their hinges one night and
left lying upon the ground, the provoking nature of the offense dawned
upon him as it had not done before. He turned swiftly, prompted by a
sudden determination, and re-entered the house.
Then he proceeded to write out in immense black characters a half-dozen
placards. It was an offer of twenty-five dollars’ reward for the capture
of the person guilty of the malicious offence already described. These
placards were sent abroad with the same eager haste that had conceived
and executed them.
After a day or two, Doctor John-Luis’ ill humor had resolved itself into
a pensive melancholy.
“Marsh,” he said, “you know, after all, it’s rather dreary to be living
alone as I do, without any companion—of my own color, you understand.”
“I knows dat, sah. It sho’ am lonesome,” replied the sympathetic
Marshall.
“You see, Marsh, I’ve been thinking lately,” and Doctor John-Luis
coughed, for he disliked the inaccuracy of that “lately.” “I’ve been
thinking that this property and wealth that I’ve worked so hard to
accumulate, are after all doing no permanent, practical good to any one.
Now, if I could find some well-disposed boy whom I might train to work,
to study, to lead a decent, honest life—a boy of good heart who would
care for me in my old age; for I am still comparatively—hem—not old?
hey, Marsh?”
“Dey ain’t one in de pa’ish hole yo’ own like you does, sah.”
“That’s it. Now, can you think of such a boy? Try to think.”
Marshall slowly scratched his head and looked reflective.
“If you can think of such a boy,” said Doctor John-Luis, “you might
bring him here to spend an evening with me, you know, without hinting at
my intentions, of course. In that way I could sound him; study him up,
as it were. For a step of such importance is not to be taken without due
consideration, Marsh.”
Well, the first whom Marshall brought was one of Baptiste Choupic’s
boys. He was a very timid child, and sat on the edge of his chair,
fearfully. He replied in jerky mono-*syllables when Doctor John-Luis
spoke to him, “Yas, sah—no, sah,” as the case might be; with a little
nervous bob of the head.
His presence made the doctor quite uncomfortable. He was glad to be rid
of the boy at nine o’clock, when he sent him home with some oranges and
a few sweetmeats.
Then Marshall had Theodore over; an unfortunate selection that evinced
little judgment on Marshall’s part. Not to mince matters, the boy was
painfully forward. He monopolized the conversation; asked impertinent
questions and handled and inspected everything in the room. Dr.
John-Luis sent him home with an orange and not a single sweet.
Then there was Hyppolite, who was too ugly to be thought of; and Cami,
who was heavy and stupid, and fell asleep in his chair with his mouth
wide open. And so it went. If Doctor John-Luis had hoped in the company
of any of these boys to repeat the agreeable evening he had passed with
Mamouche, he was sadly deceived.
At last he instructed Marshall to discontinue the search of that ideal
companion he had dreamed of. He was resigned to spend the remainder of
his days without one.
Then, one day when it was raining again, and very muddy and chill, a
red-faced man came driving up to Doctor John-Luis’ door in a dilapidated
buggy. He lifted a boy from the vehicle, whom he held with a vise-like
clutch, and whom he straightway dragged into the astonished presence of
Doctor John-Luis.
“Here he is, sir,” shouted the red-faced man. “We’ve got him at last!
Here he is.”
It was Mamouche, covered with mud, the picture of misery. Doctor
John-Luis stood with his back to the fire. He was startled, and visibly
and painfully moved at the sight of the boy.
“Is it possible!” he exclaimed. “Then it was you, Mamouche, who did this
mischievous thing to me? Lifting my gates from their hinges; letting the
chickens in among my flowers to ruin them; and the hogs and cattle to
trample and uproot my vegetables!”
“Ha! ha!” laughed the red-faced man, “that game’s played out, now;” and
Doctor John-Luis looked as if he wanted to strike him.
Mamouche seemed unable to reply. His lower lip was quivering.
“Yas, it’s me!” he burst out. “It’s me w’at take yo’ gates off the
hinge. It’s me w’at turn loose Mr. Morgin’s hoss, w’en Mr. Morgin was
passing _veillée_ wid his sweetheart. It’s me w’at take down Ma’ame
Angèle’s fence, an’ lef her calf loose to tramp in Mr. Billy’s cotton.
It’s me w’at play like a ghos’ by the graveyard las’ Toussaint to scare
the darkies passin’ in the road. It’s me w’at—”
The confession had burst out from the depth of Mamouche’s heart like a
torrent, and there is no telling when it would have stopped if Doctor
John-Luis had not enjoined silence.
“And pray tell me,” he asked, as severely as he could, “why you left my
house like a criminal, in the morning, secretly?”
The tears had begun to course down Mamouche’s brown cheeks.
“I was ’shame’ of myse’f, that’s w’y. If you wouldn’ gave me no suppa,
an’ no bed, an’ no fire, I don’ say.’ I wouldn’ been ’shame’ then.”