into her little back room. The first thing which she did, even before
unpinning the dotted lace veil, was to take the “Dictionnaire de La
Langue Francaise” from beneath the pile of old books on the mantelpiece.
It was not easy to find Lacodie’s picture hidden somewhere in its
depths. But the search afforded her almost a sensuous pleasure; turning
the leaves slowly back and forth.
When she had secured the likeness she went into the store and from her
showcase selected a picture frame—the very handsomest there; one of
those which sold for thirty-five cents.
Into the frame Mamzelle Fleurette neatly and deftly pasted Lacodie’s
picture. Then she re-entered her room and deliberately hung it upon the
wall—between the crucifix and the portrait of Empress Eugènie—and she
did not care if the Gascon’s wife ever saw it or not.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dead Men’s Shoes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dead Men’s Shoes
[Illustration]
It never occurred to any person to wonder what would befall Gilma now
that “le vieux Gamiche” was dead. After the burial people went their
several ways, some to talk over the old man and his eccentricities,
others to forget him before nightfall, and others to wonder what would
become of his very nice property, the hundred-acre farm on which he had
lived for thirty years, and on which he had just died at the age of
seventy.
If Gilma had been a child, more than one motherly heart would have gone
out to him. This one and that one would have bethought them of carrying
him home with them; to concern themselves with his present comfort, if
not his future welfare. But Gilma was not a child. He was a strapping
fellow of nineteen, measuring six feet in his stockings, and as strong
as any healthy youth need be. For ten years he had lived there on the
plantation with Monsieur Gamiche; and he seemed now to have been the
only one with tears to shed at the old man’s funeral.
Gamiche’s relatives had come down from Caddo in a wagon the day after
his death, and had settled themselves in his house. There was Septime,
his nephew, a cripple, so horribly afflicted that it was distressing to
look at him. And there was Septime’s widowed sister, Ma’me Brozé, with
her two little girls. They had remained at the house during the burial,
and Gilma found them still there upon his return.
The young man went at once to his room to seek a moment’s repose. He had
lost much sleep during Monsieur Gamiche’s illness; yet, he was in fact
more worn by the mental than the bodily strain of the past week.
But when he entered his room, there was something so changed in its
aspect that it seemed no longer to belong to him. In place of his own
apparel which he had left hanging on the row of pegs, there were a few
shabby little garments and two battered straw hats, the property of the
Brozé children. The bureau drawers were empty, there was not a vestige
of anything belonging to him remaining in the room. His first impression
was that Ma’me Brozé had been changing things around and had assigned
him to some other room.
But Gilma understood the situation better when he discovered every scrap
of his personal effects piled up on a bench outside the door, on the
back or “false” gallery. His boots and shoes were under the bench, while
coats, trousers and underwear were heaped in an indiscriminate mass
together.
The blood mounted to his swarthy face and made him look for the moment
like an Indian. He had never thought of this. He did not know what he
had been thinking of; but he felt that he ought to have been prepared
for anything; and it was his own fault if he was not. But it hurt. This
spot was “home” to him against the rest of the world. Every tree, every
shrub was a friend; he knew every patch in the fences; and the little
old house, gray and weather-beaten, that had been the shelter of his
youth, he loved as only few can love inanimate things. A great enmity
arose in him against Ma’me Brozé. She was walking about the yard, with
her nose in the air, and a shabby black dress trailing behind her. She
held the little girls by the hand.
Gilma could think of nothing better to do than to mount his horse and
ride away—anywhere. The horse was a spirited animal of great value.
Monsieur Gamiche had named him “Jupiter” on account of his proud
bearing, and Gilma had nicknamed him “Jupe,” which seemed to him more
endearing and expressive of his great attachment to the fine creature.
With the bitter resentment of youth, he felt that “Jupe” was the only
friend remaining to him on earth.
He had thrust a few pieces of clothing in his saddlebags and had
requested Ma’me Brozé, with assumed indifference, to put his remaining
effects in a place of safety until he should be able to send for them.
As he rode around by the front of the house, Septime, who sat on the
gallery all doubled up in his uncle Gamiche’s big chair, called out:
“Hé, Gilma! w’ere you boun’ fo’?”
“I’m goin’ away,” replied Gilma, curtly, reining his horse.
“That’s all right; but I reckon you might jus’ as well leave that hoss
behine you.”
“The hoss is mine,” returned Gilma, as quickly as he would have returned
a blow.
“We’ll see ’bout that li’le later, my frien’. I reckon you jus’ well
turn ’im loose.”
Gilma had no more intention of giving up his horse than he had of
parting with his own right hand. But Monsieur Gamiche had taught him
prudence and respect for the law. He did not wish to invite disagreeable
complications. So, controlling his temper by a supreme effort, Gilma
dismounted, unsaddled the horse then and there, and led it back to the
stable. But as he started to leave the place on foot, he stopped to say
to Septime:
“You know, Mr. Septime, that hoss is mine; I can collec’ a hundred
aff’davits to prove it. I’ll bring them yere in a few days with a
statement f’om a lawyer; an’ I’ll expec’ the hoss an’ saddle to be
turned over to me in good condition.”
“That’s all right. We’ll see ’bout that. Won’t you stay fo’ dinna?”
“No, I thank you, sah; Ma’me Brozé already ask’ me.” And Gilma strode
away, down the beaten footpath that led across the sloping grassplot
toward the outer road.
A definite destination and a settled purpose ahead of him seemed to have
revived his flagging energies of an hour before. It was with no trace of
fatigue that he stepped out bravely along the wagon-road that skirted
the bayou.
It was early spring, and the cotton had already a good stand. In some
places the negroes were hoeing. Gilma stopped alongside the rail fence
and called to an old negress who was plying her hoe at no great
distance.
“Hello, Aunt Hal’fax! see yere.”
She turned, and immediately quitted her work to go and join him,
bringing her hoe with her across her shoulder. She was large-boned and
very black. She was dressed in the deshabille of the field.
“I wish you’d come up to yo’ cabin with me a minute, Aunt Hally,” he
said; “I want to get an aff’davit f’om you.”
She understood, after a fashion, what an affidavit was; but she couldn’t
see the good of it.
“I ain’t got no aff’davis, boy; you g’long an’ don’ pesta me.”
“’Twon’t take you any time, Aunt Hal’fax. I jus’ want you to put yo’
mark to a statement I’m goin’ to write to the effec’ that my hoss, Jupe,
is my own prop’ty; that you know it, an’ willin’ to swear to it.”
“Who say Jupe don’ b’long to you?” she questioned cautiously, leaning on
her hoe.
He motioned toward the house.
“Who? Mista Septime and them?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I reckon!” she exclaimed, sympathetically.
“That’s it,” Gilma went on; “an’ nex’ thing they’ll be sayin’ yo’ ole
mule, Policy, don’t b’long to you.”
She started violently.
“Who say so?”
“Nobody. But I say, nex’ thing, that’ w’at they’ll be sayin’.”
She began to move along the inside of the fence, and he turned to keep
pace with her, walking on the grassy edge of the road.
“I’ll jus’ write the aff’davit, Aunt Hally, an’ all you got to do”—
“You know des well as me dat mule mine. I done paid ole Mista Gamiche
fo’ ’im in good cotton; dat year you falled outen de puckhorn tree; an’
he write it down hisse’f in his ’count book.”
Gilma did not linger a moment after obtaining the desired statement from
Aunt Halifax. With the first of those “hundred affidavits” that he hoped
to secure, safe in his pocket, he struck out across the country, seeking
the shortest way to town.
Aunt Halifax stayed in the cabin door.
“’Relius,” she shouted to a little black boy out in the road, “does you
see Pol’cy anywhar? G’long, see ef he ’roun’ de ben’. Wouldn’ s’prise me
ef he broke de fence an’ got in yo’ pa’s corn ag’in.” And, shading her
eyes to scan the surrounding country, she muttered, uneasily: “Whar dat
mule?”
The following morning Gilma entered town and proceeded at once to Lawyer
Paxton’s office. He had had no difficulty in obtaining the testimony of
blacks and whites regarding his ownership of the horse; but he wanted to
make his claim as secure as possible by consulting the lawyer and
returning to the plantation armed with unassailable evidence.
The lawyer’s office was a plain little room opening upon the street.
Nobody was there, but the door was open; and Gilma entered and took a
seat at the bare round table and waited. It was not long before the
lawyer came in; he had been in conversation with some one across the
street.
“Good-morning, Mr. Pax’on,” said Gilma, rising.
The lawyer knew his face well enough, but could not place him, and only
returned: “Good-morning, sir—good-morning.”
“I come to see you,” began Gilma plunging at once into business, and
drawing his handful of nondescript affidavits from his pocket, “about a
matter of prope’ty, about regaining possession of my hoss that Mr.
Septime, ole Mr. Gamiche’s nephew, is holdin’ f’om me yonder.”
The lawyer took the papers and, adjusting his eye-glasses, began to look
them through.
“Yes, yes,” he said; “I see.”
“Since Mr. Gamiche died on Tuesday”—began Gilma.
“Gamiche died!” repeated Lawyer Paxton, with astonishment. “Why, you
don’t mean to tell me that vieux Gamiche is dead? Well, well. I hadn’t
heard of it; I just returned from Shreveport this morning. So le vieux
Gamiche is dead, is he? And you say you want to get possession of a
horse. What did you say your name was?” drawing a pencil from his
pocket.
“Gilma Germain is my name, suh.”
“Gilma Germain,” repeated the lawyer, a little meditatively, scanning
his visitor closely. “Yes, I recall your face now. You are the young
fellow whom le vieux Gamiche took to live with him some ten or twelve
years ago.”
“Ten years ago las’ November, suh.”
Lawyer Paxton arose and went to his safe, from which, after unlocking
it, he took a legal-looking document that he proceeded to read carefully
through to himself.
“Well, Mr. Germain, I reckon there won’t be any trouble about regaining
possession of the horse,” laughed Lawyer Paxton. “I’m pleased to inform
you, my dear sir, that our old friend, Gamiche, has made you sole heir
to his property; that is, his plantation, including live stock, farming
implements, machinery, household effects, etc. Quite a pretty piece of
property,” he proclaimed leisurely, seating himself comfortably for a
long talk. “And I may add, a pretty piece of luck, Mr. Germain, for a
young fellow just starting out in life; nothing but to step into a dead
man’s shoes! A great chance—great chance. Do you know, sir, the moment
you mentioned your name, it came back to me like a flash, how le vieux
Gamiche came in here one day, about three years ago, and wanted to make
his will”— And the loquacious lawyer went on with his reminiscences and
interesting bits of information, of which Gilma heard scarcely a word.
He was stunned, drunk, with the sudden joy of possession; the thought of
what seemed to him great wealth, all his own—his own! It seemed as if a
hundred different sensations were holding him at once, and as if a
thousand intentions crowded upon him. He felt like another being who
would have to readjust himself to the new conditions, presenting
themselves so unexpectedly. The narrow confines of the office were
stifling, and it seemed as if the lawyer’s flow of talk would never
stop. Gilma arose abruptly, and with a half-uttered apology, plunged
from the room into the outer air.
Two days later Gilma stopped again before Aunt Halifax’s cabin, on his
way back to the plantation. He was walking as before, having declined to
avail himself of any one of the several offers of a mount that had been
tendered him in town and on the way. A rumor of Gilma’s great good
fortune had preceded him, and Aunt Halifax greeted him with an almost
triumphal shout as he approached.
“God knows you desarve it, Mista Gilma! De Lord knows you does, suh!
Come in an’ res’ yo’se’f, suh. You, ’Relius! git out dis heah cabin;
crowdin’ up dat away!” She wiped off the best chair available and
offered it to Gilma.
He was glad to rest himself and glad to accept Aunt Halifax’s proffer of
a cup of coffee, which she was in the act of dripping before a small
fire. He sat as far as he could from the fire, for the day was warm; he
mopped his face, and fanned himself with his broad-rimmed hat.
“I des’ can’t he’p laughin’ w’en I thinks ’bout it,” said the old woman,
fairly shaking, as she leaned over the hearth. “I wakes up in de night,
even, an’ has to laugh.”
“How’s that, Aunt Hal’fax,” asked Gilma, almost tempted to laugh himself
at he knew not what.
“G’long, Mista Gilma! like you don’ know! It’s w’en I thinks ’bout
Septime an’ them like I gwine see ’em in dat wagon to-mor’ mo’nin’, on’
dey way back to Caddo. Oh, lawsy!”
“That isn’ so ver’ funny, Aunt Hal’fax,” returned Gilma, feeling himself
ill at ease as he accepted the cup of coffee which she presented to him
with much ceremony on a platter. “I feel pretty sorry for Septime,
myse’f.”
“I reckon he know now who Jupe b’long to,” she went on, ignoring his
expression of sympathy; “no need to tell him who Pol’cy b’long to,
nuther. An’ I tell you, Mista Gilma,” she went on, leaning upon the
table without seating herself, “dey gwine back to hard times in Caddo. I
heah tell dey nuva gits ’nough to eat, yonda. Septime, he can’t do
nuttin’ ’cep’ set still all twis’ up like a sarpint. An’ Ma’me Brozé,
she do some kine sewin’; but don’t look like she got sense ’nough to do
dat halfway. An’ dem li’le gals, dey ’bleege to run bar’foot mos’ all
las’ winta’, twell dat li’les’ gal, she got her heel plum fros’ bit, so
dey tells me. Oh, lawsy! How dey gwine look to-mor’, all trapsin’ back
to Caddo!”
Gilma had never found Aunt Halifax’s company so intensely disagreeable
as at that moment. He thanked her for the coffee, and went away so
suddenly as to startle her. But her good humor never flagged. She called
out to him from the doorway:
“Oh, Mista Gilma! You reckon dey knows who Pol’cy b’longs to now?”
He somehow did not feel quite prepared to face Septime; and he lingered
along the road. He even stopped a while to rest, apparently, under the
shade of a huge cottonwood tree that overhung the bayou. From the very
first, a subtle uneasiness, a self-dissatisfaction had mingled with his
elation, and he was trying to discover what it meant.
To begin with, the straightforwardness of his own nature had inwardly
resented the sudden change in the bearing of most people toward himself.
He was trying to recall, too, something which the lawyer had said; a
little phrase, out of that multitude of words, that had fallen in his
consciousness. It had stayed there, generating a little festering sore
place that was beginning to make itself irritatingly felt. What was it,
that little phrase? Something about—in his excitement he had only half
heard it—something about dead men’s shoes.
The exuberant health and strength of his big body; the courage,
virility, endurance of his whole nature revolted against the expression
in itself, and the meaning which it conveyed to him. Dead men’s shoes!
Were they not for such afflicted beings as Septime? as that helpless,
dependent woman up there? as those two little ones, with their poorly
fed, poorly clad bodies and sweet, appealing eyes? Yet he could not
determine how he would act and what he would say to them.
But there was no room left in his heart for hesitancy when he came to
face the group. Septime was still crouched in his uncle’s chair; he
seemed never to have left it since the day of the funeral. Ma’me Brozé
had been crying, and so had the children—out of sympathy, perhaps.
“Mr. Septime,” said Gilma, approaching, “I brought those aff’davits
about the hoss. I hope you about made up yo’ mind to turn it over
without further trouble.”
Septime was trembling, bewildered, almost speechless.
“Wat you mean?” he faltered, looking up with a shifting, sideward
glance. “The whole place b’longs to you. You tryin’ to make a fool out
o’ me?”
“Fo’ me,” returned Gilma, “the place can stay with Mr. Gamiche’s own
flesh an’ blood. I’ll see Mr. Pax’on again an’ make that according to
the law. But I want my hoss.”
Gilma took something besides his horse—a picture of le vieux Gamiche,
which had stood on his mantelpiece. He thrust it into his pocket. He
also took his old benefactor’s walking-stick and a gun.
As he rode out of the gate, mounted upon his well-beloved “Jupe,” the
faithful dog following, Gilma felt as if he had awakened from an
intoxicating but depressing dream.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
At Chenière Caminada
------------------------------------------------------------------------
At Chêniere Caminada
I.
There was no clumsier looking fellow in church that Sunday morning than
Antoine Bocaze—the one they called Tonie. But Tonie did not really care
if he were clumsy or not. He felt that he could speak intelligibly to no
woman save his mother; but since he had no desire to inflame the hearts
of any of the island maidens, what difference did it make?
He knew there was no better fisherman on the Chênière Caminada than
himself, if his face was too long and bronzed, his limbs too
unmanageable and his eyes too earnest—almost too honest.
It was a midsummer day, with a lazy, scorching breeze blowing from the
Gulf straight into the church windows. The ribbons on the young girls’
hats fluttered like the wings of birds, and the old women clutched the
flapping ends of the veils that covered their heads.
A few mosquitoes, floating through the blistering air, with their
nipping and humming fretted the people to a certain degree of attention
and consequent devotion. The measured tones of the priest at the altar
rose and fell like a song: “Credo in unum Deum patrem omnipotentem” he
chanted. And then the people all looked at one another, suddenly
electrified.
Some one was playing upon the organ whose notes no one on the whole
island was able to awaken; whose tones had not been heard during the
many months since a passing stranger had one day listlessly dragged his
fingers across its idle keys. A long, sweet strain of music floated down
from the loft and filled the church.
It seemed to most of them—it seemed to Tonie standing there beside his
old mother—that some heavenly being must have descended upon the Church
of Our Lady of Lourdes and chosen this celestial way of communicating
with its people.
But it was no creature from a different sphere; it was only a young lady
from Grand Isle. A rather pretty young person with blue eyes and
nut-brown hair, who wore a dotted lawn of fine texture and fashionable
make, and a white Leghorn sailor-hat.
Tonie saw her standing outside of the church after mass, receiving the
priest’s voluble praises and thanks for her graceful service.
She had come over to mass from Grand Isle in Baptiste Beaudelet’s
lugger, with a couple of young men, and two ladies who kept a pension
over there. Tonie knew these two ladies—the widow Lebrun and her old
mother—but he did not attempt to speak with them; he would not have
known what to say. He stood aside gazing at the group, as others were
doing, his serious eyes fixed earnestly upon the fair organist.
Tonie was late at dinner that day. His mother must have waited an hour
for him, sitting patiently with her coarse hands folded in her lap, in
that little still room with its “brick-painted” floor, its gaping
chimney and homely furnishings.
He told her that he had been walking—walking he hardly knew where, and
he did not know why. He must have tramped from one end of the island to
the other; but he brought her no bit of news or gossip. He did not know
if the Cotures had stopped for dinner with the Avendettes; whether old
Pierre François was worse, or better, or dead, or if lame Philibert was
drinking again this morning. He knew nothing; yet he had crossed the
village, and passed every one of its small houses that stood close
together in a long, jagged line facing the sea; they were gray and
battered by time and the rude buffets of the salt sea winds.
He knew nothing, though the Cotures had all bade him “good day” as they
filed into Avendette’s, where a steaming plate of crab gumbo was waiting
for each. He had heard some woman screaming, and others saying it was
because old Pierre François had just passed away. But he did not
remember this, nor did he recall the fact that lame Philibert had
staggered against him when he stood absently watching a “fiddler”
sidling across the sun-baked sand. He could tell his mother nothing of
all this; but he said he had noticed that the wind was fair and must
have driven Baptiste’s boat, like a flying bird, across the water.
Well, that was something to talk about, and old Ma’me Antoine, who was
fat, leaned comfortably upon the table after she had helped Tonie to his
courtbouillon, and remarked that she found Madame was getting old. Tonie
thought that perhaps she was aging and her hair was getting whiter. He
seemed glad to talk about her, and reminded his mother of old Madame’s
kindness and sympathy at the time his father and brothers had perished.
It was when he was a little fellow, ten years before, during a squall in
Barataria Bay.
Ma’me Antoine declared that she could never forget that sympathy, if she
lived till Judgment Day; but all the same she was sorry to see that
Madame Lebrun was also not so young or fresh as she used to be. Her
chances of getting a husband were surely lessening every year;
especially with the young girls around her, budding each spring like
flowers to be plucked. The one who had played upon the organ was
Mademoiselle Duvigné, Claire Duvigné, a great belle, the daughter of the
Rampart street. Ma’me Antoine had found that out during the ten minutes
she and others had stopped after mass to gossip with the priest.
“Claire Duvigné,” muttered Tonie, not even making a pretense to taste
his courtbouillon, but picking little bits from the half loaf of crusty
brown bread that lay beside his plate. “Claire Duvigné; that is a pretty
name. Don’t you think so, mother? I can’t think of anyone on the
Chênière who has so pretty a one, nor at Grand Isle, either, for that
matter. And you say she lives on Rampart street?”
It appeared to him a matter of great importance that he should have his
mother repeat all that the priest had told her.
II.
Early the following morning Tonie went out in search of lame Philibert,
than whom there was no cleverer workman on the island when he could be
caught sober.
Tonie had tried to work on his big lugger that lay bottom upward under
the shed, but it had seemed impossible. His mind, his hands, his tools
refused to do their office, and in sudden desperation he desisted. He
found Philibert and set him to work in his own place under the shed.
Then he got into his small boat with the red lateen-sail and went over
to Grand Isle.
There was no one at hand to warn Tonie that he was acting the part of a
fool. He had, singularly, never felt those premonitory symptoms of love
which afflict the greater portion of mankind before they reach the age
which he had attained. He did not at first recognize this powerful
impulse that had, without warning, possessed itself of his entire being.
He obeyed it without a struggle, as naturally as he would have obeyed
the dictates of hunger and thirst.
Tonie left his boat at the wharf and proceeded at once to Mme. Lebrun’s
pension, which consisted of a group of plain, stoutly built cottages
that stood in mid island, about half a mile from the sea.