riclic dat time you cotch Pinky cryin’ down in de holler behine de gin;
an’ you say you gwine give me ‘twenty’ ef I don’ tell you w’at I cryin’
’bout?”
“I rec’lec’ like it happen’d to-day, Aunt Pinky. You been cryin’ because
you want to marry Hiram, ole Mr. Benitou’s servant.”
“Das true like you says, Miss Paulette; an’ you goes home an’ cries and
kiars on an’ won’ eat, an’ breaks dishes, an’ pesters yo’ gran’pap ’tell
he bleedge to buy Hi’um f’om de Benitous.”
“Don’t talk, Aunt Pink! I can see all that jus’ as plain!” responded
Odalie sympathetically, yet in truth she took but a languid interest in
these reminiscences which she had listened to so often before.
She leaned her flushed cheek against Aunt Pinky’s knee.
The air was rippling now, and hot and caressing. There was the hum of
bumble bees outside; and busy mud-daubers kept flying in and out through
the door. Some chickens had penetrated to the very threshold in their
aimless roamings, and the little pig was approaching more cautiously.
Sleep was fast overtaking the child, but she could still hear through
her drowsiness the familiar tones of Aunt Pinky’s voice.
“But Hi’um, he done gone; he nuva come back; an’ Yallah Tom nuva come
back; an’ ole Marster an’ de chillun—all gone—nuva come back. Nobody
nuva come back to Pinky ’cep you, my honey. You ain’ gwine ’way f’om
Pinky no mo’, is you, Miss Paulette?”
“Don’ fret, Aunt Pinky—I’m goin’—to stay with—you.”
“No pussun nuva come back ’cep’ you.”
Odalie was fast asleep. Aunt Pinky was asleep with her head leaning back
on her chair and her fingers thrust into the mass of tangled brown hair
that swept across her lap. The chickens and little pig walked fearlessly
in and out. The sunlight crept close up to the cabin door and stole away
again.
Odalie awoke with a start. Her mother was standing over her arousing her
from sleep. She sprang up and rubbed her eyes. “Oh, I been asleep!” she
exclaimed. The cart was standing in the road waiting. “An’ Aunt Pinky,
she’s asleep, too.”
“Yes, chérie, Aunt Pinky is asleep,” replied her mother, leading Odalie
away. But she spoke low and trod softly as gentle-souled women do, in
the presence of the dead.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cavanelle
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cavanelle
[Illustration]
I was always sure of hearing something pleasant from Cavanelle across
the counter. If he was not mistaking me for the freshest and prettiest
girl in New Orleans, he was reserving for me some bit of silk, or lace,
or ribbon of a nuance marvelously suited to my complexion, my eyes or my
hair! What an innocent, delightful humbug Cavanelle was! How well I knew
it and how little I cared! For when he had sold me the confection or bit
of dry-goods in question, he always began to talk to me of his sister
Mathilde, and then I knew that Cavanelle was an angel.
I had known him long enough to know why he worked so faithfully, so
energetically and without rest—it was because Mathilde had a voice. It
was because of her voice that his coats were worn till they were out of
fashion and almost out at elbows. But for a sister whose voice needed
only a little training to rival that of the nightingale, one might do
such things without incurring reproach.
“You will believe, madame, that I did not know you las’ night at the
opera? I remark’ to Mathilde, ‘tiens! Mademoiselle Montreville,’ an’ I
only rec’nize my mistake when I finally adjust my opera glass.... I
guarantee you will be satisfied, madame. In a year from now you will
come an’ thank me for having secu’ you that bargain in a
poult-desoie.... Yes, yes; as you say, Tolville was in voice. But,” with
a shrug of the narrow shoulders and a smile of commiseration that
wrinkled the lean olive cheeks beneath the thin beard, “but to hear that
cavatina render’ as I have heard it render’ by Mathilde, is another
affair! A quality, madame, that moves, that penetrates. Perhaps not yet
enough volume, but that will accomplish itself with time, when she will
become more robus’ in health. It is my intention to sen’ her for the
summer to Gran’ Isle; that good air an’ surf bathing will work miracles.
An artiste, voyez vous, it is not to be treated like a human being of
every day; it needs des petits soins; perfec’ res’ of body an’ mind;
good red wine an’ plenty ... oh yes, madame, the stage; that is our
intention; but never with my consent in light opera. Patience is what I
counsel to Mathilde. A little more stren’th; a little dev’lopment of the
chest to give that soupçon of compass which is lacking, an’ gran’ opera
is what I aspire for my sister.”
I was curious to know Mathilde and to hear her sing; and thought it a
great pity that a voice so marvelous as she doubtless possessed should
not gain the notice that might prove the step toward the attainment of
her ambition. It was such curiosity and a half-formed design or desire
to interest myself in her career that prompted me to inform Cavanelle
that I should greatly like to meet his sister; and I asked permission to
call upon her the following Sunday afternoon.
Cavanelle was charmed. He otherwise would not have been Cavanelle. Over
and over I was given the most minute directions for finding the house.
The green car—or was it the yellow or blue one? I can no longer
remember. But it was near Goodchildren street, and would I kindly walk
this way and turn that way? At the corner was an ice dealer’s. In the
middle of the block, their house—one-story; painted yellow; a knocker; a
banana tree nodding over the side fence. But indeed, I need not look for
the banana tree, the knocker, the number or anything, for if I but turn
the corner in the neighborhood of five o’clock I would find him planted
at the door awaiting me.
And there he was! Cavanelle himself; but seeming to me not himself;
apart from the entourage with which I was accustomed to associate him.
Every line of his mobile face, every gesture emphasized the welcome
which his kind eyes expressed as he ushered me into the small parlor
that opened upon the street.
“Oh, not that chair, madame! I entreat you. This one, by all means.
Thousan’ times more comfortable.”
“Mathilde! Strange; my sister was here but an instant ago. Mathilde! Où
es tu donc?” Stupid Cavanelle! He did not know when I had already
guessed it—that Mathilde had retired to the adjoining room at my
approach, and would appear after a sufficient delay to give an
appropriate air of ceremony to our meeting.
And what a frail little piece of mortality she was when she did appear!
At beholding her I could easily fancy that when she stepped outside of
the yellow house, the zephyrs would lift her from her feet and, given a
proper adjustment of the balloon sleeves, gently waft her in the
direction of Goodchildren street, or wherever else she might want to go.
Hers was no physique for grand opera—certainly no stage presence;
apparently so slender a hold upon life that the least tension might snap
it. The voice which could hope to overcome these glaring disadvantages
would have to be phenomenal.
Mathilde spoke English imperfectly, and with embarrassment, and was glad
to lapse into French. Her speech was languid, unaffectedly so; and her
manner was one of indolent repose; in this respect offering a striking
contrast to that of her brother. Cavanelle seemed unable to rest. Hardly
was I seated to his satisfaction than he darted from the room and soon
returned followed by a limping old black woman bringing in a sirop
d’orgeat and layer cake on a tray.
Mathilde’s face showed feeble annoyance at her brother’s want of savoir
vivre in thus introducing the refreshments at so early a stage of my
visit.
The servant was one of those cheap black women who abound in the French
quarter, who speak Creole patois in preference to English, and who would
rather work in a petit ménage in Goodchildren street for five dollars a
month than for fifteen in the fourth district. Her presence, in some
unaccountable manner, seemed to reveal to me much of the inner working
of this small household. I pictured her early morning visit to the
French market, where picayunes were doled out sparingly, and lagniappes
gathered in with avidity.
I could see the neatly appointed dinner table; Cavanelle extolling his
soup and bouillie in extravagant terms; Mathilde toying with her
papabotte or chicken-wing, and pouring herself a demi-verre from her
very own half-bottle of St. Julien; Pouponne, as they called her,
mumbling and grumbling through habit, and serving them as faithfully as
a dog through instinct. I wondered if they knew that Pouponne “played
the lottery” with every spare “quarter” gathered from a judicious
management of lagniappe. Perhaps they would not have cared, or have
minded, either, that she as often consulted the Voudoo priestess around
the corner as her father confessor.
My thoughts had followed Pouponne’s limping figure from the room, and it
was with an effort I returned to Cavanelle twirling the piano stool this
way and that way. Mathilde was languidly turning over musical scores,
and the two warmly discussing the merits of a selection which she had
evidently decided upon.
The girl seated herself at the piano. Her hands were thin and anæmic,
and she touched the keys without firmness or delicacy. When she had
played a few introductory bars, she began to sing. Heaven only knows
what she sang; it made no difference then, nor can it make any now.
The day was a warm one, but that did not prevent a creepy chilliness
seizing hold of me. The feeling was generated by disappointment, anger,
dismay and various other disagreeable sensations which I cannot find
names for. Had I been intentionally deceived and misled? Was this some
impertinent pleasantry on the part of Cavanelle? Or rather had not the
girl’s voice undergone some hideous transformation since her brother had
listened to it? I dreaded to look at him, fearing to see horror and
astonishment depicted on his face. When I did look, his expression was
earnestly attentive and beamed approval of the strains to which he
measured time by a slow, satisfied motion of the hand.
The voice was thin to attenuation, I fear it was not even true. Perhaps
my disappointment exaggerated its simple deficiencies into monstrous
defects. But it was an unsympathetic voice that never could have been a
blessing to possess or to listen to.
I cannot recall what I said at parting—doubtless conventional things
which were not true. Cavanelle politely escorted me to the car, and
there I left him with a hand-clasp which from my side was tender with
sympathy and pity.
“Poor Cavanelle! poor Cavanelle!” The words kept beating time in my
brain to the jingle of the car bells and the regular ring of the mules’
hoofs upon the cobble stones. One moment I resolved to have a talk with
him in which I would endeavor to open his eyes to the folly of thus
casting his hopes and the substance of his labor to the winds. The next
instant I had decided that chance would possibly attend to Cavanelle’s
affair less clumsily than I could. “But all the same,” I wondered, “is
Cavanelle a fool? is he a lunatic? is he under a hypnotic spell?” And
then—strange that I did not think of it before—I realized that Cavanelle
loved Mathilde intensely, and we all know that love is blind, but a god
just the same.
Two years passed before I saw Cavanelle again. I had been absent that
length of time from the city. In the meanwhile Mathilde had died. She
and her little voice—the apotheosis of insignificance—were no more. It
was perhaps a year after my visit to her that I read an account of her
death in a New Orleans paper. Then came a momentary pang of
commiseration for my good Cavanelle. Chance had surely acted here the
part of a skillful though merciless surgeon; no temporizing, no half
measures. A deep, sharp thrust of the scalpel; a moment of agonizing
pain; then rest, rest; convalescence; health; happiness! Yes, Mathilde
had been dead a year and I was prepared for great changes in Cavanelle.
He had lived like a hampered child who does not recognize the
restrictions hedging it about, and lives a life of pathetic contentment
in the midst of them. But now all that was altered. He was, doubtless,
regaling himself with the half-bottles of St. Julien, which were never
before for him; with, perhaps, an occasional petit souper at Moreau’s,
and there was no telling what little pleasures beside.
Cavanelle would certainly have bought himself a suit of clothes or two
of modern fit and finish. I would find him with a brightened eye, a
fuller cheek, as became a man of his years; perchance, even, a waxed
moustache! So did my imagination run rampant with me.
And after all, the hand which I clasped across the counter was that of
the self-same Cavanelle I had left. It was no fuller, no firmer. There
were even some additional lines visible through the thin, brown beard.
“Ah, my poor Cavanelle! you have suffered a grievous loss since we
parted.” I saw in his face that he remembered the circumstances of our
last meeting, so there was no use in avoiding the subject. I had rightly
conjectured that the wound had been a cruel one, but in a year such
wounds heal with a healthy soul.
He could have talked for hours of Mathilde’s unhappy taking-off, and if
the subject had possessed for me the same touching fascination which it
held for him, doubtless, we would have done so, but—
“And how is it now, mon ami? Are you living in the same place? running
your little ménage as before, my poor Cavanelle?”
“Oh, yes, madame, except that my Aunt Félicie is making her home with me
now. You have heard me speak of my aunt—No? You never have heard me
speak of my Aunt Félicie Cavanelle of Terrebonne! That, madame, is a
noble woman who has suffer’ the mos’ cruel affliction, and deprivation,
since the war.—No, madame, not in good health, unfortunately, by any
means. It is why I esteem that a blessed privilege to give her declining
years those little comforts, ces petits soins, that is a woman’s right
to expec’ from men.”
I knew what “des petits soins” meant with Cavanelle; doctors’ visits,
little jaunts across the lake, friandises of every description showered
upon “Aunt Félicie,” and he himself relegated to the soup and bouillie
which typified his prosaic existence.
I was unreasonably exasperated with the man for awhile, and would not
even permit myself to notice the beauty in texture and design of the
mousseline de laine which he had spread across the counter in tempting
folds. I was forced to restrain a brutal desire to say something
stinging and cruel to him for his fatuity.
However, before I had regained the street, the conviction that Cavanelle
was a hopeless fool seemed to reconcile me to the situation and also
afforded me some diversion.
But even this estimate of my poor Cavanelle was destined not to last. By
the time I had seated myself in the Prytania street car and passed up my
nickel, I was convinced that Cavanelle was an angel.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tante Cat’rinette
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tante Cat’rinette
[Illustration]
It happened just as every one had predicted. Tante Cat’rinette was
beside herself with rage and indignation when she learned that the town
authorities had for some reason condemned her house and intended to
demolish it.
“Dat house w’at Vieumaite gi’ me his own se’f, out his own mout’, w’en
he gi’ me my freedom! All wrote down en règle befo’ de cote! Bon dieu
Seigneur, w’at dey talkin’ ’bout!”
Tante Cat’rinette stood in the doorway of her home, resting a gaunt
black hand against the jamb. In the other hand she held her corn-cob
pipe. She was a tall, large-boned woman of a pronounced Congo type. The
house in question had been substantial enough in its time. It contained
four rooms: the lower two of brick, the upper ones of adobe. A
dilapidated gallery projected from the upper story and slanted over the
narrow banquette, to the peril of passers-by.
“I don’t think I ever heard why the property was given to you in the
first place, Tante Cat’rinette,” observed Lawyer Paxton, who had stopped
in passing, as so many others did, to talk the matter over with the old
negress. The affair was attracting some attention in town, and its
development was being watched with a good deal of interest. Tante
Cat’rinette asked nothing better than to satisfy the lawyer’s curiosity.
“Vieumaite all time say. Cat’rinette wort’ gole to ’im; de way I make
dem nigga’ walk chalk. But,” she continued, with recovered seriousness,
“w’en I nuss ’is li’le gal w’at all de doctor’ ’low it ’s goin’ die, an’
I make it well, me, den Vieumaite, he can’t do ’nough, him. He name’ dat
li’le gal Cat’rine fo’ me. Das Miss Kitty w’at marry Miché Raymond yon’
by Gran’ Eco’. Den he gi’ me my freedom; he got plenty slave’, him; one
don’ count in his pocket. An’ he gi’ me dat house w’at I’m stan’in’ in
de do’; he got plenty house’ an’ lan’, him. Now dey want pay me t’ousan’
dolla’, w’at I don’ axen’ fo’, an’ tu’n me out dat house! I waitin’ fo’
’em, Miché Paxtone,” and a wicked gleam shot into the woman’s small,
dusky eyes. “I got my axe grine fine. Fus’ man w’at touch Cat’rinette
fo’ tu’n her out dat house, he git ’is head bus’ like I bus’ a gode.”
“Dat’s nice day, ainty, Miché Paxtone? Fine wedda fo’ dry my close.”
Upon the gallery above hung an array of shirts, which gleamed white in
the sunshine, and flapped in the rippling breeze.
The spectacle of Tante Cat’rinette defying the authorities was one which
offered much diversion to the children of the neighborhood. They played
numberless pranks at her expense; daily serving upon her fictitious
notices purporting to be to the last degree official. One youngster, in
a moment of inspiration, composed a couplet, which they recited, sang,
shouted at all hours, beneath her windows.
“Tante Cat’rinette, she go in town;
Wen she come back, her house pull’ down.”
So ran the production. She heard it many times during the day, but, far
from offending her, she accepted it as a warning,—a prediction, as it
were,—and she took heed not to offer to fate the conditions for its
fulfillment. She no longer quitted her house even for a moment, so great
was her fear and so firm her belief that the town authorities were lying
in wait to possess themselves of it. She would not cross the street to
visit a neighbor. She waylaid passers-by and pressed them into service
to do her errands and small shopping. She grew distrustful and
suspicious, ever on the alert to scent a plot in the most innocent
endeavor to induce her to leave the house.
One morning, as Tante Cat’rinette was hanging out her latest batch of
washing, Eusèbe, a “free mulatto” from Red River, stopped his pony
beneath her gallery.
“Hé, Tante Cat’rinette!” he called up to her.
She turned to the railing just as she was, in her bare arms and neck
that gleamed ebony-like against the unbleached cotton of her chemise. A
coarse skirt was fastened about her waist, and a string of many-colored
beads knotted around her throat. She held her smoking pipe between her
yellow teeth.
“How you all come on, Miché Eusèbe?” she questioned, pleasantly.
“We all middlin’, Tante Cat’rinette. But Miss Kitty, she putty bad off
out yon’a. I see Mista Raymond dis mo’nin’ w’en I pass by his house; he
say look like de feva don’ wan’ to quit ’er. She been axen’ fo’ you all
t’rough de night. He ’low he reckon I betta tell you. Nice wedda we got
fo’ plantin’, Tante Cat’rinette.”
“Nice wedda fo’ lies, Miché Eusèbe,” and she spat contemptuously down
upon the banquette. She turned away without noticing the man further,
and proceeded to hang one of Lawyer Paxton’s fine linen shirts upon the
line.
“She been axen’ fo’ you all t’rough de night.”
Somehow Tante Cat’rinette could not get that refrain out of her head.
She would not willingly believe that Eusèbe had spoken the truth, but—
“She been axen fo’ you all t’rough de night—all t’rough de night.” The
words kept ringing in her ears, as she came and went about her daily
tasks. But by degrees she dismissed Eusèbe and his message from her
mind. It was Miss Kitty’s voice that she could hear in fancy following
her, calling out through the night, “W’ere Tante Cat’rinette? W’y Tante
Cat’rinette don’ come? W’y she don’ come—w’y she don’ come?”
All day the woman muttered and mumbled to herself in her Creole patois;
invoking council of “Vieumaite,” as she always did in her troubles.
Tante Cat’rinette’s religion was peculiarly her own; she turned to
heaven with her grievances, it is true, but she felt that there was no
one in Paradise with whom she was quite so well acquainted as with
“Vieumaite.”
Late in the afternoon she went and stood on her doorstep, and looked
uneasily and anxiously out upon the almost deserted street. When a
little girl came walking by,—a sweet child with a frank and innocent
face, upon whose word she knew she could rely,—Tante Cat’rinette invited
her to enter.
“Come yere see Tante Cat’rinette, Lolo. It’s long time you en’t come see
Tante Cat’rine; you gittin’ proud.” She made the little one sit down,
and offered her a couple of cookies, which the child accepted with
pretty avidity.
“You putty good li’le gal, you, Lolo. You keep on go confession all de
time?”
“Oh, yes. I’m goin’ make my firs’ communion firs’ of May, Tante
Cat’rinette.” A dog-eared catechism was sticking out of Lolo’s apron
pocket.
“Das right; be good li’le gal. Mine yo’ maman ev’t’ing she say; an’ neva
tell no story. It’s nuttin’ bad in dis worl’ like tellin’ lies. You know
Eusèbe?”
“Eusèbe?”
“Yas; dat li’le ole Red River free m’latto. Uh, uh! dat one man w’at kin
tell lies, yas! He come tell me Miss Kitty down sick yon’a. You ev’
yeard such big story like dat, Lolo?”
The child looked a little bewildered, but she answered promptly, “’Taint
no story, Tante Cat’rinette. I yeard papa sayin’, dinner time, Mr.
Raymond sen’ fo’ Dr. Chalon. An’ Dr. Chalon says he ain’t got time to go
yonda. An’ papa says it’s because Dr. Chalon on’y want to go w’ere it’s
rich people; an’ he’s ’fraid Mista Raymond ain’ goin’ pay ’im.”
Tante Cat’rinette admired the little girl’s pretty gingham dress, and
asked her who had ironed it. She stroked her brown curls, and talked of
all manner of things quite foreign to the subject of Eusèbe and his
wicked propensity for telling lies.
She was not restless as she had been during the early part of the day,
and she no longer mumbled and muttered as she had been doing over her
work.
At night she lighted her coal-oil lamp, and placed it near a window
where its light could be seen from the street through the half-closed
shutters. Then she sat herself down, erect and motionless, in a chair.
When it was near upon midnight, Tante Cat’rinette arose, and looked
cautiously, very cautiously, out of the door. Her house lay in the line
of deep shadow that extended along the street. The other side was bathed
in the pale light of the declining moon. The night was agreeably mild,
profoundly still, but pregnant with the subtle quivering life of early
spring. The earth seemed asleep and breathing,—a scent-laden breath that
blew in soft puffs against Tante Cat’rinette’s face as she emerged from
the house. She closed and locked her door noiselessly; then she crept
slowly away, treading softly, stealthily as a cat, in the deep shadow.