She was a half-breed Indian girl, with hardly a rag to her back. To the
ladies of the Band of United Endeavor who questioned her, she said her
name was Loka, and she did not know where she belonged, unless it was
on Bayou Choctaw.
She had appeared one day at the side door of Frobissaint's "oyster
saloon" in Natchitoches, asking for food. Frobissaint, a practical
philanthropist, engaged her on the spot as tumbler-washer.
She was not successful at that; she broke too many tumblers. But, as
Frobissaint charged her with the broken glasses, he did not mind,
until she began to break them over the heads of his customers. Then
he seized her by the wrist and dragged her before the Band of United
Endeavor, then in session around the corner. This was considerate on
Frobissaint's part, for he could have dragged her just as well to the
police station.
Loka was not beautiful, as she stood in her red calico rags before
the scrutinizing band. Her coarse, black, unkempt hair framed a broad,
swarthy face without a redeeming feature, except eyes that were not
bad; slow in their movements, but frank eyes enough. She was big--boned
and clumsy.
She did not know how old she was. The minister's wife reckoned she
might be sixteen. The judge's wife thought that it made no difference.
The doctor's wife suggested that the girl have a bath and change before
she be handled, even in discussion. The motion was not seconded. Loka's
ultimate disposal was an urgent and difficult consideration.
Some one mentioned a reformatory. Every one else objected.
Madame Laballière, the planter's wife, knew a respectable family of
'Cadians living some miles below, who, she thought, would give the
girl a home, with benefit to all concerned. The 'Cadian woman was a
deserving one, with a large family of small children, who had all her
own work to do. The husband cropped in a modest way. Loka would not
only be taught to work at the Padues', but would receive a good moral
training beside.
That settled it. Every one agreed with the planter's wife that it was
a chance in a thousand;-and Loka was sent to sit on the steps outside,
while the band proceeded to the business next in order.
Loka was afraid of treading upon the little Padues when she first got
amongst them,--there were so many of them,--and her feet were like
leaden weights, encased in the strong brogans with which the band had
equipped her.
Madame Padue, a small, black-eyed, aggressive woman, questioned her in
a sharp, direct fashion peculiar to herself.
"How come you don't talk French, you?" Loka shrugged her shoulders.
"I kin talk English good 's anybody; an' lit' bit Choctaw, too," she
offered, apologetically.
"_Ma foi_, you kin fo'git yo' Choctaw. Soona the betta for me. Now if
you wil-lin', an' ent too lazy an' sassy, we 'll git 'long somehow.
_Vrai sauvage ça_," she muttered under her breath, as she turned to
initiate Loka into some of her new duties.
She herself was a worker. A good deal more fussy one than her
easy-going husband and children thought necessary or agreeable. Loka's
slow ways and heavy motions aggravated her. It was in vain Monsieur
Padue expostulated:--
"She's on'y a chile, rememba, Tontine."
"She's _vrai sauvage_, that's w'at. It's got to be work out of her,"
was Tontine's only reply to such remonstrance.
The girl was indeed so deliberate about her tasks that she had
to be urged constantly to accomplish the amount of labor that
Tontine required of her. Moreover, she carried to her work a stolid
indifference that was exasperating. Whether at the wash-tub, scrubbing
the floors, weeding the garden, or learning her lessons and catechism
with the children on Sundays, it was the same.
It was only when intrusted with the care of little Bibine, the baby,
that Loka crept somewhat out of her apathy. She grew very fond of him.
No wonder; such a baby as he was! So good, so fat, and complaisant! He
had such, a way of clasping Loka's broad face between his pudgy fists
and savagely biting her chin with his hard, toothless gums! Such a way
of bouncing in her arms as if he were mounted upon springs! At his
antics the girl would laugh a wholesome, ringing laugh that was good to
hear.
She was left alone to watch and nurse him one day. An accommodating
neighbor who had become the possessor of a fine new spring wagon passed
by just after the noon-hour meal, and offered to take the whole family
on a jaunt to town. The offer was all the more tempting as Tontine had
some long-delayed shopping to do; and the opportunity to equip the
children with shoes and summer hats could not be slighted. So away they
all went. All but Bibine, who was left swinging in his branle with only
Loka for company.
This branle consisted of a strong circular piece of cotton cloth,
securely but slackly fastened to a large, stout hoop suspended by three
light cords to a hook in a rafter of the gallery. The baby who has not
swung in a branle does not know the quintessence of baby luxury. In
each of the four rooms of the house was a hook from which to hang this
swing.
Often it was taken out under the trees. But to-day it swung in the
shade of the open gallery; and Loka sat beside it, giving it now and
then a slight impetus that sent it circling in slow, sleep-inspiring
undulations.
Bibine kicked and cooed as long as he was able. But Loka was humming
a monotonous lullaby; the branle was swaying to and fro, the warm air
fanning him deliciously; and Bibine was soon fast asleep.
Seeing this, Loka quietly let down the mosquito net, to protect the
child's slumber from the intrusion of the many insects that were
swarming in the summer air.
Singularly enough, there was no work for her to do; and Tontine, in
her hurried departure, had failed to provide for the emergency. The
washing and ironing were over; the floors had been scrubbed, and the
rooms righted; the yard swept; the chickens fed; vegetables picked and
washed. There was absolutely nothing to do, and Loka gave herself up to
the dreams of idleness.
As she sat comfortably back in the roomy rocker, she let her eyes
sweep lazily across the country. Away off to the right peeped up, from
amid densely clustered trees, the pointed roofs and long pipe of the
steam-gin of Laballière's. No other habitation was visible except a few
low, flat dwellings far over the river, that could hardly be seen.
The immense plantation took up all the land in sight. The few acres
that Baptiste Padue cultivated were his own, that Laballière, out
of friendly consideration, had sold to him. Baptiste's fine crop of
cotton and corn was "laid by" just now, waiting for rain; and Baptiste
had gone with the rest of the family to town. Beyond the river and the
field and everywhere about were dense woods.
Loka's gaze, that had been slowly traveling along the edge of the
horizon, finally fastened upon the woods, and stayed there. Into her
eyes came the absent look of one whose thought is projected into the
future or the past, leaving the present blank. She was seeing a vision.
It had come with a whiff that the strong south breeze had blown to her
from the woods.
She was seeing old Marot, the squaw who drank whiskey and plaited
baskets and beat her. There was something, after all, in being beaten,
if only to scream out and fight back, as at that time in Natchitoches,
when she broke a glass on the head of a man who laughed at her and
pulled her hair, and called her "fool names."
Old Marot wanted her to steal and cheat, to beg and lie, when they
went out with the baskets to sell. Loka did not want to. She did not
like to. That was why she had run away--and because she was beaten.
But--but ah! the scent of the sassafras leaves hanging to dry in
the shade! The pungent, camomile! The sound of the bayou tumbling
over that old slimy log! Only to lie there for hours and watch the
glistening lizards glide in and out was worth a beating.
She knew the birds must be singing in chorus out there in the woods
where the gray moss was hanging, and the trumpet-vine trailing from the
trees, spangled with blossoms. In spirit she heard the songsters.
She wondered if Choctaw Joe and Sambite played dice every night by
the camp-fire as they used to do; and if they still fought and
slashed each other when wild with drink. How good it felt to walk with
moccasined feet over the springy turf, under the trees! What fun to
trap the squirrels, to skin the otter; to take those swift flights on
the pony that Choctaw Joe had stolen from the Texans!
Loka sat motionless; only her breast heaved tumultuously. Her heart was
aching with savage homesickness. She could not feel just then that the
sin and pain of that life were anything beside the joy of its freedom.
Loka was sick for the woods. She felt she must die if she could not get
back to them, and to her vagabond life. Was there anything to hinder
her? She stooped and unlaced the brogans that were chafing her feet,
removed them and her stockings, and threw the things away from her. She
stood up all a-quiver, panting, ready for flight.
But there was a sound that stopped her. It was little Bibine, cooing,
sputtering, battling hands and feet with the mosquito net that he had
dragged over his face. The girl uttered a sob as she reached down for
the baby she had grown to love so, and clasped him in her arms. She
could not go and leave Bibine behind.
* * * * *
Tontine began to grumble at once when she discovered that Loka was not
at hand to receive them on their return.
"_Bon!_" she exclaimed. "Now w'ere is that Loka? Ah, that girl, she
aggravates me too much. Firs' thing she knows I'm goin' sen' her
straight back to them ban' of lady w'ere she come frum."
"Loka!" she called, in short, sharp tones, as she traversed the house
and peered into each room. "Lo--ka!" She cried loudly enough to be
heard half a mile away when she got out upon the back gallery. Again
and again she called.
Baptiste was exchanging the discomfort of his Sunday coat for the
accustomed ease of shirt sleeves.
"_Mais_ don't git so excite, Tontine," he implored. "I'm sho she's
yonda to the crib shellin' co'n, or somew'ere like that."
"Run, François, you, an' see to the crib," the mother commanded.
"Bibine mus' be starve! Run to the hen-house an' look, Juliette. Maybe
she's fall asleep in some corna. That 'll learn me 'notha time to go
trus' _une pareille sauvage_ with my baby, _va!_"
When it was discovered that Loka was nowhere in the immediate vicinity,
Tontine was furious.
"_Pas possible_ she's walk to Laballière, with Bibine!" she exclaimed.
"I'll saddle the hoss an' go see, Tontine," interposed Baptiste, who
was beginning to share his wife's uneasiness.
"Go, go, Baptiste," she urged. "An' you, boys, run yonda down the road
to ole Aunt Judy's cabin an' see."
It was found that Loka had not been seen at Laballière's, nor at Aunt
Judy's cabin; that she had not taken the boat, that was still fastened
to its moorings down the bank. Then Tontine's excitement left her. She
turned pale and sat quietly down in her room, with an unnatural calm
that frightened the children.
Some of them began to cry. Baptiste walked restlessly about, anxiously
scanning the country in all directions. A wretched hour dragged by. The
sun had set, leaving hardly an afterglow, and in a little while the
twilight that falls so swiftly would be there.
Baptiste was preparing to mount his horse, to start out again on the
round he had already been over. Tontine sat in the same state of
intense abstraction when Francois, who had perched himself among the
lofty branches of a chinaberry-tree, called out: "Ent that Loka 'way
yon'a, jis' come out de wood? climbin' de fence down by de melon patch?"
It was difficult to distinguish in the gathering dusk if the figure
were that of man or beast. But the family was not left long in
suspense. Baptiste sped his horse away in the direction indicated by
Francis, and in a little while he was galloping back with Bibine in his
arms; as fretful, sleepy and hungry a baby as ever was.
Loka came trudging on behind Baptiste. He did not wait for
explanations; he was too eager to place the child in the arms of
its mother. The suspense over, Tontine began to cry; that followed
naturally, of course. Through her tears she managed to address Loka,
who stood all tattered and disheveled in the doorway: "W'ere you been?
Tell me that."
"Bibine an' me," answered Loka, slowly and awkwardly, "we was
lonesome--we been take lit' 'broad in de wood."
"You did n' know no betta 'an to take 'way Bibine like that? W'at
Ma'ame Laballière mean, anyhow, to sen' me such a objec' like you, I
want to know?"
"You go'n' sen' me 'way?" asked Loka, passing her hand in a hopeless
fashion over her frowzy hair.
"_Par exemple!_ straight you march back to that ban' w'ere you come
from. To give me such a fright like that! _pas possible_."
"Go slow, Tontine; go slow," interposed Baptiste.
"Don' sen' me 'way frum Bibine," entreated the girl, with a note in her
voice like a lament.
"To-day," she went on, in her dragging manner, "I want to run 'way bad,
an' take to de wood; an' go yonda back to Bayou Choctaw to steal an'
lie agin. It's on'y Bibine w'at hole me back. I could n' lef' 'im. I
could n' do dat. An' we jis' go take lit' 'broad in de wood, das all,
him an' me. Don' sen' me 'way like dat!"
Baptiste led the girl gently away to the far end of the gallery, and
spoke soothingly to her. He told her to be good and brave, and he would
right the trouble for her. He left her standing there and went back to
his wife.
"Tontine," he began, with unusual energy, "you got to listen to the
truth--once fo' all." He had evidently determined to profit by his
wife's lachrymose and wilted condition to assert his authority.
"I want to say who's masta in this house--it's me," he went on.
Tontine did not protest; only clasped the baby a little closer, which
encouraged him to proceed.
"You been grind that girl too much. She ent a bad girl--I been watch
her close, 'count of the chil'ren; she ent bad. All she want, it's
li'le mo' rope. You can't drive a ox with the same gearin' you drive a
mule. You got to learn that, Tontine."
He approached his wife's chair and stood beside her.
"That girl, she done tole us how she was temp' to-day to turn
_canaille_--like we all temp' sometime'. W'at was it save her? That
li'le chile w'at you hole in yo' arm. An' now you want to take her
guarjun angel 'way f'om her? _Non, non, ma femme_," he said, resting
his hand gently upon his wife's head. "We got to rememba she ent like
you an' me, po' thing; she's one Injun, her."