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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15881-8.txt b/15881-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e8cdb19 --- /dev/null +++ b/15881-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7585 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Flower of the Chapdelaines, by George W. Cable + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Flower of the Chapdelaines + +Author: George W. Cable + +Release Date: May 23, 2005 [EBook #15881] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF THE CHAPDELAINES *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: Yesterday, for the first time, at that same corner, he +had encountered this fair stranger and her urchin escort.] + + + + + + +THE FLOWER OF THE CHAPDELAINES + + +BY + +GEORGE W. CABLE + + + +WITH FRONTISPIECE BY + +F. C. YOHN + + + + + + +NEW YORK + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +1918 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + +Published March, 1918 + + + + +The Flower of the Chapdelaines + + +I + +Next morning he saw her again. + +He had left his very new law office, just around in Bienville Street, +and had come but a few steps down Royal, when, at the next corner +below, she turned into Royal, toward him, out of Conti, coming from +Bourbon. + +The same nine-year-old negro boy was at her side, as spotless in broad +white collar and blue jacket as on the morning before, and carrying the +same droll air of consecration, awe, and responsibility. The young man +envied him. + +Yesterday, for the first time, at that same corner, he had encountered +this fair stranger and her urchin escort, abruptly, as they were making +the same turn they now repeated, and all in a flash had wondered who +might be this lovely apparition. Of such patrician beauty, such +elegance of form and bearing, such witchery of simple attire, and such +un-Italian yet Latin type, in this antique Creole, modernly Italianized +quarter--who and what, so early in the day, down here among the shops, +where so meagre a remnant of the old high life clung on in these +balconied upper stories--who, what, whence, whither, and wherefore? + +In that flash of time she had passed, and the very liveliness of his +interest, combined with the urchin's consecrated awe--not to mention +his own mortifying remembrance of one or two other-day lapses from the +austerities of the old street--restrained him from a backward glance +until he could cross the way as if to enter the great, white, lately +completed court-house. Then both she and her satellite had vanished. + +He turned again, but not to enter the building. His watch read but +half past eight, and his first errand of the day, unless seeing her had +been his first, was to go one square farther on, for a look at the +wreckers tearing down the old Hotel St. Louis. As he turned, a man +neat of dress and well beyond middle age made him a suave gesture. + +"Sir, if you please. You are, I think, Mr. Chester, notary public and +attorney at law?" + +"That is my name and trade, sir." Evidently Mr. Geoffry Chester was +also an American, a Southerner. + +"Pardon," said his detainer, "I have only my business card." He +tendered it: "Marcel Castanado, Masques et Costumes, No. 312, rue +Royale, entre Bienville et Conti." + +"I diz-ire your advice," he continued, "on a very small matter neither +notarial, neither of the law. Yet I must pay you for that, if you can +make your charge as--as small as the matter." + +The young lawyer's own matters were at a juncture where a fee was a +godsend, yet he replied: + +"If your matter is not of the law I can make you no charge." + +The costumer shrugged: "Pardon, in that case I must seek elsewhere." +He would have moved on, but Chester asked: + +"What kind of advice do you want if not legal?" + +"Literary." + +The young man smiled: "Why, I'm not literary." + +"I think yes. You know Ovide Landry? Black man? Secon'-han' books, +Chartres Street, just yonder?" + +"Yes, very pleasantly, for I love old books." + +"Yes, and old buildings, and their histories. I know. You are now +going down, as I have just been, to see again the construction of that +old dome they are dim-olishing yonder, of the once state-house, +previously Hotel St. Louis. I know. Twice a day you pass my shop. I +am compelled to see, what Ovide also has told me, that, like me and my +wife, you have a passion for the _poétique_ and the _pittoresque_!" + +"Yes," Chester laughed, "but that's my limit. I've never written a +line for print----" + +"This writing is done, since fifty years." + +"I've never passed literary judgment on a written page and don't +suppose I ever shall." + +"The judgment is passed. The value of the article is pronounced +great--by an expert amateur." + +"SHE?" the youth silently asked himself. He spoke: "Why, then what +advice do you still want--how to find a publisher?" + +"No, any publisher will jump at that. But how to so nig-otiate that he +shall not be the lion and we the lamb!" + +Chester smiled again: "Why, if that's the point--" he mused. The hope +came again that this unusual shopman and his wish had something to do +with _her_. + +"If that's the advice you want," he resumed, "I think we might construe +it as legal, though worth at the most a mere notarial fee." + +"And contingent on--?" the costumer prompted. + +"Contingent, yes, on the author's success." + +"Sir! I am not the author of a manuscript fifty years old!" + +"Well, then, on the holder's success. You can agree to that, can't +you?" + +"'Tis agreed. You are my counsel. When will you see the manuscript?" + +"Whenever you choose to leave it with me." + +The costumer's smile was firm: "Sir, I cannot permit that to pass from +my hand." + +"Oh! then have a copy typed for me." + +The Creole soliloquized: "That would be expensive." Then to Chester: +"Sir, I will tell you; to-night come at our parlor, over the shop. I +will read you that!" + +"Shall we be alone?" asked Chester, hoping his client would say no. + +"Only excepting my"--a tender brightness--"my wife!" Then a shade of +regret: "We are without children, me and my wife." + +His wife. H'mm! _She_? That amazing one who had vanished within a +few yards of his bazaar of "masques et costumes"? Though to Chester +New Orleans was still new, and though fat law-books and a slim purse +kept him much to himself, he was aware that, while some Creoles grew +rich, many of them, women, once rich, were being driven even to stand +behind counters. Yet no such plight could he imagine of that +bewildering young--young luminary who, this second time, so out of +time, had gleamed on him from mystery's cloud. His earlier hope came a +third time: "Excepting only your wife, you say? Why not also your +amateur expert?" + +"I am sorry, but"--the Latin shrug--"that is--that is not possible." + +"Have I ever seen your wife? She's not a tallish, slender young-----?" + +"No, my wife is neither. She's never in the street or shop. She has +no longer the cap-acity. She's become so extraordinarily _un_-slender +that the only way she can come down-stair' is backward. You'll see. +Well,"--he waved--"till then--ah, a word: my close bargaining--I must +explain you that--in confidence. 'Tis because my wife and me we are +anxious to get every picayune we can get for the owners--of that +manuscript." + +Chester thought to be shrewd: "Oh! is _she_ hard up? the owner?" + +"The owners are three," Castanado calmly said, "and two dip-end on the +earnings of a third." He bowed himself away. + +A few hours later Chester received from him a note begging indefinite +postponement of the evening appointment. Mme. Castanado had fever and +probably _la grippe_. + + + + +II + +Early one day some two weeks after the foregoing incident the young +lawyer came out of his _pension francaise_, opposite his office, and +stood a moment in thought. In those two weeks he had not again seen +Mr. Castanado. + +Once more it was scant half past eight. He looked across to the +windows of his office and of one bare third-story sleeping-room over +it. Eloquent windows! Their meanness reminded him anew how definitely +he had chosen not merely the simple but the solitary life. Yet now he +turned toward Royal Street. But at the third or fourth step he faced +about toward Chartres. The distance to the courthouse was the same +either way, and its entrances were alike on both streets. + +Thought he as he went the Chartres Street way: "If I go _one more time_ +by way of Royal I shall owe an abject apology, and yet to try to offer +it would only make the matter worse." + +He went grimly, glad to pay this homage of avoidance which would have +been more to his credit paid a week or so earlier. His frequent +failure to pay it had won him, each time, a glimpse of _her_ and an +itching fear that prying eyes were on him inside other balconied +windows besides those of the unslender Mme. Castanado. + +Temptation is a sly witch. Down at Conti Street, on the court-house's +upper riverside corner, he paused to take in the charm of one of the +most picturesque groups of old buildings in the _vieux carré_. But +there, to gather in all the effect, one must turn, sooner or later, and +include the upper side of Conti Street from Chartres to Royal; and as +Chester did so, yonder, once more, coming from Bourbon and turning from +Conti into Royal, there she was again, the avoided one! + +Her black cupid was at her side, tiny even for nine years. They +disappeared conversing together. With his heart in his throat Chester +turned away, resumed his walk, and passed into the marble halls where +justice dreamt she dwelt. Up and down one of these, little traversed +so early, he paced, with a question burning in his breast, which every +new sigh of mortification fanned hotter: _Had she seen him_?--this +time? those other times? And did those Castanados suspect? Was that +why Mme. Castanado had the grippe, and the manuscript was yet unread? + +A voice spoke his name and he found himself facing the very black +dealer in second-hand books. + +"I was yonder at Toulouse Street," said Ovide Landry, "coming up-town, +when I saw you at Conti coming down. I have another map of the old +city for you. At that rate, Mr. Chester, you'll soon have as good a +collection as the best." + +The young man was pleased: "Does it show exactly where Maspero's +Exchange stood?" he asked. + +Ovide said come to the shop and see. + +"I will, to-day; at six." Another man came up, "Ah, Mr. Castanado! +How--how is your patient?" + +"Madame"--the costumer smiled happily--"is once more well. I was +looking for you. You didn't pass in Royal Street this morning." + +[Ah, those eyes behind those windows behind those balconies!] + +"No, I--oh! going, Landry? Good day. No, Mr. Castanado, I----" + +"Madame hopes Mr. Chezter can at last, this evening, come at home for +that reading." + +"Mr. Castanado, I can't! I'm mighty sorry! My whole evening's +engaged. So is to-morrow's. May I come the next evening after? . . . +Thank you. . . . Yes, at seven. Just the three of us, of course? +Yes." + + + + +III + +Six o'clock found Chester in Ovide's bookshop. + +Had its shelves borne law-books, or had he not needed for law-books all +he dared spend, he might have known the surprisingly informed and refined +shopman better. Ovide had long been a celebrity. Lately a brief summary +of his career had appeared incidentally in a book, a book chiefly about +others, white people. "You can't write a Southern book and keep us out," +Ovide himself explained. + +Even as it was, Chester had allowed himself that odd freedom with Landry +which Southerners feel safe in under the plate armor of their race +distinctions. Receiving his map he asked, as he looked along a shelf or +two: "Have you that book that tells of you--as a slave? your master +letting you educate yourself; your once refusing your freedom, and your +being private secretary to two or three black lieutenant-governors?" + +"I had a copy," Landry said, "but I've sold it. Where did you hear of +it? From Réné Ducatel, in his antique-shop, whose folks 'tis mostly +about?" + +"Yes. An antique himself, in spirit, eh? Yet modern enough to praise +you highly." + +"H'mm! but only for the virtues of a slave." + +Chester smiled round from the shelves: "I noticed that! I'm afraid we +white folks, the world over, are prone to do that--with you-all." + +"Yes, when you speak of us at all." + +"Ducatel's opposite neighbor," Chester remarked, "is an antique even more +interesting." + +"Ah, yes! Castanado is antique only in that art spirit which the tourist +trade is every day killing even in Royal Street." + +"That's the worst decay in this whole decaying quarter," the young man +said. + +"And in all this deluge of trade spirit," Ovide continued, "the best dry +land left of it--of that spirit of art--is----" + +"Castanado's shop, I dare say." + +"Castanado's and three others in that one square you pass every day +without discovering the fact. But that's natural; you are a busy lawyer." + +"Not so very. What are the other three?" + +"First, the shop of Seraphine Alexandre, embroideries; then of Scipion +Beloiseau, ornamental ironwork, opposite Mme. Seraphine and next below +Ducatel--Ducatel, alas, he don't count; and third, of Placide La Porte, +perfumeries, next to Beloiseau. That's all." + +"Not the watchmaker on the square above?" + +"Ah! distantly he's of them: and there _was_ old Manouvrier, taxidermist; +but he's gone--where the spirits of art and of worship are twin." + +Chester turned sharply again to the shelves and stood rigid. From an +inner room, its glass door opened by Ovide's silver-spectacled wife, came +the little black cupid and his charge. Ah, once more what perfection in +how many points! As she returned to Ovide an old magazine, at last he +heard her voice--singularly deep and serene. She thanked the bookman for +his loan and, with the child, went out. + +It disturbed the Southern youth to unbosom himself to a black man, but he +saw no decent alternative: "Landry, I had not the faintest idea that that +young lady was nearer than Castanado's shop!" + +Ovide shook his head: "You seem yourself to forget that you are here by +business appointment. And what of it if you have seen her, or she seen +you, here--or anywhere?" + +"Only this: that I've met her so often by pure--by chance, on that square +you speak of, I bound for the court-house, she for I can't divine +where--for I've never looked behind me!--that I've had to take another +street to show I'm a gentleman. This very morn'--oh!--and now! here! +How can I explain--or go unexplained?" + +Ovide lifted a hand: "Will you leave that to my wife, so unlearned yet so +wise and good? For the young lady's own sake my wife, _without_ +explaining, will see that you are not misjudged." + +"Good! Right! Any explanation would simply belie itself. Yes, let her +do it! But, Landry----" + +"Yes?" + +"For heaven's sake don't let her make me out a goody-goody. I haven't +got this far into life without making moral mistakes, some of them huge. +But in this thing--I say it only to you--I'm making none. I'm neither a +marrying man, a villain, nor an ass." + +Ovide smiled: "My wife can manage that. Maybe it's good you came here. +It may well be that the young lady herself would be glad if some one +explained her to you." + +"Hoh! does an angel need an explanation?" + +"I should say, in Royal Street, yes." + +"Then for mercy's sake give it! right here! you! come!" The youth +laughed. "Mercy to me, I mean. But--wait! Tell me; couldn't Castanado +have given it, as easily as you?" + +"You never gave Castanado this chance." + +"How do you know that? Oh, never mind, go ahead--full speed." + +"Well, she's an orphan, of a fine old family----" + +"Obviously! Creole, of course, the family?" + +"Yes, though always small in Louisiana. Creole except one New England +grandmother. But for that one she would not have been here just now." + +"Humph! that's rather obscure but--go on." + +"Her parents left her without a sou or a relation except two maiden aunts +as poor as she." + +"Antiques?" + +"Yes. She earns their living and her own." + +"You don't care to say how?" + +"She wouldn't like it. 'Twould be to say where." + +"She seems able to dress exquisitely." + +"Mr. Chester, a woman would see with what a small outlay that is done. +She has that gift for the needle which a poet has for the pen." + +"Ho! that's _charmingly_ antique. But now tell me how having a Yankee +grandmother caused her to drop in here just now. Your logic's dim." + +"You are soon to go to Castanado's to see that manuscript story, are you +not?" + +"Oh, is it a story? Have you read it?" + +"Yes, I've read it, 'tis short. They wanted my opinion. And 'tis a +story, though true." + +"A story! Love story? very absorbing?" + +"No, it is not of love--except love of liberty. Whether 'twill absorb +you or no I cannot say. Me it absorbed because it is the story of some +of my race, far from here and in the old days, trying, in the old vain +way, to gain their freedom." + +"Has--has mademoiselle read it?" + +"Certainly. It is her property; hers and her two aunts'. Those two, +they bought it lately, of a poor devil--drinking man--for a dollar. They +had once known his mother, from the West Indies." + +"He wrote it, or his mother?" + +"The mother, long ago. 'Tis not too well done. It absorbs mademoiselle +also, but that is because 'tis true. When I saw that effect I told her +of a story like it, yet different, and also seeming true, in this old +magazine. And when I began to tell it she said, 'It _is_ true! My +Vermont _grand'mère_ wrote that! It happened to her!'" + +"How queer! And, Landry, I see the connection. Your magazine being one +of a set, you couldn't let her read it anywhere but here." + +"I have to keep my own rules." + +"Let me see it. . . . Oh, now, why not? What was the use of either of +us explaining if--if----?" + +But Ovide smilingly restored the thing to its stack. "Now," he said, +"'tis Mr. Chester's logic that fails." Yet as he turned to a customer he +let Chester take it down. + +"My job requires me," the youth said, "to study character. Let's see +what a _grand'mère_ of a '_tite-fille_, situated so and so, will do." + +Ovide escorted his momentary customer to the sidewalk door. As he +returned, Chester, rolling map and magazine together, said: + +"It's getting dark. No, don't make a light, it's your closing time and +I've a strict engagement. Here's a deposit for this magazine; a fifty. +It's all I have--oh, yes, take it, we'll trade back to-morrow. You must +keep your own rules and I must read this thing before I touch my bed." + +"Even the first few lines absorb you?" + +"No, far from it. Look here." Chester read out: "'_Now, Maud,' said my +uncle_--Oh, me! Landry, if the tale's true why that old story-book pose?" + +"It may be that the writer preferred to tell it as fiction, and that only +something in me told me 'tis true. Something still tells me so." + +"'_Now, Maud_,'" Chester smilingly thought to himself when, the evening's +later engagement being gratifyingly fulfilled, he sat down with the +story. "And so you were grand'mère to our Royal Street miracle. And you +had a Southern uncle! So had I! though yours was a planter, mine a +lawyer, and yours must have been fifty years the older. Well, '_Now, +Maud_,' for my absorption!" + +It came. Though the tale was unamazing amazement came. The four chief +characters were no sooner set in motion than Chester dropped the pamphlet +to his knee, agape in recollection of a most droll fact a year or two +old, which now all at once and for the first time arrested his attention. +He also had a manuscript! That lawyer uncle of his, saying as he spared +him a few duplicate volumes from his law library, "Burn that if you don't +want it," had tossed him a fat document indorsed: "_Memorandum of an +Early Experience_." Later the nephew had glanced it over, but, like +"Maud's" story, its first few lines had annoyed his critical sense and he +had never read it carefully. The amazing point was that "_Now, Maud_" +and this "_Memorandum_" most incredibly--with a ridiculous nicety--fitted +each other. + +He lifted the magazine again and, beginning at the beginning a third +time, read with a scrutiny of every line as though he studied a witness's +deposition. And this was what he read: + + + + +IV + +THE CLOCK IN THE SKY + +"Now, Maud," said uncle jovially as he, aunt, and I drove into the +confines of their beautiful place one spring afternoon of 1860, "don't +forget that to be too near a thing is as bad for a good view of it as +to be too far away." + +I was a slim, tallish girl of scant sixteen, who had never seen a +slaveholder on his plantation, though I had known these two for years, +and loved them dearly, as guests in our Northern home before it was +broken up by the death of my mother. Father was an abolitionist, and +yet he and they had never had a harsh word between them. If the +general goodness of those who do some particular thing were any proof +that that particular thing is good to do, they would have convinced me, +without a word, that slaveholding was entirely right. But they were +not trying to do any such thing. "Remember," continued my uncle, +smiling round at me, "your dad's trusting you not to bring back our +honest opinion--of anything--in place of your own." + +"Maud," my aunt hurried to put in, for she knew the advice I had just +heard was not the kind I most needed, "you're going to have for your +own maid the blackest girl you ever saw." + +"And the best," added my uncle; "she's as good as she is black." + +"She's no common darky, that Sidney," said aunt. "She'll keep you busy +answering questions, my dear, and I say now, you may tell her anything +she wants to know; we give you perfect liberty; and you may be just as +free with Hester; that's her mother; or with her father, Silas." + +"We draw the line at Mingo," said uncle. + +"And who is Mingo?" I inquired. + +"Mingo? he's her brother; a very low and trailing branch of the family +tree." + +As we neared the house I was told more of the father and mother; their +sweet content, their piety, their diligence. "If we lived in town, +where there's better chance to pick up small earnings," remarked uncle, +"those two and Sidney would have bought their freedom by now, and +Mingo's too. Silas has got nearly enough to buy his own, as it is." + +Silas, my aunt explained, was a carpenter. "He hands your uncle so +much a week; all he can make beyond that he's allowed to keep." The +carriage stopped at the door; half a dozen servants came, smiling, and +I knew Sidney and Hester at a glance, they were so finely different +from their fellows. + +That night the daughter and I made acquaintance. She was eighteen, +tall, lithe and as straight as an arrow. She had not one of the +physical traits that so often make her race uncomely to our eyes; even +her nose was good; her very feet were well made, her hands were slim +and shapely, the fingers long and neatly jointed, and there was nothing +inky in her amazing blackness, her red blood so enriched it. Yet she +was as really African in her strong, eager mind as in her color, and +the English language, on her tongue, was like a painter's palette and +brushes in the hands of a monkey. Her first question to me after my +last want was supplied came cautiously, after a long gaze at my lighted +lamp, from a seat on the floor. "Miss Maud, when was de conwention o' +coal-oil 'scuvvud?" And to her good night she added, in allusion to my +eventual return to the North, "I hope it be a long time afo' you make +dat repass!" + +At the next bedtime she began on me with the innocent question of my +favorite flower, but I had not answered three other questions before +she had placed me where I must either say I did not believe in the +right to hold slaves, or must keep silence; and when I kept silence of +course she knew. For a long moment she dropped her eyes, and then, +with a soft smile, asked if I would tell her some Bible stories, +preferably that of "Moses in de boundaries o' Egyp'." + +She listened in gloating silence, rarely interrupting; but at the +words, "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, 'Let my people go,'" the +response, "Pra-aise Gawd!" rose from her lips in such volume that she +threw her hands to her mouth. After that she spoke only soft queries, +but they grew more and more significant, and I soon saw that her +supposed content was purely a pious endurance, and that her soul felt +bondage as her body would have felt a harrow. So I left the fugitives +of Egyptian slavery under the frown of the Almighty in the wilderness +of Sin; Sidney was trusting me; uncle and aunt were trusting me; and +between them I was getting into a narrow corner. After a meditative +silence my questioner asked: + +"Miss Maud, do de Bible anywhuz capitulate dat Moses aw Aaron aw +Joshaway aw Cable _buy_ his freedom--wid money?" + +Her manner was childlike, yet she always seemed to come up out of deep +thought when she asked a question; she smiled diffidently until the +reply began to come, then took on a reverential gravity, and as soon as +it was fully given sank back into thought. "Miss Maud, don't you +reckon dat ef Moses had a-save' up money enough to a-boughtened his +freedom, dat'd a-been de wery sign mos' pleasin' to Gawd dat he 'uz +highly fitten to be sot free widout paying?" To that puzzle she waited +for no answer beyond the distress I betrayed, but turned to matters +less speculative, and soon said good night. + +On the third evening--my! If I could have given all the topography of +the entire country between uncle's plantation and my native city on the +margin of the Great Lakes, with full account of its every natural and +social condition, her questions would have wholly gathered them in. +She asked if our climate was very hard on negroes; what clothing we +wore in summer, and how we kept from freezing in midwinter; about +wages, the price of food, what crops were raised, and what the +"patarolers" did with a negro when they caught one at night without a +pass. + +She made me desperate, and when the fourth night saw her crouched on my +floor it found me prepared; I plied her with questions from start to +finish. She yielded with a perfect courtesy; told of the poor lot of +the few free negroes of whom she knew, and of the time-serving and +shifty indolence, the thievishness, faithlessness, and unaspiring +torpidity of "some niggehs"; and when I opened the way for her to speak +of uncle and aunt she poured forth their praises with an ardor that +brought her own tears. I asked her if she believed she could ever be +happy away from them. + +She smiled with brimming eyes: "Why, I dunno, Miss Maud; whatsomeveh +come, and whensomeveh, and howsomeveh de Lawd sen' it, ef us feels his +ahm und' us, us ought to be 'shame' not to be happy, oughtn't us?" All +at once she sprang half up: "I tell you de Lawd neveh gi'n no niggeh de +rights to snuggle down anywhuz an' fo'git de auction-block!" + +As suddenly the outbreak passed, yet as she settled down again her +exaltation still showed through her fond smile. "You know what dat +inqui'ance o' yone bring to my 'memb'ance? Dass ow ole Canaan hymn---- + + "'O I mus' climb de stony hill + Pas' many a sweet desiah, + De flow'ry road is not fo' me, + I follows cloud an' fiah.'" + +After she was gone I lay trying so to contrive our next conversation +that it should not flow, as all before it had so irresistibly done, +into that one deep channel of her thoughts which took in everything +that fell upon her mind, as a great river drinks the rains of all its +valleys. Presently the open window gave me my cue: the stars! the +unvexed and unvexing stars, that shone before human wrongs ever began, +and that will be shining after all human wrongs are ended--our talk +should be of them. + + + + +V + +At the supper-table on the following evening I became convinced of +something which I had felt coming for two or three days, wondering the +while whether Sidney did not feel the same thing. When we rose aunt +drew me aside and with caressing touches on my brow and temples said +she was sorry to be so slow in bringing me into social contact with the +young people of the neighboring plantations, but that uncle, on his +arrival at home, had found a letter whose information had kept him, and +her as well, busy every waking hour since. "And this evening," she +continued, "we can't even sit down with you around the parlor lamp. +Can you amuse yourself alone, dear, or with Sidney, while your uncle +and I go over some pressing matters together?" + +Surely I could. "Auntie, was the information--bad news?" + +"It wasn't good, my dear; I may tell you about it to-morrow." + +"Hadn't I better go back to father at once?" + +"Oh, my child, not for our sake; if you're not too lonesome we'd rather +keep you. Let me see; has Mingo ever danced for you? Why, tell Sidney +to make Mingo come dance for you." + +Mingo came; his leaps, turns, postures, steps, and outcries were a most +laughable wonder, and I should have begged for more than I did, but I +saw that it was a part of Sidney's religion to disapprove the dance. + +"Sidney," I said, "did you ever hear of the great clock in the sky? +Yes, there's one there; it's made all of stars." We were at the foot +of some veranda steps that faced the north, and as she and Mingo were +about to settle down at my feet I said if they would follow me to the +top of the flight I would tell this marvel: what the learned believed +those eternal lamps to be; why some were out of view three-fourths of +the night, others only half, others not a quarter; how a very few never +sank out of sight at all except for daylight or clouds, and yet went +round and round with all the others; and why I called those the clock +of heaven; which gained, each night, four minutes, and only four, on +the time we kept by the sun. + +"Pra-aise Gawd!" murmured Sidney. "Miss Maud, please hol' on tell +Mingo run' fetch daddy an' mammy; dey don't want dat sto'y f'om me +secon' haynded!" Mingo darted off and we waited. "Miss Maud, what de +white folks mean by de nawth stah? Is dey sich a stah as de nawth +stah?" + +I tried to explain that since all this seeming movement of the stars +around us was but our own daily and yearly turning, there would +necessarily be two opposite points on our earth which would never move +at all, and that any star directly in line with those two points would +seem as still as they. + +"Like de p'int o' de spin'le on de spinnin'-wheel, Miss Maud? Oh, +yass, I b'lieve I un'stand dat; I un'stan' it some." + +I showed her the north star, and told her how to find it; and then I +took from my watch-guard a tiny compass and let her see how it forever +picked out from among all the stars of heaven that one small light, and +held quiveringly to it. She hung over it with ecstatic sighs. "Do it +_see_ de stah, Miss Maud, like de wise men o' de Eas' see de stah o' +Jesus?" + +I tried to make plain the law it was obeying. + +"And do it p'int dah dess de same in de broad day, an' all day +long?--Pra-aise Gawd! And do it p'int dah in de rain, an' in de stawmy +win' a-fulfillin' of his word, when de ain't a single stah admissible +in de ske-eye?--De Lawd's na-ame be pra-aise'!" Her father, mother, +and brother were all looking at it with her, now, and she glanced from +one to another with long heavings of rapture. + +"Miss Maud," said Silas, in a subdued voice, "dat little trick mus' 'a' +cos' you a mint o' money." + +"Silas," put in Hester, "you know dass not a pullite question!" But +she was ravening for its answer, and I said I had bought it for +twenty-five cents. They laughed with delight. Yet, when I told +Sidney she might have it, her thanks were but two words, which her lips +seemed to drop unconsciously while she gazed on the trinket. + +They all sat down on the steps nearest below me, and presently, +beginning where I had begun with Sidney, I went on to point out the +polar constellations and to relate the age-worn story of Cepheus and +Cassiopeia, Andromeda and the divine Perseus. + +"Lawd, my Lawd !" whispered the mother, "was dey--was dey colo'd?" + +I said two of them were king and queen of Ethiopia, and a third was +their daughter. + +"Chain' to de rock, an' yit sa-ave at las'!" exclaimed Sidney. + +While her husband and children still gazed at the royal stars, Hester +spoke softly to me again. "Miss Maud, dass a tryin' sawt o' sto'y to +tell to a bunch o' po' niggehs; did you dess make dat up--fo' us?" + +"Why, Hester," I said, "that was an old, old story before this country +was ever known to white folks, or black," and the eyes of all four were +on me as the daughter asked: "Ain't it in de Bi-ible?" + +As all but Sidney bade me good night, I heard her say; "I don' care, I +b'lieb dat be'n in de Bible an' git drap out by mista-ake!" + +In my room she grew queerly playful, and continued so until she had +drawn off my shoes and stockings. But then abruptly, she took my feet +in her slim black hands, and with eyes lifted tenderly to mine, said: +"How bu'ful 'pon de mountain is dem wha' funnish good tidin's!" She +leaned her forehead on my insteps: "Us bleeged to paht some day, Miss +Maud." + +I made a poor effort to lift her, but she would not be displaced. +"Cayn't no two people count fo' sho' on stayin' togetheh al'ays in dis +va-ain worl'," and all at once I found my face in my hands and the salt +drops searching through my fingers; Sidney was kissing my feet and +wetting them with her tears. + +At close of the next day, a Sabbath, my uncle and aunt called all their +servants around the front steps of the house and with tears more bitter +than any of Sidney's or mine, told them that by the folly of others, +far away, they had lost their whole fortune at one stroke and must part +with everything, and with them, by sale. Their dark hearers wept with +them, and Silas, Hester, and Sidney, after the rest had gone back to +the quarters, offered the master and mistress, through many a quaintly +misquoted scripture, the consolations of faith. + +"I wish we had set you free, Silas," said uncle, "you and yours, when +we could have done it. Your mistress and I are going to town to-morrow +solely to get somebody to buy you, all four, together." + +"Mawse Ben," cried the slave, with strange earnestness, "don't you do +dat! Don't you was'e no time dat a-way! You go see what you can +sa-ave fo' you-all an' yone!" + +"For the creditors, you mean, Silas," said my aunt; "that's done." + +Hester had a question. "Do it all go to de credito's anyhow, Miss +'Liza, no matteh how much us bring?" and when aunt said yes, Sidney +murmured to her mother, "I tol' you dat." I wondered when she had told +her. + +Uncle and aunt tried hard to find one buyer for the four, but failed; +nobody who wanted the other three had any use for Mingo. It was after +nightfall when they came dragging home. "Now don't you fret one bit +'bout dat, Mawse Ben," exclaimed Sidney, with a happy heroism in her +eyes that I remembered afterward. "'De Lawd is perwide!'" + +"Strange," said my aunt to uncle and me aside, smiling in pity, "how +slight an impression disaster makes on their minds!" and that too I +remembered afterward. + +As soon as we were alone in my chamber, Sidney and I, she asked me to +tell her again of the clock in the sky, and at the end of her service +and of my recital she drew me to my window and showed me how promptly +she could point out the pole-star at the centre of the clock's vast +dial, although at our right a big moon was leaving the tree tops and +flooding the sky with its light. Toward this she turned, and lifting +an arm with the reverence of a priestess said, in impassioned monotone: + + "'De moon shine full at His comman' + An' all de stahs obey.'" + +She kissed my hand as she added good-by. "Why, Sidney!" I laughed, +"you mean good night, don't you?" + +She bent low, tittered softly, and then, with a swift return to her +beautiful straightness, said: "But still, Miss Maud, who eveh know when +dey say good night dat it ain't good-by?" She fondled my hand between +her two as she backed away, kissed it fervently again, and was gone. + +When I awoke my aunt stood in broad though sunless daylight at the +bedside, with the waking cup of coffee which it was Sidney's wont to +bring. I started from the pillow. "Oh! what--who--wh'--where's +Sidney? Why--how long has it been raining?" + +"It began at break of day," she replied, adding pensively, "thank God." + +"Oh! were we in such bad need of rain?" + +"_They_ were--precisely when it came. Rain never came straighter from +heaven." + +"They?"--I stared. + +"Yes; Silas and Hester--and Sidney--and Mingo. They must have started +soon after moonrise, and had the whole bright night, with its black +shadows, for going." + +"For going where, auntie; going where?" + +"Then the rain came in God's own hour," she continued, as if wholly to +herself, "and washed out their trail." + +I sprang from the bed. "Aunt 'Liza!" + +"Yes, Maud, they've run away, and if only they may _get_ away. God be +praised!" + +Of course, I cried like an infant. I threw myself upon her bosom. +"Oh, auntie, auntie, I'm afraid it's my fault! But when I tell you how +far I was from meaning it----" + +"Don't tell me a word, my child; I wish it were my fault; I'd like to +be in your shoes. And, I don't care how right slavery is, I'll never +own a darky again!" + + +One day some two months after, at home again with father. Just as I +was leaving the house on some errand, Sidney--ragged, wet, and +bedraggled as a lost dog--sprang into my arms. When I had got her +reclothed and fed I eagerly heard her story. Three of the four had +come safely through; poor Mingo had failed; if I ever tell of him it +must be at some other time. In the course of her tale I asked about +the compass. + +"Dat little trick?" she said fondly. "Oh, yass'm, it wah de salvation +o' de Lawd 'pon cloudy nights; but time an' ag'in us had to sepa'ate, +'llowin' fo' to rejine togetheh on de bank o' de nex' creek, an' which, +de Lawd a-he'pin' of us, h-it al'ays come to pass; an' so, afteh all, +Miss Maud, de one thing what stan' us de bes' frien' night 'pon night, +next to Gawd hisse'f, dat wah his clock in de ske-eye." + + + + +VI + +"Landry," Chester said next day, bringing back the magazine barely half +an hour after the book-shop had reopened, "that's a true story!" + +"Ah, something inside tells you?" + +"No need! You remember this, near the end? '_Poor Mingo had failed +[to escape]; if I ever tell of him it must be at another time_.' +Landry, it's so absurd that I hardly have the face to say it; I've +got--ha-ha-ha!--I've got a manuscript! and it fills that gap!" The +speaker whipped out the "Memorandum"; "Here's the story, by my own +uncle, of how the three got over the border and how Mingo failed. I'd +totally forgotten I had it. I disliked its beginning far more than I +did 'Maud's' yesterday. For I hate masks and costumes as much as Mr. +Castanado loves them; and a practical joke--which is what the story +begins with, in costume, though it soon leaves it behind--nauseates me. +Comical situation it makes for me, this 'Memorandum,' doesn't +it--turning up this way?" + +Ovide replied meditatively: "To lend it, even to me, would seem as +though you sought----" + +"It would put me in a false light! I don't like false lights." + +"It would mask and costume you." + +"Why, not so badly as if I were really in society; as, you know, I'm +not! The only place where any man, but especially a society man, can +properly seek a girl's society is in society. The more he's worthy to +meet her, the more hopelessly--I needn't say hopelessly, but +completely--he's cut off from meeting her any other way. Isn't that a +gay situation? Ha-ha-ha!" + +"You would probably move much in society, even Creole society, without +meeting mademoiselle; she has less time for it than you." + +"Is that so?" + +Cupid, the evening before, had carried a flat, square parcel like a +shop's account-books to be written up under the home lamp. Staring at +Landry, Chester rather dropped the words than spoke them: "Think of it! +The awful pity! For the like of her! Of her! Why, how on earth--? +No, don't tell! I know what I'd think of any other man following in +her wake and asking questions while hard fortune writes her history. A +girl like her, Landry, has no business with a history!" + +"Mr. Chester." + +"Yes?" + +"Has that 'Memorandum' never been printed? I can find out for you, in +_Poole's Index_." + +"Do it! It's good enough, and it's named as if to be printed. See? +'The Angel of----'" + +"Then why not have Mr. Castanado, while selecting a publisher for +mademoiselle's manuscript, select for both?" + +Chester shone: "Why--why, happy thought! I'll consider that, indeed +I will! Well, good mor'----" + +"Mr. Chester." + +"Well?" + +"Why did you want that new book yesterday?" + +"I've met that nice old man the book calls 'the judge,' and he's coaxed +me to break my rules and dine with him, at his home uptown, to-night." + +"I'm glad. Madame, his wife, was my young mistress when I was a slave. +I wish her granddaughter and his grandson--they also are married--were +not over in the war--Red Cross. You'd like them--and they would like +you." + +"Do they know mademoiselle?" + +"Indeed, yes! They are the best of her very few friends. But--the +Atlantic rolls between." + +Chester went out. In the rear door Ovide's wife appeared, knitting. +"Any close-ter?" she asked over her silver-bowed spectacles. + +"Some," he said, taking down _Poole's Index_. + +She came to his side and they placidly conversed. As she began to +leave him, "No," she said, "we kin wish, but we mustn' meddle. All any +of us want' or got any rights to want is to see 'em on speakin' terms. +F'om dat on, hands off. Leave de rest to de fitness o' things, de +everlast'n' fitness o' things!" + + + + +VII + +At the Castanados', the second evening after, Chester was welcomed into +a specially pretty living-room. But he found three other visitors. +Madame, seated on a sort of sofa for one, made no effort to rise. Her +face, for all its breadth, was sweet in repose and sweeter when she +spoke or smiled. Her hands were comparatively small and the play of +her vast arms was graceful as she said to a slim, tallish, comely woman +with an abundance of soft, well-arranged hair: + +"Seraphine, allow me to pres-ent Mr. Chezter." + +She explained that this Mme. Alexandre was her "neighbor of the next +door," and Chester remembered her sign: "Laces and Embroideries." + +"Scipion," said Castanado to a short, swarthy, broad-bearded man, "I +have the honor to make you acquaint' with my friend Mr. Chezter." + +Chester pressed the enveloping hand of "S. Beloiseau, Artisan in +Ornamental Iron-work." + +"Also, Mr. Chezter, Mr. Rene Ducatel; but with him you are already +acquaint', I think, eh?" + +Chester shook hands with a small, dapper, early-gray, superdignified +man, recalling his sign: "Antiques in Furniture, Glass, Bronze, Plate, +China, and Jewelry." M. Ducatel seemed to be already taking leave. +His "anceztral 'ome," he said, was far up-town; he had dropped in +solely to borrow--showing it--the _Courrier des Etats-Unis_. + +That journal, Castanado remarked to Chester as at a corner table he +poured him a glass of cordial, brought the war, the trenches, the poilu +and the boche closer than any other they knew. Beloiseau and Mme. +Alexandre, he softly explained, had come in quite unlooked-for to +discuss the great strife and might depart at any moment. Then the +reading! + +But Chester himself interested those two and they stayed. When he said +that Beloiseau's sidewalk samples had often made him covet some excuse +for going in and seeing both the stock and the craftsman, "That was +excuse ab-undant!" was the prompt response, and Castanado put in: + +"Scipion he'd rather, always, a non-buying connoisseur than a buying +Philistine." + +"Come any day! any hour!" said Beloiseau. + +Presently all five were talking of the surviving poetry of both +artistic and historic Royal Street. "Twenty year' ag-o," said the +ironworker, "looking down-street from my shop, there was not a building +in sight without a romantic story. My God! for example, that Hotel St. +Louis!" + +Chester--"had heard one or two of its episodes only the evening before, +at that up-town dinner, from a fine old down-town Creole, a fellow +guest, with whom he was to dine the next week." + +"Aha-a-a! precizely ac-rozz the street from Mme. Alexandre!" said the +hostess. "M'sieu' et Madame De l'Isle! Now I detec' that!" + +"Have they no son?--or--or daughter?" he asked. + +"Not any," Mme. Alexandre broke in with a significant sparkle; "juz' +the two al-lone." + +"They live over my shop," Beloiseau said. "You muz' know that double +gate nex' adjoining me." + +"Oh, that lovely piece of ironwork? I took that for a part of your +establishment." + +"I have only the uze of it with them. My _grandpère_ he made those +gate', for the father of Mme. De l'Isle, same year he made those great +openwork gate' of Hotel St. Louis. You speak of episode'! One summer, +renovating that hotel, they paint' those gate'--of iron openwork--in +imitation--_mon Dieu_!--of marbl'! _Ciel_! the tragedy of _that_! +Yes, they live over me; in the whole square, both side' the street, +last remaining of the 'igh society." + +When Mme. Alexandre finally rose to go, and had kissed the upturned +brow of her hostess, she went by an inner door and rear balcony. And +when Chester and Beloiseau began to take leave their host said to +Chester: + +"You dine with M. De l'Isle Tuesday. Well, if you'll come again here +the next evening we'll attend to--that business." + +"Wouldn't that be losing time? I can just as well come sooner." + +"No," said madame, "better that Wednesday." + +Chester was nettled, but he recovered when the ironworker walked with +him around into Bienville Street and at his _pension_ door lamented the +pathetic decay of the useful arts and of artistic taste, since the +advent of castings and machinery. The pair took such liking for each +other's tenets of beauty, morals, art, and life that Chester walked +back to the De l'Isle gates, and their parting at last was at the +corner half-way between their two domiciles. + +Meanwhile madame was saying to her spouse, "Aha! you see? The power of +prayer! Ab-ove all, for the he'pless! By day the fo' corner' of my +room, by night the fo' post' of my bed, are----" + +"Yes, _chérie_, I know." + +"Yes, they're to me for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John! Since three +days every time I heard the cathedral clock I've prayed to them; and +now----!" + +"Well, my angel? Now?" + +"Well, now! He's dining there next Tuesday!" + +"Truly. Yet even now we can only hope----" + +"Ah, no! Me, I can also continue to supplicate! From now till +Wednesday, every time that clock, I'll pray those four _évangélistes_! +and Thursday you'll see--the power of prayer! Oh, 'tis like _magique_, +that power of prayer!" + + + + +VIII + +On Tuesday evening Chester, a country boy yet now and then, was first +at the De l'Isles'. + +Madame lauded him. "Punctualitie! tha'z the soul of pleasure!" She +had begun to explain why her other guests included but one young lady, +when here they came. First, the Prieurs, a still handsome Creole +couple whom he never met again. Then that youthful-aged up-town pair, +the Thorndyke-Smiths. And last--while Smith held Chester captive to +tell him he knew his part of Dixie, having soldiered there in the Civil +War--the one young lady, Mlle. Chapdelaine. As Chester turned toward +her she turned away, but her back view was enough to startle him. + +"Aline," the hostess began as she brought them face to face, but +whatever she said more might as well have been a thunderbolt through +the roof. For Aline Chapdelaine was SHE. + +They went out together. What a stately dining-room! What carvings! +What old china and lace on the board, under what soft, rich +illumination! The Prieurs held the seats of honor. Chester was on the +hostess's left. Mademoiselle sat between him and Mr. Smith. It would +be pleasant to tell with what poise the youth and she dropped into +conversation, each intensely mindful--intensely aware that the other +was mindful--of that Conti Street corner, of Ovide's shop, and of "The +Clock in the Sky," and both alike hungry to know how much each had been +told about the other. Calmly they ignored all earlier encounter and +entered into acquaintance on the common ground of the poetry of the +narrow region of decay in which this lovely home lay hid "like a lost +jewel." + +"Ah, not quite lost yet," the girl protested. + +"No," he conceded, "not while the poetry remains," and Smith, on her +other hand, said: + +"Not while this cluster of shops beneath us is kept by those who now +keep them." + +"My faith!" the hostess broke in, "to real souls 'tis they are the +wonder--and the _poésie_--and the jewels! Ask Aline!" + +"Ask me," Chester said, as if for mademoiselle's rescue; "I discovered +them only last week." + +"And then also," quietly said Aline, "ask me, for I did not discover +them only last week." + +M. Prieur joining in enabled Chester to murmur: "May I ask you +something?" + +"You need not. You would ask if I knew you had discovered them--M. +Castanado and the rest." + +"And you would answer?" + +"That I knew they had discovered you." + +"Discovered, you mean, my spiritual substance?" + +"Yes, your spiritual substance. That's a capital expression, Mr. +Chester, your 'spiritual substance.' I must add that to my English." + +"Your English is wonderfully correct. May I ask something else?" + +"I can answer without. Yes, I know where you're going to-morrow and +for what; to read that old manuscript. Mr. Chester, that other +story--of my _grand'mére_, 'Maud'; how did you like that?" + +"It left me in love with your _grand'mére_." + +"Notwithstanding she became what they used to call--you know the word." + +"Yes, 'nigger-stealer.' How did you ever add that to your English?" + +"My father _was_ one. Right here in Royal Street. Hotel St. Louis. +Else he might never have married my--that's too long to tell here." + +"May I not hear it soon, at your home?" + +"Assuredly. Sooner or later. My aunts they are born raconteurs." + +"Oh! your aunts. Hem! Do you know? I had an uncle who once was your +grandfather's sort of robber, though a Southerner born and bred." + +"Yes, Ovide's wife told me. Will you permit me a question?" + +"No," laughed Chester, "but I can answer it. Yes. Those four poor +runaways to whom your sweet Maud showed the clock in the sky were the +same four my uncle helped on--oh, you've not heard it, and it also is +too long. I can lend you his 'Memorandum' if you'll have it." + +She hesitated. "N-no," she said. "Ah, no! I couldn't bear that +responsibility! Listen; Mr. Smith is going to tell a war story of the +city." + +But no, that gentleman's story was yet another too long for the moment +even when the men were left to their cigars. Instead he and Chester +made further acquaintance. When they returned to the ladies, "I want +you to talk with my wife," said Mr. Smith, and Chester obeyed. Yet +soon he was at mademoiselle's side again and she was saying in a +dropped voice: + +"To-morrow when you're at the Castanados' to read, so privately, would +you be willing for Mme. De l'Isle to be there--just madame alone?" + +Oh, but men are dull! "I'd be honored!" he said. "They can modify the +privacy as they please." Oh, but men are dull! There he had to give +place to M. Prieur and presently accepted some kind of social +invitation, seeing no way out of it, from the Smiths. So ended the +evening. Mlle. Chapdelaine was taken to her home, "close by," as she +said, in the Prieurs' carriage. + +"They are juz' arround in Bourbon Street, those Chapdelaines," said the +De l'Isles to Chester, last to go. "Y'ought to see their li'l' +flower-garden. Like those two aunt' that maintain it, 'tis unique. +Y'ought to see that--and them." + +"I have mademoiselle's permission," he replied. + +"Ah, well, then!--ha, ha!" The pair exchanged a smile which seemed to +the parting guest to say: "After all he's not so utterly deficient!" + + + + +IX + +Again the Castanados' dainty parlor, more dainty than ever. No one +there was in evening dress, though with its privacy "modified as the +Castanados pleased," it had gathered a company of seven. + +Chester, not yet come, would make an eighth. Madame was in her special +chair. And here, besides her husband, were both M. and Mme. De l'Isle, +Mme. Alexandre and Scipion Beloiseau. The seventh was M. Placide +Dubroca, perfumer; a man of fifty or so, his black hair and mustache +inclined to curl and his eyes spirited yet sympathetic. Just entered, +he was telling how consumed with regret his wife was, to be kept +away--by an old promise to an old friend to go with her to that +wonderful movie, "Les Trois Mousquetaires," when Chester came in and +almost at once a general debate on Mlle. Chapdelaine's manuscript was +in full coruscation. + +"In the firs' place," one said--though the best place he could seize +was the seventeenth--"firs' place of all--competition! My frien's, we +cannot hope to nig-otiate with that North in the old manner which we +are proud, a few of us yet, to _con_-tinue in the rue Royale. Every +publisher----" + +Mme. Castanado had a quotation that could not wait: "We got to be 'wise +like snake' an' innocent like pigeon'!'" + +"Precizely! Every publisher approach' mus' know he's bidding agains' +every other! Maybe they are honess men, and _if_ so they'll be +rij-oice'!" + +A non-listener was trying to squeeze in: "And sec'--and sec'--and +secon' thing--if not firs'--is guarantee! They mus' pay so much profit +in advance. Else it be better to publish without a publisher, and with +advertisement' front and back! Tiffany, Royal Baking-Powder, Ivory +Soap it Float'! Ten thousand dolla' the page that _Ladies' 'Ome +Journal_ get', and if we get even ten dolla' the page--I know a man +what make that way three hundred dolla'!" + +"He make that net or gross?" some one asked. + +"Ah! I think, not counting his time _sol_-iciting those +advertisement', he make it _nearly_ net." + +Chester made show of breaking in and three speakers at once begged him +to proceed: "How much of a book," he asked Mme. Castanado, "will the +manuscript make? How long is it?" + +She looked falteringly to her husband: "'Tis about a foot long, nine +inch' wide. Marcel, pazz that to monsieur." + +The husband complied. Chester counted the lines of one of the pages. +Madame watched him anxiously. + +"Tha'z too wide?" she inquired. + +"It isn't long enough to make a book. To do that would take--oh--seven +times as much." + +"Ah!" Madame's voice grew in sweetness as it rose: "So much the +better! So much the more room for those advertisement'!--and picture'!" + +"And portrait of mademoiselle!" said Mme. Alexandre, and Mme. De l'Isle +smiled assent. + +Yet a disappointed silence followed, presently broken by the perfumer: +"All the same, what is the matter to make it a pamphlet?" + +Beloiseau objected: "No, then you compete aggains' those magazine'. +But if you permit one of those magazine' to buy it you get the +advantage of all the picture' in the whole magazine." + +"Ah!" several demurred, "and let that magazine swallow whole all those +profit' of all those advertisement'!" + +Chester spoke: "I have an idea--" But others had ideas and the floor +besides. + +Castanado lifted a hand: "Frien'--our counsel." + +Counsel tried again: "I have a conviction that we should first offer +this to a magazine--through--yes, of course, through some influential +friend. If one doesn't want it another may----" + +Chorus: "Ho! they will all want it! That was not written laz' night! +'Tis fivty year' old; they cannot rif-use that!" + +"However," Chester persisted, "if they should--if all should--I'd +advise----" + +"Frien's," Castanado pleaded, "let us hear." + +"I should advise that we gather together as many such old narratives as +we can find, especially such as can be related to one another----" + +"They need not be ril-ated!" cried Dubroca. "_We_ are not ril-ated, +and yet see! Ril-ated? where you are goin' to find them, ril-ated?" + +"Royal Street!" Scipion retorted. "Royal Street is pave' with old +narration'!" + +"Already," said Castanado, "we chanze to have three or four. +Mademoiselle has that story of her _grand'mère_, and Mr. Chezter he +has--sir, you'll not care if I tell that?--Mr. Chezter has _the sequal +to that_, and written by his uncle!" + +"Yes," Chester put in, "but Ovide Landry finds it was printed years +ago." + +"Proof!" proclaimed Mme. Alexandre, "proof that 'tis good to print +ag-ain! The people that read that before, they are mozely dead." + +"At the same time," Chester responded, rising and addressing the chair, +his hostess, "because that is a sequel to the _grand'-mère's_ story, +and because _this_--this West Indian episode--is not a sequel and has +no sequel, and particularly because we ought to let mademoiselle be +first to judge whether my uncle's _memorandum_ is fit company for her +two stories, I propose, I say, that before we read this West Indian +thing we read my uncle's _memorandum_, and that we send and beg her to +come and hear it with us. It's in my pocket." + +Patter, patter, patter, went a dozen hands. + +"Marcel," the hostess cried in French, "go!" + +"I will go with you," Mme. Alexandra proposed, "she will never come +without me." + +"Tis but a step," said Mme. De l'Isle, "the three of us will go +together." They went. + +Those who waited talked on of their city's true stories. The vastest +and most monstrous war in human history was smoking and roaring just +across the Atlantic, and in it they had racial, national, personal +interests; but for the moment they left all that aside. "One troub'," +Dubroca said, "'tis that all those three stone'--and all I can +rim-ember--even that story of M'sieu' Smith about the fall of the +city--1862--they all got in them _somewhere_, alas! the nigger. The +_publique_ they are not any longer pretty easy to fascinate on that +subjec'." + +"Ho!" Beloiseau rejoined, "_au contraire_, he's an advantage! If only +you keep him for the back-_ground_; biccause in the mind of +every-_body_ tha'z where he is, and that way he has the advantage to +ril-ate those storie' together and----" + +Mademoiselle came. Her arrival, reception, installation near the +hostess and opposite Chester are good enough untold. If elsewhere in +that wide city a like number ever settled down to listen to an untamed +writer's manuscript in as sweet content with one another _their_ story +ought to be printed. "Well," Mme. Castanado chanted, "commence." And +Chester read: + + + + +X + +THE ANGEL OF THE LORD + +When I was twenty-four I lived at the small capital of my native +Southern State. + +My parental home was three counties distant. My father, a slaveholding +planter, was a noble gentleman, whom I loved as he loved me. But we +could not endure each other's politics and I was trying to exist on my +professional fees, in the law office of one of our ex-governors. I was +kindly tolerated by everybody about me but had neglected social +relations, being a black sheep on every hot question of the time--1860. + +In the world's largest matters my Southern mother had the sanest +judgment I ever knew, and it was from her I had absorbed my notions on +slavery. It was at least as much in sympathy for the white man as for +the black that she deprecated it, yet she pointed out to me how idle it +was to fancy that any mere manumission of our slaves would cure us of a +whole philosophy of wealth, society, and government as inbred as it was +antiquated. + +One evening my two fellow boarders--state-house clerks, good boys--so +glaringly left me out of their plan for a whole day's fishing on the +morrow, that I smarted. I was so short of money that I could not have +supplied my own tackle, but no one knew that, and it stung me to be +slighted by two chaps I liked so well. I determined to be revenged in +some playful way that would make us better friends, and as I walked +down-street next morning I hit out a scheme. They had been gone since +daybreak and I was on my way to see a client who kept a livery-stable. + +Now, in college, where I had intended to leave all silly tricks behind +me, my most taking pranks had been played in female disguise; for at +twenty-four I was as beardless as a child. + +My errand to the stableman was to collect some part of my fee in a suit +I had won for him. But I got not a cent, for as to cash his victory +had been a barren one. However, a part of his booty was an old coach +built when carriage people made long journeys in their own equipages. +This he would "keep on sale for me free of charge," etc. + +"Which means you'll never sell it," I said. + +Oh, he could sell it if any man could! + +I smiled. Could he lend me, I asked, for half a day or so, a good span +of horses? He could. + +"Then hitch up the coach and let me try it." + +He bristled: "What are you going to find out by 'trying' it? What +d'you 'llow it'll do? Blow up? Who'll drive it? _I_ can't spare any +one." + +I was glad. Any man of his would know me, and my scheme called for a +stranger to both me and the coach. I must find such a person. + +"If I send a driver," I said, "you'll lend me the span, won't you?" + +"Oh, yes." + +But all at once I decided to do without the whole rig. I went back to +my room and had an hour's enjoyment making myself up as a lady dressed +for travel. For a woman I was of just a fine stature. In years I +looked a refined forty. My hands were not too big for black lace +mitts, my bosom was a success, and my feet, in thin morocco, were out +of sight and nobody's business. A little oil and a burnt match +darkened my eyebrows, my wig sat straight, under the weest of bonnets I +wore a chignon, behind one ear a bunch of curls, and, unseen at one +side of a modest bustle, my revolver. Though I say it myself, I +managed my crinoline with grace. + +["That was pritty co'rect," the costumer remarked. "Humph!" said +Chester. The three mesdames exchanged glances, and the reading went +on.] + + + + +XI + +Leaving a note on her door to tell our landlady that business would +keep me away an indefinite time, I got out at the front gate +unobserved, and with a sweet dignity that charmed me with myself walked +away under a bewitching parasol, well veiled. + +I knew where to find my two sportsmen. A few hundred paces put the +town and an open field at my back; a few more down a bushy lane brought +me where a dense wood overhung both sides of the narrow way, and the +damp air was full of the smell of penny-royal and of creek sands. From +here I proposed to saunter down through the woods to the creek, locate +my fishermen, and draw them my way by cries of distress. + +On their reaching my side my story, told through my veil and between +meanings and clingings, was to be that while on a journey in my own +coach, a part of its running-gear having broken, I had sent it on to be +mended; that through love of trees and wild flowers I had ventured to +stay alone meantime among them, and that a snake had bitten me on the +ankle. I should describe a harmless one but insist I was poisoned, and +yet refuse to show the wound or be borne back to the road, or to let +either man stay with me alone while the other went for a doctor, or to +drink their whiskey for a cure. On getting back to the road--with the +two fellows for crutches--I should send both to town for my coach, +keeping with me their tackle and fish. Then I should get myself and my +spoils back to our dwelling as best I could and--await the issue. If +this poor performance had so come off--but see what occurred instead! + +I had shut my parasol and moved into hiding behind some wild vines to +mop my face, when near by on the farther side of the way came slyly +into view a negro and negress. They were in haste to cross the road +yet quite as wishful to cross unseen. One, in home-spun gown and +sunbonnet, was ungainly, shoeless, bird-heeled, fan-toed, ragged, and +would have been painfully ugly but for a grotesqueness almost winsome. + +"She's a field-hand," was my thought. + +The other, in very clean shirt, trousers, and shoes, looking ten years +younger and hardly full-grown, was shapely and handsome. "That boy," +thought I, "is a house-servant. The two don't belong in the same +harness. And yet I'd bet a new hat they're runaways." + +Now they gathered courage to come over. With a childish parade of +unconcern and with all their glances up and down the road, they came, +and were within seven steps of me before they knew I was near. I shall +never forget the ludicrous horror that flashed white and black from the +eyes in that sun-bonnet, nor the snort with which its owner, like a +frightened heifer, crashed off a dozen yards into the brush and as +suddenly stopped. + +"Good morning, boy," I said to the other, who had gulped with +consternation, yet stood still. + +"Good mawnin', mist'ess." + +The feminine title came luckily. I had forgotten my disguise, so +disarmed was I by the refined dignity of the dark speaker's mellow +voice and graceful modesty. After all, my prejudices were Southern. I +had rarely seen negroes, at worship, work, or play, without an inward +groan for some way--righteous way--by which our land might be clean rid +of them. But here, in my silly disguise, confronting this unmixed +young African so manifestly superior to millions of our human swarm +white or black, my unsympathetic generalizations were clear put to +shame. The customary challenge, "Who' d'you belong to?" failed on my +lips, and while those soft eyes passed over me from bonnet to mitts I +gave my head as winsome a tilt as I could and inquired: "What is your +name?" + +"Me?" + +"Yes, you; what is it?" + +"I'm name', eh, Euonymus; yass'm." + +"Oh, boy, where'd your mother get that name?" + +"Why, mist'ess, ain't dat a Bible name?" + +"Oh, yes," I said, remembering Onesimus. With my parasol I indicated +the other figure, sunbonneted, motionless, gazing on us through the +brush. + +"Has she a Bible name too?" + +"Yass'm; Robelia." + +Robelia brought chin and shoulder together and sniggered. "Euonymus," +I asked, "have you seen two young gentlemen, fishing, anywhere near +here?" + +"Yass'm, dey out 'pon a san'bar 'bout two hund'ed yards up de creek." +The black finger that pointed was as clean as mine. + +"You and this woman," thought I again, "are dodging those men." With a +smile as of curiosity I looked my slim informant over once more. I had +never seen slavery so flattered yet so condemned. + +All at once I said in my heart: "You, my lad, I'll help to escape!" +But when I looked again at the absurd Robelia I saw I must help both +alike. + +"Euonymus, did you ever drive a lady's coach?" + +"Me? No'm, I never drove no lady's coach." + +"Well, boy, I'm travelling--in my own outfit." + +"Yass'm." + +"But I hire a new driver and span at each town and send the others +back." + +"Yass'm," said Euonymus. Robelia came nearer. + +"My coach is now at a livery-stable in town, and I want a driver and a +lady's maid." + +"Yass'm." + +"I'd prefer free colored people. They could come with me as far as +they pleased, and I shouldn't be responsible for their return." + +"Yass'm," said Euonymus, edging away from Robelia's nudge. + +"Now, Euonymus, I judge by your being out here in the woods this time +of day, idle, that you're both free, you and your sister, h'm?" + +"Ro'--Robelia an' me? Eh, ye'--yass'm, as you may say, in a manneh, +yass'm." + +"She is your sister, is she not?" + +"Yass'm," clapped in Robelia, with a happy grin, and Euonymus quietly +added: + +"Us full sisteh an' brotheh--in a manneh." + +"Umh'm. Could you drive my coach, Euonymus?" + +"What, me, mist'ess? Why, eh, o' co'se I kin drive _some_, but--" The +soft, honest eyes, seeking Robelia's, betrayed a mental conflict. I +guessed there were more than two runaways, and that Euonymus was +debating whether for Robelia's sake to go with me and leave the others +behind, or not. + +"You kin drive de coach," blurted the one-ideaed Robelia. "You knows +you kin." + +"No, mi'ss, takin' all roads as dey come I ain't no ways fitt'n'; no'm." + +"Well, daddy's fitt'n'!" said the sun-bonnet. + +Euonymus flinched, yet smilingly said: + +"Yass, da's so, but I ain't daddy, no mo'n you is." + +"Well, us kin go fetch him--in th'ee shakes." + +Euonymus flinched again, yet showed generalship. "Yass'm, us kin go ax +daddy." + +I smiled. "Let Robelia go and you stay here." + +Robelia waited on tiptoe. "Go fetch him," murmured Euonymus, "an' make +has'e." + +"Wait! You're a good boy, Euonymus, ain't you?" + +"I cayn't say dat, mi'ss; but I'm glad ef you thinks so." + +"Y' is good!" said Robelia. "You knows you is!" + +"Never mind," I said; "do you belong to--Zion?" + +The dark face grew radiant. "Yass'm, I does!" + +"Euonymus, how many more of you-all are there besides _daddy and +mammy_?" + +The surprise was cruel. The runaway's eyes let out a gleam of alarm +and then, as I lighted with kindness, filled with rapt wonder at my +miraculous knowledge: "Be'--be'--beside'--beside' d-daddy an' m-mammy? +D'ain't no mo', m-mist'ess; no'm!" + +"Yass'm," put in Robelia, "da's all; us fo'." + +"Just you four. Euonymus, a bit ago I noticed on your sister's ankles +some white mud." + +"Yass'm." Another gleam of alarm and then a fine, awesome courage. +Robelia stared in panic. + +"The nearest white mud--marl--in the State, Robelia, is forty miles +south of here." + +"Is d'--dat so, mist'ess?" + +"Yes, and so you also are travellers, Euonymus." + +"Trav'--y'--yass'm, I--I reckon you mought call us trav'luz, in a +manneh, yass'm." + +"Well, my next town is thirty miles north of----" + +"Nawth!" Euonymus broke in, thinking furiously. + +"Now, if instead of hiring just your sister and her daddy I should----" + +"Yass'm!" + +"Suppose I should take all four of you along, as though you were my +slaves----" + +"De time bein'," Euonymus alertly slipped in. + +"Certainly, that's all. How would that do?" + +"Oh, mist'ess! kin you work dat miracle?" + +"I can do it if it suits you." + +"Lawd, it suit' _us_! Dey couldn't be noth'n' mo' rep'ehensible!" + +Robelia vanished. Euonymus gazed into my eyes. + +[Had my disguise failed?] "What is it, boy?" + +"May I ax you a question, mi'ss?" + +"You may ask if you won't tell." + +"Oh, I won't tell! Is you a sho' enough 'oman?--Lawd, I knowd you +wa'n't! No mo'n you is a man! I seen it f'om de beginnin'!" + +"Why, boy, what do you imagine I am?" + +"Oh, I don't 'magine, I knows! 'T'uz me prayed Gawd to sen' you. Y' +ain't man, y' ain't 'oman! an' yit yo' bofe! Yo' de same what visit +Ab'am, an' Lot, an' Dan'l, and de motheh de Lawd!" + +"Stop! Stop! Never mind who I am; I've got to put you fifty miles +from here before bedtime." + +"Yes, my Lawd. Oh, yes, my Lawd!" + +"Euonymus! you mustn't call me that!" + +"Ain't dat what Ab'am called you?" + +"I forget! but--call me mistress!--only!" + +"Yass, suh--yass, mi'ss!" + +"Good. Now, lad, I can take you alone, horseback, which'll be far +swifter, safer, surer----" + +A new alarm, a new exaltation--"Oh, no, my--mist'ess; no, no! you knows +you on'y a-temptin' o' dy servant!" + +"You wouldn't leave daddy and mammy?" + +"Oh, daddy kin stick to mammy, an' her to he! but Robelia got neither +faith nor gumption, an' let me never see de salvation o' de Lawd ef I +cayn't stick by dat--by--by my po' Robelia!" + +"But suppose, my boy, we should be mistaken for runaways and tracked +and run down." + +"Yass'm, o' co'se. Yass'm." + +"Can you fight--for your sister?" + +"Yass, my La'--yass'm, I kin an' I will. I's qualified my soul to' +dat, suh; yass'm." + +"Dogs?" + +"Yass'm, dawgs. Notinstandin' de dawgs come pass me roun' about, in de +name o' de Lawd will I lif up my han' an' will perwail." + +"Have you only your hands?" + +"Da's all David had, ag'in lion an' bah." + +"True. Euonymus, I need a man's clothes." + +"Yass'm, on a pinch dey mowt come handy." + + + + +XII + +Here Robelia came again, conducting "Luke" and "Rebecca." Luke's +garments were amusingly, heroically patched, yet both seniors were +thoroughly attractive; not handsome, but reflecting the highest, +gentlest rectitude. One of their children had inherited all that was +best from both parents, beautifully exalting it; the other all that was +poorest in earlier ancestors. They were evolution and reversion +personified. + +The father was frank yet deferential. Our parley was brief. His only +pomp lay in his manner of calling me madam. I felt myself a queen. +Handing him a note to the stable-keeper, "You can read," I said, "can't +you? Or your son can?" + +"No, madam, I regrets to say we's minus dat." + +I hid my pleasure. "Well, at the stable, if they seem to think this +note is from a man, or that the coach is owned by a man----" + +"Keep silent," put in Euonymus, "an' see de counsel o' de Lawd +ovehcome." + +Luke went. I pencilled another note. It requested my landlady to give +Euonymus a hat, boots, and suit from my armoire and speed him back all +she could. (To avoid her queries.) + +Rebecca gazed anxiously after this second messenger. Robelia, near by, +munched blackberries. + +"Rebecca, did you ever think what you'd do if both your children were +in equal danger?" + +"Why, yass'm, I is studie' dat, dis ve'y day, ef de trufe got to be +tol'." + +Thought I: "If anything else has to be told, Robelia'll be my only +helper." I asked Rebecca which one she would try to save first. + +"Why, mist'ess, I could tell dat a heap sight betteh when de time come. +De Lawd mowt move me to do most fo' de one what least fitt'n' to"--she +choked--"to die. An' yit ag'in dat mowt depen' on de circumstances o' +de time bein'." + +"Well, it mustn't, Rebecca, it mustn't!" + +"Y'--yass'm--no'm'm! Mustn' it?" + +"No, in any case you must do as I tell you." + +"Oh, o' co'se! yass'm!" + +"So promise, now, that in any pinch you'll try first to save your son." + +"Yass'm." A pang of duplicity showed in her uplifted glance, yet she +murmured again: "Yass'm, I promise you dat." Nevertheless, I had my +doubts. + +A hum of voices told us my two anglers were approaching, and with +Rebecca's quieting hand on the pusillanimous Robelia we drew into +hiding and saw them cross the corner of a clearing and vanish again +downstream. Then, hearing the coach, we went to meet it. + +Both messengers were on the box. Euonymus passed me my bundle of +stuff. The coach turned round. Bidding Euonymus stay on the box I had +Rebecca and Robelia take the front seat inside. Following in I +remarked: "Good boy, that of yours, Luke." + +Luke bowed so reverently that I saw Euonymus's belief in me was not his +alone. "We thaynk de Lawd," Luke replied, "fo' boy an' gal alike; de +good Lawd sawnt 'em bofe." + +"Yet extra thanks for the son wouldn't hurt." + +Robelia buried a sob of laughter in the nearest cushion, and as we +rolled away gaped at me with a face on which a dozen flies danced and +played tag. And so we went----. + + +Chester ceased reading and stood up. For Mlle. Chapdelaine was rising. +All the men rose. + +"And so, also," she said, "I too must go." + +"Oh, but the story is juz' big-inning," Mme. Alexandra protested, and +Mme. De l'Isle said: + +"I'm sure 'twill turn out magnificent, yes!" + +Mademoiselle declared the tale fascinating. She "would be enchanted to +stay," but her aunts _must_ be considered, etc.; and when Chester +confessed the reading would require another session anyhow Mmes. De +l'Isle and Alexandre arose, and M. Castanado asked aloud if there was +any of the company who could not return a week from that evening. + +No one was so unlucky. "But!" cried Mme. Alexandre, "why not to my +parlor?" + +"Because!" said Mme. Castanado, to Chester's vivid enlightenment, +"every week-day, all day, you have mademoiselle with you." + +"With me, ah, no! me forever down in my shop, and mademoiselle +incessantly upstair'!" + +Mme. Castanado prevailed. That same room, one week later. + +Scipion and Dubroca escorted Mme. De l'Isle across to her beautiful +gates, and Chester, not in dream but in fact, with M. De l'Isle and +Mme. Alexandre following well in the rear, walked with mademoiselle to +the high fence and green batten wicket of her olive-scented garden in +the rue Bourbon. So walking, and urged by him, she began to tell of +matters in her father's life, the old Hotel St. Louis life before hers +began--matters that gave to "The Clock in the Sky" and "The Angel of +the Lord" a personal interest beyond all academic values. + +"We'll finish about that another time," she said, and with "another +time" singing in his heart like a taut wire he verily enjoyed the +rasping of the wicket's big lock as he turned away. + +The week wore round. Except M. De l'Isle, kept away by a meeting of +the Athénée Louisianais, all were regathered; one thing alone delayed +the reading. Each of the three women had separately asked her father +confessor how far one might justly--well--lie--to those seeking the +truth only for cruel and wicked ends. But as no two had received the +same answer, and as Chester's uncle was gone to his reward--or +penalty--the question was early tabled. "Well," Mme. Castanado said: +"'And so we went--' in the coach. Go on, read." + + + + +XIII + +And so we went, not through the town but around it. + +My attendants were heavy with sleep. Seating Rebecca next me I called +Euonymus into the coach and let mother, son, and daughter slumber at +ease. + +To the few persons we met I paraded my bonnet and curls. Some, in +Southern fashion, I questioned. I was a widow who had sold her +plantation in order to go and live with a widowed brother. Euonymus +too I showed off, who, waking at every halt, presented a face that +seemed any boy's rather than a runaway's. So natural to these Africans +was the supernatural that I could be one of the men who plucked Lot +from Sodom and yet a becurled widow. + +When at noon, at a farmhouse, we had fed horses and dined, I at the +planter's board, my "slaves" under the house-grove trees, Euonymus took +the lines, and for five hours Luke slept inside. Then they changed +places again, and Euonymus and I, face to face, watched the long hot +day wane, and pass through gorgeous changes into twilight. Often I saw +questions in the young eyes that watched me so reverently, but I dared +not encourage them; dared not be a talkative angel. Also my brain had +its questions. How was I to get out of the most perilous trap into +which a sane man--if sane I was--ever thrust himself? There was no +sign that we were being pursued, but it was a harrowing puzzle how, +without drawing suspicion upon the runaways, to get them once more +separated from me and the coach while I should vanish as a lady and +reappear as a gentleman. + +"Euonymus, boy, if I should by and by dress as a man could you put +these woman things on, over what you're wearing, and be a lady in my +place?" + +"Why, eh, y'--yass'm. Oh, yass'm, ef you say so, my--mistress; +howsomever, you know what de good book say' 'bout de Ethiopium." + +"Can't change--yes, I know; but this would be only for an hour or two +and in the dark." + +"It'd have to be pow'ful dahk," sighed Euonymus, and from Robelia's +sunbonnet came--"Unh!" + +Rebecca interposed: "An' still, o' co'se, we all gwine do ezac'ly what +you say." + +"Well," I responded, "maybe we won't do that." And we never did. I +was still "Mrs. Southmayd," as we came into a small railway station. +At the ticket-window I asked if any one had come up in the train of +half an hour before, inquiring for a lady in a coach. + +"No, ma'am, nobody got off that train. But there's another train at +half past eight." + +"Oh," I whined, "he won't come on that; he's overrated my speed and +gone on to the next station, making five miles more going for me!" + +"Why, no, you can give three of your servants a pass to go on with the +carriage, keep your maid and wait for the train." + +"Ah, no! No lady can choose to travel by rail where she can go in her +own coach!" + +They said no more except to warn Luke of a bad piece of road about two +miles on. Sure enough, in its very middle--crack!--we broke down. "De +kingbolt done gone clean in two!" said Luke, and Robelia repeated the +news explosively. + +"We'll leave the coach," I announced. "Fold the lap-robes on the backs +of the two horses, for Rebecca and me. You-all can walk beside us." + +After a while, so going, we passed a large plantation house, its +windows ruddy with home cheer. A second quarter-mile brought dimly to +view a railroad water-tank and an empty flag-station house, and in the +next bit of woods I spoke to Euonymus: "Have you that bundle? Ah, yes. +Luke, this boy and I are going off here a step for me to change my +dress. If any passer questions you, say I'll be right back." + +"Yass, madam, but, er, eh--wouldn' you sooner take yo' maid, Robelia, +instid?" + +"No, for as to dress I'll be as much of a man, when I get back, as +Euonymus." + +"Is Euonymus gwine change dress too?" + +"No, these things that I take off, your wife and Robelia may divide +between them." + +I started away but Luke lifted a hand. I thought he was going to claim +every dud for Robelia. Not so. + +"We all thanks you mighty much, madam, but in fac', ef de trufe got to +be tol'----" + +"It hasn't got to be told _me_, Luke, if I----" + +"Oh, no, madam, o' co'se. I 'uz on'y gwine say--a-concernin' +Euonymus----" + +I hurried off while the wife chided her good man: "Why don't you dess +hide all dem thing' in yo' heart like _dey_ used to do when d' angel +'pear' unto _dem_?" + +Alone with Euonymus, as I whipped off my feminine garb and whirled into +the other, I began to say that however suddenly I might leave the +fugitives they must rest assured that I was not deserting them. To +which---- + +"Oh, my Lawd," Euonymus replied, "us know dat!" + +We reached the pike again. "Rebecca, dismount. Hand me your bridle. +Luke, for you-all's better safety I'm going back and return these +horses. We may not see one another again----" + +"Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy!" moaned Rebecca. + +"In dis vain worl' you mean," Luke said. + +"That's all. Come, don't waste time. You'd better walk on for a short +way in the pike before taking to the woods. Now go all night for all +you're worth. Good-by." I turned abruptly. But my led horse was +averse to abruptness, and all the family except the torpid Robelia +poured up their blessings and rained kisses on my very feet. + +In my half-intelligent plan I intended first to stop at the house we +had gone by, and had reached the gate of its front lane when I met one +of its household, a lad of sixteen, on the pike. + +"Yes, he had just seen the disabled coach." + +I said that by business appointment with the lady who had just left the +coach I had gone to the next railway station northward in order to meet +her. That I had come down the turnpike on a hired horse and met her +and her servants pushing forward to our appointment as best they could. +Now, I said, our business, a law matter, was accomplished and she was +gone on on my hired horse. This span I was taking back to the stable +whence I had hired them for her in the morning. + +The boy's graciousness shamed me through and through. "Why, certainly! +He would have the coach drawn up to the house before sunrise and would +keep it as long as I liked." He asked me in, but I went on to the +little railway town, repeated my tarradiddle at its "hotel," and soon +was asleep. + + +["'Tarradi'l','" said Mme. Castanado, "tha'z may be a species of +paternoster, I suppose, eh?" + +"No," said Scipion, "I think tha'z juz' a fashion of speech that he +took a drink. I do that myself, going to bed." + +Chester explained, but said that to admit one's untruthfulness by even +a nickname implied _some_ compunction. Whereat two or three put in: + +"Ah! if he acknowledge' his compunction he's all right! But we are +stopping the story." + +It went on.] + + + + +XIV + +I was awakened, after the breakfast hour, by a tap on my door. Why it +gave me consternation I could not have told; I dare say my inveracities +of the day before had failed to digest. "Come in," I called, and in +stepped my two fishermen. + +Their good mornings were pleasant, but, "Fact is," said one, "we're +bothered about your client." + +"The lady who passed through here last evening?" + +"Yes, it looks as though----" + +"Go on while I dress. Looks as though--what?" + +"As though she wa'n't what you thought, or else----" + +I smiled aggressively: "Pardon, I _know_ that lady. 'Or else,' you +say? What else? Go on." + +"Oh, you go on dressing. Do you know them darkies are hers?" + +"Hoh! Are your teeth yours? Why do you ask?" + +He handed me a newspaper clipping: + + +Two Hundred Dollars Reward. Ran away from my plantation in ---- county +of this State, on the ------ day of ------ the following named and +described slaves; father, mother, daughter, and son: . . . A reward of +fifty dollars will be paid to any person for the capture and +imprisonment in any jail, of each or either of the above named. Etc. + + +With a laugh I returned the thing and went on dressing. "It doesn't," +I said aloud to my busy image in the mirror, "describe my client's +darkies at all." I faced round: "Why, gentlemen, if this isn't the +most astonishing----" + +"Ho-old on. Ho-old on! Finish your dressing. We're told it does +describe two of them and we thought we'd just come and see for +ourselves." + +"And you followed the unprotected lady?" + +"We followed four runaway niggers, sir! Else why did they take to the +woods inside of a mile from that house where you left the coach? Oh, +you're dressed; come along; time's flying!" + +Determined to waste all the time I could, "Wait," I said, strapping on +my pistol. "Now, gentlemen, we'll follow this matter to the end, +beginning now, instantly. But it must be done as----" + +"Oh, as privately as possible! Certainly!" + +"Certainly. You want the reward and you want it all. But understand, +I know you're in error, and I go with you solely to prove you are. +Now, by your theory----" + +"Oh, come along!" We went. I killed time over my coffee, and in +getting a saddle for one of my hired span. "You must excuse us if +we're not polite," my friends apologized after another flash of +impatience. "Of course those niggers are not on the run in broad day, +but their trail's getting cold!" + +"You're not as bad-mannered as I am," I laughed as we mounted, but +their allusion to hounds made me enjoy the burden of my six-shooter. + +As we ambled off, "What were you going to say," one asked me, "about +our 'theory,' or something?" + +"Oh! I see you think Mrs. Southmayd must have met up with company and +left her servants to follow on to the next station alone." + +"Exactly. We tracked the darkies along the edge of the road; but her +horse tracks--we could only see that no horse tracks left the road +where any of their man tracks left it." + +When we had gone a mile or so one of the boys turned to leave us by a +neighborhood road, saying: "I'll rejoin you, 'cross fields, where you +turned back last night. I'm going for the dogs." + +"Stop! Gentlemen, this is too high-handed. Do you reckon I'll let you +run down those four innocent creatures with hounds? I _swear_ you +shan't do it, sirs." + +"See here," said the one still with me, "come on. We'll show you the +very spots where those innocents left the road one by one, and if you +don't say they've used every trick known to a nigger to kill their +trail, we'll just quit and go home. Does that suit you?" + +"Not by a long chalk!" I retorted as I moved with him up the pike. +"Those poor simpletons--alone in a strange land, maybe without a pass, +at any moment liable to meet a patrol--how easy for them to make the +fatal mistake of leaving the road and hiding their tracks!" + +"All right, come ahead, you'll see fair play." + +We passed the scene of the breakdown and then the house to which the +coach had been drawn. I saw the coach in a stable door. By and by a +turn in the pike revealed the other clerk and a tall, slim horseman +just dismounting among four lop-eared, black-and-brown dogs coupled two +and two by light steel breast-yokes. With a heavy whip and without a +frown this man gave one of them a quick cut over the face as the brute +ventured to lift a voice as hollow and melodious as a bell. + +"He's a puppy I'm breaking in," said the man. "Now here, you see"--he +pointed to the middle of the road--"is where you, sir, met up with the +madam and her niggers, and given her yo' hoss and taken her span. +Here's the tracks o' the span, you takin' 'em back; you can see they're +the same as these comin' this way. T'other critter's tracks I don't +make out, but no matter, here's the niggers' along here--and here, see? +and here--here--there." We rode for ten minutes or so. Then halting +again: + +"Look yonder in that lock o' fence. There's where one went over into +the brush." + +Beyond the high worm fence grew a stubborn tangle of briers, vines, and +cane. "Mind you," I began to call after the nigger-chaser, but one of +my companions spoke for me: + +"Mr. Hardy, we got to be dead sure they're runaways before we put the +dogs on." + +"No, we ain't," Hardy called through the back of his head. "Dandy and +Charmer'll tell us if they're not, before we've gone three hundred +yards, and I can call 'em off so quick it'll turn 'em a somerset." He +dismounted, and, while unyoking the two older hounds, spoke softly a +few words of gusto that put them into a dumb ecstasy. One of the boys +pressed his horse up to mine. + +"There's the place," he said. "Now watch the dogs find it." + +As the pair sprang from Hardy's hands one began to nose the air, the +other the earth, to left, to right, and to cross each other's short, +swift circuits. With stony face while assuming a voice of wildest +eagerness he cried in searching whispers: "Niggeh thah, Dandy! Niggeh +thah, Charmer! Take him, my lady!" + +Skimming the ground with hungry noses, the dogs answered each cry with +a single keen yap of preoccupied affirmation. Almost at once Charmer +came to the spot pointed out to me, reared her full length upon the +rails and let out a new note; long, musical, fretful, overjoyed. Hardy +mounted breast-high to the fence's top, wreathed two fingers in the +willing brute's collar, lifted her, and dropped her on the other side. +There she instantly resumed her search. + +At the same time her yoke-mate's deep bay pealed like a trumpet, from a +few yards up the roadway. He had struck the broad, frank trail of the +other three negroes. The "puppy," still in leash, replied in a note +hardly less deep and mellow, but the whip of cool discipline cut him +off. From an ox-horn the master blew a short, sharp recall and at once +Dandy returned and began his work over, knowing now which runaway to +single out. + +Hardy remained on the fence, watching his favorite, over in the brush. +By a stir of the bushes, now here, now there, we could see how busy she +was, and every now and then she sent us, as if begging our patience, +her eager promissory yelp. + +Suddenly her master had a new thought. He stepped onward to the next +lock of the fence, scrutinized its top rail, moved to, the next lock, +examining the top rail there, then to the next, the next, the next, and +at the seventh or eighth beckoned us. + +"See, here?" he asked. "Think that ain't a runaway nigger? Look." A +splinter had been newly rubbed off the rail. "What you reckon done +that, sir; a bird or a fish? That's where he jumped. Look yonder, +where he landed and lit out." + +The merest fraction of a note from the horn brought the two free dogs +to their master, and before he could lift Dandy over the fence Charmer +was on the trail. She threw her head high and for the first time +filled the resounding timber with the music of her bay. + + +["Mr. Chester," murmured Mlle. Chapdelaine, and once more he ceased to +read. Mme. Castanado had laid her hands tightly to her face. Yet now +she smilingly dropped them, saying: "Seraphine--Marcel--please to pazz +around that cake an' wine. Well, I su'pose there are yet in the +worl'--in Afrique--Asia--even Europe--several kin' of cuztom mo' wicked +than that. And still I'm sorry that ever tranzpire. But, Mr. Chezter, +if you'll resume?" + +Chester once more resumed.] + + + + +XV + +Hardy's incitements were no longer whispers. + +"Dandy! Dandy!" he cried, with wild elation of voice and still no +emotion in his face. "Niggeh-fellah thah. Dandy! Ah, Dandy! look him +out!" + +The music swelled from Dandy's throat. Away went the pair. The +younger couple, in yoke, trembled and moaned to be after them. The two +clerks had swung down three or four rails from the fence, and with +Hardy were hurrying their horses through, when the youngest dog, nose +to the ground and tugging his yokemate along, let go a cry of discovery +and began to dig furiously under a bottom rail. His master threw him +off and drew from under it "Mrs. Southmayd's" tiny beflowered bonnet. + +"Good God!" exclaimed one of the boys as he held it up, "they've made +way with her!" + +"Now, none of _that_ nonsense!" I cried; "she's given it to one of them +and they've feared 'twould get them into trouble!" But the three had +spurred off and I could only toss it away and follow. + +The baying had ceased and an occasional half-smothered yap told that +the scent was broken. A huge grape-vine end, hanging from a lofty +bough, had enabled the run-away to take a long sidewise swing clear of +the ground; but as I came up the brutes had recovered the trail and +sped on, once more breaking the still air, far and wide, into deep +waves of splendid sound. Close after them, as best they might in yoke, +scuttled the younger pair, dragging each other this way and that, their +broad ears trailing to their feet, and Hardy riding close behind them, +reciting their pedigrees and their distinguishing whims. + +Presently we issued from the woods, at the edge of wide fields +surrounding a plantation-house and slave-quarters, and I hoped to find +the trail broken again; but without a pause the chase turned along a +line of fence as if to half encircle the plantation. The master of the +hounds, in nervy yet placid words, explained that a runaway knew better +than to cross open ground by night and set the house-dogs a-barking. +It was only on seeing no workers in the fields that I remembered it was +Sunday, and feared intensely that the pious fugitives might have +shortened their flight. + +From the plantation's farther bound we ran down a long, gentle slope of +beautiful open woods. At the bottom of it a clear stream rippled +between steep banks shrouded with strong vines. Here the scent had +failed and it was wonderful to see the docile faith and intelligence +with which the dogs resigned the whole work to their master, and +followed beside him while he sought a crossing-place for his horse. +This took many minutes, but by and by they scrambled over, he bidding +us wait where we were until the dogs should open again; and as he +started down-stream along the farther bank the older hounds, at a +single word, ran circling out before him in the tangle, electrified by +the steel-cold eagerness of his implorings. + +But now, to my joy, he found their hungry snufflings as futile as his +own scrutinizings and divinations, and after following the stream until +my companions fretted openly at the delay, he dropped a note from his +horn, rode back with the four dogs, recrossed, and passed down on our +side with them at his heels, frowning at last and scanning the tangled +growth of the opposite bank. + +And now again he came back: "You see, this stream runs so nigh the way +they wanted to go that there's no tellin' how fur they waded down it or +whether they was two, three, or four of 'em rej'ined together. They're +shore to 'a' been all together when they left it, but where that was +hell only knows. Come on." + +We plunged across after him and followed down the farther bank, and at +the point where he had turned back he put the hounds on again. "How do +you know there were more than one here?" I asked. + +"Because, if noth'n' else, this trail at first was a fool's trail and +now it's as smart as cats a-fight'n'--_look 'em out, Dandy_! Every +time the rascals struck a swimmin'-hole they swum it, the men sort o' +tote'n' the women, I reckon--_ah, my Charmer! Yes, my sweet lady! take +'em! take 'em_!" + +As the stream emerged into an old field--"Sun's pow'ful hot for +you-all!" Hardy added. "Ain't see' such a day this time o' year fo' a +coon's age. Hosses feel'n' it. Hard to say which is hottest, sun or +brush." + +We had skirted the branch a full mile, beating its margin thoroughly, +and were in deep woods again, when all at once Charmer let out a glad +peal. Her mate echoed it and with the stream at their back they were +off and away in full cry. The trail was broad and strong and with rare +breaks continued so for an hour. Often the dogs made us trot; in open +grounds we galloped. Once, in a thickety wet tract where the still air +was suffocating and a sluggish runlet meandered widely, Hardy was +forced, after long hinderance, to drop the trail and recover it on a +rising ground beyond. + +There once more we were making good speed when we burst into an open +grove where about a small, unpainted frame church a saddle-horse was +tied under every swinging limb. Before the church a gang of boys had +sprung up from their whittling to be our gleeful spectators. Hardy +waved them off with the assurance that we wanted neither their help nor +company, and though the trail took us at slackened speed around two +sides of the building we passed and were gone while the worshippers +were in the first stanza of a hymn started to keep them on their +benches. + +Noon, afternoon; we made no pause. "It's ketch 'em before night," said +Hardy as we bent low under beech boughs, "or not till noon to-morrow." + +About mid-afternoon one of the court-house boys, who had been talking +softly with the other, turned back with a bare good-by. His friend +explained: + +"Got to be at his desk early in the morning. But I'm with you till you +run 'em down." + +Happy for me that he was mistaken. Two hours more were hardly gone +when, "My Prince is sick!" he cried, drew in, and under a smoke of his +own curses began wildly to unsaddle. Hardy rode on. + +"You'll have to get another mount," I said. + +"Another hell! I wouldn't leave this horse sick in strange hands for a +thousand dollars!" Suddenly he struck an imploring key: "Look here! +I'll give you fifty dollars cash to stay with me till I get him out o' +this!" + +"Five hundred," I called, trotting after Hardy, "wouldn't hire me." + +Till I was out of earshot I could hear him damning and cursing me in +snorts and shouts as a sneak who would wear my coat of tar and feathers +yet, and I was still wondering whether I ought to or not, when I +overhauled the nigger-chaser cheering on his dogs. Their prey had +again tricked them, and again the cry was, "Take him, Dandy!" and "Hi, +Charmer, hi!" + +Between shouts: "Is yo' nag gwine to hold out?" + +"He's got to or perish," I laughed. + +In time we found ourselves under a vast roof of towering pines. The +high green grass beneath them had been burned over within a year. The +declining sun gilded both the grass and the lower sides of the soaring +boughs. Even Hardy glanced back exaltedly to bid me mark the beauty of +the scene. But I dared not. The dogs were going more swiftly than +ever, and there was a ticklish chance of one's horse breaking a leg in +one of the many holes left by burnt-out pine roots. The main risk, +moreover, was not to Hardy's trained hunter but to my worn-out livery +"nag." + +"We've started 'em, all four, on the run," he called, "but if we don't +tree 'em befo' they make the river we'll lose 'em after all." + +The land began a steady descent. Soon once more we were in underbrush +and presently came square against a staked-and-ridered worm fence +around a "deadening" dense with tall corn. Charmer and Dandy had +climbed directly over it, scampered through the corn, and were waking +every echo in a swamp beyond. The younger pair, still yoked, stood +under the fence, yelping for Hardy's aid. He sprang down and unyoked +them and over they scrambled and were gone, ringing like fire-bells. +Outside the fence, both right and left, the ground was miry, yet for us +it was best to struggle round through the bushy slough; which we had +barely done when with sudden curses Hardy spurred forward. The younger +dogs were off on a separate chase of their own. For at the river-bank +the four negroes had divided by couples and gone opposite ways. + +"Call them back!" I urged. "Blow your horn!" But I was ignored. + + + + +XVI + +[Chester sat looking at a newly turned page as though it were illegible. + +"I'm wondering," he lightly said, "what public enormity of to-day the +next generation will be as amazed at as we are at this." + +"Ah," Mme. Castanado responded, "never mine! Tha'z but the moral! +Aline and me we are insane for the story to finizh!" And the story was +resumed, to suffer no further interruption.] + + +At the river we burst out upon a broad, gentle bend up and down which +we could see both heavily wooded banks for a good furlong either way. + +The sun's last beams shone straight up the lower arm of the bend. On +the upper bayed Charmer and Dandy, unseen. On the lower we heard the +younger pair. On the upper we saw only the clear waters crinkling in a +wide shallow over a gravel-bar, but down-stream we instantly discovered +Luke and his wife. Silhouetted against the level sunlight, heaving +forward with arms upthrown, waist deep in the main current, they were +more than half-way across. At that moment two small dark objects, the +two dogs, moved out from the shore, after them, each with its wake of +two long silvery ripples. The "puppy" was leading. + +With a curse their master threw the horn to his lips and blew an +imperious note. The rear dog turned his head and would have reversed +his course, but seeing his leader keep on he kept on with him. Again +the angry horn re-echoed, and the rear dog promptly turned back though +the other swam on. + +Rebecca threw a look behind and it was pitiful to hear her outcry of +despair and terror. But Luke faced about and, backing after her +through the flood, prepared to meet the hound naked-handed. Hardy +sprang to his tiptoes in the stirrups, his curses pealing across the +water. "If you hurt that dog," he yelled, "I'll shoot you dead!" + +Up-stream the other two runaways were out on the gravel-bar, Euonymus +behind Robelia and Robelia splashing ludicrously across the shoal, +tearing off and kicking off--in preparation for deep water--sunbonnet, +skirt, waist, petticoat, and howling in the self-concern of abject +cowardice. + +"Thank heaven, she's a swimmer," thought I, "and won't drown her +brother!" For only a swimmer ever cast off garments that way. + +The flight of Euonymus, too, was bare-headed and swift, but it was +unfrenzied and silent. Neither of them saw Luke or Rebecca; the sun +was in their eyes and at that instant Charmer and Dandy, having met +some momentary delay, once more bayed joyously and sprang into view. +Like Luke, Euonymus faced the brutes. With another fierce outcry Hardy +blew his recall of all the four dogs. + +Three turned at once but the youngster launched himself at Luke's +throat where he stood breast-high in the glassing current. The slave +caught the dog's whole windpipe in both hands and went with him under +the flood. Hardy's supreme care for Charmer had lost him the strategic +moment, but he fired straight at Rebecca. + +She did not fall and his weapon flew up for a second shot! but by some +sheer luck I knocked the pistol spinning yards away into the river. +While it spun I saw other things: Rebecca clasping a wounded arm; Luke +and the dog reappearing apart, the dog about to repeat his onset; and +Hardy dumb with rage. + +"Call the puppy!" I cried, "you'll save him yet." + +The master winded his horn, and the dog swam our way. At the same time +his fellows came about us, while on the farther bank Luke helped his +wife writhe up through the waterside vines, and with her disappeared. +Only Euonymus remained in the water, at the far edge of the gravel-bar. + +I was so happy that I laughed. "All right," I cried, "I'll pay for the +revolver." + +Foul epithets were Hardy's reply while he spurred madly to and fro in +search of an opening in the vines to let his horse down into the +stream. I rode with him, knee to knee. "You'll pay for this with your +life !" he yelled down my throat. "I'll kill you, so help me God! +_Charmer! Dandy! go, take the nigger!_" + +The whole baying pack darted off for Euonymus's crossing. "_Take the +nigger, Charmer! Ah! take him, my lady!_" We saw that Euonymus could +not swim. Still knee to knee with Hardy, I drew and fired. "Puppy's" +mate yelped and rolled over, dead. + +"Call them back," I said, holding my weapon high; but Hardy only +shrieked curses and cried: + +"_Take the nigger, Charmer, take him!_" + +I fired again. Poor Dandy! He sprang aside howling piteously, with +melting eyes on his master. + +"Oh, God!" cried Hardy, leaping down beside the wailing dog, that +pushed its head into his bosom like a sick child. "Oh, God, but you +shall die for this!" + +He was half right but so was I and I checked up barely enough to cry +back: "Call 'em off! Call 'em off or I'll shoot Charmer!" + +With Dandy clasped close and with eyes streaming he blew the recall. +Looking for its effect, I saw Euonymus trying to swim and Charmer +quitting the chase. But the young dog kept on. The current was +carrying Euonymus away. Twice through vines and brush, while I cried: +"Catch the fallen tree below you! Catch the tree!" I tried to spur my +horse down into the stream, and on the third trial I succeeded. + +The flood had cut the bank from under a great buttonwood. It hung +prone over the water, and one dipping fork seized and held the fainting +swimmer. The dog was close, but had entered the current too far down +and was breasting it while he bayed in protest to his master's horn. +Now, as Euonymus struggled along the tree the brute struck for the +bank, and the two gained it together. Euonymus ran, but on a bit of +open grass dropped to one knee, at bay. The dog sprang. In the negro +fashion the runaway's head ducked forward to receive the onset, while +both hands clutched the brute's throat. Not dreaming that they would +keep their hold till I could get there, I leaped down in the shoal to +fire; but the grip held, though the dog's teeth sank into legs and +arms, and all at once Euonymus straightened to full stature, lifting +the dog till his hind legs could but just tiptoe the ground. + +"Right!" I cried; "bully, my boy! Lift him one inch higher and he's +whipped!" + +But Euonymus could barely hold him off from face and throat. + +"Turn him broadside to me!" I shouted, having come into water +breast-deep. "Let me put a hole through him!" + +But the fugitive's only response was: "Run, Robelia! 'Ever mind me! +Run! Run!" + +And here came Hardy across the gravel-bar, in the saddle. I aimed at +him: "Stand, sir! Stand!" + +He hauled in and lifted the horn. Euonymus had heaved the dog from his +feet. The horn rang, and with a howl of terror the brute writhed free, +leaped into the river and swam toward his master. I sprang on my horse +and took the deep water: "Wait, boy! Wait!" + +It was hard getting ashore. When I reached the spot of grass I found +only the front half of the runaway's hickory shirt, in bloody rags. I +spurred to a gap in the bushes, and there, face down, lay Euonymus, +insensible. I knelt and turned the slender form; and then I whipped +off my coat and laid it over the still, black bosom. For Euonymus was +a girl. + + + + +XVII + +Her eyelids quivered, opened. For a moment the orbs were vacant, but +as she drew a deep breath she saw me. Her shapely hand sought her +throat-button, and finding my coat instead she turned once more to the +sod, moaning, "Brother! Mingo!" + +"Is he Robelia?" I asked. "Come, we'll find him." + +Clutching my coat to her breast, she staggered up. I helped her put +the coat on and sprang into the saddle. "Now mount behind me," I said, +reaching for her hand; but with an anguished look: + +"Whah Mingo?" she asked. "Is dey kotch Mingo?" + +"No, not yet. Your hand--now spring!" + +She landed firmly and we sped into the woods. + +My merely wounding Dandy was fortunate. It kept Hardy from following +me hotfooted or rousing the neighborhood. I dare say he wanted no one +but himself to have the joy of killing me. + +At a "store" and telegraph-station I let my charge down into a wild +plum-patch, bought a hickory shirt, left my half-dead beast, +telegraphed my livery-stable client where to find him, and so avoided +the complication of being a horse-thief. Then I recovered Euonymus and +about ten that night the five of us met on the bank of a creek. Near +its farther shore, on a lonely railroad siding, we found a waiting +freight-train and stole into one of its empty cars; and when at close +of the next day hunger drove us out our pursuers were beating the bush +a hundred miles behind. + +Fed from a negro-cabin and guided by the stars, we fled all of another +night afoot, and on the following day lost Mingo. At broad noon, with +an overseer and his gang close by in a corn-field, the seductions of a +melon-patch overcame him and he howled away his freedom in the jaws of +a bear-trap. His father and mother wept dumb tears and laid their +faces to the ground in prayer. Euonymus was frantic. With all her +superior sanity, she would not have left the region could she have +persuaded us to go on without her. + +Well! Day by day we lay in the brush, and night after night fled on. +I could tell much about the sweet, droll piety of my three fellow +runaways, and the humble generosity of their hearts. No ancient +Israelite ever looked forward to the coming of a political Messiah with +more pious confidence than they to a day when their whole dark race +should be free and enjoy every right that any other race enjoys. + +"Even a right to cross two races?" I once asked Luke, smilingly, though +with intense aversion. + +"No, suh; no, suh! De same Lawd what give' ev'y man a wuck he cayn't +do ef he ain't dat man, give' ev'y ra-ace a wuck dey cayn't do ef dey +ain't dat ra-ace." I fancy he had been years revolving that into a +formula; or--he may have merely heard some master or mistress say it. + +"Still," I suggested, "races have crossed, and made new and better +ones." + +"I don't 'spute dat, suh; no, suh. But de Lawd ain't neveh gwine to +make a betteh ra-ace by cross'n' one what done-done e'en-a' most all +what even yit been done, on to anotheh what, eh----" + +Sidney (Onesimus) put in: "What ain't neveh yit done noth'n'!" And her +mother sighed, "Amen!" + + + + +XVIII + +"Yes?" inquired Mme. Castanado. "Well?" + +"Ah, surely!" cried several, "Tha'z not all?" + +Mme. De l'Isle appealed to her husband: "Even two, three hun'red mile', +that din'n' bring the line of Canada, I think." + +"No, but, I suppose, of the Ohio." + +"And that undergroun' railway!" said Scipion. + +"Yes," Mme. Alexandre agreed, "but that story remain' unfinizh' whiles +that uncle of Mr. Chezter couldn' return at his home." + +"Not even his State," ventured mademoiselle. + +"But he did," Chester said; "he came back." + +M. Dubroca spoke up: "Oh, 'tis easy to insert that, at the +en'--foot-note." + +"And Hardy?" asked Beloiseau, "him and yo' uncle, they di'n' shoot either +the other?" + +"I believe they did, each the other. I never quite understood the hints +I got of it, till now. I know that six months in bed with a back full of +_somebody's_ buckshot saved my uncle's life." + +"From lynching! That also muz' be insert'!" + +Chester thought not. "No, centre the interest in the runaway family, as +in mademoiselle's 'Clock in the Sky.'" And so all agreed. + +A second time he walked home with mademoiselle, under the same lenient +escort as before. One thus occupied, by moonlight, can moralize as he +cannot with any larger number. "It's hard enough at best," he said, "for +us, in our pride of race, to sympathize--seriously--in the joys, the +hopes, the sufferings of souls under dark skins yet as human as ours if +not as white." + +"Yes, 'tis true. Only one man, Mr. Chester, I ever knew, myself, who did +that." + +"Your father?" + +"Yes, my dear father." + +"Will you not some day tell me his story?" + +"Mr. Castanado will tell you it. Any of those will tell you." + +"I can't question them about you, and besides----" + +"Well, here is my gate. 'And besides--' what?" + +"Besides, why can't you tell me?" + +"Ah, I'll do that--'some day,' as you say." + +The gate-key went into the lock. + +"But, mademoiselle, our 'Clock in the Sky'--our 'Angel of the +Lord'--shan't we join them?" + +"Ah, they are already one, but you have yet to hear that _first_ +manuscript, and that is so very separate--as you will see." + +"Isn't it also a story of dark skins?" + +"Ah, but barely at all of souls under them; those souls we find it so +hard to remember." + +"_Chère fille_"--M. De l'Isle had come up, with Mme. Alexandre--"the +three will go _gran'ly_ together! Not I al-lone perceive that, but +Scipion also--Castanado--Dubroca. Mr. Chester, my dear sir, the +pewblication of that book going to be heard roun' the worl'! Tha'z going +produse an epoch, that book; yet same time--a bes'-seller!" + +Mademoiselle beamed. "Does Mr. Chester think 'twill be that? A +best-seller?" + +Chester couldn't prophesy that of any book. "They say not even a +publisher can tell." + +"Hah!" monsieur cried, "those cunning pewblisher'! they pref-er _not_ to +tell." + +"Some poetry," Chester continued, urged by mademoiselle's eyes, "doesn't +pay the poets over a few thousand a year--per volume; while some novels +pay their authors--well--fortunes." + +"That they go," madame broke in, "and buy some _palaces in Italie_! And +tha'z but the biginning; you have not count' the dramatization--hundreds +the week! and those movie'--the same! and those tranzlation'!" + +"Well, I think we will be satisfied, Mr. Chester, with the tenth of that, +eh?" + +Chester's reply was drowned in monsieur's: "No, my child! But +nine-tenth' _maybe_, yes! No-no-no! if those pewblisher' find out you +are satisfi' by one-tenth, one-tenth is all you'll ever see!" + +"Ah," said mademoiselle to madame, "even the one-tenth I mustn't tell to +my aunts. They wouldn't sleep to-night. And myself--'publication, +dramatization, movies, translation'--I believe I'll lie awake till +daylight, making that into a song--a hymn!" + +A wonderful sight she was, pausing in the open gate, with the little +high-fenced garden at her back, a street-lamp lighting her face. Chester +harked back to that first manuscript. It "ought not to wait another +week," he declared. + +"No," monsieur said, "and since we all have read that egcept only you." + +Chester looked to mademoiselle: "Then I suppose I might read it with the +Castanados alone." + +"No," madame put in, "you see, you can't riturn at Castanado's +immediately to-morrow or next day. That next day, tha'z Sunday, but you +don't know if madame goin' to have the stren'th for that fati-gue. Yet +same time you can't wait forever! And bisside', yo' Aunt Corinne, Aunt +Yvonne--Mr. Chezter he's never have that lugsury to meet them, and that +will be a very choice o'casion for Mr. Chezter to do that, if----" + +"If he'll take the pains," the niece broke in, "to call Sunday afternoon. +Then I'll have the manuscript back from Mr. Castanado and we'll read it +to my Aunt Corinne and my Aunt Yvonne, all four together in the garden." + +"Yes, yet not in this li'l' garden in the front, but in the large, far +back from the house, in the h-arbor of 'oneysuckle and by the side of the +li'l' lake, eh?" So prompted madame. + +"Assuredly," said the smiling girl; "not in the front, where is no room +for a place to sit down!" + +Chester's acceptance was eager. Then once more the batten gate closed +and the key grated between him and Aline--marvellous, marvellous Aline +Chapdelaine. + + + + +XIX + +The sunbeams of a tedious Sabbath began noticeably to slant. + +For two days, night, morning, noon, and afternoon, Geoffry Chester had +silently speculated on what he was to see, hear, and otherwise experience +when, as early as he might in keeping with the Chapdelaine dignity and +his, he should pull the tiny brass bell-knob on their tall gate-post. + +Chapdelaine! Impressive, patrician title. Impressive too those +baptismal names; implying a refinement invincible in the vale of +adversity. Killing time up one street and down another--Rampart, +Ursuline, Burgundy--he pictured personalities to fit them: for Corinne a +presence stately in advanced years and preserved beauty; for Yvonne a +fragile form suggestive of mother-o'-pearl, of antique lace. Knowledge +of Aline justified such inferences--within bounds. With other charms she +had all these, and must have got them from ancestral sources as truly +Mlle. Corinne's and Mlle. Yvonne's as hers. + +"Oh, of course," he pondered, "there are contrary possibilities. They +may easily fall short, far short, of her, in outer graces, and show their +kinship only in a reflection of her inner fineness. They may be no more +surprising than those dear old De l'Isles, or the Prieurs, or than Mrs. +Thorndyke-Smith. So let it be! Aline----" + +"Aline-Aline!" alarmingly echoed his heart. + +"Aline is enough." Enough? Alas, too much! He felt himself far too +forthpushing in--he would not confess more--a solicitude for her which he +could not stifle; an inextinguishable wish to disentangle her from the +officious care of those by whom she was surrounded--encumbered. "I've no +right to this state of mind," he thought; "none." He reached the gate. +He rang. + +A footfall of daintiest lightness came running! ["Aline-Aline!"] So +might Allegro have tripped it. The key rasped round, ["Aline-Aline!"] +the portal drew in, and he found himself getting his first front view of +Cupid, the small black satellite. + +A pleasing object. Smaller than ever. White-collared as ever, starched +and brushed to the sheen of a new penny and ugly of face as a +gargoyle--ugly as his goddess was beautiful. Not merely negroidal, in +lips, nose, ears, and tight black wool divided on the absolute equator; +not racially but uniquely ugly--till he smiled--and spoke. He smiled and +spoke with a joy of soul, a transparency of innocence, a rapture of love, +that made his ugliness positively endearing even apart from the entranced +recognition they radiated. + +"Ladies at home? Yassuh," he said, with an ecstasy as if he announced +the world's war suddenly over, all oceans safe, all peoples free. He led +the way up the cramped white-shell walk with a ceremonial precision that +gave the caller time to notice the garden. It was hardly an empire. It +lay on either side in two right-angled figures, each, say, of sixty by +fourteen feet, every foot repeating florally the smile of the child. The +rigid beds were curbed with brick water-painted as red as Cupid's gums. +The three fences were green with vines, and here and there against them +bloomed tall evergreen shrubs. At one upper corner of the main path was +a camellia and at the other a crape-myrtle, symbols respectively, to the +visitor, of Aunt Corinne and Aunt Yvonne. The brick doorstep smiled as +red as the garden borders, and as he reached the open door Aline, with +her two aunts at her back, received him. + +"Mr. Chester--Mlle. Chapdelaine. Mr. Chester--my Aunt Yvonne." Never +had the niece seemed quite so fair--in face, dress, figure, or mental +poise. She wore that rose whose petals are deep red in their outer +circle and pass from middle pink to central white and deepen in tints +with each day's age. If that rose could have been a girl, mind, soul, +and all, a Creole girl, there would have been two on one stem. + +And there, on either side of her sat the aunts: the elder much too lean, +the younger much too dishevelled, and both as sun-tanned as harvesters, +betraying their poverty in flimsy, faded gowns which the dismayed youth +named to himself not draperies but hangings. Yet they were +sweet-mannered, fluent, gay, cordial, and unreserved, though fluttering, +twittering, and ultra-feminine. + +The room was like the pair. "Doubtlezz Aline she's told you ab-out that +'ouse. No? Ah, chère! is that possible? 'Tis an ancient relique, that +'ouse. At the present they don't build any mo' like that 'ouse is +build'! You see those wall', those floor'? Every wall they are not of +lath an' plazter, like to-day; they are of solid plank' of a thicknezz of +two-inch'--and from Kentucky!" + +The guest recognized the second-hand lumber of broken-up flatboats. + +"Tha'z a genuine antique, that 'ouse! Sometime' we think we ought to +egspose that 'ouse, to those tourist', admission ten cent'." [A gay +laugh.] + +"But tha'z only when Aline want' to compel us to buy some new dresses. +And tha'z pritty appropriate, that antique 'ouse, for two sizter' +themselve' pritty antique--ha, ha, ha!--as well as their anceztors." + +"I fancy they're from 'way back," said Chester. + +"We are granddaughter' of two _émigrés_ of the Revolution. The other two +they were decapitalize' on that gui'otine. Yet, still, ad the same time, +we don't _feel_ antique. We don't feel mo' than ten year'! And +especially when we are showing those souvenir' of our in-_fancy_. And +there is nothing we love like that." + +"Aline, _chère_, doubtlezz Mr. Chezter will be very please' to see yo' +li'l' dress of baptism! Long time befo', that was also for me, and my +sizter. That has the lace and embro'derie of a hundred years aggo, that +li'l' dress of baptism. Show him that! Oh, that is no trouble, that is +a _dil_-ight! and if you are please' to enjoy that we'll show you our two +doll', age' forty-three!--bride an' bri'groom. Go, _you_, Yvonne, fedge +them." + +The sister rose but lingered: "Mr. Chezter, you will egscuse if that +bride an' groom don't look pritty fresh; biccause eighteen seventy-three +they have not change' their clothingg!" + +"_Chérie_," said Aline, "I think first we better read the manuscript, and +_then_." + +After a breath of hesitation--"Yes! read firs' and _then_. Alway' +businezz biffo'!" + +All went into the garden; not the part Chester had come through, but +another only a trifle less pinched, at the back of the house. A few +steps of straight path led them through its stiff ranks of larkspurs, +carnations, and the like, to a bower of honeysuckle enclosing two rough +wooden benches that faced each other across a six-by-nine goldfish pool. +There they had hardly taken seats when Cupid reappeared bearing to the +visitor, on a silver tray, the manuscript. + +It was not opened and dived into with the fine flurry of the modern +stage. Its recipient took time to praise the bower and pool, and the +sisters laughed gratefully, clutched hands, and merrily called their +niece "tantine." "You know, Mr. Chezter, 'tantine' tha'z 'auntie,' an' +tha'z j'uz' a li'l' name of affegtion for her, biccause she takes so much +mo' care of us than we of her; you see? But that bower an' that li'l' +lake, my sizter an' me we construc' them both, that bower an' that li'l' +lake." + +Without blazoning it they would have him know they had not squandered +"tantine's" hard earnings on architects and contractors. + +"And we assure you that was not ladies' work. 'Twas not till weeks we +achieve' that. That geniuz Aline! _she_ was the arshetec'. And those +goldfishes--like Aline--are self-su'porting! We dispose them at the +apothecary, Dauphine and Toulouse Street--ha, ha, ha! Corinne, tha'z the +egstent of commerce we ever been ab'e to make, eh?" + +"And now," said Aline, "the story." + +"Ah, yes," responded Mlle. Corinne, "at laz' the manuscrip'!" and Mlle. +Yvonne echoed, with a queer guilt in her gayety: + +"The manuscrip'! the myzteriouz manuscrip'!" + +But there the gate bell sounded and she sprang to her feet. Cupid could +answer it, but some one must be indoors to greet the caller. + +"Yes, you, Yvonne," the elder sister said, and Aline added: "We'll not +read till you return." + +"Ah, yes, yes! Read without me!" + +"No-no-no-no-no! We'll wait!" + +"We'll wait, Yvonne." The sister went. + +Chester smoothed out the pages, but then smilingly turned them face +downward, and Aline said: + +"First, Hector will tell us who's there." + +Hector was Cupid. He came again, murmuring a name to Mlle. Corinne. She +rose with hands clasped. "C'est M. et Mme. Rene Ducatel!" + +"Well? Hector will give your excuses; you are imperatively engaged." + +"Ah, _chère_, on Sunday evening! Tha'z an incredibility! Must you not +let me go? You 'ave 'Ector." + +"Ah-h! and we are here to read this momentous document to Hector?" The +sparkle of amused command was enchanting to at least one besides Cupid. + +Yet it did not win. "Chère, you make me tremble. Those Ducatel', +they've come so far! How can we show them so li'l' civilization when +they've come so far? An' me I'm convince', and Yvonne she's convince', +that you an' Mr. Chezter you'll be ab'e to judge that manuscrip' better +al-lone. Oh, yes! we are convince' of that, biccause, you know--I'm +_sorrie_--we are prejudice' in its favor!" + +Aline's lifted brows appealed to Chester. "Maybe hearing it," he +half-heartedly said, "may correct your aunts' judgment." + +The aunt shook her head in a babe's despair. "No, we've tri' that." Her +smile was tearful. "Ah, _chérie_, you both muz' pardon. Laz' night we +was both so af-raid about that, an' of a so affegtionate curio-zitie, +that we was _compel_' to read that manuscrip' through! An' we are +convince'--though tha'z not ab-out clocks, neither angels, neither +lovers--yet same time tha'z a moz' marvellouz manuscrip'. Biccause, you +know, tha'z a true story, that 'Holy Crozz.' Tha'z concerning an +insurregtion of slave'--there in Santa Cruz. And 'a slave insurregtion,' +tha'z what they ought to call it, yes!--to prom-ote the sale. Already +laz' night Yvonne she say she's convince' that in those Northron citie', +where they are since lately _so fon_' of that subjec', there be people by +_dozen_'--will _devour_ that story!" + +She tripped off to the house. + +"Hector," said Aline, "you may sit down." + +Cupid slid into the vacated seat. Chester dropped the document into his +pocket. + +"For what?" the girl archly inquired. + +"I want to take it to my quarters and judge it there. Why shouldn't I?" + +"Yes, you may do that." + +"And now tell me of your father, or his father--the one Beloiseau +knew--Théophile Chapdelaine." + +"Both were Théophile. He knew them both." + +"Then tell me of both." + +"Mr. Chester, 'twould be to talk of myself!" + +"I won't take it so. Tell the story purely as theirs. It must be fine. +They were set, in conscience, against the conscience of their day----" + +"So is Mr. Chester." + +"Never mind that, either. We're in a joint commercial enterprise; we +want a few good stories that will hang on one stem. Our business is +business; a primrose by the river's brim--nothing more! Although"--the +speaker reddened---- + +The girl blushed. "Mr. Chester, take away the 'although' and I'll tell +the story." + +"I take it away. Although----" + + + + +XX + +THE CHAPDELAINES + +"A yellow primrose was to him----" + +Yonder in the parlor with the Ducatels, ignorant of the poet's lines as +they, the two aunts--those two consciously irremovable, unadjustable, +incarnated interdictions to their niece's marriage--saw the primrose, +the "business," as the pair in the bower thought they saw it +themselves. Were not Aline and Chester immersed in that tale of +servile insurrection so destitute of angels, guiding stars, and lovers? +And was not Hector with them? And are not three as truly a crowd in +French as in American? + +"Well, to begin," Chester urged, "your grandfather, Théophile +Chapdelaine, was born in this old quarter, in such a street. Royal?" + +"Yes. Nearly opposite the ladies' entrance of that Hotel St. Louis now +perishing." + +"Except its dome. I hear there's a movement---- + +"Yes, to save that. I hope 'twill succeed. To me that old dome is a +monument of those two men." + +"But if it comes down the home remains, opposite, where both were born, +were they not?" + +"Yes. Yet I'd rather the dome. We Creoles, you know, are called very +conservative." + +"Yet no race is more radical than the French." + +"True. And we Chapdelaines have always been radical. _Grandpère_ was, +though a slaveholder." + +"Oh, none of _my_ ancestors justified slavery, yet as planters they had +to own negroes." + +"But the Chapdelaines were not planters. They were agents of ships. +Fifty times on one page in the old _Picayune_, or in _L'Abeille_--'For +freight or passage apply to the master on board or to T. Chapdelaine & +Son, agents.' Even then there were two Théophiles, and grandpapa was +the son. They were wholesale agents also for French exporters of +artistic china, porcelain, glass, bronze. Twice they furnished the +hotel with everything of that kind; when it first opened, and when it +changed hands. That's how they came to hold stock in it. Grandpapa, +outdoor man of the firm, was every day in the rotunda, under that dome." + +"Yes," Chester said, "it was a kind of Rialto, I know. They called it +the 'Exchange,' as earlier they had called Maspero's." + +"You love our small antiquities. So do I. Well, grandpapa did much +business there, both of French goods and of ships; and because the +hotel was the favorite of the sugar-planters its rotunda was one of the +principal places for slave auctions." + +"Yes, they were, I know, almost daily. The old slave-block is shown +there yet, if genuine." + +"Ah, genuine or not, what difference? From one that _was_ there +_grandpère_ bought many slaves. He and his father speculated in them." + +"Why! How strange! The son? _your_ grandfather? the radical, who +married--'Maud'?" + +"Yes, the last slave he bought was for her." + +"Why, why, why! He couldn't have met her be'--well--before the year of +Lincoln's election." + +"No, let me tell you. You remember 'Sidney'?" + +"'Maud's' black maid? my uncle's Euonymus? Yes." + +"Well, when she came to Maud, at Maud's home, in the North, she was +still in agony about Mingo, who'd been recaptured. So Maud wrote +South, to her aunt, who wrote back: 'Yes, he had been brought home, and +at creditor's auction had been sold to a slave-trader to be resold here +in New Orleans.' So then Sidney begged Maud, who by luck was coming +here, to bring her here to find him." + +"Brave Sidney. Brave Euonymus." + +"Yes--although--her Southern mistress--I know not how legally--had sent +to her her free-paper. That made it safer, I suppose, eh?" + +"Yes. But--who told you all this so exactly--your _grand'mère_ +herself, or your _grandpère_?" + +"Ah--she, no. I never saw her. And _grandpère_--no, he was killed +before I was born." + +"_What_?" + +"Yes, all that I'll come to. This I'm telling now is from my own papa. +He had it from _grandpère_. _Grand'mère_ and Sidney came with friends, +a gentleman and his wife, by ship from New York." + +"And all put up at Hotel St. Louis?" + +"Yes. From there Maud and Sidney began their search. But now, first, +about that speculating in slaves: those two Théophiles, first the +father, then both, hated slavery. 'Twas by nature and in everything +that they were radical. Their friends knew that, even when they only +said, 'Oh, you are extreme!' or 'Those Chapdelaines are extremist.' In +those years from about eighteen-forty to 'sixty----" + +"When the slavery question was about to blaze----" + +"Yes--they voted Whig. That was the most antislavery they could vote +and stay here. But under the rose they said: 'All right! extremist, +yet Whig; we'll be extreme Whig of a new kind. We'll trade in slaves.'" + +Chester laughed. "I begin to see," he said, and by a sidelong glance +bade Aline note the rapt attention of Cupid. Her answering smile was +so confidential that his heart leaped. + +"I'll tell you by and by about that also," she murmured, and then +resumed: "While _grandpère_ was yet a boy his father had begun that, +that slave-buying. On that auction-block he would often see a slave +about to be sold much below value, or whose value might easily be +increased by training to some trade. You see?--blacksmith, lady's +maid, cook, hair-dresser, engine-driver, butler?" + +Chester darkened. "So he made the thing pay?" + +"_Seem_ to pay. Looking so simple, so ordinary, 'twas but a mask for +something else." + +"But in a thing looking so ordinary had he no competitors, to make +profits difficult?" + +"Ah, of a kind, yes; but the men who could do that best would not do it +at all. They would not have been respected." + +"But T. Chapdelaine & Son were respected." + +"Yes, _in spite_ of that. Their friends said: 'Let the extremists be +extreme that way.'" + +"The public mind was not yet quite in flames." + +"No. But--guess who helped _grandpère_ do that." + +"Why, do I know him? Castanado." + +The girl shook her head. + +"Who? Beloiseau?" + +"Ah, you! You can guess better." + +"Ovide Lan'--no, Ovide was still a slave." + +"Yet more free than most free negroes. 'Twas he. He was janitor to +offices in the hotel, and always making acquaintance with the slaves of +the slave-mart. And when he found one who was quite of the right +kind--and Ovide he's a wise judge of men, you know--he would show him +to _grandpère_, and at the auction, if the bidding was low, _grandpère_ +would buy him--or her." + +"What was one of 'quite the right kind'? One willing to buy his own +freedom?" + +"Ah, also to do something more; you see?" + +"Yes, I see," Chester laughed; "to help others run away, wasn't it?" + +"Not precisely to run, but----" + +"To stow away, on those ships, h'm?" There was rapture in crossing that +_h'm_ line of intimacy. "I see it all! Ha-ha, I see it all! Well! +that brings us back to 'Maud,' doesn't it--h'm?" + +"Yes. They met, she and grandpère, at a ball, in the hotel. +But"--Aline smiled--"that was not their first. Their first was two or +three mornings before, when he, passing in Royal Street, and she--with +Sidney--looking at old buildings in Conti Street----" + +"Mademoiselle! That happened to _them_?--_there_?" + +"Yes, to _them_, _there_." With level gaze narrator and listener +regarded each other. Then they glanced at Cupid. His eyes were +shining on them. + +"Who is our young friend, anyhow?" asked Chester. + +"Ah, I suppose you have guessed. He is the grandson of Sidney." + + + + +XXI + +"And another time, on the morning just before the ball," said Aline, +returning to the story, "they had seen each other again. That was at +the slave-auction. That night, before the ball was over, she and +_grandpère_ understood--knew, each, from the other, why the other was +at that auction; and he had promised her to find Mingo. + +"Well, after weeks, Ovide helping, all at once there was Mingo, in the +gang, by the block, waiting his turn to go on it. Picture that! Any +time I want to shut my eyes I can see it, and I think you can do the +same, h'm?" + +Blessed _h'm_; 'twas the flower--of the Chapdelaines--humming back to +the bee. Said the bee, "We'll try it there together some day, h'm?" +and Cupid mutely sparkled: + +"Oh, by all means! the three of us!" + +The flower ignored them both. "There was the auctioneer," she said; +"there were the slaves, there the crowd of bidders; between them the +block, above them the beautiful dome. Very soon Mingo was on the +block, and the first bid was from Sidney. She was the only one in a +hurry except Mingo. He was trying to see her, but she was hiding from +him behind _grandpère_; yet not from the auctioneer. The auctioneer +stopped. + +"'Who authorized you to bid here?' he asked her. + +"'Nobody, sir; I's free.' She held up her paper. + +"_Grandpère_ nodded to the auctioneer. + +"'Will Mr. Chapdelaine please read it out?' + +"He read it out, signature and all. + +"'Anybody know any one of that name?' the auctioneer asked, and +_grand'mère_ said: + +"'That's my aunt. This free girl is my maid." + +"'Oh, bidding for you?' he said; and grand'mere said no, the girl was +bidding on her own account, with her own money. + +"'What kind of money? We can't take shinplasters.' For 'twas then +'sixty-one--year of secession, you know. + +"'Gold!' Sidney called out, and held it up in a black stocking, so high +that every one laughed." + +"Not Mingo, I fancy." + +"Ah, no, nor the keeper of the gang." + +"--Wonder how Mingo was behaving." + +"He? he was shaking and weeping, and begging this and that of the man +who held and threatened him, to keep him quiet. So then the auctioneer +began to call Sidney's bid. You know how that would be: 'Gentlemen, +I'm offered five hundred dollars. Cinq cent piastres, messieurs! Only +five hundred for this likely boy worth all of nine! Who'll say six? +Going at five hundred, what do I hear?' But he heard nothing +till--'third and last call!' Then the owner of the gang nodded and the +auctioneer called out, 'six hundred!"' + +"And did Sidney raise it?" + +"No, she wept aloud. 'Oh, my brotheh!' she cried, 'Lawd save my po' +brotheh! I's los' him ag'in! I done bid my las' dollah at de fust +call!'" + +"And Mingo knew her voice, spied her out?" + +"Yes, and holloed, 'Sidney! sisteh!' till _grand-mère_ wept too and a +man called out, 'No one bid that six hundred!' But _grandpère_ said: +'I bid six-fifty and will tell all about this _unlikely_ boy if his +owner bids again.' + +"So Mingo was sold to _grandpère_. 'And now,' _grandpère_ whispered to +_grand-mère_ and her friends, 'go pack trunks for the ship as fast as +you can.'" + +"And they parted like that? But of course not!" + +"No, only expected to. In the Gulf, at the mouth of the river, a +Confederate privateer"--the narrator's voice faded out. She began to +rise. Her aunts were returning. + + + + +XXII + +Mademoiselle, we say, began to rise. Chester stood. Also Cupid. The +aunts drew near, speaking with infantile lightness: + +"Finizh' already that reading? You muz' have gallop'! Well, and what +is Mr. Chezter's conclusion on that momentouz manuscrip'?" + +The niece hurried to answer first: "Ah! we must not ask that so +immediately. Mr. Chester concludes 'tis better for all that he study +that an evening or two in his seclusion." + +"And! you did not read it through together?" + +"No, there was no advantage to----" + +"Oh! advantage! An' you stop' in the mi'l of that momentouz souvenir +of the pas'! Tha'z astonizhing that _anybody_ could do that, an' leas' +of all" [confronting Chester] "the daughter of a papa an' gran'papa +with such a drama-tique bio-graphie! Mr. Chezter, to pazz the time +Aline ought to 'ave tell you that bio-graphie, yes!--of our marvellouz +brother an' papa. Ah, you should some day egstort _that_ story from +our too li'l' communicative girl." + +"Why not to-day, for the book?" + +"Oh, no-no-no-no-o! We di'n' mean that!" The sisters laughed +excessively. "A young lady to put her own papa into a book--ah! +im-pos-si-ble!" + +They laughed on. "Even my sizter an' me, we have never let anybody +egstort that, an' we don't know if Aline ever be persuade'----" + +"Yes, some day I'll tell Mr. Chezter--whatever he doesn't know already." + +"Ha-ha! we can be sure tha'z not much, Aline. And, Corinne, if he's +_heard_ this or that, tha'z the more reason to tell him co'rec'ly. +Only, my soul! not to put in the book, no!" + +"Ah, no! Though as between frien', yes. And, moreover, to Mr. +Chezter, yes, biccause tha'z so much abbout that Hotel St. Louis and he +is so appreciative to old building'. Ah, we've notice' that incident! +Tha'z the cause that we egs'ibit you our house--as a relique of the +pas'--Yvonne! we are forgetting!--those souvenir' of our in-fancy--to +show them! Come--all!" + +Half-way to the house--"Ah, ha-ha! another subjec' of interess! See, +Mr. Chezter; see coming! Marie Madeleine! She's mis' both her beloved +miztress' from the house and become anxious, our beautiful cat! We +name' her Marie Madeleine because her great piety! You know, tha'z the +sacred truth, that she never catch' a mice on Sunday." + +"Ah, neither the whole of Lent!" + +In the parlor--"I really think," Chester said, "I must ask you to let +me take another time for the souvenirs. I'm so eager to save this +manuscript any further delay--" He said good-by. + +Yet he did not hurry to his lodgings. He had had an experience too +great, too rapt, to be rehearsed in his heart inside any small, mean +room. All the open air and rapid transit he could get were not too +much, till at lamplight he might sit down somewhere and hold himself to +the manuscript. + +Meantime the Chapdelaines had been but a moment alone when more +visitors rang--a pair! Their feet could be seen under the gate--two +male, two female--that is not a land where women have men's feet. +Flattering, fluttering adventure--five callers in one afternoon! +"Aline, we are becoming a public institution!" The aunts sprang here, +there, and into collision; Cupid sped down the walk; Marie Madeleine +stood in the door. + +And who were these but the dear De l'Isles! + +"No," they would not come inside. "But, Corinne, Yvonne, Aline, run, +toss on hats for a trip to Spanish Fort." + +One charm of that trip is that the fare is but, five cents, and the +crab gumbo no dearer than in town. "Come! No-no-no, not one, but the +three of you. In pure compassion on us! For, as sometimes in heaven +among cherubim, we are _ennuyés_ of each other!" + +The small half-hourly electric train in Rampart Street had barely +started lakeward into Canal, with the De l'Isle-Chapdelaine five aboard +and the sun about to set, when Geoffry Chester entered--and stopped +before monsieur, stiff with embarrassment. Nevertheless that made them +a glad six, and, as each seat was for two, the two with life before +them took one. + + + + +XXIII + +The small public garden, named for an old redout on the lake shore at +the mouth of Bayou St. John was filled with a yellow sunset as Chester +and Aline moved after the aunts and the De l'Isles from the train into +a shell walk whose artificial lights at that moment flashed on. + +"So far from that," he was saying, "a story may easily be improved, +clarified, beautified, by--what shall I say?--by filtering down through +a second and third generation of the right tellers and hearers." + +"Ah, yes! the right, yes! But----" + +"And for me you're supremely the right one." + +Instantly he rued his speech. Some delicate mechanism seemed to stop. +Had he broken it? As one might lay a rare watch to his ear he waited, +listening, while they stood looking off to where water, sky, and sun +met; and presently, to his immeasurable relief, she responded: + +"_Grandpère_ was not at that time such a very young man, yet he still +lived with his father. So when _grand'mère_ and her two friends--with +Sidney and Mingo--returned from the privateer to the hotel they were +opposite neighbors to the Chapdelaines and almost without another +friend, in a city--among a people--on fire with war. Then, pretty +soon--" the fair narrator stopped and significantly smiled. + +Chester twinkled. "Um-h'm," he said, "your _grandpère's_ heart became +another city on fire." + +"Yes, and 'twas in that old hotel--with the war storm coming, like +to-day only everything much more close and terrible, business dead, +soldiers every day going to Virginia--you must make Mr. Thorndyke-Smith +tell you about that--'twas in that old hotel, at a great free-gift +lottery and bazaar, lasting a week, for aid of soldiers' families, and +in a balcony of the grand salon, that _grandpère_--" the narrator +ceased and smiled again. + +"Proposed," Chester murmured. + +The girl nodded. They sank to a bench, the world behind them, the +stars above. "_Grand'mére_, she couldn't say yes till he'd first go to +her home, almost at the Canadian line, and ask her family. She, she +couldn't go; she couldn't leave Sidney and Mingo and neither could she +take them. So by railroad at last he got there. But her family took +so long to consent that he got back only the next year and through the +fall of the city. Only by ship could he come, and not till he had +begged President Lincoln himself and promised him to work with his +might to return Louisiana to the Union. Well, of course, he and his +father had voted against secession, weeping; yet now this was a pledge +terrible to keep, and the more because, you see? what to do, and when +and how to do it----" + +"Were left to his own judgment and tact?" + +"Oh, and honor! But anyhow he came. Doubtless, bringing the written +permission of the family, he was happy. Yet to what bitternesses--can +we say bitternesses in English?" + +"Indeed we can," said Chester. + +"To what bitternesses _grandpére_ had to return!" + +"Aline!" Mme. De l'Isle called; "à table!" + +"Yes, madame. Tell me--you, Mr. Chester--to your vision, how all that +must have been." + +"Paint in your sketch? Let me try. Maybe only because you tell the +story, but maybe rather because it's so easy to see in you a +reincarnation of your _grand'mére_--a Creole incarnation of that young +'Maud'--what I see plainest is she. I see her here, two thousand miles +from home, with but three or four friends among a quarter of a million +enemies. I see her on the day the city fell, looking up and down Royal +Street from a balcony of the hotel, while from the great dome a few +steps behind her the Union fleet could be seen, rounding the first two +river bends below the harbor, engaging a last few Confederate guns at +the old battle-ground, and coming on, with the Stars and Stripes at +every peak. I see her----" + +"She was beautiful, you know--_grand'mére_." + +"Yes, I see her so, looking down from that balcony, awestruck, not +fearstruck, on the people who in agonies of rage and terror fled the +city by pairs and families, or in armed squads and unarmed mobs swept +through the streets and up and down the levee, burning, breaking, and +plundering." + +"But that was the worst anybody did, you know." + +"Oh, yes. We never knew till to-day's war came how humane that war +was. It wasn't a war in which beauty, age, and infancy were hideous +perils." + +"Ah, never mind about that to-day. But about _grandpère_ and +_grand'mère_ go on. Let me see how much you can imagine correctly, +h'm?" + +"Please, mademoiselle, no. Time has made you--through your father's +eyes--they say you have them--an eye-witness. So next you see your +_grandpère_ getting back at last, by ship--go on." + +"Yes, I see that, in a harbor whose miles of wharfs without ships cried +to him: 'our occupation and your fortune are gone!' Also I see him +again in the streets--Royal, Chartres, Canal, Carondelet--where old +friends pass him with a stare. I see him and _grand'mère_ married at +last, in a church nearly empty and even the priest unfriendly." + +"Had he no new friends, Unionists?" + +"Not yet, at the wedding. There he said: 'Old friends or none.' And +that was right, don't you think? Later 'twas different. You see, in +the navy, both of the rivers and the sea, as likewise the army, +_grand'mère_ had uncles and cousins; and when the hotel was made a +military hospital she was there every day. And naturally those +cousins, whether from hospital or no, would call and even bring +friends. Well, of course, _grandpère_ was, at the least, courteous! +And then there was his word of honor, to Mr. Lincoln, as also his own +desire, to bring the State back into the Union." + +"Of course. Don't hurry, please." + +"Was I hurrying? Pardon, but I'm afraid they'll be calling us again." +The pair rose, but stood. "Well, when a kind of government was made of +that part of the State held by the Union, and the military governor +wanted both _grandpère_ and his father to take some public offices, his +father made excuse of his age and of a malady--taken from that +hospital--which soon occasioned him to die." + +"I've seen his tomb, in St. Louis cemetery, with its epitaph of barely +two words--'Adieu, Chapdelaine.' Who supplied that? Old friends, +after all?" + +"A few old, a few new, and one the governor." + +"Did the governor propose the words?" + +"No. If I tell you you won't tell? Ovide. But _grandpère_ he took +the office. And so that put him yet more distant from old friends +except just two or three who believed the same as he did." + +"And our Royal Street coterie, of course." + +"Ah, not those you see now; but their parents, yes. They were +faithful; though sometimes, some of them, sympathizing differently. +Well, and so there was _grandpère_ working to repair a _piece_ of the +State, when at last the war finished and the reconstruction of the +whole State commenced. He and Ovide were both of that State convention +they mobbed in the 'July riot.' Some men were killed in that riot. +_Grandpère_ was wounded, also Ovide. Those were awful times to +_grand'mère_, those years of the reconstruction. _Grandpère_ he--" +The girl glanced backward, then turned again, smiling. The four +chaperons were going indoors without them. + +"Yes," Chester said, "your _grandpère_ I can imagine----" + +"Well, go ahead; imagine, to me." + +"No. No, except just enough to see him with no choice of party +allegiance but between a rabble up to the elbows in robbery and an old +régime red-handed with the rabble's blood." + +"Ah, so papa told me, after _grandpère_ was long gone, and me on his +knee asking questions. 'Reconstruction, my dear child--' once he +answered me, ''twas like trying to drive, on the right road, a frantic +horse in a rotten harness, and with the reins under his tail!' Ah, I +wish you could have known him, Mr. Chester--my father!" + +"I know his daughter." + +"Well, I suppose--I suppose we must go in." + +"With the story almost finished?" + +"We'll, maybe finish inside--or--some day." + + + + +XXIV + +T. CHAPDELAINE & SON + +The seniors were found at a table for four. + +Mme. De l'Isle explained: "But! with only four to sit down there, how +was it possib' to h-ask for a tab'e for six? That wou'n' be logical!" + +When the waiter offered to add a smaller table and make one snug board +for six--"No," she said; "for feet and hands that be all right; but for +the _mind_, ah! You see, Mr. Chezter, M. De l'Isle he's also precizely +in the mi'l' of a moze overwhelming story of his own------" + +"Hiztorical!" the aunts broke in. "Well-known! abbout old house! in +the _vieux carré_!" + +"And," madame insisted, "'twould ruin that story, to us, to commenze to +hear it over, while same time 'twould ruin it to you to commenze to +hear it in the mi'l'. And beside', Aline, you are doubtlezz yet in the +mi'l' of your own story and--waiter! make there at that firz' window a +tab'e for two, and" [to the pair] "we'll run both storie' ad the same +time--if not three!" + +"Like that circ'"--the aunts fell into tears of laughter. They touched +each other with finger-tips, cried, "Like that circuz of Barnum!" and +repeated to the De l'Isles and then to Aline, "Like that circuz of +Barnum an' Bailey!" + +At the table for two, as the gumbo was uncovered and Chester asked how +it was made, "Ah!" said Aline, "for a veritable gumbo what you want +most is enthusiasm. The enthusiasm of both my aunts would not be too +much. And to tell how 'tis made you'd need no less, that would be a +story by itself, third ring of the circus." + +"Then tell me, further, of '_grandpère_'" + +"And grand'mère? Yes, I must, as I learned about them on papa's knee. +Mamma never saw them; they had been years gone when papa first knew +her. But Sidney I knew, when she was old and had seen all those +dreadful times; and, though she often would not tell me the story, she +would tell me what to ask papa; you see? You would have liked to talk +with Sidney about old buildings. Mr. Chester, I think it is not that +in New Orleans we are so picturesque, but that all the rest of our +country--in the cities--is so starved for the picturesque. Sidney +would have told you that story monsieur is telling now as well as all +the strange history of that old Hotel St. Louis. First, after the war +it was changed back from a hospital to a hotel. I think 'twas then +they called it Hotel Royal. Anyhow 'twas again very fine. Grandpère +and grand'mère were often in that salon where he had first--as they +say--spoken. Because, for one thing, there they met people of the +outside world without the local prejudices, you know?" + +"At that time bitter and vindictive?" + +"Oh, ferocious! And there they met also people of the most--dignity." + +"Above the average of the other hotels?" + +"Well, not so--so brisk." + +"Not so American?" + +"Ah, you know. Well, maybe that's one reason the St. Charles, for +example, continued, while the Royal did not. Anyhow the +Royal--grandpère had the life habit of it and 'twas just across the +street. Daily they ate there; a real economy." + +"But they kept the old home." + +"Yes. 'Twas furnished the same but not 'run' the same. 'Twas very +difficult to keep it, even with all three stories of the servants' wing +shut up, you know?--like"--a glance indicated the De l'Isles. + +"But you say Hotel Royal was soon closed." + +"Yes, and then, in the worst of those days, it became the capitol. +There, in the most elegant hotel for the most elegant planters of the +South--anyhow Southwest--sat their slaves, with white men even more +abhorred, and made the laws. In that old dome, second story, they put +a floor across, and there sat the Senate! Just over that auction-block +where grandpère had bought Mingo." + +"Where was he--Mingo?" + +"Dead--of drink. Grandpère was in that government! Long time he was +senator. Mr. Chester, _for that_ papa was proud of him, and I am +proud." + +The listener was proud of her pride. "I know," he said, "from my own +people, that in such an attitude--as your grandfather's--there was +honor a plenty for any honorable man. Ovide tells me the negroes never +wanted negro supremacy. I wonder if that's so. They were often, he +says, madly foolish and corrupt; yet their fundamental lawmaking was +mostly good. I know the State's constitution was; it was ahead of the +times." + +Aline made a quick gesture: "And any of the old masters who agreed to +that could help lead!" + +"Mademoiselle, how could they agree to it? Some did, I know, but +that's the wonder. Those that could not--who can blame them?" + +"Ah! 'tis no longer a question of blame but of judgment. So papa used +to say. Anyhow grandpère agreed, accepted, led; until at the last, one +day, that White League--you've heard of them, how they armed and +drilled and rose against that reconstruction police in a battle on the +steamboat landing? Grandpère was in that. He commanded part of the +reconstruction forces. And papa was there, though only thirteen. +Grandpère was bayonet-wounded. They carried him away bleeding. Only +at the State-house a surgeon met them, and there, under that dome, just +as papa brought grand'mère and Sidney, he died." Mademoiselle ceased. + +Chester waited, but she glanced to the other table. Monsieur had ended +his recital. Madame and the aunts chatted merrily. Smilingly the +niece's eyes came back. + +"Don't stop," said Chester. "What followed--for 'Maud'--Sidney--your +boy father--your little-girl aunts? Did the clock in the sky call them +North again?" + +"No." The speaker rose. "I'll tell you on the train; I hear it +coming." + + + + +XXV + +"There's a train every half-hour," Chester said. + +"Yes, but the day-laborer must be home early." + +On the train--"Well," the youth urged, "your _grand'mère_ stayed in the +old home, I hope, with the three children--and Sidney?" + +"Only till she could sell it. But that was nearly three years, and +they were hard, those three. But at last, by the help of that Royal +Street coterie--who were good friends, Mr. Chester, when friends were +scarce--she sold both house and furniture--what was by that time +remaining--and bought that place where we are now living." + +"Was there no life-insurance?" + +"A little. We have the yearly interest on it still. 'Tis very small, +yet a great help--to my aunts. I tell that only to say that papa would +never touch it when he and my aunts--and afterward mamma--were in very +narrow places." + +Chester perceived another reason for the telling of it; the niece +wanted to escape the credit of being the sole support of her aunts. +She read his thought but ignored it. + +"Papa was very old for his age," she continued. "You may see that by +his being in the battle with _grandpère_ at thirteen years. And +because of that precocity he got much training of the mind--and +spirit--from _grandpère_ that usually is got much later. I think that +is what my aunts mean when they tell you papa's life was dramatic. It +_was_ so, yet not in the manner they mean, the manner of _grandpère's_ +life; you understand?" + +"You mean it was not melodramatic?" + +"Ah! the word I wanted! Mr. Chester, when we get over being children, +those of us who do, why do we try so hard to live without melodrama?" + +"Oh, mademoiselle, you know well enough. You know that's what +melodrama does, itself? What is it, in essence, but a struggle to rise +out of itself into a higher drama, of the spirit----?" + +"A divine comedy! Yes. Well, that is what my father's life seems to +me." + +"With tragic elements in it, of course?" + +"Oh! How could it be high comedy without? But except that one battle +the tragedy was not--eh--crude, like _grandpère's_; was not physical. +Once he said to me: 'There are things in life, in the refined life, +very quiet things, that are much more tragic than bloodshed or death or +the defying of death.'" + +"In the refined life," Chester said musingly. + +"Yes! and he _was_ refined, yet never weak. 'Strength,' he said, +'valor, truth, they are the foundations; better be dead than without +them. Yet one can have them, in crude form, and still better be dead. +The noble, the humane, the chaste, the beautiful, 'tis with them we +build the superstructure, the temple, of life--Mr. Chester, if you knew +French I could tell you that better." + +"I doubt it. Go on, please, time's a-flying." + +"Well, you see how tragic was that life! Papa saw it and said: 'It +shall not be tragic alone. I will build on it a comedy higher, finer, +than tragedy. That's what life is for; mine, yours, the world's,' he +said to me. Mr. Chester, you can imagine how a daughter would love a +father like that, and also how mamma loved him--for years--before they +could marry." + +"Your mother was a Creole, I suppose?" + +"No, mamma was French. After _grand'mère_ had followed +_grandpère_--above--papa, looking up some of the once employees of T. +Chapdelaine & Son, to raise the old concern back to life, arranged with +them that while they should reinstitute it here he would go live in +France, close to the producers of the finest goods possible. You see? +And he did that many years with a kind of success; but smaller and +smaller, because little by little the taste for those refinements was +passing, while those department stores and all that kind of thing--you +understand--h'm?" + +The train stopped in Rampart Street, and when one aunt, with madame, +and one with monsieur, had followed the junior pair out of the +snarlings and hootings of Canal Street's automobiles and to the quiet +sidewalks of the old quarter---- + +"Well?" said Chester, slowing down, and---- + +"Well," said Aline, "about mamma: ah, 'tis wonderful how they were +suited to each other, those two. Almost from the first of his living +there, in France, they were acquainted and much together. She was of a +fine ancestry, but without fortune; everything lost in the German war, +eighteen seventy. They were close neighbor to a convent very famous +for its wonderful work of the needle and of the bobbin. 'Twas there +she received her education. And she and papa could have married any +time if he could promise to stay always there, in France. But the +business couldn't assure that; and so, for years and years, you see?" + +"Yes, I see." + +"But then, all at once, almost in a day, mamma, she found herself an +orphan, with no inheritance but poor relations and they with already +too many orphans in their care. For, as my aunts say, joking, that +seems to run in our family, to become orphans. + +"They are very fond of joking, my aunts. And so, because to those +French relations America seemed a cure for all troubles, they allowed +papa to marry mamma and bring her here to live, where I was born, and +where they lived many, many years so happily, because so bravely----" + +"And in such refinement--of spirit?" + +"Ah, yes, yes. And where we are yet inhabiting, as you perceive, my +aunts and me, and--as you see yonder this moment waiting us in the +gate--Hector and Marie Madeleine!" + + +Alone with the De l'Isles in Royal Street Chester asked, "And the +business--Chapdelaine & Son?" + +"Ah, sinz' long time liquidate'! All tha'z rim-aining is Mme. +Alexandre. Mr. Chezter, y' ought to put that! That ought to go in the +book," said monsieur. + +"If we could only avoid a disjointed effect." + +"Dizjoin'--my dear sir! They are going to read thad book _biccause_ +the dizjointed--by curio-zity. You'll see! That Am-erican pewblic +they have a passion, an _insanitie_, for the dizjointed!" + + + + +XXVI + +The week so blissfully begun in the Chapdelaines' garden and at Spanish +Fort was near its end. + +The _Courier des Etats-Unis_ had told the Royal Street coterie of +mighty doings far away in Italy, of misdoings in Galicia, and of +horrors on the Atlantic fouler than all its deeps can ever cleanse; but +nothing was yet reported to have "tranzpired" in the _vieux carré_. +The fortunes of "the book" seemed becalmed. + +It was Saturday evening. The streets had just been lighted. Mlles. +Corinne and Yvonne, dingy even by starlight, were in one of +them--Conti. Now they turned into Royal, and after them turned Chester +and Aline. Presently the four entered the parlor of the Castanados. +Their coming made its group eleven, and all being seated Castanado rose. + +After the proper compliments--"They were called," he said, "to +receive----" + +"And discuss," Chester put in. + +"To receive and discuss the judgment of their----" + +"The suggestions," Chester amended. + +"The judgment and suggestion' of their counsel, how tha'z best to +publish the literary treasure they've foun' and which has egspand' from +one story to three or four. Biccause the one which was firzt acquire' +is laztly turn' out to be the only one of a su'possible +incompat'--eh--in-com-pat-a-bil-ity--to the others." His bow yielded +the floor to Chester. "Remain seated, if you please," he said. + +"In spite of my wish to save this manuscript all avoidable delay," +Chester began, "I've kept it a week. I like it--much. I think that in +quieter times, with the reading world in a more contemplative mood, any +publisher would be glad to print it. At the same time it seems to me +to have faults of construction that ought to come out of it before it +goes to a possibly unsympathetic publisher. Yet after--was Mme. +Alexandre about----?" + +"Juz' to say tha'z maybe better those fault' are there. If the +publisher be not _sympathetique_ we want him to rif-use that +manuscrip'." + +"Yes!" several responded. "Yes! He can't have it! Tha'z the en' of +_that_ publisher." + +"Well, at any rate," Chester said, "after using up this whole week +trying, fruitlessly, to edit those faults out of it, here it is +unaltered. I still feel them, but I have to confess that to feel them +is one thing and to find them is quite another. Maybe they're only in +me." + +"Tha'z the only plase they are," said Dubroca, with kind gravity. "I +had the same feeling--till a dream, which reveal' to me that the +feeling was my fault. The manuscrip' is perfec'." + +"Messieurs," Mme. Castanado broke in, "please to hear Mlle. Aline." +And Aline spoke: + +"Perfect or no, I think that's what we don't require to conclude. But +if that manuscript will join well with those other two--or three, or +four, if we find so many--or if it will rather disjoint them--'tis that +we must decide; is it not, M. De l'Isle?" + +"Yes, and tha'z easy. That story is going to assimilate those other' +to a perfegtion! For several reason'. Firz', like those other', 'tis +not figtion; 'tis true. Second, like those, 'tis a personal +egsperienze told by the person egsperienzing. Third, every one of +those person' were known to some of us, an' we can certify that person +that he or she was of the greatez' veracity! Fourth, the United States +they've juz' lately purchaze' that island where that story tranzpire. +And, fifthly, the three storie' they are joint'; not stiff', like +board' of a floor, but loozly, like those link' of a chain. They are +jointed in the subjec' of friddom! 'Tis true, only friddom of negro', +yet still--friddom! An', _messieurs et mesdames_, that is now the +precise moment when that whole worl' is _wile_ on that _topique_; +friddom of citizen', friddom of nation', friddom of race', friddom of +the sea'! And there is ferociouz demand for short storie' joint' on +that _topique_, biccause now at the lazt that whole worl' is biccome +furiouzly conscientiouz to get at the bottom of that _topique_; an' +biccause those negro' are the lowez' race, they are there, of co'se, ad +the bottom!" + +"M. Beloiseau?" the chair--hostess--said; and Scipion, with languor in +his voice but a burning fervor in his eye, responded: + +"I think Mr. Chezter he's speaking with a too great modestie--or else +_dip_-lomacie. Tha'z not good! If _fid_-elitie to art inspire me a +conceitednezz as high"--his upthrown hand quivered at arm's length--"as +the flagpole of Hotel St. Louis dome yonder, tha'z better than a +modestie withoud that. That origin-al manuscrip' we don't want that +ag-ain; we've all read that. But I think Mr. Chezter he's also maybe +got that _riv_-ision in his pocket, an' we ought to hear, now, at ones, +that _riv_-ision!" + +Miles. Corinne and Yvonne led the applause, and presently Chester was +reading: + + + + +XXVII + +THE HOLY CROSS + +This is a true story. Only that fact gives me the courage to tell it. +It happened. + +It occurred under my own eyes when they were far younger than now, on a +beautiful island in the Caribbean, some twelve hundred miles +southeastward from Florida, the largest of the Virgin group--the island +of the Holy Cross. Its natives called it Aye-Aye. Columbus piously +named it Santa Cruz and bore away a number of its people to Spain as +slaves, to show them what Christians looked like in quantity and how +they behaved to one another and to strangers. You can hear much about +Santa Cruz from anybody in the rum-trade. + +It has had many owners. As with the woman in the Sadducee's riddle, +she of many husbands, seven political powers have had this mermaid as +bride. Spain, the English, the Dutch, the Spaniards again, the French, +the Knights of Malta, the French again, who sold her to the Guiana +Company, who in 1734 passed her over to the Danes, from whom the +English captured her in 1807 but restored her again at the close of +Napoleon's wars. Thus, at last, Denmark prevailed as the ruling power; +but English remained the speech of the people. The island is about +twenty-three miles long by six wide. Its two towns are Christiansted +on the north and Fredericksted on the south. Christiansted is the +capital. + +In 1848 I lived in Fredericksted, on Kongensgade, or King Street, with +my aunts, Marion, Anna, and Marcia, and my grandmother--whom the +servants called Mi'ss Paula--and was just old enough to begin taking +care of my dignity. Whether I was Danish, British, or American I +hardly knew. When grandmamma, whose husband had been of a family that +had furnished a signer of our Declaration, told me stories of Bunker +Hill and Yorktown I glowed with American patriotism. But when she +turned to English stories, heroic or momentous, she would remind me +that my father and mother were born on this island under British sway, +and--"Once a Briton always a Briton." And yet again, my playmates +would say: + +"When _you_ were born the island was Danish; you are a subject of King +Christian VIII." + +Kongensgade, though narrow, was one of the main streets that ran the +town's full length from northeast to southwest, and our home was a +long, low cottage on the street's southern side, between it and the +sea. Its grounds sloped upward from the street, widened out +extensively at the rear, and then suddenly fell away in bluffs to the +beach. It had been built for "Mi'ss Paula" as a bridal gift from her +husband. But now, in her widowhood, his wealth was gone, and only +refinement and inspiring traditions remained. + +The sale or hire of her slaves might have kept her in comfort; but a +clergyman, lately from England, convinced her that no Christian should +hold a slave, and setting them free she accepted a life of self-help +and of no little privation. She was his only convert. His zeal cooled +early. Her ex-slaves, finding no _public_ freedom in custom or law, +merely hired their labor unwisely and yearly grew more worthless. + + +[The reader lifted his eyes across to Aline: + +"I had a notion to name that much 'The Time,' and this next part 'The +Scene.' What do you think?" + +"Yes, I think so. 'Twould make the manner of it less antique." + +"Ah!" cried Mlle. Corinne, "'tis not a movie! Tha'z the charm, that +antie-quitie!" + +"Yes," the niece assented again, "but even with that insertion 'tis yet +as old-fashioned as 'Paul and Virginia.'" + +"Or 'Rasselas,'" Chester suggested, and resumed his task.] + + + + +XXVIII + +(THE SCENE) + +Yet to be poor on that island did not compel a sordid narrowing of +life. You would have found our living-room furnished in mahogany rich +and old. In a corner where the airs came in by a great window stood a +jar big enough to hide in, into which trickled a cool thread of water +from a huge dripping-stone, while above these a shelf held native +waterpots whose yellow and crimson surfaces were constantly pearled +with dew oozing through the porous ware. On a low press near by was +piled the remnant of father's library, and on the ancient sideboard +were silver candlesticks, snuffers, and crystal shades. + +But it was neither these things nor cherished traditions that gave the +room its finest charm. It was filled with the glory of the sea. There +was no need of painted pictures. Living nature hung framed in wide +high windows through which drifted in the distant boom of surf on the +rocks, and salt breezes perfumed with cassia. + +Outside, round about, there was far more. A broad door led by a flight +of stone steps to the couchlike roots of a gigantic turpentine-tree +whose deep shade harbored birds of every hue. To me, sitting there, +the island's old Carib name of Aye-Aye seemed the eternal consent of +God to some seraph asking for this ocean pearl. All that poet or +prophet had ever said of heaven became comprehensible in its daily +transfigurations of light and color scintillated between wave, +landscape, and cloud--its sea like unto crystal, and the trees bearing +all manner of fruits. Grace and fragrance everywhere: fruits crimson, +gold, and purple; fishes blue, orange, pink; shells of rose and pearl. +Distant hills, clouds of sunset and dawn, sky and stream, leaf and +flower, bird and butterfly, repeated the splendor, while round all +palpitated the wooing rhythm of the sea's mysterious tides. + +The beach! Along its landward edge the plumed palms stood sentinel, +rustling to the lipping waters and to the curious note of the +Thibet-trees, sounding their long dry pods like castanets in the +evening breeze. By the water's margin, and in its shoals and depths, +what treasures of the underworld! Here a sponge, with stem bearing +five cups; there a sea-fan, large enough for a Titan's use yet delicate +enough to be a mermaid's. Red-lipped shells; mystical eye-stones; +shell petals heaped in rocky nooks like rose leaves; and, moving among +these in grotesque leisure, crabs of a brilliance and variety to tax +the painter. All the rector told of a fallen world seemed but idle +words when the sunset glory was too much for human vision and the young +heart trembled before its ineffable suggestions. + +I often rode a pony. If we turned inland our way was on a road +double-lined with cocoa palms, or up some tangled dell where a silvery +cascade leaped through the deep verdure. On one side the tall mahogany +dropped its woody pears. On another, sand-box and calabash trees +rattled their huge fruit like warring savages. Here the banyan hung +its ropes and yonder the tamarind waved its feathery streamers. Here +was the rubber-tree, here the breadfruit. Now and then a clump of the +manchineel weighted the air with the fragrance of its poisonous apples, +the banana rustled, or the bamboo tossed its graceful canes. Beside +some stream we might espy black washerwomen beetling their washing. +Or, reaching the summit of Blue Mountain, we might look down, eleven +hundred feet, on the vast Caribbean dotted with islands, and, nearer +by, on breakers curling in noble bays or foaming under rocky cliffs. +Northward, the wilderness; eastward, green fields of sugar-cane paling +and darkling in the breeze; southward, the wide harbor of +Fredericksted, the town, and the black, red-shirted boatmen pushing +about the harbor; westward, the setting sun; and presently, everywhere, +the swift fall of the tropical night, with lights beginning to twinkle +in the town and the boats in the roadstead to leave long wakes of +phosphorescent light. + +Of course nature had also her bad habits. There were sharks in the +sea, and venomous things ashore, and there were the earthquake and the +hurricane. Every window and door had heavy shutters armed with bars, +rings, and ropes that came swiftly into use whenever between July and +October the word ran through the town, "The barometer's falling." Then +candles and lamps were lighted indoors, and there was happy excitement +for a courageous child. I would beg hard to have a single pair of +shutters held slightly open by two persons ready to shut them in a +second, and so snatched glimpses of the tortured, flying clouds and +writhing trees, while old Si' Myra, one of the freed slaves who never +had left us, crouched in a corner and muttered: + +"Lo'd sabe us! Lo'd sabe us!" + +Once I saw a handsome brig which had failed to leave the harbor soon +enough stagger in upon the rocks where it seemed her masts might fall +into our own grounds, and grandmamma told me that thus my father, +though born in the island, had first met my mother. + + + + +XXIX + +(THE PLAYERS) + +Si' Myra was a Congo. She believed the Obi priests could boil water +without fire, and in many ways cause frightful woes. To her own myths +she had added Danish ones. "De wehr-wolf, yes, me chile! Dem nights +w'en de moon shine bright and de dogs a-barkin', you see twelb dogs +a-talkin' togedder in a ring, and one in de middle. Dah dem wait till +dem yerry [hear] him; den dem take arter him, me chile," etc. + +Strangest, wildest practice of the slaves was the hideous misuse +Christian masters allowed them to make of Chrismas Day and week. It +was then they danced the bamboula, incessantly. All through the year +this Saturnalia was prepared for in meetings held at night by their +leaders. The songs to which they danced were made of white society's +scandals reduced to satirical rhyme; and to the rashest girl or man +there was power in the warning, "You'll get yourself sung about at +Christmas." Yearly a king, queen, and retinue were elected. The +dresses of court and all were a mixture of splendor and tawdriness that +exhausted the savings and pilferings of a twelvemonth. Good-natured +"missies" often helped make these outfits. They were of velvet, silk, +satin, cotton lace, false flowers, the brilliant seeds of the licorice +and coquelicot, tinsel, beads, and pinch-beck. Sometimes mistresses +even lent--firmly sewed fast--their own jewelry. + +On Christmas Eve, here and there in the town, ground-floor rooms were +hired and decorated with palm branches; or palm booths were built, +decked with oranges and boughs of cinnamon berries, lighted with +candles and lanterns and furnished with seats for the king, queen, and +musicians, and with buckets of rum punch. Then the "bulrush man" went +his round. Covered with capes and flounces of rushes and crowned with +a high waving fringe of them, he rattled pebbles in calabashes, danced +to their clatter, proclaimed the feast, and begged such of us white +children as his dress did not terrify, for stivers from our holiday +savings. + +Soon the dancers began to gather in the booths; women in gorgeous +trailing gowns, the men bearing showy batons and clad in gay shirts or +satin jackets, and with a mongrel infant rabble at their heels. When +the goombay--a flour-barrel drum--sounded, the town knew the bamboula +had begun. On two confronting lines, the men in one, the women in the +other, a leading couple improvised a song and all took up the refrain. +The goombay beat time, and the dancers rattled or tinkled the woody +seed-cases of the sand-box tree set on long handles and with each of +their lobes painted a separate vivid color; rattles of basketwork; and +calabashes filled with pebbles and shells. All instruments were gay +with floating ribbons. So the lines approached each other by two +steps, receded, advanced, and receded, always in wild cadence to the +signals of voice and instrument; then bowed so low that they +touched--twice--thrice; then pirouetted and resumed the first movement, +and now and then, with two or three turns or bows, clashed their +rattles together in time. As night darkened, the rude lights flared +yellow and red upon the dusky forms bedizened with beads, bangles, and +grotesquer trumpery. Faces, necks, arms reeked and shone in the heat, +ribbons streamed, gross odors arose, the goombay dominated all, and +children of the master race--for even I was permitted to witness these +orgies--without comprehending, stood aghast. Close outside, the +matchless night lay on land and sea; a relieved sense caught ethereal +perfumes and was soothed by the exquisite refinement into whose space +and silence the faint deep voice of the savage drum sobbed one grief +and one prayer alike for slave and master. + +The revel always ended with New Year's Day. The next morning broke +silently, and with the rising of the sun the plantation bell or the +conch called the bondman and bondwoman into the cane-fields. Then, +alike in broadest noon or deepest night, a spectral fear hovered +wherever the master sat among his loved ones or rode from place to +place. Not often did the hand of oppression fall upon any slave with +illegal violence, or he or she turn to slaughter or poison the +oppressor; but the slaves were in thousands, the masters were but +hundreds, the laws were cruel; the whipping-post stood among the town's +best houses of commerce, justice, and worship, with the thumbscrews +hard by. As to armed defense, the well-drilled and finely caparisoned +volunteer "troopers" were but a handful, the Danish garrison a mere +squad; the governor was mild and aged, and the two towns were the width +of the island apart. + + + + +XXX + +(THE RISING CURTAIN) + +In that year, 1848, this unrest was much increased. King Christian had +lately proclaimed a gradual emancipation of all slaves in his West +Indian colonies. A squad of soldiers had marched through the streets, +halting at corners and beating a drum--"beating the protocol," as it +was termed--and reading the royal edict. After twelve years all slaves +were to go free; their owners were to be paid for them; and meantime +every infant of a slave was to be free at birth. + +I suppose no one knows better than the practical statesman how +disastrous measures are apt to be when designed for the _gradual_ +righting of a public evil. They rarely satisfy any class concerned. +In this case the aged slaves bemoaned a promised land they might never +live to enter; younger ones dreaded the superior liberty of free-born +children; and the planters doubted they would be paid, even if +emancipation did not bring fire, rapine, and death. + +One day, along with all "West-En'," as the negroes called +Fredericksted--Christiansted was "Bass-En',"--I saw two British +East-Indiamen sail into the harbor. Such ships never touched at +Fredericksted; what could the Britons want? + +"Water," they said, "and rest"; but they stayed and stayed! their +officers roaming the island, asking many questions, answering few. +What they signified at last I cannot say, except that they became our +refuge from the black uprising that was near at hand. Likely enough +that was their only errand. + +Sunday, the 2d of July, was still and fair. To me the Sabbath was +always a happy day. High-stepping horses prancing up to the +church-gates brought friends from the plantations. The organ pealed, +the choir chanted, the rector read, and read well; the mural tablets +told the virtues of the churchyard sleepers, and out through the +windows I could gaze on the clouds and the hills. After church came +the Sunday-school. Its house was on a breezy height where the wind +swept through the room unceasingly, giving wings to the children's +voices as we sang, "Now be the gospel banner." + +But this Sunday promised unusual pleasure. I was to go with Aunt +Marion to dine soon after midday with a Danish family, in real Danish +West Indian fashion, and among the guests were to be some officers of +the East-Indiamen. I carried with me one fear--that we should have +pigeon-pea soup. Whoever ate pigeon-pea soup, Si' Myra said, would +never want to leave the island, and I longed for those ships to go. +But in due time we were asked: + +"Which soup will you have--guava-berry or pigeon-pea?" + +Hoping to be imitated I chose the guava-berry; but without any +immediately visible effect one officer took one and another the other. +After soup came an elegant kingfish, and by and by the famous callalou +and other delicate and curious viands. For dessert appeared "red +groat"; sago jelly, that is, flavored with guavas, crimsoned with the +juice of the prickly-pear and floating in milk; also other floating +islands of guava jelly beaten with eggs. Pale-green granadillas +crowned the feast. These were eaten with sugar and wine, and before +each draft the men lifted their glasses high to right and left and +cried: "Skoal! Skoal!" As the company finally rose, our host and +hostess shook hands with all, these again saluting each other, each two +saying: "Vel be komme"--"May this feast do you good." + +There was strange contrast in store for us. Late in the afternoon we +started home. On the way two friends, a lady and her daughter, +persuaded us to turn and take a walk on the north-side road, at the +town's western border. It drew us southward toward "the lagoon," near +to where this water formed a kind of moat behind the fort, and was +spanned by a slight wooden bridge. While we went the sun slowly sank +through a golden light toward the purple sea, among temples, towers, +and altars of cloud. + +As we neared this bridge two black men crossing it from opposite ways +stopped and spoke low: + +"Yes, me yerry it; dem say sich t'ing' as nebber bin known befo' goin' +be done in West-En' town to-night." + +"Well, you look sharp, me frien'----" + +Seeing us, they parted abruptly, one troubled, the other pleased and +brisk. Our friends drew back: "What does he mean, mother?" + +"Oh, some meeting to make Christmas songs, I suppose." + +"I think not," said Aunt Marion. "Let's go back; my mother's alone." + +Just then Gilbert, young son of an intimate neighbor, appeared, saying +to the four of us: "I've come to find you and see you home. The +thing's on us. The slaves rise to-night. Some free negroes have +betrayed them. At eight o'clock they, the slaves, are to attack the +town." + +Our home was reached first. Grandmamma heard the news calmly. "We're +in God's hands," she said. "Gilbert, will you stop at Mr. Kenyon's" +[another neighbor] "and send Anna and Marcia home?" + +Mr. Kenyon came bringing them and begging that we all go and pass the +night with him. But grandmamma thought we had better stay home, and he +went away to propose to the neighborhood that all the women and +children be put into the fort, that the men might be the freer to +defend them. + +"Marion," said grandmamma, "let us have supper and prayers." + +The meal was scarcely touched. Aunt Marcia put Bible and prayer-book +by the lamp and barred all the front shutters. When grandmamma had +read we knelt, but the prayer, was scarcely finished when Aunt Marcia +was up, crying: "The signal! Hear the signal!" + +Out in the still night a high mournful note on a bamboo pipe was +answered by a conch, and presently the alarm was ringing from point to +point, from shells, pipes and horns, and now and then in the solemn +clangor of plantation bells. It came first from the south, then from +the east, swept around to the north, and answered from the western +cliffs, springing from hilltop to hilltop, long, fierce, exultant. We +stood listening and, I fear, pale. But by and by grandmamma took her +easy chair. + +"I will spend the night here," she said. + +Aunt Anna took a rocking-chair beside her. Aunt Marcia chose the sofa. +Aunt Marion spread a pallet for me, lay down at my side, and bade me +not fear but sleep. And I slept. + + + + +XXXI + +(REVOLT AND RIOT) + +Suddenly I was broad awake. Distant but approaching, I heard horses' +feet. They came from the direction of the fort. Aunt Marcia was +unbarring the shutters and fastening the inner jalousies so as to look +out unseen. + +"It's nearly one o'clock," some one said, and I got up, wondering how +the world looked at such an hour. All hearkened to the nearing sound. + +"Ah!" Aunt Marcia gladly cried, "the troopers!" + +There were only some fifty of them. Slowly, in a fitful moonlight, +they dimly came, hoofs ringing on the narrow macadam, swords clanking, +and dark plumes nodding over set faces, while the distant war-signal +from shell, reed, and horn called before, around, and after them. + +Still later came a knock at the door, and Mr. Kenyon was warily +readmitted. He explained the passing of the troopers. They had +hurried about the country for hours, assembling their families at +points easy to defend and then had come to the fort for ammunition and +orders; but the captain of the fort, refusing to admit them without the +governor's order, urged them to go to their homes. + +"But," Mr. Kenyon had interposed, "a courier can reach the governor in +an hour and a half." + +"One will be sent as soon as it is light," was the best answer that +could be got. + +Our friend, much excited, went on to tell us that the town militia were +without ammunition also. He believed the fort's officers were +conniving with the revolt. Presently he left us, saying he had met one +of our freed servants, Jack, who would come soon to protect us. +Shortly after daybreak Jack did appear and mounted guard at the front +gate. "Go sleep, ole mis's. Miss Mary Ann" [Marion], "you-all go +sleep. Chaw! wha' foo all you set up all night? Si' Myra, you go draw +watah foo bile coffee." + +The dreadful signals had ceased at last, and all lay down to rest; but +I remained awake and saw through the great seaward windows the +wonderful dawn of the tropics flush over sky and ocean. But presently +its heavenly silence was broken by the gallop of a single horse, and a +Danish orderly, heavily armed, passed the street-side windows, off at +last for Christiansted. + +Soon the conchs and horns began again. With them was blent now the +tramp of many feet and the harsh voices of swarming insurgents. Their +long silence was explained; they had been sharpening their weapons. + +Their first act of violence was to break open a sugar storehouse. They +mixed a barrel of sugar with one of rum, killed a hog, poured in his +blood, added gunpowder, and drank the compound--to make them brave. +Then with barrels of rum and sugar they changed a whole cistern of +water into punch, stirring it with their sharpened hoes, dipping it out +with huge sugar-boiler ladles, and drinking themselves half blind. + +Jack dashed in from the gate: "Oh, Miss Marcia, go look! dem a-comin'! +Gin'ral Buddoe at dem head on he w'ite hoss." + +We ran to the jalousies. In the street, coming southward toward the +fort, were full two thousand blacks. They walked and ran, the women +with their skirts tied up in fighting trim, and all armed with +hatchets, hoes, cutlasses, and sugar-cane bills. The bills were fitted +on stout pole handles, and all their weapons had been ground and +polished until they glittered horridly in their black hands and above +the gaudy Madras turbans or bare woolly heads and bloodshot eyes. + +"Dem goin' to de fote to ax foo freedom," Jack cried. + +At their head rode "Gin'ral Buddoe," large, powerful, black, in a +cocked hat with a long white plume. A rusty sword rattled at his +horse's flank. As he came opposite my window I saw a white man, alone, +step out from the house across the way and silently lift his arms to +the multitude to halt. + +They halted. It was the Roman Catholic priest. For a moment they gave +attention, then howled, brandished their weapons, and pressed on. Aunt +Marcia dropped to her knees and in tears began to pray aloud; but we +cried to her that Rachel, a slave woman, was coming, who must not see +our alarm. Indeed, both Rachel and Tom had already entered. + +"La! Miss Mary Ann, wha' fur you cryin'? Who's goin' tech you?" +Rachel held by its four corners a Madras kerchief full of sugar. "Da +what we done come fur, to tell Miss Paula" [grandmamma] "not be +frightened." + +Tom was off again while grandmamma said: "Rachel, you've been stealing." + +"Well, Miss Paula! ain't I gwine hab my sheah w'en dem knock de head' +out dem hogsitt' an' tramp de sugah under dah feet an' mix a whole +cisron o' punch?" + +Rachel told the events of the night. But as she talked a roar without +rose higher and higher, and I, running with Jack to the gate, beheld +two smaller mobs coming round a near corner. The foremost was dragging +along the ground by ropes a huge object, howling, striking, and hacking +at it. The other was doing the same to something smaller tied to a +stick of wood, and the air was full of their cries: + +"To de sea! Frow it in de sea! You'll nebber hole obbe" [us] "no mo'! +You'll be drownded in de sea-watah!" Their victims were the +whipping-post and the thumbscrews. + +Tom returned to say: "Dem done to'e up de cote-house and de Jedge's +house, an' now dem goin' Bay Street too tear up de sto'es." + +Gilbert came up from the fort telling what he had seen. The blacks had +tried to scale the ramparts, on one another's shoulders, howling for +freedom and defying the garrison to fire. But the commander had not +dared without orders from the governor, and his courier had not +returned. A leading merchant standing on the fort wall was less +discreet: "Take the responsibility! Fire! Every white man on the +island will sustain you, and you'll end the whole thing here!" + +Upon that word off again up-town had gone the whole black swarm, had +sacked the bold merchant's store, and seemed now, by the noises they +made, to be sacking others. "I come," Gilbert said, "with an offer of +the ship-captains to take the white people aboard the ships." + +As he turned away groups of negroes began to dash by laden with all +sorts of "prog" [booty] from the wrecked stores. Grandmamma had lain +down, my aunts were trying to make up some sort of midday meal, and I +was standing alone behind the jalousies, when a ferocious-looking negro +rattled them with his bill. + +"Lidde gal, gi' me some watah." + +"Wait a minute," I said, and left the room. If I hid he might burst in +and murder us. So I brought a bowl of water. + +"Tankee, lidde missee," he said, returned the bowl, and went away. Tom +was thereupon set to guard the gate, which he did poorly. Another +negro slipped in and sat down on our steps. He looked around the +pretty enclosure, gave a tired grunt, and said: + +"Please, missee, lemme res'; I done bruk up." He held in his hands the +works of a clock, fell to studying them, and became wholly absorbed. + +Rachel asked him who had broken it. He replied: + +"Obbe" [our] "Ca'lina. She no like de way it talkin'. She say: 'W'at +mek you say, night und day, night und day?' Un' she tuk her bill un' +bruk it up. Un' Georgina chop' up de pianneh, 'caze it wouldn' talk +foo her like it talk too buckra. Da shame!" + +But now came yells and cheers in the street, the rush and trample of +hundreds, and the cry: + +"De gub'nor! de gub'nor a-comin'!" + + + + +XXXII + +(FREEDOM AND CONFLAGRATION) + +We ran to the windows. In an open carriage, with two official +attendants, surrounded by a mounted guard and clad in the uniform of a +Danish general, the aged governor came. On his breast were the +insignia of the order of Dannebrog. His cavalcade could hardly make +its way, and when one of the crowd made bold to seize the horses' reins +the equipage, just before our house, stopped. The governor sat still, +very pale. + +Suddenly he rose, uncovered, and with graceful dignity bowed. Then he +unfolded a paper with large seals attached, and in a trembling but +clear voice began to read. In the name and by the authority of his +Majesty Christian VIII, King of Denmark, he proclaimed freedom to every +slave in the Danish West Indies. + +Our cries of dismay were drowned in the huzzas of the black mob: "Free! +Free! God bless de gub'nor! Obbe is free!" + +The retinue moved again; but the crowd, ignoring the command to +disperse to their homes, surged after it in transports of rejoicing. +At the fort the proclamation, with the order to disperse, was read +again. But the mob, suddenly granted all its demands, could not +instantly return to quiet toils made odious by slavery. Mad with joy +and drink, it broke into small companies, some content to stay in town +carousing, others roaming out among the island estates to pillage and +burn. Here the governor, in failing to employ prompt measures of +police, proved himself weak. + +At evening, leaving our house in care of Jack and Tom, we went to spend +the night at Mr. Kenyon's, where several neighbors were gathered, under +arms. Our way led us by the ruined court-house, where for several +squares the ground was completely covered with torn records, books, and +other documents. + +The night wore by in fitful sleep or anxious vigils. Near us all was +quiet; but the distant sky was in many places red with incendiary +fires. At dawn Mr. Kenyon, Gilbert, and others ventured out, and +returned with sad tidings brought by courier from Christiansted. At +the signal on Sunday night the negroes had swarmed there by thousands. +Next day, when the governor had just departed for our town, leaving +word to do nothing in his absence, they had attacked the fort as they +had ours. But its commander, of a sturdy temper, had opened fire, +killing and wounding many. This had only defended the town at the +expense of the country, into which thousands scattered to break, +pillage, and burn. Yet even so no whites had been killed except two or +three men who had opposed the blacks single-handed, although the whole +island, outside the two towns, was at the mercy of the insurgents. + +However, there was better news. A Danish man-of-war was near by. A +schooner was gone to look her up, and another to ask aid in the island +of Porto Rico, only seventy miles away and heavily garrisoned with +Spaniards. Still it was deemed wise to accept for Fredericksted the +offer from the ships and send the women and children on board, so that +the military might be free to hold the uprising in check until a +stronger force could extinguish it. + +"Tom," Mr. Kenyon said, "is to have a boat at the beach to take us off +to an American schooner. Pack no trunks. Gather your lightest +valuables in small bundles. Be quick; if a crowd gets there before you +you may be refused." + +We hurried home over a carpet of archives and title-deeds, swallowed a +sort of breakfast, and began the hard task of choosing the little we +could take from the much we must leave, in a dear home that might soon +be in ashes. + +On the schooner we found a kind welcome, amid a throng of friends and +strangers, and a chaos of boxes, bundles, and _trunks_. Children were +crying to go home, or viewing with babbling delight the wide roadstead +dotted with boats still bringing the fugitives to every anchored +vessel. Women were calling farewells and cautions to the men in the +returning boats, and meeting friends were telling in many tongues the +droll or sad distresses of the hour. + +A friend, with his wife and little daughter, gave us a thrilling story. +Except their house-keeper, a young English girl, they three were the +only white persons on their beautiful "North End" estate when on Sunday +night their slaves came to them in force demanding "freedom papers." + +"Not under compulsion, never!" + +"Den obbe set eb'ryt'ing on fiah! Wen yo' house bu'n up we try t'ink +w'at too do wid you and de missie!" They rushed away to the +sugar-works, yelling: "Git bagasse foo bu'n him out!" + +The household loaded all the firearms in the house, filled all vessels +with water, and piled blankets here and there to fight fire. Then they +made merry. The wife played her piano till after midnight. Whether +moved by this show or not, the blacks failed to return, and next day +the family escaped to the schooner. + +To grandmamma and the wife of the American consul, the oldest ladies on +the vessel, was given, at nightfall, the only sofa on board. The rest +dropped asleep on boxes and bundles anywhere. For my couch the +boatswain lent me his locker, and for a pillow a bag of something that +felt like rope ends, and for three successive mornings I was wakened +with: + +"Sorry to disturb you, little miss, but I must get to my locker." + + + + +XXXIII + +(AUTHORITY, ORDER, PEACE) + +Three days of heat, glare, hubbub, and anxious suspense dragged away, +and Thursday's gorgeous sunset brought a change. The Danish frigate, +bright with flags and swarming with sailors, swept in, dropped anchor, +and wrapped herself in thunder and white smoke. Soon she lowered a +boat, a glittering officer took its tiller-ropes, its long oars +flashed, and it bore away to the fort. But evening fell, a starry +silence reigned, and when a late moon rose we slept. + +Next morning we knew that Captain Erminger, of the frigate, had assumed +command over the whole island, declared martial law, landed his +marines, and begun operations. Soon the harbor was populous again, +with refugees returning home. Tom came with his boat. Just as we +started landward a schooner came round the bluffs bringing the +Spaniards. At early twilight these landed and marched with much +clatter through the vacant streets to the town's various points of +entrance, there to mount guard, the Danes having gone to scatter the +insurgents. + +The pursuing forces, in two bodies, were to move toward each other from +opposite ends of the island, spanning it from sea to sea and meeting in +the centre, thus entirely breaking up the bands of aimless pillagers +into which the insurrection had already dispersed. This took but a few +days. Buddoe was almost at once trapped by the baldest flatteries of +two leading Danish residents and, finding himself without even the +honor of armed capture, betrayed his confederates and disappeared. + +Only one small band of blacks made any marked resistance. Under a +certain "Moses" they occupied a hill, hurling down stones upon their +assailants, but were soon captured. Many leaders of the revolt were +condemned and shot, displaying in most cases a total absence of +fortitude. + +In less than a week from the day of flight to the ships quiet was +restored, and a meeting of planters was adopting rules and rates for +the employment of the freed slaves. Some estates resumed work at once; +on others the ravages of the torch had first to be repaired. Some +negroes would not work, and it was months before all the windmills on +the hills were once more whirling. The Spaniards lingered long, but +were finally relieved by a Danish regiment. Captain Erminger was +commended by his home government. The governor was censured and +superseded. The planters got no pay for their slaves. + +The government may have argued that the ex-master should no more be +paid for his slave than the ex-slave recover back pay for his labor; +and that, after all, a general emancipation was only a moderate raising +of wages unjustly low and uniform. Both kings and congresses will at +times do the easy thing instead of the fair one and let two wrongs +offset each other. Make haste, rising generations! and, as you truly +honor your fathers, bring to their graves the garlandry of juster laws +and kinder, purer days. + +To different minds this true story will speak, no doubt, a varying +counsel. Some will believe that the lovely island was saved from the +agonies of a Haytian revolution only through iron suppression. To +others it will appear that the old governor's rashly timorous edict +was, after all, the true source of deliverance. Certainly the question +remains, whether even the most sudden and ill-timed concession of +rights, if only backed by energetic police action, is not a prompter, +surer cure for public disorder than whole batteries of artillery +without the concession of rights. I believe the most blundering effort +for the prompt undoing of a grievous wrong is safer than the shrewdest +or strongest effort for its continuance. Meanwhile, with what patience +doth God wait for man to learn his lessons! The Holy Cross still +glitters on the bosom of its crystal sea, as it shone before the Carib +danced on its snowy sands, and as it will still shine when some new +Columbus, as yet unborn, brings to it the Christianity of a purer day +than ours. + + +Chester shook the pages together on his knee. + +"Oh-h-h!" cried Mlle. Corinne to Yvonne, to Aline, to Mlle. Castanado, +"the en'! and--where is all that abbout that beautiful cat what was +the proprity of Dora? Everything abbout that cat of Dora--_scratch +out_! Ah, Mr. Chezter! Yvonne and me, we find that the moze am-using +part--that episode of the cat--that large, wonderful, mazculine cat of +Dora! Ah, madame" [to the chair], "hardly Marie Madeleine is more +wonderful than that--when Jack pritend to lift his li'l' miztress +through the surf of the sea, how he _flew_ at the throat of Jack, that +aztonishing mazculine cat! Ah, M'sieu' Beloiseau!--and to scradge +that!" + +But Beloiseau was judicially calm. "Yes, I rim-ember that portion. +Scientific-ally I foun' that very interezting; but, like Mr. Chezter, I +thing tha'z better _art_ that the tom-cat be elimin-ate." + +"Well," said the chair, "w'at we want to settle--shall we accep' that +riv-ision of Mr. Chezter, to combine it in the book--'Clock in the +Sky,' 'Angel of the Lord,' 'Holy Crozz'--seem' to me that combination +goin' to sell like hot cake'." + +"Yes! Agcept!" came promptly from two or three. + +"Any oppose'? There is not any oppose'--Seraphine--Marcel--you'll be +so good to pazz those rif-reshment?" + + + + +XXXIV + +"Tis gone--to the pewblisher?" + +M. De l'Isle, about to enter his double gate, had paused. In his home, +overhead, a clock was striking five of the tenth day after that second +reading in the Castanados' parlor. The energetic inquiry was his. + +A single step away, in the door of the iron-worker's shop, Beloiseau, +too quick for Chester, at whose elbow he stood, replied: "Tis gone +better! Tis gone to the editor--of the greatez' magazine of the worl'!" + +"Bravo! Sinze how long?" + +"A week," Chester said. + +"Hah! and his _rip_-ly?" + +"Hasn't come yet." + +"Ah, look out, now! Look out he don' steal that! You di'n' write him: +'Wire answer'? You muz' do that! I'll pay it myseff!" + +"I thought I'd wait one more day. He may have other manuscripts to +consider." + +"Mr. Chezter, that manuscrip' is not in a prize contess; 'tis only with +itseff! You di'n' say that?" + +"I--implied it--as gracefully as I could." + +"Ah! graze'--the h-only way to write those fellow, tha'z with the big +stick! 'Wire h-answer!'" + +Beloiseau lifted a finger: "I don' think thad way. Firz' place, big +stick or no, that hiztorie is sure to be accept'." + +M. De l'Isle let out a roar that seemed to tear the lining from his +throat: "Aw-w-w! tha'z not to compel the agceptanze; tha'z to scare +them from stealing it! And to privend that, there's another thing you +want to infer them: that you billong to the Louisiana Branch of the +Authors' Protegtive H-union! Ah, doubtlezz you don't--billong; but all +the same you can infer them!" + +Beloiseau's response crowded Chester's out: "Well, they are maybe +important, those stratagem'; but to me the chieve danger is if maybe +_that_ editor shou'n' have the sagacitie--artiztic--commercial--to +perceive the brilliancy of thad story." + +"Never mine! in any'ow two days we'll know. Scipion! The day avter +those two, tha'z a pewblic holiday--everything shut!" + +"Yes, well?" + +"If that news come, 'accepted,' all of us we'll be so please' that +we'll be compel to egsprezz that in a joy-ride! and even if 'rifused,' +we'll need that joy-ride to swallow the indignation." + +"Ah! but with whose mash-in', so it won't put uz in bankrup'cy?" + +"With two mash-in'--the two of Thorndyke-Smith! He's offer' to borrow +me those whiles he's going to be accrozz the lake. You'll drive the +large, me the small." + +"Hah! Tha'z a gran' scheme. At the en', dinner at Antoine', all the +men chipping in! Castanado--Dubroca--me--Mr. Chezter, eh?" + +"With the greatest pleasure if I'm included." + +"Include'--hoh! By the laws of nature!" M. De l'Isle went on up-stairs. + +"We had a dinner like that," Beloiseau said, "only withoud the joy-ride +and withoud those three Mlles. Chapdelaine, juz' a few week' biffo' we +make' yo' acquaintanze. That was to celebrade that great victory in +France and same time the news of savety of our four boys ad the front." + +Chester stood astounded. "What four boys?" + +"You di'n' know abboud those? Ah, well, tha'z maybe biccause we don' +speak of them biffo' those ladies Chapdelaine. An' still tha'z droll +you di'n' know that, but tha'z maybe biccause each one he's think +another he's tol' you, and biccause tha'z not a prettie cheerful +subjec', eh? Yes, they are two son' of Dubroca and Castanado, +soldier', and two of De l'Isle and me, aviateur'." + +"And up to a few weeks ago they were all well?" + +"Ah, not well--one wounded, one h'arm broke, one trench-fivver, but all +safe, laz' account." + +"Tell me more about them, Beloiseau. You know I don't easily ask +personal questions. Tell me all I'm welcome to know, will you?" + +"I want to do that--to tell you all; but"--M. Ducatel, next neighbor +above, was approaching--"better another time--ah, Rene, tha'z a pretty +warm evening, eh?" + + + + +XXXV + +For two days more the vast machinery of the United States mail swung +back and forth across the continent and the oceans beyond, and in +unnumbered cities and towns the letter-carriers came and went; but +nothing they brought into Bienville or Royal Street bore tidings from +that execrable editor in New York who in salaried ease sat "holding up" +the manuscript once the impressionable Dora's, now the gentle Aline's. +The holiday--"everything shut up"--had arrived. No carrier was abroad. +Neither reason given for the joy-ride held good. Yet the project was +well on foot. The smaller car was at the De l'Isles' lovely gates, +with monsieur in the chauffeur's seat, Mme. Alexandre at his side, and +Dubroca close behind her. The larger machine stood at the opposite +curb, with Beloiseau for driver, and Mme. Dubroca--a very small, trim, +well-coiffed woman with a dainty lorgnette--in the first seat behind +him. Castanado waited in the street door at the foot of his stair, +down which Mme. Castanado was coming the only way she could come. + +Her crossing of the sidewalk and her elevation first to the +running-board and then to a seat beside Mme. Dubroca took time and the +strength of both men, yet was achieved with a dignity hardly +appreciated by the street children, who covered their mouths, averted +their faces, and cheered as the two cars, the smaller leading, moved +off and turned from Royal Street into Conti on their way to pick up the +three Chapdelaines. + +For nearly two hundred years--ever since the city had had a +post-office--the post-office had been not too superior to remain in the +_vieux carré_. Now, like so many old Creole homes themselves, it was +"away up" in the American quarter--or "nine-tenth'"--at Lafayette +Square. On holidays any one anxious enough for his mail to go "away up +yondah" between nine and ten A.M., could have it for the asking. And +such a one was Chester. + +He had his reward. Twice and again he read the magazine's name on the +envelope as he bore it to the Camp Street front of the building, but +would not open the missive. That should be _her_ privilege and honor. +He lifted his eyes from it and behold, here came the two cars! But +where was she? Certainly not in the front one. There he made out, in +pairs, M. De l'Isle and Mme. Alexandre. Mlle. Yvonne and M. Dubroca, +M. Castanado, and Mme. De l'Isle. Then in the rear car his alarmed eye +picked out Beloiseau and Mlle. Corinne, with Cupid between them; Mmes. +Dubroca and Castanado, especially the latter; and then, oh, then! +Behind the smaller woman a vacant seat and behind the vaster one Aline +Chapdelaine. + +"You've heard?" cried M. De Elsie, slowing to the curb. Chester +fluttered his prize. "Click, clap!"--he was in without the stopping of +a wheel and had passed the letter to Aline. + +"Accepted?" asked several, while both cars resumed their speed up-town. + +"We'll open it in Audubon Park," she said to Chester, and Mme. +Castanado and Dubroca passed the word forward to Beloiseau and Mlle. +Corinne. These soon got it to Castanado and Mme. De l'Isle. + +"Not to be open' till Audubon Park," sped the word still forward till +Mlle. Yvonne and Dubroca had passed it to Mme. Alexandre and M. De +l'Isle. + +"Ahah!" he said, as he turned Lee Circle and went spinning up St. +Charles Avenue. "Not in the pewblic street, but in Audubon Park, and +to the singing of bird'!" + + + + +XXXVI + +Out near the riverside end of the park the two cars stopped abreast +under a vast live-oak, and Aline, rising, opened the letter and read +aloud: + + +MY DEAR MR. CHESTER: + +Your manuscript, "The Holy Cross," accompanied by your letter of +the -- inst., is received and will have our early attention. + +Very respectfully, + +THE EDITOR. + + +All other outcries ceased half-uttered when the Chapdelaine sisters +clapped hands for joy, crying: + +"Agcepted! Agcepted! Ah, Aline! by that kindnezz and sag-acitie of +Mr. Chezter--and all the rez' of our Royal Street frien'--you are +biccome the diz-ting-uish' and _lucrative_ authorezz, Mlle. +Chapdelaine!" + +M. De l'Isle's wrath was too hot for his tongue, but Scipion stood +waiting to speak, and Mme. Castanado beckoned attention and spoke his +name. + +"_Messieurs et mesdames_" he said, "that manuscrip' is no mo' agcept' +than rij-ect'. That stadement, tha'z only to rilease those insuranze +companie' and----" + +"And to stop us from telegraphing!" M. De l'Isle broke in, "and to +make us, ad the end, glad to get even a small price! Ah, +mesdemoiselles, you don't know those razcal' like me!" + +"Oh!" cried the tender Yvonne--original rescuer of Marie Madeleine from +boy lynchers--"you don't have charitie! That way you make _yo'seff_ +un'appie." + +"Me, I cann' think," her sister persevered, "that tha'z juz' for the +insuranse. The manuscrip' is receive'? Well! 'ow can you receive +something if you don't agcept it? And 'ow can you agcep' that if you +don' receive it? Ah-h-h!" + +"No," Beloiseau rejoined, "tha'z only to signify that the editorial +decision--tha'z not decide'." + +Mlle. Corinne lifted both hands to the entire jury: "Oh, frien', I +assure you, that manuscrip' is agcept'. And tha'z the proof; that both +Yvonne and me we've had a presentiment of that already sinze the +biggening! Ah-h-h!" + +Castanado intervened: "Mademoiselle, that lady yonder"--he gave his +wife a courtier's bow--"will tell you a differenze. Once on a time she +receive' a h-offer of marriage; but 'twas not till after many days thad +she agcept' it." [Applause.] "But ad the en', I su'pose tha'z for Mr. +Chezter, our legal counsel, to conclude." + +Mr. Chester "thought that although receipt did not imply acceptance the +tardiness of this letter did argue a probability that the manuscript +had successfully passed some sort of preliminary reading--or +readings--and now awaited only the verdict of the editor-in-chief." + +"Or," ventured Mme. Alexandre, "of that editorial board all together." + +M. De l'Isle shook his head and then a stiff finger: "I tell you! They +are sicretly inquiring Thorndyke-Smith--lit'ry magnet--to fine out if +we are truz'-worthy! And tha'z the miztake we did---not sen'ing the +photograph of Mlle. Aline ad the biggening. But tha'z not yet too +late; we can wire them from firz' drug-store, 'Suspen' judgment! +Portrait of authorezz coming!'" + +All eyes, even Cupid's, turned to her. She was shaking her head. +"No," she responded, with a smile as lovely, to Chester's fancy, as it +was final; as final, to the two aunts' conviction, as it was lovely. + +"No photograph would be convincing," Chester began to plead, but +stopped for the aunts. + +"Oh, impossible!" they cried. "That wou'n' be de-corouz!" + +"Ladies an' gentlemen," said M. Castanado, "we are on a joy-ride." + +"An' we 'ave reason!" his wife exclaimed. + +"Biccause hope!" Mme. Alexandre put in. + +"Yes!" said Dubroca. "That manuscrip' is not allone receive'; sinze +more than a week 'tis _rittain'_, whiles they dillib-rate; and the +chateau what dillib-rate'--you know, eh? M'sieu' De l'Isle, I move you +we go h-on." + +They went, the De l'Isle car and then Scipion's, back to St. Charles +Avenue, and turned again up-town. On the rearmost seat---- + +"Why so silent?" Aline inquired of Chester. + +"Because so content," he said, "except when I think of the book." + +"The half-book?" + +"Exactly. We've only half enough stories yet. + +"Though with the _vieux carré_ full of them?" + +"Oh! mostly so raw, so bald, so thin!" + +"Ah, I knew you would see that. As though human life and character +were--what would say?" + +"I'd say crustacean; their anatomy all on the surface. Such stories +are not life, life in the round; they're only paper silhouettes--of the +real life's poorest facts and moments. I state the thought poorly but +you get it, don't you?" + +The girl sparkled, not so much for the thought as for their fellowship +in it. "Once I heard mamma say to my aunts: 'So many of these _vieux +carré_ stories are but pretty pebbles--a quadroon and a duel, a +quadroon and a duel--always the same two peas in the baby's rattle.'" + +"There are better stories for a little deeper search," Chester said. + +"Ah, she said that too! 'And not,' she said, 'because the _vieux +carré_ is unlike, but so like the rest of the world.'" + +Thus they spoke, happily--even a bit recklessly--conscious that they +were themselves a beautiful story without the flash of a sword or the +cloud of a misdeed in range of their sight, and not because the _vieux +carré_ was unlike, but so like the rest of the world. + +"Where are we going?" Aline inquired, and tried to look forward around +Mme. Castanado. + +"You and I," Chester said, "are going back to your father's story. You +said, the other day, his life was quiet, richer within than without." + +"Yes. Ah, yes; so that while of the inside I cannot tell half, of the +outside there is almost nothing to tell." + +"All the same, tell it. Were not he and these Royal Street men boys +together?" + +"Yes, though with M. De l'Isle the oldest, and though papa was away +from them many years, over there in France. Yes, they were all his +friends, as their fathers had been of _grandpère_. And they'll all +tell you the same thing; that he was their hero, while at the same time +that his story is destitute of the theatrical. Just he himself, he and +mamma--they are the whole story." + +"A sea without a wave?" + +"Ah, no; yet without a storm. And, Mr. Chester, I think a sea without +a storm can be just as deep as with, h'm?" + + + + +XXXVII + +"Well, they married, your father and mother, over there where her +people are fighting the Germans right now, and came and lived in +Bourbon Street with your aunts, eh?" + +"Yes, or rather my aunts with them, they were of so much more strong +natures than my aunts--more strong and large while just as sweet, and +that's saying much, you know." + +"I see it is." + +"Mr. Chester, what you see, I think, is that my aunts are perhaps the +two most--well--unworldly women you ever knew." + +"True. In that quality they're childlike." + +"Yes, and because they are so childlike in--above all--the freedom of +their speech, what I want to say of them, just this one time, is the +more to their honor: that in my _whole_ life I've never heard them +speak one word against anybody." + +"Not even Cupid?" + +"Ah-h-h! that's a cruel joke, and false! That true Cupid, he's an +assassin; while that child, he's faultless?" + +The speaker really said "fauklezz," and it was a joy to Chester to hear +her at last fall unwittingly into a Creole accent. "Well, anyhow," he +led on, "the four lived together; and if I guess right your mother +became, to all this joy-ride company, as much their heroine as your +father was their hero." + +"'Tis true!" + +"But your father's coming back from France--it couldn't save the +business?" + +"Alas, no! Even together, he and mamma--and you know what a strong +businezz partner a French wife can be--they could not save it. Both of +them were, I think, more artist than merchant, and when all that kind +of businezz began to be divorce' from art and married to +machinery"--the narrator made a sad gesture. + +"_Kultur_ against culture, was it? and your father not the sort to +change masters." + +"True again. But tha'z not all; hardly was it half. One thing beside +was the miz-conduct of an agent, the man who lately"--a silent smile. + +"What?--sold your aunts that manuscript?" + +"Yes. But he didn' count the most. Oh, the whole businezz, except +papa's, became, as we say--give me the word!" + +"Americanized?" + +"No, papa he always refused to call it that. Mr. Chester, he used to +say that those two marvellouz blessings, machinery, democracy, they are +in one thing too much alike; they are, at first--say it, you." + +"Vulgarizing?" + +"Yes. I suppose that has to be--at the first, h'm? And with the +buying world every day more and more in love with machine work--and +seeming itself to become machine work, while at the same time +Americanized, papa was like a river town"--another gesture--"left by +the river!" + +"Yet he never went into bankruptcy? You can point with pride to that, +mademoiselle." + +"Ah, Mr. Chester, pride! Once I pointed, and papa--'My daughter, there +are many ways to go bankrupt worse than in money, and to have gone +bankrupt in none of them--' there he stopped; he was too noble for +pride. No, the businezz, juz' year after year it starved to death. In +the early days _grandpére_ had two big stores, back to back; +whole-sale, Chartres Street; retail, Royal, where now all that is left +of it is the shop of Mme. Alexandre. Both her husband and she were +with papa in the retail store, until it diminish' that he couldn' keep +them, and--in the time of President Roosevelt--some New York men they +bought him out. Because a new head of the custom-house, old Creole +friend of papa, without solicitation except maybe of M. Beloiseau and +those, appointed him superintendent of customs warehouses, you know? +where they keep all kind of imported goods, so they needn't pay the +tariff till they take them out to sell them in the store? h'm?" + +"Yes. And he kept that place--how long?" + +"Always, till he passed, he and mamma; mamma first, he two years avter. +Ad the last he said to me--we chanced to be talking in Englizh--'I've +lived the quiet life. If I must go I can go quietly.' + +"'And still,' I said, 'if your life had been as stormy as _grandpére's_ +you'd have been always for the right, and ad the last content, I think.' + +"'Yes,' he said, 'I believe I never ran away from a storm, while ad the +same time I never ran avter one.' And then he said something I wrote +down the same night in the fear I might sometime partly forget it." + +"Have you it with you, now, here?" She showed a bit of paper, holding +it low for him to read as she retained it: + + +On the side of the right all the storms of life--all the storms of the +world--are for the perfection of the quiet life--the active-quiet +life--to build it stronger, wider, finer, higher, than is possible for +the stormy life to be. Whether for each man or for the nations, the +stormy life is but the means; the active-quiet life, without decay of +character in man or nation but with growth forever--that is the end. + + +The pair exchanged a look. "Thank you," murmured Chester, and +presently added: "So you were left with your two aunts. Then what?" + +"I'll tell you. But"---the Creole accent faded out--"we must not +disappoint the De l'Isles, nor those others, we must----" + +"I see; we must notice where we're going and give and take our share of +the joy." + +"We mustn't be as if reading the morning paper, h'm? I think 'tis for +you they've come this way instead of going on those smooth shell-roads +between the city and the lake." + +The two cars had come up through old "Carrollton," where the +Mississippi, sweeping down from Nine-Mile Point, had been gnawing +inland for something like a century, in spite of all man's engineering +could pile against it, and now were out on the levee road and half +round the bend above. + +To press her policy, "See!" exclaimed Aline, as a light swell of the +ground brought to view a dazzling sweep of the river, close beyond the +levee's crown and almost on a level with the eye. They were in a +region of wide, highly kept sugar-plantations. Whatever charms belong +to the rural life of the Louisiana Delta were at their amplest on every +side. Groves of live-oak, pecan, magnolia, and orange about large +motherly dwellings of the Creole colonial type moved Aline to turn the +conversation upon country life in Chester's State, and constrain him to +tell of his own past and kindred. So time and the river's great +windings slipped by with the De l'Isles undisappointed, and early in +the afternoon the company lunched in the two cars, under a homestead +grove. Its master and mistress, old friends of all but Chester, came +running, followed by maids with gifts of milk and honey. They climbed +in among the company; shared, lightly, their bread and wine; heard with +momentary interest the latest news of the great war; spoke English and +French in alternating clauses; inquired after the coterie's four young +heroes at the French front, but only by stealth and out of Aline's +hearing; and cried to Cupid, "'Ello, 'Ector! _comment ça va-t-il_? +And 'ow she is, yonder at 'ome, that Marie Madeleine?" + +Cupid smiled to his ears, but it was the absentee's two mistresses who +answered for her, volubly, tenderly: "We was going to bring her, but +juz' at the lazt she discide' she di'n' want to come. You know, tha'z +beautiful, sometime', her capriciouznezz!" + +Indoors, outdoors, the visitors spent an hour seeing the place and +hearing its history all the way back to early colonial days. Then, in +the two cars once more, with seats much changed about, yet with Aline +and Chester still paired, though at the rear of the forward car, they +glided cityward. At Carrollton they turned toward the New Canal, and +at West End took the lake shore eastward--but what matter their way? +Joy was with ten of them, and bliss with two--three, counting +Cupid--and it was only by dutiful effort that the blissful ones kept +themselves aware of the world about them while Aline's story ran gently +on. It had run for some time when a query from Chester evoked the +reply: + +"No, 'twas easier to bear, I think, because I had _not_ more time and +less work." + +"What was your work, mademoiselle? what is it now? Incidentally you +keep books, but mainly you do--what?" + +"Mainly--I'll tell you. Papa, you know, he was, like _grandpère_, a +true connoisseur of all those things that belong to the arts of +beautiful living. Like _grandpère_ he had that perception by three +ways--occupation, education, talent. And he had it so abboundingly +because he had also _the art_--of that beautiful life, h'm?" + +"The art beyond the arts," suggested the listener; "their underlying +philosophy." + +The narrator glowed. Then, grave again, she said: "Mr. Chezter, I'll +tell you something. To you 'twill seem very small, but to me 'tis +large. It muz' have been because of both together, those arts and that +art, that, although papa he was always of a strong enthusiasm and +strong indignation, yet never in my life did I hear him--egcept in +play--speak an exaggeration. 'Sieur Beloiseau he will tell you +that--while ad the same time papa he never rebuke' that in anybody +else--egcept, of course--his daughter." + +"But I ask about you, your work." + +"Ah! and I'm telling you. Mamma she had the same connoisseur talent as +papa, and even amongs' that people where she was raise', and under the +shadow, as you would say, of that convent so famouz for all those +weavings, laces, tapestries, embro'deries, she was thought to be +wonderful with the needle." + +Chester interrupted elatedly: "I see what you're coming to. You, +yourself, were born needle in hand--the embroidery-needle." + +"Well, ad the least I can't rimember when I learned it. 'Twas always +as if I couldn' live without it. But it was not the needle alone, nor +embro'deries alone, nor alone the critical eye. Papa he had, pardly +from _grand-père_, pardly brought from France, a separate librarie +abbout all those arts, and I think before I was five years I knew every +picture in those books, and before ten every page. And always papa and +mamma they were teaching me from those books--they couldn' he'p it! I +was very naughty aboud that. I would bring them the books and if they +didn' teach me I would weep. I think I wasn' ever so naughty aboud +anything else. But in the en', with the businezz always diclining, +that turn' out fortunate. By and by mamma she persuade' papa to let +her take a part in the pursuanze of the businezz. But she did that all +out of sight of the public----" + +"Had you never a brother or sister?" + +"Yes, long ago. We'll not speak of that. A sizter, two brothers; +but--scarlet-fever----" + +The story did not pause, yet while it pressed on, its hearers musing +lingered behind. Why were the long lost ones not to be spoken of? For +fear of betraying some blame of the childlike aunts for the +scarlet-fever? The unworthy thought was put aside and the hearer's +attention readjusted. + +"Even mamma," the girl was saying, "she didn' escape that contagion, +and by reason of that she was compelled to let papa put me in her place +in the businezz; and after getting well she never was the same and I +rittained the place till a year avter, when she pas' away, and I have +it yet." + +"And who filled M. Alexandre's place?" + +"Oh, that? Tis fil' partly by Mme. Alexandre and partly by that +diminishing of the businezz--till the largez' part of it is +ripairing--of old laces, embro'deries, and so forth. Madame's shop is +the chief place in the city for that. Of that we have all we can do. +'Tis a beautiful work. + +"So tha'z all I have to tell, Mr. Chezter; and I've enjoyed to tell you +that so you can see why we are so content and happy, my aunts and +I--and Hector--and Marie Madeleine. H'm?" + +"That's all you have to tell?" + +"That is all." + +"But not all there is to tell, even of the past, mademoiselle." + +"Ah! and why not?" + +"Oh, impossible!" Chester softly laughed and had almost repeated the +word when the girl blushed; whereupon he did the same. For he seemed +all at once to have spoiled the whole heavenly day, until she smilingly +restored it by saying: + +"Oh, yes! One thing I was forgetting. Just for the laugh I'll tell +you that. You know, even in a life as quiet as mine, sometimes many +things happening together, or even a few, will make you see bats +instead of birds, eh?" + +"I know, and mistake feelings for facts. I've done it often, in a +moderate way." + +"Yes? Me the same. But very badly, so that the sky seemed falling in, +only once." + +Chester thought that if the two aunts, just then telling the biography +of their dolls, were his, his sky would have fallen in at least weekly. +"Tell me of that once," he said, and, knowing not why, called to mind +those four soldiers in France, to her, for some reason, unmentionable. + +"Well, first I'll say that the archbishop he had been the true friend +of papa, but now this time, this 'once' when my sky seemed falling, +both mamma and papa they were already gone. I don't need to tell you +what the trouble was about, because it never happened; it only +threatened to happen. So when I saw there was only me to prevent it +and to----" + +"To hold the sky up?" + +"Yes, seeing that, it seemed to me the best friend to go to was the +archbishop. + +"'Well, my old and dear friend's daughter,' he said, 'what is it?' + +"'Most reverend father in God, 'tis my wish to become a nun.' + +"'My child, that is a beautiful sentiment.' + +"'But 'tis more; even more than my wish; 'tis my resolution. I must do +that. 'Tis as if I heard that call from heaven to me, Aline +Chapdelaine!' + +"'Ah, but that's not only your name. Your mamma, up yonder, she's also +Aline Chapdelaine.' + +"'Yes, but I know that call is to me. Ah, your Grace, surely, surely, +you will not forbid me?' + +"'No, my daughter. Yet at the same time that is not a thing to be done +suddenly, or in desperation. I'll appoint you a season for reflection +and prayer, and after that if your resolution remains the same you +shall become a nun.' + +"'But, for the sake of others, will not that season be made short?' + +"'For your own sake, my daughter, as well as for others, I'll make it +the shortest possible. Let me see; I was going to say forty but I'll +make it only thirty-nine.' + +"'Ah, your Grace, but in thirty-nine days----' + +"He stopped me: 'Not days, my child; years.' What he said after, 'tis +no matter now; pretty soon I was kneeling and receiving his +benediction." + +"And the sky didn't fall?" + +"No, but--I can't explain to you--'twas that very visit prevent' it +falling." + + + + +XXXVIII + +It was in keeping with the coterie's spiritual make-up that they should +know a restaurant in the _vieux carré_, which "that pewblic" knew not, +and whose best merits were not music and fresco, but serenity, +hospitality, and cuisine---a haven not yet "Ammericanize'." + +Where it was they never told a philistine. The elect they informed +under the voice, as one might betray a bird's nest. It was but a step +from the crumbling Hotel St. Louis, and but another or so from the +spires of St. Louis Cathedral. + +In it, at a round table, the joy-riders had passed the evening of their +holiday. As the cathedral clock struck nine they rose to part. At the +board Chester had sat next the same joy-mate allowed him all day in the +car. But with how reduced a share of her attention! Half of his own +he had had to give, at his other elbow, to her aunt Yvonne; half of +Aline's had gone to Dubroca. The other half into half of his was but +half a half and that had to be halved by a quarter coming from the two +nearest across the table, one of whom was Mlle. Corinne, whose queries +always required thought. + +"Mr. Chezter," she said, when the purchase of an evening paper had made +the great over-seas strife the general theme, "can you egsplain me why +they don' stop that war, when 'tis calculate' to projuce so much hard +feeling?" + +Explaining as best he could without previous research, Chester had +turned again to Mlle. Yvonne to let her finish telling--inspire'd by an +incoming course of the menu--of those happy childhood days when she and +her sister and the unfortunate gentleman from whom they had bought +Aline's manuscript went crayfishing in Elysian Fields street canal, +always taking the dolls along, "so not to leave them lonesome"; how the +dolls had visibly enjoyed the capture of each crayfish; and how she and +Corinne and the dolls would delight in the same sport to-day, but, +alas! "that can-al was fil' op! and tha'z another thing calculate' to +projuce hard feeling." + +Through such riddles and reminiscences and his replies thereto +persistently ran Chester's uneasy question to himself: Why had Aline +told him that story of unnamable trouble which had goaded her to seek +the cloister? Why if not to warn him away from a sentiment which was +growing in him like a balloon and straining his heart-strings to hold +it to its proper moorings? + +Now the two cars let out their passengers at the De l'Isle gates and at +the door of the Castanados. Madame of the latter name, with her spouse +heaving under one arm and Chester under the other, while Mme. Alexandre +pushed behind, was lifted to her parlor. Returning to the street, +Chester found the motors gone, MM. De l'Isle and Beloiseau gone with +them, and only the two Dubrocas, the three Chapdelaines, and Cupid +awaiting him. + +And now, with Cupid leading, and sleeping as he led, and with a Dubroca +beside each aunt, and Aline and Chester following, this remnant of the +company approached the Conti Street corner, on the way to the +Chapdelaine home. At the turn---- + +"Mademoiselle," Chester asked in a desperation too much like hers +before the arch-bishop, "do you notice that, as the old hymn says, we +are treading where the saints have trod? _Your_ saints?" + +"My--ah, yes, 'tis true. 'Tis here _grand'mère_---- + +"Turned that corner in her life where your _grandpère_ first saw her. +Al'--Aline." + +"Mr. Chester?" + +"I want this corner, from the day I first saw you turn it, to be all +that to you and me. Shall it not?" + +She said nothing. Priceless moments glided by, each a dancing ghost. +Just there ahead in the dark was Bourbon Street, and a short way down +among its huddled shadows were her board fence and batten gate. It was +senseless to have taken this chance on so poor a margin of time, but +what's done's done! "Oh, Aline Chapdelaine, say it shall be! Say it, +Aline, say it!" + +"Mr. Chester, it is impossible! Impossible!" + +"It is not! It's the only right thing! It shall be, Aline, it shall +be!" + +"No, Mr. Chester, 'tis impossible. You must not ask me why, but 'tis +impossible!" + +"It isn't! Aline, and I ask no why. I see the trouble. It's your +aunts. Why, I'll take them with you, _of course_! I'll take them into +my care and love as you have them in yours, and keep them there while +they and I live. I can do it, I've got the wherewithal! Things have +happened to me fast since I first saw you turn that corner behind us. +I've inherited property, and only yesterday I was taken into one of the +best law firms in the city. I'll prove all that to you and your aunts +to-morrow. Aline, unspeakable treasure, you shall not live the +buried-alive life in which you are trying to believe yourself rightly +placed and happy, my saint! My--adored--_saint_!" + +"Yes, I must. What you ask is impossible." + + + + +XXXIX + +Long after midnight Chester had not returned to his room. He could not +tolerate the confinement even of the narrow streets round about it. + +Far out Esplanade Avenue, uncompanioned, he was walking mile after mile +beside a belt line of trolley-cars, or more than one, while at home, in +Bourbon Street, Cupid slept. + +But now the child awoke, startled. Four small feet were on one of his +arms, and Marie Madeleine was purring, at the top of her purr, in his +ear. Drowsily he crowded her away. Purring on, she slowly walked +across his stomach and dropped to the floor. But soon she leaped up +again to that sensitive region and purred into his nose, not at all as +if to claim attention, but as though lost in thought. When he pushed +her aside she dropped again to the floor, with such a quadruple thump +that he looked after her, and as she loitered across his view with tail +as straight up as Cleopatra's Needle, he observed just beyond her a +condition of affairs that appalled him. + +Cold from his small fingers and toes to his ample heart, he rose, stole +into the next room, and stood by the bed where lay Mlles. Corinne and +Yvonne as they had lain every night since their earliest childhood. + +"Ah! oh! h'nn!" Mlle. Corinne sprang to an elbow, nervously +whispering: "What is it?" + +"My back do'," he murmured, "stan'in' opem." + +"Oh, little boy, no, it cannot be! I bolt' it laz' evening when you +was praying. You know?" + +"Yass'm, but it opem now; Marie Madeleine dess gone out thu it." + +Mlle. Yvonne sprang up dishevelled beside her dishevelled sister: "_Mon +dieu_! where is Aline?" + +Colder than ever in hands and feet, the wee grandson of the intrepid +Sidney responded: "Stay still tell I go see." + +"Yes!" whispered Mlle. Corinne, slipping to the floor and tenderly +pushing him, "go! safest for everybody! And if you see a burglar _don' +threaten him_!" + +"No'm, I won't." + +"No, but juz' run quick out the back door and fron' gate and holla +'fire'! Go!" + +At the crack of the door she listened after him while her sister +crowded close, whispering: "Ah, _pauvre_ Aline, always wise! Like us, +silent! And tha'z after all the bravezt!" + +In a moment Cupid was back, less frozen yet trembling: "She am' dah. +Seem' like 'tis her leave de do' opem." + +"Her clothes--they are gone?" + +"No'm, all dah 'cep' de cloak she tuck on de machine. Reckon she out +in de honey-sucker bower whah _dey_ sot together Sunday evenin'. +Reckon Marie Madeleine gone dah. I'll go see." + +"Ah, fearlezz boy, yes! Make quick!" + +This time both women pushed, single file, all the way to the garden +door. There they strained their sight down the path, beyond him, but +the bower was quite dark. "Corinne, _chére_, ought not one of us to +go, yo'seff?--to spare her feelings--from that li'l' negro? You don' +think one of us ought to go, yo'seff?" + +"No, to sen' him, that is to spare those feel'--listen! . . . Ah, +Yvonne, _grâce au ciel_, she's there!" + +They frankly wept. "Thangg the good God!" + +"Yvonne, _chère_, you know, we are the cause of this. 'Tis biccause +juz'--you and me. And she's gone yonder juz' for one thing; to be as +far from her _misérie_ as she can." + +"Yes, _chère_, I billieve that. I think even, she muz' not see us when +she's riturning." No footfall sounded, but the cat came in, tail up, +purring. Back in their chamber, with wet cheeks on its unlatched door, +the sisters listened. + +"I know what we muz' do, Yvonne, as soon as to-morrow. Tha'z strange I +never saw that biffo'!" + +Cupid came and was let in. "She was al-lone, of co'se?" the pair asked +from the edge of their bed. + +"Oh, yass'm, o' co'se; in a manneh, yass'm." + +"_Mon dieu_! li'l boy. In a manner? But how in a manner? Al-lone is +al-lone! What she was doing?" + +"Is I got to tell dat?" + +"Ah, '_tit garçon_! Have you not got to tell it?" + +"Well, she 'uz--she 'uz prayin'." + +"And tha'z the manner she was not al-lone?" + +"Yas'm, dass all." The little fellow dropped to his knees, clutched a +knee of either questioner, and wept and sobbed. + + + + +XL + +M. Beloiseau reached across his workbench and hung up his hammer and +tongs. The varied notes of two or three remote steam-whistles told him +that the hour, of the day after the holiday, was five. + +He glanced behind him, through his shop to the street door, where some +one paused awaiting his welcome. He thought of Chester but it was +Landry, with an old broad book under his elbow. + +"Ah, come in, Ovide." + +As he laid aside his apron he handed the visitor the piece of metal he +had been making beautiful, and waved him to the drawing whose lines it +was taking. + +"But those whistles," the bookman said, "they stop the handworkman too." + +"Yes. In the days of my father, the days of handwork, they meant only +steamboat', coming, going; but now swarm' of men and women, boys, and +girl', coming, going, living by machinery the machine-made life." + +"'Sieur Beloiseau," Landry good-naturedly, said, "you're too just to +condemn a gift of the good God for the misuse men make of it." + +Scipion glared and smiled at the same time: "Then let that gift of the +good God be not so hideouzly misuse'." + +But Ovide amiably persisted: "Without machinery--plenty of it--I should +not have this book for you, nor I, nor you, ever have been born." + +Chester, entering, found Beloiseau looking eagerly into the volume. +"All the same, Landry," the newcomer said, "you're no more a machine +product than Mr. Beloiseau himself." + +The bookman smiled his thanks while he followed the craftsman's +scrutiny of the pages. "'Tis what you want?" he asked, and Chester saw +that it was full of designs of ironwork, French and Spanish. + +Scipion beamed: "Ah, you've foun' me that at the lazt, and just when +I'm wanting it furiouzly." + +"Mr. Beloiseau," said Chester, "has a beautiful commission from the new +Pan-American Steamship Company." + +"Thanks to Mr. Chezter," said Beloiseau, "who got me the job. Hence +for this book spot cash." He turned aside to a locked closet and +drawer. + +"You had a pleasant holiday yesterday," said Landry to Chester. + +"Who told you?" + +"Mesdemoiselles, the two sisters Chapdelaine. I chanced to meet them +just now at the house of the archbishop, on the steps, they coming out, +I going in. I had a book also for him." + +"Why! What's taking them to the archbishop?" Chester put away a +frown: "Did they reflect the pleasure of the holiday?" + +"Mr. Chester, no." There was an exchange of gazes, but Scipion +returned, counting and tendering the price of the book. + +"Well, good evening," Landry said, willing to linger; but "good +evening," said both the others. + +Chester turned: "Beloiseau, I want to talk with you. Go, give yourself +a dip, brush some of that hair, and we'll dine alone in some place away +from things." + +"A dip, hah! Always I scrub me any'ow till I come to the skin. Also +I'll put a clean shirt. You can wait? I'll leave you this book." + +Chester waited. When presently, with Scipion still picturesque though +clean-shirted, they left the shop together, he gave the book a word of +praise that set its owner off on the history of his craft. "But +hammered into a matrix"--he drew his watch and halted: "Spanish Fort, +juzt too late; half-hour till negs train; I'll show you an example, my +father's work." They turned back. + +Thus they lost a second train, and dined in the same snug nook as on +the day before with Aline and the rest. At twilight they took seats in +Jackson Square on a cast-iron bench "hardly worthy of the place," as +Chester suggested. + +And Scipion flashed back: "Or, my dear sir, of any worthy place! But +you was asking me----" + +"About those four boys over in France, one of them yours." + +"Biccause sinze all day yesterday----?" + +"That's it. I can't help thinking that mademoiselle is somehow the +cause of their going." + +"Ah, of three she is, but of my son, no. My son he was already there +when that war commence', and the cause of that was a very simple and +or-_din_-ary in him, but not in the story of my father. I would like +to tell you ab-out that biccause tha'z also ab-out that house where we +was juz' seeing all that open-work on those balconie', and biccause so +interested, you, in old building', you are bound to hear ab-out that +some day and probably hear it wrong." + +"Let's have it now; she told me yesterday to ask you for it." + + + + +XLI + +THE LOST FORTUNE + +"Mighty solid," the ironworker said, "that old house, so square and +high. They are no Creole brick it is make with, that old house." + +Chester began to speak approvingly of the wide balconies running +unbrokenly around its four sides at both upper stories, but Beloiseau +shook his head: "They don't billong to the firz' building of that +house, else they _might_ have been Spanish, like here on the Cabildo +and that old _Café Veau-qui-tête_. They would not be cast iron and of +that complicate' disign, hah! But they are not even a French cast +iron, like those and those"--he waved right and left to the wide +balconies of the Pontalba buildings flanking the square with such +graceful dignity. "Oh, they make that old house look pretty good, +those balconie', but tha'z a pity they were not wrought iron, biccause +M. Lefevre--he was rich--sugar-planter--could have what he choose, and +she was a very fashionable, his ladie. They tell some strange stories +ab-out them and that 'ouse; cruelty to slave', intrigue with slave', +duel' ab-out slave'. Maybe tha'z biccause those iron bar' up and down +in sidewalk window', old Spanish fashion; maybe biccause in confusion +with that Haunted House in Royal Street, they are so allike, those two +house'. But they are cock-an'-bull, those tale'. Wha's true they +don't tell, biccause they don' know, and tha'z what I'm telling you ad +the present. + +"When my father he was yet a boy, fo'teen, fiv'teen, those Lefevre' +they rent' to the _grand-mère_ of both Castanado and Dubroca, turn +ab-out, a li'l' slave girl so near white you coul'n' see she's black! +You coul'n' even _suspec_' that, only seeing she's rent', that way, and +knowing that once in a while, those time, that whitenezz coul'n' be +av-void'. Myseff, me, I've seen a man, ex-slave, so white you woul'n' +think till they tell you; but then you'd see it--black! But that li'l' +girl of seven year', nobody coul'n' see that even avter told. Some +people said: 'Tha'z biccause she's so young; when she's grow' up you'll +see. And some say, 'When she get chil'ren they'll show it, those +chil'ren--an' some be even dark!' + +"Any'ow some said she's child of monsieur, and madame want to keep her +out of sight that beneficent way. They would bet you any money if you +go on his plantation you find her slave mother by the likenezz. She +di'n' look like him but they insist' that also come later. Any'ow +she's rent' half-an'-half by those _grand-mère_' of Castanado and +Dubroca, at the firzt just to call 'shop'! at back door when a cuztomer +come in, and when growing older to make herseff many other way' uzeful. +And by consequence she was oft-en playmate with the chil'ren of all +that coterie there in Royal Street. Excep' my father; he was fo'teen +year' to her seven." + +"Was she a handsome child?" Chester ventured. + +"I think no. But in growing up she bic-came"--the craftsman handed out +a pocket flash-light and an old _carte-de-visite_ photograph of a +black-haired, black-eyed girl of twenty or possibly twenty-three years. +"You shall tell me," he said: + +"And you'll trust me, my sincerity?" + +"Sir! if I di'n' truzt you, _ab-so-lutely_, you shoul'n' touch that +with a finger." + +"Well, then, I say yes, she's handsome, trusting you not to gild my +plain words with your imagination. She's handsome, but in a way easily +overlooked; a way altogether apart from the charms of color and +texture, I judge, or of any play of feeling; not floral, not startling, +not exquisite; but _statuesque_, almost heavily so, and replete with +the virtues of character." + +"Well," said Beloiseau, putting away the picture, "sixteen year' she +rimain' rent' to mesdames that way, and come to look lag that. And all +of our parent'--gran'parent'--living that simple life like you see us, +their descendant', now, she biccame like one of those +familie'--Dubroca--Castanado--or of that coterie entire. + +"So after while they want' to buy her, to put her free. But Mme. +Lefevre she rif-use' any price. She say, 'If Fortune'--that was her +name--'would be satisfi' to marry a nize black man like Ovide, who +would buy his friddom--ah, yes! But no! If I make her free without, +she'll right off want to be marrie' to a white man. Tha'z the only +arrengement she'll make with him; she's too piouz for any other +arrengement, while same time me I'm too piouz to let her _marry_ a +white man; my faith, that would be a crime! And also she coul'n' never +be 'appy that way; she's too good and high-mind' to be marrie' to any +white man wha'z willin' to marry a nigger.' + +"So, then, it come to be said in all those card-club' that my father +he's try to buy Fortune so to marry her. An' by that he had a quarrel +with one of those young Lefevre', who said pretty much like his mother, +only in another manner, pretty insulting. And, same old story, they +fought, like we say, 'under those oak,' Métairie Ridge, with sharpen' +foil'. And my father he got a bad wound. And he had to be nurse' long +time, and biccause all those shop' got to be keep she nurse' him more +than everybody elze. + +"Well, human nature she's strong. So, when he get well he say, 'Papa, +I can' stay any mo' in rue Royale, neither in that _vieux carré_, +neither in that Louisiana.' And my grandpère and all that coterie they +say: 'To go at Connect-icut, or Kanzaz, or Californie, tha'z no +ril-ief; you muz' go at France and Spain, wherever 'tis good to study +the iron-work, whiles we are hoping there will be a renaissance in that +art and that businezz; and same time only the good God know' what he +can cause to happen to lead a child of the faith out of trouble and +sorrow.' + +"So my father he went, and by reason of that he di'n' have to settle +that queztion of honor what diztress all the balance of the coterie; +whether to be on the side of Louisiana, or the Union. He di'n' run +away to ezcape that war; he di'n' know 'twas going to be, and he came +back in the mi'l' of it, whiles the city was in the han' of that Union +army. Also what cause him to rit-urn was not that war. 'Twas one of +those thing' what pro-juce' that saying that the truth 'tis mo' +stranger than figtion. + +"Mr. Chezter, 'twas a wonderful! And what make it the mo' wonderful, +my father he wasn' hunting for that, neither hadn' ever dream' of it. +He was biccome very much a wanderer. One day he juz' chance' to be in +a village in Alsace, and there he saw some chil'ren, playing in the +street. And he was very thirzty, from long time walking, and he +request' them a drink of water. And a li'l' girl fetch' him a drink. +But she was modess and di'n' look in his face till he was biggening to +drink. Then she look' up--she had only about seven year', and my +father he look' down, and he juz' drop that cup by his feet that it +broke--the handle. And when she cry, and he talk' with her and say +don' cry, he can make a cem-ent juz' at her own house to mend that to a +perfegtion, he was astonizh' at her voice as much as her face. And +when he ask her name and she tell him, her firz' name, and say tha'z +the name of her _grand'-mère_, he's am-aze'! But when he see her +mother meeting them he's not surprise', he's juz' lightning-struck. + +"Same time he try to hide that, and whiles he's mixing that cem-ent and +sticking that handle he look' two-three time' into the front of the +hair of that li'l' girl, till the mother she get agitate', and she +h-ask him: 'What you're looking? Who told you to look for something +there? _Ma foi_! you're looking for the _pompon gris_ of my mother +and grandmother! You'll not fine it there. Tha'z biccause she's so +young; when she's grow' up you'll see; but'--she part' as-ide her own +hair in front and he see', my father, under the black a li'l' patch of +gray, and he juz' say, '_Mon dieu_!' while she egsclaim'-- + +"'If you know anybody's got that _pompon_ in Louisiana, age of me, or +elze, if older, the sizter of my mother, she's lost yonder sinze mo' +than twen'y-five year'. My anceztor' they are _name_' Pompon for that +li'l' gray spot.' + +"Well, then they--and her 'usband, coming in--they make great frien'. +My father he show' them thiz picture, and when he tell them the +origin-al of that also is name' Fortune, like that child an' her +mother, and been from in-fancy a slave, they had to cry, all of them +together. And then they tell my father all ab-out those two sizter', +how they get marrie' in that village with two young men, cousin' to +each other, and how one pair, a year avter, emigrate' to Louisiana with +li'l' baby name' Fortune, and--once mo' that old story--they are bound +to the captain of the ship for the prise of the passage till somebody +in Ammerica rid-eem them and they are bound to him to work that out. +And coming accrozz, the father--ship-fever--die', and arriving, the +passage is pay by the devil know' who'. + +"Then my father he tell them that chile muz' be orpheline at two-three +year', biccause while seeming so white she never think she wasn' black. + +"And so my father, coming ad that village the moz' unhappy in the +worl', he went away negs day the moz' happy. And he took with him some +photo' showing that mother and chile with the mother's hair comb' to +egspose that _pompon gris_; and also he took copy from those record' of +babtism of the babtism of that li'l' Fortune, _émigré_. + +"Same time, here at home, _our_ Fortune she was so sick with something +the doctor he coul'n' make out the nature, and she coul'n' eat till +they're af-raid she'll die. And one day the doctor bring her father +confessor, there where she's in bed, and break that gently that my +father he's come home, and then that he's bring with him the perfec' +proof that she's as white as she look'. Well, negs day she's out of +bed; secon' she's dress--and laughing!--and eating! And every day my +father he's paying his intention', and Mme. Lefevre she's rij-oice, +biccause that riproach is pass' from monsieur her 'usband and pritty +quick they are marrie', and tha'z my mother." + + +After a reverent silence Chester spoke: "And lived long and happily +together?" + +"Yes, a long, beautiful life. Maybe that life woul'n' be of a +diztinction sufficient to you, but to them, yes. They are gone but +since lately." + +"And that Lefevre house?" + +"Ah, you know! Full of Italian'--ten-twelve familie', with washing on +street veranda eight day ev'ry week. _Pauvre vieux carré_!" + + + + +XLII + +MÉLANIE + +"I suppose," Chester said, breaking another silence, "you and that +mother, and your father, have sat in the flowery sunshine of this old +plaza together----" + +"A thousan' time'," the ironworker replied, mused a bit, and added: "My +frien', you are a so patient listener as I never see. Biccause I know +you are all that time waiting for a differen' story. And now--I shall +tell you that?" + +"Yes, however it hits me I've got to know it." + +"Well, after that, a year and half, I am born. I grow up. I 'ave +brother' and sizter'. We all get marrie', and they, they are scatter' +over the face of Louisiana. But me, I'm the oldest and my father take +great trouble in educating me to sugceed him in his businezz, and so I +did, like you see. And the same with Dubroca and with Castanado--Ducatel +he's different he's come into that antique businezz by his mizfortune and +he's--oh, he's all right only he's not of the same inspiration to be of +that li'l' clique. He's up-town Creole and with the up-town Creole mind. +And those De l'Isle' they also got a son, and Mme. Alexandre she have a +very amiable daughter; and, laz', not leazt, you know, those +Chapdelaine'----" + +"I certainly do," Chester murmured. + +"Yes, assuredlie," said Beloiseau. "Well, now: In those generation' +befo' there was in Royal Street--and Bourbon--and Dauphine--bisside' +crozz-street'--so many of our--I ignore the Englizh word for that--our +_affinité_, that our whole market of mat-_rim_-ony was not juz' in one +square of Royal; but presently, it break out like an épidémique, ammongs' +our chil'ren, to marry juz' accrozz and accrozz the street; a Beloiseau +to a Castanado, a Castanado to a Dubroca, and so forth--even fifth!" The +speaker smiled benignly. "Hah! many year' they work' my geniuz hard to +make iron candlestick'--orig-in-al diz-ign--for wedding-present'. The +moze of them, they marrie' without any romanze, egcep' what cann' be +av-oid', inside the heart, when both partie' are young, and in love +together, and not rich neither deztitute. But year biffo' laz' we have +the romanze of that daughter of Mme. Alexandre and son of De l'Isle and +son of Dubroca." + +"Is that Mélanie, whom you all mention so often but whom I've never seen?" + +"Yes. Reason you don't see her---- But I'll tell you that. Mr. +Chezter, that would make a beautyful story to go with those other' in +that book of Mlle. Aline--but of co'se by changing those name', and by +preten'ing that happen' at Hong Kong, or Chicago, or Bogota. Presently +'tis too short, but you can easy mazk and coztume that in a splendid +rhétorique till it's plenty long enough." + +"H'mm!" said Chester, wondering at the artisan's artlessness off his +beaten track. "Go on." + +"Well, she's not beautyful, Mélanie; same time she's not bad-looking and +she's kindess of the kind, and whoever she love'--her mother, for +example--and Mlle. Aline--tha'z pretty touching, to see with what an +inten-_city_ she love'. + +"Now, what I tell you, tha'z a very sicret bitwin you and me. Biccause +even those Dubroca', _père_ and _mère_, and those De l'Isle', _père_ and +_mère_, they do' know _all_ that; and me I know that only from Castanado, +who know' it only from his wife; biccause she, she know' it only from +Mlle. Aline, and none of them know that I know egcep' those Castanado'. + +"Well! sinze chilehood those three--Mélanie, De l'Isle, Dubroca,--they +are playmate' together, and Dubroca he's always call' Mélanie his +swit-heart. But De l'Isle, no. Always biffo', those De l'Isle they are +of the, eh, the _beau monde_ and though li'l' by li'l' losing their +fortune, keeping their frien', some of them rich, yet still ad the same +time nize people. And that young De l'Isle he's a good-looking, +well-behave', ambitiouz, and got--what you call--dash! + +"That was the condition when they are all graduate' from school and go +each into his o'cupation, or hers, up to the eyebrow'. Mélanie and Mlle. +Aline they work' with Mme. Alexandre, though not precizely together, +biccause Mélanie she show' only an ability to keep those account' and to +assist keeping shop, whiles Mlle. Aline she rimain' always up-stair' +employing that great talent tha'z too valu'ble to be interrupt'." + +"Doesn't she keep the books now?" + +"Yes, but tha'z only to assist Mélanie whiles Mélanie she's, eh, away. +Dubroca he go' into businezz with his father, likewise Castanado with his +father, but De l'Isle he's made a secretary in City-hall. So he have mo' +time than those other' and he go' oft-en into society, and he get those +manner' and cuztom' of society. And then that young Dubroca biggen very +plain to pay his intention' to Mélanie, and we are all pretty glad to +notiz that, biccause whiles he don't got that dash of De l'Isle, he's +modess, yet still brave to a perfegtion; and he's square and got plenty +sense, and he's steady and he's kind. Every way they are suit' to each +other and we think--if that poor old rue Royale _con_-tinue to run down, +that will even be good to join those two businezz' together. And +bisside', sinze a li'l' shaver Dubroca he ain't never love nobody else, +only Mélanie. + +"But also De l'Isle, like Dubroca, he was always pretty glad of every +egscuse to drop in there at Mme. Alexandre and pass word with Mélanie. +'Twas easy to see 'tis to Mlle. Aline he's in love and he come talk to +Mélanie biccause tha'z the nearess he can reach to Mlle. Aline egcep' +juz' saying good-day whiles passing on street or at church door. Oh, he +behave the perfec' gen'leman, and still tha'z one reason she get that +li'l' 'Ector. Yes, we all see that, only Mélanie she don't. So Mlle. +Aline she ezcape' him all she could, but, with that dash he's got, he +persevere' to hang on. And tha'z the miztake they both did, him and +Mélanie, in doing that American way, keeping that to themselve' instead +of--French way--telling their parent'. + +"Then another thing tranzpire'. My son and that son of Castanado bigin, +both--but that come' mo' later. Any'ow one day Mélanie she bring Mlle. +Aline a note from De l'Isle sol-iciting if she and Mélanie will go at +matinée with him and Dubroca. And when mademoiselle bigin to make +egscuse' Mélanie implore' her to go, biccause Mme. Alexandre say no +Creole girl cann' go juz' with one man, or even with two. 'And mamma +she's right,' Mélanie say--with tear',--'even in that Am'erican way they +got a limit, and same time I'm perishing to go!' + +"And when mademoiselle hear' what that play is ab-out she consent' at the +lazt to go. Biccause tha'z ab-out a girl what billieve' a man's in love +to her, biccause he pay her those li'l' galanterie of high life--li'l' +pol-ite figtion'--what every man---unless he's marrie'--egspect to pay to +every girl, to make thing' pleasant, you know? + +"And that play turn out a so egcellent that many people, paying admission +ad the door, find they got to pay ag-ain, secon' time, ad their seat, in +tear' that they weep; and that make it not so hard for Mélanie, who weep +ab-out ten price'. Negs day, Sunday, avter church and dinner, she come +yonder ad the home of mademoiselle, you know, Bourbon Street, and sit +with her in the gol'fish bower of that li'l' garden behine. And she's +very much bow' down. And she h-ask mademoiselle if she ain't notiz sinz +long time how De l'Isle is paying intention to her, Mélanie. But +mademoiselle di'n' have to be embarrazz' what to answer, biccause Mélanie +she's so rattle' she don't wait to hear. And Mélanie she say tha'z one +cause that she was wanting De l'Isle to see that play; biccause sinz +lately she's notiz he's make himseff very complimentary also to +mademoiselle, and she, Mélanie, she want' him to notiz how that way he's +in danger to make mizunderstanding and diztress to himseff and--all +concern'. + +"And she prod-uce' a piece paper _fill_' with memorandum' of compliment' +he's say to her one time and other, what she's wrote down whiles frezh +spoken and what she billieve' are proof that he's in love to her and +inten' to make his proposition so soon he's got good sign' he'll be +accept'. 'But I ain't never give' him sign,' she say, 'biccause a girl +she cann' never be too careful. And so I think I'm bound to show that to +you, biccause I muz'n' be careful only for myseff, and if he's say such +thing' likewise to you, then tha'z to be false to both of us together. +But, I think,' she say, 'M. De l'Isle he coul'n' never do that!'" + +"How did she say all that, angrily or meekly?" + +"Oh! meek and weeping till mademoiselle she's compel' to weep likewise. +And ad the end she's compel' to tell Mélanie yes, De l'Isle he's pay her +those same kind of sentimental plaisanteries; rosebud' to pin on the +heart _outside_, a few minute', till the negs cavalier. Castanado, she +say, Beloiseau, they do the same--even more. 'Ah!' Mélanie say, 'but +only to you! and only biccause to say any mo' they are yet af-raid! +Mademoiselle, those both, they are both in love to you!' + +"And when Mélanie say that, Mlle. Aline take the both hand' of Mélanie in +her both han' and ask her if she ain't herseff put them both, Castanado, +Beloiseau, up to that--to fall in love to her. And pretty soon Mélanie +she's compel' to confezz that, not with word', but juz' with the +fore-head on the knee of mademoiselle and crying like babie. And she say +she's sin'. And yet same time while she h-ask' mademoiselle to pray the +good God and the mother of God to forgive that sin, she h-ask her to pray +also that they'll make De l'Isle to love her. + +"Biccause, she say, 'tis those unfortunate rosebud' of sentimental +plaisanterie he give her what firz' make her to love him. And +mademoiselle she ag-ree' to that if Mélanie she'll tell that whole story +also to her mother; biccause mademoiselle she see what a hole that put +them both in, her and Mélanie, when she, mademoiselle, is bound to know +he's paying, De l'Isle, all his real intention' to herseff. And Mélanie +she's in agonie and say no-no-no! but if mademoiselle will tell it, yes! +And by reason that she's kep' that from her mother sinze the firz', she +say tell not Mme. Alexandre but Mme. Castanado, even when mademoiselle +say if Mme. Castanado then also monsieur; biccause madame she'll +certainly make that condition, and biccause monsieur he can assist her to +commenze that whole businezz over, French way. And same time Mélanie she +take very li'l' stock in that French way, by reason that, avter all, +those De l'Isle, though their money's gone, are still pretty high-life. + +"And tha'z how it come that those Castanado' have to tell me. Biccause +madame she cann' skip ar-ound pretty light, you know, and biccause they +think my, eh--pull--with those De l'Isle' is the moze of anybody, and +biccause I require to know how they are sure 'tis uzeless any mo' for +_my_ son, or _their_ son, than for the son of De l'Isle, to sed the heart +on Mlle. Aline. Also tha'z to egsplain me why Mlle. Aline say if all +those intention' to her don't finizh righd there, she got to stop coming +ad Mme. Alexandre. And of co'se! You see that, I su'pose?" + +"And where was young Dubroca in all this?" + +"Ah, another migsture! He was nowhere. Any'ow, tha'z how he feel; and +those other three boy' they di'n' feel otherwise. You see? We coul'n' +egsplain them anything--ab-out Mlle. Aline,--all we can say: 'Road +close'--stim-roller.' So ad the end Dubroca he have, slimly, the +advantage; for him, to Mélanie, the road any 'ow seem' open; yet in vain. +So there, all at same time, in that li'l' gang, rue Royale, was five +heart' blidding for love, and nine other' blidding for those five and for +Mlle. Aline. + +"Well, of co'se--you see?--nobody cann' stand that! Firzt to find his +way out of that is Mélanie. Mélanie's confessor he think tha'z a sin to +keep any longer those fact' from her mother, and she confezz them to Mme. +Alexandre, and ad the end she say: 'Mamma, in our li'l' coterie I cann' +look anybody in the face any mo', and I'm going to biccome train' nurse. +Tha'z not running away, yet same time tha'z not every evening to be +getting me singe' in the same candle.' + +"Then, almoze while she saying that, that son of De l'Isle he say to my +son--who he's fon' of like a brother, and my son of him likewise, though +the one is a so dashing and the other a so quiet--''Oiseau,' he +say,--biccause tha'z the nickname of my son,--'papa and me we visit' the +French consul to-day and arrange' a li'l' affair.' + +"And when he want' to tell some mo' my son he stop' him: 'Enough! I +div-ine that. Why you di'n' take me al-ong? You'll arrange to go at +that France, of my _grand'mère_, and that Alsace, of her mother, to be +fighting _aviateur_, and leave '_Oiseau_ behine? Ah, you cann' do that!' +And when that young Dubroca and Castanado get the win' of them, the all +four, all of same sweet maladie, they go together; two to be juz' +_poilu_', two, _aviateur_'. That old remedie, you know; if they can't +love--they'll fight! They are yonder, still al-ive, laz' account." + +Mainly to himself Chester said, "And I am here, my land still at peace, +last account." + +"And also you, you've h-ask' mademoiselle, I think," said the ironworker, +"and alas, she's say aggain, no, eh?" + +The reply was a gaze and a nod. + +"Well, Mr. Chezter, I'm sorrie! Her reason--you can't tell. 'Tis maybe +juz' biccause those hero' are yonder. 'Tis maybe only that those two +aunt' are here. Maybe 'tis biccause both, maybe neither. You can't +tell. Maybe you h-ask too soon. Ad the present she know' you only sinze +a few week'. She don't know none of yo' hiztorie, neither yo' +familie--egcep' that h-angel of the Lord. Yo' char-_acter_, she may like +that very well yet same time she know' how easy that is for women to make +miztake' about. Maybe y'ought to 'ave ask' M'sieu' Thorndyke-Smith to +write at yo' home-town and get you recommen'. Even a cook he's got to +'ave that--or a publisher, eh?" + +"I've got that--within reach; my law firm has it. But, pshaw! _I_ +think, Beloiseau, while all your maybe's may be right the thing that +explains mademoiselle's whole situation is that she's never seen a man +worthy to touch a hem of her robe; and the only argument a lover can lay +at her feet is that she never will." + +"And you'll lay that, negs time?" + +"Not till that manuscript business is settled, don't you see? Come, you +must go to bed." + + + + +XLIII + +Shrimps, rice, and watered wine for a sunset dinner. At its end the +three Chapdelaines, each with her small cup of black coffee, left the +table and its remnants to the other two members of the household, and +passed out as usual to the bower benches and the goldfish pool. + +Humming-birds were there, drinking frenziedly from honeysuckle cups to +the health of all things beautiful and ecstatic. Mlle. Yvonne stood at +a bench's end to watch one of them dart from bloom to bloom. "Ah, +Corinne," she sighed, "if we could all be juz' humming-bird'!" + +"_Chérie_," cried her sister, "you are spilling yo' coffee!" + +Whether for the coffee, for the fact that we can't all be +humming-birds, or for some thought not yet spoken, Mlle. Corinne's eyes +were all but spilling their tears. As the trio sat down. Aline said +in gentlest accusation to the younger aunt: + +"You are trembling. Why is that?" + +The younger sister looked appealingly to the elder. "_Chère_," Mlle. +Corinne said to the girl, "we are anxiouz to confezz you something. We +woul'n' never be anxiouz to confezz that, only we're af-raid already +you've foun' us out!" + +"Yes. I came this evening by Ovide's shop to return a book----" + +"An' he tell you he's meet us----?" + +"On the steps of the _archevêché_." + +"Ah, _chèrie_," Yvonne tearfully broke in, "can you ever pardon that to +us?" + +Aline smiled: "Oh, yes; in the course of time, I suppose. That was not +like a drinking-saloon." + +"Ah-h! not in the leas'! We di'n' touch there a drop--nobodie di'n' +offer us!" + +The niece addressed the other aunt: "Go on. Tell me why you were +there." + +"Aline, we'll confess us! We wend there biccause--we are orphan'! Of +co'se, we know that biffo', sinze long time, many, many year'; but only +sinze a few day'----" + +"Joy-ride day," Aline put in, a bit tensely. + +"Ah, no! _Chérie_, you muz' not supose----" + +"Never mind; 'last few days'--go on." + +"Well, sinze those laz' few day' we bigin to feel like we juz' got to +take step' ab-oud that!" + +"So you took those steps of the _archevêché_." + +"_Chère_, we'll tell you! Yvonne and me, avter all those many 'appy +year' with you, we think we want--ah, _chérie_, you'll pardon that?--we +want ad the laz' to live independent! So we go ad the archbishop. And +he say, 'How _I'm_ going to make you that? You think to be independent +by biccoming Sizter' of Charitie--of Mercy--of St. Joseph?' + +"'Ah, no,' we say, 'we have not the geniuz to be those; not even to be +Li'l'-Sizter'-of-the-Poor. All we want--and we coul'n' make ourselv' +the courage to ask you that, only we've save' you so large egspenses +not asking you that already sinze twenty-thirty year' aggo--we want you +to put us in orphan asylum.' We was af-raid at firz' he's goin' to be +mad; but he smile very kine and say: 'Yes, yes; you want, like the good +Lord say, to biccome like li'l' children, eh?' + +"'Ah, yes!' we tell him, 'tha'z what we be glad to do. They got +nothing in the worl' we can do, Yvonne and me, so easy like that! And +same time we be no egspense, like those li'l' _orpheline_'; we can wash +dish', make bed', men' apron'; and in that way we be independent!' +Well, he scratch his head; yet same time he smile', while he say, 'Go, +li'l' children, to yo' home. I'll see if Mère Veronique can figs that, +and if yes, I'll san' for you.' And, _chérie_, juz' the way he said +that, we are _sure_ he's goin' to san'." + +With her tears running freely Aline softly laughed. She rose, took a +hand of each aunt, laid the two together, bent low, and kissed them, +saying: "He will not, for he shall not. Nothing shall ever part us but +heaven." + + + + +XLIV + +One evening M. Castanado sat reading to his wife from a fresh number of +the weekly _Courier des Etats-Unis_. + +It was not long after the incident last mentioned. Chester had become +accustomed to his new lift in fortune, but as yet no further word as to +the manuscript had reached him; he had only just written a second +letter of inquiry after it. Also that summons to the two aunts, from +the archbishop, of which the pair were so sure, was still unheard; no +need had arisen for Aline to take any counter-step. We _could_ name +the exact date, for it was the day of the week on which the _Courier_ +always came, and the week was the last in which a Canal Street +movie-show beautifully presented the matchless Bernhardt as a widowed +shopkeeper--like Mme. Alexandre, but with a son, not daughter, in love. + +The door-bell rang. Castanado went down to the street. There, letting +in a visitor, he spoke with such animation that madame, listening from +her special seat, guessed, and before the two were half up-stairs knew, +who it was. It was Mélanie Alexandre. + +No one answered her mother's bell, she said, kissing madame +lingeringly, twice on the forehead and once on either vast cheek. She +was short and square, with such serene kindness of face and voice as to +be the last you would ever pick out to fall into a mistake of passion, +however exalted. Of course, that serenity may have come since the +mistake. Both Castanados seemed to take note of it as if it had come +since, and she to be willing they should note it. + +"No," they said, "Mme. Alexandre had gone with Dubroca and his wife to +that movie of Sarah." + +"And also with M. Beloiseau?" asked Mélanie, with a lurking smile, as +she sat down so fondly close to madame as to leave both her small hands +in one of her friend's. + +"Ah, now," madame exclaimed, "there is nothing in that! You ought to +be rijoice' if there was." + +The new look warmed in Mélanie's eyes. "I'll be very glad if that time +ever comes," she said. + +"Then you billieve in the second love?" + +"Ah, in a case like that! Indeed, yes. In their first love they both +were happy; the second would be in praise of the first." + +"And to separate them there is only the street," Castanado suggested, +"and Royal Street, street of their birth and chilehood, and so narrow, +it have the effect to join, not separate. But!"--he made a wary +motion--"kip quite, eize they will not go into the net, those old +bird', hah!" + +There was a smiling silence, and then--"Well," madame said, "they are +all to stop here as they riturn. Waiting here, you'll see them all." + +"Yes, and beside', I have some good news for you; news anyhow to me." + +The pair smiled brightly: "You 'ave another letter from Dubroca!" + +"Yes. He's again wounded and in hospital." + +"Oh-h, terrible! tha'z to you good news?" + +"Yes. Look, monsieur; he has, at the front, the chance to be hit so +many times. If he's hit and only wounded his chances to be hit again +are made one less, eh? And while he's in hospital they are again two +or three less. Shall we not be glad for that? And moreover, how he +got his wound, that is better. He got that taking, by himself, nine +Boches! And still the best news is what he writes about his friend +Castanado." + +"Ah, Mélanie! And you hold that back till now? And you know we are +without news of him sinze a month! He's promote'? He's decorate'?" + +"He's found a treasure. I think maybe you'll get his letter to-morrow. +Me, I got mine soon; passing the post-office I went in and asked." + +"But how, he found a treasure? and what sort?" + +"He just happened to dig it up, in a cellar, in Rheims. He's +betrothed.' + +"Mélanie! What are you saying?" + +"What he says. And that's all he says. I hope you'll hear all about +that to-morrow." + +"Oh, any'ow tha'z the bes' of news!" Castanado said, kissing his wife's +hand and each temple. "Doubtlezz he's find some lovely orphan of that +hideouz war; we can trus' his good sense, our son. But, Mélanie, he +muz' have been sick, away from the front, to make that courtship." + +"I do not know. Everything happens terribly fast these days. I hope +you'll hear all about that to-morrow." + +Castanado playfully lifted a finger: "Mélanie, how is that, you pass +that poss-office, when it is up-town, while you--?" The question hung +unfinished--maybe because Mélanie turned so red, maybe because the +door-bell rang again. + +Enlivened by the high art they had been enjoying and by the fresh night +air, a full half-dozen came in: M. and Mme. De l'Isle, whom the others +had chanced upon as they left the theatre; Dubroca and his wife; Mme. +Alexandre; and finally Beloiseau. "Mélanie!" was the cry of each of +these as he or she turned from saluting madame; this was one of +madame's largest joys; to get early report from larger or smaller +fractions of the coterie, on the good things they had seen or heard, +from which her muchness otherwise debarred her. The De l'Isles, +however, were not such a matter of course as the others, and Mme. De +l'Isle, as she greeted Mme. Castanado, said, in an atmosphere that +trembled with its load of mingled French and English: + +"We got something to show you!" + +In the same atmosphere--"And how got you away from yo' patient?" Mme. +Alexandre asked her daughter as they embraced a second time. + +"I tore myself," said Mélanie, while Castanado, to all the rest, was +saying: + +"And such great news as Mél'----" + +But a sharp glance from Mélanie checked him. "Such great news as we +have receive'! Our son is bethroath'!--to a good, dizcreet, beautiful +French girl; which he _foun_', in a cellar at Rheims!" When a +drum-fire of questions fell on him he grew reticent and answered +quietly: "We have only that by firz' letter. Full particular' pretty +soon, perchanze to-morrow." + +"Then to-morrow we'll come hear ab-out it," Beloiseau said, "and tell +ab-out the movie. Mme. De l'Isle she's also got fine news, what she +cann' tell biffo' biccause"--he waved to Mme. De l'Isle to say why, but +her husband spoke for her. + +"Biccause," he said, "'tis all in a pigture, war pigture, on a New York +Sunday paper, and of co'se we coul'n' stop under street lamp for that; +and with yo' permission"--to Mme. Castanado--"we'll show that firz' of +all to Scipion." + +Beloiseau put on glasses and looked. "'General Joffre--'" he began to +read. + +"No, no! not that! This one, where you know the _général_ only by the +back of his head." + +"Ah--ah, yes; 'Two _aviateur_' riceiving from General Joffre'--my God! +De l'Isle--my God! madame,"--Scipion pounded his breast with the +paper--"they are yo' son and mine!" + +The company rushed to his elbows. "My faith! Castanado, there are +their name'! and 'For destrugtion of their eighteenth enemy aeroplane, +under circumstance' calling for exceptional coolnezz and intrepid-ity!'" + +There was great and general rejoicing and some quite pardonable +boasting, under cover of which Mélanie and her mother slipped out by +the inside way, without mention of the young Dubroca, his prisoners, +sickness, or letter, except to his father and mother, who told of him +more openly when the Alexandres were safely gone. That brought fresh +gladness and praise, a fair share of which was for Mélanie. + +So presently the remaining company vanished, leaving Mme. Castanado +free to embrace her kneeling husband and boast again the power of +prayer. + + + + +XLV + +The cathedral that year was undergoing repairs. + +Its cypress-log foundations, which had kept sound from colonial days in +a soil always wet, had begun to decay when a new drainage system began +to dry it out. Fact, but also allegory. + +It may have been in connection with this work, or with some change in +the house of the Discalceated Sisters of Mt. Carmel, or of the +archbishop, or of St. Augustine's Church, that a certain priest of +exceptional taste, Beloiseau's father confessor, dropped in on him to +order an ornamental wrought-iron grille for the upper half of a new +door. While looking at patterns he asked: + +"And what is the latest word from your son?" + +Scipion showed him that picture--he had bought one for himself--the +dear old unmistakable back of "Papa Joffre," and the dear young +unmistakable faces of the two boys, Beloiseau and De l'Isle. + +A talk followed, on the conflict between a father's pride and his +yearning to see his only son safely delivered from constant deadly +peril. They spoke of Aline. Not for the first time; Scipion, unaware +that the good father was her confessor also, had told him before of his +son's hopeless love, to ask if it was not right for him, the father, to +help Chester win the marvellous girl, since winning would win the two +boys home again. + +Patterns waited while the ironworker said that to the tender chagrin of +all the coterie Chester was refused--a man of such fineness, such +promise, mind, charm, and integrity, and so fitted for her in years, +temperament, and tastes, that no girl, however perfect, could hope to +be courted by more than one such in a lifetime. + +In brief Creole prose he struck the highest key of Shakespeare's +sonnets: "Was she not doing a grievous wrong to herself and Chester, to +the whole coterie that so adored her, especially to the De l'Isles and +himself, and even to society at large? Her reasons," he said, shifting +to English, "I can guess _at them_, but guessing at 'alf-a-dozen +convinze' me of none!" + +"Have you guess' at differenze of rilligious faith?" the priest +inquired. + +"Yes, but--nothing doing; I 'ave to guess no." + +"Tha'z a great matter to a good Catholic." + +"Ah, father! Or-_din_-arily, yes. Bud this time no. Any'ow, this +time tha'z not for us Catholic' to be diztress' ab-out. . . . Ah, yes, +chil'ren. But, you know? If daughter', they'll be of the faith and +conduc' of the mother; if son', faith of the mother, conduc' of the +father; and I think with that even you, pries' of God, be satizfie', eh? + +"My dear frien', you know what I billieve? Me, I billieve in heaven +they are _waiting impatiently_ for that marriage." + +The priest may have been professionally delinquent, but he chose to +leave the argument unrefuted. He smilingly looked at his watch. +"Well," he said, "I choose this design. Make it so. Good evening." +He turned away. Beloiseau called after him, but the man of God kept +straight on. + +The ironworker loitered back to where the chosen pattern lay, and stood +over it still thinking of Chester. Presently a soft voice sounded so +close by that he turned abruptly. At his side was an extremely winsome +stranger. His artistic eye instantly remarked not only her +well-preserved beauty, but its gentle dignity, rare refinement, and +untypical quality. Whether it was Creole or _Américain_, Southern, +Northern, or Western, nothing betrayed; on the surface at least, the +provincial, as far as the ironworker could see, was wholly bred out of +her. He noted also the unimpaired excellence of her erect and girlish +slightness and, under her pretty hat and early whitened hair, the +carven fineness of her features. Her whole attire pleasantly befitted +her years, which might have been anything short of fifty; and yet, if +Scipion was right, she might have dressed for thirty. + +"Are you Mr. Beloiseau?" she inquired. + +"I am," he said. + +"Mr. Beloiseau, I'm the mother of Geoffry Chester. You know him, I +believe?" + +"Oh, is that possible? He is my esteem' frien', madame. Will you"--he +began to dust a lone chair. + +"No, thank you; I came to find Geoffry's quarters. I left the hotel +with my memorandum, but must have dropped it. I remember only +Bienville Street." + +"He's not there any mo'. Sinze only two day' he's move'. Mrs. +Chezter, if you'll egscuse me till I can change the coat I'll show you +those new quarter'. Whiles I'm changing you can look ad that book of +pattern', and also--here--there's a pigtorial of New York; that--tha'z +of my son and the son of my neighbor up-stair', De l'Isle, ric'iving +medal' from Général Joffre----" + +"Why, Mr. Beloiseau can it be!" + +"But you know, Mrs. Chezter, he's not there presently, yo' son. He's +gone at St. Martinville, to the court there." + +"Yes, to be back to-morrow or next day. They told me in his office +this forenoon. I reached the city only at eleven, train late. He +didn't know I was coming. My telegram's on his desk unopened. But +having time, I thought I'd see whether he's living comfortably or only +fancies he is." + +On their way Mrs. Chester and her guide hardly spoke until Scipion +asked: "Madame, when you was noticing yo' telegram on the desk of yo' +son you di'n' maybe notiz' a letter from New York? We are prettie +anxiouz for that to come to yo' son. I do' know if you know about that +or no, but M. De l'Isle and madame, and Castanado and his madame, and +Dubroca and his madame, and Mme. Alexandre and me, and three +Chapdelaine', we are all prettie anxiouz for that letter." + +"Yes, I know about it, and there is one, from a New York +publishing-house, on Geoffry's desk." + +"Well, madame, Marais Street, here's the place. Ah! and street-car--or +jitney--passing thiz corner will take you ag-ain at yo' hotel." + + + + +XLVI + +Satisfied with her son's quarters, Mrs. Chester returned to her hotel +and had just dined when her telephone rang. + +"Mme.--oh, Mme. De l'Isle, I'm so please'----" + +The instrument reciprocated the pleasure. "If Mrs. Chezter was not too +fat-igue' by travelling, monsieur and madame would like to call." + +Soon they appeared and in a moment whose brevity did honor to both +sides had established cordial terms. Rising to go, the pair asked a +great favor. It made them, they said, "very 'appy to perceive that Mr. +Chezter, by writing, has make his mother well acquaint' with that li'l' +coterie in Royal Street, in which they, sometime', 'ave the honor to be +include'." "The honor" meant the modest condescension, and when Mrs. +Chester's charming smile recognized the fact the pair took fresh +delight in her. "An' that li'l' coterie, sinze hearing that from +Beloiseau juz' this evening, are anxiouz to see you at ones; they are, +like ourselve', so fon' of yo' son; and they cannot call all +together--my faith, that would be a procession! And bi-side', Mme. +Castanado she--well--you understan' why that is--she never go' h-out. +Same time M. Castanado he's down-stair' waiting---- + +"Shall I go around there with you? I'll be glad to go." They went. + +Through that "recommend'" of Chester, got by Thorndyke-Smith for the +law firm, and by him shown to M. De l'Isle, the coterie knew that the +pretty lady whom they welcomed in Castanado's little parlor was of a +family line from which had come three State governors, one of whom had +been also his State's chief justice. One of her pleasantest +impressions as she made herself at ease among them, and they around her +and Mme. Castanado, was that they regarded this fact as honoring all +while flattering none. She found herself as much, and as kindly, on +trial before them as they before her, and saw that behind all their +lively conversation on such comparatively light topics as the World +War, greater New Orleans, and the decay of the times, the main question +was not who, but what, she was. As for them, they proved at least +equal to the best her son had ever written of them. + +And they found her a confirmation of the best they had ever discerned +in her son. In her fair face they saw both his masculine beauty and +the excellence of his mind better interpreted than they had seen them +in his own countenance. A point most pleasing to them was the palpable +fact that she was in her son's confidence. Evidently, though arriving +sooner than expected, her coming was due to his initiative. Clearly he +had written things that showed a juncture wherein she, if but prompt +enough, might render the last great service of her life to his. Oh, +how superior to the ordinary American slap-dash of the matrimonial +lottery! They felt that they themselves had taken the American way too +much for granted. Maybe that was where they were unlike Mlle. Aline. +But she was not there, to perceive these things, nor her aunts, to be +seen and estimated. The evening's outcome could be but inconclusive, +but it was a happy beginning. + +Its most significant part was a brief talk following the mention of the +Castanado soldier-boy's engagement. His expected letter had come, +bringing many pleasant particulars of it, and the two parents were +enjoying a genuine and infectious complacency. "And one thing of the +largez' importanze, Mrs. Chezter," madame said with sweet enthusiasm, +"--the two they are of the one ril-ligion!" + +Was the announcement unlucky, or astute? At any rate it threw the +subject wide open by a side door, and Mrs. Chester calmly walked in. + +"That's certainly fortunate," she said. Every ear was alert and +Beloiseau was suddenly eager to speak, but she smilingly went on: "It's +true that, coming of a family of politicians, and being pet +daughter--only one--of a judge, I may be a trifle broad on that point. +Still I think you're right and to be congratulated." + +The whole coterie felt a glad thrill. "Ah, madame," Beloiseau +exclaimed, "you are co'rec'! But, any'ow, in a caze where the two +faith' _are_ con-_tra_-ry 'tis not for you Protestant' to be diztres' +ab-out! You, you don' care so much ab-out those myzterie' of bil-ief +as about those rule' of conduc'. Almoze, I may say, you run those +_rule_' of conduc' into the groun'--and tha'z right! And bis-ide', you +'ave in everything--politic', law, trade, society--so much the upper +han'--in the bes' senze--ah, of co'se in the bes' senze!--that the +chil'ren of such a case they are pretty sure goin' to be Protestant!" + +Mrs. Chester, having her choice, to say either that marriages across +differences of faith had peculiar risks, or that Geoffry's uncle, the +"Angel of the Lord," had married, happily, a Catholic, chose neither, +let the subject be changed, and was able to assure the company that the +missive on Geoffry's desk was no bulky manuscript, but a neat thin +letter under one two-cent stamp. + +"Accept'!" they cried, "that beautiful true story of 'The 'Oly Crozz' +is accept'! Mesdemoiselles they have strug the oil!" + +Mme. Castanado had a further conviction: + +"'Tis the name of it done that! They coul'n' rif-use that name!--and +even notwithstanding that those publisher' they are maybe Protestant!" + +The good nights were very happy. The last were said five squares away, +at the hotel, to which the De l'Isles brought her back afoot. "And +to-morrow evening, four o'clock," madame said, "I'll come and we'll go +make li'l' visite at those Chapdelaine'." + +Mrs. Chester had but just removed her hat when again the telephone; +from the hotel office--"Your son is here. Yes, shall we send him up?" + + + + +XLVII + +With hands under their gray sleeves two white-bonneted _religieuses_ +turned into Bourbon Street and rang the Chapdelaines' street bell. + +Mlle. Yvonne flutteringly let them into the garden, Mlle. Corinne into +the house. The conversation was in English, for, though Sister +Constance was French, Sister St. Anne, young, fair, and the chief +speaker, was Irish. They came from Sister Superior Veronique, they +said, to see further about mesdemoiselles entering, eh---- + +Smilingly mesdemoiselles fluttered more than ever. "Ah, yes, yes! +Well, you know, sinze we talk ab-out that with the archbishop we've +talk' ab-out it with our niece al-_so_, and we think she's got to get +marrie' befo' we can do that, biccause to live al-lone that way she's +too young. But we 'ave the 'ope she's goin' to marry, and then----!" + +"Have you made a will?" + +"Will! Ah, we di'n' never think of that! Tha'z a marvellouz we di'n' +never think of that--when we are the two-third' owner' of that lovely +proprity there! And we think tha'z always improving in cozt, that +place, biccause so antique an' so pittoresque. And if Aline she +marrie' and we, we join that asylum doubtlezz Aline she'll be rij-oice' +to combine with us to leave that lovely proprity ad the lazt to the +church! Biccause, you know, to take that to heaven with us, tha'z +impossible, and the church tha'z the nearez' we can come." Odd as the +moment seemed for them, tears rolled down their smiling faces. + +"But"--they dried their eyes--"there's another thing also bisside'. We +are, all three, the authorezz' of a story that we are prettie sure +tha'z accept' by the publisher'; an' of co'ze if tha'z accept'--and if +those publisher' they don' swin'le us, like so oftten--we don't need to +be orphan' never any mo', and we'll maybe move up-town and juz' keep +that proprity here for a souvenir of our in-fancy. But that be +two-three days yet biffo' we can be sure ab-oud that. Maybe ad the +laz' we'll 'ave to join the asylum, but tha'z our hope, to move up town +into the _quartier nouveau_ and that beautiful 'garden diztric'.' But +we'll always _con_-tinue to love the old 'ouse here. 'Tis a very +genuine ancient _relique_, that 'ouse. You see those wall'? Solid +plank of two inch' and from Kentucky!" They went through the whole +story--the house, the relics of their childhood--"Go you, Yvonne, fedge +them!" + +The meek _religieuses_ did their best to be both interested and +sincere, but somehow found diplomacy to escape the "li'l' lake" and its +goldfish, and even took the piety of the cat with a dampening absence +of mind. Their departure was almost hurried. There was nothing to do +on either side, the four agreed, but to wait the turn of events. + +The two gray robes and white bonnets had but just got away when the +bell rang again and Mlle. Yvonne let in Mme. De l'Isle and Mrs. Chester. + +But these calls were in mid-afternoon. The evening previous--"Show Mr. +Chester to three-thirty-three," the hotel clerk had said, and presently +Mrs. Chester was all but perishing in the arms of her son. + +"Geoffry! Geoffry! you needn't be ferocious!" + +They took seats facing each other, low seats that touched; but when +they joined hands a second time he dropped to his knees, asking many +questions already answered in her regular and frequent letters. News +is so different by word of mouth when the mouth's the sweetest, +sacredest ever kissed. "And how's father?" + +As if he didn't know to the last detail! + +All at once--"Why didn't you say you were coming?" he savagely demanded. + +"No matter," his mother replied, "I'm glad I didn't, things have +happened so pleasantly. I've seen your whole Royal Street coterie, +except, of course----" + +"Yes, of course." + +The mother told her evening's experience. + +"And you like my friends?" + +"Why, Geoffry, you're right to love them. But, now, how came you back +so soon from St. What's-his-name?" + +"Opposing counsel compromised the case without trial. Mother, it's the +greatest professional victory I've ever won." + +"Oh, how fine! Geoffry, how are you getting on, professionally, +anyhow?" + +"Better than my best hope, dear; far better. I've shot right up!" + +"Then why do you look so weary and care-worn?" + +"I don't. I'm older, that's all, dear." + +"Oh! Prospering and care-free, and yet you'd drop everything and go to +France, to war." + +"No, dearie, no. I'm sorry I wrote you what I did, but I only said I +felt like it. I don't now. I envied those Royal Street boys, who +could do that with a splendid conscience. I--I can't. I can't go +killing men, even murderers, for a remote personal reason. I must wait +till my own country calls and my patriotism is pure patriotism. That's +higher honor--to _her_, isn't it?" + +"It is to you; I'm not bothering about her." + +"You will when you see her, first sight. To-morrow afternoon, you say. +Wish I could be there when your eyes first light on her! Mother, +dearie, isn't it as much she as I you've come to see?" + +"Well, if it is, what then?" + +"I'm glad. But I draw the line at seeing. _Help_, you understand, I +don't want--I won't have!" + +"Why, Geoffry, I----!" + +"Oh, I say it because there isn't one of that kind-hearted coterie who +hasn't wanted to put in something in my favor. I forbid! A dozen to +one--I won't allow it! No, nor any two to one, not even we two. Win +or lose, I go it alone. 'Twould be fatal to do otherwise if I would. +You'll see that the minute you see her." + +"Why, Geoffry! What a heat!" + +"Oh, I'll be the only one burned. Good night. I can't see you +to-morrow before evening. Shall we dine here?" + +"Yes. Oh, Geoffry--that New York letter! Manuscript accepted?" + +A shade crossed the son's brow. "Don't you think I ought to tell her +first?" + +"Her first," the mother--the _mother_--repeated after him. "Maybe so; +I don't care." They kissed. "Good night." + +"Good night . . . good night . . . good night, dear, darling mother. +Good night!" + + + + +XLVIII + +At the batten door of her high, tight garden-fence Mlle. Yvonne, we +repeat, let in Mme. De l'Isle and Mrs. Chester. + +"Mother of--ah-h-h!" Her rapture was mated to such courteous restraint +that dinginess and dishevelment were easily overlooked. "And 'ow +marvellouz that is, that you 'appen to come juz' when he--and us--we're +getting that news of the manu'----" + +"What! accepted?" + +"Oh, _that_ we di'n' hear _yet_! We only hear he's hear' something, +but we're sure tha'z the only something he can hear!" She had begun to +close the gate, but Mrs. Chester lingered in it. + +"That fine large house and garden across the way," she said, "are they +a Creole type?" + +"Yes, bez' kind--for in the city. They got very few like that in the +_vieux carré_, but up yonder in that beautiful garden diztric' of the +_nouveau quartier_ are many, where we'll perchanze go to live some day +pritty soon. That old 'ouse we're inhabiting here, tha'z--like us, ha, +ha!--a pritty antique. Tha'z mo' suit' for a _relique_ than to live +in, especially for Tantine--ha, ha!--tha'z auntie, yet tha'z what we +call our niece. Aline--juz' in _plaisanterie_!--biccause she take' so +much mo' care of us than us of her." + +Mrs. Chester had stopped to look around her. "Whenever you move," she +said, "you'll have to leave this delightful little garden behind; it +won't fit out of these quaint surroundings." + +"Ah! We won't want that any mo'!" + +They pressed on. "That 'ouse acrozz street," said Mme. De l'Isle, "I +notiz there the usual sign." + +"Ah, yes, yes! 'For Sale or Rent'; tha'z what always predominate' in +that poor _vieux carré_. But here is my sizter. Corinne, Mrs. +Chezter, the mother of Mr. Chezter--as you see by the _image_ of him in +the face! I can have the boldnezz to say that, madame, biccause never +in my life I di'n' see a young man so 'andsome like yo' son!" + +The mother blushed--a lifelong failing. "At home," she said, "he's +called his father's double." + +"Is that possible? But tha'z the way with people. Some people they +find Aline the _image_ of Corinne, and some of me. Yet Corinne and +me--look!" + +The four went in--to the usual entertainment: the solid plank walls, +the fine absence of lath and plaster, Aline's "li'l' robe of baptism," +and the bridegroom and bride who had gone a lifetime without a change +of linen. They passed out into the rear garden and told wonderful +stories of those gifted little darlings the goldfish. Hector, +unfortunately absent, had a mouth-organ, to whose strains the fishes +would listen so motionless that you could see they were spellbound. +Yvonne ran back into the house to get it, but for some cause returned +with nerves so shaken that the fishes would do nothing but run wildly +to and fro. Still, that was just as startling proof of their amazing +whatever-it-was! + +Seats were not taken in the bower. The declining sun filled it. Mrs. +Chester moved fondly from one flower-bed to another, and while the +sisters eagerly filled her hands with their choicest bloom Yvonne +privately got a disturbed glance to Corinne that drew the four indoors +again. There the outside quaintness tempted Mrs. Chester at once to a +front window, with Mlle. Yvonne at her side. + +The front garden was not as the visitor had seen it shortly before +while entering. She turned silently away, while mademoiselle, as +though surprised, cried to her sister and Mme. De l'Isle: "Ah! Aline +she's arrive'! Mrs. Chezter, 'ow tha'z fortunate for us all!" + +So with the other three Mrs. Chester looked out again. Half-way up the +walk stood Aline. Her back was to the house. Cupid was just inside +the gate, and between them, closely confronting her, was a third +figure--Geoffry Chester. The indoor company could see his face, but +not its mood, so dazzling was the low sun behind him; but certainly it +was not gay. Her hand lay in his through some parting speech, but fell +from it as both returned toward the gate. Which Cupid opened--sad +irony--for Chester, and while the child locked him out Aline came +forward wrapped in sunlight. + +By steps, as she came, her beauty of form, face, and soul grew on Mrs. +Chester's sight, and when, in the house, with her sunset halo quenched +and her presence more perfectly humanized, her smile and voice crowned +the revelation, it happened as Geoffry had said it would; the mother's +heart went out to her in fond and complete acceptance. + +To the four women taking seats with her the laying of a graceful hat +off her dark hair was the dissolving of one lovely picture into another +unmarred by the fact that a letter which she held in her fingers was +the publishers' latest word to Chester. But now, as her own silent +gaze fell on it held in her lap in both hands, so did theirs, till her +fingers shook and she bit her lip. Then--"Never mind to read it, +chère," Mme. De l'Isle said, "juz' tell us. We are prepare' for the +worz'. They want to poz'pone the pewblication, or they don't want to +pay in advanz'?" + +Aline lifted so bright a smile through her tears that every heart grew +lighter. "They don't want it at all," she said. "They have sent it +back!" + +"Oh-h-h! Impossible!" exclaimed the two sisters, their eyes filling. +"The clerk he's put the wrong letter--letter for another party!" + +Aline smiled again. "No; Mr. Chester, he has the manuscript. Ah, you +poor"--again she smiled, biting her lip and wiping her tears. Then she +turned, looked steadfastly into Mrs. Chester's face, and suddenly +handed her the missive. "Read it out." + +Mrs. Chester did so. As history, it said, the paper's interest was too +merely encyclopaedic for magazine use, while as romance it was too much +a story of peoples, not persons; romantic yet not romance. As to book +form the same drawbacks held, besides the fact that there was not +enough of it, not one-fifth enough, for even a small book. + +When the reader would have handed the letter back it was agreed instead +that she should give it to her son. "What does he purpose to do?" she +inquired. "This is the judgment of but one publisher, and there +are----" + +"In the North," Mme. De l'Isle broke in, "they got mo' than a dozen +pewblisher'!" + +"Whiles one," the sisters pleaded, "tha'z all we require!" + +"I know that," said Aline to the four. "'Twas of that we were speaking +at the gate. But"--to Mrs. Chester--"that judgment of the one +publisher is become our judgment also. So this evening he will bring +you the manuscript, and in two or three days, when we come to see you, +my two aunt' and me--I, you can give it me." + +"May I read it? I've been to Ovide's and read 'The Clock in the Sky.'" + +"Yes? Well, if later we have the good, chance to find, in our _vieux +carré_, we and our _cotérie_, and Ovide, some more stories, true +romances, we'll maybe try again; but till then--ah, no." + +Mrs. Chester touched the girl caressingly. "My dear, you will! Every +house looks as if it could tell at least one, including that large +house and garden just over the way." + +"Ah," chanted Mlle. Yvonne, "how many time' Corinne and me, we want' to +live there and furnizh, ourseff, that romanz'!" + +The five rose. Mrs. Chester "would be delighted to have the three +Chapdelaines call. I'm leaving the hotel, you know; I've taken a room +next Geoffry's. But that's nearer you, is it not?" + +"A li'l', yes," the sisters replied, but Aline's smiling silence said: +"No, a little farther off." + +The aunts thanked Mme. De l'Isle for bringing Mrs. Chester and kissed +her cheeks. They walked beside her to the gate, led by Cupid with the +key, and by Marie Madeleine crooking the end of her tail like a +floor-walker's finger. Mrs. Chester and Aline came last. The sisters +ventured out to the sidewalk to finish an apology for a significant +fault in Marie Madeleine's figure, and Mrs. Chester and Aline found +themselves alone. + +"Au revoir," they said, clasping hands. Cupid, under a sudden +inspiration, half-closed the gate, the pair stood an eloquent moment +gazing eye to eye, and then---- + + +What happened the mother told her son that evening as they sat alone on +a moonlit veranda. + +"Mother!" + +"Yes," she said, "and on the lips." + + + + +XLIX + +Beginning at dawn, an all-day rain rested the travel-wearied lady. But +the night cleared and in the forenoon that followed she shopped--for +things, she wrote her husband, not to be found elsewhere in the +forty-eight States. + +The afternoon she gave to two or three callers, notably to Mrs. +Thorndyke-Smith, who was very pleasing every way, but in nothing more +than in her praises of the Royal Street coterie. Next morning, in a +hired car, she had Castanado and Mme. Dubroca, Beloiseau and Mme. +Alexandre, not merely show but, as the ironworker said, pinching +forefinger and thumb together in the air, "elucidate" to her, for +hours, the _vieux carré_. The day's latter half brought Mlles. Corinne +and Yvonne; but Aline--no. + +"She was coming till the laz' moment," the pair said, "and then she's +so bewzy she 'ave to sen' us word, by 'Ector, 'tis impossib' to +come--till maybe later. Go h-on, juz' we two." + +They sat and talked, and rose and talked, and--sweetly +importuned--resumed seats and talked, of infant days and the old New +Orleans they loved so well, unembarrassed by a maze of innocent +anachronisms, and growingly sure that Aline would come. + +When at sunset they took leave Mrs. Chester, to their delight, followed +to the sidewalk, drifted on by a corner or two, and even turned up +Rampart Street, though without saying that it was by Rampart Street her +son daily came--walked--from his office. It had two paved ways for +general traffic, with a broad space between, where once, the sisters +explained, had been the rampart's moat but now ran the electric cars! +"You know what that is, rampart? Tha'z in the 'Star-Spangle' Banner' +ab-oud that. And this high wall where we're passing, tha'z the +Carmelite convent, and--ah! ad the last! Aline! Aline!" Also there +was Cupid. + +The four encountered gayly. "Ah, not this time," Aline said. "I came +only to meet my aunts; they had locked the gate! But I _will_ call, +very soon." + +They walked up to the next corner, the sisters confusingly instructing +Mrs. Chester how to take a returning street-car. Leaving them, she had +just got safely across from sidewalk to car-track when Cupid came +pattering after, to bid her hail only the car marked "Esplanade Belt." + +As he backed off--"Take care!" was the cry, but he sprang the wrong way +and a hurrying jitney cast him yards distant, where he lay unconscious +and bleeding. The packed street-car emptied. + +"No, he's alive," said one who lifted him, to the two jitney +passengers, who pushed into the throng. "Arm broke', yes, but he's +hurt worst in the head." + +There was an apothecary's shop in sight. They put him and the four +ladies into the jitney and sent them there, and the world moved on. + +At the shop he came to, and presently, in the jitney again, he was +blissfully aware of Geoffry Chester on the swift running-board, +questioning his mother and Aline by turns. He listened with all his +might. Neither the child nor his mistress had seen or heard the +questioner since the afternoon he was locked out of the garden. + +Nearing that garden now, questions and answers suddenly ceased; the +child had spoken. Limp and motionless, with his head on Aline's bosom +and his eyes closed, "Don't let," he brokenly said, "don't let _him_ go +'way." + +To him the answer seemed so long coming that he began to repeat; then +Aline said---- + +"No, dear, he shan't leave you." + +The sisters had telephoned their own physician from the apothecary's +shop, and soon, with Cupid on his cot, pushed close to a cool window +looking into the rear garden, and the garden lighted by an unseen moon, +Mrs. Chester, at the cot's side awaited the doctor's arrival. The +restless sisters brought her a tray of rusks and butter and tea, though +they would not, could not, taste anything themselves until they should +know how gravely the small sufferer--for now he began to suffer--was +hurt. + +"Same time tha'z good to be induztriouz"--this was all said directly +above the moaning child--"while tha'z bad, for the sick, to talk ad the +bedside, and we can't stay with you and not talk, and we can't go in +that front yard; that gate is let open so the doctor he needn' ring and +that way excide the patient; and we can't go in the back garden"--they +spread their hands and dropped them; the back garden was hopelessly +pre-empted. + +They went to a parlor window and sat looking and longing for the front +gate to swing. They had posted on it in Corinne's minute writing: "No +admittance excep on business. Open on account sickness. S. V. P. +Don't wring the belle!!!" + +Cupid lay very flat on his back, his face turned to the open window. +He had ceased to moan. When Mrs. Chester stole to where, by leaning +over, she could see his eyes they were closed. She hoped he slept, but +sat down in uncertainty rather than risk waking him. In the moonlit +garden Aline and Geoffry paced to and fro. To see them his mother +would have to stand and lean over the cot, and neither good mothers nor +good nurses do that. She kept her seat, anxiously hoping that the +moonlight out there would remain soft enough to veil the worn look +which daylight betrayed on her son's face whenever he fell into silence. + +The talk of the pair was labored. Once they went clear to the bower +and turned, without a word. Then Geoffry said: "I know a story I'd +like to tell you, though how it would help us in our project--if we now +have a project at all--I don't see." + +"'Tis of the _vieux carré_, that story?" + +"It's of the _vieux carré_ of the world's heart." + +"I think I know it." + +"May I not tell it?" + +"Yes, you may tell it--although--yes, tell it." + +"Well, there was once a beautiful girl, as beautiful in soul as in +countenance, and worshipped by a few excellent friends, few only +because of conditions in her life that almost wholly exiled her from +society. Even so, she had suitors--good, gallant men; not of wealth, +yet with good prospects and with gifts more essential. But other +conditions seemed, to her, to forbid marriage." + +"Yes," Aline interrupted. "Mr. Chester, have you gone in partnership +with Mr. Castanado--'Masques et Costumes'? Or would it not be maybe +better honor to me--and yourself--to speak----" + +"Straight out? Yes, of course. Aline, I've been racking my brain--I +still am--and my heart--to divine what it is that separates us. I had +come to believe you loved me. I can't quite stifle the conviction yet. +I believe that in refusing me you're consciously refusing that which +seems to you yourself a worthy source of supreme happiness if it did +not threaten the happiness of others dearer than your own." + +"Of my aunts, you think?" + +"Yes, your aunts." + +"Mr. Chester, even if I had no aunts----" + +"Yes, I see. That's my new discovery: you've already had my assurance +that I'd study their happiness as I would yours, ours, mine; but you +think I could never make your aunts and myself happy in the same +atmosphere. You believe in me. You believe I have a future that must +carry me--would carry us--into a world your aunts don't know and could +never learn." + +"'Tis true. And yet even if my aunts----" + +"Had no existence--yes, I know. I know what you think would still +remain. You can't hint it, for you think I would promptly promise the +impossible, as lovers so easily do. Aline, I would not! 'Twouldn't be +impossible. It shall not be. My mother is helping to prove that even +to you, isn't she--without knowing it? I promise you as if it were in +the marriage contract and we were here signing it, that if you will be +my wife I never will, and you never shall, let go, or in any way relax, +your hold--or mine--on the intimate friendship of the coterie in Royal +Street. They are your inheritance from your father and his father, and +I love you the more adoringly because you would sooner break your own +heart than forfeit that legacy." He took one of her hands. "You are +their 'Clock in the Sky'; you're their 'Angel of the Lord.' And so you +shall be till death do you part." He took the other hand, held both. + + +Cupid turned his face from the window and audibly sobbed. + +"Oh, child, what is it? Does it pain so?" + +He shook his head. + +"Doesn't it pain? Is it not pain at all? Why, then, what is it?" + +"Joy," he whispered as the doctor came in. + + + + +L + +The child's hurts were not so grave, after all. + +"He may sit up to-morrow," the doctor said. The fractured arm was put +into a splint and sling, and a collar-bone had to be wrapped in place; +but the absorbent cotton bandaged on his head was only for contusions. + +"Corinne!" Mlle. Yvonne gasped, "contusion"! Ah, doctor, I 'ope tha'z +something you can't 'ave but once!" + +"You can't in fatal cases. Mrs.--eh--those scissors, please? Thank +you." + +"Well, Aline, praise be to heaven, any'ow his skull, from ear to ear +'tis solid! Ah, I mean, of co'se, roun' the h-outside. Inside 'tis +hollow. But outside it has not a crack! eh, doctor?" + +"Except the sutures he was born with. Now, my little man----" + +"Ah, ah, Corinne! Born with shuture'! and we never suzpeg' that!" + +"Ah, but, Yvonne, if he's had those sinz' that long they cann' be so +very fatal, no!" + + +Partly for the little boy's sake three days were let pass before Aline +made her announcement. There was but one place for it--the Castanados' +parlor. All the coterie were there--the De l'Isles, even Ovide--butler +_pro tem_. + +"You will have refreshments," he said, with happiest equanimity; "I +will serve them"; and the whole race problem vanished. Mélanie too was +present, with an announcement of her own which won ecstatic kisses, +many of them tear-moistened but all of them glad. As for Mme. +Alexandre and Beloiseau, they announced nothing, but every one knew, +and said so in the smiling fervency of their hand-grasps. + +All of which made the evening too hopelessly old-fashioned to be dwelt +on, though one point cannot be overlooked. It was the last +proclamation of the joyous hour, and was Chester's. He had bought--on +wonderfully easy terms--_vieux carré_ terms--the large house and +grounds opposite the Chapdelaine cottage, and there the aunts were to +dwell with the young pair. + +"Permanently?" + +"Ah, only whiles we live!" + +The coterie adjourned. + + +Already the sisters had begun to move in. Mrs. Chester helped them +"marvellouzly." Also Aline. Also Cupid--that was now his only name. +The cat really couldn't; she was too preoccupied. The sisters touched +Mrs. Chester's arm and drew a curtain. + +"Look! . . . Eight! Ah, thou unfaithful, if we had ever think you are +going to so forget yo'seff like that, we woul'n' never name you Marie +Madeleine! And still ad the same time you know, Mrs. Chezter, we are +sure she's trying to tell us, right now, that this going to be the laz' +time!" + +"And me," Yvonne added, "I feel sure any'ow that, as the poet say--I'm +prittie sure 'tis the poet say that--she's mo' sin' ag-ainz' than +sinning." + +At length one evening so many relics of the Chapdelaine infancy had +been gathered in the new home that the sisters went over there to pass +the night, and took puss and her offspring along. But not a wink did +either of them sleep the night through, and the first living creature +they espied the next morning was Marie Madeleine, with a kitten in her +teeth, moving back. + +"Aline," they sobbed as soon as they could find her, "we are sorry, +sorry, sorry, to make you such unhappinezz like that, and so soon; +continue, you and Geoffry, to live in that new 'ouse; but whiles we +live any plaze but heaven we got to live in that home of our in-fancy." + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Flower of the Chapdelaines, by George W. Cable + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF THE CHAPDELAINES *** + +***** This file should be named 15881-8.txt or 15881-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/8/8/15881/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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Cable + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Flower of the Chapdelaines + +Author: George W. Cable + +Release Date: May 23, 2005 [EBook #15881] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF THE CHAPDELAINES *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="Frontispiece" BORDER="2" WIDTH="356" HEIGHT="557"> +<H5> +[Frontispiece: Yesterday, for the first time, at that same corner, <BR> +he had encountered this fair stranger and her urchin escort.] +</H5> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE FLOWER OF THE CHAPDELAINES +</H1> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +GEORGE W. CABLE +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +WITH FRONTISPIECE BY +<BR><BR> +F. C. YOHN +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +NEW YORK +<BR><BR> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +<BR><BR> +1918 +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY +<BR><BR> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +<BR><BR><BR> +Published March, 1918 +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +TABLE OF CONTENTS +</H2> + +<CENTER> + +<TABLE BORDER WIDTH="100%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="15%"><B>Chapter</B></TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="35%"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="15%"><B>Chapter</B></TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="35%"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap01"> I</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="15%"><a href="#chap26"> XXVI</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="40%"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap02"> II</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap27"> XXVII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap27">The Holy Cross</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap03"> III</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap28"> XXVIII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap28">(The Scene)</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap04"> IV</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap04">The Clock in the Sky</A></TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap29"> XXIX</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap29">(The Players)</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap05"> V</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap30"> XXX</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap30">(The Rising Curtain)</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap06"> VI</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap31"> XXXI</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap31">(Revolt and Riot)</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap07"> VII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap32"> XXXII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap32">(Freedom and Conflagration)</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap08"> VIII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap33"> XXXIII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap33">(Authority, Order, Peace)</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap09"> IX</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap34"> XXXIV</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap10"> X</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap10">The Angel of the Lord</A></TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap35"> XXXV</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap11"> XI</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap36"> XXXVI</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap12"> XII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap37"> XXXVII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap13"> XIII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap38"> XXXVIII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap14"> XIV</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap39"> XXXIX</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap15"> XV</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap40"> XL</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap16"> XVI</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap41"> XLI</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap41">The Lost Fortune</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap17"> XVII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap42"> XLII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap42">Mélanie</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap18"> XVIII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap43"> XLIII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap19"> XIX</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap44"> XLIV</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap20"> XX</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap20">The Chapdelaines</A></TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap45"> XLV</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap21"> XXI</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap46"> XLVI</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap22"> XXII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap47"> XLVII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap23"> XXIII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap48"> XLVIII</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap24"> XXIV</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap24">T. Chapdelaine & Son</A></TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap49"> XLIX</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap25"> XXV</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> + +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"><a href="#chap50"> L</A> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +The Flower of the Chapdelaines +</H1> + +<BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H2> + +<P> +Next morning he saw her again. +</P> + +<P> +He had left his very new law office, just around in Bienville Street, +and had come but a few steps down Royal, when, at the next corner +below, she turned into Royal, toward him, out of Conti, coming from +Bourbon. +</P> + +<P> +The same nine-year-old negro boy was at her side, as spotless in broad +white collar and blue jacket as on the morning before, and carrying the +same droll air of consecration, awe, and responsibility. The young man +envied him. +</P> + +<P> +Yesterday, for the first time, at that same corner, he had encountered +this fair stranger and her urchin escort, abruptly, as they were making +the same turn they now repeated, and all in a flash had wondered who +might be this lovely apparition. Of such patrician beauty, such +elegance of form and bearing, such witchery of simple attire, and such +un-Italian yet Latin type, in this antique Creole, modernly Italianized +quarter--who and what, so early in the day, down here among the shops, +where so meagre a remnant of the old high life clung on in these +balconied upper stories--who, what, whence, whither, and wherefore? +</P> + +<P> +In that flash of time she had passed, and the very liveliness of his +interest, combined with the urchin's consecrated awe--not to mention +his own mortifying remembrance of one or two other-day lapses from the +austerities of the old street--restrained him from a backward glance +until he could cross the way as if to enter the great, white, lately +completed court-house. Then both she and her satellite had vanished. +</P> + +<P> +He turned again, but not to enter the building. His watch read but +half past eight, and his first errand of the day, unless seeing her had +been his first, was to go one square farther on, for a look at the +wreckers tearing down the old Hotel St. Louis. As he turned, a man +neat of dress and well beyond middle age made him a suave gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"Sir, if you please. You are, I think, Mr. Chester, notary public and +attorney at law?" +</P> + +<P> +"That is my name and trade, sir." Evidently Mr. Geoffry Chester was +also an American, a Southerner. +</P> + +<P> +"Pardon," said his detainer, "I have only my business card." He +tendered it: "Marcel Castanado, Masques et Costumes, No. 312, rue +Royale, entre Bienville et Conti." +</P> + +<P> +"I diz-ire your advice," he continued, "on a very small matter neither +notarial, neither of the law. Yet I must pay you for that, if you can +make your charge as--as small as the matter." +</P> + +<P> +The young lawyer's own matters were at a juncture where a fee was a +godsend, yet he replied: +</P> + +<P> +"If your matter is not of the law I can make you no charge." +</P> + +<P> +The costumer shrugged: "Pardon, in that case I must seek elsewhere." +He would have moved on, but Chester asked: +</P> + +<P> +"What kind of advice do you want if not legal?" +</P> + +<P> +"Literary." +</P> + +<P> +The young man smiled: "Why, I'm not literary." +</P> + +<P> +"I think yes. You know Ovide Landry? Black man? Secon'-han' books, +Chartres Street, just yonder?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, very pleasantly, for I love old books." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and old buildings, and their histories. I know. You are now +going down, as I have just been, to see again the construction of that +old dome they are dim-olishing yonder, of the once state-house, +previously Hotel St. Louis. I know. Twice a day you pass my shop. I +am compelled to see, what Ovide also has told me, that, like me and my +wife, you have a passion for the <I>poétique</I> and the <I>pittoresque</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Chester laughed, "but that's my limit. I've never written a +line for print----" +</P> + +<P> +"This writing is done, since fifty years." +</P> + +<P> +"I've never passed literary judgment on a written page and don't +suppose I ever shall." +</P> + +<P> +"The judgment is passed. The value of the article is pronounced +great--by an expert amateur." +</P> + +<P> +"SHE?" the youth silently asked himself. He spoke: "Why, then what +advice do you still want--how to find a publisher?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, any publisher will jump at that. But how to so nig-otiate that he +shall not be the lion and we the lamb!" +</P> + +<P> +Chester smiled again: "Why, if that's the point--" he mused. The hope +came again that this unusual shopman and his wish had something to do +with <I>her</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"If that's the advice you want," he resumed, "I think we might construe +it as legal, though worth at the most a mere notarial fee." +</P> + +<P> +"And contingent on--?" the costumer prompted. +</P> + +<P> +"Contingent, yes, on the author's success." +</P> + +<P> +"Sir! I am not the author of a manuscript fifty years old!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, on the holder's success. You can agree to that, can't +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis agreed. You are my counsel. When will you see the manuscript?" +</P> + +<P> +"Whenever you choose to leave it with me." +</P> + +<P> +The costumer's smile was firm: "Sir, I cannot permit that to pass from +my hand." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! then have a copy typed for me." +</P> + +<P> +The Creole soliloquized: "That would be expensive." Then to Chester: +"Sir, I will tell you; to-night come at our parlor, over the shop. I +will read you that!" + +"Shall we be alone?" asked Chester, hoping his client would say no. +</P> + +<P> +"Only excepting my"--a tender brightness--"my wife!" Then a shade of +regret: "We are without children, me and my wife." +</P> + +<P> +His wife. H'mm! <I>She</I>? That amazing one who had vanished within a +few yards of his bazaar of "masques et costumes"? Though to Chester +New Orleans was still new, and though fat law-books and a slim purse +kept him much to himself, he was aware that, while some Creoles grew +rich, many of them, women, once rich, were being driven even to stand +behind counters. Yet no such plight could he imagine of that +bewildering young--young luminary who, this second time, so out of +time, had gleamed on him from mystery's cloud. His earlier hope came a +third time: "Excepting only your wife, you say? Why not also your +amateur expert?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry, but"--the Latin shrug--"that is--that is not possible." +</P> + +<P> +"Have I ever seen your wife? She's not a tallish, slender young-----?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, my wife is neither. She's never in the street or shop. She has +no longer the cap-acity. She's become so extraordinarily <I>un</I>-slender +that the only way she can come down-stair' is backward. You'll see. +Well,"--he waved--"till then--ah, a word: my close bargaining--I must +explain you that--in confidence. 'Tis because my wife and me we are +anxious to get every picayune we can get for the owners--of that +manuscript." +</P> + +<P> +Chester thought to be shrewd: "Oh! is <I>she</I> hard up? the owner?" +</P> + +<P> +"The owners are three," Castanado calmly said, "and two dip-end on the +earnings of a third." He bowed himself away. +</P> + +<P> +A few hours later Chester received from him a note begging indefinite +postponement of the evening appointment. Mme. Castanado had fever and +probably <I>la grippe</I>. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H2> + +<P> +Early one day some two weeks after the foregoing incident the young +lawyer came out of his <I>pension francaise</I>, opposite his office, and +stood a moment in thought. In those two weeks he had not again seen +Mr. Castanado. +</P> + +<P> +Once more it was scant half past eight. He looked across to the +windows of his office and of one bare third-story sleeping-room over +it. Eloquent windows! Their meanness reminded him anew how definitely +he had chosen not merely the simple but the solitary life. Yet now he +turned toward Royal Street. But at the third or fourth step he faced +about toward Chartres. The distance to the courthouse was the same +either way, and its entrances were alike on both streets. +</P> + +<P> +Thought he as he went the Chartres Street way: "If I go <I>one more time</I> +by way of Royal I shall owe an abject apology, and yet to try to offer +it would only make the matter worse." +</P> + +<P> +He went grimly, glad to pay this homage of avoidance which would have +been more to his credit paid a week or so earlier. His frequent +failure to pay it had won him, each time, a glimpse of <I>her</I> and an +itching fear that prying eyes were on him inside other balconied +windows besides those of the unslender Mme. Castanado. +</P> + +<P> +Temptation is a sly witch. Down at Conti Street, on the court-house's +upper riverside corner, he paused to take in the charm of one of the +most picturesque groups of old buildings in the <I>vieux carré</I>. But +there, to gather in all the effect, one must turn, sooner or later, and +include the upper side of Conti Street from Chartres to Royal; and as +Chester did so, yonder, once more, coming from Bourbon and turning from +Conti into Royal, there she was again, the avoided one! +</P> + +<P> +Her black cupid was at her side, tiny even for nine years. They +disappeared conversing together. With his heart in his throat Chester +turned away, resumed his walk, and passed into the marble halls where +justice dreamt she dwelt. Up and down one of these, little traversed +so early, he paced, with a question burning in his breast, which every +new sigh of mortification fanned hotter: <I>Had she seen him</I>?--this +time? those other times? And did those Castanados suspect? Was that +why Mme. Castanado had the grippe, and the manuscript was yet unread? +</P> + +<P> +A voice spoke his name and he found himself facing the very black +dealer in second-hand books. +</P> + +<P> +"I was yonder at Toulouse Street," said Ovide Landry, "coming up-town, +when I saw you at Conti coming down. I have another map of the old +city for you. At that rate, Mr. Chester, you'll soon have as good a +collection as the best." +</P> + +<P> +The young man was pleased: "Does it show exactly where Maspero's +Exchange stood?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Ovide said come to the shop and see. +</P> + +<P> +"I will, to-day; at six." Another man came up, "Ah, Mr. Castanado! +How--how is your patient?" +</P> + +<P> +"Madame"--the costumer smiled happily--"is once more well. I was +looking for you. You didn't pass in Royal Street this morning." +</P> + +<P> +[Ah, those eyes behind those windows behind those balconies!] +</P> + +<P> +"No, I--oh! going, Landry? Good day. No, Mr. Castanado, I----" +</P> + +<P> +"Madame hopes Mr. Chezter can at last, this evening, come at home for +that reading." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Castanado, I can't! I'm mighty sorry! My whole evening's +engaged. So is to-morrow's. May I come the next evening after? . . . +Thank you. . . . Yes, at seven. Just the three of us, of course? +Yes." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H2> + +<P> +Six o'clock found Chester in Ovide's bookshop. +</P> + +<P> +Had its shelves borne law-books, or had he not needed for law-books all +he dared spend, he might have known the surprisingly informed and refined +shopman better. Ovide had long been a celebrity. Lately a brief summary +of his career had appeared incidentally in a book, a book chiefly about +others, white people. "You can't write a Southern book and keep us out," +Ovide himself explained. +</P> + +<P> +Even as it was, Chester had allowed himself that odd freedom with Landry +which Southerners feel safe in under the plate armor of their race +distinctions. Receiving his map he asked, as he looked along a shelf or +two: "Have you that book that tells of you--as a slave? your master +letting you educate yourself; your once refusing your freedom, and your +being private secretary to two or three black lieutenant-governors?" +</P> + +<P> +"I had a copy," Landry said, "but I've sold it. Where did you hear of +it? From Réné Ducatel, in his antique-shop, whose folks 'tis mostly +about?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. An antique himself, in spirit, eh? Yet modern enough to praise +you highly." +</P> + +<P> +"H'mm! but only for the virtues of a slave." +</P> + +<P> +Chester smiled round from the shelves: "I noticed that! I'm afraid we +white folks, the world over, are prone to do that--with you-all." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, when you speak of us at all." +</P> + +<P> +"Ducatel's opposite neighbor," Chester remarked, "is an antique even more +interesting." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes! Castanado is antique only in that art spirit which the tourist +trade is every day killing even in Royal Street." +</P> + +<P> +"That's the worst decay in this whole decaying quarter," the young man +said. +</P> + +<P> +"And in all this deluge of trade spirit," Ovide continued, "the best dry +land left of it--of that spirit of art--is----" +</P> + +<P> +"Castanado's shop, I dare say." +</P> + +<P> +"Castanado's and three others in that one square you pass every day +without discovering the fact. But that's natural; you are a busy lawyer." +</P> + +<P> +"Not so very. What are the other three?" +</P> + +<P> +"First, the shop of Seraphine Alexandre, embroideries; then of Scipion +Beloiseau, ornamental ironwork, opposite Mme. Seraphine and next below +Ducatel--Ducatel, alas, he don't count; and third, of Placide La Porte, +perfumeries, next to Beloiseau. That's all." +</P> + +<P> +"Not the watchmaker on the square above?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! distantly he's of them: and there <I>was</I> old Manouvrier, taxidermist; +but he's gone--where the spirits of art and of worship are twin." + +Chester turned sharply again to the shelves and stood rigid. From an +inner room, its glass door opened by Ovide's silver-spectacled wife, came +the little black cupid and his charge. Ah, once more what perfection in +how many points! As she returned to Ovide an old magazine, at last he +heard her voice--singularly deep and serene. She thanked the bookman for +his loan and, with the child, went out. +</P> + +<P> +It disturbed the Southern youth to unbosom himself to a black man, but he +saw no decent alternative: "Landry, I had not the faintest idea that that +young lady was nearer than Castanado's shop!" +</P> + +<P> +Ovide shook his head: "You seem yourself to forget that you are here by +business appointment. And what of it if you have seen her, or she seen +you, here--or anywhere?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only this: that I've met her so often by pure--by chance, on that square +you speak of, I bound for the court-house, she for I can't divine +where--for I've never looked behind me!--that I've had to take another +street to show I'm a gentleman. This very morn'--oh!--and now! here! +How can I explain--or go unexplained?" +</P> + +<P> +Ovide lifted a hand: "Will you leave that to my wife, so unlearned yet so +wise and good? For the young lady's own sake my wife, <I>without</I> +explaining, will see that you are not misjudged." +</P> + +<P> +"Good! Right! Any explanation would simply belie itself. Yes, let her +do it! But, Landry----" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +"For heaven's sake don't let her make me out a goody-goody. I haven't +got this far into life without making moral mistakes, some of them huge. +But in this thing--I say it only to you--I'm making none. I'm neither a +marrying man, a villain, nor an ass." +</P> + +<P> +Ovide smiled: "My wife can manage that. Maybe it's good you came here. +It may well be that the young lady herself would be glad if some one +explained her to you." +</P> + +<P> +"Hoh! does an angel need an explanation?" +</P> + +<P> +"I should say, in Royal Street, yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Then for mercy's sake give it! right here! you! come!" The youth +laughed. "Mercy to me, I mean. But--wait! Tell me; couldn't Castanado +have given it, as easily as you?" +</P> + +<P> +"You never gave Castanado this chance." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know that? Oh, never mind, go ahead--full speed." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she's an orphan, of a fine old family----" +</P> + +<P> +"Obviously! Creole, of course, the family?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, though always small in Louisiana. Creole except one New England +grandmother. But for that one she would not have been here just now." +</P> + +<P> +"Humph! that's rather obscure but--go on." +</P> + +<P> +"Her parents left her without a sou or a relation except two maiden aunts +as poor as she." +</P> + +<P> +"Antiques?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. She earns their living and her own." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't care to say how?" +</P> + +<P> +"She wouldn't like it. 'Twould be to say where." +</P> + +<P> +"She seems able to dress exquisitely." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chester, a woman would see with what a small outlay that is done. +She has that gift for the needle which a poet has for the pen." +</P> + +<P> +"Ho! that's <I>charmingly</I> antique. But now tell me how having a Yankee +grandmother caused her to drop in here just now. Your logic's dim." +</P> + +<P> +"You are soon to go to Castanado's to see that manuscript story, are you +not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, is it a story? Have you read it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I've read it, 'tis short. They wanted my opinion. And 'tis a +story, though true." +</P> + +<P> +"A story! Love story? very absorbing?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, it is not of love--except love of liberty. Whether 'twill absorb +you or no I cannot say. Me it absorbed because it is the story of some +of my race, far from here and in the old days, trying, in the old vain +way, to gain their freedom." +</P> + +<P> +"Has--has mademoiselle read it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly. It is her property; hers and her two aunts'. Those two, +they bought it lately, of a poor devil--drinking man--for a dollar. They +had once known his mother, from the West Indies." +</P> + +<P> +"He wrote it, or his mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"The mother, long ago. 'Tis not too well done. It absorbs mademoiselle +also, but that is because 'tis true. When I saw that effect I told her +of a story like it, yet different, and also seeming true, in this old +magazine. And when I began to tell it she said, 'It <I>is</I> true! My +Vermont <I>grand'mère</I> wrote that! It happened to her!'" +</P> + +<P> +"How queer! And, Landry, I see the connection. Your magazine being one +of a set, you couldn't let her read it anywhere but here." +</P> + +<P> +"I have to keep my own rules." +</P> + +<P> +"Let me see it. . . . Oh, now, why not? What was the use of either of +us explaining if--if----?" +</P> + +<P> +But Ovide smilingly restored the thing to its stack. "Now," he said, +"'tis Mr. Chester's logic that fails." Yet as he turned to a customer he +let Chester take it down. +</P> + +<P> +"My job requires me," the youth said, "to study character. Let's see +what a <I>grand'mère</I> of a '<I>tite-fille</I>, situated so and so, will do." +</P> + +<P> +Ovide escorted his momentary customer to the sidewalk door. As he +returned, Chester, rolling map and magazine together, said: +</P> + +<P> +"It's getting dark. No, don't make a light, it's your closing time and +I've a strict engagement. Here's a deposit for this magazine; a fifty. +It's all I have--oh, yes, take it, we'll trade back to-morrow. You must +keep your own rules and I must read this thing before I touch my bed." +</P> + +<P> +"Even the first few lines absorb you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, far from it. Look here." Chester read out: "'<I>Now, Maud,' said my +uncle</I>--Oh, me! Landry, if the tale's true why that old story-book pose?" +</P> + +<P> +"It may be that the writer preferred to tell it as fiction, and that only +something in me told me 'tis true. Something still tells me so." +</P> + +<P> +"'<I>Now, Maud</I>,'" Chester smilingly thought to himself when, the evening's +later engagement being gratifyingly fulfilled, he sat down with the +story. "And so you were grand'mère to our Royal Street miracle. And you +had a Southern uncle! So had I! though yours was a planter, mine a +lawyer, and yours must have been fifty years the older. Well, '<I>Now, +Maud</I>,' for my absorption!" +</P> + +<P> +It came. Though the tale was unamazing amazement came. The four chief +characters were no sooner set in motion than Chester dropped the pamphlet +to his knee, agape in recollection of a most droll fact a year or two +old, which now all at once and for the first time arrested his attention. +He also had a manuscript! That lawyer uncle of his, saying as he spared +him a few duplicate volumes from his law library, "Burn that if you don't +want it," had tossed him a fat document indorsed: "<I>Memorandum of an +Early Experience</I>." Later the nephew had glanced it over, but, like +"Maud's" story, its first few lines had annoyed his critical sense and he +had never read it carefully. The amazing point was that "<I>Now, Maud</I>" +and this "<I>Memorandum</I>" most incredibly--with a ridiculous nicety--fitted +each other. +</P> + +<P> +He lifted the magazine again and, beginning at the beginning a third +time, read with a scrutiny of every line as though he studied a witness's +deposition. And this was what he read: +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CLOCK IN THE SKY +</H3> + +<P> +"Now, Maud," said uncle jovially as he, aunt, and I drove into the +confines of their beautiful place one spring afternoon of 1860, "don't +forget that to be too near a thing is as bad for a good view of it as +to be too far away." +</P> + +<P> +I was a slim, tallish girl of scant sixteen, who had never seen a +slaveholder on his plantation, though I had known these two for years, +and loved them dearly, as guests in our Northern home before it was +broken up by the death of my mother. Father was an abolitionist, and +yet he and they had never had a harsh word between them. If the +general goodness of those who do some particular thing were any proof +that that particular thing is good to do, they would have convinced me, +without a word, that slaveholding was entirely right. But they were +not trying to do any such thing. "Remember," continued my uncle, +smiling round at me, "your dad's trusting you not to bring back our +honest opinion--of anything--in place of your own." +</P> + +<P> +"Maud," my aunt hurried to put in, for she knew the advice I had just +heard was not the kind I most needed, "you're going to have for your +own maid the blackest girl you ever saw." +</P> + +<P> +"And the best," added my uncle; "she's as good as she is black." +</P> + +<P> +"She's no common darky, that Sidney," said aunt. "She'll keep you busy +answering questions, my dear, and I say now, you may tell her anything +she wants to know; we give you perfect liberty; and you may be just as +free with Hester; that's her mother; or with her father, Silas." +</P> + +<P> +"We draw the line at Mingo," said uncle. +</P> + +<P> +"And who is Mingo?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Mingo? he's her brother; a very low and trailing branch of the family +tree." +</P> + +<P> +As we neared the house I was told more of the father and mother; their +sweet content, their piety, their diligence. "If we lived in town, +where there's better chance to pick up small earnings," remarked uncle, +"those two and Sidney would have bought their freedom by now, and +Mingo's too. Silas has got nearly enough to buy his own, as it is." +</P> + +<P> +Silas, my aunt explained, was a carpenter. "He hands your uncle so +much a week; all he can make beyond that he's allowed to keep." The +carriage stopped at the door; half a dozen servants came, smiling, and +I knew Sidney and Hester at a glance, they were so finely different +from their fellows. +</P> + +<P> +That night the daughter and I made acquaintance. She was eighteen, +tall, lithe and as straight as an arrow. She had not one of the +physical traits that so often make her race uncomely to our eyes; even +her nose was good; her very feet were well made, her hands were slim +and shapely, the fingers long and neatly jointed, and there was nothing +inky in her amazing blackness, her red blood so enriched it. Yet she +was as really African in her strong, eager mind as in her color, and +the English language, on her tongue, was like a painter's palette and +brushes in the hands of a monkey. Her first question to me after my +last want was supplied came cautiously, after a long gaze at my lighted +lamp, from a seat on the floor. "Miss Maud, when was de conwention o' +coal-oil 'scuvvud?" And to her good night she added, in allusion to my +eventual return to the North, "I hope it be a long time afo' you make +dat repass!" +</P> + +<P> +At the next bedtime she began on me with the innocent question of my +favorite flower, but I had not answered three other questions before +she had placed me where I must either say I did not believe in the +right to hold slaves, or must keep silence; and when I kept silence of +course she knew. For a long moment she dropped her eyes, and then, +with a soft smile, asked if I would tell her some Bible stories, +preferably that of "Moses in de boundaries o' Egyp'." +</P> + +<P> +She listened in gloating silence, rarely interrupting; but at the +words, "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, 'Let my people go,'" the +response, "Pra-aise Gawd!" rose from her lips in such volume that she +threw her hands to her mouth. After that she spoke only soft queries, +but they grew more and more significant, and I soon saw that her +supposed content was purely a pious endurance, and that her soul felt +bondage as her body would have felt a harrow. So I left the fugitives +of Egyptian slavery under the frown of the Almighty in the wilderness +of Sin; Sidney was trusting me; uncle and aunt were trusting me; and +between them I was getting into a narrow corner. After a meditative +silence my questioner asked: +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Maud, do de Bible anywhuz capitulate dat Moses aw Aaron aw +Joshaway aw Cable <I>buy</I> his freedom--wid money?" +</P> + +<P> +Her manner was childlike, yet she always seemed to come up out of deep +thought when she asked a question; she smiled diffidently until the +reply began to come, then took on a reverential gravity, and as soon as +it was fully given sank back into thought. "Miss Maud, don't you +reckon dat ef Moses had a-save' up money enough to a-boughtened his +freedom, dat'd a-been de wery sign mos' pleasin' to Gawd dat he 'uz +highly fitten to be sot free widout paying?" To that puzzle she waited +for no answer beyond the distress I betrayed, but turned to matters +less speculative, and soon said good night. +</P> + +<P> +On the third evening--my! If I could have given all the topography of +the entire country between uncle's plantation and my native city on the +margin of the Great Lakes, with full account of its every natural and +social condition, her questions would have wholly gathered them in. +She asked if our climate was very hard on negroes; what clothing we +wore in summer, and how we kept from freezing in midwinter; about +wages, the price of food, what crops were raised, and what the +"patarolers" did with a negro when they caught one at night without a +pass. +</P> + +<P> +She made me desperate, and when the fourth night saw her crouched on my +floor it found me prepared; I plied her with questions from start to +finish. She yielded with a perfect courtesy; told of the poor lot of +the few free negroes of whom she knew, and of the time-serving and +shifty indolence, the thievishness, faithlessness, and unaspiring +torpidity of "some niggehs"; and when I opened the way for her to speak +of uncle and aunt she poured forth their praises with an ardor that +brought her own tears. I asked her if she believed she could ever be +happy away from them. +</P> + +<P> +She smiled with brimming eyes: "Why, I dunno, Miss Maud; whatsomeveh +come, and whensomeveh, and howsomeveh de Lawd sen' it, ef us feels his +ahm und' us, us ought to be 'shame' not to be happy, oughtn't us?" All +at once she sprang half up: "I tell you de Lawd neveh gi'n no niggeh de +rights to snuggle down anywhuz an' fo'git de auction-block!" +</P> + +<P> +As suddenly the outbreak passed, yet as she settled down again her +exaltation still showed through her fond smile. "You know what dat +inqui'ance o' yone bring to my 'memb'ance? Dass ow ole Canaan hymn---- +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + "'O I mus' climb de stony hill<BR> + Pas' many a sweet desiah,<BR> + De flow'ry road is not fo' me,<BR> + I follows cloud an' fiah.'" +</P> + +<P> +After she was gone I lay trying so to contrive our next conversation +that it should not flow, as all before it had so irresistibly done, +into that one deep channel of her thoughts which took in everything +that fell upon her mind, as a great river drinks the rains of all its +valleys. Presently the open window gave me my cue: the stars! the +unvexed and unvexing stars, that shone before human wrongs ever began, +and that will be shining after all human wrongs are ended--our talk +should be of them. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H2> + +<P> +At the supper-table on the following evening I became convinced of +something which I had felt coming for two or three days, wondering the +while whether Sidney did not feel the same thing. When we rose aunt +drew me aside and with caressing touches on my brow and temples said +she was sorry to be so slow in bringing me into social contact with the +young people of the neighboring plantations, but that uncle, on his +arrival at home, had found a letter whose information had kept him, and +her as well, busy every waking hour since. "And this evening," she +continued, "we can't even sit down with you around the parlor lamp. +Can you amuse yourself alone, dear, or with Sidney, while your uncle +and I go over some pressing matters together?" +</P> + +<P> +Surely I could. "Auntie, was the information--bad news?" +</P> + +<P> +"It wasn't good, my dear; I may tell you about it to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Hadn't I better go back to father at once?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my child, not for our sake; if you're not too lonesome we'd rather +keep you. Let me see; has Mingo ever danced for you? Why, tell Sidney +to make Mingo come dance for you." +</P> + +<P> +Mingo came; his leaps, turns, postures, steps, and outcries were a most +laughable wonder, and I should have begged for more than I did, but I +saw that it was a part of Sidney's religion to disapprove the dance. +</P> + +<P> +"Sidney," I said, "did you ever hear of the great clock in the sky? +Yes, there's one there; it's made all of stars." We were at the foot +of some veranda steps that faced the north, and as she and Mingo were +about to settle down at my feet I said if they would follow me to the +top of the flight I would tell this marvel: what the learned believed +those eternal lamps to be; why some were out of view three-fourths of +the night, others only half, others not a quarter; how a very few never +sank out of sight at all except for daylight or clouds, and yet went +round and round with all the others; and why I called those the clock +of heaven; which gained, each night, four minutes, and only four, on +the time we kept by the sun. +</P> + +<P> +"Pra-aise Gawd!" murmured Sidney. "Miss Maud, please hol' on tell +Mingo run' fetch daddy an' mammy; dey don't want dat sto'y f'om me +secon' haynded!" Mingo darted off and we waited. "Miss Maud, what de +white folks mean by de nawth stah? Is dey sich a stah as de nawth +stah?" +</P> + +<P> +I tried to explain that since all this seeming movement of the stars +around us was but our own daily and yearly turning, there would +necessarily be two opposite points on our earth which would never move +at all, and that any star directly in line with those two points would +seem as still as they. +</P> + +<P> +"Like de p'int o' de spin'le on de spinnin'-wheel, Miss Maud? Oh, +yass, I b'lieve I un'stand dat; I un'stan' it some." +</P> + +<P> +I showed her the north star, and told her how to find it; and then I +took from my watch-guard a tiny compass and let her see how it forever +picked out from among all the stars of heaven that one small light, and +held quiveringly to it. She hung over it with ecstatic sighs. "Do it +<I>see</I> de stah, Miss Maud, like de wise men o' de Eas' see de stah o' +Jesus?" +</P> + +<P> +I tried to make plain the law it was obeying. +</P> + +<P> +"And do it p'int dah dess de same in de broad day, an' all day +long?--Pra-aise Gawd! And do it p'int dah in de rain, an' in de stawmy +win' a-fulfillin' of his word, when de ain't a single stah admissible +in de ske-eye?--De Lawd's na-ame be pra-aise'!" Her father, mother, +and brother were all looking at it with her, now, and she glanced from +one to another with long heavings of rapture. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Maud," said Silas, in a subdued voice, "dat little trick mus' 'a' +cos' you a mint o' money." +</P> + +<P> +"Silas," put in Hester, "you know dass not a pullite question!" But +she was ravening for its answer, and I said I had bought it for +twenty-five cents. They laughed with delight. Yet, when I told +Sidney she might have it, her thanks were but two words, which her lips +seemed to drop unconsciously while she gazed on the trinket. +</P> + +<P> +They all sat down on the steps nearest below me, and presently, +beginning where I had begun with Sidney, I went on to point out the +polar constellations and to relate the age-worn story of Cepheus and +Cassiopeia, Andromeda and the divine Perseus. +</P> + +<P> +"Lawd, my Lawd !" whispered the mother, "was dey--was dey colo'd?" +</P> + +<P> +I said two of them were king and queen of Ethiopia, and a third was +their daughter. +</P> + +<P> +"Chain' to de rock, an' yit sa-ave at las'!" exclaimed Sidney. +</P> + +<P> +While her husband and children still gazed at the royal stars, Hester +spoke softly to me again. "Miss Maud, dass a tryin' sawt o' sto'y to +tell to a bunch o' po' niggehs; did you dess make dat up--fo' us?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Hester," I said, "that was an old, old story before this country +was ever known to white folks, or black," and the eyes of all four were +on me as the daughter asked: "Ain't it in de Bi-ible?" +</P> + +<P> +As all but Sidney bade me good night, I heard her say; "I don' care, I +b'lieb dat be'n in de Bible an' git drap out by mista-ake!" +</P> + +<P> +In my room she grew queerly playful, and continued so until she had +drawn off my shoes and stockings. But then abruptly, she took my feet +in her slim black hands, and with eyes lifted tenderly to mine, said: +"How bu'ful 'pon de mountain is dem wha' funnish good tidin's!" She +leaned her forehead on my insteps: "Us bleeged to paht some day, Miss +Maud." +</P> + +<P> +I made a poor effort to lift her, but she would not be displaced. +"Cayn't no two people count fo' sho' on stayin' togetheh al'ays in dis +va-ain worl'," and all at once I found my face in my hands and the salt +drops searching through my fingers; Sidney was kissing my feet and +wetting them with her tears. +</P> + +<P> +At close of the next day, a Sabbath, my uncle and aunt called all their +servants around the front steps of the house and with tears more bitter +than any of Sidney's or mine, told them that by the folly of others, +far away, they had lost their whole fortune at one stroke and must part +with everything, and with them, by sale. Their dark hearers wept with +them, and Silas, Hester, and Sidney, after the rest had gone back to +the quarters, offered the master and mistress, through many a quaintly +misquoted scripture, the consolations of faith. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish we had set you free, Silas," said uncle, "you and yours, when +we could have done it. Your mistress and I are going to town to-morrow +solely to get somebody to buy you, all four, together." +</P> + +<P> +"Mawse Ben," cried the slave, with strange earnestness, "don't you do +dat! Don't you was'e no time dat a-way! You go see what you can +sa-ave fo' you-all an' yone!" +</P> + +<P> +"For the creditors, you mean, Silas," said my aunt; "that's done." +</P> + +<P> +Hester had a question. "Do it all go to de credito's anyhow, Miss +'Liza, no matteh how much us bring?" and when aunt said yes, Sidney +murmured to her mother, "I tol' you dat." I wondered when she had told +her. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle and aunt tried hard to find one buyer for the four, but failed; +nobody who wanted the other three had any use for Mingo. It was after +nightfall when they came dragging home. "Now don't you fret one bit +'bout dat, Mawse Ben," exclaimed Sidney, with a happy heroism in her +eyes that I remembered afterward. "'De Lawd is perwide!'" +</P> + +<P> +"Strange," said my aunt to uncle and me aside, smiling in pity, "how +slight an impression disaster makes on their minds!" and that too I +remembered afterward. +</P> + +<P> +As soon as we were alone in my chamber, Sidney and I, she asked me to +tell her again of the clock in the sky, and at the end of her service +and of my recital she drew me to my window and showed me how promptly +she could point out the pole-star at the centre of the clock's vast +dial, although at our right a big moon was leaving the tree tops and +flooding the sky with its light. Toward this she turned, and lifting +an arm with the reverence of a priestess said, in impassioned monotone: +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + "'De moon shine full at His comman'<BR> + An' all de stahs obey.'" +</P> + +<P> +She kissed my hand as she added good-by. "Why, Sidney!" I laughed, +"you mean good night, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +She bent low, tittered softly, and then, with a swift return to her +beautiful straightness, said: "But still, Miss Maud, who eveh know when +dey say good night dat it ain't good-by?" She fondled my hand between +her two as she backed away, kissed it fervently again, and was gone. +</P> + +<P> +When I awoke my aunt stood in broad though sunless daylight at the +bedside, with the waking cup of coffee which it was Sidney's wont to +bring. I started from the pillow. "Oh! what--who--wh'--where's +Sidney? Why--how long has it been raining?" +</P> + +<P> +"It began at break of day," she replied, adding pensively, "thank God." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! were we in such bad need of rain?" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>They</I> were--precisely when it came. Rain never came straighter from +heaven." +</P> + +<P> +"They?"--I stared. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; Silas and Hester--and Sidney--and Mingo. They must have started +soon after moonrise, and had the whole bright night, with its black +shadows, for going." +</P> + +<P> +"For going where, auntie; going where?" +</P> + +<P> +"Then the rain came in God's own hour," she continued, as if wholly to +herself, "and washed out their trail." +</P> + +<P> +I sprang from the bed. "Aunt 'Liza!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Maud, they've run away, and if only they may <I>get</I> away. God be +praised!" +</P> + +<P> +Of course, I cried like an infant. I threw myself upon her bosom. +"Oh, auntie, auntie, I'm afraid it's my fault! But when I tell you how +far I was from meaning it----" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't tell me a word, my child; I wish it were my fault; I'd like to +be in your shoes. And, I don't care how right slavery is, I'll never +own a darky again!" +</P> + +<P> + +One day some two months after, at home again with father. Just as I +was leaving the house on some errand, Sidney--ragged, wet, and +bedraggled as a lost dog--sprang into my arms. When I had got her +reclothed and fed I eagerly heard her story. Three of the four had +come safely through; poor Mingo had failed; if I ever tell of him it +must be at some other time. In the course of her tale I asked about +the compass. +</P> + +<P> +"Dat little trick?" she said fondly. "Oh, yass'm, it wah de salvation +o' de Lawd 'pon cloudy nights; but time an' ag'in us had to sepa'ate, +'llowin' fo' to rejine togetheh on de bank o' de nex' creek, an' which, +de Lawd a-he'pin' of us, h-it al'ays come to pass; an' so, afteh all, +Miss Maud, de one thing what stan' us de bes' frien' night 'pon night, +next to Gawd hisse'f, dat wah his clock in de ske-eye." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H2> + +<P> +"Landry," Chester said next day, bringing back the magazine barely half +an hour after the book-shop had reopened, "that's a true story!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, something inside tells you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No need! You remember this, near the end? '<I>Poor Mingo had failed +[to escape]; if I ever tell of him it must be at another time</I>.' +Landry, it's so absurd that I hardly have the face to say it; I've +got--ha-ha-ha!--I've got a manuscript! and it fills that gap!" The +speaker whipped out the "Memorandum"; "Here's the story, by my own +uncle, of how the three got over the border and how Mingo failed. I'd +totally forgotten I had it. I disliked its beginning far more than I +did 'Maud's' yesterday. For I hate masks and costumes as much as Mr. +Castanado loves them; and a practical joke--which is what the story +begins with, in costume, though it soon leaves it behind--nauseates me. +Comical situation it makes for me, this 'Memorandum,' doesn't +it--turning up this way?" +</P> + +<P> +Ovide replied meditatively: "To lend it, even to me, would seem as +though you sought----" +</P> + +<P> +"It would put me in a false light! I don't like false lights." +</P> + +<P> +"It would mask and costume you." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, not so badly as if I were really in society; as, you know, I'm +not! The only place where any man, but especially a society man, can +properly seek a girl's society is in society. The more he's worthy to +meet her, the more hopelessly--I needn't say hopelessly, but +completely--he's cut off from meeting her any other way. Isn't that a +gay situation? Ha-ha-ha!" +</P> + +<P> +"You would probably move much in society, even Creole society, without +meeting mademoiselle; she has less time for it than you." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that so?" +</P> + +<P> +Cupid, the evening before, had carried a flat, square parcel like a +shop's account-books to be written up under the home lamp. Staring at +Landry, Chester rather dropped the words than spoke them: "Think of it! +The awful pity! For the like of her! Of her! Why, how on earth--? +No, don't tell! I know what I'd think of any other man following in +her wake and asking questions while hard fortune writes her history. A +girl like her, Landry, has no business with a history!" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chester." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Has that 'Memorandum' never been printed? I can find out for you, in +<I>Poole's Index</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Do it! It's good enough, and it's named as if to be printed. See? +'The Angel of----'" +</P> + +<P> +"Then why not have Mr. Castanado, while selecting a publisher for +mademoiselle's manuscript, select for both?" +</P> + +<P> +Chester shone: "Why--why, happy thought! I'll consider that, indeed +I will! Well, good mor'----" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chester." +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you want that new book yesterday?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've met that nice old man the book calls 'the judge,' and he's coaxed +me to break my rules and dine with him, at his home uptown, to-night." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad. Madame, his wife, was my young mistress when I was a slave. +I wish her granddaughter and his grandson--they also are married--were +not over in the war--Red Cross. You'd like them--and they would like +you." +</P> + +<P> +"Do they know mademoiselle?" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed, yes! They are the best of her very few friends. But--the +Atlantic rolls between." +</P> + +<P> +Chester went out. In the rear door Ovide's wife appeared, knitting. +"Any close-ter?" she asked over her silver-bowed spectacles. +</P> + +<P> +"Some," he said, taking down <I>Poole's Index</I>. +</P> + +<P> +She came to his side and they placidly conversed. As she began to +leave him, "No," she said, "we kin wish, but we mustn' meddle. All any +of us want' or got any rights to want is to see 'em on speakin' terms. +F'om dat on, hands off. Leave de rest to de fitness o' things, de +everlast'n' fitness o' things!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H2> + +<P> +At the Castanados', the second evening after, Chester was welcomed into +a specially pretty living-room. But he found three other visitors. +Madame, seated on a sort of sofa for one, made no effort to rise. Her +face, for all its breadth, was sweet in repose and sweeter when she +spoke or smiled. Her hands were comparatively small and the play of +her vast arms was graceful as she said to a slim, tallish, comely woman +with an abundance of soft, well-arranged hair: +</P> + +<P> +"Seraphine, allow me to pres-ent Mr. Chezter." +</P> + +<P> +She explained that this Mme. Alexandre was her "neighbor of the next +door," and Chester remembered her sign: "Laces and Embroideries." +</P> + +<P> +"Scipion," said Castanado to a short, swarthy, broad-bearded man, "I +have the honor to make you acquaint' with my friend Mr. Chezter." +</P> + +<P> +Chester pressed the enveloping hand of "S. Beloiseau, Artisan in +Ornamental Iron-work." +</P> + +<P> +"Also, Mr. Chezter, Mr. Rene Ducatel; but with him you are already +acquaint', I think, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +Chester shook hands with a small, dapper, early-gray, superdignified +man, recalling his sign: "Antiques in Furniture, Glass, Bronze, Plate, +China, and Jewelry." M. Ducatel seemed to be already taking leave. +His "anceztral 'ome," he said, was far up-town; he had dropped in +solely to borrow--showing it--the <I>Courrier des Etats-Unis</I>. +</P> + +<P> +That journal, Castanado remarked to Chester as at a corner table he +poured him a glass of cordial, brought the war, the trenches, the poilu +and the boche closer than any other they knew. Beloiseau and Mme. +Alexandre, he softly explained, had come in quite unlooked-for to +discuss the great strife and might depart at any moment. Then the +reading! +</P> + +<P> +But Chester himself interested those two and they stayed. When he said +that Beloiseau's sidewalk samples had often made him covet some excuse +for going in and seeing both the stock and the craftsman, "That was +excuse ab-undant!" was the prompt response, and Castanado put in: +</P> + +<P> +"Scipion he'd rather, always, a non-buying connoisseur than a buying +Philistine." +</P> + +<P> +"Come any day! any hour!" said Beloiseau. +</P> + +<P> +Presently all five were talking of the surviving poetry of both +artistic and historic Royal Street. "Twenty year' ag-o," said the +ironworker, "looking down-street from my shop, there was not a building +in sight without a romantic story. My God! for example, that Hotel St. +Louis!" +</P> + +<P> +Chester--"had heard one or two of its episodes only the evening before, +at that up-town dinner, from a fine old down-town Creole, a fellow +guest, with whom he was to dine the next week." +</P> + +<P> +"Aha-a-a! precizely ac-rozz the street from Mme. Alexandre!" said the +hostess. "M'sieu' et Madame De l'Isle! Now I detec' that!" +</P> + +<P> +"Have they no son?--or--or daughter?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Not any," Mme. Alexandre broke in with a significant sparkle; "juz' +the two al-lone." +</P> + +<P> +"They live over my shop," Beloiseau said. "You muz' know that double +gate nex' adjoining me." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that lovely piece of ironwork? I took that for a part of your +establishment." +</P> + +<P> +"I have only the uze of it with them. My <I>grandpère</I> he made those +gate', for the father of Mme. De l'Isle, same year he made those great +openwork gate' of Hotel St. Louis. You speak of episode'! One summer, +renovating that hotel, they paint' those gate'--of iron openwork--in +imitation--<I>mon Dieu</I>!--of marbl'! <I>Ciel</I>! the tragedy of <I>that</I>! +Yes, they live over me; in the whole square, both side' the street, +last remaining of the 'igh society." +</P> + +<P> +When Mme. Alexandre finally rose to go, and had kissed the upturned +brow of her hostess, she went by an inner door and rear balcony. And +when Chester and Beloiseau began to take leave their host said to +Chester: +</P> + +<P> +"You dine with M. De l'Isle Tuesday. Well, if you'll come again here +the next evening we'll attend to--that business." +</P> + +<P> +"Wouldn't that be losing time? I can just as well come sooner." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said madame, "better that Wednesday." +</P> + +<P> +Chester was nettled, but he recovered when the ironworker walked with +him around into Bienville Street and at his <I>pension</I> door lamented the +pathetic decay of the useful arts and of artistic taste, since the +advent of castings and machinery. The pair took such liking for each +other's tenets of beauty, morals, art, and life that Chester walked +back to the De l'Isle gates, and their parting at last was at the +corner half-way between their two domiciles. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile madame was saying to her spouse, "Aha! you see? The power of +prayer! Ab-ove all, for the he'pless! By day the fo' corner' of my +room, by night the fo' post' of my bed, are----" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, <I>chérie</I>, I know." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, they're to me for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John! Since three +days every time I heard the cathedral clock I've prayed to them; and +now----!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, my angel? Now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now! He's dining there next Tuesday!" +</P> + +<P> +"Truly. Yet even now we can only hope----" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, no! Me, I can also continue to supplicate! From now till +Wednesday, every time that clock, I'll pray those four <I>évangélistes</I>! +and Thursday you'll see--the power of prayer! Oh, 'tis like <I>magique</I>, +that power of prayer!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +VIII +</H2> + +<P> +On Tuesday evening Chester, a country boy yet now and then, was first +at the De l'Isles'. +</P> + +<P> +Madame lauded him. "Punctualitie! tha'z the soul of pleasure!" She +had begun to explain why her other guests included but one young lady, +when here they came. First, the Prieurs, a still handsome Creole +couple whom he never met again. Then that youthful-aged up-town pair, +the Thorndyke-Smiths. And last--while Smith held Chester captive to +tell him he knew his part of Dixie, having soldiered there in the Civil +War--the one young lady, Mlle. Chapdelaine. As Chester turned toward +her she turned away, but her back view was enough to startle him. +</P> + +<P> +"Aline," the hostess began as she brought them face to face, but +whatever she said more might as well have been a thunderbolt through +the roof. For Aline Chapdelaine was SHE. +</P> + +<P> +They went out together. What a stately dining-room! What carvings! +What old china and lace on the board, under what soft, rich +illumination! The Prieurs held the seats of honor. Chester was on the +hostess's left. Mademoiselle sat between him and Mr. Smith. It would +be pleasant to tell with what poise the youth and she dropped into +conversation, each intensely mindful--intensely aware that the other +was mindful--of that Conti Street corner, of Ovide's shop, and of "The +Clock in the Sky," and both alike hungry to know how much each had been +told about the other. Calmly they ignored all earlier encounter and +entered into acquaintance on the common ground of the poetry of the +narrow region of decay in which this lovely home lay hid "like a lost +jewel." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, not quite lost yet," the girl protested. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he conceded, "not while the poetry remains," and Smith, on her +other hand, said: +</P> + +<P> +"Not while this cluster of shops beneath us is kept by those who now +keep them." +</P> + +<P> +"My faith!" the hostess broke in, "to real souls 'tis they are the +wonder--and the <I>poésie</I>--and the jewels! Ask Aline!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ask me," Chester said, as if for mademoiselle's rescue; "I discovered +them only last week." +</P> + +<P> +"And then also," quietly said Aline, "ask me, for I did not discover +them only last week." +</P> + +<P> +M. Prieur joining in enabled Chester to murmur: "May I ask you +something?" +</P> + +<P> +"You need not. You would ask if I knew you had discovered them--M. +Castanado and the rest." +</P> + +<P> +"And you would answer?" +</P> + +<P> +"That I knew they had discovered you." +</P> + +<P> +"Discovered, you mean, my spiritual substance?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, your spiritual substance. That's a capital expression, Mr. +Chester, your 'spiritual substance.' I must add that to my English." +</P> + +<P> +"Your English is wonderfully correct. May I ask something else?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can answer without. Yes, I know where you're going to-morrow and +for what; to read that old manuscript. Mr. Chester, that other +story--of my <I>grand'mére</I>, 'Maud'; how did you like that?" +</P> + +<P> +"It left me in love with your <I>grand'mére</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Notwithstanding she became what they used to call--you know the word." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, 'nigger-stealer.' How did you ever add that to your English?" +</P> + +<P> +"My father <I>was</I> one. Right here in Royal Street. Hotel St. Louis. +Else he might never have married my--that's too long to tell here." +</P> + +<P> +"May I not hear it soon, at your home?" +</P> + +<P> +"Assuredly. Sooner or later. My aunts they are born raconteurs." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! your aunts. Hem! Do you know? I had an uncle who once was your +grandfather's sort of robber, though a Southerner born and bred." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Ovide's wife told me. Will you permit me a question?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," laughed Chester, "but I can answer it. Yes. Those four poor +runaways to whom your sweet Maud showed the clock in the sky were the +same four my uncle helped on--oh, you've not heard it, and it also is +too long. I can lend you his 'Memorandum' if you'll have it." +</P> + +<P> +She hesitated. "N-no," she said. "Ah, no! I couldn't bear that +responsibility! Listen; Mr. Smith is going to tell a war story of the +city." +</P> + +<P> +But no, that gentleman's story was yet another too long for the moment +even when the men were left to their cigars. Instead he and Chester +made further acquaintance. When they returned to the ladies, "I want +you to talk with my wife," said Mr. Smith, and Chester obeyed. Yet +soon he was at mademoiselle's side again and she was saying in a +dropped voice: +</P> + +<P> +"To-morrow when you're at the Castanados' to read, so privately, would +you be willing for Mme. De l'Isle to be there--just madame alone?" +</P> + +<P> +Oh, but men are dull! "I'd be honored!" he said. "They can modify the +privacy as they please." Oh, but men are dull! There he had to give +place to M. Prieur and presently accepted some kind of social +invitation, seeing no way out of it, from the Smiths. So ended the +evening. Mlle. Chapdelaine was taken to her home, "close by," as she +said, in the Prieurs' carriage. +</P> + +<P> +"They are juz' arround in Bourbon Street, those Chapdelaines," said the +De l'Isles to Chester, last to go. "Y'ought to see their li'l' +flower-garden. Like those two aunt' that maintain it, 'tis unique. +Y'ought to see that--and them." +</P> + +<P> +"I have mademoiselle's permission," he replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, well, then!--ha, ha!" The pair exchanged a smile which seemed to +the parting guest to say: "After all he's not so utterly deficient!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +IX +</H2> + +<P> +Again the Castanados' dainty parlor, more dainty than ever. No one +there was in evening dress, though with its privacy "modified as the +Castanados pleased," it had gathered a company of seven. +</P> + +<P> +Chester, not yet come, would make an eighth. Madame was in her special +chair. And here, besides her husband, were both M. and Mme. De l'Isle, +Mme. Alexandre and Scipion Beloiseau. The seventh was M. Placide +Dubroca, perfumer; a man of fifty or so, his black hair and mustache +inclined to curl and his eyes spirited yet sympathetic. Just entered, +he was telling how consumed with regret his wife was, to be kept +away--by an old promise to an old friend to go with her to that +wonderful movie, "Les Trois Mousquetaires," when Chester came in and +almost at once a general debate on Mlle. Chapdelaine's manuscript was +in full coruscation. +</P> + +<P> +"In the firs' place," one said--though the best place he could seize +was the seventeenth--"firs' place of all--competition! My frien's, we +cannot hope to nig-otiate with that North in the old manner which we +are proud, a few of us yet, to <I>con</I>-tinue in the rue Royale. Every +publisher----" + +Mme. Castanado had a quotation that could not wait: "We got to be 'wise +like snake' an' innocent like pigeon'!'" +</P> + +<P> +"Precizely! Every publisher approach' mus' know he's bidding agains' +every other! Maybe they are honess men, and <I>if</I> so they'll be +rij-oice'!" +</P> + +<P> +A non-listener was trying to squeeze in: "And sec'--and sec'--and +secon' thing--if not firs'--is guarantee! They mus' pay so much profit +in advance. Else it be better to publish without a publisher, and with +advertisement' front and back! Tiffany, Royal Baking-Powder, Ivory +Soap it Float'! Ten thousand dolla' the page that <I>Ladies' 'Ome +Journal</I> get', and if we get even ten dolla' the page--I know a man +what make that way three hundred dolla'!" +</P> + +<P> +"He make that net or gross?" some one asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! I think, not counting his time <I>sol</I>-iciting those +advertisement', he make it <I>nearly</I> net." +</P> + +<P> +Chester made show of breaking in and three speakers at once begged him +to proceed: "How much of a book," he asked Mme. Castanado, "will the +manuscript make? How long is it?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked falteringly to her husband: "'Tis about a foot long, nine +inch' wide. Marcel, pazz that to monsieur." +</P> + +<P> +The husband complied. Chester counted the lines of one of the pages. +Madame watched him anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Tha'z too wide?" she inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't long enough to make a book. To do that would take--oh--seven +times as much." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" Madame's voice grew in sweetness as it rose: "So much the +better! So much the more room for those advertisement'!--and picture'!" +</P> + +<P> +"And portrait of mademoiselle!" said Mme. Alexandre, and Mme. De l'Isle +smiled assent. +</P> + +<P> +Yet a disappointed silence followed, presently broken by the perfumer: +"All the same, what is the matter to make it a pamphlet?" +</P> + +<P> +Beloiseau objected: "No, then you compete aggains' those magazine'. +But if you permit one of those magazine' to buy it you get the +advantage of all the picture' in the whole magazine." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" several demurred, "and let that magazine swallow whole all those +profit' of all those advertisement'!" +</P> + +<P> +Chester spoke: "I have an idea--" But others had ideas and the floor +besides. +</P> + +<P> +Castanado lifted a hand: "Frien'--our counsel." +</P> + +<P> +Counsel tried again: "I have a conviction that we should first offer +this to a magazine--through--yes, of course, through some influential +friend. If one doesn't want it another may----" +</P> + +<P> +Chorus: "Ho! they will all want it! That was not written laz' night! +'Tis fivty year' old; they cannot rif-use that!" +</P> + +<P> +"However," Chester persisted, "if they should--if all should--I'd +advise----" +</P> + +<P> +"Frien's," Castanado pleaded, "let us hear." +</P> + +<P> +"I should advise that we gather together as many such old narratives as +we can find, especially such as can be related to one another----" +</P> + +<P> +"They need not be ril-ated!" cried Dubroca. "<I>We</I> are not ril-ated, +and yet see! Ril-ated? where you are goin' to find them, ril-ated?" +</P> + +<P> +"Royal Street!" Scipion retorted. "Royal Street is pave' with old +narration'!" +</P> + +<P> +"Already," said Castanado, "we chanze to have three or four. +Mademoiselle has that story of her <I>grand'mère</I>, and Mr. Chezter he +has--sir, you'll not care if I tell that?--Mr. Chezter has <I>the sequal +to that</I>, and written by his uncle!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Chester put in, "but Ovide Landry finds it was printed years +ago." +</P> + +<P> +"Proof!" proclaimed Mme. Alexandre, "proof that 'tis good to print +ag-ain! The people that read that before, they are mozely dead." +</P> + +<P> +"At the same time," Chester responded, rising and addressing the chair, +his hostess, "because that is a sequel to the <I>grand'-mère's</I> story, +and because <I>this</I>--this West Indian episode--is not a sequel and has +no sequel, and particularly because we ought to let mademoiselle be +first to judge whether my uncle's <I>memorandum</I> is fit company for her +two stories, I propose, I say, that before we read this West Indian +thing we read my uncle's <I>memorandum</I>, and that we send and beg her to +come and hear it with us. It's in my pocket." +</P> + +<P> +Patter, patter, patter, went a dozen hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Marcel," the hostess cried in French, "go!" +</P> + +<P> +"I will go with you," Mme. Alexandra proposed, "she will never come +without me." +</P> + +<P> +"Tis but a step," said Mme. De l'Isle, "the three of us will go +together." They went. +</P> + +<P> +Those who waited talked on of their city's true stories. The vastest +and most monstrous war in human history was smoking and roaring just +across the Atlantic, and in it they had racial, national, personal +interests; but for the moment they left all that aside. "One troub'," +Dubroca said, "'tis that all those three stone'--and all I can +rim-ember--even that story of M'sieu' Smith about the fall of the +city--1862--they all got in them <I>somewhere</I>, alas! the nigger. The +<I>publique</I> they are not any longer pretty easy to fascinate on that +subjec'." +</P> + +<P> +"Ho!" Beloiseau rejoined, "<I>au contraire</I>, he's an advantage! If only +you keep him for the back-<I>ground</I>; biccause in the mind of +every-<I>body</I> tha'z where he is, and that way he has the advantage to +ril-ate those storie' together and----" +</P> + +<P> +Mademoiselle came. Her arrival, reception, installation near the +hostess and opposite Chester are good enough untold. If elsewhere in +that wide city a like number ever settled down to listen to an untamed +writer's manuscript in as sweet content with one another <I>their</I> story +ought to be printed. "Well," Mme. Castanado chanted, "commence." And +Chester read: +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +X +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE ANGEL OF THE LORD +</H3> + +<P> +When I was twenty-four I lived at the small capital of my native +Southern State. +</P> + +<P> +My parental home was three counties distant. My father, a slaveholding +planter, was a noble gentleman, whom I loved as he loved me. But we +could not endure each other's politics and I was trying to exist on my +professional fees, in the law office of one of our ex-governors. I was +kindly tolerated by everybody about me but had neglected social +relations, being a black sheep on every hot question of the time--1860. +</P> + +<P> +In the world's largest matters my Southern mother had the sanest +judgment I ever knew, and it was from her I had absorbed my notions on +slavery. It was at least as much in sympathy for the white man as for +the black that she deprecated it, yet she pointed out to me how idle it +was to fancy that any mere manumission of our slaves would cure us of a +whole philosophy of wealth, society, and government as inbred as it was +antiquated. +</P> + +<P> +One evening my two fellow boarders--state-house clerks, good boys--so +glaringly left me out of their plan for a whole day's fishing on the +morrow, that I smarted. I was so short of money that I could not have +supplied my own tackle, but no one knew that, and it stung me to be +slighted by two chaps I liked so well. I determined to be revenged in +some playful way that would make us better friends, and as I walked +down-street next morning I hit out a scheme. They had been gone since +daybreak and I was on my way to see a client who kept a livery-stable. +</P> + +<P> +Now, in college, where I had intended to leave all silly tricks behind +me, my most taking pranks had been played in female disguise; for at +twenty-four I was as beardless as a child. +</P> + +<P> +My errand to the stableman was to collect some part of my fee in a suit +I had won for him. But I got not a cent, for as to cash his victory +had been a barren one. However, a part of his booty was an old coach +built when carriage people made long journeys in their own equipages. +This he would "keep on sale for me free of charge," etc. +</P> + +<P> +"Which means you'll never sell it," I said. +</P> + +<P> +Oh, he could sell it if any man could! +</P> + +<P> +I smiled. Could he lend me, I asked, for half a day or so, a good span +of horses? He could. +</P> + +<P> +"Then hitch up the coach and let me try it." +</P> + +<P> +He bristled: "What are you going to find out by 'trying' it? What +d'you 'llow it'll do? Blow up? Who'll drive it? <I>I</I> can't spare any +one." +</P> + +<P> +I was glad. Any man of his would know me, and my scheme called for a +stranger to both me and the coach. I must find such a person. +</P> + +<P> +"If I send a driver," I said, "you'll lend me the span, won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes." +</P> + +<P> +But all at once I decided to do without the whole rig. I went back to +my room and had an hour's enjoyment making myself up as a lady dressed +for travel. For a woman I was of just a fine stature. In years I +looked a refined forty. My hands were not too big for black lace +mitts, my bosom was a success, and my feet, in thin morocco, were out +of sight and nobody's business. A little oil and a burnt match +darkened my eyebrows, my wig sat straight, under the weest of bonnets I +wore a chignon, behind one ear a bunch of curls, and, unseen at one +side of a modest bustle, my revolver. Though I say it myself, I +managed my crinoline with grace. +</P> + +<P> +["That was pritty co'rect," the costumer remarked. "Humph!" said +Chester. The three mesdames exchanged glances, and the reading went +on.] +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XI +</H2> + +<P> +Leaving a note on her door to tell our landlady that business would +keep me away an indefinite time, I got out at the front gate +unobserved, and with a sweet dignity that charmed me with myself walked +away under a bewitching parasol, well veiled. +</P> + +<P> +I knew where to find my two sportsmen. A few hundred paces put the +town and an open field at my back; a few more down a bushy lane brought +me where a dense wood overhung both sides of the narrow way, and the +damp air was full of the smell of penny-royal and of creek sands. From +here I proposed to saunter down through the woods to the creek, locate +my fishermen, and draw them my way by cries of distress. +</P> + +<P> +On their reaching my side my story, told through my veil and between +meanings and clingings, was to be that while on a journey in my own +coach, a part of its running-gear having broken, I had sent it on to be +mended; that through love of trees and wild flowers I had ventured to +stay alone meantime among them, and that a snake had bitten me on the +ankle. I should describe a harmless one but insist I was poisoned, and +yet refuse to show the wound or be borne back to the road, or to let +either man stay with me alone while the other went for a doctor, or to +drink their whiskey for a cure. On getting back to the road--with the +two fellows for crutches--I should send both to town for my coach, +keeping with me their tackle and fish. Then I should get myself and my +spoils back to our dwelling as best I could and--await the issue. If +this poor performance had so come off--but see what occurred instead! +</P> + +<P> +I had shut my parasol and moved into hiding behind some wild vines to +mop my face, when near by on the farther side of the way came slyly +into view a negro and negress. They were in haste to cross the road +yet quite as wishful to cross unseen. One, in home-spun gown and +sunbonnet, was ungainly, shoeless, bird-heeled, fan-toed, ragged, and +would have been painfully ugly but for a grotesqueness almost winsome. +</P> + +<P> +"She's a field-hand," was my thought. +</P> + +<P> +The other, in very clean shirt, trousers, and shoes, looking ten years +younger and hardly full-grown, was shapely and handsome. "That boy," +thought I, "is a house-servant. The two don't belong in the same +harness. And yet I'd bet a new hat they're runaways." +</P> + +<P> +Now they gathered courage to come over. With a childish parade of +unconcern and with all their glances up and down the road, they came, +and were within seven steps of me before they knew I was near. I shall +never forget the ludicrous horror that flashed white and black from the +eyes in that sun-bonnet, nor the snort with which its owner, like a +frightened heifer, crashed off a dozen yards into the brush and as +suddenly stopped. +</P> + +<P> +"Good morning, boy," I said to the other, who had gulped with +consternation, yet stood still. +</P> + +<P> +"Good mawnin', mist'ess." +</P> + +<P> +The feminine title came luckily. I had forgotten my disguise, so +disarmed was I by the refined dignity of the dark speaker's mellow +voice and graceful modesty. After all, my prejudices were Southern. I +had rarely seen negroes, at worship, work, or play, without an inward +groan for some way--righteous way--by which our land might be clean rid +of them. But here, in my silly disguise, confronting this unmixed +young African so manifestly superior to millions of our human swarm +white or black, my unsympathetic generalizations were clear put to +shame. The customary challenge, "Who' d'you belong to?" failed on my +lips, and while those soft eyes passed over me from bonnet to mitts I +gave my head as winsome a tilt as I could and inquired: "What is your +name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you; what is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm name', eh, Euonymus; yass'm." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, boy, where'd your mother get that name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, mist'ess, ain't dat a Bible name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," I said, remembering Onesimus. With my parasol I indicated +the other figure, sunbonneted, motionless, gazing on us through the +brush. +</P> + +<P> +"Has she a Bible name too?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm; Robelia." +</P> + +<P> +Robelia brought chin and shoulder together and sniggered. "Euonymus," +I asked, "have you seen two young gentlemen, fishing, anywhere near +here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm, dey out 'pon a san'bar 'bout two hund'ed yards up de creek." +The black finger that pointed was as clean as mine. +</P> + +<P> +"You and this woman," thought I again, "are dodging those men." With a +smile as of curiosity I looked my slim informant over once more. I had +never seen slavery so flattered yet so condemned. +</P> + +<P> +All at once I said in my heart: "You, my lad, I'll help to escape!" +But when I looked again at the absurd Robelia I saw I must help both +alike. +</P> + +<P> +"Euonymus, did you ever drive a lady's coach?" +</P> + +<P> +"Me? No'm, I never drove no lady's coach." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, boy, I'm travelling--in my own outfit." +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm." +</P> + +<P> +"But I hire a new driver and span at each town and send the others +back." +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm," said Euonymus. Robelia came nearer. +</P> + +<P> +"My coach is now at a livery-stable in town, and I want a driver and a +lady's maid." +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd prefer free colored people. They could come with me as far as +they pleased, and I shouldn't be responsible for their return." +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm," said Euonymus, edging away from Robelia's nudge. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Euonymus, I judge by your being out here in the woods this time +of day, idle, that you're both free, you and your sister, h'm?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ro'--Robelia an' me? Eh, ye'--yass'm, as you may say, in a manneh, +yass'm." +</P> + +<P> +"She is your sister, is she not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm," clapped in Robelia, with a happy grin, and Euonymus quietly +added: +</P> + +<P> +"Us full sisteh an' brotheh--in a manneh." +</P> + +<P> +"Umh'm. Could you drive my coach, Euonymus?" +</P> + +<P> +"What, me, mist'ess? Why, eh, o' co'se I kin drive <I>some</I>, but--" The +soft, honest eyes, seeking Robelia's, betrayed a mental conflict. I +guessed there were more than two runaways, and that Euonymus was +debating whether for Robelia's sake to go with me and leave the others +behind, or not. +</P> + +<P> +"You kin drive de coach," blurted the one-ideaed Robelia. "You knows +you kin." +</P> + +<P> +"No, mi'ss, takin' all roads as dey come I ain't no ways fitt'n'; no'm." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, daddy's fitt'n'!" said the sun-bonnet. +</P> + +<P> +Euonymus flinched, yet smilingly said: +</P> + +<P> +"Yass, da's so, but I ain't daddy, no mo'n you is." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, us kin go fetch him--in th'ee shakes." +</P> + +<P> +Euonymus flinched again, yet showed generalship. "Yass'm, us kin go ax +daddy." +</P> + +<P> +I smiled. "Let Robelia go and you stay here." +</P> + +<P> +Robelia waited on tiptoe. "Go fetch him," murmured Euonymus, "an' make +has'e." +</P> + +<P> +"Wait! You're a good boy, Euonymus, ain't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I cayn't say dat, mi'ss; but I'm glad ef you thinks so." +</P> + +<P> +"Y' is good!" said Robelia. "You knows you is!" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind," I said; "do you belong to--Zion?" +</P> + +<P> +The dark face grew radiant. "Yass'm, I does!" +</P> + +<P> +"Euonymus, how many more of you-all are there besides <I>daddy and +mammy</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +The surprise was cruel. The runaway's eyes let out a gleam of alarm +and then, as I lighted with kindness, filled with rapt wonder at my +miraculous knowledge: "Be'--be'--beside'--beside' d-daddy an' m-mammy? +D'ain't no mo', m-mist'ess; no'm!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm," put in Robelia, "da's all; us fo'." +</P> + +<P> +"Just you four. Euonymus, a bit ago I noticed on your sister's ankles +some white mud." +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm." Another gleam of alarm and then a fine, awesome courage. +Robelia stared in panic. +</P> + +<P> +"The nearest white mud--marl--in the State, Robelia, is forty miles +south of here." +</P> + +<P> +"Is d'--dat so, mist'ess?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and so you also are travellers, Euonymus." +</P> + +<P> +"Trav'--y'--yass'm, I--I reckon you mought call us trav'luz, in a +manneh, yass'm." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, my next town is thirty miles north of----" +</P> + +<P> +"Nawth!" Euonymus broke in, thinking furiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, if instead of hiring just your sister and her daddy I should----" +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm!" +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose I should take all four of you along, as though you were my +slaves----" +</P> + +<P> +"De time bein'," Euonymus alertly slipped in. +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly, that's all. How would that do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, mist'ess! kin you work dat miracle?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can do it if it suits you." +</P> + +<P> +"Lawd, it suit' <I>us</I>! Dey couldn't be noth'n' mo' rep'ehensible!" +</P> + +<P> +Robelia vanished. Euonymus gazed into my eyes. +</P> + +<P> +[Had my disguise failed?] "What is it, boy?" +</P> + +<P> +"May I ax you a question, mi'ss?" +</P> + +<P> +"You may ask if you won't tell." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I won't tell! Is you a sho' enough 'oman?--Lawd, I knowd you +wa'n't! No mo'n you is a man! I seen it f'om de beginnin'!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, boy, what do you imagine I am?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't 'magine, I knows! 'T'uz me prayed Gawd to sen' you. Y' +ain't man, y' ain't 'oman! an' yit yo' bofe! Yo' de same what visit +Ab'am, an' Lot, an' Dan'l, and de motheh de Lawd!" +</P> + +<P> +"Stop! Stop! Never mind who I am; I've got to put you fifty miles +from here before bedtime." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, my Lawd. Oh, yes, my Lawd!" +</P> + +<P> +"Euonymus! you mustn't call me that!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't dat what Ab'am called you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I forget! but--call me mistress!--only!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yass, suh--yass, mi'ss!" +</P> + +<P> +"Good. Now, lad, I can take you alone, horseback, which'll be far +swifter, safer, surer----" +</P> + +<P> +A new alarm, a new exaltation--"Oh, no, my--mist'ess; no, no! you knows +you on'y a-temptin' o' dy servant!" +</P> + +<P> +"You wouldn't leave daddy and mammy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, daddy kin stick to mammy, an' her to he! but Robelia got neither +faith nor gumption, an' let me never see de salvation o' de Lawd ef I +cayn't stick by dat--by--by my po' Robelia!" +</P> + +<P> +"But suppose, my boy, we should be mistaken for runaways and tracked +and run down." +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm, o' co'se. Yass'm." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you fight--for your sister?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yass, my La'--yass'm, I kin an' I will. I's qualified my soul to' +dat, suh; yass'm." +</P> + +<P> +"Dogs?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm, dawgs. Notinstandin' de dawgs come pass me roun' about, in de +name o' de Lawd will I lif up my han' an' will perwail." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you only your hands?" +</P> + +<P> +"Da's all David had, ag'in lion an' bah." +</P> + +<P> +"True. Euonymus, I need a man's clothes." +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm, on a pinch dey mowt come handy." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XII +</H2> + +<P> +Here Robelia came again, conducting "Luke" and "Rebecca." Luke's +garments were amusingly, heroically patched, yet both seniors were +thoroughly attractive; not handsome, but reflecting the highest, +gentlest rectitude. One of their children had inherited all that was +best from both parents, beautifully exalting it; the other all that was +poorest in earlier ancestors. They were evolution and reversion +personified. +</P> + +<P> +The father was frank yet deferential. Our parley was brief. His only +pomp lay in his manner of calling me madam. I felt myself a queen. +Handing him a note to the stable-keeper, "You can read," I said, "can't +you? Or your son can?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, madam, I regrets to say we's minus dat." +</P> + +<P> +I hid my pleasure. "Well, at the stable, if they seem to think this +note is from a man, or that the coach is owned by a man----" +</P> + +<P> +"Keep silent," put in Euonymus, "an' see de counsel o' de Lawd +ovehcome." +</P> + +<P> +Luke went. I pencilled another note. It requested my landlady to give +Euonymus a hat, boots, and suit from my armoire and speed him back all +she could. (To avoid her queries.) +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca gazed anxiously after this second messenger. Robelia, near by, +munched blackberries. +</P> + +<P> +"Rebecca, did you ever think what you'd do if both your children were +in equal danger?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yass'm, I is studie' dat, dis ve'y day, ef de trufe got to be +tol'." +</P> + +<P> +Thought I: "If anything else has to be told, Robelia'll be my only +helper." I asked Rebecca which one she would try to save first. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, mist'ess, I could tell dat a heap sight betteh when de time come. +De Lawd mowt move me to do most fo' de one what least fitt'n' to"--she +choked--"to die. An' yit ag'in dat mowt depen' on de circumstances o' +de time bein'." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it mustn't, Rebecca, it mustn't!" +</P> + +<P> +"Y'--yass'm--no'm'm! Mustn' it?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, in any case you must do as I tell you." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, o' co'se! yass'm!" +</P> + +<P> +"So promise, now, that in any pinch you'll try first to save your son." +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm." A pang of duplicity showed in her uplifted glance, yet she +murmured again: "Yass'm, I promise you dat." Nevertheless, I had my +doubts. +</P> + +<P> +A hum of voices told us my two anglers were approaching, and with +Rebecca's quieting hand on the pusillanimous Robelia we drew into +hiding and saw them cross the corner of a clearing and vanish again +downstream. Then, hearing the coach, we went to meet it. +</P> + +<P> +Both messengers were on the box. Euonymus passed me my bundle of +stuff. The coach turned round. Bidding Euonymus stay on the box I had +Rebecca and Robelia take the front seat inside. Following in I +remarked: "Good boy, that of yours, Luke." +</P> + +<P> +Luke bowed so reverently that I saw Euonymus's belief in me was not his +alone. "We thaynk de Lawd," Luke replied, "fo' boy an' gal alike; de +good Lawd sawnt 'em bofe." +</P> + +<P> +"Yet extra thanks for the son wouldn't hurt." +</P> + +<P> +Robelia buried a sob of laughter in the nearest cushion, and as we +rolled away gaped at me with a face on which a dozen flies danced and +played tag. And so we went----. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Chester ceased reading and stood up. For Mlle. Chapdelaine was rising. +All the men rose. +</P> + +<P> +"And so, also," she said, "I too must go." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but the story is juz' big-inning," Mme. Alexandra protested, and +Mme. De l'Isle said: +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure 'twill turn out magnificent, yes!" +</P> + +<P> +Mademoiselle declared the tale fascinating. She "would be enchanted to +stay," but her aunts <I>must</I> be considered, etc.; and when Chester +confessed the reading would require another session anyhow Mmes. De +l'Isle and Alexandre arose, and M. Castanado asked aloud if there was +any of the company who could not return a week from that evening. +</P> + +<P> +No one was so unlucky. "But!" cried Mme. Alexandre, "why not to my +parlor?" + +"Because!" said Mme. Castanado, to Chester's vivid enlightenment, +"every week-day, all day, you have mademoiselle with you." +</P> + +<P> +"With me, ah, no! me forever down in my shop, and mademoiselle +incessantly upstair'!" +</P> + +<P> +Mme. Castanado prevailed. That same room, one week later. +</P> + +<P> +Scipion and Dubroca escorted Mme. De l'Isle across to her beautiful +gates, and Chester, not in dream but in fact, with M. De l'Isle and +Mme. Alexandre following well in the rear, walked with mademoiselle to +the high fence and green batten wicket of her olive-scented garden in +the rue Bourbon. So walking, and urged by him, she began to tell of +matters in her father's life, the old Hotel St. Louis life before hers +began--matters that gave to "The Clock in the Sky" and "The Angel of +the Lord" a personal interest beyond all academic values. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll finish about that another time," she said, and with "another +time" singing in his heart like a taut wire he verily enjoyed the +rasping of the wicket's big lock as he turned away. +</P> + +<P> +The week wore round. Except M. De l'Isle, kept away by a meeting of +the Athénée Louisianais, all were regathered; one thing alone delayed +the reading. Each of the three women had separately asked her father +confessor how far one might justly--well--lie--to those seeking the +truth only for cruel and wicked ends. But as no two had received the +same answer, and as Chester's uncle was gone to his reward--or +penalty--the question was early tabled. "Well," Mme. Castanado said: +"'And so we went--' in the coach. Go on, read." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XIII +</H2> + +<P> +And so we went, not through the town but around it. +</P> + +<P> +My attendants were heavy with sleep. Seating Rebecca next me I called +Euonymus into the coach and let mother, son, and daughter slumber at +ease. +</P> + +<P> +To the few persons we met I paraded my bonnet and curls. Some, in +Southern fashion, I questioned. I was a widow who had sold her +plantation in order to go and live with a widowed brother. Euonymus +too I showed off, who, waking at every halt, presented a face that +seemed any boy's rather than a runaway's. So natural to these Africans +was the supernatural that I could be one of the men who plucked Lot +from Sodom and yet a becurled widow. +</P> + +<P> +When at noon, at a farmhouse, we had fed horses and dined, I at the +planter's board, my "slaves" under the house-grove trees, Euonymus took +the lines, and for five hours Luke slept inside. Then they changed +places again, and Euonymus and I, face to face, watched the long hot +day wane, and pass through gorgeous changes into twilight. Often I saw +questions in the young eyes that watched me so reverently, but I dared +not encourage them; dared not be a talkative angel. Also my brain had +its questions. How was I to get out of the most perilous trap into +which a sane man--if sane I was--ever thrust himself? There was no +sign that we were being pursued, but it was a harrowing puzzle how, +without drawing suspicion upon the runaways, to get them once more +separated from me and the coach while I should vanish as a lady and +reappear as a gentleman. +</P> + +<P> +"Euonymus, boy, if I should by and by dress as a man could you put +these woman things on, over what you're wearing, and be a lady in my +place?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, eh, y'--yass'm. Oh, yass'm, ef you say so, my--mistress; +howsomever, you know what de good book say' 'bout de Ethiopium." +</P> + +<P> +"Can't change--yes, I know; but this would be only for an hour or two +and in the dark." +</P> + +<P> +"It'd have to be pow'ful dahk," sighed Euonymus, and from Robelia's +sunbonnet came--"Unh!" +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca interposed: "An' still, o' co'se, we all gwine do ezac'ly what +you say." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," I responded, "maybe we won't do that." And we never did. I +was still "Mrs. Southmayd," as we came into a small railway station. +At the ticket-window I asked if any one had come up in the train of +half an hour before, inquiring for a lady in a coach. +</P> + +<P> +"No, ma'am, nobody got off that train. But there's another train at +half past eight." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," I whined, "he won't come on that; he's overrated my speed and +gone on to the next station, making five miles more going for me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, no, you can give three of your servants a pass to go on with the +carriage, keep your maid and wait for the train." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, no! No lady can choose to travel by rail where she can go in her +own coach!" +</P> + +<P> +They said no more except to warn Luke of a bad piece of road about two +miles on. Sure enough, in its very middle--crack!--we broke down. "De +kingbolt done gone clean in two!" said Luke, and Robelia repeated the +news explosively. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll leave the coach," I announced. "Fold the lap-robes on the backs +of the two horses, for Rebecca and me. You-all can walk beside us." +</P> + +<P> +After a while, so going, we passed a large plantation house, its +windows ruddy with home cheer. A second quarter-mile brought dimly to +view a railroad water-tank and an empty flag-station house, and in the +next bit of woods I spoke to Euonymus: "Have you that bundle? Ah, yes. +Luke, this boy and I are going off here a step for me to change my +dress. If any passer questions you, say I'll be right back." +</P> + +<P> +"Yass, madam, but, er, eh--wouldn' you sooner take yo' maid, Robelia, +instid?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, for as to dress I'll be as much of a man, when I get back, as +Euonymus." +</P> + +<P> +"Is Euonymus gwine change dress too?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, these things that I take off, your wife and Robelia may divide +between them." +</P> + +<P> +I started away but Luke lifted a hand. I thought he was going to claim +every dud for Robelia. Not so. +</P> + +<P> +"We all thanks you mighty much, madam, but in fac', ef de trufe got to +be tol'----" +</P> + +<P> +"It hasn't got to be told <I>me</I>, Luke, if I----" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, madam, o' co'se. I 'uz on'y gwine say--a-concernin' +Euonymus----" +</P> + +<P> +I hurried off while the wife chided her good man: "Why don't you dess +hide all dem thing' in yo' heart like <I>dey</I> used to do when d' angel +'pear' unto <I>dem</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +Alone with Euonymus, as I whipped off my feminine garb and whirled into +the other, I began to say that however suddenly I might leave the +fugitives they must rest assured that I was not deserting them. To +which---- +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my Lawd," Euonymus replied, "us know dat!" +</P> + +<P> +We reached the pike again. "Rebecca, dismount. Hand me your bridle. +Luke, for you-all's better safety I'm going back and return these +horses. We may not see one another again----" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy!" moaned Rebecca. +</P> + +<P> +"In dis vain worl' you mean," Luke said. +</P> + +<P> +"That's all. Come, don't waste time. You'd better walk on for a short +way in the pike before taking to the woods. Now go all night for all +you're worth. Good-by." I turned abruptly. But my led horse was +averse to abruptness, and all the family except the torpid Robelia +poured up their blessings and rained kisses on my very feet. +</P> + +<P> +In my half-intelligent plan I intended first to stop at the house we +had gone by, and had reached the gate of its front lane when I met one +of its household, a lad of sixteen, on the pike. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he had just seen the disabled coach." +</P> + +<P> +I said that by business appointment with the lady who had just left the +coach I had gone to the next railway station northward in order to meet +her. That I had come down the turnpike on a hired horse and met her +and her servants pushing forward to our appointment as best they could. +Now, I said, our business, a law matter, was accomplished and she was +gone on on my hired horse. This span I was taking back to the stable +whence I had hired them for her in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +The boy's graciousness shamed me through and through. "Why, certainly! +He would have the coach drawn up to the house before sunrise and would +keep it as long as I liked." He asked me in, but I went on to the +little railway town, repeated my tarradiddle at its "hotel," and soon +was asleep. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +["'Tarradi'l','" said Mme. Castanado, "tha'z may be a species of +paternoster, I suppose, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Scipion, "I think tha'z juz' a fashion of speech that he +took a drink. I do that myself, going to bed." +</P> + +<P> +Chester explained, but said that to admit one's untruthfulness by even +a nickname implied <I>some</I> compunction. Whereat two or three put in: +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! if he acknowledge' his compunction he's all right! But we are +stopping the story." +</P> + +<P> +It went on.] +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XIV +</H2> + +<P> +I was awakened, after the breakfast hour, by a tap on my door. Why it +gave me consternation I could not have told; I dare say my inveracities +of the day before had failed to digest. "Come in," I called, and in +stepped my two fishermen. +</P> + +<P> +Their good mornings were pleasant, but, "Fact is," said one, "we're +bothered about your client." +</P> + +<P> +"The lady who passed through here last evening?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it looks as though----" +</P> + +<P> +"Go on while I dress. Looks as though--what?" +</P> + +<P> +"As though she wa'n't what you thought, or else----" +</P> + +<P> +I smiled aggressively: "Pardon, I <I>know</I> that lady. 'Or else,' you +say? What else? Go on." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you go on dressing. Do you know them darkies are hers?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hoh! Are your teeth yours? Why do you ask?" +</P> + +<P> +He handed me a newspaper clipping: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Two Hundred Dollars Reward. Ran away from my plantation in ---- county +of this State, on the ------ day of ------ the following named and +described slaves; father, mother, daughter, and son: . . . A reward of +fifty dollars will be paid to any person for the capture and +imprisonment in any jail, of each or either of the above named. Etc. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +With a laugh I returned the thing and went on dressing. "It doesn't," +I said aloud to my busy image in the mirror, "describe my client's +darkies at all." I faced round: "Why, gentlemen, if this isn't the +most astonishing----" +</P> + +<P> +"Ho-old on. Ho-old on! Finish your dressing. We're told it does +describe two of them and we thought we'd just come and see for +ourselves." +</P> + +<P> +"And you followed the unprotected lady?" +</P> + +<P> +"We followed four runaway niggers, sir! Else why did they take to the +woods inside of a mile from that house where you left the coach? Oh, +you're dressed; come along; time's flying!" +</P> + +<P> +Determined to waste all the time I could, "Wait," I said, strapping on +my pistol. "Now, gentlemen, we'll follow this matter to the end, +beginning now, instantly. But it must be done as----" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, as privately as possible! Certainly!" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly. You want the reward and you want it all. But understand, +I know you're in error, and I go with you solely to prove you are. +Now, by your theory----" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, come along!" We went. I killed time over my coffee, and in +getting a saddle for one of my hired span. "You must excuse us if +we're not polite," my friends apologized after another flash of +impatience. "Of course those niggers are not on the run in broad day, +but their trail's getting cold!" +</P> + +<P> +"You're not as bad-mannered as I am," I laughed as we mounted, but +their allusion to hounds made me enjoy the burden of my six-shooter. +</P> + +<P> +As we ambled off, "What were you going to say," one asked me, "about +our 'theory,' or something?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! I see you think Mrs. Southmayd must have met up with company and +left her servants to follow on to the next station alone." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. We tracked the darkies along the edge of the road; but her +horse tracks--we could only see that no horse tracks left the road +where any of their man tracks left it." +</P> + +<P> +When we had gone a mile or so one of the boys turned to leave us by a +neighborhood road, saying: "I'll rejoin you, 'cross fields, where you +turned back last night. I'm going for the dogs." +</P> + +<P> +"Stop! Gentlemen, this is too high-handed. Do you reckon I'll let you +run down those four innocent creatures with hounds? I <I>swear</I> you +shan't do it, sirs." +</P> + +<P> +"See here," said the one still with me, "come on. We'll show you the +very spots where those innocents left the road one by one, and if you +don't say they've used every trick known to a nigger to kill their +trail, we'll just quit and go home. Does that suit you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not by a long chalk!" I retorted as I moved with him up the pike. +"Those poor simpletons--alone in a strange land, maybe without a pass, +at any moment liable to meet a patrol--how easy for them to make the +fatal mistake of leaving the road and hiding their tracks!" +</P> + +<P> +"All right, come ahead, you'll see fair play." +</P> + +<P> +We passed the scene of the breakdown and then the house to which the +coach had been drawn. I saw the coach in a stable door. By and by a +turn in the pike revealed the other clerk and a tall, slim horseman +just dismounting among four lop-eared, black-and-brown dogs coupled two +and two by light steel breast-yokes. With a heavy whip and without a +frown this man gave one of them a quick cut over the face as the brute +ventured to lift a voice as hollow and melodious as a bell. +</P> + +<P> +"He's a puppy I'm breaking in," said the man. "Now here, you see"--he +pointed to the middle of the road--"is where you, sir, met up with the +madam and her niggers, and given her yo' hoss and taken her span. +Here's the tracks o' the span, you takin' 'em back; you can see they're +the same as these comin' this way. T'other critter's tracks I don't +make out, but no matter, here's the niggers' along here--and here, see? +and here--here--there." We rode for ten minutes or so. Then halting +again: +</P> + +<P> +"Look yonder in that lock o' fence. There's where one went over into +the brush." +</P> + +<P> +Beyond the high worm fence grew a stubborn tangle of briers, vines, and +cane. "Mind you," I began to call after the nigger-chaser, but one of +my companions spoke for me: +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Hardy, we got to be dead sure they're runaways before we put the +dogs on." +</P> + +<P> +"No, we ain't," Hardy called through the back of his head. "Dandy and +Charmer'll tell us if they're not, before we've gone three hundred +yards, and I can call 'em off so quick it'll turn 'em a somerset." He +dismounted, and, while unyoking the two older hounds, spoke softly a +few words of gusto that put them into a dumb ecstasy. One of the boys +pressed his horse up to mine. +</P> + +<P> +"There's the place," he said. "Now watch the dogs find it." +</P> + +<P> +As the pair sprang from Hardy's hands one began to nose the air, the +other the earth, to left, to right, and to cross each other's short, +swift circuits. With stony face while assuming a voice of wildest +eagerness he cried in searching whispers: "Niggeh thah, Dandy! Niggeh +thah, Charmer! Take him, my lady!" +</P> + +<P> +Skimming the ground with hungry noses, the dogs answered each cry with +a single keen yap of preoccupied affirmation. Almost at once Charmer +came to the spot pointed out to me, reared her full length upon the +rails and let out a new note; long, musical, fretful, overjoyed. Hardy +mounted breast-high to the fence's top, wreathed two fingers in the +willing brute's collar, lifted her, and dropped her on the other side. +There she instantly resumed her search. +</P> + +<P> +At the same time her yoke-mate's deep bay pealed like a trumpet, from a +few yards up the roadway. He had struck the broad, frank trail of the +other three negroes. The "puppy," still in leash, replied in a note +hardly less deep and mellow, but the whip of cool discipline cut him +off. From an ox-horn the master blew a short, sharp recall and at once +Dandy returned and began his work over, knowing now which runaway to +single out. + +Hardy remained on the fence, watching his favorite, over in the brush. +By a stir of the bushes, now here, now there, we could see how busy she +was, and every now and then she sent us, as if begging our patience, +her eager promissory yelp. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly her master had a new thought. He stepped onward to the next +lock of the fence, scrutinized its top rail, moved to, the next lock, +examining the top rail there, then to the next, the next, the next, and +at the seventh or eighth beckoned us. +</P> + +<P> +"See, here?" he asked. "Think that ain't a runaway nigger? Look." A +splinter had been newly rubbed off the rail. "What you reckon done +that, sir; a bird or a fish? That's where he jumped. Look yonder, +where he landed and lit out." +</P> + +<P> +The merest fraction of a note from the horn brought the two free dogs +to their master, and before he could lift Dandy over the fence Charmer +was on the trail. She threw her head high and for the first time +filled the resounding timber with the music of her bay. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +["Mr. Chester," murmured Mlle. Chapdelaine, and once more he ceased to +read. Mme. Castanado had laid her hands tightly to her face. Yet now +she smilingly dropped them, saying: "Seraphine--Marcel--please to pazz +around that cake an' wine. Well, I su'pose there are yet in the +worl'--in Afrique--Asia--even Europe--several kin' of cuztom mo' wicked +than that. And still I'm sorry that ever tranzpire. But, Mr. Chezter, +if you'll resume?" +</P> + +<P> +Chester once more resumed.] +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XV +</H2> + +<P> +Hardy's incitements were no longer whispers. +</P> + +<P> +"Dandy! Dandy!" he cried, with wild elation of voice and still no +emotion in his face. "Niggeh-fellah thah. Dandy! Ah, Dandy! look him +out!" +</P> + +<P> +The music swelled from Dandy's throat. Away went the pair. The +younger couple, in yoke, trembled and moaned to be after them. The two +clerks had swung down three or four rails from the fence, and with +Hardy were hurrying their horses through, when the youngest dog, nose +to the ground and tugging his yokemate along, let go a cry of discovery +and began to dig furiously under a bottom rail. His master threw him +off and drew from under it "Mrs. Southmayd's" tiny beflowered bonnet. +</P> + +<P> +"Good God!" exclaimed one of the boys as he held it up, "they've made +way with her!" +</P> + +<P> +"Now, none of <I>that</I> nonsense!" I cried; "she's given it to one of them +and they've feared 'twould get them into trouble!" But the three had +spurred off and I could only toss it away and follow. +</P> + +<P> +The baying had ceased and an occasional half-smothered yap told that +the scent was broken. A huge grape-vine end, hanging from a lofty +bough, had enabled the run-away to take a long sidewise swing clear of +the ground; but as I came up the brutes had recovered the trail and +sped on, once more breaking the still air, far and wide, into deep +waves of splendid sound. Close after them, as best they might in yoke, +scuttled the younger pair, dragging each other this way and that, their +broad ears trailing to their feet, and Hardy riding close behind them, +reciting their pedigrees and their distinguishing whims. +</P> + +<P> +Presently we issued from the woods, at the edge of wide fields +surrounding a plantation-house and slave-quarters, and I hoped to find +the trail broken again; but without a pause the chase turned along a +line of fence as if to half encircle the plantation. The master of the +hounds, in nervy yet placid words, explained that a runaway knew better +than to cross open ground by night and set the house-dogs a-barking. +It was only on seeing no workers in the fields that I remembered it was +Sunday, and feared intensely that the pious fugitives might have +shortened their flight. +</P> + +<P> +From the plantation's farther bound we ran down a long, gentle slope of +beautiful open woods. At the bottom of it a clear stream rippled +between steep banks shrouded with strong vines. Here the scent had +failed and it was wonderful to see the docile faith and intelligence +with which the dogs resigned the whole work to their master, and +followed beside him while he sought a crossing-place for his horse. +This took many minutes, but by and by they scrambled over, he bidding +us wait where we were until the dogs should open again; and as he +started down-stream along the farther bank the older hounds, at a +single word, ran circling out before him in the tangle, electrified by +the steel-cold eagerness of his implorings. +</P> + +<P> +But now, to my joy, he found their hungry snufflings as futile as his +own scrutinizings and divinations, and after following the stream until +my companions fretted openly at the delay, he dropped a note from his +horn, rode back with the four dogs, recrossed, and passed down on our +side with them at his heels, frowning at last and scanning the tangled +growth of the opposite bank. +</P> + +<P> +And now again he came back: "You see, this stream runs so nigh the way +they wanted to go that there's no tellin' how fur they waded down it or +whether they was two, three, or four of 'em rej'ined together. They're +shore to 'a' been all together when they left it, but where that was +hell only knows. Come on." +</P> + +<P> +We plunged across after him and followed down the farther bank, and at +the point where he had turned back he put the hounds on again. "How do +you know there were more than one here?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Because, if noth'n' else, this trail at first was a fool's trail and +now it's as smart as cats a-fight'n'--<I>look 'em out, Dandy</I>! Every +time the rascals struck a swimmin'-hole they swum it, the men sort o' +tote'n' the women, I reckon--<I>ah, my Charmer! Yes, my sweet lady! take +'em! take 'em</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +As the stream emerged into an old field--"Sun's pow'ful hot for +you-all!" Hardy added. "Ain't see' such a day this time o' year fo' a +coon's age. Hosses feel'n' it. Hard to say which is hottest, sun or +brush." +</P> + +<P> +We had skirted the branch a full mile, beating its margin thoroughly, +and were in deep woods again, when all at once Charmer let out a glad +peal. Her mate echoed it and with the stream at their back they were +off and away in full cry. The trail was broad and strong and with rare +breaks continued so for an hour. Often the dogs made us trot; in open +grounds we galloped. Once, in a thickety wet tract where the still air +was suffocating and a sluggish runlet meandered widely, Hardy was +forced, after long hinderance, to drop the trail and recover it on a +rising ground beyond. +</P> + +<P> +There once more we were making good speed when we burst into an open +grove where about a small, unpainted frame church a saddle-horse was +tied under every swinging limb. Before the church a gang of boys had +sprung up from their whittling to be our gleeful spectators. Hardy +waved them off with the assurance that we wanted neither their help nor +company, and though the trail took us at slackened speed around two +sides of the building we passed and were gone while the worshippers +were in the first stanza of a hymn started to keep them on their +benches. +</P> + +<P> +Noon, afternoon; we made no pause. "It's ketch 'em before night," said +Hardy as we bent low under beech boughs, "or not till noon to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +About mid-afternoon one of the court-house boys, who had been talking +softly with the other, turned back with a bare good-by. His friend +explained: +</P> + +<P> +"Got to be at his desk early in the morning. But I'm with you till you +run 'em down." +</P> + +<P> +Happy for me that he was mistaken. Two hours more were hardly gone +when, "My Prince is sick!" he cried, drew in, and under a smoke of his +own curses began wildly to unsaddle. Hardy rode on. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll have to get another mount," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Another hell! I wouldn't leave this horse sick in strange hands for a +thousand dollars!" Suddenly he struck an imploring key: "Look here! +I'll give you fifty dollars cash to stay with me till I get him out o' +this!" +</P> + +<P> +"Five hundred," I called, trotting after Hardy, "wouldn't hire me." +</P> + +<P> +Till I was out of earshot I could hear him damning and cursing me in +snorts and shouts as a sneak who would wear my coat of tar and feathers +yet, and I was still wondering whether I ought to or not, when I +overhauled the nigger-chaser cheering on his dogs. Their prey had +again tricked them, and again the cry was, "Take him, Dandy!" and "Hi, +Charmer, hi!" +</P> + +<P> +Between shouts: "Is yo' nag gwine to hold out?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's got to or perish," I laughed. +</P> + +<P> +In time we found ourselves under a vast roof of towering pines. The +high green grass beneath them had been burned over within a year. The +declining sun gilded both the grass and the lower sides of the soaring +boughs. Even Hardy glanced back exaltedly to bid me mark the beauty of +the scene. But I dared not. The dogs were going more swiftly than +ever, and there was a ticklish chance of one's horse breaking a leg in +one of the many holes left by burnt-out pine roots. The main risk, +moreover, was not to Hardy's trained hunter but to my worn-out livery +"nag." +</P> + +<P> +"We've started 'em, all four, on the run," he called, "but if we don't +tree 'em befo' they make the river we'll lose 'em after all." +</P> + +<P> +The land began a steady descent. Soon once more we were in underbrush +and presently came square against a staked-and-ridered worm fence +around a "deadening" dense with tall corn. Charmer and Dandy had +climbed directly over it, scampered through the corn, and were waking +every echo in a swamp beyond. The younger pair, still yoked, stood +under the fence, yelping for Hardy's aid. He sprang down and unyoked +them and over they scrambled and were gone, ringing like fire-bells. +Outside the fence, both right and left, the ground was miry, yet for us +it was best to struggle round through the bushy slough; which we had +barely done when with sudden curses Hardy spurred forward. The younger +dogs were off on a separate chase of their own. For at the river-bank +the four negroes had divided by couples and gone opposite ways. +</P> + +<P> +"Call them back!" I urged. "Blow your horn!" But I was ignored. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XVI +</H2> + +<P> +[Chester sat looking at a newly turned page as though it were illegible. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm wondering," he lightly said, "what public enormity of to-day the +next generation will be as amazed at as we are at this." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," Mme. Castanado responded, "never mine! Tha'z but the moral! +Aline and me we are insane for the story to finizh!" And the story was +resumed, to suffer no further interruption.] +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +At the river we burst out upon a broad, gentle bend up and down which +we could see both heavily wooded banks for a good furlong either way. +</P> + +<P> +The sun's last beams shone straight up the lower arm of the bend. On +the upper bayed Charmer and Dandy, unseen. On the lower we heard the +younger pair. On the upper we saw only the clear waters crinkling in a +wide shallow over a gravel-bar, but down-stream we instantly discovered +Luke and his wife. Silhouetted against the level sunlight, heaving +forward with arms upthrown, waist deep in the main current, they were +more than half-way across. At that moment two small dark objects, the +two dogs, moved out from the shore, after them, each with its wake of +two long silvery ripples. The "puppy" was leading. +</P> + +<P> +With a curse their master threw the horn to his lips and blew an +imperious note. The rear dog turned his head and would have reversed +his course, but seeing his leader keep on he kept on with him. Again +the angry horn re-echoed, and the rear dog promptly turned back though +the other swam on. +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca threw a look behind and it was pitiful to hear her outcry of +despair and terror. But Luke faced about and, backing after her +through the flood, prepared to meet the hound naked-handed. Hardy +sprang to his tiptoes in the stirrups, his curses pealing across the +water. "If you hurt that dog," he yelled, "I'll shoot you dead!" +</P> + +<P> +Up-stream the other two runaways were out on the gravel-bar, Euonymus +behind Robelia and Robelia splashing ludicrously across the shoal, +tearing off and kicking off--in preparation for deep water--sunbonnet, +skirt, waist, petticoat, and howling in the self-concern of abject +cowardice. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank heaven, she's a swimmer," thought I, "and won't drown her +brother!" For only a swimmer ever cast off garments that way. +</P> + +<P> +The flight of Euonymus, too, was bare-headed and swift, but it was +unfrenzied and silent. Neither of them saw Luke or Rebecca; the sun +was in their eyes and at that instant Charmer and Dandy, having met +some momentary delay, once more bayed joyously and sprang into view. +Like Luke, Euonymus faced the brutes. With another fierce outcry Hardy +blew his recall of all the four dogs. +</P> + +<P> +Three turned at once but the youngster launched himself at Luke's +throat where he stood breast-high in the glassing current. The slave +caught the dog's whole windpipe in both hands and went with him under +the flood. Hardy's supreme care for Charmer had lost him the strategic +moment, but he fired straight at Rebecca. +</P> + +<P> +She did not fall and his weapon flew up for a second shot! but by some +sheer luck I knocked the pistol spinning yards away into the river. +While it spun I saw other things: Rebecca clasping a wounded arm; Luke +and the dog reappearing apart, the dog about to repeat his onset; and +Hardy dumb with rage. +</P> + +<P> +"Call the puppy!" I cried, "you'll save him yet." +</P> + +<P> +The master winded his horn, and the dog swam our way. At the same time +his fellows came about us, while on the farther bank Luke helped his +wife writhe up through the waterside vines, and with her disappeared. +Only Euonymus remained in the water, at the far edge of the gravel-bar. +</P> + +<P> +I was so happy that I laughed. "All right," I cried, "I'll pay for the +revolver." +</P> + +<P> +Foul epithets were Hardy's reply while he spurred madly to and fro in +search of an opening in the vines to let his horse down into the +stream. I rode with him, knee to knee. "You'll pay for this with your +life !" he yelled down my throat. "I'll kill you, so help me God! +<I>Charmer! Dandy! go, take the nigger!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +The whole baying pack darted off for Euonymus's crossing. "<I>Take the +nigger, Charmer! Ah! take him, my lady!</I>" We saw that Euonymus could +not swim. Still knee to knee with Hardy, I drew and fired. "Puppy's" +mate yelped and rolled over, dead. +</P> + +<P> +"Call them back," I said, holding my weapon high; but Hardy only +shrieked curses and cried: +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Take the nigger, Charmer, take him!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +I fired again. Poor Dandy! He sprang aside howling piteously, with +melting eyes on his master. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, God!" cried Hardy, leaping down beside the wailing dog, that +pushed its head into his bosom like a sick child. "Oh, God, but you +shall die for this!" +</P> + +<P> +He was half right but so was I and I checked up barely enough to cry +back: "Call 'em off! Call 'em off or I'll shoot Charmer!" +</P> + +<P> +With Dandy clasped close and with eyes streaming he blew the recall. +Looking for its effect, I saw Euonymus trying to swim and Charmer +quitting the chase. But the young dog kept on. The current was +carrying Euonymus away. Twice through vines and brush, while I cried: +"Catch the fallen tree below you! Catch the tree!" I tried to spur my +horse down into the stream, and on the third trial I succeeded. +</P> + +<P> +The flood had cut the bank from under a great buttonwood. It hung +prone over the water, and one dipping fork seized and held the fainting +swimmer. The dog was close, but had entered the current too far down +and was breasting it while he bayed in protest to his master's horn. +Now, as Euonymus struggled along the tree the brute struck for the +bank, and the two gained it together. Euonymus ran, but on a bit of +open grass dropped to one knee, at bay. The dog sprang. In the negro +fashion the runaway's head ducked forward to receive the onset, while +both hands clutched the brute's throat. Not dreaming that they would +keep their hold till I could get there, I leaped down in the shoal to +fire; but the grip held, though the dog's teeth sank into legs and +arms, and all at once Euonymus straightened to full stature, lifting +the dog till his hind legs could but just tiptoe the ground. +</P> + +<P> +"Right!" I cried; "bully, my boy! Lift him one inch higher and he's +whipped!" +</P> + +<P> +But Euonymus could barely hold him off from face and throat. +</P> + +<P> +"Turn him broadside to me!" I shouted, having come into water +breast-deep. "Let me put a hole through him!" +</P> + +<P> +But the fugitive's only response was: "Run, Robelia! 'Ever mind me! +Run! Run!" +</P> + +<P> +And here came Hardy across the gravel-bar, in the saddle. I aimed at +him: "Stand, sir! Stand!" +</P> + +<P> +He hauled in and lifted the horn. Euonymus had heaved the dog from his +feet. The horn rang, and with a howl of terror the brute writhed free, +leaped into the river and swam toward his master. I sprang on my horse +and took the deep water: "Wait, boy! Wait!" +</P> + +<P> +It was hard getting ashore. When I reached the spot of grass I found +only the front half of the runaway's hickory shirt, in bloody rags. I +spurred to a gap in the bushes, and there, face down, lay Euonymus, +insensible. I knelt and turned the slender form; and then I whipped +off my coat and laid it over the still, black bosom. For Euonymus was +a girl. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XVII +</H2> + +<P> +Her eyelids quivered, opened. For a moment the orbs were vacant, but +as she drew a deep breath she saw me. Her shapely hand sought her +throat-button, and finding my coat instead she turned once more to the +sod, moaning, "Brother! Mingo!" +</P> + +<P> +"Is he Robelia?" I asked. "Come, we'll find him." +</P> + +<P> +Clutching my coat to her breast, she staggered up. I helped her put +the coat on and sprang into the saddle. "Now mount behind me," I said, +reaching for her hand; but with an anguished look: +</P> + +<P> +"Whah Mingo?" she asked. "Is dey kotch Mingo?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, not yet. Your hand--now spring!" +</P> + +<P> +She landed firmly and we sped into the woods. +</P> + +<P> +My merely wounding Dandy was fortunate. It kept Hardy from following +me hotfooted or rousing the neighborhood. I dare say he wanted no one +but himself to have the joy of killing me. +</P> + +<P> +At a "store" and telegraph-station I let my charge down into a wild +plum-patch, bought a hickory shirt, left my half-dead beast, +telegraphed my livery-stable client where to find him, and so avoided +the complication of being a horse-thief. Then I recovered Euonymus and +about ten that night the five of us met on the bank of a creek. Near +its farther shore, on a lonely railroad siding, we found a waiting +freight-train and stole into one of its empty cars; and when at close +of the next day hunger drove us out our pursuers were beating the bush +a hundred miles behind. +</P> + +<P> +Fed from a negro-cabin and guided by the stars, we fled all of another +night afoot, and on the following day lost Mingo. At broad noon, with +an overseer and his gang close by in a corn-field, the seductions of a +melon-patch overcame him and he howled away his freedom in the jaws of +a bear-trap. His father and mother wept dumb tears and laid their +faces to the ground in prayer. Euonymus was frantic. With all her +superior sanity, she would not have left the region could she have +persuaded us to go on without her. +</P> + +<P> +Well! Day by day we lay in the brush, and night after night fled on. +I could tell much about the sweet, droll piety of my three fellow +runaways, and the humble generosity of their hearts. No ancient +Israelite ever looked forward to the coming of a political Messiah with +more pious confidence than they to a day when their whole dark race +should be free and enjoy every right that any other race enjoys. +</P> + +<P> +"Even a right to cross two races?" I once asked Luke, smilingly, though +with intense aversion. +</P> + +<P> +"No, suh; no, suh! De same Lawd what give' ev'y man a wuck he cayn't +do ef he ain't dat man, give' ev'y ra-ace a wuck dey cayn't do ef dey +ain't dat ra-ace." I fancy he had been years revolving that into a +formula; or--he may have merely heard some master or mistress say it. +</P> + +<P> +"Still," I suggested, "races have crossed, and made new and better +ones." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't 'spute dat, suh; no, suh. But de Lawd ain't neveh gwine to +make a betteh ra-ace by cross'n' one what done-done e'en-a' most all +what even yit been done, on to anotheh what, eh----" +</P> + +<P> +Sidney (Onesimus) put in: "What ain't neveh yit done noth'n'!" And her +mother sighed, "Amen!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XVIII +</H2> + +<P> +"Yes?" inquired Mme. Castanado. "Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, surely!" cried several, "Tha'z not all?" +</P> + +<P> +Mme. De l'Isle appealed to her husband: "Even two, three hun'red mile', +that din'n' bring the line of Canada, I think." +</P> + +<P> +"No, but, I suppose, of the Ohio." +</P> + +<P> +"And that undergroun' railway!" said Scipion. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Mme. Alexandre agreed, "but that story remain' unfinizh' whiles +that uncle of Mr. Chezter couldn' return at his home." +</P> + +<P> +"Not even his State," ventured mademoiselle. +</P> + +<P> +"But he did," Chester said; "he came back." +</P> + +<P> +M. Dubroca spoke up: "Oh, 'tis easy to insert that, at the +en'--foot-note." +</P> + +<P> +"And Hardy?" asked Beloiseau, "him and yo' uncle, they di'n' shoot either +the other?" +</P> + +<P> +"I believe they did, each the other. I never quite understood the hints +I got of it, till now. I know that six months in bed with a back full of +<I>somebody's</I> buckshot saved my uncle's life." +</P> + +<P> +"From lynching! That also muz' be insert'!" +</P> + +<P> +Chester thought not. "No, centre the interest in the runaway family, as +in mademoiselle's 'Clock in the Sky.'" And so all agreed. +</P> + +<P> +A second time he walked home with mademoiselle, under the same lenient +escort as before. One thus occupied, by moonlight, can moralize as he +cannot with any larger number. "It's hard enough at best," he said, "for +us, in our pride of race, to sympathize--seriously--in the joys, the +hopes, the sufferings of souls under dark skins yet as human as ours if +not as white." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, 'tis true. Only one man, Mr. Chester, I ever knew, myself, who did +that." +</P> + +<P> +"Your father?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, my dear father." +</P> + +<P> +"Will you not some day tell me his story?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Castanado will tell you it. Any of those will tell you." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't question them about you, and besides----" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, here is my gate. 'And besides--' what?" +</P> + +<P> +"Besides, why can't you tell me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, I'll do that--'some day,' as you say." +</P> + +<P> +The gate-key went into the lock. +</P> + +<P> +"But, mademoiselle, our 'Clock in the Sky'--our 'Angel of the +Lord'--shan't we join them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, they are already one, but you have yet to hear that <I>first</I> +manuscript, and that is so very separate--as you will see." +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it also a story of dark skins?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, but barely at all of souls under them; those souls we find it so +hard to remember." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Chère fille</I>"--M. De l'Isle had come up, with Mme. Alexandre--"the +three will go <I>gran'ly</I> together! Not I al-lone perceive that, but +Scipion also--Castanado--Dubroca. Mr. Chester, my dear sir, the +pewblication of that book going to be heard roun' the worl'! Tha'z going +produse an epoch, that book; yet same time--a bes'-seller!" +</P> + +<P> +Mademoiselle beamed. "Does Mr. Chester think 'twill be that? A +best-seller?" +</P> + +<P> +Chester couldn't prophesy that of any book. "They say not even a +publisher can tell." +</P> + +<P> +"Hah!" monsieur cried, "those cunning pewblisher'! they pref-er <I>not</I> to +tell." +</P> + +<P> +"Some poetry," Chester continued, urged by mademoiselle's eyes, "doesn't +pay the poets over a few thousand a year--per volume; while some novels +pay their authors--well--fortunes." +</P> + +<P> +"That they go," madame broke in, "and buy some <I>palaces in Italie</I>! And +tha'z but the biginning; you have not count' the dramatization--hundreds +the week! and those movie'--the same! and those tranzlation'!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I think we will be satisfied, Mr. Chester, with the tenth of that, +eh?" +</P> + +<P> +Chester's reply was drowned in monsieur's: "No, my child! But +nine-tenth' <I>maybe</I>, yes! No-no-no! if those pewblisher' find out you +are satisfi' by one-tenth, one-tenth is all you'll ever see!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," said mademoiselle to madame, "even the one-tenth I mustn't tell to +my aunts. They wouldn't sleep to-night. And myself--'publication, +dramatization, movies, translation'--I believe I'll lie awake till +daylight, making that into a song--a hymn!" +</P> + +<P> +A wonderful sight she was, pausing in the open gate, with the little +high-fenced garden at her back, a street-lamp lighting her face. Chester +harked back to that first manuscript. It "ought not to wait another +week," he declared. +</P> + +<P> +"No," monsieur said, "and since we all have read that egcept only you." +</P> + +<P> +Chester looked to mademoiselle: "Then I suppose I might read it with the +Castanados alone." +</P> + +<P> +"No," madame put in, "you see, you can't riturn at Castanado's +immediately to-morrow or next day. That next day, tha'z Sunday, but you +don't know if madame goin' to have the stren'th for that fati-gue. Yet +same time you can't wait forever! And bisside', yo' Aunt Corinne, Aunt +Yvonne--Mr. Chezter he's never have that lugsury to meet them, and that +will be a very choice o'casion for Mr. Chezter to do that, if----" +</P> + +<P> +"If he'll take the pains," the niece broke in, "to call Sunday afternoon. +Then I'll have the manuscript back from Mr. Castanado and we'll read it +to my Aunt Corinne and my Aunt Yvonne, all four together in the garden." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yet not in this li'l' garden in the front, but in the large, far +back from the house, in the h-arbor of 'oneysuckle and by the side of the +li'l' lake, eh?" So prompted madame. +</P> + +<P> +"Assuredly," said the smiling girl; "not in the front, where is no room +for a place to sit down!" +</P> + +<P> +Chester's acceptance was eager. Then once more the batten gate closed +and the key grated between him and Aline--marvellous, marvellous Aline +Chapdelaine. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XIX +</H2> + +<P> +The sunbeams of a tedious Sabbath began noticeably to slant. +</P> + +<P> +For two days, night, morning, noon, and afternoon, Geoffry Chester had +silently speculated on what he was to see, hear, and otherwise experience +when, as early as he might in keeping with the Chapdelaine dignity and +his, he should pull the tiny brass bell-knob on their tall gate-post. +</P> + +<P> +Chapdelaine! Impressive, patrician title. Impressive too those +baptismal names; implying a refinement invincible in the vale of +adversity. Killing time up one street and down another--Rampart, +Ursuline, Burgundy--he pictured personalities to fit them: for Corinne a +presence stately in advanced years and preserved beauty; for Yvonne a +fragile form suggestive of mother-o'-pearl, of antique lace. Knowledge +of Aline justified such inferences--within bounds. With other charms she +had all these, and must have got them from ancestral sources as truly +Mlle. Corinne's and Mlle. Yvonne's as hers. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, of course," he pondered, "there are contrary possibilities. They +may easily fall short, far short, of her, in outer graces, and show their +kinship only in a reflection of her inner fineness. They may be no more +surprising than those dear old De l'Isles, or the Prieurs, or than Mrs. +Thorndyke-Smith. So let it be! Aline----" +</P> + +<P> +"Aline-Aline!" alarmingly echoed his heart. +</P> + +<P> +"Aline is enough." Enough? Alas, too much! He felt himself far too +forthpushing in--he would not confess more--a solicitude for her which he +could not stifle; an inextinguishable wish to disentangle her from the +officious care of those by whom she was surrounded--encumbered. "I've no +right to this state of mind," he thought; "none." He reached the gate. +He rang. +</P> + +<P> +A footfall of daintiest lightness came running! ["Aline-Aline!"] So +might Allegro have tripped it. The key rasped round, ["Aline-Aline!"] +the portal drew in, and he found himself getting his first front view of +Cupid, the small black satellite. +</P> + +<P> +A pleasing object. Smaller than ever. White-collared as ever, starched +and brushed to the sheen of a new penny and ugly of face as a +gargoyle--ugly as his goddess was beautiful. Not merely negroidal, in +lips, nose, ears, and tight black wool divided on the absolute equator; +not racially but uniquely ugly--till he smiled--and spoke. He smiled and +spoke with a joy of soul, a transparency of innocence, a rapture of love, +that made his ugliness positively endearing even apart from the entranced +recognition they radiated. +</P> + +<P> +"Ladies at home? Yassuh," he said, with an ecstasy as if he announced +the world's war suddenly over, all oceans safe, all peoples free. He led +the way up the cramped white-shell walk with a ceremonial precision that +gave the caller time to notice the garden. It was hardly an empire. It +lay on either side in two right-angled figures, each, say, of sixty by +fourteen feet, every foot repeating florally the smile of the child. The +rigid beds were curbed with brick water-painted as red as Cupid's gums. +The three fences were green with vines, and here and there against them +bloomed tall evergreen shrubs. At one upper corner of the main path was +a camellia and at the other a crape-myrtle, symbols respectively, to the +visitor, of Aunt Corinne and Aunt Yvonne. The brick doorstep smiled as +red as the garden borders, and as he reached the open door Aline, with +her two aunts at her back, received him. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chester--Mlle. Chapdelaine. Mr. Chester--my Aunt Yvonne." Never +had the niece seemed quite so fair--in face, dress, figure, or mental +poise. She wore that rose whose petals are deep red in their outer +circle and pass from middle pink to central white and deepen in tints +with each day's age. If that rose could have been a girl, mind, soul, +and all, a Creole girl, there would have been two on one stem. +</P> + +<P> +And there, on either side of her sat the aunts: the elder much too lean, +the younger much too dishevelled, and both as sun-tanned as harvesters, +betraying their poverty in flimsy, faded gowns which the dismayed youth +named to himself not draperies but hangings. Yet they were +sweet-mannered, fluent, gay, cordial, and unreserved, though fluttering, +twittering, and ultra-feminine. +</P> + +<P> +The room was like the pair. "Doubtlezz Aline she's told you ab-out that +'ouse. No? Ah, chère! is that possible? 'Tis an ancient relique, that +'ouse. At the present they don't build any mo' like that 'ouse is +build'! You see those wall', those floor'? Every wall they are not of +lath an' plazter, like to-day; they are of solid plank' of a thicknezz of +two-inch'--and from Kentucky!" +</P> + +<P> +The guest recognized the second-hand lumber of broken-up flatboats. +</P> + +<P> +"Tha'z a genuine antique, that 'ouse! Sometime' we think we ought to +egspose that 'ouse, to those tourist', admission ten cent'." [A gay +laugh.] +</P> + +<P> +"But tha'z only when Aline want' to compel us to buy some new dresses. +And tha'z pritty appropriate, that antique 'ouse, for two sizter' +themselve' pritty antique--ha, ha, ha!--as well as their anceztors." +</P> + +<P> +"I fancy they're from 'way back," said Chester. +</P> + +<P> +"We are granddaughter' of two <I>émigrés</I> of the Revolution. The other two +they were decapitalize' on that gui'otine. Yet, still, ad the same time, +we don't <I>feel</I> antique. We don't feel mo' than ten year'! And +especially when we are showing those souvenir' of our in-<I>fancy</I>. And +there is nothing we love like that." +</P> + +<P> +"Aline, <I>chère</I>, doubtlezz Mr. Chezter will be very please' to see yo' +li'l' dress of baptism! Long time befo', that was also for me, and my +sizter. That has the lace and embro'derie of a hundred years aggo, that +li'l' dress of baptism. Show him that! Oh, that is no trouble, that is +a <I>dil</I>-ight! and if you are please' to enjoy that we'll show you our two +doll', age' forty-three!--bride an' bri'groom. Go, <I>you</I>, Yvonne, fedge +them." +</P> + +<P> +The sister rose but lingered: "Mr. Chezter, you will egscuse if that +bride an' groom don't look pritty fresh; biccause eighteen seventy-three +they have not change' their clothingg!" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Chérie</I>," said Aline, "I think first we better read the manuscript, and +<I>then</I>." +</P> + +<P> +After a breath of hesitation--"Yes! read firs' and <I>then</I>. Alway' +businezz biffo'!" +</P> + +<P> +All went into the garden; not the part Chester had come through, but +another only a trifle less pinched, at the back of the house. A few +steps of straight path led them through its stiff ranks of larkspurs, +carnations, and the like, to a bower of honeysuckle enclosing two rough +wooden benches that faced each other across a six-by-nine goldfish pool. +There they had hardly taken seats when Cupid reappeared bearing to the +visitor, on a silver tray, the manuscript. +</P> + +<P> +It was not opened and dived into with the fine flurry of the modern +stage. Its recipient took time to praise the bower and pool, and the +sisters laughed gratefully, clutched hands, and merrily called their +niece "tantine." "You know, Mr. Chezter, 'tantine' tha'z 'auntie,' an' +tha'z j'uz' a li'l' name of affegtion for her, biccause she takes so much +mo' care of us than we of her; you see? But that bower an' that li'l' +lake, my sizter an' me we construc' them both, that bower an' that li'l' +lake." +</P> + +<P> +Without blazoning it they would have him know they had not squandered +"tantine's" hard earnings on architects and contractors. +</P> + +<P> +"And we assure you that was not ladies' work. 'Twas not till weeks we +achieve' that. That geniuz Aline! <I>she</I> was the arshetec'. And those +goldfishes--like Aline--are self-su'porting! We dispose them at the +apothecary, Dauphine and Toulouse Street--ha, ha, ha! Corinne, tha'z the +egstent of commerce we ever been ab'e to make, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"And now," said Aline, "the story." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes," responded Mlle. Corinne, "at laz' the manuscrip'!" and Mlle. +Yvonne echoed, with a queer guilt in her gayety: +</P> + +<P> +"The manuscrip'! the myzteriouz manuscrip'!" +</P> + +<P> +But there the gate bell sounded and she sprang to her feet. Cupid could +answer it, but some one must be indoors to greet the caller. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you, Yvonne," the elder sister said, and Aline added: "We'll not +read till you return." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes, yes! Read without me!" +</P> + +<P> +"No-no-no-no-no! We'll wait!" +</P> + +<P> +"We'll wait, Yvonne." The sister went. +</P> + +<P> +Chester smoothed out the pages, but then smilingly turned them face +downward, and Aline said: +</P> + +<P> +"First, Hector will tell us who's there." +</P> + +<P> +Hector was Cupid. He came again, murmuring a name to Mlle. Corinne. She +rose with hands clasped. "C'est M. et Mme. Rene Ducatel!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well? Hector will give your excuses; you are imperatively engaged." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, <I>chère</I>, on Sunday evening! Tha'z an incredibility! Must you not +let me go? You 'ave 'Ector." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah-h! and we are here to read this momentous document to Hector?" The +sparkle of amused command was enchanting to at least one besides Cupid. +</P> + +<P> +Yet it did not win. "Chère, you make me tremble. Those Ducatel', +they've come so far! How can we show them so li'l' civilization when +they've come so far? An' me I'm convince', and Yvonne she's convince', +that you an' Mr. Chezter you'll be ab'e to judge that manuscrip' better +al-lone. Oh, yes! we are convince' of that, biccause, you know--I'm +<I>sorrie</I>--we are prejudice' in its favor!" +</P> + +<P> +Aline's lifted brows appealed to Chester. "Maybe hearing it," he +half-heartedly said, "may correct your aunts' judgment." +</P> + +<P> +The aunt shook her head in a babe's despair. "No, we've tri' that." Her +smile was tearful. "Ah, <I>chérie</I>, you both muz' pardon. Laz' night we +was both so af-raid about that, an' of a so affegtionate curio-zitie, +that we was <I>compel</I>' to read that manuscrip' through! An' we are +convince'--though tha'z not ab-out clocks, neither angels, neither +lovers--yet same time tha'z a moz' marvellouz manuscrip'. Biccause, you +know, tha'z a true story, that 'Holy Crozz.' Tha'z concerning an +insurregtion of slave'--there in Santa Cruz. And 'a slave insurregtion,' +tha'z what they ought to call it, yes!--to prom-ote the sale. Already +laz' night Yvonne she say she's convince' that in those Northron citie', +where they are since lately <I>so fon</I>' of that subjec', there be people by +<I>dozen</I>'--will <I>devour</I> that story!" +</P> + +<P> +She tripped off to the house. +</P> + +<P> +"Hector," said Aline, "you may sit down." +</P> + +<P> +Cupid slid into the vacated seat. Chester dropped the document into his +pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"For what?" the girl archly inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to take it to my quarters and judge it there. Why shouldn't I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you may do that." +</P> + +<P> +"And now tell me of your father, or his father--the one Beloiseau +knew--Théophile Chapdelaine." +</P> + +<P> +"Both were Théophile. He knew them both." +</P> + +<P> +"Then tell me of both." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chester, 'twould be to talk of myself!" +</P> + +<P> +"I won't take it so. Tell the story purely as theirs. It must be fine. +They were set, in conscience, against the conscience of their day----" +</P> + +<P> +"So is Mr. Chester." +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind that, either. We're in a joint commercial enterprise; we +want a few good stories that will hang on one stem. Our business is +business; a primrose by the river's brim--nothing more! Although"--the +speaker reddened---- +</P> + +<P> +The girl blushed. "Mr. Chester, take away the 'although' and I'll tell +the story." +</P> + +<P> +"I take it away. Although----" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XX +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CHAPDELAINES +</H3> + +<P> +"A yellow primrose was to him----" +</P> + +<P> +Yonder in the parlor with the Ducatels, ignorant of the poet's lines as +they, the two aunts--those two consciously irremovable, unadjustable, +incarnated interdictions to their niece's marriage--saw the primrose, +the "business," as the pair in the bower thought they saw it +themselves. Were not Aline and Chester immersed in that tale of +servile insurrection so destitute of angels, guiding stars, and lovers? +And was not Hector with them? And are not three as truly a crowd in +French as in American? +</P> + +<P> +"Well, to begin," Chester urged, "your grandfather, Théophile +Chapdelaine, was born in this old quarter, in such a street. Royal?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Nearly opposite the ladies' entrance of that Hotel St. Louis now +perishing." +</P> + +<P> +"Except its dome. I hear there's a movement---- +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, to save that. I hope 'twill succeed. To me that old dome is a +monument of those two men." +</P> + +<P> +"But if it comes down the home remains, opposite, where both were born, +were they not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Yet I'd rather the dome. We Creoles, you know, are called very +conservative." +</P> + +<P> +"Yet no race is more radical than the French." +</P> + +<P> +"True. And we Chapdelaines have always been radical. <I>Grandpère</I> was, +though a slaveholder." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, none of <I>my</I> ancestors justified slavery, yet as planters they had +to own negroes." +</P> + +<P> +"But the Chapdelaines were not planters. They were agents of ships. +Fifty times on one page in the old <I>Picayune</I>, or in <I>L'Abeille</I>--'For +freight or passage apply to the master on board or to T. Chapdelaine & +Son, agents.' Even then there were two Théophiles, and grandpapa was +the son. They were wholesale agents also for French exporters of +artistic china, porcelain, glass, bronze. Twice they furnished the +hotel with everything of that kind; when it first opened, and when it +changed hands. That's how they came to hold stock in it. Grandpapa, +outdoor man of the firm, was every day in the rotunda, under that dome." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Chester said, "it was a kind of Rialto, I know. They called it +the 'Exchange,' as earlier they had called Maspero's." +</P> + +<P> +"You love our small antiquities. So do I. Well, grandpapa did much +business there, both of French goods and of ships; and because the +hotel was the favorite of the sugar-planters its rotunda was one of the +principal places for slave auctions." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, they were, I know, almost daily. The old slave-block is shown +there yet, if genuine." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, genuine or not, what difference? From one that <I>was</I> there +<I>grandpère</I> bought many slaves. He and his father speculated in them." +</P> + +<P> +"Why! How strange! The son? <I>your</I> grandfather? the radical, who +married--'Maud'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, the last slave he bought was for her." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, why, why! He couldn't have met her be'--well--before the year of +Lincoln's election." +</P> + +<P> +"No, let me tell you. You remember 'Sidney'?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Maud's' black maid? my uncle's Euonymus? Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, when she came to Maud, at Maud's home, in the North, she was +still in agony about Mingo, who'd been recaptured. So Maud wrote +South, to her aunt, who wrote back: 'Yes, he had been brought home, and +at creditor's auction had been sold to a slave-trader to be resold here +in New Orleans.' So then Sidney begged Maud, who by luck was coming +here, to bring her here to find him." +</P> + +<P> +"Brave Sidney. Brave Euonymus." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes--although--her Southern mistress--I know not how legally--had sent +to her her free-paper. That made it safer, I suppose, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. But--who told you all this so exactly--your <I>grand'mère</I> +herself, or your <I>grandpère</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah--she, no. I never saw her. And <I>grandpère</I>--no, he was killed +before I was born." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>What</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, all that I'll come to. This I'm telling now is from my own papa. +He had it from <I>grandpère</I>. <I>Grand'mère</I> and Sidney came with friends, +a gentleman and his wife, by ship from New York." +</P> + +<P> +"And all put up at Hotel St. Louis?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. From there Maud and Sidney began their search. But now, first, +about that speculating in slaves: those two Théophiles, first the +father, then both, hated slavery. 'Twas by nature and in everything +that they were radical. Their friends knew that, even when they only +said, 'Oh, you are extreme!' or 'Those Chapdelaines are extremist.' In +those years from about eighteen-forty to 'sixty----" +</P> + +<P> +"When the slavery question was about to blaze----" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes--they voted Whig. That was the most antislavery they could vote +and stay here. But under the rose they said: 'All right! extremist, +yet Whig; we'll be extreme Whig of a new kind. We'll trade in slaves.'" +</P> + +<P> +Chester laughed. "I begin to see," he said, and by a sidelong glance +bade Aline note the rapt attention of Cupid. Her answering smile was +so confidential that his heart leaped. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell you by and by about that also," she murmured, and then +resumed: "While <I>grandpère</I> was yet a boy his father had begun that, +that slave-buying. On that auction-block he would often see a slave +about to be sold much below value, or whose value might easily be +increased by training to some trade. You see?--blacksmith, lady's +maid, cook, hair-dresser, engine-driver, butler?" +</P> + +<P> +Chester darkened. "So he made the thing pay?" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Seem</I> to pay. Looking so simple, so ordinary, 'twas but a mask for +something else." +</P> + +<P> +"But in a thing looking so ordinary had he no competitors, to make +profits difficult?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, of a kind, yes; but the men who could do that best would not do it +at all. They would not have been respected." +</P> + +<P> +"But T. Chapdelaine & Son were respected." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, <I>in spite</I> of that. Their friends said: 'Let the extremists be +extreme that way.'" +</P> + +<P> +"The public mind was not yet quite in flames." +</P> + +<P> +"No. But--guess who helped <I>grandpère</I> do that." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, do I know him? Castanado." +</P> + +<P> +The girl shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"Who? Beloiseau?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, you! You can guess better." +</P> + +<P> +"Ovide Lan'--no, Ovide was still a slave." +</P> + +<P> +"Yet more free than most free negroes. 'Twas he. He was janitor to +offices in the hotel, and always making acquaintance with the slaves of +the slave-mart. And when he found one who was quite of the right +kind--and Ovide he's a wise judge of men, you know--he would show him +to <I>grandpère</I>, and at the auction, if the bidding was low, <I>grandpère</I> +would buy him--or her." +</P> + +<P> +"What was one of 'quite the right kind'? One willing to buy his own +freedom?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, also to do something more; you see?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I see," Chester laughed; "to help others run away, wasn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not precisely to run, but----" +</P> + +<P> +"To stow away, on those ships, h'm?" There was rapture in crossing that +<I>h'm</I> line of intimacy. "I see it all! Ha-ha, I see it all! Well! +that brings us back to 'Maud,' doesn't it--h'm?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. They met, she and grandpère, at a ball, in the hotel. +But"--Aline smiled--"that was not their first. Their first was two or +three mornings before, when he, passing in Royal Street, and she--with +Sidney--looking at old buildings in Conti Street----" +</P> + +<P> +"Mademoiselle! That happened to <I>them</I>?--<I>there</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, to <I>them</I>, <I>there</I>." With level gaze narrator and listener +regarded each other. Then they glanced at Cupid. His eyes were +shining on them. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is our young friend, anyhow?" asked Chester. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, I suppose you have guessed. He is the grandson of Sidney." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXI +</H2> + +<P> +"And another time, on the morning just before the ball," said Aline, +returning to the story, "they had seen each other again. That was at +the slave-auction. That night, before the ball was over, she and +<I>grandpère</I> understood--knew, each, from the other, why the other was +at that auction; and he had promised her to find Mingo. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, after weeks, Ovide helping, all at once there was Mingo, in the +gang, by the block, waiting his turn to go on it. Picture that! Any +time I want to shut my eyes I can see it, and I think you can do the +same, h'm?" +</P> + +<P> +Blessed <I>h'm</I>; 'twas the flower--of the Chapdelaines--humming back to +the bee. Said the bee, "We'll try it there together some day, h'm?" +and Cupid mutely sparkled: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, by all means! the three of us!" +</P> + +<P> +The flower ignored them both. "There was the auctioneer," she said; +"there were the slaves, there the crowd of bidders; between them the +block, above them the beautiful dome. Very soon Mingo was on the +block, and the first bid was from Sidney. She was the only one in a +hurry except Mingo. He was trying to see her, but she was hiding from +him behind <I>grandpère</I>; yet not from the auctioneer. The auctioneer +stopped. +</P> + +<P> +"'Who authorized you to bid here?' he asked her. +</P> + +<P> +"'Nobody, sir; I's free.' She held up her paper. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Grandpère</I> nodded to the auctioneer. +</P> + +<P> +"'Will Mr. Chapdelaine please read it out?' +</P> + +<P> +"He read it out, signature and all. +</P> + +<P> +"'Anybody know any one of that name?' the auctioneer asked, and +<I>grand'mère</I> said: +</P> + +<P> +"'That's my aunt. This free girl is my maid." +</P> + +<P> +"'Oh, bidding for you?' he said; and grand'mere said no, the girl was +bidding on her own account, with her own money. +</P> + +<P> +"'What kind of money? We can't take shinplasters.' For 'twas then +'sixty-one--year of secession, you know. +</P> + +<P> +"'Gold!' Sidney called out, and held it up in a black stocking, so high +that every one laughed." +</P> + +<P> +"Not Mingo, I fancy." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, no, nor the keeper of the gang." +</P> + +<P> +"--Wonder how Mingo was behaving." +</P> + +<P> +"He? he was shaking and weeping, and begging this and that of the man +who held and threatened him, to keep him quiet. So then the auctioneer +began to call Sidney's bid. You know how that would be: 'Gentlemen, +I'm offered five hundred dollars. Cinq cent piastres, messieurs! Only +five hundred for this likely boy worth all of nine! Who'll say six? +Going at five hundred, what do I hear?' But he heard nothing +till--'third and last call!' Then the owner of the gang nodded and the +auctioneer called out, 'six hundred!"' +</P> + +<P> +"And did Sidney raise it?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, she wept aloud. 'Oh, my brotheh!' she cried, 'Lawd save my po' +brotheh! I's los' him ag'in! I done bid my las' dollah at de fust +call!'" +</P> + +<P> +"And Mingo knew her voice, spied her out?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and holloed, 'Sidney! sisteh!' till <I>grand-mère</I> wept too and a +man called out, 'No one bid that six hundred!' But <I>grandpère</I> said: +'I bid six-fifty and will tell all about this <I>unlikely</I> boy if his +owner bids again.' +</P> + +<P> +"So Mingo was sold to <I>grandpère</I>. 'And now,' <I>grandpère</I> whispered to +<I>grand-mère</I> and her friends, 'go pack trunks for the ship as fast as +you can.'" +</P> + +<P> +"And they parted like that? But of course not!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, only expected to. In the Gulf, at the mouth of the river, a +Confederate privateer"--the narrator's voice faded out. She began to +rise. Her aunts were returning. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXII +</H2> + +<P> +Mademoiselle, we say, began to rise. Chester stood. Also Cupid. The +aunts drew near, speaking with infantile lightness: +</P> + +<P> +"Finizh' already that reading? You muz' have gallop'! Well, and what +is Mr. Chezter's conclusion on that momentouz manuscrip'?" +</P> + +<P> +The niece hurried to answer first: "Ah! we must not ask that so +immediately. Mr. Chester concludes 'tis better for all that he study +that an evening or two in his seclusion." +</P> + +<P> +"And! you did not read it through together?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, there was no advantage to----" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! advantage! An' you stop' in the mi'l of that momentouz souvenir +of the pas'! Tha'z astonizhing that <I>anybody</I> could do that, an' leas' +of all" [confronting Chester] "the daughter of a papa an' gran'papa +with such a drama-tique bio-graphie! Mr. Chezter, to pazz the time +Aline ought to 'ave tell you that bio-graphie, yes!--of our marvellouz +brother an' papa. Ah, you should some day egstort <I>that</I> story from +our too li'l' communicative girl." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not to-day, for the book?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no-no-no-no-o! We di'n' mean that!" The sisters laughed +excessively. "A young lady to put her own papa into a book--ah! +im-pos-si-ble!" +</P> + +<P> +They laughed on. "Even my sizter an' me, we have never let anybody +egstort that, an' we don't know if Aline ever be persuade'----" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, some day I'll tell Mr. Chezter--whatever he doesn't know already." +</P> + +<P> +"Ha-ha! we can be sure tha'z not much, Aline. And, Corinne, if he's +<I>heard</I> this or that, tha'z the more reason to tell him co'rec'ly. +Only, my soul! not to put in the book, no!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, no! Though as between frien', yes. And, moreover, to Mr. +Chezter, yes, biccause tha'z so much abbout that Hotel St. Louis and he +is so appreciative to old building'. Ah, we've notice' that incident! +Tha'z the cause that we egs'ibit you our house--as a relique of the +pas'--Yvonne! we are forgetting!--those souvenir' of our in-fancy--to +show them! Come--all!" +</P> + +<P> +Half-way to the house--"Ah, ha-ha! another subjec' of interess! See, +Mr. Chezter; see coming! Marie Madeleine! She's mis' both her beloved +miztress' from the house and become anxious, our beautiful cat! We +name' her Marie Madeleine because her great piety! You know, tha'z the +sacred truth, that she never catch' a mice on Sunday." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, neither the whole of Lent!" +</P> + +<P> +In the parlor--"I really think," Chester said, "I must ask you to let +me take another time for the souvenirs. I'm so eager to save this +manuscript any further delay--" He said good-by. +</P> + +<P> +Yet he did not hurry to his lodgings. He had had an experience too +great, too rapt, to be rehearsed in his heart inside any small, mean +room. All the open air and rapid transit he could get were not too +much, till at lamplight he might sit down somewhere and hold himself to +the manuscript. +</P> + +<P> +Meantime the Chapdelaines had been but a moment alone when more +visitors rang--a pair! Their feet could be seen under the gate--two +male, two female--that is not a land where women have men's feet. +Flattering, fluttering adventure--five callers in one afternoon! +"Aline, we are becoming a public institution!" The aunts sprang here, +there, and into collision; Cupid sped down the walk; Marie Madeleine +stood in the door. +</P> + +<P> +And who were these but the dear De l'Isles! +</P> + +<P> +"No," they would not come inside. "But, Corinne, Yvonne, Aline, run, +toss on hats for a trip to Spanish Fort." +</P> + +<P> +One charm of that trip is that the fare is but, five cents, and the +crab gumbo no dearer than in town. "Come! No-no-no, not one, but the +three of you. In pure compassion on us! For, as sometimes in heaven +among cherubim, we are <I>ennuyés</I> of each other!" +</P> + +<P> +The small half-hourly electric train in Rampart Street had barely +started lakeward into Canal, with the De l'Isle-Chapdelaine five aboard +and the sun about to set, when Geoffry Chester entered--and stopped +before monsieur, stiff with embarrassment. Nevertheless that made them +a glad six, and, as each seat was for two, the two with life before +them took one. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXIII +</H2> + +<P> +The small public garden, named for an old redout on the lake shore at +the mouth of Bayou St. John was filled with a yellow sunset as Chester +and Aline moved after the aunts and the De l'Isles from the train into +a shell walk whose artificial lights at that moment flashed on. +</P> + +<P> +"So far from that," he was saying, "a story may easily be improved, +clarified, beautified, by--what shall I say?--by filtering down through +a second and third generation of the right tellers and hearers." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes! the right, yes! But----" +</P> + +<P> +"And for me you're supremely the right one." +</P> + +<P> +Instantly he rued his speech. Some delicate mechanism seemed to stop. +Had he broken it? As one might lay a rare watch to his ear he waited, +listening, while they stood looking off to where water, sky, and sun +met; and presently, to his immeasurable relief, she responded: +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Grandpère</I> was not at that time such a very young man, yet he still +lived with his father. So when <I>grand'mère</I> and her two friends--with +Sidney and Mingo--returned from the privateer to the hotel they were +opposite neighbors to the Chapdelaines and almost without another +friend, in a city--among a people--on fire with war. Then, pretty +soon--" the fair narrator stopped and significantly smiled. +</P> + +<P> +Chester twinkled. "Um-h'm," he said, "your <I>grandpère's</I> heart became +another city on fire." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and 'twas in that old hotel--with the war storm coming, like +to-day only everything much more close and terrible, business dead, +soldiers every day going to Virginia--you must make Mr. Thorndyke-Smith +tell you about that--'twas in that old hotel, at a great free-gift +lottery and bazaar, lasting a week, for aid of soldiers' families, and +in a balcony of the grand salon, that <I>grandpère</I>--" the narrator +ceased and smiled again. +</P> + +<P> +"Proposed," Chester murmured. +</P> + +<P> +The girl nodded. They sank to a bench, the world behind them, the +stars above. "<I>Grand'mére</I>, she couldn't say yes till he'd first go to +her home, almost at the Canadian line, and ask her family. She, she +couldn't go; she couldn't leave Sidney and Mingo and neither could she +take them. So by railroad at last he got there. But her family took +so long to consent that he got back only the next year and through the +fall of the city. Only by ship could he come, and not till he had +begged President Lincoln himself and promised him to work with his +might to return Louisiana to the Union. Well, of course, he and his +father had voted against secession, weeping; yet now this was a pledge +terrible to keep, and the more because, you see? what to do, and when +and how to do it----" +</P> + +<P> +"Were left to his own judgment and tact?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, and honor! But anyhow he came. Doubtless, bringing the written +permission of the family, he was happy. Yet to what bitternesses--can +we say bitternesses in English?" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed we can," said Chester. +</P> + +<P> +"To what bitternesses <I>grandpére</I> had to return!" +</P> + +<P> +"Aline!" Mme. De l'Isle called; "à table!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, madame. Tell me--you, Mr. Chester--to your vision, how all that +must have been." +</P> + +<P> +"Paint in your sketch? Let me try. Maybe only because you tell the +story, but maybe rather because it's so easy to see in you a +reincarnation of your <I>grand'mére</I>--a Creole incarnation of that young +'Maud'--what I see plainest is she. I see her here, two thousand miles +from home, with but three or four friends among a quarter of a million +enemies. I see her on the day the city fell, looking up and down Royal +Street from a balcony of the hotel, while from the great dome a few +steps behind her the Union fleet could be seen, rounding the first two +river bends below the harbor, engaging a last few Confederate guns at +the old battle-ground, and coming on, with the Stars and Stripes at +every peak. I see her----" +</P> + +<P> +"She was beautiful, you know--<I>grand'mére</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I see her so, looking down from that balcony, awestruck, not +fearstruck, on the people who in agonies of rage and terror fled the +city by pairs and families, or in armed squads and unarmed mobs swept +through the streets and up and down the levee, burning, breaking, and +plundering." +</P> + +<P> +"But that was the worst anybody did, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes. We never knew till to-day's war came how humane that war +was. It wasn't a war in which beauty, age, and infancy were hideous +perils." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, never mind about that to-day. But about <I>grandpère</I> and +<I>grand'mère</I> go on. Let me see how much you can imagine correctly, +h'm?" +</P> + +<P> +"Please, mademoiselle, no. Time has made you--through your father's +eyes--they say you have them--an eye-witness. So next you see your +<I>grandpère</I> getting back at last, by ship--go on." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I see that, in a harbor whose miles of wharfs without ships cried +to him: 'our occupation and your fortune are gone!' Also I see him +again in the streets--Royal, Chartres, Canal, Carondelet--where old +friends pass him with a stare. I see him and <I>grand'mère</I> married at +last, in a church nearly empty and even the priest unfriendly." +</P> + +<P> +"Had he no new friends, Unionists?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet, at the wedding. There he said: 'Old friends or none.' And +that was right, don't you think? Later 'twas different. You see, in +the navy, both of the rivers and the sea, as likewise the army, +<I>grand'mère</I> had uncles and cousins; and when the hotel was made a +military hospital she was there every day. And naturally those +cousins, whether from hospital or no, would call and even bring +friends. Well, of course, <I>grandpère</I> was, at the least, courteous! +And then there was his word of honor, to Mr. Lincoln, as also his own +desire, to bring the State back into the Union." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course. Don't hurry, please." +</P> + +<P> +"Was I hurrying? Pardon, but I'm afraid they'll be calling us again." +The pair rose, but stood. "Well, when a kind of government was made of +that part of the State held by the Union, and the military governor +wanted both <I>grandpère</I> and his father to take some public offices, his +father made excuse of his age and of a malady--taken from that +hospital--which soon occasioned him to die." +</P> + +<P> +"I've seen his tomb, in St. Louis cemetery, with its epitaph of barely +two words--'Adieu, Chapdelaine.' Who supplied that? Old friends, +after all?" +</P> + +<P> +"A few old, a few new, and one the governor." +</P> + +<P> +"Did the governor propose the words?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. If I tell you you won't tell? Ovide. But <I>grandpère</I> he took +the office. And so that put him yet more distant from old friends +except just two or three who believed the same as he did." +</P> + +<P> +"And our Royal Street coterie, of course." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, not those you see now; but their parents, yes. They were +faithful; though sometimes, some of them, sympathizing differently. +Well, and so there was <I>grandpère</I> working to repair a <I>piece</I> of the +State, when at last the war finished and the reconstruction of the +whole State commenced. He and Ovide were both of that State convention +they mobbed in the 'July riot.' Some men were killed in that riot. +<I>Grandpère</I> was wounded, also Ovide. Those were awful times to +<I>grand'mère</I>, those years of the reconstruction. <I>Grandpère</I> he--" +The girl glanced backward, then turned again, smiling. The four +chaperons were going indoors without them. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Chester said, "your <I>grandpère</I> I can imagine----" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, go ahead; imagine, to me." +</P> + +<P> +"No. No, except just enough to see him with no choice of party +allegiance but between a rabble up to the elbows in robbery and an old +régime red-handed with the rabble's blood." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, so papa told me, after <I>grandpère</I> was long gone, and me on his +knee asking questions. 'Reconstruction, my dear child--' once he +answered me, ''twas like trying to drive, on the right road, a frantic +horse in a rotten harness, and with the reins under his tail!' Ah, I +wish you could have known him, Mr. Chester--my father!" +</P> + +<P> +"I know his daughter." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I suppose--I suppose we must go in." +</P> + +<P> +"With the story almost finished?" +</P> + +<P> +"We'll, maybe finish inside--or--some day." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXIV +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +T. CHAPDELAINE & SON +</H3> + +<P> +The seniors were found at a table for four. +</P> + +<P> +Mme. De l'Isle explained: "But! with only four to sit down there, how +was it possib' to h-ask for a tab'e for six? That wou'n' be logical!" +</P> + +<P> +When the waiter offered to add a smaller table and make one snug board +for six--"No," she said; "for feet and hands that be all right; but for +the <I>mind</I>, ah! You see, Mr. Chezter, M. De l'Isle he's also precizely +in the mi'l' of a moze overwhelming story of his own------" +</P> + +<P> +"Hiztorical!" the aunts broke in. "Well-known! abbout old house! in +the <I>vieux carré</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +"And," madame insisted, "'twould ruin that story, to us, to commenze to +hear it over, while same time 'twould ruin it to you to commenze to +hear it in the mi'l'. And beside', Aline, you are doubtlezz yet in the +mi'l' of your own story and--waiter! make there at that firz' window a +tab'e for two, and" [to the pair] "we'll run both storie' ad the same +time--if not three!" +</P> + +<P> +"Like that circ'"--the aunts fell into tears of laughter. They touched +each other with finger-tips, cried, "Like that circuz of Barnum!" and +repeated to the De l'Isles and then to Aline, "Like that circuz of +Barnum an' Bailey!" +</P> + +<P> +At the table for two, as the gumbo was uncovered and Chester asked how +it was made, "Ah!" said Aline, "for a veritable gumbo what you want +most is enthusiasm. The enthusiasm of both my aunts would not be too +much. And to tell how 'tis made you'd need no less, that would be a +story by itself, third ring of the circus." +</P> + +<P> +"Then tell me, further, of '<I>grandpère</I>'" +</P> + +<P> +"And grand'mère? Yes, I must, as I learned about them on papa's knee. +Mamma never saw them; they had been years gone when papa first knew +her. But Sidney I knew, when she was old and had seen all those +dreadful times; and, though she often would not tell me the story, she +would tell me what to ask papa; you see? You would have liked to talk +with Sidney about old buildings. Mr. Chester, I think it is not that +in New Orleans we are so picturesque, but that all the rest of our +country--in the cities--is so starved for the picturesque. Sidney +would have told you that story monsieur is telling now as well as all +the strange history of that old Hotel St. Louis. First, after the war +it was changed back from a hospital to a hotel. I think 'twas then +they called it Hotel Royal. Anyhow 'twas again very fine. Grandpère +and grand'mère were often in that salon where he had first--as they +say--spoken. Because, for one thing, there they met people of the +outside world without the local prejudices, you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"At that time bitter and vindictive?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, ferocious! And there they met also people of the most--dignity." +</P> + +<P> +"Above the average of the other hotels?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, not so--so brisk." +</P> + +<P> +"Not so American?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, you know. Well, maybe that's one reason the St. Charles, for +example, continued, while the Royal did not. Anyhow the +Royal--grandpère had the life habit of it and 'twas just across the +street. Daily they ate there; a real economy." +</P> + +<P> +"But they kept the old home." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. 'Twas furnished the same but not 'run' the same. 'Twas very +difficult to keep it, even with all three stories of the servants' wing +shut up, you know?--like"--a glance indicated the De l'Isles. +</P> + +<P> +"But you say Hotel Royal was soon closed." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and then, in the worst of those days, it became the capitol. +There, in the most elegant hotel for the most elegant planters of the +South--anyhow Southwest--sat their slaves, with white men even more +abhorred, and made the laws. In that old dome, second story, they put +a floor across, and there sat the Senate! Just over that auction-block +where grandpère had bought Mingo." +</P> + +<P> +"Where was he--Mingo?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dead--of drink. Grandpère was in that government! Long time he was +senator. Mr. Chester, <I>for that</I> papa was proud of him, and I am +proud." +</P> + +<P> +The listener was proud of her pride. "I know," he said, "from my own +people, that in such an attitude--as your grandfather's--there was +honor a plenty for any honorable man. Ovide tells me the negroes never +wanted negro supremacy. I wonder if that's so. They were often, he +says, madly foolish and corrupt; yet their fundamental lawmaking was +mostly good. I know the State's constitution was; it was ahead of the +times." +</P> + +<P> +Aline made a quick gesture: "And any of the old masters who agreed to +that could help lead!" +</P> + +<P> +"Mademoiselle, how could they agree to it? Some did, I know, but +that's the wonder. Those that could not--who can blame them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! 'tis no longer a question of blame but of judgment. So papa used +to say. Anyhow grandpère agreed, accepted, led; until at the last, one +day, that White League--you've heard of them, how they armed and +drilled and rose against that reconstruction police in a battle on the +steamboat landing? Grandpère was in that. He commanded part of the +reconstruction forces. And papa was there, though only thirteen. +Grandpère was bayonet-wounded. They carried him away bleeding. Only +at the State-house a surgeon met them, and there, under that dome, just +as papa brought grand'mère and Sidney, he died." Mademoiselle ceased. +</P> + +<P> +Chester waited, but she glanced to the other table. Monsieur had ended +his recital. Madame and the aunts chatted merrily. Smilingly the +niece's eyes came back. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't stop," said Chester. "What followed--for 'Maud'--Sidney--your +boy father--your little-girl aunts? Did the clock in the sky call them +North again?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." The speaker rose. "I'll tell you on the train; I hear it +coming." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXV +</H2> + +<P> +"There's a train every half-hour," Chester said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but the day-laborer must be home early." +</P> + +<P> +On the train--"Well," the youth urged, "your <I>grand'mère</I> stayed in the +old home, I hope, with the three children--and Sidney?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only till she could sell it. But that was nearly three years, and +they were hard, those three. But at last, by the help of that Royal +Street coterie--who were good friends, Mr. Chester, when friends were +scarce--she sold both house and furniture--what was by that time +remaining--and bought that place where we are now living." +</P> + +<P> +"Was there no life-insurance?" +</P> + +<P> +"A little. We have the yearly interest on it still. 'Tis very small, +yet a great help--to my aunts. I tell that only to say that papa would +never touch it when he and my aunts--and afterward mamma--were in very +narrow places." +</P> + +<P> +Chester perceived another reason for the telling of it; the niece +wanted to escape the credit of being the sole support of her aunts. +She read his thought but ignored it. +</P> + +<P> +"Papa was very old for his age," she continued. "You may see that by +his being in the battle with <I>grandpère</I> at thirteen years. And +because of that precocity he got much training of the mind--and +spirit--from <I>grandpère</I> that usually is got much later. I think that +is what my aunts mean when they tell you papa's life was dramatic. It +<I>was</I> so, yet not in the manner they mean, the manner of <I>grandpère's</I> +life; you understand?" +</P> + +<P> +"You mean it was not melodramatic?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! the word I wanted! Mr. Chester, when we get over being children, +those of us who do, why do we try so hard to live without melodrama?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, mademoiselle, you know well enough. You know that's what +melodrama does, itself? What is it, in essence, but a struggle to rise +out of itself into a higher drama, of the spirit----?" +</P> + +<P> +"A divine comedy! Yes. Well, that is what my father's life seems to +me." +</P> + +<P> +"With tragic elements in it, of course?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! How could it be high comedy without? But except that one battle +the tragedy was not--eh--crude, like <I>grandpère's</I>; was not physical. +Once he said to me: 'There are things in life, in the refined life, +very quiet things, that are much more tragic than bloodshed or death or +the defying of death.'" +</P> + +<P> +"In the refined life," Chester said musingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes! and he <I>was</I> refined, yet never weak. 'Strength,' he said, +'valor, truth, they are the foundations; better be dead than without +them. Yet one can have them, in crude form, and still better be dead. +The noble, the humane, the chaste, the beautiful, 'tis with them we +build the superstructure, the temple, of life--Mr. Chester, if you knew +French I could tell you that better." +</P> + +<P> +"I doubt it. Go on, please, time's a-flying." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you see how tragic was that life! Papa saw it and said: 'It +shall not be tragic alone. I will build on it a comedy higher, finer, +than tragedy. That's what life is for; mine, yours, the world's,' he +said to me. Mr. Chester, you can imagine how a daughter would love a +father like that, and also how mamma loved him--for years--before they +could marry." +</P> + +<P> +"Your mother was a Creole, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, mamma was French. After <I>grand'mère</I> had followed +<I>grandpère</I>--above--papa, looking up some of the once employees of T. +Chapdelaine & Son, to raise the old concern back to life, arranged with +them that while they should reinstitute it here he would go live in +France, close to the producers of the finest goods possible. You see? +And he did that many years with a kind of success; but smaller and +smaller, because little by little the taste for those refinements was +passing, while those department stores and all that kind of thing--you +understand--h'm?" +</P> + +<P> +The train stopped in Rampart Street, and when one aunt, with madame, +and one with monsieur, had followed the junior pair out of the +snarlings and hootings of Canal Street's automobiles and to the quiet +sidewalks of the old quarter---- +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" said Chester, slowing down, and---- +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Aline, "about mamma: ah, 'tis wonderful how they were +suited to each other, those two. Almost from the first of his living +there, in France, they were acquainted and much together. She was of a +fine ancestry, but without fortune; everything lost in the German war, +eighteen seventy. They were close neighbor to a convent very famous +for its wonderful work of the needle and of the bobbin. 'Twas there +she received her education. And she and papa could have married any +time if he could promise to stay always there, in France. But the +business couldn't assure that; and so, for years and years, you see?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I see." +</P> + +<P> +"But then, all at once, almost in a day, mamma, she found herself an +orphan, with no inheritance but poor relations and they with already +too many orphans in their care. For, as my aunts say, joking, that +seems to run in our family, to become orphans. +</P> + +<P> +"They are very fond of joking, my aunts. And so, because to those +French relations America seemed a cure for all troubles, they allowed +papa to marry mamma and bring her here to live, where I was born, and +where they lived many, many years so happily, because so bravely----" +</P> + +<P> +"And in such refinement--of spirit?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes, yes. And where we are yet inhabiting, as you perceive, my +aunts and me, and--as you see yonder this moment waiting us in the +gate--Hector and Marie Madeleine!" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Alone with the De l'Isles in Royal Street Chester asked, "And the +business--Chapdelaine & Son?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, sinz' long time liquidate'! All tha'z rim-aining is Mme. +Alexandre. Mr. Chezter, y' ought to put that! That ought to go in the +book," said monsieur. +</P> + +<P> +"If we could only avoid a disjointed effect." +</P> + +<P> +"Dizjoin'--my dear sir! They are going to read thad book <I>biccause</I> +the dizjointed--by curio-zity. You'll see! That Am-erican pewblic +they have a passion, an <I>insanitie</I>, for the dizjointed!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap26"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXVI +</H2> + +<P> +The week so blissfully begun in the Chapdelaines' garden and at Spanish +Fort was near its end. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Courier des Etats-Unis</I> had told the Royal Street coterie of +mighty doings far away in Italy, of misdoings in Galicia, and of +horrors on the Atlantic fouler than all its deeps can ever cleanse; but +nothing was yet reported to have "tranzpired" in the <I>vieux carré</I>. +The fortunes of "the book" seemed becalmed. +</P> + +<P> +It was Saturday evening. The streets had just been lighted. Mlles. +Corinne and Yvonne, dingy even by starlight, were in one of +them--Conti. Now they turned into Royal, and after them turned Chester +and Aline. Presently the four entered the parlor of the Castanados. +Their coming made its group eleven, and all being seated Castanado rose. +</P> + +<P> +After the proper compliments--"They were called," he said, "to +receive----" +</P> + +<P> +"And discuss," Chester put in. +</P> + +<P> +"To receive and discuss the judgment of their----" +</P> + +<P> +"The suggestions," Chester amended. +</P> + +<P> +"The judgment and suggestion' of their counsel, how tha'z best to +publish the literary treasure they've foun' and which has egspand' from +one story to three or four. Biccause the one which was firzt acquire' +is laztly turn' out to be the only one of a su'possible +incompat'--eh--in-com-pat-a-bil-ity--to the others." His bow yielded +the floor to Chester. "Remain seated, if you please," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"In spite of my wish to save this manuscript all avoidable delay," +Chester began, "I've kept it a week. I like it--much. I think that in +quieter times, with the reading world in a more contemplative mood, any +publisher would be glad to print it. At the same time it seems to me +to have faults of construction that ought to come out of it before it +goes to a possibly unsympathetic publisher. Yet after--was Mme. +Alexandre about----?" +</P> + +<P> +"Juz' to say tha'z maybe better those fault' are there. If the +publisher be not <I>sympathetique</I> we want him to rif-use that +manuscrip'." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes!" several responded. "Yes! He can't have it! Tha'z the en' of +<I>that</I> publisher." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, at any rate," Chester said, "after using up this whole week +trying, fruitlessly, to edit those faults out of it, here it is +unaltered. I still feel them, but I have to confess that to feel them +is one thing and to find them is quite another. Maybe they're only in +me." +</P> + +<P> +"Tha'z the only plase they are," said Dubroca, with kind gravity. "I +had the same feeling--till a dream, which reveal' to me that the +feeling was my fault. The manuscrip' is perfec'." +</P> + +<P> +"Messieurs," Mme. Castanado broke in, "please to hear Mlle. Aline." +And Aline spoke: +</P> + +<P> +"Perfect or no, I think that's what we don't require to conclude. But +if that manuscript will join well with those other two--or three, or +four, if we find so many--or if it will rather disjoint them--'tis that +we must decide; is it not, M. De l'Isle?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and tha'z easy. That story is going to assimilate those other' +to a perfegtion! For several reason'. Firz', like those other', 'tis +not figtion; 'tis true. Second, like those, 'tis a personal +egsperienze told by the person egsperienzing. Third, every one of +those person' were known to some of us, an' we can certify that person +that he or she was of the greatez' veracity! Fourth, the United States +they've juz' lately purchaze' that island where that story tranzpire. +And, fifthly, the three storie' they are joint'; not stiff', like +board' of a floor, but loozly, like those link' of a chain. They are +jointed in the subjec' of friddom! 'Tis true, only friddom of negro', +yet still--friddom! An', <I>messieurs et mesdames</I>, that is now the +precise moment when that whole worl' is <I>wile</I> on that <I>topique</I>; +friddom of citizen', friddom of nation', friddom of race', friddom of +the sea'! And there is ferociouz demand for short storie' joint' on +that <I>topique</I>, biccause now at the lazt that whole worl' is biccome +furiouzly conscientiouz to get at the bottom of that <I>topique</I>; an' +biccause those negro' are the lowez' race, they are there, of co'se, ad +the bottom!" +</P> + +<P> +"M. Beloiseau?" the chair--hostess--said; and Scipion, with languor in +his voice but a burning fervor in his eye, responded: +</P> + +<P> +"I think Mr. Chezter he's speaking with a too great modestie--or else +<I>dip</I>-lomacie. Tha'z not good! If <I>fid</I>-elitie to art inspire me a +conceitednezz as high"--his upthrown hand quivered at arm's length--"as +the flagpole of Hotel St. Louis dome yonder, tha'z better than a +modestie withoud that. That origin-al manuscrip' we don't want that +ag-ain; we've all read that. But I think Mr. Chezter he's also maybe +got that <I>riv</I>-ision in his pocket, an' we ought to hear, now, at ones, +that <I>riv</I>-ision!" +</P> + +<P> +Miles. Corinne and Yvonne led the applause, and presently Chester was +reading: +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap27"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXVII +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE HOLY CROSS +</H3> + +<P> +This is a true story. Only that fact gives me the courage to tell it. +It happened. +</P> + +<P> +It occurred under my own eyes when they were far younger than now, on a +beautiful island in the Caribbean, some twelve hundred miles +southeastward from Florida, the largest of the Virgin group--the island +of the Holy Cross. Its natives called it Aye-Aye. Columbus piously +named it Santa Cruz and bore away a number of its people to Spain as +slaves, to show them what Christians looked like in quantity and how +they behaved to one another and to strangers. You can hear much about +Santa Cruz from anybody in the rum-trade. +</P> + +<P> +It has had many owners. As with the woman in the Sadducee's riddle, +she of many husbands, seven political powers have had this mermaid as +bride. Spain, the English, the Dutch, the Spaniards again, the French, +the Knights of Malta, the French again, who sold her to the Guiana +Company, who in 1734 passed her over to the Danes, from whom the +English captured her in 1807 but restored her again at the close of +Napoleon's wars. Thus, at last, Denmark prevailed as the ruling power; +but English remained the speech of the people. The island is about +twenty-three miles long by six wide. Its two towns are Christiansted +on the north and Fredericksted on the south. Christiansted is the +capital. +</P> + +<P> +In 1848 I lived in Fredericksted, on Kongensgade, or King Street, with +my aunts, Marion, Anna, and Marcia, and my grandmother--whom the +servants called Mi'ss Paula--and was just old enough to begin taking +care of my dignity. Whether I was Danish, British, or American I +hardly knew. When grandmamma, whose husband had been of a family that +had furnished a signer of our Declaration, told me stories of Bunker +Hill and Yorktown I glowed with American patriotism. But when she +turned to English stories, heroic or momentous, she would remind me +that my father and mother were born on this island under British sway, +and--"Once a Briton always a Briton." And yet again, my playmates +would say: +</P> + +<P> +"When <I>you</I> were born the island was Danish; you are a subject of King +Christian VIII." +</P> + +<P> +Kongensgade, though narrow, was one of the main streets that ran the +town's full length from northeast to southwest, and our home was a +long, low cottage on the street's southern side, between it and the +sea. Its grounds sloped upward from the street, widened out +extensively at the rear, and then suddenly fell away in bluffs to the +beach. It had been built for "Mi'ss Paula" as a bridal gift from her +husband. But now, in her widowhood, his wealth was gone, and only +refinement and inspiring traditions remained. +</P> + +<P> +The sale or hire of her slaves might have kept her in comfort; but a +clergyman, lately from England, convinced her that no Christian should +hold a slave, and setting them free she accepted a life of self-help +and of no little privation. She was his only convert. His zeal cooled +early. Her ex-slaves, finding no <I>public</I> freedom in custom or law, +merely hired their labor unwisely and yearly grew more worthless. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +[The reader lifted his eyes across to Aline: +</P> + +<P> +"I had a notion to name that much 'The Time,' and this next part 'The +Scene.' What do you think?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I think so. 'Twould make the manner of it less antique." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" cried Mlle. Corinne, "'tis not a movie! Tha'z the charm, that +antie-quitie!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," the niece assented again, "but even with that insertion 'tis yet +as old-fashioned as 'Paul and Virginia.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Or 'Rasselas,'" Chester suggested, and resumed his task.] +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap28"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXVIII +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +(THE SCENE) +</H3> + +<P> +Yet to be poor on that island did not compel a sordid narrowing of +life. You would have found our living-room furnished in mahogany rich +and old. In a corner where the airs came in by a great window stood a +jar big enough to hide in, into which trickled a cool thread of water +from a huge dripping-stone, while above these a shelf held native +waterpots whose yellow and crimson surfaces were constantly pearled +with dew oozing through the porous ware. On a low press near by was +piled the remnant of father's library, and on the ancient sideboard +were silver candlesticks, snuffers, and crystal shades. +</P> + +<P> +But it was neither these things nor cherished traditions that gave the +room its finest charm. It was filled with the glory of the sea. There +was no need of painted pictures. Living nature hung framed in wide +high windows through which drifted in the distant boom of surf on the +rocks, and salt breezes perfumed with cassia. +</P> + +<P> +Outside, round about, there was far more. A broad door led by a flight +of stone steps to the couchlike roots of a gigantic turpentine-tree +whose deep shade harbored birds of every hue. To me, sitting there, +the island's old Carib name of Aye-Aye seemed the eternal consent of +God to some seraph asking for this ocean pearl. All that poet or +prophet had ever said of heaven became comprehensible in its daily +transfigurations of light and color scintillated between wave, +landscape, and cloud--its sea like unto crystal, and the trees bearing +all manner of fruits. Grace and fragrance everywhere: fruits crimson, +gold, and purple; fishes blue, orange, pink; shells of rose and pearl. +Distant hills, clouds of sunset and dawn, sky and stream, leaf and +flower, bird and butterfly, repeated the splendor, while round all +palpitated the wooing rhythm of the sea's mysterious tides. +</P> + +<P> +The beach! Along its landward edge the plumed palms stood sentinel, +rustling to the lipping waters and to the curious note of the +Thibet-trees, sounding their long dry pods like castanets in the +evening breeze. By the water's margin, and in its shoals and depths, +what treasures of the underworld! Here a sponge, with stem bearing +five cups; there a sea-fan, large enough for a Titan's use yet delicate +enough to be a mermaid's. Red-lipped shells; mystical eye-stones; +shell petals heaped in rocky nooks like rose leaves; and, moving among +these in grotesque leisure, crabs of a brilliance and variety to tax +the painter. All the rector told of a fallen world seemed but idle +words when the sunset glory was too much for human vision and the young +heart trembled before its ineffable suggestions. +</P> + +<P> +I often rode a pony. If we turned inland our way was on a road +double-lined with cocoa palms, or up some tangled dell where a silvery +cascade leaped through the deep verdure. On one side the tall mahogany +dropped its woody pears. On another, sand-box and calabash trees +rattled their huge fruit like warring savages. Here the banyan hung +its ropes and yonder the tamarind waved its feathery streamers. Here +was the rubber-tree, here the breadfruit. Now and then a clump of the +manchineel weighted the air with the fragrance of its poisonous apples, +the banana rustled, or the bamboo tossed its graceful canes. Beside +some stream we might espy black washerwomen beetling their washing. +Or, reaching the summit of Blue Mountain, we might look down, eleven +hundred feet, on the vast Caribbean dotted with islands, and, nearer +by, on breakers curling in noble bays or foaming under rocky cliffs. +Northward, the wilderness; eastward, green fields of sugar-cane paling +and darkling in the breeze; southward, the wide harbor of +Fredericksted, the town, and the black, red-shirted boatmen pushing +about the harbor; westward, the setting sun; and presently, everywhere, +the swift fall of the tropical night, with lights beginning to twinkle +in the town and the boats in the roadstead to leave long wakes of +phosphorescent light. +</P> + +<P> +Of course nature had also her bad habits. There were sharks in the +sea, and venomous things ashore, and there were the earthquake and the +hurricane. Every window and door had heavy shutters armed with bars, +rings, and ropes that came swiftly into use whenever between July and +October the word ran through the town, "The barometer's falling." Then +candles and lamps were lighted indoors, and there was happy excitement +for a courageous child. I would beg hard to have a single pair of +shutters held slightly open by two persons ready to shut them in a +second, and so snatched glimpses of the tortured, flying clouds and +writhing trees, while old Si' Myra, one of the freed slaves who never +had left us, crouched in a corner and muttered: +</P> + +<P> +"Lo'd sabe us! Lo'd sabe us!" +</P> + +<P> +Once I saw a handsome brig which had failed to leave the harbor soon +enough stagger in upon the rocks where it seemed her masts might fall +into our own grounds, and grandmamma told me that thus my father, +though born in the island, had first met my mother. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap29"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXIX +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +(THE PLAYERS) +</H3> + +<P> +Si' Myra was a Congo. She believed the Obi priests could boil water +without fire, and in many ways cause frightful woes. To her own myths +she had added Danish ones. "De wehr-wolf, yes, me chile! Dem nights +w'en de moon shine bright and de dogs a-barkin', you see twelb dogs +a-talkin' togedder in a ring, and one in de middle. Dah dem wait till +dem yerry [hear] him; den dem take arter him, me chile," etc. +</P> + +<P> +Strangest, wildest practice of the slaves was the hideous misuse +Christian masters allowed them to make of Chrismas Day and week. It +was then they danced the bamboula, incessantly. All through the year +this Saturnalia was prepared for in meetings held at night by their +leaders. The songs to which they danced were made of white society's +scandals reduced to satirical rhyme; and to the rashest girl or man +there was power in the warning, "You'll get yourself sung about at +Christmas." Yearly a king, queen, and retinue were elected. The +dresses of court and all were a mixture of splendor and tawdriness that +exhausted the savings and pilferings of a twelvemonth. Good-natured +"missies" often helped make these outfits. They were of velvet, silk, +satin, cotton lace, false flowers, the brilliant seeds of the licorice +and coquelicot, tinsel, beads, and pinch-beck. Sometimes mistresses +even lent--firmly sewed fast--their own jewelry. +</P> + +<P> +On Christmas Eve, here and there in the town, ground-floor rooms were +hired and decorated with palm branches; or palm booths were built, +decked with oranges and boughs of cinnamon berries, lighted with +candles and lanterns and furnished with seats for the king, queen, and +musicians, and with buckets of rum punch. Then the "bulrush man" went +his round. Covered with capes and flounces of rushes and crowned with +a high waving fringe of them, he rattled pebbles in calabashes, danced +to their clatter, proclaimed the feast, and begged such of us white +children as his dress did not terrify, for stivers from our holiday +savings. +</P> + +<P> +Soon the dancers began to gather in the booths; women in gorgeous +trailing gowns, the men bearing showy batons and clad in gay shirts or +satin jackets, and with a mongrel infant rabble at their heels. When +the goombay--a flour-barrel drum--sounded, the town knew the bamboula +had begun. On two confronting lines, the men in one, the women in the +other, a leading couple improvised a song and all took up the refrain. +The goombay beat time, and the dancers rattled or tinkled the woody +seed-cases of the sand-box tree set on long handles and with each of +their lobes painted a separate vivid color; rattles of basketwork; and +calabashes filled with pebbles and shells. All instruments were gay +with floating ribbons. So the lines approached each other by two +steps, receded, advanced, and receded, always in wild cadence to the +signals of voice and instrument; then bowed so low that they +touched--twice--thrice; then pirouetted and resumed the first movement, +and now and then, with two or three turns or bows, clashed their +rattles together in time. As night darkened, the rude lights flared +yellow and red upon the dusky forms bedizened with beads, bangles, and +grotesquer trumpery. Faces, necks, arms reeked and shone in the heat, +ribbons streamed, gross odors arose, the goombay dominated all, and +children of the master race--for even I was permitted to witness these +orgies--without comprehending, stood aghast. Close outside, the +matchless night lay on land and sea; a relieved sense caught ethereal +perfumes and was soothed by the exquisite refinement into whose space +and silence the faint deep voice of the savage drum sobbed one grief +and one prayer alike for slave and master. +</P> + +<P> +The revel always ended with New Year's Day. The next morning broke +silently, and with the rising of the sun the plantation bell or the +conch called the bondman and bondwoman into the cane-fields. Then, +alike in broadest noon or deepest night, a spectral fear hovered +wherever the master sat among his loved ones or rode from place to +place. Not often did the hand of oppression fall upon any slave with +illegal violence, or he or she turn to slaughter or poison the +oppressor; but the slaves were in thousands, the masters were but +hundreds, the laws were cruel; the whipping-post stood among the town's +best houses of commerce, justice, and worship, with the thumbscrews +hard by. As to armed defense, the well-drilled and finely caparisoned +volunteer "troopers" were but a handful, the Danish garrison a mere +squad; the governor was mild and aged, and the two towns were the width +of the island apart. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap30"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXX +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +(THE RISING CURTAIN) +</H3> + +<P> +In that year, 1848, this unrest was much increased. King Christian had +lately proclaimed a gradual emancipation of all slaves in his West +Indian colonies. A squad of soldiers had marched through the streets, +halting at corners and beating a drum--"beating the protocol," as it +was termed--and reading the royal edict. After twelve years all slaves +were to go free; their owners were to be paid for them; and meantime +every infant of a slave was to be free at birth. +</P> + +<P> +I suppose no one knows better than the practical statesman how +disastrous measures are apt to be when designed for the <I>gradual</I> +righting of a public evil. They rarely satisfy any class concerned. +In this case the aged slaves bemoaned a promised land they might never +live to enter; younger ones dreaded the superior liberty of free-born +children; and the planters doubted they would be paid, even if +emancipation did not bring fire, rapine, and death. +</P> + +<P> +One day, along with all "West-En'," as the negroes called +Fredericksted--Christiansted was "Bass-En',"--I saw two British +East-Indiamen sail into the harbor. Such ships never touched at +Fredericksted; what could the Britons want? +</P> + +<P> +"Water," they said, "and rest"; but they stayed and stayed! their +officers roaming the island, asking many questions, answering few. +What they signified at last I cannot say, except that they became our +refuge from the black uprising that was near at hand. Likely enough +that was their only errand. +</P> + +<P> +Sunday, the 2d of July, was still and fair. To me the Sabbath was +always a happy day. High-stepping horses prancing up to the +church-gates brought friends from the plantations. The organ pealed, +the choir chanted, the rector read, and read well; the mural tablets +told the virtues of the churchyard sleepers, and out through the +windows I could gaze on the clouds and the hills. After church came +the Sunday-school. Its house was on a breezy height where the wind +swept through the room unceasingly, giving wings to the children's +voices as we sang, "Now be the gospel banner." +</P> + +<P> +But this Sunday promised unusual pleasure. I was to go with Aunt +Marion to dine soon after midday with a Danish family, in real Danish +West Indian fashion, and among the guests were to be some officers of +the East-Indiamen. I carried with me one fear--that we should have +pigeon-pea soup. Whoever ate pigeon-pea soup, Si' Myra said, would +never want to leave the island, and I longed for those ships to go. +But in due time we were asked: +</P> + +<P> +"Which soup will you have--guava-berry or pigeon-pea?" +</P> + +<P> +Hoping to be imitated I chose the guava-berry; but without any +immediately visible effect one officer took one and another the other. +After soup came an elegant kingfish, and by and by the famous callalou +and other delicate and curious viands. For dessert appeared "red +groat"; sago jelly, that is, flavored with guavas, crimsoned with the +juice of the prickly-pear and floating in milk; also other floating +islands of guava jelly beaten with eggs. Pale-green granadillas +crowned the feast. These were eaten with sugar and wine, and before +each draft the men lifted their glasses high to right and left and +cried: "Skoal! Skoal!" As the company finally rose, our host and +hostess shook hands with all, these again saluting each other, each two +saying: "Vel be komme"--"May this feast do you good." +</P> + +<P> +There was strange contrast in store for us. Late in the afternoon we +started home. On the way two friends, a lady and her daughter, +persuaded us to turn and take a walk on the north-side road, at the +town's western border. It drew us southward toward "the lagoon," near +to where this water formed a kind of moat behind the fort, and was +spanned by a slight wooden bridge. While we went the sun slowly sank +through a golden light toward the purple sea, among temples, towers, +and altars of cloud. +</P> + +<P> +As we neared this bridge two black men crossing it from opposite ways +stopped and spoke low: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, me yerry it; dem say sich t'ing' as nebber bin known befo' goin' +be done in West-En' town to-night." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you look sharp, me frien'----" +</P> + +<P> +Seeing us, they parted abruptly, one troubled, the other pleased and +brisk. Our friends drew back: "What does he mean, mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, some meeting to make Christmas songs, I suppose." +</P> + +<P> +"I think not," said Aunt Marion. "Let's go back; my mother's alone." +</P> + +<P> +Just then Gilbert, young son of an intimate neighbor, appeared, saying +to the four of us: "I've come to find you and see you home. The +thing's on us. The slaves rise to-night. Some free negroes have +betrayed them. At eight o'clock they, the slaves, are to attack the +town." +</P> + +<P> +Our home was reached first. Grandmamma heard the news calmly. "We're +in God's hands," she said. "Gilbert, will you stop at Mr. Kenyon's" +[another neighbor] "and send Anna and Marcia home?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Kenyon came bringing them and begging that we all go and pass the +night with him. But grandmamma thought we had better stay home, and he +went away to propose to the neighborhood that all the women and +children be put into the fort, that the men might be the freer to +defend them. +</P> + +<P> +"Marion," said grandmamma, "let us have supper and prayers." +</P> + +<P> +The meal was scarcely touched. Aunt Marcia put Bible and prayer-book +by the lamp and barred all the front shutters. When grandmamma had +read we knelt, but the prayer, was scarcely finished when Aunt Marcia +was up, crying: "The signal! Hear the signal!" + +Out in the still night a high mournful note on a bamboo pipe was +answered by a conch, and presently the alarm was ringing from point to +point, from shells, pipes and horns, and now and then in the solemn +clangor of plantation bells. It came first from the south, then from +the east, swept around to the north, and answered from the western +cliffs, springing from hilltop to hilltop, long, fierce, exultant. We +stood listening and, I fear, pale. But by and by grandmamma took her +easy chair. +</P> + +<P> +"I will spend the night here," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anna took a rocking-chair beside her. Aunt Marcia chose the sofa. +Aunt Marion spread a pallet for me, lay down at my side, and bade me +not fear but sleep. And I slept. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap31"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXXI +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +(REVOLT AND RIOT) +</H3> + +<P> +Suddenly I was broad awake. Distant but approaching, I heard horses' +feet. They came from the direction of the fort. Aunt Marcia was +unbarring the shutters and fastening the inner jalousies so as to look +out unseen. +</P> + +<P> +"It's nearly one o'clock," some one said, and I got up, wondering how +the world looked at such an hour. All hearkened to the nearing sound. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" Aunt Marcia gladly cried, "the troopers!" +</P> + +<P> +There were only some fifty of them. Slowly, in a fitful moonlight, +they dimly came, hoofs ringing on the narrow macadam, swords clanking, +and dark plumes nodding over set faces, while the distant war-signal +from shell, reed, and horn called before, around, and after them. +</P> + +<P> +Still later came a knock at the door, and Mr. Kenyon was warily +readmitted. He explained the passing of the troopers. They had +hurried about the country for hours, assembling their families at +points easy to defend and then had come to the fort for ammunition and +orders; but the captain of the fort, refusing to admit them without the +governor's order, urged them to go to their homes. +</P> + +<P> +"But," Mr. Kenyon had interposed, "a courier can reach the governor in +an hour and a half." +</P> + +<P> +"One will be sent as soon as it is light," was the best answer that +could be got. +</P> + +<P> +Our friend, much excited, went on to tell us that the town militia were +without ammunition also. He believed the fort's officers were +conniving with the revolt. Presently he left us, saying he had met one +of our freed servants, Jack, who would come soon to protect us. +Shortly after daybreak Jack did appear and mounted guard at the front +gate. "Go sleep, ole mis's. Miss Mary Ann" [Marion], "you-all go +sleep. Chaw! wha' foo all you set up all night? Si' Myra, you go draw +watah foo bile coffee." +</P> + +<P> +The dreadful signals had ceased at last, and all lay down to rest; but +I remained awake and saw through the great seaward windows the +wonderful dawn of the tropics flush over sky and ocean. But presently +its heavenly silence was broken by the gallop of a single horse, and a +Danish orderly, heavily armed, passed the street-side windows, off at +last for Christiansted. +</P> + +<P> +Soon the conchs and horns began again. With them was blent now the +tramp of many feet and the harsh voices of swarming insurgents. Their +long silence was explained; they had been sharpening their weapons. +</P> + +<P> +Their first act of violence was to break open a sugar storehouse. They +mixed a barrel of sugar with one of rum, killed a hog, poured in his +blood, added gunpowder, and drank the compound--to make them brave. +Then with barrels of rum and sugar they changed a whole cistern of +water into punch, stirring it with their sharpened hoes, dipping it out +with huge sugar-boiler ladles, and drinking themselves half blind. +</P> + +<P> +Jack dashed in from the gate: "Oh, Miss Marcia, go look! dem a-comin'! +Gin'ral Buddoe at dem head on he w'ite hoss." +</P> + +<P> +We ran to the jalousies. In the street, coming southward toward the +fort, were full two thousand blacks. They walked and ran, the women +with their skirts tied up in fighting trim, and all armed with +hatchets, hoes, cutlasses, and sugar-cane bills. The bills were fitted +on stout pole handles, and all their weapons had been ground and +polished until they glittered horridly in their black hands and above +the gaudy Madras turbans or bare woolly heads and bloodshot eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Dem goin' to de fote to ax foo freedom," Jack cried. +</P> + +<P> +At their head rode "Gin'ral Buddoe," large, powerful, black, in a +cocked hat with a long white plume. A rusty sword rattled at his +horse's flank. As he came opposite my window I saw a white man, alone, +step out from the house across the way and silently lift his arms to +the multitude to halt. +</P> + +<P> +They halted. It was the Roman Catholic priest. For a moment they gave +attention, then howled, brandished their weapons, and pressed on. Aunt +Marcia dropped to her knees and in tears began to pray aloud; but we +cried to her that Rachel, a slave woman, was coming, who must not see +our alarm. Indeed, both Rachel and Tom had already entered. +</P> + +<P> +"La! Miss Mary Ann, wha' fur you cryin'? Who's goin' tech you?" +Rachel held by its four corners a Madras kerchief full of sugar. "Da +what we done come fur, to tell Miss Paula" [grandmamma] "not be +frightened." +</P> + +<P> +Tom was off again while grandmamma said: "Rachel, you've been stealing." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Miss Paula! ain't I gwine hab my sheah w'en dem knock de head' +out dem hogsitt' an' tramp de sugah under dah feet an' mix a whole +cisron o' punch?" +</P> + +<P> +Rachel told the events of the night. But as she talked a roar without +rose higher and higher, and I, running with Jack to the gate, beheld +two smaller mobs coming round a near corner. The foremost was dragging +along the ground by ropes a huge object, howling, striking, and hacking +at it. The other was doing the same to something smaller tied to a +stick of wood, and the air was full of their cries: +</P> + +<P> +"To de sea! Frow it in de sea! You'll nebber hole obbe" [us] "no mo'! +You'll be drownded in de sea-watah!" Their victims were the +whipping-post and the thumbscrews. +</P> + +<P> +Tom returned to say: "Dem done to'e up de cote-house and de Jedge's +house, an' now dem goin' Bay Street too tear up de sto'es." +</P> + +<P> +Gilbert came up from the fort telling what he had seen. The blacks had +tried to scale the ramparts, on one another's shoulders, howling for +freedom and defying the garrison to fire. But the commander had not +dared without orders from the governor, and his courier had not +returned. A leading merchant standing on the fort wall was less +discreet: "Take the responsibility! Fire! Every white man on the +island will sustain you, and you'll end the whole thing here!" +</P> + +<P> +Upon that word off again up-town had gone the whole black swarm, had +sacked the bold merchant's store, and seemed now, by the noises they +made, to be sacking others. "I come," Gilbert said, "with an offer of +the ship-captains to take the white people aboard the ships." +</P> + +<P> +As he turned away groups of negroes began to dash by laden with all +sorts of "prog" [booty] from the wrecked stores. Grandmamma had lain +down, my aunts were trying to make up some sort of midday meal, and I +was standing alone behind the jalousies, when a ferocious-looking negro +rattled them with his bill. +</P> + +<P> +"Lidde gal, gi' me some watah." +</P> + +<P> +"Wait a minute," I said, and left the room. If I hid he might burst in +and murder us. So I brought a bowl of water. +</P> + +<P> +"Tankee, lidde missee," he said, returned the bowl, and went away. Tom +was thereupon set to guard the gate, which he did poorly. Another +negro slipped in and sat down on our steps. He looked around the +pretty enclosure, gave a tired grunt, and said: +</P> + +<P> +"Please, missee, lemme res'; I done bruk up." He held in his hands the +works of a clock, fell to studying them, and became wholly absorbed. +</P> + +<P> +Rachel asked him who had broken it. He replied: +</P> + +<P> +"Obbe" [our] "Ca'lina. She no like de way it talkin'. She say: 'W'at +mek you say, night und day, night und day?' Un' she tuk her bill un' +bruk it up. Un' Georgina chop' up de pianneh, 'caze it wouldn' talk +foo her like it talk too buckra. Da shame!" +</P> + +<P> +But now came yells and cheers in the street, the rush and trample of +hundreds, and the cry: +</P> + +<P> +"De gub'nor! de gub'nor a-comin'!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap32"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXXII +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +(FREEDOM AND CONFLAGRATION) +</H3> + +<P> +We ran to the windows. In an open carriage, with two official +attendants, surrounded by a mounted guard and clad in the uniform of a +Danish general, the aged governor came. On his breast were the +insignia of the order of Dannebrog. His cavalcade could hardly make +its way, and when one of the crowd made bold to seize the horses' reins +the equipage, just before our house, stopped. The governor sat still, +very pale. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly he rose, uncovered, and with graceful dignity bowed. Then he +unfolded a paper with large seals attached, and in a trembling but +clear voice began to read. In the name and by the authority of his +Majesty Christian VIII, King of Denmark, he proclaimed freedom to every +slave in the Danish West Indies. +</P> + +<P> +Our cries of dismay were drowned in the huzzas of the black mob: "Free! +Free! God bless de gub'nor! Obbe is free!" +</P> + +<P> +The retinue moved again; but the crowd, ignoring the command to +disperse to their homes, surged after it in transports of rejoicing. +At the fort the proclamation, with the order to disperse, was read +again. But the mob, suddenly granted all its demands, could not +instantly return to quiet toils made odious by slavery. Mad with joy +and drink, it broke into small companies, some content to stay in town +carousing, others roaming out among the island estates to pillage and +burn. Here the governor, in failing to employ prompt measures of +police, proved himself weak. +</P> + +<P> +At evening, leaving our house in care of Jack and Tom, we went to spend +the night at Mr. Kenyon's, where several neighbors were gathered, under +arms. Our way led us by the ruined court-house, where for several +squares the ground was completely covered with torn records, books, and +other documents. +</P> + +<P> +The night wore by in fitful sleep or anxious vigils. Near us all was +quiet; but the distant sky was in many places red with incendiary +fires. At dawn Mr. Kenyon, Gilbert, and others ventured out, and +returned with sad tidings brought by courier from Christiansted. At +the signal on Sunday night the negroes had swarmed there by thousands. +Next day, when the governor had just departed for our town, leaving +word to do nothing in his absence, they had attacked the fort as they +had ours. But its commander, of a sturdy temper, had opened fire, +killing and wounding many. This had only defended the town at the +expense of the country, into which thousands scattered to break, +pillage, and burn. Yet even so no whites had been killed except two or +three men who had opposed the blacks single-handed, although the whole +island, outside the two towns, was at the mercy of the insurgents. +</P> + +<P> +However, there was better news. A Danish man-of-war was near by. A +schooner was gone to look her up, and another to ask aid in the island +of Porto Rico, only seventy miles away and heavily garrisoned with +Spaniards. Still it was deemed wise to accept for Fredericksted the +offer from the ships and send the women and children on board, so that +the military might be free to hold the uprising in check until a +stronger force could extinguish it. +</P> + +<P> +"Tom," Mr. Kenyon said, "is to have a boat at the beach to take us off +to an American schooner. Pack no trunks. Gather your lightest +valuables in small bundles. Be quick; if a crowd gets there before you +you may be refused." +</P> + +<P> +We hurried home over a carpet of archives and title-deeds, swallowed a +sort of breakfast, and began the hard task of choosing the little we +could take from the much we must leave, in a dear home that might soon +be in ashes. +</P> + +<P> +On the schooner we found a kind welcome, amid a throng of friends and +strangers, and a chaos of boxes, bundles, and <I>trunks</I>. Children were +crying to go home, or viewing with babbling delight the wide roadstead +dotted with boats still bringing the fugitives to every anchored +vessel. Women were calling farewells and cautions to the men in the +returning boats, and meeting friends were telling in many tongues the +droll or sad distresses of the hour. +</P> + +<P> +A friend, with his wife and little daughter, gave us a thrilling story. +Except their house-keeper, a young English girl, they three were the +only white persons on their beautiful "North End" estate when on Sunday +night their slaves came to them in force demanding "freedom papers." +</P> + +<P> +"Not under compulsion, never!" +</P> + +<P> +"Den obbe set eb'ryt'ing on fiah! Wen yo' house bu'n up we try t'ink +w'at too do wid you and de missie!" They rushed away to the +sugar-works, yelling: "Git bagasse foo bu'n him out!" +</P> + +<P> +The household loaded all the firearms in the house, filled all vessels +with water, and piled blankets here and there to fight fire. Then they +made merry. The wife played her piano till after midnight. Whether +moved by this show or not, the blacks failed to return, and next day +the family escaped to the schooner. +</P> + +<P> +To grandmamma and the wife of the American consul, the oldest ladies on +the vessel, was given, at nightfall, the only sofa on board. The rest +dropped asleep on boxes and bundles anywhere. For my couch the +boatswain lent me his locker, and for a pillow a bag of something that +felt like rope ends, and for three successive mornings I was wakened +with: +</P> + +<P> +"Sorry to disturb you, little miss, but I must get to my locker." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap33"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXXIII +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +(AUTHORITY, ORDER, PEACE) +</H3> + +<P> +Three days of heat, glare, hubbub, and anxious suspense dragged away, +and Thursday's gorgeous sunset brought a change. The Danish frigate, +bright with flags and swarming with sailors, swept in, dropped anchor, +and wrapped herself in thunder and white smoke. Soon she lowered a +boat, a glittering officer took its tiller-ropes, its long oars +flashed, and it bore away to the fort. But evening fell, a starry +silence reigned, and when a late moon rose we slept. +</P> + +<P> +Next morning we knew that Captain Erminger, of the frigate, had assumed +command over the whole island, declared martial law, landed his +marines, and begun operations. Soon the harbor was populous again, +with refugees returning home. Tom came with his boat. Just as we +started landward a schooner came round the bluffs bringing the +Spaniards. At early twilight these landed and marched with much +clatter through the vacant streets to the town's various points of +entrance, there to mount guard, the Danes having gone to scatter the +insurgents. +</P> + +<P> +The pursuing forces, in two bodies, were to move toward each other from +opposite ends of the island, spanning it from sea to sea and meeting in +the centre, thus entirely breaking up the bands of aimless pillagers +into which the insurrection had already dispersed. This took but a few +days. Buddoe was almost at once trapped by the baldest flatteries of +two leading Danish residents and, finding himself without even the +honor of armed capture, betrayed his confederates and disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +Only one small band of blacks made any marked resistance. Under a +certain "Moses" they occupied a hill, hurling down stones upon their +assailants, but were soon captured. Many leaders of the revolt were +condemned and shot, displaying in most cases a total absence of +fortitude. +</P> + +<P> +In less than a week from the day of flight to the ships quiet was +restored, and a meeting of planters was adopting rules and rates for +the employment of the freed slaves. Some estates resumed work at once; +on others the ravages of the torch had first to be repaired. Some +negroes would not work, and it was months before all the windmills on +the hills were once more whirling. The Spaniards lingered long, but +were finally relieved by a Danish regiment. Captain Erminger was +commended by his home government. The governor was censured and +superseded. The planters got no pay for their slaves. +</P> + +<P> +The government may have argued that the ex-master should no more be +paid for his slave than the ex-slave recover back pay for his labor; +and that, after all, a general emancipation was only a moderate raising +of wages unjustly low and uniform. Both kings and congresses will at +times do the easy thing instead of the fair one and let two wrongs +offset each other. Make haste, rising generations! and, as you truly +honor your fathers, bring to their graves the garlandry of juster laws +and kinder, purer days. +</P> + +<P> +To different minds this true story will speak, no doubt, a varying +counsel. Some will believe that the lovely island was saved from the +agonies of a Haytian revolution only through iron suppression. To +others it will appear that the old governor's rashly timorous edict +was, after all, the true source of deliverance. Certainly the question +remains, whether even the most sudden and ill-timed concession of +rights, if only backed by energetic police action, is not a prompter, +surer cure for public disorder than whole batteries of artillery +without the concession of rights. I believe the most blundering effort +for the prompt undoing of a grievous wrong is safer than the shrewdest +or strongest effort for its continuance. Meanwhile, with what patience +doth God wait for man to learn his lessons! The Holy Cross still +glitters on the bosom of its crystal sea, as it shone before the Carib +danced on its snowy sands, and as it will still shine when some new +Columbus, as yet unborn, brings to it the Christianity of a purer day +than ours. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Chester shook the pages together on his knee. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh-h-h!" cried Mlle. Corinne to Yvonne, to Aline, to Mlle. Castanado, +"the en'! and--where is all that abbout that beautiful cat what was +the proprity of Dora? Everything abbout that cat of Dora--<I>scratch +out</I>! Ah, Mr. Chezter! Yvonne and me, we find that the moze am-using +part--that episode of the cat--that large, wonderful, mazculine cat of +Dora! Ah, madame" [to the chair], "hardly Marie Madeleine is more +wonderful than that--when Jack pritend to lift his li'l' miztress +through the surf of the sea, how he <I>flew</I> at the throat of Jack, that +aztonishing mazculine cat! Ah, M'sieu' Beloiseau!--and to scradge +that!" +</P> + +<P> +But Beloiseau was judicially calm. "Yes, I rim-ember that portion. +Scientific-ally I foun' that very interezting; but, like Mr. Chezter, I +thing tha'z better <I>art</I> that the tom-cat be elimin-ate." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said the chair, "w'at we want to settle--shall we accep' that +riv-ision of Mr. Chezter, to combine it in the book--'Clock in the +Sky,' 'Angel of the Lord,' 'Holy Crozz'--seem' to me that combination +goin' to sell like hot cake'." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes! Agcept!" came promptly from two or three. +</P> + +<P> +"Any oppose'? There is not any oppose'--Seraphine--Marcel--you'll be +so good to pazz those rif-reshment?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap34"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXXIV +</H2> + +<P> +"Tis gone--to the pewblisher?" +</P> + +<P> +M. De l'Isle, about to enter his double gate, had paused. In his home, +overhead, a clock was striking five of the tenth day after that second +reading in the Castanados' parlor. The energetic inquiry was his. +</P> + +<P> +A single step away, in the door of the iron-worker's shop, Beloiseau, +too quick for Chester, at whose elbow he stood, replied: "Tis gone +better! Tis gone to the editor--of the greatez' magazine of the worl'!" +</P> + +<P> +"Bravo! Sinze how long?" +</P> + +<P> +"A week," Chester said. +</P> + +<P> +"Hah! and his <I>rip</I>-ly?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hasn't come yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, look out, now! Look out he don' steal that! You di'n' write him: +'Wire answer'? You muz' do that! I'll pay it myseff!" +</P> + +<P> +"I thought I'd wait one more day. He may have other manuscripts to +consider." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chezter, that manuscrip' is not in a prize contess; 'tis only with +itseff! You di'n' say that?" +</P> + +<P> +"I--implied it--as gracefully as I could." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! graze'--the h-only way to write those fellow, tha'z with the big +stick! 'Wire h-answer!'" +</P> + +<P> +Beloiseau lifted a finger: "I don' think thad way. Firz' place, big +stick or no, that hiztorie is sure to be accept'." +</P> + +<P> +M. De l'Isle let out a roar that seemed to tear the lining from his +throat: "Aw-w-w! tha'z not to compel the agceptanze; tha'z to scare +them from stealing it! And to privend that, there's another thing you +want to infer them: that you billong to the Louisiana Branch of the +Authors' Protegtive H-union! Ah, doubtlezz you don't--billong; but all +the same you can infer them!" +</P> + +<P> +Beloiseau's response crowded Chester's out: "Well, they are maybe +important, those stratagem'; but to me the chieve danger is if maybe +<I>that</I> editor shou'n' have the sagacitie--artiztic--commercial--to +perceive the brilliancy of thad story." +</P> + +<P> +"Never mine! in any'ow two days we'll know. Scipion! The day avter +those two, tha'z a pewblic holiday--everything shut!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, well?" +</P> + +<P> +"If that news come, 'accepted,' all of us we'll be so please' that +we'll be compel to egsprezz that in a joy-ride! and even if 'rifused,' +we'll need that joy-ride to swallow the indignation." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! but with whose mash-in', so it won't put uz in bankrup'cy?" +</P> + +<P> +"With two mash-in'--the two of Thorndyke-Smith! He's offer' to borrow +me those whiles he's going to be accrozz the lake. You'll drive the +large, me the small." +</P> + +<P> +"Hah! Tha'z a gran' scheme. At the en', dinner at Antoine', all the +men chipping in! Castanado--Dubroca--me--Mr. Chezter, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"With the greatest pleasure if I'm included." +</P> + +<P> +"Include'--hoh! By the laws of nature!" M. De l'Isle went on up-stairs. +</P> + +<P> +"We had a dinner like that," Beloiseau said, "only withoud the joy-ride +and withoud those three Mlles. Chapdelaine, juz' a few week' biffo' we +make' yo' acquaintanze. That was to celebrade that great victory in +France and same time the news of savety of our four boys ad the front." +</P> + +<P> +Chester stood astounded. "What four boys?" +</P> + +<P> +"You di'n' know abboud those? Ah, well, tha'z maybe biccause we don' +speak of them biffo' those ladies Chapdelaine. An' still tha'z droll +you di'n' know that, but tha'z maybe biccause each one he's think +another he's tol' you, and biccause tha'z not a prettie cheerful +subjec', eh? Yes, they are two son' of Dubroca and Castanado, +soldier', and two of De l'Isle and me, aviateur'." +</P> + +<P> +"And up to a few weeks ago they were all well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, not well--one wounded, one h'arm broke, one trench-fivver, but all +safe, laz' account." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me more about them, Beloiseau. You know I don't easily ask +personal questions. Tell me all I'm welcome to know, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I want to do that--to tell you all; but"--M. Ducatel, next neighbor +above, was approaching--"better another time--ah, Rene, tha'z a pretty +warm evening, eh?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap35"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXXV +</H2> + +<P> +For two days more the vast machinery of the United States mail swung +back and forth across the continent and the oceans beyond, and in +unnumbered cities and towns the letter-carriers came and went; but +nothing they brought into Bienville or Royal Street bore tidings from +that execrable editor in New York who in salaried ease sat "holding up" +the manuscript once the impressionable Dora's, now the gentle Aline's. +The holiday--"everything shut up"--had arrived. No carrier was abroad. +Neither reason given for the joy-ride held good. Yet the project was +well on foot. The smaller car was at the De l'Isles' lovely gates, +with monsieur in the chauffeur's seat, Mme. Alexandre at his side, and +Dubroca close behind her. The larger machine stood at the opposite +curb, with Beloiseau for driver, and Mme. Dubroca--a very small, trim, +well-coiffed woman with a dainty lorgnette--in the first seat behind +him. Castanado waited in the street door at the foot of his stair, +down which Mme. Castanado was coming the only way she could come. +</P> + +<P> +Her crossing of the sidewalk and her elevation first to the +running-board and then to a seat beside Mme. Dubroca took time and the +strength of both men, yet was achieved with a dignity hardly +appreciated by the street children, who covered their mouths, averted +their faces, and cheered as the two cars, the smaller leading, moved +off and turned from Royal Street into Conti on their way to pick up the +three Chapdelaines. +</P> + +<P> +For nearly two hundred years--ever since the city had had a +post-office--the post-office had been not too superior to remain in the +<I>vieux carré</I>. Now, like so many old Creole homes themselves, it was +"away up" in the American quarter--or "nine-tenth'"--at Lafayette +Square. On holidays any one anxious enough for his mail to go "away up +yondah" between nine and ten A.M., could have it for the asking. And +such a one was Chester. +</P> + +<P> +He had his reward. Twice and again he read the magazine's name on the +envelope as he bore it to the Camp Street front of the building, but +would not open the missive. That should be <I>her</I> privilege and honor. +He lifted his eyes from it and behold, here came the two cars! But +where was she? Certainly not in the front one. There he made out, in +pairs, M. De l'Isle and Mme. Alexandre. Mlle. Yvonne and M. Dubroca, +M. Castanado, and Mme. De l'Isle. Then in the rear car his alarmed eye +picked out Beloiseau and Mlle. Corinne, with Cupid between them; Mmes. +Dubroca and Castanado, especially the latter; and then, oh, then! +Behind the smaller woman a vacant seat and behind the vaster one Aline +Chapdelaine. +</P> + +<P> +"You've heard?" cried M. De Elsie, slowing to the curb. Chester +fluttered his prize. "Click, clap!"--he was in without the stopping of +a wheel and had passed the letter to Aline. +</P> + +<P> +"Accepted?" asked several, while both cars resumed their speed up-town. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll open it in Audubon Park," she said to Chester, and Mme. +Castanado and Dubroca passed the word forward to Beloiseau and Mlle. +Corinne. These soon got it to Castanado and Mme. De l'Isle. +</P> + +<P> +"Not to be open' till Audubon Park," sped the word still forward till +Mlle. Yvonne and Dubroca had passed it to Mme. Alexandre and M. De +l'Isle. +</P> + +<P> +"Ahah!" he said, as he turned Lee Circle and went spinning up St. +Charles Avenue. "Not in the pewblic street, but in Audubon Park, and +to the singing of bird'!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap36"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXXVI +</H2> + +<P> +Out near the riverside end of the park the two cars stopped abreast +under a vast live-oak, and Aline, rising, opened the letter and read +aloud: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +MY DEAR MR. CHESTER: +</P> + +<P> +Your manuscript, "The Holy Cross," accompanied by your letter of +the -- inst., is received and will have our early attention. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Very respectfully, +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE EDITOR. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +All other outcries ceased half-uttered when the Chapdelaine sisters +clapped hands for joy, crying: +</P> + +<P> +"Agcepted! Agcepted! Ah, Aline! by that kindnezz and sag-acitie of +Mr. Chezter--and all the rez' of our Royal Street frien'--you are +biccome the diz-ting-uish' and <I>lucrative</I> authorezz, Mlle. +Chapdelaine!" +</P> + +<P> +M. De l'Isle's wrath was too hot for his tongue, but Scipion stood +waiting to speak, and Mme. Castanado beckoned attention and spoke his +name. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Messieurs et mesdames</I>" he said, "that manuscrip' is no mo' agcept' +than rij-ect'. That stadement, tha'z only to rilease those insuranze +companie' and----" +</P> + +<P> +"And to stop us from telegraphing!" M. De l'Isle broke in, "and to +make us, ad the end, glad to get even a small price! Ah, +mesdemoiselles, you don't know those razcal' like me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" cried the tender Yvonne--original rescuer of Marie Madeleine from +boy lynchers--"you don't have charitie! That way you make <I>yo'seff</I> +un'appie." +</P> + +<P> +"Me, I cann' think," her sister persevered, "that tha'z juz' for the +insuranse. The manuscrip' is receive'? Well! 'ow can you receive +something if you don't agcept it? And 'ow can you agcep' that if you +don' receive it? Ah-h-h!" +</P> + +<P> +"No," Beloiseau rejoined, "tha'z only to signify that the editorial +decision--tha'z not decide'." +</P> + +<P> +Mlle. Corinne lifted both hands to the entire jury: "Oh, frien', I +assure you, that manuscrip' is agcept'. And tha'z the proof; that both +Yvonne and me we've had a presentiment of that already sinze the +biggening! Ah-h-h!" +</P> + +<P> +Castanado intervened: "Mademoiselle, that lady yonder"--he gave his +wife a courtier's bow--"will tell you a differenze. Once on a time she +receive' a h-offer of marriage; but 'twas not till after many days thad +she agcept' it." [Applause.] "But ad the en', I su'pose tha'z for Mr. +Chezter, our legal counsel, to conclude." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Chester "thought that although receipt did not imply acceptance the +tardiness of this letter did argue a probability that the manuscript +had successfully passed some sort of preliminary reading--or +readings--and now awaited only the verdict of the editor-in-chief." +</P> + +<P> +"Or," ventured Mme. Alexandre, "of that editorial board all together." +</P> + +<P> +M. De l'Isle shook his head and then a stiff finger: "I tell you! They +are sicretly inquiring Thorndyke-Smith--lit'ry magnet--to fine out if +we are truz'-worthy! And tha'z the miztake we did---not sen'ing the +photograph of Mlle. Aline ad the biggening. But tha'z not yet too +late; we can wire them from firz' drug-store, 'Suspen' judgment! +Portrait of authorezz coming!'" +</P> + +<P> +All eyes, even Cupid's, turned to her. She was shaking her head. +"No," she responded, with a smile as lovely, to Chester's fancy, as it +was final; as final, to the two aunts' conviction, as it was lovely. +</P> + +<P> +"No photograph would be convincing," Chester began to plead, but +stopped for the aunts. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, impossible!" they cried. "That wou'n' be de-corouz!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ladies an' gentlemen," said M. Castanado, "we are on a joy-ride." +</P> + +<P> +"An' we 'ave reason!" his wife exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +"Biccause hope!" Mme. Alexandre put in. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes!" said Dubroca. "That manuscrip' is not allone receive'; sinze +more than a week 'tis <I>rittain'</I>, whiles they dillib-rate; and the +chateau what dillib-rate'--you know, eh? M'sieu' De l'Isle, I move you +we go h-on." +</P> + +<P> +They went, the De l'Isle car and then Scipion's, back to St. Charles +Avenue, and turned again up-town. On the rearmost seat---- +</P> + +<P> +"Why so silent?" Aline inquired of Chester. +</P> + +<P> +"Because so content," he said, "except when I think of the book." +</P> + +<P> +"The half-book?" +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. We've only half enough stories yet. +</P> + +<P> +"Though with the <I>vieux carré</I> full of them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! mostly so raw, so bald, so thin!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, I knew you would see that. As though human life and character +were--what would say?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'd say crustacean; their anatomy all on the surface. Such stories +are not life, life in the round; they're only paper silhouettes--of the +real life's poorest facts and moments. I state the thought poorly but +you get it, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +The girl sparkled, not so much for the thought as for their fellowship +in it. "Once I heard mamma say to my aunts: 'So many of these <I>vieux +carré</I> stories are but pretty pebbles--a quadroon and a duel, a +quadroon and a duel--always the same two peas in the baby's rattle.'" +</P> + +<P> +"There are better stories for a little deeper search," Chester said. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, she said that too! 'And not,' she said, 'because the <I>vieux +carré</I> is unlike, but so like the rest of the world.'" +</P> + +<P> +Thus they spoke, happily--even a bit recklessly--conscious that they +were themselves a beautiful story without the flash of a sword or the +cloud of a misdeed in range of their sight, and not because the <I>vieux +carré</I> was unlike, but so like the rest of the world. +</P> + +<P> +"Where are we going?" Aline inquired, and tried to look forward around +Mme. Castanado. +</P> + +<P> +"You and I," Chester said, "are going back to your father's story. You +said, the other day, his life was quiet, richer within than without." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Ah, yes; so that while of the inside I cannot tell half, of the +outside there is almost nothing to tell." +</P> + +<P> +"All the same, tell it. Were not he and these Royal Street men boys +together?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, though with M. De l'Isle the oldest, and though papa was away +from them many years, over there in France. Yes, they were all his +friends, as their fathers had been of <I>grandpère</I>. And they'll all +tell you the same thing; that he was their hero, while at the same time +that his story is destitute of the theatrical. Just he himself, he and +mamma--they are the whole story." +</P> + +<P> +"A sea without a wave?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, no; yet without a storm. And, Mr. Chester, I think a sea without +a storm can be just as deep as with, h'm?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap37"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXXVII +</H2> + +<P> +"Well, they married, your father and mother, over there where her +people are fighting the Germans right now, and came and lived in +Bourbon Street with your aunts, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, or rather my aunts with them, they were of so much more strong +natures than my aunts--more strong and large while just as sweet, and +that's saying much, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"I see it is." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chester, what you see, I think, is that my aunts are perhaps the +two most--well--unworldly women you ever knew." +</P> + +<P> +"True. In that quality they're childlike." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and because they are so childlike in--above all--the freedom of +their speech, what I want to say of them, just this one time, is the +more to their honor: that in my <I>whole</I> life I've never heard them +speak one word against anybody." +</P> + +<P> +"Not even Cupid?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah-h-h! that's a cruel joke, and false! That true Cupid, he's an +assassin; while that child, he's faultless?" +</P> + +<P> +The speaker really said "fauklezz," and it was a joy to Chester to hear +her at last fall unwittingly into a Creole accent. "Well, anyhow," he +led on, "the four lived together; and if I guess right your mother +became, to all this joy-ride company, as much their heroine as your +father was their hero." +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis true!" +</P> + +<P> +"But your father's coming back from France--it couldn't save the +business?" +</P> + +<P> +"Alas, no! Even together, he and mamma--and you know what a strong +businezz partner a French wife can be--they could not save it. Both of +them were, I think, more artist than merchant, and when all that kind +of businezz began to be divorce' from art and married to +machinery"--the narrator made a sad gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Kultur</I> against culture, was it? and your father not the sort to +change masters." +</P> + +<P> +"True again. But tha'z not all; hardly was it half. One thing beside +was the miz-conduct of an agent, the man who lately"--a silent smile. +</P> + +<P> +"What?--sold your aunts that manuscript?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. But he didn' count the most. Oh, the whole businezz, except +papa's, became, as we say--give me the word!" +</P> + +<P> +"Americanized?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, papa he always refused to call it that. Mr. Chester, he used to +say that those two marvellouz blessings, machinery, democracy, they are +in one thing too much alike; they are, at first--say it, you." +</P> + +<P> +"Vulgarizing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. I suppose that has to be--at the first, h'm? And with the +buying world every day more and more in love with machine work--and +seeming itself to become machine work, while at the same time +Americanized, papa was like a river town"--another gesture--"left by +the river!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yet he never went into bankruptcy? You can point with pride to that, +mademoiselle." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Mr. Chester, pride! Once I pointed, and papa--'My daughter, there +are many ways to go bankrupt worse than in money, and to have gone +bankrupt in none of them--' there he stopped; he was too noble for +pride. No, the businezz, juz' year after year it starved to death. In +the early days <I>grandpére</I> had two big stores, back to back; +whole-sale, Chartres Street; retail, Royal, where now all that is left +of it is the shop of Mme. Alexandre. Both her husband and she were +with papa in the retail store, until it diminish' that he couldn' keep +them, and--in the time of President Roosevelt--some New York men they +bought him out. Because a new head of the custom-house, old Creole +friend of papa, without solicitation except maybe of M. Beloiseau and +those, appointed him superintendent of customs warehouses, you know? +where they keep all kind of imported goods, so they needn't pay the +tariff till they take them out to sell them in the store? h'm?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. And he kept that place--how long?" +</P> + +<P> +"Always, till he passed, he and mamma; mamma first, he two years avter. +Ad the last he said to me--we chanced to be talking in Englizh--'I've +lived the quiet life. If I must go I can go quietly.' +</P> + +<P> +"'And still,' I said, 'if your life had been as stormy as <I>grandpére's</I> +you'd have been always for the right, and ad the last content, I think.' +</P> + +<P> +"'Yes,' he said, 'I believe I never ran away from a storm, while ad the +same time I never ran avter one.' And then he said something I wrote +down the same night in the fear I might sometime partly forget it." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you it with you, now, here?" She showed a bit of paper, holding +it low for him to read as she retained it: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +On the side of the right all the storms of life--all the storms of the +world--are for the perfection of the quiet life--the active-quiet +life--to build it stronger, wider, finer, higher, than is possible for +the stormy life to be. Whether for each man or for the nations, the +stormy life is but the means; the active-quiet life, without decay of +character in man or nation but with growth forever--that is the end. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The pair exchanged a look. "Thank you," murmured Chester, and +presently added: "So you were left with your two aunts. Then what?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell you. But"---the Creole accent faded out--"we must not +disappoint the De l'Isles, nor those others, we must----" +</P> + +<P> +"I see; we must notice where we're going and give and take our share of +the joy." +</P> + +<P> +"We mustn't be as if reading the morning paper, h'm? I think 'tis for +you they've come this way instead of going on those smooth shell-roads +between the city and the lake." + +The two cars had come up through old "Carrollton," where the +Mississippi, sweeping down from Nine-Mile Point, had been gnawing +inland for something like a century, in spite of all man's engineering +could pile against it, and now were out on the levee road and half +round the bend above. +</P> + +<P> +To press her policy, "See!" exclaimed Aline, as a light swell of the +ground brought to view a dazzling sweep of the river, close beyond the +levee's crown and almost on a level with the eye. They were in a +region of wide, highly kept sugar-plantations. Whatever charms belong +to the rural life of the Louisiana Delta were at their amplest on every +side. Groves of live-oak, pecan, magnolia, and orange about large +motherly dwellings of the Creole colonial type moved Aline to turn the +conversation upon country life in Chester's State, and constrain him to +tell of his own past and kindred. So time and the river's great +windings slipped by with the De l'Isles undisappointed, and early in +the afternoon the company lunched in the two cars, under a homestead +grove. Its master and mistress, old friends of all but Chester, came +running, followed by maids with gifts of milk and honey. They climbed +in among the company; shared, lightly, their bread and wine; heard with +momentary interest the latest news of the great war; spoke English and +French in alternating clauses; inquired after the coterie's four young +heroes at the French front, but only by stealth and out of Aline's +hearing; and cried to Cupid, "'Ello, 'Ector! <I>comment ça va-t-il</I>? +And 'ow she is, yonder at 'ome, that Marie Madeleine?" +</P> + +<P> +Cupid smiled to his ears, but it was the absentee's two mistresses who +answered for her, volubly, tenderly: "We was going to bring her, but +juz' at the lazt she discide' she di'n' want to come. You know, tha'z +beautiful, sometime', her capriciouznezz!" +</P> + +<P> +Indoors, outdoors, the visitors spent an hour seeing the place and +hearing its history all the way back to early colonial days. Then, in +the two cars once more, with seats much changed about, yet with Aline +and Chester still paired, though at the rear of the forward car, they +glided cityward. At Carrollton they turned toward the New Canal, and +at West End took the lake shore eastward--but what matter their way? +Joy was with ten of them, and bliss with two--three, counting +Cupid--and it was only by dutiful effort that the blissful ones kept +themselves aware of the world about them while Aline's story ran gently +on. It had run for some time when a query from Chester evoked the +reply: +</P> + +<P> +"No, 'twas easier to bear, I think, because I had <I>not</I> more time and +less work." +</P> + +<P> +"What was your work, mademoiselle? what is it now? Incidentally you +keep books, but mainly you do--what?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mainly--I'll tell you. Papa, you know, he was, like <I>grandpère</I>, a +true connoisseur of all those things that belong to the arts of +beautiful living. Like <I>grandpère</I> he had that perception by three +ways--occupation, education, talent. And he had it so abboundingly +because he had also <I>the art</I>--of that beautiful life, h'm?" +</P> + +<P> +"The art beyond the arts," suggested the listener; "their underlying +philosophy." +</P> + +<P> +The narrator glowed. Then, grave again, she said: "Mr. Chezter, I'll +tell you something. To you 'twill seem very small, but to me 'tis +large. It muz' have been because of both together, those arts and that +art, that, although papa he was always of a strong enthusiasm and +strong indignation, yet never in my life did I hear him--egcept in +play--speak an exaggeration. 'Sieur Beloiseau he will tell you +that--while ad the same time papa he never rebuke' that in anybody +else--egcept, of course--his daughter." +</P> + +<P> +"But I ask about you, your work." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! and I'm telling you. Mamma she had the same connoisseur talent as +papa, and even amongs' that people where she was raise', and under the +shadow, as you would say, of that convent so famouz for all those +weavings, laces, tapestries, embro'deries, she was thought to be +wonderful with the needle." +</P> + +<P> +Chester interrupted elatedly: "I see what you're coming to. You, +yourself, were born needle in hand--the embroidery-needle." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, ad the least I can't rimember when I learned it. 'Twas always +as if I couldn' live without it. But it was not the needle alone, nor +embro'deries alone, nor alone the critical eye. Papa he had, pardly +from <I>grand-père</I>, pardly brought from France, a separate librarie +abbout all those arts, and I think before I was five years I knew every +picture in those books, and before ten every page. And always papa and +mamma they were teaching me from those books--they couldn' he'p it! I +was very naughty aboud that. I would bring them the books and if they +didn' teach me I would weep. I think I wasn' ever so naughty aboud +anything else. But in the en', with the businezz always diclining, +that turn' out fortunate. By and by mamma she persuade' papa to let +her take a part in the pursuanze of the businezz. But she did that all +out of sight of the public----" +</P> + +<P> +"Had you never a brother or sister?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, long ago. We'll not speak of that. A sizter, two brothers; +but--scarlet-fever----" +</P> + +<P> +The story did not pause, yet while it pressed on, its hearers musing +lingered behind. Why were the long lost ones not to be spoken of? For +fear of betraying some blame of the childlike aunts for the +scarlet-fever? The unworthy thought was put aside and the hearer's +attention readjusted. +</P> + +<P> +"Even mamma," the girl was saying, "she didn' escape that contagion, +and by reason of that she was compelled to let papa put me in her place +in the businezz; and after getting well she never was the same and I +rittained the place till a year avter, when she pas' away, and I have +it yet." +</P> + +<P> +"And who filled M. Alexandre's place?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that? Tis fil' partly by Mme. Alexandre and partly by that +diminishing of the businezz--till the largez' part of it is +ripairing--of old laces, embro'deries, and so forth. Madame's shop is +the chief place in the city for that. Of that we have all we can do. +'Tis a beautiful work. +</P> + +<P> +"So tha'z all I have to tell, Mr. Chezter; and I've enjoyed to tell you +that so you can see why we are so content and happy, my aunts and +I--and Hector--and Marie Madeleine. H'm?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's all you have to tell?" +</P> + +<P> +"That is all." + +"But not all there is to tell, even of the past, mademoiselle." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! and why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, impossible!" Chester softly laughed and had almost repeated the +word when the girl blushed; whereupon he did the same. For he seemed +all at once to have spoiled the whole heavenly day, until she smilingly +restored it by saying: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes! One thing I was forgetting. Just for the laugh I'll tell +you that. You know, even in a life as quiet as mine, sometimes many +things happening together, or even a few, will make you see bats +instead of birds, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know, and mistake feelings for facts. I've done it often, in a +moderate way." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes? Me the same. But very badly, so that the sky seemed falling in, +only once." +</P> + +<P> +Chester thought that if the two aunts, just then telling the biography +of their dolls, were his, his sky would have fallen in at least weekly. +"Tell me of that once," he said, and, knowing not why, called to mind +those four soldiers in France, to her, for some reason, unmentionable. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, first I'll say that the archbishop he had been the true friend +of papa, but now this time, this 'once' when my sky seemed falling, +both mamma and papa they were already gone. I don't need to tell you +what the trouble was about, because it never happened; it only +threatened to happen. So when I saw there was only me to prevent it +and to----" +</P> + +<P> +"To hold the sky up?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, seeing that, it seemed to me the best friend to go to was the +archbishop. +</P> + +<P> +"'Well, my old and dear friend's daughter,' he said, 'what is it?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Most reverend father in God, 'tis my wish to become a nun.' +</P> + +<P> +"'My child, that is a beautiful sentiment.' +</P> + +<P> +"'But 'tis more; even more than my wish; 'tis my resolution. I must do +that. 'Tis as if I heard that call from heaven to me, Aline +Chapdelaine!' +</P> + +<P> +"'Ah, but that's not only your name. Your mamma, up yonder, she's also +Aline Chapdelaine.' +</P> + +<P> +"'Yes, but I know that call is to me. Ah, your Grace, surely, surely, +you will not forbid me?' +</P> + +<P> +"'No, my daughter. Yet at the same time that is not a thing to be done +suddenly, or in desperation. I'll appoint you a season for reflection +and prayer, and after that if your resolution remains the same you +shall become a nun.' +</P> + +<P> +"'But, for the sake of others, will not that season be made short?' +</P> + +<P> +"'For your own sake, my daughter, as well as for others, I'll make it +the shortest possible. Let me see; I was going to say forty but I'll +make it only thirty-nine.' +</P> + +<P> +"'Ah, your Grace, but in thirty-nine days----' +</P> + +<P> +"He stopped me: 'Not days, my child; years.' What he said after, 'tis +no matter now; pretty soon I was kneeling and receiving his +benediction." +</P> + +<P> +"And the sky didn't fall?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, but--I can't explain to you--'twas that very visit prevent' it +falling." + +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap38"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXXVIII +</H2> + +<P> +It was in keeping with the coterie's spiritual make-up that they should +know a restaurant in the <I>vieux carré</I>, which "that pewblic" knew not, +and whose best merits were not music and fresco, but serenity, +hospitality, and cuisine---a haven not yet "Ammericanize'." +</P> + +<P> +Where it was they never told a philistine. The elect they informed +under the voice, as one might betray a bird's nest. It was but a step +from the crumbling Hotel St. Louis, and but another or so from the +spires of St. Louis Cathedral. +</P> + +<P> +In it, at a round table, the joy-riders had passed the evening of their +holiday. As the cathedral clock struck nine they rose to part. At the +board Chester had sat next the same joy-mate allowed him all day in the +car. But with how reduced a share of her attention! Half of his own +he had had to give, at his other elbow, to her aunt Yvonne; half of +Aline's had gone to Dubroca. The other half into half of his was but +half a half and that had to be halved by a quarter coming from the two +nearest across the table, one of whom was Mlle. Corinne, whose queries +always required thought. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chezter," she said, when the purchase of an evening paper had made +the great over-seas strife the general theme, "can you egsplain me why +they don' stop that war, when 'tis calculate' to projuce so much hard +feeling?" +</P> + +<P> +Explaining as best he could without previous research, Chester had +turned again to Mlle. Yvonne to let her finish telling--inspire'd by an +incoming course of the menu--of those happy childhood days when she and +her sister and the unfortunate gentleman from whom they had bought +Aline's manuscript went crayfishing in Elysian Fields street canal, +always taking the dolls along, "so not to leave them lonesome"; how the +dolls had visibly enjoyed the capture of each crayfish; and how she and +Corinne and the dolls would delight in the same sport to-day, but, +alas! "that can-al was fil' op! and tha'z another thing calculate' to +projuce hard feeling." +</P> + +<P> +Through such riddles and reminiscences and his replies thereto +persistently ran Chester's uneasy question to himself: Why had Aline +told him that story of unnamable trouble which had goaded her to seek +the cloister? Why if not to warn him away from a sentiment which was +growing in him like a balloon and straining his heart-strings to hold +it to its proper moorings? +</P> + +<P> +Now the two cars let out their passengers at the De l'Isle gates and at +the door of the Castanados. Madame of the latter name, with her spouse +heaving under one arm and Chester under the other, while Mme. Alexandre +pushed behind, was lifted to her parlor. Returning to the street, +Chester found the motors gone, MM. De l'Isle and Beloiseau gone with +them, and only the two Dubrocas, the three Chapdelaines, and Cupid +awaiting him. +</P> + +<P> +And now, with Cupid leading, and sleeping as he led, and with a Dubroca +beside each aunt, and Aline and Chester following, this remnant of the +company approached the Conti Street corner, on the way to the +Chapdelaine home. At the turn---- +</P> + +<P> +"Mademoiselle," Chester asked in a desperation too much like hers +before the arch-bishop, "do you notice that, as the old hymn says, we +are treading where the saints have trod? <I>Your</I> saints?" +</P> + +<P> +"My--ah, yes, 'tis true. 'Tis here <I>grand'mère</I>---- +</P> + +<P> +"Turned that corner in her life where your <I>grandpère</I> first saw her. +Al'--Aline." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chester?" +</P> + +<P> +"I want this corner, from the day I first saw you turn it, to be all +that to you and me. Shall it not?" +</P> + +<P> +She said nothing. Priceless moments glided by, each a dancing ghost. +Just there ahead in the dark was Bourbon Street, and a short way down +among its huddled shadows were her board fence and batten gate. It was +senseless to have taken this chance on so poor a margin of time, but +what's done's done! "Oh, Aline Chapdelaine, say it shall be! Say it, +Aline, say it!" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chester, it is impossible! Impossible!" +</P> + +<P> +"It is not! It's the only right thing! It shall be, Aline, it shall +be!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, Mr. Chester, 'tis impossible. You must not ask me why, but 'tis +impossible!" +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't! Aline, and I ask no why. I see the trouble. It's your +aunts. Why, I'll take them with you, <I>of course</I>! I'll take them into +my care and love as you have them in yours, and keep them there while +they and I live. I can do it, I've got the wherewithal! Things have +happened to me fast since I first saw you turn that corner behind us. +I've inherited property, and only yesterday I was taken into one of the +best law firms in the city. I'll prove all that to you and your aunts +to-morrow. Aline, unspeakable treasure, you shall not live the +buried-alive life in which you are trying to believe yourself rightly +placed and happy, my saint! My--adored--<I>saint</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I must. What you ask is impossible." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap39"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XXXIX +</H2> + +<P> +Long after midnight Chester had not returned to his room. He could not +tolerate the confinement even of the narrow streets round about it. +</P> + +<P> +Far out Esplanade Avenue, uncompanioned, he was walking mile after mile +beside a belt line of trolley-cars, or more than one, while at home, in +Bourbon Street, Cupid slept. +</P> + +<P> +But now the child awoke, startled. Four small feet were on one of his +arms, and Marie Madeleine was purring, at the top of her purr, in his +ear. Drowsily he crowded her away. Purring on, she slowly walked +across his stomach and dropped to the floor. But soon she leaped up +again to that sensitive region and purred into his nose, not at all as +if to claim attention, but as though lost in thought. When he pushed +her aside she dropped again to the floor, with such a quadruple thump +that he looked after her, and as she loitered across his view with tail +as straight up as Cleopatra's Needle, he observed just beyond her a +condition of affairs that appalled him. +</P> + +<P> +Cold from his small fingers and toes to his ample heart, he rose, stole +into the next room, and stood by the bed where lay Mlles. Corinne and +Yvonne as they had lain every night since their earliest childhood. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! oh! h'nn!" Mlle. Corinne sprang to an elbow, nervously +whispering: "What is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"My back do'," he murmured, "stan'in' opem." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, little boy, no, it cannot be! I bolt' it laz' evening when you +was praying. You know?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yass'm, but it opem now; Marie Madeleine dess gone out thu it." +</P> + +<P> +Mlle. Yvonne sprang up dishevelled beside her dishevelled sister: "<I>Mon +dieu</I>! where is Aline?" +</P> + +<P> +Colder than ever in hands and feet, the wee grandson of the intrepid +Sidney responded: "Stay still tell I go see." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes!" whispered Mlle. Corinne, slipping to the floor and tenderly +pushing him, "go! safest for everybody! And if you see a burglar <I>don' +threaten him</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +"No'm, I won't." +</P> + +<P> +"No, but juz' run quick out the back door and fron' gate and holla +'fire'! Go!" +</P> + +<P> +At the crack of the door she listened after him while her sister +crowded close, whispering: "Ah, <I>pauvre</I> Aline, always wise! Like us, +silent! And tha'z after all the bravezt!" +</P> + +<P> +In a moment Cupid was back, less frozen yet trembling: "She am' dah. +Seem' like 'tis her leave de do' opem." +</P> + +<P> +"Her clothes--they are gone?" +</P> + +<P> +"No'm, all dah 'cep' de cloak she tuck on de machine. Reckon she out +in de honey-sucker bower whah <I>dey</I> sot together Sunday evenin'. +Reckon Marie Madeleine gone dah. I'll go see." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, fearlezz boy, yes! Make quick!" +</P> + +<P> +This time both women pushed, single file, all the way to the garden +door. There they strained their sight down the path, beyond him, but +the bower was quite dark. "Corinne, <I>chére</I>, ought not one of us to +go, yo'seff?--to spare her feelings--from that li'l' negro? You don' +think one of us ought to go, yo'seff?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, to sen' him, that is to spare those feel'--listen! . . . Ah, +Yvonne, <I>grâce au ciel</I>, she's there!" +</P> + +<P> +They frankly wept. "Thangg the good God!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yvonne, <I>chère</I>, you know, we are the cause of this. 'Tis biccause +juz'--you and me. And she's gone yonder juz' for one thing; to be as +far from her <I>misérie</I> as she can." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, <I>chère</I>, I billieve that. I think even, she muz' not see us when +she's riturning." No footfall sounded, but the cat came in, tail up, +purring. Back in their chamber, with wet cheeks on its unlatched door, +the sisters listened. +</P> + +<P> +"I know what we muz' do, Yvonne, as soon as to-morrow. Tha'z strange I +never saw that biffo'!" +</P> + +<P> +Cupid came and was let in. "She was al-lone, of co'se?" the pair asked +from the edge of their bed. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yass'm, o' co'se; in a manneh, yass'm." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Mon dieu</I>! li'l boy. In a manner? But how in a manner? Al-lone is +al-lone! What she was doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Is I got to tell dat?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, '<I>tit garçon</I>! Have you not got to tell it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she 'uz--she 'uz prayin'." +</P> + +<P> +"And tha'z the manner she was not al-lone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yas'm, dass all." The little fellow dropped to his knees, clutched a +knee of either questioner, and wept and sobbed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap40"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XL +</H2> + +<P> +M. Beloiseau reached across his workbench and hung up his hammer and +tongs. The varied notes of two or three remote steam-whistles told him +that the hour, of the day after the holiday, was five. +</P> + +<P> +He glanced behind him, through his shop to the street door, where some +one paused awaiting his welcome. He thought of Chester but it was +Landry, with an old broad book under his elbow. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, come in, Ovide." +</P> + +<P> +As he laid aside his apron he handed the visitor the piece of metal he +had been making beautiful, and waved him to the drawing whose lines it +was taking. +</P> + +<P> +"But those whistles," the bookman said, "they stop the handworkman too." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. In the days of my father, the days of handwork, they meant only +steamboat', coming, going; but now swarm' of men and women, boys, and +girl', coming, going, living by machinery the machine-made life." +</P> + +<P> +"'Sieur Beloiseau," Landry good-naturedly, said, "you're too just to +condemn a gift of the good God for the misuse men make of it." +</P> + +<P> +Scipion glared and smiled at the same time: "Then let that gift of the +good God be not so hideouzly misuse'." +</P> + +<P> +But Ovide amiably persisted: "Without machinery--plenty of it--I should +not have this book for you, nor I, nor you, ever have been born." +</P> + +<P> +Chester, entering, found Beloiseau looking eagerly into the volume. +"All the same, Landry," the newcomer said, "you're no more a machine +product than Mr. Beloiseau himself." +</P> + +<P> +The bookman smiled his thanks while he followed the craftsman's +scrutiny of the pages. "'Tis what you want?" he asked, and Chester saw +that it was full of designs of ironwork, French and Spanish. +</P> + +<P> +Scipion beamed: "Ah, you've foun' me that at the lazt, and just when +I'm wanting it furiouzly." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Beloiseau," said Chester, "has a beautiful commission from the new +Pan-American Steamship Company." +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks to Mr. Chezter," said Beloiseau, "who got me the job. Hence +for this book spot cash." He turned aside to a locked closet and +drawer. +</P> + +<P> +"You had a pleasant holiday yesterday," said Landry to Chester. +</P> + +<P> +"Who told you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mesdemoiselles, the two sisters Chapdelaine. I chanced to meet them +just now at the house of the archbishop, on the steps, they coming out, +I going in. I had a book also for him." +</P> + +<P> +"Why! What's taking them to the archbishop?" Chester put away a +frown: "Did they reflect the pleasure of the holiday?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chester, no." There was an exchange of gazes, but Scipion +returned, counting and tendering the price of the book. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, good evening," Landry said, willing to linger; but "good +evening," said both the others. +</P> + +<P> +Chester turned: "Beloiseau, I want to talk with you. Go, give yourself +a dip, brush some of that hair, and we'll dine alone in some place away +from things." +</P> + +<P> +"A dip, hah! Always I scrub me any'ow till I come to the skin. Also +I'll put a clean shirt. You can wait? I'll leave you this book." +</P> + +<P> +Chester waited. When presently, with Scipion still picturesque though +clean-shirted, they left the shop together, he gave the book a word of +praise that set its owner off on the history of his craft. "But +hammered into a matrix"--he drew his watch and halted: "Spanish Fort, +juzt too late; half-hour till negs train; I'll show you an example, my +father's work." They turned back. +</P> + +<P> +Thus they lost a second train, and dined in the same snug nook as on +the day before with Aline and the rest. At twilight they took seats in +Jackson Square on a cast-iron bench "hardly worthy of the place," as +Chester suggested. +</P> + +<P> +And Scipion flashed back: "Or, my dear sir, of any worthy place! But +you was asking me----" +</P> + +<P> +"About those four boys over in France, one of them yours." +</P> + +<P> +"Biccause sinze all day yesterday----?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's it. I can't help thinking that mademoiselle is somehow the +cause of their going." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, of three she is, but of my son, no. My son he was already there +when that war commence', and the cause of that was a very simple and +or-<I>din</I>-ary in him, but not in the story of my father. I would like +to tell you ab-out that biccause tha'z also ab-out that house where we +was juz' seeing all that open-work on those balconie', and biccause so +interested, you, in old building', you are bound to hear ab-out that +some day and probably hear it wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"Let's have it now; she told me yesterday to ask you for it." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap41"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XLI +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE LOST FORTUNE +</H3> + +<P> +"Mighty solid," the ironworker said, "that old house, so square and +high. They are no Creole brick it is make with, that old house." +</P> + +<P> +Chester began to speak approvingly of the wide balconies running +unbrokenly around its four sides at both upper stories, but Beloiseau +shook his head: "They don't billong to the firz' building of that +house, else they <I>might</I> have been Spanish, like here on the Cabildo +and that old <I>Café Veau-qui-tête</I>. They would not be cast iron and of +that complicate' disign, hah! But they are not even a French cast +iron, like those and those"--he waved right and left to the wide +balconies of the Pontalba buildings flanking the square with such +graceful dignity. "Oh, they make that old house look pretty good, +those balconie', but tha'z a pity they were not wrought iron, biccause +M. Lefevre--he was rich--sugar-planter--could have what he choose, and +she was a very fashionable, his ladie. They tell some strange stories +ab-out them and that 'ouse; cruelty to slave', intrigue with slave', +duel' ab-out slave'. Maybe tha'z biccause those iron bar' up and down +in sidewalk window', old Spanish fashion; maybe biccause in confusion +with that Haunted House in Royal Street, they are so allike, those two +house'. But they are cock-an'-bull, those tale'. Wha's true they +don't tell, biccause they don' know, and tha'z what I'm telling you ad +the present. +</P> + +<P> +"When my father he was yet a boy, fo'teen, fiv'teen, those Lefevre' +they rent' to the <I>grand-mère</I> of both Castanado and Dubroca, turn +ab-out, a li'l' slave girl so near white you coul'n' see she's black! +You coul'n' even <I>suspec</I>' that, only seeing she's rent', that way, and +knowing that once in a while, those time, that whitenezz coul'n' be +av-void'. Myseff, me, I've seen a man, ex-slave, so white you woul'n' +think till they tell you; but then you'd see it--black! But that li'l' +girl of seven year', nobody coul'n' see that even avter told. Some +people said: 'Tha'z biccause she's so young; when she's grow' up you'll +see. And some say, 'When she get chil'ren they'll show it, those +chil'ren--an' some be even dark!' +</P> + +<P> +"Any'ow some said she's child of monsieur, and madame want to keep her +out of sight that beneficent way. They would bet you any money if you +go on his plantation you find her slave mother by the likenezz. She +di'n' look like him but they insist' that also come later. Any'ow +she's rent' half-an'-half by those <I>grand-mère</I>' of Castanado and +Dubroca, at the firzt just to call 'shop'! at back door when a cuztomer +come in, and when growing older to make herseff many other way' uzeful. +And by consequence she was oft-en playmate with the chil'ren of all +that coterie there in Royal Street. Excep' my father; he was fo'teen +year' to her seven." +</P> + +<P> +"Was she a handsome child?" Chester ventured. +</P> + +<P> +"I think no. But in growing up she bic-came"--the craftsman handed out +a pocket flash-light and an old <I>carte-de-visite</I> photograph of a +black-haired, black-eyed girl of twenty or possibly twenty-three years. +"You shall tell me," he said: +</P> + +<P> +"And you'll trust me, my sincerity?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sir! if I di'n' truzt you, <I>ab-so-lutely</I>, you shoul'n' touch that +with a finger." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, I say yes, she's handsome, trusting you not to gild my +plain words with your imagination. She's handsome, but in a way easily +overlooked; a way altogether apart from the charms of color and +texture, I judge, or of any play of feeling; not floral, not startling, +not exquisite; but <I>statuesque</I>, almost heavily so, and replete with +the virtues of character." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Beloiseau, putting away the picture, "sixteen year' she +rimain' rent' to mesdames that way, and come to look lag that. And all +of our parent'--gran'parent'--living that simple life like you see us, +their descendant', now, she biccame like one of those +familie'--Dubroca--Castanado--or of that coterie entire. +</P> + +<P> +"So after while they want' to buy her, to put her free. But Mme. +Lefevre she rif-use' any price. She say, 'If Fortune'--that was her +name--'would be satisfi' to marry a nize black man like Ovide, who +would buy his friddom--ah, yes! But no! If I make her free without, +she'll right off want to be marrie' to a white man. Tha'z the only +arrengement she'll make with him; she's too piouz for any other +arrengement, while same time me I'm too piouz to let her <I>marry</I> a +white man; my faith, that would be a crime! And also she coul'n' never +be 'appy that way; she's too good and high-mind' to be marrie' to any +white man wha'z willin' to marry a nigger.' +</P> + +<P> +"So, then, it come to be said in all those card-club' that my father +he's try to buy Fortune so to marry her. An' by that he had a quarrel +with one of those young Lefevre', who said pretty much like his mother, +only in another manner, pretty insulting. And, same old story, they +fought, like we say, 'under those oak,' Métairie Ridge, with sharpen' +foil'. And my father he got a bad wound. And he had to be nurse' long +time, and biccause all those shop' got to be keep she nurse' him more +than everybody elze. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, human nature she's strong. So, when he get well he say, 'Papa, +I can' stay any mo' in rue Royale, neither in that <I>vieux carré</I>, +neither in that Louisiana.' And my grandpère and all that coterie they +say: 'To go at Connect-icut, or Kanzaz, or Californie, tha'z no +ril-ief; you muz' go at France and Spain, wherever 'tis good to study +the iron-work, whiles we are hoping there will be a renaissance in that +art and that businezz; and same time only the good God know' what he +can cause to happen to lead a child of the faith out of trouble and +sorrow.' +</P> + +<P> +"So my father he went, and by reason of that he di'n' have to settle +that queztion of honor what diztress all the balance of the coterie; +whether to be on the side of Louisiana, or the Union. He di'n' run +away to ezcape that war; he di'n' know 'twas going to be, and he came +back in the mi'l' of it, whiles the city was in the han' of that Union +army. Also what cause him to rit-urn was not that war. 'Twas one of +those thing' what pro-juce' that saying that the truth 'tis mo' +stranger than figtion. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chezter, 'twas a wonderful! And what make it the mo' wonderful, +my father he wasn' hunting for that, neither hadn' ever dream' of it. +He was biccome very much a wanderer. One day he juz' chance' to be in +a village in Alsace, and there he saw some chil'ren, playing in the +street. And he was very thirzty, from long time walking, and he +request' them a drink of water. And a li'l' girl fetch' him a drink. +But she was modess and di'n' look in his face till he was biggening to +drink. Then she look' up--she had only about seven year', and my +father he look' down, and he juz' drop that cup by his feet that it +broke--the handle. And when she cry, and he talk' with her and say +don' cry, he can make a cem-ent juz' at her own house to mend that to a +perfegtion, he was astonizh' at her voice as much as her face. And +when he ask her name and she tell him, her firz' name, and say tha'z +the name of her <I>grand'-mère</I>, he's am-aze'! But when he see her +mother meeting them he's not surprise', he's juz' lightning-struck. +</P> + +<P> +"Same time he try to hide that, and whiles he's mixing that cem-ent and +sticking that handle he look' two-three time' into the front of the +hair of that li'l' girl, till the mother she get agitate', and she +h-ask him: 'What you're looking? Who told you to look for something +there? <I>Ma foi</I>! you're looking for the <I>pompon gris</I> of my mother +and grandmother! You'll not fine it there. Tha'z biccause she's so +young; when she's grow' up you'll see; but'--she part' as-ide her own +hair in front and he see', my father, under the black a li'l' patch of +gray, and he juz' say, '<I>Mon dieu</I>!' while she egsclaim'-- +</P> + +<P> +"'If you know anybody's got that <I>pompon</I> in Louisiana, age of me, or +elze, if older, the sizter of my mother, she's lost yonder sinze mo' +than twen'y-five year'. My anceztor' they are <I>name</I>' Pompon for that +li'l' gray spot.' +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then they--and her 'usband, coming in--they make great frien'. +My father he show' them thiz picture, and when he tell them the +origin-al of that also is name' Fortune, like that child an' her +mother, and been from in-fancy a slave, they had to cry, all of them +together. And then they tell my father all ab-out those two sizter', +how they get marrie' in that village with two young men, cousin' to +each other, and how one pair, a year avter, emigrate' to Louisiana with +li'l' baby name' Fortune, and--once mo' that old story--they are bound +to the captain of the ship for the prise of the passage till somebody +in Ammerica rid-eem them and they are bound to him to work that out. +And coming accrozz, the father--ship-fever--die', and arriving, the +passage is pay by the devil know' who'. +</P> + +<P> +"Then my father he tell them that chile muz' be orpheline at two-three +year', biccause while seeming so white she never think she wasn' black. +</P> + +<P> +"And so my father, coming ad that village the moz' unhappy in the +worl', he went away negs day the moz' happy. And he took with him some +photo' showing that mother and chile with the mother's hair comb' to +egspose that <I>pompon gris</I>; and also he took copy from those record' of +babtism of the babtism of that li'l' Fortune, <I>émigré</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"Same time, here at home, <I>our</I> Fortune she was so sick with something +the doctor he coul'n' make out the nature, and she coul'n' eat till +they're af-raid she'll die. And one day the doctor bring her father +confessor, there where she's in bed, and break that gently that my +father he's come home, and then that he's bring with him the perfec' +proof that she's as white as she look'. Well, negs day she's out of +bed; secon' she's dress--and laughing!--and eating! And every day my +father he's paying his intention', and Mme. Lefevre she's rij-oice, +biccause that riproach is pass' from monsieur her 'usband and pritty +quick they are marrie', and tha'z my mother." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +After a reverent silence Chester spoke: "And lived long and happily +together?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, a long, beautiful life. Maybe that life woul'n' be of a +diztinction sufficient to you, but to them, yes. They are gone but +since lately." +</P> + +<P> +"And that Lefevre house?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, you know! Full of Italian'--ten-twelve familie', with washing on +street veranda eight day ev'ry week. <I>Pauvre vieux carré</I>!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap42"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XLII +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MÉLANIE +</H3> + +<P> +"I suppose," Chester said, breaking another silence, "you and that +mother, and your father, have sat in the flowery sunshine of this old +plaza together----" +</P> + +<P> +"A thousan' time'," the ironworker replied, mused a bit, and added: "My +frien', you are a so patient listener as I never see. Biccause I know +you are all that time waiting for a differen' story. And now--I shall +tell you that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, however it hits me I've got to know it." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, after that, a year and half, I am born. I grow up. I 'ave +brother' and sizter'. We all get marrie', and they, they are scatter' +over the face of Louisiana. But me, I'm the oldest and my father take +great trouble in educating me to sugceed him in his businezz, and so I +did, like you see. And the same with Dubroca and with Castanado--Ducatel +he's different he's come into that antique businezz by his mizfortune and +he's--oh, he's all right only he's not of the same inspiration to be of +that li'l' clique. He's up-town Creole and with the up-town Creole mind. +And those De l'Isle' they also got a son, and Mme. Alexandre she have a +very amiable daughter; and, laz', not leazt, you know, those +Chapdelaine'----" +</P> + +<P> +"I certainly do," Chester murmured. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, assuredlie," said Beloiseau. "Well, now: In those generation' +befo' there was in Royal Street--and Bourbon--and Dauphine--bisside' +crozz-street'--so many of our--I ignore the Englizh word for that--our +<I>affinité</I>, that our whole market of mat-<I>rim</I>-ony was not juz' in one +square of Royal; but presently, it break out like an épidémique, ammongs' +our chil'ren, to marry juz' accrozz and accrozz the street; a Beloiseau +to a Castanado, a Castanado to a Dubroca, and so forth--even fifth!" The +speaker smiled benignly. "Hah! many year' they work' my geniuz hard to +make iron candlestick'--orig-in-al diz-ign--for wedding-present'. The +moze of them, they marrie' without any romanze, egcep' what cann' be +av-oid', inside the heart, when both partie' are young, and in love +together, and not rich neither deztitute. But year biffo' laz' we have +the romanze of that daughter of Mme. Alexandre and son of De l'Isle and +son of Dubroca." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that Mélanie, whom you all mention so often but whom I've never seen?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Reason you don't see her---- But I'll tell you that. Mr. +Chezter, that would make a beautyful story to go with those other' in +that book of Mlle. Aline--but of co'se by changing those name', and by +preten'ing that happen' at Hong Kong, or Chicago, or Bogota. Presently +'tis too short, but you can easy mazk and coztume that in a splendid +rhétorique till it's plenty long enough." +</P> + +<P> +"H'mm!" said Chester, wondering at the artisan's artlessness off his +beaten track. "Go on." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she's not beautyful, Mélanie; same time she's not bad-looking and +she's kindess of the kind, and whoever she love'--her mother, for +example--and Mlle. Aline--tha'z pretty touching, to see with what an +inten-<I>city</I> she love'. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, what I tell you, tha'z a very sicret bitwin you and me. Biccause +even those Dubroca', <I>père</I> and <I>mère</I>, and those De l'Isle', <I>père</I> and +<I>mère</I>, they do' know <I>all</I> that; and me I know that only from Castanado, +who know' it only from his wife; biccause she, she know' it only from +Mlle. Aline, and none of them know that I know egcep' those Castanado'. +</P> + +<P> +"Well! sinze chilehood those three--Mélanie, De l'Isle, Dubroca,--they +are playmate' together, and Dubroca he's always call' Mélanie his +swit-heart. But De l'Isle, no. Always biffo', those De l'Isle they are +of the, eh, the <I>beau monde</I> and though li'l' by li'l' losing their +fortune, keeping their frien', some of them rich, yet still ad the same +time nize people. And that young De l'Isle he's a good-looking, +well-behave', ambitiouz, and got--what you call--dash! +</P> + +<P> +"That was the condition when they are all graduate' from school and go +each into his o'cupation, or hers, up to the eyebrow'. Mélanie and Mlle. +Aline they work' with Mme. Alexandre, though not precizely together, +biccause Mélanie she show' only an ability to keep those account' and to +assist keeping shop, whiles Mlle. Aline she rimain' always up-stair' +employing that great talent tha'z too valu'ble to be interrupt'." +</P> + +<P> +"Doesn't she keep the books now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but tha'z only to assist Mélanie whiles Mélanie she's, eh, away. +Dubroca he go' into businezz with his father, likewise Castanado with his +father, but De l'Isle he's made a secretary in City-hall. So he have mo' +time than those other' and he go' oft-en into society, and he get those +manner' and cuztom' of society. And then that young Dubroca biggen very +plain to pay his intention' to Mélanie, and we are all pretty glad to +notiz that, biccause whiles he don't got that dash of De l'Isle, he's +modess, yet still brave to a perfegtion; and he's square and got plenty +sense, and he's steady and he's kind. Every way they are suit' to each +other and we think--if that poor old rue Royale <I>con</I>-tinue to run down, +that will even be good to join those two businezz' together. And +bisside', sinze a li'l' shaver Dubroca he ain't never love nobody else, +only Mélanie. +</P> + +<P> +"But also De l'Isle, like Dubroca, he was always pretty glad of every +egscuse to drop in there at Mme. Alexandre and pass word with Mélanie. +'Twas easy to see 'tis to Mlle. Aline he's in love and he come talk to +Mélanie biccause tha'z the nearess he can reach to Mlle. Aline egcep' +juz' saying good-day whiles passing on street or at church door. Oh, he +behave the perfec' gen'leman, and still tha'z one reason she get that +li'l' 'Ector. Yes, we all see that, only Mélanie she don't. So Mlle. +Aline she ezcape' him all she could, but, with that dash he's got, he +persevere' to hang on. And tha'z the miztake they both did, him and +Mélanie, in doing that American way, keeping that to themselve' instead +of--French way--telling their parent'. +</P> + +<P> +"Then another thing tranzpire'. My son and that son of Castanado bigin, +both--but that come' mo' later. Any'ow one day Mélanie she bring Mlle. +Aline a note from De l'Isle sol-iciting if she and Mélanie will go at +matinée with him and Dubroca. And when mademoiselle bigin to make +egscuse' Mélanie implore' her to go, biccause Mme. Alexandre say no +Creole girl cann' go juz' with one man, or even with two. 'And mamma +she's right,' Mélanie say--with tear',--'even in that Am'erican way they +got a limit, and same time I'm perishing to go!' +</P> + +<P> +"And when mademoiselle hear' what that play is ab-out she consent' at the +lazt to go. Biccause tha'z ab-out a girl what billieve' a man's in love +to her, biccause he pay her those li'l' galanterie of high life--li'l' +pol-ite figtion'--what every man---unless he's marrie'--egspect to pay to +every girl, to make thing' pleasant, you know? +</P> + +<P> +"And that play turn out a so egcellent that many people, paying admission +ad the door, find they got to pay ag-ain, secon' time, ad their seat, in +tear' that they weep; and that make it not so hard for Mélanie, who weep +ab-out ten price'. Negs day, Sunday, avter church and dinner, she come +yonder ad the home of mademoiselle, you know, Bourbon Street, and sit +with her in the gol'fish bower of that li'l' garden behine. And she's +very much bow' down. And she h-ask mademoiselle if she ain't notiz sinz +long time how De l'Isle is paying intention to her, Mélanie. But +mademoiselle di'n' have to be embarrazz' what to answer, biccause Mélanie +she's so rattle' she don't wait to hear. And Mélanie she say tha'z one +cause that she was wanting De l'Isle to see that play; biccause sinz +lately she's notiz he's make himseff very complimentary also to +mademoiselle, and she, Mélanie, she want' him to notiz how that way he's +in danger to make mizunderstanding and diztress to himseff and--all +concern'. +</P> + +<P> +"And she prod-uce' a piece paper <I>fill</I>' with memorandum' of compliment' +he's say to her one time and other, what she's wrote down whiles frezh +spoken and what she billieve' are proof that he's in love to her and +inten' to make his proposition so soon he's got good sign' he'll be +accept'. 'But I ain't never give' him sign,' she say, 'biccause a girl +she cann' never be too careful. And so I think I'm bound to show that to +you, biccause I muz'n' be careful only for myseff, and if he's say such +thing' likewise to you, then tha'z to be false to both of us together. +But, I think,' she say, 'M. De l'Isle he coul'n' never do that!'" +</P> + +<P> +"How did she say all that, angrily or meekly?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! meek and weeping till mademoiselle she's compel' to weep likewise. +And ad the end she's compel' to tell Mélanie yes, De l'Isle he's pay her +those same kind of sentimental plaisanteries; rosebud' to pin on the +heart <I>outside</I>, a few minute', till the negs cavalier. Castanado, she +say, Beloiseau, they do the same--even more. 'Ah!' Mélanie say, 'but +only to you! and only biccause to say any mo' they are yet af-raid! +Mademoiselle, those both, they are both in love to you!' +</P> + +<P> +"And when Mélanie say that, Mlle. Aline take the both hand' of Mélanie in +her both han' and ask her if she ain't herseff put them both, Castanado, +Beloiseau, up to that--to fall in love to her. And pretty soon Mélanie +she's compel' to confezz that, not with word', but juz' with the +fore-head on the knee of mademoiselle and crying like babie. And she say +she's sin'. And yet same time while she h-ask' mademoiselle to pray the +good God and the mother of God to forgive that sin, she h-ask her to pray +also that they'll make De l'Isle to love her. +</P> + +<P> +"Biccause, she say, 'tis those unfortunate rosebud' of sentimental +plaisanterie he give her what firz' make her to love him. And +mademoiselle she ag-ree' to that if Mélanie she'll tell that whole story +also to her mother; biccause mademoiselle she see what a hole that put +them both in, her and Mélanie, when she, mademoiselle, is bound to know +he's paying, De l'Isle, all his real intention' to herseff. And Mélanie +she's in agonie and say no-no-no! but if mademoiselle will tell it, yes! +And by reason that she's kep' that from her mother sinze the firz', she +say tell not Mme. Alexandre but Mme. Castanado, even when mademoiselle +say if Mme. Castanado then also monsieur; biccause madame she'll +certainly make that condition, and biccause monsieur he can assist her to +commenze that whole businezz over, French way. And same time Mélanie she +take very li'l' stock in that French way, by reason that, avter all, +those De l'Isle, though their money's gone, are still pretty high-life. +</P> + +<P> +"And tha'z how it come that those Castanado' have to tell me. Biccause +madame she cann' skip ar-ound pretty light, you know, and biccause they +think my, eh--pull--with those De l'Isle' is the moze of anybody, and +biccause I require to know how they are sure 'tis uzeless any mo' for +<I>my</I> son, or <I>their</I> son, than for the son of De l'Isle, to sed the heart +on Mlle. Aline. Also tha'z to egsplain me why Mlle. Aline say if all +those intention' to her don't finizh righd there, she got to stop coming +ad Mme. Alexandre. And of co'se! You see that, I su'pose?" +</P> + +<P> +"And where was young Dubroca in all this?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, another migsture! He was nowhere. Any'ow, tha'z how he feel; and +those other three boy' they di'n' feel otherwise. You see? We coul'n' +egsplain them anything--ab-out Mlle. Aline,--all we can say: 'Road +close'--stim-roller.' So ad the end Dubroca he have, slimly, the +advantage; for him, to Mélanie, the road any 'ow seem' open; yet in vain. +So there, all at same time, in that li'l' gang, rue Royale, was five +heart' blidding for love, and nine other' blidding for those five and for +Mlle. Aline. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, of co'se--you see?--nobody cann' stand that! Firzt to find his +way out of that is Mélanie. Mélanie's confessor he think tha'z a sin to +keep any longer those fact' from her mother, and she confezz them to Mme. +Alexandre, and ad the end she say: 'Mamma, in our li'l' coterie I cann' +look anybody in the face any mo', and I'm going to biccome train' nurse. +Tha'z not running away, yet same time tha'z not every evening to be +getting me singe' in the same candle.' +</P> + +<P> +"Then, almoze while she saying that, that son of De l'Isle he say to my +son--who he's fon' of like a brother, and my son of him likewise, though +the one is a so dashing and the other a so quiet--''Oiseau,' he +say,--biccause tha'z the nickname of my son,--'papa and me we visit' the +French consul to-day and arrange' a li'l' affair.' +</P> + +<P> +"And when he want' to tell some mo' my son he stop' him: 'Enough! I +div-ine that. Why you di'n' take me al-ong? You'll arrange to go at +that France, of my <I>grand'mère</I>, and that Alsace, of her mother, to be +fighting <I>aviateur</I>, and leave '<I>Oiseau</I> behine? Ah, you cann' do that!' +And when that young Dubroca and Castanado get the win' of them, the all +four, all of same sweet maladie, they go together; two to be juz' +<I>poilu</I>', two, <I>aviateur</I>'. That old remedie, you know; if they can't +love--they'll fight! They are yonder, still al-ive, laz' account." +</P> + +<P> +Mainly to himself Chester said, "And I am here, my land still at peace, +last account." +</P> + +<P> +"And also you, you've h-ask' mademoiselle, I think," said the ironworker, +"and alas, she's say aggain, no, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +The reply was a gaze and a nod. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Mr. Chezter, I'm sorrie! Her reason--you can't tell. 'Tis maybe +juz' biccause those hero' are yonder. 'Tis maybe only that those two +aunt' are here. Maybe 'tis biccause both, maybe neither. You can't +tell. Maybe you h-ask too soon. Ad the present she know' you only sinze +a few week'. She don't know none of yo' hiztorie, neither yo' +familie--egcep' that h-angel of the Lord. Yo' char-<I>acter</I>, she may like +that very well yet same time she know' how easy that is for women to make +miztake' about. Maybe y'ought to 'ave ask' M'sieu' Thorndyke-Smith to +write at yo' home-town and get you recommen'. Even a cook he's got to +'ave that--or a publisher, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've got that--within reach; my law firm has it. But, pshaw! <I>I</I> +think, Beloiseau, while all your maybe's may be right the thing that +explains mademoiselle's whole situation is that she's never seen a man +worthy to touch a hem of her robe; and the only argument a lover can lay +at her feet is that she never will." +</P> + +<P> +"And you'll lay that, negs time?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not till that manuscript business is settled, don't you see? Come, you +must go to bed." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap43"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XLIII +</H2> + +<P> +Shrimps, rice, and watered wine for a sunset dinner. At its end the +three Chapdelaines, each with her small cup of black coffee, left the +table and its remnants to the other two members of the household, and +passed out as usual to the bower benches and the goldfish pool. +</P> + +<P> +Humming-birds were there, drinking frenziedly from honeysuckle cups to +the health of all things beautiful and ecstatic. Mlle. Yvonne stood at +a bench's end to watch one of them dart from bloom to bloom. "Ah, +Corinne," she sighed, "if we could all be juz' humming-bird'!" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Chérie</I>," cried her sister, "you are spilling yo' coffee!" +</P> + +<P> +Whether for the coffee, for the fact that we can't all be +humming-birds, or for some thought not yet spoken, Mlle. Corinne's eyes +were all but spilling their tears. As the trio sat down. Aline said +in gentlest accusation to the younger aunt: +</P> + +<P> +"You are trembling. Why is that?" +</P> + +<P> +The younger sister looked appealingly to the elder. "<I>Chère</I>," Mlle. +Corinne said to the girl, "we are anxiouz to confezz you something. We +woul'n' never be anxiouz to confezz that, only we're af-raid already +you've foun' us out!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. I came this evening by Ovide's shop to return a book----" +</P> + +<P> +"An' he tell you he's meet us----?" +</P> + +<P> +"On the steps of the <I>archevêché</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, <I>chèrie</I>," Yvonne tearfully broke in, "can you ever pardon that to +us?" +</P> + +<P> +Aline smiled: "Oh, yes; in the course of time, I suppose. That was not +like a drinking-saloon." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah-h! not in the leas'! We di'n' touch there a drop--nobodie di'n' +offer us!" +</P> + +<P> +The niece addressed the other aunt: "Go on. Tell me why you were +there." +</P> + +<P> +"Aline, we'll confess us! We wend there biccause--we are orphan'! Of +co'se, we know that biffo', sinze long time, many, many year'; but only +sinze a few day'----" +</P> + +<P> +"Joy-ride day," Aline put in, a bit tensely. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, no! <I>Chérie</I>, you muz' not supose----" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind; 'last few days'--go on." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sinze those laz' few day' we bigin to feel like we juz' got to +take step' ab-oud that!" +</P> + +<P> +"So you took those steps of the <I>archevêché</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Chère</I>, we'll tell you! Yvonne and me, avter all those many 'appy +year' with you, we think we want--ah, <I>chérie</I>, you'll pardon that?--we +want ad the laz' to live independent! So we go ad the archbishop. And +he say, 'How <I>I'm</I> going to make you that? You think to be independent +by biccoming Sizter' of Charitie--of Mercy--of St. Joseph?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Ah, no,' we say, 'we have not the geniuz to be those; not even to be +Li'l'-Sizter'-of-the-Poor. All we want--and we coul'n' make ourselv' +the courage to ask you that, only we've save' you so large egspenses +not asking you that already sinze twenty-thirty year' aggo--we want you +to put us in orphan asylum.' We was af-raid at firz' he's goin' to be +mad; but he smile very kine and say: 'Yes, yes; you want, like the good +Lord say, to biccome like li'l' children, eh?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Ah, yes!' we tell him, 'tha'z what we be glad to do. They got +nothing in the worl' we can do, Yvonne and me, so easy like that! And +same time we be no egspense, like those li'l' <I>orpheline</I>'; we can wash +dish', make bed', men' apron'; and in that way we be independent!' +Well, he scratch his head; yet same time he smile', while he say, 'Go, +li'l' children, to yo' home. I'll see if Mère Veronique can figs that, +and if yes, I'll san' for you.' And, <I>chérie</I>, juz' the way he said +that, we are <I>sure</I> he's goin' to san'." +</P> + +<P> +With her tears running freely Aline softly laughed. She rose, took a +hand of each aunt, laid the two together, bent low, and kissed them, +saying: "He will not, for he shall not. Nothing shall ever part us but +heaven." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap44"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XLIV +</H2> + +<P> +One evening M. Castanado sat reading to his wife from a fresh number of +the weekly <I>Courier des Etats-Unis</I>. +</P> + +<P> +It was not long after the incident last mentioned. Chester had become +accustomed to his new lift in fortune, but as yet no further word as to +the manuscript had reached him; he had only just written a second +letter of inquiry after it. Also that summons to the two aunts, from +the archbishop, of which the pair were so sure, was still unheard; no +need had arisen for Aline to take any counter-step. We <I>could</I> name +the exact date, for it was the day of the week on which the <I>Courier</I> +always came, and the week was the last in which a Canal Street +movie-show beautifully presented the matchless Bernhardt as a widowed +shopkeeper--like Mme. Alexandre, but with a son, not daughter, in love. +</P> + +<P> +The door-bell rang. Castanado went down to the street. There, letting +in a visitor, he spoke with such animation that madame, listening from +her special seat, guessed, and before the two were half up-stairs knew, +who it was. It was Mélanie Alexandre. +</P> + +<P> +No one answered her mother's bell, she said, kissing madame +lingeringly, twice on the forehead and once on either vast cheek. She +was short and square, with such serene kindness of face and voice as to +be the last you would ever pick out to fall into a mistake of passion, +however exalted. Of course, that serenity may have come since the +mistake. Both Castanados seemed to take note of it as if it had come +since, and she to be willing they should note it. +</P> + +<P> +"No," they said, "Mme. Alexandre had gone with Dubroca and his wife to +that movie of Sarah." +</P> + +<P> +"And also with M. Beloiseau?" asked Mélanie, with a lurking smile, as +she sat down so fondly close to madame as to leave both her small hands +in one of her friend's. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, now," madame exclaimed, "there is nothing in that! You ought to +be rijoice' if there was." +</P> + +<P> +The new look warmed in Mélanie's eyes. "I'll be very glad if that time +ever comes," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Then you billieve in the second love?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, in a case like that! Indeed, yes. In their first love they both +were happy; the second would be in praise of the first." +</P> + +<P> +"And to separate them there is only the street," Castanado suggested, +"and Royal Street, street of their birth and chilehood, and so narrow, +it have the effect to join, not separate. But!"--he made a wary +motion--"kip quite, eize they will not go into the net, those old +bird', hah!" +</P> + +<P> +There was a smiling silence, and then--"Well," madame said, "they are +all to stop here as they riturn. Waiting here, you'll see them all." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and beside', I have some good news for you; news anyhow to me." +</P> + +<P> +The pair smiled brightly: "You 'ave another letter from Dubroca!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. He's again wounded and in hospital." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh-h, terrible! tha'z to you good news?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Look, monsieur; he has, at the front, the chance to be hit so +many times. If he's hit and only wounded his chances to be hit again +are made one less, eh? And while he's in hospital they are again two +or three less. Shall we not be glad for that? And moreover, how he +got his wound, that is better. He got that taking, by himself, nine +Boches! And still the best news is what he writes about his friend +Castanado." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Mélanie! And you hold that back till now? And you know we are +without news of him sinze a month! He's promote'? He's decorate'?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's found a treasure. I think maybe you'll get his letter to-morrow. +Me, I got mine soon; passing the post-office I went in and asked." +</P> + +<P> +"But how, he found a treasure? and what sort?" +</P> + +<P> +"He just happened to dig it up, in a cellar, in Rheims. He's +betrothed.' +</P> + +<P> +"Mélanie! What are you saying?" +</P> + +<P> +"What he says. And that's all he says. I hope you'll hear all about +that to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, any'ow tha'z the bes' of news!" Castanado said, kissing his wife's +hand and each temple. "Doubtlezz he's find some lovely orphan of that +hideouz war; we can trus' his good sense, our son. But, Mélanie, he +muz' have been sick, away from the front, to make that courtship." +</P> + +<P> +"I do not know. Everything happens terribly fast these days. I hope +you'll hear all about that to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +Castanado playfully lifted a finger: "Mélanie, how is that, you pass +that poss-office, when it is up-town, while you--?" The question hung +unfinished--maybe because Mélanie turned so red, maybe because the +door-bell rang again. +</P> + +<P> +Enlivened by the high art they had been enjoying and by the fresh night +air, a full half-dozen came in: M. and Mme. De l'Isle, whom the others +had chanced upon as they left the theatre; Dubroca and his wife; Mme. +Alexandre; and finally Beloiseau. "Mélanie!" was the cry of each of +these as he or she turned from saluting madame; this was one of +madame's largest joys; to get early report from larger or smaller +fractions of the coterie, on the good things they had seen or heard, +from which her muchness otherwise debarred her. The De l'Isles, +however, were not such a matter of course as the others, and Mme. De +l'Isle, as she greeted Mme. Castanado, said, in an atmosphere that +trembled with its load of mingled French and English: +</P> + +<P> +"We got something to show you!" +</P> + +<P> +In the same atmosphere--"And how got you away from yo' patient?" Mme. +Alexandre asked her daughter as they embraced a second time. +</P> + +<P> +"I tore myself," said Mélanie, while Castanado, to all the rest, was +saying: +</P> + +<P> +"And such great news as Mél'----" +</P> + +<P> +But a sharp glance from Mélanie checked him. "Such great news as we +have receive'! Our son is bethroath'!--to a good, dizcreet, beautiful +French girl; which he <I>foun</I>', in a cellar at Rheims!" When a +drum-fire of questions fell on him he grew reticent and answered +quietly: "We have only that by firz' letter. Full particular' pretty +soon, perchanze to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Then to-morrow we'll come hear ab-out it," Beloiseau said, "and tell +ab-out the movie. Mme. De l'Isle she's also got fine news, what she +cann' tell biffo' biccause"--he waved to Mme. De l'Isle to say why, but +her husband spoke for her. +</P> + +<P> +"Biccause," he said, "'tis all in a pigture, war pigture, on a New York +Sunday paper, and of co'se we coul'n' stop under street lamp for that; +and with yo' permission"--to Mme. Castanado--"we'll show that firz' of +all to Scipion." +</P> + +<P> +Beloiseau put on glasses and looked. "'General Joffre--'" he began to +read. +</P> + +<P> +"No, no! not that! This one, where you know the <I>général</I> only by the +back of his head." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah--ah, yes; 'Two <I>aviateur</I>' riceiving from General Joffre'--my God! +De l'Isle--my God! madame,"--Scipion pounded his breast with the +paper--"they are yo' son and mine!" +</P> + +<P> +The company rushed to his elbows. "My faith! Castanado, there are +their name'! and 'For destrugtion of their eighteenth enemy aeroplane, +under circumstance' calling for exceptional coolnezz and intrepid-ity!'" +</P> + +<P> +There was great and general rejoicing and some quite pardonable +boasting, under cover of which Mélanie and her mother slipped out by +the inside way, without mention of the young Dubroca, his prisoners, +sickness, or letter, except to his father and mother, who told of him +more openly when the Alexandres were safely gone. That brought fresh +gladness and praise, a fair share of which was for Mélanie. +</P> + +<P> +So presently the remaining company vanished, leaving Mme. Castanado +free to embrace her kneeling husband and boast again the power of +prayer. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap45"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XLV +</H2> + +<P> +The cathedral that year was undergoing repairs. +</P> + +<P> +Its cypress-log foundations, which had kept sound from colonial days in +a soil always wet, had begun to decay when a new drainage system began +to dry it out. Fact, but also allegory. +</P> + +<P> +It may have been in connection with this work, or with some change in +the house of the Discalceated Sisters of Mt. Carmel, or of the +archbishop, or of St. Augustine's Church, that a certain priest of +exceptional taste, Beloiseau's father confessor, dropped in on him to +order an ornamental wrought-iron grille for the upper half of a new +door. While looking at patterns he asked: +</P> + +<P> +"And what is the latest word from your son?" +</P> + +<P> +Scipion showed him that picture--he had bought one for himself--the +dear old unmistakable back of "Papa Joffre," and the dear young +unmistakable faces of the two boys, Beloiseau and De l'Isle. +</P> + +<P> +A talk followed, on the conflict between a father's pride and his +yearning to see his only son safely delivered from constant deadly +peril. They spoke of Aline. Not for the first time; Scipion, unaware +that the good father was her confessor also, had told him before of his +son's hopeless love, to ask if it was not right for him, the father, to +help Chester win the marvellous girl, since winning would win the two +boys home again. +</P> + +<P> +Patterns waited while the ironworker said that to the tender chagrin of +all the coterie Chester was refused--a man of such fineness, such +promise, mind, charm, and integrity, and so fitted for her in years, +temperament, and tastes, that no girl, however perfect, could hope to +be courted by more than one such in a lifetime. +</P> + +<P> +In brief Creole prose he struck the highest key of Shakespeare's +sonnets: "Was she not doing a grievous wrong to herself and Chester, to +the whole coterie that so adored her, especially to the De l'Isles and +himself, and even to society at large? Her reasons," he said, shifting +to English, "I can guess <I>at them</I>, but guessing at 'alf-a-dozen +convinze' me of none!" +</P> + +<P> +"Have you guess' at differenze of rilligious faith?" the priest +inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but--nothing doing; I 'ave to guess no." +</P> + +<P> +"Tha'z a great matter to a good Catholic." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, father! Or-<I>din</I>-arily, yes. Bud this time no. Any'ow, this +time tha'z not for us Catholic' to be diztress' ab-out. . . . Ah, yes, +chil'ren. But, you know? If daughter', they'll be of the faith and +conduc' of the mother; if son', faith of the mother, conduc' of the +father; and I think with that even you, pries' of God, be satizfie', eh? +</P> + +<P> +"My dear frien', you know what I billieve? Me, I billieve in heaven +they are <I>waiting impatiently</I> for that marriage." +</P> + +<P> +The priest may have been professionally delinquent, but he chose to +leave the argument unrefuted. He smilingly looked at his watch. +"Well," he said, "I choose this design. Make it so. Good evening." +He turned away. Beloiseau called after him, but the man of God kept +straight on. +</P> + +<P> +The ironworker loitered back to where the chosen pattern lay, and stood +over it still thinking of Chester. Presently a soft voice sounded so +close by that he turned abruptly. At his side was an extremely winsome +stranger. His artistic eye instantly remarked not only her +well-preserved beauty, but its gentle dignity, rare refinement, and +untypical quality. Whether it was Creole or <I>Américain</I>, Southern, +Northern, or Western, nothing betrayed; on the surface at least, the +provincial, as far as the ironworker could see, was wholly bred out of +her. He noted also the unimpaired excellence of her erect and girlish +slightness and, under her pretty hat and early whitened hair, the +carven fineness of her features. Her whole attire pleasantly befitted +her years, which might have been anything short of fifty; and yet, if +Scipion was right, she might have dressed for thirty. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you Mr. Beloiseau?" she inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"I am," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Beloiseau, I'm the mother of Geoffry Chester. You know him, I +believe?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, is that possible? He is my esteem' frien', madame. Will you"--he +began to dust a lone chair. +</P> + +<P> +"No, thank you; I came to find Geoffry's quarters. I left the hotel +with my memorandum, but must have dropped it. I remember only +Bienville Street." +</P> + +<P> +"He's not there any mo'. Sinze only two day' he's move'. Mrs. +Chezter, if you'll egscuse me till I can change the coat I'll show you +those new quarter'. Whiles I'm changing you can look ad that book of +pattern', and also--here--there's a pigtorial of New York; that--tha'z +of my son and the son of my neighbor up-stair', De l'Isle, ric'iving +medal' from Général Joffre----" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Mr. Beloiseau can it be!" +</P> + +<P> +"But you know, Mrs. Chezter, he's not there presently, yo' son. He's +gone at St. Martinville, to the court there." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, to be back to-morrow or next day. They told me in his office +this forenoon. I reached the city only at eleven, train late. He +didn't know I was coming. My telegram's on his desk unopened. But +having time, I thought I'd see whether he's living comfortably or only +fancies he is." +</P> + +<P> +On their way Mrs. Chester and her guide hardly spoke until Scipion +asked: "Madame, when you was noticing yo' telegram on the desk of yo' +son you di'n' maybe notiz' a letter from New York? We are prettie +anxiouz for that to come to yo' son. I do' know if you know about that +or no, but M. De l'Isle and madame, and Castanado and his madame, and +Dubroca and his madame, and Mme. Alexandre and me, and three +Chapdelaine', we are all prettie anxiouz for that letter." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know about it, and there is one, from a New York +publishing-house, on Geoffry's desk." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, madame, Marais Street, here's the place. Ah! and street-car--or +jitney--passing thiz corner will take you ag-ain at yo' hotel." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap46"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XLVI +</H2> + +<P> +Satisfied with her son's quarters, Mrs. Chester returned to her hotel +and had just dined when her telephone rang. +</P> + +<P> +"Mme.--oh, Mme. De l'Isle, I'm so please'----" +</P> + +<P> +The instrument reciprocated the pleasure. "If Mrs. Chezter was not too +fat-igue' by travelling, monsieur and madame would like to call." +</P> + +<P> +Soon they appeared and in a moment whose brevity did honor to both +sides had established cordial terms. Rising to go, the pair asked a +great favor. It made them, they said, "very 'appy to perceive that Mr. +Chezter, by writing, has make his mother well acquaint' with that li'l' +coterie in Royal Street, in which they, sometime', 'ave the honor to be +include'." "The honor" meant the modest condescension, and when Mrs. +Chester's charming smile recognized the fact the pair took fresh +delight in her. "An' that li'l' coterie, sinze hearing that from +Beloiseau juz' this evening, are anxiouz to see you at ones; they are, +like ourselve', so fon' of yo' son; and they cannot call all +together--my faith, that would be a procession! And bi-side', Mme. +Castanado she--well--you understan' why that is--she never go' h-out. +Same time M. Castanado he's down-stair' waiting---- +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I go around there with you? I'll be glad to go." They went. +</P> + +<P> +Through that "recommend'" of Chester, got by Thorndyke-Smith for the +law firm, and by him shown to M. De l'Isle, the coterie knew that the +pretty lady whom they welcomed in Castanado's little parlor was of a +family line from which had come three State governors, one of whom had +been also his State's chief justice. One of her pleasantest +impressions as she made herself at ease among them, and they around her +and Mme. Castanado, was that they regarded this fact as honoring all +while flattering none. She found herself as much, and as kindly, on +trial before them as they before her, and saw that behind all their +lively conversation on such comparatively light topics as the World +War, greater New Orleans, and the decay of the times, the main question +was not who, but what, she was. As for them, they proved at least +equal to the best her son had ever written of them. +</P> + +<P> +And they found her a confirmation of the best they had ever discerned +in her son. In her fair face they saw both his masculine beauty and +the excellence of his mind better interpreted than they had seen them +in his own countenance. A point most pleasing to them was the palpable +fact that she was in her son's confidence. Evidently, though arriving +sooner than expected, her coming was due to his initiative. Clearly he +had written things that showed a juncture wherein she, if but prompt +enough, might render the last great service of her life to his. Oh, +how superior to the ordinary American slap-dash of the matrimonial +lottery! They felt that they themselves had taken the American way too +much for granted. Maybe that was where they were unlike Mlle. Aline. +But she was not there, to perceive these things, nor her aunts, to be +seen and estimated. The evening's outcome could be but inconclusive, +but it was a happy beginning. +</P> + +<P> +Its most significant part was a brief talk following the mention of the +Castanado soldier-boy's engagement. His expected letter had come, +bringing many pleasant particulars of it, and the two parents were +enjoying a genuine and infectious complacency. "And one thing of the +largez' importanze, Mrs. Chezter," madame said with sweet enthusiasm, +"--the two they are of the one ril-ligion!" +</P> + +<P> +Was the announcement unlucky, or astute? At any rate it threw the +subject wide open by a side door, and Mrs. Chester calmly walked in. +</P> + +<P> +"That's certainly fortunate," she said. Every ear was alert and +Beloiseau was suddenly eager to speak, but she smilingly went on: "It's +true that, coming of a family of politicians, and being pet +daughter--only one--of a judge, I may be a trifle broad on that point. +Still I think you're right and to be congratulated." +</P> + +<P> +The whole coterie felt a glad thrill. "Ah, madame," Beloiseau +exclaimed, "you are co'rec'! But, any'ow, in a caze where the two +faith' <I>are</I> con-<I>tra</I>-ry 'tis not for you Protestant' to be diztres' +ab-out! You, you don' care so much ab-out those myzterie' of bil-ief +as about those rule' of conduc'. Almoze, I may say, you run those +<I>rule</I>' of conduc' into the groun'--and tha'z right! And bis-ide', you +'ave in everything--politic', law, trade, society--so much the upper +han'--in the bes' senze--ah, of co'se in the bes' senze!--that the +chil'ren of such a case they are pretty sure goin' to be Protestant!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Chester, having her choice, to say either that marriages across +differences of faith had peculiar risks, or that Geoffry's uncle, the +"Angel of the Lord," had married, happily, a Catholic, chose neither, +let the subject be changed, and was able to assure the company that the +missive on Geoffry's desk was no bulky manuscript, but a neat thin +letter under one two-cent stamp. +</P> + +<P> +"Accept'!" they cried, "that beautiful true story of 'The 'Oly Crozz' +is accept'! Mesdemoiselles they have strug the oil!" +</P> + +<P> +Mme. Castanado had a further conviction: +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis the name of it done that! They coul'n' rif-use that name!--and +even notwithstanding that those publisher' they are maybe Protestant!" +</P> + +<P> +The good nights were very happy. The last were said five squares away, +at the hotel, to which the De l'Isles brought her back afoot. "And +to-morrow evening, four o'clock," madame said, "I'll come and we'll go +make li'l' visite at those Chapdelaine'." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Chester had but just removed her hat when again the telephone; +from the hotel office--"Your son is here. Yes, shall we send him up?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap47"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XLVII +</H2> + +<P> +With hands under their gray sleeves two white-bonneted <I>religieuses</I> +turned into Bourbon Street and rang the Chapdelaines' street bell. +</P> + +<P> +Mlle. Yvonne flutteringly let them into the garden, Mlle. Corinne into +the house. The conversation was in English, for, though Sister +Constance was French, Sister St. Anne, young, fair, and the chief +speaker, was Irish. They came from Sister Superior Veronique, they +said, to see further about mesdemoiselles entering, eh---- +</P> + +<P> +Smilingly mesdemoiselles fluttered more than ever. "Ah, yes, yes! +Well, you know, sinze we talk ab-out that with the archbishop we've +talk' ab-out it with our niece al-<I>so</I>, and we think she's got to get +marrie' befo' we can do that, biccause to live al-lone that way she's +too young. But we 'ave the 'ope she's goin' to marry, and then----!" +</P> + +<P> +"Have you made a will?" +</P> + +<P> +"Will! Ah, we di'n' never think of that! Tha'z a marvellouz we di'n' +never think of that--when we are the two-third' owner' of that lovely +proprity there! And we think tha'z always improving in cozt, that +place, biccause so antique an' so pittoresque. And if Aline she +marrie' and we, we join that asylum doubtlezz Aline she'll be rij-oice' +to combine with us to leave that lovely proprity ad the lazt to the +church! Biccause, you know, to take that to heaven with us, tha'z +impossible, and the church tha'z the nearez' we can come." Odd as the +moment seemed for them, tears rolled down their smiling faces. +</P> + +<P> +"But"--they dried their eyes--"there's another thing also bisside'. We +are, all three, the authorezz' of a story that we are prettie sure +tha'z accept' by the publisher'; an' of co'ze if tha'z accept'--and if +those publisher' they don' swin'le us, like so oftten--we don't need to +be orphan' never any mo', and we'll maybe move up-town and juz' keep +that proprity here for a souvenir of our in-fancy. But that be +two-three days yet biffo' we can be sure ab-oud that. Maybe ad the +laz' we'll 'ave to join the asylum, but tha'z our hope, to move up town +into the <I>quartier nouveau</I> and that beautiful 'garden diztric'.' But +we'll always <I>con</I>-tinue to love the old 'ouse here. 'Tis a very +genuine ancient <I>relique</I>, that 'ouse. You see those wall'? Solid +plank of two inch' and from Kentucky!" They went through the whole +story--the house, the relics of their childhood--"Go you, Yvonne, fedge +them!" +</P> + +<P> +The meek <I>religieuses</I> did their best to be both interested and +sincere, but somehow found diplomacy to escape the "li'l' lake" and its +goldfish, and even took the piety of the cat with a dampening absence +of mind. Their departure was almost hurried. There was nothing to do +on either side, the four agreed, but to wait the turn of events. +</P> + +<P> +The two gray robes and white bonnets had but just got away when the +bell rang again and Mlle. Yvonne let in Mme. De l'Isle and Mrs. Chester. +</P> + +<P> +But these calls were in mid-afternoon. The evening previous--"Show Mr. +Chester to three-thirty-three," the hotel clerk had said, and presently +Mrs. Chester was all but perishing in the arms of her son. +</P> + +<P> +"Geoffry! Geoffry! you needn't be ferocious!" +</P> + +<P> +They took seats facing each other, low seats that touched; but when +they joined hands a second time he dropped to his knees, asking many +questions already answered in her regular and frequent letters. News +is so different by word of mouth when the mouth's the sweetest, +sacredest ever kissed. "And how's father?" +</P> + +<P> +As if he didn't know to the last detail! +</P> + +<P> +All at once--"Why didn't you say you were coming?" he savagely demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"No matter," his mother replied, "I'm glad I didn't, things have +happened so pleasantly. I've seen your whole Royal Street coterie, +except, of course----" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, of course." +</P> + +<P> +The mother told her evening's experience. +</P> + +<P> +"And you like my friends?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Geoffry, you're right to love them. But, now, how came you back +so soon from St. What's-his-name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Opposing counsel compromised the case without trial. Mother, it's the +greatest professional victory I've ever won." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, how fine! Geoffry, how are you getting on, professionally, +anyhow?" +</P> + +<P> +"Better than my best hope, dear; far better. I've shot right up!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then why do you look so weary and care-worn?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't. I'm older, that's all, dear." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! Prospering and care-free, and yet you'd drop everything and go to +France, to war." +</P> + +<P> +"No, dearie, no. I'm sorry I wrote you what I did, but I only said I +felt like it. I don't now. I envied those Royal Street boys, who +could do that with a splendid conscience. I--I can't. I can't go +killing men, even murderers, for a remote personal reason. I must wait +till my own country calls and my patriotism is pure patriotism. That's +higher honor--to <I>her</I>, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is to you; I'm not bothering about her." +</P> + +<P> +"You will when you see her, first sight. To-morrow afternoon, you say. +Wish I could be there when your eyes first light on her! Mother, +dearie, isn't it as much she as I you've come to see?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if it is, what then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad. But I draw the line at seeing. <I>Help</I>, you understand, I +don't want--I won't have!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Geoffry, I----!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I say it because there isn't one of that kind-hearted coterie who +hasn't wanted to put in something in my favor. I forbid! A dozen to +one--I won't allow it! No, nor any two to one, not even we two. Win +or lose, I go it alone. 'Twould be fatal to do otherwise if I would. +You'll see that the minute you see her." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Geoffry! What a heat!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'll be the only one burned. Good night. I can't see you +to-morrow before evening. Shall we dine here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Oh, Geoffry--that New York letter! Manuscript accepted?" +</P> + +<P> +A shade crossed the son's brow. "Don't you think I ought to tell her +first?" +</P> + +<P> +"Her first," the mother--the <I>mother</I>--repeated after him. "Maybe so; +I don't care." They kissed. "Good night." +</P> + +<P> +"Good night . . . good night . . . good night, dear, darling mother. +Good night!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap48"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XLVIII +</H2> + +<P> +At the batten door of her high, tight garden-fence Mlle. Yvonne, we +repeat, let in Mme. De l'Isle and Mrs. Chester. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother of--ah-h-h!" Her rapture was mated to such courteous restraint +that dinginess and dishevelment were easily overlooked. "And 'ow +marvellouz that is, that you 'appen to come juz' when he--and us--we're +getting that news of the manu'----" +</P> + +<P> +"What! accepted?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, <I>that</I> we di'n' hear <I>yet</I>! We only hear he's hear' something, +but we're sure tha'z the only something he can hear!" She had begun to +close the gate, but Mrs. Chester lingered in it. +</P> + +<P> +"That fine large house and garden across the way," she said, "are they +a Creole type?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, bez' kind--for in the city. They got very few like that in the +<I>vieux carré</I>, but up yonder in that beautiful garden diztric' of the +<I>nouveau quartier</I> are many, where we'll perchanze go to live some day +pritty soon. That old 'ouse we're inhabiting here, tha'z--like us, ha, +ha!--a pritty antique. Tha'z mo' suit' for a <I>relique</I> than to live +in, especially for Tantine--ha, ha!--tha'z auntie, yet tha'z what we +call our niece. Aline--juz' in <I>plaisanterie</I>!--biccause she take' so +much mo' care of us than us of her." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Chester had stopped to look around her. "Whenever you move," she +said, "you'll have to leave this delightful little garden behind; it +won't fit out of these quaint surroundings." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! We won't want that any mo'!" +</P> + +<P> +They pressed on. "That 'ouse acrozz street," said Mme. De l'Isle, "I +notiz there the usual sign." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes, yes! 'For Sale or Rent'; tha'z what always predominate' in +that poor <I>vieux carré</I>. But here is my sizter. Corinne, Mrs. +Chezter, the mother of Mr. Chezter--as you see by the <I>image</I> of him in +the face! I can have the boldnezz to say that, madame, biccause never +in my life I di'n' see a young man so 'andsome like yo' son!" +</P> + +<P> +The mother blushed--a lifelong failing. "At home," she said, "he's +called his father's double." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that possible? But tha'z the way with people. Some people they +find Aline the <I>image</I> of Corinne, and some of me. Yet Corinne and +me--look!" +</P> + +<P> +The four went in--to the usual entertainment: the solid plank walls, +the fine absence of lath and plaster, Aline's "li'l' robe of baptism," +and the bridegroom and bride who had gone a lifetime without a change +of linen. They passed out into the rear garden and told wonderful +stories of those gifted little darlings the goldfish. Hector, +unfortunately absent, had a mouth-organ, to whose strains the fishes +would listen so motionless that you could see they were spellbound. +Yvonne ran back into the house to get it, but for some cause returned +with nerves so shaken that the fishes would do nothing but run wildly +to and fro. Still, that was just as startling proof of their amazing +whatever-it-was! +</P> + +<P> +Seats were not taken in the bower. The declining sun filled it. Mrs. +Chester moved fondly from one flower-bed to another, and while the +sisters eagerly filled her hands with their choicest bloom Yvonne +privately got a disturbed glance to Corinne that drew the four indoors +again. There the outside quaintness tempted Mrs. Chester at once to a +front window, with Mlle. Yvonne at her side. +</P> + +<P> +The front garden was not as the visitor had seen it shortly before +while entering. She turned silently away, while mademoiselle, as +though surprised, cried to her sister and Mme. De l'Isle: "Ah! Aline +she's arrive'! Mrs. Chezter, 'ow tha'z fortunate for us all!" +</P> + +<P> +So with the other three Mrs. Chester looked out again. Half-way up the +walk stood Aline. Her back was to the house. Cupid was just inside +the gate, and between them, closely confronting her, was a third +figure--Geoffry Chester. The indoor company could see his face, but +not its mood, so dazzling was the low sun behind him; but certainly it +was not gay. Her hand lay in his through some parting speech, but fell +from it as both returned toward the gate. Which Cupid opened--sad +irony--for Chester, and while the child locked him out Aline came +forward wrapped in sunlight. +</P> + +<P> +By steps, as she came, her beauty of form, face, and soul grew on Mrs. +Chester's sight, and when, in the house, with her sunset halo quenched +and her presence more perfectly humanized, her smile and voice crowned +the revelation, it happened as Geoffry had said it would; the mother's +heart went out to her in fond and complete acceptance. +</P> + +<P> +To the four women taking seats with her the laying of a graceful hat +off her dark hair was the dissolving of one lovely picture into another +unmarred by the fact that a letter which she held in her fingers was +the publishers' latest word to Chester. But now, as her own silent +gaze fell on it held in her lap in both hands, so did theirs, till her +fingers shook and she bit her lip. Then--"Never mind to read it, +chère," Mme. De l'Isle said, "juz' tell us. We are prepare' for the +worz'. They want to poz'pone the pewblication, or they don't want to +pay in advanz'?" +</P> + +<P> +Aline lifted so bright a smile through her tears that every heart grew +lighter. "They don't want it at all," she said. "They have sent it +back!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh-h-h! Impossible!" exclaimed the two sisters, their eyes filling. +"The clerk he's put the wrong letter--letter for another party!" +</P> + +<P> +Aline smiled again. "No; Mr. Chester, he has the manuscript. Ah, you +poor"--again she smiled, biting her lip and wiping her tears. Then she +turned, looked steadfastly into Mrs. Chester's face, and suddenly +handed her the missive. "Read it out." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Chester did so. As history, it said, the paper's interest was too +merely encyclopaedic for magazine use, while as romance it was too much +a story of peoples, not persons; romantic yet not romance. As to book +form the same drawbacks held, besides the fact that there was not +enough of it, not one-fifth enough, for even a small book. +</P> + +<P> +When the reader would have handed the letter back it was agreed instead +that she should give it to her son. "What does he purpose to do?" she +inquired. "This is the judgment of but one publisher, and there +are----" +</P> + +<P> +"In the North," Mme. De l'Isle broke in, "they got mo' than a dozen +pewblisher'!" +</P> + +<P> +"Whiles one," the sisters pleaded, "tha'z all we require!" +</P> + +<P> +"I know that," said Aline to the four. "'Twas of that we were speaking +at the gate. But"--to Mrs. Chester--"that judgment of the one +publisher is become our judgment also. So this evening he will bring +you the manuscript, and in two or three days, when we come to see you, +my two aunt' and me--I, you can give it me." +</P> + +<P> +"May I read it? I've been to Ovide's and read 'The Clock in the Sky.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes? Well, if later we have the good, chance to find, in our <I>vieux +carré</I>, we and our <I>cotérie</I>, and Ovide, some more stories, true +romances, we'll maybe try again; but till then--ah, no." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Chester touched the girl caressingly. "My dear, you will! Every +house looks as if it could tell at least one, including that large +house and garden just over the way." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," chanted Mlle. Yvonne, "how many time' Corinne and me, we want' to +live there and furnizh, ourseff, that romanz'!" +</P> + +<P> +The five rose. Mrs. Chester "would be delighted to have the three +Chapdelaines call. I'm leaving the hotel, you know; I've taken a room +next Geoffry's. But that's nearer you, is it not?" +</P> + +<P> +"A li'l', yes," the sisters replied, but Aline's smiling silence said: +"No, a little farther off." +</P> + +<P> +The aunts thanked Mme. De l'Isle for bringing Mrs. Chester and kissed +her cheeks. They walked beside her to the gate, led by Cupid with the +key, and by Marie Madeleine crooking the end of her tail like a +floor-walker's finger. Mrs. Chester and Aline came last. The sisters +ventured out to the sidewalk to finish an apology for a significant +fault in Marie Madeleine's figure, and Mrs. Chester and Aline found +themselves alone. +</P> + +<P> +"Au revoir," they said, clasping hands. Cupid, under a sudden +inspiration, half-closed the gate, the pair stood an eloquent moment +gazing eye to eye, and then---- +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +What happened the mother told her son that evening as they sat alone on +a moonlit veranda. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, "and on the lips." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap49"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +XLIX +</H2> + +<P> +Beginning at dawn, an all-day rain rested the travel-wearied lady. But +the night cleared and in the forenoon that followed she shopped--for +things, she wrote her husband, not to be found elsewhere in the +forty-eight States. +</P> + +<P> +The afternoon she gave to two or three callers, notably to Mrs. +Thorndyke-Smith, who was very pleasing every way, but in nothing more +than in her praises of the Royal Street coterie. Next morning, in a +hired car, she had Castanado and Mme. Dubroca, Beloiseau and Mme. +Alexandre, not merely show but, as the ironworker said, pinching +forefinger and thumb together in the air, "elucidate" to her, for +hours, the <I>vieux carré</I>. The day's latter half brought Mlles. Corinne +and Yvonne; but Aline--no. +</P> + +<P> +"She was coming till the laz' moment," the pair said, "and then she's +so bewzy she 'ave to sen' us word, by 'Ector, 'tis impossib' to +come--till maybe later. Go h-on, juz' we two." +</P> + +<P> +They sat and talked, and rose and talked, and--sweetly +importuned--resumed seats and talked, of infant days and the old New +Orleans they loved so well, unembarrassed by a maze of innocent +anachronisms, and growingly sure that Aline would come. +</P> + +<P> +When at sunset they took leave Mrs. Chester, to their delight, followed +to the sidewalk, drifted on by a corner or two, and even turned up +Rampart Street, though without saying that it was by Rampart Street her +son daily came--walked--from his office. It had two paved ways for +general traffic, with a broad space between, where once, the sisters +explained, had been the rampart's moat but now ran the electric cars! +"You know what that is, rampart? Tha'z in the 'Star-Spangle' Banner' +ab-oud that. And this high wall where we're passing, tha'z the +Carmelite convent, and--ah! ad the last! Aline! Aline!" Also there +was Cupid. +</P> + +<P> +The four encountered gayly. "Ah, not this time," Aline said. "I came +only to meet my aunts; they had locked the gate! But I <I>will</I> call, +very soon." +</P> + +<P> +They walked up to the next corner, the sisters confusingly instructing +Mrs. Chester how to take a returning street-car. Leaving them, she had +just got safely across from sidewalk to car-track when Cupid came +pattering after, to bid her hail only the car marked "Esplanade Belt." +</P> + +<P> +As he backed off--"Take care!" was the cry, but he sprang the wrong way +and a hurrying jitney cast him yards distant, where he lay unconscious +and bleeding. The packed street-car emptied. +</P> + +<P> +"No, he's alive," said one who lifted him, to the two jitney +passengers, who pushed into the throng. "Arm broke', yes, but he's +hurt worst in the head." +</P> + +<P> +There was an apothecary's shop in sight. They put him and the four +ladies into the jitney and sent them there, and the world moved on. +</P> + +<P> +At the shop he came to, and presently, in the jitney again, he was +blissfully aware of Geoffry Chester on the swift running-board, +questioning his mother and Aline by turns. He listened with all his +might. Neither the child nor his mistress had seen or heard the +questioner since the afternoon he was locked out of the garden. +</P> + +<P> +Nearing that garden now, questions and answers suddenly ceased; the +child had spoken. Limp and motionless, with his head on Aline's bosom +and his eyes closed, "Don't let," he brokenly said, "don't let <I>him</I> go +'way." +</P> + +<P> +To him the answer seemed so long coming that he began to repeat; then +Aline said---- +</P> + +<P> +"No, dear, he shan't leave you." +</P> + +<P> +The sisters had telephoned their own physician from the apothecary's +shop, and soon, with Cupid on his cot, pushed close to a cool window +looking into the rear garden, and the garden lighted by an unseen moon, +Mrs. Chester, at the cot's side awaited the doctor's arrival. The +restless sisters brought her a tray of rusks and butter and tea, though +they would not, could not, taste anything themselves until they should +know how gravely the small sufferer--for now he began to suffer--was +hurt. +</P> + +<P> +"Same time tha'z good to be induztriouz"--this was all said directly +above the moaning child--"while tha'z bad, for the sick, to talk ad the +bedside, and we can't stay with you and not talk, and we can't go in +that front yard; that gate is let open so the doctor he needn' ring and +that way excide the patient; and we can't go in the back garden"--they +spread their hands and dropped them; the back garden was hopelessly +pre-empted. +</P> + +<P> +They went to a parlor window and sat looking and longing for the front +gate to swing. They had posted on it in Corinne's minute writing: "No +admittance excep on business. Open on account sickness. S. V. P. +Don't wring the belle!!!" +</P> + +<P> +Cupid lay very flat on his back, his face turned to the open window. +He had ceased to moan. When Mrs. Chester stole to where, by leaning +over, she could see his eyes they were closed. She hoped he slept, but +sat down in uncertainty rather than risk waking him. In the moonlit +garden Aline and Geoffry paced to and fro. To see them his mother +would have to stand and lean over the cot, and neither good mothers nor +good nurses do that. She kept her seat, anxiously hoping that the +moonlight out there would remain soft enough to veil the worn look +which daylight betrayed on her son's face whenever he fell into silence. +</P> + +<P> +The talk of the pair was labored. Once they went clear to the bower +and turned, without a word. Then Geoffry said: "I know a story I'd +like to tell you, though how it would help us in our project--if we now +have a project at all--I don't see." +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis of the <I>vieux carré</I>, that story?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's of the <I>vieux carré</I> of the world's heart." +</P> + +<P> +"I think I know it." +</P> + +<P> +"May I not tell it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you may tell it--although--yes, tell it." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, there was once a beautiful girl, as beautiful in soul as in +countenance, and worshipped by a few excellent friends, few only +because of conditions in her life that almost wholly exiled her from +society. Even so, she had suitors--good, gallant men; not of wealth, +yet with good prospects and with gifts more essential. But other +conditions seemed, to her, to forbid marriage." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Aline interrupted. "Mr. Chester, have you gone in partnership +with Mr. Castanado--'Masques et Costumes'? Or would it not be maybe +better honor to me--and yourself--to speak----" +</P> + +<P> +"Straight out? Yes, of course. Aline, I've been racking my brain--I +still am--and my heart--to divine what it is that separates us. I had +come to believe you loved me. I can't quite stifle the conviction yet. +I believe that in refusing me you're consciously refusing that which +seems to you yourself a worthy source of supreme happiness if it did +not threaten the happiness of others dearer than your own." +</P> + +<P> +"Of my aunts, you think?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, your aunts." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Chester, even if I had no aunts----" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I see. That's my new discovery: you've already had my assurance +that I'd study their happiness as I would yours, ours, mine; but you +think I could never make your aunts and myself happy in the same +atmosphere. You believe in me. You believe I have a future that must +carry me--would carry us--into a world your aunts don't know and could +never learn." +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis true. And yet even if my aunts----" +</P> + +<P> +"Had no existence--yes, I know. I know what you think would still +remain. You can't hint it, for you think I would promptly promise the +impossible, as lovers so easily do. Aline, I would not! 'Twouldn't be +impossible. It shall not be. My mother is helping to prove that even +to you, isn't she--without knowing it? I promise you as if it were in +the marriage contract and we were here signing it, that if you will be +my wife I never will, and you never shall, let go, or in any way relax, +your hold--or mine--on the intimate friendship of the coterie in Royal +Street. They are your inheritance from your father and his father, and +I love you the more adoringly because you would sooner break your own +heart than forfeit that legacy." He took one of her hands. "You are +their 'Clock in the Sky'; you're their 'Angel of the Lord.' And so you +shall be till death do you part." He took the other hand, held both. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Cupid turned his face from the window and audibly sobbed. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, child, what is it? Does it pain so?" +</P> + +<P> +He shook his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Doesn't it pain? Is it not pain at all? Why, then, what is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Joy," he whispered as the doctor came in. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap50"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +L +</H2> + +<P> +The child's hurts were not so grave, after all. +</P> + +<P> +"He may sit up to-morrow," the doctor said. The fractured arm was put +into a splint and sling, and a collar-bone had to be wrapped in place; +but the absorbent cotton bandaged on his head was only for contusions. +</P> + +<P> +"Corinne!" Mlle. Yvonne gasped, "contusion"! Ah, doctor, I 'ope tha'z +something you can't 'ave but once!" +</P> + +<P> +"You can't in fatal cases. Mrs.--eh--those scissors, please? Thank +you." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Aline, praise be to heaven, any'ow his skull, from ear to ear +'tis solid! Ah, I mean, of co'se, roun' the h-outside. Inside 'tis +hollow. But outside it has not a crack! eh, doctor?" +</P> + +<P> +"Except the sutures he was born with. Now, my little man----" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, ah, Corinne! Born with shuture'! and we never suzpeg' that!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, but, Yvonne, if he's had those sinz' that long they cann' be so +very fatal, no!" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Partly for the little boy's sake three days were let pass before Aline +made her announcement. There was but one place for it--the Castanados' +parlor. All the coterie were there--the De l'Isles, even Ovide--butler +<I>pro tem</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"You will have refreshments," he said, with happiest equanimity; "I +will serve them"; and the whole race problem vanished. Mélanie too was +present, with an announcement of her own which won ecstatic kisses, +many of them tear-moistened but all of them glad. As for Mme. +Alexandre and Beloiseau, they announced nothing, but every one knew, +and said so in the smiling fervency of their hand-grasps. +</P> + +<P> +All of which made the evening too hopelessly old-fashioned to be dwelt +on, though one point cannot be overlooked. It was the last +proclamation of the joyous hour, and was Chester's. He had bought--on +wonderfully easy terms--<I>vieux carré</I> terms--the large house and +grounds opposite the Chapdelaine cottage, and there the aunts were to +dwell with the young pair. +</P> + +<P> +"Permanently?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, only whiles we live!" +</P> + +<P> +The coterie adjourned. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Already the sisters had begun to move in. Mrs. Chester helped them +"marvellouzly." Also Aline. Also Cupid--that was now his only name. +The cat really couldn't; she was too preoccupied. The sisters touched +Mrs. Chester's arm and drew a curtain. +</P> + +<P> +"Look! . . . Eight! Ah, thou unfaithful, if we had ever think you are +going to so forget yo'seff like that, we woul'n' never name you Marie +Madeleine! And still ad the same time you know, Mrs. Chezter, we are +sure she's trying to tell us, right now, that this going to be the laz' +time!" +</P> + +<P> +"And me," Yvonne added, "I feel sure any'ow that, as the poet say--I'm +prittie sure 'tis the poet say that--she's mo' sin' ag-ainz' than +sinning." +</P> + +<P> +At length one evening so many relics of the Chapdelaine infancy had +been gathered in the new home that the sisters went over there to pass +the night, and took puss and her offspring along. But not a wink did +either of them sleep the night through, and the first living creature +they espied the next morning was Marie Madeleine, with a kitten in her +teeth, moving back. +</P> + +<P> +"Aline," they sobbed as soon as they could find her, "we are sorry, +sorry, sorry, to make you such unhappinezz like that, and so soon; +continue, you and Geoffry, to live in that new 'ouse; but whiles we +live any plaze but heaven we got to live in that home of our in-fancy." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Flower of the Chapdelaines, by George W. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** + + + +</pre> + +</BODY> + +</HTML> diff --git a/15881-h/images/img-front.jpg b/15881-h/images/img-front.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b47ccb9 --- /dev/null +++ b/15881-h/images/img-front.jpg diff --git a/15881.txt b/15881.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0054123 --- /dev/null +++ b/15881.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7585 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Flower of the Chapdelaines, by George W. Cable + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Flower of the Chapdelaines + +Author: George W. Cable + +Release Date: May 23, 2005 [EBook #15881] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF THE CHAPDELAINES *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: Yesterday, for the first time, at that same corner, he +had encountered this fair stranger and her urchin escort.] + + + + + + +THE FLOWER OF THE CHAPDELAINES + + +BY + +GEORGE W. CABLE + + + +WITH FRONTISPIECE BY + +F. C. YOHN + + + + + + +NEW YORK + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +1918 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + +Published March, 1918 + + + + +The Flower of the Chapdelaines + + +I + +Next morning he saw her again. + +He had left his very new law office, just around in Bienville Street, +and had come but a few steps down Royal, when, at the next corner +below, she turned into Royal, toward him, out of Conti, coming from +Bourbon. + +The same nine-year-old negro boy was at her side, as spotless in broad +white collar and blue jacket as on the morning before, and carrying the +same droll air of consecration, awe, and responsibility. The young man +envied him. + +Yesterday, for the first time, at that same corner, he had encountered +this fair stranger and her urchin escort, abruptly, as they were making +the same turn they now repeated, and all in a flash had wondered who +might be this lovely apparition. Of such patrician beauty, such +elegance of form and bearing, such witchery of simple attire, and such +un-Italian yet Latin type, in this antique Creole, modernly Italianized +quarter--who and what, so early in the day, down here among the shops, +where so meagre a remnant of the old high life clung on in these +balconied upper stories--who, what, whence, whither, and wherefore? + +In that flash of time she had passed, and the very liveliness of his +interest, combined with the urchin's consecrated awe--not to mention +his own mortifying remembrance of one or two other-day lapses from the +austerities of the old street--restrained him from a backward glance +until he could cross the way as if to enter the great, white, lately +completed court-house. Then both she and her satellite had vanished. + +He turned again, but not to enter the building. His watch read but +half past eight, and his first errand of the day, unless seeing her had +been his first, was to go one square farther on, for a look at the +wreckers tearing down the old Hotel St. Louis. As he turned, a man +neat of dress and well beyond middle age made him a suave gesture. + +"Sir, if you please. You are, I think, Mr. Chester, notary public and +attorney at law?" + +"That is my name and trade, sir." Evidently Mr. Geoffry Chester was +also an American, a Southerner. + +"Pardon," said his detainer, "I have only my business card." He +tendered it: "Marcel Castanado, Masques et Costumes, No. 312, rue +Royale, entre Bienville et Conti." + +"I diz-ire your advice," he continued, "on a very small matter neither +notarial, neither of the law. Yet I must pay you for that, if you can +make your charge as--as small as the matter." + +The young lawyer's own matters were at a juncture where a fee was a +godsend, yet he replied: + +"If your matter is not of the law I can make you no charge." + +The costumer shrugged: "Pardon, in that case I must seek elsewhere." +He would have moved on, but Chester asked: + +"What kind of advice do you want if not legal?" + +"Literary." + +The young man smiled: "Why, I'm not literary." + +"I think yes. You know Ovide Landry? Black man? Secon'-han' books, +Chartres Street, just yonder?" + +"Yes, very pleasantly, for I love old books." + +"Yes, and old buildings, and their histories. I know. You are now +going down, as I have just been, to see again the construction of that +old dome they are dim-olishing yonder, of the once state-house, +previously Hotel St. Louis. I know. Twice a day you pass my shop. I +am compelled to see, what Ovide also has told me, that, like me and my +wife, you have a passion for the _poetique_ and the _pittoresque_!" + +"Yes," Chester laughed, "but that's my limit. I've never written a +line for print----" + +"This writing is done, since fifty years." + +"I've never passed literary judgment on a written page and don't +suppose I ever shall." + +"The judgment is passed. The value of the article is pronounced +great--by an expert amateur." + +"SHE?" the youth silently asked himself. He spoke: "Why, then what +advice do you still want--how to find a publisher?" + +"No, any publisher will jump at that. But how to so nig-otiate that he +shall not be the lion and we the lamb!" + +Chester smiled again: "Why, if that's the point--" he mused. The hope +came again that this unusual shopman and his wish had something to do +with _her_. + +"If that's the advice you want," he resumed, "I think we might construe +it as legal, though worth at the most a mere notarial fee." + +"And contingent on--?" the costumer prompted. + +"Contingent, yes, on the author's success." + +"Sir! I am not the author of a manuscript fifty years old!" + +"Well, then, on the holder's success. You can agree to that, can't +you?" + +"'Tis agreed. You are my counsel. When will you see the manuscript?" + +"Whenever you choose to leave it with me." + +The costumer's smile was firm: "Sir, I cannot permit that to pass from +my hand." + +"Oh! then have a copy typed for me." + +The Creole soliloquized: "That would be expensive." Then to Chester: +"Sir, I will tell you; to-night come at our parlor, over the shop. I +will read you that!" + +"Shall we be alone?" asked Chester, hoping his client would say no. + +"Only excepting my"--a tender brightness--"my wife!" Then a shade of +regret: "We are without children, me and my wife." + +His wife. H'mm! _She_? That amazing one who had vanished within a +few yards of his bazaar of "masques et costumes"? Though to Chester +New Orleans was still new, and though fat law-books and a slim purse +kept him much to himself, he was aware that, while some Creoles grew +rich, many of them, women, once rich, were being driven even to stand +behind counters. Yet no such plight could he imagine of that +bewildering young--young luminary who, this second time, so out of +time, had gleamed on him from mystery's cloud. His earlier hope came a +third time: "Excepting only your wife, you say? Why not also your +amateur expert?" + +"I am sorry, but"--the Latin shrug--"that is--that is not possible." + +"Have I ever seen your wife? She's not a tallish, slender young-----?" + +"No, my wife is neither. She's never in the street or shop. She has +no longer the cap-acity. She's become so extraordinarily _un_-slender +that the only way she can come down-stair' is backward. You'll see. +Well,"--he waved--"till then--ah, a word: my close bargaining--I must +explain you that--in confidence. 'Tis because my wife and me we are +anxious to get every picayune we can get for the owners--of that +manuscript." + +Chester thought to be shrewd: "Oh! is _she_ hard up? the owner?" + +"The owners are three," Castanado calmly said, "and two dip-end on the +earnings of a third." He bowed himself away. + +A few hours later Chester received from him a note begging indefinite +postponement of the evening appointment. Mme. Castanado had fever and +probably _la grippe_. + + + + +II + +Early one day some two weeks after the foregoing incident the young +lawyer came out of his _pension francaise_, opposite his office, and +stood a moment in thought. In those two weeks he had not again seen +Mr. Castanado. + +Once more it was scant half past eight. He looked across to the +windows of his office and of one bare third-story sleeping-room over +it. Eloquent windows! Their meanness reminded him anew how definitely +he had chosen not merely the simple but the solitary life. Yet now he +turned toward Royal Street. But at the third or fourth step he faced +about toward Chartres. The distance to the courthouse was the same +either way, and its entrances were alike on both streets. + +Thought he as he went the Chartres Street way: "If I go _one more time_ +by way of Royal I shall owe an abject apology, and yet to try to offer +it would only make the matter worse." + +He went grimly, glad to pay this homage of avoidance which would have +been more to his credit paid a week or so earlier. His frequent +failure to pay it had won him, each time, a glimpse of _her_ and an +itching fear that prying eyes were on him inside other balconied +windows besides those of the unslender Mme. Castanado. + +Temptation is a sly witch. Down at Conti Street, on the court-house's +upper riverside corner, he paused to take in the charm of one of the +most picturesque groups of old buildings in the _vieux carre_. But +there, to gather in all the effect, one must turn, sooner or later, and +include the upper side of Conti Street from Chartres to Royal; and as +Chester did so, yonder, once more, coming from Bourbon and turning from +Conti into Royal, there she was again, the avoided one! + +Her black cupid was at her side, tiny even for nine years. They +disappeared conversing together. With his heart in his throat Chester +turned away, resumed his walk, and passed into the marble halls where +justice dreamt she dwelt. Up and down one of these, little traversed +so early, he paced, with a question burning in his breast, which every +new sigh of mortification fanned hotter: _Had she seen him_?--this +time? those other times? And did those Castanados suspect? Was that +why Mme. Castanado had the grippe, and the manuscript was yet unread? + +A voice spoke his name and he found himself facing the very black +dealer in second-hand books. + +"I was yonder at Toulouse Street," said Ovide Landry, "coming up-town, +when I saw you at Conti coming down. I have another map of the old +city for you. At that rate, Mr. Chester, you'll soon have as good a +collection as the best." + +The young man was pleased: "Does it show exactly where Maspero's +Exchange stood?" he asked. + +Ovide said come to the shop and see. + +"I will, to-day; at six." Another man came up, "Ah, Mr. Castanado! +How--how is your patient?" + +"Madame"--the costumer smiled happily--"is once more well. I was +looking for you. You didn't pass in Royal Street this morning." + +[Ah, those eyes behind those windows behind those balconies!] + +"No, I--oh! going, Landry? Good day. No, Mr. Castanado, I----" + +"Madame hopes Mr. Chezter can at last, this evening, come at home for +that reading." + +"Mr. Castanado, I can't! I'm mighty sorry! My whole evening's +engaged. So is to-morrow's. May I come the next evening after? . . . +Thank you. . . . Yes, at seven. Just the three of us, of course? +Yes." + + + + +III + +Six o'clock found Chester in Ovide's bookshop. + +Had its shelves borne law-books, or had he not needed for law-books all +he dared spend, he might have known the surprisingly informed and refined +shopman better. Ovide had long been a celebrity. Lately a brief summary +of his career had appeared incidentally in a book, a book chiefly about +others, white people. "You can't write a Southern book and keep us out," +Ovide himself explained. + +Even as it was, Chester had allowed himself that odd freedom with Landry +which Southerners feel safe in under the plate armor of their race +distinctions. Receiving his map he asked, as he looked along a shelf or +two: "Have you that book that tells of you--as a slave? your master +letting you educate yourself; your once refusing your freedom, and your +being private secretary to two or three black lieutenant-governors?" + +"I had a copy," Landry said, "but I've sold it. Where did you hear of +it? From Rene Ducatel, in his antique-shop, whose folks 'tis mostly +about?" + +"Yes. An antique himself, in spirit, eh? Yet modern enough to praise +you highly." + +"H'mm! but only for the virtues of a slave." + +Chester smiled round from the shelves: "I noticed that! I'm afraid we +white folks, the world over, are prone to do that--with you-all." + +"Yes, when you speak of us at all." + +"Ducatel's opposite neighbor," Chester remarked, "is an antique even more +interesting." + +"Ah, yes! Castanado is antique only in that art spirit which the tourist +trade is every day killing even in Royal Street." + +"That's the worst decay in this whole decaying quarter," the young man +said. + +"And in all this deluge of trade spirit," Ovide continued, "the best dry +land left of it--of that spirit of art--is----" + +"Castanado's shop, I dare say." + +"Castanado's and three others in that one square you pass every day +without discovering the fact. But that's natural; you are a busy lawyer." + +"Not so very. What are the other three?" + +"First, the shop of Seraphine Alexandre, embroideries; then of Scipion +Beloiseau, ornamental ironwork, opposite Mme. Seraphine and next below +Ducatel--Ducatel, alas, he don't count; and third, of Placide La Porte, +perfumeries, next to Beloiseau. That's all." + +"Not the watchmaker on the square above?" + +"Ah! distantly he's of them: and there _was_ old Manouvrier, taxidermist; +but he's gone--where the spirits of art and of worship are twin." + +Chester turned sharply again to the shelves and stood rigid. From an +inner room, its glass door opened by Ovide's silver-spectacled wife, came +the little black cupid and his charge. Ah, once more what perfection in +how many points! As she returned to Ovide an old magazine, at last he +heard her voice--singularly deep and serene. She thanked the bookman for +his loan and, with the child, went out. + +It disturbed the Southern youth to unbosom himself to a black man, but he +saw no decent alternative: "Landry, I had not the faintest idea that that +young lady was nearer than Castanado's shop!" + +Ovide shook his head: "You seem yourself to forget that you are here by +business appointment. And what of it if you have seen her, or she seen +you, here--or anywhere?" + +"Only this: that I've met her so often by pure--by chance, on that square +you speak of, I bound for the court-house, she for I can't divine +where--for I've never looked behind me!--that I've had to take another +street to show I'm a gentleman. This very morn'--oh!--and now! here! +How can I explain--or go unexplained?" + +Ovide lifted a hand: "Will you leave that to my wife, so unlearned yet so +wise and good? For the young lady's own sake my wife, _without_ +explaining, will see that you are not misjudged." + +"Good! Right! Any explanation would simply belie itself. Yes, let her +do it! But, Landry----" + +"Yes?" + +"For heaven's sake don't let her make me out a goody-goody. I haven't +got this far into life without making moral mistakes, some of them huge. +But in this thing--I say it only to you--I'm making none. I'm neither a +marrying man, a villain, nor an ass." + +Ovide smiled: "My wife can manage that. Maybe it's good you came here. +It may well be that the young lady herself would be glad if some one +explained her to you." + +"Hoh! does an angel need an explanation?" + +"I should say, in Royal Street, yes." + +"Then for mercy's sake give it! right here! you! come!" The youth +laughed. "Mercy to me, I mean. But--wait! Tell me; couldn't Castanado +have given it, as easily as you?" + +"You never gave Castanado this chance." + +"How do you know that? Oh, never mind, go ahead--full speed." + +"Well, she's an orphan, of a fine old family----" + +"Obviously! Creole, of course, the family?" + +"Yes, though always small in Louisiana. Creole except one New England +grandmother. But for that one she would not have been here just now." + +"Humph! that's rather obscure but--go on." + +"Her parents left her without a sou or a relation except two maiden aunts +as poor as she." + +"Antiques?" + +"Yes. She earns their living and her own." + +"You don't care to say how?" + +"She wouldn't like it. 'Twould be to say where." + +"She seems able to dress exquisitely." + +"Mr. Chester, a woman would see with what a small outlay that is done. +She has that gift for the needle which a poet has for the pen." + +"Ho! that's _charmingly_ antique. But now tell me how having a Yankee +grandmother caused her to drop in here just now. Your logic's dim." + +"You are soon to go to Castanado's to see that manuscript story, are you +not?" + +"Oh, is it a story? Have you read it?" + +"Yes, I've read it, 'tis short. They wanted my opinion. And 'tis a +story, though true." + +"A story! Love story? very absorbing?" + +"No, it is not of love--except love of liberty. Whether 'twill absorb +you or no I cannot say. Me it absorbed because it is the story of some +of my race, far from here and in the old days, trying, in the old vain +way, to gain their freedom." + +"Has--has mademoiselle read it?" + +"Certainly. It is her property; hers and her two aunts'. Those two, +they bought it lately, of a poor devil--drinking man--for a dollar. They +had once known his mother, from the West Indies." + +"He wrote it, or his mother?" + +"The mother, long ago. 'Tis not too well done. It absorbs mademoiselle +also, but that is because 'tis true. When I saw that effect I told her +of a story like it, yet different, and also seeming true, in this old +magazine. And when I began to tell it she said, 'It _is_ true! My +Vermont _grand'mere_ wrote that! It happened to her!'" + +"How queer! And, Landry, I see the connection. Your magazine being one +of a set, you couldn't let her read it anywhere but here." + +"I have to keep my own rules." + +"Let me see it. . . . Oh, now, why not? What was the use of either of +us explaining if--if----?" + +But Ovide smilingly restored the thing to its stack. "Now," he said, +"'tis Mr. Chester's logic that fails." Yet as he turned to a customer he +let Chester take it down. + +"My job requires me," the youth said, "to study character. Let's see +what a _grand'mere_ of a '_tite-fille_, situated so and so, will do." + +Ovide escorted his momentary customer to the sidewalk door. As he +returned, Chester, rolling map and magazine together, said: + +"It's getting dark. No, don't make a light, it's your closing time and +I've a strict engagement. Here's a deposit for this magazine; a fifty. +It's all I have--oh, yes, take it, we'll trade back to-morrow. You must +keep your own rules and I must read this thing before I touch my bed." + +"Even the first few lines absorb you?" + +"No, far from it. Look here." Chester read out: "'_Now, Maud,' said my +uncle_--Oh, me! Landry, if the tale's true why that old story-book pose?" + +"It may be that the writer preferred to tell it as fiction, and that only +something in me told me 'tis true. Something still tells me so." + +"'_Now, Maud_,'" Chester smilingly thought to himself when, the evening's +later engagement being gratifyingly fulfilled, he sat down with the +story. "And so you were grand'mere to our Royal Street miracle. And you +had a Southern uncle! So had I! though yours was a planter, mine a +lawyer, and yours must have been fifty years the older. Well, '_Now, +Maud_,' for my absorption!" + +It came. Though the tale was unamazing amazement came. The four chief +characters were no sooner set in motion than Chester dropped the pamphlet +to his knee, agape in recollection of a most droll fact a year or two +old, which now all at once and for the first time arrested his attention. +He also had a manuscript! That lawyer uncle of his, saying as he spared +him a few duplicate volumes from his law library, "Burn that if you don't +want it," had tossed him a fat document indorsed: "_Memorandum of an +Early Experience_." Later the nephew had glanced it over, but, like +"Maud's" story, its first few lines had annoyed his critical sense and he +had never read it carefully. The amazing point was that "_Now, Maud_" +and this "_Memorandum_" most incredibly--with a ridiculous nicety--fitted +each other. + +He lifted the magazine again and, beginning at the beginning a third +time, read with a scrutiny of every line as though he studied a witness's +deposition. And this was what he read: + + + + +IV + +THE CLOCK IN THE SKY + +"Now, Maud," said uncle jovially as he, aunt, and I drove into the +confines of their beautiful place one spring afternoon of 1860, "don't +forget that to be too near a thing is as bad for a good view of it as +to be too far away." + +I was a slim, tallish girl of scant sixteen, who had never seen a +slaveholder on his plantation, though I had known these two for years, +and loved them dearly, as guests in our Northern home before it was +broken up by the death of my mother. Father was an abolitionist, and +yet he and they had never had a harsh word between them. If the +general goodness of those who do some particular thing were any proof +that that particular thing is good to do, they would have convinced me, +without a word, that slaveholding was entirely right. But they were +not trying to do any such thing. "Remember," continued my uncle, +smiling round at me, "your dad's trusting you not to bring back our +honest opinion--of anything--in place of your own." + +"Maud," my aunt hurried to put in, for she knew the advice I had just +heard was not the kind I most needed, "you're going to have for your +own maid the blackest girl you ever saw." + +"And the best," added my uncle; "she's as good as she is black." + +"She's no common darky, that Sidney," said aunt. "She'll keep you busy +answering questions, my dear, and I say now, you may tell her anything +she wants to know; we give you perfect liberty; and you may be just as +free with Hester; that's her mother; or with her father, Silas." + +"We draw the line at Mingo," said uncle. + +"And who is Mingo?" I inquired. + +"Mingo? he's her brother; a very low and trailing branch of the family +tree." + +As we neared the house I was told more of the father and mother; their +sweet content, their piety, their diligence. "If we lived in town, +where there's better chance to pick up small earnings," remarked uncle, +"those two and Sidney would have bought their freedom by now, and +Mingo's too. Silas has got nearly enough to buy his own, as it is." + +Silas, my aunt explained, was a carpenter. "He hands your uncle so +much a week; all he can make beyond that he's allowed to keep." The +carriage stopped at the door; half a dozen servants came, smiling, and +I knew Sidney and Hester at a glance, they were so finely different +from their fellows. + +That night the daughter and I made acquaintance. She was eighteen, +tall, lithe and as straight as an arrow. She had not one of the +physical traits that so often make her race uncomely to our eyes; even +her nose was good; her very feet were well made, her hands were slim +and shapely, the fingers long and neatly jointed, and there was nothing +inky in her amazing blackness, her red blood so enriched it. Yet she +was as really African in her strong, eager mind as in her color, and +the English language, on her tongue, was like a painter's palette and +brushes in the hands of a monkey. Her first question to me after my +last want was supplied came cautiously, after a long gaze at my lighted +lamp, from a seat on the floor. "Miss Maud, when was de conwention o' +coal-oil 'scuvvud?" And to her good night she added, in allusion to my +eventual return to the North, "I hope it be a long time afo' you make +dat repass!" + +At the next bedtime she began on me with the innocent question of my +favorite flower, but I had not answered three other questions before +she had placed me where I must either say I did not believe in the +right to hold slaves, or must keep silence; and when I kept silence of +course she knew. For a long moment she dropped her eyes, and then, +with a soft smile, asked if I would tell her some Bible stories, +preferably that of "Moses in de boundaries o' Egyp'." + +She listened in gloating silence, rarely interrupting; but at the +words, "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, 'Let my people go,'" the +response, "Pra-aise Gawd!" rose from her lips in such volume that she +threw her hands to her mouth. After that she spoke only soft queries, +but they grew more and more significant, and I soon saw that her +supposed content was purely a pious endurance, and that her soul felt +bondage as her body would have felt a harrow. So I left the fugitives +of Egyptian slavery under the frown of the Almighty in the wilderness +of Sin; Sidney was trusting me; uncle and aunt were trusting me; and +between them I was getting into a narrow corner. After a meditative +silence my questioner asked: + +"Miss Maud, do de Bible anywhuz capitulate dat Moses aw Aaron aw +Joshaway aw Cable _buy_ his freedom--wid money?" + +Her manner was childlike, yet she always seemed to come up out of deep +thought when she asked a question; she smiled diffidently until the +reply began to come, then took on a reverential gravity, and as soon as +it was fully given sank back into thought. "Miss Maud, don't you +reckon dat ef Moses had a-save' up money enough to a-boughtened his +freedom, dat'd a-been de wery sign mos' pleasin' to Gawd dat he 'uz +highly fitten to be sot free widout paying?" To that puzzle she waited +for no answer beyond the distress I betrayed, but turned to matters +less speculative, and soon said good night. + +On the third evening--my! If I could have given all the topography of +the entire country between uncle's plantation and my native city on the +margin of the Great Lakes, with full account of its every natural and +social condition, her questions would have wholly gathered them in. +She asked if our climate was very hard on negroes; what clothing we +wore in summer, and how we kept from freezing in midwinter; about +wages, the price of food, what crops were raised, and what the +"patarolers" did with a negro when they caught one at night without a +pass. + +She made me desperate, and when the fourth night saw her crouched on my +floor it found me prepared; I plied her with questions from start to +finish. She yielded with a perfect courtesy; told of the poor lot of +the few free negroes of whom she knew, and of the time-serving and +shifty indolence, the thievishness, faithlessness, and unaspiring +torpidity of "some niggehs"; and when I opened the way for her to speak +of uncle and aunt she poured forth their praises with an ardor that +brought her own tears. I asked her if she believed she could ever be +happy away from them. + +She smiled with brimming eyes: "Why, I dunno, Miss Maud; whatsomeveh +come, and whensomeveh, and howsomeveh de Lawd sen' it, ef us feels his +ahm und' us, us ought to be 'shame' not to be happy, oughtn't us?" All +at once she sprang half up: "I tell you de Lawd neveh gi'n no niggeh de +rights to snuggle down anywhuz an' fo'git de auction-block!" + +As suddenly the outbreak passed, yet as she settled down again her +exaltation still showed through her fond smile. "You know what dat +inqui'ance o' yone bring to my 'memb'ance? Dass ow ole Canaan hymn---- + + "'O I mus' climb de stony hill + Pas' many a sweet desiah, + De flow'ry road is not fo' me, + I follows cloud an' fiah.'" + +After she was gone I lay trying so to contrive our next conversation +that it should not flow, as all before it had so irresistibly done, +into that one deep channel of her thoughts which took in everything +that fell upon her mind, as a great river drinks the rains of all its +valleys. Presently the open window gave me my cue: the stars! the +unvexed and unvexing stars, that shone before human wrongs ever began, +and that will be shining after all human wrongs are ended--our talk +should be of them. + + + + +V + +At the supper-table on the following evening I became convinced of +something which I had felt coming for two or three days, wondering the +while whether Sidney did not feel the same thing. When we rose aunt +drew me aside and with caressing touches on my brow and temples said +she was sorry to be so slow in bringing me into social contact with the +young people of the neighboring plantations, but that uncle, on his +arrival at home, had found a letter whose information had kept him, and +her as well, busy every waking hour since. "And this evening," she +continued, "we can't even sit down with you around the parlor lamp. +Can you amuse yourself alone, dear, or with Sidney, while your uncle +and I go over some pressing matters together?" + +Surely I could. "Auntie, was the information--bad news?" + +"It wasn't good, my dear; I may tell you about it to-morrow." + +"Hadn't I better go back to father at once?" + +"Oh, my child, not for our sake; if you're not too lonesome we'd rather +keep you. Let me see; has Mingo ever danced for you? Why, tell Sidney +to make Mingo come dance for you." + +Mingo came; his leaps, turns, postures, steps, and outcries were a most +laughable wonder, and I should have begged for more than I did, but I +saw that it was a part of Sidney's religion to disapprove the dance. + +"Sidney," I said, "did you ever hear of the great clock in the sky? +Yes, there's one there; it's made all of stars." We were at the foot +of some veranda steps that faced the north, and as she and Mingo were +about to settle down at my feet I said if they would follow me to the +top of the flight I would tell this marvel: what the learned believed +those eternal lamps to be; why some were out of view three-fourths of +the night, others only half, others not a quarter; how a very few never +sank out of sight at all except for daylight or clouds, and yet went +round and round with all the others; and why I called those the clock +of heaven; which gained, each night, four minutes, and only four, on +the time we kept by the sun. + +"Pra-aise Gawd!" murmured Sidney. "Miss Maud, please hol' on tell +Mingo run' fetch daddy an' mammy; dey don't want dat sto'y f'om me +secon' haynded!" Mingo darted off and we waited. "Miss Maud, what de +white folks mean by de nawth stah? Is dey sich a stah as de nawth +stah?" + +I tried to explain that since all this seeming movement of the stars +around us was but our own daily and yearly turning, there would +necessarily be two opposite points on our earth which would never move +at all, and that any star directly in line with those two points would +seem as still as they. + +"Like de p'int o' de spin'le on de spinnin'-wheel, Miss Maud? Oh, +yass, I b'lieve I un'stand dat; I un'stan' it some." + +I showed her the north star, and told her how to find it; and then I +took from my watch-guard a tiny compass and let her see how it forever +picked out from among all the stars of heaven that one small light, and +held quiveringly to it. She hung over it with ecstatic sighs. "Do it +_see_ de stah, Miss Maud, like de wise men o' de Eas' see de stah o' +Jesus?" + +I tried to make plain the law it was obeying. + +"And do it p'int dah dess de same in de broad day, an' all day +long?--Pra-aise Gawd! And do it p'int dah in de rain, an' in de stawmy +win' a-fulfillin' of his word, when de ain't a single stah admissible +in de ske-eye?--De Lawd's na-ame be pra-aise'!" Her father, mother, +and brother were all looking at it with her, now, and she glanced from +one to another with long heavings of rapture. + +"Miss Maud," said Silas, in a subdued voice, "dat little trick mus' 'a' +cos' you a mint o' money." + +"Silas," put in Hester, "you know dass not a pullite question!" But +she was ravening for its answer, and I said I had bought it for +twenty-five cents. They laughed with delight. Yet, when I told +Sidney she might have it, her thanks were but two words, which her lips +seemed to drop unconsciously while she gazed on the trinket. + +They all sat down on the steps nearest below me, and presently, +beginning where I had begun with Sidney, I went on to point out the +polar constellations and to relate the age-worn story of Cepheus and +Cassiopeia, Andromeda and the divine Perseus. + +"Lawd, my Lawd !" whispered the mother, "was dey--was dey colo'd?" + +I said two of them were king and queen of Ethiopia, and a third was +their daughter. + +"Chain' to de rock, an' yit sa-ave at las'!" exclaimed Sidney. + +While her husband and children still gazed at the royal stars, Hester +spoke softly to me again. "Miss Maud, dass a tryin' sawt o' sto'y to +tell to a bunch o' po' niggehs; did you dess make dat up--fo' us?" + +"Why, Hester," I said, "that was an old, old story before this country +was ever known to white folks, or black," and the eyes of all four were +on me as the daughter asked: "Ain't it in de Bi-ible?" + +As all but Sidney bade me good night, I heard her say; "I don' care, I +b'lieb dat be'n in de Bible an' git drap out by mista-ake!" + +In my room she grew queerly playful, and continued so until she had +drawn off my shoes and stockings. But then abruptly, she took my feet +in her slim black hands, and with eyes lifted tenderly to mine, said: +"How bu'ful 'pon de mountain is dem wha' funnish good tidin's!" She +leaned her forehead on my insteps: "Us bleeged to paht some day, Miss +Maud." + +I made a poor effort to lift her, but she would not be displaced. +"Cayn't no two people count fo' sho' on stayin' togetheh al'ays in dis +va-ain worl'," and all at once I found my face in my hands and the salt +drops searching through my fingers; Sidney was kissing my feet and +wetting them with her tears. + +At close of the next day, a Sabbath, my uncle and aunt called all their +servants around the front steps of the house and with tears more bitter +than any of Sidney's or mine, told them that by the folly of others, +far away, they had lost their whole fortune at one stroke and must part +with everything, and with them, by sale. Their dark hearers wept with +them, and Silas, Hester, and Sidney, after the rest had gone back to +the quarters, offered the master and mistress, through many a quaintly +misquoted scripture, the consolations of faith. + +"I wish we had set you free, Silas," said uncle, "you and yours, when +we could have done it. Your mistress and I are going to town to-morrow +solely to get somebody to buy you, all four, together." + +"Mawse Ben," cried the slave, with strange earnestness, "don't you do +dat! Don't you was'e no time dat a-way! You go see what you can +sa-ave fo' you-all an' yone!" + +"For the creditors, you mean, Silas," said my aunt; "that's done." + +Hester had a question. "Do it all go to de credito's anyhow, Miss +'Liza, no matteh how much us bring?" and when aunt said yes, Sidney +murmured to her mother, "I tol' you dat." I wondered when she had told +her. + +Uncle and aunt tried hard to find one buyer for the four, but failed; +nobody who wanted the other three had any use for Mingo. It was after +nightfall when they came dragging home. "Now don't you fret one bit +'bout dat, Mawse Ben," exclaimed Sidney, with a happy heroism in her +eyes that I remembered afterward. "'De Lawd is perwide!'" + +"Strange," said my aunt to uncle and me aside, smiling in pity, "how +slight an impression disaster makes on their minds!" and that too I +remembered afterward. + +As soon as we were alone in my chamber, Sidney and I, she asked me to +tell her again of the clock in the sky, and at the end of her service +and of my recital she drew me to my window and showed me how promptly +she could point out the pole-star at the centre of the clock's vast +dial, although at our right a big moon was leaving the tree tops and +flooding the sky with its light. Toward this she turned, and lifting +an arm with the reverence of a priestess said, in impassioned monotone: + + "'De moon shine full at His comman' + An' all de stahs obey.'" + +She kissed my hand as she added good-by. "Why, Sidney!" I laughed, +"you mean good night, don't you?" + +She bent low, tittered softly, and then, with a swift return to her +beautiful straightness, said: "But still, Miss Maud, who eveh know when +dey say good night dat it ain't good-by?" She fondled my hand between +her two as she backed away, kissed it fervently again, and was gone. + +When I awoke my aunt stood in broad though sunless daylight at the +bedside, with the waking cup of coffee which it was Sidney's wont to +bring. I started from the pillow. "Oh! what--who--wh'--where's +Sidney? Why--how long has it been raining?" + +"It began at break of day," she replied, adding pensively, "thank God." + +"Oh! were we in such bad need of rain?" + +"_They_ were--precisely when it came. Rain never came straighter from +heaven." + +"They?"--I stared. + +"Yes; Silas and Hester--and Sidney--and Mingo. They must have started +soon after moonrise, and had the whole bright night, with its black +shadows, for going." + +"For going where, auntie; going where?" + +"Then the rain came in God's own hour," she continued, as if wholly to +herself, "and washed out their trail." + +I sprang from the bed. "Aunt 'Liza!" + +"Yes, Maud, they've run away, and if only they may _get_ away. God be +praised!" + +Of course, I cried like an infant. I threw myself upon her bosom. +"Oh, auntie, auntie, I'm afraid it's my fault! But when I tell you how +far I was from meaning it----" + +"Don't tell me a word, my child; I wish it were my fault; I'd like to +be in your shoes. And, I don't care how right slavery is, I'll never +own a darky again!" + + +One day some two months after, at home again with father. Just as I +was leaving the house on some errand, Sidney--ragged, wet, and +bedraggled as a lost dog--sprang into my arms. When I had got her +reclothed and fed I eagerly heard her story. Three of the four had +come safely through; poor Mingo had failed; if I ever tell of him it +must be at some other time. In the course of her tale I asked about +the compass. + +"Dat little trick?" she said fondly. "Oh, yass'm, it wah de salvation +o' de Lawd 'pon cloudy nights; but time an' ag'in us had to sepa'ate, +'llowin' fo' to rejine togetheh on de bank o' de nex' creek, an' which, +de Lawd a-he'pin' of us, h-it al'ays come to pass; an' so, afteh all, +Miss Maud, de one thing what stan' us de bes' frien' night 'pon night, +next to Gawd hisse'f, dat wah his clock in de ske-eye." + + + + +VI + +"Landry," Chester said next day, bringing back the magazine barely half +an hour after the book-shop had reopened, "that's a true story!" + +"Ah, something inside tells you?" + +"No need! You remember this, near the end? '_Poor Mingo had failed +[to escape]; if I ever tell of him it must be at another time_.' +Landry, it's so absurd that I hardly have the face to say it; I've +got--ha-ha-ha!--I've got a manuscript! and it fills that gap!" The +speaker whipped out the "Memorandum"; "Here's the story, by my own +uncle, of how the three got over the border and how Mingo failed. I'd +totally forgotten I had it. I disliked its beginning far more than I +did 'Maud's' yesterday. For I hate masks and costumes as much as Mr. +Castanado loves them; and a practical joke--which is what the story +begins with, in costume, though it soon leaves it behind--nauseates me. +Comical situation it makes for me, this 'Memorandum,' doesn't +it--turning up this way?" + +Ovide replied meditatively: "To lend it, even to me, would seem as +though you sought----" + +"It would put me in a false light! I don't like false lights." + +"It would mask and costume you." + +"Why, not so badly as if I were really in society; as, you know, I'm +not! The only place where any man, but especially a society man, can +properly seek a girl's society is in society. The more he's worthy to +meet her, the more hopelessly--I needn't say hopelessly, but +completely--he's cut off from meeting her any other way. Isn't that a +gay situation? Ha-ha-ha!" + +"You would probably move much in society, even Creole society, without +meeting mademoiselle; she has less time for it than you." + +"Is that so?" + +Cupid, the evening before, had carried a flat, square parcel like a +shop's account-books to be written up under the home lamp. Staring at +Landry, Chester rather dropped the words than spoke them: "Think of it! +The awful pity! For the like of her! Of her! Why, how on earth--? +No, don't tell! I know what I'd think of any other man following in +her wake and asking questions while hard fortune writes her history. A +girl like her, Landry, has no business with a history!" + +"Mr. Chester." + +"Yes?" + +"Has that 'Memorandum' never been printed? I can find out for you, in +_Poole's Index_." + +"Do it! It's good enough, and it's named as if to be printed. See? +'The Angel of----'" + +"Then why not have Mr. Castanado, while selecting a publisher for +mademoiselle's manuscript, select for both?" + +Chester shone: "Why--why, happy thought! I'll consider that, indeed +I will! Well, good mor'----" + +"Mr. Chester." + +"Well?" + +"Why did you want that new book yesterday?" + +"I've met that nice old man the book calls 'the judge,' and he's coaxed +me to break my rules and dine with him, at his home uptown, to-night." + +"I'm glad. Madame, his wife, was my young mistress when I was a slave. +I wish her granddaughter and his grandson--they also are married--were +not over in the war--Red Cross. You'd like them--and they would like +you." + +"Do they know mademoiselle?" + +"Indeed, yes! They are the best of her very few friends. But--the +Atlantic rolls between." + +Chester went out. In the rear door Ovide's wife appeared, knitting. +"Any close-ter?" she asked over her silver-bowed spectacles. + +"Some," he said, taking down _Poole's Index_. + +She came to his side and they placidly conversed. As she began to +leave him, "No," she said, "we kin wish, but we mustn' meddle. All any +of us want' or got any rights to want is to see 'em on speakin' terms. +F'om dat on, hands off. Leave de rest to de fitness o' things, de +everlast'n' fitness o' things!" + + + + +VII + +At the Castanados', the second evening after, Chester was welcomed into +a specially pretty living-room. But he found three other visitors. +Madame, seated on a sort of sofa for one, made no effort to rise. Her +face, for all its breadth, was sweet in repose and sweeter when she +spoke or smiled. Her hands were comparatively small and the play of +her vast arms was graceful as she said to a slim, tallish, comely woman +with an abundance of soft, well-arranged hair: + +"Seraphine, allow me to pres-ent Mr. Chezter." + +She explained that this Mme. Alexandre was her "neighbor of the next +door," and Chester remembered her sign: "Laces and Embroideries." + +"Scipion," said Castanado to a short, swarthy, broad-bearded man, "I +have the honor to make you acquaint' with my friend Mr. Chezter." + +Chester pressed the enveloping hand of "S. Beloiseau, Artisan in +Ornamental Iron-work." + +"Also, Mr. Chezter, Mr. Rene Ducatel; but with him you are already +acquaint', I think, eh?" + +Chester shook hands with a small, dapper, early-gray, superdignified +man, recalling his sign: "Antiques in Furniture, Glass, Bronze, Plate, +China, and Jewelry." M. Ducatel seemed to be already taking leave. +His "anceztral 'ome," he said, was far up-town; he had dropped in +solely to borrow--showing it--the _Courrier des Etats-Unis_. + +That journal, Castanado remarked to Chester as at a corner table he +poured him a glass of cordial, brought the war, the trenches, the poilu +and the boche closer than any other they knew. Beloiseau and Mme. +Alexandre, he softly explained, had come in quite unlooked-for to +discuss the great strife and might depart at any moment. Then the +reading! + +But Chester himself interested those two and they stayed. When he said +that Beloiseau's sidewalk samples had often made him covet some excuse +for going in and seeing both the stock and the craftsman, "That was +excuse ab-undant!" was the prompt response, and Castanado put in: + +"Scipion he'd rather, always, a non-buying connoisseur than a buying +Philistine." + +"Come any day! any hour!" said Beloiseau. + +Presently all five were talking of the surviving poetry of both +artistic and historic Royal Street. "Twenty year' ag-o," said the +ironworker, "looking down-street from my shop, there was not a building +in sight without a romantic story. My God! for example, that Hotel St. +Louis!" + +Chester--"had heard one or two of its episodes only the evening before, +at that up-town dinner, from a fine old down-town Creole, a fellow +guest, with whom he was to dine the next week." + +"Aha-a-a! precizely ac-rozz the street from Mme. Alexandre!" said the +hostess. "M'sieu' et Madame De l'Isle! Now I detec' that!" + +"Have they no son?--or--or daughter?" he asked. + +"Not any," Mme. Alexandre broke in with a significant sparkle; "juz' +the two al-lone." + +"They live over my shop," Beloiseau said. "You muz' know that double +gate nex' adjoining me." + +"Oh, that lovely piece of ironwork? I took that for a part of your +establishment." + +"I have only the uze of it with them. My _grandpere_ he made those +gate', for the father of Mme. De l'Isle, same year he made those great +openwork gate' of Hotel St. Louis. You speak of episode'! One summer, +renovating that hotel, they paint' those gate'--of iron openwork--in +imitation--_mon Dieu_!--of marbl'! _Ciel_! the tragedy of _that_! +Yes, they live over me; in the whole square, both side' the street, +last remaining of the 'igh society." + +When Mme. Alexandre finally rose to go, and had kissed the upturned +brow of her hostess, she went by an inner door and rear balcony. And +when Chester and Beloiseau began to take leave their host said to +Chester: + +"You dine with M. De l'Isle Tuesday. Well, if you'll come again here +the next evening we'll attend to--that business." + +"Wouldn't that be losing time? I can just as well come sooner." + +"No," said madame, "better that Wednesday." + +Chester was nettled, but he recovered when the ironworker walked with +him around into Bienville Street and at his _pension_ door lamented the +pathetic decay of the useful arts and of artistic taste, since the +advent of castings and machinery. The pair took such liking for each +other's tenets of beauty, morals, art, and life that Chester walked +back to the De l'Isle gates, and their parting at last was at the +corner half-way between their two domiciles. + +Meanwhile madame was saying to her spouse, "Aha! you see? The power of +prayer! Ab-ove all, for the he'pless! By day the fo' corner' of my +room, by night the fo' post' of my bed, are----" + +"Yes, _cherie_, I know." + +"Yes, they're to me for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John! Since three +days every time I heard the cathedral clock I've prayed to them; and +now----!" + +"Well, my angel? Now?" + +"Well, now! He's dining there next Tuesday!" + +"Truly. Yet even now we can only hope----" + +"Ah, no! Me, I can also continue to supplicate! From now till +Wednesday, every time that clock, I'll pray those four _evangelistes_! +and Thursday you'll see--the power of prayer! Oh, 'tis like _magique_, +that power of prayer!" + + + + +VIII + +On Tuesday evening Chester, a country boy yet now and then, was first +at the De l'Isles'. + +Madame lauded him. "Punctualitie! tha'z the soul of pleasure!" She +had begun to explain why her other guests included but one young lady, +when here they came. First, the Prieurs, a still handsome Creole +couple whom he never met again. Then that youthful-aged up-town pair, +the Thorndyke-Smiths. And last--while Smith held Chester captive to +tell him he knew his part of Dixie, having soldiered there in the Civil +War--the one young lady, Mlle. Chapdelaine. As Chester turned toward +her she turned away, but her back view was enough to startle him. + +"Aline," the hostess began as she brought them face to face, but +whatever she said more might as well have been a thunderbolt through +the roof. For Aline Chapdelaine was SHE. + +They went out together. What a stately dining-room! What carvings! +What old china and lace on the board, under what soft, rich +illumination! The Prieurs held the seats of honor. Chester was on the +hostess's left. Mademoiselle sat between him and Mr. Smith. It would +be pleasant to tell with what poise the youth and she dropped into +conversation, each intensely mindful--intensely aware that the other +was mindful--of that Conti Street corner, of Ovide's shop, and of "The +Clock in the Sky," and both alike hungry to know how much each had been +told about the other. Calmly they ignored all earlier encounter and +entered into acquaintance on the common ground of the poetry of the +narrow region of decay in which this lovely home lay hid "like a lost +jewel." + +"Ah, not quite lost yet," the girl protested. + +"No," he conceded, "not while the poetry remains," and Smith, on her +other hand, said: + +"Not while this cluster of shops beneath us is kept by those who now +keep them." + +"My faith!" the hostess broke in, "to real souls 'tis they are the +wonder--and the _poesie_--and the jewels! Ask Aline!" + +"Ask me," Chester said, as if for mademoiselle's rescue; "I discovered +them only last week." + +"And then also," quietly said Aline, "ask me, for I did not discover +them only last week." + +M. Prieur joining in enabled Chester to murmur: "May I ask you +something?" + +"You need not. You would ask if I knew you had discovered them--M. +Castanado and the rest." + +"And you would answer?" + +"That I knew they had discovered you." + +"Discovered, you mean, my spiritual substance?" + +"Yes, your spiritual substance. That's a capital expression, Mr. +Chester, your 'spiritual substance.' I must add that to my English." + +"Your English is wonderfully correct. May I ask something else?" + +"I can answer without. Yes, I know where you're going to-morrow and +for what; to read that old manuscript. Mr. Chester, that other +story--of my _grand'mere_, 'Maud'; how did you like that?" + +"It left me in love with your _grand'mere_." + +"Notwithstanding she became what they used to call--you know the word." + +"Yes, 'nigger-stealer.' How did you ever add that to your English?" + +"My father _was_ one. Right here in Royal Street. Hotel St. Louis. +Else he might never have married my--that's too long to tell here." + +"May I not hear it soon, at your home?" + +"Assuredly. Sooner or later. My aunts they are born raconteurs." + +"Oh! your aunts. Hem! Do you know? I had an uncle who once was your +grandfather's sort of robber, though a Southerner born and bred." + +"Yes, Ovide's wife told me. Will you permit me a question?" + +"No," laughed Chester, "but I can answer it. Yes. Those four poor +runaways to whom your sweet Maud showed the clock in the sky were the +same four my uncle helped on--oh, you've not heard it, and it also is +too long. I can lend you his 'Memorandum' if you'll have it." + +She hesitated. "N-no," she said. "Ah, no! I couldn't bear that +responsibility! Listen; Mr. Smith is going to tell a war story of the +city." + +But no, that gentleman's story was yet another too long for the moment +even when the men were left to their cigars. Instead he and Chester +made further acquaintance. When they returned to the ladies, "I want +you to talk with my wife," said Mr. Smith, and Chester obeyed. Yet +soon he was at mademoiselle's side again and she was saying in a +dropped voice: + +"To-morrow when you're at the Castanados' to read, so privately, would +you be willing for Mme. De l'Isle to be there--just madame alone?" + +Oh, but men are dull! "I'd be honored!" he said. "They can modify the +privacy as they please." Oh, but men are dull! There he had to give +place to M. Prieur and presently accepted some kind of social +invitation, seeing no way out of it, from the Smiths. So ended the +evening. Mlle. Chapdelaine was taken to her home, "close by," as she +said, in the Prieurs' carriage. + +"They are juz' arround in Bourbon Street, those Chapdelaines," said the +De l'Isles to Chester, last to go. "Y'ought to see their li'l' +flower-garden. Like those two aunt' that maintain it, 'tis unique. +Y'ought to see that--and them." + +"I have mademoiselle's permission," he replied. + +"Ah, well, then!--ha, ha!" The pair exchanged a smile which seemed to +the parting guest to say: "After all he's not so utterly deficient!" + + + + +IX + +Again the Castanados' dainty parlor, more dainty than ever. No one +there was in evening dress, though with its privacy "modified as the +Castanados pleased," it had gathered a company of seven. + +Chester, not yet come, would make an eighth. Madame was in her special +chair. And here, besides her husband, were both M. and Mme. De l'Isle, +Mme. Alexandre and Scipion Beloiseau. The seventh was M. Placide +Dubroca, perfumer; a man of fifty or so, his black hair and mustache +inclined to curl and his eyes spirited yet sympathetic. Just entered, +he was telling how consumed with regret his wife was, to be kept +away--by an old promise to an old friend to go with her to that +wonderful movie, "Les Trois Mousquetaires," when Chester came in and +almost at once a general debate on Mlle. Chapdelaine's manuscript was +in full coruscation. + +"In the firs' place," one said--though the best place he could seize +was the seventeenth--"firs' place of all--competition! My frien's, we +cannot hope to nig-otiate with that North in the old manner which we +are proud, a few of us yet, to _con_-tinue in the rue Royale. Every +publisher----" + +Mme. Castanado had a quotation that could not wait: "We got to be 'wise +like snake' an' innocent like pigeon'!'" + +"Precizely! Every publisher approach' mus' know he's bidding agains' +every other! Maybe they are honess men, and _if_ so they'll be +rij-oice'!" + +A non-listener was trying to squeeze in: "And sec'--and sec'--and +secon' thing--if not firs'--is guarantee! They mus' pay so much profit +in advance. Else it be better to publish without a publisher, and with +advertisement' front and back! Tiffany, Royal Baking-Powder, Ivory +Soap it Float'! Ten thousand dolla' the page that _Ladies' 'Ome +Journal_ get', and if we get even ten dolla' the page--I know a man +what make that way three hundred dolla'!" + +"He make that net or gross?" some one asked. + +"Ah! I think, not counting his time _sol_-iciting those +advertisement', he make it _nearly_ net." + +Chester made show of breaking in and three speakers at once begged him +to proceed: "How much of a book," he asked Mme. Castanado, "will the +manuscript make? How long is it?" + +She looked falteringly to her husband: "'Tis about a foot long, nine +inch' wide. Marcel, pazz that to monsieur." + +The husband complied. Chester counted the lines of one of the pages. +Madame watched him anxiously. + +"Tha'z too wide?" she inquired. + +"It isn't long enough to make a book. To do that would take--oh--seven +times as much." + +"Ah!" Madame's voice grew in sweetness as it rose: "So much the +better! So much the more room for those advertisement'!--and picture'!" + +"And portrait of mademoiselle!" said Mme. Alexandre, and Mme. De l'Isle +smiled assent. + +Yet a disappointed silence followed, presently broken by the perfumer: +"All the same, what is the matter to make it a pamphlet?" + +Beloiseau objected: "No, then you compete aggains' those magazine'. +But if you permit one of those magazine' to buy it you get the +advantage of all the picture' in the whole magazine." + +"Ah!" several demurred, "and let that magazine swallow whole all those +profit' of all those advertisement'!" + +Chester spoke: "I have an idea--" But others had ideas and the floor +besides. + +Castanado lifted a hand: "Frien'--our counsel." + +Counsel tried again: "I have a conviction that we should first offer +this to a magazine--through--yes, of course, through some influential +friend. If one doesn't want it another may----" + +Chorus: "Ho! they will all want it! That was not written laz' night! +'Tis fivty year' old; they cannot rif-use that!" + +"However," Chester persisted, "if they should--if all should--I'd +advise----" + +"Frien's," Castanado pleaded, "let us hear." + +"I should advise that we gather together as many such old narratives as +we can find, especially such as can be related to one another----" + +"They need not be ril-ated!" cried Dubroca. "_We_ are not ril-ated, +and yet see! Ril-ated? where you are goin' to find them, ril-ated?" + +"Royal Street!" Scipion retorted. "Royal Street is pave' with old +narration'!" + +"Already," said Castanado, "we chanze to have three or four. +Mademoiselle has that story of her _grand'mere_, and Mr. Chezter he +has--sir, you'll not care if I tell that?--Mr. Chezter has _the sequal +to that_, and written by his uncle!" + +"Yes," Chester put in, "but Ovide Landry finds it was printed years +ago." + +"Proof!" proclaimed Mme. Alexandre, "proof that 'tis good to print +ag-ain! The people that read that before, they are mozely dead." + +"At the same time," Chester responded, rising and addressing the chair, +his hostess, "because that is a sequel to the _grand'-mere's_ story, +and because _this_--this West Indian episode--is not a sequel and has +no sequel, and particularly because we ought to let mademoiselle be +first to judge whether my uncle's _memorandum_ is fit company for her +two stories, I propose, I say, that before we read this West Indian +thing we read my uncle's _memorandum_, and that we send and beg her to +come and hear it with us. It's in my pocket." + +Patter, patter, patter, went a dozen hands. + +"Marcel," the hostess cried in French, "go!" + +"I will go with you," Mme. Alexandra proposed, "she will never come +without me." + +"Tis but a step," said Mme. De l'Isle, "the three of us will go +together." They went. + +Those who waited talked on of their city's true stories. The vastest +and most monstrous war in human history was smoking and roaring just +across the Atlantic, and in it they had racial, national, personal +interests; but for the moment they left all that aside. "One troub'," +Dubroca said, "'tis that all those three stone'--and all I can +rim-ember--even that story of M'sieu' Smith about the fall of the +city--1862--they all got in them _somewhere_, alas! the nigger. The +_publique_ they are not any longer pretty easy to fascinate on that +subjec'." + +"Ho!" Beloiseau rejoined, "_au contraire_, he's an advantage! If only +you keep him for the back-_ground_; biccause in the mind of +every-_body_ tha'z where he is, and that way he has the advantage to +ril-ate those storie' together and----" + +Mademoiselle came. Her arrival, reception, installation near the +hostess and opposite Chester are good enough untold. If elsewhere in +that wide city a like number ever settled down to listen to an untamed +writer's manuscript in as sweet content with one another _their_ story +ought to be printed. "Well," Mme. Castanado chanted, "commence." And +Chester read: + + + + +X + +THE ANGEL OF THE LORD + +When I was twenty-four I lived at the small capital of my native +Southern State. + +My parental home was three counties distant. My father, a slaveholding +planter, was a noble gentleman, whom I loved as he loved me. But we +could not endure each other's politics and I was trying to exist on my +professional fees, in the law office of one of our ex-governors. I was +kindly tolerated by everybody about me but had neglected social +relations, being a black sheep on every hot question of the time--1860. + +In the world's largest matters my Southern mother had the sanest +judgment I ever knew, and it was from her I had absorbed my notions on +slavery. It was at least as much in sympathy for the white man as for +the black that she deprecated it, yet she pointed out to me how idle it +was to fancy that any mere manumission of our slaves would cure us of a +whole philosophy of wealth, society, and government as inbred as it was +antiquated. + +One evening my two fellow boarders--state-house clerks, good boys--so +glaringly left me out of their plan for a whole day's fishing on the +morrow, that I smarted. I was so short of money that I could not have +supplied my own tackle, but no one knew that, and it stung me to be +slighted by two chaps I liked so well. I determined to be revenged in +some playful way that would make us better friends, and as I walked +down-street next morning I hit out a scheme. They had been gone since +daybreak and I was on my way to see a client who kept a livery-stable. + +Now, in college, where I had intended to leave all silly tricks behind +me, my most taking pranks had been played in female disguise; for at +twenty-four I was as beardless as a child. + +My errand to the stableman was to collect some part of my fee in a suit +I had won for him. But I got not a cent, for as to cash his victory +had been a barren one. However, a part of his booty was an old coach +built when carriage people made long journeys in their own equipages. +This he would "keep on sale for me free of charge," etc. + +"Which means you'll never sell it," I said. + +Oh, he could sell it if any man could! + +I smiled. Could he lend me, I asked, for half a day or so, a good span +of horses? He could. + +"Then hitch up the coach and let me try it." + +He bristled: "What are you going to find out by 'trying' it? What +d'you 'llow it'll do? Blow up? Who'll drive it? _I_ can't spare any +one." + +I was glad. Any man of his would know me, and my scheme called for a +stranger to both me and the coach. I must find such a person. + +"If I send a driver," I said, "you'll lend me the span, won't you?" + +"Oh, yes." + +But all at once I decided to do without the whole rig. I went back to +my room and had an hour's enjoyment making myself up as a lady dressed +for travel. For a woman I was of just a fine stature. In years I +looked a refined forty. My hands were not too big for black lace +mitts, my bosom was a success, and my feet, in thin morocco, were out +of sight and nobody's business. A little oil and a burnt match +darkened my eyebrows, my wig sat straight, under the weest of bonnets I +wore a chignon, behind one ear a bunch of curls, and, unseen at one +side of a modest bustle, my revolver. Though I say it myself, I +managed my crinoline with grace. + +["That was pritty co'rect," the costumer remarked. "Humph!" said +Chester. The three mesdames exchanged glances, and the reading went +on.] + + + + +XI + +Leaving a note on her door to tell our landlady that business would +keep me away an indefinite time, I got out at the front gate +unobserved, and with a sweet dignity that charmed me with myself walked +away under a bewitching parasol, well veiled. + +I knew where to find my two sportsmen. A few hundred paces put the +town and an open field at my back; a few more down a bushy lane brought +me where a dense wood overhung both sides of the narrow way, and the +damp air was full of the smell of penny-royal and of creek sands. From +here I proposed to saunter down through the woods to the creek, locate +my fishermen, and draw them my way by cries of distress. + +On their reaching my side my story, told through my veil and between +meanings and clingings, was to be that while on a journey in my own +coach, a part of its running-gear having broken, I had sent it on to be +mended; that through love of trees and wild flowers I had ventured to +stay alone meantime among them, and that a snake had bitten me on the +ankle. I should describe a harmless one but insist I was poisoned, and +yet refuse to show the wound or be borne back to the road, or to let +either man stay with me alone while the other went for a doctor, or to +drink their whiskey for a cure. On getting back to the road--with the +two fellows for crutches--I should send both to town for my coach, +keeping with me their tackle and fish. Then I should get myself and my +spoils back to our dwelling as best I could and--await the issue. If +this poor performance had so come off--but see what occurred instead! + +I had shut my parasol and moved into hiding behind some wild vines to +mop my face, when near by on the farther side of the way came slyly +into view a negro and negress. They were in haste to cross the road +yet quite as wishful to cross unseen. One, in home-spun gown and +sunbonnet, was ungainly, shoeless, bird-heeled, fan-toed, ragged, and +would have been painfully ugly but for a grotesqueness almost winsome. + +"She's a field-hand," was my thought. + +The other, in very clean shirt, trousers, and shoes, looking ten years +younger and hardly full-grown, was shapely and handsome. "That boy," +thought I, "is a house-servant. The two don't belong in the same +harness. And yet I'd bet a new hat they're runaways." + +Now they gathered courage to come over. With a childish parade of +unconcern and with all their glances up and down the road, they came, +and were within seven steps of me before they knew I was near. I shall +never forget the ludicrous horror that flashed white and black from the +eyes in that sun-bonnet, nor the snort with which its owner, like a +frightened heifer, crashed off a dozen yards into the brush and as +suddenly stopped. + +"Good morning, boy," I said to the other, who had gulped with +consternation, yet stood still. + +"Good mawnin', mist'ess." + +The feminine title came luckily. I had forgotten my disguise, so +disarmed was I by the refined dignity of the dark speaker's mellow +voice and graceful modesty. After all, my prejudices were Southern. I +had rarely seen negroes, at worship, work, or play, without an inward +groan for some way--righteous way--by which our land might be clean rid +of them. But here, in my silly disguise, confronting this unmixed +young African so manifestly superior to millions of our human swarm +white or black, my unsympathetic generalizations were clear put to +shame. The customary challenge, "Who' d'you belong to?" failed on my +lips, and while those soft eyes passed over me from bonnet to mitts I +gave my head as winsome a tilt as I could and inquired: "What is your +name?" + +"Me?" + +"Yes, you; what is it?" + +"I'm name', eh, Euonymus; yass'm." + +"Oh, boy, where'd your mother get that name?" + +"Why, mist'ess, ain't dat a Bible name?" + +"Oh, yes," I said, remembering Onesimus. With my parasol I indicated +the other figure, sunbonneted, motionless, gazing on us through the +brush. + +"Has she a Bible name too?" + +"Yass'm; Robelia." + +Robelia brought chin and shoulder together and sniggered. "Euonymus," +I asked, "have you seen two young gentlemen, fishing, anywhere near +here?" + +"Yass'm, dey out 'pon a san'bar 'bout two hund'ed yards up de creek." +The black finger that pointed was as clean as mine. + +"You and this woman," thought I again, "are dodging those men." With a +smile as of curiosity I looked my slim informant over once more. I had +never seen slavery so flattered yet so condemned. + +All at once I said in my heart: "You, my lad, I'll help to escape!" +But when I looked again at the absurd Robelia I saw I must help both +alike. + +"Euonymus, did you ever drive a lady's coach?" + +"Me? No'm, I never drove no lady's coach." + +"Well, boy, I'm travelling--in my own outfit." + +"Yass'm." + +"But I hire a new driver and span at each town and send the others +back." + +"Yass'm," said Euonymus. Robelia came nearer. + +"My coach is now at a livery-stable in town, and I want a driver and a +lady's maid." + +"Yass'm." + +"I'd prefer free colored people. They could come with me as far as +they pleased, and I shouldn't be responsible for their return." + +"Yass'm," said Euonymus, edging away from Robelia's nudge. + +"Now, Euonymus, I judge by your being out here in the woods this time +of day, idle, that you're both free, you and your sister, h'm?" + +"Ro'--Robelia an' me? Eh, ye'--yass'm, as you may say, in a manneh, +yass'm." + +"She is your sister, is she not?" + +"Yass'm," clapped in Robelia, with a happy grin, and Euonymus quietly +added: + +"Us full sisteh an' brotheh--in a manneh." + +"Umh'm. Could you drive my coach, Euonymus?" + +"What, me, mist'ess? Why, eh, o' co'se I kin drive _some_, but--" The +soft, honest eyes, seeking Robelia's, betrayed a mental conflict. I +guessed there were more than two runaways, and that Euonymus was +debating whether for Robelia's sake to go with me and leave the others +behind, or not. + +"You kin drive de coach," blurted the one-ideaed Robelia. "You knows +you kin." + +"No, mi'ss, takin' all roads as dey come I ain't no ways fitt'n'; no'm." + +"Well, daddy's fitt'n'!" said the sun-bonnet. + +Euonymus flinched, yet smilingly said: + +"Yass, da's so, but I ain't daddy, no mo'n you is." + +"Well, us kin go fetch him--in th'ee shakes." + +Euonymus flinched again, yet showed generalship. "Yass'm, us kin go ax +daddy." + +I smiled. "Let Robelia go and you stay here." + +Robelia waited on tiptoe. "Go fetch him," murmured Euonymus, "an' make +has'e." + +"Wait! You're a good boy, Euonymus, ain't you?" + +"I cayn't say dat, mi'ss; but I'm glad ef you thinks so." + +"Y' is good!" said Robelia. "You knows you is!" + +"Never mind," I said; "do you belong to--Zion?" + +The dark face grew radiant. "Yass'm, I does!" + +"Euonymus, how many more of you-all are there besides _daddy and +mammy_?" + +The surprise was cruel. The runaway's eyes let out a gleam of alarm +and then, as I lighted with kindness, filled with rapt wonder at my +miraculous knowledge: "Be'--be'--beside'--beside' d-daddy an' m-mammy? +D'ain't no mo', m-mist'ess; no'm!" + +"Yass'm," put in Robelia, "da's all; us fo'." + +"Just you four. Euonymus, a bit ago I noticed on your sister's ankles +some white mud." + +"Yass'm." Another gleam of alarm and then a fine, awesome courage. +Robelia stared in panic. + +"The nearest white mud--marl--in the State, Robelia, is forty miles +south of here." + +"Is d'--dat so, mist'ess?" + +"Yes, and so you also are travellers, Euonymus." + +"Trav'--y'--yass'm, I--I reckon you mought call us trav'luz, in a +manneh, yass'm." + +"Well, my next town is thirty miles north of----" + +"Nawth!" Euonymus broke in, thinking furiously. + +"Now, if instead of hiring just your sister and her daddy I should----" + +"Yass'm!" + +"Suppose I should take all four of you along, as though you were my +slaves----" + +"De time bein'," Euonymus alertly slipped in. + +"Certainly, that's all. How would that do?" + +"Oh, mist'ess! kin you work dat miracle?" + +"I can do it if it suits you." + +"Lawd, it suit' _us_! Dey couldn't be noth'n' mo' rep'ehensible!" + +Robelia vanished. Euonymus gazed into my eyes. + +[Had my disguise failed?] "What is it, boy?" + +"May I ax you a question, mi'ss?" + +"You may ask if you won't tell." + +"Oh, I won't tell! Is you a sho' enough 'oman?--Lawd, I knowd you +wa'n't! No mo'n you is a man! I seen it f'om de beginnin'!" + +"Why, boy, what do you imagine I am?" + +"Oh, I don't 'magine, I knows! 'T'uz me prayed Gawd to sen' you. Y' +ain't man, y' ain't 'oman! an' yit yo' bofe! Yo' de same what visit +Ab'am, an' Lot, an' Dan'l, and de motheh de Lawd!" + +"Stop! Stop! Never mind who I am; I've got to put you fifty miles +from here before bedtime." + +"Yes, my Lawd. Oh, yes, my Lawd!" + +"Euonymus! you mustn't call me that!" + +"Ain't dat what Ab'am called you?" + +"I forget! but--call me mistress!--only!" + +"Yass, suh--yass, mi'ss!" + +"Good. Now, lad, I can take you alone, horseback, which'll be far +swifter, safer, surer----" + +A new alarm, a new exaltation--"Oh, no, my--mist'ess; no, no! you knows +you on'y a-temptin' o' dy servant!" + +"You wouldn't leave daddy and mammy?" + +"Oh, daddy kin stick to mammy, an' her to he! but Robelia got neither +faith nor gumption, an' let me never see de salvation o' de Lawd ef I +cayn't stick by dat--by--by my po' Robelia!" + +"But suppose, my boy, we should be mistaken for runaways and tracked +and run down." + +"Yass'm, o' co'se. Yass'm." + +"Can you fight--for your sister?" + +"Yass, my La'--yass'm, I kin an' I will. I's qualified my soul to' +dat, suh; yass'm." + +"Dogs?" + +"Yass'm, dawgs. Notinstandin' de dawgs come pass me roun' about, in de +name o' de Lawd will I lif up my han' an' will perwail." + +"Have you only your hands?" + +"Da's all David had, ag'in lion an' bah." + +"True. Euonymus, I need a man's clothes." + +"Yass'm, on a pinch dey mowt come handy." + + + + +XII + +Here Robelia came again, conducting "Luke" and "Rebecca." Luke's +garments were amusingly, heroically patched, yet both seniors were +thoroughly attractive; not handsome, but reflecting the highest, +gentlest rectitude. One of their children had inherited all that was +best from both parents, beautifully exalting it; the other all that was +poorest in earlier ancestors. They were evolution and reversion +personified. + +The father was frank yet deferential. Our parley was brief. His only +pomp lay in his manner of calling me madam. I felt myself a queen. +Handing him a note to the stable-keeper, "You can read," I said, "can't +you? Or your son can?" + +"No, madam, I regrets to say we's minus dat." + +I hid my pleasure. "Well, at the stable, if they seem to think this +note is from a man, or that the coach is owned by a man----" + +"Keep silent," put in Euonymus, "an' see de counsel o' de Lawd +ovehcome." + +Luke went. I pencilled another note. It requested my landlady to give +Euonymus a hat, boots, and suit from my armoire and speed him back all +she could. (To avoid her queries.) + +Rebecca gazed anxiously after this second messenger. Robelia, near by, +munched blackberries. + +"Rebecca, did you ever think what you'd do if both your children were +in equal danger?" + +"Why, yass'm, I is studie' dat, dis ve'y day, ef de trufe got to be +tol'." + +Thought I: "If anything else has to be told, Robelia'll be my only +helper." I asked Rebecca which one she would try to save first. + +"Why, mist'ess, I could tell dat a heap sight betteh when de time come. +De Lawd mowt move me to do most fo' de one what least fitt'n' to"--she +choked--"to die. An' yit ag'in dat mowt depen' on de circumstances o' +de time bein'." + +"Well, it mustn't, Rebecca, it mustn't!" + +"Y'--yass'm--no'm'm! Mustn' it?" + +"No, in any case you must do as I tell you." + +"Oh, o' co'se! yass'm!" + +"So promise, now, that in any pinch you'll try first to save your son." + +"Yass'm." A pang of duplicity showed in her uplifted glance, yet she +murmured again: "Yass'm, I promise you dat." Nevertheless, I had my +doubts. + +A hum of voices told us my two anglers were approaching, and with +Rebecca's quieting hand on the pusillanimous Robelia we drew into +hiding and saw them cross the corner of a clearing and vanish again +downstream. Then, hearing the coach, we went to meet it. + +Both messengers were on the box. Euonymus passed me my bundle of +stuff. The coach turned round. Bidding Euonymus stay on the box I had +Rebecca and Robelia take the front seat inside. Following in I +remarked: "Good boy, that of yours, Luke." + +Luke bowed so reverently that I saw Euonymus's belief in me was not his +alone. "We thaynk de Lawd," Luke replied, "fo' boy an' gal alike; de +good Lawd sawnt 'em bofe." + +"Yet extra thanks for the son wouldn't hurt." + +Robelia buried a sob of laughter in the nearest cushion, and as we +rolled away gaped at me with a face on which a dozen flies danced and +played tag. And so we went----. + + +Chester ceased reading and stood up. For Mlle. Chapdelaine was rising. +All the men rose. + +"And so, also," she said, "I too must go." + +"Oh, but the story is juz' big-inning," Mme. Alexandra protested, and +Mme. De l'Isle said: + +"I'm sure 'twill turn out magnificent, yes!" + +Mademoiselle declared the tale fascinating. She "would be enchanted to +stay," but her aunts _must_ be considered, etc.; and when Chester +confessed the reading would require another session anyhow Mmes. De +l'Isle and Alexandre arose, and M. Castanado asked aloud if there was +any of the company who could not return a week from that evening. + +No one was so unlucky. "But!" cried Mme. Alexandre, "why not to my +parlor?" + +"Because!" said Mme. Castanado, to Chester's vivid enlightenment, +"every week-day, all day, you have mademoiselle with you." + +"With me, ah, no! me forever down in my shop, and mademoiselle +incessantly upstair'!" + +Mme. Castanado prevailed. That same room, one week later. + +Scipion and Dubroca escorted Mme. De l'Isle across to her beautiful +gates, and Chester, not in dream but in fact, with M. De l'Isle and +Mme. Alexandre following well in the rear, walked with mademoiselle to +the high fence and green batten wicket of her olive-scented garden in +the rue Bourbon. So walking, and urged by him, she began to tell of +matters in her father's life, the old Hotel St. Louis life before hers +began--matters that gave to "The Clock in the Sky" and "The Angel of +the Lord" a personal interest beyond all academic values. + +"We'll finish about that another time," she said, and with "another +time" singing in his heart like a taut wire he verily enjoyed the +rasping of the wicket's big lock as he turned away. + +The week wore round. Except M. De l'Isle, kept away by a meeting of +the Athenee Louisianais, all were regathered; one thing alone delayed +the reading. Each of the three women had separately asked her father +confessor how far one might justly--well--lie--to those seeking the +truth only for cruel and wicked ends. But as no two had received the +same answer, and as Chester's uncle was gone to his reward--or +penalty--the question was early tabled. "Well," Mme. Castanado said: +"'And so we went--' in the coach. Go on, read." + + + + +XIII + +And so we went, not through the town but around it. + +My attendants were heavy with sleep. Seating Rebecca next me I called +Euonymus into the coach and let mother, son, and daughter slumber at +ease. + +To the few persons we met I paraded my bonnet and curls. Some, in +Southern fashion, I questioned. I was a widow who had sold her +plantation in order to go and live with a widowed brother. Euonymus +too I showed off, who, waking at every halt, presented a face that +seemed any boy's rather than a runaway's. So natural to these Africans +was the supernatural that I could be one of the men who plucked Lot +from Sodom and yet a becurled widow. + +When at noon, at a farmhouse, we had fed horses and dined, I at the +planter's board, my "slaves" under the house-grove trees, Euonymus took +the lines, and for five hours Luke slept inside. Then they changed +places again, and Euonymus and I, face to face, watched the long hot +day wane, and pass through gorgeous changes into twilight. Often I saw +questions in the young eyes that watched me so reverently, but I dared +not encourage them; dared not be a talkative angel. Also my brain had +its questions. How was I to get out of the most perilous trap into +which a sane man--if sane I was--ever thrust himself? There was no +sign that we were being pursued, but it was a harrowing puzzle how, +without drawing suspicion upon the runaways, to get them once more +separated from me and the coach while I should vanish as a lady and +reappear as a gentleman. + +"Euonymus, boy, if I should by and by dress as a man could you put +these woman things on, over what you're wearing, and be a lady in my +place?" + +"Why, eh, y'--yass'm. Oh, yass'm, ef you say so, my--mistress; +howsomever, you know what de good book say' 'bout de Ethiopium." + +"Can't change--yes, I know; but this would be only for an hour or two +and in the dark." + +"It'd have to be pow'ful dahk," sighed Euonymus, and from Robelia's +sunbonnet came--"Unh!" + +Rebecca interposed: "An' still, o' co'se, we all gwine do ezac'ly what +you say." + +"Well," I responded, "maybe we won't do that." And we never did. I +was still "Mrs. Southmayd," as we came into a small railway station. +At the ticket-window I asked if any one had come up in the train of +half an hour before, inquiring for a lady in a coach. + +"No, ma'am, nobody got off that train. But there's another train at +half past eight." + +"Oh," I whined, "he won't come on that; he's overrated my speed and +gone on to the next station, making five miles more going for me!" + +"Why, no, you can give three of your servants a pass to go on with the +carriage, keep your maid and wait for the train." + +"Ah, no! No lady can choose to travel by rail where she can go in her +own coach!" + +They said no more except to warn Luke of a bad piece of road about two +miles on. Sure enough, in its very middle--crack!--we broke down. "De +kingbolt done gone clean in two!" said Luke, and Robelia repeated the +news explosively. + +"We'll leave the coach," I announced. "Fold the lap-robes on the backs +of the two horses, for Rebecca and me. You-all can walk beside us." + +After a while, so going, we passed a large plantation house, its +windows ruddy with home cheer. A second quarter-mile brought dimly to +view a railroad water-tank and an empty flag-station house, and in the +next bit of woods I spoke to Euonymus: "Have you that bundle? Ah, yes. +Luke, this boy and I are going off here a step for me to change my +dress. If any passer questions you, say I'll be right back." + +"Yass, madam, but, er, eh--wouldn' you sooner take yo' maid, Robelia, +instid?" + +"No, for as to dress I'll be as much of a man, when I get back, as +Euonymus." + +"Is Euonymus gwine change dress too?" + +"No, these things that I take off, your wife and Robelia may divide +between them." + +I started away but Luke lifted a hand. I thought he was going to claim +every dud for Robelia. Not so. + +"We all thanks you mighty much, madam, but in fac', ef de trufe got to +be tol'----" + +"It hasn't got to be told _me_, Luke, if I----" + +"Oh, no, madam, o' co'se. I 'uz on'y gwine say--a-concernin' +Euonymus----" + +I hurried off while the wife chided her good man: "Why don't you dess +hide all dem thing' in yo' heart like _dey_ used to do when d' angel +'pear' unto _dem_?" + +Alone with Euonymus, as I whipped off my feminine garb and whirled into +the other, I began to say that however suddenly I might leave the +fugitives they must rest assured that I was not deserting them. To +which---- + +"Oh, my Lawd," Euonymus replied, "us know dat!" + +We reached the pike again. "Rebecca, dismount. Hand me your bridle. +Luke, for you-all's better safety I'm going back and return these +horses. We may not see one another again----" + +"Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy!" moaned Rebecca. + +"In dis vain worl' you mean," Luke said. + +"That's all. Come, don't waste time. You'd better walk on for a short +way in the pike before taking to the woods. Now go all night for all +you're worth. Good-by." I turned abruptly. But my led horse was +averse to abruptness, and all the family except the torpid Robelia +poured up their blessings and rained kisses on my very feet. + +In my half-intelligent plan I intended first to stop at the house we +had gone by, and had reached the gate of its front lane when I met one +of its household, a lad of sixteen, on the pike. + +"Yes, he had just seen the disabled coach." + +I said that by business appointment with the lady who had just left the +coach I had gone to the next railway station northward in order to meet +her. That I had come down the turnpike on a hired horse and met her +and her servants pushing forward to our appointment as best they could. +Now, I said, our business, a law matter, was accomplished and she was +gone on on my hired horse. This span I was taking back to the stable +whence I had hired them for her in the morning. + +The boy's graciousness shamed me through and through. "Why, certainly! +He would have the coach drawn up to the house before sunrise and would +keep it as long as I liked." He asked me in, but I went on to the +little railway town, repeated my tarradiddle at its "hotel," and soon +was asleep. + + +["'Tarradi'l','" said Mme. Castanado, "tha'z may be a species of +paternoster, I suppose, eh?" + +"No," said Scipion, "I think tha'z juz' a fashion of speech that he +took a drink. I do that myself, going to bed." + +Chester explained, but said that to admit one's untruthfulness by even +a nickname implied _some_ compunction. Whereat two or three put in: + +"Ah! if he acknowledge' his compunction he's all right! But we are +stopping the story." + +It went on.] + + + + +XIV + +I was awakened, after the breakfast hour, by a tap on my door. Why it +gave me consternation I could not have told; I dare say my inveracities +of the day before had failed to digest. "Come in," I called, and in +stepped my two fishermen. + +Their good mornings were pleasant, but, "Fact is," said one, "we're +bothered about your client." + +"The lady who passed through here last evening?" + +"Yes, it looks as though----" + +"Go on while I dress. Looks as though--what?" + +"As though she wa'n't what you thought, or else----" + +I smiled aggressively: "Pardon, I _know_ that lady. 'Or else,' you +say? What else? Go on." + +"Oh, you go on dressing. Do you know them darkies are hers?" + +"Hoh! Are your teeth yours? Why do you ask?" + +He handed me a newspaper clipping: + + +Two Hundred Dollars Reward. Ran away from my plantation in ---- county +of this State, on the ------ day of ------ the following named and +described slaves; father, mother, daughter, and son: . . . A reward of +fifty dollars will be paid to any person for the capture and +imprisonment in any jail, of each or either of the above named. Etc. + + +With a laugh I returned the thing and went on dressing. "It doesn't," +I said aloud to my busy image in the mirror, "describe my client's +darkies at all." I faced round: "Why, gentlemen, if this isn't the +most astonishing----" + +"Ho-old on. Ho-old on! Finish your dressing. We're told it does +describe two of them and we thought we'd just come and see for +ourselves." + +"And you followed the unprotected lady?" + +"We followed four runaway niggers, sir! Else why did they take to the +woods inside of a mile from that house where you left the coach? Oh, +you're dressed; come along; time's flying!" + +Determined to waste all the time I could, "Wait," I said, strapping on +my pistol. "Now, gentlemen, we'll follow this matter to the end, +beginning now, instantly. But it must be done as----" + +"Oh, as privately as possible! Certainly!" + +"Certainly. You want the reward and you want it all. But understand, +I know you're in error, and I go with you solely to prove you are. +Now, by your theory----" + +"Oh, come along!" We went. I killed time over my coffee, and in +getting a saddle for one of my hired span. "You must excuse us if +we're not polite," my friends apologized after another flash of +impatience. "Of course those niggers are not on the run in broad day, +but their trail's getting cold!" + +"You're not as bad-mannered as I am," I laughed as we mounted, but +their allusion to hounds made me enjoy the burden of my six-shooter. + +As we ambled off, "What were you going to say," one asked me, "about +our 'theory,' or something?" + +"Oh! I see you think Mrs. Southmayd must have met up with company and +left her servants to follow on to the next station alone." + +"Exactly. We tracked the darkies along the edge of the road; but her +horse tracks--we could only see that no horse tracks left the road +where any of their man tracks left it." + +When we had gone a mile or so one of the boys turned to leave us by a +neighborhood road, saying: "I'll rejoin you, 'cross fields, where you +turned back last night. I'm going for the dogs." + +"Stop! Gentlemen, this is too high-handed. Do you reckon I'll let you +run down those four innocent creatures with hounds? I _swear_ you +shan't do it, sirs." + +"See here," said the one still with me, "come on. We'll show you the +very spots where those innocents left the road one by one, and if you +don't say they've used every trick known to a nigger to kill their +trail, we'll just quit and go home. Does that suit you?" + +"Not by a long chalk!" I retorted as I moved with him up the pike. +"Those poor simpletons--alone in a strange land, maybe without a pass, +at any moment liable to meet a patrol--how easy for them to make the +fatal mistake of leaving the road and hiding their tracks!" + +"All right, come ahead, you'll see fair play." + +We passed the scene of the breakdown and then the house to which the +coach had been drawn. I saw the coach in a stable door. By and by a +turn in the pike revealed the other clerk and a tall, slim horseman +just dismounting among four lop-eared, black-and-brown dogs coupled two +and two by light steel breast-yokes. With a heavy whip and without a +frown this man gave one of them a quick cut over the face as the brute +ventured to lift a voice as hollow and melodious as a bell. + +"He's a puppy I'm breaking in," said the man. "Now here, you see"--he +pointed to the middle of the road--"is where you, sir, met up with the +madam and her niggers, and given her yo' hoss and taken her span. +Here's the tracks o' the span, you takin' 'em back; you can see they're +the same as these comin' this way. T'other critter's tracks I don't +make out, but no matter, here's the niggers' along here--and here, see? +and here--here--there." We rode for ten minutes or so. Then halting +again: + +"Look yonder in that lock o' fence. There's where one went over into +the brush." + +Beyond the high worm fence grew a stubborn tangle of briers, vines, and +cane. "Mind you," I began to call after the nigger-chaser, but one of +my companions spoke for me: + +"Mr. Hardy, we got to be dead sure they're runaways before we put the +dogs on." + +"No, we ain't," Hardy called through the back of his head. "Dandy and +Charmer'll tell us if they're not, before we've gone three hundred +yards, and I can call 'em off so quick it'll turn 'em a somerset." He +dismounted, and, while unyoking the two older hounds, spoke softly a +few words of gusto that put them into a dumb ecstasy. One of the boys +pressed his horse up to mine. + +"There's the place," he said. "Now watch the dogs find it." + +As the pair sprang from Hardy's hands one began to nose the air, the +other the earth, to left, to right, and to cross each other's short, +swift circuits. With stony face while assuming a voice of wildest +eagerness he cried in searching whispers: "Niggeh thah, Dandy! Niggeh +thah, Charmer! Take him, my lady!" + +Skimming the ground with hungry noses, the dogs answered each cry with +a single keen yap of preoccupied affirmation. Almost at once Charmer +came to the spot pointed out to me, reared her full length upon the +rails and let out a new note; long, musical, fretful, overjoyed. Hardy +mounted breast-high to the fence's top, wreathed two fingers in the +willing brute's collar, lifted her, and dropped her on the other side. +There she instantly resumed her search. + +At the same time her yoke-mate's deep bay pealed like a trumpet, from a +few yards up the roadway. He had struck the broad, frank trail of the +other three negroes. The "puppy," still in leash, replied in a note +hardly less deep and mellow, but the whip of cool discipline cut him +off. From an ox-horn the master blew a short, sharp recall and at once +Dandy returned and began his work over, knowing now which runaway to +single out. + +Hardy remained on the fence, watching his favorite, over in the brush. +By a stir of the bushes, now here, now there, we could see how busy she +was, and every now and then she sent us, as if begging our patience, +her eager promissory yelp. + +Suddenly her master had a new thought. He stepped onward to the next +lock of the fence, scrutinized its top rail, moved to, the next lock, +examining the top rail there, then to the next, the next, the next, and +at the seventh or eighth beckoned us. + +"See, here?" he asked. "Think that ain't a runaway nigger? Look." A +splinter had been newly rubbed off the rail. "What you reckon done +that, sir; a bird or a fish? That's where he jumped. Look yonder, +where he landed and lit out." + +The merest fraction of a note from the horn brought the two free dogs +to their master, and before he could lift Dandy over the fence Charmer +was on the trail. She threw her head high and for the first time +filled the resounding timber with the music of her bay. + + +["Mr. Chester," murmured Mlle. Chapdelaine, and once more he ceased to +read. Mme. Castanado had laid her hands tightly to her face. Yet now +she smilingly dropped them, saying: "Seraphine--Marcel--please to pazz +around that cake an' wine. Well, I su'pose there are yet in the +worl'--in Afrique--Asia--even Europe--several kin' of cuztom mo' wicked +than that. And still I'm sorry that ever tranzpire. But, Mr. Chezter, +if you'll resume?" + +Chester once more resumed.] + + + + +XV + +Hardy's incitements were no longer whispers. + +"Dandy! Dandy!" he cried, with wild elation of voice and still no +emotion in his face. "Niggeh-fellah thah. Dandy! Ah, Dandy! look him +out!" + +The music swelled from Dandy's throat. Away went the pair. The +younger couple, in yoke, trembled and moaned to be after them. The two +clerks had swung down three or four rails from the fence, and with +Hardy were hurrying their horses through, when the youngest dog, nose +to the ground and tugging his yokemate along, let go a cry of discovery +and began to dig furiously under a bottom rail. His master threw him +off and drew from under it "Mrs. Southmayd's" tiny beflowered bonnet. + +"Good God!" exclaimed one of the boys as he held it up, "they've made +way with her!" + +"Now, none of _that_ nonsense!" I cried; "she's given it to one of them +and they've feared 'twould get them into trouble!" But the three had +spurred off and I could only toss it away and follow. + +The baying had ceased and an occasional half-smothered yap told that +the scent was broken. A huge grape-vine end, hanging from a lofty +bough, had enabled the run-away to take a long sidewise swing clear of +the ground; but as I came up the brutes had recovered the trail and +sped on, once more breaking the still air, far and wide, into deep +waves of splendid sound. Close after them, as best they might in yoke, +scuttled the younger pair, dragging each other this way and that, their +broad ears trailing to their feet, and Hardy riding close behind them, +reciting their pedigrees and their distinguishing whims. + +Presently we issued from the woods, at the edge of wide fields +surrounding a plantation-house and slave-quarters, and I hoped to find +the trail broken again; but without a pause the chase turned along a +line of fence as if to half encircle the plantation. The master of the +hounds, in nervy yet placid words, explained that a runaway knew better +than to cross open ground by night and set the house-dogs a-barking. +It was only on seeing no workers in the fields that I remembered it was +Sunday, and feared intensely that the pious fugitives might have +shortened their flight. + +From the plantation's farther bound we ran down a long, gentle slope of +beautiful open woods. At the bottom of it a clear stream rippled +between steep banks shrouded with strong vines. Here the scent had +failed and it was wonderful to see the docile faith and intelligence +with which the dogs resigned the whole work to their master, and +followed beside him while he sought a crossing-place for his horse. +This took many minutes, but by and by they scrambled over, he bidding +us wait where we were until the dogs should open again; and as he +started down-stream along the farther bank the older hounds, at a +single word, ran circling out before him in the tangle, electrified by +the steel-cold eagerness of his implorings. + +But now, to my joy, he found their hungry snufflings as futile as his +own scrutinizings and divinations, and after following the stream until +my companions fretted openly at the delay, he dropped a note from his +horn, rode back with the four dogs, recrossed, and passed down on our +side with them at his heels, frowning at last and scanning the tangled +growth of the opposite bank. + +And now again he came back: "You see, this stream runs so nigh the way +they wanted to go that there's no tellin' how fur they waded down it or +whether they was two, three, or four of 'em rej'ined together. They're +shore to 'a' been all together when they left it, but where that was +hell only knows. Come on." + +We plunged across after him and followed down the farther bank, and at +the point where he had turned back he put the hounds on again. "How do +you know there were more than one here?" I asked. + +"Because, if noth'n' else, this trail at first was a fool's trail and +now it's as smart as cats a-fight'n'--_look 'em out, Dandy_! Every +time the rascals struck a swimmin'-hole they swum it, the men sort o' +tote'n' the women, I reckon--_ah, my Charmer! Yes, my sweet lady! take +'em! take 'em_!" + +As the stream emerged into an old field--"Sun's pow'ful hot for +you-all!" Hardy added. "Ain't see' such a day this time o' year fo' a +coon's age. Hosses feel'n' it. Hard to say which is hottest, sun or +brush." + +We had skirted the branch a full mile, beating its margin thoroughly, +and were in deep woods again, when all at once Charmer let out a glad +peal. Her mate echoed it and with the stream at their back they were +off and away in full cry. The trail was broad and strong and with rare +breaks continued so for an hour. Often the dogs made us trot; in open +grounds we galloped. Once, in a thickety wet tract where the still air +was suffocating and a sluggish runlet meandered widely, Hardy was +forced, after long hinderance, to drop the trail and recover it on a +rising ground beyond. + +There once more we were making good speed when we burst into an open +grove where about a small, unpainted frame church a saddle-horse was +tied under every swinging limb. Before the church a gang of boys had +sprung up from their whittling to be our gleeful spectators. Hardy +waved them off with the assurance that we wanted neither their help nor +company, and though the trail took us at slackened speed around two +sides of the building we passed and were gone while the worshippers +were in the first stanza of a hymn started to keep them on their +benches. + +Noon, afternoon; we made no pause. "It's ketch 'em before night," said +Hardy as we bent low under beech boughs, "or not till noon to-morrow." + +About mid-afternoon one of the court-house boys, who had been talking +softly with the other, turned back with a bare good-by. His friend +explained: + +"Got to be at his desk early in the morning. But I'm with you till you +run 'em down." + +Happy for me that he was mistaken. Two hours more were hardly gone +when, "My Prince is sick!" he cried, drew in, and under a smoke of his +own curses began wildly to unsaddle. Hardy rode on. + +"You'll have to get another mount," I said. + +"Another hell! I wouldn't leave this horse sick in strange hands for a +thousand dollars!" Suddenly he struck an imploring key: "Look here! +I'll give you fifty dollars cash to stay with me till I get him out o' +this!" + +"Five hundred," I called, trotting after Hardy, "wouldn't hire me." + +Till I was out of earshot I could hear him damning and cursing me in +snorts and shouts as a sneak who would wear my coat of tar and feathers +yet, and I was still wondering whether I ought to or not, when I +overhauled the nigger-chaser cheering on his dogs. Their prey had +again tricked them, and again the cry was, "Take him, Dandy!" and "Hi, +Charmer, hi!" + +Between shouts: "Is yo' nag gwine to hold out?" + +"He's got to or perish," I laughed. + +In time we found ourselves under a vast roof of towering pines. The +high green grass beneath them had been burned over within a year. The +declining sun gilded both the grass and the lower sides of the soaring +boughs. Even Hardy glanced back exaltedly to bid me mark the beauty of +the scene. But I dared not. The dogs were going more swiftly than +ever, and there was a ticklish chance of one's horse breaking a leg in +one of the many holes left by burnt-out pine roots. The main risk, +moreover, was not to Hardy's trained hunter but to my worn-out livery +"nag." + +"We've started 'em, all four, on the run," he called, "but if we don't +tree 'em befo' they make the river we'll lose 'em after all." + +The land began a steady descent. Soon once more we were in underbrush +and presently came square against a staked-and-ridered worm fence +around a "deadening" dense with tall corn. Charmer and Dandy had +climbed directly over it, scampered through the corn, and were waking +every echo in a swamp beyond. The younger pair, still yoked, stood +under the fence, yelping for Hardy's aid. He sprang down and unyoked +them and over they scrambled and were gone, ringing like fire-bells. +Outside the fence, both right and left, the ground was miry, yet for us +it was best to struggle round through the bushy slough; which we had +barely done when with sudden curses Hardy spurred forward. The younger +dogs were off on a separate chase of their own. For at the river-bank +the four negroes had divided by couples and gone opposite ways. + +"Call them back!" I urged. "Blow your horn!" But I was ignored. + + + + +XVI + +[Chester sat looking at a newly turned page as though it were illegible. + +"I'm wondering," he lightly said, "what public enormity of to-day the +next generation will be as amazed at as we are at this." + +"Ah," Mme. Castanado responded, "never mine! Tha'z but the moral! +Aline and me we are insane for the story to finizh!" And the story was +resumed, to suffer no further interruption.] + + +At the river we burst out upon a broad, gentle bend up and down which +we could see both heavily wooded banks for a good furlong either way. + +The sun's last beams shone straight up the lower arm of the bend. On +the upper bayed Charmer and Dandy, unseen. On the lower we heard the +younger pair. On the upper we saw only the clear waters crinkling in a +wide shallow over a gravel-bar, but down-stream we instantly discovered +Luke and his wife. Silhouetted against the level sunlight, heaving +forward with arms upthrown, waist deep in the main current, they were +more than half-way across. At that moment two small dark objects, the +two dogs, moved out from the shore, after them, each with its wake of +two long silvery ripples. The "puppy" was leading. + +With a curse their master threw the horn to his lips and blew an +imperious note. The rear dog turned his head and would have reversed +his course, but seeing his leader keep on he kept on with him. Again +the angry horn re-echoed, and the rear dog promptly turned back though +the other swam on. + +Rebecca threw a look behind and it was pitiful to hear her outcry of +despair and terror. But Luke faced about and, backing after her +through the flood, prepared to meet the hound naked-handed. Hardy +sprang to his tiptoes in the stirrups, his curses pealing across the +water. "If you hurt that dog," he yelled, "I'll shoot you dead!" + +Up-stream the other two runaways were out on the gravel-bar, Euonymus +behind Robelia and Robelia splashing ludicrously across the shoal, +tearing off and kicking off--in preparation for deep water--sunbonnet, +skirt, waist, petticoat, and howling in the self-concern of abject +cowardice. + +"Thank heaven, she's a swimmer," thought I, "and won't drown her +brother!" For only a swimmer ever cast off garments that way. + +The flight of Euonymus, too, was bare-headed and swift, but it was +unfrenzied and silent. Neither of them saw Luke or Rebecca; the sun +was in their eyes and at that instant Charmer and Dandy, having met +some momentary delay, once more bayed joyously and sprang into view. +Like Luke, Euonymus faced the brutes. With another fierce outcry Hardy +blew his recall of all the four dogs. + +Three turned at once but the youngster launched himself at Luke's +throat where he stood breast-high in the glassing current. The slave +caught the dog's whole windpipe in both hands and went with him under +the flood. Hardy's supreme care for Charmer had lost him the strategic +moment, but he fired straight at Rebecca. + +She did not fall and his weapon flew up for a second shot! but by some +sheer luck I knocked the pistol spinning yards away into the river. +While it spun I saw other things: Rebecca clasping a wounded arm; Luke +and the dog reappearing apart, the dog about to repeat his onset; and +Hardy dumb with rage. + +"Call the puppy!" I cried, "you'll save him yet." + +The master winded his horn, and the dog swam our way. At the same time +his fellows came about us, while on the farther bank Luke helped his +wife writhe up through the waterside vines, and with her disappeared. +Only Euonymus remained in the water, at the far edge of the gravel-bar. + +I was so happy that I laughed. "All right," I cried, "I'll pay for the +revolver." + +Foul epithets were Hardy's reply while he spurred madly to and fro in +search of an opening in the vines to let his horse down into the +stream. I rode with him, knee to knee. "You'll pay for this with your +life !" he yelled down my throat. "I'll kill you, so help me God! +_Charmer! Dandy! go, take the nigger!_" + +The whole baying pack darted off for Euonymus's crossing. "_Take the +nigger, Charmer! Ah! take him, my lady!_" We saw that Euonymus could +not swim. Still knee to knee with Hardy, I drew and fired. "Puppy's" +mate yelped and rolled over, dead. + +"Call them back," I said, holding my weapon high; but Hardy only +shrieked curses and cried: + +"_Take the nigger, Charmer, take him!_" + +I fired again. Poor Dandy! He sprang aside howling piteously, with +melting eyes on his master. + +"Oh, God!" cried Hardy, leaping down beside the wailing dog, that +pushed its head into his bosom like a sick child. "Oh, God, but you +shall die for this!" + +He was half right but so was I and I checked up barely enough to cry +back: "Call 'em off! Call 'em off or I'll shoot Charmer!" + +With Dandy clasped close and with eyes streaming he blew the recall. +Looking for its effect, I saw Euonymus trying to swim and Charmer +quitting the chase. But the young dog kept on. The current was +carrying Euonymus away. Twice through vines and brush, while I cried: +"Catch the fallen tree below you! Catch the tree!" I tried to spur my +horse down into the stream, and on the third trial I succeeded. + +The flood had cut the bank from under a great buttonwood. It hung +prone over the water, and one dipping fork seized and held the fainting +swimmer. The dog was close, but had entered the current too far down +and was breasting it while he bayed in protest to his master's horn. +Now, as Euonymus struggled along the tree the brute struck for the +bank, and the two gained it together. Euonymus ran, but on a bit of +open grass dropped to one knee, at bay. The dog sprang. In the negro +fashion the runaway's head ducked forward to receive the onset, while +both hands clutched the brute's throat. Not dreaming that they would +keep their hold till I could get there, I leaped down in the shoal to +fire; but the grip held, though the dog's teeth sank into legs and +arms, and all at once Euonymus straightened to full stature, lifting +the dog till his hind legs could but just tiptoe the ground. + +"Right!" I cried; "bully, my boy! Lift him one inch higher and he's +whipped!" + +But Euonymus could barely hold him off from face and throat. + +"Turn him broadside to me!" I shouted, having come into water +breast-deep. "Let me put a hole through him!" + +But the fugitive's only response was: "Run, Robelia! 'Ever mind me! +Run! Run!" + +And here came Hardy across the gravel-bar, in the saddle. I aimed at +him: "Stand, sir! Stand!" + +He hauled in and lifted the horn. Euonymus had heaved the dog from his +feet. The horn rang, and with a howl of terror the brute writhed free, +leaped into the river and swam toward his master. I sprang on my horse +and took the deep water: "Wait, boy! Wait!" + +It was hard getting ashore. When I reached the spot of grass I found +only the front half of the runaway's hickory shirt, in bloody rags. I +spurred to a gap in the bushes, and there, face down, lay Euonymus, +insensible. I knelt and turned the slender form; and then I whipped +off my coat and laid it over the still, black bosom. For Euonymus was +a girl. + + + + +XVII + +Her eyelids quivered, opened. For a moment the orbs were vacant, but +as she drew a deep breath she saw me. Her shapely hand sought her +throat-button, and finding my coat instead she turned once more to the +sod, moaning, "Brother! Mingo!" + +"Is he Robelia?" I asked. "Come, we'll find him." + +Clutching my coat to her breast, she staggered up. I helped her put +the coat on and sprang into the saddle. "Now mount behind me," I said, +reaching for her hand; but with an anguished look: + +"Whah Mingo?" she asked. "Is dey kotch Mingo?" + +"No, not yet. Your hand--now spring!" + +She landed firmly and we sped into the woods. + +My merely wounding Dandy was fortunate. It kept Hardy from following +me hotfooted or rousing the neighborhood. I dare say he wanted no one +but himself to have the joy of killing me. + +At a "store" and telegraph-station I let my charge down into a wild +plum-patch, bought a hickory shirt, left my half-dead beast, +telegraphed my livery-stable client where to find him, and so avoided +the complication of being a horse-thief. Then I recovered Euonymus and +about ten that night the five of us met on the bank of a creek. Near +its farther shore, on a lonely railroad siding, we found a waiting +freight-train and stole into one of its empty cars; and when at close +of the next day hunger drove us out our pursuers were beating the bush +a hundred miles behind. + +Fed from a negro-cabin and guided by the stars, we fled all of another +night afoot, and on the following day lost Mingo. At broad noon, with +an overseer and his gang close by in a corn-field, the seductions of a +melon-patch overcame him and he howled away his freedom in the jaws of +a bear-trap. His father and mother wept dumb tears and laid their +faces to the ground in prayer. Euonymus was frantic. With all her +superior sanity, she would not have left the region could she have +persuaded us to go on without her. + +Well! Day by day we lay in the brush, and night after night fled on. +I could tell much about the sweet, droll piety of my three fellow +runaways, and the humble generosity of their hearts. No ancient +Israelite ever looked forward to the coming of a political Messiah with +more pious confidence than they to a day when their whole dark race +should be free and enjoy every right that any other race enjoys. + +"Even a right to cross two races?" I once asked Luke, smilingly, though +with intense aversion. + +"No, suh; no, suh! De same Lawd what give' ev'y man a wuck he cayn't +do ef he ain't dat man, give' ev'y ra-ace a wuck dey cayn't do ef dey +ain't dat ra-ace." I fancy he had been years revolving that into a +formula; or--he may have merely heard some master or mistress say it. + +"Still," I suggested, "races have crossed, and made new and better +ones." + +"I don't 'spute dat, suh; no, suh. But de Lawd ain't neveh gwine to +make a betteh ra-ace by cross'n' one what done-done e'en-a' most all +what even yit been done, on to anotheh what, eh----" + +Sidney (Onesimus) put in: "What ain't neveh yit done noth'n'!" And her +mother sighed, "Amen!" + + + + +XVIII + +"Yes?" inquired Mme. Castanado. "Well?" + +"Ah, surely!" cried several, "Tha'z not all?" + +Mme. De l'Isle appealed to her husband: "Even two, three hun'red mile', +that din'n' bring the line of Canada, I think." + +"No, but, I suppose, of the Ohio." + +"And that undergroun' railway!" said Scipion. + +"Yes," Mme. Alexandre agreed, "but that story remain' unfinizh' whiles +that uncle of Mr. Chezter couldn' return at his home." + +"Not even his State," ventured mademoiselle. + +"But he did," Chester said; "he came back." + +M. Dubroca spoke up: "Oh, 'tis easy to insert that, at the +en'--foot-note." + +"And Hardy?" asked Beloiseau, "him and yo' uncle, they di'n' shoot either +the other?" + +"I believe they did, each the other. I never quite understood the hints +I got of it, till now. I know that six months in bed with a back full of +_somebody's_ buckshot saved my uncle's life." + +"From lynching! That also muz' be insert'!" + +Chester thought not. "No, centre the interest in the runaway family, as +in mademoiselle's 'Clock in the Sky.'" And so all agreed. + +A second time he walked home with mademoiselle, under the same lenient +escort as before. One thus occupied, by moonlight, can moralize as he +cannot with any larger number. "It's hard enough at best," he said, "for +us, in our pride of race, to sympathize--seriously--in the joys, the +hopes, the sufferings of souls under dark skins yet as human as ours if +not as white." + +"Yes, 'tis true. Only one man, Mr. Chester, I ever knew, myself, who did +that." + +"Your father?" + +"Yes, my dear father." + +"Will you not some day tell me his story?" + +"Mr. Castanado will tell you it. Any of those will tell you." + +"I can't question them about you, and besides----" + +"Well, here is my gate. 'And besides--' what?" + +"Besides, why can't you tell me?" + +"Ah, I'll do that--'some day,' as you say." + +The gate-key went into the lock. + +"But, mademoiselle, our 'Clock in the Sky'--our 'Angel of the +Lord'--shan't we join them?" + +"Ah, they are already one, but you have yet to hear that _first_ +manuscript, and that is so very separate--as you will see." + +"Isn't it also a story of dark skins?" + +"Ah, but barely at all of souls under them; those souls we find it so +hard to remember." + +"_Chere fille_"--M. De l'Isle had come up, with Mme. Alexandre--"the +three will go _gran'ly_ together! Not I al-lone perceive that, but +Scipion also--Castanado--Dubroca. Mr. Chester, my dear sir, the +pewblication of that book going to be heard roun' the worl'! Tha'z going +produse an epoch, that book; yet same time--a bes'-seller!" + +Mademoiselle beamed. "Does Mr. Chester think 'twill be that? A +best-seller?" + +Chester couldn't prophesy that of any book. "They say not even a +publisher can tell." + +"Hah!" monsieur cried, "those cunning pewblisher'! they pref-er _not_ to +tell." + +"Some poetry," Chester continued, urged by mademoiselle's eyes, "doesn't +pay the poets over a few thousand a year--per volume; while some novels +pay their authors--well--fortunes." + +"That they go," madame broke in, "and buy some _palaces in Italie_! And +tha'z but the biginning; you have not count' the dramatization--hundreds +the week! and those movie'--the same! and those tranzlation'!" + +"Well, I think we will be satisfied, Mr. Chester, with the tenth of that, +eh?" + +Chester's reply was drowned in monsieur's: "No, my child! But +nine-tenth' _maybe_, yes! No-no-no! if those pewblisher' find out you +are satisfi' by one-tenth, one-tenth is all you'll ever see!" + +"Ah," said mademoiselle to madame, "even the one-tenth I mustn't tell to +my aunts. They wouldn't sleep to-night. And myself--'publication, +dramatization, movies, translation'--I believe I'll lie awake till +daylight, making that into a song--a hymn!" + +A wonderful sight she was, pausing in the open gate, with the little +high-fenced garden at her back, a street-lamp lighting her face. Chester +harked back to that first manuscript. It "ought not to wait another +week," he declared. + +"No," monsieur said, "and since we all have read that egcept only you." + +Chester looked to mademoiselle: "Then I suppose I might read it with the +Castanados alone." + +"No," madame put in, "you see, you can't riturn at Castanado's +immediately to-morrow or next day. That next day, tha'z Sunday, but you +don't know if madame goin' to have the stren'th for that fati-gue. Yet +same time you can't wait forever! And bisside', yo' Aunt Corinne, Aunt +Yvonne--Mr. Chezter he's never have that lugsury to meet them, and that +will be a very choice o'casion for Mr. Chezter to do that, if----" + +"If he'll take the pains," the niece broke in, "to call Sunday afternoon. +Then I'll have the manuscript back from Mr. Castanado and we'll read it +to my Aunt Corinne and my Aunt Yvonne, all four together in the garden." + +"Yes, yet not in this li'l' garden in the front, but in the large, far +back from the house, in the h-arbor of 'oneysuckle and by the side of the +li'l' lake, eh?" So prompted madame. + +"Assuredly," said the smiling girl; "not in the front, where is no room +for a place to sit down!" + +Chester's acceptance was eager. Then once more the batten gate closed +and the key grated between him and Aline--marvellous, marvellous Aline +Chapdelaine. + + + + +XIX + +The sunbeams of a tedious Sabbath began noticeably to slant. + +For two days, night, morning, noon, and afternoon, Geoffry Chester had +silently speculated on what he was to see, hear, and otherwise experience +when, as early as he might in keeping with the Chapdelaine dignity and +his, he should pull the tiny brass bell-knob on their tall gate-post. + +Chapdelaine! Impressive, patrician title. Impressive too those +baptismal names; implying a refinement invincible in the vale of +adversity. Killing time up one street and down another--Rampart, +Ursuline, Burgundy--he pictured personalities to fit them: for Corinne a +presence stately in advanced years and preserved beauty; for Yvonne a +fragile form suggestive of mother-o'-pearl, of antique lace. Knowledge +of Aline justified such inferences--within bounds. With other charms she +had all these, and must have got them from ancestral sources as truly +Mlle. Corinne's and Mlle. Yvonne's as hers. + +"Oh, of course," he pondered, "there are contrary possibilities. They +may easily fall short, far short, of her, in outer graces, and show their +kinship only in a reflection of her inner fineness. They may be no more +surprising than those dear old De l'Isles, or the Prieurs, or than Mrs. +Thorndyke-Smith. So let it be! Aline----" + +"Aline-Aline!" alarmingly echoed his heart. + +"Aline is enough." Enough? Alas, too much! He felt himself far too +forthpushing in--he would not confess more--a solicitude for her which he +could not stifle; an inextinguishable wish to disentangle her from the +officious care of those by whom she was surrounded--encumbered. "I've no +right to this state of mind," he thought; "none." He reached the gate. +He rang. + +A footfall of daintiest lightness came running! ["Aline-Aline!"] So +might Allegro have tripped it. The key rasped round, ["Aline-Aline!"] +the portal drew in, and he found himself getting his first front view of +Cupid, the small black satellite. + +A pleasing object. Smaller than ever. White-collared as ever, starched +and brushed to the sheen of a new penny and ugly of face as a +gargoyle--ugly as his goddess was beautiful. Not merely negroidal, in +lips, nose, ears, and tight black wool divided on the absolute equator; +not racially but uniquely ugly--till he smiled--and spoke. He smiled and +spoke with a joy of soul, a transparency of innocence, a rapture of love, +that made his ugliness positively endearing even apart from the entranced +recognition they radiated. + +"Ladies at home? Yassuh," he said, with an ecstasy as if he announced +the world's war suddenly over, all oceans safe, all peoples free. He led +the way up the cramped white-shell walk with a ceremonial precision that +gave the caller time to notice the garden. It was hardly an empire. It +lay on either side in two right-angled figures, each, say, of sixty by +fourteen feet, every foot repeating florally the smile of the child. The +rigid beds were curbed with brick water-painted as red as Cupid's gums. +The three fences were green with vines, and here and there against them +bloomed tall evergreen shrubs. At one upper corner of the main path was +a camellia and at the other a crape-myrtle, symbols respectively, to the +visitor, of Aunt Corinne and Aunt Yvonne. The brick doorstep smiled as +red as the garden borders, and as he reached the open door Aline, with +her two aunts at her back, received him. + +"Mr. Chester--Mlle. Chapdelaine. Mr. Chester--my Aunt Yvonne." Never +had the niece seemed quite so fair--in face, dress, figure, or mental +poise. She wore that rose whose petals are deep red in their outer +circle and pass from middle pink to central white and deepen in tints +with each day's age. If that rose could have been a girl, mind, soul, +and all, a Creole girl, there would have been two on one stem. + +And there, on either side of her sat the aunts: the elder much too lean, +the younger much too dishevelled, and both as sun-tanned as harvesters, +betraying their poverty in flimsy, faded gowns which the dismayed youth +named to himself not draperies but hangings. Yet they were +sweet-mannered, fluent, gay, cordial, and unreserved, though fluttering, +twittering, and ultra-feminine. + +The room was like the pair. "Doubtlezz Aline she's told you ab-out that +'ouse. No? Ah, chere! is that possible? 'Tis an ancient relique, that +'ouse. At the present they don't build any mo' like that 'ouse is +build'! You see those wall', those floor'? Every wall they are not of +lath an' plazter, like to-day; they are of solid plank' of a thicknezz of +two-inch'--and from Kentucky!" + +The guest recognized the second-hand lumber of broken-up flatboats. + +"Tha'z a genuine antique, that 'ouse! Sometime' we think we ought to +egspose that 'ouse, to those tourist', admission ten cent'." [A gay +laugh.] + +"But tha'z only when Aline want' to compel us to buy some new dresses. +And tha'z pritty appropriate, that antique 'ouse, for two sizter' +themselve' pritty antique--ha, ha, ha!--as well as their anceztors." + +"I fancy they're from 'way back," said Chester. + +"We are granddaughter' of two _emigres_ of the Revolution. The other two +they were decapitalize' on that gui'otine. Yet, still, ad the same time, +we don't _feel_ antique. We don't feel mo' than ten year'! And +especially when we are showing those souvenir' of our in-_fancy_. And +there is nothing we love like that." + +"Aline, _chere_, doubtlezz Mr. Chezter will be very please' to see yo' +li'l' dress of baptism! Long time befo', that was also for me, and my +sizter. That has the lace and embro'derie of a hundred years aggo, that +li'l' dress of baptism. Show him that! Oh, that is no trouble, that is +a _dil_-ight! and if you are please' to enjoy that we'll show you our two +doll', age' forty-three!--bride an' bri'groom. Go, _you_, Yvonne, fedge +them." + +The sister rose but lingered: "Mr. Chezter, you will egscuse if that +bride an' groom don't look pritty fresh; biccause eighteen seventy-three +they have not change' their clothingg!" + +"_Cherie_," said Aline, "I think first we better read the manuscript, and +_then_." + +After a breath of hesitation--"Yes! read firs' and _then_. Alway' +businezz biffo'!" + +All went into the garden; not the part Chester had come through, but +another only a trifle less pinched, at the back of the house. A few +steps of straight path led them through its stiff ranks of larkspurs, +carnations, and the like, to a bower of honeysuckle enclosing two rough +wooden benches that faced each other across a six-by-nine goldfish pool. +There they had hardly taken seats when Cupid reappeared bearing to the +visitor, on a silver tray, the manuscript. + +It was not opened and dived into with the fine flurry of the modern +stage. Its recipient took time to praise the bower and pool, and the +sisters laughed gratefully, clutched hands, and merrily called their +niece "tantine." "You know, Mr. Chezter, 'tantine' tha'z 'auntie,' an' +tha'z j'uz' a li'l' name of affegtion for her, biccause she takes so much +mo' care of us than we of her; you see? But that bower an' that li'l' +lake, my sizter an' me we construc' them both, that bower an' that li'l' +lake." + +Without blazoning it they would have him know they had not squandered +"tantine's" hard earnings on architects and contractors. + +"And we assure you that was not ladies' work. 'Twas not till weeks we +achieve' that. That geniuz Aline! _she_ was the arshetec'. And those +goldfishes--like Aline--are self-su'porting! We dispose them at the +apothecary, Dauphine and Toulouse Street--ha, ha, ha! Corinne, tha'z the +egstent of commerce we ever been ab'e to make, eh?" + +"And now," said Aline, "the story." + +"Ah, yes," responded Mlle. Corinne, "at laz' the manuscrip'!" and Mlle. +Yvonne echoed, with a queer guilt in her gayety: + +"The manuscrip'! the myzteriouz manuscrip'!" + +But there the gate bell sounded and she sprang to her feet. Cupid could +answer it, but some one must be indoors to greet the caller. + +"Yes, you, Yvonne," the elder sister said, and Aline added: "We'll not +read till you return." + +"Ah, yes, yes! Read without me!" + +"No-no-no-no-no! We'll wait!" + +"We'll wait, Yvonne." The sister went. + +Chester smoothed out the pages, but then smilingly turned them face +downward, and Aline said: + +"First, Hector will tell us who's there." + +Hector was Cupid. He came again, murmuring a name to Mlle. Corinne. She +rose with hands clasped. "C'est M. et Mme. Rene Ducatel!" + +"Well? Hector will give your excuses; you are imperatively engaged." + +"Ah, _chere_, on Sunday evening! Tha'z an incredibility! Must you not +let me go? You 'ave 'Ector." + +"Ah-h! and we are here to read this momentous document to Hector?" The +sparkle of amused command was enchanting to at least one besides Cupid. + +Yet it did not win. "Chere, you make me tremble. Those Ducatel', +they've come so far! How can we show them so li'l' civilization when +they've come so far? An' me I'm convince', and Yvonne she's convince', +that you an' Mr. Chezter you'll be ab'e to judge that manuscrip' better +al-lone. Oh, yes! we are convince' of that, biccause, you know--I'm +_sorrie_--we are prejudice' in its favor!" + +Aline's lifted brows appealed to Chester. "Maybe hearing it," he +half-heartedly said, "may correct your aunts' judgment." + +The aunt shook her head in a babe's despair. "No, we've tri' that." Her +smile was tearful. "Ah, _cherie_, you both muz' pardon. Laz' night we +was both so af-raid about that, an' of a so affegtionate curio-zitie, +that we was _compel_' to read that manuscrip' through! An' we are +convince'--though tha'z not ab-out clocks, neither angels, neither +lovers--yet same time tha'z a moz' marvellouz manuscrip'. Biccause, you +know, tha'z a true story, that 'Holy Crozz.' Tha'z concerning an +insurregtion of slave'--there in Santa Cruz. And 'a slave insurregtion,' +tha'z what they ought to call it, yes!--to prom-ote the sale. Already +laz' night Yvonne she say she's convince' that in those Northron citie', +where they are since lately _so fon_' of that subjec', there be people by +_dozen_'--will _devour_ that story!" + +She tripped off to the house. + +"Hector," said Aline, "you may sit down." + +Cupid slid into the vacated seat. Chester dropped the document into his +pocket. + +"For what?" the girl archly inquired. + +"I want to take it to my quarters and judge it there. Why shouldn't I?" + +"Yes, you may do that." + +"And now tell me of your father, or his father--the one Beloiseau +knew--Theophile Chapdelaine." + +"Both were Theophile. He knew them both." + +"Then tell me of both." + +"Mr. Chester, 'twould be to talk of myself!" + +"I won't take it so. Tell the story purely as theirs. It must be fine. +They were set, in conscience, against the conscience of their day----" + +"So is Mr. Chester." + +"Never mind that, either. We're in a joint commercial enterprise; we +want a few good stories that will hang on one stem. Our business is +business; a primrose by the river's brim--nothing more! Although"--the +speaker reddened---- + +The girl blushed. "Mr. Chester, take away the 'although' and I'll tell +the story." + +"I take it away. Although----" + + + + +XX + +THE CHAPDELAINES + +"A yellow primrose was to him----" + +Yonder in the parlor with the Ducatels, ignorant of the poet's lines as +they, the two aunts--those two consciously irremovable, unadjustable, +incarnated interdictions to their niece's marriage--saw the primrose, +the "business," as the pair in the bower thought they saw it +themselves. Were not Aline and Chester immersed in that tale of +servile insurrection so destitute of angels, guiding stars, and lovers? +And was not Hector with them? And are not three as truly a crowd in +French as in American? + +"Well, to begin," Chester urged, "your grandfather, Theophile +Chapdelaine, was born in this old quarter, in such a street. Royal?" + +"Yes. Nearly opposite the ladies' entrance of that Hotel St. Louis now +perishing." + +"Except its dome. I hear there's a movement---- + +"Yes, to save that. I hope 'twill succeed. To me that old dome is a +monument of those two men." + +"But if it comes down the home remains, opposite, where both were born, +were they not?" + +"Yes. Yet I'd rather the dome. We Creoles, you know, are called very +conservative." + +"Yet no race is more radical than the French." + +"True. And we Chapdelaines have always been radical. _Grandpere_ was, +though a slaveholder." + +"Oh, none of _my_ ancestors justified slavery, yet as planters they had +to own negroes." + +"But the Chapdelaines were not planters. They were agents of ships. +Fifty times on one page in the old _Picayune_, or in _L'Abeille_--'For +freight or passage apply to the master on board or to T. Chapdelaine & +Son, agents.' Even then there were two Theophiles, and grandpapa was +the son. They were wholesale agents also for French exporters of +artistic china, porcelain, glass, bronze. Twice they furnished the +hotel with everything of that kind; when it first opened, and when it +changed hands. That's how they came to hold stock in it. Grandpapa, +outdoor man of the firm, was every day in the rotunda, under that dome." + +"Yes," Chester said, "it was a kind of Rialto, I know. They called it +the 'Exchange,' as earlier they had called Maspero's." + +"You love our small antiquities. So do I. Well, grandpapa did much +business there, both of French goods and of ships; and because the +hotel was the favorite of the sugar-planters its rotunda was one of the +principal places for slave auctions." + +"Yes, they were, I know, almost daily. The old slave-block is shown +there yet, if genuine." + +"Ah, genuine or not, what difference? From one that _was_ there +_grandpere_ bought many slaves. He and his father speculated in them." + +"Why! How strange! The son? _your_ grandfather? the radical, who +married--'Maud'?" + +"Yes, the last slave he bought was for her." + +"Why, why, why! He couldn't have met her be'--well--before the year of +Lincoln's election." + +"No, let me tell you. You remember 'Sidney'?" + +"'Maud's' black maid? my uncle's Euonymus? Yes." + +"Well, when she came to Maud, at Maud's home, in the North, she was +still in agony about Mingo, who'd been recaptured. So Maud wrote +South, to her aunt, who wrote back: 'Yes, he had been brought home, and +at creditor's auction had been sold to a slave-trader to be resold here +in New Orleans.' So then Sidney begged Maud, who by luck was coming +here, to bring her here to find him." + +"Brave Sidney. Brave Euonymus." + +"Yes--although--her Southern mistress--I know not how legally--had sent +to her her free-paper. That made it safer, I suppose, eh?" + +"Yes. But--who told you all this so exactly--your _grand'mere_ +herself, or your _grandpere_?" + +"Ah--she, no. I never saw her. And _grandpere_--no, he was killed +before I was born." + +"_What_?" + +"Yes, all that I'll come to. This I'm telling now is from my own papa. +He had it from _grandpere_. _Grand'mere_ and Sidney came with friends, +a gentleman and his wife, by ship from New York." + +"And all put up at Hotel St. Louis?" + +"Yes. From there Maud and Sidney began their search. But now, first, +about that speculating in slaves: those two Theophiles, first the +father, then both, hated slavery. 'Twas by nature and in everything +that they were radical. Their friends knew that, even when they only +said, 'Oh, you are extreme!' or 'Those Chapdelaines are extremist.' In +those years from about eighteen-forty to 'sixty----" + +"When the slavery question was about to blaze----" + +"Yes--they voted Whig. That was the most antislavery they could vote +and stay here. But under the rose they said: 'All right! extremist, +yet Whig; we'll be extreme Whig of a new kind. We'll trade in slaves.'" + +Chester laughed. "I begin to see," he said, and by a sidelong glance +bade Aline note the rapt attention of Cupid. Her answering smile was +so confidential that his heart leaped. + +"I'll tell you by and by about that also," she murmured, and then +resumed: "While _grandpere_ was yet a boy his father had begun that, +that slave-buying. On that auction-block he would often see a slave +about to be sold much below value, or whose value might easily be +increased by training to some trade. You see?--blacksmith, lady's +maid, cook, hair-dresser, engine-driver, butler?" + +Chester darkened. "So he made the thing pay?" + +"_Seem_ to pay. Looking so simple, so ordinary, 'twas but a mask for +something else." + +"But in a thing looking so ordinary had he no competitors, to make +profits difficult?" + +"Ah, of a kind, yes; but the men who could do that best would not do it +at all. They would not have been respected." + +"But T. Chapdelaine & Son were respected." + +"Yes, _in spite_ of that. Their friends said: 'Let the extremists be +extreme that way.'" + +"The public mind was not yet quite in flames." + +"No. But--guess who helped _grandpere_ do that." + +"Why, do I know him? Castanado." + +The girl shook her head. + +"Who? Beloiseau?" + +"Ah, you! You can guess better." + +"Ovide Lan'--no, Ovide was still a slave." + +"Yet more free than most free negroes. 'Twas he. He was janitor to +offices in the hotel, and always making acquaintance with the slaves of +the slave-mart. And when he found one who was quite of the right +kind--and Ovide he's a wise judge of men, you know--he would show him +to _grandpere_, and at the auction, if the bidding was low, _grandpere_ +would buy him--or her." + +"What was one of 'quite the right kind'? One willing to buy his own +freedom?" + +"Ah, also to do something more; you see?" + +"Yes, I see," Chester laughed; "to help others run away, wasn't it?" + +"Not precisely to run, but----" + +"To stow away, on those ships, h'm?" There was rapture in crossing that +_h'm_ line of intimacy. "I see it all! Ha-ha, I see it all! Well! +that brings us back to 'Maud,' doesn't it--h'm?" + +"Yes. They met, she and grandpere, at a ball, in the hotel. +But"--Aline smiled--"that was not their first. Their first was two or +three mornings before, when he, passing in Royal Street, and she--with +Sidney--looking at old buildings in Conti Street----" + +"Mademoiselle! That happened to _them_?--_there_?" + +"Yes, to _them_, _there_." With level gaze narrator and listener +regarded each other. Then they glanced at Cupid. His eyes were +shining on them. + +"Who is our young friend, anyhow?" asked Chester. + +"Ah, I suppose you have guessed. He is the grandson of Sidney." + + + + +XXI + +"And another time, on the morning just before the ball," said Aline, +returning to the story, "they had seen each other again. That was at +the slave-auction. That night, before the ball was over, she and +_grandpere_ understood--knew, each, from the other, why the other was +at that auction; and he had promised her to find Mingo. + +"Well, after weeks, Ovide helping, all at once there was Mingo, in the +gang, by the block, waiting his turn to go on it. Picture that! Any +time I want to shut my eyes I can see it, and I think you can do the +same, h'm?" + +Blessed _h'm_; 'twas the flower--of the Chapdelaines--humming back to +the bee. Said the bee, "We'll try it there together some day, h'm?" +and Cupid mutely sparkled: + +"Oh, by all means! the three of us!" + +The flower ignored them both. "There was the auctioneer," she said; +"there were the slaves, there the crowd of bidders; between them the +block, above them the beautiful dome. Very soon Mingo was on the +block, and the first bid was from Sidney. She was the only one in a +hurry except Mingo. He was trying to see her, but she was hiding from +him behind _grandpere_; yet not from the auctioneer. The auctioneer +stopped. + +"'Who authorized you to bid here?' he asked her. + +"'Nobody, sir; I's free.' She held up her paper. + +"_Grandpere_ nodded to the auctioneer. + +"'Will Mr. Chapdelaine please read it out?' + +"He read it out, signature and all. + +"'Anybody know any one of that name?' the auctioneer asked, and +_grand'mere_ said: + +"'That's my aunt. This free girl is my maid." + +"'Oh, bidding for you?' he said; and grand'mere said no, the girl was +bidding on her own account, with her own money. + +"'What kind of money? We can't take shinplasters.' For 'twas then +'sixty-one--year of secession, you know. + +"'Gold!' Sidney called out, and held it up in a black stocking, so high +that every one laughed." + +"Not Mingo, I fancy." + +"Ah, no, nor the keeper of the gang." + +"--Wonder how Mingo was behaving." + +"He? he was shaking and weeping, and begging this and that of the man +who held and threatened him, to keep him quiet. So then the auctioneer +began to call Sidney's bid. You know how that would be: 'Gentlemen, +I'm offered five hundred dollars. Cinq cent piastres, messieurs! Only +five hundred for this likely boy worth all of nine! Who'll say six? +Going at five hundred, what do I hear?' But he heard nothing +till--'third and last call!' Then the owner of the gang nodded and the +auctioneer called out, 'six hundred!"' + +"And did Sidney raise it?" + +"No, she wept aloud. 'Oh, my brotheh!' she cried, 'Lawd save my po' +brotheh! I's los' him ag'in! I done bid my las' dollah at de fust +call!'" + +"And Mingo knew her voice, spied her out?" + +"Yes, and holloed, 'Sidney! sisteh!' till _grand-mere_ wept too and a +man called out, 'No one bid that six hundred!' But _grandpere_ said: +'I bid six-fifty and will tell all about this _unlikely_ boy if his +owner bids again.' + +"So Mingo was sold to _grandpere_. 'And now,' _grandpere_ whispered to +_grand-mere_ and her friends, 'go pack trunks for the ship as fast as +you can.'" + +"And they parted like that? But of course not!" + +"No, only expected to. In the Gulf, at the mouth of the river, a +Confederate privateer"--the narrator's voice faded out. She began to +rise. Her aunts were returning. + + + + +XXII + +Mademoiselle, we say, began to rise. Chester stood. Also Cupid. The +aunts drew near, speaking with infantile lightness: + +"Finizh' already that reading? You muz' have gallop'! Well, and what +is Mr. Chezter's conclusion on that momentouz manuscrip'?" + +The niece hurried to answer first: "Ah! we must not ask that so +immediately. Mr. Chester concludes 'tis better for all that he study +that an evening or two in his seclusion." + +"And! you did not read it through together?" + +"No, there was no advantage to----" + +"Oh! advantage! An' you stop' in the mi'l of that momentouz souvenir +of the pas'! Tha'z astonizhing that _anybody_ could do that, an' leas' +of all" [confronting Chester] "the daughter of a papa an' gran'papa +with such a drama-tique bio-graphie! Mr. Chezter, to pazz the time +Aline ought to 'ave tell you that bio-graphie, yes!--of our marvellouz +brother an' papa. Ah, you should some day egstort _that_ story from +our too li'l' communicative girl." + +"Why not to-day, for the book?" + +"Oh, no-no-no-no-o! We di'n' mean that!" The sisters laughed +excessively. "A young lady to put her own papa into a book--ah! +im-pos-si-ble!" + +They laughed on. "Even my sizter an' me, we have never let anybody +egstort that, an' we don't know if Aline ever be persuade'----" + +"Yes, some day I'll tell Mr. Chezter--whatever he doesn't know already." + +"Ha-ha! we can be sure tha'z not much, Aline. And, Corinne, if he's +_heard_ this or that, tha'z the more reason to tell him co'rec'ly. +Only, my soul! not to put in the book, no!" + +"Ah, no! Though as between frien', yes. And, moreover, to Mr. +Chezter, yes, biccause tha'z so much abbout that Hotel St. Louis and he +is so appreciative to old building'. Ah, we've notice' that incident! +Tha'z the cause that we egs'ibit you our house--as a relique of the +pas'--Yvonne! we are forgetting!--those souvenir' of our in-fancy--to +show them! Come--all!" + +Half-way to the house--"Ah, ha-ha! another subjec' of interess! See, +Mr. Chezter; see coming! Marie Madeleine! She's mis' both her beloved +miztress' from the house and become anxious, our beautiful cat! We +name' her Marie Madeleine because her great piety! You know, tha'z the +sacred truth, that she never catch' a mice on Sunday." + +"Ah, neither the whole of Lent!" + +In the parlor--"I really think," Chester said, "I must ask you to let +me take another time for the souvenirs. I'm so eager to save this +manuscript any further delay--" He said good-by. + +Yet he did not hurry to his lodgings. He had had an experience too +great, too rapt, to be rehearsed in his heart inside any small, mean +room. All the open air and rapid transit he could get were not too +much, till at lamplight he might sit down somewhere and hold himself to +the manuscript. + +Meantime the Chapdelaines had been but a moment alone when more +visitors rang--a pair! Their feet could be seen under the gate--two +male, two female--that is not a land where women have men's feet. +Flattering, fluttering adventure--five callers in one afternoon! +"Aline, we are becoming a public institution!" The aunts sprang here, +there, and into collision; Cupid sped down the walk; Marie Madeleine +stood in the door. + +And who were these but the dear De l'Isles! + +"No," they would not come inside. "But, Corinne, Yvonne, Aline, run, +toss on hats for a trip to Spanish Fort." + +One charm of that trip is that the fare is but, five cents, and the +crab gumbo no dearer than in town. "Come! No-no-no, not one, but the +three of you. In pure compassion on us! For, as sometimes in heaven +among cherubim, we are _ennuyes_ of each other!" + +The small half-hourly electric train in Rampart Street had barely +started lakeward into Canal, with the De l'Isle-Chapdelaine five aboard +and the sun about to set, when Geoffry Chester entered--and stopped +before monsieur, stiff with embarrassment. Nevertheless that made them +a glad six, and, as each seat was for two, the two with life before +them took one. + + + + +XXIII + +The small public garden, named for an old redout on the lake shore at +the mouth of Bayou St. John was filled with a yellow sunset as Chester +and Aline moved after the aunts and the De l'Isles from the train into +a shell walk whose artificial lights at that moment flashed on. + +"So far from that," he was saying, "a story may easily be improved, +clarified, beautified, by--what shall I say?--by filtering down through +a second and third generation of the right tellers and hearers." + +"Ah, yes! the right, yes! But----" + +"And for me you're supremely the right one." + +Instantly he rued his speech. Some delicate mechanism seemed to stop. +Had he broken it? As one might lay a rare watch to his ear he waited, +listening, while they stood looking off to where water, sky, and sun +met; and presently, to his immeasurable relief, she responded: + +"_Grandpere_ was not at that time such a very young man, yet he still +lived with his father. So when _grand'mere_ and her two friends--with +Sidney and Mingo--returned from the privateer to the hotel they were +opposite neighbors to the Chapdelaines and almost without another +friend, in a city--among a people--on fire with war. Then, pretty +soon--" the fair narrator stopped and significantly smiled. + +Chester twinkled. "Um-h'm," he said, "your _grandpere's_ heart became +another city on fire." + +"Yes, and 'twas in that old hotel--with the war storm coming, like +to-day only everything much more close and terrible, business dead, +soldiers every day going to Virginia--you must make Mr. Thorndyke-Smith +tell you about that--'twas in that old hotel, at a great free-gift +lottery and bazaar, lasting a week, for aid of soldiers' families, and +in a balcony of the grand salon, that _grandpere_--" the narrator +ceased and smiled again. + +"Proposed," Chester murmured. + +The girl nodded. They sank to a bench, the world behind them, the +stars above. "_Grand'mere_, she couldn't say yes till he'd first go to +her home, almost at the Canadian line, and ask her family. She, she +couldn't go; she couldn't leave Sidney and Mingo and neither could she +take them. So by railroad at last he got there. But her family took +so long to consent that he got back only the next year and through the +fall of the city. Only by ship could he come, and not till he had +begged President Lincoln himself and promised him to work with his +might to return Louisiana to the Union. Well, of course, he and his +father had voted against secession, weeping; yet now this was a pledge +terrible to keep, and the more because, you see? what to do, and when +and how to do it----" + +"Were left to his own judgment and tact?" + +"Oh, and honor! But anyhow he came. Doubtless, bringing the written +permission of the family, he was happy. Yet to what bitternesses--can +we say bitternesses in English?" + +"Indeed we can," said Chester. + +"To what bitternesses _grandpere_ had to return!" + +"Aline!" Mme. De l'Isle called; "a table!" + +"Yes, madame. Tell me--you, Mr. Chester--to your vision, how all that +must have been." + +"Paint in your sketch? Let me try. Maybe only because you tell the +story, but maybe rather because it's so easy to see in you a +reincarnation of your _grand'mere_--a Creole incarnation of that young +'Maud'--what I see plainest is she. I see her here, two thousand miles +from home, with but three or four friends among a quarter of a million +enemies. I see her on the day the city fell, looking up and down Royal +Street from a balcony of the hotel, while from the great dome a few +steps behind her the Union fleet could be seen, rounding the first two +river bends below the harbor, engaging a last few Confederate guns at +the old battle-ground, and coming on, with the Stars and Stripes at +every peak. I see her----" + +"She was beautiful, you know--_grand'mere_." + +"Yes, I see her so, looking down from that balcony, awestruck, not +fearstruck, on the people who in agonies of rage and terror fled the +city by pairs and families, or in armed squads and unarmed mobs swept +through the streets and up and down the levee, burning, breaking, and +plundering." + +"But that was the worst anybody did, you know." + +"Oh, yes. We never knew till to-day's war came how humane that war +was. It wasn't a war in which beauty, age, and infancy were hideous +perils." + +"Ah, never mind about that to-day. But about _grandpere_ and +_grand'mere_ go on. Let me see how much you can imagine correctly, +h'm?" + +"Please, mademoiselle, no. Time has made you--through your father's +eyes--they say you have them--an eye-witness. So next you see your +_grandpere_ getting back at last, by ship--go on." + +"Yes, I see that, in a harbor whose miles of wharfs without ships cried +to him: 'our occupation and your fortune are gone!' Also I see him +again in the streets--Royal, Chartres, Canal, Carondelet--where old +friends pass him with a stare. I see him and _grand'mere_ married at +last, in a church nearly empty and even the priest unfriendly." + +"Had he no new friends, Unionists?" + +"Not yet, at the wedding. There he said: 'Old friends or none.' And +that was right, don't you think? Later 'twas different. You see, in +the navy, both of the rivers and the sea, as likewise the army, +_grand'mere_ had uncles and cousins; and when the hotel was made a +military hospital she was there every day. And naturally those +cousins, whether from hospital or no, would call and even bring +friends. Well, of course, _grandpere_ was, at the least, courteous! +And then there was his word of honor, to Mr. Lincoln, as also his own +desire, to bring the State back into the Union." + +"Of course. Don't hurry, please." + +"Was I hurrying? Pardon, but I'm afraid they'll be calling us again." +The pair rose, but stood. "Well, when a kind of government was made of +that part of the State held by the Union, and the military governor +wanted both _grandpere_ and his father to take some public offices, his +father made excuse of his age and of a malady--taken from that +hospital--which soon occasioned him to die." + +"I've seen his tomb, in St. Louis cemetery, with its epitaph of barely +two words--'Adieu, Chapdelaine.' Who supplied that? Old friends, +after all?" + +"A few old, a few new, and one the governor." + +"Did the governor propose the words?" + +"No. If I tell you you won't tell? Ovide. But _grandpere_ he took +the office. And so that put him yet more distant from old friends +except just two or three who believed the same as he did." + +"And our Royal Street coterie, of course." + +"Ah, not those you see now; but their parents, yes. They were +faithful; though sometimes, some of them, sympathizing differently. +Well, and so there was _grandpere_ working to repair a _piece_ of the +State, when at last the war finished and the reconstruction of the +whole State commenced. He and Ovide were both of that State convention +they mobbed in the 'July riot.' Some men were killed in that riot. +_Grandpere_ was wounded, also Ovide. Those were awful times to +_grand'mere_, those years of the reconstruction. _Grandpere_ he--" +The girl glanced backward, then turned again, smiling. The four +chaperons were going indoors without them. + +"Yes," Chester said, "your _grandpere_ I can imagine----" + +"Well, go ahead; imagine, to me." + +"No. No, except just enough to see him with no choice of party +allegiance but between a rabble up to the elbows in robbery and an old +regime red-handed with the rabble's blood." + +"Ah, so papa told me, after _grandpere_ was long gone, and me on his +knee asking questions. 'Reconstruction, my dear child--' once he +answered me, ''twas like trying to drive, on the right road, a frantic +horse in a rotten harness, and with the reins under his tail!' Ah, I +wish you could have known him, Mr. Chester--my father!" + +"I know his daughter." + +"Well, I suppose--I suppose we must go in." + +"With the story almost finished?" + +"We'll, maybe finish inside--or--some day." + + + + +XXIV + +T. CHAPDELAINE & SON + +The seniors were found at a table for four. + +Mme. De l'Isle explained: "But! with only four to sit down there, how +was it possib' to h-ask for a tab'e for six? That wou'n' be logical!" + +When the waiter offered to add a smaller table and make one snug board +for six--"No," she said; "for feet and hands that be all right; but for +the _mind_, ah! You see, Mr. Chezter, M. De l'Isle he's also precizely +in the mi'l' of a moze overwhelming story of his own------" + +"Hiztorical!" the aunts broke in. "Well-known! abbout old house! in +the _vieux carre_!" + +"And," madame insisted, "'twould ruin that story, to us, to commenze to +hear it over, while same time 'twould ruin it to you to commenze to +hear it in the mi'l'. And beside', Aline, you are doubtlezz yet in the +mi'l' of your own story and--waiter! make there at that firz' window a +tab'e for two, and" [to the pair] "we'll run both storie' ad the same +time--if not three!" + +"Like that circ'"--the aunts fell into tears of laughter. They touched +each other with finger-tips, cried, "Like that circuz of Barnum!" and +repeated to the De l'Isles and then to Aline, "Like that circuz of +Barnum an' Bailey!" + +At the table for two, as the gumbo was uncovered and Chester asked how +it was made, "Ah!" said Aline, "for a veritable gumbo what you want +most is enthusiasm. The enthusiasm of both my aunts would not be too +much. And to tell how 'tis made you'd need no less, that would be a +story by itself, third ring of the circus." + +"Then tell me, further, of '_grandpere_'" + +"And grand'mere? Yes, I must, as I learned about them on papa's knee. +Mamma never saw them; they had been years gone when papa first knew +her. But Sidney I knew, when she was old and had seen all those +dreadful times; and, though she often would not tell me the story, she +would tell me what to ask papa; you see? You would have liked to talk +with Sidney about old buildings. Mr. Chester, I think it is not that +in New Orleans we are so picturesque, but that all the rest of our +country--in the cities--is so starved for the picturesque. Sidney +would have told you that story monsieur is telling now as well as all +the strange history of that old Hotel St. Louis. First, after the war +it was changed back from a hospital to a hotel. I think 'twas then +they called it Hotel Royal. Anyhow 'twas again very fine. Grandpere +and grand'mere were often in that salon where he had first--as they +say--spoken. Because, for one thing, there they met people of the +outside world without the local prejudices, you know?" + +"At that time bitter and vindictive?" + +"Oh, ferocious! And there they met also people of the most--dignity." + +"Above the average of the other hotels?" + +"Well, not so--so brisk." + +"Not so American?" + +"Ah, you know. Well, maybe that's one reason the St. Charles, for +example, continued, while the Royal did not. Anyhow the +Royal--grandpere had the life habit of it and 'twas just across the +street. Daily they ate there; a real economy." + +"But they kept the old home." + +"Yes. 'Twas furnished the same but not 'run' the same. 'Twas very +difficult to keep it, even with all three stories of the servants' wing +shut up, you know?--like"--a glance indicated the De l'Isles. + +"But you say Hotel Royal was soon closed." + +"Yes, and then, in the worst of those days, it became the capitol. +There, in the most elegant hotel for the most elegant planters of the +South--anyhow Southwest--sat their slaves, with white men even more +abhorred, and made the laws. In that old dome, second story, they put +a floor across, and there sat the Senate! Just over that auction-block +where grandpere had bought Mingo." + +"Where was he--Mingo?" + +"Dead--of drink. Grandpere was in that government! Long time he was +senator. Mr. Chester, _for that_ papa was proud of him, and I am +proud." + +The listener was proud of her pride. "I know," he said, "from my own +people, that in such an attitude--as your grandfather's--there was +honor a plenty for any honorable man. Ovide tells me the negroes never +wanted negro supremacy. I wonder if that's so. They were often, he +says, madly foolish and corrupt; yet their fundamental lawmaking was +mostly good. I know the State's constitution was; it was ahead of the +times." + +Aline made a quick gesture: "And any of the old masters who agreed to +that could help lead!" + +"Mademoiselle, how could they agree to it? Some did, I know, but +that's the wonder. Those that could not--who can blame them?" + +"Ah! 'tis no longer a question of blame but of judgment. So papa used +to say. Anyhow grandpere agreed, accepted, led; until at the last, one +day, that White League--you've heard of them, how they armed and +drilled and rose against that reconstruction police in a battle on the +steamboat landing? Grandpere was in that. He commanded part of the +reconstruction forces. And papa was there, though only thirteen. +Grandpere was bayonet-wounded. They carried him away bleeding. Only +at the State-house a surgeon met them, and there, under that dome, just +as papa brought grand'mere and Sidney, he died." Mademoiselle ceased. + +Chester waited, but she glanced to the other table. Monsieur had ended +his recital. Madame and the aunts chatted merrily. Smilingly the +niece's eyes came back. + +"Don't stop," said Chester. "What followed--for 'Maud'--Sidney--your +boy father--your little-girl aunts? Did the clock in the sky call them +North again?" + +"No." The speaker rose. "I'll tell you on the train; I hear it +coming." + + + + +XXV + +"There's a train every half-hour," Chester said. + +"Yes, but the day-laborer must be home early." + +On the train--"Well," the youth urged, "your _grand'mere_ stayed in the +old home, I hope, with the three children--and Sidney?" + +"Only till she could sell it. But that was nearly three years, and +they were hard, those three. But at last, by the help of that Royal +Street coterie--who were good friends, Mr. Chester, when friends were +scarce--she sold both house and furniture--what was by that time +remaining--and bought that place where we are now living." + +"Was there no life-insurance?" + +"A little. We have the yearly interest on it still. 'Tis very small, +yet a great help--to my aunts. I tell that only to say that papa would +never touch it when he and my aunts--and afterward mamma--were in very +narrow places." + +Chester perceived another reason for the telling of it; the niece +wanted to escape the credit of being the sole support of her aunts. +She read his thought but ignored it. + +"Papa was very old for his age," she continued. "You may see that by +his being in the battle with _grandpere_ at thirteen years. And +because of that precocity he got much training of the mind--and +spirit--from _grandpere_ that usually is got much later. I think that +is what my aunts mean when they tell you papa's life was dramatic. It +_was_ so, yet not in the manner they mean, the manner of _grandpere's_ +life; you understand?" + +"You mean it was not melodramatic?" + +"Ah! the word I wanted! Mr. Chester, when we get over being children, +those of us who do, why do we try so hard to live without melodrama?" + +"Oh, mademoiselle, you know well enough. You know that's what +melodrama does, itself? What is it, in essence, but a struggle to rise +out of itself into a higher drama, of the spirit----?" + +"A divine comedy! Yes. Well, that is what my father's life seems to +me." + +"With tragic elements in it, of course?" + +"Oh! How could it be high comedy without? But except that one battle +the tragedy was not--eh--crude, like _grandpere's_; was not physical. +Once he said to me: 'There are things in life, in the refined life, +very quiet things, that are much more tragic than bloodshed or death or +the defying of death.'" + +"In the refined life," Chester said musingly. + +"Yes! and he _was_ refined, yet never weak. 'Strength,' he said, +'valor, truth, they are the foundations; better be dead than without +them. Yet one can have them, in crude form, and still better be dead. +The noble, the humane, the chaste, the beautiful, 'tis with them we +build the superstructure, the temple, of life--Mr. Chester, if you knew +French I could tell you that better." + +"I doubt it. Go on, please, time's a-flying." + +"Well, you see how tragic was that life! Papa saw it and said: 'It +shall not be tragic alone. I will build on it a comedy higher, finer, +than tragedy. That's what life is for; mine, yours, the world's,' he +said to me. Mr. Chester, you can imagine how a daughter would love a +father like that, and also how mamma loved him--for years--before they +could marry." + +"Your mother was a Creole, I suppose?" + +"No, mamma was French. After _grand'mere_ had followed +_grandpere_--above--papa, looking up some of the once employees of T. +Chapdelaine & Son, to raise the old concern back to life, arranged with +them that while they should reinstitute it here he would go live in +France, close to the producers of the finest goods possible. You see? +And he did that many years with a kind of success; but smaller and +smaller, because little by little the taste for those refinements was +passing, while those department stores and all that kind of thing--you +understand--h'm?" + +The train stopped in Rampart Street, and when one aunt, with madame, +and one with monsieur, had followed the junior pair out of the +snarlings and hootings of Canal Street's automobiles and to the quiet +sidewalks of the old quarter---- + +"Well?" said Chester, slowing down, and---- + +"Well," said Aline, "about mamma: ah, 'tis wonderful how they were +suited to each other, those two. Almost from the first of his living +there, in France, they were acquainted and much together. She was of a +fine ancestry, but without fortune; everything lost in the German war, +eighteen seventy. They were close neighbor to a convent very famous +for its wonderful work of the needle and of the bobbin. 'Twas there +she received her education. And she and papa could have married any +time if he could promise to stay always there, in France. But the +business couldn't assure that; and so, for years and years, you see?" + +"Yes, I see." + +"But then, all at once, almost in a day, mamma, she found herself an +orphan, with no inheritance but poor relations and they with already +too many orphans in their care. For, as my aunts say, joking, that +seems to run in our family, to become orphans. + +"They are very fond of joking, my aunts. And so, because to those +French relations America seemed a cure for all troubles, they allowed +papa to marry mamma and bring her here to live, where I was born, and +where they lived many, many years so happily, because so bravely----" + +"And in such refinement--of spirit?" + +"Ah, yes, yes. And where we are yet inhabiting, as you perceive, my +aunts and me, and--as you see yonder this moment waiting us in the +gate--Hector and Marie Madeleine!" + + +Alone with the De l'Isles in Royal Street Chester asked, "And the +business--Chapdelaine & Son?" + +"Ah, sinz' long time liquidate'! All tha'z rim-aining is Mme. +Alexandre. Mr. Chezter, y' ought to put that! That ought to go in the +book," said monsieur. + +"If we could only avoid a disjointed effect." + +"Dizjoin'--my dear sir! They are going to read thad book _biccause_ +the dizjointed--by curio-zity. You'll see! That Am-erican pewblic +they have a passion, an _insanitie_, for the dizjointed!" + + + + +XXVI + +The week so blissfully begun in the Chapdelaines' garden and at Spanish +Fort was near its end. + +The _Courier des Etats-Unis_ had told the Royal Street coterie of +mighty doings far away in Italy, of misdoings in Galicia, and of +horrors on the Atlantic fouler than all its deeps can ever cleanse; but +nothing was yet reported to have "tranzpired" in the _vieux carre_. +The fortunes of "the book" seemed becalmed. + +It was Saturday evening. The streets had just been lighted. Mlles. +Corinne and Yvonne, dingy even by starlight, were in one of +them--Conti. Now they turned into Royal, and after them turned Chester +and Aline. Presently the four entered the parlor of the Castanados. +Their coming made its group eleven, and all being seated Castanado rose. + +After the proper compliments--"They were called," he said, "to +receive----" + +"And discuss," Chester put in. + +"To receive and discuss the judgment of their----" + +"The suggestions," Chester amended. + +"The judgment and suggestion' of their counsel, how tha'z best to +publish the literary treasure they've foun' and which has egspand' from +one story to three or four. Biccause the one which was firzt acquire' +is laztly turn' out to be the only one of a su'possible +incompat'--eh--in-com-pat-a-bil-ity--to the others." His bow yielded +the floor to Chester. "Remain seated, if you please," he said. + +"In spite of my wish to save this manuscript all avoidable delay," +Chester began, "I've kept it a week. I like it--much. I think that in +quieter times, with the reading world in a more contemplative mood, any +publisher would be glad to print it. At the same time it seems to me +to have faults of construction that ought to come out of it before it +goes to a possibly unsympathetic publisher. Yet after--was Mme. +Alexandre about----?" + +"Juz' to say tha'z maybe better those fault' are there. If the +publisher be not _sympathetique_ we want him to rif-use that +manuscrip'." + +"Yes!" several responded. "Yes! He can't have it! Tha'z the en' of +_that_ publisher." + +"Well, at any rate," Chester said, "after using up this whole week +trying, fruitlessly, to edit those faults out of it, here it is +unaltered. I still feel them, but I have to confess that to feel them +is one thing and to find them is quite another. Maybe they're only in +me." + +"Tha'z the only plase they are," said Dubroca, with kind gravity. "I +had the same feeling--till a dream, which reveal' to me that the +feeling was my fault. The manuscrip' is perfec'." + +"Messieurs," Mme. Castanado broke in, "please to hear Mlle. Aline." +And Aline spoke: + +"Perfect or no, I think that's what we don't require to conclude. But +if that manuscript will join well with those other two--or three, or +four, if we find so many--or if it will rather disjoint them--'tis that +we must decide; is it not, M. De l'Isle?" + +"Yes, and tha'z easy. That story is going to assimilate those other' +to a perfegtion! For several reason'. Firz', like those other', 'tis +not figtion; 'tis true. Second, like those, 'tis a personal +egsperienze told by the person egsperienzing. Third, every one of +those person' were known to some of us, an' we can certify that person +that he or she was of the greatez' veracity! Fourth, the United States +they've juz' lately purchaze' that island where that story tranzpire. +And, fifthly, the three storie' they are joint'; not stiff', like +board' of a floor, but loozly, like those link' of a chain. They are +jointed in the subjec' of friddom! 'Tis true, only friddom of negro', +yet still--friddom! An', _messieurs et mesdames_, that is now the +precise moment when that whole worl' is _wile_ on that _topique_; +friddom of citizen', friddom of nation', friddom of race', friddom of +the sea'! And there is ferociouz demand for short storie' joint' on +that _topique_, biccause now at the lazt that whole worl' is biccome +furiouzly conscientiouz to get at the bottom of that _topique_; an' +biccause those negro' are the lowez' race, they are there, of co'se, ad +the bottom!" + +"M. Beloiseau?" the chair--hostess--said; and Scipion, with languor in +his voice but a burning fervor in his eye, responded: + +"I think Mr. Chezter he's speaking with a too great modestie--or else +_dip_-lomacie. Tha'z not good! If _fid_-elitie to art inspire me a +conceitednezz as high"--his upthrown hand quivered at arm's length--"as +the flagpole of Hotel St. Louis dome yonder, tha'z better than a +modestie withoud that. That origin-al manuscrip' we don't want that +ag-ain; we've all read that. But I think Mr. Chezter he's also maybe +got that _riv_-ision in his pocket, an' we ought to hear, now, at ones, +that _riv_-ision!" + +Miles. Corinne and Yvonne led the applause, and presently Chester was +reading: + + + + +XXVII + +THE HOLY CROSS + +This is a true story. Only that fact gives me the courage to tell it. +It happened. + +It occurred under my own eyes when they were far younger than now, on a +beautiful island in the Caribbean, some twelve hundred miles +southeastward from Florida, the largest of the Virgin group--the island +of the Holy Cross. Its natives called it Aye-Aye. Columbus piously +named it Santa Cruz and bore away a number of its people to Spain as +slaves, to show them what Christians looked like in quantity and how +they behaved to one another and to strangers. You can hear much about +Santa Cruz from anybody in the rum-trade. + +It has had many owners. As with the woman in the Sadducee's riddle, +she of many husbands, seven political powers have had this mermaid as +bride. Spain, the English, the Dutch, the Spaniards again, the French, +the Knights of Malta, the French again, who sold her to the Guiana +Company, who in 1734 passed her over to the Danes, from whom the +English captured her in 1807 but restored her again at the close of +Napoleon's wars. Thus, at last, Denmark prevailed as the ruling power; +but English remained the speech of the people. The island is about +twenty-three miles long by six wide. Its two towns are Christiansted +on the north and Fredericksted on the south. Christiansted is the +capital. + +In 1848 I lived in Fredericksted, on Kongensgade, or King Street, with +my aunts, Marion, Anna, and Marcia, and my grandmother--whom the +servants called Mi'ss Paula--and was just old enough to begin taking +care of my dignity. Whether I was Danish, British, or American I +hardly knew. When grandmamma, whose husband had been of a family that +had furnished a signer of our Declaration, told me stories of Bunker +Hill and Yorktown I glowed with American patriotism. But when she +turned to English stories, heroic or momentous, she would remind me +that my father and mother were born on this island under British sway, +and--"Once a Briton always a Briton." And yet again, my playmates +would say: + +"When _you_ were born the island was Danish; you are a subject of King +Christian VIII." + +Kongensgade, though narrow, was one of the main streets that ran the +town's full length from northeast to southwest, and our home was a +long, low cottage on the street's southern side, between it and the +sea. Its grounds sloped upward from the street, widened out +extensively at the rear, and then suddenly fell away in bluffs to the +beach. It had been built for "Mi'ss Paula" as a bridal gift from her +husband. But now, in her widowhood, his wealth was gone, and only +refinement and inspiring traditions remained. + +The sale or hire of her slaves might have kept her in comfort; but a +clergyman, lately from England, convinced her that no Christian should +hold a slave, and setting them free she accepted a life of self-help +and of no little privation. She was his only convert. His zeal cooled +early. Her ex-slaves, finding no _public_ freedom in custom or law, +merely hired their labor unwisely and yearly grew more worthless. + + +[The reader lifted his eyes across to Aline: + +"I had a notion to name that much 'The Time,' and this next part 'The +Scene.' What do you think?" + +"Yes, I think so. 'Twould make the manner of it less antique." + +"Ah!" cried Mlle. Corinne, "'tis not a movie! Tha'z the charm, that +antie-quitie!" + +"Yes," the niece assented again, "but even with that insertion 'tis yet +as old-fashioned as 'Paul and Virginia.'" + +"Or 'Rasselas,'" Chester suggested, and resumed his task.] + + + + +XXVIII + +(THE SCENE) + +Yet to be poor on that island did not compel a sordid narrowing of +life. You would have found our living-room furnished in mahogany rich +and old. In a corner where the airs came in by a great window stood a +jar big enough to hide in, into which trickled a cool thread of water +from a huge dripping-stone, while above these a shelf held native +waterpots whose yellow and crimson surfaces were constantly pearled +with dew oozing through the porous ware. On a low press near by was +piled the remnant of father's library, and on the ancient sideboard +were silver candlesticks, snuffers, and crystal shades. + +But it was neither these things nor cherished traditions that gave the +room its finest charm. It was filled with the glory of the sea. There +was no need of painted pictures. Living nature hung framed in wide +high windows through which drifted in the distant boom of surf on the +rocks, and salt breezes perfumed with cassia. + +Outside, round about, there was far more. A broad door led by a flight +of stone steps to the couchlike roots of a gigantic turpentine-tree +whose deep shade harbored birds of every hue. To me, sitting there, +the island's old Carib name of Aye-Aye seemed the eternal consent of +God to some seraph asking for this ocean pearl. All that poet or +prophet had ever said of heaven became comprehensible in its daily +transfigurations of light and color scintillated between wave, +landscape, and cloud--its sea like unto crystal, and the trees bearing +all manner of fruits. Grace and fragrance everywhere: fruits crimson, +gold, and purple; fishes blue, orange, pink; shells of rose and pearl. +Distant hills, clouds of sunset and dawn, sky and stream, leaf and +flower, bird and butterfly, repeated the splendor, while round all +palpitated the wooing rhythm of the sea's mysterious tides. + +The beach! Along its landward edge the plumed palms stood sentinel, +rustling to the lipping waters and to the curious note of the +Thibet-trees, sounding their long dry pods like castanets in the +evening breeze. By the water's margin, and in its shoals and depths, +what treasures of the underworld! Here a sponge, with stem bearing +five cups; there a sea-fan, large enough for a Titan's use yet delicate +enough to be a mermaid's. Red-lipped shells; mystical eye-stones; +shell petals heaped in rocky nooks like rose leaves; and, moving among +these in grotesque leisure, crabs of a brilliance and variety to tax +the painter. All the rector told of a fallen world seemed but idle +words when the sunset glory was too much for human vision and the young +heart trembled before its ineffable suggestions. + +I often rode a pony. If we turned inland our way was on a road +double-lined with cocoa palms, or up some tangled dell where a silvery +cascade leaped through the deep verdure. On one side the tall mahogany +dropped its woody pears. On another, sand-box and calabash trees +rattled their huge fruit like warring savages. Here the banyan hung +its ropes and yonder the tamarind waved its feathery streamers. Here +was the rubber-tree, here the breadfruit. Now and then a clump of the +manchineel weighted the air with the fragrance of its poisonous apples, +the banana rustled, or the bamboo tossed its graceful canes. Beside +some stream we might espy black washerwomen beetling their washing. +Or, reaching the summit of Blue Mountain, we might look down, eleven +hundred feet, on the vast Caribbean dotted with islands, and, nearer +by, on breakers curling in noble bays or foaming under rocky cliffs. +Northward, the wilderness; eastward, green fields of sugar-cane paling +and darkling in the breeze; southward, the wide harbor of +Fredericksted, the town, and the black, red-shirted boatmen pushing +about the harbor; westward, the setting sun; and presently, everywhere, +the swift fall of the tropical night, with lights beginning to twinkle +in the town and the boats in the roadstead to leave long wakes of +phosphorescent light. + +Of course nature had also her bad habits. There were sharks in the +sea, and venomous things ashore, and there were the earthquake and the +hurricane. Every window and door had heavy shutters armed with bars, +rings, and ropes that came swiftly into use whenever between July and +October the word ran through the town, "The barometer's falling." Then +candles and lamps were lighted indoors, and there was happy excitement +for a courageous child. I would beg hard to have a single pair of +shutters held slightly open by two persons ready to shut them in a +second, and so snatched glimpses of the tortured, flying clouds and +writhing trees, while old Si' Myra, one of the freed slaves who never +had left us, crouched in a corner and muttered: + +"Lo'd sabe us! Lo'd sabe us!" + +Once I saw a handsome brig which had failed to leave the harbor soon +enough stagger in upon the rocks where it seemed her masts might fall +into our own grounds, and grandmamma told me that thus my father, +though born in the island, had first met my mother. + + + + +XXIX + +(THE PLAYERS) + +Si' Myra was a Congo. She believed the Obi priests could boil water +without fire, and in many ways cause frightful woes. To her own myths +she had added Danish ones. "De wehr-wolf, yes, me chile! Dem nights +w'en de moon shine bright and de dogs a-barkin', you see twelb dogs +a-talkin' togedder in a ring, and one in de middle. Dah dem wait till +dem yerry [hear] him; den dem take arter him, me chile," etc. + +Strangest, wildest practice of the slaves was the hideous misuse +Christian masters allowed them to make of Chrismas Day and week. It +was then they danced the bamboula, incessantly. All through the year +this Saturnalia was prepared for in meetings held at night by their +leaders. The songs to which they danced were made of white society's +scandals reduced to satirical rhyme; and to the rashest girl or man +there was power in the warning, "You'll get yourself sung about at +Christmas." Yearly a king, queen, and retinue were elected. The +dresses of court and all were a mixture of splendor and tawdriness that +exhausted the savings and pilferings of a twelvemonth. Good-natured +"missies" often helped make these outfits. They were of velvet, silk, +satin, cotton lace, false flowers, the brilliant seeds of the licorice +and coquelicot, tinsel, beads, and pinch-beck. Sometimes mistresses +even lent--firmly sewed fast--their own jewelry. + +On Christmas Eve, here and there in the town, ground-floor rooms were +hired and decorated with palm branches; or palm booths were built, +decked with oranges and boughs of cinnamon berries, lighted with +candles and lanterns and furnished with seats for the king, queen, and +musicians, and with buckets of rum punch. Then the "bulrush man" went +his round. Covered with capes and flounces of rushes and crowned with +a high waving fringe of them, he rattled pebbles in calabashes, danced +to their clatter, proclaimed the feast, and begged such of us white +children as his dress did not terrify, for stivers from our holiday +savings. + +Soon the dancers began to gather in the booths; women in gorgeous +trailing gowns, the men bearing showy batons and clad in gay shirts or +satin jackets, and with a mongrel infant rabble at their heels. When +the goombay--a flour-barrel drum--sounded, the town knew the bamboula +had begun. On two confronting lines, the men in one, the women in the +other, a leading couple improvised a song and all took up the refrain. +The goombay beat time, and the dancers rattled or tinkled the woody +seed-cases of the sand-box tree set on long handles and with each of +their lobes painted a separate vivid color; rattles of basketwork; and +calabashes filled with pebbles and shells. All instruments were gay +with floating ribbons. So the lines approached each other by two +steps, receded, advanced, and receded, always in wild cadence to the +signals of voice and instrument; then bowed so low that they +touched--twice--thrice; then pirouetted and resumed the first movement, +and now and then, with two or three turns or bows, clashed their +rattles together in time. As night darkened, the rude lights flared +yellow and red upon the dusky forms bedizened with beads, bangles, and +grotesquer trumpery. Faces, necks, arms reeked and shone in the heat, +ribbons streamed, gross odors arose, the goombay dominated all, and +children of the master race--for even I was permitted to witness these +orgies--without comprehending, stood aghast. Close outside, the +matchless night lay on land and sea; a relieved sense caught ethereal +perfumes and was soothed by the exquisite refinement into whose space +and silence the faint deep voice of the savage drum sobbed one grief +and one prayer alike for slave and master. + +The revel always ended with New Year's Day. The next morning broke +silently, and with the rising of the sun the plantation bell or the +conch called the bondman and bondwoman into the cane-fields. Then, +alike in broadest noon or deepest night, a spectral fear hovered +wherever the master sat among his loved ones or rode from place to +place. Not often did the hand of oppression fall upon any slave with +illegal violence, or he or she turn to slaughter or poison the +oppressor; but the slaves were in thousands, the masters were but +hundreds, the laws were cruel; the whipping-post stood among the town's +best houses of commerce, justice, and worship, with the thumbscrews +hard by. As to armed defense, the well-drilled and finely caparisoned +volunteer "troopers" were but a handful, the Danish garrison a mere +squad; the governor was mild and aged, and the two towns were the width +of the island apart. + + + + +XXX + +(THE RISING CURTAIN) + +In that year, 1848, this unrest was much increased. King Christian had +lately proclaimed a gradual emancipation of all slaves in his West +Indian colonies. A squad of soldiers had marched through the streets, +halting at corners and beating a drum--"beating the protocol," as it +was termed--and reading the royal edict. After twelve years all slaves +were to go free; their owners were to be paid for them; and meantime +every infant of a slave was to be free at birth. + +I suppose no one knows better than the practical statesman how +disastrous measures are apt to be when designed for the _gradual_ +righting of a public evil. They rarely satisfy any class concerned. +In this case the aged slaves bemoaned a promised land they might never +live to enter; younger ones dreaded the superior liberty of free-born +children; and the planters doubted they would be paid, even if +emancipation did not bring fire, rapine, and death. + +One day, along with all "West-En'," as the negroes called +Fredericksted--Christiansted was "Bass-En',"--I saw two British +East-Indiamen sail into the harbor. Such ships never touched at +Fredericksted; what could the Britons want? + +"Water," they said, "and rest"; but they stayed and stayed! their +officers roaming the island, asking many questions, answering few. +What they signified at last I cannot say, except that they became our +refuge from the black uprising that was near at hand. Likely enough +that was their only errand. + +Sunday, the 2d of July, was still and fair. To me the Sabbath was +always a happy day. High-stepping horses prancing up to the +church-gates brought friends from the plantations. The organ pealed, +the choir chanted, the rector read, and read well; the mural tablets +told the virtues of the churchyard sleepers, and out through the +windows I could gaze on the clouds and the hills. After church came +the Sunday-school. Its house was on a breezy height where the wind +swept through the room unceasingly, giving wings to the children's +voices as we sang, "Now be the gospel banner." + +But this Sunday promised unusual pleasure. I was to go with Aunt +Marion to dine soon after midday with a Danish family, in real Danish +West Indian fashion, and among the guests were to be some officers of +the East-Indiamen. I carried with me one fear--that we should have +pigeon-pea soup. Whoever ate pigeon-pea soup, Si' Myra said, would +never want to leave the island, and I longed for those ships to go. +But in due time we were asked: + +"Which soup will you have--guava-berry or pigeon-pea?" + +Hoping to be imitated I chose the guava-berry; but without any +immediately visible effect one officer took one and another the other. +After soup came an elegant kingfish, and by and by the famous callalou +and other delicate and curious viands. For dessert appeared "red +groat"; sago jelly, that is, flavored with guavas, crimsoned with the +juice of the prickly-pear and floating in milk; also other floating +islands of guava jelly beaten with eggs. Pale-green granadillas +crowned the feast. These were eaten with sugar and wine, and before +each draft the men lifted their glasses high to right and left and +cried: "Skoal! Skoal!" As the company finally rose, our host and +hostess shook hands with all, these again saluting each other, each two +saying: "Vel be komme"--"May this feast do you good." + +There was strange contrast in store for us. Late in the afternoon we +started home. On the way two friends, a lady and her daughter, +persuaded us to turn and take a walk on the north-side road, at the +town's western border. It drew us southward toward "the lagoon," near +to where this water formed a kind of moat behind the fort, and was +spanned by a slight wooden bridge. While we went the sun slowly sank +through a golden light toward the purple sea, among temples, towers, +and altars of cloud. + +As we neared this bridge two black men crossing it from opposite ways +stopped and spoke low: + +"Yes, me yerry it; dem say sich t'ing' as nebber bin known befo' goin' +be done in West-En' town to-night." + +"Well, you look sharp, me frien'----" + +Seeing us, they parted abruptly, one troubled, the other pleased and +brisk. Our friends drew back: "What does he mean, mother?" + +"Oh, some meeting to make Christmas songs, I suppose." + +"I think not," said Aunt Marion. "Let's go back; my mother's alone." + +Just then Gilbert, young son of an intimate neighbor, appeared, saying +to the four of us: "I've come to find you and see you home. The +thing's on us. The slaves rise to-night. Some free negroes have +betrayed them. At eight o'clock they, the slaves, are to attack the +town." + +Our home was reached first. Grandmamma heard the news calmly. "We're +in God's hands," she said. "Gilbert, will you stop at Mr. Kenyon's" +[another neighbor] "and send Anna and Marcia home?" + +Mr. Kenyon came bringing them and begging that we all go and pass the +night with him. But grandmamma thought we had better stay home, and he +went away to propose to the neighborhood that all the women and +children be put into the fort, that the men might be the freer to +defend them. + +"Marion," said grandmamma, "let us have supper and prayers." + +The meal was scarcely touched. Aunt Marcia put Bible and prayer-book +by the lamp and barred all the front shutters. When grandmamma had +read we knelt, but the prayer, was scarcely finished when Aunt Marcia +was up, crying: "The signal! Hear the signal!" + +Out in the still night a high mournful note on a bamboo pipe was +answered by a conch, and presently the alarm was ringing from point to +point, from shells, pipes and horns, and now and then in the solemn +clangor of plantation bells. It came first from the south, then from +the east, swept around to the north, and answered from the western +cliffs, springing from hilltop to hilltop, long, fierce, exultant. We +stood listening and, I fear, pale. But by and by grandmamma took her +easy chair. + +"I will spend the night here," she said. + +Aunt Anna took a rocking-chair beside her. Aunt Marcia chose the sofa. +Aunt Marion spread a pallet for me, lay down at my side, and bade me +not fear but sleep. And I slept. + + + + +XXXI + +(REVOLT AND RIOT) + +Suddenly I was broad awake. Distant but approaching, I heard horses' +feet. They came from the direction of the fort. Aunt Marcia was +unbarring the shutters and fastening the inner jalousies so as to look +out unseen. + +"It's nearly one o'clock," some one said, and I got up, wondering how +the world looked at such an hour. All hearkened to the nearing sound. + +"Ah!" Aunt Marcia gladly cried, "the troopers!" + +There were only some fifty of them. Slowly, in a fitful moonlight, +they dimly came, hoofs ringing on the narrow macadam, swords clanking, +and dark plumes nodding over set faces, while the distant war-signal +from shell, reed, and horn called before, around, and after them. + +Still later came a knock at the door, and Mr. Kenyon was warily +readmitted. He explained the passing of the troopers. They had +hurried about the country for hours, assembling their families at +points easy to defend and then had come to the fort for ammunition and +orders; but the captain of the fort, refusing to admit them without the +governor's order, urged them to go to their homes. + +"But," Mr. Kenyon had interposed, "a courier can reach the governor in +an hour and a half." + +"One will be sent as soon as it is light," was the best answer that +could be got. + +Our friend, much excited, went on to tell us that the town militia were +without ammunition also. He believed the fort's officers were +conniving with the revolt. Presently he left us, saying he had met one +of our freed servants, Jack, who would come soon to protect us. +Shortly after daybreak Jack did appear and mounted guard at the front +gate. "Go sleep, ole mis's. Miss Mary Ann" [Marion], "you-all go +sleep. Chaw! wha' foo all you set up all night? Si' Myra, you go draw +watah foo bile coffee." + +The dreadful signals had ceased at last, and all lay down to rest; but +I remained awake and saw through the great seaward windows the +wonderful dawn of the tropics flush over sky and ocean. But presently +its heavenly silence was broken by the gallop of a single horse, and a +Danish orderly, heavily armed, passed the street-side windows, off at +last for Christiansted. + +Soon the conchs and horns began again. With them was blent now the +tramp of many feet and the harsh voices of swarming insurgents. Their +long silence was explained; they had been sharpening their weapons. + +Their first act of violence was to break open a sugar storehouse. They +mixed a barrel of sugar with one of rum, killed a hog, poured in his +blood, added gunpowder, and drank the compound--to make them brave. +Then with barrels of rum and sugar they changed a whole cistern of +water into punch, stirring it with their sharpened hoes, dipping it out +with huge sugar-boiler ladles, and drinking themselves half blind. + +Jack dashed in from the gate: "Oh, Miss Marcia, go look! dem a-comin'! +Gin'ral Buddoe at dem head on he w'ite hoss." + +We ran to the jalousies. In the street, coming southward toward the +fort, were full two thousand blacks. They walked and ran, the women +with their skirts tied up in fighting trim, and all armed with +hatchets, hoes, cutlasses, and sugar-cane bills. The bills were fitted +on stout pole handles, and all their weapons had been ground and +polished until they glittered horridly in their black hands and above +the gaudy Madras turbans or bare woolly heads and bloodshot eyes. + +"Dem goin' to de fote to ax foo freedom," Jack cried. + +At their head rode "Gin'ral Buddoe," large, powerful, black, in a +cocked hat with a long white plume. A rusty sword rattled at his +horse's flank. As he came opposite my window I saw a white man, alone, +step out from the house across the way and silently lift his arms to +the multitude to halt. + +They halted. It was the Roman Catholic priest. For a moment they gave +attention, then howled, brandished their weapons, and pressed on. Aunt +Marcia dropped to her knees and in tears began to pray aloud; but we +cried to her that Rachel, a slave woman, was coming, who must not see +our alarm. Indeed, both Rachel and Tom had already entered. + +"La! Miss Mary Ann, wha' fur you cryin'? Who's goin' tech you?" +Rachel held by its four corners a Madras kerchief full of sugar. "Da +what we done come fur, to tell Miss Paula" [grandmamma] "not be +frightened." + +Tom was off again while grandmamma said: "Rachel, you've been stealing." + +"Well, Miss Paula! ain't I gwine hab my sheah w'en dem knock de head' +out dem hogsitt' an' tramp de sugah under dah feet an' mix a whole +cisron o' punch?" + +Rachel told the events of the night. But as she talked a roar without +rose higher and higher, and I, running with Jack to the gate, beheld +two smaller mobs coming round a near corner. The foremost was dragging +along the ground by ropes a huge object, howling, striking, and hacking +at it. The other was doing the same to something smaller tied to a +stick of wood, and the air was full of their cries: + +"To de sea! Frow it in de sea! You'll nebber hole obbe" [us] "no mo'! +You'll be drownded in de sea-watah!" Their victims were the +whipping-post and the thumbscrews. + +Tom returned to say: "Dem done to'e up de cote-house and de Jedge's +house, an' now dem goin' Bay Street too tear up de sto'es." + +Gilbert came up from the fort telling what he had seen. The blacks had +tried to scale the ramparts, on one another's shoulders, howling for +freedom and defying the garrison to fire. But the commander had not +dared without orders from the governor, and his courier had not +returned. A leading merchant standing on the fort wall was less +discreet: "Take the responsibility! Fire! Every white man on the +island will sustain you, and you'll end the whole thing here!" + +Upon that word off again up-town had gone the whole black swarm, had +sacked the bold merchant's store, and seemed now, by the noises they +made, to be sacking others. "I come," Gilbert said, "with an offer of +the ship-captains to take the white people aboard the ships." + +As he turned away groups of negroes began to dash by laden with all +sorts of "prog" [booty] from the wrecked stores. Grandmamma had lain +down, my aunts were trying to make up some sort of midday meal, and I +was standing alone behind the jalousies, when a ferocious-looking negro +rattled them with his bill. + +"Lidde gal, gi' me some watah." + +"Wait a minute," I said, and left the room. If I hid he might burst in +and murder us. So I brought a bowl of water. + +"Tankee, lidde missee," he said, returned the bowl, and went away. Tom +was thereupon set to guard the gate, which he did poorly. Another +negro slipped in and sat down on our steps. He looked around the +pretty enclosure, gave a tired grunt, and said: + +"Please, missee, lemme res'; I done bruk up." He held in his hands the +works of a clock, fell to studying them, and became wholly absorbed. + +Rachel asked him who had broken it. He replied: + +"Obbe" [our] "Ca'lina. She no like de way it talkin'. She say: 'W'at +mek you say, night und day, night und day?' Un' she tuk her bill un' +bruk it up. Un' Georgina chop' up de pianneh, 'caze it wouldn' talk +foo her like it talk too buckra. Da shame!" + +But now came yells and cheers in the street, the rush and trample of +hundreds, and the cry: + +"De gub'nor! de gub'nor a-comin'!" + + + + +XXXII + +(FREEDOM AND CONFLAGRATION) + +We ran to the windows. In an open carriage, with two official +attendants, surrounded by a mounted guard and clad in the uniform of a +Danish general, the aged governor came. On his breast were the +insignia of the order of Dannebrog. His cavalcade could hardly make +its way, and when one of the crowd made bold to seize the horses' reins +the equipage, just before our house, stopped. The governor sat still, +very pale. + +Suddenly he rose, uncovered, and with graceful dignity bowed. Then he +unfolded a paper with large seals attached, and in a trembling but +clear voice began to read. In the name and by the authority of his +Majesty Christian VIII, King of Denmark, he proclaimed freedom to every +slave in the Danish West Indies. + +Our cries of dismay were drowned in the huzzas of the black mob: "Free! +Free! God bless de gub'nor! Obbe is free!" + +The retinue moved again; but the crowd, ignoring the command to +disperse to their homes, surged after it in transports of rejoicing. +At the fort the proclamation, with the order to disperse, was read +again. But the mob, suddenly granted all its demands, could not +instantly return to quiet toils made odious by slavery. Mad with joy +and drink, it broke into small companies, some content to stay in town +carousing, others roaming out among the island estates to pillage and +burn. Here the governor, in failing to employ prompt measures of +police, proved himself weak. + +At evening, leaving our house in care of Jack and Tom, we went to spend +the night at Mr. Kenyon's, where several neighbors were gathered, under +arms. Our way led us by the ruined court-house, where for several +squares the ground was completely covered with torn records, books, and +other documents. + +The night wore by in fitful sleep or anxious vigils. Near us all was +quiet; but the distant sky was in many places red with incendiary +fires. At dawn Mr. Kenyon, Gilbert, and others ventured out, and +returned with sad tidings brought by courier from Christiansted. At +the signal on Sunday night the negroes had swarmed there by thousands. +Next day, when the governor had just departed for our town, leaving +word to do nothing in his absence, they had attacked the fort as they +had ours. But its commander, of a sturdy temper, had opened fire, +killing and wounding many. This had only defended the town at the +expense of the country, into which thousands scattered to break, +pillage, and burn. Yet even so no whites had been killed except two or +three men who had opposed the blacks single-handed, although the whole +island, outside the two towns, was at the mercy of the insurgents. + +However, there was better news. A Danish man-of-war was near by. A +schooner was gone to look her up, and another to ask aid in the island +of Porto Rico, only seventy miles away and heavily garrisoned with +Spaniards. Still it was deemed wise to accept for Fredericksted the +offer from the ships and send the women and children on board, so that +the military might be free to hold the uprising in check until a +stronger force could extinguish it. + +"Tom," Mr. Kenyon said, "is to have a boat at the beach to take us off +to an American schooner. Pack no trunks. Gather your lightest +valuables in small bundles. Be quick; if a crowd gets there before you +you may be refused." + +We hurried home over a carpet of archives and title-deeds, swallowed a +sort of breakfast, and began the hard task of choosing the little we +could take from the much we must leave, in a dear home that might soon +be in ashes. + +On the schooner we found a kind welcome, amid a throng of friends and +strangers, and a chaos of boxes, bundles, and _trunks_. Children were +crying to go home, or viewing with babbling delight the wide roadstead +dotted with boats still bringing the fugitives to every anchored +vessel. Women were calling farewells and cautions to the men in the +returning boats, and meeting friends were telling in many tongues the +droll or sad distresses of the hour. + +A friend, with his wife and little daughter, gave us a thrilling story. +Except their house-keeper, a young English girl, they three were the +only white persons on their beautiful "North End" estate when on Sunday +night their slaves came to them in force demanding "freedom papers." + +"Not under compulsion, never!" + +"Den obbe set eb'ryt'ing on fiah! Wen yo' house bu'n up we try t'ink +w'at too do wid you and de missie!" They rushed away to the +sugar-works, yelling: "Git bagasse foo bu'n him out!" + +The household loaded all the firearms in the house, filled all vessels +with water, and piled blankets here and there to fight fire. Then they +made merry. The wife played her piano till after midnight. Whether +moved by this show or not, the blacks failed to return, and next day +the family escaped to the schooner. + +To grandmamma and the wife of the American consul, the oldest ladies on +the vessel, was given, at nightfall, the only sofa on board. The rest +dropped asleep on boxes and bundles anywhere. For my couch the +boatswain lent me his locker, and for a pillow a bag of something that +felt like rope ends, and for three successive mornings I was wakened +with: + +"Sorry to disturb you, little miss, but I must get to my locker." + + + + +XXXIII + +(AUTHORITY, ORDER, PEACE) + +Three days of heat, glare, hubbub, and anxious suspense dragged away, +and Thursday's gorgeous sunset brought a change. The Danish frigate, +bright with flags and swarming with sailors, swept in, dropped anchor, +and wrapped herself in thunder and white smoke. Soon she lowered a +boat, a glittering officer took its tiller-ropes, its long oars +flashed, and it bore away to the fort. But evening fell, a starry +silence reigned, and when a late moon rose we slept. + +Next morning we knew that Captain Erminger, of the frigate, had assumed +command over the whole island, declared martial law, landed his +marines, and begun operations. Soon the harbor was populous again, +with refugees returning home. Tom came with his boat. Just as we +started landward a schooner came round the bluffs bringing the +Spaniards. At early twilight these landed and marched with much +clatter through the vacant streets to the town's various points of +entrance, there to mount guard, the Danes having gone to scatter the +insurgents. + +The pursuing forces, in two bodies, were to move toward each other from +opposite ends of the island, spanning it from sea to sea and meeting in +the centre, thus entirely breaking up the bands of aimless pillagers +into which the insurrection had already dispersed. This took but a few +days. Buddoe was almost at once trapped by the baldest flatteries of +two leading Danish residents and, finding himself without even the +honor of armed capture, betrayed his confederates and disappeared. + +Only one small band of blacks made any marked resistance. Under a +certain "Moses" they occupied a hill, hurling down stones upon their +assailants, but were soon captured. Many leaders of the revolt were +condemned and shot, displaying in most cases a total absence of +fortitude. + +In less than a week from the day of flight to the ships quiet was +restored, and a meeting of planters was adopting rules and rates for +the employment of the freed slaves. Some estates resumed work at once; +on others the ravages of the torch had first to be repaired. Some +negroes would not work, and it was months before all the windmills on +the hills were once more whirling. The Spaniards lingered long, but +were finally relieved by a Danish regiment. Captain Erminger was +commended by his home government. The governor was censured and +superseded. The planters got no pay for their slaves. + +The government may have argued that the ex-master should no more be +paid for his slave than the ex-slave recover back pay for his labor; +and that, after all, a general emancipation was only a moderate raising +of wages unjustly low and uniform. Both kings and congresses will at +times do the easy thing instead of the fair one and let two wrongs +offset each other. Make haste, rising generations! and, as you truly +honor your fathers, bring to their graves the garlandry of juster laws +and kinder, purer days. + +To different minds this true story will speak, no doubt, a varying +counsel. Some will believe that the lovely island was saved from the +agonies of a Haytian revolution only through iron suppression. To +others it will appear that the old governor's rashly timorous edict +was, after all, the true source of deliverance. Certainly the question +remains, whether even the most sudden and ill-timed concession of +rights, if only backed by energetic police action, is not a prompter, +surer cure for public disorder than whole batteries of artillery +without the concession of rights. I believe the most blundering effort +for the prompt undoing of a grievous wrong is safer than the shrewdest +or strongest effort for its continuance. Meanwhile, with what patience +doth God wait for man to learn his lessons! The Holy Cross still +glitters on the bosom of its crystal sea, as it shone before the Carib +danced on its snowy sands, and as it will still shine when some new +Columbus, as yet unborn, brings to it the Christianity of a purer day +than ours. + + +Chester shook the pages together on his knee. + +"Oh-h-h!" cried Mlle. Corinne to Yvonne, to Aline, to Mlle. Castanado, +"the en'! and--where is all that abbout that beautiful cat what was +the proprity of Dora? Everything abbout that cat of Dora--_scratch +out_! Ah, Mr. Chezter! Yvonne and me, we find that the moze am-using +part--that episode of the cat--that large, wonderful, mazculine cat of +Dora! Ah, madame" [to the chair], "hardly Marie Madeleine is more +wonderful than that--when Jack pritend to lift his li'l' miztress +through the surf of the sea, how he _flew_ at the throat of Jack, that +aztonishing mazculine cat! Ah, M'sieu' Beloiseau!--and to scradge +that!" + +But Beloiseau was judicially calm. "Yes, I rim-ember that portion. +Scientific-ally I foun' that very interezting; but, like Mr. Chezter, I +thing tha'z better _art_ that the tom-cat be elimin-ate." + +"Well," said the chair, "w'at we want to settle--shall we accep' that +riv-ision of Mr. Chezter, to combine it in the book--'Clock in the +Sky,' 'Angel of the Lord,' 'Holy Crozz'--seem' to me that combination +goin' to sell like hot cake'." + +"Yes! Agcept!" came promptly from two or three. + +"Any oppose'? There is not any oppose'--Seraphine--Marcel--you'll be +so good to pazz those rif-reshment?" + + + + +XXXIV + +"Tis gone--to the pewblisher?" + +M. De l'Isle, about to enter his double gate, had paused. In his home, +overhead, a clock was striking five of the tenth day after that second +reading in the Castanados' parlor. The energetic inquiry was his. + +A single step away, in the door of the iron-worker's shop, Beloiseau, +too quick for Chester, at whose elbow he stood, replied: "Tis gone +better! Tis gone to the editor--of the greatez' magazine of the worl'!" + +"Bravo! Sinze how long?" + +"A week," Chester said. + +"Hah! and his _rip_-ly?" + +"Hasn't come yet." + +"Ah, look out, now! Look out he don' steal that! You di'n' write him: +'Wire answer'? You muz' do that! I'll pay it myseff!" + +"I thought I'd wait one more day. He may have other manuscripts to +consider." + +"Mr. Chezter, that manuscrip' is not in a prize contess; 'tis only with +itseff! You di'n' say that?" + +"I--implied it--as gracefully as I could." + +"Ah! graze'--the h-only way to write those fellow, tha'z with the big +stick! 'Wire h-answer!'" + +Beloiseau lifted a finger: "I don' think thad way. Firz' place, big +stick or no, that hiztorie is sure to be accept'." + +M. De l'Isle let out a roar that seemed to tear the lining from his +throat: "Aw-w-w! tha'z not to compel the agceptanze; tha'z to scare +them from stealing it! And to privend that, there's another thing you +want to infer them: that you billong to the Louisiana Branch of the +Authors' Protegtive H-union! Ah, doubtlezz you don't--billong; but all +the same you can infer them!" + +Beloiseau's response crowded Chester's out: "Well, they are maybe +important, those stratagem'; but to me the chieve danger is if maybe +_that_ editor shou'n' have the sagacitie--artiztic--commercial--to +perceive the brilliancy of thad story." + +"Never mine! in any'ow two days we'll know. Scipion! The day avter +those two, tha'z a pewblic holiday--everything shut!" + +"Yes, well?" + +"If that news come, 'accepted,' all of us we'll be so please' that +we'll be compel to egsprezz that in a joy-ride! and even if 'rifused,' +we'll need that joy-ride to swallow the indignation." + +"Ah! but with whose mash-in', so it won't put uz in bankrup'cy?" + +"With two mash-in'--the two of Thorndyke-Smith! He's offer' to borrow +me those whiles he's going to be accrozz the lake. You'll drive the +large, me the small." + +"Hah! Tha'z a gran' scheme. At the en', dinner at Antoine', all the +men chipping in! Castanado--Dubroca--me--Mr. Chezter, eh?" + +"With the greatest pleasure if I'm included." + +"Include'--hoh! By the laws of nature!" M. De l'Isle went on up-stairs. + +"We had a dinner like that," Beloiseau said, "only withoud the joy-ride +and withoud those three Mlles. Chapdelaine, juz' a few week' biffo' we +make' yo' acquaintanze. That was to celebrade that great victory in +France and same time the news of savety of our four boys ad the front." + +Chester stood astounded. "What four boys?" + +"You di'n' know abboud those? Ah, well, tha'z maybe biccause we don' +speak of them biffo' those ladies Chapdelaine. An' still tha'z droll +you di'n' know that, but tha'z maybe biccause each one he's think +another he's tol' you, and biccause tha'z not a prettie cheerful +subjec', eh? Yes, they are two son' of Dubroca and Castanado, +soldier', and two of De l'Isle and me, aviateur'." + +"And up to a few weeks ago they were all well?" + +"Ah, not well--one wounded, one h'arm broke, one trench-fivver, but all +safe, laz' account." + +"Tell me more about them, Beloiseau. You know I don't easily ask +personal questions. Tell me all I'm welcome to know, will you?" + +"I want to do that--to tell you all; but"--M. Ducatel, next neighbor +above, was approaching--"better another time--ah, Rene, tha'z a pretty +warm evening, eh?" + + + + +XXXV + +For two days more the vast machinery of the United States mail swung +back and forth across the continent and the oceans beyond, and in +unnumbered cities and towns the letter-carriers came and went; but +nothing they brought into Bienville or Royal Street bore tidings from +that execrable editor in New York who in salaried ease sat "holding up" +the manuscript once the impressionable Dora's, now the gentle Aline's. +The holiday--"everything shut up"--had arrived. No carrier was abroad. +Neither reason given for the joy-ride held good. Yet the project was +well on foot. The smaller car was at the De l'Isles' lovely gates, +with monsieur in the chauffeur's seat, Mme. Alexandre at his side, and +Dubroca close behind her. The larger machine stood at the opposite +curb, with Beloiseau for driver, and Mme. Dubroca--a very small, trim, +well-coiffed woman with a dainty lorgnette--in the first seat behind +him. Castanado waited in the street door at the foot of his stair, +down which Mme. Castanado was coming the only way she could come. + +Her crossing of the sidewalk and her elevation first to the +running-board and then to a seat beside Mme. Dubroca took time and the +strength of both men, yet was achieved with a dignity hardly +appreciated by the street children, who covered their mouths, averted +their faces, and cheered as the two cars, the smaller leading, moved +off and turned from Royal Street into Conti on their way to pick up the +three Chapdelaines. + +For nearly two hundred years--ever since the city had had a +post-office--the post-office had been not too superior to remain in the +_vieux carre_. Now, like so many old Creole homes themselves, it was +"away up" in the American quarter--or "nine-tenth'"--at Lafayette +Square. On holidays any one anxious enough for his mail to go "away up +yondah" between nine and ten A.M., could have it for the asking. And +such a one was Chester. + +He had his reward. Twice and again he read the magazine's name on the +envelope as he bore it to the Camp Street front of the building, but +would not open the missive. That should be _her_ privilege and honor. +He lifted his eyes from it and behold, here came the two cars! But +where was she? Certainly not in the front one. There he made out, in +pairs, M. De l'Isle and Mme. Alexandre. Mlle. Yvonne and M. Dubroca, +M. Castanado, and Mme. De l'Isle. Then in the rear car his alarmed eye +picked out Beloiseau and Mlle. Corinne, with Cupid between them; Mmes. +Dubroca and Castanado, especially the latter; and then, oh, then! +Behind the smaller woman a vacant seat and behind the vaster one Aline +Chapdelaine. + +"You've heard?" cried M. De Elsie, slowing to the curb. Chester +fluttered his prize. "Click, clap!"--he was in without the stopping of +a wheel and had passed the letter to Aline. + +"Accepted?" asked several, while both cars resumed their speed up-town. + +"We'll open it in Audubon Park," she said to Chester, and Mme. +Castanado and Dubroca passed the word forward to Beloiseau and Mlle. +Corinne. These soon got it to Castanado and Mme. De l'Isle. + +"Not to be open' till Audubon Park," sped the word still forward till +Mlle. Yvonne and Dubroca had passed it to Mme. Alexandre and M. De +l'Isle. + +"Ahah!" he said, as he turned Lee Circle and went spinning up St. +Charles Avenue. "Not in the pewblic street, but in Audubon Park, and +to the singing of bird'!" + + + + +XXXVI + +Out near the riverside end of the park the two cars stopped abreast +under a vast live-oak, and Aline, rising, opened the letter and read +aloud: + + +MY DEAR MR. CHESTER: + +Your manuscript, "The Holy Cross," accompanied by your letter of +the -- inst., is received and will have our early attention. + +Very respectfully, + +THE EDITOR. + + +All other outcries ceased half-uttered when the Chapdelaine sisters +clapped hands for joy, crying: + +"Agcepted! Agcepted! Ah, Aline! by that kindnezz and sag-acitie of +Mr. Chezter--and all the rez' of our Royal Street frien'--you are +biccome the diz-ting-uish' and _lucrative_ authorezz, Mlle. +Chapdelaine!" + +M. De l'Isle's wrath was too hot for his tongue, but Scipion stood +waiting to speak, and Mme. Castanado beckoned attention and spoke his +name. + +"_Messieurs et mesdames_" he said, "that manuscrip' is no mo' agcept' +than rij-ect'. That stadement, tha'z only to rilease those insuranze +companie' and----" + +"And to stop us from telegraphing!" M. De l'Isle broke in, "and to +make us, ad the end, glad to get even a small price! Ah, +mesdemoiselles, you don't know those razcal' like me!" + +"Oh!" cried the tender Yvonne--original rescuer of Marie Madeleine from +boy lynchers--"you don't have charitie! That way you make _yo'seff_ +un'appie." + +"Me, I cann' think," her sister persevered, "that tha'z juz' for the +insuranse. The manuscrip' is receive'? Well! 'ow can you receive +something if you don't agcept it? And 'ow can you agcep' that if you +don' receive it? Ah-h-h!" + +"No," Beloiseau rejoined, "tha'z only to signify that the editorial +decision--tha'z not decide'." + +Mlle. Corinne lifted both hands to the entire jury: "Oh, frien', I +assure you, that manuscrip' is agcept'. And tha'z the proof; that both +Yvonne and me we've had a presentiment of that already sinze the +biggening! Ah-h-h!" + +Castanado intervened: "Mademoiselle, that lady yonder"--he gave his +wife a courtier's bow--"will tell you a differenze. Once on a time she +receive' a h-offer of marriage; but 'twas not till after many days thad +she agcept' it." [Applause.] "But ad the en', I su'pose tha'z for Mr. +Chezter, our legal counsel, to conclude." + +Mr. Chester "thought that although receipt did not imply acceptance the +tardiness of this letter did argue a probability that the manuscript +had successfully passed some sort of preliminary reading--or +readings--and now awaited only the verdict of the editor-in-chief." + +"Or," ventured Mme. Alexandre, "of that editorial board all together." + +M. De l'Isle shook his head and then a stiff finger: "I tell you! They +are sicretly inquiring Thorndyke-Smith--lit'ry magnet--to fine out if +we are truz'-worthy! And tha'z the miztake we did---not sen'ing the +photograph of Mlle. Aline ad the biggening. But tha'z not yet too +late; we can wire them from firz' drug-store, 'Suspen' judgment! +Portrait of authorezz coming!'" + +All eyes, even Cupid's, turned to her. She was shaking her head. +"No," she responded, with a smile as lovely, to Chester's fancy, as it +was final; as final, to the two aunts' conviction, as it was lovely. + +"No photograph would be convincing," Chester began to plead, but +stopped for the aunts. + +"Oh, impossible!" they cried. "That wou'n' be de-corouz!" + +"Ladies an' gentlemen," said M. Castanado, "we are on a joy-ride." + +"An' we 'ave reason!" his wife exclaimed. + +"Biccause hope!" Mme. Alexandre put in. + +"Yes!" said Dubroca. "That manuscrip' is not allone receive'; sinze +more than a week 'tis _rittain'_, whiles they dillib-rate; and the +chateau what dillib-rate'--you know, eh? M'sieu' De l'Isle, I move you +we go h-on." + +They went, the De l'Isle car and then Scipion's, back to St. Charles +Avenue, and turned again up-town. On the rearmost seat---- + +"Why so silent?" Aline inquired of Chester. + +"Because so content," he said, "except when I think of the book." + +"The half-book?" + +"Exactly. We've only half enough stories yet. + +"Though with the _vieux carre_ full of them?" + +"Oh! mostly so raw, so bald, so thin!" + +"Ah, I knew you would see that. As though human life and character +were--what would say?" + +"I'd say crustacean; their anatomy all on the surface. Such stories +are not life, life in the round; they're only paper silhouettes--of the +real life's poorest facts and moments. I state the thought poorly but +you get it, don't you?" + +The girl sparkled, not so much for the thought as for their fellowship +in it. "Once I heard mamma say to my aunts: 'So many of these _vieux +carre_ stories are but pretty pebbles--a quadroon and a duel, a +quadroon and a duel--always the same two peas in the baby's rattle.'" + +"There are better stories for a little deeper search," Chester said. + +"Ah, she said that too! 'And not,' she said, 'because the _vieux +carre_ is unlike, but so like the rest of the world.'" + +Thus they spoke, happily--even a bit recklessly--conscious that they +were themselves a beautiful story without the flash of a sword or the +cloud of a misdeed in range of their sight, and not because the _vieux +carre_ was unlike, but so like the rest of the world. + +"Where are we going?" Aline inquired, and tried to look forward around +Mme. Castanado. + +"You and I," Chester said, "are going back to your father's story. You +said, the other day, his life was quiet, richer within than without." + +"Yes. Ah, yes; so that while of the inside I cannot tell half, of the +outside there is almost nothing to tell." + +"All the same, tell it. Were not he and these Royal Street men boys +together?" + +"Yes, though with M. De l'Isle the oldest, and though papa was away +from them many years, over there in France. Yes, they were all his +friends, as their fathers had been of _grandpere_. And they'll all +tell you the same thing; that he was their hero, while at the same time +that his story is destitute of the theatrical. Just he himself, he and +mamma--they are the whole story." + +"A sea without a wave?" + +"Ah, no; yet without a storm. And, Mr. Chester, I think a sea without +a storm can be just as deep as with, h'm?" + + + + +XXXVII + +"Well, they married, your father and mother, over there where her +people are fighting the Germans right now, and came and lived in +Bourbon Street with your aunts, eh?" + +"Yes, or rather my aunts with them, they were of so much more strong +natures than my aunts--more strong and large while just as sweet, and +that's saying much, you know." + +"I see it is." + +"Mr. Chester, what you see, I think, is that my aunts are perhaps the +two most--well--unworldly women you ever knew." + +"True. In that quality they're childlike." + +"Yes, and because they are so childlike in--above all--the freedom of +their speech, what I want to say of them, just this one time, is the +more to their honor: that in my _whole_ life I've never heard them +speak one word against anybody." + +"Not even Cupid?" + +"Ah-h-h! that's a cruel joke, and false! That true Cupid, he's an +assassin; while that child, he's faultless?" + +The speaker really said "fauklezz," and it was a joy to Chester to hear +her at last fall unwittingly into a Creole accent. "Well, anyhow," he +led on, "the four lived together; and if I guess right your mother +became, to all this joy-ride company, as much their heroine as your +father was their hero." + +"'Tis true!" + +"But your father's coming back from France--it couldn't save the +business?" + +"Alas, no! Even together, he and mamma--and you know what a strong +businezz partner a French wife can be--they could not save it. Both of +them were, I think, more artist than merchant, and when all that kind +of businezz began to be divorce' from art and married to +machinery"--the narrator made a sad gesture. + +"_Kultur_ against culture, was it? and your father not the sort to +change masters." + +"True again. But tha'z not all; hardly was it half. One thing beside +was the miz-conduct of an agent, the man who lately"--a silent smile. + +"What?--sold your aunts that manuscript?" + +"Yes. But he didn' count the most. Oh, the whole businezz, except +papa's, became, as we say--give me the word!" + +"Americanized?" + +"No, papa he always refused to call it that. Mr. Chester, he used to +say that those two marvellouz blessings, machinery, democracy, they are +in one thing too much alike; they are, at first--say it, you." + +"Vulgarizing?" + +"Yes. I suppose that has to be--at the first, h'm? And with the +buying world every day more and more in love with machine work--and +seeming itself to become machine work, while at the same time +Americanized, papa was like a river town"--another gesture--"left by +the river!" + +"Yet he never went into bankruptcy? You can point with pride to that, +mademoiselle." + +"Ah, Mr. Chester, pride! Once I pointed, and papa--'My daughter, there +are many ways to go bankrupt worse than in money, and to have gone +bankrupt in none of them--' there he stopped; he was too noble for +pride. No, the businezz, juz' year after year it starved to death. In +the early days _grandpere_ had two big stores, back to back; +whole-sale, Chartres Street; retail, Royal, where now all that is left +of it is the shop of Mme. Alexandre. Both her husband and she were +with papa in the retail store, until it diminish' that he couldn' keep +them, and--in the time of President Roosevelt--some New York men they +bought him out. Because a new head of the custom-house, old Creole +friend of papa, without solicitation except maybe of M. Beloiseau and +those, appointed him superintendent of customs warehouses, you know? +where they keep all kind of imported goods, so they needn't pay the +tariff till they take them out to sell them in the store? h'm?" + +"Yes. And he kept that place--how long?" + +"Always, till he passed, he and mamma; mamma first, he two years avter. +Ad the last he said to me--we chanced to be talking in Englizh--'I've +lived the quiet life. If I must go I can go quietly.' + +"'And still,' I said, 'if your life had been as stormy as _grandpere's_ +you'd have been always for the right, and ad the last content, I think.' + +"'Yes,' he said, 'I believe I never ran away from a storm, while ad the +same time I never ran avter one.' And then he said something I wrote +down the same night in the fear I might sometime partly forget it." + +"Have you it with you, now, here?" She showed a bit of paper, holding +it low for him to read as she retained it: + + +On the side of the right all the storms of life--all the storms of the +world--are for the perfection of the quiet life--the active-quiet +life--to build it stronger, wider, finer, higher, than is possible for +the stormy life to be. Whether for each man or for the nations, the +stormy life is but the means; the active-quiet life, without decay of +character in man or nation but with growth forever--that is the end. + + +The pair exchanged a look. "Thank you," murmured Chester, and +presently added: "So you were left with your two aunts. Then what?" + +"I'll tell you. But"---the Creole accent faded out--"we must not +disappoint the De l'Isles, nor those others, we must----" + +"I see; we must notice where we're going and give and take our share of +the joy." + +"We mustn't be as if reading the morning paper, h'm? I think 'tis for +you they've come this way instead of going on those smooth shell-roads +between the city and the lake." + +The two cars had come up through old "Carrollton," where the +Mississippi, sweeping down from Nine-Mile Point, had been gnawing +inland for something like a century, in spite of all man's engineering +could pile against it, and now were out on the levee road and half +round the bend above. + +To press her policy, "See!" exclaimed Aline, as a light swell of the +ground brought to view a dazzling sweep of the river, close beyond the +levee's crown and almost on a level with the eye. They were in a +region of wide, highly kept sugar-plantations. Whatever charms belong +to the rural life of the Louisiana Delta were at their amplest on every +side. Groves of live-oak, pecan, magnolia, and orange about large +motherly dwellings of the Creole colonial type moved Aline to turn the +conversation upon country life in Chester's State, and constrain him to +tell of his own past and kindred. So time and the river's great +windings slipped by with the De l'Isles undisappointed, and early in +the afternoon the company lunched in the two cars, under a homestead +grove. Its master and mistress, old friends of all but Chester, came +running, followed by maids with gifts of milk and honey. They climbed +in among the company; shared, lightly, their bread and wine; heard with +momentary interest the latest news of the great war; spoke English and +French in alternating clauses; inquired after the coterie's four young +heroes at the French front, but only by stealth and out of Aline's +hearing; and cried to Cupid, "'Ello, 'Ector! _comment ca va-t-il_? +And 'ow she is, yonder at 'ome, that Marie Madeleine?" + +Cupid smiled to his ears, but it was the absentee's two mistresses who +answered for her, volubly, tenderly: "We was going to bring her, but +juz' at the lazt she discide' she di'n' want to come. You know, tha'z +beautiful, sometime', her capriciouznezz!" + +Indoors, outdoors, the visitors spent an hour seeing the place and +hearing its history all the way back to early colonial days. Then, in +the two cars once more, with seats much changed about, yet with Aline +and Chester still paired, though at the rear of the forward car, they +glided cityward. At Carrollton they turned toward the New Canal, and +at West End took the lake shore eastward--but what matter their way? +Joy was with ten of them, and bliss with two--three, counting +Cupid--and it was only by dutiful effort that the blissful ones kept +themselves aware of the world about them while Aline's story ran gently +on. It had run for some time when a query from Chester evoked the +reply: + +"No, 'twas easier to bear, I think, because I had _not_ more time and +less work." + +"What was your work, mademoiselle? what is it now? Incidentally you +keep books, but mainly you do--what?" + +"Mainly--I'll tell you. Papa, you know, he was, like _grandpere_, a +true connoisseur of all those things that belong to the arts of +beautiful living. Like _grandpere_ he had that perception by three +ways--occupation, education, talent. And he had it so abboundingly +because he had also _the art_--of that beautiful life, h'm?" + +"The art beyond the arts," suggested the listener; "their underlying +philosophy." + +The narrator glowed. Then, grave again, she said: "Mr. Chezter, I'll +tell you something. To you 'twill seem very small, but to me 'tis +large. It muz' have been because of both together, those arts and that +art, that, although papa he was always of a strong enthusiasm and +strong indignation, yet never in my life did I hear him--egcept in +play--speak an exaggeration. 'Sieur Beloiseau he will tell you +that--while ad the same time papa he never rebuke' that in anybody +else--egcept, of course--his daughter." + +"But I ask about you, your work." + +"Ah! and I'm telling you. Mamma she had the same connoisseur talent as +papa, and even amongs' that people where she was raise', and under the +shadow, as you would say, of that convent so famouz for all those +weavings, laces, tapestries, embro'deries, she was thought to be +wonderful with the needle." + +Chester interrupted elatedly: "I see what you're coming to. You, +yourself, were born needle in hand--the embroidery-needle." + +"Well, ad the least I can't rimember when I learned it. 'Twas always +as if I couldn' live without it. But it was not the needle alone, nor +embro'deries alone, nor alone the critical eye. Papa he had, pardly +from _grand-pere_, pardly brought from France, a separate librarie +abbout all those arts, and I think before I was five years I knew every +picture in those books, and before ten every page. And always papa and +mamma they were teaching me from those books--they couldn' he'p it! I +was very naughty aboud that. I would bring them the books and if they +didn' teach me I would weep. I think I wasn' ever so naughty aboud +anything else. But in the en', with the businezz always diclining, +that turn' out fortunate. By and by mamma she persuade' papa to let +her take a part in the pursuanze of the businezz. But she did that all +out of sight of the public----" + +"Had you never a brother or sister?" + +"Yes, long ago. We'll not speak of that. A sizter, two brothers; +but--scarlet-fever----" + +The story did not pause, yet while it pressed on, its hearers musing +lingered behind. Why were the long lost ones not to be spoken of? For +fear of betraying some blame of the childlike aunts for the +scarlet-fever? The unworthy thought was put aside and the hearer's +attention readjusted. + +"Even mamma," the girl was saying, "she didn' escape that contagion, +and by reason of that she was compelled to let papa put me in her place +in the businezz; and after getting well she never was the same and I +rittained the place till a year avter, when she pas' away, and I have +it yet." + +"And who filled M. Alexandre's place?" + +"Oh, that? Tis fil' partly by Mme. Alexandre and partly by that +diminishing of the businezz--till the largez' part of it is +ripairing--of old laces, embro'deries, and so forth. Madame's shop is +the chief place in the city for that. Of that we have all we can do. +'Tis a beautiful work. + +"So tha'z all I have to tell, Mr. Chezter; and I've enjoyed to tell you +that so you can see why we are so content and happy, my aunts and +I--and Hector--and Marie Madeleine. H'm?" + +"That's all you have to tell?" + +"That is all." + +"But not all there is to tell, even of the past, mademoiselle." + +"Ah! and why not?" + +"Oh, impossible!" Chester softly laughed and had almost repeated the +word when the girl blushed; whereupon he did the same. For he seemed +all at once to have spoiled the whole heavenly day, until she smilingly +restored it by saying: + +"Oh, yes! One thing I was forgetting. Just for the laugh I'll tell +you that. You know, even in a life as quiet as mine, sometimes many +things happening together, or even a few, will make you see bats +instead of birds, eh?" + +"I know, and mistake feelings for facts. I've done it often, in a +moderate way." + +"Yes? Me the same. But very badly, so that the sky seemed falling in, +only once." + +Chester thought that if the two aunts, just then telling the biography +of their dolls, were his, his sky would have fallen in at least weekly. +"Tell me of that once," he said, and, knowing not why, called to mind +those four soldiers in France, to her, for some reason, unmentionable. + +"Well, first I'll say that the archbishop he had been the true friend +of papa, but now this time, this 'once' when my sky seemed falling, +both mamma and papa they were already gone. I don't need to tell you +what the trouble was about, because it never happened; it only +threatened to happen. So when I saw there was only me to prevent it +and to----" + +"To hold the sky up?" + +"Yes, seeing that, it seemed to me the best friend to go to was the +archbishop. + +"'Well, my old and dear friend's daughter,' he said, 'what is it?' + +"'Most reverend father in God, 'tis my wish to become a nun.' + +"'My child, that is a beautiful sentiment.' + +"'But 'tis more; even more than my wish; 'tis my resolution. I must do +that. 'Tis as if I heard that call from heaven to me, Aline +Chapdelaine!' + +"'Ah, but that's not only your name. Your mamma, up yonder, she's also +Aline Chapdelaine.' + +"'Yes, but I know that call is to me. Ah, your Grace, surely, surely, +you will not forbid me?' + +"'No, my daughter. Yet at the same time that is not a thing to be done +suddenly, or in desperation. I'll appoint you a season for reflection +and prayer, and after that if your resolution remains the same you +shall become a nun.' + +"'But, for the sake of others, will not that season be made short?' + +"'For your own sake, my daughter, as well as for others, I'll make it +the shortest possible. Let me see; I was going to say forty but I'll +make it only thirty-nine.' + +"'Ah, your Grace, but in thirty-nine days----' + +"He stopped me: 'Not days, my child; years.' What he said after, 'tis +no matter now; pretty soon I was kneeling and receiving his +benediction." + +"And the sky didn't fall?" + +"No, but--I can't explain to you--'twas that very visit prevent' it +falling." + + + + +XXXVIII + +It was in keeping with the coterie's spiritual make-up that they should +know a restaurant in the _vieux carre_, which "that pewblic" knew not, +and whose best merits were not music and fresco, but serenity, +hospitality, and cuisine---a haven not yet "Ammericanize'." + +Where it was they never told a philistine. The elect they informed +under the voice, as one might betray a bird's nest. It was but a step +from the crumbling Hotel St. Louis, and but another or so from the +spires of St. Louis Cathedral. + +In it, at a round table, the joy-riders had passed the evening of their +holiday. As the cathedral clock struck nine they rose to part. At the +board Chester had sat next the same joy-mate allowed him all day in the +car. But with how reduced a share of her attention! Half of his own +he had had to give, at his other elbow, to her aunt Yvonne; half of +Aline's had gone to Dubroca. The other half into half of his was but +half a half and that had to be halved by a quarter coming from the two +nearest across the table, one of whom was Mlle. Corinne, whose queries +always required thought. + +"Mr. Chezter," she said, when the purchase of an evening paper had made +the great over-seas strife the general theme, "can you egsplain me why +they don' stop that war, when 'tis calculate' to projuce so much hard +feeling?" + +Explaining as best he could without previous research, Chester had +turned again to Mlle. Yvonne to let her finish telling--inspire'd by an +incoming course of the menu--of those happy childhood days when she and +her sister and the unfortunate gentleman from whom they had bought +Aline's manuscript went crayfishing in Elysian Fields street canal, +always taking the dolls along, "so not to leave them lonesome"; how the +dolls had visibly enjoyed the capture of each crayfish; and how she and +Corinne and the dolls would delight in the same sport to-day, but, +alas! "that can-al was fil' op! and tha'z another thing calculate' to +projuce hard feeling." + +Through such riddles and reminiscences and his replies thereto +persistently ran Chester's uneasy question to himself: Why had Aline +told him that story of unnamable trouble which had goaded her to seek +the cloister? Why if not to warn him away from a sentiment which was +growing in him like a balloon and straining his heart-strings to hold +it to its proper moorings? + +Now the two cars let out their passengers at the De l'Isle gates and at +the door of the Castanados. Madame of the latter name, with her spouse +heaving under one arm and Chester under the other, while Mme. Alexandre +pushed behind, was lifted to her parlor. Returning to the street, +Chester found the motors gone, MM. De l'Isle and Beloiseau gone with +them, and only the two Dubrocas, the three Chapdelaines, and Cupid +awaiting him. + +And now, with Cupid leading, and sleeping as he led, and with a Dubroca +beside each aunt, and Aline and Chester following, this remnant of the +company approached the Conti Street corner, on the way to the +Chapdelaine home. At the turn---- + +"Mademoiselle," Chester asked in a desperation too much like hers +before the arch-bishop, "do you notice that, as the old hymn says, we +are treading where the saints have trod? _Your_ saints?" + +"My--ah, yes, 'tis true. 'Tis here _grand'mere_---- + +"Turned that corner in her life where your _grandpere_ first saw her. +Al'--Aline." + +"Mr. Chester?" + +"I want this corner, from the day I first saw you turn it, to be all +that to you and me. Shall it not?" + +She said nothing. Priceless moments glided by, each a dancing ghost. +Just there ahead in the dark was Bourbon Street, and a short way down +among its huddled shadows were her board fence and batten gate. It was +senseless to have taken this chance on so poor a margin of time, but +what's done's done! "Oh, Aline Chapdelaine, say it shall be! Say it, +Aline, say it!" + +"Mr. Chester, it is impossible! Impossible!" + +"It is not! It's the only right thing! It shall be, Aline, it shall +be!" + +"No, Mr. Chester, 'tis impossible. You must not ask me why, but 'tis +impossible!" + +"It isn't! Aline, and I ask no why. I see the trouble. It's your +aunts. Why, I'll take them with you, _of course_! I'll take them into +my care and love as you have them in yours, and keep them there while +they and I live. I can do it, I've got the wherewithal! Things have +happened to me fast since I first saw you turn that corner behind us. +I've inherited property, and only yesterday I was taken into one of the +best law firms in the city. I'll prove all that to you and your aunts +to-morrow. Aline, unspeakable treasure, you shall not live the +buried-alive life in which you are trying to believe yourself rightly +placed and happy, my saint! My--adored--_saint_!" + +"Yes, I must. What you ask is impossible." + + + + +XXXIX + +Long after midnight Chester had not returned to his room. He could not +tolerate the confinement even of the narrow streets round about it. + +Far out Esplanade Avenue, uncompanioned, he was walking mile after mile +beside a belt line of trolley-cars, or more than one, while at home, in +Bourbon Street, Cupid slept. + +But now the child awoke, startled. Four small feet were on one of his +arms, and Marie Madeleine was purring, at the top of her purr, in his +ear. Drowsily he crowded her away. Purring on, she slowly walked +across his stomach and dropped to the floor. But soon she leaped up +again to that sensitive region and purred into his nose, not at all as +if to claim attention, but as though lost in thought. When he pushed +her aside she dropped again to the floor, with such a quadruple thump +that he looked after her, and as she loitered across his view with tail +as straight up as Cleopatra's Needle, he observed just beyond her a +condition of affairs that appalled him. + +Cold from his small fingers and toes to his ample heart, he rose, stole +into the next room, and stood by the bed where lay Mlles. Corinne and +Yvonne as they had lain every night since their earliest childhood. + +"Ah! oh! h'nn!" Mlle. Corinne sprang to an elbow, nervously +whispering: "What is it?" + +"My back do'," he murmured, "stan'in' opem." + +"Oh, little boy, no, it cannot be! I bolt' it laz' evening when you +was praying. You know?" + +"Yass'm, but it opem now; Marie Madeleine dess gone out thu it." + +Mlle. Yvonne sprang up dishevelled beside her dishevelled sister: "_Mon +dieu_! where is Aline?" + +Colder than ever in hands and feet, the wee grandson of the intrepid +Sidney responded: "Stay still tell I go see." + +"Yes!" whispered Mlle. Corinne, slipping to the floor and tenderly +pushing him, "go! safest for everybody! And if you see a burglar _don' +threaten him_!" + +"No'm, I won't." + +"No, but juz' run quick out the back door and fron' gate and holla +'fire'! Go!" + +At the crack of the door she listened after him while her sister +crowded close, whispering: "Ah, _pauvre_ Aline, always wise! Like us, +silent! And tha'z after all the bravezt!" + +In a moment Cupid was back, less frozen yet trembling: "She am' dah. +Seem' like 'tis her leave de do' opem." + +"Her clothes--they are gone?" + +"No'm, all dah 'cep' de cloak she tuck on de machine. Reckon she out +in de honey-sucker bower whah _dey_ sot together Sunday evenin'. +Reckon Marie Madeleine gone dah. I'll go see." + +"Ah, fearlezz boy, yes! Make quick!" + +This time both women pushed, single file, all the way to the garden +door. There they strained their sight down the path, beyond him, but +the bower was quite dark. "Corinne, _chere_, ought not one of us to +go, yo'seff?--to spare her feelings--from that li'l' negro? You don' +think one of us ought to go, yo'seff?" + +"No, to sen' him, that is to spare those feel'--listen! . . . Ah, +Yvonne, _grace au ciel_, she's there!" + +They frankly wept. "Thangg the good God!" + +"Yvonne, _chere_, you know, we are the cause of this. 'Tis biccause +juz'--you and me. And she's gone yonder juz' for one thing; to be as +far from her _miserie_ as she can." + +"Yes, _chere_, I billieve that. I think even, she muz' not see us when +she's riturning." No footfall sounded, but the cat came in, tail up, +purring. Back in their chamber, with wet cheeks on its unlatched door, +the sisters listened. + +"I know what we muz' do, Yvonne, as soon as to-morrow. Tha'z strange I +never saw that biffo'!" + +Cupid came and was let in. "She was al-lone, of co'se?" the pair asked +from the edge of their bed. + +"Oh, yass'm, o' co'se; in a manneh, yass'm." + +"_Mon dieu_! li'l boy. In a manner? But how in a manner? Al-lone is +al-lone! What she was doing?" + +"Is I got to tell dat?" + +"Ah, '_tit garcon_! Have you not got to tell it?" + +"Well, she 'uz--she 'uz prayin'." + +"And tha'z the manner she was not al-lone?" + +"Yas'm, dass all." The little fellow dropped to his knees, clutched a +knee of either questioner, and wept and sobbed. + + + + +XL + +M. Beloiseau reached across his workbench and hung up his hammer and +tongs. The varied notes of two or three remote steam-whistles told him +that the hour, of the day after the holiday, was five. + +He glanced behind him, through his shop to the street door, where some +one paused awaiting his welcome. He thought of Chester but it was +Landry, with an old broad book under his elbow. + +"Ah, come in, Ovide." + +As he laid aside his apron he handed the visitor the piece of metal he +had been making beautiful, and waved him to the drawing whose lines it +was taking. + +"But those whistles," the bookman said, "they stop the handworkman too." + +"Yes. In the days of my father, the days of handwork, they meant only +steamboat', coming, going; but now swarm' of men and women, boys, and +girl', coming, going, living by machinery the machine-made life." + +"'Sieur Beloiseau," Landry good-naturedly, said, "you're too just to +condemn a gift of the good God for the misuse men make of it." + +Scipion glared and smiled at the same time: "Then let that gift of the +good God be not so hideouzly misuse'." + +But Ovide amiably persisted: "Without machinery--plenty of it--I should +not have this book for you, nor I, nor you, ever have been born." + +Chester, entering, found Beloiseau looking eagerly into the volume. +"All the same, Landry," the newcomer said, "you're no more a machine +product than Mr. Beloiseau himself." + +The bookman smiled his thanks while he followed the craftsman's +scrutiny of the pages. "'Tis what you want?" he asked, and Chester saw +that it was full of designs of ironwork, French and Spanish. + +Scipion beamed: "Ah, you've foun' me that at the lazt, and just when +I'm wanting it furiouzly." + +"Mr. Beloiseau," said Chester, "has a beautiful commission from the new +Pan-American Steamship Company." + +"Thanks to Mr. Chezter," said Beloiseau, "who got me the job. Hence +for this book spot cash." He turned aside to a locked closet and +drawer. + +"You had a pleasant holiday yesterday," said Landry to Chester. + +"Who told you?" + +"Mesdemoiselles, the two sisters Chapdelaine. I chanced to meet them +just now at the house of the archbishop, on the steps, they coming out, +I going in. I had a book also for him." + +"Why! What's taking them to the archbishop?" Chester put away a +frown: "Did they reflect the pleasure of the holiday?" + +"Mr. Chester, no." There was an exchange of gazes, but Scipion +returned, counting and tendering the price of the book. + +"Well, good evening," Landry said, willing to linger; but "good +evening," said both the others. + +Chester turned: "Beloiseau, I want to talk with you. Go, give yourself +a dip, brush some of that hair, and we'll dine alone in some place away +from things." + +"A dip, hah! Always I scrub me any'ow till I come to the skin. Also +I'll put a clean shirt. You can wait? I'll leave you this book." + +Chester waited. When presently, with Scipion still picturesque though +clean-shirted, they left the shop together, he gave the book a word of +praise that set its owner off on the history of his craft. "But +hammered into a matrix"--he drew his watch and halted: "Spanish Fort, +juzt too late; half-hour till negs train; I'll show you an example, my +father's work." They turned back. + +Thus they lost a second train, and dined in the same snug nook as on +the day before with Aline and the rest. At twilight they took seats in +Jackson Square on a cast-iron bench "hardly worthy of the place," as +Chester suggested. + +And Scipion flashed back: "Or, my dear sir, of any worthy place! But +you was asking me----" + +"About those four boys over in France, one of them yours." + +"Biccause sinze all day yesterday----?" + +"That's it. I can't help thinking that mademoiselle is somehow the +cause of their going." + +"Ah, of three she is, but of my son, no. My son he was already there +when that war commence', and the cause of that was a very simple and +or-_din_-ary in him, but not in the story of my father. I would like +to tell you ab-out that biccause tha'z also ab-out that house where we +was juz' seeing all that open-work on those balconie', and biccause so +interested, you, in old building', you are bound to hear ab-out that +some day and probably hear it wrong." + +"Let's have it now; she told me yesterday to ask you for it." + + + + +XLI + +THE LOST FORTUNE + +"Mighty solid," the ironworker said, "that old house, so square and +high. They are no Creole brick it is make with, that old house." + +Chester began to speak approvingly of the wide balconies running +unbrokenly around its four sides at both upper stories, but Beloiseau +shook his head: "They don't billong to the firz' building of that +house, else they _might_ have been Spanish, like here on the Cabildo +and that old _Cafe Veau-qui-tete_. They would not be cast iron and of +that complicate' disign, hah! But they are not even a French cast +iron, like those and those"--he waved right and left to the wide +balconies of the Pontalba buildings flanking the square with such +graceful dignity. "Oh, they make that old house look pretty good, +those balconie', but tha'z a pity they were not wrought iron, biccause +M. Lefevre--he was rich--sugar-planter--could have what he choose, and +she was a very fashionable, his ladie. They tell some strange stories +ab-out them and that 'ouse; cruelty to slave', intrigue with slave', +duel' ab-out slave'. Maybe tha'z biccause those iron bar' up and down +in sidewalk window', old Spanish fashion; maybe biccause in confusion +with that Haunted House in Royal Street, they are so allike, those two +house'. But they are cock-an'-bull, those tale'. Wha's true they +don't tell, biccause they don' know, and tha'z what I'm telling you ad +the present. + +"When my father he was yet a boy, fo'teen, fiv'teen, those Lefevre' +they rent' to the _grand-mere_ of both Castanado and Dubroca, turn +ab-out, a li'l' slave girl so near white you coul'n' see she's black! +You coul'n' even _suspec_' that, only seeing she's rent', that way, and +knowing that once in a while, those time, that whitenezz coul'n' be +av-void'. Myseff, me, I've seen a man, ex-slave, so white you woul'n' +think till they tell you; but then you'd see it--black! But that li'l' +girl of seven year', nobody coul'n' see that even avter told. Some +people said: 'Tha'z biccause she's so young; when she's grow' up you'll +see. And some say, 'When she get chil'ren they'll show it, those +chil'ren--an' some be even dark!' + +"Any'ow some said she's child of monsieur, and madame want to keep her +out of sight that beneficent way. They would bet you any money if you +go on his plantation you find her slave mother by the likenezz. She +di'n' look like him but they insist' that also come later. Any'ow +she's rent' half-an'-half by those _grand-mere_' of Castanado and +Dubroca, at the firzt just to call 'shop'! at back door when a cuztomer +come in, and when growing older to make herseff many other way' uzeful. +And by consequence she was oft-en playmate with the chil'ren of all +that coterie there in Royal Street. Excep' my father; he was fo'teen +year' to her seven." + +"Was she a handsome child?" Chester ventured. + +"I think no. But in growing up she bic-came"--the craftsman handed out +a pocket flash-light and an old _carte-de-visite_ photograph of a +black-haired, black-eyed girl of twenty or possibly twenty-three years. +"You shall tell me," he said: + +"And you'll trust me, my sincerity?" + +"Sir! if I di'n' truzt you, _ab-so-lutely_, you shoul'n' touch that +with a finger." + +"Well, then, I say yes, she's handsome, trusting you not to gild my +plain words with your imagination. She's handsome, but in a way easily +overlooked; a way altogether apart from the charms of color and +texture, I judge, or of any play of feeling; not floral, not startling, +not exquisite; but _statuesque_, almost heavily so, and replete with +the virtues of character." + +"Well," said Beloiseau, putting away the picture, "sixteen year' she +rimain' rent' to mesdames that way, and come to look lag that. And all +of our parent'--gran'parent'--living that simple life like you see us, +their descendant', now, she biccame like one of those +familie'--Dubroca--Castanado--or of that coterie entire. + +"So after while they want' to buy her, to put her free. But Mme. +Lefevre she rif-use' any price. She say, 'If Fortune'--that was her +name--'would be satisfi' to marry a nize black man like Ovide, who +would buy his friddom--ah, yes! But no! If I make her free without, +she'll right off want to be marrie' to a white man. Tha'z the only +arrengement she'll make with him; she's too piouz for any other +arrengement, while same time me I'm too piouz to let her _marry_ a +white man; my faith, that would be a crime! And also she coul'n' never +be 'appy that way; she's too good and high-mind' to be marrie' to any +white man wha'z willin' to marry a nigger.' + +"So, then, it come to be said in all those card-club' that my father +he's try to buy Fortune so to marry her. An' by that he had a quarrel +with one of those young Lefevre', who said pretty much like his mother, +only in another manner, pretty insulting. And, same old story, they +fought, like we say, 'under those oak,' Metairie Ridge, with sharpen' +foil'. And my father he got a bad wound. And he had to be nurse' long +time, and biccause all those shop' got to be keep she nurse' him more +than everybody elze. + +"Well, human nature she's strong. So, when he get well he say, 'Papa, +I can' stay any mo' in rue Royale, neither in that _vieux carre_, +neither in that Louisiana.' And my grandpere and all that coterie they +say: 'To go at Connect-icut, or Kanzaz, or Californie, tha'z no +ril-ief; you muz' go at France and Spain, wherever 'tis good to study +the iron-work, whiles we are hoping there will be a renaissance in that +art and that businezz; and same time only the good God know' what he +can cause to happen to lead a child of the faith out of trouble and +sorrow.' + +"So my father he went, and by reason of that he di'n' have to settle +that queztion of honor what diztress all the balance of the coterie; +whether to be on the side of Louisiana, or the Union. He di'n' run +away to ezcape that war; he di'n' know 'twas going to be, and he came +back in the mi'l' of it, whiles the city was in the han' of that Union +army. Also what cause him to rit-urn was not that war. 'Twas one of +those thing' what pro-juce' that saying that the truth 'tis mo' +stranger than figtion. + +"Mr. Chezter, 'twas a wonderful! And what make it the mo' wonderful, +my father he wasn' hunting for that, neither hadn' ever dream' of it. +He was biccome very much a wanderer. One day he juz' chance' to be in +a village in Alsace, and there he saw some chil'ren, playing in the +street. And he was very thirzty, from long time walking, and he +request' them a drink of water. And a li'l' girl fetch' him a drink. +But she was modess and di'n' look in his face till he was biggening to +drink. Then she look' up--she had only about seven year', and my +father he look' down, and he juz' drop that cup by his feet that it +broke--the handle. And when she cry, and he talk' with her and say +don' cry, he can make a cem-ent juz' at her own house to mend that to a +perfegtion, he was astonizh' at her voice as much as her face. And +when he ask her name and she tell him, her firz' name, and say tha'z +the name of her _grand'-mere_, he's am-aze'! But when he see her +mother meeting them he's not surprise', he's juz' lightning-struck. + +"Same time he try to hide that, and whiles he's mixing that cem-ent and +sticking that handle he look' two-three time' into the front of the +hair of that li'l' girl, till the mother she get agitate', and she +h-ask him: 'What you're looking? Who told you to look for something +there? _Ma foi_! you're looking for the _pompon gris_ of my mother +and grandmother! You'll not fine it there. Tha'z biccause she's so +young; when she's grow' up you'll see; but'--she part' as-ide her own +hair in front and he see', my father, under the black a li'l' patch of +gray, and he juz' say, '_Mon dieu_!' while she egsclaim'-- + +"'If you know anybody's got that _pompon_ in Louisiana, age of me, or +elze, if older, the sizter of my mother, she's lost yonder sinze mo' +than twen'y-five year'. My anceztor' they are _name_' Pompon for that +li'l' gray spot.' + +"Well, then they--and her 'usband, coming in--they make great frien'. +My father he show' them thiz picture, and when he tell them the +origin-al of that also is name' Fortune, like that child an' her +mother, and been from in-fancy a slave, they had to cry, all of them +together. And then they tell my father all ab-out those two sizter', +how they get marrie' in that village with two young men, cousin' to +each other, and how one pair, a year avter, emigrate' to Louisiana with +li'l' baby name' Fortune, and--once mo' that old story--they are bound +to the captain of the ship for the prise of the passage till somebody +in Ammerica rid-eem them and they are bound to him to work that out. +And coming accrozz, the father--ship-fever--die', and arriving, the +passage is pay by the devil know' who'. + +"Then my father he tell them that chile muz' be orpheline at two-three +year', biccause while seeming so white she never think she wasn' black. + +"And so my father, coming ad that village the moz' unhappy in the +worl', he went away negs day the moz' happy. And he took with him some +photo' showing that mother and chile with the mother's hair comb' to +egspose that _pompon gris_; and also he took copy from those record' of +babtism of the babtism of that li'l' Fortune, _emigre_. + +"Same time, here at home, _our_ Fortune she was so sick with something +the doctor he coul'n' make out the nature, and she coul'n' eat till +they're af-raid she'll die. And one day the doctor bring her father +confessor, there where she's in bed, and break that gently that my +father he's come home, and then that he's bring with him the perfec' +proof that she's as white as she look'. Well, negs day she's out of +bed; secon' she's dress--and laughing!--and eating! And every day my +father he's paying his intention', and Mme. Lefevre she's rij-oice, +biccause that riproach is pass' from monsieur her 'usband and pritty +quick they are marrie', and tha'z my mother." + + +After a reverent silence Chester spoke: "And lived long and happily +together?" + +"Yes, a long, beautiful life. Maybe that life woul'n' be of a +diztinction sufficient to you, but to them, yes. They are gone but +since lately." + +"And that Lefevre house?" + +"Ah, you know! Full of Italian'--ten-twelve familie', with washing on +street veranda eight day ev'ry week. _Pauvre vieux carre_!" + + + + +XLII + +MELANIE + +"I suppose," Chester said, breaking another silence, "you and that +mother, and your father, have sat in the flowery sunshine of this old +plaza together----" + +"A thousan' time'," the ironworker replied, mused a bit, and added: "My +frien', you are a so patient listener as I never see. Biccause I know +you are all that time waiting for a differen' story. And now--I shall +tell you that?" + +"Yes, however it hits me I've got to know it." + +"Well, after that, a year and half, I am born. I grow up. I 'ave +brother' and sizter'. We all get marrie', and they, they are scatter' +over the face of Louisiana. But me, I'm the oldest and my father take +great trouble in educating me to sugceed him in his businezz, and so I +did, like you see. And the same with Dubroca and with Castanado--Ducatel +he's different he's come into that antique businezz by his mizfortune and +he's--oh, he's all right only he's not of the same inspiration to be of +that li'l' clique. He's up-town Creole and with the up-town Creole mind. +And those De l'Isle' they also got a son, and Mme. Alexandre she have a +very amiable daughter; and, laz', not leazt, you know, those +Chapdelaine'----" + +"I certainly do," Chester murmured. + +"Yes, assuredlie," said Beloiseau. "Well, now: In those generation' +befo' there was in Royal Street--and Bourbon--and Dauphine--bisside' +crozz-street'--so many of our--I ignore the Englizh word for that--our +_affinite_, that our whole market of mat-_rim_-ony was not juz' in one +square of Royal; but presently, it break out like an epidemique, ammongs' +our chil'ren, to marry juz' accrozz and accrozz the street; a Beloiseau +to a Castanado, a Castanado to a Dubroca, and so forth--even fifth!" The +speaker smiled benignly. "Hah! many year' they work' my geniuz hard to +make iron candlestick'--orig-in-al diz-ign--for wedding-present'. The +moze of them, they marrie' without any romanze, egcep' what cann' be +av-oid', inside the heart, when both partie' are young, and in love +together, and not rich neither deztitute. But year biffo' laz' we have +the romanze of that daughter of Mme. Alexandre and son of De l'Isle and +son of Dubroca." + +"Is that Melanie, whom you all mention so often but whom I've never seen?" + +"Yes. Reason you don't see her---- But I'll tell you that. Mr. +Chezter, that would make a beautyful story to go with those other' in +that book of Mlle. Aline--but of co'se by changing those name', and by +preten'ing that happen' at Hong Kong, or Chicago, or Bogota. Presently +'tis too short, but you can easy mazk and coztume that in a splendid +rhetorique till it's plenty long enough." + +"H'mm!" said Chester, wondering at the artisan's artlessness off his +beaten track. "Go on." + +"Well, she's not beautyful, Melanie; same time she's not bad-looking and +she's kindess of the kind, and whoever she love'--her mother, for +example--and Mlle. Aline--tha'z pretty touching, to see with what an +inten-_city_ she love'. + +"Now, what I tell you, tha'z a very sicret bitwin you and me. Biccause +even those Dubroca', _pere_ and _mere_, and those De l'Isle', _pere_ and +_mere_, they do' know _all_ that; and me I know that only from Castanado, +who know' it only from his wife; biccause she, she know' it only from +Mlle. Aline, and none of them know that I know egcep' those Castanado'. + +"Well! sinze chilehood those three--Melanie, De l'Isle, Dubroca,--they +are playmate' together, and Dubroca he's always call' Melanie his +swit-heart. But De l'Isle, no. Always biffo', those De l'Isle they are +of the, eh, the _beau monde_ and though li'l' by li'l' losing their +fortune, keeping their frien', some of them rich, yet still ad the same +time nize people. And that young De l'Isle he's a good-looking, +well-behave', ambitiouz, and got--what you call--dash! + +"That was the condition when they are all graduate' from school and go +each into his o'cupation, or hers, up to the eyebrow'. Melanie and Mlle. +Aline they work' with Mme. Alexandre, though not precizely together, +biccause Melanie she show' only an ability to keep those account' and to +assist keeping shop, whiles Mlle. Aline she rimain' always up-stair' +employing that great talent tha'z too valu'ble to be interrupt'." + +"Doesn't she keep the books now?" + +"Yes, but tha'z only to assist Melanie whiles Melanie she's, eh, away. +Dubroca he go' into businezz with his father, likewise Castanado with his +father, but De l'Isle he's made a secretary in City-hall. So he have mo' +time than those other' and he go' oft-en into society, and he get those +manner' and cuztom' of society. And then that young Dubroca biggen very +plain to pay his intention' to Melanie, and we are all pretty glad to +notiz that, biccause whiles he don't got that dash of De l'Isle, he's +modess, yet still brave to a perfegtion; and he's square and got plenty +sense, and he's steady and he's kind. Every way they are suit' to each +other and we think--if that poor old rue Royale _con_-tinue to run down, +that will even be good to join those two businezz' together. And +bisside', sinze a li'l' shaver Dubroca he ain't never love nobody else, +only Melanie. + +"But also De l'Isle, like Dubroca, he was always pretty glad of every +egscuse to drop in there at Mme. Alexandre and pass word with Melanie. +'Twas easy to see 'tis to Mlle. Aline he's in love and he come talk to +Melanie biccause tha'z the nearess he can reach to Mlle. Aline egcep' +juz' saying good-day whiles passing on street or at church door. Oh, he +behave the perfec' gen'leman, and still tha'z one reason she get that +li'l' 'Ector. Yes, we all see that, only Melanie she don't. So Mlle. +Aline she ezcape' him all she could, but, with that dash he's got, he +persevere' to hang on. And tha'z the miztake they both did, him and +Melanie, in doing that American way, keeping that to themselve' instead +of--French way--telling their parent'. + +"Then another thing tranzpire'. My son and that son of Castanado bigin, +both--but that come' mo' later. Any'ow one day Melanie she bring Mlle. +Aline a note from De l'Isle sol-iciting if she and Melanie will go at +matinee with him and Dubroca. And when mademoiselle bigin to make +egscuse' Melanie implore' her to go, biccause Mme. Alexandre say no +Creole girl cann' go juz' with one man, or even with two. 'And mamma +she's right,' Melanie say--with tear',--'even in that Am'erican way they +got a limit, and same time I'm perishing to go!' + +"And when mademoiselle hear' what that play is ab-out she consent' at the +lazt to go. Biccause tha'z ab-out a girl what billieve' a man's in love +to her, biccause he pay her those li'l' galanterie of high life--li'l' +pol-ite figtion'--what every man---unless he's marrie'--egspect to pay to +every girl, to make thing' pleasant, you know? + +"And that play turn out a so egcellent that many people, paying admission +ad the door, find they got to pay ag-ain, secon' time, ad their seat, in +tear' that they weep; and that make it not so hard for Melanie, who weep +ab-out ten price'. Negs day, Sunday, avter church and dinner, she come +yonder ad the home of mademoiselle, you know, Bourbon Street, and sit +with her in the gol'fish bower of that li'l' garden behine. And she's +very much bow' down. And she h-ask mademoiselle if she ain't notiz sinz +long time how De l'Isle is paying intention to her, Melanie. But +mademoiselle di'n' have to be embarrazz' what to answer, biccause Melanie +she's so rattle' she don't wait to hear. And Melanie she say tha'z one +cause that she was wanting De l'Isle to see that play; biccause sinz +lately she's notiz he's make himseff very complimentary also to +mademoiselle, and she, Melanie, she want' him to notiz how that way he's +in danger to make mizunderstanding and diztress to himseff and--all +concern'. + +"And she prod-uce' a piece paper _fill_' with memorandum' of compliment' +he's say to her one time and other, what she's wrote down whiles frezh +spoken and what she billieve' are proof that he's in love to her and +inten' to make his proposition so soon he's got good sign' he'll be +accept'. 'But I ain't never give' him sign,' she say, 'biccause a girl +she cann' never be too careful. And so I think I'm bound to show that to +you, biccause I muz'n' be careful only for myseff, and if he's say such +thing' likewise to you, then tha'z to be false to both of us together. +But, I think,' she say, 'M. De l'Isle he coul'n' never do that!'" + +"How did she say all that, angrily or meekly?" + +"Oh! meek and weeping till mademoiselle she's compel' to weep likewise. +And ad the end she's compel' to tell Melanie yes, De l'Isle he's pay her +those same kind of sentimental plaisanteries; rosebud' to pin on the +heart _outside_, a few minute', till the negs cavalier. Castanado, she +say, Beloiseau, they do the same--even more. 'Ah!' Melanie say, 'but +only to you! and only biccause to say any mo' they are yet af-raid! +Mademoiselle, those both, they are both in love to you!' + +"And when Melanie say that, Mlle. Aline take the both hand' of Melanie in +her both han' and ask her if she ain't herseff put them both, Castanado, +Beloiseau, up to that--to fall in love to her. And pretty soon Melanie +she's compel' to confezz that, not with word', but juz' with the +fore-head on the knee of mademoiselle and crying like babie. And she say +she's sin'. And yet same time while she h-ask' mademoiselle to pray the +good God and the mother of God to forgive that sin, she h-ask her to pray +also that they'll make De l'Isle to love her. + +"Biccause, she say, 'tis those unfortunate rosebud' of sentimental +plaisanterie he give her what firz' make her to love him. And +mademoiselle she ag-ree' to that if Melanie she'll tell that whole story +also to her mother; biccause mademoiselle she see what a hole that put +them both in, her and Melanie, when she, mademoiselle, is bound to know +he's paying, De l'Isle, all his real intention' to herseff. And Melanie +she's in agonie and say no-no-no! but if mademoiselle will tell it, yes! +And by reason that she's kep' that from her mother sinze the firz', she +say tell not Mme. Alexandre but Mme. Castanado, even when mademoiselle +say if Mme. Castanado then also monsieur; biccause madame she'll +certainly make that condition, and biccause monsieur he can assist her to +commenze that whole businezz over, French way. And same time Melanie she +take very li'l' stock in that French way, by reason that, avter all, +those De l'Isle, though their money's gone, are still pretty high-life. + +"And tha'z how it come that those Castanado' have to tell me. Biccause +madame she cann' skip ar-ound pretty light, you know, and biccause they +think my, eh--pull--with those De l'Isle' is the moze of anybody, and +biccause I require to know how they are sure 'tis uzeless any mo' for +_my_ son, or _their_ son, than for the son of De l'Isle, to sed the heart +on Mlle. Aline. Also tha'z to egsplain me why Mlle. Aline say if all +those intention' to her don't finizh righd there, she got to stop coming +ad Mme. Alexandre. And of co'se! You see that, I su'pose?" + +"And where was young Dubroca in all this?" + +"Ah, another migsture! He was nowhere. Any'ow, tha'z how he feel; and +those other three boy' they di'n' feel otherwise. You see? We coul'n' +egsplain them anything--ab-out Mlle. Aline,--all we can say: 'Road +close'--stim-roller.' So ad the end Dubroca he have, slimly, the +advantage; for him, to Melanie, the road any 'ow seem' open; yet in vain. +So there, all at same time, in that li'l' gang, rue Royale, was five +heart' blidding for love, and nine other' blidding for those five and for +Mlle. Aline. + +"Well, of co'se--you see?--nobody cann' stand that! Firzt to find his +way out of that is Melanie. Melanie's confessor he think tha'z a sin to +keep any longer those fact' from her mother, and she confezz them to Mme. +Alexandre, and ad the end she say: 'Mamma, in our li'l' coterie I cann' +look anybody in the face any mo', and I'm going to biccome train' nurse. +Tha'z not running away, yet same time tha'z not every evening to be +getting me singe' in the same candle.' + +"Then, almoze while she saying that, that son of De l'Isle he say to my +son--who he's fon' of like a brother, and my son of him likewise, though +the one is a so dashing and the other a so quiet--''Oiseau,' he +say,--biccause tha'z the nickname of my son,--'papa and me we visit' the +French consul to-day and arrange' a li'l' affair.' + +"And when he want' to tell some mo' my son he stop' him: 'Enough! I +div-ine that. Why you di'n' take me al-ong? You'll arrange to go at +that France, of my _grand'mere_, and that Alsace, of her mother, to be +fighting _aviateur_, and leave '_Oiseau_ behine? Ah, you cann' do that!' +And when that young Dubroca and Castanado get the win' of them, the all +four, all of same sweet maladie, they go together; two to be juz' +_poilu_', two, _aviateur_'. That old remedie, you know; if they can't +love--they'll fight! They are yonder, still al-ive, laz' account." + +Mainly to himself Chester said, "And I am here, my land still at peace, +last account." + +"And also you, you've h-ask' mademoiselle, I think," said the ironworker, +"and alas, she's say aggain, no, eh?" + +The reply was a gaze and a nod. + +"Well, Mr. Chezter, I'm sorrie! Her reason--you can't tell. 'Tis maybe +juz' biccause those hero' are yonder. 'Tis maybe only that those two +aunt' are here. Maybe 'tis biccause both, maybe neither. You can't +tell. Maybe you h-ask too soon. Ad the present she know' you only sinze +a few week'. She don't know none of yo' hiztorie, neither yo' +familie--egcep' that h-angel of the Lord. Yo' char-_acter_, she may like +that very well yet same time she know' how easy that is for women to make +miztake' about. Maybe y'ought to 'ave ask' M'sieu' Thorndyke-Smith to +write at yo' home-town and get you recommen'. Even a cook he's got to +'ave that--or a publisher, eh?" + +"I've got that--within reach; my law firm has it. But, pshaw! _I_ +think, Beloiseau, while all your maybe's may be right the thing that +explains mademoiselle's whole situation is that she's never seen a man +worthy to touch a hem of her robe; and the only argument a lover can lay +at her feet is that she never will." + +"And you'll lay that, negs time?" + +"Not till that manuscript business is settled, don't you see? Come, you +must go to bed." + + + + +XLIII + +Shrimps, rice, and watered wine for a sunset dinner. At its end the +three Chapdelaines, each with her small cup of black coffee, left the +table and its remnants to the other two members of the household, and +passed out as usual to the bower benches and the goldfish pool. + +Humming-birds were there, drinking frenziedly from honeysuckle cups to +the health of all things beautiful and ecstatic. Mlle. Yvonne stood at +a bench's end to watch one of them dart from bloom to bloom. "Ah, +Corinne," she sighed, "if we could all be juz' humming-bird'!" + +"_Cherie_," cried her sister, "you are spilling yo' coffee!" + +Whether for the coffee, for the fact that we can't all be +humming-birds, or for some thought not yet spoken, Mlle. Corinne's eyes +were all but spilling their tears. As the trio sat down. Aline said +in gentlest accusation to the younger aunt: + +"You are trembling. Why is that?" + +The younger sister looked appealingly to the elder. "_Chere_," Mlle. +Corinne said to the girl, "we are anxiouz to confezz you something. We +woul'n' never be anxiouz to confezz that, only we're af-raid already +you've foun' us out!" + +"Yes. I came this evening by Ovide's shop to return a book----" + +"An' he tell you he's meet us----?" + +"On the steps of the _archeveche_." + +"Ah, _cherie_," Yvonne tearfully broke in, "can you ever pardon that to +us?" + +Aline smiled: "Oh, yes; in the course of time, I suppose. That was not +like a drinking-saloon." + +"Ah-h! not in the leas'! We di'n' touch there a drop--nobodie di'n' +offer us!" + +The niece addressed the other aunt: "Go on. Tell me why you were +there." + +"Aline, we'll confess us! We wend there biccause--we are orphan'! Of +co'se, we know that biffo', sinze long time, many, many year'; but only +sinze a few day'----" + +"Joy-ride day," Aline put in, a bit tensely. + +"Ah, no! _Cherie_, you muz' not supose----" + +"Never mind; 'last few days'--go on." + +"Well, sinze those laz' few day' we bigin to feel like we juz' got to +take step' ab-oud that!" + +"So you took those steps of the _archeveche_." + +"_Chere_, we'll tell you! Yvonne and me, avter all those many 'appy +year' with you, we think we want--ah, _cherie_, you'll pardon that?--we +want ad the laz' to live independent! So we go ad the archbishop. And +he say, 'How _I'm_ going to make you that? You think to be independent +by biccoming Sizter' of Charitie--of Mercy--of St. Joseph?' + +"'Ah, no,' we say, 'we have not the geniuz to be those; not even to be +Li'l'-Sizter'-of-the-Poor. All we want--and we coul'n' make ourselv' +the courage to ask you that, only we've save' you so large egspenses +not asking you that already sinze twenty-thirty year' aggo--we want you +to put us in orphan asylum.' We was af-raid at firz' he's goin' to be +mad; but he smile very kine and say: 'Yes, yes; you want, like the good +Lord say, to biccome like li'l' children, eh?' + +"'Ah, yes!' we tell him, 'tha'z what we be glad to do. They got +nothing in the worl' we can do, Yvonne and me, so easy like that! And +same time we be no egspense, like those li'l' _orpheline_'; we can wash +dish', make bed', men' apron'; and in that way we be independent!' +Well, he scratch his head; yet same time he smile', while he say, 'Go, +li'l' children, to yo' home. I'll see if Mere Veronique can figs that, +and if yes, I'll san' for you.' And, _cherie_, juz' the way he said +that, we are _sure_ he's goin' to san'." + +With her tears running freely Aline softly laughed. She rose, took a +hand of each aunt, laid the two together, bent low, and kissed them, +saying: "He will not, for he shall not. Nothing shall ever part us but +heaven." + + + + +XLIV + +One evening M. Castanado sat reading to his wife from a fresh number of +the weekly _Courier des Etats-Unis_. + +It was not long after the incident last mentioned. Chester had become +accustomed to his new lift in fortune, but as yet no further word as to +the manuscript had reached him; he had only just written a second +letter of inquiry after it. Also that summons to the two aunts, from +the archbishop, of which the pair were so sure, was still unheard; no +need had arisen for Aline to take any counter-step. We _could_ name +the exact date, for it was the day of the week on which the _Courier_ +always came, and the week was the last in which a Canal Street +movie-show beautifully presented the matchless Bernhardt as a widowed +shopkeeper--like Mme. Alexandre, but with a son, not daughter, in love. + +The door-bell rang. Castanado went down to the street. There, letting +in a visitor, he spoke with such animation that madame, listening from +her special seat, guessed, and before the two were half up-stairs knew, +who it was. It was Melanie Alexandre. + +No one answered her mother's bell, she said, kissing madame +lingeringly, twice on the forehead and once on either vast cheek. She +was short and square, with such serene kindness of face and voice as to +be the last you would ever pick out to fall into a mistake of passion, +however exalted. Of course, that serenity may have come since the +mistake. Both Castanados seemed to take note of it as if it had come +since, and she to be willing they should note it. + +"No," they said, "Mme. Alexandre had gone with Dubroca and his wife to +that movie of Sarah." + +"And also with M. Beloiseau?" asked Melanie, with a lurking smile, as +she sat down so fondly close to madame as to leave both her small hands +in one of her friend's. + +"Ah, now," madame exclaimed, "there is nothing in that! You ought to +be rijoice' if there was." + +The new look warmed in Melanie's eyes. "I'll be very glad if that time +ever comes," she said. + +"Then you billieve in the second love?" + +"Ah, in a case like that! Indeed, yes. In their first love they both +were happy; the second would be in praise of the first." + +"And to separate them there is only the street," Castanado suggested, +"and Royal Street, street of their birth and chilehood, and so narrow, +it have the effect to join, not separate. But!"--he made a wary +motion--"kip quite, eize they will not go into the net, those old +bird', hah!" + +There was a smiling silence, and then--"Well," madame said, "they are +all to stop here as they riturn. Waiting here, you'll see them all." + +"Yes, and beside', I have some good news for you; news anyhow to me." + +The pair smiled brightly: "You 'ave another letter from Dubroca!" + +"Yes. He's again wounded and in hospital." + +"Oh-h, terrible! tha'z to you good news?" + +"Yes. Look, monsieur; he has, at the front, the chance to be hit so +many times. If he's hit and only wounded his chances to be hit again +are made one less, eh? And while he's in hospital they are again two +or three less. Shall we not be glad for that? And moreover, how he +got his wound, that is better. He got that taking, by himself, nine +Boches! And still the best news is what he writes about his friend +Castanado." + +"Ah, Melanie! And you hold that back till now? And you know we are +without news of him sinze a month! He's promote'? He's decorate'?" + +"He's found a treasure. I think maybe you'll get his letter to-morrow. +Me, I got mine soon; passing the post-office I went in and asked." + +"But how, he found a treasure? and what sort?" + +"He just happened to dig it up, in a cellar, in Rheims. He's +betrothed.' + +"Melanie! What are you saying?" + +"What he says. And that's all he says. I hope you'll hear all about +that to-morrow." + +"Oh, any'ow tha'z the bes' of news!" Castanado said, kissing his wife's +hand and each temple. "Doubtlezz he's find some lovely orphan of that +hideouz war; we can trus' his good sense, our son. But, Melanie, he +muz' have been sick, away from the front, to make that courtship." + +"I do not know. Everything happens terribly fast these days. I hope +you'll hear all about that to-morrow." + +Castanado playfully lifted a finger: "Melanie, how is that, you pass +that poss-office, when it is up-town, while you--?" The question hung +unfinished--maybe because Melanie turned so red, maybe because the +door-bell rang again. + +Enlivened by the high art they had been enjoying and by the fresh night +air, a full half-dozen came in: M. and Mme. De l'Isle, whom the others +had chanced upon as they left the theatre; Dubroca and his wife; Mme. +Alexandre; and finally Beloiseau. "Melanie!" was the cry of each of +these as he or she turned from saluting madame; this was one of +madame's largest joys; to get early report from larger or smaller +fractions of the coterie, on the good things they had seen or heard, +from which her muchness otherwise debarred her. The De l'Isles, +however, were not such a matter of course as the others, and Mme. De +l'Isle, as she greeted Mme. Castanado, said, in an atmosphere that +trembled with its load of mingled French and English: + +"We got something to show you!" + +In the same atmosphere--"And how got you away from yo' patient?" Mme. +Alexandre asked her daughter as they embraced a second time. + +"I tore myself," said Melanie, while Castanado, to all the rest, was +saying: + +"And such great news as Mel'----" + +But a sharp glance from Melanie checked him. "Such great news as we +have receive'! Our son is bethroath'!--to a good, dizcreet, beautiful +French girl; which he _foun_', in a cellar at Rheims!" When a +drum-fire of questions fell on him he grew reticent and answered +quietly: "We have only that by firz' letter. Full particular' pretty +soon, perchanze to-morrow." + +"Then to-morrow we'll come hear ab-out it," Beloiseau said, "and tell +ab-out the movie. Mme. De l'Isle she's also got fine news, what she +cann' tell biffo' biccause"--he waved to Mme. De l'Isle to say why, but +her husband spoke for her. + +"Biccause," he said, "'tis all in a pigture, war pigture, on a New York +Sunday paper, and of co'se we coul'n' stop under street lamp for that; +and with yo' permission"--to Mme. Castanado--"we'll show that firz' of +all to Scipion." + +Beloiseau put on glasses and looked. "'General Joffre--'" he began to +read. + +"No, no! not that! This one, where you know the _general_ only by the +back of his head." + +"Ah--ah, yes; 'Two _aviateur_' riceiving from General Joffre'--my God! +De l'Isle--my God! madame,"--Scipion pounded his breast with the +paper--"they are yo' son and mine!" + +The company rushed to his elbows. "My faith! Castanado, there are +their name'! and 'For destrugtion of their eighteenth enemy aeroplane, +under circumstance' calling for exceptional coolnezz and intrepid-ity!'" + +There was great and general rejoicing and some quite pardonable +boasting, under cover of which Melanie and her mother slipped out by +the inside way, without mention of the young Dubroca, his prisoners, +sickness, or letter, except to his father and mother, who told of him +more openly when the Alexandres were safely gone. That brought fresh +gladness and praise, a fair share of which was for Melanie. + +So presently the remaining company vanished, leaving Mme. Castanado +free to embrace her kneeling husband and boast again the power of +prayer. + + + + +XLV + +The cathedral that year was undergoing repairs. + +Its cypress-log foundations, which had kept sound from colonial days in +a soil always wet, had begun to decay when a new drainage system began +to dry it out. Fact, but also allegory. + +It may have been in connection with this work, or with some change in +the house of the Discalceated Sisters of Mt. Carmel, or of the +archbishop, or of St. Augustine's Church, that a certain priest of +exceptional taste, Beloiseau's father confessor, dropped in on him to +order an ornamental wrought-iron grille for the upper half of a new +door. While looking at patterns he asked: + +"And what is the latest word from your son?" + +Scipion showed him that picture--he had bought one for himself--the +dear old unmistakable back of "Papa Joffre," and the dear young +unmistakable faces of the two boys, Beloiseau and De l'Isle. + +A talk followed, on the conflict between a father's pride and his +yearning to see his only son safely delivered from constant deadly +peril. They spoke of Aline. Not for the first time; Scipion, unaware +that the good father was her confessor also, had told him before of his +son's hopeless love, to ask if it was not right for him, the father, to +help Chester win the marvellous girl, since winning would win the two +boys home again. + +Patterns waited while the ironworker said that to the tender chagrin of +all the coterie Chester was refused--a man of such fineness, such +promise, mind, charm, and integrity, and so fitted for her in years, +temperament, and tastes, that no girl, however perfect, could hope to +be courted by more than one such in a lifetime. + +In brief Creole prose he struck the highest key of Shakespeare's +sonnets: "Was she not doing a grievous wrong to herself and Chester, to +the whole coterie that so adored her, especially to the De l'Isles and +himself, and even to society at large? Her reasons," he said, shifting +to English, "I can guess _at them_, but guessing at 'alf-a-dozen +convinze' me of none!" + +"Have you guess' at differenze of rilligious faith?" the priest +inquired. + +"Yes, but--nothing doing; I 'ave to guess no." + +"Tha'z a great matter to a good Catholic." + +"Ah, father! Or-_din_-arily, yes. Bud this time no. Any'ow, this +time tha'z not for us Catholic' to be diztress' ab-out. . . . Ah, yes, +chil'ren. But, you know? If daughter', they'll be of the faith and +conduc' of the mother; if son', faith of the mother, conduc' of the +father; and I think with that even you, pries' of God, be satizfie', eh? + +"My dear frien', you know what I billieve? Me, I billieve in heaven +they are _waiting impatiently_ for that marriage." + +The priest may have been professionally delinquent, but he chose to +leave the argument unrefuted. He smilingly looked at his watch. +"Well," he said, "I choose this design. Make it so. Good evening." +He turned away. Beloiseau called after him, but the man of God kept +straight on. + +The ironworker loitered back to where the chosen pattern lay, and stood +over it still thinking of Chester. Presently a soft voice sounded so +close by that he turned abruptly. At his side was an extremely winsome +stranger. His artistic eye instantly remarked not only her +well-preserved beauty, but its gentle dignity, rare refinement, and +untypical quality. Whether it was Creole or _Americain_, Southern, +Northern, or Western, nothing betrayed; on the surface at least, the +provincial, as far as the ironworker could see, was wholly bred out of +her. He noted also the unimpaired excellence of her erect and girlish +slightness and, under her pretty hat and early whitened hair, the +carven fineness of her features. Her whole attire pleasantly befitted +her years, which might have been anything short of fifty; and yet, if +Scipion was right, she might have dressed for thirty. + +"Are you Mr. Beloiseau?" she inquired. + +"I am," he said. + +"Mr. Beloiseau, I'm the mother of Geoffry Chester. You know him, I +believe?" + +"Oh, is that possible? He is my esteem' frien', madame. Will you"--he +began to dust a lone chair. + +"No, thank you; I came to find Geoffry's quarters. I left the hotel +with my memorandum, but must have dropped it. I remember only +Bienville Street." + +"He's not there any mo'. Sinze only two day' he's move'. Mrs. +Chezter, if you'll egscuse me till I can change the coat I'll show you +those new quarter'. Whiles I'm changing you can look ad that book of +pattern', and also--here--there's a pigtorial of New York; that--tha'z +of my son and the son of my neighbor up-stair', De l'Isle, ric'iving +medal' from General Joffre----" + +"Why, Mr. Beloiseau can it be!" + +"But you know, Mrs. Chezter, he's not there presently, yo' son. He's +gone at St. Martinville, to the court there." + +"Yes, to be back to-morrow or next day. They told me in his office +this forenoon. I reached the city only at eleven, train late. He +didn't know I was coming. My telegram's on his desk unopened. But +having time, I thought I'd see whether he's living comfortably or only +fancies he is." + +On their way Mrs. Chester and her guide hardly spoke until Scipion +asked: "Madame, when you was noticing yo' telegram on the desk of yo' +son you di'n' maybe notiz' a letter from New York? We are prettie +anxiouz for that to come to yo' son. I do' know if you know about that +or no, but M. De l'Isle and madame, and Castanado and his madame, and +Dubroca and his madame, and Mme. Alexandre and me, and three +Chapdelaine', we are all prettie anxiouz for that letter." + +"Yes, I know about it, and there is one, from a New York +publishing-house, on Geoffry's desk." + +"Well, madame, Marais Street, here's the place. Ah! and street-car--or +jitney--passing thiz corner will take you ag-ain at yo' hotel." + + + + +XLVI + +Satisfied with her son's quarters, Mrs. Chester returned to her hotel +and had just dined when her telephone rang. + +"Mme.--oh, Mme. De l'Isle, I'm so please'----" + +The instrument reciprocated the pleasure. "If Mrs. Chezter was not too +fat-igue' by travelling, monsieur and madame would like to call." + +Soon they appeared and in a moment whose brevity did honor to both +sides had established cordial terms. Rising to go, the pair asked a +great favor. It made them, they said, "very 'appy to perceive that Mr. +Chezter, by writing, has make his mother well acquaint' with that li'l' +coterie in Royal Street, in which they, sometime', 'ave the honor to be +include'." "The honor" meant the modest condescension, and when Mrs. +Chester's charming smile recognized the fact the pair took fresh +delight in her. "An' that li'l' coterie, sinze hearing that from +Beloiseau juz' this evening, are anxiouz to see you at ones; they are, +like ourselve', so fon' of yo' son; and they cannot call all +together--my faith, that would be a procession! And bi-side', Mme. +Castanado she--well--you understan' why that is--she never go' h-out. +Same time M. Castanado he's down-stair' waiting---- + +"Shall I go around there with you? I'll be glad to go." They went. + +Through that "recommend'" of Chester, got by Thorndyke-Smith for the +law firm, and by him shown to M. De l'Isle, the coterie knew that the +pretty lady whom they welcomed in Castanado's little parlor was of a +family line from which had come three State governors, one of whom had +been also his State's chief justice. One of her pleasantest +impressions as she made herself at ease among them, and they around her +and Mme. Castanado, was that they regarded this fact as honoring all +while flattering none. She found herself as much, and as kindly, on +trial before them as they before her, and saw that behind all their +lively conversation on such comparatively light topics as the World +War, greater New Orleans, and the decay of the times, the main question +was not who, but what, she was. As for them, they proved at least +equal to the best her son had ever written of them. + +And they found her a confirmation of the best they had ever discerned +in her son. In her fair face they saw both his masculine beauty and +the excellence of his mind better interpreted than they had seen them +in his own countenance. A point most pleasing to them was the palpable +fact that she was in her son's confidence. Evidently, though arriving +sooner than expected, her coming was due to his initiative. Clearly he +had written things that showed a juncture wherein she, if but prompt +enough, might render the last great service of her life to his. Oh, +how superior to the ordinary American slap-dash of the matrimonial +lottery! They felt that they themselves had taken the American way too +much for granted. Maybe that was where they were unlike Mlle. Aline. +But she was not there, to perceive these things, nor her aunts, to be +seen and estimated. The evening's outcome could be but inconclusive, +but it was a happy beginning. + +Its most significant part was a brief talk following the mention of the +Castanado soldier-boy's engagement. His expected letter had come, +bringing many pleasant particulars of it, and the two parents were +enjoying a genuine and infectious complacency. "And one thing of the +largez' importanze, Mrs. Chezter," madame said with sweet enthusiasm, +"--the two they are of the one ril-ligion!" + +Was the announcement unlucky, or astute? At any rate it threw the +subject wide open by a side door, and Mrs. Chester calmly walked in. + +"That's certainly fortunate," she said. Every ear was alert and +Beloiseau was suddenly eager to speak, but she smilingly went on: "It's +true that, coming of a family of politicians, and being pet +daughter--only one--of a judge, I may be a trifle broad on that point. +Still I think you're right and to be congratulated." + +The whole coterie felt a glad thrill. "Ah, madame," Beloiseau +exclaimed, "you are co'rec'! But, any'ow, in a caze where the two +faith' _are_ con-_tra_-ry 'tis not for you Protestant' to be diztres' +ab-out! You, you don' care so much ab-out those myzterie' of bil-ief +as about those rule' of conduc'. Almoze, I may say, you run those +_rule_' of conduc' into the groun'--and tha'z right! And bis-ide', you +'ave in everything--politic', law, trade, society--so much the upper +han'--in the bes' senze--ah, of co'se in the bes' senze!--that the +chil'ren of such a case they are pretty sure goin' to be Protestant!" + +Mrs. Chester, having her choice, to say either that marriages across +differences of faith had peculiar risks, or that Geoffry's uncle, the +"Angel of the Lord," had married, happily, a Catholic, chose neither, +let the subject be changed, and was able to assure the company that the +missive on Geoffry's desk was no bulky manuscript, but a neat thin +letter under one two-cent stamp. + +"Accept'!" they cried, "that beautiful true story of 'The 'Oly Crozz' +is accept'! Mesdemoiselles they have strug the oil!" + +Mme. Castanado had a further conviction: + +"'Tis the name of it done that! They coul'n' rif-use that name!--and +even notwithstanding that those publisher' they are maybe Protestant!" + +The good nights were very happy. The last were said five squares away, +at the hotel, to which the De l'Isles brought her back afoot. "And +to-morrow evening, four o'clock," madame said, "I'll come and we'll go +make li'l' visite at those Chapdelaine'." + +Mrs. Chester had but just removed her hat when again the telephone; +from the hotel office--"Your son is here. Yes, shall we send him up?" + + + + +XLVII + +With hands under their gray sleeves two white-bonneted _religieuses_ +turned into Bourbon Street and rang the Chapdelaines' street bell. + +Mlle. Yvonne flutteringly let them into the garden, Mlle. Corinne into +the house. The conversation was in English, for, though Sister +Constance was French, Sister St. Anne, young, fair, and the chief +speaker, was Irish. They came from Sister Superior Veronique, they +said, to see further about mesdemoiselles entering, eh---- + +Smilingly mesdemoiselles fluttered more than ever. "Ah, yes, yes! +Well, you know, sinze we talk ab-out that with the archbishop we've +talk' ab-out it with our niece al-_so_, and we think she's got to get +marrie' befo' we can do that, biccause to live al-lone that way she's +too young. But we 'ave the 'ope she's goin' to marry, and then----!" + +"Have you made a will?" + +"Will! Ah, we di'n' never think of that! Tha'z a marvellouz we di'n' +never think of that--when we are the two-third' owner' of that lovely +proprity there! And we think tha'z always improving in cozt, that +place, biccause so antique an' so pittoresque. And if Aline she +marrie' and we, we join that asylum doubtlezz Aline she'll be rij-oice' +to combine with us to leave that lovely proprity ad the lazt to the +church! Biccause, you know, to take that to heaven with us, tha'z +impossible, and the church tha'z the nearez' we can come." Odd as the +moment seemed for them, tears rolled down their smiling faces. + +"But"--they dried their eyes--"there's another thing also bisside'. We +are, all three, the authorezz' of a story that we are prettie sure +tha'z accept' by the publisher'; an' of co'ze if tha'z accept'--and if +those publisher' they don' swin'le us, like so oftten--we don't need to +be orphan' never any mo', and we'll maybe move up-town and juz' keep +that proprity here for a souvenir of our in-fancy. But that be +two-three days yet biffo' we can be sure ab-oud that. Maybe ad the +laz' we'll 'ave to join the asylum, but tha'z our hope, to move up town +into the _quartier nouveau_ and that beautiful 'garden diztric'.' But +we'll always _con_-tinue to love the old 'ouse here. 'Tis a very +genuine ancient _relique_, that 'ouse. You see those wall'? Solid +plank of two inch' and from Kentucky!" They went through the whole +story--the house, the relics of their childhood--"Go you, Yvonne, fedge +them!" + +The meek _religieuses_ did their best to be both interested and +sincere, but somehow found diplomacy to escape the "li'l' lake" and its +goldfish, and even took the piety of the cat with a dampening absence +of mind. Their departure was almost hurried. There was nothing to do +on either side, the four agreed, but to wait the turn of events. + +The two gray robes and white bonnets had but just got away when the +bell rang again and Mlle. Yvonne let in Mme. De l'Isle and Mrs. Chester. + +But these calls were in mid-afternoon. The evening previous--"Show Mr. +Chester to three-thirty-three," the hotel clerk had said, and presently +Mrs. Chester was all but perishing in the arms of her son. + +"Geoffry! Geoffry! you needn't be ferocious!" + +They took seats facing each other, low seats that touched; but when +they joined hands a second time he dropped to his knees, asking many +questions already answered in her regular and frequent letters. News +is so different by word of mouth when the mouth's the sweetest, +sacredest ever kissed. "And how's father?" + +As if he didn't know to the last detail! + +All at once--"Why didn't you say you were coming?" he savagely demanded. + +"No matter," his mother replied, "I'm glad I didn't, things have +happened so pleasantly. I've seen your whole Royal Street coterie, +except, of course----" + +"Yes, of course." + +The mother told her evening's experience. + +"And you like my friends?" + +"Why, Geoffry, you're right to love them. But, now, how came you back +so soon from St. What's-his-name?" + +"Opposing counsel compromised the case without trial. Mother, it's the +greatest professional victory I've ever won." + +"Oh, how fine! Geoffry, how are you getting on, professionally, +anyhow?" + +"Better than my best hope, dear; far better. I've shot right up!" + +"Then why do you look so weary and care-worn?" + +"I don't. I'm older, that's all, dear." + +"Oh! Prospering and care-free, and yet you'd drop everything and go to +France, to war." + +"No, dearie, no. I'm sorry I wrote you what I did, but I only said I +felt like it. I don't now. I envied those Royal Street boys, who +could do that with a splendid conscience. I--I can't. I can't go +killing men, even murderers, for a remote personal reason. I must wait +till my own country calls and my patriotism is pure patriotism. That's +higher honor--to _her_, isn't it?" + +"It is to you; I'm not bothering about her." + +"You will when you see her, first sight. To-morrow afternoon, you say. +Wish I could be there when your eyes first light on her! Mother, +dearie, isn't it as much she as I you've come to see?" + +"Well, if it is, what then?" + +"I'm glad. But I draw the line at seeing. _Help_, you understand, I +don't want--I won't have!" + +"Why, Geoffry, I----!" + +"Oh, I say it because there isn't one of that kind-hearted coterie who +hasn't wanted to put in something in my favor. I forbid! A dozen to +one--I won't allow it! No, nor any two to one, not even we two. Win +or lose, I go it alone. 'Twould be fatal to do otherwise if I would. +You'll see that the minute you see her." + +"Why, Geoffry! What a heat!" + +"Oh, I'll be the only one burned. Good night. I can't see you +to-morrow before evening. Shall we dine here?" + +"Yes. Oh, Geoffry--that New York letter! Manuscript accepted?" + +A shade crossed the son's brow. "Don't you think I ought to tell her +first?" + +"Her first," the mother--the _mother_--repeated after him. "Maybe so; +I don't care." They kissed. "Good night." + +"Good night . . . good night . . . good night, dear, darling mother. +Good night!" + + + + +XLVIII + +At the batten door of her high, tight garden-fence Mlle. Yvonne, we +repeat, let in Mme. De l'Isle and Mrs. Chester. + +"Mother of--ah-h-h!" Her rapture was mated to such courteous restraint +that dinginess and dishevelment were easily overlooked. "And 'ow +marvellouz that is, that you 'appen to come juz' when he--and us--we're +getting that news of the manu'----" + +"What! accepted?" + +"Oh, _that_ we di'n' hear _yet_! We only hear he's hear' something, +but we're sure tha'z the only something he can hear!" She had begun to +close the gate, but Mrs. Chester lingered in it. + +"That fine large house and garden across the way," she said, "are they +a Creole type?" + +"Yes, bez' kind--for in the city. They got very few like that in the +_vieux carre_, but up yonder in that beautiful garden diztric' of the +_nouveau quartier_ are many, where we'll perchanze go to live some day +pritty soon. That old 'ouse we're inhabiting here, tha'z--like us, ha, +ha!--a pritty antique. Tha'z mo' suit' for a _relique_ than to live +in, especially for Tantine--ha, ha!--tha'z auntie, yet tha'z what we +call our niece. Aline--juz' in _plaisanterie_!--biccause she take' so +much mo' care of us than us of her." + +Mrs. Chester had stopped to look around her. "Whenever you move," she +said, "you'll have to leave this delightful little garden behind; it +won't fit out of these quaint surroundings." + +"Ah! We won't want that any mo'!" + +They pressed on. "That 'ouse acrozz street," said Mme. De l'Isle, "I +notiz there the usual sign." + +"Ah, yes, yes! 'For Sale or Rent'; tha'z what always predominate' in +that poor _vieux carre_. But here is my sizter. Corinne, Mrs. +Chezter, the mother of Mr. Chezter--as you see by the _image_ of him in +the face! I can have the boldnezz to say that, madame, biccause never +in my life I di'n' see a young man so 'andsome like yo' son!" + +The mother blushed--a lifelong failing. "At home," she said, "he's +called his father's double." + +"Is that possible? But tha'z the way with people. Some people they +find Aline the _image_ of Corinne, and some of me. Yet Corinne and +me--look!" + +The four went in--to the usual entertainment: the solid plank walls, +the fine absence of lath and plaster, Aline's "li'l' robe of baptism," +and the bridegroom and bride who had gone a lifetime without a change +of linen. They passed out into the rear garden and told wonderful +stories of those gifted little darlings the goldfish. Hector, +unfortunately absent, had a mouth-organ, to whose strains the fishes +would listen so motionless that you could see they were spellbound. +Yvonne ran back into the house to get it, but for some cause returned +with nerves so shaken that the fishes would do nothing but run wildly +to and fro. Still, that was just as startling proof of their amazing +whatever-it-was! + +Seats were not taken in the bower. The declining sun filled it. Mrs. +Chester moved fondly from one flower-bed to another, and while the +sisters eagerly filled her hands with their choicest bloom Yvonne +privately got a disturbed glance to Corinne that drew the four indoors +again. There the outside quaintness tempted Mrs. Chester at once to a +front window, with Mlle. Yvonne at her side. + +The front garden was not as the visitor had seen it shortly before +while entering. She turned silently away, while mademoiselle, as +though surprised, cried to her sister and Mme. De l'Isle: "Ah! Aline +she's arrive'! Mrs. Chezter, 'ow tha'z fortunate for us all!" + +So with the other three Mrs. Chester looked out again. Half-way up the +walk stood Aline. Her back was to the house. Cupid was just inside +the gate, and between them, closely confronting her, was a third +figure--Geoffry Chester. The indoor company could see his face, but +not its mood, so dazzling was the low sun behind him; but certainly it +was not gay. Her hand lay in his through some parting speech, but fell +from it as both returned toward the gate. Which Cupid opened--sad +irony--for Chester, and while the child locked him out Aline came +forward wrapped in sunlight. + +By steps, as she came, her beauty of form, face, and soul grew on Mrs. +Chester's sight, and when, in the house, with her sunset halo quenched +and her presence more perfectly humanized, her smile and voice crowned +the revelation, it happened as Geoffry had said it would; the mother's +heart went out to her in fond and complete acceptance. + +To the four women taking seats with her the laying of a graceful hat +off her dark hair was the dissolving of one lovely picture into another +unmarred by the fact that a letter which she held in her fingers was +the publishers' latest word to Chester. But now, as her own silent +gaze fell on it held in her lap in both hands, so did theirs, till her +fingers shook and she bit her lip. Then--"Never mind to read it, +chere," Mme. De l'Isle said, "juz' tell us. We are prepare' for the +worz'. They want to poz'pone the pewblication, or they don't want to +pay in advanz'?" + +Aline lifted so bright a smile through her tears that every heart grew +lighter. "They don't want it at all," she said. "They have sent it +back!" + +"Oh-h-h! Impossible!" exclaimed the two sisters, their eyes filling. +"The clerk he's put the wrong letter--letter for another party!" + +Aline smiled again. "No; Mr. Chester, he has the manuscript. Ah, you +poor"--again she smiled, biting her lip and wiping her tears. Then she +turned, looked steadfastly into Mrs. Chester's face, and suddenly +handed her the missive. "Read it out." + +Mrs. Chester did so. As history, it said, the paper's interest was too +merely encyclopaedic for magazine use, while as romance it was too much +a story of peoples, not persons; romantic yet not romance. As to book +form the same drawbacks held, besides the fact that there was not +enough of it, not one-fifth enough, for even a small book. + +When the reader would have handed the letter back it was agreed instead +that she should give it to her son. "What does he purpose to do?" she +inquired. "This is the judgment of but one publisher, and there +are----" + +"In the North," Mme. De l'Isle broke in, "they got mo' than a dozen +pewblisher'!" + +"Whiles one," the sisters pleaded, "tha'z all we require!" + +"I know that," said Aline to the four. "'Twas of that we were speaking +at the gate. But"--to Mrs. Chester--"that judgment of the one +publisher is become our judgment also. So this evening he will bring +you the manuscript, and in two or three days, when we come to see you, +my two aunt' and me--I, you can give it me." + +"May I read it? I've been to Ovide's and read 'The Clock in the Sky.'" + +"Yes? Well, if later we have the good, chance to find, in our _vieux +carre_, we and our _coterie_, and Ovide, some more stories, true +romances, we'll maybe try again; but till then--ah, no." + +Mrs. Chester touched the girl caressingly. "My dear, you will! Every +house looks as if it could tell at least one, including that large +house and garden just over the way." + +"Ah," chanted Mlle. Yvonne, "how many time' Corinne and me, we want' to +live there and furnizh, ourseff, that romanz'!" + +The five rose. Mrs. Chester "would be delighted to have the three +Chapdelaines call. I'm leaving the hotel, you know; I've taken a room +next Geoffry's. But that's nearer you, is it not?" + +"A li'l', yes," the sisters replied, but Aline's smiling silence said: +"No, a little farther off." + +The aunts thanked Mme. De l'Isle for bringing Mrs. Chester and kissed +her cheeks. They walked beside her to the gate, led by Cupid with the +key, and by Marie Madeleine crooking the end of her tail like a +floor-walker's finger. Mrs. Chester and Aline came last. The sisters +ventured out to the sidewalk to finish an apology for a significant +fault in Marie Madeleine's figure, and Mrs. Chester and Aline found +themselves alone. + +"Au revoir," they said, clasping hands. Cupid, under a sudden +inspiration, half-closed the gate, the pair stood an eloquent moment +gazing eye to eye, and then---- + + +What happened the mother told her son that evening as they sat alone on +a moonlit veranda. + +"Mother!" + +"Yes," she said, "and on the lips." + + + + +XLIX + +Beginning at dawn, an all-day rain rested the travel-wearied lady. But +the night cleared and in the forenoon that followed she shopped--for +things, she wrote her husband, not to be found elsewhere in the +forty-eight States. + +The afternoon she gave to two or three callers, notably to Mrs. +Thorndyke-Smith, who was very pleasing every way, but in nothing more +than in her praises of the Royal Street coterie. Next morning, in a +hired car, she had Castanado and Mme. Dubroca, Beloiseau and Mme. +Alexandre, not merely show but, as the ironworker said, pinching +forefinger and thumb together in the air, "elucidate" to her, for +hours, the _vieux carre_. The day's latter half brought Mlles. Corinne +and Yvonne; but Aline--no. + +"She was coming till the laz' moment," the pair said, "and then she's +so bewzy she 'ave to sen' us word, by 'Ector, 'tis impossib' to +come--till maybe later. Go h-on, juz' we two." + +They sat and talked, and rose and talked, and--sweetly +importuned--resumed seats and talked, of infant days and the old New +Orleans they loved so well, unembarrassed by a maze of innocent +anachronisms, and growingly sure that Aline would come. + +When at sunset they took leave Mrs. Chester, to their delight, followed +to the sidewalk, drifted on by a corner or two, and even turned up +Rampart Street, though without saying that it was by Rampart Street her +son daily came--walked--from his office. It had two paved ways for +general traffic, with a broad space between, where once, the sisters +explained, had been the rampart's moat but now ran the electric cars! +"You know what that is, rampart? Tha'z in the 'Star-Spangle' Banner' +ab-oud that. And this high wall where we're passing, tha'z the +Carmelite convent, and--ah! ad the last! Aline! Aline!" Also there +was Cupid. + +The four encountered gayly. "Ah, not this time," Aline said. "I came +only to meet my aunts; they had locked the gate! But I _will_ call, +very soon." + +They walked up to the next corner, the sisters confusingly instructing +Mrs. Chester how to take a returning street-car. Leaving them, she had +just got safely across from sidewalk to car-track when Cupid came +pattering after, to bid her hail only the car marked "Esplanade Belt." + +As he backed off--"Take care!" was the cry, but he sprang the wrong way +and a hurrying jitney cast him yards distant, where he lay unconscious +and bleeding. The packed street-car emptied. + +"No, he's alive," said one who lifted him, to the two jitney +passengers, who pushed into the throng. "Arm broke', yes, but he's +hurt worst in the head." + +There was an apothecary's shop in sight. They put him and the four +ladies into the jitney and sent them there, and the world moved on. + +At the shop he came to, and presently, in the jitney again, he was +blissfully aware of Geoffry Chester on the swift running-board, +questioning his mother and Aline by turns. He listened with all his +might. Neither the child nor his mistress had seen or heard the +questioner since the afternoon he was locked out of the garden. + +Nearing that garden now, questions and answers suddenly ceased; the +child had spoken. Limp and motionless, with his head on Aline's bosom +and his eyes closed, "Don't let," he brokenly said, "don't let _him_ go +'way." + +To him the answer seemed so long coming that he began to repeat; then +Aline said---- + +"No, dear, he shan't leave you." + +The sisters had telephoned their own physician from the apothecary's +shop, and soon, with Cupid on his cot, pushed close to a cool window +looking into the rear garden, and the garden lighted by an unseen moon, +Mrs. Chester, at the cot's side awaited the doctor's arrival. The +restless sisters brought her a tray of rusks and butter and tea, though +they would not, could not, taste anything themselves until they should +know how gravely the small sufferer--for now he began to suffer--was +hurt. + +"Same time tha'z good to be induztriouz"--this was all said directly +above the moaning child--"while tha'z bad, for the sick, to talk ad the +bedside, and we can't stay with you and not talk, and we can't go in +that front yard; that gate is let open so the doctor he needn' ring and +that way excide the patient; and we can't go in the back garden"--they +spread their hands and dropped them; the back garden was hopelessly +pre-empted. + +They went to a parlor window and sat looking and longing for the front +gate to swing. They had posted on it in Corinne's minute writing: "No +admittance excep on business. Open on account sickness. S. V. P. +Don't wring the belle!!!" + +Cupid lay very flat on his back, his face turned to the open window. +He had ceased to moan. When Mrs. Chester stole to where, by leaning +over, she could see his eyes they were closed. She hoped he slept, but +sat down in uncertainty rather than risk waking him. In the moonlit +garden Aline and Geoffry paced to and fro. To see them his mother +would have to stand and lean over the cot, and neither good mothers nor +good nurses do that. She kept her seat, anxiously hoping that the +moonlight out there would remain soft enough to veil the worn look +which daylight betrayed on her son's face whenever he fell into silence. + +The talk of the pair was labored. Once they went clear to the bower +and turned, without a word. Then Geoffry said: "I know a story I'd +like to tell you, though how it would help us in our project--if we now +have a project at all--I don't see." + +"'Tis of the _vieux carre_, that story?" + +"It's of the _vieux carre_ of the world's heart." + +"I think I know it." + +"May I not tell it?" + +"Yes, you may tell it--although--yes, tell it." + +"Well, there was once a beautiful girl, as beautiful in soul as in +countenance, and worshipped by a few excellent friends, few only +because of conditions in her life that almost wholly exiled her from +society. Even so, she had suitors--good, gallant men; not of wealth, +yet with good prospects and with gifts more essential. But other +conditions seemed, to her, to forbid marriage." + +"Yes," Aline interrupted. "Mr. Chester, have you gone in partnership +with Mr. Castanado--'Masques et Costumes'? Or would it not be maybe +better honor to me--and yourself--to speak----" + +"Straight out? Yes, of course. Aline, I've been racking my brain--I +still am--and my heart--to divine what it is that separates us. I had +come to believe you loved me. I can't quite stifle the conviction yet. +I believe that in refusing me you're consciously refusing that which +seems to you yourself a worthy source of supreme happiness if it did +not threaten the happiness of others dearer than your own." + +"Of my aunts, you think?" + +"Yes, your aunts." + +"Mr. Chester, even if I had no aunts----" + +"Yes, I see. That's my new discovery: you've already had my assurance +that I'd study their happiness as I would yours, ours, mine; but you +think I could never make your aunts and myself happy in the same +atmosphere. You believe in me. You believe I have a future that must +carry me--would carry us--into a world your aunts don't know and could +never learn." + +"'Tis true. And yet even if my aunts----" + +"Had no existence--yes, I know. I know what you think would still +remain. You can't hint it, for you think I would promptly promise the +impossible, as lovers so easily do. Aline, I would not! 'Twouldn't be +impossible. It shall not be. My mother is helping to prove that even +to you, isn't she--without knowing it? I promise you as if it were in +the marriage contract and we were here signing it, that if you will be +my wife I never will, and you never shall, let go, or in any way relax, +your hold--or mine--on the intimate friendship of the coterie in Royal +Street. They are your inheritance from your father and his father, and +I love you the more adoringly because you would sooner break your own +heart than forfeit that legacy." He took one of her hands. "You are +their 'Clock in the Sky'; you're their 'Angel of the Lord.' And so you +shall be till death do you part." He took the other hand, held both. + + +Cupid turned his face from the window and audibly sobbed. + +"Oh, child, what is it? Does it pain so?" + +He shook his head. + +"Doesn't it pain? Is it not pain at all? Why, then, what is it?" + +"Joy," he whispered as the doctor came in. + + + + +L + +The child's hurts were not so grave, after all. + +"He may sit up to-morrow," the doctor said. The fractured arm was put +into a splint and sling, and a collar-bone had to be wrapped in place; +but the absorbent cotton bandaged on his head was only for contusions. + +"Corinne!" Mlle. Yvonne gasped, "contusion"! Ah, doctor, I 'ope tha'z +something you can't 'ave but once!" + +"You can't in fatal cases. Mrs.--eh--those scissors, please? Thank +you." + +"Well, Aline, praise be to heaven, any'ow his skull, from ear to ear +'tis solid! Ah, I mean, of co'se, roun' the h-outside. Inside 'tis +hollow. But outside it has not a crack! eh, doctor?" + +"Except the sutures he was born with. Now, my little man----" + +"Ah, ah, Corinne! Born with shuture'! and we never suzpeg' that!" + +"Ah, but, Yvonne, if he's had those sinz' that long they cann' be so +very fatal, no!" + + +Partly for the little boy's sake three days were let pass before Aline +made her announcement. There was but one place for it--the Castanados' +parlor. All the coterie were there--the De l'Isles, even Ovide--butler +_pro tem_. + +"You will have refreshments," he said, with happiest equanimity; "I +will serve them"; and the whole race problem vanished. Melanie too was +present, with an announcement of her own which won ecstatic kisses, +many of them tear-moistened but all of them glad. As for Mme. +Alexandre and Beloiseau, they announced nothing, but every one knew, +and said so in the smiling fervency of their hand-grasps. + +All of which made the evening too hopelessly old-fashioned to be dwelt +on, though one point cannot be overlooked. It was the last +proclamation of the joyous hour, and was Chester's. He had bought--on +wonderfully easy terms--_vieux carre_ terms--the large house and +grounds opposite the Chapdelaine cottage, and there the aunts were to +dwell with the young pair. + +"Permanently?" + +"Ah, only whiles we live!" + +The coterie adjourned. + + +Already the sisters had begun to move in. Mrs. Chester helped them +"marvellouzly." Also Aline. Also Cupid--that was now his only name. +The cat really couldn't; she was too preoccupied. The sisters touched +Mrs. Chester's arm and drew a curtain. + +"Look! . . . Eight! Ah, thou unfaithful, if we had ever think you are +going to so forget yo'seff like that, we woul'n' never name you Marie +Madeleine! And still ad the same time you know, Mrs. Chezter, we are +sure she's trying to tell us, right now, that this going to be the laz' +time!" + +"And me," Yvonne added, "I feel sure any'ow that, as the poet say--I'm +prittie sure 'tis the poet say that--she's mo' sin' ag-ainz' than +sinning." + +At length one evening so many relics of the Chapdelaine infancy had +been gathered in the new home that the sisters went over there to pass +the night, and took puss and her offspring along. But not a wink did +either of them sleep the night through, and the first living creature +they espied the next morning was Marie Madeleine, with a kitten in her +teeth, moving back. + +"Aline," they sobbed as soon as they could find her, "we are sorry, +sorry, sorry, to make you such unhappinezz like that, and so soon; +continue, you and Geoffry, to live in that new 'ouse; but whiles we +live any plaze but heaven we got to live in that home of our in-fancy." + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Flower of the Chapdelaines, by George W. 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