Short Fiction, Kate Chopin [sci fi books to read txt] 📗

as only few can love inanimate things. A great enmity arose in him against Ma’me Brozé. She was walking about the yard, with her nose in the air, and a shabby black dress trailing behind her. She held the little girls by the hand.

Gilma could think of nothing better to do than to mount his horse and ride away⁠—anywhere. The horse was a spirited animal of great value. Monsieur Gamiche had named him “Jupiter” on account of his proud bearing, and Gilma had nicknamed him “Jupe,” which seemed to him more endearing and expressive of his great attachment to the fine creature. With the bitter resentment of youth, he felt that “Jupe” was the only friend remaining to him on earth.

He had thrust a few pieces of clothing in his saddlebags and had requested Ma’me Brozé, with assumed indifference, to put his remaining effects in a place of safety until he should be able to send for them.

As he rode around by the front of the house, Septime, who sat on the gallery all doubled up in his uncle Gamiche’s big chair, called out:

“Hé, Gilma! w’ere you boun’ fo’?”

“I’m goin’ away,” replied Gilma, curtly, reining his horse.

“That’s all right; but I reckon you might jus’ as well leave that hoss behine you.”

“The hoss is mine,” returned Gilma, as quickly as he would have returned a blow.

“We’ll see ’bout that li’le later, my frien’. I reckon you jus’ well turn ’im loose.”

Gilma had no more intention of giving up his horse than he had of parting with bis own right hand. But Monsieur Gamiche had taught him prudence and respect for the law. He did not wish to invite disagreeable complications. So, controlling his temper by a supreme effort, Gilma dismounted, unsaddled the horse then and there, and led it back to the stable. But as he started to leave the place on foot, he stopped to say to Septime:

“You know, Mr. Septime, that hoss is mine; I can collec’ a hundred aff’davits to prove it. I’ll bring them yere in a few days with a statement f’om a lawyer; an’ I’ll expec’ the hoss an’ saddle to be turned over to me in good condition.”

“That’s all right. We’ll see ’bout that. Won’t you stay fo’ dinna?”

“No, I thank you, sah; Ma’me Brozé already ask’ me.” And Gilma strode away, down the beaten footpath that led across the sloping grassplot toward the outer road.

A definite destination and a settled purpose ahead of him seemed to have revived his flagging energies of an hour before. It was with no trace of fatigue that he stepped out bravely along the wagon-road that skirted the bayou.

It was early spring, and the cotton had already a good stand. In some places the negroes were hoeing. Gilma stopped alongside the rail fence and called to an old negress who was plying her hoe at no great distance.

“Hello, Aunt Hal’fax! see yere.”

She turned, and immediately quitted her work to go and join him, bringing her hoe with her across her shoulder. She was large-boned and very black. She was dressed in the deshabille of the field.

“I wish you’d come up to yo’ cabin with me a minute, Aunt Hally,” he said; “I want to get an aff’davit f’om you.”

She understood, after a fashion, what an affidavit was; but she couldn’t see the good of it.

“I ain’t got no aff’davis, boy; you g’long an’ don’ pesta me.”

“ ’Twon’t take you any time, Aunt Hal’fax. I jus’ want you to put yo’ mark to a statement I’m goin’ to write to the effec’ that my hoss, Jupe, is my own prop’ty; that you know it, an’ willin’ to swear to it.”

“Who say Jupe don’ b’long to you?” she questioned cautiously, leaning on her hoe.

He motioned toward the house.

“Who? Mista Septime and them?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I reckon!” she exclaimed, sympathetically.

“That’s it,” Gilma went on; “an’ nex’ thing they’ll be sayin’ yo’ ole mule, Policy, don’t b’long to you.”

She started violently.

“Who say so?”

“Nobody. But I say, nex’ thing, that’ w’at they’ll be sayin’.”

She began to move along the inside of the fence, and he turned to keep pace with her, walking on the grassy edge of the road.

“I’ll jus’ write the affidavit, Aunt Hally, an’ all you got to do”⁠—

“You know des well as me dat mule mine. I done paid ole Mista Gamiche fo’ ’im in good cotton; dat year you falled outen de puckhorn tree; an’ he write it down hisse’f in his ’count book.”

Gilma did not linger a moment after obtaining the desired statement from Aunt Halifax. With the first of those “hundred affidavits” that he hoped to secure, safe in his pocket, he struck out across the country, seeking the shortest way to town.

Aunt Halifax stayed in the cabin door.

“ ’Relius,” she shouted to a little black boy out in the road, “does you see Pol’cy anywhar? G’long, see ef he ’roun’ de ben’. Wouldn’ s’prise me ef he broke de fence an’ got in yo’ pa’s corn ag’in.” And, shading her eyes to scan the surrounding country, she muttered, uneasily: “Whar dat mule?”

The following morning Gilma entered town and proceeded at once to Lawyer Paxton’s office. He had had no difficulty in obtaining the testimony of blacks and whites regarding his ownership of the horse; but he wanted to make his claim as secure as possible by consulting the lawyer and returning to the plantation armed with unassailable evidence.

The lawyer’s office was a plain little room opening upon the street. Nobody was there, but the door was open; and Gilma entered and took a seat at the bare round table and waited. It was not long before the lawyer came in; he had been in conversation with someone across the street.

“Good morning, Mr. Pax’on,” said Gilma, rising.

The lawyer knew his face well enough, but could not place him, and only returned: “Good morning, sir⁠—good morning.”

“I come to see you,” began Gilma plunging at once into business, and drawing his handful of nondescript affidavits from his pocket, “about a matter of property, about