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

The mothers of the other girls decided that he had the manners of a pig.

It was time to dance again with Zaïda and he went in search of her. He was carrying her shawl, which she had given him to hold.

“W’at time it is?” she asked him when he had found and secured her. They were under one of the kerosene lamps on the front gallery and he drew forth his silver watch. She seemed to be still laboring under some suppressed excitement that he had noticed before.

“It’s fo’teen minutes pas’ twelve,” he told her exactly.

“I wish you’d fine out w’ere Jules is. Go look yonda in the card-room if he’s there, an’ come tell me.” Jules had danced with all the prettiest girls. She knew it was his custom after accomplishing this agreeable feat, to retire to the card-room.

“You’ll wait yere till I come back?” he asked.

“I’ll wait yere; you go on.” She waited but drew back a little into the shadow. Telèsphore lost no time.

“Yes, he’s yonda playin’ cards with Foché an’ some others I don’ know,” he reported when he had discovered her in the shadow. There had been a spasm of alarm when he did not at once see her where he had left her under the lamp.

“Does he look⁠—look like he’s fixed yonda fo’ good?”

“He’s got his coat off. Looks like he’s fixed pretty comf’table fo’ the nex’ hour or two.”

“Gi’ me my shawl.”

“You cole?” offering to put it around her.

“No, I ain’t cole.” She drew the shawl about her shoulders and turned as if to leave him. But a sudden generous impulse seemed to move her, and she added:

“Come along yonda with me.”

They descended the few rickety steps that led down to the yard. He followed rather than accompanied her across the beaten and trampled sward. Those who saw them thought they had gone out to take the air. The beams of light that slanted out from the house were fitful and uncertain, deepening the shadows. The embers under the empty gumbo-pot glared red in the darkness. There was a sound of quiet voices coming from under the trees.

Zaïda, closely accompanied by Telèsphore, went out where the vehicles and horses were fastened to the fence. She stepped carefully and held up her skirts as if dreading the least speck of dew or of dust.

“Unhitch Jules’ ho’se an’ buggy there an’ turn ’em ’roun’ this way, please.” He did as instructed, first backing the pony, then leading it out to where she stood in the half-made road.

“You goin’ home?” he asked her, “betta let me water the pony.”

“Neva mine.” She mounted and seating herself grasped the reins. “No, I aint goin’ home,” she added. He, too, was holding the reins gathered in one hand across the pony’s back.

“W’ere you goin’?” he demanded.

“Neva you mine w’ere I’m goin’.”

“You ain’t goin’ anyw’ere this time o’ night by yo’se’f?”

“W’at you reckon I’m ’fraid of?” she laughed. “Turn loose that ho’se,” at the same time urging the animal forward. The little brute started away with a bound and Telèsphore, also with a bound, sprang into the buckboard and seated himself beside Zaïda.

“You ain’t goin’ anyw’ere this time o’ night by yo’se’f.” It was not a question now, but an assertion, and there was no denying it. There was even no disputing it, and Zaïda recognizing the fact drove on in silence.

There is no animal that moves so swiftly across a ’Cadian prairie as the little Creole pony. This one did not run nor trot; he seemed to reach out in galloping bounds. The buckboard creaked, bounced, jolted and swayed. Zaïda clutched at her shawl while Telèsphore drew his straw hat further down over his right eye and offered to drive. But he did not know the road and she would not let him. They had soon reached the woods.

If there is any animal that can creep more slowly through a wooded road than the little Creole pony, that animal has not yet been discovered in Acadie. This particular animal seemed to be appalled by the darkness of the forest and filled with dejection. His head drooped and he lifted his feet as if each hoof were weighted with a thousand pounds of lead. Anyone unacquainted with the peculiarities of the breed would sometimes have fancied that he was standing still. But Zaïda and Telèsphore knew better. Zaïda uttered a deep sigh as she slackened her hold on the reins and Telèsphore, lifting his hat, let it swing from the back of his head.

“How you don’ ask me w’ere I’m goin’?” she said finally. These were the first words she had spoken since refusing his offer to drive.

“Oh, it don’ make any diff’ence w’ere you goin’.”

“Then if it don’ make any diff’ence w’ere I’m goin’, I jus’ as well tell you.” She hesitated, however. He seemed to have no curiosity and did not urge her.

“I’m goin’ to get married,” she said.

He uttered some kind of an exclamation; it was nothing articulate⁠—more like the tone of an animal that gets a sudden knife thrust. And now he felt how dark the forest was. An instant before it had seemed a sweet, black paradise; better than any heaven he had ever heard of.

“W’y can’t you get married at home?” This was not the first thing that occurred to him to say, but this was the first thing he said.

“Ah, b’en oui! with perfec’ mules fo’ a father an’ mother! it’s good enough to talk.”

“W’y couldn’ he come an’ get you? W’at kine of a scound’el is that to let you go through the woods at night by yo’se’f?”

“You betta wait till you know who you talkin’ about. He didn’ come an’ get me because he knows I ain’t ’fraid; an’ because he’s got too much pride to ride in Jules Trodon’s buckboard afta he done been put out o’ Jules Trodon’s house.”

“Wat’s his name an’ w’ere you goin’ to fine ’im?”

“Yonda on the other side the woods up at ole