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

that no one could hear him but his friend, “I was gwine ’long de big road, pas’ Marse Gros-Léon’s, an’ I seed Spunky tied dah wid de mail. Dar warn’t a minute⁠—I ’clar’, Marse Chouchoute, dar warn’t a minute⁠—to fotch you. W’at makes my head tu’n ’roun’ dat away?”

“Neva mine, Wash; keep still; don’t you try to talk,” entreated Chouchoute.

“You ain’t mad, Marse Chouchoute?”

The lad could only answer with a hand pressure.

“Dar warn’t a minute, so I gits top o’ Spunky⁠—I neva seed nuttin’ d’ar de road like dat. I come ’long side⁠—de train⁠—an’ fling de sack. I seed ’im kotch it, and I don’ know nuttin’ mo’ ’cep’ mis’ry, tell I see you⁠—a-comin’ frough de do’. Mebby Ma’ame Armand know some’pin,” he murmured faintly, “w’at gwine make my⁠—head quit tu’nin’ ’round dat away. I boun’ to git well, ’ca’se who⁠—gwine⁠—watch Marse⁠—Chouchoute?”

The Maid of Saint Phillippe

Marianne was tall, supple, and strong. Dressed in her worn buckskin trappings she looked like a handsome boy rather than like the French girl of seventeen that she was. As she stepped from the woods the glimmer of the setting sun dazzled her. An instant she raised her hand⁠—palm outward⁠—to shield her eyes from the glare, then she continued to descend the gentle slope and make her way toward the little village of Saint Phillippe that lay before her, close by the waters of the Mississippi.

Marianne carried a gun across her shoulder as easily as a soldier might. Her stride was as untrammelled as that of the stag who treads his native hillside unmolested. There was something stag-like, too, in the poise of her small head as she turned it from side to side, to snuff the subtle perfume of the Indian summer. But against the red western sky curling columns of thin blue smoke began to ascend from chimneys in the village. This meant that housewives were already busy preparing the evening meal; and the girl quickened her steps, singing softly as she strode along over the tufted meadow where sleek cattle were grazing in numbers.

Less than a score of houses formed the village of Saint Phillippe, and they differed in no wise from one another except in the matter of an additional room when the prosperity of the owner admitted of such. All were of upright logs, standing firmly in the ground, or rising from a low foundation of stone, with two or more rooms clustering round a central stone chimney. Before each was an inviting porch, topped by the projection of the shingled roof.

Gathered upon such a porch, when Marianne walked into the village, were groups of men talking eagerly and excitedly together with much gesture and intensity of utterance.

The place was Sans-Chagrin’s tavern; and Marianne stopped beside the fence, seeing that her father, Picoté Laronce, was among the number who crowded the gallery. But it was not he, it was young Jacques Labrie who when he saw her there came down to where she stood.

“Well, what luck, Marianne?” he asked, noting her equipment.

“Oh, not much,” she replied, slapping the game-bag that hung rather slack at her side. “Those idle soldiers down at the fort have no better employment than to frighten the game away out of reach. But what does this talk and confusion mean? I thought all the trouble with monsieur le curé was settled. My father stands quiet there in a corner; he seems to be taking no part. What is it all about?”

“The old grievance of a year ago, Marianne. We were content to grumble only so long as the English did not come to claim what is theirs. But we hear today they will soon be at Fort Chartres to take possession.”

“Never!” she exclaimed. “Have not the Natchez driven them back each time they attempted to ascend the river? And do you think that watchful tribe will permit them now to cross the line?”

“They have not attempted the river this time. They have crossed the great mountains and are coming from the east.”

“Ah,” muttered the girl with pale exasperation, “that is a march to be proud of! Your Louis who sits in his palace at Versailles and gives away his provinces and his people as if they were baubles! Well, what next?”

“Come, Marianne,” said the young man as he joined her outside. “Let me walk to your home with you, I will tell you as we go along. Sans-Chagrin, you know, returned this morning from the West Illinois, and he tells astonishing things of the new trading-post over there⁠—Laclede’s village.”

“The one they call Saint Louis?” she asked half-heartedly, “where old Toussaint of Kaskaskia has taken his family to live?”

“Old Toussaint is far seeing, Marianne, for Sans-Chagrin says the town across the water is growing as if by enchantment. Already it is double the size of Saint Phillippe and Kaskaskia put together. When the English reach Fort Chartres, St. Ange de Bellerive will relinquish the fort to them, and with his men will cross to Laclede’s village⁠—all but Captain Vaudry, who has leave to return to France.”

“Capt. Alexis Vaudry will return to France!” she echoed in tones that rose and fell like a song of lamentation. “The English are coming from the east! And all this news has come today while I hunted in the forest.”

“Do you not see what is in the air, Marianne?” he asked, giving her a sideward cautious glance.

They were at her portal now, and as he followed her into the house she half turned to say to him:

“No, Jacques, I can see no way out of it.” She sat down languidly at the table, as though heavy fatigue had suddenly weighted her limbs.

“We hate the English,” Jacques began emphatically; leaning upon the table as he stood beside her.

“To be sure, we hate the English,” she returned, as though the fact were a self-evident one that needed no comment.

“Well, it is only the eastern province of Louisiana that has been granted to England. There is hardly a man in