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

quivering with the awe of the thing he saw. Who could this wizard be that had come to him in the guise of a tramp, that walked in cabalistic paces upon his own father’s ground, and pointed his finger like a divining-rod to the spot where boxes⁠—may be treasures⁠—lay? It was like a page from a wonder-book.

And walking behind this white-haired old man, who was again leading the way, something of childish superstition crept back into Bertrand’s heart. It was the same feeling with which he had often sat, long ago, in the weird firelight of some negro’s cabin, listening to tales of witches who came in the night to work uncanny spells at their will.

Madame Delmandé had never abandoned the custom of washing her own silver and dainty china. She sat, when the breakfast was over, with a pail of warm suds before her that ’Cindy had brought to her, with an abundance of soft linen cloths. Her little granddaughter stood beside her playing, as babies will, with the bright spoons and forks, and ranging them in rows on the polished mahogany. St. Ange was at the window making entries in a notebook, and frowning gloomily as he did so.

The group in the dining-room were so employed when the old tramp came staggering in, Bertrand close behind him.

He went and stood at the foot of the table, opposite to where Madame Delmandé sat, and let fall the box upon it.

The thing in falling shattered, and from its bursting sides gold came, clicking, spinning, gliding, some of it like oil; rolling along the table and off it to the floor, but heaped up, the bulk of it, before the tramp.

“Here’s money!” he called out, plunging his old hand in the thick of it. “Who says St. Ange shall not go to school? The war’s over⁠—here’s money! St. Ange, my boy,” turning to Bertrand and speaking with quick authority, “tell Buck Williams to hitch Black Bess to the buggy, and go bring Judge Parkerson here.”

Judge Parkerson, indeed, who had been dead for twenty years and more!

“Tell him that⁠—that”⁠—and the hand that was not in the gold went up to the withered forehead, “that⁠—Bertrand Delmandé needs him!”

Madame Delmandé, at sight of the man with his box and his gold, had given a sharp cry, such as might follow the plunge of a knife. She lay now in her son’s arms, panting hoarsely.

“Your father, St. Ange⁠—come back from the dead⁠—your father!”

“Be calm, mother!” the man implored. “You had such sure proof of his death in that terrible battle, this may not be he.”

“I know him! I know your father, my son!” and disengaging herself from the arms that held her, she dragged herself as a wounded serpent might to where the old man stood.

His hand was still in the gold, and on his face was yet the flush which had come there when he shouted out the name Bertrand Delmandé.

“Husband,” she gasped, “do you know me⁠—your wife?”

The little girl was playing gleefully with the yellow coin.

Bertrand stood, pulseless almost, like a young Actæon cut in marble.

When the old man had looked long into the woman’s imploring face, he made a courtly-bow.

“Madame,” he said, “an old soldier, wounded on the field of Gettysburg, craves for himself and his two little children your kind hospitality.”

A Rude Awakening

“Take de do’ an’ go! You year me? Take de do’!”

Lolotte’s brown eyes flamed. Her small frame quivered. She stood with her back turned to a meagre supper-table, as if to guard it from the man who had just entered the cabin. She pointed toward the door, to order him from the house.

“You mighty cross tonight, Lolotte. You mus’ got up wid de wrong foot to ’s mo’nin’. Hein, Veveste? hein, Jacques, w’at you say?”

The two small urchins who sat at table giggled in sympathy with their father’s evident good humor.

“I’m we’ out, me!” the girl exclaimed, desperately, as she let her arms fall limp at her side. “Work, work! Fu w’at? Fu feed de lazies’ man in Natchitoches pa’ish.”

“Now, Lolotte, you think w’at you sayin’,” expostulated her father. “Sylveste Bordon don’ ax nobody to feed ’im.”

“W’en you brought a poun’ of suga in de house?” his daughter retorted hotly, “or a poun’ of coffee? W’en did you brought a piece o’ meat home, you? An’ Nonomme all de time sick. Co’n bread an’ po’k, dat’s good fu Veveste an’ me an’ Jacques; but Nonomme? no!”

She turned as if choking, and cut into the round, soggy “pone” of corn bread which was the main feature of the scanty supper.

“Po’ li’le Nonomme; we mus’ fine some’in’ to break dat fevah. You want to kill a chicken once a w’ile fu Nonomme, Lolotte.” He calmly seated himself at the table.

“Did n’ I done put de las’ roostah in de pot?” she cried with exasperation. “Now you come axen me fu kill de hen’! W’ere I goen to fine aigg’ to trade wid, w’en de hen’ be gone? Is I got one picayune in de house fu trade wid, me?”

“Papa,” piped the young Jacques, “w’at dat I yeard you drive in de yard, w’ile go?”

“Dat’s it! W’en Lolotte would n’ been talken’ so fas’, I could tole you ’bout dat job I got fu tomorrow. Dat was Joe Duplan’s team of mule’ an’ wagon, wid t’ree bale’ of cotton, w’at you yaird. I got to go soon in de mo’nin’ wid dat load to de landin’. An’ a man mus’ eat w’at got to work; dat’s sho.”

Lolotte’s bare brown feet made no sound upon the rough boards as she entered the room where Nonomme lay sick and sleeping. She lifted the coarse mosquito net from about him, sat down in the clumsy chair by the bedside, and began gently to fan the slumbering child.

Dusk was falling rapidly, as it does in the South. Lolotte’s eyes grew round and big, as she watched the moon creep up from branch to branch of the moss-draped live-oak just outside her