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

planter led the old man was big, cool, beautiful, and sweet with the delicate odor of flowers. It was shady, too, for the shutters were half closed; but not so darkened but Sylveste could at once see Lolotte, seated in a big wicker chair.

She was almost as white as the gown she wore. Her neatly shod feet rested upon a cushion, and her black hair, that had been closely cut, was beginning to make little rings about her temples.

“Aie!” he cried sharply, at sight of her, grasping his seamed throat as he did so. Then he laughed like a madman, and then he sobbed.

He only sobbed, kneeling upon the floor beside her, kissing her knees and her hands, that sought his. Little Nonomme was close to her, with a health flush creeping into his cheek. Veveste and Jacques were there, and rather awed by the mystery and grandeur of everything.

“W’ere’bouts you find her, M’sieur Duplan?” Sylveste asked, when the first flush of his joy had spent itself, and he was wiping his eyes with his rough cotton shirt sleeve.

“M’sieur Duplan find me ’way yonda to de city, papa, in de hospital,” spoke Lolotte, before the planter could steady his voice to reply. “I did n’ know who ev’ybody was, me. I did n’ know me, myse’f, tell I tu’n roun’ one day an’ see M’sieur Duplan, w’at stan’en dere.”

“You was boun’ to know M’sieur Duplan, Lolotte,” laughed Sylveste, like a child.

“Yes, an’ I know right ’way how dem mule was git frighten’ w’en de boat w’istle fu stop, an’ pitch me plumb on de groun’. An’ I rememba it was one mulâtresse w’at call herse’f one chembamed, all de time aside me.”

“You must not talk too much, Lolotte,” interposed Madame Duplan, coming to place her hand with gentle solicitude upon the girl’s forehead, and to feel how her pulse beat.

Then to save the child further effort of speech, she herself related how the boat had stopped at this lonely landing to take on a load of cottonseed. Lolotte had been found stretched insensible by the river, fallen apparently from the clouds, and had been taken on board.

The boat had changed its course into other waters after that trip, and had not returned to Duplan’s Landing. Those who had tended Lolotte and left her at the hospital supposed, no doubt, that she would make known her identity in time, and they had troubled themselves no further about her.

“An’ dah you is!” almost shouted aunt Minty, whose black face gleamed in the doorway; “dah you is, settin’ down, lookin’ jis’ like w’ite folks!”

“Ain’t I always was w’ite folks, Aunt Mint?” smiled Lolotte, feebly.

“G’long, chile. You knows me. I don’ mean no harm.”

“And now, Sylveste,” said Mr. Duplan, as he rose and started to walk the floor, with hands in his pockets, “listen to me. It will be a long time before Lolotte is strong again. Aunt Minty is going to look after things for you till the child is fully recovered. But what I want to say is this: I shall trust these children into your hands once more, and I want you never to forget again that you are their father⁠—do you hear?⁠—that you are a man!”

Old Sylveste stood with his hand in Lolotte’s, who rubbed it lovingly against her cheek.

“By gracious! M’sieur Duplan,” he answered, “w’en God want to he’p me, I’m goen try my bes’!”

A Very Fine Fiddle

When the half dozen little ones were hungry, old Cléophas would take the fiddle from its flannel bag and play a tune upon it. Perhaps it was to drown their cries, or their hunger, or his conscience, or all three. One day Fifine, in a rage, stamped her small foot and clinched her little hands, and declared:

“It’s no two way’! I’m goin’ smash it, dat fiddle, some day in a t’ousan’ piece’!”

“You mus’ n’ do dat, Fifine,” expostulated her father. “Dat fiddle been ol’er ’an you an’ me t’ree time’ put togedder. You done yaird me tell often ’nough ’bout dat Italien w’at give it to me w’en he die, ’long yonder befo’ de war. An’ he say, ‘Cléophas, dat fiddle⁠—dat one part my life⁠—w’at goin’ live w’en I be dead⁠—Dieu merci!’ You talkin’ too fas’, Fifine.”

“Well, I’m goin’ do some’in’ wid dat fiddle, va!” returned the daughter, only half mollified. “Mine w’at I say.”

So once when there were great carryings-on up at the big plantation⁠—no end of ladies and gentlemen from the city, riding, driving, dancing, and making music upon all manner of instruments⁠—Fifine, with the fiddle in its flannel bag, stole away and up to the big house where these festivities were in progress.

No one noticed at first the little barefoot girl seated upon a step of the veranda and watching, lynx-eyed, for her opportunity.

“It’s one fiddle I got for sell,” she announced, resolutely, to the first who questioned her.

It was very funny to have a shabby little girl sitting there wanting to sell a fiddle, and the child was soon surrounded.

The lustreless instrument was brought forth and examined, first with amusement, but soon very seriously, especially by three gentlemen: one with very long hair that hung down, another with equally long hair that stood up, the third with no hair worth mentioning.

These three turned the fiddle upside down and almost inside out. They thumped upon it, and listened. They scraped upon it, and listened. They walked into the house with it, and out of the house with it, and into remote corners with it. All this with much putting of heads together, and talking together in familiar and unfamiliar languages. And, finally, they sent Fifine away with a fiddle twice as beautiful as the one she had brought, and a roll of money besides!

The child was dumb with astonishment, and away she flew. But when she stopped beneath a big chinaberry-tree, to further scan the roll of money, her wonder was redoubled. There was far more than