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

The news was brought to the house by Sévérin’s boy, who had seen the troop at noon a half mile up the bayou three short. Others reported the deficiency as even greater. So, at about two in the afternoon, though a cold drizzle had begun to fall, popular feeling in the matter was so strong that all the household forces turned out to search for the missing gobblers.

Alice, the housemaid, went down the river, and Polisson the yard-boy, went up the bayou. Others crossed the fields, and Artemise was rather vaguely instructed to “go look too.”

Artemise is in some respects an extraordinary person. In age she’s anywhere between 10 and 15, with a head not unlike in shape and appearance to a dark chocolate-colored Easter-egg. She talks most wholly in monosyllables, and has big round glassy eyes, which she fixes upon one with the placid gaze of an Egyptian sphinx.

The morning after my arrival at the plantation, I was awakened by the rattling of cups at my bedside. It was Artemise with the early coffee.

“Is it cold out?” I asked by way of conversation, as I sipped the tiny cup of ink-black coffee.

“Ya, ’m.”

“Where do you sleep, Artemise?” I further inquired, with the same intention as before.

“In uh hole,” was precisely what she said, with a pump-like motion of the arm that she habitually uses to indicate a locality. What she meant was that she slept in the hall.

Again, another time, she came with an armful of wood, and having deposited it upon the hearth, turn to stare fixedly at me, with folded hands.

“Did Madame send you to build a fire, Artemise?” I hastened to ask, feeling uncomfortable under the look.

“Ya, ’m.”

“Very well; make it.”

“Matches!” was all she said.

There happened to be no matches in my room, and she evidently considered that all personal responsibility ceased in face of this first and not very serious obstacle. Pages might be told of her unfathomable ways; but to the turkey hunt.

All afternoon the searching party kept returning, singly and in couples, and in a more or less bedraggled condition. All brought unfavorable reports. Nothing could be seen of the missing fowls. Artemise had been absent probably an hour when she glided into the hall where the family was assembled, an stood with crossed hands and contemplative air beside the fire. We could see by the benign expression of her countenance that she possibly had information to give, if any inducement were offered her in the shape of a question.

“Have you found the turkeys, Artemise?” Madame hastened to ask.

“Ya, ’m.”

“You Artemise!” shouted Aunt Florindy, the cook, who was passing through the hall with a batch of newly baked light bread. “She’s a-lyin’, mist’ess, if dey ever was! You foun’ dem turkeys?” upon the child. “Whar was you at, de whole blesse’ time? Warn’t you stan’in’ plank up agin de back o’ de hen’ous’? Never budged a inch? Don’t jaw me down, gal; don’t jaw me!” Artemise was only gazing at Aunt Florindy with unruffled calm. “I warn’t gwine tell on ’er, but arter dat untroof, I boun’ to.”

“Let her alone, Aunt Florindy,” Madame interfered. “Where are the turkeys, Artemise?”

“Yon’a,” she simply articulated, bringing the pump-handle motion of her arm into play.

“Where ‘yonder’?” Madame demanded, a little impatiently.

“In uh hen’ous’!”

Sure enough! The three missing turkeys had been accidentally locked up in the morning when the chickens were fed.

Artemise, for some unknown reason, had hidden herself during the search behind the henhouse, and had heard their muffled gobble.

Old Aunt Peggy

When the war was over, old Aunt Peggy went to Monsieur, and said:⁠—

“Massa, I ain’t never gwine to quit yer. I’m gittin’ ole an’ feeble, an’ my days is few in dis heah lan’ o’ sorrow an’ sin. All I axes is a li’le co’ner whar I kin set down an’ wait peaceful fu de en’.”

Monsieur and Madame were very much touched at this mark of affection and fidelity from Aunt Peggy. So, in the general reconstruction of the plantation which immediately followed the surrender, a nice cabin, pleasantly appointed, was set apart for the old woman. Madame did not even forget the very comfortable rocking-chair in which Aunt Peggy might “set down,” as she herself feelingly expressed it, “an’ wait fu de en’.”

She has been rocking ever since.

At intervals of about two years Aunt Peggy hobbles up to the house, and delivers the stereotyped address which has become more than familiar:⁠—

“Mist’ess, I’s come to take a las’ look at you all. Le’ me look at you good. Le’ me look at de chillun⁠—de big chillun an’ de li’le chillun. Le’ me look at de picters an’ de photygraphts an’ de pianny, an’ eve’ything ’fo’ it’s too late. One eye is done gone, an’ de udder’s a-gwine fas’. Any mo’nin’ yo’ po’ ole Aunt Peggy gwine wake up an’ fin’ herse’f stone-bline.”

After such a visit Aunt Peggy invariably returns to her cabin with a generously filled apron.

The scruple which Monsieur one time felt in supporting a woman for so many years in idleness has entirely disappeared. Of late his attitude towards Aunt Peggy is simply one of profound astonishment⁠—wonder at the surprising age which an old black woman may attain when she sets her mind to it, for Aunt Peggy is a hundred and twenty-five, so she says.

It may not be true, however. Possibly she is older.

The Lilies

That little vagabond Mamouche amused himself one afternoon by letting down the fence rails that protected Mr. Billy’s young crop of cotton and corn. He had first looked carefully about him to make sure there was no witness to this piece of rascality. Then he crossed the lane and did the same with the Widow Angèle’s fence, thereby liberating Toto, the white calf who stood disconsolately penned up on the other side.

It was not ten seconds before Toto was frolicking madly in Mr. Billy’s crop, and Mamouche⁠—the young scamp⁠—was running swiftly down the lane, laughing fiendishly to himself as he went.

He