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

“I’m bring some lilies to pay back fo’ yo’ cotton an’ co’n w’at Toto eat all up, M’sieur.”

Mr. Billy turned savagely upon Pompey. “What are you laughing at, you black rascal? Leave the room!”

Pompey, who out of mistaken zeal had doubled himself with merriment, was too accustomed to the admonition to heed it literally, and he only made a pretense of withdrawing from Mr. Billy’s elbow.

“Lilies! well, upon my⁠—isn’t it the little one from across the lane?”

“Dat’s who,” affirmed Pompey, cautiously insinuating himself again into favor.

“Lilies! who ever heard the like? Why, the baby’s buried under ’em. Set ’em down somewhere, little one; anywhere.” And Marie Louise, glad to be relieved from the weight of the great cluster, dumped them all on the table close to Mr. Billy.

The perfume that came from the damp, massed flowers was heavy and almost sickening in its pungency. Mr. Billy quivered a little, and drew involuntarily back, as if from an unexpected assailant, when the odor reached him. He had been making cotton and corn for so many years, he had forgotten there were such things as lilies in the world.

“Kiar ’em out? fling ’em ’way?” questioned Pompey, who had observed his master cunningly.

“Let ’em alone! Keep your hands off them! Leave the room, you outlandish black scamp! What are you standing there for? Can’t you set the Mamzelle a place at table, and draw up a chair?”

So Marie Louise⁠—perched upon a fine old-fashioned chair, supplemented by a Webster’s Unabridged⁠—sat down to dine with Mr. Billy.

She had never eaten in company with so peculiar a gentleman before; so irascible toward the inoffensive Pompey, and so courteous to herself. But she was not ill at ease, and conducted herself properly as her mamma had taught her how.

Mr. Billy was anxious that she should enjoy her dinner, and began by helping her generously to Jambalaya. When she had tasted it she made no remark, only laid down her fork, and looked composedly before her.

“Why, bless me! what ails the little one? You don’t eat your rice.”

“It ain’t cook’, M’sieur,” replied Marie Louise politely.

Pompey nearly strangled in his attempt to smother an explosion.

“Of course it isn’t cooked,” echoed Mr. Billy, excitedly, pushing away his plate. “What do you mean, setting a mess of that sort before human beings? Do you take us for a couple of⁠—of ricebirds? What are you standing there for; can’t you look up some jam or something to keep the young one from starving? Where’s all that jam I saw stewing a while back, here?”

Pompey withdrew, and soon returned with a platter of black-looking jam. Mr. Billy ordered cream for it. Pompey reported there was none.

“No cream, with twenty-five cows on the plantation if there’s one!” cried Mr. Billy, almost springing from his chair with indignation.

“Aunt Printy ’low she sot de pan o’ cream on de winda-sell, suh, an’ Unc’ Jonah come ’long an’ tu’n it cl’ar ova; neva lef a drap in de pan.”

But evidently the jam, with or without cream, was as distasteful to Marie Louise as the rice was; for after tasting it gingerly she laid away her spoon as she had done before.

“O, no! little one; you don’t tell me it isn’t cooked this time,” laughed Mr. Billy. “I saw the thing boiling a day and a half. Wasn’t it a day and a half, Pompey? if you know how to tell the truth.”

“Aunt Printy alluz do cooks her p’esarves tell dey plumb done, sho,” agreed Pompey.

“It’s burn’, M’sieur,” said Marie Louise, politely, but decidedly, to the utter confusion of Mr. Billy, who was as mortified as could be at the failure of his dinner to please his fastidious little visitor.

Well, Mr. Billy thought of Marie Louise a good deal after that; as long as the lilies lasted. And they lasted long, for he had the whole household employed in taking care of them. Often he would chuckle to himself: “The little rogue, with her black eyes and her lilies! And the rice wasn’t cooked, if you please; and the jam was burnt. And the best of it is, she was right.”

But when the lilies withered finally, and had to be thrown away, Mr. Billy donned his best suit, a starched shirt and fine silk necktie. Thus attired, he crossed the lane to carry his somewhat tardy apologies to Madame Angèle and Mamzelle Marie Louise, and to pay them a first visit.

Maman-Nainaine said that when the figs were ripe Babette might go to visit her cousins down on the Bayou-Lafourche where the sugar cane grows. Not that the ripening of figs had the least thing to do with it, but that is the way Maman-Nainaine was.

It seemed to Babette a very long time to wait; for the leaves upon the trees were tender yet, and the figs were like little hard, green marbles.

But warm rains came along and plenty of strong sunshine, and though Maman-Naiaine was as patient as the statue of la Madone, and Babette as restless as a hummingbird, the first thing they both knew it was hot summertime. Every day Babette danced out to where the fig-trees were in a long line against the fence. She walked slowly beneath them, carefully peering between the gnarled, spreading branches. But each time she came disconsolate away again. What she saw there finally was something that made her sing and dance the whole long day.

When Maman-Nainaine sat down in her stately way to breakfast, the following morning, her muslin cap standing like an aureole about her white, placid face, Babette approached. She bore a dainty porcelain platter, which she set down before her godmother. It contained a dozen purple figs, fringed around with their rich, green leaves.

“Ah,” said Maman-Nainaine, arching her eyebrows, “how early the figs have ripened this year!”

“Oh,” said Babette, “I think they have ripened very late.”

“Babette,” continued Maman-Nainaine, as she peeled the very plumpest figs with her pointed silver fruit-knife, “you will carry my love to them all down on Bayou-Lafourche. And tell your Tante Frosine I shall look for her at