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

Tontine, in her hurried departure, had failed to provide for the emergency. The washing and ironing were over; the floors had been scrubbed, and the rooms righted; the yard swept; the chickens fed; vegetables picked and washed. There was absolutely nothing to do, and Loka gave herself up to the dreams of idleness.

As she sat comfortably back in the roomy rocker, she let her eyes sweep lazily across the country. Away off to the right peeped up, from amid densely clustered trees, the pointed roofs and long pipe of the steam-gin of Laballière’s. No other habitation was visible except a few low, flat dwellings far over the river, that could hardly be seen.

The immense plantation took up all the land in sight. The few acres that Baptiste Padue cultivated were his own, that Laballière, out of friendly consideration, had sold to him. Baptiste’s fine crop of cotton and corn was “laid by” just now, waiting for rain; and Baptiste had gone with the rest of the family to town. Beyond the river and the field and everywhere about were dense woods.

Loka’s gaze, that had been slowly traveling along the edge of the horizon, finally fastened upon the woods, and stayed there. Into her eyes came the absent look of one whose thought is projected into the future or the past, leaving the present blank. She was seeing a vision. It had come with a whiff that the strong south breeze had blown to her from the woods.

She was seeing old Marot, the squaw who drank whiskey and plaited baskets and beat her. There was something, after all, in being beaten, if only to scream out and fight back, as at that time in Natchitoches, when she broke a glass on the head of a man who laughed at her and pulled her hair, and called her “fool names.”

Old Marot wanted her to steal and cheat, to beg and lie, when they went out with the baskets to sell. Loka did not want to. She did not like to. That was why she had run away⁠—and because she was beaten. But⁠—but ah! the scent of the sassafras leaves hanging to dry in the shade! The pungent camomile! The sound of the bayou tumbling over that old slimy log! Only to lie there for hours and watch the glistening lizards glide in and out was worth a beating.

She knew the birds must be singing in chorus out there in the woods where the gray moss was hanging, and the trumpet-vine trailing from the trees, spangled with blossoms. In spirit she heard the songsters.

She wondered if Choctaw Joe and Sambite played dice every night by the campfire as they used to do; and if they still fought and slashed each other when wild with drink. How good it felt to walk with moccasined feet over the springy turf, under the trees! What fun to trap the squirrels, to skin the otter; to take those swift flights on the pony that Choctaw Joe had stolen from the Texans!

Loka sat motionless; only her breast heaved tumultuously. Her heart was aching with savage homesickness. She could not feel just then that the sin and pain of that life were anything beside the joy of its freedom.

Loka was sick for the woods. She felt she must die if she could not get back to them, and to her vagabond life. Was there anything to hinder her? She stooped and unlaced the brogans that were chafing her feet, removed them and her stockings, and threw the things away from her. She stood up all a-quiver, panting, ready for flight.

But there was a sound that stopped her. It was little Bibine, cooing, sputtering, battling hands and feet with the mosquito net that he had dragged over his face. The girl uttered a sob as she reached down for the baby she had grown to love so, and clasped him in her arms. She could not go and leave Bibine behind.

Tontine began to grumble at once when she discovered that Loka was not at hand to receive them on their return.

“Bon!” she exclaimed. “Now w’ere is that Loka? Ah, that girl, she aggravates me too much. Firs’ thing she knows I’m goin’ sen’ her straight back to them ban’ of lady w’ere she come frum.”

“Loka!” she called, in short, sharp tones, as she traversed the house and peered into each room. “Lo⁠—ka!” She cried loudly enough to be heard half a mile away when she got out upon the back gallery. Again and again she called.

Baptiste was exchanging the discomfort of his Sunday coat for the accustomed ease of shirt sleeves.

“Mais don’t git so excite, Tontine,” he implored. “I’m sho she’s yonda to the crib shellin’ co’n, or somew’ere like that.”

“Run, François, you, an’ see to the crib,” the mother commanded. “Bibine mus’ be starve! Run to the henhouse an’ look, Juliette. Maybe she’s fall asleep in some corna. That’ll learn me ’notha time to go trus’ une pareille sauvage with my baby, va!”

When it was discovered that Loka was nowhere in the immediate vicinity, Tontine was furious.

“Pas possible she’s walk to Laballière, with Bibine!” she exclaimed.

“I’ll saddle the hoss an’ go see, Tontine,” interposed Baptiste, who was beginning to share his wife’s uneasiness.

“Go, go, Baptiste,” she urged. “An’ you, boys, run yonda down the road to ole Aunt Judy’s cabin an’ see.”

It was found that Loka had not been seen at Laballière’s, nor at Aunt Judy’s cabin; that she had not taken the boat, that was still fastened to its moorings down the bank. Then Tontine’s excitement left her. She turned pale and sat quietly down in her room, with an unnatural calm that frightened the children.

Some of them began to cry. Baptiste walked restlessly about, anxiously scanning the country in all directions. A wretched hour dragged by. The sun had set, leaving hardly an afterglow, and in a little while the twilight that falls so swiftly would be