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

Baptiste was preparing to mount his horse, to start out again on the round he had already been over. Tontine sat in the same state of intense abstraction when François, who had perched himself among the lofty branches of a chinaberry-tree, called out: “Ent that Loka ’way yon’a, jis’ come out de wood? climbin’ de fence down by de melon patch?”

It was difficult to distinguish in the gathering dusk if the figure were that of man or beast. But the family was not left long in suspense. Baptiste sped his horse away in the direction indicated by François, and in a little while he was galloping back with Bibine in his arms; as fretful, sleepy and hungry a baby as ever was.

Loka came trudging on behind Baptiste. He did not wait for explanations; he was too eager to place the child in the arms of its mother. The suspense over, Tontine began to cry; that followed naturally, of course. Through her tears she managed to address Loka, who stood all tattered and disheveled in the doorway: “W’ere you been? Tell me that.”

“Bibine an’ me,” answered Loka, slowly and awkwardly, “we was lonesome⁠—we been take lit’ ’broad in de wood.”

“You did n’ know no betta ’an to take ’way Bibine like that? W’at Ma’ame Laballière mean, anyhow, to sen’ me such a objec’ like you, I want to know?”

“You go’n’ sen’ me ’way?” asked Loka, passing her hand in a hopeless fashion over her frowzy hair.

“Par exemple! straight you march back to that ban’ w’ere you come from. To give me such a fright like that! pas possible.”

“Go slow, Tontine; go slow,” interposed Baptiste.

“Don’ sen’ me ’way frum Bibine,” entreated the girl, with a note in her voice like a lament.

“Today,” she went on, in her dragging manner, “I want to run ’way bad, an’ take to de wood; an’ go yonda back to Bayou Choctaw to steal an’ lie agin. It’s on’y Bibine w’at hole me back. I could n’ lef’ ’im. I could n’ do dat. An’ we jis’ go take lit’ ’broad in de wood, das all, him an’ me. Don’ sen’ me ’way like dat!”

Baptiste led the girl gently away to the far end of the gallery, and spoke soothingly to her. He told her to be good and brave, and he would right the trouble for her. He left her standing there and went back to his wife.

“Tontine,” he began, with unusual energy, “you got to listen to the truth⁠—once fo’ all.” He had evidently determined to profit by his wife’s lachrymose and wilted condition to assert his authority.

“I want to say who’s masta in this house⁠—it’s me,” he went on. Tontine did not protest; only clasped the baby a little closer, which encouraged him to proceed.

“You been grind that girl too much. She ent a bad girl⁠—I been watch her close, ’count of the chil’ren; she ent bad. All she want, it’s li’le mo’ rope. You can’t drive a ox with the same gearin’ you drive a mule. You got to learn that, Tontine.”

He approached his wife’s chair and stood beside her.

“That girl, she done tole us how she was temp’ today to turn canaille⁠—like we all temp’ sometime’. W’at was it save her? That li’le chile w’at you hole in yo’ arm. An’ now you want to take her guarjun angel ’way f’om her? Non, non, ma femme,” he said, resting his hand gently upon his wife’s head. “We got to rememba she ent like you an’ me, po’ thing; she’s one Injun, her.”

Bobinôt, that big, brown, good-natured Bobinôt, had no intention of going to the ball, even though he knew Calixta would be there. For what came of those balls but heartache, and a sickening disinclination for work the whole week through, till Saturday night came again and his tortures began afresh? Why could he not love Ozéina, who would marry him tomorrow; or Fronie, or any one of a dozen others, rather than that little Spanish vixen? Calixta’s slender foot had never touched Cuban soil; but her mother’s had, and the Spanish was in her blood all the same. For that reason the prairie people forgave her much that they would not have overlooked in their own daughters or sisters.

Her eyes⁠—Bobinôt thought of her eyes, and weakened⁠—the bluest, the drowsiest, most tantalizing that ever looked into a man’s; he thought of her flaxen hair that kinked worse than a mulatto’s close to her head; that broad, smiling mouth and tip-tilted nose, that full figure; that voice like a rich contralto song, with cadences in it that must have been taught by Satan, for there was no one else to teach her tricks on that ’Cadian prairie. Bobinôt thought of them all as he plowed his rows of cane.

There had even been a breath of scandal whispered about her a year ago, when she went to Assumption⁠—but why talk of it? No one did now. “C’est Espagnol, ça,” most of them said with lenient shoulder-shrugs. “Bon chien tient de race,” the old men mumbled over their pipes, stirred by recollections. Nothing was made of it, except that Fronie threw it up to Calixta when the two quarreled and fought on the church steps after mass one Sunday, about a lover. Calixta swore roundly in fine ’Cadian French and with true Spanish spirit, and slapped Fronie’s face. Fronie had slapped her back; “Tiens, bocotte, va!” “Espèce de lionèse; prends ça, et ça!” till the curé himself was obliged to hasten and make peace between them. Bobinôt thought of it all, and would not go to the ball.

But in the afternoon, over at Friedheimer’s store, where he was buying a trace-chain, he heard someone say that Alcée Laballière would be there. Then wild horses could not have kept him away. He knew how it would be⁠—or rather he did not know