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

meant to secure all the gates upon his place⁠—with great patent clamps and ingenious hinges, intended to baffle utterly the designs of the evil-disposed persons who had lately been tampering with them. For there had been a malicious spirit abroad, who played tricks, it seemed, for pure wantonness upon the farmers and planters, and caused them infinite annoyance.

As Dr. John-Luis contemplated the carpenter at work, and remembered how his gates had recently all been lifted from their hinges one night and left lying upon the ground, the provoking nature of the offense dawned upon him as it had not done before. He turned swiftly, prompted by a sudden determination, and re-entered the house.

Then he proceeded to write out in immense black characters a half-dozen placards. It was an offer of twenty-five dollars’ reward for the capture of the person guilty of the malicious offence already described. These placards were sent abroad with the same eager haste that had conceived and executed them.

After a day or two, Doctor John-Luis’ ill humor had resolved itself into a pensive melancholy.

“Marsh,” he said, “you know, after all, it’s rather dreary to be living alone as I do, without any companion⁠—of my own color, you understand.”

“I knows dat, sah. It sho’ am lonesome,” replied the sympathetic Marshall.

“You see, Marsh, I’ve been thinking lately,” and Doctor John-Luis coughed, for he disliked the inaccuracy of that “lately.” “I’ve been thinking that this property and wealth that I’ve worked so hard to accumulate, are after all doing no permanent, practical good to anyone. Now, if I could find some well-disposed boy whom I might train to work, to study, to lead a decent, honest life⁠—a boy of good heart who would care for me in my old age; for I am still comparatively⁠—hem⁠—not old? hey, Marsh?”

“Dey ain’t one in de pa’ish hole yo’ own like you does, sah.”

“That’s it. Now, can you think of such a boy? Try to think.”

Marshall slowly scratched his head and looked reflective.

“If you can think of such a boy,” said Doctor John-Luis, “you might bring him here to spend an evening with me, you know, without hinting at my intentions, of course. In that way I could sound him; study him up, as it were. For a step of such importance is not to be taken without due consideration. Marsh.”

Well, the first whom Marshall brought was one of Baptiste Choupic’s boys. He was a very timid child, and sat on the edge of his chair, fearfully. He replied in jerky monosyllables when Doctor John-Luis spoke to him, “Yas, sah⁠—no, sah,” as the case might be; with a little nervous bob of the head.

His presence made the doctor quite uncomfortable. He was glad to be rid of the boy at nine o’clock, when he sent him home with some oranges and a few sweetmeats.

Then Marshall had Theodore over; an unfortunate selection that evinced little judgment on Marshall’s part. Not to mince matters, the boy was painfully forward. He monopolized the conversation; asked impertinent questions and handled and inspected everything in the room. Dr. John-Luis sent him home with an orange and not a single sweet.

Then there was Hyppolite, who was too ugly to be thought of; and Cami, who was heavy and stupid, and fell asleep in his chair with his mouth wide open. And so it went. If Doctor John-Luis had hoped in the company of any of these boys to repeat the agreeable evening he had passed with Mamouche, he was sadly deceived.

At last he instructed Marshall to discontinue the search of that ideal companion he had dreamed of. He was resigned to spend the remainder of his days without one.

Then, one day when it was raining again, and very muddy and chill, a red-faced man came driving up to Doctor John-Luis’ door in a dilapidated buggy. He lifted a boy from the vehicle, whom he held with a vise-like clutch, and whom he straightway dragged into the astonished presence of Doctor John-Luis.

“Here he is, sir,” shouted the red-faced man. “We’ve got him at last! Here he is.”

It was Mamouche, covered with mud, the picture of misery. Doctor John-Luis stood with his back to the fire. He was startled, and visibly and painfully moved at the sight of the boy.

“Is it possible!” he exclaimed. “Then it was you, Mamouche, who did this mischievous thing to me? Lifting my gates from their hinges; letting the chickens in among my flowers to ruin them; and the hogs and cattle to trample and uproot my vegetables!”

“Ha! ha!” laughed the red-faced man, “that game’s played out, now;” and Doctor John-Luis looked as if he wanted to strike him.

Mamouche seemed unable to reply. His lower lip was quivering.

“Yas, it’s me!” he burst out. “It’s me w’at take yo’ gates off the hinge. It’s me w’at turn loose Mr. Morgin’s hoss, w’en Mr. Morgin was passing veillée wid his sweetheart. It’s me w’at take down Ma’ame Angèle’s fence, an’ lef her calf loose to tramp in Mr. Billy’s cotton. It’s me w’at play like a ghos’ by the graveyard las’ Toussaint to scare the darkies passin’ in the road. It’s me w’at⁠—”

The confession had burst out from the depth of Mamouche’s heart like a torrent, and there is no telling when it would have stopped if Doctor John-Luis had not enjoined silence.

“And pray tell me,” he asked, as severely as he could, “why you left my house like a criminal, in the morning, secretly?”

The tears had begun to course down Mamouche’s brown cheeks.

“I was ’shame’ of myse’f, that’s w’y. If you wouldn’ gave me no suppa, an’ no bed, an’ no fire, I don’ say’. I wouldn’ been ’shame’ then.”

“Well, sir,” interrupted the red-faced man, “you’ve got a pretty square case against him, I see. Not only for malicious trespass, but of theft. See this bolt?” producing a piece of iron from his coat pocket. “That’s what gave him away.”

“I en’t no thief!” blurted Mamouche, indignantly. “It’s one piece o’ iron w’at I pick up in the road.”

“Sir,” said Doctor John-Luis