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

“put on yo’ otha pant’loon’ an’ yo’ good coat; an’ you betta ax Mr. Léonce to cut yo’ hair, an’ yo’ w’sker’ a li’le bit.”

“It’s w’at I say,” chimed in Evariste. “I tell dat gent’man I’m goin’ make myse’f fine. He say’, ‘No, no,’ like he ent please’. He want’ me like I come out de swamp. So much betta if my pant’loon’ an’ coat is tore, he say, an’ color’ like de mud.” They could not understand these eccentric wishes on the part of the strange gentleman, and made no effort to do so.

An hour later Martinette, who was quite puffed up over the affair, trotted across to Aunt Dicey’s cabin to communicate the news to her. The negress was ironing; her irons stood in a long row before the fire of logs that burned on the hearth. Martinette seated herself in the chimney corner and held her feet up to the blaze; it was damp and a little chilly out of doors. The girl’s shoes were considerably worn and her garments were a little too thin and scant for the winter season. Her father had given her the two dollars he had received from the artist, and Martinette was on her way to the store to invest them as judiciously as she knew how.

“You know, Aunt Dicey,” she began a little complacently after listening awhile to Aunt Dicey’s unqualified abuse of her own son, Wilkins, who was dining-room boy at Mr. Hallet’s, “you know that stranger gentleman up to Mr. Hallet’s? he want’ to make my popa’s picture; an’ he say’ he goin’ put it in one fine Mag’zine yonda.” Aunt Dicey spat upon her iron to test its heat. Then she began to snicker. She kept on laughing inwardly, making her whole fat body shake, and saying nothing.

“W’at you laughin’ ’bout, Aunt Dice?” inquired Martinette mistrustfully.

“I is n’ laughin’, chile!”

“Yas, you’ laughin’.”

“Oh, don’t pay no ’tention to me. I jis studyin’ how simple you an’ yo’ pa is. You is bof de simplest somebody I eva come ’crost.”

“You got to say plumb out w’at you mean, Aunt Dice,” insisted the girl doggedly, suspicious and alert now.

“Well, dat w’y I say you is simple,” proclaimed the woman, slamming down her iron on an inverted, battered pie pan, “jis like you says, dey gwine put yo’ pa’s picture yonda in de picture paper. An’ you know w’at readin’ dey gwine sot down on’neaf dat picture?” Martinette was intensely attentive. “Dey gwine sot down on’neaf: ‘Dis heah is one dem low-down ’Cajuns o’ Bayeh Têche!’ ”

The blood flowed from Martinette’s face, leaving it deathly pale; in another instant it came beating back in a quick flood, and her eyes smarted with pain as if the tears that filled them had been fiery hot.

“I knows dem kine o’ folks,” continued Aunt Dicey, resuming her interrupted ironing. “Dat stranger he got a li’le boy w’at ain’t none too big to spank. Dat li’le imp he come a hoppin’ in heah yistiddy wid a kine o’ box on’neaf his arm. He say’ ‘Good mo’nin’, madam. Will you be so kine an’ stan’ jis like you is dah at yo’ i’onin’, an’ lef me take yo’ picture?’ I ’lowed I gwine make a picture outen him wid dis heah flat-i’on, ef he don’ cl’ar hisse’f quick. An’ he say he baig my pardon fo’ his intrudement. All dat kine o’ talk to a ole nigga ’oman! Dat plainly sho’ he don’ know his place.”

“W’at you want ’im to say, Aunt Dice?” asked Martinette, with an effort to conceal her distress.

“I wants ’im to come in heah an’ say: ‘Howdy, Aunt Dicey! will you be so kine and go put on yo’ noo calker dress an’ yo’ bonnit w’at you w’ars to meetin’, an’ stan’ ’side f’om dat i’onin’-boa’d w’ilse I gwine take yo’ photygraph.’ Dat de way fo’ a boy to talk w’at had good raisin’.”

Martinette had arisen, and began to take slow leave of the woman. She turned at the cabin door to observe tentatively: “I reckon it’s Wilkins tells you how the folks they talk, yonda up to Mr. Hallet’s.”

She did not go to the store as she had intended, but walked with a dragging step back to her home. The silver dollars clicked in her pocket as she walked. She felt like flinging them across the field; they seemed to her somehow the price of shame.

The sun had sunk, and twilight was settling like a silver beam upon the bayou and enveloping the fields in a gray mist. Evariste, slim and slouchy, was waiting for his daughter in the cabin door. He had lighted a fire of sticks and branches, and placed the kettle before it to boil. He met the girl with his slow, serious, questioning eyes, astonished to see her empty-handed.

“How come you didn’ bring nuttin’ f’om de sto’, Martinette?”

She entered and flung her gingham sunbonnet upon a chair. “No, I didn’ go yonda;” and with sudden exasperation: “You got to go take back that money; you mus’ n’ git no picture took.”

“But, Martinette,” her father mildly interposed, “I promise’ ’im; an’ he’s goin’ give me some mo’ money w’en he finish.”

“If he give you a ba’el o’ money, you mus’ n’ git no picture took. You know w’at he want to put un’neath that picture, fo’ ev’body to read?” She could not tell him the whole hideous truth as she had heard it distorted from Aunt Dicey’s lips; she would not hurt him that much. “He’s goin’ to write: ‘This is one ’Cajun o’ the Bayou Têche.’ ” Evariste winced.

“How you know?” he asked.

“I yeard so. I know it’s true.”

The water in the kettle was boiling. He went and poured a small quantity upon the coffee which he had set there to drip. Then he said to her: “I reckon you jus’ as well go care dat two dolla’ back, tomo’ mo’nin’; me, I’ll go yonda ketch a mess o’ fish in Carancro lake.”

Mr. Hallet and a few masculine companions were assembled at a rather