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

had her arms around her mother’s neck, clinging so tenaciously in her youthful strength as to make the frail woman totter.

Agapie had seen the Dresden figure in Madame Valtonr’s possession and at once guessed the whole accusation.

“It en’t so! I tell you, maman, it en’t so! I neva touch’ it. Stop cryin’; stop cryin’!” and she began to cry most piteously herself.

“But Agapie, we fine it in yo’ box,” moaned Seraphine through her sobs.

“Then somebody put it there. Can’t you see somebody put it there? Ten’t so, I tell you.”

The scene was extremely painful to Madame Valtour. Whatever she might tell these two later, for the time she felt herself powerless to say anything befitting, and she walked away. But she turned to remark, with a hardness of expression and intention which she seldom displayed: “No one will know of this through me. But, Agapie, you must not come into my house again; on account of the children; I could not allow it.”

As she walked away she could hear Agapie comforting her mother with renewed protestations of innocence.

Pa-Jeff began to fail visibly that year. No wonder, considering his great age, which he computed to be about one hundred. It was, in fact, some ten years less than that, but a good old age all the same. It was seldom that he got out into the field; and then, never to do any heavy work⁠—only a little light hoeing. There were days when the “misery” doubled him up and nailed him down to his chair so that he could not set foot beyond the door of his cabin. He would sit there courting the sunshine and blinking, as he gazed across the fields with the patience of the savage.

The Bedauts seemed to know almost instinctively when Pa-Jeff was sick. Agapie would shade her eyes and look searchingly towards the old man’s cabin.

“I don’ see Pa-Jeff this mo’nin’,” or “Pa-Jeff en’t open his winda,” or “I didn’ see no smoke yet yonda to Pa-Jeff’s.” And in a little while the girl would be over there with a pail of soup or coffee, or whatever there was at hand which she thought the old negro might fancy. She had lost all the color out of her cheeks and was pining like a sick bird.

She often sat on the steps of the gallery and talked with the old man while she waited for him to finish his soup from her tin pail.

“I tell you, Pa-Jeff, its neva been no thief in the Bedaut family. My pa say he couldn’ hole up his head if he think I been a thief, me. An’ maman say it would make her sick in bed, she don’ know she could ever git up. Sosthène tell me the chil’en been cryin’ fo’ me up yonda. Li’le Lulu cry so hard M’sieur Valtour want sen’ afta me, an’ Ma’me Valtour say no.”

And with this, Agapie flung herself at length upon the gallery with her face buried in her arms, and began to cry so hysterically as seriously to alarm Pa-Jeff. It was well he had finished his soup, for he could not have eaten another mouthful.

“Hole up yo’ head, chile. God save us! W’at you kiarrin’ on dat away?” he exclaimed in great distress. “You gwine to take a fit? Hole up yo’ head.”

Againe rose slowly to her feet, and drying her eyes upon the sleeve of her “josie,” reached out for the tin bucket. Pa-Jeff handed it to her, but without relinquishing his hold upon it.

“War hit you w’at tuck it?” he questioned in a whisper. “I isn’ gwine tell; you knows I isn’ gwine tell.” She only shook her head, attempting to draw the pail forcibly away from the old man.

“Le’ me go, Pa-Jeff. W’at you doin’! Gi’ me my bucket!”

He kept his old blinking eyes fastened for a while questioningly upon her disturbed and tear-stained face. Then he let her go and she turned and ran swiftly away towards her home.

He sat very still watching her disappear; only his furrowed old face twitched convulsively, moved by an unaccustomed train of reasoning that was at work in him.

“She w’ite, I is black,” he muttered calculatingly. “She young, I is ole; sho I is ole. She good to Pa-Jeff like I her own kin an’ color.” This line of thought seemed to possess him to the exclusion of every other. Late in the night he was still muttering.

“Sho I is ole. She good to Pa-Jeff, yas.”

A few days later, when Pa-Jeff happened to be feeling comparatively well, he presented himself at the house just as the family had assembled at their early dinner. Looking up suddenly, Monsieur Valtour was astonished to see him standing there in the room near the open door. He leaned upon his cane and his grizzled head was bowed upon his breast. There was general satisfaction expressed at seeing Pa-Jeff on his legs once more.

“Why, old man, I’m glad to see you out again,” exclaimed the planter, cordially, pouring a glass of wine, which he instructed Viny to hand to the old fellow. Pa-Jeff accepted the glass and set it solemnly down upon a small table near by.

“Marse Albert,” he said, “I is come heah today fo’ to make a statement of de rights an’ de wrongs w’at is done hang heavy on my soul dis heah long time. Arter you heahs me an’ de missus heahs me an’ de chillun an’ ev’body, den ef you says: ‘Pa-Jeff you kin tech yo’ lips to dat glass o’ wine,’ all well an’ right.’ ”

His manner was impressive and caused the family to exchange surprised and troubled glances. Foreseeing that his recital might be long, a chair was offered to him, but he declined it.

“One day,” he began, “w’en I ben hoein’ de madam’s flower bed close to de fence, Sosthène he ride up, he say: ‘Heah, Pa-Jeff, heah de mail.’ I takes de mail fom ’im an’ I calls out to Viny w’at settin’ on