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

de gallery: ‘Heah Marse Albert’s mail, gal; come git it.’

“But Viny she answer, pert-like⁠—des like Viny: ‘You is got two laigs. Pa-Jeff, des well as me.’ I ain’t no han’ fo’ disputin’ wid gals, so I brace up an’ I come ’long to de house an’ goes on in dat settin’-room dah, naix’ to de dinin’-room. I lays dat mail down on Marse Albert’s table; den I looks roun’.

“Ev’thing do look putty, sho! De lace cu’tains was a-flappin’ an’ de flowers was a-smellin’ sweet, an’ de pictures a-settin’ back on de wall. I keep on lookin’ roun’. To reckly my eye hit fall on de li’le gal w’at al’ays sets on de een’ o’ de mantel-shelf. She do look mighty sassy dat day, wid ’er toe a-stickin’ out, des so; an’ holdin’ her skirt des dat away; an’ lookin’ at me wid her head twis’.

“I laff out. Viny mus’ heahed me. I say, ‘g’long ’way f’om dah, gal.’ She keep on smilin’. I reaches out my han’. Den Satan an’ de good Sperrit, dey begins to wrastle in me. De Sperrit say: ‘You ole fool-nigga, you; mine w’at you about.’ Satan keep on shovin’ my han’⁠—des so⁠—keep on shovin’. Satan he mighty powerful dat day, an’ he win de fight. I kiar dat li’le trick home in my pocket.”

Pa-Jeff lowered his head for a moment in bitter confusion. His hearers were moved with distressful astonishment. They would have had him stop the recital right there, but Pa-Jeff resumed, with an effort:

“Come dat night I heah tell how dat li’le trick, wo’th heap money; how madam, she cryin’ ’cause her li’le blessed lamb was use’ to play wid dat, an’ kiar-on ov’ it. Den I git scared. I say, ‘w’at I gwine do?’ An’ up jump Satan an’ de Sperrit a-wrastlin’ again.

“De Sperrit say: ‘Kiar hit back whar it come f’om. Pa-Jeff.’ Satan ’low: ‘Fling it in de bayeh, you ole fool.’ De Sperrit say: ‘You won’t fling dat in de bayeh, whar de madam kain’t neva sot eyes on hit no mo’?’ Den Satan he kine give in; he ’low he plumb sick o’ disputin’ so long; tell me go hide it some ’eres whar dey nachelly gwine fine it. Satan he win dat fight.

“Des w’en de day g’ine break, I creeps out an’ goes ’long de fiel’ road. I pass by Ma’me Bedaut’s house. I riclic how dey says li’le Bedaut gal ben in de sittin’-room, too, day befo’. De winda war open. Ev’body sleepin’. I tres’ in my head, des like a dog w’at shame hisse’f. I sees dat box o’ rags befo’ my eyes; an’ I drops dat li’le imp’dence ’mongst dem rags.

“Mebby yo’ all t’ink Satan an’ de Sperrit lef me ’lone, arter dat?” continued Pa-Jeff, straightening himself from the relaxed position in which his members seemed to have settled.

“No, suh; dey ben desputin’ straight ’long. Las’ night dey come nigh onto en’in’ me up. De Sperrit cay: ‘Come ’long, I gittin’ tired dis heah, you g’long up yonda an’ tell de truf an’ shame de devil.’ Satan ’low: ‘Stay whar you is; you heah me!’ Dey clutches me. Dey twis’es an’ twines me. Dey dashes me down an’ jerks me up. But de Sperrit he win dat fight in de en’, an’ heah I is, mist’ess, master, chillun’; heah I is.”

Years later Pa-Jeff was still telling the story of his temptation and fall. The negroes especially seemed never to tire of hearing him relate it. He enlarged greatly upon the theme as he went, adding new and dramatic features which gave fresh interest to its every telling.

Agapie grew up to deserve the confidence and favors of the family. She redoubled her acts of kindness toward Pa-Jeff; but somehow she could not look into his face again.

Yet she need not have feared. Long before the end came, poor old Pa-Jeff, confused, bewildered, believed the story himself as firmly as those who had heard him tell it over and over for so many years.

The Dream of an Hour

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that where all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its