UC-NRLF
B 3
I
THE PLEASANT WAYS OF
ST. MDARD
BY
GRACE KING
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1916
COPYRIGHT, 1916,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Published August, 1916
Co
The Memory of my Brother
BRANCH MILLER KING
343128
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 3
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY . . . . 1 1
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 47
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 77
WALKING THE RAINBOW 106
" IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY " . . .126
TOMMY COOK 145
THE INSTITUT MIMI 157
CRIBICHE 172
JERRY 182
THE SAN ANTONIOS 202
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 224
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE 246
THE FEAST OF ST. MEDARD 267
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR ..... 281
AT THE VILLA BELLA 316
THE TURNING OF THE ROAD 332
THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST.MEDARD
INTRODUCTION
Do you remember, you who can remember as much
as fifty years ago, when your ears hardly reached above
the dinner table, the stories your elders used to tell over
the wine and nuts? stories about their time and their
people, their youth and their doings; their ten, twenty,
forty years ago. What stupendous elders they were!
Truly to the opened eyes of the children looking up
to them they were, indeed, as mountains walking or
talking. And what stupendous tales they told of those
dim prehistoric ages before our birth! What great
things they had done in hunting and fishing, riding, and
electioneering aye, in fighting too; with the Indians,
with the British in 1812, with the Mexicans, with the
Spaniards, when they went filibustering to Cuba even
in the Revolutionary War, and with Napoleon, or escap
ing from the insurrection of the negroes in San Domingo.
For what they did not of themselves achieve, their
fathers and grandfathers achieved, and it all seemed
the same to them in their stories, as it did to their
listeners.
Ah, what fathers and grandfathers they had, and what
wonderful men and women they had known! The
children who listened then have never met the like of
them in their long life since. Yet Heaven knows how
patiently they have looked for them, and how gladly
they would have welcomed the sight of them.
3
4 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
What a pleasant world that was, to be sure, into which
we were born fifty years ago in New Orleans; what a
natural, what a simple world! Then there was but one
truth, one right, that of Papa, than whom alone the
Father in Heaven above was greater but hardly more
feared. That tall, dignified gentleman to whom his wife
said " Sir," and his servants " Master," whose frown was
a terror to his children, and his caress an awesome favor ;
who descended every morning from his silent apart
ment, as from a cloud, to breakfast in majesty alone; to
whom there was but one easy means of approach, one
sure intermediary, Mama, whose sweet nature and
angelic presence so enfolded him that the sharp blade of
his temper was as safely sheathed in it, as his flashing
sword in his ebony walking stick. She was so pale and
delicate-looking in her ruffles and laces, with her mys
terious retirements to her apartment, through whose
hushed and dimmed atmosphere (wherein the furniture
took vast and strange proportions) the frightened
children at stated intervals were pushed and jerked by
whispering nurses to the great lace-curtained bed, and
made to kiss some baby or other, some loathesome, red,
little baby. It was brought there, we knew, by that
hideous, wrinkled purveyor of babies, old Madame
Bonnet, who had a wart covered with long hairs on her
chin, and whose only tooth stuck out from her upper
gum; the very image of the evil fairy, pictured in the
Magasin des Enfants, the nursery authority then on
fairies. Children would as soon have touched the devil
as her, or her covered basket under the foot of the bed,
in which she had brought the baby. And so, after the
Mama had given them some dragees from the glass bowl
INTRODUCTION 5
on the table at the side of the bed, they would creep out
of the room, shrinking as far as possible from the
nefarious figure sitting in her low squat chair.
And do you remember how those great Papas of ours
went to war? And how God did not act towards them
as they would have acted towards Him, had they been
God and He a Southern gentleman? And how they
came back from the war those that did come back, alas !
so thin, dirty, ragged, poor, unlike any Papas that
respectable children had ever seen before? If they had
strutted in buskins of yore, as they had been accused
of doing by their enemies, rest assured they footed it
now in bare soles. And do you remember what fol
lowed? Families uprooted from their past and dragged
from country to city, and from city to country, in the
attempt to find a foothold in the rushing tide of ruin
sweeping over their land. Outlawed fathers, traveling
off to Egypt, Mexico, South America, in search of a
living for wife and children, even into the enemy s own
country. Some of them, with dazzling audacity, chang
ing to the politics (or principles, as politics were then
called) of the conquerors, for the chance of sharing in
their own spoliation. And these, in memory, seemed
always to have traveled the farthest from us. Some
fathers of families, however, did nothing more ad
venturous than to submit to the will of God and His
conditions (assuming Him to have been their judge and
the arbiter in the war) ; these merely changed their way
of living to the new conditions, retiring with their families
to the outskirts of the city, where houses were cheap,
living simple, and the disturbing temptations of society
out of the question.
6 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
These were the ones, in truth, who had the most
adventures afterwards in the quest for fortune. A living
was a fortune then, setting themselves to work in the
primitive fashion of their forefathers, when they faced
a new country and new conditions. But in the wilds of
a virgin forest and surrounded by savage Indians these
had advantages that their descendants learned to envy.
The fighting the Papas had done in war was nothing
to the fighting they did afterwards, for bread and meat;
and the bitterness of their defeat there was sweetness
compared to the bitterness that came afterwards.
Bayonet in hand was easier to them than hat
in hand.
And the delicate luxurious Mamas, who had been so
given to the world, reading and weeping over fictional
misfortunes there were some of them who lived to weep
for the security of food and shelter, once possessed by
their slaves.
Saddest of all these memories, and not the least to
be wondered at, the man who once had the most friends
was the one who in need found the fewest. The old
friends to whom we used to listen over the dinner table,
who told such fine tales of adventure, courage, gallantry,
wit, that we placed them in our hearts second only to
our Papa and third after God, do you remember but
who does not remember? how in the struggle for life
that followed the tempest of ruin they yielded to the tide
of self-interest, veering and swaying from their anchor
age, often indeed cutting loose and sailing clear out of
sight, leaving their crippled companions behind to shift
for themselves? It was considered lucky when the
deserter did not also turn betrayer and come back to
INTRODUCTION 7
act the pirate upon his old comrades. Starvation is a
great dissolvent of friendship, as the shipwrecked have
found more than once.
Poverty is a land to which no one goes willingly,
which all strive instinctively to avoid. There seems
to be no rest or ease in it. Who goes there old is
buried there. The young spend their lives trying to
get out of it. But the way out of it is narrow and
steep, like the path to Heaven. It almost seems to
be the path to Heaven, so hard is the struggle to get
through it. It is white with the bones of those who have
died in it, as the way to Jerusalem was once with the
bones of the Crusaders. Some, giving up the struggle,
settle there, marry, and have children there; little ones
who never lose the mark of their nativity. The trampling
of the hard-footed necessities has told upon them; their
hearts are furrowed by the track of hopes passing into
disappointments. They know no other land than
poverty, and are haunted by strange misconceptions of
the land of the rich; the people who live in it and the
people who get to it.
Who of us, who now inherit want as surely as our
fathers did wealth, has not at one time or another made
a pilgrimage to that Gibraltar of memory, the home of
our childhood, of our Olympian beginnings? Leaving
behind us the sordid little rented house in which care
and anxiety have whitened the hair and wrinkled the
face, we have threaded the streets to stand on the side
walk opposite some grim, gaunt, battered old brick
mansion, filled with shops below and a mongrel lot of
tenants above, trying to fit our past into or upon it.
" Is that the balcony," we ask ourselves, " from which
8 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
on gala days we used to look upon a gala world? Did
that grim story hold our nursery, where of mornings
we used to lie and watch the white angels pictured on the
blue tester of our bed, and once caught them in the act
of moving their wings? Was it there, when we woke
suddenly at night, that the awful flickering of the taper
in the corner, now brightening, now darkening the room,
frightened us, opening and shutting, opening and shut
ting, like the terrible eye of God? Is that the doorway
through which our great Past made its entrance and
exit? Is that the court-yard where our slaves worked
for us? That the building in which they were born to
work for us? No, no!"
To you who have not made that pilgrimage, I say,
do not attempt it; you will never find what you seek.
Thread the way to it only in memory, if you would
find it. And yet, ye who have been in this land we have
described, who have buried some of your old ones there,
and it may be some of your young ones, who have spent
your life trying to get out of it, or helping others dearer
than yourself on their way out of it, what think you of
it, after all? What in truth found you there in default
of the one lack that sent you there? Love, hope, courage,
light in darkness, strength in weakness, fortitude under
injustice, self-respect in the face of indignity and humili
ation did ye not find them growing there, growing
naturally, not cultivated artificially as they are of neces
sity in that other and upper land? Was less truth to
be met there, or more falsehood from others, less self-
sacrifice, less wifely devotion or family loyalty, than in
the land of your lost inheritance ? Did you find the slim
purse less charitable than the fat one, the heart under
INTRODUCTION 9
the shabby cloth less sympathetic than the one under the
fine?
And but there is no use to ask it whatever the land
of poverty lacks, it lacks not ideals; the beautiful ones
that, as Schiller sings, fly from us one by one with our
youthful years, leaving us at last to fare on alone with
out them to old age. They, as we know, wing their way
more fondly down than up the narrow path, toward the
cradle in the hovel, rather than to the one in the palace.
THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY
THE Parish of St. Medard used to be as far away from
Canal Street, the center of life in New Orleans, as a
slow moving mule could drag a car in an hour s time.
It lay in the " faubourg Creole " the lower suburb of the
city, the extremity that stretched down the Mississippi
River. As cities progress upstream, not down, the other
extremity was, ipso facto, as one may say, the American
quarter. In it mules and cars traveled faster and
distances were shorter than in the faubourg of the
descendants of the old French and Spanish population.
The limit of St. Medard, in truth the last street in the
city, was held fixed by the buildings and grounds of the
United States barracks whose tall fence ran in a straight
line from the river to the end of the cleared land, almost
to the woods in the distance, barring inflexibly any
advance in that direction. Beyond the barracks stretched
the open country; the rural and ecclesiastical domain of
another saint, a region of farms and plantations.
On a bright May morning of 1865, tne waiting St.
Medard car on Canal Street was taking in its usual tale
of passengers: Gascon gardeners and dairymen going
home from the markets, soldiers on their way to the
barracks, Creole residents of the quarter, and gentry
11
12 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
belonging to the plantations along the river, when there
entered it, comers, new to the driver and to his patrons;
an American family, father, mother, and four small
children followed by their negro servants, a man, his
wife, and their three half -grown daughters carrying
baskets and bundles innumerable, the awkward bundles
and baskets of country people. Curious enough looking,
doubtless, they were to the eyes observing them but not
unique as specimens of their kind at that date. All
over the city, every day, other cars might be seen receiving
just such passengers to carry from one home to another,
from one condition to another, nay, from one life to
another, ferrying them in their jog-trot passages in
truth, like so many barks of Charon from a past to a
future.
The father, a tall, thin, erect, scholarly-looking man,
singularly handsome of face, was dressed in black broad
cloth which, with his clean-shaven face, betokened at
that time a gentleman of the profession. His wife, fair
of hair and skin, was dressed in the grotesque and
obsolete fashion of a half dozen years before. The
children wore homespun and alligator hide shoes, the
little girls, sunbonnets, the boys, or at least one of them,
a palmetto straw hat, the other one was bareheaded.
The negroes in their clean, coarse plantation clothes
looked dazed and stupid; the woman, murmuring to
herself all the time, without knowing it : " My God,
my God ! " All sat stiff and rigid, serious and half
frightened.
The clouds of war had at last rolled by and the sun
of peace was shining in full force again, but the city was
still heavily garrisoned; companies of white and negro
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 13
soldiers in bright blue uniforms were marching through
the streets, orderlies with papers in their belts, dashing
by on horseback, officers glittering with golden braid and
buttons and epaulettes, strode the sidewalks, dominating
the soberly clad civilians in a manner quite out of propor
tion to their numbers, bands of newly freed negroes,
ragged and dirty, the marks of the soil still upon them,
straggled along, leisurely impeding the way of other
pedestrians as they gazed about them. Confederate
soldiers, still in their shabby gray, were to be seen every
where; gaunt, gray, hungry-looking animals, fiercely
eying the smartly-dressed soldiery that had conquered
them, and now owned their city.
The sharp eyes of the children, roving restlessly about
and springing back in quick rebound from the sight of
the soldiers, seemed to see nothing that pleased them,
that is nothing they were accustomed to. Even their
Mama was as strange to them as everything else in
her unnatural costume. They might well ask themselves,
looking askance at her, if she were the same Mama they
knew on the plantation, who used to go around in a
homespun dress and alligator shoes; the dress that they
had watched growing as cotton in the fields, and had
seen spun, woven, and dyed by their own negro women ;
the shoes, from an alligator that they had seen swimming
in their own Bayou, and which Jerry, over there, had
shot, skinned, and tanned the hide to make into shoes.
A sunbonnet then covered the head that now wore the
ugly bonnet trimmed with great pink roses and broad
blue ribbons. And yet, how often, when the little girls
had been ill and restless with fever on the plantation,
had their Mama taken her city bonnet as she called it
H THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
out of its careful wrappings and showed it to them as
the greatest treat possible. It seemed beautiful to them
then, and it always quieted them although it had no
effect on the little boys and when she related to them
how she had bought it at Florette s and what Florette
had said and what Papa had said about it, it was the
most interesting story, in truth she could tell them.
The little boys never would listen to it but the little girls,
even with the fever burning in their veins, could have
listened forever to tales about Florette s wonderful shop
and the beautiful things she sold. But now when they
were on the very Canal Street that their Mama used
to talk so winningly about, when their car was standing
just in front of Florette s glamorous shop, they did not
think of it nor did their Mama remind them of it ! When
the car started, children and servants gave a portentous
start with it. The plantation ! the plantation ! the fields !
the woods! the negro quarters! the sugar house! the
stables! the blacksmith shop! the corn mill! the mules,
cows, chickens! the Bayou! the Bayou! . . . The car
seemed to wrench their hearts from it all. And from
the steamboat, too, which during their five days journey,
they had learned to love and now regretted as pas
sionately as the plantation. How proud they were to
see it steaming up their Bayou and stop at their wharf !
The greatest and grandest thing they had ever seen,
greater and grander surely than anything in the world.
How strange and small they felt upon it at first and oh !
how curious it was to be nosing their way in and out
of bayous and lakes, just missing a snag here or running
into a bank there and nearly capsizing in a wind storm,
one day in the middle of a lake when the captain cursed
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 15
so loud that they understood why the crew called him
Captain Devil. They could hear him and the mate kick
ing and cuffing the crew above the noise of the storm
as their Mama held them around her in the cabin. The
storm began by blowing off Billy s hat and he had been
bareheaded ever since. When they got into the Missis
sippi, what a surprise that was ! A hundred times larger
it was than their own Bayou, the biggest stream, they had
thought, in the world. And what great plantations on
both banks ! They did not know that there were such big
plantations in the world. Their own plantation had been
the biggest in the world to them before. It shrank
suddenly to a sorrowfully small one, as small as their
steamboat, alongside the great steamboats at the city
wharf. They were almost ashamed of the Bayou Belle
then and they whispered to one another : " Oh ! I wish
she were bigger."
The father paid no attention to soldiers, negroes, pas
sengers, or anything else, so absorbed was he in what
he was telling his wife. He had been in the city or
according to the expression of the time, back from the
war, two weeks; she had arrived that morning from a
plantation, so remote and isolated in forest and swamp
that news of the progress of the war, even, came to it
only in slow, straggling, roundabout ways. She would
not have known that it was over if her husband had not
hurried to her from his camp with the news. Of what
had happened in the city, of the home she had left there,
she had heard nothing, since she had left it to its fate
at the hand of a victorious enemy.
Her husband was telling her a strange story indeed,
of his adventures since he had parted from her on the
16 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MfeDARD
plantation, but she was not so much absorbed in it as he.
Her blue eyes showed thoughts behind them other than
the ones that lighted his dark eyes with heroic fire, and
her wan delicate features grew more and more out of
harmony with the full-blown, pink roses of the over
hanging bonnet brim. Yet she could from time to time
cast a look and smile of encouragement to her children
and servants and at some call of youth and spirit, raise
her long fair neck as proudly as if it bore the august
head of her husband instead of her own.
A skiff here, a pirogue there, by cart, horse, or mule,
on foot for many a mile, he had made his way through
a country given over to lawlessness, a people demoralized,
swarming freed negroes, an insolent soldiery, ruin,
wretchedness, and despair, no one knowing what to do
or where to begin work again in the uncertainty of what
the victorious government intended further as punish
ment for the defeated. But the city ! The anticipatory
laugh at what was to come revealed a different face from
the one that wore habitually a mask of stern hauteur ; a
frank, pleasant, companionable face. His wife smiled
in anticipation with him. " Such a lot of ruined, ragged,
hungry lawyers and ci-devant fine gentlemen! Each one
trying to raise a little money, hunting some one to
lend enough to pay for a decent suit of clothes, a night s
lodging, and a little food; and all being dodged or
refused by the smug money-makers among the old
friends who had shrewdly stayed at home. Every
pocket was buttoned up at the sight of a poor Con
federate; and every day new arrivals from the armies
or prisons, all about naked or starving, and all clamorous
for news and * views of the situation, and every man
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 17
with a family somewhere to bring back. As I was
walking along the street disconsolately, wondering what
I should do next, whom should I meet but old Doctor
Jahn, hobbling around just as he used to on his gouty
feet.
" Hello ! he said, you re back, are you?
" Yes/ I said, I m back/
" Well, what are you going to do ?
" I told him, first of all, to bring my family from the
plantation, find a home for them, and then go to work
to make a living and educate the children; that as far
as I could see, we were ruined, but that I had made a
fortune once out of my profession and I could do it
again. He nodded, smiled, and tapped me on the breast
in his way : The first thing of all, my dear fellow, is
for you to get out of these God-forsaken clothes and
buy yourself a Christian appearance. You know we
are great on our Christianity and our appearance now/
So he pulled me along by my arm, to a desk in some
office and wrote me a check for a hundred dollars and
hurried off.
" I rushed to a shop before any one could borrow of
me and bought these clothes. Egad! I was actually
ashamed to pay for them; it looked suspicious for me
to have so much money, and the price, twenty-five dollars,
seemed tremendous. Then I went straight to the levee
and hunted up our old friend, Captain Devlin. For
tunately, he was just in with his boat. I gave him fifty
dollars and told him to go and fetch you all here. * In
old times, he said, it used to be two hundred and
fifty dollars and a sugar crop besides.
The car left the broad street with handsome houses
1 8 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
behind it and entered a different district, that of the
class that works for a living and lives for its work;
the class of small houses and large families. Block after
block of little cottages, hardly higher than the car itself,
was passed ; some of them no better than negro cabins on
a plantation. Sometimes there would be a garden in
front or at the side, and every now and then a cottage
of brick and double-sized would be passed, protected
from its surroundings by a high brick wall bristling on
the top with broken glass; bananas, pomegranates, and
crape myrtles stretching up above it. But this seemed a
crest of prosperity; for blocks afterwards, the houses
diminished in size and appearance, until a very hollow
of poverty and squalor was reached. At short intervals,
appeared a grocery, a drinking-shop, a bakery, at long
ones, the church, school, or convent. On the low wooden
steps of the little cottages sat women, sewing or nursing
babies; around them on the sidewalk and in the gutters
played their innumerable progenies of children, ranging
in color, from the fairest skins, through all gradations of
foreign complexions. The car went still slower through
this quarter, for the streets, which had begun so hand
some and broad at the beginning of the journey, grew
ever narrower and more crooked. The driver was kept
busy with his brakes and the plodding mule strained
painfully over the accumulation of turns.
The husband, however, unconscious of street or gait,
pursued his narrative:
" I thought it was then time to go to my office and
see what had become of it. I knew that the building was
still standing in its old place and that was about all I
had been able to find out about it. I glanced at the names
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 19
in the doorway; mine was no longer there. I marched
upstairs. On my old door was a fine, bright, new sign.
What do you think I read on it ? Thomas Cook,
Attorney and Counselor-at-Law.
" Tommy Cook? Little Tommy Cook? "
" Tommy Cook and no other.
" I opened the door and walked in. Well, Tommy/ I
said, What are you doing here ?
" He looked up, arose, and without any surprise at
seeing me, answered : Taking care of your office as you
told me, Sir/
" I looked around. * How did you manage it ?
I found a way, Sir.
" You did, did you?
" I stole it, Sir.
" Well, that was literally what he did. He took down
my name, put up his own. Who was to object, in all
the stealing that was going on? And egad! he has
business too."
"Tommy Cook! The little lame boy! Who used to
brush your shoes and run your errands, and carry your
law-books to court for you ? "
" Well, he carried them for me this time, famously."
" But how can he be a lawyer without studying law? "
" I saw his license framed, hanging on the wall.
And that was all I did see in the room different from
the day I left it in his charge. The books were all there
with the ledgers and papers in the bookcases, just as
I left them.
T was the only way to save them, Sir, he said, to
steal them myself.
" I sat down in my old seat and he stood, as he used
20 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MfiDARD
to do, waiting for orders. I got all the news I wanted
out of him and there is nothing on foot in the city that
he does not know all about. I told him that the first
thing we had to do was to find a house for you and the
children ..."
You are sure/ she said, interrupting him, hesitating
and embarrassed, a flush mounting to her face : " You
are sure, there is no hope still for our our home." Her
voice faltered. "I . . ."
He interrupted her. " Not the least in the world. As
I told you this morning, it has gone with the rest."
He dismissed the subject, curtly, decisively, as he had
done on the boat ; but there was no dismissing it from her
thoughts. She had not forgotten it an instant, since he
had announced the fact to her. " I thought, maybe, that
Tommy ..."
" It was one of the first houses seized and confiscated,"
he interrupted her impatiently, and went on with what
he was saying : " We looked for houses until I was tired
out. Of course, with everybody coming back and want
ing houses, no one I can tell you found the home he had
left, if it was worth anything, for rents have gone up
tremendously! The whole city seems to have been
bought up by sharpers, who hold us in their hands, and
squeeze us. At last Tommy found the place we are
going to, for sixty dollars a month, and as prices go, it
is a bargain."
She looked at the street they were going through. " I
never was in this part of the city before, in my life."
" Nor I either until I came to look at the house. But
we will find living cheap there. Tommy went all over
the neighborhood; outside the barracks there is not an
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 21
American family in it. The barracks is a great draw
back, but that is the reason the house is cheap ; otherwise
it would have been seventy-five dollars a month instead
of sixty. It is worth about twenty. But the soldiers
are troublesome only on pay-day, when ladies and
children have to keep out of the cars and off the street.
I had a time getting the furniture ; everybody was buying
just what I was; beds, tables, chairs, and we had to
pay for the commonest the price we used to pay for the
handsomest. You will find it all in the house, with a
stove and some groceries; about all I could think of.
We shall have to live economically, and educate the
children . . ." and so on and so on.
He unfolded the map of the future before her in the
quiet determination of manner and terse language
characteristic of him, as if it were a campaign to be
fought again. She let her mind follow his with her
characteristic docility, embracing his views, adopting his
conclusions, conceding that the great future was his, the
husband s, the man s affair; the little future of daily life,
hers, the woman s, according to the traditions of con
jugal life in which she had been raised. But with all her
acquiescence of heart and mind, she had presentiments
they were all she ever had to oppose to his clear reason
ing. Somewhat like her freed negro servants she was
not sure of what she was riding into and she could have
murmured with Milly : " My God ! My God ! " without
knowing what she was calling on Him for.
As their hearts had been wrenched from the plantation
where they had passed their lives, so was her heart
wrenched from the home and the part of the city where
she had passed her life, the only home she had ever
22 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
known, to which, for four long years, she had been
hoping to return, and for which her heart was now
calling out with passionate longing.
What did Peace mean to her? What could it mean
but to return to the past as she left it? The past! It
had gone from her as if it had been a spoil of war. And
as she saw it in her woman s way, her future, too, had
been taken away from her as a spoil of war. She be
longed to a period, a childhood, when parents of wealth
secured the future of their children, as they called it.
She was born into a secured future, so was her husband,
so were their children. All of a sudden she was bereft
of it. It had disappeared like a meteor from the sky.
The prospect she had been looking at all her life was
changed ; another and a different one substituted. It was
as if for so also it came to her in her confused imagina
tion as if her husband, the man to whom she had been
married for twelve years, that aristocratic gentleman
with classic features and noble expression of countenance,
should be divorced at a stroke from her; and a coarse,
plain, common man substituted as her lord and master,
the father of her children . . . and she had been no
surer of her husband than she had been of her future.
About two-thirds of the route there was a station where
passengers were transferred to an older, shabbier car,
a stiffer mule and a rougher track. Three uptown cars
were the regulated portion of the second car, and there
fore it never started until well filled. Our family, being
in the last car waited for, found but a poor accommoda
tion of seats at their disposition and had to wedge
themselves in wherever space could be procured by
shoving. An old gentleman with a white beard, who
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 23
looked like the picture of General Lee, was sitting at the
end of the seats; he reached forward and lifted one of
the little girls and placed her beside him. As soon as
she was seated, she lifted the cover of a little basket on
her arm and looking into it with a bright smile, whis
pered : " Kitty, Kitty."
"What s its name?" asked the old gentleman beside
her.
" I just call her Kitty now, because she s a kitten, you
know."
" But what will you call her when she s grown up ? "
" Oh! I don t know, Kitty still, I reckon."
" But you wouldn t like to be called Baby, after you
are grown up, would you ? "
" Oh ! Mama calls me that now, most of the time."
" Yes, but you have a name."
" Oh, yes ! My name is Marian, but they call me Polly,
because I talk so much. Even Papa calls me Polly.
That s Dickey, I mean Richard, over there and that s
Billy with his hat off. His name is William and he s got
a dog tied to that string in his hand. Bob is his name,
because he s got a bob tail. Papa told Billy not to bring
Bob with him, so Billy has to keep him hid under Milly s
dress. That s Cicely, leaning against Mama. She has
chills and fever. ..."
Catching her mother s eye and a warning shake of
the head, she stopped abruptly, but in a moment after,
peeping at her basket and calling, " Kitty," she began
again ; " I hate the city, don t you hate the city ? I
think the city s so funny, don t you? Everything looks
funny in it. Mama looks so funny, and don t Papa
look funny? Billy says if he was Papa, he d be ashamed
24 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
to go about in them clothes." She stopped short,
frightened, and gave a quick look at her father. " I
mean those clothes, I m glad Papa didn t hear that, yes
indeed," with a laugh. " He promised us that he would
punish us next time we used them for those, like niggers,
I mean negroes; and the next time Billy said it, he
punished Billy. Billy don t say it no more now when
Papa can hear him. And he makes us say saw instead of
seen. I think it s funny to say saw for seen, don t you?
But we don t say seen any more." . . .
Again the warning shake of the head stopped her
for a moment.
" Them s Yankees over there. Ain t you glad you
ain t a Yankee? They re so ugly, ain t they? I hate
em. Don t you hate Yankees? Everybody hates
Yankees, I reckon, except Yankees. We re going to live
right by the Yankees, and Papa told us this mornin ,
before he took us off the boat, that he didn t want to
hear no more such talk about hatin Yankees and that
we mustn t go about tellin people how we hated em.
That ladies and gentlemen didn t talk that way, and that
we were ladies and gentlemen and he expected us to be
have like ladies and gentlemen. But Billy says he s
goin to kill every one he sees when he s a man and so
is Dickey
"I would hate to be a Yankee wouldn t you?" she
resumed when her mother took her eye from her. " I
wouldn t be one, and havin people prayin for me."
"Praying for Yankees. Who prays for Yankees?"
asked the old gentlemen.
" Mama makes us pray for em because they re our
enemies and she says we must forgive em too, and
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 25
anyhow, the more we hate em the more we must pray
for em. Pshaw ! I m glad I m not an enemy to have
people forgivin me. Billy says he s goin to train Bob to
bark at em," and she laughed gleefully. " I would like
to live on a steamboat, wouldn t you ? But you ought to
hear the Captain curse! Billy can curse just like him.
Billy says he s goin to be a steamboat captain when
he s a man. But Dickey ain t. Dickey s goin back to
the plantation and I m goin with him. It s too funny in
the city. Have you ever been on the Bayou Belle? I
tell you we had a bully, I mean a nice, time on her." . . .
After the Station, the track ran over a rough country
road with a deep ditch on each side, crossed by ragged-
looking lanes. On the left, beyond the gardens, dairies
and open fields, stretched the outline of the forest in the
distance. To the right, the river could be seen by
glimpses between the great groves of magnolia trees that
surrounded the houses facing it. An exhilarating breeze
blew fresh and strong from that direction. The children
craned their necks to look at the Gascons toiling in their
gardens; whole families, from the grandmother in her
headkerchief, to little children, raking, hoeing, gathering
vegetables and working the great long swinging poles
over the wells.
Even the eyes of the negro servants brightened with
intelligence at the familiar sight of it. Billy, who had
made his way to the platform, could be heard excitedly
imparting his sentiments about cows and gardening to
the driver who seemed to welcome any distraction of his
attention from the hard, dry, belabored back of his mule
no more sensitive to the whip than a painted wooden
back would be.
26 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
The Gascons slipped off one by one as the car went
along. The negroes left in a body at a path that led
to a great brick ruin of a building " the Settlement "
they called it. At last, long after patience had come to
an end, the journey came to its end also. The soldiers
made a bolt for front and rear door ; the other passengers
waiting for them to pass. By the time the American
family were out of the car with their baskets and bundles,
the driver had taken his dram at the corner barroom;
for this flower of civilization which had followed the
track through the length of the city bloomed here also at
the end of it.
" And now," said the father cheerily, " we must foot
it awhile." The sidewalk consisted of a plank fastened
upon the ground along which the party could advance
only in single file. He took the lead ; wife, children and
servants tailing after him, he turning his head and call
ing out to them, his handsome face aglow with animation.
He was never so animated and eager and never looked
so handsome as when leading up to some hard pass,
some breach of disappointment. The plank walk ran in
front of a row of new, brightly painted little cottages,
set so closely together that the lounging men and women
on the steps could talk to one another, as if they were
seated on a long bench. The women appeared only half
dressed in their loose sacques and gowns and with their
hair in disorder. The men were soldiers, but they seemed
more abashed as the little procession passed in front
of them than the women did.
Across the street was the high fence inclosing the
barracks grounds. Soldiers were drilling inside; from
the noise, the place seemed filled with them. Further
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 27
on, towards the river, the officers quarters could be seen
through their surrounding groves of trees. Over it all,
above trees and buildings, above everything but the blue
sky, waved the United States flag.
The head of the little procession, turning sharply to
the right, strode down the opening that served for a
street. Its ruts and holes had been baked by the sun
to stony hardness; but the little feet stumbled along
over it, following the resolute tread in front without
lagging or complaining. Children and negroes looked
around them joyfully for they were in the country, the
dear country again. The low-lying blue heavens over
head, flecked with white clouds, was the country sky;
the bright, hot sun was the country sun they knew so
we^l. The weeds growing rank and wild along the sides
of the road, the droning bees, the mosquito hawks, dart
ing hither and thither among the leaves and flowers, as
well as the breeze that blew fitfully, just as it used to blow
over the fields, all that was the country, not the city.
The sound of chickens, geese and ducks, the smell of
manure; what a glad exchange this was for the long
ride in the car!
Again they were wheeled abruptly, and led alongside
an old, swaying fence, with an inside hedge of wild
orange whose branches touched the heads of the taller
ones among them. At a gate in this fence, stood a little
bare-footed boy, who at sight of them, darted away,
screaming at the top of his voice : " Madame Joachim !
Madame Joachim ! " And from the end of the street
at once, a stout woman hurried forward, her wide blouse
volante of calico, flying out behind her, showing her
fat feet in white stockings and carpet slippers. Wide as
28 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
the blouse volante was, it fell only comfortably over
the rotund parts of her body. Her well oiled curling
black hair, drawn back tightly from her swarthy face,
glistened in the sun, and her face, as far as it could be
seen, wore a smile. She carried a great bunch of keys
and after shaking hands all around selected the largest
key a ponderous iron one unlocked the gate, threw
it open, and stood aside for the family to enter their new
.home. XThe house also had suffered a revolution in
fortune. Its paint hung upon it in rags, showing the
naked wood beneath. The gallery was hidden by the
vines that hung over it from the roof, the accumulated
luxuriance of years; parterres and paths in the garden
were grown together in a tangle of vines and shrubs.
Over the outside of the rotting cistern, green moss fol
lowed the line of trickling water.
Madame Joachim, in spite of her size, lightly mounted
the steps of the gallery ahead of the newcomers, and
taking another monstrous key, unlocked the central one
of a row of green batten windows, and with a smaller
key, the glass door inside; and again, with a polite
gesture, motioned the family to enter before her.
Without a word, they did so and stood in the dim
interior while she went from room to room on either
side, opening the glass windows and heavy green shut
ters. The clanging of the heavy iron hooks as she let
them drop was the only sound heard until all were opened.
The bright day illuminated a room at the back and two
on each side. In each stood a small allotment of
furniture.
" This," said Madame Joachim, waving her hand with
pride to the glistening whitewashed walls and freshly
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 29
black-painted mantelpiece, " this, as you see, is like new;
the rest," with a shrug of the shoulders, " is according
to nature."
She led the way out to the back gallery. Across a
large yard, shaded with a fine wild cherry tree, stood a
long, low cabin; the kitchen and servants rooms. The
fence here was lined with a row of old and gnarled fig
trees. " St. Medard," said Madame Joachim, pointing
to a small steeple that dominated the sky here, as the
flag did in front. Descending the steps and crossing the
yard, she opened the doors of the kitchen building, leav
ing each key carefully in its keyhole as she had done in
the house.
The little group, instead of following her, remained
on the gallery, silent and still; the husband, forgetting
to be animated, the wife forgetting to look at his face,
the children imitating her, looking ahead of them at
nothing. The clear voice of a mocking bird in some
near tree alone broke the silence. They were standing
as she had left them when Madame, returning across the
yard, reached the steps. There, springing forward, she
exclaimed : " But that poor child has a chill ! "
It was so. Cicely, the sickly one, was having a chill,
her chill as the children called it. She and every one else
had forgotten it in the excitement of the moment, but
true to the day and hour as it had been for three months
past, it had not forgotten her. The child was clinching
her teeth and hands tight to keep them from shivering,
but her poor little thin face was ashen, her lips blue and
trembling.
Madame Joachim picked her up like a baby and with
her soft swift walk carried her to the nearest bed,
30 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
Cicely s face pressing into the great fat breast as into
a soft pillow. When she was laid on the bed it was
discovered she was crying; she who never cried, whom
her Papa always called his Marshal Ney, because she was
the bravest of the brave. The little family clustered
around her in consternation; most of them feeling like
crying too. It was as if this sorrow and disappointment
were all of a sudden too much to bear. And whereas,
on the plantation, the youngest child would have known
what to do for a chill, now they stood as helpless as if
they had never seen the miserable thing before.
It was Madame Joachim who hunted up sheets and
spread them over the bare mattress, who undressed the
child, and eased a pillow under her head. Then, slipping
to the back gallery, and running her practised eye along
the fence and selecting a certain hole, she called out in
quick, sharp Creole patois : " Cribiche, my son, run fast,
get some orange leaves and tell Joachim to make some
tisane, as quick as he can, and you bring it ; Courri vile,
mo di toi"
When the tisane came, she gave it herself to Cicely,
petting and comforting her, with the sweetest, softest
voice in the world. " Never mind, never mind, bah !
What is a chill! Everybody has chills! Now, one more
cup, eh ! There, there, see how good it tastes ! By and
by, you will take another cup, and you will sweat, and
when you sweat, you know, you are most over it, and
you will shut your eyes, and you will go to sleep, and
when you wake, it will be all gone." She spoke in the
soft singsong English of the Creole who has learned the
language by ear. The little one obediently closed her
eyes, and listening to the mocking bird, and hearing the
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 31
cowbells and the faint droning of the insects outside, fell
into the delusion that she was again on the plantation;
delusions are the saving grace of chills.
Madame Joachim, with her finger on her lip, stepped
softly out of the room, and, as she never forgot anything,
went to the kitchen to see what was needed there. Milly
and her daughters, having kicked off shoes and stockings
and some of their stupidity with them, were moving
about with something like a servant s activity. A fire
had been made in the new stove, water put on to boil, but
like all country cooks, when they do not know what else
to do, Milly was proceeding to make biscuits.
" But your soup, my good woman," exclaimed Madame
Joachim, amazed at such a want of sense, " put on your
soup! don t you see the soup meat there on the table?
And the loaf of bread? Get your rice ready to boil!
parch your coffee ! " She put on the soup pot herself,
poured in water, added the soup meat and looked around.
"Ah! The soup vegetables! Cribiche, my son!" she
called out of the window, toward the fence, " Cribiche !
run quick over there to Monsieur le Cure and ask him
for some onion and some parsley and some carrot for
the soup pot ! Run quick, I see him in the garden now ! "
Cribiche, evidently did not like this commission. It
was one thing going to the blacksmith s who had nothing
against him and another going to the priest. Joachim
feared neither God nor devil, it is true, when he was
angry, which he was not now, but the priest . . .
Cribiche had his reasons for avoiding him. " But will
you go when I tell you," impatiently called Madame
Joachim looking out of the window, " or " her threat
was vague but effective. Cribiche at once crossed the
32 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
street to the priest s garden where Pere Phileas was hard
at work, his cassock twisted up high around his waist.
Behind the church was the priest s habitation, for it
could not be called a house; and behind the house was
the vacant ground which he, by no better right than
squatter sovereignty, had appropriated for his garden.
He did not raise his head but remained bending over his
weeds until Cribiche came up close to him, and he would
not hear what he was saying until he came very close;
then, like a loosened spring, he shot up in the air, seized
Cribiche with his left hand, boxed him soundly with his
right, and shook him until the boy s clothes cracked.
" Is this the way you pull up my weeds ? Is this the
way you come straight back when I tell you? Is this
the way you think you can fool me ? "
Rough as he was, Joachim with his strap was worse,
this was all the consolation Cribiche had. He submitted
without a struggle and without an answer, since both were
useless. He saw, in truth, that he was himself in fault,
he should not have come so near, too near to dodge or
run ; the next time, he swore to himself, he would know
better.
When the priest heard the request, he at once went
to work to comply with it, and generously, although it
was only with parsley, onions, and carrots and a bit of
thyme which Madame Joachim had forgotten to ask for.
It is* so pleasant to give that it is a wonder people do not
more generally yield themselves up to this form of self-
indulgence. As for poor old Pere Phileas, he was a very
sybarite about giving. His homely, honest face beamed
as his knotted fingers pulled up carrots and onions and
picked the parsley and thyme. And as he lost no occasion
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 3 3
of advancing the merits of God with such a partisan of
the devil as Cribiche, he spoke to him thus, before hand
ing him the bouquet for the soup (who would ever sup
pose that only a moment before he had been cuffing and
shaking him?) :
" You see, my son, how good God is ! He sends the
friend to those who need one, and he sends the good
deed to those who need that; to those who can bestow
nothing else, good deeds, my child, are the picayunes of
the poor. We are never too poor to give one of them
even if we have not a cent in the pocket. The devil
can always provide us with money, but it is only God
who can provide us with a good deed. And even when
one has money, one is always glad to have a friend as
one is glad to have the moon of dark nights."
Cribiche showed as much appreciation for moral lec
tures as a snapping turtle for favors bestowed upon his
back; and as a snapping turtle under a disagreeable
ordeal advances his head out of his shell from time to
time to peep with his little shrewd eyes and see if the
way is clear, so did Cribiche peep from under his obstinate
stolidity and dart his shrewd little glances around.
The priest accompanied him to the gate and held him
by the shoulder, while he added affectionately and gently :
" And now when you see the fruit of our labors, my son,
are you not glad that you did even a small portion of the
work here? See, we can give the vegetables needed for
the soup of a neighbor a stranger whom we do not
know, who does not know us. Think ! Yesterday, that
old house was vacant, silent; today, it is filled with
people; and just as we transplant a vegetable from one
garden to another, the good God has transplanted our
34 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
new neighbors here, to St. Medard, from whence, we
know not, and the old house becomes an object of our
good will and friendly services. And we will grow
together, henceforth, like plants in the same plot. The
difference, the difference, my child, always think of the
difference between yesterday and today, . . . and fear
and love God, for He alone accomplishes what we think
we do in the way of good, as the devil alone accomplishes
what is evil, and makes us evil. And be very careful that
the devil does not put you up to some mischief to our
new neighbors. If he tries to, put him behind you, or
you will feel Joachim s strap. Ah! your friend, the
devil, never saves you from that, you know. He can
lead you into temptation but he cannot save you from the
punishment . . . And do not forget to be in time to
ring the Angelus."
But Cicely s chill proved to be not her chill, the one
the family had grown accustomed to, that came and went
like an easy tempered conqueror. A different and a
savage enemy indeed, now invaded her little body. It
would not loose its grasp upon her ; and, when the fever
came, it raged like a conflagration, consuming remedies
as if they were tinder. When called, her face brightened
in response and she strove to raise her head.
" Not yet, not yet, my child " coaxed the mother
tenderly, bending over her, " stay in bed a little longer
and then you can get up and dress and help us."
" Cicely loves to work," she explained to Madame
Joachim. " She never complains and never gives up, and
as soon as her fever is off she is as well as ever, eh,
Cicely? . . . For three years she has had chills and
fever. I may say she is never without them. Oh, yes!
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 35
Sometimes we were able to break them and she would
be free, but only for a little while. They always came
back, they were sure to come back in the Summer. But
never mind ! it will soon be over for the day, eh, Cicely !
she added cheerily and turned to her work again. She
had taken off her unnatural costume and wore her short
homespun gown once more.
" Cribiche has never been sick in his life," answered
Madame Joachim, following her around and working
as busily as she. " We have not much sickness down
here, a little fever sometimes, and sometimes chills and
fever. Oh! if Doctor Botot had to live from his prac
tice," dragging the physician into her conversation by
the hair of his head, " he would not live down here. No !
he would go uptown among the rich Americans. It is
curious, how the rich are always sick. But Botot is a
good doctor, why shouldn t I know it ? When he comes to
a sick one, the first thing he says is : Where is Madame
Joachim ? Send for Madame Joachim/ He lives on the
levee in that fine house below the barracks. Oh! I
guarantee, he lives with his mother-in-law, old Madame
Sereno. She says she is poor, but don t you believe her ;
she is rich, very rich, as Doctor Botot knows. He
married her daughter, en secondes noces. The first time
he married the daughter of old Beaume, old Beaume
tranquille, we used to call him, the pharmacien on Eng-
hien Street. Botot thought he had money, but he made
a mistake, old Beaume did not collect his debts, or that is
what they said," shrugging her shoulders; "anyhow he
did not leave any money, and when Botot became a
widower he married Mademoiselle Marie Sereno. She
is the eldest daughter; Mademoiselle Amelie is the
36 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
youngest. Mademoiselle Marie had not much sense;
everybody thought she was going into the convent, that
it was her vocation. Bah! it is well to say that when
one wants an excuse. She is dead now, and the doctor
is a widower, but not for long, I promise you. Some
people believe that chills and fever won t fool you. Don t
you believe that. Chills and fever always fool you if you
don t cure them. Botot is a good doctor, but not as
good a doctor as he thinks he is. It is always his worst
cases that he cures ; as he tells about them. When people
die, he says nothing was the matter only they did not take
his medicines. But he knows how to cure chills and
fever. I have seen him cure them. He is called into the
barracks sometimes and it is well for the sick that he is,
for the doctor there looks as much like a doctor as
Joachim like a priest. It is the season of the year to
cure chills and fever."
" They generally go away in the Winter," said Mrs.
Talbot.
" Go away ! Yes ! But, my God ! They come back again ;
if you are there for them to come back to. Sometimes
you are not there. To believe what Botot says, and to
believe what you know, are cats of a different color. But
if he says he can cure chills and fever, you can believe
that. . . . You can see him pass here any time, going
to church. He goes to church every day, he is very pious.
Mademoiselle Marie married him on account of his piety.
She also was very pious. You should see him praying in
church ! When he puts on his bon St. Joseph air, bon
St. Joseph vas ! " . . .
" He is very rich," Madame Joachim resumed to
break the silence, " that is in prospect. Mademoiselle
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 37
Amelia it is, who will go into the convent. Oh, no!
She will not get married . . . She will not meet a doctor
as pious as she is. No, no, she will go into the convent,
Botot will lead her there himself. And he will fasten
the black veil on her, himself, if she wishes. You ask
him if Madame Sereno is rich, he will shrug his
shoulders. He will say: Who is rich after a war?
But listen to me, old Madame Sereno is rich ; she did not
lose a cent by the war, not even her niggers. Look at
them, they are with her still. Lose her money ! Tra, la, la,
the geese in the street know better than that. Other
people did but she did not. Not that the Yankees did not
find out she was rich; they found out she was rich,
just as Botot found out she was rich. Did she go to
France? No. Did she hide and pretend she had gone?
No. She sent for Louis, her man of affairs : Louis/ she
said, see this paper, the Yankees have sent me to sign
... they will come for it in three days/ Then she
showed him some money, not paper money, but gold, gold,
I tell you. You know, Louis, I could sign this paper;
I could take this " host " " , Madame Joachim called it.
It is no sin to lie to robbers, but I don t want to
be bothered. Here, take this paper and I give you the
money; but, you understand me, eh? If I am bothered,
I will sign the paper, I will take the host, and I will get
absolution for it ; but you Madame Sereno raised her
finger, and shook it at Louis you will lose your
place. I will give it to Simon. Simon is not a
fool. Simon, he was like the tooth-ache to Louis, and
that is the way Madame Sereno did, and kept her money
and property. God knows if it is true ; but that is what
I heard. I heard too that it was not Louis but an
38 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. M&DARD
American, she sent for. But how did Louis make so
much money then ? Doctor Botot is a good doctor. His
father was a good doctor for children. Only he was
not a doctor but a leecher. They used to send for him
and his leeches all over the city." And Madame Joachim
with her fingers imitated how leeches were worked into
a soft ball of clay. " I have bought leeches from him
often, ..." etc., etc. She talked on as unremittingly
as she worked.
At last, the day, that in the morning lay like an
unknown coast before the family, drew to a close, and
evening began to enfold it. But the future that the
father had planned, that the family was to enter upon at
once, the very next day, had to be put off. At one time,
it seemed indeed as if the family would enter it with one
member missing. Cicely did not respond to her name;
she was found to be, not asleep, but in a stupor; she
could not be aroused. Cribiche had to be summoned
from ringing the Angelus to run for the doctor.
Ah! Now it was seen that there was but one terror
in life, only one; and it came from no earthly enemy
. . . that there was but one loss that counted in the
world . . . but one thing God could grant that was
worth praying for!
The children would creep on tip-toe to the door and
peep through at Cicely lying delirious, with half -opened
eyes. " Is the fever going down, Mama ? " they would
whisper, and when she would shake her head, they would
creep softly away, more and more frightened by the look
on her face. They had seen her lose battles, armies, a
fortune, a home, but they had never before seen her lose
a child.
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 39
In her delirium, Cicely babbled about the plantation;
laughing and laughing over her drolleries.
" Merciful God ! " thought the mother sitting beside
her. " What had she there to laugh over ? Sick, sick,
sick, all the time, hardly a day, never a week without
fever . . . The doctor has no hope, I could see
it ... She has fought and fought, but her strength
is exhausted. She has no chance ! She is doomed ! Too
late! too late! . . . Perhaps a month ago! . . ."
She would slip her hand under the sheet to feel the
burning body, she would pass cooling cloths over face
and hands ..." Nothing but skin and bones "...
How she yearned over the emaciated body ! " Her poor
little hands, her poor little hands like bird claws." She
laid her cheek upon them and the tears gushed from her
eyes she who had boasted, that she never would or
could give up hope for a child of hers !
Her heart rose up in passionate revolt and through her
mind raced a mob of thoughts as senseless as Cicely s
delirium.
" I thought, I thought, when the war was over, and
peace came, when we could get back to our home and
get a doctor, I thought we would then be safe. . . .
Would to God we were back on the plantation ! Would
to God the war was still going on! Would to God I
were still there, in that lonely, gloomy place all by my
self ; for there I could still hope, I had still something to
look forward to ... night after night watching and
nursing my child . . . longing for daylight just to
see her clearly again; but never losing courage . . .
praying that God would work a miracle and send a
doctor down the Bayou when I knew no doctor could
40 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
come ; running to the window to listen, sure that I heard
a skiff and that it was bringing a doctor . . . hearing
only the rippling of the water under the gunwales that
sounded sometimes like the whining of a child in
pain . . . God did not send a doctor, but he heard
my prayers. He cured my child. He had to cure her,
for we had no medicines to give her ! There, her fever
always went away at last ! "
On the other side of the bed sat her husband; his
face graver and sterner than ever.
" He should not have taken us to that fever-stricken
place ! " Her gentle thoughts, changed into furies by her
grief, knew no bounds in their pitiless course. " He
should not have kept us there ! He knew it was a swamp !
He knew it was unhealthy! He knew it, he knew it!
Other men could send their families into healthy refuges.
Other men could send them to Europe ! "
To Europe! She had forgotten the scorn and con
tempt she once poured upon those patriots who preferred
for their children the easy comfort of Europe to the
heroic hardships of war; upon the poor-spirited women
who could accept the despicable role of flying from
danger and from their husbands, of abandoning their
country fighting for its life, armies weltering in their
blood on the battlefield !
" He said the war would not last ! It would soon
be over! And we would all be home again. Ah! he
always imagines that what he thinks is going to happen !
He thought it was our duty to stay and look after the
negroes! He could think of them; he could not think
of us! Duty! Duty! Duty is his God! And it costs us
the life of our child! . . . She was always delicate
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 41
and frail but the prettiest and brightest of them all!
When she was born, I felt so happy! I never had
thought that earth held such happiness as I felt
then! . . . And when he came to me, he made me
feel so proud ! I would not have changed places with the
greatest queen on earth! "
And now the little, bare, uncomfortable room in St.
Medard changed to the great, luxurious, dimly lighted
chamber, where in a lace curtained bed, she lay with
Cicely at her side. She heard again the soft tread of her
husband over the carpet, . . . was it his tread, or the
beating of her heart she heard ? She lifted her eyelids,
he was there, he was there bending over her .
Cicely had ceased her delirious babbling, a gentle calm
had fallen over the room, the shaded candle in the corner
made a soothing twilight. The long black hours passed,
holding the suspensive balance even. The gray dawn
came, the light of day fell over the bed. "Cicely!
Cicely ! " her father laid his hand on her cooling forehead
and called her. The good little thing, who had never
known what it was to be disobedient or hold back when
she heard her father calling, was seen to strive to answer,
but she could not. " Cicely! Cicely! " She heard him,
she was wanted, she could not answer. Her heart
strained and strained, her thin breast lifted, fell and
lifted . . . a^ last a faint moan came through her lips
and her eyes opened, she tried to smile.
" Doctor Botot ! Doctor Botot," exclaimed Madame
Joachim. " Did I not tell you that there was no better
doctor in the city for fevers than Doctor Botot? "
" Madame Joachim," said the doctor later. " Well, if
you want a good nurse, you send for Madame Joachim.
42 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
Joachim/ he added, " Joachim looks like a pirate, but
if you ever want good Spanish wine, you send to
Joachim."
Ah! the future could begin now whenever it chose.
The land, that the day before lay like an unknown shore
before them, they were in it now, and what a beautiful
land it was!
The mother and all the children followed the doctor,
as captives a deliverer, surrounding him as he stood on
the front gallery, their faces aglow with gratitude and
admiration. To a question the mother answered lightly,
and pleasantly. " Oh ! where we were living, on the
plantation, it was so far from any doctor that we had
to learn to doctor ourselves. It took a day to get to the
nearest town, and of course a day to return, and then as
likely as not, when our messenger got there, the doctor
would be away, a day s journey off somewhere. But
we had doctor s books and we followed their directions,
that is so long as we had medicines, but we got entirely
out of medicine." And here she laughed as at a humor
ous recollection. " When the quinine gave out we had to
use willow bark tea. It was as bitter as quinine anyway
and at first it seemed to do Cicely a great deal of good.
And there was an old Indian woman doctor ; the Indians
were our nearest neighbors, they lived on a mound in the
swamp. We sent for her to come every now and then.
She brought her herbs with her, and sometimes they did
Cicely a great deal of good too."
" Why did you not come to the city? " asked the doctor.
" To the city ! But it was in the hands of the enemy ! "
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. " And you were
not in the hands of the enemy, eh? on the plantation? "
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 43
" It was the swamps all around that gave us chills and
fever," she replied simply.
"You had the chills and fever there too?"
" Oh, yes ! all of us had them, and sometimes," with
a smile, " we all had them at the same time. My husband
said, when we went there, that the enemy would never
find us and they did not until last year ... we were
so far away, we could not get letters, we could not get
newspapers ..."
" But you could get the chills there," the doctor inter
rupted facetiously.
" Oh, yes ! " with a decided affirmation of the head.
"And plenty of food?"
" Oh, no ! at least not at the end. Food became very
scarce then. And after the overflow, we had nothing
but corn bread and some fat meat. All the cattle, you
know, were drowned."
"You were overflowed?"
" Oh, yes ! Twice, two years in succession. Once for
six weeks. When our people cut Grand Levee, you
know, to prevent the advance of the enemy, or their
retreat, one or the other, I don t know which. All of
our section of the country went under water then."
" Yes, yes."
" We had food up to that time. But one day, a gunboat
passed, that is a steamboat with cannon and soldiers
on it. We believe it must have got into our Bayou acci
dentally, for no one in that part of the country would
have piloted them "...
" And after that you had no food? "
" No, the soldiers threw our meal and meat in the
Bayou."
44 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
" And Cicely was sick then ? "
" She had just had a hard chill ; it was her day to
have it." She paused and as the doctor said nothing,
she continued : " We fished up some of the meat out of
the Bayou as soon as their backs were turned but after a
little while we could not eat it. The soaking in the water
spoiled it. It was not very well cured anyway. We
cured it ourselves but we did not have salt enough, salt
was very scarce." . . .
The doctor was a handsome man and if nearly as old
as his mother-in-law as Madame Joachim said, he did not
show his age, unless Madame Sereno was in the
neighborhood of forty-five. His short curling black hair
and beard, his teeth and eyes were all favorable to his
appearance; and if his dark complexion showed lines,
they were still far from being wrinkles. He had a
genial voice, his linen was fine, his broadcloth well made,
his watchchain was massive with a great seal ring and a
number of trinkets dangling from the loose end over his
waistcoat.
" Well, keep her quiet," he admonished, " in
bed" . . .
" That," interrupted the mother, hastily, " we will
never be able to do. Even her father cannot make Cicely
keep in bed after the fever and chill are over."
And all the children who were standing around listen
ing, shook their heads and murmured their doubts about
Cicely s staying in bed. " She must stay in bed now,"
ordered the doctor decisively. Turning around, he went
back to Cicely in bed and repeated to her : " She must
stay in bed now and when Monsieur le Chill comes again,
he will find us in bed to receive him, eh, Cicely? and
A JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY 45
we will arrange it so that he will not come so often,
and then he will not come at all. We know how to get
rid of an importunate visitor, eh, Cicely?" He looked
down upon her with what Madame Joachim called his
" bon St. Joseph " air and Cicely gave in to it, as his
wife had done, and his mother-in-law and sister-in-law,
and his little patients at the convent gave in to it; all
the nervous irritability of her long, wearying illness,
disappearing from her thin peaked, wan little face.
As he walked back to the gallery, his face for a moment
looked somber.
" As my husband says," the mother apologized hastily,
" it is the fortunes of war."
" There are no fortunes of war, Madame," he retorted
sharply. " There are no fortunes of war for women
and children. It is all misfortunes for them, they are
the sufferers ; and their war goes on after the peace, they
will be still suffering for it, when the war is forgotten."
He stopped abruptly but the children did not hear him,
they had stayed with Cicely.
" Well, you will give her good food now and plenty of
it." He told her what to get and where to buy it, the
meat from this one, the bread from that one, the milk
" Get your milk from Madame San Antonio, yes, from
Madame San Antonio, I will tell her about it."
" We must send them at once to school " the mother
pursued the important thought in her mind " the boys
to the public school, we think . . . "
" To the public school ! No, no ! you cannot send them
to the public school now, the public schools are de
moralized. The niggers go to our public schools now.
No, no, you send them to my friend Badeau. Monsieur
46 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
le Colonel Badeau, an old officer in the French army.
He teaches well and he maintains discipline. His father
was an officer under the great Napoleon, not the little
one, and his son believes in the discipline of le petit
Caporal. You ask him about le petit Caporal and
you will hear some good stories. I will see Badeau,
myself for you. The little girls will go to the convent,
of course."
" Oh, no ! We are Protestants, you know."
" But that makes no difference. Protestants can go
to a convent as well as Catholics. A convent is the best
place to educate little girls in and those ladies of the
Ursulines ..."
" Oh, I am sure they educate perfectly, but my husband
thinks ..."
" Oh, well ! I understand," he now interrupted her,
" then you must send them to Mademoiselle Mimi,
Mademoiselle Mimi Pinseau, s-e-a-u; not Pinson, s-o-n;
ha, ha, ha.
" Mimi Pinson est une blonde,
Une blonde que Von connait,
he quoted. " Mademoiselle Mimi is the teacher for you.
She has a school, just there," pointing in the direction
of the church. " You go to Mademoiselle Mimi, no, no,
I will go to her myself and tell her to come to you."
He descended the steps of the gallery and walked down
the garden path murmuring to himself :
" C est I etui d une perle fine,
La robe de Mimi Pinson . . ."
MADEMOISELLE MIMI
MADEMOISELLE MIMI lost no time in going to the
Americans who, according to Doctor Botot, might need
her services; who, she hoped, would need them in some
infinitesimal fraction of a degree as much as she needed
their money. She walked along hurriedly as if the
opportunity were a car she had to catch ; and not a slow
mule car that jogged by every fifteen minutes, but a
steam train that would flash past out of her sight, never
perhaps to be seen again. As she went through the lane,
the weeds looked so green, their flowers so saucy, the
darting butterflies and bees so gay, the sun so bright,
with the breeze blowing from the river with such ex
hilarating freshness, that she could not but argue well
from such auspices. However, when there was some
thing for her to do and a few extra dimes to be made,
she cared for auspices, favorable or unfavorable, as
little as did Mimi Pinson. Thunder, lightning, and rain
would have been just the same to her as flowers, butter
flies, and a blue sky, if at the end of the lane was to be
found a patron with little girls to teach. Her fingers
ran over the scales and exercises, they were always
playing in imagination while her mind ran hurriedly over
all she could teach the said little girls, the little girls of a
lady and requiring more in the way of education than
those of her Gascon clients. English and French, music,
solfege, history, geography, arithmetic, grammar, litera-
47
48 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
ture, synonyms, mythology, cosmography, drawing, em
broidery, and marking in cross stitch, even. In fact there
was stored away in her mind a beautiful and expensive
education ; everything had been bought for it that money
could buy. Some of the articles, it is true, like some of
the dresses and finery in her armoires, never had been
used or at least worn only once or twice, but they were
there, and what she had learned she could teach. To
go over her curriculum would be nothing more to her
than going through the well learned steps of a quadrille.
And she could teach dancing too, for she had learned also
that accomplishment so valueless to an ugly woman;
for dancing is like marriage, a lady must be invited
thereto, and what beau leads out an ugly partner unless
^she be rich? And unfortunately, Mademoiselle Mimi
had become poor at the very time when her money, so
to speak, might have floated her ugliness into society.
These thoughts she spoke quite frankly to Mrs. Talbot
when their scholastic arrangements had been made, for
she was unused to business methods and ignorant of the
profits of reserve if not of misinformation.
The mother, quite as open on her part, went back to
her usual starting point, her recent life on the isolated
plantation in order properly to introduce her husband s
ideas about the education of women, or ladies, as she
called them.
" He has a perfect horror of learned ladies, * blue
stockings who quote Latin and Greek and talk algebra
and astronomy. They are to him, simply, ladies with
big feet. He likes charming ladies, those who are good
looking, who dress well, have exquisite manners, who
talk well, who have tact. Oh! he is most particular
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 49
about tact and talking well. He cannot stand stupid
ladies. Those who have no tact and cannot talk well,
they are monsters to him. The woman who always says
the right thing, and does the right thing, and is always
dressed the right way, neither too much nor too little,
. . . that is his ideal for his daughters. And it seems,
he met just such women when he came to New Orleans
from Virginia, when he was a young man fresh from
the University. He often talks about them."
" The father proposes, but God disposes," quoted
Mademoiselle Mimi. " My father too had an ideal like
that, but ..." she shrugged her shoulders signifi
cantly.
Mrs. Talbot looked at her in some confusion, as over
a lack of tact on her own part.
Mademoiselle Mimi was not, it must be confessed, the
realization of an ambitious father s dream for a
daughter. She had not a desirable feature in her face,
which to begin with, was slightly crusted with the heat,
that kept it all Summer inflamed and red. Her eyes were
light, round and protuberant ; her hair curled, it is true,
but it was thin and scant over the temples where it was
most needed, for they were unduly high. Her mouth,
like her eyes, was protuberant, and the teeth that might
have beautified it were defective and patched with gold
in all directions. This, instead of what should have
been according to physiologists and physiognomists
a long thin, oval face with tender eyes and the soft
luxuriant hair of a Saint Cecilia, for instance, with a
figure to correspond instead of the one she had with
its inelegant appearance of being long-waisted and short-
legged at the same time. Alas!
50 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. M&DARD
It would seem absurd, even to suggest the truth, that
Mademoiselle Mimi s face, notwithstanding all the
negative votes cast as it were against it, was on the whole
agreeable and winning, and stranger still, that, far as
she evidently was removed from the charming conversa
tionalists of Mr. Talbot s memory, she was, in her way,
an interesting talker; for she did not talk to please, a
drawback to the charm of the above-mentioned lady con
versationalists, any more than she ate to please, and
would have been as incapable of telling a lie to adorn her
conversation as of telling one to a stranger asking the
way of her.
It was Mrs. Talbot s amiable delusion that all im
poverished ladies and gentlemen were in the same box
with her husband and herself; that is that their losses
came through the fortunes of war as she docilely called
the process. And as she seldom reflected when her heart
was moved and as it was moved now in Mademoiselle
Mimi s direction, she assumed this delusion in her talk,
as a matter of course. It produced an instant disclaimer
from Mademoiselle Mimi. " Oh, no ! You must not
think that! We have no such good luck! There is
nothing to be proud of in the way we lost our money!
We, simply spent all we had! Threw it away in good
eating, good drinking, good living, enjoying ourselves!
Dissipated it, in truth and we have not been able to make
any more, that is all. We are like the cigale: Nous
avons chante tout I etc, et nous travaillons maintenant."
" Oh ! Oh ! " began Mrs. Talbot again in con
fusion . . .
" No ! No ! It was very polite of you on the contrary,"
interrupted Mademoiselle Mimi, " to assume that we
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 51
were distinguished patriots. If you had lived here a
little longer, any one would have told you that our
poverty antedated the war by a good many years. We
came down here not yesterday, but before the war to take
refuge from our past ; this is our Terre aux Lepreux/
alluding to the old custom of forcing all lepers to live
in one definite locality which became in time named
after them.
There was not much in Mademoiselle Mimi s life that
was not known to her neighbors, and that her new
friend did not find out later from Madame Joachim
and the doctor, and the priest and Cribiche . . . All
knew something and each one was willing to make
common property of individual collections from hearsay,
observation and deduction. The history of St. Medard
himself was not better known.
Mademoiselle Mimi, as all were glad to proclaim on
all occasions supported her father who had dissipated his
own and his wife s fortune and thus impoverished the
daughter. She supported him by teaching anything she
knew to any scholar she could get, and as the expression
went, she " held " the organ in the church. But like the
priest she was always the last paid creditor in the parish
and generally the worst paid for her services; and like
him, unfortunately, too often she had to accept pro
visions, "nature" as it was naively called, for legal
tender.
Madame Joachim s ultimate reference and repository,
God alone knew how much or how little Mademoiselle
Mimi made for the Gascons in the parish of St. Medard
are no more bigots for truth than Gascons elsewhere;
but, as no one did tell, the truth may be looked for any-
52 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
where in the long medium between poor pay and none
at all.
Monsieur Pinseau had been celebrated in his day as a
beau, a wit, a gourmet, a farceur, as everything, in short,
that passed for charming in the high society not only of
New Orleans, but any metropolis of fashion, elegance
and good living. Now, he was briefly described as a
notorious spendthrift, an old roue, who deserved all
the punishment he had received as just penalty for his
past sins. He had not married young, he had been too
much of a beau for that. The real beau, like the real
belle, cares little for marriage; they are lovers of the
fragrance of the flower, not of the flower itself, and
when either gets married, it is for considerations, one
\night say, rather than desires. Monsieur Pinseau made
a most considerate marriage, one that showed a sound
business ability, such as few believed he possessed. A
great folly had been expected of him with all sorts of
ineligible ladies; from a pretty, unknown girl met by
chance, to a pretty ballet girl met by appointment. But
" nenni," as Madame Joachim said, " he had another dog
to whip when it came to marriage." He put folly aside
before this serious question and married his second
cousin, who was known as the richest heiress in
Louisiana, and the plainest. Heiresses do not marry
for money, and it is they who commit a folly when they
marry for love, as the world knows. And the plainer
of feature an heiress is, the plainer of intellect, the more
surely is she apt to rely upon that unreliable adviser the
heart. Whatever were Monsieur Pinseau s feelings in
regard to her, she loved him . . . and hence her
suffering.
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 53
When his bride s virgin fortune was placed in his
hands, Monsieur Pinseau, with the new accession of
means, obtained such an accession of pleasure, that from
his own point of view, his marriage might have been
called a happy one. Particularly, as before this event
he had had moments of unhappiness over the certainty
of his happiness.
But Madame Pinseau, poor Madame Pinseau, as all
authorities call her, when the glamor of her situation
had worn away sufficiently to allow her the natural use
of her eyes, grew wan and ill-tempered, not only for
want of love but from seeing her money spent with such
open-handed prodigality. Money had been the distinc
tion of her family for generations; it was their rock,
their fortress, their sure refuge in every time of trouble.
When death carried away in due season the reigning
head of the family, it was always a consolation to the
survivors to feel that the money still lived, that it was
left, the family fortune, intact. And Madame Pinseau,
the heiress of it, to whom it had come safely, un-
diminished, in all the rounded perfection of its rare
golden bloom she knew as perhaps no one could know
better that a woman s money is " her greatest ornament,
and priceless boon in life " ; that, as it has also been poetic-
expressed in regard to her innocence, once gone, no
repentance ever brought it back. Innocence ! She knew
that the Church and Society did accept spurious inno
cence, but spurious money, or repentance in lieu of the
stamped coin! Never.
What Providence should have done, according to
Madame Joachim, was to despatch Monsieur Pinseau
and let Madame live. Unfortunately, Monsieur Pinseau
54 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
was strong and hearty; his wife, nervous, hysterical,
sickly ; always in the hands of her physician or when not
in his hands, in the hands of her priest. And beyond
an accident, Providence seems to have no legitimate way
of getting rid of a man of strong constitution; nor save
by a miracle, of preserving the life of a weak one. As
Madame Joachim complained with bitterness, after kill
ing his wife, Monsieur Pinseau was rewarded by having
another woman, an angel, to support him. And the
prospect was that he would live upon her until she was as
old as he was now, which must be sixty or past. And,
unfortunately, although he was an invalid, and in
capacitated from work, yet he had no suffering to com
plain of, that is as far as any one knew, for it was
notorious that he never complained of his gout. " But
thank God ! " said Madame Joachim, " Mademoiselle
Mimi is as strong as he used to be, and has more sense
than he ever had."
Ladies, even the best of them and the most devout,
have a way of avoiding confession to a priest who knows
them. They say there are reasons why a stranger, or
at least not a familiar or an intimate of the family,
makes a better confessor. Mademoiselle Mimi was not
of this kind. When she came into the parish of St.
Medard, she accepted the church and the priest just as
she accepted the little house that had been placed at her
disposal for a home. Pere Phileas, therefore, was speak
ing with the authority of one who has the means of
knowing to a certainty whereof he spoke, when in his
hard, rough, peasant French he told his flock that al
though they talked so surely of one another s affairs, and
judged one another with such certainty, and said what
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 55
God ought to do and ought not to do, that they only
knew of life what they could see with their little,
miserable, cunning, human eyes ; and what they saw of it
was little better than what their corn and cabbages saw
of it. But God above saw what life really was. And he
would compare what God saw of some of the characters
of that little parish, that poor little humble St. Medard,
where there had not been found money enough in twenty
years to paint the inside of the church, he would com
pare such characters, " God s illustrations of life," he
called them, with the illustrations that were drawn by the
artists of great journals, in which the rich gifts of life:
youth, beauty, health, strength, talent, sentiment, piety
. . . were disposed of in such a way, that a simple
reader might suppose that all these prize qualities had
been driven, hissed, hounded from among the poor who
are also called the " lower classes," and had, therefore,
taken refuge in the " upper classes," as the rich were
called; and that vice, only, and crime and ugliness had
stayed with the lower classes. No, not like Versailles,
he assured them was God s picture gallery. ( He had once
been to Versailles when a Seminarist and what he had
seen there had made such an impression upon him that
he brought it into almost every sermon,) "Not like
Versailles, was God s picture gallery." He doubted
whether any court beauty would be found in it, but it
was not to be doubted, that every poor, honest Christian
who lived not for self alone but for others would be
found there; that in short, God s beauties, different from
those of Louis XIV and Louis XV, would be the ugly
ones of the earth; his great ones, the humble and the
lowly ones; his rich ones, the poor of the earth. All of
56 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
which, as Pere Phileas intended it to be, was comforting
to his parishioners, who for the most part were poor and
ugly enough and undistinguished enough to suit any
amateur of such works of art. Indeed, the only rich
people in it were the San Antonios.
But to return very far back to our subject, Monsieur
Pinseau was really better than his reputation. Although
he had spent all his money, he had retained his good
qualities, the qualities of his defects, which were usually
left out of his description now. He was good-humored,
amiable, intelligent, kind-hearted, now, as he had always
been. And, in fact, if he had not possessed these good
qualities, could he have been the spendthrift that he had
proved himself to be? There could not be such a thing
as a sordid, mean, stingy spendthrift; or a stupid one,
for imagination has been the tempter from Eve down
wards. The castaways of the beau monde are as a
rule the good fellows who have spent their money in it.
Society in the length of human memory has never cast
away a bad fellow if he has kept his money. Society
can forgive, and has forgiven, even criminals if they
are rich. If the rich man slaps it on one cheek, does it
not turn the other one also? If he takes its coat, does
not Society straightway offer its cloak also?
But all this wisdom came to Papa Pinseau long, long
after he was able to profit by it ; and, it seemed, the less
he was able to profit by it, the more abundantly it came
to him. He was now almost incapacitated by infirmity,
and never again in this world would he be able to apply
the knowledge within him ; yet, nevertheless, it rolled in
upon him in waves and tides and always from the same
source, from his past life. His physical impotence was
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 57
even more prolific of wisdom than his financial im
potence had ever been. His constitution had been his
pride and his boast; and he ruined himself when in such
full vigor that he might at the time have made his
living as a common laborer if he had been an Irishman
or a negro; the only common laborers of his halcyon
days. But in these halcyon days, ruined gentlemen were
far removed from the lot of a common laborer. It was
a poor city indeed, and New Orleans was never that,
where there was not always a living to be bestowed upon
a man of proved incapacity to make one; some super
numerary living for a gentleman out of money; a place
in a bank or a clerkship in a court or the city government ;
a sinecure in a counting-room or a political office. Money
was made easily then and it was lost, also, so easily, that
the emergency was provided for among gentlemen by a
tacit budget.
Unfortunately, however, it is not every spendthrift
who under the first stroke of misfortune becomes wise,
who by one illumination, to use the hackneyed illustra
tion, is turned from a Saul into a Paul. Wisdom is
generally the fruit of many misfortunes. And, here
again, it is the good qualities of a good fellow that are
turned against him. The qualities, the very qualities that
would have made him less agreeable as a comrade, that
he abhorred in others, the qualities that no one would
think of cultivating in a child; a cross spirit, an un
gracious manner, a grudging hand in giving, the very
ability to say " no " to a friend ; these, Monsieur Pinseau
found out are some of the means and no insignificant
ones to regain wealth. And, so, he who could never
make two ends meet on twenty thousand a year did no
58 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
better on ten, five, three, two, nor yet one ; and he had all
these chances offered to him, one after another. As he
himself confessed, the only income within whose limits
he could ever keep was that of his daughter. And
strange to say, the robust constitution that had stood
without a strain all the excesses of the moneyed period
began to weaken and finally went to pieces under the
regime of sober eating and full sleeping; the remedy
for most men had proved the bane for this one. But
still a berth might have been found for him in the ship
of State or City, for a man does not exhaust all the
opportunities of benevolence in ten years, had not the
smoldering war between the North and the South, at
last broken out.
Of all his lost opportunities to be deplored, of all his
regrets and he should have had of them more than the
full measure of a man what Monsieur Pinseau most
deplored and regretted was not being able to go into
the war and fight. He, who erstwhile had braved every
risk of weather and accident in hunting and fishing on
the lakes around New Orleans; he, who could no more
fly a danger than a temptation; for whom, camp life,
camp stories and the wild rush of a charge seemed
specially intended; when the great opportunity of his
life came, he was crippled in his feet by gout, all but
palsied in his hands, and short winded with asthma.
If the war and the ruin of his country had come ten
years earlier it would have found him a man and not
an old woman of sixty; bundled in flannels and coddled
with tisanes.
Then at last, when he could not work, he saw that he
might have worked once. Then he watched and strug-
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 59
gled, as one in mid-ocean watches and struggles, for a
floating spar, for something, anything, to do to earn a
living. " Autre temps, autre guitarres!" He found
that the prerogatives of birth (or berths) were abolished
with slavery, and the thing called business competition
had taken their place ; and that this was a foot race where
the prize goes not to past good qualities but to the fleetest
of foot and soundest of wind with no quarter shown
to the defeated. Business is hell as well as war to those
who wish to make it so it is only a question of the
disposition of the commander. All of this in Monsieur
Pinseau s life and in Mademoiselle Mimi s confession
furnished some of the theories of art advanced in Pere
Phileas s sermons.
The home of the Pinseaus was a long cabin almost
resting on the ground with a wide gallery in front over
which hung the eaves of a pointed roof, alive with mosses
and creepers. One would have said that its back was
built against the side of the church, if it were not obvious
that the church, on the contrary, as the newer construc
tion had been built against it. It might have faced a
street, if it had not antedated all streets in St. Medard
by half a century. As it was, its end was turned to the
street, while its front looked vaguely in the direction
where once, in its power and grandeur, stood the master s
dwelling. A native of the place would have recognized
it at once as one of the dependencies of the old time,
built for the accommodation of some of the numerous
attendants that then accompanied a family establishment
of any pretensions; an overseer s house, or a gardener s
lodge, or the cabin of a favorite slave. It was cut off by
the street now and separated from its seigniory, which
60 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
shorn of all its appanages and reduced in territory to its
surrounding garden and hedge could be seen forlorn and
estranged in the distance.
An old pieux or picket fence inclosed the cabin still,
guarding it as jealously from the outside world as in the
time when bulldogs added to the strength of its defense.
But the aged timbers were tottering beneath the vines for
which it served as a trellis, and it bulged from the pressure
of the Yuccas inside with their ungainly bulk of dagger-
shaped leaves against it. The gate, of more modern
date, was of smooth plank which in its best days had
been painted green. Over it rose an arch, twined with
wistaria and honeysuckle.
Mademoiselle Mimi lifted the latch and hurried
through, a cartload of news within her. News! They,
who know what it is to live year in and year out with
no more news than the calendar furnishes, know what
a godsend she felt she was bringing to her Papa.
He was seated on the gallery in his old cane-bottomed
chair with his old hunting dog Belle at his feet, just as
she had left him an hour ago. A very good-looking old
gentleman he was; with his short white hair and white
mustache, and his blue eyes, never without a twinkle
in them, and his humorous mouth, seldom without a smile
on its lips. His face was as handsome as his daughter s
was otherwise, and his figure, though somewhat thickened
by age and an inert life, showed still what it must have
been in its athletic, graceful youth. He wore an old,
faded, brown velveteen coat with deep pockets in the
sides, a relic from the heroic period of his hunting days;
and his linen, which was really linen, showed that it came
also from a distant past, being fine pleated, with a collar
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 61
of its own, a broad rolling one tied up with a careless-
looking old scarf. His expression, as he sat there all
alone, was so free, frank, and natural that a stranger on
seeing him indubitably would have said : " Here is an
old gentleman with an agreeable past behind him, a
serene future before him and a benign conscience within
him; he looks as if he had done nothing but make a
pretty garden all his life."
It was a pretty garden, the one he had made and was
now looking upon. There was not a foot in it that had
not been turned to account and there was an air of un-
trammeled grace about it that made one think of Nature,
rather than of an old gentleman, as its author. It was, in
truth, what the old-fashioned " keepsake " of a romantic
era so poetically purported to be : a garden of senti
ments. Monsieur Pinseau s eye, roaming over it, hardly
missed a flower that he loved, a shrub that he cared for :
japonica, mimosa, sweet olive, Magnolia fuscata, pome
granate, for the sake of the rich scarlet blossoms that
pretty Creole girls used to wear in their black hair, (the
ground under the bush was red with them now, for the
pomegranate flower does not fade on the stem but falls
in its full beauty) . . . sweet shrub, oleanders, white
and pink, and, fair to look upon when the sun first touches
them in the morning, rose geraniums, citronelle, crape
myrtles, rose colored and white, (their bloom as dainty
and fragile as the ball dresses of the pretty dancing
Creole girls of Monsieur Pinseau s dancing days) . . .
\fasmin; the " Night," of course, hidden in corners,
whence its mysterious sweetness steals upon the soft
Summer air of moon-lit nights; the Spanish, the star,
and the beautiful wild creeper, that twines around the
62 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
great forest trees, and droops down to the clear water
of the still bayous bayous that Monsieur Pinseau used to
wander under when spring flowered in the woods around
the city and in himself latana, purple and yellow,
though most people despise it. And of roses all kinds :
the great Reine, for its generous fragrance, . . . the
The for its romantic loveliness; the Provence, for its
air of innocence; the Lamarque, to embower his gallery;
the Geant de Bataille, for its name ; the minute Picayune,
out of memory of his mother s garden ; there were violets,
for another memory, and mignonette, to remind him of
Paris, helas! . . . But no fish geraniums were to be
seen anywhere; nor prince s feather, that favorite of
his Gascon neighbors; nor lilies, neither Joseph nor
Easter because of their air of piety (or his wife s) ;
no immortelles with their discomforting suggestions;
no pansies, or pensees, as they are called in St.
Medard, no indeed! for in his garden, as in his life,
Monsieur Pinseau indulged his prejudices as far as
possible.
Out of sight and as far back as possible, lay Mademoi
selle Mimi s plat, the plat of the Christian virtues as her
father called it ; where grew medicinal herbs and season
ings: rosemary, balm, sage, thyme, mint, horehound,
absinthe, melisse, parsley, anise, . . . with catnip,
naturally, for the babies; Mademoiselle Mimi s heart
itself was not more prolific of virtues.
The spot was as bare as a chicken yard when Monsieur
Pinseau moved to it, and seeing all that had been accom
plished in it by one unassisted pair of maimed hands and
halt feet under no other inspiration than poverty and
misfortune, surely it might well be set (by the recording
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 63
angel) against some of the other sowings and plantings
of the old gardener s life in the period of other activities
and inspirations.
When Mademoiselle Mimi had anything to say, she
did not wait for the formality of an inquiry; and when
she began, she talked as easily and naturally as the rain
rained. But the rain itself would have found it difficult
to keep up its supply of drops from so barren a source of
moisture as St. Medard was of news. Nevertheless,
when did she ever come in from the street without some
interesting report? She herself, it is true, alone knew
the twisting and turning and seasoning she had to give
to the poor little bits of hearsay gossip in order to
convert them into any semblance of appetizing novelty.
Less ingenuity would be required for the daily feuilleton
of a Paris journal. But, today, for once she could rain
down the tale as she had gathered it.
After repeating what we know, she added : " Madame
Talbot has very exalted ideas about education, which
come from her husband, a very exalted personage indeed,
it seems. It was my husband says this, my husband
says that all the time. He desires nothing less than
perfection in his daughters, and they are to be trained
simply for that. Eh ! Mon Dieu ! " she exclaimed.
"How is it, Thou canst keep parents so nai ve?"
Monsieur Pinseau listened apparently as usual, with
his eyes running over his beloved garden, noting what
was to be done tomorrow in it. But what he was think
ing during his daughter s relation was something like
this : " What a miserable little world, or rather, what
a miserable little city this is! Even when we get away
from the old places, we are always coming upon the
64 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
same people. If the good God would only let us do
occasionally what we please! When we need Him and
invoke Him He has no difficulty in letting us alone, and
yet He is always intruding upon us when we do not
need Him, when we want to be let alone."
He determined to read Voltaire at once. Whenever
he felt this way he read Voltaire; he had a complete
set, the entire seventy volumes, bought in Paris when
he was twenty years old and equipping himself for life.
All young men of his age at that date equipped them
selves for life in Paris, with, among other things, a full
set of Voltaire, bound in calf, the handsome edition.
In Voltaire, he felt he would find some solace for the
contre temps before him. " The reason," he continued
thinking, " that we succeed so well when we are young,
is that no one knows us. We can make what pretensions
we please, who is there to contradict us? Our parents
are only too glad to cultivate their own vanity in us,
and would without hesitation kick out any servant or
teacher that would try to enlighten them. The greatest
fools I have known in my life started out as clever
children, and those who I thought were the greatest fools
in my young days, they turned out to be men of sense."
This was indeed a somber reflection to him, for no one
could start in life with a greater reputation for cleverness
than he achieved as a child ; to the admiration and adora
tion of parents and servants. " Providence," he pursued,
" treats us like idiots. I come down here in this
miserable hole to lose myself; who but a God-forsaken
creature like myself or a Gascon, or people who could
not get away from here would live here?" a satirical
twitch of the lip accompanied his reflective look into the
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 65
garden. " Whig and Democrat, Democrat and Whig,
what the devil does it matter now? I feel like my old
Aunt Ahgele when she was dying and some one came
and told her that her American son-in-law was going to
make Protestants of her grandchildren ; My friend/ she
whispered, I am near enough to death to see now how
silly all that is. And she had been fighting Protestants
all her life. If we could only pass an act of oblivion
against our memory when we get old ! " . . .He
might just as well wish for an act of oblivion against
Belle s fleas. " What asses men can make of them
selves in politics ! As if they needed any extra occasion
for the purpose ! I had to turn politician and go around
playing the fool, making speeches. I, who never could
make a speech in my life ; insulting people, fighting duels,
carrying torch lights, walking in processions, shouting,
hurrahing, for Fildepeau, and against this man Talbot,
denouncing Talbot in all times and places, as I would
denounce a parricide, spending my money to defeat him
as if that were the greatest pleasure my money could
buy." No wonder Monsieur Pinseau hated the flower
that was named for thought ! . . . " Well, we did
defeat him. Talbot was beaten and Fildepeau was
elected, and Fildepeau turned out to be the rascal. He
is now living in France on the plunder he picked up in
politics, and Talbot was the honest man. And what
did Talbot want, in the name of politics, to be elected to
the legislature for? To have some law passed for the
improvement of our criminal courts ! And Fildepeau, he
wanted to get there to push the rascality he was
interested in. Fildepeau I shall never see again, but
Talbot comes down here to live alongside me. Every-
66 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
body else gets killed in the war, but Talbot survives.
. . . And Talbot, unlike the elegant, the courtly, the
patriotic Fildepeau, does not forget." . . .
Sad as the fact may be to women, it was not peculiar
to Monsieur Pinseau, as other gentlemen can testify, that
the nearest thing to remorse that troubled him in the
haven of old age came not from his domestic but from
his political mistakes. And this episode, in which he
saw himself working for Fildepeau, making speeches,
walking in processions, and " electioneering," as buying
votes was then called, was one of which he was ashamed
enough to blush over, even now when any blushing was
out of season for him. So instead of listening further to
his daughter, he rose abruptly from his chair and hobbled
into the garden; as if, suddenly, he saw something amiss
there; his old dog Belle as stiffly followed him and
Mademoiselle Mimi went into the house.
It was not here as in the home she had just left. Ruin
having come here in the form of bankruptcy had stopped
short of destitution. The Pinseaus had emigrated into
poverty, so to speak, and had carried some luggage with
them. For in the first room Mademoiselle Mimi entered,
a low one with whitewashed walls and one small
window, were to be found a sofa and some rosewood
chairs covered with faded blue and yellow silk that had
once stood in her mother s grand salon ; and a gilt-framed
oval mirror and its ornaments on the little black wooden
mantel. An old velvet carpet covered the rough plank
floor and the remnant of a fine lace curtain hung over
the little window. In the next room were the mahogany
table and chairs and, filling one wall, the sideboard with
some cut glass from the old dining-room. Then fol-
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 67
lowed Mademoiselle Mimi s bedroom, where, as in a cell,
stood the great four-posted bedstead of her mother,
without its tester the pompous tester of rose-colored
satin and rich pendent cords and tassels that had reared
itself so haughtily of old, under the high ceilings of
wealth and pride. In the next room ; a startling contrast,
was the small wooden cot and the plain chairs and table
that Monsieur Pinseau had affected in his gilded youthful
days, when hardihood, and defiance of soft ease, were
his theme and profession ; following the piquant example
of royalty and other sybarites of his day.
The last room in the row was the kitchen, and here
also stood an old piece of furniture from a former estate
and a former day: the old negress Aglone. Bowed,
wrinkled, a mere handful of bones in a loose skin, her
clothes hung over her body like rags on a scarecrow,
her headkerchief toppled on one side, her eyes were
bleared; her mouth, toothless. She did not show her
history, and it had been a fine one.
Among the masters and mistresses of New Orleans it
was a general belief that every slave who became the
mother of thirteen children purchased, with the birth
of her thirteenth child, its freedom and her own. When
Aglone bore triumphantly her thirteenth child she was
still young, fresh and good-looking, for she was but
fifteen when her first child was born. But she bargained
with her master to give the freedom she had earned to
her eldest child a boy which was done; and accord
ing to the law, a piece of property was placed in trust
for him as a home, and he was apprenticed to the
carpenter s trade; and did well in it as youth and man.
When ruin came to her master, Aglone refused the choice
68 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
of being sold with her family in order to remain with
him and his family. When again emancipation came
and all slaves were freed, Aglone stood to her bargain.
She would not accept the freedom she had refused from
her master, as a gift from " strangers," as she called
them; and given to good and bad alike. It was owing
to this obstinacy of the old woman that Mademoiselle
Mimi and her father had a servant to follow them in
their emigration and that old Aglone still had a home
and a family. For her large brood had scattered. Free
dom had loosed not merely the shackles but all ties and
children ; grandchildren, great-grandchildren were all out
of her life now; each working in separate capacity for
separate aims.
She had become very childish, often mistook Mimi
for her grandmother; the young mistress for whom she
had been bought when both were children ; and often she
would call her master " Amedee " or " Dede " as if he
were still a little boy. When Mademoiselle Mimi entered
the kitchen, Aglone was grumbling as usual, in her creole
patois, complaining about Monsieur Pinseau. " Amedee
bothers me all the time, he is always coming into the
kitchen, he tells me how to do this, how to do that ; but
who is the cook? If I am the cook I must do my own
way. Why doesn t he keep in his garden and bother with
his plants ? I don t want children in my kitchen, Vieu-
Maitre always made the children keep out of my kitchen
. . . they bother me too much . . . Dede tell me how
to cook! No! I will not do what he says, I have been
cooking since before he was born. What does he know
about cooking ? Ha ! he did not do that in the old gentle
man s time ! The old gentleman knew how to make him
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 69
behave ! The old gentleman did not spoil him, ha ! The
old gentleman knew I was a cook ... he taught me
himself, ha! and he paid Larose to come and teach me
. . . gave him five dollars just to show me how to make
a galantine. . . . You could not tell my galantines
from the galantines in the fine restaurants and my
fricassee of turtle! He, the old gentleman, knew what
good cooking was. They don t know what good cooking
is now . . . they eat things now that a cook would
have been sent to the calaboose for in old times. Ha!
the old gentleman never came into my kitchen, he would
send for me and he would say * Aglone do this, Aglone
do that/ and that was all ..."
The poor old thing s head shook, her hands trembled,
her voice whined shrilly. She could not stand agitation
any longer, she was always slightly demented by it. And
poor Mademoiselle Mimi, she suffered too. It seemed
hard to her that she could never leave the house without
finding some trouble on her return; always some dis
agreement, some dispute and old Aglone s feelings hurt.
She had but one course of reasoning in the matter:
" If Papa would only attend to his garden and leave other
people s affairs alone! I can manage old Aglone so
well; but he, he teases her, he puts her in a temper.
He is too meddlesome, that is the truth." And she
bitterly reflected, how in books, ladies and gentlemen
going into poverty leave all their faults behind them and
take only their virtues with them ; at least so far as she
could judge from the " Lives of the Saints," the only
book she ever had time to read. But not so her father,
he went into his place of punishment for past folly,
without a single renunciation in fact with all the honors
70 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
of war in his defeat, with his colors flying. How much
easier would have been her lot had it been otherwise.
If in all these trying experiences, he could have imitated
some of those poor saints and martyrs, that he looked
down upon. The rich, she admitted, might have what
tempers they pleased ; their money, there was no denying
it, bought them indulgence. But the poor, the poor must,
no other word is possible, the poor must be patient, good,
gentle, forbearing, self-denying, long suffering, spiritual,
meek, etc., etc. ; not captious about seasonings, truculent
over gombos and grillades, sensitive as to the color of a
roux. " After all/* she would commune listlessly with
herself, going a little aside from the point of her argu
ment, " what is sent to us to bear even in the hardest
lives? Disease, misfortune, death, privations! I am
not a saint, and have I not stood all that, and a sad
childhood in addition which Papa certainly never had to
stand? But, what of it? What is there in it all
that cannot be borne? Nothing! Nothing! Absolutely
nothing! But the truth is, we do not seem to be made
in the proper way to support the very misfortunes that
God himself (who knows all about us, what we can
stand and what not) sends." And she would sigh, and
as her father invoked Voltaire, she, in certain moments
would invoke a certain rebellious thought of her own:
" How easy it would have been for God to have made
every one good at once ? Then there would be no more
trouble for us! We could then all lead the lives He
gives us and not mind it. But as it is, He has arranged
it so, that we fit in our lives like big feet in little shoes
or little feet in big shoes and our tempers are as
agreeable as colors that swear at each other. Aglone is
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 71
obstinate, cross an4 forgetful, that is the fact of it.
She has almost forgotten how to cook, and Papa, Papa,
of course has not forgotten what good cooking is ...
and good Heavens! He has few enough pleasures now
and he might at least have his poor food cooked in the
way he likes. Of course it would be better if he were
like Pere Phileas ; but Pere Phileas was a rude peasant,
what can he know about good cooking? He eats only
to satisfy his hunger, he knows no more about good
cooking than he knows about good music. Ah, if Papa,
would only grow indifferent to his tastes, become re
ligious, ascetic, as some people do when they grow old ! "
But there was no hope for this, as her good sense
warned her. Monsieur Pinseau would never gratify her
by a growth in this direction. No! On the contrary, he
would continue to torment old Aglone and worry her
about a salmi or a sauce as if St. Medard were as far
from him as St. Peter, and Pere Phileas as the Pope.
Old Aglone was very devout; and the only way to get
around her obstinacy about her cooking and turn her
from her distress was to lure her away from the present,
and this could always be done by talking to her of the
church, recommending some new saint or prayer or
scapulary to her. She confessed every Saturday of her
life and took the communion every Sunday : a pure kind
ness, this was, on the part of Pere Phileas, which how
ever Aglone repaid by scrubbing the church. No one to
see her, so old, so decrepit, would imagine she could
go over that church upon her knees, scrubbing-brush in
hand, rain or shine, hot or cpld, once a week. But she
did it, mumbling her prayers all the time, casting her eyes
first up to the statue of the Virgin, then down to her
72 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
soft soap and red brick. As with her father Mademoi
selle Mimi always took the part of Aglone, so with
Aglone, she took the part of her father. What she called
the thought in the back of her head she kept to herself.
" Poor Papa," she would say to the old negress, " you
must remember he is a sick man and all the trouble he
has had in his life. And you know how good-hearted
he is! He would take the coat off his back and give it
to you if he thought you needed it; and after all, all
that he asks is a little more pepper or a little less salt,
or the garlic, or the onion, or the bay leaf put in, in a
different way. He may be wrong, but if he wishes it?
My Heavens ! all that seems so little to ask ! If he wanted
me to put molasses in the gombo, I would do it; if it
gave him pleasure, I wouldn t mind. And what dif
ference after all does it make to you? I should not
think you would care, so long as you go to church and
do your duties there. What would the blessed Virgin
say if some one should say to her : * You see that old
Aglone down there, that good woman who never forgets
her duties to the church, who is always ready to make
soup for the sick, chicken or beef no matter which
who rises before day and stays up till after midnight
to do her work, who scrubs the church out once a week
on her knees although her old legs are as stiff as broom
sticks with rheumatism . . . well, she does all that,
and then she refuses stubbornly to do what her old master
asks her about gombo and grillade; her master that she
nursed as a little baby and spoiled too/ Oh ! you know
it! So that he would run away to you from his own
nurse Laloute, who tried to kill you once, you know, just
from jealousy over that. You know that yourself !
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 73
And who was it, eh? Who nursed you when you were
so sick three years ago? Who used to get up in the
night and go to you, and give you foot baths with his
own hands and made poultices for you and put them
on, and give you tisanes, and would not wake me or
call me when I did not hear? Who sat by your bed all
day keeping the flies and mosquitoes off you? You did
not think of gombos and grillades then, you thought you
were going to die, and you were glad enough to have
him by you ! And now you cannot do what he asks you,
some little thing, I don t know what, about parsley or
onions, nonsense like that! And when I come home
and see you bothered, and hear you grumbling; all my
pleasure is destroyed. And what pleasure have I but
my comfort here and you, and Papa?" and so on and
on ran the little discourse.
The old woman would listen, charmed by that low
sweet voice, her hands would quiet down from their
trembling, her head stop shaking; while talking
Mademoiselle Mimi would go around the kitchen, putting
one thing and another in its place, peering into pots,
pans, buckets, and jars, tasting here and there, to see
what the old thing had forgotten or overlooked, for she
was as blind as she was forgetful.
And then Mademoiselle Mimi would go and talk to
her father while he smoked his pipe in apparent indif
ference. The pipe too, belonged to the velveteen jacket
days and the rough life of the hunter.
" Poor old thing ! She tries her best, but she is failing ;
she forgets, and pretends that she does intentionally what
happens. She is ashamed to confess that she is not as
good a cook as she used to be. Sometimes when I peep
74 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
into the kitchen I see her wiping the tears from her
poor old face. ... It is hard to live only to please
and then not succeed. And what is there in her poor
old soul for consolation? And when I think what we
would be without her, and what we would have done all
these years without her, I am willing to stand her faults
which are only the failings of old age, and so, faults
that we are all liable to. Suppose she were not here, and
that we had to get in somebody else! You know how
pleasant that would be! You see what the negroes
have become, what they are about us. I would rather
do my own work than have one of them; dirty, lazy,
thievish, ignorant, insolent, they are not fit to be servants,
they are not fit to be even slaves now. Ah ! There will
not be any more hereafter like Aglone. I should think
the saints in heaven would like to look down upon her
. . . she is a saint too in her way ! Up before daylight
to make our coffee, and you must acknowledge there is
no one in New Orleans can make coffee like her, and
out of so little and that of the cheapest quality the
quality that once we would have been ashamed to give
to our negroes. And she is past eighty ; just think ! She
was bought in the time of the Spaniards and was a
grown woman working for us at the time of the battle
of New Orleans. Don t you remember, how Mere used
to tell us of her making coffee then all night long, to send
down to the battlefield? Working for us then, she has
been working for us ever since. And she would not take
her freedom when it was offered to her, but gave it to
that selfish Alcibiade, and refused to be sold, when she
could have been sold with her family ! And old and blind
as she is now, who can market as she does? She makes
MADEMOISELLE MIMI 75
twenty-five cents go as far as a dollar used to go, you
say that yourself. I don t know how she does it. She
is more careful of our little money than I am, and in
her heart, she is devoted to you, she adores you, there
is nothing in the world she would not do for you, I
believe it would break her heart if any one else carried
you your cup of morning coffee. And you remember
what a tragedy it was last year when I hired some one
else to iron your shirts, because her poor old eyes could
not see well enough to iron them? When I had to call
in Pere Phileas to talk religion to her ? But I know she
is old and very trying; I have to coax and pet her all
the time, my poor old Aglone ! She is too old to work,
she ought not to be working. Some of her children or
grandchildren ought to support her. They are free now,
nothing prevents them. But, in truth she has lived too
long with whites, and she could not now live with negroes
any more than I could. Her place is with us after all.
I beg Pere Phileas not to let her bother him; but you
know how he is. He says that the church is her only
light in her darkness. He is right, I would do as he
does, I would not diminish any light she has. On the
contrary, I would give her more of it if possible. As
for me, I would like her to think that God and all his
angels are always delighted with her; or anything else
she chooses to think about them to give herself comfort.
I am afraid I should not care so much for them as she
does, if I had her life. If I were God, I never would
have created negroes; I would have everybody white,
and rich besides; and good, even if the virtue of resigna
tion should die out of the world in consequence."
And the old gentleman, although he did smoke his
76 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
pipe in apparent indifference, listened to her words, no
matter how often they were repeated, as if he too, like
Aglone, were charmed; as if they were an old faint
perfume, or an air from an old song. The humorous
twinkle would go out of his eyes, and his hands would
softly pinch Belle s ears. His wife had never found it
out, but his daughter had, that he was very soft-hearted.
But he, nevertheless, would be just as cross at dinner
when Aglone would bring in some mishap of seasoning
which she, in spite of the charming she had received, was
as apt as not to do.
In short, the only way to have the seasoning right and
the dinner as it should be and so avoid disagreeable con
sequences was for Mademoiselle Mimi to slip into the
kitchen, herself, a moment before dinner and season
every dish over again.
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE
DURING the first days of evil fortune as many of us
know, hopes have a deceitful way of realization, of in
carnating themselves as it were, in some mere piece of
good luck. Later on in the experience they keep to their
proper position in life, always flying well ahead of us,
like those birds we can catch only by sprinkling salt on
their tails.
Cicely s recovery was followed by the arrival of what
was taken as a herald of the new prosperity coming down
the road of the future to her father. An old debt,
proscribed by the war, was paid by one who refused to
avail himself of his legal acquittance of it. The mother
therefore, in the strange and out-of-date costume she
had worn on her journey to St. Medard, with her little
girls in their sunbonnets and homespun, sat once again
in the slow mule car, retracing the route, going back
from her Terra-incognita into that fair region of fashion
that had lain so bright in her memory, during the stormy
gloom of the past four years ; for, as it was but right and
proper, the rude and coarse garments of War were to
be discarded and seemlier ones for Peace assumed.
Surely, none could be too bright and beautiful for it!
Nor for an earth whose day could be so radiant, whose
sky so blue, foliage so rich, flowers so plenteous and
sweet of perfume, and breezes so fresh and pure and
playful. The chariot of Apollo and not the slow, dingy
mule car, should have been the vehicle for it!
77
78 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
"What has been lost after all? What has been lost
after all?" Any one in the car might have read the
thought, that moved her lips to utter the words aloud and
lifted her head so proudly, and flashed into her eyes so
much light and color, when youth and strength and
love gave the answer: Nothing! Nothing!
" No more fear ! That was the best of all, no more
fear." She recalled, that before the war she had never
all her life known what fear was . . . how could she?
Who on earth was there for her to be afraid of? She
never knew what fear was, until the day after the city
was captured, when soldiers marched through the streets
in all directions searching houses and capturing
prisoners ; and a squad of them, with their guns in their
hands, entered her house, the room she was in. She
had never imagined such a thing! They were looking
for her husband! He was not there of course, he had
made his escape with all the papers of his office. But
she grew so white when the officer questioned her, and
became so weak, that he eyed her suspiciously and ac
cused her of lying. She was sure he would shoot her
husband on the spot if he found him. The bright day,
flowers, the breeze, Apollo s chariot, were all driven
from her mind, by that hideous day. When the soldiers
marched out of the house, she fell into a chair, she
could support herself no longer. She knew what fear
was then ! It was Gideon, their negro boy, who ran off
to the enemy as they entered the city, and told them not
only that his master was hidden in the house, but guns
and ammunition and gold and silver belonging to the
Confederate government. Gideon, the rascal, who was
not worth his salt, whom she had saved from so many
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 79
whippings he had richly earned; and once when her
husband had made up his mind to sell him, had pleaded
and argued against it, even shedding tears, to save him
from being sent among strangers, because she knew that
then he would meet the treatment he deserved. She
shook her head and looked out of the car window to get
rid of the memory. She made up her mind not to think
of the past; for even to remember it was to bring it
back. She determined to dwell only on her relief from
it. But what surer way of remembering it? For, she
had not ridden any distance, when her thoughts took
up again just where they had left off. " It was good
now, not to wake up at night, feeling that the world
was full of fighting and bloodshed. And, oh ! above all !
not to hear the guns bombarding Vicksburg! The first
time she heard them, her heart stood still. She did not
know what it was, and then, knew it was the sound
of cannon. Cannon being shot off by men against men.
She was alone on the plantation, that lonely plantation,
with her children and one hundred and fifty negroes de
pendent on her. Even the overseer had gone into the
war. She rose from her bed and dressed, saw to the
fastenings of the doors, and knelt down and prayed
. . . and stayed kneeling until daylight. The next
day a swamper passing in his pirogue told her it was
the Yankees bombarding Vicksburg. Oh ; Those cannon !
Night after night she heard them! for weeks, months.
Even after the place surrendered, she imagined she heard
them still . . . still counted the shots as they fell,
imagined still, that every shot was killing, killing . . .
sending husbands and sons out of life, and mothers and
wives into grief that would know no end . . . and
8o THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
she would picture these mothers to herself, these wives
. . . until she could not remain on her knees but would
pace the floor up and down, up and down, wildly pray
ing in that position to God, that her sons might never
shed human blood. Many a mother or wife oh! she
saw it all ; over and over again, perhaps, the one whose
son or husband was killed at that very moment would
not know it until the war was over and maybe would be
waiting to see her boy or her husband come back, alive
and well and strong . . . and he . . .a mangled,
shattered corpse! Perhaps, she would read it in some
old, soiled, ragged newspaper, such as then was passed
along from hand to hand read in such a newspaper,
handed to her casually by a passing stranger, . . .
what at other times ministers, friends, relations, could
not find words kind enough to prepare her for ..."
Again she shook her head and looked out of the
window, but the streets were all so strange she could
not tell where she was, how far from her ride s end.
" Mama," whispered Cicely, plucking at her sleeve,
" make Polly stop talking, she is telling everything to
that stranger."
She leaned forward and looked at Polly, who was
seated by the friend of her first ride in the car, the old
gentleman who looked like General Lee.
" Oh, we hate the city," she was telling him, " we all
hate the city. But we don t mind it."
" That s right," answered the old gentleman heartily,
" it s best not to mind things one hates."
" Yes, that s what Papa told us," she assented affably.
" He told us not to pay any attention to the Yankees, the
United States soldiers, I mean ; to walk right along when
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 81
we met them just as if we didn t see em, them, I mean."
" But if you do that, you may forget to hate them."
" Oh, no, indeed," confidently, " we would always hate
em whether we saw em or not. Everybody hates
Yankees, I reckon."
" Mama, Mama," whispered Cicely again in agony,
" please make her stop talking."
The mother shook her head at Polly, but the stranger
smiled when he saw it, as if he were anything but a
stranger, and far too much amused to wish the conversa
tion arrested. And then, again so strange it seemed
in a street car came to the mother s mind, another
memory, that clutched and held her fast, struggle as she
would to escape it. Another night it was, the night
when lying awake for by degrees she grew afraid to
sleep at night, she heard a noise on the Bayou, a noise
that made her think she was dreaming. She slipped
out of her bed and crept to the window and, lifting one
little corner of the curtain, peeped through, and saw
if she had seen the heavens open and hell itself revealed
to her, she could not have been more terrified she saw
a vessel gliding stealthily by, down the Bayou, a trans
port she could make out the cannon on it. She almost
lost consciousness, she was so frightened, she shook as
if she had an ague, she could not speak for the chatter
ing of her teeth, she clasped her hands together with her
utmost strength to stop their trembling, and when there
came a muffled knock at her door, she almost screamed.
But it was only Jerry who had seen the boat and he
had come at once to her in case she too had seen it.
She was herself again at once, and quickly ordered him
to saddle his master s horse and ride as fast as he could
82 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
through the woods, to the nearest Confederate post and
report that he had seen a transport filled with troops.
Jerry did not want to leave her, but she told him she
was not afraid, and from the window she watched him
put off in a skiff and cross the Bayou, the horse swim
ming behind, and Jerry pulling easily so as not to awaken
the other negroes in the quarters. How light the
memory came and went, like a flitting shadow. . . .
A white crape, hanging from one of the little cottage
doors, carried her thoughts back again to the plantation.
Everything took her back, there. She could not get
away from it rowing as hard as she could against the
current of her thoughts, as she used to see the negroes
row against the current of the Bayou; and still the cur
rent would carry her on.
She saw now, in a moment, the whole picture of that
Summer, that terrible Summer, when the typhoid fever
broke out, and ten of the negroes, stalwart men and
women, died, one after the other, in spite of all that
the doctors books recommended, in spite of all that any
one could do. She wore herself out, nursing them and
used up all her fine white linen sheets for winding sheets
the negroes sheets being unbleached and so coarse
not all her sheets, for she had saved two, for herself or
her husband or in case one of the children should . . . no,
no! she must not remember that. When she did it, how
afraid she was that some one would find it out that she
was saving two sheets that terror was the worst of all
the terrors of the war. The others were nothing in com
parison to it the terror that one of them, one of her
children or her husband should die like the negroes in
helpless misery. That Jerry, the carpenter, should come
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 83
and measure the corpse for a coffin as she had seen him
do so often for the negroes. Ah ! how she used to won
der what she would do for she could not control
her thoughts then any more than now if she would
allow the negroes to come and sing as they did over their
own dead. No! she knew that she could not, nor her
husband, brave as he was, if he were there. And the
coffin would be put into a skiff, and they all, in their
skiffs would row down the Bayou, following it, the skiff
with the coffin, which was always rowed by the best
pullers Lafayette and John Bull. They died too of
the typhoid fever, themselves, the last of all. She sat
by them to the end, first one and then the other; telling
each how good he had been to master, mistress, and the
children and that God would be good to them too and
forgive them all their sins. But they had no sins at
that moment in her eyes ; and they would all meet again,
some day, and would all be together in heaven. That
was the best consolation for them all that they would
all meet again. And they all asked, men and women,
that their master, or if he were not there, that she would
stand by them until all was over, that is if they were
conscious; for some of them went into delirium at the
first access of fever and never became sensible. The
men would laugh and talk and whistle to their dogs
thinking they were at a coon hunt or snap their fingers
and try to move their feet thinking they were dancing,
crooning their songs about a " yeller gal " or the
" paterol " catching them. And she saw herself and her
children, in the skiff of mourners, gliding over the dark,
deep water of the Bayou. The plantation, bright with
the sunset on one bank, the great forest on the other,
84 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
silent, mysterious, dark as if under the very wings of
death itself, the tall cypresses, standing in long files
like innumerable multitudes of departed shades, far, far
as the eye could see and above all; the Bayou and the
forest, the blue sky, so serene, so serene . . . and thus,
the measured stroke of the oars alone breaking the
silence, they would come to the high knoll covered
with oak and gum trees, cleared of underbrush, and
the open grave
" Mama, Mama, here we are and everybody is getting
out," called the good little Cicely excitedly, pulling at
her arm. They were at the end of their route at last.
She looked around eagerly. Yes, yes ! this was Canal
Street! The bells were ringing gaily for twelve o clock
and the sun was at its brightest overhead. As she stepped
out of the car, she stepped out of the power of the
memories that had fascinated her ; like a hideous face she
could not avoid and yet wished not to see. Once in the
street, and looking about her, her eyes met only pleasant
faces, smiling expressions, and show-windows full of
pretty things.
To a stranger, one that is who had traveled and knew
the proper standards of comparison, it was an ugly
enough street, this, that represented the shopping center
and fashionable boulevard of a rich and luxurious city.
But she who looked at it was not a stranger and had
not traveled. When she looked up and saw the blue sky,
just as she remembered it, so close above her and so clear,
that as a child she was sure she could see the angels
flying in it; and when she saw the irregular line of the
roofs so familiar that at any time on the plantation she
could have drawn the pattern of it as easily as a scollop
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 8s
for embroidery; and when she saw all the old names
there over the shops : American, French, Spanish, Italian
names, that she had learned to spell with her first
a, b, c s, and the confectioners shops standing each one
on its corner, with orange trees in tubs before it; and
the old church, too, like the sky, just where she had
left it, and just as she had left it; when she saw all this
so beautiful, so supremely beautiful and beyond com
parison with anything else in the world as far as she
cared, she stood still, and like the daughters of Jerusalem,
her mouth was filled with laughter. Her little girls
looked at her with astonishment, and almost disapproval ;
they laughed that way, but they had never heard her
laugh that way before.
" The first thing," she said briskly, " is shoes." Taking
the hand of each one, she crossed the street, through
what seemed to their rustic eyes a most perilous throng
of vehicles, more than all the plantation carts together
in the Grinding time.
" See," she exclaimed, " Henry Clay s statue, that I
have told you about so often! And there s the river!
and the levee ! where we landed ! And all the steamboats !
I wonder if the Bayou Belle is there still, don t you?"
and they all laughed together. The Bayou Belle ! They
had all but forgotten her.
In a secluded and aristocratic community such as New
Orleans had been hitherto, sentiment and tradition have
more sway in the patronage of shops, than in the cities
where the very restlessness of its progress, as commercial
prosperity is called, makes too unstable a soil for such
growths, which require above all things, the long con
tinuous routine of habit. And among a people too rich
86 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
or too careless to care for price if the quality suits, and
where competition, consequently, is a matter of no
moment to tradesmen, there grows up between families
and their purveyors, be they of hats, or books, con
fectionery, laces, or silks a loyalty of patronage and
service not to be severed lightly any more than a friend
ship. And when ladies have only to select and furnishers
to offer agreeably, shopping assumes a different aspect
from the sordid bargaining, which, alas! dire necessity
forced it to assume at a later day.
Mrs. Talbot entered the only shoe shop she had ever
known, and such, it must be confessed, was its un-
progressive character, that she found it just as it was
not merely, when she left it, four years before, but as
she remembered it from the time she was a little girl.
There was the same dark red velvet carpet on the floor,
with its great white medallions holding bouquets of
flowers; from the ceiling dropped the same chandelier,
with its bunches of red glass globes; the low chairs
with red velvet cushions for grown customers, and the
tall ones to which children were lifted to try on their
shoes, were the same to which she had been lifted or
later had sat upon as a young lady to try on her first
party slippers. And to complete the picture, there was
old Gregoire, in his short jacket and long apron and
great spectacles, looking as cross and surly as ever. But
his stolid face softened into a smile as he recognized
her and she would gladly have shaken hands with him.
He lifted the little ones to the tall chairs and getting
down slowly to his knees in front of them took a shoe
off each and held the ugly little things close to his glasses ;
then raised his perplexed eyes to the mother.
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 87
She laughed. " Oh ! We made those on our planta
tion! And I can tell you we were very glad to get
them! The skin came from one of our own alligators,
shot, swimming in our own Bayou, and our own shoe
maker tanned it and made the shoes and I," she concluded
with pride, " I made the eyelets myself."
" My God ! " exclaimed the Frenchman, " and they
are so bad too."
He got up as slowly and stiffly as he had got down,
and walking the length of the room down one side,
opened drawer after drawer, gleaning various kinds of
little shoes from them, and came back with them hanging
by their strings over his arm. He held them for the
mother s inspection : " How thin," she cried in a dismay
that rivaled his on seeing the other shoes. " How slight !
Why they would wear out in no time ! They would not
last for one walk and the heels are too high ! "
" They are the shoes that ladies wear," he said, " they
are the shoes you always bought yourself before you
made them things," looking at the specimens on the
floor.
" Ah ! How countrified and rusty I have become ; "
she answered gaily. The old man, without listening to
her, commenced to try on the new shoes. Again, in
consternation, he held up one of the little feet and looked
at it through his spectacles as if to make sure of its
identity.
" Oh ! " exclaimed the mother apologetically, " I forgot
the stockings. I should have bought the stockings first,
I am so sorry ! "
" You had to make your stockings, too, out there? " he
asked.
88 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
" Oh, yes ! we knit them, we all wore knit stockings."
" Well, the niggers wasn t worth it," he said.
She looked on while he fitted the shoes, smoothing them
carefully with his hands as if they were gloves, looking
at them with his head on one side and saying as he always
used to do : " They look as well as if they were made
to order."
" And I am going to try a pair of ready made shoes
myself," she responded, " instead of going to the ex
pense of having them made to order. We must econo
mize now, you know." When this was accomplished,
however, she went out of the shop in the old way without
asking the price of what she bought or giving her
address. " And now," she said, " we must go for those
stockings before we forget them again." There was
but the one place for stockings in her experience, the
place where she and her mother before her had always
bought their stockings at Sinclair s, the old Scotch
man s. His shop was rather small but every article in
it was imported and therefore in local opinion, good.
Old Sinclair was walking up and down the aisle be
tween his two counters in his same old morose, abstracted
way. He did not recognize her, but the clerk she ad
dressed did so at once.
" You should have seen the way old Gregoire looked
at our knit stockings," she explained humorously to
him. Those he showed her were fine, soft and firm,
and exquisite as of yore in their finish.
" They are the real lisle thread," she murmured, as
she held them in her hand. She said the words as if
in a dream, they were so familiar and yet so strange.
How important the meaning used to be to her, before
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 89
she found out what the real knit stocking was! What
it was to watch the cotton growing, to have it spun
into thread by her own favorite spinner among the
negro women, and so particular she was, to see herself
to the dyeing, from indigo grown on the plantation and
prepared according to a recipe from an old encyclopedia
of useful knowledge. And then, the knitting of them
in the long Winter evenings by the light of her log
fire; the children scattered on the floor around her or
perhaps sleeping in their beds which she could see through
the open door. If her husband were there, he would be
talking to her of what they would do when the war was
over. And if he were not there she would be thinking of
him; wondering where he was and listening with tense
ears while she watched her needles. But the plantation
would be all quiet, save for the barking of a dog or
the hooting of an owl now and then. And her heart
would glow as she would think how her husband would
praise her if he knew how tranquil the plantation was,
and the work going on so smoothly, and the children
so well, and life, after all, so comfortable . . . and
an electric current would seem to pass from her heart
into her needles, they would click and flash in her hands
and the stocking would grow marvelously. On such
evenings, she loved to knit ; would knit with poetic fervor
thanking God that there were so many stockings for her
to knit. Ah ! rough and uncomfortable as they were, the
homely knit stocking had an advantage in sentiment
and association over the soft lisle thread ones;
they were merely a purchase, the others an achieve
ment.
This time, she remembered to ask the price. It did
90 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
not go in one ear and out of the other, as it might have
done, for it was too large.
" That s very dear," she exclaimed, " I mean," with a
polite smile, " they are too fine, I want the quality I
used to wear. I always paid the same price for them!
I have forgotten what it was, but it was not nearly so
high."
" Perhaps," the clerk suggested timidly, " you had
better take a cotton stocking."
" Cotton stockings ! How cotton stockings ? Cheaper
lisle thread, you mean. I have never worn cotton stock
ings in my life . . . and I never shall."
" Then, Madam, you must pay the price of these."
" I suppose, I must, if you say so, but it seems to
me, instead of being poorer, we ought to be richer, if
we have to pay so much for things."
The clerk smiled at her foolishness; not old Sinclair,
who despite his abstracted manner, was always watching
his clerks and listening to what they said to cus
tomers. He abruptly and almost violently joined in the
conversation. He told the lady, still not recognizing
her, that in his opinion, the war had been brought on
for this very purpose to enrich the North and ruin the
South to increase the price of Northern manufactured
goods and force the South to buy them; to raise the
tariff higher and higher, and force away foreign com
petition and then put their miserable counterfeit sub
stitutes for honest fabrics up to the price of the real,
genuine article. She would see the day, raising his voice
and shaking his head until his wig slipped awry, she
would see the day when the tariff would be prohibitive
against imports, when there would not be a single im-
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 91
porting house left in the city, when the whole Southern
country would be the monopoly of the Northern manu
facturer.
The old man turned away still talking excitedly to
himself. She smiled now at his foolishness and told
the clerk out of her wisdom that the day would never
come when ladies would ever wear anything but Scotch
lisle thread stockings, French silks, and English flannels.
The clerk leaned over the counter and watching the back
of his employer, said in a low voice : " The old gentleman
is not well, he is suffering from great excitement. He
has lost a great deal by the war and has a claim now
against the government for an invoice of goods that
were seized and held when the city was captured. He
is going out of business, and back to Scotland. This is
our last year."
She went now to the general furnishing establishment
of the city Fortuny s. On the way she pointed out
to her little daughters the celebrated place, as she called
it, where all the brides used to get their wedding dresses,
and where they bought their real lace veils and flounces,
and the jeweller, where the diamonds and silver came
from.
In the center of Fortuny s the aisles and counters left
a respectful circular space where, when he was in the
shop, Fortuny always stood. Where now, stood his
viceroy, Volant; a short, square, good-looking old
Frenchman, extending to strangers and friends his alert
greeting and friendly welcome, with all the shrewdness
of a trader and all the bonhomie of a host in his face.
Before he saw who was approaching he had his smile
ready and his " Ah, Madame, I am very glad to see you,"
92 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
but when he saw who it was, this was turned into a
paternal: " Tiens, is it really you? Our little Madame
Talbot ! When did you arrive ? But when did you come
back? " he repeated in his strong French accent.
" Only this month, Monsieur Volant. I ought to say,
only this minute," she added brightly, looking around.
" And I am out of everything I need, everything, every
thing."
" Then it is not in Paris you have been this long
time?" he asked with affected naivete, "in Paris, the
Paradise of the ladies, where as Eve did, they learn
how to dress themselves."
"In Paris! In Paradise!" she retorted with real
naivete, " I have been in the wilds of Louisiana, Mon
sieur Volant, in the swamps, in the war. It does not
look here as if you had ever heard of the war; every
thing, so rich so beautiful."
The words died on her lips as her eyes followed the
unfolding of silks, holding up of gauzes, the opening
out of laces in all directions with here a showcase of
fans glittering with spangles and tinsel, there a rustling
heap of ribbons and wide sashes, and a never-ceasing
procession of shoppers, coming and going, just as they
used to do. " Humph," grunted Monsieur Volant, " do
not be mistaken, my child, we have been to the war too,
we are still there I may say, but," shrugging his shoulders,
" you know the proverb, il faut prendre dans la foret
de quoi la bruler/
" And Monsieur Fortuny? How is he? Is he here?"
She asked after the proprietor of the shop according to
the polite usage of the ladies of the city.
" Monsieur Fortuny is here, he departs for France, no
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 93
later than tomorrow. He is well and looking young,
of course. Men of his age always look young when they
are well, and old when they are not. Monsieur Fortuny
is going away with ideas, he has plans, he is going to
enlarge, to beautify, in fact, to astonish his patrons."
" Then he is not like poor old Sinclair, who talks as
if he were ruined."
" Monsieur Fortuny is a man who would never talk
as if he were ruined, Madame; he is a man who could
never be ruined, no matter what happened to him. He
makes gains out of his losses. The blood of the martyrs,
you know, is the seed of the church. Shall I send for
him, for you ? "
" Oh, no, thank you, Monsieur Volant. I shall see him
some other time. In fact I am very busy today. I
have so much to buy and I know I shall forget half."
"As the ladies always do. And when one thinks;
just a little notebook and pencil a little list a little
memorandum a little notebook, no larger than this "
he had been putting his hand in his coatpocket and now
took out a little notebook to show her, showing the pencil,
too. " And you have only to write down one after the
other, everything you are going to buy needles, buttons,
pins, tape, ribbon, hooks and eyes, cologne, these are the
things the ladies forget. They never forget a silk dress,
a velvet cloak, a lace flounce." All the time he was talk
ing, his eyes were busy watching the clerks and looking
down the aisles to see who were coming in and going out.
He did not have to walk up and down and pry and
listen. Knowing the people under him as well as he did,
and the people of the city, and being in addition a keen
physiognomist, trained from childhood by the best of
94 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
trainers, necessity, to study faces and learn what lay
behind them wherever his eyes reached, he knew what
was going on without resorting to the base usages of
old Sinclair.
He always talked to his lady customers as if they were
children or at best only on the verge of intelligence. It
sounded strange to Mrs. Talbot now after the training
she had been undergoing since last she had heard Volant
talk, but she went back instinctively to the time and the
manner of the time that Volant recalled: the amused
attitude of a lady who could not burden her mind with
such details as the trouble she gave people or the price
of things.
" A lady comes here," pursued Volant, " and spends
her morning shopping for things she cannot wait for;
they must be sent to her by a special messenger at once.
Well, the messenger is no sooner off with his bundle than
here comes a negro boy flying down us Mistress has
forgotten pins, please put them in the bundle and he
is hardly out of sight when here comes Madame s maid
running into the store * Mistress forgot needles, please
put them in the bundle/ That is the way it is all the
time. It gives them trouble, it gives us trouble . . .
and all for want of what ? A little notebook and pencil."
" Oh, yes ! I know it, Monsieur Volant. You are
perfectly right. My husband is always telling me the
same thing. He thinks too, that ladies should write their
accounts in little books so as to know exactly how much
they spend; and keep their receipts, too, of the money
they pay out. But when money is spent, what is the use
of remembering it? On the contrary, the sooner we
forget it the better." That is the way, precisely, that
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 95
she used to talk and feel. " My husband is a real
American in his ideas."
" Our ladies and business methods ! " Monsieur
Volant raised his eyes and hands at the absurdity of the
connection. " Why, they will not even handle the money
in their own purses when they can avoid it. They prefer
to charge a paper of pins rather than pay for it and so
the clerk has to write it down on a check and the check
has to be written down in the account book and that has
to be copied in another book. Ah ! You should see the
great book upstairs that all the accounts are kept in.
There are letters on the margin. He turns until he
comes to your letter, and then till he comes to your name
and then he writes down : One paper of pins, five cents.
" That is so." She laughed in a pleased way as if the
description were complimentary and Volant laughed in
a pleased way also, for it was complimentary in his eyes.
What he most liked in " our ladies," as he called them,
was their easy, careless extravagance, their utter indif
ference to their money and to the trouble they gave.
That was being a lady as he saw it. To be hard-working,
saving, wrinkling up eyes at a price, drawing down the
mouth over a bargain, that was being a woman, being
in fact what his own sturdy, common, coarse mother was.
" When strangers come here, Northerners," he went
on, " and they look at their change, and find no pennies,
they are amazed. Yes, and some of them are indignant,
too. * But you owe me two cents/ they protest, or one
cent/ And then we have to explain that we have no
smaller coin than five cents; and if we had it we could
not make use of it ; our clientele would not take coppers
in change."
96 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
"Of course we would not, Monsieur Volant! The
idea of carrying around a lot of ugly coppers for the sake
of one, two, or three cents ! I like to have things charged
too instead of paying for them at once. It is like asking
the price of things," she went on easily and inconse-
quently, " when I think of it I ask, but the answer goes
in one ear and out of the other. I never pay attention
to it. But after all, what difference does it make? If
one needs a thing, one must have it."
" And ladies always think they need what they want."
"Of course," she answered, not seeing his fine irony.
" It is upon this truth, Madame, that we build our
trade. It is our rock," his eyes twinkling maliciously,
" and the one who makes most profit in our business,
is precisely the one who is most successful in making
the ladies believe that what they want is what they need.
She laughed pleasantly. He was the same Volant that
her mother used to chat with just as she was doing
now when she was a little girl like Cicely and Polly ; and
he looked no older then, than he did at that moment.
By an effort she recalled all she intended to buy when
she left home and a great deal more, many things that
she did not know she needed until she saw them. Just
as she used to, just as she used to, when sometimes she
would go into a shop " en passant " without wanting to
buy a thing and these would be very likely the occasions
on which she would buy most. But as the clerk always
assured her, if she had a thing in the house she could
always find a need for it. Many a time when she heard
of a case of distress, all that she had to do was to go
to an armoire and take out flannel, linen, calico, a shawl,
and send them to the unfortunate woman without having
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 97
to buy a thing. Hats she could not find at Fortuny s.
From time immemorial, Florette s was the only place
for hats ; that is, since Florette the handsome black-eyed
girl who used to take the bonnets to the homes of the
ladies, to try them on there (for exclusive ladies would
not try on hats or dresses either at a modiste s) since
Florette had found the capital, the fates alone knew
how or where, to buy out her patron and set herself up
in old Victorine s place. A youthful and blooming suc
cessor she was to that ancient milliner about whom the
old grandmothers used to whisper such interesting stories
to one another. But the stories ! the stories ! whatever a
woman does seems to contain a story, even to selling
bonnets.
Many a court beauty, however, has received her ad
vance in life for no better qualities and no more beautiful
black eyes than Florette s. And like many a thus ad
vanced beauty, Florette displayed such aptitude in her
opportunities, such cleverness, such tact, quickness of
tongue, versatility of decorum, that she exorcised her
past from the memory of those who knew the truth
about it. To people who did not know the truth, and
these after all are the only impartial judges in this world,
she seemed to have stepped from obscurity into full-
fledged divinity, by as natural, simple, and innocent a
process as Minerva or Cinderella. She was now well
on the way to old age, herself, and by the utmost reach
of her art looked no younger than fifty, yet, she was still
handsome, still amiable, still the black-eyed, strapping
Florette who used to carry bandboxes through the streets,
past all the rich gentlemen s offices, even if she had to
go out of her way to do so.
98 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
When her old client entered the room, Florette gave
an exclamation such as one utters at a calamity.
" Ah, Madame ! Is it you ? No, it is not you ! No,
impossible! Ah, Dieu! Just Heavens! Ah! Ah! No!
No! not here! Not out here! In my office, in my
office ! " leading the way into a kind of boudoir at the
back of her shop. " But when did you arrive ? Three
weeks here without coming to see me ! You should have
come straight here from the boat. You should not have
gone through the streets before coming to see me! I
would have sent to the boat to you ! I would have sent
Cesar to you ! Cesar ! Cesar ! " she called aloud and
when her principal shop woman came, a sedate, plainly
dressed woman, with a black silk apron on (Florette had
no Florettes about her, we may be sure). Cesar, bring
some bonnets for Madame and for the young ladies."
She took off Madame s bonnet herself and raised her
eyes to heaven as she held it up in her hands : " Ah !
war, war, what do you make us suffer! It is what I
say all the time; nothing, nothing, is worth a war. If
you cannot gain what you want in peace, give it up!
The church is right, it is better to forgive your enemies ;
you lose less in the end." It is hardly necessary to say
that Florette was on good terms with the church. One
of the qualities of such women is to disarm their official
judges, nay, even their executioners, and she was quite
in the position to quote the church, accurately or in
accurately. Until Cesar came back with the bandboxes,
she continued her subject.
" Nothing is so old-fashioned, nothing, as an old-
fashioned bonnet! Only five years ago, this was the
last smile of fashion. The changes, you say, the changes
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 99
in politics? I assure you the changes in politics are
nothing to the changes in fashion. I myself, what
do I know, I came from Paris last fall. I go in
a month, I may find everything changed. When I
left, it was all, Empress Eugenie still ; . . . a graceful,
beautiful figure de rigueur; the Andalusian figure, and
to be blonde; the hair in curls, en cache peigne." She
turned her head to show her luxuriant bunch of artificial
curls falling like a waterfall over the top of a comb.
Very appropriately, while she was speaking, Henriette,
the hair dresser, came in through a back door having
finished her duties of combing Florette s shop girls. She
was as old as Florette but looked her age. Both dated
from the same period of time in the community, but while
Florette was carrying bandboxes, Henriette, infinitely
better dressed, was carrying only her little straw basket
on her arm. Her mistress had apprenticed her to a
French coiffeur in the city (all intelligent, young negro
maids were then sent to school to a coiffeur) and
Henriette had profited so well by her instruction that
when her mistress died, she was able to buy her
freedom.
She was perfectly black, a fact of which she was very
proud, for it meant incontrovertibly the virtue of her
ancestresses and she therefore considered herself as much
above mulattoes and quadroons as they thought them
selves above her. This consciousness gave her a fine
carriage; she held her head high and walked like an
African queen! Florette, herself, did not walk more
admirably.
She was dressed, (no one had ever seen her dressed
differently), in a purple calico gown, with a black silk
ioo THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
apron, a white kerchief crossed over her bosom; large
gold rings in her ears, and on her head, a tignon, of real
Madras, from which a loop of soft black wool, made
a deep scallop on each side of her face. Here was some
more unchanging reality in the apparently universal
change.
"Still here? Still combing, Henriette?" exclaimed
Mrs. Talbot, speaking as if after a lapse of fifty, instead
of four years.
" Why should I not be here, Madame? And combing?
I have been free and working for my living long before
there was any talk of the freedom by the war." Her
voice was musical and low in tone, but she shrew a dash
of contempt in her words.
A shop girl came in with a large glossy black box filled
with white Spanish lace scarfs. She spoke in an under
tone to Florette, showing one or two.
"A stranger?" asked Florette, in a tone of indif
ference.
" Yes, Madame."
"An American?"
" Yes, Madame."
" The price is marked on it, go by the price."
" But, Madame," the girl sank her voice to make an
explanation.
" Eh! Ah! he says that, does he? That he can buy it
at Fortuny s, eh?" She turned upon the girl with
an ominous look in her face.
" And you, Mademoiselle, repeat that insolence to me
instead of putting the box back on the shelf and telling
him to go then to Fortuny s? You . . . but I will
speak to Madame Cesar about you." The crestfallen girl
PEACE, GENTLE PEACF : 101
stumbled and almost fell in her confusion as she left
the room.
During the colloquy, Henriette, in her grave, business
like way had undone the hair of the little girls and
passed her comb through it, softly feeling the scalp.
" This one," she said of Polly, " is thick but you must
not cut it so often, it is wrong to cut the hair so often.
This one," of Cicely, " has fine hair but thin. You must
put some pomade on it. Put it on once a week and rub
it in softly. The Americans brush the hair too much and
they use too hard a brush. Use a soft brush, not a
hard one and do not brush too much. The Creole ladies
have softer, prettier hair than the Americans, whose hair
is stiff and straight."
She plaited the little girl s hair again and tied it with
a ribbon that she took from her basket and then took
out from it a curious little pot of pomade. Florette
brought the little pots from Paris but Henriette made the
pomade herself. It had been one of her ways of getting
rich for she charged for it as Florette did for her goods,
not according to value, but to the customer. She rolled
the pot in a piece of Florette s especial, heavy, unglazed
dark-blue paper and gave it to one of the little girls;
saying to the mother who made a gesture toward her
purse : " Oh, no, Madame ! pay me the next time you see
me." And then, with her customary, ceremonious
courtesy and " Je vous salue, Mesdames" she left as
she had entered by the back door.
The messengers from the shop were coming in now
with constant interruptions and ladies were being con
ducted through the boudoir on their way upstairs to have
their dresses fitted on.
102 THE PEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
" But who are they ? What are they to be going up
stairs in Florette s shop ? " Mrs. Talbot wondered to
herself. " And to be so excessively, so obsequiously
polite to Florette? Madame Florette this, Madame
Florette that, and I beg your pardon, Madame/ Since
when, I should like to know, has Florette permitted
herself such air and graces with customers? In old days,
she would have been well put down in her place for such
pretensions, such cool impertinence, in truth."
Florette tied the bonnet on the lady with her own
hands, sparkling as they were with rings, commenting
as she looked at the reflection in the oval mirror draped
in rose-colored cretonne: " Altogether in your own style;
plain and simple as you see, only the absolutely necessary,
but elegant; a bow of ribbon, in truth, is all you need,
but it must be the proper ribbon, and the proper kind of
bow. The imported hats! ... ah, bah! you can be
independent of them. I know, I know," nodding her
head significantly, " they are not for such as you." And
yet Florette would tell another customer that she sold
only imported hats and that to be without a becoming
bonnet was worse than to be without a becoming soul;
that it was the fashion that made the woman; that it
was better to go without bread, than the fashion, that;
etc., etc. And in spite of her friendliness with the church,
she would shrug her shoulders and say : " What will you?
It is God s affair ! He created the world and He created
women. If He had wished us otherwise, He would have
created us otherwise. We in fact are His millinery."
She placed their hats on the little girls and gave to
each her sunbonnet neatly wrapped in paper with the
recommendation always to wear it in the sun so as not
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 103
to get freckled, and presented each one with a cornet
of bonbons, tied with ribbon. She was patronized as
much for her bonbons as for French fashions, selling
them, however, only in her own bonbonnieres which
were as costly as her bonnets. But the more they cost,
the, more eager were the gentlemen to buy them and the
ladies to receive them on New Year s day, and on
anniversaries.
It was now three o clock, the fashionable hour and
the banquettes, as sidewalks are called in New Orleans,
were well filled. The lane back of the home in St.
Medard was not brighter with reds, yellows and pur
ples than the street was with the gay colors of dresses
and bonnets. Ladies and gentlemen were swarming
like bees in and out of the two confectioner shops whose
cases of bonbons, crystallized fruits and cakes of all
kinds, and their marble-topped tables, and orange trees
in green tubs, were prolonged indefinitely by mirrors
cunningly draped with curtains like windows.
How such places dwell in the memory! It had been
one of Mrs. Talbot s pleasures on the plantation when
cruelly fretted by a spoiled appetite, discontented with
a monotonous fare of hominy, bacon, corn bread, and
molasses to dream of the sorbets and biscuits, cakes,
pates, and bonbons of Felix. And she used to picture
herself, when all the tribulations of the war were over
and ended (ended as she always ended them with the
triumph of the right people), how she and her friends
would drop into Felix s again and laugh and talk of
their adventures as they would laugh and talk of ad
ventures at a masked ball, over the supper table. But
it was not she nor her friends who were doing the
104 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
laughing and talking now. She looked around, most of
the men were officers in uniform. A few months ago,
had they come to the plantation, she would have been
frightened to death at the sight of them and very likely,
they would have accosted her, pistol in hand, threatening
to hang her husband if they caught him ; and she would
pray God to keep them from ever catching him, or
burning her home as they also threatened. And now,
she and they were eating cakes at the same counter!
Silver half dollars were raining down on the marble
counters, and the argentine laugh of the ladies fell as
richly on the ear. For ladies, when in company of
officers in uniform, always seem to accentuate their joy
by much laughter.
She bought a bag of cakes to take home with her and
this was as near as she came to the fulfilment of her
dream on the plantation. But when she was about leaving
the place an unexpected pleasure seemed to fall to her.
A smile came over her face, the instinctive smile at
recognizing a friend among strangers and aliens. Made
moiselle Coralie, it was, Mademoiselle Coralie Chepe,
her old protegee, dependent and kind of nursery gover
ness and companion, not that she had needed either,
but Mademoiselle Coralie s troubles were at that time,
very great, and her manner of describing them, pathetic.
And, in fact, it was her necessities not her abilities
that had secured to Mademoiselle Coralie her position
which included, besides a home and a salary, all that
a kind-hearted, rich friend is willing to give to a poor
and needy one. Who, save a friend, would have recog
nized Mademoiselle Coralie in a fresh silk dress, scintil
lating with jet trimmings ; her coquettish little head with
PEACE, GENTLE PEACE 105
its crisp, curling black hair loaded with a bonnet full of
flowers, her black eyes, brimming over with arch looks,
her full lips, with smiles, her dark complexion, roseate
with cosmetics? No one would have supposed, she was
not pretty, she knew so well how to convey the im
pression that she was ; even a very ugly black mole on her
cheek had been touched, up into a kind of ornament.
Her old patron extended her hand, stepping forward,
but before she had time to call Mademoiselle Coralie s
name, she saw that the lady was not she, that is she looked
and acted as a stranger would have done. There was
no recognition in her face, none at all, and she turned
away with her companion, an officer in uniform.
" That is very strange ! " exclaimed Mrs. Talbot, in
voluntarily aloud : " I was sure it was she but she was
dressed too fine for Coralie."
It was not so strange as she found out afterward.
WALKING THE RAINBOW
IN spite of the careful attention of friends and the
assiduities of talebearers, we live in a woeful state of
ignorance as to the true condition of the sentiments of
any one about us. And when we interrogate our own
judgment, we get no better enlightenment, for un
fortunately we are all addicted to the pleasant habit of
counting as friends, those whom we like; as enemies,
those whom we dislike.
For that reason alone, and only that reason, Mr.
Talbot s memory did not carry Monsieur Pinseau as a
friend. The ridiculous attempts at speechmaking and
the undignified campaign activities in favor of a political
trickster, that rankled so painfully in the Creole gentle
man s remembrances of the past, did not trouble the
American at all; but the things that Monsieur Pinseau
passed over with indulgence, those were the ones that
Mr. Talbot s memory recorded with unalterable con
demnation. In his own defeat and the triumph of the
rival candidate, he attributed nothing whatever to
Monsieur Pinseau whom he frankly did not credit with
an idea in his head above fast living and extravagant
spending of his wife s money of, in short, playing the
fool, as he called it and of making associates of men
who were also given to that pastime. Which shows
among other verities, how much more importance than
they deserve we attach to our pitiful efforts to overthrow
106
WALKING THE RAINBOW 107
a good character and reputation. When Mr. Talbot
heard his wife s report about Mademoiselle Mimi he was
vastly pleased. " All the money in the world," he said
enthusiastically, " could not procure better instruction
or instruction that agreed better with his ideas." It was
what he had hoped, when he had money with which to
realize his hopes. " A lady," he explained, " must furnish
example as well as precept to her pupils." His objection
to most governesses and teachers was that they were such
a warning against themselves ; generally, an ugly, forlorn,
disappointed, and soured set of women with far more
of the furies than the graces about them. A teacher
should represent to a little girl what she would like to
be, for little girls learn by imitation mostly.
Mrs. Talbot never contested the opinions of her hus
band. Her way of entertaining him was to let him talk
to her and to agree with him. As for the reasons of
things, she seldom thought of them. The things them
selves she was wont to say were as much as she could
tackle.
" Give the little girls a good model," he continued,
" and the battle is half won." He would never allow
a daughter of his, to [emphasizing his meaning] be
taught by a man, for she would end by trying to imitate
him and the result would be a hobbledehoy. Made
moiselle could teach all that it was essential for a lady to
know ; that is, how how to take her place in society and
maintain it.
He smoked his pipe for a few minutes in silence and
his wife knew as well as if he had told her that he was
thinking of those old salons on Royal, St. Louis, and
Chartres streets where as a young man fresh from the
io8 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
University of Virginia he had met the charming society
of the ladies whom he had never ceased to admire and
whom he had chosen as the models for his daughters.
The only drawback he could see in Mademoiselle
Mimi s school, was Monsieur Pinseau. And he charged
his wife not to encourage any intimacy between the two
families. He himself had never wished to know the
man; had always avoided him and he would not suffer
his children to be thrown familiarly into company that
he disapproved of. If the world were to be made of
such as Monsieur Pinseau was reputed to be, there would
be no morality and no law in it. He knew personally
nothing against him, except that he went with a set of
men that flaunted their follies and so demoralized society.
It was always easier to prevent than to break off. He
thought that Mademoiselle Mimi had better be told this
at the outset, firmly and frankly ; then there could be no
misunderstanding in the future. He confided to his
wife this flaming sword and even instructed her as to
how her delicate hands were to wield it.
" Do not let your politeness get the better of you. Be
firm and decided. There is nothing that a mother should
be so decided about as the surroundings of her daughters.
Mademoiselle Mimi is a sensible woman and she will
understand the importance of maintaining the standards
of good society. A man cannot make his assertions in
such matters as a woman can. A man represents at
best only intellectual force, women, spiritual." After a
pause he continued : " If women chose, they could rule
the world through Society. We can better get along
with a corrupt judiciary than a corrupt Society. Do
not hurt her feelings but make your point clear. You
WALKING THE RAINBOW 109
can be clear enough when you want. And you had
better warn the children a little, let them understand."
" Yes."
" I will depend upon you to manage it."
" Yes."
" Do it in your time, and your own way. Ladies have
a gift for such things. A smile, a word, no more; but
what a rebuke! A volume couldn t tell more, a pistol
shot be more killing."
He sank deep in his reflections, perhaps over some
such pistol shot in his own memory.
When there was no alternative between doing his
will and being disagreeable, his wife was forced to exer
cise some of the gifts which she also possessed in common
with the charming ladies of his memory. For as much
as he knew about them, she knew more. He saw the
outside of their gifts, she, the inside machinery. " Tell
a daughter," she said to herself, " that her father is an
improper acquaintance for little girls who know nothing
against him and never will know anything against him!
Make Mademoiselle Mimi understand that there must
be no intercourse between the two families, because in
short, my husband is better than her father; Where?
Great heavens! Where? In what salons ancient or
modern did ladies say such things one to another ? Per
haps in the wilds of Virginia, where my husband was
born, but not here in Louisiana, where, thank heaven!
I was born. If it were the truth, which it is, Made
moiselle Mimi would surely know it better than any one
else! How could she help knowing it? What did her
whole life mean otherwise : her misfortunes, her labor. ,
her unselfish devotion? What did it all mean to her if
i io THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
not just that? But tell her so! Make her understand
it, which means to make her acknowledge and confess it !
Mademoiselle Mimi would very soon put an end to any
such conversation as that! And to save Society!
Heavens above! Go around denouncing one another s
fathers, brothers, husbands! That would be a feasible
way of saving it, eh ? What society would be left ? And
what woman would be sure enough of her own father,
husband, brother aye, sister and even mother ? " There
had been this consideration in some families that she
knew of ! " Go around denouncing this one and that !
No ! No ! Women maintain Society by just the opposite
plan. Men denounce the criminal but hold on to the
crime. Women denounce the crime but hold onto the
criminal. That is the difference between them. And
Mademoiselle Mimi was right ! A thousand times right !
as a woman."
Husbands, despite their convictions, and their superior
assumptions to the contrary, have really no advantage
over other men in knowledge of a woman s mind, or, in
short, of the inner determinations of a wife s mind.
They can only know in truth, what the wife chooses to
tell them, and a discreet wife often chooses to limit her
communications of this kind. Wives for example, such
as Mr. Talbot admired in the old salons, who were as
unlike missionaries as one can possibly conceive. They
were not women to brandish moral swords ! They were
women on the contrary, like Mademoiselle Mimi.
So Mrs. Talbot was quite clear, in this at least, that
Mademoiselle would be talked to as her husband directed
at the Greek Calends and not before.
The bright glow of sunset shone in the sky. It bright-
WALKING THE RAINBOW in
ened the spire of the little church and seemed almost
to give a golden tone to the thin, weak voice of the
Angelus bell. A few oranges still glittered amid the
dark foliage of the hedge, the sour, bitter kind, not the
sweet ones whose flowers so poetically used to symbolize
the hopes of brides. ^And the old garden, as an old face
does sometimes from inward illumination, flushed under
the golden and rose light of the sky, into a flicker of its
pristine witchery and beauty. The children were scat
tered through it, fondling and caressing it, as if indeed
it were an old face. ,
" I have never worked for anything in my life that
I did not get it in the end." The husband spoke medi
tatively from another mile-stone in his thoughts. This
was true, but his wife had never heard him say so before.
There never had been any need to say it before. It was
taken for granted. Now?
" But you worked hard for what you wanted/ she
responded quickly with her sure instinct of affection.
" It was always said about you, that you were the hardest
working young lawyer at the bar. I always remember a
story Papa told about you. He was passing your office
once in the middle of Winter, long past midnight and
seeing a light in your office ; all the other windows were
black, he went upstairs to see if anything were the matter,
opened the door, and there you were over your books,
dressed just as you had come from some dinner-party or
ball."
" Well, Talbot, he said disgustedly," her husband
took up the story with a laugh, " you must love work.
Love, I answered, I love it better than meat and
bread. "
ii2 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
His face showed his satisfaction at the memory of
it. She possessed the art of recalling such things
and repeating them appropriately. Her memory was
a treasury to her. She never forgot a face, a
name, a good deed, a pleasant speech or a humorous
incident.
Yes," her husband repeated, with gusto, " I always
loved to work. I cared in fact for nothing in life that
I did not work for. What a man makes up his mind
to work for, he can obtain," he added confidently. And
then he began to explain his plans again to her. Any one
could understand them, they were so simple and natural.
It was true he had lost a fortune; everything he had
worked for and gained since he had been a lawyer
and he did not count in this what he should have in
herited from his father who had died during the war and
whose estate had been settled in Confederate money.
He counted as his own only what he had made, and no
man had made more or larger fees than he. He called
over, as lawyers never tire of doing, his cases in the past
and the briefs, the " historic briefs " he called them,
that he had written. Having saved his library, he said,
was the greatest piece of good fortune that could happen
to him or any lawyer. If that had been lost, he would
have considered himself unfortunate. The loss of his
plantation would have been nothing in comparison to it.
With its accumulation of private notes and records, it was
perhaps the most complete in the city, he knew he would
not have exchanged it for any he had ever seen. And
he was lucky too in having his same old office. He could
take up just where he had left off four years ago and
as far as he could see, it was only a question of work
WALKING THE RAINBOW 113
with him, to catch up on the losses of the war. Fortu
nately, litigation could not be captured, confiscated or
burned. " The fact is," he concluded, with a frank
laugh, " if there is any important lawsuit, there are four
or five of us who are bound to be retained on one side
or the other."
The only change he would make from former plans,
was that instead of sending his sons to the University
of Virginia, as he had intended, he would put them to
work just as soon as they knew enough of the requisites
that is Latin, Greek, and mathematics, with sufficient
science for respectability; which was far more than
the greatest Americans had started with fifty years ago.
If there was anything in the boys, they could get along
on the education he was able to give them. If they could
not get along on that, it was a pretty good sign they
would not get along on a better. The daughters would
suffer less in education, for they could learn easier, all
that ladies needed to know, and take more time over it.
He had always counted on giving each one her dower
when she became of age so that she could marry or not
just as she chose. He had seen some unfortunate young
girls marry for money, some literally for the means of
living. A dower, he feared, would be beyond his reach
now. The consequences of the war would fall heavier on
the women than on the men. The lives of the men would
be changed comparatively little. But the women ... it
was slavery alone that had kept them from domestic
drudgery ... he shook his head, and repeated, " do
mestic drudgery added to family duties." He smoked his
pipe a moment and continued with a new variation of his
subject, his wife listening without assent or dissent, look-
ii 4 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
ing through his telescope whichever way he wanted;
either end the right one for her.
He ran over the list of his friends who like him had
broken away from all that had constituted life to them
to go into the war. As he gave the name, his wife s ready
memory supplied her usual pleasant addenda of reminis
cences; how they used to like this one and that one, and
how this one and that one used to like him and praise
him to her, and all sorts of other items in connection with
his friends that he had forgotten ; tossing over her little
memories, and rummaging in them as she once would
have done in her great bureau drawer of scraps! And
like the ladies scraps of that time her bits from memory
were all of beautiful quality: silk, velvet, brocade, real
embroidery, real lace; buttons and buckles that looked
like jewelry, ribbons, ostrich and marabout feathers, all
too pretty to throw away but so useless to keep except
as souvenirs. The duel that he had prevented, the ugly
family quarrel he had stopped, a reconciliation between a
husband and wife bent on divorce, the last will and
testament he had turned from resentment into forgive
ness of injuries, and how he had always stood by the
unfortunate. There was not a friend or client he could
name that she could not connect with some personal
obligation. It was only the good lawyer s usual show
ing at that time and the wife s usual version of his
services; services that only lawyers and their wives en
hance with any glamor of sentimental obligation; for a
lawyer s clients have no such glamor in their view of the
transaction.
But it was a pleasant review and a drawer of scraps
that any lawyer s wife would be glad to own. Even
WALKING THE RAINBOW 115
old Benton, millionaire and miser that he was, had owned
to her that the beginning of his great fortune was laid
when Talbot was a young law student, and he, Benton, a
porter carrying bundles of goods on his back up and
down four and five flights of stairs. And there was
Tommy Cook, whom he had picked up out of the gutter,
for he could never see a bright boy run to waste without
stretching out his hand to prevent it ... and . . .
and . . . friends, friends, friends, wherever they looked
in the past they saw friends and not an enemy. For
according to the pleasant weakness already mentioned,
they saw in the past none to whom they were not friendly ;
forgetting, of course, contradictory experiences.
" I shall let Tommy Cook keep his desk in the office."
"What does he want with a desk there?" the wife
asked innocently.
" Well, not to black shoes on, you may be sure.
Tommy is a lawyer now."
" How can he be a lawyer? "
" By study and work like other men."
" But I always thought that lawyers had to be gentle
men. I have never known a lawyer who was not a
gentleman."
" You have been very lucky then," he answered dryly.
There was silence between them for a moment, and
then he took up the fallen thread of conversation again.
" He has a pretty good practice already. He gained a
suit for Benton the other day."
"What! did Benton employ him?"
" He needed a lawyer and Tommy is about as decent
a one as he could find. He has been associated, at least,
with the bar."
ii6 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
" Yes, as bootblack."
" Some of the others wouldn t have made even decent
bootblacks; butlers, and camp followers, mostly."
She looked disgusted but said nothing.
" What," she asked, brightening with a sudden inspira
tion, " what has become of the Riparian case ? "
Always before, that is before the war that had
separated them from their past; in their talks about the
future, they would discuss this case. She had completely
forgotten it! What a prominent object it had always
been in her husband s horizon! For years his ambition
had rested on it. It was to be, in his eyes, the master
piece of his profession, to give him fame throughout the
legal world. He used to say that if he never gained
anything else but that one case he would have secured
wealth for himself and his children, so far-reaching
would be the effects of a favorable decision. The fee
was contingent, but he was as sure of getting it, he used
to say, as he was sure the heavens would not fall.
From the time that he had been called to the bar he
had aimed at that case, he had studied and worked his
way into it with such consummate patience, and legal
keenness, that he was considered the only man in the
city who had a perfect record of it in his mind. It was
as much his own as any piece of property he could have
bought. No matter when it was opened, now or twenty
years hence, it could not be opened without his appearing
in it as principal counsel.
"How strange! thought the wife, "that everything
else should give way in the South government, states
rights, social order and that a great war should be
fought and thousands of lives lost, and a mere question
WALKING THE RAINBOW 117
of the city s Riparian rights should survive! That like
a lighthouse it should still be standing after the storm
that has strewn the shore with wrecks ! " This led her
to ask about their friend Dalton who, having studied law
in her husband s office, had been employed in some minor
capacity in this very Riparian case.
"Dalton? Oh, Dalton went into the war a private,
and has come out a major."
" Well, is he any more human ? any less like a fish
cold and slippery ?
As she had done about the Riparian case, her husband
might well have wondered how such an idle and futile
prejudice could survive the fierce tempest that had almost
engulfed the National Government, and wrecked its
apparently indestructible fortunes. He answered quietly :
" He is very much improved in appearance and seems
full of energy. He will stay in my office and use my
library until he is able to set up an independent establish
ment."
A click of the gate s latchet caused them to raise their
heads and look in that direction, and as they saw who
was coming down the walk toward them, both exclaimed :
" Harry Linton ! " Both stepped forward to meet him ;
the aunt repeating with a glad smile, " Harry ! Harry !
I was thinking about him only today," She had not seen
him since he waved his cap in good-bye to her from the
car window when his company left for Virginia : the
gay, young nephew, who had lived with them while he
studied law with his uncle, whom she loved, it may be
said, for his faults, for he had made no display of the
family virtues. He was still boyish-looking, and had still
the same old irresistible expression of friendliness and
ii8 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
good humor on his round freckled face and in his blue
eyes, and his light hair stood out as it used to in thick
curls over his head. The only change was a long ugly
scar that extended over one side of his face, from fore
head to chin, cutting across an eye. He looked taller and
showed the effect of drilling in his bearing but he was
still shorter than his uncle by a full head.
They drew their chairs together, the children clustering
on the steps in good hearing.
"Well," said his uncle, "what are you doing?"
" No, no," protested the aunt. " He must begin
from the time he left us and tell us all his adventures.
I want to hear the whole story from beginning to
end."
The young fellow laughed and told hurriedly how,
after he was wounded in Virginia he had been sent back
to Louisiana to recuperate, and then had been transferred
to the Louisiana command where, in a desperate fight
on Red River, a small company tried to delay the advance
of the Federal army, which they succeeded in doing;
how he received his wound in the face, and was insensible
when he was taken prisoner and brought to New Orleans.
After he was discharged from the hospital he was kept
in prison until peace was declared. The children crowded
upon one another to get nearer to him while he talked
along in his gay, bright, reckless way.
" As soon as I could get out of the city," he continued,
" I started for home. I hadn t heard a word from my
people for a year and didn t know anything about them
except that they had taken refuge in Texas you know
our place was just on the line of Banks s march."
His uncle nodded.
WALKING THE RAINBOW 119
" And then, and then? " his aunt s voice quivered with
impatience.
" The chimneys are still standing and that is all that
was left to show that there had been a human habitation
there."
"Oh! Oh!" wailed the aunt, "that beautiful old
house ! That fine plantation ! "
Harry was too much amused at the story to come to
waste time on the lament. He threw his head back and
laughed as at a joke.
" I wish you could have seen the family come back !
I was lucky enough to get there the day before. I
camped during the night in the shelter of my ancestral
ruins, that is in the furnace of the sugar house; there
were not enough ruins of anything else to shelter a
cat," laughing. " I knew they would come straight to
the place as quick as they could travel, and I had a
presentiment that that would be about as quick as I could
get there from the city. Well, I was standing in front
of my furnace, looking about for something to look at,
when, here they came, just about dusk ! First a broken-
down buggy tied with rope, drawn by a limping horse.
Elizabeth was in it with Heatherstone. Behind them
came a little cart with a kind of cover over it, drawn by
an old gray mule. Mother drove that and it seemed
filled with children, their heads stuck out in all directions
like chickens in a basket."
All laughed with him at this picture.
" Heatherstone was shot all to pieces at Mansfield,
you know. I had heard that he was wounded but I really
did not know until I saw him that he had lost both an
arm and a leg."
120 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
" An arm and a leg ! Oh, Harry ! " cried his aunt in
horror.
" Yes, and on the hand he has left he has only three
fingers. The thumb and forefinger had to be ampu
tated."
"Oh!" . . .
" How does he stand it ? " asked the uncle, curtly
interrupting the soft, sympathetic voice. " He was the
last man in the country to play the invalid with success."
" Invalid ! He an invalid ! whew ..." Harry
threw back his head and whistled. " I was fool enough
to think I might say something to him to show a little
feeling, to express some sort of sympathy and that sort
of thing about his being a cripple. By Jove," the young
man jumped up to act the scene for them " he turned
upon me as if I were a Yankee. Damn it, Sir ! Do you
dare sympathize with me, Sir? Damn your sympathy!
I don t want any man s damned sympathy! Take your
damned sympathy where it is needed, Sir! We don t
need it here, Sir. "
He was a capital mimic and did the scene so well that
one saw the tall gaunt figure of his Texan brother-in-law,
as well as heard him snarling out his short sentences.
" I will let you know, Sir ! I am as good a man now,
Sir! as I ever was! I can do without my leg, Sir, and
my arm, Sir! The Yankees are welcome to them, Sir?
Damn them! My wife, Sir! doesn t need them either!
My wife, Sir, at this moment is worth more than any
hundred damn Yankees I ever came across, Sir! They
didn t shoot off her leg, Sir, or her arm! And you
needn t go offering her any of your damned sympathy
either, Sir ! She doesn t need it ! " And I took his advice.
WALKING THE RAINBOW 121
I didn t sympathize any more with any of them. You
would never recognize Elizabeth. She goes stalking
about in a pair of her husband s old cavalry boots and an
old hat of his, and she ties her skirts up to her knees
like the negro women used to do in the fields; and she
wears a pistol stuck in her belt. In fact she does every
thing she can to make a man out of herself, except curse
and smoke. And the more of a man she is, the better her
husband likes it. The two are always together; Mother
takes care of the children."
" How is your mother ? "
Harry sat down and laughed at this memory also.
" Mother is not changed a particle, not a shade. She
goes stepping around in her old faded calico dress and
sunbonnet, just exactly as she used to do at Princeton
in that ugly old India shawl of hers and bird of Paradise
bonnet. She is just as unbending, just as firm, just as
sure of herself, and she keeps Heatherstone, that s the
eldest boy, under her thumb just as she used to do me;
makes him study of nights and tells him what great
things she expects of him, exactly as she used to do with
me. Not one of them will own to being hurt by
the results of the war. They pooh, pooh, their losses.
In fact, they live as if the Yankees were watching and
listening to them all the time, and they will die before
they gratify them with a regret. I found out," seeing
that his audience was waiting in silence for more on
the subject, " that Mother and Sister had about fifty
dollars in gold."
" Fifty dollars in gold ! " his aunt exclaimed in amaze
ment as if it were a fortune.
" Yes, fifty dollars in gold."
122 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
" How did they manage to save so much? "
They didn t save it," pausing to enhance his effect,
" they made it.
" Made it ! " ejaculated the aunt in still greater amaze
ment. " How could they make money ? "
" How could they make it ? " For the first time his
voice was grave. " Why, they were in some God-forsaken
place in Texas where the children were hungry for food
and cold for clothes, and they had to make money or
beg."
" But what could they do? "
" They knit, they spun, they cooked," lowering his
voice and speaking slower, " they took in washing and
ironing and they planted a little cotton, only a few rows,
for the knitting, you know, and at the end of the war
they had a little pile of it stuffed into their mattresses.
Of course it was as good as gold. And when Heather-
stone returned to them he came in a buggy with an old
broken-down army horse that the commissary depart
ment allowed him, as it was the only way he could travel.
The cart and the mule he managed to pick up somewhere ;
I believe he gave one of his pistols for them."
" How many children have they ? " asked his aunt.
" Five, they lost two. Heatherstone, the eldest, is a
fine boy."
" You did not make up your mind to stay with them? "
asked his uncle.
" The fact is, Uncle, when I went there, it was to
stay with them and work on the old plantation; and
when I saw Heatherstone, I was determined to do so,
for I never felt so sorry for people in my life," looking
at his uncle and then at his aunt, " as when I saw them
WALKING THE RAINBOW 123
unloading themselves from their buggy and cart. I
could have stayed willingly with them and worked like
a negro for them the rest of my days. But they wouldn t
hear of such a thing; grew indignant at the very idea of
it. Heatherstone seemed to take it as a reflection on
himself and Sister, and Mother waxed eloquent over
my duty to become a great lawyer and chief justice of
the state just as she used to do when we all had fortunes.
They camped out that night, as they had done nearly
every night of their journey from Texas, but by noon the
next day they were having a shelter put up around one
of the old chimneys. Heatherstone and Elizabeth had
gone out about daylight and rooted up some of the old
negroes somewhere, and found the lumber. They said
they could put up a very comfortable cabin for the fifty
dollars and began at once to talk about a garden,
chickens and ten acres of cotton. I suppose Heather-
stone, the boy, will do the plowing when they get a
plow, and I have not the slightest doubt but that
Mother and Elizabeth will help in the hoeing and of
course all, down to the youngest, will take a hand in the
picking."
In spite of his natural high spirits and his fondness
for laughing at his people, his voice grew sad. " As
they didn t seem to have thought of me in any of their
plans, and in fact, so far as I could see, didn t need me
or want me, I concluded that the thing for me to do
was to come back to the city and see if I could not make
a little money here. They will need ready money and
that badly, long before Spring, if I am not much mis
taken."
" Well," said his uncle reflectively, " I do not know
i2 4 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
but what you are right. You selected the bar for your
profession, studied for it and were admitted. I do not
see any good reason why you should throw away all
the time, work, and expense you gave to it. Your four
years of soldiering ought not to make you a worse
lawyer, on the contrary, it ought to make you a better
one." He smoked a few shiffs from his pipe and con
cluded with : " And I have always thought, Harry, you
ought to make a pretty good lawyer of yourself."
" I believe, myself," said the young fellow, rising,
" that I could at least make a living for my mother and
myself at it, if I had a fair chance. There is no telling,
however, what the outcome of all this is going to be,"
he added, with rather a questioning look at his uncle.
" Oh ! " was the answer, " I fancy, the country will
soon settle down and go to work to repair the losses.
That is what I am going to do," with a frank laugh.
" I had thought," the young fellow hesitated, glancing
furtively at his aunt as he used to do in critical ventures
with his uncle, " I had thought of trying something else
. . . to make money a little quicker. Times are
changed. . . . "
" But we are not."
" I don t know about that, Uncle."
" But I do know."
" I might get a clerkship somewhere."
"A clerkship!"
" Well, it would give me some money at once."
The mother hastily gathered her children together.
" It is their bedtime," she explained with a cheerful voice,
but trying to make her nephew see her warning shake
of the head.
WALKING THE RAINBOW 125
" He is no wiser about getting along with his uncle
than he was before he went to the war," she said to her
self as she left the gallery. But looking back from the
room, she saw the two men walking together down the
path to the gate, the elder one turning his head toward
the younger one; and she knew, as well as if she heard
the words, that some of the funds, brought by the
herald of prosperity, was to be despatched at once, to
the cabin built around the chimney on the ruined plantar
tion.
d<
:
"IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY "
THE bell of the little church roused Sunday betimes in
St. Medard. No one, on that day at least, heard the
trumpet at the barracks. A thin, clanging, j angling-
voiced bell it was, and Cribiche rang it with no more
sentiment than an overseer rings his bell on a planta
tion to call the negroes to their work. But to the ear
that had been longing for a church bell for four years
and had heard only the overseer s ; to this ear, the bell of
St. Medard, seemed in comparison with all other bells
ever heard ; even as the trumpet of an angel in compari
son with the trumpet of the barracks.
From the earliest hour of the mass, one could hear
the voices of those who were hurrying to get to the
church and have their duty over and done for the day
and for the week; gay pleasant voices, that made the
pebbly Gascon French sound pretty. And if one peeped
through the window, one could see the men, women, and
children striding by in their clean Sunday clothes, hoofed,
one might say in their Sunday shoes, for in sabots only
do Gascon peasants walk lightly and at their ease.
For mass after mass the gay alarum jingled, until
surely, only the dead of conscience as well as of ear could
pretend to be deaf to it. Each ringing seemed to catch
a different set of sinners or saints, the first netting the
poorest and plainest, and each succeeding one ever more
worthy game from a worldly point of view. The last one
126
"IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY" 127
for high mass landing the fine people in carriages, or those
who walked only the shortest of distances, the ladies, in
trailing dresses, in the most delicate of shoes, planters
families from the lower coast, and the rich demoiselles
San Antonio. These were the parishioners to whom Pere
Phileas addressed the sermons that he gleaned, it must be
confessed, from the other classes of his congregation. He
was not a brilliant priest, as priests go, but he knew as
well as any Dominican who ever came from Paris to
preach the Lenten sermons at the Cathedral that in
order that those who have ears should hear, one must
preach the sins of the poor to the rich and the sins of
the rich to the poor. And so it was that the hard-work
ing, the dairy, and gardening folk who rose at dawn to
get to church for the first mass furnished the spiritual
exhortation for the leisurely class, who reluctantly left
easy beds to catch, as they called it, the last mass.
" Ah, God ! I cannot thank Thee as I would here,
but when I get home where I can go to church with all
my children, then will I thank and praise Thee. Oh!
Then will I fill the church with my thanksgiving and
praise to Thee!" As Sunday after Sunday rolled by
on the lonely plantation, this had been the poor mother s
vow to herself as she strove with her inadequate words
to express what was in her heart toward the One who
was leading her through such a valley as, surely, she
thought, no woman with four small children had ever
been brought through safely before. Not a Sunday
passed on the plantation that, after hearing their cate
chism and verses and hymns she did not remind the
children of what the Sundays were at home, where there
were churches and Sunday-schools.
128 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
When the lessons were over, and she and the children
would start for their Sunday morning walk, the little girls
would still cling to her and beg: "Please, Mama, tell
us some more about your Sundays at home," while the
boys, of course, took no interest in them but were always
trying to slip away on their own adventures. The Sun
day walk was always the same, along the road by the
Bayou to the woods. She, herself, was always afraid of
the woods. Her terror was, that in some incomprehen
sible way, she would wander in it out of sight of the
Bayou and thus lose her clue to the direction of the
home; or that one of the children in their frolics would
run away, out of sight and hearing, and get lost. But
she cunningly concealed her fears for she never allowed
the children to suspect that she was afraid of anything;
one of her husband s theories being that women were
as brave as men. She, therefore never went far into the
woods ; and she could always hold the children and their
attention while she turned them homewards by telling
them still more about anything she remembered, it made
no difference what. She could tell an interesting story as
well about one person as another and she could tell, not
only her own stories but those her mother had told to her,
which she had heard from her grandmother, stories that
began, some of them, in the emigration of the Hugue
nots to this country, or the Revolutionary War, and all
sorts of hair-breadth escapes of Continentals from Tories.
On the rare occasions, when the father was along,
he would tell them hunting stories, for he had been a
great hunter in his youth; and the walk with him as
guide would go far into the woods to the coulee, a slug
gish drain from the swamp whose glassy black water
" IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY " 129
held no end of turtles and deadly moccasins. Even
the youngest of the children had been taught not to fear
these last, however, but to kill them boldly with a blow
on the back of the head. In the Autumn, they would
walk to a grove of persimmon trees, where, if there
had been frost the night before, the ground would be
covered with ripe fruit, both the large, full round pink
persimmons, shaded with lilac, and the deep red ones
that when dried in the sun tasted like prunes the kind,
that as the father related, the Indians dried and pounded
and made nice bread or cake of. In his youth, out of
which he could draw as many wonderful stories as Mama
out of hers, he used to go hunting with the Indians, and
often spent weeks with them in their villages, as many
young men of his day preferred doing instead of travel
ing to civilized centers. From the Indians he learned all
sorts of curious forest lore : the habits of trees, the tracks
of animals, medicinal herbs, and subtle ways of telling
the points of the compass by the bark of the trees; all
of which he taught the children.
In the Spring, the walk would be to the sandy spot
on the Bayou s bank where the alligators laid their eggs.
He always knew the very Sunday when the sand would
be marked by their tracks, and following the tracks find
the spot where the eggs had been laid and covered.
Always on coming back from their Sunday walk they
would go the rounds of the quarters, stopping first
invariably at the cabin of old Aunt Patsy, the most
venerable negro on the plantation. Her cabin stood apart
from the others and she lived by herself : a silent, morose
old woman, but after the master and mistress the most
respected person on the place. Often when the mistress
130 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
was surcharged with anxiety, she would go and talk with
Aunt Patsy, and never came back without being eased,
or without remarking, how Aunt Patsy seemed to know
everything about life. On Sundays she was always
found ready to receive her visitors sitting in her low
white oak chair covered with deer skin. She wore a
cap, the only negress on the place who did so, a broad
ruffled white cotton cap, tied under her chin. Very
black she was; thin and wrinkled and with front teeth
that stood out like tusks. On account of her age, she
was exempt from work, but she was always busy, never
theless, spinning the finest and best knitting cotton and
doing the fastest and prettiest knitting. She had no
relations, had never borne a child, and her husband had
been dead so long that he had become merely a tradition
on the place. A boy had been assigned to the duty of
cutting wood and fetching water for her, and this was her
only connection with her fellow slaves. When she died,
her funeral was made a great event. And afterwards the
negroes and the white children following their supersti
tions (as white children never fail to do) in passing her
cabin always looked to see if she might not be still sitting
there " anyhow " as they said.
The other negroes in the quarters would be sitting in
front of their cabins; the babies, washed and dressed,
lying in their mothers or fathers arms, their bright alert
eyes, glancing around and their little hands grabbing at
the flies in the air. The other children, in their clean
cotonades, with bare legs and feet well scrubbed, would
be running around after the chickens that is the hap
piest of them the others would be wedged in the vise
of a parent s knees, while their stubborn hair was being
"IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY" 131
carded, divided and wrapped into stiff wisps with white
knitting cotton. Here and there, stretched out in the
sun the half -grown boys would be lying asleep, worn
out with the exhaustion of having nothing to do.
After the greetings there would be talk of the weather,
and the crops, and gossip about the animals. Sometimes
a group of men would be gathered on Jerry s gallery
" passing the time of day/ as they called it, in dis
cussion generally about the cause of things such as
the changes of the seasons, the revolution of the sun
or God s ways. And when the master was along, he
would step in and join them and answer their questions
and make explanations; until all the other negro men
would drift in too; and their wives following would sit
around on the edge of the gallery to enjoy the enter
tainment, commenting freely, and guffawing aloud at
the good retorts, as each man put his oar into the con
versation whenever he got a chance. Meanwhile the
mistress and the little girls would continue their walk to
the house and the little boys make off with their black
followers at their heels upon some adventure, that seemed
to be innocent, but always turned out to be mis
chievous
All this train of reminiscence was put in motion as
the car jolted and rumbled along on the way to church.
Still, the memories of the plantation forming the back
ground of thought in the city, as the memories of the
city had formed the background of thought on the
plantation ! Mrs. Talbot s face brightened with pride as
well as love, at the sight, at last, of her church. The
sacred edifice, which during the week seemed to sink
into the ground completely lost from sight in the busy
132 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
whirl of life, rose commandingly enough on Sunday
when the shop windows were shut and barred and the
merry-go-round of fashion-seekers turned off. Its only
rival was the drinking shop on the corner. And blatant
and brazen though this was on week days, it hung its
head sadly enough in shame on Sundays, as if it knew
then what it really was not a drinking but a drunkard
shop. How could it look otherwise with the fine old
church casting its judgment day sentence upon it and
with the stream of people passing under the granite
portal, with that same judgment day in their minds?
With her children following her, the mother made her
way quickly to her old pew, just as she had pictured to
herself doing so often in the past. She could have gone
to it blindfolded. A lady was in it who looked with
haughty surprise at the intrusion and moved away to the
end of the seat. She looked for the old books in the
rack ; they were no longer there. When the service began
it recalled her to where she was ; but over and over again
she asked herself whether she were not still on the planta
tion, in the war and only dreaming she was in church,
gazing at the window that as a child she had looked
upon as a sign in the sky. . . .
But no, this was not her memory on the plantation!
this was not what she saw there on Sundays, far far
different from it ! That was not her old minister s face
and figure that ever since she could remember she had
seen in the pulpit ; whose voice had humanized the gospels
and epistles to her. Looking around, she saw none of
the starts of surprise and quick cordiality of eyes, that
had made the charm of the plantation anticipation. She
saw in the old places only drooping women, in mourning
"IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY" 133
or shabby clothes, and no men that she knew. When the
service was over, there was no hurrying forward with
outstretched hands of welcome. Instead of that, the
imperious lady in the pew showed unmistakable signs
of impatience at her lingering and brushed past her with
scant courtesy. And then she saw, that the name on the
pew had been changed, her father s and grandfather s
name was no longer where it had been since the church
was built. As in flight, she hurried out a side door and
passed through the small churchyard which still, unlike
the pew, held the name of her grandfather on a tablet.
She did not linger to point it out to her children, and
read the honorable inscription on it, as she had antici
pated doing with pride on the plantation ; but rushed out
the gate to the car that took her away not so much from
her past, as from the future of that past.
When the early Sunday dinner was over and a long
afternoon lay before them, the family went out for the
walk that always filled such afternoons on the planta
tion. The mistress, going first to give a direction to the
servants, found Jerry and all his family sitting on their
gallery, in their Sunday clothes, silent and dejected.
"Haven t you been out at all today, Jerry?" she
asked.
" Yes, Mistress, I went out for a little while."
" We are going to walk on the levee to see the river,
why don t you all go too and sit out there? "
" I have been there, Mistress."
" We ve all done seen the river," added Matilda.
" But now you will see all the people passing."
" It s no use seeing people, Mistress, if you don t know
them."
134 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
" Well, but talk to them and you will learn to know
them."
Matilda shook her head gloomily.
" Isn t there any church somewhere tonight that you
can go to? "
" I don t know, Mistress," answered Jerry indif
ferently.
" But you could ask some one."
" We don t know nobody to ask," Matilda retorted
crossly.
" Oh ! you may be sure there is a church somewhere
hereabouts, that you can go to. Wherever there are
darkies, there is a church, you know."
" Church ain t nothing, without you know the niggers
in it."
The four girls sat around stolidly without a word.
" But Laura, Henrietta, Julia, and Maria would like
to go out ; take them to the levee."
"If it s good enough for Jerry and me here, it s
good enough for them." Matilda looked at them with
ill-temper.
They had evidently all been quarreling and there
was nothing to do except leave them alone. But
the Mistress s kind heart was smitten by their forlorn
appearance.
" They are homesick for the plantation," she told her
husband.
" And for some hard work," he answered. " I told
Jerry he must find something to do. He is no more ac
customed to idleness than I am. A good carpenter ought
to be able to make good wages, and there can hardly be
a better carpenter for plain work in the city. And he
"IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY" 135
must put the girls to work, they ought to make at least
their food and clothing."
"If they are made to work, they will work. Dennis
has had them hoeing regularly with the field gang."
Dennis was the negro foreman who replaced the white
overseer when he went to the war. " And as soon as
they were large enough to balance a bucket of water on
their heads they carried water to the field hands."
" Well, there is plenty of work for them in the city ;
they will have to be taught, of course, but there is no
reason why they cannot learn," the husband said in his
decided tone. "Julia is stupid but she is steady; Hen
rietta is bright, she will learn easily; but she will turn
into a rascal. . . . "
" Oh! do you think so? " This was said in the tone
of the past days when masters and mistresses took upon
themselves the failures of character in a slave. " What
are you going to do about it ? "
" I ? I have nothing to do about it. That s Jerry s
affair now."
" But what can Jerry do unless you are behind him ? "
" Jerry comes of good stock and has been well brought
up and he ought to know what to do by himself."
"Yes, but Jerry was trained by a master; if Jerry
were a master. . . . " The levee rising in front, a
tall green rampart, interrupted them. They climbed the
wooden steps laid against the steep side and on the top,
stopped to look at the river, not yet as habituated to it, as
were the other saunterers from the neighborhood, who,
stretching their necks and laughing and talking to one
another, noticed it no more than the public road inside
the levee. The great yellow stream rolled majestically
136 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
along; awful in its portent of power and fatefulness.
Down the center of its swift current ran a glittering
way, shot into the brilliancy of polished jewels, by the
sun s rays. Dim and vague, like a foreign land, the
opposite bank lay across the vast width of water.
As usual, the father strode on ahead, the captain.
His wife followed next, now walking fast to keep up
with him, now slow so as not to leave the children
behind; her head ever-turning to look ahead, and then
to look behind her; her feet tripping and stumbling in
her uneven path and attention. The little path made a
subservient detour around a plateau shaded with trees,
where the officers of the barracks lounging on benches,
were smoking and playing with their dogs. Behind
them, facing the road, stood the heavy-looking red brick
Spanish buildings of the barracks, with its towers, from
whose loopholes protruded the grim muzzles of cannon.
Sentries paced in front, squads of soldiers were marching
around inside, booted and spurred cavalrymen were
galloping up and away from the gateway at whose
posts horses bridled and saddled were hitched in readi
ness for an alarm. The river, itself, was not more fate-
fully portentous in its aspect. But out of sight, it quickly
went out of mind and the " nature," as Madame Joachim
called the country, that succeeded, was in no wise akin
to it in mood. In truth, it seemed as merry and convivial
to the eye as the spirits of the holiday-makers, in the
dusty road: the bands of boys returning from hunting
or fishing frolics ; negro men and women, in their gaudy
Sunday finery and gaudy Sunday boisterousness ; noisy
Gascons with their noisy families packed in little rattling
milk or vegetable carts; antique buggies and chaises,
" IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY " 137
with their shabby-looking horses or mules, filled with
voluble French chatterers; and every now and then,
shining new traps behind spanking teams driven by gay
young officers who looked neither to the right nor left
greeting no one, greeted by no one. Sprawling on the
river-side of the levee and hidden from view, parties
of white and negro soldiers were playing cards or
throwing dice, or lying outstretched on the grass asleep
or drunk.
Built so as to face the river and dominate it by their
elegance, as the barracks did by its fierceness, stately
mansions of the ancien regime succeeded memorials of
a day when the city s suburb of the elite was expected to
grow down stream; and specimens of the elegant archi
tecture that is based on the future stability of wealth
massive brick and stucco structures surrounded with
balconies, upheld by pillars sturdy enough to support the
roof of a church; with ceremonious avenues shaded by
magnolias or cedars leading up to great gardens whose
flower beds were disposed around fountains or white
statuettes. And after these, unrolling in the bright sun
light like a panorama to the promenaders on the levee,
came the plantations, the old and famous plantations as
they used to be reckoned, whose musical French and
Spanish names bespoke the colonial prestige of their
owners. Hedges of wild orange, yucca or banana
screened the fences, but every now and then the thick
foliage was pierced by little belvideres ; from whence the
soft voices of women and the laughter of children
sitting within,, to enjoy the view and breezes of the river,
would fall like songs of birds from cages upon the
road below. Or out on the levee, itself, the families
1 38 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
would be gathered in little pavilions, sitting in pleasant
sociability, as the families of these plantations had been
doing for generations, looking at the river and at the
pleasant view also of their own possessions : mansion,
quarters, sugar house, brick kiln, fields of sugar or corn,
pastures studded with pecans, cherry trees, or oaks,
smithies, warehouses, some of the buildings and appur
tenances as aged-looking and out-of-date as the great-
grandmothers in their loose gowns, reclining in their
rocking-chairs in the pavilions gazing with the pensive-
ness of old age at the swift and sure current of the
river.
At one place the stream had undermined its bank and
swallowed up a huge horseshoe of land, taking levee and
road with it. A new levee, whose fresh earth crumbled
under the feet, had been thrown up around the breach;
and a new road run, curving boldly into the privacy of a
garden, or the symmetrical furrows of a field. A half-
mile beyond, the river seemed to drop its booty of soil
seized above, and was forming a new bank; the batture,
as it is called, could be seen shoaling up bare and glisten
ing wet, far outside the levee.
" There ! " the father stopped suddenly, and turning
his back to the river, pointed with fine dramatic effect
in the opposite direction, his face beaming with pleasure
at the culmination of his carefully guarded surprise.
"There it is! The field of the Battle of New Orleans!
That is the monument ! "
As he glanced down to see the effect, he could behold
the glow from his face reflected in each little face looking
up to him, as the glow of the sunset had been reflected in
the surface of the river. And yet what could be more
" IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY " 139
commonplace to these children than a battlefield? What
else had they heard of for years but of winning and
losing battles? Each one of the little band was surely
qualified to say " Whatever my ignorance about other
things, I at least know war." But now, it was as if they
knew it not. Their eyes were gleaming and their little
hearts beating as at the sight and sound of martial glory
too great for earth to bear the martial glory of poetry
and history, not of plain every-day life! Breathless,
they ran down the levee after their father, looking, as he
looked, nowhere but in front, where rose the tall shaft
that commemorated the famous victory. Faster and
faster he strode, and they after him, until they reached
the steps of the monument and climbing up, could look
over the land roundabout ; seeing only a bush here, a tree
there, a house in the distance and still farther away the
line of the forest. A bare, ugly, desolate scene enough,
but not so to the little band
"There were the British headquarters! There Jack
son s! Along there ran the ramparts! In that swamp
were the Kentuckians! There, next the river, the Bar-
ratarians! Away over there, hidden by the woods, the
little bayou through which the British army came from
the lake to the river ! Across that field advanced Paken-
ham ! Over there he fell ! Up the levee came Lambert !
Out there on the river was the Carolina firing hot shot
and shell! Down the road we have been walking ran
the reinforcements from New Orleans ! " The fine old
story sped on and on. . . . As he talked the little
boys stretched themselves, taller and taller, and looked
before them with the swaggering insolence of Barra-
tarians looking at the English, and the little girls heads
140 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
rose higher and stiffer and they curled their lips dis
dainfully at the foe, as ladies do in triumph.
On the other side of the monument, stood Polly s
friend of the car, the old gentleman who looked like
General Lee, listening rather wistfully. . . .
" The British marched up to the line of death as if
they were on dress parade," the father continued his
historical lesson, " and they died in their ranks as they
marched. When the smoke lifted, and when the Ameri
cans saw them lying in regular lines on the field, the
brave red uniforms, and the dashing Tartans of the
Highlanders, a great sigh went down the line, a sigh of
regret and admiration. ..."
Polly s sharp eyes, roving around, had detected the
old gentleman. Running to him, she caught his hand
and drew him forward. The movement was so frank
and hearty, that neither he nor the parents could resist
it and at once they entered into cordial acquaintanceship
with one another.
He was so tall and erect of figure, so noble of face, so
soldierly in his bearing, that the civilian clothes he wore
were a poor disguise. One knew at once, rather than
guessed, that he had been an officer and had worn the
gray, and that in short, he was one of the ruined and
defeated Southerners.
" My father," he said, as he came forward, " was one
of the Kentuckians."
" Was he ? " exclaimed the mother enthusiastically.
" A hunter of Kentucky/ And with a smile and a
toss of the head, she gave the refrain " Oh, the hunters
of Kentucky. My grandfather sang the song at dessert
on every anniversary of the battle. And my grand-
" IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY " 141
mother used to say that they were the handsomest men
she ever saw," glancing involuntarily at the stranger,
who in this regard was every inch a Kentuckian, " as
they came marching down Royal Street, in their hunt
ing shirts and coonskin caps with the tails hanging down
behind/
" Sharpshooters every man of them," interjected her
husband, " hitting a squirrel in the eye, on the top of the
tallest tree." . . .
" She said," continued the wife, " that there were no
men in the city to compare with them and all the young
ladies fell in love with them and used to dream of them
at night; rifles, hunting shirts and all. Oh, the women
looked upon them as deliverers. You remember the
motto of the British ? " . . . She paused, and as no one
answered went on : " My grandmother said the ladies all
carried daggers in their belts, and as they sat together
in each other s houses, scraping lint and making bandages,
they would talk of what they would do in case of the
British victory. And one day they became so excited
that they sent a messenger to General Jackson, and he
answered like the hero he was, The British will never
enter the city except over my dead body. "... And
still no one took up the conversation, so she carried it a
step farther : " My grandfather never approved of
General Jackson s course after the battle, but she, my
grandmother always defended him. She could never
forgive my grandfather for not casting his vote for him
for president, she vowed if she had had a hundred votes
she would cast them all for him."
The stranger laughed heartily.
" After the battle, you know, the ladies all drove down
i 4 2 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
to the field in their carriages carrying their lint and
bandages, and refreshments for the wounded, . . . and
they brought back the wounded British officers with them
and took them in their homes and nursed them. My
grandmother had one, a young boy not over eighteen,
and so fair that he looked like an angel, she said. He
was a gentleman of good family. But all the British
officers were gentlemen, of course ; and the young ladies
lost their hearts to them, as they had done before to the
Kentuckians. For years afterwards, Grandmama s
prisoner used to write to her."
" Would you have liked them as well, if they had
whipped you ? " the stranger asked with a twinkle in
his eye.
" Whipped us ! They never could have done that !
We would have burned the city ! We would have fought
from house to house! We would have retired to our
swamps! No! We never would have surrendered the
city." And then as the absurdity of these old hereditary
boastings came to her in the light of the present, she
stopped short and laughed merrily, " that is the way we
used to talk."
They walked back slowly to the levee and mounted to
the path on top just as a large vessel slowly steamed
upstream. The children read out the name on the stern.
It was from Liverpool.
The sun was sinking on the opposite side of the river
amid clouds of gorgeous splendor. The vague green
bank came now into clear vision with its plantation build
ings, its groves, and its people walking like ants upon
its levee. The rippling current and every eddy along
the bank shone in unison with the sky or, indeed, as if
" IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY " 143
another sun were burning under its depths. The great
steamship passed into the circle of illumination and out
of it, as the little group watched it from the levee.
" I should be ashamed to come here, if I was them,
wouldn t you ? " Folly s clear voice broke the solemn
silence as she twitched the hand of the old gentleman,
with free camaraderie.
"Ashamed? Why?"
" Because we whipped them so."
" Whipped them ! Oh ! You mean the British in the
battle."
" Yes, we whipped them right here, where they have
to pass by. I wouldn t like that, would you?"
" Perhaps they don t know it on the ship."
" Don t know it ! I reckon everybody knows when
they are whipped. I would hate to be whipped, wouldn t
you?"
" I used to hate it when I was whipped."
" Oh ! I don t mean that ! I mean in battle. If I were
a man I would never be whipped."
" What would you do if the other army were stronger."
" I don t care if it were stronger, I would whip it."
The path on top of the levee following the bending
and curving banks produced the effect of a meandering
sunset. Now it shone full opposite, now it glowed
obliquely behind a distant forest, now the burning disk
touched the ripples of the current straight ahead, and the
British vessel seemed to be steering into it. Another turn
and it had sunken halfway down behind the distant city,
whose roofs, steeples, chimneys, and the masts of vessels,
were transfigured into the semblance of a heavenly
vision for a brief, a flitting moment. Further on the
144 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
bank turned them out of sight of it all, and shadows
began to creep over the water, and when next they
saw the West, the sun had disappeared, and all its
brilliant splendor with it. In the faint rose flush of twi
light beamed the evening star ... far away from the
little church of St. Medard came the tinkling bell of
the Angelus ... the evening gun fired at the barracks.
TOMMY COOK
OUT of the office, out of the library, down the stairs
and out into the street again, Tommy Cook saw himself
descending and his little star of fortune with him.
" Ah, God ! In jest and mockery, I played the thing
I felt."
If he had known the quotation, he could have used it
aptly on himself, although, instead of a gladiator, he
had been playing only the role of a lawyer.
Once more he sat at his little table in a corner of Mr.
Talbot s law office copying documents and hunting up
authorities. The men who came in and went out of it,
talked as freely behind his back as if he were not there
and took no notice of him except as of yore, to send him
out on errands.
The masters of the State were back again. And al
though they were but little better than prisoners in it
and although at any moment, and through any window,
they could see reminders of their condition in the shape
of passing squadrons of soldiery and gangs of freed
slaves, arrogant and insolent; although the chief of their
Confederacy was still in jail, and all their officers dis
franchised; and although they had to confess their past
offenses and ask pardon before their late opponents,
(like God), would grant forgiveness of them; although
their land was devastated, their property destroyed, and
their business extinguished ; although their ranks showed
145
146 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
black gaps where once stood well loved companions,
sturdy men and fellow props of the community; and
although they, themselves, many of them were maimed
of limb, and all of them maimed of members of their
family ; they talked as if they meant still to be masters
of the State.
How short a time the war had lasted! It seemed to
Tommy Cook but a season ago, hardly long enough for
the wearing out of the fine new uniforms they were
dressed in, since these gentlemen had departed with their
commands, breathing glory and State rights, taking their
negro valets along with them to wake them up in the
morning, and bring them their coffee, and put the gold
buttons in their fine linen shirts. They were dressed
shabbily enough now! Not as well as Tommy Cook
himself ; but as he observed, they did not seem to know it
any more than the one-armed and one-legged knew their
condition.
They will rise up, he predicted, drawing his figure from
the only literature he knew the adventures of the buc
caneers of the Gulf " they will rise up the first chance
they get and seize their ship again and make every one
of those on deck now walk the plank." In his experience,
the recapture of their ship had never been a difficult feat
for pirates. He had done it with them many and many
a time in imagination. All that they did was to wait
until their captors got to carousing over the spoils and
relaxing into the easy carelessness of the triumphant.
By the time the right moment of weakness came to them,
the dissensions and wounds of the captives were gener
ally healed, and it was only a question of knocking down
the first man, seizing his arms, killing the second, and so
TOMMY COOK 147
on un til the former carousers were in the hold of the
vessel or in the hold of the sea; for unless they could
make partners of their prisoners, wise pirates, as all
amateurs of the black flag know, never failed to make
fish food of them. And so it happened in truth. The re
turned Confederates, who had neither harps left nor
willows to hang them on, were no sooner in the safe
possession of their conquerors than they began to plot
for their own political deliverance, and that of their
State. They had found her on their return, under the
segis of a new constitution a very different one from
that they had amended by the adoption of the ordinance
of secession, when they took the State with them out of
the Union. A contrite and repentant constitution the
new one was; that abjured secession and forswore the
Confederacy; that praised God for the Union and sang
hallelujah to it in every preamble of every resolution;
that tested by an iron-clad oath as it was called so im
pregnable was it against the Confederates every mem
ber, every officer, every hireling in its pay ; that in short,
as far as a constitution could effect it, made the State as
obedient to the hand that wielded it, as the command
ant General s own sword. It could hardly be otherwise ;
as it was the General who had ordered the election,
chosen the governor, fixed the election laws and devised
the constitution to be adopted; who had indeed, in
Tommy Cook s language, created the new government
as much as God had created Adam and Eve.
But when the war ended, and the disbanded soldiers
were coming back with amnesties for the past in their
pockets and only an oath for future loyalty to the Union,
as defined by the results of the war, on their consciences
1 48 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
then was to be seen in all its crudity by the military
commander the impossibility of making constitutions for
absent citizens, or after bringing a horse to the water,
of making him drink as anyone else but he himself
wished. It was not the military commander, however,
who was responsible for this ignorance about horses;
it was the President who knew of no better way of
bringing the conquered sisters back into the newly united
State than by summoning the people of them to resume
their civic duties ; and by an election confirm all that had
been done for their national regeneration.
Tommy Cook was too astute a politician not to foresee
what would ensue.
What the Gulf and its pirates were to Tommy Cook,
constitutional law was to the men who talked so freely
behind his back in the office. They knew every device,
piratical or otherwise, that politicians were wont to
practise upon opponents; and clumsy pirates indeed, so
they jeered, were the ones who had made the constitu
tion they found established on their return.
The war that had dispossessed them of so much had
left all their old boldness intact and their wits as keen
as ever. That so long as war does this it is no good as
war was an obvious truth to Tommy Cook. It was no
hard matter for such men to get hold of the arsenal of
the ship, that is the legislature of the State; and it was
not long before they were throwing overboard their late
captors, with all their sanctimonious adjurations, prayers
and preambles; stripping the penitential shift from the
state and kicking the test oath out of the way; paying
in their proceedings as little regard to the commanding
General as he had done to them in his proceedings. And
TOMMY COOK 149
Louisiana, (a State is in truth all things to all men)
so lately cowering and whimpering at the foot of the
conqueror, assumed the haughty air of one of her own
duelists worsted on the field of honor, paying as a debt
of honor, merely, the terms imposed upon her by her
defeat, namely passing the required legislative acts;
abolishing slavery; repudiating the Confederate debt;
and swearing allegiance to the constitution of the United
States as interpreted by the victorious side. But as
no one underpays, so no one overpays a debt of honor,
and beyond the actual terms of surrender, the State did
not propose to go.
And now masters of their craft, the whilom captives,
like thrifty pirates, began to look around them and steer
their course in search of new fortunes wherewith to
repair their past discomfitures and losses. And never, in
Tommy Cook s opinion, never in history of pirate or
memory of lawyer, had such prizes, in the shape of cases,
sailed the sea of litigation. Peace had lifted the stay
law that for four years had arrested judicial proceedings
all over the country; and the pent-up accumulation of
business was sweeping through the old legal channels
like the Mississippi in an overflow through its outlets;
carrying with it, like the same turbid waters of the
Mississippi in an overflow, the disjecta membra of the
wreckage of every form of human property, every variety
of legal dispute claims of neutrals for damages for
property destroyed, for seizure of cotton whose value
had risen from five cents to a dollar a pound, a four
years harvest of successions to be opened, rights of aliens
to deposits confiscated in banks, of minprs clamoring
for justice against martial defraudment; old debts to be
150 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
collected or resisted, interventions of foreign creditors
or owners to be adjudicated, old accounts which for
generations had been dragging their ball and chain of
debt and interest between plantation and counting house
to be closed, and new ones opened ; new mortgages on the
land and its profits, new contracts to be made between
the now unshackled labor and the now shackled capital.
Hardly a man, woman, or child walked the streets but
was a party in some lawsuit or other. And from the
results of the war, its sedimentary deposit as it were,
seeds of future lawsuits and financial complications
were already germinating; seeds strange and foreign
to State and city, like the sproutings of plants not
indigenous, but whose seeds had been brought
down by the Mississippi from another soil and
climate.
Every lawyer, therefore, in fancied political security
went to work hunting up clients and cases. The many
who had no offices or libraries crowded the offices and
used the libraries of the few who had been lucky enough
to save them. From their dusty hiding places, there was
a taking and shaking out of each one s old business some
pieces of the time-worn and justice-scarred veterans of
litigation that had followed the steps of the State from
the beginning of her history; relics of other wars and
other dominations disputed titles and boundary lines;
contested marriages and questionable filiations that had
been handed down from generation to generation in all
their foul-smelling scandal, the el dorado of all young
lawyers and limbo of old ones ; the gigantic land claims
involving, as the Riparian case, vast interests and fees
that meant permanent wealth ; all were being gotten ready
TOMMY COOK 151
to be taken into court with their monstrous baggage train
of papers behind them.
Tommy Cook s portion of it, as he saw without a
doubt in his mind, would be what it had been in the past
to carry law books to court or briefs to the printer,
copying documents and hunting up authorities the
portion of a scullion in the ship. " What he had done
for his patron," he might have reflected, " others, more
wisely perhaps, had done for themselves ; " and when
the absent patron returned from the war, he might have
found what Mr. Talbot had found " in re McKenzie," as
Tommy Cook put it, that is a breach of trust.
Sometimes a client of his would come mounting the
stairs boldly, and open the door without knocking and
enter the room, as clients did with him; but at the sight
of the masterful gentlemen talking so eloquently within,
a quick retreat would be beaten; and Tommy after a
little while would rise and follow him into the street
and find him waiting at a corner, with some piece of law
business hidden, as it were, under his coat; and they
would hurry to some barroom to hold a quick consulta
tion, and Tommy would return with the piece of business
hidden under his coat, and sit again at his table in the
corner, more reflective than ever.
There was indeed as much work ahead of the lawyers
at the opening of peace as there had been fighting at the
opening of war; and they were as keen for work now
as they were for fighting then. But, unfortunately, they
underrated the resources and abilities of their opponents
in peace as much as they had underrated them in war, as
much indeed as the latter underrated the resources and
abilities of the Confederates in political humiliation.
152 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
What was the loss of a State to the masters of Con
gress; the loss of a vessel to those who have a fleet at
their back? Hardly had the late occupants of the hold
of their ship time to clean their conquered deck, and cast
their eyes about them, as had been said, " in search of
future fortune," when from every quarter of the horizon,
they saw the ships of their late foes; every State of the
Union bearing down upon them as one ship. The con
test was short, and decisive. This time, not only was
their State taken from them but their Statehood also;
and the terms of the first surrender paled into insipidity
before what was now imposed. And then, those sneer
ing adepts of constitutional law, assembling daily in Mr.
Talbot s office, saw a constitutional ingenuity and dex
terity displayed by their despised opponents, that they
in their arrogant ignorance never wotted of. Indians,
so they said, never used their tomahawks with more re
fined skill against their bound prisoners grazing, slicing,
drawing blood, striking as near as they could without
taking the life that afforded the pleasure of torture
than did Congressmen use the keen blades of their wits
against the constitution of their country; until that
" sacred Ark of the Covenant " as Southerners vener
ated it maimed, lopped, and mutilated, was turned to
their astonished eyes, into an armed citadel against them ;
pierced with rifle holes, for the firing of pains and penal
ties at them. And now the whips of serpents became
whips of scorpions on the backs of the Southerners.
Louisiana was made once more a military department ;
a Union General was once more put in command; all
elective offices were declared vacant ; negroes were given
the right of suffrage; the Confederates were disfran-
TOMMY COOK 153
chised and another election ordered; and the test oath
like love in the fable put out of the door to return at
the window literally flew to Washington, and came
back with all the power of the Federal government be
hind it, so increased in venom and force, that in good
truth, it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye
of a needle than for those whom it was intended to
keep out of power to get in. Louisiana had no longer
the dignity of even a white penitent, she was legislated
out of her complexion and became a black State.
The wail of Jeremiah was heard in the land : " Our
inheritance is turned to strangers, our house to aliens.
We are orphans and fatherless . . . our necks are under
persecution; we labor and have no rest; servants have
rule over us. ... "
" But there is a woe," responded the lawyers, " that
Jeremiah knew not the woe peculiarly oppressive, that
comes from the degradation of the bar the prostitution
of our courts of justice to political greed. Degrade our
profession, and Society is turned adrift."
Disqualified from Federal offices, disbarred from prac
tice in the Federal courts, their own State offices and
courts taken possession of and fixed in the hands of the
political party that was to be maintained in perpetuity
by the votes of the newly enfranchised negroes the old
masters of the State were reduced to political slavery
under their former slaves, and they, the great men of the
bar as they considered themselves to be, were to stand
powerless in their humiliation and impoverishment and
see strangers, aliens, renegades, any tyro of the law
from among the camp followers or from the army over
them, happy in their iron-clad qualification draw to
154 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
land the great lawsuits and glittering fees, rushing by
on the golden tide. Or as Tommy Cook saw it, as if
chained to the masts, the captive pirates should see
Spanish galleons, laden with the treasure of Mexico,
swooped down upon and carried off by their captor;
while they, who could have done it so well, so much
better, in fact, were not able to move a hand in the
business.
Pirates themselves could not have expressed their re
sentment over their luckless situation in language more
suitable to their sentiments than did the lawyers of the
State whenever or wherever they met with one another :
on the street corners, in the barber shops or in their own
offices. For lawyers, it was observed at the time, had
learned to curse as well as to fight in the war. " If ever
they get possession of the ship again," said Tommy Cook
in his thoughts, " they will know hew to keep it."
Those who had died on the field or in prison could
not come back to attend these meetings, of course the
war had accomplished that much, at least but " only
their bodies were missing," as Tommy Cook put it to
himself, " their voices were living if their bodies were
not." For as it seemed to him, no counsel they could
have given, no curse they could have uttered, not a
bitter cry they could have made, was missing from the
discussions he heard. From the time that he, a little
street ragamuffin, had been able to stand on the outskirts
of the crowd at a political meeting, Tommy Cook had
heard much about the " voice of the Country," and had
been warned over and over again that what he heard was
" the voice of the Country." But listen as he might, he
had heard the voice of only this or that politician. The
TOMMY COOK 155
dead had often voted on political questions, as no one
knew better than he, but the dead had never spoken, to
his knowledge, for or against Whig or Democrat, State
or National banks; for or against removing the capital
from the city to the country; for or against any of the
great, stirring questions of that day as they were speak
ing now from battlefields and prison cemeteries on their
constitutional rights.
" Whatever their political differences in the past,"
mused Tommy Cook, " the dead are all one side now,
and they will all vote, and there will be no trouble about
their ballots, there will be found no one bold enough to
challenge them or cry fraud. So long as voting is
allowed in this land, these dead will vote."
" I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided and
that is the lamp of experience."
" No ! Not that way ! Loud and clear ! Pronounce
your words distinctly ! "
" I have but one ..."
" Hold your head up ! Throw your shoulders back,
plant your feet firmly, look straight ahead ! Yes, that s
the way ! "
" I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided
and that is . . ."
" How often have I told you to keep your fingers
still!"
..." the lamp of experience, I know no way of
judging the future but by the past. ..."
Such was the way the afternoons were passed in St.
Medard after the stormy forenoons in the city; the
father with unwearied persistence showing his sons how
to stand and speak like great orators. That a man must
156 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
be a good speaker was his educational fiat about boys
to correspond with the one that has been explained about
girls. An awkward, embarrassed man one who mis
pronounced words, who did not stand well on his feet,
throw his head back and look you fearlessly in the face
as if he were not afraid of anything the world could
produce against him, who sniffled and stammered this
in the boys* mind was the awful counterpart to the stupid
ungraceful lady in the little girls minds.
The little girls followed the speech-making with in
tense interest, straightening their shoulders, lifting their
heads, and forming the words with their lips. They could
have done trfe " lamp of experience " as well or better
than the boys; or any of the great speeches they had
learned by heart, as they sat by their mother, employed in
the feminine accomplishment of sewing.
" Let us not deceive ourselves."
" Say that over again," came the quick, stern com
mand. " Let us not deceive ourselves." . . .
" They tell us, Sir, that we are weak." . . .
" Don t drawl it out in that sing-song way ! " The
boys and the little girls all jumped at the loud sudden
admonition.
" Besides, Sir, we shall not fight our battles alone.
There is a just God ..." First one boy and then the
other made the usual failure over this sentence. . . .
" Gentlemen may cry Peace ! Peace ! but there is no
peace." . . .
" Say it again, this way." . . .
" Forbid it, Almighty God." . . .
"That s it! Now you have the idea!"
THE INSTITUT MIMI
COMPARED with the Ursuline convent, that is if earthly
things can be compared to heavenly ones, Mademoiselle
Mimi s school might have been called a small, a very
small one. But she did not conduct it as such: she con
ducted it as if it were the great St. Denis of New Orleans,
whose pattern, as its prospectus explained, was the great
St. Denis of Paris.
Mademoiselle Mimi hardly could do otherwise, as
she herself had been educated at the St. Denis of New
Orleans and knew no other school; and as she said, she
could follow only those examples that the good God
had given her. Therefore, her scholars ten or twenty,
four or six, as the number might be were called to
order by the ringing of a bell at five minutes before nine
in the morning, when all went down on their knees,
crossed themselves, and recited the Pater.
The Salle delude, as it was called, was the dining
room ; the forms were its chairs. The writing was done
on the dining table in the center of which all the copy
books were arranged in neat piles. Mademoiselle Mimi
had no plantform but she sat as though she were on one,
behind a little papier mache table that bore a papier
mache desk inlaid with mother of pearl (the old desk
of her mother). And it must be confessed that the bell
whose ringing ordered the hours of the school was
nothing better than a tiny porcelain trifle, shaped like a
158 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
lily with a gilt pistil for clapper and a gilt stem for
handle a lamentable falling back indeed from the St.
Denis standard.
The desk was by the window, and the classes stood
before it to recite. When the scholars stood properly,
it was credited to their account of good marks, as
" maintien " ; when improperly, it was marked against
them. In the St. Denis system, there was no doubt as to
whether one knew one s lesson or not. One was given
so many lines to learn by heart. If one could repeat the
portion without a mistake, one knew it; if not, not. The
system was as clear as the sun to the children, and ex
actly as one repeated the lesson one was marked in
Mademoiselle Mimi s account-book which was kept as
if it were to be produced in evidence on the last day. A
" P," in red ink meant Perfect, the value of twelve good
marks ; every word missed took one mark from the pos
sible twelve and when the whole credit was exhausted,
one went into insolvency with a naught, or even a cross ;
a bad mark against one. At the end of the month,
bankrupts in good marks were put at the foot of the
class capitalists at the head ; very much, so Mademoiselle
Mimi might say, as God does in his school in the world.
When one could not repeat the lesson, one was held not
to have studied it.
" But, Mademoiselle Mimi, I have studied it ; I assure
you I have studied it ! " one would cry.
" Ah ! my child, if you had studied it, you would know
it," was the just answer.
When one did not study at all, was in fact lazy and
stupid, one received the fool s cap and was stood in the
corner; and when one pretended not to mind this and
THE INSTITUT MIMI 159
played the impertinent " faisait I impertinent " in school
language, by making grimaces and signs to the other
scholars, then old Aglone was called in from the kitchen
to pin a dish-cloth to one s tail-coat or frock. Ah ! this
hurt ! This cut the pride and brought tears to the dryest-
eyed masculine or feminine ! The punishment did not be
long to the original St. Denis system it was an addition,
or rather an innovation of Mademoiselle Mimi s but it
was one whose efficacy she knew by experience, for it
was, from time immemorial, the punishment of cooks
upon children who came into their kitchen and played
the impertinent there.
Heu! what child would enter, even under compulsion,
upon an education if the true size of the undertaking
was revealed to it from the first? If for instance, not
merely Pelion was piled upon Ossa, but all the moun
tains of the world were piled, one upon the other, and
the small toddler was conducted to the base and was
told : " Now climb, my child, climb ! It is true you will
never get to the top, but, no matter, climb away, and
keep on climbing." Is it not somewhat as if the mouse
were told to engender the mountain ?
But fortunately, the approaches to education are so
cunningly concealed, so insidiously presented, that to
the child, it seems only a question of a slate or a primer,
today; the multiplication table, tomorrow; and before
one knows it, the years gliding by like a snake in the
grass, one is at the terrible junction, the Caudine forks
of grammar. It was at this point of the height above
them that Cicely and Polly were graded by Mademoiselle
Mimi, and their first steps in the ascension were taken
in learning to prepare their copy books a most important
160 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
step, this, to Mademoiselle Mimi, and one that meant
influence upon the rest of their life. They were to take
their quire of fool s cap white or blue, the color was
not important to fold it leaf by leaf, press it down
with Mademoiselle Mimi s pearl ruler (that went with
the desk), cut it with her mother of pearl knife, and
arrange the tops of the leaves into one " cahier," the
bottoms into another. Mademoiselle Mimi, herself,
sewed the leaves together, providing thread, needle, and
thimble, every day for the purpose ; as Aglone provided
dish-cloths for her more sinister function. Mademoiselle
Mimi, then, with a tasteful combination of fine and
coarse pens and red and black ink, wrote the titles:
" Cahier de Verbes" or " D Analyse" or " Synonymes"
or " Composition" or " Regies" with date and name
and flourishes between ; for she had as pretty a talent for
ornamental penmanship as any daughter of the Convent
the fountain source in the community of this accom
plishment. To impress her scholars with the importance
of the cahier in education, to make an object lesson of it,
though she was in the plains of ignorance as regards any
such educational term, Mademoiselle Mimi would take
her little candidates to the small bookcase secretaire in
her bedroom, and opening the cabinet underneath, show
them the cahier s of her school days. Every one was
there; not one was missing; from her first inchoate pot
hooks and hangers to the dawn of the ornamental finish
ing aforementioned; showing the entire course from
the first verb to the last composition on " Spring,"
" Birds," " Love of Parents," or " Duty to One s Neigh
bors," etc., etc. And there too, were her school books
all neatly covered with calico, as she exacted that those
THE INSTITUT MIMI 161
of her scholars should be, class after class of books,
for she had climbed to the topmost pinnacle of the St.
Denis mountain.
It was as if a bank president should open his safe and
show to an office boy his stored gold. This was her
capital, her stock in trade. She taught her first books to
her first scholars as she would be glad to teach her last
ones to a graduate, should she ever have one.
" I will teach all that I have learned myself," she would
frankly declare to her patrons. " I do not promise more,
for I cannot do more."
Every Friday she read out the total of each one s good
and bad marks for the week. On the last Friday of the
month, she collected and redistributed her medals, hung
on fresh ribbons ; the medals too being left from her own
school days. And the same rule held sway in her institu
tion as in St. Denis, and perhaps in the parental institution
in Paris: the same scholar, the cleverest one, always
obtained the medal, month after month; and the lazy,
stupid ones, never, no matter how much more glorious
the achievement would have been for them.
Every day, a verb, a sum in arithmetic, a French and
an English dictation, a paragraph of grammar, French
and English; so climbed they at the Institut Mimi.
Histoire Sainte, Histoire Generate, every other day.
Geography, once a week. Friday, recitation of fables
and poetry, writing of letters, compositions and " Com
pliments," in their season.
Complements. That was the keynote of the school
from every September to January: greetings to the
parents on New Year s day. Those who could not write
had to learn theirs by heart: " Mon cher Papa" "Ma
1 62 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
chere Maman, void le jour de Van" . . . with the proper
bow or courtesy. Those who could write, prepared their
surprises on notepaper, scolloped along the edge, with a
little pink rose stamped at the top. Instead of four, six
months of Fridays would not have been too much prep
aration, so difficult are the bows and courtesies, the
capitals and spelling of these compliments. It is well that
the parents are invariably delighted and surprised with
such greetings, otherwise, the time and trouble and the
tears shed over them would not have been worth while.
At twelve o clock came recreation and lunch; at three,
prayer again, and the last farewell tinkle of the porce
lain bell.
Monsieur Pinseau, or " Papa Pinseau," as the children
called him, sitting, if it were cold, in the next room
if it were warm, on the gallery could overhear it all.
Sometimes, he had the French paper L Abeille to
read, sometimes an American paper. Mademoiselle
Mimi always provided him with the one or the other.
She cculd see, however, that they interested him but
little. He would stop any time on a European despatch
if Belle put her head on his knee; and he would turn
from the sheet a half dozen times in the morning at the
twitching of a leaf outside the window, or to look for
the two dear little heads of his friends, the pair of lizards
that dwelt in the vines there. By raising his eyes, he
could see, on the low whitewashed walls, the portraits
of his mother and father ; she, serious and dignified in a
turban and muslin kerchief, he, sedate and shrewd, in a
high stock and black toupet. The portraits of the
parents of his wife hung in his daughter s room.
Strange to say, the mother of that rigid saint was painted
THE INSTITUT MIMI 163
in the costume of the frivolous world, not decolletee
merely, but decorsetee also, and her father showed in his
face no sentiment for the ascetic at all.
Sometimes, while the old gentleman was sunken in
reflection, perhaps on this very theme, past distraction by
Belle or the lizards or vague thoughts about his flowers,
there would come a little touch upon his elbow and a
timid voice to his ear : " Monsieur Pinseau, Mademoiselle
Mimi vous fait dire comme g a . . . " and he, too, would
have to put his hand to the climbing. Because, if the day
was ugly (for every now and then there does come an
ugly day in New Orleans when the sky is as dark and
the rain as pitilessly monotonous as anywhere else)
Mademoiselle Mimi would say to herself : " Poor Papa,
on such a day as this, what sad thoughts he must have ! "
and she would call up a little scholar and send her to
Papa Pinseau to ask him to hear her fable. And if the
day were fine, the sky blue, the sun radiant, the earth
gay, Mademoiselle Mimi would think : " Poor Papa, how
sad he must be on such a beautiful day as this." And
she would send some little scholar with her reading lesson
from Telemaque. The reading lesson was always from
Telemaque and the poetry from La Fontaine s fables;
for one could not ascend any educational height
whatever without them in Mademoiselle Mimi s
opinion.
" Holy, blessed Virgin ! " old Aglone would mutter to
herself in the kitchen, " look at that; and you know how
he used to hate children ! "
The little girls (little girls have a keener sense of
humor than little boys), when they would come in "La
Cigale et la Fourmi" to the conversation:
164 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
" Que f aisles vous au temps chaudf
" Nuit et jour a tout venant,
"lie chantais, ne vous deplaise
" Vous chanties? J en suis fort aise,
" Eh bien, dansez maintenant! "
When they came to that they would throw back their
heads and laugh, showing all their little white teeth; it
was always so new and funny to them. But poor Papa
Pinseau, he did not laugh. That fable was no longer
funny to him.
The children who had no piano, who, plainly speaking,
were too poor to have one, practised on Mademoiselle
Mimi s instrument after school hours; and those who
lived near enough went in addition on Saturdays, when
Mademoiselle Mimi was herself, practising at the church
or giving lessons to the Demoiselles San Antonio.
To go on Saturday, was equivalent to having a lesson
from Papa Pinseau who, of course, was always at home,
and could no more refrain from meddling with the music
than with the cooking in his daughter s absence. And
when Mademoiselle Mimi would come through the gate
after her morning tasks and would pause a minute to
listen to the practising, as music teachers do mechanically
even when walking in the street by strange houses, she
would hear the scales and five finger exercises being
played with as much sentiment of touch, as if they were
a " divertissement!
And although he knew, naturally, no more about the
technique of fingering than of pots and pans, if she
glanced through the shutters of the window as likely as
not, she saw the picture of an old gentleman bending over
THE INSTITUT MIMI 165
the pianist, showing her exactly how the wrist should
be raised and the little pink palm turned to the best ad
vantage of the musician if not of the music and how
the fingers may be used to the least detriment of the
finger-nails which, on ladies, he would say, should be
long, oval, and perfectly transparent; as if he were say
ing her soul should be perfectly pure.
" What is not done gracefully, Mademoiselle, it is not
worth while for ladies to do at all."
Mademoiselle Mimi did not need to listen to hear these
words any more than she needed to listen to hear the
church bell.
" Eh, Papa ! she would say to him sometimes in her
dismay. " The scales and the five-finger exercises ; they
are not given to us to make us more attractive, any more
than the Ten Commandments are." Sometimes when the
New Year s compliments were being prepared, she would
be forced by other occupations to confide the rehearsal
of them to him, for when the compliments are once
started in motion they must be recited or copied every
day with the regularity of one s prayer. It is really only
their importance that constituted their difficulty; but it
is strange, how in copying or reciting them the embar-
rassment becomes more and more extreme with the ap
proach of the great day they are to honor ; how one trips
over the most familiar words, and stumbles over the
shortest sentences; and how on the very last day one is
just as apt to make the same fault that one started with
on the first. And over these failures, what bitter tears
can be shed! What depths of anguish sounded by boys
and girls alike, neither sex having any advantage over
the other in the endurance of shame!
166 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
Fortunate it was for the little girls at least, that there
was a Papa Pinseau to replace Mademoiselle Mimi, on
her Saturday morning absences which may have been
prolonged not involuntarily; for if she prided herself on
teaching only what she had learned, how could she teach
the little girls to step forward and courtesy and smile and
look the proper way not to speak of the little boys
she who had been taught dancing by a pietist, recom
mended by her mother s confessor, a lady whose only
grace was her piety.
With Papa Pinseau it was different ! He knew exactly
how the little ones should walk up to the expectant, sur
prised parent, the chief attraction of the compliment to
the little ones was the perfect surprise they caused year
after year, how they should courtesy, how lift the hand
palm outward, and then as a climax, the eyes. When
he had a good subject, he produced charming results,
results entirely beyond the power, because entirely be
yond the character, of his daughter.
The little boys ran off from their rehearsals as soon
as possible; but the little girls Ah! how wise was Mr.
Talbot in his judgment would hang around him as if
fascinated; seeing which, he would fascinate them yet
more, just as he used to do with those other little girls,
the young ladies of his day. Everything he did pleased
them, anything he said amused them. When Made
moiselle, as a reward for good behavior, would offer
to tell a story of her scholars own choosing, the little
girls would cry out unanimously : " Ask Papa Pinseau
to tell us about when he was little, and how he went to
dancing-school ! "
His dancing school was a kind of fairyland to them,
THE INSTITUT MIMI 167
for as they understood it, the pretty manners of the
ladies and gentlemen of his day came from the pretty
manners taught in the dancing-school by an old gentle
man who was a French nobleman, an emigre, who had
been noted for his dancing at the court of Marie Antoi
nette. (The little girls would shake their heads in solemn
awe at this and repeat " the court of Marie Antoinette.")
He gave his lessons in an old court dress with silk stock
ings and morocco pumps. Another old nobleman played
the violin for him. They lived together in a little room
on Toulouse Street, and their Salle de danse was in Royal
Street, over a confectionery. All the little boys and
girls of good family went to him. The old dancing-
master was very particular about the parentage and the
feet of his scholars. The little girls must have their
slippers made by an old woman on Chartres Street, the
boys, by the famous Larose, himself. . . .
When he was a young man, Monsieur Pinseau was
noted for his witty talent of mimicry, and there was
nothing he did better or more delightfully than the old
dancing-master and the violinist, the little boys in their
pumps and wide trousers, and the little girls, long pan
talettes and all. Poor Papa Pinseau! his feet were
gouty and heavy enough now and he wore carpet slippers,
bought at the cheapest shop at the Louisa Street market.
. . . When the old dancing-master died (now the
story became thrilling to the little girls) and his obituary
notices were posted on the corners of the streets, so many
high-sounding names appeared in it (the confectioner
did this) that the whole city became confused and em
barrassed over it, and everybody insisted upon going
to the funeral at the Cathedral. The little Pinseau was
168 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
taken by his nurse and made to look upon the old
dancing-master in his coffin (there is nothing a nurse
likes better than such surreptitious enjoyment of for
bidden fruit), and he was all surprised to find him, in
spite of his great names, still the same little, yellow-
wrinkled tyrant of a dancing-master, dressed in the same
old knee breeches and darned stockings and pumps with
silver buckles. The little boys of the dancing-school
followed the hearse dressed as if for their dancing
lesson, each one carrying a bouquet (always a sigh of
regret followed this termination of the tale).
It was the old Marquis who taught the ladies of New
Orleans how much prettier it was to dance with their
eyes cast down. The ex-ballet-dancer who succeeded
him could teach only like a ballet-dancer, and the ladies
of New Orleans only then began to throw their heads
back in dancing and show their eyes as they did their
feet; (so ran the warning moral of the tale at which
the little girls would cast down their heads and eyes at
once).
Mr. Talbot knew nothing, and even less than nothing,
of all this. A point of variance had developed between
him and Mademoiselle Mimi. After careful examina
tion, he had rejected the histories she taught, although
they were written by learned priests, were recommended
by Monseigneur the Archbishop, and were, therefore,
taught in all schools of the State where religion had
any authority. This time he did not intrust any mes
sages to his wife, but told Mademoiselle Mimi, himself,
what he had to say about her histories; and she,
it was all she could do, promised to teach Protestant
histories if he desired.
THE INSTITUT MIMI 169
" Protestant histories, Madam ! History is history.
There is no such thing as Roman Catholic history or
Protestant history! Any more than there is Roman
Catholic arithmetic or Protestant arithmetic, et tutti
quanta . . /
She listened to him attentively and seemed to be con
vinced, but the truth was, being a woman, she disliked
lectures and followed his words only sufficiently to know
when to place what she had made up her mind, at once,
to say to him : " Far from not wanting to act according
to your desires, I, on the contrary, shall be only too
happy to follow your views on the subject. I beg you
to select the histories yourself, that you should like your
daughters taught, and I shall teach them. Indeed I con
sider it a great privilege to have a gentleman of your
education to direct me," etc., etc.
When she returned home, however, manifold diffi
culties presented themselves in the way of her fulfil
ling her promise. She had scruples of conscience on the
subject, for to be on the good side of the priests and the
sisters at the convent, omnipotent secular as well as
clerical authorities in the parish, she had asked and
followed their advice about text-books and they, some
what like the American gentleman, were most firm in
their ideas about history.
" In truth," she confided to her father, " I must, it
seems, teach two histories on the same subject. But the
very beginning of all histories for small children im
presses the belief that there is but one history, and that
the one taught is the right one! And we are especially
urged to warn them against the other kind, the false
histories which poison the mind and corrupt the truth-
THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
How can I in one class teach that Luther was a monster,
sent by the devil, a false priest; and in another that he
was . . . what I will not repeat all that Mr. Talbot
believes about him; to one child, that it was God who
gained the battle of Tolbiac, and to another that it
wasn t? He objects to that particularly; he cited the
battle of Tolbiac himself. Oh, about miracles he was
most eloquent. He says that he does not want his
children taught that there are such things as miracles in
history. But if miracles have happened, what are we
going to do about them? Deny them? Ah! It was
to the very people that denied them that the miracles
came ; the pagans, the blasphemers. How could they ever
have been converted without miracles? It may be a
difficulty for a man to believe them, but/ with a covert
reference to her father s indifference to religion, " for
a woman, I assure you nothing seems so natural as a
miracle."
Fortunately, Papa Pinseau had no such scruples, hav
ing very little religion. Instead of seeing one right side
in every historical question in which he had figured that
is in every political question he had seen as many right
sides as it was as profitable to as many men to adopt.
The right side was the side that got most votes in the
ballot-box, that was all and the men in one campaign
would vote for one right side, and in the next for another.
Constancy and consistency he had found to be as rare
in history as in love. So he was well qualified to be
come Professor of American History, as the children
called history written in English, in the Institut Mimi.
He conducted his class of two with, at least, irreproach
able tact and grace ; and as difficult situations had always
THE INSTITUT MIMI 171
been infinitely attractive to him, he did not shun, as
Mademoiselle would have done, naive questions when
the lesson was over.
" In history, the great men are the good men, eh,
Monsieur Pinseau ? "
" And the beautiful women are the good women, eh,
Monsieur Pinseau?"
" And when a man is good, he is always great, eh,
Monsieur Pinseau ? "
" Unless he is a great fool," would answer Monsieur
Pinseau.
" And if a man is good, his enemies have to be bad, eh,
Monsieur Pinseau ? "
" Oh, yes, the enemies of good people are always the
bad people," he would answer placidly.
CRIBICHE
CRIBICHE, it must be explained, was a gift of God to the
neighborhood, as his baptismal name Theodore implied.
Both metaphorically and in sober fact, his forlorn ex
istence had been laid at the door of every possible parent
in the parish, but the metaphorical meaning had pre
vented his being accepted anywhere out of charity. Truly
when a parent abandons a child, it is abandoned indeed !
After urging its adoption into every Gascon cabin there
abouts for the child was like a drop of the very essence
of Gascony the priest thought of taking it to an orphan
asylum. But he was sensitive to the fine application of
God s law, in the parish of St. Medard if not in the
world. The child had been left not on the steps of the
church, it is true, but in the great ditch in front that
drained it, Fortunately, the ditch was dry and there was
no rain that night or it might have been drained away
with other seepage of the soil. When the priest saw this
degrading contempt of the babe for it could have been
left on the steps of the church and saw that no one
would take it in, but, on the contrary, spurned it as an
aspersion of dishonor, he reflected upon the occurrence
and upon the world into which, without volition of its
own, the baby had been brought. Whenever Pere
Phileas reflected upon any of the passing events, even of
the insignificant life about him, he always ended by a
chronic malady of his, namely: a distortion of vision
172
CRIBICHE 173
his eyes seeing, not what actually lay before them, but
something else that existed only in his own mind; as
we have seen him turn from the simple, ordinary event
of strangers moving into the neighborhood to fine-spun
theories about God s intentions. Now seeing, as he
thought, that God meant something by sending the baby
to St. Medard, he gave it the name of Theodore, and
although the next inference might have been the nearest
orphan asylum, he took charge of it himself. That is,
he gave it in charge to the old negress Zizi, who, for a
trifle of money and the salvation of her soul, attended to
his daily domestic wants. She lived, conveniently, in
a far corner of his garden. The charge of a baby is
nothing to an old negress. A fine lady would be put to
more trouble in selecting lace for a handkerchief than
she in assuming the responsibility of a day-old baby.
But babies thrive with old negresses, and give them less
trouble than they do to fine ladies. Babies, mules, and
negroes seem made for one another. Though why this
should be so, only the Creator who made them and who
knows all things, knows. It may be because, in some
things, perhaps in most, babies and mules are alike.
A healthy baby asks only time and opportunity. This
Cribiche received amply. Unfortunately, his having
been found in the gutter, though it procured him the
name of Theodore from the priest, affixed to him also
that of Cribiche, the Creole for ecrevisse, crayfish.
Only God and the priest knew him by any other appella
tion. He grew with time and profited by his opportuni
ties. But if ever the proverb " the nearer the church
the farther from God " was verified in this world, it
was in this case. Cribiche was as precocious in naughti-
174 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
ness as any little negro of the same age. And that is
saying a great deal. How quickly time flies! The gift
to the parish became ten years old before Pere Phileas
had recovered from his surprise at his walking and talk
ing; and even then he was stretching his tethers, alas!
not toward goodness.
Pere Phileas s " Imitation " had warned him, how
many times the well-thumbed page alone could tell,
" Withstand the beginnings, the remedy is applied too
late when the evil has grown strong through delay." But
when are the beginnings of evil in an infant? That the
" Imitation " did not indicate. When the priest was ready
to apply the remedy, it was already too late! Indeed,
to the simple soul it seemed that even the baptism had
been too late ; that evil had entered the child in the very
ditch of his nativity.
Laziness and lying were the temptations to be resisted.
Cribiche, however, resisted not them but their opposites.
So Joachim was forced to flay his body for him while
the priest wrought to cure his soul. But to cure a soul
one must catch it; and as well try to catch a bird in a
tree when it has gotten away from you. And Cribiche s
lessons, and his catechism were, respectfully be it spoken,
salt on the tail. As for communion and confirmation he
remained in such a state of nature that one could only
pray for a miracle to accomplish his salvation.
Thus while other children climbed and learned at the
Institut Mimi, Cribiche roamed at his own free will in the
pleasant valley of ignorance. When Pere Phileas would
send him to school, that is, take him by the arm and push
him inside Mademoiselle Mimi s gate, he had better have
said : " Cribiche, my son, my good little son, go not to
CRIBICHE 175
school to Mademoiselle Mimi, go, on the contrary, and
spend the day fishing for perch in the old Mexican Gulf
canal. Or go to that little Bayou back of the battle
ground, that thou knowest of, and fish there in the shade
of the oak trees. Or if thou canst beg, borrow, or steal
a gun along that same Bayou, thou wilt find ducks, or
in any magnolia tree, " Grassees" eating the magnolia
berry to flavor their delicate flesh expressly for the epi
cure. Or maybe, you feel like gathering oranges for
the traders who are now buying them and you can work
for them all day long contentedly, and come home with
a dozen for pay. Or go if you will and pick up pecans
for the Sisters at the convent ; they are rich and therefore
must make more money still by selling their pecans and
they will willingly give you your pockets and hands full,
for your day s work, and perhaps hang a scapulary on
your dirty neck, instead of having you flogged by their
gate-keeper and sent to school. Or the Roulaison (sugar
grinding) has begun on the coast, and any planter down
there will welcome you to put cane on the carrier all day,
for the slight payment of letting you eat as much
* caramel and Cuite (candied sugar of the cane
juice) as you want. ..."
Pere Phileas had better have told Cribiche to do all
this and saved him from the sin of disobedience. For it
was what Cribiche would do without fail, slipping out of
the school-gate, just as soon as the priest s back was
turned ; unless the fancy took him to lie on a grassy spot
on the Levee and watch the ships go by; or hide in the
corner of some Gascon cafe, the best resort of all on
a rainy day, and listen to the talk going on there.
Desire of learning was not in him as the priest said
176 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
sadly, nor shame of ignorance. When Cribiche sought
Papa Pinseau s society, it was not alas! to improve his
accent or diction in French, nor for La Fontaine nor the
adventures of Telemaque; but to recount his own ad
ventures in hunting and fishing. And if Belle, who lay
sleepy and bored through all the wit and wisdom of
classic French morality, if she lifted her head at these
recitals and listened, and to Cribiche s " pam, pam," as
he aimed and shot off his imaginary gun, barked eager
exclamations and ran excitedly around the room nosing
under chairs and sofas to lie at her master s feet after
wards, whining from sheer longing what must the other
old hunter have felt? He, indeed, would be the last
authority on earth to urge book learning upon Cribiche.
The question is, would Cribiche have studied ever had
not the misfortunes of war been inflicted upon Mr.
Talbot?
As the sage La Fontaine says :
. . . on rencontre sa destinee,
Souvent par les chemins qu on prend pour I eviter"
There is an island on the coast below St. Medard
called St. Malo. It is peopled by Malays, who do naught
else under God s heaven, as the saying of the parish goes,
but fish; and, the evil-minded say, play the pirate when
chance offers that luck to them. Free as the winds and
waves about them ; children of the elements and untamed
as they. And there is another place, not far from St.
Medard, the Terre aux Boeufs, the home of the Islefios,
or " Islingues," as they call themselves ; a narrow strip
of land encircled by a Bayou, which itself is surrounded
CRIBICHE 177
by trembling prairies that separate it from the Gulf of
Mexico. These people are also Spanish, brought here
by their government a century before as colonists from
the Canary Islands, as the Malays were from the Philip
pines. But only the historians know this. The people
themselves know only that they are Islenos and can live
to themselves without hindrance on their Island in
Louisiana; the men hunting and fishing all the week
and the women sitting in front of their palmetto thatched
huts, on the bank of the Bayou, waiting for their men
to come back at night. No schools, no churches there
only game and fish ; and nothing 1 to do but get these and
put them on little ox carts and drive to the nearest shop
to buy when they needed them powder, shot, coffee,
flour, or clothing.
Either of these was the road that Cribiche s thoughts
usually took to avoid his destiny. They would set out
at sight of his primer towards the Malays or Islingues,
and instead of seeing his page or slate, he saw with the
faculty of children to see not what is, but what they wish
he saw the low-lying sky of the Gulf, the foaming
waves leaping over the snapper banks, or farther out
beyond the sight of land, the blue depths where the
silvery pampano is found; or, if the season were Autumn
and the hour twilight, he saw the reeds of a Bayou
in the trembling prairie, and the flocks of homing ducks,
flying within range of an ambush. And bang ! bang ! he
would grow as wild under the imagination as under the
reality of it.
" But, my son, why do you jump and start that way? "
the good priest would ask. " To learn a lesson, one
must be calm and patient." When Pere Phileas could
178 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
get hold of his charge at night, he would bring him into
his room and seat him at his table with books and slate.
But always, there came an interruption; no one in St.
Medard appeared to have time to consult a priest except
at night, and the sick always put off sending for him for
the consolations of the church until the night too; during
the day they seemed to have more confidence in them
selves. When thus summoned, the good man could not
forbear sighing as he arose.
" My son," he would say to Cribiche, laying his great
hand kindly on the boy s shoulder, " you see how it is
... I cannot do my duty to you, on account of my
duty to some one else. . . . You, therefore, must do my
duty to yourself, for me. Make yourself study as I
would make you study, repeat your lessons to yourself
as you would repeat them to me. Be a good boy; when
you hear the trumpet go to bed and be sure to say your
prayers. As for me, I am going back into the swamp
and I may not return before day, the way is dark and
difficult. Be careful to put out the light."
When the trumpet sounded, where was Cribiche? He
was, briefly, everywhere that he should not have been,
he was nowhere that he should have been.
As some good folk enjoy their wealth more when con
templating the poverty of others and sleep better of a cold
rainy night, by contrasting their good, warm bed with
the wretched lot of the homeless and shelterless, so
Cribiche also whetted his enjoyment of freedom.
But the good, after all, suffer needlessly from their
imagination of the badness of the bad. Many a night,
when the poor priest in a panic at the wickedness of the
devil was worrying his soul over the whereabouts of the
CRIBICHE 179
boy, going even to the length of throwing himself on
his knees before the Holy Virgin and praying that she,
seeing the helplessness of the boy s only earthly guardian,
would cast a look after him herself, as after one who
had no earthly father or mother to do so, or only such as
suspicion gave at that very moment Cribiche would be
probably no farther away than Joachim s window, nor
more evilly employed than peeping at him and his fat
wife, sitting together, gossiping, while the grim cat-o -
nine tails, that Joachim as a retired sailor preferred to
other instruments of punishment, was hanging innocently
on the wall. Or he would be standing and feasting his
eyes on the sentry at the barracks who was ever pacing
to and fro, to and fro, not daring to stop or laugh and
talk or run away for fear of the guardhouse. But best
of all, he enjoyed slipping upon the gallery of the
Americans and all unsuspected, looking down even as
Lazarus may have looked down upon hell upon the
torments he, himself, was so well out of ; at boys of his
own age and spirit undergoing their purgatory, night
after night. There they sat around the dining-room
table with their books, illuminated by an oil lamp, study
ing under no Pere Phileas, always hoping for the best;
but under the real eye of a real father, always prepared
for the worst; who ran up his black flag every night,
so to speak, and gave no quarter to sleepiness, laziness,
or shirking. There were no messages there calling him
away. Hour after hour the pale, serious, scholarly man
sat unmoved, book in hand, waiting for the balky lessons
to be learned and recited to his satisfaction. Light after
light in the house would go out, but that lamp burned
on even if necessary until midnight; until, if the fancy
i8o THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
be permitted, the slow intelligence of the boys caught
light from it.
Never did the salt waves and winds of the Gulf seem
so near to Cribiche; never did fish bite better in the
Bayou or ducks fly down in thicker flocks upon the
trembling prairie across the red disk of the setting sun ;
never did guns pop so briskly as when he looked in upon
that scene ; never was the life of Malay or Islingue more
tempting, never was his vagrancy more precious to
him.
Was it destiny, or the Virgin Mary, that made Mr.
Talbot open the door suddenly one night and catch
Cribiche there, and, as he tried to escape, pull him into the
room dirty, barefooted, barelegged, open-shirted as he
was? What did Cribiche think was going to happen to
him? What did he expect? He was audacious, but
not impudent, and he looked miserable enough in his
confusion as the grip upon his shoulder pushed him into
a chair, and a book was shoved before him : " We are
all studying here, Cribiche, you must study too."
We might well ask again with Pere Phileas : Was it
not the Virgin Mary who did thus act the part of the
wisest and tenderest of mothers in giving the vagabond
over to such a master, without doubt, the most elegant
scholar in St. Medard? and more; the sole one, before
whose eyes the boy trembled. It is not always the most
serious who are the least attractive to children; the
most severe who are the least respected; the most feared
who are the least loved. Cribiche in his heart was more
afraid of the tall, pale American gentleman than he was
of God, whose fear Pere Phileas had been preaching to
him all his life.
CRIBICHE 181
Just as, when commanded to arise, the dead man did
arise, so Cribiche, when commanded to study, did study
. . . that night and every night afterward.
Who else but she, the Virgin Mary, could have done
it?
JERRY
IN the program for the future, it had been agreed be
tween Jerry and his master that the two eldest girls
should be hired out as servants as soon as possible and
that Jerry should seek employment in his trade of car
penter. This, with Matilda s wages as cook and with
their home provided, would insure not only comfort to
the freed slaves but enable them to save something to
meet the " emergencies," as they might be called, of their
freedom : the illnesses, deaths, and disabling accidents
that had been hitherto the master s portion.
As he had planned for his own life so Mr. Talbot
planned for the negro s and did nothing by halves. He
carefully explained to the negro that the principles that
formed the basis of his dealings with other men and
other men s dealings with him were the same truth,
honesty, hard work, courage, patience, that he, Jerry,
had possessed as a slave ; and that all he had to do now
to fulfil his duty to God and man was to continue living
in the future as he had done in the past. A good slave
was bound to make a good free man. His children were
of an age to help him, which was a great advantage;
Matilda was an honest, industrious woman; his trade
was one in which he was sure to find employment. The
master said he had never seen a good carpenter who
was not well to do. Jerry listened as he always did to
his master, devoutly raising his large intelligent eyes to
i8a
JERRY 183
him from time to time ; his great hard hands lying heavily
on his knees like hands of bronze. His thick, grizzled
wool stood out in even height all over his head, in
creasing its size with fine effect; a short grizzled beard
covered the lower part of his face ; leaving his large lips
bare. His expression was of perfect truth and honesty.
"I ll do my best, Master; I ll do my best," was the
answer he made from time to time.
" You must not only do your best ; you must see that
your family does its best, too," with a slight laugh.
You know you are your own overseer and master now."
The negro did not smile at this. He had a face that
seldom smiled; a serious, plodding face.
" It will seem strange at first being in the city ; but you
must not think about the city : your work will be the same
in the city that it was in the country. Keep to your work
and keep to yourself. The city is full of strange negroes
who are up to all kinds of mischief; keep away from
them. A lazy negro is a bad negro, as you know yourself.
When you see a crowd of lazy negroes, herding together
like sheep as they are doing in that old warehouse on
the Levee, you may be sure they are doing no good to
themselves or to any one else. Keep away from them
and keep Matilda and your girls away from them. I
cannot do anything to help you in this, you must do it all
yourself."
" I ll do my best, Master."
" I ll give you a recommendation that is a paper tell
ing who you are and what you can do ; guaranteeing you
as the good, honest, industrious man you have proved
yourself to be. Your character and your capability as
a workman are your stock in trade; and I can tell you
1 84 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
many a white man has made a fortune starting with less
of that than you have. Show your paper when you ask
for work. As I pass in the cars, I see some piled-up
lumber on the Levee ; there must be a lumber-yard there
or a sawmill; I should think you could find work there.
And show your recommendation when you apply for
work for Henrietta and Julia. People naturally think
that a good man has good daughters. Go over there to
the barracks, perhaps some of the officers families need
servants. Take any wages they offer. Henrietta and
Julia do not know much about housework but they can
learn. You had better explain, Jerry, that they have
never worked much about a house, and though they look
rough and awkward, they will soon learn. You take
them yourself, and hire them out and collect their wages
as they are both under age just as I would have done
once, if I were hiring you out/
" Yes, Master, I ll do my best."
The next morning the father and the two daughters,
dressed in their best clothes as if they were going to
church, started out on their momentous errand. Jerry
had his recommendation in his pocket; but he carried
it so well written on his face, that the paper could have
been demanded only by a person very ignorant of negro
physiognomy. It was not difficult to find situations for
the strong, good-looking girls, ignorant and awkward as
they were. Although the city was swarming with the
disbanded negroes from ruined plantations and homes all
over the State, wages were high; servants hard to get,
and harder to hold. From the utmost luxuriance and
extravagance of retinue, households had fallen to the
barest necessities. Freedom from slavery meant free-
JERRY 185
dom from work or it meant nothing to the negroes.
Here and there an old man or woman would be seen
toiling stolidly along in the old routine, although the
door of their prison stood open before them. Inured to
chains, perhaps more at their ease with them than with
out (even if the chains were forged of sentiment and
affection as some of them seem to have been), they still
remained in servitude when servitude grew harder and
harder under the changed conditions when, in truth,
it became a slavery such as no former state of slavery
could be compared with. But these were all old negroes.
The young were foot loose. There was nothing to bind
them or to constrain them, neither past, present, nor
future. They drank to their heart s content from the
cup of their new liberty and gave themselves up to the
delights of its intoxication. There was no master, over
seer, or driver for them now by day; no patrol to de
mand passes of them by night. By night and by day
they could go now where they pleased, as well as do as
they pleased. No one now could force them to work, or
keep them at work if they wished to quit. They could
leave the baby crying in the cradle, the dinner cooking
on the stove, the clothes in the washtub nobody could
prevent, nobody could punish them. That was the best
of all, they were free henceforth from punishment!
They even could be impudent with impunity now to
the whites ; to those sacred whites against whom to raise
a hand was once a capital crime for a slave. They could
have white people arrested now and taken before any
provost marshal. And if the whites were not " loyal,"
as it was called, to the conquerors in the war, the negroes,
merely because they were negroes and so loyal could
1 86 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
gain any case against them, would in fact be believed
before them. They could now curse white men, aye and
even white women, to their faces, and if they were South
ern white men and women be only laughed at for their
insolence by the people in power. The negro soldiers
could shove them out of their way in the cars, push and
jostle, soldiering them as one may say, with their white
officers standing by, indifferent, if not smiling at them.
They, the negroes, had been freed and exalted so their
preachers preached to them their owners conquered and
abased. They, the negroes, were the victors; to them
belonged the spoils and they were ready to claim them.
Social equality was granted them; wherever a white
man went a black man could go. Whatever a white man
did a black man could do. There was nothing now but
political equality to obtain, which, on account of their
numbers and the disfranchisement of the whites, meant
political superiority. And white men, from the victori
ous side s political party that had brought on and gained
the war, were even now forming parties in the State, to
gain this last triumph for them, and with it their vote.
There were old ladies still living in the city who,
sitting in their quiet rooms, said that they knew all about
revolutions : their mothers had related to them what had
taken place in the French revolution. WTiatever hap
pened, these old ladies shook their heads and predicted
something worse. They counseled prudence, submis
sion, for they felt the cut of the guillotine still in their
blood. There were other old ladies, too, who said they
knew all about it : their mothers had fled from the insur
rection of the slaves in Santo Domingo, and whatever
happened they also predicted something worse, for they
JERRY 187
felt still in their blood what they could never relate to
their children; what they only could describe as "God
alone knew what followed "...
Jerry hired out both his daughters into service in the
barracks and secured work for himself as carpenter.
At night, when the lessons were going on in the
master s house, the negroes would be gathered around the
flickering light of the fire on their hearthstone and they
would turn together, as it were, the page of the day s
experience. Not the pages filled with Latin declensions
and Greek verbs, that puzzled and saddened the little
minds over the way, but mirth-provoking pages to the
negroes for at first they experienced nothing but what
they could laugh at ; and they laughed at everything that
differed from their plantation standard. And more than
anything else, they laughed at their own race : " A city
nigger was no nigger at all."
Sometimes the master, coming in to give an order,
seeing them thus laughing, talking, and dozing together
before their fire, would say wearily to himself : " They
are as happy as ever they were."
But the two elder girls grew more and more like the
city niggers that they at first despised and mocked; less
like the country niggers they had been so proud to call
themselves. Little by little they discarded their planta
tion garb : the colonnade gown, heavy rawhide shoes,
and headkerchief s ; and little by little assumed hats,
calico dresses, and high heel boots. In three months they
had traversed the stage from the one costume to the
other. To their father these were dubious signs, but to
Matilda they were glad tidings. She craved not for
herself to go into the Canaan, the Land of Promise, that
i88 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
she heard was lying before all negroes for them to go in
and take possession of. She counted upon remaining
upon this side of Jordan with Jerry and her white people,
in the colonnade gown, headkerchief, and rawhide shoes
of the days of her slavery. But she laughed ecstatically
to herself over her work when she thought of her
daughters in their new finery, as she would have laughed
had she heard they wore the robes of salvation, the
mystical finery of a negro s dreams during slavery.
Salvation : That was the negro s hope in slavery to save
their souls and go to God. And as they were slaves, and
black, and sinners as well, they indulged, not hopes, but
certainties of salvation. The freed negroes soon learned
not to worry themselves about salvation. What could
heaven give above what they had been given and what
was promised them?
The girls soon lost their places, but Jerry found others
for them; and all went well as before except that they
came home only once a week instead of every night.
They lost the second places before their month ended,
and Jerry found situations for the third time. . . .
After that he lost track of their engagements. They
went in and out of their places without reference to him.
They told their mother what they chose and she believed
what they told her.
One day it came to Jerry, while he was planing a
plank, to throw down his tool and go and see what his
daughters were doing. He went off as he was, in his
apron and shirt sleeves.
When he came home after dark Matilda saw that
something had happened to him. He came in and sat
down and held his head in his two hands and would not
JERRY 189
speak ; as she had seen a negro man do on the plantation
when he came home alone from a frolic that he had gone
to with a companion. He said his mate had fallen out
of the pirogue and drowned; but the plantation always
thought he had thrown him out of the pirogue and
drowned him. Matilda could think only of this, as she
closed the doors and windows. But Jerry was worn
out with hunger, fatigue, and sorrow; that was all.
When she won him to talk to her, the tears rolled down
his cheeks, and she knew he had not killed anyone.
He told her how it came to him, when he was working
and not thinking of his girls at all, to go and hunt them
up. A kind of voice came to him. He threw down his
plane, left his work and went, as he was. That was all
he knew at first. He walked and walked from place to
place, until he got on their traces, and then he tracked
them to where they were. They were not in any place
. . . they had not been in a place for a month . . . they
were at the " Settlement," with the negroes there, both
of them. They had lied when they said they were work
ing. They were not working . . . they were living with
the negroes there living like they lived . . . They had
lied to Matilda and to him. . . .
" Did you see them ? " she asked.
He had seen them ; he had talked to them and he told
Matilda what he had said to them, and what they had
said to him, how they had answered him . . .
When Matilda heard what they said and how they said
it her fury stopped her mouth for an instant. Then
when she began to talk she was beside herself with pas
sion. She swore she would go to the " Settlement " ; she
would drag those " nigger girls " out ; she would cut
i 9 o THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
their vitals in two ; she would stamp the life out of them ;
she would . . . All the old hideous plantation threats
of an African s fury rolled from her hot tongue.
Jerry shook his head, saying nothing. But when, hav
ing talked herself to the point of action, she seized a
knife and made a rush for the door, he caught her and
held her. She now turned in her frenzy upon him;
forgetting everything else. She fought him like a wild
animal, tried to use her knife on him. Thin, supple, lithe
as an eel, she was a match for him unless he used his
full strength upon her. Again and again she almost got
through the door. She had reached it, opened it, and
was fighting in the crack of it, when at last Jerry, getting
between her and the door, gave her a push that sent her
to the other side of the room, where she fell against the
bed.
" Go and call Master," he ordered his youngest girl
Maria, who was cowering in a corner.
The master came and the mistress behind him. They
had heard only Matilda s garbled accounts of the girls,
and thought them still at work. Now they heard the
truth as Jerry gave it. Wherever he went, tracking them
from one place to the other, from their first situation in
an officer s family in the barracks to their last one, he
had found but one account of them that they were lazy,
impudent, and thievish. From her last place Henrietta
had stolen a dress, and her employers were looking for
her to have her arrested. He went finally to the " Settle
ment," and there found them. They told him they were
not going to work any more; that they could make as
much money as they wanted without working and that
they were free, anyhow, to do as they pleased. When
JERRY 191
Jerry ordered them to come along with him they were
impudent to him; they " sassed " him. When he threat
ened to whip them they laughed at him and gave him
" the dare " to do it . . . they looked him straight in the
face and dared him to touch them.
Matilda broke out again with her threats. Her master
ordered her to be silent. He questioned her; she gave
reluctant, surly but respectful answers.
" What do you want to do about it, Jerry ? " he asked,
turning to him.
" I want to fetch them back and punish them. Such
conduct ought to be punished, Master, you know it ought
to be punished."
" But you have tried that. They won t come back.
How do you propose to make them come back ? "
"If I find them/ screamed Matilda, " so help me
God, but I ll fetch em back! Let me once lay eyes on
them, I ll ..."
" And if you bring them back," the calm voice of her
Master interrupted her, " how long do you think you
will keep them here? "
" I ll keep em ! Just let me get em here, I ll keep
em ! " and she began her threats again.
" Do as you please, Jerry," the master turned to him ;
" but," shaking his head, " I can tell you, it is too late
now."
" But I must have my children back, Master," and
Matilda began to cry. " I must have them back ! "
" Don t cry, Mammy ! don t cry ! " called out the little
girls, impulsively from the door where they were peep
ing in.
Their father sternly ordered them away.
192 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
" Master," said Jerry, " I can t let my children stay
with thieves and rascals."
" Have you searched their things ? "
" No, Sir."
11 Go at once and search them."
They ain t got no things to search, Master," whim
pered Matilda. " They took all their things away with
them."
She opened the pine chest in which they had brought
their clothes from the plantation.
" Look in their bed. Look under the mattress." This
was the traditional hiding-place of the negroes.
Jerry went into the next room with a light. They
heard him turn the mattress up and give an exclamation.
" Master, come here ! " he called.
The turned-up mattress showed a slit and bulging
moss. Jerry held in his hand a spool of thread, a hand
kerchief, a ribbon. He tore out more moss; a towel,
a pair of scissors, a pair of stockings came out with it.
Matilda started forward, as mother and negro, to
stay Jerry from further revelations.
" Matilda," asked her Master, " how much did you
know of this?"
" Master ! I m no thief, you know I m no thief ! before
God . . ."
" That s enough ! Jerry, try to return what you can of
these things. I suspect some of them came from the
barracks. And go to that woman and pay for the dress.
If you haven t the money, come to me and get it. And
let Julia and Henrietta know that if I catch them about
here, I will have them arrested and sent to jail."
Then the master and his wife left the room. Going
JERRY 193
across the yard, he said to her : " Jerry is honest, but
Matilda knew they were stealing."
The negroes were never the same afterward. Matilda
grew sulky and quarrelsome, Jerry silent and morose.
Both suffered for the want of their children. On the
plantation, during slavery, if Jerry had caught his
daughters stealing, he would have whipped them and that
would have ended the matter. He would have whipped
them if they had been impudent or disrespectful to him.
If they had refused to work they would have answered
to the overseer. If Matilda had caught them acting
badly, she would have whipped them. They had stolen,
they had acted badly, they had been impudent and lazy,
and they had received no punishment. Even the master
did not talk of punishing them but of having them ar
rested and sent to jail. Jerry tried to study it out.
He plodded along in his work. He made good wages
and brought them home and locked them in his chest.
When Spring came he would go into the garden of an
afternoon and work with his master and the two boys
planting vegetables; peas, beans, okra, beets. ... At
night there was no more talking around the hearth.
Matilda sat in the kitchen, smoking her pipe. He sat
to himself, smoking his pipe and " studying " as he
called it.
Out of his studying in the past had ^ome great things
for the plantation. He seemed to carry everything in
his mind that he had ever seen, but he had to " study "
to get anything out of it. His master used to go to
him as to a book of reference. When the time came
on the plantation that the people there had to weave their
own cloth or go without clothing, his master said to
194 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
him : " Jerry, do you remember that old loom that Aunt
Patsy used to weave on? I can see her now," and he
made the motion of flinging the shuttle and working
the beam. " I can see the whole thing so distinctly that
I believe we could make a loom together, you and I;
you were playing around her as much as I in the old
time."
Jerry answered in his cautious way : " I will study it
out, Master, and see." He studied it out, knife in hand,
whittling from soft cypress a little piece here, a little piece
there; fitting them together; looking at them; pulling
them apart; whittling again; fitting again; until he
showed, at last, his model to his master, and then from it
made a loom. How to warp the yarn he studied that
out too; and from experiment to experiment, failure
after failure, he succeeded in creating from memory
both loom and weaving, and all the cloth that was needed
on the plantation was made there. He had studied
out how to cure and smoke beef, how to dress leather,
how to make shoes ... He had even pieced together
long hymns, from the fragments carried in his memory
from childhood; hymns that all the negroes remem
bered but, as they said, could not recall. Anything that
had taken place on the plantation since he had been there,
give him time to study about, and he could report with
perfect accuracy: the number of staves cut at such a
time, the bushels of corn raised in such a field, where
each certain mule had been bought and the long lists of
the different shipments of sugar. He had even studied
out how to pull teeth and to bleed people.
His great useful hands lay idle at his side ; they could
not whittle out the thoughts that lay in his head now,
JERRY 195
could not help him in studying out what was before him
this time.
He would come to his master of an evening as he was
sitting on the gallery, to put some of his questions to him.
" Master, what is it keeps white folks straight ? They
ain t got no overseer to whip them."
" They get their straightening when they are children
if they have sensible parents," his master had answered,
laughing. " I know what kept me straight and so do
you."
" What keeps you straight now, Master ? " he asked
seriously.
" Myself," answered his master confidently.
" Master, why can t niggers keep themselves straight,
without whipping, like white folks do ? "
" The good ones do. You kept straight, you have
never been whipped since you were a boy."
Jerry shook his head. " Master, if I had got my
deserts, I would have been whipped many a time since
I was a man."
The master laughed at his frankness and responded
with the same : " So should I, Jerry, to tell you the
truth."
" Master," persisted the negro, not to be put off : " If
white folks needed whipping to keep them straight they
would get the whipping if they had to whip one another
for it they would get it. But niggers ain t that way.
Niggers won t keep each other straight, like white folks
do. The white folks kept the niggers straight, the nig
gers don t do it for themselves. Master," looking him
in the face, " how long would the niggers on the planta
tion have kept straight if you hadn t been there or the
ig6 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
overseer? That plantation wouldn t have been a fit
place for even niggers to live in, if the niggers had had
to look out for the straightness of it, themselves. You
know that, Master."
His master nodded his head and smoked in
silence.
" But, Master, what puzzles me and what I can t study
out, no matter how hard I try ; if God wanted us niggers
to be like white folks, why didn t he make us like white
folks? He wants us to have white folks natures, but
he gives us nigger natures. If we go according to our
natures, we are bad. We ve got to go according to white
folks natures to be good, and when white folks are bad
they go according to nigger natures."
As his master did not reply, perhaps for the best of
reasons, Jerry continued :
" Master, over there, where we all come from, from
. . . Africa . . . (even the best of negroes hate to
pronounce the name) what sort of folks is the niggers
there ? They ain t got no white folks there. Well, what
sort of niggers is they there?" He paused for an
answer, which did not come. " I asked Marse Billy one
day, and he told me they were savages. They go naked,
they eat one another. And how we come here is : those
niggers over there caught us like chickens and traded
us off for rum, or for anything the traders gave
them . . . That s how the white folks got us and
brought us over here into slavery. Isn t that so,
Master?"
" That s about it, Jerry."
" Master, did you ever hear of white folks selling
their folks to niggers for slaves ? "
JERRY 197
" Oh ! in old times, Jerry, there were all kinds of
slavery. Don t you remember about the children of
Israel and the Egyptians?"
Jerry shook his head dubiously.
" Well, now, Jerry," his master with cheerful voice
questioned him in his turn : " how do you account for it
that the negroes are so religious if they do not want to
be good? You were all of you always singing hymns
and praying and preaching and having revivals down in
the quarters. It seemed to me then you were always
wanting to be the best people on earth."
" It s the sinners that need praying for, Master, not
the good," he answered with simplicity, and, rising from
the step on which he had been seated he added and
now there was not a tinge of doubt in his voice, or
misgiving in his mind " God will forgive sinners ; He
says that, if they repent ... if they repent. That s
what makes us repent. Even the greatest white gentle
man cannot go to Heaven unless he repents, you know
that, Master; but the vilest sinner can, no matter what
the color of his skin is. Old master taught us that;
and he was right."
And lifting his head as if with reinforced strength
and dignity, he walked back to his gallery.
What he had studied out, when the first talk of free
dom turned his thoughts toward the great subject, had
been thrown into confusion by the conduct of his
daughters and the talk of the negroes about him. One
of the answers he had received oftenest from his girls to
his expostulations was : " I m a nigger and I m going to
live like a nigger and I m as good as white folks any
how." The people at the Settlement repeated it, as they
ig8 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
stood around jeering at him. His fellow workmen at
the carpenter shop said the same thing. The black
soldiers that he met in the cars said the same thing.
Matilda would not mention the absent girls to him and
when he talked about them she would not blame them.
She, too, was beginning to think that there was a white
wrong and a black wrong; a different code of morality
for a different skin.
Jerry, in his trouble, would recur again and again to
his old master, the father of the present one, a rigid
Presbyterian, who enforced repentance and salvation
upon his slaves with far more severity than he enforced
work. " Ye shall be holy, for I am holy." There was
no distinction allowed by him for color in that command
and sinners found small mercy at his hands when delin
quencies, like those of Jerry s daughters, came under his
jurisdiction. And his slaves when they were submitting
to chastisement were made to know that their master be
lieved it was a question of their souls, of their salvation
from eternal damnation.
Now, they could damn their souls as they pleased,
there was no one to interfere or hinder. On the old
plantation, besides being punished, they would have been
prevented or hindered. They would have had no chance
to be bad even if they had wanted to. And as they lived
in the fear of their strict stern master, so he lived, as
they knew, in the fear of God.
Looking up to the stars, which as he thought lighted
the Heaven where the old gentleman had gone : " Old
Master," whispered Jerry plaintively, " I wish you were
here to look after your niggers. God don t look after
your niggers as you used to."
JERRY 199
At last, one dismal, one painful morning, when he
came to make the fire in the house, he rapped at the
chamber door of his master and mistress, and standing
in the cold gray gloom he told them (the words sound
ing familiar from old association) that Matilda had
run away, not from them, but from him; run away
during the night while he slept, taking Maria with her;
" run away, like a runaway nigger," he repeated in his
humiliation.
In the blank emptiness and silence that succeeded to
his family life he held on to his work and to his house
hold tasks; to the fidelity to duty in which he had been
raised ; to the future that his master had planned for him,
and that he knew God approved of. But he could not
forget his wife and his children, although they could
forget him.
He sat up evenings alone in his room, where at first
they had been so happy laughing over the ways of " city
niggers," wrestling with his nature, as he would have
called the struggle, striving for the other nature, accord
ing to which negroes had to live to be good. He would
hurry through the path to his work and back ; never look
ing about him, never stopping, as if afraid he might see
or meet some of them.
In vain ! When Spring came, fresh, as it were to him,
from the plantation, bringing the merry voices and
laughter of the quarters, the cackling of chickens, bark
ing of dogs, the brisk jingling of the harness of the
mules as they trotted out to the field with their noisy
riders sitting sideways upon their bare backs . . . above
it all he heard the voice of Matilda calling to the girls,
and the voices of the girls stepping out with their water-
200 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
buckets balanced on their heads; little Maria sitting in
her little chair that he had made for her. . . .
In vain! In vain! One morning as bright a morn
ing as Spring could bring he threw down his tools as
he had done once before, and started off almost running,
hardly knowing what he was doing ; but his feet brought
him straight to where his mistress sat alone with her
sewing. He told her and as he talked his solid-looking
tears rolled over his thick beard down to his blue shirt
he told her he had to go to them to Matilda, and to his
girls.
Her good, faithful Jerry! Her friend and servant
who had stood by her during the war . . . many a time
her only help! He alone of all the plantation knew
the hard path she had been set to walk in, and how at
times she shrank back in fear, how her feet trembled,
and how her heart grew faint. She did not have to tell
him. He knew, and she knew that he knew it all. She
did not have to tell him. . . . Her tears ran too, straight
from her heart to her eyes. Ah! That dreadful future!
worse; worse than the war! This had not been in the
plan ; no more sorrow had been there, no more partings.
She told him he was right to go, for she knew that
was what he yearned to hear; she told him to go to his
wife and his daughters, that God would not abandon him
He saw it all ; He would be over him wherever he was,
at the Settlement or with his white people. . . . And
they would all meet together some day, and be together
and never, never part. So she talked as she used to do
to the dying on the plantation, and it soothed him as it
had always soothed them ; and it soothed her too.
He had almost gone, when he returned, picked up her
JERRY 201
dress, and hid his face in it, sobbing : " Master, Mistress,
Master, Mistress."
Later in the day he might have been seen, with his
small bundle of clothes over his shoulder, walking up
the road to the Settlement.
THE SAN ANTONIOS
EVERYBODY in St. Medard knew that the San Antonios
had begun their life, that is, of course, their wealth, in a
barroom on the river front. But Madame Joachim re
membered them even before that, when they kept an
oyster-stand on the Levee itself and opened oysters and
sold drinks to anybody who came along dagoes, roust
abouts, negroes for it was at that time Joachim, him
self, was running an oyster-lugger between Barrataria
and the city and gaining the appearance that made people
think of a pirate whenever they saw him. The oyster-
stand grew into a shop, and the shop into a saloon, where
fine fresh Barrataria oysters were sold, the best sharpener
of the appetite for drink, as drink is the best sharpener
of the appetite for oysters.
After this the classic road to Avernus was not more
easy than Tony s to fortune. At that time, Antonia,
Maria, and Lisida were crawling around in the mud of
the gutter in front of the saloon, " and that," said
Madame Joachim, " was the beginning of the Demoi
selles San Antonio/
The saloon-keeper cannot but grow rich, provided, of
course, that he be as sober as his clients are drink-loving.
His investment seems to return the surest of earth s
profits. But as in other trades and with other staples,
the demand must be fostered, the customer encouraged,
the consumption stimulated. The weak beginner, the
202
THE SAN ANTONIOS 203
timid irresolute one in constant strife with his tempta
tion, he to whom not having the price of a drink means
the doing without, he must be tided over his failures of
weakness, as cotton and sugar planters at times have
to be tided over their failures of strength by their bankers.
He has to be helped patiently along with credit until
he is trained into a reliable client . . . until the week s
earnings, the watch from the pocket, the wedding ring
from the finger, the silver from the table, the market
money from the wife, the hoard of a saving mother,
the loans extorted by lying from friends, the purloinings
from the till, until the barkeeper sees it all coming in
a safe and sure flow across the bar ; until the once-timid
speculator in intoxication at last ceases his struggle with
his passion and comes to know no other will but its will ;
to have no other hope but to prolong its pleasure ; until
every drink taken becomes one more turn of the key
winding up the automaton into the regular motion of
so many steps away from the saloon, so many steps back ;
until Sobriety is the one dread left in the drunkard s
mind ; to keep it away his one preoccupation.
Sobriety, however, does come to him from time to time.
Any one can see the conscience-driven wretch, in some
early hour of the morning, shivering in the hottest Sum
mer, outside the door of the saloon. It is the only way
remorse ever does come to the drinking shop. Then the
bar-keeper gives more credit, unless he is a poor bar
keeper indeed. In this way he is necessarily a money
lender also, turning the cash from selling drinks into
loans for buying them, adding golden links of interest to
each end. The process is an endless chain; endless as
the weakness and the cunning of man. And not in this
204 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
way alone was money cast upon the waters to come
back in its own good or evil time. It was known that
Tony, after shaving the pockets of the poor man, shaved
the notes of the rich; that when money was needed
desperately, more than life more than honor as some
times happens when money has to be procured, at no
matter what cost, and the transaction covered up like
murder, Tony was known vaguely to be the man for the
deed; and stocks and bonds, title deeds and mortgages,
family secrets and political influence, flowed into his
coffers from this source. No one knew how much money
he had, only that he always had it to lend.
" God knows," said Madame Joachim, " how the
children got into the Ursuline convent."
But this was hardly so difficult a piece of knowledge as
to warrant an appeal to the Supreme Authority. Any
one who has seen the lugger landing and its drinking-
shops and drinking-shoppers, and the gutters that serve
as drains thereto; and seen at the same time, as one
must see, the old Cathedral, hard by, might, without
divine omniscience, draw the inference necessary to con
nect little girls playing in the gutter with the pure re
treat of the Ursuline convent. Particularly when, by
one of those facts incomprehensible to logic-loving
humanity, the little girls, who for very virtue s sake
should have been ugly and repulsive, were on the con
trary pretty and attractive too pretty and attractive,
despite their degrading condition, to escape the apostolic
successors of those shrewd eyes that once before had
discerned, non Angli, sed Angeli, in white faces and
nude bodies.
And the same eyes were shrewd enough perhaps to
THE SAN ANTONIOS 205
detect that no one has more money to spend on children
or the church than the rich bar-keeper, if he can be
brought to do so. At any rate Maria, Antonia, and
Lisida were taken from the gutter and sent to the con
vent, and once in charge of the sisters their parents
showed little concern for them. So completely, indeed,
did they become children of St. Ursula, so well were they
dedicated in advance to her service, that in the expecta
tions of the wise in such matters there was no more
probability of their ever leaving the convent for the
world than for children reared by the devil leaving the
world for the convent.
One child had died a boy. Around him clung what
ever of parental love Tony and his wife could feel. All
that they did not know of the universe, all that they in
their ignorance could not know, would have been easier
for them to understand than the fact that the boy they
wanted died, and that the girls they did not want lived.
No priest or church, assuredly, would ever have gotten
their boy from them. When he died their affections,
like vines whose trestles have been destroyed, crept hence
forward upon the ground.
Such people do not read newspapers. In fact the
wife could not read. National questions were as much
above their interest as the stars, which they never looked
at. The fish in the deep sea were not more passive under
the agitations of the storm overhead than the San
Antonios to the muttered threats, finally breaking out,
of the war between the North and the South. But,
like the fish, in the absence of finer knowledge, they
guided themselves by instinct. And although Tony
knew only that in a fight the stronger beats the weaker,
206 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
this was an immense superiority of knowledge over that
possessed by the majority of the community in which he
lived. When war was declared he said no more about
it than the oyster in his hands; but he ceased to make
personal loans, and turned his securities into gold. He
bought Confederate money from the timid for gold,
and sold it for gold to the confident; trading on the
passion for patriotism as he had traded on the passion
for drink. Running like a ferryboat from shore to shore,
collecting fares before landing, he plied between hope
and fear, working in the same secret and mysterious
way that he made his loans, for he was never missed from
his bar. While armies were being equipped, and com
panies raised, and men were going out from his very
bar to die for their country and some of his most
drunken clients, those who were the most abject cowards
in the morning about facing the world without a drink,
did die for it heroically Tony said nothing, but bought
cotton. When the ships of the enemy made their ap
pearance at the mouth of the river, and the price of
cotton fell, like a dropping stone, he bought cotton.
During the sharp but futile fight between the enemy s
vessels and the forts that guarded the approaches to the
city, when the young men were hastening away into the
Confederacy, and the old ones stood in the streets listen
ing to the guns and counting the minutes between them
and ruin, Tony bought cotton, at lower and lower prices.
When the enemy s ships passed the forts and all that
war could inflict hung in dread over the city, and when
seeing itself doomed to capture it fell into the rage of
despair that vents itself in wanton violence and destruc
tion, Tony, shutting and bolting his barroom, left his
THE SAN ANTONIOS 207
wife inside and was seen by her no more for twenty-four
hours. While the furious rabble rioted in drunken
frenzy; while packs of wild negroes, screaming with
delirious joy, rushed through the streets aimlesly like
yelping dogs in the night; while stores of powder were
being exploded, and millions of dollars of cotton and
sugar burned; while warehouses and groceries were
thrown open for pillage and whisky and liquor ran in
the gutters and stood in pools like water; while boats
were being fired and sent down the current in flames,
and the bank opposite the city seethed in one conflagra
tion, from burning ships and shipyards; while the
lurid clouds hung like another fire over the city, and the
heavens turned to the blackness of pitch with smoke;
while bells rang an unceasing alarm Tony like a rat
was slipping in and out of the hiding-place that he alone
knew about; an old, empty, abandoned saloon whose
batten doors and shutters were covered with the dust
and cobwebs of years. But like most saloons it had a
back entrance upon an alleyway that had been opened
for the purpose of providing back entrances exits they
literally were to the buildings, whose needs required
at times means of quick and secret evasions. This was
where Tony had stored his cotton the building was
packed with it. When the enemy s fleet anchored in
front of the city and the despair of grief succeeded to
the despair of rage; when in truth there was nothing left
to be destroyed; when the enemy landed and marched
through the streets and had the cobblestones under
their feet been human hearts the anguish they caused
could not have been greater then Tony returned to his
saloon, unlocked the door, and began opening oysters
208 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MfiDARD
again. When he left it the night before, he counted his
dollars by tens of thousands, now he counted them by
hundreds of thousands. The great battleships that
brought disaster, death, havoc, and ruin to the city,
with suspense and dread to last a half century longer,
were, in sober truth to him, not battleships at all, but
argosies of silver, masted with gold, rigged with silken
sails, musical with thrilling flutes and with Cleopatras,
aye! with Cleopatras had he wished them, greeting him
from damask cushions.
At the Ursulines convent Spring comes prettier than
anywhere else in New Orleans; for she comes bringing
not only flowers for the convent garden, but white dresses
and blue ribbons for the convent girls; and the Easter
lilies, themselves, might envy the young convent girls,
as in the early light of a Sunday morning they wend their
way, in their white dresses and blue ribbons and white
veils, walking two by two, under the bright green trees,
to the chapel. The lilies might have envied, and pitied,
them too, as the young girls pitied the beautiful lilies on
the eve of Easter, with the fate of the gardener s scissors
hanging over them. The convent girls knew that the
enemy s vessels, thirty or forty of them, were lying in
the passes of the river ; but they knew too that their city
could never be taken, that their men could never be
vanquished, that God was with them and they with God
in the present war. The great tocsin of St. Patrick s,
as all the church bells of the city, had been given to the
Confederate Government, to be made into artillery.
Cannon made of consecrated metal, shooting consecrated
balls ! The vision of it fired the young hearts with holy
flames and made them wish that they might be the ones
THE SAN ANTONIOS 209
to serve that ordnance. Every little girl there who had
a father, brother, uncle or cousin in the forts that guarded
the river and each one had some relative there or
elsewhere in the army held her head as high as
if she were trying to reach her soaring heart with it,
that virgin heart, higher up in the clouds than ever!
The poor orphans, the charity scholars and half menials,
were never pitied so compassionately as then ; their hard
fate and isolated lives in the community were never
so sadly considered; their outcast lot, deprived of the
glory and honor of defending their country, was
apparent even to the convent slaves.
As for the sisters, never among the Ursulines of
Louisiana could there be found a fear for Louisiana be
fore the enemy. They too were happy enough in their
gentle, pious way, except perhaps the Mother Superior,
who must have been too old a denizen of the world of
men or of God to have any more hopes or fears left
in her heart. She must have cast them away, long ago,
as grave-cloths of the soul.
They were happy enough at the convent, therefore,
until the firing began at the forts. At the first shot,
confidence was shaken; at the second, it vanished; at
the third, the young girls gave a scream that brought the
Mother Superior to them in haste. Louder and louder
grew the bombardment, fiercer and fiercer the cannon.
Sisters and scholars were hurried to the chapel. Once
before in dire extremity of battle, when an overwhelming
force threatened the city, when the British came to
conquer and spoil it, the Sisters had prayed and God
had heard them. General Jackson, himself, had come
to the convent after the battle and assured them that
210 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
their prayers and the favor of the Almighty had saved
the city, not he and his handful of men. The convent
could not have prayed more fervently then than now.
Every shot that sounded, sped to Heaven with a prayer
to avert its ball. " Oh, Thou, Our Lady of Prompt Suc
cor, help but this time, once more ! Remember, how first
Thou guidedst us through the tempests of the ocean to
this country! Remember, how when the conflagration
raged in the city, threatening to consume us, Thou
turnedst back the flames from the convent door! Re
member, oh remember, how once before Thou gavest us
the victory ! " But God s face was turned away from
them. Our Lady of Prompt Succor could -not succor
them this time.
The bombardment ceased, the event was decided, and
still, when praying was all too late, they prayed with
frightened lips, the rosary slipping through their icy,
trembling fingers. That night they watched the lurid
light spread over the city, flaming up, through the rolling
smoke. The river itself seemed to be on fire. They
could hear the explosions and at times the roar of the
voice of the frenzied populace. At last word was brought
them that the forts had been passed and that the ships
were on their way to the city.
Throughout the night, white forms glided about the
dormitories, from the beds to the windows. In the
early gray of dawn, the time when watchers by the
sick always look for death, the first gunboat slowly
steamed by the convent. Fearful, fearful, fearful ap
parition! stopping the breath, freezing the blood. At
sight of it, one little girl screamed in agony : " Papa,
Papa ! " and fell fainting. The rest could look no more.
THE SAN ANTONIOS 211
They ran back to their little beds again and laid their
faces upon them and cried.
And the sisters! The nuns, the white veils and the
black veils! Alas! the veils were rent asunder for that
once and all the holy mystery of the hearts enshrined
behind the pale impassive faces was revealed. They too
had fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, in the forts for
the Ursulines recruit their ranks, as the Confederate
army did theirs, from the best families in Louisiana
and of what account are vows and renunciations when
the woman s heart is pierced? Of what use are black
veils or white veils, when the enemy advances over the
corpses of her kin?
But the Demoiselles San Antonio looked on dry-eyed.
They had no one in the contest to weep over. No cannon
ball could render them more brotherless or kinless than
they were. They winced not at the echoing boom, shrank
not from the sight of the passing gunboats as their com
panions did. And well might these do so! As those
vessels passed before the convent, family, friends, ease,
comfort passed out of their lives; leaving behind, be
reavement, desolation, poverty, wretchedness! The
gaunt specter of war itself, flying over the convent roof,
could not have sent down more directly upon their de
fenseless heads the thunderbolts of its dire tempest.
But not upon the Demoiselles San Antonio, whose
father was creeping, like a rat, in and out among his
cotton bales. Over their heads the golden cornucopia was
turned and all the choicest Spring flowers of fortune
showered down upon them; luxury, love, and enjoyment
of their youth and beauty fell down upon them like the
mystical roses upon Sainte Rose de Lima. The moment
212 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
of crucifixion for the others was their moment of trans
figuration.
For one who has lived through the experience it is
clear that the true fruits of conquest come not all at once
in the moment of victory, but are a succession crop, yield
ing gratuitous reapings of profits to the one side as of
pains and penalties to the other with unfailing regularity
for many years afterward; as the true mortality of a
battle is not the number of killed on the field but the
resultant roll of the dead in the ensuing years. This
could not be apparent at the time to the people of New
Orleans, so unused to conquest, who it may be said,
despite their vaunted love of fighting and military glory,
knew not, as the event proved, what real war was.
It must have been the surprise of his life to Tony,
" a heavenly surprise " he might have called it, to find
that when he thought he was at the end he was only at
the beginning of his harvest: that his gold and paper
money speculations and his cotton buying were but the
prelude of what was to follow. He had not dreamed of
the wholesale confiscations of property all over the city,
the auctioning off of buildings by the block, of houses
and stores with their contents for a mere percentage of
their value; the secret sales of trembling owners in fear
of confiscation; the hidden cotton that still could be
touched; the bargains from panic-stricken women, the
endless reach of money-making, even beyond this, for
any one, like him, who had no scruples about buying
and none about compounding with the auctioneer who
sold, the officer who seized, the soldier who guarded.
San Antonio could compound with all officers, soldiers,
white and black, camp-followers, and roughs from the
THE SAN ANTONIOS 213
purlieus of other cities. In a way, he knew well that, con
querors though they were, they were but men as the con
quered had been, men who had the same taste for oysters
and liquor. He bought in property of all kinds, spoiling
the spoilers and looting the looters of their cotton, houses,
silver jewelry, velvets, furniture, libraries, pictures,
pianos, carriages, horses, carpets, India shawls,
diamonds, laces, the riflings of fine ladies wardrobes,
the treasures of baby layettes, for many a soldier came
into possession of these so cheaply that anything he sold
them for was a profit to him. Runaway slaves brought
and sold to him what they had stolen and every runaway
then was a thief. Successions of absent Confederates
were opened and settled in ways so convenient to money
makers, that the corpse went to his tomb not more be
reft of worldly goods than the absent heir was when he
returned to his heritage. Money, money, money was
cast out upon the streets as sugar and liquor had been
when the city fell, for any one to pick up and enjoy who
did not mind the filth on it.
From the convent windows, as one looked down the
river over the roof of the convent chapel, could be seen
the chimneys and the tops of the cedar and magnolia
trees of what was known as the old Havel place. The
old Havels had fled in a ship to Havana, in the first
panic of the invasion, leaving behind what indeed they
loved, only less than one another, their home : It was
the prettiest one in the parish of St. Medard and no one
in the Parish, even the most unworthy, could walk past
it on the Levee, without feeling a covetous desire to
possess it. The fence that surrounded it was of brick
topped by an iron railing of delicate design which at
2i 4 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
regular intervals was upheld by brick pillars that sup
ported vases, holding century plants. It was called the
" Villa Bella." Its real name was " Isabella," the name
of the bride for whom it had been built; but as the
bride and her husband and the villa aged, the pretty name
in gilded lettering over the gate had become rusted and
dimmed and finally lost under the vine that had been
planted in the bridal time, to encircle it with roses.
A broad brick walk, bordered with shrubbery, led to
the house whose gallery was floored with white and black
marble and instead of a balustrade had pedestals of
marble holding vases of growing plants with vines hang
ing over the sides. In the center of the garden on one
side was a fountain, on the other a sun dial with a setting
of flowers in parterres encircling them. Under the
magnolia and cedar trees, white plaster casts of nymphs
and fawns seemed to be shrinking back in the shade cast
by the heavy green branches overhead.
The old Havels had furnished their house as a young,
romantic, bridal couple with taste and fortune would
furnish a home for their love with fine lace and satin
curtains, with rose wood and mahogany, bronze and
marble statuettes, Sevres and Palissy vases; with silver
and cut glass candelabra and chandeliers; with pictures
and with mirrors everywhere. No matter in which direc
tion, at what angle they looked, the bride and her hus
band might, by lifting the eyes, see the reflection of
their happiness and their luxury. The old Spaniard felt
secure in his generosity as he had contributed money
to the defense of the city against its invaders. When
the invaders triumphed, therefore, the property was con
fiscated at once, sold at auction, and bought by Tony.
THE SAN ANTONIOS 215
Thus the Demoiselles San Antonio were provided with
a home just when they were leaving the convent and
needed one. And it was one of the prettiest roses that
fell to them from the gilded cornucopia. Heaven, by
sending them the tender est of parents, could hardly have
benefited them so well as by sending them the sordid,
selfish ones they had ; who, to get rid of them, had gladly
thrust them out of their drinking saloon home into the
pure, holy atmosphere of the Ursuline convent and by
never going to see them there, had saved them from the
shame that comparison with parents of other scholars
would have produced.
But, the old villa ? Old houses like old families never
seem to fall in one clean drop from height to depth, they
are always caught by some crag or bush growing on the
side of the precipice and there kept gibbeted through
their slow decay in no matter what ridiculous posture.
The short, quick termination of destruction has no terror
for the original owner in comparison with such a tragi
comical ending. Had the Villa Bella, however, been
closer to the center of the city s life, it might have been
caught in a still more ridiculous position, for all its re
fined appearance and the tender sentiment of the old
couple who in it had watched their young and rosy love
grow old, bent, and wrinkled it is true, but yet remaining
none the less love to them.
To their neighbors, particularly to Madame Joachim
the San Antonios were no better than masqueraders in
the old villa ; like the negroes who of Mardi gras nights
go to their balls dressed in the second-hand finery of the
whites. There was not one among them who had not a
jibe ready when opportunity offered for the slinging of
216 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
one. " No wonder that his daughters were admitted to
the Ursuline convent/ sneered they. " No wonder they
sing so well."
" Ah, yes ! They did sing well ; their voices soaring
like birds from a cage, out of the house, over the trees,
to the public road so that passers-by could not refrain
from stopping and listening to them. Even the young
American officers from the barracks, sauntering along
the Levee with their dogs of an evening, would stop, and
had been heard to remark one to another : " How
strange it is, one never hears such music from American
parvenues! No matter how much money their fathers
have they always seem to suffer from an extreme poverty
of talent."
When one wanted to buy five cents worth of milk or
eggs or anything that Madame San Antonio had to sell
for different from Pere Phileas, she gave nothing one
went not through the vine-festooned front portal, but
through a distant backgate and ran for fear of the dogs
through a path that led to the basement of the house,
where Madame San Antonio would be found sitting
before a table counting eggs or oranges ; sorting pecans,
plaiting garlic, straining vinegar or bottling Merise as
the Creoles call Cherry Bounce dressed in the colonnade
skirt, calico sacque, and blue check apron of her barroom
days ; with a long black pocket tied by a tape around her
waist; a perfect market woman.
" Madame San Antonio, Maman dit comme ca, un
picaillon de . . ." and while she counted or measured
the little girls would stop and listen to the singing, milk-
pitcher or basket in hand, forgetting everything, until
like the trump of judgment came to them the thought that
THE SAN ANTONIOS 217
they must go. And Madame San Antonio? What was
Faust, L Africaine, Charles VI to her ?( for they sang only
airs from grand opera, the Demoiselles San Antonio).
Madame San Antonio heard them not at all, but went
on plunging her hands into this basket and that, this
bucket and that, stopping only to blow her nose on her
red and yellow cotton handkerchief. And San Antonio?
When he came in from his business in the city and took
his seat in the basement, his flannel cap pulled over his
eyes, and a red handkerchief tied around his neck, he did
not seem to hear his daughters any more than his wife
did ; any more than when he was in his barroom and they
in their convent.
Three afternoons of the week Mademoiselle Mimi came
to practise with the young ladies, and every morning
came Madame Doucelet for her day s attendance upon
them. This had been arranged by the superior of the
convent when she had also advised that the Villa should
be substituted for the barroom as a home, when it seemed
good to her for the young ladies to leave the convent:
their vocation not being that of St. Ursula.
Madame Doucelet was of the kind always to be found
at the doors of convents and churches as other guides are
to be found at the doors of museums thin, wrinkled,
sallow, somewhat bent, dressed in mourning, of good
family, with a name that can serve as passport into
society one of those, in short, who seem in every gen
eration to be reduced providentially to poverty in order
to serve those who are as providentially elevated to
wealth.
She was so shabby, in her old black bonnet and pointed
black cachemire shawl pinned tight across her shoulders,
218 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. M&DARD
and seemed so far removed from the brilliant world of
fashion, that no one but that wisest of women a superior
of a convent would have suspected her intrinsic merit
as an initiator into the mysteries of the manners, dress
ing, and customs of good society; her vocation, in fine,
in religious parlance, of a worldling.
" Religion and music," she thus explained herself to
Mademoiselle Mimi, " what more can a woman want ?
Religion for the soul ; music for the heart."
The Demoiselles San Antonio possessed these qualifica
tions in perfection ; that is if the practice of devotion be
called religion, and singing music. As Maria was not
so precocious as her younger sisters, and as Lisida was
more precocious than her elders, the three went through
the gentle curriculum of the convent abreast; and as
they entered it together as babies, so they left it together,
as young ladies. It may be said, that they were well
educated ; for whatever they could learn, the convent had
taught them. They were drilled in good qualities, and
knew all about them whether they possessed them or not :
discretion, truthfulness, patience, industry, obedience,
resignation, and the wholesome restraint of the feelings
or when this was not possible, that concealment of
them which comes from the consciousness that they were
always in sight or earshot of a sister, whether they saw
her or not.
Of books, they knew what they studied in classes, or
received as prizes ; the pretty gilt and pink, blue or green
volumes of pious histories authorized by the church as
the proper reward for convent excellence. Of the world
outside their schooling they knew only what the sisters
told them, and they did not imagine aught else about it,
THE SAN ANTONIOS 219
for it was one of the qualities of convent education that
the imagination (that cursed seed of damnation, planted
by the subtlety of the serpent in the mind of woman in
Paradise), since it could not be extirpated, was trained
upwards in the harmless direction of Heaven. Their
hearts, therefore, had been kept pure, as the saying is,
their minds innocent. In short, the convent had done
its best for them. It had taught them the only thing they
could learn; had cultivated their one talent music
and not in a niggardly way either, for when the limit
of the convent standard and means had been reached, a
professor of singing was procured from the city for them,
the best professor there, and they were never excused
from practising their piano.
Madame Doucelet s duty was to accompany the young
ladies whenever they went out never to let them go into
the street without her had been the charge given her
and to teach them how to dress. Slipping in every morn
ing, wrapped in her shawl, her reticule clasped tight
against her breast, she took them into the city to the
shops, showing them, what of course they had never seen
before, the infinite devices and inventions for adorning
and enhancing the interests of women in the world ; that
is their beauty. Showing them, what also they had never
seen before, their own capital of beauty and how it could
be profitably increased; by vigilance here, enterprise
there. The poor idea of the nuns was that a woman s
beauty was of her soul and that could only be increased
by spiritual adornment.
Mademoiselle Mimi, when she took her position at the
piano three times a week for the performance of her
duty, could observe the progress Madame Doucelet was
220 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
making in the fulfilment of hers: Maria s waist grow
ing hebdominally smaller, more corset-like, her com
plexion whiter; Antonia s slimness more sinuous and
graceful; Lisida s fulness more engaging. The hair
of each one had commenced to travel at once from the
rigid uniformity of the convent coiffure, for what is
hair or coiffure to the soul? Maria s long, thick plaits
were wound around her classic head ; Antonia s were un-
plaited and coiled loosely. Lisida s hair, which had been
her sin almost at the convent, so unmanageable it was
and curly and tangled its reproach was turned into its
beauty, for its disordered luxuriance was encouraged
and even increased and it was carried to the top of her
head and held there with a tall comb ; black and brilliant
over her black, brilliant eyes ; soft and entrancing as her
soft form. As soon as Madame Doucelet laid her small,
faded eyes upon the youngest Demoiselle San Antonio,
this transformation and other transformations sprang,
as it were, before them.
And as their hair and their figures, so their com
plexions, hands, and finger nails. Madame Doucelet in
sisted upon long, polished, finger nails as authoritatively
as the convent did on fasting and prayer. Long finger
nails, she said, denoted a lady that is, one who never
worked with her hands for, obviously, one could not
work with long finger nails. Even the practising on the
piano had to be sacrificed to them, for the lady with long
finger nails cannot afford to break them on the piano
keys.
As all these small sums of their capital were being
rescued, as it were, from their uselessness, to be turned to
profitable account, the convent dresses, which were in-
THE SAN ANTONIOS 221
deed only dresses for a soul, not a body, were replaced
by the apparel that fashion in truth seems to adopt for
the purpose of revenging itself upon the soul for its
servile treatment of the body.
Mademoiselle Mimi saw skirts grow longer, more
flattering to the figure, waists more transparent, more
open at the neck, sleeves more charitable to the eye of
a lover of beautiful arms, heels higher. Earrings made
their appearance, beads, chains. And as all this was
observed by Mademoiselle Mimi, three times a week, she
observed, too, that each sang better, according as she
progressed upward in the teaching of Madame Doucelet.
Sometimes, when as it seemed to her, the voice she was
accompanying was making a triumphant, exultant escape
from the body and all ties of the throat, to soar untram-
meled through the greatest difficulties of technique, she
would look up and find the eyes of the singer fastened
on some mirror (as has already been said the Havels had
multiplied mirrors in their pretty salon), where was the
reflection of a beautiful, beautifully dressed young lady.
Ah ! what were the poor nuns, with their feeble imagi
nation of the angelic, to this revelation? What more
rapturous gaze could the eyes of their pupils turn upon
the pictures of the most immaculate saints?
Madame Doucelet, always in the corner, telling her
prayer beads, would dart out every now and then, with
her noiseless tread, like a spider out of its web, to put a
footstool under Antonia s bronze slippers, to show off
her foot; to thrust a bright cushion under Lisida s lan
guid head and rumple her hair still a little more ; to lift
Maria s arm to the back of her chair and gently lay her
shapely head, en profile, on her palm in the pose of a
222 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
listening muse; fastening her ideas on to them, just as
a spider fastens the ends of his threads to a leaf or twig,
in making a trap. No woman could give more of herself
to the work for which she was paid.
" Where, where?" Mademoiselle would ask herself,
from the depths of her ugliness and ignorance, as her
short, blunt fingers struck chords and ran trills; " where,
in the name of piety, did she learn it all ? "
But Mademoiselle Mimi, who could not sing for want
of a voice, was she not apparently as badly equipped for
her role as Madame Doucelet for hers?
The husband and wife would sit in the basement
until the time came for them to go up the backstairs to
the servant s room they had selected for their chamber.
Here they would sit with shut door, forgetting them
selves, and perhaps fancying they were again in their old
chamber over the barroom, smelling of oysters, whiskey,
and the foul emanations from the gutters. In a corner
was the pine bed bought when the wedding ring, the
marriage certificate of the ignorant, was bought; there
stood also the wooden table with a pail and basin; a
clothes chest and two short-legged chairs, as in the old
chamber. The one addition to these old friends, the
bridal accompaniments of the bed, was a safe with a
combination lock. There had been no fireplace in their
old room, nor was there one in this one. They would
as soon have thought of warming their cow by a fire
as themselves. When other folks made a fire in Winter,
they tied a woolen scarf around their necks and over their
heads; as when other folks drank their coffee out of
china or delft cups, they drank theirs out of tin, stirring
it with the handle of their iron forks or knives.
THE SAN ANTONIOS 223
They would sit in their room, silent, inert, until the
nine o clock bell rang, when, together with a lighted
candle, they would make the round of the pretty house
that lay like a sleeping beauty under the spell of a curse.
Ah! she would never awake, that beauty, nor find a
deliverer tc bear her away out of her doom !
They would go back to their room and sit there again,
silent and still together one might as well imagine the
two magnolia trees in the garden caressing one another,
as the husband the wife, or the wife the husband.
When the gray dawn was about coming on, when in
old times the last drunkard would be put out of the bar
room to the sidewalk, and they would be free, to fasten
and bar their door and creep slowly on their tired feet
to their room, to sleep off their day s work not until
then did their old methodical habits permit them to go
to bed. They were hardly more silent and inscrutable in
their sleep than when awake.
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD
THEY talked along pleasantly enough for a while the
uncle, aunt, and nephew with the gay frankness and
easy humorous comment of family conversation, but
there can be no long stretch of pleasantness, even in
family intercourse, when there were such ugly obtruding
questions as they had in their minds. Questions that
were in possession there, like sheriffs in possession of a
seized house: how to get along, how to make a living,
what to do next in politics to ameliorate the situation;
with no better answers to them, as far as they could see,
but such as were given by a warring congress, a power
less president, and a hating, taunting press closing in
pitilessly around them, with articles that were as the
spikes of a new and terrible Iron Virgin. The South
was at bay, and the conquered Confederates were at
bay in the South.
The mother found herself, suddenly raising her head
quickly as a hen does when the fear of a hawk strikes
her. And as the hen, even where there is no hawk in
sight, yet at the thought of one, hurries her chicks to a
shelter, so she gathered her brood together and led
them into the next room, and seated them around the
dining-table, turned up the lamp in the center of it and
carefully took her own place on the side next the door,
so that in maintaining order and quiet in one room, she
could be ready to make a diversion in the next. She was
always afraid for Harry, with his uncle,
324
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 225
Her intuitions, however, for once seemed to be at
fault. The smooth tones that rolled in to her had a
kindly tone (that is, her husband s tone was kindly) and
every now and then there came the tapping of the pipe,
.showing that it was empty and being refilled: always a
good sign. Any guardian angel might have been tempted
to wander into inattention. But she was aroused from
her thoughts by the ominous words from Harry : " It is
no use for me to keep at this sort of a thing, I will hunt
a place somewhere ! " And after that the angry murmur
of a discussion, and the closing of the door.
After a few words of pleasant chat with the children,
in case they had heard anything, she arose and went into
the little parlor. " Why, Harry ! " she exclaimed in
^urprise, " it was your uncle then that went out? "
\ " Yes," he replied.
" I thought it was you," she said simply. After wait
ing a moment for him to speak : " What was the matter ?
Of course, you did not expect him to approve your giving
up your profession?"
" I," he answered coming out of his silence with an
effort. " I Oh, I was fool enough to tell Uncle some
unpleasant truths, that was all ! "
"Why did you do that?" she asked very gently to
conceal her displeasure.
He had twisted himself around in his chair so as to,
rest his elbow on the back of it and his head on his hand ;
and she saw, now that the light fell on the scarred side
of his face, that it was no longer the reckless, good-
humored, dare-devil boy s face she remembered, but the
face of a man, worn and discouraged, older, harder, the
scar wrinkling it into ugliness. How different from the
226 THE PLEASANT WAYS O* ST. MEDARD
boy who had come to her and her husband fresh from
Princeton! How different from the man both had ex
pected from the promise of the boy!
" Why did I do it? Why did I do it? I will tell you
why I did it," he raised his voice angrily, the fire of
temper shining in his eyes. " I did it because, unless he
sees things as they are, unless some one did tell him the
truth, unless, unless . . . you will all want for food,"
he concluded impatiently.
She arose. " I think your uncle perfectly right not to
listen to you."
" My uncle is a fool not to listen to me."
She turned to put her hand on the knob of the door
to open it. He jumped from his seat and putting his
hand on hers loosened its clasp.
"Don t go off that way, Aunt," he begged. "Just
listen to me, let us talk it all over." Then striving to be
pleading and affectionate : " At any rate, you ought to
know," he continued with unmistakable emphasis.
When she sat down again, he brought his chair closer
to her. " I knew, when I undertook to speak to Uncle
about his affairs he would not listen to me. But, whether
he listens to me or not, Aunt, the circumstances will
remain the same."
"What circumstances, Harry?"
He looked at her in surprise. "Why, Aunt, don t
you know that we are ruined, that we have lost every
thing?"
" Why, of course, I know that, Harry. We have been
whipped in the war and lost everything. But, what of
that? We certainly expected to lose everything if we
lost our cause."
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 227
As he had nothing to answer, she went on : " We have
all to do our share in the work of getting along. I know
that I am willing to do my part. I made up my mind to
that. Of course, there are disappointments " her voice
faltered a little " the children will suffer . . . but
what of that? The experience may be good for
them. . . . And at any rate, the circumstances, as you
call them, cannot last forever. Your uncle thinks- we
have gotten through the worst already, he sees signs of
better times ... of renewed prosperity ..." then
her calmness suddenly breaking " he made a fortune
out of his profession once, and how dare you . . .
how dare you ..." At this moment, the door opened
and her husband entered. Standing by the mantel and
leaning his arm upon it, all traces of his previous irrita
tion obliterated from his face and manner, he asked :
" You are confident that your information is correct,
and that the council have engaged Stone to reopen the
Riparian case?
:< Yes," his nephew answered, coolly and formally,
"my information is perfectly correct; Stone is the
brother of the commanding General; there is another
brother in a wholesale house here furnishing army and
navy supplies."
" And," his fingers tapping the mantel softly, " you
say he is going to associate other counsel with him."
"Yes, Dalton; that is decided on."
" Thank you, that is all I wanted to know. Have you
found out any news about the banks ? "
Harry paused before he answered and then proceeded
with a sympathetic inflection in his voice, that he tried
to stiffen out of it : "I made it my business to find out if
228 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
there was any change to be made in any of your old
banks."
The fingers on the mantel stopped their tapping, and
this little noise withdrawn, a breathless stillness seemed
to fall over the room.
" It is a pull dick, pull devil business in all the banks
between directors and presidents as to which man s rela
tive should get the places. But the Union men, who are
in possession, are to be retained, I hear, for the present,
on account of their influence with the courts. As for
the Delta, that has been given positively to Fosdick."
"ToFosdick? Why?"
" His father-in-law was a Union man, and he pushed
Fosdick, who has been pardoned by the government,
and . . ."
His uncle left the room and was heard pacing up and
down the gallery outside with firm, measured steps that
fell as steadily as the ticking of a clock.
The Riparian case ! the great feature of all their plans !
the high tower of their future! That upon which they
were to depend, even if everything else failed ! The wife
looked up as if to certify where she was. The Riparian
case, given to another lawyer ! . . . And the Delta, her
father s old bank ! What right had Fosdick to that ?
She listened until the steps reached the farthest end of
the gallery:
" And Mr. Haight s bank, Harry? The Caledonian? "
" The Caledonian ? Oh, that was given to a friend of
Haight s from the West."
" What ! Did George Haight give to another a posi
tion that my husband could have accepted ? He couldn t
have known."
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 229
"Ah! but he did know."
" I cannot believe it."
" I told him myself."
" You told him ? You asked George Haight for a
position for my husband ? "
She looked at him as if he were demented.
" I not only asked him for it, I plead with him to
give it to the husband of his old friend, to the husband
of the daughter of his old benefactor, the man who
helped him when he needed help, who . . . "
" Helped him ! Helped him ! " she broke in with indig
nant impetuousity. " Made him ! made him ! A stranger !
A friendless lad ! Gave him money to buy decent clothes
with . . . found a place for him . . . why, he would
have died of yellow fever but for my father! He took
him in his own house, found a nurse for him . . . and
he ... and he .. ."
She could not find words to express what she felt.
" My husband," she asserted, foolishly, weakly, it must
have appeared to the nephew, " is as much above George
Haight as heaven is above the earth."
" Oh, no, Aunt. You are mistaken there ! Haight is
as much above your husband now, as gold is above
heaven. And he knows it and he wants you to know it
[showing that her foolish assertion had not been lost
upon him]. He has the money that we are all upon
our knees begging to be allowed to work for . . . "
Her lips curled with scorn, she shook her head, her
fingers twitched; she was, evidently, in her mind speak
ing to Haight. When she was angry, she showed that
she was the daughter of a high-tempered father and
could talk as he did when occasion required.
230 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
" Harry," she turned in a constrained way to him,
" what are you going to do when you give up the
bar?"
" As I told Uncle, I shall try and get a clerkship some
where; sell pots and pans, groceries, anything to make
a living. There is nothing for me to do at the bar. I
should die of starvation before I could get a practice
now." He laughed scornfully. " There are no political
qualifications required to sell pots and pans. And the
city is full of that kind of business. Capital is the only
necessary qualification for it, and the land of inex
haustible armies is the land of inexhaustible capital. . . .
We went under to the one now, we must go under to
the other."
" It will break your mother s heart," she said sadly.
He shrugged his shoulders.
She continued, bitterly: " Tommy Cook, a little raga
muffin picked up from the street to be a lawyer! and
you ! with your family and education ..."
Harry held up his hand warningly, " Listen, Aunt,"
he spoke slowly and distinctly : " when I was brought
to the city, Tommy hunted me up, searched for me in
the hospital until he found me and did not leave me.
He bribed the doctor to look after me, specially, and
paid the nurses right and left to get some sort of decent
treatment for me; and at the worst part of it, he brought
in the best doctor in the city, from the outside, to see me,
and I should have died if he hadn t. . . . And when I
was strong enough to leave the hospital and go to
prison, he stuck by me there; and if I had ever gotten
strong enough to escape, he would have helped me out
of the city. ..."
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 231
" And he is helping you now ! " she looked at him
with sudden inspiration ; " he is helping you now ! "
" Yes," speaking still slower, and more impressively :
" he is helping me now, I am living with him, I am living
upon him."
" Oh, Harry ! Come and live with us ! Come and
stay with us," she cried with tears in her eyes.
He paid no attention to this. " He is a very much
better lawyer than ever I would have been with all my
education and family. ... As he will prove it one of
these days." He sighed heavily and then continued in
a desultory way : " Try to understand things a little . . .
it is your duty to do so . . . You talk about doing
your part in the poverty ahead ... let your part begin
right now and here." He showed that he was listening
to the regular steps on the gallery, and every time they
passed, the door seemed to expect them to stop, but
they continued; going backwards and forwards from
one end of the gallery to the other.
" And Tommy, you know, saved Uncle s library.
When the city was captured, he saw that he must save
the office and library. If he had not been lame, he
would have gone into the army, he would have fought
with us and been whipped with us. But, he had not
taken an oath to the Confederacy and so he was immune
politically, so to speak "... The steps were passing the
door again, they did not stop ..." most of the lawyers
did not find a book left when they came back. Why,
every ship that went North for a year after the capture
of the city took a load of books as a regular part of their
cargo. Whole libraries were shipped. There were even
preachers in the army to steal the libraries of preachers
232 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
. . . but that was not all ; Uncle had accumulated data
of all kinds, pamphlets, briefs, invaluable to another
lawyer; not to speak of a private journal filled with
commentary on the decisions of the Supreme Court in
all important cases, a thing that no one else on earth
would have had the patience to do. Alone it would
furnish good capital for any lawyer to start with. What
he wrote about the Riparian case, if Stone could get it
would give him more knowledge than he could acquire
in ten years study of it."
She nodded to the look he gave her.
" And Tommy held on to the business too. He could
not help being a lawyer ; always around the courts, listen
ing to every case Uncle argued, hunting up his authorities
from the time he could read; copying, from the time he
could write. Uncle himself used to send him to listen to
the reading of the decisions of the Supreme Court ; and he
said that Tommy s report was as good as the official one
and sometimes better. So he could easily pass an ex
amination. He confidently expected to hand over the
business with the library to Uncle after the war. He
did not foresee. . . . You do not seem to realize, Aunt,
that Uncle is practically disbarred from the higher courts ;
that if he had all the cases in the world, he could not
bring them in a United States court, unless he sent on
to Washington for a pardon, which he won t do; and
took an oath which he cannot take. Our own courts are
in the hands of scalawags, scalawags for judges, scala
wags for lawyers. ..."
" Yes, I know all that," she answered hastily, for her
quick ears heard the steps on the gallery turning in
toward the door.
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 233
It opened, and her husband entered, and as before
took a position by the mantel.
" Harry," the name was pronounced absent-mindedly,
" where did you get your information about the Riparian
case?"
His nephew grew as embarrassed as if he were making
a confession of guilt ; as if he were still a boy before his
stern uncle.
" I saw it in a letter, Sir."
"A letter to whom?"
" To Tommy."
"Who wrote that letter?"
" Colonel Dalton."
"Who?"
" Colonel Dalton ; he wanted Tommy to refresh his
mind about some of the points of the case. He offered
to engage him as associate in the case." His uncle s arm
fell from the mantel, and his face grew white. Without
a word he left the room, but instead of walking on the
gallery, those inside heard him go down the steps and
out of the gate.
His aunt raised her eyes to Harry : " Dalton ! " she
exclaimed.
The young fellow jumped from his chair as if to fol
low his uncle, but hesitated, and sat again by his aunt:
"If it had not been Dalton, it would have been some one
else," he said heavily, " It is a fight now, Aunt, not for
rights, but for life."
Yes, but Dalton ! Any one rather than he ! I would
not have believed it of him . . . Why," she said, the
tears coming into her eyes, and her voice trembling,
" we were talking about him the other day, and your
234 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
uncle said he could count upon Dalton as upon himself ;
that he trusted him more than any friend he had. I
was asking him/ she explained weakly, " something
about his business and he was telling me what he was
relying upon, when the political troubles were past. I do
not mind being disappointed myself, . . . but to see him
disappointed, deceived. ..."
" Uncle always trusted those whom he helped along,"
interrupted the young fellow curtly.
Your uncle met him only yesterday, and Dalton told
him all sorts of pleasant and affectionate things."
" I met him today. He did not know that I knew
about the letter to Tommy Cook and he was full of his
admiration of Uncle and his devotion to him. Aunt,
Aunt, if you want to serve Uncle, advise, persuade him,
. . . Dalton would take him in as associate counsel."
She shook her head without waiting to hear what he
wished her to advise and persuade.
" But, Aunt, you don t know what hard times may be
ahead of you."
" That would make no difference with your uncle if
he thought a principle was involved. He will never
ask for a pardon, or for help from Dalton," her lip
curled.
" Think of the children, Aunt, the difference it may
make in their lives."
" That is what I am thinking of Harry ; that is what
we both are thinking of all the time : the children. We
do not wish our children ever to be ashamed of, ever
have to apologize for their father."
" Ashamed ! apologize ! " he repeated.
" Ah, Aunt ! " he said bitterly, " an American child
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 235
is never ashamed of a father that makes money for it,
you know that, even if he stole the money. "
" If I were a child of Colonel Dalton s, I know I
would be ashamed of what he is doing now," she re
torted angrily.
" Aunt, mark my words, this transaction will be the
making of his fortune. Dalton is a fine lawyer if " he
hesitated as lawyers do in saying such a thing about a
confrere " he is not a scrupulous one."
" No, after this I should say not, although your uncle
trusted him implicitly."
" The Dalton children," he continued, " will be reared,
educated, and provided for like a gentleman s children.
Yours ..."
" We shall educate our children like a gentleman s
children, Harry ! Do not be afraid for that." She raised
her head proudly.
Taps sounded from the barracks, clear and sweet in
the night air, and the street, in front, was filled at once
with the noise of the feet of running soldiers. And
as if this were the cue for their entrance, the children
straggled through the room on their way to bed ; yawn
ing, sleepy, hair rumpled, feet dragging. Their mother
kissed each one good night and watched them go; the
boys through the door on one side, the girls through the
door on the other. Their cousin watched them also
with a strained expression.
11 They," he said, " are the real victims of the war, they
are the real losers."
" Oh, let us forget our losses, our misfortunes ! " she
exclaimed desperately. " Let us go on from where we
are as best we can. We can at least be cheerful. I am
236 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
not going to think about it any more than I can help,
and rich or poor, we can enjoy our children and one
another. As for the future, the future," her voice died
away. What could she say about the future? Always
changing, still changing! her future of a few hours ago
was gone now from her as much as her future before
the Confederate war.
When Harry spoke again, it was from a different
direction, and with a gentler voice.
:{ You see, Aunt, it is not as if I came straight from
the Confederacy as you and Uncle did, where you could
not help being keyed up all the time to the heroic. I
was here for a year before the end of the war, lying for
the most part of the time on my back, for even in prison,
you know, I was a cripple and half blind. When the
worst of my pain was over, I could not sleep, that was
my great trouble. I used to long at night for the pain
to come again, for that did exhaust me so that it made
me sleep. Tommy used to bring me the papers; of
course, he could only bring me the papers on one side,
and I can tell you, they gave me enough to think about
at night when I could not sleep : papers from the North,
the East, the West; from Europe." He laid his head
in both his hands. " It is a wonder I didn t go crazy. The
doctor used to snarl at me : If you go on this way
thinking you will go crazy/ and I would snarl back
at him : Damn you, I will think and I won t go crazy.
So I used to go over and over it all in my mind; and
Tommy would come with more news, more papers, more
for me to think about, to go crazy over. Aunt, I can
see as plainly as I see you sitting there, that we are not
at the end but at the beginning of a war."
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 237
" Harry ! Another war ! Oh, I pray God not."
" Not another war, Aunt ; the same one. We have
gone through one phase of it, that is all. We have been
whipped into laying down our arms, that is all. They
have not laid theirs down, nor are they going to do so.
The victorious side will never lay down its arms, Aunt,
never, never! "
" Your Uncle does not think so, Harry. Your Uncle,
argues differently, he maintains the very opposite. He
hopes for a good future for us all still, a prosperous
future. He says defeat never yet destroyed a good
people I mean the good in a people " conscientiously
correcting her report of the original words.
" He does not know, Aunt, he does not know."
You are dispirited and discouraged, Harry, and I
do not wonder. You have not yet recovered from your
wounds and your hard time in prison. You must come
and live with us and let me nurse you up again." She
smiled affectionately at him.
He seemed not to hear her, for he only shook his
head and repeated:
" Uncle does not know, he does not know the people
against us."
" But, Harry," falling in with his humor, " you used
to be devoted to the North. Don t you remember
how you used to be always telling us how superior
they were up there to the South, oh, in ever so many
ways ? "
" I was thinking of Princeton then ! Yes, I was de
voted to Princeton. But I can never think of the people
who were over me in the hospital or in prison in the same
day as Princeton."
238 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
" Your uncle is very confident of the wisdom of his
judgment, and you know he is not a man to be easily
mistaken."
" What did his judgment about Dalton amount to?"
" Oh, he was simply deceived about Dalton."
That is it," with rising temper, " he was deceived,
and you are all deceived; deceiving yourselves. You
don t know the truth, no one among you knows the truth.
You are like those idiots in the country strutting around
in heroic attitudes, your heads in the clouds."
"Your uncle ..."
" We are a ruined people," he interrupted, " it s no
use thinking we can come back from the war and take
up where we left off and go right on. We can t do it.
We have lost our men, we have lost our money, we
have lost our place in business. Where one of us stood
before there stands now a keen, shrewd, pushing stranger,
who does not care a damn for the heroic or for anything
but money-making; and we must down that man before
we can make a step in advance. This is no Southern talk,
no nonsensical sectional prejudice, it is plain common
sense. We are in poverty, not as transients, as Uncle
thinks, but as permanents. We are in poverty to stay
while our masters grow rich over us and rule the land.
Make no mistake about that, they are going to rule.
We have no rights as freemen now ; but we will gain
our political rights, yes, we will gain them. We can
show at least that we are not going to live under negro
rule ; but to the end of our days we will be outnumbered,
outcounted in the nation."
"Your uncle ..."
" Never will we get out of the sound of that trumpet
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 239
over there; out of the sound of what that trumpet
means," he declared.
" Your uncle understands the temper of the country/
his aunt continued firmly.
" He knows what the men of his class think at
the North, the men with his standards and ideals.
I know what the other class think and there
are nine hundred and ninety-nine of them to one of his
class.
" He and his class have rather proved themselves in
the past, I think," she answered proudly.
" Oh, yes, in that easy little game that they used to
call life; when this was not considered the act of a
gentleman, nor that, when they acted and talked to one
another like dancing-masters. That is the way they tried
to carry on the war. Look at Sherman and who blames
him?"
" Well, not his own side," she acknowledged.
" Remember always that Lee was whipped by . . ."
" Enough, Harry, enough. I can hear no more to
night. You are not well, you ..."
Still he went on : " Oh ! I know that we could fight
for a time for our sentiments, and we will pose and write
poetry about them to all eternity; but that trumpet will
outstand anything we can do or say. And that trumpet
is always going to be in the service of the man with the
dollar. The man with the dollar is going to be the man
in the country henceforth, his policy will be the national
policy. It won t pay to have any other. We shall find
in the South that it won t pay us to stick to the South;
it won t pay us to stick to our party; it won t pay our
children to stick to us but it will pay them to flock to
240 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
the winning side, to be setting Lincoln above Washing
ton, Grant above Lee/
" Harry, Harry," she sighed in protest.
" Oh, yes," he proceeded stubbornly. " Have no
doubt about it. Money is to be the power in the United
States from now on, and the power of the Almighty
Himself will not be able to prevail against it."
You think so now, Harry, you think so, only now."
" I know so," he insisted. The day will come in this
country when it will pay a man who loves his family to
steal money and serve out his time in the penitentiary for
it, if he has the sense to secure what he stole for his
children. Good name and principles ! Bah ! In a com
munity such as this is going to be," he went on to his
helpless listener, " the daughters of a convict with money
would be far better off than the daughters of a poor
man with all the principles and honor in the world."
" I do not believe it, I do not believe it."
" You will have to acknowledge it some day."
" You do not understand ..."
" I do understand," he interrupted her sharply.
" There is nothing the matter with my mind that I can
not understand. And your children will understand it
too in my way when they grow up. They will know by
that time what it is to be poor. We can afford to look
down on money when we are rich, and consider principles
and honor and good name to leave to our children."
" Society will have something to say," she began with
the spirit of a society woman.
" Society, society," he answered violently. " Society
will get on its knees to the daughter of a rascal who has
money and turn its back on the daughter of a poor man
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 241
who has only high principles. Society will flock around
the rich rascal s daughter, asking her in marriage; the
other will die an old maid unless she herself makes a
compromise with principle."
" Well," obstinately, " religion is always there for
women."
" Religion ! " sneering more bitterly than ever. " Re
ligion means church, and the church represents nothing
more nor less than the men in the church. And when
the church needs money, the church is going to do what
the men who make money do when they need it; it is
going to be mighty polite to the men who have money to
give and will have mighty little use for the other kind
of men."
And so he went on, in his desperate state of dis
couragement, pouring out now one, now another of the
black thoughts that had come to him in the hospital and
prison, " Honor ! pride ! sentiment ! You will live to
see the day when the daughters of our heroes of the war
are working like menials for their living, when your own
daughters will be glad to seek employment at the hands
of the scalawags and carpet-baggers of today. My uncle
and the men like him will never regain their lost position
in the country. While he is standing on his dignity and
maintaining his ideals, his means of living will be taken
by a shrewder man, one who doesn t know what dignity
or ideals means; one of the class who even now are hir
ing negro legislators to steal the resources of the State for
them, handing over grants and monopolies to insure their
fortune for fifty years to come, to gild their way into
your society; and into your church! You don t know
what is going on ! My uncle doesn t know ! Great God !
242 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
Have you any idea what sort of people our masters are ?
Let me tell you ! Let me tell you ! " Jumping from his
seat and standing over her he poured out in a torrent
of burning words what he had seen and heard, what he
had suffered himself and what others about him had
suffered ; the cruelties, the horrors that peace for genera
tions afterward would be trying to bury deep enough
to kill the noxious pestilence of it; the stories and ex
periences that it is hard for the heart to restrain and
keep out of sight, yet which must be kept out of sight if
women are to live at all, and not die under the reverberat
ing memory of it.
" Harry, Harry," his aunt whispered, trembling
herself with excitement while trying to be calm :
" Hush, hush ! Not so loud ! The children might hear,
we do not want them to know, we must protect their
memories."
He sank his voice to a whisper, but flinging aside all
effort at self -composure, fiercely, pitilessly gave full rein
to his passion.
" They are the people who send ladies off prisoners to
sandy islands in the Gulf, with only men with negroes
over them; they are the people who make proclamation
ordering their soldiers to insult ladies if they choose
to; as" he could not say the word "who put negro
soldiers to guard white gentlemen, and ... let them
curse their prisoners, they . . ."
" Yes, yes," she could stand it no longer, and now
as in a panic her passion joined his. " When they came
to the plantation; when they flung our last bit of food
in the Bayou; when they told me they had caught my
husband and had him in their boat and were going to
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 243
hang him before my eyes " her words coming quicker
and quicker, and her breath in gasps " when they took
my poor little boy and stood him before a file of soldiers
and told me they were going to shoot him . . . when
they went through the house, cursing, swearing, search
ing, searching for God knows what . . . when they
dragged the bed clothes off Cicely, who was shivering
with a chill with a doctor standing by, and a preacher,
who offered me a Testament when . . ."
" When I lay in the hospital . . / he could not give
her time to finish; "with hundreds all around me,
wounded, gangrened, dying, the women would come to
bring to us any comfort they could think of ... and
they would lie, would perjure themselves, they would
take devilish oaths, enough to secure their everlasting
damnation, if it were counted against them. And negro
soldiers searched them, do you understand ? " She
shrank back from the comprehension he forced upon her.
" Niggers searched their persons ! " He clinched his
hands. " And they, the women, stood it f or us ! . . .
God! . . . Sometimes I would think I was delirious,
that I did not see it, that it could not be ... but no!
Look ! " his voice trembled as he pulled up his sleeve and
showed his pulse beating furiously in his broad white
wrist. " No, it was not delirium ! It was no delirium
that made men turn their heads in their beds and hide
their faces and sob like children, because they had to
see the things they did see and hear what they heard
and could not kill and be killed." He was talking wildly
and knew it, nevertheless he went on his aunt leaning
back in her chair, pale and panting ; her eyes fixed on his
face, could not but listen " Oh, I know them ! and the
244 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
President, Mr. Davis, knows them! yes, he knows
them. ..."
At last! At last! returning steps were heard; in the
walk, coming up the steps, crossing the gallery.
She lifted her finger : " Hush, your uncle ! "
A draught of cold air blew through the opened door;
a blessed draught of peace and calm, wafted from the
serenity gained in the long walk on the Levee; by the
great, swift-flowing river; under the stars. The evil
demons that had been holding their sway in the close, hot
room slunk back, and vanished, like the devils of a night
mare. The wife fled as it were to her husband, grasping
his arm and laying her head upon it; the sleeve so cool
and redolent of the atmosphere of night!
The nephew passed his hand wearily over his brow;
no strength, no hope, no courage, no youth left in his
face. Never could he have looked more injured by
battle.
" You had better go now, Harry," said his uncle in his
usual clear, decided tone. " Tomorrow we shall see what
we can do. It is too late tonight to talk any more
about it."
Without a word, the young man rose and took his
leave. His aunt followed him impulsively, and bade
him good-night on the gallery.
" It is Dalton s treachery that has upset him," she told
her husband with the simple conviction of a woman s
intuition. " Harry thinks it is the war " she shook her
head. " War has not that effect on a soldier. Nothing
in the war could hurt him so much. He is too brave to
mind what an enemy does; but a friend, a friend ..."
Her voice died away. She could have said for herself,
A BAD PART OF THE ROAD 245
also, that nothing in the war, despite the memories that
had roused her passion a few moments before, nothing
in the war had hurt her so much.
" He is demoralized."
" Demoralized, demoralized ! " she repeated the words.
For the first time in her life she heard the word, the
ominous word. For the first time in her life such a con
dition as demoralization was presented to her intelligence.
Was that, too, to be in the future ? As the meaning came
clearer and clearer to her, she felt more affrighted than
at the weird echo of the guns at Vicksburg; the guns
that were killing the bodies of the husbands and brothers
and sons of the Southern women. To die was nothing
in comparison to living demoralized . . .
While she was thinking to herself, her husband was
following his thoughts aloud : " It is the worst fate
that threatens us. If we do not fight it, we will go under
in a far more fatal defeat than any army can inflict upon
us. To lose confidence in our principles; our honor;
ourselves that means to lose our place in the nation."
He had lost sight of Dalton, and of his treachery.
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE
"Dux what is he up to now, eh?" asked Madame
Joachim, peeping through the shutters of the kitchen into
the lane. " Ah ! Papa Docteur, some trick, I guarantee."
The doctor was walking slowly along with the priest,
who was scratching himself reflectively through his
cassock as he always did when he walked. He had been
working in his garden and was bareheaded and held a
weed absentmindedly in his left hand.
"Do you see how painfully the doctor walks?" con
tinued Madame Joachim, " and listen to that little cough ;
he always coughs when he walks with the cure. In
reality, he would be as fat as I am, if he did not keep
thin to deceive people, and he would be as strong as
Joachim, just as strong. Don t I know him? Oh la, la!
He is getting something out of Pere Phileas who is a
fool, he is so simple. The good God must love him, for
he has not the sense of a chicken. But what is he up to? "
" Perhaps he is going to get married," suggested the
American lady, who in truth did not know how else
to answer the reiterated question.
"But to whom?"
To Mademoiselle Eulalie." That was evidently the
answer for which the question had been trapped.
" Eulalie ! Non, mon petit docteur! Not Eulalie ; but
Maria, but Antonia, but Lisida, yes. But not Eulalie ! "
She shook her head, first negatively, then assertively.
246
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE 247
And she turned it from the window for a moment to
relate, once more for, like all persons who like to tell
their own stories, she did not care how many times she
repeated the same one how the doctor was one of those
men who had his way with women and therefore any
one of the Demoiselles San Antonio he asked would
marry him. It was not the wonder but the scandal of
St. Medard how his poor wife had doted upon um and
would tell her mother and sister poor Mademoiselle
Eulalie at any time that she hated them, just to show
off, to greater effect, her love for her husband. She
took him into her home (Madame Joachim s hand made
a gesture of hospitality) and gave him the best room;
which had been her father s, turning her mother out of
it. She not only called it his house to her friends but
even went so far as to praise his kindness in letting her
mother and sister stay there. When he was away from
her she suffered the tortures of purgatory from jealousy,
and when he was with her she was so much in love that
it was as painful to witness as her jealousy. She was
diseased when he married her! Long before this sen
tence, Madame Joachim was again watching the subject
of her discourse through the blinds. " He knew she
could not live long ! But he must have known it ! Did
he not attend her in the convent ? Every one there knew
it, even the sisters! Do they not employ him? And
do not they enjoin upon all the faithful to employ him?
God knows why. And the Cure? . . . Has not the
doctor given a statue of our Lady of Lourdes to the
church? Does he not go there, to pray before it? He
thinks no one knows it but the Cure, but I know it! I
ask you? A doctor, and our Lady of Lourdes, eh?"
248 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
winking both eyes. " Other people, yes, but a doctor!
And the poor Cure believes, he believes. Aiel Aiel
Women, yes, but a man, a doctor. . . . "
Cribiche now came creeping up behind the pair until
he got close enough to twitch the gown of the priest
once, twice, three times, mumbling something.
" No," answered Pere Phileas, " I refuse. You can
not go crayfishing." The boy mumbled again. " It is
true as you say r this is a good day for it, and tomorrow
is Friday and crayfish are good for fasting, but you
cannot go. You must finish your work in the garden.
The weeds have taken possession of it. They will choke
out all our Spring vegetables. No, my son, go back and
pull up weeds. Another time you can go crayfishing."
" That is the way," Cribiche grumbled in the way of
all grumblers, loud enough for everybody to hear except
the one interested. " He is always telling me to ask
permission : you must not go off without asking per
mission/ and when I ask permission, he says no. What
is the use of asking permission when he always says no ?
I would never go crayfishing if I waited for him to say
yes. He is always telling me to pull up weeds ! . . . "
In the meantime, the doctor and the priest were leisurely
pursuing their conversation and the former his design
in the conversation.
" Listen, listen," whispered Madame Joachim. The
pair were nearing the window.
" Eh, mon Pere," the doctor was saying to the priest
in the voice he must have used in his devotions to the
Lady of Lourdes. " What do we know, we doctors ?
We guess, that is all. Disease, health, life, death? We
have invented a little more light to throw upon them, that
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE 249
is all. How can we doctors say what is going to happen ?
The old are apt to die, the young to live . . . you can
make the calculation as well as any one. Look at the
Charity Hospital, a doctor will go in the morning to the
bed of a patient who he thinks is on the high road to
recovery. He finds the bed empty. But where is my
patient, Sister?* he asks. In the dead room, doctor,
he died during the night. And again, he goes to the
bed of one that he gave up the night before : sent for the
priest for him. He is better. In a few days he is well.
What can we count on, we scientists, as we call our
selves ? "
The simple Cure looked like a cat that was having its
back scratched. " Ah," he answered gently : " It is God
alone who makes the dispensation of life and death."
" Send your poor to me, always, mon Pere. I will
do what good I can for them ; but the best is what only
you can do, mon Pere."
" God and the blessed Virgin," corrected the priest.
" I," continued the doctor, " I give my services gratui
tously. Why not ? It is all I have to give. Those who
have money give money ; those who have not money give
what they possess. We are priests, too, in a way, mon
Pere."
" Servants of God we all are, Monsieur le docteur,"
answered the priest, forgetting Cribiche.
" We must do something for the church, Monsieur le
Cure. We must do something for St. Medard. The
church needs paint, it needs cleaning up."
Now, it was as if a saucer of milk were presented to
the cat.
" Every Spring, Doctor, I say that to my congrega-
2 5 o THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
tion," the priest rejoined eagerly, stopping his walk short.
" Every Spring ! I have a sermon for the purpose and I
have preached it over and over again : What, my
brothers ? I say. The good God renews the colors of
the earth every Spring and you cannot renew the color of
your church, once in a lifetime ? Look, I say, at the
most miserable garden, at the ugliest, at the muddiest
street in the parish and you see every Spring, what?
Beautiful flowers! The trees with new leaves! Even
the gutters renew their simple vegetation in the Spring!
That is what good God prepares for our Easter. And
we, what do we prepare for Him? For His Easter?
He would have gone on to the end of his sermon, for
he had repeated it so often that it went off his tongue
by itself, but the doctor interrupted him.
Turning and tapping the priest on the breast, he said
impressively : " I shall take a hand in it ! You will see a
difference by next Easter. What! The Parish of St.
Medard too poor to paint its Church! Bah! "
" Ah, yes, bah ! " Madame Joachim echoed mock
ingly. She saw his schemes as clearly as she saw the
great ships go up and down the Mississippi, past the
open door of her husband s blacksmith shop. " I will
paint the church for you, my good father, and you will
praise my generosity, and my piety to everybody, particu
larly to the good sisters; so the San Antonios will be
bound to hear it ... and you will praise me to my
mother-in-law, and to Eulalie above all praise me to
them every day, for they are so pious they must see
their priest every day. Close their eyes, softly, softly,
make them think I am busy attending to the affairs of the
church, and not ... oh, yes! and I will paint your
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE 251
church for you. That is, I will make that poor devil
Pantin, the painter, do it. He never has any work now,
and with his drinking and his consumption, he is always
in debt to me. I shall never be able to make my money
out of him. I will make him do it ! "
If, as we have seen, Doctor Botot s subtle schemes
could not be hidden, but on the contrary were as clearly
seen by Madame Joachim as ships sailing up and down
the Mississippi, how much less could the Americans hope
that their poverty could be concealed ? But the Doctor s
efforts at concealment were child s play, in comparison
with their full-grown man and woman struggle. Pov
erty, however, is a different sort of secret from love.
There is another place in the heart to hide it; a darker
corner, a deeper cellar. And there is something in the
self-reproach that a confession of it inflicts that bears
down the pride in a way different from other con
fessions. Even the poorest of women shield their men
from the accusation of it. Human patience, indeed, has
been burdened, human credulity strained with the reasons
that women have invented to account for it. Nothing
in one s past, as we know, is more carefully covered over.
Later on in the day, while the sun was marking off
the radiant Autumn hours past the noon, and the quiet
of St. Medard was disturbed only by the innocent noise
of cattle and chickens, Mrs. Talbot stood under the fig
trees of the garden, weeping in humiliation. There was
no nook in the house where she could do so unseen.
The fig leaves hung close around her ; the place was like
a cave; there was not light enough in it to see the
creeping things on ground or branch, and the air was
dull and heavy. But it was a good retreat. Instinctively,
252 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
she had fled to it when she felt that the time had come
when she could no longer restrain her tears, stifle her
sobs. It had come to that. She had to weep like a
child over what in truth could only be wept over; for
there was nothing else to be done. And this thought
made her tears and sobs come faster, more uncontrol
lably. She looked in her mind all around and about,
far and near, on this side and on that; she could see
nothing but darkness, desolation, degradation. And
even while she wept more and more bitterly, giving up
courage in hopeless despair, she would ask herself :
" What can I do ? " and exclaim : " I must do something !
I must find something to do ! "
In such moments, what has been done is much more
present to the mind than what can be done. While the
future seemed to shut the door in her face, the past
brought forward, endlessly, needlessly, all that it could;
going farther and farther back to heap an accumulation
of memories that only made her tears flow all the faster.
There was her childhood, her happy thoughtless child"
hood, her indulgent father who spent his money and good
humor so generously; the tender grandmother who had
replaced her mother. Then before she knew what love
was, when she was only dreaming about it, her husband,
descending like Jove out of a dazzling cloud, so great,
so noble, so superior to all men ! He, the supreme one,
whom at the time she could not look at, could not talk to
without trembling, he loved her! And then the life
that followed: a bright life with a bright light shining
upon it ; even under the fig tree she saw and felt it again.
And then the war. That did not seem now a time of
suffering at all. On the contrary, how easy were its
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE 253
struggles and hardships in comparison with what fol
lowed! What one suffered then, one suffered gladly,
proudly. And afterward, when the family came to the
city, the first days, how pleasant all that seemed! And
now in detail and more minutely came the events of
months, weeks, days, each one greater than years in
the farther past. " Harry was right ! Harry was right ! "
she cried to herself. " We are doomed ! All has gone
from us, even our old selves! What are we now?
What friend would recognize us if we had such a thing
as a friend left to recognize us ? Friendship ! We have
not so much as a church nor a pastor to whom I could
go and say :" As a dream within a dream so in imagi
nation within imagination, she saw herself speaking to
a pastor such as the old pastor of her church had been
to whom the poor and suffering always went in their
extremities of grief and suffering " My husband is at
the end of all his resources. He has tried everything.
He cannot, in the conditions that exist, make money
during the year to pay our house rent, let alone
provide food and clothing for us. His old practice has
left him, it is of no use to explain how; he will never
get a new one. The times make that impossible. What
he makes is from writing briefs for lawyers who do not
know enough to write them for themselves. The children
are being educated for nothing; we cannot pay for their
schooling any longer. If it were not for the boys fishing
and hunting, I do not know what we would do for food.
I do the cooking and washing. It is a miracle how I get
a breakfast and dinner every day and a clean shirt for
my husband. I brush and darn his coat and trousers
every morning before day, so that he may not know how
254 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
shabby they are. He dares not spend five cents on tobacco,
he uses no carfare but walks every day to his office and
back. He really has no office. He cannot pay the rent.
He has, in truth, only a place in the office of his former
office boy. He will soon have to sell his library which
he has held to the last minute. Ah, if we could only
prevent that ! Great God ! " she exclaimed, losing the
thread of her imaginary address, " Great God ! Prevent
that! What will he do without his library? Has not
his pride been cut enough already without that? Must
he became a dependent upon Tommy Cook for his books
too? He never complains, but I know what he suffers.
He still pretends that it is all natural, that it will all
come right in the end. He is always cheerful, he makes
the boys study all the same, he still has the same confi
dence in his principles. Oh, God! make me suffer if
Thou wilt, more and more, but spare him ! " And as
her love for her husband wrung her heart, she wrung
her hands and moved her head wildly in the dim twilight
under the trees, as if trying to see some way out of the
darkness in her mind.
She had tried to help him in secret and private ways.
She had gone one morning to see Benson, the millionaire
now, whom as a porter she used to speak to out of mere
kindness of heart. She went to see him as if he had
been one of the most aristocratic, refined men in the city;
went to his house, for, a lady going to a man s office,
her husband would never have allowed. She thought it
out in the car, what she would say to him and what he
would say to her. He would naturally speak of her
husband and then it would come to pass as she pictured
it in her imagination. She could not go on with the
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE 255
humiliating memory of what she had expected. He had
not mentioned her husband s name. He had pulled out
his watch before she had more than time to speak and
had dismissed her. He said he must go to his office.
And she had written to George Haight, written to him
as she thought he would like to be written to according
to the past; a letter of old friendship and kindly
memories and frank humor over the present. Ah, she
could have read between the lines of such a letter, had
she received it! She in a rich home in New York im-
pregnably strong in her wealth and he in despair. But
she would not allow her imagination to follow this out
either. Haight wrote as he talked; acted as he lived.
He was not a gentleman as she had always maintained.
God had not made him one, that was all. She despised
him in her youth and she despised him now.
She had ventured to call on the wives of some of the
men whom she and her husband used to know and go
to the races with, and to the Boudreaux dinners after
ward the wives of those who had been skilful enough
to go up with the times and not down. Some of them
fawned upon her and her husband obsequiously
enough in the old days of prosperity. Ah! their wives
now had put her well back in her place! The place of
the wife of a poor man out of whom nothing can be
made. A woman can be even meaner than a man!
" Where/ she asked herself, " is the generosity to the
poor and needy that he used to show, the delicacy, the
tact in relieving want ? "
At this thought, a whole landscape rose magically be
fore her filled with the people her husband had been kind
to in the past. And even now, when he was an object
256 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
of kindness himself, was he not always finding out those
in worse need than he? And if ever, by hook or crook,
he gained a small sum of money! was there not always
some one to whom a portion of it must go? Some
one who even by hook or crook could not gain food for
his children, some one always following him " to pick
up the stalks of the herbs that he threw away," like the
beggar in the Spanish verse.
All these thoughts and memories did not take in her
mind the time that it does to read them now. They came
and went in a flash like the thoughts of the drowning.
Nervous and sentimental ladies might have spent a day
in their beds over a single one of them, but she had only
moments to spare, in any one of which she might be
discovered, even under the fig tree. It was but a few
moments, indeed, from the tears that had forced her to
flee into privacy to the moment when she emerged from
the tree, calm and composed, strong and determined,
with a new project in her brain.
Coralie, the little governess, whom she had pitied and
helped and consequently given her friendship to. After
thinking that she had seen her in a confectionery, and
finding she was mistaken, she had dropped her from her
memory. She seemed to have no more need of her
since she could be of no further use to her. But now,
Coralie could be of use to the friend that had once
served her. A ray of light seemed to fall across her
mind ! How foolish not to have thought of her before !
Was her invalid father still alive? her dissipated brother
still as much of a sorrow as ever ? And was she as usual,
still in dire want, needing everything?
How distinctly the figure of the little Creole governess
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE 257
came before her, clad in her neat calico dress; the collar
and cuffs scalloped in red, her curling, glossy, black hair,
in a twist on top of her head, with the pretty fluffy
" accroche occurs " on her temples, her rather small black
eyes, always wide open and alert, her dark thin skin well
dusted with rice powder, perfumed with the faint fra
grance of Tonka beans, her yellow hands, with their long
pointed finger nails, that were so useful in her em
broidery^ Where could any one have found a more
gentle, docile, devoted dependent; one more grateful for
kindness ; more humble in her confession of need for it ?
Never without a pretty speech in her mouth, a compliment
of some sort for somebody! She went about the house
inaudibly, with her soft footstep; was never in the way
but always within the sound of a question, a bidding. It
was marvelous, in truth, to the patroness, how the de
pendent managed to fix herself so securely in her de
pendency in the short space of time at her disposal,
and how, indeed, the patroness fell herself into a species
of dependency upon her, the dependency of the generous
upon the object of generosity.
Did she live in the same place ? Somewhere, in a back
street in a long row of little one-story houses, whose steps
came down to the sidewalk, with heavy, green batten
shutters. . . . She had gone there once or twice carry
ing some delicacy for the sick father. An apothecary
shop, she remembered in an indistinct way, stood on
the corner.
Coralie was the last person to whom she said good-bye
when she left the city to go into the war as it was called.
The details of the hurried departure (for she had been
notified only in the morning that a steamboat would be 1
258 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
ready that night to take her out of the United States
lines) shot into her mind, with microscopic distinctness.
Coralie at least did not lose her head, her hands did not
tremble, as she folded and packed. She, herself, forgot
everything whenever the bell rang or soldiers marched
by in the street.
Armoires and drawers were left standing open, cloth
ing was heaped in confusion on the floor, plates and
dishes and silver were left on the dining-table, the side
board glittered with its crystal, the buffet, with its silver
coffee and tea service, and dishes . . . But Coralie was
to put all away she was to care for the carelessness
of others. Surely, surely, she must have saved some
thing for her patroness as Tommy Cook had saved for
his patron! The silver forks and spoons how easy to
wrap them up and hide them in her trunk! The jewelry,
left in the bureau that little box, that had been so care
fully tied up, containing the most precious pieces, to take
away, and then forgotten at the last moment each
trinket in it, chain and locket, ring and bracelet res
urrected suddenly in her memory as from the grave,
perhaps some of it was saved ! The officers who came to
seize the house may have relented and relaxed in their
vigilance.
It was not surprising that Coralie had not found her
patroness. Who would have found her in St. Medard?
She was waiting, yes, surely, she was waiting until word
was sent to her and then and then . . .
And so in spite of experience and of common sense,
Mariana Talbot set out again fresh and bouyant on a
new speculation of the imagination; investing in it all
the remnant of hope still left in her heart. There was
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE 259
still something to do! Such an experiment as Made
moiselle Coralie, still to be tried!
There is nothing mysterious in the ways of war. On
the contrary it carries out its designs in the most open
manner possible and by the simplest and most natural
means, as we find out afterward always afterward.
One of the occupations of peace is to find this out; to
see and handle the rude devices by which our undoing in
war was accomplished. The surprises of war are indeed
much surpassed by those of peace. As has been said,
Mademoiselle Coralie received the last good-bye of her
patroness, and when the family drove away from their
home, of a dark, rainy night, she remained on the front
steps, looking after the carriage as long as it was in sight.
Then she went into the house, the sole mistress in charge,
with what keys could be found in her hand (for house
wives were careless in those days about locking up and
a key once out of its hole was a key lost and a lock
nullified).
The only directions given her, were to do the best she
could when the emergency arrived, that is when the
officer and soldiers came the next day to seize and take
possession; for to leave the city, and join her husband
in the Confederacy, instead of remaining and taking a
proffered oath of allegiance to the United States, was
construed into an act of enmity by the military authority
in command.
Waiting for an emergency is a trial to the spirit as
well as to the body when one is alone in a great empty
house. The servants who had not wished to follow
their mistress had been dismissed to their freedom; the
260 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
only retainer left of the establishment was an old Irish
scrubbing-woman, a supernumerary, and the erstwhile
spurned and scoffed of the pampered slaves for her
poverty. She was to remain and serve Mademoiselle
Coralie and while also awaiting the emergency to prepare
the house for it; for although housewives of that time
were careless about keys, they were not about cleanliness.
Mademoiselle Coralie s trunk stood open in her room.
She soon filled it and needed another one to hold all
that was given her in the last moments when in the
hurried packing there had been a constant discarding of
articles and : " Coralie, this ought to be useful to you,
Coralie, you had better take that." Ladies en route to
a war and with the limited amount of luggage allowed by
a foe carry only the new and the strong, the serviceable ;
not lace-trimmed sacques nor fragile deshabille es, light
evening dresses, embroidered petticoats, fichus, sashes,
hats, feathers, artificial flowers, the follies, fripperies,
and extravagances of many a day s amusement in a
pretty shop. They were all as welcome to Mademoiselle
Coralie, as the bonbons her mouth had been watering
for from infancy. And with what zeal can a woman
long for pretty clothing? It can become a passion with
her, like drinking to those of the opposite sex.
The old Irish woman saw her in the solitude of her
room before her mirror, trying on hats and veils, laces,
and dresses, when from moment to moment, as she knew,
the summons might come that announced the arrival
of the emergency. But all over the city, the emergency
was knocking at the doors of houses, hastening in one
direction and perforce lagging in another. Mademoiselle
Coralie had ample time to sip at her own beauty in the
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE 261
glass as she tried on each new seasoning of it. And
when she had a pause in that pleasure she sought and
found the other trunk needed to hold her recent acquisi
tions. She chose, the largest one that offered, and thence
perhaps came the divergence in her life, for there was
space left in her new trunk after packing what she
rightfully owned and she sought to fill this space with
what?
If one had a great houseful to choose from, what
would one select? When one saw, all about, everything
one wanted, and remembered the poor, bare rooms await
ing one at the other end of the city and knew that the
emergency was on its way that would put an end to
choice? In truth, before she had half made her selec
tion she needed another trunk, and having begun to
collect what she needed she could not stop. The house
was deserted, and in a few hours, minutes perhaps, she
would no longer have option or opportunity in the matter.
It became a race between her and the emergency, a
race for possession. Can it be believed that it took
only the time from nightfall, when the family departed,
until daylight for Mademoiselle Coralie to be on the
street engaging a cart to remove her trunks ? She found
it as one can generally find a chance to do wrong, no
farther than the street corner. Carts were always wait
ing in sight of every corner then for surreptitious re
movals. High prices were charged but high prices were
paid for such services. Mademoiselle Coralie was ac
commodated to perfection in man and cart. The former
was shrewd, the latter covered; only a half word was
necessary to explain the urgency of secrecy and prudence.
About midday the house was formally seized by the
262 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
military authorities. Mademoiselle Coralie was at her
post. She received the officers and transferred the keys
to them; her personal trunk was duly examined and she
was dismissed.
On reaching home, did not the little governess regret,
in looking back upon her night s work, that she had not
taken more ? What were the blankets, the bed linen, the
table linen she had, to those she left behind ? the wines,
the liqueurs? Perhaps, had she known the ease with
which the transaction could be accomplished, her poor
old Pleyel piano would have been replaced by a grand
one. Why leave velvet rugs behind when there was only
matting at home? She could have provided herself with
books and pictures; and she was fond of both. But if
to Mademoiselle Coralie, who could compare what she
took with what she left, the covered wagon brought little ;
to her invalid father, and invalid (from bad habits)
brother it was much, far more than they had ever hoped
to possess, and they adapted themselves to it as naturally
as heirs to a rightful legacy.
The curtains were hung, table covers spread, bibelots
disposed of, china and glass awarded to the empty side
board, and Mademoiselle Coralie lost little time in don
ning some of her new toilettes ; the dainty dressing sacque
over the long, full, trailing half-worn moire antique skirt,
or the slightly chiffone foulard (bunches of pink roses
on blue and salmon stripes over a white ground) or the
pretty silk gauze; white with pale pin-dots of green and
sprigs of red roses.
All this, however, turned out to be but a means to an
end, not the end in itself. There could be but one end in
Mademoiselle Coralie s mind as in the mind of every
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE 263
young woman like her and it is needless to say what that
end is, so well is it known, so well was it known even
to the gargons of the confectioneries where she munched
cakes and candies with the officers of the United States
army.
Men strive no harder for wealth and fame, old women
for immortality, than such young women to get married.
Everything else in life is subservient and conduces to
that one end, and it may be said that they never cease
to work for it, even when they are past it.
Mademoiselle Coralie, having been born in the condi
tion to which so many of her sisters had been reduced
by a hard turning of fortune, had naught to catch a
husband with but art and good luck, notoriously poor
servitors of the poor. Always her sorest envy of the
rich had been that they could get married " quand meme "
as she expressed it; no matter who or what they were.
And for such benefits as she and those like her ex
pected from marriage, to be married to no matter what
or whom, to be married " quand meme " sufficed. What
a luxury in her eyes, would have been the decried manage
de convenance! What an announcement, as of the
Heavenly Father Himself, the : " I will that you become
the wife of so and so. Come ! No prayers ! No tears !
Prepare for your wedding!" Ah, only in novels do
poor girls find such royal chances in their path! In
truth, Mademoiselle Coralie s poverty was so great and
her matrimonial chance so meager that they would have
warranted any tyrannical interference of this sort. Thus,
her plunder was the fulcrum she needed, only that!
Would not Archimedes have stolen one if he could not
have gotten it any other way?
264 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
Had Mademoiselle Coralie been engendered in the
bosom of Napoleon Bonaparte s army she could not
have known more about conquerors. Yet, perhaps, it
may only have been her five minutes interview with the
young officer who received the keys from her that re
vealed to her that it rested with no one but herself to
change her lot from being governess of children to gover
ness of men. She very soon traveled up from that young
officer to the supreme peak of military state and authority
and became gratissima in all military social gatherings;
and before her borrowed plumes had received their second
wearing out, she was fledged in feathers of her own
growing. Handsome as they were, she wore them well.
To the manor acquired, as women have proved for ages,
passes just as well in demeanor as to the manor born.
In the course of a year, Mademoiselle Coralie s
treasures became her own as much as a kidnapped child
would have been. They served her pleasure and
furthered her plans. They were shown and cited to
substantiate circumstantially the history she had adopted
for the satisfaction of her conquerors and herself a
history as current in New Orleans as the little song " Au
clair de la lune" of flight from San Domingo, escape
from massacre, faithful slaves, etc., etc., etc., and the
ensuing, long, patiently-borne straitened circumstances
of the ancien regime colonial. . . a romance that was
new to her audience, who believed and admired it and
her for it. Her little bibelots of china, silver, and crystal,
the bits of antique coral and tortoiseshell, the real lace,
and the few precious relics of old jewelry . . . they were
her witnesses; she and they, only, knowing the truth.
When she saw her old benefactress in the confection-
MADEMOISELLE CORALIE 265
ery, she acted (as we know) on the flash of the moment
with presence of mind. She decided promptly what
to do furthermore. She kept her drunken brother on
guard at the window of the little house with a well-
taught story. But nothing came of the recognition in
the confectionery, and the times were such that she could
not but grow confident in her immunity. She ripened
in it.
Then came the day that, sitting at the window, whose
shutters were turned to command that view of the
street that the passersby were denied of the interior
of the house (this precaution was almost a necessity,
living as she did with visitors to be admitted and visitors
to be turned away plausibly) sitting at her crack of
observation, her quick eyes, trained to be always on the
alert, caught sight of a lady, pausing irresolute before
the apothecary shop at the corner; hesitating whether
to go in and inquire, or hazard a trial inquiry first. The
trial was decided upon; and with confident sureness and
a wistful smile of anticipation she approached the little
house whose wooden steps came down on the pavement
whose shutters were heavy green, as she remembered
from the past. The invalid brother it was who answered
the knock, he to whom she used to bring wine and deli
cacies. His drunken, loud voice demanding her business,
would have been enough to convince the inquirer of her
mistake, to have sent her off in terror; but that was
not enough for the sagacious Mademoiselle Coralie.
The inquirer was made to ask her questions in order that
she might be told that the people had moved away long
ago, and nobody in the neighborhood knew where they
had gone to.
266 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
What did the little governess feel when she heard
that gentle voice on the outside of her door ? The sweet
sorrowful voice, almost breaking from regret and dis
appointment? When she saw the thin, graceful figure,
so well known in old days, in a shabby dress move
slowly away, on tired feet? When the kindest friend
she was ever to know in this world was turned away
with a lie?
Could the benefactress of old have looked into that
room she would have seen Mademoiselle Coralie shrink
ing from her voice as from the voice of a monster listen
ing to the passing away of her footsteps, as to passing
away from her of a dragon or ogre.
THE FEAST OF ST. MEDARD
THE good thing promised to St. Medard by the doctor
came to pass. The church was painted only on the
outside, however, the inside being left as the Gascons
leave the insides of their cottages when they whitewash
the outside. And it was not ready for Easter, as Pere
Phileas had piously wished, but again had to suffer com
parison with nature in that beautiful season of renova
tion. It was only ready for the feast of its patron saint.
It now seemed to the simple Pere Phileas, seeking
always religious signification in everything, that poor
Patin s revolt against thus paying his debt to the doctor,
his revengeful delays, his malicious mistakes, his quarrels
with the doctor about the quantity of paint to be fur
nished and the quality, his dishonesty in using what was
furnished, his constant trickiness and cheating, his lies,
his wilful sprees of drunkenness and the illnesses that fol
lowed, owing to his weak lungs it seemed to the good
Cure who like a plodding ass had borne the burden of it
all, now that it was all over and past, and he was in a
position to look back upon it the only sure way after
all of knowing the reasons of the divine will that all
these circumstances had been carefully fore-ordained
and systematically regulated, one after the other, in order
that the good and patient St. Medard, who for so many
years had stood from his unworthy parish what Pere
Phileas could never cease reproaching it for, that he
267
268 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
should have the honor of the great accomplishment, and
that to him should be paid the compliment of the pro
cession with which it was to be celebrated.
Ah, when it came to the celebration of the event, no
one could complain of want of zeal in that parish! The
very ones who had shown most energy in avoiding any
contribution to the furtherance of the good work were
the most eager now to contribute to the celebration of its
accomplishment . . . and when it was announced from
the pulpit that Monseigneur himself would honor the
procession with his presence in it; the procession was
formed instantly, so to speak, before the eyes of every
Gascon present; each man seeing, not so much Mon
seigneur walking in it, as himself and his family, dressed
in their finest clothes, while other Gascons in crowds
from their dairies and gardens in other parts of the city
stood along the way to admire a great and glorious
procession about which the people of St. Medard would
ever afterward tell great Gascon tales.
There was no difficulty now in getting the streets and
gutters around the church cleaned of the disgraceful
weeds against which Pere Phileas had so often tried to
start a crusade, which had not been cut since the church
was built, according to the sad memory of those who
were old enough to remember that event.
The good St. Medard, if he, as the Cure believed and
affirmed, was ever watching the affairs of his parish and
knew all that was going on in it, no matter how much
pains were taken to conceal things from the eyes of its
curate; the good St. Medard must have been amused to
see (after the doctor and Patin had wiped out the sin
of their neglect) the pride and boasting of his Gascons
THE FEAST OF ST. M^DARD 269
over the painting of the church (poor Patin meanwhile
getting drunk and telling his grievances in Pepe s bar
room), and how quickly they reversed their former posi
tion, they now acting the benefactor, he becoming the
beneficiary; and to note the increasing number of peti
tions sent to him, and the confidence with which they
were despatched, like checks against a full deposit in
bank; for cows, calves, mules, gardens, chickens, dry
weather or rain, lifting of mortgages, collecting of debts
or assistance in avoiding payments of them. . . . Poor
Patin was the only one to send in no prayers, to ask for
nothing.
St. Medard, doubtless, did send the beautiful weather
needed for the celebration, for it is seldom he does not
send a good June to the city whose conviction has grown
into the saying that as it rains or shines on St. Medard
it will rain or shine for thirty days afterward. And
Nature was not behind in her bounty; the supply of
flowers surpassed even that of Easter. There was,
indeed, such an abundance of them that the way of the
procession through the ugly streets was over lilies, roses,
magnolias, jasmins, oleanders, crape myrtles; and the
four halting places the altars were in appearance great
bouquets. So sweetened was the air with their perfume
that the way of the incense through it was as truly
heavenly as that of Monseigneur, the Archbishop,
through the streets.
It was a pretty procession, and one with which St.
Medard, looking down from the blue sky above, as most
of the people thought he was doing, might well have been
pleased: Monseigneur in front under a canopy, Made
moiselle Mimi, singing her best and pushing her choir
270 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
in the back to make them sing their best instead of gaz
ing open-mouthed at the canopy over Monseigneur; the
Demoiselles San Antonio in their trailing white muslin
dresses and shapely arching, high-heeled, bronze bottines,
and all the Gascons, each man of them, swaggering along
as if St. Medard owed him a big bill for milk or vegetables
for which he would be forced to pay in the currency of
Paradise; their wives and children trudging after them
happy and smiling as Gascon wives and children always
are, when their men are good-humored and swaggering
that being their idea of Paradise ; old Aglone hobbling
along with the negroes at the end; and such a crowd of
lookers-on Gascon friends and relatives, negroes from
the plantations, soldiers and riff-raff from the barracks;
even those who did not believe that St. Medard was
watching them from above walked as if they believed it.
Few indeed in the parish had not responded to the
call of the church bell. Patin, as might be suspected,
was not there, nor that pirate, at least in religion,
Joachim, nor the old San Antonios, who were doubtless
sitting as usual on their low squat chairs in front of
their onion-smelling basement room as they had sat in
front of their whisky-smelling bar, during many a festi
val at the Cathedral. Monsieur Pinseau would be in his
old cane chair on his gallery looking at his flowers, with
Belle at his feet, paying no more attention to St. Medard
than St. Medard did to him except when the old dog
would raise her head and howl impatiently at the hysteri
cal clamor of the church bell whose rope Cribiche pulled
as if he too wished to put St. Medard in his debt and
remind him that he was in the parish if not in the
procession as well as Monseigneur and the Cure. Made-
THE FEAST OF ST. M&DARD 271
moiselle Mimi, as has been said, was there, and the
Demoiselles San Antonio, Madame Joachim, and Aglone,
and old Zizi, and the doctor no, not the doctor, not
Doctor Botot. He was not there, for, as said Madame
Joachim, he had patients or wanted to have them, who
did not care for processions any more than for Our
Lady of Lourdes ; as he had patients who did. So he
arrived only at the last moment, in the greatest haste
from the car, just as the procession was receiving Mon-
seigneur s benediction from the church porch.
The Americans, husband and wife, sat on their gallery
under the wistaria vine. They could smell the incense
and the perfume of the flowers and they could hear the
chanting and singing which rose and fell softly as the
procession moved along from station to station and
when it stopped the muttering of prayers before the altars
like the buzzing of bees. But the husband did not seem
to hear anything of it nor to know what was going on
in the street. With his eyes fixed meditatively on the
garden, or on the bright blue sky above, he was follow
ing the course of his usual Sunday afternoon thoughts;
the future, the prospect before them as he called it ; that
thought-worn road over which he and his wife traveled
so incessantly. The mud street outside the fence with
its ruts, ridges, and hoof holes was not better known to
her feet than this one to her mind.
" There is no need that I can see for discouragement "
this was always the burden of his intimate talk with
her " the country is recovering from its excitement ;
calm judgment is gaining its way by degrees ; prosperity
is bound to come with law and order; the best men at
the North are taking the lead; the newspapers are com-
272 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
ing to their senses ; the worst is over, the worst is over ;
we have to be patient only a little longer, there is plenty
of business for us so soon as we have a chance to take
hold of it ; the children are doing well ; the Summer will
be a healthy one, next Winter will be an improvement
on the past one; I am confident . . ." The church bell
was not more faithful to its ringing than he to his.
And she, faithful to her ringing also, answered him in
her usual way; seeing what he wanted her to see and
even more, adding to his store of confidence all sorts of
little things that she had been able to pick up around
the home and neighborhood. She must have been
gathering them all throughout the week, never passing
one by; as the old peasant women in Europe never pass
a twig lying on the ground but always pick it up to add
to their little store of future fire and warmth. She knew
even more of the improvement of the children than he
did, and had always ready examples at hand to prove
the truth of his observations; the boys always doing
what he would like to hear, the little girls what would
flatter his aspirations for them; and as their old friends
had once bloomed in her conversation, so now did the
new ones of St. Medard, the poorest and most miserable
material for friendship that could be found, one would
think, the sorriest expedients in the way of substitutes
for what they had once enjoyed, while the passions that
stormed in her heart when she thought of politics and
politicians seemed to be but the resting-place of halcyon
ideas for her to give him. She found a way even to
speak of national honor so as not to offend but rather
please his sense of justice. She accepted his prognostica
tions for the good ending of the present as she used
THE FEAST OF ST. M&DARD 273
to do those for the good ending of the war . . . strew
ing, in fact, their trampled dirt road of a future with
flowers, as the Gascons had their streets to hide their
ugliness. His empty hand, which could not get over its
habit of holding cigar or pipe, moved restlessly along
the arm of his chair, his long fingers feeling for some
thing. When he noticed this, he would place his hand
between his knees to keep it still. And as his mind
held to its habit, so did her eyes to an old habit of
theirs; the habit of the young wife glancing ever at her
husband s face, peeping at her happiness to see if it was
still there. But now her eyes, on the contrary, seemed
to be ever touching a sore spot to see if it still hurt;
looking to see if his hair was really streaked with gray,
if those were really wrinkles down the cheeks, if the
eyes that once burned with such fire were really heavy-
looking and with but one dim light under the drooping
lids. In spite of his talk of courage and hope, he looked
weary and sad, and as unconsciously as his hand sought
his pipe, his lips seemed ever wanting to sigh and to be
refraining from it.
Had he come out of the war looking this way, she
would not have been surprised. Wars are waged for
the purpose of killing and wounding men or at least
wearing out their hope and courage. But no, he came
out of the war looking and feeling stronger than when he
went in. He could have fought in the war forever, it
seemed to his wife at the time. The great cause, the
great devotion it exacted, seemed to act on him like the
leaves of the plant that the old Choctaw woman who
came to see Cicely told her about ; leaves that the Choctaw
warriors used to chew when on the war path to keep
274 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
them from feeling wounds, hunger or fatigue; that
kept them up without food or drink when they were
beaten and had to make their way back to their people
through a country swarming with enemies on the watch
for them. They had lost the plant somehow, the old
squaw said and their descendants had never been able
to find it and so they had all died out. She herself, who
had spent her life gathering herbs in the forest, had
always been looking for it and had never found it.
Many a time the wife had wished she could find that
plant too.
" Ah," she said to herself, in her simple way, " who
would care for things, if one could stop feeling them ! "
To entertain her husband she repeated to him the
story of the old Choctaw squaw. She could not have
had a happier inspiration. It led him from the future
to the past, to the Summers he had lived with the Indians,
to hunting and fishing adventures, and to the stories he
had gathered of their good qualities of friendship,
bravery, and stoicism. The children who came in from
looking at the procession drew closer and closer to him
in their interest as they listened until the trumpet from
the barracks sent them to bed.
To recall any part of youth and pleasure is to recall
all of it. And what a pageant memory can furnish when
one looks back out of an iron age of poverty to a golden
age of youth?
The trail led in peaceful windings from the Indians
to what followed the vacations passed with them and
what followed them . . . and on and on, in gentle
declivity, until the two memories came together, joined,
and became one.
THE FEAST OF ST. M^DARD 275
The graceful wistaria leaves and curling tendrils that
earlier in the evening had hung before their eyes like
a pretty lace over the blue sky and later over the golden
clouds of sunset now, as the moon rose, fell in light,
fragile shadows on the wall of the old house. As she
listened to her husband in silence, the wife let her eyes
follow the tremulous garlandings and trailings as the
soft evening breeze played gently over them, thrilling
them into motion, until, growing stronger with the moon
light, it ended by tossing them up and down, chasing
them, running them together and apart in boisterous
frolic, so that they rippled, as in irrepressible laughter
from one end of the gallery to the other ; the irrepressible
laughter of children that begins and ends in nothing
while the old wall, growing ever brighter as the full moon
shone straighter upon it, shone at last behind the leaves
pure white, brightened out of all its dinginess and stains
of time and weather. Brightened too by the moonlight,
out of all its marring lines of anxiety and care, the
husband s face shone too, at last pure white, noble, hand
some, fair and smooth as in the day when the two
memories joined together and became one.
They drew near to one another, and talked together,
after the two memories became one! In the moonlight,
with the fragrance of the flowers offered to St. Medard
still in the air, and the soft sound of prayers and chants
with the evening breeze playing through the clouds over
head and sending the shadowy leaves and tendrils be
hind them into ripples of laughter where was the
ugly mud road of a future? Where the burdens, cares,
anxieties? where the wrinkles, gray hair, dim eyes, and
drooping shoulders ? Nowhere in sight, nowhere in feel-
276 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
ing! Brightened out of life as the stains and holes
had been brightened out of the old wall; until it too
glistened, pure white for thought to play upon, for
the heart to make its pretty garlandings and trailings
upon.
Only a pleasant sleep could follow so pleasant an
evening. One from which all care and trouble had been
filtered, a pure dreamless sleep that flowed on peacefully,
illimitably; the sweetest kind of sleep to the weary, the
kind that they would abide in forever ; out of which they
awake slowly and reluctantly; trying still to hold on to
its caressing ease and to float out once again into its
great, blissful open of unconsciousness. But while the
wife languidly strove to retain it, she heard her husband
talking to her; laughing as if they were still sitting in the
fragrant moonlight on the gallery. She thought she
was still dreaming dreaming that everything else but
the dream itself was a dream ; that they were still in the
time of youth and love and wealth when they could
laugh together over balls and dinners, opera and theater ;
the things that rich young people laugh over at night
when they come back from them.
But it was only for a moment that sleep could thus
dally with her. Keen-edged reality, cutting into her like
a sharp knife, awoke her. Her husband was burning
with fever, he was delirious! She would as soon have
thought of the universe in delirium, out of its senses
as he! She ran through the dark to the room of her
boys : " Quick ! quick ! " she called, shaking them roughly.
"The doctor! Your father! . . ." Her voice sank to
the familiar whisper of the nightmare. She tried to
speak aloud but could not.
THE FEAST OF ST. M&DARD 277
The doctor came and sat by him until daylight, humor
ing his fancies, listening to his vagaries until he per
suaded him to take a potion. At last when sleep visited
him, the doctor left, but he went for Madame Joachim
and sent her to watch by the bed in his absence.
How surely, how treacherously do fevers come upon
us! There is no foe to humanity that shows more in
sidious cunning in slipping into and getting possession
of a body, which if only warned in time could so easily,
with a mere trifle of defense, defy him : " Did you not
notice ? Could you not see ? " When it is too late, it is
easy enough to ask questions and as easy to answer them.
" Yes, it was noticed, yes, it was seen, this symptom and
that; but that was not the enemy expected, watched
for ! " When one is attacked by poverty, when one is
in full struggle, hand to hand, with poverty, one and
that is the misery of it one can think of nothing else
but it; there seems nothing else in life but it to think
about. And there is so much in poverty that resembles
disease; the heavy head, the tired thoughts, disturbed
sleep, low spirits, aching limbs, loss of appetite and the
painful sense of fatigue all the time! The constant
straining of energies, the thinking, thinking, thinking ! the
effort to keep up courage in others ; the forced cheerful
ness and the work the never-ending work ! Who could
sleep at the end of such a day, eat meals that cost so much
anxiety? Who could think of caring for self?
The wife explained all this to the doctor, as if he did
not know it already, as if his understanding it would
help the patient; telling all, keeping back nothing, as
if keeping back anything would hinder the cure.
"Walking to the city every day and back to save
278 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
carfare; coming in so tired/ she said, looking earnestly
in the doctor s face.
" He was tired/ answered the doctor.
" He would eat nothing."
" Ah, he had no appetite," said the doctor.
" He took only a cup of coffee in the morning," she
continued, too intent on her own thoughts to notice his
interruptions. " And it seemed hard for him to get up ;
often he would go back and sit on the bed and wait."
" It was hard for him to get up," said the doctor.
" And then working in the garden every afternoon,
every afternoon except Sunday, so that we would at least
have vegetables to eat. I am sure his back and limbs
ached afterward."
The doctor nodded. " They did ache."
" And at night, teaching, teaching, until the boys knew
their lessons to his satisfaction. And they were so slow,
so stupid ! " she exclaimed passionately. " He wanted
them to learn Greek as well as Latin and mathematics.
I would see him put his head on his hand while
he was trying to drum it into them, as if his head
hurt him."
"Of course, it hurt him," said the doctor.
" Often I felt like crying out to the boys : Why don t
you learn faster ? Can t you learn faster ? I would
have learned anything rather than keep him sitting there,
so tired, so pale, so patient, so thin, and miserable-
looking."
" He was miserable-looking because he felt miserable,"
answered the doctor.
" And then he did not sleep at night, he was so rest
less."
THE FEAST OF ST. M^DARD 279
" Ah, that was the fever. He had fever every night,"
said the doctor.
" I would say I was restless and could not sleep, just
to let him talk to me and stop thinking of his affairs."
The doctor nodded.
" Sometimes we would talk all night long, going over
and over everything. He would not say so, but I could
see he was discouraged. On the contrary, he would tell
me how much hope and confidence he had."
" And you would tell him the same, eh? " the doctor
asked.
" Oh, I never let him see that I was discouraged, that
I was not confident and cheerful no matter what hap
pened. And no matter what he hoped, there was dis
appointment after disappointment." Her voice trembled,
she could not help it. " Not a friend, not a friend, but
disappointed him! And the one he trusted best, whose
honor he was surest of, he " her voice did not tremble
now, it grew stronger with temper and her eyes burned,
"he he more than disappointed him, he deceived and
betrayed him."
" Ah," said the doctor, " all that goes together."
" And the house rent always before him ! Do you
know how he made the house rent ? " she asked in her
despair. " He wrote briefs and prepared arguments for
other lawyers who could not write their own briefs in
the cases they got, but which my husband could not get.
Carpet baggers, scalawags, rapscallions, the scum and
refuse of politicians," she flung the words out of her
mouth with disgust, " they received the money that he
earned."
The doctor tapped her on the shoulder with his finger
280 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
to draw her attention to himself. " He has had the
fever, or/ he could not resist the witticism, " the fever
has had him for I cannot tell how long. How long will
it hold on to him? That depends upon how long it
has had him." He shrugged his shoulders. " Well, it
will hold on to him until he, that is we, wear it out. That
is what we will have to do now, wear it out ; not let the
fever wear us out, eh " he went on, the cunning doctor,
putting the patient out of the question.
" Oh, if that is all," she answered joyfully, the expres
sion of her face changing at once, " it will never wear me
out ! It will never wear any of us out ! " She changed
the form of her assertion because she saw the children
peeping from the other room, listening to the doctor s
verdict. They shook their heads also and smiled con
temptuously at the fever. " It will never wear me out,"
each one seemed to be declaring.
And then as always happens in periods of serious
illness to the head of a family, a curtain, as it were, fell
around the household, shutting it in to itself, shutting
out all else; its life moving along whispering and on
tiptoe so easily that the hours and their regular habits
slipped by unnoticed ; the days and nights succeeding one
another as unobtrusively as the ticking of a clock.
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR
ALWAYS in the morning when the fever went down, the
sick man s mind would clear. He would call for his
coffee and forgetting his illness would struggle to get
up, dress, and go to his office : " I have work to do," he
would say, " I have a brief to write." But always he fell
back to his pillow and after a moment would be rising
again, to fall back once more. Passing his hand over
his forehead and frowning unconsciously : " I must go
to the office," he would repeat to his wife.
"It is early yet, rest a little while longer," she would
answer, pretending to be putting his cuff buttons in his
cuffs, while he would look at her with a long gaze, watch
ing her movements and drawing confidence from them.
As the day wore on and he saw himself that he could
not get up : " Tomorrow, tomorrow," would be her
answer to the mute inquiry of his eyes. Day after day,
she repeated her confident : " Tomorrow, tomorrow."
When he could not see her and thought she had left
the room he would shake his head and murmur " Too
bad, too bad," and she could see him going in his mind
over his business, noting points on his finger until she
would draw his attention from it. She could always
manage to do this by talking about the children until he
would take the pilot wheel again in his hand as she knew
he would and tell her what he expected to do in the way
of larger plans for them, while pushing them more and
281
282 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
more in their studies, always reminding her to tell them
to bring their books to his bed that night so that he
could teach them there and make them read aloud to
him as usual. He wanted them to finish Gibbon by
Autumn. And he would tell of the other books that he
intended to make them read. There was a second-hand
Motley he never tired of talking about. It was being
held for him by the shopman.
" A wonderful bargain ! " his voice sounded tri
umphant about it, as fine a bargain as the Shakespeare
he had bought, which was perfect except for the binding.
The boys must read Motley next. They must learn to
appreciate the character of William the Silent. Then
he would ramble on about William the Silent until he
remembered something else the garden perhaps. She
must see that they worked in the garden, they must not
neglect it. A day s work lost in the season was hard to
replace and he would tell her minutely just what beds
he was preparing for just what seeds.
Eagerly he took what was prescribed for him and
always with the words : " I must get up tomorrow and
go to work. It is only a fever and we know what fevers
are."
There was no danger of the boys not studying or not
working in the garden. The thought that he was ill and
that all they could do to help him was to study and to
work in the garden, effected more in making Latin trans
lations clear and Greek verbs endurable, than his presence
had ever done. The quieter the house grew, the more
settled in its routine of illness through the days and
then the passing weeks (for if the fever was as far as
ever from wearing them out, they seemed no nearer to
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 283
wearing it out), the harder the boys pored over their
books and worked in the garden ; Cribiche with them.
Every night he would take his place at the table and
study as he too had never studied before; raising his
swarthy face from slate or book only to give a look at
the chair where the teacher should have been sitting and
turning it again more doggedly than ever to his lesson.
As he studied, so, too, he worked in the garden with the
boys. Potatoes, beans, carrots, turnips, spinach if ever
they were offered to heaven in propitiation for past
laziness or petition for present favor, they were in those
long Summer afternoons by the three boys as the sweat
rolled from their faces and soaked through their shirts.
The little girls were not behind them, although being
little girls they had no need to offer propitiation for
the past. Nevertheless they worked as if they had;
worked indeed like grown women and even harder in
their ignorant zeal and passionate determination to do
their part toward the cure of their father. No studies
for them! No books, no reading aloud, no going to
school. When had women time for such things while
there was illness in the family ? They took no more time
for them than their mother did. They kept themselves
awake at night, thinking what they would do the next
morning. And often their impatience to be up and about
what they had thought of, and their fear of being late,
would make them mistake the hour; and slipping easily
from their beds so that their mother in the next room
could not hear them, they would run across the yard, still
in the darkness of night, to the kitchen to light the fire
in the stove and drip coffee and boil hominy through the
slow gray hours to daylight just as their mother would
284 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
have done, as doubtless she had done many and many
a time, before any one else in the house was awake.
More and more did they stretch their little steps to
follow in the tracks of a grown woman s duties. More
and more their little thoughts tried to fill the measure
of hers. For there were always others besides the family
to be cared for the church door swung not more easily
open to the pious than their rickety old backyard gate
to the wretched. Always there was some poor woman
creeping through for a dose of medicine or bit of linen
rag to put on a sore ; some thin, miserable child, begging
something for a sick mother or one well known to
mendicancy the blind old cripple Zenor, surnamed the
Voudou, on account of the malific charms that his ugli
ness and deformity had gained him the credit of work
ing; and although not a mendicant every day, Jerry
would slink through the gate to sit silent and cowed on
the kitchen steps ; never asking for anything, but as grate
ful as a hungry dog for a cup of coffee and a kind
word. He worked no more now and was ashamed to
let his master know it, but not his mistress.
Indeed, their mother was so afraid that they would
not know what to do; that some one would come and
go away disappointed, (no one knew better than she
what it was to go somewhere in hope and return dis
appointed) that she was ever slipping from the sick
room out to the gallery to warn them against it; and
ever remembering something else. Ah, at that time,
every want, every need was important to her ; all suffer
ing consecrated. She dared not let one prayer to her go
unanswered. No! No! Thus one day, the little girls
were called in haste to the gallery: "The poor, sick
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 285
negroes," she whispered hurriedly in a kind of panic.
" I forgot them ! They used to come every day, you will
hear them outside the window . . . give them something
to eat, anything scraps, and some coffee. I used to
save it for them . . . drip over the old grounds. . . .
They are just out of the hospital . . . they have
been ill too." The tears started into her eyes, and
her lips trembled, for all her courage, at the word,
the sad word, ill. " But they must not come into the
yard."
So the little girls listened for them and the day never
passed that they did not hear the shuffling steps in the
street stop under the kitchen window and the hoarse
whisper : " Mistress, Fse here ! Mistress, won t you give
a poor nigger something to eat? For God s sake, Mis
tress, I m that hungry. ..." And looking out of the
window they would see a trembling negro with ashen
face, still shivering from fever, or freshly scarred from
smallpox.
" Here ! Here ! " they would respond, eagerly stretch
ing their hands out of the window, as full of pity for the
poor wretches most of them boys as their mother had
been.
" Thank you, little Mistress ! God bless you, little Mis
tress ! " Some of them would cry like children from
weakness as the little girls had seen negro men do on the
plantation when they were weak and miserable.
Although they had always shrunk from the sight of
negroes in uniform, and had turned their face away
from them in passing, according to the command of
their father, they did not now. Nor were they afraid
of their diseases, also according to the command of their
286 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
father, who, as much as his little daughters hated
Yankees, hated women who ran away from contagion;
" as if," he said, " the life of a coward were ever worth
preserving." But in their sorrow for their father and
their wish to help their mother, the little girls, forgetting
their plantation judgment and common sense, gave more
and more; and in consequence the file of convalescent
negroes outside the window increased daily; their
number, however, only seemed to increase the pleasure
of the charity.
It was well that there was a barrel of flour in the
kitchen and a sack of coffee; the barrel of flour and sack
of coffee that gave their father so much comfort in his
clear moments from the fever. " At any rate," he would
say over and over again to his wife : " we have a barrel
of flour and a sack of coffee in the house." And she
would tell him what good flour it was and what fine
coffee, and count up how long she expected them to last.
He would smile, well pleased, and tell of his good luck
that a grocer should pay him in that way for a bit of
legal advice.
Little by little the habit of fever overcame the habit
of health ; the effort to rise in the morning grew fainter
and he yielded more and more to the force of the disease.
Always as the fever mounted, delirium came on and his
mind would wander forth from the quiet little room in
St. Medard to some other beautiful parish where he
seemed to see all the bright moments of his past life
blooming like flowers around him. Smiling joyfully,
he would stretch out his hand to pluck at them as if he
were still a youth, and they the flowers his dreams of the
future. Sometimes the flowers seemed to be bits of
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 287
poetry, flashing upon his eye from all directions: the
blossoms he had gathered and stored in his memory
when he was young enough to wander in the bright
fields of poetry. Then his parched lips would soften
and curve and he would repeat verses with all the tender
ness and sentiment and musical expression of his Spring
time freshness. Sometimes, trivial incidents from the
first meeting of their two hearts which his wife with
all her gift of memory had forgotten would slip in
between two lines of verse. And sometimes, breaking
in his weakness through the close reserve of his heart
a still more secret word or memory would seem to
tremble on his lip, when, she would hastily rise, bend over
him and softly, as if she were drawing a sheet up over
a sleeping child, hush him ; and after a moment of silence
he would be again in the land of his enchantment. . . .
In his delirium at least he was happy. This and not
what it might have been : the cruel vagaries of the bloody
field of war, the carnage, the fury of the onset, the curses
of defeat or the anguish of fear, the painful humiliations
and the goading phantoms that came with peace this
was the blessed change wrought probably by St. Medard
and his flower-strewn procession and the pretty play of
the breeze and the moon on the gallery.
Madame Joachim, sitting close to the head of the
bed with the mosquito bar veiling her from the patient,
kept her eye fixed on the subtle, treacherous fever, fol
lowing it through all the windings of its serpent trail.
As neither she nor the doctor was sure when it began,
how could they tell when it would end, or even where it
was in its course, or which one of the fighters was wear
ing the other out? They could see the one on the bed;
288 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
they could only guess at the other; and they had there
fore to be always ready to meet insidious attack with
insidious defense, to set surprise against surprise, am
bush against ambush, like the old Indian warriors they
were on the warpath.
But almost as well as these shrewd, untiring ones,
did the sick man s care and anxieties those rugged
friends serve him, as the days went by and still the
fever held on. They worked for him now, as they had
once worked against him, going after him, pulling at
him and, like faithful dogs, rousing him from the
lethargy that was always threatening to creep over him
and still him forever.
"What are you doing for money?" he would ask
with a start, suddenly opening his eyes. Or he would
stop his poetry to exclaim : " The house rent ! What
day of the month is it? " Or he would murmur sadly:
" The barrel of flour and the sack of coffee must be
giving out by this time."
When the fever went down, and the delirium rolled
away like a cloud from his brain, he would bring a
clear mind to bear on his situation and discuss it with
the doctor intelligently. The closer he was pressed by
his foe, the more convincingly he would reason with
the doctor about it. And as the fever, so to speak, cap
tured his convictions one by one, he would always find
some other defense to fall back upon, just as he had done
during the war. But pressed closer and closer, forced
further and further back and beaten out of hope after
hope, so weak that there seemed but one more stage
of weakness to traverse, he could still find yet another
one left behind him; still from sources invisible to his
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 289
watchers call up reinforcements of strength, still manage
to keep up the fight.
" I must not die, Doctor, I cannot afford to die," he
would whisper eagerly to his physician when his wife
was out of sight and he thought out of the room.
" But," confidentially, " I cannot hold out much longer."
" The fever cannot either," the doctor would answer
in his ever high good humor. " You think he has un
limited resources too, like the Yankees, eh ? He is worse
off than you, I can tell you." The doctor kept his private
opinion and his private manner so well to himself that
Madame Joachim could only guide her judgment by
her experience of him.
" He is not as good a doctor as he thinks he is," she
always declared when questioned, " but he is the best
doctor for fevers in the city."
" Mariana, you will wear yourself out, always sit
ting there day and night . . ." he would whisper to
his wife.
If it were night, she would take the shade off the
candle; if it were day, open a window, so that he could
see her smile while hearing her cheerful voice. Ah!
the fever obtained no concessions from her either of
courage, hope, or strength ! Before her husband she was
the same on the last as on the first of the sixty days of
the campaign; and she would tell him the news of the
children, the garden, the chickens; and, she would laugh
(" A i, Ail 1 would exclaim Madame Joachim to herself
hearing her) over his favorite game rooster for he was
so prejudiced in favor of game roosters that he would
never have any other kind in the yard. She would
talk to him of anything, everything as if as if they
2 9 o THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
were still sitting side by side, spying away together at
the future, meandering on ! far ahead of them.
Across the backyard in their domain, the kitchen, the
little girls held their outpost against the fever; held it
so well that no one in the other part of the garrison had
need to think of them. The hot days, passed, increasing
their fatigue, diminishing the flour and coffee and ex
hausting other provisions; but producing no effect on
their supply of courage and determination. However,
the help of those who help themselves, according to the
proverb, was accorded them. After a while, no matter
how early they rose in the morning, nor how fast they
ran across the dark yard, they found the fire lighted in
the stove, the water boiling, hominy simmering, and the
biscuits ready for baking. Old Aglone was always
before them. How could the poor old thing, who could
barely stand on her feet, manage to slip out of her own
home and come into this one so easily that no one heard
her? The little girls asked this of each other in wonder
every day, when they, for their part, could not lift a
damper from the stove without letting it fall, nor ap
proach a pot without knocking it over by its long handle.
And every day when they fell asleep (and strive as they
did against it, with all the good will they possessed, they
did fall asleep, no matter where they were, in their chairs
or sitting on the gallery steps, every day about eleven
o clock when the boys were in front working in the
garden, and the yard was so quiet that even the chickens
seemed to be keeping still) they always fell asleep with
out knowing it, and always awoke, thinking they were in
bed with their heads on their soft pillows, opening their
eyes and closing them again, dreamingly; pouting or
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 291
smiling. When at last they did awake they would always
see Papa Pinseau, sitting in a chair near them on the
gallery with Belle at his feet, looking hard into the upper
branches of the wild cherry tree, however much he may
have been looking at them before; noting, as he must
have done, how pale and thin they were growing; how
tired and how red and scarred their little hands were,
for when did they ever pour hot water from the kettle
without scalding them? They never heard him come
in any more than they did Aglone, although his feet
were gouty and awkward enough to betray any one.
And they never heard him tiptoeing about the kitchen,
slily taking little bundles wrapped in paper from his
pockets and slipping them into jars (Belle following him
sedately) ; peeping into the soup pot, and lifting the
cover from the daube; and sitting down afterward and
flipping away the flies and mosquitoes from the children
with his soft bandanna handkerchief. Poor Papa
Pinseau! As he watched the children of Talbot as
suredly, he must have thought of the past and of his
old political campaign ; of his farcical oratorical attempts
against Talbot, and of Talbot s really eloquent outbursts
at every mention of Pinseau s frivolous name for no
one could deny that Talbot was an orator at least when
expressing contempt and indignation. And there was
the eloquent, contemptuous Talbot in there fighting for
his life with the fever; and he, the frivolous Pinseau,
out here on his kitchen gallery watching his children and
minding his pots! No wonder that his humorous smile
came and went over his lips !
When, at last, the little girls would yawn and stretch
themselves awake, vowing that they had never been
292 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
asleep at all but awake the whole time and knew when
he came in, he would fall in with their humor, and divert
them so well that they would forget everything else but
himself just like the ladies of old, whom he had
diverted. It must be conceded that the eloquent Talbot,
however superior he may have been in other things,
could not be compared with the frivolous Pinseau, in
the ability to please the ladies, old or young. The more
the little girls laughed, the more gain did he seem to
think it ; and the closer he saw the black cloud descending
upon the house across the yard, the more he strove to
turn, and the better he succeeded in turning, the eyes
of the little girls from it. And then he would go into the
kitchen with them (Belle lending herself too, to the
humor of the situation) and looking around, they would
find the little bundles he had hidden away and would
open them. Then he, with all the care and delicacy in
the world, would show exactly how to cook the contents
of the bundles, touching the seasonings as lightly as if
they were jewels; the little girls meanwhile listening and
watching with keen interest and enthusiastic appreciation.
Gourmets are always the best of cooks and therefore the
best teachers of cooks.
If the haughty Talbot could have seen him then!
And his daughters in such society!
When Papa Pinseau had hobbled away; as surely as
the afternoon came, Polly s friend, the old Kentucky
gentleman would make his appearance in the street,
walking leisurely along, switching the weeds with his
cane, carrying a great paper bag, well filled, in his hand.
He would push open the back gate as the mendicants did,
and entering, take the seat on the gallery that Papa
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 293
Pinseau had just left. Then the busy little girls would
leave him to distribute their charity out of the kitchen
window to the negro soldiers, and he would hear the
latters soft voices whining out:
"For God s sake, little Miss!"
" Ain t you got somethin for a poor hungry nigger,
little Miss?"
" I se starvin , little Miss ! "
" Dey most killed me in horspital, little Miss ! "
He would throw back his head and laugh silently to
himself, showing his white teeth behind his white beard
and mustache, murmuring : " the rascals, the rascals,"
with a true Kentuckian s enjoyment of a joke. He
seemed indeed so amused that smiles hovered about
his lips a long time afterward. Like Monsieur Pinseau,
he must also have had a comical past to look back
upon.
When the little girls came back to their places, they
would all talk about the chickens. He seemed to be as
fond of game chickens as their Papa, and could be as
much entertained as he by the airs of an old rooster or
the antics of a young one. And looking at the chickens,
he would relate to them all the circumstances of the vari
ous exciting chicken fights of his youth in Kentucky ; and
tell them further all about the most beautiful country
that God had ever created : its fine horses, its blue grass,
and its women, known as the most famous belles in all
the world, he told them. The little girls who had never
heard of such supremely lovely women in their little
lives and could never hear enough about them could,
as they listened, again forget the black cloud over the
house across the yard. As he described the marvelous
294 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
complexions of these famous belles of his youth, such as
no other women in the world had, and their hands like
the hands of goddesses, he said he would pull out of his
pocket a cake of sweet soap, a pot of cold cream, or a
bottle of eau de Cologne, and show the little girls (with
the taste and delicacy that Monsieur Pinseau had ex
hibited over cooking) how to make their hands like the
hands of the Kentucky belles. And so the little girls
would wash and rub and cream their hands diligently
under his supervision, and wipe them on the fine large
linen handkerchiefs he brought fresh every day and
always forgot to take away with him; and they would
eat the fruit out of his great bag every afternoon every
afternoon; they needed no better entertainment. And
Polly the chatterbox, who loved talking even more than
she did beauty, would relate to him all the happenings
of the little house; tell him, in order to keep talking,
anything, everything; (so different from the wise little
Cicely!) never heeding what she said, for she could no
more look where she was going in her talking than in her
walking. And so every day he heard the same things:
Madame Joachim; Papa Pinseau and his cooking and
the little bundles; old Aglone. And every day, without
fail, he heard the story of the barrel of flour and sack
of coffee how the grocer had given them in payment
for legal advice, and how her Papa talked about them in
his illness and how they made him believe there was
plenty left, as there would have been if they hadn t given
so much to the negro soldiers, who came begging more
and more because more and more of them fell sick, and
the Yankees treated them worse and worse. ... Ah!
he was well informed about the negroes and their ill
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 295
treatment at the hands of their barracks masters ! This
part of the conversation must inevitably have come
to an end had not another barrel of flour and another
sack of coffee been received just in the nick of time : a
whole barrel and a whole sack, not half ones as before.
Nobody could have enjoyed their surprise with them
more than the old gentleman, nor rejoiced more at their
relief from the consequences of their charity. He, too,
thought it must be the good grocer who sent them, and
praised him for it.
When the time came for him to leave, he turned from
the back gate into a little side lane instead of proceeding
by the street, and so reached the Levee. As he walked
along now, he did not flip at the weeds with his cane,
and there was no smile of humorous anticipation on his
lips. He bent his head reflectively, and clasped his hands
over his cane behind his back, the thoughts that had
been amusing him fading from his face. Abstractedly
he answered the greeting of the officers on the Levee,
and, turning into the donjon-like portals of the barracks,
barely noticed the sentinels presenting arms to him. Not
so did he leave it. To be the Colonel in command of the
barracks and a Kentuckian seemed always a joke to him
in the morning, when like a young man he would start
out fresh for the continuation of his boyish fun in the
mystification of the little girls: his little blossom of
romance after the hard war. (Kentuckians can never
grow old, or rather even in old age, never cease to be
young; and even in old age, can no more live without
romance than without jokes). His romance! It was
his romance that made him sad now and that made that
radiant lady Victory who had crowned the banner he had
296 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
fought under seem now, as he looked upon her, to be
weeping.
All the while in the house the patient was making his
struggle for life, his last struggle as it began to appear to
him.
" I cannot hold out much longer," he would whisper
wistfully to the doctor who was constantly running in
to see him, like a commander constantly running upon
the ramparts to watch the foe.
" Hold out to the end and then still hold out ; that
is all you have to do." The graver the situation, the
more jocular the doctor became.
" I am doing my best but my strength is going
fast." He seemed hardly to have the breath to say it.
" No stronghold in history," said the doctor majesti
cally, as if he had the whole of history at his finger ends,
" would ever have been taken by the enemy if it had
held out only a little longer. You, who know history,
know that."
And still he fell every day into delirium; still he
came out to meet his anxieties and responsibilities; still
he measured his chances in the struggle; still he cal
culated; just as he had done when the Confederacy was
making its last stand.
" Where are the boys? " he asked suddenly one after
noon.
" Ah, he has noticed that I have kept the children
out of the room," his wife said exultantly to herself.
" I knew it, the fever was weakening only the body ! "
And as if she had heard a piece of good news, she hurried
out and called the boys in.
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 297
They were always within call now, never leaving the
garden except to go to their books on the gallery. They
never even undressed when they went to bed, but threw
themselves down in their clothes in case they were
wanted; always determined to keep awake, but always,
poor boys, going to sleep.
They snatched up their books and hastened at the call,
stumbling over their own feet and dropping one book
after the other from their trembling hands. Their
mother stood at the head of the bed, holding the mosquito
netting in her hands as a screen, her eyes fixed upon
them, her head firm and erect. They needed her look
and gesture; for their knees trembled as much as their
hands when they reached the bed. She prompting them,
they opened a book, turned the leaves, and showed the
marks of their lessons; then clearing their voices, their
words running together from nervousness, they told
how fast they were getting through Gibbon, and, poor
boys! how much interested they were in it. At that
moment indeed, trying to keep back their tears at the
sight of their father emaciated, weak, strange, and
changed beyond all recognition they would have sworn
devotion to any book ; even to that secret horror of their
minds the Bible, their Sunday imposition.
" Study/ Their father s whisper, so low and faint,
frightened them as much as his appearance. " Work. *
Then with a great effort he repeated the word:
" Work." His eyes closed. After a pause that seemed
never-ending, he opened them, and a glance of his old
warmth lighted them, as, looking beyond his sons toward
the door, he whispered : " Cribiche."
It was Cribiche, barefooted as usual, and dirty; his
298 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
blue colonnade trousers hanging by one suspender, his
shirt unbuttoned. Cribiche did not go to his bed at
all of nights. He lay on the gallery outside, close to the
window of the sick room, where, like a sleeping watch
dog, he could hear every movement within. He had
more nerve than the sons and therefore could come for
ward steadily. He spoke in a voice that the wife herself
might have envied, laying by the sick one s hands some
birds he had killed for him. Every day he had managed
to kill some and bring them.
"Study work " The feeble lips tried to add
something else as he looked at the three, but he could only
murmur indistinctly, and the eyelids dropped again over
the struggling eyes. The boys started to withdraw, but
by some divine inspiration they were enabled to under
stand the meaning of their mother s eyes, her lips, the
movement of her head. They put the question that she,
with divine intuition, had guessed.
" Is there anything we can do for you, Father? "
" Yes, yes," came the eager answer, dissipating the
lethargy that was creeping over him. " Tommy Cook
Tommy Cook."
They started as they were, without hats, without car
fare, but the latter made no difference; they could run
faster than the mule car could travel. They ran all the
long way into the city, looking neither to the right nor
to the left, but straight ahead, with their message before
their eyes.
Pere Phileas was working in his garden. There was
always as much work for him to do in it as in the parish ;
the devil being as busy with his tares in the one as in
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 299
the other, and the rich soil growing the one, as prolifically
as the rich Gascon nature the other. It is not surprising
that his garden often appeared to the priest like a parish,
his parish like a garden; and that he pulled up weeds
as if they were sins and tried to pull up sins as if they
were weeds. The bright afternoon sun shone from its
blue heavens, benignantly over him, shedding its warmth,
impartially, as is its wont over the good and the bad alike ;
over that which has to be removed for the welfare of
the rest, as over that which has to be kept for the welfare
of the rest. And so were his thoughts doubtless running
along, in company with his busy hands, when his arm
was pulled violently. " Mon Pere! Mon Pere!"
Cribiche s voice and hands trembled with excitement,
his breath came in gasps : " Mon Pere, pray for him !
Quick! Quick! pray for him! The priest straightened
himself up, and put his hand on the small of his back,
which was where the weeds at least hurt him most.
Cribiche pulled at his arm again, and repeated his
hurried : " Pray for him ! Pray for him, quick ! " And
he looked across the street at the cottage of the
Americans, so quiet and peaceable behind its trees. " He
will die he looks like he will die ! "
The priest turned as if to go to his work again, saying
calmly :
You will lose a good friend, my son."
" But," replied the boy eagerly, " if you pray for him,
Mon Pere, if you pray for him "
The priest shook his head thoughtfully : " Ah, you
remember now that there is a good God in heaven ! But
where is your friend the devil? Your master that you
serve so well ? Why do you not go to him ? "
300 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
Cribiche looked at him angrily : " You pray for any
body, for any rascal and thief and . . ."
The priest interrupted him : " Yes, the rascal, the thief,
the good-for-nothing ... I pray for them ! "
" Mon Pere, if you saw him, you would pray for
him." Cribiche s trembling lips related what had just
taken place ; the priest, listened willingly ; he liked to hear
any version of what was going on about him in the
parish.
"Why do you not pray for him yourself, my son?
When you want something, it is better to ask for it
yourself."
"Mon Pere ..."
"If you want your good friend to live and if he
dies, I do not know what will become of you but the
devil knows the friend that you love so much . . ."
added the priest vindictively, " that you love so much
and work for so hard . . . but," softening his voice : " if
you want your good friend to live, pray for him your
self."
" Mon Pere," cried Cribiche desperately : " They will
listen to you, they won t listen to me ! "
" And why," asked the priest softly, very softly, " why
will they not listen to you? "
Cribiche gave a wild look of despair at the bright sky
above, where dwelt his offended God.
" Mon Pere, I can t, I can t ... I don t know any
prayers."
" But why, my son ? "
" I don t know any prayers."
" And why do you not know any prayers, my son ? "
The boy leaned hopelessly against the arm he had
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 301
shaken, and sobbed, as if he had been born a child who
could afford to cry and had been granted a parent s
bosom to cry upon.
"He will die. He will die!"
The priest had never seen him cry like a child before.
" That is as God wills, my son."
He put his arm around Cribiche s shoulder, and bent
his head over him.
" My son, if you want your good friend to live, you
must pray for him yourself."
" I don t know any prayers," came the answer through
sobs, as Cribiche pressed his head closer against the
priest. " They won t listen to me, they will listen to you.
If you pray, maybe God, maybe God ..."
The good priest had reached the end of his simple
comedy. " My child," he said in a different tone, laying
his hand tenderly on the bushy black head of Cribiche :
" Go and make what prayer you can. When they see
you up there " (the priest fixed his eyes on the blue
above) " trying to pray, they may be sorry for you
and . . . Go, go, you will find out what to pray . . .
God knows all, my child, remember that, He knows
all ... And when he sees you on your knees praying,
you, his poor little orphan, who knows? Who
knows? . . . Tell Him you will fulfil your duties to
Him. You will go to confession; you will make your
Communion; you will not neglect the church. All this
for love of the good friend He has sent you, whose
suffering has taught you in your grief the way to the
One who alone can help us poor mortals in our struggle
with sorrow and death. Tell Him " the father was
going on much longer, with his eyes directed above,
302 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
when he was recalled by seeing the black eyes of Cribiche
fixed upon him and his lips, his impudent, lawless lips,
repeating the words after him. " Go, my child," pushing
him gently, " the prayers of a child are always listened
to and God may grant you what he would not grant
others. Go, and when I come in, I will pray too."
Cribiche ran away in the direction of the church as
hastily as the boys were running in the direction of the
city.
Tommy Cook sat alone in the office. He had it all
to himself once more, as in the days when a bloody war
separated its owner from it. The great bookcases with
their tightly packed shelves of calf-skin volumes, the
heavy mahogany ar moire, filled with the tin boxes of
litigation as he called it, seemed once more to be floating
like a derelict ship upon the Gulf, a prize for the nearest
captor at hand. The Confederate lawyers, dropping in
day after day to ask news of their sick friend, grew more
and more polite of manner to Tommy Cook, more and
more considerate of tone to him. As Tommy Cook saw,
they were getting ready for the floating prize. The
enterprising among them did not limit their interest to
the life of their friend; but would casually extend it
to the eventuality of his death; glancing at the armoire
of litigation ; the business of which though in ruins, like
the plantations of the State, would revive like them and
flower into money again when the political condition of
the South was restored to its proper statu quo, as they
classically expressed their domination of it. That was
the land of Canaan toward whose possession they were
fighting their way with all the ruse and artifice of ac-
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 303
complished politicians added to the determined courage
of the tried warriors they were ; stepping over the bodies
of their friends and comrades who fell from among them
by the way; leaving them behind as they had learned to
leave the bodies of friends behind, on the other battle
fields. But only their bodies, only their bodies, as Tommy
Cook observed to himself ; not the business that the dead
man might have in his pocket. That was looked after
as they were looking after their friend Talbot s business,
to carry it along with them into the land of Canaan.
It would flower there, they knew, as well for one pos
sessor as another.
So Tommy Cook, in imagination, saw his old patron
stepped over and left behind, as in his memory many
another good man had been. After a season of cold,
heat, rain, and sunshine, a skeleton of a name would be
all that would be left of him. In a little while that too
would have disappeared and all the work that he had
done and all that he had prepared to do, all his accumu
lation of study, thought, books, and papers, would serve
the ambition and fortune of another whose business and
interest it would be to see that their friend Talbot was
well and surely forgotten. Tommy Cook had learend
the modus operandi of it, as he called the process. The
place he occupied was the best possible one for the
picking-up of such knowledge. And in his experience,
as in that of others, it was ever the best man who was
the easiest forgotten. The longest remembered were the
men who had enriched the community with their money,
not with their lives; whose lives had indeed to be ran
somed from the contempt of posterity by their money.
As he sat thus in the office, in communion with him-
3 o 4 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
self, the two boys, hot, bareheaded, dusty, and out of
breath, ran in to him with their summons.
Although he was dressed in black like a lawyer, was
clean shaven of any beard he might have had, and would
have been taken, by any one who did not know him, for
a respectable young professional Tommy Cook, in the
eyes of the house he entered, was still only, little Tommy
Cook, the errand boy of the office ; one who sat in the hall
and waited for answers and (being white and in a menial
position) was looked on with disdain by the negro slave
who opened the door to his polite ring. In his own eyes
too, he must have been only the little street ragamuffin
and newspaper boy who had been jerked up one day
from his dice throwing with other ragamuffins on the
pavement and made to go upstairs to the office. He
must have been still only that in his own eyes, as he
entered the sick room and saw his patron on the bed
sleeping, and as he sat there waiting for him to wake.
" As if any one," the poor wife thought, " could wake
from such a still white sleep."
What would Tommy Cook have been at the present
moment if that skeleton hand had not caught him up
from his gambling and had not caned him, too, when
ever he was caught at it afterward? What would he
have been now if the inexorable will of that corpselike
head had not forced him to learn his letters ; and then to
write; and then to go to school? His patron was a
young lawyer at that time, just admitted to the bar. He
slept in a room adjoining the office. And Tommy, who
had been given a closet adjoining the room, would wake
up at night and see him many a time, still in the evening
dress of dinner or ball, sitting at the office table, studying
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 305
and reading. That was before he was married. Tommy
had known him longer than his wife. He had been
picked up out of the gutters at ten and he was now
twenty-five. Fifteen years he had been living under this
patron, and with him ; serving him, watching him, copy
ing him, trying to please him, hunting up authorities
for him as soon as he could read, taking down notes for
him as soon as he could write distinctly, learning to know
his affairs even better than he knew them himself. For
Tommy lived closer to earth and had a mind that could
creep into little business holes and places that the mind
of a gentleman could not condescend to.
As he sat at the foot of the bed, he looked indeed
more like the poor little fellow he had been than the
lawyer he had become; for he had never outgrown his
thin, starved face, and the small sad, bright eyes that
had first attracted the attention of the handsome young
lawyer passing by on the sidewalk. His black hair was
plastered down now with pomatum instead of hanging
over his eyes, and his face was clean and white; that,
with his clothes, made the only difference, after all, in
his appearance. He sat crouched down in his chair,
with his narrow shoulders bent, just as he used to sit in
the hall waiting for answers.
From under his half-closed lids the eyes of the sick
man looked at him, with a soft, gentle, fixed gaze, as at
something in a dream; one of the dreams of his long,
long sleep.
" Hello, Tommy, is that you? "
The words slipped in the faintest breath of a whisper
through the immovable lips.
Tommy gave a start at the sound of the old familiar
306 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
greeting, faint though it was, and uttered as in a dream.
But it was his patron s old familiar greeting and no
one else s; the greeting of the days when his patron was
a young lawyer and lived in the office room.
He came around to the side of the bed.
Yes, Sir," he answered as he used to do, when he
stood cap in hand at the office table.
" Tommy," but the weak voice gave out and only a
sigh followed.
" Yes, Sir."
By a great effort, the weak lids were raised and the
anxious eyes looked slowly around the room; seeing no
one but Tommy : " Tommy," he whispered. Tommy
bent over him. " I cannot hold out much longer my
strength is almost gone." The words fell slowly, with
long pauses separating them, but the will behind them
forced them out. " Stay here in the house, until "
"Yes, Sir."
How well Tommy knew his patron! His voice was
as clear and steady as if he were being sent to court on
an errand. But he bent still closer over the thin white
face and watched the closed eyes. The lids slowly
struggled open again and the great eyes looked into
Tommy s bright eyes above.
" My library," he sighed a long trembling sigh that
cut the heart of one to hear it. " Sell it at once to
pay give the money to my wife. My business "
another long sigh.
" Would you like to see some of your friends, Sir? "
" No, no," he tried to shake his head.
Ah, Tommy ! Where would you go to find a friend for
him ? One that he could trust ?
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 307
" My family food food."
The words were inarticulate. He felt them to be so,
for he opened his eyes and fixed them upon Tommy with
a look so piercing that the boy fell upon his knees and
putting his ugly little face close to the god-like head
on the pillow said steadily : " I will attend to everything,
Sir. I will look after the office and the business as I
looked after them when you were in the war, when I
was keeping them for you against your coming back.
I will keep them for you, just the same now, Sir, as if
you were coming back. And if you were to come back,
Sir, you would find me there, Sir, just as you found me
before taking care of your office, looking after your
interests for you until you came back."
Looking at the thin face and closed eyes under
him, Tommy ventured yet further, whispering close
into the ear on the pillow ! " You know, Sir, there
is no one on this earth owes as much to you as I do;
there is no one would work for you as I would. You
know that and you know me, don t you, Sir ? You ought
to know me, Sir. You picked me up out of the gutter,
and if there is any good in me you put in there, and if
you cannot trust me now, Sir, you had better have left
me a dog in the gutter. And I wish to God you had left
me a dog in the gutter if you cannot trust me now."
He said it simply. The ragamuffin who had learned
so much about life had never learned the fine language
of sentiment. He who could mimic so inimitably could
not mimic that. He had shed no tears since his drunken
mother had been taken by death from beating him;
but they came to his eyes now. As he talked, he wiped
them away with his finger. Like his patron, he thought
308 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
no one was in the room ; no one, he thought, heard him ;
no one saw him, his patron s eyes being still closed.
It was true, all true. If he could not trust Tommy,
whom could he trust ? Since he had picked him up from
the gutter, he had always found the boy sitting in some
corner of the office whenever he entered it : a thin, puny,
miserable little cripple boy, always eager to do something
for him. When indeed had Tommy not gladly responded
to his call like a dog to a whistle? Cold, rain, hunger,
fatigue when had Tommy ever felt them if his patron
required a service? When had he ever asked for any
thing for himself ? A reward ? Between them there had
never been a question of such a thing. And what was
there in life worse than the sad misery, the hard work,
the contempt and humiliation that had been Tommy s
portion in it? Yet, he had borne it all with a laugh.
Who had ever heard him complain of his lot or of his
thin undersized body, his crippled foot ? And during the
war, when he could have done so easily what others had
done, made a position and fortune for himself out of the
loot of conquest; when his patron was absent, dead for
all he knew what had he done? He had sat in the
office protecting its interests and studying to make a
lawyer of himself. He had succeeded too. Where, among
all the ardent gentlemen fighting in the State for their
politics and their bread, was there a better one? And
if there was a book left in the office to sell now, if there
was a dollar now to be made out of it for wife or child,
to whom was it owing?
If all this passed through the mind of her who stood
behind the head of the bed hearing, seeing all, pressing
her hands upon her heart to keep it still must it not
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 309
have passed through his mind also? He, who was
so much more just, so much more sensitive to merit
than she was, so much more piteous of struggling
humanity !
Did he see himself, picking up the boy as Jove might
have picked up a boor s brat? (For no Jove could
indeed have been more self-confident than he was at that
time.) There must have been some sudden revival of
the forgotten thrill of the old, intimate, and subtle tie
that daily companionship weaves between man and boy;
or it may have been only the picture of the office con
jured up so vividly before him by Tommy s words: the
office, with all it contained of his past and all that he had
thought it contained of his future, as he saw it before
him at that time. There was the business so faithfully
worked for; the knowledge so patiently acquired, the
foundations of fortune and reputation so conscientiously
laid to last forever ! Or perhaps it was the bitter waters
of defeat that overwhelmed him : the surrender, so much
worse than the one that had made the oldest and strongest
soldiers in the army shed tears. For he was alone in
this humiliation; all by himself in this surrender; and
perhaps worst shame and humiliation of all perhaps
he was to die in this second defeat perhaps, not be
allowed to fight his way out of it, but was to lie, a corpse
in a graveyard while other men marched to the redemp
tion of their land and of themselves. Or, it may have
been only mortal weakness, for life is sweet and to die
is a sorrow to the best of us. But, as Tommy was
wiping the tears from his eyes, a tear forced itself from
under the lid of the eye beneath him and rolled down the
long, white cheek.
3io THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
Tommy, awed, slipped away into silence and into his
place at the foot of the bed.
Ah, there is no departure in life that cannot be better
prepared for than the one for which so much prepara
tion is needed. At the last, when there is so much to
be said and when (as we think about it in health) no
words are quite important enough for the saying of it,
the mind is too drowsy with the sleep that is coming on
to care for anything but that, and the lips hurry over the
words as if wanting only to be done and quit with them
forever.
The sick one seemed to feel all this and he strove to
keep his eyes open and his mind awake so that if he had
to depart, he might not do so, leaving disorder behind
him.
" Mariana ! Mariana ! " The sweet musical name fell
from his stiff dry lips, like the poetry learned in his
youth. He repeated it over and over again, as if it were
cooling drops to his parched mouth.
"Mariana!"
Madame Joachim thought that the fever was coming
on again and delirium taking possession of his mind ; but
his eyes instead of closing as in delirium were wide gpen
and filled with meaning, the meaning that he wanted to
put in his incoherent sentences.
" Mariana !"
"Here I am; here I am beside youl" his wife
answered in her pleasant natural voice; almost gay it
sounded in the still, little room. Had the fever been in
reality the impersonation that the doctor and Madame
Joachim liked to imagine, what would he have thought
of that voice from that shadow of a woman !
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR
"Mariana!"
" I am here."
"Yes, I see you, I hear you. Always the same;
always by me night and day . . . always the same ..."
Of all that he had in his sleepy mind to say, that he
saw so clearly must be said, this was all he could utter.
"Mariana!"
" I am here, close to you."
" Yes, always the same, day and night, day and night."
He stopped the foolish words slipping through his lips
as in delirium. He opened his eyes wide, and gave a
long, a longing look into hers. He seemed to try to
brace his mind; but what he wanted to say seemed to
wander crookedly before him ; he followed his meaning,
nevertheless, forcing himself to go on, word by word.
" Mariana, my wife, when I had to leave you in the
city, in the power of the enemy, I told you to come out
to me, on the plantation. You came, I knew you would,
you came to me. When I had to leave you alone, on the
plantation, alone, all alone, with the children no neigh
bors, no friends, alone in the swamp alone I was
not afraid I was sure of you. In all the sickness in
all the danger, I was not afraid I was sure of you.
When I used to come creeping through the swamps,
in the night I knew I would find you there always
found you there, awake, sitting up waiting for me
awake, waiting ready to open the door, for me."
The perspiration broke out on his white forehead,
moistening his hair; but he forced himself on, word by
;word.
" In the army, before a battle men were afraid on
account of their wives and their children they would
312 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
nearly go crazy thinking what would happen to them
afterward I was not afraid, I was sure of my wife.
Mariana ! "
" I am here, I am here close to you."
" I was not afraid, I was sure of her, sure of her/ he
repeated triumphantly. " Always brave, always cheer
ful, never cast down never discouraged never tired
I, often but you never, never you! braver than I
better than I, better than I " Like slow gathering drops
from a wound the words grew fainter, more sluggish.
He had got to the end.
" My husband ! My husband ! You, not I ! My God !
It was you, not I ! "
The poor woman had risen from her knees; pale,
trembling, at last at the end of her strength and fortitude.
She wanted to scream the words aloud. She thought she
was screaming them; but no! She did not disturb his
repose. She stood, holding on to the post of the bed
to keep from falling, she leaned her head against it,
to stop the whirling in it; but she let no word, no sound,
pass her lips.
"Mariana! ..."
But here the doctor came into the room, noisily as
ever.
" Well, my friend, and how are you ? Better,
eh?"
Doctors have little originality, or care little for variety
in their salutations. This one had been used day after
day, week after week, and always in the same loud voice,
as if there were nothing so proper for a fever as a
loud, unconcerned voice. But he always roused his
patient.
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 313
" I cannot hold out " the breath hardly holding out
to whisper it. " I have to give up."
" Not yet! Not yet," responded the doctor cheerfully.
" You must not give up, you must make the fever give
up, eh?"
He made a sign to Madame Joachim, to open the
window near the bed for more light.
" No strength ..." the words barely fluttered from
the lips.
" You think you are badly off, eh? " asked the doctor.
" Well, you should see the fever ! He is worse off than
you," bending close, " I can tell you. He could not take
another case now if I gave it to him. But," laying his
finger on the pulse, and turning his ear upon the heart,
"but you ..."
" My God ! " exclaimed Madame Joachim to herself,
" how can he lie so ! "
The wife winced in pain at the word case.
" I tell you what to do," he said to Madame Joachim,
and speaking louder still so there could be no doubt
about the patient s hearing. (She knew that maneuver
of his so well.) " You go to Joachim, and you tell him
to give you a bottle of his good Spanish wine." He
described the bottle to her. " And you catch your oldest
and toughest chicken you know the kind for soup,
eh ? And you put it on. We ll show that fever ! "
he declared as if he had merely been playing with it
hitherto.
Out on the kitchen gallery, Papa Pinseau sat through
the afternoon putting off his dinner from hour to hour;
and with him sat the other old gentleman, the Kentuckian,
Polly s friend. As Papa Pinseau had encroached upon
3H THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
his time, so he encroached upon Papa Pinseau s; coming
in the morning, and sitting through the day. He too
put off his dinner ; but what did dinner matter to an old
soldier and an old hunter? And all day on the kitchen
step sat Jerry; looking toward the house, rising only to
separate the young roosters when they fought too noisily.
On the front gallery steps were Tommy Cook, and
the two boys, and Cribiche ; all of them waiting for what
no one mentioned, however much each one was thinking
of it. But the little girls ! The only change in them was
that they ran about the kitchen more excitedly than ever,
answering more decidedly than ever " Papa s better "
to any inquiry about him, as they had answered steadily
from the first day, holding their heads higher than ever
as they felt the craven spirit of uneasiness gaining
ground about them. The longer the fever lasted, the
more determined were they not to give in to it. The
old gentlemen on the gallery must have seen this in their
pity.
When it was dark, they took their leave, and the little
girls went to bed, to whisper what they would do the
next day. But the Kentuckian, went away only to wait
until he thought it was safe for him to return and take
his place on the gallery again; sitting bolt upright in his
chair throughout the night; looking up at the stars, like
a soldier at the door of his tent.
The doctor remained also, instead of going home when
his day s duties were over; and like the good soldier he
too was, sat on watch by the side of his patient.
Then the routine of so many long nights held the
house as usual ; no sound but the clock ticking away the
hours; no motion but the soft easy swaying of the fan
THE FAITHFUL WARRIOR 315
over the bed; now and then a drink of water given; at
certain intervals, a potion of medicine; the shade taken
from the light and put back again no one speaking, all
watching the patient, alone, oblivious and uncon
cerned.
AT THE VILLA BELLA
ON such long Summer afternoons the young San
Antonio ladies were at their happiest. The roses in their
garden were not fonder of warmth and brightness than
they; nor did the roses make a richer show of beauty
and color than they nor a sweeter dispensation of fra
grance when the time came for them to emerge from
their chambers, in their thin, trailing white organdie
dresses; all ruffles and lace, breathing the subtile scent
of French perfumes around them (Madame Doucelet
herself was subtile to extreme about perfumes; the dis
cretion of one as she called it the indiscretion of
another. )
Even Madame Doucelet, who strained her eyes to
discover defects in the young ladies in order that she
might have the pleasure of something to correct, even
she, could find no fault with them, externally. As she
saw it only original flaws remained; the mistakes of
their Creator, who, Madame Doucelet was forced to con
fess despite her carefully acquired piety made more
failures than successes in the production of perfect female
beauty. The hair, the complexion, the neck and the
arms, so naively exposed under the thin muslin; the
waist, the hands, the feet; the walking, the standing,
the sitting; God alone, who knew the truth, would have
taken them for the daughters of Tony, the barkeeper,
and of the market-woman, downstairs, in her short
316
AT THE VILLA BELLA 317
colonnade skirt and loose sacque, sorting onions and
garlic.
And, never did the demoiselles San Antonio sing so
well, so near the complete beauty of their voices, as on
these long, Summer afternoons, in their fine thin dresses,
with their throats bare and free, looking at their reflec
tion in the glass, and listening to their notes, soaring as
has been said like escaping birds through the open
windows into the soft, fragrant atmosphere outside;
to listening admirers on the Levee.
" Love, love, always love," Mademoiselle Minii would
exclaim to herself, wearied of the everlasting amorous
refrain of the words and timing her measure to the
vocalization above her : " Love, love, always love ! Mon
Dieu, how monotonous ! "
She herself was not at her best on these warm after
noons. The perspiration rolled from her red face, and
the cadenzas, runs, arpeggios, and trills grew more and
more slippery under her moist fingers. The toilettes of
expectation, as she called them, suited well the theme
of the singing, that seemed to be always seeking, seeking
something, until the something was found, and the
doctor came into the room.
Madame Doucelet must have noticed it too; but not
philosophically as Mademoiselle Mimi did. There was
no philosophy in the mind of Madame Doucelet; no
theories, no generalizations, no reasoning, no deductions.
They were not necessary to such an expert as she. What
she saw she saw with her eyes and not with her mind,
as Mademoiselle Mimi did; and she had good eyes for
seeing a long way off. From the beginning of her official
duties, she had seen, with the same eyes that saw a car
318 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
coming, the equivalent of what was now before her ; saw
it clearly. She wondered, how long it would be before
the young ladies themselves saw it. But, as she kept
telling herself in private, to ease her restrained feelings,
they were stupid in the extreme; stupid for all their
beauty and singing.
Mademoiselle Mimi knew when the doctor entered the
room, for she felt then as if her accompaniment were
the reins of race horses, so hard did the fresh, gushing,
thrilling voices pull against it, bounding ahead in all
the grace and strength of youth and joyousness through
variations, roulades, trills, as if they were nothing. Each
one at times rising on her toes and throwing her head
back so that the pearly notes might be seen throbbing in
the pearly throat ; each one going back to her seat after
ward, and extending foot or curving arm as Madame
Doucelet had prescribed ; or leaning back in their chairs,
the accomplishment that Lisida possessed to such per
fection of charm that her soft hair would always seem
to be almost falling from the tall comb to curl and glisten
on the bright yellow cushion behind her; the hair that
grew so prettily around face and neck.
Past forty, neither tall nor handsome, and with a face
of the most ordinary type (but such prosaic indices of
personality were the last things noticed or thought of,
in the emotion that the doctor knew how to produce;
the emotion, as it seemed to the observant Mademoiselle
Mimi, that came from the sensation of being called by
something unseen, unknown; and of following, follow
ing, that call in a charm of mystery and glamor) it did
not need even the presence of the doctor to produce this
effect. Long before he made his appearance, the effect
AT THE VILLA BELLA 319
began to be felt. Mademoiselle Mimi saw it approach
ing, with the hour, with the minute; with the sound of
the step, the opening of the door; seeing at the same
time, each one of the three young ladies recede as it
were, further and further back into herself ; farther and
farther and farther away from her sisters; away from
even the consciousness of their presence each one
separately and alone in her own way to follow the call
that each one thought she alone heard; following it,
out, beyond personality, self, into forgetfulness of
them, of everything, save that she was following some
thing unseen ; but felt, moving ahead of her, calling, call
ing, so that one could not help following when once she
had heard it and begun to follow it. This was the effect
the doctor knew how to produce upon the young
ladies.
All the while, he would be walking leisurely up the
Levee toward the Villa Bella. As he approached it, he
would look at the fine old iron fence with its interlaced
design and brick pillars holding their vases of century
plants on high. As he passed up the broad walk, his quick,
shrewd, black eyes glanced at the handsome old garden,
on each side, with its parterres and fountains and palms ;
and at the white statuettes that appeared as if they were
fleeing from pursuit into the dark shadows of the mag
nolia trees. And as he mounted the steps of the balcony
with its pedestals and vases of growing plants, and
walked over the black and white marble pavement, his
eyes grew ever larger and softer with their gratification
at so much that they liked to look upon.
He did not stop to ring the bell ; but with the bonhomie
natural to him in the home of little girls he had known
320 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
all their lives, in the convent; he entered without
ceremony among them as their old doctor; and as such
was familiar, almost paternal with them: calling them
" ma jolie brune," or " ma gentille blonde," or tapping
"ma petite Lisida, 3 on the cheek as he used to do to
all the pretty young girls at the convent ; throwing him
self into one of the great low satin jauteuils, leaning his
head back to enjoy the music; asking for the "Air de
sommeil" from 1 Africaine, or the Jewel Song from
Faust, "Ah! si 3 1 me voyait ainsi," or the "Ah! Dieu, si
j etais coquette " from the Huguenots, or the " Rosine
aria " from the " Barbier" that Lisida sang so deliciously,
almost like Patti, he said, or any other compliment that
came to him ; for it was all the same to him what they
sang. Notwithstanding her educational formula for
young ladies, one might as well suspect Madame Doucelet
as the doctor of caring for music.
Never forgetting herself an instant, she was always on
the alert to fetch a fan, or a glas of sirop and water;
open or close a window; advance a footstool, or a
pillow, as this one or that one of the young ladies needed
the attention to accentuate something in attitude or ex
pression that Madame Doucelet thought complimentary.
It must indeed have been a pleasure to her to note the
efficiency of her delicate training upon the doctor; to
note it as she did, with her sharp little eyes peering from
the dim veil she managed at certain moments to throw
over them.
The eyes of the doctor too, would peep out from under
his closed lids, now at the foot, now at the arm, now
at the hair ! And now, as if at last he could not resist
the temptation any longer, he would rise and go from one
AT THE VILLA BELLA 321
to the other, Maria, Antonia, Lisida, to make the most
insignificant of remarks to her in the manner of a man
who has his way with women.
Mademoiselle Mimi played not more skilfully on the
piano than he on the instrument he best liked to practise
on. But Mademoiselle Mimi knew nothing of her art in
comparison with what he knew of his. No one, without
turning one s back on her, could forget Mademoiselle
Mimi in her music, as she sat at the piano; but no one
remembered the doctor in his performance, although he
was before one s eyes.
" Love, love," thought Mademoiselle Mimi playing
away. " Love, always love ! Do they never get tired
of singing of love? " and while meditating thus as usual
upon music and love, people and life, she thought she
heard for in truth she did not listen to the singing
after the doctor came in, no fear of false notes or
measures then she thought she heard something like an
animal crying ; but nobody else heard it and she went on
playing, until she heard the sound again : something like
an animal, but calling.
" It is poor old Aglone," she said to herself. " He
is dead; Mr. Talbot is dead." And in a flash she saw it
all before her; the little girls with her father in the
backyard; the end of life in the front room. " Aglone
has come for me ; that is her poor old voice, calling from
the back, instead of ringing the bell in front, which she
won t do, because she despises the rich dagoes."
By this time, she had risen from the piano, seized her
gloves and portfolio, and was hurrying out of the salon,
making a sign to the doctor, who, quick as she at an
inference, followed. They hurried through the hall and
322 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
down the steps, the back ones, hearing the cries still
clearer.
" That stupid Aglone ! " exclaimed Mademoiselle Mimi
impatiently, this time aloud. The doctor who had no
thought of this kind to mislead him arrived before her
at the truth. He pushed by her and ran down the steps
and found the San Antonio woman trying to give an
alarm; to call assistance to her husband who was lying
on the brick pavement of the basement.
She had seen him leave the car and watched him as he
walked across the open pasture land, into which the
evening sun was slanting its rays; still as hot as at
midday. But when had Tony ever noticed the sun or
its heat? His wife saw he did not walk straight and
that he staggered every now and then. She wondered
at it, for Tony, whose business it was to make men drunk,
did not himself drink. He was too good a barkeeper,
as we have seen, for that. He staggered forward, as far
as the brick pavement, and there fell like a log and lay
unconscious, breathing heavily.
His wife was rubbing his hands, calling to him and
crying aloud; the cries of an animal, more than of a
woman who has given birth to daughters with beautiful
voices. Her daughters, hearing her cries, at last, ran
frightened into one of the corners of the salon and
crouched down, shutting their eyes and stopping their
ears.
Madame Doucelet hastened downstairs, and after one
glance at the prostrate body ran for the priest.
By the time the doctor was ready to go to his fever
patient, the priest had expedited the departing soul, the
heavy breathing had ceased, and Tony lay on his wife s
AT THE VILLA BELLA 323
long table in a clean blue shirt with a crucifix on his
breast and candles burning at his head.
Ah, Death that, like a skeleton with finger on lip,
had been moving so stealthily around the cottage of the
Americans, put on a different aspect when he visited the
Villa Bella !
When Tony was out on the hot Levee, chaffering
with oystermen about his September supply, Death had
him then, and could have taken him; but he played with
him, like a cat with a mouse ; letting him out of his grasp
to catch him again. When Tony took the car to go
home, and sank into a corner seat; drunken as the
driver and the passengers thought him Death was
watching him all the time, opening and shutting his hand
over him. Death let him reach his gate, which the
driver of the car had to open for him and help him to
get through, watched him staggering toward the house,
let him reach the threshold, but there the play closed.
Death caught him and this time held him. As the doctor
and the priest walked away together from the Villa
Bella, the doctor began gently to speak of the San
Antonios. Pere Phileas, evidently, never imagined be
fore who and what they were; that is, what great wealth
they possessed and what good Catholics they were and
all else that the doctor unfolded about them with the
agile hand of a surgeon at the operating table the
probable and possible consequences to St. Medard of the
union of this great wealth with the great faith.
" Tony," proceeded the doctor, from his initial base,
" made money, we shall not ask how ; he is not account
able to us now. He accumulated a fortune; we ask
ourselves wherefore seeing that as for himself and his
324 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
wife, for poor, hard-working people they were born and
poor, hard-working people they lived."
The doctor shook his head reflectively and improvised
(at least the priest thought he improvised) further along.
" He made money and he stored it in one bank and
another, and in that safe in his and his wife s room ; that
safe which her eyes never forgot, not for a moment did
she lose sight of. Of course, you do not know it, but
that is the reason that she never left the house ; never left
the place where she could sit and watch the room the
safe was in. She is sitting by her husband s body now ;
but she sits so as to keep watch on that safe. In banks
and in that safe he stored it," the doctor reverted to
the beginning of his sentence, for he was as neat in his
oratory as in his bandaging. " More in the safe than
in the banks, for good reasons, doubtless. It is a mis
take to suppose that he was only the vulgar common
dago he appeared to be. No, he was what we call a
financier; in truth, mon Phe, a great financier; and as
a priest guards the mysteries of his faith, so the financier
guards the mysteries of his wealth. All wealth, like all
religions, has its mysteries, its inexplicable . . . But
we. see now, you see it too, mon Pere " the doctor
paused significantly. " The daughters in the convent
carefully preserved in their piety and innocence ..."
(but the doctor did not dwell upon the convent; for it
has always been notorious in St. Medard that the church
and the convent cast, at the best, only cross-eyed looks
at one another) ..." storing good intentions while
their father stored wealth. And now ; just as they reach
the perfection of their piety, and the full bloom of their
youth and sentiments ah, when it comes to sentiments,
AT THE VILLA BELLA 325
it is only the young who are bold and strong and daring.
A young girl can put the strongest man to shame when
it comes to expressing sentiments. Yes, the young dare
anything that the heart bids, they do not know what
prudence, what caution means . . ."
Pere Phileas, as he strained his mind to follow intel
ligently so many flights and so many tracks at once, could
not but thank God in his heart, that while he was attend
ing to Tony s soul, and only to that; so wise and sure a
ministrant was at hand to think of what seemed in truth
of so much more importance of the wealth that the soul
had been obliged to leave; the wealth, which the doctor
gave him to infer had been accumulated in a mysterious
way for the eventual profiting, so at least the priest con
strued it, of the church in St. Medard; the poor little
church of poor little St. Medard and not of the rich
convent of the rich Ursulines as might have been ex
pected.
" What they need now, the San Antonios," the doctor
turned in the path and faced the priest impressively,
" what they need now, mon Pere, after the consolations
of the church, is a good lawyer, an honest one. Think
of it, money in banks all over the city, and that safe
full of securities, bonds, stocks, banknotes, who knows?
Gold and jewels, too, perhaps and that old woman
she is not really old, she and Tony were both younger
than people thought that old woman who cannot read
or write, who never talks, who hardly knows her
daughters ; while they do not know her at all. I do not
know if there is a will. I expect not. Such people
do not make wills. (The doctor s sentences grew
laconic as he approached the nucleus around which he
326 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
had been revolving.) If there is no will, you know the
public administrator will put his hands to it! and you
know who the public administrator is ! A negro ! And if
he were only a negro, no more than that ! But in addi
tion there is a politician, a white carpet-bagger, behind
the negro ; that is what the public administrator is ; negro,
carpet-bagger; carpet-bagger, negro; that is what our
government is from governor down. Negro in front;
carpet-bagger behind. Carpet-bagger in front ; negro be
hind. Whew ! " the doctor blew out his breath as if that
was what he feared Tony s fortune would amount to in
the hands of the public administrator.
" A good lawyer could arrange it all ... "
" A good lawyer/ continued the doctor. " A good
lawyer ! But Madame San Antonio ! will she ever think
of such a thing? Never. She will sit watching her
safe; selling her picayune worth of milk; and onions
. . . and . . . Ah, if she had only a good lawyer? A
lawyer like our friend over there," he nodded toward the
sick room.
" But," began Pere Phileas again, with pardonable
curiosity. "But ..."
" A good American lawyer, an American lawyer could
manage it, an honest one with a reputation. You know
he has a great reputation uptown our friend over there
one to make a public administrator afraid." The
doctor, too astute not to foresee the question and
evade it, paid no attention to the attempted inter
ruption.
" She must be protected the widow in her rights,
and the daughters in their heritage," pursued the doctor,
scratching his head reflectively. " What Tony left be-
AT THE VILLA BELLA 327
longs to them the fortune he made in spite of the
question of how he made it. Money, mon Pere, as you
of the church know, is like running water, it purifies itself
in its course."
" But," the priest eagerly availed himself of the open
ing afforded by the pause, " if . . . "
" He could manage it ; he could save that fortune and
put it in the good course, as we may say. It is not the
good course the public administrator will put it in, of
that we may be sure. And our friend, here . . . " They
were close to the gate; he thought a moment, and then
went on briskly : " Another lawyer, even one with a
great reputation, might do but there is always danger
with lawyers ! Even with those of the best reputation at
the bar." (Which showed that he knew lawyers at least
as well as lawyers knew doctors.) " They have a way
of managing a rich succession, of settling them, as the
kings of France used to settle an inconvenient personage,
by shutting him up in the Bastille and keeping him there
until he died. Eh, mon Pere? " (He gave an interroga
tory end to his phrase in deference to Pere Phileas s
knowledge of the kings of France.) "The lawyer, he
only shuts up the succession in court until he eats it up
with his costs, and his fees, and a little borrowed here,
and loaned there, at ten, twenty, fifty per cent, profit
not to the estate, oh, no ! to their own pocket. . . . Ah,
mon Pere, you know this world and you know the other ;
but you do not know lawyers. But," taking the priest s
arm genially, " there are good lawyers to be found if one
takes the trouble to look for them. St. Medard has one
here one would say he has brought one here for the
purpose, his purpose why should we not say it? . . .
328 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. M^DARD
and a good lawyer could arrange it all as easily as you
could a case of disquieted conscience.
Poor Pere Phileas! What case of conscience had he
ever arranged? From all that he had ever seen of a
conscience disquieted or otherwise among his flock, he
might affirm that Gascons were born without them. He
could frighten them with hell ; yes, if that could be called
arranging cases of conscience.
They were now at the gate of the cottage and at the
end of their conversation. " When you are praying for
Tony, Father, pray to St. Medard for his family, that
they may not fall into the hands of the wrong
lawyer. . . . Good-bye then to their money, and," he
reiterated, " their pious intentions."
The good Pere Phileas who was docile enough in
listening to advice and accepting assistance in behalf of
his parish, and who was not one to shut his eyes to any
light held out to him whereby the affairs of St. Medard
might be bettered was not so simple; however, as to be
put off any longer when he had an important question
to ask; one all the more important since he saw what
great results the answer included. Firmly, therefore, he
opened his mouth to put his question for the third time.
The wily doctor, however, again eluded him for the third
time, by anticipating his direct words : " What can one
say? As long as there is life, well, there is life . . .
a fever? " he shrugged his shoulders. " It kills or it goes
away, there is no other alternative." He could not
hazard anything more definite, not willing, like the good
doctor he was, to run the risk of having his judgment
reversed by the event. " Nevertheless," deftly mingling
his science with piety : " we doctors must always hope,
AT THE VILLA BELLA 329
mon Pere, as you good priests must pray, no matter
what we fear. Our hopes are our prayers, is not that
so?"
After this, he entered the sick room as has been
described, himself to pass the night on watch.
" What has happened? But what has happened?"
The question gathered slowly in Madame Joachim s
mind from a thousand minute sources; imperceptible
ones to any mind but one who depends on observation for
knowledge. "What has happened?" she repeated con
tinually to herself during the night as she watched the
doctor, watching his patient. She could not have ex
plained, to herself, the reasons that formed such a ques
tion, any more than she could have explained the reasons
of the formation of the clouds that passed over the sky.
But why should she bother herself with explanations?
She did not need them as, to quote her own words, she
knew what she knew, for the doctor no more carried a
face for people to read, than the sky, one for people
to understand. So, as the night went on, she asked her
self, whenever she looked at him, not " Has anything
happened?" but "What has happened?" Finally, as
one tired of walking in a dark tunnel, she chose her
moment, and softly leaving the room on her fat feet,
she went to Cribiche on the gallery.
" My son," she whispered, shaking her head signifi
cantly : " Go find out what has happened. Something
has happened, run quick and bring me the answer."
The longer Cribiche tarried on his errand the better
satisfied she was.
When he returned with his report, she took him to the
far end of the gallery. He was breathless with running,
330 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
and beside himself with amazement, excitement, and ex
ultation at what he had discovered.
" Eh, Madame Joachim ! It is Tony ! But it is Tony
who is dead ! "
He closed his eyes and folded his hands on his breast
to show how Tony looked ; as he told of the crucifix, the
clean shirt, the candles; Madame Tony on one side,
Madame Doucelet on the other, praying. He had seen
it all. " Dead ! He is dead ! Madame Joachim ! Eh,
but St. Medard has sense," winking in the dark at her
and laughing. " St. Medard knows what he is about !
He has sense ; he jerked Tony up ! And Tony was fooled !
Tony was fooled this time!" He laughed and jeered:
" Blow, San Antonio ! Blow ! Blow, San Antonio !
Blow," mimicking the prayer of the Italian luggermen to
their patron saint when their luggers are becalmed.
" A . . . h H . . . a! " was all that Madame Joachim
answered. When she went back to the sick room, she
had emerged from her tunnel and was in the clear light
of day.
" Lisida, Maria, Antonia, which shall it be? Maria,
Antonia, Lisida? " She knew now what the doctor was
thinking about, what had made her sure that something
had happened.
Madame Doucelet put her young ladies to bed and
stayed with them until they went to sleep because they
were afraid to be left alone. They did not keep her long,
and when she left the room, she left it until the time
for the chapel bell of the convent to ring in the morning.
Convent girls know how to sleep soundly.
Then, Madame Doucelet went downstairs with her
prayer beads. She could pray a night through by a
AT THE VILLA BELLA 33 1
corpse, as easily as her young ladies could sleep upstairs.
Her poverty had made many things easy to her; had
taught her to be useful to others, in many ways; in
superintending funerals and mourning, as well as shop
ping, and the training of young ladies. And now, she
could pray by this corpse almost happily, animated with
the perfect faith that makes prayer a satisfaction, that
sees clearly as through a glass, that what is prayed for
is sure to arrive. Now, she could look ahead as far as
she cared to the point where she expected to find what
she never for a moment of the day forgot; what she
was ever seeking, ever, without intermission, no matter
what she appeared to be doing; what, it had been her
vocation to seek, as she would have phrased it, through
her long life of poverty money; the money that would
free her henceforth to do nothing but her pleasure, that
is live undisturbed by word or torment in her little
room in St. Anthony s alley (where she could almost
touch the Cathedral from her window) go to church
and pray. There was nothing now ahead of her to
prevent her seeing that point clearly ; nothing at all. The
abject wife and mother, sitting on the other side of the
corpse, too stupid in her grief and bewilderment even to
weep; she was nothing to Madame Doucelet, no obstacle
in the way of anything she saw ahead of her or the young
ladies. The young ladies, far from being an obstacle,
were to be her means to the end the goal in view.
The prayer beads ran faster and faster through her
fingers; the prayers, faster and faster through her lips,
as she thought of all that was ahead of her and the young
ladies her means to her end. The doctor, himself, was
not more absorbed in his meditation than she in hers.
THE TURNING OF THE ROAD
WHEN daylight came into the sick room, and the shaded
lamp was extinguished, and the windows were thrown
wide open, the patient opened his eyes and followed the
doctor going the rounds of his inspection. His lips were
too weak to speak, but not his eyes.
" Sonnez clairons, tambours battez! " The loud voice
of the commander called his officers to his side. " What
did I tell you? He has gone! Our enemy has gone!
Ha! We held out too long for him! No, he will not
come back ! His ultimatum was * You go or I go ! and
we bluffed him ! He has gone ! "
How prosaic the scene! The shabby little room with
its cheap furniture; the disordered bed; the ugly details
of illness ; the worn, tired wife ; Madame Joachim in her
rumpled blouse volante; the doctor, despite his good
qualities as doctor, so loud of voice, so offensive of
manner; the children s towzled heads peeping through the
door; all so commonplace. But no stage however
heroic, no circumstances however resplendent, no per
sonages however exalted, no language ever invented by
dramatist, could have produced a moment of greater
effect than the one in the little room, among the poor
accessories of St. Medard. To one of the personages,
Heaven itself could not have opened a more beautiful,
radiant vision than what she saw then. And what did
she see ? Only an ugly little dirt road of a future opening
332
THE TURNING OF THE ROAD 333
out again before her, twisting its way along, with all its
ruts and weeds, its ugliness and roughness ; but in it she,
the wife, and all the family, trudging along hopefully
after their head.
" Ha, ha, ha, ha ! " laughed the doctor, over the joke
that was to come. " The fever will not be ready for
another case soon, I warrant you, but you ? Ha, ha, ha ! "
They stood around the bed, sipping the cups of black
coffee that old Aglone herself brought them. She had
sat up all night too, in the kitchen, in case (that respon
sibility of the cook in the hour of danger) they needed
black coffee during the night. Were the doctor the be
liever he wished the devout to take him for, he must
have believed that the Lady of Lourdes, or St. Medard,
both being beholden to him, had placed Tommy Cook
there on the gallery, in the early morning light, for their
own grateful purposes.
And Tommy, after his long night on the gallery, look
ing at the brilliant August stars above him, and ponder
ing over life and death and the even graver question of
people making a living ; when he saw the rich succession
falling down so close to his patron s hand, like a planet
as it were out of the clear heavens; he might have be
lieved something equally as probable, could he have
believed in anything but his patron s principles and his
own sharpness. This sharpness as he decided even
while the doctor was speaking to him, as he spoke the
evening before to the priest the sharpness must be
called into service at once (as it had been called into
service to save the library during the war) before Tony s
death was known through the papers to a whole bar of
greedy lawyers a rich succession makes even the richest
334 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
lawyer greedy. After the sharpness had secured the suc
cession, it could wait until the principles were well enough
to proceed upon it.
A good succession! That was a prize worth captur
ing ! And not many of that kind sailed the sea of litiga
tion. Such a succession as Tony s would indeed furnish
a living to any lawyer, for any number of years, until,
at least and that was all Tommy cared for the State
was restored to her status quo, and his patron to his.
The name of Talbot seemed to brighten out again on
the office sign as he thought of it, and the faces of the
inquiring lawyer friends grow dim. As he and the doctor
walked along together, the doctor seemed to be treading
on air, so elated was he. And he was not vague as when
talking to the priest, but as man to man, clear and to the
point. No lawyer could have made himself clearer as
he told off the points that rose before his mind: the
ignorant widow who would necessarily be always in tute
lage to her legal adviser whom in the end she would
follow as blindly as she had followed Tony, the
daughters as ignorant for all their education as the
mother, completely in the hands of an unscrupulous
sharper (so he diagnosed the case of Madame Doucelet)
who he was confident had already planned to stir up
trouble, very likely had a lawyer already engaged for
the purpose and so they came to the house from whose
doorpost a long black crape was floating in the breeze.
In the presence of death, what an intruder Time
seems to be ? Who then pays any regard to him or to his
paltry trade of minutes? He is treated, indeed, then,
no better than a peddler, singing " Rabais! Rabais! "
So short a while from daylight ! And yet, Tommy found
THE TURNING OF THE ROAD 335
what looked like mid-day at the Villa Bella. Servants
were sweeping, Madame Doucelet was throwing open
the windows of the salon, and directing the pinning of
sheets over the mirrors and the pictures, and the arrang
ing of the chairs. She surely was a woman of inex
haustible enterprise and activity in funeral emergencies.
Tony, she had decided, must be brought up into the
handsome drawing-room that he had entered so seldom
in life, and he must have a funeral that befitted, not his
past but the future of his daughters; and no one knew
better than Madame Doucelet what that future required
in the way of the conventional. Madame Doucelet had,
herself, bargained with the undertaker for a handsome
coffin with silver handles and silver candelabra to stand
around it holding wax candles. Tony, in short, was to
lie like some rich respectable merchant amid the pretty
furniture, ornaments, laces, and frescoes, that the old
Spaniards had gathered together for their own life and
death; a symbol himself, indeed, among symbols!
When the young ladies heard that the coffin was to
be brought upstairs and put there just over the hall from
their chamber, they were more frightened than ever.
They wanted to run out of the house, they frantically
pleaded with Madame Doucelet to let them go to the
convent for the day, or just for the funeral. They
caught hold of her dress and held on to it (strong young
women as they were) when she wanted to leave them.
Ah, yes! They were frightened enough then to forget
even their looking-glasses. When Madame Doucelet did
leave them for she was going over her opportunity with
a microscope as it were they buried their heads in their
pillows and stopped their ears to keep from hearing what
336 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. M&DARD
was going on. There is no power on earth that would
have induced them to look out of the windows or doors,
so afraid they were of seeing the coffin brought in.
Madame San Antonio was still in her same place,
sitting by her husband, almost as dead-looking as he;
too stunned still even to replace the flickering candles in
the sockets of the candlesticks. The doctor, himself, did
it when he came in. But she was not so stupid, and
ignorant, as she seemed to be ; as the clever people about
her thought her to be. She had lived with Tony too long
to be that, at least about business. She had been saving
and holding on to money too long to forget it, even
now. Indeed, she would have sold five cents of milk or
eggs that very morning if any one had come to buy.
Tony had been forced to learn much about the law
and therefore was not inexperienced in lawyers. How
could he be? The law being to the barkeeper what the
devil is to the righteous. The path of his money-making
had been little more than one long dodging of it; one
continuous flight from the pursuing jaws ever seeking
to devour him. Many a time driven to bay by the legal
condottiere sent by the city against him he had been
forced (though all unknowing in his ignorance) to adopt
the distinguished expedient of famous illicit money-
getters of picturesque past ages : to subsidize those forces
sent against him the lawyers. He found that he could
always afford to pay them more than their clients could.
Whatever Tony knew, his wife knew, silent as he was.
Wives of such husbands gain their knowledge, as
parasites do their growth, from the tree they live on.
Tommy had little trouble with her. He felt with her
none of the embarrassment that intimidated him with a
THE TURNING OF THE ROAD 337
lady; lifted by long inheritance of refinement, far, far
above his standing ground in human nature. He could
talk to her as he could have talked to his mother.
The priest? The doctor? Could St. Medard himself
have opened the old woman s safe any easier than he
did? Or have confided more trustfully to him the
handling of the papers whereby the precious succession
was to be secured from the hands of one who would
not put it in the good way ?
It has been explained that the one grief of the bar
keeper and his wife was the loss of a son, whose life
was a trellis upon which they were training their affection
and ambition to climb, and how, in their despair at his
death, they let their affection and ambition grovel hence
forward on the ground ; and how in their ignorance, they
could never understand why the son whom they loved,
and wanted, should be taken from them; and how the
daughters they did not want should live. One cannot
speak surely about a father ; but a mother even though
she spend her life groveling on the earth alongside of a
husband when she loses a son that she loves she loses
him not from her heart; his life is never dissevered from
the life that conceived him. From year to year she
follows his growth, from birthday to birthday counts his
age ; and her best dream is that she is still carrying him
in her arms, suckling him at her breast. And when in
after life she meets one of the age the son might be;
who talks to her mayhap in the voice he might have had ;
who takes her hand, her onion-smelling hand, as he
might have done; in her loneliness, with only three fine
daughters upstairs . . . (But all this is, it must be, con
jectural) ... In sober truth, all that can be said by one
338 THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD
who knows only the outside of a woman s or a mother s
heart is ; that as easily as the undertaker s men lifted the
corpse and laid it in the coffin, so was the corpse s suc
cession lifted by Tommy and laid where no other lawyer
but his patron could get it ; and well out of the reach of
the public administrator.
And by the time that Tony s hearse had accomplished
its slow journey to the Louisa Street Cemetery, Tommy
had towed his prize safely to the office and anchored it
in the armoir of litigation. And Tony, who had laid up
treasures nowhere but on earth, entered the other world
as great a pauper as he had entered this one.
"And now," said Tommy succinctly to himself, as
he sat in the office, waiting for the appearance of the kind
inquirers of his patron s health, " now, the country is
safe."
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