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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23247-0.txt b/23247-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..13a9b5c --- /dev/null +++ b/23247-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,933 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cursed Patois, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Cursed Patois + From “Mackinac And Lake Stories”, 1899 + +Author: Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +Release Date: October 30, 2007 [EBook #23247] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURSED PATOIS *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE CURSED PATOIS + +From “Mackinac And Lake Stories”, 1899 + +By Mary Hartwell Catherwood + + +As his boat shot to the camp dock of beach stones, the camper thought he +heard a child's voice behind the screen of brush. He leaped out and drew +the boat to its landing upon a cross-piece held by two uprights in the +water, and ascended the steep path worn in leaf mould. + +There was not only a child, there was a woman also in the camp. And +Frank Puttany, his German feet planted outward in a line, his smiling +dark face unctuous with hospitality towards creatures whom he had +evidently introduced, in foolish helplessness gave his partner the usual +greeting: + +“Veil, Prowny.” + +“Hello, Puttany. Visitors?” + +Brown pulled off his cap to the woman. She was pretty, with eyes like +a deer's, with white teeth showing between her parted scarlet lips, and +much curling hair pinned up and blowing over her ears. She had the rich +tint of a quarter-breed, lightened in her case by a constant suffusion +which gave her steady color. She was dressed in a mixture of patches, +but all were fitted to her perfect shape with a Parisian elegance sensed +even by-backwoodsmen. Pressed against her knee stood the dirtiest and +chubbiest four-year-old child on the borders of Brevoort Lake--perhaps +the dirtiest on the north shore of Michigan. The Indian mixed with his +French had been improved on by the sun until he was of a brick redness +and hardness of flesh; a rosy-raeated thing, like a good muskalonge. +Brown suddenly remembered the pair. They were Joe La France's wife and +child. Joe La France was dead. Puttany had recently told him that Joe +La France left a widow and a baby without shelter, and without relations +nearer than Canada. + +After greeting Brown the guest resumed her seat on one of the +camp-chairs, a box worn smooth by much use, having a slit cut in the top +through which the hand could be thrust to lift it. + +The camp, in a small clearing, consisted of two tents, both of the +wedge-shaped kind. The sleeping-tent was nearly filled by the bed +it contained; and this, lifted a few inches above the ground on pole +supports, was of browse or brush and straw, covered with blankets. A +square canopy of mosquito-netting protected it. The cooking-tent had a +foundation of logs and a canvas top. The floor was of pure white sand. +Boxes like lockers were stored under the eaves to hold food, and in one +corner a cylindrical camp-stove with an oven thrust its pipe through a +tinned hole in the roof. Plenty of iron skillets, kettles, and pans hung +above the lockers on pegs in the logs; and the camp dinner service of +white ware, black-handled knives and forks, and metal spoons, neatly +washed, stood on a table. Jess, the Scotch collie, who was always left +to guard the tents in their owners' absence, sat at her usual post +within the door; and she and Brown exchanged repressed growls at the +strangers. Jess, being freed from her chain, trotted at his heels when +he went back to the beach to clean fish for supper. She sat and watched +his deft and work-hardened hands as he dipped and washed and drew and +scaled his spoil. He was a clean-skinned, blue-eyed Canadian Irishman, +well made and sinewy, bright and open of countenance. His blond hair +clung in almost flaxen tendrils to his warm forehead. No ill-nature was +visible about him, yet he turned like a man in fierce self-defence on +his partner, who followed Jess and stood also watching him. + +“Puttany, you fool! what have you brought these cursed patois into camp +for?” + +“Joe La France vas my old pardner,” softly pleaded the German. + +“Damn you, man, we can't start an orphan-asylum and widows' home! We'll +get a bad name at the hotels. The real good people won't have us for +guides.” + +“She told me in Allanville she had no place to stay. She did not know +what to do. At the old voman's, where Joe put her, they have need of her +bed. The old voman is too poor to keep her any more.” + +“I'd have done just what you did; that's what makes me so mad. How long +is she going to stay?” + +“I don't know,” sheepishly responded his partner. + +“A Dutchman ought to have more sense than to load up with a lot of +cursed patois. Nothing but French and Indian! We'll have to put the +precious dears in the sleeping-tent, and bunk down ourselves with +blankets in the other. Did you air the blankets good this morning, +Frank?” + +“They vos veil aired.” + +“You're a soft mark, Frank! One of us will have to marry Joe La France's +widow--that's what it will come to!” Brown slapped the water in violent +disgust, but Puttany blushed a dark and modest red. + +Men of their class rarely have vision or any kind of foresight. They +live in the present and plan no farther than their horizon, being, like +children, overpowered by visible things. But the Irish Canadian had +lived many lives as lake sailor and lumberman, and he had a shrewd eye +and quick humor. It was he who had devised the conveniences of the camp, +and who delicately and skilfully prepared the meals so that the two +fared like epicures; while Puttany did the scullery-work, and was +superior only at deerstalking. + +The perfume of coffee presently sifted abroad, and the table was brought +out and set under the evening sky. Lockers gave up their store of bread +and pastry made by the capable hands of the camp housekeeper. The woman, +their guest, sat watching him move from cook-tent to table, and Puttany +lounged on the dog-kennel, whittling a stick. + +“Frank,” said his partner, with sudden authority, “you take the kid down +to the water and scrub him.” + +“All over?” whispered Puttany, in confusion. + +“No--just his hands and top. Supper is ready to put on.” + +The docile mother heard her child yelling and blubbering under generous +douches while nurse's duty was performed by one of her entertainers, and +she smiled in proof that her faith was grounded on their righteousness. +She was indeed a mere girl. Her short scarlet upper lip showed her teeth +with piquant innocence. As much a creature of the woods as a doe, her +lot had been that primitive struggle which knows nothing about the +amenities and proprieties of civilization. This Brown could clearly see, +and he addressed her with the same protecting patronage he would have +used with the child. + +“What's your kid's name?” + +“Grégoire, but he call himself Gougou. Me, I am Françoise La France.” + +“Yes, I know that..You have had a hard time since Joe died.” + +“I been anxion”--she clasped her hands and looked pleadingly at him--“I +been very anxion!” + +“Well, you're all right now.” + +“You let me do de mend'? I can sew. I use' learn to sew when I have +t'ing to sew on.” + +“Jerusalem! look at them shirts on the line! We have more clothes to +sew on than any dude at the hotels. And if that isn't enough, I'll make +Puttany strip and stay in the brush while you do his clothes.” + +Françoise widened her smile. + +“I've been thinking we'll have to build you a house right over there.” + Her entertainer indicated the shore behind her. + +“Oppos'?” exclaimed Françoise, turning with pleased interest. Even in +her husband's lifetime little thought had ever been taken for her. + +“Yes, directly opposite. We can fix it up snug like our winter camp at +the other end of the lake.” + +“Have you two camp?” + +“Yes--a winter camp and a summer camp. But we have stayed comfortably +here in the cook-tent until the thermometer went fourteen degrees below +zero. We'll sleep in it till we get your house done, and you can take +the tent. If there are no parties wanting guides, we might as well begin +it in the morning.” + +“But,” faltered Françoise, “afterw'iles when de ice is t'ick, and you go +to de hudder camp--” + +“Oh, we'll take care of you,” he promised. “You and Gougou will go with +us. We couldn't leave you on this side.” + +“In de dark nights,” shuddered Françoise. + +“You needn't be afraid, any time. When we are off during the day we +always leave Jess and Jim to guard the camp. Jess is a Scotch collie and +Jim is a blood-hound. He's there in the kennel. Neither man nor varmint +would have any chance with them.” + +“I been use' to live alone when my husban' is away, M'sieu' Brownee. I +not 'fraid like you t'ink. But if Gougou be cold and hongry.” + +“Now that's enough,” said Brown, with gentle severity. “Gougou will +never be cold and hungry again while there's a stick of wood to be cut +on the shores of this lake, or any game to bag, or a 'lunge to spear +through the ice. We get about two days' lumbering a week down by +St. Ignace. No use to work more than two days a week,” he explained, +jocosely. “That gives us enough to live on; and everybody around here +owes us from fifty to a hundred dollars back pay for work, anyhow. I've +bought this ground, twenty acres of it, and another year I'm going to +turn it into a garden.” + +“Oh, a garden, M'sieu' Brownee! Me, I love some garden! I plant honion +once, salade also.” + +“But I want to get my fences built before I put in improvements. You +know what the silver rule is, don't you?” + +“No, m'sieu',” answered Françoise, vaguely. She knew little of any rule. + +“The silver rule is different from the golden rule. It's 'Do your +neighbors, or your neighbors will do you.' If I don't protect myself, +all the loose cattle around Brevoort will graze over me. Every fellow +for himself. We can't keep the golden rule. We'd never get rich if we +did.” + +“You are rich mans?” interrogated Françoise, focussing her curiosity on +that invisible power of wealth. + +“Millionaires,” brazenly claimed the young man, as he put an +earthen-ware pitcher on the table. “Set there, you thousand-dollar dish! +We don't have a yacht on the lake because we prefer small boats, and +we go out as guides to have fun with the greenhorns. The cooking at the +hotels is good enough for common hunters and fishermen who come here +from the cities to spend their money, but it isn't good enough for me. +You've come to the right place, you may make your mind easy on that.” + +Françoise smiled because he told her to make her mind easy, not because +she understood the irony of his poverty. To have secure shelter, and +such a table as he spread, and the prowess to achieve continual abundant +sustenance from the world, made wealth in her eyes. She was as happy as +Gougou when this strange family, gathered from three or four nations, +sat down to their first meal. + +The sun went low like a scarlet eggy probing the mother-of-pearl lake +with a long red line of shadow, until it wasted into grayness and so +disappeared. Then home-returning sails became spiritualized, and moved +in mist as in a dream--foggy lake and sky, as one body, seeming to push +in upon the land. + +Françoise slept the sleep of a healthy woman, with her child on her arm, +until at dawn the closed flap of the tent yielded to a bounding shape. +She opened her startled eyes to see Jim the blood-hound at the foot of +the bed, jerking the mosquito-netting. He growled at the interlopers, +not being able in his canine mind to reconcile their presence with his +customary duty of waking his masters in that tent. A call and a whistle +at the other side of the camp drew him away doubting. But in a day both +he and Jess had adopted the new members of the family and walked at +Gougou's heels. + +Gougou existed in wonderland. He regarded the men as great and amiable +powers, who could do what they pleased with the elements and with the +creatures of the earth. They had a fawn, which had followed Brown home +along the beach, feeding on leaves from his hand. They had built it a +sylvan home of cedar boughs behind the camp, from which it wandered +at will. And though at first shy of Gougou, the pretty thing was soon +induced to stand upon its hind feet and dance for bits of cake. His +Indian blood vearned towards the fawn; but Me-thuselah, the mighty +turtle, was more exciting. Methuselah lived a prisoner in one side of +the bait-tank, from which he was lifted by a rope around his tail. He +was so enormous that it required both Brown and Puttany to carry him +up the bank, and as he hung from the pole the sudden projection of his +snapping head was a danger. When he fastened his teeth into a stick, the +stick was hopelessly his as long as he chose to keep it. He was like +an elephant cased in mottled shell, and the serrated ridge on his tail +resembled a row of huge brown teeth. Methuselah was a many-wrinkled +turtle. When he contracted, imbedding head in shoulders and legs in +body, revealing all his claws and showing wicked little eyes near the +point of his nose, his helpless rage stirred all the Indian; he was the +most deliciously devilish thing that Gougou had ever seen. + +Then there was the joy of wintergreen, which both men brought to the +child, and he learned to forage for it himself. The fleshy dark green +leaves and red berries clustered thickly in the woods. He and his +mother went in the boat when the day was to be given to bass or pickerel +fishing, and he learned great lessons of water-lore from the two men. +If they trusted a troll line to his baby hands, he was in a state of +beatitude. His object in life was to possess a bear cub, and many +a porcupine creeping along the beach he mistook for that desirable +property, until taught to distinguish quills from fur. Gougou heard, and +he believed, that all porcupines were old lumbermen, who never died, but +simply contracted to that shape. He furtively stoned them when he could, +reflecting that they were tough, and delighting to see the quills fly. + +Françoise would sit in the camp like a picture of still life, glowing +and silent at her appointed labor. She sewed for all of them, looking +womanly and unhurried, with a pink-veined moccasin-flower in her hair; +while Brown, cooking and baking, rushed from tent to wood-pile, his +sleeves turned back from his white, muscular arms. He lived more +intensely than any other member of the sylvan household. His blue eyes +shone, and his face was vivid as he talked to her. He was a common man, +blunted in the finer nature by a life of hardship, yet his shrewd spirit +seized on much that less facile people like Puttany learned slowly or +not at all. + +Puttany and the child were often together in one long play, broken +only by the man's periods of labor. They basked in a boat near rushes, +waiting for pickerel to strike, or waded a bog to a trout stream at the +other end of the lake, hid in a forest full of windfalls and hoary moss +and tropical growths of brake and fern. Gougou had new strong clothes +and buckskin shoes. For the patois had not been a week in camp before +Brown went to St. Ignace and brought back denim and white and black +calico, which he presented to Françoise. + +“She ought to have a kind of second mourning,” he explained to Puttany, +who received his word on any matter as law. “Joe La France wasn't worth +wearing first mourning for, but second mourning is decent for her, and +it won't show in the camp like bright colors would.” + +The world of city-maddened people who swarmed to this lake for their +annual immersion in nature did not often intrude on the camp. Yet the +fact of a woman's presence there could not be concealed, and Puttany was +disciplined to say to strangers, “Dot vas my sister and her little poy.” + +A tiny cabin was built for Françoise, with the luxuries of a puncheon +floor and one glazed window. She inhabited it in primitive gladness, as +a child adorns a play-house, and was careful to keep it in that trim, +military state which Brown demanded. Françoise had a regard for M'sieu' +Put-tanee, who was neat and ladylike in all his doings, and smiled +amiably at her over her boy's head; but her veneration of M'sieu' +Brownee extended beyond the reach of humor. If he had been a priest he +could have had no more authority. She used to watch him secretly from +her window at dawn, as he put himself through a morning drill to limber +his muscles. Some spectators might have laughed, but she heard as +seriously as if they were the motions of her own soul his tactics with a +stick: + +“Straight out--across the shoulder--under the arm--down on the turf!” + +There were days when the misty gray lake, dim and delicious, lay veiled +within its irregular shores. Then the lowering sun stood on tree-tops, +a pale red wraith like the ghost of an Indian. And there were days +of sharp, clear shine, when Black Point seemed to approach across the +water, and any moving object could be seen in the Burning--a growth of +green springing where the woods had been swept by fire. The men were +often away, guiding fishing parties from dawn until sunset, or hunting +parties from sunset half the night. Françoise and Gou-gou dwelt in the +camp, having the dogs as their protectors, though neither primitive nor +civilized life menaced them there with any danger. Some evenings, when +few affairs had crowded the day, Brown sat like a patriarch in the midst +of his family, and took Gougou on his knee to hear bear stories. He +supervised the youngster's manners like a mother, and Gougou learned to +go down to the washing-place and use soap when the signs were strong for +bear-dens and deer-stalking. + +“I saw a bear come out on the beach once,” Brown would tell him, “when +I was stalking for deer and had a doe and fawn in the lake. I smelt him, +but couldn't get him to turn his eyes towards me. I killed both deer, +and skinned them, and cut up one. And that bear went into the woods and +howled for hours. I took all the venison I could carry, but left part +of the carcasses. When we went after them in the morning, the bear had +eaten all up clean.” + +Bear-dens, Gougou was informed, might be found where there was a +windfall. The bears stuffed cracks between the fallen trees with moss, +and so made themselves a tight house in which to hibernate. If you were +obliged to have bear meat that season when the game was thin, you +could cut a hole into a den, stand by it with an axe, and lop off the +inquiring head stuck out to investigate disturbances. Bears had very +small stomachs, but whatever they ate went to fat. They walked much on +their hind feet, and browsed on nuts or mast when their hunting was not +successful, being able to thrive on little. Usually a father, a mother, +and a cub formed one household in one den. + +Brown's mind ran on the subject of households; and he sometimes talked +to Françoise about his mother. + +“My mother Gaelics like the Scotch,” he said. Françoise could not +imagine what it was to Gaelic. People had not Gaelic-ed on the +Chaudière, where she was brought up until the children were obliged +to scatter from the narrow farm. But the priest had never warned her +against it, and since M'sieu' Brownee's mother was addicted to the +practice, it must be something excellent, perhaps even religious. She +secretly invoked St. Francis, her patron saint, to obtain for her +that mysterious power of Gaelic-ing of which M'sieu' Brownee spoke so +tenderly. + +So the summer passed, and frost was already ripening to glory the ranks +on ranks of dense forest pressing to the lake borders. Brown and Puttany +rowed home through an early September evening, lifted their boat to its +cross-piece dock, and pulled the plug out of the bottom to let it drain. +There was no sound, even of the dogs, as they flung their spoil ashore. +It was the very instant of moon-rise. At first a copper rim was answered +by the faintest line in the water. Then the full reddish disk stood upon +a strong copper pillar, smooth and flawless in a rippleless lake, and +that became denuded of its capital as the ball rose over it into the +sky. + +“Seems still,” remarked Brown, and he ran up the path, shaking leaf +loam like dry tobacco dust from the roots of ferns he had brought to +Françoise. He knew at once that she and Gougou had left the camp. He sat +down on the dog-kennel with his hands on his knees, staring at the dim +earth. Puttany went from tent to cabin, calling his daily playmate, +unable to convince himself that some unusual thing had happened, and he +hoped that Brown would contradict him when he felt compelled to announce +his slow discovery. + +“Dey vas gone!” + +“Damn you, Puttany!” exploded his partner, “what did you bring her here +for? I didn't want to get into this! I wanted to steer clear of women! +You knew I was soft! You knew her black eyes, and the child that made +her seem like the Virgin, would get in their work on me!” + +“No, I didn't,” said Puttany, in phlegmatic consternation. + +“What's the matter, Frank? Haven't we behaved white to this woman? Have +you done anything, you stupid old Dutchman,” cried Brown, collaring +his partner with abrupt violence, “that would drive her out of the camp +without a word?” + +“I svear, Prowny,” the other gasped, as soon as he had breath for +swearing, “I haf been so polite to her as my own mudder.” + +The younger man sat down again, dropping lax hands across his knees. +A growl inside the box reminded him that Jim the blood-hound should be +brought to account for this disappearance. + +“Come out here!” he commanded, and the lithe beast crept wagging and +apologizing to his side. “What kind of a way is this for you to keep +a camp--Jess sitting in the kitchen, and you in the box, and somebody +carrying off Françoise and the boy, and every rag that would show they +had ever been here--and not a sound out of your cowardly head till we +come home and catch you skulking? I've a notion to take a board and beat +you to death!” + +Jim lay down with an abject and dismal whine. + +“Where is she?” + +Jim lifted his nose and sniffed hopefully, and his master rose up and +dragged him by the collar to the empty cabin. It was the first time +Brown had entered that little cell since its dedication to the woman for +whom it was built. He rubbed Jim's muzzle against the bed, and pointed +to nails in the logs where the clothes of the patois had hung. + +“Now you lope out and find them--do you hear?” + +Jim, crouching on his belly in acknowledgment that his apprehension had +been at fault during some late encounter, slunk across the camp and took +the path to the hotels. + +Brown turned on Puttany following at his heels: “Frank, are you sure Joe +La France is dead?” + +“Oh yes, he is det.” + +“Did you see him die? Were you there when he was buried? Was he put +underground with plenty of dirt on top of him, or did he merely drop in +the water?” + +“I vas not there.” + +“Maybe the lazy hound has resurrected. I've seen these lumbermen dropped +into the water and drowned too often. You can never be sure they won't +be up drinking and fighting to-morrow unless you run a knife through +them.” + +“He is a det man,” affirmed Puttany. + +“Then somebody else has carried her off, and I'm going to know all about +it before I come back to camp. If I never come back, you may have the +stuff and land. I'm in this heels over head, and I don't care how soon +things end with me.” + +“But, Prowny, old poy, I vill help you--” + +“You stay here. This is my hunt.” + +Jim passed the rustic guest-houses without turning aside from the trail. +Brown took no thought of inquiring at their doors, for throughout the +summer Françoise had not once been seen at the hotels. He did, however, +hastily borrow a horse from the stable where he was privileged, and +pursuing the blood-hound along the lake shore, he cantered over a +causeway of logs and earth which had been raised above a swamp. + +The trail was very fresh, for Jim, without swerving, followed the road +where it turned at right angles from the shore and wound inland among +stumps. They had nearly reached Allanville, a group of log huts beside a +north-shore railroad, when Jim uttered the bay of victory. + +Brown dropped from the saddle and called him sternly back. To be hunting +Françoise with a blood-hound out of leash--how horrible was this! + +He tied his horse to a tree and took Jim by the collar, restraining the +creature's fierce joy of discovery. Françoise must be near, unless a +hound whose scent was unerring had become a fool. + +What if she had left camp of her own will? She was so quiet, one could +not be sure of her thoughts. Brown was sure of his thoughts. He grinned +in the lonely landscape, seeing himself as he had appeared on recent +Sundays, in his best turtle-tail neck-tie mounted on velvet. + +“I've got it bad,” he confessed. + +Stooping to Jim's collar while the dog whined and strained, he passed a +cabin. And there Jim relaxed in the search and turned around. The moon +stood high enough to make a wan fairy daylight. Gougou, like a gnome, +started from the ground to meet them, and the dog at once lay down and +fawned at his feet. + +More slowly approaching from the cabin, Brown saw Françoise, still +carrying in her hand the bundle of her belongings brought from camp. In +the shadow of the house a man watched the encounter, and a sift of rank +tobacco smoke hinted the pipes of fathers and sons resting from the +day's labor on the cabin door-sill or the sward. Voices of children +could be heard, and other dogs gave mouth, so that Brown laid severe +commands on Jim before he could tremblingly speak to Françoise. + +“Oh, M'sieu' Brownee, I t'ink maybe you come!” + +“But, Françoise, what made you leave?” + +“It is my husban's brudder. I not know what to do! He bring us to dese +folks to stay all night till de cars go.” + +“Why didn't he show himself to us, and take you like a man?” + +“Oh, M'sieu' Brownee--he say de priest hexcommunicate me--to +live--so--in de camp! It is not my fault--and I t'ink about you and +M'sieu' Put-tanee--and Gougou he bite his honcle, and kick and scream!” + +“Damn the uncle!” swore Brown, deeply. + +“Oh, I been so anxion!” sobbed Françoise. + +“We must be married right off,” said Brown. “I'll fix your +brother-in-law. Françoise, will yon have me for your husband?” + +“Me, M'sieu' Brownee?” + +“Yes, you--you cursed sweet patois!” + +“M'sieu' Brownee, you may call me de cursed patois. I not know +anyt'ings. But when André La France take me away, oh, I t'ink I die! Let +me honly be Françoise to do your mend'! I be 'appier to honly look at +you dan some womans who 'ave 'usban'!” + +“Françoise, kiss me--kiss me!” His voice broke with a sob. “If you loved +me you would have me!” + +“M'sieu' Brownee, I ado' you!” + +Suddenly giving way to passionate weeping, and to all the tenderness +which nature teaches even barbarians to repress, she abandoned herself +to his arms. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Cursed Patois, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURSED PATOIS *** + +***** This file should be named 23247-0.txt or 23247-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/4/23247/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/23247-0.zip b/23247-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f867125 --- /dev/null +++ b/23247-0.zip diff --git a/23247-8.txt b/23247-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..733cd8e --- /dev/null +++ b/23247-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,932 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cursed Patois, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Cursed Patois + From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 + +Author: Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +Release Date: October 30, 2007 [EBook #23247] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURSED PATOIS *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE CURSED PATOIS + +From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 + +By Mary Hartwell Catherwood + + +As his boat shot to the camp dock of beach stones, the camper thought he +heard a child's voice behind the screen of brush. He leaped out and drew +the boat to its landing upon a cross-piece held by two uprights in the +water, and ascended the steep path worn in leaf mould. + +There was not only a child, there was a woman also in the camp. And +Frank Puttany, his German feet planted outward in a line, his smiling +dark face unctuous with hospitality towards creatures whom he had +evidently introduced, in foolish helplessness gave his partner the usual +greeting: + +"Veil, Prowny." + +"Hello, Puttany. Visitors?" + +Brown pulled off his cap to the woman. She was pretty, with eyes like +a deer's, with white teeth showing between her parted scarlet lips, and +much curling hair pinned up and blowing over her ears. She had the rich +tint of a quarter-breed, lightened in her case by a constant suffusion +which gave her steady color. She was dressed in a mixture of patches, +but all were fitted to her perfect shape with a Parisian elegance sensed +even by-backwoodsmen. Pressed against her knee stood the dirtiest and +chubbiest four-year-old child on the borders of Brevoort Lake--perhaps +the dirtiest on the north shore of Michigan. The Indian mixed with his +French had been improved on by the sun until he was of a brick redness +and hardness of flesh; a rosy-raeated thing, like a good muskalonge. +Brown suddenly remembered the pair. They were Joe La France's wife and +child. Joe La France was dead. Puttany had recently told him that Joe +La France left a widow and a baby without shelter, and without relations +nearer than Canada. + +After greeting Brown the guest resumed her seat on one of the +camp-chairs, a box worn smooth by much use, having a slit cut in the top +through which the hand could be thrust to lift it. + +The camp, in a small clearing, consisted of two tents, both of the +wedge-shaped kind. The sleeping-tent was nearly filled by the bed +it contained; and this, lifted a few inches above the ground on pole +supports, was of browse or brush and straw, covered with blankets. A +square canopy of mosquito-netting protected it. The cooking-tent had a +foundation of logs and a canvas top. The floor was of pure white sand. +Boxes like lockers were stored under the eaves to hold food, and in one +corner a cylindrical camp-stove with an oven thrust its pipe through a +tinned hole in the roof. Plenty of iron skillets, kettles, and pans hung +above the lockers on pegs in the logs; and the camp dinner service of +white ware, black-handled knives and forks, and metal spoons, neatly +washed, stood on a table. Jess, the Scotch collie, who was always left +to guard the tents in their owners' absence, sat at her usual post +within the door; and she and Brown exchanged repressed growls at the +strangers. Jess, being freed from her chain, trotted at his heels when +he went back to the beach to clean fish for supper. She sat and watched +his deft and work-hardened hands as he dipped and washed and drew and +scaled his spoil. He was a clean-skinned, blue-eyed Canadian Irishman, +well made and sinewy, bright and open of countenance. His blond hair +clung in almost flaxen tendrils to his warm forehead. No ill-nature was +visible about him, yet he turned like a man in fierce self-defence on +his partner, who followed Jess and stood also watching him. + +"Puttany, you fool! what have you brought these cursed patois into camp +for?" + +"Joe La France vas my old pardner," softly pleaded the German. + +"Damn you, man, we can't start an orphan-asylum and widows' home! We'll +get a bad name at the hotels. The real good people won't have us for +guides." + +"She told me in Allanville she had no place to stay. She did not know +what to do. At the old voman's, where Joe put her, they have need of her +bed. The old voman is too poor to keep her any more." + +"I'd have done just what you did; that's what makes me so mad. How long +is she going to stay?" + +"I don't know," sheepishly responded his partner. + +"A Dutchman ought to have more sense than to load up with a lot of +cursed patois. Nothing but French and Indian! We'll have to put the +precious dears in the sleeping-tent, and bunk down ourselves with +blankets in the other. Did you air the blankets good this morning, +Frank?" + +"They vos veil aired." + +"You're a soft mark, Frank! One of us will have to marry Joe La France's +widow--that's what it will come to!" Brown slapped the water in violent +disgust, but Puttany blushed a dark and modest red. + +Men of their class rarely have vision or any kind of foresight. They +live in the present and plan no farther than their horizon, being, like +children, overpowered by visible things. But the Irish Canadian had +lived many lives as lake sailor and lumberman, and he had a shrewd eye +and quick humor. It was he who had devised the conveniences of the camp, +and who delicately and skilfully prepared the meals so that the two +fared like epicures; while Puttany did the scullery-work, and was +superior only at deerstalking. + +The perfume of coffee presently sifted abroad, and the table was brought +out and set under the evening sky. Lockers gave up their store of bread +and pastry made by the capable hands of the camp housekeeper. The woman, +their guest, sat watching him move from cook-tent to table, and Puttany +lounged on the dog-kennel, whittling a stick. + +"Frank," said his partner, with sudden authority, "you take the kid down +to the water and scrub him." + +"All over?" whispered Puttany, in confusion. + +"No--just his hands and top. Supper is ready to put on." + +The docile mother heard her child yelling and blubbering under generous +douches while nurse's duty was performed by one of her entertainers, and +she smiled in proof that her faith was grounded on their righteousness. +She was indeed a mere girl. Her short scarlet upper lip showed her teeth +with piquant innocence. As much a creature of the woods as a doe, her +lot had been that primitive struggle which knows nothing about the +amenities and proprieties of civilization. This Brown could clearly see, +and he addressed her with the same protecting patronage he would have +used with the child. + +"What's your kid's name?" + +"Grgoire, but he call himself Gougou. Me, I am Franoise La France." + +"Yes, I know that..You have had a hard time since Joe died." + +"I been anxion"--she clasped her hands and looked pleadingly at him--"I +been very anxion!" + +"Well, you're all right now." + +"You let me do de mend'? I can sew. I use' learn to sew when I have +t'ing to sew on." + +"Jerusalem! look at them shirts on the line! We have more clothes to +sew on than any dude at the hotels. And if that isn't enough, I'll make +Puttany strip and stay in the brush while you do his clothes." + +Franoise widened her smile. + +"I've been thinking we'll have to build you a house right over there." +Her entertainer indicated the shore behind her. + +"Oppos'?" exclaimed Franoise, turning with pleased interest. Even in +her husband's lifetime little thought had ever been taken for her. + +"Yes, directly opposite. We can fix it up snug like our winter camp at +the other end of the lake." + +"Have you two camp?" + +"Yes--a winter camp and a summer camp. But we have stayed comfortably +here in the cook-tent until the thermometer went fourteen degrees below +zero. We'll sleep in it till we get your house done, and you can take +the tent. If there are no parties wanting guides, we might as well begin +it in the morning." + +"But," faltered Franoise, "afterw'iles when de ice is t'ick, and you go +to de hudder camp--" + +"Oh, we'll take care of you," he promised. "You and Gougou will go with +us. We couldn't leave you on this side." + +"In de dark nights," shuddered Franoise. + +"You needn't be afraid, any time. When we are off during the day we +always leave Jess and Jim to guard the camp. Jess is a Scotch collie and +Jim is a blood-hound. He's there in the kennel. Neither man nor varmint +would have any chance with them." + +"I been use' to live alone when my husban' is away, M'sieu' Brownee. I +not 'fraid like you t'ink. But if Gougou be cold and hongry." + +"Now that's enough," said Brown, with gentle severity. "Gougou will +never be cold and hungry again while there's a stick of wood to be cut +on the shores of this lake, or any game to bag, or a 'lunge to spear +through the ice. We get about two days' lumbering a week down by +St. Ignace. No use to work more than two days a week," he explained, +jocosely. "That gives us enough to live on; and everybody around here +owes us from fifty to a hundred dollars back pay for work, anyhow. I've +bought this ground, twenty acres of it, and another year I'm going to +turn it into a garden." + +"Oh, a garden, M'sieu' Brownee! Me, I love some garden! I plant honion +once, salade also." + +"But I want to get my fences built before I put in improvements. You +know what the silver rule is, don't you?" + +"No, m'sieu'," answered Franoise, vaguely. She knew little of any rule. + +"The silver rule is different from the golden rule. It's 'Do your +neighbors, or your neighbors will do you.' If I don't protect myself, +all the loose cattle around Brevoort will graze over me. Every fellow +for himself. We can't keep the golden rule. We'd never get rich if we +did." + +"You are rich mans?" interrogated Franoise, focussing her curiosity on +that invisible power of wealth. + +"Millionaires," brazenly claimed the young man, as he put an +earthen-ware pitcher on the table. "Set there, you thousand-dollar dish! +We don't have a yacht on the lake because we prefer small boats, and +we go out as guides to have fun with the greenhorns. The cooking at the +hotels is good enough for common hunters and fishermen who come here +from the cities to spend their money, but it isn't good enough for me. +You've come to the right place, you may make your mind easy on that." + +Franoise smiled because he told her to make her mind easy, not because +she understood the irony of his poverty. To have secure shelter, and +such a table as he spread, and the prowess to achieve continual abundant +sustenance from the world, made wealth in her eyes. She was as happy as +Gougou when this strange family, gathered from three or four nations, +sat down to their first meal. + +The sun went low like a scarlet eggy probing the mother-of-pearl lake +with a long red line of shadow, until it wasted into grayness and so +disappeared. Then home-returning sails became spiritualized, and moved +in mist as in a dream--foggy lake and sky, as one body, seeming to push +in upon the land. + +Franoise slept the sleep of a healthy woman, with her child on her arm, +until at dawn the closed flap of the tent yielded to a bounding shape. +She opened her startled eyes to see Jim the blood-hound at the foot of +the bed, jerking the mosquito-netting. He growled at the interlopers, +not being able in his canine mind to reconcile their presence with his +customary duty of waking his masters in that tent. A call and a whistle +at the other side of the camp drew him away doubting. But in a day both +he and Jess had adopted the new members of the family and walked at +Gougou's heels. + +Gougou existed in wonderland. He regarded the men as great and amiable +powers, who could do what they pleased with the elements and with the +creatures of the earth. They had a fawn, which had followed Brown home +along the beach, feeding on leaves from his hand. They had built it a +sylvan home of cedar boughs behind the camp, from which it wandered +at will. And though at first shy of Gougou, the pretty thing was soon +induced to stand upon its hind feet and dance for bits of cake. His +Indian blood vearned towards the fawn; but Me-thuselah, the mighty +turtle, was more exciting. Methuselah lived a prisoner in one side of +the bait-tank, from which he was lifted by a rope around his tail. He +was so enormous that it required both Brown and Puttany to carry him +up the bank, and as he hung from the pole the sudden projection of his +snapping head was a danger. When he fastened his teeth into a stick, the +stick was hopelessly his as long as he chose to keep it. He was like +an elephant cased in mottled shell, and the serrated ridge on his tail +resembled a row of huge brown teeth. Methuselah was a many-wrinkled +turtle. When he contracted, imbedding head in shoulders and legs in +body, revealing all his claws and showing wicked little eyes near the +point of his nose, his helpless rage stirred all the Indian; he was the +most deliciously devilish thing that Gougou had ever seen. + +Then there was the joy of wintergreen, which both men brought to the +child, and he learned to forage for it himself. The fleshy dark green +leaves and red berries clustered thickly in the woods. He and his +mother went in the boat when the day was to be given to bass or pickerel +fishing, and he learned great lessons of water-lore from the two men. +If they trusted a troll line to his baby hands, he was in a state of +beatitude. His object in life was to possess a bear cub, and many +a porcupine creeping along the beach he mistook for that desirable +property, until taught to distinguish quills from fur. Gougou heard, and +he believed, that all porcupines were old lumbermen, who never died, but +simply contracted to that shape. He furtively stoned them when he could, +reflecting that they were tough, and delighting to see the quills fly. + +Franoise would sit in the camp like a picture of still life, glowing +and silent at her appointed labor. She sewed for all of them, looking +womanly and unhurried, with a pink-veined moccasin-flower in her hair; +while Brown, cooking and baking, rushed from tent to wood-pile, his +sleeves turned back from his white, muscular arms. He lived more +intensely than any other member of the sylvan household. His blue eyes +shone, and his face was vivid as he talked to her. He was a common man, +blunted in the finer nature by a life of hardship, yet his shrewd spirit +seized on much that less facile people like Puttany learned slowly or +not at all. + +Puttany and the child were often together in one long play, broken +only by the man's periods of labor. They basked in a boat near rushes, +waiting for pickerel to strike, or waded a bog to a trout stream at the +other end of the lake, hid in a forest full of windfalls and hoary moss +and tropical growths of brake and fern. Gougou had new strong clothes +and buckskin shoes. For the patois had not been a week in camp before +Brown went to St. Ignace and brought back denim and white and black +calico, which he presented to Franoise. + +"She ought to have a kind of second mourning," he explained to Puttany, +who received his word on any matter as law. "Joe La France wasn't worth +wearing first mourning for, but second mourning is decent for her, and +it won't show in the camp like bright colors would." + +The world of city-maddened people who swarmed to this lake for their +annual immersion in nature did not often intrude on the camp. Yet the +fact of a woman's presence there could not be concealed, and Puttany was +disciplined to say to strangers, "Dot vas my sister and her little poy." + +A tiny cabin was built for Franoise, with the luxuries of a puncheon +floor and one glazed window. She inhabited it in primitive gladness, as +a child adorns a play-house, and was careful to keep it in that trim, +military state which Brown demanded. Franoise had a regard for M'sieu' +Put-tanee, who was neat and ladylike in all his doings, and smiled +amiably at her over her boy's head; but her veneration of M'sieu' +Brownee extended beyond the reach of humor. If he had been a priest he +could have had no more authority. She used to watch him secretly from +her window at dawn, as he put himself through a morning drill to limber +his muscles. Some spectators might have laughed, but she heard as +seriously as if they were the motions of her own soul his tactics with a +stick: + +"Straight out--across the shoulder--under the arm--down on the turf!" + +There were days when the misty gray lake, dim and delicious, lay veiled +within its irregular shores. Then the lowering sun stood on tree-tops, +a pale red wraith like the ghost of an Indian. And there were days +of sharp, clear shine, when Black Point seemed to approach across the +water, and any moving object could be seen in the Burning--a growth of +green springing where the woods had been swept by fire. The men were +often away, guiding fishing parties from dawn until sunset, or hunting +parties from sunset half the night. Franoise and Gou-gou dwelt in the +camp, having the dogs as their protectors, though neither primitive nor +civilized life menaced them there with any danger. Some evenings, when +few affairs had crowded the day, Brown sat like a patriarch in the midst +of his family, and took Gougou on his knee to hear bear stories. He +supervised the youngster's manners like a mother, and Gougou learned to +go down to the washing-place and use soap when the signs were strong for +bear-dens and deer-stalking. + +"I saw a bear come out on the beach once," Brown would tell him, "when +I was stalking for deer and had a doe and fawn in the lake. I smelt him, +but couldn't get him to turn his eyes towards me. I killed both deer, +and skinned them, and cut up one. And that bear went into the woods and +howled for hours. I took all the venison I could carry, but left part +of the carcasses. When we went after them in the morning, the bear had +eaten all up clean." + +Bear-dens, Gougou was informed, might be found where there was a +windfall. The bears stuffed cracks between the fallen trees with moss, +and so made themselves a tight house in which to hibernate. If you were +obliged to have bear meat that season when the game was thin, you +could cut a hole into a den, stand by it with an axe, and lop off the +inquiring head stuck out to investigate disturbances. Bears had very +small stomachs, but whatever they ate went to fat. They walked much on +their hind feet, and browsed on nuts or mast when their hunting was not +successful, being able to thrive on little. Usually a father, a mother, +and a cub formed one household in one den. + +Brown's mind ran on the subject of households; and he sometimes talked +to Franoise about his mother. + +"My mother Gaelics like the Scotch," he said. Franoise could not +imagine what it was to Gaelic. People had not Gaelic-ed on the +Chaudire, where she was brought up until the children were obliged +to scatter from the narrow farm. But the priest had never warned her +against it, and since M'sieu' Brownee's mother was addicted to the +practice, it must be something excellent, perhaps even religious. She +secretly invoked St. Francis, her patron saint, to obtain for her +that mysterious power of Gaelic-ing of which M'sieu' Brownee spoke so +tenderly. + +So the summer passed, and frost was already ripening to glory the ranks +on ranks of dense forest pressing to the lake borders. Brown and Puttany +rowed home through an early September evening, lifted their boat to its +cross-piece dock, and pulled the plug out of the bottom to let it drain. +There was no sound, even of the dogs, as they flung their spoil ashore. +It was the very instant of moon-rise. At first a copper rim was answered +by the faintest line in the water. Then the full reddish disk stood upon +a strong copper pillar, smooth and flawless in a rippleless lake, and +that became denuded of its capital as the ball rose over it into the +sky. + +"Seems still," remarked Brown, and he ran up the path, shaking leaf +loam like dry tobacco dust from the roots of ferns he had brought to +Franoise. He knew at once that she and Gougou had left the camp. He sat +down on the dog-kennel with his hands on his knees, staring at the dim +earth. Puttany went from tent to cabin, calling his daily playmate, +unable to convince himself that some unusual thing had happened, and he +hoped that Brown would contradict him when he felt compelled to announce +his slow discovery. + +"Dey vas gone!" + +"Damn you, Puttany!" exploded his partner, "what did you bring her here +for? I didn't want to get into this! I wanted to steer clear of women! +You knew I was soft! You knew her black eyes, and the child that made +her seem like the Virgin, would get in their work on me!" + +"No, I didn't," said Puttany, in phlegmatic consternation. + +"What's the matter, Frank? Haven't we behaved white to this woman? Have +you done anything, you stupid old Dutchman," cried Brown, collaring +his partner with abrupt violence, "that would drive her out of the camp +without a word?" + +"I svear, Prowny," the other gasped, as soon as he had breath for +swearing, "I haf been so polite to her as my own mudder." + +The younger man sat down again, dropping lax hands across his knees. +A growl inside the box reminded him that Jim the blood-hound should be +brought to account for this disappearance. + +"Come out here!" he commanded, and the lithe beast crept wagging and +apologizing to his side. "What kind of a way is this for you to keep +a camp--Jess sitting in the kitchen, and you in the box, and somebody +carrying off Franoise and the boy, and every rag that would show they +had ever been here--and not a sound out of your cowardly head till we +come home and catch you skulking? I've a notion to take a board and beat +you to death!" + +Jim lay down with an abject and dismal whine. + +"Where is she?" + +Jim lifted his nose and sniffed hopefully, and his master rose up and +dragged him by the collar to the empty cabin. It was the first time +Brown had entered that little cell since its dedication to the woman for +whom it was built. He rubbed Jim's muzzle against the bed, and pointed +to nails in the logs where the clothes of the patois had hung. + +"Now you lope out and find them--do you hear?" + +Jim, crouching on his belly in acknowledgment that his apprehension had +been at fault during some late encounter, slunk across the camp and took +the path to the hotels. + +Brown turned on Puttany following at his heels: "Frank, are you sure Joe +La France is dead?" + +"Oh yes, he is det." + +"Did you see him die? Were you there when he was buried? Was he put +underground with plenty of dirt on top of him, or did he merely drop in +the water?" + +"I vas not there." + +"Maybe the lazy hound has resurrected. I've seen these lumbermen dropped +into the water and drowned too often. You can never be sure they won't +be up drinking and fighting to-morrow unless you run a knife through +them." + +"He is a det man," affirmed Puttany. + +"Then somebody else has carried her off, and I'm going to know all about +it before I come back to camp. If I never come back, you may have the +stuff and land. I'm in this heels over head, and I don't care how soon +things end with me." + +"But, Prowny, old poy, I vill help you--" + +"You stay here. This is my hunt." + +Jim passed the rustic guest-houses without turning aside from the trail. +Brown took no thought of inquiring at their doors, for throughout the +summer Franoise had not once been seen at the hotels. He did, however, +hastily borrow a horse from the stable where he was privileged, and +pursuing the blood-hound along the lake shore, he cantered over a +causeway of logs and earth which had been raised above a swamp. + +The trail was very fresh, for Jim, without swerving, followed the road +where it turned at right angles from the shore and wound inland among +stumps. They had nearly reached Allanville, a group of log huts beside a +north-shore railroad, when Jim uttered the bay of victory. + +Brown dropped from the saddle and called him sternly back. To be hunting +Franoise with a blood-hound out of leash--how horrible was this! + +He tied his horse to a tree and took Jim by the collar, restraining the +creature's fierce joy of discovery. Franoise must be near, unless a +hound whose scent was unerring had become a fool. + +What if she had left camp of her own will? She was so quiet, one could +not be sure of her thoughts. Brown was sure of his thoughts. He grinned +in the lonely landscape, seeing himself as he had appeared on recent +Sundays, in his best turtle-tail neck-tie mounted on velvet. + +"I've got it bad," he confessed. + +Stooping to Jim's collar while the dog whined and strained, he passed a +cabin. And there Jim relaxed in the search and turned around. The moon +stood high enough to make a wan fairy daylight. Gougou, like a gnome, +started from the ground to meet them, and the dog at once lay down and +fawned at his feet. + +More slowly approaching from the cabin, Brown saw Franoise, still +carrying in her hand the bundle of her belongings brought from camp. In +the shadow of the house a man watched the encounter, and a sift of rank +tobacco smoke hinted the pipes of fathers and sons resting from the +day's labor on the cabin door-sill or the sward. Voices of children +could be heard, and other dogs gave mouth, so that Brown laid severe +commands on Jim before he could tremblingly speak to Franoise. + +"Oh, M'sieu' Brownee, I t'ink maybe you come!" + +"But, Franoise, what made you leave?" + +"It is my husban's brudder. I not know what to do! He bring us to dese +folks to stay all night till de cars go." + +"Why didn't he show himself to us, and take you like a man?" + +"Oh, M'sieu' Brownee--he say de priest hexcommunicate me--to +live--so--in de camp! It is not my fault--and I t'ink about you and +M'sieu' Put-tanee--and Gougou he bite his honcle, and kick and scream!" + +"Damn the uncle!" swore Brown, deeply. + +"Oh, I been so anxion!" sobbed Franoise. + +"We must be married right off," said Brown. "I'll fix your +brother-in-law. Franoise, will yon have me for your husband?" + +"Me, M'sieu' Brownee?" + +"Yes, you--you cursed sweet patois!" + +"M'sieu' Brownee, you may call me de cursed patois. I not know +anyt'ings. But when Andr La France take me away, oh, I t'ink I die! Let +me honly be Franoise to do your mend'! I be 'appier to honly look at +you dan some womans who 'ave 'usban'!" + +"Franoise, kiss me--kiss me!" His voice broke with a sob. "If you loved +me you would have me!" + +"M'sieu' Brownee, I ado' you!" + +Suddenly giving way to passionate weeping, and to all the tenderness +which nature teaches even barbarians to repress, she abandoned herself +to his arms. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Cursed Patois, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURSED PATOIS *** + +***** This file should be named 23247-8.txt or 23247-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/4/23247/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Cursed Patois + From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 + +Author: Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +Release Date: October 30, 2007 [EBook #23247] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURSED PATOIS *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE CURSED PATOIS + </h1> + <h2> + From “Mackinac And Lake Stories”, 1899 + <br /> <br /> + By Mary Hartwell Catherwood + </h2> + <p> + As his boat shot to the camp dock of beach stones, the camper thought he + heard a child's voice behind the screen of brush. He leaped out and drew + the boat to its landing upon a cross-piece held by two uprights in the + water, and ascended the steep path worn in leaf mould. + </p> + <p> + There was not only a child, there was a woman also in the camp. And Frank + Puttany, his German feet planted outward in a line, his smiling dark face + unctuous with hospitality towards creatures whom he had evidently + introduced, in foolish helplessness gave his partner the usual greeting: + </p> + <p> + “Veil, Prowny.” + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Puttany. Visitors?” + </p> + <p> + Brown pulled off his cap to the woman. She was pretty, with eyes like a + deer's, with white teeth showing between her parted scarlet lips, and much + curling hair pinned up and blowing over her ears. She had the rich tint of + a quarter-breed, lightened in her case by a constant suffusion which gave + her steady color. She was dressed in a mixture of patches, but all were + fitted to her perfect shape with a Parisian elegance sensed even + by-backwoodsmen. Pressed against her knee stood the dirtiest and chubbiest + four-year-old child on the borders of Brevoort Lake—perhaps the + dirtiest on the north shore of Michigan. The Indian mixed with his French + had been improved on by the sun until he was of a brick redness and + hardness of flesh; a rosy-raeated thing, like a good muskalonge. Brown + suddenly remembered the pair. They were Joe La France's wife and child. + Joe La France was dead. Puttany had recently told him that Joe La France + left a widow and a baby without shelter, and without relations nearer than + Canada. + </p> + <p> + After greeting Brown the guest resumed her seat on one of the camp-chairs, + a box worn smooth by much use, having a slit cut in the top through which + the hand could be thrust to lift it. + </p> + <p> + The camp, in a small clearing, consisted of two tents, both of the + wedge-shaped kind. The sleeping-tent was nearly filled by the bed it + contained; and this, lifted a few inches above the ground on pole + supports, was of browse or brush and straw, covered with blankets. A + square canopy of mosquito-netting protected it. The cooking-tent had a + foundation of logs and a canvas top. The floor was of pure white sand. + Boxes like lockers were stored under the eaves to hold food, and in one + corner a cylindrical camp-stove with an oven thrust its pipe through a + tinned hole in the roof. Plenty of iron skillets, kettles, and pans hung + above the lockers on pegs in the logs; and the camp dinner service of + white ware, black-handled knives and forks, and metal spoons, neatly + washed, stood on a table. Jess, the Scotch collie, who was always left to + guard the tents in their owners' absence, sat at her usual post within the + door; and she and Brown exchanged repressed growls at the strangers. Jess, + being freed from her chain, trotted at his heels when he went back to the + beach to clean fish for supper. She sat and watched his deft and + work-hardened hands as he dipped and washed and drew and scaled his spoil. + He was a clean-skinned, blue-eyed Canadian Irishman, well made and sinewy, + bright and open of countenance. His blond hair clung in almost flaxen + tendrils to his warm forehead. No ill-nature was visible about him, yet he + turned like a man in fierce self-defence on his partner, who followed Jess + and stood also watching him. + </p> + <p> + “Puttany, you fool! what have you brought these cursed patois into camp + for?” + </p> + <p> + “Joe La France vas my old pardner,” softly pleaded the German. + </p> + <p> + “Damn you, man, we can't start an orphan-asylum and widows' home! We'll + get a bad name at the hotels. The real good people won't have us for + guides.” + </p> + <p> + “She told me in Allanville she had no place to stay. She did not know what + to do. At the old voman's, where Joe put her, they have need of her bed. + The old voman is too poor to keep her any more.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd have done just what you did; that's what makes me so mad. How long is + she going to stay?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” sheepishly responded his partner. + </p> + <p> + “A Dutchman ought to have more sense than to load up with a lot of cursed + patois. Nothing but French and Indian! We'll have to put the precious + dears in the sleeping-tent, and bunk down ourselves with blankets in the + other. Did you air the blankets good this morning, Frank?” + </p> + <p> + “They vos veil aired.” + </p> + <p> + “You're a soft mark, Frank! One of us will have to marry Joe La France's + widow—that's what it will come to!” Brown slapped the water in + violent disgust, but Puttany blushed a dark and modest red. + </p> + <p> + Men of their class rarely have vision or any kind of foresight. They live + in the present and plan no farther than their horizon, being, like + children, overpowered by visible things. But the Irish Canadian had lived + many lives as lake sailor and lumberman, and he had a shrewd eye and quick + humor. It was he who had devised the conveniences of the camp, and who + delicately and skilfully prepared the meals so that the two fared like + epicures; while Puttany did the scullery-work, and was superior only at + deerstalking. + </p> + <p> + The perfume of coffee presently sifted abroad, and the table was brought + out and set under the evening sky. Lockers gave up their store of bread + and pastry made by the capable hands of the camp housekeeper. The woman, + their guest, sat watching him move from cook-tent to table, and Puttany + lounged on the dog-kennel, whittling a stick. + </p> + <p> + “Frank,” said his partner, with sudden authority, “you take the kid down + to the water and scrub him.” + </p> + <p> + “All over?” whispered Puttany, in confusion. + </p> + <p> + “No—just his hands and top. Supper is ready to put on.” + </p> + <p> + The docile mother heard her child yelling and blubbering under generous + douches while nurse's duty was performed by one of her entertainers, and + she smiled in proof that her faith was grounded on their righteousness. + She was indeed a mere girl. Her short scarlet upper lip showed her teeth + with piquant innocence. As much a creature of the woods as a doe, her lot + had been that primitive struggle which knows nothing about the amenities + and proprieties of civilization. This Brown could clearly see, and he + addressed her with the same protecting patronage he would have used with + the child. + </p> + <p> + “What's your kid's name?” + </p> + <p> + “Grégoire, but he call himself Gougou. Me, I am Françoise La France.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know that..You have had a hard time since Joe died.” + </p> + <p> + “I been anxion”—she clasped her hands and looked pleadingly at him—“I + been very anxion!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you're all right now.” + </p> + <p> + “You let me do de mend'? I can sew. I use' learn to sew when I have t'ing + to sew on.” + </p> + <p> + “Jerusalem! look at them shirts on the line! We have more clothes to sew + on than any dude at the hotels. And if that isn't enough, I'll make + Puttany strip and stay in the brush while you do his clothes.” + </p> + <p> + Françoise widened her smile. + </p> + <p> + “I've been thinking we'll have to build you a house right over there.” Her + entertainer indicated the shore behind her. + </p> + <p> + “Oppos'?” exclaimed Françoise, turning with pleased interest. Even in her + husband's lifetime little thought had ever been taken for her. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, directly opposite. We can fix it up snug like our winter camp at the + other end of the lake.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you two camp?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—a winter camp and a summer camp. But we have stayed comfortably + here in the cook-tent until the thermometer went fourteen degrees below + zero. We'll sleep in it till we get your house done, and you can take the + tent. If there are no parties wanting guides, we might as well begin it in + the morning.” + </p> + <p> + “But,” faltered Françoise, “afterw'iles when de ice is t'ick, and you go + to de hudder camp—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we'll take care of you,” he promised. “You and Gougou will go with + us. We couldn't leave you on this side.” + </p> + <p> + “In de dark nights,” shuddered Françoise. + </p> + <p> + “You needn't be afraid, any time. When we are off during the day we always + leave Jess and Jim to guard the camp. Jess is a Scotch collie and Jim is a + blood-hound. He's there in the kennel. Neither man nor varmint would have + any chance with them.” + </p> + <p> + “I been use' to live alone when my husban' is away, M'sieu' Brownee. I not + 'fraid like you t'ink. But if Gougou be cold and hongry.” + </p> + <p> + “Now that's enough,” said Brown, with gentle severity. “Gougou will never + be cold and hungry again while there's a stick of wood to be cut on the + shores of this lake, or any game to bag, or a 'lunge to spear through the + ice. We get about two days' lumbering a week down by St. Ignace. No use to + work more than two days a week,” he explained, jocosely. “That gives us + enough to live on; and everybody around here owes us from fifty to a + hundred dollars back pay for work, anyhow. I've bought this ground, twenty + acres of it, and another year I'm going to turn it into a garden.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, a garden, M'sieu' Brownee! Me, I love some garden! I plant honion + once, salade also.” + </p> + <p> + “But I want to get my fences built before I put in improvements. You know + what the silver rule is, don't you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, m'sieu',” answered Françoise, vaguely. She knew little of any rule. + </p> + <p> + “The silver rule is different from the golden rule. It's 'Do your + neighbors, or your neighbors will do you.' If I don't protect myself, all + the loose cattle around Brevoort will graze over me. Every fellow for + himself. We can't keep the golden rule. We'd never get rich if we did.” + </p> + <p> + “You are rich mans?” interrogated Françoise, focussing her curiosity on + that invisible power of wealth. + </p> + <p> + “Millionaires,” brazenly claimed the young man, as he put an earthen-ware + pitcher on the table. “Set there, you thousand-dollar dish! We don't have + a yacht on the lake because we prefer small boats, and we go out as guides + to have fun with the greenhorns. The cooking at the hotels is good enough + for common hunters and fishermen who come here from the cities to spend + their money, but it isn't good enough for me. You've come to the right + place, you may make your mind easy on that.” + </p> + <p> + Françoise smiled because he told her to make her mind easy, not because + she understood the irony of his poverty. To have secure shelter, and such + a table as he spread, and the prowess to achieve continual abundant + sustenance from the world, made wealth in her eyes. She was as happy as + Gougou when this strange family, gathered from three or four nations, sat + down to their first meal. + </p> + <p> + The sun went low like a scarlet eggy probing the mother-of-pearl lake with + a long red line of shadow, until it wasted into grayness and so + disappeared. Then home-returning sails became spiritualized, and moved in + mist as in a dream—foggy lake and sky, as one body, seeming to push + in upon the land. + </p> + <p> + Françoise slept the sleep of a healthy woman, with her child on her arm, + until at dawn the closed flap of the tent yielded to a bounding shape. She + opened her startled eyes to see Jim the blood-hound at the foot of the + bed, jerking the mosquito-netting. He growled at the interlopers, not + being able in his canine mind to reconcile their presence with his + customary duty of waking his masters in that tent. A call and a whistle at + the other side of the camp drew him away doubting. But in a day both he + and Jess had adopted the new members of the family and walked at Gougou's + heels. + </p> + <p> + Gougou existed in wonderland. He regarded the men as great and amiable + powers, who could do what they pleased with the elements and with the + creatures of the earth. They had a fawn, which had followed Brown home + along the beach, feeding on leaves from his hand. They had built it a + sylvan home of cedar boughs behind the camp, from which it wandered at + will. And though at first shy of Gougou, the pretty thing was soon induced + to stand upon its hind feet and dance for bits of cake. His Indian blood + vearned towards the fawn; but Me-thuselah, the mighty turtle, was more + exciting. Methuselah lived a prisoner in one side of the bait-tank, from + which he was lifted by a rope around his tail. He was so enormous that it + required both Brown and Puttany to carry him up the bank, and as he hung + from the pole the sudden projection of his snapping head was a danger. + When he fastened his teeth into a stick, the stick was hopelessly his as + long as he chose to keep it. He was like an elephant cased in mottled + shell, and the serrated ridge on his tail resembled a row of huge brown + teeth. Methuselah was a many-wrinkled turtle. When he contracted, + imbedding head in shoulders and legs in body, revealing all his claws and + showing wicked little eyes near the point of his nose, his helpless rage + stirred all the Indian; he was the most deliciously devilish thing that + Gougou had ever seen. + </p> + <p> + Then there was the joy of wintergreen, which both men brought to the + child, and he learned to forage for it himself. The fleshy dark green + leaves and red berries clustered thickly in the woods. He and his mother + went in the boat when the day was to be given to bass or pickerel fishing, + and he learned great lessons of water-lore from the two men. If they + trusted a troll line to his baby hands, he was in a state of beatitude. + His object in life was to possess a bear cub, and many a porcupine + creeping along the beach he mistook for that desirable property, until + taught to distinguish quills from fur. Gougou heard, and he believed, that + all porcupines were old lumbermen, who never died, but simply contracted + to that shape. He furtively stoned them when he could, reflecting that + they were tough, and delighting to see the quills fly. + </p> + <p> + Françoise would sit in the camp like a picture of still life, glowing and + silent at her appointed labor. She sewed for all of them, looking womanly + and unhurried, with a pink-veined moccasin-flower in her hair; while + Brown, cooking and baking, rushed from tent to wood-pile, his sleeves + turned back from his white, muscular arms. He lived more intensely than + any other member of the sylvan household. His blue eyes shone, and his + face was vivid as he talked to her. He was a common man, blunted in the + finer nature by a life of hardship, yet his shrewd spirit seized on much + that less facile people like Puttany learned slowly or not at all. + </p> + <p> + Puttany and the child were often together in one long play, broken only by + the man's periods of labor. They basked in a boat near rushes, waiting for + pickerel to strike, or waded a bog to a trout stream at the other end of + the lake, hid in a forest full of windfalls and hoary moss and tropical + growths of brake and fern. Gougou had new strong clothes and buckskin + shoes. For the patois had not been a week in camp before Brown went to St. + Ignace and brought back denim and white and black calico, which he + presented to Françoise. + </p> + <p> + “She ought to have a kind of second mourning,” he explained to Puttany, + who received his word on any matter as law. “Joe La France wasn't worth + wearing first mourning for, but second mourning is decent for her, and it + won't show in the camp like bright colors would.” + </p> + <p> + The world of city-maddened people who swarmed to this lake for their + annual immersion in nature did not often intrude on the camp. Yet the fact + of a woman's presence there could not be concealed, and Puttany was + disciplined to say to strangers, “Dot vas my sister and her little poy.” + </p> + <p> + A tiny cabin was built for Françoise, with the luxuries of a puncheon + floor and one glazed window. She inhabited it in primitive gladness, as a + child adorns a play-house, and was careful to keep it in that trim, + military state which Brown demanded. Françoise had a regard for M'sieu' + Put-tanee, who was neat and ladylike in all his doings, and smiled amiably + at her over her boy's head; but her veneration of M'sieu' Brownee extended + beyond the reach of humor. If he had been a priest he could have had no + more authority. She used to watch him secretly from her window at dawn, as + he put himself through a morning drill to limber his muscles. Some + spectators might have laughed, but she heard as seriously as if they were + the motions of her own soul his tactics with a stick: + </p> + <p> + “Straight out—across the shoulder—under the arm—down on + the turf!” + </p> + <p> + There were days when the misty gray lake, dim and delicious, lay veiled + within its irregular shores. Then the lowering sun stood on tree-tops, a + pale red wraith like the ghost of an Indian. And there were days of sharp, + clear shine, when Black Point seemed to approach across the water, and any + moving object could be seen in the Burning—a growth of green + springing where the woods had been swept by fire. The men were often away, + guiding fishing parties from dawn until sunset, or hunting parties from + sunset half the night. Françoise and Gou-gou dwelt in the camp, having the + dogs as their protectors, though neither primitive nor civilized life + menaced them there with any danger. Some evenings, when few affairs had + crowded the day, Brown sat like a patriarch in the midst of his family, + and took Gougou on his knee to hear bear stories. He supervised the + youngster's manners like a mother, and Gougou learned to go down to the + washing-place and use soap when the signs were strong for bear-dens and + deer-stalking. + </p> + <p> + “I saw a bear come out on the beach once,” Brown would tell him, “when I + was stalking for deer and had a doe and fawn in the lake. I smelt him, but + couldn't get him to turn his eyes towards me. I killed both deer, and + skinned them, and cut up one. And that bear went into the woods and howled + for hours. I took all the venison I could carry, but left part of the + carcasses. When we went after them in the morning, the bear had eaten all + up clean.” + </p> + <p> + Bear-dens, Gougou was informed, might be found where there was a windfall. + The bears stuffed cracks between the fallen trees with moss, and so made + themselves a tight house in which to hibernate. If you were obliged to + have bear meat that season when the game was thin, you could cut a hole + into a den, stand by it with an axe, and lop off the inquiring head stuck + out to investigate disturbances. Bears had very small stomachs, but + whatever they ate went to fat. They walked much on their hind feet, and + browsed on nuts or mast when their hunting was not successful, being able + to thrive on little. Usually a father, a mother, and a cub formed one + household in one den. + </p> + <p> + Brown's mind ran on the subject of households; and he sometimes talked to + Françoise about his mother. + </p> + <p> + “My mother Gaelics like the Scotch,” he said. Françoise could not imagine + what it was to Gaelic. People had not Gaelic-ed on the Chaudière, where + she was brought up until the children were obliged to scatter from the + narrow farm. But the priest had never warned her against it, and since + M'sieu' Brownee's mother was addicted to the practice, it must be + something excellent, perhaps even religious. She secretly invoked St. + Francis, her patron saint, to obtain for her that mysterious power of + Gaelic-ing of which M'sieu' Brownee spoke so tenderly. + </p> + <p> + So the summer passed, and frost was already ripening to glory the ranks on + ranks of dense forest pressing to the lake borders. Brown and Puttany + rowed home through an early September evening, lifted their boat to its + cross-piece dock, and pulled the plug out of the bottom to let it drain. + There was no sound, even of the dogs, as they flung their spoil ashore. It + was the very instant of moon-rise. At first a copper rim was answered by + the faintest line in the water. Then the full reddish disk stood upon a + strong copper pillar, smooth and flawless in a rippleless lake, and that + became denuded of its capital as the ball rose over it into the sky. + </p> + <p> + “Seems still,” remarked Brown, and he ran up the path, shaking leaf loam + like dry tobacco dust from the roots of ferns he had brought to Françoise. + He knew at once that she and Gougou had left the camp. He sat down on the + dog-kennel with his hands on his knees, staring at the dim earth. Puttany + went from tent to cabin, calling his daily playmate, unable to convince + himself that some unusual thing had happened, and he hoped that Brown + would contradict him when he felt compelled to announce his slow + discovery. + </p> + <p> + “Dey vas gone!” + </p> + <p> + “Damn you, Puttany!” exploded his partner, “what did you bring her here + for? I didn't want to get into this! I wanted to steer clear of women! You + knew I was soft! You knew her black eyes, and the child that made her seem + like the Virgin, would get in their work on me!” + </p> + <p> + “No, I didn't,” said Puttany, in phlegmatic consternation. + </p> + <p> + “What's the matter, Frank? Haven't we behaved white to this woman? Have + you done anything, you stupid old Dutchman,” cried Brown, collaring his + partner with abrupt violence, “that would drive her out of the camp + without a word?” + </p> + <p> + “I svear, Prowny,” the other gasped, as soon as he had breath for + swearing, “I haf been so polite to her as my own mudder.” + </p> + <p> + The younger man sat down again, dropping lax hands across his knees. A + growl inside the box reminded him that Jim the blood-hound should be + brought to account for this disappearance. + </p> + <p> + “Come out here!” he commanded, and the lithe beast crept wagging and + apologizing to his side. “What kind of a way is this for you to keep a + camp—Jess sitting in the kitchen, and you in the box, and somebody + carrying off Françoise and the boy, and every rag that would show they had + ever been here—and not a sound out of your cowardly head till we + come home and catch you skulking? I've a notion to take a board and beat + you to death!” + </p> + <p> + Jim lay down with an abject and dismal whine. + </p> + <p> + “Where is she?” + </p> + <p> + Jim lifted his nose and sniffed hopefully, and his master rose up and + dragged him by the collar to the empty cabin. It was the first time Brown + had entered that little cell since its dedication to the woman for whom it + was built. He rubbed Jim's muzzle against the bed, and pointed to nails in + the logs where the clothes of the patois had hung. + </p> + <p> + “Now you lope out and find them—do you hear?” + </p> + <p> + Jim, crouching on his belly in acknowledgment that his apprehension had + been at fault during some late encounter, slunk across the camp and took + the path to the hotels. + </p> + <p> + Brown turned on Puttany following at his heels: “Frank, are you sure Joe + La France is dead?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, he is det.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you see him die? Were you there when he was buried? Was he put + underground with plenty of dirt on top of him, or did he merely drop in + the water?” + </p> + <p> + “I vas not there.” + </p> + <p> + “Maybe the lazy hound has resurrected. I've seen these lumbermen dropped + into the water and drowned too often. You can never be sure they won't be + up drinking and fighting to-morrow unless you run a knife through them.” + </p> + <p> + “He is a det man,” affirmed Puttany. + </p> + <p> + “Then somebody else has carried her off, and I'm going to know all about + it before I come back to camp. If I never come back, you may have the + stuff and land. I'm in this heels over head, and I don't care how soon + things end with me.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Prowny, old poy, I vill help you—” + </p> + <p> + “You stay here. This is my hunt.” + </p> + <p> + Jim passed the rustic guest-houses without turning aside from the trail. + Brown took no thought of inquiring at their doors, for throughout the + summer Françoise had not once been seen at the hotels. He did, however, + hastily borrow a horse from the stable where he was privileged, and + pursuing the blood-hound along the lake shore, he cantered over a causeway + of logs and earth which had been raised above a swamp. + </p> + <p> + The trail was very fresh, for Jim, without swerving, followed the road + where it turned at right angles from the shore and wound inland among + stumps. They had nearly reached Allanville, a group of log huts beside a + north-shore railroad, when Jim uttered the bay of victory. + </p> + <p> + Brown dropped from the saddle and called him sternly back. To be hunting + Françoise with a blood-hound out of leash—how horrible was this! + </p> + <p> + He tied his horse to a tree and took Jim by the collar, restraining the + creature's fierce joy of discovery. Françoise must be near, unless a hound + whose scent was unerring had become a fool. + </p> + <p> + What if she had left camp of her own will? She was so quiet, one could not + be sure of her thoughts. Brown was sure of his thoughts. He grinned in the + lonely landscape, seeing himself as he had appeared on recent Sundays, in + his best turtle-tail neck-tie mounted on velvet. + </p> + <p> + “I've got it bad,” he confessed. + </p> + <p> + Stooping to Jim's collar while the dog whined and strained, he passed a + cabin. And there Jim relaxed in the search and turned around. The moon + stood high enough to make a wan fairy daylight. Gougou, like a gnome, + started from the ground to meet them, and the dog at once lay down and + fawned at his feet. + </p> + <p> + More slowly approaching from the cabin, Brown saw Françoise, still + carrying in her hand the bundle of her belongings brought from camp. In + the shadow of the house a man watched the encounter, and a sift of rank + tobacco smoke hinted the pipes of fathers and sons resting from the day's + labor on the cabin door-sill or the sward. Voices of children could be + heard, and other dogs gave mouth, so that Brown laid severe commands on + Jim before he could tremblingly speak to Françoise. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, M'sieu' Brownee, I t'ink maybe you come!” + </p> + <p> + “But, Françoise, what made you leave?” + </p> + <p> + “It is my husban's brudder. I not know what to do! He bring us to dese + folks to stay all night till de cars go.” + </p> + <p> + “Why didn't he show himself to us, and take you like a man?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, M'sieu' Brownee—he say de priest hexcommunicate me—to + live—so—in de camp! It is not my fault—and I t'ink about + you and M'sieu' Put-tanee—and Gougou he bite his honcle, and kick + and scream!” + </p> + <p> + “Damn the uncle!” swore Brown, deeply. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I been so anxion!” sobbed Françoise. + </p> + <p> + “We must be married right off,” said Brown. “I'll fix your brother-in-law. + Françoise, will yon have me for your husband?” + </p> + <p> + “Me, M'sieu' Brownee?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, you—you cursed sweet patois!” + </p> + <p> + “M'sieu' Brownee, you may call me de cursed patois. I not know anyt'ings. + But when André La France take me away, oh, I t'ink I die! Let me honly be + Françoise to do your mend'! I be 'appier to honly look at you dan some + womans who 'ave 'usban'!” + </p> + <p> + “Françoise, kiss me—kiss me!” His voice broke with a sob. “If you + loved me you would have me!” + </p> + <p> + “M'sieu' Brownee, I ado' you!” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly giving way to passionate weeping, and to all the tenderness which + nature teaches even barbarians to repress, she abandoned herself to his + arms. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Cursed Patois, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURSED PATOIS *** + +***** This file should be named 23247-h.htm or 23247-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/4/23247/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Cursed Patois + From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 + +Author: Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +Release Date: October 30, 2007 [EBook #23247] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURSED PATOIS *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE CURSED PATOIS + +From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 + +By Mary Hartwell Catherwood + + +As his boat shot to the camp dock of beach stones, the camper thought he +heard a child's voice behind the screen of brush. He leaped out and drew +the boat to its landing upon a cross-piece held by two uprights in the +water, and ascended the steep path worn in leaf mould. + +There was not only a child, there was a woman also in the camp. And +Frank Puttany, his German feet planted outward in a line, his smiling +dark face unctuous with hospitality towards creatures whom he had +evidently introduced, in foolish helplessness gave his partner the usual +greeting: + +"Veil, Prowny." + +"Hello, Puttany. Visitors?" + +Brown pulled off his cap to the woman. She was pretty, with eyes like +a deer's, with white teeth showing between her parted scarlet lips, and +much curling hair pinned up and blowing over her ears. She had the rich +tint of a quarter-breed, lightened in her case by a constant suffusion +which gave her steady color. She was dressed in a mixture of patches, +but all were fitted to her perfect shape with a Parisian elegance sensed +even by-backwoodsmen. Pressed against her knee stood the dirtiest and +chubbiest four-year-old child on the borders of Brevoort Lake--perhaps +the dirtiest on the north shore of Michigan. The Indian mixed with his +French had been improved on by the sun until he was of a brick redness +and hardness of flesh; a rosy-raeated thing, like a good muskalonge. +Brown suddenly remembered the pair. They were Joe La France's wife and +child. Joe La France was dead. Puttany had recently told him that Joe +La France left a widow and a baby without shelter, and without relations +nearer than Canada. + +After greeting Brown the guest resumed her seat on one of the +camp-chairs, a box worn smooth by much use, having a slit cut in the top +through which the hand could be thrust to lift it. + +The camp, in a small clearing, consisted of two tents, both of the +wedge-shaped kind. The sleeping-tent was nearly filled by the bed +it contained; and this, lifted a few inches above the ground on pole +supports, was of browse or brush and straw, covered with blankets. A +square canopy of mosquito-netting protected it. The cooking-tent had a +foundation of logs and a canvas top. The floor was of pure white sand. +Boxes like lockers were stored under the eaves to hold food, and in one +corner a cylindrical camp-stove with an oven thrust its pipe through a +tinned hole in the roof. Plenty of iron skillets, kettles, and pans hung +above the lockers on pegs in the logs; and the camp dinner service of +white ware, black-handled knives and forks, and metal spoons, neatly +washed, stood on a table. Jess, the Scotch collie, who was always left +to guard the tents in their owners' absence, sat at her usual post +within the door; and she and Brown exchanged repressed growls at the +strangers. Jess, being freed from her chain, trotted at his heels when +he went back to the beach to clean fish for supper. She sat and watched +his deft and work-hardened hands as he dipped and washed and drew and +scaled his spoil. He was a clean-skinned, blue-eyed Canadian Irishman, +well made and sinewy, bright and open of countenance. His blond hair +clung in almost flaxen tendrils to his warm forehead. No ill-nature was +visible about him, yet he turned like a man in fierce self-defence on +his partner, who followed Jess and stood also watching him. + +"Puttany, you fool! what have you brought these cursed patois into camp +for?" + +"Joe La France vas my old pardner," softly pleaded the German. + +"Damn you, man, we can't start an orphan-asylum and widows' home! We'll +get a bad name at the hotels. The real good people won't have us for +guides." + +"She told me in Allanville she had no place to stay. She did not know +what to do. At the old voman's, where Joe put her, they have need of her +bed. The old voman is too poor to keep her any more." + +"I'd have done just what you did; that's what makes me so mad. How long +is she going to stay?" + +"I don't know," sheepishly responded his partner. + +"A Dutchman ought to have more sense than to load up with a lot of +cursed patois. Nothing but French and Indian! We'll have to put the +precious dears in the sleeping-tent, and bunk down ourselves with +blankets in the other. Did you air the blankets good this morning, +Frank?" + +"They vos veil aired." + +"You're a soft mark, Frank! One of us will have to marry Joe La France's +widow--that's what it will come to!" Brown slapped the water in violent +disgust, but Puttany blushed a dark and modest red. + +Men of their class rarely have vision or any kind of foresight. They +live in the present and plan no farther than their horizon, being, like +children, overpowered by visible things. But the Irish Canadian had +lived many lives as lake sailor and lumberman, and he had a shrewd eye +and quick humor. It was he who had devised the conveniences of the camp, +and who delicately and skilfully prepared the meals so that the two +fared like epicures; while Puttany did the scullery-work, and was +superior only at deerstalking. + +The perfume of coffee presently sifted abroad, and the table was brought +out and set under the evening sky. Lockers gave up their store of bread +and pastry made by the capable hands of the camp housekeeper. The woman, +their guest, sat watching him move from cook-tent to table, and Puttany +lounged on the dog-kennel, whittling a stick. + +"Frank," said his partner, with sudden authority, "you take the kid down +to the water and scrub him." + +"All over?" whispered Puttany, in confusion. + +"No--just his hands and top. Supper is ready to put on." + +The docile mother heard her child yelling and blubbering under generous +douches while nurse's duty was performed by one of her entertainers, and +she smiled in proof that her faith was grounded on their righteousness. +She was indeed a mere girl. Her short scarlet upper lip showed her teeth +with piquant innocence. As much a creature of the woods as a doe, her +lot had been that primitive struggle which knows nothing about the +amenities and proprieties of civilization. This Brown could clearly see, +and he addressed her with the same protecting patronage he would have +used with the child. + +"What's your kid's name?" + +"Gregoire, but he call himself Gougou. Me, I am Francoise La France." + +"Yes, I know that..You have had a hard time since Joe died." + +"I been anxion"--she clasped her hands and looked pleadingly at him--"I +been very anxion!" + +"Well, you're all right now." + +"You let me do de mend'? I can sew. I use' learn to sew when I have +t'ing to sew on." + +"Jerusalem! look at them shirts on the line! We have more clothes to +sew on than any dude at the hotels. And if that isn't enough, I'll make +Puttany strip and stay in the brush while you do his clothes." + +Francoise widened her smile. + +"I've been thinking we'll have to build you a house right over there." +Her entertainer indicated the shore behind her. + +"Oppos'?" exclaimed Francoise, turning with pleased interest. Even in +her husband's lifetime little thought had ever been taken for her. + +"Yes, directly opposite. We can fix it up snug like our winter camp at +the other end of the lake." + +"Have you two camp?" + +"Yes--a winter camp and a summer camp. But we have stayed comfortably +here in the cook-tent until the thermometer went fourteen degrees below +zero. We'll sleep in it till we get your house done, and you can take +the tent. If there are no parties wanting guides, we might as well begin +it in the morning." + +"But," faltered Francoise, "afterw'iles when de ice is t'ick, and you go +to de hudder camp--" + +"Oh, we'll take care of you," he promised. "You and Gougou will go with +us. We couldn't leave you on this side." + +"In de dark nights," shuddered Francoise. + +"You needn't be afraid, any time. When we are off during the day we +always leave Jess and Jim to guard the camp. Jess is a Scotch collie and +Jim is a blood-hound. He's there in the kennel. Neither man nor varmint +would have any chance with them." + +"I been use' to live alone when my husban' is away, M'sieu' Brownee. I +not 'fraid like you t'ink. But if Gougou be cold and hongry." + +"Now that's enough," said Brown, with gentle severity. "Gougou will +never be cold and hungry again while there's a stick of wood to be cut +on the shores of this lake, or any game to bag, or a 'lunge to spear +through the ice. We get about two days' lumbering a week down by +St. Ignace. No use to work more than two days a week," he explained, +jocosely. "That gives us enough to live on; and everybody around here +owes us from fifty to a hundred dollars back pay for work, anyhow. I've +bought this ground, twenty acres of it, and another year I'm going to +turn it into a garden." + +"Oh, a garden, M'sieu' Brownee! Me, I love some garden! I plant honion +once, salade also." + +"But I want to get my fences built before I put in improvements. You +know what the silver rule is, don't you?" + +"No, m'sieu'," answered Francoise, vaguely. She knew little of any rule. + +"The silver rule is different from the golden rule. It's 'Do your +neighbors, or your neighbors will do you.' If I don't protect myself, +all the loose cattle around Brevoort will graze over me. Every fellow +for himself. We can't keep the golden rule. We'd never get rich if we +did." + +"You are rich mans?" interrogated Francoise, focussing her curiosity on +that invisible power of wealth. + +"Millionaires," brazenly claimed the young man, as he put an +earthen-ware pitcher on the table. "Set there, you thousand-dollar dish! +We don't have a yacht on the lake because we prefer small boats, and +we go out as guides to have fun with the greenhorns. The cooking at the +hotels is good enough for common hunters and fishermen who come here +from the cities to spend their money, but it isn't good enough for me. +You've come to the right place, you may make your mind easy on that." + +Francoise smiled because he told her to make her mind easy, not because +she understood the irony of his poverty. To have secure shelter, and +such a table as he spread, and the prowess to achieve continual abundant +sustenance from the world, made wealth in her eyes. She was as happy as +Gougou when this strange family, gathered from three or four nations, +sat down to their first meal. + +The sun went low like a scarlet eggy probing the mother-of-pearl lake +with a long red line of shadow, until it wasted into grayness and so +disappeared. Then home-returning sails became spiritualized, and moved +in mist as in a dream--foggy lake and sky, as one body, seeming to push +in upon the land. + +Francoise slept the sleep of a healthy woman, with her child on her arm, +until at dawn the closed flap of the tent yielded to a bounding shape. +She opened her startled eyes to see Jim the blood-hound at the foot of +the bed, jerking the mosquito-netting. He growled at the interlopers, +not being able in his canine mind to reconcile their presence with his +customary duty of waking his masters in that tent. A call and a whistle +at the other side of the camp drew him away doubting. But in a day both +he and Jess had adopted the new members of the family and walked at +Gougou's heels. + +Gougou existed in wonderland. He regarded the men as great and amiable +powers, who could do what they pleased with the elements and with the +creatures of the earth. They had a fawn, which had followed Brown home +along the beach, feeding on leaves from his hand. They had built it a +sylvan home of cedar boughs behind the camp, from which it wandered +at will. And though at first shy of Gougou, the pretty thing was soon +induced to stand upon its hind feet and dance for bits of cake. His +Indian blood vearned towards the fawn; but Me-thuselah, the mighty +turtle, was more exciting. Methuselah lived a prisoner in one side of +the bait-tank, from which he was lifted by a rope around his tail. He +was so enormous that it required both Brown and Puttany to carry him +up the bank, and as he hung from the pole the sudden projection of his +snapping head was a danger. When he fastened his teeth into a stick, the +stick was hopelessly his as long as he chose to keep it. He was like +an elephant cased in mottled shell, and the serrated ridge on his tail +resembled a row of huge brown teeth. Methuselah was a many-wrinkled +turtle. When he contracted, imbedding head in shoulders and legs in +body, revealing all his claws and showing wicked little eyes near the +point of his nose, his helpless rage stirred all the Indian; he was the +most deliciously devilish thing that Gougou had ever seen. + +Then there was the joy of wintergreen, which both men brought to the +child, and he learned to forage for it himself. The fleshy dark green +leaves and red berries clustered thickly in the woods. He and his +mother went in the boat when the day was to be given to bass or pickerel +fishing, and he learned great lessons of water-lore from the two men. +If they trusted a troll line to his baby hands, he was in a state of +beatitude. His object in life was to possess a bear cub, and many +a porcupine creeping along the beach he mistook for that desirable +property, until taught to distinguish quills from fur. Gougou heard, and +he believed, that all porcupines were old lumbermen, who never died, but +simply contracted to that shape. He furtively stoned them when he could, +reflecting that they were tough, and delighting to see the quills fly. + +Francoise would sit in the camp like a picture of still life, glowing +and silent at her appointed labor. She sewed for all of them, looking +womanly and unhurried, with a pink-veined moccasin-flower in her hair; +while Brown, cooking and baking, rushed from tent to wood-pile, his +sleeves turned back from his white, muscular arms. He lived more +intensely than any other member of the sylvan household. His blue eyes +shone, and his face was vivid as he talked to her. He was a common man, +blunted in the finer nature by a life of hardship, yet his shrewd spirit +seized on much that less facile people like Puttany learned slowly or +not at all. + +Puttany and the child were often together in one long play, broken +only by the man's periods of labor. They basked in a boat near rushes, +waiting for pickerel to strike, or waded a bog to a trout stream at the +other end of the lake, hid in a forest full of windfalls and hoary moss +and tropical growths of brake and fern. Gougou had new strong clothes +and buckskin shoes. For the patois had not been a week in camp before +Brown went to St. Ignace and brought back denim and white and black +calico, which he presented to Francoise. + +"She ought to have a kind of second mourning," he explained to Puttany, +who received his word on any matter as law. "Joe La France wasn't worth +wearing first mourning for, but second mourning is decent for her, and +it won't show in the camp like bright colors would." + +The world of city-maddened people who swarmed to this lake for their +annual immersion in nature did not often intrude on the camp. Yet the +fact of a woman's presence there could not be concealed, and Puttany was +disciplined to say to strangers, "Dot vas my sister and her little poy." + +A tiny cabin was built for Francoise, with the luxuries of a puncheon +floor and one glazed window. She inhabited it in primitive gladness, as +a child adorns a play-house, and was careful to keep it in that trim, +military state which Brown demanded. Francoise had a regard for M'sieu' +Put-tanee, who was neat and ladylike in all his doings, and smiled +amiably at her over her boy's head; but her veneration of M'sieu' +Brownee extended beyond the reach of humor. If he had been a priest he +could have had no more authority. She used to watch him secretly from +her window at dawn, as he put himself through a morning drill to limber +his muscles. Some spectators might have laughed, but she heard as +seriously as if they were the motions of her own soul his tactics with a +stick: + +"Straight out--across the shoulder--under the arm--down on the turf!" + +There were days when the misty gray lake, dim and delicious, lay veiled +within its irregular shores. Then the lowering sun stood on tree-tops, +a pale red wraith like the ghost of an Indian. And there were days +of sharp, clear shine, when Black Point seemed to approach across the +water, and any moving object could be seen in the Burning--a growth of +green springing where the woods had been swept by fire. The men were +often away, guiding fishing parties from dawn until sunset, or hunting +parties from sunset half the night. Francoise and Gou-gou dwelt in the +camp, having the dogs as their protectors, though neither primitive nor +civilized life menaced them there with any danger. Some evenings, when +few affairs had crowded the day, Brown sat like a patriarch in the midst +of his family, and took Gougou on his knee to hear bear stories. He +supervised the youngster's manners like a mother, and Gougou learned to +go down to the washing-place and use soap when the signs were strong for +bear-dens and deer-stalking. + +"I saw a bear come out on the beach once," Brown would tell him, "when +I was stalking for deer and had a doe and fawn in the lake. I smelt him, +but couldn't get him to turn his eyes towards me. I killed both deer, +and skinned them, and cut up one. And that bear went into the woods and +howled for hours. I took all the venison I could carry, but left part +of the carcasses. When we went after them in the morning, the bear had +eaten all up clean." + +Bear-dens, Gougou was informed, might be found where there was a +windfall. The bears stuffed cracks between the fallen trees with moss, +and so made themselves a tight house in which to hibernate. If you were +obliged to have bear meat that season when the game was thin, you +could cut a hole into a den, stand by it with an axe, and lop off the +inquiring head stuck out to investigate disturbances. Bears had very +small stomachs, but whatever they ate went to fat. They walked much on +their hind feet, and browsed on nuts or mast when their hunting was not +successful, being able to thrive on little. Usually a father, a mother, +and a cub formed one household in one den. + +Brown's mind ran on the subject of households; and he sometimes talked +to Francoise about his mother. + +"My mother Gaelics like the Scotch," he said. Francoise could not +imagine what it was to Gaelic. People had not Gaelic-ed on the +Chaudiere, where she was brought up until the children were obliged +to scatter from the narrow farm. But the priest had never warned her +against it, and since M'sieu' Brownee's mother was addicted to the +practice, it must be something excellent, perhaps even religious. She +secretly invoked St. Francis, her patron saint, to obtain for her +that mysterious power of Gaelic-ing of which M'sieu' Brownee spoke so +tenderly. + +So the summer passed, and frost was already ripening to glory the ranks +on ranks of dense forest pressing to the lake borders. Brown and Puttany +rowed home through an early September evening, lifted their boat to its +cross-piece dock, and pulled the plug out of the bottom to let it drain. +There was no sound, even of the dogs, as they flung their spoil ashore. +It was the very instant of moon-rise. At first a copper rim was answered +by the faintest line in the water. Then the full reddish disk stood upon +a strong copper pillar, smooth and flawless in a rippleless lake, and +that became denuded of its capital as the ball rose over it into the +sky. + +"Seems still," remarked Brown, and he ran up the path, shaking leaf +loam like dry tobacco dust from the roots of ferns he had brought to +Francoise. He knew at once that she and Gougou had left the camp. He sat +down on the dog-kennel with his hands on his knees, staring at the dim +earth. Puttany went from tent to cabin, calling his daily playmate, +unable to convince himself that some unusual thing had happened, and he +hoped that Brown would contradict him when he felt compelled to announce +his slow discovery. + +"Dey vas gone!" + +"Damn you, Puttany!" exploded his partner, "what did you bring her here +for? I didn't want to get into this! I wanted to steer clear of women! +You knew I was soft! You knew her black eyes, and the child that made +her seem like the Virgin, would get in their work on me!" + +"No, I didn't," said Puttany, in phlegmatic consternation. + +"What's the matter, Frank? Haven't we behaved white to this woman? Have +you done anything, you stupid old Dutchman," cried Brown, collaring +his partner with abrupt violence, "that would drive her out of the camp +without a word?" + +"I svear, Prowny," the other gasped, as soon as he had breath for +swearing, "I haf been so polite to her as my own mudder." + +The younger man sat down again, dropping lax hands across his knees. +A growl inside the box reminded him that Jim the blood-hound should be +brought to account for this disappearance. + +"Come out here!" he commanded, and the lithe beast crept wagging and +apologizing to his side. "What kind of a way is this for you to keep +a camp--Jess sitting in the kitchen, and you in the box, and somebody +carrying off Francoise and the boy, and every rag that would show they +had ever been here--and not a sound out of your cowardly head till we +come home and catch you skulking? I've a notion to take a board and beat +you to death!" + +Jim lay down with an abject and dismal whine. + +"Where is she?" + +Jim lifted his nose and sniffed hopefully, and his master rose up and +dragged him by the collar to the empty cabin. It was the first time +Brown had entered that little cell since its dedication to the woman for +whom it was built. He rubbed Jim's muzzle against the bed, and pointed +to nails in the logs where the clothes of the patois had hung. + +"Now you lope out and find them--do you hear?" + +Jim, crouching on his belly in acknowledgment that his apprehension had +been at fault during some late encounter, slunk across the camp and took +the path to the hotels. + +Brown turned on Puttany following at his heels: "Frank, are you sure Joe +La France is dead?" + +"Oh yes, he is det." + +"Did you see him die? Were you there when he was buried? Was he put +underground with plenty of dirt on top of him, or did he merely drop in +the water?" + +"I vas not there." + +"Maybe the lazy hound has resurrected. I've seen these lumbermen dropped +into the water and drowned too often. You can never be sure they won't +be up drinking and fighting to-morrow unless you run a knife through +them." + +"He is a det man," affirmed Puttany. + +"Then somebody else has carried her off, and I'm going to know all about +it before I come back to camp. If I never come back, you may have the +stuff and land. I'm in this heels over head, and I don't care how soon +things end with me." + +"But, Prowny, old poy, I vill help you--" + +"You stay here. This is my hunt." + +Jim passed the rustic guest-houses without turning aside from the trail. +Brown took no thought of inquiring at their doors, for throughout the +summer Francoise had not once been seen at the hotels. He did, however, +hastily borrow a horse from the stable where he was privileged, and +pursuing the blood-hound along the lake shore, he cantered over a +causeway of logs and earth which had been raised above a swamp. + +The trail was very fresh, for Jim, without swerving, followed the road +where it turned at right angles from the shore and wound inland among +stumps. They had nearly reached Allanville, a group of log huts beside a +north-shore railroad, when Jim uttered the bay of victory. + +Brown dropped from the saddle and called him sternly back. To be hunting +Francoise with a blood-hound out of leash--how horrible was this! + +He tied his horse to a tree and took Jim by the collar, restraining the +creature's fierce joy of discovery. Francoise must be near, unless a +hound whose scent was unerring had become a fool. + +What if she had left camp of her own will? She was so quiet, one could +not be sure of her thoughts. Brown was sure of his thoughts. He grinned +in the lonely landscape, seeing himself as he had appeared on recent +Sundays, in his best turtle-tail neck-tie mounted on velvet. + +"I've got it bad," he confessed. + +Stooping to Jim's collar while the dog whined and strained, he passed a +cabin. And there Jim relaxed in the search and turned around. The moon +stood high enough to make a wan fairy daylight. Gougou, like a gnome, +started from the ground to meet them, and the dog at once lay down and +fawned at his feet. + +More slowly approaching from the cabin, Brown saw Francoise, still +carrying in her hand the bundle of her belongings brought from camp. In +the shadow of the house a man watched the encounter, and a sift of rank +tobacco smoke hinted the pipes of fathers and sons resting from the +day's labor on the cabin door-sill or the sward. Voices of children +could be heard, and other dogs gave mouth, so that Brown laid severe +commands on Jim before he could tremblingly speak to Francoise. + +"Oh, M'sieu' Brownee, I t'ink maybe you come!" + +"But, Francoise, what made you leave?" + +"It is my husban's brudder. I not know what to do! He bring us to dese +folks to stay all night till de cars go." + +"Why didn't he show himself to us, and take you like a man?" + +"Oh, M'sieu' Brownee--he say de priest hexcommunicate me--to +live--so--in de camp! It is not my fault--and I t'ink about you and +M'sieu' Put-tanee--and Gougou he bite his honcle, and kick and scream!" + +"Damn the uncle!" swore Brown, deeply. + +"Oh, I been so anxion!" sobbed Francoise. + +"We must be married right off," said Brown. "I'll fix your +brother-in-law. Francoise, will yon have me for your husband?" + +"Me, M'sieu' Brownee?" + +"Yes, you--you cursed sweet patois!" + +"M'sieu' Brownee, you may call me de cursed patois. I not know +anyt'ings. But when Andre La France take me away, oh, I t'ink I die! Let +me honly be Francoise to do your mend'! I be 'appier to honly look at +you dan some womans who 'ave 'usban'!" + +"Francoise, kiss me--kiss me!" His voice broke with a sob. "If you loved +me you would have me!" + +"M'sieu' Brownee, I ado' you!" + +Suddenly giving way to passionate weeping, and to all the tenderness +which nature teaches even barbarians to repress, she abandoned herself +to his arms. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Cursed Patois, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURSED PATOIS *** + +***** This file should be named 23247.txt or 23247.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/4/23247/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Cursed Patois + From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 + +Author: Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +Release Date: October 30, 2007 [EBook #23247] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURSED PATOIS *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE CURSED PATOIS + </h1> + <h2> + From “Mackinac And Lake Stories”, 1899 + <br /> <br /> + By Mary Hartwell Catherwood + </h2> + <p> + As his boat shot to the camp dock of beach stones, the camper thought he + heard a child's voice behind the screen of brush. He leaped out and drew + the boat to its landing upon a cross-piece held by two uprights in the + water, and ascended the steep path worn in leaf mould. + </p> + <p> + There was not only a child, there was a woman also in the camp. And Frank + Puttany, his German feet planted outward in a line, his smiling dark face + unctuous with hospitality towards creatures whom he had evidently + introduced, in foolish helplessness gave his partner the usual greeting: + </p> + <p> + “Veil, Prowny.” + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Puttany. Visitors?” + </p> + <p> + Brown pulled off his cap to the woman. She was pretty, with eyes like a + deer's, with white teeth showing between her parted scarlet lips, and much + curling hair pinned up and blowing over her ears. She had the rich tint of + a quarter-breed, lightened in her case by a constant suffusion which gave + her steady color. She was dressed in a mixture of patches, but all were + fitted to her perfect shape with a Parisian elegance sensed even + by-backwoodsmen. Pressed against her knee stood the dirtiest and chubbiest + four-year-old child on the borders of Brevoort Lake—perhaps the + dirtiest on the north shore of Michigan. The Indian mixed with his French + had been improved on by the sun until he was of a brick redness and + hardness of flesh; a rosy-raeated thing, like a good muskalonge. Brown + suddenly remembered the pair. They were Joe La France's wife and child. + Joe La France was dead. Puttany had recently told him that Joe La France + left a widow and a baby without shelter, and without relations nearer than + Canada. + </p> + <p> + After greeting Brown the guest resumed her seat on one of the camp-chairs, + a box worn smooth by much use, having a slit cut in the top through which + the hand could be thrust to lift it. + </p> + <p> + The camp, in a small clearing, consisted of two tents, both of the + wedge-shaped kind. The sleeping-tent was nearly filled by the bed it + contained; and this, lifted a few inches above the ground on pole + supports, was of browse or brush and straw, covered with blankets. A + square canopy of mosquito-netting protected it. The cooking-tent had a + foundation of logs and a canvas top. The floor was of pure white sand. + Boxes like lockers were stored under the eaves to hold food, and in one + corner a cylindrical camp-stove with an oven thrust its pipe through a + tinned hole in the roof. Plenty of iron skillets, kettles, and pans hung + above the lockers on pegs in the logs; and the camp dinner service of + white ware, black-handled knives and forks, and metal spoons, neatly + washed, stood on a table. Jess, the Scotch collie, who was always left to + guard the tents in their owners' absence, sat at her usual post within the + door; and she and Brown exchanged repressed growls at the strangers. Jess, + being freed from her chain, trotted at his heels when he went back to the + beach to clean fish for supper. She sat and watched his deft and + work-hardened hands as he dipped and washed and drew and scaled his spoil. + He was a clean-skinned, blue-eyed Canadian Irishman, well made and sinewy, + bright and open of countenance. His blond hair clung in almost flaxen + tendrils to his warm forehead. No ill-nature was visible about him, yet he + turned like a man in fierce self-defence on his partner, who followed Jess + and stood also watching him. + </p> + <p> + “Puttany, you fool! what have you brought these cursed patois into camp + for?” + </p> + <p> + “Joe La France vas my old pardner,” softly pleaded the German. + </p> + <p> + “Damn you, man, we can't start an orphan-asylum and widows' home! We'll + get a bad name at the hotels. The real good people won't have us for + guides.” + </p> + <p> + “She told me in Allanville she had no place to stay. She did not know what + to do. At the old voman's, where Joe put her, they have need of her bed. + The old voman is too poor to keep her any more.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd have done just what you did; that's what makes me so mad. How long is + she going to stay?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” sheepishly responded his partner. + </p> + <p> + “A Dutchman ought to have more sense than to load up with a lot of cursed + patois. Nothing but French and Indian! We'll have to put the precious + dears in the sleeping-tent, and bunk down ourselves with blankets in the + other. Did you air the blankets good this morning, Frank?” + </p> + <p> + “They vos veil aired.” + </p> + <p> + “You're a soft mark, Frank! One of us will have to marry Joe La France's + widow—that's what it will come to!” Brown slapped the water in + violent disgust, but Puttany blushed a dark and modest red. + </p> + <p> + Men of their class rarely have vision or any kind of foresight. They live + in the present and plan no farther than their horizon, being, like + children, overpowered by visible things. But the Irish Canadian had lived + many lives as lake sailor and lumberman, and he had a shrewd eye and quick + humor. It was he who had devised the conveniences of the camp, and who + delicately and skilfully prepared the meals so that the two fared like + epicures; while Puttany did the scullery-work, and was superior only at + deerstalking. + </p> + <p> + The perfume of coffee presently sifted abroad, and the table was brought + out and set under the evening sky. Lockers gave up their store of bread + and pastry made by the capable hands of the camp housekeeper. The woman, + their guest, sat watching him move from cook-tent to table, and Puttany + lounged on the dog-kennel, whittling a stick. + </p> + <p> + “Frank,” said his partner, with sudden authority, “you take the kid down + to the water and scrub him.” + </p> + <p> + “All over?” whispered Puttany, in confusion. + </p> + <p> + “No—just his hands and top. Supper is ready to put on.” + </p> + <p> + The docile mother heard her child yelling and blubbering under generous + douches while nurse's duty was performed by one of her entertainers, and + she smiled in proof that her faith was grounded on their righteousness. + She was indeed a mere girl. Her short scarlet upper lip showed her teeth + with piquant innocence. As much a creature of the woods as a doe, her lot + had been that primitive struggle which knows nothing about the amenities + and proprieties of civilization. This Brown could clearly see, and he + addressed her with the same protecting patronage he would have used with + the child. + </p> + <p> + “What's your kid's name?” + </p> + <p> + “Grégoire, but he call himself Gougou. Me, I am Françoise La France.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know that..You have had a hard time since Joe died.” + </p> + <p> + “I been anxion”—she clasped her hands and looked pleadingly at him—“I + been very anxion!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you're all right now.” + </p> + <p> + “You let me do de mend'? I can sew. I use' learn to sew when I have t'ing + to sew on.” + </p> + <p> + “Jerusalem! look at them shirts on the line! We have more clothes to sew + on than any dude at the hotels. And if that isn't enough, I'll make + Puttany strip and stay in the brush while you do his clothes.” + </p> + <p> + Françoise widened her smile. + </p> + <p> + “I've been thinking we'll have to build you a house right over there.” Her + entertainer indicated the shore behind her. + </p> + <p> + “Oppos'?” exclaimed Françoise, turning with pleased interest. Even in her + husband's lifetime little thought had ever been taken for her. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, directly opposite. We can fix it up snug like our winter camp at the + other end of the lake.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you two camp?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—a winter camp and a summer camp. But we have stayed comfortably + here in the cook-tent until the thermometer went fourteen degrees below + zero. We'll sleep in it till we get your house done, and you can take the + tent. If there are no parties wanting guides, we might as well begin it in + the morning.” + </p> + <p> + “But,” faltered Françoise, “afterw'iles when de ice is t'ick, and you go + to de hudder camp—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we'll take care of you,” he promised. “You and Gougou will go with + us. We couldn't leave you on this side.” + </p> + <p> + “In de dark nights,” shuddered Françoise. + </p> + <p> + “You needn't be afraid, any time. When we are off during the day we always + leave Jess and Jim to guard the camp. Jess is a Scotch collie and Jim is a + blood-hound. He's there in the kennel. Neither man nor varmint would have + any chance with them.” + </p> + <p> + “I been use' to live alone when my husban' is away, M'sieu' Brownee. I not + 'fraid like you t'ink. But if Gougou be cold and hongry.” + </p> + <p> + “Now that's enough,” said Brown, with gentle severity. “Gougou will never + be cold and hungry again while there's a stick of wood to be cut on the + shores of this lake, or any game to bag, or a 'lunge to spear through the + ice. We get about two days' lumbering a week down by St. Ignace. No use to + work more than two days a week,” he explained, jocosely. “That gives us + enough to live on; and everybody around here owes us from fifty to a + hundred dollars back pay for work, anyhow. I've bought this ground, twenty + acres of it, and another year I'm going to turn it into a garden.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, a garden, M'sieu' Brownee! Me, I love some garden! I plant honion + once, salade also.” + </p> + <p> + “But I want to get my fences built before I put in improvements. You know + what the silver rule is, don't you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, m'sieu',” answered Françoise, vaguely. She knew little of any rule. + </p> + <p> + “The silver rule is different from the golden rule. It's 'Do your + neighbors, or your neighbors will do you.' If I don't protect myself, all + the loose cattle around Brevoort will graze over me. Every fellow for + himself. We can't keep the golden rule. We'd never get rich if we did.” + </p> + <p> + “You are rich mans?” interrogated Françoise, focussing her curiosity on + that invisible power of wealth. + </p> + <p> + “Millionaires,” brazenly claimed the young man, as he put an earthen-ware + pitcher on the table. “Set there, you thousand-dollar dish! We don't have + a yacht on the lake because we prefer small boats, and we go out as guides + to have fun with the greenhorns. The cooking at the hotels is good enough + for common hunters and fishermen who come here from the cities to spend + their money, but it isn't good enough for me. You've come to the right + place, you may make your mind easy on that.” + </p> + <p> + Françoise smiled because he told her to make her mind easy, not because + she understood the irony of his poverty. To have secure shelter, and such + a table as he spread, and the prowess to achieve continual abundant + sustenance from the world, made wealth in her eyes. She was as happy as + Gougou when this strange family, gathered from three or four nations, sat + down to their first meal. + </p> + <p> + The sun went low like a scarlet eggy probing the mother-of-pearl lake with + a long red line of shadow, until it wasted into grayness and so + disappeared. Then home-returning sails became spiritualized, and moved in + mist as in a dream—foggy lake and sky, as one body, seeming to push + in upon the land. + </p> + <p> + Françoise slept the sleep of a healthy woman, with her child on her arm, + until at dawn the closed flap of the tent yielded to a bounding shape. She + opened her startled eyes to see Jim the blood-hound at the foot of the + bed, jerking the mosquito-netting. He growled at the interlopers, not + being able in his canine mind to reconcile their presence with his + customary duty of waking his masters in that tent. A call and a whistle at + the other side of the camp drew him away doubting. But in a day both he + and Jess had adopted the new members of the family and walked at Gougou's + heels. + </p> + <p> + Gougou existed in wonderland. He regarded the men as great and amiable + powers, who could do what they pleased with the elements and with the + creatures of the earth. They had a fawn, which had followed Brown home + along the beach, feeding on leaves from his hand. They had built it a + sylvan home of cedar boughs behind the camp, from which it wandered at + will. And though at first shy of Gougou, the pretty thing was soon induced + to stand upon its hind feet and dance for bits of cake. His Indian blood + vearned towards the fawn; but Me-thuselah, the mighty turtle, was more + exciting. Methuselah lived a prisoner in one side of the bait-tank, from + which he was lifted by a rope around his tail. He was so enormous that it + required both Brown and Puttany to carry him up the bank, and as he hung + from the pole the sudden projection of his snapping head was a danger. + When he fastened his teeth into a stick, the stick was hopelessly his as + long as he chose to keep it. He was like an elephant cased in mottled + shell, and the serrated ridge on his tail resembled a row of huge brown + teeth. Methuselah was a many-wrinkled turtle. When he contracted, + imbedding head in shoulders and legs in body, revealing all his claws and + showing wicked little eyes near the point of his nose, his helpless rage + stirred all the Indian; he was the most deliciously devilish thing that + Gougou had ever seen. + </p> + <p> + Then there was the joy of wintergreen, which both men brought to the + child, and he learned to forage for it himself. The fleshy dark green + leaves and red berries clustered thickly in the woods. He and his mother + went in the boat when the day was to be given to bass or pickerel fishing, + and he learned great lessons of water-lore from the two men. If they + trusted a troll line to his baby hands, he was in a state of beatitude. + His object in life was to possess a bear cub, and many a porcupine + creeping along the beach he mistook for that desirable property, until + taught to distinguish quills from fur. Gougou heard, and he believed, that + all porcupines were old lumbermen, who never died, but simply contracted + to that shape. He furtively stoned them when he could, reflecting that + they were tough, and delighting to see the quills fly. + </p> + <p> + Françoise would sit in the camp like a picture of still life, glowing and + silent at her appointed labor. She sewed for all of them, looking womanly + and unhurried, with a pink-veined moccasin-flower in her hair; while + Brown, cooking and baking, rushed from tent to wood-pile, his sleeves + turned back from his white, muscular arms. He lived more intensely than + any other member of the sylvan household. His blue eyes shone, and his + face was vivid as he talked to her. He was a common man, blunted in the + finer nature by a life of hardship, yet his shrewd spirit seized on much + that less facile people like Puttany learned slowly or not at all. + </p> + <p> + Puttany and the child were often together in one long play, broken only by + the man's periods of labor. They basked in a boat near rushes, waiting for + pickerel to strike, or waded a bog to a trout stream at the other end of + the lake, hid in a forest full of windfalls and hoary moss and tropical + growths of brake and fern. Gougou had new strong clothes and buckskin + shoes. For the patois had not been a week in camp before Brown went to St. + Ignace and brought back denim and white and black calico, which he + presented to Françoise. + </p> + <p> + “She ought to have a kind of second mourning,” he explained to Puttany, + who received his word on any matter as law. “Joe La France wasn't worth + wearing first mourning for, but second mourning is decent for her, and it + won't show in the camp like bright colors would.” + </p> + <p> + The world of city-maddened people who swarmed to this lake for their + annual immersion in nature did not often intrude on the camp. Yet the fact + of a woman's presence there could not be concealed, and Puttany was + disciplined to say to strangers, “Dot vas my sister and her little poy.” + </p> + <p> + A tiny cabin was built for Françoise, with the luxuries of a puncheon + floor and one glazed window. She inhabited it in primitive gladness, as a + child adorns a play-house, and was careful to keep it in that trim, + military state which Brown demanded. Françoise had a regard for M'sieu' + Put-tanee, who was neat and ladylike in all his doings, and smiled amiably + at her over her boy's head; but her veneration of M'sieu' Brownee extended + beyond the reach of humor. If he had been a priest he could have had no + more authority. She used to watch him secretly from her window at dawn, as + he put himself through a morning drill to limber his muscles. Some + spectators might have laughed, but she heard as seriously as if they were + the motions of her own soul his tactics with a stick: + </p> + <p> + “Straight out—across the shoulder—under the arm—down on + the turf!” + </p> + <p> + There were days when the misty gray lake, dim and delicious, lay veiled + within its irregular shores. Then the lowering sun stood on tree-tops, a + pale red wraith like the ghost of an Indian. And there were days of sharp, + clear shine, when Black Point seemed to approach across the water, and any + moving object could be seen in the Burning—a growth of green + springing where the woods had been swept by fire. The men were often away, + guiding fishing parties from dawn until sunset, or hunting parties from + sunset half the night. Françoise and Gou-gou dwelt in the camp, having the + dogs as their protectors, though neither primitive nor civilized life + menaced them there with any danger. Some evenings, when few affairs had + crowded the day, Brown sat like a patriarch in the midst of his family, + and took Gougou on his knee to hear bear stories. He supervised the + youngster's manners like a mother, and Gougou learned to go down to the + washing-place and use soap when the signs were strong for bear-dens and + deer-stalking. + </p> + <p> + “I saw a bear come out on the beach once,” Brown would tell him, “when I + was stalking for deer and had a doe and fawn in the lake. I smelt him, but + couldn't get him to turn his eyes towards me. I killed both deer, and + skinned them, and cut up one. And that bear went into the woods and howled + for hours. I took all the venison I could carry, but left part of the + carcasses. When we went after them in the morning, the bear had eaten all + up clean.” + </p> + <p> + Bear-dens, Gougou was informed, might be found where there was a windfall. + The bears stuffed cracks between the fallen trees with moss, and so made + themselves a tight house in which to hibernate. If you were obliged to + have bear meat that season when the game was thin, you could cut a hole + into a den, stand by it with an axe, and lop off the inquiring head stuck + out to investigate disturbances. Bears had very small stomachs, but + whatever they ate went to fat. They walked much on their hind feet, and + browsed on nuts or mast when their hunting was not successful, being able + to thrive on little. Usually a father, a mother, and a cub formed one + household in one den. + </p> + <p> + Brown's mind ran on the subject of households; and he sometimes talked to + Françoise about his mother. + </p> + <p> + “My mother Gaelics like the Scotch,” he said. Françoise could not imagine + what it was to Gaelic. People had not Gaelic-ed on the Chaudière, where + she was brought up until the children were obliged to scatter from the + narrow farm. But the priest had never warned her against it, and since + M'sieu' Brownee's mother was addicted to the practice, it must be + something excellent, perhaps even religious. She secretly invoked St. + Francis, her patron saint, to obtain for her that mysterious power of + Gaelic-ing of which M'sieu' Brownee spoke so tenderly. + </p> + <p> + So the summer passed, and frost was already ripening to glory the ranks on + ranks of dense forest pressing to the lake borders. Brown and Puttany + rowed home through an early September evening, lifted their boat to its + cross-piece dock, and pulled the plug out of the bottom to let it drain. + There was no sound, even of the dogs, as they flung their spoil ashore. It + was the very instant of moon-rise. At first a copper rim was answered by + the faintest line in the water. Then the full reddish disk stood upon a + strong copper pillar, smooth and flawless in a rippleless lake, and that + became denuded of its capital as the ball rose over it into the sky. + </p> + <p> + “Seems still,” remarked Brown, and he ran up the path, shaking leaf loam + like dry tobacco dust from the roots of ferns he had brought to Françoise. + He knew at once that she and Gougou had left the camp. He sat down on the + dog-kennel with his hands on his knees, staring at the dim earth. Puttany + went from tent to cabin, calling his daily playmate, unable to convince + himself that some unusual thing had happened, and he hoped that Brown + would contradict him when he felt compelled to announce his slow + discovery. + </p> + <p> + “Dey vas gone!” + </p> + <p> + “Damn you, Puttany!” exploded his partner, “what did you bring her here + for? I didn't want to get into this! I wanted to steer clear of women! You + knew I was soft! You knew her black eyes, and the child that made her seem + like the Virgin, would get in their work on me!” + </p> + <p> + “No, I didn't,” said Puttany, in phlegmatic consternation. + </p> + <p> + “What's the matter, Frank? Haven't we behaved white to this woman? Have + you done anything, you stupid old Dutchman,” cried Brown, collaring his + partner with abrupt violence, “that would drive her out of the camp + without a word?” + </p> + <p> + “I svear, Prowny,” the other gasped, as soon as he had breath for + swearing, “I haf been so polite to her as my own mudder.” + </p> + <p> + The younger man sat down again, dropping lax hands across his knees. A + growl inside the box reminded him that Jim the blood-hound should be + brought to account for this disappearance. + </p> + <p> + “Come out here!” he commanded, and the lithe beast crept wagging and + apologizing to his side. “What kind of a way is this for you to keep a + camp—Jess sitting in the kitchen, and you in the box, and somebody + carrying off Françoise and the boy, and every rag that would show they had + ever been here—and not a sound out of your cowardly head till we + come home and catch you skulking? I've a notion to take a board and beat + you to death!” + </p> + <p> + Jim lay down with an abject and dismal whine. + </p> + <p> + “Where is she?” + </p> + <p> + Jim lifted his nose and sniffed hopefully, and his master rose up and + dragged him by the collar to the empty cabin. It was the first time Brown + had entered that little cell since its dedication to the woman for whom it + was built. He rubbed Jim's muzzle against the bed, and pointed to nails in + the logs where the clothes of the patois had hung. + </p> + <p> + “Now you lope out and find them—do you hear?” + </p> + <p> + Jim, crouching on his belly in acknowledgment that his apprehension had + been at fault during some late encounter, slunk across the camp and took + the path to the hotels. + </p> + <p> + Brown turned on Puttany following at his heels: “Frank, are you sure Joe + La France is dead?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, he is det.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you see him die? Were you there when he was buried? Was he put + underground with plenty of dirt on top of him, or did he merely drop in + the water?” + </p> + <p> + “I vas not there.” + </p> + <p> + “Maybe the lazy hound has resurrected. I've seen these lumbermen dropped + into the water and drowned too often. You can never be sure they won't be + up drinking and fighting to-morrow unless you run a knife through them.” + </p> + <p> + “He is a det man,” affirmed Puttany. + </p> + <p> + “Then somebody else has carried her off, and I'm going to know all about + it before I come back to camp. If I never come back, you may have the + stuff and land. I'm in this heels over head, and I don't care how soon + things end with me.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Prowny, old poy, I vill help you—” + </p> + <p> + “You stay here. This is my hunt.” + </p> + <p> + Jim passed the rustic guest-houses without turning aside from the trail. + Brown took no thought of inquiring at their doors, for throughout the + summer Françoise had not once been seen at the hotels. He did, however, + hastily borrow a horse from the stable where he was privileged, and + pursuing the blood-hound along the lake shore, he cantered over a causeway + of logs and earth which had been raised above a swamp. + </p> + <p> + The trail was very fresh, for Jim, without swerving, followed the road + where it turned at right angles from the shore and wound inland among + stumps. They had nearly reached Allanville, a group of log huts beside a + north-shore railroad, when Jim uttered the bay of victory. + </p> + <p> + Brown dropped from the saddle and called him sternly back. To be hunting + Françoise with a blood-hound out of leash—how horrible was this! + </p> + <p> + He tied his horse to a tree and took Jim by the collar, restraining the + creature's fierce joy of discovery. Françoise must be near, unless a hound + whose scent was unerring had become a fool. + </p> + <p> + What if she had left camp of her own will? She was so quiet, one could not + be sure of her thoughts. Brown was sure of his thoughts. He grinned in the + lonely landscape, seeing himself as he had appeared on recent Sundays, in + his best turtle-tail neck-tie mounted on velvet. + </p> + <p> + “I've got it bad,” he confessed. + </p> + <p> + Stooping to Jim's collar while the dog whined and strained, he passed a + cabin. And there Jim relaxed in the search and turned around. The moon + stood high enough to make a wan fairy daylight. Gougou, like a gnome, + started from the ground to meet them, and the dog at once lay down and + fawned at his feet. + </p> + <p> + More slowly approaching from the cabin, Brown saw Françoise, still + carrying in her hand the bundle of her belongings brought from camp. In + the shadow of the house a man watched the encounter, and a sift of rank + tobacco smoke hinted the pipes of fathers and sons resting from the day's + labor on the cabin door-sill or the sward. Voices of children could be + heard, and other dogs gave mouth, so that Brown laid severe commands on + Jim before he could tremblingly speak to Françoise. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, M'sieu' Brownee, I t'ink maybe you come!” + </p> + <p> + “But, Françoise, what made you leave?” + </p> + <p> + “It is my husban's brudder. I not know what to do! He bring us to dese + folks to stay all night till de cars go.” + </p> + <p> + “Why didn't he show himself to us, and take you like a man?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, M'sieu' Brownee—he say de priest hexcommunicate me—to + live—so—in de camp! It is not my fault—and I t'ink about + you and M'sieu' Put-tanee—and Gougou he bite his honcle, and kick + and scream!” + </p> + <p> + “Damn the uncle!” swore Brown, deeply. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I been so anxion!” sobbed Françoise. + </p> + <p> + “We must be married right off,” said Brown. “I'll fix your brother-in-law. + Françoise, will yon have me for your husband?” + </p> + <p> + “Me, M'sieu' Brownee?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, you—you cursed sweet patois!” + </p> + <p> + “M'sieu' Brownee, you may call me de cursed patois. I not know anyt'ings. + But when André La France take me away, oh, I t'ink I die! Let me honly be + Françoise to do your mend'! I be 'appier to honly look at you dan some + womans who 'ave 'usban'!” + </p> + <p> + “Françoise, kiss me—kiss me!” His voice broke with a sob. “If you + loved me you would have me!” + </p> + <p> + “M'sieu' Brownee, I ado' you!” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly giving way to passionate weeping, and to all the tenderness which + nature teaches even barbarians to repress, she abandoned herself to his + arms. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Cursed Patois, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURSED PATOIS *** + +***** This file should be named 23247-h.htm or 23247-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/4/23247/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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