diff options
Diffstat (limited to '34416.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 34416.txt | 3540 |
1 files changed, 3540 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/34416.txt b/34416.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..66abd2d --- /dev/null +++ b/34416.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3540 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The River's Children, by Ruth McEnery Stuart + +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 River's Children + An Idyl of the Mississippi + +Author: Ruth McEnery Stuart + +Illustrator: Barry C. Edwards + +Release Date: November 23, 2010 [EBook #34416] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIVER'S CHILDREN *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + THE RIVER'S CHILDREN + + AN IDYL OF THE MISSISSIPPI + + By RUTH McENERY STUART + +AUTHOR OF "SONNY," "HOLLY AND PIZEN," "MORIAH'S MOURNING," "NAPOLEON +JACKSON," ETC. + + + With Pictures by + Barry C. Edwards + + NEW YORK + THE CENTURY CO. + 1904 + + Copyright, 1904, by + THE CENTURY CO. + + Copyright, 1903, by + PHELPS PUBLISHING CO. + + _Published October, 1904_ + + THE DE VINNE PRESS + + + + +[Illustration: "Upon the brow of the levee"] + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Upon the brow of the levee + +Gangs of men, reinforcing suspicious danger points with pickax and spade + +Sipped iced orange syrup or claret sangaree + +The brave, unthinking fellow, after embracing his beloved, dashed to the +front + +Her arms were about his knees + + + + +THE RIVER'S CHILDREN + +AN IDYL OF THE MISSISSIPPI + + + + +PART FIRST + + +The Mississippi was flaunting itself in the face of opposition along its +southern banks. It had carried much before it in its downward path ere +it reached New Orleans. A plantation here, a low-lying settlement there, +a cotton-field in bloom under its brim, had challenged its waters and +been taken in, and there was desolation in its wake. + +In certain weak places above and below the city, gangs of men--negroes +mostly--worked day and night, reinforcing suspicious danger-points with +pickax and spade. At one place an imminent crevasse threatened life and +property to such a degree that the workers were conscripted and held to +their posts by promises of high wages, abetted by periodical passage +along the line of a bucket and gourd dipper. + +[Illustration: "Gangs of men, reinforcing suspicious danger points with +pickax and spade"] + +There was apparently nothing worse than mirth and song in the bucket. +Concocted to appeal to the festive instinct of the dark laborers as much +as to steady their hands and sustain courage, it was colored a fine pink +and floated ice lumps and bits of lemon when served. Yet there was a +quality in it which warmed as it went, and spurred pickax and spade to +do their best--spurred their wielders often to jest and song, too, for +there was scarcely a secure place even along the brimming bank where one +might not, by listening, catch the sound of laughter or of rhythmic +voices: + + "Sing, nigger, sing! Sing yo' hymn! + De river, she's a-boomin'--she's a-comin _che-bim_! + Swim, nigger, swim! + + "Sing, nigger, sing! Sing yo' rhyme! + De waters is a-floodin'--dey's a-roarin' on time! + Climb, squirrel, climb!" + +At this particular danger-spot just below the city, a number of +cotton-bales, contributed by planters whose fortunes were at stake, were +placed in line against a threatening break as primary support, staked +securely down and chained together. + +Over these were cast everything available, to raise their height. It was +said that even barrels of sugar and molasses were used, and shiploads of +pig-iron, with sections of street railways ripped from their ties. Then +barrels of boiling tar, tarpaulins, and more chains. And then-- + +And then there were prayers--and messages to the priests up at the old +St. Louis Cathedral, where many of the wives were kneeling--and reckless +gifts of money to the poor. + +A few of the men who had not entered church for years were seen to cross +themselves covertly; and one, a convivial creole of a rather racy +reputation, was even observed, through the sudden turn of a lantern one +night, to take from his pocket a miniature statue of St. Joseph, and to +hold it between his eyes and the sky while he, too, crossed himself. And +the boon companion who smiled at the sight did himself make upon his own +breast a tiny sign of the cross in the dark, even as he moved toward his +friend to chaff him. And when, in turning, he dimly descried the outline +of a distant spire surmounted by a cross against the stars, he did +reverently lift his hat. + +"It can't do any harm, anyhow," he apologized to himself; but when he +had reached his friend, he remarked dryly: + +"You don't mean to tell me, Felix, dat you pray to St. Joseph yet, you +old sinner! Excuse me, but dose passing lantern, dey give you away." + +"Pray to St. Joseph? I would pray to de devil to-night, me, Adolphe, if +I believed he would drive de river down." + +"Sh! Don't make comparison between St. Joseph an' de devil, Felix. Not +to-night, anyhow." + +"I di'n' done dat, Adolphe. No! _Pas du tout_. Not at all. H'only, I +say, me, I _would_ pray to de devil _if_ he could help us out." + +He laughed and shrugged his shoulders as he added recklessly: + +"Yas, I would be one mud-catfish caught on his forked tail--just for +to-night--an' let him drag me behind him in de river, if--" + +"But you mus' ricollec', de devil he don't play wid water, Felix. Fire +is his--fire an' brimstone--" + +"Ah-h-h! Bah, Adolphe! Who is trying to talk sense to-night? Dose row of +warehouse yonder, dey are _all full_, an' on my one pair shoulder. _My_ +li'l' crop is not'ing. I got in doze warehouse, waiting for a _sure_ +rise in de market--all on my ob_stin_ate judgment--everyt'ing of _my +brudder_, _my t'ree cousin_, _my wife_, _my mud'-in-law_,--just +t'ink!--not to speak about t'irty-five or forty small consignment. Sure! +I would pray to _anyt'ing_ to-night--to save dem. I would pray to one +_crawfish_ not to work dis way. Dem crawfish hole is de devil. + +"But dat St. Joseph in my pocket! My mudder, I am sure she put it dere. +She an' my sisters, dey will all kneel many hours at deir _prie-dieux_ +to-night--po' t'ings!" + +"An' yo' wife--she also, of co'se--" + +"My wife?" The man chuckled. "Pff! Ah, no! She is at de opera. She knows +I am watching de river. She believe it cannot run over so long I watch +it. I married her yo'ng. Dat's de bes' way. + +"_Mais_, tell de trut', Adolphe, I am going to church, me, after dis. +Dere's not'ing, after all, like God to stand in wid you! You hear me, I +tell you to-night de rizzen our women keep good an' happy--_it is +faith_. You know da's true." + +"Yas, I believe you, Felix. An' me, I t'ink I will go, too. _Any_'ow, +I'll show up at Easter communion. An' dat's a soon promise, too. T'ree +week las' Sunday it will be here. + +"All my yard is w'ite wid dem Easter lilies already. Dis soon spring +compel dem. Wen you smell doze Bermudas above de roses in your garden +in de middle of Lent, look out for Old Lady Mississippi. She is getting +ready to spread her flounces over yo' fields--" + +"Yas, an' to dance on yo' family graves. You may say w'at you like, +Adolphe--de ruling lady of dis low valley country, it is not de Carnival +Queen; it is not de first lady at de Governor's Mansion. It is--let us +raise our hats--it is Old Lady Mississippi! _She is_ de ruling lady of +de Gulf country--old _mais_ forever yo'ng. + +"In my _ril_igion I have no superstition. I swallow it whole--even w'en +I mus' shut my nose--I mean hol' my eyes. W'at is de matter wid me? I +cannot talk straight to-night. _Mais_ to speak of de river, I mus' +confess to you dat even w'en it is midsummer an' she masquerade like +common dirty waters, I _pro_pitiate her. + +"Once, I can tell you, I was rowing one skiff across by de red church, +an' suddenly--for w'y I di' n' see immediately--_mais_ out of de still +water, mixed into bubbles only by my oars, over my hand came one _big +wave_. I looked quick, but I could see only de sun to blind my eyes. +_Mais_ you know w'at I did? + +"Dat bright sun, it _re_flect a small stone in my ring, one diamond, an' +quick I slip it off an' drop it. It was de river's _pet_ition, an' w'at +is a sixty-five-dollar diamond to a man w'en--" + +"Dey ain' got no _in_sanity in yo' family, I don't t'ink, Felix? +Otherwise--excuse me--I would be oneasy for you." + +Adolphe was smiling, and he mischievously lifted one brow and drew up +his lips as if to whistle. + +Felix smiled, too, as he replied: + +"You needn't fear for me, Adolphe. _Mais_ strong-headed ancestors, dey +are not'ing. Me, I could _start_ a crazy line just as well as my +great-gran'fodder. Everyt'ing mus' _begin somewhere_." + +But he added more seriously: + +"_Non_, I would do it again--_if_ I was on _such a trip_. I tell you +w'at time it was; it was--" + +He dropped his voice and looked over his shoulder. + +"You want to know w'at, precisely, I was doing at de moment de river +demand my ring? _I was praying to her! Sure!_" (This last in a whisper.) + +"Oh-h-h!" Adolphe's face lit. "Yas, I understand. I ricollec'. You mean +about five year pas'--dat time yo' sister los' 'er firs' 'usband, +w'en--?" + +"Yas, _ex_ac'ly. So you see dat _pred_icament in w'ich I was placed wid +de river. I never liked po' Jacques Renault--" He shrugged his +shoulders. "I never _prof_ess to like him, _mais_ he was my +brud'-in-law; an' my po' sister--you know Felicite--she is my _twin_. +She done not'ing but cry, cry, cry for fo' days an' nights, an' pay all +'er money in de poor-box _to find him_. An' dey tried every way to bring +him up. So me, I say not'ing, _mais_ w'en de fif day is come I loan from +my cousin Achilles his wide skiff, an' I start out, an' I row two mile +below w'ere dey foun' 'is clo'es an' hat, an' den I pull up again--an' +wid every stroke I pray to de river to grant me dat satisfaction to find +po' Jacques an' to lay him in his grave. + +"Tell you de trut', maybe I am a sinner to say it, _mais_ I was half +afraid in my heart dat may_be_ Jacques was playing 'possum an' some day +he would come back; an' w'en somebody is dead--dat's one terrible dread, +_yas_--to get such a surprise, _es_pecially for one widow, you +understand. It is a _re_striction, more or less, according to--Well, +never mind. + +"You may b'lief me or not, _mais_ w'en de river she _re_quire of me dat +ring, laying her wet hand over my hand like to take it, at de same time +she turn it to de sun--well, I am not stupid. I dropped it _quick_ to +her, an' den I looked _close_, yas, on de water, an' _im_mediately I see +one--" + +"You said jus' now you saw only de glare of de sun--" + +"_Ex_ac'ly--an' den, naturally, one black spot befo' my eye, an' I t'ink +it is de sun; _mais_-- + +"Well, 't is a _dis_agreeable picture. Never mind! De river she _give +me de swap_, an' we had one fine funeral de nex' day; an' my po' sister +Felicite had her consolation. + +"So, like I say, w'at consideration was one small diamond ring for such +a pleasure? + +"A widow widout a grave is like a wind in Feb'uary--crying always +forever aroun' de house, wid nowhere to go, an' in her eyes are all +kinds of weather. Bff! + +"It is great consolation, a grave. It is a half-way station between de +home an' de church; an' a widow she need dat--for a w'ile. + +"Tell you de trut', w'en I take time to t'ink, Adolphe, sometimes I am +ashame'. So long I am prosperous I am all for dis worl'; den, w'en +somet'ing come, like now, an' t'row me on my knees, I feel cheap befo' +God, yas. _Mais_, wid de river _so_, w'at can a man _do_ if he cannot +_pray_? So, after to-night's _ex_perience, I am at home wid my li'l' +family by eleven o'clock every night, _sure_." + +"'Ow much chillen you got now, Felix? You go too fas' for my +'rit'metic." + +"Oh, no, not too fas'--just fas' enough. Only nine in over ten +year--mos' eleven year. Only _six_, by _right_. I _engage_ for six; +_mais_ w'at can a man do w'en his lady present him wid one _extra_, once +in a w'ile! I am de las' one to make remark on her for dat, too, +biccause I come dat way myself--following behind Felicite. Twins, dey +run in some families; an' you know now I am coming to like dem. Dey are +so sociable, twins." + +"Ah, my friend, you have plenty occasion to be one good man." + +"_Occasion!_ I am blessed. T'ink all I have got to be t'ankful! I got my +mudder, my mud'-in-law, my fad'-in-law--all _ril_igious people an' +good--an' _nine li'tl' one_, like six stair-steps wid t'ree landings for +de _ac_commodation of de twins." He chuckled. "Yas, an' I am going to be +good. No more dem soubrette supper for me. An' dem _danse de_-- + +"_Mais wait! W'at is dat?_" + +A bell had rung, and a voice was calling out the depth of the water as +shown upon a graduated scale marked low down against the pier. The +announcement was half-hourly now. + +"W'at he say? T'irteen inches an' a--Dat's a half-inch fall. T'ank God! +Maybe St. Joseph an' our women dey save us yet, Adolphe." + +"Yas, may_be_. _Mais_ I t'ink de winter is full broke in Minnesota, too. +No more dat confoun' ice to melt. I looked _sure_ for de water to fall +down yesterday. Any'ow, one half-inch is hope. Here, take one cigar. I +can smoke, me, on dat half-inch. You got any matches, Felix?" + +In finding his match-box Felix's fingers came in contact with the tiny +statue of St. Joseph in his pocket, but he was only half sensible of the +fact in his nervous joy over the slight decline in the river. + +"Hello! Here is Harold Le Duc!" he exclaimed, as, by the light of his +match, he chanced to catch the presentment of a distant face in the +darkness. + +"Hello! Come along, Harry, an' smoke one cigar. We mus' celebrate dat +insinuation dat de river is falling. Less dan one inch, it does not +count, except to prove she is hesitating; an' you know de ol' saying, +'She who hesitate'--'Hello, young man! You are good for sore eyes!" + +The person addressed had come forward with extended hand. + +When another match, lighting Adolphe's cigar, revealed the young man's +face again, there was something so startling in its wonderful solemnity +and beauty that both men were impressed. + +"You won't smoke? An'w'y? Come! It is one great comfort, a li'l' smoke. +Here, let me--" + +He presented the cigars again. + +"Well, I thank you, but excuse me now." Young Le Duc took a cigar with a +smile. "I'll enjoy it later, maybe; but not until we see a little +further. As you say, a half-inch is only a hint, but it is a good one. +I am going now up the coast, where trouble waits, and I may need a +steady hand before morning. But I think the worst is over. Good +night--and thank you. The folks--they are all well?" + +"Fine, all fine, and asking always for w'y you don't come to see dem." + +But he had gone. + +The eyes of both men followed the retreating figure in silence. + +It was Adolphe who spoke at last. + +"Ah-h-h!" he sighed. "An' yet we complain sometimes, you an' me, eh? I +am t'irty-seven years old an' I got t'irteen healt'y chillen an' two +gran'chillen, an' my wife--look at her, yo'nger an' happier wid every +one-- + +"Oh, I wonder, me, sometimes, dat God don't just snatch everyt'ing away +jus' for spite, w'en we always complain so. + +"Did you take occasion to notice dat w'ite hair against dat yo'ng face? +An' dey say he never mention his trouble." + +"I tell you, like we said, Adolphe, dat river she is--she is--" + +He threw up his right palm, as if in despair of adequate language. + +"_T'ink_ of coming home from de war, already robbed, to find _all_ +gone--home, wife, child, family, servants, _all_ obliterate', an' only +de river's mark, green mold an' mildew, on de walls above de mantel in +de house; an' outside her still face under de sky to answer, an' she +heed no questions. She is called de father of waters? In a sense, yas, +may_be_. _Mais_, no. She is, I tell you, de mother of trouble--_an'_ +pleasure, too. + +"She is, after all, de queen of dis valley, an' no mistake--dat river. +When she need fresh ermine for her robe, she throw it over our cotton +fields--" + +"Yas, an' de black spots, dey are our sorrows. Dat's not a bad +resemblance, no." + +The speaker looked at his watch. + +"Pas' eleven," he said. "Da' 's good luck w'en she start to fall befo' +midnight. Oh-h-h! _Mais_ she is one great coquette, yas. She keep you +crazy until she get tired wid you, an' den she slip away an' steal her +beauty-sleep befo' de clock strike twelve." + +"You t'ink she is going to sleep now? May_be_ she fool us yet, Adolphe." + +"Well, may_be_. _Mais_ I have great hope. She _beg_in to nod, and w'en +dat happen to a woman or a riv--" + +Conversation was suddenly interrupted here by a great crash. The two men +started, and, turning, saw an entire section of the improvised +embankment fall landward. + +Had the stress of the moment been less, they would involuntarily have +hastened to the spot, but terror fixed them where they stood. There was +but a moment of suspense,--of almost despair,--but it seemed an +eternity, before relief came in a great shout which sent vibrations of +joy far along the bank, even to those who watched and worked on the +right bank of the stream. + +It had been only a "dry break." The weights thrown in upon the cotton +had been out of plumb, and had pitched the whole structure inward. + +The uproar following this accident was long and loud, and had not +subsided when the bell rang again, and, with tense nerves strained to +listen, the line of men dropped speech. Instead of calling out the +decreasing depth, as usual, the crier this time shouted: + +"_Two inches down, thank God!_" + +Screams of joy, not unmixed with tears, greeted this announcement. The +strain was virtually over. + +The two rich men who had stood and talked together mopped their +foreheads and shook hands in silence. + +Finally it was the older, whom we have called Adolphe,--which was not +his name any more than was his companion's Felix,--finally, then, +Adolphe remarked quite calmly, as he looked at his watch: + +"I am glad dat cotton in de pile is saved, yas. 'T is not de first time +de ol' city has fought a battle wid cotton-bales to help, eh, Felix? All +doze foundation bales dey belong to Harold Le Duc. He _con_tribute dem, +an' make no condition. All dat trash on top de cotton, it catch de tar; +so to-morrow we dig it out clean an' give it to him again--an'--an'-- + +"Well--" + +He looked at his watch again, keeping his eyes upon it for a moment +before he ventured, in a lower tone: + +"Well, I say, Felix, my boy, w'at _you_ say?" + +"I di'n' spoke. W'at you say yourself, Adolphe?" + +"'Well,'--dat's all I said; jus' 'well.' _Mais_ I di'n' finish. I +_beg_in to say, I--Well, I was just t'inking. You know to-night it is de +_las'_ opera--don't you forget. No danger to make a _habit_ on a _las' +night_; ain't dat true? For w'y you don't say somet'ing?" + +"Ah-h-h! Talk, ol' man! I am listening." Felix looked at his watch now. +"An' may_be_ I am t'inking a li'l' bit, too. _Mais_ go on." + +"Well, I am t'inking of doze strange ladies. I am _sure_ dey +had many vacant box to-night. Don't you t'ink dey need a little +encouragement--not to leave New Orleans wid dat _im_pression of neglect? +We don't want to place a stigma upon de gay ol' town. My carriage is +here, an' it is yet time. One hour, an' we will forget all dis trouble. +I need me some champagne myself." + +Felix chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. + +"Ah-h-h! Yi! An' me, too, Adolphe. I tol' you I was t'inking also. +_Mais_ let us sen' de good news home, an' let doze women off deir knees +an' go to bed. My mud'-in-law she is de devil for prayin', an' she is +poody stout, po' t'ing! + +"We telegram it. Tell dem deir prayers are answered--de water is down--" + +"An' our spirits are up, eh? An' we will be home in de morning, _w'en de +valuable debris is removed_." + +Felix laughed and touched his friend in the ribs. + +"You are one devil, Adolphe. _Mais_ we mus' be good to our women." + +"Sure! I am going to return dat compliment you paid me jus' now. You say +I am one devil, eh? _Bien!_ An' in response, I say, Felix, you are one +_saint_. You hear me! I say, one _saint_--_un_canonized! Any man dat +will telegram a message to save his rich mud'-in-law from maybe sudden +apoplexy, he is one saint, _sure_! _Mais_ you are right. We mus' be good +to our women. A happy wife is a joy forever!" + +He laughed again as he added: + +"_Mais_ de debris! Yi, yi! Dat make me smile. You ricollec' de las' +debris, w'en Ma'm'selle Koko--" + +"Ah, yes, Felix! Sure, I remember. I paid, me, I know, one good round +sum for my share. Dat was one terrible smash-up. Two dozen +champagne-glass; one crystal decanter; one chandelier, also crystal, +every light on it broke, so we had to put off de gas; an'--well, de +devil knows w'at else. + +"Tell de trut', I don't like dat dancing on de supper-table, Felix. 'T +is super_flu_ous. De floor is good enough. An' you know, w'en a lady is +dancing on a table, after a good supper, of co'se every glass is a +temptation to her slipper. An' slippers an' wine-glasses--well, to say +de least, de combination it is disastrous. + +"So, I say, de floor it is good enough for me. It seem more _comme il +faut_. + +"_Mais_ come along. We will be late." + + + + +PART SECOND + + + + +I + + + "Sing, nigger, sing! Sing yo' rhyme! + De waters is a-floodin'--dey 's a-roarin' on time! + Climb, squirrel, climb!" + +For several miles, when the night was still or the wind favorable, one +could follow the song, accented by simultaneous blows of implements of +defense marking the measure. + + "Sing, nigger, sing! Sing an' pray! + Ol' Death is on de water--he's a-ridin' dis way! + Pray, nigger, pray!" + +Some of the words might have been elusive had they been unfamiliar, but +the annual agitation kept the songs of the river in mind; and even in +safe sections, where many sat in peace beside the rising waters, they +would take their pipes from their lips to catch up the danger-songs and +sympathetically pass them along. Many a prayer went with them, too, from +humble petitioners who knew whereof they prayed. + +Such were an old black couple who sat one night upon the brow of the +outer levee at Carrollton, since become an upper district of +far-reaching New Orleans. + +In strong contrast to the stirring scenes enacting below the city, all +was peace and tranquillity here. A strong, new embankment, securely +built several hundred feet inland, had some years before supplanted the +outer levee, condemned as insecure, so that the white inhabitants of the +suburb slept, intelligently safe behind a double barrier, for the +condemned bank had stood the stress of so many seasons that much of the +low land lying between the two levees was finally occupied by squatters, +mostly negroes, this being free space, taking no rent of such as did not +fear the ever-impending mortgage which the river held. + +Of this class, quite apart from others, might have been seen almost any +evening the old couple, Hannah and Israel, sitting upon the brow of the +levee near the door of their low cabin, while, always within call, there +played about them a fair-haired little girl and a dog. + +When the beautiful child, followed by the dog, a fine Irish setter, +would suddenly emerge in a chase from among the woodpiles about the +cabin, there was a certain high-bred distinction in them both which set +them apart from the rest of the picture. + +Sometimes they would "play too hearty," as Mammy expressed it, and she +would call: "Dat 'll do now, Blossom! Come lay down, Blucher!" and, +followed closely by the dog, the child would coddle at the knees of the +woman, who "made the time pass" with stories. Sometimes these would be +folk-tales brought over from Africa, or reminiscences of plantation +life, but more often, feeling her religious responsibility to the +little one, old Hannah would repeat such Bible stories as "befitted a +child's mind," such as "Ab'um an' Isaac," "Eden's Gyarden," or "De +Prodigum Son." + +Of them all, the Eden story was easily favorite, its salient mystery +features affording fine scope for the narrator's power, while they held +the imaginative child with the spell of all good wonder-tales. We get +these stories so young and grow up with them so familiarly that when we +finally come into a realization of them they hold no possible surprise +and so their first charm is lost. Think of one story with such elements +as a wonder-woman rising from a man's side while he slept--a talking +serpent, persuasive in temptation as insidious in easy approaches--a +flaming sword of wrath--a tree of knowledge--and the sounding voice of +God as he walked through the garden "in the cool of the day"! Is not a +single colloquialism of so venerable ancestry sufficient to dignify a +language? + +Herself a classic in that she expressed the eternal quality of maternal +love incarnate, the old woman thus unconsciously passed along to the +object of her devotion the best classic lore of the ages. And sunrise +and sunset, star- and moon-land, and their reflection in the great +water-mirror, were hers and the child's, without the asking. Nor were +they lost, although to both child and woman they were only common +elements in life's great benediction. + +During the story-telling, which generally lasted until the sun sank +across the river, but while its last rays still made "pictures of glory +in the heavens" with the water's reflection,--pictures which served to +illustrate many a narration, to inspire the speaker and impress a +sensitive child,--the dog would stretch himself facing the two, and his +intelligent and quizzical expression would sometimes make Mammy laugh in +a serious place or change the drift of her story. Often, indeed, this +had happened in the telling of certain animal tales which Mammy +declared Blucher knew better than she and she even insisted that he +occasionally winked at her and set her right when she went wrong. + +In the early dusk, the old man Israel would come trudging in from the +water and sometimes he would light his pipe and join Mammy's audience. + +Occasionally Mammy would cook the supper in the open, upon a small +charcoal furnace, and the "little Miss" would sup from a tiny low table +brought from the cabin. Here she was served by the old people in turn, +for they never ate until she had finished. Then the little girl was +carefully undressed and sung to sleep with one of Mammy's velvet +lullabies, in a dainty bed all her own, a berth which hung, shelf-like, +against the wall; for the home of this incongruous family was quite as +novel as the family itself. + +Part of the ladies' cabin of an old Mississippi steamboat, still +shabbily fine in white paint and dingy gilding, which Israel had +reclaimed from an abandoned wreck, formed a wing of the building. This, +which, with its furnishings, Mammy called "Blossom's lay-out," +communicated by a door with a "lean-to" of weather-stained boards, whose +mud chimney and homely front formed a strong contrast to the river +entrance of white and gold. This grotesque architectural composite would +have attracted attention at another time or place, but as one of a +class, made to its need of any available material, it passed unnoticed +beyond an occasional casual smile of amusement and sympathy. + +It was like the composite toilets of the poor blacks during the hard +times suggestively called the "reconstruction period," when old women in +soldier coats and boots, topped by third-hand feathered finery, waited +at the distributing-station for free rations. No one ever thought of +laughing at these pathetic grotesques, technically freed but newly +enslaved by bitter circumstance. + +On the night with which this tale begins, when Mammy had put Blossom to +sleep and tucked the mosquito-bar snugly around her, she went back to +her place beside her husband, and, lighting her pipe, sat for a long +time silent. This was so unusual that presently Israel said: + +"What de matter wid you dis evenin', Hannah? Huccome you ain't +a-talkin'?" + +Hannah did not answer immediately. But after a time she said slowly: + +"I 's jes a-speculatin', Isrul--jes speculatin'." And, after another +pause, she added, quite irrelevantly: + +"Is you got yo' swimp-sacks all set?" + +"In co'se I is." Israel's words came through a cloud of smoke. + +"An' yo' oars brung in?" + +"In co'se I is!" + +"An' de skift locked?" + +"In co'se I is!" + +"An' Blucher fed?" + +"What's de matter wid you, Hannah? You reckon I gwine forgit my reg'lar +business?" + +The old woman smoked in silence for some minutes. Then she said: + +"Isrul!" + +"What you want, Hannah?" + +"I say, Isrul, I got some'h'n' on my mind. Hit 's been on my mind more +'n a yeah, an' hit 's a-gittin' wuss." + +"What is it, Hannah?" + +"You an' me we 's growin' ole, Isrul--ain't dat so?" + +"Yas, Hannah." + +"An' we ain't got long to stay heah, hey, Isrul?" + +"Yas, ol' 'oman--can't dispute dat." + +"An'"--hesitatingly. "_You_ knows what 's on my mind, Isrul!" + +"Hit 's on my mind, too, Hannah. You don't need to 'spress yo'se'f. Hit +'s on my mind, day an' night." + +"_What_'s on yo' mind, Isrul?" + +The old man began stirring the bowl of his pipe absently. + +"'Bout we gittin' ol', Hannah, an' maybe some day we'll drap off an' +leave Marse Harol's chile all by she se'f, like de chillen in de +wilderness. + +"What mek you mek me say it, Hannah? _You_ knows what 'sponsibility +Gord done laid on we two. Ain't we done talked it over a hond'ed times +'fo' now?" + +"Dat ain't _all_ what 's on my mind, Isrul." + +"What else is you got to fret yo'se'f about, Hannah? Ain't I mekin' you +a good livin'? Ain't you had de money to put a new little silk frock +away every yeah for de Blossom, and ain't dey all folded away, one a-top +de yether, 'g'inst de answer to our prayers, so her daddy'll see her +dressed to her station when he comes sudden? Ain't you got a +one-way-silk alapaca frock an' a good bonnet for yo'se'f to tek de chile +by de han' wid--when Gord see fitten to answer us? You ain't +_hongry_--or _col'_, is yer?" + +"G' way, Isrul! Who's studyin' about victuals or clo'es! I 's ponderin' +about de chile, dat 's all. 'T ain't on'y 'bout we gittin' ol'. _She_ 's +gittin' _tall_. An' you know, Isrul, you an' me we ain't fitten to raise +Marse Harol's chile. She's big enough to study quality manners an' white +behavior. All Marse Harol's fam'ly's chillen knowed all de fancy high +steps an' played scales on de pianner wid bofe hands at once-t, time dey +was tall as Blossom is--an' dey made dancin'-school curtsies, too. I +taken notice, Blossom is sort o' shy, an' she gittin' so she'll stand +off when anybody speaks to her. Dis heah cabin on de river-bank ain't no +place for my white folks. I sho' is pestered to see her gittin' shy an' +shamefaced--like po' folks. Modest manners and upright behavior is her +portion. I _know_ it by heart, but I can't _show_ it to her--I know it +by knowledge, but of co'se I can't perform it; an' it frets me." + +"Hannah!" + +"What is it, Isrul?" + +"Who gi'n us dis 'sponsibility? Is we axed for it?" + +"No, Isrul, we ain't axed for it." + +"Ain't you an' me promised Mis' Agnes, de day she died, to keep his +chile, safe-t an' sound, tell Marse Harol' come?" + +"Dat 's six yeahs past, dis comin' Christmus, Isrul. I b'lieve Marse +Harol' done dead an' gone." + +"Huccome you believe he dead? Is he come to you in de sperit?" + +"No, he ain't come, an' dat 's huccome hope stays wid me. If he was free +in de sperit lan' he sho' would come an' gimme a sign. But reason is +reason, an' ef he _ain't_ dead, huccome he don't come an' look arter his +chile? My white folks warn't nuver shirkers--nor deserters. So, when I +stays off my knees awhile an' casts away faith in de unseen, seem dat my +horse-sense hit gives me trouble. An' den, like to-night, somehow my +courage sinks, an' look like I kin see him dead an' forgot in some ol' +ditch on de battle-field. + +"Jes _s'posin'_ dat 's de trufe, Isrul, what we boun' to do wid +Blossom?" + +"Hannah!" + +"Yas, Isrul." + +"You done heared a plenty o' preachin', ain't yer?" + +"Yas, Isrul." + +"Is you ever heared a preacher preach 'bout _s'posin'_?" + +"No, Isrul." + +"But I tell you what you _is_ hearn 'em preach about. You hearn 'em +preach about _watchin'_ an' _prayin'_." + +"Dat 's so, Isrul, but yit'n still, you know de scripture say 'Hope +referred meketh de heart sick.' You ricollec' dat, don't you?" + +"Yas, but dat 's a side-track. Dat ain't got nothin' to do wid answer to +prayer. Dat 's jes to give comfort to weary souls, when de waitin'-time +is long; dat 's all. Dey may git sick at heart--jes' waitin'." + +"You right, Isrul." + +"Well, an' arter watchin' an' prayin', dey 's one mo' thing needful. An' +dat 's _faith_. + +"Ef we _watches_ for Marse Harol' to come, an' _prays_ for 'im to come, +an' don't _trus'_, you reckon Gord gwine to bother wid us?" + +"I _tries_ to trus', Isrul, an' mos' days I does look for Marse Harol'. +Many 's de time I done taken Blossom by de hand an' walked along de +levee an' looked down in de Ca'ollton gyarden while de ban' played, an' +jes fairly scroochinized my ol' eyes out, hopin' to reconnize 'im in de +dance. I'm dat big a fool in faith--I sho' is. An' I tries de best I kin +to keep my faith warm, so de good Lord 'll see it glowin' like a live +coal in my heart an' he 'll 'member hisse'f about de chile an' sen' 'er +daddy home, _sen' 'er daddy home_! My Gord, I say, SEN' 'ER DADDY HOME! +I tries continu'sly, Isrul." + +"You must n't talk about tryin', Hannah. You mus' jes b'lieve it, same +as a little chile--same like you see it; an' den you does see it. An' +when you git along so fur dat you _sees_ wid de neye o' faith, Gord 'll +sho' mek yo' faith good. Ef faith kin h'ist a mountain an' shove it +along, hit can fetch a man home whar he b'longs; an' hit 'll do it, +too." + +"Isrul!" + +"What is it, Hannah?" + +"Gord ain't nuver _promised_ to sen' Marse Harol' home, as I knows on." + +"He's promised to answer de prayer o' faith, ain't He?" + +"Yas, Isrul, dat 's so. Pray Him to strenken my faith, ol' man. You +stays so much on de water wid de sky in yo' eyes, whilst I works 'mongst +de woodpiles, so close to de yearth--seem like maybe you mought git +nigher to Gord 'n what I'm enabled to do. Pickin' up chips, hit 's lowly +work an' hit keeps yo' face down, an'--" + +"Don't say dat, ol' 'oman! Use yo' fo'sight an' 'stid o' you seein' +_chips_ you'll see _kindlin'-wood_. Dat what dey _is_. Dey 'll lead yo' +heart upward dat-a-way. Heap o' folks don't see nothin' but money in de +river--money an' mud; an' dey don't know it's a merror sometimes, full +o' stars an' glory. I done read Gord's rainbow promises on de face o' +dat muddy river more 'n once-t, when I lifted out my swimp-nets on a +still mornin' whilst de sun an' de mist consulted together to show a +mericle to a ol' dim-eyed nigger." + +"You sho' does help me when you 'splains it all out dat-a-way, Isrul. +Pray like a gordly man, ol' pardner, an' yo' ol' 'oman she gwine talk +faith strong as she kin--widout turnin' hycoprite." + +"Dat's right, honey--ol' 'oman--dat's right. _You_ pray an' _I'll_ +pray--an' we'll _watch_ wid _faith_. An' ef Gord don't sen' Marse +Harol', He'll git a message to us some way, so we'll be guided." + +The sound of a horn from across the river put an end to the +conversation. Some one was blowing for the ferryman. + +"PITY you tied _Wood-duck_ up so soon to-night," said the old wife, +following Israel with her eyes as she spoke, while he rose slowly and +taking the oars down from the rafters started to the river. + +In a moment the old man's answering horn sounded clear and loud in +response, and the clank of the chain as it dropped in the bow of the +skiff, followed by the rhythmic sound of the oar-locks, told his +listening mate that the ferryman was on his way. + + + + +II + + +Besides plying the ferry-skiff at which Israel earned odd dimes--every +day a few--he turned many an honest penny with his shrimp-nets. + +The rafts of logs chained together at the landing were his, and +constituted the initial station of a driftwood industry which was +finally expressed in the long piles of wood which lay stacked in cord +measures on either side of the cabin. + +The low and prolonged talk of the old people to-night had been +exceptional only in its intensity. The woman's reluctant almost despair +of a forlorn hope was pathetic indeed. Still it was but momentary. They +had gone over the same ground many times before, and fear and even +foreboding had occasionally clouded their vision in reviewing the +situation. + +The woman's observation in regard to the child's growing tall was the +first suggestion to Israel's mind of the urgency of immediate relief. In +the stress of material provision, men may be forgiven if they sometimes +overlook life's abstract values. + +Israel was so startled by this new thought that when he had rowed his +boat out into the clearing which the broad river afforded, he +involuntarily pressed the handles of his oars, lifting their blades from +the water, while he turned his eyes in one direction and another and +then upward. He had a hard problem to solve. Here was a great thinking +space, and yet, although he stopped for the length of several strokes, +and the night was mild and still,--although every condition was +favorable for clear thought,--his mind seemed lost in a sort of maze, +and it was only when he discovered by a familiar landmark that he was +drifting fast down-stream, only with this obtrusion of the actual, that +he rallied quickly, and with a deft stroke or two recovered his course. +And as the oar-locks measured time again he chuckled: + +"I got my lesson, yas, I got my lesson. _Work!_ Dat 's my po'tion. Quick +as I gits biggoty and tries to read above my head, I goes de downward +way." + +He said it aloud, to himself, and the words gave him renewed energy, +for, even as he spoke, the _Duck_, with oars for wings, plunged lightly +forward over the water to a quickened measure. + + * * * * * + +The old wife, sitting alone, sleepless always when her man was making a +night trip, was even before his summons to-night painfully awake. It was +as if the outcry which had burst the door of patience had set her old +mind free to wander. She seemed to have a broader vision, a new +perspective upon a situation in which she was herself the chief +conserving factor. While she kept the child within her door well in her +subconscious care, and knew by her regular breathing that she slept: +while she felt the near presence of the dog on guard at her skirts' +hem, her conscious thoughts were far away. + +Quickly even as lightning darts, zigzagging a path of light from one +remote point to another in its eccentric course--her dim eyes actually +resting upon the night skies where the lightnings play--she traveled +again in her musings the arbitrary paths of fate from one crisis to +another in the eventful latter years of her life. Then she would seem to +see clear spaces, and again the bolts of misfortune which presaged the +storm of sorrow out of which had come her present life. + +First in the anxious retrospect there was the early break in the family +when the boys began going away to college; then the sudden marriage of +the youngest of the three; the declaration of war; the enlistment of the +two elder students in the voluntary service which had transferred their +names from the university roster to the list of martyrs. + +Another dart as of lightning, and she saw this youngest come home with +his fair New England bride, to depart with her and Israel for an island +home beyond the canebrakes, and on the heel of this divided joy came his +passionate enlisting "to avenge the death of his brothers." And +then--ah! and then--how fast the zigzags dart! Rapid changes everywhere +traced in fire, and, as memory recalled them, throughout the whole was +ever the rolling thunder of artillery, completing the figure. + +The story is one of thousands, individualized, of course, each, by +special incidents and personalities, but the same, every one, in its +history of faithfulness of the slave people during the crucial period +when the masters had gone to battle, leaving their wives and babies in +the care of those whose single chance of freedom depended on the defeat +of the absent. + +Hannah and Israel had been loved and trusted servants in the family of +old Colonel Le Duc. The woman had nursed all the babies in turn, Harold +being the last, and hence her own particular "baby" for all time. + + * * * * * + +Brake Island, so called because of its situation in a dense cane-brake, +which was at once a menace and a guard, was the most unpopular part of +the colonel's large estate, albeit there was no land so rich as its +fields, no wood better stocked with game than the narrow forest lying +close along its northern limit, no streams more picturesque in their +windings or better equipped for the angler's art than that of the Bayou +d'Iris, whose purple banks declared the spring while the robins were +calling, and before the young mocking-birds in the crape myrtles opened +their great red mouths for the wriggling song-food of the bayou's brim. + +All the Le Duc sons had loved to go to the island to shoot and to fish +while they were lads, but upon attaining the social age they had grown +to despise it for its loneliness. The brake which fringed its borders +had long been a refuge for runaway negroes, who were often forced to +poach upon its preserves for food, even to the extent of an occasional +raid upon its smoke-houses and barns, so that women and children were +wont to shudder at the very idea of living there. Still it had always +been the declared "favorite spot on earth" to the colonel, who had often +vowed that no son of his should own it and spurn it. + +He lived like a lord himself, it is true, on a broader place of less +beauty on the bank of the great river,--"keeping one foot in New Orleans +and one on the plantation," as he expressed it,--and it is not +surprising that his children had laughingly protested against being +brought up on house-parties and the opera as preparation for a hermit's +life, even in "Paradise." + +All excepting Harold. While the brothers had protested against the +island home, he had said little, but when he had brought his bride home, +and realized the scant affection that stirred the hearts of his family +at sight of her placid New England face, even while he himself suffered +much, knowing that her brothers were enlisting in the opposing armies +and that her family felt her marriage at this time to a slaveholder as a +poignant sorrow--while the father seemed hesitating as to just what +paternal provision he should make for his impulsive boy, the boy +himself, in a sudden towering declaration of his manhood and of +resentment and pride, turned upon him: + +"Give us Brake Island and Mammy and Israel, and cut us loose! And I'll +show my people a new variety of hermit life!" + +The thing was quickly done. A deed of gift made on the spot conveyed +this Eden of modern times, with its improvements, full working force and +equipment, to Harold Guyoso Le Duc, who in accepting it assumed the one +condition of making it his home. + + + + +III + + +Harold was a brilliant fellow, impulsive and extravagant as he was +handsome and loving, and he had no sooner taken possession of his Eden +than he began to plan, by means of a system of engineering, to open it +up by a canal which should "span the brake and tap the bayou," so that +boats of size and circumstance might enter. Here he would have a launch +and a barge, and the great world of culture, of wit, of pleasure, and of +affluence should come in splendor "to watch a hermit herm," or, as he as +often put it, "to help a hummit hum." + +A great house-party was quickly arranged--a party of gay friends, +engineers chiefly, bidden for a freely declared purpose--a party which +is still cherished in the annals of local social history as a typical +example of affluent ante-bellum hospitality, and is even yet personally +recalled by a few old men who sit and seem to wait, mostly, in shabby +clothing incongruously ill fitting their gilded reminiscence, at certain +dozing business resorts in old New Orleans. + +Most of these venerables still live in their shabby ancestral homes, +although it may be their women take boarders or their best rooms are let +for business purposes--cleared of their cumbersome furnishings of +mahogany and rosewood by the rising waters of misfortune which have +gradually carried them into the "antique-shops" of the vicinity. + +A place of honor on the tax-lists and a waiting palace of white marble +in the cemetery--these querulous witnesses to distinction and of +permanency are in some cases the sole survivors of the many changes +incident upon a reconstruction. + +To these gentle reminiscers the "Brake Island house-party of Harold Le +Duc" is even yet the Procrustean bed against which they measure all the +ostentatious pageantry of a new and despised social order. + +For the possible preservation of a bit of local color--gone out in the +changed light of a new dispensation--behold a hasty sketch of this +long-ago playtime. The invitations which were sent out, naming a single +date only, with the flattering implication that the visit so urgently +desired might never come to an end,--one of the easy fashions of the old +regime,--promptly brought a dozen men, with as many women, wives and +sweethearts, to the "big house" beyond the swamp. + +This Southern home, which was broadly typical of its class, simple +enough in its architecture in that its available space, barring the +watch-tower in the center of its roof, was all upon a single floor and +its material the indigenous woods of the forest, yet suffered no +diminution in being called the "big house"--a name which has been made +to serve many a lesser structure for purposes of distinction. + +Set high upon brick pillars,--there are no cellars possible in the +Mississippi valley country,--its low, spreading form graced the easy +eminence upon which it stood, dominating its wide demesne with a quiet +dignity superior to that of many a statelier home. + +In design it was a Greek cross. Surrounded on all sides by deep +balconies, ornate with cornice and Corinthian columns, its four arms +afforded as many entrances, of which the southern portal was formal +front, from which an avenue of arbor-vitaes led down to the canopied +landing at the bayou's bank at the foot of the decline. + +The house had been designed and built by Harold's father, in an +exuberance of youthful enthusiasm, upon his early marriage. He it was +who had planted the trailing roses and wistaria-vines, whose gnarled +trunks, now woody and strong as trees, topped the balconies, throwing +profusions of bloom adown their pillars and along their balustrades. +Here Lamarque, Solfaterre, Cloth-of-gold, Musk-cluster, Lady-bank, +Multi-flora--all the cherished climbing roses of an earlier +period--mingled in harmonious relations with honeysuckle, woodbine, and +clematis. + +The most beautiful of them all, the single yellow-centered Cherokee rose +of the soil,--good enough in itself for anywhere, but ostracized through +caste exclusion from distinction of place about the home,--lay in heavy +tangles in the tall, impenetrable hedges which bounded the garden on +three sides meeting the bayou at the base of the knoll. + +Within its inclosure a resident colony of choice flowers--exotics +mainly, but domiciled and grown hardy in this protected spot--had waxed +riotous in the license of years of neglect, and throwing off traditions, +as many another aristocrat in like circumstances has done before, +appeared now in novel forms developed in life's open race with children +of the soil. + +Here in season were great trees of camellia, white and red, with each a +thousand waxen blooms, stalwart woody growths of lemon-verbena, topping +sweet olives and answering the challenge of the stately oleanders, +which, in turn, measured heads against the magnolias' shoulders. + +Appropriating any available support, great scarlet geraniums ten feet +high, knowing no winters, laid hands upon the trellises and matched +pennies with the locust blooms, red petal against white, affiliating, +weak-spined as they were, with scrub-trees which counted real trees at +least in their Louisiana pedigrees. + +"Cape jasmine borders" had risen into hedges, fencing in certain beds, +while the violets, which originally guarded fantastic forms in outline, +had gregariously spread into perennial patches of green and purple. + +And everywhere there were orange-trees--not a grove here, but always one +or more in the range of vision. Their breath was over the garden, and +even the bees in the locust-trees, with all their fuss and scattering +of honey sweets, could not dispel their all-pervading suggestion of +romance--the romance of life incarnate ever expressed in their peerless +exhibits of flower, fresh fruit and yellow, all growing together upon a +maternal tree rich in life and tone. + +Too many words about an old garden? Perhaps so, and yet-- + +The spirit of a venerable garden as it rises and shows itself to memory +is such a benediction that one seeing the vision may sometimes wonder +if, if _life_, _per se_, be eternal, and the resurrection of _certain_ +so-called "dead" a _fact_, we may not some day wander again in the risen +gardens of our childhood, recognizing them by verification of certain +familiar faces of flowers who may know us in turn and bloom +again--taking up life, which ever includes love and immortality, at the +point of suspension, as a mother, waking from a nap, goes back to her +window, and catching up her broken song held in the cobwebs of sleep, +sings it through, while she finishes a little sleeve, her foot again +upon the cradle at her side. + +Life is the great serial--one chapter printed here, another there--a +seemingly finished comedy crowding a tragedy unrelated, yonder. + +The discerning artist who, reading as he runs, brings these parts into +line will have begun the great book. Until Gabriel wills, it may not be +finished. + + + + +IV + + +It was, no doubt, but natural that the man of the world, who had +deserted such an Eden of his own designing for the ostensible excuse of +business convenience, should have resented in his sons their inherited +repugnance to the retired life. + +What more formidable combatant than one's own stubbornness, turned to +confront him, in his children? + + * * * * * + +The broken trip from New Orleans to the Island took nearly two days, +although the crow does it easily in a few hours. + +The initial munificence of chartering one of the great Mississippi +steamboats for the first stage of the journey set the pace for the +entire occasion. Host and hostess met their guests at the river landing +with carriages and cane wagons gaily bedecked with evergreens, mosses, +and dogwood branches in flower, and a merry drive through several miles +of forest brought them to the banks of the bayou, where a line of +rowboats awaited them. + +The negro boatmen, two to man each skiff, wearing jumpers of the Harvard +crimson, stood uncovered in line at the bayou's edge, and as the party +alighted, they served black coffee from a fire in the open. + +The negro with a cup of coffee his own hue and clear as wine is ever an +ubiquitous combination in the Louisiana lowlands. He bobs up so +unexpectedly in strange places balancing his tiny tray upon his hand, +that a guest soon begins to look for him almost anywhere after an +interval of about three dry hours, and with a fair chance of not being +disappointed. + + * * * * * + +When finally the party had embarked, the hostess riding in the first +boat with the governor of the State, while Harold brought up the rear +with the governor's lady, the sun was low in the west, and narrow +search-lights, piercing the wood for a brief moment, revealed a great +wonder-world of dank growths so fairly alive with creeping, flying, +darting things--chirping, calling, singing, croaking, humming, and +hooting--that when in a twinkling the light suddenly went out, many of +the women shuddered with a shrinking sense of the uncanny. + +Before this intangible emotion had time to crystallize into fear, +however, each pilot who manipulated the rudder astern had drawn from +under his seat a great torch of pine and set it ablaze. + +Under festoons of gray Spanish moss, often swung so low that heads and +torches were obliged to defer to them, and between flowering banks which +seemed sometimes almost to meet in the floating growths which the +dividing bows of the boats plowed under, the little crafts sped lightly +along. + +Occasionally a heavy plunging thing would strike the water with a thud, +so near a boat that a girlish shriek would pierce the wood, spending +itself in laughter. A lazy alligator, sleepily enjoying a lily-pool, +might have been startled by the light, or a line of turtles, clinging +like knots to a log over the water, suddenly let go. + +Streaks of darting incandescence marked the eccentric flights of a +million fireflies flecking the deep wood whose darkness they failed to +dispel; and once or twice two reflected lights a few inches apart, +suggesting a deer in hiding, increased the tremulous interest of this +super-safe but most exciting journey. + +But presently, before impressions had time to repeat themselves, and +objects dimly discerned to become familiar, a voice from the leading +boat started a song. + +It was a great voice, vibrant, strong, and soft as velvet, and when +presently it was augmented by another, insidiously thrown in, then +another in the next boat, until all the untutored Harvard oarsmen were +bravely singing and the dipping oars fell into the easy measure, all +sense of fear or place was lost in the great uplift of the rhythmic +melody. + +At special turns through the wood ringing echoes gave back the strains. +A mocking-bird, excited by the unusual noise, poured forth a rival +disputatious song, and an owl hooted, and something barked like a fox; +but it was the great singing of the men which filled the wood. + +Common songs of the plantation followed one another--songs of love, of +night and bats, of devils and hobgoblins, selected according to the will +of the leader--all excepting the opening song, which, although of the +same repertoire, was "by request," and for obvious reasons. + +It was called "When de Sun Swings Low," and ran something like this: + + Look out for Mister Swaller when de sun swings low-- + Watch him swoop an' sway! + He keeps a mighty dippin', like he don' know whar to go, + A-saggin' every way. + He starts sort o' nimbly, + But he settles mighty wimbly + When he scurries for de chimbley + When de sun swings low. + + Does you see a cloud a-risin' when de sun swings low? + Listen ef it sings. + Hit 's a swarm o' gray muskitties, 'bout a million strong or so, + A-sharpenin' up der stings. + Dey keeps a mighty filin', + An' dey tries to sing beguilin', + But de 'skitties' song is rilin' + When de sun swings low. + + Oh, de woods is all conversin' when de sun swings low-- + Bird an' beast an' tree; + Dey all communes together in de languages dey know, + An' sperits rise to see. + De nightmares prances, + An' de will-o'-wisp dances, + When de moonlight advances + An' de sun swings low. + +But most naive and characteristic of them all perhaps was "Ol' Marse +Adam." + + Ole Mister Devil took a walk in Paradise-- + Lady Mis' Eve she's a-walkin', too-- + Hoped to meet Mars' Adam, she was steppin' mighty nice-- + Lady Mis' Eve she's a-walkin', too. + + Dis was 'fo' de fig-time, so my lady picked a rose-- + Lady Mis' Eve she's a-walkin', too-- + An' she helt it 'g'inst de sunlight, as she felt de need o' clo'es-- + Lady Mis' Eve she's a-walkin', too. + + Den she shuk 'er yaller ringlets down an' 'lowed dat she was dressed-- + Lady Mis' Eve, she's a-walkin', too-- + Mister Devil he come quoilin'--everbody knows de rest-- + Lady Mis' Eve she's a-walkin', too. + +Then, changing to a solemn, staccato measure, it went on: + + Ole Marse Adam! Ole Marse Adam! + Et de lady's apple up an' give her all de blame. + Greedy-gut, greedy-gut, whar is yo' shame? + Ole Marse Adam, man, whar is yo' shame? + + Ole Marse Adam! Ole Marse Adam! + Caught de apple in 'is neck an' made it mighty so'e, + An' so we po' gran'chillen has to swaller roun' de co'e. + Ole Marse Adam, man, whar is yo' shame? + + Ole Marse Adam! Ole Marse Adam! + Praised de lady's attitudes an' compliment 'er figur'-- + Didn't have de principle of any decent nigger. + Ole Marse Adam, man, whar is yo' shame? + +It was a long pull of five miles up the winding stream, but the spirit +of jollity had dispelled all sense of time, and when at last the +foremost boat, doubling a jutting clump of willows, came suddenly into +the open at the foot of the hill, the startling presentment of the white +house illuminated with festoons of Chinese lanterns, which extended +across its entire width and down to the landing, was like a dream of +fairyland. + +It was indeed a smiling welcome, and exclamations of delight announced +the passage of the boats in turn as they rounded the willow bend. + +The firing of a single cannon, with a simultaneous display of +fireworks, and music by the plantation band, celebrated the landing of +the last boat. + +Servants in the simple old-fashioned dress--checked homespun with white +accessories, to which were added for the occasion, great rosettes of +crimson worn upon the breast--took care of the party at the landing, +bringing up the rear with hand-luggage, which they playfully balanced +upon their heads or shifted with fancy steps. + +The old-time supper--of the sort which made the mahogany groan--was +served on the broad back "gallery," while the plantation folk danced in +the clearing beyond, a voice from the basement floor calling out the +figures. + +This was a great sight. + +Left here to their own devices as to dress, the negroes made so dazzling +a display that, no matter how madly they danced, they could scarcely +answer the challenge of their own riotous color schemes. + +Single dancers followed; then "lad_y_es and gentiles" in pairs, taking +fantastic steps which would shame a modern dancing-master without once +awakening a blush in a maiden's cheek. + +The dancing was refined, even dainty, to-night, the favorite achievement +of the women being the mincing step taken so rapidly as to simulate +suspension of effort, which set the dancers spinning like so many tops, +although there was much languid posing, with exchange of salutations and +curtsying galore. + +Yet not a twirl of fan or dainty lift of flounce--to grace a figure or +display a dexterous foot--but expressed a primitive idea of high +etiquette. + +The "fragments" left over from the banquet of the upper porch--many of +them great unbroken dishes, meats, game, and sweets--provided a great +banquet for the dancers below, and the gay late feasters furnished +entertainment, fresh and straight from life, to the company above, for +whose benefit many of their most daring sallies were evidently thrown +out--and who, after their recent experiences, were pleased to be so +restfully entertained. + +Toasts, drunk in ginger-pop and persimmon beer innocent of guile, were +offered after grace at the beginning of the supper, the toaster stepping +out into the yard and bowing to the gallery while he raised his glass +or, literally, his tin cup--the passage of the master's bottle among the +men, later in the evening, being a distinct feature. + +The first toast was offered to the ladies--"Mistus an' Company-ladies"; +and the next, following a suggestion of the first table, where the host +had been much honored, was worded about in this wise: + +"We drinks to de health, an' wealth, _an'_ de long life of de _leadin' +gentleman_ o' _Brake Island_, who done put 'isself to so much pains an' +money to give dis party. But to make de toast accordin' to manners, so +hit'll fit de gentleman's visitors long wid hisself, I say let's drink +to who but 'OLE MARSE ADAM!'" + +It is easy to start a laugh when a festive crowd is primed for fun, and +this toast, respectfully submitted with a low bow by an ancient and +privileged veteran of the rosined bow, was met with screams of delight. + + + + +V + + +A resourceful little island it was that could provide entertainment for +a party of society folk for nearly a fortnight with never a repetition +to pall or to weary. + +The men, equipped for hunting or fishing, and accompanied by several +negro men-servants with a supplementary larder on wheels,--which is to +say, a wagon-load of bread, butter, coffee, condiments, and wines, with +cooking utensils,--left the house early every morning, before the ladies +were up. + +They discussed engineering schemes over their fishing-poles and +game-bags, explored the fastnesses of the brake, eavesdropped for the +ultimate secret of the woods, and plumbed for the bayou's heart, +bringing from them all sundry tangible witnesses of geologic or other +conditions of scientific values. + +Most of these "witnesses," however, it must be confessed, were +immediately available for spit or grill, while many went--so bountiful +was the supply--to friends in the city with the cards of their captors. + +There are champagne bottles even yet along the marshes of Brake Island, +bottles whose bellies are as full of suggestion as of mud, and whose +tongueless mouths fairly whistle as if to recount the canards which +enlivened the swampland in those halcyon days of youth and hope and +inexperience. + +Until the dressing-hour, in the early afternoons which they frankly +called the evening, the young women coddled their bloom in linen cambric +night-gowns, mostly, reading light romance and verse, which they quoted +freely under the challenge of the masculine presence. + +Or they told amazing mammy-tales of voudoo-land and the ghost-country +for the amused delectation of their gentle hostess, who felt herself +warmed and cheered in the sunshine of these Southern temperaments. It +seemed all a part of the poetry and grace of a novel and romantic life. + +Here were a dozen young women, pretty and care-free as flowers, any one +of whom could throw herself across the foot of a bed and snatch a +superfluous "beauty-sleep" in the midst of all manner of jollity and +laughter. + +Most of them spoke several languages and as many dialects, frequently +passing from one to another in a single sentence for easy subtlety or +color, and with distinct gain in the direction of music. + +Possibly they knew somewhat of the grammar of but a single tongue beside +their own, their fluency being more of a traditional inheritance than an +acquisition. Such is the mellow equipment of many of our richest +speakers. + +Not one but could pull to pieces her Olympe bonnet and nimbly retrim it +with pins, to match her face or fancy--or dance a Highland fling in her +'broidered nightie, or sing-- + +How they all did sing--and play! Several were accomplished musicians. +One knew the Latin names of much of the flora of the island, and found +time and small coins sufficient to interest a colony of eager +pickaninnies to gather specimens for her "herbarium." + +Without ever having prepared a meal, they could even cook, as they had +soon amply proven by the heaping confections which were always in +evidence at the man-hour--bon-bons, kisses, pralines, what not?--all +fragrant with mint, orange-flower, rose-leaf, or violet, or heavy with +pecans or cocoanut. + +In the afternoon, when the men came home, they frequently engaged in +contests of skill--in rowing or archery or croquet; or, following +nature's manifold suggestions, they drifted in couples, paddling +indolently among the floating lily-pads on the bayou, or reclining among +the vines in the summer-houses, where they sipped iced orange syrup or +claret sangaree, either one a safe lubricator, by mild inspiration or +suggestion, of the tongue of young love, which is apt to become tied at +the moment of most need. + +[Illustration: "Sipped iced orange syrup or claret sangaree"] + +With the poems of Moore to reinforce him with easy grace of words, a +broad-shouldered fellow would naively declare himself a peri, standing +disconsolate at the gate of his lady's heart, while she quoted Fanny +Fern for her defense, or, if she were passing intellectual and of a +broader culture, she would give him invitation in form of rebuff from +"The Lady of the Lake," or a scathing line from Shakspere. Of course, +all the young people knew their Shakspere--more or less. + +They had their fortunes told in a half-dozen fashions, by withered old +crones whose dim eyes, discerning life's secrets held lightly in +supension, mated them recklessly _on suspicion_. + +Visiting the colored churches, they attended some of the novel services +of the plantation, as, for instance, a certain baptismal wedding, which +is to say a combined ceremony, which was in this case performed quite +regularly and decorously in the interest of a coal-black piccaninny, +artlessly named Lily Blanche in honor of two of the young ladies present +whom the bride-mother had seen but once out driving, but whose gowns of +flowered organdy, lace parasols, and leghorn hats had stirred her sense +of beauty and virtue to action. + +Although there was much amusement over this incongruous function, the +absence of any sense of embarrassment in witnessing so delicate a +ceremony--one which in another setting would easily have become +indelicate--was no doubt an unconscious tribute to the primitive +simplicity of the contracting parties. + +And always there were revival meetings to which they might go and hear +dramatic recitals of marvelous personal "experiences," full of +imagery,--travels in heaven or hell,--with always the resounding human +note which ever prevails in vital reach for truth. Through it all they +discerned the cry which finds the heart of a listener and brings him +into indissoluble relation with his brother man, no matter how great the +darkness out of which the note may come. It is universal. + +The call is in every heart, uttered or unexpressed, and one day it will +pierce the heavens, finding the blue for him who sends it forth, and for +the listener as well if his heart be attuned. + +Let who will go and sit through one of these services, and if he does +not come away subdued and silent, more tender at heart, and, if need be, +stronger of hand to clasp and to lift, perhaps--well, perhaps his mind +is open only to the pictorial and the spectacular. + + * * * * * + +There is no telling how long the house-party would have remained in +Paradise but for the inexorable calendar which warned certain of its +members that they would be expected to answer the royal summons of Comus +at the approaching carnival; and of course the important fact that +certain bills from the legislature affecting the public weal were +awaiting the governor's signature. + +A surprising number of marriages followed this visit, seeming to confirm +a report of an absurd number of engagements made on the island. + +There is a certain old black woman living yet "down by the old basin" in +French New Orleans, a toothless old crone who, by the irony of +circumstance, is familiarly known as "Ol' Mammy Molar," who "remembers" +many things of this time and occasion, which she glibly calls "de +silveringineer party," and who likes nothing better than an audience. + +If she is believed, this much too literal account of a far-away time is +most meager and unfaithful, for she does most strenuously insist that, +for instance, there was served at the servants' table on that first +night-- + +But let her have her way of it for a moment--just a single breath: + +"Why, honey," she closes her eyes as she begins, the better to see +memory behind them. "Why, honey, de champagne wine was passed aroun' to +de hands all dat indurin' infair in _water-buckets_, an' dipped out in +_gou'd dippers-full_, bilin' over so fast an' fizzin' so it'd tickle yo' +mouf to drink it. An' Marse Harol' Le Duc, he stood on a _pi_anner-stool +on de back gallery an' th'owed out gol' dollars by de hatful for any of +us niggers to pick up; an' de guv'ner, ol' Marse Abe Lincolm, he fired +off sky-rockers an' read out freedom papers. + +"An' mids' all de dance an' reveltry, a bolt o' thunder fell like a +cannon-ball outen a clair sky, an' we looked up an' lo an' beholst, here +was a vision of a big hand writin' on de sky, an' a voice say, '_Eat up +de balance ef anything is found wantin'_!' an' wid dat, dey plunged in +like a herd o' swine boun' for de sea, an' dey devoured de fragmints an' +popped mo' corks, an' dipped out mo' champagne wine, an' de mo' dey +dipped out champagne wine, de mo' dey 'd dance. An' de mo' dey 'd dance, +de mo' de wine would flow." + +Possibly the old woman's obvious confusion of thought has some +explanation in the fact of the presence of the governor of the State, +who, introduced as a high dignitary, did make a little speech late that +night, thanking the colored people in terms of compliment for their +dancing; and any impression made here was so quickly overlaid by the +deeper experiences of the war that a blending can easily be explained. + +There was a shower of coins--"picayunes" only--thrown during the evening +by the master, a feature of the dance being to recover as many of them +as possible without breaking step. So the old woman's memory is not so +far afield, although as a historian she might need a little editing. But +such even as this is much of the so-called "history" which, bound in +calf, dishonors the world's libraries to-day. + +It is so easy, seeing cobwebs upon a record,--cobwebs which may not be +quite construed as alphabet,--to interpret them as hieroglyphics of +import, instead of simply brushing them away, or relegating them, where +they belong, to the dusky domain of the myth out of which we may expect +only weird suggestion, as from the mold of pressed rosemary, typifying +remembrance dead. + + * * * * * + +The house-party, which in this poor retrospect seems to have devoted +itself almost wholly to pleasure, was nevertheless followed by immediate +work upon the project in behalf of which it was planned. + +With this main motive was also the ulterior and most proper one in +Harold's mind of introducing his wife in so intimate a fashion to some +of the important members of society, who would date life-friendships +from the pleasant occasion of helping him to open his own door to them. + +Some thousands of dollars went into the quicksands of the marshes before +the foundations were laid for the arch of a proposed great bridge, +beneath which his boats should sail to their landing. With the arrogant +bravado of an impulsive boy challenged to action, he began his arch +first. Its announcement of independence and munificence would express +the position he had taken. Sometimes it is well to put up a bold front, +even if one needs work backward from it. + +Harold moved fast--but the gods of war moved faster! + +Scarcely had a single column of solid masonry risen above the palmetto +swamp when Fort Sumter's guns sounded. The smell of gunpowder penetrated +the fastnesses of the brake, and yet, though his nostrils quivered like +those of an impetuous war-horse, the master held himself in rein with +the thought of her who would be cruelly alone without him. And he said +to himself, while he reared his arch: "Two out of three are enough! I +have taken their terror island for my portion. They may have garlands +upon my bridge--when they come sailing up my canal as heroes!" + +But the next whiff from the battleground stopped work on the arch. The +brothers had fallen side by side. + +[Illustration: "The brave, unthinking fellow, after embracing his +beloved, dashed to the front"] + +Madly seizing both the recovered swords, declaring he would "fight as +three," the brave, unthinking fellow, after embracing his beloved, put +one of her hands in Hannah's and the other in Israel's, and, commending +them to God by a speechless lift of his dark eyes, mounted his horse and +dashed, as one afraid to look back, to the front. + + + + +VI + + +Every one knows the story of "poor Harold Le Duc"--how, captured, +wounded, he lay for more than a year on the edge of insanity in a +Federal hospital. Every one knows of the birth of his child on the +lonely island, with only black hands to receive and tend it, and how the +waiting mother, guarded by the faithful two, and loved by the three +hundred loyal slaves who prayed for her life, finally passed out of it +on the very day of days for which she had planned a great Christmas +banquet for them in honor of their master's triumphant return. + +The story is threadbare. Everyone knows how it happened that "the old +people," Colonel and Madame Le Duc, having taken flight upon report of a +battle, following their last son, had crossed the lines and been unable +from that day to communicate with the island; of the season of the +snake-plague in the heart of the brake, when rattlers and copperheads, +spreading-adders, moccasins, and conger-eels came up to the island, +squirming, darting, or lazily sunning themselves in its flowering +grounds and lily-ponds, some even finding their way into the very beds +of the people; when the trees were deserted of birds, and alligators +prowled across the terraces, depredating the poultry-yard and even +threatening the negro children. + +In the presence of so manifold disaster many of the negroes returned to +voodooism, and nude dances by weird fires offered to Satan supplanted +the shouting of the name of Christ in the churches. A red streak in the +sky over the brake was regarded as an omen of blood--the thunderbolt +which struck the smoke-stack of the sugar-house a command to stop work. + +Old women who had treated the sick with savory teas of roots and herbs +lapsed into conjuring with bits of hair and bones. A rabbit's foot was +more potent than medicine; a snake's tooth wet with swamp scum and dried +in the glare of burning sulphur more to be feared than God. + +War, death and birth and death again, followed by scant provender +threatening famine, and then by the invasion of serpents, had struck +terror into hearts already tremulous and half afraid. + +The word "freedom" had scarcely reached the island and set the air +vibrating with hope, commingled with dread, when the reported death of +the master came as a grim corroboration of the startling prospect. + +All this is an open story. + +But how Israel and Hannah, aided in their flight by a faithful few, +slipped away one dark night, carrying the young child with them to bear +her safely to her father's people, knowing nothing of their absence, +pending the soldier's return--for the two never believed him dead; how, +when they had nearly reached the rear lands of the paternal place, they +were met by an irresistible flood which turned them back; and how, +barely escaping with their lives, they were finally rowed in a skiff +quite through the hall of the great house--so high, indeed, that Mammy +rescued a family portrait from the wall as they passed; how the baby +slept through it all, and the dog followed, swimming-- + +This is part of the inside history never publicly told. + +The little party was taken aboard a boat which waited midstream, a tug +which became so overcrowded that it took no account of passengers whom +it carried safely to the city. Of the poor forlorn lot, a few found +their way back to the plantations in search of survivors, but in most +instances, having gone too soon, they returned disheartened. + +Madame Le Duc, who, with her guests and servants, had fled from the +homestead at the first warning, did not hear for months of the flight of +the old people with her grandchild, and of their supposed fate. No one +doubted that all three had perished in the river, and the news came as +tardy death tidings again--tidings arriving after the manner of war +news, which often put whole families in and out of mourning, in and out +of season. + + + + +VII + + +There is not space here to dwell upon Harold's final return to Brake +Island, bent and broken, unkempt,--disguised by the marks of sorrow, +unrecognized, as he had hoped to be, of the straggling few of his own +negroes whom he encountered camping in the wood, imprisoned by fear. +These, mistaking him for a tramp, avoided him. He had heard the news _en +route_,--the "news," then several years old,--and had, nevertheless, +yielded to a sort of blind, stumbling fascination which drew him back to +the scene of his happiness and his despair. Here, after all, was the +real battle-field--and he was again vanquished. + +When he reached the homestead, he found it wholly deserted. The "big +house," sacred to superstition through its succession of tragedies, was +as Mammy and Israel had left it. Even its larder was untouched, and the +key of the wine-cellar lay imbedded in rust in sight of the cob-webbed +door. + +It was a sad man, prematurely gray, and still gaunt--and white with the +pallor of the hospital prison--who, after this sorrowful pilgrimage to +Brake Island, appeared, as from the grave, upon the streets of New +Orleans. When he was reinstated in his broken home, and known once more +of his family and friends, he would easily have become the popular hero +of the hour, for the gay world flung its gilded doors open to him. + +The Latin temperament of old New Orleans kept always a song in her +throat, even through all the sad passages of her history; and there was +never a year when the French quarter, coquette that she was, did not +shake her flounces and dance for a season with her dainty toes against +the lower side of Canal Street. + +But Harold was not a fellow of forgetful mind. The arch of his life was +broken, it is true, but like that of the bridge he had begun--a bridge +which was to invite the gay world, yes, but which would ever have +dominated it, letting its sails pass under--he could be no other than a +worthy ruin. Had his impetuous temper turned upon himself on his return +to the island, where devastation seemed to mock him at every turn, there +is no telling where it might have driven him. But a lonely mother, and +the knowledge that his father had died of a broken heart upon the report +of his death, the last of his three sons--the pathetic, dependence of +his mother upon him--the appeal of her doting eyes and the exigencies of +an almost hopeless financial confusion--all these combined as a +challenge to his manhood to take the helm in the management of a wrecked +estate. + +It was a saving situation. How often is work the great savior of men! + +Once stirred in the direction of effort, Harold soon developed great +genius for the manipulation of affairs. Reorganization began with his +control. + +Square-shouldered and straight as an Indian, clear of profile, +deep-eyed, and thoughtful of visage, the young man with the white hair +was soon a marked figure. When even serious men "went foolish over him," +it is not surprising that ambitious mothers of marriageable daughters, +in these scant days of dearth of men, should have exhibited occasional +fluttering anxieties while they placed their broken fortunes in his +hands. + +Reluctantly at first, but afterward seeing his way through experience, +Harold became authorized agent for some of the best properties along the +river, saving what was left, and sometimes even recovering whole estates +for the women in black who had known before only how to be good and +beautiful in the romantic homes and gardens whose pervading perfume had +been that of the orange-blossom. + +It was on returning hurriedly from a trip to one of these places on the +upper river--the property of one Marie Estelle Josephine Ramsey de La +Rose, widowed at "Yellow Tavern"--that he sought the ferry skiff on the +night old man Israel answered the call. + + + + +VIII + + +Little the old man dreamed, while he waited, midstream, trying to think +out his problem, that the solution was so near at hand. + +We have seen how the old wife waited and prayed on the shore; how with +her shaded mind she groped, as many a wiser has done, for a comforting, +common-sense understanding of faith, that intangible "substance of +things hoped for," that elusive "evidence of things not seen." + +In a moment after she heard the creaking of the timbers as the skiff +chafed the landing, even while she rose, as was her habit, to see who +might be coming over so late, she dimly perceived two men approaching, +Israel and another; and presently she saw that Israel held the man's +hand and that he walked unsteadily. + +She started, fearing that her man was hurt; but before she could find +voice of fear or question, Israel had drawn the stranger to her and was +saying in a broken voice: + +"Hannah! Hannah! Heah Mars' Harol'!" + +Only a moment before, with her dim eyes fixed upon the sky, she had +experienced a realization of faith, and believed herself confidently +awaiting her master's coming. And yet, seeing him now in the flesh +before her, she exclaimed: + +"What foolishness is dis, ole man? Don't practice no jokes on me +to-night, Isrul!" + +Her voice was almost gruff, and she drew back as she spoke. But even +while she protested, Harold had laid his hand upon her arm. + +"Mammy," he whispered huskily, "don't you know your 'indurin' devil'--?" +(This had been her last, worst name for her favorite during his mischief +period.) + +Harold never finished his sentence. The first sound of his voice had +identified him, but the shock had confused her. When at last she sobbed +"Hush! I say, hush!" her arms were about his knees and she was crying +aloud. + +[Illustration: "Her arms were about his knees"] + +"Glo-o-o--oh--glo-o-o--glo-o-ry! Oh, my Gord!" But presently, wiping her +eyes, she stammered: "What kep' you so, Baby? Hol' me up, chile--hol' +me!" + +She was falling, but Harold steadied her with strong arms, pressing her +into her chair, but retaining her trembling hand while he sat upon the +low table beside her. + +He could not speak at once, but, seeing her head drop upon her bosom, he +called quickly to Israel. For answer, a clarion note, in no wise muffled +by the handkerchief from which it issued, came from the woodpile. Israel +was shy of his emotions and had hidden himself. + +By the time he appeared, sniffling, Hannah had rallied, and was pressing +Harold from her to better study his face at long range. + +"What happened to yo' hair, Baby?" she said presently. "Hit looks as +bright as dat flaxion curl o' yoze I got in my Testamen'. I was lookin' +at it only a week ago las' Sunday, an' wishin' I could read de book +'long wid de curl." + +"It is much lighter than that, Mammy. It is whiter than yours. I have +lived the sorrows of a long life in a few years." + +Israel still stood somewhat aside and was taking no note of their +speech, which he presently interrupted nervously: + +"H-how you reckon Mars' Harol' knowed me, Hannah? He--he reco'nized his +horn! You ricollec' when I fotched dat horn f'om de islan' roun' my +neck, clean 'crost de flood, you made game o' me, an' I say I mought +have need of it? But of co'se I didn't ca'culate to have it ac-_chilly_ +call Mars' Harol' home! I sho' didn't! But dat's what it done. Cep'n' +for de horn's call bein' so familius, he'd 'a' paid me my dime like a +stranger an' passed on." + +At this Harold laughed. + +"Sure enough, Uncle Israel; you didn't collect my ferriage, did you? I +reckon you'll have to charge that." + +Israel chuckled: + +"Lord, Hannah, listen! Don't dat soun' like ole times? Dey don't charge +nothin' in dese han'-to-mouf days, Marse Harol'--not roun' heah." + +"But tell me, Uncle Israel, how did you happen to bring that old horn +with you--sure enough?" Harold interrupted. + +"I jes fotched it _'ca'se I couldn't leave it_--de way Hannah snatched +yo' po'trit off de wall--all in dat deluge. Hit's heah in de cabin now +to witness de trip. But in co'se o' time de horn, hit come handy when I +tuk de ferry-skift. + +"Well, Hannah, when he stepped aboa'd, he all but shuk de ole skift to +pieces. I ought to knowed dat Le Duc high-step, but I didn't. I jes felt +his tread, an' s'luted him for a gentleman, an' axed him for Gord sake +to set down befo' we'd be capsided in de river. I war n't cravin' to +git drownded wid no aristoc'acy. + +"De moon she was hidin', dat time, an' we couldn't see much; but he +leant over an' he say, 'Uncle,' he say, 'who blowed dat horn 'crost de +river?' An' I say, 'Me, sir. I blowed it.' Den he say, 'Whose horn _is_ +dat?' An' I 'spon', 'Hit's _my_ horn, sir.' Den my conscience begin to +gnaw, an' I sort o' stammered, 'Leastways, it b'longs to a frien' o' +mine wha' look like he ain't nuver gwine to claim it.' I ain't say who +de frien' was, but d'rec'ly he pushed me to de wall. He ax me p'intedly +to my face, 'What yo' frien' name, uncle?' An at dat I got de big head +an' I up an' snap out: + +"'Name Le Duc, sir, Harry Le Duc.' + +"Jes free an' easy, so, I say it. Lord have mussy! Ef I'd s'picioned dat +was Mars' Harol' settin' up dar listenin' at me callin' his name so +sociable an' free, I'd 'a' drapped dem oa's overbo'ad. I sho' would. + +"Well, when I say 'Harry Le Duc,' seem like he got kind o' seasick, de +way he bent his head down, an' I ax him how he come on--ef he got de +miz'ry anywhars. An' wid dat he sort o' give out a dry laugh, an' den +what you reckon he ax me? He say, 'Uncle, is you married?' An' wid dat +_I_ laughed. 'T war n't no trouble for me to laugh at dat. I 'spon', +'Yas, sirree! You bet I is! Does I look like air rovin' bachelor?' I was +jes about half mad by dis time. + +"Well, so he kep' on quizzifyin' me: ax me whar I live, an' I tol' 'im I +was a ole risidenter on de levee heah for five years past; an' so we run +on, back an' fo'th, tell we teched de sho'. An' time de skift bumped de +landin' he laid his han' on me an' he say, 'Unc' Isrul, whar's Mammy +Hannah?' An' den--bless Gord! I knowed him! But I ain't trus' myself to +speak. I des nachelly clawed him an' drug him along to you. I seen de +fulfilment o' promise, an' my heart was bustin' full, but I ain't got no +halleluiah tongue like you. I jes passed him along to you an' made for +de woodpile!" + +It was a great moment for Harold, this meeting with the only people +living who could tell all there was to know of those who were gone. + +Hannah's memory was too photographic for judicious reminiscence. The +camera's great imperfection lies in its very accuracy in recording +non-essentials, with resulting confusion of values. So the old woman, +when she turned her mental search-light backward, "beginning at the +beginning," which to Harold seemed the end of all--the day of his +departure,--recounted every trivial incident of the days, while Harold +listened through the night, often suffering keenly in his eagerness to +know the crucial facts, yet fearing to interrupt her lest some precious +thing be lost. + +A reflected sunrise was reddening the sky across the river when she +reached the place in the story relating to the baby. Her description +needed not any coloring of love to make it charming, and while he +listened the father murmured under his breath: + +"And then to have lost her!" + +"What dat you say, Marse Harol'?" Hannah gasped, her quick ears having +caught his despairing tone. + +"Oh, nothing, Mammy. Go on. It did seem cruel to have the little one +drowned. But I don't blame you. It is a miracle that you old people +saved yourselves." + +The old woman turned to her husband and threw up her hands. + +"Wh-why, Isrul!" she stammered. + +"What's de matter wid you--to set heah all night an' listen at me +talkin' all roun' de baby--an' ain't named her yit!" + +She rose and, drawing Harold after her, entered the door at her back. As +she pulled aside the curtain a ray of sunlight fell full upon the +sleeping child. + +"Heah yo' baby, Baby!" Her low voice, steadied by its passages through +greater crises, was even and gentle. + +She laid her hand upon the child. + +"Wek up, baby! Wek up!" she cried. "Yo' pa done come! Wek up!" + +Without stirring even so much as a thread of her golden hair upon the +pillow, the child opened a pair of great blue eyes and looked from +Mammy's face to the man's. Then,--so much surer is a child's faith than +another's,--doubting not at all, she raised her little arms. + +Her father, already upon his knees beside her, bent over, bringing his +neck within her embrace, while he inclosed her slender body with his +arms. Thus he remained, silent, for a moment, for the agony of his joy +was beyond tears or laughter. But presently he lifted his child, and, +sitting, took her upon his lap. He could not speak yet, for while he +smoothed her beautiful hair and studied her face, noting the blue depths +of her darkly fringed eyes, the name that trembled for expression within +his lips was "Agnes--Agnes." + +"How beautiful she is!" he whispered presently; and then, turning to +Hannah, "And how carefully you have kept her! Everything--so sweet." + +"Oh, yas!" the old woman hastened to answer. "We ain't spared no pains +on 'er, Marse Harol'. She done had eve'ything we could git for her, by +hook or by crook. Of co'se she ain't had no _white kin_ to christen her, +an' dat was a humiliation to us. She didn't have no to say legal person +to bring 'er for'ard, so she ain't nuver been _ca'yed up in church_; but +she's had every sort o' christenin' we could reach. + +"I knowed yo' pa's ma, ole Ma'am Toinette, she'd turn in her grave +lessen her gran'chil' was christened Cat'lic, so I had her christened +dat way. Dat ole half-blind priest, Father Some'h'n' other, wha' comes +from Bayou de Glaise, he was conductin' mass meetin' or some'h'n' other, +down here in Bouligny, an' I took de baby down, an' he sprinkled her in +Latin or some'h'n' other, an' ornamented behind her ears wid unctious +ile, an' crossed her little forehead, an' made her eat a few grains o' +table salt. He _done it straight_, wid all his robes on, an' I g'in him +a good dollar, too. An' dat badge you see on her neck, a sister o' +charity, wid one o' dese clair-starched ear-flap sunbonnets on, she put +dat on her. She say she give it to her to wear so 's she could n't git +drownded--_like as ef I'd let her drownd_. Yit an' still I lef' it so, +an' I even buys a fresh blue ribbin for it, once-t an'a while. I hear +'em say dat blue hit's de Hail Mary color--an' it becomes her eyes, too. +Dey say what don't pizen fattens, an' I know dem charms couldn't do her +no hurt, an', of 'co'se, we don't know all. Maybe dey mought ketch de +eye of a hoverin' angel in de air an' bring de baby into Heavenly +notice. Of co'se, I wouldn't put no sech as dat on her. I ain't been +raised to it, an' I ain't no beggin' hycoprite. But I wouldn't take it +off, nuther. + +"Den, I knowed ole Mis', yo' ma, she was 'Pistopal, an' Miss Aggie she +was Numitarium; so every time a preacher'd be passin' I'd git him to +perform it his way. Me bein' Baptis' I didn't have no nigger baptism to +saddle on her. + +"So she's bounteously baptized--yas, sir. I reasoned it out dat ef dey's +only one _true_ baptism, an' I war n't to say _shore_ which one it was, +I better git 'em all, an' only de _onlies'_ true one would _count_; an' +den ag'in, ef all honest baptisms is good, den de mo' de merrier, as de +Book say. Of co'se I knowed pyore rain-water sprinkled on wid a blessin' +couldn't hurt no chile. + +"You see, when one side de house is _French distraction_ an' de yether +is _English to-scent_, an' dey's a dozen side-nations wid _blood to +tell_ in all de branches,--well, hit minds me o' dis _ba'm of a thousan' +flowers_ dat ole Mis' used to think so much of. Hits hard to 'stinguish +out any one flagrams. + +"But talkin' about de baby, she ain't been deprived, no mo' 'n de Lord +deprived her, for a season, of her rights to high livin' an'--an' +aristoc'acy--an'--an' petigree, an' posterity, an' all sech as dat. + +"An'-- + +"What dat you say, Mars' Harol'? What _name_ is we--' + +"We ain't dast to give 'er no name, Baby, no mo' 'n jes Blossom. I got +'er wrote down in five citi_fic_ates 'Miss Blossom,' jes so. No, sir. I +knows my colored place, an' I'll go so far, an' dat's all de further. +She was jes as much a blossom befo' she was christened as she was +arterwards, so my namin' 'er don't count. I was 'mos' tempted to call +out 'Agnes' to de preachers, when dey'd look to me for a name, seem' it +was her right--like as ef she was borned to it; but--I ain't nuver +imposed on her. No, sir, we ain't imposed on her noways. + +"De on'iest wrong I ever done her--an' Gord knows I done it to save her +to my arms, an' for you, marster--de on'iest wrong was to let her go +widout her little sunbonnet an' git her skin browned up so maybe nobody +wouldn't s'picion she was clair white an' like as not try to wrest her +from me. An' _one_ time, when a uppish yo'ng man ast me her name, I +said it straight, but I see him look mighty cu'yus, an' I spoke up an' +say, 'What other name you 'spect' her to have? My name is Hannah Le Duc, +an' I's dat child's daddy's mammy.' Excuse me, Mars' Harold, but you +know I _is_ yo' _black_ mammy--_an' I was in so'e straits_. + +"So de yo'ng man, well, he didn't seem to have no raisin'. He jes sort +o' whistled, an' say I sho is got one mighty blon' gran'chil'--an' I +'spon', 'Yas, sir; so it seems.' + +"An' dat's de on'ies' wrong I ever done her. She sets up at her little +dinner-table sot wid a table-cloth an' a white napkin,--an' I done buyed +her a ginuine silver-plated napkin-ring to hold it in, too,--an' she +says her own little blessin'--dat short 'Grace o' Gord--material +binefets,' one o' Miss Aggie's; I learned it to her. No, she ain't been +handled keerless, ef she is been livin' on de outside o' de levee, like +free niggers. But we ain't to say _lived_ here, 'not perzackly, +marster. We jes been waitin' along, _so_, dese five years--waitin' for +to-night. + +"I ain't nuver sorted her clo'es out into no bureau; I keeps 'em all in +her little trunk, perpared to move along." + +For a moment the realization of the culmination of her faith seemed to +suffuse her soul, and as she proceeded, her voice fell in soft, rhythmic +undulations. + +"Ya-as, Mars' Harol', Mammy's baby boy, yo' ol' nuss she been waitin', +an' o-ole man Isrul _he_ been waitin', an' de Blossom _she_ been +waitin'. I 'spec' she had de firmes' faith, arter all, de baby did. Day +by day we all waited--an' night by night. An' sometimes when courage +would burn low an' de lamp o' faith grow dim, seem like we'd a' broke +loose an' started a-wanderin' in a sort o' blind search, _'cep'n' for de +river_. + +"Look like ef we'd ever went beyan' de river's call, we'd been same as +de chillen o' Isrul lost in de tanglement o' de wilderness. All we river +chillen, we boun' to stay by her, same as toddlin' babies hangs by a +mammy's skirts. She'll whup us one day, an' chastise us severe; den +she'll bring us into de light, same as she done to-night--same as reel +mammies does. + +"An', Mars' Harol'--" + +She lowered her voice. + +"Mars' Harol', don't tell me she don't know! I tell yer, me an' dis +River we done spent many a dark night together under de stars, an' we +done talked an' answered one another so many lonely hours--an' she done +showed us so many mericles on land _an'_ water-- + +"I tell yer, I done found out some'h'n' about de River, Mars' Harol'. +She's--why, she's-- + +"Oh, ef I could only write it all down to go in a book! We been th'ough +some _merac'lous_ times together, sho' 's you born--sho' 's you born. + +"She's a mericle mystery, sho'! + +"You lean over an' dip yo' han' in her an' you take it up an' you say +it's _wet_. You dig yo' oars into her, an' she'll spin yo' boat over her +breast. You dive down into her, an' you come up--_or don't come up_. +Some eats her. Some drinks her. Some gethers wealth outen her. Some +draps it into her. Some drownds in her. + +"An' she gives an' takes, an' seem like all her chillen gits +satisfaction outen her, one way an' another; but yit an' still, she +ain't nuver flustered. On an' on she goes--rain or shine--high +water--low water--all de same--on an' on. + +"When she craves diamonds for her neck, she reaches up wid long +onvisible hands an' gethers de stars out'n de firmamint. + +"De moon is her common breastpin, an' de sun-- + +"Even he don't faze her. She takes what she wants, an' sends back his +fire every day. + +"De mists is a veil for her face, an' de showers fringes it. + +"Sunrise or dusklight, black night or midday, every change she answers +_whilst she's passin'_. + +"But who ever _in_ticed her to stop or to look or listen? Nobody, Baby. +An' why? + +"Oh, Lord! ef eve'ybody only knowed! + +"You see, all sech as dat, I used to study over it an' ponder befo' we +started to talk back an' fo'th--de River an' me. + +"One dark night she heared me cryin' low on de bank, whilst de ole man +stepped into de boat to row 'crost de water, an' she felt Wood-duck +settle heavy on her breast, an' she seen dat we carried de same +troublous thought--searchin' an' waitin' for the fulfilment o' promise. + +"An' so we started to call--an' to answer, heart to heart." + + * * * * * + +The story is nearly told. No doubt many would be willing to have it stop +here. But a tale of the river is a tale of greed, and must have +satisfaction. + +While father and child sat together, Israel came, bringing fresh chips. +He had been among the woodpiles again. This time there followed him the +dog. + +"Why, Blucher!" Harold exclaimed. "Blucher, old fellow!" And at his +voice the dog, whining and sniffing, climbed against his shoulder, even +licking his face and his hand. Then, running off, he barked at Israel +and Hannah, telling them in fine dog Latin who the man was who had come. +Then he crouched at his feet, and, after watching his face a moment, +laid his head upon his master's right foot, a trick Harold had taught +him as a pup. + + + + +IX + + +Of course Harold wished to take the entire family home with him at once, +and would hear to nothing else until Hannah, serving black coffee to him +from her furnace, in the dawn, begged that she and Israel might have "a +few days to rest an' to study" before moving. + +It was on the second evening following this, at nightfall, while her man +was away in his boat, that the old woman rose from her chair and, first +studying the heavens and then casting about her to see that no one was +near, she went down to the water, slowly picking her way to a shallow +pool between the rafts and the shore. She sat here at first, upon the +edge of the bank, frankly dropping her feet into the water while she +seemed to begin to talk--or possibly she sang, for the low sound which +only occasionally rose above the small noises of the rafts was faintly +suggestive of a priest's intoning. + +For a moment only, she sat thus. Then she began to lower herself into +the water, until, leaning, she could lay her face against the sod, so +that a wave passed over it, and when, letting her weight go, she +subsided, with arms extended, into the shallow pool, a close listener +might have heard an undulating song, so like the river's in tone as to +be separable from it only through the faint suggestion of words, +interrupted or drowned at intervals by the creaking and knocking of the +rafts and the gurgling of the sucking eddies about them. + +The woman's voice--song, speech, or what not?--_seemed_ intermittent, as +if in converse with another presence. + +Suddenly, while she stood thus, she dropped bodily, going fully under +the water for a brief moment, as if renewing her baptism, and when she +presently lifted herself, she was crying aloud, sobbing as a child sobs +in the awful momentary despair of grief at the untwining of +arms--shaken, unrestrained. + +While she stood thus for a few minutes only,--a pathetic waste of +sorrow, wet, dark and forlorn, alone on the night-shore,--a sudden wind, +a common evening current, threw a foaming wave over the logs beside her +so that its spray covered her over; while the straining ropes, breaking +and bumping timbers, with the slow dripping of the spent wave through +the raft, seemed to answer and possibly to assuage her agitation; for, +as the wind passed and the waters subsided, she suddenly grew still, +and, climbing the bank as she had come, walked evenly as one at peace, +into her cabin. + +No one will ever know what, precisely, was the nature of this last +communion. Was it simply an intimate leave-taking of a faithful +companionship grown dear through years of stress? Or had it deeper +meaning in a realization--or hallucination--as to the personality of the +river--the "secret" to which she only once mysteriously referred in a +gush of confidence on her master's return? + +Perhaps she did not know herself, or only vaguely felt what she could +not tell. Certainly not even to her old husband, one with her in life +and spirit, did she try to convey this mystic revelation. We know by +intuition the planes upon which our minds may meet with those of our +nearest and dearest. To the good man and soldier, Israel,--the prophet, +even, who held up the wavering hands of the imaginative woman when her +courage waned, pointing to the hour of fulfilment,--the great river, +full of potencies for good or ill, could be only a river. As a mirror it +had shown him divinity, and in its character it might _typify_ to his +image-loving mind another thing which service would make it precious. +But what he would have called his sanity--had he known the word--would +have obliged him to stop there. + +The stars do not tell, and the poor moon--at best only hinting what the +sun says--is fully half-time off her mind. And the SOUL OF THE +RIVER--if, indeed, it has once broken silence--may not speak again. + +And, so, her secret is safe--safe even if the broken winds did catch a +breath, here and there, sending it flurriedly through and over the logs +until they trembled with a sort of mad harp-consciousness, and were set +a-quivering for just one full strain--one coherent expression of +soul-essence--when the wave broke. Perhaps the arms of the twin spirits +were untwined--and they went their separate ways smiling--the woman and +the river. + +When, after a short time, the old wife came out, dressed in fresh +clothing, her white, starched tignon shining in the moonlight, to sit +and talk with her husband, her composure was as perfect as that of the +face of the water which in its serenity suggested the voice of the +Master, when Peter would have sunk but for his word. + +This was to be their last night here. Harold was to bring a carriage on +the next day to take them to his mother and Blossom, and, despite the +joy in their old hearts, it cost them a pang to contemplate going away. +Every woodpile seemed to hold a memory, each feature of the bank a +tender association. Blucher lay sleeping beside them. + +Israel spoke first. + +"Hannah!" he said. + +"What, Isrul?" + +"I ready to go home to-night, Hannah. Marse Harol' done come. We done +finished our 'sponsibility--an' de big river's a-flowin' on to de +sea--an' settin' heah, I 'magines I kin see Mis' Aggie lookin' down on +us, an' seem like she mought want to consult wid us arter our meetin' +wid Marse Harol' an' we passin' Blossom along. What you say, Hannah?" + +"I been tired, ole man, an' ef we could 'a' went las' night, like you +say, seem like I 'd 'a' been ready--an', of co'se, I'm ready now, ef +Gord wills. Peace is on my sperit. Yit an' still, when we rests off a +little an' studies freedom free-handed, we won't want to hasten along +maybe. Ef we was to set heah an' wait tell Gord calls us,--He ain't ap' +to call us bofe together, an' dey'd be lonesome days for the last one. +But ef we goes 'long wid Marse Harol', he an' Blossom'll be a heap o' +comfort to de one what's left." + +"Hannah!" + +"Yas, Isrul." + +"We's a-settin' to-night close to de brink--ain't dat so?" + +"Yas, Isrul." + +"An' de deep waters is in sight, eh, Hannah?" + +"Yas, Isrul." + +"An' we heah it singin', ef we listen close, eh, Hannah?" + +"Yas, Isrul." + +"Well, don't let 's forgit it, dat 's all. Don't let's forgit, when we +turns our backs on dis swellin' tide, dat de river o' Jordan is jes +befo' us, all de same--an' it can't be long befo' our crossin'-time." + +"Amen!" said the woman. + + * * * * * + +The moon shone full upon the great river, making a shimmering path of +light from shore to shore, when the old couple slowly rose and went to +rest. + +Toward morning there was a quick gurgling sound in front of the cabin. +Blucher caught it, and, springing out, barked at the stars. The sleepers +within the levee hut slept on, being overweary. + +The watchman in the Carrollton garden heard the sound,--heard it swell +almost to a roar,--and he ran to the new levee, reaching its summit just +in time to see the roof of the cabin as it sank, with the entire point +of land upon which it rested, into the greedy flood. + + * * * * * + +When Harold Le Duc arrived that morning to take the old people home, the +river came to meet him at the brim of the near bank, and its face was as +the face of smiling innocence. + +While he stood awe-stricken before the awful fact so tragically +expressed in the river's bland denial, a wet dog came, and, whining, +crouched at his feet. He barked softly, laid his head a moment upon his +master's boot, moaned a sort of confidential note, and, looking into the +air, barked again, softly. + +Did he see more than he could tell? Was he trying to comfort his master? +He had heard all the sweet converse of the old people on that last +night, and perhaps he was saying in his poor best speech that all was +well. + +Mammy Hannah and Uncle Israel, having discharged their responsibility, +had crossed the River together. + + + + +PART THIRD + + + "Oh, it 's windy, + Sweet Lucindy, + On de river-bank to-night, + An' de moontime + Beats de noontime, + When de trimblin' water 's white." + +So runs the plantation love-song, and so sang a great brown fellow as, +with oars over his shoulder, he strolled down "Lovers' Lane," between +the _bois d'arcs_, toward the Mississippi levee. + +He repeated it correctly until he neared the gourd-vine which marked the +home of his lady, when he dropped his voice a bit and, eschewing rhyme +for the greater value, sang: + + "Oh, it 's windy, + Sweet Maria, + On de river-bank to-night--" + +And slackening his pace until he heard footsteps behind him, he stopped +and waited while a lithe yellow girl overtook him languidly. + +"Heah, you take yo' sheer o' de load!" he laughed as he handed her one +of the oars. "Better begin right. You tote half an' me half." And as she +took the oar he added, "How is you to-night, anyhow, sugar-gal?" + +While he put his right arm around her waist, having shifted the +remaining oar to his left side, the girl instinctively bestowed the one +she carried over her right shoulder, so that her left arm was free for +reciprocity, to which it naively devoted itself. + +"I tell yer, hit 's fine an' windy to-night, sho' enough," he said. "De +breeze on de levee is fresh an' cool, an' de skift she's got a new +yaller-buff frock, an' she--" + +"Which skift? De _Malviny_? Is you give her a fresh coat o' paint? An' +dat's my favoryte color--yaller-buff!" This with a chuckle. + +"No; dey ain't no _Malviny_ skift no mo'--not on dis plantation. I done +changed her name." + +"You is, is yer? What is you named her dis time?" + +She was preparing to express surprise in the surely expected. Of course +the boat was renamed the _Maria_. What else, in the circumstances? + +"I painted her after a lady-frien's complexion, a bright, clair yaller; +but as to de name--guess!" said the man, with a lunge toward the girl, +as the oar he carried struck a tree--a lunge which brought him into +position to touch her ear with his lips while he repeated: "What you +reckon I named her, sweetenin'?" + +"How should I know? I ain't in yo' heart!" + +"You ain't, ain't yer? Ef you ain't, I'd like mighty well to know who +is. You's a reg'lar risidenter, you is--an' you knows it, too! Guess +along, gal. What you think de boat's named?" + +"Well, ef you persises for me to guess, I'll say _Silv' Ann_. Dat 's a +purty title for a skift." + +"_Silv' Ann!_" contemptuously. "I 'clare, M'ria, I b'lieve you 's +jealous-hearted. No, indeedy! I know I run 'roun' wid Silv' Ann awhile +back, jes to pass de time, but she can't name none o' my boats! No; ef +you won't guess, I'll tell yer--dat is, I'll give you a hint. She named +for my best gal! _Now guess!_" + +"I never was no hand at guessin'." The girl laughed while she tossed her +head. "Heah, take dis oah, man, an' lemme walk free. I ain't ingaged to +tote no half-load _yit_--as I knows on. Lordy, but dat heavy paddle done +put my whole arm to sleep. Ouch! boy. Hands off tell de pins an' needles +draps out. I sho' is glad to go rowin' on de water to-night." + +So sure was she now of her lover, and of the honor which he tossed as a +ball in his hands, never letting her quite see it, that she whimsically +put away the subject. + +She had been to school several summers and could decipher a good many +words, but most surely, from proud practice, she could spell her own +name. As they presently climbed the levee together, she remarked, seeing +the water: "Whar is de boat, anyhow--de What-you-may-call-it? She ain't +in sight--not heah!" + +"No; she's a little piece up de current--in de willer-clump. I didn't +want nobody foolin' wid 'er--an' maybe readin' off my affairs. She got +her new intitlemint painted on her stern--every letter a different +color, to match de way her namesake treats me--in a new light every +day." + +The girl giggled foolishly. She seemed to see the contour of her own +name, a bouquet of color reaching across the boat, and it pleased her. +It would be a witness for her--to all who could read. + +"I sho' does like boats an' water," she generalized, as they walked on. + +"Me, too," agreed her lover; "but I likes anything--wid my chosen +company. What is dat whizzin' past my face? Look like a honey-bee." + +"'T is a honey-bee. Dey comes up heah on account o' de chiny-flowers. +But look out! Dat's another! You started 'em time you drug yo' oah in de +mids' o' dem chiny-blossoms. Whenever de chiny-trees gits too sickenin' +sweet, look out for de bees!" + +"Yas," chuckled de man; "an' dey's a lesson in dat, ef we'd study over +it. Whenever life gits too sweet, look out for trouble! But we won't +worry 'bout dat to-night. Is you 'feared o' stingin' bees?" + +"No, not whilst dey getherin' honey--dey too busy. Hit 's de idlers dat +I shun. An' I ain't afeared o' trouble, nuther. Yit an' still, ef +happiness is a sign, I better look sharp." + +"Is you so happy, my Sugar?" + +The girl laughed. + +"I don't know ef I is or not--I mus' see de name on dat skift befo' I +can say. Take yo' han' off my wais', boy! Ef you don't I'll be 'feared +o' stingin' bees, sho' enough! Don't make life _too_ sweet!" + +They were both laughing when the girl dashed ahead into the +willow-clump, Love close at her heels, and in a moment the _Maria_, in +her gleaming dress of yellow, darted out into the sunset. + +A boat or two had preceded them, and another followed presently, but it +takes money to own a skiff, or even to build one of the driftwood, which +is free to the captor. And so most of the couples who sought the river +strolled for a short space, finding secluded seats on the rough-hewn +benches between the acacia-trees or on the drift-dogs which lined the +water's edge. It was too warm for continued walking. + +From some of the smaller vessels, easily recognizable as of the same +family as the fruit-luggers which crowd around "Picayune Tier" at the +French market, there issued sweet songs in the soft Italian tongue, +often accompanied by the accordeon. + +Young Love sang on the water in half a dozen tongues, as he sings there +yet at every summer eventide. + +The skiffs for the most part kept fairly close to the shore, skirting +the strong current of the channel, avoiding, too, the large steamboats, +whose passage ever jeopardized the small craft which crossed in their +wake. + +Indeed, the passage of one of these great "packets" generally cleared +the midstream, although a few venturesome oarsmen would often dare fate +in riding the billows in her wake. These great steamboats were known +among the humble river folk more for their wave-making power than for +the proud features which distinguished them in their personal relations. + +There were those, for instance, who would watch for a certain great boat +called the _Capitol_, just for the bravado of essaying the bubbling +storm which followed her keel, while some who, enjoying their fun with +less snap of danger, preferred to have their skiffs dance behind the +_Laurel Hill_. Or perhaps it was the other way: it may have been the +_Laurel Hill_, of the sphere-topped smoke-stacks, which made the more +sensational passage. + +It all happened a long time ago, although only about thirteen years had +passed since the events last related, and both boats are dead. At least +they are out of the world of action, and let us hope they have gone to +their rest. An old hulk stranded ashore and awaiting final dissolution +is ever a pathetic sight, suggesting a patient paralytic in his chair, +grimly biding fate--the waters of eternity at his feet. + +At intervals, this evening, fishermen alongshore--old negroes +mostly--pottered among the rafts, setting their lines, and if the +oarsmen listened keenly, they might almost surely have caught from these +gentle toilers short snatches of low-pitched song, hymns mostly, of +content or rejoicing. + +There was no sense of the fitness of the words when an ancient fisher +sang "Sweet fields beyan' de swelling flood," or of humor in "How firm +a foundation," chanted by one standing boot-deep in suspicious sands. +The favorite hymn of several of the colored fishermen, however, seemed +to be "Cometh our fount of every blessin'," frankly so pronounced with +reverent piety. + +At a distant end of his raft, hidden from its owner by a jutting point +from which they leaped, naked boys waded and swam, jeering the deaf +singer as they jeered each passing boat, while occasionally an +adventurous fellow would dive quite under a skiff, seizing his +opportunity while the oars were lifted. + +None of the little rowboats carried sail as a rule, although sometimes a +sloop would float by with an air of commanding a squadron of the sparse +fleet which extended along the length of the river. + +The sun was fallen nearly to the levee-line this evening when one of the +finest of the "river palaces" hove in sight. + +The sky-hour for "dousing the great glim" was so near--and the actual +setting of the sun is always sudden--that, while daylight still +prevailed, all the steamer's lights were lit, and although the keen sun +which struck her as a search-light robbed her thousand lamps of their +value, the whole scene was greater for the full illumination. + +The people along shore waved to the passing boat--they always do it--and +the more amiable of the passengers answered with flying handkerchiefs. + +As she loomed radiant before them, an aged negro, sitting mending his +net, remarked to his companion: + +"What do she look like to you, Br'er Jones?" + +"'What she look like to me?'" The man addressed took his pipe from his +lips at the question. "What she look like--to me?" he repeated again. +"Why, tell the trufe, I was jes' studyin' 'bout dat when you spoke. She +'minds me o' Heaven; dat what she signifies to my eyes--Heavenly +mansions. What do she look like to _you_?" + +"Well," the man shifted the quid in his mouth and lowered his shuttle as +he said slowly, "well, to my observance, she don't answer for Heaven; I +tell yer dat: not wid all dat black smoke risin' outen 'er 'bominable +regions. She's mo' like de yether place to _me_. She may have Heavenly +gyarments on, but she got a hell breath, sho'. An' listen at de band o' +music playin' devil-dance time inside her! An' when she choose to let it +out, she's got a-a-nawful snort--she sho' is!" + +"Does you mean de cali-ope?" + +"No; she ain't got no cali-ope. I means her clair whistle. Hit's got a +jedgment-day sound in it to my ears." + +"Dat music you heah', dat ain't no dance-music. She plays dat for de +passengers to eat by, so dey tell me. But I reckon dey jes p'onounces +supper dat-a-way, same as you'd ring a bell. An' when de people sets +down to de table, dey mus' sho'ly have de manners to stop long enough to +let 'em eat in peace. Yit an' still, whilst she looks like Heaven, I'd a +heap ruther set heah an' see her go by 'n to put foot in her, 'ca'se I'd +look for her to 'splode out de minute I landed in her an' to scatter my +body in one direction an' my soul somewhars else. No; even ef she was +Heaven, I'd ruther 'speriment heah a little longer, settin' on de sof' +grass an' smellin' de yearnin' trees an' listenin' at de bumblebees +a-bumblin', an' go home an' warm up my bacon an' greens for supper, an' +maybe go out foragin' for my Sunday chicken to-night in de dark o' de +moon. Hyah! My stomach hit rings de dinner-bell for me, jes as good as a +brass ban'." + +"Me, too!" chuckled the smoker. "I'll take my chances on dry lan', every +time. I know I'll nuver lead a p'ocession but once-t, and dat'll be at +my own fun'al, an' I don't inten' to resk my chances. But she is sho' +one noble-lookin' boat." + +By this time the great steamboat--the wonderful apparition so aptly +typifying Heaven and hell--had passed. + +She carried only the usual number of passengers, but at this evening +hour they crowded the guards, making a brilliant showing. Family parties +they were mostly, with here and there groups of young folk, generally +collected about some popular girl who formed a center around which +coquetry played mirthfully in the breeze. A piquant Arcadian bride, +"pretty as red shoes," artlessly appearing in all her white wedding +toggery, her veil almost crushed by its weight of artificial +orange-flowers, looked stoically away from the little dark husband who +persisted in fanning her vigorously, while they sat in the sun-filled +corner which they had taken for its shade while the boat was turned into +the landing to take them aboard. And, of course, there was the usual +quota of staid couples who had survived this interesting stage of life's +game. + +Nor was exhibition of rather intimate domesticity entirely missing. +Infancy dined in Nature's own way, behind the doubtful screening of +waving palmetto fans. While among the teething and whooping-cough +contingents the observer of life might have found both tragedy and +comedy for his delectation. + +Mild, submissive mothers of families, women of the Creole middle class +mainly,--old and withered at thirty-five, all their youthful magnolia +tints gone wrong, as in the flower when its bloom is passed--exchanged +maternal experiences, and agreed without dissent that the world was full +of trouble, but "God was good." + +Even a certain slight maternal wisp who bent over a tiny waxen thing +upon her lap, dreading each moment to perceive the flicker in her breath +which would show that a flame went out--even she, poor tear-dimmed soul, +said it while she answered sympathetic inquiry: + +"Oh, yas; it is for her we are taking de trip. Yas, she is very sick, +_mais God is good_. It is de eye-teet'. De river's breath it is de bes' +medicine. De doctor he prescribe it. An' my father he had las' winter +such a so much trouble to work his heart, an' so, seeing we were coming, +he is also here--yas, dat's heem yonder, asleep. 'T is his most best +sleep for a year, lying so. De river she give it. An' dose ferryboat dey +got always on board too much whooping-cough to fasten on to eye-teet." + + * * * * * + +Somewhat apart from the other passengers, their circle loosely but +surely defined by the irregular setting of their chairs toward a common +center, sat a group, evidently of the great world--most conspicuous +among them a distinguished-looking couple in fresh mid-life, who led the +animated discussion, and who were seen often to look in the direction of +a tall and beautiful girl who stood in the midst of a circle of young +people within easy call. It was impossible not to see that their +interest in the girl was vital, for they often exchanged glances when +her laughter filled the air, and laughed with her, although they knew +only that she had laughed. + +The girl stood well in sight, although "surrounded six deep" by an +adoring crowd; nor was this attributable alone to her height which set +her fine little head above most of her companions. A certain distinction +of manner--unrelated to haughtiness, which may fail in effect, or +arrogance, which may over-ride but never appeal; perhaps it was a +graciousness of bearing--kept her admirers ever at a tasteful distance. + +There was an ineffable charm about the girl, a thing apart from the +unusual beauty which marked her in any gathering of which she became a +part. + +Descriptions are hazardous and available words often inadequate to the +veracious presentment of beauty, and yet there is ever in perfection a +challenge to the pen. + +As the maiden stood this evening in the sunlight, her radiant yellow +hair complementing the blue of her sea-deep eyes, her fair cheeks +aglow, and one color melting to another in her quick movements, the +effect was almost like an iridescence. Tender in tints as a sea-shell, +there might have been danger of lapse into insipidity but for the accent +of dark rims and curled lashes which individualized the eyes, and, too, +the strong, straight lines of her contour, which, more than the note of +dark color, marked her a Le Duc. + +There are some women who naturally hold court, no matter what the +conditions of life, and to whom tribute comes as naturally as the air +they breathe. It often dates back into their spelling-class days, and I +am not sure that it does not occasionally begin in the "perambulator." + +This magnetic quality--one hesitates to use an expression so nervously +prostrated by strenuous overwork, and yet it is well made and to +hand--this magnetic quality, then, was probably, in Agnes Le Duc, the +gift of the Latin strain grafted upon New England sturdiness and +reserve, the one answering, as one might say, for ballast, while the +other lent sail for the equable poising of a safe and brilliant +life-craft. + +So, also, was her unusual beauty markedly a composite and of elements so +finely contrasting that their harmonizing seemed rather a succession of +flashes, as of opposite electric currents meeting and breaking through +the caprice of temperamental disturbance; as in the smile which won by +its witchery, or the illumination with which rapid thought or sudden +pity kindled her eye. + +Educated alternately in Louisiana where she had recited her history +lessons in French, and in New England, the pride and pet of a charmed +Cambridge circle, with occasional trips abroad with her "parents," she +was emerging, all unknowingly, a rather exceptional young woman for any +place or time. + +Seeing her this evening, an enthusiast might have likened her to the +exquisite bud of a great tea-rose, regal on a slender stem--shy of +unfolding, yet ultimately unafraid, even through the dewy veil of +immaturity--knowing full well, though she might not stop to remember, +the line of court roses in her pedigree. + +Watching her so at a safe distance, one could not help wondering that +she thought it worth her while to listen at all, seeing how her admirers +waited upon her every utterance. To listen well has long been considered +a grace--just to listen; but there is a still higher art, perhaps, in +going a step beyond. It is to listen with enthusiasm, yes, even with +_eloquence_. One having a genius for this sort of oratory, speaking +through the inspired utterance of another, and of course supplying the +inspiration, gains easily the reputation of "delightful conversational +powers." + +And this was precisely an unsuspected quality which made for the sweet +girl much of the popularity which she had never analyzed or questioned. +She _could_ talk, and in several languages, familiarly, and when the +invitation arrived, she did--upward, with respect, to her elders (she +had learned that both in New Orleans and in Boston); downward to her +inferiors--with gentle directness, unmixed with over-condescension; to +right and to left among her companions, quite as a free-hearted girl, +with spirit and _camaraderie_. + +A quality, this, presaging social success certainly, and, it must be +admitted, it is a quality which sometimes adorns natures wanting in +depth of affection. That this was not true of Agnes Le Duc, however, +seems to be clearly shown in an incident of this trip. + +As she stood with her companions this evening, while one and another +commented upon this or that feature of the shore, they came suddenly +upon a congregation of negroes encircling an inlet between two curves in +the levee, and, as the low sun shone clearly into the crowd, it became +immediately plain that a baptism was in progress. + +A line of women, robed in white, stood on one side; several men, +likewise in white, on the other, while the minister, knee-deep in the +water, was immersing a subject who shouted wildly as he went under and +came up struggling as one in a fit, while two able-bodied men with +difficulty bore him ashore. + +The scene was scarcely one to inspire reverence to a casual observer, +and there was naturally some merriment at its expense. One playful +comment led to another until a slashing bit of ridicule brought the +entire ceremony into derision, and, as it happened, the remark with its +accompanying mimicry was addressed to Agnes. + +"Oh, please!" she pleaded, coloring deeply. "I quite understand how it +may affect you; but--oh, it is too serious for here--too personal and +too sacred--" + +While she hesitated, the culprit, ready to crawl at her feet,--innocent, +indeed, of the indelicacy of which he had become technically +guilty,--begged to be forgiven. He had quite truly "meant no harm." + +"Oh, I am quite sure of it," the girl smiled; "but now that I have +spoken,--and really I could not help it; I could not wish to let it +pass, understand,--but now that I have spoken--oh, what shall I say! + +"Perhaps you will understand me when I tell you that I should not be +with you here to-day but for the devoted care of two old Christian +people who dated their joy in the spiritual life from precisely such a +ceremony as this. They are in Heaven now. + +"My dear old Mammy often said that she 'went under the water groaning in +sin, and came up shouting, a saved soul!' I seem to hear her again as I +repeat the words, on this same river, in sight of her people and within +the sound of their voices. I was small when she died, and I do not +clearly remember many of her words; but this I do well recall, for we +lived for some years on the river-bank, only a few miles from the spot +where in her youth she had been immersed. She taught me to love the +river, and perhaps I am a little sentimental over it. I hope always to +be so. My father remembers many of her words. She was his nurse, too. +She told him as a boy that she had insisted on being baptized in flowing +water, so that her sins might be carried away to the sea. It was all +very sacred to her." + +Of course the romantic story of Agnes's youth was known to every one +present, and this unexpected allusion awakened immediate interest. + +"Oh, yes," she replied to a question; "I suppose I do remember a good +deal, considering how very young I was, and yet I often wonder that I do +not remember more, as it was all so unusual;" and then she added, +laughing: "I seem to forget that no event could surprise a child _in her +first experiences of life_. Yet I remember trivial things, as, for +instance, the losing of a hat. I clearly recall our watching my hat on +one occasion when it blew into the river, _and was never recovered_! +Think of the tragedy of it! I can see it now, tossing like a little +boat, as it floated away. + +"And the funny little cabin I remember--I know I do, for there were +things which papa never saw, on the inside, in what he calls my +'boudoir,' the white cabin, which I shall never forget. When anything is +kept ever in mind by constant description, it is hard to know how much +one really remembers. You know, papa spent only one night there and his +thoughts were turned backward, so that he naturally kept only vague +impressions of the place. + +"Yes, he has made a sketch of it from memory, and I am sorry. Why? Oh, +because I was sure at first that it was not correct, and now it has come +to stand to me in place of the true picture, which has faded. It is a +way with pictures if we let them over-ride us. Why, my grandmother in +Boston has a friend who had his wife's portrait painted after she was +lost at sea. He spent all the money he had to have it done by a 'best +artist who had made a hasty sketch of her in life,' and when it came +home he did not recognize it--really thought a mistake had been made. +Then, seeing that it _was she_ as authoritatively pictured, and that he +had paid his all to get it, he bethought him to study it, hoping some +day to find her in it. And so he did, gradually. + +"He had it hung over his smoking-table, and every evening he scrutinized +it until its insistence conquered. For a whole year he lived in the +companionship of an absent wife as seen in an artist's mood (this last +sentence is a direct quotation from my Boston grandmama, who is fond of +the story). And--well, 'what happened?' Why, _this_: One day the woman +came home. People 'lost at sea' occasionally do, you know. And would you +believe it? Her widower--I mean to say her husband--refused to receive +her. _He did not know her!_ He simply pointed to the painting and shook +his head. And if she hadn't been a person of resolution and +resource,--descended from the _Mayflower_,--why, she would have had to +go away. But she had her trunk brought in and quietly paid the +expressman and took off her bonnet--_and stayed_. But it was an absurdly +long time before her husband was wholly convinced that he was not the +victim of an adventuress. And she says that even now he sometimes looks +at her in a way she does not like. + +"So, you see, we cannot always believe our own eyes, which are so easily +tricked. + +"Still, even knowing all this, we consent to be duped. Now I like the +picture of the cabin, even while I regret it, and, _although I know +better_, I accept it. + +"What is truth, anyway? That is what you hear said so often in Boston, +where we are said to try to make pivots of it for the wheels of all our +little hobbies. + +"'Do I like Boston?' _Like Boston? No. I adore it!_ Oh, yes! But yet, +when I am there, I am a little rebel. And at each place I am quite +honest, I assure you. You see, I have a grandmother at both places--here +and there. Such dears, they are--adorable, both, and _so different_! + +"Yes, that is true. Papa's portrait, the one Mammy had in the +cabin,--yes, we have it,--twice recovered from the river. My father +offered a reward, and a man brought it out of the mud, a little way down +the levee, and not seriously hurt. It is a funny little picture of papa +at six, in a Highland costume, with his arm over a strange dog which +belonged to the artist. He looks in the picture as if he were +stuffed--the dog does; but papa denies that. I believe this same dog +appeared in most of the portraits done by this man, in all of those of +boys, at least. For the girls he supplied a cat, or occasionally a +parrot. The bird _was_ stuffed, I believe. He did my stepmother at +five, and she holds the cat. The portraits hang side by side now. If we +could find him, and the parrot, he should paint me, and we would start a +menagerie. + +"Oh, yes; going back to the subject, there are many little things which +I remember, without a doubt, for I could never imagine them. For +instance, I remember at least one of my baptisms--the last, I suppose. I +know I was frightened because the minister shouted, and Mammy kept +whispering to me that he wouldn't harm me; and then he suddenly threw +water all over me and I bawled. No, I have no idea who he was; but it +was out of doors, and there was a rooster in it someway. I suppose it +was on the levee and the rooster came to see what was happening. + +"There is a picture which always reminds me of the time we lived behind +the woodpiles, that called 'The Soldier's Dream,' in which a poor +fellow, asleep on the battle-field, sees dimly, as in the sky, a meeting +between himself and his family. + +"I am sure that while we sat on the levee and Mammy talked to me of +papa's coming, I used to picture it all against the sunset sky. Just +look at it now. Was anything ever more gorgeous and at the same time so +tender? One could easily imagine almost any miracle's happening over +there in the west. + +"Yes, I know the skies of Italy, and they're no better. They are bluer +and pinker, perhaps, in a more paintable way; but when the sun sets +across the Mississippi, especially when we have their dreamy cloud +effects, it goes down with variation and splendor unmatched anywhere, I +do believe. But," she added with a Frenchy shrug, "you know I am only a +river child, and everything belonging to the old muddy stream is dear to +me. + +"I beg your pardon--what did you ask?" This to a very young man who +colored after he had spoken. "Did we ever recover--? Oh, no. Their +bodies went with the waters they loved--and it was better so. Certainly, +papa used every effort. I hope the current carried them to the sea. She +would have liked to have it so, I am sure, dear, dear Mammy Hannah! + +"Oh, yes. The little monument on Brake Island is only 'in memory,' as +its inscription says." + + * * * * * + +This was rather thoughtful talk for a girl scarcely eighteen, but Agnes +had ever been thoughtful, and by common inheritance--from her mother and +her father. + +As the scene shifted, and conversation passed to lighter things, and her +laughter rippled again as a child's, its range was sometimes startling. +It was as brilliant as a waterfall seen in the sun, and often while her +fond father watched her, as now, he wondered if, perchance, her laughter +might not be prophetic of a great career for which eyes less devoted +than his perceived her eminently fitted. + + * * * * * + +It is beyond the province of this tale of the river to follow Agnes Le +Duc through life. Some day, possibly, her story may be fully told; but +perhaps a foreshadowing of her future, in one phase of it at least, may +be discerned in an intimation let fall by one of the passengers who sat +with his companions at a card-table in the fore cabin. At least, they +had spent the day there, stopping not even for dinner, and now they were +moving away. As they found seats out on the guards, he was saying: + +"'_Rich!_' Well, I would say so! He own all doze plantation around de +town of Waterproof, and de strange part is _he paid twice for some of +dem_! Of co'se he could not do such a so-foolish t'ing except he made +dat _in_vention. W'en you _be_gin to collec' so much on every one of +anyt'ing dat fill a want, _you get rich, sure_! + +"No matter if it jus' _one picayune_--w'en dey sell enough. Dey say you +can make sugar so quick by dat _mach_ine he _in_vent--it is like +conjuring--a sort of hoodoo!" + +"Yes," said his companion, an American, "so I understand; and there is +no man I would rather see rich than Harold Le Duc. His marriage, so soon +after the recovery of his child, surprised some of us, but no doubt it +was a good thing." + +"A good t'ing! It was _magnificent_! If he is one of de finest men in +Louisiana, she is equal to him. Dat remark dat he married only for a +mudder for his child--dat's all in my heye! I am sure he was in love to +her one year, maybe two, _be_fo' dat--_mais_, I am not sure he would +have asked any woman to marry him. He had not de courage. For him love +was past--and he was afraid of it. _Mais_ de chil' she wake him up +again! Oh, it is a good t'ing, _sure_! An' de strange part, she t'ought +she wou'n' never love again, jus' de same as him--until--" + +"Until what?" + +"Well, _until he spoke_! Until w'at you t'ink?" + +"Not'ing. I t'ought _maybe_ it was somet'ing unusual." + +"Well, an' is dat not somet'ing unusual--w'en a widow is _sure_ she will +not love again? Dey often _t'ink_ so, _mais_ she was _absolutely sure_! +You see, her first husband he was one hero; he fell on de same +battle-field wid gallant 'Jeb' Stuart--from a stray shot w'en de +fighting was over, carrying dat poor _imbecile_, Philippe Delmaire, off +de fiel', biccause he was yelling so, wid dat one li'l' toe he los'! A +good fellow, yas, _mais no account_! Yas, he drank himself to deat', all +on account for de loss of dat toe, so he say. Excuses dey are cheap, +yas. If it was not his toe it would have been somet'ing else. You know, +his figure, it was really perfection, no _mis_take, an' to lose +perfection, even in so small a matter as one toe--it prey on his mind. +Tell de trut', I used to feel sorry for him, an'--an'--w'en he always +would touch his glass an' drink dat favorite toast, 'To my big toe!' +well, dere was somet'ing pitiful in it. I used to drink it wid him. It +was no harm, an' he had always good wine, poor fellow. _Mais to t'ink of +Paul de La Rose dying for him!_ It make me mad, yet w'en I t'ink so, I +am almos' sorry to reflect I have drunk to his toe! Bah--a valu'ble +man--to die like dat! Wat you say? Yas, da's true. It makes not _how_ de +soldier fall--de glory is de same. Well, any'ow, if he could have picked +out a successor, he could not have done better dan yo'ng Le Duc--sure! +W'at you say? '_'Ow_ is he bought doze plantation twice?' Well, dis way: +W'en he had to take dem on mortgage, an' dey were sold at de door of de +court-house--bidding against him, understand--no rainy-day sale--he paid +_double_--I mean to say he paid so much as de mortagage _again_. Not in +every case, _mais_ in many--to widows. I know two cousin of mine, he +paid dem so. I ricollec' dey tol' me dat he was de mos' remembering man +to look out for dem, an' de mos' forgetting to sen' de bills. + +"Oh, yas. An' his daughter, dey say she is in love to her +stepmother--an' she is jus' so foolish about de chil'--an' wid good +reason. She had never children--an' she is proud for dat daughter, an' +jealous, too, of dose Yankee _ril_lation. Still, she _in_vite dem to +come every year, so the chil' can stay--an' now, would you believe it? +Dey are come to be great friends, _mais_, of co'se, her father sends her +every year at Boston to her grandmother. Dey all want her, an' no +wonder. If she was one mud fence, I suppose it would be all de same, +_mais_ you know, she is _one great beauty_! I say one gr-r-r-reat +beauty! Wh! An'w'en I whistle so 'wh!' I mean w'at I say. You see me so, +I am one ol' man, now--pas' forty--an' rich in children, an' not +bad-looking children, neither; _mais_ I would walk, me, all de way from +de barracks up to Bouligny, _an' back_, just to see her pass in de +street an' smile on me. You take my word, _if_ she is not snapped up by +some school-boy, she can marry _anyt'ing_--_a coronet_! An' I know +somet'ing about women--not to brag." + +"If you are so anxious to see dat young lady, Felix," said another, "you +don't need to walk so far. She is, at dis moment, wid her father an' her +stepmudder, on dis trip." + +"_W'at_! w'at you say? Well, wait. I di'n' inten', me, to dress +for de ladies' cabin to-night, _mais_ w'en I have my supper I will +put on my Sunday t'ings--jus' to go an' sit down in de cabin +w'ere--I--can--look--at _innocent_--_beauty_! It pleasure me, yas, to +see some t'ing like dat. May_be_ I am not all good, _mais_ I am not all +given over for bad so long I can enjoy a rose-vine all in pink, or a +fair yo'ng girl more beautiful yet. + +"I tell you, my friends, I was sitting, week before las', at my 'ouse on +Esplanade Street, on de back gallerie, w'ere de vines is t'ick, an' dey +were, as you might say, honey-suckling de bees--an' de perfume from my +night-bloomin' jasmine filled my nose. It was in de evening, an' de moon +on de blue sky was like a map of de city, jus' a silver crescent, an' +close by, one li'l' star, shining, as de children say, 'like a diamond +in de sky,' an' I tell you--I tell you-- + +"Well, I tell you, _I wished I had been a good man all my life_!" + +His friends laughed gaily at this. + +"You don' say!" laughed one. "Well, you fooled us, any'ow! I was holding +my breat'. I t'ought somet'ing was getting ready to happen!" + +"Well--an' ain't dat somet'ing?--w'en a hard ol' sinner like me can see +in nature a t'ing sweet an' good an'--_an' resolute himself_!" + +"Sure, dat is a great happening; _mais_ for such a _be_ginning, so +dramatic, we expected to see Hamlet--or maybe his father's ghost--or +_somet'ing_!" + +"I am thinking more of this exceptional beauty"--it was the American who +interrupted now--"I am more interested in her than in the confessions of +old sinners like ourselves. I am rather practical, and beauty is only +skin-deep--sometimes at least. I should like to take a peep at this rare +product of our State. Louisiana's record up to date is hard to beat, in +this respect." + +"Well," slowly remarked the man known throughout as Felix, "I am not +telling! If I _knew_, I could not _tell_, and, of co'se, it is all +guess-work, _mais_ you may believe me or not--" he lowered his voice, +suggesting mystery. "I say you can _rif_fuse to believe me or not, I +was--well, I was not long ago, one day, sitting at de table down at +Leon's,--eating an oyster wid a friend of mine, and, looking out of de +window, I happened to see, sitting in a tree, _one li'l' bird_--jus' one +small li'l' bird, no bigger dan yo' t'umb. + +"I was not t'inking about de bird, mind you. We were jus' talking about +anyt'ing in partic'lar--I mean to say not'ing in general. _W'at_ is de +matter wid me to-day? I cannot talk straight--my tongue is all twis'. I +say we were speaking of partic'lar t'ings in general, an' he remarked to +me, '_Who you t'ink will be de Queen of de Carnival dis coming Mardi +Gras?_' + +"I was pouring a glass of Chateau Yquem at de time,--to look after de +oysters,--an' I di'n' pay so much attention to w'at he was saying--I can +never pour a glass an' speak at de same time. I spill my words or de +wine, sure. So it happened dat w'en I put me de bottle down, my eye +passed out de window. Oh, hush! No, not my eye, of co'se--I mean my +sight. Well, dat li'l' bird it was still waiting in the same place, in +de magnolia-tree, an' w'en I looked, it give me one glance, sideways, +like a finger on de nose, an' it opened wide its bill, an' just so plain +as I am speaking now, _it spoke a name_." This in still lower voice. + +"But I said nothing, immediately. A little wine, for a few glasses, it +make me prudent--_up to a certain point_, of co'se. _Mais_, direc'ly, I +looked at my friend, an' wid w'at you might call an air of +_nonchalance_, I repeat to him de name _ex_ac'ly as it was tol' to me by +de li'l' bird in de magnolia-tree. An' wa't you t'ink he said?" + +"Oh, go on. W'at he say?" + +"You want to know w'at he said? Well, dat I can tell you. He was greatly +astonish', an' he whispered to me, '_Who tol' you? You are not in de +Pickwick?_'" + +"Oh, a little bird tol' me!" I answered him. "_No, I am not in de +club._" + +"_But the name? Do tell us!_" + +"Oh, no. I cannot. If I _told_, dat would be _telling_, eh?" + +"Sure! It is not necessary," said another. "Well, I am pleased, me." + +"_An'_ me!" + +"I like always to listen w'en you tell somet'ing, Felix. Your story is +all right--an' _I believe you_. I always believe any man in de Pickwick +Club--_on some subjects_! _Mais_, ol' man, de nex' time you make a story +at Leon's restaurant, suppose you move off dat magnolia-tree. A bird +could stand on de window-sill across de street jus' as well--a real +window-sill." + +"T'ank you. I am sure a _real_ somet'ing-to-stand-on would be better for +_a real bird_. _Mais_, for dis particular bird, I t'ink my magnolia is +more suitable. Don't forget de story of de Mongoose!" + +"Nobody can get ahead of you, Felix. Well, it is a good t'ing. It is +true, her fodder was de King at las' year's Carnival--an' it is +lightning striking twice in de same place; an' yet--" + +"And yet," the American interrupted, "and yet it will sometimes strike +twice in the same place--if the attraction is sufficient. I have a +friend who has a summer home in the Tennessee mountains which was twice +struck--three times, nearly. That is the house next door got it the +third time. And then they began to investigate, and they found the +mountain full of iron--iron convertible into gold." + +"Well, and our man of iron, let us hope he may prove always an +attraction--for bolts of good fortune!" + +"A wish that may come true; if reports be correct, he is rapidly turning +into gold," said the American. "I am told that he has found salt in +immense deposits on his island--and that he has resumed the work begun +just before the war--that of opening up the place." + +"Oh, yas. 'Tis true. Over a hundred t'ousand dollars he has already put +in--an' as much more ready to drop. _Mais_ it is _fairyland_! An' me, +_I_ was t'inking too--sometimes I t'ink a little myself--I was t'inking +dat if--I say _if_ sometime his daughter would be de Comus Queen, not +insinuating anything, you know--no allusion to de bird--w'at a fine +house-party dey could have _now_, eh? Dey could invite de royal party, +maids of honor, and so fort'--whoever is rich enough to lose so much +time-- + +"T'ink of sailing up de new canal on de barge--" + +"An' under de bridge--" + +"No, not de bridge. He will never touch dat. He has made a new plan, +entering another way. Dat span of de bridge he commenced--it is standing +beside de beautiful w'ite marble tomb--to hold his family. His wife she +is dere, an' de ol' negroes w'at care for his chil'--dey are laying in +one corner, wid also a small monument." + +"Are you _sure_ dey are dere?" + +"I have seen de monument, I tell you." + +"Well, Harold he was always sentimental, if you will. I suppose dat +broken bridge is, as he says--it is history, and he needs to keep it +before him, not to be too rash. Maybe so. Who can tell? Two boys in de +war, it was enough--if he had stopped to t'ink." + +"Yas--_mais_ de barge, de Cleopatra; dey say she is be'-u-tiful!" + +"Cleopatra! For w'at he di'n' name her somet'ing sensible?" + +"Dat is not only sensible--it is diplomatic. You know, w'en a man has +only a daughter and a step-wife--_w'at_ is de matter wid me to-night? +You understand me. I say, in--well, in some cases, to _dis_criminate, +it is enough to drive a man to--" + +"Oh, don't say dat, Felix." + +"Let me _finish_, will you? I say it is one of dose _in_delicate +situations dat drive a man to _dodge_! An' w'en he can dodge into +history and romance at once, so much de better! An' _Cleopatra_, it +sound well for a barge. An' so, really, _if_ de beautiful daughter +_should_ be de queen an' dey could arrange one house-party--" + +"Suppose, Felix, ol' man, you would bring out yo' magnolia-tree once +more, you don't t'ink de li'l' bird would come again an' stan' on one +limb an' may_be_--" + +"Ah, no. I am sure not. If dey had a grain of salt in dat story, I would +try. I would put it on his tail. _Mais_, how can you catch a bird widout +salt?" + + * * * * * + +So idly, playfully, the talk rippled on, ever insensibly flavored with +rich romance of life, even as the fitful breeze skirting the shores +held, in shy suspension, an occasional hint of orange-blossoms or of +the Cuban fruits which, heaping the luggers in the slanting sun, laid +their gay bouquets of color against the river's breast. + +It is many years since the maid Agnes Le Duc, on her way to coronation +at the carnival, stood while the sun went down in all her vestal beauty +on deck of the _Laurel Hill_, and smiled through tears of tenderness at +life as half revealed to her. + +Many things are changed since then, and yet the great river flows on, +all unheeding. + +Laden to their guards, so that their weighty cargoes of cotton and +sugar, traveling to mill and to market, are wet with the spray of +playful condescension, panting ships of commerce, some flying foreign +colors, still salute each other in passing, with ever a word of +solicitude as to milady's health. + +Old Lady Mississippi, is she high or low in spirits? And will her hand +of benediction turn to smite and to despoil? + +But, whether she be obdurate or kindly, hysterical or melancholy, or so +serene as to invite the heavens, life and love and song are hers. + +Uniting while she seems to divide, bringing together whom she appears to +separate, a raft of logs contributed by her grace affording free passage +the length of her realm to whoever will take it, paying no toll, she +invites Romance to set sail under the stars in primal simplicity, +eschewing the "bridal chambers" of white and gold which lie in the +hearts of all the busy steamers, no matter how otherwise prosaic their +personalities. + +And still, afloat and alongshore, astride a molasses-barrel or throwing +dice between the cotton-bales, taking no thought of the morrow, the +negro sings: + + "Cometh our fount of every blessing!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The River's Children, by Ruth McEnery Stuart + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIVER'S CHILDREN *** + +***** This file should be named 34416.txt or 34416.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/4/1/34416/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. 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. |