Old Creole Days: A Story of Creole Life by George Washington Cable
BELLES DEMOISELLES PLANTATION.
The original grantee was Count----, assume the name to be De Charleu;the old Creoles never forgive a public mention. He was the French king'scommissary. One day, called to France to explain the lucky accident ofthe commissariat having burned down with his account-books inside, heleft his wife, a Choctaw Comptesse, behind.
Arrived at court, his excuses were accepted, and that tract granted himwhere afterwards stood Belles Demoiselles Plantation. A man cannotremember every thing! In a fit of forgetfulness he married a Frenchgentlewoman, rich and beautiful, and "brought her out." However, "All'swell that ends well;" a famine had been in the colony, and the ChoctawComptesse had starved, leaving nought but a half-caste orphan familylurking on the edge of the settlement, bearing our French gentlewoman'sown new name, and being mentioned in Monsieur's will.
And the new Comptesse--she tarried but a twelvemonth, left Monsieur alovely son, and departed, led out of this vain world by the swamp-fever.
From this son sprang the proud Creole family of De Charleu. It rosestraight up, up, up, generation after generation, tall, branchless,slender, palm-like; and finally, in the time of which I am to tell,flowered with all the rare beauty of a century-plant, in Artemise,Innocente, Felicite, the twins Marie and Martha, Leontine and littleSeptima; the seven beautiful daughters for whom their home had beenfitly named Belles Demoiselles.
The Count's grant had once been a long Pointe, round which theMississippi used to whirl, and seethe, and foam, that it was horrid tobehold. Big whirlpools would open and wheel about in the savage eddiesunder the low bank, and close up again, and others open, and spin, anddisappear. Great circles of muddy surface would boil up from hundreds offeet below, and gloss over, and seem to float away,--sink, come backagain under water, and with only a soft hiss surge up again, and againdrift off, and vanish. Every few minutes the loamy bank would tip down agreat load of earth upon its besieger, and fall back a foot,--sometimesa yard,--and the writhing river would press after, until at last thePointe was quite swallowed up, and the great river glided by in amajestic curve, and asked no more; the bank stood fast, the "caving"became a forgotten misfortune, and the diminished grant was a long,sweeping, willowy bend, rustling with miles of sugar-cane.
Coming up the Mississippi in the sailing craft of those early days,about the time one first could descry the white spires of the old St.Louis Cathedral, you would be pretty sure to spy, just over to yourright under the levee, Belles Demoiselles Mansion, with its broadveranda and red painted cypress roof, peering over the embankment, likea bird in the nest, half hid by the avenue of willows which one of thedeparted De Charleus,--he that married a Marot,--had planted on thelevee's crown.
The house stood unusually near the river, facing eastward, and standingfour-square, with an immense veranda about its sides, and a flight ofsteps in front spreading broadly downward, as we open arms to a child.From the veranda nine miles of river were seen; and in their compass,near at hand, the shady garden full of rare and beautiful flowers;farther away broad fields of cane and rice, and the distant quarters ofthe slaves, and on the horizon everywhere a dark belt of cypress forest.
The master was old Colonel De Charleu,--Jean Albert Henri Joseph DeCharleu-Marot, and "Colonel" by the grace of the first Americangovernor. Monsieur,--he would not speak to any one who called him"Colonel,"--was a hoary-headed patriarch. His step was firm, his formerect, his intellect strong and clear, his countenance classic, serene,dignified, commanding, his manners courtly, his voice musical,--fascinating. He had had his vices,--all his life; but had borne them,as his race do, with a serenity of conscience and a cleanness of mouththat left no outward blemish on the surface of the gentleman. He hadgambled in Royal Street, drunk hard in Orleans Street, run his adversarythrough in the duelling-ground at Slaughter-house Point, and danced andquarrelled at the St. Philippe-street-theatre quadroon balls. Even now,with all his courtesy and bounty, and a hospitality which seemed to beentertaining angels, he was bitter-proud and penurious, and deep down inhis hard-finished heart loved nothing but himself, his name, and hismotherless children. But these!--their ravishing beauty was all butexcuse enough for the unbounded idolatry of their father. Against theseseven goddesses he never rebelled. Had they even required him to defraudold De Carlos--
I can hardly say.
Old De Carlos was his extremely distant relative on the Choctaw side.With this single exception, the narrow thread-like line of descent fromthe Indian wife, diminished to a mere strand by injudicious alliances,and deaths in the gutters of old New Orleans, was extinct. The name, bySpanish contact, had become De Carlos; but this one surviving bearer ofit was known to all, and known only, as Injin Charlie.
One thing I never knew a Creole to do. He will not utterly go back onthe ties of blood, no matter what sort of knots those ties may be. Forone reason, he is never ashamed of his or his father's sins; and foranother,--he will tell you--he is "all heart!"
So the different heirs of the De Charleu estate had always strictlyregarded the rights and interests of the De Carloses, especially theirownership of a block of dilapidated buildings in a part of the city,which had once been very poor property, but was beginning to bevaluable. This block had much more than maintained the last De Carlosthrough a long and lazy lifetime, and, as his household consisted onlyof himself, and an aged and crippled negress, the inference wasirresistible that he "had money." Old Charlie, though by _alias_ an"Injin," was plainly a dark white man, about as old as Colonel DeCharleu, sunk in the bliss of deep ignorance, shrewd, deaf, and, byrepute at least, unmerciful.
The Colonel and he always conversed in English. This rareaccomplishment, which the former had learned from his Scotch wife,--thelatter from up-river traders,--they found an admirable medium ofcommunication, answering, better than French could, a similar purpose tothat of the stick which we fasten to the bit of one horse andbreast-gear of another, whereby each keeps his distance. Once in awhile, too, by way of jest, English found its way among the ladies ofBelles Demoiselles, always signifying that their sire was about to havebusiness with old Charlie.
Now a long-standing wish to buy out Charlie troubled the Colonel. He hadno desire to oust him unfairly; he was proud of being always fair; yethe did long to engross the whole estate under one title. Out of hisluxurious idleness he had conceived this desire, and thought little ofso slight an obstacle as being already somewhat in debt to old Charliefor money borrowed, and for which Belles Demoiselles was, of course,good, ten times over. Lots, buildings, rents, all, might as well be his,he thought, to give, keep, or destroy. "Had he but the old man'sheritage. Ah! he might bring that into existence which his _bellesdemoiselles_ had been begging for, 'since many years;' a home,--and sucha home,--in the gay city. Here he should tear down this row of cottages,and make his garden wall; there that long rope-walk should give place tovine-covered ardors; the bakery yonder should make way for a costlyconservatory; that wine warehouse should come down, and the mansion goup. It should be the finest in the State. Men should never pass it, butthey should say--'the palace of the De Charleus; a family of granddescent, a people of elegance and bounty, a line as old as France, afine old man, and seven daughters as beautiful as happy; whoever dareattempt to marry there must leave his own name behind him!'
"The house should be of stones fitly set, brought down in ships from theland of 'les Yankees,' and it should have an airy belvedere, with agilded image tiptoeing and shining on its peak, and from it you shouldsee, far across the gleaming folds of the river, the red roof of BellesDemoiselles, the country-seat. At the big stone gate there should be aporter's lodge, and it should be a privilege even to see the ground."
Truly they were a family fine enough, and fancy-free enough to have finewishes, yet happy enough where they were, to have had no wish but tolive there always.
To those, who, by whatever fortune, wandered into the garden of BellesDemoiselles some summer afternoon as the sky was reddening towardsevening, it was lovely to see the family gat
Now they would draw their chairs near together in eager discussion ofsome new step in the dance, or the adjustment of some rich adornment.Now they would start about him with excited comments to see the eldestfix a bunch of violets in his button-hole. Now the twins would move downa walk after some unusual flower, and be greeted on their return withthe high pitched notes of delighted feminine surprise.
As evening came on they would draw more quietly about their paternalcentre. Often their chairs were forsaken, and they grouped themselves onthe lower steps, one above another, and surrendered themselves to thetender influences of the approaching night. At such an hour the passeron the river, already attracted by the dark figures of the broad-roofedmansion, and its woody garden standing against the glowing sunset, wouldhear the voices of the hidden group rise from the spot in the softharmonies of an evening song; swelling clearer and clearer as the thrillof music warmed them into feeling, and presently joined by the deepertones of the father's voice; then, as the daylight passed quite away,all would be still, and he would know that the beautiful home hadgathered its nestlings under its wings.
And yet, for mere vagary, it pleased them not to be pleased.
"Arti!" called one sister to another in the broad hall, onemorning,--mock amazement hi her distended eyes,--"something is goin' totook place!"
"_Comm-e-n-t?_"--long-drawn perplexity.
"Papa is goin' to town!"
The news passed up stairs.
"Inno!"--one to another meeting in a doorway,--"something is goin' totook place!"
"_Qu'est-ce-que c'est!_"--vain attempt at gruffness.
"Papa is goin' to town!"
The unusual tidings were true. It was afternoon of the same day that theColonel tossed his horse's bridle to his groom, and stepped up to oldCharlie, who was sitting on his bench under a China-tree, his head aswas his fashion, bound in a Madras handkerchief The "old man" wasplainly under the effect of spirits and smiled a deferential salutationwithout trusting himself to his feet.
"Eh, well Charlie!"--the Colonel raised his voice to suit his kinsman'sdeafness,--"how is those times with my friend Charlie?"
"Eh?" said Charlie, distractedly.
"Is that goin' well with my friend Charlie?"
"In de house,--call her,"--making a pretence of rising.
"_Non, non!_ I don't want,"--the speaker paused to breathe--"ow iscollection?"
"Oh!" said Charlie, "every day he make me more poorer!"
"What do you hask for it?" asked the planter indifferently, designatingthe house by a wave of his whip.
"Ask for w'at?" said Injin Charlie.
"De _house!_ What you ask for it?"
"I don't believe," said Charlie.
"What you would _take_ for it!" cried the planter.
"Wait for w'at?"
"What you would _take_ for the whole block?"
"I don't want to sell him!"
"I'll give you _ten thousand dollah_ for it."
"Ten t'ousand dollah for dis house? Oh, no, dat is no price. He is blamegood old house,--dat old house." (Old Charlie and the Colonel neverswore in presence of each other.) "Forty years dat old house didn't hadto be paint! I easy can get fifty t'ousand dollah for dat old house."
"Fifty thousand picayunes; yes," said the Colonel.
"She's a good house. Can make plenty money," pursued the deaf man.
"That's what make you so rich, eh, Charlie?"
"_Non_, I don't make nothing. Too blame clever, me, dat's de troub'.She's a good house,--make money fast like a steamboat,--make a barrelfull in a week! Me, I lose money all de days. Too blame clever."
"Charlie!"
"Eh?"
"Tell me what you'll take."
"Make? I don't make _nothing_. Too blame clever."
"What will you _take?_"
"Oh! I got enough already,--half drunk now."
"What will you take for the 'ouse?"
"You want to buy her?"
"I don't know,"--(shrug),--"may_be_,--if you sell it cheap."
"She's a bully old house."
There was a long silence. By and by old Charlies commenced--
"Old Injin Charlie is a low-down dog."
"_C'est vrai, oui!_" retorted the Colonel in an undertone.
"He's got Injin blood in him."
"But he's got some blame good blood, too, ain't it?"
The Colonel nodded impatiently.
"_Bien!_ Old Charlie's Injin blood says, 'sell de house, Charlie, youblame old fool!' _Mais_, old Charlie's good blood says, 'Charlie! if yousell dat old house, Charlie, you low-down old dog, Charlie, what deCompte De Charleu make for you grace-gran'muzzer, de dev' can eat you,Charlie, I don't care.'"
"No!" And the _no_ rumbled off in muttered oaths like thunder out on theGulf. The incensed old Colonel wheeled and started off.
"Curl!" (Colonel) said Charlie, standing up unsteadily.
The planter turned with an inquiring frown.
"I'll trade with you!" said Charlie.
The Colonel was tempted. "'Ow'l you trade?" he asked.
"My house for yours!"
The old Colonel turned pale with anger. He walked very quickly back, andcame close up to his kinsman.
"Charlie!" he said.
"Injin Charlie,"--with a tipsy nod.
But by this time self-control was returning. "Sell Belles Demoiselles toyou?" he said in a high key, and then laughed "Ho, ho, ho!" and rodeaway.
A cloud, but not a dark one, overshadowed the spirits of BellesDemoiselles' plantation. The old master, whose beaming presence hadalways made him a shining Saturn, spinning and sparkling within thebright circle of his daughters, fell into musing fits, started out offrowning reveries, walked often by himself, and heard business from hisoverseer fretfully.
No wonder. The daughters knew his closeness in trade, and attributed toit his failure to negotiate for the Old Charlie buildings,--so to callthem. They began to depreciate Belles Demoiselles. If a north wind blew,it was too cold to ride. If a shower had fallen, it was too muddy todrive. In the morning the garden was wet. In the evening the grasshopperwas a burden. _Ennui_ was turned into capital; every headache wasinterpreted a premonition of ague; and when the native exuberance of aflock of ladies without a want or a care burst out in laughter in thefather's face, they spread their French eyes, rolled up their littlehands, and with rigid wrists and mock vehmence vowed and vowed againthat they only laughed at their misery, and should pine to death unlessthey could move to the sweet city. "Oh! the theatre! Oh! Orleans Street!Oh! the masquerade! the Place d'Armes! the ball!" and they would callupon Heaven with French irreverence, and fall into each other's arms,and whirl down the hall singing a waltz, end with a grand collision andfall, and, their eyes streaming merriment, lay the blame on the slipperyfloor, that would some day be the death of the whole seven.
Three times more the fond father, thus goaded, managed, byaccident,--business accident,--to see old Charlie and increase hisoffer; but in vain. He finally went to him formally.
"Eh?" said the deaf and distant relative. "For what you want him, eh?Why you don't stay where you halways be 'appy? Dis is a blame oldrat-hole,--good for old Injin Charlie,--da's all. Why you don't staywhere you be halways 'appy? Why you don't buy somewheres else?"
"That's none of yonr business," snapped the planter. Truth was, hisreasons were unsatisfactory even to himself.
A sullen silence followed. Then Charlie spoke:
"Well, now, look here; I sell you old Charlie's house."
"_Bien!_ and the whole block," said the Colonel.
"Hold on," said Charlie. "I sell you de 'ouse and de block. Den I
"I'll give you forty thousand dollars," said the Colonel.
"For de 'ouse?"
"For all."
The deaf man shook his head.
"Forty-five!" said the Colonel.
"What a lie? For what you tell me 'What a lie?' I don't tell you nolie."
"_Non, non!_ I give you _forty-five!_" shouted the Colonel.
Charlie shook his head again.
"Fifty!"
He shook it again.
The figures rose and rose to--
"Seventy-five!"
The answer was an invitation to go away and let the owner alone, as hewas, in certain specified respects, the vilest of living creatures, andno company for a fine gentyman.
The "fine gentyman" longed to blaspheme--but before old Charlie!--in thename of pride, how could he? He mounted and started away.
"Tell you what I'll make wid you," said Charlie.
The other, guessing aright, turned back without dismounting, smiling.
"How much Belles Demoiselles hoes me now?" asked the deaf one.
"One hundred and eighty thousand dollars," said the Colonel, firmly.
"Yass," said Charlie. "I don't want Belle Demoiselles."
The old Colonel's quiet laugh intimated it made no difference eitherway.
"But me," continued Charlie, "me,--I'm got le Compte De Charleu's bloodin me, any'ow,--a litt' bit, any'ow, ain't it?"
The Colonel nodded that it was.
"_Bien!_ If I go out of dis place and don't go to Belles Demoiselles, depeoples will say,--dey will say, 'Old Charlie he been all doze time tella blame _lie!_ He ain't no kin to his old grace-gran-muzzer, not a blamebit! He don't got nary drop of De Charleu blood to save his blamelow-down old Injin soul!' No, sare! What I want wid money, den? No,sare! My place for yours!"
He turned to go into the house, just too soon to see the Colonel make anugly whisk at him with his riding-whip. Then the Colonel, too, movedoff.
Two or three times over, as he ambled homeward, laughter broke throughhis annoyance, as he recalled old Charlie's family pride and thepresumption of his offer. Yet each time he could but think betterof--not the offer to swap, but the preposterous ancestral loyalty. Itwas so much better than he could have expected from his "low-down"relative, and not unlike his own whim withal--the proposition which wentwith it was forgiven.
This last defeat bore so harshly on the master of Belles Demoiselles,that the daughters, reading chagrin in his face, began to repent. Theyloved their father as daughters can, and when they saw their pretendeddejection harassing him seriously they restrained their complaints,displayed more than ordinary tenderness, and heroically andostentatiously concluded there was no place like Belles Demoiselles. Butthe new mood touched him more than the old, and only refined hisdiscontent. Here was a man, rich without the care of riches, free fromany real trouble, happiness as native to his house as perfume to hisgarden, deliberately, as it were with premeditated malice, taking joy bythe shoulder and bidding her be gone to town, whither he might easilyhave followed, only that the very same ancestral nonsense that keptInjin Charlie from selling the old place for twice its value preventedhim from choosing any other spot for a city home.
But by and by the charm of nature and the merry hearts around himprevailed; the fit of exalted sulks passed off, and after a while theyear flared up at Christmas, flickered, and went out.
New Year came and passed; the beautiful garden of Belles Demoiselles puton its spring attire; the seven fair sisters moved from rose to rose;the cloud of discontent had warmed into invisible vapor in the richsunlight of family affection, and on the common memory the only scar oflast year's wound was old Charlie's sheer impertinence in crossing thecaprice of the De Charleus. The cup of gladness seemed to fill with thefilling of the river.
How high that river was! Its tremendous current rolled and tumbled andspun along, hustling the long funeral flotillas of drift,--and how nearshore it came! Men were out day and night, watching the levee. On windynights even the old Colonel took part, and grew light-hearted withoccupation and excitement, as every minute the river threw a white armover the levee's top, as though it would vault over. But all held fast,and, as the summer drifted in, the water sunk down into its banks andlooked quite incapable of harm.
On a summer afternoon of uncommon mildness, old Colonel Jean AlbertHenri Joseph De Charleu-Marot, being in a mood for revery, slipped thecustody of his feminine rulers and sought the crown of the levee, whereit was his wont to promenade. Presently he sat upon a stone bench,--afavorite seat. Before him lay his broad-spread fields; near by, hislordly mansion; and being still,--perhaps by female contact,--somewhatsentimental, he fell to musing on his past. It was hardly worthy to beproud of. All its morning was reddened with mad frolic, and far towardthe meridian it was marred with elegant rioting. Pride had kept himwell-nigh useless, and despised the honors won by valor; gaming haddimmed prosperity; death had taken his heavenly wife; voluptuous easehad mortgaged his lands; and yet his house still stood, hissweet-smelling fields were still fruitful, his name was fame enough; andyonder and yonder, among the trees and flowers, like angels walking inEden, were the seven goddesses of his only worship.
Just then a slight sound behind him brought him to his feet. He cast hiseyes anxiously to the outer edge of the little strip of bank between thelevee's base and the river. There was nothing visible. He paused, withhis ear toward the water, his face full of frightened expectation. Ha!There came a single plashing sound, like some great beast slipping intothe river, and little waves in a wide semi-circle came out from underthe bank and spread over the water!
"My God!"
He plunged down the levee and bounded through the low weeds to the edgeof the bank. It was sheer, and the water about four feet below. He didnot stand quite on the edge, but fell upon his knees a couple of yardsaway, wringing his hands, moaning and weeping, and staring through hiswatery eyes at a fine, long crevice just discernible under the mattedgrass, and curving outward on either hand toward the river.
"My God!" he sobbed aloud; "my God!" and even while he called, his Godanswered: the tough Bermuda grass stretched and snapped, the creviceslowly became a gape, and softly, gradually, with no sound but theclosing of the water at last, a ton or more of earth settled into theboiling eddy and disappeared.
At the same instant a pulse of the breeze brought from the gardenbehind, the joyous, thoughtless laughter of the fair mistresses ofBelles Demoiselles.
The old Colonel sprang up and clambered over the levee. Then forcinghimself to a more composed movement he hastened into the house andordered his horse.
"Tell my children to make merry while I am gone," he left word. "I shallbe back to-night," and the horse's hoofs clattered down a by-roadleading to the city.
"Charlie," said the planter, riding up to a window, from which the oldman's nightcap was thrust out, "what you say, Charlie,--my house foryours, eh, Charlie--what you say?"
"Ello!" said Charlie; "from where you come from dis time of to-night?"
"I come from the Exchange in St. Louis Street." (A small fraction of thetruth.)
"What you want?" said matter-of-fact Charlie.
"I come to trade."
The low-down relative drew the worsted off his ears. "Oh! yass," he saidwith an uncertain air.
"Well, old man Charlie, what you say: my house for yours,--like yousaid,--eh, Charlie?"
"I dunno," said Charlie; "it's nearly mine now. Why you don't stay dareyouse'f?"
"_Because I don't want!_" said the Colonel savagely. "Is dat reasonenough for you? You better take me in de notion, old man, I tellyou,--yes!"
Charlie never winced; but how his answe
"I don't care--I take him!--_mais_, possession give right off."
"Not the whole plantation, Charlie; only"--
"I don't care," said Charlie; "we easy can fix dat _Mais_, what for youdon't want to keep him? I don't want him. You better keep him."
"Don't you try to make no fool of me, old man," cried the planter.
"Oh, no!" said the other. "Oh, no! but you make a fool of yourself,ain't it?"
The dumbfounded Colonel stared; Charlie went on:
"Yass! Belles Demoiselles is more wort' dan tree block like dis one. Ipass by dare since two weeks. Oh, pritty Belles Demoiselles! De cane waswave in de wind, de garden smell like a bouquet, de white-cap was jumpup and down on de river; seven _belles demoiselles_ was ridin' onhorses. 'Pritty, pritty, pritty!' says old Charlie. Ah! _Monsieur lePere_, 'ow 'appy, 'appy, 'appy!"
"Yass!" he continued--the Colonel still staring--"le Compte De Charleuhave two familie. One was low-down Choctaw, one was high up _noblesse_.He gave the low-down Choctaw dis old rat-hole; he give BellesDemoiselles to you gran-fozzer; and now you don't be _satisfait_. WhatI'll do wid Belles Demoiselles? She'll break me in two years, yass. Andwhat you'll do wid old Charlie's house, eh? You'll tear her down andmake you'se'f a blame old fool. I rather wouldn't trade!"
The planter caught a big breathful of anger, but Charlie went straighton:
"I rather wouldn't, _mais_ I will do it for you;--just the same, likeMonsieur le Compte would say, 'Charlie, you old fool, I want to shangehouses wid you.'"
So long as the Colonel suspected irony he was angry, but as Charlieseemed, after all, to be certainly in earnest, he began to feelconscience-stricken. He was by no means a tender man, but hislately-discovered misfortune had unhinged him, and this strange,undeserved, disinterested family fealty on the part of Charlie touchedhis heart. And should he still try to lead him into the pitfall he haddug? He hesitated;--no, he would show him the place by broad daylight,and if he chose to overlook the "caving bank," it would be his ownfault;--a trade's a trade.
"Come," said the planter, "come at my house to-night; to-morrow we lookat the place before breakfast, and finish the trade."
"For what?" said Charlie.
"Oh, because I got to come in town in the morning."
"I don't want," said Charlie. "How I'm goin' to come dere?"
"I git you a horse at the liberty stable."
"Well--anyhow--I don't care--I'll go." And they went.
When they had ridden a long time, and were on the road darkened byhedges of Cherokee rose, the Colonel called behind him to the "low-down"scion:
"Keep the road, old man."
"Eh?"
"Keep the road."
"Oh, yes; all right; I keep my word; we don't goin' to play no tricks,eh?"
But the Colonel seemed not to hear. His ungenerous design was beginningto be hateful to him. Not only old Charlie's unprovoked goodness wasprevailing; the eulogy on Belles Demoiselles had stirred the depths ofan intense love for his beautiful home. True, if he held to it, thecaving of the bank, at its present fearful speed, would let the houseinto the river within three months; but were it not better to lose itso, than sell his birthright? Again,--coming back to the firstthought,--to betray his own blood! It was only Injin Charlie; but hadnot the De Charleu blood just spoken out in him? Unconsciously hegroaned.
After a time they struck a path approaching the plantation in the rear,and a little after, passing from behind a clump of live-oaks, they camein sight of the villa. It looked so like a gem, shining through its darkgrove, so like a great glow-worm in the dense foliage, so significant ofluxury and gayety, that the poor master, from an overflowing heart,groaned again.
"What?" asked Charlie.
The Colonel only drew his rein, and, dismounting mechanically,contemplated the sight before him. The high, arched doors and windowswere thrown wide to the summer air; from every opening the bright lightof numerous candelabra darted out upon the sparkling foliage of magnoliaand bay, and here and there in the spacious verandas a colored lanternswayed in the gentle breeze. A sound of revel fell on the ear, the musicof harps; and across one window, brighter than the rest, flitted, onceor twice, the shadows of dancers. But oh! the shadows flitting acrossthe heart of the fair mansion's master!
"Old Charlie," said he, gazing fondly at his house, "You and me is bothold, eh?"
"Yaas," said the stolid Charlie.
"And we has both been bad enough in our times eh, Charlie?"
Charlie, surprised at the tender tone, repeated "Yaas."
"And you and me is mighty close?"
"Blame close, yaas."
"But you never know me to cheat, old man!"
"No,"--impassively.
"And do you think I would cheat you now?"
"I dunno," said Charlie. "I don't believe."
"Well, old man, old man,"--his voice began to quiver,--"I sha'n't cheatyou now. My God!--old man, I tell you--you better not make the trade!"
"Because for what?" asked Charlie in plain anger; but both lookedquickly toward the house! The Colonel tossed his hands wildly in theair, rushed forward a step or two, and giving one fearful scream ofagony and fright, fell forward on his face in the path. Old Charliestood transfixed with horror. Belles Demoiselles, the realm of maidenbeauty, the home of merriment, the house of dancing, all in the tremorand glow of pleasure, suddenly sunk, with one short, wild wail ofterror--sunk, sunk, down, down, down, into the merciless, unfathomableflood of the Mississippi.
Twelve long months were midnight to the mind of the childless father;when they were only half gone, he took his bed; and every day, and everynight, old Charlie, the "low-down," the "fool," watched him tenderly,tended him lovingly, for the sake of his name, his misfortunes, and hisbroken heart. No woman's step crossed the floor of the sick-chamber,whose western dormer-windows overpeered the dingy architecture of oldCharlie's block; Charlie and a skilled physician, the one all interest,the other all gentleness, hope, and patience--these only entered by thedoor; but by the window came in a sweet-scented evergreen vine,transplanted from the caving bank of Belles Demoiselles. It caught therays of sunset in its flowery net and let then softly in upon the sickman's bed; gathered the glancing beams of the moon at midnight, andoften wakened the sleeper to look, with his mindless eyes, upon theirpretty silver fragments strewn upon the floor.
By and by there seemed--there was--a twinkling dawn of returning reason.Slowly, peacefully, with an increase unseen from day to day, the lightof reason came into the eyes, and speech became coherent; but withalthere came a failing of the wrecked body, and the doctor said thatmonsieur was both better and worse.
One evening, as Charlie sat by the vine-clad window with his firelesspipe in his hand, the old Colonel's eyes fell full upon his own, andrested there.
"Charl--," he said with an effort, and his delighted nurse hastened tothe bedside and bowed his best ear. There was an unsuccessful effort ortwo, and then he whispered, smiling with sweet sadness,--
"We didn't trade."
The truth, in this case, was a secondary matter to Charlie; the mainpoint was to give a pleasing answer. So he nodded his head decidedly, aswho should say--"Oh yes, we did, it was a bona-fide swap!" but when hesaw the smile vanish, he tried the other expedient and shook his headwith still more vigor, to signify that they had not so much asapproached a bargain; and the smile returned.
Charlie wanted to see the vine recognized. He stepped backward to thewindow with a broad smile, shook the foliage, nodded and looked smart.
"I know," said the Colonel, with beaming eyes,"--many weeks."
The next day--
"Charl--"
The best ear went down.
"Send for a priest."
The priest came, and was alone with him a whole afternoon. When he left,the patient was very haggard and exhausted, but smiled and would notsuffer the crucifix to be removed from his breast.
One more morning came. Just before dawn Charli
"Old man," whispered the failing invalid, "is it caving yet?"
Charlie nodded.
"It won't pay you out."
"Oh, dat makes not'ing," said Charlie. Two big tears rolled down hisbrown face. "Dat makes not'in."
The Colonel whispered once more:
"_Mes belles demoiselles!_ in paradise;--in the garden--I shall be withthem at sunrise;" and so it was.
"POSSON JONE'." [1]
[Footnote 1: Published in Appletons' Journal. Republished bypermission.]