Strange True Stories of Louisiana Part 25

The notary once more handed him the pen, but the same thing happened again.

The butcher cleared his throat in a way to draw attention. Attalie looked towards him and he drawled, half rising from his chair:

"I t'ink--a li'l more cognac"--

"Ya.s.s," murmured the baker. The candlestick-maker did not speak, but unconsciously wet his lips with his tongue and wiped them with the back of his forefinger. But every eye turned to the patient, who said:

"I cannot write--my hand--shakes so."

The notary asked a formal question or two, to which the patient answered "yes" and "no." The official sat again at the desk, wrote a proper statement of the patient's incapacity to make his signature, and then read it aloud. The patient gave a.s.sent, and the three witnesses stepped forward and signed. Then the notary signed.

As the four men approached the door to depart the baker said, lingeringly, to Attalie, smiling diffidently as he spoke:

"Dat settin' still make a man mighty dry, ya.s.s."

"Ya.s.s, da's true," said Attalie.

"Ya.s.s," he added, "same time he dawn't better drink much _water_ dat hot weader, no." The butcher turned and smiled concurrence; but Attalie, though she again said "ya.s.s," only added good-day, and the maid led them and the notary down stairs and let them out.

VI.

MEN CAN BE BETTER THAN THEIR LAWS.

An hour later, when the black maid returned from an errand, she found her mistress at the head of the stairs near the Englishman's door, talking in suppressed tones to Camille Ducour, who, hat in hand, seemed to have just dropped in and to be just going out again. He went, and Attalie said to her maid that he was "so good" and was going to come and sit up all night with the sick man.

The next morning the maid--and the neighborhood--was startled to hear that the cotton buyer had died in the night. The physician called and gave a certificate of death without going up to the death chamber.

The funeral procession was short. There was first the carriage with the priest and the acolytes; then the hea.r.s.e; then a carriage in which sat the cotton buyer's clerk,--he had had but one,--his broker, and two men of that singular sort that make it a point to go to everybody's funeral; then a carriage occupied by Attalie's other lodgers, and then, in a carriage bringing up the rear, were Camille Ducour and Madame Brouillard. She alone wept, and, for all we have seen, we yet need not doubt her tears were genuine. Such was the cortege. Oh! also, in his private vehicle, driven by himself, was a very comfortable and genteel-looking man, whom neither Camille nor Attalie knew, but whom every other attendant at the funeral seemed to regard with deference. While the tomb was being sealed Camille sidled up to the broker and made bold to ask who the stranger was. Attalie did not see the movement, and Camille did not tell her what the broker said.

Late in the next afternoon but one Camille again received word from Attalie to call and see her in all haste. He found her in the Englishman's front room. Five white men were sitting there with her. They not only looked amused, but plainly could have looked more so but for the restraints of rank and station. Attalie was quite as visibly frightened.

Camille's knees weakened and a sickness came over him as he glanced around the group. For in the midst sat the stranger who had been at the funeral, while on his right sat two, and on his left two, men, the terror of whose presence we shall understand in a moment.

"Mr. Ducour," said the one who had been at the funeral, "as friends of Mr.

[Englishman] we desire to express our satisfaction at the terms of his last will and testament. We have had a long talk with Madame Brouillard; but for myself, I already know his wish that she should have whatever he might leave. But a wish is one thing; a will, even a nuncupative will by public act, is another and an infinitely better and more effective thing.

But we wish also to express our determination to see that you are not hindered in the execution of any of the terms of this will, whose genuineness we, of course, do not for a moment question." He looked about upon his companions. Three of them shook their heads gravely; but the fourth, in his over-zeal, attempted to, say "No," and burst into a laugh; whereupon they all broadly smiled, while Camille looked ghastly. The speaker resumed.

"I am the custodian of all Mr. [Englishman's] accounts and a.s.sets. This gentleman is a judge, this one is a lawyer,--I believe you know them all by sight,--this one is a banker, and this one--a--in fact, a detective. We wish you to feel at all times free to call upon any or all of us for advice, and to bear in mind that our eyes are ever on you with a positively solicitous interest. You are a busy man, Mr. Ducour, living largely by your wits, and we must not detain you longer. We are glad that you are yourself to receive fifteen hundred dollars. We doubt not you have determined to settle the affairs of the estate without other remuneration, and we not merely approve but distinctly recommend that decision. The task will involve an outlay of your time and labor, for which fifteen hundred dollars will be a generous, a handsome, but not an excessive remuneration.

You will be glad to know there will still be something left for Madame Brouillard. And now, Mr. Ducour,"--he arose and approached the pallid scamp, smiling benevolently,--"_remember_ us as your friends, who will _watch_ you"--he smote him on the shoulder with all the weight of his open palm--"with no _ordinary_ interest. Be a.s.sured you shall get your fifteen hundred, and Attalie shall have the rest, which--as Attalie tells me she has well known for years--will be about thirty thousand dollars.

Gentlemen, our dinner at the lake will be waiting. Good-day, Mr. Ducour.

Good-day, Madame Brouillard. Have no fear. Mr. Ducour is going to render you full justice,--without unnecessary delay,--in solid cash."

And he did.

WAR DIARY OF A UNION WOMAN IN THE SOUTH.

1860-63.

[The following diary was originally written in lead pencil and in a book the leaves of which were too soft to take ink legibly. I have it direct from the hands of its writer, a lady whom I have had the honor to know for nearly thirty years. For good reasons the author's name is omitted, and the initials of people and the names of places are sometimes fict.i.tiously given. Many of the persons mentioned were my own acquaintances and friends. When some twenty years afterwards she first resolved to publish it, she brought me a clear, complete copy in ink. It had cost much trouble, she said, for much of the pencil writing had been made under such disadvantages and was so faint that at times she could decipher it only under direct sunlight. She had succeeded, however, in making a copy, _verbatim_ except for occasional improvement in the grammatical form of a sentence, or now and then the omission, for brevity's sake, of something unessential. The narrative has since been severely abridged to bring it within the limits of this volume.

In reading this diary one is much charmed with its constant understatement of romantic and perilous incidents and conditions. But the original penciled pages show that, even in copying, the strong bent of the writer to be brief has often led to the exclusion of facts that enhance the interest of exciting situations, and sometimes the omission robs her own heroism of due emphasis. I have restored one example of this in the short paragraph following her account of the night she spent fanning her sick husband on their perilous voyage down the Mississippi.]

G.W.C.

I.

SECESSION.

_New Orleans, Dec. 1, 1860_.--I understand it now. Keeping journals is for those who can not, or dare not, speak out. So I shall set up a journal, being only a rather lonely young girl in a very small and hated minority.

On my return here in November, after a foreign voyage and absence of many months, I found myself behind in knowledge of the political conflict, but heard the dread sounds of disunion and war muttered in threatening tones.

Surely no native-born woman loves her country better than I love America.

The blood of one of its revolutionary patriots flows in my veins, and it is the Union for which he pledged his "life, fortune, and sacred honor"

that I love, not any divided or special section of it. So I have been reading attentively and seeking light from foreigners and natives on all questions at issue. Living from birth in slave countries, both foreign and American, and pa.s.sing through one slave insurrection in early childhood, the saddest and also the pleasantest features of slavery have been familiar. If the South goes to war for slavery, slavery is doomed in this country. To say so is like opposing one drop to a roaring torrent.

This is a good time to follow St. Paul's advice that women should refrain from speaking, but they are speaking more than usual and forcing others to speak against their will.

_Sunday, Dec.--, 1860_.--In this season for peace I had hoped for a lull in the excitement, yet this day has been full of bitterness. "Come, G.,"

said Mrs. F. at breakfast, "leave _your_ church for to-day and come with us to hear Dr. ---- on the situation. He will convince you." "It is good to be convinced," I said; "I will go." The church was crowded to suffocation with the elite of New Orleans. The preacher's text was, "Shall we have fellows.h.i.+p with the stool of iniquity which frameth mischief as a law?" ...

The sermon was over at last and then followed a prayer ... Forever blessed be the fathers of the Episcopal Church for giving us a fixed liturgy! When we met at dinner Mrs. F. exclaimed, "Now, G., you heard him prove from the Bible that slavery is right and that therefore secession is. Were you not convinced?" I said, "I was so busy thinking how completely it proved too that Brigham Young is right about polygamy that it quite weakened the force of the argument for me." This raised a laugh, and covered my retreat.

_Jan. 26, 1861_.--The solemn boom of cannon today announced that the convention have pa.s.sed the ordinance of secession. We must take a reef in our patriotism and narrow it down to State limits. Mine still sticks out all around the borders of the State. It will be bad if New Orleans should secede from Louisiana and set up for herself. Then indeed I would be "cabined, cribbed, confined." The faces in the house are jubilant to-day.

Why is it so easy for them and not for me to "ring out the old, ring in the new"? I am out of place.

_Jan. 28, Monday_.--Sunday has now got to be a day of special excitement.

The gentlemen save all the sensational papers to regale us with at the late Sunday breakfast. Rob opened the battle yesterday morning by saying to me in his most aggressive manner, "G., I believe these are your sentiments"; and then he read aloud an article from the "Journal des Debats" expressing in rather contemptuous terms the fact that France will follow the policy of non-intervention. When I answered: "Well, what do you expect? This is not their quarrel," he raved at me, ending by a declaration that he would willingly pay my pa.s.sage to foreign parts if I would like to go. "Rob," said his father, "keep cool; don't let that threat excite you. Cotton is king. Just wait till they feel the pinch a little; their tone will change." I went to Trinity Church. Some Union people who are not Episcopalians go there now because the pastor has not so much chance to rail at the Lord when things are not going to suit: but yesterday was a marked Sunday. The usual prayer for the President and Congress was changed to the "governor and people of this commonwealth and their representatives in convention a.s.sembled."

The city was very lively and noisy this evening with rockets and lights in honor of secession. Mrs. F., in common with the neighbors, illuminated. We walked out to see the houses of others gleaming amid the dark shrubbery like a fairy scene. The perfect stillness added to the effect, while the moon rose slowly with calm splendor. We hastened home to dress for a soiree, but on the stairs Edith said, "G., first come and help me dress Phoebe and Chloe [the negro servants]. There is a ball to-night in aristocratic colored society. This is Chloe's first introduction to New Orleans circles, and Henry Judson, Phoebe's husband, gave five dollars for a ticket for her." Chloe is a recent purchase from Georgia. We superintended their very stylish toilets, and Edith said, "G., run into your room, please, and write a pa.s.s for Henry. Put Mr. D.'s name to it."

"Why, Henry is free," I said.--"That makes no difference; all colored people must have a pa.s.s if out late. They choose a master for protection and always carry his pa.s.s. Henry chose Mr. D., but he's lost the pa.s.s he had." When the pa.s.s was ready, a carriage dashed up to the back-gate and the party drove off in fine style.

At the soiree we had secession talk sandwiched everywhere; between the supper, and the music, and the dance; but midnight has come, and silence, and a few too brief hours of oblivion.

II.

THE VOLUNTEERS.--FORT SUMTER.