Strange True Stories of Louisiana Part 4

Beside the bed a walnut dressing-table and mirror, opposite to it a washstand, at the bed's foot a _priedieu_, a center-table, three chairs--these were all the furniture; but [an enumeration follows of all manner of pretty feminine belongings, in crystal, silver, gold, with a picture of the crucifixion and another of the Virgin]. On the shelves were a rich box of colors, several books, and some portfolios of music. From a small peg hung a guitar.

But Suzanne was not satisfied. Her gaze never left an object of unknown form enveloped in green serge. Alix noticed, laughed, rose, and, lifting the covering, said:

"This is my harp, Suzanne; later I will play it for you."

The second evening and those that followed, papa, despite Carlo's representation and the magnificent moonlight, opposed the continuation of the journey by night; and it was not until the morning of the fifth day that we reached St. James.

You can fancy the joy with which we were received at the plantation. We had but begun our voyage, and already my mother and sisters ran to us with extended arms as though they had not seen us for years. Needless to say, they were charmed with Alix; and when after dinner we had to say a last adieu to the loved ones left behind, we boarded the flatboat and left the plantation amid huzzas,[11] waving handkerchiefs, and kisses thrown from finger-tips. No one wept, but in saying good-bye to my father, my mother asked:

"Pierre, how are you going to return?"

"Dear wife, by the mercy of G.o.d all things are possible to the man with his pocket full of money."

During the few days that we pa.s.sed on the Mississippi each day was like the one before. We sat on the deck and watched the slow swinging of the long sweeps, or read, or embroidered, or in the chamber of Alix listened to her harp or guitar; and at the end of another week, we arrived at Plaquemine.

FOOTNOTES: [11] According to a common habit of the Southern slaves.--TRANSLATOR.

V.

DOWN BAYOU PLAQUEMINE--THE FIGHT WITH WILD NATURE.

Plaquemine was composed of a church, two stores, as many drinking-shops, and about fifty cabins, one of which was the court-house. Here lived a mult.i.tude of Catalans, Acadians, negroes, and Indians. When Suzanne and Maggie, accompanied by my father and John Gordon, went ash.o.r.e, I declined to follow, preferring to stay aboard with Joseph and Alix. It was at Plaquemine that we bade adieu to the old Mississippi. Here our flatboat made a detour and entered Bayou Plaquemine.[12]

Hardly had we started when our men saw and were frightened by the force of the current. The enormous flatboat, that Suzanne had likened to a giant tortoise, darted now like an arrow, dragged by the current. The people of Plaquemine had forewarned our men and recommended the greatest prudence.

"Do everything possible to hold back your boat, for if you strike any of those tree-trunks of which the bayou is full it would easily sink you."

Think how rea.s.suring all this was, and the more when they informed us that this was the first time a flatboat had ventured into the bayou!

Mario, swearing in all the known languages, sought to rea.s.sure us, and, aided by his two a.s.sociates, changed the manoeuvring, and with watchful eye found ways to avoid the great uprooted trees in which the lakes and bayous of Attakapas abound. But how clouded was Carpentier's brow! And my father? Ah! he repented enough. Then he realized that gold is not always the vanquisher of every obstacle. At last, thanks to Heaven, our flatboat came off victor over the snags, and after some hours we arrived at the Indian village of which you have heard me tell.

If I was afraid at sight of a dozen savages among the Spaniards of Plaquemine, what was to become of me now? The bank was entirely covered with men, their faces painted, their heads full of feathers, moccasins on their feet, and bows on shoulder--Indians indeed, with women simply wrapped in blankets, and children without the shadow of a garment; and all these Indians running, calling to one another, making signs to us, and addressing us in incomprehensible language. Suzanne, standing up on the bow of the flatboat, replied to their signs and called with all the force of her lungs every Indian word that--G.o.d knows where--she had learned:

"Chacounam finnan! O Choctaw! Conno Poposso!" And the Indians clapped their hands, laughing with pleasure and increasing yet more their gestures and cries.

The village, about fifty huts, lay along the edge of the water. The unfortunates were not timid. Presently several came close to the flatboat and showed us two deer and some wild turkeys and ducks, the spoils of their hunting. Then came the women laden with sacks made of bark and full of blackberries, vegetables, and a great quant.i.ty of baskets; showing all, motioning us to come down, and repeating in French and Spanish, "Money, money!"

It was decided that Mario and Gordon should stay on board and that all the rest of the joyous band should go ash.o.r.e. My father, M. Carpentier, and 'Tino loaded their pistols and put them into their belts. Suzanne did likewise, while Maggie called Tom, her bulldog, to follow her. Celeste declined to go, because of her children. As to Alix and me, a terrible contest was raging in us between fright and curiosity, but the latter conquered. Suzanne and papa laughed so about our fears that Alix, less cowardly than I, yielded first, and joined the others. This was too much.

Grasping my father's arm and begging him not to leave me for an instant, I let him conduct me, while Alix followed me, taking her husband's arm in both her hands. In front marched 'Tino, his gun on his shoulder; after him went Maggie, followed by Tom; and then Suzanne and little Patrick, inseparable friends.

Hardly had we gone a few steps when we were surrounded by a human wall, and I realized with a s.h.i.+ver how easy it would be for these savages to get rid of us and take all our possessions. But the poor devils certainly never thought of it: they showed us their game, of which papa bought the greater part, as well as several sacks of berries, and also vegetables.

But the baskets! They were veritable wonders. As several of those that I bought that day are still in your possession, I will not lose much time telling of them. How those half-savage people could make things so well contrived and ornamented with such brilliant colors is still a problem to us. Papa bought for mamma thirty-two little baskets fitting into one another, the largest about as tall as a child of five years, and the smallest just large enough to receive a thimble. When he asked the price I expected to hear the seller say at least thirty dollars, but his humble reply was five dollars. For a deer he asked one dollar; for a wild turkey, twenty-five cents. Despite the advice of papa, who asked us how we were going to carry our purchases home, Suzanne and I bought, between us, more than forty baskets, great and small. To papa's question, Suzanne replied with an arch smile:

"G.o.d will provide."

Maggie and Alix also bought several; and Alix, who never forgot any one, bought two charming little baskets that she carried to Celeste. Each of us, even Maggie, secured a broad parti-colored mat to use on the deck as a couch _a la Turque_. Our last purchases were two Indian bows painted red and blue and adorned with feathers; the first bought by Celestino Carlo, and the other by Suzanne for her chevalier, Patrick Gordon.

An Indian woman who spoke a little French asked if we would not like to visit the queen. We a.s.sented, and in a few moments she led us into a hut thatched with palmetto leaves and in all respects like the others. Its interior was disgustingly unclean. The queen was a woman quite or nearly a hundred years old. She sat on a mat upon the earth, her arms crossed on her breast, her eyes half closed, muttering between her teeth something resembling a prayer. She paid no attention to us, and after a moment we went out. We entered two or three other huts and found the same poverty and squalor. The men did not follow us about, but the women--the whole tribe, I think--marched step by step behind us, touching our dresses, our _capuches_, our jewelry, and asking for everything; and I felt well content when, standing on our deck, I could make them our last signs of adieu.

Our flatboat moved ever onward. Day by day, hour by hour, every minute it advanced--slowly it is true, in the diminished current, but it advanced. I no longer knew where I was. We came at times where I thought we were lost; and then I thought of mamma and my dear sisters and my two pretty little brothers, whom I might never see again, and I was swallowed up. Then Suzanne would make fun of me and Alix would caress me, and that did me good. There were many bayous,--a labyrinth, as papa said,--and Mario had his map at hand showing the way. Sometimes it seemed impracticable, and it was only by great efforts of our men ["no zomme," says the original] that we could pa.s.s on. One thing is sure--those who traverse those same lakes and bayous to-day have not the faintest idea of what they were [il zete]

in 1795.

Great vines hung down from lofty trees that shaded the banks and crossed one another a hundred--a thousand--ways to prevent the boat's pa.s.sage and r.e.t.a.r.d its progress, as if the devil himself was mixed in it; and, frankly, I believe that he had something to do with us in that cavern.

Often our emigrants were forced to take their axes and hatchets in hand to open a road. At other times tree-trunks, heaped upon one another, completely closed a bayou. Then think what trouble there was to unbar that gate and pa.s.s through. And, to make all complete, troops of hungry alligators clambered upon the sides of our flatboat with jaws open to devour us. There was much outcry; I fled, Alix fled with me, Suzanne laughed. But our men were always ready for them with their guns.

FOOTNOTES: [12] Flowing, not into, but out of, the Mississippi, and, like it, towards the Gulf.--Translator.

VI.

THE TWICE-MARRIED COUNTESS.

But with all the sluggishness of the flatboat, the toils, the anxieties, and the frights, what happy times, what gay moments, we pa.s.sed together on the rough deck of our rude vessel, or in the little cells that we called our bedrooms.

It was in these rooms, when the sun was hot on deck, that my sister and I would join Alix to learn from her a new st.i.tch in embroidery, or some of the charming songs she had brought from France and which she accompanied with harp or guitar.

Often she read to us, and when she grew tired put the book into my hands or Suzanne's, and gave us precious lessons in reading, as she had in singing and in embroidery. At times, in these moments of intimacy, she made certain half-disclosures that astonished us more and more. One day Suzanne took between her own two hands that hand so small and delicate and cried out all at once:

"How comes it, Alix, that you wear two wedding rings?"

"Because," she sweetly answered, "if it gives you pleasure to know, I have been twice married."

We both exclaimed with surprise.

"Ah!" she said, "no doubt you think me younger [bocou plus jeune] than I really am. What do you suppose is my age?"

Suzanne replied: "You look younger than Francoise, and she is sixteen."

"I am twenty-three," replied Alix, laughing again and again.

Another time my sister took a book, haphazard, from the shelves.

Ordinarily [audinaremend] Alix herself chose our reading, but she was busy embroidering. Suzanne sat down and began to read aloud a romance ent.i.tled "Two Destinies."

"Ah!" cried my sister, "these two girls must be Francoise and I."

"Oh no, no!" exclaimed Alix, with a heavy sigh, and Suzanne began her reading. It told of two sisters of n.o.ble family. The elder had been married to a count, handsome, n.o.ble, and rich; and the other, against her parents' wish, to a poor workingman who had taken her to a distant country, where she died of regret and misery. Alix and I listened attentively; but before Suzanne had finished, Alix softly took the book from her hands and replaced it on the shelf.

"I would not have chosen that book for you; it is full of exaggerations and falsehoods."

"And yet," said Suzanne, "see with what truth the lot of the countess is described! How happy she was in her emblazoned coach, and her jewels, her laces, her dresses of velvet and brocade! Ah, Francoise! of the two destinies I choose that one."

Alix looked at her for a moment and then dropped her head in silence.

Suzanne went on in her giddy way: