The River's Children Part 2

"_Two inches down, thank G.o.d!_"

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-gla.s.s; 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 gla.s.s is a temptation to her slipper. An' slippers an' wine-gla.s.ses--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, n.i.g.g.e.r, 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, n.i.g.g.e.r, sing! Sing an' pray!

Ol' Death is on de water--he's a-ridin' dis way!

Pray, n.i.g.g.e.r, 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 pa.s.s them along. Many a prayer went with them, too, from humble pet.i.tioners 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 s.p.a.ce, taking no rent of such as did not fear the ever-impending mortgage which the river held.

Of this cla.s.s, 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 pa.s.s" 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 G.o.d 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 cla.s.sic in that she expressed the eternal quality of maternal love incarnate, the old woman thus unconsciously pa.s.sed along to the object of her devotion the best cla.s.sic 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 ill.u.s.trate 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.