Rose A Charlitte Part 33

"Go change," said Bidiane, pouncing upon him.

Claude knew what she meant, and glanced resignedly from his homespun suit to her resolved face. There was no appeal, so he went to his bedroom to don his Sunday garments. He had not without merit gained his nickname of Sugar Claude; for he was, if possible, more easy-going than his wife.

Bidiane next attacked her aunt, whose face was the color of fire, from bending over the stove. "Go put on clean duds; these are dirty."

"Go yourself, you little cat," said Mirabelle Marie, shaking her mountain of flesh with a good-natured laugh.

"I'm going--I ain't as dirty as you, anyway--and take off those sneaks."

Mirabelle Marie stuck out one of the flat feet encased in rubber-soled shoes. "My land! if I do, I'll go barefoot."

Bidiane subsided and went to the door to look for her two boy cousins.

Where were they? She shaded her eyes with her two brown hands, and her gaze swept the land and the water. Where were those boys? Were they back in the pasture, or down by the river, or playing in the barn, or out in the boat? A small schooner beating up the Bay caught her eye. That was Johnny Maxwell's schooner. She knew it by the three-cornered patch on the mainsail. And in Captain Johnny's pockets, when he came from Boston, were always candy, nuts, and raisins,--and the young Maxwells were of a generous disposition, and the whole neighborhood knew it. Her cousins would be on the wharf below the house, awaiting his arrival. Well, they should come to supper first; and, like a bird of prey, she swooped down the road upon her victims, and, catching them firmly by the shoulders, marched them up to the house.

CHAPTER XX.

WITH THE WATERCROWS.

"Her mouth was ever agape, Her ears were ever ajar; If you wanted to find a sweeter fool, You shouldn't have come this far."

--_Old Song._

When the meal was at last prepared, and the whole family were a.s.sembled in the sitting-room, where the table had been drawn from the kitchen, they took a united view of Vesper's back; then Claude a Sucre was sent to escort him to the house.

With a rapturous face Mirabelle Marie surveyed the steaming dish of _soupe a la patate_ (potato soup), the mound of b.u.t.tered toast, the wedge of tough fried steak, the strips of raw dried codfish, the pink cake, and fancy biscuits. Surely the stranger would be impressed by the magnificence of this display, and she glanced wonderingly at Bidiane, whose eyes were lowered to the floor. The little girl had enjoyed advantages superior to her own, in that she mingled freely in English society, where she herself--Mirabelle Marie--was strangely shunned.

Could it be that she was ashamed of this board? Certainly she could never have seen anything much grander; and, swelling with gratified pride and ambition, the mistress of the household seated herself behind her portly teapot, from which vantage-ground she beamed, huge and silly, like a full-grown moon upon the occupants of the table.

Her guest was not hungry, apparently, for he scarcely touched the dishes that she pressed upon him. However, he responded so gracefully and with such well-bred composure to her exhortations that he should eat his fill, for there was more in the cellar, that she was far from resenting his lack of appet.i.te. He was certainly a "boss young man;" and as she sat, delicious visions swam through her brain of new implements for the farm, a new barn, perhaps, new furniture for the house, with possibly an organ, a spick and span wagon, and a horse, or even a pair, and the eventual establishment of her two sons in Boston,--the El Dorado of her imagination,--where they would become prosperous merchants, and make heaps of gold for their mother to spend.

In her excitement she began to put her food in her mouth with both hands, until reminded that she was flying in the face of English etiquette by a vigorous kick administered under the table by Bidiane.

Vesper, with an effort, called back his painful wandering thoughts, which had indeed gone down the Bay, and concentrated them upon this picturesquely untidy family. This was an entirely different establishment from that of the Sleeping Water Inn. Fortunately there was no grossness, no clownishness of behavior, which would have irreparably offended his fastidious taste. They were simply uncultured, scrambling, and even interesting with the background of this old homestead, which was one of the most ancient that he had seen on the Bay, and which had probably been built by some of the early settlers.

While he was quietly making his observations, the family finished their meal, and seeing that they were waiting for him to give the signal for leaving the table, he politely rose and stepped behind his chair.

Mirabelle Marie scurried to her feet and pushed the table against the wall. Then the whole family sat down in a semicircle facing a large open fireplace heaped high with the acc.u.mulated rubbish of the summer, and breathlessly waited for the stranger to tell them of his place of birth, the amount of his fortune, his future expectations and hopes, his intentions with regard to Bidiane, and of various and sundry other matters that might come in during the course of their conversation.

Vesper, with his usual objection to having any course of action mapped out for him, sat gazing imperturbably at them. He was really sorry for Mirabelle Marie, who was plainly bursting with eagerness. Her husband was more reserved, yet he, too, was suffering from suppressed curiosity, and timidly and wistfully handled his pipe, that he longed to and yet did not dare to smoke.

His two small boys sat dangling their legs from seats that were uncomfortably high for them. They were typical Acadien children,--shy, elusive, and retreating within themselves in the presence of strangers; and if, by chance, Vesper caught a stealthy glance from one of them, the little fellow immediately averted his glossy head, as if afraid that the calm eyes of the stranger might lay bare the inmost secrets of his youthful soul.

Bidiane was the most interesting of the group. She was evidently a born manager and the ruling spirit in the household, for he could see that they all stood in awe of her. She must possess some force of will to enable her to subdue her natural eagerness and vivacity, so as to appear sober and reserved. His presence was evidently a constraint to the little red-haired witch, and he could scarcely have understood her character, if Agapit had not supplied him with a key to it.

Young as she was, she acutely appreciated the racial differences about her. There were two worlds in her mind,--French and English. The careless predilections of her aunt had become fierce prejudices with her, and, at present, although she was proud to have an Englishman under their roof, she was at the same time tortured by the contrast that she knew he must find between the humble home of her relatives and the more prosperous surroundings of the English people with whom he was accustomed to mingle.

"She is a clever little imp," Agapit had said, "and wise beyond her years."

Vesper, when his un.o.btrusive examination of her small resolved face was over, glanced about the low, square room in which they sat. The sun was just leaving it. The family would soon be thinking of going to bed. All around the room were other rooms evidently used as sleeping apartments, for through a half-open door he saw an unmade bed, and he knew, from the construction of the house, that there was no upper story.

After a time the silence became oppressive, and Mirabelle Marie, seeing that the stranger would not entertain her, set herself to the task of entertaining him, and with an ingratiating and insinuating smile informed him that the biggest liar on the Bay lived in Bleury.

"His name's Bill," she said, "Blowin' Bill Duckfoot, an' the boys git 'round him an' say, 'Give us a yarn.' He says, 'Well, give me a chaw of 'baccy,' then he starts off. 'Onct when I went to sea'--he's never bin off the Bay, you know--'it blowed as hard as it could for ten days. Then it blowed ten times harder. We had to lash the cook to the mast.' 'What did you do when you wanted grub?' says the boys. 'Oh, we unlashed him for awhile,' says Bill. 'One day the schooner cracked from stern to stem. Cap'en and men begun to holler and says we was goin' to the bottom.' 'Cheer up,' says Bill, 'I'll fix a way.' So he got 'em to lash the anchor chains 'roun' the schooner, an' that hold 'em together till they got to Boston, and there was nothin' too good for Bill. It was cousin Duckfoot, an' brother Duckfoot, and good frien' Duckfoot, and lots of treatin'."

Vesper in suppressed astonishment surveyed Mirabelle Marie, who, at the conclusion of her story, burst into a fit of such hearty laughter that she seemed to be threatened there and then with a fit of apoplexy. Her face grew purple, tears ran down her cheeks, and through eyes that had become mere slits in her face she looked at Claude, who too was convulsed with amus.e.m.e.nt, at her two small boys, who giggled behind their hands, and at Bidiane, who only smiled sarcastically.

Vesper at once summoned an expression of interest to his face, and Mirabelle Marie, encouraged by it, caught her breath with an explosive sound, wiped the tears from her eyes, and at once continued. "Here's another daisy one. 'Onct,' says Bill, 'all han's was lost 'cept me an' a n.i.g.g.e.r. I went to the stern as cap'en, and he to the bow as deck-han'. A big wave struck the schooner, and when we righted, wasn't the n.i.g.g.e.r at stern as cap'en, an' I was at bow as deck-han'!'"

While Vesper was waiting for the conclusion of the story, a burst of joyous cachinnation a.s.sured him that it had already come. Mirabelle Marie was again rocking herself to and fro in immoderate delight, her head at each dip forward nearly touching her knees, while her husband was slapping his side vigorously.

Vesper laughed himself. Truly there were many different orders of mind in the universe. He saw nothing amusing in the reported exploits of the liar Duckfoot. They also would not have brought a smile to the face of his beautiful Rose, yet the Corbineaus, or Watercrows, as they translated their name in order to make themselves appear English, found these stories irresistibly comical. It was a blessing for them that they did so, otherwise the whole realm of humor might be lost to them; and he was going off in a dreamy speculation with regard to their other mental proclivities, when he was roused by another story from his hostess.

"Duckfoot is a mason by trade, an' onct he built a chimbley for a woman.

'Make a good draught,' says she. 'You bet,' says he, an' he built his chimbley an' runs away; as he runs he looks back, an' there was the woman's duds that was hangin' by the fire goin' up the chimbley. He had built such a draught that nothin' could stay in the kitchen, so she had to go down on her knees an' beg him to change it."

"To beg him to change it," vociferated Claude, and he soundly smacked his unresisting knee. "Oh, Lord, 'ow funny!" and he roared with laughter so stimulating that he forgot his fear of Vesper and Bidiane, and, boldly lighting his pipe, put it between his lips.

Mirabelle Marie, whose flow of eloquence it was difficult to check, related several other tales of Duckfoot Bill. Many times, before the railway in this towns.h.i.+p of Clare had been built, he had told them of his uncle, who had, he said, a magnificent residence in Louisiana, with a park full of valuable animals called skunks. These animals he had never fully described, and they were consequently enveloped in a cloud of admiration and mystery, until a horde of them came with the railroad to the Bay, when the credulous Acadiens learned for themselves what they really were.

During the recital of this tale, Bidiane's face went from disapproval to disgust, and at last, diving under the table, she seized a basket and went to work vigorously, as if the occupation of her fingers would ease the perturbation of her mind.

Vesper watched her closely. She was picking out the threads of old cotton and woollen garments that had been cut into small pieces. These threads would be washed, laid out on the gra.s.s to dry, and then be carded, and spun, and woven over again, according to a thrifty custom of the Acadiens, and made into bedcovers, stockings, and cloth. The child must possess some industry, for this work--"pickings," as it was called--was usually done by the women. In brooding silence the little girl listened to Mirabelle Marie's final tale of Duckfoot Bill, whose wife called out to him, one day, from the yard, that there was a flock of wild geese pa.s.sing over the house. Without troubling to go out, he merely discharged his gun up the chimney beside which he sat, and the ramrod, carelessly being left in, killed a certain number of geese.

"How many do you guess that ramrod run through?"

Vesper good-naturedly guessed two.

"No,--seven," she shrieked; "they was strung in a row like dried apples," and she burst into fresh peals of laughter, until suddenly plunged into the calmness of despair by a few words from Bidiane, who leaned over and whispered angrily to her.

Mirabelle Marie trembled, and gazed at the stranger. Was it true,--did he wish to commend her to a less pleasant place than Bleury for teasing him with these entrancing stories?

She could gather nothing from his face; so she entered tremulously into a new subject of conversation, and, pointing to Claude's long legs, a.s.sured him that his heavy woollen stockings had been made entirely by Bidiane. "She's smart,--as smart as a steel trap," said the aunt. "She can catch the sheeps, hold 'em down, shear the wool, an' spin it."

Bidiane immediately pushed her basket under the table with so fiery and resentful a glance that the unfortunate Mirabelle Marie relapsed into silence.

"Have you ever gone to sea?" asked Vesper, of the silently smoking Claude.

"Yessir, we mos' all goes to sea when we's young."

"Onct he was wrecked," interrupted his wife.

"Yessir, I was. Off Arichat we got on a ledge. We thump up an' down. We was all on deck but the cook. The cap'en sends me to the galley for 'im.

'E come up, we go ash.o.r.e, an' the schooner go to pieces."

"Tell him about the mouse," said Bidiane, abruptly.