Complete Works of Kate Chopin

by Kate Chopin

  Sandy was indeed very ill, consumed with fever. He lay on a cot covered up with a faded patchwork quilt. His eyes were half closed, and he was muttering and rambling on about hoeing and bedding and cleaning and thinning out the cotton; he was hauling it to the gin, wrangling about weight and bagging and ties and the price offered per pound. That bale or two of cotton had not only sent Sandy to bed, but had pursued him there, holding him through his fevered dreams, and threatening to end him. Ozème would never have known the black boy, he was so tall, so thin, and seemingly so wasted, lying there in bed.

  “See yere, Aunt Tildy,” said Ozème, after he had, as was usual with him when in doubt, abandoned himself to a little reflection; “between us — you an’ me — we got to manage to kill an’ cook one o’ those chickens I see scratchin’ out yonda, fo’ I’m jus’ about starved. I reckon you ain’t got any quinine in the house? No; I didn’t suppose an instant you had. Well, I’m goin’ to give Sandy a good dose o’ quinine to-night, an’ I’m goin’ stay an’ see how that’ll work on ‘im. But sun-up, min’ you, I mus’ get out o’ yere.”

  Ozème had spent more comfortable nights than the one passed in Aunt Tildy’s bed, which she considerately abandoned to him.

  In the morning Sandy’s fever was somewhat abated, but had not taken a decided enough turn to justify Ozème in quitting him before noon, unless he was willing “to feel like a dog,” as he told himself. He appeared before Aunt Tildy stripped to the undershirt, and wearing his second-best pair of trousers.

  “That’s a nice pickle o’ fish you got me in, ol’ woman. I guarantee, nex’ time I go abroad, ‘tain’t me that’ll take any cut-off. W’ere’s that cotton-basket an’ cotton-sack o’ yo’s?”

  “I knowed it!” chanted Aunt Tildy— “I knowed de Lord war gwine sen’ somebody to holp me out. He war n’ gwine let de crap was’e atter he give Sandy an’ me de strenk to make hit. De Lord gwine shove you ‘long de row, Mista Ozème. De Lord gwine give you plenty mo’ fingers an’ han’s to pick dat cotton nimble an’ clean.”

  “Neva you min’ w’at the Lord’s goin’ to do; go get me that cotton-sack. An’ you put that poultice like I tol’ you on yo’ han’, an’ set down there an’ watch Sandy. It looks like you are ‘bout as helpless as a’ ol’ cow tangled up in a potato-vine.”

  Ozème had not picked cotton for many years, and he took to it a little awkwardly at first; but by the time he had reached the end of the first row the old dexterity of youth had come back to his hands, which flew rapidly back and forth with the motion of a weaver’s shuttle; and his ten fingers became really nimble in clutching the cotton from its dry shell. By noon he had gathered about fifty pounds. Sandy was not then quite so well as he had promised to be, and Ozème concluded to stay that day and one more night. If the boy were no better in the morning, he would go off in search of a doctor for him, and he himself would continue on down to Tante Sophie’s; the Beltrans’ was out of the question now.

  Sandy hardly needed a doctor in the morning. Ozème’s doctoring was beginning to tell favorably; but he would have considered it criminal indifference and negligence to go away and leave the boy to Aunt Tildy’s awkward ministrations just at the critical moment when there was a turn for the better; so he stayed that day out, and picked his hundred and fifty pounds.

  On the third day it looked like rain, and a heavy rain just then would mean a heavy loss to Aunt Tildy and Sandy, and Ozème again went to the field, this time urging Aunt Tildy with him to do what she might with her one good hand.

  “Aunt Tildy,” called out Ozème to the bent old woman moving ahead of him between the white rows of cotton, “if the Lord gets me safe out o’ this ditch, ‘t ain’t to-morro’ I’ll fall in anotha with my eyes open, I bet you.”

  “Keep along, Mista Ozème; don’ grumble, don’ stumble; de Lord’s a-watchin’ you. Look at yo’ Aunt Tildy; she doin’ mo’ wid her one han’ ‘an you doin’ wid yo’ two, man. Keep right along, honey. Watch dat cotton how it fallin’ in yo’ Aunt Tildy’s bag.”

  “I am watchin’ you, ol’ woman; you don’ fool me. You got to work that han’ o’ yo’s spryer than you doin’, or I’ll take the rawhide. You done fo’got w’at the rawhide tas’e like, I reckon” — a reminder which amused Aunt Tildy so powerfully that her big negro-laugh resounded over the whole cotton-patch, and even caused Sandy, who heard it, to turn in his bed.

  The weather was still threatening on the succeeding day, and a sort of dogged determination or characteristic desire to see his undertakings carried to a satisfactory completion urged Ozème to continue his efforts to drag Aunt Tildy out of the mire into which circumstances seemed to have thrust her.

  One night the rain did come, and began to beat softly on the roof of the old cabin. Sandy opened his eyes, which were no longer brilliant with the fever flame. “Granny,” he whispered, “de rain! Des listen, granny; de rain a-comin’, an’ I ain’ pick dat cotton yit. W’at time it is? Gi’ me my pants — I got to go— “

  “You lay whar you is, chile alive. Dat cotton put aside clean and dry. Me an’ de Lord an’ Mista Ozème done pick dat cotton.”

  Ozème drove away in the morning looking quite as spick and span as the day he left home in his blue suit and his light felt drawn a little over his eyes.

  “You want to take care o’ that boy,” he instructed Aunt Tildy at parting, “an’ get ‘im on his feet. An’, let me tell you, the nex’ time I start out to broad, if you see me passin’ in this yere cut-off, put on yo’ specs an’ look at me good, because it won’t be me; it’ll be my ghos’, ol’ woman.”

  Indeed, Ozème, for some reason or other, felt quite shamefaced as he drove back to the plantation. When he emerged from the lane which he had entered the week before, and turned into the river road, Lamérie, standing in the store door, shouted out:

  “He, Ozème! you had good times yonda? I bet you danced holes in the sole of them new boots.”

  “Don’t talk, Lamérie!” was Ozème’s rather ambiguous reply, as he flourished the remainder of a whip over the old gray mare’s sway-back, urging her to a gentle trot.

  When he reached home, Bodé, one of Padue’s boys, who was assisting him to unhitch, remarked:

  “How come you didn’ go yonda down de coas’ like you said, Mista Ozème? Nobody didn’ see you in Cloutierville, an’ Mailitte say you neva cross’ de twenty-fo’-mile ferry, an’ nobody didn’ see you no place.”

  Ozème returned, after his customary moment of reflection:

  “You see, it’s ‘mos’ always the same thing on Cane riva, my boy; a man gets tired o’ that à la fin. This time I went back in the woods, ‘way yonda in the Fédeau cut-off; kin’ o’ campin’ an’ roughin’ like, you might say. I tell you, it was sport, Bodé.”

  UNCOLLECTED SHORT STORIES

  CONTENTS

  WISER THAN A GOD

  EMANCIPATION. A LIFE FABLE

  A POINT AT ISSUE!

  MISS WITHERWELL’S MISTAKE

  WITH THE VIOLIN

  MRS. MOBRY’S REASON

  THE GOING AWAY OF LIZA

  THE MAID OF SAINT PHILLIPPE

  A SHAMEFUL AFFAIR

  A HARBINGER

  DOCTOR CHEVALIER’S LIE

  AN EMBARRASSING POSITION

  CROQUE-MITAINE

  MISS MCENDERS

  AN IDLE FELLOW

  A LITTLE FREE-MULATTO

  THE STORY OF AN HOUR

  LILACS

  THE NIGHT CAME SLOWLY

  JUANITA

  THE KISS

  HER LETTERS

  TWO SUMMERS AND TWO SOULS

  THE UNEXPECTED

  TWO PORTRAITS

  THE WANTON

  THE NUN

  FEDORA

  VAGABONDS

  MADAME MARTEL’S CHRISTMAS EVE

  THE RECOVERY

  AUNT LYMPY’S INTERFERENCE

  THE BLIND MAN

  A PAIR OF SILK STOCKINGS

  A VOCATION AND A VOICE

  A MENTA
L SUGGESTION

  SUZETTE

  THE LOCKET

  A MORNING WALK

  AN EGYPTIAN CIGARETTE

  A FAMILY AFFAIR

  ELIZABETH STOCK’S ONE STORY

  THE GODMOTHER

  THE STORM

  A LITTLE COUNTRY GIRL

  A REFLECTION

  TI DÉMON

  A DECEMBER DAY IN DIXIE

  THE GENTLEMAN FROM NEW ORLEANS

  CHARLIE

  THE WHITE EAGLE

  THE WOOD-CHOPPERS

  THE IMPOSSIBLE MISS MEADOWS

  POLLY

  WISER THAN A GOD

  ‘To love and be wise is scarcely granted even to a god.’

  Latin Proverb

  I

  “You might at least show some distaste for the task, Paula,” said Mrs. Von Stoltz, in her querulous invalid voice, to her daughter who stood before the glass bestowing a few final touches of embellishment upon an otherwise plain toilet.

  “And to what purpose, Mutterchen? The task is not entirely to my liking, I’ll admit; but there can be no question as to its results, which you even must concede are gratifying.”

  “Well, it’s not the career your poor father had in view for you. How often he has told me when I complained that you were kept too closely at work, ‘I want that Paula shall be at the head,’” with appealing look through the window and up into the gray, November sky into that far “somewhere,” which might be the abode of her departed husband.

  “It isn’t a career at all, mamma; it’s only a make-shift,” answered the girl, noting the happy effect of an amber pin that she had thrust through the coils of her lustrous yellow hair. “The pot must be kept boiling at all hazards, pending the appearance of that hoped for career. And you forget that an occasion like this gives me the very opportunities I want.”

  “I can’t see the advantages of bringing your talent down to such banale servitude. Who are those people, anyway?”

  The mother’s question ended in a cough which shook her into speechless exhaustion.

  “Ah! I have let you sit too long by the window, mother,” said Paula, hastening to wheel the invalid’s chair nearer the grate fire that was throwing genial light and warmth into the room, turning its plainness to beauty as by a touch of enchantment. “By the way,” she added, having arranged her mother as comfortably as might be, “I haven’t yet qualified for that ‘banale servitude,’ as you call it.” And approaching the piano which stood in a distant alcove of the room, she took up a roll of music that lay curled up on the instrument, straightened it out before her. Then, seeming to remember the question which her mother had asked, turned on the stool to answer it. “Don’t you know? The Brainards, very swell people, and awfully rich. The daughter is that girl whom I once told you about, having gone to the Conservatory to cultivate her voice and old Engfelder told her in his brusque way to go back home, that his system was not equal to overcoming impossibilities.”

  “Oh, those people.”

  “Yes; this little party is given in honor of the son’s return from Yale or Harvard, or some place or other.” And turning to the piano she softly ran over the dances, whilst the mother gazed into the fire with unresigned sadness, which the bright music seemed to deepen.

  “Well, there’ll be no trouble about that” said Paula, with comfortable assurance, having ended the last waltz. “There’s nothing here to tempt me into flights of originality; there’ll be no difficulty in keeping to the hand-organ effect.”

  “Don’t leave me with those dreadful impressions, Paula; my poor nerves are on edge.”

  “You are too hard on the dances, mamma. There are certain strains here and there that I thought not bad.”

  “It’s your youth that finds it so; I have outlived such illusions.”

  “What an inconsistent little mother it is!” the girl exclaimed, laughing. “You told me only yesterday it was my youth that was so impatient with the commonplace happenings of everyday life. That age, needing to seek its delights, finds them often in unsuspected places, wasn’t that it?”

  “Don’t chatter, Paula; some music, some music!”

  “What shall it be?” asked Paula, touching a succession of harmonious chords. “It must be short.”

  “The ‘Berceuse,’ then; Chopin’s. But soft, soft and a little slowly as your dear father used to play it.”

  Mrs. Von Stoltz leaned her head back amongst the cushions, and with eyes closed, drank in the wonderful strains that came like an ethereal voice out of the past, lulling her spirit into the quiet of sweet memories.

  When the last soft notes had melted into silence, Paula approached her mother and looking into the pale face saw that tears stood beneath the closed eyelids. “Ah! mamma, I have made you unhappy,” she cried, in distress.

  “No, my child; you have given me a joy that you don’t dream of. I have no more pain. Your music has done for me what Faranelli’s singing did for poor King Philip of Spain; it has cured me.”

  There was a glow of pleasure on the warm face and the eyes with almost the brightness of health. “Whilst I listened to you, Paula, my soul went out from me and lived again through an evening long ago. We were in our pretty room at Leipsic. The soft air and the moonlight came through the open-curtained window, making a quivering fret-work along the gleaming waxed floor. You lay in my arms and I felt again the pressure of your warm, plump little body against me. Your father was at the piano playing the ‘Berceuse,’ and all at once you drew my head down and whispered, ‘Ist es nicht wonderschen, mama?’ When it ended, you were sleeping and your father took you from my arms and laid you gently in bed.”

  Paula knelt beside her mother, holding the frail hands which she kissed tenderly.

  “Now you must go, liebchen. Ring for Berta, she will do all that is needed. I feel very strong to-night. But do not come back too late.”

  “I shall be home as early as possible; likely in the last car, I couldn’t stay longer or I should have to walk. You know the house in case there should be need to send for me?”

  “Yes, yes; but there will be no need.”

  Paula kissed her mother lovingly and went out into the drear November night with the roll of dances under her arm.

  II

  The door of the stately mansion at which Paula rang, was opened by a footman, who invited her to “kindly walk upstairs.”

  “Show the young lady into the music room, James,” called from some upper region a voice, doubtless the same whose impossibilities had been so summarily dealt with by Herr Engfelder, and Paula was led through a suite of handsome apartments, the warmth and mellow light of which were very grateful, after the chill out-door air.

  Once in the music room, she removed her wraps and seated herself comfortably to await developments. Before her stood the magnificent “Steinway,” on which her eyes rested with greedy admiration, and her fingers twitched with a desire to awaken its inviting possibilities. The odor of flowers impregnated the air like a subtle intoxicant and over everything hung a quiet smile of expectancy, disturbed by an occasional feminine flutter above stairs, or muffled suggestions of distant household sounds.

  Presently, a young man entered the drawing-room, — no doubt, the college student, for he looked critically and with an air of proprietorship at the festive arrangements, venturing the bestowal of a few improving touches. Then, gazing with pardonable complacency at his own handsome, athletic figure in the mirror, he saw reflected Paula looking at him, with a demure smile lighting her blue eyes.

  “By Jove!” was his startled exclamation. Then, approaching, “I beg pardon, Miss — Miss— “

  “Von Stoltz.”

  “Miss Von Stoltz,” drawing the right conclusion from her simple toilet and the roll of music. “I hadn’t seen you when I came in. Have you been here long? and sitting all alone, too? That’s certainly rough.”

  “Oh, I’ve been here but a few moments, and was very well entertained.”

  “I dare say,” with a glance fu
ll of prognostic complimentary utterances, which a further acquaintance might develop.

  As he was lighting the gas of a side bracket that she might better see to read her music, Mrs. Brainard and her daughter came into the room, radiantly attired and both approached Paula with sweet and polite greeting.

  “George, in mercy!” exclaimed his mother, “put out that gas, you are killing the effect of the candle light.”

  “But Miss Von Stoltz can’t read her music without it, mother.”

  “I’ve no doubt Miss Von Stoltz knows her pieces by heart,” Mrs. Brainard replied, seeking corroboration from Paula’s glance.

  “No, madam; I’m not accustomed to playing dance music, and this is quite new to me,” the girl rejoined, touching the loose sheets that George had conveniently straightened out and placed on the rack.

  “Oh, dear! ‘not accustomed’?” said Miss Brainard. “And Mr. Sohmeir told us he knew you would give satisfaction.”

  Paula hastened to re-assure the thoroughly alarmed young lady on the point of her ability to give perfect satisfaction.

  The door bell now began to ring incessantly. Up the stairs, tripped fleeting opera-cloaked figures, followed by their black robed attendants. The rooms commenced to fill with the pretty hub-bub that a bevy of girls can make when inspired by a close masculine proximity; and Paula, not waiting to be asked, struck the opening bars of an inspiring waltz.

  Some hours later, during a lull in the dancing, when the men were making vigorous applications of fans and handkerchiefs; and the girls beginning to throw themselves into attitudes of picturesque exhaustion — save for the always indefatigable few — a proposition was ventured, backed by clamorous entreaties, which induced George to bring forth his banjo. And an agreeable moment followed, in which that young man’s skill met with a truly deserving applause. Never had his audience beheld such proficiency as he displayed in the handling of his instrument, which was now behind him, now over-head, and again swinging in mid-air like the pendulum of a clock and sending forth the sounds of stirring melody. Sounds so inspiring that a pretty little black-eyed fairy, an acknowledged votary of Terpsichore, and George’s particular admiration, was moved to contribute a few passes of a Virginia breakdown, as she had studied it from life on a Southern plantation. The act closing amid a spontaneous babel of hand clapping and admiring bravos.