by Lois Lenski
“Oh no, M’sieu’ Pierre!” Suzette’s chin went up. “Me, a Durand, I don’t steal not’ing. Me, I fish fish and fish crab and M’sieu’ Guidry, he give me cash money for it.”
“Ver’ good,” said ’Tit Pierre, as the skiff moved away from the wharf.
Suzette took the ticking and the cheesecloth and ran back to the shed. She hid the bundles away in a dark corner behind a barrel of muskrat traps. Her plans were working out nicely.
She ran to the kitchen, found a loaf of bread and stuffed it in a paper sack. Then she joined the waiting Indian girl.
“Come, Marteel!” she said. “Now our chance, while ev’body ’long the by’a is watchin’ the skiff peddlers. You paddle a pirogue, yes?”
Marteel nodded. “Like a bird over the water.”
“We go in the pirogue to the swamp,” said Suzette.
CHAPTER THREE
The Cypress Swamp
Marteel showed no surprise and she needed no urging. She was more at home in a pirogue than walking on land. It was the Indians who first hollowed out a log of wood by burning it with fire, then shaped it into the form of a shallow flat canoe rising no more than three inches above the water, and called it a dug-out. Marteel, like all Indians, had been born to the art of handling a pirogue.
The skiff peddlers had moved on up the bayou and were now in front of Nonc Lodod’s house. The crowd of women and children had moved along with them. All but Felix and Jacques, who, knee-deep in the water beside the wharf, had caught an eel and were trying to put it in a big rusty tin.
The long slender pirogue, with Marteel’s hand on the paddle, moved silently out into the bayou in long sweeps. So lightly did it move, it seemed scarcely to touch the water at all.
“Where you goin’, Suzette?” shouted Felix, letting the eel slip out of his hands.
“Who takin’ you off in the pirogue, Suzette?” cried Jacques, staring.
But Suzette did not answer.
Marteel headed down stream, away from the village. Suzette took out the loaf of bread, broke it in two and gave half to the Indian girl. But she let it lie beside her and did not eat. Kneeling comfortably on the curved bottom of the pirogue, her eyes fixed straight ahead, she raised and lowered the flashing paddle. Past low shores of waving marsh grass and reeds, past patches of bristling, sun-splashed palmetto, past thorny vine-hung brambles the pirogue moved.
Suzette did not tell Marteel where to go. She seemed to be well acquainted with the Barataria waterways, with the salt-grass flats as well as the swamps farther inland. Soon she turned away from the bayou into a side canal. It took only a few moments for the pirogue to plunge from bright sunshine into the dark shadows of the swamp.
“Oh, how fast you paddle!” cried Suzette.
Marteel did not answer.
Now the forest came down to the very banks of the stream. Tall cypress trees, rooted below water and braced fanlike to resist both wind and flood, humped up their wooden “knees” on all sides, to give breath to their roots below. Their lofty, stiff branches above were draped in long streamers of gray Spanish moss. Here and there the sun splashed through, lighting up the shadows and making ghostlike reflections in the stagnant water.
“We pick moss in the swamp,” said Suzette, explaining her errand. “We pick plenty moss. We make a bed for Marteel to sleep in.”
“A bed for me?” laughed Marteel, unbelieving. “My bed, it the damp ground, the winding stream, the branch of the oak tree, the wet swamp! I sleep enywhere, me!”
“My Papa, he used to be a moss picker,” Suzette went on. “Before he got shot, he pick moss every day. He soak it and hang it on the fence to dry. Then he sell it to Père Eugène for the groceries. We have all the time plenty groceries to eat then.”
Above their heads and on all sides as far as they could see, the ghostly gray moss dropped in never-ending curtains. Both girls knew it well. To the French girl, moss was something to sell, but to the Indian girl it was a gift to stir the imagination. She began to speak in a low voice.
“Marteel, she belong to the tribe of the Houmas. The Indians name themselves ‘Houmas’—the People-of-the-Rising-Sun.” She reached for a low-hanging strand of moss and twined it round her head like a crown. “The Houmas, they have their own name for the moss—they call it Gray-Hair-Falling-Down.”
Suzette was surprised to hear Marteel speak so plainly. She had used only halting words before.
“Papa Jules, he say the French people name it Spanish-beard, ’cause the Spanish people bring it. The Spanish people, they name it French-wig, ’cause they say the French people bring it. The French and the Spanish, they not love each other. Each blame the other for the moss. W’y the Indians name it Gray-Hair-Falling-Down?”
“The Houmas, they like to tell how it got its name,” replied Marteel. “Long, long ago, a Houma princess was kill’ by the enemy on her wedding day. Her people, they bury her beneath a big, big oak tree. They have an old custom—they cut off the bride’s hair and they hang it on a limb. A storm, it come in the night, but it not blow the bride’s hair away. The hair, it start to grow where it hang. Many moons they go by—the black hair it turn gray. It grow and it grow. It spread from the oak tree to the cypress tree. It spread all through the great forest—Gray-Hair-Falling-Down all through the forest.”
Marteel paused thoughtfully, then went on. “The Houmas, they pull the moss from the trees and use it too. They dry the inside fibers and twist them to make a strong rope that never break. The ole Injun squaw, she weave the moss fibers on a wooden frame over and under, she make big mat for the floor of her palmetto house.”
Marteel’s voice faded away.
Suddenly a blue heron flashed across the pirogue’s path. Then above the even sounds of the paddle strokes, mysterious noises could be heard, squawkings, gruntings, rustlings and chirpings. Before Suzette knew it, they were deep in the cypress swamp. She looked about her and knew they had come a long way.
Every bayou child knows the swamps as well as he knows the sunny streams, the winding bayous, the boggy marshes and the wet prairies of Louisiana. But a sudden fear gripped the heart of Suzette. At that moment she realized for the first time that an Indian girl might know them far better than a white child ever could. In the woods, in the swamp, Marteel was a different creature Here she came truly alive. What was it she had said about her bed being in the wet swamp? Did she really mean it?
Now the sun hid its face and the swamp grew darker and more strange. The chorus of weird noises pressed closer on Suzette’s ear. She shivered with fear. Where was the Indian girl taking her?
“Marteel!” she cried aloud. “Me, I don’t like to go so far. We gotta have solid ground to step on or we can’t pick moss. All round here, it water. Me, I don’t like the smelly water with the green scum on top, I wanna go back!”
“Green scum!” exclaimed Marteel. “You don’t know w’at it is? The buds from the trees, they fall down on the water, that w’at it is.” She laid her paddle down. “Listen!” she said, cupping her hand to her ear.
“W’at you hear?” asked Suzette. “Me, I hear frogs croaking.”
“Marteel, she hear w’at the birds say to each other,” replied the Indian girl. “Marteel, she hear w’at the wind say when it blow softly through the trees and shake the leaves. Marteel, she hear w’at the animals, her brothers, tell each other. All the wild animals they Marteel’s brothers. Marteel, she talk to them, she listen to all they say.”
“But I can’t hear all that, me,” said Suzette. “I hear croaking and twittering and grunting, but I can’t tell w’at they sayin’.”
“No!” said Marteel. “The savage hears best, because he loves the swamp, the forest. He never ’fraid.”
The silence was broken now by the louder croakings of alligators and the raucous screams of swamp fowls.
“Now I show you where my friend, brother Alligator, lives,” said Marteel, taking up the paddle again.
“Mais non!” cried Suzette, shrinking bac
k. “Me, I only want to pick moss for your bed.”
The pirogue moved silently along a devious passage, dodging cypress knees and slipping around fern-covered tree trunks.
“Brother Bear, he live here,” said Marteel, pulling up close beside the hollowed-out bole of a huge root-sunken cypress. She picked up a handful of dry leaves and let them fall. “He not home today. He not here to talk to us. He not been here for a long time—mebbe he dead.”
The pirogue moved on through the glassy, unruffled water. The long streamers of moss hung motionless. The air was still. Marteel rested her paddle and the pirogue drifted. The sun, shining again, sifted through in fanlike slits. Marteel’s face glowed with a strange light. Was it only the sun’s reflection or was it the radiance of happiness?
Suzette looked at her and was ashamed of her former fears. She was safer in the swamp with Marteel than with anyone else, just because she knew it so well.
Marteel pushed the pirogue along slowly.
“Right here the alligators live,” she said, pointing to the bank. A litter of about fifty eggs, arranged in three layers in a mound of earth, moss and grass, lay exposed to the sun among the grasses and brambles at the water’s edge.
“Alligator eggs!” cried Suzette. “If Ambrose, he see ’em …”
“Listen!” interrupted Marteel.
“W’at you hear?” asked Suzette.
“People coming. Voices.” Marteel pushed on farther.
The laughing voices came closer and soon a skiff appeared. In it were Ambrose, Jacques and Felix.
“We followed you,” explained Felix. “We watched where you went. We tole Ambrose and he come too.”
“W’at you come out here with that Injun girl for?” demanded Ambrose. “All this long way in the swamp? We almost lose ourself a hundred time. W’at you come here for?”
“To pick moss,” said Suzette.
“Plenty moss nearer home,” growled Ambrose. “No need to come so far. Maman, she not want you to come to the swamp. W’y you en’t mind our Maman? Come, we gotta go home.”
“Me, I en’t goin’,” said Suzette, stubbornly. “Not till I get my moss, I en’t.”
“You better come quick! Plenty alligator round here,” Ambrose went on. “Papa he come here plenty time on alligator hunt. You wanna see alligator?”
“I see a ’gator’s nest right back there,” said Suzette.
“Where?” cried Ambrose, suddenly all eagerness.
“Where?” cried the other boys. “We get the eggs. We take ’em home.”
The shore was solid land to step on. Ambrose and Felix jumped out of the skiff and ran to the nest.
“We take ’em home and hatch ’em,” cried Felix. “We feed ’em and raise a whole flock of ’gators in a tin tub.”
The boys took off their caps, filled them with alligator eggs and carried them back to the skiff. Meanwhile, Suzette jumped out of the pirogue and Marteel followed. Like a flying squirrel, Marteel slipped up a large tree, darted about among its branches and pulled loose great streamers of moss, dropping them at Suzette’s feet. Soon the boys, too, were in the trees and the moss was falling in showers. Their happy shouts rang through the forest and blotted out all the strange and unfamiliar noises.
On the ground, Jacques and Suzette began gathering up piles of moss so large they could scarcely stagger under the load.
“We fill the skiff, too!” cried Suzette, happily. “Ambrose, you swap some by Père Eugène for Maman’s groceries. Then she not scold.”
The boys came down and helped to load. Felix made a great pile in the stern of the skiff, jumping on the spongy mass to press it down. Jacques made a smaller one in the bow, leaving room in the center of the boat for Ambrose to row, and for the alligator eggs at his feet.
“Jacques and me, we ride on top!” shouted Felix.
Suzette began to load the pirogue. She pushed aside a bristly palmetto bush, threw the moss into the pirogue, lost her balance and her footing at the same time.
“O-o-o-o-o-h!” she cried, as she slid into the black, swampy water and floundered about.
Suddenly she heard a hissing and then a grunting sound and, before she knew it, she gave another shriek. Like the surprised squawk of a strange bird, her shrill cry rang through the swamp and sent sharp echoes flying.
Then she saw what it was. There before her, between the pirogue and the shore appeared a large alligator, raising its fearful head out of the water. Crossing the shallow, sluggish stream behind it, other alligators splashed and twisted, churning up foaming ripples. The water, so empty and quiet a moment before, was now alive.
Suzette could not think—but she did not need to.
Marteel, standing on the shore directly behind and above her, held a large armful of moss uplifted, ready to throw. As she heard Suzette’s cry, her eyes opened wide with horror. The next instant the moss went flying over Suzette’s head and came down with a thud in the alligator’s face. The enraged animal let out a thunderous roar.
“Alligator! ’Gator! ’Gator!” yelled Marteel. There was panic in her voice.
“Suzette! My sister, Suzette!” This time there was love and fear.
Then she was in the waist-deep water beside Suzette, pushing and shoving her toward shore.
“Take hold that grape vine,” she said, breathless. “Now, up!”
With the help of the dangling vine Suzette climbed up on all fours. Then Marteel clambered up behind her.
“’Gator! ’Gator!” yelled Marteel again. “Go! Quick!”
The boys did not need to be told. Jacques and Felix were already safely on top of the moss piles in the skiff. They stared at the alligators with frightened eyes. Ambrose jumped in and took the oars.
“Can you bring Suzette in the pirogue?” he cried, looking back.
The two girls were already in.
The alligator, blinded and angered by the moss in its face, was thrashing about wildly in the water, turning and twisting in every direction. The pirogue rocked dangerously up and down on the churning waters.
“You go first, Ambrose,” answered Marteel, calmly. “I follow.”
She turned once to look back.
“Not Suzette, brother Alligator, not Suzette!” she said under her breath.
CHAPTER FOUR
Hidden Treasure
“You have come to the right place, Monsieur!” Papa Jules brought out a chair. “It give me pleasure to speak to you on so engaging a subject. Make yourself comfortable, Monsieur.”
As Suzette came into the kitchen, she saw that there was company. Papa Jules was speaking with a strange man, dressed in city clothes.
“You come from New Orleans, Monsieur?” asked Papa Jules, politely.
“My name is Johnson and my home is in Minnesota,” said the stranger. “Even as far away as Minnesota, we have heard of the great Lafitte and his treasure. I came to New Orleans for a visit and there I was told to come to Barataria—if I would hear more. I stopped first at the store—Eugène LeBlanc is the storekeeper’s name, I believe—and he sent me to you. He said you knew more about the treasure than anybody else.”
“Quite right, Monsieur. It is I, Jules Durand, who know more about it than anybody else. Ah, Monsieur, if my brother Moumout had not talked too much, we would be rich today!”
“Rich!” scoffed Maman Clothilde, from her corner by the stove. “If you tell that ole fable ’bout the treasure, don’t expect me to sit still and listen.” She turned to the stranger. “Digging for treasure, that w’at he like most to do, M’sieu’, instead of honest work to support his family.”
“There is always enchantment in the search, Madame,” replied the stranger, with a smile, “even when you find nothing.”
“So I notice, M’sieu’!” said Maman, with bitter sarcasm. “There is all the time more feesh in the sea, even when you ketch not’ing.”
Since Maman did not stir to offer hospitality, Papa Jules spoke to Suzette. The coffee pot stood on the back of the stove as usual.<
br />
“Bring out cups and pour us black coffee, Suzette,” said he. “Monsieur, he drink with me to his new adventure. Ah, if only I were young again, with no care in the world, no wife and no children …”
Maman frowned but said nothing.
Ambrose and Jacques stumbled in, followed by Cousin Felix. They were hot and tired after the swamp adventure, but, seeing the stranger, sat down and said nothing. Only Felix, always bold, spoke out.
“Fix me coffee, too, Suzette. I thirsty, me.”
Suzette brought coffee. In one hand she held a thin white cup on a saucer. This she handed to the stranger. In the other, she held a cup without a saucer. It had blue and red flowers on it and a gold band round the top.
“Give it to me,” demanded Felix. “The swamp, it make me thirsty.”
“You can’t have my Papa’s cup, you.” Suzette trembled at his mention of the swamp. She went on talking, to cover his remark. “You might break it. My Papa, he won’t drink from no other cup. I give it to him when he sick in bed, that w’y he like it so much. I buy him the nicest cup Père Eugène have in his store.”
Papa Jules frowned. He did not like his children to talk so much before a stranger.
Suzette picked up a thick heavy cup with a nick in it, filled it hastily and handed it to Felix. He drained it at a gulp and put it down noisily. “Well,” he said, “I gotta go take care of my ’gator eggs, gotta make ’em a nice nest outa straw …”
“Whose ’gator eggs?” demanded Ambrose. “Them eggs are …”
Papa Jules coughed loudly. The boys hushed at once.
“More coffee, Monsieur Johnson, yes? Suzette!”
It was when Suzette came to the stove to pour Mr. Johnson’s coffee that Maman first noticed. “W’at I smell?” she cried, sniffing. “It smell like somet’ing dead. It come off you, Suzette.”
Papa Jules frowned and coughed, but it did no good. Maman looked at Suzette more closely, then stared. And well she might, for Suzette’s dress, only partly dried, was covered with mud and streaked with black swamp muck.