Bayou Suzette

by Lois Lenski

  “W’y I be ’fraid?” asked Grandmère. “The ghost, she talk nice to me, then she just walk in the by’a, she melt away like swamp fog.”

  “M’sieu’ Lafitte, he bring plenty ghostses!” laughed Suzette. “He bring ghostses to guard his gold pieces, where he bury ’em in the ground, Papa Jules say. You see those ghostses, too, Grandmère? The one M’sieu’ Johnson, he don’t believe in? The one where Lafitte bury his gold?”

  “I don’t dig for no gold,” said Grandmère. “I let the gold stay where M’sieu’ Lafitte he bury it.”

  “You not ’fraid of the ghostses, Grandmère?”

  “No, I not ’fraid of no ghostses.” Grandmère sighed.

  “W’y you make such a big sigh, Grandmère?” asked Suzette, coming to her side. “You not feel well, no? You been workin’ too hard, yes? Let me take the brush, I put the whitewash on for you. I not spill a drop.”

  Grandmère let Suzette take the brush from her hand and she sat down on the ground near by. She sighed again heavily.

  “You feel tired, Grandmère, yes? You feel sad, yes?” inquired Suzette. She had never seen Grandmère sit down in the graveyard before.

  Grandmère leaned her head on her hand. Then she brushed a tear from her eye. “Yes, I feels sad, me. I feels ver’, ver’ sad.”

  Suzette put the brush back carefully into the bucket. She came and sat down beside Grandmère. She leaned against her shoulder.

  “You mustn’t feel sad, Grandmère,” she said. “Suzette, she here with you.”

  Grandmère patted Suzette’s hand, then her trouble came out. “When I die, I don’t know who gonna take care of my graveyard.” Grandmère wept.

  Suzette jumped to her feet.

  “W’y Grandmère, have you forgot me? Have you not see how nice I put the whitewash on and not make one puddle on the ground? Don’t you know I fix to take care of your graveyard after you? Don’t you know I all the time listen to my Grandmère and do w’at she say?”

  Grandmère looked up and smiled through her tears.

  “You not ’fraid of ghostses?”

  “No!” said Suzette, stoutly. “Of course I en’t seen none yet, but when they come, I remem’ my Grandmère and I not ’fraid same like my Grandmère.”

  Grandmère rose slowly to her feet. She put her hands on Suzette’s shoulders and spoke solemnly. “You do w’at I say when I gone? You take good care all my graves and Jean Lafitte’s grave, the same like I do myself?”

  “I promise, me!” said Suzette. “I do w’at you say.”

  Grandmère wiped her eyes again.

  “You not sad eny more, Grandmère, no?” asked Suzette.

  “No, I happy now, ma petite.” She smiled. “I t’ink I go home now for leetle rest. I gettin’ old. I let you finish whitewash the big tomb. I come back again ’fore dark, to see how white and purty it look.”

  Suzette looked anxiously after Grandmère as she walked away, cane in hand. Then she went on with the whitewashing. The tomb was large and it took a long time. After it was all done, she had to go over it again and cover up all the spots and streaks she had missed. Then at last it was done.

  The afternoon had passed quickly and dusk was already falling. Dark shadows from the thick-shaded live oaks fell aslant on the Indian mound. Suzette joined Marteel.

  “Felix, he waitin’ for us,” she said. “He gonna dig for gold pieces like the man from Minnesota.”

  “W’at he want gold pieces for?” asked Marteel.

  “She, I don’t know,” said Suzette.

  Marteel was very quiet and thoughtful. At last she spoke. “W’y your Grandmère not leave the dead people alone? W’y she not make medicine to quiet the spirits of the dead? Then the ghosts not come no more. They sleep in peace.”

  “Make medicine? W’at dat?” asked Suzette.

  “That w’at the Injuns do,” explained Marteel. “I see the ole squaw do it once.”

  “W’at she do?” persisted Suzette. “How she make medicine?”

  Marteel broke some branches off a tree and laid them in a circular pattern. “I lay the fire,” she said, going through the motions. “I kneel by the fire.” She knelt and began to sway back and forth, saying strange words that Suzette could not understand. “I talk to the spirits of the dead. I tell them to lie still. I tell them to stay in their graves and not walk out and make people ’fraid. I tell them to sleep in peace. When I get done, Suzette, she not be ’fraid no more.” The swaying and strange chanting continued.

  So absorbed had they become, the girls had not heard footsteps. Suddenly there stood Grandmère beside them. Her face was black with anger, black as a thunder cloud.

  “Wicked savage!” she cried, in a harsh voice. “W’at you doin’?” She raised her cane as if to strike.

  “Oh, Grandmère!” cried Suzette, running to her. “Marteel, she not hurt anything. Marteel, she tell the ghostses to lie still and not come out again. She tell them so I won’t be ’fraid no more.”

  “Such heathenish practice in a Christian graveyard!” cried Grandmère, in a shocked voice. “Git outa here, you. Don’t you never set foot in my graveyard again!”

  “Grandmère! Grandmère!” cried Suzette, weeping. “She only show me how the ole squaw make medicine.”

  “Chant no good without fire, ole squaw say,” added Marteel.

  Grandmère looked from one girl to the other. They repeated what they had said and Grandmère listened. Her black looks faded away.

  “Don’t never do it again,” she said to Marteel, seriously. “We not do things like that here. We’re not Injuns. We not like it. We do things our own way with our dead.”

  Marteel nodded as if she understood.

  “The whitewash, it purty, Suzette,” said Grandmère. “You do it ver’ well.” Grandmère took up the bucket and brooms and walked out of the graveyard.

  The girls followed slowly, letting her go on ahead. Then they cut across to the big field back of Theo Bergeron’s house. They saw the three oak trees, went to the one nearest the graveyard and sat down under it. The place was very quiet. The wind rose and the swinging branches made mournful, moaning sounds. Suzette shivered.

  “I not like it here, me,” she said. “I wonder w’y the boys not come. Soon it be too dark to dig, yes.”

  “Mebbe they dig by the light of the moon,” suggested Marteel.

  “Me, I hope not,” said Suzette. “I wish we ask Beulah and Doreen to come and keep us company …”

  Just then a shower of shells and stones fell from the tree overhead. The girls jumped to their feet.

  “W’at dat?” asked Suzette, but Marteel did not answer.

  “It … it …” cried Suzette, turning pale, “it the ghost … throwin’ t’ings?”

  She clutched Marteel by the arm. Marteel showed no fear. Instead, she smiled.

  “It … it not’ing to laugh at …” wailed Suzette.

  It was almost dark under the oak tree now.

  Suddenly, out from behind the second tree, came a figure in white, advancing slowly. It was dressed in white from head to foot, with no head, arms or legs showing.

  “The ghost!” cried Suzette, clutching Marteel. “Tell it to go ’way, Marteel. You not ’fraid of ghostses!”

  The white-clad figure moved closer and closer, making a moaning sound that could be clearly heard above the rustling of the trees.

  “I … am … the ghost … of Jean Lafitte!” Words now could be distinguished. “Who been stealin’ … my gold?” A worse shower of mud, moss and shells descended upon the two girls.

  Marteel stood still, with a curious smile on her face, watching the ghost advance.

  “Tell it to go ’way,” begged Suzette. “You not ’fraid of ghostses.”

  “I hear you tell Grandmère yourself,” said Marteel, “you not ’fraid of no ghostses. You tell the truth?”

  “Well, I … well, I never see one before!” gasped Suzette.

  “You ’fraid?” demanded Marteel. “Remember, I make m
edicine for you.”

  “I remember,” said Suzette. She remembered, too, how Grandmère was not afraid of ghosts.

  “No, I not ’fraid,” she said, bravely.

  “Then do w’at I say,” said Marteel, quietly. “Go up to the ghost and pull off his clothes!”

  “Oh, I can’t!” cried Suzette, wide-eyed.

  “Go! Do w’at I say!” ordered Marteel, sternly. “Go! Quick! Do it! Now, this minute!”

  Suzette had never heard Marteel speak in such a tone before and she knew she had to obey. She gathered all her courage, rushed up to the ghost and tugged at its white draperies. The ghost did not vanish in the bayou or melt away in swamp fog. It turned to run, but not quickly enough. Marteel was by Suzette’s side and together they stripped off the white clothes. The ghost ran, leaving sheet and pillow case in their hands.

  It was Felix!

  “Ha ha ha! Ho ho ho! You believe in ghostses! You ’fraid of ghostses!” laughed the boys. “You ’fraid of sticks and mud and shells!”

  Theo Bergeron and René Dugas and Ambrose and Jacques slipped down from the tree and ran off as fast as they could go.

  “Now you ’fraid?” asked Marteel, smiling her broad smile.

  “No! Me, I not ’fraid of ghostses no more,” said Suzette. “I never be ’fraid of ghostses again!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Wild Thing

  It was true Marteel had a fine bed to sleep in. But that did not mean that she slept in it.

  “Where you sleep last night?” demanded Suzette, when Marteel appeared on the wharf in mid-morning. “I look and see—your bed, it en’t been slep’ in. The quilt, it en’t even muss’ up.”

  “Under the bushes,” said Marteel.

  Suzette and her father sat on their wharf, baiting a crab line. Little Noonoo squatted beside them, watching.

  “W’y you not sleep in the fine bed I make for you?” demanded Suzette, severely.

  “On the grass, under the bushes, it cool,” said Marteel.

  “You crazy?” cried Suzette. “It damp out there. It wet. The water, it never drain off. En’t you know, you get rheumatiz’ if you sleep out there?”

  “Rheumatiz’?” laughed Marteel. “W’at dat?”

  “And the mosquito’, they eat you up!”

  “Mosquito’, w’at dat?” laughed Marteel.

  Papa Jules smiled.

  “She’s a wild thing, don’t never forget that!” he said, in a low voice to Suzette. “No use scolding. You can’t tame a wild thing!”

  Marteel sat down and helped. Papa Jules cut up the black mullet for bait. Beside him lay a pile of “snoots,” pieces of string cut into ten-inch lengths. Marteel’s fingers were clever. She tied loops in the ends of the snoots, put the bait in and pulled the loop tight. Then Suzette tied the baited snoots two feet apart onto the long crab line. It would take two hundred baits or more to reach across the bayou.

  Felix appeared, his arm full of small sticks of various sizes. He waded at the edge of the bayou, picking and choosing among the drifted branches, sticks and boards which had been washed in against the shore.

  “I makin’ cages, me!” he announced. “I catchin’ blackbirds, me! Gonna eat blackbird stew! You want I ketch you a red bird to put in a cage and hang on your front gallery, Suzette? A pretty red bird, yes?”

  Suzette made no reply. Noonoo slipped down off the wharf and began to pick up sticks too, at the water’s edge.

  Papa Jules frowned and spoke to Felix. “Don’t you ever work to help your Papa and your Maman?”

  “Me? W’y work?” cried Felix. He went back home, whistling.

  Papa Jules shook his head and said, “Brother Serdot, he better look out w’at kind a boy he got.”

  “Noonoo, git away from the by’a!” called Maman, from the window. “Susu, don’t let Noonoo fall in the by’a. Noonoo, he en’t used to the by’a. Suzette, watch him.”

  Suzette pulled Noonoo safely up to the wharf again.

  The baiting of the crab line continued. The sun shone hot and bright.

  “Noonoo, git away from the by’a!” called Maman again. “Noonoo! Noonoo! Suzette, where Noonoo?”

  Suzette looked around, bewildered. There was Noonoo sitting quietly beside her.

  “Here Noonoo, Maman,” she cried. “He en’t fell in the by’a. He safe by Suzette.”

  The morning wore on.

  Papa Jules finished cutting up the bait and went away. Suzette wondered when the last snoot would be tied. The crab line seemed long enough to reach from Little Village all the way to New Orleans. The sun shone brighter and hotter and the mosquitoes were bad. Now and then Suzette stopped long enough to wave her grass mosquito brush through the air to chase them off.

  Suddenly she looked around and saw that Noonoo was gone from her side. “Where Noonoo?” she cried, jumping up.

  She looked toward the house, but Maman, fortunately, was not at the pot-shelf window. Suzette’s eyes swept the bayou waters on all sides of the wharf. No Noonoo. She ran to the top of the levee and looked over the yard. No Noonoo.

  “Where Noonoo?” she cried, in distress. “Marteel, where Noonoo go?”

  Marteel was still busily tying snoots. At last she looked up. “He carry off sticks,” she announced.

  “W’y you not stop him?” demanded Suzette, stamping her foot. “W’y you not run after him? W’y you not tell me which way he went?”

  Still Marteel went on tying snoots, unconcerned.

  Suzette came down and gave her a kick. Marteel could be very exasperating. “Where Noonoo go, you?”

  “That way!” said Marteel, pointing.

  “He go after Felix?” asked Suzette.

  Marteel nodded.

  Like a whirlwind, Suzette set off for Nonc Serdot’s house. She must find Noonoo before Maman discovered his absence. She saw Nonc Moumout starting out in his skiff.

  “Nonc Moumout, you see Noonoo?” she called.

  Nonc Moumout shook his head.

  A bicycle bore down swiftly and went whizzing past. Suzette stepped out of its way just in time.

  “Jean Broussard, yes!” she cried. “W’y he not look where he goin’? Just like a Broussard, tryin’ to kill people, yes!” She made an ugly face at him.

  Tante Céleste came out of Nonc Moumout’s house. Tante Toinette came out to the gate with her. Tante Toinette was wide and fat and had a mustache on her upper lip. Suzette started to inquire of her two aunts, but changed her mind. It was better they, like Maman, should not know Noonoo was lost.

  “Where you runnin’ to so fast, cherie?” called Tante Céleste. But Suzette did not answer.

  By this time she was in Nonc Serdot’s yard, with the gate shut tight behind her. She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. There on the front gallery she saw a yellow oriole in a cage.

  Suzette walked round the house. Tante Henriette was doing the family wash. She raised her bent back from the tub and put her hand wearily to her head. Suzette’s cousins, Odalia and Olivia and Ophelia, were hanging clothes on the line. There were clothes of all sizes, shapes and colors.

  “You seen little Noonoo, Tante Henriette?” inquired Suzette, as calmly as she could.

  “Seems like he was here a while ago,” replied Tante Henriette, in a tired voice.

  “You seen little Noonoo, Odalia?” asked Suzette.

  “No, I en’t!” snapped Odalia. “Me, I been busy washin’.”

  “You seen little Noonoo, Olivia?”

  “No, I been busy washin’, too.”

  “You seen little Noonoo, Ophelia?”

  “No, I en’t.”

  It was clear there was no help here. Just then Felix shot out from the back yard like a bullet from a gun.

  “Where you goin’, Felix?” called Tante Henriette. “Don’t go ’way now. It soon be dinner time.”

  But Felix was already out of sight and hearing.

  Suzette hurried to the back part of the yard. The yard was more untidy than others along the bayou
. Grass and weeds grew high and uncut, a few fruit trees leaned at crazy angles, while boxes, boards and trash were piled up in odd places. In an old wreck of a skiff, which was falling to pieces, she found little Noonoo. He was seated quietly in a puddle of stagnant water, playing boat with his sticks.

  “Oh, Noonoo!” cried Suzette happily, lifting him out.

  Her relief was so great, she smiled as Marteel came up, forgetting her former impatience. “There one of Felix’ cages,” she explained, pointing.

  A cage lay near by on the ground. The sticks had been fastened together without nail or string, making a latticework contrivance. One side was propped up by means of a stick, with a bait of rice and grits on the ground beneath. When a bird came to eat of the bait, a slight touch of the stick made the cage fall down and hold him captive.

  “W’at he catch birds for?” demanded Marteel, with sober face.

  “Oh, he like blackbird stew!” answered Suzette.

  Marteel frowned. “His Maman, she cook them?”

  “Yes,” said Suzette. “Blackbird stew, it good.”

  “His Maman, she not have fish enough to eat? Nor rice? Nor beans?”

  “Yes, she got plenty fish and rice and beans.”

  “Then, w’y she eat blackbird? W’at the blackbird do to Felix, he not like them?”

  “He like them in stew,” repeated Suzette. “Sometime he sell them by Père Eugène. He get 35¢ a dozen for tit-tits, little sparrows, and 50¢ apiece for red birds.”

  “He sell them?” cried Marteel, in a shocked voice. “His Maman let him do that?”

  “Yes,” said Suzette.

  Marteel walked round the yard. She came to a cage in which a blackbird was confined. She lifted it and the bird flew away.

  “W’at you doin’?” cried Suzette, in alarm.

  Marteel did not reply. She went to several other cages on the ground and she let the birds out. She hunted all through the wilderness of the back yard. She found more cages in the trees and she let all the birds out.

  Ophelia peeked through the bushes and cried, “W’at she doin’, that Injun girl?” She ran back into the house to tell her mother and sisters what was happening.

  “Felix, he gonna be mad when he find out,” said Suzette to herself, as she watched.