Ellie nodded, unable to find her voice just now. To think they were willing, at their age, to try to learn a whole new language just so some stranger wouldn’t hurt their grandchildren in the name of good citizenship. And what kind of wrongheaded thinking had led school authorities into such nonsense in the first place?
There were smiles all around as the women squeezed each other’s hands and spoke excitedly in French.
“I imagine Sunday afternoons would be the best time—when you ladies aren’t busy?” Ellie asked when they had quieted down.
“Oui!” Tante Dodo said. “You come my house, Eh-LEE. We gather at quatre—at—” Tante Dodo held up four fingers.
“At four o’clock on Sunday afternoon?”
“Oui! Four o’clock. I cook. You teach. We pass a good time.”
Ellie smiled at the group. “Alright then, ladies. Starting this Sunday, I’ll meet you at Tante Dodo’s at four and we’ll pass a good time.”
“We pay,” Tante Dodo said.
“No, no.” Ellie shook her head. “You don’t have to pay me anything.”
“We pay,” Tante Dodo insisted. “What we pay?”
Ellie thought it over. “We’ll trade. I’ll teach you ladies English, and you teach me how to cook like you. Deal?”
Tante Dodo translated for the women. “Oui!” they all said.
As the women stood up to go, they hugged Ellie and kissed her on the cheek.
“Au revoir!” Ellie called after them, waving goodbye as they set out.
The cabin was quiet again, and the sun was going down. Ellie could hear the French chatter of Tante Dodo and her circle as they made their way along the bank and back to the little cabin beyond the trees.
As the last of the ladies vanished from sight, Ellie saw a motorboat turn into the slough and head in her direction. She stood on the screened porch, squinting to make out the lone figure. He was almost to the dock before she recognized, of all people, Boone Strahan. Have mercy. The superintendent of education, and here she stood barefoot, in overalls. She flew into her bedroom, unfastening as she ran, threw off the overalls, and slipped on a cotton dress and a pair of flats. There was no helping her hair. The superintendent was already knocking.
Ellie opened the door to find a very awkward Boone Strahan staring at her.
“Hello,” she said. “Would you like to come in?”
“Yes—I mean—that is—could we sit out here?” Boone had taken off his suit jacket and was nervously fussing with his tie.
“Of course,” Ellie said. “Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you some tea?”
“No, thank you. I’m sorry to just appear unannounced. I won’t stay long. The town doctor told me where to find you.”
Boone took a seat in the porch swing as Ellie pulled up a rocker across from him. There was a long silence, with only the late afternoon sounds of crickets singing and fish jumping, before Boone finally spoke again. “Do teachers down here really paddle these children for speaking French?”
“Not always,” Ellie said. “Sometimes it’s a slap on the hand with a ruler. Sometimes they make them stand in a corner in front of the class. Sometimes they make them write ‘I will speak English only’ over and over on the chalkboard during recess or deprive them of things they enjoy, like story time.”
Boone rubbed his brow as if to wipe away the images Ellie was conjuring. “It just seems so cruel.”
“It is cruel,” she said. “And stupid.”
“But we have to stamp out this French.”
“Why?” Ellie said.
“To make sure Louisiana doesn’t get left behind. To keep pace with the rest of America now that the war’s over.”
“But how does it hold us back to have schoolchildren who speak two languages instead of one?” Ellie countered.
“Well, because they prefer French to American English. We have to break the Cajuns of speaking French entirely—eradicate it from their daily life. If we don’t, they’ll slide back into their native tongue, and then we’ll have a whole region of the state that can’t communicate in the language of America.”
“That’s just not true, Mr. Strahan.”
“Please—call me Boone.”
“Okay, Boone. You call me Ellie and we’ll talk this through. I just had a group of ladies—women past seventy—come here and ask me to teach them English so they can help their grandchildren speak it consistently and stop getting punished in school. The people here understand the importance of English. But you can’t take away their native language. It’s part of their culture. It’s part of their heritage and their identity.”
“Daddy says—that is to say, the thinking is—not only are they speaking French instead of English, but they’re speaking an unusual dialect that isn’t even standard. It makes us look backward.”
“I expect there are people in places like New York and Chicago who would say the same thing about the way you and I speak English.”
“True, but—”
“Tell me something, Boone. You and your family ever go overseas? Vacation in Europe maybe?”
“We did the tour when I was fourteen or fifteen, and then I went back with some friends after the war.”
“Did you learn any other languages for your trip?”
“I already knew Spanish from the boys’ academy. And then I learned a little conversational Italian and German.”
“And did any native speakers in Germany or Italy or Spain hit you with a stick when you couldn’t find the words in their language and slipped back into English?”
Boone stared at the floor. “Of course not.”
“So why was it okay for you to fall back on your native language but it’s not okay for these children to do the exact same thing? Why do we punish them for being bilingual when we should be praising them for it? Most of all, how can we sleep at night when we’ve made innocent children so afraid of school that they stop eating and sleeping and they cry all the way to class? How do fear and shame help us in the great march forward? How have fear and shame ever helped any child?”
Boone looked up at Ellie. She had struck a nerve. “Fear and shame can cripple a child,” he said.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Boone stared at her for a moment before he abruptly stood up. “I should go.” Before she could answer, he was out the door and headed for the dock. She followed him as far as the bottom of the porch steps. He stopped a few feet away from her, turned, and said, “I’m really not an awful person, you know. Everybody can see my father put me in this job, for which I’m utterly unqualified. But as long as I have to be here, I want to help these children—if you’ll show me how.”
She smiled at him. “I believe that. Otherwise I would’ve run you off my porch with a broom.”
Boone smiled back at her and gave a small bow. “Good afternoon, Ellie.”
“Bonjour, Boone.”
GIG LUETRELL WAITED LIKE A SNAKE hiding in the Spanish moss until downtown Bernadette was silent and vacant. He wouldn’t even need to use his knife to break in. He knew from experience that nothing would be locked except the general store. And he didn’t need what they were selling. What he wanted was information.
Walking right through the front door of the school, he stepped into the classroom where he was sure that pretty little morsel had completely fooled Big Roy’s idiot son. Gig opened all the desk drawers, riffling through them for signs of French that might help his boss get his hooks into this two-bit town even more. Why did oil always have to be buried in nowhere places like this one? He found nothing useful.
But then, just as he was about to give up, something in the center of the room caught his eye. Those quilts. Why were they there? As he pulled them back to reveal what lay beneath, a smile spread across his face. The white alligator. He had found what he came for. Now the question was, what to do with it?
TWENTY-ONE
BY EARLY NOVEMBER, Ellie felt that she, Bonita, and Gabby had hit their stride with the students. Classes were runnin
g smoothly, the kids were engaged, and none of the little ones had cried since September, except for the occasional skinned knee on the playground.
On a Friday morning, Ellie had just given the older students their essay assignment for the day when Bonita came into the classroom. “You prob’ly need to let me stay with ’em and you go check on Remy,” she said. “I think he’s coming down with that awful stuff that’s been goin’ around.”
“Oh no,” Ellie said. “I’ll go see about him. They have their assignment for the rest of the afternoon, so in case I have to take Remy to Doc, would you just keep an eye on things till it’s time for the bell?”
“Happy to.” Bonita took a seat at the desk.
Ellie found Remy lying on a pallet Gabby had made for him next to Ellie’s desk.
“I b’lieve this baby’s got a touch o’ fever,” Gabby said. “Thought I’d keep him away from the others, much as I could.”
Kneeling beside him and laying her hand against his forehead, Ellie could feel the heat coming from his skin. “You’re right, Gabby.”
Remy’s cheeks were flushed, and he had developed a cough. “I don’t feel good, Miss Ellie,” he said. “My head hurts real bad.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. We should get you to Doc’s.” Ellie turned to Gabby. “Maybe we ought to let the older kids take the little ones on home so these rooms can air out a little. We can leave all the windows cracked over the weekend.”
“That’s prob’ly the thing to do,” Gabby agreed. “You go on with Remy. Take your purse with you, and I’ll leave your satchel on your dock when I pass by.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Gabby.” Ellie helped Remy raise up and lifted him into her arms.
Unlike Raphe, who carried his nephew with ease, Ellie struggled to cover the short distance to Doc’s office.
“Not another one.” Doc shook his head as they came in the door. His waiting room was full of children, and he had apparently called for Minerva Richard, the local midwife, to come and help. Minerva was a formidable Creole woman who wore a stiffly starched, snow-white uniform when she worked for Doc, even though he didn’t require it. She said that a woman giving birth wants the aid and comfort of another woman, so she delivered their babies in her regular clothes, but sick patients in a doctor’s office want to see a nurse. Minerva was married to an accordion player named Lawyer Richard, whom Raphe often joined onstage at the dance hall. Their son, Freeman, carved all the white alligators for Chalmette’s.
No sooner did Ellie sit down with Remy in her lap than Minerva was at her side with a thermometer.
“Open up, baby,” she said to Remy, who immediately obeyed, like always. Minerva used her watch to check his pulse, then she read the thermometer and shook her head. She took a stethoscope from around her neck and put it in her ears. “Sit up for me just a minute, sugar.”
Remy raised up as if it were all he could do to lift his head off Ellie’s shoulder.
Minerva pulled his shirt up, listened to his heart, and then put the stethoscope to his back and had him take a few deep breaths. “Po’ baby got this ol’ virus been goin’ around. Gets your respiration system all gunked up. Done hit near ’bout ever’ family on the bayou, one way or ’nother. Won’t kill you, but it’ll make you wish the good Lord would take you. Seem to be more catchin’ to the chillun’ than the grown folks. I’ll tell Doc what’s goin’ on.”
Minerva disappeared into Doc’s examining room and then came back out to check the next patient.
Remy was silently crying, as if even now he didn’t want to be a bother. Ellie rocked him gently back and forth in her lap, wiping his tears away and stroking his hair, damp with sweat from the fever.
“I’m so sorry you feel bad, sweetheart,” she said. She wished there were something she could do to make him more comfortable, but Doc and Minerva were moving as fast as they could, working the crowded waiting room. Then she had an idea. “Remy, would you like me to tell you the story of the white alligator?”
He nodded.
“Well . . . long, long ago, there was a boy named Jacques Babineaux who lived on the Atchafalaya . . .”
IT TOOK DOC OVER AN HOUR TO GET TO REMY. “Son, don’t you worry,” he said in his reassuring voice. “We’ll have you feeling better before you know it.”
“Yes, sir,” Remy said.
“Does your head hurt?”
“Yes, sir.”
Doc finished his examination and asked Ellie about the other children. He seemed relieved when she told him Gabby and Bonita had dismissed class. Maybe the virus wouldn’t run through the school like wildfire.
Doc gave Ellie a bottle of aspirin and another of liquid medicine, which he said would help Remy sleep and ease his cough. “Unfortunately, a virus like this just has to run its course,” he said. “Not much I can do but make sure the fever doesn’t stay too high for too long and keep him comfortable.”
“Doc, do you know how I can get hold of Raphe?” Ellie asked.
Remy had a coughing fit. When it settled down, he said, “Nonc’s not home. He’s helpin’ Mr. Leo on his boat. I was s’posed to go to Aunt Kitty’s till he gets back.”
“Well, that won’t do,” Doc said. “Her kids will all catch this. Ellie, can you take Remy home with you? I’ll call Florence and have her run over to Kitty’s to let her know what’s happened. Nobody over there has a phone.”
“I’ll be happy to. Would that be alright with you, Remy—to stay with me till Nonc can come and get you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Remy looked too sick to care who looked after him.
“Now, Ellie, you need to be careful yourself—wash your hands a lot,” Doc instructed. “I left a first aid kit at the cabin. It has a thermometer in it—use that to watch his temperature. If it gets over 102, you get him to me quick as you can. Other than that, just give him the aspirin and cough medicine every four hours and keep him warm so he can sweat this off. Most patients start improving pretty quick once the last fever breaks—and he might have several before it’s gone for good, so just get ready for that.”
“I will.”
“I’d help you more if I could, but there’s just so many of them—”
“I know you’re doing all you can, Doc. Is there anything I can do for you?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Just say a little prayer that this thing soon plays out.”
Ellie helped Remy up and carried him to the landing. She laid him on an old quilt she kept in the pirogue for emergencies and then pushed off, jumping in and taking up the long oar that would paddle them home.
Remy coughed and wheezed all the way to Doc’s cabin, and Ellie had never been more relieved to get home. The sky was slowly turning gray, and the wind was beginning to gust. Rain was coming, maybe even a storm.
She carried Remy inside and laid him on the iron bed next to hers. Rummaging around in her closet, she found a stack of her brother’s old T-shirts—more thefts from her mother’s giveaway bags. She took off Remy’s shoes and socks, then helped him undress and put on a T-shirt, which fell below his knees but was clean and soft, and he could sleep comfortably in it. Then she found Doc’s thermometer and checked his temperature—99.9 degrees. She gave him the aspirin and cough medicine and helped him drink as much water as he could before tucking the covers around him.
“Try to go to sleep, sweetheart,” she said. “I’ll be right in the next room if you need anything at all. Want me to leave the door open?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Remy said.
Ellie went into the kitchen and made herself a strong pot of coffee, preparing for a long afternoon. She would write her brother and Mama Jean to pass the time, alert to any change in the little boy’s breathing as she listened and longed for the sound of an approaching boat.
TWENTY-TWO
IT WAS SIX IN THE EVENING before Remy’s fever stopped rising and finally broke. Ellie had gone through two more of her brother’s T-shirts and as many pillow slips, trying to keep him warm and dry as he sweat
ed it off. Remy wouldn’t touch a bite of food, but Ellie was able to persuade him to sip a little tea with honey in it. She had moved him from one bed to the other, changing the sheets on the first while he sweated in the second, hoping she didn’t run out of clean linens before he got better. He kept asking for Raphe, and she assured him that his uncle would be there soon, but the truth was she had no idea when he would come.
Around nine, with Remy sound asleep, Ellie finally heard a boat, traveling at what sounded like full throttle until it turned into the slough and slowed down. Stepping onto the porch, kerosene lamp in hand, she saw Raphe quickly striding up the dock. She held the screen door open for him and led him into the cabin just as the rain that had been threatening all day started pouring down.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “This should not have fallen on you.”
Studying him with the lamp, Ellie could see that his hair was wet and his shirt was buttoned wrong. “It’s alright. You couldn’t help it. But where on earth have you been?” She pointed to the lopsided shirt.
“Out on the water helping Leo.” Raphe hurriedly unbuttoned his shirt and tried to right it, but he kept misaligning the buttons. On his third try, Ellie set down the lamp, pulled his hands away, and took over. “His motor quit on us right as we started in, and I had to fix it.” Raphe watched her as she unbuttoned his shirt, straightened it, and closed it again. “I jumped in the river because I had grease all over me. Didn’t get home till just now. Kitty sent one of her kids to tell me Remy was sick. Can I see him?”
“He’s in here.”
Ellie led Raphe to her bedroom, dimly lit by a small lantern so Remy wouldn’t wake up in the dark and feel afraid. She stood in the doorway as he went inside and knelt by the bed. Putting his ear against Remy’s chest, Raphe listened to his breathing, ragged at times, then laid his hand on his nephew’s forehead.
Ellie stepped away to give him privacy and built a fire in the woodstove, where she began warming a chicken bog Tante Dodo and the other ladies had taught her to make. She had tried unsuccessfully to persuade Remy to have some.
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