CHAPTER V.
THE CURe OF CARANCRO.
It was an unexpected and capital exchange. They had gone for a conscript; they came away with a volunteer.
Bonaventure sat by the fire in Sosthene"s cottage, silent and heavy, holding his small knees in his knit hands and gazing into the flames.
Zosephine was washing the household"s few breakfast dishes. _La vieille_--the mother--was spinning cotton. _Le vieux_--Sosthene--sat sewing up a rent in a rawhide chair-bottom. He paused by and by, stretched, and went to the window. His wife caught the same spirit of relaxation, stopped her wheel, looked at the boy moping in the chimney-corner, and, pa.s.sing over to his side, laid a hand upon his temple to see if he might have fever.
The lad"s eyes did not respond to her; they were following Sosthene.
The husband stood gazing out through the gla.s.s for a moment, and then, without moving, swore a long, slow execration. The wife and daughter pressed quickly to his either side and looked forth.
There they came, the number increased to eighteen now, trotting leisurely through the subsiding storm. The wife asked what they were, but Sosthene made no reply; he was counting them: twelve, thirteen, fourteen--fourteen with short guns, another one who seemed to wear a sword, and three, that must be--
"Cawnscreep," growled Sosthene, without turning his eyes. But the next moment an unusual sound at his elbow drew his glance upon Zosephine.
"_Diable!_" He glared at her weeping eyes, his manner demanding of her instant explanation. She retreated a step, moved her hand toward the approaching troop, and cried distressfully:
"_Tu va oere!_"--"You will see!"
His glance was drawn to Bonaventure. The lad had turned toward them, and was sitting upright, his blue eyes widened, his face pale, and his lips apart; but ere Sosthene could speak his wife claimed his attention.
"Sosthene!" she exclaimed, pressing against the window-pane, "ah, Sosthene! Ah, ah! they have got "Thanase!"
Father, mother, and daughter crowded against the window and one another, watching the body of horse as it drew nigh. Bonaventure went slowly and lay face downward on the bed.
Now the dripping procession is at hand. They pa.s.s along the dooryard fence. At the little garden gate they halt. Only "Thanase dismounts.
The commander exchanges a smiling word or two with him, and the youth pa.s.ses through the gate, and, while his companions throw each a tired leg over the pommel and sit watching him, comes up the short, flowery walk and in at the opening door.
There is nothing to explain, the family have guessed it; he goes in his father"s stead. There is but a moment for farewells.
"Adjieu, Bonaventure."
The prostrate boy does not move. "Thanase strides up to the bed and looks at one burning cheek, then turns to his aunt.
"_Li malade?_"--"Is he ill?"
"_Sa l"air a ca_," said the aunt. (_Il a l"air_--he seems so.)
"Bien, n"onc" Sosthene, adjieu." Uncle and nephew shake hands stoutly.
"Adjieu," says the young soldier again to his aunt. She gives her hand and turns to hide a tear. The youth takes one step toward Zosephine. She stands dry-eyed, smiling on her father. As the youth comes her eyes, without turning to him, fill. He puts out his hand.
She lays her own on it. He gazes at her for a moment, with beseeching eye--"Adjieu." Her eyes meet his one instant--she leaps upon his neck--his strong arms press her to his bosom--her lifted face lights up--his kiss is on her lips--it was there just now, and now--"Thanase is gone, and she has fled to an inner room.
Bonaventure stood in the middle of the floor. Why should the boy look so strange? Was it anger, or fever, or joy? He started out.
"_A ou-ce-tu va Bonaventure?_"--"Whereabouts are you going?"
"_Va crier les vaches._"--"Going to call the cows."
"At this time of day?" demanded _la vieille_, still in the same tongue. "Are you crazy?"
"Oh!--no!" the boy replied, looking dazed. "No," he said; "I was going for some more wood." He went out, pa.s.sed the woodpile by, got round behind a corn-crib, and stood in the cold, wet gale watching the distant company lessening on the view. It was but a short, dim, dark streak, creeping across the field of vision like some slow insect on a window-gla.s.s. A spot just beyond it was a grove that would presently shut the creeping line finally from sight. They reached it, pa.s.sed beyond, and disappeared; and then Bonaventure took off the small, soft-brimmed hat that hung about his eyes, and, safe from the sight and hearing of all his tiny world, lifted his voice, and with face kindling with delight swung the sorry covering about his head and cried three times:
"Ora! Or-r-ra! Ora-a-a-a!"
But away in the night Madame Sosthene, hearing an unwonted noise, went to Bonaventure"s bedside and found him sobbing as if his heart had broken.
"He has had a bad dream," she said; for he would not say a word.
The cure of Vermilionville and Carancro was a Creole gentleman who looked burly and hard when in meditation; but all that vanished when he spoke and smiled. In the pocket of his ca.s.sock there was always a deck of cards, but that was only for the game of solitaire. You have your pipe or cigar, your flute or violoncello; he had his little table under the orange-tree and his game of solitaire.
He was much loved. To see him beyond earshot talking to other men you would say he was by nature a man of affairs, whereas, when you came to hear him speak you find him quite another sort: one of the Elisha kind, as against the Elijahs; a man of the domestic sympathies, whose influence on man was personal and familiar; one of the sort that heal bitter waters with a handful of salt, make poisonous pottage wholesome with a little meal, and find easy, quiet ways to deliver poor widows from their creditors with no loss to either; a man whom men reverenced, while women loved and children trusted him.
The ex-governor was fond of his company, although the cure only smiled at politics and turned the conversation back to family matters.
He had a natural gift for divining men"s, women"s, children"s personal wants, and every one"s distinctively from every other one"s. So that to everybody he was an actual personal friend. He had been a long time in this region. It was he who buried Bonaventure"s mother. He was the connecting link between Bonaventure and the ex-governor. Whenever the cure met this man of worldly power, there were questions asked and answered about the lad.
A little after "Thanase"s enlistment the priest and the ex-governor, who, if I remember right, was home only transiently from camp, met on the court-house square of Vermilionville, and stood to chat a bit, while others contemplated from across the deep mud of the street these two interesting representatives of sword and gown. Two such men standing at that time must naturally, one would say, have been talking of the strength of the defences around Richmond, or the Emperor Maximilian"s operations in Mexico, or Kirby Smith"s movements, hardly far enough away to make it seem comfortable. But in reality they were talking about "Thanase.
"He cannot write," said the cure; "and if he could, no one at home could read his letters."
The ex-governor promised to look after him.
"And how," he asked, "does Sosthene"s little orphan get on?"
The cure smiled. "He is well--physically. A queer, high-strung child; so old, yet so young. In some things he will be an infant as long as he lives; in others, he has been old from the cradle. He takes every thing in as much earnest as a man of fifty. What is to become of him?"
"Oh! he will come out all right," said the ex-governor.
"That depends. Some children are born with fixed characters: you can tell almost from the start what they are going to be. Be they much or little, they are complete in themselves, and it makes comparatively little difference into what sort of a world you drop them."
""Thanase, for instance," said the ex-governor.
"Yes, you might say "Thanase; but never Bonaventure. He is the other type; just as marked and positive traits, but those traits not yet builded into character: a loose ma.s.s of building-material, and the beauty or ugliness to which such a nature may arrive depends on who and what has the building of it into form. What he may turn out to be at last will be no mere product of circ.u.mstances; he is too original for that. Oh, he"s a study! Another boy under the same circ.u.mstances might turn out entirely different; and yet it will make an immense difference how his experiences are allowed to combine with his nature." The speaker paused a moment, while Bonaventure"s other friend stood smiling with interest; then the priest added, "He is just now struggling with his first great experience."
"What is that?"
"It belongs," replied the cure, smiling in his turn, "to the confidences of the confessional. But," he added, with a little anxious look, "I can tell you what it will do; it will either sweeten his whole nature more and more, or else make it more and more bitter, from this time forth. And that is no trifle to you or me; for whether for good or bad, in a large way or in a small way, he is going to make himself felt."
The ex-governor mused. "I"m glad the little fellow has you for a friend, father.--I"ll tell you; if Sosthene and his wife will part with him, and you will take him to live with you, and, mark you, not try too hard to make a priest of him, I will bear his expenses."
"I will do it," said the cure.
It required much ingenuity of argument to make the Gradnego pair see the matter in the desired light; but when the cure promised Sosthene that he would teach the lad to read and write, and then promised _la vieille_ that Zosephine should share this educational privilege with him, they let him go.
Zosephine was not merely willing, but eager, to see the arrangements made. She beckoned the boy aside and spoke to him alone.