"Well, she "uz--she "uz prayin"."
"And tha"z the manner she was not al-lone?"
"Yas"m, da.s.s all." The little fellow dropped to his knees, clutched a knee of either questioner, and wept and sobbed.
XL
M. Beloiseau reached across his workbench and hung up his hammer and tongs. The varied notes of two or three remote steam-whistles told him that the hour, of the day after the holiday, was five.
He glanced behind him, through his shop to the street door, where some one paused awaiting his welcome. He thought of Chester but it was Landry, with an old broad book under his elbow.
"Ah, come in, Ovide."
As he laid aside his ap.r.o.n he handed the visitor the piece of metal he had been making beautiful, and waved him to the drawing whose lines it was taking.
"But those whistles," the bookman said, "they stop the handworkman too."
"Yes. In the days of my father, the days of handwork, they meant only steamboat", coming, going; but now swarm" of men and women, boys, and girl", coming, going, living by machinery the machine-made life."
""Sieur Beloiseau," Landry good-naturedly, said, "you"re too just to condemn a gift of the good G.o.d for the misuse men make of it."
Scipion glared and smiled at the same time: "Then let that gift of the good G.o.d be not so hideouzly misuse"."
But Ovide amiably persisted: "Without machinery--plenty of it--I should not have this book for you, nor I, nor you, ever have been born."
Chester, entering, found Beloiseau looking eagerly into the volume.
"All the same, Landry," the newcomer said, "you"re no more a machine product than Mr. Beloiseau himself."
The bookman smiled his thanks while he followed the craftsman"s scrutiny of the pages. ""Tis what you want?" he asked, and Chester saw that it was full of designs of ironwork, French and Spanish.
Scipion beamed: "Ah, you"ve foun" me that at the lazt, and just when I"m wanting it furiouzly."
"Mr. Beloiseau," said Chester, "has a beautiful commission from the new Pan-American Steamship Company."
"Thanks to Mr. Chezter," said Beloiseau, "who got me the job. Hence for this book spot cash." He turned aside to a locked closet and drawer.
"You had a pleasant holiday yesterday," said Landry to Chester.
"Who told you?"
"Mesdemoiselles, the two sisters Chapdelaine. I chanced to meet them just now at the house of the archbishop, on the steps, they coming out, I going in. I had a book also for him."
"Why! What"s taking them to the archbishop?" Chester put away a frown: "Did they reflect the pleasure of the holiday?"
"Mr. Chester, no." There was an exchange of gazes, but Scipion returned, counting and tendering the price of the book.
"Well, good evening," Landry said, willing to linger; but "good evening," said both the others.
Chester turned: "Beloiseau, I want to talk with you. Go, give yourself a dip, brush some of that hair, and we"ll dine alone in some place away from things."
"A dip, hah! Always I scrub me any"ow till I come to the skin. Also I"ll put a clean shirt. You can wait? I"ll leave you this book."
Chester waited. When presently, with Scipion still picturesque though clean-shirted, they left the shop together, he gave the book a word of praise that set its owner off on the history of his craft. "But hammered into a matrix"--he drew his watch and halted: "Spanish Fort, juzt too late; half-hour till negs train; I"ll show you an example, my father"s work." They turned back.
Thus they lost a second train, and dined in the same snug nook as on the day before with Aline and the rest. At twilight they took seats in Jackson Square on a cast-iron bench "hardly worthy of the place," as Chester suggested.
And Scipion flashed back: "Or, my dear sir, of any worthy place! But you was asking me----"
"About those four boys over in France, one of them yours."
"Biccause sinze all day yesterday----?"
"That"s it. I can"t help thinking that mademoiselle is somehow the cause of their going."
"Ah, of three she is, but of my son, no. My son he was already there when that war commence", and the cause of that was a very simple and or-_din_-ary in him, but not in the story of my father. I would like to tell you ab-out that biccause tha"z also ab-out that house where we was juz" seeing all that open-work on those balconie", and biccause so interested, you, in old building", you are bound to hear ab-out that some day and probably hear it wrong."
"Let"s have it now; she told me yesterday to ask you for it."
XLI
THE LOST FORTUNE
"Mighty solid," the ironworker said, "that old house, so square and high. They are no Creole brick it is make with, that old house."
Chester began to speak approvingly of the wide balconies running unbrokenly around its four sides at both upper stories, but Beloiseau shook his head: "They don"t billong to the firz" building of that house, else they _might_ have been Spanish, like here on the Cabildo and that old _Cafe Veau-qui-tete_. They would not be cast iron and of that complicate" disign, hah! But they are not even a French cast iron, like those and those"--he waved right and left to the wide balconies of the Pontalba buildings flanking the square with such graceful dignity. "Oh, they make that old house look pretty good, those balconie", but tha"z a pity they were not wrought iron, biccause M. Lefevre--he was rich--sugar-planter--could have what he choose, and she was a very fashionable, his ladie. They tell some strange stories ab-out them and that "ouse; cruelty to slave", intrigue with slave", duel" ab-out slave". Maybe tha"z biccause those iron bar" up and down in sidewalk window", old Spanish fashion; maybe biccause in confusion with that Haunted House in Royal Street, they are so allike, those two house". But they are c.o.c.k-an"-bull, those tale". Wha"s true they don"t tell, biccause they don" know, and tha"z what I"m telling you ad the present.
"When my father he was yet a boy, fo"teen, fiv"teen, those Lefevre"
they rent" to the _grand-mere_ of both Castanado and Dubroca, turn ab-out, a li"l" slave girl so near white you coul"n" see she"s black!
You coul"n" even _suspec_" that, only seeing she"s rent", that way, and knowing that once in a while, those time, that whitenezz coul"n" be av-void". Myseff, me, I"ve seen a man, ex-slave, so white you woul"n"
think till they tell you; but then you"d see it--black! But that li"l"
girl of seven year", n.o.body coul"n" see that even avter told. Some people said: "Tha"z biccause she"s so young; when she"s grow" up you"ll see. And some say, "When she get chil"ren they"ll show it, those chil"ren--an" some be even dark!"
"Any"ow some said she"s child of monsieur, and madame want to keep her out of sight that beneficent way. They would bet you any money if you go on his plantation you find her slave mother by the likenezz. She di"n" look like him but they insist" that also come later. Any"ow she"s rent" half-an"-half by those _grand-mere_" of Castanado and Dubroca, at the firzt just to call "shop"! at back door when a cuztomer come in, and when growing older to make herseff many other way" uzeful.
And by consequence she was oft-en playmate with the chil"ren of all that coterie there in Royal Street. Excep" my father; he was fo"teen year" to her seven."
"Was she a handsome child?" Chester ventured.
"I think no. But in growing up she bic-came"--the craftsman handed out a pocket flash-light and an old _carte-de-visite_ photograph of a black-haired, black-eyed girl of twenty or possibly twenty-three years.
"You shall tell me," he said:
"And you"ll trust me, my sincerity?"