AZÉLIE crossed the yard with slow, hesitating steps. She wore a pink sunbonnet and a faded calico dress that had been made the summer before, and was now too small for her in every way. She carried a large tin pail on her arm. When within a few yards of the house she stopped under a chinaberry- tree, quite still, except for the occasional slow turning of her head from side to side.
Mr. Mathurin, from his elevation upon the upper gallery, laughed when he saw her; for he knew she would stay there, motionless, till someone noticed and questioned her.
The planter was just home from the city, and was therefore in an excellent humor, as he always was, on getting back to what he called le grand air, the space and stillness of the country, and the scent of the fields. He was in shirtsleeves, walking around the gallery that encircled the big square white house. Beneath was a brick-paved portico upon which the lower rooms opened. At wide intervals were large whitewashed pillars that supported the upper gallery.
In one corner of the lower house was the store, which was in no sense a store for the general public, but maintained only to supply the needs of Mr. Mathurin’s “hands.”
“Eh bien! what do you want, Azélie?” the planter finally called out to the girl in French. She advanced a few paces, and, pushing back her sunbonnet, looked up at him with a gentle, inoffensive face – “to which you would give the good God without confession,” he once described it.
“Bon jou’, M’si’ Mathurin,” she replied; and continued in English: “I come git a li’le piece o’ meat. We plumb out o’ meat home.”
“Well, well, the meat is n’ going to walk to you, my chile: it has n’ got feet. Go fine Mr. ‘Polyte. He’s yonda mending his buggy unda the shed.” She turned away with an alert little step, and went in search of Mr. ‘Polyte.
“That’s you again!” the young man exclaimed, with a pretended air of annoyance, when he saw her. He straightened himself, and looked down at her and her pail with a comprehending glance. The sweat was standing in shining beads on his brown, good- looking face. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and the legs of his trousers were thrust into the tops of his fine, high-heeled boots. He wore his straw hat very much on one side, and had an air that was altogether fanfaron. He reached to a back pocket for the store key, which was as large as the pistol that he sometimes carried in the same place. She followed him across the thick, tufted grass of the yard with quick, short steps that strove to keep pace with his longer, swinging ones.
When he had unlocked and opened the heavy door of the store, there escaped from the close room the strong, pungent odor of the varied wares and provisions massed within. Azélie seemed to like the odor, and, lifting her head, snuffed the air as people sometimes do upon entering a conservatory filled with fragrant flowers.
A broad ray of light streamed in through the open door, illumining the dingy interior. The double wooden shutters of the windows were all closed, and secured on the inside by iron hooks.
“Well, w’at you want, Azélie?” asked ‘Polyte, going behind the counter with an air of hurry and importance. “I ain’t got time to fool. Make has’e; say w’at you want.”
Her reply was precisely the same that she had made to Mr. Mathurin.
“I come git a li’le piece o’ meat. We plumb out o’ meat home.”
He seemed exasperated.
“Bonté! w’at you all do with meat yonda? You don’t reflec’ you about to eat up yo’ crop befo’ it’s good out o’ the groun’, you all. I like to know w’y yo’ pa don’t go he’p with the killin’ once aw’ile, an’ git some fresh meat fo’ a change.”
She answered in an unshaded, unmodulated voice that was penetrating, like a child’s: “Popa he do go he’p wid the killin’; but he say he can’t work ‘less he got salt meat. He got plenty to feed – him. He’s got to hire he’p wid his crop, an’ he’s boun’ to feed ’em; they won’t year no diffe’nt. An’ he’s got gra’ma to feed, an’ Sauterelle, an’ me -“
“An’ all the lazy-bone ‘Cadians in the country that know w’ere they goin’ to fine the coffee-pot always in the corna of the fire,” grumbled ‘Polyte.
With an iron hook he lifted a small piece of salt meat from the pork barrel, weighed it, and placed it in her pail. Then she wanted a little coffee. He gave it to her reluctantly. He was still more loath to let her have sugar; and when she asked for lard, he refused flatly.
She had taken off her sunbonnet, and was fanning herself with it, as she leaned with her elbows upon the counter, and let her eyes travel lingeringly along the well-lined shelves. ‘Polyte stood staring into her face with a sense of aggravation that her presence, her manner, always stirred up in him.
The face was colorless but for the red, curved line of the lips. Her eyes were dark, wide, innocent, questioning eyes, and her black hair was plastered smooth back from the forehead and temples. There was no trace of any intention of coquetry in her manner. He resented this as a token of indifference toward his sex, and thought it inexcusable.
“Well, Azélie, if it’s anything you don’t see, ask fo’ it,” he suggested, with what he flattered himself was humor. But there was no responsive humor in Azélie’s composition. She seriously drew a small flask from her pocket.
“Popa say, if you want to let him have a li’le dram, ‘count o’ his pains that’s ’bout to cripple him.”
“Yo’ pa knows as well as I do we don’t sell w’isky. Mr. Mathurin don’t carry no license.”
“I know. He say if you want to give ‘im a li’le dram, he’s willin’ to do some work fo’ you.”
“No! Once fo’ all, no!” And ‘Polyte reached for the day-book, in which to enter the articles he had given to her.
But Azélie’s needs were not yet satisfied. She wanted tobacco; he would not give it to her. A spool of thread; he rolled one up, together with two sticks of peppermint candy, and placed it in her pail. When she asked for a bottle of coal-oil, he grudgingly consented, but assured her it would be useless to cudgel her brain further, for he would positively let her have nothing more. He disappeared toward the coal-oil tank, which was hidden from view behind the piled-up boxes on the counter. When she heard him searching for an empty quart bottle, and making a clatter with the tin funnels, she herself withdrew from the counter against which she had been leaning.
After they quitted the store, ‘Polyte, with a perplexed expression upon his face, leaned for a moment against one of the whitewashed pillars, watching the girl cross the yard. She had folded her sunbonnet into a pad, which she placed beneath the heavy pail that she balanced upon her head. She walked upright, with a slow, careful tread. Two of the yard dogs that had stood a moment before upon the threshold of the store door, quivering and wagging their tails, were following her now, with a little businesslike trot. ‘Polyte called them back.
The cabin which the girl occupied with her father, her grandmother, and her little brother Sauterelle, was removed some distance from the plantation house, and only its pointed roof could be discerned like a speck far away across the field of cotton, which was all in bloom. Her figure soon disappeared from view, and ‘Polyte emerged from the shelter of the gallery, and started again toward his interrupted task. He turned to say to the planter, who was keeping up his measured tramp above:
“Mr. Mathurin, ain’t it ‘mos’ time to stop givin’ credit to Arsene Pauche. Look like that crop o’ his ain’t goin’ to start to pay his account. I don’t see, me, anyway, how you come to take that triflin’ Li’le river gang on the place.”
“I know it was a mistake, ‘Polyte, but que voulez-vous?” the planter returned, with a good-natured shrug. “Now they are yere, we can’t let them starve, my frien’. Push them to work all you can. Hole back all supplies that are not necessary, an’ nex’ year we will let some one else enjoy the privilege of feeding them,” he ended, with a laugh.
“I wish they was all back on Li’le river,” ‘Polyte muttered under his breath as he turned and walked slowly away.
Directly back of the store was the young man’s sleeping-room. He had made himself quite comfortable there in his corner. He had screened his windows and doors; planted Madeira vines, which now formed a thick green curtain between the two pillars that faced his room; and had swung a hammock out there, in which he liked well to repose himself after the fatigues of the day.
He lay long in the hammock that evening, thinking over the day’s happenings and the morrow’s work, half dozing, half dreaming, and wholly possessed by the charm of the night, the warm, sweeping air that blew through the long corridor, and the almost unbroken stillness that enveloped him.
At times his random thoughts formed themselves into an almost inaudible speech: “I wish she would go ‘way f’om yere.”
One of the dogs came and thrust his cool, moist muzzle against ‘Polyte’s cheek. He caressed the fellow’s shaggy head. “I don’t know w’at’s the matta with her,” he sighed; “I don’ b’lieve she’s got good sense.”
It was a long time afterward that he murmured again: “I wish to God she’d go ‘way f’om yere!”
The edge of the moon crept up – a keen, curved blade of light above the dark line of the cotton-field. ‘Polyte roused himself when he saw it. “I didn’ know it was so late,” he said to himself – or to his dog. He entered his room at once, and was soon in bed, sleeping soundly.
It was some hours later that ‘Polyte was roused from his sleep by – he did not know what; his senses were too scattered and confused to determine at once. There was at first no sound; then so faint a one that he wondered how he could have heard it. A door of his room communicated with the store, but this door was never used, and was almost completely blocked by wares piled up on the other side. The faint noise that ‘Polyte heard, and which came from within the store, was followed by a flare of light that he could discern through the chinks, and that lasted as long as a match might burn.
He was now fully aware that some one was in the store. How the intruder had entered he could not guess, for the key was under his pillow with his watch and his pistol.
As cautiously as he could he donned an extra garment, thrust his bare feet into slippers, and crept out into the portico, pistol in hand.
The shutters of one of the store windows were open. He stood close to it, and waited, which he considered surer and safer than to enter the dark and crowded confines of the store to engage in what might prove a bootless struggle with the intruder.
He had not long to wait. In a few moments some one darted through the open window as nimbly as a cat. ‘Polyte staggered back as if a heavy blow had stunned him. His first thought and his first exclamation were: “My God! how close I come to killin’ you!”
It was Azélie. She uttered no cry, but made one quick effort to run when she saw him. He seized her arm and held her with a brutal grip. He put the pistol back into his pocket. He was shaking like a man with the palsy. One by one he took from her the parcels she was carrying, and flung them back into the store. There were not many: some packages of tobacco, a cheap pipe, some fishing-tackle, and the flask which she had brought with her in the afternoon. This he threw into the yard. It was still empty, for she had not been able to find the “key” to the whisky-barrel.
“So – so, you a thief!” he muttered savagely under his breath.
“You hurtin’ me, Mr. ‘Polyte,” she complained, squirming. He somewhat relaxed, but did not relinquish, his hold upon her.
“I ain’t no thief,” she blurted.
“You was stealin’,” he contradicted her sharply.
“I wasn’ stealin’. I was jus’ takin’ a few li’le things you all too mean to gi’ me. You all treat my popa like he was a dog. It’s on’y las’ week Mr. Mathurin sen’ ‘way to the city to fetch a fine buckboa’d fo’ Son Ambroise, an’ he’s on’y a nigga, après tout. An’ my popa he want a picayune tobacca? It’s ‘No’ – ” She spoke loud in her monotonous, shrill voice. ‘Polyte kept saying: “Hush, I tell you! Hush! Somebody’ll year you. Hush! It’s enough you broke in the sto’ – how you got in the sto’?” he added, looking from her to the open window.
“It was w’en you was behine the boxes to the coal-oil tank – I unhook’ it,” she explained sullenly.
“An’ you don’ know I could sen’ you to Baton Rouge fo’ that?” He shook her as though trying to rouse her to a comprehension of her grievous fault.
“Jus’ fo’ a li’le picayune o’ tobacca!” she whimpered.
He suddenly abandoned his hold upon her, and left her free. She mechanically rubbed the arm that he had grasped so violently.
Between the long row of pillars the moon was sending pale beams of light. In one of these they were standing.
“Azélie,” he said, “go ‘way f’om yere quick; some one might fine you yere. W’en you want something in the sto’, fo’ yo’se’f or fo’ yo’ pa – I don’ care – ask me fo’ it. But you – but you can’t neva set yo’ foot inside that sto’ again. Co ‘way f’om yere quick as you can, I tell you!”
She tried in no way to conciliate him. She turned and walked away over the same ground she had crossed before. One of the big dogs started to follow her. ‘Polyte did not call him back this time. He knew no harm could come to her, going through those lonely fields, while the animal was at her side.
He went at once to his room for the store key that was beneath his pillow. He entered the store, and refastened the window. When he had made everything once more secure, he sat dejectedly down upon a bench that was in the portico. He sat for a long time motionless. Then, overcome by some powerful feeling that was at work within him, he buried his face in his hands and wept, his whole body shaken by the violence of his sobs.
After that night ‘Polyte loved Azélie desperately. The very action which should have revolted him had seemed, on the contrary, to inflame him with love. He felt that love to be a degradation – something that he was almost ashamed to acknowledge to himself; and he knew that he was hopelessly unable to stifle it.
He watched now in a tremor for her coming. She came very often, for she remembered every word he had said; and she did not hesitate to ask him for those luxuries which she considered necessities to her “popa’s” existence. She never attempted to enter the store, but always waited outside, of her own accord, laughing, and playing with the dogs. She seemed to have no shame or regret for what she had done, and plainly did not realize that it was a disgraceful act. ‘Polyte often shuddered with disgust to discern in her a being so wholly devoid of moral sense.
He had always been an industrious, bustling fellow, never idle. Now there were hours and hours in which he did nothing but long for the sight of Azélie. Even when at work there was that gnawing want at his heart to see her, often so urgent that he would leave everything to wander down by her cabin with the hope of seeing her. It was even something if he could catch a glimpse of Sauterelle playing in the weeds, or of Arsene lazily dragging himself about, and smoking the pipe which rarely left his lips now that he was kept so well supplied with tobacco.
Once, down the bank of the bayou, when ‘Polyte came upon Azélie unexpectedly, and was therefore unprepared to resist the shock of her sudden appearance, he seized her in his arms, and covered her face with kisses. She was not indignant; she was not flustered or agitated, as might have been a susceptible, coquettish girl; she was only astonished, and annoyed.
“W’at you doin’, Mr. ‘Polyte?” she cried, struggling. “Leave me ‘lone, I say! Leave me go!”
“I love you, I love you, I love you!” he stammered helplessly over and over in her face.
“You mus’ los’ yo’ head,” she told him, red from the effort of the struggle, when he released her.
“You right, Azélie; I b’lieve I los’ my head,” and he climbed up the bank of the bayou as fast as he could.
After that his behavior was shameful, and he knew it, and he did not care. He invented pretexts that would enable him to touch her hand with his. He wanted to kiss her again, and told her she might come into the store as she used to do. There was no need for her to unhook a window now; he gave her whatever she asked for, charging it always to his own account on the books. She permitted his caresses without returning them, and yet that was all he seemed to live for now. He gave her a little gold ring.
He was looking eagerly forward to the close of the season, when Arsene would go back to Little River. He had arranged to ask Azélie to marry him. He would keep her with him when the others went away. He longed to rescue her from what he felt to be the demoralizing influences of her family and her surroundings. ‘Polyte believed he would be able to awaken Azélie to finer, better impulses when he should have her apart to himself.
But when the time came to propose it, Azélie looked at him in amazement. “Ah, b’en, no. I ain’t goin’ to stay yere wid you, Mr. ‘Polyte; I’m goin’ yonda on Li’le river wid my popa.”
This resolve frightened him, but he pretended not to believe it.
“You jokin’, Azélie; you mus’ care a li’le about me. It looked to me all along like you cared some about me.”
“An’ my popa, done? Ah, b’en, no.”
“You don’ rememba how lonesome it is on Li’le river, Azélie,” he pleaded. “W’enever I think ’bout Li’le river it always make me sad – like I think about a graveyard. To me it’s like a person mus’ die, one way or otha, w’en they go on Li’le river. Oh, I hate it! Stay with me, Azélie; don’ go ‘way f’om me.”
She said little, one way or the other, after that, when she had fully understood his wishes, and her reserve led him to believe, since he hoped it, that he had prevailed with her and that she had determined to stay with him and be his wife.
It was a cool, crisp morning in December that they went away. In a ramshackle wagon, drawn by an ill-mated team, Arsene Pauche and his family left Mr. Mathurin’s plantation for their old familiar haunts on Little river. The grandmother, looking like a witch, with a black shawl tied over her head, sat upon a roll of bedding in the bottom of the wagon. Sauterelle’s bead-like eyes glittered with mischief as he peeped over the side. Azélie, with the pink sunbonnet completely hiding her round young face, sat beside her father, who drove.
‘Polyte caught one glimpse of the group as they passed in the road. Turning, he hurried into his room, and locked himself in.
It soon became evident that ‘Polyte’s services were going to count for little. He himself was the first to realize this. One day he approached the planter, and said: “Mr. Mathurin, befo’ we start anotha year togetha, I betta tell you I’m goin’ to quit.” ‘Polyte stood upon the steps, and leaned back against the railing. The planter was a little above on the gallery.
“W’at in the name o’ sense are you talking about, ‘Polyte!” he exclaimed in astonishment.
“It’s jus’ that; I’m boun’ to quit.”
“You had a better offer?”
“No; I ain’t had no offa.”
“Then explain yo’se’f, my frien’ – explain yo’se’f,” requested Mr. Mathurin, with something of offended dignity. “If you leave me, w’ere are you going?”
‘Polyte was beating his leg with his limp felt hat. “I reckon I jus’ as well go yonda on Li’le river – w’ere Azélie,” he said.
