Part 30 (1/2)

”Was it white?” ”No--yes--nearly so--we can't tell--but we saw it.” And one could hardly doubt, to look at their ashen faces, that they had, whatever it was.

”If that old rascal lived in the country we come from,” said certain Americains, ”he'd have been tarred and feathered before now, wouldn't he, Sanders?”

”Well, now he just would.”

”And we'd have rid him on a rail, wouldn't we?”

”That's what I allow.”

”Tell you what you _could_ do.” They were talking to some rollicking Creoles who had a.s.sumed an absolute necessity for doing _something_.

”What is it you call this thing where an old man marries a young girl, and you come out with horns and”--

”_Charivari_?” asked the Creoles.

”Yes, that's it. Why don't you s.h.i.+varee him?” Felicitous suggestion.

Little White, with his wife beside him, was sitting on their doorsteps on the sidewalk, as Creole custom had taught them, looking toward the sunset. They had moved into the lately-opened street. The view was not attractive on the score of beauty. The houses were small and scattered, and across the flat commons, spite of the lofty tangle of weeds and bushes, and spite of the thickets of acacia, they needs must see the dismal old Poquelin mansion, tilted awry and shutting out the declining sun. The moon, white and slender, was hanging the tip of its horn over one of the chimneys.

”And you say,” said the Secretary, ”the old black man has been going by here alone? Patty, suppose old Poquelin should be concocting some mischief; he don't lack provocation; the way that clod hit him the other day was enough to have killed him. Why, Patty, he dropped as quick as _that_! No wonder you haven't seen him. I wonder if they haven't heard something about him up at the drug-store. Suppose I go and see.”

”Do,” said his wife.

She sat alone for half an hour, watching that sudden going out of the day peculiar to the lat.i.tude.

”That moon is ghost enough for one house,” she said, as her husband returned. ”It has gone right down the chimney.”

”Patty,” said little White, ”the drug-clerk says the boys are going to s.h.i.+varee old Poquelin to-night. I'm going to try to stop it.”

”Why, White,” said his wife, ”you'd better not. You'll get hurt.”

”No, I'll not.”

”Yes, you will.”

”I'm going to sit out here until they come along. They're compelled to pa.s.s right by here.”

”Why, White, it may be midnight before they start; you're not going to sit out here till then.”

”Yes, I am.”

”Well, you're very foolish,” said Mrs. White in an undertone, looking anxious, and tapping one of the steps with her foot.

They sat a very long time talking over little family matters.

”What's that?” at last said Mrs. White.

”That's the nine-o'clock gun,” said White, and they relapsed into a long-sustained, drowsy silence.

”Patty, you'd better go in and go to bed,” said he at last.