# Fantastics and other Fancies/The Post-Office

THE POST-OFFICE
I
The little steamer will bear you thither in one summer day,—starting at early morning, arriving just as the sun begins to rest his red chin upon the edge of the west. It is a somewhat wearisome and a wonderfully tortuous journey, through that same marshy labyrinth by which the slavers in other days used to smuggle their African freight up to the old Creole city from the Gulf. . . . Leaving the Mississippi by a lock-guarded opening in its western levee, the miniature packet first enters a long and narrow canal,—cutting straight across plantations considerably below the level of its raised banks,—and through this artificial waterway she struggles on, panting desperately under the scorching heat, until after long hours she almost leaps, with a great steam-sigh of relief, into the deeper and broader bayou that serpentines through the ​swamp-forest. Then there is at least ample shadow; the moss-hung trees fling their silhouettes right across the water and into the woods on the other side, morning and evening. Grotesque roots—black, geniculated, gnarly—project from the crumbling banks like bones from an ancient grave;—dead, shrunken limbs and fallen trunks lie macerating in the slime. Grim shapes of cypress stoop above us, and seem to point the way with anchylosed knobby finger, —their squalid tatters of moss grazing our smoke-stack. The banks swarm with crustaceans, gnawing, burrowing, undermining; gray saurians slumber among the gray floating logs at the edge; gorged carrion-birds doze upon the paralytic shoulders of cypresses, about whose roots are coiled more serpents than ever gnawed Yggdrasil. The silence is only broken by the loud breathing of the little steamer;—odors of vegetable death—smells of drowned grasses and decomposing trunks and of eternal mould-formation—make the air weighty to breathe; and the green obscurities on either hand deepen behind the crests of the water-oaks and the bright masses of willow frondescense. The parasitic life of the swamp, pendant ​and enormous, gives the scene a drenched, half-drowned look, as of a land long-immersed, and pushed up again from profundities of stagnant water,—and still dripping with moisture and monstrous algae. . . .
The ranks of the water-oaks become less serried,—the semitropical vegetation less puissant,—the willows and palmettoes and cypresses no longer bar out the horizon-light; and the bayou broadens into a shining, green-rimmed sheet of water, over which our little boat puffs a zigzag course,—feeling her way cautiously,—to enter a long chain of lakelets and lakes, all bayou-linked together. Sparser and lower becomes the foliage-line, lower also the banks;—the water-tints brighten bluely; the heavy and almost acrid odors of the swamp pass away. So thin the land is that from the little steamer's deck, as from a great altitude, the eye can range over immense distances. These are the skirts of the continent, trending in multitudinous tatters southward to the sea;—and the practiced gaze of the geologist can discern the history of prodigious alluvial formation, the slow creation of future prairie lands, in those long grassy tongues,—those ​desolate islands, shaped like the letters of an Oriental alphabet,—those reaches of flesh-colored sand, that shift their shape with the years, but never cease to grow.
Miles of sluggish, laboring travel,—sometimes over shallows of less than half a fathom,—through archipelagoes whose islets become more and more widely separated as we proceed. Then the water deepens steadily,—and the sky also seems to deepen,—and there is something in the bright air that makes electrical commotion in the blood and fills the lungs with richer life. Gulls with white breasts and dark, broad wings sweep past with sharp, plaintive cries; brown clouds of pelicans hover above tiny islands within rifle-shot,—alternately rising and descending all together. Through luminous distances the eye can just distinguish masses of foliage, madder-colored by remoteness, that seem to float in suspension between the brightness of the horizon and the brightness of water, like shapes of the Fata Morgana. And in those far, dim, island groves prevails, perhaps, the strange belief that the Universe itself is but a mirage; for the gods of the most eastern East have been transported ​thither, and the incense of Oriental prayer mounts thence into the azure of a Christian heaven. Those are Chinese fishing-stations, —miniature villages of palmetto huts, whose yellow populations still cling to the creed of Fo,—unless, indeed, they follow the more practical teachings of the Ancient Infant, born with snow-white hair,—the doctrine of the good Thai-chang-lao-kinn, the sublime Loo-tseu. . . .
II
Glassy-smooth the water sleeps along the northern coast of our island summer resort, as the boat slowly skirts the low beach, passing bright shallows where seines of stupendous extent are hung upon rows of high stakes to dry;—but already the ear is filled with a ponderous and powerful sound, rolling up from the south through groves of orange and lemon,—the sound of that "great voice that shakes the world." For less than half a mile away,—across the narrow island,—immense surges are whitening all the long slant of sand. . . . Divinely caressing the first far-off tones of that eternal voice to one revisiting ocean after ​absence of many weary and dusty summers,—tones filling the mind with even such vague blending of tenderness and of awe as the pious traveler might feel when, returning after long sojourn in a land of strange, grim gods, whose temple pavements may never be trodden by Occidental feet, he hears again the pacific harmonies of some cathedral organ, breaking all about him in waves of golden thunder.)
. . . Then with a joyous shock we bump the ancient wooden wharf,—where groups of the brown island people are already waiting to scrutinize each new face with kindliest curiosity; for the advent of the mail-packet is ever a great and gladsome event. Even the dogs bark merry welcome, and nm to be caressed. A tramway car receives the visitors,—baggage is piled on,—the driver clacks his tongue, —the mule starts,—the dogs rush on in advance to announce our coming.
III
In the autumn of the old feudal years, all this sea-girdled land was one quivering splendor of sugar-cane, walled in from besieging tides with impregnable miles of levee. But ​when the great decadence came, the rude sea gathered up its barbarian might, and beat down the strong dikes, and made waste the opulent soil, and, in Abimelech-fury, sowed the site of its conquests with salt. Some of the old buildings are left;—the sugar-house has been converted into an ample dining-hall; the former slave-quarters have been remodeled and fitted up for guests—a charming village of white cottages, shadowed by aged trees; the sugar-pans have been turned into water-vessels for the live stock; and the old plantation-bell, of honest metal and pure tone, now summons the visitor to each repast.
And all this little world, though sown with sand and salt, teems with extraordinary exuberance of life. Night and day the foliage of the long groves vibrates to chant of insect and feathered songster; and beyond reckoning are the varieties of nest-builders,—among whom very often may be perceived rose-colored or flame-colored strangers of the tropics,—flown hither over the Caribbean Sea. The waters are choked with fish; the horizon ever darkened with flights of birds; the very soil seems to stir, to creep, to breathe. Every little ​bank, ditch, creek, swarms with "fiddlers," each holding high its single huge white claw in readiness for battle; and the dryer lands are haunted by myriads of ghostly Crustacea,—phantom crabs,—semi-diaphanous creatures that flit over the land with the speed and lightness of tarantulas, and are so pale of shell that their moving shadows first betray their presence. There are immense choruses of tree-frogs by day, bamboulas of water-frogs after sundown. The vast vitality of the ocean seems to interpenetrate all that sprouts, breathes, flies. Cattle fatten wonderfully upon the tough wire-grass; sheep multiply exceedingly. In every chink something is trying to grow, in every orifice some tiny life seeks to hide itself (even beneath the edge of the table on which I wrote some queer little creatures had built three marvelous nests of dry mud);—every substance here appears not only to maintain life but to create it; and ideas of spontaneous generation present themselves with irresistible force.
IV
. . . And children in multitude!—children of many races, and of many tints,—ranging ​from ivorine to glossy bronze, through half the shades of Broca's pattern-colors;—for there is a strange blending of tribes and peoples here. By and by, when the youths and maidens of these patriarchal families shall mate, they will build for themselves funny little timber-homes,—like those you see dotting the furzy-green plain about the log-dwelling of the oldest settler,—even as so many dove-cots. Existence here is so facile, happy, primitively simple, that trifles give joy unspeakable;—in that bright air whose purity defies the test of even the terrible solar microscope, neither misery nor malady may live. To such contented minds surely the Past must ever appear in a sunset-glow of gold; the Future in eternal dawn of rose;—until, perchance, the huge dim city summon some of them to her dusty servitude, when the gray elders shall have passed away, and the little patches of yellow-flowered meadow-land shall have changed hands, and the island hath no more place for all its children. . . . So they live and love, and marry and give in marriage, and build their little dove-cots, and pass away forever,—either to smoky cities of the South and West, ​or, indeed, to that vaster and more ancient city, whose streets are shadowless and voiceless, and whose gates are guarded by God.
But the mighty blind sea will ever chant the same mysterious hymn, under the same infinite light of blue, for those who shall come after them. . . .
V
. . . No electric nerves have yet penetrated this little world, to connect its humble life with the industrial and conmaercial activities of the continent: here the feverish speculator feels no security:—it is a fit sojourn for those only who wish to forget the harsh realities of city existence, the burning excitement of loss and gain, the stern anxieties of duty,—who care only to enjoy the rejuvenating sea, to drink the elixir of the perfect air, to dream away the long and luminous hours, perfumed with sweet, faint odors of summer. The little mail-boat, indeed, comes at regular intervals of days, and the majesty of the United States is represented by a post-office,—but the existence of that office could never be divined by the naked eye.
​A negro, who seemed to understand Spanish only, responded to my inquiries by removing a pipe from his lips, and pointing the cane-stem thereof toward a building that made a dark red stain against the green distance—with the words: "Casa de correo ?—si, señor! directamente detras del campo, senor;—sigue el camino carretero à la casa colorada."
So I crossed plains thickly grown with a sturdy green weed bearing small yellow flowers, and traversed plank-bridges laid over creeks in which I saw cats fishing and swimming—actually swimming, for even the feline race loses its dread of water here;—and I followed a curving roadway half obliterated by wire- grass—until I found myself at last within a small farmyard, where cords of wood were piled up about an antique, gabled, chocolate-colored building that stood in the midst. I walked half around it, seeking for the entrance,—hearing only the sound of children's voices, and a baby's laughter; and finally came in front of an open gallery on the southern side, where a group of Creole children were,—two pretty blond infants, with an elder and darker sister. Seated in a rocking-chair, her infant ​brother sprawling at her feet, she was dancing a baby sister on her knee, chanting the while this extraordinary refrain:—
"Zanimaux caquéne so manié galoupé;—bourigue,—tiguiti, tiguiti, tiguiti; milet,—tocoto, tocoto, tocoto; çouval,—tacata, tacata, tacata."
And with the regular crescendo of the three onomatopes, the baby went higher and higher. . . . My steps had made no sound upon the soft grass; the singer's back, inundated with chestnut hair, was turned toward me; but the baby had observed my approach, and its blue stare of wonder caused the girl to look round. At once she laid the child upon the floor, arose, and descended the wooden step to meet me with the question,—"Want to see papa? "
She might perhaps have been twelve, not older,—slight, with one of those sensitive, oval faces that reveal a Latin origin, and the pinkness of rich health bursting through its olive skin;—the eyes that questioned my face were brown and beautiful as a wild deer's.
"I want to get some stamped envelopes," I responded;—"is this the post-office? "
"Yes, sir; I can give them to you," she ​answered, turning back toward the gallery steps;—"come this way!"
I followed her as far as the doorway of the tiniest room I had ever seen,—just large enough to contain a safe, an office desk, and a chair. It was cozy, carpeted, and well lighted by a little window fronting the sea. I saw a portrait hanging above the desk,—a singularly fine gray head, with prophetic features and Mosaic beard,—the portrait of the island's patriarch. . . .
"You see," she observed, in response to my amused gaze, while she carefully unlocked the safe,—"when papa and mamma are at work in the field, I have to take charge. Papa tells me what to do.—How many did you say?—four!—that will be ten cents.—Now, if you have a letter to post, you can leave it here—if you like."
I handed her my letter—a thick one—in a two-cent envelope. She weighed it in her slender brown hand;—I suspected the postage was insufficient.
"It is too heavy," she said;—"you will have to put another stamp on it, I think."
"In that case," I replied, "take back one of ​the stamped envelopes, and give me instead a two-cent stamp for my letter."
She hesitated a moment, with a pretty look of seriousness,—and then answered:—
"Why, yes, I could do that; but—but that wouldn't be doing fair by you"—passing her fine thin fingers through the brown curls in a puzzled way;—"no, that wouldn't be fair to you."
"Of course it's fair," I averred encouragingly —"we can't bother with fractions, and I have no more small change. That is all right."
"No, it isn't all right," she returned,—making the exchange with some reluctance;—"it isn't right to take more than the worth of our money; but I don't really know how to fix it. I'll ask papa when he comes home, and we'll send you the difference—if there is any. —Oh! yes, I will!—I '11 send it to the hotel.—It wouldn't be right to keep it."
All vain my protests.
"No, no! I'm sure we owe you something. Valentine! Léonie!—say good-bye,—nicely!"
So the golden-haired babies cooed their "goo'bye," as I turned the corner, and waved them kisses;—and as I reached the ​wagon-road by the open gate, I heard again the bird-voice of the little post-mistress singing her onomatopoetic baby-song, "Bourique,—tiquiti, tiquiti, tiquiti; milet,—tocoto, tocoto, tocoto; çouval,—tacata, tacata, tacata."
VI
. . . O little brown-eyed lamb, the wolfish world waits hungrily to devour such as thou!—dainty sea-land flower, that pinkness of thine will not fade out more speedily than shall evaporate thy perfume of sweet illusions in the stagnant air of cities! Many tears will dim those dark eyes, nevertheless, ere thou shalt learn that wealth—even the wealth of nations—is accumulated, without sense of altruism, in eternal violation of those exquisite ethics which seem to thee of God's own teaching. When thou shalt have learned this, and other and sadder things, perhaps, memory may crown thee with her crown of sorrows,—may bear thee back, back, in wonderful haze of blue and gold, to that island home of thine,—even into that tiny office-room, with its smiling gray portrait of thy dead father's father. And fancy may often re-create for thee ​the welcome sound of hoofs returning home:—"çouval,—tacata, tacata, tacata." . . .
And dreaming of the funny little refrain, the stranger fancied he could look into the future of many years. . . . And in the public car of a city railroad, he saw a brown-eyed, sweet-faced woman, whom it seemed he had known a child, but now with a child of her own—asleep there in her arms—and so pale! It was sundown; and her face was turned to the west, where lingered splendid mockeries of summer seas,—golden Pacifics speckled with archipelagoes of rose and fairy-green. But he knew in some mysterious way that she was thinking of seas not of mist,—of islands not of cloud, while the heavy vehicle rumbled on its dusty way, and the hoofs of the mule seemed to beat time to an old Creole refrain—Milet,—tocoto, tocoto tocoto.
THE END