The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1885-11-26

little while to do odd jobs about the
house or to iron. For such work she
received her board and ten cents dav.
In the morning, before dawn, ere
going to her days work" she went to
look after her little field and trim her
vines; then at the first stroke of the
Angelus, she started off in her great
black cloak, looking more distorted
than at other times with her rapid walk.
In the evening she returned to her
dwelling by dark paths, lighting her
way with lantern, and went to sleep
thinking that another day had passed
which would never again see her de-
formity.
Her ideal was ''to get straight again"
Afterward she had another idea-to
become independent, or as she called
1t, 'to become her own master. /" For
she suffered sometimes quite as much
from her servitude as from her hump.
Although she did quite as much, and
often even more work than others, GER
tain people always acted towards her
as if they thought they were doing
charity by employing an infrm per-
son at all.
In houses where children were, she
used to pet the little ones. She had
been particularly good to those of the
first master into whose service she had
entered
Sometimes she visited his house in
order to make dresses for the girls, or
blouses for the boys,
She always hired herself out at the
vintage season.
And for great many years she lived
thus-serving, sewing, digging, wash
ing, carrying baskets of earth for the
vineyards, or pushing a wheelbarrow.
She killed time in this way-killed- the
weeks, the months, the years with the
peculiar Vigor of little nervous some
body possessed by one strong purpose.
Her particular wish was to die sud
denly in the midst of her work-to have
the pleasant surprise of hearing the
good God saying: .'That is enough!-
come to met She had great fear of
becoming old, infirm. incapable of
working, and of inspiring pity by her
infirmity and her misery. She had al
ways carried her hump without asking
anybo6y's compassion; and she dreaded
to excite pity.
But it came to pass not as she had
wished. One day while rolling a very
heavy load, she felt sharp pain in her
breast. Next day she was very i'll,
trembling with fever, and unable to eat.
She went to the doctor and told him she
had strained herself somehow and
forced her stomach out of place. The
old doctor auscultated her, and made
queer motion with his lips. She had
nothing displaced internally; but she
was worn out, exhausted, by forty years
OF ceaseless labor--bY nervous strains.
by joyless life whose movements had
never been regulated by the least i'm
pulse of happiness. She was like bow
OF which the cord had been worn
through-or a clock that had stopped
at the beginning of another hour, be-
cause its works had been worn away by
incessant and monotonous revolution.
She tried to set herself to work again:
but her will could exert no force upon
the ruined mechanism of her being.
She had to take to her bed and re-
main In it-always the same bed. And
therein the silence of her little room,
with her eyes staring at the same cur
talns or green serge which had been
moved long ago by the last breath of
her parents-she asked herself if she
was going to remain long in that state.
She felt pretty sure that she could never
get well; but it made her suffer so much
to linger in that fashion at the very gate
OF the other world! She imagined that
gate to be like the gate of church or |
the doors of a, tabernacle-with little !
gold angels and beams of sacramental
light and colored rays as of stained |
glass windows with the sun shining
through them. She was knocking at |
The gate, she thought,-even as Jesus
knocked at the gates of the temple of
Jerusalem. 1t opened to her in her
dreams. and beyond it was the Other
Life, where she found herself straight |
again and her own master,n in the |
midst OF a luminous immensity, where
'he clouds were stirred with waving of |
white wings, and all was sweetness and
peace. k4 ss
But she was soon reused rudely from
,hese dreams. The female neighbor.
Who had been taking care of her, began
20 complain of her aYarice. The truth
vas that all the hunchback's savings
lad been spent.
She decided to send for her first
master. whose children she had been so
ind to. He had become very old, very
almost cruel. He simply
advised her to enter the almshouse.
tating that he himself would try to get
Ter admitted-which effort, he thought.
would not cost him very dear. Terrified
It the mere idea of leaving her home
he refused. She wanted to die in the
'ed OF her parents. not in charity bed.
She almost hated the old man for
aving so much as proposed the thing;
nd she turned her face to the wall, re-
olved never to ask for anything more.
As for him, he went his way-telline
verybody in the neighborhood that the
Id woman was putting on airs-refus-
1g to go to the poorhouse where plenty
t people richer than she had to go, and
7ould have to go yeti
Other masters, however, who had not
zen applied to at all. provided gener-
usly for all her wants. esss
Really, however. the hunchSack
7anted nothing. She could not eat