St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1885-12-05

i
dwelling by dark paths, lighting her
wav with lantern, and went to sleep
thinking that another day had passed
which would never again see her de.
formitv.
Her ideal was ito get straight again. !"
Afterward she had another idea-to
become independent, or as she called
it. ''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
a charity by employing an infirm 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 a 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 enoughb-
come to me-" She had q great fear of
becoming old, infirm. incapable of
working, and of inspiring pity by her
intirmity and her misery. She had al
ways carried her hump without asking
anyboGy'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 a
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 inn
pulse of happiness. She was like bow
of which the cord had been worn
through-or 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
tains of 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
n nvI hnp - 10 H.
midst of luminous immensity, where
the clouds were stirred with waving of
white wings, and all was sweetness and
peace.
But she was soon reused rudely from
these dreams. The female neighbor,
who had been taking care Of her, began
to complain of her avarice. The truth
was that all the hunchback's savings
had been spent.
She decided to send for her first
master, whose children she had been so
kind to. He had become very old. very
avaricious-almost cruel. He simply
advised her to enter the almshouse.
stating that he himself would try to get
her admitted-which effort, he thought.
would not cost him very dear. Terrified
1T the mere idea of leaving her home
she refused. She wanted to die in the
bed of her parents. not in charity bed.
She almost hated the old man for
having so much as proposed the thing;
and she turned her face to the wall. re-
,olved never to ask for anything more.
As for him. he went his way-telling
everybody in the neighborhood that the
Did woman was putting on airs-refus-
ng to 60 to the poorhouse where plenty |;
If people richer than she had to 60. and |
would have to 60 yet!
Other masters. however. who had not
been applied to at all. provided gener-
ously for all her wants.
Really, however. the hunchsack
wanted nothing. She could not eat
my more. She kept declaring that her
was out of place. In order
lot to annoy her. the doctor was obliged |
% agree with her. The parish priest
:ame to see her several days in success |