Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-06-10
The Acadian Wild Man.
New York Sun.

isiana there winds to the sea a slow brown
bayou called the Terrebonne, from the
fertility of the black loamy land through
which it flows. Big sugar plantations lie
along its course, but near the mouth are
the homes of many Acadians, for this was
one of the streams along which they set
tied in Louisiana.
They cultivate little rice farms and
orange groves, and live in summer upon
their fishing and the produce of their gar
dens in winter upon the game that
abounds in the marshes. Since their ex-
lie they, like the Bourbons, have forgot
ten nothing and have learned nothing.
| Their language, customs and manners are
identically the same as the day when
With the turn of the tide the ships sailed out Of
the haroor.
And the coasts of their beloved land grew misty
with distance.
In among these thriving little farms is
a large tract of land, melancholy, weedy
waste. Great forest trees have grown up
in the midst of what were fair fields that
waved with golden RIGA. Fences and
boundaries long ago rotted away. The
bitches are choked with grass, and young
willows grow along their line. The whole
is matted with the tangled growth Of the
lavish vegetation brought up from this
fertile soil by the tropical suns and wild
rains. Sometimes at dusk you will catch
| a glimpse of a bent figure skulking away
from the door of a ruined cottage whose
chimneys have fallen in, whose roof is q
green PUPPY mass of lichen, and whose
walls totter forward to fall. The neigh
bors will explain that it is only old Allan
din, the wild man.
If you will lie in wait about this hour
I,f ho ~,
you may catch a closer glimpse of him
| He looks seventy, but is not really so old.
His once tall form is bent and he walks
with the quick, creeping movements of
an animal. Long gray hair hangs in filthy
matted locks to his waist and mingles
with his great sweeping beard. Two large
| dark eyes gaze out from wrinkled, pal
lid face through the rough hair with a
glare like a cat. His hands are like rough,
knotted claws, and his whole body has a
growth of coarse hair upon It, His only
covering is o pair of brown blankets,
| through which hole has been torn to adj
nit his head, and he creeps silently away
every night into the forest swamps. This
is the story the neighbors tell:
| Thirty years ago there was no more
prosperous farm in the parish than that
of Etienne Allandin, and no more respect
ed man than its rich young owner. He
was alone in the world with the exception
! OF some distant cousins, but his friends
were many, and he was betrothed to a
pretty young girl who was to marry him
in the next March.
His face was plain, except for his
| splendid dark eyes, but he had a warm,
gentle heart, and was fine parti, SO that
| he would not have asked any parent
around for twenty miles for their daugh-
ter in vain. According to old Acadian
usage, he built new house that winter,
spending loving care upon the nest that
was to hold his little mate.
The wedding day approached. The
! happy bridegroom made ready the mar
rage corbeiIle, as was usual, only his gifts
were the most splendid ever seen in that
simple neighborhood. The wedding
| gown was of real white silk, the veil,
wreath of wax orange flowers, with the
white shoes and gloves, had come all the
way from New Orleans.
| He rose early that lovely March morn
ing, and arrayed himself carefully in his
black, shiny clothes, casting tender,
amused chances, at the little feminine
garments lying on that pride Of
every Acadian woman's heart a plump,
! StEUuS D6U. Will IuIueu pu1OWS. he
was making up parcel of these garments
ready to be carried to the bride when an
embarrassed and sympathetic delegation
came to inform him that the bride had
disappeared. She had eloped with a
handsome young good-for-naught, who
had been refused by her parents. and had
left not a word for her betrothed; Al
| landin stood like a man stunned; then he
turned every one out, and shut himself in
with his ruined happiness.
Soon the neighbors whispered that the
new house was empty and Allandin had
/ gone away to the swamp. From that day
| he never spoke to any human being. All
day the man hid in his house, and with
night fall went to the forest, and like a
wild beast sought his food. Crawfsh,
! lizards, field mice, and birds. eaten raw,
were his sustenance. His hair and beard
grew long and tangled, MS clothes fell to
| pieces, and a blanket became his only
garb.
! In all these thirty years he has never
| spoken, and now he knows no human
/ language. His only sounds are few In