The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1886-01-16

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 ito get straight again."
Afterward she had another idea-to
become independent, or as she called
il. Ito 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 il
order to make dresses for the girls, Oh
blouses for the boys.
She always hired herself out at the
vintage season.
And for a great many years she lived
thus-serving. sewing, digging. wash
ing. carrying baskets of earth for the
vineyards. or pushing 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 mer' She had great fear O.
becoming old. infrm. incapable o.
working, and of inspiring pity by hel
infirmity and her misery. She had al
ways carried her hump without asking
anybody's compassion; and she dreaded
to excite pity.
| But it came to pass not as she hac
wished. One day while rolling very
heavy load. she felt sharp pain in hei
breast. Next day she was very ILL
trembling with fever, and unable to eat.
She went to the doctor and told him she
had strained herself somehow anG
forced her stomach out of place. The
old doctor auscultated her, and made .
queer motion with his lips. She haC
nothing displaced internally; but she
was worn out, exhausted, by forty years
of ceaseless labor--by nervous strains,
| by a joyless life whose movements had
never been regulated by the least inn.
pulse of happiness. She was like a.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 Railways 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 OF
the doors of tabernacle-with little
gold angels and beams of sacramento
light and colored rays as of stained
| glass windows with the sun shining
through them. She was knocking al
the gate. she thought, as Jesus
knocked at the gates of the temple oil
Jerusalem. It opened to her in her
dreams. and beyond it was the Other
Life. where she found herself straight
again and her own MASTER" in the
midst of luminous immensity, where
the clouds were stirred with waving oil
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. begar
to complain of her avarice. The truth
was that all the hunchback's savings
had been spent.
She decided to send for her frs
master, whose children she had been SC
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 gel
her admitted-which effort, he thought
would not cost him very dear Terrified
at the mere idea of leaving her home
she refused. She wanted to die in thu
bed of her parents. not in charity bed
She almost hated the old man fol
having SO much as proposed the thing
and she turned her face to the wall, re
solved never to ask for anything more
As for him. he went his way-tellins
everybody in the neighborhood that the
old woman was putting on airs-refus
ing to 60 to the poorhouse where plenty
of people richer than she had to go, anC
would have to go yet!
Other masters, however, who had mo-
been applied to at all, provided gener
1 Ouslv for all her wants.