Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-09-15
ANNE MARIE AND JEANNE MARIE.

Old Jeanne Marie leaned her hand
against the house, and the tears rolled
down her cheeks. She had not wept since
she buried her last child. With her it was
one trouble, one weeping, no more; and
her wrinkled, hard, polished skin so far
had known only the tears that come after
death. The trouble in her heart now was
almost exactly like the trouble caused by
death; although she knew it was not so
bad as death, yet, when she thought of
this to console herself, the tears rolled all
the faster. She took the end of the red
cotton kerchief tied over her head, and
wiped them away; forthe burrows in her face
did not merely run up and down-they ran
in all directions, and carried her tears all
over her face at once. She could under
stand death, but she could not understand
this.
1t came about in this way: Anne Marie
and she lived in the little red-washed cab
in against which she leaned had lived
there alone with each other for fifty years,
ever since Jeanne Marie's husband had
died, and the three children after him, in
the fever epidemic.
The little two-roomed cabin, the stable
where there used to be a COW, the patch of
ground planted with onions, had all been
bought and paid for by the husband; for
he was thrifty, Woodworking Gascon,
and had he lived there would not have
been one better off, or with a larger family,
either in that quarter or in any of the red
washed suburbs with which Gascony has
surrounded New Orleans. His women,
however-the wife and sister-in-law-had
done their share in the work; a man's
share apiece, for with the Gascon women
there is no discrimination of sex when it
comes to work.
And they worked on just the same after
he died, tending the COW, digging, hoeing,
planting, watering. The day following the
funeral, by daylight Jeanne Marie was
shouldering around the yoke of milk-cans
to his patrons, while Anne Marie carried
the vegetables to market; and so on for
fifty years.
They were old women now-seventy-
five years old-and, as they expressed it,
they had always been twins, In twins
tStnere is always one lucky and one unlucky
one; jaime Marie was the lucky one, An
ne Marie the unlucky one. So much so,
that it was even she who had to catch the
rheumatism, and to lie now bedridden,
months at a time, while Jeanne Marie was
as active in her sabots as she had ever
been.
In spite OF Jlle aye Vi DOJu, anu lu6 III
trinity of one, every Saturday night there
was some little thing to pat under the
brick in the hearth for taxes, and license
and the never-to-be-forgotten funeral pro
vision. In the husbands time gold piece:
used to go in, but they had all gone to pay
for the four funerals and the quadrupleC
Doctors bill. The women laid in silvel
pieces the coins, however, grew smaller
and smaller, and represented more anC
more not so much gained from onions a.
so much saved from food.
1t had been explained to them how the!
might, all at once, make years gain il
the lottery; and it had become their Gus
tom always, at the end of every month, L
put aside one silver coin apiece, to buy
lottery ticket with-one ticket each, no
for the great, but for the twenty-five cent
prizes Anne Marie would buy hers roun'
about the market; Jeanne Marie woul,
stop anywhere along her milk course an,
buy hers, and they would go together il
the afternoon to stand with the little crow,
watching the placard upon which the win
ming numbers were to be written. An
when they were written, it was curious
Jeanne Marie's numbers would come on
twice as often as Anne Marie's. Not tina
she ever won anything, for she was no
lucky enough to have them come out i
the order to win; they only came out her
and there, singly; but it was sufficient
make old Anne Marie cross and ugly for