Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-10-23
Anne Marie and Jeanne
Marie.

since she buried her last child. With
her It was one trouble, one weeping,
NO more; and her wrinkled, hard, pol
Ished skin SO far had known only the
fears that come after death. The
trouble in her heart now was almost
exactly Ii xe 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 ali the faster. She took the end
of the red cotton kerchief tied over
her head, and wiped them away; for
the burrows in her face did not merely
runup an down-they ran in all dl-
rsctions, and carried her tears all over
her face at once. She could under
stand death, but she could not under
stand this.
1t came about in this way: Anne
Marie land she lived in the little red
washed cabin against which she lean
ed; had lived there alone with each
other for fifty years, ever since Jeanne
ELarie's husband died, and the three
children after him, in the fever cpl
demic.
The little tWo-roomed cabin, the
stable where there used to be a COW,
the patch of ground planted with on
IONS, had all been bought and paid for
by the husband; for he was thrifty,
hard working Gascon, and had he liv-
ed there would not have been one bet
ter off, or with a larger family, either
I'm that quarter or in any of the red
washed suburbs with which Gascony
mas surrounded New Orleans. His
women, however-the wife and sister
in-Iaw-had done their share in the
work; mans share apiece, for with
the Gascon women there is no dis
elimination 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 vegeta
bIes to market; and SO on for fifty
years.
They were old women now-seven-
tY-fve years old-and, as they ex
pressed it, they had always been twins.
In twins there is always one lucky and
one unlucBy one; Jeanne Marie was
the lucky one, Anne Marie the unlucky
one. So much SO, that it was even she
xyho had to catch the rheumatism, and
10 11.i1 he of n
time, while Jeanne Marie was as ac
tive ia her sabots as she had ever been.
In spite OF the age of both, and the
Tnfirmity of one, every Saturday night
there was some little thing to put un-
der the brick in the hearth, for taxes,
and license, and the never to be- for
gotten funeral provision. In the hus-
bands time gold pieces used to go in,
but they had all gone to pay for the
four funerals and the quadrupled doc
tors bill. The women laid in silver
pieces; the coins, however, grew
smaller and smaller, and represented
more and more not so much gained
from onions as so much saved from
food.
It had all been explained to them
how they might, all at once, make a
years gain in the lottery; and it had
become their custom, always, at the
end of every month, to put aside one
SILVER coin apiece, to buy a lottery
ticket with-one ticket each, not for
the great, but for the twenty five cent,
prizes. Anne Marie would buy hers
round about the market; Jeanne Ma
Eze would stop anywhere along her
milk course and buy hers, and they
would go together in the afternoon to
stand with the little crowd watching
4Ele pIacard upon which the winning
Numbers were to be written. And
when they were written, it was curl
Sszss, Jeanne Marie's numbers would
come out twice as often as Anne Ma
EEe7s. Not that she ever won any
thing, for she was not lucky enough
20 have them come out in the order
40 win; they only came out here and
there, sin ly; but it was sufficient to
make old Anne Marie cross and ugly
Tor day Or two, and inlure the sale
OF the onion basket When she be-
came bedridden, Jeanne Marie bought
the ticket for both, on the numbers,
however, that Anne Marie gave her;
and Anne Marie had to lie in bed and
wait, while Jeanne Marie went out to
watch the placard.
One evening, watching it, Jeanne
Marie saw the ticket agent write out
ct. in such way that they drew a