The Press., 1896-08-13
OLD NAFClIITOCHES.
By KATE CHOPIN.
Copyright, 1896, by the Author ]

ICOpyFlRnGB 1oSO by the AuGnOr'1
 Precisely at o'clock every morning except Saturdays and Sundays Mile. Su- zanne St. Denys Godolph would cross the railroad trestle that spanned Bayou
 Boispourri. She might have crossed in the flat which MT. Alphonse Laballiere kept for his own convenience, but the method was slow and unreliable. So every morning at Mile. St. Denys Go- dOlph crossed the trestle.
 She taught public school in pic turesque little white frame structure that stood upon MT. Laballiere's land and hung upon the very brink of the bayou.
 Laballiere himself was comparatively newcomer in the parish. It was barely six month since he decided one day to leave the sugar and rice to his brother Alcee, who had a talent for their culti- vation, and to try his hand at cotton planting That was why he was up in Natchitoches parish on piece of rich, high, Cane river land, knocking into shape tumbled down plantation that he had bought for next to nothing.
 He had often during his perambula- tions observed the trim, graceful figure stepping cautiously over the ties, and had sometimes shivered for it's safety He always exchanged a greeting with the girl, and once threw plank over a muddy pool for her to step upon. He caught but glimpses of her features, for she wore an enormous sunbonnet to shield her complexion that seemed mar velously fair, while loosely fitting leath- CT gloves protected her hands. He knew she was the schoolteacher, and also that she was the daughter of that very pig headed old Mime. St Denys Godolph who was hoarding her barren acres across the bayou as miser hoards gold. Starving over them, some people said. But that was nonsense. Nobody starves on Louisiana plantation, unless it be with suicidal intent.
 These things he knew, but he did not know why Mile. St. Denys Godolph al- ways answered his salutation with an air of chilling hauteur that would easily have paralyzed less sanguine man.
 The reason was that Suzanne, like ev- cry one else, had heard the stories that were going the rounds about him. Peo- pie said he was entirely too much at home with the free mulattoes. It seems a dreadful thing to say, and it would be shocking to think of a Laballiere, but it wasn't true.
 When Laballiere took possession of his land, he found the plantation house occupied by one Giestin and his swarm ing family. It was past reckoning how long the free mulatto and his people had been there. The house was six room. long, shambling affair, shrinking together from decrepitude. There was not an entire pane of glass in the struc- ture, and the turkey red curtains flap ped in and out of the broken apertures. But there is no need to dwell upon de- tails. It was wholly unfit to serve as a civilized human habitation, and All phonse Laballiere would no sooner have disturbed its contented occupants than he would have scattered a family of cartridges nesting ill a corner of his field. He established himself with few belongings in the best cabin he could find on the place, and without further ado proceeded to supervise the building of house, of gin, of this, that and the other, and to look into the hundred de- tails that go to set neglected planta- tion in good working order. He took his meals at the free mulatto's, quite apart from the family of course, and they attended, not too skillfully, to his few domestic wants.
 Some loafer whom he had snubbed remarked one day in town that Labal- Here had more use for a free mulatto than he had for white man. It was sort of catching thing to say, and sug- gestive, and was repeated with the in evitable embellishments.
 One morning when Laballiere sat eat ing his solitary breakfast, and being waited upon by the queenly Mmo. Gies- tin and brace of her weazened boys, Giestin himself came into the room. He was about half the size of his wife, puny and timid. He stood beside the table, twirling his felt hat aimlessIy and bal ancing himself insecurely on his high pointed boot heels.
 MT. Laballiere," " he said, II reckon l tell you. It's betta you git shed O me en my fambly. Jis like you want, yas "
 "What in the name of common sense are you talking about?' asked Labal- | Here looking up abstractedly from his New Orleans paper. Giestin wriggled l uncomfortably.
 "It's heap O story goin roun bout | you, if you want b'lieve me" And he | snickered and looked at his wife, who | thrust the end of her shawl into her mouth and walked from the room with | a tread like the Empress Eugenie's in that elegant woman's palmiest days.
 Stories T. echoed Laballiere, his face