The Princeton union., 1899-05-11

more favorite indoors than out.
The quadroon girl who stood behind
Mr.. Bostock's chair and pulled the
cord that moved above the table fan,
keeping a current of air circulating in
the room-this girl once observed
making a face" az the overseer, when
he was looking elsewhere.
q hope you did not twhip jerry said
Mr.. Bostock a
mo, Sir, since you desired me not to.
But thrashing would do the boy lots
of good" ..>
# You are such cruel man" the lady
remarked. 5sa
"Ah, Miss Coral, you'll never under
stand how lazy these niggers are,
when they're not followed close. If it
wasn't for me, your father wouldn't
have half crop, any year. That
jeremiah, for instance: he'd fish in the
bayou and play the banjo all day, if I
didn't look after him" ,. 49,,
''We do have better crops under Mr..
LIE tevre's management" said Mr..
Bostock. "Still, I don't see why he
has to drive up the field hands so.
They get along better on other planta-
TONS .-a t.-t -- "
CPL show you the difference when
the cane is cut" said the overseer,
with his mouth full. .'
81 think Mr.. LIE Fevre would get on
easier with our people if he had al
ways been at the SOUTH" said the lady.
''May be so, Miss Coral. Pm Penn
nd n !,
to learn about the niggers. know
EN-! They want bossing, and a good
deal Of it,
Weeks passed swiftly by, and I re-
mained at this delightful home. Re-
membering my promise, wrote to Mr..
Dorion, giving him full account of
affairs here, and of the condition of his
old friend. will say here, that the
subject need not be again referred to,
that, while my presence and the recol-
lections it recalled had a temporary
effect in withdrawing Mr.. Bostock
from the clouds that enveloped him,
that unfortunate condition soon re-
turned. He was sunk in melancholy,
morose and peevish. There was never
time when the sight of his child or
the sound of her voice would not cause
him to brighten for moment, and I
could see that he sometimes tried to
shake off his shadows and converse
freely with me. But the effort was
vain. The decline of his physical
health was bad enough; but it was not
to be compared to the changed condi-
tion of his mind. I watched him mar
rowly, and began to think that Mr..
Dorion was right. The mans mental
faculties were impaired; but there was
some mysterious terror, some haunting
dread back of that condition. He
would sit for an hour sunk in moody
abstraction, and when suddenly ad-
dressed would start, look wildly at his
daughter, and recover his sense of his
surroundings slowly and with effort.
Could all this be the result of remorse,
the punishment Of conscience for the
Staying Of Castex? No; for recalled
MIR. Dorions shuddering description of
the ferocity with which his friend had
avowed that he meant to kill his adver-
sary. My watchings, and my refec-
tions by day and night, gave me no
clewsto the mystery of the mans de-
meanor, to the appalling change that
had come over him.
So the weeks passed. One week had
not gone when I was placed upon
footing of charming, cordial friend
ship with the beautiful daughter of
this house. We read together, she
often aloud from old French romances,
in the original. She played and sang
to me; she told me all about this
strange region, with it's natural won
ders. l told her of the White noun
tains and the granite hills, the snow
storms and the cold of winter. All
these things she had read of, but she
listened to my stories as though they
were leaves from some fairy chronicle.
And, most charming of all, we would
wander by the moonlight through the
oak and magnolia grove; through the
wide fields green with the cane leaves,
to the edge of the impenetrable cy-
press swamps, where the cry of the
pelican and the splash of the alligator
could be heard.
Did reflect as to whittier all this
was tending? Did it occur to me that
the seed was sowing could only come
to bitter harvest of impossible
ties? In fact, I took no thought about
it. let the dream go on-the en-
trancing, enrapturing dream!
But my time was not all passed in
this way. I became we'll acquainted
with LIE Fevre, and found that he was
much more blunt than brutal; though
the negroes all stood in fear of him.
He took me over the plantation and
explained the processes of cane-grow-
ing, cutting and grinding. We went
over to New Orleans, put up for three
days at the st. Charles, and examined
the wonders of the crescent river
front with it's forest of smoke-pipes
and the busy scenes of the levee. We
strolled in the French quarter of this
unique city, which, within less than
century, has been under Spanish,
French and American government; we
visited the market; we rode in the SUBJ
urbs on the hard and shining shell
roads. Back again at the La Fourche
plantation, we went over to the ancient