The Cooperstown courier. (Cooperstown, Griggs Co., N.D.) 1902-1913, 1903-03-12
5 On the Batture.
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
) By S. Rhett Roman.

AIHEN the river came creeping
w up and driftwood and great
tree trunks from the caving banks
of the hill region along the upper
river, torn up and borne away by
the rushing waters of the Atchafal-
ava and the Red, went by, Delphine
always grew anxious.
She would stop singing those sweet,
plaintive fishermen songs, brought
over long ago from the Normandy
coast of France by her grandfather,
who told strange and fascinating
tales of the ''peches grands cours"
he went on when young.
He loved to describe the fishing
fleet of the small village, perched
high among the cliffs, as it fitted
out of the narrow mouth of the har-
Dor steering for the mackerel banks
of the North sea to come back six,
perhaps eight, months later.
Delphine and the old man were the
only occupants Of the little dwelling
built outside the leyee on high stills,
like many others lining the river
front along the outskirts OF the city.
That of the old Norman fisherman
was the largest and most preten-
tious*of those occupied by the queer
cosmopolitan population scattered
along the batture, and old Jean
Pierre Durant, stern-looking, pow
erful and taciturn, much-liked and
somewhat feared, was considered the
most prosperous of all the jewellers
of the river settlement.
Delphine had no recollection of
any parent but old Pierre.
It was he who had watched over
her and taken care of her, and had
brought her, when she was old
enough, to the Convent of the Sacred
Heart to be there educated.
Delphine had wept disconsolate
tears when he left her in charge of
the pale, sweet-faced mother supe-
rior. But how happy those years
had been. How she had romped and
played in the big shady garden Of
the old convent, and how pleasant il
was in the high-ceiled, quiet class
How she had loved to sing in the
choir of the chapel while the set
ting sun, through the stained glass
windows cast violet and golden and
crimson patches on the spotless white
floor. fa. H..
Delphine had to admit to herself,
although never to Jean-Pierre, that
she greatly missed her light-hearted
Companions of the convent and the
care of the gentle nuns. Ezs ,
Her studies, at first irksome, how
ahsorbingly delighted they became
N'had been no effort, Delphine re
membered, to win prizes and keep al
theHhead of her classes.
gshe had more than once wondered
why intellectual and wise Mother Ag
mes would watch her with troubled
gaze and sigh, anxiously, when Civ
ing; her, first honors. q a
Then she came back to live in the
little house on tho batture, among
the. shrimpers and fishermen, the 81
cilians and Italians and the shifting
changing population, leading theil
strange lives along the bend Of the
river, where small ferry boat went
back and forth and tied up at night
at its wharf, when it's restless days
work was over.
Two rooms had been added by Jean
Pierre and bright colored awning.
shaded the small porch. The boat
moored to a stake when the river
was low and to the front step whe1
the tide was gurgling around the pill
ing and among the thick swayinf
willows around behind, had been re
painted when Delphine came back.
There were days when Delphine, i,
spite of her bright spirit and de
termination to be CHEEKY for Jean
ferre's sake, felt aIstrange fear com,
over her, and an unconquerable dreat
spt the great rolling yellow It'd
Aweeping down to the gulf and rush
ing in foaming, murmuring counte
seurrents around the little home, nov
70 pretty, with its boxes Of flowers