Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1913-07-01
CHAPTER I.
Captain Tinkletoes.

Family. The Holy Family was on IL
way from mass at Saint Louis cathe
dral. Sister Anastasia leading the se'
date procession with the larger girls
and Sister Laure at the rear with tint
smaller ones. Aurelie was the small
est one Of all. She clung tightly Il
sister Laure's skirts, for in the asy'
lum, one saw nothing like this. Al
Royal street was filled with bawlins
Mardi Gras maskers ringing bells
footing horns and humping into thu
Holy Family as though, on such
morning, there should not be such
thing as an orphan in the whole rounc
world. And on the corner Aurelie, yer,
frightened, looked up into the eyes o.
an old man who stared down at hel
with crafty and deliberate intent, and
then stumped after the procession or
his wooden peg-leg, bound round with
a shiny brass band, as If now the mat
ter was settled, and Of all the orphans
big ones, middle sized ones and small
er ones, tight mixed" dark mixed
and some almost black-there was
lust one he wanted, and that was the
littlest one Of all!
Many, many years after, a black
eyed and vivacious young woman
whom all the land had read about
starting on her wedding journey, threw
her arms about q silvery-headed, one
legged old rebel and kissing him, said:
"Now. Uncle Michigan. before we
say goodbye, tell me the real reason
you stole me?"
The old rebel chuckled as he had
done a thousand times at this same
vexed question. well, you had on
little blue wamus and little blue pants
and / done reckoned you was a boy!
So I follered you right up close
and when a lot Of them Mardy Graws
come along blowing horns and bump
ed into the convent sisters every way,
/ just grabbed you up and stumped on
for I says: BY Mighty, this is the one
Captain Tinkletoes'll want-this littl-
est one with the little blue pants So
off to the woods we went!"
Then she bubbled with fond re-
proving laughter "Now, don't be SILL
ly! That story is awfully silly! But,
Uncle Mich, I'm glad you stole me
then is when everything began to hap
pen!"
Well, let us see Aurelie OF on her
honeymoon, while we go back twenty
years to the morning when Uncle
Michigan seized her out of the demor-
allied Holly Family and stumped of
to the French Market lugger landing
in Old New Orleans, where he put her
on Etienne Guillimet's crab boat bound
for Barataria bay. He gave her pra-
line to suck less she cry. and turned
a crab basket over her head and not
until the Caminada had wheezed some
miles up the yellow Mississippi and
turned off through canal leading to
the wild Louisiana swamps did he
take the basket of.
Aurelie still sucked the praline un-
blinkingiy. Never such feast with
the decorous Holy Family. Her first
taste of the wicked world was good.
When the Cajun captain saw the
child he was amazed.
by damn, ole man-whose ess
dat?"
"oh," said Uncle Michigan, scratch
ing q match evasively on his wooden
leg. "A baby done goin' down to its
wimmin folks-'way off past John-the
Fool and Africa and them camps. It's
a right lonesome country!"
But IL Captain Etienne and the Ca
jun crew had remembered they might
have known that, long before the
lower lakes were reached, a trapper's
pirogue shot out from the overhanging
jungle, and Uncle Michigan handed
down the child to another old man
who sat it before him in the tiny ca
noe and stared at 1t with incredulous
alteration. The Caminada wheezed of
to the south, and all about the mighty
woods grow still with only the hoot OF
an owl in the twilight gloom under
the moss-hung cypress. The little old
man still stared at the child who look
ed back expectant, yet fearless.
Done come!" he breathed in his ex-
ultation: Done come"
He took her in his arms and held
her off, in his eyes the light Of :he
Magi as they stood in the door OF
Bethlehem. And when Michigan pad
died on to where a great bar Of the
sunset broke through the forest he
saw the child in a golden light and
laughed his happiness. "A little child
shall lead 'em! Michigan, here I be
an old fool reb off in the swamps with
the frogs and owls and snakes and
gators, waitin' for the child to come
lead 'em to occupy the land-and here
it be-"
But Michigan was silent. He hac
made an awful discovery.
They went on past the evil spike:
of the cypress lifting out Of the blacl
water where once a giant gar stirred
luC uCPlHoB anu OilSS OLA ohAoosS'
crossed slowly before them; and once
a gray shark swan lithely in the sal
tide setting up from the gulf; ant
once far off an owl called, and from {
palmetto oyerhanging the canoe
copperhead snake fell by the child's
side, but she seemed without fear. Ant
in the last rosy light a snowy egret
sailed above them, and on a shell ridge
a four-point buck watched until th'
swampers' pirogue had stolen on into
the black wet forest.
They came to a tiny garden at thu
end of canal filled with purple hya'
cinth, and all about the thatched fence
the green cane grew. The lean hound
pups came to greet them from undel
the palmetto hut, and the old mar
lifted the child and set her there among
them.
"Yere's kome," he said. And yer,
you'll grow up to lead 'em. Leell come
on his big white horse, and Stonewal
a-chargin' and rarin'; and ole Jet
Stuart and Colonel Maramaduke o
my ole battry. And up and upll come
tho old oyrou 1ipos lost as IT'S dopI