The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1913-07-06

tie ones face. And at nightfall she
came again with all her goods, pad
ding through the woods by trails that
none but the hardest trappers beyond
"the forty-arpent line" could follow,
Nothing she cared that Old Man Cap
tain had retreated to the swamps in
e, and had never surrendered; nor
that Michigan, who gained his name
through being captured by the cavalry
os that State, had followed Old Man
Captain because, certainly If Old Man
Captain wouldn't surrender, and the
Government up North wouldn't sur
render. why one must stick to Old
Man Captain. She came because the
child smiled at her, and she was alone
She had lost four brothers and sisters
in the great storm at La Cheniere, and
the years since she had been with the
pirogue makers at Lake Salvador Tenn
pie, or at an evil shrimp camp on john
the-Fool; and once she had followed
seine crew to the open gulf, pulling
an oar in the CLASSY Gains with the
best of them, but coming back better
neither in money nor morals.
Long years after, in her bright world
the child had a memory of the Indian
basket-maker, stolid, her black hair
hanging straight behind her ears. in
which were. two brass rings, kneeling
to blow the Goals in the clay furnace
and roasting live crabs, watching them
writhe with the calm of the savage.
And another memory was of the In
dian woman taking her miles through
the swamps in her slender pirogue to
meet some priest who came on month
ly visits from the lower coast planta-
tons, and thereafter the child came to
know that she had been named, Aurelie
rosary. Then came tumble of child
came to think they must be dreams; of
tn long hot days and wonderful sun
sets over the shoreless lakes, the morn
ings all aglitter under the moss-plumed
cypress, the cardinals and knocking
birds fitting above the floating hya-
cinths around their tiny garden. Many
summers Aurelie watched the eternal
procession of the hyacinths past their
palm hut, sometimes so choking the
bayou that it was a sea of purple, but
one in which no boat could move. not
even the log steamer which came down
now and then to tow raft up to the
great river to the North.
She grew with many generations of
hound pups from the day Of Pon,o
and Flora. They built palm thatch
after palm thatch when the old ones
sagged in the July rains. or the foods
from crevasses drove them into the
tree platform built in a live oak for
just such dangers. In summer the two
old men toted moss from the black
swamp and sold it to the trade boats
in winter they trapped and hunted and
ran the crab lines. and all these months
and years Old Man Captain lived in
great expectancy, of what none ex-
actly knew. Not even Michigan. who
sometimes would shake his head and
conhde to Aurelie that "Old Man, he
done gone clean crazy this timew
Old man would sit for hours regard
ing Aurelie as she played on the hard
packed earth before the thatch, his
vague blue eyes lit with his vision
Then at times he would mutter, or at
night would get up to pace the path
between the hut and the bayou, calling
out phrases of the mighty drama that
had touched his brain. Sometimes it
was Lee on his big white horse, or
Stonewall rarin' and chargin', or at
times it was Jean La Elites pirate
treasure buried somewhere from
Plaquemine to Grand Terre, and which |
Aurelie was to find and so enrich the
that the old gray lines |
would rise triumphantly. Yes, Azure
lie was to lead EN- to occupy the land. |