The Concordia sentinel. (Vidalia, Concordia Parish, La.) 1882-current, 1920-02-21

By GEORGE ACNEW CHAMBERLAIN
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put them to baling and packing. From
the reeds along the river he dragged
to light a veritabe fleet of ScOws. They
were appended along the bank, scraped,
callled and pitched. One after an
other they were tlOated out into waist
high wafer and anchored. The days
were TO longer enough. Every woman
In the camp WAS set 10 making lOng,
tightly bound palm-leaf torches and
the pickaninS from eight years up
were organized into squads to light
the night shift through the short hours
of darkness. MSungO took his sleep,
if he took any, leaning against a tree
near The nest of hand-preSsure baling
machines.
All hands were kept steadily at work
until it was completed AT its finish,
when all the available material was
stacked along the edge of the forest in
great OHong piles that looked like
newly cut timber, M'sungO gave
great spread.
To each ten men he allotted a tin
of marmalade; to each twenty box
of crackers, a sack of flour. one load
of salt and a demijOhn of cheap but
sound wine. Andrea watched this
wholesale depletion of the white mans
stores and began to wonder. As she
wondered, her heart went way up and
then way down. Was this the begin
ming of another end? Was she sorry
or was she glad? She looked back on
the few days of her new life and they
seemed already To have stretched into
years. She was too young or too care
less to have learned that time passes
slowly only to those who are in rut
of daily routine, dragging tragically
under the blows of sorrow and almost
forgetting itself entirely when joys are
various.
The day came when the last Of the
barges, towing a little scOw stacked
with an overflow remnant OF bales,
was dispatched and Msungo could
take long breath and turn his at
tention 20 putting the camp in order.
This in itself was no small task. All
branches, chips, bark, refuse and other
rubbish consequent upon the work in
the forest was gathered and f2rned.
Then, as squad after squad of labor
ers left for home and the planting,
their grass huts, scattered without the
limits of the permanent craal, were
also set on fire.
within a week of the first rains"
sad M'sungO to a listless Andrea. "ths
wilderness will have returned alto
gether to its own to all outward al-
pearance. Three weeks after that,
anyone penetrating to the clearing we
have made will find nothing beyond
flOurishing shamba or corn patch, the
very natural property of the craal."
On a night Of downpour Andrea sat
in her room, hands crossed upon dis
carded book in her lap and eyes wide.
ly fixed on some point of focus far be-
yond the encircling walls Of her hut
She was frightened. for her soul had
come to talk with her and there was
no escape. She could not phone up
a taxi and party of four and go to
a show and supper afterward, thus
losing the universal guest.
With a childish gesture of despair,
she crept into bed, curled up with her
face against the pillow and wept. The
more she cried, the more IT rained;
the more il rained, the more she cried.
There was no end to that-no end-un
- Sleep did its best to take and hold
her but tonight its grip was uncertain
and long before morning it saw defeat
coming and made dastardly retreat.
Andrea awoke. not slowly, not swim.
ming up to consciousness through
drowsy gradatiOns., but suddenly with
a swapping of eyes wide open on a
great emptiness. She was alone, ter
ribly alone. and hopelessly awake. She
lay staring up at the uncheerfUl Ian.
tern that she had purposely left burn.
ing. Its chimney was smoked. Out.
side. rain still poured.