There was no clumsier looking fellow in church that Sunday morning than Antoine Bocaze—the one they called Tonie. But Tonie did not really care if he were clumsy or not. He felt that he could speak to no woman save his mother; but since he had no desire to the hearts of any of the island , what difference did it make?
He knew there was no better fisherman on the Chênière Caminada than himself, if his face was too long and bronzed, his limbs too unmanageable and his eyes too earnest—almost too honest.
It was a midsummer day, with a lazy, breeze blowing from the straight into the church windows. The ribbons on the young girls’ hats fluttered like the wings of birds, and the old women 316clutched the flapping ends of the veils that covered their heads.
A few mosquitoes, floating through the air, with their nipping and humming the people to a certain degree of attention and consequent devotion. The measured tones of the priest at the altar rose and fell like a song: “Credo in unum Deum patrem omnipotentem” he chanted. And then the people all looked at one another, suddenly .
Some one was playing upon the organ whose notes no one on the whole island was able to ; whose tones had not been heard during the many months since a passing stranger had one day listlessly dragged his fingers across its idle keys. A long, sweet strain of music floated down from the and filled the church.
It seemed to most of them—it seemed to Tonie there beside his old mother—that some heavenly being must have upon the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes and chosen this way of communicating with its people.
317But it was no creature from a different sphere; it was only a young lady from Grand . A rather pretty young person with blue eyes and nut-brown hair, who wore a dotted lawn of fine and fashionable make, and a white Leghorn sailor-hat.
Tonie saw her standing outside of the church after mass, receiving the priest’s voluble praises and thanks for her service.
She had come over to mass from Grand Isle in Baptiste Beaudelet’s lugger, with a couple of young men, and two ladies who kept a pension over there. Tonie knew these two ladies—the widow Lebrun and her old mother—but he did not attempt to speak with them; he would not have known what to say. He stood aside gazing at the group, as others were doing, his serious eyes earnestly upon the fair organist.
Tonie was late at dinner that day. His mother must have waited an hour for him, sitting patiently with her coarse hands folded in her lap, in that little still room with its “brick-painted” floor, its chimney and furnishings.
318He told her that he had been walking—walking he hardly knew where, and he did not know why. He must have tramped from one end of the island to the other; but he brought her no bit of news or gossip. He did not know if the Cotures had stopped for dinner with the Avendettes; whether old Pierre François was worse, or better, or dead, or if Philibert was drinking again this morning. He knew nothing; yet he had crossed the village, and passed every one of its small houses that stood close together in a long, jagged line facing the sea; they were gray and by time and the rude of the salt sea winds.
He knew nothing, though the Cotures had all bade him “good day” as they filed into Avendette’s, where a steaming plate of gumbo was waiting for each. He had heard some woman screaming, and others saying it was because old Pierre François had just passed away. But he did not remember this, nor did he recall the fact that lame Philibert had staggered against him when he stood absently watching a “fiddler” sidling across the sun-baked sand. He could tell his mother 319nothing of all this; but he said he had noticed that the wind was fair and must have driven Baptiste’s boat, like a flying bird, across the water.
Well, that was something to talk about, and old Ma’me Antoine, who was fat, leaned comfortably upon the table after she had helped Tonie to his courtbouillon, and remarked that she found Madame was getting old. Tonie thought that perhaps she was aging and her hair was getting whiter. He seemed glad to talk about her, and reminded his mother of old Madame’s kindness and sympathy at the time his father and brothers had perished. It was when he was a little fellow, ten years before, during a squall in Barataria Bay.
Ma’me Antoine declared that she could never forget that sympathy, if she lived till Day; but all the same she was sorry to see that Madame Lebrun was also not so young or fresh as she used to be. Her chances of getting a husband were surely every year; especially with the young girls around her, budding each spring like flowers to be plucked. The one who had played upon the organ was Mademoiselle Duvigné, Claire 320Duvigné, a great , the daughter of the Rampart street. Ma’me Antoine had found that out during the ten minutes she and others had stopped after mass to gossip with the priest.
“Claire Duvigné,” muttered Tonie, not even making a to taste his courtbouillon, but picking little bits from the half loaf of crusty brown bread that lay beside his plate. “Claire Duvigné; that is a pretty name. Don’t you think so, mother? I can’t think of anyone on the Chênière who has so pretty a one, nor at Grand Isle, either, for that matter. And you say she lives on Rampart street?”
It appeared to him a matter of great importance that he should have his mother repeat all that the priest had told her.
II.
Early the following morning Tonie went out in search of lame Philibert, than whom there was no cleverer workman on the island when he could be caught sober.
Tonie had tried to work on his big lugger that lay bottom upward under the shed, but 321it had seemed impossible. His mind, his hands, his tools refused to do their office, and in sudden desperation he desisted. He found Philibert and set him to work in his own place under the shed. Then he got into his small boat with the red lateen-sail and went over to Grand Isle.
There was no one at hand to warn Tonie that he was the part of a fool. He had, singularly, never felt those premonitory symptoms of love which the greater portion of mankind before they reach the age which he had . He did not at first recognize this powerful impulse that had, without warning, itself of his entire being. He obeyed it without a struggle, as naturally as he would have obeyed the of hunger and thirst.
Tonie left his boat at the and proceeded at once to Mme. Lebrun’s pension, which consisted of a group of plain, built cottages that stood in island, about half a mile from the sea.
The day was bright and beautiful with soft, of wind blowing from the water. From a cluster of orange trees a flock of doves 322ascended, and Tonie stopped to listen to the beating of their wings and follow their flight toward the water oaks whither he himself was moving.
He walked with a dragging, uncertain step through the yellow, chamomile, his thoughts traveling before him. In his mind was always the vivid picture of the girl as it had stamped itself there yesterday, connected in some mystical way with that celestial music which had thrilled him and was vibrating yet in his soul.
But she did not look the same to-day. She was returning from the beach when Tonie first saw her, leaning upon the arm of one of the men who had accompanied her yesterday. She was dressed differently—in a dainty blue cotton gown. Her companion held a big white sunshade over them both. They had exchanged hats and were laughing with great abandonment.
Two young men walked behind them and were trying to engage her attention. She glanced at Tonie, who was leaning against a tree when the group passed by; but of course she did not know him. She was speaking 323English, a language which he hardly understood.
There were other young people gathered under the water oaks—girls who were, many of them, more beautiful than Mlle. Duvigné; but for Tonie they simply did not exist. His whole universe had suddenly become converted into a background for the person of Mlle. Duvigné, and the shadowy figures of men who were about her.
Tonie went to Mme. Lebrun and told her he would bring her oranges next day from the Chênière. She was well pleased, and commissioned him to bring her other things from the stores there, which she could not at Grand Isle. She did not question his presence, knowing that these summer days were idle ones for the Chênière fishermen. Nor did she seem surprised when he told her that his boat was at the wharf, and would be there every day at her service. She knew his habits, and supposed he wished to hire it, as others did. He intuitively felt that this could be the only way.
And that is how it happened that Tonie spent so little of his time at the Chênière Caminada 324that summer. Old Ma’me Antoine enough about it. She herself had been twice in her life to Grand Isle and once to Grand Terre, and each time had been more than glad to get back to the Chênière. And why Tonie should want to spend his days, and even his nights, away from home, was a thing she could not comprehend, especially as he would have to be away the whole winter; and meantime there was much work to be done at his own hearthside and in the company of his own mother. She did not know that Tonie had much, much more to do at Grand Isle than at the Chênière Caminada.
He had to see how Claire Duvigné sat upon the gallery in the big rocking chair that she kept in motion by the of her slender, foot; turning her head this way and that way to speak to the men who were always near her. He had to follow her motions at tennis or croquet, that she often played with the children under the trees. Some days he wanted to see how she spread her bare, white arms, and walked out to meet the foam-*crested waves. Even here there were men with her. And then at night, standing alone 325like a still shadow under the stars, did he not have to listen to her voice when she talked and laughed and sang? Did he not have to follow her slim figure whirling through the dance, in the arms of men who must have loved her and wanted her as he did. He did not dream that they could help it more than he could help it. But the days when she stepped into his boat, the one with the red lateen sail, and sat for hours within a few feet of him, were days that he would have given up for nothing else that he could think of.
III.
There were always others in her company at such times, young people with jests and laughter on their lips. Only once she was alone.
She had foolishly brought a book with her, thinking she would want to read. But with the breath of the sea stinging her she could not read a line. She looked as she had looked the day he first saw her, standing outside of the church at Chênière Caminada.
She laid the book down in her lap, and let her soft eyes sweep dreamily along the line 326of the horizon where the sky and water met. Then she looked straight at Tonie, and for the first time directly to him.
She called him Tonie, as she had heard others do, and questioned him about his boat and his work. He trembled, and answered her and stupidly. She did not mind, but spoke to him anyhow, satisfied to talk herself when she found that he could not or would not. She spok............